New Fused Glass Decals

They are in stock finally!  18 new cards of decals for fused glass art . . . or whatever type of glass you would like to decorate.  To the left is our new dance card featuring ballet, jazz, waltz, jitterbug, rope, hula, belly and pole dancing.  Too Fun!

 With the nick name Grandma Cat, a card featuring cats had to be designs.  I tried to create a versatile card with some of the basic cat silhouettes that you would expect as well as some humorous ones and some rather frightening felines.

For all of you dog lovers out there, I've put together a card with 25 recognizable dog silhouettes along with some fun phrases.  The curved 'My Best Friend' fits nicely over the dogs and can be positioned at the angle that looks the best on the piece it is being applied to.

 
We've got all the new decal designs listed on EBay, Artfire and our website www.captivedecals.com.  Of course, due to the fees EBay and Artfire charge, you'll find the best price on our website.  No matter where you choose to purchase our decals, shipping will be $1.75 anywhere in the USA for any number of decals you select.


I hope you have as much fun using these decals as we had designing them.  I would love to see what you decide to do with them.  Pictures are always welcome!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
                 &                                              &
   Captive Decals                 Crafty Family

Back to School 2012

Here we are one full year later.  Grandkids went back to school today.  They are very excited to meet their teachers and hope to see friends from last year.  Grandma Cat hopes to get back on track.  Haven't 'blogged' for a full year because the connection from the Captive Illusions domain name wouldn't connect to the blog, which made the blog next to impossible to find.  My daughter, De'Anna, visited from Colorado a couple of weeks ago and straightened everything out for me.  Let's hear it for daughters...Hip Hip Hooray!

I've been helping said daughter, De'Anna, build inventory for a craft fair she will be doing in October in Colorado.  I used Simplicity pattern 1957 (shown below) to make these sweet miniature aprons.  I intended to make them for decorative purposes like it shows on the pattern below; however, the aprons fit Barbie dolls perfectly.



I've made 36 of the full aprons and intend to make a dozen or so out of Christmas fabric.  If I do not run out of time, I'll make a couple dozen or so of the 1/2 aprons as well.  These are fun and quick.  The first apron took about 30 minutes, but after tweaking the pattern a bit, I can now make them in 10 minutes.  They are fully lined and didn't cost a thing as I've got drawers of scrap fabric that I've saved for quilting.

Time to get this blog posted, get shipping done, finish the laundry, make some zucchini bread before the grandkids get home from school, get some accounting done, make a grocery list.....and so on and so forth!
 
Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
              &                                  &
Grandma Cat's Attic            Crafty Family

Just having some decal fun . . .

I've had some requests to see our fused glass decals on non-fired items; so this morning I've been playing with some votive candles, soap and a page from a magazine.  Here are some of the results:

Dusty picked up 2 bars of white soap from the Dollar Store yesterday and this morning I cut out bits and pieces from our Sea Creature, Fish, and Sharks and Whales Cards.  I used small embroidery scissors to cut out the decals and tweezers to help handle the little pieces in the water and placement on the soaps.  Use your imagination to create scenes of your own.  You can put the decals any color soap.  One of the fun things about putting decals on soap is that as you use the soap, the decals stay intact while the bar of soap gets smaller and smaller.

I used a skull off the Guys N Gals Card and a spider web off the Creepy Crawlies card to create two fun votive candles for Halloween.

The couple dancing under the chandelier from the Guys N Gals Card or the Dragonfly from the Dragonfly Card could be used as wedding favors.

For patio parties and picnics 2 strips of ants from the Creepy Crawlies Card fits perfectly around a votive candle.  I used a strip of grass and a weeping willow tree from the Tree Card and a tiny fairy from the Flower Fairy Card for fun outdoor votives.  Try putting decals on insect repelling citronella candles to dress them up for your next bar-b-que.

For something a bit nautical I've used a ship and lighthouse from the Sea Creatures Card and made an ocean scene with seaweed, coral and an Angler fish from the Fish Card.




Scrapbook Makers!  Our decals work great on scrapbook paper.  All my scrapbook supplies are on vacation somewhere (haven't come across them since we moved to Idaho last summer) so I cut a page out of a magazine.  I used a tree from the Tree Card to place on the picture of the planter.  Looks like it belongs there, doesn't it?  I was careful to wipe away most of the water before I put the decal on the page to prevent the page from warping.

The last thing I did this morning with the fused glass decals was to put some on small porcelain blanks.  These will need to be fired later to set the decals.  I've used decals from the Butterfly, Flower Fairy and Creepy Crawlies Cards for these.



I had fun and hope that I've given you lots of ideas for projects of your own.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
         
     Captive Decals               Crafty Family

Last Week of School - Wednesday

Hooray!  The favors for the last day of school are done!  Each of the grandkids made 24 which gives them 3 or 4 extras (for the teacher, principal, bus driver or yard duty teacher).  Here's a picture of all the Candy Airplanes...and the grandkids. 

Skyler, Trinity, Sonny

Cap Card/Candy Airplane Favor

Favor Back

This is a fun project, but if you are doing it with 2 or more young children you will need lots of patience.  Putting labels and stickers on everything was fun for them.  None of the grandkids wanted help with the stickers.  They even enjoyed threading the rubber bands through the Life Savers.  The part they did not enjoy was getting the gum through the rubber band loops.  I heard many signs and lots of frustrated little voices asking 'Grandma, can you please help me with this?'  After awhile I would let them thread the rubber bands, then hand it to me, I would put the gum in, then they would put the candy roll in.  We had a little assembly line going.  It worked for us.

And the final cost for everything was only $36.00 for 72 favors (fifty cents each!).  The grandkids had to make 1 extra Candy Airplane for themselves - which they promptly took apart and ate!

Now, I've got to get back to work.  Not only is the laundry calling my name, but I've got over 50 decal listings to put up on eBay, several fused glass decal themes to finish before the batch can be sent to the printers, floors to mop, bill to pay . . . the list never ends.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
    Captive Decals                  Crafty Family

Last Week of School - Tuesday

 The twins are so excited.  Their Kindergarten class is going on a field trip to Mudgy and Millie's in Coeur d'Alene today.  It's a walking trail based on the book Mudgy and Millie about a moose and a mouse.  When all three grandkids get home from school day, their project for the day will be Smartie Airplanes to go with the Graduation Hat Cards they did yesterday as gifts for all their classmates on the last day of school.  I found this one on line for Valentine's Day.

 

Rubber Bands  $1.99 at Office Depot; probably less expensive at Wal-Mart.  We'll get 2 packs to make sure we have plenty.

Any gum with foil wrappers works great; however, the gum my son brought home does not have foil wrappers, so instead of putting a wrap around the gum with the foil wrapper showing as shown on the Valentine Airplane, we'll cover the entire piece of gum.  The gum was very flimsy and kept bending when the grandkids tried to put the airplanes together, so I cut strips of card stock 2 3/4" X 3/4" and had the kids set them on the gum before they wrapped the gum with the paper.

We bought this huge 41 ounce bag of Life Savers at Wal-Mart.     The bag has over 200 pieces in it, individually wrapped.  Yes, they have to be unwrapped to use them for the wheels of the airplane.  Sonny cut one end off each wrapper and Skyler dumped the mints out of the wrappers into a bowl.  There were only 3 broken mints in the bag.  We ate them.

Smarties are inexpensive.  We got an extra bag for the kids to enjoy!








I printed the words Congrats Smartie! several times using a word document, the font is Arial as the letter were the closest I could find to the letters the grandkids learned in school.  I used size 18.  You could write them on pieces of paper if you want, but I don't have that much time to spare.  I folded the paper so the grandkids would have cutting lines.





To assemble the Airplanes, thread the rubber band through the hole in two Life Savers.  I had the grandkids put their pinky finger through one loop of the rubber band, put a stick of gum in the loop on the other side of the Life Savers, then take the rubber band off their finger and over the other end of the gum.  Next, they inserted the roll of Smartie's under the gum and above the Life Savers.  They added small stickers for a finished look.


Too much fun and totally worth every minute!  Tomorrow they grandkids will put the Graduation Hat Cards and the Candy Airplane in clear poly bags, tie them with ribbons and be ready for the last day of school!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
    Captive Decals                 Crafty Family

Last Week of School - Monday

This is the first day of the last week of school for Trinity (First Grade) and Sonny and Skyler (Kindergarten).  We have so many projects to do this week along with keeping up with the housework, eBay, Artfire, and now that the weather has finally turned nice, yard work that we will be running around like a chicken and her little chicks.  Our after school project today is to create little 'graduation' gifts for all the kids in Trinity, Sonny and Skyler's classes.  Each class has between 20 and 25 children so we'll be making 72 gifts which should give us a few extras.  First off, I bought some cute decks of cards from Oriental Trading shaped like graduations caps.  They are on sale for $1.50 for 12 decks of cards.  I bought 6 dozen - a set in red, blue, green, yellow, purple and orange for $9.00 which is 12 1/2 cents per deck of cards!

The decks measure a scant 3" X 3".  I have labels that measure 1" X 3" that I'll set up with sayings:

Happy Graduation!  Hope you have a fun summer!  From Skyler
Congrats Graduate!  Have fun in first grade!  From Sonny
Have a great summer!  Hope to see you next year!  From Trinity

The kids will put a label on the back of each deck of cards and then decorate the label with stickers.

I'll post a picture or two when the project is finished.

To go with the decks of cards the kids will be making Smartie Airplanes.

I'll blog about that those tomorrow!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
     Captive Decals                 Crafty Family

Next 18 Fused Glass Decal Themes

Each time I have a printing done of fused glass decals I arrange 18 themes to be printed on a 24" X 35" sheet which is then cut into 5" X 7" cards.  I think I've got my next 18 themes decided.  Believe me, it was not easy to narrow it down from the hundreds of ideas I've received from customers, family and friends.  (Please, keep the ideas coming!)  They are:  Art Deco, Birds, Butterflies (traditional), Cats, Celestial, Dogs, Dragonflies (traditional), Fairies/Sprites/Mermaids, Halloween, Irreverent (naughty things like 'the bird' and swear words), People, Skulls, Southwestern, Sports, Universal Symbols (hazardous, infinity), Tribal Art, Victorian and Zodiac.  Each theme usually has at least 12 different designs.  So, 12 designs X 18 themes is 216 new designs for fused glass art.  Wanna see a sneak preview?  Here ya go:

Victorian

Halloween

Art Deco

People

The themes and/or designs might (and probably will) change a bit before they are actually sent to the printer as my mind is always racing with ideas and designs that need to be tweaked.  Sometimes I wake up in the morning exhausted because I have designed decals in my sleep all night long!  If you've got an idea for something you would like to see designed, let me know and I'll give it a whirl!

Until next time, Happy Crafting!
              
   Captive Illusions            Captive Embroidery
    Captive Decals                 Crafty Family

Black Friday Sale Alert

Black Friday

Just in time to finish up Christmas gifts in the process, or to start completely new projects, I'll be listing many different fat quarters on my eBay ID catsdontmeow for $1.25 each.

I'm happy to combine shipping, so grab whatever you can use (or must have for your fabric stash!).  All my fat quarters are 100% cotton, measure 18" X 22", and are calico or novelty fabrics from a variety of designers and manufacturers including Hoffman, Alexander Henry, Debbie Mumm, Fabri-Quilt, South Seas Imports, Heidi Grace, Fabric Traditions, Galaxy, Maywood Studios, and so many others.

Also, while you are surfing the web to find great craft deals and steals on Black Friday, check out the auctions on my eBay ID dream77catcher.  I've got some fun things planned with fabric, patterns and decals.

I hope you can join us for some good old fashioned cyber shopping!

As usually, Happy Crafting

Captive Illusions
&
Grandma Cat's Attic