Happy Hallowinter & Cookies!
Hello again and Happy Halloween! We have been getting slammed with snow here in the Rockies this week. I think we got roughly 12″ of snow this week. Crazy for October, even at 6,300 ft! Ellie didn’t mind so much and the mister worked from home a couple of days. I baked and painted and spent a few days in my jammies. I love this spooky little haunted house scene! It took a couple of days to sketch out and paint but was so fun! With all this snow we were craving warm, freshly baked cookies so I dug through my recipe archives for something delicious. These Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Pecan cookies totally hit the spot! I also painted a couple snowy winter scenes in snow globes. There is something magical about a mini scene captured in a snow globe I used this recipe for the cookies. I did adapt them slightly for our elevation. https://iambaker.net/chocolate-cranberry-oatmeal-cookies/ Here are a few pic of the beautiful snow we got. Miss Ellie just loves the snow. She’s a Texas dog who identifies as a Polar Bear… I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!Xo, E.
Watercolor – A New Adventure… or Addiction
Oh goodness.. another post! Can you believe it? I’m trying.. hehe! I started watercolor painting this late spring/summer on a whim. It looked fun so I figured why not.. so I pulled out the cheap-o Artist Loft brand paints from Michael’s that I used to use when I was with CTMH and started coloring stamped images again for cards. (Please bear with me as I re-learn formatting Blogger posts. They seem to have changed the way they do photos since I last regularly blogged…) They worked for about five minutes while I played around and explored watercolor painting. I decided I REALLY enjoyed watercolor painting. I used up that one pad of watercolor paper that I had been hoarding since about 2008, bought some more, and then I realized that I needed something better paint wise… eventually I landed on these Sakura Koi Field Sketch pan paints… and then with decent paints and paper I was HOOKED. I started playing around with landscapes and plants… It has been a fun summer with watercolor. I am totally addicted and have quite successfully avoided things like laundry, dishes, organizing, and sometimes and often, cooking dinner because I was wrapped up in my imagination and water and paint. (That’s not always a bad thing.. just sayin’.) I also brought my compact watercolor paints, paintbrushes, and travel size watercolor pad with us on our cruise to Alaska (posts on that coming) and painted on our balcony on sea days. Watercolor painting is so relaxing. It is so easy to get lost in the the colors… and it is a lot less mess than papercrafting. 😉 I LOVE looking on Pinterest and YouTube for tutorials and inspiration to paint. There is so much out there! This is an image I sketched out based on some stamps I saw online. I recently discovered an amazing company called Let’s Make Art. They offer a subscription service that includes and also have free tutorials on YouTube. I’ve yet to subscribe, although I think I might give Santa an idea for Christmas, but I have been following their free YouTube tutorials have have been freehand sketching their designs and painting along with them. Sara Cray is the owner and she’s so fun to watch and has LOADS of great tips and techniques that she shares as you paint along. I don’t get anything for sharing the love about them… just the hope that you might get a spark for watercoloring and join in the fun. (Always happy to enable fellow creative friends.) I love following along and painting! Here are a couple fun paints just in time for Halloween! I have to admit I have really enjoyed painting spooky pictures! Black watercolor is kind of a pain to work with because it tends to want to go gray (watercolor paint is transparent) and you have to drop a lot of paint in to get a really rich black. Wednesday night the temps here dropped 60* overnight. We had about 3″ of snow on the ground Thursday morning… our first measurable snow for the season so that meant we spent the evening watching Disney’s Snowball Express and enjoying a warm fire. I made my best ever Hearty Chicken and Dumplings and pulled out my paints. Recipe is here in my Facebook foodie group, What’s Cookin’ Good Lookin’? I painted this Floral Truck while we watched the movie and it was so much fun to paint! It’s my favorite color after all… The flowers were also a ton of fun! Have you watercolor painted? Do you like it? I am thoroughly loving it so far! Happy Friday! I am off to snuggle this cute puppy… XO, E
Ladder Scarf Tutorial
Hello again! This post is a follow up to yesterday’s Frozen Scarf post. I figured with all the photos it would be better to split it into two posts and keep the tutorial separate. This is the scarf I shared yesterday: Today I am going to give you a very basic tutorial to make this scarf. Disclaimer: I have never written a pattern/instructions for crocheted ANYTHING… but this is so ridiculously easy that I don’t think I can mess it up too badly 🙂 I am writing this for a scarf for an adult… shorten as needed per size of the wee one. LADDER SCARF PATTERN/INSTRUCTIONS: This scarf is perfect for using up ends of skeins of yarn and misc scraps of yarn. Mix the colors and textures up as you choose. Hook size used for this project is a size “H/8-5.00 mm” Step One: – Start first color with a long tail, roughly 7” – Chain 315 stitches. – End with a 7” tail. Step Two: – Start second color in the same manner, leave a 7” tail. – Chain 15 – *Count 15 stitches on the first chain and find stitch #16. – Once you have found chain #16 single crochet with your second color (this will be stitch #16 on your second color) for the next FIVE stitches You will have connected your two colors to each other with FIVE single crochets. – Chain 15 more stitches. – Repeat from * until you reach the end. You should have 15 chained stitches at the ends with a 7” tail string. Steps Three – Eleven (Or however wide you want to make it): – Continue this process until you have reached the desired width of scarf. My Frozen scarf was 11 rows wide. Finishing: – Trim your tails to all the same length. I tied knots in the ends to prevent fraying. NOTE: If you want more space between each row of the scarf you can do five double crochets or five half double crochets instead of five single crochets. This will give just a bit more spacing between the rows. Here are the instructions in photo format. (I have only crocheted a short length to illustrate the process.) Find your size H/8 –5.00 mm hook Step One: – Start first color with a long tail, roughly 7” – Chain 315 stitches. – End with a 7” tail. Step Two: – Start second color in the same manner, leave a 7” tail. – Chain 15 – *Count 15 stitches on the first chain and find stitch #16. – Once you have found chain #16 join your colors with a single crochet (this will be stitch #16 on your second color) for the next five stitches You will have connected your two colors to each other with FIVE single crochets. – Chain 15 more stitches. – Repeat from * until you reach the end. You should have 15 chained stitches at the end with a 7” tail string. Steps Three – Eleven (Or however wide you want to make it): – Continue this process until you have reached the desired width of scarf. NOTE: If you want more space between each row of the scarf you can do five double crochets or five half double crochets instead of five single crochets. This will give just a bit more spacing between the rows. {I believe in the original pattern, the artist used double crochet (posts) for her scarf. } AND THAT IS IT! And that’s it… easy peasy, especially once you’ve attached the second row/color. You only have to count the 15 chain stitches and can zip right through the scarf. Here’s a peek at the chunky yarn scarf I made to test the pattern. Chunky yarn crocheting achieves length very quickly with fewer stitches. I think the length on this one is 150-ish stitches and the spacing is 10 chains, 5 single crochet. Thanks for popping in. If you decide to crochet this scarf I would LOVE to see it 🙂 Link up in the comments. (Miss Jeanne, I sure hope to see one or two made for your girls .. hehe..) Inky Smiles! ~Erin
Baby, It’s Cold Outside… A Scarf Inspired by Frozen
While much of the country is freeezing their bums off covered in a blanket of snow, here in Colorado we have been enjoying a lovely, sunny 57* – 63* most of the past week. (Mind you, we had a visit from the great Polar Vortex just prior to this faux Spring, so it’s been much welcomed, and a tease, because I know what is coming….) Remember this sneak peek? I know I promised I was working on the post for it. Here it is… My niece had her 5th birthday on Saturday. And she just LOVES the movie Frozen, so her birthday theme was “Frozen”… She is a lot like I was a child, bright, independent and creative. She looooves to pretend with her dolls and dress up like her favorite characters. I decided that I wanted to make her a Frozen scarf… Kisha and I had found a fun scarf pattern on Pinterest a while back, but when I looked up the instructions they were in Finnish. Thankfully someone had posted some very basic roughly translated instructions in the comments. I made a big chunky yarn version to start with and LOVED it so I went ahead and made a smaller version. This scarf didn’t have an official name for the pattern, but I am going to call it a “Ladder Scarf”. It looks kind of like a ladder… I used a variety of different types of yarn for this scarf. I love how the fringey white yarn looks like snow. It was a pain to work with, but the finished effect is awesome. Here she is opening her prezzie… So excited! (Forgive the pic quality… images from texts from my sister.) I think it turned out FABULOUS. In fact, I really want to make one for myself with fun frilly yarn like this. (We told my niece it was snowflakes and icicles…. she wasn’t quite sure why all the pieces weren’t completely attached in the spaces… “Mom, tell Auntie Erin she needs to finish it and make all the pieces stick together.” Hehe… ) And later that evening… in her Anna dress…. One happy little 5 year old! Thanks for dropping in! I loved making this little scarf and I am glad my niece loves it. 🙂 For you crocheters – I have written a tutorial and it will post tomorrow morning. Inky Smiles! ~ Erin
Going Bat Stick Crazy Around Here
And now for the excuses….. I have not died. Or driven off the face of the earth. (Yes, it looks like we might drive off the face of the earth on this road up to Pike’s Peak… oy) I have just been living a very crazy life here in beautiful Colorado. To catch you up on everything would make for a thick novel so instead I will sum it up. 1) Had a GREAT My Creative Escape retreat here in CO in April. 2) I’ve been working as a Professional Organizer for Peace Together Spaces and loving it! 3) Spent the end of May and most of June traveling around the country (destination east coast) with my Mom. Visited Niagara Falls and some LDS Church history sites along the way, ultimately landing at my grandparent’s home in Massachusetts for a few weeks. 4) Had 25 extra bodies (visitors) in my home from the last weekend of June – July: family, friends, and family and more friends! 5) Had a minor car accident Aug 1. I have 3 vertabrae pressing into my spinal cord and numbness and tingling in my left arm and hand. After multiple dr and chiro visits I have ended up with a spine specialist and am now working on getting better with physical therapy and good drugs. (It hurts to sit at the computer for very long, or really anywhere I have to sit still for very long.) Trying to avoid surgery. 6) Well… life is just life… and I am going bat “stick” crazy around here… and crafting when I feel well enough… This past week was a “good week”. So Anyway… I am normally not a “Halloween” person. I don’t do “ghoulish stuff”, “guts”, “scary”, or “creepy” for Halloween, but I DO enjoy silly, cute, fun stuff… and this year I am actually excited to decorate for fall and Halloween. YAY! When I was in Utah at the end of August for my friend, Tahne’s, birthday and B’s work, and a concert (F.U.N.) I stopped in one of Utah’s plethora of crafty shops… I can’t remember which one it was, but I picked up a fun witch’s boot to decorate and saw the most adorable bats… but I didn’t purchase them… I figured I could make them myself with scraps from B’s woodshop. (Leftover bits of InkStaks and RibbonStaks). So I drew up some bats in Photoshop and printed out the pattern, traced them onto some scraps of pine and zipped them on out our band saw. and dry fitted them with some fun patterned and textured papers… Then I painted up the edges with this fabulous home made glitter paint… To make the paint, mix: Any color acrylic crafty paint Small amount of Valspar Paint Crystals (GLITTER) for paint (Lowes) **A little glitter goes a LONG way… and it will add texture to your paint, esp if you accidentally dump the bag over your paint… 🙂 ** Use a popsicle stick to stir the paint and glitter, not your paint brush. After the paint dried sufficiently enough that I could handle the bats (not a patient crafter here) I wandered out to the wood shop and measured out some dowels sticks… “(bat stick, hahaha.. get it? ok.. well.. ) While they finished drying (I also mod podged on the papers), I whipped up some custom dyed ribbons to finish up the bats and another fun Halloween decor project. Here is my finished Bat Trio. I think they turned out whimsical and fun. Now to decide where to display them in the house! Happy flying, little bats! I’m sorry I’ve been away so long.. leave me a note and let me know if you’re still out there in blog land! Inky Smiles!
The Derby… Blingsta Style
So I have already failed my goal of blogging once per week. I have no excuses. Really. Immediately after we moved here, like the first or second Sunday we were at church, I was asked to be the Bear Cub Den Leader. (Yes I hear you laughing… stop. Really. Not funny. Ok, so it’s hilarious. Laugh all you want.) At first I was all, “What the what? What are you smoking?” And, “I am SO not a little boy person. WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU DO WITH THEM?” And, “Oh heck, I’m in biiiiiiiggg trouble.” So I fought through my denial. And so far I have survived. It’s all good. So this past Saturday was the Pinewood Derby for our ward (aka congregation). The boys asked if I was going to make a car. “Uhm, yes, of course! And I’m going to paint it pink and bling it out.” Their responses: “You can’t have a pink Pinewood Derby car!” followed by, “Are you going to put DIAMONDS on it?” To which I replied, “Oh yes! LOTS of diamonds!!” “Coooooooooool!” But… I procrastinated and procrastinated until the night before the derby… like until 10 pm the night before the derby. Brent was not happy…. but we dug the band saw out of the mess in the shop and I sketched the lines on the block… and cut out the car. And then sanded… and sanded… and sanded… thank goodness for a drum sander or we’d not have made it in time. 🙂 Here’s what I started with once it was all cut out…. I really wanted to taper the sides in more, but we didn’t have time. 🙁 booo! I couldn’t decide on pink or teal… but ultimately I went with, yep, you guess it, PINK. I mixed some plain old acrylic paint by Plaid with some shimmering Create A Shade pink by Close To My Heart to get a pearlescent sheen. Plain ol’ pink was too flat… Once it was nice and dry (note that it was midnight when I was painting.. oy…) I hammered in the wheels. BSA Derby Car wheels are nailed into the little slits with a regular nail… and if you are not careful, or are in a hurry, or it’s 1230 am and you can’t keep your eyes open, you end up with this…. Crap. Crappity Crap. Crap, Crappity… yes, I said Crap on my blog. It could have been worse. I was frustrated…. so I painted some wood glue into the chipped piece and squooooshed it back together and let it dry. It would have to get the last wheel on in the morning…. MEANWHILE…. I pulled out all the bling and went to town… This is what happens at 1 am when you’re trying to bling in a hurry…. I blinged my little heart out while Brent sat down there in the studio with me… He entertained himself with Mythbusters… and of COURSE they were blowing things up. I mean, we needed some manliness happening in the room while I blinged out a pink Pinewood Derby car. 🙂 Check out them wheels…. Sparkley….. I just love how it says “BSA Pinewood Derby” around all that sparkle. *Giggle* When it was all said and done my car weighed in at a whopping 2.5 ounces. Pinewood Derby car max weight is 5 ounces. I was nowhere close, but that’s all good. I wasn’t planning on racing it anyway. I just made it for fun to show the boys that I wanted to have fun with them. 🙂 E6000 glue plus some rhinestones and bling = Heaven. I love this little car… It was so much fun to make! I even included a princess tiara… cuz that’s how I roll…. And I was digging some scalloped, lacey trim…. If I had had some silver paint I would have painted some silver flames up the front of the car, coming from under the hood jewels… We had SO much fun at the derby… ALL EIGHT of my awesome Bear Cubs came and brought their cars. They were SO adorable and made super cool cars (I wanted to snap a pic of their cars, but they were all mixed in with the rest at the check in table. I also am not sharing a photo of my boys because I did not ask permission from their parents to have them on my blog….) One of my boys, Jacob S, took SECOND place out of the entire Pack. WOO HOO! Here are most of the cars… There was even an “adult cars”. Here’s the gang… Left to right: The Bling Machine, The Car from the Closet (Palmers found it hanging out in a closet at their house), The Green Hornet Car, and Coooooool Runnings – the Bobsled. It took a while to get everyone checked in and weights tweaked… some cars had to drill out some excess weight and some, like mine, had to add weight… a LOT of weight. Nearly the entire bottom of my car was covered in little weights… (Thank you Kelly!!) Kelly decided it NEEDED weight in order to even make it down the track. At 2.5 ounces it probably wouldn’t go very far…. after she superglued the weights on it weighed in at 4.90 ounces…. and yes, it made it out of the gate. 🙂 We had a blast watching all the cars race down the blue and gold track. The boys were whooping and hollering to see their cars fly down the track. We all gathered in chairs around the track. AND GO!! I tried to get GOOD pictures of the cars flying down the track… but when a teeeny weeny car is flying down a track, all you get is pretty much this: WHOOOOSH! Or this Those little stinkers just FLEW down the track… Even the adult’s cars flew down the track… I think my car should have been Pink Lightning….even though it consistently placed third. Hey, at least it
Gelatin + Acrylic Paint + Paper = ART!
We’re slowing getting settled in to our new home here in Colorado. I haven’t crafted in quite some time…. in fact, nearly every craft supply or tool I own is still packed away neatly in boxes… BUT, earlier this week end of last week I did dig my desk out from under the chaos of boxes and furniture that is currently occupying my future craft room. We figured out some good configurations for workstations and are deciding on color for the walls. Brent even cut down my desk top with his skill saw, right there IN my studio on the carpet. LOL! What a mess, but hey… progress, right? Thank goodness for vacuums and I am sure that floor is going to see worse than sawdust… 🙂 So anyway…. today (technically last Friday, since I’m a slacker butt and didn’t finish this post when I started it) I got to do some MESSY art with my friend, Erica Michel, who drove down from FoCo {Fort Collins} to play … Here’s Erica and her pooch, Major. He came to play, too. He thinks he’s a lapdog. I love that. Erica introduced me to a new messy but fun technique: Monotype Printing on a gelatin “plate”. Monoprinting? What’s that?? ”Monoprinting is a form of printmaking that has images or lines that can only be made once, unlike most printmaking, where there are multiple originals” ~ From Wikipedia. So there’s a product on the market by Gelli Arts, called a Gelli plate. It’s a rubbery feeling thing that you can paint on and print with, withOUT a second plate or press! Erica ordered one, but was anxious to try out monoprinting on gelatin (hers had not arrived yet), so she did some google’ing and found a recipe for making a homemade (but biodegradable) gelatin plate. You will want to make it the night prior or several hours prior to playing… Here’s the recipe she found on YouTube (Linda Germain): 12 Tablespoons Knox Gelatin 3 cups cold water 3 cups boiling water Directions: Dissolve gelatin in COLD water in a bowl, stir until all gelatin is dissolved. Slowly stir in BOILING water and stir with a whisk. It may or may not be foamy… skim off the foam with a piece of thin cardboard or heavy cardstock. Pour into a large baking sheet or 9×13 pan (it will be very thick in a 9×13). Skim off any bubbles with a piece of paper. Put in the fridge (make sure it is level) and let cool until solid. Flip out onto a non stick mat onto a solid surface. FLIP IT, Flip it good… Here’s a step by step for flipping your mat… you don’t want to just dump it or it will become a big nasty mess…. You will need: your gelatin goo mat, some type of nonstick craft mat (I used my Tupperware baking sheet), and a sheet pan or other hard thing to catch the mat. I used a sheet pan because it nested nicely right inside the pan that I made the gelatin mat in. {Notice the “lake” looking bit on my gelatin mat? Well, that was because I followed the original instructions and put some silly plastic wrap over it in the fridge. This stuff sets up FAST… skip the plastic wrap… Erica did and hers turned out purtier… } Carefully loosen the edges by cutting with a knife, or a paint spatula like me because I was too lazy to walk the 6 steps to the kitchen behind me and get a knife. I can justify my laziness with my klutziness… plastic spatulas are safer for me. 🙂 Lay your non stick mat on top of your gelatin mat. Set your extra pan or hard surface thing on your mat and prepare to flip it… When some gelli comes along, you must flip it! Dump that baby right out… lift the top pan (the one you made the gelatin mat in) up and the gelatin mat SHOULD just slide right out of the pan. You may want to trim up the edges. See the photo above? Top right corner… not good. A crack like that will just spread as you use the mat. Cut if off.. with your plastic spatula… and feel free to play with the excess… Yes, like a 3rd grade boy… you know you want to… Squish it, squish it good… There ya go.. Mat is prepped and you’re ready to get messy. You will need (see top pic cuz I am too lazy to post it here again, haha): a gelatin mat some stencils (any kind – paper, plastic, whatever) texture thangs… (bubble wrap, sponges, leaves, whatever) a brayer or two a spraybottle filled with water some paper towels a nearby garbage can something to cover your workspace (if you care about it getting completely filthy) and some PAINT, LOTS of paint, the cheap acrylic kind works GREAT Let’s PLAY! I’m just going to show a basic, simple monoprint.. I was having too much fun playing (that I forgot to keep taking pics) and my hands were so covered in paint that I did not want to touch my camera… The first thing you want to do is drop a couple of blobs of paint onto your gel mat. Any colors or mixtures will do. Here I’ve globbed some tealy blue and a metallic limey green onto my mat. Then roll it out with your brayer. Don’t smash the paint into the mat… you could damage/rip/shred your gelatin mat and then the fun would be over. Once your paint is sufficiently spread out, you can lay down a stencil, or pounce some texture onto the paint… We used a really cool plastic stencil for this one. Next, lay your paper on the paint… here is where we become our own “press”. This is a cheap sketch book paper.. nothing fancy. It’s thin, but that’s ok, the paint adds thickness as it dries.. Just press
Crafting On!
Hello sweet friends! Yes, it’s been a while again. I did not anticipate abandoning my blog again… but sometimes life just happens. April was an INSANE month for us… without boring you with all the details I will just say: “One work trip, one birthday (Brent), 2 surgeries (one Brent, one me), planning for one Creative Escape that I’m hosting this month, etc….” All is well, we’re recovering from our minor surgeries and I’m chugging away in my studio. One of the best highlights of the past month was a visit from a very sweet friend of mine, Sue Culotti (Random On Purpose), this past week. I met Sue aaaages ago through the Close To My Heart consultant bulletin boards.. I think back in 2005 or 2006… anyway, over the years we’ve become friends via emails and phone calls and our blogs. I’ve wanted to meet her for years and this last week she called me and let me know she was out here in Utah visiting her daughter who just had a new baby and “could we get together?”… YES!!! (hammin’ it up for a cheesy self portrait! Try #1, I’m all chin.. lol!) I had the BEST visit with Sue. We spent a good part of Thursday just hanging out and visiting. We chatted for hours and hours and spent just a few moments in the studio. Sue was interested in learning soldered jewelry (a new hobby I’m working on.. haha) and so I gave her a little tutorial. (I’m very new at this hobby and so my technique is still wonky, but hey, crafty time with the fabulous Sue, yeah baby!) Here’s the pendant we did. I used a graphic I created for a different type of charm a couple of years ago and resized it to fit on a 1×1.5” pendant. (Left pic is the front, right pic is the back) (the glass I used is thicker than what I normally use, and I was waaaay off with the foil tape…) I was soooo sad to have to let Sue go home 🙁 I think we could have visited for hours and hours more and just lost track of time. (Try #4, much better! Isn’t she beautiful?) Thank you Sue for a wonderful visit! 🙂 XoXo, E. PS. Jen Embry – I have a hug for you from Sue next time I see you 🙂 🙂 PPS… I had the most fabulous NSD adventure yesterday at Doodlebug HQ in Salt Lake City. Trying to get some pics edited and posted asap! Here’s a sneaky peeky…. yes, that’s glitter… and those bottles are 6” tall!!
Black Magic – A Folksy, Doodly Focal Image Technique
Today I have a fun, folksy, doodly focal point image technique to share with you called Black Magic. I saw this technique at SCS and fell in love with it and decided I just had to teach it at Creative University. It’s easy, fun, and different! I love the folksy look of the white doodles. They remind me of tole painting and folk art. Here’s how you do it. Black Magic – A Folksy, Doodly Focal Image Technique I’ve been having fun with these quickie video tutorials & have one more coming soon! I think I want to do more. Is there a technique you’d love to see me demonstrate? Let me know and I will do my best to put a tutorial together for you. Inky Smiles!
Oxy Magic – An Inky Background Technique
Hi friends! Today I have a fun technique to share with you! This year at Creative University Tresa had the teachers put on a Technique Boutique. Each of us contributed 4 technique make n take style tutorials for the boutique. For my techniques I tried to do something “different” than what you’d see at a traditional “stamping demo party”. I will be sharing alll 4 techniques via video over the next couple of weeks. This is one of my favorites! It’s called Oxy Magic/Foxy Oxy… etc… Here’s how you do it! Enjoy! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHUwkmDAEG4]