Halloween Card: Sometimes Spiders Aren't Quite as Scary

Hello Everyone!
Today I'm sharing a very simple card I made for +Consuela Gomez's challenge, Create a "Scary" Halloween Card. Her challenge was a lot of fun, because I had never made a Halloween card before and had no idea where to start to make it scary. I started by finding a face for my pumpkin.

My card can be made quickly with very few special materials and craft machines needed. I used my Sizzix Die Cutting machine to make the ovals and to emboss the center oval, but ovals can be printed out and then cut by hand and a paper with a design on it can be used instead of embossing plain paper.

 

The main challenge once I decided what I wanted to do was coming up with a way to keep the eyes from moving.

I wanted them fixed to one side as if the pumpkin is looking at the spider.

It was easy. I cut a small triangle in the back where I wanted the pupils of the eyes to be and placed some glue in there. I used hot glue so I could do this quickly, but any glue can be used since you won't see it. Once your glue is dry just make sure the pupil is centered over the glue spot.  

 

I found and printed out, on my orange paper, the face and spider I wanted and then cut out my ovals around them.

For my sentiment I went into the free online program Picmonkey and chose letters that I thought would be appropriate then printed my word out on white cardstock.

To make the edges of my sentiment a bit more fancy I just cut them from each corner to the middle with scissors to give the effect of a banner. Then I inked the edges of my pumpkin in orange ink and the sentiment in purple (Rubber Stampede ink) as well as brought some of the purple ink onto the sentiment itself by lightly dabbing.  

  The main card is made from deep purple cardstock.

I matted the pumpkin with black and green cardstock.

To make the green cardstock a little more interesting I scored across the paper with a bone folder to make lines.

I cut the stem for the pumpkin free-hand in a light brown cardstock and then edged it and gave it more color with Tm Holtz Distress Ink in Olive.  

  That's it! You can make one too.

Happy Crafting!  

Duplicate Posts: How to Not Display Your Community Posts on Your Google Plus "Posts" Tab

Hello everyone!
This is just a quick tip if you've wanted to remove and keep Community posts from taking over your Google+ Profile, but don't know how to.

I'm a blogger and like to share my content in Google+ communities. I also own a few communities that I post to. When I first had my Google+ account I quickly discovered that every time I posted a new project in a community my Google+ Profile "Posts" page would end up showing duplicate posts. I usually share in about 2 to 3 communities, but some people share in dozens of them and their profiles look like the photo below.   

Once in a while when I'm looking at peoples Google+ profiles to determine whether I want to follow them I will have to scroll past dozens of the same posts before getting to the next one and then the process begins all over again with the next project. I lose interest quickly and if I do, I know others do to.    If you post in a community and have a blog, YouTube channel, etc, all of your posts do not have to be displayed on your profile to have comments and Plus 1s show up. Your Community posts are not gone just because you choose not to display them.

As a community owner I get many posts per week that are blocked from the community for me to review because they were shared so much that Google marked them as spam. It actually doesn't take a lot of sharing to have this happen and most definitely happens when you share the same post to communities in a short amount of time.
  So that's another thing to consider when you mass post a project on Google+. 

 
How to hide your Community posts: Go to your drop down menu on the top left side of your profile and click on "Settings"

On the Settings page look for the "Profile" section and uncheck the box "Show your Google+ communities posts on the Posts tab of your Google+ profile".

 

That's it! :)
Your Profile "Posts" page will now look more appealing and it will be easier for others to navigate through all of your projects.

  Happy Googling! 

How to Add a Gadget in Blogger

Hello everyone!
I've wanted to add this and was finally motivated by the Kraafters Kommunity today. Hope this helps whether you're new to Blogger or just never got around to it. You can click on each photo to enlarge them if necessary :)  

  You will be directed to your Blogger Dashboard

Decide where you would like your new Gadget to go (if you have three columns choose which side) and click on "Add a Gadget".

A small window will appear in the upper left, scroll down until you see "HTML/Java Script" and then click on the plus sign beside it.

Type a simple title so that you know what it is when looking at your Layout later. Right click the large box in the middle and paste the code you copied from the source in the box. Then hit "Save"

You can click on your Gadget and drag it to where you want it to be. I keep my most important gadgets near the top and everything else in sections below. It's a good idea to "Preview" your new Gadget just to make sure everything looks okay. A Preview will open up in a new tab. If everything looks good click "Save Arrangement" in the top right hand corner of your dashboard.

You're done! Congratulations!

Happy Blogging!

Conklin Creativity

I saw a drawing that a friend's son drew on Facebook recently and it made me think about my husband and son. How wonderful it is to have a creative family. I share my own crafts and my daughter's on here, so I think it's only fair that I share the talents of the men in my life. Please excuse a couple of the photos here and there as none of them were taken to be displayed on a blog.   My son...

Scratch art from 6th grade.

 A couple of drawings from Junior High.

  Computer project: My son built a  Working Lego Computer

He took parts from different computers that weren't running anymore and put them together to make one out of Legos. My husband and I were beside ourselves when we first saw this. Our son was always fascinated by structures and systems and would come up with some really cool stuff.   

 

  It even had the pop out areas.

  And here's the last one that he built which also worked

 

 

  A little about my son...

He was one of those kids that rarely ever brought home homework because he did it all before the school day was over. I found out that he also slept through classes, yet he still managed to get A's on his exams. So other than chores when he was home, he was free to build and build he did. I loved seeing the things he would come up with and I never went unimpressed.
Although he was not a fan of the outdoors, he would surprise my husband and I at times with his ideas. One day he gathered every piece of wood he could find, every block, sports equipment, tarps, things to make tunnels and rails and the next thing I knew he had turned the backyard into a miniature golf course. Not one nail was used but it worked.
My family was in the backyard having fun golfing for a little over a week and honestly we were kind of sad when it had to come down so the grass could be mowed.
My son also wanted to build a roller coaster in the back yard, but we said no to that one. So he and his friend decided to build one out of pretzels instead. So funny.  

 

 I walked into his room one day to find that he barely had room to move because of the gigantic structure he had built using K'nex. It was a ball machine (basically a roller coaster for a ball) with a working elevator, coaster tracks, cubes to bounce around in, rooms that flipped over and so forth. Although it just looks like a dizzying twister of color in the photo, the ball traveling was hypnotic and lasted a long time. It was amazing.

My Husband... My husband is very eclectic. He's had a lot of different hobbies and enjoys creating things. In recent years he decided to try out carving antler and he really enjoys it. This summer he got the chance to watch a master at work and he's excited to try the things he learned. He likes Viking ruins and Celtic type designs. This is only some of the things he has carved.
  A Viking Comb To think that he had to carve out each one of the teeth is just crazy. All the teeth are one solid piece which is slipped between two handle shaped pieces. This was one of his first pieces. I have used the comb and it works.

  An antler knife handle and hand sewn leather sheath.

  Another leather sheath and knife handle

  A needle case with locking lid. The inset stone is amethyst .

  Another needle case with a lock-tight lid

  An antler heart necklace for our daughter

  For a friend who wanted an early period Christian type pendant

  Blurry photo, but you can somewhat see the animal head

I told my husband that I liked the natural bumpy look of some of the antler and if he made me something not to smooth it away. He made me a pendant with a Celtic tree on it and a ring. I wear them when I do my persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).  

  A friend of ours had a Thor's hammer for his persona that had no design on it, so my husband made it more interesting to look at.

   Building Ballistae  To say the least, a section of our old yard was trashed for quite a while, but we have used the ballistae for a few years now and they are a lot of fun. I was a bit shocked when my husband made the decision to make one and then after the first one he made three more. For use in the SCA we have to use bolts with a cushioned protective tip for safety reasons, but they still hurt a lot when they hit you (welt/deep bruises) and the ballistae are capable of firing just about anything. He did a great job building them. I'm thinking his next project should be a trebuchet for "Pumpkin Chunkin".

   Trigger mechanisms

  Testing them out.  They shoot about 80 yards which is the maximum in the SCA so we don't overfire the field and hit onlookers or cars. You can see the yellow bolt flying through the air. If I remember correctly the bolts are 48" long.

  The person with the black helm on is me. I wanted to share this photo, not only because of the ballista, but my husband made the armor I'm wearing to look like the armor the Chinese wore. I don't wear all that stuff anymore though. Too hot. The scaled armor has the appearance of leather, but he made it from a brown plastic  olive barrel.

  My husband carved a white horse on the front of each ballista to signify our medieval group.

  He also built a medieval type wagon to pull our bolts around in.

  What I find so incredible about my family members if that no one ever showed them how to do any of the things that they do. They just go for it, sometimes fail, always learn and I love that :)    Happy Crafting!

Fun with Fall Colors Side Step Greeting Card

Great news! My husband started back to work yesterday with a new company. We are fortunate that two companies recognized his value and offered him a job, which allowed him to choose what was best for him and our family. We're so happy and relieved. Thanks again for the supportive words you have given me over the past two months.   As I watch the leaves change outside my window I'm being inspired to use bright colors. I want to say that I have no Fall themed paper. I think it's important to stress that you don't need it. Sure it's nice to go out and find some, but if you don't have it there are a lot of ways around it, such as paint, ink, stamps, etc. Just using what you have to create something unique is honestly a fun thing to do.
At first I wasn't certain about using pearls with jute twine and burlap leaves, but the curves of the pearl embellishments make me think of the wind swirling leaves around, so I went for it.  

  The first thing I made was the stamped image/title for my card by wiping ink across a white sheet of cardstock and then stamping my image on top of the colors.

  To cut it out I used a Spellbinder's square that's wasn't much bigger than my stamped image.

 

Quick Tip: I've been using the same two pieces of blue painter's tape to hold my die in place for about 3 months. I place my two tiny pieces of tape when I'm done with them on the top of my die cutting machine for next time. This makes it very convenient and is great for a couple of reasons - 1) You're not being wasteful  2) Tape that has been used before is less likely to cause any damage to your paper, yet will still hold everything in place for a very long time.

 

To finish my stamped image I matted it with a Spellbinders die-cut in deep brown and embellished the corners with pearls.

 

Making the Card Base    Although there are many ways to make this type of card I used the tutorial by Gloria Shirr.

Side Step Card Made Easy - Inside and Out

To Make the Leaves
I used the the Tim Hotz Alterations "Tattered Leaves" die (556927) and colored them with Rubber Stampede ink in Scarlett, Orange and Yellow. I edged the leaves with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and used Stazon ink in Timber Brown for my stamped image. The base paper is just thin white cardstock. I also used burlap paper to make the leaves in the background and just colored them with ink.

  I added yellow pearls without flowers as a reflection of all the beautiful summer flowers that are now fading and the petals have fallen off. Funny, the things we think of and about as we go along. 

  

  Happy Crafting!