Carey Burns

I've been putting in some extra hours at work and by the time I get home, I'm pretty much done for the evening. That means I haven't been crafting, much to my disappointment. For today's post I decided to share some of the fun tools I use to make things. 10. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is one of my favorite image editors! It is free (nice!) and pretty similar to PhotoShop. I've made book covers, doctored up vintage photos for Halloween decorations, and created images for marketing materials for my day job. It was tough learning GIMP but I watched a lot of free step-by-step tutorials online so that helped. 9. My Recollections heat tool is my friend! I used to scoff at buying a heat tool when I have a perfectly good hairdryer...until I used a heat tool. It dries alcohol ink and Distress Stain super fast and gives you amazing control. Now that I have one, I don't think I want to craft without one. I haven't used it for embossing yet, but if I ev...

I made one Poison Bottle and loved how it turned out so I wanted to make another. After putting out a distress call on Facebook, a friend sent me an empty essential oil bottle. Gotta love co-conspirators! Supplies: 1 small brown bottle (I used an essential oil bottle) Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and Black Soot Tim Holtz Adirondack Ink in Teakwood 1 Tim Holtz Spooky ephemera 'Poison' Ranger Perfect Pearls (Bronze tone with Perfect Medium and brush) A piece of jute or string of some sort Glossy Accents Tools: Tim Holtz Blending Tool and pad Additional Items: Cotton swabs Instructions: 1.  I removed the label, cap, tamper-safe ring, and dropper cap from the essential oil bottle and washed and dried the bottle and cap. I threw out the tamper-safe ring and dropper cap. 2.  Next, I put the cap on my painter palette and added drips of the alcohol ink. As it dripped down the sides, I used one cotton swab to hold the cap steady and the ...

Now that my wreath is complete and my Halloween cards are done, I can get back to those pesky Seven Deadly Sins! I rooted through my bin of odds and ends and found a rusty old drawer. It will be perfect for a little backdrop for the sin of Lust. The bisque doll to represent Lust has a sassy bow in her hair and I'm going to add a wash of red paint to it and maybe paint her mouth. I'm thinking either a pale blue was of paint on her body or just painting a black stripe over her eyes. She'll have a very shabby fabric toga of some sort eventually as well. I pondered a background and remembered an old, musty art book that I found at a book sale years ago. I flipped through the pages and found a page with "Bacchus and Ariadne" by Titian. I loved the weathered look of the paper and darkness of the image so I eyeballed the page and tore it. I dry-fitted it into the drawer with the bisque doll and it is fantastic! Next up is aging the torn edges and deciding i...

I took the holiday off yesterday but I have an update on my finished Halloween Wreath from last week's Maker's Monday ! First, I added two varieties of moss around the base of the metal sheet. I didn't glue them because I wanted to be able to reuse the large metal planter for a Christmas wreath as well. I've got some neat plans in my head... The moss was a mess and of course, I had just vacuumed before deciding to mess with it! Next time, I'll put paper or something down. As I hung it up on the wall and looked at it, the top seemed bare. I really didn't want to glue anything to the planter so I decided to grab some creeping drape material that I use for the bookshelves and windows. The black was too dark but the ivory was spot-on! After cutting, arranging, and fringing...I think it looks perfect! It'll be painful to swap out everything for Christmas, but you can bet as soon as January rolls around, I'll be ready to swap it back!