Inspiration Everywhere

A few months ago I thought I'd take a page out of Anisa's book and use home decor catalogues as crafting inspiration. Well, I found a great one, just my style in CHiASSO. Now finally, I have taken the first item of inspiration and done something with it! This is a clock made of resin, but as soon as I saw it I knew I could recreate it in paper. This is made up of 48 strips attached strategically to create this wavy design. I cut 36 strips, one inch wide and twelve inches long. At first I thought I would use brads for the attachment, but I didn't like that there would be the ugly side of the brad showing. Taking a second glance at the catalogue I could see the answer: Glue Dots!

I started by attaching two strips at a time at one end (here after known as 'the top'). I completed this with all the strips for a total of 18 joined pieces.

Next I lined the strips up on a square inch grid, with the top on the left side of the grid. I put another glue dot on the inside of the strip at the seventh inch and at the right end (see purple indicators). I repeated this with the rest of the seventeen strips. Next, I took one of the joined pieces, placing a Glue Dot on the outside of the strip at the 3 1/2" mark and the 9 1/2" mark (see red indicators) and stacked the next piece on top. I repeated this with the rest of the pieces.

See how it's coming together?After all it's all stacked in a row, it'll look like this.

The unstuck ends now need to be attached.

Once these are glued you can spread out the medalion and it looks like this: I like this in it's simplicity but it could be embelleshed in a lot of fun ways. It could probably also be made into a clock if you added another twelve strips, opening the center more.

I plan to hang this on a wall. To combat the weakness of the paper and its tendency to droop, I'm going to use fine pointed pins in several places to hold it up instead of hanging it by one point. --C

Blog Hijacking!!!

For the month of July, Cami, Anisa and Angie are each taking over an entire week each on Twiddle-Thumbs! Stay tuned for all the ideas and fun!

A Simple Gift

Today was my 1st graders last day of school and we wanted to do something special for her teacher. This teacher has fostered such a great love of general learning and specifically reading in my daughter. Normally I like small, simple, inexpensive things, but this year I opted for a nice gift card to Barnes and Noble. Being a crafter, I couldn't just let it go at having my daughter hand her beloved teach a gift card! So-with a little inspiration from my mom and Skip to My Lou, I came up with this cute little flower/sucker bouquet. I cut my flowers using the Cricuit and the George and Basic Shapes cartridge. The suckers are homemade, but you could easily use store bought suckers. Stick the suckers down the middle of the flowers and into a floral foam piece inside the pot. I didn't have any ribbon that coordinated with the flowers, but I did have a different piece of patterned scrap paper that would work. I trimmed it to fit the rim of the flower pot and adhered it with double sided tape. This in itself would make a cute little gift for a friend, teacher, coworker, etc. If you want to add a little gift card though, take a plastic fork, stick your card in, and push the fork handle into the foam as well. As you can see, it looks like the card from the florist.

Cute, easy, and fast. (How fast? I did it this morning as my daughter was getting ready for school. Can we say procrastinator??:) )

If you want to make your own suckers, here's the recipe:

Supplies you'll need:

-candy thermometer

-sucker molds

-sucker sticks

Suckers:

1 c. sugar

1/3 c. light corn syrup

1/2 c. water

1/2 tsp. food coloring (or as desired)

1/2 tsp. flavoring

For fruity flavors: 1/8 tsp. citric acid crystals dissolved in 1 tsp water

Set up sucker molds with sticks on marble slab or aluminum foil. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.

Boil water, sugar and corn syrup til about 290 (just before hard crack stage). Remove from heat; add food coloring and stir. Add citric acid if desired. Add flavoring. Stir and pour carefully into sucker molds and allow to cool. Remove gently from molds. Wrap individually or place in Ziploc bag. Enjoy!