• Art - Blog - Crafts

    Silhouette Portrait

    Check out my new Silhouette Portrait!!

    silhouette portrait

    I must confess I’ve had this cool machine since Valentine’s Day but hadn’t gotten the hang of it until now.

    silhouette portrait | Halle's Hobbies

    It’s really quite versatile compared to the Cricut machine that requires really expensive cartridges… You can either purchase individual images through the online store or you can create your own! Being able to create my own was why I wanted this machine.

    silhouette portrait | Halle's Hobbies

    This is the reason I hadn’t gotten the hang of it.  The sticky grid plastic that holds your substrate was so darn sticky that anything I tried to peel off after cutting ripped completely apart.

    silhouette portrait | Halle's Hobbies

    I was so frustrated that I set the machine aside and didn’t touch it for at least 8 months. At Mr. G’s prompting, I took it back out and gave it another whirl. He had plans for it if I wasn’t going to use it….something about laser cutting. HMMM…that might be interesting too.

    I had to figure out a way to make the plastic grid less sticky. I stuck and restuck a flour sack dishcloth to it over and over until it was more tacky than sticky.

    silhouette portrait | Halle's Hobbies

    It worked! I was able to lift the images from the plastic with tearing them. I did find, however, that the paper at the edge that is compressed by the rollers of the machine still tends to tear. I just have to keep that in mind.

    Remember what I said about creating your own images. The Love cutout is my handwriting. Cool huh!?!  I’ll definitely be sharing more about this new tool as I continue to explore the possibilities.

  • Around home - Art - Blog

    T Tuesday: organized edition

    Don’t let that title fool you…I’m not yet organized but am working towards making it a habit.

    IMG_0715

    I’ve seen a lot of talk about bullet journaling lately and am intrigued. Rita @ SoulComfort’s Corner keeps an awesome bullet type journal…so organized. I do like some of the concepts and having it all stay in one place…permanently. In the past I’ve always kept my list on random paper that would get misplaced or recycled before completing the tasks.  I’m only about 10 days into this so far. I did skip this past weekend as we were planning on a very lazy laid back one.

    Mini-me loves to organize. She’s got a lot of her dad in her with that one. But she also has a lot of me. She organizes when the mood strikes…otherwise it generally looks like a tornado swept thru her room. I was the same way at her age…at least with the messy room part.

    organized

    She was inspired to organize our paint drawer. She even weeded out the dried up containers…now there is room for everything! Thanks sweetie!

    Last week for T stands for Tuesday, I posted the beginning of an art journal page that used a scrap of junked up paper.

    t tuesday waste not edition | Halle's hobbies

    Here’s the completed page….

    junked up journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    I loved these words and am trying my best to heed them.

    junked up journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    This also struck me as funny as I was photographing the page.

    junked up journal page | Halle's Hobbies

    See my name along the edge? I must have used this page to try out my typewriter as well.

    I’m going to try and catch up on things here at home today. I had some training yesterday for my job. And with the lazy laid back we just had, I’m definitely behind around here.

    What are you doing today??

  • Art - Blog - Kitchen

    T Tuesday: waste not edition

    Here I am, once again, at dark thirty writing my T stands for Tuesday post in between getting kids up and making lunches. Perhaps of these days…weeks…years…I’ll get the habit of preplanning these things. I think it’s my personality though to wait and see where life takes me.

    T Tuesday waste not edition | Halle's hobbies

    Today I wanted to share a couple of things I did this week to repurpose items that would have been thrown away or in this first case, composted.

    I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making apple cider vinegar. I’ve read numerous posts on this old fashion technique. Usually this time of year we have apples coming out of our ears from our neighbor’s trees. This year happened to be a poor production year with their trees.

    Homemade apple cider vinegar t tuesday waste not edition | Halle's hobbies

    I did have a couple organic store bought apples that we’re definitely past their prime. Not wanting to completely waste expensive apples, I decided to experiment. The recipes or tutorials I read used peels and cores but I’m certain that using the whole apple will work just fine. I sterilized my quart mason jar in the dishwasher then filled it with the chopped apples. I used spring water to completely cover the apples. A scrap of cloth was placed under the ring to allow it to breath. I placed it in our basement storage room while it does its magic. Hopefully by Christmas, I’ll have some homemade apple cider vinegar.

    The second waste not piece of this post was using a paper scrap in an unexpected way.

    t tuesday waste not edition | Halle's hobbies

    The scrap started as a misprinted Christmas letter from last year. Then it protected my journal from paint and sprays, glues and inks.

    t tuesday waste not edition | Halle's hobbies

    Now it’s the base of a new art journal page. Who know where this page will take me.

    Do you use any “throw away” items in unexpected ways? I’d love to hear about them…