Wire Crochet

Whew! I was pretty busy with my Passover company these past few days, but now I am ready to play some more. Here is something I've been tinkering with:



I bought some wire crochet necklaces a couple of years ago, and liked them so much, I thought I would try to make some myself. This is done with 28 gauge wire, and relatively small bead. I think I would like it a little better with 26 gauge wire, and more large beads. I might leave the seed beads off altogether, although I like the contrast that they add. I'm also very open to opinions - I plan to make a few more of these in different colors, and would love some more ideas about how to proceed.

Inchie ATCs

I have a zillion things I need to be doing right now, and nothing gets me in the mood for crafting like having a zillion things that are more important to do.

First on my time-wasting agenda is this rusted ATC.



You may remember the rusted inchies I made a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that I didn't read the swap instructions correctly - the swap is for a rusted ATC with at least one inchie on it, not rusted inchies. I compromised, and put a couple of my rusted inchies on the ATC, which picks up colors of ginger and copper to meet the current Gingersnap Creations color challenge.

I had another ATC with inchies challenge in that group, this time with a zetti theme. I like zetti, but the requirement is for 3 inchies - that's about half the surface of an ATC!



I didn't have room for much else. I barely had room for words! The images are from a Teesha Moore Collage sheet, and the backgrounds are painted scraps I had left over from another zetti project. Now, I really have to get to work on those zillion things...

Constant challenge

My buddy Chris is also my TAC demo, and she seems to have taken it as a personal challenge to try to find something to demo every month that I haven't done before. That is a big task, because with the Technique Junkies and Splitcoast Stampers tuts and all the blogs I read, I'm pretty well-informed about what is going on out there in the rubber stamping world. However, today we did something I've never done before, and it's on this card:


I'm sure you recognize the Depth of Field technique from Technique Junkies, that isn't special; organdy ribbon and punched borders are pretty common, too. The special thing is the button. We made them out of polymer clay. It's harder than it looks, or at least it was for me. It was fun, though - I might have to do this again!

Triple Play

This odd card is called a Triple Play, because you can make 3 of them out of a 12x12 sheet of cardstock. the small front flap is the right size to hold an ATC, and the inside, if you can call it an inside, holds about as much as a postcard, even though it is 9x4 inches. The card style is largely useless unless you are mailing something in a long business envelope and you want to add a card, and don't care about writing a lot on the card.

This is the perfect size for me to mail with ATCs. I would never mail it by itself, but with ATCs - I made three of them, and two are gone already. Since I had the images waiting in a little bin waiting to be finished into ATCs, it was easy to put them on these cards instead. the black border on the inside was made by cutting a strip of black cardstock with decorative scissors.

Birthstone Birthday

Captivated by another Sliekje digi, I decide to combine this image with the Saturday Spotlight challenge to use my birthstone color in a birthday card. Since opals can range from pink to a deep blue-green with an iridescent rainbow of colors within, I wasn't sure how to proceed, so I just followed the mouse.



Lots of pink, and a little of the blue-green, and although it doesn't show here, the background paper is spritzed with a mica spray giving it an iridescent sparkle. I have the Faux Stitching, Spritz and Shimmer, and Out of the Box Technique Junkie techniques going on in this card, too.

The Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge this week is teal, artichoke, and pomegranite - I think I'm pretty close.

Now, here's the hard question - do you think I can give this card to anyone over 3 years old?

Birthday kittens

I had nearly given up on digital stamps, because I don't find images that inspire me very often, but when I found Sliekje's DigiStamps, they were just so charming that my cute muse came to visit. Angelique draws the most adorable kittens and mice I have ever seen! I as soon as I saw this image on her blog, I knew I had to make a card with it.



The paper is from The Angel Company, and the felt flowers and bling are dollar bin buys. I colored this in the very strange but effective technique of watercolor pencils blended with a Dove blender (I know how stupid that sounds, but it works). You can't see it, but there is a tiny bit of sparkle from a stardust pen. This is completed just in time for the Gingersnap Creations birthday challenge.

Glitter and Ink

Vicky knows how much I like glitter and ink and Paint Shop Pro, so she made me this sig tag:



Thanks, Vicky! If you ask nicely, she might make one for you, too!

Crochet Shamrock

Did you like my little crocheted shamrock? Here is the pattern I created. Of course, you have to know how to crochet and how to read crochet patterns. If you can't, this should not be your beginning project. I used embroidery floss instead of yarn to make this small enough for an ATC. Using yarn and a bigger hook will produce a bigger shamrock.

Crochet Shamrock

row 1: 5 sc in a magic circle. Sl st in first sc to close the circle. Ch 1.

row 2: In one st, (sc, dc, 2 tr, dc, 2 tr, dc, sc) this is one leaf. Repeat in the next 2 st.

stem: In the last st, sl st, ch 5, turn; sl st in each ch until you are back at the center. Weave in the ends.

It’s just that simple! If you make this, leave me a comment and a link so I can see it!

15 minutes of fame

Sunflowers and Dragonflies is featuring me on their blog this week. Beth asked some really amazing questions that I had a lot of fun answering - I hope you will take the time to check it out!

Irish ATC

Some things are just serendipitous. St. Patrick's Day is not my holiday, I'm not even a little Irish, and I don't like beer, so it is not the least bit interesting to me, beyond the fact that I can cook corned beef and my family won't gripe at me.

So, today when I went to my friend's house to craft, I wore purple, and grabbed some embroidery floss and a crochet hook to play. Shelly sent me some crochet flowers a few weeks back, and I was eager to try to make a few of my own.

So, I'm ignoring the day, crocheting flowers, and one of my friends laments that she forgot to wear her shamrock pin, which is an annual tradition for her. I looked down at my floss - I had some green, could I convert my flower pattern into a shamrock? To make a long story short, I made shamrocks for each of my friends, and one for myself, too. I don't care a lot about wearing them, but I figured, as long as I had one, I might as well pop it on an ATC.



The colors are all off on this scan. You can't even make out the word Lucky embossed in gold at the top. In real life, the embossing glitters, and it works.

So, I know you are wondering why I needed to make an Irish ATC, so:

Stamp Something - Cream and Green
Fun With ATCs - monochrome
Sisterhood of Crafters - Ireland
Corrosive - Good Luck
Sunflowers and Dragonflies - Irish
The Pixie Cottage - Green
Incy Wincy - Green
Stampin' for the Weekend - Monochromatic

It's pretty easy to do challenges when all the challenge blogs are on the same theme.

Glitter Inchies

You may not be able to tell it from the scan, but these inchies sparkle like Vegas showgirls! I started by stamping with Versamark and heat embossing with clear iridescent embossing powder. I then colored them in with Sakura glitter gel pens. The great thing about the embossing powder is if you get the gel ink on the lines, you can wipe them off, even after the ink is dry, because the embossing is so slick. I'm submitting these to the Saturday Spotlight Slick challenge, The Pollycraft Sparkle challenge, and the Gingersnap Creations Frosting Challenge.

Rabbit inchies

I made these for a Rabbit Inchie mingle, but looking at them, they look more like St. Patrick's day, don't they? I should submit them for the Stamp Something challenge, but there isn't any stamping on them - I drew the rabbits and cut them out, I distressed the patterned paper with ink to heighten the contrast with the rabbits (it was white patterned paper to start), glued on buttons, and then shaded the rabbits with a pencil. No stamping at all. Maybe I should submit my Irish rabbits to the Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge instead.

Balancing Act

I like this image from Designed2Delight, and I had some fun ideas about what I wanted to do with it, but certain other people beat me to it, and you know how I hate being like other people, so I had to think of something different for mine. I looked through the TJ library of techniques and came across one I hadn't done before - Van Gogh. This image has great bold lines, so it reduces to ATC size, no problem.



I wasn't really liking it, so I added a little stickles, which didn't really improve it, it just made it sparkly. I think I will try this in some other colors, and see if it comes out any better.

Pink, Orange, and Green Inchies

These are not as special as I would have hoped. I created the pink, orange and green backgrounds digitally and printed them out. Then I was stuck trying to figure out how to embellish them. I had a small word handy, so I embossed it on there. Then I tried adding some doodling with my glitter pens, but I have to say, toner resists pens, and the glitter certainly doesn't scan very well. These look tons better in real life.

Rusted

Here are some rusted inchies:



Of course, it isn't real rust. My rust was made with paprika and chili powder and matte medium. It's a whole new level of distressing! I'm not sure who would want one, though. I made them for a swap, and I not sure I would want anyone else's either, if they look like this.

Carbon neutral

For every blog that bears this badge, a tree is planted - click the badge for the link that gives you all the details on where the tree will be planted, and how planting a tree will offset the carbon footprint of your blog.

More zentangle inchies

I whipped up a few of these for an inchie swap. It seems that there are two schools of thought on how to do zentangles. One group works the zentangle all the way to the border, and the other likes a white border around the zentangle. As you can see, I belong to the latter group. Yes, there is less on the "canvas", but to me it looks complete, rather than looking like it was cut off a larger piece.

I think inchies are really too small for good zentangles. I'm pretty disappointed with these. I like the ATC size better.

Petit eight ATCs

You may recall the petit four cards I made a few days ago - four cards from a single sheet of 12x12 cardstock. I was packing up some swaps this afternoon, and it occured to me that it would be nice to have a little notecard that I could stick in and ATC pocket along with the swaps, and suddenly my mathematical mind started calculating - I can get eight folded ATC-sized cards out of a single sheet of 12x12 cardstock. Thus, the Petit Eight!



I had this cardstock that was printed on one side and white on the other - perfect for a quick little note. I cut little bordering strips from scraps on my desk, and the focal images are inchies from my collection. I had eight little cards in no time, and they might technically qualify as technique ATCS to boot! Two birds with one stone!

Mini house card

One of my favorite digital stamps in my collection is this little house from Paper Popsicles. Oh, I know, it comes with a fence and I tree, but part of the fun of digital stamps is that you can change them up before you print them. For this card, I printed it and folded it on the roof line, then cut it to shape - you can see a hint of the back around the edges. This is the height and a little short of the width of an ATC - my thought is that I can use it to slip a little note in an empty pocket of an ATC page protector along with swaps.

The theme this week at What's the Scoop is All about Home; the challenge at Get Sketchy is to make a springy shaped card.

Art journal weekend

I didn't do much creatively, except work more in my art journal. Here's a little update (click to see full size):




I'm having problemes with the lettering, but I'm working on it. I should have realized that this would be a problem, trying to get the words to appear clearly over busy backgrounds like these.

Petit four cards

I often have to mail a single ATC or a small handful of inchies, and I like to nestle my art in a small, flat card, nothing too special. Today I made a bunch of them, using the Petit Four technique from the Technique Junkies newsletter. Basically, you cut four cards out of a 12x12 piece of cardstock, and score it in such a way that it makes a sort of gate fold.

I was looking through my designer paper, looking at the Easter prints, when I came across a sheet that had 4 potted plants across the bottom, and a soft print over the rest of the sheet. Papers like this are great for scrapbooking, but usually not so good for cards. It was double sided cardstock, so it wouldn't need much decoration, but how was I going to get the images on the outside right side up? I wasn't, and then it hit me that they would look great on the inside.

Here's my card, closed (3x6 inches). The only embellishment is an embossed butterfly, glued to the top fold.



This is how it looks with the bottom fold flipped open, so you can see the plant.


Cool, huh? I knocked out four of these in just a couple of minutes - perfect for holding my little artsy cards.

Patches minus the patch (and a few other things)

It's the beginning of the month, and the beginning of another wave of digital freebies from Designed2Delight. This week's gift is an image of a bunny in a sweater with easter eggs. I don't do easter cards, so I wasn't particularly enthused, but the rabbit is cute. I pulled the image into my Paint Shop Pro to see about removing the basket and eggs, and ended up removing a lot more than that. After I stripped the image down to a plain bunny in a plain shirt, I decided that the image looked a little... static. How to liven a static image? Moving parts!



I made him into an art doll, with moving limbs and ears, and I even added some googly eyes! This was a lot of fun to do, and not difficult at all. Oh, and the colors he is wearing are for the Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge. He is also nice and Springy for Get Sketchy.

In case you are wondering about the size, here is my bunny folded up and put in an ATC sleeve.



If you want to learn how to make an art doll, there is a great tutorial at 2cre8art.

Gingersnap Anniversary

Gingersnap Creations is one of my favorite challenge blogs, for several reasons. one, You always get a month to complete each challenge. Two, they have different kinds of challenges, not just sketches all the time, and several challenges run concurrently. Third, they have great prizes that are winnable - I know because I've won once, back in December.

Now the GC blog is a year old, and they are giving away awesome candy, too good to ignore, and you don't even have to make a card to win it! Check it out!

EDIT

When I first posted this yesterday, I asked myself, "Why aren't you making a birthday card for this?" Then I asked myself, "Why aren't you making a card that fits a Gingersnap Creations Challenge?"

So, I did!



I'm submitting this for the GC favorite color challenge - There are more than three of my favorite colors here, because I'm using the Fruity Fusion paper, and it has one of the most fun color palettes there is! While I was in Challenge mode, I decided to use the layout sketch from CPS while I was at it. Now I feel much better!