Monday, November 23, 2015

Christmas 2015

It's been a rough week here in my household, as my beloved Snickers (Terrier Mix) went missing on the 18th! To work through the sadness and worry, I decided to pull out my snowmen. It takes me several days to decorate, so it did get my mind in other places, if only for a short bit. I haven't put the tree up as of yet, but it is in my plans for tomorrow. I want it all done before the kids come on Thursday! Here is what I have gotten done thus far...

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A pretty set of gloves for a sad venture!

A few weeks ago my niece's grandmother's house burned down, so this past weekend, we went over to try to help salvage what we could. My niece, Mom and myself all have the same gloves, so mom said to write my name on mine- ha, I took out the black htv and used it for my first time! I am in love with the htv!!! I kept saying in the back of my head, don't forget to mirror, don't forget to mirror, LOL I used my regular household iron to heat it with and it has stayed in place during two washings done the day it was done and the next day, even though they tell you to wait a minimum of 24 hours before washing! It was super easy to tell mine from anyone else's for sure!

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Happy Easter

Hello Again!!! My cards today are inspired by Lindsey from https://thefrugalcrafter.wordpress.com/. She showed how to make these adorable cards using Washi Tape for the background. I had a few colors of Washi Tape so I tried it out and the first one cut way too small, took forever to cut and had jagged type edges here and there and strings hanging off, plus, I didn't care for the Washi Tape as it just wasn't "Eastery" to me! So, I enlarged the file and cut it again. I, again, had some jagged edges, took it forever to cut and had the strings hanging off! Ok, I have to admit, I had never cut cardstock on my Cameo as of yet so I wondered if this was normal or not. I decided it had to be not!! So, I opened up the snipping tool (one of my major loves of my pc), snapped an image capture and traced it in Silhouette Studio! This time when I cut it, it cut perfect, no jagged areas or strings and much quicker!!! I am SO in love with my Cameo!!!! I found some patterned paper in my stash and used it as a backing this time and much more preferred the look to the Washi Tape. Ok, other than the cutting problem, this was going together way too easy for me, so you know it HAD to happen!!! I only have a few nesties and wouldn't you know it, no square or rectangle! Ok, how hard can it be to cut and write it with my Cameo, after all, that is why I wanted the pen holders and bought that beautiful collection of gel pens, right? So, I set up a perfectly sized rectangle in the software, made my text to fit inside just right, then realized, I have no clue how to get it to cut one part and not another other than to move the non cutting part off the mat! So, I did just that! I cut my rectangles, reloaded the mat, deleted the rectangles after putting the text back where it belongs. Then I take out my handy dandy pen holder, insert my pen in it, after looking at all the parts and having NO clue what the big white piece was, LOL I load it in my Cameo and press start! I rush to the machine as I want to see it writing, just as I like to watch it cut as it amazes me! Well, it wasn't writing anything, just going through the motions, so I figure, yeah, I have done something wrong in loading the pen!! So, I decide to just use the gold sketch pen that came with the machine! It draws it out beautifully, but once out of the machine, I realize how very light the color is and hard to see! So, I take out the color pen I originally wanted and trace over the letters! They looked pretty darn good until I took a picture and viewed it- Yug, they were horrible, LOL So, I break out into a moment of common sense and watch a video on HOW to use the pen holders- as expected, I wasn't even close on my idea, LOL So I load the pen and holder properly, press start and walah, beautiful writing with the multi-colored gel pen I chose! I unload the paper and see that it only colored in one color but it was visible so I was going to deal with it. I cut the images out with my Cuttlebug and an oval nestie and all went well! I sat it on top of the card to see how it looked and decided it needed something else, so I grab my small ink pads and go around the edges with ink to make it "pop" a bit more! Got them all finished inking, pop dotted the image on the card and decided I didn't like the inking at all, LOL I decided to put it away for the day and come back to it today! My friend informed me that she uses her punches or nesties to do the sentiments and I realized I hadn't even thought about my punches as I so rarely use them! So, today I came back in and chose a font, set the words up in Silhouette Studio and wrote them out in colors to match the bakers twine. I found two square punches that I thought would work, but one was too small and one too large, so I went with the larger one, LOL I punched them out and rounded the corners and stuck them down with pop dots again! I am not overly thrilled with the sentiment squares but they are staying that way as I am done!!! THIS is why I rarely get anything done as it takes me SO long to do one small project that I am worn out afterwards, LOL Anyways, I hope your day is going great and you have had the chance to do something you love as well!!

Thursday, February 26, 2015

When Boredom Strikes!

I was sitting here tonight, not tired enough to go to bed, nothing worth watching on TV so I decided to go through my drawers in my Paper Playground and just see what I have! While searching, I found my bin of glue dots I made one night out of hot glue sticks on wax paper! They can be used for insides of flowers or just deco on a card or scrapbook page. So, my mind went in overdrive and I decided I would finally try melting down some pony beads to see how they look! I did a quick Pinterest Check to find the right temp to bake them at and went to town! I just grabbed a misc pile of beads out of another bin, arranged them without touching (Ok, I failed a bit on a few as when I went to put it in the oven, they moved) and stuck them in the oven for 10 minutes at 425! They were ready in exactly 10 minutes!!! I will admit, the smell is rather raunchy and probably not good for you somehow, but I was tickled with them when I pulled them out! Here is the first shot of them out of the oven:
And here they are again, mixed in with my hot glue beads! It's a great way to get a color that the hot glue doesn't come in!
Thanks for looking and have a wonderful remainder of the week- Keep warm if at all possible!!! *Hugs*

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Ninja Turtle Easter Bucket

I finally broke down and finished up the last of my Easter Buckets for the Great Niece and Great Nephews! I made the Ninja Turtle File myself from an online image in Silhouette Studio- SO simple there!!!! I'm loving my Cameo AND the software! When I first got my Cameo, I was determined to not use the studio software as I was a die hard SCAL user! I couldn't wait to use SCAL4 and cut directly from it, BUT, I discovered Silhouette Studio and haven't looked back!!!! I have updated SCAL4, but no matter what I do, it freezes up and shuts down on me everytime I try to use the specialty parts of it, so I gave up! This was a simple project and all went well without any mishaps believe it or not!! I couldn't sleep the other night so thought I would go start on it (a project usually takes me a long time due to all the mishaps along the way), but this one cut perfect, went together perfect and I was astonished at finishing it so quickly!!! I will admit, I don't care for the font "Turtles" that I used as it looks scrunched and wrinkled even though it isn't. IF I were to do it again, I would surely choose another font! I layered this by eyeballing it and it is obvious in a few places, but my great nephew, 1.5 will never know it! Thanks for taking the time to look at yet, another of my projects of love! *Hugs*

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Mom's Chalkboard

For a project that was super simple, this one became a pain quite quickly!!! I painted it last night and while it was drying, I walked into the kitchen to fix me a fresh Diet Mt Dew. When I moved my arm, I felt something wet and looked down at my side and danged if my entire right side of my shirt was white and my arm to boot!!! I have NO clue how I got so much paint on me at once, Ohhhh, wait, yes I do- it JUST hit me- I crumbled up the newspaper I had the paint poured onto and held it under my arm for a minute while I put the paint back in its container!!!! Thankfully it all washed out of my shirt and off my arm! I got up this morning, after being up hours last night on Wordmarkit, looking for the right font, and started looking again when someone shared Nexus Font with me! It is a program that allows you to write what you want, choose font size, color etc and you can see how it looks with each of the fonts in your system installed or not!! I LOVE it! I spent another good hour looking through, finding one I liked and typing out my words in Silhouette Studio until I had a page full of them. Then I slowly weeded it down to two! I cut both of them, thankfully, as when I was weeding them, I managed to get one stuck to itself and couldn't salvage it. I got the words on the chalkboard, was quite tickled with myself that all went well, when I saw it- it was as crooked as all get out, LOL I sat it down and walked off! A little bit later, I went back in and got some fresh transfer tape and stuck it on top of the word "Don't" only, then used my spatula to slowly peel it up and stick it to the transfer tape! It isn't "perfect" but it is close enough and staying as it is!!! The pictures aren't the greatest, but here is the first and second tries! Hope everyone is staying safe and warm with the horrible weather many are having! *Hugs*

Monday, February 16, 2015

My Newly Made Over Room!

Well, one day last month I had the bright idea to paint the wall around my fireplace in my Paper Playground! Upon finishing, I decided I wanted the whole room done as I loved the color! Three weeks later and I am finally done, except rehanging all my wind chimes! I am LOVING it!!! The color was decided by Glidden, as they had an ad online way back when where you could get a free quart of paint. They had several colors to choose from, but I fell in love with the "Sexy Pink" and ordered it. It sat, unused, for ages until it popped in my head that night last month! I have a larger counter top coming next week, but I put that one up there just to see if I liked it or not. My parents did a total remodel of their kitchen and gave me their old counter tops! They are using the one I plan on using until the top for their new island comes in as it was a special order product due to size. I have a new project to start on later today (painting a chalk board and putting a small vinyl piece on it for my mom's kitchen), but I did get to play around in there this week while paint was drying, LOL The white "A" on the wall, was once a beautiful sparkly pink color (almost the identical color of my walls), but it couldn't stay pink as you wouldn't see it on the walls!! So, problem easily solved, grab a jar of white paint, paint it twice and once dry, apply a third cover and sprinkle on white glitter!!! Yeah, we know it isn't that easy for me, LOL The stupid white glitter would NOT come out of the jar no matter how much I shook it. No problem, I can handle this, just mix the white paint with the white glitter and paint it on, instant beautification!!! Yeah, NOT!!!! I had a gloppy goopy mess, LOL So, Ok, wash it off and let's try it again- well, wouldn't you know ALL the paint plus the original glitter washed off in one easy rinse, LOL So, I slapped some white paint on it, let it dry and added another coat, left it over night and nailed it to the wall this morning, LOL It "could" have used another coat really as some of the pink faintly shows through but it is staying just as it is as it took me dang forever to get all the newspaper off of the back and sides, LOL Never a dull moment around here though!!! *Hugs* PS- The two slates above the fireplace (one with the glue gun and one with the scissors) ARE level, but the slanted ceiling makes them look uneven! I used a ruler set on top of the fireplace mantle to mark my nail spots so I know they are level! Trying to decide if I want to bring the glue gun one down a little just to make them "LOOK" level even if they won't be!