Sunday, October 25, 2009

Redone T-shirt


I was so excited to get my band parent T-shirt, but it didn't fit! So I decided to redo it. I went to Joann's and got some music fabric and cut out our favorite instruments - Saxophone, Violin and Guitar (actually put some wonder-under underneath the fabric first). Then positioned, ironed on, painted around each instrument with gold paint, and cut down the middle. Added some iron on embellisments and now I have a little jacket instead and now I can wear it. The white you see in the middle is the design of the band program showing thru - it's all white on the back of the shirt.

Silly project for Son

At school they don't celebrate Halloween, per se, but celebrate "spirit week"... (meaning school spirit). Tomorrow is celebrity day and we couldn't figure out what do to....then I had a brainstorm. My second cousin is Nicolas Cage (yes it's true, my father and Francis Coppola are first cousins, Nic Cage is the son of Francis' brother August, my father's other cousin (and to drop another name, their sister is Talia Shire). To simplify, my great grandfather and Nicolas Cage's great grandfather is the same person. My grandfather and his grandmother are brother and sisteer.
I had no iron on transfer stuff, so I just printed out a picture from the internet on cardstock and sewed it to a t-shirt, lol. And since no one ever believes my poor son that he is related, I put his family tree on the back.
PS: no, unfortunately I haven't met him, but my sister met him once at a wedding!






Sunday, October 18, 2009

Another House Mouse card

Wow this was a tough one to color. Used both pencils and markers on it. I'm not thrilled with the outcome, but the card all put together is nice. The poinsettia is made with Joy of the season, the other flowers are punched flowers.




Saturday, October 17, 2009

House Mouse Challenge #54 - Movies


I knew exactly which stamp I was going to use for this one - a new one that's all about Chocolate. Right away the move Chocolat comes to mind for me. I had gotten the sentiment stamp a while ago and could not wait to use it. Don't these two stamps go together perfectly? The flowers are homemade using a Stampin' Up! 5 petal flower.

Friday, October 16, 2009

AZ State Fair Winners

I entered 7 items in the State Fair, and they all won something. They will be on display at the fair thru the middle of November!

First Place: Tole painting (I don't have a pic at the moment), Swan, Frog card, my first card (the one with the party hat
Second Place: flower pot place setting - the picture I have shows a red/white/blue one I first did, the one I entered was made of greenish flowers; Christmas card


"Best in show" for all card divisions and first place = flower pot card!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Simple Floral punch craft tutorial

This is my first attempt at a tutorial, I hope it's easy for you to understand. I'm making a very simple basic flower here using punches.

Here is what you need: I have two punches, the 5 petal flower is a medium EK Success punch, and the small punch is from the $1 bin at Michaels. Two pieces of card stock. Some fun foam. The green tool is an image transfer tool - I will be using the round end. You can use a gel pen - cap end also. A darning needle. And I forgot to include a stylus in the picture.
I've also discovered you can use your cricut to cut out flowers or petals from one of many cartridges that have them.

First step, punch out your pieces:

Next I marked how I wanted to cut my leaves from the green flower and then cut them out.
I am saving that little star - might make another interesting center for a flower.

Now you score your pieces using your darning needle. Press the needle side into the leaf and drag toward the end. Push down into the foam as you do this and the leaf will automatically curl.

Now add your veins.


Here is what it will look like when your leaves are done. Then turn them over.




Now onto the flower. Score similar to the leaves. I'll be scoring 3 lines down each petal.



Here is the flower once scored.



Turn your flower over and push down into the foam using your tool (in my case my image tranfer tool; this is where you could use the cap end of a gel pen).
Here's the flower when done. Notice how the pressure into the foam gives it dimension.



Let's make the center now. Take your stylis and push down into the center of the small green piece.


Turn the center piece over. Use a little glue to hold it all together, and Viola a simple flower. Believe me these instructions take longer than it takes to make the flower!


Saturday, October 10, 2009

Tag card with Flower







Tag card made with Joy of the Seasons, flower cut with Plantin Schoolbook. Center is a $1 punch from Michaels. Closeup of the flower to show the work to make it pop.






Floral punch craft





Found another cool craft that I had to try - it's all about making homemade flowers using paper punches. I've been making little flowers all week and tonight made a quick card. While I was at it, I thought I could also use my cricut. Here's the "recipe"

Pointsettia: Joys of the season
Daisies: medium EK Success 5 petal flower
Daisy leaves: same punch, cut out teardrops from the petals to make leaves. It's hard to see, but all leaves are veined. There are tools to do this artwork, but I am using a darning needle, a piece of fun foam and a transfer rub on tool as well as a stylus to do all the shaping and veining
Inside of flowers: $1 punch found in the dollar bin at Michaels.

I have a couple more cute flowers put together, just need to figure out what to do with them and then I'll post those too. The leaves are bigger and inked, so you'll know what I mean by the veining.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

My baby's birthday!


It's my baby Timmy's 16th birthday! Actually, it's tomorrow, but here's the story. He was born in NY at 12:06am after I was in labor literally all day. The child did not want to come out of his warm cozy cocoon. He was born by caesarian, finally, but not before I begged the doctor to try and get him out before midnight. Well that didn't happen. So now we live in AZ, and it pushes his birthday time to 9:06pm AZ time. So we celebrate over two days (also in memory of me being in labor all day October 8 with nothing to show for it on that day, lol).

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Faux quilting







I saw a version of these on the cricut message board today and finally was able to get through my brain block to do these. It's been terrible just staring at all the great stamps, cartridges and paper I have and not be able to come up with anything! At least this got me 3 new cards. Many more to go tho!

Updated paper swan







I submitted my swan to the state fair yesterday as an entry, but before I did that, I wanted to add something to it. So I made a Christmas wreath using my MS branch punch. The ladies who accepted it just loved it. Who knows, maybe I'll win a ribbon. That would be so cool :)