Day 83

I have this really pretty peacock themed scrapbook and card stock paper that I wanted to use tonight but wasn't really sure how to.  I decided a mosaic style card might be a nice way to showcase the different papers.  I was trying to be precise about my cuts and then realized I wasn't getting anywhere trying to figure out measurements, so I just went for a haphazard approach, which when your crafting seems like a fantastic idea!

I picked a pretty blue card stock for the actual card, I then picked three different peacock themed card stock to go with it.  I cut each peacock paper into three strips and then each strip into squares.  I then applied each square to the blue card stock in a varied pattern.  It was really hard to photograph this when I was done because the paper is very shiny.  But here is what I came up with:

Done card:

Here are the  papers I used after I cut the peacock paper into strips:

Here is a close up of the finished card, trying to get a bit more detail:

Day 54

This was just a crazy day, and I can honestly say that I almost decided to skip tonight's craft, even stop forever because it was just one of those days where I didn't want to deal with anything, let alone trying to figure out what kind of craft to do!  But then I remembered that life has good days and bad days and you have to take it for what it is, and keep going.  So that's what I did.

I didn't get to even think about a craft until 8:30pm, which is pretty darn close to my bed time, so I rushed around looking for something and decided on a Origami Suncatcher.  I did a two colored one this time and I had help from our cat Cody!  All in all, I'm really glad I took the time to do it, though I did rush and it's a bit sloppy.  But it grounded my thoughts and Cody had me laughing so it was really a great stress reliever for me.

I started with a sheet of orange and a sheet of red origami paper:

I folded each and was left with 8 rectangles for each color, but I only used four of each color:

I started folding each one, and Cody supervised, he licked the paper accordingly and at one point walked over them, getting them stuck to his feet, and freaked out.  I was laughing to hard to be mad:

Here is the finished suncatcher, notice Cody's paw of approval on the left:

Another shot of the finished suncatcher:

Day 43

I was having a serious case of "NeedToGetOutOfTheHouse-itis", so I dragged mom up to Yankee Candle in Deerfield.  There is nothing like visiting the flasgship store to get me out of a funk.  You can not leave there sad.  We had a lot of fun, enjoyed looking at all the new spring stuff and picking up some votive candles.

After Yankee Candle we went to a store across the street called The Final Markdown (which always puts the song "It's the final countdownnnnn" in my head, and I will now be singing it for days!).  The store basically sells the scraps from bigger name stores.  I picked up a few kitchen supplies, like a new cutting board, an ice cream scoop and a pizza cutter all for like $2.00 each!  Then I saw in the kids section this craft and I just knew it had to be done.  I was considering skipping today's crafts all together, but I haven't done that yet, and I don't want to start now.

This craft is Spongebob Foam Mosaics.  It comes with two pictures, one of Spongebob and one of Patrick, and a few sheets of various colored foam stickers.  There are little squares all over the pictures and you just basically match the foam squares to the colored squares on the picture.  I'm learning though that crafts for children are not easy!  For me anyway!  This one is for 4 and older, and I almost gave up!  Of course most 4 year old's don't have fake nails, on which all the little mosaic tiles can stick too.  So needless to say, most if not all of the mosaic tiles do not line up and I got to the point where I was just sticking them wherever.  It's cute though, and Patrick is awesome, so can't complain too much!

Day 25

I really have no idea how I came up with today's craft idea.  I was sitting at work, thinking about what craft I should do when I get home, doing a mental run down of what I had on hand.  I remembered that I had some sample material that a store had sent me in the mail.  Those little 2" x 2" squares, in several different styles and designs.  Also, lately I have been reading a lot about collage, mosaics, and mixed media/altered art.  I eventually want to work on an altered art book.  In any case I started thinking why not do a collage of mosaic material?  Of course then I needed to consider the design.  To make things easy I started doing searches for different pictures that were large and interesting.  I found a spider on a web and as they say, the rest is history...

I cut out pieces of each material as I went, just cutting randomly and by eye.  I used tacky glue and only glued the middle of the material so all the edges were loose and you are able to run your fingers over the art, to get a 3D feel of it.  I didn't worry about staying in the lines, I just wanted it to be random and fun.  I think it came out great.  I'm really happy with the end product.  I wish there was a way to feel things online, it feels cool...take my word for it! 

Supplies- spider drawing, tacky glue, fabric squares:

Spider close up - all done:

 

Spider all done, further away:

Spider all done - this way you can see how the fabric is "3D"