The Introverted Crafter

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Odds and sods

I've been working on a few things this week. First of all, I dug through some of the items I got in my last Beads direct grab bag (so many beads) and found a few things, which gave me an idea to make a bracelet based on a bunch of grapes, as they are on the vine.

It doesn't photograph that well, but it looks lovely in real life. The purple pearls are perfect, as are the ceramic leaves.
I've also been trying out my new candy machine die. This is a Sue Wilson kinetics one. I was dubious that it would work, but it really does! The only thing I would suggest is to use smaller sweets than M & M's.

Obviously you would decorate the outside as well, but for now I just wanted to test if it worked.
I've been working on the cross stitch as well. Here is the update so far.

Finally, I dug into the craft boxes I have received recently and made a tag. I started off by gluing some circles on a wooden tag, then added crackle paste, before spraying it with a pink Lindy'…

Just a quick one

Haven't really had the chance to do any crafting this week. One of my works colleagues had his leaving do, so that was an evening out. This weekend I have been focussing on the cross stitch, as my creativity was a bit low. Well, actually I did have an idea and a couple of new dies to try out, but unfortunately I did not do my research properly. Partly my fault for not looking at dimensions, but I am going to point some blame at the magazine I got that stated a manual die-cutting machine was needed, but failed to mention the fact that the normal Big Shot was too small for the die. So now I have a Big Shot Plus on the way. I've actually been asked to make something for someone for the first time ever - that and the amount of likes I got on Facebook when I posted my savings shadowbox has made me have a little faith in my work and ironically made me kind of not be able to design something new.

So, cross stitch update only. I am a third of the way through though!

Next week I will …

Money...does grow on trees?

Ok no it doesn't (more's the pity). I decided that to help me keep going on with my savings I needed a visual aid. I didn't want to go for the usual thermometer, so I did something a little different. I started by grabbing the box that the Tim holtz stamp platform (always keep the packaging!) and painting it with sparks paint. I put a patterned paper inside, and then die cut some branches and flowers. I also die cut three butterflies, coating them with gold, silver and copper wax respectively, to represent the coins we in Britain have.

As you can see, it is completely bare on the right hand side. This is because I have set myself a target. Each branch is worth a tenth of that target, and each flower is worth a fifth of a branch. So, I am just shy of halfway on my target.
I also finished my other stag. I kept it simple this time, just coated it with foam cogs, painted it with black gesso and then used silver wax. Simple, but striking.

Finally, here is the progress on the …

Spring has sprung!

Ok we have had two nice days, but it's a start! As the weather has been a little better, I decided to do a spring themed tag.

I started by covering a tag in resist paper, spraying it with Lindy's spray in blue then inking it over with distress ink. I then used the crackle stamp and some blue embossing powder, to create something more in the background. I had already die cut some paper using a honeycomb die (for the second tag which is below) so I coloured it with blue pen. I sprayed some paper with Lindy's sprays and die cut wildflowers, as well as the word spring using the edge of the sprayed paper, so that only a few drops were on it. Finally I used a metal bird and a little bow.
My second tag came about because I tried to cut the honeycomb die with grungeboard, which did not work. It did leave a nice embossed feel though, so I decided to use it to do a second tag.

After cutting the grungeboard I die cut the honeycomb die again, using the inner shapes to glue onto the…

A spot of jewellery making

I tried to make some bracelets this week. Originally I wanted to do some patterns, but my skills are not quite there yet, and the wires and beading threads were not my friends. So I decided to go a little simpler, and this is what I ended up with.

This would be perfect for a little girl.....if I hadn't done it too big. As you can see, there are two strands to this, and the aim is to wrap the larger one, twisting it around the other one.

I wanted to use the last of the bicone beads after I had made a bracelet, so I whipped up a pair of earrings to match.

This is the bracelet. I used two strands of beading thread with this as you can see, just so that I could practice doing something a little bit different than a simple beading. I'm going to work on a few things that I have seen online, to see if I can improve my skills a little bit.
At least one area where my skills are fine is the cross stitching. The photo stitches came on Monday, so I have been working on one of them sin…

Using some of my stash

I decided to make a couple of cards this week, and to dig through my stash to find stuff I have seldom/never used before. Here are the results.

This is using a stamp set that came free with a magazine, which makes it really easy to do coloured birds without the need to colour them in yourself. As well as this there is a stamp I have had for ages and used once, which I used for the grass and the sky, some tiny tattered florals with jewels in the middle, and a bow from my stash

This was made with a combination of new and old things. The papers are all old, and I inked them with distress crayons, going with blue around the edge of the outer one instead of my go-to browns and blacks. The frame is snipart coloured with ink, and the plants were coloured with lindys magicals and a little bit of yellow distress crayons. The sentiment I did in two different shades of blue, but it was too different so I used distress glitter over the top.
I've also been working on a new stitch project, wh…