21st Century Pillow Book

Hello! I have a fun and simple project to share with you today, and I hope it will inspire you to look at your stamps in a new way. I am a jewelry maker through and through. I went to college for it, and I've been making jewelry since I was probably about 4 years old. There is often not enough time for me to make any, and I feel a loss inside when it's been too long. Does that happen to you? Anyway, I decided to "feed the beast" so to speak with this quick pair of earrings that I made for my daughter. The White Rose Crafts DT is focusing on "feminine" projects this month, so that was my starting point. Do you recognize those stars? They are from Lawn Fawn's Simply Celebrate stamp set. I stamped the image on to shrink plastic with StazOn ink and colored them with Sharpie markers. Nothing fancy, each star only uses a single marker color. Then I fussy cut them out (there are coordinating dies , but I don't have them), and punched a hole in the red ...

Hello! The Stampendous Team is having a "Peacock and Paisley Palooza" theme, and I have a quick project that focuses on the paisley aspect. I made a pair of earrings featuring one of the Paisley Pattern Stamps and some shrink plastic.  Supplies: Stampendous : CRS5100: Paisley Pattern Stamps DCS5100: Paisley Pattern Die Cuts HANDLES : Acrylic Stamp Handle EPA50 : Heat Tool Other : Imagine : StazOn ink in Jet Black Sharpie Markers in Assorted Colors Fire Mountain Gems: Assorted Glass Beads, Silver Jump Rings, Ear Wires, Eye Pins. Shrink Plastic Directions: 1. Stamp one of the paisley images with StazOn inks two times on to shrink plastic. 2. Color the images with Sharpie markers. 3. Use the coordinating die to cut out the images. 4. Use the Heat Tool to shrink the images. 5. Using silver findings and pliers, attach a jump ring to the Paisley images, add beads to the eye pin, and attach ear wires.

Welcome to Day 25 of the Smeared & Smudged 31 Days of Halloween! I have a bat sign today...take a look! I started off with a piece of pre-cut wood and I used Andy Skinner's Rust Technique on it. Then, I used my Dreamweaver Bats stencil with Copper Embossing Paste . Next, I sprinkled some Aged Copper Embossing Powder (from the Bronze Encrusted Jewels Kit ) into the wet paste, and I heated it with my heat gun. It bubbled and melted and I got wonderful coloration and texture. If you click on my photos, you can see them bigger. I also drilled a few holes in the wood so that I could add my copper wire hanger, as well as some fun charms and beads to the bottom. This is another piece that I will keep up all year long in my craft room. It fits right in perfectly. Steampunk, distressed, and bats! I love all three of those things very much. That's it for me today. We are in the home stretch! Don't forget to visit the rest of the Wicked Bloggers, all listed in my sid...

Are you on Pinterest? Oh my word, what a wonderful place to be. I love Pinterest. How clever to have a virtual pinboard for everything you love on the web? And keep it all organized! I've found that many Pinners don't actually go forth and use their Pins. Which is so sad. An unfulfilled pin is a waste! I try to redo, use, and get inspired by my pins all the time. Ok, not quite as often as I'd like, but I really do try. This past week, I used 2 of my pins. I'm going to share one of them with you today. HERE 's the original post where the pin was taken from. And this is one of mine.... I made these necklaces for my son's teachers. I think they are adorable, and just perfect for those amazing folks that are educating our wee ones. I have often seen these necklaces with just a simple silver chain, and the nest is always silver-toned as well. I wanted to change it up, so I used a very pretty brown. And for the necklace, some pale pink glass beads. Here is my othe...

Diana is my family’s “adopted” sister. She lives 5 houses away from us (4 from me actually), she was born 1 week after my middle sister Pam, and the 2 have been best friends practically since then. She is one of us. The closest thing to being a sister without actually being one. I usually give her gifts from The Pyramid Collection catalog, because of their unique qualities, their bit o’ magic and their pure coolness factor. But this time, I decided to make her a gift. I had shown you these crystals in a post a week or so ago in a necklace that I had made for Julie. I had shown these crystals to Diana many moons ago when I had first bought them, and she loved them. I had wanted to make her something with them since then… but just never sat down to do it. Then I misplaced them.. and so on and so forth… But, I finally made it for her and I am happy to say that she loves it. Her birthday is in August, hence the peridot colored beads. I used orange beads as well, because I liked the contr...

Making jewelry has always been a passion for me. It is my favorite thing to create. Yes, even more than cards and scrapbooks (although they are very close behind!). I love that you can show off the craft wherever you go. Carrying a 12x12 scrapbook isn’t easy to do! But a necklace, you can wear proudly and exclaim “I made this!’ So sometimes I don’t have the “mojo” as so many of you call it, to play with jewelry… and other times, it’s just not a good idea to lug my bead boxes downstairs to try and create while my son is playing with his trains and my daughter is trying to stick her hands in to everything that she’s not supposed to. So sadly, my beads and things have to sit in my craft room and wait for me to find a few spare moments to play with them. But yesterday, not only did I have inspiration, but I had the time and energy to make a couple of pieces! Here’s one of them: Those are real pieces of quartz crystal! Aren’t they stunning? I have had them for years… and never got around...

Fall is fast approaching, my favorite season. I was inspired to play with a few items as I was cleaning up my craft room. One, my favorite brass template. Two, Glimmer Mist, though I never need an excuse to work with that! Three, I had a cardboard box that had one of the flaps ripping off… I saw it hanging there, and I decided to rip it off and create some altered art. It’s something that I love to do, but never get around to doing it often enough. So I made something that I think came out quite magical. I love it. I could see it just sitting on a shelf to celebrate my favorite season, or perhaps I may make it in to a book cover. I used FIVE colors of Glimmer Mist for this piece! I also used some Amazing Glaze, a Glimmer Screen (also from Tattered Angels), some fibers, a brass corner piece, and a couple of beads hung from jumprings. Here you can see the beads. A loopy brad holds the fibers in place. It looks much prettier in person… When you see all the amazing colors of Mist blend ...

So, I have been trying for weeks now to get some presents and cards made for some of the special friends I have made over the past few months. I Finally got to finish a necklace for one of those friends. I can’t tell you who she is… because I haven’t sent the necklace to her yet… but, I am pretty sure that she will be reading this post. So, she’ll get a sneak peek at her gift. I hope she’ll be surprised when it arrives in her mailbox! I used lots of different beads for this 3 strand necklace. A ton of glass, some acrylic, opalized glass, square, metal… it’s a long list. It’s made of different shades of blue and purple… which I believe are her favorite colors (hope I’m not wrong!). I had fun making this necklace! As usual. I especially love the little baubles I hung off of the chain. So, now I’m off to make some more! That is… if Rhiannon ever takes a nap!

Well, folks, I got a lot of wonderful feedback last week when I blogged about the Twilight Necklace I made. Here’s the LINK if you missed it. So, I decided to make another necklace… I actually really wanted to anyway, since the beading bug has bitten me again. Plus, I still had Pam’s charms so… Here’s my latest creation. Most Twi-stuff is depicted in red, black and white, but the movie had such a blue cast to it, I decided to use that as my color inspiration. You can see here that it’s got a tiny photo of Edward and Bella, during the piano scene, in a bottle cap. I put 5 little charms on the chain, plus another hanging off the back of the piece. I lov e the colors, and I really like the combination of sizes and textures of all of the elements I used. I even listed it on my Etsy Shop so that if you want it to be yours, it can be! I plan on making more of these little babies, but if there’s a specific scene that YOU want to wear around your neck, let me know and Pam and I will...

It’s Tuesday! Time for another fabulous Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge! This week’s challenge was created by Donna … and what a thought provoking challenge it is! Here’s the scoop. “Creative Portion: Do you have a favourite Edward and Bella, Jacob and Bella or even a Alice and Jasper romantic moment? Create something that celebrate’s their love or how about creating something for that special person who you love. Comment Portion: Tell us about your most favourite romantic moment… be it in the books or real life!” I have been itching to make jewelry lately! I have had no time for my favorite craft! I know... you're shocked. It's NOT scrapbooking or cardmaking! So for my project portion, I decided to highlight my favorite moment Twilight the movie. Literally moment. If you blink… it’s over. It’s when Bella’s is putting all of the pieces together and realizing that Edward is a vampire. You briefly see a couple of frames where Edward looks like a “typical” vampire and he i...