Budget Halloween Decoartions

My mom always says "Anyone can spend a lot of money and make something look great but it takes real creativity to do it on a budget" And that's just my motto on about everything I do these days. It's more fun, a challenge to me. So I give you my Halloween decorations! I had so much fun doing this, the husband got really involved too. We had fun naming and filling all the jars. That was the other tricky part, finding things to fill all the containers that wouldn't get funky sitting for long periods of time.

We've got poison berries, which are some potpourri strawberries I've had around forever
Night crawlers, which are from my husbands tackle box.
Eye of toad, vitamins
Frog warts, rice I died lime green with alcohol ink.
Fish scales, a whole bunch of sequins and beads.
Witches blood in the wine bottle is just coffee grounds.
Snake venom-floor cleaner
Poison-Mouthwash
"Petrified Butterfly Wings" are decorative butterflies from our wedding.
And flour, cotton balls, glitter and hot pink alcohol ink give you a love potion.

I've always loved bottles and jars, I tend to collect them for my studio. But all in all, this was a $6.00 project!! SCORE!!

So this is a bit more of what the table and all looks like.

In the other corner is this little get up....it looks so much better with the candles and lights on it.

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!

we're back!

Oh my, so last weekend the hard drive in our computer completely croaked. I mean dead, no nothing. I lost a ton of pictures and files and such, this is what I get for not backing up my things. Boy did I ever learn the lesson now, that's the second time. But the computer is back from surgery, we are getting back to normal. Lots to do to catch up. We just got back in town this afternoon and there is nothing like being home. Details to come... right now to worn out to explain. IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!!!

Abilene...

So here we are in Abilene, Texas. We've had a long day, we left Dallas about 8 this morning and drove to San Angelo to secret shop a furniture store and then onto Abilene to secret shop another store. We stopped along the way a few places but by far my favorite was Buffalo Gap, TX. We ate at this fabulous BBQ place called the Barbecue Barn and then stopped at this pottery shop that just took my breath away. Totally inspired by an artist who has made a living his entire life off of selling his art, it's beautiful. He does the pottery and his wife does the glazing, what a combo!! So following this wonderful mans advice we headed to the little town square and checked out the museum. I am a sucker for museums, I love history. The guy in there was about to close in 30 min and said well I can't really sell you a ticket but go ahead and check out what you want to. SCORE!!!! So I notice the print shop, guess who went running to it??!?! Yes, especially after mentioning my post last night... here's a few things we saw....

LINOTYPE MACHINE
Can you imagine sitting at this machine to write an entire newspaper or book daily...
wow, unbelievable piece of machinery.

this is the entire machine....

the beautiful little chapel, I loved the smell... it smelled OLD

I was mesmerized by the Linotype machine and gave Marcus a huge break down of how, and what and why this machine was used. (Someone paid attention in history of graphic arts class) To see one in person in full working order that you could touch, smell, use, and appreciate I was just over the moon. It was a beautiful place I wish we had more time to stay and enjoy it.

Tomorrow morning we head out, we will be leaving and driving to Oklahoma to do ANOTHER secret shop for the furniture store. So 3 hours there, and about 3 hours to get home. I am just itching to get home and work on my type tray. Of course along the way I have been looking for scrapbook stores or art stores, NOTHING!! It's so sad so many of these great places have gone under in the last few years.

I look forward to next weekend when we head to Houston and get to go to the store in Friendswood that I have always wanted to go to. Even though I made the pact with myself, NO MORE CRAFT SUPPLIES!!! The only thing I will bend the rule for is adhesive.

Let's hope we get home at a good time tomorrow so we can head to Plano for the annual hot air balloon launch! Good times!!

I love type trays...

I got this beauty at a yard sale for $1! It has a bruises but I do believe they will work in my favor. I learned my lesson on a smaller type tray a while back, plan plan plan. I have a particular love for these things, I grew up with them in my moms studio. The one in particular I always loved now hangs in my studio. She has given me many little trinkets, it's hard to photograph right now but I did my best...

And this is just a snipet close up ( my favorite button is in it though, my dad played football for the Naval Academy, this pin got stored away for probably 30+ years before I found it. The irony is, Marcus is a GIANT Notre Dame fan) Irony at it's best!



It's a treasure to me. So when I see these empty little shelves my brain thinks of all the little trinkets yet to find a home. So I came up with this idea... this is the layout of my next type tray collage...



As much as I love to travel part of me is bummed we are heading out in the morning. We are going to be secret shoppers tomorrow!! More to come, should be a good story with all the stuff involved!

How to create textured painting...

This is a slight repeat but with how to steps to create this painting for Tutorial Tuesday. I've learned so much fun stuff from these ideas, I am honored to share mine!

1

step 1. Spray Paint your canvas, or paint spray paint was just quicker for me.

step 2. Cut out harlequin pattern out of anaglyptic wallpaper, so I didn't make any mistakes I made a mark on the parts to cut out.

step 3. paint your desired color, for this step I mixed my greens. Very randomly applied the paint, used my heat gun to warp it dry. I also used some copper embossing powder to really punch it up.

step 4. using mod podge, apply paper to canvas. (This is the worst part) Now leave it alone and let it dry.

step 5. mix a glaze medium, I used 2 parts glaze to 1 part paint and a bit of water. Mix well, apply with brush into all the nooks and cranies and then wipe off with a damp towel.

step 6. allow to dry and then hang!

Here's a close up on the details...


If you are interested in purchasing some of the anaglyptic wallpaper leave a comment, email me, whatever and we'll work something out. Trade even?? It's a fun product to use!

Tin Panels...

So finally, here are the tin panels I’ve been talking about. I bought 12 panels all together, I used 4 for my headboard. That’s where the green spray paint came into play. So here is a picture of my headboard that I so love.





This is what they look like to start, completely silver- which I think is neat looking in itself.




The next step is painting them whatever color you choose. I chose white for this set.




Next sand and clean, then apply second layer of paint and you get something like this. There are a few more steps before I call this project done. Do you like tin panels? I love them, I have them all over the place. My mind just flutters with the possibilities.



If you are interested in purchasing any panels, send me an email. I still have 4 that can be custom painted or sold as is for you to paint them yourself. I have not put them in my Etsy store so you will have first dibs.

Have you seen these...

I posted these in my etsy shop but I haven't mentioned them at all. This is my quirky little recycling project that is always a hit with my friends. They really are so much more fun in person... I love them.




Here's a sneak peek but check out my store!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lindseybanner

PS- Guess who's on a roll catching up with my posts?! :)

Fall Decorations...

So I have the fall decorating bug. Even though it's 100 degrees outside. I pulled out some scrap fabric and came up with this little number. I shredded and shredded fabric, made a wire loop and put on my favorite tv show and tied knot after knot. So once I got it done I loved it but realized it needed some "jewelry" I dug through a box of wood cut outs, found a pumpkin-jazzed up the pumpkin and VOILA!!



I consider this project a free project because I have owned the supplies used to make this for over 3 years... that qualifies in my book. So my free little door wreath, I was thinking about selling it in my etsy store but I think it's just too cute. I heart it.



I love the pumpkin, I painted it, embossed it and used distress inks. I added the curly-que with some copper wire and a paint brush to get the shape right. I made 2 other wreaths, I may sell those. The colors are way more Halloween-ie.

Memory Books...

I love to make memory books. I could call them mini-scrapbooks but I don't know I guess in my head the vibe is different than a scrapbook. So that being said, I can finally post the pictures of this album I just made for a dear friend who's father passed away a month ago. The pictures are not great, with all the time I had to take the pictures go figure I wait until 5 minutes before I walk out the door... typical.




























Tada!

I also got a request for 2 other books. I love making them, if you ever want one made just send me an email and we'll chat.

Thanks for checking out my little book.

Any ideas...

So this poor canvas has been painted on and painted on... by now it must have 3 under paintings. I had a vision for it but it just never turned out as planned. So once again, the green spray paint and I partnered up and came up with a completely green canvas with lots of lumps and bumps from all the gesso. It sat in my studio for about 6 weeks now just asking to be finished. Well nothing like a clear, clean desk to splatter paint all over! So I got some anaglypta wallpaper and tediously cut sections out of it. My inspiration comes from tin panels. I just love them. In fact, I will post the tin panels I refinished asap...that's where the green spray paint started.

So anyway... I got the color like I like it. It has oregano green, grass green, Victorian green, turquoise, copper and a brown glaze. (Guess what my favorite color is...ha) Now my question friends.... does it need something else? I am taking suggestions... I had ideas like a quote, a flower on a branch, I don't know... am I over thinking it?



And a close up....


I have 2 quotes that I have been itching to use on something... The first one is "The most important things in life aren't things"-- though that seems more fitting on a picture frame. The other is "home is wherever you are". Once again totally open to ideas.

Studio Unearthing

So this is the semi-before picture of my desk this morning. To be honest is was worse... scary I know. So I always have these grandiose ideas to do before and after pictures but never get around to it. So here it is before and after of my studio. The cable was out due to the rain the majority of the day....fascinating how much you can get done without the tube as a distraction!! This is my studio on a typical day. ( Disclaimer: My home does not look like this, just my studio)

After about 7 hours I finally got it to look like this!!

So another little project I did about 2 months ago I made sure to take a close up of. I have had this desk since like 2004 and always had plans to do something "neat" to it. It only took me 6 years, countless ideas to finally do something to it. I had some left over spray paint from another project I will share eventually. Went after it and then spent the rest of the evening creating patterns and filling them in. I am pleased at the way it looks, I think it's a lot of fun. This desk has a top over it and I had to paint it in place so that was tricky. But VOILA!!

there are still good people in the world...

So I thought I would share my crazy serendipitous story with my few readers I have. Last weekend was the Great American Scrapbook Convention, I helped out at a booth and had a blast!! At the convention I knew Tim Holtz would be there.


He is by far my favorite paper crafter with amazing products and ideas. A few months ago I sent him an email asking about how he started in the industry and blah blah blah. He responded so quickly to me and it was really inspirational. I decided I would print said email and take it to the show and get him to sign it and hang it on my studio wall. So everything went great, I met him, he signed it and I stuck it under the cash register in a paper bag since I was busy. Fast forward about 8 hours, the email was gone. I quickly realized I had given it to one of the customers by mistake. I was distraught, so upset by my careless mistake. I held out faith that someone would find it in their bag and realize what it was and maybe send me an email since it was printed right off of my gmail account. A few days later I get an email from a sweet woman named Laurie who had found it in her bags and wanted my address so she could send it to me. Talk about kind! I wish I could reach through the computer screen and give her a huge hug. She emailed me again today and said she officially got it in the mail and to please email her so she knows it got here safe. I am just over the moon excited and so glad to know there are still wonderful people out there willing to go the extra mile for a complete stranger. So now I wait for my email to show up, signed by Tim Holtz! AWESOME!!

Happy Lil Shelf

So we're getting all settled in our new place. It's really coming together, yes we still need a few pieces but slowly we are getting there. Marcus and I decided instead of a big piece of artwork over the couch we would build a shelf. We only had to buy the piece of wood, everything else was here in our home.



I just love it, Marcus asked me what I was going to put on it so he could use the right hardware. I told him picture frames and a few other things. I thought that was a completely clear description. Though the look on his face as I put all kinds of things up there, take them down, rearrange, put more, take off something.... was priceless. He was concerned he didn't build it strong enough. I then proceed to pull off what he thinks are boulders I added to this shelf and make him hold the items and say "see it's not THAT heavy". Good times in the Banner house.

We also started on my desk. Holy moly, it's half way done. One last piece to install but it requires a cut and for the sake of our neighbors we did not cut it at 10:00 (though I really tried to talk him into it) I will post the pictures once the desk is all done. It's fabulous, its HUGE!! I can't wait to get back to creating... I have not really made anything in weeks. Very strange for me.

So yes I found the camera, the USB thing... I'm back in business!! More to come!

xoxo, Lindsey

Packing...

So I have been holding out on making posts for a few reasons. Mainly, the camera has sprouted legs and I can not find the darn thing. I have all these fun little projects to share but no way to share. Ugh, we have bitter sweet news. We are moving Tuesday, not to a house like we planned but an apartment. I'm just excited to finally have OUR space. With moving of course means packing. Oh my gosh, I was dreading packing up my studio area but it was not as bad as I thought. You could say I am 75% done with it. I did work all week on really organizing things out. All of my clear acrylic stamps got a new home. I used 12 CD cases and organized stamps out into like categories. Put them in the CD cases, labeled them, and VOILA! much easier to find stamps. I can't believe this took me so long to do.

I have been planning in my head my new studio, which will be MUCH larger thankfully. Husband is going to have a large honey do list for the first month. He claims he is looking forward to this but we'll see. The hard part will be setting everything back up and making my desk function well. I have bought all these random things to make my desk interesting and packed them away knowing we would move eventually. So now I get to pull all these things out and honestly I can't say I remember everything. It will be like Christmas!! So say a prayer, keep your fingers crossed for us, that we have a smooth and relatively easy move.

Who would have thought...

I have a huge respect for my professors. In my eyes they are just so talented and a wealth of knowledge. Yesterday one of my prof's asked for a custom card, I was shocked. Here I am learning an art from them and they are requesting a piece of my art! I was dumbfounded. So I make said card, which was a tricky one but turned out nice. Then this afternoon I get an email saying to bring my outside work into class for him to view and get ideas of what our styles are. Sweet, I can handle this one. It went over so well, another prof tells me to show another teacher- who has a masters in fine art and is just talented beyond words. She looks at my cards and bought one for her husband. I don't think I have ever gotten such a wonderful compliment. She gave me all this great feedback and advice on getting my cards to the next level. All the time I have feared this, she breaks it down so easily and speaks from experience. She worked for Hallmark for years and explained the process. I am so inspired and feel so lucky to have all these wonderful teachers rooting me on. I love school.

Justin and Rhiannon

WONDERFUL NEWS TO SHARE... JUSTIN AND RHIANNON AND ENGAGED!!





We proposed to her on top of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. This is a relationship that I have totally watched bloom and the picture speaks volumes. This picture was taken Halloween 08, the night Marcus and I got engaged and this was there like third official date. Love it!! They have a sweet story, I will attempt to give the abridged version. Justin was my boss for some time at the jewelry store, we were really busy so he hired Rhiannon to come help too. This is the first time we all worked together and it was for about 6 months, boy was it laughs and jokes. Great times. Anyway, as Justins business is after the holidays we were slowing down so we had some time off. They both about a year later are both single, and one night as a group of friends we all went out to have some fun. To say sparks flew would be an understatement, soon after this little get together they were going on their first date. It was the beginning of October 2008, by December it was in full swing and they were head over heels. I loved going to work and seeing Justin smitten over my best friend, and hearing Rhiannon gush over this new love she has. It was a wonderful sight. They have done such wonderful things for each other in their lives and really grown and turned a friendship into a beautiful loving relationship. I am BEYOND thrilled for them!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO TWO OF MY BEST FRIENDS!!!!

ETSY!

So why is it that when school starts I finally get the fire lit underneath me to get all these things done. Start the blog, start an etsy store, full time in school. I guess they all go hand in hand, it's the fear of the unknown that gets me the most. Anyway, so I made these fun embellishments and was really bummed thinking they would only have "one life" so my brain started pondering what about magnets on them?! WOW, you have never seen such a huge light bulb. I have made about 25 magnets since starting them, lots of cards to make but I put a few online. Some of them are for family and friends and I can't bear to part with them but it's been so much fun. Check out the store...

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lindseybanner

I just love Valentines day and all the mushy-gushy stuff that comes with it.

Sad day for the Banners....

So we had been house hunting when we found the perfect little house for us. Unfortunately the bank did not think it was the perfect house for us. We put an offer on this house about 3 months ago, it was a short sale so the realtor explains all we can do is wait. So we did, waited and waited, and got the news last night by e-mail that they accepted another offer. It was really disappointing but there is another house out there for us. I am reminding myself of it's negatives, there was no fire place, the kitchen would have really needed some work, and the bathroom off of the master bedroom and the master bedroom were small. But, it still stings. So here we go again, starting from square one on our house hunt.

On the brighter side, should be an interesting day at work. I am leading a career day group of 1st graders through the store explaining the wide and fabulous world of scrapbooking. The way I understood it is they are to consider it a carrer choice, HA!! I think I am going to need a red bull for this one. Following the tour we will make book marks. Should be an interesting one.

Happy Friday everyone!

Prepping for Valentines Day

So what do you get when you mix paint, stamps, alcohol ink, glitter, micro beads, aluminum tape, chipboard and diamond glaze? Cute little embellishments for Valentines cards. Some of them have magnets on the back so they can be saved as a goofy little trinket.



Some of my other little projects this week are just for fun and laughs.



This is my take on this great metal signage I saw in Hereford. I wish I could create it as I saw it but unfourtanetly I am not a metal worker ( but I sure would love to know how!)



This was really just for laughs, I love these tags with the women on them. I have been reading Tim Holtz blog ( my favorite graphic designer )avidly and wanted to try a few things and this is what I came up with without going and buying anything.



I made this for Marcus, just goofy, something to pass the time at work. He really liked it, unfourtanetly the kitten thinks he can just knock it off the shelf when he feels so inclined. Lovely.

Since school doesn't start until next Tuesday I have put a lot of time in at my desk. I clean it one day and the next day it looks like a bomb went off but at least I am enjoying myself right?

Finally making a post...

Hello friends... so I have wanted to start a blog for the longest time but never knew what I would talk about. I think you'll see a lot of pictures about the latest projects I am working on, random things that happen in our life but this may be a little rough at first. My computers motherboard completly crashed, I am so thankful to my neighbor Ben who is my go-to IT guy. He was able to save all my pictures, school stuff and any other thing that seemed important enough to save. I am so thankful for that, when the screen first flashed "operating system not found" I just about fell out of my chair. My dear, sweet husband is trying his best to console me but has no clue what to say or do. It felt like a death in the family, I was totally attached to my computer. So now I use Marcus' laptop, which is fine, but the disk drive does not work so I can't transfer my images just yet. Thank goodness for jump drives.

I hope every one had great holidays, we had an interesting start to our Christmas. The first white Christmas, it was beautiful when you are at home safe and warm. Us on the other hand, started our trip to Hereford ( in the panhandle, near Amarillo) at about 10:00 am on Christmas morning. It was a little icy getting out of Dallas but Marcus assured me it would get better. Let me explain one thing about myself, I hate driving, I am afraid of my own shadow on the road, I just get this huge anxiety about what could happen. Now add ice to my anxiety and I thought my heart was going to pound right out of my chest. Well, back to the story, the roads do not get better, they get worse. We're not talking a few patches of ice, I'm talking we are driving on a thick sheet of ice from Dallas to Wichita Falls. It took 5 1/2 hours to get to Wichita Falls, normally it takes about 3 hours. It was awful, we drove about 10 mph the whole time on what I can only explain as driving on a washboard. The whole time we are passing 100's of cars stranded and stuck. It was heart breaking but I knew this was bad when I saw 4 snow plow trucks stuck themselves. I didn't think it would ever end. So yes this goes on for hours, we tried to take pictures of this debacle my it was so cold my camera froze and would not work. (Lovely right?) The radio is saying "stay off of 287, 287 is being closed due to the weather, get off 287, blah blah blah" HA Easier said then done when you are on 287 and you can't even see exit ramps, or if you can you can't exit because there are stranded cars blocking the way. So to ramp up my rant, we decied to get a hotel room in Vernon and put an end to this awful day. My brother and sister-in-law, Mel and Al were about 45 minutes behind us the whole time. I felt so terrible for them, they had there 7 year old and 10 month old who had croup at the time traveling in this awful weather. We got a hotel room in Vernon and Mel and Al and the boys met us there. We spent our Christmas night, watching TV, eating leftover tamales (which were AMWESOME), pop corn chicken, corn dogs, and burritos from All-Sups. It's a Christmas I will NEVER forget. As awful as the whole thing was, it's a great laugh now. I feel like I left out so many parts of this story that make it even funnier but at this point it seems like I wrote a book. So I'll save some for later and sign off from my first blog post. Take care all!