Halloween Treat Cone

Fall has arrived here on the mountain....leaves are changing color and nights are getting cooler.  Boxes of Fall decorations are being brought out from storage - which means one thing - Halloween!

I adore Halloween decorating (and I must admit the candy!) so I'd thought I would share a Halloween themed post to get a jump on all of Halloween's goodness. 

I used vintage sheets of music for the cone, and old dictionary paper for the flower.  This project is really fun because you can use whatever papers you have on hand to coordinate with any theme you would like!

I used a paint brush to apply Crystal Lacquer to the scalloped edge of the cone and sprinkled it with orange glitter.

After the glitter was dry, I rolled the cone into it's shape and used Crystal Lacquer to adhere it.

To make the flower,  I used 2 scalloped circles of old dictionary paper, crumpled them up several times and sprayed them with several layer of Glimmer Mist. 

I used this little guy for the center of my flower.  Here he is coated in a nice thick layer of Crystal Lacquer.  I sprinkled a little fine clear glitter onto the wet Crystal Lacquer and set him aside to dry.

I used a Tim Holtz stamp for the ticket, stamped it with black Distress Ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder.  To color it, I used Crystal Color Lacquer.  I squeezed a little out in a puddle on the side of the stamped image, and used an old giftcard to scrap it across it.  I used both purple and orange Crystal Color Lacquer.

Here you can see how awesome the ticket turned out.  After it dried, I distressed the edges using a distressing tool and black Distress ink.  I used a Dymo Label Maker to make the "BEWARE" label and stapled it to the flower,  shredded some black paper in my paper shredder and used it to fill the cone.  For the finishing touches, added some black ribbon for hanging and filled it with some candy corn!

Till next time....stay creative!

Please visit Sakura Hobby Craft for more info on their products

www.sakuracraft.com

Find more creative inspiration at Sakura's Blog

www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com



"Let's DO this" ATC Card

I had the privilege this past weekend to spend some time with some amazingly creative ladies at the Creative Souls Retreat in beautiful Lake Arrowhead, CA.  One of the fun activities we did was an ATC Swap.  The theme was transformation - and here is my spin on that theme.

 Since I had to make multiples - I wanted something fairly simple, but I didn't want it to necessarily LOOK simple. After deciding on my design and image, I immediately reached for my 3D Crystal Lacquer and my 3D Crystal Lacquer Color

Here's the image I started with - printed on cardstock.

I love this photo.  It really shows the sparkle you can create with a simple layer of 3D Crystal Lacquer and a sprinkle of glitter.  Here I used an Ultra Fine Clear Glitter by Hero Arts.  Any glitter will work perfectly.

I also used 3D Crystal Lacquer Color in blue to add dimension to the butterfly. After letting it dry overnight, I added the words "Let's DO this" using my underwood font and printed out on copy paper and a little green bling on the girl's wing!

Finished ATC's all ready to trade!

To find the products used in this post - please visit

www.sakuracrafts.com

and please visit and follow www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com for more info and fun projects shared by the Design Team!

Thanks!

Exciting News!

I'm very excited and honored to announce

that I will be joining the next

Sakura Hobby Craft Design Team!

I have had such a blast creating projects and sharing them with everyone, and I get to do it for another 6 months - YAY!

Here are the other wildly talented Design Team members - just click on their names to get to their blogs - don't forget to follow us all!

Our fearless leader:

Terri Sproul

Design Team Members:

Jessica Griffin

Leslie Rayhe

Becky Conley

Gini Cagle

Aileen Roberts

Gloria Irizarry

Quick Crystal Lacquer Charms

I'm sharing with you today 2 quick and easy charms ideas.  Gift giving season is quickly approaching and with a bottle of 3D Crystal Lacquer, a package or 2 of Glass Tiles, Bales and Ball Chain Necklaces and a little imagination you can pretty much take care of several gifts in just a short amount of time.

For this first charm, I applied a thing layer of Crystal Color Lacquer on the back of the glass tile.  The glass tiles DO have a right and wrong side.  The back has a slight texture to it and isn't as shiny.  I let this dry overnight.  For the initial - I used a permanent black marker on white cardstock, let it dry and used Crystal Lacquer to glue the tile (colored side down) over the initial.  Again I let this dry overnight, then trimmed around the glass tile.  On the back, I glued some typed words and gave it a coat of Crystal Lacquer....let that dry and added the bale.

For this second charm, I stamped an image onto the back of the Glass Tile and used Crystal Lacquer to glue the tile onto printed scrapbooking paper.  After it was dry, I trimmed around the edges and wrapped metal foil tape around it to give it a soldered look.  I added some printed words on the back and gave it a good coat of Crystal Lacquer.  When it had dried overnight, I added the bale.

String the completed charms on a ball chain necklace and ta da! 

Find more ideas and tips for Crystal Lacquer and the jewelry findings used here at

www.sakuracraft.com

And you can follow Sakura's Blog and see more fun projects and ideas at

www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com

Until next time......stay creative!

Boardwalk Pendant

I can't seem to get away from my beach-themed projects this summer!  I've even been decorating my deck in a beach theme - even though I'm at 6100' elevation in the mountains!  I can see the ocean from my deck, so I thought....why not!  I really love the way this necklace turned out.  I've been wearing it quite a bit too! 

 To start off, here are the products that I used.

Zinc Jewelry Finding

Silver Ball Chain Necklace

3D Crystal Lacquer

Graphic 45 Bathing Beauties paper scrap

Distress Embossing Powder - Old Paper

Distress Ink - Vintage Photo

Starfish charms (from my stash)

Assorted Beads (from my stash)

My Underwood font printed on white paper

I couldn't wait to make a collage style scene in this deep pendant finding - it just took me awhile to figure out just how I would do it.  I knew I wanted depth and had a fair amount of room to work with, although this was a very tiny space to work in.  I first decided on my background, which is this vintage beach scene that I found on a Graphic 45 scrapbook paper scrap and glued it down using 3D Crystal Lacquer.  After it dried, I started layering the Crystal Lacquer and the embossing powder (it's what I had on hand that mimics sand).  I let each layer dry overnight, so this process took me a few days to achieve.  After the second layer, I added the starfish charm, which was part of a necklace that I took apart.  I glued the charm down, and added more Crystal Lacquer and embossing powder over the charm to make it look like it was partially buried in the sand.  There was another loop on the bottom of the charm that I snipped off.

These jewelry findings came with what I thought was a piece of cardboard that fit nicely on the top.  I didn't realize that it was a piece of acrylic, until Chelsea (a talented Design Team team mate) had explained it in her post a few weeks ago!  Thank you Chelsea!  This shows the acrylic 'lid' after I peeled off the protective paper.

I printed several versions of the words I wanted to go in the pendant and finally decided on the My Underwood font.  I cut out each word, distressed it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and glued them into place.  I curled the word 'seashore' a little bit and attached it to the top of the starfish for dimension.

Here you can see that I glued a small clear rhinestone over the loop on the charm, a small pearl in the sand and a green pearl bead in the background.  The rest of the beads were just placed on the sand area and not glued down.  When I was happy with the amount of beads, I glued down the acrylic cover using Crystal Lacquer just around the tiny edges of the pendant.  The smaller beads can move around inside the pendant.

Here's another close-up of the charm itself.....

And here is the finished piece. 

 I added another starfish charm on the top with a jump ring and put the pendant on a ball chain.  All ready for summer outfits!

Until next time....stay creative!

Be sure to check out Sakura Hobby Crafts amazing blog at www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com

You can find more info on product and additional tutorials on their website

www.sakuracraft.com

Fun Flowers with Crystal Lacquer (DT Submission)

I've been having such a wonderful time being a part of a team with a bunch of very talented gals on the Sakura Hobby Craft Design Team.  Our 6 month assignment is almost up and I'm trying out again - I've got my fingers crossed! 

I'm sharing with you today a cute little card I made using a fun technique with Crystal Color Lacquer.  This product is very versatile and really fun to play around with! 

Here are the products I used for this card:

3D Crystal Lacquer

Crystal Color Lacquer -

 I used just about all the colors I had from these kits

Pastel Glitter

Country Colors

Primary Colors

Pastel Colors

Gold Flower Stickers from Sparkraft Enterprises

Bazzill cardstock

Printed scrapbook paper

Close to My Heart Stamps

Distress Ink - Spun Sugar

Momento Ink - Black

Tim Holtz Rosette Die

Fiskar's Crimper

White cardsock

Pop Dots

Wooden Skewer

White Ribbon

This whole process started when I was playing around with my Crystal Color Lacquer.  I loved how the colors mixed when I pooled it on my craft sheet, which is a VERY important part of the process - you have to use a craft sheet so the dried lacquer can easily be peeled off!  I made the pools with similar colors, mixed a little bit of 3D Crystal Lacquer (which is clear) in with it and gave it a stir with the end of a paintbrush (it's what I had handy).  You can see how the Glitter Crystal Color Lacquer sparkles, and who doesn't like a little bling!

Here's the dried "skins" of lacquer. They dried overnight, plus a few more hours.  I placed the Gold Flower stickers on them and then cut them out - simple! 

Aren't they pretty?

Here's a close up of the flower I created starting with a die cut rosette made with plain white cardstock.  I wanted the flower to have dimension, so I used the rosette as a base.  I then used pop dots to stack the 3 flowers on top of each other, alternating the 2 large ones so the petals of both would show.  I added a little pearl bling for the flower's center. 

 The card was constructed using 3D Crystal Lacquer as my adhesive - this stuff is awesome and has become  my "go-to" glue.  I crimped the patterned scrapbook paper with a Fiskar's crimper and the 3D Crystal Lacquer worked really well to glue this to the card, which was simply a piece of yellow bazzill cardstock cut and folded.

For the sentiment, I stamped  the background image using Spun Sugar Distress Ink and black ink for the words.  I roughed up the edges a little bit with my distressing tool and glued it on the crimped background paper.  I used a wooden skewer cut to size and glued it inside one of the folds on the rosette - added a little white bow and I was done.

Till next time...stay creative!

You can find 3D Crystal Lacquer, Crystal Color Lacquer and all their other great products at this website:  www.sakuracraft.com

And check out their amazing Blog at www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com!

Summertime Tin Album - Part II

As promised, I'm sharing the inside of my Summer Tin Album this week.  My first challenge  coming up with something that wasn't bulky, as the tin is quite thin.  I love adding layers and dimension to my projects - so I had to do this without adding too much bulk.  I decided on a simple accordion fold design with only 5 pages.  After measuring the inside of the tin and figuring out how big my pages needed to be, I simply cut and scored 2 sheets of patterned paper and glued them together to get the 5 needed pages.

Materials Used:

3D Crystal Lacquer

Color Crystal Lacquer - light blue glitter

patterned paper

Tim Holtz Adage ticket

Tim Holtz bottle cap stickers

vintage buttons

brown bakers twine

Distress Ink - vintage photo

vintage dictionary pages

pearl embellishment

plastic date disc

Tattered Angels Glimmer Chip - seagull

I cut the same size patterned paper to act as a picture mat on each page.  This way when I'm ready to add pictures, I have a place holder for them.  I made them smaller (I'll print my pictures wallet size) so I could add journaling and any small memorabilia (ticket stubs, receipts, pressed flowers, etc) to the page.  On this first page, I added a plastic date disc that I cut to fit on the edge, a Tim Holtz ticket and my infamous paper flower (made from old dictionary pages).  Only this time I slathered the flower with Crystal Color Lacquer in light blue glitter.

I love the way it turned out - it's rather stiff, so would also make a great pin or addition to a hair band.  These are so easy to make, that I made some in several different colors that I'll be able to add to other projects!

On the next 4 pages, I just added a variety of patterned paper and small embellishments including buttons, twine and an alligator clip. 

I traced the design on the paper here with same Crystal Color Lacquer that I used on the flower.  I love the dimension it gave and I also liked that when I inked the edges, it resisted the ink, which made it "pop" even more.

For these cute little bottle cap stickers, I simply covered them in 3D Crystal Lacquer and let dry overnight, which gave them a bright shiny coating.

Here's the cover of the completed album - all ready to receive my summer memories!  Now, I just need to get busy and make some worthy of my album!

  I couldn't just leave the back of the album blank, so for a bit of whimsy I decided to do the same technique to mimic sand (3D Crystal Lacquer sprinkled with Distress Embossing Powder), and add a fancy little seagull.

I hope you enjoyed my project.

Until next time....stay creative and have some summer fun!

visit

 www.sakuracraft.com for more ideas on how to create with 3D Crystal Lacquer

and

www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com for more project ideas and inspiration!