I just wanted to pop in with an apology. I offended many of you with my WOYWW post earlier today. While my part of the east coast was spared from Hurricane Sandy I realize thousands of people were not so lucky. My heart goes out to everyone who endured the worst of it and I wish you health, safety and a swift cleanup. I am truly and deeply sorry for anyone I offended.
Lindsay
Month: October 2012
WOYWW: Rock Me Like a Hurricane!
***Edited to add an apology to anyone one I offended who may have read the first two sentences of my blog post and nothing more. I did not mean to downplay the seriousness of Hurricane Sandy, not at all. Weather forecasters were predicting that we (in Maine) could have several inches of rain and a couple of feet of snow and we lucked out. I feel sorry for anyone who has been hurt, lost property or who have friends suffering with the storm. I wish people would read an entire post before becoming outraged and jumping down my throat. End edit*****
Huh, I just noticed that I have used song titles in all of my posts this week…whatdya know? Hurricane Sandy came and went and despite the prediction that it would be (another) storm of the century it was nothing but some wind and rain for us in central/eastern Maine. My heart goes out to all the folks on the Eastern Seaboard south of Portland that got hit hard and lost homes, businesses ad loved ones. I spent yesterday listing to the thunder and rain, making earrings and watching Doctor Who (Yes! another awesome British TV show on Netflix!!!) Speaking of awesome British things it is time for What’s on your workdesk Wednesday hosted by Julia at the Stamping ground. Check out my hot mess this week:
I went through a couple miscellaneous bins of bead soup and organized my glass beads by color, put away stray findings, cords and other odds and ends that I have picked up but not stored properly and as I sorted I pulled beads to make jewelery with. I was asked to help a couple of Junior Girl Scouts earn their jewelry badge so I figured it was a good time to reorganize and consolidate so I could fit everything back in one tote again…I’ll post picks of my newly organized storage another day. For now, here are my glass beads, looking at their organized goodness makes me happy!!!
I wanted to share a cheap and easy earring packaging idea with you: Cut ATC sided cards, stamp ona frame, poke two holes for the earrings and slip them in clear trading card baggies.
It keeps them clean and from getting lost at a craft fair or in a shop. I write the price on the back in pencil so the buyer and erase it if it is for a gift. I sell my earrings for $5 and they move briskly!
Well, that’s it for me today! I have to get ready to take the kids Trick-or-Treating tonight. A few of us are starting the night’s adventure from my house so I am making a pot of veggie chili and I am going to put out the decorations I made yesterday (I’ll snap a pic of my table tonight!) I hope we keep the tropical temperatures that Sandy brought with her so the kids don’t have to wear their winter coats over their costumes…I’m just glad we are not going out in 2 feet of snow! Oh and an update on the coffeepot, still nor working, I’m gonna toss it, but luckily my espresso machine is running just fine, here is what is in my cup this morning, a large soy-latte:
Not bad, eh? Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
They Call Me the Voodoo Woman…
Oh, yeah! I have the Koko Taylor song “Voodoo Woman” playing in my head right now! Today I have a Halloween/Day of the Dead/Voodoo Juju project going on. But wait! First I want to let you know that everything at Lindsay’s Stamp stuff is 40% off today and tomorrow! No Tricks, only a treat for you…hey, even the voodoo woman’s gotta pay the bills LOL! OK, enough of that foolishness, this week I have been playing with one of the humblest of art supplies: Plaster of Paris. Lookie what I made:
I made a bunch of the skulls bones and fingers by pouring plaster of paris in Halloween ice-cube molds I got at the dollar tree. This would be great for Christmas ornaments too when the Christmas themed molds are out. Also you can use candy molds. I am helping the librarian with the Day of the Dead craft this week (She had made 50 real sugar skulls for the kids to decorate!) and I came up with this as an additional craft for the kids to make. Instead of sugar I used glitter from Papermart. The fingers and bones are for my Halloween home decor project. Here is how I did it:
What I think is fun is that you can give someone the finger this Halloween! Hardy-har-har…I can’t resist a good pun.
Other things to do with Plaster…
- DIY Sidewalk Chalk: Mix tempera paint or food coloring to the water before adding plaster and pour into molds or toilet paper tubes wrapped in plastic wrap for custom colorful sticks of chalk!
- DIY Chalk Paint: Mix one part plaster of paris to 2 parts latex paint for a beautiful opaque matt paint. Seal with a rub on wax for a satin finish.
- Faux Paper Mache: dip strips of gauze or newspaper in plaster of paris for a quick drying sculpture material!
I hope I gave you some fun ideas on using plaster of Paris. Let me know if you have any questions and til next time happy crafting!
Woo hoo witchy woman {see how high she files…)
Happy Monday! I have has a cross between the song Gypsy Woman and Witchy Woman stuck in my head since Saturday when I volunteered to play the fortune-teller at my kids’ school (and yes, I scrapped it already…patting myself on the back as we speak LOL!) All weekend I have been singing the song Witchy Woman but saying “gypsy” instead of “witchy” because in general I am clueless about song lyrics and let’s face, it the song Witchy Woman rocks way more than Gypsy Woman so that is my theme song this week. So there.
Raven hair, ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertip…that lyric inspired the glitter/sequin treatment on this page. After I had the page all laid out with photos and everything I dipped a fan brush in my Homemade Glitteriffic Glam paint and made big random swirls on the page. It was a bit of a leap of faith because I printed the photos 10 minutes earlier and I wasn’t sure the printer ink was dry. I am a rebel I tell you. Then I left it the heck alone to dry which only took a few minutes on the paper. Yay future floor wax! Here is a peek at my journaling, I rarely type it but I had a bit of space on the photo paper I printed the pictures on so rather than waste it I typed out my story.
For the title I wanted it to be a bit mystical, as in appear and disappear, so I used a scrap of metallic gold sign vinyl (my SIL works at a banner & sign shop and she gives me the scraps that are too small for their machines) and cut out the words “Gypsy Woman” using the gypsy font and my Cricut. Here is the deal for cutting contact paper or sticky back vinyl with you electronic die cutter. Use a depth of 3-4 and pressure at low. It will cut the vinyl but not the backing paper. The you can peel off the waste and you are left with just the letters and that is easy to deal with. Here is the title as it catches the light:
As for embellishments I kept it simple, Just a few sequins. I wanted to share how I made the background paper. I got an awesome stamp called Articulated Skeleton from Lost Coast Designs all of the bones are separate so for the background I just slapped all the stamps randomly on my Rock-a-block and stamped away on a sheet of very subtle pattern paper. Then I placed a wall stencil down and sprayed it with ink. I cleaned my stamp and switched to a standard flat acrylic block and stamped out the skeleton, bone by bone, on a piece of black cardstock, tor the edge and stapled it to the page. The leaf die cuts were done on a Sizzix Eclips when I was testing one out for my kid’s school, I had inked them and hot glued them on. Pretty fun, artsy and easy!
I have to be honest, I had the page background done a month ago, I was just waiting for some Halloween photos to put in. I really like “pre-scrapping” because I have no fear of wasting the perfect photo, it is so freeing, you should try it sometime!
You might be wondering how I did as a “psychic”, well, not too bad judging from the long line of customers I had all night. But I must say towards the end I was running out of material, I actually told one kid that he was going to move to Peru and be an Emu farmer…do they even have Emus in Peru? And I did it all in costume with a thick Eastern European accent that sounded like a cross between Angelica Houston in the movie “The Witches” and Balki from the 80’s TV show “Perfect Strangers.” The PTG got their money’s worth that night…wait, I worked for free…ha ha, beggars can’t be choosers I guess.
woo hoo witchy woman see how high she flies
woo hoo witchy woman she got the moon in her eye…Happy crafting!
One of these days I’m just going to buy a cake…
I say it every year, the night before my kid’s birthday “next year I am buying a cake!” but for some reason I never do. Well, there was that year when my son turned 2 and my twins were a month old. That year I ordered a “Blues Clues” cake but other than that I have made them all. I even looked at the pre-made cakes at the supermarket but none of them were what I, or rather my son, wanted. He wanted to take “Angry Bird” cupcakes to school and, well, Angry Birds are pretty simple and I figured I could whip up a batch post-haste:
Many times I make my own cakes because being a vegan I cannot eat store-bought cakes with eggs and milk in them. I had no desire for my normal, heavy, dense cupcakes so I made Jackson’s cupcakes with fresh eggs from our chickens. I was a bit afraid because someone told me that fresh eggs bake differently but luckily the were light and fluffy, what a concept!
I used to make my frosting from scratch, the stiff, untasty, decorating stuff but a couple of years ago I decided that the kids would rather have frosting that, I don’t know, tastes good so I went over to the dark side and embraced the Pillsbury! I took 2 tins of vanilla icing and divided them (BTW I made a batch of chocolate and white cake-that’s why the 2 containers of frosting) and tinted it blue, green, yellow and red and iced the cupcakes a solid color. The eyeballs were flattened mini marshmallows with a chocolate chip stuck in. The beaks were candy corn dipped in yellow frosting (fancy, I know), the angry eyebrows were black licorice…a note about black licorice: buy licorice whips and not Twizzlers unless you want to spend a lot of time cutting the thick ropes into this strips. The Zombie pig teeth were flattened mini marshmallows cut into 8ths and the snouts were the marshmallows dipped in green frosting, I only had mini marshmallows left over from my homemade marshmallow shooters (don’t worry, it was a fresh bag!) but I think the snouts would be better from standard marshmallows. I am a make-do kind of girl especially the night before a birthday LOL!
So, there you have it, easy angry bird cupcakes! Now I have a year to forget that I hate baking before I make another batch LOL! I hope everyone in the path of the “Superstorm” heading up the east coast is prepared and safe, I have heard we may get a few inches of rain AND snow but it won’t be the first year I’ve taken the kids trick-or-treating in the snow, plus, I’m a Mainer ans we are pretty hardy folks! Stay safe and til next time happy crafting!
Ping-Pong Balls + Coffee Cans = FUN!
Hello! And Happy Saturday! It is the last day of soccer for us and tonight is the big Halloween party at my kids’ school. When I met with another PTG mom this week to look over the games and decorations we had for the party we found a tote full of large, clean coffee tins that they were going to throw away, “oh no you don’t I’ll take those!” I had grand plan of a game to make with them. Well,I was quite lazy this week (the medical term would be Caffeine Deficiency) so I conned my children and one of their friends into making this game for the party:
“Hey kids! Wanna make a fun game for the Halloween party!?!” I say with enthusiasm (Just call me Tom Sawyer)
“Yeah!” They cheer
“OK, there is the paper, markers, google eyes, scissors and hot glue gun-don’t burn yourselves-I’ll go make you and your friends dinner while you work” Then I popped a Stoffers lasagna in the oven, splashed a little flour on my face for authenticity, made myself a cup of tea and read a magazine. It’s the easiest holiday fair game ever. The funny thing is my daughters friend says “I love everything you cook Mrs. Weirich” ha ha, now don’t tell my secret!
This is a “play til you win” game. The cans are filled with cheesy prizes. Toss ping-pong balls until you land one in a can then you get to pick a prize from that can. Easy peasy.
I hope you have a great Saturday! I have to go get my crew in cleats, shinguards and uniforms for the last time. Til next time happy crafting!
Glitter it {Just a Little Bit!}
Woohoo, It’s Friday and I’m playing with glitter!!! update on my coffeepot situation-the coffee maker is still not working BUT I rooted around in my basement last night and found my old espresso machine and I must say after 4 shots of hazelnut espresso I am feeling pretty optimistic! That, and I get to have lunch with 4 of my favorite people today, it’s gonna be a good one! Oh, yes back to the glitter, check out the glitteriffic glaze I made:
The glitter I used and the pots I put the paint in are from Papermart. The glitter is super fine and only .99 cents a tube! Look at the glittery goodness!
It is so simple! Here is a video showing how I made the paint as well as many other ideas on using glitter. I will warn you I am a bit giddy here, there might be some singing….If loving glitter is crazy I don’t wanna be sane!
So, do you want to play with glitter now? Here are the glittered cards from the video. It is nice to be able to do the glitter sheet technique without the adhesive sheet. I had a thought after doing the video that you could also use spray adhesive (aerosol spray glue) over the colored panel and glitter and not need the embossing powder, even better!
Well that’s it for today, I have Thai food in my future then it is off the set up games for the Halloween party at the school, the PTG put me in charge of games this year and I was a bit nervous but I think I have it under control…false sence of confidence? Yep, the caffeine is doing its job LOL! Have a great weekend and til next time happy crafting!
Tutorial: How to Emboss Without a Machine!
Day 2, broken coffee maker. Nuff said. I did manage to hot-wire a cup by pouring boiling water over grinds in a filter again and it is nice to know that during a zombie apocalypse I will still be able to make a decent cup of coffee, because hey, without the caffeine my brain wouldn’t even be fit for a zombie. I am a regular pioneer woman! Speaking of making do without a machine I am going to show you how to emboss paper without a die-cutting or embossing machine. It will be a good skill to have when the zombie apocalypse happens…or if you just don’t want to shell out the money for another expensive craft gadget. Here is a card I made with paper I embossed by hand:
So by now the 90% of you who have die-cutting machine are thinking “see you later, I’ll just use my machine thanks!” But wait, if you are embossing old-school you can emboss paper larger that what will fit in your machine, like, um, say a scrapbook page. Grab a cup of coffee (If you are lucky enough to have one) and check out my video tutorial…if I seem mellow today…it would be due to lack of caffeine 🙂
Easy huh? If you have any questions leave a comment and I will answer them. I’m off to fix my coffeemaker, apparently the ‘leaving it alone and hope it straightens itself out’ method is not working. Til next time happy crafting!
WOYWW: Glitter and a Broken Coffee Pot…
OK, Most weeks I post my What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday post on Tuesday night because the WOYWW phenomenon originated in England (and Wednesday comes earlier there) so I feel cool, hip, and ‘in the know’. I have been feeling especially hip, saucy and I daresay ‘cheeky’, this week because I found a treasure trove of French & Saunders radio show episodes on You Tube and I have been listing to those hilarious broads all week. Today though, I feel neither hip not hilarious because I awoke to a broken coffee pot. I splashed water on the LCD screen of the machine while washing dishes yesterday (nothing good ever comes out of housework!) and now it won’t work until it is fully dried out. Whaaa. I have been trying to rig up a cup of joe this morning by slowly pouring boiling water over a filter of coffee grounds…I have a bit done…I’ll let you know how it turns out at the end of this post.
Oh, you don’t care? You are here for the desk? Alright then, this week I have been playing with glitter:
I tried the glitter sheet stamping technique with new cheap (as in 99 cents a BIG tube) glitter from Papermart and it worked better than the other, more expensive stuff I had. Score! I am working on a new glitter video and here is a shot of my desk BEFORE I cleaned it:
Yikes! And yes, that is a pair of combat boots, freshly glittered, you see there. I have to say that I can’t think of a better way to spend a day than listing to French & Saunders while playing with glitter! Happy!!! I am beginning to think that the British have it all going on…they have Sherlock, AbFab, and awesome accents.
Fo those who are wondering, I just poured my first cup of experimental coffee and it’s not bad. It tastes like French pressed…ohhh, maybe I’ll call it ‘French & Saunders Pressed!’ I feel hipper already! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
PS wanna see more desks? Check out the Stamping ground for What’s on your Workdesk Wednesday!
The Frugal Crafter Blog 