Finished my Turkey Gourd

I just love this silly turkey! I had a great time painting him. He will make a great home decor item for the fall or Thanksgiving holiday. If you are interested in more pics just go to http://www.gourdsgaloreandmore.blogspot.com/ to see the details.

I'm off to do some scrapbooking and hopefully will get a few layouts done today :-)

TFL!

Bountiful End-of-the-Year Harvest!

WOW I certainly was blessed with a wonderful amount of tomatoes this year. My kitchen is overflowing with green, yellow and ruby red tomatoes!!! I'm so thankful to have them. Now the fun begins with washing, blanching, peeling, and canning these little goodies. I just love to make chili and spaghetti sauce with home grown tomatoes, not to mention how great they taste on a salad compared to store bought.

It's a crisp and cool day here in Michigan so I decided to start the canning process. I also make a wonderful recipe that I have inherited from my grandmother. Now we probably would consider this recipe a mild SALSA but in the olden days it was titled "Chili Sauce". It's a nice mild flavor but it has some great spices in it that just blend together so wonderfully. Boy does it make the house smell GREAT.

Have a great day everyone....off to the kitchen :-)

Darlene

Cat Layout

I loved this sketch! I had purchased this Bazzil tag a while back and couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it. On the YMBD site there are Sketch Challenges http://yourmemoriesbydesign.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1399
and this worked great with my tag. These photos are of my son's cat Newman. We took care of him over the summer while our son was relocating to another state. He's a very funny kitty and he had some wonderful expressions so I had to do a LO!

TFL

It's BOO-tiful because it's finished!

As promised...here are the final steps to completing this Halloween altered item. Thanks to The Paper Store for their original design.

The beginning steps for this project are listed in the previous blog posting :-)

Step 6: I made my own fence out of chipboard. You can also buy this fence at a local craft store if you so choose. The fence slats measure 3/8" wide by 2 1/4" tall. I just made a pattern and traced 12 slats for the front and cut them out individually. Wrap pieces of thin wire around each slat for desired effect. You can also make some slats a bit crooked for a spooky look if you prefer.

Step 7: Paint the front of each fence set (4 slats per set) and let dry. I only did one coat because I wanted to distress it and make it look old.
Step 8: I also added a bit of silver/blue metallic wax to certain areas of the fence for an aged look.
Step 9: Use your sandpaper and distress some areas so it looks weathered.
This is the final result.
Step 10: Glue your chipboard letters spelling BOO onto a patterned paper of your choice. Let dry, cut out and distress the edges with sandpaper and Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Ranger.

Step 11: Choose a scroll or flourish stamp and stamp areas of each letter with black ink.

Step 12: Cut raffia and ribbon to size (leave enough to tie a knot at each end when dry). Put glue across the BACK center line of the front 3 pieces of cardstock. Press down and then apply glue to the remaining pieces of cardstock and attach. You are basically sandwiching the raffia/ribbon between those cardstock pieces. Leave about 1/2" in between each square. Weight down with a cool iron or other heavy object and let dry.

The final arrangement should look like this. Just a reminder.....remember if you have the center pattern reversed as I did then make sure you have kept the same arrangement when you glue.

Step 13: Once your "sandwich" has totally dried, sand the edges a bit to give it a rustic look. I also tore a few top layers of the chipboard to really grunge it up. Glue your fence and any embellishments you have made onto each of the 3 sections of the FRONT of this project. I made a small pumpkin by embossing and chalking some color onto the origial stamped image. I glued him onto the center section.

The final project looks like this....

This is what I did with the back center section....

This is a closeup of the left panel.

I hope you enjoy making one of these for your home. I plan on changing the look for the Christmas holiday too. I think this can be a very versatile little project. Use it for baby, pets, birthdays or even add a few more panels to spell out a longer word.

Have a great day!

Halloween Home Decor Project

I decided to finally sit down and do a little home decor project for this Halloween season. I'm long overdue to get my creative juices flowing. I should be finished with the entire project tomorrow and I will post ALL the steps I used. Here's a peek at my start...

Step 1: Gather all your supplies. I used the following supplies for this project:

6 pieces of chipboard ( cut into 2 1/2" x 3 1/2")
White acrylic paint
Assorted stamps (Halloween theme and scrolls/flourishes)
Embossing Ink and black embossing powder
Heat Tool
Ranger Distress Ink - Vintage Photo, Frayed Burlap, Tea Dye
Pigment Ink- Black
Archival Ink - Black
14" pieces of raffia
14" piece of 3/8" black satin ribbon
Blending tool - Tim Holtz
Thin silver wire
Chipboard Letters apprpxomately 2-2 1/2" tall (1 B, 2 O's)
Pumpkin Brass Stencil
Embossing styllus and chalk
Scissors
White Picket Fence available at craft stores
(I used chipboard strips I cut and twistied wire around each picket then painted it white)
Sandpaper for distressing
Piece of brown cardstock (scrap)
Piece of scrapbook paper to cover chipboard letters
Metallic wax
Tacky Glue

Step 2: Paint the six chipboard squares with white acrylic paint. I left a few thick edges for effect.

All six chipboard pieces should look like this when dry.

Step 3: Use the blending tool and ink the edges of all the pieces with Vintage Photo ink and touches of Frayed Burlap and Tea Dye. Vary the depth of the color (some areas heavy some a bit lighter). I like to move from the outside in toward the piece instead of reverse. You get a softer look that way.

Step 4: Stamp an image on each edge of each painted and inked piece with the Vintage Photo ink. I alternated the direction of the image for the center pieces. Please refer to the last photo.



Step 5: Add a few Halloween "scary" stamps on upper edges and upper corners of a few squares with black ink. Use your creativity!



Final steps will be posted early this week :-)

Darlene

My 3-Day Slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Pretty Fall view

Since fall is my favorite season and I just completed the Michigan Breast Cancer 3-day walk I wanted to share this pretty photo with you. We had so many nice views along the 3 days of our walk that it is hard to pick a favorite photo. Some scenes were funny and some were just down right all about fall. This one made me happy as I ventured to finish my 20.3 miles for this day. Enjoy!

WOOHOO

I did it! I accomplished my goal of walking an entire 60 miles without the help of a sweep van or sag bus. I can't believe how difficult it was at times but also how much one can overcome the mental and physical exhaustion for a good cause. This is a picture at the closing ceremony where we hold up one shoe to honor the breast cancer survivors.

I plan on making a slide show of all the wonderful pics I took along this 3 day journey. Of course I have alot of great ideas for scrapbooking this topic. I need to get caught up a bit on my sleep (still have a busy little puppy keeping me awake) and then I will be doing the scrappin!

TFL eveyone...

Darlene