#450

First things first, here’s this year’s cards:

I was so stressed out about them this year, and combined with the heat, I ended up sick on Christmas day and couldn’t go out! I guess that’s a lesson for next year. But for now, I’m all carded out. 

So my boyfriend has found us a new project.

There is a tabletop game known as Warhammer 40,000. If you haven’t heard of it, it is like an adult board game with hundreds of tiny figurines, that you piece together and paint yourself, and battle with other people. You choose your army, buy a whole lot of items in order to personalise your figures, build scenery, learn the rules of the game, learn the entire 40,000 year history of the universe, then you can finally play. There are competitions for playing, and ones for painting your army, too. Artists hand painted and modified figures are quite expensive, and great for selling to collectors. For years I’ve wanted to paint miniature figurines, as they look so great when they are finished.

This guy is called Raphael, and the army I ended up with is called ‘Dark Angels.’ They are like robot crusaders from what I can tell.

I didn’t really get to choose, as my partner chose Chaos, so we bought the two army starter set including them. But they are growing on me.

We went for a walk today to buy primer and glue, so my legs are tired, and my hands are sore from all the little plastic spikes from putting them together.

Figure I need some sleep now 😉

#448

What you may have guessed from previous examples and subtle character profiling, I’m a procrastinator. This is relevant today, as I still haven’t finished the Christmas cards, despite beginning near the end of October. It is certainly not from lack of trying, nor because I’ve been working on other projects. It’s quite the opposite, actually. For the last couple of months I have been making elements and patterned papers and embossing, inking, printing, drawing and colouring till the cows came home. I just rarely stopped to glue them all together. I now have rather large piles of elements of cards, all waiting to be matched and glued. Probably more than enough for two to three Christmases…

One day I will figure it all out, start early, envision finished cards instead of pieces, and produce a plethora of cards early and maybe even hand them out before Christmas day. One day, I’ll get it together.

Until then, I’ll continue with being me.

#447

Instead of making things easier on myself, I decided to stamp out some of my own patterned paper to use on cards. I was watching YouTube again, and whenever I see people colouring on toned paper, I always get the urge to do it too, as it’s one of my favourite art types to do. So I wanted to incorporate it into cardmaking, and the YouTuber made hers into a lovely card by colouring all the stamped images. I thought that looked great, but would be time consuming. I was inspired to develop my own version by lining up one stamped image to colour, and stamp around this with just outlined ones on the rest of the paper.

I ended up adding some simple shading on the background Santas, which makes them look more dimensional. I haven’t finished the colouring on the main Santa, but he’s in the right area to be pointing to a sentiment, which I hope looks as good as I’m imagining.

It’s been a long day, goodnight.

Sleep. Eat. Craft. Repeat.

#443

Christmas cards are full steam ahead, with plenty of supplies and crafting stations set up and ready. To be honest, I probably had enough left overs from last year to make this year’s cards, but I have gotten quite a few more supplies that I’m excited to be using this year.

I’ve been die cutting frantically, inking profusely and glittering everything and everyone that crosses my path. This has been a good time as I’ve been in the mood to be making a bunch of cards. Hopefully I can start finishing them, and not have a box of just started cards like I do now from last year.

I’m feeling a very traditional, red, green and gold vibe this year, though there have been a few exceptions. Also, reindeer, gingerbread men and Christmas trees are taking a forefront in the focal department, as there have been a rise in supplies featuring them.

Before this blog post sound anymore like a news report, I’m going to take my leave.

Back to you in the newsroom.

#438

Hey everyone! I missed you! Did you miss me? Awwww thank you…

I’ve been super busy lately making super secret projects that could be enterprising secret super stuff. So I can’t show you guys yet, but it’s been taking up a bunch of time, so I haven’t had much to show you. I did get a bunch of new dies and supplies in the mail, but I am still waiting for a bunch of mail (including an early birthday present) so I’ll likely show you all of that at once.

Anyways, I thought I’d show you a baby reindeer stamp that I got from a magazine and coloured in today. The set had ornaments, flowers, and sentiments, as well as a tree embossing folder, that I haven’t tried yet. I figured I should get the Christmas stuff early, so I can make all my cards on time. Despite planning ahead, I know I’ll do the usual last minute rush, it’s who I am… 

Also, just as I get something to show you, I have another inspection coming up, so many cleaning. Though I’ve kept mainly to one pile of mess (aka room) this time, so cleaning should be easier. Should…
Keep crafty, my deers.

#375

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to recover, and everyone should have received their cards now, I can show you what I ended up with. Last time I spoke I didn’t know how many card I needed. Turns out it was only four more and I ended up with extras somehow, so that worked out well.
By the end I was so sick of card making, and I never wanted to see Christmas paper for a while. Then I decided to spend my Christmas money on card making supplies. They shouldn’t be here for a week or so, so I have some time to recover until the next card, which is quite soon.
For Christmas, I also got Paint Tool SAI. I was using the trial, but got the licence on Christmas. I haven’t had much of a chance to use it much, as I’ve just been colouring in with all the pencils and two colouring books I received, as I recover from the food comas.
While looking through dies on ebay, I had the thought of using a background/lattice on a die cut circle to make a nice lace piece to use on cards. I couldn’t find the die I wanted for cheap, so I’ll have to look around, but I tried it with a small flourish die to see if I could get it to work. I tried it coming in from the side, but there was a few pieces that I had to piece back together. When I tried it in the middle, it looks nice, even if it wasn’t what I was looking for, but that’s how happy accidents happen.

Hope you all had a great holiday, and are creative in the New Year.

#369

These are the cards that I made today. I think some are missing a something, but I’m not sure what. Maybe just a small embellishment and some rhinestones or sequins.
I’m quite excited, as a friend invited me to a Christmas crafting session at a Church on Sunday afternoon. It only goes for two hours and she’s going to pick me up, so it won’t be too much for me. It’s not too big of a group, and they meet on Tuesdays normally. I forgot to ask where it is, in case I want to go to those by myself. I guess if I like it on Sunday, I can make plans then. It should be a great experience, and I can teach people things, which is always fun. I’ll probably end up taking a bunch of my favourite tools, as regardless of what I’m doing, I always want something from another room, and I won’t be in reach of my supplies.

#362

I have a couple of problems. Try as I  might, I haven’t been able to make a scratch paper that works as well as on the store bought paper. The oil pastels give great colours, but not much detail. On clear packaging plastic bags, I can get the detail, and I can layer it onto patterned paper, but I need to glue it together somehow. I’ve tried contact, plastic, foil paper and gouache, alcohol ink, water based ink and acrylics. I’m even trying watering down the acrylic and adding more layers. The reason I want to make my own paper, is that I’m running out of the bought paper, and they don’t sell it where I found it anymore. Getting the artist quality is really expensive (I think it’s called Tiger paper.) Maybe I’ll look for some online.
Anyway, I figured out that I can make nice embellishments, that are protected from wear, by scratching small images, then using resin dome stickers, and trimming them out. These will be nice to use on cards, I think.
I did a pile of embossing this morning, ready for cards. I’m not one for planning cards ahead of time, so I just embossed random images in random colours, so I can pick them out from a box and cycle through ones until I find an image that matches, or is close enough that I can see what size and colours will fit.
I only finished one card today, so I’d better up my game, but in my defence, I wasn’t feeling great. At least I have some embossing and embellishments ready for future cards, so wasn’t all wasted time.

#352

Nearly time for me to dive head first into Christmas card making mode. There’s some lovely inspiration this year, and I think I’m leaning towards more watercoloured cards, so that I can make them more personalised. Sometimes I stalk the peoples Facebook pages for ideas on what they like, for inspiration and a personal touch, but now that sounds creepy.
As for felting, if you don’t know, the little green guy in the picture is the mascot for Android- the rival to Apple iPhones. We are strong Android fans in this house, and my partner loves it. He even has a group on Facebook where all his friends talk about updates and technical things. This is why when I saw the green wool that I received in my package, that matched the mascot, I knew I had to make him a mini Android. I began with a polyester filling core, so I didn’t use too much of the colour. I think felting is a lot about will power. If you will something to be a certain shape, then go into auto mode while you stab, you end up with that shape. Or something like that. Once I had the base shape, which was a cylinder with one domed end, covered in a gradient from lime green to apple green, then added tiny dots for eyes, and a dark line to separate the body pieced, I had to figure out what to do with the limbs. In the logo, Android’s arms are floating next to his body, and his legs are tiny sticks poking out from below his body. I wanted to make him look a little cuter, and have large feet. This worked out great for the design, as it’s much more efficient having tucked in limbs than bits sticking out, vulnerable to damage. I made the arms by wrapping wool around the felting needle, then pulling it off, holding the wool firmly, and stabbing carefully at each end until it was a stable shape. I added it to the body before it was too firm to be manipulated.
The antenna are pieces of wire, glued into the head with glossy accents by ranger (any strong glue will do.) I then wrapped the wire until it was covered with wool, and added a dot of glossy accents to the end of the wires so they weren’t as sharp and dangerous.
Lastly, I folded a piece of wire around the keyring chain, and twisted it into a tight eyepin shape, and glued it into the figures head.
It’s cute working in such a small scale, but tricky and more likely to stab yourself. My next project has to be a bit larger to give my fingers a rest.
It’s awfully addictive though, I’m trying to stab wool between scenes in the game I’m playing in an attempt to multitask.