Pretty little Poinsettia

Okay, some of you may be saying it's a little early for Christmas -- we haven't even had Halloween yet!  Well I have been doing Christmas projects for over 2 months now -- mainly because of my teaching schedule at the store and on the road with Craft-Dee BowZ.  But I was in Texas this past weekend with The Collins Group and we did this sweet little project with Susan's Garden and I thought I'd share it with you.

It got mangled in my suitcase on the way home, but I was able to spruce it back up.  Isn't this the cutest?  The box is made from a  Sizzix die (unknown) and the poinsettia, of course, is from Susan's Garden.  Just love her stuff.  I used to make a lot of her creations when she was affilliated with The Punch Bunch.  But using dies is soooo much easier as you can get several different sizes and store it in a smaller space (than punches).  We also used a combination of Elizabeth Designs wide tape and her wonderful glitter.  This was the last class I took at the trade show and it was the MOST relaxing class I have ever been in!  Just thought I'd share.

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

"But, Officer!..." I said...

"I was just looking for a new fashion statement.  I didn't KNOW it was THAT kind of vest!"

Me, after a long day of painting at my son's new house.  We were rearranging his "police" closet and my curiosity got the better of me and I tried on his Kevlar vest, mostly to see just how heavy these things are.  To answer your question, yes, they are heavy, but not what you expect.  HOWEVER, I can see that if I were wearing this for any length of time, my knees would bow, my back would bend and I'd be dragging my chin along the asphalt.  These puppies have got to be miserable in the hot weather!

Just me clowning around.  Like my outfit?  Hey!  They're my painting duds!  If you ever saw me painting, you wonder why I don't wear a hazmat suit instead.

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

Just too tin' my horn!

For a gal who doesn't do Steampunk on a regular basis, it's another surprise that I had another project published in Just Cards Steampunk Volume 3!  I created this using a DeSorono bottle simply because I loved the shape .  It was a hardship for hubby to have to "take care of" the contents so that his  crazy, crafty wife could have the bottle (NOT!).

Armed with tons of metal doo-dads including odd things like garters (remember those?), hook closures, thin chains, old buttons and various and sundry other quirky metal pieces like washers from a hardware supply store, zipper pulls... Basically anything I could get my hands on (this is a huge run-on sentence, folks), I first took aluminum foil sized to fit around the bottle and cap., crumpled it then pulled it smooth, but with all the crinkles.  I fit and glued it around the bottle and cap then took my sponge brush and cheap black acrylic paint ant painted sections at a time.  I then wiped each section down with a cloth being careful with my pressure .  The result was an aged look to the foil.

Then the fun began!  Picking and choosing all the doo-dads to add to my project.  I used E6000 to adhere all the metal parts and had to allow some drying time in between depending on where the parts were placed so they didn't "drip" off the bottle.  Below are a series of close-ups of the project.

I'm sure some of you recognize some of the "hardware" on here.  Well, that's it for today!  I wanted to share and hope you enjoyed it.  If you love Steampunk, this magazine is LOADED with great ideas, some quirky, some artful, and some just downright "different".

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

I've gone astray!

By that I mean that I came out of my box AGAIN!  Sheesh, if this keeps happening, I'm going to have to introduce myself to me!  (don't know what that means, but it made sense while I was writing it)

Anyway, I took this fabulous class with Catherine Scanlon who, by the way, is also a fellow teacher with me at My Creative Classroom.  We do totally different things and I wanted to test my boundaries again and try Catherine's mixed media class.  Whoa!  There were some people there who didn't think I'd survive the entire ordeal (I'm dead serious!).  This is sort of a free art style and for me to not "connect- the-dots" was a struggle.  But after all was said and done, I was thrilled beyond belief at how my project turned out.  It now has the honor of hanging in my kitchen and I just love looking at it knowing that my little in-the-box hands created it.

Catherine had us do a "test" piece just to get the idea of how photo transfer is done.  Now I know you'll look at this and say "the writing is backwards!".  Well, that was not my fault -- Catherine had someone photocopy the transfers and they did it without taking the writing into consideration.  No problem -- it was only for our test piece.  I thought "hey, this isn't too bad -- I can do this!"  So here's my test piece...

We did this on Hot Press water color paper to make the transfer.  Then went on to all the other steps involved.   Okay, so far so good.

Then I got to the BIG project and my secure little world started to wobble.  At one point I had Kim on one side of me saying, just relax, let the colors flow, it'll work out.  Then I had Chris on the other side saying "it's gorgeous, just go with it!"

So here's my finished project -- I also gave you a side view for a better idea of how the entire piece looks.  I'm really happy how it turned out even though it caused me some serious angst.  Chris like mine so much that she asked if I'd "speckle" her project like mine (see the orange dots).  Thank goodness I didn't mess hers up!  

So dear readers, this is me totally out of my realm and box.  But Catherine created a monster -- I have been dabbling in similar projects like this since I brought this home.  It's a very fun and interesting process and it's making me relax more and more when I start to create  one.  Maybe down the line I'll share more of what I've done (without Catherine's supervision).

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

Something "fishy" going on...

So I couldn't resist this adorable fish stamp at the convention earlier this month.  I guess I had to have it because it involved paper piecing, not just straight stamping.  I looooove this type of paper crafting, so it went in my "gotta have it" bag and came home with me.

I stamped the fish on vellum and colored it in on the back of the vellum using Copic markers.  I then used my stylus to form all the hills and valleys for folding.  I've had this wonderful water bubble background stamp for forever and stamped it using Tumbled Glass Distress ink.  I also stamped the aqua card stock at the top using the same background stamp but with white ink.  The little aqua swirls around the fish are the negative pieces from a water wave die from Memory Box (why waste paper, right?).  The crowning glory (to me, anyway) was this wonderful ribbon I've been hoarding for just the right project.  This is by May Arts and it's self gathering.  Such a beautiful ribbon!

Lastly, I stamped the bubbly sentiment in black at the top (another old stamp I've had for years) and added some fishy bubbles using Tombow's Aqua glue (the one in the blue container).  It dried so nice and clear and I added some sparkly glitter from DeNami before it dried.

So that's my fish story - you shoulda seen the one that got away (LOL!)!

I haven't posted since my granddaughter's play and hope to get back to posting more often.  Hope to hear from you!  I'll also have another rendition of this fish going up on my Craft-Dee BowZ blog next month so be sure and watch for it!  It's quite different (because of the bow it will have on it!).

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

Ahoy, Matey!

More like Aaaargh! Matey!  Why do I say that?  Well because I missed a very important moment in my only grandchild's life.  Sadly, I had to work and miss my 10 year old granddaughter's big moment on the stage.  She had the lead roll in her Drama Club play this year.  So I will have to live vicariously through the photos that various family members were kind enough to send me.

So to salve my wounded heart, I need to make these pictures public and hope that you, dear readers, will enjoy them as I have.

Her name is Lexi and she'll actually be 10 next month.  She's a tall girl -- almost as tall as her Mom -- I think Mom tops in at 5 feet, so I do believe Lexi will be eating beans off Mom's head in another year (LOL!).

Here's a pic before she took off for the theater at the Middle School near where she lives.  It's a local Drama Club that she's been doing for three or four years now and she loves it.  My little Swashbuckler!

Her Papa said she didn't miss a line or a cue.  Her father, however, said he never saw her studying her lines!  Hmm, wonder what that says?  I envision her up in her room practicing away from prying eyes.  You know how that goes!

Here are a few other pics that were sent.  I just love them!  I did call Lexi from where I was teaching and apologized for not being there to see her.  Her response?  "You should be."  Eeek!  If you knew this child, she has a wicked sense of humor and that is just how it was delivered.  She's a sketch!

Well, that's it dear readers -- me salving my wounded heart.  I hope you enjoyed a peek into my personal space.

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella! 

Those teeny, tiny flower dies!

Oh my!  I just fell in love with IO's Spiral Flowers die!  This 5-die set makes the cutest little flowers ever!  Here's a sample of 3 cards I'll be doing for my Die of the Month class for Kept Creations on May 3rd.  Each month I introduce a new die or dies and show the ladies different ways in which to use them (refer to my Mustaches dies post HERE).

To give you an idea of how tiny these flowers are, I placed one on the head of Abraham Lincoln on a penny.  Take a peek!  Isn't that a scream?

This first card I combined some Art Impressions stamps to create a wreath and then shaped my flowers to decorate the wreath.  I used a Spellbinder die for the card base and topped the look off with a tiny 1" bow made on the Craft-Dee BowZ to complete the look.  A tiny bit of Stickles was added to make it shimmer a bit.

This next card was made using IO's Shake Its windows.  I created my own colored cardstock for the flowers by using different Memento inks and blending them onto the cardstock.  I then die cut the flowers, rolled them and placed them inside the Shake Its windows.  Before sealing it up, I added some Prills (gotta love them!!!) and a bit of glitter which is a little hard to see in this photo).

Then, to encourage my student s to get more out of their dies in an unconventional way, I simply die cut the spiral flowers and glued them down flat onto the same colored card stock giving it an embossed look.  I added Dimensional Pearls to the centers and the sentiment is backed with Washi Tape then tapped it all with my dots stamp.

Here's another card I did just for the heck of it.  I used this lovely Lattice Background die by Spellbinders on a 4-1/4" square card, added my tiny flowers and some extra leaves (Memory Box) and some Viva Pearl Pen for accents and it was done.

And here's a close-up of the flowers.  So adorable and so many possibilities!

Well I hope you've enjoyed this post and I'd love to hear from you.  Even better, I'd love to see some of you at this class.  We do have lots of fun with dies!

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella!