I cant believe it's been so long.

Well it's the 11th of January and we've had the flu invade the house for a solid week. The upside. I had it much shorter then my poor husband did.

I hope everyone made it through the holidays. The end of September started off promising and kinda fell apart with both my husband and myself each having a parent in the hospital. I didn't get to do much crafting for myself for the holidays or baking either but I just kinda went with the flow of things and figured sometimes things don"t go as planned especially when you have have to start helping out with your aging parents. 

We did have a couple of major milestones during the fall holiday season. Just before Thanksgiving I discovered that my "baby kitty" could climb our fence to make his escape out of the back yard.

And, we did get the drywall completed two weeks before Thanksgiving so we were able to have both of our families at our house for dinner, all set up in our unfinished living room on folding tables. It went by too fast.

The first weekend in December we had snow which is a bit unusual for here in Northern California but it was beautiful.

That's about it for now. I do have a couple of posts all ready to go for the next week or so . I'll show you guys the cute little stick pins I did for a swap just before Thanksgiving and then a small quilling project I did for another swap as well. In the meantime I'm gonna take a little nap and hope to be back at 100% soon.

My DIY Chair Cushion Redo

Well I've not posted in a little bit and unfortunately it's not because I'm just slacking and doing something fun. I'm not saying I have been totally devoid of fun during the month of September, I have not. I have been however, really swamped in my office. I've had thoughts, dreams and ideas galore and no time at all to be a maker. Sadness.
I did however just this morning finish a project for my Mamcita. She's had these chairs in her living room for ages. I didn't know where she got them but we've been sitting on them for years. Apparently they are part of a Drexel Heritage dining room set that she gave to my younger brother when we were in our twenties and someone has the table and chairs but it's not my brother.
The original color was a vibrant emerald green metallic I believe which was then covered in a red velvet. My mom had a roll of vintage upholstery material that she wanted to use but to cover these but we deemed it too brittle after 30 years of sitting in her garage with very poor temperature control. So. We headed to JoAnn's and hit the discontinues/remnant rack and found this beautiful velvet type material with blues and greys in it. I grabbed a yard and a half to be on the safe side and blammo! It was on sale. I got out of there with a beautiful piece of upholstery fabric for four dollars and fifty cents.

I didn't go through the blow by blow in the diy process. There are enough of them out there. I did however want to say, when you are working on a chair bottom that has notches for the seat to fit around the pieces of the back, really think through how you are going to cut those notches. I struggled with them and the overall project was ridiculously simple. They were irritating.

In the picture above you can see how grey the material looks. In the photo below put back together and sitting happily in my mom's place it looks much bluer but the color is still subtle.

Overall, I'm really tickled with how they turned out. I didn't add any extra padding to the chairs and I think they could have used it but heck it's still a nice looking chair and still very comfortable.
So tell me, how did I do?

Card for the Birthday Boy

Today is my younger brother's birthday. Apparently I'm not allowed to call him my "baby" brother because that causes teasing and such over at his house with his kids. LOL. So, in honor of the younger bro, last night, we had a nice dinner with his family at my mom's. She pulled out all the stops and did a yummy dinner for us along with peach cobbler for after. And. As if we were not already stuffed enough, I made vanilla bean ice cream that was pretty darn divine to go with the cobbler.

Oh and a card, I did make a card.. He said  it was so nicely done that he almost thought it was store bought. Ha ha, it was not.

On the outside of the card I used all Close To My Heart BT Duo papers from the retired Dakota paper pack. Plus, the Cricut Artiste cartridge for the fancy label cuts the car is sitting on, and one of the stamps from the new Cricut Artbooking set that CTMH has. ( I was working my stash LOL) Oh and what else? Whisper card stock along with Pacifica ink.

I really loved how the whisper made the car look silvery. The car itself, arrows, and other embellishments are from the Hot Off the Press Vintage Car Dazzles. I mounted the car onto whisper card stock, cut it out used some gold and silver Smooch Inks for some of the cars details then I popped it up off the background with some foam squares from my stash. I'm not sure if you can tell in the photo or not but I achieved a pretty cool drop shadow effect from first stamping the card with the Indian Corn Blue ink and then stamping just off center with the Pacifica ink. Thank goodness for the clear My Acrylix Blocks that allow you to see where you are stamping.

I also did a bit on the inside, I think it make it look more finished. The inside also has a label cut from the Artiste cartridge as well inked with Indian Corn Blue pigment ink from the Enchantment mini pigment pad set and the (slightly crooked) bottom strip is one of the "innies" from the dazzle sheet.

Leave me a comment and tell me what you think, I'd love to hear from everyone. Talk to you soon.
And just in case he happens to see this. Happy Birthday JB.
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Paper Flowers for MAS

Well I'm back. Been on a little bit of a vacation with my husband and a bunch of my sister in laws. My husband is the oldest of 7 and his second sister (of 5) turned 40 and we took a little jaunt to Las Vegas to celebrate. We had a great time, with some yummy food, great laughs, a little gambling and some of the best summer weather anyone could ask for if taking a trip to Sin City. Although we really were not gone that long I didn't plan and schedule a blog post ahead of time.I am getting better about this stuff though.

Anyhow, I'm home and I've been making again. I guess the thing that I needed to kick me into gear for getting projects done is belonging to the great group over at Mini Album Scraps, MAS. It really is a great bunch of guys and gals over there and I have really been stretching my creativity doing things for the swaps I've been joining.
I just send off my contribution to the flower swap we had and well, the picture below just does not do justice to the flowers. I was tickled with how all of them turned out. I must admit though that I kinda went nuts with the Tim Holtz/Sizzix, Tattered Floral die.

I used it for three of my flowers and I have more incarnations of flowers planned. Muahahahahaha (sinister evil laugh echos through the craft room...) It is however one of the best and quickest ways to throw cute flowers together. The other thing is you can use different materials to get different kinds of flowers. I used mod podged burlap for the bottom center flower, an old book/pages for another and then coffee filters for one. I love them ALL. Top flower on that bunch is a simple ribbon flower. If you have any questions about how I threw them together give me a holler.
Also wanted to mention, I'm in a class over at JessicaSprague.com called "How to Bloom Your Blog." I'm learning some digital skills so I can update my blog and do some other nifty digital artsy things. So if you pop in and find it looking a bit different I'm working on the blog.
Talk to ya soon.

An Addiction Is Born

...and I really think I've lost my mind.  Seriously. My name is Felica and I'm an addict. No pictures today just a vent on my addiction.

 It's no suprise that I like crafting of all sorts. I can get totally engrossed in blog hopping and checking out techniques and projects. Drooling over all the different things made (by very talented crafters) from paper, beads, paint and materials of all sorts and my list of things I want to try just grows and grows. I think the real problem is that I just want to make pretty things for myself and other people. I know people that ask me "why" all the time. If I say I'm working on some project it's as if it has to be for something specific. Can we make beautiful things for no other purpose at all but just to make someone happy (hopefully).

Anyhow. I've been making pin cushions and stick pins. And more pin cushions. And flowers. Paper flowers. Bead flowers. Lace and fabric flowers. Burlap flowers. Last week I was at JoAnn's 4 times. I've hit the GoodWill store twice looking for, well, several things. Friday I came out of there with a couple of cute tea cups (for pin cushions) and a cami top specifically for the puropse of cutting up and using as the cushion part of said pin cushions. My first visit there netted me a couple pieces of drapery sheers (for fabric flowers) and a top with the most beautiful lace that I immediatly removed from the garment and put away for some future project, only because it's a bit to wide for pin cushion embellishments. *heavy sigh*

I've also been hitting eBay. Really, I was just only looking (I swear)
 until Thursday when I did a search for vintage lace and found a listing for a "lot" of beautiful laces from an estate sale. Yup, I bid, won, and got a VERY great deal. Now I've started stalking my mail man. It's a sad, sad, thing. As soon as I get it I'll get some photos of my haul, then a post of my las MAS swap.
Talk to you soon.

Altered Dominoes

Well I've been crafty. LOL. I have seen pieces of jewelry and teeny tiny scrap books made with altered dominoes so I thought I'd try my hand at altering one of these tiles. Actually I did 3 over the course of a couple of weeks. I'm not quite ready for heavy duty alteration just yet or doing the little book. I thought I should work my way up. Here's a couple of views of the three together. I was trying to get a good shot and I see I still need some practice with the camera. I'm mostly happy with how they turned out. I think I need to work on keeping the air bubbles and renegade strands of cat fur out of my Glossy Accents though.

The first domino I used my Sakura Micron pens on and then thought I'd throw some Ranger Alcohol Inks along with a couple of gear "Dazzles" from Hot of the Press. Oh and a random rhinestone. I think the colors are a little dark although I love the combination. Of course, I have a couple air bubbles in there that make me crazy.

The center domino I used Sharpies. Yup. Sharpies! I picked up a pack of "80's Colors" at the local Office Max a couple of months back and got a great package of 24 colors including brown and the standard black. They also have a fine tip which was good but quite as good as my Sakura's for detail, but I was still able to get my Zentangeling on. I tell ya it's kinda hard working on such a small canvas but I also find it very relaxing and therapeutic. You cant really tell from any of the pictures but I also doodled around the sides with two toned swirls. I had the intention of putting a small flat back rhinestone in the center of each of them and sealing the sides with Glossy Accents as well but I haven't figured out which steps to do that in and I find that handling the domino after inking it tends to fade (or rub off) the colors before I seal them. Again, I have a couple of air bubbles up top and a single piece of bling down in the bottom corner.

This last domino is actually the first one I completed the day my dominoes showed up in the mail. I whipped out my Sakura Pens and went to town doing a Zentangle doodle. Now technically Zentangle is not supposed to take more than say 15 minutes or so, but I think this took me about an hour. Again working with such a tiny "canvas" I really took my time. I need to work on my "Tangle" techniques as well because I LOVE the graphic look of the black and white.

Tell me what you think. Has anyone else out there altered any dominoes? I know they just finished an Altered Domino swap over at MAS and the pieces are georgeous. Check them out.

More of the MAS Ocean Theme Stickpins

Well we've been working on our house like mad men for the last couple of weeks. All our insulation is up and have the building inspector coming out this morning to give us his blessing to move forward hopefully.

That said I haven't been posting things I've been working on and I have definitely been crafting. It's been keeping me sane during the stress related to all the little details that we've been finishing up.

This weekend I should have pictures of my latestes creations for the Current MAS swap that I've been working on. It's gotten me totally addicted to making pin cushions and along with the finding of beautiful trims to use in making them. But more on that later. Below is the beautifully edited video from Merry Seaver over at Sugar Grove Crafts of the last stick pin swap. The work that all the gals did was just beautiful and amazing. They are all so very talented and I felt a little overwhelemd when I recived my package of pins in the mail. The presentation pieces were stunning.


 

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think about the beautiful work everyone did and I'll be back over the weekend.