New Year Cards

I decided years ago getting Christmas cards mailed was one holiday stress I could eliminate. Instead I take advantage of the post-Christmas calm and send Holiday or New Year cards.  It is a much less busy time so I can add a more personal touch and I can respond to the notes I receive.

I only send to folks I do not see on a regular basis and those that are not my Facebook friends. And, yes I do enclose a brief Christmas letter. I find it very disappointing to receive a card from someone with whom I have not been in touch and find just a signature. I want to know what is going on in their lives!

I had almost enough cards from previous years to send this season (maybe someone will get the same card two years in a row, but really, does one ever notice?) I needed about 5 more, so while HR was occupied watching bowl games, I made enough to finish this year’s mailing.

My New Year resolution is to improve my photos! I am open to suggestions from you. 

The designs were cut with my Silhouette Portrait.

Using Microsoft Publisher, I printed the inside sentiments on white card stock, two from an 8.5 X 11-inch sheet. After they were cut, I scored and folded and attached the front.

And par for the course, I ran out of tape runner!  If I make a quick trip to the store this morning I can still get these in the mail in time for folks to receive them before New Year's Day.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and your stockings were filled with craft supplies. (I wish I had told Santa in addition to kneaded erasers, blending stumps and fresh cutting blades I could use some tape runners.)

My New Year wish for you is for many hours happily crafting! 

Blessing Baskets in Paducah

Inspired to shop locally and avoid the mall and big box store crowds, I stopped in at the farmers market at Baptist Health Paducah on a Thursday morning to see what Crystal Troutt of Troutts Garden Soups & Such was selling. I have known Crystal for a long time and knew she would have the perfect food gifts. What I didn’t know was that she is selling Blessing Baskets.

In fact, I had not heard of the Blessing Baskets Project. As she explained the project, I was quite intrigued and asked if I could post some photos and share the link. She enthusiastically (that is Crystal!) said yes.

If you, like me, are not aware of the project, the baskets are made and bought directly from artisans (leaving out the middle person’s profit) throughout the world. It is a 501(c) organization whose mission is to help folks pull themselves out of poverty. I encourage you to go to their website, www.blessingbasket.org, and learn more about this amazing project.

The baskets are beautiful! However, I did not buy any as the ones she had with her had “sold” marked on them and she had already promised her next shipment.

I did buy hot drink mix gifts (and a few things for myself.)

When I got home, I realized I did not have the correct size gift bags. So, did I get in the car and drive to the mall area to buy bags. Nope, I had plenty of wrapping paper; using a tutorial on the Beautiful Mess blog, I whipped up four in probably less time than making a shopping trip.

I used Tombow Xtreme instead of the regular adhesive runner to prevent the seams from coming loose. Don’t ask me how I know about breaks in seams and candy falling out.

In the spring, Crystal and her husband will be opening the Troutt Old Time General Store and Market in Lowertown. They will be carrying the Blessing Baskets as well as other unique, wholesome products. (Think Mrs. Meyers cleaning products.) In the meantime, like her on Facebook and know when and where she is setting up her market.

Christmas Pillows

For the most part, I am sticking to my resolve to avoid the mall and big box stores for Christmas shopping. This week I spent time in The Underground making gifts.

I had quite a stash of burlap left from Art in the Garden in 2013. Using my Silhouette Portrait and freezer paper, some of it was turned into pillows. Taking advantage of the 12 Days of Christmas free designs from the SilhouetteStore, I had a grand time!

These designs were not free designs, but I did get them for half-price (50 cents) earlier in the month.

One of my granddaughters  redecorated her room this year, using purple and gray with a French flair. I found this burlap in my stash and thought it might work for her.

On the reverse side of the burlap, I stenciled a fleur-de-lis for the front.

My daughter-in-law requested a fleur-de-lis pillow. I did this one on canvas 

If you have not yet tried the freezer paper stencil tutorial on the Silhouette School Blog, it is a really simple process. Hop on over to their site and take a look.

Let me share a few tips from my experiences.

• Bold colors tend to show up better on burlap. When some of the colors I chose were too light, I repainted with a darker color after I removed the stencil.
• Thread the color of the burlap works great to correct paint bleeds in a small area.
•  If using a white pillow form, it looks best to use a natural color (like muslin) for a liner.
• For me, I find more paint bleeding when stenciling on canvas making the edges a bit fuzzy. I found the heavy acrylic works better than craft paint.

On Wednesday I will share some of my 2014 gift ornaments. 

This year we are giving our oldest granddaughter our gift of time. She has wanted a garden for some time so in the early spring my husband will build her a 4-foot square bed; I will help her with the planting. Her favorite fruit is strawberries so I thought it would be neat to present her a gift card for the garden in a strawberry basket with the suggestion she plant strawberries. I did make a trip to the candy store in the mall to buy strawberry candy for the basket, but I thought that would be okay as it needed special touch. 

Holiday Sugared Cranberries

A favorite treat from my kitchen during the holidays.

I shared these wonderful little gems with my Mixed Media Club friends at Ephemera Paducah last evening. As usual, there were request for the recipe, so here it is:

Ingredients:

2 cups water

2 cups granulated sugar        

2 cups fresh cranberries

3/4 cups superfine sugar                                                                                                                                                     

First step:

Combine granulated sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat, stirring mixture until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a simmer, remove from heat (do not boil as the cranberries may pop when added.)

Stir in cranberries; pour mixture into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Next step:

Drain cranberries in a colander over a bowl, reserving steeping liquid if desired. (I save the liquid and use it for a second batch.)

Place superfine sugar in shallow dish (you may have to search for the superfine sugar, I ordered the Baker brand from King Arthur, found the Domino brand tucked away in the sugar section at Krogers.)

Add the drained cranberries, a few at a time, to the bowl and coat with sugar.

Spread sugared cranberries in a single layer on a sheet of wax paper, let stand at room temperature 1 hour or until dry.

My recipe says to store in an airtight container in a cool place for up to one week; can’t comment on the storage as we have never had them last that long.

If you want to print this recipe, note the print view option at the end of this post.

After dining on an array of delicious finger foods and a quick game of dirty Santa, we got busy and worked on our board book journals.

I am always so amazed at the talent of this group! Some are accomplished mixed media artists, some are fine art artists, some are textile artists; they all are so generous in sharing their knowledge and skills with me, a wanna be artist!

The start of my Live Richly journal, 

Confession time, I have been playing and neglecting the blog. Oh, but I am having fun!

Last week I was invited to join the team from iList Paducah and some other crafty gals for lunch and play at Ephemera Paducah. Kristin provided paper maché letters to spell J-O-Y for us to paint, paper, glue and glitter. Head over to iList and Kelsie will explain the technique and show everyone’s unique style.

On Friday afternoon, local artist Carol Harlan led a workshop on painting tissue and deli paper at Ephemera Paducah. 

We had great fun coloring diluted gel medium and painting over the sheets.

After they were dry we embellished with more paint and bling.  These will be great to use in art journals.

Guess what we are doing at Mixed Media Club this evening at Ephemera Paducah? Working on board books which work well for art journals! I missed last month’s meeting so I will have a bit of catching up to do.  Kristin says we need a theme; I am going with “Live Richly.” I will use quotes and images to describe what makes life rich for me. Maybe I will share this at a later date.

As you can see in this photo of my studio, I have been working playing here also. As of today, all the out-of-town gifts are on their way. Still have some gifts to wrap, ornaments and cards to create as well as some holiday treats to make. So I will turn on some Christmas music and get lost in my creative world. Maybe I will have something to show and tell over the weekend.

Crayons are not just for kids!

I just found Miriam Joy and her gourd art. Wow! It is amazing.  I have hundreds of small egg shaped gourds from my 2013 garden just waiting for inspiration. This is it!

In a tutorial on her web site, Miriam shows how to wax gourds with melted crayons, using a twice melted approach. After she paints the gourds with various colors of melted crayon wax (which dries very quickly,) she uses a heat gun to melt them again, causing the wax to run down the gourd making interesting patterns. While the wax is wet she adds glitter and hits it again with the heat gun making it look kind of like a glass ornament.She has a wonderful  YouTube video on her web site, so I won’t attempt to explain the technique in detail. But feel free to ask me questions in the comments below.

My favorite.

I really like these! It was a messy project but oh so much fun!! 

I have only one wax melting pot, not enough for this project, so I improvised by melting the crayons in small plastic containers in a studio dedicated electric skillet on low heat. That didn't work very well as it was difficult to keep the temperature at a consistent low point and the plastic was too light which made the containers tip over easily. Wax melting pots are in the $30 each range and one is needed for each color that is used. I am not inclined to make this kind of investment and wonder if any of you have suggestions on an alternative way to melt the crayons. Baby food still come in those small jars?

Instead of the neat little hangers (that are available on her web site) I used small screw eyes. They don’t look as sharp but it works okay for me. The gourd walls are kind of thin and can’t hold the screws, but E6000 came to the rescue.

I used Ranger Glossy Accents instead of the 3D Crystal Lacquer for the finish and it worked just fine.The main thing is the crayon wax needs to have a final hard coat.   

So am I still on track for avoiding the Christmas crowd at the mall? You bet I am! Tomorrow I am shopping at the Paducah School of Art andDesign student art show. They usually have some really neat art at very reasonable prices. Last year I bought this painting; I think I paid about $35.

It is time for Christmas in The Underground!

I am back in The Underground after spending Thanksgiving with friends and family in Texas and attending the Texas A&M / LSU football game (Aggies lostL) Oh, and we went from Kentucky to Texas via Florida. Now why would one do that? Well our granddaughter had the role of Clara in the North West Florida Ballet production of The Nutcracker!  (she was fabulous!) I am now totally ready for the Christmas season, so much more so since I no longer have to plan around a nurse’s schedule!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Stephanie, shared on her blog WoolyThyme, her feelings about Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day. It gave me pause as I thought about Christmas and what it  means to me. I don’t think of myself as an extravagant consumer; in fact I am pretty conservative. I love the idea of finding creative ways to avoid scanning the credit card and maneuvering through stores. As I thought about this, several things came to mind; I will share these ideas as they materialize.

I certainly prefer spending time in my studio to spending time at the mall. I can’t think of a better stress inhibitor! Thanks to the generosity of my good friend, Tracy Badger , I have an abundance of beautiful Christmas papers perfect for cards and gift tags. (Tracy gave up crafting to focus on her music and I now have her stash!)  Last evening I used my Silhouette Portrait to make tags. (Okay, this isn't a biggie, but one has to start somewhere.)

Using a template from the Silhouette Store I designed the tags to be cut from two sided card stock. After I had my design, I moved the tag template from the work space and used the sketch pens to write To and From. Keep in mind, most text will be an outline but sketch text can be downloaded from the Silhouette Store (Everything in the design store is ½ off through December 8.) After the pen did it’s sketch, I left the paper on the mat in the Silhouette, placed the tag template back over the To and From, after I was satisfied with the placement, I moved the text to the side, replaced the pen with a blade, changed the setting to cardstock and clicked send to Silhouette.

This was pretty easy so I thought I would do another design. Looking through the Christmas paper stash I found this:

A pad with pretty tags just waiting to be cut out! You won't find me standing in line to purchase gift tags!

One Snowy November Day

See what I did yesterday! 

Thanks to my good friend, Tracy, I have lots of paper with which to choose in making gift bags and cards. That is exactly what I did yesterday.

My Silhouette Portrait got quite a work-out!

I found the Xyron Create-a-Sticker to be useful for adding adhesive to the thin fonts.

I used templates from the Silhouette Store to cut these gift bags.

Instead of scoring the fold lines, it cuts perforated lines; not good. Apparently there is a way to score the lines, so a little research is in order. These are small bags. I really like the papers! 

I found a template on Aunt Annie's Crafts blog for using 12-inch scrapbook paper for making a bag. It is really easy, especially with the Martha Stewart Scoring Board.

My template for the bag below.

For larger bags it would be very simple to disassemble a store-bought bag and use for a template.Would be really cool to use hand painted newsprint!

Play time must come to a halt until after Thanksgiving. The studio needs a cleaning and some organization so I will be able to start on Christmas projects as soon as we return from Texas. 

Blog Hop

I have been invited by two different bloggers to participate in a World Wide Blog Hop. One was supposed to be done on a Monday before November 6. Whoops!

This is an attempt to share our blogs with a worldwide network of bloggers with like minds. I have been asked to answer four questions:

Question number 1, what am I currently working on?

Being self-diagnosed with AADD, I have several projects in the works;

a paper mache' box for my journals, 

a project board,

a prayer flag,

cover for a new journal 

and an aluminum can covered birdhouse.

Question # 2, how does my work differ from others in its genre?

I suppose my work does not differ much as I take ideas from Pinterest and other blogs. I recently read, the difference between a crafter and an artist is a crafter copies other's work and an artist creates originality. I am definitely a crafter!

Question #3, why do I create what I do?

Creativity is in my soul. As a child I made doll clothes, through the years I have done cake decorating, macrame', decoupage, knitted, crochet, to name a few. With AADD, I tend to switch interest a lot.

Question #4, how does my creative process work?

Typically I see something on Pinterest or on a blog that I want to try. I check my stash, usually I have what I need. I start the project but may not finish it for several weeks, as something else will grab my attention.

So, there you have it! Now hop on over to my friend, Quilt Artist Rose Hughes , she is truly a talented textile artists! After you visit Rose's blog, check out needle artist, Stephanie Young at Wooly Thyme. You won't be disappointed!

As for me, I saw a pair of earrings on a blog this morning, I have all the supplies.............

But first, let me pass this hop to Carol Harlan at My Art, Carol Harlan and also to Brenda Smoak at Artists Tell Their Stories. 

Back Gate Sign

I have wanted to put a sign on our back gate but kept forgetting to have HR cut a piece of wood for me.  Just as I was preparing to take a box of clutter to the curb for Free Friday, I spotted a plastic

frame and the light bulb went on. I could use it for a frame for a sign! I just happened to have a 6-inch tile from my days of decoupaging that fit, (well close enough) and I had Folkart Enamel paint. Using the Silhouette Portrait, I cut a stencil from contact paper.  I stenciled our name to the tile. The directions on the paint said it needed 21 days to cure or it could be baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Into the toaster oven it went for 30 minutes.  In the meantime I spray painted the frame to look like metal. I glued the baked tile, which kind of yellowed in the oven, to the frame with E-6000 glue and added a soda can butterfly.  Only time will tell how well the paint holds up in rain, snow and sun.

Have any of you used Folkart Enamel paint for outdoor projects? If you have, how well did it hold up? Do you typically bake the projects or do you let it air cure? Have you used the new multi-purpose craft paint for outdoor projects?  Thank you for leaving feedback in the comments below.

Playing with Wire

Recently I had the opportunity to take a Nina Bagley jewelry class (Yes, she was at Ephemera Paducah!).  

I have not made much jewelry using wire and was excited to learn some basic techniques

like 

 the Nina Knot,

twisting the wire using a hand drill, 

how to coil wire using a T-pin

and how to make a cocoon wrap.

In addition Nina showed us how to drill through thin shells, rocks and slate, using a Dremel type tool. and how to ball up the end of a wire using a small torch.

I do not plan to get into jewelry making, but these techniques will be useful in creating embellishments for journals and accessories. (That is if I don’t forget!)

I used the Nina Loop and the cocoon wrap to make this key fob.

I tried to ball of an end of wire for this project; it didn't work. I must have forgotten the technique already! 

Now, let me take a minute to gloat; Crafting from the Underground turned 1-year old this month. Yesterday it reached 5000 views! Woot Woot! Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to check it out! Hope you have found something that will encourage you to sign up for email posts (under my photo.)

The Bard Owl Collection

Paducah, my hometown, is truly an art community; we are fortunate to have the Paducah School of Art, and Design, about 20 studios in the LowerTown Art District, an Artist in Residence program, the National Quilt Museum, the Art Guild of Paducah and the Wastelanders Exhibiting Group.  With a wealth of local artists, one can attend a local art show at least once a week. This past weekend was no exception. As part of the Oktoberfest to support Maiden Alley Cinema (theater for foreign, independent and documentary films,) local and regional artists lined the quaint cobblestone 2^nd Street in Historic Paducah. I am excited to have discovered a textile artist showing in Paducah for the first time.

Meet Teresa Stanton of ½ Street Studio in Southern Illinois (just across the river from Paducah.)

Teresa selectively salvages gently used clothing of natural fiber, mostly cotton, silk and linen. She uses the natural dyes of Prunus, Purple Leaf, Staghorn Sumac, Locust, Sassafras, Pecan, Black Walnut, Hickory, Mimosa, Sweet Gum, Willow, Maple and Cotimn to “echo print” leaves on the clothing. Her natural dye approach echoes the work of Australian artist, India Flint. The name of her clothing line is The Bard Owl Collection. Her work is stunning; the photos do not do justice.

Her work has been published in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine and E Mag. In addition to The Bard Owl Collection, Teresa also is also a mixed media and Steam Punk jewelry artist. Connect with her on Facebook to see her amazing wearable art.

I am certain a road trip to visit her shop will happen in the near future!