DYI plush velvet pumpkin

Plush velvet pumpkin
I've coveted one of these babies since I saw them last year.  However with a price point of $25 it was out of my budget.  Besides, it looked rather easy to make.  Fast forward a year.  The other day I am in the fabric store when I noticed the orange velvet fabric.  I was reminded of this project so I decided to give it a try.  The orange velvet is a little brighter than I wanted but not bad for a first try. 

I used dried beans to fill the inside of the pumpkin.  To add a little something to the top, I added an autumn themed decorative piece (I think they are called picks) I picked up at Michael's.  I did not have a real stem so I used the stem from the pick.  A little thread . . . a little hot glue . . . and vuala I have my first plush velvet pumpkin.  I want to make a few more but this time in a beautiful sage and auburgine color.

New toy
Just in time for the holidays I ordered a new toy from HSN.  Its a hot glue gun mat and tools.  It has 3 protective covers for your fingers that are said to withstand heat up to 600 F.  I used it for the first time while making the velvet pumpkin AND I am happy to say it works!

As always, thanks for stopping by . . . Yoli

A LO AND a project!

A new LO

This is the first, in a series, of pictures of a sista's trip to NYC back in 2007.  There were two shutter bugs on that trip.  I am going to have to pare down the number of photos to a manageable selection for my album.  Wish me luck!

This is a simple LO of our first day in NYC.  Immediately upon checking into the hotel we walked down to Times Square where my poor SIL discovered that Times Square isn't really a square.  :-( 

For the LO I made a postcard using my Vintage Postcard stamp set from CTMH.  I needed some white space on the LO to balance the busyness of the Times Square photos.  At the bottom of the postcard I added a cityscape from Basic Grey's Wander Collection.  To give the cityscape some dimension I cut out some of the buildings and added pop dots underneath.  Now all I need to do is finish my journaling.   

My new project

I've had some trouble decorating my fireplace.  I luv the rich, red but the color often masked any decorations on the mantle.  So I finally settled on white decor for the mantle. 

I found a few pieces that went well on the mantle but still felt like there was something missing.  Than I remember how much I liked how my mantle turned out last Christmas with a wreath placed over the mirror.  So I decided to make a coffee filter wreath to get the same effect.  You can find various tutorials on how to make the wreaths right here. 

I started by gluing the coffee filters to the wreath but got tired of burning my fingers.  So I switched to straight pins which was slightly less painful.  :-(  Once I bought a thimble though all was right with the world.  :-)  As a seasonal decor I added a feather and pumpkin which can easily be removed once the season has passed.  The little green flower was my son's contribution to this project.  :-)  In total I spent less than $10 on this project. 

As always, thanks for stopping by . . . Yoli



Happy All-Hallows-Eve

I am looking forward to going out trick-or-treating with my son today.  I've spent the past few weeks working nearly 12-14 hour days on a project for a non-profit organization.  So today its all about him. 

Before I share my project with you today I wanted to post a photo I took at a local pumpkin patch.  I luv how the morning dew revealed Mrs. Spider's handiwork. 

Alice in Wonderland Tea Cup

This little beauty was suppose to be part of a lottery challenge.  When the tea cup theme was announced I immediately remembered a project I saw in a magazine and knew what I wanted to make. Unfortunately life just sort of got in the way and I did not complete it in time for the challenge. :-(

I already had the tea cup.  I purchased it at a local thrift shop right after I saw the idea in the magazine.  To start the project I simply adhered (using decoupage) some old Sears Roebuck catalog pages to both the plate and the tea cup. 

Once the decoupage was dried I painted the plate and added some embellishments.
 

Jester Cat is one of my favorite embellishments on the plate.  I luv how he is peeking out of the frame just to show us his naughty smile.  The frame is from Melissa Frances.

For the cup . . . well I guess you can say I temporary went a little 'mad'.  Must have been out of my mind when I decided to paint an argyle pattern on the cup but I luv the finished product.  Although hard to see in this picture, I added a little bling between each triangle to make the pattern pop. 

Another detail that is hard to see in these pictures is the dimension of each character.  To do this I simply stamped the image twice and then used pop dots to create dimension between each layer.  

As a finishing touch I added a face watch to the tea cup, two colorful hands and a crown brad to hold it all together. 

Although this project looks very time intensive it honestly took me about 3-5 hours to complete.  There was a lot of drying time.  The decoupage pages needed to dry overnight and paint needed to dry for a few hours.  So I was only able to work on it about 15 min a day.  From start to finish it took me about almost 2 weeks working 15-20 minutes at a time. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing my project.  Moreover, I hope you enjoy today. 

Happy Halloween!


Yoli

Purse bling

The first time I saw one of these little beautifies I was on vacation in Mexico.  I knew then I wanted to make one.  So when a crafting group I belonged to issued a lottery challenge with  a theme of 'Falling Leaves' I knew this was my chance to finally make one.

They are called purse blings.  A nice decorative item to add to your purse, backpack or keychain.  Here are the two that I made.  Why two?  This is a lottery challenge so the winner gets all the projects submitted that month.  So the one on the left is for me the other for the challenge.  

I started by using Tim Holtz's swivel clasps I purchased from Joann.  To the clasp I added beads and gold metal leaves I've had in my collection for years!  The red maple leaf is actually a brad.  I cut off the brad part and punched a whole to convert it into a charm.  As a finishing touch I added a typewriter key from TH.  F for Fall. 

So this is the purse bling that I will give away in the lottery. 

This is the purse bling that I will keep. 

My 7 yo son decided to get in the game.  So he made a backpack bling for his little 'friend'.  Although not very pretty its awful sweet!  I did enjoy spending time with him doing something other than playing or talking about BeyBlades.  Any of you moms out there with a 6-10 yr old boys know exactly what I'm talking about.  :-(

Lastly . . . a little confession. I did end up ordering the Nantucket Kit from Pink Paislee during the HSN 24 hour crafting show.  Oh my! :-)

As always, thanks for stopping by . . .


Yoli

Printer's Tray and giveaway

I finally finished the printer's tray I've been working on for months!  :-)  I made this tray for my GD Alexa who recently graduated high school and is scheduled to start her freshman year at DePaul University in the Fall.  We are so very proud of her and look forward to watching her wings take flight.   

Now for the tray.  The tray is from Kaiser Crafts.  It comes unfinished so I painted it black.  The papers are from Pink Paislee's Daily Junque collection. 

Since her name is so short I was able to use some of my old Scrabble tiles to adorn this little square.  The green scalloped banner underneath the Scrabble tiles was made using a Martha Stewart punch. 

I wanted to give the tray a little more dimension so I 'raised' several of the embellishments.  To raise the embellishment above the edge of the tray I piled several of my thick pop squares together.  See pic below.  

You cannot tell from this photo but this key is one of the embellishments I used pop dots to raise it above the tray edges.  For the wings I used some grungeboard from Tim Holtz.  I stamped it with a French script background stamp from SU and added pink Stickles for a little sparkle.  I used a little wire to secure the key to the cardboard then glued the bow on top to cover the wire. 

Remember my zipper flower.  Well here she is.  The cage and bird are both dies from Cricut's Serenade cartridge. 

Here is another one of the embellishments where I used several pop dots to raise it slightly above the edge of the tray.  The little glass jar is from Tim Holtz and the beads are from Club Scrap.  I just luv that little glass jar.  It's so freakin' adorable!

With the exception of this chandelier I am pretty happy with the way this tray turned out.  I've been fussing over this chandelier for months!  I've redone this embellishment at least 4 times!  Because of all my fussing over the chandelier I now have to ship this tray to her rather than hand delivering it.  I just saw her in June for her graduation.  It is not what I envisioned for the chandelier but its DONE!  Luv the metal 'Carpe Diem' plate though.  :-)

One last look . . . . :-)



Now for the giveaway:

I am giving away an 8x8 travel album from DCWV.  Leave me a comment . . . more like advice . . . on how you stop yourself from fussing over projects/layouts.  :-)  You have until Labor Day to post a comment.  I'll announce the winner on September 6th.

As always, thanks for stopping by . . .



Yoli

Zipper flower

This is my first attempt to make a zipper flower for a printer tray project I'm working on. I used embroidery thread because it matched the color of the zipper. Unfortunately the thread kept breaking.  So if you've made this zipper flower before I would love to know the kind of thread you used?

If you are interesting in making one of these flowers here are several tutorials for you.  I've seen these flowers on necklaces, headbands and of course craft projects.  So while you are off checking out the videos I am going to put the finishing touches on the printers tray.  I promise to post a picture soon. 

As always, thank you for stopping by . . .


Yoli

a class with Marah Johnson

In March I took a LuminArte class taught my Marah Johnson.  Learned some very cool techniques in class.  My favorite technique though was an unexpected surprise.  We started by painting the paper pictured below using Twinlkling H2o's.  Sorry don't know the technical term for the paper.  Just by itself the paper looks pretty festive. 

However, it was the artwork underneath that paper that came as a beautiful surprise.  You see underneath this floral paper we used paper towels to keep the desk clean.  However, since the floral pattern on the top paper is a die cut of sorts the excess paint spilled onto the paper towel creating its own pretty pattern. 

Marla told us that we could use our die cutters to cut an image from the paper towels.  Using a Stampin' Up die I created the flower pictured below.  Not sure what I'll do with that flower yet but I sure do love its brillant colors. 

I also used a piece of the painted paper towel to adorn the body of the little birdie pictured below.  Side note:  The red background paper in this project was also a technique I learned in Marah's class.  I painted flocked paper with the Twinklies H20s.  For information on this technique please visit her site. 

Lastly, the flower bud on the left side of the birdie frame was also created using some of the beautifully painted paper towels. 

I still have some paper leftover safely tucked away in a drawer awaiting my next project.  Remember this post?  Now you know what I am storing in the left side drawer of this CD case.  :-) 

This is all for now.  I'm diligently working on a travel mini-album I hope to share with you soon.  In the meantime, happy crafting. 

As always, thanks for stopping by . . .


Yoli

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

I think I shared with you that a few months ago DH & I watched a show about hoarders.  It shamed us into cleaning up our own space.  After some great progress we unfortunately ran out of steam.  :-(  But today I was inspired to clean up the mess created after I reorganized the sb closet.

BEFORE

AFTER

CLOSET -- before

CLOSET -- after

I continue to be very selective of what items I allow to return back in the closet.  I want to keep this space as open as possible.  I also plan on purchasing and installing a rolling rack for the Scrap Rack.  The rolling rack will allow me to tuck the Scrap Rack into the closet and free up some desktop space. 
BOOKSHELVES

Adjacent to the closet is my homemade CIU, my bookshelves and my metal file cabinet.  On one side of the metal file cabinet I have Ikea CD cases that I use to store UMs and some fabric.  Originally I planned to have those CD cases flank each side of the metal cabinet. I may have to scrap that idea in order to make more space for the CIU.  Hmmmmmmmmm.

DISPLAYING PROJECTS

I am using the file cabinet to organized my WM stamp sets.  Above the file cabinet I have desk organizer that I am using to display some of the art projects I've made or received in a swap.  Haven't decided if the organizer should be painted black or the blue of the file cabinet.  Hmmmmmmmmmmm. 

NOT QUITE DONE

Don't be fooled by all those pretty pictures of my clean sb room.  I still have so much more to do.  Those plastic drawers pictured above use to be in the sb closet.  I used it to 'hide' some of my sb stuff.  The drawers will not return back to the sb room but I have to empty it out before DH can reclaim them.  So I will do what I always do . . . create three piles; donate, organize, trash and tackle this project 15 minutes at a time! 

NATIONAL SB DAY PROJECT

In addition to sharing pictures with you of my newly clean room I wanted to share this little project I made.  I promise to post details on how it was created soon.  For now . . . I hope you enjoy National Scrapbooking Day.  Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

As always, thanks for stopping by . . .


Yoli