S: Halloween Kit Phase 6 3/4...

 

     This Halloween kit has definitely been one heck of a project and continues to. So for my next page, which honestly I believe I am about 80% done with my book and it's getting really close to Halloween, I have chosen to do a moon/bat page. Taking the Yellow paper out of my kit as my base and this polka dotted paper as well I cut a semi circle? with my circle tool ( I guess I really should have take a picture of it).

      Lining them up I traced out the moon shape with Canary Yellow PC Marker. The color was just a touch darker than the paper which made it a prefect fit for detailing. I did blend the outer edge with Yellow Orange to add just that little bit. All of the craters again are with the circle tool and I lined some outer edge shading.

      I inked the dot paper with some black just to darken the edges and to add some blotchiness to the 'space'.

      Glued the two pieces together leaving the moon edge portion unglued to make a pocket and started cutting out the bats!

      I used Liquid Glass for the bats eyes and a few 'stars' on the dot paper. Cutting out these little buggers was not the easies thing to do but I didn't need that many. I filled in some of the white dots with a white gel pen and places the bats going from smallest to largest as if they were flying closer to you.

    The larger bat I did bend his wings slightly, glued his body down flat to the paper and used pop dots to raise his wings. :)

S: The gate to?

     Breaking in for a little mini project which will be going on to my mini album somewhere. This image came off one of the tags that was in our kit, I reinforced it with some of the grunge board that our house pages were made from and inked it up. Touching up the black with a brush pen then inking it with a Sponge Dauber and Black CTMH ink pad.

      The keyhole will be put on as soon as it dries from gluing it to one side of the gate after I cut it apart. The lock itself is a bit big for my door to the front cover page I have yet to reveal but I wanted to put it somewhere. I did intentionally bend on of the spokes in to it.

      Now the key will be positioning it perfectly for what I have planned. Muhahahahaha!

S: Halloween Tags for Mini Book...

     And the book making presses on. Just taking a quick minute today and making some Tags! To give you a little insight on how:

     I was working on my glass surface dabbing on inks from my stash. It didn't have to be a specific one, just the dye based or distressing inks I have on hand. I saw Christy do this at our last get together so I had to try it! I just dabbed the chosen color onto my glass and spritzed it with alcohol. Christy used water but I figured I would try the alcohol out. Nothing special about the alcohol, just the regular stuff and I bought the 70%. I've read people go for the 90% because it dries faster but I was fine with what I had.

     After spritzing the ink onto the ink I would "swish" my tag through it. This will take some getting use to. Tim Holtz makes it look way to easy on some of his videos. I think that I am not putting enough wetness onto the ink to do it like he does. Then again he does use water. ;p

A Break to get Organized!

I wanted to share an organizing tip that I have come across on the vastness of the internet. Now I will say that I had this idea before I looked it up but so did a million other women who needed a logical option for organizing embossing folders. Well this is my version. Enjoy.

 I am relatively new to the embossing world, I bought my first Cuttlebug through a search on SearchCraigslist.org which allows you to search ALL of Craigslist across the U.S. Trying to convince people your not a scam artist is a challenge. Back to embossing folders. I wanted a way to show me the folder from a quick flip through instead of me taking it out of the box and trying to decipher the design and details for the project I needed it for.

      I made several mini manila folders by sacrificing larger ones. You can get about 4 minis out of one whole large folder. The exact measurements escape me but as long as you come as close to 5 1/4 x 7 inches with a 1/2 inch tab on top. I used my Cricut and the Cricut Craft Room to weld together a few rounded rectangles from their Basic Shapes. See, so no special Cart required.

     I just cut some scrap card stock in random colors the size of my embossing folders. Whether it was A2 or 5x7 and ran them through my Cuttlebug. Afterwards adding some ink to bring out the image.


     Trimming the paper if needed I adhered the design on to one of the folders. You could emboss the design straight onto the manila folder but I have an OCD obsession about keeping some things centered. I also have heard of people making an A2 size folder and a separate 5x7 folder.

     The box that I found to fit these perfectly in is a Really Useful Box I picked up from Office Depot for around $6.00. They usually had them in different colors but not only did my Office Depot store stop carrying them in this size in different colors, I wanted one that I would be able to see through clearly.

     So for the low price of about $10 and some time you have a durable embossing folder storage for about 35 embossing folders not including your plates.

Working on...

Well, I am not going to lie, I have been slacking this week on the mini album. I do have progress to post, but I have to snap some photos. 

I do want to share the nap mat I completed (one for a boy)! The customer wanted camo, but not traditional camouflage. I had made my son a boppy pillow when he was a baby & the fabric was a dinosaur print that reminded me of camo. 

I looked for more of this pattern, but couldn't find enough for the nap mat. 

So, the hunt for camo dinosaur fabric begun... eBay had a print that was green (mostly) with some blue. I sent the fabric image to my mom customer and she approved. I ordered the fabric and decided to use exterior canvas for the bottom of the mat (I had it already) and some brown flannel for the back of the blanket (she had said her son sleeps warm an wanted to keep it light). 

This is the blanket. I decided to do stripes of alternating fabric... LOVE IT!

Overall, I am happy with this one. I feel a lot more confident about making them. 

Well, hope you all enjoy. I promise to post my progress on the mini soon! 

Take care & enjoy the day :)

S: Halloween Kit Phase 4ish.

     It was an absolute beautiful morning here in Panama City Beach. At 6:30 am the sun was painting and array of colors among the clouds and after the week I have had from Thunder Beach (Bike Week) I was in the mood to craft! Or at least get some nice and quiet girl time. :)

     With my Pumpkin Spice Cappuccino I was set! And that is what inspired my project for the day!

 We started off contributing to our usual organized chaos trying to delve into the mote of inspiration. I free form cut out a pumpkin which I will confess looked more like an apple until my mind woke up enough to realize my design error. Correcting and playing with all kinds of colors I am very proud of my pumpkin tag. Who says tags have to be in the usual "tag" form.

     I took a piece of the heavy card stock that we made our covers out of and fashioned a stem. It drove Christy crazy to hear the edge of my scissors rough up the texture of it. Inked it with a bit of brownish ink and the color name escapes me (Could have just been brown) since I was using Christy's stash. I had to look up the shape of a pumpkin leaf and cut that out as well. Inking it with Old Paper distress ink. I used Wild Honey distress ink on the pumpkin body and detailed it with some Prisma Color brush tipped pens. There was a swirly paper clip in our kit that worked great for the vine and a little bling to match. Oh! And I doused it with Shimmer Spray in Gold. And all this was done to both sides.
   
 Included in the kit was some cute pumpkin paper that I cut 2 out and trimmed about 2 inches to make a little pocket. The boarder you see was the other side of the paper. Using Liquid Glass which I am still obsessed with it seems I perked up their eyes. The main paper is embossed with Acanthus from Anna Griffin' Cuttlebug collection and brushed over with the same brown I used before. And there you have it.


      I did get a bit of retail therapy in as well on my way home. First picking up this little guy. I don't know why it just made me smile so I decided to add him to my studio space. Its just a lime green elephant jar that was on clearance for $3.99 and I just had to scoop him up.

     I picked up some sponge dobbers at Joanns using my coupon of course, grabbed some adhesive refills for my tape runner at Michaels, and last but not least got into some trouble at Hobby Lobby. Cropper Hopper's Variety Packs were on CLERENCE! $7.19 and they are usually $19.99. So I only picked up one instantly regretting it when I got home so I texted my sweet husband to pick me up 2 more on his way home. :) I'm one happy crafty chick!

Page 3 & 4

Well... I have been busy trying to figure out how I want the next few pages to look. I find it easiest if I work on the pages 2 at a time because they will be viewed together.

Page 3 & 4

 So, this is going to be my spider web pages :) Purple and more purple! The page to your right has a large photo mat, a spider stamp on the upper left and 5 silver mini brads on the right.
The left page is still in progress, but so far I have added the black spider web punch as a pocket to the one side.

This tag is one that I am kind of happy with :) I used some of the ribbon with spiders for the top and stapled it in place. The spider image is a stamp I have and I used some of the Martha Stewart glue stamp pad and then flocked it... !! Use with caution :)

Still working on Tags!

Well, I have been busy trying to update and add some bling to my tags. I really want them to be a special part of my mini. So, this is what I have done to the tags on Page 1 and 2 of my album...

All Three Side by Side

The back

 I am happy with how they turned out.. I am just adding lots of the elements from the kit, the candy corn sticker, ribbons and even the flowers!

tags back in their pockets

I love how page 1 & 2 look! Well, off to chase down my son & get him some lunch :) Happy Wednesday everyone!