Playing in the Dirt: Part 1

Since I obviously needed yet another hobby, welcome to my foray into gardening.  Okay, I have gardened, or helped garden, my mom has always had a lovely garden, wonderful roses, but neither of us have ever attempted a vegetable garden.
My boyfriend lives in a guest house and the front neighbors and us decided to plant vegetable gardens in a flower bed in the back of his yard, that had become overgrown.  So they cleared it out and planted their seeds, and we began planning what we wanted to grow.  This got my mom inspired to do one too, she always grows tomatoes, but we've never done a real veggie garden, so here we go!  I've decided to blog the progress of both.
We went to the nursery and got a whole slew of seeds and plants, some compost, and some markers.  We probably went a little nuts, but we are planting two different gardens.  Here's the booty!

 So mom and I started a nice big barrel looking planter for an herb garden.  We had some cilantro we'd been growing in the greenhouse window from seeds, and then we transplanted the dill, rosemary, and thyme plants we had gotten.  After a couple days we could tell squirrels were using it to bury things, so that should be fun.

 So today I got the Vegetable Garden at my boyfriend's going.  Both gardens have some duplicates and some differences.  We had already planted Garlic by planting cloves in the ground and those had already sprouted about 8" (bottom left foreground) which is very exciting, and some tomato seeds have already started to sprout very tiny.  So today we planted Green and Yellow Sweet Onions, Artichoke all from seeds.  Green Bean,  3 Bibb Lettuce, and Strawberry Plants.  All of which I will be planting with mom.  Then we also planted Jalapeno seeds (for the boy who likes spicy stuff) and a Black Beauty Eggplant. (plant)

 The herbs we did are mostly the same, I had started him an herb garden, which he took great care of, so we transplanted those, Basil, Chives, and Parsley (stupid parsley as we call it, because we don't really use it) then the Dill, Rosemary and Thyme plants I had gotten at the same time as the ones I planted with mom.

I was really impressed with the soil, I think all the weeds that had been there before the neighbor cleared it out had really done some good work, and it even seemed composty!  So we labeled and watered, and are hoping for the best. It was nice and overcast so it was not fatiguing at all, and it may even rain tomorrow which would be great. Weather permitting I want to prep the soil and set up our planting areas for mom and I to get planting.  There are some flowers I would love to get in the ground too.

Anyway, I will definitely keep you updated on the progress. I am really excited about these gardens, there is something comforting and triumphant about planting, my guy kept singing "Circle of Life"  I am reading The Year I Ate My Yard and I love his philosophy.  Read it, even if you don't want to garden!

Cheers   

~Chelsea

Steampunk Gift Card Wallet

I don't have instructions with this one, I made it a month or 2 ago and forgot to put it up here.  It's a little wallet for keeping (or giving) gift cards.  I have made them before, all different designs, so I decided to do a steampunk one to replace my pretty green and blue one that was falling apart.

 It's essentially put together with Chipboard cover and back, which I cover with a sturdy patterned paper, I have an envelope like template for the pockets inside, which are just the right size for gift cards, and then the binding is just accordion folded and adhered to the inside of the covers, with the pockets glued firmly inside the accordion folds.  

 I usually use ribbon across the binding as reenforcement, but this time I used some grungeboard hinges/door brackets. It looks more steampunk and is super sturdy.  I used metal flowerers I distressed with paints, as well as stickers from 7Gypsies for a vintage feel, and to add some quirk.  I also used some embossed and inked grungeboard flowers, paper word tags, and a few cogs.

I hope this gives you some fun ideas.  I had a really good time making it!  If you have any other ideas for things I can make in this style let me know, I love scrapbooking, but I am really into handmade, utilitarian, practical items at the moment.

I just started my first attempt at growing vegetables and an herb garden, so I'm photographing those and I will start posting the progress on here as well.  As always love to hear comments and thoughts!

~Chelsea

Mother's Day Keepsakes

Since Mother's Day is this Sunday I decided to make some nostalgic necklaces with Sakura Craft's awesome products.

 I'm making gifts for my mom and for my stepmom.  The first one is for my mom, it's a photo we recently came across of my grandmother when she was 19 or 20. I shrunk it down to the right size to fit my Glass Pendant, printed it on cardstock and cut it out.

 I used a few small dots of Clear 3D Crystal Lacquer on the front of the picture and placed the Glass Pendant on top, make sure you get any bubbles out, you don't need a lot of the Lacquer for it to stay, just make sure you get the edges. I also cut some pretty paper the same size as the picture and stuck that to the back, just so I didn't have the plain white cardstock on the back.

Then I used the Lacquer to adhere some paper flowers, my grandmother LOVED flowers, and a rhinestone in the center.  I attached a white brass Bail to the back with Lacquer and threaded my Chain through and VOILA!!

For the second one I chose a writing theme, my stepmom is a writer.  I chose an image from G45's Communique tags and trimmed it to fit the Glass Pendant, the same as I did for my mom's.

I attached the bail to the back of the whole pendant, and I threaded a neat charm of a victorian lady's hand on the chain as well to add to the personality.

I love the way they both came out, and they couldn't be easier!  I love the way these glass pendants and chains make jewelry making so personal and unique. I am always looking for something with a "how did you do that" factor and these are definitely that!

Hope you like these ideas, for more great ideas check out The Sakura Craft Design Team Blog

Also feel free to share ideas, and pictures in my comments!

~Chelsea

Faberge Box

The Metallic Color Lacquer made me think of Faberge Eggs for Easter.  Since a few of the DT ladies did such amazing Easter Eggs witht he Color Lacquer I decided to make a Feaux Faberge Box, and Easter Pendant.  Here's what I used.

Metallic Color Lacquer
3D Crystal Lacquer
Jewelry Finding
Altoid Smalls Tin
Easter Images from Tim Holtz Seasonal Paper Stash

For the Pendant, I trimmed a Vertical Easter image to the size of the finding, glued it in place with a small dot of Clear Crystal Lacquer, and filled the top of the image, inside the Jewelry Finding with Clear Crystal Lacquer and set it aside to dry.





For the Box, I painted an Altoid Tin with blue paint. I centered my Horizontal Easter Image and adhered it with Clear Crystal Lacquer.  I framed the image with the Gold Metallic Color Lacquer, and created my Fabrage design.  I let that dry and then filled in the blue spaces with some Blue Color Lacquer to give it a more enamel look, like fabrage has.  I added metallic details on the image itself, then filled the whole image in with Clear Crystal Lacquer.


I set it to dry over night and Voila!!

I think this could make a lovely Easter Hostess Gift.  I love the way it turned out and just working on it I got a lot of fun ideas of ways to make faberge designs with Metallic Color Lacquer.  For more great ideas check out my blog and the Sakura Craft Design Team Blog!

Have a Happy Easter!!

~Chelsea

Spring Tag

For this tag I decided to use the Metallic Crystal Color Lacquer as a glaze.

To make the charm, I simply used some springy rose stickers I had and arranged them inside the Jewelry Finding, filled it with Crystal Lacquer and set aside to dry.  

I used the metallic blue Lacquer on the Acrylic S (Heidi Swapp Ghost Letter), by spreading it with my finger.  I added some dots in silver for detail, and set that aside to dry.  I distressed the edges of a plain white tag with Distress Inks in Spun Sugar, Bundled Sage, and Broken China.  Next I stamped the Fairy Swing stamp (Crafty Secrets) in black ink, and wrote "pring" for the word Spring at the top.  It's important to make sure you do all your ink stuff first, before you move to the next step.  

I applied gold, silver and pink Metallic Color Lacquer again with my finger as a glaze coating to add shimmer and texture.  It dries fairly quickly because it's so thin, so you can layer them over each other as you go, and it adds a neat effect.

Next I filled in spots on the fairy image with green, pink and blue Metallic Color Lacquer.  I adhered the S using Crystal Lacquer and filled the images of just the fairies with Crystal Lacquer to make them stand out.

Finally I attached some lace and ribbon at the bottom with Crystal Lacquer and Tiny Attacher Staples, and tied the charm on (once it dried) with some fairylike ribbon.  Tada!

~Chelsea

*Check out my blog and the Sakura Craft Design team Blog for more fun ideas*

Oldies but Goodies

I just wanted to post a few random projects I've done in the past, that I hadn't posted yet, for fun.

Faith and Begorrah

 I am very excited to squeeze in a little Irish something for today.  I've always had a warm place in my heart for the Irish.  A fun, festive, and fairy decoration!

Supplies I used:  Sakura Craft 3D Crystal Color Lacquer: Country, 3D Clear Crystal Lacquer, die cut pennant, die cut swirl (embossed with Tim Holtz texture fade), Colored Pencils, Distress Ink, Glitter, Fairy Rubber Stamp, and ribbon.

I stamped my image on white cardstock, with archival ink.  Colored it with fun St. Patty's Greens and Orange, first, to get a color variance with the color lacquer, I left the wings uncolored to get a more translucent look.  Then I went over the smaller spots, like the moon, flowers and butterflies, with Ivory and Country Red Color Lacquer.  Then I went over all the green areas with the Jade Green Color Lacquer.   I let that dry.

Then I went over the smaller spots, like the moon, flowers and butterflies, with Ivory and Country Red Color Lacquer.  Then I went over all the green areas with the Jade Green Color Lacquer.   I let that dry.

Once that had dried some I sprinkled glitter over the whole image, and covered all of it with Clear 3D Crystal Lacquer, and let that dry.
While I waited, I constructed the pennant, I distressed everything (except the image) and then inked them, and glued everything in place using Crystal Lacquer, I really like it for sturdy projects like this.  Once the image dried, I trimmed around the edges and mounted it in it's spot, with pop up adhesive squares.
I really liked the way the pencils and Color Lacquer, which are both so subtle by themselves, created a lovely saturated, and ink or water color like look.  As well as the enamel like, finished effect of the Lacquer.

For more great ideas (and believe me, these are some talented lassies)
Check out The Sakura Hobby Craft Blog and visit me any time on my blog Whimsykins.  Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

~Chelsea