Inspiration

Hello Everyone!!
I have to tell you a secrete... Lean in close, I am totally addicted to Pinterest. :) Do you harbor the same addiction? I love going onto Pinterest for a while and looking around and letting ideas or quotes  fill me with inspiration. Today I love the project I made. 
The pin led me to a 13@rts page HERE.  I started out my Pinterest search  that day with the determination to use some paintbrushes I had received in a "Palette Kit". I used the painters palette in several other projects, but was left with several not fabulous quality brushes. I have several projects I have done with the leftover brushes. I hope you like them.

Here is the project in its entirety. The letters say "create more art".

Here is a close up of the brushes, I dipped them in modeling paste by Shimmerez called Dazzlers. The color is creamcicle. I  also got a close up of the texture I created by letting the gesso I painted on the canvas bubble slightly.

I got this amazing flower in an embellishment swap about a year ago. The hearts are from a Maya Road warehouse box. I recently found this glass filler product on the Flying Unicorn website. LOVE, love, love.

More of the dazzler texture paste.

I got this bird from Flying Unicorn in their metal finding section. I love it so much.

I hope you liked my variation of the project.  I would like to know where/how do you get inspiration.
Have a great day!!

Expressions of the heart.

Happy Thursday Everyone!!  I am so happy that Friday is right around the corner. I love getting to spend time with my family on the weekends, but this weekend is when Flying Unicorn will be revealing this months kits. *SQUEEEEE*  I have already ordered mine during the sneak peak pre-orders and I am (very un-) patiently waiting for it to arrive in the mail. :)  In the mean time I have been on an art journaling kick lately. I wanted to share a page that I created recently. 
    I came across a quote by Georgia O'Keefe recently that has really spoken to my heart.  "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way".  Have you ever felt that way?

Challenging myself to use my sticker hoard, my gem hoard, my doily hoard, awesome paper clip hoard, and lace hoard. Oh my I am beginning to see a hoarding issue. LOL

Here is an over view of the entire page.  I am really loving this mica flakes that came in my February kit. I really love how soft and pretty my Lindy's sprays turned out. 

I really love the way this butterfly tucks so perfectly into the fold of the book pages. I am NOT good at rub ons. I love watching people use them on their projects. However, when I try oh my goodness you should see the fail. This time they came out amazing. Maybe I it was because I slowed down and took my time and really relaxed while making this page.

Here is a close up of the mica flakes, I love this heart vines lace, I found it at a local flea market here. How awesome do the Lindy's sprays look? I find that I am happier with the results of using them when I use a paint brush the move them around the page. I am really thinking this page may have been a page about craft supply hoarding. :)

I love this tulle flower that I received in a swap. 

I usually LOVE the stickers I buy when I am in the store buying them. I get them home and put them in their nice organized drawer and then, wham I never use them. Well, no more I say.  I have come the conclusion that if I don't use them I can buy more. 

This was the first time I have ever tried to stamp with liquid India ink. I think the harlequin stamp came out awesome. Esp for not using an ink pad. I am really loving using found objects such as caps.

I am so happy and grateful that I have begun expressing myself in my art journal. There really are things that are best not seen by others. This way I can get my feeling (good or bad) out and onto the paper. 
I hope you all have a wonderful day!!
Haley

Up, Up and away.

I totally love Hot air balloons right now. I looked up some projects about hot air balloons and found THIS   Super cool right??  Then I saw THIS  I really liked the idea of hot air balloon being on the chipboard. My husband is really tall and our ceilings are, well, not. SO hanging anything from the ceiling is a no go.

Here is my completed project, Tutorial to follow.

I recently got some awesome October Afternoon
paper. When I saw this cloud paper I thought I
would never find a use for it. I think it works perfectly with the hot air balloon.










Here is a picture of the template my hubby made me on the computer, printed on a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.

the "bulb" is 10 inches. The length is 8 inches.












I traced this pattern onto all of my patterned paper. I made a chipboard template. Now I will have one for a long time.

I traced and cut 8 of them.

Next, I folded them in 1/2 length wise. I then glued them back to folded back.

Here are several photo's of them after they have been glued waiting to dry.

 Here I used my crop a dile to add a small hole for threading seambinding.

Here are all the sections glued together.

Now I took a 12x12 sheet of chipboard and paint it or cover it with paper. I chose to cover it with black cardstock.

 next I covered it with this October Afternoon sky paper.

 

 Next, I glued the spine to the paper. If you don't glue the spine down it will flop around.

 Here it is after I glued it down. I also glued the two most end pieces to the back-round.

 Proud of my stitching on this.

 Here it is with me attempting to get tall enough to stand over it and take pics.

I placed a strip of pearls for the body of the butterfly. I had never sewn thru chipboard before. My VERY elderly sewing machine required some assistance, but I really like the way it turned out.

 Here is a close up of the distressing. I punched out a cloud and tucked it in. I really went to town on the edges.

 I love this seam binding. I get it from Cheep trims. It come in 100 yard spools for about 10 bucks. I have white and black. I dye the white one all the time.

A few years ago I was given these "learn Chinese cards" and I have been slowly using them in my projects. I just love them. The bling in the bottom corner came from ETSY. 

 Here are some flowers from my stash pile.

Here is a close up of the trim I used and the lace.
I really hope you enjoyed this and make one for yourself. If you do leave a link down below in the comments.
Happy crafting!!
Haley

We're all Mad Here how about you??

Hello Everyone,

I was looking around the internet for some idea's for a new project. I am finished with the enormousness wedding album I did for a lovely lady locally. I must admit that I do not want to scrap with purple for a long time. That being said I really did enjoy doing this for her. I scraped 120 photo's. Now that I am done with the album I am back to being able to work on my own projects.

I was thinking about steam punk stuff and I came across a website with a pattern for  mini mad hatter hats.  Well, I knew that my GS would love making these for our annual Very Merry Un-Birthday party. They are SO easy to make. Here is the link to the PATTERN.
You will need to go about 3/4 of the page down to find the link. There is a tutorial on how they created theirs, but I changed mine up a bit.
Materials Needed:
Patterned paper, cereal boxes ( I have also used tissue boxes, mashed potato boxes, ect)
 Step One:
Print off your pattern. (click on the word PATTERN above) Print onto 8.5 x 11 paper.
 
Step Two:
Cut your pattern out of cereal boxes. I use as a chipboard template  to cut out the pieces from cereal boxes. IMPORTANT side note: the top of the hat can be chip board but the brim and the body needs to be flexible in order to make the shape.

Step Three:
Next, I cut all my paper pieces.

Step Four:
Adhere the  paper pieces to your cardboard. ** Make sure that you bend the cardboard for the body by rubbing it along the edges of a table.

Step Five:
Gluing the body together. Hot glue the body of the hat together first. Then the top. Lastly the brim. * Before you glue the brim on you want to curl the edges. I do this by running the brim over the edges of a table like you did with the body.

Step Six:
Decorate in any way you wish. Flowers, trims, ephemera, charms, lace, stickpins, ect.

Here are some of the ones my scouts made:

It was kind of a silly face day. :)
I hope you enjoy making these as much as we have.

I see bing (a tribute to Cynthialoowho)

I like a splash of bling every now and again. When I am looking for a bling fix I go see The Queen of bling. Cynthialoowho also has a youtube channel that you will be able to get to if you click above on the words "The Queen of bling".    I really loved this project HERE , so I recreated it. I hope you like it.

The paper is "Gabriel" by BOBunny. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and I Am Roses.
The lace trim, the lace hinge and the lace butterfly are from Cheep trims. The bling is from a wedding  supply store.  The pearl swirl is from Hobby Lobby. I made the stick pin. If you are interested in making stick pins you can find tons of tutorials on youtube and blogs.