March 31, 2008

J's Birthday Cake


we had a small party for my son's first birthday this past Sunday... i made way too much food and had a great time visiting with everyone... thank you to all who came!

one of the highlights was the amazing cake that the fabulous Ms. M made... of course, she made me help and told me i had to put it up on my crafting blog... see that blue hump? i had to do all the star-tipping and it sucked hard... i guess the plus side is that i learned how to make butter cream icing... the bad news is that i now know what's in butter cream icing...

this cake was made with lots of passive aggressive humour, one too many giggle fits on my part, and a few lewd jokes about boobie cakes and having a 3rd testicle when we were assembling it...

the letters were made using my Cuttlebug with the Cuttlekids "Happy" alphabet die set... i ran them through my Xyron 150 to make them stickers...

oh! i almost forgot the best part! the antennae were modified Cakesicles, made from cherry chip cake and store bought frosting... they were rolled into the appropriate shape, molded around a sucker stick, and then smothered in red chocolate... yum!

Recipe:
Inspiration: a cake online, found by the fabulous Ms. M
Materials:
chocolate cake mix, cherry chip cake mix, shortening (which i shall affectionately call lard), icing sugar, butter, food colouring, SU Tempting Turquoise cardstock
Tools:
blood, sweat, tears and icing induced hysteria... also an offset spatula, piping bag, star tip, Cuttlebug, Cuttlekids alphabet die set, and a Xyron 150...

March 29, 2008

avert your eyes!

please, don't look at my "Work-In-Progress" section... the same 3 projects have been sitting there since i started this damn blog... the sadder thing is that those two scrapbook pages need a little embellishment and a title and they'd be complete... but since knitting and card making have caught my attention, scrapbooking has fallen by the wayside... my goal this week is to finish those two pages and at least finish one dishcloth... oh, and make a "Twisted & Demented" card for my second card challenge...

in other news, i'm busy, busy, busy today preparing food and cleaning before my son's first birthday party tomorrow... so much left to do, yet here i am... with the assistance of the fabulous Ms. M, i managed to put together his birthday cake yesterday... stay tuned for pictures... they'll follow after the party is done...

March 27, 2008

Card Challenge 1 - Tool-Less


i first saw this card on SCS when i was searching out cards made with the Just Celebrate stamp set... Angie was kind enough to do a tutorial on how to make this card and my spinner card obsession was born...

the owl i stamped with Black Staz On ink on to watercolour paper and used my watercolour pen and my SU inks to paint him... i used Close to Cocoa for the body colour and Old Olive, Creamy Caramel and Summer Sun for the accents... i then cut it out and mounted it on one of the pennies...

the paper i used was Chocolate Chip for the main card, patterned paper from a Costco block, then Old Olive for the slider window... i used Whisper White behind the window to stamp the "Whoo! Hoo!" in Chocolate Chip... i finished of the card by using the white rub ons from the Love & Happiness set...

i actually quite like how this card turned out... a few things i would change would be the crooked "for you" that bugs me to no end... i also sort of wish i had done something more to accent the Old Olive cardstock (either put a rub on flower on it or dragged the edges in Chocolate Chip ink)... let me tell you this, though... i've made this card a few times and it's much easier with a word window punch than an X-acto knife and a ruler... silly challenge contraints!

because i'm a big loser and i think pictures just don't do justice for a spinner card, here's a little video i took of my little owl in action...



Recipe:
Inspiration: Angie at Chic N' Scratch / Stampin' Academy (that little owl is the whole reason i bought this stamp set
Paper: Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, patterned paper from a Costco block, watercolour paper
Ink: Black Staz-On, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Summer Sun
Stamp Set: Just Celebrate © Stampin' Up
Embellishments: SU Love & Happiness rub ons
Tools: X-acto knife, ruler, paper trimmer, tape roller, watercolour pen, dimensionals

March 25, 2008

link: Paper Pleasing Ideas - No Copics ?? NO PROBLEM !!

although you wouldn't know it from my entries, over the last few months i've started to fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole that is rubber stamping... i'm positively obsessed with stamping, reading about stamping techniques, trolling SCS for card making ideas, maintaining a detailed inventory and spending ridiculous amounts on insanely cute Stampin' Up sets...

one tangent of my obsession has been colouring my images... i've read lots about it and even tried a few techniques (water colour pencils, pastels, using my SU ink pads and an aqua pen), but i haven't found a method i love yet...

the one technique that i was struggling with was water colour markers, such as SU's Many Marvelous Markers set... i had seen some demos with the markers and i wasn't impressed with their ease of use... in fact, i had ruled out buying a set, even though i really wanted to use them for inking and they coordinate with the rest of SU's line, because i just couldn't justify the cost for something i wasn't going to use for colouring images...

until now...

i stumbled across Paper Pleasing Ideas and an amazing tutorial on how to get the look of more expensive water colour markers... more importantly, it shows you step-by-step how to use the markers to get "the look" (aka: the lead pencil and mineral spirit technique) that is so popular right now in the stamping world... great job, Julie!

photo credit: Julie @ Paper Pleasing Ideas


Julie just posted a video to go along with her previous tutorial... you can watch it here...

i have a feeling my next order will have a set of Many Marvelous Markers included...

March 12, 2008

Crocheted and felted clutch

Felt crafts of all types are all the rage right now. I’ve been crocheting and felting totes and clutches for several months now so thought I’d share this simple little project. If you can SC (single crochet), you can make this clutch in less than a few hours and for less than $5 (that’s WITH your 40% Michael's coupon).


All it takes is one skein of wool and a size 6 hook. I use Patons Classic Merino Wool. You must use 100% wool or it won’t felt.

My inspiration for this clutch was a leather bag I drooled over in a magazine. Since I winged this one, there isn’t a true pattern. I just chained the length of the desired base, keeping in mind that felting will reduce the size by approximately 30%. SC several rows then SC in the round until it reached the height that I wanted. No adding or reducing required. The only tricky bit was leaving a gap for the handle. The nice thing about felting your crocheted pieces is that it’s very forgiving and you’re not going to notice any small errors.

Here comes the fun part. Throw your completed bag in the wash, preferably in a zippered pillowcase or lingerie bag. Toss in an old pair of jeans to help agitate and wash hot on the lowest water setting. After one cycle check it. It should feel thick and dense and there shouldn’t be any visible stitches. Different colours and types of wool shrink differently so you might want to pop it in again (it will shrink a little more).

Before:

After:



Once you have the desired look simply air dry and add some cute little embellishments (or not) and voila, you have the cutest little felted clutch bag in town!

Ms. Crafty says: kasanika is a second time guest blogger on MCIYN... you can view her Etsy store here...

March 4, 2008

100 Good Wishes Card for Hilary & Darrell

Started: March 4, 2008
Finished: March 4, 2008
Made For: Hilary & Darrell
Pattern: my own design
Materials: 3 colours of card stock, SU Stampin' Emboss powder in clear, VersaMark stamp pad, Dew Drop Brilliance ink in Graphite Black, ladybug ribbon
Tools:: SU Little Holiday Wishes stamp set, SU 1" circle and ticket corner punches, Fiskars 3/8" hole punch, Xyron 150, Zig Writer black pen, heat gun, rotary cutter, roller adhesive
Cost: less than $5
Would I Do It Again? probably not...
Notes / Comments: family friends of ours are going through the process of adopting from China... as part of their journey into parenthood, they've chosen to honour a Chinese tradition and make a Bai Jia Bei, or a 100 Good Wishes quilt... family and friends give pieces of cloth to be made into a quilt and send a wish as well for the child and family... ladybugs are also a sign of good luck, so many times they are a desired fabric choice for these quilts... i happen to have a piece of ribbon with ladybugs on it, which inspired the colour scheme for this card...

and just for fun, here are the fabrics i'm sending for the quilt... the first i found on clearance, but it definitely is baby-themed... the second is actually a scrub top that i've had forever and rarely wore... since part of the Bai Jei Bei tradition is that the fabric come from something you've worn, it seems appropriate that i use a scrub top (especially since Hilary's mum was one of my nursing instructors)...