2012-09-25

Halloween Hand Sanitizer Holder

I took some days off work this week, and have just been having the best time puttering away in my craft room!  For the past two nights I worked long into the night and finished up 40 of these hand sanitizer holders to give away to our nearest and dearest co-workers at Halloween. 



I found the tutorial here, but you can find that video as well as several others over at Dawn's Stamping Thoughts.  I love her blog; she always has lots of new ideas, great tutorials, and she's so enthusiastic and cute I can't help smiling whenever I watch them.

I bought the hand sanitizers last summer at Bath and Body Works in Calgary, but I found when I tried to make the holder using the dimensions in the video, it was just a bit too small to fit the bottle nicely.  It fits perfectly in the tutorial, so maybe the bottle sizes in Canada are just a slightly different shape.  Not to worry, though -- after much ciphering and experimenting I made it work using 12 x 12 cardstock, and here are the final scoring lines that worked best for me for the 1 oz bottles I had.

Score paper at:
  1/2"
  1-1/2"
  3-1/2"
  4-1/2"
  6-1/2"
  7-3/4" (here is where the difference is)
  8-3/4" (and also here)

Using 12 x 12 paper makes the front flap end up even with the bottom of the holder, which is nice, but I wanted to be able to include a sentiment closure at the bottom (like the second one in the tutorial), so I trimmed 1/2" off that end of the paper (the end opposite the first 1/2" score) as well before cutting it into  six 2" strips.

If you would like to find these Halloween-themed hand sanitizers, they are available on the Bath and Body Works website in the "Boo-tique", and I see there are lots of new ones that weren't there last year. 

Here are a few of my favourites.  I have to admit, I was running out of steam by the end, so some are more detailed than others, but I'm happy with the result overall.  I've also been thinking about how to convert the pattern to accommodate a 1 oz bottle of irish cream or some other grown-up Christmas "treat".  Yyyyuuuuummm!!!  :o)









2012-09-11

Wedding Card for the Mr. & Mr.

I've been meaning to post a photo of this card I made for quite a while now.  Finally sat down tonight to do it, and just spent a good 20 minutes trying to remember -- then ultimately resetting -- my password. 

Anyway...back to the subject at hand.  This is the card I made for my hairdresser and his fiance, who were married this past weekend.  I prefer giving handmade cards when I have the time, especially if it's for someone special, and lately I've been doing my own artwork, but I'm a bit shy about who I give those to.  It feels very presumptuous. 

I did actually go looking for a store-bought card, and I have to say I'm surprised at the lack of selection of wedding cards for same sex couples.  Here it is 2012, and all I found was one lame card (which they were sure to get multiples of), so off I went home to make my own.  In the end I was glad I did, although I was a bit nervous about what their reaction would be once they saw the picture, and I almost chickened out.  But they loved the picture and the sentiment, and will even be putting it in a frame.  In fact, they asked if I would consider selling them.  Awww...bless their hearts.  :o)

I should mention also that I was able to use my new light box (!) for the project.  (See previous post.  I only held out for about a week.  In my defence, I did have a 40%-off coupon.  Hee hee!)

Right.  Off to bed now.  Nighty-night!

2012-07-26

Why Don't I Have a Light Box?

This is how it starts.  Driving home from work, I was thinking that tonight I should trace a few of the drawings I am planning on making into stamps, because in my preliminary test the scan of one of the original drawings showed some of the lines I had erased and was generally just a bit too messy to make a nice clean negative. 

Then I started thinking about the actual tracing part and thought, "I really should have a light box for that.  Why don't I have a light box?".  I have never until today thought I needed a light box.

This is how I ended up with every crafting device I own (and I do own quite a few).  A random thought, which settles in as a niggling idea for a few days or weeks, becomes a youtube search one day, then escalates to an obsession, and eventually becomes a purchase.  Like "Inception".  I wonder if someone has been been poking around in my dreams.  I hope not -- there's some weird and scary stuff in there.

I guess for today, it will be the tried and true old (elementary) school method of taping the drawing to the window and tracing that way.  But!  It may not be tomorrow or next week, but I am predicting today that at some point in the future I shall own a light box and this day will have been Light Box Inception Day Zero.

On a somewhat related note, in light of a text message from him this afternoon, I suspect now that my darling husband understands what the stamp maker actually does (it makes stamps!), he must have spent the night internalizing this knowledge and coming up with ideas of his own.  This can be dangerous for us because, while I may be good at the execution, he is full of ideas.  We tend to feed off each other, so that when we get started on some innocuous little project it often snowballs into a very big project. And his ideas usually occur to him around 7:00 in the evening when the item is required the next morning.

UPDATE: Didn't do any of that. Went for frozen yogurt with Mom and Rico instead. So here's a picture of Rico, pre-yogurt outing.

2012-07-25

My Evening with the New Stampmaker

I've been coveting this stampmaker for several months, and finally gave in and ordered it last week.  It arrived on Monday, and since my husband is out of town this week, I opened it up last night right aftter work and had a look.  I thought I'd spend and hour or so installing the software and watching the demonstration videos and then put in a load of laundry, make some supper, maybe take the dog for a walk, watch some TV. 

Several hours later, eyes red and swollen, I put the laptop down and decided maybe it was time for bed. 

I had a weiner for supper. 

A weiner. 

And I didn't even make any stamps.

Hello

Welcome to my new blog!

I'm not clear yet what it will be or if it will even stay on this site, but I do have a vague idea that I would like a place to show some of the projects I work on from time to time. My husband and I share a Facebook page and I sometimes worry I'm hogging the page or annoying people with my craft obsessions (in fact, I already censor myself for their benefit!).

So, presumably you are here because you're like-minded (and maybe a little obsessed like me? Hmm?), and if not...well, I'm afraid you'll be sadly disappointed if you're looking for interesting, relevant, or thought-provoking content. What you will likely find is quite a bit of rambling, half-formed thoughts, poor storytelling, the occasional rant about improper use of punctuation (learn how to use the apostrophe, people!), photos of craft/sewing/painting projects, and definitely several photos of our furry little prince, Rico. Like this one.  -->