SNOWMAN TAG

Don't know if any of you follow Tim Holtz's 12 Days of Christmas Tags every year, but if not, you should take a look at them. Every year Tim creates the most fantastic tags. This was my take on his snowman tag. I didn't have the supplies he used so I improvised.

I started with a 5 1/4 x 2 5/8 white tag. Using the direct to paper method I applied Adirondack cloudy blue and stonewashed blue dye ink pads. The large background snowflake (Posh) was stamped with white pigment ink. The pinecones (Christmas Posh cube stamp by Judikins) were stamped with clear embossing ink on brown cardstock and embossed with brown powder and cut out and glued to the top of the tag. The pine branches were punched out of green cardstock with a Martha Stewart punch and glued over the pine cones. Rock Candy Distress Stickles was applied to the branch and pinecones.

The snowman was cut out with my Slice Machine with I think the Fa La La cartridge. Ranger Crackle Accents was applied to the snowman and allowed to thoroughly dry. Once it was dry and cracked, Pool Adirondack Acrylic Dabber was rubbed over the entire snowman and then rubbed off with a tissue so the color remained only in the cracks. A scarf of sheer 3/8 in. ribbon was tied around the neck. A small bit of white plumage was cut from a feather and glued to the hat and a band of bling was added. D E C typeset stickers were put vertically along the left side.

A grouping of buttons was glued on the bottom left. Rock Candy Distress Stickles and crystal glitter glue was applied around the buttons and the bottom of the snowman. A large jewel snowflake was glued to the bottom ball of the snowman and two other snowflake jewels were glued to the top and middle of the tag.

Sheer white ribbon and specialty yarn were tied through the tag hole to finish it.

PEWTER FLORAL NECKLACE

After an October of my son's wedding, a freak snowstorm and cleanup and allergies from hell, I've finally had a chance to drag out my melting pot again. I'm supposed to be making gifts, but this set went straight into my jewelry box.

While in Arizona for my son's wedding, I stopped at a bead store and found some wonderful lucite flowers in all different styles and sizes. I used my trusty mold n pour to make molds of some of them. All the flowers on the necklace and earrings are UTEE. I used platinum UTEE and silver rub n buff to get the pewter effect. The flowers were then glued to silver filigree pieces I had and blinged up. Instead of stringing a beaded necklace, I went the chain route. The hardest thing about making necklaces with UTEE pieces is attempting to part with them.

ANOTHER FLOURITE NECKLACE

I have a huge collection of molded UTEE pieces that are just waiting to be made into something. Everytime I use my melting pot I always mold extra pieces. Dug through my stash on Friday and came up with this necklace. The focal leaf and two flowers are UTEE and the chips are real rainbow flourite.

INCHIE NECKLACE

Ever wonder what to do with an inchie, those little one inch square works of art that people are talking about? You could incorporate them into your cardmaking or scrapbooking but you all know how crazed I am about jewelry so it's only natural that I would turn an inchie into a necklace. For this project you will need:

1 18 inch silver chain with toggle clasp

1 1 x 1 memory frame with loops (Ranger Memory Frames)

2 1 x 1 pieces of memory glass (Ranger)

1 1 1/4 inch silver head pin

1 silver jump ring

2 small round silver beads

1 blue glass bead

round nose pliers

chain nose pliers

1 inchie (My inchie was made by Judi from Judi-Kins)

Remove the split rings from the memory frame.

Take your inchie and sandwich it between the two pieces of memory glass and insert into memory frame.

Attach the jump ring to the top loop of the frame and attach frame to the center of the chain.

Place a small silver bead, the blue glass bead and the other silver bead on the head pin. Make a loop and attach to the bottom loop of the memory frame.

Your necklace is finished.

Pot Luck Pendant

Most of the time when playing with my melting pot, the results are just dumb luck. Such as the case with this pendant. The look I was trying to achieve just wasn't happening. I kept throwing embossing powders in and the mess in the pot was just looking uglier and uglier. I poured a couple of pendants anyway and after awhile the ugly colors started to grow on me. I even managed to find some beads that would match and now I actually like the finished necklace. Moral of the story, no matter how crappy you think the stuff in your melting pot looks, you can always throw in a few more colors and still get something salvagable.

Hurrican Irene

Although my house came through Irene intact and not too wet, a lot a places in Cranford are now under water. Here's some of the flooding within walking distance of my house.

UTEE PENDANT

It's always fun trying to mix embossing powders to match beads. Even if everything looks good in the melting pot, you can't guarantee that it's going to pour out nice. I lucked out with this pendant. It was a perfect match for the beads.

QUICK CARD

Need to make a card in a hurry? Don't have time to color in a stamped image? Go with black and one color to make an elegant card. I used a purple base card. Using an embossing ink pad, I stamped a large floral background stamp on black card stock and embossed with purple embossing powder. Next I cut a scalloped circle out of purple card stock with a Spellbinder's die and stamped the Chinese design with black ink. Punched the base card and floral panel with a corner punch and adhered a purple ribbons across the center of the floral panel and then stuck everything together. Took all of 15 minutes, if that long.

BEACH STONE PENDANT

Happiness is a vacation in Maine. I love the sea air on the coast and the pine and cedar smell of the inland forests. Last week on a trip to Maine, I picked up some flat stones on the beach. I didn't go in the water though because 55 degrees is a little too chilly for me.

To make the pendant, I washed off one of the stones and let it dry. I stamped the image with gold pigment ink and embossed in gold. I added some color with Twinkling H2O's. Stuck on a few jewels and a necklace bail. Sealed the whole pendant with Diamond Glaze. Found some matching beads and strung the necklace.

UTEE SHELL PENDANT

Played with my melting pot yesterday and poured a lot of stuff in gold. One of my favorite molds is of a shell that I made using a real shell. After popping the shell out of the mold, I brushed it with gold Perfect Pearls, attached a self stick strip of pearls and rhinestones diagonally across the front and then sealed it with Diamond Glaze. Attached a large gold bail to the back. Ran three wires through the bail and then strung about three inces of white pearls, gold potato pearls and clear and silver lined clear size 6 seed bead on each wire. After the three inches I put all three wires through a gold metal bead and repeated those steps two more times. Ended the necklace by putting all three wires through 12 alternating gold metal beads and silver lined 6 seed beads. Pulled the wires tight before attaching the clasp and crimping.

CARNAGATE

This crazy mad crafting scientist has been cackling over her melting pot tossing in radom embossing powders to see what she comes up with. No gold or silver or precious metals, but I did come up with a cool color that's a cross between carnelian and red agate, so I'm calling it carnagate. I don't even remember what I tossed in the mix, but I know I started with clear and red UTEE and some orange To Dye For. Sprinkled in some white, pearl, black and copper UTEE and some brown regular embossing powder. Some pieces came out a really scary color and got tossed back in the pot. These pieces came out the best, the rose being my favorite. Well, it's back to the lab, er I mean kitchen, to see what other gemstones I can invent.

Stamped Polymer Clay Necklace

I had to make six necklaces for a jewelry swap and this is what I came up with. I started with black polymer clay and rolled it out to about a 1/8 inch thickness. I used a cookie cutter to cut out heart shapes and a round straw stirrer to cut out holes on either side on the top of the heart. I stamped the hearts on the left side with a Posh Asian floral stamp and Stampin' Up white pigment ink. I then baked the hearts in my melting pot. After cooling I added self stick diamond jewels on the right side of the heart and self stick pearls to the branch on the image. I squirted on some Diamond Glaze and spread it around with my fingers over the entire front of the heart including the bling. The sides and back of the heart with brushed with clear nail polish. I used white tube beads, clear silverlined #6 seed beads, gray pearls and black chips to bead the necklace and finished it with a teapot and spoon toggle clasp.

POLISHED STONE KIMONO

I used the polished stone technique for an April swap I was in but I didn't want to do a background as usual. My polished stone was made using Ranger Alcohol Inks in red pepper, cranberry and butterscotch. I put drops of those three colors on my applicator and pounced them all over semi-gloss paper. Next, on the same applicator felt, I put a few drops of gold mixative and squirted on some blending solution and did some more pouncing here and there. I then dug out my favorite kimono stamp by Judikins and stamped the kimono with black permanent ink and cut out. Used sparkly red card stock for the base card, layered on a piece of black cardstock and a torn piece of a Japanese magazine, affixed the kimono to the magazine piece and added some Asian symbols.

Heart Tile Bracelet

While looking through a box of embellishments, I came across a bunch of small ceramic heart tiles that I bought many many moons ago. Also found a bag of brass pieces that are just as old. I first sealed the brass pieces with clear nail polish and then joined them together with jump rings and put a magnetic clasp on the ends. I then stamped the hearts with gold pigment ink and embossed with detail gold powder. Stuck on some pink jewels and then sealed with Diamond Glaze spread with my finger. The sides of the heart tiles was finished off with a gold paint pen. All stamps by Posh.

ANTIQUE UTEE NECKLACE II

Same frame, same stamp, done the same way, different colors.

ANTIQUE UTEE NECKLACE

Back to my favorite hobby, making jewelry with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). I learned this technique from the Queen of UTEE, Suze Weinberg.

I used an oval antique silver ornate frame by Tim Holtz and laid it face down over two flowers on a Posh fan stamp. I melted clear UTEE in my melting pot with a little purple To Dye For. To Dye For doesn't come in purple so I mixed red and blue together on a jar lid with a toothpick to make purple, then I swirled the toothpick through the melted clear so I basically had clear with swirls of purple through it. I then poured the UTEE into the frame on the stamp and let it harden. Popped the UTEE piece out, colored the raised design with Smooch inks, let them dry and with my finger, slicked a coating of Diamond Glaze over the top to seal the piece. While the UTEE piece was still wet, I ran some Loctite glue around the inside rim of the frame and placed it on top of the UTEE piece. Let the glue and glaze dry and then did my beading.

Of course the necklace is way too fancy to wear with any of my ratty clothes so now I have to go clothes shopping.

HOW TO MAKE FAUX WASHI PAPER

If you're like me, you buy sheets of gorgeous washi paper but can't bear to cut into it or use it. While I'm trying to work up the courage to use the real stuff, I've been making my version of washi paper. You'll need a lightweight paper, I used rice paper but plain old copy paper works just as well, spray colors such as Smooch, Glimmer Mists, Color Wash or whatever you have that's in a spray bottle or make your own with water and re-inkers, an iron, stamps, perfect medium ink and white ink, perfect pearls in colors of choice.

1. Mist your paper with colors of your choice until you get the coverage you want. Let dry. When dry, iron to flatten paper.

2. Stamp whatever images you like using a perfect medium pad and apply perfect pearls in colors of your choice. If you don't have perfect pearls, stamp your images with metallic inks. Stamp accent images with white pigment ink. Of course, you can stamp your images in any type of ink you want, I just like the shimmery look of perfect pearls.

3. Use your faux washi paper as a background and decorate your card however you like.