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It’s been HOT here in New York and actually much of the midwest to northeast so have not been doing too much crafting lately. So I thought it would be a good time to update the craft posts from May! Soon to follow will be June.

Sienna’s really into super heroes so it has re-ignited my interest in them as well so I signed up for a Super Hero Softie swap. I even made a little comic book to go with it. I picked out a pattern from the Wild and Wonderful Fleece Animals book that I’ve had for awhile and been wanting to try. I’m so glad I finally tried one of the patterns because it was soo easy!! I reduced the pattern and used felt instead of fleece. I made the cape and mask myself. I think it came out really cool and became one of those swaps I almost did not want to send off!

Another theme I love is the Circus and these were made for the Theme in a Ziplock group. I made domino pins, tags, notecards, stickers and frames. My partner loved everything! (If I ever get around to posting what I received, I’ll be sure and show the 2 headed woman doll my partner sent me! LOVE it!)

Stickers made using hand carved stamps and die cut using my Silhouette machine. The batman logo, POW and flower were carved by me. The others were received in swaps.

Mother’s day card with a pop up rose. You can see Sienna’s writing on the inside for her grandma(s).

Birthday cards for twin boys that were in Sienna’s nursery class.Their party was at the Children’s Museum of Staten Island.

These were made for swaps. My partner loves daisies. The left one was made using rub ons and the right was using a die cut flower although it’s hard to tell from the photo.

Another swap also using die cut flower.

Felt flower brooches using one of my favorite Sizzix dies.

Made this shirt for Sienna for team day at her nursery school using glitter heat transfer vinyl. She’s only wore it once. I don’t know why Yves doesn’t push her to wear it more often! HA!

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I’ve been creating! I’ve been creating! I just haven’t been good about posting them up in a timely manner so while I am on vacation (Myrtle Beach, SC) I thought I would catch up a little. Here is what I have made in April!

These were for the altered bottlecap pendant. You were only required to make 1 but I was inspired and made my partner 2. The top one was used with some aluminum roses and an old finding from a grab bag of vintage items I got from a flea market ages ago. The bottom one I painted a blue flower white and used alcohol ink to color it but when I diamond glazed it, it lightened the color but it totally works! The L was made using faux enamel.

These items were made for a different kind of Easter basket for the Zombies, Aliens, Monsters, Vampires and Robots group. Bela and Frank are rubber stamps that I stamped on glitter and glued on a Tim Holtz fragment. The stuffie is obviously a vampire rabbit. I wanted to show the back because I also made the tail. I finally used my Clover pom pom maker!
I think these were made for an Easter lucky parcel, I can’t remember! I printed out the Easter vintage tags and used my Silhouette to cut them out. I made 2 magnets with a Tim Holtz fragment and a bottlecap.

These were made for part of a Mother’s Day mini lucky parcel. One of my partners favorites is the Addams Family. I saw Morticia and Gomez earrings on her Etsy favs so used that for inspiration for the top one (bad photo!). I bought the tv bezels a while ago and finally had an opportunity to use it!

I signed up for a swap NOT on swap-bot! {gasp!} It was a crafty peep swap on Strumpet’s craft blog. My partner likes flowers and bright colors so I ran with that! For the card, I used my Silhouette to cut out the flower. The felt flowers (Sizzix die that gets used a lot!) as magnets and an A heart pendant. I also made her these following 2 pendants but will talk about it below.

I discovered this new technique on Lisa Pavelka’s website and wanted to give it a go so these 2 were actually “testers” which turned out to be my favorites over the other ones below. I especially love how the glitter came out in the moon burst zipper pull probably because I was just being free with it.

The glitter really sparkles but I took a bad photo of this. This was the main pendant I made for my partner and funny enough, my least favorite. I had to put a lot of layers on this and I still wasn’t completely happy. Oh well, at least my partner got the other pendants and felt magnets.

Using the same technique, I made this for my MIL for Mother’s Day.

I made this one because I like the graphic. I still have it so may just keep it for myself.

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Easter turned out to be a beautiful day so we had our first BBQ and dyed eggs outside. It was a nice day!

Getting started with the dye kit. I know I could have made my own dyes but the kit was cheap and a no brainer.

That was the egg Sienna dyed in school and she was fake eating it because she doesn’t eat eggs.

I think the colors came out nice! Sienna’s playing with them here.

Skippy is saying “what’s going on up there?”

The chocolate lollipop was from school and the Godiva was from my Aunt Helen (they were super yummy!)

Wha?

Inside the Godiva

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I joined a stuffed mini book swap last month and it was so much fun! Basically, it’s a 3×3 book you make out of a 12×12 piece of scrapbook paper and makes 3 pockets to put things in. I really put a lot of work into it and I believe my partner enjoyed it. Her profile said she likes flowers so I kinda ran with that theme!

All Tied Up. I glittered a chipboard frame for the front

Pretty Thick book!

Front and Back covers with a made with love charm

White embossed the flowers and painted it with twinkling H20s (sadly the photo doesn’t really show the shimmer)

Used some glittery stickers and glued a fragment on top of a Georgia O’Keefe flower I printed and stamped cherish

My favorite spread! I used the nine fold explosion and used floral wire to put the flower in the middle. I really like how it came out! The flower was actually sent in my mini book from my partner!

I used copper embossing powder for this stamp and used distree stains to color in the flowers

Another flower pop up that was so fun and easy to make!

Final spread. Had to use my silhouette at some point! I used pop up dots for the flower.

The stuff I included in the pockets. Some paper flowers, metal flowers and the links on how to make the 2 pop ups.

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Here’s the completed box that you can see Sienna start painting here. Yves requested a box with a Spider Man theme to put his watches in. I could only find this wooden box with a mirror on top at the craft store so I thought putting a web on top would be cool. I used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl. I attempted to use the transfer tape but it actually made it harder!

Here’s the thank you card I made for Stan for sending Sienna the Wonder Woman doll and Green Goblin that made her so happy, as you can see here. I should have thought to take a photo of the writing Sienna did inside the card. I told her to write I love my Wonder Woman doll, love Sienna. It was all over the place so I also wrote in a translation. LOL

Some cards I made at a Stamping Meetup based on alcohol inks:

The butterflies were made with soda cans cut with a Sizzix die and the circle in the last card is a CD.

Some recent swaps:

This was for the silly greeting a flat item swap. My flat item was the mustache on a stick so I made the card for Something on a stick day (which was March 28th)

I carved this owl stamp copied from a certain popular stamp company catalog. I don’t remember what I made it for! I think it was for a group forum Winner Takes All.

For the Handmade keychain swap.

For the card wallet swap. My partner likes the V monogram so I used my Sizzix to cut out the letter. I also made her some swap cards and put them in.

For the pendant swap in the Zombies, Aliens, Vampires, Monsters and Robots group.

A pendant I stamped, which was partly for the Spring Lucky Parcel swap

These 2 were part of the Eggy Spring Swap with a twist. The twist is that you have to put 6 little treats in eggs or egg shaped. I ended up making felt egg pockets. We got 2 partners so there is one for each. The top are felt brooches and the bottom are upcycled baby food bottle caps turned magnets.

This was for the Woodland Creature with a Moustache swap. I also made the little pom pom tail.

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This embroidery was made for the Profile Stitch swap for cobalt gypsy

Mug Rug swap for zigg13pra, who is a GS volunteer.

Sienna went to a birthday party in early March for Olivia and I made her this shirt. Funny and cute photos of the party can be seen on here!

I have been getting Sienna into more crafts! The first photo she is coloring Princess shrinky dinks from a kit I got at the craft store (plan to make my own next time!). The 2nd photo she is helping me paint a box for Yves to keep his watches in. That one is still a WIP because we have to put Spider-Man stickers on it.

I’m happy that Sienna likes Super Heroes as much as Princesses so I made her this Wonder Woman paper doll cut with my Silhouette

And that was before she got a real Wonder Woman doll and Green Goblin (or Gobalin as Sienna says it) from my former boss at Mada Design! How I love Facebook!

Sienna’s school had a Wacky Tacky day. Wear the wackiest outfit for a chance to win a free lunch (although Sienna doesn’t eat lunch at school!). So I sewed together 3 different parts of 3 different shirts that Sienna pretty much outgrew. I wanted to take a couple of photos and she totally went into pose mode. I posted the above photo and 4 others here. She is such a crack up. I did not give her any direction whatsoever! All these poses were done on her own and within 5 minutes!

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I participated in Thing a day again this past February. I didn’t post much about it on this blog but if you click on the logo, it will bring you to my flickr set of thing a days. Each photo has a link to the posterous blog for further details about the project.

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I’ve run out of “clever” blog titles so just using the timeline for now!

This was for a Valentine Earring swap. Once I read my partner’s profile, this design came to mind. I searched for the right image via Google and finally found this. I did the auto trace with my Silhouette machine and made a couple of tweaks with the design. I did a little back and forth with the initials but liked how it ended up. This one is the most intricate design so far with the layered paper. My first one was so simple! The second one was a little more detailed. There were a few minor details that I wasn’t very happy with but overall I think it came out nice. I also made my partner an extra pair since I wasn’t sure how well the other would hold up.

I actually made these as the original 2nd pair to send my partner but because I am not very good at wire wrapping, the force I was using to wire wrap was weakening the loop of the heart (which is wooden) so it was starting to chip off. I didn’t think they would last so I kept it for myself and as predicted one fell off when I wore them yesterday for Valentine’s day.


Made for the Wacky Holiday/February swap. These handmade catnip mice were for Be Nice to Your Pet day.
The following cards were for the same swap and made for the Send a Card to a Friend day. I used my Sizzix and some embossing folders and made a “faux” letterpress. A bit messy but I really liked how they came out! These were done with Cuttlebug folders and I also did some with Sizzix folders (which were not for a swap and I did not take a photo of them!) I prefer doing this technique with the Sizzix as they emboss deeper. This was a lot of fun!

I decided to use the non faux letterpress side since it got a little sloppy.

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Last month we took an overnight trip to the Crayola Factory. It can be done in one day but we decided it would be nice to get away (and into a hotel with an indoor swimming pool!) We originally were supposed to go during winter break but Mother Nature had other ideas.

Upon first arrival (by the way, Easton looks like a very cute town!) I was sure we would be finished within an hour. There were lots of areas to do activities but with Sienna’s ADD, I didn’t think we would be staying at any one station for too long. Surprisingly we lasted 2.5 hours there! I’m not sure if we would go back again but it was a fun time.

The first (of many) free crayons she got.

Not sure what this psychedelic motion screen has to do with crayola but it was fun!

Lots of coloring stations (obviously)

Free model magic that Sienna shaped into a hippo and colored pink

The t-shirt to color was extra but at least they had the fabric markers to use and not have to buy (because I have a set at home!)

Sienna stands in front of the largest crayon in the crayola store.

We stayed in Bethelhem at Hyatt Place. It was nice enough. The indoor pool was small and there were a lot of families around.

We went to dinner at Thai Thai II and was surprisingly impressed with the food! It totally rocked! Even thought Yves’ pad thai came with a lemon (usually it’s a lime), he still enjoyed it. Sienna ate all her chicken sate AND some of my rice and sauce. She seemed like a bottomless pit that night!

Because we stayed in one big room, Sienna did not get to sleep until late since Yves wanted to watch some football playoffs. She still woke up way too early considering how late she went to sleep. We found a Waffle House so Yves and Sienna were happy about that.

Unfortunately, the ride home wasn’t the best. I was hoping Sienna would fall asleep for most of the ride, which she usually does. For some reason, she did not sleep well on the way home. We were about 45 minutes from home when I offered her a cheese stick and she threw up shortly after. The rest of the night wasn’t fun either as she kept complaining about her tummy hurting. It was painful for us to see because she never complained so much about something! She was fine the next day, thankfully! We think it was a combination of lack of sleep and bumpy car ride that made her sick.

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Ready for the cold!

So this week’s Iron Craft Challenge was Winter. I have a bunch of old t-shirts, a lot of them concert shirts. Some I wore a lot and some I barely wore. But I saved them. Some may call me a hoarder (that would be my hubby) as some of the shirts are OLD but I call it being sentimental. I’ve was trying to figure out what to do with them and I’ve seen on the web people making quilts out of their old shirts. That wasn’t for me. Somehow I got the brainstorm to make a scarf out of them. That brainstorm occurred in early fall and it’s been on my list of crafty things to do for a couple of months now. Finally, an opportunity to get my ass in gear! Overall I am please with how it turned out but I think for my next t-shirt scarf (I should have enough shirts for another one!) I would make one side facing the opposite way of the other side. Not a deal breaker since I will see the shirts the right way but people looking at me will see some shirts upside down.

It was hard trying to get a good shot of all the shirts. Sienna, such a ham, wanted to help out.
Here are all the shirts I used. 13 shirts with only 1 shirt using the front and back so I guess 14 pieces in total.

Don’t remember what year I got this! Definitely in the 90’s

Also probably gotten in the ’90s

Amsterdam was part of our honeymoon back in 2001

Madonna’s Like a Virgin tour 1985! One of the best shows I went to because my friend won front row seats at the Garden and the Beastie Boys opened up (before they hit it big.) The oldest shirt of the bunch.

Early 90’s. I saw INXS at Radio City.

I had 3 Morrissey shirts to choose from. This is from the 90’s.

First year I went to Coachella in 2005



I don’t remember when I got these but definitely early 2000’s…I think!

Austin City Limits festival

Ahhh, The Lost Boys. What can I say? Second oldest shirt from 1987.

I had to throw in a Brooklyn shirt!

And there you go!

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