Christmas Gift Craft Projects

In my previous post, I showed step 1 on the way to making a gift for my sister. Since she doesn't get online, I feel safe to post and share with you.

Here's the completed, stuffed cat:

Since this was in homage to their cat that just passed away, I thought to try my hand at an altered frame, and put in an old picture of the now-deceased cat. And this is how THAT turned out:

(The "j" stands for Jabberwocky -- the cat's name.)

These have now been boxed, wrapped, bowed and tagged. Hah! Except for waiting for dry time on the frame, I think it's actually a pretty easy project (as long as you have the necessary tools, which includes the frame, paint, a light sandpaper, and scrapbook paper and elements).

A Day in My Life

For a photo contest (yes, one of those I do occasionally for a digiscrap site I visit) this week, we were asked to take pics of us doing ordinary things in our lives. I thought this was good for two reasons. I have been thinking of doing a 365 next year (where you take a pic a day for the whole year), but also because I didn’t know if my life was that interesting. However, I think this challenge proved that it doesn’t matter if the pic is of something mundane, if it’s something that’s going on in your life. Yes, we remember the momentous moments, but usually forget the everyday ones. So, here are my two entries.

Here I am sewing a Christmas gift for my sister. Or rather, I am pinning pattern pieces to fabric. Hopefully I’ll post the finished product here.

I read Pride and Prejudice at least once a year. It’s my favorite book, and I just finished it (as you can see, in this pic I am almost to the end).

As for the 365, what do you think? I am fairly certain I will not be posting every day on this blog, since I don’t know if I would have the time for it. However, I will be uploading to my Flickr account, and then probably doing a weekly roundup here.

I’m an Artsy-Craftsy Lemming!

I couldn’t help myself. My (new) friend Kristine (who, btw, does awesome cards and scrapbook stuff) recently posted how she found some lovely paper on sale at Aaron Brothers. And from the pic she showed, I knew I had to go check it out. Do I NEED more paper? No, but at these prices, I couldn’t NOT look, right? But, I knew I couldn’t just look. I had to touch. AND I had to buy. So this is what I got! (And yes, I couldn’t resist some of the same paper. It was too pretty!)

(L to R: Silver Bamboo Leaf; Cranberry Flocked Circle; Gold & Turquoise Paisley)

Because it's cloudy today and the lighting in my apartment is awful, I had to use the flash, but at least it picked up the silver accents in the leaves, the glitter on the flocking and the gold against the turquoise. (Oh, and this is 25"x25" paper -- large!) I also bought a package of assorted flower embellishments. And it all cost about $10. Not bad.

I haven't been to Aaron Brothers in a long time -- they specialize in frames and framing, but apparently they've ventured a lot more into art supplies and the paper crafter. Very neat. (And they had way too many cute frames. But I reframed, er, refrained. ^_^) So, thanks to Kristine for the heads up. I love the paper!

(BTW, I am trying out Live Writer, as it can give some cool photo effects. What do you think? The actual typing tool takes a little bit to figure out how to format correctly. It’s a little clunky. It shouldn’t be hard, you’d think, or maybe it’s just me. No, I don’t think it’s me. ^_^)