a big M

 Hi friends.  How time flies.  I've been working on something a little different this week.  A few years ago, I picked up a big letter M.  It's 12" across and 12" high.  I think it's made of wood, because it's pretty heavy.  But it's covered in vinyl.  Unfortunately, it was PINK, and I don't do pink.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do to it, so while I procrastinated, it sat.  

One day I decided to try and paint it, using acrylic paints.  I used blue, but it really didn't cover well, so it sat some more.  

I finally decided that I was really going to do something.  I tried painting over it with brown, but that didn't work either.  Finally, I decided to cover it, so I tore up some old music and proceeded to decoupage it with the music.  I already liked it better, but still, I wasn't what I wanted.  

So I got out my gelatos, and scribbled just a little with blue and turquoise.  Then I grabbed my watered down gesso and a paint brush.  The gesso smooths out the gelatos, but, because it's diluted, it doesn't completely cover whatever is underneath.  This is exactly what I wanted.  

But it was still too plain.  So I pulled out one of my favorite stamp sets, Petal Prints from Stampin' Up and stamped one image randomly all over the letter with ultramarine stazon ink.  Now, I was really liking it.  

But I decided to go one step further and add some flowers.  Daisies and butterflies.  I played around with them for awhile and decided on a layout, but it was late, and I was too tired to do leaves, so I just left it on the table.  When I came down the next morning, the flowers were all rearranged, in a nice neat pattern up and down the legs of the M.  Someone was in trouble!  And since I hadn't bothered to photograph the layout, I had to go through that process all over again.  Then I glued the flowers and butterflies down, and realized that I had forgotten the leaves.  So I cheated.  I punched leaves and sponged the edges.  Once I decided where I wanted to put them, I glued them on right over the top of the flowers.  Then I stamped a few more flowers and cut them out and glued them on top.  Not quite the way it should have been done, but I was not going to try and peel off the first ones.  I probably would have messed up everything, and I had already spent too much time to mess it up, so I just fixed it the easy way.  You can't tell by looking at it anyway, so it's all good.  I gave it two coats of decoupage finish and it's done. 

And I have to say that I really LOVE how it turned out.  

Thanks so much for taking time to stop by for a visit. 

Christmas snowflakes

 Hi friends.  One of my favorite crafts is crocheting.  Little stuff mostly - no yarn - only crochet threads.  Back in January of 2017, I posted about crochet motifs I was making into a shawl (actually two shawls - one white, and one multi-colored).  

Neither shawl is finished, but I found out that a single motif makes a great snowflake ornament for the Christmas tree.  So I've also been making a lot of those.  

Last year I gave some to family and friends for their trees.  This year I decided to make a bunch and give them away.  

After crocheting the motifs, they need to be stiffened with a glue/water solution and stretched, so they look nice on the tree.  I made a couple of cardboard mats for that.  Several layers of corrugated cardboard taped together.  Then I traced circles the size I needed, divided by eight, and poked a hole at each point so I could pin the snowflakes on it to dry.  Then I wrapped the cardboard with plastic wrap, so the snowflakes won't stick to it.  I'm using brass quilting pins, because they don't rust, but I wish I could find brass T-pins instead.  They would be much easier to work with.  I suppose I could cut off part of the pin.  I may have to try that, and see how it works. 

Most of the snowflakes are white or off white, but I have made some light blue ones and some yellow ones.  I guess the yellow ones would be stars instead of snowflakes.  I made a couple with some odd colors of crochet thread - a pink one and a dark green one.  I ended up painting them with some metallic acrylic paint, but didn't take pictures of those.  

I made little pockets for the ornaments, and included a little thank you note.  I needed something to put them in, so I covered a cardboard box with wrapping paper, added a handle and some decorations.  Today I coerced my husband to go with me to the hospital to take them to some of the deserving folks out on the front lines working with Covid-19 patients. During this year, I've barely been out of the house, so this was a new experience for me.  When I went inside the hospital, they took my temperature, and then they had to figure out what to do with the ornaments or how to distribute them.  I think I made 145, which is really just a drop in a bucket, compared to how many medical personnel work in even one hospital, but I hope they are an encouragement to those who receive them. 

Thank you so much for stopping by for a visit today.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas this year in spite of things being abnormal.  God bless. 

experiment

Hi friends.  If you've read my last couple of posts, you know that I've been making sonobe ornaments.  All of them have been made using recycled paper - some that has been printed on one side and discarded for some reason or other,

and some that was (glossy) magazine or catalog pages. 

I have discovered that the glossy paper isn't very receptive to some of my paint, so I either must use the colors that will cover the print, or first coat the paper with gesso.  Both are great solutions, but the gesso is just an extra step, and drying time prolongs the process.  The computer printer paper works much better for the lighter colors of paint. 

The problem -- I made a lot (and I mean a LOT - well over 100) of the ornaments in glossy before I discovered that little problem. This is a grocery bag about half full.  These are just the unfinished ones.  I have many on my tree and have given away quite a few as well. 

As long as I had a good supply to work with, I decided to try a technique called faux metal figures.  It requires that you completely cover your piece with foil adhesive tape.  Needless to say, this took a long time because of all the pyramids and valleys.  Then you use the point of a pen, stylus, mechanical pencil, etc. to make 'rivets'.  Sadly, these barely show in the finished piece. 

When I came to this point, my ornament was very shiny and bright.  I wanted to tone it down a bit, so I tried white acrylic paint.  Because the tape doesn't absorb any liquid, I had to wait a long time for the paint to dry.  By that time, I knew I didn't like the paint on it.  I attempted to remove the paint, but it was impossible to get it out of the crevices.  Frustrated, I decided to cover it as much as possible, so I used polished stone technique with alcohol inks.  I left much of the tape uncolored. 

Although not entirely happy with the end result, at least I was able to salvage it after all the work of applying the tape.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  

eggshell ornament

Hello, my friends.  It's time for another Friday Feature over on the Outlaw Women blog, well, really... that's the Outlaw Women Scrapbook Emporium (OWSE) blog.

My project this week is Christmas ornament made from cardboard boxes, old encyclopedia pages, crushed eggshells, glue and paint, with some beads for embellishment.

There are instructions on how it was made.  I hope you'll go check it out.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Friday feature on OWSE blog

Hello my friends.  I'm so excited to share with you that I've been invited to post regularly on the OWSE blog.  I will be doing a Friday Feature each week (hopefully).  My first post should be live today.  Go check out the Christmas ornaments I made.  I hope you find them as easy to make as I did.   Make some for your tree or to attach to a gift.

Thanks for stopping by.

butterfly bowl

Hi, everyone. It finally stopped snowing some time after 8:00 p.m. I'm so glad I didn't need to go out today.

My post today is one of those projects that seems to take forever. I made it for the technique challenge on Splitcoast this week. There is no stamping on this.

The bottom is made from one folded piece of dp. The post in the center is a piece of copy paper rolled up tight and glued. I used a butterfly punch and all the butterflies have a black bottom layer and red on top. The butterflies on the bowl were punched from dp. Then I cut the wings off and glued them to punched black butterflies. The others are only glued at the body. There are red stickles on the wings and bodies, and the butterflies are attached with mini glue dots. To stabilize the center post, I used empty ribbon spools and card stock circles cut with my nestabilities. I used the color spritzer to add color to the white areas.

Supplies:
stamps: none
ink: real red marker
paper: basic black, real red, dp (from a big stack - not sure which)
other: white rick rack, butterfly punch (EK Success), red stickles, ribbon spool, cuttlebug, nestabilities

I'm so glad you stopped by. I hope the remainder of your week is wonderful.

An ornament and a double challenge

Hello. I've been such a bad blogger. Yesterday I worked on some ornaments using some new toys - my circle nestabilities. These arrived at my house on Monday, but I didn't get to play with them until yesterday, just getting the feel of how they worked with different papers. So much fun! I made 10 of these ornaments. I used 3 different dies in the set, one plain circle and two scalloped circles. I started by cutting the largest circle from cereal box chipboard - 2 pieces for each ornament, since I wanted them to be sturdy. Then I cut the same circle from rose red card stock. I sanded the printed side of the cereal box, so that it wasn't so slippery and easier to glue together. The back and front are the same. Most of thes is pretty obvious, so I won't go into great detail. The hole for the string was punched with my crop-a-dile. The tree and the red scallops are highlighted with stickles. The stitching is faux. I had these almost finished last night except waiting for the stickles to dry. I let the first side dry overnight and finished the second side this morning.

Recipe:
Stamps: season of joy, the snowflake spot
Ink: handsome hunter, rose red
Paper: chipboard, rose red, handsome hunter, very vanilla
Accessories: crop-a-dile, gold cord (SU), cuttlebug, nestabilties dies (spellbinders), yellow, green & star dust stickles (ranger)

Because I spent time playing with my new dies yesterday, I didn't get to the sketch challenge on Splitcoast. I decided to combine it with today's ways to use it challenge (metallic paper). I used jet black stazon ink to stamp the image from oh, so lovely twice on the vanilla card stock, once on the copper and several times more on a scrap of vanilla. I colored the images on the vanilla with SU markers. On the main image panel, I stamped linen over the colored image with creamy caramel ink and then sponged the edges with chocolate chip. The panels are layered with navy card stock. I added some faux piercing on the main image panel. The the horizontal panel, I used a ruler and marker to draw a rectangle, then added 2 narrow strips of navy card stock. I punched out portions of the extra images with a 1/2" circle punch and layered on 5/8" circle punches of navy. Then I placed page pebbles over the top of the images and glued them across the open panel.

Recipe:
Stamps: oh, so lovely, warmest regards, linen (SU)
Ink: jet black stazon, creamy caramel, chocolate chip, ballet blue, night of navy, certainly celery, always artichoke
paper: ballet blue, navy, brushed copper, very vanilla
accessories: sponge, 1/2" & 5/8" circle punches, page pebbles, brayer

Thanks for stopping by.