Holiday Sale at my Favorite Second Hand Store.

I go to this sale every year in my hometown.  It is about a 45 minute drive into the mountains.

I always find some great items.

 Here is what I bought this year.

I found the cutest snowman from Studio 56 and a Partylite angel votive holder.  The little cat box will make an adorable ring holder.

This 6" vintage swan is a great color and in perfect condition.

There was also a little collection of Currier and Ives items.  They look so wintery. Maybe this will be my Christmas theme this year.

Then there was a full size ice skate and a cute little snow shovel I am going to decorate with greenery.

And some re positional Christmas border I am thinking adding to the top of my mirrors.

Really love the skate.  It is actually a half skate to hang on the wall.  I already have a pair of real ice skates I decorated to hang on a door that you will see in a later post.

And for all you crafters, you know how expensive Anna Griffin papers can be.  I scored with this collection for $8.00.  More than I usually spend for something.  But I looked up this collection when I got home and the original price would have been around $60.00.  It was still sealed in the original packaging.

48 papers plus stickers and garlands

I couldn't be happier finding all these scrolls and flourishes for the cards and journals that I make.

36 stamps

I don't mind these are from a past collection, I am crazy about all her artful designs.

Happy Hunting!

Mini Chipboard Album/Tags

I have been working on a couple of small  projects since this darn cold is still hanging on.

 I just haven't been up to any large projects.

I finished a couple of these little chipboard album/tags from Maya Road.

I used two different paper collections from my stash.  One vintage inspired and one bright traditional red and green.

front of vintage tags 

On this album I choose a vintage collection from a 6" x 6" paper pad.  On the first page stocking I glued a piece of paper behind the snowflake then glued a second stocking piece sandwiching the two together making the first page a double thickness.  Next I glued the paper to the front of each stocking.  With my craft knife, on my cutting pad, I carefully cut each stocking out. I followed that by sanding all the edges with a sponge block sander and punched out the hole that the chain runs through. I did the same thing to the backside of each stocking. I aged all the edges with Tim Holtz distress ink in broken branch.

I filled the snowflake with Glossy Accents and then filled it with clear Martha Stewart Micro beads to give it a shimmer.  I glued six small pearls and six medium pearls around the snowflake with my hot glue gun.

back of vintage tags

Traditional papers

 On this one I used papers from a 12" x 12" Christmas pad and distressed with a green ink.

Reverse side

Black Spider Web Lantern

Here is a quick craft that would be cute on a windowsill, table or part of a front porch display for Halloween. (It was hard to get a good photo, black doesn't show up well.)

I started out with just an empty glass jar, like the ones spaghetti sauce comes in. I ran it through the dishwasher to make sure there was no greasy residue left on the glass.  I wanted the paint to adhere well.  Next  I drew a spider web on a piece of copy paper that I had cut down to fit the jar and taped it to the inside with the web facing out.  Using my hot glue gun I traced over the lines of the web and let it cool.  I used my hot glue gun with a fine tip. 

empty jar

Spidy on the jar

   Next I painted the entire jar, including the lid, black.  I just happened to have chalkboard paint handy, but I am sure any black acrylic paint would work.  I thought that since the chalkboard paint is a little thicker I wouldn't need more than one coat of paint.  Some areas I did end up giving a second coat of paint.  

Spooky Lantern at night

But didn't  completely cover the jar with a heavy coat of paint.  I left some areas thinner to allow the light to show through. 

 When the paint was dry I used my hot glue gun to adhere the fuzzy spider, that I bought at The Dollar Store,  to the lantern making sure not to glue the lid so I could insert a battery operated tea light inside.

Trick or Treat Banner

Here is the new Halloween banner I just completed.  I purchased a fabric panel online at Fabric.com.  It looked really cool when it arrived.  So I got busy.  First I ironed the panel, then bonded it to a plain piece black cotton fabric for the backing.  Next I cut each flag out. 

 I thought it look too plain so I took them all to the sewing machine and stitched a fancy border around each one. The two end pieces with the sculls I decided to use a stitch that reminded me of Skull and Crossbones.  On the remaining flags I stitched a feather type stitch.  Still too plain. 

 So off to my craft table and with a little Tim Holtz Distress ink I added some dirt and age with black.  Gives it a sooty look. Next I used my hot glue gun to add a few skulls, bats, and orange rhinestones.  Well, now it needed color.  Right? So off to my stash for some orange and black fibers, orange ribbon and a little orange netting trim. Finally I used my punch to make a hole in each corner and strung each flag on  brown twine. I ended up putting just a dab of hot glue in the center back of each flag on the banner to keep it from sliding along the twine. 

I love the way it turned out.  It's almost October so time to get the Halloween decorations out of the garage and figure out which one I want to use this year.

Witches Hat Painting.

Here's a witches hat I painted for Halloween. It is about 11" x !6".   I used acrylic paint.  Thought I needed something bright for my wall this year.

Hope everybody had a good weekend.  Looks like we have a cloudy sky tonight for the lunar eclipse. Bummer.  

Halloween Book Of Spells

Well,  the calendar may say it is Fall.  But it is already 91*.  I am so ready for some cooler weather and hopefully the end to our terrible drought.  We need rain so badly.  The whole state of California is  either turning brown or catching on fire.  Heard on the news that our over 2,000 year old Sequoia trees are in danger of dying if rain doesn't arrive soon and bring a good snow pack this year.

But back to crafting.  This is my Halloween "Book of Spells."

I used a very large old dictionary.  First I took a hammer to the edges and corners to give it an aged appearance.   I used Tim Hotlz Black Distress Ink on the edge of the pages.  Next I printed out the words Book of Spells in a font that I thought looked old and spooky.  I tore around the edges and glued that to the front of the book, traced over the lettering with hot glue from my fine tip glue gun.

Cover

Next I tore a sheet of white card stock, glued it around the words, ruffling and curling the edges to make it look like the book cover was peeling to reveal the spell book title.  Probably would have been easier to use black but that is all I had at the time. Along the bottom I hot glued on a piece of lace.  Next I painted the entire book flat black using an acrylic paint .  The mirrored wand is just and vintage spoon I flattened and glued a small beveled edge mirror to.  Then aged the mirror with alcohol inks. I cut a spider web with a Martha Stewart punch by the spoon and around the dragon's eye. For the dragon's eye I made a little paper window and glued an image of a dragon's eye that I printed off Google Images under the window. Then used Glossy Accents to make the eye shiny.  On the front and back edges I glued an old leather watch band that you unbuckle to open the book.  And covered the end of the band on the front with a tiny vintage doily and canvas button.  When everything was dry I used my finger to highlight all the raised areas with Antique gold Rub and Buff.  

Have this sitting on my coffee among the faux fall foliage.  Makes a neat conversation piece.

Mirrored Wand

Dragon's Eye

Closure

                         

Spine of Book

Hope you are having fun getting ready for Fall.

Quilted Scarecrow

Time to fill the house with thoughts of fall.  This guy is about 4 feet tall and he hangs on a door.  He is stitched from a fabric panel cut apart filled with light fiber fill.  I stitched over some of the lines to give him a quilted look. I then added a couple of bows and some golden red yarn fibers for his hair.  He makes me smile every time I pass that door.

Hair Detail