It's the Little St. Nick!

Had just placed an order with Impression Obsession - IOStamps.com - and while I was shopping their new products I decided to look up their Christmas products for sale just to check for something new I may have missed.... but soon I saw the St. Nick die set by designer Anna Wight (on YouTube) and I remembered I had bought this set way back when when it first came out in 2020 but I had not made anything with it yet.... so I pulled out my die set and made some of her St. Nick Santas:

This is the photo of the packaging that the die set comes with. Here are photos of the Santas I have made so far:

The die set comes with the Santa pieces but for all the things I have my Santas holding I used various Christmas icon dies I have in the stash and I cut those out of scraps of card stocks and assembled those. Some of those I added crystal gems to from the stash. All the Santas I added a pom pom to their hats also from the stash. These Santas are approx 4 3/4 tall x 2 1/2 wide and they would not only look good on a card front but also make cute holiday tags! And very easy to assemble -- I cut out extra Santas that I can work on later and I have each Santa and parts in a snack bag from the Dollar Tree:

When I do not have lots of time in the craft room then I will have these pieces already to assemble and still be able to craft.... Here are close up photos of some of the Santas:

Before I made my Santas I watched Anna Wights video again and as she did I sponged the edges of my Santa robe, beard, face, mustache. I also cut an extra robe out for each Santa to put him on to make him more sturdy which will be good if I should decide to turn these into tags....  On some of the Santa robes I also stamped background stamps to give the robes some pattern. This is a very easy Santa die set to assemble and goes together quickly. 

Impression Obsession now has new products on their website. They not only offer stamps and dies but now they have stencils and stencil sets as well as card stock. Looking forward to their upcoming holiday releases!

More Decorated Pokey Tools

 This is a photo of the first decorated pokey tools I had made:

For these pokey tools I used the stainless steel scribe pins that are sold in a set of 2 in the jewelry supply section of Hobby Lobby - the Jewelry Shoppe brand. The pack of two are usually $2.99 but when on sale they sell for $1.49.  I had seen different videos on YouTube with directions of how to make these decorated scribe pins. I used E6000 adhesive on these and the size tube I had in the craft room was a larger size since I knew I would use it for other crafting items for adhesive.... but soon the problem surfaced using this adhesive.... even when I cleaned off the tube top before putting the lid back on the tube I still had to use pliers to break the adhesive seal trying to reopen this tube for use... but then... 

Sherry, the Posh Paper Lady on YouTube, shared her tip to prevent the E6000 lid from adhering shut after each use. She put a light dab of baby oil between her fore finger and thumb and after the first use of her new tube of E6000 she rubbed her fingers with the baby oil around the threads of the tube and then put the lid on.... after seeing her video off to the store I went... 

Bought a package of small tubes of E6000  and a small bottle of baby oil to try this out.  I wanted to make three new decorated pokey tools so this experiment with the baby oil came in handy. I already had the scribe pins and beads in my stash so I picked out all the beads I was going to use and had everything laid out to assemble. Normally when making more than one of the decorated pokey tools I would put them together assembly style -- laying out the beads, adding the beads to the pokey tool, etc.. But I wanted to test this idea for the lid so I made three pokey tools one at a time from beginning to end to see if the tube would continue to easily open for each time. Here are the decorated pokey tools I just made:

After the first time I used the new small tube of the E6000 I put the baby oil on my fingers and ran it over the threads on the tube. Closed it up and finished assembling the pins. Opened the tube again for the next pin and closed it up after each use. After I finished the third pokey tool I closed the tube and left it overnight to see how long this baby oil would work.... a little more than 24 hours later I am happy to say the tube opened easily:

Since you use a small dab of the baby oil between your two fingers the oil does not get into the tube of glue or drip all over everything...  Happy the Posh Paper Lady shared this time so pliers are needed no more and next time I need to buy E6000 I can buy the more economical tube and still be able to open and close it easily. Thanks to her for sharing this great idea as there are lots of adhesive lids this idea will work on!

Dollar Tree Notepads

Had seen the decorated 4 x 6 notepads from the Dollar Tree altered by Sherry at the PoshPaperLady and Wandy's Sweets on YouTube but first trip to a Dollar Tree I could not find any the paper pads they used.... But made a second trip there this week and I was able to pick up some of these pads they used. Here is a photo of what the pads look like:

Decided for my paper pads I would use fall card stocks from my stash. I also used decorations from my stash from last year. Here are my two decorated paper pads

Card stocks are from the stash and different manufacturers. The pumpkin card stock on the left is by Carta Bella and the turquoise top is by Recollections. For the pad on the right I used a pumpkin print by the Paper Studio @ HobbyLobby and the beige print at the top is also theirs. Here is each a photo of each pad:

I cut a scrap piece of light turquoise card stock from my scraps to put across the top of the pad. I wanted to decorate the top of the pads so I pulled out my baggie of "autumn" parts of left over pieces from projects I work on each year:

Dumped it out on the work table to see what all was inside the bag of pieces:

For both my paper pads I pulled out two "Thankful" banners I had made using solid card stock and foiled card stocks from the stash. They were made using a die from FranticStamper for past fall and Thanksgiving projects I have made. The pumpkin 'bling' are from HobbyLobby. Here is a photo of the second pad I decorated:

This paper pad I wanted to use a ric rac die by Impression Obsession (IOStamps.com) and the designer of that is Anna Wight and she is also on YouTube. I used a scrap piece of pumpkin coloured card stock and die cut the ric rac piece out and put that across the top part of the paper pad. Here is a closer photo of this to show the stitching the die cuts on the ric rac:

Sherry, the PoshPaperLady, has an easy to follow video on decorating these paper pads. I used her measurements - pumpkin prints are 4 x 5 1/2 and my top pieces are 4 x 4 and I rounded the corners as she suggests. (I used my ATG to add my adhesive). She shows a pen with her paper pads but I do not have any decorated pens for my pads yet so I will have to look on Amazon for those and add them to my pads later. These pads are the right size to keep in your purse and for both of my pads I used a darker card stock for the backs:

I have kept the decorations on the front of my pads flat since this could be in a purse. I made the ones for Autumn first and you can write a holiday grocery list, keep recipes in there, lists of holiday projects, or anything else you would want to write down to help you remember. But.... these are addictive to make and super fast!! Three pieces of card stock and add a pen and you are done! Will be working on some for Christmas next! Thanks to both ladies for their videos and inspiration for a cheap and fun project!

 

Patriotic 4th of July Card

Card stock base is red. Blue card stock is from the stash. Used a small alphabet die set for the "usa" letters and I used scraps for those. The stars hot foil background was made using a hot foil plate from Dare2BArtsy and I used silver foil from Spellbinders in the Glimmer Hot Foil machine. This photo shows a better photo of the Uncle Sam hat:

The Uncle Sam hat was made using scrap card stocks and I used the hat die set from the Gnome Patriotic Add On die set from Jaded Blossoms. The die cut all the card stocks easily and the stitching on all the die pieces add dimension and detail to the hat. 

Some of the cards I made I used blue card stock for the frame around the card front piece and other cards I used silver foil card stock for the frame piece. The frame pieces were die cut using a rectangle die set I have in the stash. Easy card to put together and happy to be able to use more of the scraps but as with all foil, it is hard to photograph the foiled background without glare.

This and that from here and there.... Porch

This is a DIY post that I just finished and wanted to get it on the blog before I forgot... With my job working at a school I always had summers off - until the pandemic hit. For the past two years I have had to work all year around so with not having my summer off many projects I either had started or wanted to do were put on the back burner. Happy me that I have this summer off and the first project I wanted to finally put together and finish was the side porch.... Over time when we would shop Restore stores, thrift stores, auctions and the 301 Yard Sale I would pick up different things that I thought I would be able to use on the porch. I did not want this porch to be 'matchy, matchy' or to just have a porch furniture set out there and be done with it.... so here are photos of things I picked up for my porch and I will explain as I go along - 

First - this bench I picked up a few years back cheap at the 301 Yard Sale NC holds each June. It was painted black and all faded and had paint splatters on it but I was happy it was not dented or broken or wobbly... DH power washed it for me and I used two cans of Rustoleum spray paint to paint it the dark green:

Once it was painted and dry I added rubber feet to it from Lowes. This next project was the pinkish red coffee table that I picked up at the 301 Yard Sale. Did not want to keep the red but knew it was a wooden table so I was hoping under the red I would find a nice table:

The above photo was before it was stripped - red paint, then a layer of black paint and happy to say I used the CritusStripper and it cut through both layers in one pass so that was easy - here is the table under the paint layers:

Happy me this table is is good condition - not bad for the $10 I paid for this table... But I had looked and looked for a small table to put next to the bench to put a lamp on and I could not find one... until DH saw this in the furniture clearance section at HobbyLobby:

Shelves - had picked up the larger white shelf at the Restore and it is from Ikea:

The smaller white shelf was at a thrift store and no markings are on that. I wanted two chairs to go by my other 301 Yard Sale table find for the corner on the porch so last trip to Restore I picked up this chair:

I liked this chair because it is wood, it had the green on it but it also had white spackling splattered here and there on it. I paid $5 for that and when I got it home I used a wet cloth to wipe the spackling off and that worked and then I cleaned it up for the porch. (Under the seat of this chair is stamped Pier 1). For the white chair next to this table I rummaged through our garage and found it so cleaned that up and it has a home on the porch. 

DH had recently gone to a warehouse auction for car parts and tools and such and for $5 he brought home this wooden crate for me:

It was covered in dirt and grime and such so when he got home he power washed it for me and I made a place for it on the porch. Another crate I used next to the bench he picked up and it was full of tools so he asked if I wanted that one too so happy me I have two of them on the porch... At the 301 Yard Sale a couple of years ago I picked up this metal "bag" that is a planter - it was dirty and all rusty but I brought it home and cleaned it up for the porch:

Here it is hanging on the wall and I used greenery and a flower cluster from HobLob to put inside of it. For the pink flowers on the right I picked those up at DollarTree:

Recent Restore find is this glass cutting board that I picked up for $2 and decided to put it on the gray table top in the corner on the porch:

This project has been in the works over a few summers -- DH laid down the new flooring out there I had picked out and he hung all my mini blinds, curtain rods, items on the walls, and my shelves. He also made a shelf for the long wall on the porch to hold all my insulators -- that collection is a whole other story - so a huge thanks to him for helping me bring this all together for the porch I have wanted for over 3 years!

On the coffee table is a metal tray I picked up for 50% off at HobLob and that holds a fake plant and three insulators - I picked up the round gem stones at Dollar Tree to fill the tray:

The flamingo planter was gifted to me by the DSD so he had to be included on the porch:

The floral print over the bench I recently picked up at Restore for $6. For the two prints over and under the Ikea white shelf:

Both prints are from Home Interiors (remember them?) and one I picked up at Restore and the other was at the 301. I wanted them hung together because they both have tulips and the matting and frames are the same. The quirky bird house on the shelf is from Restore, the yellow flowers is a floral cluster from HobLob on sale for 50% off. I draped a piece of their greenery garland on that shelf and then put an old Atlas jar I had and more insulators around the items on that. This small shelf:

The white milk glass vase is from a flea market, white basket is from HobLob, and red pitcher I had in my stash from long ago before the porch was even a thought.... The green ivy in both the crate under the gray table and on the bottom of the small table next to the bench are from Restore. For the ivy under the table in the gray watering can I added a small sprig of pink flowers from the Dollar Tree just to add colour to that ivy. 

The valances and four floral pillows are new from Amazon. The rug on the floor I just bought at Ollie's and everything else is this and that from here and there. . .  I did pick up a semi gloss clear poly to put on the coffee table and that I will put on tomorrow but I wanted to get these photos posted before I start working on my next project -- which IS a card project and I hope to be posting that soon. All that is left for the porch is to find something really great to put on the gray table but so far I have not found anything that stood out to me... but with summer comes all the yard sales and flea markets so you never know what you will find.... 

Where to begin with decorating this porch? Three of the four walls are windows and you can see all the green trees outside so I thought I would stick with the green for the base - for the bench, the valances, and happy I had the green birdhouse lamp from my old house to put on the table next to the bench. All the plants and flowers are fake so for the winter I do not have to scramble and bring in all the plants so they will not die with the cold. I also wanted to bring in items that not only do not go together in a matchy, matchy way but to have things with character - DH had brought this pulley home from one of his auctions he shopped:

He hung that next to the outside door of the porch and that is something else you would not expect to see.. Happy this project is done and we can sit out there and not be bothered by bugs... ;0) So the only consistancy on the porch is the green base and then everything else is tied into that or has a history to tell. Happy this project is completed and looking forward to sitting out there....