Life Outside the Fishbowl

Kerri Bradford's Class Giveaway

If you haven't tried Kerri Bradford's Silhouette classes, you're really missing out. I've had my Silhouette for about a year but had never taken a class  - until now. I started by signing up for her upcoming Here, There Everywhere class two days ago. She recommends that you take her "Oh the Places You'll Go" prior to starting.

So I thought, "why not?"  I'd been meaning to take a few of her classes, but hadn't gotten around to it.  After the first two videos I went back and signed up for two more of her classes - starting with the beginning. While I knew some of the information, there was still much to learn about using this machine and creating your own designs. I've gone through her "Gettting to Know You" and currently working on the "Oh the Places You'll Go," after which I've got "Just Add Color" to go through.

I should have done this a year ago - seriously.  

Kerri's giving away three spots in her upcoming class. Check it out.

What I Did Last Week

Last week was spent catching up on lots of things - housework, to-do's, and just finishing up projects.  We spent the weekend with my family, which was just wonderful. It's not often that we can get together in one place so I really cherished the time we had.

But then Monday it was back to normal, back to the grind.  With a yard just covered in leaves.  Rachel was nice and "helped" me rake up about eight bags. However, I was left with a nasty bruise on my arm from the rake which convinced us to try something new -- having someone else rake all the leaves. Can I say that I am a meticulous raker, but these guys outdid me.  And now I've got around 30 bags of leaves on the curb, none of which I had to rake. Wow.  Why on earth didn't we do this sooner?

Monday wasn't all bad though. I spent the morning at ScrapbooksPlus demoing products from Viva Decor, including their crackle paste, modeling cream and ferro.  Love this stuff! How fun is this gold crackle paste?

With the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who coming up on the 23rd, I was a bit behind in making these, partially due to the BBC waiting until the last minute to announce showtimes. Yes, we're having a party and going to geek out and fangirl like crazy.  I'm going to bring back many things from Rachel's Doctor Who birthday party and add a few things from Halloween - like our dalek.

And on the creative front, I finally found the right paper to update our "Boo Book" with the kids' costumes from Halloween. I started this book about five years ago (five?) and each year I add another page spread. 

I found this picture of drawings and design info for the daleks from early on in Who history. I paired it with a Graphic 45 paper that has gears and circles. I like to think the gears are from watches and the design on the second page is almost Gallifreyan looking. I used my Silhouette to cut out the logo for the show to add to the second page. I had a cool script "halloween" I'd also cut out to go across the logo, but I got vetoed by Rachel.

And, I'm considering this pastel painting finished, for now at least.  I may go back and play with the water a bit more, but I'm on to another painting. This time it's Stonehenge.

And finally, I finished putting together a Christmas mini album class for ScrapbooksPlus.  I'm using Heidi Swapp's Believe line and adding a few fun touches.  It'll be added to the ScrapbooksPlus website within the next day or so.

And now that leaves me the task of cleaning off my desk so I can get back to finishing up a few collages.

Coping With Yet Another Last Minute Project

So, Wednesday night Thomas hit me with Thursday's spirit day at school - dress as your favorite book character. I suggest, why don't you use one of your two costumes?? Seeing as how I'd put a lot of time into two diffferent Doctor outfits. Sigh...

Well, they were going  to run a mile in PE on Thursday and a suit wasn't going to work. After I rolled my eyes (several times) I suggested that we make him a Camp Half Blood t-shirt and he could go as Percy Jackson.  This was after he shot down my idea of just writing SPQR on his arm with a marker.  Eventually, he warmed to the idea. I thought I've got lots of markers and fabric paint, I can do this.

So, after picking up a few orange t-shirts from Michaels I decided to search the internet to see what I could fine. And I found something so much better than a Sharpie marker.   This youtube video with a pdf file linked with a good replica from the movie.

And, I thought, I've got a Silhouette and a brand spankin new package of heat transfer vinyl.

It takes just a minute to use the trace feature in Silhouette to convert an image to a cut file.  Then, you need to flip the image horizontally so that the words will come out the right direction. You'll be placing the vinyl on your fabric upside down from how it's cut - and the words will be backwards if not flipped.

Cutting the vinyl was easy.  Using the hook tool to "weed" the areas outside the design, not too bad. Transferring the design in one minute? Nope.  It takes longer than that for the design to transfer.  And I got impatient and helped the design off the backing with the tip of a sharp knife.

But you can't argue with results! I love how it turned out, and so did both of my kids. Hmm.. maybe next year we'll have a Percy Jackson themed party?

Layouts With My Silhouette

Can I just say how much I love my Silhouette Cameo?  This has got to be one of the best purchases I've made, crafting-wise. I've been having fun poking around, picking up cut files and trying things out. Like this -

I used my Cameo to cut out a handful of doilies and word phrases - because really, it was seeing everyone's cut phrases that sold me on the machine. I like being able to resize the shapes to suit my project, as well as cut an entire page full.

My first layout from our recent UK trip. Me, geeking out....

One thing I've learned is that you have to be careful and patient when removing intricate designs from your cutting mat -- especially words.  Or else you could easily end up tearing it, as I did. 

I'll still use this word. It's torn in a place that's not too noticable. But I learned a valuable lesson for the next time.

Other supplies: Heidi Swapp Color Magic banner, Studio Calico paper, vintage book paper, My Mind's Eye paper, Basic Grey paper, Ranger Adirondack paint daubber, Jenni Bowlin stars, Recollections wooden stick pin.