Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Friends and Family effected by Hurricane Sandy.

             A big warm hug to all my scrappy friends. My deepest sympathy and condolences go out to all those in the North East and everywhere that have lost their homes and loved one's due to hurricane Sandy. I have been crafting but I don't want to post anything I have done. I just want to reflect upon and post about the last couple of days here, which I have spent mostly in my craftroom  cutting, painting, gluing, scrapping and doing anything that will keep me sane and focus and not tuned to the Television. The News has been on all day for the past three days and has not stopped giving me a play by play of all the loss and destruction left by Hurricane Sandy.
             I know in a natural disaster we don't get to choose who stays and who goes and we are no match for Mother Nature's fury when she is upset. It hurts to see so many innocent live's lost and many people without homes. Having lost everything they have ever worked for. It hurts to hear the horror of people being crushed by tree's and other's having lost everything down to their precious children's photographs.
             My husbands job has shut down because of loss of power, so he's out of a job  until further notice and my children have not returned to school because many of the school's have been turned into shelters for those in need. My oldest daughter and sons have also been out of work for loss of power The buses have limited service and the subways and trains have been shutdown until they can be fixed (water damage everywhere).
               I Live in the North East and I thank the Lord on bend knees's for having spared us, for we still have a roof above our heads and are still together. To all those that have not fared well my heart goes out to you, I will keep you in my prayers. Please keep the faith and be strong the lord will light the way. Hugs and much love to all! 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

New tags,small tiles and a cubby update.

                        Hi Everyone, hope you are all doing great this time of year. Autumn is my favorite time of the year.The leaves have begun to fall and they are changing from there green color to the beautiful fall colors like orange, red, brown and yellow and some leaves have turn deep burgandy. I like that the weather is not to hot and it is not so cold. You really just need a light jacket and not heaps and layers of clothes like in winter.   Okay, enough weather talk, Sorry I was in my news reporting mode LOL.  Now lets get back to what this blog is about (Crafty Stuff) and some blogging.
                 Well, I have been gone for a while trying new stuff, like embossing and crackle paint and Mod Podge, sealers and lacquers and I'm trying to water color on canvas (but that will be on another post). Here are four tags I made using some of these mediums.
I changed the tag on the top right and you will see that on one of the pics below.
I distressed an arch shaped piece of card stock and added  flowers in  silver, peach and beige. 
                             .
The tag in the top left needed a lot of work because at the time I did not have Gesso to cover the  kraft like paper. I had to  color it with white acrylic paint in order to be able to use distress ink on it. I also did not want to mess up the embossing of the couple I had done. following are a few pics showing a little of the procedure I used.

Here I stamped an Anna Griffin  vine stamp all over the tag

Adding ribbon, decisions decisions  

I like the way the butterflies came out and I stamped some trees to the card . She looks like she's soaring above the trees.

Now, This idea I got from watching Jennys644 from Youtube. She has a website called Freestyle Crafts (It's awesome and has more then 2000 videos). Well, her name is Fiona  I saw her video on making tiny tiles by cutting up regular chipboard into small tile size chips and painting them white. You can use any type of stamps on them or you can cut small pics from your paper pads ( I used pics from the Graphic 45 paper pads). If you decide to stamp them you can use any type of distress colors on them. You then have to use a sealer ( I used glue and seal from ranger). after letting the tiles dry you can add a generous layer of glossy accents or 3d lacquer to get a glossy dome layer effect on them. let them dry overnight undisturbed and they turn out like old vintage tiny tiles. They turned out great!

They have the lacquer on and they have not dried to the clear  stage yet.

Here they have the glue and seal and  are waiting to dry

Here they have the final layer of lacquer and are almost dry and clear.


Up now I want to show you  another foam board cubby I made for my craft  table. I also took out the  last cubby holes from my older one and redid it with drawers at the bottom. This was not my idea, I want to give credit to Robin from RobinCreativeCottage. I was viewing the storage other crafters do on you tube and came accross her video of her storage with drawers and I decided to make  a new craft storage with drawers and I also updated my old storage  cubby with drawers on the bottom.I added paper from DCWV and gaint round brush silver brads as drawer knobs. I have been having my older one for a while now and it has held up just fine. Untill I find something suitable in wood, these will do just fine. They are easy,simple and inexpensive. If you need storage for light items and are on a budget try these. There are all over You tube and many crafters have done wonderful videos explaining the procedure that goes with creating one of these storage units. The units are simple, just be careful with the hot glue gun it gets hot and a little messy. besides that they are fun to create.Well here is the end of my post.  If you have made your way down this long post  I want to Thank you  so much for reading and viewing this post. Lots of hugs and as always may God bless you all!
Everything is withen reach and I like that.
My desk is much more organized now.
In these drawers I keep washi tape and glue sticks double daubers and clear mounts.




I keep small jars of flocking and perfect pearls, ink pots, embossing  powders and  perfect mediums  in these  drawers.     Thanks for taking the time to view my post.