Simply Create Too Challenge #102 Love/Valentine

Good morning friends.

As you know Simply Create Too has a couple challenges each month.  Last month my challenge was Party Time and I had a fun time making some earrings.  This month my challenge for the blog is Love/Valentine.  Well that's easy since it's just right around the corner.

I started with some plain dollar store glasses to create these.  There are so many tutorials on pintrest on glittering them.  It's actually very, very easy.

Start with cleaning your glasses well.  I then brushed a medium layer of Mod Podge on the stem and the base of the wine glasses.  I sprinkled red or pink glitter all over the Mod Podged area.  LET THIS DRY COMPLETELY!  Very, very important to make sure your glue has completely dried.  I let them set over night.

The next day I ran a paint brush over the glitter to loosen any glitter that might not have adhered all the way.  Now this is where you have to determine if you need another layer of glitter or not.  The Pink glasses I had to add three layers of glitter because it was so fine with a layer of Mod Podge between each and then a layer of Amazing Clear Cast resin to finish it off.  Again make sure your Mod Podge dried completely.  I also etched the glasses with hearts using Armour Etch.

The Red glasses I only needed one layer of glitter because it was a coarse glitter and very dense.  I then added another layer of Mod Podge to "soften" the glitter and then put a layer of the Amazing Clear Cast resin from Amazing Casting Products over the top of that.  Now you can't feel the gritty of the glitter.

I added some vinyl lips and mustaches to two sets of the glasses and Yes, I put them in the store!
One set has already sold!  That excites me

(The chocolate suckers are a awesome too.  I print directly on the suckers with edible ink.  

Our motto is, If you can think it, we can print it)

So now, I hope you will head over to Simply Create Too and join us for our Love/Valentine challenge.

$12,500 donated in 2014

Good morning friends,

Today I wanted to share a quick post on a Glass Etching Project I made for our Pink Ladies Dart Team!  If you don't already know what the Pink Ladies are all about, let me give you a quick background.  We are a group of Ladies and Gents that get together every Sunday to throw darts and raise money for cancer.  We donate $500, a blanket (that is handmade by one of our Pink Ladies) and sometimes a plant or flowers each time to a "local person" with cancer primarily to help with everyday expenses.  That could be anything from personal items, groceries or gas to get to and from doctor appointments.  It's their money and they can do whatever they want with it.  We occasionally also hold fundraisers to obtain funds that we then give away.

We started this in April of 2014 and by New Years Eve 2014 we gave away $12,500.  

Can you say WOW!!!!

I wanted to give our bar owner who does a tremendous job something to hang in the bar 

to commemorate the accomplishment and let's see what I did:

This is our logo and I cut it using my cricut from some scrap pink vinyl I had left over 

from making all the window decals that we also sold to raise money.  

I laid that on a piece of glass from a frame.

Using the Armour Etch (ing) cream, I slathered a generous amount 

over the vinyl and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

I wanted to commemorate the amount and the date we did that in so I cut that all out 

also on my cricut from Dollar Tree contact paper.  Do NOT waste your precious vinyl.

again slathering a generous amount over the top ...

I do scrape the excessive off with a brush or used credit card and put it right back into my bottle.

NO WASTE!

I then laid the glass over the top of some metallic scrapbook paper and there you have it!

I hope you liked my post today and  if you are at all inclined to donate you can do so by going HERE.

You can find the Bottom's Up Pink Ladies facebook page HERE and we are on Twitter @BUPINKLADIES!

As always, have a great day and God Bless!

Hot Cocoa Mugs and keychains for Christmas

Good afternoon friends,

Just wanted to bring you a quick project I made this afternoon for my dart team.  Every year I like to give the girls on my team something handmade by me.  I've done ornaments, cards, key chains, etc.  This year I decided to do some glass etching and also another key chain.

I started out with some mugs I got at the dollar tree.  I love shopping there, there are so many possibilities with a little imagination!

A couple of years ago I made some hot cocoa bottles and you can see how the etching process works here.  This is what it looks like on my mugs

Photographing etched glass is somewhat tricky, therefore I placed a piece of paper in the mug so you can get the idea of the etched snowflake. 

I added some carmels, a hot cocoa packet and a candy cane to the mug.

It still wasn't enough for me, so I decided to make them each a keychain also. 

I started out with a mold that I made using the Amazing Mold Putty.  

I bought this stamp from Viva Las Vegas YEARS ago and still use it quite frequently.  

Some Stazon black ink and some flatback rhinestones should do the trick! 

Using the Amazing Casting Resin I made the tags, stamped my dartboard image directly onto the resin piece.  I redrilled the holes and added a keychain.  I also added the flatback rhinestone in the center where the bullseye should be with each girls' favorite color.  Now I hope they get the hint to hit that bullseye!  LOL  I'm just kidding.  We have a lot of fun throwing darts together! 

The dollar tree celophane bags come in very handy as a simple gift wrapping.  This way they can see what they got and not have to open it up at the bar.  Unless they really want to dig their keychains out!!! 

I'll be giving them their presents tonight and I'm pretty sure they will love them!

I hope you've found my quick project inspirational and I love reading comments, so please leave one.

As always, have a great day and 

Personalized Golf Glasses

Good morning crafters,

I am here today to show you how lucky you can be sometimes.  Well, it's really not that big of a deal, but I'm so super excited.

As most of you know we went to Florida this past May on our family vacation.  We stayed at a beautiful resort near St. Augustine and had a wonderful time.  We went to The Players Golf Tournament and had a fantastic time there also.  At our resort I wandered into the Clubhouse and spotted these amazing glasses that had a raised glass golf ball in the inside.  I so wanted to get them for my guys, but my vacation money was running out and at $20 a PIECE, I just couldn't justify it.  I was so bummed, but we can't always have what we want.  Here comes the best part of this story...yesterday I went junking.  I love going to thrift stores and such and mostly I browse, but yesterday I made a fabulous purchase, actually I made several, (ssshhhhh).  I found these

Identical to what they had in the Gift Shop at the clubhouse.  Want to the know the better part of this story?  Both of them together cost my $1.50.  YES, 75 cents a piece...I'm doing a happy dance.

So, of course I scooped them up immediately and went home and did this... 

I knew I wanted to personalize them so I took some of my scrap vinyl and cut their names with my cricut out with Arial Rounded MT Bold, nothing fancy, just nice letters. 

Placing them nicely on the glasses and 

using my Armour Etch, (you can buy this at Hobby Lobby and if you use a 40% off coupon it will cost you about $13 and you can use it over and over and over), LOVE< LOVE> LOVE> this product.  I painted the etching cream onto the glasses.  Depending on what you are making you may have to do this in sections especially if it's a round object because it does run and you DO NOT want to get any etching cream anywhere on your project except where you intend it to be.  Seriously, even a split second of touching the etching cream anywhere on the glass surface will leave a mark.  Also make sure you use some rubbing alcohol to clean your glass before etching to get any oils from your fingers off.

After only about 5 minutes your cream is ready to be wiped off.  I've been etching glasses for at least 5 years now and have never had to wait for more than 5 minutes.  I simply wipe the cream off with my finger and scrap it back into the bottle.  I've had this bottle of etching cream for about 2 years now and it still works as great as it did the day I opened it. Actually the longer you have your etching cream and depending on how much you use it, it get thicker and thicker and you will have less problems with it "running" on your surface.

And here is my finished project.

Now Steve can go have a gin and tonic while Austyn has a Powerade and they can enjoy watching a golf tournament on tv, as there is ALWAYS one on. 

They both love their glasses (I should have waited for Christmas to give them to them, but I couldn't contain my excitement) and I'm thrilled it only cost me $1.50.  YEAH!

I hope you've enjoyed my post today and make sure to come back over the next couple of weeks because I have some more junking finds to share with you.

As always, have a great day and God Bless.

Mini challenge at ABAC

Good afternoon

I saw that Anything But a Card had a mini challenge up today and I couldn't wait to play along.  Today's challenge is using 2 or more stencils.  I, however, do not own any stencils.  Weird actually since I seem to have everything else.  I guess I take that back I do own a couple brass stencils, but really have never used them.  I decided today was the day, since I'm trying to branch out a bit again.

I wondered what would happen if I incorporated my stencil and my Amazing Casting Resin.  You do know how I love to experiment.  So off to the races we go...

I spread out some of my resin onto baker's paper.  I do not own one of those fancy Teflon sheets, but this works just as well.  

Now, normally this resin sets up within 5 to 10 minutes, but when you 

spread it out like this it takes a bit longer.  Therefore, I was able to 

prepare my brass stencil with petroleum jelly (vaseline).  I coated both

sides of the stencil because I had no idea what would happen  

you can tell when your resin starts setting up, because it starts to turn milky.  

When I saw it do that I laid my stencil directly into the resin and pushed it in. 

Once the resin had set for a bit I pulled my stencil up and some of it came up with the stencil,

but overall I am pretty happy with the outcome. 

Here is my resin piece.  

See how pliable it still is? 

I just trimmed off around that main piece with my scissors.  

Before the resin really has time to set up, scissors work fabulously. 

Then using some alcohol inks, I started working on painting my piece.

Alcohol inks take very well to the resin.

I love the look of this...very antique like.

Now, this challenge calls for 2 or more stencils,

but like I said, I don't own any "normal" stencils.

I decided to create my own for some etching.

I cut this flourish out with my cricut on some vinyl scrap. 

and attached it to my bottle.

it really doesn't have to be perfect as long as you get the pieces

stuck down that matter the most and be careful that you get it all stuck down.

Sometimes the etching cream will "seep" into tiny crevices.

and now for some etching.  I haven't used my etching cream in forever

and wasn't sure it was still good before even starting this project. 

Paint your etching cream fairly thick onto your vinyl and let it sit for about 10 minutes 

I usually scrape the rest right back into my bottle.  I'm frugal like that

and then run it under warm water and pull your vinyl off.  Now, you won't

be able to reuse that particular piece of vinyl. 

but the etching is wonderful.  I guess my etching cream was still good!

I applied some E6000 to my resin piece and centered it under

the flourish etching.

Then I "taped" it down with some bingo tape (like painters tape) to keep it in place. 

and now I have a mini wine bottle turned into a beautiful vase.

I glued some pink ribbon around the top of the bottle and attached a brad.

Adding some pink flowers completes it.

I absolutely love how this turned out. 

Now I may not have use traditional stencils for this project,

but sometimes you just have to come up with your own when 

you don't have the right stuff.
Experimenting is good!

I hope you've enjoyed my little project today and I can't wait 

to see what the next challenge will be over at ABAC.

As always, have a great day and God Bless.

Hot Cocoa Bottle

Good morning and welcome to another Creative Paperclay® post.  With Christmas literally just days away I am scrambling for those last minute gifts.  Sometimes you just need a little something for someone and that is what I have for you today. I had made a project awhile ago using some snowflakes that I cut out of vinyl and then I was left with all these scraps of snowflake cutout from the vinyl.  I hate to see anything go to waste so I used them up like this... I started out using an empty bottle because I have soooo many and adhered those pieces randomly on the bottle. 

 

 Some of those pieces were pretty close to the edge and if I was to etch them I might go over, so I just used some scrap pieces of contact paper and adhered those close to those edges.  Then I added my glass etching paste and let that sit for about 10 minutes.

Because I hate waste I use whatever I have on hand and scrap the etching cream off of the item that's being etched and put it back into the bottle.  I've been using this same bottle of etching cream forever.  

 Once I removed those pieces of vinyl the snowflakes came to life.  

I LOVE IT!!!

 Now you might  be wondering why this is a paperclay post?  Well, the bottle was a Maggi bottle and the lid wasn't going to cut it.  

So I rolled out some paperclay and put it around the lid.  I wasn't worried about smoothing it out because... 

while it was still wet I rolled it over my "wood grain" embossing folder to give it dimension. 

Once it was all dry, I just used my exacto knife to cut away some of the clay so that it had a perfect fit  

and painted it brown, black, brown, watered down black, etc. until I got the "look" of a cork 

See the dimension?  Isn't that cool? 

and here is my faux cork.  (really baaaad picture) 

Next I rolled out some paper clay and 

used an embossing folder and sandwiched the paperclay between it.  

and gently used my rolling pin to get a good image embossed. 

Then I used my snowflake cookie cutter to cut the shapes out randonly

and let them dry overnight.

I made a boat load of these and have another project to show you soon. 

Very cool embossed snowflakes.

Then I painted them white and embellished 

them with some gold glitter glue.

I filled the bottle with hot cocoa mix and added two of my paperclay 

snowflake ornaments and now I have the perfect gift to give to someone. 

I am really liking this project and I have just the perfect person in mind to give this to. 

I really wished the camera could pick up on the etching better,

but in person this looks magnificent. 

I added a bow and now I have a perfect "gift"

I hope I've inspired you to use some Creative Paperclay® and hope you come back to check out more of my projects.  Until then, as always, have a great day and God Bless.