The Money Pit

My husband jokingly refers to my craft corner as 'the money pit', because there is no end to the neat toys I want to play with in my crafty ventures. And I have an awful lot of stuff too - bins full of yarn, stamps, inks, ribbons... I could spend hours listing all the stuff I have, and all the stuff I don't have but would like to get. Every time he sees me surfing a crafty site, I know he cringes and wonders what it's gonna cost.

So, I made a deal with him: he won't complain about my crafty purchases if I prove that I can 'earn' them by actually completing projects. These can be as small as a single card, or bigger organizational stuff, too. I'm essentially paying myself for using up my supplies, in the hopes of curbing what can very quickly become out-of-control spending.

Here's an example of what I'm paying myself:
- A card: $1
- 3D item: $2-5, depending on complexity
- Organizational project: $2-5
- Granny square (for an afghan project): $0.50
- Photographing & blogging a project: $1
- Completing a challenge project: $1

The list is a bit longer than that, but that's a start. So far, I've accumulated a little over $25 in my "craft & spend" credits, and as I get more done and actually share what I've made, I'll earn some more. Right now my goal is to craft enough to justify a Stampin' Up order before Sale-A-Bration ends at the end of March! Once I have the energy to redo my blog's template, I'll stick a widget on the sidebar so I can keep track of what I've earned and spent.

And now, off to work on something! I need to earn some more spending money!

Candy Coated Popcorn

My daughter's preschool class is having a valentine's day party tomorrow. My plan was to send little marshmallow pops for her school friends, but those hopes were dashed last night when the only marshmallows I could find in the house were grotesquely misshapen. There was not a hope in hell that they would look at all good. I resigned myself to just providing little cards for her friends, until I remembered something I'd seen on a blog a few days earlier. This Blessed Nest posted lovely candy-coated popcorn-and-m&ms treat bags. I just so happened to have Wilton candy melts in my pantry in a rainbow of colours, so I adapted her idea a little bit for what I had in my pantry.

Super Easy Candy Coated Popcorn
(adapted from This Blessed Nest)

Popcorn
Candy Melts in desired colours, ~1 oz per generous cup of popped popcorn
Salt (optional)

Pop your popcorn. Place in a large bowl.

In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water, melt candy melts. Drizzle candy melts over popcorn, and toss to coat. Sprinkle a little salt as you toss if you like your popcorn salty & sweet.

Spread popcorn on a parchment-covered baking pan, and let sit for half an hour or so, until candy coating has set. Break apart gently with your hands, since the pieces will have stuck together.

The tags are also homemade - now that my craft area has been reorganized, I was able to find exactly what I needed to make these cute little tags, the perfect size for ziploc sandwich baggies! I used all stuff from Stampin' Up - Whisper White & Real Red cardstock, Wild Wasabi, Real Red & Pink Pirouette ink, and stamps from Wild About You, and Goody Goody Gumdrops.

Silks, Beautiful Silks!

My silk samples are finally finished! This is what I have been pouring all of my time and energy into as of late. As some of my readers may know, I am hoping to make a little extra cash by offering hand-dyed playsilks - 30x30 inch silk scarves with hand-rolled hems, perfect for little hands to use as a superhero's cape, a cowboy's bandanna, a princess' skirt. The only limit is the imagination!

The silks will be available individually, in pre-selected sets of three or six, or in custom batches to suit your individual desires. You can choose from these themed sets below, or contact me for a custom order, choosing colours from the entire palette. Please note that as the silks are hand-dyed, some variations in colour on the silk are natural, and beyond my control. Each silk is unique!

The details: 30x30" 100% habotai silk scarves with hand-rolled hems, dyed in small lots to ensure vivid colours. All dyes are non-toxic, and silks are washed before shipping to remove as much excess dye as possible. Contact me at smathie (at) gmail (dot) com for pricing, shipping information, and any other information.

Here are the sets available:


Rainbow Fun: Very Cherry, Orange Peel, Lemon Drop, Emerald Isle, True Blue, Wild Grape



Autumn Breeze: Chocolate Kiss, Antique Ruby, Pumpkin Pie



Night Sky: Stroke of Midnight, Wild Grape, Sapphire Springs



Land & Sea: Chocolate Kiss, Emerald Isle, Robins Egg



Ice Cream Sundae: Chocolate Kiss, Tickled Pink, Fresh Cream



Easter Egg: Tickled Pink, Robins Egg, Key Lime



Pretty as a Princess: Wild Grape, Tickled Pink, Fresh Cream



Ocean View: Emerald Isle, Robins Egg, Sapphire Springs



Morning Glory: Desert Sunrise, Orange Peel, Lemon Drop



SuperKid!: Very Cherry, Lemon Drop, True Blue


The whole palette (counter-clockwise from top left): Fresh Cream, Tickled Pink, Desert Sunrise, Very Cherry, Antique Ruby, Orange Peel, Pumpkin Pie, Lemon Drop, Key Lime, Emerald Isle, Robins Egg, True Blue, Sapphire Springs, Wild Grapes, Chocolate Kiss, Stroke of Midnight.

Talk to me about selling...

I am so bad at this crafty blogging thing. I keep meaning to post, but do you think I remember to? Noooo. I've been busy working on crafty ideas to sell, so blogging about them isn't something I'm prepared to do while these thoughts are still under development. Once I have a plan, I will probably post a little more, but it's all still in development!

So, along that train of thought... anyone have any advice for a busy working mom who is eager to set out selling her wares? Thoughts on where you get your inspiration, how to handle competition, where to sell (own website? etsy? other?), how to set your price points, advertising, promos, custom orders vs stock on hand? Anything really, any input would be most welcome. Right now I'm looking at selling on etsy, but I haven't thought further ahead than that...

So, give it to me! I can take it. :D

Worm Wishes!

Good lord, has it really been almost three months since I updated last? Eek. I have had a lot of projects on the go, but really, none of them have been fit for blog posting. On top of that, my craft area is a royal disaster. I got a new sewing machine and table at the end of January, which required some re-organizing that turned more into a piling of things in different places. Not exactly great for encouraging the crafty flow! Anyway, my daughter was invited to a birthday party for one of her little friends, so I decided to whip together this adorable card for the birthday boy! Pretty much a CASE of this card, but with a few of my own touches. I really like the shape I got for the greeting - I just cut out circles and snipped the top and bottom off to get a neat shape! I probably would have used ovals, but I don't own those punches yet so this was good enough.


The ingredients:
- Paper: SU Close to Cocoa, More Mustard, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip DSP
- Ink: SU Bravo Burgindy
- Stamps: SU Bugs & Kisses
- Other: Misc ribbon, circle punches, dimensionals

Always My Valentine

For someone who hasn't celebrated Valentines Day since elementary school, I sure am into the v-day cards this year! I am not sure where all this inspiration is coming from. This one all started while I was organizing my multitude of Martha Stewart glitters. The Rose Quartz one just caught my eye, and I was determined to finally make a sparkly card. The rest just kind of fell into place! I am thinking of redoing this card with two hearts together, one just looks so lonely all by itself.


The ingredients:
- Paper: SU Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Blush Blossom
- Ink: SU Ruby Red, Versamark
- Stamps: SU Always, Circle of Friendship
- Other: Martha Stewart lace-edge punch, Scallop circle punch, circle punches, Fiskars mini heart punch, SU Heat & Stick powder, Martha Stewart glitter in Rose Quartz.

Pink Love

Now that Christmas is over and the new year has just begun, I have turned my crafty focus to the upcoming holidays. First up, Valentine's Day! I'm normally not one for hearts and pink and lacey stuff, but for some reason, inspiration has struck. This was a pretty simple card that I whipped up in less than an hour of total working time. I am not 100% sure on the colouring of the hearts - I used the various pinks from the SU pastels set, which I normally love, but it's not doin' it for me this time. If I make this card again, I may stamp the image onto some watercolour paper (if I can ever find it!) and use my ink pads and aquapainter to colour it.

The ingredients:
- Paper: SU Pink Pirouette, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette DSP
- Ink: SU Basic Black
- Stamps: SU A Little Bit of Happiness (Hostess)
- Other: Martha Stewart lace-edge punch, SU Stampin' Pastels, SU Mat Pack & paper piercer

The End of the Christmas Cards

So, it's December 19, and what did I do last night? That's right. I finished my christmas cards. Where the hell did this month go, anyway? Thankfully 95% of the people I still have to send cards to are local, so even though I popped them in the mail on my way to work this morning, they should still arrive before the 25th.

This card was sort of a "WTF can I do with very little effort" deal, and I managed to sucker my husband into helping. I wanted something that was neat but simple - no colouring, no ribbon-tying, no using scissors to cut anything, no heat embossing, just layers of colour and a simple assembly. I am not 100% sold on the snowflake in the scallop circle embellishment, but at 8pm on a cold Thursday, I wasn't about to go out in search of something better! So, here it is!


The ingredients:
- Paper: SU Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Close to Cocoa
- Ink: SU Bashful Blue, Close to Cocoa
- Stamps: SU Happy Everything, unidentified SU snowflake (no idea what set it came from! it was an extra in an ebay purchase!)
- Other: circle punches, scallop circle punch, scallop edge punch, Cuttlebug Snowflakes embossing folder

Christmas Kitty

For the past three years, I have faithfully gone to the Calgary Art Market & Craft Sale, and every year I am drawn hopelessly to the Old Island Stamp Co's booth like a moth to a flame. I fell in love with this adorable christmas kitty, it's perfect for holiday cards!

The ingredients:
- Paper: Misc kraft brown, SU Whisper White, Old Olive, Ruby Red
- Stamp: Old Island Stamp Co Christmas Cat (732-D)
- Other: Green ribbon (Michaels), corner rounder punch (for the scallops), ticket corner punch, SU Watercolor Wonder crayons, D'Vine Swirls embossing folder

The Christmas Dress

I know, I know - Halloween comes before Christmas and I have yet to blog about her costume. I keep meaning to, but I want to toss a little dyeing tutorial on that post, and I haven't gotten around to deciphering my chicken-scratch notes on exactly how I created her wings, so it's going to have to wait for another day.

I have been on a real sewing kick as of late, as those of you who talk to me regularly will have noticed. For me, sewing is a source of great pride and satisfaction, and also one of great frustration. I have a wonderful habit of getting myself in over my head, and usually on something "big", like say, a halloween costume or a holiday party-dress for my daughter. The pajamas and little catnip mousies? A breeze!

My biggest source of frustration right now is my sewing machine. It's an oldie (read: older than me!), and it still runs well. It does a straight stitch and a zigzag stitch, it goes forward and back. It does not do anything else, and I have only the standard foot for it. For the most part, this is not a problem. I don't need all that fancy stuff. But for a holiday dress? Yeah, it's a problem. Without a zipper foot, it is impossible (for me) to install a zipper. And it doesn't do buttonholes, either. And of course, I had to do my usual over-estimating of my abilities, and pick a pattern that required a zipper. As a result, I redesigned the shoulders of the pattern so that it had a flap that came over and buttoned, so that I could actually squeeze my daughter into this dress without a zipper up the back. Let it be known, making major structural alterations to a pattern is generally NOT a good idea for the amateur sewer. It can often result in much hair-pulling, seam-ripping, and exclamations of many creative curses. And did I mention that failure was not an option? My husband was not about to let me brave the malls in search of an alternate outfit, and next weekend is the party that the dress was being made for. Good times, good times.

But, I have prevailed! And the dress is quite cute, if I do say so myself. I do think that it could use to be hemmed an inch or so, but my husband disagrees, and says that it is perfectly cute as-is. Because I am so sick of working on this dress right now, I am inclined to agree! Please ignore the grey long-sleeved tee that she is wearing underneath - we will be picking up either a red, burgundy or black turtleneck for her to wear with this dress, and a pair of white tights with little black mary-janes.

Couldn't you just DYE? (also, where have I been?!)

It's been a long, long time since I've looked at this crafty blog. Too long, in fact. Where have I been? I've been around, still crafting a little but not so much desiring to blog about it. To make a long story short, my maternity leave ran out in June, so I found a dayhome for my daughter and I am back to the Monday-to-Friday grind. I love my job, but it has left me with far less time to craft, much less take, process, and post pictures, then write up a little blurb to go with it. Now if only someone would actually pay me good money for this crafty crap I do...

My latest project was inspired by Eliza's halloween costume. She was a monarch butterfly, but Fabricland's pathetic choice of tulle colours (no orange? seriously?) left me with only one choice: dye my own. (Her costume is going to be the subject of a future blog post, I promise!) Custom dyeing was a challenge that I actually really enjoyed, so I decided to take on a bigger project.

These are playsilks. Some of you may be familiar with them, but for those who are not, they are little more than a square habotai silk scarf. They are meant to encourage creative pretend play in children - a playsilk can be a doll blanket, a cape, a tablecloth, a hammock, or just something to swing around like crazy. Eliza is just getting to the age where she'd really be into these kinds of things, too. I'd seen them all over etsy and various other stores for obscene prices and thought "I can do that!", and after the tulle incident, I really believed that I could! I found a supplier that shipped to Canada, ordered all I needed, and this was the result:


I used Jacquard acid dyes, which are pretty simple to use, but a little finicky. And let me tell you now - when the instructions say that vinegar is necessary, they mean it! I had to re-dye two of these batches because all the dye washed out in the post-dye-washing. Bah.

Now, can I really hold off 'til Christmas to give these to her?

The Great Conversion Project

Take one love of rubber stamps, and add a crazy desire to actually start collecting awesome sets. Cut with a little bit of no space in the craft area. What does this leave? An insane project to convert all my stamps to a vinyl cling system. I suppose it's not that insane - I really don't have a lot of stamps to convert compared to some of my friends. But it's proving to be quite the process nonetheless! The little stamps are the hardest, having to make such tiny snips through the foam and rubber, argh! On the plus side, this allows me to re-trim stamps that weren't trimmed very well in the first place!

So, what is this vinyl cling system? It's genius, really. Instead of permanently mounting my stamps onto wooden blocks, I am adhering a layer of vinyl cling to the foam on the sticky side. The vinyl has enough static charge to temporarily adhere to an acrylic block. For sets like Stampin' Up that come with the rubber dies already attached to sticky foam, I just use vinyl cling. For stamps that are rubber-die-only, I use a product called EZ-Mount, which is a foam layer with adhesive on one side and vinyl on the other. I used EZ-Mount a lot for converting stamps that were wood-mounted previously, because it was easier to get the rubber off the foam than to get the rubber and the foam off the wood.

For storage, I am opting to use a binder system rather than the popular CD-case system. Most unmounted stamp sets fit nicely into a regular CD jewel case (not the slim kind), but I decided to purchase hole-punched acrylic sheets to store my stamps in a zip-up binder. I'm not sure how well this will work out in the long run, I may yet switch to CD cases as I'm already filling up my second binder.

I plan to post a tutorial on precisely how I decided to attack this project at some point. For those who are visual in nature, I have made sure that I have photographed the process from beginning to end, so it all makes sense.

A neat little trick

In my card show-off post yesterday, the recipe for the card includes silver brads and pearl embossing powder. I was tipped off by another poster on SCS that embossing is a really good way to change the look of the same ol' plain boring brads that you have sitting around. If you're like me, you may have purchased a pack of 100+ brads when your project only called for a few, and are now sick and tired of using the same colour on your projects. Well, here's something you can do! I even took pics, for those who are visual in nature.

First, collect your supples. You will need brads (obviously!), a heat gun, embossing powder, clear embossing ink and tweezers. I recommend a pad like VersaMark for your ink. The bingo-dauber style is a lot harder to use on the teeny brad heads.

Pick up a brad with your tweezers, and press the head into the embossing ink. I tried to only get it on the head, since the prongs are hidden anyway.

Next, dip it in embossing powder. Tap off the excess.

Finally, heat that baby up! If one coat isn't enough, repeat the ink-powder-heat steps again. If you're fast enough off the heat, you might be able to just dip it straight back into the powder and skip the ink. Be careful to let the brad cool for 15 seconds or more before touching - it's HOT! And the powder doesn't dry as fast as it does on paper, so you may fingerprint it. If you do smudge or fingerprint the melted embossing powder, just heat it again and it'll smooth over.

If you want to do sparkly glitter brads, the glitter embossing powder is just the solution! You may wish to do a coat of a metallic or pearly powder before you do the glitter coat(s), as many glitter powders are transparent and don't have the same coverage as a regular full-coverage powder.

Here are my sample brads. All four started out as plain silver. From left to right, they are covered in: gold powder, copper powder, white pearl powder + kaleidescope glitter powder, white pearl powder + silver glitter powder.

As you can see, they don't have the same super-shiny finish as a metal brad does, but it looks pretty cool regardless. The photos don't really do justice to how nice they really look on a card!

Little Brown Bird

Since my Apples & Oranges note cards turned out so well, I decided to try another design that I had floating around in my head. Like many other cards I've made recently, this one also features the Always stamp set from Stampin' Up. I never would have bought this set if it weren't for a friend making the most amazing cards with it. I'm glad she inspired me, and pleased to have this set in my collection! I was thinking that a set of 6 of these might be nice to sell on etsy, if I ever get around to it!


Stamps: SU Always
Paper: SU Bashful Blue, Close to Cocoa
Ink: SU Close to Cocoa
Other: Silver brads, white pearl embossing powder, Cuttlebug and Birds & Swirls embossing folder, ticket corner punch, Stampin' Dimensionals.

Confessions of a Yarnaholic

I'm addicted to yarn. Alpaca, wool, mohair, angora... the softer, the better. Natural colours, bright colours, heathers, stripes, hand dyed... the list goes on. My stash seems to be expanding by the day, and there is no end in sight. At first I started out buying only what I needed for whatever project I planned to start immediately. That quickly turned into buying yarn for projects I tentatively had in my queue. Now? I'm *thisclose* to buying yarn just for the sake of buying yarn. Eeeeee! Somebody stop me!

A few nights ago I decided to make a trip to my local yarn store. As soon as I walked in, I knew it was a mistake to actually go into the store instead of ordering online. There was shelft after shelf of beautiful, luxurious yarn in every fiber, weight, and colour you could ever imagine. It took some serious effort to buy only the three skeins of wool that I intended to use in the near future, and not stock up on piles of beautiful yarn. What would I do with it? Who knows... it just looks like it would be fun to pet. Or maybe buy enough to fill a ball pit, and roll around in it. I did it though, I bought only what I "needed". Which, incidentally, is three skeins of lovely 85% wool 15% mohair from Lamb's Pride:

The first one is Kiwi, the second is Grey Heather, and the third is Blue Magic. I'm hoping to knit some fingerless mitts for myself, my mother-in-law and my mother respectively. I just have to learn to knit in the round with double-pointed needles, since this project is too small for circulars!

For anyone reading this that's interested in yet another place to pad your yarn stash, check out Make 1 Yarn Studio. They're located fairly centrally here in Calgary if you actually want to go in, but the website has all their yarns for sale, and they offer free shipping on orders over $50. Wow!

I'm on a roll!

This is what happens when my baby naps for several hours at a time. I make cards. It's difficult for me to work on this while she's awake and demanding of my attention, so while she's out for her morning nap, I decided to tackle the latest card sketch challenge up at SCS.

No real purpose in mind for this card, though I'm sure I can find someone to give it to. Until then, it'll be filed with the others that have no immediate use!

Stamps: SU Always
Ink: SU Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive
Paper: SU Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Whisper White
Other: Cuttlebug w/ Birds & Swirls embossing folder, Boss Gloss clear embossing ink, clear embossing powder, circle punches, ticket corner punch, Michaels green velvet ribbon, brads

Like Apples and Oranges

Wow, I'm on a cardmaking spree, aren't I? I recently purchased SU's Tart & Tangy set, and after much pondering, I came up with the perfect project for it! These are 3x3" note cards. I made a set of 12 (6 of each), and I'll probably give them to my husband's grandmother for her birthday next month. I had enough paper to cut enough to make a second set, perhaps a gift for my mother-in-law? Now I just need to find a creative way to wrap them up!

The "opposite" effect was intentional, as the title says, like apples and oranges!


Stamps: SU Tart & Tangy
Ink: SU Only Orange, Green Galore
Paper: SU Whisper White, Only Orange, Green Galore, Pixie Pink
Other: Corner-rounding punch, scallop punch, circle punches, Cuttlebug & D'Vine Swirls embossing folder

Another day, another challenge

Another crafty girl I know posted a card sketch challenge over on her blog, and I couldn't resist. Now that my crafty space is all nice and neat and organized, I am all full of ideas! This card will go into my drawer of cards for future occasions yet to be determined, though I may give it to a friend getting married later this year.

Stamps: SU Always
Ink: SU Brocade Blue, Chocolate Chip, River Rock
Paper: SU Chocolate Chip, Brocade Blue, Whisper White
Other: Cuttlebug & D'Vine Swirls embossing folder, Making Memories brads, Scallop punch, circle punches, Michaels velvet ribbon.

Hoppy Birthday!

I got myself inspired to make some cards this morning when I realized that my Stampin' Up watercolor crayons were still in the shrink-wrap! I figured that if I'm even remotely able to justify the cost of all these supplies to my husband, I'd better us 'em. Conveniently, a new technique challenge was posted on SCS this morning, challenging stampers to combine an embossed image with watercolours! So, I picked a cute little frog and a matching toadstool, and whipped up this card:



Inside is stamped "hoppy birthday!" I'm not sure who I'll give this to, but I'm sure someone I know will be having a birthday soon!

Stamps: SU Unfrogettable
Paper: SU Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White, misc orange
Ink: VersaColor Black
Other: SU Watercolor Crayons, Aqua-Painter, misc ribbon, Making Memories Brads

Brain Slugs!

I stumbled across this pattern by NeedleNoodles in her etsy shop quite by accident. I was looking at crochet food patterns, and I just happened to notice the pattern for these cute little suckers for sale as well! Being new to this whole crochet thing, these seemed like a good place to get started. This is a pretty simple pattern - once you get the hang of the "magic ring" at the beginning (which still takes me a few tries to get it right sometimes!), you're golden. Attempting to crochet with a small child who likes to "help" can be distracting, however. I found a simple way to remind myself of where the circle begins & ends - a safety pin! If you have trouble counting, get distracted easily, or are likely to have to put your project down in the middle of a round, a safety pin is the perfect answer. Stick it in the last stitch of the previous round, and off you go! As long as you know what row you're on, it's all good.

So, back to the brain slugs. I opted to make these in a less vibrant yarn than suggested in the pattern, simply because it's what I happened to have on hand. I think they're cute, but if I were to make them again (and I will!), I will use a brighter palette. I also decided to pass on the button or safety eyes and use black yarn in a french knot instead, as these are a gift for a young child with a sibling due to arrive very shortly. I wanted there to be no choking risk whatsoever with these little dudes!



Yarns used are Red Heart Super Saver Red in Ranch Red and Aran, and Lion Vanna's Choice in Black, Pink, Pea Green, Mustard, Colonial Blue and Antique Rose.

I definitely have to keep these little guys in my queue, I think I need to make a set for Eliza!