Tuesday, August 31, 2010

August Y.o.E. Ornament Update

Right before I left town last week, I sent my package off to my swap partner, Little Messy Missy in Utah. While I was away, I received hers and got to open it yesterday! What a neat package it turned out to be...
Along with the orni, there was a skein of red eyelash yarn, a pair of knitting needles that she made with an octopus pic on the ball end, an octo-chic bookmark, an octo sun catcher and THREE Utah chocolate truffles. YUM! Just LOOK at this octo ornie....it's knitting! And all the different pics, beads and sand are layered in what I think is clear resin (or something like that). I just GOTTA get me some of this stuff and play with it. It's such a creative ornament!
Thank you Missy for the goodies AND inspiring me to try something new! Below is a pic of what I sent to her...
My two ornies, an octo magnet, a slice of pretty rock, two power bars (she's a runner) and a bag of some of my Idaho garnet gravel that my mom brought me. In her blog she mentioned that she was a rockhound. Well, that kinda stuck in my head and I ran with it. But Missy loved it, so it all worked out great!
Once again I was inspired by this Etsy item to create my octopus ornament. I didn't have a laser cutter and a sheet of acrylic to make such a feller...so I attempted shrinky dink shrink art paper first with black sharpie (left), then with black acrylic paint before shrinking (middle) then with black acrylic paint after shrinking (right), then I was frustrated and bought the colored shrink stuff (top). Yeah, the best solution to getting a black octopus is to paint him black after he shrinks. Then I gave him a clear coat to seal it.

The challenge this month was to make tentacles...so...I found a tentacle pic online here and again played with the shrink art paper to get the right size tentacle to glue rhinestones to as the suckers.
I think both turned out all right...more color would have been nice, but I think I got stuck on the whole black octo idea. Oh well...
Stay tuned for more stories of crafty fun, our travels and some new friends!

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