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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2 of 7: Saturday's photos

Saturday is Caturday. She demands all attention on her. I know...I need to swiffer my floors.

But crafting day at a friends is higher priority.
Here are the 4 projects we did today. Two hand stamped cards, a stamped transparency mini-album and a LOVE accordion banner.
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Crafting Sunday

Took a soldering class last week and made a few more pieces today with Mary and Phin.

Supplies:
Glass slides (2)
collage items
copper tape
burnishing tool
soldering iron
lead-free solder
flux
brush for flux
Patience

create your collage. sandwich it between 2 pieces of glass. Carefully wrap copper tape around it and burnish well. Tape a jump ring to the top if you'd like. Plug in and heat your iron. Meanwhile, brush flux to the copper tape. Solder around your piece onto the copper tape. Solder will only 'stick' to the copper tape and flux. Do not breath fumes. Be patient. The first few times you do this, embrace the lumpy solder look.
A cool book to reference: Pretty Litte Things.
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Button Tree

Since I've gotten all of my Christmas shopping done except for the husband, I'm finding myself doing a lot more crafts than I usually do this time of the year.

I found this project originally on Ali Edwards blog here. Which lead me to Tia Bennett's post and how to on Two Peas. Their photos are great, so I highly recommend visiting their blogs to see their awesome trees. Tia's link has complete how-to instructions.

Below are my quickie instructions:
Here are the supplies. Buttons: over 400. Pins: over 400, pearl white and pink. 9" white foam cone. I put the buttons in the baking dish so I could sort and see what I had to work with.

Following Tia's instructions, use the biggest buttons first and pin randomly. After using biggest buttons, use medium buttons...and so on. Overlap if you need/want to.

About 1.5 hrs later, while watching tv, you'll have this:I used a small jelly jar filled with the unused buttons as my trunk. I kind of screwed it into the foam so it had a lip to settle into. Take lots of cool pictures and share them with your bloggey friends.

(another rerun from N-N).
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Peppermint Patty Ornaments

(this is a re-run from Nudge-Nudge for those of you who read both blogs).

Here's a real quick and easy ornament:It's a treat and an ornament all in one.

This is what you'll need:Blue and white paper. Some small peppermint patties. A glue stick. Ribbon, about 5" per patty. A snowflake punch (or snowflake stickers). A 2" scallop circle punch. Substitute whatever supplies you have to make it work for you. Do red circles and green trees. Make birthday favors with cakes or flowers.

Put glue on the peppermint patty wrapper, stick on the ribbon, stick on the circle. Repeat on the other side. Glue on the snowflake.
Make s slew of 'em and attach them to your christmas packages. Or hand them out at parties. Or give them to your kid's class. Feeling motivated? Make 'em next year for Halloween. A great project for kids, too.

I've been in a creative slump lately. No crafting, no scrapbooking, no writing, not even any photography. But I spent the afternoon with Phin and another one of our mutal friends, Mary and her friend Chandi. We sat around Mary's living room and made jewelry and chatted by the fire. It was a lot of fun working with my hands again and being in a room with very creative women. I'm feeling inspired. Chandi had purchased a necklace that Mary wanted to reproduce and Phin and I were along for the ride. Both Mary and Phin made necklaces. Phin finished hers and it turned out awesome! Mary still had to finish another strand by the time we had to leave. I didn't account for enough thread to make a necklace, so mine ended up being a bracelet. It still turned out pretty cool. Love the randomness of it and the various textures with the glass, ceramic, stone and wooden beads and shell buttons.

Phin's also been challenging me to get my crafty back on by motivating me with specific weekly challenges from a book I gave her for Christmas. Week #2 was something about B&W photography. I sort of cheated, but I finished this page Friday night:
I cheated because aside from figuring out what photos to put on this, the layout was finished. It had been sitting on my desk for about 3 months.

The next challenge is to create a ribbon border. Phin - I actually have an idea brewing in my head. Let's see if I can actually execute it now.