Even though your stamps and inks may be new, you can get a distressed vintage look to your finished paper arts with a few simple techniques. Kate Pullen shows you how to distress a background doily on this ultra cute embellished tag project.
You’ll be amazed at how easy this looks to do, just some crinkling of the doily and using the right ink for the most part is required. For the finished tag project pictured, Kate used a ‘Sugar Nellie’ stamp.
Once you get the idea of how she did this, I’m sure there are lots of other wonderful stamping applications you could use this for as well, obviously, not just to decorate tags.
A big THANK YOU to Barbara Crews of the About.com Collectibles site for offering up some amazing antique postcard images for your crafting needs. This is just one of 13 images she offers on her site, perfect for Halloween crafting of all kinds. Barbara is in the middle of crafting a Halloween themed wedding, and she used this card pictured as part of the rehearsal dinner place cards she created.
In between reviewing and grading a mountain of essays for school (compare/contrast drafts; 1101 narrative essays; “A Rose for Emily” lit drafts; and Chopin/Poe lit essays for grading) I managed to get three, yes three! projects completed this weekend. Of course, how could I do all this you ask and actually get some sleep? There are mainly two reasons: (1) I didn’t get much house cleaning done; (2) These are ridiculously easy and fast!
First, let me introduce you to my favorite of the three projects, my Frankenstein 3-D Pin. I found him on an end-cap at Michael’s, and he was giving me that look, you know, the “Come here, baby! Have I got a craft project for you!” look.
After my rendezvous with Frankenstein, I got my crafty on with this super easy Foam Sticker Witch’s Hat Pin.
I realized that I had gone a little pin crazy, so I needed to balance things out and get some earrings made. Voila, some Pumpkin Foam Sticker Earrings, light-weight and light on the clock too.
I’m going to try to whip up some more foam sticker pins and earrings to give to my fellow teachers so that we can all look super dorky during Halloween week. But, hey, our students think we are dorks no matter what. I could roll in there on a Harley, wearing a belly ring, and have tatoos down my arms, and they’d roll their eyes!
With Halloween on our heels, I’m determined to get some of my Halloween related projects finished this
weekend! I mean it! I really do! So, other than some fabo crafty links for you, I’m keeping this blog post brief…keep an eye out for my Halloween goodies.
Cross Stitch at About.com
Stitch a spooky skull with glow-in-the-dark blending filament – if you dare!
Layers Upon Layers
Make a fabric collage, using digital images as your inspiration.
Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
Stefanie, unlike Joan Crawford, embraces the wire hanger and her favorite medium-the sweater- to make a quick and easy Ghost Halloween Decoration.
The Impatient Crafter™
In honor of Halloween, Madge has joined Terroriffic Tuesdays. This week she shares a free Crystal Web Collar she created for CYSWCSE Swarovski’s DIY brand.
About Family Crafts
Find out how you can transform ordinary soda pop and beer cans into crafty masterpieces.
Cathie Filian
Cathie’s new book Bow Wow WOW! fetching costumes fabulous dog is now avaliable. Have a peek at the 36 different fun costumes and fashion accessories you can make for your pooch.
Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
Halloween crafts are in full swing at Craftside with a GIANT web with a super cute spider from the book Fleece Animals, a papier mache skull with natural rust effects, and a found in the yard decoration inspired by Faux Florals in Glass. But Halloween isn’t the only thing happening, there is my finished Crafty Chica Empowerment Guardian and a whole bunch of techniques using Angelina fiber from the creative mind of Susan Stein.
I discovered these peppermint faux candy tape measures on Lantern Moon. They have some other cute tape measures similar to these like a little cake, a bee, and a sheep. Most of them go for about $10, not including shipping. I think of these of stocking stuffers, but they would also make nice little gifts for fellow crafting friends who you want to give something to that is not super expensive (aren’t we all counting our pennies these days?), that is practical, and that also fits in with their craft of choice.
It looks like most of the company’s products are imported, so I was a little put off by this, but then I read their philosophy on the About page, and I feel a little better:
We believe that we can learn and share a great deal with the communities in which we are involved. We pay fair wages and audit our suppliers to be sure that health and safety are maintained in the production of a Lantern Moon product. Many of the cultures where we work find are accustomed to dangers, disease and illness. We aspire, through our work with these communities to strengthen individuals and communities.
Of course, the way things are going in the US lately, I am going to look around Etsy and see if i can find anything similar.
I’ve only managed a cursory glance at Fabulous Fabric Beads: Create Custom Bead and Art Jewelry by Kristal Wick, but it was enough to confirm that it is an awesome book for fiber and jewelry lovers. I plan to complete a more thorough book review, hopefully by this weekend, to be posted on my About.com Jewelry Making site, but I received an email the other day about Interweave’s 20% offer on the book, so I thought I’d go ahead and write about that since the offer is good only until October 13th.
To celebrate World Card Making Day a brand new challenge is being launched on the About.com Rubber Stamping forum. Stampers are invited to submit pictures of their finished hand made card projects which follow the theme of ‘Happy’. The aim is to make a card that will bring a smile to these darkening autumn days. This can be through cute stamps, funny or amusing sentiments, exquisite design, bright colors – in fact anything that will make people feel good.
Top entries will be pulled together into a gallery and this will be hosted on the About.com Rubber Stamping site. Beginner stampers as well as more experienced stampers are welcome to join in. The top entries will be pulled together into a gallery and this will be hosted on the About.com Rubber Stamping site, so this is also a great way for stampers to show off their work to a wider audience. More information can be found in the Rubber Stamping Forum.
I found this crochet Candy Corn pillow project over at the Lion Brand Yarn site. Of course, like most of these vendor owned sites, you have to sign up for free membership, so if you follow the link I gave, you’ll be prompted to sign up or sign on.
This is a beginning level projects, so if you are pretty new to crochet, this looks like a good one to attempt. I can picture these on a bed or couch, very fun twist on decorating for Halloween….Which reminds me….I really need to get the few Halloween home decor items I’ve got out of the closet and out jazzing up the house.
Is she too cute, or what? I love the fact that she’s got a green face and hands, and those stockings…I can hear that creepy music from The Wizard of Oz in my head!
Fly over to Beading Daily for this free project just in time for Halloween: Beadwitched Earrings.
If you are already a member, then you can just sign in and download the pdf file they are offer. Otherwise, for those who have not signed up at Beading Daily, you’ll need to, but it’s free, so no biggie.
This project will be up for grabs until October 27th, so no major rush, but after then, I guess it will be unavailable on the site. While you are over there, read the comments too. I guess there is a witch hunt of sorts going on! I’m not sure if it’s for real of what, but it definitely got me to read through the comments posted on this blog entry!
Even though your stamps and inks may be new, you can get a distressed vintage look to your finished paper arts with a few simple techniques. Kate Pullen shows you how to distress a background doily on this ultra cute embellished tag project.
