My bangle came out!

Hoooray! My resin set and my very first bangle bracelet came out looking lovely!

It has just the perfect shine and the swirls of color and pearl and oh so pretty!

I also made another soldered pendant, but I just dont feel like posting the picture. Without a handheld sanding tool and buffing tool it’s not going to look much better. Im going to research that now.

And now for something different

This is the point where I’m going to get emails telling me to stop doing so many different things. That I should stick to one thing and do it well. And then I’ll have to confess my self diagnosed, rare form of crafting ADD. I CANT stop learning new techniques. I get bored easily. I want to learn as much as I can! I have to know how to do something! Im curious!

Anyway……..

My Mom told me the other day that she wanted me to make her a new purse pull thingie. You know the danglie charm that hangs off your purse zipper? So I decided I wanted to make her a glass soldered charm. And I’ve made 4 today. You see I’ve only made about 8 and it’s SO FREAKING HARD!!!!!!! But fun.

And my Mom is a perfectionist and likes things “just so”. So I am NERVOUS to give her anything less than perfect. Needless to say this wont be given to her. She didnt saw WHEN she wanted it. So I will continue to perfect, or at least better my glass soldering techniques.

The glass is a 1 inch square, and I stamped the open work flower from the new SU! set “A beautiful thing”. Here it is in all it’s unperfect glory:

Working with HOT molten silver is exciting, challenging and extremely difficult. I bought a TON of glass a couple months ago expecting myself to needs lots and lots of practice. Unfortunately it’s been months since I’ve done it, Christmas has interrupted my learning. But now I’m making a point of playing again.

And I also have a new bangle bracelet in the works. Because it doesnt take a lot of effort to mix and pour:

It’s black with a gold swirl. If it sets it will be beautiful. Lets hope it does!

Happy Monday everybody!

Super late night card

Last night around 11 pm I decided to play along in the color challenge. My mind was awake so I knew I wouldnt be falling asleep anytime soon.

The color challenge was for these colors:

old olive
certainly celery
summer sun

I knew when I saw the 2 green colors that I wanted to use my ‘Tres chic’ background stamp. I love to use it with a tone on tone look and stamping the olive on the celery give it such a nice look. And I have a hard time using any other set with ‘tres chic’ other than ‘garden whimsy’ so I had my stamps picked out!

I rock and rolled the butterflies first in summer sun then in certainly celery, cut them out and used rain dots (from Gina K) and then crystal stickles on the wing tips. The scalloped circle is olive cardstock that I sponged and paper pierced the “humps” to make it stand out more against the green background.

I just LOVE that ‘tres chic’ stamp! Im sooooo glad it’s still around for the spring/summer catalog. Not that I would sell it or stop using it!

So, now that my challenge for today is all done I have plenty of time to play with other things. Like finally get to working on my designs for Papertrey and actually getting the monogram set out of the plastic! Dont think Im lazy, I’ve only had the set for about a week and it arrived when both girls were sick!

I’ll be back later with something fun!

The DEETS:

Stamps: Tres chic, garden whimsy-SU
Ink: summer sun, certainly celery, old olive-SU
CS: old olive, certainly celery-SU   Papertrey white
Accessories: ticket corner punch, silver brads, sponge, giga scallop circle, circle coluzzle, paper piercer, crystal stickles, rain dots, white organdy ribbon.

Another one bites the dust!

Off my Christmas to-do list that is! I have about 4 more address books and then some a few more recipe books to make, along with stationary sets, boxes and then homemade goodies. Makes me tired just writing that out! But I can do it and I’ll be glad when it’s done!

I used my bind it all again to make an address book. The inside pages are 3×5 notecards with round tab punch as the dividers for the letters. I used about 75 notecards, I didnt count but grabbed a heft ammount for the more popular letter sections. My O-wires are 7/8 inch and are the brown color, I couldnt find the exact name on the box. I got my bind it all and O-wires at all that scraps. The inside pages are decorated with coordinating paper and punches to make it complete inside and out! And I’m REALLY liking these velvet blossoms! I finally feel ok about using a flower and not feeling like Im losing out on a lot of money! Plus they have a nice thickness and are sturdy and just so soft! I like petting them….so soft. It’s a little tricky getting a brad in the middle, but it just takes an extra moment and it really pays off.

I just really felt like that sentiment made sense for an address book. Hopefully it’s filled with the numbers and addresses of your friends, and not just the power company or Dentist. Not that the Dentist cant be your friend. And I ALMOST got rid of my polka dots and paisleys set, then I decided to stamp the polka dot background onto the main panel and Im glad I didnt. You just never know do you when you’ll want to use something!

The DEETS:

Stamps: True friend, polka dots and paisleys-SU
CS: Pretty in pink, tempting turquoise, polka dots and paisleys DSP-SU  papertrey white
Ink: Old olive, pretty in pink-SU
Accessories: Bind it all, nesties, photo corner punch, photo tab punch, velvet blossoms, ice rhinestone brads, ribbon from stash, 3×5 notecards

Sweet hedgie love

I had to play along with Lauren’s sketch today. So I decided to use some things I rarely touch; cranberry crisp, fun and fast notes and a piece of DP I bought from all that scraps a month ago. The sentiment that matches the hedgie didnt fit well into the space I wanted it to, so I used the sentiment from another stamp in the set. So now, little hedgie and butterfly are in love! That makes me smile!

The hedgie was stamped in palette noir and colored with pastels, then the butterfly was colored with copics. I also couldnt let the hedgie and butterfly be floating in space so I made a little ground and sky for their romantic setting!

Sean and I got into a little accident last night. It started snowing really HARD yesterday and we decided to go out and run errands in case it froze over, we were totally low on groceries. So my Mom came over to watch the girls and out we went. We went to dinner and the store and Target, all freezing and a good 8 inches of snow and ice on the ground. Then coming out of Target we hit ice and BAM into the sidewalk! It took off our hubcap and dented the rim into our tire making it impossible to drive.

Anyway, 2 hours later we made it home with a lift from a tow truck. And yes, with our groceries. Ugh…..so now our 1 car is down to ZERO. We were trying to hold out on 1 car until we moved this Spring/Summer but I dont know how much longer we can. Having 1 car SUCKS hardcore, but it sucks even more when that car is in the shop.

Not to be Debby Downer, but last night was not a fun date night. Tomorrow Im supposed to have my therapy (hooray!) appointment, but I dont think I’ll make it. Maybe it will be a phone in appointment. Hope your weekend was a good one!

Bunny birthday!

I thought I made this for a sketch, but I left out a big panel so it’s just here. Maybe I’ll get to it later, I dont know. Im in a rotten mood and it started snowing so Im out of energy for doing anything right now.

Happy hatch day!

Today was Audrey’s 2nd birthday, Hoooooooooray! She and Ava are still sick, but doing better. Although she had no appetite so her birthday dinner and cupcakes went uneaten. I will sift through the pic’s later, there are some super cute one’s! We made a veggie pizza and boston cream cupcakes from “vegan cupcakes take over the world”……SOOOOOO GOOD! I may post the recipe for them as well, just so yummy!

For her birthday I wanted to make her a special card. The Miss Spider books and DVD’s are big players in our house. Both the girls love them. When I first saw the ‘Garden Whimsy’ set I knew I wanted to use it for Audrey’s birthday, probably when I send out pictures to our family. So I decided to use that set to make her a card as well.

I wanted to make this card really dimensional and have a lot of little touches. So the little snail trail, the “dew” on the tulips, the crystals on the butterfly, grass, crystal flowers. All on shimmery white CS! This card makes me happy! And here’s the inspiration for it:

The miss spider family have a special song that they sing for birthdays, which are called ‘hatch days’. Here’s the lyrics to the song that the girls like me to sing over and over to them!

Have a happy hatch day we hope your dreams come true
Your hatch day is so special cause that’s when we met you
Spiders will be singing, beatles will be winging
Everybugy’s singing “happy hatch day”

Everybugy’s party is on the day they hatch
So crawl or fly or skitter, there’s fun in sunny patch
Spiders will be singing, beatles will be winging
Everybugy’s singing “Happy hatch day”

Happy hatch day my sweet Audrey!

The DEETS:

Stamps: Garden Whimsy-SU
CS: old olive, pretty in pink, shimmery white-SU
Ink: regal rose, old olive, almost amethyst, bashful blue-SU
Accessories: dimensionals, corner rounder, sponge, swarovski crystals, crystal stickles, crystal effects, velvet blossoms

Springtime in Winter

So I decided to try out a sketch by Lauren today and wouldnt you know I goofed a bit! I decided to take the liberty in turning one of the layers into a layered flower, but I didnt realize that layer was such a substantial layer! Anyway, it looks similar…..yet not quite the same.

I also wanted to make something Spring inspired since I’ve been making nothing but Christmas cards for the past 2 days! I needed a breath of fresh air!! So I pulled out my my “And everything nice” set, it’s such a friendly little set!

Isnt it happy and fresh and cute? I love those velvet blossoms from maya road! And I had to give her a nice blue sky, so I made a mask and sponged some pretty blue sky. She was colored with my copic markers and I decided to make her a little ginge! I had a friend with a curly ginger haired boy, he was super cute!

Tonight Sean and I are taking the girls over to my mom’s house for my birthday dinner! I know for sure she is making me some manicotti, Italian salsa which is tomatoes and lots of cheese on small bread rounds all toasty and melted (YUMMY!), and for dessert she is making lots of little bites; brownies, lemon bars and other suprises! How fun!!! Im hoping I get that scor-pal I heavily hinted at, LOL! 

Then later after the girls are asleep Sean and I are putting up the Christmas tree! And maybe I’ll have something new to play with! I also have a new video game, but we’ll see how much crafty fun loot I get tonight! Thanks for all your kind birthday wishes, they mean a lot!

The DEETS:

Stamps: And everything nice-SU
CS: certainly celery, cutie pie-DSP, bashful blue-SU  white-Papertrey
Ink: graphite brilliance black
Accessories: copic markers, velvet blossoms, sponge, scalloped circle punch, 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, paper piercer.

Lookie what I made!

So this week I got my 144 set of copics! Oooooooooooooooooh la la!!!! I am so darn excited about the ammount of colors I have to play with! And Im also excited to practice coloring more and getting even better with them…….look out Jeanne S! LOL!!! Im totally kidding, but her coloring is so freakin’ amazing. I wish I could color like her with copics.

Anyway, I also pulled out my bind it all to make a few recipe books. I wanted to make recipe books as well as address books for Christmas gifts. Could I wait any more till the last minute? So here are the few that I made tonight!

Sigh……Im in love with the copics!

The next few days are filled with fun! Tomorrow of course we are having Thanksgiving and we are trying out a new faux- Turkey. I cant remember the name of the brand but I’ll have to take a picture of it and show you when it’s all cooked. It totally looks like a turkey, it even has a cavity that you put the stuffing in! But it’s made out of delicious tofu! Im crossing my fingers it’s tasty.

Then on Saturday my Mom is taking me to afternoon tea for a pre-birthday lunch. And on Sunday the big day is here, when I say goodbye to my 20’s and slide into my 30’s! LOL!!! Sean has been counting down for the past few days, for a 10 day  countdown. And he got me a super cute memory box penguin that’s holding candy canes and a sentiment that says “you’re the sweetest”! And a nice gift certificate to rubber soul in Redmond. I may have to brave going over there after the gym sometime soon!

I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving tomorrow, whatever your eating, wherever you are. And I’ll be back with more goodies on Friday!

Just in time for Christmas!

I have to tell you that when I saw the SU! catalog back in August there was a set that JUMPED out at me and screamed resin! I didnt order it until a couple weeks ago and I was so excited to finally put it to use yesterday! I started out making the resin the good ol’ fashion way that I always do and I picked 4 images to start with; apple, rainbow, pig and owl. The only one I havent got a picture of yet are the sweet little piggies! They’re still drying with adhesive on the clips….so you’ll see those soon! I also plan to pop some more into the molds now that I know how much I LOVE them!

Anyway, I used the ‘ABC images’ set from SU! which has the CUTEST little images and I’m going to be making cupcake, kite, boat and a few other pretties soon! But for now here are the finished product!

Are these not so cute?!?!?! And to make it even better they are totally customizable! I can change the background colors or the colors of the images! The diameter of the main images are 1/2 inch and these are on 2 inch long professional strength hair pins. (Thanks goodness I keep my liscence updated!) I can also put these on smaller hair pins as well for smaller heads, but I really made these for big girls. And to be honest, Ava and Audrey have so much hair that they can handle a bigger clip!

And as for the name, we call hair clips pretties. It started out when Ava was a wee baby and we needed to tame her hair. She was born with a mullet! It’s just stuck over the years.

I should have LOTS more ‘pretties’ over the weekend, so look out for them! Next I’ll show you my long put off recipe books using my long neglected bind it all!