Fall Leaves Wreath

Before I get into my post, I want to apologize for not being around these last few weeks.  One of my cats, Boo, had a serious health scare and I was very preoccupied with him.  Thankfully, it appears that he is going to be fine!  So, now, on with the show!

 I love the dollar store (in my area it’s called Dollar Tree) and on one of my visits I found these cute wreaths and fabric-like leaves.  The leaves come in a pack of 50, so of course I had to have 2 packs.  I decided that these would make a fabulous project for my introduction to the Design Team for Anything But a Card Challenge blog. Yes, my dear readers, I landed a design gig and I am SO excited as this will be my first time on a design team! I hope I make them proud!

The leaves & wreath before. . .

 OK, enough gushing, back to the project.  I took my wreath (it is small, measures approximately 8 ½” round) and pulled out my leaves & glue and went to work.  Those of you who can use a hot glue gun may want to try that instead of using regular glue like I did, I am glue gun challenged and can’t use one without causing a disaster (but that story is for another time). 

The beginning of the leafing. . .

What I did was spread the glue on the edges of the leaf and then I pushed the part of the leaf I wanted to attach through the wreath with a craft stick – I only glued the bottom of the leaves until I was almost done and added some more to fill in some spots.  On the fill in leaves, I glued the bottom edges and put a few dabs on the body of the leaf (of course all the glue was on the back of the leaves). 

All Leafed Up (wreath holding courtesy of Manny)

The Gluing of the letters

 Then I decided that I wanted to add the word fall to the wreath.  So I turned to my trusty Silhouette Cameo and made the word fall using a thick font.  Once I got a size I liked I also made a mirror image of it so I had 2 full sets of the word “FALL”.  I cut both of them out of different papers I had from Basic Grey.  Then I took the letters, put glue on one of them, placed a piece of string (that I also got at the Dollar Store) and sandwiched the string between the 2 letters so they could move and you’d see both sides. 

  After I finished with the letters, I placed them under a heavy book to really squish them together.  I then edged the letters with a Distress marker in Brushed Corduroy.

  

Now, I realized after I cut the letters, put them together and was getting ready to hang them that I cut them out wrong.  But I was going to hang them anyway – so I did.  I hung them and. . . I hated it. I didn't like that I had messed up the letters so if they twirled they wouldn't be right and I didn't like the way they looked hanging at all. Since I didn’t want to waste the letters so I cut the strings off and edged the tops with the Distress Marker so you can’t see the white string.  Then I experimented with placing the letters directly on the wreath and I really liked the way that looked, so I guess between me not cutting the letters correctly and then hating them hanging are my happy accidents.  I think the letters look better where I ended up placing them.  I used double stick tape to hold them and it worked perfectly! 

All Done!! (again Manny the Wreath holder is holding the wreath)

And a close up of my beautiful letters!

I would also like to enter my project in the following challenges:
Hiding in My Craft Room - Die Cuts (my letters - FALL - are die cuts)
CRAFTITUDE - Anything Goes or Falling Leaves
Addicted to Stamps and More! - Anything Goes
Fab 'N Funky - Anything Goes
Crafty Girls Challenges - Anything Goes
City Crafter Challenge Blog - Wreath

Amazing Mold Putty & Clear Cast Resin

I recently purchased some cool products and I wanted to share my NEW favorite stuff, Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Clear Cast resin. This material is SO much fun and really easy to use!  First, I made my molds – that only takes about 20 minutes from start to finish!  And you can use them for food – like when you make me some chocolates <grin>.  I had never used this sort of stuff before and I was nervous but the molds came out fabulous (I am not going to show you pictures because they are nothing to look at; they are all bumpy and patched and I’d rather have you see the molds that other people have made) and even where I pushed too hard and pierced the bottom of the mold (which I did like 300 times) all you have to do is mix a bit more of the mold putty and patch the hole!  The molds also remain flexible, kind of like rubber, so you can work out your piece without worrying about breaking the mold like you do with some other molding material (and they say on their site that this is great for 2 part molds but I have yet to build up the courage to try one).

Now the resin – I am not the best at playing with stuff that can be dangerous or difficult to use so this was a real test for me.  I mixed up the resin, poured it in the molds I had made and waited about 18 hours for the resin to cure (the directions say to leave the resin anywhere from 24 – 48 hours, but it also cures faster in heat and as some of you know, it was as hot as Hades here in Colorado when I was playing) and then I just bent the molds and out popped the resin castings.  I am SO impressed with myself that first, it worked for me and second that I did it without harming myself, my rug or anything else (THAT is a miracle - trust me!) Since it was so easy, I knew I had to share a few of my castings.

This is the first one I made - no easy going for me!

It is a small frame & due to the nature of the design

the putty stuck in places & the mold was ruined.

Gee, maybe I should have tried something a bit easier?

A leaf made from an earring, the bird is from a charm

This stuff is not cheap but you get a TON of it – I am already saving for my next batch of the putty as I did ruin some by waiting too long to mold it but I do have enough resin to coat my entire room if I choose <grin> - and that is even with me mixing too much (I forget that you are effectively doubling the amount you make because you mix the 2 equal parts) but I made some squigglys and dots and stuff with the resin that wouldn’t fit in my molds (I used a drip on my Halloweenie Shadow Box; I used it to make it look like there was blood running down the box and you can see that HERE).  One suggestion I can give is that is you have a non-stick craft mat USE IT! That way if you overflow your molds (like I did every single time) you can just pick off the resin once it is dry.  And, if you have extra resin, you can use it to make your own squigglys and designs.

Flower made from a pin 

I encourage you to go check out the website (for me, the products section helped the most to narrow down what I wanted to explore & then I watched the videos) and be warned, this stuff is addicting!  Also, sign up for their blog, they share some amazing projects and they are always running specials! I hope you enjoyed my post ~

Skull made from the head of one

of the Dollar Tree Skeletons

Since I wrote this post Alumilite Products has introduced Amazing Mold Rubber – this is definitely my next craft purchase! NOTE: I did not receive any compensation for this post.  Blessings to you & yours ~

 Two different bat charms that I made into molds

You can't really see the detail on the smaller one,

but it's there! I used the larger bat on my Halloween

Shadow Box - you can see that HERE