Sassy & Sweet Notes

A New Chicken Placemat

Mom and I got crafty again last night and made this fun table chicken. Mom gave recommendations on assembly and I did all the sewing. We used various pieces of fabric from my stash and used a chicken placemat that my Mom made in the early 1980's as a pattern for the project.

I don't always use big table cloths that cover the entire table, but I do like having something in the center of my round table. Something roughly the size of a placemat works great, and it's a nice place to keep the salt and pepper.

My Mom thought it was funny that I use one of the original chickens on my table. While the original chicken is still in great shape and works well on the table, having an updated version is fun!

The hen is really meant to be a placemat at each table setting, but we only made one. For now. *grin*

I could have seasonal chickens! Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter .... Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter .... oooooh, FUN!

Cupcake Pincushions

Mom and I decided to be crafty this weekend. It was a way to beat the heat! We ended up making 22 cupcake pincushions! Mom saw a similar project in a magazine and thought it would be fun to whip up a few of our own. Of course, between the two of us we don't really "need" 22 cupcake pincushions, so I'm sure we'll be giving cupcake pincushions as gifts now and then. Aren't they fun!!

For the base of the cupcakes, we used silicone baking cups (found at Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Target, Michael's, etc). We cut 8" circles out of various fabrics and created little poly-fiber filled balls for the tops of the cupcakes.

We quickly learned that adhesives wouldn't stick to the baking cups. Not hot glue, not craft glue, not even E6000! We ended up using very small tack nails and pieces of round oak branches that Alan and my Dad cut for us to help with the assembly of the cupcakes. Each cupcake has one small nail that goes up through the bottom of the baking cup and into a piece of oak round. Once secured in place, the wood gave us something to adhere the poly-fiber filled tops to, and also added a bit of weight to the bottom of the baking cup so they weren't top heavy. Once we had the poly-fiber filled tops adhered to the baking cups, it was time to decorate! We used various ribbons, trims, buttons, and pom-poms to decorate each cupcake.

It was a very fun project and I think we've got some pretty cute little pincushions! Thanks for the fun, Mom! And thanks to Alan and Dad for being our woodshop boys!

Egg Box Gift Tag

Living on a small farm and raising chickens, it's not uncommon to have a few dozen eggs stacked up in the fridge. On more than one occasion, I've even given some of our fresh eggs as little "thank you" gifts to local friends and neighbors.

I thought it would be nice to dress up a carton with a gift tag. I used an image from the recently released Homemade Images & Journal Notes booklet from Crafty Secrets.

I stitched around the edges, and stamped a flourish from one of the Clear Art Stamps (also from Crafty Secrets) onto the base of the tag. I added some hemp twine and coordinating buttons for embellishment.

The carton is one of the new paper pulp recyclable egg cartons we use when we sell eggs. It's filled with big brown farm fresh eggs!

Valentine Journals for Kids!

When I was a kid (and still now as a taller kid) I liked getting things for Valentine's Day that wasn't just candy. The candy was great too, but I liked the crafts I made, and the trinkets I was given as gifts.

I made these "great for kids" journals for a craft sale that never happened. Now seems like a good time to get them out of the house, just in time for Valentine's Day! They're still wrapped in the clear cellophane packages, ready for the sale that was canceled.

I've posted 9 different eBay listings for journals, all similar to this one (the images on the front vary). The auctions are only 1 day long so that I can get them shipped as quickly as possible this week.

The journals are 4x6 inches and have lined pages (I'm not sure how many pages, but there's a bunch!).

View the auctions at the top of this eBay listing page (top 9 listings).

I want them to make some kids happy this Valentine's!

Candy Jars with Posies

Last night I made more sweet candy jars using my Posies for You set. (You can see my first candy jar here.)

I think these jars are fun filled with colorful candies, and are a sweet *grin* way to say thank you.

I used red sticky tape to adhere the ribbon around the jar lid. I used another small piece of red sticky tape to adhere the button. The thread on the buttons isn't really thread at all, but a narrow strip of cardstock. This is one of my favorite tricks!

I used Spellbinder circle and scalloped circle dies to cut the shapes for the lids. The varying sizes of dies makes it a snap to put these together. It took longer to choose the colors I wanted to use!

Have you made a card or project using Posies for You? Share! Post a comment on this thread with a link to your project, and let us see your pretty posies!

Treats & Posies

It was so hard keeping Posies for You a secret. I didn't do a very good job keeping it hush-hush considering I've posted several sneak peeks here on my blog! *snicker* But that's fun for me, so I'll probably continue to do that with each newly released set.

Now that you know, and I know, and WE know the set is released I can show you what I've been up to these days - weeks - months!

I really enjoy making little treat gift items, and the stores are FULL of colorful seasonal treats right now. I picked up some little jelly canning jars and candies and put together a little thank you gift for a friend. (FYI: You can fill two of these little jelly jars with one bag of M&M Valentine candies.)

I used my Spellbinder dies to cut the circles for the top of the jar and the squares on the card. I colored the flower with Prismacolor markers. This is a project I would put in the "easy peasy" category. The hardest part was choosing which flower to use.

Since I couldn't narrow it down to one flower, I created another treat package using the double rose on the tag. I found this Valentine "take out" box at Target. It holds almost an entire bag of Gobstopper Heart Breaker candies.

I used Spellbinder dies to create the tag. I colored the image with Prismacolor markers, and added a bit of fine glitter for LOTS of sparkle! Some pretty ribbon, and another project for the "easy peasy" file.

I'd better get these little gifts in the mail before the Valentine holiday passes me by!

Gnome Happy Winter

First of all, THANK you for all of your kind congrats on our engagement. We really are quite overwhelmed by all of your comments and happy wishes. Thank you!

I have been very busy with all kinds of secret things ('tis the season...), so I pulled this little cutie from my project stash to share today.

I participated in a little secret holiday gift giving fun recently, and this was one of the items I packaged up and sent to my friend. I found really small composition books at Target, perfect for tossing in a purse. I think this one is about 3x4 inches, or so.

I covered the cover with K&Company paper and stamped the flourish from the Stampin' Up set called Priceless in the corner. The gnome is from Stampendous, and Happy Winter is from A Muse. I colored the gnome with markers and added some Stardust Stickles for sparkle.

I think projects like this are fun to make and fun to receive. Good thing I picked up a few "extra" note books for future use!

Challenge with Julia: Goody Wrap

It was late October when my friend Julia and I decided to occasionally challenge each other to various themed projects. For this challenge we chose the idea of a goody wrap - some kind of a treat that could be given as a gift.

The idea of wrapping up chocolates is very popular this season, but I wanted to do something different than chocolates (although this jar could easily be filled with dark delectables!) I've had the idea of giving Friendship Tea to some of my friends, so this was the perfect excuse to get started with my gifts!

Friendship Tea (sometimes called Russian Tea or Spiced Tea) is a nice combination of tea, citrus and spice. It makes me think of cozy nights by a fireplace. Of course, I'll drink it day or night - yumm! This recipe is the closest to mine I've seen.

I used paper from the relatively new series of Cosmo Cricket paper called Gretel. I liked the warm colors of the paper combined with the colors of the tea. The snowman stamp on the front is from a Stampin' Up set called Merry & Bright. I stamped him on the backside of the designer paper and colored him with colored pencils. I inked the edges a bit with Close to Cocoa ink to warm them up a bit.

I chose to use hemp cording and rustic colored buttons for accents. I think they work well with the warm, homemade look of this project.

Once I decided what I wanted to do, this project came together fairly quickly. Now I just need to get busy and finish all of the other jars!

Be sure to check out Julia's challenge project on her blog Belle Papier. If you missed my first challenge with Julia, you can see it here: Rust & Sage

Thanks for the fun Julia! Can't wait to see what our next challenge will be!

Blogger's Challenge Friday: Ornament + Blog Candy!

I'm a few days late for this post, but I wanted to get this posted before I got even MORE behind! (I'm busy working through my project list after being gone for a week!)

Last Friday's Blogger's Challenge theme was Ornament. A fun theme, and I didn't want to miss out! For my project I created this chipboard holiday ornament. It's kind of retro looking with the colors being red and turquoise. I have a die cut of the ornament shape that works GREAT for cutting out chipboard shapes and I used some of my other die cuts for the flower shapes to give the ornament some design and dimension.

I've had my Big Shot for almost a year, but because it's something I have to get out to use (it's not just out all of the time) I don't find myself reaching for it very often. I'm always thrilled with the results of my projects when I do use it, so I'm going to TRY and use it more often.

I've found that I really like the process of die cutting when I have patterned paper adhered to the chipboard before it's die cut. I like how the cutting process presses the patterned paper onto the chipboard, making it look like it's actually part of the chipboard. It slightly rounds the edges, and I like that finished look.

For this project, I adhered red designer paper to my chipboard, placed the covered chipboard into the machine with the die and cut out the red ornament shape. Then I adhered some blue designer paper to a scrap piece of chipboard, and cutout just the top portion of the ornament so I could layer the two together on my finished project. I did the same technique for the flower shapes -- adhering the paper to the chipboard before the cuts where made. Once I had all of my shapes cut, I inked the edges with coordinating inks and glued them to the ornament. I applied a layer of Glossy Accents to the large red area to make the ornament shine like glass. The blue topper and flowers are covered with a layer of Crackle Accents which makes the ornament look like cracked aged glass. While the clear layers were still wet, I sprinkled on some ultra fine glitter for lots of sparkle!

This would be a fun project to turn into a greeting card gift. The ornament could be added to the front of a card and then removed and hung on a tree. Or, it would make a great gift tag too!

Blog Candy: Sooo... how would you like to receive a dozen plain chipboard ornament cutouts from me? You'll be able to cover them with patterned paper, paint them, or alter them in any way. Use them for gift tags, cards, or ornaments for your own tree. I've cut a dozen plain chipboard ornament shapes for one lucky person! If you'd like to be considered for the drawing, leave me a comment on this post. Be sure you leave your name! On WEDNESDAY at NOON Central time I'll randomly select one lucky person to send the chipboard shapes to! And you never know... you might get a little something EXTRA from me in your package, too!

After you leave your comment, don't forget to check out the other Blogger's Challenge Friday posts! I already know there are AMAZING projects to be seen!! You'll find a list to all of the Blogger's Challenge sits on the right side of my blog -- scroll down. You'll see it!

Edited to Add: The ornament die I used is an Ellison Thick Cuts die called Christmas Ornament.

Skater's Pond

How exciting it is to share another one of my recent Thomas Kinkade Cornish Heritage Farms projects using an image from their upcoming release! I created this gift box using the soon-to-be-released Skater's Pond Vignette image.

I stamped the image with Black Stazon on white cardstock and colored the image with alcohol markers. I used a black marker to deepen the areas I wanted really black. I added some Stardust Stickles for lots of sparkle!

I mounted the colored image on a chipboard tag that I covered with a rich cranberry colored cardstock stamped with Leaves #3 background stamp (also from CHF).

The woodenbox is from one of the local craft stores. I covered it with some chocolate colored cardstock stamped with the same background stamp. I added faux stitching around the edges of the box and tag, and tied some chunky May Arts brown grosgrain ribbon & cranberry colored organza around the box.

This will be the perfect gift box for a friend this holiday season. I should make more of them!