Felting Fun

Day 2!  Well, ladies and gents you thought I might drop out all ready, but this challenge is going to last!  Haha!  Remember the words resolve and intentional!

Today I decided to go in a different direction.  I love making decorative felt pieces to make pins or "whatevers" and so I pulled out a piece of white felted wool and began to free form felt roving, ribbons and yarn on to it.  Well this is what I have so far.  I'm sure I'll add a little more before I put it on my Flower Folds die tomorrow and make a flower, but this is my current days creative piece.  I love doing this and sometimes take it way too far!  But if you're cutting up the piece to make further decorative pieces, can you even go too far.  In fact this piece is lacking some glitter, so I will snap the finished piece and the cut pieces tomorrow along with the flower.

I love needle felting so much that I got a Babylock embellisher at the quilt show this year.  I'm far from understanding all of the nuances, but love playing.  I haave always used the single needle or the handheld  multi needle felter, but this has 12 needles going up and down at one time!  Much faster and I cqn integrate much moe into the mix.  You will be seeing much more of this in the coming weeks! Tomorrow you will see how I use it!

Happy Creating!

Welcome to 2011!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.  We had a quiet Christmas and now look forward to the new year.

I have recently had two words that have caught my attention.  One is resolve and the other is intentional.  Both are strong words and I find both to be challenging and so I'm using them both in my New Years resolution!   I want 2011 to be an exceptionally creative year.  I want to paint, sew, felt, scrapbook and stamp!  Oops, I forgot my photography and gardening - oh my, this could be a very busy year.

To help get a good start, I resolve to intentionally make something creative every day and blog every day for 100 consecutive days.  I've chosen  100 days because it coincides with a challenge John Bingham made to intentionally move for 30 minutes each day for 100 consecutive days!  I accepted the challenge (so have 7000+ other people) and that's when I began to think about the word intentional!   The word resolve came into my life with the study of Daniel in Chapter 8, verse 1  "But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine . . . . ".   I have really thought about this word a lot during the past two years.  To resolve just seems so much stronger than to make up one's mind.  And now here comes intentional!  To be intentional requires a decision to be made every day!

So with both of these words running around in my head and accepting the challenge to intentionally move for 30 minutes every day, I've added creating and blogging. I love that I've now made a public declaration and know that you will hold me accountable.  I don't know about you but that works wonders for my resolve! 

If any of you would like to join the 100 day challenge with John Bingham, check it out on Facebook/jbingham. 

Now for the creative side of today!

I wanted to try inking a texturz plate and run it through the Big Shot.  This inking could be done with a brayer, but you will need a Big Shot and embosslit for the hearts.  Once I completed the inking on the whisper white paper, I came up with my first Valentine for 2011.  I love Valentine's Day and yes, it's mostly because of  the chocolate but  it's, also, because it's a day of saying I love you, not just to our husbands or boyfriends, but our parents, our children and our friends! 

Supplies:
Paper - Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White
Stampin Pad - Cherry Cobbler
Scalloped Heart of Hearts Embosslit
Pinking Hearts Corner Punch
Modern Label Punch
Teeny Tiny Wish Stamp Set
Fiskars Texturz Plate - Lace (not Stampin' Up)
Big Shot
Dimensionals

All of these items are available in the current 2010-2011 Stampin' Up Idea Book & Catalog, except the lace texturz plate, but there are many wonderful plates available from SU.  Call to place an order or order directly from my SU website.

This card size is actually 5.5 x 8 - finished size 4 x 5.5
This is a quick and easy card.

Keep your eyes open for notice of a preview of the new mini catalog and Valentine Workshop coming soon.

See you tomorrow, ready to create.

Tasteful Trim

I just got my most recent order from Stampin' Up this week and I just have to share this fabulous die!  Ladies, if you don't have a Big Shot you are missing out on some fun.  My last post showed the wonderful  snowflakes I'm making with aluminum cans and now I just have to share some examples of this newest die "Tasteful Trim".  This is a Bigz XL  Die and so the cut out items are big!  All four designs are 12 inches long, but you can make them shorter if you wish or you could double your paper or fabric not going all the way to the end and make them even longer, but now for the samples!

I just took about a four inch piece of felt and ran it through the machine so I could see the actual size and shapes.  I love them!  Whether you are using paper or fabric these are perfect pieces for embellishing your work. 

Variety is the Spice of Life

Hello everyone!  If you wonder where I've been I've been playing with my Big Shot and attending the quilt show.  Wow, have I been having fun with the Big Shot and instead of using paper, I've been trying out felt, fabric and aluminum cans!  I've also been learning how to make silk paper (this will be showing up in a post soon) and organizing my craft room to make room for my new "embellisher" machine that should arrive before Thanksgiving! 

Today I'm going to show you some fun pictures of the aluminum can pieces.  First I cut the top and bottom off of an aluminum can and cut it down the middle to make a sheet of thin aluminum.  In fact, I was shocked at how thin it is - seems so strong when we're holding a can!  But I regress, on to the fun stuff.  Using the Snowflake #2 die I  ran my aluminum through the Big Shot and look at what I got!  I love them, I've now cut out about 20 and am looking for cans so I can make more.  I think I'll have fun hanging them outside from a tree this year, but they would be beautiful inside too!  Much depends on how many more cans I can find, donations are welcome.




Intrigued, I also tried running an embossing folder through the Big Shot with a piece of aluminum in it and got a wonderful snowflake impression.  I cut this out with the craft and rubber scissors and colored with alcohol ink.  The printed side of the aluminum can is shown on the right. 

This made me want to try even more so I tried two punches - a leaf and the Stampin' Up ornament and yes they both punched the aluminum like it was paper!  I colored both of these with alcohol inks too, just to see how the inks worked on the aluminum!   I love how you can use multiple colors and they float into each other.  Moving on, next I ran a piece of aluminum through the Big Shot with a texturz plate and then used the flower folds die to punch it out.  Wow did I have fun!   These are just samples so I haven't colored them carefully or figured out exactly what to do with them, but the possibilities are endless. 

Now it's your turn - try something new, you might be surprised  by the results.







News Update

Can you believe another month has nearly gone by since I last posted!  Busy is an understatement, not just for me but I'm sure for you too. 

I would like to update you on a couple of changes.  As most of you know I've moved out into the country and am no longer holding my regular monthly stamp clubs and, of course, as you absolutely know I'm not posting like I used to either.  So, with all my changes, I've decided to give up my Stampin' Up Website and so you will no longer be able to go directly to my page to place orders.  I AM NOT quitting Stampin' Up, but I am making some financial decisions that will hopefully work best for me and  will work for my customers.

Most of you who order from me do it directly on a monthly basis and so I hope you will continue to do so in the coming days and months.  You can use the sidebars to go look at the customer page, you can look at the catalog on line and see the SU specials, but you will need to email or call me directly to place an order.  Hopefully this will not be an inconvenience to any of you, my fabulous customers!

There is a link on the upper right sidebar to email me!

This isn't a recent card, but one of my favorites.  The stamp set is Quilt Quips (retired this summer) but it's one of my favorties and I made this card for a very favorite quilter.  Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by - until my next post - happy stamping, scrapping or whatever make you happy!