Domino Madness

I have been working on dominos like mad the past few days. I am going to try to sell these at a Christmas bazaar one Saturday in December. Of course I really should go sign up for it. It's a small bazaar held every weekend in December in a half-empty mall in North Pole. It never fills so it shouldn't be a problem. If I can't get in I'll just open an Etsy shop on the web and see if I can move them that way. Anyhow - you know that saying that there are no mistakes, only opportunities?

I had the opportunity to do a couple of collages on this batch of dominos. I discovered that you can't make a dark background and expect the black ink to show up. I might try silver next time. I also found out that pigment ink does not dry on these things no matter how long you leave them. I was trying to avoid using the Staz-on permanent ink because I hate how it won't clean off the stamps. I ended up having to spray these with a light coat of polyurethane to seal it before I enameled them. Live and learn!

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Oh, oh, oh .. almost forgot ... also learned that a husband who was given green glow in the dark powder will bug you to death until you agree to put some on a domino. One of the doms with the Japanese characters has a 2nd character stamped on it that only shows up in the dark. Crazy.

Getting crafty

Did the after Thanksgiving sales today. Hit both craft stores and one 'regular' store. Bought 7 stamps, some paperclay, and an unfinished wooden shelf to hold my dolls. Bought my year's supply of socks too! Got home before noon and spent the afternoon in the studio. I colored about 20 dominos so I can make necklaces and I made this treasure box for my 5 year old nephew.

He loves anything to do with construction so I embellished the box with washers, nuts, and bolts. I hacksawed the head off the bolts - found out that the metal gets really hot after you do that. My husband told me not to touch it but did I listen? NOOOO. So I have a nice little blister on my finger! I used E6000 to attach the metal bits - I hope the little dude doesn't take a wrench to them!

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Cute, eh? I"ll fill it up with little tools if I can find some. I think he'll like it!

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow - whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not. I have been busy for the last few days shopping, cooking, and cleaning. No time for fun. But I did buy some wire and berries that I am going to try to use on the Cherry Pitter. So maybe I'll get some time tonight to relax and play. I need it - my feet are killing me from standing in the kitchen all day. But I have the sweet potato souffle in the oven now and it's the last thing I have to cook today. Well, not counting dinner. Ugh.

When I bought the wire and stuff yesterday I found out that you can use your Michael's coupon at JoAnn Fabrics. I didn't realize I had grabbed the wrong coupon and the cashier kept trying to scan it. She didn't realize it was from Michael's and couldn't understand why it wouldn't scan. The supervisor finally taught her how to ring it up. Phew. I didn't want to have to come back another day.

Cherry Pitter

I started playing with the Cherry Pitter today. I asked my husband to straighten it some so it would stand upright. He had a bit of a problem with it - it kind of fell apart. So he welded the center part with the thumb loop between the two finger loops and split the bottom piece in two. I like it in this configuration - it gave me a place for feet.

I have this Superflex Sculpey clay that I had bought years ago so my daughters could make hair decorations. Ran it through the pasta machine and it softened right up. Huh. I was surprised that it was still useable. So I made him hands and feet. Put a face on another leftover head I found in the boneyard (my boneyard is emptying out!). I have to darken the eyelid area - looks too much like makeup - and this is supposed to be a dude. The photo shows why I think this is a guy, LOL. How I'm going to work with that piece I don't know!

I also don't know where he's going from here .. but we'll find out soon.

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Jump Ring Hell

I was beginning to think that people who don't have a clue about making jewelry shouldn't. Make jewelry that is. I was trying to figure out how to make big jump rings to go through the dominos and wasn't having much luck. The jump rings were HUGE in order to go through the width of the dom. They looked silly. So after about a dozen tries at different sizes I decided to give it a break and hang some beads from the bottom instead.

I grabbed a the domino, twisted some wire around the hole, and strung some beads - finishing with a loop. Looked at it and realized I had strung the beads on the wrong end. AH HA - I cried - I don't NEED those darned jump rings! I love happy accidents, don't you?

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Switching heads

Last night I was getting some stuff together for a project we were going to do at doll club and I went digging through my boneyard. Grabbed a couple of heads and I picked up one that I thought was pretty. Wondered why I had put it in there. So I popped it on one of my girls that still hadn't made me happy. Egads. It worked!

I tried that head on the doll a few months ago and didn't like it. Now I do. Strange. But I finished her up today with hair and a turban. You know me - I love turbans. I still have some embellishing to do and I have to make some kind of base for her but for all intents and purposes, she's done! Now she just has to tell me her name.!

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It's a mystery to me!

So there's this box of stuff getting passed from person to person in my doll club and I got stuck with it tonight. It got left at Kris's house this summer when we had our altered pin doll workshop and I think we're supposed to use it as a door prize or something. Anyhow, I was going through it and I found this thing that is just screaming to be altered into an art doll. But what the heck is it? If you know please leave me a comment.

The "Q" word

My daughter called me the other night and asked me to make her a lap quilt for Christmas/Chanukah (we celebrate both). I haven't made a quilt in years! My mother-in-law is quite the prolific quilter and she has given me so many quilts that I just quit making them. Luckily I didn't forget how! My new sewing machine is an absolute dream to piece on too - I'm actually enjoying this! But I did take a break tonight from sewing to work in a couple of decos. I really like how this piece came out.

This is for a deco called Shades of Blue. I bought a sea sponge today and I thought I'd try it out. BTW, buying from the bath section is much cheaper than the paint section - plus you get a way bigger and softer sponge. I figured if it looks good on paper maybe I'll try sponge painting a wall again. Did it once and it looked HORRIBLE - plus it was red - which made it EVEN WORSE! So I sponge painted this and it was okay. Then I stamped on top of it. I wonder if I could do that to the wall? Just think how LONG it would take... forget that idea!

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First Needlepunch Experiment

I bought one of those new needlepunch attachments for my Bernina a couple of weeks ago. Just got around to trying it out last night. I can see a lot of possibilities for this tool.

In case you don't know what it is - it's a foot that goes on the sewing machine that has five barbed needles. You don't use thread and you have to take out the bobbin and bobbin race to make room for all those needles to go down through the needle plate. It basically causes your roving/wool/embellishments to bond with the base material by intermingling the fibers. So I used a piece of black wool as my background, some roving and fancy yarns and laid them out to make a flower. It was easier than I thought. Although when I decided to try it with a piece of Timtex behind the wool I nearly immediately broke a needle. Darn. One thing I did figure out pretty quickly is to tack the yarns in place before you starting running back and forth to punch them down. It's hard to keep a shape unless you do that. Also figured out that I have to buy a stiletto tool to guide the woolies so I don't punch five barbs through my fingers!

In case you're wondering why I'm not posting much - we're doing some house renovations and it's not leaving a lot of time to play right now.

Art Card

Haven't blogged for a few days so I thought I'd post a photo of an Art Card I made and put on eBay to see if it would sell. Not so far, LOL.

The idea is that sometimes you can't get your answer out. It was fun to make and if it doesn't sell, well, I do owe a couple of people ATCs so it won't sit at home!

Oh - the ribbon-eating puppy is one year old today .. does that mean I can't call him a puppy anymore?

Another necklace

I had one more domino from my friend Michelle that was predrilled. This one had four holes so I had to be a bit more creative when making the necklace.

I used Wild Wire to string the beads on the bottom but I'm a little worried that it will break. I gave up on making jump rings for the top too - just ended up stringing ribbon through it. I'm going to have to do an Internet search to see if I can find big jump rings. But I think these are pretty and as soon as I get some more dominos I'll be making more.