Altered Cigar Box with Compartments

I decided I wanted to make this cigar box with a nautical theme, so I used some JustRite stamps on some pale gold Core'dinations Pearl CS and gold embossing powder. I shaded the edges with gold ink, then cut some gold mirror card with some Spellbinders dies.

When I went to do the inside, it looked too fancy to cover up the design. The label was quite interesting, and it had raised sides which were covered with silk like red cloth.

It's difficult to think of different ways to finish the insides of the boxes, so for this one, I decided to make four compartments out of bass wood, and make red painted covers for each section. Red ribbon was used to attach the compartments and act as hinges.

Each cover has a little knob made from jewelry findings to lift them up. I think this one would work well for a man.

Pink and White Majestic Labels Card

I'm giving you a break from Christmas cards, and posting another of the Spellbinders cards I made last fall. This one is made from Majestic Labels Twenty Five.

All the dies were cut on white CS and shaded with a Brilliance pink color, and it was matted with pink and white CS. After I finished the card, it needed something, so I added a flower I had made with a punch to the center, and some Liquid Pearls.

I love these dies, they make it so easy to make a beautiful and intricate looking card!

This one also reminds me of my blog friend Jill, because she likes pink.

Myrna, Antoinette, and Marie-Louise, I will be making plenty more blue cards! Thanks to all of you for being such faithful followers!

Creatables Wooden Christmas Box

Sorry about more Christmas things in January, but I'm still catching up on posting projects I finished last fall.

This is another altered cigar box. This one had a sliding top, so my husband drilled a hole in the top, and I added a little knob so it would be easier to open. The knob and the edges of the box were shaded with Viva Decor Inca Gold, then I applied some wood veneer to all the sides. The Marianne Creatables were cut and embossed from a lighter veneer, and shaded while still in the die with the Inca Gold, then the whole thing was varnished.

I made it while the shop was still open, and a lady paid me for it while I was still working on it. She wanted it for her husband for Christmas. I love it when that happens!

PSX Midnight Christmas Card

This card reminds me of those Christmas services we used to go to on Christmas eve when I was a child. Those services were magical!

The card was done with an old PSX stamp, some dark blue CS, watercolors I made from PearlEx, silver EP, silver mirror card, and several Spellbinders dies. I photographed it two ways, one to show the depth, and one to show the shimmer.

I really liked this card on the diagonal, but it posed two problems. One was how to make it so it opens right, and the other is that it won't stand up without an easel. I solved the opening issue by making a blank rectangular card the same size as the church image part and attaching it behind the card, but it still needs an easel. I suppose I really should invest in some easel dies. :-)

Warm Wishes Winter Card

I love the Anna Griffin embossing folders, and decided to try making an embossed winter card using them for the background. The sentiment is a Sizzix folder I have had for years. This was a very quick and easy card to make, because it didn't need much embellishment because of all the texture.

I embossed light blue CS, and used my square foam shading thingies to go over the embossing with white ink to make it look frosty. Everything is matted with Core'dinations Pearls CS in white, and mounted dimensionally.

I added a bow I made just before adding the sentiment.

Pink and Gold Altered Cigar Box

I bought this embossed paper at an art supply store a while ago, and last summer I decided to do an altered cigar box with it. The paper was shaded with Delicata Golden Glitz, and outlined with a metallic gold pen, after trimming to size, or cutting with Spellbinders. All the paper was matted with white CS, which was also outlined in gold.

The outside was decorated with flowers, butterflies and Liquid Pearls.

On the inside, I cut some dividers out of basswood and painted them with pink acrylic paint. The latches on the front have pink Liquid Pearls on them, to make them match the box better.

Blue Sparkly Shell Card

Here is a card I made with the embossed shell I posted yesterday. The glitter was coming off as I was making it, so I tried spraying the embossed design with Krylon. It worked so well on this shimmery blue art paper that I tried spraying the irises I made as well. The Krylon didn't react well with DCWV shimmery paper, and removed the shimmer on the iris one. It also removed some of the lilac color, so if you try krylon, spray a test swatch first.

The shell layer is matted with Cordinations Pearls, and since I seem to get so many of those expensive gold and silver pens which are old and don't work, I tried a Sharpie Metallic Silver pen to outline the white. The Sharpie isn't as shiny as the expensive pens, but at least it worked.

The next layer is DCWV Glitzy Glitter paper, and is also matted with the Pearl CS, then mounted on a pearl card. Both matted layers were mounted dimensionally.

I took two photos, one shows the colors and dimensions better, and the other shows the shimmer and sparkle.

Well, I have to go see to my mother now, I'll try to do some visiting tonight.

Embossing Paste, Glitter and Stencils

I have wanted to try embossing paste on a card for a long time, and got inspired by this tutorial by Shaz Brooks.

For my examples, I used some old Anna Griffin stencils I have in my stash. I cut the pearlescent blue and lilac papers to the same size as the stencils because I was afraid I might mess them up if I cut them after they dried.

I did everything else the way Shaz explained it, except I couldn't find my pallette knives, so I used a plastic knife. I loved her idea of using baby wipes on the stencils, and I did that as well.

The only kind of paste I could find in my area was Liquitex Flexible Modeling Paste, and it seemed to work well. After I removed the stencil, I sprinkled on some ultrafine glitter that I had in an old spice bottle. The glitter was from some painted ceramic kits I had bought years ago. I had never used it, and had put it into the bottle for later use.

The plastic knife gave me a bit of a corrugated cardboard type look because of the serrated edges of the knife, but it wasn't too bad. The designs are much sharper in person than in the photos because it has been freezing, snowy and dark here, so I can't get a good photo. I was very pleased about how fine the detail came out, except for a few of the little flowers in the top of the iris one, where I managed to smudge it a bit. There really is a lot more fine detail in person.

Anyway, since I did them last night, they are now dry, and now I get to make cards with them!

Air Dry Clay and Wilton Molds Shell Card

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and hope you have the best year ever!

I haven't posted much this month because it's been very busy, both helping my mother out, ice storms, snow storms, power outages, and a trip to New York to see the kids and grandchildren.

I made this card earlier in the month using Wilton Silicone molds made for cakes with my Martha Stewart air dry clay.

The card base is ivory CS, with some golden colored, textured, handmade paper which resembles sand, but has a sheen to it. The shells were shaded with gold ink, and a label was made using the same paper, and some cream colored handmade paper which was stamped with the same gold ink, using a sentiment from JustRite.

Altered Cabinet

I bought this little cabinet on clearance quite a few years ago. It was missing some of the knobs and other parts, so it was pretty cheap.

I had a little bit more of this paper, and since I love it, I didn't want to cover it up too much, so the cabinet isn't too fussy. The base coat is some old Apple Barrel Blue Mist. This color was retired quite a few years ago, and I was hoarding what I had left, waiting for the right project. It matched the blue in the paper perfectly. The inside is an ivory color.

The gold is Inka Gold Metallic Rub. It isn't as brassy looking in real life as it is in this photo. If you haven't tried the Inka Gold rubs, try them, they are wonderful! They have a bees wax base, and can be used on most surfaces. If they start to dry out, just add a little water to them. When they are used on wood, they dry to a hard surface, which won't rub off, but you can also paint with them like watercolors, or rub them onto your paper with your fingers or daubers. They are really versatile!

I went around the outside of each paper panel with gold ink, and added gold outline stickers and jewelry findings as accents.

Stamped and Painted Tiles

Sorry I have been missing for so long, but it's been busy here lately.

I have been doing two more projects with my air dry clay and silicone molds, one was a card, and the other is an altered cigar box. I'm still putting layers of varnish on the box, so it's not ready to be photographed, and it's too dark today to photograph the card, so I'm showing some coasters I made last fall. I made them for the Christmas show that never happened, so they are in my shop waiting for next summer.

These were made using some unglazed ceramic tiles I bought quite a few years ago. The stamps are mostly old PSX stamps, as well as one or two old Stampendous ones, and a couple of other brands I've had for years. They were stamped with Stazon black, and painted with ordinary craft acrylics, then coated with a couple of layers of water based varnish, and sprayed with Krylon.

They were all painted with the same colors of paint, and match in real life, but some were photographed in full sun, some outside on cloudy days, and some, inside on rainy days, so the colors look a little different.

Anyway, if you can get hold of some unglazed tiles, it's really fun and easy to stamp and paint, and the tiles make great coasters for Christmas presents!

Things I made with air dry clay

This morning I showed some silicone molds I got, and a Martha Stewart Crafters Clay kit in this post.

These are the things I made. I definitely will be wanting more molds, and more white clay. It was fun and easy to work with, and I will be able to use the molds with my Fimo as well.

I didn't really like working with the colors. It takes a lot of practice to use two colors in a mold, and not have one color squish into the other, but I think I will practice more with using two colors in the cameo. I also don't like the pink and colored things I made as well as the white ones. I tried mica flakes, glitter and PearlEx in them, and I liked the Pearlex, but even though I used very small mica flakes, they were sort of big on the finished castings. The glitter wasn't bad.

Using colors would be okay if you don't care about seeing detail in your things, but I'd rather paint and shade mine after they are dry, so I can show how much detail they have.

I wish the detail showed up in this photo, but it is dark here before 4:00 now, so I had to use a flash and it washed everything out.

I do like the amount of detail in everything I made from all of the molds. I used parts of all of them, and they all worked well. I had to wait until they dried a bit to remove a few things from the molds, but the only one that I had to be really careful with was the kelp from the wilton mold. That one had a lot of really tiny branches on it, but I managed to get it out without too much trouble.

Using these molds and the clay was really fun, and I can't wait to see what they look like when I paint or shade them!

Air Dry Clay and Silicone Molds

My birthday is in a couple of weeks, and my mother wanted us to take her to AC Moore so she could get me some birthday presents.

While we were there, I decided to buy one of the Martha Stewart Craft Clay kits. The only one they had was the heirloom kit, but that's okay, because I really liked the molds that came with it.

I have been looking at these for a long time, but what made me decide to buy them was that I had bought a silicone mold from Mod Podge, and some of their glue stick type things a few weeks ago and didn't like them, but I needed something I could use in the mold.

I had also been looking at silicone molds since I bought the Mod Podge one, and had found so many beautiful ones made for baking on the internet. I did a Pinterest page of many of them here. They are gorgeous, so go look at them!

Anyway, after seeing those molds, I decided to get the MS kit, and some Wilton molds. My mother got me a couple more of the MS molds as well, but I can't have them until my birthday. :-)

I wish I had bought more of the white clay while I was there, because I have a feeling I am going to need it. Oh well, it's something to ask Santa for! I've seen people mixing it with PearlEx on the internet, and I really want to try that!

The red, yellow, blue, brown, and white clay were in the kit, along with a couple of white plastic tools, some florist tape, and some florist wire in case you want to make one of the beautiful roses in the instructions.

The small round blue molds were also in the kit. The two large blue ones are from Wilton, and I kept the photos that were with them so I could use them for future reference. Those photos are at the top of the picture. Even though some of them are quite large, I thought that they would be fun on cigar boxes. The orange ones at the top, are the Mod Podge ones.

Anyway, I'm off to play, I'll let you know how I like them!

Embossed Wreath Card

It was really difficult to get a photo of this card. One shows the detail, and the other shows the shimmer.

I used the Spellbinders 3D M-Bossabilities Rustic Wreath Folder on dark green CS, then used one of those square foam shading things with Delicata Golden Glitz to shade it.

The sentiment was done with the same ink and a JustRite stamp. The gold behind it was done with gold mirror card and a Spelllbinders tag die. I fussy cut the green paper to fit inside it.

The card was matted with gold mirror card, and gold pearls were added as accents. It looks much prettier in person.

I'm sort of depressed this year. Usually we have a big Christmas Craft show, and I count on it to make money for Christmas, but this year they aren't having it, so any Christmas cards I make that I don't send myself will have to wait until next summer before I get a chance to sell them. I've tried both eBay and Etsy, but I always spend more money selling than I actually make. I sure wish we were in a bigger area where there are lots of shows.

More flowers I made

These are some more flowers I made. Most of them are from McGill punches, but the three little roses are from Spellbinders Bitty Blossoms.

The yellow on the roses is much paler than it looks in the photo, and the greens in the leaves aren't as bright either, but I took this photo at night.

I was pretty happy with the McGill flowers, especially since it was my first try, but I think I need more practice with the Bitty Blossoms. I'm not at all happy with them. I have wanted those dies for a long time because of the beautiful flowers Marisa Job has made with them, but mine don't look at all like hers. I will practice some more though, and I'm sure they will get better! I also wish I had shaded the outside of the yellow petals on the pansy with purple. I think it would have looked more real that way. The center of the pansy and the stamen on the Calla Lilly are the ultrafine orange crush Flower Soft.

I also played around with some premade roses I got on clearance at Michaels last year. All of these were white, but I used some Brilliance stamp pads, and different brands of glitter sprays to color them. Some of the flowers were colored with more than one shade of spray. The ones which still look white have pearl shades on them so they shimmer in real life. I've found that I like buying white flowers best, because then I can color them to match my projects.

WOYWW 233

This is the day of the week where we all go snooping around peeking at each other's desks. If you want to join us, hop on over to Julia's blog, to see what it's all about.

I've been MIA for a few months while I had my shop open for the summer, but I hope I will be able to get back in the swing of things now that summer is over.

This photo was taken on Tuesday evening, since I have to pick everything up each time I finish. I was finishing up two different projects at once, so I have a strange mixture on my workdesk.

First I finished up a card that I posted Tuesday night by adding rhinestones to it. The card is on my desk, and the two blue baskets are where I keep my Rhinestones and pearls during the winter. In the summer they are sorted by color on a turn-around display thing. It's much handier that way, but it takes up too much room to bring it home for the winter.

I was also finishing up some flowers I made from McGill punches and Spellbinders Bitty Blossoms. Those are sitting on top of a container of embossing powder while they dry. All my embossing powder is in flat plastic boxes. It's easy to use this way, because you just put your card into the box and shake, but it takes up a lot of room if you have a lot of colors.

The black rectangular thing on my cutting mat is my flower embossing mat. The cup contains my embossing styluses, pens, and other things. You can also see part of my Fiskars trimmer, ATG, heat gun, scissors, dimensional tape, Really Useful Boxes, a craft knife, and my antique box, which contains the small things I use at every session.

Underneath the cutting mat is my non stick craft mat. It's on a sample wallboard paneling thingy. I find it really easy to keep it on the wallboard thing under the cutting mat. That way I don't have to put it away every time, and when I want to switch back and forth between cutting and doing messy things, I just keep my cutting mat on one side of it, and I can use both at once. Before I started doing this, I forgot about putting my project back onto the cutting mat, and I cut through the craft mat. :-( I also used to forget, and use my heat gun on the cutting mat, which warps it. Now I usually remember to put my project on the craft mat first, before embossing.

Please ignore the mess on the side of the desk. Those are boxes of supplies and things, and they aren't very neat after digging through them trying to find things!

Silver and Pearl Merry Christmas Card

I frequently save pretty tags to recycle later on cards. I usually throw them into a drawer where I keep unfinished things I wasn't happy with.

For this card, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to make, so I looked into my unfinished parts drawer, and found this tag. It was a polished silver with embossed shiny silver details. I matted it with Core'dinations white Pearl CS and silver mirror card.

Next, I embossed another piece of the pearl CS, trimmed it close to the embossing, and mounted it onto more pearl. This was matted with more silver and more pearl, and mounted onto a pearl card.

The matted Christmas motif was mounted onto the embossed part dimensionally, then silver rhinestones were added. It was fairly quick to make, and I was quite happy with the results!

Pink Roses and Creatables Card

This is another card I made a few months ago with dies from Marianne Creatables.

The design was cut from Core'dinations white pearl CS, and shaded with Brilliance Pink, then mounted onto some pink Core'dinations Gemstones CS. It was matted with gold mirror card, mounted onto a white card, and accented with roses, a bow, and pink and white rhinestones.

Lace and Gold Card

I made this card about a month ago when I got my new Spellbinders. It was done using Elegant Labels Four and Opulent Ovals. The paper is white CS and a pale gold Core'dinations Pearl CS, and all shading was done using Viva Decor Inka Gold Metallic Rub. Most of the layers were mounted with dimensional tape, and Liquid Pearl accents were added.

I photographed it twice, once to show the shimmer, and once to show the depth.

I love these elegant new Spellbinders dies. They make it so easy to create an intricate card with just a few die cuts!

Thanksgiving Blessings Card

Last September I made a card from an old JustRite stamp set I had. When one of my best customers saw it, she commissioned me to make two more cards with the other two stamps in the set. This is the second one.

The CS is a generic ivory, and metallic copper and green CS. The DP is some very old Anna Griffin CS.

The sentiment and frames were stamped with VersaMark, and embossed with gold EP, then cut with the matching JustRite dies by Spellbinders. I don't remember what color I used for the shading. All layers were outlined in gold, and some were mounted dimensionally. Green pearls were added as accents.