#36--Playing with Trashy Romance Novels

Trashy Romance Novel
and Styro-wreath in their
original forms.

I have an obsession with trashy romance novels. I love them. I've literally read 100's of them (Which consequently are sitting around my house needing a new home, so if you'd like them, please let me know. My husband will thank you.).  When I first heard about the altered book phenomena, I both cringed and got super excited at the same time. I was brought up to respect books, could I destroy one? After months of deliberation on this very subject I discovered that, yes, I can destroy a book, but only one that I've already read and think stinks. So there's that. For this project, I used Friendly Persuasion by Dawn Atkins.  I've read many of her other works and think they're just fine, but she missed the mark on this one. Sorry Dawn...

To date this is the best project that I have done for this blog.  It's been done several times by many people (my Aunt Janet, this blog, and my fave book Playing with Books). Obviously, I made mine heart shaped.  I got a heart shaped styro-wreath from this place the other day when we were buying Mardi Gras decorations for the bar and was very excited to get started. On a side note, I can barely move because of the evil progesterone shots that my RE insists on torturing me with, so sitting around for a few hours this afternoon working on this project was quite therapeutic.

Supplies

• Styro-wreath (I think this is the best kind that you can use for this project, I don't think you'll get the same effect with grapevine wreaths.)
• Trashy romance novel or some other book that can be sacrificed for this great cause
• The evil hot-glue gun and extra glue sticks (I used a lot of them for this project)
• You might need an Exacto knife or scissors. I didn't, but it will depend on the type of book that you cut up. 

A Pictorial Tutorial

Take the cover off your book. Save it, you  just might find a way to re-use it later.  Tear the pages out carefully, this is where most people will want to use a knife or scissors. Since my butt hurts, I wasn't getting up to get that, so I did without and it worked just fine.

Roll each page, you don't have to be neat about it. I rolled starting with a corner and tried to make a cone shape. When I first started, I stapled the rolls together. This is quite an unnecessary waste of staples and I stopped that practice real quick.  I did secure the ends with a dab of the evil hot glue to keep them together.  

Use the evil glue gun to glue the cones to the back of the styro-wreath. I did this in stages, I would roll a few pages, then glue them to the wreath. When I ran out of rolls, I'd roll some more and so on and so on. 

Right side up. 

The blog mentioned above (ok, fine, HERE'S the link again) suggested letting the wreath sit under something heavy so that it would lay flat. This gave me more time to roll more pages...

The 2nd round. With the styro-wreath facing right side up, I folded the ends of the cones in and evil hot glued them. 

2nd round almost done. Notice my cat cave in the back? They LOVE that thing!

Round 3, similar to round 1, I folded the cones in this time and evil hot glued them onto the styro-wreath.

Finished product. I love it and I'm totally hanging this somewhere in my house. Even my husband loves it!

To switch it up a little, I could have dyed the edges of the book, either with an ink pad, paint or I think that even RIT dye would work. I shall try this on my next one to add a little more color and dimension to the project. 

#35--Club Crap

See that stuff?  That's what I found on the desk of our club Kryptonite this morning when I came into work. SO ANNOYING. How How HOW can so many people leave their phone's at a club? I can't live without my phone. If I'm on the 1st floor of my house and I've left the phone on the 3rd, I feel naked, so I don't understand totally leaving it somewhere and then going home (or wherever you went last night/this morning when you left the club).  And they were ALL ringing at the same time this morning. I didn't answer them because really, is that my job? To monitor YOUR lost phone? Methinks NOT.

It's amazing. There are even car keys in there!  Where's the car?????  I just know your butt got towed from Downtown! This is insane. If you're reading this and you were at Krypto last night, please come pick up your stuff. If not, immah sell it...

#34--Sticker Making!!!

Hello old friend!

My first experience with a sticker maker was when I was doing my wedding invitations. Martha had recommended a sticker maker for these address label type things that she designed and I used. At the time I was like, "HA! I can totally do this with a glue stick."  WRONG. OMG that was such a nightmare. It got done, but it was a mess and come to find out later, that stupid glue did NOT stick. Anyway, fast forward a few years later to my training at Paper Source and my introduction to my new best crafting friend, Xyron. I love my baby Xyron...See it right over there on the left? SO CUTE!  Xyron's come in a few different sizes, a really big one, a medium one and the baby. It is THE MOST useful tool in my arsenal and I LOVE it.  This size is also super cheap so if you don't have one, get one.

A Pictorial Tutorial 

(but you don't really need one because this is silly easy...)

Before you start, find something that you want to make sticky. You can use thin buttons, dried flowers (some of them if they're flat enough) or something that you have paper punched. That's what I used...My flocked heart from blog #33.

Drop your heart right side up into the little slot.

Turn the Xyron around and pull the sheet through. Then rip it off. I rub my finger over the sticker to make sure it gets sticky enough. Then pull off the cellophane on top.

How easy was that?

See the sticky stuff?

I stuck this heart on a blue note card.

#33--Flocking

Martha Stewart Flocking

The rest of the supplies

I had a request this morning to flock something in my blog. Since I totally ditzed out and forgot to blog yesterday (OK, I didn't really forget, I'm taking evil progesterone shots that are making me insane and I was verifiably insane yesterday-hence no blog) so I'm doing two blogs today. Very fun.  Flocking is pretty cool, it's a lot like glitter, except it's furry. Flocking is used a lot in kids cards for fuzzy animals etc.  I like the Martha Stewart kind the best because it comes in a very easy to use bottle.

Supply List

• Martha Stewart Flocking Powder
• Blue Tray
• Duster Brush or a paint brush
• Paper punches
• Double stick tape (You can use the regular kind or you can use sheets like THIS. That's super tape and it's GREAT. We'll talk about that some other time though...)
• Scrap paper. I think I used a post-it for this one.

A Very Fun Pictorial Tutorial

Tape up your paper. Make sure to overlap the tape so there are no gaps. 

Sprinkle on your powder. You might have to do this more than once. You can press it into the tape for better coverage. Before you do this, don't forget to clean your tray so that you don't contaminate your powder. I hate contaminated powder. It's REALLY annoying...Use your brush to brush the rest of it into the little jar. 

Whammo! So pretty!

Whenever I do a project like this, I turn the punch over to make sure that I've aligned it correctly...

This punch was not so great for this project, but this picture shows the fluffiness of the flocking. 

I did three, the other two were much better!

#31--Heat Embossing On A Tile...

This is a project that I've been wanting to experiment with for awhile...I've heard that you can heat emboss on tiles and on glass before, but to mixed reviews.  I didn't really have any spare tile laying around, but when I was at the Asylum (Texas Art that is) this morning, I came across a variety of them, so I grabbed a black one. I regret not getting a lot more because there are many other things that I plan on doing with this newly found technique of mine.  

As usual, the easiest way to do this is a...

PICTORIAL TUTORIAL

but first...

SUPPLIES...

My Tile

I'll explain all this stuff over
<<<there...

  

• A tile
• Colorbox Pigment Inkpad, Ruby
• VersaMarker Watermark Pen --I've never talked about this before, so lets get right to it...the VersaMarker is used for heat embossing. It's basically a clear ink pad in pen form. I use it mostly to "fix" bad things that happen to my regular stamps (connecting lines, etc), but you can also use it to write things if you have REALLY good handwriting, which I do not as you will soon see.  The VersaMarker is a great tool for all you stampers out there and I highly recommend it. 
• Stamps, I used this one and this one (they're not the same, they're two different sizes). 
• Zing! Opaque Embossing Powder- Rouge
• White Embossing Powder
• Blue tray funnel
• Embossing Heat Tool

To start, I stamped my roses with the Ruby red ink onto the tile...

Then I put my powder onto the stamps and...

I smushed the rest of the powder into my blue tray.  The blue tray is AMAZING. Until the blue tray, there was a strict "no glitter!" rule in my house instituted by my husband.  Now that I have the tray, I can have my glitter...

This is where it got kind of sketchy...I heat embossed it. It took a long time (but it worked-SCORE!) and it was HOT. Like, even five minutes after I'd finished, it was too hot to touch...

When that was done, I took a wash cloth and held it down (so as not to burn my fingers) and I wrote on the tile with my VersaMarker. Then I used my white embossing powder to cover it. Since the tile was so hot, the powder was sticking to funny places. I guess I could have been patient and waited for it to cool, but I wasn't, so I just took a pencil eraser and "erased" what I didn't want to be there...

I didn't get all of the white off of where it was supposed to be, but it's fine. It was an experiment and I like it very much.  One thing about this that's good and bad is that you can scrape off the embossing.  Since my handwriting is atrocious, I shall be scraping off the "365" and replacing it with actual 365 rubber stamps...once I get them...

#31--Stitched Heart Cards

No matter all of the preparations that I made for this time...I'm slightly limited with what I can do blog wise while on bed rest.  That being said, I did have this super cute Stitched Heart Card set from Paper Source (I would link it, but it's not on the site anymore...oops!) and I was excited to actually use it. The set was super easy (as it looks) and it gives you everything you need.

I only made two cards instead of four, I have plans for the other two...

 

I'm going to put a crystal in the middle of the bottom one, but the swarovski's are in my craft room which consequently is not in my bed, so that will have to wait!

#30--Cross Stitch Heart

Now I remember why I no longer cross stitch. I think I'm blind...It's so tiny!!!!

Along with crocheting, cross stitch was one of the first crafts that I learned, this time from my other Grandmother, Toni.  I used to cross stitch a lot, but I stopped a long time ago, probably in high school, or maybe even middle school.

Seeing as how I'm on bed rest, I am limited in the types of hearts that I'm able to create, so I prepared for my time in bed and have a pile of stuff next to me. Today was cross stitch (as mentioned above).

I have a ton of DMC embroidery floss stashed away (we'll be using this on other projects too).  I pulled some out to use on this project, I actually chose a purple metallic one that was pretty.

I used graph paper to kind of make a key for myself, I didn't really need one, but I wanted to use my graph paper because it's fun...

I folded the embroidery cloth in half and then in half again to determine the center. Excuse the picture on my bed, but that's where I am now...

Halfway through, this is where I was.

How it ended. I think it's OK. I have a plan for this one though for the future...so it's not 100% done, but it's done enough for this project!

#29--Engraving the cheap way...

This is going to be the quickest blog entry ever as I'm almost late for my appointment...

In high school art class, we used to do this ENGRAVING  thing and a few years ago I was putzing around Michael's and I found it, so I picked it up along with a tool.

Last night while I couldn't sleep, I remembered that it was stashed away and figured that it would be a really quick project for this morning before I get all doped up on Valium...

A Pictorial Tutorial...

The package...

On the back of one sheet, I used a stamp to make a heart outline.  The red thing is the scraper tool. I really like the scraper tool. It's very useful. I'm glad that I remembered that I have it...

I cut it out and then traced a squiggly design on it using a pencil...

I scraped all the blackness away from my design...Then I scraped the edges of the heart too because they looked messy and were stressing me out...

The finished project.

Gotta run!