Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Paper or Plastic?

Hi, its Sue Kithcart here helping you get ready for fall! I absolutely love pumpkins! So I suggest when they ask you in the grocery store if you want paper or plastic, I say choose Paper!

so here is my way of recycling that paper grocery bag!

so here is my way of recycling that paper grocery bag!






 so you are starting with a paper grocery bag, if you use a lunch bag it will be super small and much more fragile!


open the bottom of the bag to make it like a tube!
then twist your bag lenthwise to give it some texture. This will also make it easier for the next step.  I did not do that on mine because I simply missed doing this step. It still worked but it was difficult to do the next step.




twist the bottom of the bag and then put either a rubber band or even masking tape around it to hold it in place ( I did not have a rubber band).


Next you will turn the bag inside out so your  tape or banded bunch is on the inside.




next you will take some shredded paper or plastic grocery bags (more recycling) or pillow stuffing or even old rags and fill the bag.
I used some old curtains that were made from sheets that were hanging in our house when we bought it. Knew I saved them for some crazy reason!

Now it is time for a rubber band or wire! take the top of the bag and gather it and then use your wire or rubber band to wrap around your stem!

now get out your orange, brown and green paint!
I painted the base orange but threw in a bit of brown here and there. A sponge brush works best. Don't worry if you don't get every single spot as it just makes the pumpkin more primitive ! Then use the green to paint the stem.




Next I wrapped some wire around the base of the stem. Take a pencil and make the wire pieces coiled. I also made a leaf from the wire .  Next add some rafia or even some ribbon. The possibilities are endless!


I would love to see your pumpkins!!!!
Have a wonderful fall!

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Project UTEE

So here is a little project using my under utilized UTEE jar.  I saw this on line and though it was pretty cool.  First take you stamp, silicone work the best (there is no guarantee that it works with every stamp so be careful if you have a  favourite one that you don't want to ruin. 


Start by inking up your image, I used staz on ink and let it sit for a few minutes. 

Melt your UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Powder) in a heat pot, like this one.  Don't mix around too much or it gets bubbly and you don't want that.



Pour the UTEE over the image trying to cover it all, also trying not to pour it over the edge.  Let cool till just warm to the touch, then gently pull it off the stamp. 



And this is what you get, cool eh!  Nice image that can be used on an altered box, page, canvas etc.  Here is what I did with it.  I attached it to a mixed media canvas as the center piece. 




Definitely going to do this again!  It has a great affect.  Hope you all enjoy and share what you have made!
Love Jennifer






more butterflies...??

I googled these
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Are you taking note...butterflies!!! hehe

Happy Days
Sarah x x

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Wanna see some beautiful butterflies?

So some of you are wondering what we are up to? all im going to let you in on for the now is keep a watch out for all the beautiful butterflies that will be popping up here on the altered blog, hehe
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Happy Days
Sarah x x

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Train Tidy

Hi everyone,
I'm a bit late this week with doing my blog post and even more disorganised than I thought as the photos I had of the progress of this item are missing. So I only have photos of the finished item. Ooops!

My nephew turned 6 in August and I have been meaning to get this done since then but with an overseas trip and extreme work stress, I've only just finished today. Slack, I know! We are in different states too so that means another couple of days to get this posted down to him.

I wanted to make him something functional yet decorative for his room and love the Kaisercraft Party Animals collection. Teamed up with their train tidy, its a great fun item for any kids room.



The kaiser wood items come as flat packed raw MDF so you need a good file to get rid of unwanted tabs from the edges. I then painted the pieces in the colours I wanted, but be mindful that the wood will swell so you may need to further sand down some parts to put it back together. I then cut out pieces of paper from the Party animals collection and decorated the train accordingly. I have used a couple of kaiser wood shapes also for extra dimension and some droplets. The train sections are linked together with some album rings.

This is a great project for a kids room, to store items such as pencils, small toys or other bits and pieces. It would also be great made up in christmas colours so that you can put lollies or other goodies in there and place it on the table for a decoration.

Have a great week.

Holly xo

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Do you like butterflies??

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Something is going on....stay tuned to find out more!!!!

{{{hugs}}}
Sarah x x

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

We have FACEBOOK

We have a facebook page now for all of you that want to just put up a project but not email me with it, so much easier! you never know it might get picked for our blog!!

Here's the link. http://www.facebook.com/groups/156209674444587/#!/groups/156209674444587/

Happy Days
Sarah x x

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Hi people, its SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!

So that means i have to announce the WINNER of the july RED WHITE & BLUE challenge i know im a month behind but now we should be right on track, so without further ado, the winner, duh duh duuuuuuuuh

SCRAPPING ABBY!!!!!!!!!!!

Please email me your snail mail details you have won £25 worth of tim holtz goodies!!

So becoz i dont want to fall behind again & im going to try hard not too, kids are back to school now & there really should be no excuse what so ever just my bad, SEPTEMBER's theme for the altered blog is BACK TO SCHOOL or FALL

AND im going to spoil you now, you have to check this out, it's just so cute cute cute!!!
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My friend annika made this, i loved the minute i saw it & here is her blog, please go send her some love!! http://scrappyday.blogspot.com/

Stay tuned to win some kelly panacci prouduct's!!!

Hapy Day's
Sarah x x

Friday, 26 August 2011

A Window to my world...

Well here it is the end of August and time for my altered project! The summer has flown by for me! Our theme for August was suppose to be summer or beach and as I worked on this project, I changed my mind a few times and just as I finish it I realize it is not to summery, so I guess you will have to just realize I live in New York and summer is the month of July and then it is basically over! LOL

So here is what I did...
In the back of our garage the previous owners of our home left some old windows from where they replaced the windows in the house..
Well I did some scrubbing and cleaning and the window still looked like this..

So after scrubbing and cleaning it, I repainted the whole frame white! A word to the wise, since I was not to wise, tape off the windows or trust me cleaning the panes is not FuN!

After painting it white, I then painted right over the white with a maroon paint (I used decoart acrylic craft paints, cheap!!!)

After painting the window with the maroon, I took some sandpaper and sanded the paint off in
several places. I followed the sanding with antiquing over the maroon with watered down burnt umber paint which I applied and then gently wiped it back off leaving only small amts to give a nice rustic antique look. Then I took a satin varnish after the antiquing dried and applied that to all the painted wood to seal it.

Next I choose my photos and taped them on Scrapbook papers with double sided tape that were cut to the window sizes. Next I took the scrapbook papers and glued them in place. Then I Printed the quote of that I wanted in the center bottom window and then placed it below the window. I then took black acrylic paint and watered it down to an inky consistency and then following the printed quote paper behind the window I painted the words on to the window! Next a wire placed on the back and my Window to my world was ready to hang! I am sorry the photos are not better but I really fought the glare from the glass!


I hope you enjoyed this and please let me know if you have any questions! I would love to see what YOU do with Windows!!!!


Thursday, 18 August 2011

Fancy cyber cropping with me?

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Spread the word & tell them i sent you {pinkalishious}

Happy Dayz
Sarah x x

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Puffed Up Paper Stars

Hey everyone!! Yatie here, back with another altered project. This week I have a tutorial on how to make puffed up paper stars which you could use as embellishment for you scrapbooking layouts or other paper projects. 

Ok, first off these are the things that you will need:

1. Paper strips, patterned or otherwise (9" x 3/8")
2. Glue tape
3. Scissors
Take one strip and tie it into a knot at one end.

Try to pull it slowly and carefully to make the knot flat.

Cut off the short end 

Take the longer end and fold it over the flattened knot, following the fold of the knot
and aligning the edges. 

Keep folding it over and over until you come to the end of the strip.

Snip off any excess.

You can tuck the end into one of the folds but I choose to apply glue tape and adhere.
Easier and faster.

Now you'll have a flat folded star with 5 sides.

This is the difficult part to explain but I'll try my best. Using your fingernails, push in the
sides of the star, midway between one corner to another. 

Go around the sides and push them all towards the middle with your nails. The star
will automatically start to puff up.

You'll get a cute little star like this.

Here's a bunch of them. Cute no?


Here's a layout I did using those cute little puffed up stars.

So that's my tutorial for this week. Hope you'll try this out.

Happy crafting!!
Yatie
 xx

Sunday, 14 August 2011

Wedding Frame

Hi everyone,
This month I am back to share my latest altered project, which is a frame I created for my mother in law's birthday last week. The frame itself was one of the Kaisercraft BTP recent releases, which is a long shallow shadowbox type frame, however you could achieve the same with many different frames.

Firstly I sanded down the wood frame and painted over it in white paint, keeping the layer thin and rough, to give it a weathered look. I allowed some of the wood to show throw and sanded back the paint in other areas. I then went over the white paint in a thick coat of Helmar 2 part crackle medium. As I don't have a heat gun, I blasted it with my hair dryer to dry quicker (Naughty). This further added to the aged, vintage look of the frame.

 Using the base wood board, I worked out the placement of my photos and patterened papers by doing a bit of experimenting with the positioning of the photo windows. Once happy with the placement, stick your photos into the windows. I used double sided tape to keep it neat and tidy.
 You can then decorate your frame as you wish, using chipboard, flowers, bling or anything else you want to use. I also added some rub on sentiments to the photo windows prior to sticking the papers into the frame as it was easier to do it before than after.
 Some close ups. Once all the decorations and photos are in place, I simply used Mod podge dimensional magic to stick the base board to the frame. I weighted this overnight with bottles of paint to ensure it stuck firmly.
One negative of these particular frames are that they do not have a hanger or hook at the back, however you should be able to find something in a hardware store to do this, otherwise they look lovely sitting up on a shelf or perhaps even in a large frame stand.

Have a great week
Holly xo

Say Hi to anam stubbington

She created these pages with my minds eye paper's for the minds eye blog here http://mymindseye.typepad.com/ & have kindly let us use them for the red white & blue challenge also!!

Here is what she has created
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& here is her blog, go check her out!!
http://www.anamstubbington.typepad.com/

Thanks for looking
Sarah x x