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 36

I had a mini nervous breakdown this weekend when I realized the wedding is only 194 days away!  There is so much to get done and I need to get a move on with all the DIY projects.

So because of that, today's craft is a wedding craft, and as you might remember from other wedding craft posts, I can't show it and ruin the surprise!  And I must say, this one I'm really super excited about!!  So once again, I have to say, I hope everyone comes to see what it is!!!  YAY!

Here are the sneak peeks:

Day 35

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm having a case of "crafter's block" or something.  I couldn't really decide on what to do tonight so I went with another bookmark.  My idea was a woodland theme with a fairy hiding, or partially coming out.  I didn't really get the look I was going for.

I used a leaf stamp, a fairy stamp, and a dragonfly punch.  It's cute, but not what I wanted overall.  What do you think?

Woodland Fairy Bookmark:

Day 34

I was stumped today so I asked Stan to help me do today's craft.  He got us started by painting a gift box black, adding a light to the top to make moonlight and added painted snow to the back wall and cotton batting for snow.  I came in and made the snowman out of papertowels, black paint for the buttons and hat and orange for the carrot nose.

This is our tribute to winter, who has been a true pain in the butt this past year, but who also supplied us with many gorgeous snowy nights.

Day 33

Spring is closing in quickly, this week has been in the 40's and next week even has a few days that are supposed to be in the 50's.  With the warmer weather the wild life begins to stir and things we haven't seen in months are not making appearance.  I saw the first house spider last weekend, they run rampant in our house during the warmer months, so seeing the one, I know there will be more in no time.  We usually have ladybugs, beetles, flies, you know, the run of the mill house "bugs".  So it was only a matter of time before I caught a house fairy.

Yes, a house fairy...

We all know they exist, even if we don't want to admit it.  We don't see them as often as we used to - when we were kids, losing our teeth and waiting for our dollar under our pillow.  Once all our teeth had been replaced by those dollar bills,what other reasons do we really need them to show up, or so they might think.  But they still come around, still keep an eye on us.  I think as we get older, we just tend not to pay much attention to them, unless of course, when something goes missing.  Those adorable little fairies just love to hide keys and glasses!

Anyway, since it's still chilly out, the snow hasn't exactly melted, the next few days will be rainy...and when I saw this little beauty fluttering around, I decided to trap her, but don't worry, it's only until the weather warms up and the days get longer...

I put some little purple and pink jewels in the bottom with some glitter, as it's well known, fairies love shiny things, and decorated the outside with a paper rose and shiny blue ribbon....

Day 32

Today's craft is allll about Izzy!  Well isn't everything about the princess?!?!  She's our baby.  What can I say.  I enjoy scrapbooking and if I could I would do book after book of just Izzy because she is just the cutest!

Here is a page all dedicated to her and her adorable little face!!

Here is the whole page:

 

And a close up of the top of the page:

 

Close up of the bottom:

An angle shot, so you can sort of see the 3D effect of the stickers:

 

And another angle shot!:

Day 31

Well my wonderful family and friends, you've stuck with me for 31 days!  I can honestly say that I'm surprised I've stuck with this, but it's been fun and eye opening!  Because you have stuck by my side through bobble head cats and zombie dogs, I think you deserve something in return.  How about a bit of honesty?  No, you want money??  TOO BAD!  It's my blog after all, so you get honesty!

I come from a family of some seriously creative people!  My mom is super creative and artsy!  The woman can sew, draw, crochet, paint, sculpt and soooo much more.  My uncle is a great artist, and much more!  Their mom, a total seamstress!  My dad's mom and his sisters...crafty too!!  I seriously have asked on several occasions if I was adopted.  I do crafts, but nothing super special.  So why am I telling you this?  Well on to my honest confession of sorts, I've always wanted to be "artsy".  I've always wanted to paint, or draw, or sculpt, do pottery, something that is totally A R T...not crafts.  I don't know if it's because I just haven't found something that I'm "good" at, or just a fear of trying something and having it fail maybe?  Who knows, but as I get older, I sort of throw all that out the window and I'm willing to try things I wouldn't have tried years ago!  YAY for getting old!

Today's craft is something that has struck my fancy for a while now, but have been too afraid to try.  It's called "altered art" or in this case "altered book art"  The first fear comes from hurting a book.  I love books, I mean really LOVE books.  I can't even throw a book out.  Which is part of the reason I finally made myself try this.  It's not fair to have a book just sit on a shelf and collect dust when it's has the potential to do something wonderful with it's life!!  Then there is the fear of having whatever I make look like a preschooler did it, but as stated above, the older I get, the less I care what others think.  Soooo, here is my first attempt at altered art!  I won't really go into what it "means", because isn't the whole point and fun of art??  Trying to figure it out?  So here you go, try to delve into the recesses of my mind.  HA!  Good luck with that!

(FYI...you can click on any of the pictures to see them in a bigger size.)

Here is my altered art book.  The left side is a collage of pictures, and the right a collage of words that stood out to me.

 

A close up of the picture collage side:

 

And  close up of the word collage side:

 

One more of the whole book:

 

And last, here is proof it's a book!  If I had more time, I would have glued some of the pages together to make the work area thicker, but it's suggested you let it dry overnight, and I didn't think to do that yesterday!: