Amber 2 layout and a shout-out

Okay kids, here's the deal. I had a life changing experience when my friend, Misty, explained on her blog how to DIY enamel dots. I may already be amassing a large stash and I only just watched the tutorial. 

The video was perfectly timed for this layout. The page is based on the Mid Week Mojo Amber 2 sketch at Scrapbooksteals and I was really wanting something in the elephant's spray that would resemble air bubbles/texture.

I used MME's new Collectable "Memorable" line for the papers, the washi also MME though don't ask me which lines. The elephant and spray were cut from Silhouette Studio files. To make the bigger spray "puddle" I rubbed gesso on the page and then added blue acrylic paint when the gesso was nearly dry and then swirled the two together for texture. Interspersed with my new enamel dots are some periods from the AC Dear Lizzy Thickers pack that I used for the title.

Happy birthday to my Squishy-bug!

Can I just start out by saying that I adore my Cameo? Nay. I LOVE it. That little machine has made my life in the last several days leading up to the Bug Birthday Party so.much.easier. And since much of the party was "hand-crafted" I'm going to share with you (sorry, you may see elements again in the form of scrapbook pages).

I'm also going to say that I don't know why my heart was set on a bug party, but since it was, I sort of had to do it all myself because bugs are sooooo not "in" this year. I did get some ideas from other bloggers though, oh, and pinterest. Couldn't have found those blogs without it. :)

Craftaholics Anonymous was my launching point for the bug themed foods. Peanut BUTTERfly sandwiches. Cracks me up every time. You'll see more from their party below, they teamed up with another blog to create the backdrop they used.

A bug party wouldn't have been complete without some delicious chocolate covered strawberries! The idea for these came from Homemaking Fun. She did a whole bug themed evening for her family one night. Awesome idea! I might have to start doing themed family nights for my clan.

These Caterpillar kabobs were from Julie Kundhi's blog. She made them for a preschool snack, but let me tell you that they were as much a hit with the toddler as with the Papa! And I don't know how she got her icing (whites of eyes) so perfect, I eventually gave up and just made all the caterpillars have uni-whites.

I decided to cut out these bugs in my backdrop several months ago, and then when I saw this backdrop at Creative Juice I knew that I needed to take my buggy idea to another level! Their backdrop was created on foam board, but I already had this rod for hanging our artwork and I adapted it to my party needs! I loved the idea of using a cheapy tablecloth as a background and then adding elements. They hand cut and glued tissue paper "grass"to it, sans bugs. I decided to cut my grass from solid cardstock on the Cameo and then stapled them right to the tablecloth. Some of the grass didn't stay totally upright, but neither does grass in real life.

There were lots of those little vinyl bugs hung all over my dining area, but that would require that I show you all the furniture scuffs on the walls. I had also planned some games and crafts for the younger party guests, but they just wanted to play with toys. Maybe next year.

Hero

When a friend lost a distant cousin who'd been in the armed forces at first I didn't think to much of it, I just said a prayer for the family and went on with my day. A few days later she told me that the funeral was getting a little negative attention and the community was engaging to create a human wall - wearing red. I've been to a funeral where that group was present and they make me ill - I was now a little more emotionally involved. No one needs those guys around!

This friend happens to be the one who got me involved in Pinterest, so she saw this as an opportunity to  test out a project idea. She wanted to bleach t-shirts with some text/graphic for her and a mutual friend to wear to the wall. We ended up cutting a file from the Silhouette store and set to work bleaching over the die cut. The darker red shirt was the first we did, as a "tester" and turned out AWESOME. I love how the dog tags just pops off the shirt. The true red shirts she'd bought didn't absorb the bleach as well so we used some spray ink to help the tag pop out a bit. That ink took a seriously long time to dry but looks pretty cool. 

Some two thousand people from our community (and some neighboring ones!) went to stand in support of family and country. I ended up staying home with the kiddos while Scientist stood in the heat for hours. I'm glad I was able to do something to help, even if it was just a silly shirt. 

Homemade Monday: mirrored, again

Sometimes I get into a design rut. Same thing over and over and over. So I altered a mirror again - rut. Sort of, this was the original mirror project and Squirrel managed to break off some of the spoons so I regrouped and made the papered mirror for the Paper Variety's challenge a couple of weeks ago.

But I still wanted the spoons to hang in my dining area (next to a mammoth one a friend gave me that used paint sticks a la Pinterest) and I really wanted it to still have that starburst effect to complement the one from my friend.

Here's what I had done: Gorilla glued all the spoons to the back of the mirror. In normal, non-preschooler circumstances it would have worked. It was mirror side down and he went under and popped the spoons off of the mirror. Grrrrr

Having learned to never trust my creation when preschoolers are nearby the second time I traced the mirror on cardboard and cut it. Then I started hot gluing the spoons down, more immediately secured that way. When the spoons were two layers deep I squirted a whole bunch of Gorilla glue in the cavity created from the spoon ends as well as across them. Carefully placed the mirror and a heavy object on top of it all and left the house for a few hours.

When we got home the mirror had slid a little and I could see part of the cardboard. Not enough though to need to scrap the project or anything. Instead, I took some ribbons and a flower and gave it a more decorative feel. It had been feeling really empty to me anyway and I think it was a nice touch.

Now where did all those weird looking spoons come from? Well, the friend who gave me the starburst mirror had around the same time discovered Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt. Our two families went together one evening, and while the yogurt is tasty and the restaurant is tons of fun I fell in love with the unique shape of the spoons. So I started making everyone give me their spoons when we went out. There's 38 there, that's a lot of sharing good times with friends and family.

The mirror I'd picked up for $2 at Goodwill.

The ribbon was leftover from a couple of other projects - some MME Lush 2 Orange and some Paper Studio.

The flowers are Imaginesce with a MME Lush 2 Orange brad.

flower and vase

Sometime last fall Pinterest and I became acquainted. Among projects that caught my attention early on were all the numerous glass bottles wrapped in string - mostly jute. Now for some reason I don't have any hanging around, but I do have some fuzzy yarn thanks to my crochet days. So I wrapped a bottle in this fabulous cheap purple yarn. That day I felt a need to accomplish a mindless project - scrapbooking would have taken to much brain power that I didn't have to give. The bottle's shape warranted some hot glue in a couple of spots, just in case you feel the need to try this project out. I don't know if any of the original projects used any glue, I only ever looked at the pins of those particular projects!

Anyway, so I had this purple vase on my desk since a couple of days before we converted it from the crib. In my world, that's a long time for a project to not have a home or a purpose so today's project was to make some flowers for it.

I logged into the Silhouette store and found some lovely 3D tulips. After cutting them on pink card stock (why did I feel a need to buy so many solid card stock packs when I started scrapbooking? I have tons of solid that I.NEVER.USE) I used the instructions with the file to layer them. The first two looked eh, but then I got the hang of it and went ahead and inked up the rest of them. Scrapbooking tape was okay, but you really had to hold it in place. I gave up and used hot glue since it dries so fast.

For the stems I wanted something psuedo realistic - the floral wire I had was to thin and pipe cleaner was fat and fuzzy, so I used wooden skewers that I shaded with two green markers.

I'm quite happy with the result. Next time I do a glass bottle project from Pinterest it should probably include fire - I'm really feeling the need to do one of those cut glass projects...

new space

Squishy for some time now has been able to climb like a mountain goat/monkey. We've been waiting for him to scale the baby gate (he so totally could!) or to launch himself over the side of the crib (he climb up the sides a bit from the front and it wouldn't take much to get him on top). Given that we don't know what's holding him back, other than our prayers, we decided that the best way to train him to sleep in his big boy bed (think August birthday, brother's December birthday and Christmas) was to have a few months of accessibility to toys without the allure of a ladder. Yep, we put the mattress on the floor.

And in so doing created my new creative space.

We spent several hours on Memorial Day disassembling and reassembling it to get it from one room to the other, and after a trip to the hardware store for some particle board I was ready to make a desk like this one I'd seen on Pinterest. The picture takes you to the original blog. ;)

Since I wanted a desk for me, we positioned the springs on the infant (highest) setting. I spray primered that particle board, then spent the next two days painting on the layers. After painting the orange base color, I achieved the chevrons with the help of my handy dandy Silhouette by using vinyl to create a mask. Not quite happy with how some of them still became uneven (uh, hi, no surprise here that even with help I couldn't achieve a straight line) I took a Sharpie and edged all the stripes to sort of finish them off. That helped a lot. And then after a coating of spray acrylic to seal it all in I set up my new craft space. 

new desk

You'll notice in the picture my sewing machine, Silhouette Cameo, laptop (with Target Washi keyboard, another idea from Pinterest) and my Silhouette advent calendar that I've already repurposed to hold all those little things that I used to avoid using because I hated pulling out their containers all the time. Now they're decorative and accessible! Time to make some flowers for the vase and it'll be ready to go. Much better than that rickety old card table I'd been using.