Oh, wordpress, my friend! It’s nice to see you again… it’s been a while.

So, I’ve experimented with oil paints, acrylic paints, oil pastels, and just last week, water colors.  I must say that I am quite surprised at how nice the painting turned out.  If I would have known this, I would have videotaped it so that I could actually learn from myself!  Ha ha!  This is the original picture sent to me via picture message.  It is of my cousin and his wife’s new baby girl.  It’s pretty funny, with her fist against her face like that and her hair spikey.

I took these pictures with my camera phone and sent them to my email.  My regular camera was nowhere to be found!

I was already pretty far along when I realized that I should have been taking pictures of my progress.

The finished picture is actually a good size.  It was painted on an 18″ x 24″ piece of paper.

I told my cousin I was going to give it to them, but I feel so attached to it now!  Oh well, I hope they like it!  I’ll just go and get a print of it made for myself and give them the original.  I wonder where I can do this…

I was bored recently, and while cleaning the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator decided to concoct a tasty little treat from things that were just hanging out.  There were some whole almonds, dark chocolate chips, and berries.  Ok, I guess the berries were fresh from the grocery store.  For a while there I was eating berries like a maniac – about a pint a day.  So here they are.  They were good, but a little too big.  Next time I will go for one-bites, and cover the berries in chocolate instead of filling the tins, and then coat with the almonds.

melting the chocolate double boiler style

chopping up the almonds

chocolate, berries, chocolate, almonds

all finished in my 50 cent dish find!

When I was younger, I always wanted shrinky dinks.  Well I never got them… until now!  They come in kids’ kits, but also come in packs with just the sheets themselves.  I saw them in solid blue, black, and white, and also in matte and clear.  I got the clear pack which works just fine with sharpies. Yay for sharpies! 

So, shrinky dinks.  They are flexible sheets of plastic (think overhead sheet) that when heated at about 300 degrees for a couple of minutes, they shrink to less than 50% the original size.  What you have is a smaller, yet thicker, unflexible piece of decorated plastic.

I just made a few to experiment with, and decided to send some to my cousins and sister.  A few of the pieces didn’t turn out right, so I’m including some tips so my mistakes won’t be repeated. 

sharpies, jelly roll pen, shrink film. using black sharpie first will get some black on your other sharpies later

"today is the first day of the rest of your life." a quote my dad would always say. i hole punched one corner after cutting out the saying.

parchment paper under and on top of the piece

THE PIECE WILL CURL up on itself and may stick, so i suggest folding the paper securely to keep the piece from getting ruined. don't put anything on top, the ink may stick to the paper.

toaster oven. 300 degrees for about 2 minutes.

right out of the oven

as a keychain! all done!

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that’s a quick step by step.  Next are a few of the pieces that I sent off to my sister and cousins along with a little note.  Just something little to send off in the mail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

beth's personal mantra: small bites, chew well

Let me know if you make any shrinky dink creations!

‘Tis the season for garage sales!  Every Thursday through Saturday they are everywhere.  Some people are getting rid of their things to get ready for a move, and some are trying to make some money in these hard times.  There are some really good things out there, and some cannot be found anywhere else.  I’ve found some full spools of ribbon for $0.10, a pair of cute ceramic peacocks, and some small mirrors of different shapes – exactly what I was looking for.  I was specifically looking for small framed mirrors to repaint, as decoration for my white walls.  This would be in lieu of painting directly on the walls again.  (I already had to take one vacation day to repaint the dining room walls before moving out of the old apartment!)  Here are some picts!

a peacock pair

hello!

The frames of all these mirrors were brown.  The one with the tree had a gold frame. 

xacto knives are great!

this mirror is sitting on my piano

I’ve finally used some of my painting supplies! (Also, I’ve finally posted something new!) Recently I have gotten a piano, and have also been trying to learn how to play the guitar.  So… as can be seen, this focus on music has been translated to canvas.  More specifically, acrylic on canvas.  Eventually, I will list these two paintings, along with other items, on my etsy site that I have done absolutely nothing with so far. 

With my next post, I will be asking for suggestions on how to organize my art area, and what to do for a headboard. I refuse to paint directly on the walls.  Sadly, I had to paint a neutral color over the walls of my last apartment.  At least there will always be pictures… 

Shrunken, out-of-style, ugly, or worn out sweaters ——> mittens, scarves, ear warmers, blankets, or pillows! 

one of the two sweaters i used. (for some reason, the other picture keeps disappearing!)

putting them together

from the end of the sleeve

Now I can keep my favorite blue top with me forever!

What do you think I should do with these little felt flowers?  I was thinking maybe making some sort of flower garland, or using them on sweaters, coats, or hats.  If I make more out of the wool felt instead of the regular craft felt, I would use them on some tote or all-day bags.  You tell me.

some of the felt flowers

It was super fun putting this present together for my 11 y.o. cousin.  My aunt says that sometimes she will stay in her room for a little bit and then come out with something that she has sewn together. Samantha even made me a little red pouch with a button closure, that is small enough to put my cell phone in.  She made my sister a mini pillow out of her old penguin pajamas because she knows my sis likes penguins.  For her webkinz, Samantha also made clothes!  Up until now, she has been cutting up her old clothes that don’t fit her.  While that’s been working fine, maybe those clothes could go to someone else, so I wanted to put a little kit together for her that includes a bunch of different fabrics for her to play with.

fabric pieces to experiement with

the kit with everything

Kit contents:  watermelon pin cushion, thread, needles, pins, buttons, snaps, velcro, spools of ribbon

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Samantha was prettty excited about it.  Well, it’s either that or she is a good actress. I know I’d be excited,  but that’s just me.

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Here’s the video of her opening it: 

yes, here!!!

Donna’s roommie, Lauren, volunteered me to make posters for her and her co-workers’ cubicles.  Their theme was Christmastown, so they each had to decorate according to what their cube would represent in the town.  Lauren’s was a chocolate shop, and there was also a zoo and Christmas tree farm to decorate for.

Because I can be a tiny bit of a control freak when it comes to these types of projects, I really didn’t mind (actually I wanted to) do most of it myself, and gave the task of cutting out the letters to Donna and Lu. I think Donna only actually cut 3 letters.  =)

Here’s a pict of half the cutting team hard at work:

Lauren cutting out letters.

The final products:

All three

 Materials included foam poster boards, colored paper and felt, glitter, regular glue, and a hot glue gun.  Yay for hot glue guns!

Closer ups for detail:

If we would have had more time, maybe we could have added some red! 

I haven’t had a chance to cut someone’s hair since the first and last time, when my sister, Donna wanted me to give her some bangs.  She said I cut them too short, but really they were fine.  She was looking at me cutting with her eyebrows up during the cut, so when I was done and she relaxed her forehead, the bangs ended up looking shorter than how I had cut them.  It was funny.  She was mad.

So besides giving myself bangs, Beth asking me to cut her hair was my next opportunity to play around with cutting hair.  Yay, again!

I knew this spray bottle would come in handy one day!

Where did she go?

after the cut and style

All done!