August Cards

August is a busy birthday month in my family.  I try to make birthday cards for everyone but a lot of times I just run out of time and I either make a quick handmade card or they get a "store bought" card.  The good news is I try not to always send the same person a "store bought" card each time. My favorite card this month is the one I made for my sister, Mary.  I used the heart shaped yo-yo to make a mini tulip display.

As I mentioned in last week's blog I send my mom a "card-a-month".  For August her card is one I made back in June.  I saw the idea of the ribbon loops surrounding a button to create a flower and I thought "I could use one of my yo-yo's in place of the button.  This is a real simple card to make and I think I will make a few more to have in my stash of pre-made cards "just in case". The photo didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but hopefully you can see what a fun, simple design it is.

July Craft Play Day

Painted fabric ready to be set in the sun

I am very lucky to have a friend who enjoys experimenting with new techniques as much as I do. We have so much fun when we get together on our craft play days. Part of what makes it fun is that we both have different styles so we are always learning from one another. Connie is more of a free spirit with her art and crafts and I tend to be more purposeful.  By that I mean my art or craft project needs to have a purpose.

Our July Saturday play date involved painting fabric with Setacolor Soleil (a sun printing fabric paint). We had a blast experimenting with blending the colors on the fabric, laying the objects on top of the fabric to create a design and then placing the fabric in the sun.  We also learned some objects worked better than others. 

My sun printed fabric

My favorite fabric is the one I created using buttons placed on top of my painted fabric. I plan on making a book cover with the button sun printed fabric. Other items I used on my fabric were paper doilies, fabric lace with metal hardware and rock salt. I'm still amazed that with so little effort and so much fun I created my own unique fabric.

It would be easy for me to get the fabric painting bug, my only drawback is what would I do with it when it was done?

Salad spinner art fabric

The second half of our play day involved this technique from the Creative Arts Home magazine of using a salad spinner to paint on fabric.  As a child I loved the paint spinners so I couldn't wait to play with this new technique. 

To my amazement it turned out really good and yes, I have a project in mind for these fabric circles.  I think they will look great appliqued onto a pillow cover as holiday ornaments.

Salad spinner fabric art circles

Crafting with Paper Napkins

Flowers in Bloom

Here we are heading towards  the end of August and I'm just getting around to my July creative activities. When I started this blog I had really good intentions of posting every couple of days and like all of you, my day-to-day life kept interrupting. As my parents always said, "anything worth doing is worth doing right", so I have made a commitment to post every Sunday, the other thing they taught me was to honor my commitments. One commitment I made years ago was to send my mom a card a month. For July I tried a little something different as I added a magnet butterfly to the card. The flowers on the card are made with paper napkins using the technique from "Paper Crafting with Carol Duvall". It is a simple technique using Saran Wrap and an iron and it is a lot of fun to do.

Watermelon Sailboat Fruit Display for Nick's Graduation Party

The making of the watermelon sailboat.

First, we had to shop for the fruit which was a wonderful adventure. My brother-in-law John took us to one of their favorite grocery stores, HyVee, and we found all the fresh fruit we needed plus the melon-ballers. Next, we gathered up a few supplies from my sister Karen. We needed large platters, saran wrap and a couple of bowls. Then we took the stuff back to our hotel room which had a small kitchen in it. Don cut the melons and gave directions to me, my mom and sister Mary so we could help with the melon balling while he took a short and much deserved nap. Much deserved because earlier he had cooked his wonderful French toast breakfast for 14 family members. As Don napped Mary washed the strawberries and grapes and mom and me got busy making watermelon and cantaloupe melon balls. Once Don was recharged from his nap he assembled the sail boat and put together the other fruit display. Needless to say the fruit displays were a huge hit and a great topic of conversation.

Graduation Card for Nephew Nick

Earlier this month we traveled to Nebraska for Nick's high school graduation.  Since Nick is a very talented wood worker and designer I wanted to make a unique graduation card for him.

As I was thinking about ways to add a money holder to the card the thought came to me that the year is 2010 and how cool it would be to show a 20 dollar bill and a 10 dollar bill. I figured out the correct dimensions to hold the money but now I needed to have an easy way to remove it so I decided on making a tab that would slide in and out.  I was so pleased when that worked but I saw another problem.  When the money tab was removed you could no longer tell what year the card was made. So I started hunting, found some number stickers and solved the problem. 

Bearing Flowers Part II

I'm so lucky to have a family who supports my creativity.  My sister, Karen, sent me a close up of the basket I sent her at Christmas time and I thought I would post it on my blog so you could see it too.

Bearing Flowers

The other day I received an email from my sister, Karen, with an attached photo that showed a beautiful display of bowls and baskets.  She did such a wonderful job of displaying everything I didn't recognize the fabric bowl I had given her as a Christmas gift.  See if you can find it. 

The last time I saw the fabric bowl it was filled  with packets of hot chocolate, cookies and peppermint candy stirring sticks. The bowl now holds a nice display of flowers. What a transformation!

Mother's Day Gift: Tea Dyed Note Keeper

Back in March, my friend Connie and I got together to dye some white fabric in 12 different types of tea to see what kind of results we would get. We used Bentley Tea and the flavors were Oriental Treasure green Tea, Raspberry Green Tea, Blueberry Green Tea, Pomegranate Green Tea, Misty Mint Green Tea, Earl Grey Green Tea, English Breakfast Tea, Lemon Honey Chamomile Tea, Gingerbread Spice Tea, Holiday Spice Tea and French Vanilla Tea.

I used my tea-dyed fabric to make the This and That note keeper from the Nifty Notes  pattern by Sherri K. Falls for my mom. As you can see with this fabric there is not a lot of color variation.  One of the reasons could be because we used the same brand for all 12 teas flavors. I also noticed that with the green teas there was not a lot of color differences either. The top section is dyed in the Oriental Treasure Green Tea, English Breakfast Tea was used for the middle section, the botton section was dyed in Gingerbread Spice Tea and the tab was dyed in Blueberry Green Tea.  At least all the fabrics have fun sounding names even if there is not a lot of color difference.

Of course I had to make a note keeper for myself. The fabrics I used to make it you can see some shade variations.  All in all our tea dying party was a lot of fun and I would definitely like to do it again but using more of the black teas. The This and That note keeper pattern is perfect for using small scraps of fabric and on the inside is an extra pocket perfect for adding a book of stamps or even a gift card!

Mother's Day Card

For Christmas I got a Cricut Expression.  It is one of my favorite craft room accessories as it saves me so much time from hand cutting the pieces for my cards and the detail I can get from my Cricut still amazes me. As I was looking through my copy of the 2010 StampIt! Cards magazine I saw a layout I liked that used a flower and leaf shape that would work wonderful for making my mom's Mother's Day card. Next, I looked at my Cricut cartridges and found the shapes I needed. I used my computer and printed out my message. Then I played with the placement until I was happy with the layout, after adding a few embellishments I then glued everything in place.

Saturday Excursion to Woodcraft

It's hard to go into Woodcraft and not buy something.  This Saturday was no different.  While I went to Michael's to add to my paper stash Don headed into Woodcraft and came out with a new wood project.  He is going to try his hand at cutting and carving a cocobolo wood handle to fit the 4" ceramic knife blade he saw and bought (pictured).  It may be a while before I can add the picture of the finished project.  You'll just have to be patient.