I just love being creative! I'm into just about anything that is remotely creative or crafty. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find many web pages that have craft related freeware. I want to make one. Some of my interests are:
My little girls are very creative, just like Mom and Dad. Without an outlet for this overflowing reserviore of energy, I often find they express their creativity on my walls, floors, and furniture. So, we have found several projects that we can do together.
For Christmas ornaments, mobiles, or decorations any holiday, we have a couple recipes for dough oranments that can be hand sculpted or cut out using cookie cutters. The first, Holiday Dough Oranments, look like baked sugar cookies when finished and can be painted, glittered, and varnished. The second, Cinnamon Apple Ornaments, look and smell like gingerbread cookies. They are great as decorative airfresheners. We like to decorate them with glitter glue or trim them with puff paints... anything so long as you don't seal the wonderful smell of them away.
We also like to make our own play dough for the kids to sculpt with This recipe not only yields vibrant, non-staining colors, but smells terrific too. The secret ingredient is Koolaid! It keeps in the refrigerator for at least a month.
I have just started crosstitching and I'm really excited about it. I've been wanting to get into for years, but never seemed to have the time. I have so often been stressed and couldn't imagine trying to fit it in.
| Now that I've begun, I have realized crosstitching is a two fold blessing. I am collecting some beautiful pieces of stitchery. There is nothing better than finishing a job well done. The pieces make such great gifts as well as decorations for our home. What I didn't foresee was how much it relaxes me. I can feel my tension just melting away with the rhythm of my stitching. I also love that I can use crosstitch to make my sewing projects extra special. You just fix the dye in the floss by presoaking it in equal parts vingegar and salt with water for about 30 minutes. After it dries, you just use your tear away canvas from local craft or fabric store to stitch the pattern onto your project. I would like my next piece to involve something a little more challenging like beading. I also really must perfect my matting technique. It is incredibly expensive to have someone custom mat and frame your work for you. I do alright with straight lines, but have difficulty cutting a smooth beveled edge for circular or oval mats. I sure wish I could find an instrument to guide my hand more clearly. This is one of my favorite projects. I want to have an oval cut within the rectangular frame for it. |
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I'm interested in fantasy type patterns. If you have any you'd be willing to trade, feel free to e-mail me!
I am currently checking out cross stitch shareware programs. I'm also trying to find some Web sites with good tips hints and Freeware for exchange. Check out my Hot list to see what I've found!
I got into ceramics when my Husband was in the Marine Corps. Our base Hobby shop at Camp Pendleton had a wonderful ceramics shop. I learned so much from the helpful people there. My education is owed to Adrian, Felix, Ed, and Pete.
Lately, I've been occupied with our latest little bundle of joy, so I haven't been able to get to my local favorite store, Adobe Ceramics, as often as I would like. Of course the kids won't be young forever.
All ceramic pieces start as slip. This is basically liquid mud that is poured into molds and hardened. Details can be added by molding clay and attaching it to the piece before the first firing. Ceramics in most shops come in two different forms; greenware and bisque. Greenware is slip that has been harden in a mold. It is very soft and fragile and can be broken easily. I prefer to get my ceramics this way because I can clean and detail it myself. I can get incredible personalized pieces by carving and sponging the soft greenware. It is just like sculpting. After you clean and detail your piece, it's ready to be fired and hardened to bisque.
Most people buy their ceramics already cleaned and fired. In this form, the ceramics are referred to as bisque. You can paint bisque with acrylic paint and be done with them, or paint them with various underglazes and glazes. I love to work with the opaque EZ underglazes they can be mixed and apply almost like watercolors, although some of the colors change during firing. After they are fired you glaze them with a clear glaze.
Special treatments can go over glazed pieces once they have been fired. I like the Opal and Mother of Pearl treatments. Opal gives your piece swirls of transparent purple, blue, and green. Mother of Pearl gives it a swirling pastel rainbow sheen. Both these treatments require special care as the chemicals are easily contaminated and need to be fired.
You can also add spice to you work by using appliqués or decals. These come in every shape color and size. You can use them to add quotes and verses or pictures to you piece. Although most people seem intimidated by them, they are easy to apply. You wet the paper backing and your glazed piece, then slip them into place. After smoothing the air and water out from under the decal, they are ready to be fired.
Gold can be an exquisite finish to any piece. It is real and expensive, but a little goes a long way and it adds such a classy touch to your pieces when used right. This of course will require another firing
Projects
Some projects I have recently completed are a pot pouri burner, a decorative conch shell, and cherubs blowing kisses. I chose the potpourri burner because the bottom is tall enough to burn a votive in. I used Antique rose appliques. I am very happy with it! The conch shell was designed to be a planter. I had them just pour the outside. I glazed it clear then and Mother of Pearl to the outside. For the finishing touches, I lined it with a mauve lace trimmed handkerchief and filled it with decorative soaps and bath beads. I imagine this would make a great gift!
The cherubs are for my Mother and sisters. I had them fired to bisque, then detailed them with acrylics to look just like my daughter Tori. These were very frustrating to finish. The wings broke off very easily and I went through several before I got three perfect cherubs. I hope they like them!
In addition to Halloween decorations, I am working on Christmas gifts now. Some great ideas for gifts are personalized mugs filled with tea, coffee, cocoa, and soup. This is especially great for the college student in your life! Ceramic dishes can be filled with gourmet pasta and sauce. Candle holders can be filled with potpourri or scented candles. These gifts are special because you make them with that special person in mind
I've been sewing since I was in elementary school I think. My Mom sat me down at the machine and had me follow the lines on notebook paper. She drew circles when I had mastered that. Since then I've done everything from crafts to aprons to my prom dress. I really love to sew.
I guess what I like most about sewing my own clothes is the freedom of expression it gives you. I'm a Big Beautiful woman. I find most of the clothes on the market are poorly made, slovenly, gaudy, or way out of my price range. I can create a garment to my exact taste and specifications at a fraction of the cost of a similar mass produced item. And... it's fun!
My favorite pattern company would have to be Burda. Many Americans are unfamiliar with there products. Many more are intimidated by directions in different languages and having to add your own seam allowances. I find that they have the styles I like in sizes I can wear, and they are very easily altered to fit.
I have to recommend Grand Style Women's Club This Site lists magazines and computer programs for Large size Women and Men.
The one tool I have found most useful in sewing is a serger. My mother bought herself one, and having used it for a time, I am absolutely spoiled! It makes seam finishing ever so much cleaner and easier. For regular sewing machines, I would recomend you investigate getting a walking foot. This is esential for sewing even seams. The feed dog on your machine is designed to create ease in garments where it's needed, such as your arm holes, collar, and crotch. You may have noticed that when you sew a straight seam you always seem to end up uneven. Useing a walking foot overrides the feed dog and allows you to sew even seams, like those needed for pants leg sides or quilts.
One of my favorite offshoots of sewing is machine piecing quilts. My favorite quilt designs so far are the Double Irish Chain and The Wedding Ring. I Also really would like to do a Drunkard's Path pattern. I like to use bright colors and bold contrasts in my quilting, and I often use solids along with my calicos.
There are two different schools of quilters, those who piece quilt tops together and those who sew strip quilts. I am still sewing strip quilts using my sewing machine, and when the grain of the fabric is questionable, I use a blade to cut the strip too. Someday, I hope to have the time to sit down and hand piece my quilt tops like my Grandma and Great Grandmother did.
I find sitting down to quilt by hand very relaxing. It is even more of a meditation than crosstitching, because there isn't any counting or changing of colors involved. I use a large embroidery hoop. My Grandma has her own quilting frame that Grandpa made for her. She taught me to quilt, and I aspire one day to do her proud.
I prefer the creativity one can put into a scrap book to the traditional photo album. When I started out several years ago, I really wanted to create one for my new baby, but I couldn't find any ready made supplies or pages on the market that I liked. I checked on classes, but they were costly as were the materials provided. So, I have discovered out necessity, many neat tricks that give a book a life of it's own. Today there are whole stores devoted to scrap booking, but these ideas can help you make your scrap book unique.
Always use laser paper that's non photo reactive and is not acidic. I have colored paper as well as white. I have used my computer to print out headlines and graphics to compliment, frame, and explain the pictures. The scrapbooks I'm doing are baby books. One really fun thing to do is to trace shapes with cookie cutters onto colored paper. You can use these as backgrounds, or have them stand on their own. They are certainly eye catching. Also, look for embossing tools and hole punches in fun shapes to create beautiful frames for your pictures.
I will be collecting more design ideas and will post them here as well. If you have any ideas you would like to share, please leave me a message, and I'll be glad to post it up along with your name.
Last updated November 29, 2002
