Eclectic Ellapu Challenge #53 - Inspired by a Movie

Hello Crafters!

Jacki from the purple team over at Eclectic Ellapu has chosen a pretty cool theme this week. Inspired by a movie is a great theme and I took advantage of the holiday that is just around the corner (Halloween) and chose The Wizard of OZ for my project. Now, I have also up-cycled this project. The bag below came from my eye doctor's visit. I love the bags we get from them (I get four new ones each year!). There was a sticky label with the doc's logo on it that I removed then decorated the bag to fit our theme this week. Take a peek:

I just love Graphic 45 and their Wizard of Oz paper was just the ticket for this project. As this was in my stash for a year or so, I am keeping with the promise to myself to use up the products I have.

These "stamp" images were distressed and popped up on the upper portion of the bag. Had to add a little glitter in a couple of places.

The group picture was distressed as well and backed with black tulle. I used hot glue to attach the tulle (that I scrunched as I went along) and foam tape and hot glue to attach it to the bag. I then added a little red glitter glue to Dorothy's shoes and the Tin Man's heart.

At the bottom of the bag I added black rose ribbon across the width with hot glue and used foam tape again to attach the distressed witch stamp.

I hope you like my project this week. But don't stop here. Get on over to Eclectic Ellapu and check out the rest of the DT's awesome projects. We would love to have you join us too! And don't forget, only a couple more days for the treasure hunt before the big draw. It's not too late to join up.

So what are you waiting for?

Happy Crafting!

Guest Designer for Blissful and Domestic

Hello Crafters!

I have been chosen to be the guest designer over at Blissful and Domestic this week and was asked by Danielle to do a Halloween project for you. There are so many great projects out there to choose from but, choose I must. So I started looking around on Pinterest a bit to get some good ideas that I could incorporate into my project. I have to tell you, you can spend hours "blissfully" going from one pin to another. Ultimately, I decided on a banner for my piano or mantle. Won't you join me for a tutorial?

As a mom of two teenagers I keep pretty busy taking care of my boys and hubby but I love to craft every chance I get. I have been crafting ever since I can remember. I especially love rubber stamping and paper crafts. I have a stash of yarn and jewelry as well. I also enjoy up-cycling projects from things that would normally go into the recycle bin. So coming up with a project for Danielle wasn't hard but I wanted the perfect piece.

OK, here goes. I have recently discovered that tulle in my crafting can really make a project pop. So I gathered some orange, purple, and green to get started. Oh what fun! I also wanted to use some ribbon. Now, anybody that knows me knows that this is a textile I just can't resist. I also gathered up some papers and card stock to create some accordion flowers. The banner I made here is using some banner panels from Stampin Up that I picked up recently. Mostly I used stuff from my stash. 

I cut 1-1/4" & 3/4" strips from Graphic 45 Halloween papers to make my flowers. They are 12" in length and scored every 1/4". Ends were glued together with strong sticky tape. If you haven't made these before they can be a little tricky. Just push the top of the folds on one side to the center and use hot glue to hold them in place. I topped them with filler brads from Stampin' Up and added colored bling dots from my stash to the centers then glued them to the paper flowers. The orange bling wasn't quite a dark enough orange to suit me so used an orange Sharpie marker to color it a bit darker. Loved the way these turned out.

Next I embellished the canvas banners. They were pretty light colored so I inked them up a bit using a sponge and some gray ink. I decorated these as I might a card front really. I used up quite a bit of the embellishments in my stash, not to mention my new fence punch from Martha Stewart (found at Michael's).

The punch for the little ghosties is from Stampin Up. It's actually the owl punch turned upside down. I positioned the eyes on two of them so they would look like they were looking at each other. The stamps I used on these banners were from the dollar bin at Memories on 5th when I worked there a few years ago. All my embellishments were sticky backed but I added some Aleene's Clear Tacky glue to make sure they would be there for a long time. After all, this project is a keeper. I added the ghost eyes and the ghosts with tacky glue as well.

The next thing I worked on was the little witch legs. This is a similar idea to one I saw on Pinterest. The difference here is that I used heavy card stock for the legs instead of cloth and added tulle in the next step. I made the boots first from a pattern I got several years a go from a crafting magazine. You can also use this boot pattern for an elf''s boot with some minor adjustments(don;t cut out heal and curve it at the bottom). I have two of these little witches so I traced and cut four boots and legs. I punched holes and laced with orange ribbon that I tied in a bow. The boots were hot glued to the bottom of the legs and the legs were folded over at least a couple of inches onto my "tulle rope".

To add some "cuteness" to my witch I wanted more than what I saw on Pinterest. So I gathered up some black tulle and made a skirt. Too plain. A purple bow with a button center was the perfect fix. Hot glue in to place.

I started cutting the tulle I bought into 1" strips. This was not an exact science. It was a guesstimate. I also looked through my hoard of ribbon, chose an assortment I thought would look good. Definitely eclectic. So, now I have all my supplies and I get start assembling.

Just a thought worth mentioning. I wanted all my ribbons placed somewhat evenly throughout my project and didn't always have the exact amount to each of every ribbon all the way across. So I laid out my project on my craft table and started dividing up my treasures.

Time to assemble. I took a  piece of orange tulle that was about 6' long and bunched it up so that it was a sort of rope for me to anchor my project on. I tied a knot on the far left and started attaching ribbon and 1" tulle pieces with and overhand knot.

I had a section of ribbon then added my paper flower with hot glue. Again, somewhat tricky. I have the blisters to prove it. Hold your project CAREFULLY while the glue cools. After the flower I added some more ribbon.

The first banner piece was next. I just used some black organdy ribbon to attach to my "tulle rope".

Then more ribbon, another flower, more ribbon then the first witch.

Repeating the pattern add more ribbon, a paper flower, more ribbon and the next banner piece.

You guessed it, more ribbon, a flower, more ribbon and another witch. After that add more ribbon, a paper flower, more ribbon then the last banner piece.

Add more ribbon a paper flower, more ribbon and tie the tulle rope in a knot. Ta Da! The only other thing I did was add some string to hang it with. This turned out to be such a long banner I had to pull it up in the middle when I hung it on my piano.

I will say, if you choose to do a project of this type with all the embellishments I have here, give yourself plenty of time to get it done. I wanted to give this away as a gift or sell it. However, I fell in love with it so I'm going to keep this one. I hope you'll give it a try. It's fun!

Thank you Danielle for letting me be your Guest Designer. It was a lot of fun coming up with this tutorial for you.

Happy Crafting y'all!

Blissful and Domestic post today

Hello Crafters!

I have been chosen to be the guest designer over at Blissful and Domestic this week. If you have not been to Danielle's site you must check it out. She has everything from menu plans to tutorials to thrifty living for your viewing pleasure. I was asked to do a Halloween project for you. There are so many great projects out there to choose from so I started looking around on Pinterest a bit to get some good ideas that I could incorporate into my project. I have to tell you, you can spend hours "blissfully" going from one pin to another. Ultimately, I decided on a banner for my piano or mantle. Won't you join me for a tutorial? Here's a teaser of my project you will find over there. Just click on the picture and you will go directly to her site.

 I will have this posted in full next week as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Eclectic Ellapu Challenge #51 - 1st Birthday

Hello Crafters!

The Treasure Hunt is still on over Eclectic Ellapu and I hope you all are playing along in all the fun. We still have a couple of weeks to go so if you haven't gotten in on the hunt it's not too late. With prizes everyday you sure don't want to miss it.

I am a little late posting (should have been yesterday) but I took a little mini road trip to see my sister and go on what we call "Scenic Drive" this last weekend. It's like a county wide craft show. Boy is it fun. The weather was beautiful and we scored a few items for ourselves. Sis likes to collect antiques so she found a few quirky items and some barn wood signs that I wish would go with my decor. They were pretty cool. I did score 3 little primitive items that I think I can incorporate into a wreath for Halloween. Might not get done year but that will give me something to look forward to for next year.

Ok, so on with my project. As you know we are celebrating our 1st year blogaversary at Eclectic Ellapu so this week Elisa chose a 1st birthday theme for us. I chose to make a telescoping card with a pattern I got from Vicki at Crackerbox Palace blog. Awesome pattern. She has some pretty cute stamps too if you would like to check them out. I so love cards with movement and special folds so this was really fun for me.

The first layer of the card is 4-1/4" square and the tiers get about 1/2" smaller than the one before it. I promised myself I would start using up my hoard of papers and supplies and that is just what I have done here.

 When you pull up on the tab at the top your second layer pops up.

Keep pulling and you discover the flame on the candle is your pull tab. The embellishments are cut outs from paper in my stash and the flower is a sugared flower from Prima that I picked up last year. I used Stampin' Up's small star punch for the stars on the middle layer and the Happy Birthday is from Stampin' Up's Birthday Banter stamp set. When I cut out the candle the stem of the flame seemed a little weak to I backed it with the yellow cards stock for a "glow" to the candle and it worked better as the pull tab.

I love the way this card turned out and I am absolutely sure that I will use the pattern on this card again. It really wasn't hard to make and only took one piece of 12x12 card stock for the base of the card. All I had to do after making the base is add the embellishments and that's it. Cool, huh? I may have to so this as a demo for my monthly card club. What do you think?

Ok, time to get your crafting groove on and join up in the challenge over at Eclectic Ellapu and get registered for those wonderful prizes that are being given away.

Happy Crafting!

Altered Eclectics challenge #4 - Anything Goes

Hello Crafters!

Have you ever had one of "those" days? Of course you have, we all have. I seem to be having one of "those" weeks as well. :-( Trying to keep my chin up and looking forward to stamp class with Susie this weekend. Her workshops always put me in a good mood. And, she has a couple more special ones coming up too that I hope I can attend.

So, because of the week I've had, I'm a little late getting my project posted for Altered Eclectics. But, here it is ...and you won't believe what I've done. Could hardly believe how it turned out myself. So, set your peepers on this:

Now you're probably thinking, what the heck is so special about a crochet purse. Well my friends, let me tell you. This is an up-cycled project. I made this entirely (except the button) from plastic shopping bags. Yep, you read that right. Plastic shopping bags. I found the idea last year while blog surfing and fell in love with it. I saved my grocery bags as around Halloween the stores use orange ones. You could really make some nice ones with the extra heavy bags. For this project it took a total of 17 bags (10 orange and 7 gray). Here's a group picture of the process:

Instruction by the numbers:

1. Bag in it's original form

2. Cut the bottom seam off with scissors.

3. Flatten bag

4. Fold bag hot dog style

5. Repeat #4

6. Trim off a smidgen from the bottom to even out.

7. Cut 1" strips on trimmer for purse body

8. Cut 2" strips for handle

9. Unfold strips.

10. Cut strips once to make one long piece.

11. Lay ends of two different strips together.

12. Twist

13. Start tying a knot.

14. Cinch up knot fairly firmly (don't stretch bag).

15. Separate strips.

16. Repeat steps 9-15 for all strips and wind into a ball of "plastic" yarn.

17. Crochet purse with your favorite pattern and embellish with flower and button.

18. Ta Da!

Now, wasn't that easy? Tee Hee. Actually it is quite easy, just time consuming tying all those strips together and yes (for those who want to know) there is a bit of static going on when doing the tying and trimming. Not much, just enough to get a good chuckle out of it (like tape on a cats paw). This little bag is about 8" square. I have found several tutorials on YouTube if you need to see someone making a project. I did not connect my bags like others did because I wanted smaller "yarn" for smaller holes in the fabric. Just imagine what other projects you could do like tote bags, rugs or maybe even a beret?  I saw one YouTuber that ironed her bags between craft paper and made a wallet. Oh what fun!

You've seen my project, now get on over to the Altered Eclectics blog and check the rest of the design teams awesome projects. And don't you want to play along? You know you do. Better get a move on!

Happy Crafting!