Making a Snow Globe for Jim

Hello!

I wanted to take some better photos to show you, but my day yesterday was another disaster day and so I forgot and now it is Monday morning and time to post. Life certainly does become complicated. Hopefully things will turn around here soon - one can keep hoping! :<)

My oldest son Jim lives in an adult group home and he collects many things! :<) Animated stuffed toys is the big one - and this is the time of the year when he is happily showing me all of the Holiday character ones that are on now on display wherever we go. But second in line are the snow globes and he is fascinated by them, especially if they are also music boxes. So I when I saw these empty snow globes at Michaels ($8.99 - but I had my 40% off coupon!) that had a place in the middle of the globe where an insert could be placed I was very excited! I could make Jim a snow globe! What a great present that would be!

First I had to decide the size of the insert, including the two ends and two sides - which I cut out of white cardstock. Then I sketched out a winter scene onto the cardstock, stamped the images, colored them with chalk and markers and added some Liquid Applique 'snow'. I also added some SU Dazzling Diamonds glitter all over the entire piece of cardstock. It doesn't show up on the photo well but it makes the scene sparkle like a cold winter day. :<)

I glued the ends of the cardstock together to form a cylinder shape and inserted the finished cardstock into the center of the snow globe.

And - there it was! A finished snow globe!

I didn't take a lot of time with this one and so it is nothing fancy, but it looks great when the globe is shook and the snow is swirling around. I took some photos of it with the snow swirling, but I realized in looking at the finished photos that some of the 'snow' particles were colored, which didn't show at first to the naked eye - not mine anyway :<) - but when caught in the photo it showed the colored particles and was very distracting.

It doesn't play music, but it will make Jim happy, I am sure. He thinks his mom is a great artist anyway and so this will certainly up my image! :<) I am going to make another one and will take more time and effort in creating the image on the insert. This was great fun to make - try it! It would make a great Christmas gift for either a child or an adult. Let me know if you do and how it turned out! :<)

Thanks for stopping by today! Wishing you a good Monday! I have had numerous requests, so I will try to have a tutorial on making the Book of Tags for you tomorrow. :<) This project is also a good one to give as a gift!

Barbara Diane

Starting My Christmas Cards

Hello!

Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is over and now we start creating and sharing Christmas cards and projects! :<) My favorite time of the year! I love the colors, the music, the food, the decorations, the scents and smells of cinnamon/cranberry/pine - all of it! So here's to a great holiday season! :<)

I am totally taken with the style of layouts/accessories of some bloggers using certain stamps - the Magnolia stamps and Mo's Digital Pencil come to mind (LOVE them both) - with the insides of their cards as beautiful as the outsides and many added layers and accessories. This is a technique and skill I want to learn! I thought I would start with working on the inside of my cards. :<) It takes much longer to create each card but is well worth the effort!

I am having fun looking at the many different blogs, purchasing various company stamps that I see used in cards that I like and keeping idea files. I still do like SU papers and many of their stamps and supplies but I am finding a whole new world of stamping out there!

The supplies used in making this card are:

Stamp: SU The More The Merrier
Paper: SU Merry Moments DP and Old Olive, Garden Green, Chocolate Chip and Real Red CS
Ink: SU Basic Blacl
Other: White Liquid Applique/Heat Gun, Blue Chalk/Q-Tip

Thanks for stopping by today!

See you again on Monday with a new project!

Barbara Diane

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello!

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Barbara Diane

The Guy's Turkey Card

Hello!

Yesterday I posted photos of the fun Turkey Treat Card that I made for my women friends and this is the guy's version that I then made. :<) They are little, they are cute, they have chocolate - and they really were fun to create!

So here they are - the women's and the guy's versions of the turkey treat cards. I hope you enjoyed seeing them. The people who have received the cards seem to. :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving Day a wonderful day with your families!

See you on Friday!

Barbara Diane

A Fun Little Turkey Card

Hello!

A fun little turkey with the message "Eat M & Ms" (instead of turkey) that I made to give to my women friends. Tomorrow I will have photos of the one I made for the guys. :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Barbara Diane

Book of Gift Tags

Hello!

Today I have a Book of Gift Tags to share. I am sorry to not remember where I saw this, but I will keep looking in my files and will post the source when I do. The fold looks complicated but it is easy to assemble. I used one of the SU holiday designer papers but think that this set could also be used for Valentines Day. :<) Whatever the occassion, this would make a nice gift for someone!

The closed book.

When opened you can see all the little pockets that hold the 8 individual gift tags.

Because it is quite plump when closed with all the tags inside, I made a belly band for it.


This is what the individual tags look like - I made them all the same.

Thanks for stopping by today!

I hope you liked this gift idea! :<)

Barbara Diane

"Lets Say Thanks" Program

Hello!

I try to check out my followers blogs every day to see what they are doing, and this morning I saw this on Rhonda's Place to Share blog http://bluepoohbear753.blogspot.com/ and thought it worthwhile to share with you on my blog also. The mission of "Let's Say Thanks" is to provide a way for individuals across the country to recognize U.S. troops stationed overseas. By submitting a message through this site you have the opportunity to send a free personalized postcard greeting to deployed servicemen and women.

This is the card I chose to send today. The many postcards that you can chose from - of patriotic scenes and hometown images - were selected from a pool of entries from children across the country. I love children's drawings and these are all so great that you may have to choose many!

Go to http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1024.html and click on a design of your choice and then either select a message that best expresses your sentiment or draft a personal note. The postcards are then printed and mailed in care packages by the military support organization Give2TheTroops®.

To date, more than 12,000 postcards have been mailed to our servicemen/women. Won't you take a moment to send a card - or cards - to one of our own? Check out those drawings!

Thanks for stopping by today! See you tomorrow for the start of another week of cards and things to share with you!

Barbara Diane

Sweet Treat Cup Card

Hello!

Well, I finally made one of the cup holder cards that everyone is making! I have had the supplies for some time now but keep forgetting to use them! I made a small card this time but now I am hooked as the possibilitie are endless and I will have more versions to share soon. :<)

I was reminded once again of this card when I saw a video on Dawn's Stamping Thoughts yesterday and she demonstrates how to make the little sliding door behind the plastic cups that allows the cardholder to get at the candy without destroying the back of the card. Then when the sliding door is replaced, the message on the inside is visible through the empty clear plastic cup - cute!

Visit Dawn's blog http://dawnsstampingthoughts.typepad.com/ to view her video. Thank you Dawn! I hope that you try making one of these cards as they are fun to make AND receive!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing you a great weekend! I will see you again on Monday!

Barbara Diane

Holiday Gingerbread House

Hello!

This is one of my small polymer clay Holiday Gingerbread Houses. Each stands about 5" tall and 4" wide. All the pieces are cut from the polymer clay using a pattern, baked and glued together and then decorated - just as one would with a real gingerbread house. One can't eat these, but they last for years! :<)

Thank you for stopping by today!

Our lovely sunny and warm weather that we have been enjoying seems to be gone now - with rain in it's place. Still not too cold though!

Barbara Diane

A Thanksgiving Spring Card

Hello!

Today I have a Spring Card to share.

This is a very fun card to make although it may look difficult. It folds down flat for mailing and pops up when opened. A good 'surprise' card to send to someone! There are very good instructions on the Splitcoaststampers site - love that site! You can see the tutorial here:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing you all good things!

Barbara Diane

Polka Dot Turkey - Card and Paper Punch Character

Hello!

The first paper punch turkey I created was made using one of my little sculpted polymer characters as as a model (an earlier September 8th post). This little turkey I made from what I remembered of a video I saw last year at this time and some notes I had written down on a scratch paper about how the person had made the wings of the turkey - which I thought was so creative.

It took some doing, but I found not only that video, but also the person's blog! :<) Her name is Lorita and you can find her blog and fun video at http://stampwithlorita.typepad.com/

So here is my second little turkey, standing alone and on a Thanksgiving card! I still love the way these wings are made, Lorita! :<)

To begin - using the SU scallop punch, large oval punch, small oval punch, 1/4" circle punch, 1/8" circle punch and a 8-petal flower punch (remove two petals from each flower amd save them for the 'gobbles') - cut all of the pieces shown below from CS and a DP. Then free-hand cut out the three triangles for a beak.

The body is made by folding each scallop circle in half and then glue them all together to form a ball - as when making an ornament. To make the tail, glue the smaller DP ovals to the larger CS ovals - then glue three of them to overlap and then back-to-back for each side of the tail.

For the head, glue two 1/2" circles together on a neck that is made using a SU word window punch. (Did you catch that I forgot to put those pieces in the layout above!?) :<) The two orange triangles are glued - one on each side - to the brown triangle to make a beak and inserted between the two head pieces. Glue the small black circles to the white circles for the eyes.

Those wonderful wings that I love, are made by first folding each half circle of CS in half and then each side is again folded in half to form a valley/mountain fold. Repeat with the DP half circles and then layer and glue the folded DP on top of the CS. Don't you just love them! :<) You now have all the pieces ready to assemble.

I forgot the 'gobbles' on my first turkeys - the one standing and the one on the card. Here you can see the the four petals that were removed from the flowers - these are layered to make the 'gobbles' for this turkey. They are so small that they went missing from the pieces photo!

This is how the wings are postitioned on the turkeys body - glue the two end pieces flat against the body with the mountain fold facing up. On the card, that turkey's wings fold so they lay flat for mailing and the body is made using only one scallop circle.

Here are the two finished standing turkeys - the first one without, the second one with 'the gobbles'. I also sponged brown ink on the edges of all the pieces of the first standing turkey and the one on the card. Whatever is your favorite technique! I hope that you enjoy!

Thank you for stopping by today!

P.S. I did not realize that Monday's "Mr. Kissy Face" posting had Friday's date! It really was posted on Monday morning!

Wishing you a great day!

Barbara Diane