Day 48

So I was thinking all day that I just wanted to come home, do a simple craft and relax.  My first thought...bookmark.  I realized today that I had contact paper for a wedding craft I had planned and could use it as a laminate.  I mention all this to Stan and he helps me find a bookmark template online to make it even easier, just need to insert a photo and quote.  BONUS!  I tell him I want a picture of a moon, and he starts searching while I go to my trusty book of quotes to find something relevant.  I figure this will be done in no time...

Not so much...

Stan finds a nice picture, I find a good quote, we insert, print...and realize I had regular paper in the printer, so we print again, on white card stock.  Alright, no big deal.  I pull out my paper cutter, and the stupid thing is of course not cutting straight, so I try to fix it with regular scissors and I'm not straight.  I have a minor temper tantrum and have Stan trim for me.  Okay, I'm alright now, so I get out the hole punch and punch the hole at the top of the bookmark for the fringe string I want to add.  Low and behold I'm too close to the top, and end up splitting the hole open at the tippy top!  O..M..G...I fall to the ground and start slamming my head against the floor.  (Don't worry, we have carpet!)  I beg Stan to go downstairs and pop open a bottle of wine while I try to now cover the bookmark in contact paper to salvage the hole for the string.  I'm starting to hate bookmarks.  Alright, contact paper....I've never used it before, I cut a nice big square, put the bookmark face down close to the left side and fold the right side over to sandwich the bookmark.  Guess what??  I'm not straight, so the contact paper buckles and sticks...I toss the bookmark across the desk, and start swearing like a sailor.  Stan comes with wine...after a long silent gulp...yes, I admit it, a gulp...I feel better.  Stan takes over and trims it up for me.  Wine slowly goes through my body, I'm now feeling better.  I get the string and start stringing it through the now complete hole and can't get the knot to tie.  I keep trying while silently laughing manically in my head.  After about 5 attempts, I get it, I cut trim, I'm DONE!!!!

YAY!!!

And then I try to take pictures....sigh...our cat Cody decides he needs to help....sigh....I send Stan down for another glass of wine....here are the pictures..../headdesk

Bookmark with Cody trying to get the camera strap:

Close up or bookmark:

Another closeup and Cody:

Cody willing to rip my face off for the camera strap:

Day 37

I was at Michael's craft store the other day and I saw a blast from my past - Shrinky Dinks!!!  There was no way I could pass up this kind of nostalgia!  I decided on the kind that you can print on using an inkjet printer.  After some online research for projects, I found a cute sunflower bookmark and used that as my inspiration for today's craft!

I went online and found a picture that I liked, in this case it's a Celtic Tree of Life design (one of my favorites, a top contender if I ever get another tattoo) and printed it on the Shrinky Dink paper.  After it printed, I cut it out, used a hole punch at the bottom for the bookmark and baked.  In three minutes I had a mini version of my original design!!  So fun!!!!  I messed up though, but in my defense, I haven't used Shrinky Dinks since I was like um, SEVEN!  The hole I punched shrunk too (duh!) so it was too small for my thread!  I had to sit there with some small scissors and gouge out the hole to fit the thread, but it worked!  You live, you learn...Once I got the hole big enough, I threaded green embroidery thread threw, knotted it, braided it, had Stan thread a light green bead on (see below, got super annoyed and needed help!) and VOILA,  a super cool Shrinky Dink bookmark!!

I have to give a shout out to me peeps, Stan  (LOL...peeps, whenever I say that I imagine a large marshmallow person) because without him I would have either 1. tossed the computer out the window because I could not find the proper printing settings or 2. thrown the almost finished bookmark out the window because I was having issues with tying the knots!  So as always, he's a life saver...or in this case a computer/bookmark saver!

Here is the big version of the picture I used:

 

And here is what I did with it:

Top view:

 

Bottom view:

 

Full view (you can see that I should have made it longer, but it's still usable!):

 

One more full view:

Day 7

The other day I was looking on Amazon.com for some craft books and I came across "Zombie Felties" by Nicola Tedman & Sarah Skeate.  The cover alone is enough to make you "SQUEE"!  (Think I'm kidding?  Go to Amazon and look it up!)  So I ran over to the bookstore and scooped it up.  As I was checking out the cashier did her own "SQUEE"ing, so I knew it was a hit.  Zombies are cute, I don't care what anyone says.  I waited all week to do this project.  I cut out the template during the week, that was pretty time consuming, because these pieces are small, tiny even!  And with my sausage fingers, I was a bit worried, but I was determined, and determination can overcome chubby fingers! 

The pieces of the dog and the bone are felt, the eyes are beads, the head is stuffed with toy stuffing, the black/white nose, pink gums and blood on the bone are all sewn with embroidery thread.  The dog and bone are put together with some craft glue and hand sewing, and I had a BLAST!  I really enjoyed this project, even though our dog Izzy tried to eat a skein of thread and one of the cats decided to roll all over the cut pieces of felt and tried to walk away with felt pieces attached to his back.  I forgive them....the project, with animal interference and laundry breaks took about 3 hours give or take.  Now let the cuteness begin...