Recently, I had the pleasure of going to see my oldest sister M Jr., the art maven, for a short little weekend trip. I only had one day to spend with her, and that was simply not enough! But, we had a great time, doing the crafty thing and going to some awesome craft stores that I don't have around my area. M Jr. has a Michaels, a Joanns, a Hobby Lobby, and a Pat Catans all within a 1 mile radius about ten minutes from her home... I have a Michaels (but hers is much bigger) about fifteen minutes from my house, and a Hobby Lobby about an hour away. I have been to Joanns before, so I knew what to expect. But Pat Catans...oh, my love for that store knows no bounds! It was so fabulous!
Pat Catans has so many different crafting types available to choose from that it was next to impossible to rein myself in. M Jr. recently told me that I am a craft acquiring junkie, but I took it as a compliment. I don't mind feinding for new crafts to try...diversity is a good thing! They had the best selection of safety eyes for dolls and such, and a really nice selection of purse handles too... Around my place, I have yet to see even one set of safety eyes and the closest fabric store to me has three different purse handles to choose from...you understand my glee for Pat Catans. Not only do they have more crafts to choose from, but the standards like yarn and scrapbooking supplies are overflowing with new and varied choices that my local places have never even heard of. And they blow the competition out of the water in the pricing area too! Oh, Pat Catans, would that I could live in your wonderful store!!!
M Jr. had just recently sent me a lovely package of shrinky dink sheets, and when I went to visit, she gifted my a great invention...THE HEAT GUN! Normally, shrinky dinks go in the oven for 10-20 minutes; Madame Heat Gun gets the job done in about 30 seconds. Best crafting tool eva! Here is one of my shrunk dinks:
I am not entirely sure what the rules are for using images found on the internet to use in shrinky dinking, so I feel I should at least mention that I googled cute elephant images and the picture this came from was one of the things that came up. I really need to get better at writing websites down so I can give credit where it is due. If this is your image, please contact me and I will give you your due. I will mention that I would not sell these images of other people's great work without permission, this one was for experimentation/personal use.
Shrinky dinks are such great fun, and definitely worth the price. I bought a pack of 10 sheets (about the size of standard copy paper) for around 7 dollars or so, and you can make many dinks with 10 sheets. This particular dink started out pretty large, and I think I used about a third of a sheet of the material. Actually, according to the interweb, you don't even have to buy the shrinky dink material, you can use any plastic with the #6 on it, and I gather that strawberry containers and other produce type containers are usually #6 plastic. I can't say first hand, but if you google it, lots of other people have done it.
In addition to Madame Heat Gun, M Jr. gave me the best present eva:
Ack! The greatness is too much!!! Look away for your own safety!!!
Here is the rear view...as awesome as the front. I love the tail feathers. They remind me of bustles from old fashioned dresses. M Jr. made this up completely from her own craft brain, no pattern! You can see why she is the total arts and craft maven in my mind, right?!? I really love the stitch used for the stomach part:
It's called the crocodile stitch, and its kind of hard to see with the variegated yarn...and the blurriness of this picture...but it is so worth googling, because it is awesome!!! I am a crochet nut job from way back, and I wonder how I have gone so long without seeing this stitch? Oh, its added to the repertoire now, friend!
I am so lucky to have such awesome crafters in my family! It's really a great priveledge to be able to get inspiration and advice from them, and to (hopefully) be able to give it in return. What a fabulous interchange!
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