hmmm. bad blogger, it's been a few days.

this has been a generally crappy week overall. healthwise and stresswise, though the two are generally connected.

i did manage to finish a shirt that i started before christmas, i was just too lazy to put the sleeves in and do the neckline.

i'm not really sure how keen i am on it... i think it's a bit big around the boobs (an unfortunately common problem in my life!). but i LOVE the owl fabric!

i finished my tip in page, after much struggling. it was due on wednesday, so i was trying to work on it when i really didn't feel up to it, and i ended up screwing it up a bit. i fixed it, and i'm quite happy with the end result, but it was a struggle for a while. i mailed it thursday, i'll post it once it's received.

other than that, not much crafting has been done. lots of sleeping though. i did a bit of embroidery while watching a documentary at a friend's house last night (jesus camp - seriously scary!), but that project is still far from being done and postable. i need to start working on my inchies again...

shopping, papercrafts, block printing

i forgot to mention that when i went to langley on friday i also discovered a new thrift store i'd never been to (how random! i thought i knew them all!). it was because i got lost, which is unsurprising, i ALWAYS get lost in langley! it's some bible for missions thrift store, and it's on 200th just past fraser highway (you know, the road you're SUPPOSED to turn onto to get downtown!). anyway, i got some great crafty stuff, including textured pink fortrel (damn i love fortrel), and some awesome vintage buttons (as if i needed more!). i don't know if it'll be that fabulous the next time i go, the crafty stuff might have been sitting there for a while, but it's definitely worth a shot, and it's right next to an upholstery store that apparently sells vinyl, though they were closed last week. so it'll be worth the trip!

i went to the scrapbooking store today, and found the best thing ever. i've wanted a crop o dile for a while now, for multiple reasons. they can punch through super thick stuff really easily, which will be great for my poor stiff hands, and they do it quietly, which will be great for late night crafting!

they're about $40 in canada, and only $26 in the US, so my sister went across the border to try to get one for my birthday, and micheals was out. they called a few other micheals, and no one had them, so she bought me my xyron instead (which i LOVE!).

but i still wanted a crop o dile! i found them at the scrapbooking store today for $34, but they came with more! purple, in a purple carrying case, with 400 grommets just waiting to be set. i was so surprised by the price, since it's LESS, but has MORE, that i asked about it. the clerk went and asked and came back and said that the purple sets were actually made up for a deal on the shopping network, but the store was able to get some of them. so it was very cool! i rationalized by telling myself that i had a $10 card (from filling my stamp card, i don't even want to think about how much business i've given that store!), but i still ended up with a fairly large bill... i can't resist paper and trims!

i got some trims to use on inchies (as if i don't already have trims), and i also picked a couple little pigment ink pads. i can never bring myself to buy the full sized ones, so i collect the little ones in all different colours. i was super happy to finally get a good shade of red in pigment ink though, i've already been playing with it tonight.

tonight i've been working on my tip in page, and i'm so in love with how it's going.

i've also been playing around with my sacred heart stamp i made a few days ago, and i've gotta say, i'm pretty disapointed with the material i carved it out of. pieces of the flames and the thorns are already breaking off. i'm sure my cleaning it with a toothbrush probably contributed to it, but it's a very soft toothbrush, so it shouldn't have hurt it that bad!

i'm hoping the blocks i bought at opus on friday will be better, i'm going to work with them tomorrow.


i also picked up a copy of cloth paper scissors, which i've never read before, and the new stitch'n'bitch book, son of stitch'n'bitch. and i ordered a few crafty books online after christmas, as well as some back issues of sommerset studios, so i've had lots of new inspiration lately. i'll post more about them once they all arrive.


and i think i'm now officially DONE spending christmas money on craft supplies!

shopping, cleaning and paper crafting

i was so excited by the results of my first carving attempt that on friday, despite my body's best wishes, i went to langley and went to the art store in search of more carving blocks. i got some block, and some ink, and another brayer (cause damned if i can find mine!), and somehow convinced myself to get some liquid latex, cause i've been dying to play with it for a while now! i also had a good conversation with one of the clerks, and got the name of a store in delta that carries silicone in not huge tubs! i really really want to experiment with silicone. but not right now.

and then on saturday a friend came over and helped me clean and organize my studio in the afternoon. we got lots done, though it still looks like a disaster - it's just a more organized disaster!

the cleaning pretty much wore me out, so i haven't gotten much crafting or sewing done this weekend, though i have been working on my inchies.

(whats an inchie? here are some fabulous examples! one, two, three and four.)

i started out trying to make inchies that were JUST paper. i painted, i stamped, i bitched, and i decided i hated my background. i spent ridiculous amounts of time resizing images to fit the inchies, and then i finally accepted the fact that i'm really unable to NOT include fabric or trims in everything i make, and made a few sets with lace.




blogger is cutting off the pics, there are actually 10 of each set. click on them to see the full pic!)

these are still in progress, they're drying, and still need rhinestones. i'll get better shots once they're done (i know the naughty set are very blurry!)

the naughty set are small black and white polkadot scrapbooking paper with white lace and then black lace glued on top.

the nice set are bigger pink and fuscia polkadot scrapbook paper, with pink and fuscia lace glued on.

and then i made these ones, using old microfiche as the backing.

the if you're stout one is an old lane bryant ad, and the mustache one is an old anti-balding ad!

i LOVE the "female lay eggs" lady! she's from an ad for douching, she's telling her daughter how important it is to be "fresh".

the background of all of them is microfiche from a new brunswick newspaper, with a white cardstock square behind them.

i still have two more sets of 10 to do for the swap, but i need to stop doing them right now and focus on my tip-in page that's due to be mailed on friday. i've got lots of ideas floating around in my head, i just need to get my butt in gear!


in other exciting crafty news, i swapped some stuff on etsy! i swapped the cherry wristlet bag for three resin pendants from resinated.etsy.com, the anatomical heart necklace, the red glitter heart necklace, and the virgin mary necklace. i'm super excited!

i also sold one of my crow bags a few days ago, so tommorrow i'll be mailing them off. my etsy shop looks so sad now! i need to make more stuff for it!

no longer catching up! first FO of 2008! lino printing!

my birthday this year was very much full of crafty goodness. my sister got me a 2.5" xyron machine, which i used that very day (to finish a tip in page!), and my brother got me a bunch of lino printing supplies (i gave him VERY clear instructions, and it worked!)

i'm so excited to play around with lino printing/block printing, i did it in high school, and i've been acheing to try it again.

tonight i hauled out the supplies, and went at it!

this is first OFFICIAL finished object for 2008 (the sweater i sewed yesterday is not going well, so it's still a WIP!)

it's not perfect, but for my first attempt, i'm pretty happy with it!




the block itself was 2.5" x 2.5", so the heart's just a bit smaller than that.

the block's quite handy, it's staedtler mastercarve artist carving block that "cuts "like butter"" (the "like butter" quotations are actually what it says on the block, quotes and all! it amuses me. what are they quoting that from?)

it really did cut awesomely though. i tried doing a couple of erasers -toooo small for me! too bad the blocks are kinda pricey. i buy them at a local indie art store, they're probably cheaper at one of the chains, but i'd rather support local.

i read this thing the other day in a vintage popular mechanics book on a technique for how to make rubber stamps, and i REALLY want to try that too!


the problem, of course, is thinking of images to carve.... i have such a hard time with this, it's the same problem i have with silkscreening. i think of images i like, and then i can't decide if i'll actually USE the image enough to make carving it (or silkscreening it) worth my while....


suggestions are very much appreciated!

catch up post #6! tip in altered art pages

i'm in the tip-in swap on craftster.org. we all purchased the same blank book, so that the pages were all exactly the same, and then each round we decorate the front and the back of a page and send it to a new partner. i've received some truly amazing pages, and it's such a fun experience making the pages for each person's style.

this was the first one i did, for a partner who liked nature themes.

the backing is vintage paper - accounting type stuff. i stamped all over it with one shade of green, then stamped on a few different kinds of paper with different ink pads to get the different shades. i used a green tag that i cut up (from a swap with skyra ages ago), two different shades of green japanese recycled paper, and part of a paper crown that came out of a christmas cracker a few years ago (i hoard possible supplies!) and dragonfly brads to add a bit of brown and to pull the page together. the nature letters were from joanns and were self adhesive, but i didn't realize that and i put them through my xyron. oops!


i like the back better! same as the front really, with the addition of a green owl (martha stewart halloween foam stamp) and scrabble letters instead of the others. and more dragonflies.

i did the pages seperately and then glued them onto the actual tip in page. i stamped the part of the tip in page that's showing, and it honestly matches better than it's showing up in the pictures! i think cause it was white and the other was beige, the camera picked up the colours differently.


here i used the "black magic" polyclay that i stamped earlier. i painted it solid black, and filled in the letters with black glitter. the image is actually from a little pack of tissues, and i specifically saved it to craft something for rackycoo out of it! (she loves her martini glasses!) i frames the image in black glitter paper, used really awesome matte/glossy scrapbook paper for the back, and added some sparkly stars for colour.

the back was simpler, it's a black star printed net stitched over batty sequins on a black paper backing. i stamped "double, double, toil and trouble" and sewded that on as well.

and (i LOVE this one) a page for someone who likes snow/winter

three different snowy fabrics sewn together, then the vintage photo (that i tinted blue) and the writing sewn on. and a bunch of blue and silver rhinestones.

snowflakes made of paper that has "snow snow snow" written all over it glued onto a blue painted background, covered with white polka dot vellum and then snowflake sequins glued on with more blue rhinestones. the biggest snowflake has writing in them! can you see it? it says "craftster" and "tip in swap" and has scissors in the very centre. love it!

for someone who likes trees

front - i dyed all the cotton twill tape two different shades of green (left one batch in the dye longer), then ironed it all and wove it together on a piece of stabilizer. the tree and the leaves are vinyl, machine stitched on before i tore off the stabilizer. the writing is twill tape i bought at the scrapbooking store ages ago, i used it on a vinyl atc for angie too. i am SOOOO in love with how this turned out, it was exactly how i planned it!

back - simpler, since the front was so ridiculously time consuming! pretty scrapbooking paper, more of the green twill tape, sewn in a log cabin design this time, and gold pigment ink.

and for someone who likes crows

ront - i like it, though i'd originally planned something else. apparently i suck at using spray starch though! i'd wanted to have the lace with no backing, just stiff on it's own with the page cut out behind it, but that didn't work, though it was a very time consuming experiment. black lace sewn onto red cardstock with a black vinyl crow sewn on and a quote in dymo (because i love dymo).

back - this turned out SO much better than i'd expected! i'd spent so much time obsessing over the front, i was kind of at a loss for the back. after i cut crows out of a bunch of black patterened paper, i just rearranged them all until i was happy. i was originally going to give the crows black brads for eyes so that they twisted to the side and showed my info underneath them, but i like this way better. my info is on the right hand crow, and then i used black pigment ink lightly over top of it. and black pigment ink all around the edges, just to finish it up a bit.

the most recent one - a christmas page. (i really really wanted to use some of my vintage christmas images!)

the picture is my grandma, sitting on santa's knee. santa is her uncle lloyd, who worked as a department store santa for years (did you guys have eatons in the US, or were they only in canada?) the background is a couple of pieces of textured red paper and some christmas scrapbooking paper. i added rhinestones, because the bon said she's been unhealthily obsessed with them lately! the tags are glued on, but then i threaded embroidery floss through holes in the page to make them prettier.

i had a really hard time with the front page, i don't know why. i actually made one, decided it was too plain, and then started over with this one. i'm pretty happy with the end result though.


more simple, because i like the pages in the gallery that have simpler backs, and i want mine to be like that too. the same christmas scrapbooking paper, and then i printed out some of the vintage christmas cards i scanned and made a little card hanging thing out of embroidery floss. the cards actually open up, and inside a few of them i wrote the date, my username, and put my signature. the twill tape is from the scrapbooking store.


and i'm working on one right now, though i'm kind of stalled at the moment....

catch up post #5! half moon ball shawl and matching scarflet

i bought this yarn AGES ago, at least a year ago, knowing that i'd one day find a use for it, and when taloola and i were matched up in the stocking swap, i knew i'd found the reason for the yarn! it's totally her colours, and i was so excited to use it! i also knew that she and her hubby were hoping for a new addition soon, so i decided to make it a "wish shawl", and spent the time crocheting thinking about them and what fabulous parents they'd make.

i only had 14 balls, and the balls were only 38 yards long, so i went searching for a pattern that used chunky yarn, but not too much of it!

i found the one-ball half-moon shawl on the lionbrand website, and got all excited... except that it calls for one ball of yarn that's 480 yards long! much longer than my 38 yard balls!

after much use of the google calculator (as IF i could find one of my three calculators in my mess of a studio! ), i decided to try it, figuring if worst came to worst, i'd just leave off the last row or something.

as it turned out, i only needed 10 balls! yayy!

all spread out on a towel to protect it from cat hair -

(note the paw peeking into the picture! sofie was curious!)

and on my dress form, with flash -


and without flash, which is probably the most accurate representation of the colours -


it's super cozy and comfy and warm!


and then, since i still had two balls left, i decided to make her a scarflet as well.


i just chained 15, then double or triple crocheted across (i forget which now). i added the vintage button to secure it, and ta-da!

catch up post #4! quilted stocking, owly garland, owly ornaments

mmmm, christmas! so many fun fabrics!

when taloola and i were matched up in the stocking swap, i really wanted to make her a "naturey" stocking that was still somewhat christmassy, but wasn't too country. i thought it might be a lost cause, but off i went to my crawl space to search through my ridiculously large bins of fabric, and i found the perfect fabric with birds and several others that matched incredibly well. it was fate!

i cut the fabric into strips, and cut out two stockings out of cotton batting and two stockings out of lining. i foundation pieced the fabric onto the cotton batting pieces, creating two quilted sides. after they were both done i went back and stitched around each of the red cardinals, though that's not visible in the pictures. it was just for visual interest anyway!

after i'd stitched the two quilted stockings together with the lining and turned it inside out, i added the cuff at the top, which also has cotton batting in it.


i can't decide which side i like best!

i still had lots of the fabric left over, and i really wanted to make her something else with it, so i toyed with the idea of making reusable christmas bags for wrapping out of it, which seemed practical, but rather boring!

the next day i ran across the owl garland tutorial on moonstitches, and i knew i'd found the answer!



i carefully cut out the owls to minimize white spaces among the branches on the birdy fabric for half the owls, and cut out the other half out of the plaid. i used the same cotton broadcloth for all the bellies, to tie them all together.

i searched through all my white buttons searching for sets for the eyes, which was much harder than you'd expect it to be, given the size of my button collection, but finally found 13 sets! i picked up some goldy embroidery floss and a roll of matching ribbon, and sat in front of the tv one night (watching CSI, i'm sure!) embroidering the beaks and sewing on the eyes. i strung the owls onto the ribbon, and then realized that the ribbon was much more slippery than the twine used in the tutorial, so i tacked each owl to the ribbon through the back.


after i finished the garland, i realized i couldn't stop making owls!

at the same time, i was trying to think of a little something i could send to some of the mods for a christmas prezzie that would be easy to ship and fun to receive, and could be worked on while i was visiting family in manitoba last month.

owls were the perfect solution!

they're lightweight and flat, so they just slipped into the christmas card, and didn't even add to the shipping cost when i took them down to the states to mail (i love USPS! so cheap, and y'all have those fun knitting stamps this christmas!).

i cut them all out, sewed them together and pressed them nicely, and then i took the buttons and ribbon and embroidery floss with me on my trip and finished them while driving across canada and then while sitting in my grandma's kitchen listening to her and my grandfather bicker!



i didn't even attempt to find enough buttons in my stash for these ones, i got my cute butt into dressew in vancouver and bought them! i especially love the buttons i used on the blue owls. i wasn't able to get many extra of them, so it was a good thing i made less blue owls!

i'm still going to make more i think, just to give to random friends and family. they're just so damn cute!

catch up post #3! xmas wrapping, cupcakes and candy, polyclay skeletons, charms and more!

on the christmas topic, i got a little obsessive about wrapping....
(i do this every year!)





pretty! the paper is all from ikea, except for the white i used on my sister's gift (i wasn't going to waste that much fancy paper!), and the ribbon is from a dollar store.

i also went really gung ho on baking and candy making a few days before christmas

cupcakes for my birthday


cupcakes for christmas


(obviously, i'll take any opportunity to make cupcakes!)

white chocolate bark with pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries (soooo yummy!)


milk chocolate bark with peanuts and butterscotch


and chocolate dipped pretzels



after all that, i was pretty much sick of sugar!


while i'm at it though, i should post the cupcakes i made for my dad's birthday party in december..

worms and dirt!
the only suitable candy i could find at the last minute were the worms. i dyed the tub of icing green with food colouring, and i didn't have oreo crumbs (and hell no, i'm not wasting my double stuffed oreo stash!), so i used black sprinkles to look like dirt.



this is a couple of days after i made them(this was actually the last one!), and the black kinda bled into the icing a bit.


i made these polyclay skeletons for a swap back in october or november, but i never got around to posting them..

i've been determined to make polyclay dolls for YEARS now! i either get them half finished and get bored (i have two or three dolls waiting to be assembled!), or i get frustrated when they don't look the way i want them to and i give up.

but these ones worked! i was so proud!

they're made of premo, and are about 8" tall or so. they were baked with the eyepins in, and afterwards i very carefully attached them together. the bowtie is on a jumpring, though the strand of pearls is loose and was just strung onto the join between the shoulders and the head.

i was going to paint the bones on, but i decided i really didn't trust my painting skills, so i used very thin bits of white polyclay to create the bones. i baked the black pieces for a little bit, just to make sure they kept their shape, then added the bones and cooked them the rest of the required time.

and then i just couldn't stop playing with the polyclay!
i decided to make a bunch of stamped things, so i rolled out a bunch of clay, hauled out my stamps and went at it. most of them were just for the hell of it, but a few were for specific projects.

after they'd baked, i painted everything with a light wash of acrylic paint.


the black magic writing was for a page in the tip in swap, i later painted them entirely black because i wasn't happy with the wash, and filled the letters in with glitter.

the random green ones were supposed to be grasshoppers for another tip in page, but they were pretty unrecognizable!

the birdies became these lovely christmas tree ornaments for taloola -


and the cameras became necklace pendants (i made two, but i think i was already wearing mine when i took the over all picture!)

this is mine, strung on a coated cable choker.

sweets4ever's picture is soooo much better than mine! here's her necklace, along with the stamp i used to make it -


i still haven't decided what to do with the red winged heart stamp, it didn't turn out to be the right shade of red for the project i had in mind...

i think my favourites were the cameras and the eiffel towers, just in terms of how much detail the paint wash picked up - soo lovely!

i thought the eiffel towers would be lovely necklaces until i realized that they're too long, the two bottom edges are in the perfect position to poke your boobs all day!