Gorgeous Rich colors

hey you! thanks for coming by today. I am sooo excited to share my creations with you today. Hey- I even took tutorial photos, which I dislike doing sooo much, so you know I really am excited and want to show you how to create this gorgeous look.

Isn’t this beautiful? Sorry my photos aren’t great, it’s super dark today with the rain we are getting.

I used Alcohol Inks, acetate, Staz-On, some pretty stamps and glitter paper to make this. Do you have those items? Hopefully you do.

I don’t think colors are that important for names- because you can use what you’d like or have, but I used Wild Plum, Mountain Rose, Sunshine and Stream for my colors on this card.

Here’s how. I use packaging acetate- I got a huge sheet from some Cricut Cuttlebug plates and trimmed off the edges.

Stamp your image with Staz-on on the acetate. FLIP OVER and use the back for your inks, or they will take off some of the design.

Decide your colors- this is my second card you will see soon.  Then drop ink onto acetate.

Use a makeup sponge or cotton square to dab the colors in the same color group- yellow first, then orange. Use a second square to dab the greens.

You have basically covered the acetate all over. Now you can add color with intensity.

As you drop colors onto the acetate, they will form puddles with wavy crinkled edges, I love that. You can drop as much color on as you want, but don’t go too dark or your stamped image will be hard to see.

Now let it dry.  And trim into straight edges with a cutter. I then use Glue Arts Extreme adhesive squares at each corner to hold the back onto some glitter paper. Reminisce made mine, I’m sure you can find it by other manufacturers. Or make your own by adding spray adhesive to cardstock and glitter the whole thing.

As I was creating the card, I wanted more dimension. So I stamped the butterfly again, let it dry and cut it out, gently folded the wings up and attached it over my stamped piece.

Now I’m sorry that my tutorial is not for that card, but here is the card I did make using my tutorial piece.

Here is a close up

The colors I used for this card are Butterscotch, Sunshine, Oregano, and Red Pepper

Both cards I used black cardstock to back my pieces, then I layered them on cardboard. I wrapped the top one with twine and a button and the bottom uses Anna Griffin ribbon and button. The stamps are from Inkadinkado  ( bfly and stem) and Hero Arts ( Poppy). The greetings are both stickers from SRM Press.

thanks for stopping in, I hope you are excited to try this, the colors are so vibrant and the glitter just makes it all the more special!

Another pin cushion

I have some amazing friends- seriously- people who inspire me with every project they create.  My friend Linda from the Glue Arts blog created this Dress Form

and I fell seriously deeply in love.

I had to create one myself. And I loved it too.

I stuffed a Maya Road dress form. Then I had hubby drill a hole in a block for me,inserted a dowel and I painted them white, distressed with brown, then topped with a pearl white.

I hot glued her to the stick, so she’d stay on.

then I gave her a tulle skirt, finishing the bottom with lace and velvet ribbon. I glued her skirt into place- it was too poofy for me.

I tied her a sash at the waist with that tan ribbon. And I gave her a flower decoration with a pattern flower, and some small velvet flowers. I gave her a pretty pearl necklace too.

I dressed up her base too. Everyone wants something pretty on their feet. I added more flowers and another ribbon with a button.

And to finish her, I stuck pins in her. HA!  but that is what she is for!

I sent this to my aunt as a gift- she is a wonderful seamstress and she just loved it.

see you soon!

Italian Roast Beast

yes, I call it beast- cause it totally rocks!

Put an eye round roast in the crock pot with two heaping spoons of garlic, and about 4 spoonfuls of italian seasoning. Added a thinly sliced small onion and pepper- no salt because I also added in 2 tablespoons of beef base ( like bullion) and about 3 cups water. Now I’m just letting it go all day, tonight at dinner, I’ll slice up the beef thinly it after I let it rest about 30 minutes. Then I drain out the onions and italian seasoning and pour the liquid broth back into the crock pot and leave it on low until we are ready to eat. Then serve it on rolls with small bowls of Au Jus.

Recycling

Hey all, I thought I’d share a fun pin jar I created a long while ago. I didn’t create it for a call, or for a team assignment. and the funny thing is, I’ve just been waiting to share it, not any special reason to or not to share.

So here it is- isn’t this darling. so spring like and pretty!

I used tons of felt stuff and ribbons. The felt flowers are from Pebbles. I wrapped the jar in plain felt- from papertrey. and I used some american crafts and may arts ribbons on it.

I even added some of these cute flair buttons from Pebbles too.
Here’s the top. I folded some white felt and wrapped and wrapped and hot glued along the way to make the ‘cushion’ part of it.

Know what?

the best part- it’s a jar, you can twist the lid off and put ribbons or buttons or thread in it- cute hunh?

see ya soon!

Food posts

So if you’ve friended me on facebook, you will know that I post our dinners a lot. I am not a super gourmet, I would call myself a working cook. Even though I’m at home, I’m still working and sometimes I have that oh no what’s for dinner when everyone is home and hungry. So I kind of hope that with my posts, that perhaps I”m helping a fellow working person to come up with a nice dinner. Instead of grabbing fast food or a frozen pizza. I adore my crockpot. I do try to eat less red meat, and I try to sneak veggies in- with two kids and a hubby who don’t love vegs- it’s hard.

So my sneaky way to add in spinach to our dinner one night ended in this yummy quiche.

I use a 10 inch pie pan. Honestly- my kids absolutely flippin loooove spinach artichoke dip so this wasn’t hard to get them to eat.

Make it easy on yourself and buy premade piecrust- just slap it in the pan and add your ingredients. So easy.

For quiche I have a simple mantra- 4, 3, 1.     That’s for 4 tablespoons of flour, 3 eggs and 1 cup of milk. After that, you can add what you like.

I added about 1/2 cup of spinach ( go ahead and tell them it’s parsley), 1/2 pack of bacon crisped, and about 1 cup shred cheese ( whatever you like) add in some S&P too. Then whisk it together and pour into your crust.

I bake at 375 for about 25 minutes until it is set and the pie crust edges are lightly brown.

Serve with a side salad and dinner is ready.

Vintage House Banner

 

Vintage House Banner
GlueArts Designer: Kristen Swain

Materials:
Glue Arts Perma Tac and Adhesive Squares, UCutIt foam
House album/ribbon flowers- Maya Road
Paper- Imagine Printed Vintage Paper, Pink Paislee, The Girl’s Paperie, paper scraps
Fabric- Basic Grey
Lace- Walmart
buttons/flower
Ribbon/Leaves- Maya Road

Crinkled Ribbon- http://www.scrapinkris.etsy.com

chipboard- Crate paper
various embellishments
paint- Adirondack dabber
ink- colorbok
Letter stickers- We R Memory Keepers

Instructions:

1.Cut basic shapes across houses using pattern paper.
2. Sew ribbon and lace across top of houses on paper, baste across ribbons to ruffle, then sew across housetop.

3. Glue house paper onto chipboard houses using Perma tac adhesive. Trim edges of paper, lace and fabric.
4. Ink around edges of house and fabric.

5. Embellish houses with ribbon rosettes, flowers, brads, trimmings, and pearls using Adhesive Squares.

6. Add phrase to center house, handcutting heart and adhering with UCutIt foam.

 enjoy!

Valentine House Gift Box

Hey, I’m here today with a sweet little Valentine Gift box that is super easy to create for a fast Valentine gift box. I created my box using Winter Woodland and simply sized the box to fit a full sheet of 12×12 paper. The <house3> image has an outside and an inside cut, and I cut them from black and white papers. I layered the two cuts together, and use foam tape to sturdy my house so that it would hold up to contain candy and goodies.

When gluing my house roof on, I simply only glued on one side, so that the roof becomes the lid for the box.

I decorated the house with flowers and lace, silver pipe cleaners, buttons, a twine wreath and pearls. I also added some velvet ribbon around the roof, and tied a loop which I pulled through a center hole, to use as a hanger.

I love these as a special treat for your loved ones!

Designed by: Kristen Swain
Cricut Machines Used: Cricut Expression 2 Electronic Cutting Machine
Cricut Cartridges Used:  Winter Woodland (house), Lite Bloom (pink glitter flowers)
Other Supplies: Patterned Paper (Pink Paislee), Brads (Crate Paper, BoBunny), Ribbon (May Arts), Pearls (KaiserCraft), Flowers (Petaloo), Foam (Glue Arts), Button, Twine, Lace, Adhesives 

 

ColorArtz System

Hey. Not too long ago Provo Craft teamed up with Testors and gave some of the Cricut team the new ColorArts system to try out. I was flummoxed! I had no idea what I was going to create. I’ve airbrushed before, but in an art way. I didn’t want to use lots of layers because we were also using the Stencil Cart.

We’ll come back to that image – check out that AWESOME pillow in the bottom left square.

These images are pretty simple and I wanted to do something uber COOOOOL. So I went to see what the site at Testors had on it, to see if they had any ideas I could work from. I saw that they were using the system to tie dye! OH YEAH!

I took a white tank, used my pliers to grab a spot and twisted it. Then I clipped one of the color packets in the air brush and sprayed. I loved it.  I got a mix of colors- red, pink, dark blue, purple, black, silver, lime, and orange. I wished I had gotten some yellow and a softer blue. But I worked all the brights I could into this tank. Then I took and cut out the yin yang symbol from the Cricut Stencil material, and adhered that to the tank. I sprayed a nice solid black.

Doesn’t it look great on Annalise!!

And it dries soft and machine washable. I will tell you, I used up most of my colors and the air in the can creating another t-shirt and a hoodie! We love how the tie dye look comes out.

Next, well, I was kinda in a pirate-y mood. so I took some big ol’ beer mugs I got at the dollar store and put a skull and crossbones.

Come on- those are KEWL aren’t they!!

The double layer was hard to do, the paint wanted to peel off, but I managed to shade the skulls too.  ARRR matey, pass ma beer!!

Lastly- well, remember I told you to notice that awesome pillow on the Cricut box. Well- guess who made it!!

MOI! I used silver and black and a medallion to spray them. I kind oversprayed them a bit, but I love that I could do this with more pillows and colors and create my own custom pillows!

Sadly- I was out of paint and air by the time I got done playing with the ColorArtz system, but it was super fun to work with!

Yes, I was compensated by PC to use this product, but this is still my own opinion on the system and I really like it for fabrics. The ink stays soft and washes well. We are still using the clothes several months later and I haven’t noticed much fading. Unfortunately I put my Beer Mugs in the dishwasher and the paint did come right off, but I can save my mugs for another project now!

toodles!