celebrating a new home

I'm working on a number of items for the craftshow this weekend (yikes, the day after tomorrow!) Yesterday I took a break from purses, boxes and tags to make two cards to celebrate a new home, as requested by a friend.

Got to use two brand new stamps - the house was still in its plastic wrapping, and the nest had been waiting for months, if not years, for the first use... the time has finally come.

And now - back to the purses :)

Blizzard paper - another sample of WIP

A girlfriend at work (thank you, Anita!) has given me a few sheets of marble paper - kind of whitish-grey. My first thought was: this is a blizzard, perfect for something snowy, possibly an exploding box!

So - I got out pinturas acrilicas and started with stamping large snowflakes, in white pearlescent paint mixed with glitter paint. Nice! Then I stamped smaller, more detailed snowflakes in silvery ink and put silver glitter dots in the centers.

Here is the sheet...

...and here is a close-up to show the details of this experiment:

I'm planning another layer - either white or translucent heat-embossed snowflakes, but I have to wait till the existing treatments dry; otherwise, the embossing powder will stick to everything.

It turned out that I had a surplus of the paint mixture, so I used it up on the brown bags which also go to the craft show as packaging for my paper goodies:

On a different front - the exploding boxes are getting the more detailed decorations. I think this is my favorite part of the process:

How's that made? Boxes WIP*

In preparation for the next event in two weeks, I'm working on a few exploding boxes, since they stirred considerable interest last week. I had a little adventure yesterday, carrying papers to the car, so that I could cut them on the industrial cutter at work (way faster, than my trimmer at home) - long story short, it is much easier to clip the folder shut, than to run around collecting sheets on nearby shrubbery and reach under parked cars to dig out other mischievous pieces!

Anyway, work is progressing well - last night I watched the reports from NYC, worrying about some friends in the hurricane's pathway... and spent a few hours creating these three:

They still need more decorating, especially the 3d paint and glitter dots, and  I need to add the quotes. All three boxes will be garden-themed, and then I have squares chopped for two more - books/reading and music.

And I really, really want to make one about SNOW! Next in line, right behind the first five :) After that I should move on to the little post-it-note purses.

*WIP - Work In Progress

Carol Stream craftshow

A big thank you to everybody who stopped by my table today, and especially to the Ladies that have purchased the goodies! It was a great show, so many nice conversations and smiles - people are slowly getting into the celebratory mood of the season.

It looks like I will be making more post-it note purses and, of course, the exploding boxes. I have several themes in mind - garden/flowers, travel, books/reading, tea, coffee, snow, friendship... Can't wait to drive my trimmer into those pretty papers again!

Here are a few pictures of the craftshow arrangement:

snowy, shimmery baubles

Working on Christmas cards a lot... among a few other items for the Saturday craft show in Carol Stream. Let's start the presentation with one of my favorite holiday motif - baubles! Of course, Poland has a long tradition of hand made/hand painted glass baubles, mine are just paper... And then there are snowflakes, another favorite.

I used the French Door fold in this series - it looks like people find it interesting. And I love the symmetry.

I had to try to make an almost-white card ONCE AGAIN - I try every year and somehow my attachment to vibrant colors steers me away :)

So then the blue series appeared...

and the standard colors, red and green:

fiat lux - let there be light!

Earlier this month, I made a kitchen tealight holder. It all started in a nearby Second Chance Store, where I purchased the components. The initial idea was to cover the structure with some crazy bright, Mexican colors, but somehow the copper paint made its way onto the craft table and I ended up faking a semi-precious metal. You know, sometimes you just can't control the will of the materials...

Here are the parts, all wooden: a spatula,  two egg cups and an incomplete pepper mill, after they have been sanded and gessoed.

And here are some details - very simple, shapes from paper punches glued onto the surface (note to self: next time, attach the cutouts BEFORE gessoing :)

So there you have it - a little bit of light for the long, dreary evenings!

soap card

No, there is no actual soap in the card... but some time ago a got as a gift a few bars of hand-made soap, wrapped in brown paper decorated with a string and a blue hydrangea-like bloom...

... every fellow crafter will agree that it is extremely difficult to throw anything away; so, even though the blue flower had to wait a couple weeks after avoiding the garbage can,  it finally made its way into a celebratory card. Blue and green, my favorite color scheme. I've always preferred cool colors, both in clothing and craft.

explosive quotes on reading

Amidst Christmas cards and catching up on travel scrapbooking, I have finally finished the exploding box with quotes on books and reading. It's really a simple concept but the details may be rather time-consuming and if i don't finish the whole project quickly, it tends to linger forever.

So, here is the outside, including the lid with a precious stone...

..and, once you take the lid off, the box opens and reveals the quotes - I dyed them in coffee so they would gain the old-book look:

There is another box like this waiting to be finished - in pinks and purples, and the theme will be friendship.Quite flowery, I must say.

hummingbird cards finished!

It turned out that apart from the hummingbird purchased recently on Ebay, I also had one in the bird-and-butterfly Inkadinkado set purchased long time ago. It worked great with black embossing and watercolors - I just love these bright hues!

And here is how these little inchies were incorporated in the cards:

The hummingbirds from the previous post got a layer of Glossy Accents, so they looked enameled, and not like paper any more :)

Right now I'm mostly working on Christmas cards... as usual, I started with the blue/silver/white color scheme, but I really need to move on to the classic green-and-burgundy!

hummingbirding and such

One of the friends has asked for a hummingbird birthday card, so I found a set of stamps on Ebay and they arrived yesterday. Exciting! I couldn't wait to start playing with them - the birds are a little small (maybe an inch in diameter) but they will work perfectly well with the other components from the set - flowers and vines. For now, here are the colored birdie cutouts:

I'm also playing with some Christmas tags, planning to use them as freebies at the upcoming craftshows - I will be in Carol Stream on October 27th and in Oak Lawn on November 10th; possibly also in Elmhurst on November 3rd, but this is still pending.

So many ideas, so little time! This is going to be a recurring thought in the next two months :)

welcome, autumn

I can't believe the autumn is here already - with all its crispness and beautiful colors! We spent a wonderful weekend with our granddaughter, visiting a farm full of pumpkins and other harvest goodness. She had loads of fun and we did as well, as if discovering this season again through the eyes of the child.

Much is also going on at the craft table, including Christmas goodies... for now, I'm going back to a few French door cards, which open in the center and my customers say it's a nice, fun design :)

Also, since my birthday is coming up in October... here is a birthday cake!

cupcakes and cherries

A few weeks ago I got this little acrylic stamp - a cupcake in the size perfectly suited for the focal element of cards. So, I've been baking... somewhat literally, because the examples below feature hot embossing, which of course involves the use of a heatgun.

Before we move on to cupcakes, let's start with a cherry - I really like this little cutout and I wish I had more, but so far no luck finding them.

And here are the other sweets:

On the last three cupcakes there is an extra layer on top of watercoloror - I added Fran-tage, which is an embossing powder mixed with larger grains and glitter, so when it melts, it created an interesting texture, very fun to touch. One caveat is, though, that the paper has to be heated from underneath in this case, because otherwise most of this goodness will just fly away!

And then I'm working on more sticky note purses, and some Christmas stuff already, and a few mini-albums... lots of work, craft shows are coming up!

birds and insects

.I can't believe how time flies... hee hee, what a nice intro that just popped up for an intro to a post about cards related to winged creatures :) I've been working on travel photos, to finally upload them to picasa (still hundreds to go through), on cards (more will be shown soon), on the itinerary for the upcoming trip to Colorado Plateau... So much to do, so little time!

Without further ado - here are some birdhouses from a stamp bought at a supersale at Michaels...

... butterflies from the Mariposa paper stack...

...and a dragonfly - with the focal element created by papercasting in a mould, from... toilet paper :)

Can you believe we'll be thinking Christmas cards soon???