Christmas Lay-outs

Scrap pages I just finished for Christmas 2yrs ago. I found some great velvet and cloth frames.
The words Miracle and Beauty are on the pewter velvet ribbons. I cut out lots of swirls and used utee on the corners and for the santa seal stamp in the top right corner.

More swirls with pearls inside some of them. Some spreadable snow on the corner of the candle picture and green mulberry paper.

These were so fun so I wanted to share them. I had the opportunity to use a cricut machine so I made the sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer. I added some "spreadable" Aleene's Glitter Snow and a bead to each reindeer. Oh, so fun!

Tag You're It!

Here is my oversized tag for the Challenge. I actually made this last Christmas for my mother. This is her as a little girl. The brown and aqua combo is absolutely one of my favorites.

This technique is one from 2006 Somerset Studio magazine. It is a great article on "milk-resist" stamping. It came out great. The concoction of milks is very sticky to work with but comes out very nice on cardstock. I attempted to use it on acrylic painted papers and chipboard but it didn't work at all. Basically, you stamp images on paper using 50% skim milk and 50% sweetened condensed milk. Then after heat drying, I sprayed it with a walnut ink spray and wiped immediately.

Whimsical Winter Jars

This is a peanut butter glass jar decorated with Aleene's glitter snow and Twinklets, ribbons and findings.
I sold this and my clay minibook for the MOPS in my community.

This little bitty one is made with a baby food jar. A little blurry!

I Won!!

I won something sooo cool! Haley gave a way some Avon products and I won the AVON's ANEW Rejuvenate Flash Facial . Check it out, I can't wait to try it. Scroll down on this link to "Smooth Skin Today" Nov.28th.

I also won some blogcandy on Jenne's blog a few weeks ago. I'll post my loot when I receive it...can't wait. Thanks to you both for your generosity!!

Christmas Tags

Here are a couple of my winter tags I really had fun making. I'm posting them to be a part of this week's Tag Your It. They have some beautiful tags to inspire us all.
I used alcohol ink for the background of the bird tag.
The snowman tag is my version of a Tim Holtz tag from last years 12 days of Christmas.

Star Ornaments

I saw wooden stars used as ornaments in my Dec.2006 Somerset Studio magazine. I loved the look and tried it myself. This last picture is of my oldest daughter when she was 4. (I'm still working on one more of my present 4 year old.

I'm excited to say Amazon has shipped my book , "Exhibition 36", by my friend Susan Tuttle. She has a picture of the cover posted on her blog, check it out. I can't wait to have in my hands.

Clay Book and other Ebay listings

Two of the clay seals have real shells. Then an imprint of a sandollar, a clay fish and a clay heart.

There are 3 inserts for up to 6 pictures but will hold 8 pictures total (or journaling).

I have some listings on ebay this week including this minibook. So here is the link for My Ebay. I sold 5 envelopes for the MOPS benefit crop, yippee.

This matchbox style minibook is for holding wallet size pictures on a scrapbook page. I have used this trick alot for getting more pictures of my story within my lay-outs.

Clay Faux Seals

More seals!! I still need to color the two white ones but I think I'll wait until I design the tag or envelope.
The rose has white perfect pearls powder baked into it then I edged it with pink acrylic
paint.

I used alcohol ink on these after cured.

Clay Seals For MOPS

These are some clay faux seals I have been working on for the MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) benefit crop this weekend. The next phase is making the envelopes these are a part of for scrap pages or tags. I still have a handful more to paint, perfect pearls powder, glimmer mist, and seal with a glaze.

Staedtler Bottles of Hope

I have been reading more about the bottles of hope and it is such as amazing, generous production of outreach. A way to share art and love with cancer patients. But other bottles have been used depending on the illness or disease that touches your heart. My last post shows my bottle, a humalog insulin bottle. Any bottle created is donated to patients. Here are some other creations: http://bottlesofhope.org/

Healing Wings/Staedtler Bottle of Hope

I have entered a challenge called "Bottles of Hope" with Fimo clay. I am really excited about this as I created these wings in honor of my 6 1/2yr old, Isabella. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 1yr ago. I have gone through all the reasons why in my mind but it truely comes down to genetics and factors beyond our control. We just don't have enough information as to "why" yet.

The clay wings are wrapped around a Humalog insulin bottle to represent the promise Healing Wings will eventually bring to her.

These wings are stamped, colored with perfect pearls and cut out with a zacto knife. I propped part of the wings during baking for shaping. Only the top wings needed to be epoxed on after baking. The key is also clay and everything is sealed with folk-art glaze. This piece will be donated or auctioned and if chosen as one of the finalist, money will be donated to the children's hospital here in Maine.

October lay-outs

These are some of my favorite reasons that October is my favorite month. So much color and so many sweet smells in the air.

The leaves above are cut from brown paper bags. The old leaf look is from holding them over a flame until the layer of tacky glue I spread over them bubbles. This funny technique I did with my neighbor friend Susan.









The scarecrow and corn husk are some fun paper crafts. These pages are two years old now and I never posted them. Time is flying. I'm off to celebrate another beautiful October by doing some crafts with my kids today.

Envelopes

This flower has been inked and I added my faux clay seal to the center. It's also part of this weeks tag challenge . I use envelopes as gift tags to hold extra gifts or pictures on a package. The envelope was also handcrafted by me. Winter envelopes you can see here .








Some fun embellishments I made last fall but never posted. I love the look of seals so made some with stamping clay or putting an embellishment in the center then inking or painting the seal. These envelopes are for holding pictures, journaling or other memories on scrapbook pages or for gift giving on packages.

Mini Board Book

My blogger friend Sherry sent my little girls these beautiful little pictures of birds and nests. So we altered one of their smallest board books to celebrate these beautiful creatures. My 4yr old painted her book 2 colors then together, we decided where the pictures and fun treasures should be glued. Some of the pictures, of course, have glue on them which adds to the memories of making it together. My 6yr old and I still need to put hers together.




We added brown craft grassy "stuff", ribbons, thin pieces of cedar bark and feathers, brown for the robins and blue for the blue jay eggs. So we will call this her science lesson for the week!
Thanks Sherry!!!






Helix Craft Table

Something pretty cool I want to share. I recieved this fun Craft Table for free from the Home Arts Magazine. It came with 4 templates for embossing. I used it to make different types of envelopes and boxes then wrote a review for the magazine. This is the second review I was able to do and the best part is I get to keep the product. I'm just not sure which month it will be in. It's alot of fun but I need to purchase the interactive CD for more project ideas. The original directions don't explain all the uses. Check out the web-site above for more details. It would be great especially for those who really like making home-made greeting cards.

http://sweetoldvintage.blogspot.com/2008/09/hosting-give-way.html

Please check out this wonderful give-a-way on Merietta's blog. Beautiful vintage style paper dolls and ornaments with charming details.

Gift Bags

I put together thank you gift packages for a couple of wonderful friends. Two paper bags are held together and decorated on the front. Shown on the front is a homemade tag that swings open from a brad to hold my thank you message. Inside the homemade faux clay seals I stamped their (first name) initials. Inside the 2 pockets of the 2 bags holds many goodies including the few tags and paper clips pictured below. I also included a couple more tags and a decorated envelopes not shown. I hope they enjoy using the tags for gifts or scrapbooking as much as Ienjoyed putting them together.

I love making these paper clips. I changed the silver color with alcohol inks. The wooden shapes are held on with epoxy. (The shoe on the right has a flower behind it).

The metal paper clips were colored using alcohol ink.

Party Questions

My friend Sherry has some great small talk questions to help us to get to know each other better. Visit her site to see her great art and see her answers. It's a blogiversary party.
Questions:
What type of job do you have? House Mommy. Hope to get back into personal training and lifestyles and weight management programs in the future. I love nutrition and physical therapy. Where do you live? Bowdoinham Maine. About 2hours north of the N.H. border. The coast is beautiful. Where do you do your crafts/art work? I have a corner of the house in the daylight basement. My get-a-way cave!! What is your favorite daytime beverage? Flavored coffee. I drink it all day. What is your favorite dessert? Chocolate and peanut butter. Do you watch soap opera's and if you do what's your favorite? No. Right now I love "America's Got Talent "and I'm a "Lost" finatic. What's the last movie you saw in a movie theatre? Wow, good question. I don't know if I remember. Must have been the last Star Wars trilogy when we how Darth Vador came to be. No, wait the first Pirates of the Carribean. Yeah!!! Love that movie.

Clay/Goldleaf Minibook

I finally finished this book that I have been wanted to make for about a year. It took me a couple weeks of stealing tiny bits of time for myself but...here it is. The goldleaf is actually baked right into the clay after pressing this design into it.

There are two 5x3 1/2 inch sheets of metallic blue clay to make the front and back. Leather cord are thread through drilled holes for loops. The front loops have buttons slipped through the cord. Here you can see the back loop fits over the button on the front panel when the book is closed.

This accordian book has three small tags. The idea came from the book "Creative Stamping in Polymer Clay" by B. Mcguire. I started off making faux seals then really had to have this book to learn more techniques using clay.