Washer Pendents

What fun! Who would have thought that you could take a simple washer from the tool chest and turning it into a beautiful and fashionable piece of jewelry? I sure didn’t until I saw it, and tried it myself! SplitCoastStampers’ Try a new technique Monday challenged all of us to try this fun way to make our own jewelry.

The original blog that featured this technique used scrapbook paper the same size as the washer. I love this look, but my circle cutting skills are REALLY lacking! LOL So I decided to try the second option, alcohol inks. Below is what I did to create this fun pendent.

First things first, you must clean the washer with a quick rub of alcohol to wash off any oils that may be on it. These washers were purchased at WalMart for .80 some cents for a pack of 4. They are 1/4″ x 1-1/4″ fender washers found in the hardware sections. Your local hardware store will have many different sizes available to choose from.

Next comes the fun part, choosing which colors to use. This pendent is for my mom, so I chose to use her favorite color green in lettuce, and meadow. Apply the inks to the backside of the pendent and let it dry for a bit.

Apply some VersaMark ink to the pendent.

Then sprinkle with clear embossing powder.

Heat the pendent with your heat gun until the embossing powder melts. With your fingers, sprinkle another thin layer of embossing powder over the pendent and heat to melt again. This finished the backside.

NOTE: The table under the pendent will get VERY VERY hot! When I embossed this pendent, I placed a potholder under my craft mat to help keep the table cooler.

Give the pendent a little bit of time to cool, then turn it over and add ink to the front side and emboss it with a few more layers to achieve the thickness you desire. Once the pendent is cool, there will be some excess melted embossing powder around the outside edge and the center. Simply use your craft knife and cut this away to finish the process.

Here are two finished pendants. The pink one was a learning lesson for me. The little red dots are supposed to be red gems. Well, those cute lil gems are plastic and melted a bit when I heated the embossing powder to set them. LOL OOPS! They still look kinda cute though.

Here is the first necklace I made. To finish it, I looped the cording through the center of the pendent, strung some beads on each side, attached the findings and there ya go!!

After I make a trip to my not so local mega craft store, I’ll show you how I finished the necklace and strung on the beads, I have a fun little tip for you there that I learned from stringing seed beads onto tatting thread for snowflakes.

Have fun, and let’s see your necklace!

Holiday Planner

This Holiday season I’m going to try to be more organized so I can sit back and enjoy the holiday’s without too much worry or stress. To help get me organized I altered two manila file folders into this adorable organizer that fits perfectly into the outside pocket of my purse. The link to the directions show using only one folder to make the planner, but I used two so I could add more planner pages to suit my needs. I suppose if you needed, you could also add a third folder if you needed more room for receipts or such…the choice is yours! I also glued the back of the pages together so they form more of a book rather than opening all the way, like it shows in some of the different directions for altered file folders. It just seems easier for me to juggle a book rather than something that would open that wide while at the store. That would just be a disaster waiting to happen! LOL

 

I found the directions to alter the folders here:  Accordion File Folder

 

And here is where I found the downloads for the planner pages that fit perfectly:

Pocket Planner Forms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know I should have used something like “Planner” or “Holiday Planner” on the cover of this, but chances are, I’ll lose it before next year anyway and will be making another one! So 2009 works for me. LOL

The paper is from a Holiday paper pack from Wal-Mart that I purchased about 3 or 4 years ago. I also mounted the calendars in the first pocket onto card stock. They were sort of narrow for that wide pocket and slipped around a lot. To close the planner I used eyelets on the front and back covers and threaded a piece of thin ribbon through them to tie it closed. Maybe next time I’ll just decorate a large binder clip or something to make it easier to work with on the go.

Thanks for stopping by for a look, let me know what you think, and I can’t wait to see your version of the Holiday Planner!!

 

Split Negative

WOW This is a cool technique! When I watched the StampTV video this morning I just had to give it a try. You can find the directions over at StampTV and I would love to see the projects you create!

 

I used the following items to create this card front which is 5×5:

• Nestabilities Labels 2
• Stampendous Snowflake Square
• VersaMark ink
• Gold and Black embossing powders
• Divine Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder

 

The second card uses the other halves of the image and some left over cardstock to create the background.

 

For this card I used:

• Nestabilities Standard Circles Large
• Stampendous Snowflake Square
• VersaMark ink
• Gold and Black embossing powders

 

Let me know what you think and don’t forget to jump on over to StampTV to see this and other great videos that Gina K has created!

Christmas Cards & a tag

I made two Christmas card and a gift tag with my Cuttlebug embossing folders Inkadinkado stamps, and Nestabilities dies. Using burgundy paper and ink I created these simple but elegant cards.

One thing I learned from this, if you stamp an image with Color Box ink, let it sit for about 8 – 10 hours undisturbed, the ink is still a little damp when you rub your finger over the image!!!! Because of this new found knowledge, I had to use clear embossing powder over the entire oval to seal in the ink. On the first card, I found this out AFTER I attached the oval to the scallop, so the both layers were embossed with clear embossing powder! LOL

Double Embossing

Here is another fun technique that I found online called Double Embossing.

 

 

There are a few different video’s online but the one that I like can be found here by Nilda Rockenbach. I had to make a few changes to the sandwich to emboss the cardstock with the embossing folder. The way Nilda describes it, it would not run through my cuttlebug machine.

Emboss cardstock with folder:

A plate
Chipboard shim
Folder with cardstock to be embossed
2 piece chipboard frame
C plate

 

Emboss the nestabilities frame:

A plate
Chipboard shim
B plate
Tan mat
Cardstock
Nestabilitites die
Chipboard shim
B plate

 

The final image shows a clear and deep impression from the nestabilitis die. If you don’t want such a deep impression, like the snowman card above, then do not use the bottom shim of shipboard.

 

Cut away image

This is a fun technique that I found online, but I don’t remember where I saw it. If you know who I should give credit to, please let me know!

Start out by stamping your image and finding the nestabilities die you want to use. Place the nestabilities die on your image so that the cutting bar is facing up.

 

Lightly trace with your pencil around the portion of your image you want to hang over the cutting edge.

 

 

Cut around the image, right up too the pencil line. Make sure you do not cut away any of the extra paper from around the very edge of your image next to the pencil mark.

 

 

Slide your nestabilities die back into place as shown in the image below with the cutting bar facing down. Line up the pencil line with the inner edge of your die.

 

 

Run the die through your machine of choice.

 

 

Erase the pencil line and add to your project of choice.

 

 

And there you go! This really is a fascinating technique and adds a special touch to any card or scrapbook page. If you have any questions, or know who I can credit, place drop me a note!

 

Free Class from Jessica Sprague

OhMyGoodness! This is EXCITING news!! Jessica Sprague is giving a FREE two-week Photo Editing class starting July 6, 2009! Did you see the word FREE?? Yup you read that right, it’s FREE! Check out the flyer below and then head over to JessicaSprague.com for more information! See you all in July!!!!

Back to school and a Blog Candy Giveaway!

Hey everyone! I am back to the books again this semester, but had to take a brain break this evening!!

While running through all of the amazing blogs out there, I came across Wendy’s Paper Therapy. She is offering an amazing blog candy giveaway, a Scor-Pal!! I don’t have one, but would sure love to win this lil beauty! *crossing my fingers*

Pop on over to Wendy’s blog and enter for your chance to win a Scor-Pal. Good luck to all of us and Wendy, Thanks for having this great giveaway!!

Cuttlebug Challenge #14

This weeks challenge is to use your favorite embossing folder and make a card. I only have two embossing folders, so far, and both of them are my favorites so I made this Valentines Day card.

Here’s the outside of the card…

and here’s the inside of the card…the embossed heart was intended to be on the outside, but I just wasn’t that happy with the way it looked so I added it the inside of the card instead.

The little silver dots were created with a technique found in a magazine somewhere when I first started scrapbooking a few years ago. The cardstock was lined up under a sheet of plastic canvas and I used a silver gel pen to add the dots.

This canvas is the super small size holes, size 10 I believe, and it makes these little dots with the gel pen, but with the larger canvas you can get an actual square. I made a sample with the two different size canvases that I have to show you the difference. The small is 10, and the large is a 7.

Thanks for looking and enjoy the rest of the week!

Another Challenge Card

I had so much fun making the last card, I had to do it again! After looking through the entire Cuttlebug Challenge blog I came across the criss cross card challenge that they had, and made one of those. I’ve done these before and absolutely LOVE their design so this one I made in white and silver, and embossed the center strip of the band as well as the circular tab with the Swiss Dots embossing folder.

I’m not sure what I will do with this card, but am thinking of making it a Christmas Card for next year.  Hmmm if only I had some gold paper, I could do this in silver and gold…could be time to shop for some fancy paper.

Once again, thanks for looking and for the wonderful comments on my other projects!