You Made Me Ink!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

DIY Candy Corn Decor....

Hello, hello and Boo!

Welcome to day one of three for the Halloween Party Blog Hop hosted by the wonderful Lori at Chouxchoux Paper Art. For the next three days we have all kinds of fabulous tutorials, eye candy to look at and prizes to give away, so don't miss out on the fun! Okay, let's get started then with my tutorial on making fabric candy corn decor and they're cheap!

Please let me introduce you to

Cornelia The Witch, Frankencorn and Corny The Ghost

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you'll know that I found this wonderful tablecloth at The Dollar Store and have found all kinds of ways to use the material for projects. Here's yet another.

What do you make when you have a ping pong ball and a jiffy pot laying around in your craft room? Well, you make a body mold for fabric candy corns. Pffft,..duh! ;) I mean, isn't that what everyone does? LOL

Hot glue the ping pong to the pot and then cut enough fabric to drape over, tucking the extra material under the pot. You'll cut the excess off later.

With a sponge brush and fairly small amount of Mod Podge Stiffy Stuff (found this at Walmart), apply over the entire surface of the material. Next, loosely lift the material up just a a bit off the ping pong ball and then begin using your drying tool to dry the material. If you don't have a drying tool, air drying will work fine too. In the picture below you'll see that the shape holds very well once dry. At this point, you can cut the extra material off to balance the base.

Then begins the fun part of painting your candy corns.

Do you see the lumps on the candy corns face? Those are the eyes and nose that I made using a hot glue gun. Once the glue dried, I painted over them to blend. Later I'll use paints and Copic markers to color the eyes.

Here's Frankencorn waiting for his face and neck bolts to dry and below is the paper hat that I made for Cornelia The Witch. There's also a stencil I cut out on my cameo for decorating her body later.

Oh golly, here they are all finished up.

And lastly, here's Corny The Ghost with his paper glasses and chain. I thought it would be fun to make him look like he was actually scared. I made his ghost costume from the same material that I used to make the candy corn body.

There you have it!

Three inexpensive cute little candy corns all dressed up for Trick or Treating.

I'm linking these Candy Corns up to the Chouxchoux Paper Art Challenge.

I hope you've enjoyed your visit. I know I've loved having you here.

Here's the fun news:

Our gorgeous hostess, Lori Hairston, from Chouxchoux Paper Art will put names "in the hat" for every comment made. So if you'd like to be eligible to win a prize or giveaway, leave a comment on each blog each day (individual blogs may have giveaways too, you never know...so don't miss out!) to get the most chances to win!!

Winners will be announced on September 27th

Also, there's MORE FUN!!

We have an open challenge for ALL to enter. All you have to do is submit a current Halloween or Fall card or project, post about it and link it up to Chouxchoux Paper Arts Challenge #1 where you'll find the link button! All entries must be submitted by October 3rd and the winner will be randomly selected and announced on October 4th at
Chouxchoux Paper Arts.

Winner receives a $25.00 Gift Certificate from the very generous Lawn Fawn!

LASTLY, I'll be giving away a surprise here on my blog, so if you like something you see on my posts, please leave me a comment and you're eligible to win. I'll announce the winner on the 27th of September as well, here on my blog! Best of luck to you!!
Lots of ways to win, so don't miss out.

Blog List For Today:

Lisa Minckler (you are here)

Lori Hairston

and a HUGE thank you to our FABULOUS prize sponsors as well:

The Funkie Junkie $25 gift certificate

The Cutting Café three free files of your choice

Lawn Fawn pillow box and peek-a-bat dies

Hugs and Happy Crafting,

Lisa xx

See you tomorrow for day 2....

Thursday, September 17, 2015

My Feng Was SO Not Shui... Until Now!

My yin couldn't even stand to look at my yang and it had been that way for over a year in my craft room. Sure, I'd craft in here, but I never really felt it was cozy or "me." Then, one fine day, Regina from The Cutting Cafe, assigned this set to use for an upcoming project and OMG...happy dance, my entire craft room came together. Crazy how one piece can bring harmony and I'm so happy it did! First I'll share this awesome holder and then I'll share my happy crafty place.

File Folder Box Holder

I love the rustic country, antique, metal, crackled look, so that's exactly what I set out to make with this cut file. It started with a roll of metal tape. After the outside pieces were cut on my silhouette cameo with standard white cardstock, I covered them with tape. The inside pieces of this holder were simply embossed, painted, distressed and sanded. I wanted to achieve three distinct looks in one.

Here's a close-up so you can see the faux metal on the outside. I achieved this by painting gray paint directly over the metal tape. Secondly, I randomly blotched with rust, cream and black paints until the patina I liked was achieved. A little sanding with a nail file was done too.

The third look is the rustic country, so I used sheet music to fit that bill!

An old wire was twisted and attached to make the perfect hanger for all three holders.

This file even come with labels. I kept my titles fairly general...

And here it is with the tab dividers as well.

I had so much fun with this file and thanks to this piece, I now have a wonderful craft room that fits my style just perfectly.

And now, welcome to my craftroom aka tiniest bedroom, where things now make sense and the muse is happy!

I should explain first, I'm a ~~hoarder~~ collector of things hand-me-down, thrift stored, abandoned on the side of the road, and cheap. Now, that's all good and well, but the problem was trying to get it all to mesh and feel like a craft space that worked in the tiniest bedroom of the house and feel cozy. And by cozy, I don't mean cramped...

So here's what I did. If it was ugly but functional, it got painted. If it had cutesy on it, it got sanded off, if it was just a cool piece, it found a purpose.

The ladder was a yard sale find for cheap and I painted it black (it was hunter green before). The tins sitting on it were from the Dollar Store and were silver with flowers etched in. I took a hand sander to them and sanded off the painted flowers and then painted them white and made my own stencils to label them. They say "This & That" "Wingdings" "Good Stuff" and "What Nots" now. The night stand that is under the ladder was from eons ago and that was also green (what's with the green?) and as you can see, I've painted it black and added new hardware. The piece holding various rolls of paper and wrapping is our old mailbox. The antique cabinet is the very special hand-me-down from my mom.

Now looking to the left a little more, here's my desk.

Sitting on the top shelf of my desk, next to my basket of materials holder, is that precious and inspiring folder holder from The Cutting Cafe.

YEAH, feng shui at last!!

The desk against the wall I found at the Salvation Army (Which I just typed incorrectly as Salivation; even though I did salivate when I saw they only wanted $10 for it.) I

I LOOOVE the big huge corner desks that you see in ads, but I couldn't justify spending all that money if I already had a desk and a table, SO, I somehow managed to corner it fairly well and now I have double the work space.

And turning to the left side of the room.

The black armoire (which used to be...can you guess the color? Yep, green) and the cream cubicle piece that I found on the street one trash day. The container holding my ink pads is an old cassette holder and then just some fun stuff that the kids made me and things that make me happy to decorate with.

The closet

Plastic shoe organizer on the inside of the right door is a great way to hold your cards when you need a place to store them.

And that's that... my hodgepodge studio.

I've just loved having you in my craft room for a visit. I hope you've enjoyed yourself.

All DT projects are posted at The Cutting Cafe Blog on the 7th and 21st of each month. We'd love for you to visit and be sure to leave a comment for Regina. She selects one lucky person to receive 3 FREE files of their choice!

Hugs and Happy Organizing,

Lisa x

Friday, September 4, 2015

Got Milk-Chocolate?....

What's cute, fun and filled with chocolate? For once, it's not the perfect description of me...Ha!...it's these adorable Plain Milk Cartons from The Cutting Cafe!

And what else did I use from her fabulous store? Well, let's see...

Coffee Cup Holder Set, Acorn Shaped Card, and Pumpkin Shaped Card,

I'd also like to say thank you for all the incredibly touching comments that were left on my last post regarding Alzheimer's. I appreciated every single one of them and now I'm so happy you've come back for another visit.

Big big hugs to you and happy crafting!!

Lisa x
also, Coming Soon....

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Let There Be Hope, Light, Love and Understanding....

For those we love....

When I saw this image below, it clearly spoke to me and I wanted to CASE the idea onto a canvas. Thank you to the fabulous artist who created this image and gave me inspiration.

I started by making my own canvas with paper and then covering it with a piece of material that I cut from a table cloth, purchased at the Dollar Store. I'll probably have enough material to make 40 more canvases, at least. Very inexpensive and handy!

The focal point of the entire canvas is this tiny purple ribbon. See how the pixie dust falls from it, and far beneath, in the depths of the darkness, there grows two purple flowers. Simon Says Wednesday challenge is all about Tie It Up and I felt this worked perfectly.

I wanted to add this canvas to several other challenges as well and Frilly and Funkie are all about Things With Wings. My original wings were very colorful and that didn't fit the color scheme, so I painted over them with yellow and then highlighted with copics in oranges. The veins were then hand drawn and added to the Silhouette fairy.

This close up is to show that I tried to capture the texture and feeling from the mood board at Anything But Cute where their theme is Making Magic, and certainly wouldn't finding a cure be magical!

For those researching, hoping, praying and giving....

I would like for this text to apply to the challenge at Mixed Media Monthly for the theme of Get Texty.

Again, the final canvas.

For more information, click here.

Thank you so much for your visit.

Your time and words are appreciated more than you can know.

Biggest of hugs and happy crafting to you,

Lisa xx

"Spool-tide" Greetings....

If Mother Nature can be fickle and blatantly indecisive, then I figure so can my crafting! Which is why last week I had the best time with Inner tube Birdbrain here and now this week, I'm loving Candy Cane for Snowman. Yesterday was blistering and humid and today is cool and rainy; but it matters not because inside my craftroom, it looks like Christmas!

I wanted to make a shaker that was mounted on a straw that stood within a spool, but I had no spools. Sure, I could have run to the corner flea market, but thought it would be fun to make my own from paper.

A few other shapes I cut on my Silhouette and either glittered, distressed or colored them.

And here's my completed project for From The Heart's Digital Stamp of the Month Challenge for August.

Thanks so much for the visit and big hugs to you all!

I'm off to fry some pickles...yum!!

Lisa xx

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Take Time To Say It...

Need to journal a special event in your life? Wish you had a cute little "love note" to surprise your main squeeze with? Just want to tell someone your thinking of them or thank you? Then The Cutting Cafe can help! Here is the the file I used, Mini Note Pad and Card Set, and here's how I made mine.

Print it out....