the almost-final countdown

The last two days before a long vacation are soooo nerve-wracking. So much to remember! I have a few to-do lists running – one at work, one at home and one crafting. Crossing things off is such a pleasure…

To raise the bar, stressful events have been added this time, like the craft show last Saturday or a visit to the dentist yesterday. That’s done, though. Whew.

I managed to find some time to work on a few candles – they are not finished, but the only thing that needs adding is the verbiage and possibly some embellishments.

playing with fire

I’m experimenting with candles again – making simple „candle cozies” for gifts for the upcoming trip to Poland, which starts the day after tomorrow. Of course, the paper needs to be taken off before burning, I feel like I should almost have a disclaimer on each candle :) But the people I’m planning to give these to know how to handle candles.

Each of them will have the fragrance name stamped on, so one of these is still work in progress. Ah, the possibilities are infinite! I’m thinking that maybe these prototypes are a little too simple, maybe I can add an extra embellishment of some sort – a brad, or a punched leaf.

post-show post

Niki and I participated in the craft and bake sale at the Immanuel Church in Elmhurst. It was such a great experience! It was the first time for me and I feel sooooo much smater about the setup and the whole organization side of the event.

It turned out that the little post-it note purses were all sold out rather quickly, which makes me happy, because creating them is a ton of fun. Here are some examples that found new owners today:

Long time, no post…

…and it’s already Christmas time in my craftroom! In fact, I’ve been working on Christmas items for the last few weeks, and also on various gifts for the family and friends I will encounter during my trip to Poland, which is going to begin next week. Yes, in a week at this time I will be most likely sitting on a plane somewhere over Europe!

All the cards are uploaded to Picasa. To spruce up this post, though, I will throw in a few pictures representing the different designs.

Patchwork card

Got up early, made a card – Rudlis blogged about this nice idea how to use up scraps, which all paper crafters probably save because we are sure one day we can use them for something.

It’s a little patchwork of coordinated papers from K&Company, plus a stamped message, which has been sitting on my table for a week or so. Gotta love using up the stash!

a beautiful Sunday

I've heard it's going to rain in the afternoon - so far, though, it's beautiful and sunny outside, and the cat is really enjoying it. That tree by our balcony is turning yellow so fast! It's always the first to sprout leaves in spring, and first to get color in the fall.

I'm looking forward to the fall colors - we already saw some in Upper Peninsula a couple weeks ago. To get there, we started the trip at around 3 am and then we saw this gorgeous sunrise on the way, with layers of fog softly wrapped around the shrubs and trees.

Purses going onto etsy

Yay, the little boxes have arrived, so I posted the first little post-it note purse on etsy! I’t soooo exciting, friends around me seem to like them a lot, so I’m hoping to spread some joy around.

A lady at the office asked me if I could make some more masculine post-its, and she suggested a snake, so I spent some time last night experimenting. A prototype was born, with shiny skin (H20 paints) and a zig-zag pattern on its back. I’m not sure if I fully like the background paper, I think I had something more jungle-like in mind. The colors on the snake would look more vibrant on a darker green background.

packaging research

I spent some time yesterday trying to figure out the best way to ship the little post-it-note purses, if someone decides to purchase one. It needs to be as inexpensive as possible, quick, easy (forget putting together a dozen parts every time), and – first of all – safe. The purses are somewhat fragile, so until I figure out some other design for the handle, a rigid box is needed and the purse should not move inside.

It looks like the audio cassette mailers may be the solution. I thought they went pretty much extinct, and yet the packaging is still available! I would need to put a few Styrofoam peanuts inside (why does Styrofoam capitalize itself when I type it in Word??) and it will be good to go.
Nice. Now – on to making more purses, photographing, etc.

to hoard or not to hoard...

I’ve been watching this show on TV about hoarders and I feel soooo sorry for those people! I don’t consider myself a hoarder, especially since my husband encourages throwing useless stuff away, but I would cry just as those people do if someone tried to organize my crafting stuff for me and toss some of it. Scraps of paper, nature findings, random pieces… It can all be used somehow!

Yesterday, for instance, I used a bunch of small pieces of paper to create business cards. While it’s definitely a very time consuming way of obtaining stationery and limits the quantities to dozens as opposed to thousands, it’s also perfect for late night when the brain isn’t into complicated processes.

I also experimented with the H20 paints, which I got last winter, when the manufacturer was going to close down the shop and offered a giant discount. Lo and behold, they got such mountains of orders that it allowed them to stay afloat despite the price cut. I was going to get those for my birthday, but oh well :)

So here is a card featuring flowers painted with blue H20s:

Winterscape Card

I love Christmas cards with snow and wintry landscapes, so the stamp purchased at the garage sale on Saturday didn’t have to wait too long to be used. Here is one finished card (pity you can’t see the pearly shine of the patterned background), and a colored image for another card.

I’m slowly reviving the little store I had on teapotcreations.etsy.com. I’ve started posting cards there, and the goal is to include the little purses as well and possibly other creations. Ah, so much to do, so little time – as usual!

Over the weekend, I stopped at a stamp/scrap garage sale having seen this enormously tempting sign on the roadside. Wow, the whole driveway full of treasures! And some more inside the garage! I purchased three very different stamps, which I’m hoping to test very soon.

I also made some new cards – I’ll show only two here, since the others are resting under heavy objects to make sure that the embellishments really stick to paper.

enjoying a new technique

I found this new technique online which allows to create a tile effect on cardstock. Really easy and I find it quite interesting! Here is the outcome - an oriental-themed card. I finally used the Chinese lantern stamp I got on ebay about a year ago. The writing says "good fortune".

happy birthday, dear husband

My husband has a significant collection of giraffes, so I'm trying to contribute on various occasions. This year I've made him a card with a stamped image (the stamp itself is also a part of the collection.)

I have also made a new template for the post-it-note purses and here is the prototype, accompanied by two tiny Chinese guys. I wonder where they came from - possibly a gardening show at Navy Pier, several years ago?

I also have tiny little ceramic frogs - perhaps I'll use them to add interest to photos, too!

Starting some Christmas projects

Playing a little bit vith various ideas... like this one, which will be sent instead of a card, with the message written on the back. It's hangable, shiny and... I can make so many versions using the same template! :)

Experiment in the bathroom

This is a very simplified version of paper casting; I placed a few layers of wet toilet paper on an acrylic stamp, patted it really well, waited about 24 hours – and here is the result! A little shell cast.

I think I will see if I can dry-brush a little bit of acrylic paint on it – perhaps gold? Or pearly white? Or pearly-some-other-color?

The next experiment in line is dipping the paper in water colored with watercolors or food dye.

mini-note book

I'm participating in another challenge - this time on a Polish blog at ScrapLab. The challenge was to use the below color scheme for something hand-made - and this is one of my absolutely favorite color combinations! Perhaps even THE most favorite one.

This tiny book is just a little bigger than a matchbox, and I am planning to use it for Spanish words. My next-cubicle neighbor speaks fluent Spanish (it's her first language), and I got jealous. We are planning more trips to Mexico, possibly next year, if the funds allow, so any vocabulary I can attach to my memory will help.

This is a series of items for the challenge on the blog “Simon Says Stamp!” The task was to create anything but a card, so I made a few purses with the little post-it-notes inside. I used my favorite K&Company double-sided papers (it’s easier this way – in the past, I would glue two one-sided papers together, but folding is more tricky then, as it often leads to unexpected wrinklage.)

I have a lot of purse inspiration at work, because one of the ladies has a calendar with a new photo of a gorgeous purse for each day. Yum! (She has a ton of real purses, too.)

new cards

Between yesterday and today's morning I finished a series of four cards - all of them with the fabric and bead florals. I'll need to move on to a different design now - I rather dislike dwelling on one for too long :)
There is a little bit of recycling in these cards - the vase in the second one is made from the corrugated cardboard coffee cup holder that you get at Starbucks. This texture is so pleasant to work with, and quite sturdy.
I have some new stamps that I would LOVE to test - summer, purses, Oriental... Also got a new chandelier at Michael's, from the $1 bin. Yum!

from the crafting table

After the summer break and taking care of a visitor (my brother-in-law spent a month with us) I'm finally spending more time with my crafting materials.
I have started Christmas experiments - as usual, I am drawn to the snowy colors, blue, white and silver. First of all, I put together an origami flower, which may be suitable for the cards that will be handed in. I can't imagine mailing them :)

Then I wanted to try a flatter idea - wintry photos, possibly black and white, with these fabric-and-bead flowers, plus some extra stuff. I'm hunting for a punch that would produce little branches, like this one. I may combine them with the distressed-looking corrugated cardboard.

Last but not least - the big project in progress is the paperbag album hosting the memories from our recent trip to Washington, Oregon and California. It is my first encounter with the brown bags and I absolutely love how you can stuff the pockets with all the extra receipts, postcards and what not - I always run out of space in regular albums!

a couple new cards

I've been working on some new cards the last few days. They will all be added to the picasa album. Here, I would like to show just a couple.
This one is a simple, "duplicate" cutout from cardstock, with scrapbooking paper on the front. The flowers have been stamped and cut out from scrapbooking paper as well. The idea popped into my head yesterday at work, so I had to quickly make a model out of some used manila folder, so that I wouldn't forget :)

This card features fragments of images from some marketing pieces. I love the colors and i couldn't possibly let such bright materials go straight to the recycling bin!
I also used buttons and my favorite "cotton" lace. I'm not sure if it's really cotton, probably not, but that's what I'm calling it in my little crafting world.

For the weekend, I'm very much looking forward to a trip to Indiana Dunes - we are trying to get a group of seven people from our Polish church to travel together first time EVER. Should be exciting - there is a lot of nature to see there and also some old farms and artefacts. Yay!

tea lights

I've been asked for some ideas suitable for inexpensive wedding table decorations. The lady has already purchased large candles and she has hurricane lamps, as well as some ribbon. I thought tea lights like these could be scattered on the tables - inexpensive, really easy to color-coordinate, and also not very time-consuming to make.

finished!

I delivered 44 items (mostly hearts) to the Shelter today. I feel like I have run a marathon :) Hopefully, the visitors at Lombard fair will like them, and also everything else other crafters have produced for the event.
Individual photos of the pieces can be viewed here.

The next show is in two weeks and I'm sure the time will just fly by! For now, this weekend's to-do list is already filling up. One interesting item of business is coming up with some suggestions for economical wedding decorations for the family where I teach Polish. The color scheme is lovely: yellow, orange and green, and I do have a couple ideas swirling around in my head already... I will share when they become reality!

salt dough hearts - almost ready...

The items for the animal shelter are almost ready. Here are some of them - there is another stack which will need the ribbons, and then I'll attach the tags, and then deliver them tomorrow!

I've also made a few cards. I'm trying to incorporate some recycled materials in each of them. This one, for instance, features a photo cut out from a promo we received at work, and also the grey/silvery layer came from a folder sent to my office by some company.

Here we have a clean and simple design utilized in order to follow the Asian inspiration. I used the pizza box lining painted with acrylics.

I have materials cut and ready to go for a few more cards... and then on to the next project!

domain news

Yay, the domain registration process is complete! The Paypal payment went through, and a few minutes later teapotcreations.com went live. There isn't much going on there yet, just a few un-linked graphics (since I couldn't wait to start, but I don't have time to do anything more at this moment).

I need to set it up nicely by Friday evening; this is when I am delivering the goodies to the shelter, and then they will be sold at the Lombard Craft Fair. I also need to finish the tags and labels... so much to do, so little time! I'm hoping to post some photos of my crafts tomorrow.

The Yellowness of Spring

On the way to work I have been admiring the bright yellow dandelions. Although considered weeds by some, they are such a splendid springtime bloom!
Also, the tulips and daffodils are showing off their gorgeous flowers in our area, adding to the juicy greenness of the still-tiny leaves on all the trees. I am also looking forward to the cascade of white petals on the cherry tree outside our bedroom window.
So much to be amazed at in spring!

Humble Beginnings

I am starting to work on the very basic web site aimed at showcasing the outcome of many hours spent over various crafting materials and tools. With a romantic/exotic PhotoShop brush and a simple layout in FrontPage I am hoping to put together an informative and pleasant site.

I am also signing up for a nicely priced web hosting service together with a domain name. Yay! My own domain name! Always wanted one! This blog will be linked up to that site, of course, and I am planning to use the photo albums I have on picasa. Long Live Google.

As far as the creative juices are concerned, I am working on the donations to the DuPage Animal Friends - they will be selling craft items at the Lombard Lilac Time Fair to collect funds for the shelter. There will be some salt dough hearts and most likely paper stuff as well!