Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

Talk about an instant gratification project!  This one is super easy and super fast.  It is by far the easiest marbling method that I have tried so far. You'll need: a plastic bin that you can get paint on (I used a $2 plastic dish bin from Big Lots) water some cardstock or watercolor paper (any slightly heavier weight paper that isn't glossy should work) spray paint (I had the best luck with dark colors and metallics) Fill your bin half full with water.  Spray the surface with spray paint.  Drop the paper on the surface.  Turn it over.  If the paper didn't catch as much paint as you wanted, dip it in again.  If you want a more "stirred" pattern, shake the bin a little to mix up the water before you put your paper in. Here's what the process looks like with some unstirred black and silver spray paint (click the photo to make it larger): Some things I learned from this project: WEAR GLOVES! I got spray paint all over my fingers

Recently I saw some really neat projects made by melting plastic pony beads (you know, the kinds kids use), so I thought I'd give it a try.  I wanted to use the tartlet pans shown in this tutorial , but alas, we don't have a Dollarama and I didn't see any at our local Dollar Tree.  So I thought I'd try using muffin tins.  All of the tutorials I had read said the plastic doesn't stick once it cools, and my muffin tin is a cheap one, so I wouldn't be out too much if I had to replace it (thankfully, I didn't). Next I picked up some pony beads.  You can get these in bulk for about 6-8 bucks a pound, but I didn't think I'd need that many, so I bought two 500 count bags of translucent beads from Wal-mart for $1.97 a piece.  I still have plenty left for another project and I won't have a ton laying around that I won't use. I made six little suncatchers in half of my muffin pan. For 5 of them, I just dumped some beads in it and sho

I had some of the smaller washers left from my alcohol ink washer necklaces , and I knew I wanted to make a bracelet.  So I scrounged through my jewelry parts box and found an old lobster clasp.  Instead of the single loop through the washer that I used for the necklace, I did it twice and  tied a knot on each end.  Then I tied the lobster clasp on one side and tied another knot, and did the same with a jump ring on the other side. I think it turned out pretty sweet for a leftovers project, what do you think?

I made a quick stop at the local grocery store the other day and found that they were selling a cartload full of bags of ripe bananas for 99 cents (each bag had about a dozen bananas in it).  These weren't the make banana bread with me now or I'll go all gushy bananas either, they were the eat me today because I am ripe bananas.  So I bought a big bag of ripe bananas because I knew that we could dry them. We used a banana slicer to cut our bananas. It is quick and provides a uniform thickness.  We have also used a mandoline to cut bananas, but they are slippery and sticky, the banana slicer is quicker and less of the banana gets smashed to bits in the process. I laid out the slices in our dehydrator and set it to the fruit and vegetable setting (135 degrees) and let it go. It's been pretty hot and humid here, so even with the AC running, these took a bit longer than usual to dry. They usually take 12-16 hours, but this time they took 24 hours to dry.  

I have wanted to try out embossing powders since I first saw them when I was in high school (which was ages and ages ago in case you were wondering).  It's been only recently that I realized I already had some of the things I needed to make it all work.  I had lots of stamps and lots of pigment inks (as opposed to dye inks) that could be used, I just needed a heat gun (which I rationalized could be used for other things) and some embossing powder.  So when my hubby offered to make an Amazon order using some credit card rewards, I bought myself an inexpensive heat gun and a variety pack of powders . On my first try (as depicted below), I used a white ink on a dark paper so that the image would show up nicely for photos.  Unfortunately I wasn't super careful about making sure the powder covered really well and ended up with the white ink showing through a bit in the final sunflower. Using the heat gun was very easy.  I just put my paper on top of a heat proof sur

So I had a bunch of shrinky dink charms....what do I do with them?  Make a charm bracelet of course.  I just happened to have a jewelry making kit that I picked up at Walmart on clearance for $1 that included pieces for a charm bracelet, a necklace and a set of earrings.  The charm bracelet had a bunch of similar round charms, so I thought I'd cannibalize the parts and make my own personalized charm bracelet.  But you could easily make it yourself with a 7 or 8 inch chunk of cable chain from the craft store, a lobster clasp, and some jump rings. The best part of this bracelet is that the charms are practically free to make (aside from the cookies I have to buy), so when I come up with a new idea or get sick of a charm, I can swap it out very easily. If you missed the posts where I explained how these were made, check them out: Homemade Shrinky Dinks and this week's Shrinky Dink Tardis Necklace .

A couple of weeks ago, I made my first foray into Homemade Shrinky Dink art.  I had so much fun, even though I had no idea what I was doing.  I learned pretty quickly that outlines worked really well, so I knew almost immediately that I wanted to try some more--and the first idea on my list--a tardis pendant.  For those who don't know, the iconic blue police box is Dr. Who's timemachine/spaceship.  Tardis stands for: Time And Relative Dimension In Space. To make my tardis necklace dream a reality, I needed to go buy some more cookies at our local grocery store (such a hardship--they were delicious).  I then cut the flat pieces out of the cookie container (made from #6 plastic) and placed it over a couple of outlines of the tardis that I nicked (Dr. Who is a British TV show afterall) off the internet. I carefully traced the outlines with Sharpie. I made a black one of just the front, and a blue outline in perspective.  I punched holes in the tops and placed them a