Brie's Handmade Hobbies

Mummers me Dear

2011-11-26T16:32:00.000-03:30

The two newest members of the 2011 collection. :o)

Mummers

2011-11-19T19:10:00.000-03:30

Mummering: "Mummering, mumming, or janneying in Newfoundland and Labrador describes the practice of visiting several homes throughout an evening while dressed in a disguise. Usually groups of friends or family will piece together their disguises using whatever they have around their homes. They might change their walk, talk, shape, or size—whatever it takes to make them unrecognizable to the hosts of the homes they visit..." (http://mummersfestival.ca/home/?q=node/26 )

This tradition was once very popular among the people of Newfoundland. It faded over the years as our population grew, small villages grew to towns and cities. The tradition is slowly returning as people retell old stories, new generations put a twist on the old traditions ( ex: mummer parade) and artists display their own variations of "The Mummers" which egniten more talk about the subject and spreading the tradition just a little bit more.

As a folklore student and proud Newfoundlander I am very excited about the tradition once again appearing in our province. I have found my own way to bring attention to the tradition and wish to share it with you here.

To start I would like to tell you that I have only taken one "clay" class in my life and it was only a small part of a larger project I was working through, everything else I have learned with clay has been self taught. If as you read through this you can think of a different way for me to accomplish the same goal but in a better/ easier way please feel free to contact me with your thoughts and suggestions.

The first thing I do is to build the armature. I used 19 gauge Dark Annealed Steel. I find this wire easy to manipulate, yet strong enough to hold the frame. I do not use a "jigger" I only use pliers and my hands to shape the wire into the shape I wish. I use two standard shapes one with legs and one with a dress. ( I do not use male and female as mummers often switch it up )

I then start to fill out the armature. I find using a little piece of tinfoil at a time works best. You just keep adding the tinfoil until the whole shape is covered and it is built up in the spots you wish to have stand out. For example the stomach. Remember it is better to build up with the tinfoil now before you start with the clay. It is much easier to drape the clothing over the tinfoil then a lump of clay. The clay moves a lot more and thus changes your figure. If you build on top of your tinfoil you have a solid structure and the clothes tends to drape better and then looks more realistic.

Here is a group of the armatures ready to be "dressed"

Once the armatures are ready I add the clothing. If the mummer is wearing boots I start with them, and then add the pants. If they are not going to be wearing boots, I start with the bottom of the skirt/ dress adding the rest of the skirt/ dress once the bottom finished, then I bake the piece according to the package.

There is two reasons why I bake the bottom piece before finishing the mummer. 1) It gives me a steady form to work with while "dressing" the rest of the mummer and allows me to find where the mummer is balanced so I know how to pose the rest of the body without having it tip over. 2) once the bottom half is baked I can handle it as much as I want and I will not ruin the shape I have created, or leave finger markings in the clay (I really hate finger prints in the clay I spent so long trying to get just right.)

Sometimes I bake the mittens the same time as the bottoms depending on if the shirt is going over or under them.

I have had a few "accidents" once the bottom of the mummer is out of the oven. For example this guy decided to go skiing in his new pants and got caught up in a tree and ripped the back out of them. (Really I have know idea what happened but this sounds better then " I took him out of the oven and he was all shagged up")

So instead of throwing him out for ruining his new pants I decided to use a rule I use with scrapbooking "there are no mistakes, just opportunities to embellish." so I took the same colored clay and filled in the hole and then decided that while I was adding more clay I would add some more details. And as I knew this guy was going to be trouble I gave him extra stitching to hold his pants together.

With his pants all fixed up I moved on to his shirt and jacket. (I didn't rebake him because it was only a small spot of fresh clay and figured I could avoid that spot. If you wish you can rebake them after you repair them.) I then rolled out a piece of clay for his shirt and cut it into the shape of a t-shirt. Before adding the shirt to the mummer I place a small bit of beige clay around the neck area. I know, I know you are asking "why?" because it will be covered up. I know it's there and even if you can't see it I want it to be nice. Its just a thing I have to do to feel like the piece is complete.

The jacket/ coat whatever you want to call it comes next. This step I do in pieces and then blend the pieces together.

What mummer is complete with out their instrument? As I am not musical inclined I tend to use "Google" as my guide.

For some strange reason I do not have any pictures of the next couple of lsteps but basically you lay a rectangle piece of white around the head and let it take on natural folds as you do so, if you try to force the folds you end up with a lot of finger prints and even a few tears. Then you add a hat (don't forget to add the eyelet for hanging the mummer) and position the instrument. Sometimes things can go wrong as seen below. After I added the hat I realized that I had left some red dye (red tends to do this) on the mask, as well my lovely cat left a hair that was really hard to get out with just my fingers. So what did I do to solve this eyesore? I baked it! Once baked you can sand (the white parts) and get rid of any unwanted "extras"

All fixed

Finally

Ta Da then you have a wonderful mummer.

A few pictures of other mummers I have made.

Long Time

2011-11-06T20:36:00.000-03:30

Wow it has been a while since I posted. I really wish that I could be motivated to post everyday like some people. I can't seem to do that so my aim shall be once a week. Once a week I think is fair. I do something creative almost every day that it not the problem, the problem is writing about about/ how I was creative for the day. So once a week I plan to pick at least one creative project and write about it.

This week's topic shall be "Craft Fairs". I love doing craft fairs, I love getting ready for them, I love walking in and seeing all the familiar faces, I love talking to people as they look at our crafts and ask questions, I love the the connections we make there, and I just love that it is starting to feel like we belong.

This fair was held at a school so we planned for a lot of children (not a good idea, but anyway...) We tend to make affordable treats for the children so they have something to buy while they are at the fair ( it is surprising how no one caters to the children) and it brings their parents over to look at our crafts.

This is a few of our decorated treats

Christmas Birds

2010-10-21T00:39:00.002-02:30

After a friend posted a link to Martha Steward's Cinnamon Bird Ornament I decided to give them a try. Hubby and I have made similar items before but they were a lot simpler. I even did the easy version with my class one year ( My mommy helped).

Here is the dough and my 1st template cut out

Starting the sprinkles, which by the way are now all over our house. Tee hee oppies

And the following is my almost finished birds. I have to thread some ribbon through the holes so they can be hung on a Christmas tree. I am also debating if I am going to put a clear coating on them. The trees will be turned into brooches or added to cards.

Hope you like them!

Getting Ready For A Craft Fair

2010-10-16T22:52:00.001-02:30

So I have been house bound for over a month now, sick with pneumonia. During my non coughing fits (which was not a lot of time) I worked on finding ideas for crafts I could make to sell at local craft fairs. I love learning new crafts and the best way to pay for my never ending demand for supplies is to sell the items I make.
I also spent the last few days making a gift for my best friend for her birthday but I can't post pictures until she get her mail.
However I can post pics of one of the items I hope to be selling at the craft fair. It is a paper baby buggy that I plan to fill with small baby items and wrap together. I am so proud of this, and think it would make a excellent baby shower gift.

These are the two side views , I place a large drinking glass next to the buggy so that you could get an idea of the size of the buggy

The back views, the little button says "cutie"

I just think it is the cutest thing. I hope there will be most posts through out the week as I get more things completed. However, I go back to work this week and I am hoping to finally get around to some schools so it will all depend on how much time I have on my hands.

Day 2 Of World CardMaking Day

2010-10-04T00:24:00.000-02:30

So today is day two for the mini crop hosted for CardMaker in honor of World CarkMaking day.
I completed 3 of the 12 card challenges yesterday. Today I hope to get a few more completed.

4) Color Challenge
I had a hard time coming up with an idea for this one cause to be honest it was way out of my comfort zone. I really didn't like the color combo, but that is why I do these things, to force myself out of my comfort zone. So here is my card. not my most prized piece of work but it is done following the rules of the challenge, it forced me to think a little differently and to be a little more open minded, which is the whole point. Who knows I might try it again later when I get some more challenges done.

Outside completed with brown cardstock, patterned paper. the "THANK YOU" is from Colorbok Woven words "thank you"

Inside completed with orange patterned paper with it's edges inked with Tim Holtz Distress ink "vintage photo."

5) 10 min challenge
I thought that the last challenge was hard, damn this one was worst. ( in a good way) 10 min to complete a card. I am so slow when it comes to this stuff. 10 mins is like... blink and it's done. However I am happy to say that I did complete this card (well the outside any way) in exactly 10min. The inside took me about another 6 min. not to bad for me.

outside done in 10 min!

6) Just a Note.

I thought this challenge was really cute are made. Take a look if you have some time.

7) Sketch

I ran out of time to complete this one the way I wanted but that was o.k I will post completed pic later. Here what I have done so far.

Why didn't I get to finish all of the challenges? I was feeling better for the 1st in over a month and was able to celebrate my birthday with my wonderful husband. And guess what I am not a proud owner of a circut expression. :o)

World CardMaking Day

2010-10-02T21:54:00.001-02:30

I have not posted in quite some time as I have been very sick with pneumonia. (Over a month now) I am starting to feel a little better so I decided to take part in the World CardMaking Day festivities hosted by Cardmaker. Event schedule can be found here As I was not feeling the greatest this morning when I woke I decided to just play along with the Blog hog. Something simple I could do, curled up in a blanket on the couch. I gained a ton of information, ideas and technique However this evening I was feeling a little better and decided to take part in the mini crop The 1st challenge I took on was Go Gigi
Challenge: Use one of the free digital images found on the blog hop to create a card.

Material Used:

Green card stock ( Sorry don't know the brand or the name it was scrap paper )
Boarders from a Christmas kit bought from Walmart last night
Digi stamp from the wonderful Dustin Pike
I "colored" the digi stamp using a program I downloaded and fell in love with today GIMP 2 the best part it's free!
Wine card stock (again don't know the brand or name as it was also scrap.)
$1 store sentiments and 3D stickers.

Challenge 2
Chase Challenge
I did one of these cards before and I just loved it it is from the Cardmaker Magazine March/ 10 pg. 38. Not as great as my 1st one but not bad all the same.

Challenge 3
Interactive Challenge

Cute children's card I made a while back for a card class I was teaching. The inside piece can be found here

Well I think that is it for me for today. I have until 12 tomorrow night so I might do some more tomorrow during my birthday.

Guest Book

2010-07-27T00:33:00.001-02:30

The following pictures are taken of a guest book I just completed for a friend's baby's Christening.

This was the book I started with, I liked it because it was like a children's journal with a spot for writing and a spot for pictures. Only instead I modified it just a little. It is the only one I could find like this so if anyone knows where I can find another please let me know.

I picked out all the papers and embellishments that I wanted to use and laid them all out nice and neatly on my table. What a joke! I think it only stayed like this long enough for me to take this picture. As soon as I started working on it, the whole table and room was a state. You can ask my mother-in-law she saw the "in progress" state. :o)

It was well worth the mess though because I am just thrilled with how it came out. This is the cover. I used the white knob from the Tim Holtz Curio Knobs , which I simply love! I also used the Color Me Crazy white paper flowers which I inked with pink ink washed off inked again and washed off again just to get the perfect off white/ pinky colour I was looking for. These flowers are great for scrapbooking and cardmaking because you can ink, paint, or color them anyway you want and in any colour you want to match your project. And seeing as there is so few scrapbooking stores in this area, these flowers are a great investment. The package I have also have sparkly white flowers which add a very nice touch to you work. So the one I inked pinked is on bottom and the sparkley one is one top. I fastened the flowers together with a Lush pink brad, these brads just scream "girlie" to me and yet I think they are incredibly elegant. Most of these products were new to me and I have to say I am very pleased with how easy they were to work with and how great they were for the cover of this book.

These are the 2-3 pages of the book. Isn't she just adorable?

Page 2: For the background I used a embossed white sheet that was done in stripes. It kind-of looked like wallpaper to me and so it was the perfect choice for the sleeping page. The "sweet dreams" and pinkish/ purplish papers where from a kit. Sorry but I don't remember the name. The brads are from a large pastel brad set that I bought. I think they complement the 3d "Baby" sticker (Walmart) nicely adding the wonderful 3d dimensions to the page that I love. I cut the corners on the photo attempting to soften it even more. I think I succeeded.

Page 3: This is the 1st page that the guests will be able to write on. I stayed with the same theme of her sleeping and the soft color purple. Again the paper was from a kit (a different one) but I don't know the name, I am sorry. The cloud was cut from a pearl like metallic paper to match the clouds on the background paper. I started using a fiiskars template but found it a little to large so I modified it just a little to get the size I needed. I made a tag that matched the theme and showed how adorable she was while sleeping. The tag is double sided and able to be pulled out by two small ribbons glued under the photos on either side, so that people can write on a flat surface.

The tag for page 7.

Page 4 and 7 (Yes, I know how to count but read on to see the explanation.) Both of these pages are done very simply to optimize the space for guest to write on. Page 4 has just one photo matted with two 3d stickers. What can I say I love working with 3d. Page 7 has just one sticker "Thank heavens for little girls" and a tag that you pull up to see two more beautiful photos of the little girl. I love that when the tag sits in the pocket you just see a little bear sticking out and when you pull the tag you see her shocked face in the bottom photo, it is simply priceless. On the side of each page you will notice another Lush brad one from each of the pink and brown collections. Under each brad is a small piece of ribbon, I believe these two strips are from an older collection from American Crafts (The link is for their newer products) I really enjoy working with these ribbons as they are very sturdy. I poked holes into them and they didn't unravel like many of the ribbons out there on the market. They are double sided and come in many different coordinating colors, which make them very user friendly. Anyway... when you pull these two ribbons you will discovery 4 more pages two on either side.

One side for Dad and one side for Mom.

I did the same layout on both sides only I used a slightly different color paper for the background on each one. "Daddy's Baby Girl" and "Mommy's Little Princess." A very simple layout. Photos matted on light paper and a few stickers to keep the focus on the photos and hopefully indicating their importance.

To keep the identity of the child in this book non public I have edit out parts of pages 8 and 9. Page 8 was done with the same embossed paper as page 2 with ribbon going across the page and using the flat ribbon technique taught to me by a awesome co -worker. (Thanks Megan) The brads used are from Making Memories and I just had to use them when I saw them "Making Memories Boho Chic Brad Accents - Lauren" cute huh? When you use the ribbon tabs to open the page you have a gate fold where you can see the family's 1st photo.

Page 9 matches page 8 only instead of a gate fold it folds down and has a cute little sticker with the baby's name, and birth info. ( Again cut out to keep the baby's identity)

I really wanted a larger corner rounder but I could only find a small corner rounder and it really isn't bad. It is subtle and actually much better than I thought it would be.

Pages 10 &11 focus on photos the baby had done during a photo shoot. Page 10's photo had her sitting in a basket surrounded with feathers so I placed a feather string around two corners. For page 11 I used flower stickers and ivy to complement the flowers sitting around her in the photo.

Pages 12 & 13 switch focus and look at the families. I used the Bo Bunny "Jazmyne Flower Box" for the background. It has a wood grain print and I thought of "family tree" when I saw it. The picture is not great so you can't pick the white embossed paper that has words all about family. Nice touch for this page I think. The frames around the two middle photos where cut free hand, sorry no link for a template. The stickers I used were just away to tied the two pages into each other a little more. Bringing the green from the father's photos over towards the mothers page and the pink from the mother's photos over towards the father's page. The phrases were rather cute as well " families are forever" and "We R Family".

You can't have a baby book without a bath page now can you? I cut the pocket out of this page to make room for the whole layout. I used various design papers (Sorry I had these for years and years and have know idea who made them) with bubbles and duckies. in the bottom right hand corner I used an xacto knife to cut around the duck in order to slide the picture in under it. Like I said I really like adding dimension to my work. Opposite the page I inserted the front of the pocket back into the book to allow for more writing (on the other side see 2nd photo) I didn't like the look of the blank back page so I incorperated it into the bath layout using the same papers only this time I cut out a couple of ducks and layered the blue paper with 3d tape to give the illusion of swimming duckies.

Page 15 is all about playing. There is a matted photo looking down at her lying under her toy mobile. I used blue and orange card stock to tied unto the bath page. Seeing as she is surround by many animals I thought it would be cute to add a duck in connect the two pages even more. There is a die cut of a tree limb glued to the right side of the photo and a textured thread as a means to pull out the tag. I braided the thread to make it look like a vine coming from the tree.

This is the tag pulled out and laid on top of the page. The green grass is just scrap card stock cut out to look like grass and the monkey was cut using the Cricut Expression (No I don't have one but I hope to someday)

The final two pages of the book.

All her many faces. I took apart the pocket for this layout like I did for the bath layout. I wanted the room for all her pictures and all the little frames. The frames came in a kit my parents gave me years ago so again I am sorry for not posting where to get them. The background paper also came from a kit that I do not know the name of. Sorry :o( But I am sure if you look around you will be able to find something similar if you wish to scrap lift this page.

The last page! The photo was cut out using the fiskars templates I mentioned earlier, my exacto knife and a pair of persuasion scissors. The paper was from the same kit as the paper used on the "face" page. The square pieces and buttons also came from the same kit as the frames. The nice verse was put out by DCWV (Again my product is old but this is a link to the new version) and is printed on vellum. A lot of people have trouble with attaching vellum to their pages but I just used a little spray adhesive and placed in under a sticker frame ( Again old stock and don`t know where to tell you to get it now) to keep the sides down. It seemed to work but only time will tell I guess.

And last but not least the back cover page. Not exactly like the front but I used the same papers to get the same feel.

Thanks for reading / glancing and viewing my latest work. This just goes to show that old product can still be used and incorporated with the latest products to create new beautiful pieces of art!

Coming soon: my latest cards.

My Room

2010-07-25T16:06:00.000-02:30

So I just went to post about the project I just finished and I realized that I have not posted in quite a while. So long in fact that I did not even post about my craft room being completed. So 1st I will post my pics of my new craft room. Then I will posted about my 1st major project finished in the room.

This white shelf was bought over 5 years ago when a craft store was closing out in St. John's. I always knew I wanted a craft room and it was only $20 so we bought it and stored it in my parents house until we had our own place to put it. It is very heavy and had to be taken apart to be brought across the island. We lugged every piece up over our stairs spend a night putting it together only to find that it was practical but it didn't look quite right.

So we clear it out, took it apart and lugged it back downstairs. God I love my husband!

The store I was working at closed up and so I got these shelves to replace that old white one. Doesn't this look a lot better?

Behind the curtains is all my filing cabinets and things for school. It is simply perfect for me!

I finally have a cabinet large enough to fit my 12x 12 papers into. I just love that it can hold my albums, tools, papers and projects I am working on. Everything is just so tidy.

Some final touches to make the room even more mine. DH put up the light for me isn't it just perfect?

I now have the most wonderful room to work away in, I also have a fantastic little supervisor watching over my work. Now if he would only stay on the clear part of the desk and not lie on my papers, not chase my wire when I am making jewelry, and would stop throw his hair everywhere when I am working with my clay, everything would be awesome. But we can't have it all now can we?

Tee hee I don't think I would change anything anyway, I just love him!

May 24

2010-05-24T16:02:00.000-02:30

Normally during May 24 we pack up and head to a friend's cabin, this year we opt. to do something a little different. We had friends come stay with us for one night. ( It was wonderful to see you again Jon and Rachelle)
I made my mother- law birthday card. I have to say I was really proud of it. It's another tri- fold card. This time I did a bordered background with 3d flowers on top. And yes I also made the envelope standing next to it. Cool huh?

We also had Aidan's parents come and visit for the weekend. Which was wonderful. And on Sat. we had friends over for supper. That was supper special as Aidan use to camp with all of them when he was a little boy. Now many years later they are visiting him in his 1st home with his wife and pets. It was a great visit.

We also got a lot of work done around the house. ( Thanks again Weldon!, and to Karen for lending us Weldon on their holidays)

We finally decided on colors it only took almost a year. We went with pale leek which is like a soft yellow for three walls and Silver Thyme, a really really soft green, think almost yellow on the other wall. It's hard to see in the pictures but it is super bright and I think it looks really nice together.

The picture to the right show the two colors. The window wall is the Silver Thyme and the other is Pale Leek.

This shows the two colors again. The closet also went Pale Leek. Not a lot of contrast but just even to give the room a little depth. We are working on the molding and what not tonight. Maybe more pictures a little later.

Speaking of the molding I should show you how they were brought home and into the house. Lucky for me Weldon was here cause I really don't think I could have held onto those all the way home.

As well I don't think I could have fit into the car the way that Weldon did. :o)

They only got a couple of looks driving home. Tee hee. And see folks how they are in my car. The truck would not have fit the boards. Thats right another point for the car.

The boards where just a little long.

They even stuck out through the door of the room.

And after a long weekend of entertaining and working on the house my men all crashed. Aidan and Salem on one couch and Louie in the chair.

What a wonderful weekend!

Getting fit

2010-05-18T22:14:00.000-02:30

I have not being creating lately busy working, doing up my scraproom, and cleaning my house for company coming this week. I also joined a program at the YMCA to develop a healthier lifestyle. This has been the largest I have ever weighed in my whole life, and the most unfit I have even been as well. I really need to change this before it gets any worst.
Tonight's was my 1st session of couch - 5K program. And oh my god if this was an indication of where I should be as a couch potato then I am in a coma. I so could not keep up with the group. I really thought it was going to take me through the steps for someone who has never ran before and ease me into becoming a runner. Yeah no we walked ( no warm -up) and then someone yell "run" after a little while she yelled "walked" and well you get the picture. This would have been fine only the others that were running differently ran before and they were away ahead. I could not catch up and fell so far behind to the point I didn't even know which direction to walk/ run. I didn't know where they even went. It sucked! But at least I got out and started walking/ a little bit of running. It is a start, and that is the main thing right?

Just little a taste

2010-05-13T22:01:00.001-02:30

Sorry I was away for a few days, I want to say I was busy but I really don't know what I have been doing. I have been working but I am always working somewhere so that is nothing new. I sure as hell was not cleaning (I hate to clean and avoid it at all cost. Until I know someone is coming and then I am like the Tasmanian Devil trying to get everything tidy or at least to appear that way.) Aidan has been away so it is not like I am spending quality time with him. I still have not hit my workout grove that I keep saying I am going to get into yet. So I really don't know what I have been doing with my time. I thought while Aidan was away I was going to get all kinds of scrapbooking done and I did next to nothing. Oh well what are you going to do.

I decided today was a great time to work on some things for a new class. I am planning on doing a "Tag, Distress is it!" class. I think its a cute play on words seeing how I plan on doing a tag making class and showing people how to use the Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Anyway I started playing around with the tags and inks today and this is what I came up with so far. I have not decided what ones I am going to to for class, and I am not finished playing around with them yet so I know I will be adding more. Just thought I would show you what I have so far.

To start off with the two I am not so happy with, again I post them cause I did make them and we learn from our mistakes. I learn some cool things with these that I hope to include in other tags later on. So it was not a complete waste.

I really like how this one turned out it has a really nice washout out look in parts and some very solid looking pieces in others. Together I think it is really funky and give a cool finish.

I really loved how elegant this one turned out. Once again I have washout images along with crisp images but the stamps and colors used in this tag make it "flow" together very easily and the inking around the edges offer a complete look to the tag.

This tag is similar to the previous tag but I left it with just the washout image and gave it some inked edges. The result is very soft and I think it would look great done as a whole background page.

This time I gave the tag a all over washout look. I like it, but I think I smudge a couple of the flowers stamping them on and it made the tag look a little more messy then I wanted it to look. I want to try this technique again because I think it can look really nice if done right. So when I try it again I will post them together to see what you think.

This is two techniques put together. I think it will look even better if I do different colors. We will see.

So as you can see I still have a lot to learn but I don`t think it was too bad just starting out. What to find out when I will be hosting this class? Check out our facebook site and keep posted on when we will be hosting classes.

Oh and I also started looking at the layout I did this weekend. And I was not fully satisfied with it so after playing with the inks today I decided to add a little bit more. Check it out

All day craft day

2010-05-09T14:47:00.001-02:30

I worked yesterday but it was really, really dead so I practiced doing the paper designing that I will be teaching on Tues. I still don't feel overly confident doing this technique, but I am getting better. I am not going to walk you through all the steps here as I do want people to attend my class, but I will show you some of what I did.

This is one I did but I didn't like how it came out so blotchy. I think I made a mistake with the iron but mostly I didn't like how the smooch spritz made such big blobs all over the sheet. I know a lot of people like the smooch but I just can't seem to get it to come out in even sprays. I can't tell what I am doing wrong with it. I did practice it a bunch more times and founds ways around it but it still not consistent and I hate the idea of wasting product, time and something you likes at 1st because a product sprayed a big blob onto your work. I know I don't have to use it but I really like the look of the lighter mist on it. Hey I wonder if I could take it out of their bottle and put it into my mini mister by Ranger would that work better I wonder? But how will I get it out of their bottle hummmmmmmmmm something to think about.
Anyway here is some more sheets I made

See they are a little better with the spritz, not my fav but not bad.

These are the two that I really like.

I had a lot of fun doing them and once I got the hang of it it didn't even take long to do them. However it was not nearly as much fun as I had last night .

After I got off work yesterday race home to go onto Skype where I had arranged to met a friend. We are both into art (although she is way more talented and is a professional I loved work with her last night. So much fun. Go check out her site Visit Lori's Art Blog) We were missing each other and working with others so this was our solution. We sat with our laptops on our craft tables pointing at our work and sat and crafted the evening away. It was so nice, it was like having her sitting in the room right next to me, only I didn't have to clean the room and try to make room for her and her stuff in such a small room. When my mom called she thought Lori was visiting me, she was coming in so clear on the phone.We talked, shared ideas, showed each other our work that we have been doing the last little while, asked each other for tips and help, and just enjoyed each others company. It was awesome! I can't wait until our next craft night. I can't show all I did last night cause it for a gift but here is the main project I worked on.

Floor is finally finished!

2010-05-09T13:41:00.000-02:30

Yes folks the floor is finally finished! Aidan did the last bit of coating (sorry can't think of the right word right now, lack of sleep) And it looks fantastic!

1st coat

2nd coat

And finally the last coat. And here is a few more angles now that I can walk on the floor

Isn't she pretty? I know you can still see a few dents in the floor but I have know idea how to get them out as they were in so deep. Dents and all I still think she looks wonderful. Now to prime the walls. Am I brave enough to tackle that task alone? The way this week is shaping up I don't think it is going to be about braveness, but about how tried I am going to be.

Diary post (sorry)

2010-05-07T16:00:00.000-02:30

I know I said I was going to use this blog for my crafts and various projects I am working on, but I really need to write a small blog about me. I don't have time to make a new blog for this so it is going here. (New blog to come titled :failed woman)

We all have those "Ah Ha" moments in live, and most of the time they are good moments right? Well today I had an Ah Ha moment and it left me feeling really crappy. My Ah Ha moment came while looking in the mirror, followed by a "shit your fat."

I have known for quite a while that I am over weight, that I could do to lose some weight, larger then average however you want to say I am carry more fat then I should be. But for some reason I have not been obsessed with it, yes I tried to lose weight every now and again to feel healthy and what not but I have really thought of myself as ugly. Today I was trying on clothes (you know taking out the summer stuff) and noticed that it all seemed a little snug. It was not until I went to the mirror and saw I looked like did it hit me. "Damn girl, your really, really fat, and it kind-of makes you ugly." I was shocked, hurt and let down. WH always tells me that I am beautiful, sexy ... What is wrong with him does he not see the blob I have turned into?

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh o.k even self pity for one day. That is all I am going to allow myself to think about this today. Now I am going to have to do something about it. I am going to change this!

Sorry for the non craft/ project blog but it was really bugging me.

Red Handed.

2010-05-07T00:10:00.001-02:30

So as you can tell by the gloves we have just finished our staining. We did not think it was going to come out reddish ( "ish" by the way "is not a word we use these days" as I was told today by a grade 3) we thought we had a very natural looking stain bought by again we are learning. Don't go by the sample apparently.

It did not turn out too bad just not the way we wanted it to go. Oh well what are you going to do? We sure as hell are not going through the whole process again. So I will learn to live with. We are hoping it will dry differently and will lighten up with the varnish like they say it will. I am not holding my breath.

Aidan opening the stain.

Me staining the floor

The floor almost all stained. See the rag on the floor? That was white when we started, that is the second one we used.

All stained, the lighting is really off in this one. I will try to take a better shot tomorrow in the sunlight. This room as wonderful light in the day time, another reason it is going to make an awesome craft room.

Seeing myself

2010-05-06T22:22:00.001-02:30

So no scrapping today :o( I was teaching :o)

I love that I get to live with the man I love, with two amazing pets, working on our 1st home together, and doing two jobs I love soooooooooooo much.

Speaking of working on the house together we conditioned the floor in the craft room tonight. Not quite sure what conditioning does for the floor besides make it look amazing. With all the "bumps" we hit with this room so far we were not taking any chances. The stain suggested we condition the floor 1st to help get an even coat. We looked it up and everything we read suggested conditioning the wood 1st so we did. I am totally in love. I can't wait to see what it is going to look like stained. I know I am such a geek to be so happy about a floor but in the long run it is for my craft room and I have always wanted my very own craft room. It is going to be to the most awesome room ever! It is a spot just for me, a place I can escape to, just to create. A place I can properly store all my craft supplies so nothing get ruined sitting around getting things throw on top of it, or to have the cat sitting on it etc. It will be a place I can proudly display my work with it being showy as it will be my room just for ME! Super excited! Only a matter of drying time now. Once this is done we can stain, then seal. Wait for it to dry again and the floor will finally be done. "AND THEN" we will have to think out colors for the walls. Any ideas? Something that will be great for creating, soothing and aesthetically pleasing.

Craft Room

2010-05-05T00:43:00.000-02:30

I didn't get any scrapping done today as it was a very busy day at work,we had a nice supper with friends and then we went to work on the craft room. Seeing as I had no scrap photos to share I thought it was a great time to share the progress of the craft room to date.

When we 1st looked at the house the room looked like this

Great for a little girl not so great for us. I am not a big big pink girl. I like pink but not for a room, I really don't like flower wall paper, and white carpet really would not work for us with a red dog and black cat. So we decided this room was going to need a new coat of paint and we would have to take the carpet up. This proved more challenging than we thought...

It started out nice and easy. Then came the trouble...

It may look like he is having fun and well, we when this was taken. However a short time later we were not smiling anymore. Around where that bit of green is showing through the wall started to crumble. The wetness of the wallpaper remover crumbled the plaster that was attempting to cover the big hole in the wall. There was a window in the center of this wall that was never properly boarded up/framed out.

This was what was behind that wallpaper tar filler and all. The new board you see is what Aidan and his dad put in. Yup that hole is what they tried to plaster over nice huh?

When we looked at the wood in the wall we saw that there was writing on the wood stating when it was put up. So we took the idea and wrote our own messages to leave in the wall of our 1st home. (Super cute I know tee hee)

Did you ever read the children's story "If you give a mouse a cookie" ? That is kind of what happened here. Once we took down the wall on one side we saw that the other outside wall was not insulated properly and seeing how we were at it we might as well continue and take down that wall and insulate it right. Only when the wall was down we saw that the window was not braced so that was the next project.
Then it was not to putting up the new gyproc

Thank God Aidan's dad was out to help when that needed to be done because there is no way at all I would have been able to help lift that stuff, and we needed a lot of guidance in how to do it right. Thanks Weldon!

That was not even the hard part after it was on the wall all the screw holes had to be filled.

And as you can see there was quite a few to fill.

With the walls all done it was time to tackle the floors. We thought all we had to do was pull up the carpet and put a new flooring down. As 1st time home owners we found we were wrong again. Once the carpet was up and we tried to remove the underlay we found that it was glued to the floor. Not a big deal right? Wrong! Every inch of the "black crap" (as we so loving named the stuff) was glued down. It took forever to get the stuff up and some really great friends who offered a helping hand.

Stacey, Steve, and even Belle came to help scrape the "black crap" off the floor.

Even friends who are not even in the province managed to help out. Virginia and Matt sent a G/C which allowed us to buy a wonderful new sander to sand the floor.

As you can tell this was a lot of work and took a very long time to do.

But slowly but surely it came along.

After we had as much scraped up as we could we used goo gone to take off the rest. A LOT of Goo Gone.

Then the sanding began. Sooooooooooooo much sanding to do.

But we even had help with that. Salem kept coming in to make sure we didn't miss a spot and to track the dust every where to let us know how much dust we were creating.

Not like we could not tell ourselves. This was just the window where we were not sanding. This is just one place it settled.

After a lot of sweeping, vacuuming, we were ready for cleaning which is what we did tonight.

And we are still learning. Remember that window still I showed earlier? Well we thought that would be a good place to lay the lid of the cleaner while we did the floor so it was not in our way. After we were finished and went to close the lid we saw that it was not such a great idea. Aidan put plastic over his feet to walk across the floor to get the lid. tee hee fun times as new home owners.

Next pics will be of the conditioning, staining and sealing of the floor. Then begins the adventures of painting the wall, decorating the room. Let's hope that we don't come across anymore surprises. :o)

Big News!

2010-05-03T23:16:00.000-02:30

So I posted the layout I did for the store's layout challenge yesterday. I found out today that I won! I got the most votes from customs that makes me so happy. Now what to spend the $25 on... so many things I want.

I finished the other card that I will be doing for next week's 2 for $5 class. Not a card that I am thrilled about but I do kind of like it. It is different from what I would normally do but I am really trying to push my limits. I like the fold, I was very big into the typical side folding cards but I am trying to expand my my portfolio of folds that I can do. This one is simple but super cute. I have learned about inking since joining Cherished Memories and I love the look of it but I am stilling trying to get the technique down. For the most part I am doing o.k with it but every now and again I slip and I get a big "blob" and I ruin the look I am going for. I know everyone says that is the way it is suppose to look but I don't like it it make it looks messy. I like the ink looked cause it gives your project depth. I am still working away on it though. I am determined to learn to do this right, I will keep you posted. I do want to talk about the paper I used to do the "Thank you" it is a core paper and all I had to do was emboss the words and lightly sand the top layer and the lighter color came through. I love it, I can wait to get more colors to experiment with, I just like how easy it is to get two colors in one area.

I am learning how to make envelopes and that is fairly easy. The hard part is learning how to design them after they are put together. I like this one but there is still room for improvement. However the card that goes inside
this envelope, I simple love! The layering on the outside was so much fun and looks so nice. The organza ribbon gives the card the added "umph." And I got to play with the embossing powders again doing the "Happy birthday" I don't like that you can see the inside flower from the outside but I have since learned how to fix that problem. The inside has a cool little cut out that allows you to hang things from making it super de duper fun!

I have also been working on Mother's Day cards but I am not going to post them until later.

I'm doing a children's mothers day class with the above template tomorrow. I already did it with one group of children but tomorrow's class is with much younger children. So maybe I will end up changing the card. Hummmmmmmmmmmmm now I am going to be thinking about that all day tomorrow. Ha who am I kidding I will be thinking about that all night now.

Tomorrow I am cleaning up the soon to be craft room (trying to get rid of all the dust before we paint and stain) going to work 11-7 we have company coming for supper and I am going to miss half of it. :o( then off to work on the room. We pick up the conditioner, stain, rags, gloves and and brushes tonight. Each day we are getting closer and closer. Soon I shall have my own special room.

3rd one today go me!

2010-05-02T23:27:00.000-02:30

Well I did not take pics of the baby card I made but I (we) finished the floor today! Well we finished sanding the floor anyway. I am so excited! Now all we have to do sweep and vacuum everything again (only did this a million times already) prime the walls, stain and varnish the floors, prime and paint the ceiling, paint the walls and then we get to move everything in and I will have my new craft room! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh only took us 16 months so far. tee hee

Thought I should post a few more things that I did this month sorry last month now (April)

For this layout I got to play with the embossing power again. I use to hate stamping, I thought it was so messy and to be honest. ugly looking. I have recently took it up again and have found a new love in embossing. For this layout I even mixed a couple of powers and got a really cool rough texture look for the dark paws. It actually looks like paws that have stepped into mud. very cool. I also found my collage maker for my computer and got to play with that for this layout combining the pictures of the dogs to give an over look at each of the dogs personality's. I then cut out each of the colored photos and lay them in around the b/w photos. It took a while to do but I really like the over all look of the final page.

Bad photo but you can see the over all idea. Not some of my best work but I had a lot of fun doing it,as this page was all white when I started. This was a couple of girls getting together to play with stamps and ink (chalk ink is awesome!) We tried a new technique and this was my finished product.

This is a easel card I made for a friends birthday it is an easy card to make but looks so elegant.

In this position it can just be a work of art and depending on how you decorate it, it could be displayed for a while.

Slide it back just a little more and it displays your message. I just love this card, it looks wonderful and is practical.

This was a layout I did for a class at the shop. My co-worker taught me how to make the "grunge" flowers and this is is the layout I worked them into. The flowers are super easy to make and the fun part is the messy you make them the better they come out. The rest of the work was done with the help from the wonderful cricut expression. I will own one someday when I make lots of money selling my cards. ya right. A girl can dream right?

There is so much more I could show you but I think I will wait for another night when I have not posted 3 post in one day, and when I have not been as creative as I have been the last little while.

Off to putter on the internet for a little while and then off to bed. Tomorrow is work and working on my soon to be wick, awesome craft room. Night

Back from the market

2010-05-02T15:37:00.001-02:30

Well we just got back from the market, and yup I think I could sell my work there. There was no one else selling what I do and they seem to be pretty busy. So now I can work on a bunch of different things stock up enough to sell and see about getting a table. Who knows it might be a way of making enough money to support my hobbies.

Anyway on another topic I have been working on a lot of different projects these days some of these some of you have seen some not so much. The following is a layout I did for the "Spring" layout challenge at work. I am super proud of it! The background paper is from the "Flower Child" line by Bo Bunny, it had some swirls on it but I add more with gold embossing in the bottom right hand corner and top left hand corner. I even inked the organza butterflies ( can't really see them in the photo) The green leafs are folded to give a 3d look as well ( again not really captured in the photo). I am proud of this cause a friend from work keeps telling me that I need to step out of my comfort zone ( working with cool colors in the same boring way (my words not hers) and used yellow ( I know there is still greens and blues but there is a lot of yellows) and gold. I love the result.

I teach some classes at the local scrapbook shop (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=274143770771) the following are some cards I will be teaching people to make during class.

Yesterday was National Scrapbooking Day and I did a layout for why I scrapbook. It is not something I am really really proud of but for this to be an honest blog I think I should post all my work not just things I am happy with. So here it is

I have another card made for a friend of ours who just had a baby, I will post that one a little later. Off to make an envelope for that card right now.

(Update: We were running late and I forgot to take a photo of the card. Pout! Oh well that is life, they loved it though. )

Finally found my way back.

2010-05-02T12:04:00.000-02:30

O.K folks welcome to Brie's Handmade Hobbies. I have been avoided setting up a blog account forever thinking know one would read it, or care. However a friend of mine has been pushing me to set one up and after reading her's, and find out that other friends have blogs as well, I decided that it does not matter if everyone under the sun reads it. It is a way for my friends/family to see what I have been doing, it is for me, a way to document my life experiences and to remember and learn from what I am do at this moment in time.
Thanks Lori for kicking my ass in gear.
I shall be posting more about my art in later post, this was just to get me started and to stop putting it off. I am off now with WH to check out the local flea market and to see if it might be a good venue for me to start selling some of my work. I will repost back later.