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My little girls keep me busy, but I always find time to sneak away to the craft room. I am dabbling in many mediums to find my true calling (but I have an inkling it will always involve fabric)...
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Just a quick note to say Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday, I know I will! I worked on my costume the past couple days, and it came out great! I’ll post pics of my costume on Monday. Here’s the pumpkins we did this year… my daughter did the one on the left all by herself! :0)
I have been over run by cupcakes for the last week! I decided to try my hand at fake cupcakes for my upcoming craft show; and unfortunately my packing desk was the best place to set up my cupcake station. Let me tell you… trying to pack up orders on the floor is no fun!! I had probably about a hundred cupcakes taking over my craft room all week. I couldn’t do anything else until I finally got them finished, photographed, and packed away yesturday. I decided to try the expansion foam method – thinking it was the quickest and easiest way to go. Boy was I wrong… that stuff is temperamental! lol Out of the 100 or so cupcakes I tried to make, I was able to keep 55 large cupcakes and a couple handfuls of minis. Even still, the ones I kept are a bit lop-sided and wobbly on their “feet”. Although, being imperfect just makes them look more real! My poor two year old daughter was crying to eat them! lol I have a large array of German glass glitter and glass bead samples from my glitter manufacturer that I work with; so I decided to try some of those for the cupcake toppings. They came out super cute!! I especially like the large red silver balls on the blue cupcakes! I had so much fun making these, I’ll definately be making more in the future. I have some really cute ideas that I would like to try out; but that would involve buying more supplies. Something I must stop myself from doing for a little while until I clean out this craft room! ;0) These cupcakes will be up for sale in my new Etsy shop TwiddleLee probably next week. I have another project I’m working on this week to add to the shop too. :) Meanwhile, here’s some cool cupcake photos I found on the web… Posted at 3:03 PM in The Craft Room |
 1 Comment - (Comments closed) |  crafting, cupcakes!, twiddle-lee Last week I sent out a personal newsletter to my Rags-n-Tags followers. I thought I would share it with all of you here in case you didn’t get the email…. What I’ve Been Up To
Besides now having a baby in the home (which I guess I could now call her a rambunctious toddler – she just turned two!), I’ve also joined our town’s art league, became an avon representative, began planning for two art shows and a craft show, and have continued my other businesses Peddler Graphics and Crafty Avenue. Not only has my time to sew been diminished, but my wandering soul has started yet again to searching elsewhere for creative outlets. I have always been, and always will be a wanderer; I have come to realize that. A wanderer in terms of my creativeness. Some of you may not see it in me, because I have been making primitive art a long time – about six years now. It has been my longest commitment yet to any medium or style. If you’ve read my bio, you’d know that I have dabbled in quilting, soap making, candle making, basket making, scrapbooking, graphic design, and more. If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you’d see that I’m now starting to experiment with painting, drawing, and collage work. I know I have a creative spirit, but what I do not know is what this spirit wants to create! Future Plans I know there are a lot of you out there who love my patterns, and await new ones; which is why I decided to update you on my personal life. I do not want to stop creating primitives, but I am going to take it slow (as I have been recently) and focus my free time on whatever my creativeness urges me to create – whether primitive or not. If you’d like to follow me on my journey, please subscribe to my blog. I’m trying my best to keep that updated. I know I’ve been trying to do too much at once, and I would probably be better off just focusing on one project at a time; but I’m having trouble letting some things go. My “to do” list is two pages long (typed!). I feel sort of lost I guess you’d say… I don’t know; maybe I’m going through a mid-life-crisis at an early age! lol I need to slow down, and figure out what I’d really like to do with my life. My family is most important, I know that much… What comes next, I’m not sure.
I’m also trying to clear out my craft room to make it more of a haven instead of a clutter room… so, I’m starting to list a few things on ebay. Right now, I have some rusty springs up for sale. Keep checking my ebay account if you want some good deals on craft items! I have a small craft show coming up this November (which I am still totally unprepared for!). I haven’t decided yet exactly what I’ll be creating, but I know I want to try to make some cute childish stuff because I’ll be doing the show with my eight year old daughter. After the show, I will list anything I have left on etsy (probably under my new TwiddleLee account which will be at TwiddleLee.etsy.com); and hopefully will have a few new patterns too. I probably will not send out a Rags-n-Tags newsletter for this sale, as most of the stuff will be non-primitive; so if you are interested in seeing what I come up with, and photos of the show, be sure to subscribe to my blog! ;0) I thank you all for your continued support. With out you, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. Have a great day! Finally… I started crafting for my upcoming craft show! I’ve only just started, and I only have five weeks to go… I work better under pressure though. ;0) Anyway, I told myself I will try to use up all the supplies I have on hand instead of going out and buying a bunch of stuff; and I just so happened to have everything I needed to make these cute snowball ornaments!
They were pretty easy to make, and fun too! I took photos along the way, so I’ve decided to post a free tutorial for you on how to make them. Here’s what you need: ~Styrofoam balls (I like the larger 2.5″ ones best, but I only had two of those on hand, the rest were about 2″)
First, cut a piece of wire about 7″ long; then use your pliers to start a curl at one end. I used my fingers to continue to curl it into a spiral shape. I’m sure there are special tools to do this, but I kind of like the messy bent shape using my fingers gets; makes it look more handmade! he he This spiral will be your “hook” to hang the ornament.
Next, insert the other end of the wire through your styrofoam ball from top to bottom. Don’t worry if you can’t get it straight through the center. No one will ever know! Bend the bottom of your wire into a little U shape hook, then push it up into the ball. You should now only be able to see the top wire with your swirl hook.
Next, prepare your berries and leaves by cutting them apart. Leave just a small section of the stem.
Use your palette knife to apply the compound to the top of your ball. Apply it rather thick so that you can’t see the texture of the styrofoam. Don’t worry about getting it smooth – how often do you see a perfectly smooth snowball? When you have the top covered, push a leaf stem into the top of the ball, then two of the berries. Leave the leaf sticking up for now (unlike the photo) so that you don’t get any compound on it by accident!
Finish covering the rest of the ball with the compound. (If only I had three hands to take a better pic of me applying the compound! lol)
While its still wet, sprinkle a generous amount of mica flakes over the entire ball. Be sure to do this over a bowl or a large paper so that you can collect what falls off and reuse it. I didn’t “push” the mica flakes into the compound, I just sprinkled mine on. If you’re picky about stray glitter falling off your ornament, you might want to pat it into the compound a bit. Then, hang your ornies to dry!
Don’t they look so pretty all lined up in a row!? (and notice all those bags of candy wrappers… hmmm, I wonder what those are for?) Let them dry overnight. Then, you can curl the leaf down to make it look nice. :) I had more styrofoam balls than I did leaves, so I went ahead and put compound on the rest of them and left them plain without glitter or berries. Perhaps I’ll paint them bright white and put a snowman face on them or something! I hope you enjoy making these, I sure did! Happy Crafting!! ~Kristal I finally decided to get some crafting done! My candy apples sold quick last year, so I figured I would make some more for those of you who missed out.
Cutting them out… not so fun. Stitch them up… stuff them… They look a little silly, like lemons or something!
Ah, there we go… starting to see an apple shape!
Then comes the paint! I always use my “jackson pollock” towel! he he I took a break to take care of my little one, cook some dinner, get the kids fed, washed, and in bed… then decided to finish up my apples, when I realized I had forgotten to go hunting for sticks!! By that time it was getting dark. I decided to try and dunk them in the wax without the sticks… how hard can it be, right? WRONG! I ended up burning myself and making a mess of things… but I was determined to get these apples finished. So, you can guess what comes next… yup… searching through the woods in the dark. If you know me, you know I must have been really determined to finish this project to actually go out in the dark, by myself, into the woods… Eeeek!! So, I grabbed a flashlight… and a saw… yup a saw! I told myself it was to cut the branches (but did I actually use it? no..). Anywho, wondering what my neighbors must think of me yet again – doing my crazy stuff outside again (like last week when I packed up 55 pounds of mica in little baggies with a mask and goggles!) I stomped through the woods freaking out about sounds and spiders hoping to get this done quickly.
I did manage to get what I needed, but came back tired, freaked out, and up to my ankles in mud (whoops, was that a big swamp I just went through!?) uggghhh… On to gluing the sticks, melting the wax (again!), dunking, and dipping… Anyway, I was able to finish them up… as you can see by the stove clock, it was almost 11pm! lol But they’re finished!!!
If you’d like one of my works of love, I have listed them on Etsy HERE. I love keeping a few in my kitchen, they always make me smile! :0)
A while back I announced I was having an ATC swap… now that everyone has received theirs, I would like to share the amazing cards I received in the mail! Although it only turned out to be three of us in the swap, there was a wide range of beautiful cards. It was so hard for me to choose which ones to keep! ;0) A big thanks to Teresa and Jen for making this so fun, and helping me start my collection!
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Copyright © 2010 Twiddle-Lee - All Rights Reserved |
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If you’ve been with me since the beginning of Rags-n-Tags, you probably have noticed I have been sewing less and less over the past two years. Rags-n-Tags started out as a handmade only shop with all of my designs ready to order. This ran its course until I realized it was too difficult to keep up with all of the orders. I became overwhelmed, and tired of making the same items over and over. So, I then branched off to making patterns for my designs, and selling only limited quantities of my handmade items. Which, was a good idea for a plan, but since I became pregnant with my second child, there has been less and less time available for me to create new primitive designs.
With that said, I did find time to create some 
