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Thought I'd give you a break from stamps and show you some of the things I've bookmarked this week:
Free wallpaper - I'm using the one above.
Button cookies - They're shortbread to boot!
Heart bags - Love that ruffle on the strap.
Tortilla pie - Via Meg.
Have a great weekend!
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This cold is dragging on and on. I've been cooped up all week with a box of kleenex as my best friend. Today I had to get out of the house for a few minutes if only to run through the drive through at Chick-fil-A. Even though I don't feel like doing much of anything, I have been stamping. It's something I can do while sitting on the couch watching a movie. "Mother even crafts when she's sick!" was the comment the boys made. Yes, they are still in the "Mother" mode.
I like to send birthday cards to all of the children in the nursery. I usually come up with a different birthday card idea each year. This year's feature - the ferris wheel postcard. I made up thirty of them, so I have plenty for the whole year. I used watercolor paper to stamp on. It's nice and thick and I like the texture. It kind of gives the stamped image a distressed look. I LOVE THIS STAMP!!!
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My ferris wheel. The complete image was carved on an actual carving block. Why a ferris wheel? Alicia Bock kind of got me started on them. She sent a 5 x 5 ferris wheel print as a thank you along with the art I purchased for my bedroom and I love it. Since spring is just around the corner, I thought I'd incorporate some ferris wheels into a few projects. This is just the first installment. You can bet you'll be seeing lots of wheels around here in the next few months.
* I'll have to try out some different carving blocks. This one from Hobby Lobby was a little bit crumbly. Geninne suggested these and I'm hoping my local art store will have them.
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Bad cold, colder weather - like snowing AGAIN, three hour nap, husband making dinner - specialty spaghetti. Is this a tweet or what?
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My second carving attempt was to try a positive image. I drew a ferris wheel and used a portion of the complete image to try out the gouging technique, again on an eraser. I thought this practice run would be a throw away, but when I turned it upside down, I really liked the image. Flower, windmill, whatever I want it to be!
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I've been playing hard this week, which is why there hasn't been much blogging. I took up a new hobby. Yes, yet another to add to all the other fun I have around here. Stamp carving! Ok, I fooled around a little with it back here, but this time it's the real thing: lino cutters, carving block, and everything. Instructions and a video here.
For my first attempt, I used a white hi-polymer eraser, which I snatched from the school supply drawer. I thought I'd try a negative image (recessed image) first as they seemed the easiest. I now have a logo!
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Memorized it in 9th grade and it's still there and just as nonsensical as ever. Useless really. Now if only I could remember the two years of Spanish that seem to have disappeared from the brain cells. Here are a few things that have made me grin the last few days...
* Unexpectedly finding a little hand in mine and looking down into the sweet face of a real live cherub on Valentine's Day.
* A lovely weekend with my husband.
* That chocolate covered strawberries are so easy to make for dessert when you have impromptu dinner guests.
* A comfy couch, beautiful quilt, and a can't-put-it-down book on a cold day.
* A soup supper out so I did't have to spend 2 hours caramelizing onions that I won't even eat and will stink up my house. Joel suggested Jason's - everyone got the soup they wanted and we were all happy and warm.
* Taking time to investigate these pods outside my window. Is this the first year the bush has done this or am I just taking a little more time out to notice?
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My mom asked if she could borrow my Anthropologie pin to wear to a banquet where she will be the guest speaker. I made her one for the event/Valentine's Day. It is her favorite holiday, you know. I watched several how-to videos on you tube, but they tended to frustrate me. During craft day, I decided to grab the jersey and just give it a go. Viola!
Happy Valentine's Day!
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While working on my next set of multi-cultural crafts for kids (coming soon to a blog near you - this one, in March), I came across papercuts. I'd seen them around, but had never tried one. You know me! I had to make my own. Feel free to try it for yourself! Download Lovebirds Papercut.
I printed the image on thick red paper and cut it out using a self-healing mat and an exacto fitted with a brand new blade. If you've never done done this before, let me give you a hint. You want to make sure to cut just inside the line so that none of the black shows. It's hard to go back and cut away tiny slivers of black line. Personal experience here! Oh, and also make sure your blood sugar isn't low. Shaky hands and a knife are not a good combination. Click here for more papercut tips.
This one is for Joel's Valentine's Day card. Since he does not read my blog, there's no worry about spilling the beans.
For those of you wondering if I'll be doing papercuts with the kids, the answer is "NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!" With as many kids and the variety of ages I'll be working with on these multicultural projects, I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole. There. Now you can breathe a sigh of relief!
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The syndicate girls are all about notebooks. We need them to keep all the lists we make for the stuff we want to make next, to write down our daily/monthly to-do lists, to doodle on while talking on the phone, to drag out during church when the kids need something to keep them occupied, for grocery lists, for jotting down those things we know we'll forget if we don't jot them down, for placing in the pile of other notebooks we have going on at the same time, to journal in, to draw that picture of what we saw that we want to recreate. I felt that Megan and Michelle NEEDED one of these notebooks as much as I was DYING to make them! Happy birthday, girls!
These are my new favorite notebooks. Funky, classy, refillable. I used a composition notebook inside. Graphic from Lil Blue Boo. Pattern in Alabama Stitch Book.
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