Cute projects but a bit of a let down

Back at the end of June, I applied for the DCWV design team.  I found out yesterday that, unfortunately, I wasn't picked to be on the team.  However there were 150 applicants and they only picked 12 for the team.  This being the first time that I've ever applied to be on a DT, I'm not too surprised that I wasn't chosen.  

However, since I wasn't chosen, I can now show you the projects that I submitted!  Now I have no idea if I could have done this sooner, but I didn't want to take the chance that I would be breaking some kind of rule.  After all, when you submit to a magazine, 99% of the time you can't have published your project online anywhere. 

I had to submit four projects- a card, a scrapbook page, and two 'off-the-page' projects.  I'm just going to post the pics here now and if I can remember to do it, I'll post some info on how to do them later on.

Mother's Day card

scrapbook page

paper flower topiary

Adorable birdhouse!

I hope you like what I came up with and please let me know what you think!

Fifty.Fifty.Me/Life Update

I've been a very busy woman as of late with my fifty.fifty.me challenge.  First off, I finally started to watch a few new movies.  I had a boatload of ironing to do so I parked myself in front of the TV and turned on Netflix.  Today I watched Season of the Witch, Tangled, and Carriers.  Tangled was cute, Carriers was a little boring and Season of the Witch was okay but not great.  

On the book front I've read the first two Hunger Games novels by Suzanne Collins- Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Talk about warped!  They were really good though so I highly recommend reading them.  I've also been reading a few of the paranormal romances that I enjoy.  Here's the list: Alterant by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love, Immortal Rider by Larissa Ione, Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Legacy by Jeanne C. Stern, and Crescent Moon by Lori Handeland.  I'm also starting to read Dark Prince by Christine Feehan- I'll be finished with it by tomorrow so I'm going to count it now as well.

All of this brings my total to 3 movies and 9 books.  I wish I could count all of the books that I've been rereading.  I'd been done if that was the case!

On the food side of things, I spent some time baking peanut butter cookies today- yum!  I also made pork and potato meatloaf, spicy sauteed celery and jeweled rice for dinner tonight.  If you want to know any of the recipes, just let me know!

As for crafting, I'm inching closer and closer to opening up my store online. I've taken pictures of four card sets and two washer necklaces.  I'm almost finished with five felt flower pins.  Then there's the fabric.  I had to wash and iron some black fabric for my three stained glass wall hangings.  I figured that while I was at it, I should go ahead and take care of a bunch of the fabric I had just sitting in a pile.  So between yesterday and today, I ironed around 100 yards of fabric!  My arm and back are quite sore.  I'm hoping to work on the wall hanging tomorrow and will post pictures when I'm finished.  

One last note.  I sent in a picture of my kitten man, Cody to a group I belong to on FB- C.A.A. Cat Addicts Anoy-mouse .  They come up with cute captions in 'cat English' for cat photos and post them to their page.  Cody's picture was selected today!  You can see it by going to their wall photos album.  He's the beautiful orange tabby sitting on his empty bag of food.  I sent them a couple of other pictures of him so maybe they'll pick another one sometime.  That's about it so I'll post again another time!

A fun day out!

I had such a great day today!  Back at the beginning of January a new Hobby Lobby opened up about an hour from me in Altoona, PA.  I finally made it over there today and had so much fun.  Two of the ladies from work went with me- Tamara and Deb.  Both of them craft, so it was entertaining to shop with people that had the same interests as me.  That's not to say that I don't like shopping with my husband but let's face it, it's not the same thing.  I can get all excited about a craft product and Jim just doesn't know what in the world I'm talking about.  Then again, I get the same look on my face when we walk into a music store and he starts going on about the different amps, basses, etc.  So back to today- the Hobby Lobby followed by A.C. Moore (and I really, really miss having one of those five minutes away).  I'd post pictures of everything that I bought but honestly I don't want to take the time to photograph all of it!  Therefore, you'll get to see some of the finished products later on.  I will however tell you what all I got (and what a haul!).  Ready?  A pamphlet on advanced chain maille techniques,  a set of 5 snap-lock mini storage totes, two small green baskets, about 30 sheets of patterned paper, a Seweasy stitch piercer tool by 'We R Memories', an extra stitch component for the tool, a Tombow glue pen, two packages of flat front earwires, two different kinds of pendant bails, a package of large Valentine bags with a vintage design, a few sheets of felt, a starry embossing folder, a set of Tim Holtz clear stamps, two sets of mini clear stamps (featuring a little boy, little girl, a puppy, and birthday things), a paper stack called 'Farm Fresh' (so excited to use this paper) and a stamp set by TPC Studio that has different seed packs and a couple of veggies (and will be super cute with the farm paper).  I also picked up a couple of skeins of yarn to mail back to my mom in DE.  How's that for a haul at the craft store?  I've got the room cleaned up so I'm going to clean the desk off real quick and whip up some cards.  I just can't wait until tomorrow to work on them!

Christmas gifts...

I'm just the posting queen tonight!  One last post before I call it a night.  Now that Christmas has been over for a few weeks, I thought I would share some of the gifts that I made this year.  I've been making all (or almost all) of my gifts for several years now.  I think that there's something special about receiving a handmade gift as opposed to something just picked up in a store.  So here are a few things that I made this year.

This is a kitchen set that I made for my sister Donna.  I used an old tin for the canister.  I then modpodged all over it and covered it in fabric.  I printed the label out from the computer and then hand cut it.  I inked all of the edges and the coated it in a layer of embossing powder to help prevent the ink from running if it were to get splashed with water.  I also made two pot holders because everybody can use a pot holder or two!

Donna also got this fun apron.  I was really tempted to keep this for myself- I just love batiks!  The reverse is actually the checkered cherry print that used for the canister and pot holders.

I made Grandma this purse.  It's really not too exciting until you learn that this is only part of the purse! 

Here's the rest of the purse!  The purse is designed so that the outside cover can be changed out.  There are magnetic snaps on the purse and on the inside of each cover to hold the cover onto the purse.  And there's a flap that comes down from the top of the purse to hide the top of the cover. 

Mom got this purse.  It was a McCall's pattern that she picked out from my stash of patterns.  I found the main fabric with the dots in the red tag section at the Jo-Ann's that I work at.  I then found the other four fabrics to play off of the first one.  You can't see fabric number four at all because it's the lining for the purse but I can tell you that it's a black tone on tone.

My other sister Mary and her husband Carl got four pillow covers to fit 16 inch pillow forms for their couch.  I could have sworn that I took a picture but I can't seem to figure out what happened to it.  They also wanted hand-knit wool socks.  Problem with that is that I don't really know how to knit.  I have a sock loom but it's taken me weeks to get almost two inches done of it.  So Jim went out and picked up some really warm wool socks from Gander Mountain.

So there you have it.  Some of the gifts that I made this year.  Hope you liked seeing them.  I'm actually still working on one gift- my uncle wanted a pen and ink drawing of his cat, Emma.  I'll post a picture of that when I manage to get it done.  Good thing he's patient about it!  :)  Tomorrow I'll post some of the cards that I made for Christmas.

New Project!