Special Girl sign SimonSays

Happy Sunny Day to you all,

It's so beautiful out today.  I cannot wait to finish this post and get outdoors.  It's been a very, very long winter.  I believe the high today should be around 60 degrees.  YEAH!

So, I've been entering some challenges over at Simon Says Stamp Blog.  They have a Monday and Wednesday challenge and this week's Wednesday challenge is "Mother's Day/Special Girl"  My granddaughter will turn 2 on Sunday and since she's pretty special I thought I'd make her something for her room.  I had purchased these foam signs a LONG time ago at my favorite store...The Dollar Tree and had planned on making something for the girls but never got around to it.  Going through my stash of "stuff" I came across this one and knew it was time for Alexis to get her own room sign.  

I started out with my cricut and cut Alexis in a basic block font and then again as a Shadow Black Out Round to give it some depth.  I also created the butterfly and flower from my Amazing Crafting Products.  You can go here and see how I originally did the butterfly.  This time I used my Casting Resin instead of the Paperclay (less drying time) to create my pieces and painted them both with my Terri Sproul mixers from Sakura Craft.  It's super easy to mix the mixers with some 3d crystal lacquer and it paints onto the resin fabulously.  I also created Alexis' name in resin, but the letters were just too small for the sign.  I will just have to make her another project :)

I glued all my pieces to the foam sign after "stamping" some flourishes directly onto the foam sign.  I tried it on the back first to make sure it would work and it was fabulous.  Then I highlighted the edged flourishes with some purple glitter glue. 

a few glitter glue dots to the letters 

more glitter glue to the rhinestones 

more glitter glue dots as butterfly's flight pattern

and now she has her own room sign.  

I just love how this turned out...now I should make one for Miss Bella also.

I hope you've enjoyed my post today and as always,

have a great day and God Bless.

Antique Milk Can

Good morning

I've been so excited to show you my version of the Milk can that everyone has been making over at Sakura Hobby Crafts.  If you haven't been over there, make sure you check it out after reading my post.  They are just the greatest?  Each one is so unique and I've loved them all.  I'm kinda picking up the rear here and hope mine will inspire you to create one also.

I started out with the silver milk can and painted it white.  Then I "sanded" a bit of the white off to expose the silver and make it look shabby chic.  After that I added back some color and used the Terri Sproul mixers in Shimmer Smoky Quartz mixed with the 3d crystal lacquer.  I love this color because it's really antiquey (not a word, I know) looking.  After that was completely dried I added a "white wash" spray paint to tone down the color a bit more.  Now it really became vintage looking.

I just could stop there...last summer when I was home at my mom's we were going through some old pictures and we came upon a picture of the house she was born in.  It's the only one we have and she wouldn't give it up.  I took a picture of the picture.  It's not the best, but then this is supposed to be "vintage" looking right?  I printed the picture out and mod podged it to the painted milk tin.  Once that was completely dry I "painted" some brown acrylic paint watered down over the top of everything to give it a balanced look and then painted a thin layer of the 3d crystal lacquer over the top to keep it from scratching off the paint.  I then added some flowers and I gave it to my mom for Mother's Day.  

I just love the way this all came together and now she can treasure her "homestead" for a long time to come.

I hope I've inspired you to create something using these fabulous milk cans and if you do, please leave me a comment and I will come and check yours out.  Thanks again for coming by and as always, 

Have a great Day and God Bless -  Brenda

If you`d like to order your milk cans today - you will get 20% of your ENTIRE ORDER (for the month of May) so act fast as I`m sure these cans will be flying off the shelves. 

Use code Sakura 05 at checkout. 

Faux Feather Earrings

Good day! Brenda here and I want thank Susan for inviting me back to show off some projects I've been making since leaving the Amazing Mold Putty Design Team. I was one of the original designers for Amazing Crafting Products and loved every minute of it.

Since leaving the team, I still continued to use Amazing Crafting Products because these products are ultimately the best. I love the fact that I can create almost anything I want. The molding putty is my all time favorite and of course I love using the Amazing Casting Resin and the Amazing Clear Cast Resin to create those embellishments. 

So today I wanted to create some feather earrings that I had seen on Pinterest a while back. I started out with some Creative Paperclay®. I cut the clay in a oval type shape and using a bamboo skewer I added some lines to create those feather like looks. Press your bamboo skewer into the clay to make those veins. It really has great dimension. Once the piece is dry, you can use a nail file to smooth out the edges if you want or need to.

Once the piece dried I then prepared the feather to be encased in Amazing Mold Putty to create the mold. I added some vaseline to the paperclay "feather" as a release to make sure it would not stick to the mold putty. Better safe than sorry I always say.

I took two equal parts of the mold putty and blended them making sure there were no white streaks showing. You have a couple of minutes to get it good and blended. Then I pressed the clay feather piece into the mold putty and let it sit for about 10 minutes. I usually press my fingers slightly into the edge of the mold to make sure it's really good and hard and then I slowly pulled the clay piece out of the mold. Be very careful as the clay piece could break when taking it out of the mold. I will use the clay piece in a scrapbook layout or maybe a card.

I created the earrings with the Amazing Casting Resin and Gold Alumilite Metallic Powder. Add your Alumilite powder to your part "A" and mix well. Then pour your part "B" into your part "A" and mix again. You only have a few minutes before it wants to set up, so make sure you do this quickly.

After the pieces were cast, I added some black rub and buff to tone down the gold. I also sealed the pieces with some Sakura 3-D Crystal Lacquer and placed a few iridescent pearls to the "feathers". Now I have two perfectly matched feathers. I used my Crop-A-Dile to create the holes for the earring wires, it goes through the resin piece very easy. I added a couple of jump rings and the earring wires and now I have a great pair of earrings.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you've enjoyed my feather earrings tutorial and I cannot wait to share my next project! You can always find me here to see what else I create.  ~ Brenda Burfeind