More little stamps.... keys!

Just little keys...

I carved them out of erasers (or a little part ^^). I just thought keys were missing in my stamp collection.

Now I have to think about what to do with them... or better what to create :)

I am open for ideas!

Button stamps...

It is already some time ago sinced I carved some stamps. Here we go, some little new stamps carved out of normal erasers. Little buttons and the word button in english and german (Knopf). And I love the mirror inverted N! With a white pen I added some painted stiches on the buttons. :)

Doodles... nothing more :)

Never forget your white laquer pen! :)

Crochet scarf

I am trying a lot of different and (for me) new crochet pattern. I am not allowing myself too much time for this but it is quite nice while having some coffee with friends :)

This one was made with two threads (50g / 150 m) at once with a crochet hook size 6 mm (german). I just played around with this "bubble" pattern. It creates a really sturdy kind of scarf (which I like). If I am doing this again I would probably just make it not so wide.... and a little bit longer (just a few cm, but I run out of yarn ^^).

But long as it is you can also wear it like this :)

 The buttons are stiched on the side so it'll create some kind of triangle when closed.

The buttons are made out of fimo (polymer clay). I stamped the dark brown fimo with a wooden fabric stamp and made little holes in the middle with a knitting needle. After baking the buttons I used metallic acrylic paint for the surfaced (Yes, I just applied it with my fingertips ^^)

The buttons without the paint...

...and all the bubbles!

Inspirations: Strange new years flowers... (Leipzig)

I took this pictures at the first day of this year... This is some strange colour powder or something like this from fireworks. All the spots of this very bright colours seemed so strange between the snow and the barren trees.

I know it was a little bit quiet in my blog the last few days. There are some changes in my life at the moment, some things which are not easy and although I have to make stuff to keep me sane ^^ there is sometimes not enough left from the day (or my energy).

But I'll try to change this again (for my own sake) :)

Silhouette cards and tags... (I love aceton transfer!)

I just had to make some cards by aceton transfer now that I have some prints from a new laser printer (No, not mine *sniff*). I thought that the combination of the cardboard and the pictures you get with an aceton transfer would go great together.

And yes, in my point of view the old cardboard with the little bit rough structure of the surface and the worn out / rubbish (a little bit vintage, shaby...? don't know the actual nomenclature ^^) look of the black ink turned out to be a real good combination :)

I made a little collection of cards...

My crow stencil...

...you see my little mistake? The script is mirror inverted!

...of course the zebra isn't missing...

...one of my earlier loves from Karens graphics fairy!

To the left you can see the print after the transfer...

I tried several different methods (or better said a little bit different procedures...). I won't write them down just concetrate on the most important thing for the transfer:

Lay your print onto the desired surface (also wood or fabric is working quite well!).

Put a little bit aceton on a paper tissue and NOT on your print!

Now you have to be fast:

Press the paper tiessue with the aceton on your print.

And I mean "press"! It is only during the first contact with the aceton (or other kind of solvent you are using but aceton works best for me) that the colour starts bleeding. As soon as the aceton dries again the colour won't ever be transferable again (regardless how much aceton you would spill over the print). Also without the pressure the colour won't bleed into your target but stays in the print.

Look at the picture below: On the left side I used some pressure but put the aceton direct over the print. On the right side I used the procedure described above.

In short I would say: Pressure and aceton should be used at exact the same time!

And of course I used some of the tags I cut out yesterday ^^

You see how my skill improved?

The horse is an image from graphics fairy. I also made the cat and the swallow stencil from picutres from graphics fairy (Oh, I just love her collection!) The crow and the tree stencil are my own graphics :)

I have a lot more stencils and things I made by using them, just have a look if you like or jump over here for how to make your own one :)

Inspirations: Material (Paperstuff + tags)

This blog entry is a little collection about the materials which inspires me and in this case especially about paperstuff. You can see in the first picture a lot of the small paper items I am making. I just tried out several things like stamping with black ink on colourful backgrounds or painting on these backgrounds or putting an picture with adhesive tape on it (have a look here for how I am doing this :) ).

The most important thing is the paper I used.

This was made with artistic water colours. I just paint a lot of green and blue colors in stripes next to each other and afterwards put some silver on top. Nothing more...

Here the whole paper.

You can do this with a lot of colours...

...and if you add salt (really just normal salt nothing special) on top of the still wet water colours you get this effect!

I have quite often now coloured my papers with coffee (like here) but now I tried a paper tissue. The cool result is that after drying it doesn't get so hard like normal paper but remains some of it softness. Therefor it may be useable for a lot more crafting projects than normal coffee coloured paper.

After drying I wrote a little bit with a white laquer pen in it. I love the effect!

I get a lot of this cardboard. It was used as packaging material and it is really easy to work with. It is about 1 mm thick and I use it also for postcards and things like this. Not so stable like the cardboard I used for my filofax page one but comes close (although that cardboard was also old packaging stuff). I was a little bit beside myself therefor I decided just to cut out a lot of tags.

You know, I am still waiting for my "Verpackungslizenz" something like a packing licence where you pay for the disposals of all the stuff you are using for packing and stuffing. You need one in germany if you want to sell thing... Besides all the other licences and stuff... and it is expensive. There is no difference whether you are selling a little bit of stuff beside your other livings or if you are a big company. Same application... (No, I don't have more than 1000 employees... and so on). Mmpf....

But as soon as I get my licence I'll open my little tentacle shop ^^ So being not in a very creative mood but still have my last year resolution to do at least a tiny thing a day, I though I could make a lot of tags. For the things I may sell one day (hopefully) or just to have some at hand for wrapping of gifts.

I cut out a lot of shapes freehand and punched little holes into them. I don't thing that the shapes have to be even. In the opposite... there is something more appaling for me in the little imperfections.

I glued black cardboard on some. For the black cardboard with the writing I just wrote with a white laquer pen on a bigger sheet and cut them afterwards. Yes, there is a meaning but I don't thing that ever again it could be deciphered ^^

On some other I started just doodling around with my pen...

Or I used the wrapping of the big Lindor balls from Lindt (Yes, I am addicted to them!). The red ones are from the Lindor with milk chocolate and the black ones from the Lindor with dark chocolate. I am not too much into milk chocolate it's too sweet for me but my exception for this is Lindor! (But still prefer the ones with dark chocolate ^^).

I cut out the pieces from the wrappings I liked and glued them down with double side adhesive tape.

...and then I doodled more...

...and more...

At the end I even made a little plastic flower (like these ones) and glued it onto one tag.

Starting the new year...

2011.

This year it is surprisingly easy to adapt to the new number. Maybe because I am really happy that the last year is over and there is a new, fresh one in front of me. Yes, I know, in the end it is only a human made calendar. But it is good to have defined end and start points. :) Okay, let's go over to the more crafting related things.

One of my christmas presents was a purple filofax (size: personal). A real beauty! I am now starting to put everything I need in it... dates, numbers, informations... etc. But there was still the need for something more personal in the filofax. Once using it there will be a lot stuff developing by itself... but... there had to be something from the start!

 So I created a new first side.

I just used old calender sites (the last half year of 2010 was still included) as my stencil. Just cut out a piece of cardboard (really just packaging stuff but cool one! Better than every kind I can buy), mark the little holes and punch them out. Yes, it is time consuming but doing just one side I didn't mind :)

I printed the zebra from graphics fairy (Ha, you would never have guessed ^^) with a laser printer out and transfered it with some aceton onto the cardboard. Just apply some aceton on the back of the paper, rub gently and peel the paper off. There it should be! The aceton will dry really fast :)

But have a try before because this only functions with some prints and not with all. It seems that the age of the printer is important. Don't ask me why.... but with old printers it doesn't function and with new ones it does. This is an example for an old print... you see, won't transfer very good *sniff*

After that I added the words and tentacles with artistic water colours.

This isn't black but a dark grey! Sometimes it is better to use a dark kind of grey than black.

I am thinking about carving a Z3 (mirror inverted) stamp... It's like a new little logo and I am somehow into it. Like a little word play. Strange because I only got the Z3 mirror inverted due to the aceton transfer ^^

I will add the brownie recipe for decembersong. I got an award for my blog from centi which says to give it to more cool and small blogs but since this is mostly german I'll have a little difficulty here (but I loved to get the one from centi! :) ).

So insteadt of giving the award to more blogs I will just say here: Have a look at the blog of decembersong and her friends which is called "some nifty things" (and have a look at the so cool axolotl plushy! I hopefully will also get one in exchange for something from my stuff!). This is really something for lisbonlioness because decembersong is also an in the best way odd german ^^ We are out there! A lot of us... whether still living in germany or somewhere in the rest of the world. For some explanations of all these... just go over to lisbonlioness and her Three beds semi!

And also have a look at centis blog too and especially at her cute mushroom "collection" (fotos as well as crafted ones). Starting from centi you could have a look around some german crafting blogs and although they are mostly written in german I think the pictures are most of the time self-explaining.

Then let's end with my brownie recipe.

 (Which is not mine but the family one I only adapted a little bit... ^^)

The normal one is quite easy...

• 150 g (to be honest I always take 200 g) dark chocolate, but the real good dark chocolate with 70 % cacao or more! No chocolate for coating or milk chocolate or cheap chocolate... it makes so much of a difference in the taste!
• 250 g butter
• 1 3/4 cup demara sugar (the real one which is not processed and NOT just coloured ^^ this is also so important for the taste)
• 1 cup floor (in germany type 405, I think this would be like the all-purpose-floor?)
• 5 eggs (size M)
• a little bit vanilla or vanilla sugar 

•  let the butter soften at room temperature, mix it with the sugar and then with the eggs...
•  add the vanilla and the floor...
•  melt the chocolate and add it to the dough

At this time the dough is really fluid ^^ I normally use a spring form where I cover the bottom with baking paper. I use a little bit butter for the sides of the form to grease it and then cover it with really small breadcrumbs. You won't taste them but it will be so easy to remove the cake after baking! With the breadcrumbs it won't ever stick to the form. Love this method and use it for all kind of cakes ^^

•  preheat the oven to 180 °C
•  back it for 30 min (it will still be a little bit fluid inside, it will set while cooling down) for the original taste
•  back it for about 40 min to get a more dry normal chocolate cake consistency (but why make a brownie then? ^^)

For some time now I always add some highly concentrated coffee to the dough. Dark chocolate and coffee... normally I am not a person who can't get enough from dough but with this combination I could eat the whole dish!

But there is a lot of stuff which taste great and can be put inside the brownie... I love the taste with amaretto. Just all kind of nuts are great, whether powdered, chopped, roasted... marshmellows are also cool... dried fruits... Puh, no end to that!

And don't be worried about the amounts. No egg is the same, demara sugars from different companies also tend to be different and so on... The recipe always works whether the dough is a little bit more fluid or not :)

But never add baking soda! Never!

If you won't eat the brownie that day I hoghly recommend to cover the brownie with chocolate. Either with chocolate coating or with chocolate with some coconut oil added...

And then: Add tentacles formed out of marzipan! For this you just have to mix marzipan with a lot of powdered sugar until it is really "hard".

My latest one with tentacles (from this blog entry).

 You can find more of my tentacle cakes here.

 Brownies in a jar / Zebra brownies:

 For my zebra brownies I made a dark chocolate / coffee version and a white chocolate / vanilla version.

Then the real work started... I had to adapt the temperature and the baking time. Puh, the first ones where really fluid (although they still taste great ^^), for some I used way too much dough and during baking the whole brownie said hello over the edge of the jar!

In the end the best conditions (for my oven!) were the following ones:

•  Fill 1/2 to max. 2/3 of the jar with dough
•  use 175 °C
•  bake the whole stuff for about 40 min

Close the jars instantly! Be careful doing this because 175 °C can really burn your fingers...
If some brownie went over the edge just cut it away and then close it ^^

Okay... I don't like enter recipes in my blog. To make a brownie is such an easy recipe! But only to get this written down it took... some time.

Edit: The editing functions of blogger are today somewhat strange... and not doing what I want them to do. Grrrml... First time ever this happens so badly with blogger.