TCP Haunted Blog Hop

Hello! This post is part of a Haunted Blog Hop, which kicks off a special that The Cat's Pajamas Rubber Stamps is having, starting tomorrow, September 29! The New Kitty Kat Pack includes the "Fright Night" set, fun new buttons and spooky new glitter for $24.39. This is 20% off the regular price of $30.49.

You, yes you, can win this collection of goodies in the new Kitty Kat Pack! All you have to do is leave a comment for each person in the blog hop. If you didn't come here from Jen's blog, you can start at the beginning with Susan's blog.

Here is the card I made with the Fright Night set. I used the swanky new glitzy glitter. The glitter comes with 4 tubes of must-have Halloween colors-- black, purple, orange, and green. I used all but the black glitter on this card.



Stuff used:
Stamps: All from the "Fright Night" set by The Cat's Pajamas
Paper: Core'dinations Black Magic, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie, Taken with Teal, and Lavender Lace
Ink:Versafine Onxy Black, Prismacolor Pencils, SU Lavender Lace
Other: Glitzy Glitter by The Cat's Pajamas, Oval punch, D'vine Swirl Cuttlebug embossing folder, sanding block, oval punch


Be sure to leave a comment on this post, then head over to Joanne's blog to continue with the Haunted Blog Hop.

TCPTUES77

This week's TCP challenge is hosted by Joanne, who challenged us to make a card using the colors Black, Melon Pink, Pumpkin.

Stampin' Up has a new melon color, and it does look okay with the company's Pumpkin Pie color, but I only have a little swatch of the new color. I ordered the new colors from my demonstrator, but the order is not here yet. So, I had to look in my tiny designer paper stash for a melon paper. I had some paper that was sort of melon color, but when I paired it with pumpkin paper, it looked like puke. So, I chose to use a pink paper that was a bit less melon-colored.

I didn't have much free time this week, so I didn't get to my card until today. Therefore, I kept it fairly simple, and used my favorite stamp, Sprinkle. She is like my little black dress of rubber stamps. Dress her up, or keep her simple--she is always in style.



Stuff used:
Stamps: "Large Sprinkle" and "What's New" both by The Cat's Pajamas Rubber Stamps
Ink: Versafine Onxy Black, Colorbox Frost White, Prismacolor pencils, Millennium black marker
Paper: Georgia Pacific white; Printed paper from DCWV Spring 4x6 Mat stack; Stampin Up Pumpkin Pie and Basic Black
Other: Circle Nestabilities dies, white embossing powder

Mystic Attic Interior details

Here are some pictures of the interior of my Mystic Attic room box. You can click on any photo to see it bigger.



The items on this table give some indication of who lives in this room. The hairbrush, comb, and mirror are by Chrysnbon. The perfume bottles and vase of roses are very special to me, since they were made and given to me by Flo Jaster, who wanted to thank me for helping her with something. I have never met Flo face-to-face, but I feel blessed to be her friend.



The drawers in the table open. The pulls are made from inexpensive earrings. The zodiac poster on the wall is a printout of a poster I had found somewhere online.

The room box is electrified, and the lamp on this table is one of the lights that works.

This is how I wired the lamp so that no wires would show. The lamp is a permanent part of the table, and the plug is part of the table. When the table is slid in place, the plug lines up perfectly with some eyelets in the wall, which connect to wires behind the wall.



Here you can see what is behind that wall. I made the roof removable so that I could make all the wire connections in the 'stairwell', and still access the wires. Ed added some resistors so that the lights in the fireplace would not be as bright as the lamps in the room. We can also add a flickering circuit to the system sometime in the future, and the circuit board will fit in the stairwell and not be seen.

Most of the wires run down to the floor and under the room box.



The crystal ball on the table is wired in a similar manner as the table lamp, however, the eyelets are in the floor and the table is plugged into the floor.

On the table are the tools of the occupant's trade. Or, maybe it is just her hobby. Feel free to think about who you imagine lives in this room. I think she is young, since her linens are lighthearted and fun, but she could just be young at heart.

The crystals are real quartz crystals. I dug them out of the ground in Montana. My dad was a rock hound, so some family vacations were spent digging in dirt.

I am not sure what the tarot reading indicates. I picked the cards at random, and didn't figure out if it was a good reading or not!



I almost always include a cat in my room box projects. (The cat, and the Chrynbon stuff and the items made by Flo are the only things I did not make for this room box.) This cat is named Tabitha, and she is thinking about jumping on the bed, but she might land on the ouija board if she is not careful. When my 'local' club still existed, one of the members showed us how to make ouija boards.

In this picture, you can also see the fireplace.


A couple other things of note in this roombox are: The interior walls were textured by smushing torn Kleenex tissues onto the walls with the paint. The folding chairs are my own design, and they really fold. The fire place plugs into the floor, similar to the way the tables do. I did this so that bulbs could be replaced, should they ever burn out. Even the fire plugs into the floor so it can be removed. I never did quite finish this project, since the mantle is bare and there is no clutter in the corners. If I ever find the right accessories, I can always add them.

Mystic Attic

Some people wanted to see more pictures of the room box I showed at the county fair. So, here are some pictures. You can click any of the photos to see them bigger.

This is the back of the roombox. The basic room was designed and cut by friends, since this was the Spokane miniature club's 2005 workshop project. As usual, we were free to decorate and fill our room boxes however we wanted, but we were shown some techniques for using paperlay to make stones or bricks. At the workshop, I got the box nailed and glued together, but I did just about everything else later at home.


The stones are made of paperclay. The shingles are made from cardstock, which I cut into individual pieces and painted with various shades of grey. I 'chipped' some of the corners and 'split' some of the shingles so that they would look more like slate. I used "Weather It" on all the wood trim pieces to give them a nice aged look.

The shiny 'donut' stone on the wall to the left of the window is a power jack for the transformer.


Here is the interior.


Here is the interior, with the lights turned on.


If you zoom in, you can see that there are glowing embers in the fireplace too.


More pictures will be posted tomorrow.

County Fair

The Latah County Fair is this weekend.

After years of people saying stuff like "You should enter that in the fair", I finally got my act together and paid attention to dates and took one of my room boxes to the fairgrounds so I could display it. I have rarely seen miniatures at our fair, but there is a class for dollhouse stuff: "Models, Mansions, Houses".

The best way to win a "First of Class" ribbon at the county fair is to have the only entry in the class! :-)

This is my "Mystic Attic" room box. It started as a workshop project. This is the project where I really learned to use paperclay.



I may take more pictures of it after I get it home again. Until then, you can click on the picture to see it bigger.

TCPTUES76

This week's The Cat's Pajamas challenge is hosted by Toni, who challenged us to make a card that included:

Embossing (dry or wet)
Bling
and at least 3 circles

An interesting challenge, indeed!

Here is my card. It stated out different in my mind, but this is how it ended up.



Is something embossed? Check! The background and circles are embossed with Cuttlebug embossing folders.

Is there bling? Check! The bee's wings have glitter applied to them to make them sparkly.

Are there at least 3 circles? Check! My circles became elements, which were made by embossing punched circles and hitting them with some ink.

Stuff used:
Stamps: "Bee a Girl" from the "Hearts and Flowers" set by The Cat's Pajamas
Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Stampin' Up Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, and Summer Sun
Ink: Versafine Vintage Sepia, SU Close to Cocoa, Prismacolor Pencils
Other: Stickles "Star Dust" glitter glue, 3/4" circle punch, "Bloom Dots" and "Distressed Stripes" Cuttlebug embossing folders, sponge dauber

tcptues75

This week's challenge for The Cat's Pajamas Rubber Stamps is hosted by Leigh, who challenged us to use this sketch.

When I saw the image panel extending from behind the vertical panel, it make me think of something peeking around a corner. Something not quite wanting to be seen, but something that just cannot resist staying hidden. This calls for a cat!




Stuff used:

Stamps: "Large Sprinkle" and "What's New" by The Cat's Pajamas, paw prints from an old Inkadinkado foam cat set, Leopard Spots backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms
Paper: Stampin' Up Pixie Pink, Pink Passion, Lavender Lace, Basic Black
Ink: Versafine Onxy Black, Stampin' Up Lovely Lilac
Other: 1/2" and 5/8" circle punches

Australian Jasper necklace

This necklace started when I saw some beads in the store that said "Buy me." The "buy me" beads were the flat green stone pillows, that the label claimed are "Australian Jasper, dyed". So, they are real stones, but are dyed colors that appeals to me.

To complete the necklace, I purchased a strand of small round Australian Jasper beads, and added some copper round beads.

I love how this necklace goes with so many of my colorful T shirts, which I wear to work. (I work in a basement with computer nerds, and just about everyone wears casual attire.) The necklace goes with teal, aqua, various greens, and blue.

Winter Spiral necklace

A couple of years ago, I purchased some seed beads to make some snowflake ornaments. One of the hanks of beads was a winter mix. Since I wanted to learn to do spiral peyote, I decided to use the winter mix beads.



I didn't have enough blue beads to run them all the way to the ends of the necklace, but I think it is okay since that part is behind my neck when I wear it.

Pearl and Crystal necklace

When I took apart the previous necklace, I saved the freshwater pearls for another project. This is where the pearls ended up!

I got the idea for this necklace from some instructions I found at Fire Mountain Gems.

This necklace has more bling to it than I normally wear, but I can hope that someone will take me out some place where I can wear it. It is too sparkly to wear at work.

The crystals are all clear, not pink as they look in the photo. The crystals have an Aurora Borealis finish on them to give them more sparkle.

Bugle bead necklace

This is a necklace that I remade. A couple of years ago, I had some bugle beads and I was experimenting with them. I strung them with seed beads and then tripled the strand, running the thread through every 3rd seed bead. I liked the look, so I added some larger round beads to the strand.

Two years later, I took it all apart. I had made it with freshwater pearls, but I decided I didn't like it. So, I looked for some other kind of bead to use, and found some green glass beads that were accented with metal.

I like this necklace better.

TCPTUES74

This week's TCP challenge is hosted by Jen, who challenged us to create something using any Halloween stamps by the Cat's Pajamas.

No problem! I have various Halloween stamps by TCP, and now that it is getting close to being autumn, I was itching to get out this adorable tree stamp.



I also dug out my brayer, which hasn't seen much daylight lately. I used it to apply candy corn colors to the main image. The ink is choppy because I have ink spots, not ink pads, in those colors and it is kind of hard to do brayer projects with little 1 inch square ink pads. (If I was mass-producing the card, I would use re-inkers to make a temporary spectrum pad out of a baby wipe cloth.) I punched a circle out of a sticky note to mask the moon shape before using the brayer to apply the colors. It is fun to revisit the old techniques. The owl was cut out and stuck to his tree branch with a foam dot.

Stuff used:
Stamps: Spooky Tree, Hedwig, and Boo all from the "Fright Night" set by The Cat's Pajamas (and available as individual rubber stamps)
Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White; Stampin' Up Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie
Ink: Versafine Onxy Black, Stampin' Up Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, Prismacolor pencils
Other: 1 1/4" circle punch, brayer, sponge, sticky notes

Bone, malachite,and wood necklace

I keep trying to use things I have in my stash, so that I don't feel guilty for buying new things without first using things I already have.

While digging through a clearance bin at Michaels a couple of years ago, I came across some bone beads. What caught my eye was that there were a number of packages of different shapes, and they went well together. So, they came home with me and sat in a drawer.

Last week, I finally made a necklace out of some of them. The wood beads were also from my stash, but I bought new beads too. I was talking to a co-worker about minerals and beads. He has a degree in geology, and he used to live with a woman who did beading for a living. Therefore, he can hold intelligent conversations when I mention beading. (When I say something like "copper crimp beads", I don't have to explain anything.) Anyway, I told him I wanted a malachite necklace, since I love the dark green color. Later, when I was walking home, I realized that malachite green would look great with bone! So, I purchased some Malachite chips (at Jo Ann, with a coupon). The random chip shapes were also different enough to make the necklace more texturally interesting than if I were to use round or oval beads.

The bone beads all had different patterns carved into them. I tried to group them into pairs, and arrange each member of the pair opposite the other on the necklace to provide some balance.

I like that all the beads in this necklace are made from natural materials. Two of the kinds are organic!

Rhodonite necklace

Sometimes when I am in a store, something will catch my eye and I will say, "Oooh, pretty". That happened when I saw a string of rhodonite beads at Michaels.

My local store was re-arranging the beading section, and most of the displays were empty. I went into the store, hoping to find beads for a different project, but the pickings were pretty slim. I did, however, look at what was available, and a string of pinkish stone beads caught my eye. So, they went home with me, even though I didn't know what I wanted to do with them.

Later, I learned that these are rhodonite beads, not rhodenite beads, which was the name on tag. No matter how the name is spelled, the mineral is supposed to soothes the nervous system. This gemstone vibrates with love. Just holding this gemstone promotes relaxation and brings a sense of well-being. Hmmm. Maybe the beads really were speaking to me in the store and that there was no way to leave 'em once I held them in my hand. Good thing I had a coupon!

Rhodonite is also supposed to be a balance gemstone and is used to clear the psychic centers. Whatever. I just wanted to turn 'em into a necklace.

I looked through my tiny stash of beads at home, and was able to pair them with some glass 'hematite' bicone beads I had purchased on clearance a couple of years ago. I kind of like the warmth of the rose tones with the mystery and coolness of the dark grey.