My Junker Jane ornament

I decided to try my hand at Junker Jane. I wanted to do an ornament due to it being Christmas time. She was pretty easy to make, and I think she came out cute.

Another share...Salt Dough Ornaments

I totally forgot about Salt Dough until I see another post on Craftster.com this morning. The post had a link for another blog (yes, I guess I am not the only one who still blogs).

Here is the link: http://hollylynnclark.blogspot.com/2012/12/diy-salt-dough-ornament-gifts.html

 

This blog not only has a lot of great pictures of her salt dough ornaments it also has the 

recipe that she uses to make these cuties.

I think this is next year Christmas gift :)

I think this would be fun to do with the kids. It seems easy (and just messy enough) to keep their interests. Plus, I have a billion cookie cutters that I can use.

Enjoy....and get crafting.

Cute Find....Idea!

I haven't posted in a couple days but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

This morning I was on craftster.com and ran across this:

These are too stinkin' cute!

Here is the official link: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=417802.0 Travel there to see the craftster's ingredients and any tips she may have posted.

I have so many old glass bulbs that are chipping and I think with a little cosmetic puff paint and then this idea on top (and bottom) I may be able to bring new life into old ornaments!

Happy Crafting!

Hoot, Hoot

Made my first owl today. This pattern came from bhg.com. I used scraps for the pupils, beak, and wings.

Leslie's Art and Sew: Who is Junker Jane?

I want to share this other blog with you today. I ran across the site through Crafster and fell in love with these dolls. I really am thinking of making some (yes, maybe out of felt!). And, if I am any good, maybe joining her swap! Enjoy!

Leslie's Art and Sew: Who is Junker Jane?:

Below is a picture of the Junker Jane dolls (this picture was taken from Leslie's Art and Sew blog). For more information please click on the link above or on the picture.




On Leslie's blog you will even see a tutorial for how she makes her style of Junker Jane dolls.

A Colorful Set of Penguins

Here is the menegery of felt penguin that I have done so far.

I am still planning on making two more: a red and pink one, and a purple and white one.

My next project will be owls. A simple yet hopefully cute owl. Not as many pieces as my first owl. (Plus now I have the blanket stitch down.)

My mom is coming up this weekend. We are going to be picking up more felt (yippie) and some material (have to make scrubs for work). As of right now I only have 15 different colors of (fabulous) felt in my possession.

Also my mom ordered me a few felt books off of eBay. As a child my mom use to also make felt creations and during that time she had a favorite designer. These books are all by this designer. I am looking forward to receiving this books and sneaking a peek in them. Of course I still have about 10 patterns of my own I want to make.

Anyway, here are the 5 penguin all together!

Two More Penguins

I'm loving this little guy....

I made two more penguin today. One that is two shade of green and yellow, and the other is two shade of blue and white.

Felt Penquin is done!

This little guy only took a couple hours to finish....and I am sick, had to take a break to feed my kiddo's, and needed to get up and stretch (its an old thing).
I did not stuff him.
I used puff paint for his eyes.
Hope you like him. I actually like him better than the 1st ornament I made (the owl).

Starting penguin....

I will be starting this little guy tonight! When he is finished I will take a better picture to show him off.

Picture Patterns

I found a couple of really cute felt ornament projects on-line this morning. Unfortuantly they did not have patterns with them. That left me with only one option.....make my own.
Here is the pattern, pictures of completed projects will be posted as I finish them:

First Felt Creation

I have been addicted to felt lately. It first started with a pin on interest and grew into an obsession. So, yesterday I started my first felt project. A pink and red owl ornament. This was actually "commissioned" by a friend who's sons girlfriend loves owls. Her favorite colors are pink and purple. Now that I'm new to felt I'm limited on colors and no purple was available. If I would have had purple the red would be purple.
On my second ornament I will be using a felt pattern. This pattern is actually a scrapbook element from www.designsoncloud9.com. I think scrapbook designs maybe too involved for myself at this level.
Anyway, here is my first project:

Candles

A friend of mine was looking online for instructions on how to set pictures in to candles. She found a website that mentioned Avery Labels and something else. Personally I have NEVER used Avery Labels, and I don't know how they will melt into the wax.

So, I decided to do a quick tutorial on how I do candles.

You will need:
A Candle (any size and yes, dollar stor candles work the best because they are cheap)
A printer and a computer
Digital image of what you want on your candle
Tissue Paper
Printer Paper
Regular printing paper
Double sided sticky tape
Scissors
and either an embossing gun or a hair dryer

I am using pink paper to show how the tissue paper will be positioned on the printer paper. Card stock has a hard time going through some printers so this is why I suggest printer paper.

Step 1:
Use double side sticky tape on the top and bottom of the tissue paper and adhere the tissue paper to your printer paper. Tissue paper will get jammed in your printer so this is the easiest way to print on your tissue paper. (I used a glittery tissue paper so it will show up in the photos.) Load the paper into the printer when you are done.

Step 2:
You will need to use a word processing app for this step. I used WORD but you can use anything you are comfortable with.

Open the document and put your image into the worksheet. You will need to know how tall your candle is so you know what size to resize your photo too.

Once you resize the photo, print it out.

I suggest printing the image using a Fast Draft setting because higher settings often use too much ink which can bleed through the paper causing image to not look right.

Step 3:
Carefully remove the tissue paper from the sheet of printer paper. This is why I suggest only putting tape at the top and bottom of the sheet.

Step 4:
Cut the image down to the size and shape you want. In this demo I wrapped the tissue paper completely around the candle. You can, though, only use a small piece if you want.

Step 5:
Heat, quickly, the site you want to stick the image too. If you are using an embossing gun your candle will start to melt quickly so just a quick sweep across the candle should work. Now stick your image in place.

Can you see how the tissue paper appears wet or saturated? This is the paper melting into the candle.

Step 6:
Once the image is in place you will use the embossing gun or hair dryer to melt the rest of the image into the candle. You will need to constantly move the candle/heating tool so your candle will not melt and deform. You will see while your doing this that the tissue paper disappears into the candle wax.

Step 7:
Decorate! Once your image is set and the candle has cooled you can add ribbon, brads, what ever you want to it. Most times these candle will not be used so be creative!

HINT: This is even good to do for a date. Such as a wedding date and placed on tables during the reception. Or even as lit name tags to tell guest where to sit. If you are doing this you want to make sure that your image is small, and the edges do not go above the top of the candle. You don't want the fire department to make an unplanned visit!

What I've been up too!

After I went to convention in 2008, I had a falling out with my up-line. This lead to stamping/crafting/creating to not be "fun" anymore. For basically 4 years I have done nothing! A couple gifts here and there but nothing exciting. I mean, you can't even safely walk into my crafting room any more.

Well, this holiday I starting crafting again. Nothing big! Just old techniques that were easy and super fast to complete. Remember, I said I can not safely walking into my craft room. This means I can not safely get to items that I may need.

This year, in January, I joined a "Pay It Forward" post on Facebook. That meant that I had 1 year, 12 months to come up with a pay it forward gift to send to the person who originally posted the posting and then 1 gift to everyone who responded to my copy and pasted post.

My pay it forward gift came early. I want to say around April. My gift was homemade fudge from Maine. Yummy!

I stumbled and fought with what to make for the 2 I had promised gifts too. I bought wood letters thinking I would decorate them for the two ladies and ship them out. Hated it! I loved the one I did for my last name but hated the way theirs came out.

This one is mine!

I bought a wooden sign for one of the ladies and thought I'd mod podge pictures of her family on the back and then put her last name across it. Again, hated it! (Should have known better. I have never mod podged a day in my life!)

The other lady I thought I'd get a wooden cross, distress it and them embellish it and voila! You guessed it, hated it! Could not figure out how to embellish it the way I wanted too. And giving a way a plain distressed wooden cross was not what I wanted to do.

This is it...unfinished and on a shelf in my front hallway.

So then, with 6 weeks left of the year, it came to me. I will make snow globe ornaments with their pictures on it instead of using stamps. Ok! Now if you are thinking "great idea" lets stop for a minute. I just want to put it out there that printer ink and window sheets are not made for each other. Not even if you try to emboss the image when it first prints out, heat set the ink, leave it alone and hope it works....none of that does the trick and then you are left with a dark inky mess that looks gross. I was left with trying to figure out how to print an image that would look good in the inside of the clear globe, and still be transparent.

I did this ornament during a class that I had back when the set was new. Very simple project.

Velium was the answer! The ink stuck to the paper. It rolled up easy for insertion and unrolled easy when you slid it into the ornament. It is "somewhat" transparent. Everything I needed. So away I went.


Here is the one I made that needs to be sent to Maine:

I posted these on facebook and I quickly made a 3rd due to a close friend liking them. Then, when she seen her's she asked me to make her 2 more for presents for family members. I set a price and away I rode into the sunset (literally as it was time to go home).

The 3rd one I did.

I was hired to do these 2.

After all these project were said and done it was time to start thinking about wrapping and setting up the house for Christmas. I luckily already did ALL my shopping for my extending family/friends, one day I will share my secret with you, but I wanted a cute way to mark who they where for. Gift tags, but not the cheap store bought ones. At first I thought I'd have my son, who is 9 and wanted to make them for me, use my sizzix with the tag press and cut out tags then decorate with stickers, glitter, what ever. Problem, I don't know where my cutting plate is for the sizzix....remember the natural disaster that is my craft room?

I didn't give up though. I put my thinking cap on and came up with a plan. Formica chips....yep, those FREE things that the hardware store loves to give away to us crafters. SO I drove 13 miles across town one way and walked into the local craft...I mean, hardware store, and loaded up my "big" purse with FREE gift tags. (Yes, I changed to the "big" purse before I left home!)




Now, my 9 year old with all his imagination, was left alone with formica chips, dollar store stickers, elmers glue (I don't think my carpet will ever be the same again) and a movie on the TV. This is what we got:

I am planning on finishing them up with ribbon and attaching them to present (the names will be on the back). If people, like grandma and grandpa, want to keep the "gift tags" for ornaments they can. If not, that is fine too!

Have a great Christmas Season ya' all! And, keep checking back. I forgot how much fun this was and you never know what I will be up to in a month or so (or sooner!).