Anna's Creative Space

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Jan 10, 2015 - Bat Mitzvah CENTERPIECES

Hello Lovely Artists!  My project in January was to help my best friend with the centerpieces and table decorations for her daughter's Bat Mitzvah.  Our daughters are also best friends.  My friend's daughter is very involved in competitive ice skating and her favorite color is purple, so of course her theme was a purple ice skate. 

I made 16 ice skate decorations using the Sizzix Bigz L Ice Skate die.   I die cut the elements for 32 skates in total, 16 left sides and 16 right sides.  For each 3D skate decoration I die cut 2 whole boots out of thin chipboard to use as the base, then cut 2 each (opposite images) of the boot, heel, blade and swirl decoration.  The boot was made from purple glitter paper, the heel from an alligator texture black paper, the blade from shiny silver metallic cardstock, and the swirl decoration from A/B white glitter cardstock.  I bought a large sheet of 1/4" Styrofoam for the interior so the skate would be 3 dimensional and there would be something to put the stick into.  I used one of the chipboard boots as a pattern to trace the image onto the Styrofoam, then with an exacto knife I hand cut each styro interior slightly smaller than the skate die. (Shortly after this project I discovered the FloraCraft Styro Hot Wire Cutting Tool that literally burns through Styrofoam like butter.  Having that nifty little gizmo for this project would have saved me hours of work and kept me from tracking bits of Styrofoam throughout the entire house!)




I painted the inside edges of the chipboard skates purple, black and silver wherever the associated paper would be placed, then ran all of the die cut pieces through my Xyron 9" machine to adhere the layers to the chipboard skates.  I used a chipboard base because I wanted the skates to be sturdy enough when I glued them to the Styrofoam intrior. Before gluing the skates to the Styrofoam, I attached the 1/8" silver eyelets to the skates, then glued each of the opposite image skates to the Styrofoam.  I didn't want the Styrofoam to be visible, so I cut 3/16" strips of purple glitter paper, black alligator paper, and silver metallic cardstock to cover the Styrofoam in those areas.  I marked where I wanted the wooden rod to go and used a regular hole punch (the prefect size for the 1/4" rods) to put a hole in the same place on each of the silver metallic cardstock strips before gluing them down.  Then I used a hot glue gun to adhere the strips to the Styrofoam edges.  I painted the rest of the exposed Styrofoam black on the underside of the boot and silver on the inside of the blade.  I glued a swirl design onto each side of the skate and added 3 Swarovsky crystal rhinestones to each swirl.  On special projects like this I prefer using the genuine Swarovski crystals that I can only get in a variety of sizes at the bead store.  They have a brilliant sparkle that the craft store rhinestones just don't have.

The stick was a 12" wooden rod that I bought in a pack of 16 from Beverly's.  I painted the sticks white, rolled them in glue, then rolled them in A/B glitter.  I used a crocheting needle to gently poke a hole through the Styrofoam skate at the base where the hole was punched into the silver cardstock strip, then gentle poked up into the body of skate about 1 inch.  I put a bead of regular glue into the hole and gently pushed the wooden through the blade and up into the body of the skate.  I finished off the skates by lacing white yarn through the eyelets, tying a bow at the top and attaching little sparkly white pom poms to the laces.


 We bought inexpensive square vases from Moskatel's in downtown Los Angeles, and 16 Styrofoam cubes and 16 packages of A/B tinsel from Dollar Tree.  I wrapped the tinsel over the bottom of a styro cube and put it into the vase to hold it down without gluing it in.  The tinsel flopped over the edges of the vase giving it a neat look.  My friend and I and our daughters got together over 3 weekends and made 150 chocolate suckers for the centerpieces as favors for all the kids to take home.  The suckers were made from white, milk, dark, black and purple chocolate pieces melted and poured into various sized skate molds, then painted with edible gold and silver dust for the blades. All the candy supplies and molds were purchased from Kake Kreations www.KakeKreations.com.  My friend also found some purple swirl lollipops (at the base of the arrangement) and purple rock candy suckers (not shown) from Party City.  I stuck the skate into the center of the styro cube, then the chocolate suckers and Party City suckers at various heights on both sides of the arrangement so they would be seen from both sides. 


We used 12" wide purple mesh around the centerpieces, scattered a bag of purple stones on the table, and used 4 electric tea lights under the mesh.


Oct 27, 2014 - OLPH Book Fair INVITATIONS

Hello My Scrappy Peeps!  Last October the Book Fair committee asked me if I would make invitations for the 2014 Book Fair.  I made 35 invitation for the teachers to invite them to preview the books they would like for their classrooms.

I used a 5x7 piece of brown cardstock as the base and another 4-7/8 x 6-7/8 brown piece embossed with the 5x7 Darice Zebra folder.  I used pictures of each teacher taken from the school's website.printed the invitation wording on parchment paper and   They really liked the personalized touch of each having their own picture on the invitation! I cut a deckle edge around the parchment with my good old Fiskars edging scissors, the first scrapbooking tool I ever owned.  I still have my original set of edging scissors; they work great and I use them all the time.  I inked the edges of the parchment with a brown stamp pad and added 1/8" round bronze brads in the corners.



Thanks for looking!  Many Happy Scrappenings!

~Anna~
 

Sep 19-21, 2014 - Face Painting at the annual OLPH BBQ

Hello Fellow Crafters!  Here are pictures from our annual OLPH Church BBQ where I did 3 solid days of face painting.  All the money earned at this event went toward the building fund for our new church.

Here are a few of the faces (and hands) I was privileged to paint:











Many Happy Scrappenings!

-Anna

May 31, 2014 - OLPH 8th Grade Graduation INVITATIONS, NAME CARDS, BANNER

Hello My Crafty Friends!  I was invited to be a part o the planning committee for the 8th grade graduation banquet in May.  As an 8th grade mom with a daughter who was graduating in June 2014 this wasn't usual, as the 7th grade parents at the school normally plan the 8th grade banquet.  It's done this way so the 8th grade families can enjoy the banquet with their graduating children.  However, I was thrilled they asked me to participate because it meant I was able to create the invitations for my daughter's class.  Below are the decorations I made for the banquet.

I used black cardstock for the base, a silver textured cardstock, teal cardstock, and white pearlized paper.  The crosses are from Recollections.  I embossed the teal layer with a 5x7 Darice Basket Weave folder.



I made table name cards for each graduate and their parents.




The graduation cap was made with a die from the library of my favorite local scrapbook store, Scrapbooking Made Simple www.ScrapbookingMadeSimple.com.  I cut 2 black caps & 1 silver tassel for each card and layered the top square part to make it more dimensional.  I added a black rhinestone as the button on the top of the cap.


Hope you enjoyed!  Thank you for looking!

~Anna~

Thursday, March 19, 2015

May 11, 2014 - OLPH First Holy Communion Banner


Hello my crafty friends!  I have another project to share with you.  The parents of my son's 2nd grade class got together and made banners for their children to hang in the church the day of their First Holy Communion ceremony.

The teacher gave each child in class a large piece of stiff white felt to use as the base for their banner so all the banners would be the same size.   I bought several colors of felt from Michael's and had a large burgundy piece embroidered with my son's name and the date of his communion ceremony.  The two different types of crosses used on the banner were both die cut from Spellbinders Crosses 2.

 

I found some communion coloring pages online and used the images as a pattern to cut out the chalice and dove elements for the banner.  The communion wafer, grapes and circles at the bottom were die cut from Spellbinders Classic Circles.  The leaves were die cut from an old Sizzix leaf die found in the die library of my local scrapbook store.

 
 

 
  


I added a 1/4" wooden dowel, decorative endcaps, rhinestones, and a gold cord with tassels that I purchased from Jo-Ann's.  I painted the rod and endcaps with metallic gold acrylic paint and created burgundy felt loops that I attached the banner.  I covered the loop seams with yellow felt pieces die cut from the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis set.


 
 
Finished Banner
 


Thanks for looking!  Many Happy Scrappenings!

~Anna~

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Feb 22, 2014 - Annual Auction Dinner Dance Artwork

Hello Fellow Crafters!  It's been a long time since I've updated my blog, but I wanted to share with you all the things that have been keeping me crafty.  Below are pictures from the items I made for our 2014 Auction Dinner Dance.

I will be making a series of posts about each of the creative projects I've been involved with this past year, so be sure to check back often.

Below are the signs for the Christmas pews, graduation pews, and parking space that are auctioned off every year.  I used patterned paper and cardstock from my stash, Jolee's Christmas stickers for the Christmas sign, and die cut the cars for the parking space sign from my Sizzix Baby Cars decorative strip die.  A friend gave me the graduation cap to use, so I'm not sure where it's from.

 


  
These were special 1960's drink menus I created for the bar.  I used Jolee's stickers for the drinks and balloons.
  
 
 
 
 The auction committee decided on a 1960's mid-century modern inspired look, so I made double sided cards with 1960's drinks for the table names.  I used black cardstock backing to create the stand, hot pink, neon orange, neon green, and purple glitter paper for the background, shiny gold metallic paper for the 3 strips, and Spellbinders Classic Ovals and Classic Circles for 2 of the shapes.  The kidney shape was also made with the classic oval die, but I fussy cut one end to give it that kidney shape,  I cut the trapezoid shape at random angles with my paper cutter.  I die cut snowflakes from my Cuttlebug 2x2 die Snowflake #2.  I trimmed off some of the snowflake details so it would look more like the classic 1960's asterisk-style star that was common back then. I used Jolee's drink stickers in the corners. The drink names were printed on white paper.
 
 

 
 

 


  
These were some of the category signs for silent auction items.  They were made with a black cardstock backing, hot pink, neon orange, gold, neon green, blue and purple glitter paper, and lettering from the Cricut Calligraphy cartridge.  I put a clear sheet of acetate over the top of the signs and secured them with rhinestone brads in the corners.
 

 

 
 
Happy Scrappenings!
 
~ Anna ~



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Oct 27, 2013 - OLPH Book Fair

Hello Fellow Crafters!  I confess, it's been awhile since I last updated my blog.  A lot has been going on in my life, but I've still managed to stay crafty.  Back in October of 2013, our school had a week-long book fair, and the theme was "Explore the World of Reading."  I designed the teacher invitations and the book fair passports for the kids.  I was fortunate to have a wonderful committee of moms and we had great fun assembling the 300 passports for all the kids!

The teacher invitations were a fun way to invite the teachers to preview the books before the book fair officially opened so they could make wish lists for their classroom libraries.

I made (10) 5 x 7 library pocket cards for the teacher invitations:


 
 
 
Then I designed the passport for the kids:
 
 
 
To encourage the kids to come to the book fair on multiple days, they would receive a different country stamp in their passport.  I found these stamps at 2 really great locations, an ebay seller called "The Worms Pajamas" http://stores.ebay.com/The-Worms-Pajamas?_trksid=p2047675.l2563, and PatchworkDesigns.net http://www.patchworkdesigns.net/pdstore/ItemList_Abstract.aspx?Category=Rubber.

 
The word search on the last page of the passport was created at this website:  http://tools.atozteacherstuff.com/word-search-maker/wordsearch.php

 
Hope you enjoyed the designs! 
 
Many Happy Scrappenings!
 
 ~ Anna ~