Glass Geography/Cartography & Candleholder

I was making a project I swore I wouldn't make again and when I was pawing through the tumbled craft glass, state shapes started jumping out at me all over the place.  Sure the square glass pieces were easy for states like Kansas, Colorado, the Dakotas, etc. 

I thought the top left looked like the USA, even though I had to add a little chip to make Florida.  The blue piece looked like New York and I had to add another chip for Long Island.  Next is Idaho.  The dark green sort of looks like Mississippi or Alabama, or a hybrid of the 2.  The second row are California and Nevada....or a real skinny British Columbia & Alberta.  Next is Maine that was missing it's far eastern part so I added a chip there too.  Vermont & New Hampshire fit as perfectly as the actual state borders.  The dark brown piece is a tiny Ohio.

This is what I said I'd never make again.

Crafty Crafterson Is At It Again

I made this distressed beach-themed frame for my pal Marsha.  The undercoat is light blue.  I should've taken a picture of it with the photo I inserted.....

but it was this one.

Then I made one for Liz.  The undercoat of this one is dark green.  This frame project kept me busy during Hurricane Sandy.  I sure hope she doesn't read this before it arrives in the mail, which hopefully is today!  lol

I found this amazing crystal candlestick at a yardsale for $1.  What's a girl to do but ADD GLITTER!!!!!

I came across a really easy project on one of my Pinboards, on how to make crackled marbles.  So I dipped into my stash of modern/machine made marbles and baked some at 350* for 10 minutes.

Then immersed them in ice water.  They cracked but not dramatically, so I dried them off and popped them back into the over for another 10 or 15 minutes, then back into the ice water.  By the way, if you try this be really careful because the marbles could shatter when they hit the water.

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 As you can see, they did crack.....

But not as dramatically as these crackle marbles that are part of my stash.  I think maybe they need to stay in the oven longer than 20 minutes.  

I prepped this one like 2 weeks before Halloween.  You cut funny eye shapes into used paper towel rolls, then use glow sticks inside them and put them in a bush.

I do like they way they look, but unfortunately, there's a street lamp almost across the street from my house that bathes my front yard in orange light, so the lit eyes aren't terribly effective.  I'm sure they'd look OK in my back yard where it's very dark.

Right after I went in the house after leaving them in the bush, we had a very brief but violent thunderstorm, brought on by Hurricane Sandy the day before, which moved through with torrential rain and a microburst of 90 mph wind that hit neighbouring Wareham.  HERE is the news story about it.  Needless to say the glowsticks were knocked out of the bush and the cardboard rolls disintegrated in the rain.

"52 Reasons Why I Love You".  Believe me I can come up with way more, but this project calls for a deck of cards so 52 it is.  Not sure when I'll give it to him; maybe Christmas, maybe in a lunch bag when he leaves.  I sanded each of the cards to make them look a little more used and tried to shuffle them a bunch too.  It took about 3 hours to prep the deck, type and cut out all the reasons.  Then I mod podged them to the suit-side of the deck.  Some of the projects showed the reasons on the back side of the cards but I opted for suit side.

Russell's niece suggested I make something with beach glass, so I did this using the craft 'beach' glass and some that I bought at a yard sale.  I would NEVER use my own stash, even if I were to keep the project for myself.  This took about 4 days to complete and to be honest, was a royal pain in the ass.  Marsha asked if she could buy it and I was more than happy to let it go.  I've told my friends if I ever get the hankering to do this again, to please smack me upside the head.

And a sample of more glitter ornaments that I made to sell at the craft show.