Fall Into Fall 2024 - Tangles

A FaceBook group that I follow - Tangle All Around - facilitated an event during the month of September called "Fall Into Fall".  They provided a list and a pdf of the daily tangles.  This was much like some of the other tangle events that I've participated in and once again I decided to take part in this one.  I used another keyring tag booklet for these that was orange and measured about 3" long.  On the front of the tag I indicated the name of the tangle and it's creator along with a sample of the completed tangle.  On the back I drew six boxes and used two colors to show the step-outs of the tangles.  In the past I've just done the tangle on the front of some smaller tags, or in the case of the previous years' Inktober challenges, just the finished tangle which is good, but having the step-outs on the tag itself helps to not have to search out the steps again, and believe me, sometimes you really need the steps.  There is an example of the back at the end of this.  

Here is the complete keyring - there are about 20 extra tags that I can use to add to this.

And here is a sample of the back.  You can see that I have used a dark pink marker to indicate what is added in each consecutive step.  The arrows between the boxes show the progression of the steps.  This is what the official Zentagle creators have used in the past.  This is pretty small - having to fit 6 boxes on a 3" surface is challenging.  

Inktober will be starting on October 1st and I'm going to take part in that also but I haven't figured out what substrate to use yet.  If you recall, last year I used a sheet of black paper and put the tangles in a segmented pumpkin.  I'm kind of leaning towards doing a large leaf on kraft colored paper if I can find something large enough.  Maybe later this weekend I will see if brown kraft wrapping paper would be suitable.  If not, there's always the thought of another pumpkin.  We shall see.

Welcome Fall

I found these fall themed plastic containers at the Dollar Tree recently along with some pretty fall themed paper products which just happened to fit in them.  So I bought a few of each, tied some sparkly ribbon around them and attached a tag I created from some new products from The Greetery and HWNSNBP and I made some drop offs to local friends and family.  

I die cut those leaf sprays our of various shades of fall colors and then used the negative space from one of them in my Misty as a way to hold them so I could stamp the detail on each of them rather that trying to line up the die on the stamped image each time.  It goes so much quicker that way.   

The word "Autumn" is die cut from some sticky backed cork paper.  

I got carried away and made a lot more of those leaf sprays which I'll be using for something else soon.

 

Thanks for Helping Me Grow Tags and Cards

Our grandson will be changing "classes" at daycare soon - he's growing so fast.  My daughter-in-law Michelle asked me to make some cards and tags to go along with a little gift she is giving his caregivers.  She wanted the theme to be "thank you for helping me grow".  

I knew I had plenty of flowery things to work with, but I didn't have a stamp that said exactly that.  So I took a quick look through Etsy and found these little charms at Findings For Less.  I think they look pretty good and she loved them.

The daisies are a Susan's Garden die and a little labor intensive, but I don't mind doing that kind of work.  I gave them to her with a choice of green or white ribbon to use to tie them on.  

Michelle is adding these to a special gift she is having her cousin Sara make.  Sara is a pyrographer and you can see some of her work here.  

Back to School and a Little Thank You Project

Well, we're back in the swing of things.  I can't find the gray of my desk yet - too much paperwork to still take care of.  My new office partner had vacation scheduled before she knew that she was being assigned to our school, so I've been flying solo since the second day and will be until Thursday of this week.  Not exactly how I would have liked it, but we're making it work.  We had some redecorating done over the summer - new paint and carpeting.  The yellow is a tad bit brighter IRL and the carpet is so much better than what we had.  There have been a lot of comments about our choice of wall color, some of them not so nice, which makes me sad when we were aiming at making the room more cheerful.  But I think it's growing on most.  Anyway, we're happy with it, and since we spend the most time in that room I guess that's all that matters!

Smile - the cafeteria is open again!

I had a little project that I did to thank some of the teachers that came in to help me unpack supply boxes and to stuff envelopes for our mailing.

I started with 4 x 4 white ceramic tiles.  (They're actually a little bit bigger than 4" square if you measure them.)  Then I chose some Sharpie markers in colors that I thought would look good together.  In this case, I was going for some aquatic colors reminiscent of the summer.  I scribbled the tiles with the Sharpies and gave it a couple of minutes to set up.  Then, I used 91% rubbing alcohol for the next step not pictured (I found the 71% did not work as well).  You drip the alcohol onto the scribbled tiles and watch how the alcohol disperses the colors, blending as the drips come together in places.  

Make sure to do this in a well-ventilated area.  Otherwise your liable to burn your nasal passages and that's not a particularly good feeling (as I found out!).  Let them sit with the alcohol on them until it completely dries.  Be patient.  To be on the safe side, give it a couple of hours.  You don't want anything even remotely wet for the next step.

The alcohol will leave a little bit of a film on the tiles (at least I found that it did), so I took a tissue, a soft tissue, not a paper towel, and lightly rubbed the tiles to remove the film.  If you really don't like what it looks like at this point, you can remove the ink completely by wetting the tissue, or now you could use a paper towel, with the alcohol and rub it all off and start all over.  (This is how I found out that you really have to wait for it to dry before rubbing because there was still some wetness and by rubbing it when wet, it just removed the color.)

And now, it's probably not likely that you would spill alcohol on them after this, but in order to make sure that there is no more accidental color removal, take the tiles outside (don't stack them on each other either because you might scratch the color off) and give them several light coats of a spray sealer.  This also gives them a nice glossy finish.  

The last step is to add something on the back to keep the tiles from scratching surfaces.  I used some peel and stick cork on mine, but you could use felt, or even smaller pieces of the cork. (If you're a wine drinker you could slice up a wine bottle cork for these also.)

So when they were done, I wrapped them up in some bubble wrap and then tissue paper, and then I wrapped that with some brown kraft paper and added a ribbon with the tags below that I made from cardstock and some stickers that I had on hand.  (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the wrapped packages.)  I wrote a little note of thanks on the back of the tags and put the packages in their mailboxes as a surprise.  

I have a few more tiles to experiment with other colors. (The tiles were really cheap.  I got 10 for less than $2.)  I was thinking maybe some fall colored ones would be nice.

Thursday's Throw Aways - Denim Again

With all the flower shows that HWNSNBP and I have been attending recently I was inspired to use my Blossom Party Die for this week's throw away.

Here's the start of the first project.............

After die cutting the flower pieces, I used my paper piercer to make a hole big enough for the brad to go through.  I cut the ribbon to approx. 9" and tapered each end.  The flower was added to the ribbon using the brad.  You can't see the back and I forgot to take a picture, but the ribbon is folded over the brad in the back and glued down. 

The second project revolves around some clothing tags I recently saved.  I thought these tags from Kohl's could be made over to something useful.

I used a regular white brad to put the blossom together and adhered it to the front with a large sticky dot. 

On the back I stamped the floral image from Vintage Vogue in Bordering Blue.  Then I stamped the bird tag from Garden From the Heart also in Bordering Blue, colored the bird and highlighted the edges.

Now I have a cute little package tie-on ready. 

I know I've used the denim before but it just seemed to be perfect for today's projects.

What do you think? 

When You've Been Tagged.......

Before I do anything else today, and believe me, as dreary as it is it will be hard to tear myself away from this computer and actually do something, I have been putting something off that needs attention.

I have been tagged - not once, not twice, but three times and I have been neglectful in acknowledging it. Not because I don't appreciate it, because I do. As you see, tagging is meant to bring new readership to your blog, which is not to say that I don't appreciate the readership that I have now, because I know you're out there even if you don't leave me comments (ha!).

How do I know that? Well, if you look at my left column and find the little logo that has numbers in it, it shows the number of visits to my blog and if I click on it it will take me to a place that has a map that shows where my visitors are from. I have to say that I'm just as thrilled to see visitors from New Jersey as I am to see them from the far reaches of North America and the other five continents that have provided me visitors (I haven't had any visitors from Antarctica - yet!).

It's fun to see how far my words and works have gone and I've met some pretty interesting people already through this blog including Lettie from Polka Dot Pineapple who tagged me this summer and told me it was okay to take my time passing the tag, and Ashley from Heart Hugs who said the same, and most recently by Cindy Motherway from This is My Story who would understand if I waited longer, I'm sure, but guess what - today is the day I will do my tagging.

But if you and they don't mind, I will combine the requirements so as not to bore you all to death with "interesting facts" you don't know about me.

1. My first trip to the emergency room as a child was because I stuck a screw up my nose. (And if I hear anything about that in public from my friends I will simply tell everyone that you are delusional.)

2. I took dancing lessons with my sisters for 10 years and danced for the soldiers at Fort Dix when I was 16 and had a "costume malfunction" long before the Jackson/Timberlake debacle.

3. I was nominated for Homecoming Queen but didn't make the finals by one vote, which turned out to be the vote of my youngest sister who "didn't think that she was allowed to vote for me because we were related". (I don't think she has voted in an election since, although I don't quite know why as she has not been related to any candidates.)

4. I was asked to do a TV commercial for a continuing education institution but my employer would not let me and no, it wasn't because they heard about the Fort Dix thing, there was some kind of company rule.

5. I like show tunes - well who could have taken dancing lessons for 10 years and not liked show tunes. Actually, there's only a few music genre's that I don't enjoy.

6. I can recite the names of all 50 states in alphabetical order in less than 60 seconds by heart. (I had to find some other useless talent after I gave up dancing.)

7. I......... I............I lost interest in myself. Go look at these blogs that I have found recently. I'm not going to tell you about them because I want you to go there and see for yourself. The subject matter is varied so you are bound to be entertained and might even find a favorite or two:

Debbie at I Need a Martini Mom
Katherine at Yellow Rose Arbor
Hey Harriet at Hey Harriet
Laurraine at Patchwork Pottery
Lori at Stamp Some Smiles
Jak at Crafters Kitchen
Joanne at Mainly Flowers

I'm going to mix things up a little here with the rules. I'm not going to tell them they've been tagged - I want you to. I want you to visit these blogs and if you like what you see there, leave a comment and tell them that I sent you!