Tool Share

 Had recently seen this video by Kathya K on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsmaGJFu8Y0

Normally when I use the Nuvo paste or textured paste I use a plastic knife spatula but the plastic can be rigid so it can pull the paste off the card stock so you will not have an even application. Kathya shared in her video that she uses a silicone mask applicator from the Dollar Tree that she cuts and uses for her pastes on her projects. 

I shopped my local Dollar Tree for this silicone applicator but they did not have any in stock. Yesterday when I went to Winston-Salem I stopped at a local Dollar Tree and I was able to buy a couple of these applicators. This is what this looks like:

I took them out of the packaging to show what the applicator looks like when it is sold on the left and after I cut mine as Kathya suggests on the right:

With is applicator being silicone the paste/paint or whatever you are applying can even dry overnight if you should forget to clean it off and all you have to do is peel off the medium you were using with no damage to the silicone. This will certainly make applying texture paste easier and more even on a projects. Thanks to Kathya for sharing her tips - for $1 this "tool" will get lots of use in this craft room!

Weekend of Hauls

 

Saturday was the Paper Crafters Yard Sale that is held yearly in the parking lot of the Enchanted Cottage store in Lewisville, NC.  Stampers set up in the parking lot behind the store and each stamper sells their new or gently used items at their own tables and they can price their items as they like.  I have gone to this sale for a few years now and always seem to find something I did not know I needed -- haha.

Here is a photo of part of the sale set up - the parking is curved and there were more tables past the blue canopies:

There were sellers on both sides of the parking lot with plenty of room to spread out. At every table there were lots of Stampin Up products for sale - trimmers, punch boards, stamp sets, ink pads with re-inkers, and dies. I do not want anymore SU products so I did not look at any of the SU items for sale except for one die set a woman was selling in a box of her dies for sale:

This set was $10 and that is the most I paid for anything I bought yesterday. I also bought 4 of these Close To My Heart boxes that were $5 each and they sell for $16.95 new:

I also bought various items:

The DSS came along with us and she found some items for her crafting as well. So a successful sale for the two of us. After we left there we went to Winston-Salem and stopped at Hobby Lobby. I picked up this die set using the 40% coupon they offer:

I had not seen this die set at my local Hobby Lobby so I bought one. This Hobby Lobby has all their holiday dies out - Momenta, Sizzix, and Spellbinders so a lot of new things for us paper crafters. After Hobby Lobby we stopped at a Tuesday Morning and I picked up a Fall pack from Authentique and two Pilgrim dies:

I do not shop the two Tuesday Morning stores near me as they never have anything in their craft sections that I see on haul videos on YouTube so I was happy I found the Authentique paper pack for Thanksgiving projects. 

We stopped at Marios and had our lunch - this week was her birthday and DSS wanted to eat there so we did that and then headed home. Once we were home we had cake and did her gifts/cards so it was a fun day. 

Also online hauls arrived this week --- first is two small hauls I had ordered:

When I made the raccoon rosettes a few weeks back I was using the rest of the glue in my TomBow glue bottle - it would have made things easier for me if I could have had the glue bottle inverted while I was working so I decided to buy a table top holder for the glue bottles. This is a nice holder and it does not fall over and when the work table is covered with everything it is easy to find!   The coloured clips on the right in this photo are clips you put on the handles of the black blending brushes so you know what colours of ink you have used that brush for - these clips will come in handy when I do not have time to clean all my brushes after every use. 

Earlier this week Spellbinders had their Warehouse Sale - many of the dies/embossing folders/ribbons and other sale items were $1 each and higher. I believe one die set I paid $10 for and the rest were $3, $4, and $5 per set. I ordered 17 items and before their $5 flat shipping fee I paid $58 for this order:

Not everything made it into the photos but I bought hot foil plates for the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil machine I recently bought as well. This was a very good warehouse sale with great prices and too good to pass up - the flat rate shipping was a plus as well.  Lots of new and new-to-me items to be put to use this in this craft room so I should be busy for awhile! ;0)

Fall Greetings Cards

 

Made some Fall cards using a fall stencil from SimonSaysStamp, Autumn Splendor. Some cards I used a rust card stock base and others I used a darker green base:

Cut and scored the card stock base at the top. Set those aside. For the stenciled front of the cards I used white/GP card stock and that was 4 1/4 x 5 1/2. I used various fall coloured distressed inks over the stencil using makeup brushes. Once the stenciled pieces were done I used a stitched rectangle die from my stash and die cut the stenciled piece. Cut a white/GP piece to put behind the stenciled piece. 

For the "fall" piece I used a solid card stock for the fall shadow die to match the card stock bases. For the gold "fall" die cut pieces I used foiled card stock sold in sheets at the dollar store. I used glue to put the gold fall over the shadow die cut piece. This shadow fall die set is from HoneyBeeStamps as is the "greetings" stamp for the strip below the fall pieces. Easy card to put together once all the stenciling and die cutting were done. As with any stenciled piece all the images look different - it depends on how dark I put the inks on as well as where on the stenciled piece I placed the rectangle die to cut it out. This is a nice leaves stencil that will get lots of future use in this craft room I am sure. TFL

Fall Pumpkin DIY

Had seen a video showing a DIY project using Dollar Tree pumpkins as the pumpkin bases. I had seen the video last year at the end of the Fall season and just put the project on the "list" for making these at a later date for this year --  the video is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbWLA-X5SI0

Tracy shares a lot of tips and tricks and shows her bows/ribbons, how to mount the pumpkins so they have a layered dimensional look for your decor project.  I had seen other videos for these Dollar Tree pumpkins and a lot of crafters use the blank sides of the pumpkins for their pumpkin fronts. But if I did that then on the back of my pumpkins you would see all different patterns of the pumpkin fronts and I did not want that to show.  Here is a photo of the pumpkins I used for my project and you can see I had lightly sanded my pumpkin fronts to help remove the glitter or paint the pumpkins are covered in so that my finishes would adhere to the actual pumpkin fronts:

With my pumpkin fronts all sanded I covered each pumpkin with matte finish ModPodge. Once that was dried I took autumn printed card stocks from my stash and traced the pumpkins onto the card stocks and cut them out with scissors. Used the ModPodge again to put the printed card stock on the pumpkin fronts. Set those aside to dry.  I wanted my pumpkin groupings to be on a "stand" so I picked up these two Autumn signs at the Dollar Tree and a small wooden piece game from the toy section for my stands:

I used a small acrylic brown paint from Hobby Lobby and painted my two Autumn signs and two of the wooden game pieces so they would match. With the pumpkin fronts dried I used Slick Puffy Paint by Tulip in brown to add lines to the pumpkin fronts. Set that aside to dry. Used pipe cleaners from the stash and wrapped them around a pencil to make them into a coil shape. Used leaves from the Dollar Tree and hot glued those to the pumpkin tops by the stems. Added the pipe cleaners on top of the leaves and set these aside. Using all different ribbons from the stash, Dollar Tree, and Hobby Lobby I made the bows as Tracy shows in her video. Used hot glue and put the bows on the pumpkins at the base of the stems.

Used hot glue and put the pumpkin wooden piece base from one of the pumpkins onto my painted Autumn stand for the pumpkins. Added hot glue to the channel of the wooden piece and added my largest pumpkin to each stand. Layered my pumpkins and hot glued them as I went along. Added the small wooden game piece behind one of the pumpkins to keep it in place:

Here is a photo to also show the back of my pumpkin DIYs:

With the decorated pumpkins on the stand all I had to do is add moss at the base of the pumpkins and different fall items I had on hand. I had bought these flower stems at the Dollar Tree and took them apart and then put them together in layers with a gold brad:

I also used fall themed buttons from my stash and cut the shanks off of them to decorate the stands.  The orange pumpkin pieces were sold in a small bag at Hobby Lobby as was the berry trim that I cut apart and hot glues to the stands. Here is the first set of pumpkins I finished:

and the second one has three smaller pumpkin pieces:

and photos of the base stands:

Hot glued the moss and all the random pieces onto the base stands and when everything was on there I just randomly cut apart the berry trim and hot glued pieces of that here and there to fill it in. These were easy to alter and another good use of card stocks from the stash. Thanks to Tracy for her easy to follow directions and her video!  Glad I was able to be able to make a set for myself in time for Fall!