Candy crafting.

So, as you can imagine, my treats are also OCD. (See prior post on Star Wars cookies last year).  So true.  Anyone know how to hand-dip pretzels without getting a flat side?  

Here's the finished product.  Not without time and trouble, though!  First, I used those plastic Wilton Candy Melts.  Painted on dots with a very fine paintbrush, chilled, then spooned candy into the melts for the base color.

Finally, how to hand-dip pretzels without getting a flat side?  Shot glasses.  See, I knew those had more uses than vodka.

Genius.  Now on to the next project.

Home on a Saturday for once?

Getting ahead on my thank you cards.  You know, for all my gifts?  Silver cards from Impress in Seattle.  Purple/silver background made with Ranger Alcohol Inks put on with applicator on glossy.
Snowman made with Cricut Winter Wonderland.  Snow is just some flakes I picked up somewhere, just some glittery swag.  Awesome.

Perfected card.

Let's pretend I sent you a Christmas Card... it would look like this. Too bad if I didn't. So, tried a few things. Used watercolor paper as background.
BACKGROUNDS:
1) Tried Ranger Adirondack sprays, diluted. Used some Tsukineko Potion #9 as well to spread around color. I think the Ranger inks are discontinued, but they are water based. So, you could make your own spray with water based refills. Then spritzed Tsukineko shimmer spray as well on paper.
2) Tried to paint blueish background with Twinkling H2O's. Made paper warpy. Hard to glue down.
3) Tried some darker backgrounds than this as well. Looked pretty cool, but then bird and leaves didn't stand out.
GLUE:
Gluing on watercolor paper is tougher than it looks.
1) Tombow glue in dispenser. Didn't stick well after a week it came up.
2) Glue stick. Worked ok, but comes out hard.
3) I have not perfected this. On the edges that came up, needed to use Stampin up glue pen to glue edges back down.
BIRD:
1) Twinkling H2O's. Had to get pretty thick on brush. Had some screwups with too much water on brush, bleeding. Make sure paper is really dry.
LEAVES AND HOLLY BERRIES:
1) Twinkling H2O's. Thick. Looked really nice.
2) Then I got smart/lazy. Used Copic Atyou Spica glitter pens. Looked pretty much the same, but didn't bleed.
STAMP:
Got at Impress in U Village Seattle. Also totally plagarized card from there, but it was easy and fun.
That's all for now. I need to wrap gifts, and get inspiration for thank you cards.