Day 13

I love to draw, but I'm not good at it.  Or maybe I should say that I am not good at coming up with my own drawings, from my own imagination, so I tend to draw things I'm looking at (not trace mind you, just look at whatever and draw it freehand).  I first realized I enjoyed doing this when I had to draw a tree outside our class window for school once upon a time.  Again, I'm not great at it, but I enjoy doing it.

For today's craft I decided to draw the Artist Zombie from the book "How to Draw Killer Zombies".  He has a step by step way of doing it, but I suck at that whole process, and he says to use tracing paper, stencils, etc...and I don't have all that.  So I grabbed the book, a sheet of white copy paper and my trusty #2 pencil and set to work.  The image on the top is my drawing and the image on the bottom is the picture in the book that I looked at while doing my drawing.

Because it was in pencil, and I scanned it, it's hard to see, but I made it bigger in the hope you can see it!

Day 12

I'm really proud of today's craft!  It's a "tea box notebook".  The premise of the craft is in a book I bought called "Craftcycle: 100+ Earth-Friendly Projects and Ideas for Everyday Living", but I'll be honest, I didn't understand the directions!  So I winged it, and I'm really pleased with the outcome.  My design has a little flap and flap holder on the inside, so it will stay closed when it's in my purse.  I really like it! 

I used an empty tea box, scissors, craft glue, stapler and white copy paper.  Took me less then an hour to cut, glue and staple everything.  If I knew what I was doing, it would have gone faster, but since I had to figure this out as I went, I think I did good.

Day 11

Today's craft is wedding related!  I realized that I have to get going on wedding stuff or I'm going to have a nervous breakdown as time gets closer, so tonight I did some stuff.  However, I realized I don't want to ruin any surprises!  So I took a picture of today's craft in a way that is NOTHING like what it's going to look like at the wedding.  I will say however that these will eventually be the centerpieces.  I know they look odd, stupid, etc...here, but that's just the way it has to be.  :)

Day 10

The other day I was looking online for card ideas and came across a charity website called Make A Child Smile (http://www.makeachildsmile.org/).  The site lists kids who are have various illnesses, tells their stories and gives you the opportunity to mail them a card, to make them smile.  I thought it was a great idea, so today's craft is a card for one of the kids on the site, a 3 year old named Nathan. 

The outside is a 3D sticker of Cookie Monster (it's fuzzy too!) with some 3D cookies!  Really adorable.  The inside, I wanted to put a joke but the only one I came up with was "Why did the cookie go to the doctor?"  "Because it was feeling crummy!".  It's really the only cookie joke I could find online, but I was sort of hesitant to put it in the card, as it's going to a "sick" child!  But after some thinking, I thought it would be okay, as it's a card about cookies and Cookie Monster!  I really hope I don't offend with the joke, but again, I feel safe sending it.  I did the joke on a little flap, so you have to lift the question to get the answer.  And put cookies around it, with a personal note at the bottom.  I hope it makes him smile. 

Day 9

I could not for the life of me figure out what to do today, so I enlisted Stan's help.  He suggested a frame, and I have had this picture of our cat Rascal (aka "Coo Coo") sitting next to my alarm clock for a while frameless, so this was a great opportunity to get him looking even cuter!  

I had an empty cardboard box that I cut down to about an inch bigger then the picture on all four sides.  I glued the picture to the cardboard, used acrylic paint around the edges in blue, stuck the various stickers on it and added the brads in the "I love my cat" banner.  On the back I stuck an extra piece of cardboard in a triangle to hold the frame up.  Overall an elementary but totally adorable frame.  It's super cute, but that might just be the picture!!  Below are some not so good pictures of the frame, the lighting is really bad.  Also, there is a picture of Izzy trying to help get a good shot.  Obviously it didn't help.  :) 

Day 8

Today's craft was tricky!  I chose it because I really thought it was going to be simple and quick.  I have tons of books around the house and most of them I will never pick up again, so I had purchased a book on how to do crafts with old books (lots of irony there, huh?!).  One of the crafts was to make mats using rolled book pages, white glue and bobby pins.  I decided to make a drink coaster. 

The hardest part was rolling the pages!  Tricky little things.  I don't know why I had such a problem with it, I guess maybe the way the book paper was, I'm not sure, but each roll ended up being a bit different size then the last, and they were all supposed to be "uniform".  The book suggested using a "rolling tool, such as a dowel", but all I had was a BBQ skewer, so that's what I used.  It wasn't much help!  After I rolled each page, I used white glue along the edge, held it, got glued to the paper, got unstuck, got glued to the table mat, got unstuck, got restuck to the paper, swore, shook off paper and started on the next roll.  I did this 20 times as per the instructions.  After letting the glue dry, and attaching the rolls side by side with bobby pins, I realized I only needed 14 rolled pages, so I got stuck on paper/mat/paper 6 more times then was neccessary.  I swore again. 

After all that, I was pretty happy with the outcome.  Upon showing Stan, he tried to blow into the ends, saying it looked like a pan flute.  I then showed my mom, who was in a different part of the house and had no idea what Stan said.  She proceeded to try to blow into the ends, saying it looked like a pan flute.  I then showed our dog Izzy, who proceeded to try to eat it.

No one knows good coaster art when they see it!

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...