vacation Memories- sneak peek

Please be sure to stop by the Art Glitter blog today to see the project I created using Art Glitter, Authentique papers, and pictures of my handsome boys. 

Fishing you a Merry Christmas with Connie Crystal and GlobeCraft

 

I am so excited for the start of the holiday season.  I really love decorating for the holidays and look forward to the day after Thanksgiving when my husband, Brian, gives in and gets the Christmas tree out for me.  I'm excited to share with you my first hand made ornament of the season.  This dimensional shaker ornament is sure to be a hit with my boys this year when it gets added to the tree. 

 

To create the ornament I used a variety of products from Connie Crystal and Globecraft Memories.   I began with the Fabulous Fish Necklace set from Globecraft and one of their ornament kits, added some sparkle and bling from Connie Crystal and ended up with a pretty cool ornament. 

 

I began by using some pigment ink to color the frames and the fishies white before applying the colors. For darker colors (like the navy blue I used) this step wasn't needed, but for the lighter colors this really helped to make those colors more vibrant.

 

 

Then I added some color to the fishies using some glimmer mists and other such products that I had in my stash.  Getting messy is always part of the fun and by the look of my craft space, you can see I was surely having a lot of fun with this project.  After the glmmer dried I used Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze from Globecraft to finish off the fish.  I did the same thing with the frames beginning with a glimmer product, and finishing with the Glasstique Gloss. 

 

To create a backing for my ornament (I did not want to make it clear all the way through, but rather wanted a true front).  I traced the frame onto the back of a sheet of cardstock that I had embossed.  Then I trimmed the cardstock to ensure that I had an exact fit for the back of my ornament.  Oh and of course I used some glitter spray to add a bit of sparkle to the embossed cardstock. 

 

A fish was added to my ornament backing using a popdot.

 

A layer of Glasstique gloss was added to the frame to secure the bubble for the front of the ornament.

Inside the bubble I added clear and teal microbeads.  Seaglass beads from Connie Crystal, crystals from Connie Crystal, and some glitter.  I then adheared the back of the ornament with some more Glasstique and secure all of the layers with clothes pins until it was fully dry- this took about 24 hours. 

While the ornament was trying I worked on a few other elements of the ornament.  I had hoped to find the perfect color of ribbon for the project in my stash but came up empty handed.  So I used the glimmer products to add tints of teal and orange to some cream ribbon I had.  While the ribbon was still wet I wrapped it around a dowel rod and dried with my heat gun to give the ribbon some curls. 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



DIY beach souvenirs

My family and I just got home from the most amazing beach vacation.  We were able to spend about 5 weeks in Florida, and made a quick stop to visit family in WV on the way.  We were gone for nearly 6 weeks.  Now that we are home I am sorting through all of the goodies we brought back with us.  My boys and I collected a ton of cool sea shells on the trip and I promised to help them make unique souvenirs when we got home.  So, today we made two "beach in a bottle" projects, one for each of the boys. 



We started with some ribbon, seashells, sand, hot glue, and some clear plastic bottles from the sand art section of hobby lobby.  I opted to buy sand for this as in the past I have found sand off the beach to be very difficult to clean and work with. 



I let the boys choose their own shells to place in the jars and away we went.  First adding Sand then the shells. 







I then used my Gypsy and Gypsy Font to create the wording for the outside of the bottles.  I used brown vinyl for the lettering.





It is quite small, but I think the Expression does a great job cutting tiny vinyl letters!



A jump ring was added to the back side of the seashells for the outside using E6000 glue. 



Ribbon was added to the top of the bottles using hot glue, vinyl lettering applied, and seashells added.  This was a simple yet fun project that my boys were able to help with!  I think this will be a great way for them to remember this trip for years to come!