American Crafter: Pinterest {...offline} Inspiration Board

The theme for this round of American Crafter was, House of Order. We had to make something that

helped us to be organized. Tough call for me. My life is usually chaotic but I came up with a little something to organize a little section of my life.  For my project, I decided to make an inspiration board. I find when coming up with crafts, I have a hard time organizing all of my thought and my pictures and swatches, etc. Pinterest is great for organizing things you want to make but I don't always find everything online.  I am constantly dog-earring pages in magazines and then losing track because I cant remember where I saw the project.  So I decided to make a board that would help to organize all those thoughts in one place.

Usually when I decorate, I tend to go kind of shabby chic with pops of color, but in making things that have to do with my creative space, I like to use lots of bright colors. I find that it stimulates my mind and gets me thinking creatively.

With all of these things in mind, I decided to do and inspiration board and I brought in lots of bright colors to fully expand my creative mind :)

I started off by making fabric flowers in two different patterns. I love fabric flowers and they helped make the board so pretty. My favorites are the flowers with the button centers.

I continued by painting the trim of the board white. I cut a piece of fabric the size of the cork and used spray adhesive to attach it. Once that was on, I embellished the board with rick rack trim which I hot glued on and then I used spray adhesive to attach the ribbon and the doily corners. I had originally put the doily under the rick rack and didnt like the look of it so I put a second doily on top. Luckily I had accidentally cut two doilies together and so I had the exact lace pattern to place on top. 

Once that was done, I hot the glued wooden "CREATE" to the top and used scrapbook stickers to spell out "imagine" and "dream" along the borders. For a little extra decoration I added some multicolored scrapbook circle stickers around the words. 

To hang my "inspirations" I cut of the back of gold buttons and glued hot glued flat white thumbtacks to them to make my own tacks that matched with the gold buttons in the flowers for more of a chic feel.

Then I placed a few sample projects on the board (I'm already getting ready for Christmas) and that was it!!

I absolutely loved this project and all the colors. It was simple but really fun and its a cool tool to have handy to be visually inspired!!

Head on over to Naptime Crafters and vote for #7, pretty please!!

Moving to Round 2!!

For everyone who voted for me in American Crafter, THANK YOU!!!

I have advanced to the second round and Im super excited.  I am competing with some seriously awesome ladies and I'm honored to be among them!

This week's theme is HOUSE OF ORDER

We have to come up with a project that helps us to stay organized.  Since I'm usually a chaotic mess, lol, this is gonna be a tough project for me. Voting will open up on Friday so let's see if this newest project can get me to Round 3 :)

Thank everyone again for all of your support!! 

American Crafter: Edgar Allan Poe Inspired Halloween

Everything Under Moon is competing in American Crafter!!

Amy of Naptime Crafters is hosting the 3rd edition of American Crafter and I was chosen as a competitor!! I am so excited to be taking part in the contest and competing with such talented women!  Nothing better then competing during the Halloween season with so many fun crafts to do!!

For my submission, being the geek for classics that I am, I decided to put a twist on Halloween and go classically creepy! Edgar Allan Poe is well known for dark and macabre stories that portray a sense of fear and mystery and he has written som eo fmy favorite works. I decided to use his stories to bring out all the darkness and dread associated with Halloween. I did this by using his stories in a few smaller projects to make one big one.

First there are the frames. The Raven, his most famous work, is used in a framed picture ...well a framed mirror, really... the frame for The Raven is actually a $1 store mirror with scrapbook paper and a bird cutout mod podged onto it. The Tell Tale Heart was next with a framed heart and the word, "thump" to remind us of the beating hear under the floor boards that just wouldn't stop.  Next I portrayed his dark story of the Masque of the Red Death with a framed mask. The red death is represented by the presence of the red frame.

I was lucky enough to find the perfect image in a google search that displayed a creepy skull with the name "poe" inscribed on his head. I put thimage on a tile to really give a Halloween feel with the addition of branches giving off a feeling of looming dread.

Finally, the white pumpkin with the simple word "Nevermore." An important detail to Poe's most famous work, The Raven.

I very much enjoyed this challenge and taking a different twist to traditional Halloween using a skull, an ominous bird, and a dead beating heart!

Hope you enjoy!!  Head on over to Naptime Crafter and vote!!! :)
(Voting ends Sunday Night at 8pm)

This is where I party.