Shopping, Eating & Creating (again)

Saturday, I spent the day with my sister Maryl, Connie (CGS), Lois and Nilufer.  It was going to be a day of  shopping, eating and creating...my favorite kind of day!  As every weekend goes, I have to make a stop at Craft Depot (aka East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse), so I brought along the gang in hopes we'd find some good treasures.  Here are my best finds: a glass pedestal and a box full of old recipes.

Here we are with our bags of goodies - it was a good trip.

Can u match the feet with the person?

Then we were off to Bake Sale Betty's and Genova Deli on Telegraph to pick up lunch.  If you've never been to BSB, they're famous for their fried chicken sandwich with coleslaw.  There's usually a long line out the door and they have these unique outdoor tables.




CGS bought a t-shirt too

After eating we ran out to Alameda and hit a couple stores, Daisy's on Park Ave (cute little store filled with knick-knacks) and Beverly's.  I bought this great necklace from Daisy's, it's a Jill Schwartz piece...so delicate.  Here's Jill's web site: http://www.elementsjillschwartz.com/login_ws.php

Now that we got the shopping and buying out of our system, we were ready to settle down for our artful playing (Yes, Giants game in the background).  Everyone had their own project to work on.

Nilufer Painting & Making Wire Art

Maryl Working On An Album



CGS & Nilufer Focusing On Their Art

  

Lois Cutting Out Her Rubber Stamps



CGS's Pile of Art



Maryl's Album

 

I worked on stamping crayola clay and making a paper doll piece

It was a fun girl day!

Thanks for taking our picture Nilufer

Sunday was a beautiful day, the family and I drove over to the city to go to our favorite ramen restaurant at Japan Town, Suzu.  No traffic on the San Francisco Bay Bridge, what a joy!



 Ernie took this great shot of Coit Tower while I was driving over the bridge.



Special Note: If you love Connie Govea Stuart's work as much as I do, you'll want to head out to Sweet Magnolia in Danville for her Trunk Show this Friday, Nov. 5th.  One-of-a-kind creations to bring sweet delights to your home.

Rachel's Book Cover

Rachel is reading this book for school called, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan .  She didn't like the original cover of the book, so she come home from school and made this cute book cover tonight.

Before



After

Much better I'd say :-)

Rainy Day Projects

It's been raining the whole day, but those make wonderful craft days!  Here's what it looked like from my back deck - wet and cloudy.

Rachel (my 12 yr old daughter) and I were all ready to work on projects all day. We were definitely not leaving the house.

Rachel made this adorable bunny rabbit - it's one of my all time favorite softies she's made.  We named her "PopPy LoVe".  You'll never guess what the bunny head is made from!  I'll tell you later on in this post.  I just love the different color button eyes and the stripped legs.  I can see a whole family of these guys made from different material.  From ear to toe, PopPy LoVe is about 15" tall.

Here's the project I made today, a stuffed Santos doll. It didn't turn out as well as Rachel's PopPy LoVe.  Oh well, you don't know until you experiment.

Here's Rachel's other project of the day, an adorable mouse house.  She made each mouse, their clothes, the vase w/ flower, the curtains and the large mushroom.  This project kept her busy most of the day.

And finally back to PopPy LoVe. Her head is made from a knit glove!  She sewed down the thumb and two fingers, so that just two outside fingers would make the rabbit ears - clever huh?

Hawaiian Shadow Box

Today, we decided to make a Hawaiin shadow box. It is going to be a gift for the condo owner in Maui where my sisters, Maryl & Frances, and our friend Ruby stayed last month. It was Ruby's great idea to make the condo owner this handmade gift.

Here We Go...

Ruby & Frances Painting Away

Ruby and I Hard At Work

Maryl Gluing Pieces Down



Presenting Our Finished Project

 

Collaboration and teamwork makes for a fun project, we all got to contribute our own touches.

On a separate note, I'm getting my etsy shop together!  I plan to sell vintage findings, supplies and occasionally projects.  Take a sneak peak:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtfulPlay

My Favorite Find of The Month

I absolutely love the product that I found this month, “Komac Storage Cases”.   For those who like unmounted rubber stamps, this is a great way to store them.  If you don't buy unmounted stamps or know what they are, you don't need to bother reading this post. 

I purchased quite a few unmounted rubber stamps at the Rubber Stamp show last weekend.  They are stamps that aren’t mounted to a wooden block, but are meant to be used with an acrylic block.  There’re several steps to take before you can use the stamps. 

 1.  Cut the stamp image from the rubber mold (use Kai scissors - they're the best for cutting rubber) 

2. Mount the cut rubber to the cling foam.   There’s 2 slides to the cling form, one very sticky and one smooth.  Place the rubber stamp to the sticky side.  The smooth side is the side you attach to the acrylic block. 

3. Cut around the cling foam.  The best method for cutting the foam is using a heated exacto knife (It cuts the foam like butter). 

So, getting back to my favorite find.  Storing these unmounted stamps can be challenging, but these plastic clear cases are the perfect thing.  Here's what they look like in the case.

The Komac Storage cases are slightly bigger than a normal CD case and fit these stamps so perfectly.  You can stamp the images to a piece of card stock (that they give you pre-cut) and place it in the cover.  Or if you’re lucky, the packaging when you bought the stamps will fit right into the cover.  

I also labeled the edge so you easily know what’s in it when it’s stored on the shelf.  I love these cases, they’re easy to store along side our CD movies and games.  They're small and portable, so easy to take with you. 

You can also purchase the plastic storage sheets, however the problem with those is that your stamps have a tendency to fall off.   With these plastic cases you don’t have that problem.  Anyhow, I love them and just bought a bunch more to store all my unmounted stamps. 

Here’s where you can buy them.  http://www.rubberstampingdepot.com.  The shipping is super fast and they work wonderfully!

P.S. This is not a paid advertisement :-)

Doll House Furniture Updated

Burlap is so popular lately, especially with furniture. I’ve seen some great pieces at Alameda Pt. flea market where they use burlap fabric to upholster old chairs and then they stamp some image on it. Just like these...




I would love one of those chairs but they're probably not very comfy to sit in, not to mention too expensive. So I had an idea, similar to what Connie Govea Stuart does to doll furniture. I re-upholstered an old doll house sofa with some fabric that looks like burlap. I stamped the fabric first with some text and then wrapped it around the cushion pieces. I also had to change the color of the wood from brown to antique white and distress it. The original piece had cute little red velet cushions.



Voila! My very own burlap sofa. Now I just need to shrink myself or enlarge the sofa.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post where I'll show you my latest discovery of the month!

Stamps & Shopping & Eating & More Shopping

Saturday I spent a wonderful day out with my sister Maryl and my two friends Lois and Connie. We started the day off bright and early at the San Jose Rubber Stamp Convention, where we found lots of great stamps! These are my finds at the show. A mix of wood mounted and unmounted stamps. Today I worked on getting the unmounted ones mounted to rubber foam - then I can use them with acrylic blocks. Stay tuned for some projects with these guys.

I'm starting to stamp my latest rubber stamps in this scrapbook so I can see the images easier, break in my stamps and also have some images ready to use in my projects. Don't you love the brown paper?

After the stamp show, we decided to head to Santana Row for lunch and some more shopping. We love this wall with these old doors and windows - great photo opt.

We had a tasty lunch at Pizza Antica. It was my first time there and I can't wait to go back. Loved the chicken cesar salad and the sausage mushroom pizza - yum!

We had to stop at Anthropologie. CGS found this adorable watch that Maryl and I had to have and I also picked up this love letter sweater.

CGS eating some no calorie pancakes.

After shopping Santana Row, we headed to Lincoln street to check out this cute store called Magpie. I had to pick up this halloween santos. Note, this is not the store in the background - but my messy craft room.

And then I also found this great bag at a store called IBiss near Magpie.

Now, I wasn't the only one buying today. This is what my trunk looked like when we finished ALL our shopping.

CGS created this wonderful coin purse for my bday - love the see thru plastic and all the treasures inside. (Maryl great find on this coin purse).

Here's the card I made CGS for her bday.

Lois made this adorable paper doll and tag with Rachel's picture. Lois was Rachel's first grade teacher and had the most creative projects I've ever seen a grammer school teacher teach.

Today Rachel had one of her best friends over and they made chocolate cup cakes from a Trader Joe's mix. Thanks to CGS for recommending this product - Rachel and Ernie thought it was definitely a winner! Lana thanks for the Halloween cup cake decorations - the girls had so much fun decorating the cup cakes with them.

Two thumbs up on this mix - go try it! And didn't Trader' do a great job on the graphics for the box - so vintage looking.