Day 5 - Photo Frame

I'm doing good it's almost been a week. I'm hoping that I won't run out of ideas. O.O

A quick blog post for today to go with a quick crafty item. Today I made a photo frame. I purchased one of the stiff cardboard frames from Micheal's, for around two dollars, the other day. I decided to do something with it today. I took a piece of scrap book paper that I had lying around and glued it to the front of the frame. I then used an exacto blade to cut off the excess and around the inside where the picture shows though. I decorated it with yesterdays, Day 4's, paper plate flower. The inside edges of the paper are a little rough and I could clean them up with some glue and maybe some sand paper. But this is the result:

Day 4 - Paper Plate Flowers

Today's creative crafty thing was a flower made from a uncoated fluted paper plate. It's something I have readily available at my house because...well I will do anything to try to avoid doing dishes. So this one isn't to hard to make and it's quite nice if you ask me.

So what I used: an uncoated paper plate, water color paints, scissors, glue, bone folder and a button. (Not a whole lot of materials required to make it.)

First thing is to paint/color the fluted area of the paper plate if you want it colored. If you wanted you could use markers, crayons, colored pencils, or no color at all and have a white flower. I chose water colors because I'm really enjoying them right now. Similar to this:

Next step is to cut the fluted part off and cut them into sections by cutting down between the flutes. After cutting out each little section the outer edge of where the plate was needs to be rounded and the inner edge needs to be more pointed sot that they look like flower petals. Here are a couple of examples:

Using a circle template I cut out a one inch circle from the middle of the paper plate. If you don't have a circle template you could trace something that is one inch and circular, like a spool of thread. I spread some of my glue around the outer edge of the circle and glued down some of the petals. Once those were down I spread some glue around the inside of the circle and just on the base of the otter layer of petal. I then glued down a second layer of petals. Some of these petals need to be trimmed and cut down a little smaller so that they fit. I then took a green button and glued it down in the very middle of all the petals. To finish off the flower I cut a leaf shape out of the middle of my paper plate. I water colored it with some shades of green and once it dried I placed it on a soft surface and used a bone folder to "draw"/imprint the veins of the leaf in. I took the leaf and glued it to the back of my flower and ended up with this:

Who knew a paper plate could make something so pretty!

Day 3 - Shell and Crystal Bookmark

So far so good. I'm three for three on my new years resolutions. I'm three days in and made something each day. I didn't think I was going to get it done today as I had so much going on but I pulled it off.

Today I made a bookmark from a shepard's hook, some Swarovski crystals and sea shells that I collected at the beach years ago. We must have collected hundreds if not thousands of these tiny shells while on vacation years ago. I figured it was about time to put them to good use. I went though the shells and found ones that had natural holes in them, I didn't want to have to drill or break the shells. I wanted them as I found them. I put a jump ring though each of them. These jump rings are copper core with a silver colored finish on them. They are left overs that I made way way back when I was making chain-mail. I stung the jump rings together so that they formed a cascade of shells. At that point in time it felt like something was missing. I then took some Swarovski crystals in different shades of blue and clear placed them on a head pin and wrapped the wire at the top after creating the loop. I placed them on the jump rings that the sea shells were stung on.

The result was this: Seashell and Swarovski Crystal Shepards Hook Bookmark

Day 2 - Made a book

So today I planned a little more involved project. I made another book. :) I love to make books, it's so much fun. This book is made up from book boards, Reeves artist paper, ribbon and a pH neutral PVA glue.

What's pH neutral PVA glue mean? It is a glue that has a neutral pH, meaning that it is neither acid nor basic, the pH level is a 7. Over time the glue will not yellow and will not yellow the papers it is used to glue. Good for scrap booking, book binding and such things that you wish to keep for a long time. The PVA stands for polyvinyl acetate, which can also be written PVAc. The PVA glue is used because it has a very strong bond and it is flexible.

This book started with me measuring and cutting paper...Then measuring and marking for the holes and hole punching the sheets for the ribbon. I had already chosen a colored decorative paper and a design for the front of the book. Once all the pages were cut and holes punched, I prepared the covers to be papered. Only the font cover of the book board is scored so that it opens like a hinge. The back cover does not open. I glued the decorative papers on the covers and used a white paper to line them. Then I took brass colored eyelets and set them in the holes of the covers where the cord was going to be fed though to bind the book. I used a dark brown suede cord to bind the book together. Finally when the book was all put together I took some brass and copper color bead studs and glued them on with some leafs to make a sort of floral design in the lower right hand corner of the book.

The result for today's craft: Suede Cord Bound Red Journal With Hand Beaded Leaf Design

New Year and New Things.

Happy New Year Everyone!!! The new year is here, and with that brings new and exciting things. Along with the new year comes those new years resolutions. I have a few resolutions both personal and for the studios.

1. I want to loose weight. (80 lbs would be nice but hey I'd settle for a nice round 50.)
2. I want to get a 100 items listed in my studio.
3. It's the biggest one of them all and will take a lot of discipline...I want to make something everyday.

Item 1. on my list. I got the Weight Watchers Points Plus program for my birthday. :) I am working, or going to be working on watching my points and what I eat better. I will be starting to walk around my yard more often for exercise, our road is a little dangerous to walk on. I started with 10 minutes today and will hopefully work my way up to 30 min and then start picking up the pace. I'll have to see about getting a pedometer to follow the differences in pace but I'm hoping that this is something that I can follow though on.

To help out with the getting 100 items in my studio there will soon be a kids section. I have been working with my oldest, who is autistic, teaching her how to make wonderful things. She is very artistic and uses art/crafts as an outlet for her feelings. She hopes to one day use her artistic skills to become a fashion designer but for now, since I can't follow a pattern or make cloths, I am teaching her other crafts. She has learned how to make lovely hair ties with ribbons and right now as I type she is making paper beads. Santa was nice enough to bring her papers and things to make paper beads. The items that she makes, that pass my approval will be listed in the new section in my studios.

The last one is one that will be, in my opinion the toughest. I want to make something everyday...not dinner or lunch or something I already do on a daily basis...but make/create something. A special dessert, a special dinner (not your standard everyday sorts of things), a new crafty item, a picture, painting, anything creative and fun. I want to do it for this entire year. Geesh, saying that makes it sound like it's forever and that I'm not going to be able to do it. I'll take it one day at a time and see how many days I can do it. It's going to be tough with deadlines for other things coming up but I figure I should be able to at least sketch something or bead something or do something small.

With that said...
DAY 1
Seeing how I love to play with paper, today I made some glass embellishments and magnets.