April 2012 - Create for 365 days

I thought I had better get my April Create for 365 days summary up! July will be over soon and I am only now up to April's summary. Rather than spend hours creating a collage I opted to take a screen shot of my flicker photos and edit out the photos from March and May. Quick and simple, making it more likely that I will get the other months done soon.



You can check out all of my photos here at Flickr.

032: Mini silver gift card with black glitter birds.
033: Black and silver theme beaded bracelet.
034: Orange wire wrapped pendant.
035: Onyx hair combs.
036: Needle cushion for my mum - Pincushion: http://weefolkart.com/content/tuna-can-pincushions Felt flowers: http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/links/springviolets.html
037: Tiled coasters with a metallic blue paper featuring Asian style writing.
038: Wall plaque with a photo of Stellar in our Queensland Bottle Tree.
039: A funny looking catnip mouse for Dash - that he knocked off the table so Trixie could promptly destroy it!
040: Glittered pegs!
041: Purple origami balls.
042: Suki's photo collage :(
043: My scrapbook paper clock (its been like that for 3 months so I think I must really like it now!)
044: Light blue polka dot dog collar.
045: Wall plaque with a photo of Suki as a kitten.
046: Tiled coasters for my big sisters birthday.
047: Amethyst wire wrap pendant.
048: My bamboo stamp as a bookmark.
049: Double infinity scarf - I kind of used this tutorial http://killthemwithcraftiness.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/tutorial-infinity-scarf.html, but I just folded my material in half to have 1 piece so I only had to sew one seam up the side.
050: I had to fix the clasp on this bracelet and also bulked it up with more beads.
051: Wall plaque of Dash as a kitten.
052: Funny looking gemstone wire wrapped pendant.
053: Brown and blue polka dot dog collar.
054: Red gerbera hair clip.
055: Multi colour origami balls.
056: Dark amethyst wire wrap pendant.
057: Blue arrow cushion.
058: Trixie's cotton jumper.
059: Wall plaque of Trixie as a tiny puppy.
060: Blue shell wire wrap pendant.
061: Dark blue origami ball - I cut the paper too small for this ball and it takes longer to do the smaller it gets. It has definitely put me off making any more of them for awhile.

Repair a paper parasol

Back in 2007 we went to Thailand and among the many souveniers I brought home was this lovely paper parasol. 

In our old house I thought it would be nice to have my parasols on display, unfortunately the cats thought they were fun to play with and my lovely paper parasol ended up with a big rip thanks to the little ratbags! 

I finally looked up how to fix paper parasols and not having any starch or similar paper, I opted to ignore the internet and just glued the edges together from the back using paper towel and pva. 

I hoped for the best and let it dry completely, luckily it worked out as you can see... 

Where all the paper was ripped there was a noticeable white edge which was really bugging me. To disguise that I tried out my watercolour pencils and again I was lucky, as the rip isn't even noticeable now! 

As someone who doesn't do trial and error for fear of ruining things, I have to say I am quite proud of myself for finally fixing it! I may have to force myself to do things like this more often.

Blobby Scotty Dog

I wanted to share my latest "blobby" drawing with you. This one features the silhouette of a Scottish Terrier.

For this drawing, I tried to do my "old style" but I don't think I like it. I really liked the look of it with the female silhouette so maybe it has something to do with the simplicity of the base image.

This drawing will probably need to be redone in the "new style" before I can decide if I like it!

Using a section of a stamp

If you have been following my Create for 365 days photos on Flickr you may have noticed a lot of gifts tags, mini cards and bookmarks that I have made.

I thought I would share the easiest way to make personalised cards and other papercrafts.

When I was little my parents gave me a plastic briefcase stamp kit that had 120 stamps in it, add that to all the other stamps I already had and have occasionally bought and carved myself and there is a reason I have a box of stamps that are hardly used.

As a teenager I used them to decorate my school diary which I would then colour in during boring classes...

I have alphabet and number stamps that feature animals - eg. P for panda. So while the stamps are cute I found that generally I would like to use the animal part of the stamp but don't want to use the letter or number part.

Would you believe there is an easy fix for that?

Original stamp -- butterfly only -- butterfly in colour

All I do is take either a texta or a gel pen and ink up the part of the stamp I want to use. You have to be quick so the ink doesn't dry but it works.

And once you know that you can prepare the stamp quick enough, you can try out coloured stamping.

It is easier to use textas for bigger stamps with large surface areas to cover, but for most of my stamps I just use gel pens.

Any parts that don't stamp clearly are easily touched up using your gel pen.

Once the ink is dry I simply colour in the stamp using gel pens or water colour pencils.

Hopefully now you are able to see more options in your stamps!

March 2012 - Create for 365 days

I thought I would share a summary of my progress each month for my "Create for 365 days" challenge.

And what better way to present all my photos than as a collage... and then give you links to any tutorials I used!

001: My chunky blue beaded bracelet.
002: Tile coasters using a golden paper with Asian writing.
003: My painted mobile phone case.
004: Glittered photo frame - Paint on PVA, sprinkle with glitter, after it is dry paint over it with watered down PVA to keep the glitter in place.
005: Rhinestone letters (originally started for our wedding cake).
006: March, April, May and June calendars coloured in with watercolour pencils.
007: Gelatin air freshener in a bamboo etched glass bottle. Tutorial here: http://www.delightfulcountrycookin.com/2010/08/homemade-air-freshener.html
008: Headband for my mum.
009: Scrapbook paper clock - Cut the paper to size and stick on using double sided tape.
010: Tuna can pincushion for my Grandma's birthday. Tutorial for pincushion: http://weefolkart.com/content/tuna-can-pincushions
011: Felt flower hair clip.
012: Penguin cross stitch that my sister brought back for me from New Zealand.
013: Flower etched fruit bowl.
014: Glittered gift tags.
015: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet bookmark kits.
016: Pink baby bear cross stitch.
017: Felt flower hair clip.
018: Black dress slip.
019: Blue baby bear cross stitch.
020: Crazy bee cross stitch.
021: Crazy bee cross stitch pattern: http://krydasu.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/bee-cross-stitch-pattern.html
022: Purple ruffled dog collar for Trixie.
023: Felt flower hair clips - Tutorial by Yoonie: http://yoonie-at-home.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/peony-flower-felt-clip-tutorial.html
024: Ribbon covered pen... fail.
025: Painted xbox case.
026: Scrapbook paper card and envelope set.
027: Tuna can pincushion for my mums birthday - Pincushion: http://weefolkart.com/content/tuna-can-pincushions Felt flowers: http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/links/springviolets.html
028: Scrapbook paper peg magnets.
029: Zebra dog collar.
030: Signature tree for my SIL's wedding.
031: Tulle and poplin flower hair clip.

Covering a spiral notebook

I always have a pile of little notebooks sitting on my desk allocated to different things. I hate that they are yellow and that I have to look in them all until I find the right one!

I used to cover them in contact just up to the spiral section as well as folding the edges over - as if I was back in school covering my exercise books.

Now, I take the spiral off before covering the notebook which looks much nicer and covers all of the yellow!

If you are interested in covering spiral notebooks this way, here is how I did it...

1. Grab your ugly notebook (I used Spirax No. 560 - A good size to keep in my handbag, but it also fits in the back pocket of my jeans)
2. Flip the cardboard covers out of the way and using 2 bulldog clips, hold all the pages together near the spirals.
3. Take a close look at the ends of your spiral and you will notice that they are bent inwards to stop it twisting its way off the notebook.
4. Grab a pair of pliers and bend the wire on both ends so it continues on as a spiral shape.
5. Simply twist the wire out of the holes.
6. You now have everything separated as required. As you can see the back cover is plain white on the inside so I opted to simply flip it around rather than cover it with contact and cut out all those tiny holes.
7. Cut your contact slightly bigger than the notebook cover.
8. If you don't know how to cover books with contact, just remove the backing paper from one edge of the contact.
9. Flip the contact over and line it up with your notebook cover. Once you have the contact stuck to your table and the top of your notebook cover, just start pulling the backing paper off while rubbing the contact down with your fingers. Doing it slowly prevents air bubbles. Some people used credit cards or rulers but I don't like the way it marks the contact. If you don't want to use your fingers just use a cloth or sponge.
10. Using a craft knife, trim down the sides of the contact, using the edge of the cardboard as a guide.
11. Now you need to cut out all the little holes - hence why I opted to leave the back plain!
12. Hold your covers in place with your paper (still clipped) inside and twist the spiral back onto your notebook.
13 .Grab your pliers again and bend the coils back to their original positions, or twist it around as I have. 

Now you can remove the bulldog clips and use your customised notebook.

It is actually a quick project if you are used to using contact paper, even cutting out the little holes doesn't take too long.

You will find some contact (eg. the blue notebook I covered) is still rather see through, so you may want to test a scrap piece first. For the blue notebook I just used the back cover so the pattern would still show through - luckily there is no writing on the back!

Fancy Letterbox Numbers

We ripped out our rusty old letterbox a couple of weeks ago and put a lovely black and silver one in its place.

I had grand ideas for the house numbers I wanted - but of course I didn't think about it until after we put the new letterbox in. So, almost 3 weeks later after procrastinating and curing, we have beautiful rhinestone house numbers!

When cars drive past at night, my numbers sparkle and show up really well. It's an added bonus and I wish I could say it was the reason I spent a whole day gluing tiny rhinestones on pieces of wood.

I stuck them on using automotive double sided tape, so I'm hoping they hold!