Friday, August 21, 2009

Mass Update

While it may seem, since I haven't been updating, that I haven't been busy, well, that's just not true. What's first? Well, I guess I'll start with the Christmas orniments I made:
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I picked layouts that I liked and then instead of putting them on 12X12 paper, I just put them on the tags. It helped that I found the tool to set the BIG eyelets.

My sister also requested a cupcake shirt for my neice's birthday this weekend.
Anna's Shirt
Anna's Shirt
I pretty much just used scraps that were left over from Malachy's 2nd birthday shirt, which was Carebear themed.

My mom's birthday is coming up in about a week, so I made her a little something. I used the tutorial videos on YouTube to make some mini polymer clay food, then stuck sewing pins in them to make some decorative pins for her. I also made a preety good deal of mini food for my neice's birthday (deifferant neice), but there hasn't been a good sunny day to go outside and take pictures yet.
pins
I used a gift bag pattern I got off of melstampz.blogspot.com and a desktop background image I got from deviantart.com and made a cute little gift bag to put it in.:
Mom's Gift
Get it, instead of LV it's CC for Cup Cake!

I've been working on a game of photo I-Spy for Anna's party tomorow, but my computer is acting all goofy, so I'm not 100% sure I will get it done in time. I have also been making a TON of them in differant themes and colors and plan on posting them VERY soon.

I-Spy
I-Spy

I keep reaching over for my new notebook than I am writing just about everything down in. It makes sense to me, but to anyone else it would look like doodles and fragmented sentences.

Oh, last thing, I have been getting crazy into clay, polymer clay, and well, whatever the other kind is. We now have all these little pinch pots I've been making all over the house. I remembered the basics from sculpting class in highschool, and I've been having fun painting some. And the way the polymer clay swirls together makes some BEAUTIFUL combos:
pots
pots
desk
I've got so many I brought some to work to clutter up my desk here.


One page of my notebook is full of ideas I see here and there and want to try out, although who knows when I will get a chance to. So a few I'm working with, Trick-Or-Treat bags, pretty much just a bigger version of the gift bag above, Scrable pillows, where you spell out a word, and each pillow is a scrable tile.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Clay Cupcake Christmas

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I know it's been awhile, but I will skip over the whys, and go right into the rest of the post.

I need more than a few Christmas orniments this weekend. I am really into cupcakes right now. I searched on youtube under "how to make cupcake craft" because I wanted something cute to make. I found this video:


I had plans to make little cupcake and donut necklaces for me and for all my neices. I made several, but I don't think I used the right gauge wire, cause the loop kept getting bent and warped. They are still wearable, but, eh....

Then the other day, all of a sudden while I was driving, I just thought, those would make such cute Christmas tree orniments. Before I got I home I had come up with a plan to use paper clips instead of the wire. This is the first batch I made, I wasn't really sure how well they would come out, but, I sure am happy with them.

Cupcake Christmas Orniments

I didn't really use traditional "Christmas colors," which is what I agreed I would do this Christmas, so I'm not sure if these are going to be for me, of a gift for someone else. A few Christmases ago was hot pink and bright blue, and I think that would have made adorable cupcakes. Last year was all golds and silvers. Justin said it looked more traditional, but this year he is firm that it MUST be red and green.

Brown Base Cupcakes

Orange Base Cupcakes

Green Base Cupcakes

I have lots of Fimo left over from the wedding favors, so I want to give it a try again. I also found a few more videos on ways to make differant ones. YouTube is GREAT for instructional videos. Sometimes they aren't too exact, so you have to do a little trial and error, but here are a few of the ones I want to work on next:



Monday, June 29, 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009

"Super" Weekend

So, this weekend was a BUSY one. Saturday was the wedding of a long time friend (and co worker and son of my boss all rolled into one). It was a beautiful wedding, white and black. My only regret is that I didn’t feel well enough to take more pictures. I only have 2 and neither one is all that great. I started feeling sick at the beginning of the reception, and had to leave early. I had great seats at the wedding, 2nd row. But I didn’t expect Becca to make it down the aisle as fast as she did, so the picture of her dress is not the greatest. Then I took 1 picture of them at the altar and enjoyed the service so much I forgot to take more.

Walking down the aisle
You can see her hair pretty well

Patrick and Rebecca
Not my greatest day as a photographer

Then Sunday was my son’s 3rd birthday party. I had been stressing for a while because we really couldn’t afford to do much. Luckily my family (kind of distant family) has a lake that the rent out to families for this sort of thing. We are planning on having the reception for our wedding there (only 2 weeks to go), and thought it would be nice for Malachy’s party.

Twin Lakes

The decorations were kind if minimal. There were balloons (which I bought off of eBay), streamers (that were left over from my mother’s birthday party LAST August), and a few other little odds and ends. I made a few pinwheels, a couple of jars with curled paper in them, and of course his birthday shirt hanging up became an unintentional decoration.

Opening presents
On the left you can barely see the jars, primary colors

Pinwheels
Matching Pinwheels there were more, but my mom kept moving stuff around

Balloons

Birthday Shirt
Malachy’s Birthday Shirt

I make Malachy a shirt and a collage for his birthday every year. The shirt is to wear at his birthday party, and the collage to hang on his wall so he can see all the things he has done the past year. He had his birthday shirt on for no more than 2 minutes when he jumped in the lake. He didn’t want to wear a wet shirt all day, so we hung it up to dry, and he put it back on after the sun started going down.

Birthday Shirt

The party favors were candy in Easter eggs. Okay, not really EASTER EGGS. When all of the Easter stuff was put on clearance this year, I picked up some “eggs” that were different shapes. I got Batman, Hello Kitty, and Spiderman. The only ones that looked remotely like eggs were the Spiderman ones, but that’s just cause his head looks like an egg anyway.

Favors

Then of course there was the piñata that I included instructions for here. The only problem was, Justin’s sister agreed to bring a bat to hit it with. But she had to leave before the piñata, and took the bat with her. So we searched in the woods and found 2 sticks to use. I was horrified and embarrassed, but the kids didn’t mind at all.

The Piñata

Breaking the Piñata

Instead of a cake, there were hero cupcakes. I couldn’t afford to buy a cake, so I was going to make it myself, but couldn’t find my pan. So we had cupcakes, or butt cakes as Malachy says.

Cupcakes

The cupcake picks were all hand made. I just printed out Malachy’s name in bubbly letters (the name of the font is Encapsulate from dafont.com), and logos from Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. I printed them on the same primary colored cardstock I did the other decorations. I cut them out, then hot glued them on toothpicks.

Cupcakes

Cupcakes
Doesn’t he look thrilled for cupcakes?

I didn’t set up any games, besides the piñata. I did bring sidewalk chalk, bubbles, water balloons and 2 extra fishing poles. I told everyone if the weather was nice enough there would be swimming, so almost everyone brought swimsuits and lifejackets for the kids. I didn’t bring a swimsuit, but was chased into the water anyway.

Almost everything Malachy got for presents was superhero, mainly Spiderman (his favorite). He got clothes, toys, books, and the curtains I made him for his new “big boy room.” Of course when he opened it, he decided it would make a better cape. Who am I to judge?

Malachy's Spiderman Curtin

All in all it was fun and a nice day. I am a little sore, and did manage to get 2 injuries on the same leg. My mom managed to sit a picnic table on my ankle. And when I was carrying the trash out, a can of corn someone used as bait stuck through the bag and sliced my leg in 2 places. Now we can sort of rest for 2 weeks while we prepare for the wedding.

Malachy's 3

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

3 Day Weekend

I got tons finished this weekend, but I am not posting some of it. All of the birthday stuff I did for this little man:
Almost 3
can wait until I post the pictures from his birthday party, which is this Sunday.

But the birthday stuff I will post is for my step-mom. I was supposed to drop by this weekend, but I was enjoying hanging around the house too much.
Apron
A Simpson's Dinner Apron

Journal Set
Journaling Jar and Notebook

Soapcicle
CottonCandy Cupcake Soap Popcicle

I also worked on a couple things for the house.
Curtin
Curtians for the kitchen

Kitchen Framwe
And some cute cupcakes

And of course several layouts:
Painted Pony

4 Lines

Mom's Day

Fab4th

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day Weekend

I didn't get to take pictures of all the things I worked on this weekend, so I will probably post again tomorrow. I managed though, to use the sweaters I bought last week, felted of course, "korked" some ribbon and made them into hairbows, and made a tutu (at last) for my neice.

First the tutu. I have been eyeing tutus on etsy and artfire. The can go for around $15 for the basic ones. I was about to break down and pay $5 for a PDF tutu tutorial. I had googled my brains out. Then it hit me, youtube. There are tons of how to videos posted. Just type in what you want, and someone has probably already done it. I picked one that was pretty basic, but that's really all you need for something like this. I paid $1 for a spool of ribbon, and got a yard each of pink and black tule, at $1.74 a yard, and I got this:
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tutu and bow

So instead of paying $15, I spent $5, sat in front of the TV and made it myself. Not to mentionthe bow in her hair.

Bow

bow

I found some examples of korked hairbows here, then googled again for instructions on how to "kork" the ribbon. Or maybe it's how to "korker" it. I found better results for "how to make korker ribbon."

Also took a little time to make myslef smething for Mother's Day. A pair of pink Hello Kitty Earrings.

Earrings

The picture just does not do them justice.

And finally, I made a couple of sweater monsters from upcycled wool sweaters. Of course I only had enough charge in my camera to take a picture of one of them. Just happened to be the first one I made.

sweater monster

He kind of blends into the background of my mother's sofa.