A New Camera & Watercolor Wash 3 Ways!

Howdy folks! I thought you might be tired of the non zooming out of focus videos I have been sharing since I dropped my good video camera so yesterday I bit the bullet and bought a new one. I agonized over the choices, decided on one, but was still hesitant to buy thinking maybe shooting video on my daughters point & shoot cyber-shot was OK, and it was OK but not really what I wanted (plus, hello, I certainly did not want to drop HER camera!) So I decided to go with a Samsung H90, it had everything I wanted (and stuff I didn’t know I wanted until I read about it LOL!) and it was what I wanted to spend (about $150) and I am pleased as punch with it. Here is a still picture I took with it:

Examples of Open Drip, Wet in wet and controlled wash.

And here is the video, testing out the camera and showing how to do watercolor washes, 2 birds, one stone;)

I didn’t edit the video, I uploaded it straight to you tube using the intelli-studio software that came with it. You can edit with the software too but I wanted to see what the raw video looked like, good enough for me! BTW I took it to my sons Little League game last night (he pitched the entire game-a shutout!!!) and I could zoom right in and get a great shot of him pitching, the camera has 52x optical zoom! Not bad for $136 including sales tax! The camera also happens to be on sale until tomorrow at Best Buy and my store had a promotion that let me save $20 more so I am one happy videographer! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

No ribbon? No problem! Make paper bows!

Howdy folks! I love how old supplies always come back around. When I started scrapbooking 10 years ago there were tiny spools of paper ribbon, similar in texture to raffia, being sold at my local scrapbook shop. Well, paper ribbon and cord is back again and nobody has better price, selection and colors than Papermart. I will have many projects coming up with this stuff but today I want to show you how to make a puffy bow using twisted paper cord, check it out:

Now that was easy and it will give a “wow” on any gift you add it too! You can even make award ribbons out of the twisted paper cord for party favors and festival prizes. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

WOYWW & Ask a Crafter Week 6!

Hi Folks! It’s Wednesday and time for your weekly glimpse into my creative space. The fact that I have been able to create anything in here is a miracle! You know how when you have one home improvement project going the rest of the house goes downhill fast? Well, case in point, my studio! I have been ripping up my old kitchen tiles and trying the save the floor underneath and I must say I have never been so discouraged with a project! At lease once a day I have to escape to my craft fortress of solitude and make something however I have not been so inspired to clean up after myself. Today I will by golly, I will! So, what that huge disclaimer here is my What’s on you Workdesk Wednesday photo:

BTW, after seeing all of the cool Gelli plate art on fellow WOYWWers desks I had a go at making my own and I made one and it works like a dream, recipe here if you are interested. You’re welcome.

And because it is Wednesday it is time for Ask a Crafter! Oh joy, how lucky for you, 3 pages of questions, 40 minutes of video, I suggest you just press play, crank the volume and go about doing chores or crafting, while you listen…nothing to see here folks LOL!

That’s it for me today. If you want to see other crafty desks head over to Julia’s blog for the complete list of WOYWW players! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

A winner and another resist card!

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone is recovering from the long Memorial Day weekend! Last week I had an About Art Accents stamp giveaway and today I can announce the randomly drawn winner: Rita Ruff! Congrats Rita, I have sent you an email so check your spam folder if you have not seen it yet! here is another card made with the resist technique from last week and some of my homemade gelatin print paper:

I use another stamp From About Art Accents on that card too! Also I scanned some of my favorite gelatin prints and I have packaged them in a printable kit for sale, if you are interested you can find them in my shop.

Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

Happy Memorial Day!

The sun is shining! The floor solvent fumes have dissipated, the kitchen floor is not done but I did manage to de-sticky the original floor that was exposed, I’ll wait til the kids are back in school to remove the remaining tiles and adhesive, no need for all of our lungs and brain cells to suffer LOL! P.U.! I plan to get outside and enjoy this sunny day! Before I do I want to share a simple necklace I made last month but never got around to posting:

I used 3 strands of tiger tail. I put the large glass beads on first then strung on e beads in red, clear and blue and loosely braided them before securing the ends with crimps and a toggle clasp. Very summery. Very Maine.

That all for me today! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

A Permanent Gelatin Printing Plate (Hectograph), an Annoying Project & a Birthday Card…

…what a weekend! Let me start off with my annoying project of the week that I am bound and determined to complete this weekend…tearing out the kitchen vinyl floor.  It all started Tuesday night when I thought the dishwasher was leaking, some of the cheapo vinyl tiles we installed many years ago were lifting and since we planned on replacing the floor this year anyway I thought it would be a great time to rip them all out. Well, the wet tiles came up as easy as can be but the rest of the floor was another story. I figured that pouring boiling water over the tiles then scraping them up was the best route as the heat loosened the adhesive and the indestructible 1970’s toganol underneath would protect the sub-floor…oh did I mention we were going to go back the the glitter infused togonal until I decided what to replace it with? Oh yeah, baby, it is gold, black, brown and glitter, sweet! At lease muddy dog print don’t show ha ha! Well, the tiles were coming up but the floor has been so sticky with the adhesive from the tiles so now I am goo-goneing the entire floor (did I mention that the kitchen is my least favorite room?)  so I had to take a break, I took the boiling kettle I had been using to heat water for the floors and made myself a cup of tea and went to my studio and made a card:

My son has a birthday party to go to this afternoon and I did not want to buy something the kid would not like (read: Lindsay is too lazy to shop) so in the card it says “Here’s a birthday ‘stashe’ of cash” and a mustache cutout with some money. Clever.  Well, not that clever but I did use some the the gelatin print papers I made the other day AND I came up with a way to plasticize your gelatin so you can make a non spoiling gelli plate, yay, science! Here is the video:

Here is the permanent gelatin plate recipe, remember if you damage the plate you can nuke it on high in the microwave for a minute and reset it!

7 packets of gelatin (6Tablespoons)

mix into:

1 cup of alcohol mixed with 1/2 cup glycerin (room temperature)

1.5 cups glycerin

then add:

1.5 cups boiling water and pour it into a shallow pan to set.

Well, it is back to the floors for me then I need to get cleaned up to take the boy to the party AND later my hubby is taking me to see the new Star Trek movie! Yay, science fiction! I’ll let you know how it is!

BTW, the dishwasher was not leaking, I found the leak under the sink when I was looking for the goo-gone, that’s a project for another day. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

DIY Gelatin Plate & Prints!

Happy Friday, another rainy day, well it has been dry up until this week so I’m not complaining! Yesterday I played! I made my own gelatin plate inspired buy the expensive Gelli Plates that everyone on the “net” have been using. The two problems with those are: 1. They are expensive and 2. The stores around here don’t carry them. What’s a girl to do? Oh yeah, maker her own! And you can too, here’s the video!

True to from I liked the prints I pulled after I turned off the camera much better! Here are some still shots, here is the example with ribbon I pressed on the plate, look at the texture, it’s almost like a photo. I need to try this with leaves and plants!

This one was rubber bands! AKA “Elastics” LOL! (only one person will get that joke ha ha!) The little tag on the side was done with a mesh lemon bag.

I like this because it was printed 3 times with different colors. I keep printing on a paper until I am happy with it!

I mainly used stencils in my experiments today but you can use so many things, you can press cheese cloth, bubble wrap, plastic wrap, crinkled paper, yarn, twine, leaves, feathers and a myriad of this into the plate for texture. You can draw on the plate, paint on it with brushes and scrape soft tools (like silicone cooking tools) across the inked surface. UK MaryAnne has a great post about making your own tools on her blog that you should see too. Oh the creative possibilities this opens up! I know what i am doing on this rainy day! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy craftng!

Take Out Box Favors!

Here is a fun quick idea you can make for a wedding OR change up the colors for a birthday party or bridal shower. I used 1 pint Carry Out boxes (50 boxes for $5.59) from Papermart as well as unstrung merchandise tags (I got a box of 1000 months ago and I find so many uses for them!) and don’t forget the ribbons! Have a look at this video to see how easy it is to make a truly custom favor box.

I love how you can get a custom look for pennies! Each box cost less than a quarter to make and you can make a huge batch in an afternoon and have supplies left over for other projects! Check out our sponsor Papermart for all of your packaging needs. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!

WOYWW & Ask a Crafter Week 5!

Howdy folks, it is still raining but that’s OK, I have plenty of projects inside to keep me busy. I was asked for 2 more illustrations for the book I am working on (got to finish that today!) and I am in the process of tearing up my kitchen floor…never a dull moment! Why am I showing you my desk you ask? Because it is time for What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday!

And since it is Wednesday it is time for Ask a Crafter, it’s another epic (epic as in long that is…) broadcast answering 3 pages of great crafty questions. I’ve heard from a few viewers that they play it and listen to it as they go about their crafting or chores, works for me!

If you want to see more crafty desks check out the WOYWW fun at the Stamping Ground! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!