Outside the box Card

Here is my exchange for my One Card a Month (OCAM) group, theme was for the birds.  I wanted something different so I used a vintage french thread bobbin, cemented a bird clip to the top, used german scrap to decorate the paper, stamped it, applied rubbons and used  a glitter mixture to cover the cement.  Finally I attaced a double clip italian Clipola clip to use as a closure.  A very Euro card, not quite in the box.

Several weeks ago, I attended Art and Soul in Portland, OR.  I only took 3 classes, one in encaustic wax.  I had a general idea of what I wanted to create before I took this class.  I knew I wanted to use this clock face along with the Marie Antoinette picture to create something.  For a first attempt I am very pleased with what I made, and I truly enjoyed working with encaustic wax techniques.  I can't wait to work on more.

I have been busy so haven't been doing much lately.  I decided I needed to be forced to make things so I rejoined a group of friends Prestigious Stampers, and am commited to making one card a month (OCAM).
Here is this month's effort, a cascading card.

Merry Christmas

 Christmas arrangement I made with 66% off floral picks from Hobby Lobby.

 It's been a crazy month.  Have done a ton of baking for a charity auction at work, along with cookies for friends and co-workers.

The earrings are a christmas present I made for my sister Paula.  The center stones are ethiopian opals, the darker color stones are Maderia citrine, and the end stones are citine, along with sterling silver.
I didn't know how hard it is to work with opals since they are so soft, so I accidentally broke the drill holes off, and had to buy 2 more stones, but I am happy with how they turned out, and Paula loves them.  The opals really pick up the yellow from the citrines, and look lovely.

I have to thank the owners of Bend Beads, of Bend, OR for the lovely stones.  If you ever get the chance check out their gems, they are gorgeous.

Merry Christmas everyone.

You learn something new every day

I am not big on using acrylic paint, but do use it occasionally.  I have done exactly what it says not to do in this video, so am posing it so it's more widely available. 
http://networkedblogs.com/Rk8cq

Hopefully I will get a chance to try her technique and will post the results.

The dangers of hoarding

I have a horrible habit of purchasing things I love for crafting, then never using them.  Perhaps they are too pretty to use, or I can never think of what to use them for, but the results are way too much stuff. 
A few years ago I tried to estimate how much I had spent on stuff, and came to the conclusion it was enough to purchase a small house in suburban Detroit.
I decided to try to make some gifts without purchasing anything new.
Well I bought the shadow box and the paper, but the shadow box came from the Goodwill store, and only paid $2, so that was a bargain.

 

I liked having paper flowers along with dried botanicals and the velvet flowers.  Also used a paper punch to add the leaves and spritzed with Sheer Shimmer spritz in sparkle and frost.  It doesn't show up in the photos that well but there is such a pretty shimmer on the flowers. 

Gluten free salt carmel brownies

My sister was recently diagnoses with celiac disease, which has made her life both difficult and better.  Difficult because of all the restrictions and better because she is finally pain free after 20 years of vague symptoms.
I wanted to make her brownies, which she loves, so I was watching my fav, Ina Garten, and saw her make the Carmel Salted Brownies http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/inas-salted-caramel-brownies/116395.html.  They looked delicious, so I tried the recipe with gluten free all purpose flour.  Wow did they ever turn out yummilious.  They are very soft, when I cut them, they tended to fall apart slightly, and the edges were slightly dark at 35 minutes, so next time I will cut back a little on the baking time.
 Ina suggests using bottled carmel sauce, which lists natural flavoring as an ingredient.  This is usally malt, which is barley based (I think).  Anyways had to come up with a scratch recipe for carmel sauce.  I made this carmel sauce from Baked Bree http://bakedbree.com/caramel-sauce.  You really need to read her post, it had pictures of the carmel at every stage, and I followed it exactly and everyone loves it, including my brother-in-law, who is not big on sweets, but loves carmel.  I thought I wrecked the sauce when I added the cream, the sugar mix clumped up, but I kept stirring and it finally turned out perfect.  She says it takes 10-15 minutes, I found it was over 20 minutes, but the results were worth it.  Hope someone else tries it and lets me know how they like it.