Inchie House Template

Thank you for commenting on my inchie houses and a few of you have asked for the template.

I just want to say that I did not originally design it but after a few attempts of the one I had it wasn't measuring up so I adjusted the template  so I guess you could say I redesigned it.

There are 6 houses on a 8 1/2x11 sheet. Print either on a piece of white card stock and cover with your favourite papers or directly onto the papers you want to use. make sure you have the lines facing you so you can use them to guide you when scoring. I used a light weight card stock then glued decorative papers on top. Score all the dark lines. Those lines will be on the inside of the house and you will not see them. The roof is measured 2 inches by 1 inch. Score it at 1 inch and fold. If you want to hang your houses like I have, make the house first, then on the bottom find the center and pierce a hole, on the roof find the center pierce another hole. I used wired and added beads and jingle bells but you could just use gold or silver string, elasticated strings or whatever. Just have fun. If you are not adding beads and just hanging from the roof you won't need the hole in the bottom of the house. I have done them both ways and both are just as nice.

Click on the image and get the full size. If this doesn't print out correctly email me and I will send it to you.

I had a number of you interested so this is why I am posting the template.

If you make any please let me see, I am always interested in what others make would be fun for kids to make and they are really pretty to use up scraps, old book pages, stamps etc.

Have fun and don't forget to show and tell.

NB  on the templates there is a line just under the roof and it is lighter than the other lines. DO NOT score this line. I forgot to mention that so this has been edited for you. Thanks again.
 

Inchie Christmas houses

I finally was able to get some half decent pics to show you my inchie houses. What are inchie houses? The base of the houses are one inch square not including the peaks on the front and the back of the houses. I have a template I print off then use to construct my houses. The roofs are 1x2 folded in half . So cute and fun to alter. I used images I found around FlickR. One source I found wonderful vintage Santa's was from riptheskull. He has some excellent images of many types of themes.

I used 2 sided scrapbook papers which are quite sturdy, some German scrap, scraps of borders and anything else I could find to use. You can be fancy or just dress the houses up. I usually print off my images in the format of a one inch square(inchie) then I cut around the main image. That way you get a good dimensional image according to the size of the house.

If you are at all inclined to make some I would be happy to send you my template. This is not my original design but I have modified it as some houses on the internet are not one inch square.

Thanks for dropping by and have a super weekend.

I am off to make some small cards and a few post it note holders. I have one week left to complete items for my first show at the Sweet Sentiments scrapbook store so I best get back at it.

Til next time.......stay crafty.

Corner bookmarks and Little altered houses

Show time is approaching faster every day and one of my shows is a new one to me and I am taking some paper crafts as well as painted items. I saw these house shapes out of wood on Artchix Studio site and thought gee those are beautiful and I had scraps of wood from various projects I had been cutting out. What a great idea to use those scraps and not just end up tossing them afterall wood is getting expensive to buy these days.
So here are a few, these are just nice little shelf sitters and something to look at and make you smile or give you some inspiration just when you need it. I have a few more houses that aren't shown here but this gives you an idea of what I did. Some of the images I have used are Artchix images and some I got from FlickR.

 
And these are corner bookmarks that I made from Splitcoast Stampers tutorial newsletter that I receive. These are a lot of fun and just make me go wild with ideas. I have quite a few of these made. I hope they sell for me and I will probably make some of these for gifties at Christmas. I had fun using my edge punchers and my Cuttlebug for making flowers.

The above corner bookmards I encorported inchies into. What a great way to use up those paper scraps and if you do them assembly style they work up quite quickly.

Thanks for dropping by.

All comments are welcome.

=^..^=

Gingersnap Creations Inchie Challenge GC71

Well I was blog hopping the other night, taking  some time away from painting, and, I saw a challenge I really wanted to join in on. Over at Gingersnap Creations they have an inchie challenge with no other set rules other than to make something with inchies. Well I looked at some really great creations that other members had made  from cubes, cards and other things and I wanted to do something a little different.
Here I have made 3 inchie houses, yes I said houses. I was intrigued last year in a group I was in that they were showing these inchie houses and were going to swap them but for some reason I couldn't participate.
Well I downloaded the template and it wasn't quite working for me with all the adjustments and what have you so I basically started from scratch and took the cube inchie and re-designed it and tweaked it a bit.
So here you will see some examples of my inchie houses and I hope the gals over at Gingersnap Creations will like them. These are fun and something you could really get into. I made the one house an ornament and will hang it on my tree at Christmas time. These would be fun to swap in groups or give as little gifties to teachers or someone who might have a small tree to decorate.
The Hallowe'en house was very different for me to do as I don't generally do Hallowe'en but I had too many ideas floating around. Hubby even added in an idea by putting the bat on a wire suspended about the roof, how cute is that? Thanks Honbun!  I received some goodies in a swap last year and almost forgot about the little bats, spiderweb stickers and other items til I found the matchbox that they were contained in.
So here you go, I hope you like these little houses, they sure were a lot of fun to make.

I used Spiced Marmalade distress ink and then used Black Soot on the edges all around the house. Black soot distress ink for the roof, some cotton batton for the webbing, a lot of stickles. And an image from FlickR but I removed her head scarf and made my own witchy hat. Boo....

Here is the backside of the house and sorry you can see the wire on the bat but I only had 2 bats and the other one is on one side of the house.

This was the first house I  made and I used Peeled Paint and Broken China distress inks. Stamped on the paper after it was dry with Broken China and some flourishes. (Sorry about the spools, I didn't have anything else to prop them up on for the pics.)This is the front of the house and I have various other women on all 4 sides. These were all made inchie size but I cut the women out because the base of the cube minus the roof part is one inch square (inchie size).

I added lots of Stickles for bling, love that stuff. I have a new colour to play with Lime Ice Stickles, ooo love my greens.

And last but not least my little winter house...incuding snow and sparkle....

All girls were left on their inchies and I applied them to the base of the scrapbook paper I used which was a lovely wintery blue. The roof is paper I did the brayer technique using acrylics and metallic acrylics and glitter. And the snow is Aleene's glitter snow but I added  a bit more glitter to make it really sparkle when the litghts hit it. I think I have to make more of these for Christmas, the snow just makes it.

I think some Vintage Santas would look really cute on some of these.

Thanks for dropping by.

L

A little break from painting.....

Well now that September has come I thought I might try to still be involved in some group swaps so I took a bit of a break from painting but not for long and completed these projects. On  the ATC for beginners group we have a torso shape swap and the Addicted to Inchies group we have make a bookmark featuring inchies.

The left hand with the Geisha is done with a Sitra Solv applied to a magazine page. I did not make this paper but a member from the ATC group made and sent it to me. Thanks SoKat. Then I added Liquid Pearls at the top, a piece of handpainted paper in red at that bottom and neckline. I had some small asian coins I added one with gold thread to dangle from the neck and then embossed Chinese characters in black then put my Geisha over that. Click on the pic for a close up view. These magazine pages lend to some really cool effects and the colours all bleed together.

The Paris themed Torso background is actually a paper napkin someone kindly sent to me a while ago. Not sure if it was Jen or not but I love it, I would love another couple and all I really did was add a woman's image to the bottom. I think I still need a little French saying so that might still be a possibility.

And.....here are my inchie bookmarks...

These were fun and very easy to do. I made several in fact and might be a good little gifty at Christmas.

Of course I love anything Asian so i used my Asian inchie stamps from Inkadinkado and distressed some paper using TH Frayed Burlap then I stamped and embossed the images in black. I used a bit of paper from a Chinese newspaper that my friend Kathy sent me not too long ago, the lettering is a bit larger. I mounted a piece of black cardstock over top of a red, Lined both cardstock with Gold metallic gel pen.

I added some black fiber and added a bead at each end.

The green and black bookmark is basically the same only I used Peeled paint distress ink and some gold German scrap I got from Artchix.

It was nice to play with paper for a bit but I must continue on with painting. November is looming closer and I am planning a trip to see Dad the end of the month or very beginning of October.

I would love to show you more of my painted items but my camera or the batteries are not co-operating. Until then I can only scan small items so look out when I can finally take a pic that won't drain the batteries.

I may have to replace the charger who knows. I sure don't.

Well thanks for dropping by, til next time....

Create, dream and love one another.

L

An inchie book and some Zetti ATC's

Over at Addicted to Inchies Yahoo Group this month we are making inchie books instead of our usual make themed pick inchies.

My partner recently lost her husband who was battling cancer so I found this nice verse to add to my inchie book.

This first pic is the front and back cover and I attached a charm to the bottom ring that says Peace.

The first inside page is  done with a plain piece of cardstock with ripped pieces of masking tape layered one over top of the other till the cardstock is covered. I then took my Twinkling H20's and painted using more than one colour blending one into the other then applied the words.

This page is done using Distress Inks, Peeled Paint and Blue(forgot the name argh)

And this page is done using Twinkling H20's on cardstock with orange, purple and looks here like gold. I placed eyelets on all the pages then made my own rings out of wire to hold the book together.

I hope JoJo likes it. It was fun and it all came together as I had planned.

Don't forget inchies are a one inch x one inch square so if you can imagine a book this small, here it is.

I have completed I think 10 or more now, they are very addicting.

And these are some Zetti cards I made for a FlickR group I belong to, Let's Swap ATC's.

I always thought Zetti was on a dark side of art of which I don't really find appealing to me but it is not, it can be if you chose it to be but basically you can stick heads on bodies that are larger or smaller, different legs and arms. I have played around with backgrounds using old book pages, acrylic paints. I used lids to make circles and markers to do borders. It is a free style sort of Zany art as I like to call it.

Zany Zetti is still available for my trade group but the 2 below it are spoken for and soon to be travelling to their destinations.

So have fun with art, relax and just go for it.

Thanks for stopping by.

L

Inchie Challenge Entry

Over at Inchy by Inch they are having a leaf challenge so I just made these to submit to the blog.

I used a Hero Art branch stamp in Vintage Photo distress ink on cream coloured cardstock, then I applied pastels in green, orange and a tiny bit of red along the edges of the paper then smudged with my fingers to blend the colours. I ran each inchie along the ink pad in the same coloured ink and then applied the leaf brads. That's it, easy peasy.

Meet Tom Ato

I know what you are all thining, boy she has wayyyy too much time on her hands. Well this poor fella Tom Ato first appeared in the garden, he wasn't looking very well, sort of on the greenish yellowish side, you know that look when someone has too much to drink. Well after a few days he started looking and feeling better, he started turning a sort of yellow with a hint of pinkish red, and now a true sun ripened red, apparently his normal colour. So now here is Tom Ato, quite a visitor to my blog of late, you never know where he might land, perhaps on the dinner plate. Oooops did I say that out loud?

Now on the creative side of things, here is a matchbox inchie swap I just finished up and will be out the door in another day or so. You can't see the box very well here but the paper around it is actually painted paper towel, much like the mermaids in my post below, then I added this nice scroll border with glitter on it and the inchie is actually a piece of what looks like wicker, wall paper and the butterfly attached. This is for JoAnne over at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/addictedtoinchies/ . I don't think JoAnne visits my blog but if she does, it is on its way before the end of the week. I have also crammed in some inchie inspiration for her to create some of her own. We all need more stuff to create with, don't we?? I know I do.

Here are some cat inchies I finished up the other night. The top middle is Rosie's eye. She has the prettiest face, well I think she does. This swap is also an Addicted to Inchie swap, we make 10 inchies and then everyone who joins makes 10 then our swap hostess, Becky, throws them in a bowl, picks a name then starts selecting 10 inchies, all different members in most cases and we get 10 back. I love cats so this was a great theme.

And also the theme I picked for this month because I won last months Addicted to Inchies swap, By the Sea, I picked fall. I got these nice leaf shape brads at one of our local dollar stores, I took cream coloured cardstock, and along just the edges I layed some pastel colours, orange, reds, greens and then smudged them with my fingers blending the colours. The one of the far left looks more pink here but it is a more red colour, this one I also put an eyelet and threaded some glittery fiber. I wonder who will win this month? I get to choose so we will have to wait and see.

Last but not least, I finished this small tea pot this morning. It is for my fall craft show I do every year in Stirling. I have been buying my tea pots at thrifty kind of stores, you can get some good buys. I put a little flicker battery operated tea lite at the top which will be included. I have to make a tag to tie to the handle that reads " Come sit with me and drink Ginger tea".

This is a Katrina Roncin design, I loved her gingers. Too bad she doesn't publish or design anymore. Such a talented painter.

Well more painting to do. I am on a real tight schedule now.

Tom Ato and I would like to say thanks for visiting my blog today.

Framed inchies and fused plastic

Hello my fellow bloggers, well today I have some things to show you. I had a brainfart the other day while making inchies and I decided to get some paper punches out and play, well I made inchie frames. Ohhhh aren't they nice? I couldn't stop making them, one turned into 2 then 3 and before I knew it I had a pile of them. The ones here are mostly black but I have others punched, I just think these little gems look so nice framed and I have yet to see any out there, well someone probably has them just I haven't seen any. I have various backgrounds I do as well, watercolours, Twinkling H20's, emboss resist, packing tape transfer on the feet inchies, rain drops made out of glue stick glue, and a few more of my trademark secrets.

And here is this amazing piece of art called, fused plastic. In case you are not familiar and I was not until the other day when Jen posted hers and showed us and said it was made from recycled plastic shopping bags. HUH??? well I couldn't wait for her to do the tutorial and another girl Tammy said she found a blog with it on there. So I cut up plastic shopping bags, heated with an iron, and this fused all the plastic together. I then sprayed a clear acrylic spray on it so the acrylic paint had a tooth surface to stick to. Then I proceeded to paint, stamp, then stitched this all on my machine with black zigzag stitching. Wow, I have 2 more that I made for an art journal I am working on.
Well Jen, thanks for the idea, I couldn't wait, I am a stinker that way. Mother told me I was impatient and you know what, she was right!

Movie Star inchies

Hi everyone, first of all thank you for all the prayers and well wishes concerning my brother. He is home now and has to stay off work for 2 weeks. He is not one to stay still too long but after this episode I think it was a reality check at the 10th degree. He is really tired and just going to take it easy and let his body heal. Lil sis will be checking up on him regularly.

Well here are my 10 movie star inchies that I have made for the July inchie swap at Addicted to Inchies

these actors and actresses are some of my favs. Of course Clint is the most charming and sexy of them all, that rough beard, soft talk, fiery eyes. Ok enough said about him, makes one a little frisky.... Our hostess will gather all the inchies from everyone that wants to be in the swap then she will put them all in a bowl or somehow mix them up then give 10 back to each of us. Depending on how many are involved in the swap depends on how many of your own inchies you may get back, which really doesn't matter to me, I like all of them.

Each inchie has a star somewhere on the square, either behind the actor or in front. Some of them even have a real negative film strip on it. I knew I didn't throw things away for a reason, you never can tell when you need scraps and bits.

That's it for today.