Happy Fall!!!!!

Fall is my favorite time of year. The cooler temperatures, blue skies, colored leaves, apples and PUMPKINS!

Yesterday we headed out to the farm and bought our first pumpkins of the season! :-)

I'm sorry I haven't been here for a few weeks. My mom got sick. My parents live on the opposite side of the country so all I can do is worry, pray and spend a lot of time on the phone checking up on her. It puts a damper on my crafting spirit and decreases my crafting time....but that's ok. My primary goal right now it to get my mommy well.

But, I do have some things I made before she got sick AND a few things I have been working on the past few days. (the better she feels the more my creativity comes back) :-)

This first item I actually made a couple months ago. I just finally got around to downloading it off my camera lol

In July I started participating in virtual races because my sister wanted me to do the RockNRoll 5k in Las Vegas in November and I am totally out of shape. She convinced me to start doing virtual races to get into walking. Well, I am now not going to go to Las Vegas....saving up for a much bigger trip. But I am still doing the virtual races. It turns out that if you dangle pretty things in front of me I will actually get off my butt and exercise! lol

I have completed 7 races and am almost done with the 8th ranging in distances from 5k to 40 miles. And I have a collection of really cool medals to show for my efforts! (I will get some pictures of those for a later post)

Needing a place to display my hardware, I created this board. I used my Cricut Explore to cut vinyl to use as stencils. I added cup hooks across the bottom to hand my medals.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but my mom loves tote bags. I mean she really LOVES them. She has tons of them! lol  I have made or bought her several over the years.

When I got my Easy Press I knew I needed to make her another one.

The bag itself came from Walmart. It is one of their shopping bags. They are usually on a rack near the door and cost $4.00. They are fairly large, have a magnet closure at the top and are made of a medium weight canvas. I don't know that I could make it for less then $4.00.

I used both glitter and lite Cricut heat transfer vinyl.

The pelican/beach, turtle and crab are from the Life is a Beach cartridge.
The sun is from Disney Princesses - Believing in Dreams. I sliced it to get just a few sun rays.
The banner is from CTMH Artiste. I sliced the letters into it.
The text is various fonts from my computer fonts files.

I mailed it to my mom the day after she got sick. She loves it and is looking forward to taking it to the beach.

I had been working on Halloween cards. Those kind of got put on hold (because of my mom but also because new Christmas craft supplies arrived lol)  But here are a couple I have done.

I carved this skeleton stamp at least 30 years ago! I love him! lol
I think he plays well with this dog from Tim Holtz' mini Crazy Dogs. (although the dog seems to be playing a bit too rough lol)

I initially was inspired by this Ken's Kreations video which is why I was stamping on craft paper.
If you have never seen Ken's videos before you need to check them out. He has great tutorials and the banter between him and Sean always makes me smile (and sometimes double over laughing)

See, this doggy does not play well with others. Or maybe he takes 'playing with others' too seriously. lol
I cut a small slit in his mouth to insert the end of the bone. (when I carved the skeleton many years ago I also carved extra bones just in case... )

This next card was also inspired by another Ken's Kreations video.
Like I said, they have great tutorials and they cheer me up (which I have needed a lot lately).

I used Distress Inks for the background: Barn Door, Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw and Peacock Feathers.
And of course, one of Tim Holtz' Crazy Dogs wearing a bowler hat and sunglasses from the Crazy Things set.
The dog was colored with Spectrum Noir alcohol markers.
The Happy Halloween was stamped and then embossed with white embossing powder. I had so many different stamps out for this text....some from CTMH, some Tim Holtz and some from Diamond Press. I honestly cannot remember which one I finally used (and not in the mood to dig them all out again lol ...sorry)

So, let me preface these next cards with....I have to always be learning something new otherwise I get bored. It can be just the smallest technique or a totally new craft.

Today it is a totally new craft lol

Parchment crafting.
I have seen it before. I think we might have sold the supplies at the craft store I worked at in the 80s. It was always called Pergamano whenever I saw it. Turns out that is just a brand name that has become synonymous with the craft. (like Jello or Kleenex lol)

Anna Griffin sells parchment craft supplies on HSN (of course she does!) And on her last appearance she introduced Christmas parchment supplies. Oh My Goodness! Talk about gorgeous!

What can I say, I purchased the every day and Christmas sets. It is something I can do while watching tv unlike most of my crafting where I have to be at my art desk.

The above is from the every day set. It looks so elegant yet it is so easy to do.

Here are the links for the every day set, the Christmas set and the tool set.

I attached my vellum to card stock using brads.

Here is one of the Christmas layers. It is vines with holly. So simple yet so pretty.
Oh and look! Anna has Christmas Go Press and Foil stamps!!!

I used the new wreath and Season's Greetings stamps to make this card.
I love the Go Press and Foil machine! It had a slight learning curve but once I got that all figured out I have had perfect results every time.

The wreath is foiled in gold on dark green card stock. I then foiled just the bow in red on white card stock and used foam tape to give it some dimension.
The Season's Greetings was foiled in gold directly onto the parchment.
The parchment layer was then glued down onto dark red card stock.

Do you have a Go Press and Foil machine? Having problems getting even coverage? Check out my post where I share my tips.

Here is another Christmas card using the Go Press and Foil machine and one of the new Christmas stamps. Isn't that tree gorgeous?!

The tree was foiled in gold on dark green card stock. I then hand cut the edges with decorative scissors.
The background is cream colored Cricut Pearl paper embossed with Anna Griffin's Sleigh Bells embossing folder.

Helpful tip: to ensure that thinner papers/card stocks like the pearl paper or vellum don't tear when embossing add a second layer of card stock to the folder. I used just plain Staples 110lb white card stock. Now I have a perfect pearl layer and a spare white layer to be used in another project.

I hand tied tiny red satin bows and glued them on the tree with Aleene's Tacky glue.

Last but not least...

My brother in law had a birthday last week. Of course I made him a card.

I was in the mood to try something new. 

Last May our town had their community yard sale. The automotive repair shop participated. They had sample books of leather and vinyl upholstery for free. I grabbed a few....no clue what I might do with them but couldn't just leave them there!

So, I finally came up with an idea. Could my Cuttlebug cut through thin leather and vinyl? 
Why Yes! It could!

I used an Anna Griffin oak leaf cutting die. I ran it through twice just to be sure it cut completely. They turned out great!
The background is craft paper. I inked up Anna's Acorn Scatter embossing folder with Tea Dye Distress Ink and ran it through the Cuttlebug so that the deboss was a darker brown.

The Happy Birthday is a Diamond Press die.

See what happens when I don't pop in on a regular basis? Tons of photos! lol

Here in the Pacific Northwest autumn has definitely arrived! I hope you all will get to enjoy the season very soon too.

Thank you for stopping by and Happy Crafting!

I'm addicted to HTV and the Cricut Easy Press!!!!!

I never realized just how much fun (and how easy it was) to add vinyl images to fabric items.  I have had my Cricut Easy Press for a week now and I am totally addicted. I walk through stores thinking...I could add htv to that, or that, or that!  I am starting to worry about myself (well not really that much lol)

I have created quite a few projects in just one week.

Last week I shared my first pair of shoes.  I did not stop there!!!

I love how this pillow turned out! I took a pumpkin image in Cricut Design space then sliced a lace image (also from Design Space) into it. It created this intricate pumpkin without much work. I used Cricut glitter htv ironed onto muslin. I then used a color coordinating leaf print to make the borders. I am ready for fall!

And speaking of fall, this past Thursday the Ohio State Buckeyes had their opening game against Indiana. The first half didn't go so great and Indiana taunted and teased the Buckeyes. Not really a good idea. The Bucks came roaring back and cleaned their clocks! LOL

I made myself a pair of Buckeye shoes for the occasion. The shoes came from Walmart. They have almost a t-shirt feel to them. I then used Siser Easyweed in black and Cricut glitter in red. Aren't they cute and cost me about $6!  Try buying team logo shoes for under $50!

I seemed to have gotten on the 3D kick. lol

Hubby completed his 66 mile Route 66 race from https://yes.fit/ and I made him a hat to go with his medal. I used Cricut white htv, the black is Siser Easyweed.

It seems only fair that if he got a hat I should get one too!

Hello Kitty, butterfly and flower are all from the original Cricut Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge. Remember back in the day when Cricut cartridges cost about $80? Well this is one of them! It has been out of production for quite a while and people pay hundreds of dollars if they can find one. I am never parting with mine!!!  

Anyway, I layered htv for the first time!  It was way easier than I expected and everything adhered just fine. 

BTW you can find the blank baseball caps at Walmart for $2.97...assuming I have not gotten to the store before you! I currently have about a dozen hats sitting on my table waiting for decoration. :-)

And look...I actually made a shirt today LOL  That is normally the first thing people make. Not a project a week after they have been playing haha

This image is a single file in Cricut Design Space. Search for dragonflies - it has to be plural or you won't find it.

This is a 100% cotton Gildan shirt and Siser silver glitter htv. Again, no problems getting the htv to adhere. People in facebook keep saying there is no way the Easy Press can possible work because you don't have the extreme pressure you get with a heat press. I don't know anything about heat presses. What I do know is that the Easy Press is super easy to use and gives wonderful results every time.  I have not had a single mishap! 

And then someone asked.....can you do put htv on can koozies?

I had one in my stash to test that exact question. So I pulled it out, quickly thought up a design and gave it a try.

I used all Cricut glitter htv, I used the suggested settings for polyester. It came out perfect! Again, no mishaps!

But just a heads up, neoprene stinks when it gets hot! P-U!!!!!

When Cricut announced the Easy Press I was excited but so many people posted so many negative comments that when it was actually released, although their posts didn't stop me from ordering it in the first 5 minutes it was available, I was a bit nervous that it wouldn't perform as well as Cricut said it would.

All that worrying for nothing! It surpassed all my expectations!  My family doesn't know this yet but I am pretty sure everyone is getting something with an ironed on design this year lol  That's assuming I stop making fun projects for hubby and myself and actually start thinking about what others might want. HaHa!

Thank you for stopping by and Happy Crafting!!!