Rainy Day Crafts

We finally had some rain...in fact we had a lot of rain and wind...which was perfect for crafting.  I started early in the morning and worked on stuff throughout the day.

Made 2 more bottles.  This one started out as a crescent moon but I screwed it up so I had to make it a full moon and then draw a tree in front of it to cover up my errors.  I used all orange lights inside the bottle.

This one came out so good that I decided to keep it.  Russell loved it too.  My freehand skills aren't very good so I traced the castle and moon from a picture on my computer screen, then cut out the template and traced around it on the bottle before colouring it in.  The only things I freehanded are the cat on the moon and the windows.  Purple & orange lights inside. 

Since I had the glue out in my craft room, I made a couple of keys.

And a key in a mini bottle too.

Finally finished the shells cross stitch.  It took a bit longer than I'd expected when I started it in July. Now I need to find a frame to fit!

I had one bottle left to paint and was at a loss for a design. I tried to sketch some bats on paper but they didn't come out very good.  I googled 'Halloween silhouettes' and I didn't see anything that floated my boat there either.  I just wanted the project done so I did a simple triple moon with pentacle. 

I felt that it was missing something and although I really suck at lettering and centering, I grabbed an alphabet stencil I had and managed to get the text on the bottle without screwing it up too bad.

Now I need more new projects!!

More Projects and Pepper Wins A Major Award!

Here's another one I've been dying to try.  Glue flat glass blobs onto a bottle, stuff some lights inside and VOILA!

Sparkly!!!

I liked this design I saw online too so I made one.  Am kind of obsessed with the rainbow motif.

When I was younger, I thought the pink/white Christmas thing was ugly.  Now I find it really nostalgic and for some reason I associate it with the 1920s, 30s and 40s, but I don't know for sure b/c all the holiday pictures I've ever seen from those eras are black & white.  I saw a tutorial online on how to dye them.  I found small white ones & used Rit magenta dye.  But they were still missing something.

Snow! Right! So I first dabbed white paint on the tips, then painted the bases & branch tips with silver glitter pain

I tried a flocking technique with 2 of the trees, using silver glitter and then white/irridescent glitter, as well as the white-tipped-with-silver-glitter paint.  Put to a vote amongst my friends, the white tipped on the right was preferred, with the center tree coming in second.

I entered Pepper in a little contest on the Will Tree Poultry Farm Facebook page.  They make the best pot pies on the planet and I reeeeeally missed them when I lived out west.  They asked people to post a photo of their mix breed with info about them.  I posted a super cute pic of her, the one posted on the right side of the page in fact, and I got a message from Willow Tree almost right away saying that she was so cute that they wanted to send her a prize.  I was quite tickled.  The package arrived the following day.

Oh boy a new toy!

"Mama makes me poze wiff dis toy".  She was so impressed.  Not.  lol  Sagan, on the other hand, snatched it away seconds after I snapped this picture.

"Stop takin pitchers!"

Beautiful sunset that day too!

Paint Chip Crafts, Happy Accidents and Glass Art

Pinterest strikes again.  Saw some pins for paint chip art and I decided I had to try it.  Paint chips are FREE.  You just go to your local Mallwart and Home Depot and grab a bunch of colours!!!  I made a card with some chip strips.  Incidentally, I've found that one chip goes a really long way, as I used them to punch circles and cut strips.  Very little of them went to waste.  I left the names and stock numbers on purpose.

This was really fun.  Just punched out and layered circles then stuck them on some white card stock.

Then I thought I'd try using a snow flake punch and then a circular punch together.  The results aren't what I was expecting but I was extremely excited to see what happened.  I started making a whole bunch of crescent moon snowflakes for future use.

I tried rubber stamping on these chip samples but I'm not good at rubber stamping at all.  There's either too much or not enough ink, and of course some of them got smudged.  These are supposed to be bookmarks.

Celestial themed card using the moon/flake in yellow.

And a birthday card for one of my friends.  I'm taking the chance that she doesn't read my blog.

One for Axe to go along with some stuff I got her from the Lizzie Borden House.

Finally found the right cord I needed without having to drive out to Michael's so I did a couple more jump ring bracelets.  Here's an example of my pain in the ass OCD where I had to separate all the beads out by colour.

Friendship bracelets were really popular back in my Deadhead days.  I remember a girl in my dorm was making them to sell at shows, when I was a senior at Emerson, so that was 1986.  I never learned how to make them though, and no one taught me.  When Diane and the kids were up in July, Maddie showed me how to make them, as they seem to be making a comeback.  This is my chevron-design fail.  I'm gonna master this, I swear it.  

It's amazing the amount of stuff I stockpiled to use in the future if I ever had the time, including glass chips unearthed in a box recently.  Now I have the time.  Layered multicolour, black, purple, cobalt and mirrors in this jar, covered the lid in blue fabric with a ribbon around the edge and button on the top.

This is a teeny tiny jar, filled with multicoloured chips, with fabric and button lid.

Loved this empty wine bottle shaped like a lighthouse.  I took the back label off, then filled it with sand, craft pebbles, a thin layer of quartz rocks, shells and craft beach glass.

It's a local wine, Truro Cranberry Red.  See the door under the label?

Glued chips all over this votive candle cup too.