"Glass" beads

I made these beads!!!

While surfing Craft Gossip this morning I found this post about making beads from soda bottles and thought they looked very interesting so I checked the recycle bin for supplies - NONE!!!!!!!! All the plastic went out last week!! So, on my way home from my walk this I was on the look out and found three empty bottles which I promptly washed and disinfected so I could play!!

These are so cool!! They look so much like they are made of glass. I made all these beads from one center section of a medium plastic bottle. The ones I found had #1 in the triangle on the bottom. I cut the flat mid section into strips about 3/4" x 4", coloured them
with permanent Sharpie markers, rolled the strips around a pair of long needle nose pliers, tied them off with wire and used my heat gun on medium to heat the plastic to form a bead. The plastic shrinks and becomes thicker and in the process forms a bead. After this little bit of experimenting, I prefer to roll the bead so the inside of the bottle is on the outside of the bead. I applied colour to one side, the other side and both sides - they all look good. If you use a lot heat, the plastic will bubble and create a completely different looking bead - check out the top left light green bead in the first photo.

I expect that some of these cool beads are going to end up on a mixed media charm bracelet!! Starting to collect a few interesting charms that will look wonderful together!!

Thrifty Tip: Make cool beads using what is in your recycle bin!! If you don`t have Sharpies - any alcohol based markers will do like Copics. You could also use alcohol inks, liquid acrylic inks or acrylic paints though I would apply them to the side that will be inside the bead to leave the outside shiny and clear.

These would be great on book bindings, make great charms for a bracelet, or be very cool beads for making jewelry. You can customize the colours to your project or outfit!!

Have fun!! Leave me a comment and a link if you make some beads!!

Therese

Thank you cards

I had a Stampin UP party a week ago and I am expecting the goodies we ordered to show up this week so I made thank you cards for all those who came and participated in the fun afternoon and for those who placed orders, as well.

The decorative paper is my own creation - a mix of acrylic, fabric and glitter paint. I layered the decorative paper over white cardstock that had been laser printed with the greeting.

I added a bit of ribbon which I tucked behind on the left and overlapped with a 3" embossed scallop (Nestibilities) on the right. I added a die cut butterfly (Sizzix) over the scallop which has been embellished with stamping and an iridescent finish - nail polish!! It was the perfect blue/green colour and gave the butterflies just enough bling without being overwhelming. I layered this accent on the card front which is just 4.75 wide. These will be accompanied by #8 (6 3/4) envelopes.

I have taken a closeup of the butterfly to let you see the details and hopefully some of the shimmer!!

Thrifty Tip: Consider using nail polish when you are looking for a durable finish on accents! It comes in a million colours, can be purchased inexpensively and stays wet long enough to add glitter or other embellishments and and in some cases can be somewhat translucent which allows a lower layer to show through. In this case - the stamping was done first and the finish applied afterwards . When you paint it onto an absorbent surface like the cardstock I used here it will be less glossy but a couple of coats fixes that.

Therese

Christmas Cards - monochromatic challenge

Christmas cards!! I have started on Christmas cards so I will have the amount I need in November!! I started in January last year but for some reason I have had a slow start this year but I am planning on catching up!! I created these for Sylvia's Christmas Card Challenge for March - Monochromatic!!

I started with the ribbon, found cardstock to coordinate and auditioned my stamps to see what would work. I had originally wanted to use the stand of trees from the Lovely as a Tree (SU) set but it was a bit too long to work well. I am happy with the fir tree. I stamped it in white pigment ink and embossed it with a mixture of white embossing powder and Iridescent Ice (SU). Added a little greeting and embossed it the same way. I layered this element onto a white layer with distressed edges.

I added the ribbon, a green punchie with a small white snowflake sequin and attached it with a tiny white brad. I embossed the background green layer using the Swiss Dots embossing folder (CB), ran my white pigment pad gently over the bumps and embossed them with the same mixture of embossing powders. Added a couple of pieces of ribbon and mounted it to a white card front. The image layer is attached to the card front using 3D foam tape to raise it from the surface for a bit of dimension. I made six of these cards!! I do plan on adding inserts and envelopes yet before I store these away because that will finish them off completely and they will only require addresses, postage and a newsletter to be on their way!! I had not prepared inserts last year for most of the cards I made and it just took more time to get them out the door!!

Have you started your Christmas cards?? I highly recommend doing them monthly!! There are so many benefits including spending a bit more time to make them special, having a variety of designs and they are ready to go when you are ready to send them!! I have several Christmas card challenge blogs listed at the top of "Places I like to visit" on the right hand sidebar. Go check them out and see if you can get inspired to start your Christmas cards early this year!!

Therese

Beeswax collage - Home

Another technique I have been wanting to try for a while - a long while. Today was the day!

I used half of a game board (6"x9") as my substrate. For beeswax, I melted sheets of beeswax normally used to make rolled candles. For melting, I used a small crock pot in which I placed a small metal can (salmon). It took about a 1/2 hour to heat everything up but it worked perfectly. I used a utility natural bristled brush for applying the wax.

A few photos of the steps I went through while working on my collage.

#1 - The substrate - The game pieces have long been incorporated into collage bins and the boards have been just sitting so I decided to use one of them. I cut it in half and sanded the design off the paper of the playing surface so I would not have it showing through my collage and to keep the back of the board - a nice pebbly black surface - as the back of my collage.

#2 - I laser printed my collage images - vintage world map, neighborhood of houses, a large house and a woman standing - and trimmed them close. I downloaded the images from this Flicker Collage collection. The link is also on my sidebar under Online Resources - Collage Images. I referred to this video by Suze Weinberg to get started. All of my pieces were large so I applied beeswax to my substrate, laid my images down and used my heat gun to apply heat which melted the wax and incorporated the images into it. I added wax with the brush when needed. It is best to have something that helps spread the wax evenly over the surface. I used a crumpled piece of wax paper which worked reasonably well but was not ideal. I will try a skewer next time, using the pointy end for the fine work and laying it over to work the large areas.

#3 - I have collaged all the large images and have temporarily placed the red foil heart and the lace at the bottom.

#4 - All the words have been incorporated. The words were handwritten - black sharpie or white gel pen - on white tissue paper, dipped into the wax and positioned. It was more difficult than I thought to keep them straight and positioned correctly because as soon as I applied heat they were prone to moving around in the melted wax. It might have been more practical to use printed words from books or even laser printed ones.

Here is the finished collage. To attach the lace I applied wax to the bottom section with the brush, dipped the end of the lace in the wax and put it down on one edge and proceeded to position the rest of it by heating small sections and laying it down. I added some small hydrangea flowers to the collage which required more wax than I expected to keep them in place. I punched some holes in the top corners with my Cropadile and inserted and set large eyelets. Tied in a black ribbon to create a hanger.

I am pretty happy with my collage and look forward to trying it again with other materials - magazine images, paper napkins and adding some glitz like Suze did in her video!!

Therese

Charms ready to go!!

I have managed to embellish some of my polymer clay charms by adding jump rings and some sort of little embellishment from my metals drawer and for some, bling as well. Most of the embellishments I added to the jump ring so that they would stay loose and interactive. For a few I added them using large glue dots. Seems to work very well. I was not able to pull them back off so I am expecting they are there to stay.

To the beads I made, I added a few commercial beads and a fancy little end. I am not very proficient in wire work so the ends are not as pretty as I would like but reasonable. Not sure what else I could be putting on the ends of the wire to keep the beads from falling off. Will have to do some on line research and see what I can find.

Now the question will be - Which ones do I use for the swap? and What will I do with the rest of them?? Maybe a few RAKs are in order!!

Therese

Charms!!

Clay charm swap - that is what started this flurry of activity!! I dug out a set of polymer clay - Sculpey - that my sister gave me four years ago for Christmas and started making shapes to use in the creation of charms for swapping. It was totally fun and my first time using polymer clay. I added Pearl Ex to some of them before I baked them - worked pretty well. I created a bit of a container for baking my clay charms by covering a metal pie plate with foil in hopes of not contaminating my oven too much!!

I looked up some basic instructions on the internet and then just started playing. So will have to see how I can embellish these into charms for the swap. I impressed them with some of my CB embossing folders. I really liked how well that worked and the Pearl Ex nicely highlighted the designs.

Therese

Cardmaking - March - scallops & flowers

Just to change things up a bit I created these cards to fit in #8 (6 3/4) envelopes!! I used letter sized cardstock and cut the card 11" x 3.5" and folded it at 6 1/4" which leaves a 4 3/4" flap on the front. I added a 3" scallop (Nestibilities) that overlaps the edge of the front flap by half and creates a neat place to add an accent on the front of the card. In this case, I layered silk flowers, added a sequin and attached them together using a brad. I used a glue dot to attach this element to the scallop. When gluing the scallop to the front flap I applied glue to the flap to ensure that I did not glue the card closed. The single layer insert is hidden behind the front flap. I added a printed greeting to the red one and a stamped greeting to the yellow one.

Quick & easy meets Clean & Simple!! You gotta love it!!

With Daylight Saving time we have more hours of daylight!! Have a great day!!

Therese

Cardmaking - March - flower images

These cards feature colour printed flower images - I had a bunch of them in my stash and do not clearly recall where I bought them. Certainly, stickers or 3D card elements could easily be substituted for the images. Cutting images from junk mail, seed catalogs or commercial cards would also work.

I colour printed the greetings onto white cardstock to coordinate with the image and mounted the images at the top. Added a piece of wider ribbon just below and glued both ends to the back of the element using double sided tape. The slim ribbon is tied to it using double knots which creates a nice dip making a perfect little accent for this card. The bottom edge is trimmed using decorative scissors but could be torn instead for a different look. This accent element was mounted to the card front which had an embossed layer glued to it.

Keep your eyes open for interesting images that can be used for cardmaking - there are all kinds of places to get them and sometimes even for free!!

Therese

Cardmaking - March - tulip card

Some tulip cards for spring!! Was inspired by a card that featured a tulip created from ovals when I was creating my exchange card a few days ago so I played with the concept and came up with this tulip using the large oval punch (SU). I hand cut a stem and leaves for my tulip from a scrap of green cardstock. I chalked the ovals and the greenery to give them more dimension. For this card I layered an embossed (Swiss Dots - CB) white cardstock rectangle over black and mounted that to my card front. To create the tulip, I glued my three ovals to each other. After placing the elements on my card to make sure everything fit I glued the stem, leaves and tulip to my card front. I brought some cling mount greeting stamps (SU) and each person could add a greeting if they wished.

Tulips say "Spring"!! This would make a lovely Easter or Mother's Day card!!

Therese

Cardmaking - March - waterfall card

We made waterfall cards at cardmaking last night!! They are fun!!

I loosely followed this tutorial at Splitcoast Stampers. I modified the waterfall strip to 8.5"x 2" which I scored at 2", 2 5/8", 3 1/4" and 3 7/8" to create steps that were 5/8" instead of 3/4" to make better use of letter sized cardstock. I left out the extra layers on the waterfall images as well which gives the card a different look. On the samples here I used stamping and a cut out element on the black and caramel card and a stamped serendipity technique (One Sheet Wonder) on the other. I also created ones with colour printed letters (baby and bday) and stamped images (flower and butterflies). The waterfall images are 1 3/4" square. A stamped greeting can be added to the back portion of the waterfall.

If you have not tried making one of these you should. They are so dimensional when the waterfall is activated!! Check out the video link on this post a few days ago to SEE how cool the waterfall is!!

Tulip card

Made this tulip card for the card exchange at my get together with my crafty buddies!!

The tulip was created using three large oval punchies (SU) which were chalked to add a bit of dimension before they were glued together. I cut a stem and two leaves from a scrap of green cardstock which I also chalked. I layered these elements onto white cardstock that was stamped with a word definition stamp (SU) that I inked with several different colours. Added a green rectangle which I had punched with a scallop border punch (SU) and embellished by piercing a hole in each scallop using a push pin. I layered all the elements onto a yellow card. I stamped "Happy Easter" (SU) in green on the lower right hand side of the top layer which finished it off perfectly!!

Spring has sprung here - only a bit of snow here and there and temperatures above the zero mark!!

Therese

Waterfall Card

Made a waterfall card this morning!! It is for a swap on one of my groups. We needed to use purple & white and include at least one bunny! Amazingly, it is the first time I used this bunny rubber stamp. I have used all the other stamps from this Stampin UP set and finally got around to using this one! I followed rather loosely this Waterfall Card tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers!!

Used decorative paper on the card front and added my strip using eyelets. I don't use eyelets very often so it was fun to include them on this card. I added eyelets in the middle of little punchie flowers which helps add some dimension. The other images I used on the card are also from this set - the little dragonfly, the flowers and the "Just for you" saying which is on

the last panel. I chose to put the waterfall to the side a bit so I could add a little butterfly embellishment to the left of it. I added the flight trail with a fine tipped black Sharpie marker.

These are fun cards to make!! I found some very cool ones on Splitcoast especially this one that uses hot air balloons!! Follow this link to her blog and watch the little video to see how cool it looks when it is opened!!

Therese

Zentangle cards!

Our final day the students created these clean and simple cards with Zentangles they had created over the course of our art sessions. I think it is important that everyone know how to create cards for themselves using their own art! These are quick and easy - simply trimmed zentangles layered onto black and then onto a coloured square and mounted onto the embellished card using 3D foam tape. I provided word templates so they could trace greetings onto their cards using fine tipped Sharpie markers if they wished.

As always, I am delighted when students branch out and do their own thing with the supplies I provide and the techniques I teach them. I so do enjoy teaching and feel blessed that I get opportunities to do so!!

Thanks for dropping by!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - charm

I stamped some shrink plastic with this cool quote about art!! I do feel that art has a restorative effect on our lives - it certainly does in my life!! The students added colour with coloured pencils and shrunk the plastic to create these cool little charms which were tied to the binding of their books using fiber!!

The books were bound using large brads through a black spine cover which helped to neaten the look of the book and provide some stability to the handmade paper. The back of the spine was covered with a strip of black cardstock to hide the tang ends of the brads. Makes a nice looking binding and finishes off the book very nicely.

The students always love playing with shrink plastic so creating charms in one of our last sessions after our books were bound worked very nicely and gave them some time to play.

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - paper weaving

This page features a panel of woven handmade paper. I cut a piece of white cardstock 5"x5" and added double sided tape to each side. I did not remove the carrier from the tape right away. To start the weaving, the carrier was removed from one side and strips of handmade paper were placed side by side over it adhering them to the square. It was then fairly easy to weave strips into them using just a simple over and under pattern. Once the weaving covered all the white cardstock the carrier from the last three strips of double sided tape was removed and the paper weaving pressed into them to secure it. Any pieces overlapping the edges were trimmed, any ends that were flapping were glued down and the weaving was glued to the handmade paper sheet. Both the quote and the trimmed embossed handmade paper (from the first day) were coloured and layered onto the page overlapping the weaving and attached using brads.

I like this quote because it emphasizes that our life is the accumulation of days!! It seems more manageable to make changes in your life when you can start with making changes only for one day!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - patchwork

This quilt was fun and easy to do!! I cut quarter sheets of label and we laid strips of decorative paper down on the sticky side leaving space between all the pieces. Once the piece of label was completely covered we trimmed the decorative paper to its edge and sprinkled gold embossing powder on the front which was caught in all the places where the label's adhesive had been left exposed. A run under the heat gun and we had gold threads running through our patchwork!! They looked great!! We glued them to the handmade paper sheet, added our embellished quote by overlapping it onto the patchwork and attaching it with brads which nicely attached all the pieces together. The dragonfly die cut (cut from sheets made the first day) was stapled on and the black body part nicely covered the staples.

I chose this quote because as our lives get busy we need to be sure that time with friends is woven in into our days!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - metal embossing

This page features metal embossed flowers in a garden on some light blue handmade paper!! I die cut some silver foil (pie plate) into flowers shapes and we used pencils to draw designs using light pressure which embossed the metal. It is best to place the metal on a giving surface - in our case, we used folded newspaper which works really well. I added a flower garden using a black Sharpie and coloured the flowers and stems with chalk. Glued down the fence die cut (made longer by folding the cardstock in the same way I lengthened the film strip) and added the embellished quote with brads. The handmade paper butterfly die cut (cut from sheets made the first day) was embellished with chalk or pencil crayon and details were added using Sharpie markers. The butterfly was stapled to the background in its body area and the black body shape was glued over it nicely concealing the staples. The embossed metal flowers were embellished with yellow centers and attached to the page with brads.

We always have choice to make the best of the circumstances of our lives and bloom!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - colouring with paper

This page was fun because we used tissue paper to "colour" our page! It is cool to see the colours that are created as the tissue paper strips are glued down in an overlapping pattern. Each student cut out a house shape, added details using marker or gel pen, stapled it to their tissue paper background, coloured and trimmed their quote and added it with brads and finally glued on their embossed red hearts!! I laid my tissue paper strips to create a rainbow. Each student was provided with a variety of colourful paper strips to choose from so each background was somewhat different. One student glued hers vertically for a really different look!

Chose this quote as a reminder that when we choose to love it has a transformative effect in our lives!!

Choose to think, speak and act more lovingly today!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - cover

The cover of our books!! Each student chose a set of four sheets of handmade paper for their covers. We used two sheets of handmade paper (5.5"x8.5") for each cover/book page which allowed the backs of our brads and staples to not show in our book. After adding our art/instructions to each sheet we glued it to its coordinating sheet to create our pages. We glued a small black circle over the edge of the joined sheets, punched a couple of holes and tied on some colourful fiber - a decorative element that was added for style & function!!

In our second art session we created Zentangle designs!! These nice bold letters (A, R, T) are a font printed with only the outline and perfect for filling with zentangles. It is wonderful that the student's personal work is so prominently featured on their books!

In the next session we glued our decorated letters behind the holes of this film strip die cut (SX). The die has only two holes in it, so to create a continuous strip for our letters I folded over one section of the black cardstock strip and placed the fold very close to the cutting edge of the die before passing it through my Big Kick - voila! - a film strip with three holes!! I gave them a large silver star die cut, a small round tag for the year and some brads to add them to the front cover.

The back cover features a small silver star punchie attached with a brad. They all added their "rock star" signature next to the stars!! It took a little practice to make sure that art was not placed on the binding edge and to keep the pages upright to each other but with a little vigilance on my part we managed reasonably well to have all the art and pages properly oriented.

This quote ended up on the inside of my back cover because we required a catch up day to ensure that everyone's pages were ready for binding at the same time which eliminated one of the pages I had planned and left this quote without a page of its own. I thought it important enough to insert into their books at some place or another!!

We all need to remember that the trajectory of our lives is affected by what we think, what we say and what we do. It is always best to choose these wisely!!

Therese

Handmade paper - small sheets & embossing

We made these handmade paper sheets the first day of my sessions with the students!! They made plain white sheets, embossed white sheets and, at the end, we added some blue pulp to make some coloured sheets!!!

The embossed sheets were created using "moulds" I created several years ago for creating paper casts. I used hot glue to trace a hand drawn image I had placed under small sheets of handiwipes - kitchen wash up cloths! Both sides are affected when creating the sheets - one side is embossed and the other is debossed (sorry I should have flipped one over so you could see the difference). I love the contrast and texture of these pages which are most effective using a solid colour plain paper pulp - I really like them in white!!

I always use waste paper for making handmade paper, so in this case, I used white paper/cardstock that had no printing or stamping on it. As I am creating, I always put my scraps that are plain white in a special container so I can use them to make these nice clear sheets of white paper!!

These were used later in the creation of our Handmade Paper Art books!!

Therese