Made-for-you ATC Mini-Quickie-Giveaway

This month, I jumped back into the Craftster Ongoing ATC Swap! I didn't trade as many cards as I had originally envisioned, but had fun anyway. The way it works is each artist has a list of themes that they would like to receive cards made specifically for, and then they get picked chain-style. So when I declare I'm making an ATC for So-and-So, then I get picked next by Whats-her-face, then Whats-her-face gets picked by The-Ugly-One, etc. etc. It's great fun.

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 This card was made after the (smart!) theme of "Your Favorite Faux Swear." I thought it was perfect, because we LDS folks have a faux-cuss for every regular cuss, and even for some cusses that aren't really cusses anyway. "SON OF A BISCUIT!" is one of my faves, I had a hard time picking between that one and "What the fetch?!"

This one was made for a "Chipmunks" theme. It's drawing and watercolor, then of course I had to add a wee placard made with my metal punching set!

Now for the quickie giveaway, leave a comment with 2 things: 
1) Your favorite faux swear word or phrase. (If you don't have one, or just cuss normal, make up a faux.)
2) A favorite theme (i.e. birds, the color blue, mushrooms, Harry Potter, etc)

On Friday, I'll use random.org to pick a winner, then I'll use one of the winner's themes to make a custom ATC just for them. The rules: Don't comment any REAL cuss words, and make sure there's a way to contact you (via clicking your username, leaving an e-mail, etc) just in case you win.

I'm also planning a significantly bigger giveaway for the future, so this isn't all! GOOD LUCK, you sons of biscuits! :)

Frog Smile More Album/Journal

My great friend Sarah (Hi Sarah, I know you're reading this!) had a birthday this past week. So I made her a frog and smile themed album/journal/whatever.

It's big enough to paste in 4x6 pictures. Binding bigger books is, I think, way more difficult/fiddly than binding tiny books! I'm pretty glad I have the skill now, though. Handbound books are awesome! And they make good gifts...

I used coptic stitch again (of course!) and bought some color coordinating papers for the inside signatures. I was surprised to see a while ago that Office Depot started carrying a little bit of a la carte scrapbook paper along with a ton of solid and textured cardstocks in a ridiculous number of different colors. Plus, it's within 5 minutes of my house. Bonus!

In other news, big ol' hail woke me from a delightful nap and also pelted the flip out of our cars this afternoon. This is a handful of it! It's the biggest hail that I've ever seen in person, with the biggest pieces about the size of a dime. I'm glad I wasn't out walking when it started raining down like so many tiny meteorites.

I hope you're having a great weekend! AND WHOA! I just noticed that my little blog just reached 300 followers! You guys rock!!!! :)

EDIT: Last night, the photos didn't upload properly, but they should be fixed now! Let me know if they're not showing up for you. Nessa, thanks for commenting last night to tell me what was up! Ten gold stars for you!

Little Altered Boardbook WIP

The other week, I found three little board books at the flea market for 50 cents. I've started to alter this one, and the cover is now finished! First, I peeled off the "story" on the inside, and it was pretty easy to do... it seemed to be covered in a thin sheet of plastic. Once that stuff was off, it was pretty good looking, just plain brown chip board :)

I used acrylic paints to make each inside spread a different color, then accented the edges with an inkpad and chalk pastels. I'll post each page spread as I finish them. I think I'm going to fill the pages with different watercolor paintings and things I'm thankful for.

I drew and watercolored this cockatiel for the front because I needed something to fill up the space after I glued on the "Life is good" things. The cockatiel's crest goes off to the left for that reason... I think it works!

Anyhoo, I'm having a pretty grand week. I hope you are too! Happy Wednesday!

Big Ideas Colorful Coptic Stitch Tiny Journal

I made my second coptic stitch tiny journal today!!! Once you get the hang of the stitching, it's really pretty quick and simple. This time I used my little cheapo dremel-knockoff rotary tool(10 bucks at Harbor Freight Tools!) to drill all the tiny holes prior to stitching. It was MUCH easier than trying to punch a needle through the pages, as I could do all of them at once and they line up perfectly!

Here's the embellishment on the front, "Big Ideas." I figure I can work with that theme as I fill up the book... It's pretty versatile. I used my metal stamping set to make this :) I love that little set!

For the inside signatures, I used watercolor paper again, but this time before I cut it up, I painted both sides of the sheet with plenty of colors! I do the same thing to make inchie backgrounds.

Pretty nifty, eh? If anyone out there is teetering, thinking they miiiight wanna learn coptic stitch and start making journals, I heartily say, DIVE IN! It's not as tough as you might expect, and it's very rewarding to think, "Hey! I made that little book, bindings and all!" And it's way fun. Happy Friday! (FRIDAY ALREADY?!)

My First Coptic Stitching! Tiny Journal

After having coptic stitch book binding on my "to learn" list for a long time, I can finally say I've done it! After studying this YouTube tutorial, I made my very first hand-made coptic stitch journal! It's just a tiny one, but I'm happy with how it turned out. The cover is cereal box covered with nice paper, and the pages are watercolor paper.

I really wanted to practice the stitching, so I did eight signatures, but each signature is only one sheet folded in half. I'm not 100% sure I did everything exactly right, but oh well, it works! I'm just going to have to practice more.

Last night, I noticed these tiny little houses on one of my many ripped out kids book pages, so I made a set of three inchies. I used one of them to embellish the front of my tiny journal! Maybe one of these days, I'll make an inchie-sized little journal! Happy Thursday!

Wicked Circus Altoids Tin...

I've been sitting on this project for a little while now, since it's for a swap, and I finished really early. I haven't sent yet, but I've posted a spoiler warning, so I could be impatient and blog it! This angry bear had to be restrained with heavy chains because it was trying to escape and come to my blog... (Oh ho ho ho ho!)

The theme for the swap is "Wicked Circus" and to alter an altoids tin to showcase the creepy, wicked side of circuses, sideshows and carnival acts. This man is on the front of the tin, I'd say he's the ringmaster, enticing passersby to "Witness the majesty of..."

LULU, the Dancing Bear! I painted and sewed together the canvas on the left to look kinda like dingey, dirty bigtop tent fabric. I printed out those teeny tickets onto red cardstock and cut 'em out with help from a tiny hole punch. Lulu's skirt is made of tulle and ribbon (not so funny story: I accidentally dropped a LONG strip of tulle on the floor, and it got sucked up in the vacuum, melted, and destroyed the bearings in our vacuum. Plus side: we got a new vacuum?)

Here's the outside, covered oh so nicely in paper! Happy Tuesday!

Teeny Mythbusters Sign!

Yay! I ordered a metal punching alphabet set to use for the One Tiny Harry Potter Thing on Craftster(I'm done with my project, BTW, and I can't wait to show you!), and the punches came yesterday! I didn't have any metal to punch, so I went on a short walk outside and found a pop can less than a block away. Thank goodness for litter (?). I've been making little metal things saying silly things, and epiphany! I could make a little Mythbusters sign! :D

I love Mythbusters! I think next I want to make little 'plausible,' 'confirmed', and 'busted' signs and make them into a little magnet set. How cool would that be? I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Lots of text! Links galore! Awards!

Hey friends!!! This is going to be a very link-heavy post, since I've got no crafts to share at the mo', and some news and links and things to share instead.

ONE: I had my 3-month post surgery appointment today, and my spine is FUSING perfectly! This is a happy thing. Everyone say, "Yay!"

TWO: Two of my recent projects made the March Featured Projects on Craftster.org! Check out my inchies and baby sloth plush, along with other amazing projects. Don't miss Alexz's Ganesha plush, it's crazy awesome: Craftster.org's March Featured Projects

THREE: Ruby Murray, a delightful seamstress I met via Craftster, awarded me with a versatile blogger award! Thank you! To honor the award, I'm supposed to tell you 7 things about myself, then link to some other delish blogs that deserve some love.

Here go the 7 things: 1) I have a stupid amount of craft supplies, but I can't seem to help buying more. 2) I've been married nearly 5 years, but have no kids yet 3) My favorite genre in books is Science Fiction, and I've been reading a lot lately. 4) I still think about my pet lovebird Kitty who died over a year ago ALL the time. 5) I really, really like Sam's Club pizza. 6) Now that my back is fixed, I have a very real desire to work at Disneyworld, but sadly know I will not be able to be Princess Jasmine because I now have a huge scar on my abdomen. 7) I really, really like feeding ducks and geese and seagulls.

Okay, now for the linkage. These are blogs that I don't think I've linked to before, but I really enjoy them and they deserve hundreds of awards and much blog love:

Thrifty Finn
Happy Plush Plush
Mescrap Studio
The Dreaming Bear
Numinosity

There are indeed MANY other blogs that I love, but this is just a good sample.

Well, I hope everyone had a beautiful week, and will have a great weekend to come! Now, go ahead and start clicking those links :)

Baby Sloth Plush!

Awww... I started on this little baby sloth plush on Saturday, but wasn't able it finish it up til today, since I didn't realize I was out of poly fiberfill once he was ready for stuffin'. This was my only motivation for getting dressed and going to the store today. If it weren't for my need of stuffing, I would have probably spent the whole day in my PJs watching Netflix Instant and eating cough drop after cough drop!

This is my first plush with safety eyes! And I love them! Now that there's a hobby lobby here, I can actually buy them. The facial features are sewn on and made of felt, and his fluffy body is made from an old towel we were going to get rid of because it wasn't absorbant enough. I kept it, just in case. I'm glad I did, but sewing terrycloth/something as thick as a towel was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, it's forgiving because it hides the goofs, but it was a pain in the nerds.

I sewed velcro onto the paws, so he could hold on to various things. That velcro adhesive stuck to my sewing machine needle and gummed it up, dangit. Took me a while to clean off that goo, but I say this little sloth guy was worth it! Happy Monday!

Two Random Paperthings

 Ah, I've been lazy. I'm going to blame it on Picasa's "Blog This!" feature being broken right now, which is my blogging method of choice, since it's the easiest, quickest, get-me-back-to-snacking-and-whatnot blogging method. Believe it or not, I uploaded ALL BOTH of these two images manually (GASP!). So back to crafts, here we have a birdie I doodled with a long beak...

Aaaaand, a very simple welcome card I made with my frog on an old-timey bicycle art print, along with some other paper and stuff, and some rub-ons. I do have another excellent booklet of really nice high quality alphabet rub-ons I'm saving for that giveaway I mentioned! I haven't nailed down a date for that, but I'll let you know when I do. I wanna make it a pretty sweet giveaway, so it won't be rushed :) Well, I hope everyone is having a good week so far. Happy Tuesday!