Valentines in October??????

I've been trying to work ahead on all my swaps so I don't end up behind over the Christmas season. I have two projects to show you today. The first is just a peek at the Valentines paint can I'm making for a swap, the first picture is of the lid and the second is the handle.


This lid was first painted with a glitter glaze paint mixed with distress reinker in worn lipstick. While the paint was still wet I sprinkled the top with small punched out hearts. I later decided I wanted more of an acrylic type finish on the top of the can. I used UTEE to achieve these results. I spent a couple nights attempting to heat and sprinkle UTEE and blowing it all over the place until today when I saw a post on the cricut message board about using shrink plastic in the oven. This evening I covered the top of the paint can in a thick layer of UTEE popped it in the oven. I set mine at 400 and left it alone for a few minutes, when I checked on it the UTEE appeared to be boiling OOOPPS I turned the oven off and let it sit in there till cool. and it came out really nice. Next time I'll probably have the oven on a bit lower temp and keep a closer eye on it but it has a great smooth finish.

This second picture is of the handle on my paint can. I used some Moda-Dea Dream yarn that is on sale at Michaels this week. I simply crocheted it on the handle using a basic chain stich, if you've ever done the crochet flipflops it's the same basic idea. I really like the way that plain metal wire is softened now.

My second project for today was my Valentines card cany. I cut a 4 inch square of double sided cardstock (from Sam's Club) I punch all 4 edges with a new Martha Stewart Embossing edge punch and then lightly sanded the embossing to make it pop. I stamped with "with love" saying and the hearts with a glue pad and used a Martha Stewart glitter on them. I'm also including a length of the same yarn that was used on the paint cans in place of ribbon.

Christmas Card

This is a Christmas Card I did for a swap. I used alcohol inks on glossy paper. I used raisin, pesto and gold mixative. I cut the scalloped oval with a nestibilities die and stamped the word joy with black staz-on ink. For the back ground on the card I used a gold pigment ink on a flourish stamp. I'm not sure that I love these cards but I think they turned out ok.

October SAC layout

This is a layout I did for the Cricut October Swap A Crop. Basically I'm scrapping someone elses pictures. This is the first time I've done a layout without the pictures LOL. Usually when I scrap I start with my pictures, mat them and apply them to the layout then work on my other elements. This time I hadn't gotten the pictures from Walgreens yet so I started with my elements first and worked backwards, at least compared to the way I usually do it. I used a variety of techniques on this layout. The flowers on the right have metal alphabet brads in the centers of them. I used alcohol inks on the brads to give them a little color. I tore the edges of a couple of the papers and used distress inks on the laughter quote. The journaling tag is a clear stamp that I stamped with black ink the cut out. I had a really cute twist tie I used as the ribon on the tag. It says "Memories Last Forever" then used a lime green fasenator staple to attach it to the tag. I used a cuttlebug tag team butterfly that I lightly sanded after embossing and then used a green chalk ink to accent the embossing.