I wanted to show you three ways to use a large background die..

1. Using the die in a basic way: I took a rabbit stamp from Fun Stamper’s Journey called Miss Whiskers link: https://tinyurl.com/ursu2w9 and placed a 4 1/4″” x 5 1/2″ tall card base in cream in Michaels Recollections Heavyweight cardstock (link: https://tinyurl.com/wq2663j) in the MISTI with the die laying on top of it. I laid Miss Whiskers so she is placed with the die covering the bottom of her fur, and then removed the die….If you place the stamp too high, she’ll look like she’s floating above the die and you don’t want that. I used Stampin’ Up’s Archival Gray ink that they no longer make to stamp the rabbit. Then I took the die cut I’d made out of green cardstock, and used Distress Oxide Peeled Paint ink and a blending brush (link: https://tinyurl.com/vwnyoye) and inked the die cut to make it a different color…That lead me into option #2–I’ll go back to option 1 in a moment.

#2 Using the die cut as a stencil on a postcard: Put the die cut over a piece of 5 1/2″ tall x 4 1/4″ wide white heavyweight Michaels cardstock that I’d stamped a postcard stamp on one side..On the reverse side, using the Distress Oxide Peeled Paint, I colored, using the die cut as a stencil and one of the distressing brushes. Making sure that the areas around the leaves were well colored and the area inside the center (where the rabbit would be sitting) would be much lighter. After the ink was dry, I took a matching green Arteza alcohol marker (but a little bit darker green) and traced every leaf, so the leaves would be even more defined. I then took Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide ink and a second blending brush and colored the center of the image to make it lighter…(where the bunny will be.) I needed to create a mask for the bottom where the bunny would sit in the leaves…I traced the inside of the bottom leaves on a post it note (the sticky part) with a pencil, and then cut that out and laid it on the leaves in my MISTI and then laid the rabbit on top so the bottom of the bunny is hidden in the leaves. I stamped with the gray archival Stampin Up ink and then used Arteza alcohol markers to color the rabbit. I used a “Happy Easter” stamp from Amuse Studio’s “For Peep Sake” set and stamped near the left side of the bunny’s ears.

Back to Option 1–I colored the bunny with Arteza alcohol markers and glued the big leaf die cut on top of the card base with Tombow Mono Aqua glue. I glued some diamonds (you can use diamonds for nails that are easy to find online, mine were left over from diamond painting) on the flowers in the bunny’s headdress. For the sentiment, I stamped Happy Easter with black Brutus Monroe ink on green cardstock, and used their Icicle embossing powder then heat set it. I die cut it with a die from Spellbinders that came in a monthly kit..I die cut the sentiment and then used Peeled Paint Distress Oxide ink on a small blending brush to add more color to the edges of the sentiment.

I showed a magnetic dish I keep my small dies in that I got at Harbor Freight Liquidators link: https://tinyurl.com/tzqtlyz

Option 3–Making a shaker card. I cut the die out of a bunch of different green cardstocks and tried to make sure I didn’t take the leaf pieces out of the die cuts. I used the same green as I’d used on the other card to act as my base after I’d cut it with the die. I glued it to a piece of 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ acetate (from a stamp set I bought) and then took individual pieces out of the other colors of die cut leaves, and glued them in place on the acetate backed base. This takes some time and patience, but the end result is cool. I then took a craft colored card base that is 5 1/2″ tall x 4 1/4″ wide to attach my die cut acetate to. I stamped a bird from an old Inky Antics stamp set called Cupcake Birdie Honey Pot in the center of the card base then colored it with Marco Renoir colored pencils. To create the shaker part, I had to add foam tape all around he back of the leaves to ensure none of the shaker components would come out. I glued down some enamel dots around the bird and then added loose diamond accents and glued the leaf die cut to the front. I added a die cut Happy Easter on green cardstock to the front with foam tape.

I’ve been having a lot of fun working on the three bird houses I showed in my Dollar Tree haul video.  Although two of them started out pretty rough, they’re looking kind of cute now.  I didn’t realize that using outdoor ModPodge would require a month of curing time (set up so the Mod Podge can be outdoors safely) as well, as requiring a sealant to get rid of the stickiness that Mod Podge seems to leave behind.  I’m not sure if I would have used Mod Podge if I’d read the label when I bought it.  I thought it was the sealant…silly crafty girl…..

I had made a bunch of cards to give to my girlfriend and had a Dollar Tree box shaped like a book that I bought at Christmas time.  I covered the box with papers and decorations and made it kind of cute….I could have ordered something for her online, but in the spirit of quarantining, I decided it would be more fun to give her a bunch of handmade gifts…So she’s got a snowman diamond painting journal (she collects snowmen,) and a journal I made with a diamond painting passport cover, two destressing bottles, diamond refrigerator magnets and, of course a card.  Rich made her a really yummy chocolate cake and we blew up a rubber glove and tied it to the top of the gift bag when we set it on her porch swing…No breaking the social distancing rules here….She laughed when she saw the glove balloon…Since there wasn’t any helium involved, it did look a little pathetic, but the wind caught it and it blew around the bag, so it was still kind of frisky.

My college girlfriends decided we should have a video chat “happy hour,” so we got to catch up with each other.  We did the conference through zoom.com and it was free and simple to do.  If you go to their website, you can easily figure out how to set up a conference video call.  We had nine women on, and frankly, that’s too many, as it’s hard to not talk over each other, and we had some issues with one person using a poor wi-fi, so hers kept freezing and we kept stopping the call to figure out what was wrong with her technology.  I have no idea how any of this works, and was just happy that I figured out how to get on the call….at one point though, I must have touched something on my computer, as I could still hear everyone, but could no longer see them.  After about five minutes, I pushed a random button and everyone reappeared.  I have no idea how I lost them or how I got them back, but of course, I missed the most important part of the call when I had no video…one of the girls got a new puppy….and I didn’t get a chance to see him/her…bummer.

It was great seeing everyone though, and if we had maybe four or five people on one of these video calls, I think I would have enjoyed it.  As it was, nine people made it frustrating and I wouldn’t recommend doing it with a group that large.  The one thing that made me happy, was Honey wasn’t freaked out by the noise and different voices, and instead, decided she might need to get close to the computer screen and check things out…so at one point on the call, Honey took my place…and then Bella wasn’t to be outdone,  shoved Honey out of the way so she could find out what she had been missing.  I wonder why none of the other women had issues with their pets needing some video time.  I guess I’m the only lucky one…..haha

My goal is to show you how to create a die cut with several colors of paper in it.

The die I used is from Creative Expressions by Sue Wilson and is called the Easter Bunny Egg, link: https://tinyurl.com/rgcuazd

I cut the outer egg and the rabbit center out of a pink cardstock, a lime green cardstock, and a gray cardstock and separated the outside egg area of all three colors from the inner areas that held the rabbit in the same three colors.

I left the grey outer (egg) layer as is, then I took the pink egg layer and cut all of the loops off of the outside, then took the green layer and cut the outside loops off of it as well as the flowers.. This allows it when glued together to have gray loops, green Happy Easter and pink flowers. I glued them together with Tombow Mono Aqua Adhesive with the grey layer on bottom, then the green layer and the top pink layer.

I die cut the bow that goes with the egg out of the pink cardstock, and cut a second bow and then glued them together….I’ll attach this to the egg later.

I took the center section with the rabbit out of green cardstock and cut the flowers out of it….then with the pink layer, I cut the leaves out of it and then glued the pink layer over the green layer, so my flowers would be pink and the leaves would be green…Then I took the grey layer and cut out all of the flowers and leaves and glued this on top of the pink layer. I cut a glitter light black rabbit out, and cut the rabbit out of the background and then glued this to the top of the grey rabbit.

I used a Black Sharpie to outline the rabbit and the outer edges of the center section so you don’t see any edges that aren’t black.

I die cut carrots that have a green top. I did this three ways:

1. Put washi tape behind orange and green paper butted up against each other and then cut it out…I think this looks the best of the three methods.

2. Cut out the entire carrot (including the greenery) out of orange cardstock, then cut the greenery out of green cardstock and glue the green cut out over the orange paper (that should be green.)

3. Die cut only the orange part of the carrot out of orange cardstock, and diecut the greenery out of green cardstock, then put a small dab of glue on the back of the bottom of the stock of greenery to the top of the carrot. I think this method looked the worst.

I used a light grey card base from Recollections Heavyweight cardstock from Michaels that is 8 1/2″ wide scored at 4 1/4″ and 5 1/2″ tall (an A2 size card).. I glued the outer egg onto the card base and then glued the rabbit part inside the center …I glued the bow to the top of the egg and glued some carrots around the bottom of the egg.. I added a dot of glue into each of the outer loops of the egg and added a bright pink diamond I had left over from diamond paintings into the loops. Then I added red diamonds into the center near the rabbit and around the outer part of the card. I stamped a sentiment on the inside of the card from a stamp set from Amuse Studio called For Peeps Sake with black Brutus Monroe Ink.

 

Below you’ll find complete instructions, as well as products used in making this project.

I used the Easter egg picks shown in this Dollar Tree photo: https://www.dollartree.com/easter-craft-eggstravaganza/e227

3″ square glass votive holder link: https://www.dollartree.com/square-glass-candleholders-3-in/849995

Succulent clip: https://www.dollartree.com/floral-garden-artificial-succulent-clips/262638

Garden Floral Moss: Note: mine came with a few small pine cones, but you won’t see them once everything is in place. https://www.dollartree.com/floral-garden-floral-moss/192146

1 1/2″ wide Organza ribbon..I’ve had mine for a while, and found this similar option: https://tinyurl.com/srftcc3 You don’t want it to have wire and it should be organza as you don’t want the ribbon to be showing through the eggs much, as the eggs are the stars of the show.

You’ll need a hot glue gun. My favorite is the Gorilla Glue multi-temp mini glue gun…link: https://tinyurl.com/s29l82o It doesn’t leak, and works great. I found mine at my local Joanns, and it was around $5 with a coupon. Joann.com doesn’t offer the mini version any more, so I couldn’t link their website, sorry.

I decorated my eggs by using embroidery floss link: https://tinyurl.com/v4cssrs dipped into regular school glue and then wrapped on the side of the egg. I added a little glitter and recommend using clear or light colored glitter, as darker shades are too bright. Let the embroidery floss dry on the egg before gluing the project together.

To make the decoration: 

First, I removed the sticks from the egg picks and then used a craft knife, cut the eggs in half from top to bottom. You’ll want to cut around the entire egg with the craft knife, until it separates. You could also use a sharp kitchen knife like a steak knife.  Don’t use a tool (like scissors) that will squeeze the eggs, as they are styrofoam, and will be crushed.  After cutting the eggs in half, rub the two sides against each other over a garbage can, to remove any excess styrofoam from the center.

I laid a piece of ribbon that was about 2 ft. long on the side of the votive holder with a glue dot (so I would know where the eggs should be glued) I found that three half-eggs covered one side of the votive holder, so you’ll need twelve half eggs…I cut all of the eggs from the egg picks and used the leftover eggs to tuck under the succulent when the project was done. I alternated the colors of the eggs so there was a lot of variety in color. I hot glued the ribbon to the side of the votive holder and was going to make a bow, but then decided it would look better without the bow, so cut and glued the ends of the ribbons under the eggs. I took the moss and filled the votive holder, then glued the succulent to the top (after removing the clip from the succulent) and put the leftover egg halves under the succulent.

I’ve been making some last minute Easter cards and showed how to layer die cuts so you know how to make multi-colored die cuts.  I think a lot of people think that when they see a die cut that has a few colors, that they somehow come that way, but it does take some extra work to get the finished results to look good.

I also finished a diamond painting of the vintage car garage….and I really like the end results.

I made a postcard with a bunch of rabbits that I used masks to position the bunnies next to each other, and that card probably took two hours to create with masking, stamping and coloring, so I decided not to make it into a video.  I know I should have, but don’t think anyone would want to sit through a video of that length to make such a simple card.  I’ll be sure to show you a photo of it in an upcoming blog post.

Mainly, I’ve been thinking about how to DIY masks, and here’s the video that does the best job of creating a really good mask.  If you read the comments below the video, you’ll see that this mask has been studied and a doctor at UNC came up with some variations that makes this mask more effective than the ones used in hospitals.  Here’s the video in case any of you would like to make your own masks.  It doesn’t require sewing, and if you have shop towels (thicker paper towels), long rubber bands, scotch tape, staples and small paperclips, you can make these masks with what you have.  I’ll give you a link to the longer rubber bands that the doctor recommends.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GKO2L6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My girlfriend and I are splitting the pound box of rubber bands and I have a ton of paper clips to share with her…I’m going to try doubling the shop towels for the highest efficacy, but if doubling them makes it too hard to breathe through, I’ll go back to single towels.  I’m hoping that by using the long rubber bands and only using one per mask, that it will be more comfortable than wrapping the rubber bands around my ears…When he puts the mask on, it doesn’t look very comfortable…If you need to make a mask, Walmart has the double rolls of shop towels on hand in their stores. (At least ours does.)

I received a set of 30 Chalkola Chalk Markers with an extra gold colored marker and a black board from the nice people at Chalkola.

Chalk marker can be used with any non-porous surface…examples would be glass, plastic, blackboards, ceramic. You can write on ceramic mugs, I bought a Christmas ornament (I bought one from Celebrate-it) and drew a Christmas tree on it.

The Dollar Tree sells trinket boxes link: https://www.dollartree.com/colorful-macaroon-shaped-hinged-boxes/270777 that you can use for the tooth fairy and write a message on it.

Snail images free images to print: http://clipart-library.com/free/snail-clipart-black-and-white.html

Plastic notebook sleeve to color on: https://tinyurl.com/umzspdm

I’ve found these at the Dollar Tree during back to school time. Tracing a design on a car window. Put the paper on the outside of the window and tape it where you want it. Get inside the car and trace the design on the inside of the window and it will stay there until you wipe it off. Once you’ve completed your design, remove the taped image from the window.

House window: To put a design on your window, tape the picture to the outside of your window, and draw on the inside of the window, and once the drawing is complete, remove the paper from the outside of the window… Stamping with markers: Use red rubber stamps and use the marker on the stamp then use your fingertip to remove excess ink…stamp onto a non-porous surface and let dry. You won’t get a perfect image, but it’s fun to do. You can also stamp on the Christmas ornament I showed earlier.

To receive a 10% discount on any Chalkola order, use the code: CHALKOLA10

1. Eligible entries must subscribe to Chalkola’s YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73SQh4Ry2JZ-gw46e3DzZA Only persons from the UK, Canada and USA are eligible to win the set of chalk markers. The set size is a set of 21 markers for the UK and Canada and a set of 30 for the USA .

2. You need to leave a comment below this video that says you’ve subscribed to Chalkola’s YouTube channel and your email address or name. I’d prefer your email address so I can contact you after the drawing’s results.

The drawing will be done on April 15th and I will contact you via email to let you know you’re a winner. The marker set will be sent directly from Chalkola to the winner.

Below you’ll find the product descriptions and links to Dollar Tree.
Moroccan Style Placemat: https://tinyurl.com/vgmsrek

Crafter’s Square Pop Dot Tape: I couldn’t find this in their online store, but here are the options they do show online. https://tinyurl.com/vrapuap

Jot Foam Mounting Tape: The bottom right option is the one I bought. https://tinyurl.com/yx7bjnv2

Crafter’s Square Magical Adhesive Dots: I couldn’t find this in their online store, sorry

Crafter’s Square Double Sided Tape: https://tinyurl.com/vchvzxh

Crafter’s Square Wood Letters: https://tinyurl.com/t6jxw44

3″ Square Glass Votive Holder: https://tinyurl.com/qmr765y

Foam Egg Picks: https://tinyurl.com/qq995kv

Here’s what the birdhouses looked like before Rich cut them: https://tinyurl.com/t7fe4st

I couldn’t find the napkins online, sorry

Bird Wall Stickers: https://tinyurl.com/vtwm624

Wood Gazebo Birdhouse –Available at Michaels— https://tinyurl.com/vtonj4s

Mod Podge Outdoor: https://tinyurl.com/sl76ewz

Jewel Border Stickers: available in silver and gold, I bought gold. https://tinyurl.com/swotfty

In my next video, we’ll be making the Easter centerpiece using the votive and the eggs from the egg picks. I hope you’ll check it out.

 

I’m still trying to maintain time in the craft room everyday, but am finding myself talking on the telephone and working on diamond paintings.  My friends are uncertain and fearful as am I.  We talk about seeing kids out on their bikes, for the first time in years, it seems.  We’re devising a plan for how to spend Easter together without actually being together.  We’re thinking of setting a meal time, and then calling the other so we can talk as if we are in the same house, and then we won’t feel so isolated or disconnected from our loved ones.

Our nephew is an RN in a VA hospital, and now the VA’s are also taking in overflow non-veteran corona patients.  This is our nephew’s first Easter with his bride, and we know he’ll be spending it working…We decided to provide their Easter meal for them and since they live in North Carolina, we are arranging for them to pick their meal up at a Honey Baked Ham store near them.  It’s hard enough trying to get through the first year of marriage, and adding to that the stress of Corona, and the social distancing, means they won’t see any family or each other.  It’s the least we can do, providing them a good dinner.

Our county has now been asked to stay at home.   I know there’s an official term for it, but can’t remember what it is.  Rich went out to get milk and bread, and had to go to several stores just to find those two things.  Apparently, up until this point, the people in our county have been ignoring the warnings, and have been going about life as if it’s business as usual.  Shopping daily, and taking their children to Walmart several times a week.  Facebook in our area is blowing up with people working at Walmart, saying that people are just ignoring all of the warnings, and putting everyone at risk.  Social distancing there is non-existent, and people didn’t seem to act like they had even heard that they should be staying away from each other.  I am reminded of a movie called “Five Feet Apart,” about two kids with Cystic Fibrosis that aren’t allowed to be within six feet of each other.  They come up with a broomstick that is five feet long, and decide to hold that stick between them so they never get too close to each other.  Is that what we have to do to remind each other to stay six feet apart?

I’m saddened that people are taking several young children into grocery stores and allowing them to touch things, letting their babies gnaw on shopping carts…It’s frustrating that people don’t understand that they can have this virus without having any symptoms, and that they are the ones spreading the disease.  What will it take for people to wake up and realize that we can control how much this virus spreads, just by social distancing and staying at home?

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m hoping we can get ahead of this virus, but it’s going to take all of us, taking this virus serious, to do this.

In these times of high stress from COVID19 (Coronavirus), I thought it would be a good time to help you make a project for yourself and your family that will help you possibly reduce your anxiety and stress.

I used a Voss glass water bottle (I recommend plastic though, if you can find it), another large plastic water bottle, a pickle jar I ran through my dishwasher (and it still smelled like pickles, so didn’t use it in the end.) I also had a pint jar and a small plastic spice sized container.  I cleaned all of the bottles and removed the labels.  The pickle jar label fell off in the dishwasher, and the other labels were easily removed, as they were plastic outer liners and could be cut off..

Coloring the water: I used food coloring and Crayola watercolors, so if you don’t have either of these, use anything you have on hand that will change the water color…You might have some liquid blusher that you could use a few drops as well or water based markers that you scribble on a small flat piece of plastic, then swirl the plastic in the bottle to remove the marker..

To thicken the water, you can use Elmers Kid’s Washable school glue, Vegetable glycerin that you’d buy at a pharmacy, or baby oil (I couldn’t find my baby oil.) Or you can go without a thickening agent…I did this with the pom-pom bottle.

The pint jar–I started by putting green food coloring in…not a lot as you don’t want the water too dark…I thought this would work for pompoms, but it didn’t because you need a lot more room for the pompoms to move….so I changed the pompoms to the largest water bottle. I’ll use the pint jar for the next jar idea. I changed the pint jar (still green) to smiley face table scatters, white beads and glitter…choose different colors of glitter and different sizes of glitter..chunky works great. Start by filling the jar about 3/4 full and add glycerin to this jar, adding maybe 1-2 tsp. The more glycerin you put in, the slower the shakers will move. I added more table scatters/sequins shaped like flowers, then shook the jar really well. I used hot water so things would combine easier. After these bottles sit overnight, fill the water to the top, and seal the lid shut with glue, either E6000 or Super Glue. Put the glue inside the rings of the lid and then put the lid on tightly and let it set until it’s glued shut. This is especially important with your glass jars.

Pink (pickle jar)-(in the end, this was the Voss water bottle)– I used Crayola red watercolor on a brush and kept wiping the brush in the water on the side of the jar. Filled it a little more than half of the jar with water. Make sure the water is really hot so the glue dissolves. Fill the jar almost to the top with Elmer’s Clear School Glue or any clear glue. I should have closed the jar and shaken it until the glue and water mixed, but didn’t. I added different glitters, small beads, sequins, table scatters.. Put the lid on tightly and shake it a lot, and I mean a lot, to get the water and glue to combine. If you get bubbles, that’s ok…wait overnight and fill the jar the rest of the way with water and then glue the lid shut and shake it again.

Next day...I couldn’t get the pickle smell to go away, so changed to the Voss water bottle  and it turned out to be my favorite.

Small container that looked like a spice bottle: I used hot water and filled it over half full and then filled it almost the rest of the way with the Elmer’s school glue. I added yellow food coloring and gold and brown glitter and flower sequins and then closed it and shook it really well. The next day, I added more hot water to the top and sealed the bottle shut with glue.

After I added water to the top of each bottle and sealed them, I shook them so you can see how relaxing it is.  I hope you give this a try.

I received this Tree of Life Diamond Painting Kit from Fansells.com and here’s a link to it. Tree of Life 30 x 40 cm Link: https://tinyurl.com/u69z8w7 This diamond painting uses round drills and if I had to recommend a size, I’d say you’ll be able to see the image a lot better if you buy a larger sized canvas. I’ve seen this 16 x 20 inches and it is much easier to recognize the tree close up. Any time you buy a diamond painting with a lot of detail, it’s much better to go larger..just my two cents on it. The tree of life that I got is about 9 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ inches. I had a large piece of framed art work that I’d bought at Kohls a long time ago, and decided I no longer liked it. I decided to use the frame and existing mat for my tree of life diamond painting.

To do this, you’ll want to first trim the corners of the canvas that has no diamonds on it, almost to the diamonds…maybe 1/8″ away from the corner. I folded each side of my canvas and made sure the fold is right up to the diamonds. I then put a row of double sided tape on the side of the fold that would be where the finished image is, and then a row of tape on the edge of the side and one more row about half way between the two rows of tear tape. Then I removed the backing from the tear tape and folded the edge back to the diamond row. I pressed down well and then went to the another side and did the exact same thing…Do this to all four sides, making sure they are well taped down. I added tear tape to the back of the painting and all four sides, as well as several rows of tape through the center section…this ensures that if the diamond painting is framed without glass or with glass and mats, the painting won’t shift once framed. More tear tape is better than less... I had a green large piece of art paper that I bought at an art store that was going out of business. You could use a piece of poster board for this instead if you can’t find large pieces of art paper. Here are some examples of art papers they sell at Hobby Lobby. https://www.hobbylobby.com/search/?text=art+paper

I took the framed artwork that I already had on hand and took it apart, removing the different layers by bending back the staples that held things in place. The matting on it was blue and I didn’t feel like changing that out, but wanted to ensure another layer that fit the colors of my tree of life. I used the green art paper I mentioned above, and cut it to about an 1″ smaller than the size as the cardboard backing and then using white artist’s tape I bought from dickblick.com, taped the green paper to the back of the matting. I then cleaned the glass from the frame and laid the frame face down on my desk, put the glass in place, and then laid the diamond painting in the center of the green matted layer and made sure it was well adhered before flipping it over and laying it in place in the frame. When you do this, make sure the top of your painting is also at the top of the frame where the hook to hang it is attached. Then put the cardboard backing on it and used my Tim Holtz scissors, and pushed the staples in place to make sure the artwork would stay in the frame. I used masking tape, and taped the cardboard to the back of the black frame. I made sure there were two rows of masking tape so the cardboard and frame both had a good layer of masking tape on it. In the end, I was happy with my frame job and don’t think I would have done anything differently, other than using a bigger tree of life image..