Fall Crafting

Some of you might remember the button tree I made last Christmas. Well, when I saw this cute little pumpkin at my local scrapbook store, I had to make one for myself, too! Just painted a Styrofoam ball orange, glued the flowers on randomly, then glued orange buttons on randomly. Used craft wire to make the tendrils of the stem, glued on 2 green flowers then stacked a bunch of green buttons to create the stem.

Have you seen the Good Sheets at Starbucks that offer little tidbits of information relating to election issues? I found/read my 1st one the week before the election and devoured it almost as heartily as I devoured my tall nonfat no foam latte. By then, they were already on Week 7, so I missed 6 little cool factoids wrapped up in a tidy little newspaper. Well, I decided to take my week 7 Good Sheet and reuse it to make ATCs. Since then, I got Week 8 and 9 and have created stuff with them, too. I had gone almost 2 months w/o a Starbucks fix, but now I have to get my tall nonfat latte no foam and a good sheet once a week.

This photo was taking a few years ago, but I just made this scrapbook page last month. Jimmy and Miss A are at the San Francisco zoo, laughing at all the silly things that were happening.

Made this very labor intensive card during one of my stamp club meetings this month. You stamp the stamp 6x onto blue cardstock, emboss in silver, then glitter and intricately cut each layer to create this snowflake card. It's very dimensional, 6 layers high, and very glittery! Beautiful, I must admit, but wow, a lot is involved to make just 1 card. I made 2 and said, "ok, i'm done." Imagine the mess of glitter I had on my floors afterward. uh yea, the cat had glitter in her fur for days. Well, I send out 60-70 cards every Christmas, so those 2 weren't gonna cut it. So while I was sick, I made 58 more Christmas cards. But the hardest part for me is addressing the envelopes. I refuse to use labels, but hand addressing envelopes is just a task that is always so tedious to me. Not exactly sure why. Why can I spend 20 hours making cards gleefully, but 2 hours of addressing envelopes seems overwhelming?

Speaking of Christmas...anyone start their Christmas shopping yet? Not me. Last year, I was done before December 1st. I suppose I better get cracking if I wanna be as prepared as last year. I suspect that's not gonna happen.
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getting my craft on

I'm taking my first sewing class tonight. Looking forward to it, but also wondering...do I need another hobby?

This is what's been keeping me occupied while I've been enjoying the new fall TV schedule.
I just made this whimsical layout using last year's photo. We're missing a brother and his wife, a niece and a nephew. Big family, right?

I made this a little while ago but this is where we're all going for Thanksgiving this year.

I've been on a card making frenzy lately.
I made these during one of my craft nights at a friend's house. 4 or 5 of us get together on the 3rd Tuesday of every month and work on our own projects. I'm getting ready for next year's birthdays.

Some of you might see one of these in your mailbox in the next few weeks. Email me your address if I don't already have it! :)

When you watch tv, do you usually do something else too or watch intently? For me, it depends on the storyline. I can't do anything else when I'm watching anything action or intense like Heroes, Fringe or Law and Order. But if it's a home improvement or reality show, I get a ton of crafting done.
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2:4 Stamp Club

Learned a background technique at stamp club this evening.Using a crinkled piece of plastic wrap, randomly stamp onto glossy cardstock using pearlized acrylic paints. Allow to dry, then brayer over cardstock using 2 contrasting or coordinating inks. Before ink dries, wipe the cardstock so the pearly paints show through (like a resist).

During club we only had time to make the backgrounds so I finished the cards when I got home. I just stamped the images in black and layered onto cardstock.


While we were waiting for the acrylic paint to dry, we made this:
A crane pocket kimono.
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Return to Grace

Not that I fell from grace recently.
At least as far as I know. :)
Just thought I'd share a few creations keeping grace in mind.

Quote Minibook
made this fun minibook at Scraplovers last week. Constantly striving and struggling to remind myself to keep grace in the forefront each day. Ever wonder what to do with those index prints? Use 'em in your mini-albums.

Beeswax Collage
Another creation inspired at Scraplovers. Used beeswax to add elements and dimension to this mixed media piece.

A Little Corner of my Home
Continuous reminders of grace.

Cards
Made these quite a few years ago. But being gracious remains a constant through the years.

Doodle
Inspired by Shiloh McCloud.

A few quotes

Believe it or not, both of these quotes are from a skincare company called Philosophy.
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Joyful

addicted to these digi kits by Mindy Terasawa. She also creates elements for traditional paper scrapbooking at Autumn Leaves.
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Lots of celebrations

It's been a busy month of birthday celebrations as I mentioned here. And I did miss quite a few people, as I figured!
This little sweety, Miss L, celebrated her first birthday last weekend. I'm ashamed that the only photos I actually took of her are from behind. But the other times I was either holding babies or playing with other kids or stuffing my face.

Today's celebration was Miss A's and she is the oldest of our friends kids. It doesn't seem like its been six years since her mom was preggers with her.

Miss A received this red riding hood apron (?) from her Aunt Karen. This was the most meaningful gift of the day, because the apron was originally owned by Miss A's great-great-great grandmother A Bowen, one of the ancestors A was named after. And it's Bowen tradition that the oldest Bowen girl passes it down to the next generation's oldest Bowen girl. Pretty sweet, huh? So this cute little apron is well over 100 years old...and in pretty good shape, too! I love hearing about heirlooms like this, don't you?

Prince WBowen turns 3 later this month. But the family is here for the long weekend, so they have a birthday weekend celebration, Saturday for Miss A, Sunday for Prince W. I'm gonna miss Prince W's celebrations, but I wanted to give him a little whoo hoo, too!

It's been a while since I've posted any of my craftiness, so I thought now would be a fine time just to show the cards I made for the three kids.

And lastly,
August marked my 2nd blogaversary. Two years ago, I started blogging because I had been lurking on websites that offered photo challenges, and I wanted to participate, too. Then I found Illustration Friday and other websites that offered creative challenges and started submitting some of my artwork there. Thru these websites and other blog surfing, I found a creative community of bloggy friends who I enjoy spending the time reading about their world and happy to share bits of mine. Who'da ever knew I'd love it this much? It's thanks to all of you!
>>Great big hugs<<
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Project StampWay

Another fun stamp club meeting tonight. We did this simple but useful triangle box. Imagine the possibilities for this one: gift boxes, party favors, Christmas ornaments...all you gotta do is change the paper to match whatever event you're creating for.

We always do an un-themed card exchange for the meeting. This was the card I made for tonight's meeting.

Last month we made this cute transparency card. It's a 4 page mini-booklet and each page has a different flower layered on it. Cool dimensional effect when you look at it from the front.


And the card I made for the exchange.
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Obon card

We made this tri-fold card at my stamp club meeting last night.

The front of the card shows the tree and a dancer in the hillside.
Then when you open the card, you can see more dancers below the lanterns.
Obon is a Japanese festival that honors departed ancestors and spirits. It's celebrated with dance that serves as a reminder of the gratefulness one should feel towards one's ancestors.
The characters in my card represent the dancers.

Thanks to Arlene for a truly amazing card. 

Another Hot Day

Oh how I wish we were at the lake.

Today's temps in San Jose peaked at 108, muggy and partially cloudy. The air was thick. Blech. We were watching the Weather Channel this evening and saw that 75% of homes in the nation have air conditioners. I was surprised because I'm sure that less than 40% of the homes in the Bay Area have AC. Because of this, people are seeking refuge outside of their homes. We went to the movies today and the line was long. The people behind us said "Is this the end of the line for air conditioning?" People joked about how they didn't care what they movie they saw, just let 'em in the theatre. Unfortunately for one viewer though, it was too late. Jimmy and I took our seats and the poor woman in front of us was having a heat stroke. I'm not exaggerating. She was young and fit, in her 20's. But she was delirious, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back and sweating uncontrollably. The paramedics came, gave her oxygen and took her out. It was very sad and scary. I hope she's ok now.

We saw "The Lady in the Water". It was very good and totally not what I expected. I'll end with that lest I give anything away.

Peace

One of 3 cards we made tonight during one of my stamp clubs.

Thanks GT for 2 great projects! I'll certainly be doing this technique again.