Tag journal

Secret Snowflake

CraftyK Leave a comment

The company I work for decided to take a twist on Secret Santa and offered a Secret Snowflake. On a bit of a dare, I decided to take part.

The total limit was $20 and gifts are to be dispersed across 8 work days. It wasn’t specific if you are supposed to do multiple things, but I decided to get something for each day.

I did stick with the spend limit with three days of handmade using materials already on hand. I’m not sure how many people at work know I do crafting on the side, but I think many more know now.

To learn more about our Snowflake, everyone filled out a form answering questions about favorites, likes, dislikes, that kind of thing. My person likes Universal Monsters, crows, and Pokémon. The other things were related to food and drinks, which was where my $20 went.

I made a journal/sketchbook (the last time I attempted this was 2013), this attempt went much better. I created it with two covers so my Snowflake wouldn’t have to pick where to start. I also figure they could make a second book if desired. For the covers I used the Universal Monsters and a crow. Because of the general theme, the parts that pull off worked out great.

The next thing I made was a window cling cut out of a crow. This I packaged up and did not photograph before delivery. I happened to have black window cling since I got my Cricut in 2017. It was never opened, so I took this opportunity to give it a try. I hope it’s clingy!

The last handmade was for the Pokémon theme. I did use Co-Pilot to help me figure out which Pokémon would be pink, purple, or green (favorite colors) and small enough to fit in the mini keychain I have. I found a site with lots of free individual characters and pokeballs. Something I learned was there are multiple pokeballs, which took me back to Co-Pilot to ask what you catch a Ditto with. Which is how I landed on stitching an Ultra Ball. Turns out the Ditto is pretty cool.

All the gifts were a hit. I’m glad I chose to participate. It was the highlight of my week for sure. All the planning and plotting to keep my secret and deliver above expectations.

Stitching

Ditto started: December 8, 2024

Ditto finished: December 11, 2023

Ditto stitching time: 5.5 hours

Ultra ball started: December 12, 2024

Ultra ball finished: December 13, 2023

Ultra ball stitching time: 1.75 hours

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DIY Sketchbook/Journal

CraftyK Leave a comment

My sometimes wanning addiction to Pintrest is what lead to this project. Years ago I made a journal at a lady’s house, she was a friend of my mom. She had countless stamps at her disposal, I’m sure those fancy punches too. I assume she was a scrapbooker normally, which is an expensive hobby, and so she invited people to make journals. These journals cost around $20 for use of the supplies. The books and pages were pre-cut into 5×7’s and then hole punched. All you had to do was decorate the covers and assemble. My journal ended up with a combo of Elizabethan and Egyptian theme to it. Odd, but looked cool. We even pasted in a little blurb about a gratitude journal into it. I think Oprah had recently mentioned them on a show. Mind you I made this at least 10 if not 15 years ago.

Now I am taking that premise and adding a new and more complicated twist. I took the idea of transferring photos to wood blocks from Pintrest (see here). I’ve taken this and have been working on transferring photos to mat board to create the cover of my journals. The first one I made I gave to a then co-worker who was looking for a more pocket friendly, line free sketchbook. So now these journals are more pretty blank page books for whatever you want.

IMG_3321The first time I tried to make a transfer I decided to forgo the instructions from the bottle of transfer adhesive stuff and chose to follow the Pintrest video instead. This worked out ok, but with so much paper and lots of water, it just didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. There were lots of white streaks from where not only the paper came up, but the photo as well. This was turned into abstract wall art instead of a journal.

I  decided that my second go of the photo transferring should be attempted after reading the instructions on the bottle. Just so you know this still uses a lot of water, and I swear shrinks up the picture a little. And as it dries, add more water, these transfers are super thin and tear easily. This project takes a lot of patience, but the end result is worth it. Now I am working up some more journals to list on Etsy.

IMG_3325

Sadly this set ended up too dry when I went to adhere it to the matte board, so there are no finished project images. But I have had a couple of successes, just not this time.