Card Machine

As I've mentioned in past posts, I've recently gotten into paper crafts, specifically stamping. Well, I'm happy to announce that I've graduated from simply following instructions during workshops to crafting my own stamped items. I give a collection of cards and tags I made during a recent stamping girls day:

From Blog Pics

Some of these have already been sent to lucky recipients, but for the rest of you, don't be surprised if one of these graces you mailbox over the next year. I'll also be adding to this collection this weekend since I need to make some mother's day cards and add to my random card collection. Just remember to check the back to see if any future cards were handcrafted by your truly!

Stampin Up Take 2!

As you may recall, a few months ago I spent a day stamping. This past weekend while the guys were away at drill us girls (and a few others) had another Stampin Up demonstration party. Here are the results of my hours of hard labor:

From Drop Box

Not too shabby, huh? By the way, I cannot tell you how excited I am that there is now a Picasa for Macs so I can make cool collages too. You can bet you'll be seeing a lot more of them from now on. Anyway, back to stamping. This time, I was suckered into spending too much of my hard earned money. Hopefully my purchases will come soon while I'm still excited about this craft I can make all sorts of cool cards, which you will all be lucky recipients of some day.

Crafty Chrismakkuh!!

To conserve funds in these difficult economic times, this special lady and I partook in a homemade gift exchange for Chrismakkuh (in honor of our respective holidays). As promised, here's the product of my craftiness:

From Blog Pics

In case you can't tell, it's inspired by Dali's Melting Clocks. I wish I could claim all the credit for this genius craft, but I received the very simple instructions from instructables. Pretty cool, huh? Stay tuned for pictures of the totally awesome (and I'm sure much more labor intensive) gift I received!!!

I May Not be the First. . .

So I may not be the first to make a headband by hand (see here for a much more practical version made by a much more talented friend) but here is my version of hand crafted headwear:

From Blog Pics

Hope everyone had a happy turkey day!

Baby Burrito Wrap!

So one of the many friends (or just people I know) having babies this winter had a baby shower this past weekend. It was an interesting shower altogether. It had a Mad Hatter (yes from Alice in Wonderland) theme, and was a little out there in some ways. But, the mother and father to be couldn't be happier, which is all that matters. Anyway, I set out a few weeks ago to create a baby blanket to honor this event. However, when I finished I realized I was a little off in my dimensions:

From Blog Pics

Obviously not very practical given it's very wide but not very long, or vice versa. So, I thought, what if I just fold it here (and with some inspiration from my boy) keep wrapping around, sewing it together at every cross section I'd wind up with this:

From Blog Pics

a BABY BURRITO WRAP!!!! If I may say so myself, brilliant. And the mother to be loved it. Stay tuned in another 3 weeks (!!!!) or so for pictures of the actual baby burrito!

Home Improvement Part II

So in all the excitement of the election (!!!!!) I almost forgot about my promise to share the second part of my home improvement project. I'm sure I left many of you on the edge of your seat in suspense. To provide a little context, those of you who saw my place in Albany will remember the constant damage being done by Rascal to my plastic mini-blinds. That problem was eventually solved by putting a hand me down curtain up. Unfortunately, that curtain didn't cover the window immediately behind our bed that both cats like to climb into in the middle of the night making lots of noise and breaking the blinds. So, rather just spend the money, I give you my own blinds:

From Blog Pics

I know, making curtains is not that difficult. You just hem three sides evenly then sew down the top leaving enough room for the rod, check. The challenge here was the fabric I picked out. Needing something Marcus and I could both agree on (meaning not too girly) was difficult, and I wanted something dark enough that I didn't have to line the curtains. So, we picked out this really nice silk home decor fabric, SILK. That was the challenge. Oh, and these curtains are two panels, to make it easier to open them and easier for the cats to get in. Another challenge: making two even panels. Now all I have to do is get my behind in gear and make the matching set for the other window!

Home Improvement Part I

So in an effort to personalize our anonymous ikea furniture I decided to add some pillows to the couch. Nothing fancy mind you, and I really only made them because I was too cheap to cough up money for all the expensive ones at Pier 1 and Pottery Barn. I also had to wait for some home decor fabric that I actually liked to go on sale at JoAnn's. So, once that happened I was able to produce this:

From Blog Pics

Now I know what you're thinking, anyone can sew a square and stuff an insert into it . . . very true. See, what I'm most impressed with here is something you can't even see in the pictures, ZIPPERS!!! That's right, I put zippers on the the bottom of the pillow so they're just like the ones you buy in the store. I can switch out the cover for others I make when I get more adventurous, find other fabric I like on sale, or just get bored. It was a minor feat, but I'd never worked with zippers before so I was pretty pleased with how they came out. It took a little navigating to figure out how to sew on the zipper so it wouldn't show and how to use the machine while there was a zipper pull in the way.

Stay tuned for Part II of Home Improvement!!!

Stampin' Party

So a few weeks ago I went to my first stamping event. I don't want to get too crazy here, but it's possible I may become a stamping addict. The only that will stop it from happening is that when I went through the catalog and picked out everything I'd want to start my new stamping enterprise it added up to around $700. Anyway, here are the results of my morning of stamping:

A pretty little box:

From Blog Pics

A pretty little bag:

From Blog Pics

Two pretty little cards

From Blog Pics

And a little booklet:

From Blog Pics

From Blog Pics

From Blog Pics

From Blog Pics

From Blog Pics

Kinda cool what you can do with just one stamp set, glue, paper, and then some cool special tools.

New Year Treat!

First of all, to my (probably non-existent) Jewish readership, I wish you all a happy and sweet new year! Now, here's a little treat for all of you to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with. Before I show you said treat, let me give you the recap of the conversation between Marcus and I when he came home on Sunday to my little surprise:

Marcus (from the bedroom): Sarah Elizabeth Shafer
Sarah (from the living room): Marcus Lamont Wilson
M: What is this?
S: What are you talking about?
M: Come in here.
S (walking to the bedroom): What's wrong babe?
M (pointing to the new pillow on the bed): What is this?
S: A pillow
M: I am neither white nor a shirtless firefighter.
S (bursts out laughing)
End Scene.

Now, for your viewing pleasure:

From Blog Pics

Memories

So I have done a little crafting in the past few weeks. I just couldn't display my work because I had to wait to see the recipients of my genius in person. Since I recently had a wonderful day in NYC with her and her I can now share this:

From Blog Pics

From Blog Pics

I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to show my appreciation and love for these two amazing young women then by documenting our two years of grad school in scrap book form! I hope they enjoy having them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Oh, and look forward to an upcoming post showcasing a project that came out of said trip to NYC.

Sorry for the Backlog!

I blame my complete lack of blogging on the fact that my life is very boring these days and I do nothing worth blogging about. Take, for instance, the fact that I had to attend a 3 day Adventures in Attitudes training at the end of August for work. And trust me, it was as cheesy as it sounds. The best part (aside from being able to wear jeans for three work days) was that they filled the tables with all sorts of toys and such. Perfect for someone like me who tends to get restless. Plus, it allowed me to do this with all the pipe cleaners:


Yup, you got it. A bouquet of flowers made solely out of pipe cleaners. I know, it doesn't get much better than that.

Working Girl!

So to prove to some wonderful friends back in Albany that I am making full use of some goodies I received I give you:



A big thank you to you and you for these wonderful gifts that are both practical and help me be environmentally friendly!

Also, to prove I haven't completely lost my creative now that I'm in the real world, I decided I couldn't live with the boring string I was given to display my name badge. So, I decided to reach back into the depths of my craft skills several years and made myself a nice little hemp item to show I'm a VA employee:



Oh, in case you're wondering it says I'm an "Administrative Officer" whatever that means . . .