Froggie update

Here he is:


Tree Frog Among Leaves WIP 30Sep13

I just finished with Light Yellow Green.  One more down, actually 2 more.  As it happens, hubby came home from work on Tuesday and announced he had to go the Las Cruces for a career seminar.  Of course I went with, so while he was in the seminar I could do some shopping.  As we prepared to leave the house, I packed up my stitching for the drive.  Once on our way, I worked the length of floss that was already started, and discovered that I had forgotten the envelope with the Light Yellow Green on the arm of the couch.  So I looked at the pattern and decided on a symbol that I could see easily enough without highlighting,  and started stitching Pale Yellow Green.  Worked on it during the drive to Las Cruces, then once Jason was dropped off, I went shopping.  After I was done shopping at Hobby Lobby and Joanns, I parked the truck back at the facility the seminar was being held, hopped into the passage seat and continued the stitching.  Pale Yellow Green was completed and I started with the color Charcoal.  Got one strand of Charcoal done and Jason's seminar finished up.  Sun was already down, so I couldn't stitch during the ride back home. 

Next color to be worked is Brown.  Not much of this color on the pattern, only a spot here and there, so it won't take long.  After that there will be Olive Green, Dark Olive Green and Charcoal, which are the last colors in the leaves.  Dark Olive Green has about the same number of stitches as the Light Yellow Green.  Charcoal has a low number of stitches, so will go quickly.  Olive Green has about the same number of stitches as the Dark Yellow Green so it will take some time to complete.  But then the leaves will be done and I can start on the branches.  I am leaving the frog for last.  He will be my reward for finishing all the cross-stitching.  Then comes the back-stitching, which there is a considerable amount.  At least it is a lot of long continuous lines, so it should progress steadily.

One last thing, is I finally found the perfect travelling Ort container.  I've struggled using a snack size baggie for sometime now.  I just happened to see this sitting on the countertop and the light bulb in my head went off.

It is working wonderfully!  Light weight, easy to open and pop in the bit of floss and close up.  A little flick of the wrist and all the orts compact to the bottom making room for more.  I'm not quite sure where this container originated from, but I am so glad I found it.  Whenever it gets full, I can just dump it into the big Ort Jar and start filling it up again.

Happy Stitching!


Birthday cakes

My son's 7th Birthday is coming up in October, so last week we asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday.  We've always given him the option of doing something special with us, or a birthday party with his daycare/school friends.  So far he has chosen to do something special with us.  This year he has made the same choice.  Although before he answered that question, he answered a question that wasn't even asked yet.  He piped up and emphatically stated he wanted a Batman cake this year.  Today we asked him about it to make sure he wasn't going to change his mind.  Still Batman.  He has said he wants the Batman image on the cake, and not just the Batman symbol.  Darn it.  The Batman symbol would've been easy and sure to turn out awesome.  So after doing research, I've found there are not really any designs that lend themselves to my skill set (I don't do fondant, not yet anyway, and this is not the time to start).  I've decided to use a Wilton cake pan, the kind you decorate by piping hundreds of little stars onto it.  I've avoided it as long as I could.  Now is the time to try it.  The cake pan was discontinued in 1989, so I had to buy one off eBay.  This is what it looks like:

 Hopefully it turns out well.  We'll have to see.  Admittedly, I may have set the standard a bit high with last year's cake.  He asked for Spiderman.  I found some great tutorials online for a simple Spiderman face design.  My only real challenge was getting the Red color icing deep enough for my liking.  Once I solved that problem, the rest was fairly easy.  Here is how it turned out:


Alex's 6th B-day Spiderman cake

For next year I may need to figure out what is doable for me and start planting the idea in his head a little earlier.

Who knows, I may find I really like the Wilton shaped cake with all the piped stars on it.  Maybe I'll find an occasion to finally try out fondant.


Tree Frog update

Here is what Tree Frog looks like now:

Tree Frog Among Leaves WIP

Finally finished the Dk Yellow Green color.  There was a lot of that color!  Next color will be Blue Green, which comparatively has significantly less stitches, so I will get through this color much faster.

UFO back in storage

MIL came back early from Florida, so Innocent Guardian had to be put away, which kinda sucked, because I was making progress and really getting back into it.  I finished the backstitching on the upper portion of the main stitched area, and was moving on to the French knots in her hair garland and the grape bunches.

 

 

Next I will start the backstitching of the grape leaves and work towards the bottom half, then work all the backstitching and French knots on the skirt and hem garland.  Last thing to do will be the "halo" that is around her.  The pattern uses one strand of gold floss and two strands of gold blending filament to make French knots to in a large oval shape around her upper half to form the "halo".  I tried, but the blending filament is just too slick, my French knot kept slipping to the back.  After several attempts, I removed it.  I've decided that I am going to use glass gold colored beads instead of French knots for the halo dots.  I think that will look awesome.  And that will be the last thing to do before she is finished.  I will be so happy to get her done and framed.

 

Now that I've started working on her again, I'm anxious to get back to it.  I may have to set it up in a corner of my craft room that the MIL never ventures into.  The problem is that corner is quite dark, so setting up good lighting will be necessary.

past Halloween decor - hand-woven spider web

My hubby was cleaning out his workbench area and found a bag with on old sheet with strings tied to bulldog clips hanging out of it.  It took me a minute to remember exactly what it was.  When I remembered, I figured it would be a cool thing to show everyone.  A few years ago, at work I participated in a door decorating contest.  Since I was working in a secure vault at the time, I couldn't actually decorate our door.  Not a good idea to cover up the "Controlled Area - No unauthorized personnel permitted" signs.  So I decorated a large bulletin board that is just outside the vault door.  Here is how it turned out:

 

I used the inner strands from parachute cord for the webbing.  First I covered the bulletin board with plain black fabric to provide good contrast.  Next I attached bulldog clips to the outer frame to serve as anchor points.  Then I began stringing the cord just as a spider weaves a web. I used what I think is called a half-hitch knot each time the spiral thread crossed over a spoke thread to keep the strands from sliding all toward the center. It took me about a week and some change of working on it for about 4 hours a day to complete it.  I added some prop spiders I got from Walmart, and spun some of the fake spider web stuff you get into little oblong bundles to mimic a meal the spider has caught and a couple in spherical shape to mimic egg sacs.  I used the font Showcard Gothic to create the Happy Halloween text pieces.  I printed out the letters in very large font, cut them out, used them as templates to trace the letters onto felt.  Glued the felt onto super stiff interfacing to provide some structure, and then cut them out.  A little double stick tape was enough to get them to stick up on the board, given they are pretty light.

After Halloween I didn't the heart to completely dismantle it, so I took it down and laid it out on an old sheet, then rolled up the sheet and put the whole thing in a bag.  This coming  up Halloween we are going to unroll it and see it how it has faired, and figure out a way of tethering it up in the front yard, or on the front of the house.  If it works out, I'll be sure to get some pictures to post.

LNS events

This post is going to focus on my LNS experience.  LNS stands for Late Night Stampers, a wonderful group of paper-crafters. I came to know about LNS when I was preparing to attend the Stampin' Up Convention for the first time in 2012.  I had sent a message to my upline asking about finding some roommates in need of another person, as most people will share rooms with 3-4 people in each room to help with the cost of the hotels downtown SLC.  I was matched up with Angel and Marie, both from Dallas/Plano TX area, and we clicked so well, they are now my roomies every year.  While doing the initial contact messaging to make sure we were all compatible roomies, they clued me into the LNS events.  I became interested and signed up.  I had so much fun that I signed up for this year's event as soon as I got home from Convention.  This year I was signed up for next year by the end of the first day!

We arrive on Sunday, and even before Convention starts we make our name tags,

have a white elephant type gift exchange of handmade gifts, do 2 stamp camps, 3 shoebox project swaps, a WOW event, a Reunion Party, a Welcome Party, and an 80+1 card swap.  OODLES of crafting, creativity, and meeting awesome people!  And then Convention starts!

I am so happy to be a part of the LNS clan!  I am so looking forward to next year.  I met some really great people this year and am anxious to see them again.  I've already started the pre-planning for my swaps.  I can work out the basic framework for the swaps, and then when the new SU Catalog is released, I finalize the details and start production.  I really enjoy creating the tutorials for my shoebox swaps.  Here are the ones I did this year:

note paper holder

heart shadow box

chalkboard easel card

 

Here is my 80+1 swap card:

Another sweet element of the LNS Preconvention events is that we all stay in the Radisson downtown SLC, and all the LNS events are in the hotel ballroom which is so convenient.  The hotel is very nice, the employees are wonderful, and the rooms are great.  And bonus, this year they had mini fridges in all the rooms.  We even had our reservation in for 2014 halfway through the first day of events.  Because we have such a large group of people that stay at Radisson every year, we get a group rate that is even better than the room rates Stampin' Up offers.  And it is so nice to know where you are staying months (even a year) in advance.  No waiting for SU to open up their blocks rooms just a month in advance and hoping that you're quick enough to snag a room before they're all taken.  Our arrangement with the Radisson is simply awesome!

And when Stampin' Up Convention starts, we are merely steps from the back doors of the Salt Palace Convention Center.  So our walk to the meeting place and main stage area is in air conditioned comfort.  Being SU's 25th Anniversary they had nearly 6,000 demos attending Convention this year.  So long lines for activities was unavoidable.  One cool thing about that was you had a chance to talk to and get to know complete strangers, whomever you happen to be standing next to in line.  I told so many people about the LNS events, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them joining the LNS crew next year. While we were seating and waiting for the final main stage session to begin, SU had the question "What was your favorite part of your Convention experience?" on the main screen encouraging everyone to text their answer.  I couldn't help myself, I wanted everyone one to know about LNS, so I texted in that my favorite part was the LNS events including the fun crafts and the wonderful people.  And it popped right up on the screen for all nearly 6,000 people to see!

The rest of the year, LNS holds online Treasure Hunts, Blog Hops, and shares projects daily in their Yahoo groups.  LNS includes SU Demos and non-Demos alike. 

If you are an SU demo, planning to go to Convention next year, and want to know more about LNS, feel free to contact me!  If you are not a Demo, you are welcome to join us online, and if you want to attend the LNS Preconvention events, I feel it is worthwhile even if you can't participate in the SU Convention stuff.

My Big UFO and a couple quick projects

Here is My Big UFO:



Innocent Guardian - in progress

 

It is a Dimensions kit that I started approx. 10 years ago, as a gift for my Mother-in-Law.  The main stitching went well enough, but I got very frustrated with the immense amount of backstitching and French knots.  I hit a point where the color listed for a section in the instructions just didn't look right.  I contacted the company to see if there had been any modifications to the pattern, specifically the color choices for the backstitching.  I did not get any reply.  So it got put away for awhile.  Now that my MIL lives with us, I have to take advantage of when she travels since she still has no clue I'm making this for her.  She is gone for 2 weeks visiting family in Florida, so out comes the UFO.  I finally just changed the color that was causing my issues.  Now I'm making progress again.  We'll see just how much I can accomplish while MIL is gone.  Then it will get packed away until her next trip.  I will certainly celebrate when this one is done.

I've completed a couple small projects:

The sunflower and bee is a small kit that I picked up at Michaels in SLC.  A nice easy project that was fun to stitch.

I happened across this little project while doing a Google images search.  The original border was a bit awkward, so I modified it.  This little guy took only 3 hours to stitch up. Here is the pattern I drew up:

Tree Frog progress has slowed but not stopped.

Also, I have two more additions to my stash.  Again a Google Images search led me to these.  Both are from an Ebay store named Stitching Addiction.


Morris' Flowers and Foliage

Dandelion

I was very excited to find the dandelion pattern.  I've been looking for a realistic looking pattern of a seeded dandelion for quite a while. There are exactly100 colors in this one.