From the Heart{h}

Hello my All Things Unity friends!!  It’s time for another challenge.  And this time we’re coming from the heart{h}.  What’s a hearth you say?  I mean it’s not like it’s an everyday word anymore.  It was the place in front of the fireplace that was used for cooking.  That’s why we are using anything food related.

For our cherry bling earrings, it was just stamped with Green StazOn on Shrink Plastic, colored with sharpies & Faber Castell markers then of course shrunk.  I added just a smidge of Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the green cherry then added the earrings.

Just a simple cute little 4x4 card.  I figured I do something a little different than fruit.  And who doesn’t like cake?  Cut our yellow Bazzill to 3.5x3.5 and stamped with our sentiment.  Colored the cake with Copics and added to the base with some of my new favorite adhesive.  I’m loving Helmar.  First, when I met Tracy and I was talking about a problem I was having about my Crop-a-dile she said try the Remove Cleaner.  At first I was skeptical because let’s face it, we’ve all had someone try to sell us on something.  But over the weekend the more I used Helmar the more I got sold on the idea it might work.  Well let me just tell you I busted out the can and my crop a dile is acting like it’s brand new.  Why am I telling you about this now?  Because I used my crop a dile on my earrings and I used my ZapDots on this card.  So I’m totally loving Helmar right now!!

Now for you challenge players.  If you want a chance at the Flower Soft prize for this month this is your last chance to play.  So please come join us over at All Things Unity.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Craft Fair

Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa is a craft that is going to be going on this coming May in Athens, Georgia.  And if all goes right, it will be my first craft show.  I’ve been doing some prepping.  However I’m trying not to do too much until I know for sure we are in.

I did however make some jewelry pieces so they could have some sample ideas of what I would offer.  We (my sister, a friend & I ) were going to use the name Eclectic Chic but found out we could sign up under individual names.  Well I figured for selling purposes I would keep it for myself, I thought it fit.  Then Abra & I started talking and thought for our booth we might call ourselves Eclectic Chic{ks}.

		Eclectic Chic VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I also thought I might even go so far and offer some paper crafting goodness {wink, wink} like…

I would love to know what you think.  I would also love to know what experiences you have had and any advice you have.

Outdoorsy

We’re heading outdoors!!  Ok, so some of us are.  I’m not, hehe.  My mom & I are heading to Charlotte to CKC.  However Kimme, our cutie pie host this month, is going camping this weekend.  She wants us to take our creations outdoors nonetheless.  That’s why she issued us a color challenge with outdoorsy colors (her words), greens & browns.  I went with that & with some wildflowers too.  If you’re coming here from All Things Unity then you’ve already seen the tutorial, if not then you might want to go over then to check it out.

In doing this technique, I’ve really gotten to love this stamp for it.

Now I’m ready for my picnic with my other girls…

Christi
Jimmi
Kim
Kimme
Sherry
 

If you are wondering as to where you can get kits, I do have plenty left over from when I taught this.  Please feel free to contact me if you have questions.

My Girls

For you that don’t know I was able to make it CHA a couple of weeks ago.  I can’t believe it’s been a couple of weeks already.
Before I went I wanted to make up little gifts for my girls.  I was able (ok, so I only remembered) to get a picture of a couple of them.

Not all of them had watch pieces and I made all of them were made to match their favorite color.  I tried to make all of them unique.
In the next few weeks I’m hoping to being selling these in my etsy store.  If you have any requests let me know and I’ll go ahead and start putting something together.

Being Destructive

Once upon a time my very first paying job I worked at K-Mart.  One of my jobs there was working in a department they referred to as being Dept. 605.  Department 605 was the area they brought things that were broken, missing parts, open or just generally needed to be returned to the manufacturer or destroyed.  I gotta tell you I loved working in this area.  I would break out my hammer and get to breaking things and it was FUN!!  People would come back there and ask me if I was mad, I would look up with a big grin on my face wondering what they were talking about.

Lately in some of my projects I’ve been using watch parts.  Now I realize there are some places you can get watch parts already taken apart for you, but what’s the fun in that.  I have a bunch of old watches and have acquired some.  Got my small & light weight hammer out, and I’ve gotten to work.  It’s been FUN!!  This is just one of the projects I’ve made using my “being destructive” parts… hehe.

(sorry about the pic, I had already brought it to work to give as a gift because the girl was leaving that day & used my iPhone to take the photo)

I think it turned out pretty cool.  I used Ice Resin, Watch Parts, Making Memories “brad” letter, & Pearl Ex.  It didn’t take long to do & came out awesome.

La’ Chaim

This post will be a little personal.

La’Chaim – To life.

This is going to be a little bit about my heritage.  And a little about history.  Back during World War II, there was a period of time called the holocaust. I’m not going to go into a spouting about what that was about.  I just know that if I had lived during that time as the person that I am today I would have been affected in two ways.  1)  I, ethnically speaking, am Jewish  2)  I am a Jehovah’s Witness

During the holocaust, it is widely known that Jews were affected and greatly persecuted.  They were forced to wear yellow stars of David to identify them from  others in the concentration camps.  However there were other groups that were treated the same way.  They were just identified with different patches of cloth.  With Jehovah’s Witnesses it was swatches of purple cloth in the form of triangles.

It is a sad reflection of our history as humans and what we are capable of.  However that is not the point of this post.

Not that long ago I got a pendant from Amate Studios, it was a triangle.  As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.  It was just a matter of figuring out the execution.  I sat down the other night and let the muse/mojo take over.

I mixed some Ice Resin with Pearl Ex and away I poured.  But as it cured/set I wasn’t happy with it being so plain.  What could I do?  Then I got an idea.  I grabbed my Kabuka Mold from Ten Seconds studio and found the word I wanted to use & that most importantly that would fit.  However if I just pressed it against the mold itself it would be reversed, what was I going to do?  I grabbed some scrap metal & put it on top and ran over it with my stylus.  Pressed it into the hardening resin and let it finish setting.  Once it was finished setting I pulled it off and this is what I had.  I did rub most Rub On Metallic from Craf-T.  So even if you can’t tell there’s a word on there it was a great looking texture to it.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

I hope I haven’t completely bored you with a little look into me & my history.

A Sparkly Whimsical Day

It’s the close to another month.  Can you believe we’ve already been through 5 months to this year already?  I can’t!!  We had such a wonderful sponsor and I had a wonderful time playing with the stamps they sent us to play with.  I can’t wait to play with them more in the future.

I would like to give one more huge than you to Lynette and Randi to arranging everything and taking care of us.  They were both so wonderful.  THANKS again!!

As for June, we have a little something up our sleeves but you’ll have to tune in next week to find out.  And when I say little I actually mean…

HUGE!!

This week’s challenge we still have guest sketch-ers stepping in… Kim Ross’s daughters, Kaeli & Emilie.  Their challenge (hehe) is to sparkle it up.  For me that’s not really a challenge.

I’ve been kinda on a jewelry kick lately and came across a pendant I had that was a tree with a moon on it.  I cut off the pendant bail and went to work, sparkles and all.  I really like what I came up with.  I hope the sparkles come across.

The sparkles/jewels are the Sakura Gem set.  I got it at the CHA Supershow and finally got a chance to break it out and play with it.  I now can’t wait to play some more.

Gotta get some more sparkly fix?  Check out the Whimsical Dare blog for more challenge details and links to the other girls’ blogs.

A Bird & Ninjas

At this point I’m sure you are wondering, huh?  I know I would be.  Talk about two opposites.  Hopefully by the end it will make more sense.

As you know besides loving to stamp, I love making jewelry.  I wanted to make a pendant for my sister.  My sister is into artsy and more dainty type pendants.  When I was in Hobby Lobby the other day I saw the stuff they had from Vintaj immediately started getting ideas on what to make for her.  This is what I finally came up with and this is where the bird comes in.

As I was taking the photos of the pendant and a few other projects while I was at my sister’s house.  My nephew decided to be my photographer’s assistant.  He was so cute, even wanted to take a few photos himself.  Then he posed his ninjas and told me I had to take a pic of them too.  So this is in honor of my trust photog assistant.  Thanks babe for all your help ;)

Hopefully that explained the bird and ninjas collaboration.

Mad Scientist

Feeling somewhat like a mad scientist the last few nights.  I’ve started broadening my horizons just a little, yeah like I needed that.  Then with the liquids and the mixing, MWAHAHAHAHA, ok sorry. Anyway, I’ve been having fun and I have to admit.  The thing is the part I like the most is that it’s actually turned out how it looked in my head (which rarely happens).  I know, I know stop babbling…

 

I used so many different products on this, really makes Mixed Media meaning come true.  Here’s just a short list:

Supplies:  Ice Resin, Pearl Ex – Aztec Gold & Antique Silver, Metallic Rub On, Rock Candy Distress Crackle, Hero Arts Jewel, Metal Sheets, Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch, Woman Mold, Delight Air Dry Modeling Compound, Floral from Wal-Mart

I’m Seeing A Theme

Ok, it’s just a theme in my stuff this week.  I seem to be on a roll with all the vintage schtuff.  I hope you aren’t going to be sick of it by the time I’m finished.

First things first, as I promised I got the pictures of not only my Bubbie but of my Zadie too.  I will only post a couple because lemme tell you a scanned quite a few.  Now just to choose the few to show you…hmmm.

ok, I won’t put up anymore but I setup a Flickr set if you want to see all of them.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered another stamp company… I know, I know like we need to discover another one.  This one is called Sweet Impressions Stamps and I gotta tell ya I fell in love with their vintage images.  I was supposed to work with them this weekend in Columbia, SC but then it snowed here in the deep south.   Well we’re not prepared for no snow, no siree bob.  So I wasn’t able to go, but I did make this for the occasion nonetheless.

Stamps:  All Sweet Impressions Stamps – Margery, Monique & Mary
Paper: Poly Shrink
Ink: Black Staz On
Extras: Blue Moon Chain & Charms, Misc Toggle Clasp, Sharpies

You Give My Heart Wings

I’m so glad to be home again… relaxing… fit kicked up… sitting in my comfy chair.  This weekend I worked Heirloom Pro Stamp Festival.  I was working with DeNami Designs… THEY ARE AWESEOME!!!  Had so much fun with them.  Plus they have really cute stuff.

The night before I went though however I wanted to make something to wear while I worked.  This was what I came up with.

Stamps: Following My Heart (Aug 09 KoM), Simple Life (Mar 09 KoM)
Ink: Versafine Black, Distress Ink Broken China, Weathered Wood, Shabby Shutters, Old Paper, Fired Brick
Paper: Marco’s Paper – Watercolor Paper
Extras: Silver Chain, Acrylic Slides, Perfect Pearls, Hero Arts Jewels, Silver Tape, Blue Moon Charm

Noticing a Trend

While a CHA I gotta tell ya I noticed kinda a trend in a lot of the Make and Takes.  I’m not complaining because I kinda like it.  There was jewelry everywhere. 

Whether it was from Ranger (Claudine Hellmuth), Hero Arts (Jennifer McGuire), GCD, Ideology by Advantus.

And more from Ranger and one especially made by Mrs. Suze Weinberg herself. 

Of course there was more I just didn’t in anyway have time to make it all, there was some at Making Memories and so much more.

Bling Bling

Being though I haven't been able to spend much time in my craft room I've been on a jewelry making kick. In my living room where I do my jewelry my back doesn't hurt as bad. I made this bracelet the other night and it only took me about an hour. I really like it. I have a couple of ideas in my head that I want to make that I'll see about making over the next week.

Slightly Different

I've been in the process of trying to reorganize my craft room and if you had seen it before I started you would understand why it's taking so long (yes, I did take pics...for some reason my card is acting up but I'm trying to trick it into behaving). This is besides the fact that I have to take it all slow because of the whole "healing" thing...BOO!! Hence I've been pulling out some other play toys. Including some pretties for me...LIKE THIS...

I've already worn it and I really like it. The earrings were a lot easier to make then I expected, even if they included seed beads.
I have another one that I'm about to work on, we'll see how that one will turn out because when I started playing with it a little tonight it wasn't starting out as planned.

I'm Giddy!!

Ok, I did something tonight that I've never done.  I played with Polyshrink.  It was so much fun that I'm afraid that it might become addictive.

I got the idea to dig it out and try it because of Ashley's weekly Etsy challenge.  This week's store is Dragonfly Fine Designs.  I was thinking about using her Diaper & Wipe Carrier as my inspiration.  However then I got to thinking I wanted to do something besides make a card.  And since I've been making jewelry this last week (I know I haven't shown it to you yet but I will shortly.  I don't want the people I'm giving it to to see it yet)

Anyway now I'll stop babbling long enough to show you what I  did.  Granted it did take me a few tries before I got it all figured out.  I used Unity Stamp Co - Delectable Delights with Stazon Ink which I then colored in with Copics.  Big thing to do is to make sure that you sand the polyshrink before you use it or the ink won't color in that well.  Also, for me when I went over the Stazon lines with the coloring it wanted to lift it off so I learned to avoid them like the plague, unless I wanted to go over it on purpose.

 

Ok, here's a close up if you want to check it out.