Touch the Stars // Card Tutorial

First things first, people.  What in the world.  Honeybabes, it's been over a month since I done blessed you with my presence.  I don't even have a fabulous excuse either.

And speaking of taking forevah to get things done, the card featured in this post, and the others like it, are cards I made back in, um, October.

Anna was disappointed with the utter cheesiness of the card, but you know what?  I'm a cheesy individual, and I'm gonna make cheesy cards sometimes.

Supplies
Blank card
Something x 5 1/2 inch cardstock panel
Black extra fine sharpie
Star stamp
Stamp ink (or acrylic paint)
Paint brush

On the panel, draw a girl reaching up to the sky.  I started with the hand, because I wanted to make sure it was in the right place so I could place the star in the right place later on.

Then I continued to draw the rest of the girl.  I finished her arm, drew a simple sleeve, and then drew the back of her head, and onward.

OH YEAH, and I made sure to draw her far enough to the side that I could add words on the other side.  Which, by the way, is supah to the dupah fun.  I'm into it.

I'm getting better at this typography and fake calligraphy stuff, so what I can do now is better than this stuff from October, but I actually really like the imperfectness of this.

OOH!  LOOK AT IT!  It's my stamp!  I made it!  Out of a cork!

I used both ends of the cork too!  This end didn't work too well, unfortunately, but that's ookey.

Now blob some o' dat ink on dat stamp.

I used my finger to rub it to the edges of the stamp.  It was still really thick on ther' though.

 So I stamped it upon that card, right above the hand.

And then I had plenty left to stamp a second time on another piece of paper, for another card.

You can see that there was a lot of ink on the stamp by the darker edges around the stamped image.

I don't exactly remember doing this, but it looks like I removed some of that thick ink from around the edge, with the stamp itself.  (I do remember that.)

And then I drew some fun clouds up above, and the shoot-y things out from the star, and added a dotty border.  This works a whole lot bettah if the ink is dry, by the way.

Now the panel is finished, and we can deal with the card.  Using a flat, watercolor brush, I dipped it right into the opening of the tube and painted horizontal strokes along the left and right edges of the card, making sure to go towards the center at least half an inch so that the panel would cover ever'thin'.

As I said in the supplies list, you could also use acrylic paint for this, and it might even work better, as it would dry quicklier {definitely a word}.  I just didn't.  But acrylic paint is the bomb.

When that and the panel are dry (and please do make sure they're dry), you can glue on the panel.

HEY LOOK it's done.

This is the original card I made, before I made another to do a tutorial on.

I made a total of...six?  I thought I made eight.  But the picture only has six.  Anywho, I made a bunch, and on one, I drew a boy instead of a girl, which, looking back, was kinda dumb.  These cards are supah girly and should not be sent to any boy.  Oh weell.  Heh, and that boy one is the only one I  haven't used yet......

On some of these, I wrote "reach for the stars" instead of "touch the stars."  Gots to have variety.

Do you think this is just way too cheesy for life?  I agree it is cheesy.  Have you ever made a cork stamp?

Card Tutorial // You (Yes, You!) Take Me Someplace Special.

The centerpiece of this card had been sitting on my desk for, literally, months, before I finally got around to making the card!  (In fact, I think I created this centerpiece around the same time I made this card, and I used the same sharpie for both!)  (I go through extra-fine back sharpies rather quickly.)  I was playing around with fonts and cheesy but sweet sentiments, and this is what I came up with.  I wanted to make a card that would be just as lovely, because this was somethin' special here!

As it turns out, the card I made with it was not my best, and if I could go back and remake the card, I would do it a bit differently, but you know what?  IT'S OKAY!  I still love the sentiment.

Supplies
Doily
Scissors
Sharpies (multiple shades and thicknesses of one color, + an extra-fine black sharpie)
Baker's Twine
Glue
Card

So first, we're going to start with a doily, like we've used many times before.  Now look at the doily.  It has ten sides, see?  So we're going to cut it into ten little triangles.  You'll cut from the "1" to the "6," the "2" to the "7," and so on.

After you cut the doily in half the first time, you'll need to hold the two halves together as you cut it in half another way.

Then you can use the pointy middle to make sure you're cutting it straight through...the middle!  (Do I make sense?  Me thinks not.  So this is where you refer to the picture.)

There, ten little triangles!

Get out your trusty sharpies, and draw some horizontal lines on those triangles!  I used five sharpies, and did two triangles per sharpie, drawing the horizontal lines opposite ways for the two (except I accidentally did the lines the same way for those two on the right).  Can you tell which sharpies I used for which triangles?

It makes a pretty good stack of colored triangles.  We'll only use four of them today, so you can stash the others away somewhere.  (My extras are still...ahem...on my desk.)

Yay, baker's twine!  This stuff is so pretty, don't you think?

I got this idea from this pin I saw on Pinterest, but wanted a little something more, and that's why I added the stripes.  Eep, this is so pretty!  Set this aside for latah.

I already had my centerpiece made when I got around to making this card, so I didn't take pictures of it as I drew/wrote it, but you probably don't have one yet!  If you're nervous about trying fancy typography, you don't have to try it!  You could totally just use your regular old handwriting, or, if you want, you may be able to find a stamp with a similar sentiment that you could use.  But it is really fun to experiment with hand-lettering.  If you would like to try hand-lettering, you should check out Jennie's post on the subject!

After you get it written, you can cut it out in an oval shape.  I used a stencil.

 Now all the elements are made, and all we have to do is figure out how the card will be layed out.  This was my first idea.  I actually really like this, but I nixed it because I wanted to include a bow, and there didn't seems to be a place for a bow with this layout.  Also I would have had to cut off parts of the triangles, which I didn't want to do.

 So I played around a bit more, and came up with this.  As you can see, there are now only four triangles visible.

Now that it's decided, we can begin to glue everything down permanently.  But first, I wanted to knot the ends of the string, to kind of give the impression that it's hanging up.

After the ends are tied, put a little glue under each knot, and let dry.  Don't try to do anything else until they're dry, because the string will move from the glue very easily before it's dry.  And if that happens, you just might go crazayyy!

Alright, cool.  The glue under the knotted string is dry now.  (That was quick!)  So now you can glue down the triangles.  Which, surprisingly, can be a little tricky.  Because you want them to be at exactly the right place so that the centerpiece will be right in the middle of them.  I kind of had to maneuver them into place until they were right.

Then when they're all behaved and glued down and dried, you can glue down the centerpiece.  As the catchy commercial goes, "Push it REAL good!"  Meaning, push that centerpiece down.  Keep it calm. Give it a nice long back rub.

There we go!  All the main elements are glued on!  (What do you think of it at this point?)

I was not satisfied at that point, so I added some outlining lines.  I'm not sure I really like the look of it, but you know what?  IT'S OKAY!

I knew it needed a bow the whole time (remember what I said up ther'?), and finally!  The chance came!  I made a pretty little bow from the baker's twine used for the doily triangles.  (Hey, did you knooow, there's actually a fancy name for that, other than doily triangles?  It's called bunting.  Yes, I do know words sometimes.)  Maybe someday I will show you people how to make one of these perfect bows, but alas!  Today is not the day.

Then I still thought it needed somethin' more, specifically, black adhesive pearls, which I do not own.  So, I just drew some, which do not look near as classy, but you know what?  IT'S OKAY!

There we go!  It's all done!  Whew!

The finished card!

What do you think of the sentiment?  Do you think it's cute as can be, or plain cheesy?

How to Construct a Painted Bead Necklace at Eleven PM on a Saturday Night

July 9, 2016.  Eleven o'clock pm.  I'm in my room, about to take on a three and a half hour project: making a necklace to match my outfit for the next morning, and I haven't even showered yet.  Because when inspiration strikes, YOU'VE GOT TO GRAB IT BY THE NECK AND HOLD ON TIGHT AND NOT LET GO, because if you do, IT MIGHT LEAVE YOU FOREVER!  So I did not let go.  (But just so you know, I don't recommend staying up that late.  Especially on a Saturday night.)

I specifically wanted to make a necklace that would match my outfit in the morning, and there was no way I was going to postpone wearing that outfit to another day, because I already had it all picked out!  Do you know how much planning goes into picking out a Sunday outfit?  (Okay, actually this one didn't take much planning.  It was just a dress.)

Get yo' supplies!  My supplies included:
Pearly white beads, different sizes
Smallish rocks
Glass jar
Green acrylic paint (or whatever color you want)
Elmer's liquid glue (not pictured)
Clear stretch cord
Round acrylic paintbrush.
Toothpicks
Foam flower (not pictured)
Itty bitty glass beads in a color that goes with the paint

My supplies did NOT include:
White acrylic paint.  Why I put it in the picture, I don't know.  But give me a little grace here - it was like 11:30 by this point, probably.  I was tired.

The first* thing I did was to go outside and gather a few smallish rocks from the driveway.  I washed them off, and put them in a jar with the beads.  And...I SHOOK THAT JAR LIKE I MEANT IT!  Because I did mean it.

*Actually the first thing I did for this project was fiddle and tinker and mess around with different things to use for the necklace, until I found these beads, and was like, "Ah, perfecto!  I shall use them, with Rebecca's permission because they belong to her!"

But...apparently I shook it a little too hard.  The jar broke.

But!  The shaking worked, nonetheless!  I shook them a little more in another jar, gentler this time, and then they were ready.

All I had to do was peel the pearly white finish off of each. and every. individual. bead.  Noooo, not tedious at all!

After all the pearliness had been stripped away from those poor beads, I decided to shake them up with rocks one last time, to sand them.

Squirt!  Goes the paint.  Into the little white bowl thing.

Paint!  Goes the brush on the bead, which is on the toothpick.

Done!  Go all the little beads after they've been painted.

Alright, alright, alright (watch the video.  The whole thing, but especially 29 seconds in).  When they are all painted (and dry), mix together a wee bit of water with more than a wee bit of glue, and glaze every bead.  This is to minimize the chance that the paint will come off (refer to bottom of post for some important words on this topic).

The glue will take a bit longer to dry than the paint.  Ooh, and really important note here if you care about your brushes!  Please please please wash out all of the glue from your brushes!  Even if you don't care about your brushes, do it because I care about your brushes!

Because gravity is a thing, the glue will drip to the bottom, so there will be wet glue at the bottom of the bead, while the top is dry.  Like this:

In order to keep the glue from drying on the toothpick (and peeling off when you remove the bead), you'll want to flip the bead over before the glue spot at the bottom dries.  Like this:

HEY!  Would you look at that!  After only, like, two hours or something, the beads are done!

Now we've got to string them onto the elastic string.  Cut the elastic to whatever length you want.

It took me a long time and many tries to get a pattern of beads that I liked, because there were two sizes: big, and smaller than big (as you can see from the picture up yonder).  I wanted it to look random, but also consistent.  (I'm a woman - I'm hard to please.)

Playing around with a favorite letter of mine*...

*I'm not saying it is my favorite letter.  I don't think I have a favorite.  But obviously it's gonna be one of my favorites.

After all that, the necklace wasn't long enough with only the painted beads, so, for like the tenth time, I took them off the elastic (but made sure they stayed in the right order), and I put a little bitty glass bead in between each painted bead.

A note about these glass beads: aren't they pretty?  And also, see how they're not the same color as the painted beads?  This at first irked me, but they were the the best option of all the glass beads my sister owned,* and as it turned out, it worked quite well since the dress I wore the next day had many colors.

*I don't make jewelry.  I don't own beading supplies.  My sister doesn't often make jewelry either. But she has beading supplies.

Once there was a little bead between each painted bead, I still wanted it longer, so I added more little beads on the ends.

I added about two inches of little beads on each end.

When it was as long as I wanted it, I slipped one end of the elastic through one side of the hole in a little bead, and the other end of elastic through the other side of the same hole.  Like this:

Then I pulled it tight and knotted it.  I realized after wearing it the next day, that I should have pulled the elastic tighter.  I didn't want to pull it tighter and stretch it out, but it was going to stretch out anyway, by hanging around my neck.  So pull it tighter than you think you need to.

I knotted it a couple more times, than snipped off the leftover elastic!

I have this other necklace that I did not make, that I thought would look good paired with my homemade necklace.  I ended up just wearing the other necklace as a bracelet instead, but still, they look pretty snazzy togever.

So fashionable.  While I'm bragging about its fashionableness, I suppoooose I should also tell you about something not so grand.  Being, I wore the same outfit to my cousin's wedding last weekend, and ALAS!  When I was unpacking from the trip, I noticed to my VERY GREAT dismay that the paint been *gasp* dare I say?  ScerATCHED from some of the beads!

Needless to say, I was PUT.  OUT.  Yes, it pains me to tell you.  Probably it never would have happened if I was carefuller in how I packed them.  So just keep that in mind if you make this necklace, and pack it carefully!

So tell me, lovely ladies of the world, would you wear this?  Have any tips for sealing it so it won't get scratched?  What color would you paint it?

P.S.  If you noticed that there are three places in this post where there should be a space, know that I know, and it bothers me to death too, but it won't let me add spaces there!  If you know what's going on and how to fix it, plz holp.