Final Post

After much thought and several discussions with my husband I have come to hard decision of closing down my webstore as well as my blog.  It's been a great nine years and I appreciate all the visits and kind words that I have received from my readers.

It's been fun sharing my passion for crafting but as life takes its many twists and turns I find that I do not always have the time for crafting or posting on so many social media platforms.  So in an effort to not stress myself out so much I am cutting back.  

I'll still be on FB at Barbara's Spot of Sanity.  I just won't be posting every day.

Before I go though I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite projects that I've made along the way....

Do you remember the glitter craze in 2009?  I used that technique on so many cards that year, but this was my favorite.  So much so that I have held on to this card.

How about the CD calendars in 2010/2011?  This was another fun craze that I joined in on.  I don't remember how many of these calendars I made but they were fun.

In 2012 my hubby bought me my first embroidery machine.  It was a small one from Joann's that we picked up on Black Friday.  After several attempts to learn how to use the thing properly I became frustrated and packed it away.  But not before I successfully embroidered these cute marshmallow snowmen.

In 2013 we made our first trip to both Disney and Universal Studios.  It didn't take us long to realize that we were more in love with Universal and the following year we became annual passholders.

And if you've been following my blog for any period of time you've probably realized that I am a bit of a Harry Potter fanatic.

In 2014 we joined the Elf on the Shelf craze.  We had a lot of fun with our elves that year - especially since we were able to find elves for each of our collegiate teams.  I pull for Alabama and hubby pulls for Auburn.

In 2015 I really got in to using Jaded Blossom stamps, and this was a project that I made for one of the customer appreciation challenges.

Last year I decided to make some Halloween décor for hubby.  Halloween is his favorite holiday and so I thought I'd surprise him with a few things.  This Nightmare Before Christmas tree was one of them.  (The ornaments actually glow in the dark.)

And that brings me to this year.  When our youngest son moved out of the house that gave me the opportunity to move into a larger craft room and this time I went to town with my décor.  I decided that I wanted a Harry Potter themed room and so I painted and decorated in said fashion.  (I'll be adding more décor after our trip in a couple weeks)  As part of that décor I made this wand holder for the wands we've purchased thus far.  Best thing is that we can add another plaque or two as we go.

Thank you all again for this amazing journey.  And if you want to continue along with me come on over and visit with me on Facebook.  You'll find me in my little Spot of Sanity there.

 

You're My Person

Today I have a quick and easy card to share with you.  It's another card where I let my background paper do my work for me.  I mean when you're in a pinch and need to create a card quickly why not take this route?

That being said, for this card I used the Stone Age file from Marjorie Ann Designs and chose to piece together the Pebbles character.  

The background paper is from the DCWV mat stack title the Kidosaurus Stack.

The stamped sentiment is from the Craftin Desert Divas stamp set titled Happy Thoughts.

Halloween, Snoopy Style

I have not really gotten into much of the Halloween spirit quite yet.  Not that I've ever been that big a fan.  It's more my husband's holiday than mine, but over the years I've started crafting more for it.  But like I said, the mood just hasn't really hit me yet.

Although I have made my first Halloween card.   This one features that adorable cool cat, Snoopy.  He's part of the Spooky Village set by Marjorie Ann Designs.

My stamped sentiment is from the Cardz Tv Stamps set titled Frankly Frightful.

Tic Tac Drink, Nightmare Style

Last year I made a few different tic tac drink games using glass cutting boards and dessert glasses from the Dollar Tree.  I had made a couple different Harry Potter styles, Star Wars and even an Army vs. Navy.  But then I was at a loss as for what other theme to use for my last set.  I thought about a DC Comic hero vs. villain.  However I changed my mind as I didn't want to use just one hero and one villain and that could become messy.

Eventually I settled on a Nightmare Before Christmas theme.  Deciding what characters to use for the shot glasses was easy.  It was deciding what I'd do for the tic tac toe board that was the hard part.  After much thinking the idea hit me to use a skeleton arm and hand as my board diagram.

I went searching through the various skeleton designs in the Silhouette Design Store, and found the perfect skeleton by Amy Robinson here.  I welded the different bones for the arm and hand together and sized them for what I needed to create my board.  

Now the hard part was adhering the vinyl to the glass board.  Needless to say, if I ever make another one of these I will cut the four different lines separately and adhere accordingly.

As for the images of Oogie Boogie, Zero and the Jack and Sally I used in the center - those were images I found from a search that I traced in my Silhouette software.

Walking Dead Christmas Ornament

We might be two months away from the start of season 8, but it's never too early to make some Walking Dead swag for Christmas.  (The new season starts October 22nd to be exact.)

When I was playing with my alcohol inks I decided to play around with some yellow and red which gave me a perfect canvas for this ornament.  After all the Walking Dead is all about slashing those zombies while our lovable characters fight to survive.  And so the run of red kinda reminded me of that which is why I chose to create a Walking Dead ornament with this one.

The file that I used for this ornament is one that was shared in one of my Facebook groups, and is a personal use only file.  It's the second Walking Dead ornament I've made and in case you missed it, you can view my first one here.  That particular ornament featured Rick and Carl so of course this time I had to feature Daryl.  

What do you think?  Perfect gift for a Walking Dead fan?  

Skelegro Potion Bottle

The Skelegro potion is an awful tasting potion that caused lost/vanished bones to regrow in a slow and painful process.  So goes the story in the Harry Potter world.

It's been a while since I've created a Harry Potter project, but when I found these awesome skeleton bottles in the Halloween décor at Michaels I knew exactly what to do.  They're great bottles made from a polyresin and measures approximately 9 inches in height.  And while it's not the exact design of the original Skelegro bottle it's probably as close as I'll get.  At least for a bottle that I can buy and alter myself.

Once home with my new potion bottle I turned to our friend Google search (actually I use Bing) and began searching for the Skelegro label.   There were quite a few out there and I had to look at pictures I took of the Potions for All Afflictions shop in the Wizarding World at Harry Potter to make sure I chose the right one.  You see this is where I could be even more authentic in my recreation of the potion bottle.

After finding the accurate label I opened the picture in my Silhouette software, traced and created the cut file I needed.  Now the trick was to cut those silly words out in the size I needed and not lose any of them in the weeding process.  After all the space I had to work with for my label was 2 inches wide by 2 1/2 inches tall.

Using my Oracle 651 vinyl, it took two different cuts and a couple play arounds with sizing of each line, but I got it.  And now I have a great, fun new potion bottle to add to my collection.

Cinderella's Slipper

Have you seen the recently released At Midnight file by Marjorie Ann Designs?  If you love all things princess this is a must have addition to your paper piecing stash.

While this particular file has your favorite Cinderella princess, prince charming and fairy godmother, it also includes Cinderella's carriage and glass slipper.  Oh and let's not forget the castle or pumpkin.  With so many great options in this file it was hard to decide which image to play with first.  But as you can see I finally settled on the glass slipper.

Since glass slippers are just that.  Glass.  I decided to use a scrap of vellum I had for the slipper image.  I love the way that it turned out as it gives that sheer image you would expect of a glass slipper.

The sentiment I used for this card is from the Jaded Blossom stamp set titled Enchanted. 

To finish off my card I decided to add a couple of stream colored skittles from DoubleClick Connections.  There's just something about those skittles that I love and you can bet that I'll use them every chance I get.