Matchbox Mario Question Bock

I joined a matchbox swap a little while back ago with some of my friends. What is a matchbox swap you might be asking. It is where you take little match boxes and decorate them and fill it with all kinds of things like buttons, stickers, earrings, rings, beads, pins, ribbons, letters, drawings, or whatever you can think of. Basically think of it of a really cool decorated box with mini gifts found inside. Check out here to see more examples.

For the matchbox I made for my partner I decided to do something that had to do with games since she is a big gamer. I decided to glue three matchboxes together and make a Mario question block filled with goodies. I measure the box and then created my design in Illustrator. Once I printed it I cut it all apart and used mod podge to glue it all on. Once it was dried, I then filled the box with all kinds of little goodies.

Today, I would to share with you my design I created, so that you can make your own. If you aren't able to get your hands on matchboxes you can always make your own. There is a template located here for them.

You can download the design to use to create this Mario question box here. If you do make any please send me links to see them. Enjoy and thank you.

Christmas recap in pictures

I hope everyone one had an enjoyable Christmas. Today I would like to do a little recap of our Christmas in pictures.

The stocking

Clothes, clothes, and more clothes

Mustache Mug

Nyan Scarf made by my friend Heather

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a little Star Wars

A Vampire Crab for Christmas?

This year my daughter got a very unexpected present from someone, that even we were taken by surprise. At about 6:30 P.M. on Christmas Eve my daughter came home with a new pet. This pet is known as a Vampire Crab. Imagine our surprise! We had to make a quick dash to the last store that was open on Christmas Eve before they closed. We had to try to get a tank and supplies for this little fellow. It is easy to imagine that our Christmas was thrown off a little bit, especially since we had no knowledge of this little creature's existence. I didn't even know there was even such a colorful crab out there like this.

This picture I have included is actually a very zoomed in picture of my daughter's vampire crab. This little guy is actually a youth and is no bigger than the tip of my thumb. From my research they never get bigger than 2 inches and that includes the legs in this measurement. Their claws cannot open large enough to pinch a finger.

Right now we have this little guy in a very basic tank, with a Tupperware container filled with water for it to swim in. We still need to build him a new tank. This little guy is a freshwater crab and needs to have both land and water to go in. Our plans is to make one of those half water half land tanks, like a frog tank. From our research we found that this little guy is very social and needs to be in a group, so it looks like we will have to get more if we want it to survive.

My original plan was to find out where it was native to and release it there. Turns out they come from Indonesia, so that doesn't look like it will be happening.

So, it looks like we will be in this for the long run. The things I do for my animal loving nature and my daughter.

Unfortunately there isn't much out there on these guys, so it is really hard to find out much on them. So if anyone has more information on them or the best way to build a half water half land tank I would love to know.

My Special Christmas Tree

It's that time of year, where it's Christmas tree time. I've had mine up since a couple of days after Thanksgiving. I actually have two trees in my house. A big one that has all kinds of different ornaments on it and a smaller one that has nothing but star ornaments on it. Looking at my trees I realize that the store bought ornaments are nice and all, but they just don't compare to the handmade ones. I have ornaments made from my friends from around the word, past co-workers, my daughter, and ones I made on my trees. They may never look like one of those fancy looking, perfect trees you find in a magazine, but I don't care. I love my trees just the way they are. I have come to realize that I cherish these special one of a kind handmade ornaments more than any store brought item.

Today, I would like to share with you little pieces of what makes my trees so special. Below you will view just a small fraction of some of the beautiful and wonderful handmade ornaments on my tree.

This is my big everything tree

This is my little tree that holds all my star ornaments

An angel ornament an old co-worker made for me years ago

Little snowman my daughter painted for me when she was 4

Felt Polar Bear Ornament made by my friend Zina

Angel my daughter painted for me at a pottery party

This is the other side of the angel. My daughter painted it as a vampire because at the time I was very crazy for the Sookie Stackhouse book series about vampires.

Felt ninja star ornament made by friend, Sug

Cinnamon apple sauce ornaments made by my friend, Rachie

Perler bead ornament made by my daughter for me

Spider ornament I made. I saw this ornament at Bronner's, which is the world's largest Christmas store. There is actually a legend about a Christmas Spider that brought good fortune. After seeing it I wanted to make one too.

Mini cookie, pie, cupcake, and smore ornaments made by my friend, Sug.

Toilet paper penguin made by my daughter

Jack Skellington ornament I created for the tree

DIY Mustache Cup

Have you checked out Pinterest? If you haven't you should. I'm so addicted to that site. I spend a lot of time just pinning creative ideas that I want to do. I finally took one of the ideas I have been gathering and made it a reality.

Right now my daughter loves mustaches. She likes to draw a mustache on her finger and pretends to have one by putting her finger under her nose. She does this all just to make her friends laugh. Whenever she sees something with a mustache on it she thinks it is great and wants it. So when I saw this painted mustache mug on Pinterest I knew it would be prefect for her.

 Mug from Pinterest. You can find it Here.

I used Pebeo porcelaine paint, which I found at Michael's craft store. I just painted the mustache right on. The way that this paint works is that you let it dry/set for 24 hours. After that you bake it in your oven to make it permanent. Once it is permanent the cup is dishwasher safe and you are able to use it as you normally would. When looking for a cup to paint on you want to make sure you find a heavy duty cup that is dishwasher safe, microwave save, and one that you can put into the oven. I found that porcelain is the way to go. 

Looking back on this project the one thing I would do different is to get a porcelain paint pen so that I could make my edges nice and smooth, since it is hard to get them just right with a paint brush. I know regardless if it is perfect or not my daughter will love it.

If you have a Pinterest and would like to follow me you can by going here. Fair warning I like to pin a lot.

Elf Costume Revisted

Do you remember a couple post back where I was talking about making your own elf costume? You can revisit it here. Well, someone found it and end up making one for herself. I just wanted to show off how well she did. She even added buttons to it. So cute.

Didn't she do a great job! Go check out her blog, Love Country Living, here

Painting with Hair

One of the classes I took, this last term, was a drawing class. In this class my teacher wanted us to create art using an atypical media and tool. The first time I did it for the class I used blue Kool-aid and a toothpick. My teacher told me I wasn't being creative enough, so when she assigned doing an atypical media and tool art project again as part of my final I put my thinking cap on. As hard as I could I just couldn't think of anything that would be creative enough for my teacher, then thought was "Why don't you paint with your sister's hair?" I thought well that would be creative, but I didn't think my sister would go for it. My sister has very long hair that reaches her hips that she likes to dye black. I sent her a text to see what she would say and she said okay. I couldn't believe it! She went to the store and bought some red hair dye I could use to paint with. As payment for painting with her hair I have to help her bleach sections of it and put red stripes in it. To paint with my sister's hair she took a piece and braided it. I then would bend the braid in half or use the end of the hair paint with. All my sister had to do was sit close to me, she didn't even need to bend her head down because of how long her hair was. Now on with the pictures of me painting with my sister's hair below.

This is my sister with her really long hair. 

Once again the final project

Zentangle Love

I have this real love for zentangle. I been creating zentangle art since I was doodling in the margins of my notes in high school. The funny thing is I didn't know that this was really an art form or what it was called until a couple of months ago. I have renewed my love for zentangle again and now I can't seem to get enough of it. I'm even thinking of painting a part of my wall with its cool design, but for now let me show you some examples of my zentangle art.

This piece was done over a year ago in an art swap I was part of.

This is a newer zentangle piece I did a few weeks ago as part of a book cover I was designing.

Here is were I bring zentangle off the paper. This is a water bottle carrier that I decorated with sharpies. Sorry for the poor picture quality this was taken a long time ago by cell phone. 

This is my latest zentangle project painted onto a bowl about a week ago. I'm still waiting for it to get baked so I can get it back. When it is all done it will be black and white instead of gray and white.