More Cleaning, Less Crafting

Now I know how I was able to get so much crafting done with the mess, cleaning takes a looooooooonnnnnnnngggg time.  Keeping everything done eats up a lot of what used to be crafting time.  It is the cleanest it’s been in here…well, ever! It is not spotless, but if you called to say you were coming over in 30 minutes I could have it pretty tidy by the time you got here :)
I finally got all the furniture moved and have hung up some of our art.  Before I hung everything up I gave it all a good cleaning, wow, the frames and glass were filthy!!!  Now everything looks all shiny and new.This is my favorite corner so far.  On the left is a very large, limited edition print that we call Bird Girl(sorry, I can’t decipher the artists name) that belonged to my husbands mother and on the right are life sized, wearable wings that belonged to my Father in law, he got them when he worked at Macy’s in New York, they were part of a Christmas window display.
Anyway, no crafty time means I don’t have anything super fabulous to share.  All I have had time for was crocheting these little cork knights.  I need to add their shields and faces, but I wanting till I’ve finished making an army of them.  I have also made cork ninjas, I don’t think I’m in danger of running out of corks any time soon.
I think I might need to work on my time management skills, maybe it will get easier once I get everything the way I want in and am just maintaining instead of the major overhauls I’ve been doing.  Any advise you may have would be very welcome.

Ninjas

Yesterday I followed a twitter link from craftster and found this super easy tutorial for making little cork ninjas on LucyRavenscar (check the other pages for other cork creations and other creatures).

They are just too fun and they are quick to make. I also really like the aliens, they remind me of brain slugs (from Futurama). I may have to give one of those a try so I can wear it on a clip in my hair.

MIA

I know that I have been missing in action for about a month, the Halloween instant cemetery rush has been insane!!!, but in a good way :). I have been making a few other things, but it's stuff I have already shared on this blog, like recycled crayons and polymer clay ornaments.

I have been working on some new things for my etsy store that I will share soon, but today for a little "me" crafty time I have been making stamps from corks. I saw TracyU's journals on flickr and was inspired to make some personal stamps to use for a visual journal of my own.

The restaurant where I work is closing its doors next week and there is this huge box of corks behind the bar, so I took a few (think 95). These are all synthetic corks, they're kind of like spongy rubber and give a crisper image than regular corks. I was hoping to use my linoleum cutter for the carving, but it did not work well, I got better results just using an exacto knife. The best part is if you mess up just cut it off and start over.So far I have made a cupcake, a candle, two different hearts, two different clouds, a sun, and a moon. I used both ends so I have only used four corks! It took me about an hour to carve eight. I'm hoping to make at least one alphabet. I think that using acrylic paint will work well with these stamps and give me more color options, currently I only have a black stamp pad. I will also embellish some the images with gel pens or glitter for more detail.

I have made stamps using erasers, styrofoam meat trays, those pink easy cut blocks, and fun foam stuck to wood or acrylic blocks. I love making my own stamps!