Christmas Decorations

A couple projects I have been working on to get ready for Christmas.

I finished these trees today. The bases are foam tree forms from the Dollar Tree. Everything else was stuff I already had. I used paper cut in small triangles and glued on with hot glue. Topped one with a bow and put in a small pot wrapped with ribbon. The stick is a bbq skewer wrapped with tinsel trim. The other is topped with a star sticker. The base is a mini storage cup also wrapped with tinsel trim.

The wreaths are ones I have been making over the past two weeks. I learned how to do this from a video by Sylvia Tabor. Some are gifts, but at least one will be for us. I probably will make at least two more before I decide who gets what. 

Or maybe I'll just keep them all!

Thanks for looking.

Cathy

#KSDNOV Alter Something!

The November challenge over at the Kraaft Shaak (a great kommunity over on Google +) is to alter something.

I was sitting in my craft room trying to think of what I could do when I saw this.
 

This has been hanging in my room just like this for at least 2 years. It's a Puffs tissue box. Already quite beautiful, I had pulled the top up to make a hanger for it, stuck some wood excelsior in it for a nest, then promptly forgot about it. So I decided it was about time to finish this project.

This picture shows the back of the box as well as some other items I thought I would use.

Here is the side of the box. I needed to cover the logo so I stuck flowers on top. The green flourish started out as silver like the ones you see in the bottom corner. I covered the silver flourish with green glitter to make it match the box.

 

Can you see the mistake I made here? There is a lump of hot glue where I had originally put the outer bird. When I put the branch on I decided I would rather have the bird perched on the branch.

Here you can see the completed project. I have glued some more flowers on the box to cover that hot glue mess. I really like the way this turned out, and that it was pretty enough that I didn't need to add too much to make it look great!

 

Thanks for looking!

Cathy 

Stamp Carving

This past week I won a stamp carving kit from Heather over at the Kraaft Shaak.

 I had to start playing today but I was afraid to cut into the stamp material and mess it up. Fortunately, during the weekly live show Sandra (go visit her - she's doing a week long stamp carving series!) showed that you can also use erasers to carve. Off to the dollar store I went!



First cuts

I started with a simple shape on some small round erasers. I had drawn some candy monsters earlier this week based on Marie Browning's post on the Tombow Blog that seemed simple. The biggest problem was how small the parts were. I wanted this to be flexible and interchangeable, so I did all the body parts separately. 



Cleaning up

I enjoyed doing these a lot. I know I need to refine my skills but I was pretty happy with my first time ever stamp carving.






Finished stamps










Special thanks to Heather, Sandra, Tina, and Marie for the products, information, and inspiration.


Thanks for looking!
Cathy







WOIW "Time"

The Word of Inspiration this past Wednesday was "Time" 



Please ignore how crooked I glued this!

I used this as a reason to cut a cuckoo clock file I've had for a    couple years. I wanted it to be a real clock though. I remembered a clock we received as a wedding gift that I hadn't used in years. I sized the cuckoo clock to match the real clock face.





I decided to make this an autumn themed clock and chose papers to match. The original file had pine trees that I decided to make pumpkins instead, to match the theme better.

I added the banner with the quote from Ecclesiastes to complete the clock. I liked that it tied in both the thought of seasons and time.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy 

A Special Birthday Gift

For a very special birthday girl!

This is a gift for a special 4 year old. The tutu is made of 1" elastic, tulle and ribbon in coral and teal. I cut the elastic at about 22", overlapped an inch and sewed. This is the only sewing in the project. The tulle and ribbon were cut to 24", then folded in half and wrapped around the elastic. I followed instructions I found on YouTube by searching for "tutu tutorial." 

 

The wand and crown were made using the Cricut cartridge Once Upon a Princess. I used glitter cardstock and bling from my stash that matched the tutu as closely as possible. I also painted a 12" dowel white then covered it in glitter glue to make the wand handle. I added tulle and ribbon to both the crown and wand.

 

 

 

Here is the set together. Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Thanks for looking!

Cathy 

Sketching

I have found a new to me craft/ art form. Sketching. I find it very relaxing, but I don't know how good I am at it. In a way it doesn't matter, because the process is what I enjoy working through right now.

Here are a few of the sketches I've done over the last week.

My father

There are a lot of words here that I'm just not ready to let out yet. Let me just say I almost used this drawing for the WIW Pain post.

Cherry Blossoms

I did this sketch this morning. It's the second time I've drawn this but I wanted to add it to my sketchbook.

My sulky son doing school, with Eddie Munster hair

My first face sketch inspired by the gals in the Kraafters Kommunity

I like this one so much that I've made it my profile picture for now. FYI this looks nothing like me!

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

WIW Pain

Heather over at the Google + community Kraafters Kommunity has started a new way to inspire us called Word of Inspiration Wednesday. Every Wednesday she will give us a new word for us to use as a springboard for our creativity. This week's word is pain.

This is my sketch of pain and a quote I found in my old notebook of inspirational quotes and poems. Please be kind - remember I am new at sketching.

 

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

A Special Card

For a special person.

Here is a card I worked on yesterday. This was all done with cuts from my Silhouette Cameo. The card base is a side step card. I really enjoy this type of scene card and the process of putting the die cuts together. I hope the recipient enjoys it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Thanks for looking.

Cathy 

And the Winner is....

Do you remember my Creative Blog Hop Post? Did you read to the bottom? Well at least 6 of you did and left a comment and I had a little giveaway for them. I used random.org to generate a number from 1-6 and the winner is....

Zsuzsa Karoly-SmithSeptember 15, 2014 at 6:13 AM

Lovely projects, Cathy! It's so nice to get to know you a little more. Have fun on your mixed media journey!

Congrats Zsuzsa! PM me in the Kommunity with your address!

 

Arrrrg!

When I remembered yesterday that it was "Talk like a Pirate" day I decided I need to make a little something in honor of the day. This started out as a recycled small flat rate shipping box. I cut the window in the front, then tore, inked, spayed, and even burned some tan cardstock to get that weathered parchment look. I wrapped and glued these papers around the outside, then decorated the inside with papers and Cricut die cuts. I even used sand for the beach. All die cuts are from the Life's a Party cartridge.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

Card Inspiration

Where do you get your ideas for your cards? Sometimes ideas come when other crafters share a technique. Sheri Whitfield shared a technique called Triple Time Stamping in our KIT on Saturday, then followed up with a YouTube video. Well, I decided to try the technique, then ended up not doing it at all! For my first card I didn't even stamp, I used patterned paper. I basically used oval Nestabilities to create a layered look similar to her cards. The paper and cardstock layers are each single pieces of paper. When I layered them I made sure the patterns lined up. The ovals are on the side because I wanted to get the leaf in the inner oval.

The second card took a very wide turn, although I did stamp my background paper. I started by cutting the ovals in the center of the paper this time, but when I layered them with the red cardstock I thought it looked like an elongated target. I didn't like it at all! I hade already put the background rectangle on my card base, but it had the oval cut out, so I wasn't sure what to do with it. The old me might have trashed the whole thing, but I didn't. I found a stamp that just fit within the oval, a beautiful new stamp from the Mary and Babe set from CTMH. I used stamp pads and a water brush to add color to the image and added the scalloped frame. I really like the way this card turned out!

I'll get to your technique sometime, Sheri, I promise!

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

Creative Blog Hop

Hello everyone! It's my turn for the creative blog hop. You know, this is one of the reasons that I started a blog. A couple of friends over in the Google+ community Kraafters Kommunity asked me to participate, and I didn't even have a blog started. I had never really considered starting a blog until a few weeks ago. I had always been a little scared of starting one! But like many things in life, it is not as hard to try something new as our imagination may tell us it is.

So let me jump right in and answer some questions for you...

What am I working on?

Right now I'm working on a couple different projects. The first is a matchbox swap. This is another new thing introduced by a Kraafters Kommunity member, Sandra ArtfullyMade. She inspired me to try this when she posted her matchboxes on the Kommunity, then introduced me to atcsforall.com. I'm having a lot of fun with this new art form. My last 3 posts were about matchboxes if you would like to know more about them. Since I wrote this post I  finished this swap during our KIT, which I wrote about in my last post.

The second thing I'm currently working on is Christmas presents. Yes, I said it. I'm doing a complete gift set for my SIL with matching animal paper. So far I have covered notebooks, a keychain, a desk calendar with Post-it holder, a perpetual calendar card holder, a bookmark, beaded pen and a waterfall portfolio all in various stages of completion. I'm keeping these plain a simple without inking or a lot of embellishments.

The 3rd item I'm working on is actually something I'm always doing... cards. Card making is still my first love. It is what started me on this journey, and they are something I always need. I provide cards for a couple different groups, but the one that I do the most for is my Ladies Bible Study. I provide cards for the members to receive for special occasions, and also we as a group send cards out to church members and missionaries to let them know we are thinking of them. I also do a goodie/treat/favor for
everyone in the group about once a month.


And lastly, I have started a mixed media/ art journal. This is one of those brand new things for me. I'm not quite sure where this will take me, but the one whole page I've done was very enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the journey.





How does my work differ from others/ describe my style?

Sigh... this is a hard one, and it is hard to quantify especially since I feel like I'm in the process of changing right now. Like I said above, I started as a card maker. I'm a die cut girl, I love my machines and a lot of what I do is pretty basic and simple. I never really got messy in my crafting, besides a little ink on my fingers. I wasn't even into coloring stamped images!  But now that I have been introduced to so many new things by the lovely Kommunity members I find that I'm expanding what I'm doing. I'm doing mixed media, I'm inking and spraying, tearing and coloring, and I'm having a ton of fun with it!


How do I create/ Where do I get my inspiration?

Well, I get my inspiration from everywhere! If you haven't guessed already, I get a great deal of inspiration from the Kraafters Kommunity. I am amazed everyday by what the members create and share with us. I also love to watch YouTube videos and look forward to checking out new videos from the people I subscribe to. I also get inspiration from magazines and catalogs, and not just the crafty ones either. I got a catalog the other day that is for home décor and clothing that has made its way into my craft room because it gave me so many ideas. I used a couple of them during the Kraaft It Together. Go check out that post to see!  I'm also inspired by my kids. I made a couple cards not long ago based on some jokes they were telling.  They were fun to make and they had an extra special affect of making my kids feel special too!


An im-pasta!

To go to the mooooon!


Well thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me! Before you go I want to introduce you to next week's players in our hop. They are both people I've recently "met" and I'm looking forward to getting to know them a little more.

Beth Sinn. She has a new blog, Lizzie's Workshop, that she just started and already has a ton of great content on.  Beth also creates great YouTube videos under the name lizziesworkshop. Beth loves to show her whole process, even when the project takes a turn she wasn't expecting or something happens that she doesn't care for, and then shows how to fix them, which is so invaluable when you are trying to learn!

Elina P. She has a well established blog, Scrapbooks, Crafts and Cards, Oh My! that you can tell she spends a lot of time creating wonderful art for. Elina does a great mix of traditional cards and scrapbooks and mixed media.  I also admire her wonderful coloring abilities on her stamped images. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from Elina!




Are you still reading? Good! I have a little giveaway for someone who comments on this post. I will draw a random name from all of the comments. What am I giving away, you ask? A cute little stamp set. This is the #30 Years of Happy set from CTMH. There are 30 tiny stamps that are about fingertip sized. Love it and I got 2, so 1 for me and 1 for one of you! Good luck! I will do the drawing on Monday, September 22, 2014.

What I did during Kraaft It Together

So Saturday was our monthly Kraaft It Together, and I was able to go for the first time. I stayed in the hangout the entire 6 hours. We had a blast just chatting and kraafting together.

I got my last matchbox done for the swap I'm in. This time I went with a bakery window theme. I prepped the exterior box like I did the other 2, only this time I added an awning over the window. I put cupcake paper inside for the "wallpaper" and stamped, colored and cut out a cupcake. The trickiest thing was figuring out what to use as a cake stand. I needed to put the cupcake on something or it would look like it was floating. I also wanted something that would add dimension. I finally thought of using Shrinky Dinks. I sketched out a stand and cut it out. I was hoping I cut it large enough that it would shrink to the correct size. Well, I lucked out on the first one and it turned out the perfect size. I'm thrilled to have completed my swaps and will get them in the mail this week.

Excuse me... the birdfeeder is empty

 





 

 

I also put a quick card together inspired by a t-shirt I saw in a catalog. I just used my Cricut to cut out a squirrel and made the background with scraps. I used my LetraTag to print out the saying.



Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,
 she became a butterfly.

The other thing I worked on was my mixed media book. I received a blank book for my birthday and I started working in it yesterday. When I started I was thinking about a romantic page about my husband and myself. As I worked it seemed to go a different direction so I just followed that. I ended up with the sparkly butterflies and flowers, but was still looking for a love quote when I found the quote about the butterfly. This was in the same catalog I found the squirrel inspiration in. It seemed to fit the spirit of the page perfectly. I'm very happy with the way this turned out and I'm looking forward to learning new techniques for my journal.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

Kaards by Kraafters

One of the things we've started to do in our google+ kommunity, Kraafters Kommunity, is to make handmade cards to brighten someone's day. We decide each month who will be receiving the kaards, then make them together in a hangout. We spend several hours together chatting and creating, do something for others, and have fun doing it. I only got 2 cards done this week, but I got to play with my new stamps from CTMH!

Thanks for looking! 

Cathy

2nd Matchbox for Swap

Here is my new matchbox for a swap I'm doing. This was made with the CTMH August stamp of the month. The image was too big to fit in the matchbox, so I reduced it by 50% on my copy machine. Owl was colored with alcohol markers.

I embossed some kraft cardstock with a woodgrain embossing folder and hand cut it to fit the interior box. I cut another piece 2" x 4.25" and used Spellbinders oval dies to cut the oval in the middle. I used knife and a ruler to cut a window in the exterior box, then wrapped the kraft cardstock around the exterior box. 

I put a small amount of excelsior in the bottom of the interior box, then mounted the owl on top of it. I hand cut some small leaf shapes out of silk leaves, then heated them with a heat gun to shrivel and curl the leaves. Sentiment was from the same stamp set, cut with a small oval Spellbinders die.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

First Matchbox for Swap

This is the first matchbox for a swap I'm in. It's also the first swap I've participated in. All of my matchboxes for this swap will be approximately 2" x 1.5".

 

I cut a window in the exterior box and put a scrap of acetate behind it. I wrapped in in blue cardstock that I had also cut a window in, then added the clouds. I inked some copy paper with Broken China Distress Ink, then tore pieces and glued them in the interior box.

 

The balloon and sun with clouds are from a small stamp set from the dollar section, probably a Studio G, but I'm not positive. I colored then cut them out, and mounted them in the interior box with foam tape. I stamped "happiness" on a strip of acetate and attached it to the bottom of the interior box.

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

Tiny Art

I was inspired by Sandra ArtfullyMade's matchbox art that she has been posting on the Kraafter's Kommunity over at Google+. She also has a great blog (it's in my blog roll - Artfully Made 4 U) go check it out.

So I couldn't find any mini matchboxes in my stash so I made a little box, finished dimensions 2 1/2 x 1 1/2. I used tissue paper for the background.

I then a CTMH stamp set, colored with alcohol markers and fussy cut for the pictures. I took some scraps of green tissue paper, twisted them up and glued with hot glue to add dimension. The flowers were glued on top. I wanted the butterfly to be loose so I glued it to the end of a strip of plastic packaging and glued the other end behind the flowers.

To finish it off I made a lid from a scrap of paper, then tore out the middle to make a frame. I wrapped it with ribbon to create a hanger. The quote was found on the internet.

 

 

Thanks for looking!
Cathy

Mixed Media 3 - Complete?

I think I'm done with this wonderful challenge, at least for now. I have really enjoyed getting inky, my fingers are oh so pretty.

So today I stamped some flowers from another CTMH set that I won. I don't remember which one at the moment and am too lazy to go downstairs and look right now. I colored some of them with matching alcohol markers. I also stamped Believe in Yourself on a scrap of white paper and inked it with the same distress inks. The larger flower is made from copy paper. The other flowers are just ones I had in my stash. I inked the wooden laser cut bird the same way Heather did in a former KIL show.

I found a matching piece of scrapbook paper in my collection and mounted it on a piece of cardboard packaging, then glued my mixed media piece on top. I added twine to help cover the seam where the papers met. I added shimmer tape and rhinestones to bling it up.

After I figured out where I wanted everything I glued it all down with hot glue and put the piece in the shadowbox frame. I shopped from my craft room for everything I used on this project, including the frame.

Right now I'm happy with the end result but I'm open to adding things in the future if the mood ever strikes me. Now to find a home on a wall somewhere.

Sorry about the glare in the photo. I know I need to work on my pictures.

Thanks for a great challenge, Heather.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

Mixed Media 2

I know I said I would update tomorrow, but I have added just a couple things. I took Recollections Marine and Studio G teal glitter glue, scribbled it on then smudged with my fingers in a few spots. Then I stamped quotes that I felt went with my theme from the CTMH set Scrapbook Statements - Poets (my first prize from the Kraaft Shaak!) in the same color inks.

 

I find as I work on this that I need to take a step back, think about where I'm going with it and also make sure it has time to dry!

 

At this point I'm thinking I will be leaving this in one piece, maybe as framed art for my nekkid walls. Since this is my first attempt at this I think it would be to painful to chop into card fronts. What would you do if you were me?

Thanks for looking!

Cathy

Mixed Media for the #KSDSEPT challenge

So the challenge for September over at kraaftshaak.com is to use mixed media in a different way than you normally do. Well, I don't normally do mixed media at all! I have never done anything like this, but I decided its time to challenge myself with something new.

I decided I would start by clear embossing on watercolor paper.

I used the stamp set Believe in Yourself from CTMH. I think you need to believe in yourself when you try something new!

Next I used sprayed my paper with water and used distress inks in Salty Ocean, Seedless Preserves, and Peacock Feathers. I used the ink pads directly on the paper, then sprayed again and swished the color around with a paintbrush. You can still see the ink pad squares, but I think I like it. 

I dried a little with the heat gun, then did a little misting with Perfect Pearls Mists in Heirloom Gold and Perfect Pearl and Smooch Spritz in a pewter color. Sorry, it isn't labeled.

I'm letting this dry and I'll be back tomorrow when we all can see what I decide to do with this.

Thanks for looking!

Cathy