Knitted poncho for a sweet girl....or a teddy bear

My granddaughter is turning 3 soon, and in most clothing, she is wearing a size 4. She is very independent and currently likes jackets with hoods. Making this poncho seemed like it would appeal to her independence (no help required with zippers or buttons) and I was familiar with the basic directions as my sister-in-law has made several of these in infant sizes. Here is the link to the infant size pattern, available for purchase from Fiber Trends or through Ravelry. The designer of both the infant and Valerie poncho (sizes 4/6, 8/10, 12/14) is Bev Galeskas. The Valerie Poncho link is here . I made the size 4/6. This is the poncho view shown on the pattern.

My granddaughter is all about pink and purple, sparkles and princesses, and all other girly girl stuff at the moment. I finished this poncho a few days ago and gave it to her yesterday. I'm not ashamed to admit that I wanted credit for this, not the Easter Bunny who arrived this morning at both her house where dyed hard-boiled eggs are found and here where the bunny leaves plastic eggs filled with candy, coins or small toys for her and her brother. The Easter baskets here have mostly clothing with at least one fun thing to play with. 

The little diva did not want to try it on yesterday but she did like seeing pictures of a stuffed bear modeling it at my house. 

The only changes that I made to the pattern was skipping the knitted design in the stripes on either side of the front and back panels. I wanted to use pink along with the purple both there and in the border. Both of those areas and the hood are done in garter stitch. The pattern in the center panel and on each side is an easy repeat to follow. 

A cooperative model who didn't need bribes (which didn't work on the wee human).

Side view, showing the hood.

The hood drapes nicely when taken down and the pattern also has directions 

without a hood if you want to omit it. 

I used Plymouth Encore yarn because it is machine washable and dryable. The colors are Pastel Pink (0029), Purple Amethyst (0158) and the white is from the Plymouth Starz line, White (G208).

Playing with alchohol.....inks, not drinks!

I have an assortment of alcohol inks that haven't been used since a Christmas ornament project a few years ago. After some Pinterest and blog cruising, I was inspired to buy some Yupo (a synthetic paper that is good for this technique) and play.

I began by dropping three colors onto dry paper.

Next, I dropped Blending Solution (alcohol) onto some areas to get the large, light rings that you see here. I had rubbing alcohol in a small spritzer and lightly added that from a distance above the paper. I liked that effect.

Barely visible is my attempt to add silver leaf to some of the areas where the ink was thicker and still damp. That didn't work well for me but I really liked the bold colors and decided to try a variation.

For this one, I used the same colors but dampened the Yupo by spritzing it rather heavily before applying the alcohol inks.

I added red ink and used a drinking straw to blow some of the puddles around. This made me think of Chihuly's glass at the Bellagio in Las Vegas (photo at end of post)

I liked the effect left by the sprtizer so I did that again on top of the colors.

I wasn't working on large areas and I am mainly a card maker these days. Were these going to be too busy to use as backgrounds? Maybe. I could always use them to cut flowers from dies and make some interesting embellishments.  I cut each piece down to work on a standard card and have saved the leftovers for more experiments.

The die used to create this flower within a square opening is Cosmo Flower Frame by Simon Says Stamp. My plan was to emboss the birthday greeting on the black card in white. You know what happens with intentions, right? I didn't grab the white embossing powder, I picked up the glow in the dark powder and applied it before I realized my mistake. The pennant greeting will have to do.

I haven't decided if black or white looks best over these bold colors. They are prettier in person as the background has a sheen to it. They are very vibrant.

For those not familiar with the work of Dale Chihuly, here is an example of his wonderfully colored glass. I believe this still hangs in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.

Brusho Crystals on embossed images

Today's post is dedicated to my Stampin Up buddies. It is easier to write here than where we often exchange info, and I will be able to find this again when needed.

I'm on a roll today. I have had Brusho Crystals long before SU began selling them. I thought I'd show you what some of the other colors do. I have a stamp called cheesecloth. I embossed that design in white and sprinkled on just a little black. You'd be surprised at all of the colors that come out of black!

This small amount of crystals when lightly spritzed with water resulted in the mess or creation on the right.

   

A little more proved to be too much for what I was I hoping to achieve. I blotted up the standing water with paper towel. The cheesecloth look is coming through nicely.

   

The previous pictures just used black crystals. Here I've added OST Blue, spritzed with water and blotted.

   

I tried adding yellow, both by sprinkling and by painting some on using that small amount of color on the left tile and one wet brush made the puddle on the right.  Yellow wasn't very successful. When the other colors got wet, they reactiviated and the yellow turned greenish or brownish.

   

My last experiment was to add some Ranger Distress Glaze. I thought it might seal the colors and brighten things up. I'm not sure yet that it did either but in wiping off the excess, it did lift more of the color.  I should have stated at the beginning that I always cover up as much of my work area as possible and wear an old cardigan style thin sweatshirt to protect my clothing. Those crystals get everywhere, much like glitter that floats around. These tiny spots on my counter could be a problem with my next project or clothing if either the counter, the project or my clothing is damp.

   

I'm thinking of how to use this background in something. Stay tuned for those details. Meanwhile, here is a more controlled approach. The stamp is Rose Wonder from Stampin' Up. After embossing the image in white, I wet the leaves on one side of the rose with water and sprinkled on Leaf Green. Leaf Green is like black in that it is surprising how many colors are within that shade. It moved around a bit on its own and I coaxed it to fill the leaf sections with a wet brush. It is a pretty color but I don't know that I would call that leaf green. 

Next I dampened the rose and sprinkled on OST Red. The OST stands for Ostwald, a color class that I've only seen in Brusho lately. 

I liked this but wanted a bit more contrast in the petals with another color. I dampened some areas of the rose and added yellow crystals.

   

I did the other leaf the same way, then added water to sections of the background and sprinkled on a different shade of yellow, Lemon. To make the background a bit more interesting and to disguise the errant crystals from the leaves and rose that bloomed in the yellow, I added a few sprinkles of those colors. This will be cut down and used in a card at some point. 

Making a Tool Box Birthday Card

If you have mechanics in your life, you might recognize a red toolbox as being an iconic Snap-On product.

For my son's birthday, I wanted something that would remind him of Snap-On without driving myself crazy trying to actually replicate it. I didn't have that kind of time. I have two die sets from Die-Namics that create these tools (Tool Time MFT483) and pegboard (Pegboard Cover up MFT478). They aren't mechanic tools, but they would work.

I wanted at least two drawers. Actually, I wanted more but I made many mistakes and went through red paper at an alarming rate. Two drawers would be fine, one for the tools, the other for cash or a gift card. The shiny "handles" on the drawers are cut from a Tim Holtz mirrored sheet.

I figured out the dimensions I wanted for the bottom of a drawer, than added for the sides and parts that fold to create a box. I've made boxes for years. If you aren't familiar with the process, do a search on creating paper boxes and follow the directions or video that are easiest for you to understand. Each drawer has a sleeve around it so that the drawer can slide in and out. The glued the two sleeves together, then made one more to become the toolbox exterior. The stacked sleeves are only glued on the bottom and top of the toolbox shell on the inside. As you can see in this photo, there is more slack in the fit than I had hoped for, but it all works. If I had glued the sides of the stacked sleeves to the inside of the toolbox shell, I think the shape would have become wonky. Wonky isn't good for toolboxes.

The birthday boy will get this box tonight. Somehow he attained the age of 40 despite the fact that I am barely older than 40 myself. I think playing with paper keeps me young.

Pop-up Panel Card

Almost a month between new posts. So much for aiming to get here more often. Retirement takes up much more time than a working person realizes.

Since my last post, I've been busy with birthday gifts, cards, another baby shower gift, and of course, normal stuff that everyone does and unexpected interruptions that keep life interesting.  This past Saturday, I taught a card class to a group of friends who meet monthly for this craft. I had shown them this card months ago and volunteered to demonstrate it. At the time, I thought talking them through it was all I would be doing as our group uses products from one company and the die that cuts the mechanism for this card is from another.

  

If I was going to teach this to 7-8 other people and keep it down to a reasonable amount of time, I knew I would need to precut elements of the card. Instead of flower pots, we would use stamps that our group might already own from Stampin' Up. I began working on a sample and had one problem after another. Was it nerves? Was I jinxed? No, it was that what you see as wood grain paper above is a lot of paper under (and attached) to the mechanism that makes the flower pots collapse and fold within the closed card. Gluing that down to a card base and having it remain straight was cursed. First I used double-sided tape (Scor tape) because it is strong. Unfortunately, it is also unforgiving. Once it attaches to another piece of paper, it cannot be peeled off and realigned. Even glue was giving me fits, causing paper to wrinkle. The die set for the project above is from Karen Burniston. I'm not knocking her product at all. I've successfully made some of her cards but many have also had many components hit the trash.

I was ready to give up one night, thinking there would no way that 8 of us would successfully assemble this card in just two hours because it is admittedly tricky the first time. Then I remembered seeing that Lawn Fawn now has a die set that accomplishes the same twisted panel pop-up. I watched their video and adapted the die cuts that I already had to produce something with less surface area to glue. This made lining things up much (much!) easier.

I made card kits of the basic components for everyone. After the assembly was done, most of used Stampin' Up's Party Pandas to complete the inside and then finish the cover of the card any way we pleased. A few used other stamp sets and I'm happy to say that all were successful. Many of us are investing in this Lawn Fawn die to make future cards simple to assemble.

The paper behind the panda is from a Stamps of Life paper collection. The number 8 is Stampin' Up's Large Number die, cut four times, stacked and glued together for some dimension. The card went to my grandson yesterday.

Another cash in disguise gift and a penguin card

Time for another disguised cash gift. My great-nephews and great-niece know that they will get cash from me on their birthdays, but never just money placed in a card. Some gifts have presented a challenge (cold hard cash ) while others have just been corny (McBirthday Fries ). Click on Money as Gifts (from the Labels section on the right-hand side of my blog) for more ideas.

Supplies needed: Tootsie Rolls, paper currency and a baggie for the unused candy. Mine is going to a friend who loves Tootsie Rolls. 

 Carefully unwrap the candy. The wrapper sometimes wants to tear where it had been twisted. I folded the currency into thirds, lengthwise. 

 Fold the money in half cross-wise.

 Roll the cash into this little bundle, then wrap it in the candy paper. 

 It is a lighter bundle than the candy, but about the same size. 

 The birthday boy is getting all of this in a box. Half of what you see has cash in it, the other half is candy. I'm sure this will bring smiles. 

My area (SE Michigan) is getting snow, snow and more snow all through today and into tomorrow. The birthday boy's parents haven't hinted at postponing the party but I won't blame them if they do. Their town has issued a snow emergency which means no street parking. If it is lifted by tomorrow afternoon, all will be fine except for those of who don't like snow and will grumble about wearing boots, parkas, mittens, wiping our noses which run in the cold...oh wait, I wasn't going to complain about all of that. 

*Ahem*

I meant to say that because of the snow and cold, I decided to use a technique I learned by watching this Sandy Allnock video. The stamp set is Arctic Pals by Julie Ebersole for Ellen Hutson (here)  The front of the card simply says "Wheeeee" and the inside says "Happy Brrrrrthday".

I added dots of snow with a white pen to tie into the white of the blue paper used as the first mat, and also to cover up an accidental black splotch.