Whirlpool of Imagination

Pinecone Ornaments

I will admit it - I am never cool enough to ride the wave of a current trend. I usually jump on the wagon about a year of two later. I think last year was the first time the pinecone ornaments got popular. I thought they were interesting but didn't have any interest in giving them a try. For some reason, this year I just HAD to give them a try.

These are obviously not my original idea. If you go to the Splitcoast gallery and search pinecone, you will find links to the original directions. I printed off the instructions but didn't save the link and I'm not sure I know where the directions are at the moment. The one thing I do know is that they are in a "safe" place.

You start with a 3" styrofoam ball, patterned paper and dressmaker pins (I used size 17). The paper is cut and then folded. The pins are used to attach the paper in a rotating sort of fashion.

The overall project is time consuming but the results are really neat. I kept seeing people suggesting using a thimble and YES, they are on the moeny with that one. Your fingers will be sore by the end as you have to push through paper layers. Since I'm not a sewer, a thimble is on my to buy list.

  I looked high and low in my stack of patterned paper for a nice deep navy design. I apparently don't buy navy paper because there was none to be found. But I did have this nice rich eggplant colored paper so I used that for the next one. I didn't tie the bow so well on this one so ignore that.

  And this is the last one I've made so far. I like pink as a holiday color so I wanted to make a pink pinecone. My top layers are a hair off but I don't think it's too obvious. And for some reason, I kept taking pictures of the side of the bow so that is not looking too lovely here. On this one though, I did actually make a pretty decent bow.

If you are not a real visual person, you can still make these. I am the world's worst visual learner (which is why I will never reveal my organic chemistry grade) and I still was able to figure out what to do.

Well, the kids are sleeping over my mom's so the house is quiet. The pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup are made and cooling. The cleaning has been started and we are in good shape for tomorrow.

Safe travels if you are going anywhere tomorrow and Happy Thanksgiving!

Watercolor Leaf

  Time for another set of notecards. I wanted to do something Thanksgiving but I don't have any traditional images - no turkeys or pilgrims or such. Instead I decided to pull out one of my favorite leaf stamps and use that. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this stamp is from Spunky Stamps, but don't depend on me for that one. Whenever I use this stamp, I always like to use my watercolor crayons. Depending on how wet I spray the stamp, this image can be blurry or very detailed with all the leaf striations.

I used orange and red crayons and colored right onto the stamp. I then spritzed it with water. I usually kind of go over it again a little bit with the crayon once wet. Then stamp. A lot of times I will do several generations with the one spritz which gives me all sorts of neat variations on the same image.

I found this leaf paper in my (HUGE) stack of patterned paper and thought it matched quite nicely.

And here is the set of them. If you look closely, you'll see the ones on the left are a bit "thicker" for want of a better word. The leaf images on the right are a bit more delicate.

I'm thinking of sending in quick Thanksgiving notes to the teachers tomorrow since it's the last day before the vacation starts.

If you are traveling for the holiday, I hope you have safe travels!

Holiday Shopping

Even though I am eagerly awaiting the prospect of being up and shopping at 5am on Black Friday, I am taking advantage of onine deals and have started my holiday shopping. (And don't tell me you've already finished - I might have to razzz you).

Haveto buy American Girl stuff? Until the 25th, they are offering free shipping. The coupon code is giftship.

Looking for toys? Etoys has a bunch of items listed on sale and many of those items are also shipping free. On top of that, I have a couple of coupon codes: $5. of 40. SGPET5  or $5. off 100.  LSGENQ48

Need other coupon and shipping codes? Here's a list of spots I like to check out before I shop:

www.retailmenot.com

www.freeshipping.org

www.dealtaker.com

www.dealcatcher.com

www.fatwallet.com

www.rather-be-shopping.com

Good luck finding those holiday deals!

Sparkly Snowflakes

Here's another great project for you and your kids (or grandkids). You can be crafty and decorate for the holidays at the same time.

These sowflakes are basic wooden snowflakes found both at AC Moore and Michael's. I know because I bought some at both places.

The flakes are solid so I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in each of them. These are thin wood so the tool punches through like you were punching paper. I did notice some at AC Moore that already had holes but I didn't like the shapes and they cost significantly more than the simple wooden shape.

I then used regular acrylic paint to paint the snowflake. I ended up painting the flakes the same color as the glitter I planned on using so this one was obviously painted light blue.

**As a note, if you want to do this project with younger children and the idea of handing them paint is enough to make you thrown in the towel.....these wooden shapes take marker really well. For Meg's Halloween party, I didn't want to have to deal with all those girls and paint so we used regular old kids (washable) markers and they work fine.

 

After the paint thoroughly dried I pulled out my glue pad (I know there are a couple of types of these pads -mine is the Tsuneiko one). I basically "stamped" my snowflake with the glue pad and then dumped glitter all over.

I have seen not so great reviews regarding the glue pads. I will have to say that I have never tried to use it with paper. For this project, the pad worked fabulously. The pad comes with a reinker and every time I use the pad, I do add more glue as it seems to dry after a few days. The directions also suggest storing it upside down I believe so I do that also.

I used Martha Stewart fine glitter which I picked up from Michael's. This is great glitter and stuck nicely to the glue.

This snowflake was obviously painted with green paint and decorated with green glitter.

And finally, here's a nice red snowflake, painted red with red glitter.

Omce glittered up, I just used a piece of either gold, silver or red cord to make a hanger and just hang these right off the branches of the tree.

You may ask how is the glitter holding up. So far, so good. These flakes have been transported to a fair and hung up. Then stored after the fair and transported back home. I then put the tree back up for our Christmas card picture and rehung them. I then realized the tree was crooked and just took them back off today and they'll be hung again once I fix the tree. In all that back and forth time, I've just piled the flakes on top of one another and none of the glitter has really come off. If you rub your finger against it, a bit of the glitter comes onto your finger but that happens to me whenever I touch anything glittery.

**Another note: I store glitter in little square glad containers. It makes it so much easier to just have the glitter flat in the container and I place my glued object on top of the glitter and adhere that way. It makes much less mess than pouring over and then returning to the bottle.

And now I have glittery snowflakes for my tree. If you are looking for a fun project, I suggest you give these a try!

More Sweets

I sat down today and tried to make a card. Nothing. My brain just wouldn't work. I have new stamps from Cat's Pajamas. Nope. I have new stamps from Inkadinkado. Nope. I have more to show from my fair last week so that will have to do me for now. And let's hope I snap out of this SOON.

These small tins are always a fun gift. I figure that if I don't sell them, I know they'll get used during the holiday season.

That cute little snowman is a single stamp from Imaginisce. Isn't he adorable? I'm seriously loving how cute he is. Maybe I'll make a card with him and that will break the rut.

The poinsettias are from Verve Visual and I added a Swarovski crystal in the center. These tins contain M&M's or hershey kisses. Those are my go to candies. More and more people are mentioning wanting to give something to friends that are diabetic - I need to find a good thing to add for a diabetic gift.

Here's another quick tin. This time I used stamps from Papertrey to make the design. I think these came from the new tag set. These are just the perfect size for what I wanted.

These popcorn covers always sell like hotcakes. I actually had a bunch more in the basket but didn't get pictures taken quickly enough. I had a bunch of blue ones but those went really fast.

I created the words in a word document. I used to leave the "poppin'" section free and stamp it but then realized I had this really cute font that I just made in a bunch of colors. MUCH easier. And I used to stamp the snowme or santas, color them in, etc. Now I use rub-ons. Again, MUCH easier. And these set of rub ons were so glittery that they looked great with the ribbon I chose to use. A good selling point on these is that they are great if you need just a small little something to give as a gift. OR, if you want a slightly bigger gift, pair this up with a Blockbuster gift card and some candy and you have a "movie night" gift.

And that's it for tonight. I am thrilled its Friday night - it's been a long (cold!) week. And what's more is there is a trip to the LSS planned for tomorrow. Aaaah, the anticipation. Have a great night!

Tag Snowflakes

This year I told myself that I would try some of the neat ideas out there for paper ornaments. One that I really wanted to try was the tag snowflake tutorial at Splitcoast. I don't think I ordered them from Stampin' Up but I just so happen to have the two different tag sized punches so I figured that meant I just HAD to give it a try. Well, I made the snowflakes but wasn't exactly sure how to make them into ornaments. I didn't just want to punch a hole in them. They are too pretty for that. I think I read somewhere about making more than one and somehow working from there. But in the meantime, I had these snowflakes that I wanted to use.

At about this time, I was thinking about how to decorate some nugget tins. Why not use the two together? And that is how these came about.

This snowflake uses red cardstock and vellum. I used a great velvet brad for the center of the flower. The labels covering the nuggets are stamped with a stamp from Verve Visual.

This one is pretty similar to the first one. I used red cardstock (a little thicker this time which did make a difference, it looks a bit better in person) with red patterned paper. The poinsettia is stamped for the center with a Swarovski crystal adding a bit of sparkle.

The nuggets are stamped the same as the first tin.

I wanted to make a blue snowflake so that led to this one. I used blue cardstock and vellum for the center. I just used a silver brad for the center of the flower and matched up the flower and cardstock. These nugget tins hold one box of the Hershey stix (yum), about 16 sticks.

I've cleaned up my studio after the disaster from last week's craft fair preparation. I feel like I can almost find everything again. This week I'm working on Christmas card orders. And also trying to come up with a design for our family cards.  I suppose first I need a picture to work around huh? That's next on the list and a project for the weekend.

Something To Write In

One thing that I always try to make every time I have a craft fair is journals. I knew my population for this past fair would not be heavy journal buyers but I couldn't help myself, I had to make at least a couple.

This design is similar to others I have made but I like the mix of flowers nonetheless so I continue to make more. All the stamps from this are from Papertrey Ink. I used Doodlebug jewels for a bit of sparkle on either side of the flower block.

These are simple composition journals that I cover with paper. I also cover the inside front and back covers with paper/cardstock that coordinates with the front just to keep things neat. And while some cut the dimensions to the front of the book, I use the foldover method where I then miter the corners. I tried cutting around the edges but it always looked messy. This by far, looks neater so this is the way I go. It does mean I cannot use heavier papers because they just don't fold over well but the trade off is worth it in my opinion.

If you go to the Papertrey site and click on Nichole's blog, you will see a recent entry about teacher journal jars. I have made journal jar sets before but the questions have to do with life in general. Nichole has a set of questions that deal specifically with teachers. I thought they were a wonderful set of questions, so I used them for this jar set.

The words on the jar and the images on the journal are all from Close To My Heart. In regards to jars, I use candle jars, found in the candle making section of either AC Moore or Michael's. I find them to be the perfect size for the number of questions related to these sets.

I think this year, I may make up sets like this as holiday presents for Meg and Conor's teachers. It's always nice to present something a little personal and they both seem to be the type to enjoy writing.

And what are you giving as teacher's gifts this year? I'd love to see!

Fair Day

Can I call it or what? This morning I was looking like a quite fetching 103 year old. Ooops, I'm only 39! I spent the morning bent over. Well, I felt better after church. Must have been all the standing, sitting, kneeling activity - liimbered me right up.

I have been doing fairs for five years now and have learned a lot along the way. I shudder when I think about my first couple of fairs. Between the things I sold, the way I packaged things and the way I dsiplayed things, its a wonder anything ever sold. The great thing is that every fair I do, I still learn something or have an idea about how I can change things or what I should sell. And that, my friends, is the magic question. If you are thinking of selling at craft fairs and it is a yearly event, attend the fair. Look at who is shopping and what/if they are buying. Make some notes to remind you as you are preparing the next year. The fair that I did yesterday I've been to before. I know the clientele and I konw the things they are most likely to buy versus the things that won't do so well (most of the time - there's always something that surprises me and I always through in a few extras that I don't think are going to sell buy hey, I've got the inventory, might as well try). This fair is very different than my yearly corporate fair. It's a different clientele and their wants/needs are vastly different so I prepared for it differently. I also keep notes of every fair including what sells so that I'll know for the future.

As soon as I walked in yesterday though I was thrown for a loop. I have always had rectangle tables at this fair and planned for the same. This year because the church used its hall, I walked in to find that everyone had large ROUND tables. If my thoughts had been visible...the whole time I was unpacking I was planning/scheming in my head how to make everything work. I have never used a round table before for a fair so I was thinking on the fly.

In the normal course of a fair, I usually have my table which I add a second shelf to and then place my spinners along the end side forming a sort of "L" around me. If I have two tables, I make a "U". Yesterday, I decided to make a pseudo "U" with my displays. I designated one end of my table as dead space and put my spinners along that side. I built my shelves on right angles to each along along the front and somewhat of the other side of the circle. I went in only as far as I thought would not create too much space in front of the shelves. I firmly like the idea of varying heights and never place too much on my original table. When the end of the second shelf ended, I placed my little table with my Christmas tree. There was definitely some dead space in back too that I just couldn't use but Meg was with me so she used that part of the table to read at.

Ignore the draping of the table cloths. My brother was there helping me set up and he was in charge of that (I later fixed it a bit). Want to know my trick with the shelves? Milk crates. Buy two plastic milk crates from Staples. When they are placed side to side, they interlock. I then place a piece of plywood that is slightly bigger than the length and width of the crates. Cover this with a tablecloth and I now have a shelf. I learned this trick fairly early on and it made such a big difference in the appearance of my table. I kept reading that people want to see things are varying heights and they need things at eye level. After several years, I completely agree with this idea.

I think that's enough rambling for today. Have a fantastic night!

Tired Feet

Phew - it's been a long week capped off by standing all day at my craft fair. And age is a funny thing - I used to be able to stand all day, no problem. Now, after standing today, I'll wake up tomorrow leaning like the Tower of Pisa as my back plots its revenge for the day. But I know its coming so the ice pack is ready!

I did take some pictures today of my set up. It's not my best (I'll tell you the story tomorrow) but I thought on the fly and it came out good enough. I haven't uploaded them yet so I have a quick pic from earlier in the week. I took a break from craft fair stuff to take a basics jewelry class. The little I know about making jewelry I figured out on my own. As a result, I wasn't always doing things the right way. I decided to take this quick class as a way of learning the absolute basics and then I figure I can be off and running after that.

In the class, in the midst of learning closures and such, the instructor had us make a bracelet and earrings. These weren't supposed to planned out, in fact we weren't supposed to "design" them at all. It just so happened that my hands seemed to want to do minor designing even while seeming not to.

Here is my no design bracelet and earrings. You can see on the bracelet I would have chosen the small beads a little more closely and the design of the flower beads better if given the chance but it just so happened that the bracelet would be a perfect size for Meghan and she'll be looking at the big picture (oooh, a bracelet) rather than the individual beads so its a win-win situation. My starting clasp wasn't crimped as close as it could have which is why the chain has a slightly crooked look to it but hey, its my first bracelet so I'm cutting myself some slack.

And on that note, the next thing I have to give myself is some sleep. There were several late nights this week and really not enough sleep. I'm about to change that by heading off. Have a great night!

I need to wear yellow?

Last week our elementary school held its book fair. In years past, the fair was run by Scholastic in the school's library. This year the PTO teamed up with Barnes and Noble and held the book fair there. They asked for parent volunteers to work shifts as greeters and wrappers. I signed up for a spot and they asked us to wear the school colors. Our colors and black and yellow. The black I have covered - I have tons of black clothes items. But yellow? I don't own a single piece of yellow in my wardrobe. Rather than go shopping (although a fun choice), I decided to make something yellow to liven up the black.

I first threw together a yellow and black ribbon ponytail holder. It was cute but not enough. Since I went with a black top and black pants, I decided to make a pin to have a little pop of color. And fortutiously, one of the more recent Splitcoast tutorials was on paper pins. I don't have a melting pot (yet) so I knew I'd have to melt the embossing powder by hand and made the pin less dimensional that I would have otherwise.

Here's the finished pin. I stamped the flower (Stampin' Up) four times. I colored two of the four in with copic and prismacolor markers. The other two were just to give the colored layers more thickness.

I cut out all four of the stamped images. I adhered each of the colored images onto a non-colored image. I then layered the two colored images to give the flower more petal points.

From there it's all about the embossing. I inked the whole thing with Versamark and dumped UTEE powder all over it. I melted that layer with my heat gun and while still hot, poured more UTEE on and remelted. I repeated this a few more times until the top glaze was the way I wanted. I then hot glued a pin back onto the back of the flower and one yellow embellishment made my outfit complete. I found this project really fun and want to try more. I think this flower would be cute for the Christmas season so that's my plan for next week - make some pins. (And maybe a trip to the store for a melting pot might be in order - don't tell, okay?)