Christmas Noodle Ornament... Really!

Today I Created | A Christmas Ornament using Noodles.

I was visiting Eileen Hull's blog and discovered that she is having a "Noodle Contest". The contest was to make an ornament or decoration using noodles and you could win a $10 gift certificate to Noodles & Company. I love Eileen's blog and I love noodles, put them together and I'm in!

Off I went looking around for noodles in my kitchen.

I don't cook a lot but sometimes I get a little ambitious. I had these rice noodles sitting around for some time and now they were going to come in handy. I dropped them in boiling water for about ONE second just to soften them. Any more than that and they would have been too soft for this project.

I placed about one fourth of the noodles into a round, flat-bottomed bowl to create a wreath shape. I used a blow dryer to quickly dry the noodles so they didn't get sticky. Once I had the shape and it was dry, I removed it from the bowl and sprayed it with Olive Vine, Glimmer Mist while drying it with the blow dryer. Again, any moisture would make the noodles sticky so I needed to dry everything as I worked.

As a final touch I glued wooden beads and a ribbon to complete the look of the wreath. You could also make a bird's nest with these noodles. This was such a fast and fun project.

Addendum #1: Thank you to Noodles & Company and Eileen Hull. I was just notified that my noodle ornament won the noodle ornament contest. I can't wait to experience the food at Noodles & Company. Thanks again!

This is linked to Making The World Cuter.

Bottle of Poison

Today I Created | A poison bottle label.

I started off with the image of a skull from the Graphics Fairy. I printed this on a sheet of cardstock leaving lots of space on the left side of the sheet.

I then ran this through the Poison, Texture Fades. Since the cardstock was white I used the Antique Linen Distress Ink to age the entire paper. I used a paper edge distresser to roughen the edges of the cardstock. I applied Tea Stain Distress ink to give it more age. Since I felt that it was still too bright, I sprayed some Suede, Glimmer Mist on the corners.

After this was completed, I realized that this label needed to be attached to something. I had an old-looking, hand-blown bottle that looked just old enough and odd enough to perhaps hold poison.

A perfect Halloween decoration. Enjoy!

Spooky Halloween Banner

Today I Created | A Spooky Halloween Banner

I am in the Halloween spirit and wanted to create a Halloween decoration. I found some wonderful skeleton images from the GraphicsFairy.

First I printed the skeletons on cardstock. I trimmed them to size along with pieces of plain orange cardstock. For the skeleton banners, I sprayed them with Periwinkle Glimmer Mist and while they were still wet, I sprinkled copper Perfect Pearls to make them appears rusted.

Next I ran the orange banners through the Cobwebs Texture Fades. I edged everything with black Distress Inks. I then sewed all of the banners onto a piece of ribbon.

I created the black and orange Paper Rosettes and attached them to the front of the orange banners. Finally, I attached the bit of bling to the bottom of the skeleton banners just to add a bit of sparkle.

Stenciled Envelope

Today I Created | A decorated envelope

I used two colors of Glimmer Mist and a Crafter's Workshop template to create the front of the envelope.

The address label is a Sizzix Movers & Shapers die called Styled Labels. I really like this die for the versatility of the shape to create journal boxes as well as labels and tags.

I inked the edges of the label before applying it to the envelope.

I also took a spare die cut of the same shape and used it as a stencil on the back flap of the envelope to create the return address area.

Autumn Artistamp

Today I Created | Autumn postage stamps

I had so much fun with the Munk e-mail postage stamps so I decided to try another experiment.

I wanted to use more color but I don't own a lot of ink pads. I do, however, have a variety of Glimmer Mist sprays in some nice Autumn colors. So I experimented with rubber stamping Glimmer Mist inks.

Again, I printed the words using the computer. Next I sprayed Glimmer Mist on my craft mat and inked my rubber stamps right on the mat. This created some unexpected results with blending colors. Green and red create muddy brown very quickly. I had to clean off the mat and respray to keep the colors bright.

After using Glimmer Mists instead of ink pads I would recommend ink pads if you have them but this was a good learning experience.

Halloween spirit

Today I Created | A decorated frame in the Halloween spirit.

This project began with an oak frame. I rubbed the oak with steel wool and painted it black using acrylic paint.

I used an orange piece of paper embossed with the Texture Fades, Pumpkin Patch pattern. I sprayed it with brown, red and olive green Glimmer Mist and sprinkled salt on it while it was drying. The salt created the "stars" in the top corner near the moon. After the paper dried I rubbed black ink to make the pumpkins stand out.

I used a Tim Holtz Scaredy Cat die cut that I first applied Picket Fence Crackle Paint and then rubbed black ink to create a rough texture.

The fence is the On the Fence, On the Edge die that I inked and sprayed.

The moon is cut from Glow in the Dark paper using a circle punch.

To assemble the piece, I glued the fence and cat to the front of the picture glass. I glued the moon to the background paper and applied foam spacers along the edge of the paper to add some dimension behind the glass.

The last thing I did was to add the blood splatter. I used my glue gun with the intention of making it look like a spider's web in the corner but the glue fell as droplets. This gave me the idea to color them red with alcohol inks and turn them into blood droplets instead. A happy accident.

Gifts From My Mother

Today I Created | A scrapbook page for my mother.

I had two goals in creating this scrapbook page; 1) incorporate two butterfly pins that had belonged to my mother and 2) experiment using a pleated paper technique.

I knew that I wanted to just attach the pins on the page. They are ornate so I didn't want to place them where they would look too fussy. From there I selected an old photo.

Next I cut two 1 1/2" x 12" strips of blue paper. I folded them into pleats and sewed them onto the paper. I tucked the photo behind the pleats and added a text box below.

I sprayed Glimmer Mist on a plain Prima Flower then attached an old button.

The headline came at the very end when I started writing in the text box. My mother encouraged my creativity and for that I thank her.

Christmas Tag

Today I Created | An embossed and stamped Christmas Tag

I started with a tag embossed with two different patterns. I first sprayed dark gray and red Glimmer Mist on the embossed tag. Once this was dry, I sanded the raised, embossed areas.

For the overall pattern at the top, I rubbed Perfect Medium and then applied Perfect Pearls on the raised areas. This created the gold highlights.

I used Versamark watermark ink on an Inkadinkado clear stamp to create the bird in the green circle.

Finally I used some metallic numbers to finish off the December 25th theme.

I really like how the watermark ink created such a subtle design on the dark green paper.

Skeleton Tag

Today I Created | A Skeleton tag

I used the wax-resist technique on this tag. I started with a cream-colored tag and embossed the skeleton using the Halloween Night Texture Fade. I rubbed wax over the skeleton, fence and spider web allowing the unwanted raised parts to "disappear" later.

I sprayed Raven Glimmer Mist and dusted some white Perfect Pearls while the tag was still wet. The raised parts of the tag that weren't rubbed with wax then disappeared when covered with the dark Glimmer Mist.

I used three rain drop stickers by Cloud 9 Design and applied red Alcohol Ink to create blood drops. The bats were cut from a Sizzix die and glued onto craft wire. The ticket is by Daisy D.

Distressed Snowman Tag

Today I Created | A wax-resist snowman tag.

The idea for this project came from the lessons I learned while creating yesterday's Halloween tag.

I started with a pale blue tag cut from the eclips Christmas cartridge. I used the Tim Holtz Snow Flurries Texture Fades to create the snowflake pattern. I rubbed the raised surfaces with wax. Then I sprayed a light coating of Sea Glass Glimmer Mist and wiped off any excess. This created the overall snowflake pattern. I let this dry thoroughly so that the paper was stiff.

Next, I ran it through the Snowman Texture Fades to emboss the snowman on top of the snowflake pattern. The cool part of this technique is that the flat part of the Snowman Texture Fade flattened the background snowflakes so only the snowman is a raised pattern.

Finally I used Denim Distress Inks to highlight the edges of the Snowman.

Glimmer Mist Stencil

Today I Created | A stenciled background.

I used a floral stencil by Crafters Workshop and sprayed a white piece of cardstock with two colors of Glimmer Mist.

I plan to use sections of this paper for a background to a scrapbooking page. I think it is too busy to be used as is.

I had also experimented with spraying one color on the paper and then applying the stencil and a second color but it became too muddy. I might try a colored cardstock and the Glimmer Mist to see if the colors become muddy.

Type Tray Flowers

Today I Created | Flowers for my type tray.

The background image, both inside the type tray and used on the grunge flowers, is of pink tulips that my boyfriend had sent to me. They were a very bright pink and the colors were too vivid for my design. I used Photoshop to soften the colors and printed out the background image and a larger version that I applied to some Grungepaper.

I cut the flowers using the Tim Holtz Tattered Flower die. Then I inked and stamped them to wear them down a bit. I used Perfect Pearls in a copper color to decorate the petals.

I used Pearl Brads from s.e.i. for the flower centers. On the larger flower I used a round piece of chipboard that had a shiny coating then applied Crackle Paint in Old Paper. The paint crackled but when I tried to ink it some of the paint chipped off. I sprayed Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold to hold the paint on the chipboard.

Behind the flowers in the type tray is an old cigarette card of a rose. I collect cigarette cards and the old roses are one of my favorite designs.

Laguna Seca Scrapbook Page

Today I Created | A stenciled scrapbook page.

I find that I enjoy the technique of Glimmer Mist spray. For this page I used a pre-cut diecut piece of paper as a full-page stencil. I used bits of doublesided tape to hold it on my page and then applied Glimmer Mist.

I knew that I was going to add the photo across the center so I concentrated the spray above and below where the photo would be placed.

The photo was created by using the Photomerge feature in Photoshop and "stitching" three photos together to create the panoramic shot.

Squirrel Tag

Today I Created | A Squirrel Tag

There is a story behind this squirrel tag. It involves a wedding reception, a squirrel and pinecones but the relevant part is that my friend wanted to use a squirrel diecut as a humorous gift for her mother-in-law.

I offered to decorate the tag before the squirrel was applied as decoration.

I cut the tag, squirrel and oak leaves using the eclips. I used the tree bark Texture Fade to create the surface texture. Then I sprayed several layers of Glimmer Mist and rubbed some ink to add a bit more color.

Royal Tag

Today I Created | A tag with a royal theme.

I had two die cut shapes of decorative flourishes in a cross shape but didn't have any idea of how to use it. I placed the contrasting colored center of one into the other creating a two-tone flourish. It was a little large for my tag but I decided to use it and let the edges hang over.

I sprayed Glimmer Mist on the tag before I attached the flourish die cut. I used clear ink to stamp the lion image and then applied gold Perfect Pearls. I then used alcohol ink to turn the clear rhinestones into an amber color and then apply them to the tag.

Since the lion and the flourish had a "royal" feel to it, I placed it on a page from an old book about Queen Victoria.

Crafty Create-A-Bow

Today I created | Some easy crafty gift bows

I admit that I am not very good at tying bows. I would much rather buy pre-made bows and just stick them on gifts. Not a very creative solution but efficient.

I tried using the Sizzix, Create-A-Bow die today. I create both of these bows and had fun doing it.

It is best to use two-sided, printed paper because everything shows. On the purple bow I sprayed it with gold Glimmer Mist. This worked well on the darker paper.

Celebrate Spring

Today I created | A tag to celebrate Spring.

I know that it is the middle of Summer but with colors like bright green and lavender it just feels like Spring.

I played with Glimmer Mists and first sprayed light green and lavender on a blank tag. I then, carefully attached a "mask" cut from an eclips diecut and sprayed a darker green to create the leaves.

The flower was created by spraying Glimmer Mist on two blank Prima flowers. I stamped on the larger flower for additional interest. I then stacked them and added the button.

This tag gave me a great excuse to use colors and embellishments that I don't normally use in my scrapbooking projects.