kismet art

JOY

A little mitten banner I made, hanging in the frigid sunshine.  A little reminder of the fun times coming this season.  And the closer we get to Christmas the more I am feeling that joy in my heart.  

 

Joy Cards- Snowmen Tags-Bingo and Button Trees

I am excited to be taking part in a Come Play event this Saturday in Eugene- I get to go with my friend Amy, meet up with some old friends, make 3 cool projects and maybe even meet some new friends too! Here is a look at some of the ornaments I made for the Creative Boutique:

4 mini playing card ornaments:

A trio of 4x8 stiff-felt vintage yo-yo snowmen (say that 3 times fast...) And this vintage Bingo card with a hand-cut felt Christmas tree:Or this little trio of button trees:

So if you are out and about this weekend and looking for a few crafty presents, or vintage ornaments, or antiques, or cards, or really inexpensive scrapbooking supplies stop by the Creative Boutique, directions found here.  Hope to see you there!

Halloween Wall Hangings

Just wanted to do a quick share of a couple of Halloween wall hangings I just finished for Ben and Emma- I used a de-constructed garland from Tinkering Ink and covered them with some patterned papers.  I inked the edges with Distress Ink in Tea Dye and Walnut then ran a bead of Stickles in Frosted around the edges.  Mini-bingo cards from Jenni Bowlin and a bunch of random collected Halloween scrap supplies (on a side note I love how the ghost "mask" turned out on Ben's wall hanging- I sprayed an iridescent mist on the ghost mask then used a 3-inch scallop punch to make the circle.)

           

My favorite part about the above wall hangings is that I decorated them for Christmas on the flip side- how's that for double duty?  And they look pretty darn festive hanging on Ben and Emma's bedroom doors.

                                      

Halloween Button Tree

I really love buttons, collecting and displaying jars of buttons, using buttons on cards and layouts, and for decor projects.  This is one of my favorite projects from last fall, a Halloween button tree (I made several in Christmas colors too.)  A fun, quick project for a cold night- I bought my tree-shaped cones at the Dollar Tree, glued ribbon down four sides and along the bottom, then started pinning buttons on in random order.  The tree looked a little short so I added the antique wooden spool at the end.  I may just have to pull out the red-pink-white buttons this winter and make a Valentine's tree too.  Happy Crafting!

Spring Projects

About a week ago I took a big leap and called two of my favorite local Antique/ Craft stores, Ruthie B's in Springfield and Amelia's in Eugene, and asked if I could come by and show them some vintage-inspired spring plaques that I had been working on at home.  I am excited to say that some of my work is now hanging in two of the stores where I have spent most of my craft/ holiday decor buying money over the years.  I would have to say that it was a pretty big leap for me- I have enjoyed making crafts for people since my first pinecone turkey and coiled snake clay ashtray graced the top of my parents dresser- but this is the first time I have really put myself out there with the hopes that someone else might think one of my creations would look good in their home.  I thought I would share a peek at what they look like, no two are the same, they are all between 6-10 inches tall and decorated on both sides. 

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Hey Kathryn, the next 3 egg shaped plaques were made from the cardboard box that my beautiful tulips came in (so I guess I really am that organic-recycler girl from Eugene after all...)

HOME

Another cardboard banner using digital elements from Illustrating stories, this one was a birthday gift for my friend Natasha.  

You can see the Harvest Hues here (I used them for the base of each house):  http://www.illustratingstories.com/photos/store/harvesthuesthumbpaper.html

And these from the Nature's Mood collection (I used them for the roof and trim of each house.)  http://www.illustratingstories.com/photos/store/NaturesMoodThumbPaper.jpg

A close up of letter E (my other close-up photos did not turn out very well.)

Oh, and Jenbo, this last photo is for you, you were right, it is nice to see the banner to scale if you don't know where it is hanging in my house :)  Thanks for the idea, Love ya!

LOVE Banner- Inspired by Illustrating Stories

You are looking at my first digital-traditional scrap project.  A couple of months ago Liz and Jackie from Illustrating Stories asked me, along with a group of other women, to join their creative team for a few months.  Umm, me?  You picked me?  After I stopped jumping up and down the "worry" of creating something before February sunk in.  Because I have never done any projects with digital elements I was a little intimidated at first.  Luckily they are very into the concept of digi-traditional hybrid scrapbooking -just check out this video here:

http://www.illustratingstories.com/home/2009/01/taking-digital-making-traditional.html

I started out with a different project in mind but once I saw those Sri Lanka papers I just kept thinking Valentine's day.  I have the banner hanging in our living room, it was a fun, quick project and I think it may just be left up long after Valentine's Day is over.

I used recycled cardboard for the base of each section, used a crumpled paper towel dipped in two shade of red to rim each piece, then white ink on my fingers to highlight the red edges.  I hand cut a heart to use as a template, ripped newspaper into rectangles and ink stained the edges to give them an aged quality.  The abc's are traced from some die-cut letters I had around the house.  The paper used for the hearts and abc's came from the Sri Lanka line from the Illustrating Stories digital collection, found here: 

http://www.illustratingstories.com/isstore/2008/10/sri-lanka-col-3.html

I printed the digital papers out on regular cardstock on my Canon Pixma MP500- I couldn't believe that the colors and patterns came out so amazing- just like the patterned paper I buy at the store. 

Oh, and did I mention that creating outside my comfort zone was really fun?

Goodbye Snowmen

These two snowmen, drawn with chalk on canvas, will be my last Christmas decorations to come down... I'm a little sad, snowmen are my very favorite and we haven't had enough snow yet to build one this winter. But down in Eugene we tend to get our snow in February-April (go figure) so it is not yet time to abandon all hope of a snowman building party in my family's near future.

I painted these two canvases with our wall paint, used painters tape to mask out two rectangles, then painted several coats of chalkboard paint on them (last year was my big chalkboard painting year, I covered old tin plates to make signs, small clay pots, anything I could get my hands on.) I used chipboard letters, attached with blue poster putty, to spell out the words frosty and winter. I love having these hanging in our living room because I can decorate them according to the season or write words/ quotes on them. I bought some special chalk at the craft store (it is the same kind they use to do all those cool murals at Trader Joe's) and I find that if I dip the chalk in water it goes on almost like paint.)

Long live the snowmen! Thanks for looking.