The Boy purchased some dog harnesses that were marked X-SMALL for puppies and Toy dogs. It turned out that the puppies are more like XX-SMALL. The problem was that the store didn’t sell any XX-SMALL harnesses. There is a good chance that I’ll be taking them to their first vet visit and I was a little concerned about how I’d control all the wild puppy action if they weren’t on leashes. That got me searching the internet for answers and I found a great one on a blog called, “Dog Under My Desk.”

The blog owner is Erin. She is very good at sewing, and giving directions so others can sew her great projects. One of her projects is a “Little Dog Harness.” (I’m linking to the tutorial for the harness, but be sure to look around her site at all the other great ideas.) I printed out her smallest pattern at 75% of its original size and made a couple of harnesses using left over bits of fabric in my stash. It has been way too long since I did much sewing and my wobbly curves and top stitching show it. Other than that I think they turned out pretty good.

Doesn’t it figure, I’m the one who did all the work and Recliner Man is the one who gets all the grateful puppy love from Batman.

I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that I was behind the camera and it was Recliner Man’s job to dress and display the puppies. It looks like Sasha knew who to give her attention to. I didn’t have the puppies with me while I was sewing so I couldn’t measure exactly where to put the Hook & Loop tape. I worked around that by putting longer strips on and making the harness adjustable. It worked out pretty well.

With their new harnesses, the puppies were ready for their first walk on a leash. It went pretty well but their attention span isn’t very long yet. They didn’t get far before they decided it was time to frolic in the tall grass and wrestle with each other.

Part way through the project we got to thinking that we may have been able to fit a cat harness on them. I think the little cloth harnesses are adorable and a better way to go. When we tried the X-SMALL harness on the pups they immediately started trying to bit it off, but when we wrapped them in these harnesses they didn’t mind them at all. The fabric harness also gives you more options to personalize and there is a rumor afloat that the next one may have a tiny Batman cape on it.

(Edit: I’ve made a second set of harnesses for when they want to be a bit more fancy – LOL)

Billie stopped over yesterday afternoon and we did a quick holiday project. These sparkly balls are even prettier in person and really pretty easy to make.

You take a clear glass ball and remove the cap. Then you squirt in some dye ink and add a small splash of water. I’m not giving you amounts because we learned that the amount seemed to vary based on the bulb size and even on the ink choices. Basically you want a puddle in the bottom that will allow you to roll it all around the ball and coat the entire inside. While you do this it is best to have on a rubber glove and hold your thumb securely over the opening.

It is also a good idea to take care that your thumbnail doesn’t puncture the glove. This photo was taken after billie had been cleaning her thumb for several minutes already. She is such a good sport. She had been laughing from the moment she took her glove off and saw this mess, then it was her suggestion to take a picture and share it with all of you.

We discovered that some balls seemed to resist the ink in a few places leaving a splotchy look so we had to come up with a solution to that. If it happens to you, don’t panic. Just follow along with the instructions and I’ll tell you what to do.

OK, so you have the ink rolled around. Now you want to pour out the excess ink and use a paper towel to dab up any left over droplets at the edge of the opening. Once that is done pout in a teaspoon or two of glitter. Use a fine or ultra-fine glitter. A translucent glitter will give you a much lighter ball because it will allow more light to pass through it. The color of the glitter with combine with the color of the ink so keep that in mind anduse a clear glitter if you want to stay true to the ink color. Put your thumb over the opening and shake the ball to distribute the glitter. You can add more glitter if it looks like you didn’t cover everything. Pour out any extra glitter.

If you didn’t get good coverage with your first coat of ink you will now be able to see all the clear spots on the glass. Take a re-inker and start adding a few drops to the ball. Hole the ball on an angle and twist it around to direct the ink where you need it. If you use the same color as you did in the first step it will appear as a much darker shade. You can also select a second color to spice things up. Be sure to swirl it around a bit to creat an interesting pattern of swirls and lines.  Now add more glitter and sake it up again. Pout out any extra glitter, replace the cap, and you are done!

Poor Abbey doesn’t know what is about to happen. My daughter will be here in a couple of hours with her two cats. Enjoy your peace and quite Abbey, while you can.

I’m going to tell you how to make a quick and easy mini book from 3 X 5 index cards. It’s so ridiculously easy that I should be embarrassed about devoting an entire post to this project. But I’m not, embarrassed that is, because I’ve been hard up for posts lately and this beats the heck out of my second choice, which was telling you about the garbage men knocking my garbage can over this morning. Be grateful that I don’t embarrass easily.

You start by taking 3 index cards and folding them in half.

Next, you stack them up and put a staple in the crease to hold them all together.

See? All together now.

Then you cover each page with decorative paper and add embellishments.These make fun little “chunky books” so go ahead and add some 3D elements.

When you are finished with the pages, just add some fibers and you are all done. Admit it, you thought I was exaggerating about this being embarrassing easy, didn’t you?

This little brown book is one that Billie made.

Billie set out to make this book with only one design plan in mind, to make it all browns and blacks. All the rest came from spontaneous artistic inspiration. Billie likes to work without a lot of pre-planning. She isn’t one to over think a project. I tend to give a lot of thought to the direction of my project before I get stated, not always but most of the time. Which way do you do most of your work?

And this my friends, is a tease. It is a sneak peek at what I’ll be talking about in my next post.

Step one. Cut four pieces of cardstock that are 3″ x 6″. (This size will result in a 6″ x 6″ finished card)

Step two. Score a line 1-1/2″ in from all sides as shown below:

Step three.  Place two of the cards on the table as shows, long sides butted against each other and scored marks lining up.

Step four. Place glue or double stick tape in the four outer corners.

Step five.  Place the remaining two pieces on top of the first two, turning them perpendicular to the first two and once again butting the long edges together.

Step six.  Construction is now complete. As you open each  level push the sides towards the back and crease well along the fold line. Check out the video to see how the pages fold back.

NOTES

Check out the diagram below. You don’t really need to score the line down the center of the card. The red section does absolutely nothing for you. The blue section was only there to help you line up your tape or glue in step four. It is very important that your adhesive doesn’t extend beyond the blue line so I suggest you mark this part of the line either with a pencil or by scoring.

 Here is something to keep in mind when decorating your card. There will be four different faces and for the most part they can be decorated independent of the other faces. However, there is one section that can be viewed as part of both face two and face three.

So that’s it. It’s a whole lot easier than it looks, isn’t it? Now go and make a card… and don’t forget to show me how it turns out!

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When I was a child I loved to lay on my back in the cool summer grass and gaze up at the passing clouds as I chewed on a freshly picked clover or a sprig of spearmint. I’d play the game of looking for familiar shapes in the ever changing cloud formations.

My friends and I recently played a similar game, substituting watercolor and ink for the clouds. It’s hard to get messy fingers with clouds and we all know how important it is to get your hands dirty once in a while.

We applied color to the paper with brushes, droppers, and lots of water allowing the color to spread on it’s own.

When the paper was dry we studied it from every angle, looking for familiar shapes.

When we found a shape we used a black pen to outline it and fill in a few details. We started out working on larger pieces of paper but later switched to ATC sized pieces. We decided that it is actually easier to find images in the smaller pieces than it was in the larger ones. Try this and see what you think.

Last week while shopping with two of my girlfriends I found these adorable puffy heart stickers.  I knew right away that I wanted to buy them, but there was a problem. I’m on a crusade to clear the studio of clutter. If the gazillion stickers I currently owned didn’t already count as clutter then the addition of a new set was sure to tip the scales in the wrong direction.

As I stood there fighting an emotional tug of war in my mind a brilliant idea began to take shape. Surely it would be alright to bring the colorful hearts home with  me if I made a vow to use them on my very next project. Yeah! And with that all my good intentions were cast aside. Well that was an easy fight to win, wasn’t it? I am really a wimp.

So now it was time for new good intentions and this time I just had to see them through. My next project would have to be done soon because I already had an ATC swap scheduled for tomorrow. It actually didn’t take long for a plan to develop. Like many of my plans, the idea came to me as I lay in bed wondering why it always takes me at least an hour to fall asleep at night. I get some really great ideas this way. The trick is remembering them the next day and then figuring out how to make them actually work.

I’m happy to say that this project turned out almost exactly like I had hoped. It started with a cardstock base onto which I glued a page from an old book. Over the book page I brushed on several different colors of glaze. The birds were stamped onto  some cardstock that I’d previously marbled with shaving cream and re-inkers. The words were printed out on white paper and then colored by rubbing an ink pad over them.

I was trying out another technique from Texture Effects, by Nancy Curry last week. (Click on the images for a larger view) Nancy’s directions are to apply ink to a palette stamp directly from a chalk ink pad and then use tape to transfer more chalk ink from a pad to the palette stamp, and finally to your paper, creating a background that is rich in texture and depth.

The chalk inks add a wonderful aged feel to the background but you can do something similar with any of your regular pigment inks. I also liked using a crackle stamp to add a little more texture and age before I stamped on the main image.