Blogging and more Scrapling cards

I have been on the computer a lot more frequently and for longer periods of time since the One World One Heart world wide blogging event started. I was up early this morning, as I couldn't sleep, and decided to make a card. I came across a stamp that I thought was funny when I saw it last summer at Colorful Creations scrapbook/stamp store in Hyannis. The stamp is from one of my favorite rubber stamp companies...Cat's Life Press. After I bought the stamp and got it home I wondered what the heck I was going to do with it. A few days ago I found a photo of myself with reading glasses on sitting at the computer. This morning as I was looking at the photo a light bulb went off in my head...a way to use that stamp. :-)
So here is the card I created. I gave it to Tom as a joke when I finished it.
They have a version of this stamp for rubber stampers and scrapbookers too. Probably for other hobbies, but I can't remember.


This photo is my 8 month old granddaughter...Bella taken last weekend at the first birthday party of a friend.
Bella is showing off her new teeth. Smile for the camera!



I took this photo of my stray kitty that I have been feeding for months. Here he is in the back yard sitting in my platform bird feeder. Of course no birds came around while he was sitting there. I so want him to come inside the house. We are making some progress as he is coming closer and closer too us, and follows our kitty.

Oh, by the way. last night I saw that fat opossum again on my back deck going to eat the food I leave out for stray kitty. I wasn't expecting to see the opossum when I opened the slider door. I scared the both of us and he took off running, slipping and sliding. I had to laugh at him running away. I am sure he came back after the lights went out to get his fill of cat food. I wonder what else I am feeding during the night.

This is sure turning into a rambling note this morning with me sharing a little bit of everything, and so while I am rambling... I will share this too. Yesterday while I was looking for scraps of paper and such to make my scrapling cards. I came across a pin I made a long time ago from beach glass and assorted beads and jewelry pieces. This pin was published in the September/October 2002 issue of Expressions magazine. I loved that magazine, and was sad to see it stop publication.

  I rubber stamped onto the seaglass. Then wire wrapped the body and beaded the arms and legs. Glued metal wings, a face/head charm and old watch face to create my pin.

More scrapling cards that I created this morning. I made horizontal scrapling cards this time. I should have scanned these instead of using the camera as the photos look a little wonky. I have the cards standing up amd the 2 on the top have small chocolate Hershey candies on them.

The heart on this card is approximately 1/4 inch thick. I made several last year from UTEE. (ultra thick embossing powder) you can see the step by step how to here> New Art 2010 album on my picture trail .

  a name could be written in on the front of this card. I think it would be fun to add to a birthday gift.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. I hope you enjoyed the photos and art that I shared with you this morning. Have a great day.

Scraplings

Recently a friend, Diann who is on two yahoo groups that I belong to decided to host a Scrapling swap. I had never heard of scraplings, but they are so easy to do as I found out this morning. You use up small scraps of papers and doodads, whatever, that you have tucked away in a drawer, a box, or wherever somewhere in your craft room. Basically you cut a piece of leftover cardstock 8.5 x 1.5 inches and fold it in half, so the cards end up being 4 1/2 inches x 1 1/2 inches. These make skinny little cards. You then cut slightly smaller pieces of paper to layer on top of your base card.  The little cards make a great little tuck in gift card, book marks, tiny greeting cards, because they open like a regular card. Do a google search and you will find many sites to get ideas from.
Here are my first attempts that I did this morning using some paper pieces that I had in a box on my art table.
I love humorous cards and the stamped/embossed part of the layered card has been in a box for several years and I just never did anything with it.

Well, that's it for art for right now. The sun is shining and it is 42 degree's outside...a heat wave for us and so I am going out to enjoy the sun while it last. Strange weather, ground is still covered with about 20 inches of snow, but during the night we had rain, thunder and lightening. Thats the thing with NE weather, you never know what the weather will be from one minute to the next.
Have a wonderful day.

Mod Podge decoupage tray and art doll

I got out my mod podge bottle and decided to play this morning.
I found a small wooden dollar store trays in my craft room that I had already painted  the bottom with white paint. So, I decided to decoupage the bottom with one of the  new napkins that I bought in TJ Maxx yesterday. These little trays are great for holding jewelry or other doodads and make wonderful gifts.

My second project: I created a winged art doll. Along with another new package of napkins, I found some new, artsy cling rubber stamps in Michael's that are from Hampton Arts.  I stamped the face onto a manila file folder and cut it out. On a tag I again used mod podge  with a napkin to create the dress. Using some gathered, dark blue tulle  for a pinafore over the dress/napkin tag.  I drew some legs and glitzy wings, cut them out and added them to the tag. A new winged art angel was born.

I had a fun morning making these new creations. What did you create today?

Bin of Fabric

Do you love fabric? I just love all the wonderful patterns and colors. I could spend hours looking thru all the fabrics in a fabric/quilt shop. Yesterday, on my way home from running errands, I stopped at the local quilt shop in town to see what was in their bargain bin.. Pieceful Quilter's is a lovely little shop, and I just love digging thru the big  bin of scrap fabrics. :-) The pieces are ends of bolts, and fabric scraps left over from quilting projects.
The bin is filled with scraps...large and small. I always seem to find some really lovely pieces. You get to fill a 6 x 10 inch plastic baggie with as much fabric as you can stuff into it for $5.00.  I select my pieces, and then lay them one on top of each other  and roll the pieces to fit as much as I can into that bag.  Yesterday, I found some really good sized pieces in the bin and all sizes in between. If I like a certain pattern, I will pick up several pieces of the one design. I like to make fabric postcards, envelopes, bookmarks, little fabric art quilties with the fabrics I find in the bin. Sometimes I am lucky enough to find lots of batik fabrics...my absolute favorite.
filled 6 x 10 bag
Below: fabric that was stuffed into the bag.

my finds..fabric is rolled, and many of the pieces are multiples.

Closer up photos below.

Dice and Spiral bone earrings

From my fabulous bead bargains that I bought a couple days ago from the store that was going out of business I made these earrings. I thought these beads would also make great charms.
Since it is snowing again this morning, I will probably do a little more beading this afternoon.

In Bead Heaven...that was me yesterday

I took a ride to Plymouth yesterday, as I wanted to go to not simply beads. Unfortunately, the bead store is closing it's doors in a few days and everything was really marked down including tools. Due to snow storms I didn't have a chance to get to the store sooner and a lot of the things I would have liked to have had were already gone. I am glad I went yesterday, because it has been snowing all morning, and more snow is predicted for tomorrow.
The owner told me that a man came in the night before and bought $900 of sale beads, tools, books and things for his wife. WOW!!! That is one hubby who likes to shop. What a gem, don't you think?

All strung beads were 70% off, and all the loose beads that you could fit into a 3 x 3 clear jewelry bag were $2.oo for the bag. WOWZER!!!! I filled several bags and many of the beads I choose were gemstones that normally sold for $5 and up to $9.50 each bead. The large wood beads normally sold for$5.oo each including the smaller detailed horse heads.  The wooden skulls normally sold for I believe 80 cents each. I can't remember as I looked at so many things. The strands of swarovski crystals were pretty much picked over, but I did buy a few strands. I also got some seed beads. It was hard to know what to buy when you don't have a specific project in mind,  but the prices were wonderful. I spent a total of $69.00., but what I came home with was worth so much more. Tom told me I should have bought more when I showed him my bag of goodies last night and if it wasn't snowing so hard I would have gone back today.
Bags stuffed with beads. Each bag..$2.00

  This was the only felting mold that was left. I didn't already have this so I bought it for 80% off. Paid $1.80
  breast cancer beads, and seed beads. 70% off. Crystals were $9 a strand...I paid $2.70 a strand. The seed beads originally were anywhere from $1.75-$3 a tube...I paid...53 cents to 90 cents. Breast cancer beads...$6..I paid $1.80.

I've looked at these bone beads for ages, but didn't want to spend $20 and $30's for the strands. I got them for 70% off. I paid $6 for the dice, and $9 for the flat spiral bead strand.

wooden beads-horse heads, skulls and round discs , butterfly, squares, amulet
$9 each for the gemstones in the front, lamp work and clay beads..all fit in a bag for $2
mixed beads for $2 and many were gemstones, also lamp work pumpkins and frog faces, and Christmas stockings.Glass skulls and stars, kitties
8 of these larger sized wooden beads fit in a $2 bag. I have a lot of the smaller size, but liked these, so I bought them as I can fit more art on this size.

I was very happy when I left that store yesterday with all of my bargains, but also very sad that I will no longer have such a wonderful bead store close by to shop at.

I think I did really well yesterday. Do you like the beads I brought home yesterday? Great bargains don't you think?  I can see a lot of giveaways of beaded projects ending up on my blog.

Here are earrings I made with the bone beads. I think the dice would make great charms. 

Blank tags..giveaway...oops...I forgot to post the winner

It is cold outside, and I didn't feel like leaving the house today. I was a little bored this morning, and so I took out my Big Kick and my new Tim Holtz tag die.  I cut out an assortment of cardstock tags to use as backgrounds for tag art.
I am going to give away the tags in the photo below.  The tags have snowflakes, hearts, clocks, stripes, dots, floral, swirls, and plain. I am also going to include some tags created from clear recycled plastic packaging using some of my Tim embossing folders to use as an overlay for the tags.
Leave a comment, and they could be yours to to use as backgrounds for your tag art projects.
 

2/24/2011
I am so sorry...I forgot to post a winner for my blank tag giveaway. Four of you left comments, I will be mailing out an assortment of tags to each of you. I sent out emails this morning, and I am just waiting to
 hear back from all of you so I can get the tags out in the mail. 
 

Itty Bits

When I took a ride to Cape Cod on Thursday, I stopped at Tumbleweeds Quilt shop on Rte. 6-A, Barnstable. I love the kiddie swimming pool that is near the door as you enter the shop. The little swimming pool has plastic pails and shovels and is filled with rolls of fabric. There are shovels to dig thru the rolled up itty bits (1/8 yard pieces of fabric), and the pails are for you to put your fabric choices in.  The price of the 1/8 yard fabric rolls is 50 cents.
I never have a project in mind when I start digging in that pool of itty bits. I just buy fabric that I like the color or pattern of.  This time, I bought shells, lighthouse/beach themed, birds, hearts, leaves, flowers, cooking, sewing, paw prints, flamingos, chickens.  These pieces have many uses, but I love making fabric postcards or covering  journals or books that I make with the fabric. Every time I go to the Cape, I have to stop and see what's new in the kiddie pool that I just can't live without. I just love fabric and I probably have more than I could use in a lifetime, but I just keep buying it. :-)


 

Valentine's..4 x 4's,tag and cards

I worked on some Valentine's this afternoon. I still need to stamp some greetings, but basically they are done. I should have scanned these, but used the digital camera instead, and the cards wouldn't stay closed..so some look uneven. 4 x 4 front back
4 x 4 front
back