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How cow, I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted here!  It's now 2013, and one of my goals for the year (you'll notice I did not call it a "resolution") is to do more crafty stuff.  Our lives have been a bit chaotic in the past couple years, and my creative endeavors have sort of fallen to the wayside...

Our daughter just turned 8, and we had a dance themed party for her.  Most of the decorations were straight from the Dollar Store, but I did manage to make this 1 simple banner to welcome the guests (and then hang in her room).  I purchased the banner "blank" from Hobby Lobby (Donna Downey product).  I hit each pennant with different colors of glimmer mist in conjunction with masks from Heidi Swapp, Tim Holtz & Tattered Angels.  I had so much fun playing with the colors and images!  The letters are chipboard (also from HobLob) that I painted with black acrylic and then glued on.

So that's all for now - but I *WILL* be back to share more in the months ahead!

Feeling Fallish...

I know it's been months since I've posted anything... I've been busy with so many other things, and quite frankly just hadn't been feeling particularly crafty. In the past week or two, though, I'd been missing the East Coast autumn, and decided I really wanted to make something "leafy." Anyway, last Sunday when I was watching the Eagles game I grabbed a pair of scissors and a mostly untouched Boxer pad and started cutting leaves - double thicknesses so I had 2 (mostly) matching shapes. I used some old brown variegated fiber (which I know has been around for at least 5 years) and then glued the leaves together with PVA bookbinding glue (chosen since it dries clear and remains flexible). I gave it about 10 minutes to dry - yes, I'm impatient - and then hung it around the kitchen entry. Thankfully I'd planned ahead and left the nails up from the Christmas garland ;) I love how it turned out, and I even used the scraps to make something else... will post about that later this week!

Finally, a new post - and even a pic!

I know it's been a LOOOOONG time since I actually shared anything - life has a way of getting incredibly busy, doesn't it?!

I ended up driving up to Montana and spending three weeks with family there; it was wonderful to catch up with them (not to mention avoiding S. Texas heat :) and I even managed to take a class at a local scrapbook store. We made this cute photo holder with acrylic overlays & heavyweight transparencies - I'm thinking that some family members may be receiving these as gifts... great way to present photos, plus they're super lightweight for shipping!

Anyway, I'm off & running again... hope to be back soon with some other creative goodies!

Custom "White" Board

A couple weekends ago, I was able to attend another crafty class at our local library, and this time around we created personalized white boards using a standard 8x10 frame. Now I've used the acrylic frames for dry-erase projects, but never thought of glass... but how cool is this?!

My frame definitely has a shabby chic vibe to it, mostly due to the K&Co papers I used. There's also a diecut initial (covered with rock candy stickles!), flower cut from an old book, lace, and ribbon. For the main "white" panel the paper I wanted to use was a bit too dark, so I brushed on some Making Memories white pearl scrapbook glaze to mellow it out a bit. Perfect!

Best of all - now I have a place to jot down all of those challenges I want to participate in. Check back later this week to see whether I pulled it off :)

Using those craft supplies...

We're in the process of selling our house, which means sprucing everything up. We have a little addition on the back of the house, and I decided to give it a sunroom sort of makeover with aqua paint and wicker furniture off of craigslist. I needed a little something for the wall, but didn't want to spend any more money... well, craft supplies to the rescue!

I started by rifling through my ridiculously large paper stash, and pulled a pack of Memory Box poppyfinch - a perfect match! I had a few of these frames stashed away; they're about 5x15 inches, and I've used them to make name frames for baby gifts. Well, I can now say I've used them to make something for US! I simply picked six patterns from the paper collection, cut down 4" squares, and slapped 'em on the white base.

A super-simple decor element, and no worries about making it "fit in" at our new house - there's plenty more paper where that came from ;)

The Reason for the Season

I am so excited about this piece I'm sharing today! I'd been wanting to make something for our home; I had a whole lot of different ideas, but when I actually sat down to create nothing was coming together. Well, the previous Salt challenge was the theme "Light." The words to the song "Here I am to Worship" by Chris Tomlin immediately came to mind, and I started thinking about how I could use that to create something for Christmas. Never actually got beyond printing out the words, though. And then the latest challenge was "Jesus, the true meaning of Christmas." I just had to actually finish up my project. It all came together when I stumbled onto the amazing paper and gold stickers (seen here)
I started by masking off some areas around the star and spraying with gold glimmer mist. Next I roughly laid out where I wanted the words to go. I scanned Luke 2 from my Bible, and printed out verses 1-7 onto watercolor paper. I stamped the names of Jesus (Biblical Impressions) in the corner, and added several gold stickers. I love how the shepherds really do look like they're worshipping, and the small cross under the manger serves as a reminder of what that tiny baby came to do. Humbly you came to the earth you created, all for love's sake became poor.

This is definitely not my "normal" style, but I am thrilled with the final result. It's now hanging on the wall in our living room, and I'll definitely be making more in the future.

Just in case you've never heard this powerful song, check it out here.