For the joy of sharing

What a mess!

2012-01-25T15:00:00.001-07:00

What have I been doing? Well, let me tell you. This house is a hot mess. I have been trying to get us more organized. Some of you are thinking, "Your house is organized, Jess." Not all the time. We live here, we eat here, some of us outgrow our clothes every few months, we play here, we run in and out as we play other places, and we sometimes hide our messes and say we will deal with it later. I am feeling like the kitchen and the crafting areas in particular are getting out of control. How is this happening? Well I think it's mostly unfinished projects, school papers, and stuff I should have thrown away, but it was trapped under the other stuff. Aaack!!

I think a good way to get started is that I should be doing some scrap booking. I don't do it as often as I would like. I tend to mostly make cards and other projects that intend to give away. Making a card can take me as little as 8-10 minutes if I all ready have the idea in my head. This kind of quick project is perfect for me, since I don't always have all the crafting time I want. Scrap booking is very different for me. I do have a dedicated space in my house to craft in, but it is also a mess right now. It is unfinished projects, memorabilia, and too much stuff!! The only way to beat this monster back is to purge and to scrapbook the important things.

I decided to get started by scrap booking the photos and annual letters that came with our Christmas cards last month. I created this kind of layout last year and I loved it. I originally saw the idea on Nichol Magouirk's blog last year. I think it's a great way to do something with all these wonderful annual gifts I get in the mail and treasure them. Here is a link to Nichol's blog: http://www.nicholmagouirk.typepad.com/

Here is a peek at what I made.

The page on the left has two hidden, pull out, tabs that have more photos on them. I was really trying to pack the pictures into 2 pages.

I'm sorry for the poor photos. I'm not used to photographing scrapbook pages. :-)

I think you get the idea though.

The page on the right has a pocket sewn at the bottom. I used my sewing machine and sewed around three sides of the lower patterned paper. I tucked the annual letters, and a few cards I couldn't fit into the pocket.

I cut that pretty swirl piece with my Silhouette. I had it sitting around waiting to be used.

I will be trying to work on some more scrapbook pages and posting what I have done. I really want to get my area in ship shape because I will be making a bunch of baby shower invites soon and needing my desk to be clean and organized in order to make a large quantity of the same thing.

Do you do a similar thing in order to keep all of your Christmas greetings and photos? Do you make a special Christmas album? Maybe you make a special album to take care of all the photos for each year? If you have a tip or great idea, please leave me a comment. I love Becky's Project Life, but just can't seem to spring for it when I already have so much scrap booking stuff on hand.

Thanks for stopping by!!

P.S.

Yikes! I forgot to say that the kraft cardstock is by Paper Reflections, patterend paper & stickers is by Basic Grey, the tabs on the pullouts were punched with a punch by Stampin Up! and the flourishy swirl was cut with my Silhouette. Sorry! Thanks for stopping in.

Am I blue?

2012-01-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Am I blue? No I am just digging monochromatic all of a sudden. I love color and this seems to be a fun way for me to express what I'm into that day. Also I really wanted to use some of the new embellishments I got from Hero Arts. They are all blue so this worked out well.

Some of the supplies I used were the Envelope Pattern background stamp and the Hello Flower stamp from Hero Arts, Mixed Sea Buttons by Hero Arts, Mixed Sea Gems by Hero Arts, Bahama Blue ink by Momento (on the flower stamp), Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass by Ranger (on the envelope background on the main body of the card, Bakers Twine, adhesive by Tombow and some pop dots. The card stock, the body of the card is made of, is by Bazzil. The other colors were all scraps. Yay scraps!!

There was a little bit of measuring with this one in order to create the ribbon shaped bottom on the blue strip. It was pretty quick and easy to measure the center point and then cut away a triangle shape. Then I lined up the blue piece on top and just cut away the bottom with my craft knife. Super simple.

I love the soft and subtle effect. Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek. :-)

Some old and some new

2012-01-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

Hi all! I am stopping in to share some new cards I made quickly today and some older cards that I haven't shared yet. I was just itching to try some new stamps so I used this new set that I got in my surprise box yesterday. If you missed it, please read yesterday's post.

The first two cards use the cling stamp set Unititled Word Shadow by Hero Arts and the Designer Woodgrain background stamp also by Hero Arts. I was feeling green today. :-) Can you tell?

I guess I was also really into pearls. I hope it's not too many. Hee!

The next two cards were ones I created and submitted to a magazine for publishing. They weren't chosen, so I thought I would share them now. The first one is using the Hero Arts stamp Newspaper Tulips. Tulips are my favorite flower. When I saw this stamp I had to have it, so my sweet husband let me have it for Christmas.

I colored it with markers and then misted it with water before I stamped it on water color paper. I used a baby blue water color pencil in the background and then painted water on top. I thought the yellow bakers twine looked like sunshine. :-) It's a little hard to see, but I also embossed some lines on the front of the card as a frame around the flowers.

This one I also did with markers and then misting. When I got this Zig Zag stamp I immediately thought of a rainbow. I had to try it. It makes me happy, happy, happy. I thought the black would be a nice contrast to the rainbow, so I heat embossed the greeting in white on the black strip. I added some diamond gems for glitter.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a peek at what I've been up to. I will be back soon with some more sharing.

Thank you Hero Arts!!

2012-01-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

I know I've been absent. Our internet went out last week and my husband has had had a time trying to fix it. It's up now and I will have some cards to share in the next day or so.

I just wanted to create this poste quickly to say a HUGE thank you to Hero Arts. I won a drawing they were having a couple of weeks back. I won three wood block stamps, three cling stamp sets and three clear stamp sets. I got them tonight while we were out and found the box on my front porch when we got home!! Not only did I get all those fabulous stamps but those sweet folks included some flowers, some gems and some buttons too. I can't wait to use them. :-)

Look at all that loot! Thank you Hero Arts. This is a super generous prize. I can't wait to use all my new goodies. It's a good thing I cleaned house today, because tomorrow I will have to use some of this. How will I decide what to try first?? Maybe I'll dream something up tonight.

Lucy's Simple Sketches

2012-01-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

I have been watching Lucy, this past week, post some card sketches. I have loved how simple they are, yet elegant. Each card is so simple it really focuses on the pretty papers and cute embellishments she carefully chose.

Here is a link to Lucy's day one sketch. http://hedgehogsandladybirds.blogspot.com/2011/12/sketch-week-day-1.html

Here is my card for day one. I decided to make all my cards Valentine's day cards. I thought it would be a great way to tie them all in together and knock out some cute cards for the upcoming holiday.

This card uses Doodlebug papers, Doodle bug rub on letters and a sticker by Martha Stewart. I stitched with my sewing machine on each card.

I have this pack of pie stickers that I have had kicking around for awhile. I love the glitter on it. The card turned out berry sweet. ( Hee Hee!)

Here is a link to the second sketch by Lucy. http://hedgehogsandladybirds.blogspot.com/2011/12/sketch-week-day-2.html

This one was so quick to make that I could hardly believe it. I love it's sweet simplicity.

The papers are by Doodlebug, the stamp is clear embossed on the patterned paper is by Stampendous, the sentiment stamp is by Hero Arts and embossed with white embossing powder. The red heart has Diamond Stickels. I love the bling!

Here is a link to Lucy's sketch for day #3. http://hedgehogsandladybirds.blogspot.com/2011/12/sketch-week-day-3.html

Lots of hearts!! Oh, and I am officially in love with Diamond Stickels. Fabulous!

I used Doodlebug pattered paper, Hero Arts sentiment stamp, white embossing powder and pop dots.

Here is a link to Lucy's sketch for day #4. http://hedgehogsandladybirds.blogspot.com/2012/01/sketch-week-day-4.html

The circle is an interesting change. I colored the staples with some Copic markers to color them red. I like how it turned out. The clear heart was another fun thing I had waiting for a home for a long while. :-) I didn't have enough stickers or rubons to make the sentiment curve around the circle like Lucy's, but I think it still looks nice.

I used Doodlebug papers, a Stampin Up sentiment stamp, white embossing powder, a Signo white pen, and the heart is by Heidi Swapp.

Here is a link to Lucy's sketch for Day #5. It is a mirror image of day #2. I decided to go with the bird theme. I like how this one turned out too.

I used Doodlebug patterned paper, a Stampin Up bird punch, Hero Arts sentiment stamp and heart shaped gems.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my interpretations of Lucy's sketches. I love following along with challenges and this was a great one. :-) I hope the new year is treating all of you well so far.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Many blessings, joy and good health to all of you. Thank you so much for reading my little blog. I am truly grateful. I wish I could send a card to each one of you. :-) This will have to do.

Perfect Pearl Butterflies

2011-12-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello again. I'm on a roll. I have been making some more cards. Here are some more Thank You cards for my mother. She gave me this older Stampin Up stamp set and asked me to make her some Thank You's with it. I chose this butterfly from the set, and used some new Perfect Pearls I got for Christmas, to color them in. They are so gorgeous. The shimmer is fabulous!

I smeared some matching Distress inks on my non stick craft sheet and then added Perfect Pearls and some water. I used the home made shimmery paints to color in the black heat embossed butterflies.

Can you see the shimmer? It was hard to photograph. This blue one was so pretty!

This gold one definitely shows it a little better. I think the results were so good because I used some high quality water color paper to make the cards. It holds up well to the scoring and folding, the heat embossing and the water coloring. It didn't warp at all and I used plenty of heat and water.

I guess if you use quality ingredients, just like with cooking, you get a yummy result. Hee!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. I hope you all have a happy New Year. I don't think I will be doing anything wild. Maybe a movie on the couch? Woo Hoo!! Happy 2012!

I hope you had a Merry Christmas

2011-12-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. I sure did. I have been so busy cooking, baking, and crafting that I haven't posted in quite awhile. I hope you understand.

I love to bake. Here is something new I tried this year. I have had these 3 dimensional cookie cutters and I made cookies that stand up. Here is a picture of some of them. They were fun and delicious!

My younger brother wanted a hand made card. I made him this snowflake card. It turned out all shimmery and icy looking. I loved it.

My mother requested some handmade Thank You cards. I made these today. I will enter them in the Hero Arts monthly contest. I tried to capture some of the shimmery accents I added in this picture below. It is hard to see, but I highlighted the flowers with a yellow Stardust pen my Sakura.

Here is what the whole card looks like.

I made a set of six, but here is three of them. I couldn't fit the whole set into the picture. I'm sure you get the idea. I used craft card stock for the base of the card and some blue and yellow label shapes that I cut on my Silhouette. I stamped the flower on ivory card stock with Sepia colored ink by Ranger and colored them with PrismaColor colored pencils. The centers are popped up to add some dimension. I chose the stamps and colors to really look natural and still pretty. I don't always use yellow, but I like how it looks here.

I hope all of you have a Happy New Year. Thank you so much for stopping by to take a peek at what I have been making.

Tag #10

2011-12-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings all! I kind of struggled with tag #10. Tim did something similar, either last year or the year before. I can't remember. I think making the facets or the fragments look like ornaments is a good idea, but I always feel like mine look like they are floating there with no anchor. I jumped in and did it anyway and here it is. I used some fun Basic Grey patterned paper. I love those cute snowmen. I liked stamping the little banner an the bottom and making it look grungy and messy.

Tim's last day of posting was today. Please stop by his blog to see his final tag. You can get there by clicking on the icon at the top right in my sidebar. It was a fun 12 days of learning and inspiration from him. I will be getting my last tags done soon. I have also been enjoying looking at what others are creating. If you have left me a comment, thank you so much. Each one is a happy little treasure to me. I hope you will stop in again soon and take a peek as I finish up with the series.

2011-12-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Here is a quick post to show a card set I made. I'm making a few sets to hand out as gifts during the holidays. I love this new cling set by Hero Arts. It's called speedy recovery. I paired it with some sentiments I had in other sets too.

I hope someone special will like all these colors. I used super pretty Basic Grey patterned papers too. I'm off to make supper and then keep on stamping. Stop by soon for the last three tags in the 12 Tags of Christmas.

Tags #8 & 9

2011-12-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hi all. I am combining two tags in one post again. I enjoyed stepping out of my box on tag #8. I love the two layers of embossing powder on tag #9. Following along with Tim is always good for my creativity. If you would like to take a look at his creations or follow along too, please click on the icon at the top right. It will take you right to Tim's blog.

Tag #8 was a steam punk tag. As you can see I did not make mine very steamy or very punk. It was super fun though. I love the robot I cut out with my Silhouette. I inked him with Pumice Stone Distress Ink and then sprayed him with Pearl colored glimmer mist. It turns out looking like metal. I love that trick! I learned it in the Inspiration Showcase class I took from Jennifer McGuire. I also cut the gears and the word "Joy" with my Silhouette. That has been an invaluable tool the past week and a half.

Here is a close up of the robot. Can you see his shimmer? He really looks like metal. :-)

Here is tag #9. I used the Fabric Print background stamp by Hero Arts. The two layers of clear embossing are so shiny and pretty. I cut out the candle stick, the word, the flourish, the greenery and the holly leaves all with my Silhouette. (Invaluable, I tell you!) The only hard part was leaving it along while the glossy accents dried. (You know I tend to fiddle with things. :-))

Here is a close up. I love it!! This tag had some great, but simple ideas.

Thanks so much for stopping by and looking at my projects. I am having so much fun creating. I hope you all are having a wonderful, healthy and safe Holiday season.

Tag #7 and a peek at my prize !

2011-12-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I'm back again with another tag inspired by Tim Holt's annual event called The 12 Tags of Christmas. To take a look at all the fun and inspiration on his website, please click on the icon with his name at the top right on my sidebar. :-)

I didn't have any of that cool craft glassine paper that Tim worked with, so I just took the general look of the second tag that he created and used the inking and stamping techniques he used. I have to say, even though it might not show on first glance, that this was quite a bit of stamping and inking on this tag. I used some of the Pumice Stone Distress Stain that I received in my prize package from Tim! (See a picture of what I got at the end of this post.)

Here is a closer view. I love the depth that all the distressing and background stamping adds.

I found that ribbon at the top mixed in with some fibers. I'm glad I found it, it seems perfect.

Here is a picture of my goodies that Tim and Mario sent. I got the package yesterday afternoon. I am thrilled to get to try a few new things. I sprayed the Perfect Pearls mist on some white paper, just to test it out. I have to say that the color it imparts is much more subtle than the other mists I already own. I do like it though. Having just a hint of color is nice. I tried the Distress Stain today and loved it. I have wondered if you can use it to do some cool techniques on fabric. I will have to test that out.

Once again, thank you for stopping by and peeking at my projects. I love to share. Leave me a comment, and if you are following along too, a link to your blog or photo stream. I am loving all the creations that everyone else is coming up with.

Days #5 & 6

2011-12-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Where did I go? Did you think that I gave up. Well I almost skipped these tags. I messed both of them up, TWICE, and felt like moving on to today's tag. But I persevered and I love how they turned out in spite of the mistakes. It also didn't help that yesterday I was super busy and baking two batches of cookies and trying to make these tags.

Here they are. The red one on the right is the day #5 tag. The white and blue one on the left is day #6. I liked both of these for the techniques. I learned two things though. First, if Tim says let it dry completely, then that is what you do. You let it dry. Don't touch it. It took more than 24 hours for the alcohol inks to dry on tag #5. I don't know why, but that was part of my problem. Once I gave up and left it alone, it dried and I was able to move on. The second lesson was don't pain acrylic paint onto metal and then put crackle paint on top. The crackle paint sucks up the acrylic paint underneath and the whole tag sheds like a bad sunburn. Ewww! Then you will have to repaint the whole thing.

So I love this. I just got this Fabulous Flourish stamp a few weeks ago and I love it. It is the perfect background for this tag. Tim is right, the red ink looks all splotchy and cool! I am pleased with how mine turned out. The wreaths I cut from my Silhouette. I did download the image for .99 cents. I hope that isn't cheating, but I didn't have a wreath.

I don't think I would attach the wreath with staples again. I would just glue it. I think they look a little messy here, but I was just following a long.

Here is the metal/painted tag for day #6. Tim was also right about this one. A camera doesn't pick up how shiny and enameled it looks. I love it.

Sorry, but I had to add some gems to my snowflakes. Hee!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please click on my Tim Holtz link to the right at the top of the screen to see his tags and follow along. I'll be back soon with more.

Day #4 is looking like a blizzard

2011-12-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Thanks for stopping by. I will just have a quick post again.

My tag doesn't look too good in these photos. I am not sure what is going on here. I don't know if it's the lighting, or the camera. The tag has a lot more depth than you can see in the photos. You can't see the white flourish that I stamped on the right side, or the water drops that I put into the ink. They are really there, I promise. Here it is anyway.

I love winter scenes, so this one was a lot of fun to create. I don't know which part I like best. I think the snowman was quite fun to make icy and crackly. I also quite like the acetate snowflakes. It matches the weather we are having outside, so that make it even more fun.

Once again, thank you for stopping by and taking a look as I follow along with Tim. Please click on my new icon at the top right to see Tim's tag and follow along with his daily teaching and inspiration.

I would like to give him a special thanks for drawing my name. I am so excited to receive my package and get some new toys to play with. I feel so blessed that he takes the time to share so much with us each holiday season. It is just what my blog is named for. The joy of sharing is what this season is all about. :-)

Tag number 3!!

2011-12-03T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hi all! What a crazy busy Saturday we have had around here. I just carved out a little time to make a quick tag. Here is a link to Tim's blog where you can see the original tag and follow along too.

http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/

I, once again, didn't have all of the same supplies, so I made something similar with what I have. I used one of the new Hero Arts stamps that have a coordinating embossing folder. I didn't have any cool cut'n' dry felt, so I colored the stamp with markers and Distress inks. Then I sprayed it with water and stamped. It has a pretty water colored look to it. I also sprayed the whole thing with Pearl colored glimmer mist. I dried it with my heat gun and then put the whole tag through the embossing folder.

I embellished with a greeting by Hero Arts and some old die cuts from Quikutz. I colored my pearls to look like holly berries too. I used a Copic marker instead of alcohol inks. I used some silk ribbon and some hemp twine to top it all off and attach my bell.

Can you see my embossing and glimmery shine? I think it looks pretty girly, but I like the effect. It really looks different than Tim's tag. His is much more graphic.

Thanks again for stopping by to look. I am having fun trying out all the techniques Tim posts. I hope you are enjoying all the creativity too.

Day Two

2011-12-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

Wow! Finally! I tried three times yesterday to upload my pictures so that I could create this blog post. Blogger must have been overwhelmed because it couldn't do it. Well I woke up early and here I am getting it done early on Saturday morning. Everyone else must be in bed. :-)

Well if you aren't aware, I'm following along with Tim Holtz as he creates his 12 tags of Christmas. I have followed along in years past as well. I'm challenging myself to create all 12 tags using the same techniques that Tim uses. My tags might not all look the same, but I will be trying to learn something new and challenge myself to use only the supplies that I have.

Here is a link to Tim's blog post for tag #2: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/12/12-tags-of-christmastag-2.html

When I saw Tim's fabulous card I knew I would need to cut that deer out with my Silhouette. I took more pics yesterday, so here it is in action.

Here is my little deer. Just like yesterday I decided to use white card stock and then trace it onto sticky back canvas in order to cut it out by hand.

I have been drooling over Tim's resist papers, but I haven't gotten any yet. I decided to get the same look by stamping onto some craft card stock with my Hero Arts stamp and some Distress inks. I glued it onto the tag and then cut the excess stamped paper away. I dried it with the heat gun to make sure the Distress ink was dry. I then stamped on a holly sprig and repeated the drying process.

I then stamped Merry Christmas with clear ink and embossed it with clear powder. This way I got the same effect as Tim's paper.

I don't have any Picket Fence Distress Stain, so I watered down some acrylic paint and applied it in sections to my tag.

I wet down my tag and wiped off the excess paint as quickly as I could. I sprayed it with Pearl colored Glimmer Mists and got a similar effect as Tim's Perfect Pearls spray.

As I was letting the tag dry, I traced the deer onto the sticky back canvas and then cut it out. It didn't take too long.

I liked the grunge board trim that Tim created, but I don't have that die, or gold paint. I thought about it and decided to cut some self adhesive cork with decorative edge scissors and then ink the edges with some Distress ink.

I added some brads and banged them with a regular hammer. Not as cool as the texture hammer, but still seriously fun.

Here is my tag. I added a little charm around the deer's neck that says Happy Holidays. I put some white paint on it and then wiped it off again to give it just a bit of a washed out look. Now that I look at it, it looks like a necktie. :-)

The wreath was created with some green fibers that I have.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look at my tag. I hope you are having fun following along. I know some of you say you aren't crafty, it doesn't matter. Try making a fun tag for Christmas. You will feel so good giving it to someone on their Christmas gift.

Tags and Snow

2011-12-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's December already. I can't believe it. This year has gone by so quickly. So many things have happened to our little family, both good and bad. We are so blessed and happy though, overall.

December means it's time for Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. His first one is here: http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/11/12-tags-of-christmastag-1.html

Of course it's amazing and gorgeous and inspiring. Of course I don't own all the supplies he uses, but I made do. I have to say up front though, that I hate my tag. It didn't turn out at all how I wanted. There are parts of it I am satisfied with, so I am calling it good and moving on to the next one tomorrow. Like I always say, it doesn't have to be like the example.

Here is mine. I cut out all of my paper shapes with my Silhouette. I LOVE MY SILHOUETTE!. I cut out the tag, the word Noel, the leaves, the flourishes and the rolled roses. I cut them all out with one sheet of white card stock and then colored them with ink. That made it easy. I love easy.

Now for the parts that I didn't succeed at. The leaves and flourishes I colored with Distress Inks. I let them dry for a couple of hours. Seriously, like TWO HOURS. I put the white paint on them to make them look like they had snow on them, and the ink bled. Now my snow is yellow. WHO WANTS YELLOW SNOW ON THEIR PRETTY TAG??!! No one. Not me. I don't think Tim would either. Darn it!! The other part that I am not satisfied with is the "Noel" shape. I love the shape of it, it is gorgeous. I didn't have any silver glitter, so I used white. It blends into the background and disappears. I don't even know if you can tell in the pictures what a pretty shape it is. Oh, well.

Here is a close up. You can't see it in the pic, but the Distress Rock Candy Stickels on the flowers is pretty. Can you see my yellow snow? So gross!! Oh, well.

Can you see the shape a little better here? It says "Noel" but it also has a flourishy sprig of holly attached at the bottom. I love it! I think I will cut it out again and use it on some other projects.

On another note, the wintry theme of Tim's tag was very appropriate today. Our world is covered in snow. Here was a picture out my back door this morning.

Here is a picture just a few feet away from that door. My husband and his friend Simba. They were baking in front of the fire. Cozy!!

I hope you have a great Advent season leading up to Christmas. Leave a comment or a link if you are following along with Tim as well. I would love to stop by and peek at what you have created. Stop by again soon and see what else I create as I follow along with the 12 Tags of Christmas.

A happy accident

2011-11-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

I love it when I make a mistake and the result is something completely different. I still have to go back and try and make my original idea, but I have something extra as well. I did just that yesterday.

I was scoring some card stock to make a card. The piece was a scrap and wasn't to the dimensions I thought. I measured first, but I must have made a mistake. When I folded the card stock over I got a score line that wasn't in the middle. I looked at my mistake and noticed right away that it looked like it might work as a pocket. I cut it in half and made two tags out of it. I stitched the sides and made two tags that can hold gift cards. I have been loving this owl punch from Stampin Up that I have had for awhile now. I love that I can make it look a million ways by punching from tons of kinds of papers and even stamping on it. I love versatile tools!!

I used some Hero Arts stamps to stamp the snowflakes, the wood grain on the owl's belly, the present and the "Gift" sentiment. I used Stampin Up products to punch the owl, the branch, the white label and stamp the "To and From" on the label. My scallop border punch is by Fiskars. The ribbon is from American Crafts. I've had it awhile.

I used VersaMark to stamp the snowflakes. I wanted to have them be subtle in the background. Don't you love how many fabulous ways you can use that ink?

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. I hope someone will enjoy their gift being delivered by owl this Christmas. ( It's kind of like Harry Potter! Hee! )

A little Christmas cheer

2011-11-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I'm posting quickly to say that I've been busy. I am donating some cards and tags to a craft fair at our church. Here is one I made 6 of, to make a card set. I love Basic Grey, don't you? Their papers are so wonderful to work with. They make everything I craft look amazing.

I stamped and heat embossed the greeting in white on this red paper. Next I cut out all the blue pieces to go behind. The card base is actually orange peel textured by Bazzil Basics. I stamped the Envelope Pattern in the background. I love that stamp!!!

Next I layered on the papers and added the sentiments on top with a little foam adhesive. I didn't want too many embellishments because I didn't know if others might need to mail these cards. That can get tricky if the card is too bumpy.

Here is a close up. I don't know if you can see it very well, but I added some tiny diamond gems as well. They add some pretty sparkle.

Here is the sentiment and a little holly leaf that I stamped inside. I like to add little details. :-)

I even stamped a little holly on each envelope. I colored the holly with markers to make the berries red and the leaves green.

I hope you all are having fun getting ready for the holiday season. Next up for us is a very special birthday for our girls. After that is Thanksgiving. I love that holiday. We have much to be thankful for in our family. Many blessings to all of you. Thanks for stopping by.

In a creative funk

2011-11-03T13:55:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone. Do you ever get into a creative funk? I am feeling that way yesterday and today. Last night I decided to pull out my sketching journal and get a little creative in that. I hoped it would get me back in the groove.

For this first page I colored the background with five colors of Distress Inks. Then I sprayed the whole thing with a light blue Tattered Angels glimmer mist. I stamped the flourish with Faded Jeans Distress Ink. I punched the snowflake from some vellum with a Martha Stewart punch. I traced some of the flourish with a white gel pen and added the sparkly gems. Of course the handwriting is mine. I wrote it with a calligraphy marker I have, by Zig.

This page turned out kind of dark. I started by drawing the flowers with a 005 tip Zig pen. I colored everything in with Crayola brand pastels. It wasn't what I had in mind, but that is OK. I was doing it for fun.

I'm not sure if I'm back in the groove yet. I will post some cards that I need to make today or tomorrow. I hope you all are having a safe and happy Autumn. It is snowy here in Colorado. :-)

Our Halloween

2011-11-01T10:37:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! I know I promised pictures of the Halloween costumes I have been so busy sewing.

As some of you may know I have identical twin daughters. I generally like to dress them differently. There are some days where they choose the same clothes at the store, or they choose the same clothes out of their closets though. I try to be only picky about them wearing something appropriate for the weather and appropriate to what they will be doing. I also am kinda picky about then wearing clothes that cover the parts that should be covered. (I'm kinda old fashioned like that.)

We started talking about what they wanted to be for Halloween awhile back. Theresa kept saying she wanted to be Hermione from the Harry Potter books and movies. I was planning to order a costume and wand off of the Internet. Sarah kept waffling on what she wanted to be. Then she finally decided that she wanted to be Princess Daisy from the Super Mario games by Nintendo. I have to admit, when she told me she wanted to be Princess Daisy I was at a loss. I had no idea who this character was. I had to Google her. We don't have a game with this Princess in it so I had no idea how Sarah even knew who she was. She said someone showed her a picture last year and she remembered her. ( Wow!! How do kids do that? ) Once Sarah decided on Princess Daisy, Theresa said she had to be Princess Peach. She loves that character and she wanted to match with Sarah. OK!! So then I had to figure it out. There are Princess Peach costumes for sale on the Internet, but they aren't very well done, and they are kinda pricey. We saw lots of costumes online, but not one of them was for Princess Daisy. So I decided that if I was going to make one costume I was going to get some use out of the pattern and make both.

For those of you who may not know the characters here are some pictures I found on Google that I used for reference as I made the costumes. The first is Princess Peach.

This one is the illustrious Princess Daisy. I guess she is Princess Peach's sister. ??? Seriously, I don't know what game she is from, or what she does in the game. I'm assuming she gets kidnapped and rescued like Princess Peach. (That is what a little boy at their school told me.)

OK, so the costumes online were made of some cheap, creepy, shiny polyester satiny material. I decided that when I found the right pattern I would just use plain, solid colored broad cloth. I searched around a bit in stores and couldn't find a pattern I liked. I searched online and found one by Kwik Sew that was the same shape as the Nintendo Princess' dresses. I found a store locally, that I don't often go to, that sold it. I bought it for 50% off with a coupon I found online. That made it about $8.00. That is $4.00 per kid. Awesome!

As you can see it doesn't have the matching color ruffle. No problem! I just made my own. All you have to do is not hem the bottom of the skirt., add a super long strip of cloth that you have pressed in half , gather it, and then sew it on. That part was easy. It's sewing the rest that is hard for me. I took sewing classes as a teenager, so I can follow a pattern. It is the, trying not to accidentally sew the sleeves on inside out, that is hard for me. I am also a slow sewer. I have to sometimes read the instructions a couple of times, for certain steps, before I get it. I would like to say that this brand of pattern was very nice. It was printed on a great weight of white paper. (Not that cheesy tissue paper some are made of.) The instructions are easy to follow and there are good graphics printed on the instructions to show what comes next. I have tried a couple of other brands of patterns in the past for other projects. This brand was pretty nice!! I would buy from them again, now that I know where to get them. I also like that this particular pattern included a pattern for a doll dress. My daughters do have some dolls that I could make these for. Will I do it? That remains to be seen.

Well here is Theresa as Princess Peach. I found some buttons in the findings department that looked just like Princess Peach's turquoise colored jewels. I also found some clip on earring parts at Hobby Lobby in the jewelry making department. So I made clip on earrings, a fake broach and had extra jewels left over. I found the gloves at Target for $2.99. Yay! Here she is a few days before hand.

Here is Sarah as Princess Daisy. Now I know you are going to notice right away that there is only one ruffle on Sarah's dress and two on the Nintendo Princess' dress. This was a point of contention between Sarah and I. I ran out of orange fabric and didn't have enough for another ruffle. I had purchased the fabric a month ago with a coupon and didn't want to spend any more. She was mad and kept telling me to add another one. Honestly I wasn't sure how to add another ruffle to the cloth of the skirt without it looking weird. I won the argument. :-) I used a piece of pre-made trim that is lace to make the collar. I just added it to the dress once it was all done.

Yay! I love cheap.

The crowns kept giving me fits. I kept thinking I would have to make them out of chip board and cover them with embossing powder or paper. Then my husband had a genius idea. (He is not just a pretty face.) We had some margarine and cottage cheese containers in our recycling bin.

Oh, yeah! I love free! We cut off the rim with a box cutter. Then we marked where we would have the four peaks of the crown.

Then I used my freakishly big kitchen scissors. I cut the plastic and it turned out perfectly. I cut slits in the bottom of the dishes to be able to have a way to attach them with bobby pins later.

We didn't have any paper that would reach all the way around. We decided that the heat gun would melt the dishes, so embossing powder was out. Duane went and got spray paint and transformed the dishes into crowns. I used one of the extra turquoise gems for Theresa's crown. We made a paper daisy with a glittery center for Sarah's crown. I attached them with glue dots. It was so perfect and so cheap I am still excited about them. The spray paint did cost $4, but we are so crafty we will probably use it again for something.

Here is Princess Peach. She was so happy.

Here is Princess Daisy. She was so happy to have some clip on earrings. She says she will wear them forever. :-)

I found some little Super Mario mushrooms with candy inside. I bought them and surprised them with them yesterday. Hee! One up!

The girls were thrilled. We saved a little $$. I did have some arguments with the sewing machine that resulted in a couple of swear words. I also spent a lot of time doing this. I am fortunate that I don't work outside the home right now. I was able to spend my time making a memory for them.

I do have to also say that I made a few mistakes making them. I see them, even if no one else does. I know I need to just let it go. I have to point out though that I wish I would have been able to make some petticoats or some kind of hoop skirt for the dresses. The skirts just hung limp and it would have been more fun to have them be full and poufy. I learned a lot making these dresses and that is what really counts. I don't sew often, but when I do, I teach myself a little something that I carry with me to the next project. That is definitely worth my time.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my projects. I also want to thank those of you who subscribe to my blog. I would like to say that I plan on blogging more often in the near future. I have more projects for the kids and the Holidays that I am planning. Thanks for sticking with me and please stop by again soon.

I am getting back in the groove...

2011-10-27T14:10:00.000-06:00

Hello all. I am getting back in the groove. I haven't made very many cards lately. I pushed myself and made two today. Crazy!

This first one is for the Hero Arts monthly challenge. One of the challenges is to make a Holiday card using stamps that are not Holiday themed. This intrigued me. I had to try it. I used a script background stamp by Stampabilities. It is stamped in a very pale brown. It's quite hard to see. Then I used clear ink to stamp the Large Fabric Background stamp onto the script. After it was heat embossed I used the green and red ink to fill in the spaces where there wasn't any embossing. Jennifer McGuire calls this trapped embossed resist. I love it!

I searched around and found this Stencil Flower stamp. I stamped and heat embossed it in gold on this white paper. I cut away most of the petals and made it look like a poinsettia. I colored in the center a little with some Scattered Straw Distress Ink. I also stamped it in green and cut out some petals to use as leaves.

Here is a close up of the gold beads I used in the center of the flower. The greeting is also a greeting you could use for other occasions.

Here is a look at the birthday card I made for my husband. He is having a birthday tomorrow. I stamped the fern in Old Olive ink and blended some other colors all over the front of the card. I added some string, a few gems and a Happy Birthday greeting. I love how colorful it is, yet still simple. The colors are reminiscent of Autumn, but still happy.

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek. I am going to get into the groove again soon, making my Christmas cards. I am still trying to choose if I want something cute and fun, or more traditional this year. What are you making? I hope you all are having a safe and happy Autumn.

A quick update...

2011-10-21T11:21:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to stop in and give a quick update. We have been getting ready for Halloween here. I have been making some Halloween costumes. I will post pictures as soon as I'm done. They are looking better than I thought they would

My daughters have a monthly fundraiser at their school. The parents make and donate cupcakes. Then they are sold for .25 cents. I made these yummies last night.

The bats are rings the kids can wear. I hope they like them.

Here are my girls. We recently took them out to eat as a treat. They are doing so well in school, we felt they deserved it. They are sharing a cookie sundae here. They are getting so big. We can hardly keep up. It's amazing how they grow and change every day. They are about to turn nine. I am very proud of how smart and wonderful they ave becoming.

I hope your October is going well. I won't wait so long to check in again. I promise to share the costumes we are creating here. What are your plans for Halloween? Do you celebrate other autumn customs?

Thanks for stopping by! :-)

A couple of new cards

2011-09-30T14:58:00.000-06:00

Hi all! Happy Friday. Thanks for stopping by. I have been making some cards these past few days. Here are a couple that I have ready to share. I made this first one with some new papers by Basic Grey called Indie Bloom. I love all the rich colors. This whole line just makes me smile with how colorful it is.

I used a new stamp from a Hero Arts and Sizzix Stamp and Emboss set. By coloring just a portion of the stamp I make it look like a whole new stamp. I stamped the sprig of flowers onto the ivory card stock after I had colored them with markers and spritzed them with shimmery pearl colored spray. Then I stamped the whole ivory piece with Versa Mark ink and the Designer Wood grain background stamp. There is a subtle wood grain background that way. I had a leftover greeting when I made my autumn themed canvas. I added it to the card on top of my stamping.

The greeting is coated in Glossy Accents to give it a lot of shine and dimension.

Can you see the subtle wood grain? It's so hard to get a pic of the white on white.

Here is the same floral stamp. I inked the background on this plain white card with three shades of blue Distress Inks. I went lighter in the center and darker on the edges. The darkest color I used to stamp the entire floral image on the background. I ran it through the die cutting machine inside the embossing folder for dimension. I love how it turned out. It was so easy to line up and get it perfect.

More Indie Bloom paper is behind the greeting. I love this rainbow pattern!!!!

I can think of so many ways to use this stamp and embossing folder. I just love how they work together or separately. Wonderful!!

Thanks so much for stopping in to take a peek at my cards. Have a great weekend.

Inspiration Showcase - Row Five and the final product

2011-09-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping by and taking a final peek at my canvas. I am pleased with how it turned out.

Here on the last row I didn't have all of the same products that Jennifer used. For the last three leaves I went ahead and came up with my own. For the first leaf I applied Versa Mark and Copper embossing powder in two thick layers to some paper and then punched out the leaf shape when it was all cooled down. The small leaf in the center was punched from a little extra paper when I made leaf #15 in the third row.

For the second leaf in the row I applied four layers of Versa Mark and gold embossing powder. I tried a technique I have done before, but didn't have much success this time. While the melting powder is still hot and flowy, I pressed a stamp inked with Versa Mark into the powder and let it cool with the stamp still pressed in. It didn't work too well. I had to heat it again. You can still see a hint of the stamp I pressed in. It just didn't turn out as well defined as it should have. I still think it's pretty, so I kept it.

I know this last leaf isn't really using any stamping techniques like the rest of the canvas, but I was dying to use some of this real wood paper. It goes with my canvas' theme and I love how pretty it is. I punched it out, inked the edges lightly and applied some gems.

The "Thankful" title was cut from some brown card stock using my Silhouette. The shape is actually one I've had a long time. It says "Be Thankful". I got rid of the "Be" and just cut out what I wanted. I coated it with Crackle finish Glossy Accents. I LOVE how it turned out.

Here is the whole darn thing. I can't wait to get it hung on our wall. I know I will enjoy looking at it. There is so much interest in each leaf. This was a wonderful class and a fabulous project. I am so glad I splurged and participated.

Thanks so much for stopping in and taking a peek at my final product. Happy Fall!!

Inspiration Showcase - Row 4

2011-09-22T13:30:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I have been working on my canvas for Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class. I enjoyed completing the second to last row today. I love all this playing. It is really getting my juices flowing with creativity.

Here is a closer peek at the first two leaves. I chose to put a large leaf on the second one in. I don't think it takes away, from anything because you can see right through it .

Here are the third and fourth leaves. I put some pearls on for some shine.

Here is the last leaf. I stamped on a piece of acetate and layered it on top of another, lightly stamped leaf. It adds so much shine and dimension at the same time. I spritzed a flower with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist. It really stands out in person.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a peek at my work. I'm going to get to work on the last row. I can't wait to break out my Silhouette and do some cutting. Remember my theme was to create something I can hang up during the fall and have up through Thanksgiving. Stop by and see what I get up to.

Inspiration Showcase - Row Three

2011-09-21T19:02:00.000-06:00

Hi all! I've been enjoying my class so much. Are all of you? I made some changes to some of my first leaves. I just wanted to share before I show you what I did for row three.

On leaf #5, in the first row, I added some Crackle Glossy Accents to the smaller leaf in the center. I just kept looking at it and thinking it needed something. I love how it makes it look a little more like a real leaf.

Here is a picture of the 9th leaf, in row two of the canvas. I added the flower and the bow of string. Once again I kept looking at that leaf and thinking it needed something. I didn't want to cover up too much of the leaf so I chose something small.

Here are the first couple of leaves for row three. I like how my rose turned out. I made it out of card stock that I punched, inked and then crumpled, before I rolled it.

Here are leaf three and four, in row three.

Here is the last leaf in the row.

Here is a picture of the third row adhered to the canvas.

Thanks so much for stopping by to take a peek at what I have been working on. If you are coming by as part of the Inspiration Showcase class leave me a comment. I would love to see what you are working on too.

Monogram Fun!!

2011-09-16T17:15:00.000-06:00

Hi all! I did a little project today that I have been itching to do. Do you have one of those? I have been collecting some pictures on Pinterest of collages. One kind that I'm attracted to that I've been seeing a lot is a monogram. You form the letters out of some fun things you have on hand and then glue it all down and frame it. These next couple of photos are ones that I have been inspired by.

I decided that today is the day. I didn't ever read anything on how to do it, so I just winged it. Below is my final product. I think it turned out just like I was picturing it, so that is a success in my book.

If you have made one and used a different method, I would love you to leave a link in the comments. I could have pulled out my Silhouette, but I thought this wouldn't be a hard shape to cut out. I printed the first letter of my last name in the font of my liking. I cut the letter out with an Exacto knife. Here is my little template below.

I chose some green card stock and cut it to the right size. Then I laid down my template and held it in place with some reposition able adhesive. Then I got out all my buttons and gems and started gluing. I went from the top down and adhered color by color. It is sparkletastic!! (I just made that word up just for this monogram!)

My projects don't always turn out the way I picture them in my head. That is totally OK. But when things go your way and you have fun doing it, it is a good crafting day.

The whole frame is only 9 X 9" square. It isn't all that big, but I hope all the colors will mean some fun impact. I am planning a wall of pictures and art all framed in white frames along our staircase. This will be one of the first items I will hang. I love all the colors and shapes. I think it will look happy.

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek at what I made today. Have a great weekend!

Inspiration Showcase - Row Two

2011-09-15T15:36:00.000-06:00

Hello again everyone. Here is row two of my canvas that I am creating for the Inspiration Showcase class by Jennifer McGuire. Here is a peek at her canvas for the class:

http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/inspirationshowcase/finished-canvas-upclose/

Here is my row two:

Here is a peek at all of the leaves

Thanks for stopping in to take a peek. I really am feeling inspired by all that she is showing us in the class. It is making me get excited about my tools and supplies all over again.

Inspiration Showcase - Row One

2011-09-15T15:26:00.000-06:00

Hi friends! I'm currently taking a class by the wonderful Jennifer McGuire. It is called Inspiration Showcase. The main project in the class is to create a fun canvas with little examples of all of the techniques she teaches. I changed my project a little to differ a little from hers. I am creating leaves and the canvas will say "Thankful" at the bottom. I thought it would make a great autumn wall hanging for our home.

You can see Jennifer's project here: http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/inspirationshowcase/finished-canvas-upclose/

Here is my first row:

Here is a peek at each leaf.

I am enjoying the class very much. I can't wait to show you row two.

Also, for no related reason what so ever, here is a pic of one of my kitties. He has been super snuggly lately. I think it's the change in the weather here. He normally doesn't like his picture taken. He didn't seem to mind this time. :-)

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

Photo inspiration

2011-08-30T10:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Tuesday everyone. I love to take photos. I like to take them of my family, my creations and of the world around me. This morning I went for a walk and took my camera with me. I hoped that if I saw an eagle or a hawk I might get lucky enough to get a record of it. Instead I saw lots of smaller friends along the way. I love to look back at my photos and be inspired by color, light and shadow, form, or just something I might want to sketch.

I met this guy first.

These look like a scrubby weed until you get closer. Then you see the tiny blossoms.

This one made me so happy. The pollen waiting to be collected from the center is so pretty.

These are the mountains you can see near our home. The closer ones are called the Flatirons. The higher ones in the back are the Indian Peaks Mountain Range.

Hee Hee. That's me!!

I stood there for so long snapping pictures of the bees. The macro setting on our new camera isn't that great. I took lots that turned out sharp only on the plants, but the bee would be blurry. These were my only good ones of the bees.

This one just yells, "Good Morning!!"

These guys were barking at me. "Yip Yip!!" I totally wasn't scared. They just make me giggle. It's kind of sad how dumb they are, actually. There is a reason why they are at the bottom of the food chain around here. They are cute and interesting to watch though.

I want to create something that is inspired by the flowers and the bees. I will make time soon. Thanks for sharing. I hope you were inspired to create or take a walk with your camera. ;-)

Boy Birthday cards

2011-08-25T15:24:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone. Thanks for stopping by again. I noticed that I'm very low on Birthday cards again. The school year started up again this week and my kids are making lots of new friends and hanging with some old ones too. I figured it won't be long till some party invitations come their way, so I had better be ready. I made a couple of boy cards today. I got the idea while taking my walk/run this morning. ( No, I can't run very far, so I run a little and then walk a little. )

I started by stamping the crocodile and the greeting in black Momento ink and drying it with a heat gun. Then I colored them in with my Copic markers. I punched the shape out with a great punch I have from Stampin Up. I layered it onto two patterned papers I recently got by Lilybeedesign.

The back ground is the envelope pattern stamped in the same shade of blue as the card stock.

Of course I had to stamp the envelopes too. :-)

I'm loving adding a shadow to my shapes with a grey Copic marker. The stamped image doesn't look like it's just floating there anymore. I love the googly eyes. They make it so much more fun.

Here is a peek at the inside.

Those alphabet stickers? Well I'm not much of a sticker user, but I got the matching stickers when I picked up the papers. The letters are so small they are perfect for a card. I'll wait until we are ready to use the cards and we can put the child's name on the front with the stickers. It will make it much more personal and fun. :-)

There are a lot of colors to choose from and some of them have a pattern on them. They are super pretty.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at what I have been up to.

My fruity gum tastes just like these cards!!

2011-08-24T21:41:00.000-06:00

Hi all! Thanks for stopping by. I saw a challenge on Lucy's blog this week. I immediately wanted to use my new fruity stamps. As I was making them I was chewing some fruity gum and decided that these cards were just as sweet and tasty as my treat. ;-)

Here is a peek at the set I made. I used a variety of products. The background polka dot is the Hero Arts cling stamp called Cling Dots. (CG139) The fruity stamps are a set by Stampendous called Little Fruit. (SSC096)

The cards are actually a little smaller than I normally make. I had some small envelopes I wanted to use, so each card is made from a 5" X 7" piece of card stock. The first step was to choose my colors and cut the pieces to size. I was able to use several pieces of card stock that were scraps. ( I love that!)
Then I stamped the background stamp with Versa Mark ink and used clear Zing embossing powder.

Next I cut 1 and 1/2" circles from white card stock with my Silhouette. I like having shapes and pieces on hand that I can stamp, or color on hand. I stamped the fruit with black Momento ink and then colored it with my Copic markers.

I used a new patterned paper by American Crafts from their Margarita line. It's called Mariachi. It's the fun colorful stripe you see in a 1" strip. Then I added a piece of decorative tape from Pink Paisley. It is the white with black dots. I love all the fun dots and stripes. They add so much fun.

I stamped the greeting in leftover white card stock and cut the small strips. Then I adhered it all together. I pop dotted the white circles on for some dimension.

I think this green one is my favorite. :-)

Although this little bug is cute too.

Here is the whole set again. All lined up they are so fun and colorful. I hope someone special I have planned to give this to will enjoy them. I am thinking of making a matching notepad just like the last set I made. I found some cheap notepads on clearance today. Target was clearing out the back to school items. :-)

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my latest creation.

I love new stamps!!

2011-08-10T15:43:00.000-06:00

Hi all! Don't you love getting new crafting supplies? I ordered myself two new stamps with some birthday money I got in June. I had been wanting both of these new stamps since last winter. I love how they work together and I love how I know I will be using them separately.

I gave you a bit of a peek in my last post of what I was making. Here is the final set of cards that I made. I went pretty girly with them. :-) Here is a close up look of one of the cards. I made a set of 5 cards total. I stamped each envelope to match. The sentiments for each card are: Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy Mother's Day, Thanks & Friend.

The butterfly, envelope pattern background and flourish stamps are all by Hero Arts. The sentiment stamps are all by Stampin Up. I love to mix and match. It doesn't matter to me that they are by different manufacturers, they work beautifully together.

On the inside of each card I stamped a corresponding sentiment. Some are religious, and some just match the sentiment on the outside of the card.

I didn't want to give just a set of cards, so I made a matching note pad to go with. :-)

It's just right for popping in your purse, leaving on your desk, or taking to work.

Here are all the cards together.

Here are the cards, envelopes and the matching notepad. I hope a special someone will love it.

I love comments, so let me know what you think. Link me up to what you have been working on. I can't wait to see.

Thanks for stopping by.

Finding time for me

2011-08-02T10:36:00.000-06:00

Hi all! Thanks for stopping by.

I have found a little time for me in the last couple of days and it was wonderful. I finished this page in my sketchbook and I am quite happy with how it turned out. I drew the flowers with pencils and then outlined it in Zig pigment pen. Then I colored it with colored pencils by Prismacolor. They are by far my favorite colored pencils.

I have started a set of cards that I'm going to be sending to someone I love. Here is a little peek. I found sets of cards and matching envelopes at Staples when we were buying some school supplies. They are cheaper than my local Archiver's sells them for. I decided to start with a buttery yellow. It isn't a color that I usually turn to, but as you can see from my sketchbook above it is a sunny and happy color. The cards are definetly lighter, and more delicate yellow. I stamped with two new stamps I got with some burthday money. I have been wanting this flourish by Hero Arts since last year. Stamped behind that is the Envelope Pattern back ground stamp. It might be hard to see in this pic. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Remember those videos I did about inspiration? Well this past Sunday I had tons of it. Ikea opened up in our state. It was a 45 minute drive (each way) for us, but we finally were able to go and check it out. I was surrounded by inspiration all day. I can't wait to go back again some day soon. I think I'm getting my husband to convert over to appreciating modern design. (Yay!!) We have some things we had been looking at in their catalog and online for about a year. Now that we were able to see them in person, we both agree what we will be saving up for. We both are in love with organizing so we spent quite a bit of time looking and talking and planning some changes. I love that!!

Summer break for my kiddos is comming to a close. They will be back to school on the 17th of this month. It is bittersweet. They love school, so they are getting impatient. I hope all of you are finding time for creativity and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by.

These took forever

2011-07-07T12:40:00.000-06:00

Hi all! These two cards took me about 3 days to make because I kept having to stop and do other things. I would do a step or two and then come back to it the next day. I got them done, but it sure was slow.

I was doing a project with acrylic paint and had some left over. I didn't want to wash it down the sink so I decided to stamp with it. I had a piece of Saharah Sand card stock by Stampin Up. I cut it in half and made two cards out of it. I stamped with the paint and this Hero Arts background stamp twice.

On this first one I let it dry and then used some light brown Distress Ink to stamp the Friend Definition stamp in the background. The paint resisted the ink and it shows up, only faintly on the paper. I added the Basic Grey patterned paper and the stamped greeting. Then I used the Distress Ink to add some shading all around the edges. I wanted to use some white gel pen to add some dashes. I decided that I have done this a lot, so I tried some little dots instead.

Lastly I added the fun buttons, string and gems. I love how it looks so bright and happy, but a little shabby too.

This second card uses almost the same steps. I didn't use the Definition background stamp. I just stamped with the paint and the Fabric Design background stamp. I added the patterned paper and a greeting from Stampin Up. I added the white gel pen dots all around the outer edge. I like how it is just a little bit different with the dots instead of dashes for faux stitching.

Lastly I added the fun string, flower and gems.

I have been loving bright colors lately. I love how the paint and the back ground stamps are so bold.
I have created these for the Stamp It Cards Week challenge in the Moxie Fab world. Stop by their blog and check out all the stamping.
http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2011/06/stamp-it-cards-week-stamp-it-cards-week.html

Thanks for stopping by . I hope my next projects won't take so long! :-)

A little bit of craftiness that I squeezed in...

2011-06-29T14:55:00.000-06:00

Hello all.

I have been super busy around here. I squeezed in a little time today and made a card to add to the Hero Arts monthly contest on Flickr. One of the themes is Congratulations. Another theme is wedding. I decided to combine them.

I used a combo of cream and white. I love how it turned out. It is super hard to photograph though.

I hope the close ups help a little bit.

I used some Prima flowers. The leaves are a white flower that I colored with a marker and then cut up. I like to try and use them by coloring them sometimes.

Thanks for stopping in and taking a peek. I hope your summer is going well. Today my husband comes home from a week and a half in Denmark. We are really missing him. Can't wait!

Sketch book

2011-06-07T00:00:00.001-06:00

While we have been doing so much home improvement around here I haven't had time for any major craftiness. I sometimes grab my sketchbook though. I'm not the most talented you've ever seen, but it takes my mind off of things. I just wanted to share a few of the pages.

This first one I drew and then I did the shading and coloring a few days later.

This one I wrote the words and punched out the hearts and then I spritzed the next day. I finished it up yesterday with the stamping. I like that I used the hearts I punched out on the bottom right three different times.

This one I did the stamping and heat embossing of the flowers one day and then the coloring and writing the next day. No big rush on these pages. I let myself take my time.

I don't have to mail them anywhere or post them to a contest. I just do what I want to do. Sometimes I let it sit for a day or two so that I can envision what I want to do while I'm working on other things.

When you create something simple, just to please yourself, you have all the time in the world. If I want to add something to one of the pages in the future, I can just go back and add a little more. No big deal. It's just for fun and practice. Do you keep a sketch book? Do jot down ideas? This can help in your journey of being creative. It all ties back in to the topic in my videos. What do you think? What do you like to do? Are you a perfectionist? I am trying to be less of one. It is hard for me to post these sketches that I do. I'm pushing myself to let go of it sometimes. :-)

Our hardwood flooring...so far

2011-06-06T14:56:00.000-06:00

Hi all. We have been so busy around here. I have had tons of questions from friends and family about the flooring, so I thought I'd post some pictures and answer some questions.

I didnt' really take any before pictures of the carpet we had before it was 12 years old, heavily stained and coming apart as I vacuumed it. It was realtor beige. Boring, dirty and embarrassing. These first two pictures are the front room of our house now. I'm standing in front of the front door as I took the first photo. It looks at the eating area. I love it. I hated having carpet under the dining table. It was so gross and dirty. This is now so easy to clean up. It's like a miracle. :-)

This is still the front room, but facing the front window.

Here is our kitchen before. The vinyl sheet flooring was peeling up in front of the sink and dishwasher. It was getting little holes all around in other places too, where things got dropped on it. It was turning brittle and not coming as clean as it used to. To really get it clean I had to get on my hands and knees with a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water. Needless to say, that didn't happen very often, so I was finding that frustrating. The mop would do OK, but not great.

As you can see above and below, when we pulled up the carpet we discovered that the kitchen had two sub floors. Weird!! We pulled up the second one and just put the new hardwood on the first layer of sub floor. It was a little extra work we weren't expecting, but that turned out fine. We wanted the hardwood to be all one flat layer throughout the first floor of the house. It is wonderful to walk around and not change flooring surfaces.

Here it is the instant we finished in there. The hard parts were moving the appliances out, and Duane getting the flooring down inside of the pantry. I have a pic of him below squeezing himself in there with the nailer.

Sarah and Theresa helped a little. Theresa got pretty good at pulling up staples with a pair of pliers. Sarah would help for a few minutes and then get tired of it and run off to do something else.

Here is poor Duane trying to make himself fit.

When we were done with the front room and the kitchen we had to move all the appliances, tools, furniture and other junk out of the living room to do it last. We lined up all the tools on this old blanket so we wouldn't scratch up the new flooring in the front room. That was our tool kit.

As soon as we finished the living room I took the kids upstairs to have their showers for the night. When I came back Duane had already moved the couch where it goes. Sorry I didn't get pic of the floor without it. You get the general idea. I am sorry you have to look at the 20 year old, teal and pink couch though. :-(

Here is the carpet. I ordered a pickup from Waste Management and we are still waiting for them to take this away. Goodbye ugly, gross carpet. I don't miss you at all!!

So here are some questions I'm getting asked a lot.

Q: Was it hard work?
A: Yes. We are both handy. Especially Duane, who loves wood working and fixing anything. We didn't have any problems using the tools or doing the work, it was just hard physical labor. We were so tired and achy by the end of the 4th day. It was good for us though. :-)

Q: What kind of wood did you buy?
A: It's a carbonized bamboo. It's super hard and durable. The coloring is called Zebra. I guess you can tell why. We like that it's got so many shades of brown in it. It really contrasts with our dining table and chairs which are a natural finish rock maple. It is prefinished. No sanding and finishing. Also we recycled the boxes it came in, so we like to hope we didn't impact the environment too much, except for the old carpet.

Q: Is it louder in your house?
A: Yes. We are relearning a new level of volume to speak and call to each other at. No big deal to us, but if you are worried, maybe it's not for you.

Q:Won't it be cold?
A: Maybe. It is the end of spring here now. We are having an above 90 degree day today. I have to say it feels fabulous under my hot feet. I love it. In the cold Colorado winter we will just have to have our slippers on all the time. I don't think it's gonna be too bad, really. By then we should hopefully have an area rug in the living room as well. That will help.

Q: Aren't you done yet???
A: Sorry, no. We ordered some boards which are special stair nosings. When they finally arrive we will rip up the stair case and redo it also. We plan on having the treads, (the part you step on) be the same bamboo, and the risers be white. We will also be removing the banister and painting it white. These speciall stair nosing boards are, literally, on a slow boat from China. We might have to wait a couple of more weeks. We also ordered some custom made vent covers. They will sit right down into the furnace vent openings and be flush with the floor. We are still waiting on them as well. We had to leave a space where they go, because we weren't sure the measurements we were given by Lumber Liquidators are correct. Some of the other measurements they gave us were not accurate at all. Once we have our special orders we can do the final work. Yes, it's gonna be awhile. We are mad, but there isn't anything anyone can do to get them here faster, so we are trying to just deal with it.

Q:Do the cats like it?
A: The first day they acted confused, after that they seem fine with it all. :-)

Overall, I have to say I'm very pleased. It's super fast and easy to clean. I think it's beautiful. I am very disappointed in Lumber Liquidators. If we decide to order more wood, we will not be going back to their Denver location. Ever. We will try out Longmont instead. I could complain about our experience with them for days, so I'll spare you all the gory details. If you want the cheapest price, it's the place to go. If you want customer service, honest answers, someone to answer the phone or your emails, someone who cares, then the Denver location isn't where I'd recommend. Moving on.....

We haven't dropped anything breakable on it yet. No one has fallen down and hurt themselves yet. I think if you are worried it isn't safe you would be surprised how quickly you get used to the drastic difference. We bought a lot of different sized felt pads before we even got started. As the project went along we put the pads on the bottom of all of our furniture. I am loving how easy it is to slide things around and clean and rearrange. Fabulous!! I would have to say a lot of the pessimist comments we were hearing before hand are not coming true.

Once we get the whole thing done I will post more pictures. I can't wait to paint the banister white. It will look so pretty and clean. Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

A quick share

2011-05-26T16:37:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone. I know it's been a long while since I've shared on here. There hasn't been a whole lot of time for art or craftiness around here lately. I have been taking the kids to lots of fun activities, painting and doing a million other little things. I have been trying to fit it in, but not with a whole lot of success.

I have occasionally been drawing, stamping and water coloring in a sketch book I have.

Here is a poppy I recently did.

These are the teacher cards I made for the last day of school today. The flower stamps are by Unity. The greeting is by Hero Arts. I love how water color stamping looks just like I painted that. :-)

Today I took a little time and transformed this 8 and 1/2 by 11" sheet of white cardstock. Remember shadow stamping? It was all the rage a few years ago. I used this square shadow stamp by Hero Arts and a whole lotta Distress inks. I love how it turned out.

I used a piece of it in this graduation card I made to send to my little cousin.

I will share some more soon. I hope you all are having a wonderful and safe spring. Now that my kids are out of school I hope summer weather will be on it's way. :-)

Make it and Mail it Challenge

2011-04-27T19:18:00.000-06:00

Lisa Spangler is having a great challenge over at her blog. http://sideoatsandscribbles.wumple.com/

The idea is to make a card and then mail it. What a novel idea!!

My daughters just had their First Communion and we have quite a few Thank You cards to send out. I made 6 to start with. Nothing too fancy. We need to send them in regular envelopes, so I kept it flat and quick. I stamped all the images onto watercolor paper with Tuxedo Black Momento ink. All the stamps are by Stampin Up! in these cards. I colored in the stamped images with watercolors.

The inside of each card has the same greeting stamped inside.

All I have to do next is have them sign them and then mail them out. Like I said, quick and easy. :-)

I'll post a link on Lisa's blog. If you are interested in playing along click on the link at the top of this post. She has a great blog with lots of fun cards and photos. Thanks for stopping by.

Part 2 of Inspiration and Creativity

2011-04-27T14:31:00.000-06:00

Thanks for stopping in again. I am hoping you are enjoying hearing about this topic. I am curious about what inspires others. I am hoping to spark an online conversation about Inspiration and Creativity. Here is my second video that I have filmed on this topic. Please comment or post a link if you are interested in joining in on the conversation. It doesn't matter what kind of creativity, any thoughts that are relevant are welcome.

Share this with others if you would like as well. Thanks for stopping in. Come back again soon. I love the sharing that this kind of thing can start up, so don't be shy.

Lets chat about inspiration and creativity

2011-04-26T15:01:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

Thanks for stopping by. I have filmed my first video. I have been interested in doing this for quite awhile. I'm inspired by all of the crafting videos I see out there on the Internet. I want to join in and start a conversation about inspiration and creativity. I firmly believe that anyone who wants to be, can be creative. You need a little inspiration and you need to get out there and start doing.

Watch the video to see what inspires me. Lets start a conversation about creativity and what inspires you. Leave me comments, or links to your inspiration, or items you have created. Tell me a story about creativity. Let's share and inspire each other. I will make more videos about this topic and share them here. I also plan a future post where I give you links of things that inspire me. Also other places that deal with creativity.

I don't want any comments about how you can't do it. If you haven't tried, now is the time. If you have tried, try some more and share you struggles with others. This blog is all about sharing. :-)

Thanks for stopping by. Please come by again soon and see how the talk about inspiration and creativity is going.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T09:35:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I hope you and your families are having a Blessed Easter Day. We have been so busy for the last few weeks around here. In the last week we have had a special event here. Sarah and Theresa made their First Holy Communion. I have quite a lot of trouble loading pictures to my Facebook sometimes, so this post is all about family and what we have been doing.

Here are the girls on Thursday before church.

The last First Communion class was spent making bread that we would use to take Communion on their special day. Here they are with Daddy getting a little messy.

Then they practiced how to take it and what to say.

Here they are on the big day. Sarah went from this...

to this. She was so excited. :-)

Theresa spent a whole day in little french braids. She was super excited too.

Here is a horribly taken group shot of the kids. There were about 30 in their group. It was such a blessing.

The next day we went to lunch with some special friends. I love this pic of Duane with his Godson Asher. You can see they love to play together.

Friday night we colored eggs. :-)

On Saturday I had a special surprise. I ordered a jumpy castle. Everyone in the family had so much fun. It was worth the splurge. Making so much fun and many special memories is important.

Wheeeeee!!!!!!!!!

We had super yummy cake too, of course!

Grandma E. even had a little bounce. Hee!

This morning we had our egg hunt. The Easter Bunny always fills plastic eggs with candy and surprises and hides them while we sleep. Then we have fun hunting for them. We pour all the candy into dishes and share. It's fun to find the eggs and discover the surprises inside as we are pouring the candy into the bowls.

We hope your Easter is full of joy and blessings. I will try to post again soon. We have been making some home improvements and have a lot to share.

100th Post

2011-03-25T13:13:00.000-06:00

Hello friends. I am so pleased to announce that this is my 100th post on my blog. I've been writing here for quite awhile. I know a lot of other bloggers would have reached 100 posts by now. I'm proud, none the less.

For my 100th post I created this Happy Birthday card. I will be entering it into the Hero Arts monthly contest they have at their website and on their Flickr group. I created this card using several papers from the Basic Gray Cappella 6 X 6" paper pad. I love those pads. They are a less expensive alternative and the patterns are reduced in size for smaller projects. They are perfect choices for cards.

I adhered the patterned paper that I trimmed to 4" by 5 & 1/4" to the front of the card. Then I stitched around it using my sewing machine. Next I added some ivory lace trim that I had hanging around. The butterfly was stamped twice on some Very Vanilla card stock by Stampin Up. I used Tuxedo Black ink by Mementos and then colored it in with Copic markers once the ink was dry. I punched one butterfly out with my new label punch by Stampin Up. The second one I coated with Crackle Glossy Accents and let it dry. When it was dry and super crackled up, I cut it out and layered it on top with some foam adhesive. I love adding dimension this way. :-) I layered it onto two more papers from the Basic Gray Capella collection and put the whole thing on top of the lace with more foam adhesive. Lastly I stamped my greeting on some more yummy Basic Gray and punched it out with that label shape again, turned on it's side this time. ( I am loving that punch! )

On the inside of the card I used the rest of that sheet I used to stamp and punch the greeting on the front. I stamped the butterfly along the bottom using some pale Distress Ink. I like that it looks so faded. :-)

Here is a close up of that fun and pretty crackle effect.

To top it all off I also decorated a matching envelope. I stamped some more of the butterflies and then inked up a small stamping block to make a rectangle for the name of the recipient. I added a small amount of Distress Ink around the outer edge to frame it all off. I love stamping on the envelope too. It really gives the recipient a teaser as to what is inside the envelope.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my 100th post. I hope there will be many more to come.

I'm inspired by a Citrus Celebration

2011-03-22T14:31:00.001-06:00

I haven't participated in the Tuesday Trigger challenge in quite awhile. When I saw today's post I knew I had to give it a whirl. I love the bright, mouth watering colors they have chosen. Here is my take:

Here is the trigger from the Moxie Fab blog:

Here is a link if you want to play along too: http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2011/03/tuesday-trigger-citrus-celebration.html

I used a ribbon with some extra colors that fit the spectrum.

As soon as I saw the picture I knew I had to use these Doodlebug flowers.

I've had them tucked away for some time.

The inside I left plain so that I can add a message for the recipient later.

I needed a little inspiration for the sketch. I wanted to keep it simple just like the inspiration picture. I used this sketch from page 144 of the Paper Crafts Go To Sketches idea book. I love how simple and fun it turned out.

The Celebrate stamp, orange card stock, daisy punch, and ink are all by Stampin Up. The border punch is by Fiskars. The green paper trim, green and white flowers and yellow button are all by Doodle Bug Designs. The dotted ribbon is by KI Memories. The green gems are old.

I know I got them at Archiver's ages ago.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at what I've been up to.

I feel so much better!

2011-03-15T10:54:00.000-06:00

Hi all. I know I promised more blogging, but as always, life got in the way. My husband is attempting to fix his pickup truck for the second time in two months, and all sorts of other craziness. I haven't stamped, or crafted or anything. I will attempt to do so today. I don't know if it will really happen or not, but I will attempt.

I just wanted to share a cute story in the mean time. We unfortunately had to go to a funeral for my husband's grandmother last month. We drove ourselves and another family member up and spent 4 days there. Theresa had been messing around with a loose tooth that she had for quite a few weeks. On the way up she kept showing me how loose it was getting. She could use her tongue to bend the thing completely sideways. She was always wanting to show me when her mouth was full of food. (Nice!) So it of course gave me shivers up my back. Eeewww!

The day of the funeral we were sitting in church and she starts telling me, kinda loudly, that it is driving her crazy. Now, our kids have been going to church all their lives. She knows to be quiet and only tell me important stuff if we are supposed to be praying. So I tell her in a whisper, that isn't an emergency and that I will look at it after we are out of church. I also reminded her we need to be quiet and use our "church voices". She nodded and then 30 seconds later tapped me on the arm. (I'm thinking, "What did I just say?") I look down and she hands me her tooth. She smiled and whispered, "I feel so much better." I immediately went for the tissues, which were already on hand from all the crying. All I could think was that she was just about to bleed everywhere. I stuck the tissue in the hole and we barely got a visible dot of blood on it. She was fine.

She wanted to tell her Daddy about it immediately. He was sitting in the row in front of us, acting as paul bearer, and at the other end of the row. She had to wait. She couldn't. Everyone who was near she was showing her hole and whispering that she lost her tooth. After the service she couldn't whisper any more. She was squealing about it as soon as we got outside. I think she did get a couple of people to smile.

I have to admit at this point in the story that I have started a silly tradition when it comes to the tooth fairy. We always leave a golden dollar coin for the tooth. We weren't expecting her to loose the tooth and we were so sad when we left town anyway. I kind of asked around and a few others started to ask around too. We weren't able to locate a coin, but we had a paper dollar. I decided to try to clue her in a little that we might save the tooth till we got home. The tooth fairy might not know where we were. We also didn't have the "magic" tooth pillow we use. She insisted that the tooth fairy would find her. So we had to leave her the paper dollar. She put the tooth on the dresser in the hotel room and then went to bed. I was relieved that the tooth was not under a pillow, so that we could find it easily

In the night I switched the tooth and the dollar and then I crawled back to bed. I didn't notice that my husband had his money and wallet just near the tooth. The next morning he got up and jumped in the shower and on his way noticed the dollar out of place. He thought someone took it out of his wallet and put it in a crazy spot. He snagged it an put it in his wallet. When he went into the bathroom I sat up and noticed that the dollar was gone. Now I knew right away what happened, because the kids weren't up yet. We could see the spot right as soon as we looked around so I jumped out of bed to try and fix it. I was so hoping that she didn't notice as I was taking the dollar back and sneaking it to where I had it the night before. I tried to cover up what I was doing by fiddling with several things on the dresser. Then I walked away and knocked on the bathroom door. My husband must have been tired and thought one of the kids was bugging him. I had to break in on him and explain in a whisper what I had done.

When I came out Theresa had the dollar in her hand and was so excited. She said, "See! The tooth fairy knew just where to find me." I was so glad she was happy too. We had just spent the previous couple of weeks being so worried about our van that needed some really expensive repairs, my husband's grandmother being so sick and then passing away, getting to Montana in some really icky weather and so many other things. Life just keep throwing stuff our way. We just keep trying to pass the ball and keep it in the air. I might not have much time lately for the fun stuff, but at least we are healthy and still have a roof over our heads. Especially with all the troubles in Japan this week, I know we have so much to be thankful for.

Love and peace to all of you.

How long has it been?

2011-03-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

It has bee quite awhile since I had time to blog. Life is becoming so busy around here. We had a crazy February. A little bit of good, and a little bit of not so good. Right now I'm fighting off the tail end of an ugly sinus infection. I am going to try to blog more from now on though.

I added three new items to my Etsy shop today. You can get there by clicking on the pictures you see to the right of this post, over on the side bar. I will be adding more soon as well.

I haven't been successful with the Etsy shop so far. I have only ever had one order. I will keep trying. So many people keep telling me I should be selling what I make. If there is something you think I should add or that you would like to see me make please leave me a comment or convo me in Etsy. I would love some advice or suggestions.

For now I will sign off. It is an icy and snowy night here in Colorado. I'm off to fold laundry and try to keep warm. (Glamourous, I know!)

Thanks for stopping by.

A little sunshine

2011-01-25T10:06:00.001-07:00

Hi all! I hope you are all having a great day. We have had sunshine in the past few days. It inspired me to make this happy colored Happy Birthday card. I was also inspired by some of the cards in the Hero Arts Catalog. http://www.heroarts.com/products/2011Catalog.cfm Page 21 to be exact. :-)

I used my Silhouette to cut out the sunburst shape out of the dark yellow color. I put some sky and cloud patterned paper I have behind and it really started to take shape from there. I had an old sun shaped button in my button collection. I cut off the shank and adhered it with some mini glue dots. I stamped the grass and house with black Momentos ink and then colored everything in with my Copics. Before I adhered the house down I added some cotton from a cotton ball to the chimney and then put some foam adhesive behind the top of the house. The bottom and the grass are glued flat with some Quicky Glue. I stamped the bird separately and adhered it with some foam adhesive so it would be perched on the roof.

I stamped a few birds inside too. They are so stinkin cute I couldn't resist. All of the stamps are Hero Arts. I hope it will brighten some one's birthday. :-)

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek. Have a great day.

A Happy birthday with Gray

2011-01-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all! I hope you all are planning something fun for this weekend. I'm sure glad it's Friday.

I will be the first to admit I don't always use trendy colors in my cards and scrapbook pages. I saw a challenge on the Moxie Fab World website and decided it was time I put a little gray in my life. :-) Also this weeks Tuesday Trigger uses gray and brown. Here is the trigger.

And here is a link to the challenge for using gray in a card: http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2011/01/gray-is-new-black-challenge.html

And here is my card. I love the softness and calmness of it all. The Basic Grey patterned paper I chose to use has a little baby blue in it too, so I added some of that in on the label that the sentiment is stamped on.

The body of the card is gray card stock by Bazzil Basics. I don't know the shade. The patterned paper is from the Cappella 6 X 6 paper pad that Basic Grey did awhile back. The gray and white pearls are also by Basic Grey. The yellow, chocolate brown and baby blue are all scraps that I had the magically coordinated with the patterned paper. I cut the label shapes with my Silhouette digital cutter. I had some doilies left over and this piece of naked chipboard laying in my drawer. The flourish stamp and the greeting are by Inkadinkado. I stamped the greeting in Walnut Stain and the flourish in Pumice Stone Distress Inks. I feel light and airy when I look at it. :-) I think I need more gray in my life.

I took a few more pictures of my Amaryllis. It is blooming now. I am always in awe of how tall these get. It stands up so straight with no support. It is so proud and graceful.

The blooms are huge. I love to look at it. The only drawback is the pollen it is dropping all over the dining room table.

Thanks for dropping by and taking a peek at what is going on here. I hope you all have a great weekend.

My Christmas gift...

2011-01-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

When I told people what I got for Christmas I got quite a few questioning looks. I don't think many knew what it was, or what it is for. I got a pop up photo booth for photographing smaller items. I thought I would show you. Here is a picture of the whole thing popped up and lit with the lights. It is a 30" by 30" cube. The translucent fabric lights up the entire item you are photographing. I wanted to try it with an Amarillis flower I've been growing since November.

I don't expect to be taking pictures of too many tall items like this flower, but it was a good beginning. I don't like that you can see the seams behind the flower pot, but it is very well lit.

I am very pleased with how it is working out. I have lots of great ideas on how to use it. Let me know what you think. I have an Olympus FE-280, 8.0 megapixel, point and shoot camera. It isn't great, but I feel like this tool will help my camera maximize it's potential. Leave me lots of comments if you have one too. I can't wait to learn some new ways to use it. :-)

Another Tuesday Trigger

2011-01-09T17:36:00.001-07:00

Hello friends. Here is my first card of the year. What? It's almost 10 days into the year and you hadn't made a card, Jess? That is right people. I've been cleaning my crafty space and did a little scrap booking. I thought I'd start the year off right though.

Just look at this week's trigger. Wow! What a masterpiece that cake is. Incredible.

My fabulous husband bought me a collapsible photo booth for Christmas. I hope the quality of my photos improves. Here is my take on the trigger. I used cream colored SU card stock and stamped and then heat embossed with white pigment ink and powder. It is so hard to get a good picture. The greeting says "Best Wishes". All of the stamps used are by Stampin Up. After I stamped and heat embossed the card and the flowers and stems on it. I did a few extra on a scrap piece of cream card stock. I then cut out the extras and adhered them with foam adhesive.

I knew it needed my favorite kind of gems...Pearls!!

I am pleased that the dimension and soft look turned out just the way I wanted. I am sorry it's so hard to see the greeting. Enjoy! Thanks for stopping by and I hope every one's year is going well so far. :-)

Merry and Bright

2011-01-01T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures that were taken in the last week or so. Enjoy seeing the Merry and Bright faces that we all have had. The last photo was sent out in our Christmas card. Happy New year and many blessings from our family.

Last minute Christmas suprises

2010-12-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I am making some last minute surprises for friends and family. Are you all ready to celebrate the season? I still have some cookies, and cinnamon rolls to make. I also wanted to make a few card sets to give away.

I have made a few pieces of jewelry this year. Some of the things I have made I didn't photograph, because I know the receivers read my blog. (Hee Hee!) Here are a few extras that I came up with and wanted to share. I am not so sure this first one will stay the way it is. I might take it apart and start over. I liked all the fun colors though.

This red one turned out just the way I wanted though. I like everything about it. I don't make a lot of jewelry, but this was a fun little jaunt into something different after making a ton of Christmas cards.

If I have time I might pop back in to show the card sets I make. If not, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our little family. Here is a picture I took just the other day of my little elves. Blessings and Joy to you all!

New Hero Arts Stamps

2010-12-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love my husband. He let me get some of the brand new Hero Arts stamps as a Christmas gift. Our niece just got engaged. I made this for her and her groom. She loves pink.

I used the new CL488 Congrats clear 4X 6 set. I love those labels. I will be getting a lot of use out of this one. I also used the CG244 Large Fabric Design Background stamp. Oh, how I love background stamps. They are so versatile. To make the card I first did a second generation stamping of the background onto the front of the card. Then I stamped the label in black Momento ink onto a scrap of white card stock. I cut it out, omitting the flourishy parts. I knew I couldn't cut those out , so I just cut them off. Then I stamped the greeting on in pink. I layered the greeting and label onto some more scraps. I added some old Making Memories flower petals I had and made a big blossom. I added some Rock Candy Stickels from Ranger to the flower and some dots to the card. Then I sprinkled on some gems and pearls. Bling!

Can you see the shine and sparkle? She is so girly, I hope she will enjoy this one. Below is a quick pic I took last night of the sets I got. I can't wait to play some more. I think some teacher gifts will be made from these this afternoon. Thanks so much for looking. I hope all of you are having a great holiday season.

Oh my goodness!!!

2010-12-02T10:28:00.003-07:00

I can't belive it. I hope you all will stop by and take a peek. Just click on the link to my shop to the right. It was my gingerbread man cards. :-)

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

2010-12-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

So have you seen all the wonderful blogs and websites getting all dressed up for the holidays? I love Becky Higgins, so I really enjoyed her post yesterday at her blog here: http://www.beckyhiggins.com/blog/
She is posting a little inspiring, holiday themed video each day. I loved the free download from yesterday's post and new I had to print it out and use it somehow. I have had this sitting in between my children's photos on top of our desk for a couple of months now. (Yes that is one of Becky's free fonts.) I put this in the frame each autumn.

See?

Well I printed Becky's print and decided I would use all of this fun stuff to put it in the frame and save that other print I made for next autumn again.

I couldn't resist these new Doodlebug buttons. So yummy. They look like candy. Here is the finished product on the desk. I will of course dress up that area a little more once I get out the Christmas ornaments for the tree, and the rest of the house.

I love that it is so graphic and simple.

Also I have a couple of new items in my Etsy shop. (I promised that I would add some more this week.) Remember that if you live near by I will hand deliver to you. No need to send it in the mail if I run into you all the time.

If you are clicking around on the Internet here are some more amazing places to get some inspiration this holiday season:
http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/

http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/

http://aliedwards.com/blog

http://hedgehogsandladybirds.blogspot.com/

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/

Enjoy and have a happy, and crafty holiday

90 Minute Scramble

2010-11-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I've been away so long. I've missed blogging. Life here has been super busy. We celebrated a few birthdays, Thanksgiving and have had lots of other things going on to keep us moving.

This morning I logged into the Hero Arts Flickr group that I'm a member of and found out they were having a 90 minute challenge. I was so excited because I actually had some time to participate. The challenges start and are timed. You have 90 minutes to create a card that fits the criteria. Today's challenge was to make a 1 layer card. Here is what I made.

I stamped the tree and the greeting onto a vanilla colored card, using Forest Moss Distress Ink. Then I masked off the rest of the card except for the tree, using Post It notes. With just the tree exposed I inked it using Crushed Olive and Forest Moss Distress Inks. Next I colored in the pot the tree is in using Fired Brick Distress Ink and a blender pen. Then I heated up what I had stamped with a heat gun to dry it. Next I made 2 masks with more Post It notes. One for the tree and one for the greeting. When they were covered up I inked the Music background stamp with Antique Linen ink and stamped over the whole card. Then I used more of the Antique Linen and then some Tea Dye Distress Inks to ink up the outer edges of the card. I again heated up the whole card to speed dry the inks. Last I used Versa Mark ink and gold embossing powder to stamp the gold star to the top of the tree. I used a Versa Marker to add gold embossing powder to the dots, in between the words of the greeting. (See the photo below.) I added some gold cord to the edge of the card last.

It turned out looking so soft. I love it. I might add some gems to the tree as ornaments. I can't decide.

You may have noticed a new addition to my blog. I have re-opened my Etsy shop for the holiday season. I don't have many items in it yet, but please stop by often to see what is new. I hope you will find that everything is very reasonably priced. To get to the shop just click on the picks to the right and the link will take you there. Below is a sneak peek of what you will find.

I hope you and yours are having a great holiday season so far. Thanks for stopping by.

Oh, how I love my Silhouette machine

2010-11-05T15:22:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone. I normally help in the classrooms at my children's school on Fridays. Today, no one needed my help so, I came home and decided to indulge in making a scrapbook page. I had the pictures already printed, and really wanted to take the time to do this.

I was super inspired by this blog post by Sari Carroll. She showed the same technique on her blog on Monday. http://shari-design.blogspot.com/2010/11/inked-and-stamped-shapes.html The first step was to cut some shapes with my Silhouette digital cutter and then color them with ink to look like they were patterned paper. I cut out the Leafy Sprig shape by Hero Arts from the Silhouette store. The font I used to cut out the title is Bernard MT Condensed. I also cut out a tab that I put the date on. As you can see below after the shapes were cut I started to ink them up.

I used the inks pictured below. As you can see it gave each shape and letter a lot of color that I blended together using the Ranger ink blending tool.

After this was done I used my Hero Arts Wood grain design block stamp. I added a subtle wood grain to all the shapes and letters using Old Paper Distress ink.

I find it so challenging to photograph a scrapbook page. It's much bigger than a card. You loose a lot of detail in the photo. Here are some pics of different areas of the final project.

I love the Leafy Sprig shape. I had to add some buttons. :-) The other stamps I used and the patterned paper were all by Basic Grey. I used the Basic Notes set and the To Dos set. They are both from the Basics line. The patterned papers are from the Green at Heart line.

I love how the letters I cut out turned out. They really pop off of that dark brown card stock.

Here is the whole page. My daughter Theresa figured out how to climb the backyard tree. In the lower pic. you can see that she was joined by one of our cats. She loves doing this. The only problem is climbing back down. :-) I hope you are having a great autumn too.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to comment. They always make my day. I love links to all of your blogs too.

A taste of Christmas

2010-11-02T13:09:00.007-06:00

Hello friends.

Here is a little taste of what I have been up to the past couple of days. The card below is one that I created using Hero Arts stamps for the Caardvarks challenge. The challenge was to create a holiday card and decorate the inside of the card as well. I decided to decorate the matching envelope too.
Here is just the card. I had fun stamping and then inking it up with Distress Inks by ranger. The polka dot background was done with clear Versa Mark ink and heat embossing it with clear embossing powder by Ranger.

Here is the inside of the card. I stamped it with Tea Stain Distress ink. I wanted it to be simple.

The next couple of photos are some items I will be putting into my Etsy shop. I decided to re-open it for the Holiday season. I will have a variety of items for the holidays listed in the next few days. Here are some gift tags that I made using my Silhouette, stamps, paper, and some lovely Hero Arts felt flowers.

Here is a simple Christmas card. I think I will have these in packs of 5 or so. There is more to come, so please check back soon.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope all of you are having fun creating something for Holiday gifts too. :-)

New Stamps

2010-11-01T08:19:00.003-06:00

Hi all!

I know I haven't posted in awhile. It has been super busy around here. Last week was absolutely crazy. This week should be a little slower.

A friend of my husband sent over a box of old stamps and inks that she no longer uses. So of course I made her a cute "Thank You" card using the stamps, right away. I had always wanted this set by Stampin Up, but never bought it for myself. I was tickled when I saw it was in the box of goodies.
I colored the cute dragon fly with Copic markers and then highlighted her with a Stardust pen. Don't you just love the Stardust pens by Sakura? LOVE! Just a little bit of glitter, right where you want it, is wonderful. No mess, just shimmer.

I will be making lots more fun things this week. I'll be posting and sharing some more soon.

Have a great Monday!

Button Necklace

2010-10-21T13:36:00.006-06:00

I know it's late in coming, but I finished it. Yes. Your birthday present is fixed.
Who? You know who you are. I'm wearing it in this picture. Yeah, my teeth are blurry.
Here is the brown side.

Here is the black side.

Here is a close up of it's buttoness.

Yeah, I know that isn't a real word. I like it anyway.

See you Saturday. I'll have your necklace with me.

Anyone else in cyberland like to make these? If you love and hoard buttons like me you probably have a lot of the necessary supplies all ready.

Tuesday Trigger and Sweet 16

2010-10-17T21:16:00.007-06:00

Hello! I'm so inspired by this week's Tuesday Trigger. Here is the gorgeous photo, below.
Here is my creation....

I love the damask wallpaper in the Trigger photo. I dry embossed a piece of teal card stock with a beautiful Cuttlebug embossing folder that I have with a similar design. I then inked the design with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I did it direct to paper over the whole design and also around the edges with a distress ink applicator. I love the depth.

I stamped the frame onto white card stock with Versa Mark ink and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder by Stampin Up. The stamp is from the Basic Notes stamp set by Basic Grey.I hand wrote the greeting and then cut it out and matted it on some pink card stock that I had a scrap of. I tied some white embroidery floss onto the teal background and then sewed the whole thing onto the Kraft card. I added the greeting, Prima flowers and then gems. I hope my sweet niece loves her sweet card. :-)

Thanks for looking. To see all the other cards inspired by this Trigger photo stop by the Moxie Fab World Blog.

http://www.moxiefabworld.com/

A new Christmas card

2010-10-13T16:50:00.008-06:00

Here is a little peek at a new Christmas card that I made. I used a new technique that I learned from the Holiday Thinking Inking classes over at Two Peas in a Bucket. Jennifer McGuire used an acrilic stamping block as a background stamp. I just had to give it a try too.

It's very hard to see, but I used Pearl colored glimmer mist to add some shimmer to the card. Here is a close up of the embossing, shimmer and embellies.

Thanks so much for looking. I hope all of you crafters out there are making a little something for Christmas too. :-)

Wheee! Edward is three

2010-10-11T09:20:00.004-06:00

Edward turned three last week. Our nephew is getting so big. He is in constant motion as you can see in this photo.
He is all about Thomas the Tank Engine right now. Here is his cake. We celebrated at our house on Saturday with my brother's family and my sister. (The cake is ancient history, by the way. Hee Hee) We put up a few streamers in the dining room. When he came in he kept pointing and saying "Happy Birthday".

All day we heard nothing but, "Choo Choo" and "Thomas". Seriously. He loves him some Thomas . Marie got him a shake and go Thomas train. You shake it and let it go on the floor. It then takes off and goes pretty far, all by itself. Oh, my! It was a huge hit. Here he is after he took it out of the bag. He was saying "Thomas" at the top of his lungs as this photo was being taken. Like 100 times.

We all had a nice visit and had a great time.

Happy Bithday Edward!

Distressed title for a scrapbook page

2010-10-07T13:44:00.023-06:00

I was very inspired by the first addition of Jennifer McGuire's Holiday Thinking Inking class at 2 Peas n a Bucket. The first challenge was to create something with Distress inks by Ranger. I have been trying to get work done on my daughters' school albums. I decided to make a title for the first page of their Kindergarten pages. I am making each girl their own album, so each page I make for this album, I have to make 2 of. So you will notice that I do the inking and then cut the paper in half. This is so I can use each piece for each girl's book.
I had a large scrap of plain white card stock. I am using all primary colors in these albums, so I decided to make a rainbow for the title page. I inked the colors with a Tim Holtz ink applicator. I applied them in stripes down the paper, blending them together as I went.

I used the colors: Fired Brick, Wild Honey, Scattered Straw, Peeled Paint & Stormy Sky. See them below.

After I had the colors applied to the paper I worked quickly. Distress inks stay wet longer, and they react with water. So I used this spray bottle....

and spritzed the inked paper with water. I held it close as I worked because I wanted big splotches and puddles. I wanted the ink to show it had been sprayed.

Can you see the way it looks splotchy here?

Next I cut it in half the long way.

You can see that this left a white edge. I don't want three colored edges and one white one, so I decided to ink all four edges with Pumice Stone Distress Ink.

I also wanted to do this so that the tone of the paper I colored myself is similar to the patterned paper seen here. I am also going to be using the patterned paper on the page. As you can see it has some bright colors, but also some dark areas where the crayons are piled on top of each other. (Boy is that patterned paper old! Anyone recognize it?)

I inked up using the blending tool again. I would usually do ink direct to paper, but I wanted a soft look and not too much ink applied.

Next I created a border that will go between the Disrtess Inked paper and the patterned paper. They will look too similar if I put them on the page next to each other with nothing separating them. I created the border using this punch I have by Stampin Up. It is perfect for a school page.

Here are all the elements, roughly where they will be, when the page is done.

I have the chipboard letters to spell out the grade she was in, but I wanted to say "All day" also. I have this old stamp set from Stampin Up. It was made to use with the punches pictured. You stamp the letters and then you can punch out the letters with either a circle or square. It is so much cheaper than stickers, :-) and use any colors you want.

Next I wanted to add a date to the title. I had these old cork stickers and a date stamp. Perfect! So schoolish.

I'll admit that at this point I thought I was done. I had the title glued down and the date sticker added. I ate lunch and kept thinking about it. The I remembered the clock stamps. I had added the stamped and punched out letters saying "All Day" and the clock just seemed to go along with that idea. I stamped the clock and the hands separately with this Heidi Swapp stamp set.

I used more of the Stormy Sky ink.

Last....Bling. Just a little. I want these pages to be pretty simple.

So here is the final page. There is Miss Sarah with no front teeth. Perfect.

I'm using a variety of shapes, sizes and styles of We R Memory Keepers page protectors in the school albums. This way I can add art work, report cards, other ephemera, and pictures in all the pockets and spend less time on what I'm creating. With the school albums that is perfect for me. :-)

More Clean and Simple-With Crackle!

2010-09-25T11:55:00.005-06:00

Here is another clean and simple entry for the Caardvarks challenge. I feel like it's lacking something, but can't put my finger on it. I tried some ribbon and string, but neither looked right. So here it is...
I embossed another scalloped circle with my Quickutz embossing folder. Then I stamped the Hero Arts, Scroll Tree stamp using Versa Mark ink and Classy Copper embossing powder from Stampin Up. It turned out so smooth and perfect. I love it when that happens. I had some paper left that I had smeared and blended with Twinkling H2O's. I punched the leaves out with an EK Success punch that I have and adhered them with glue dots. Then I used a paper piercer, with an old mouse pad underneath my project, and pierced the holes to indicate the trail that the leaves are taking in the wind. I stamped the greeting with some Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink by Ranger. Last I coated the leaves with Crackle Glossy Accents. Letting it dry and not messing with it is so hard. :-)

Here is a close up of the leaves. You can see the crackle, but not the shimmer of the Twinkling H2O's. It is so pretty in person. The leaves shimmer under that crackle medium. It is so pretty. The crackle kind of like the veins in a real leaf.

What do you think? Does it need something else? Maybe a shadow under the tree to ground it? I can't figure it out. Thanks for looking.

:-) Have a great weekend.

Caardvarks challenge: Clean and Simple

2010-09-23T15:01:00.009-06:00

The Caardvarks are having their second challenge for the month of September. This challenge is sponsored by Hero Arts and the theme is clean and simple cards.

When I started to think of what I wanted my card to look like, I immediately thought of this embossing folder by Quickutz. It is so simple to emboss the card stock and then add whatever pretty image you want to emphasize to the center. I chose this image from the Dolls clear stamp set and decided to make her look Christmassy.
I colored her in with Copic markers and then added a little bit of green glitter to the flowers on her tummy. The photos are kind of bad, but I think you get the idea.

I cut out the sentiment using the Chemistry font by Quickutz and my Cuttlebug machine. It is a very clean and simple font.

I know the paper looks gray, but it is all done in white. It's impossible to see in this photo, but I even gave her pink cheeks. I love how I can blend with the Copic markers. :-)

Thanks for looking everyone. Have a great day.

Re-do

2010-09-23T14:50:00.003-06:00

Okay!

Round two. I picked off the ruined leaf and put on a paper one. It is painted with Twinkling H2O's and then punched out into the leaf shape. I crumpled it up and added a tiny bit of brown ink around the edge. Then I added the string, buttons and the sentiment.

It's pretty much the same, but I put the new leaf on. I couldn't waste the card, so I had to fix it.

Thanks for looking. :-).

Another idea...

2010-09-20T14:11:00.004-06:00

** Update**
The leaf shriveled and crumbeled by the next day. I was wondering if it would work on a pressed leaf? Or maybe if you coated the whole leaf in Glossy Accents or clear embossing powder? I might try it. I suspect heating up the embossing powder wouldn't be good for the leaf though. Oh, well. Sometimes an experiment doesn't work. You just keep on trying new stuff.

Howdy friends!

I had another card idea that I just had to try. I wondered if I could stamp on a leaf. A real leaf from my tree out front. I gave it a try and this is what I came up with.
I created the background by stamping the Flourish Background, cling stamp, by Hero Arts on several different scraps. I stamped with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with Ranger clear embossing powder. I love how it turned out. Next I picked a leaf and chose a sentiment from the clear, Messages, stamp set by Hero Arts. I inked it up with Brown Stayzon ink and stamped it on the center leaf in the cluster. I let it dry while I assembled the rest of the card. I used an ivory colored scrap for the top border and layered the multicolored background pieces on top. Then I put my piece of lace through my Xyron sticker maker and adhered it to the bottom of the card. I added the leaf with some glue dots and embellished with some twine, pearls and a button.

My sister got a new camera and let me give it a try. It came out pretty close to how I had imagined it. Will you be giving this a try? If so leave me a comment and a link to your project. I would love to see what you come up with. Thanks for looking.

Update... and a card

2010-09-19T18:09:00.006-06:00

Hello everyone. I hope you are all doing well. After 10 months of dealing with a yucky "issue" I had surgery this past Wednesday. I am doing very well. I hope this continues, and that in a few weeks it will all be a memory. I am eager to get back to exercising and keeping up with the kids. I am also eager to getting the house back to the way it used to be. Clean and organized would be a wonderful way to start the holidays. For now I'm just trying to rest and glance over all the messy spots. :-) My wonderful husband has been taking good care of me and everything else. We will hopefully be getting our groove back on in a few weeks and I hope to be sneaking in some crafting till then. It doesn't involve heavy lifting or anything else strenuous. Right?

I was so inspired by a card that Jennifer McGuire posted this past week. I just had to give it a whirl. The Hero Arts blog partnered with the Creative Imaginations blog and were featuring Hero arts stamps and Twinkling H2O paints. Here is a link to her card that inspired me. I loved the shimmering leaf that has the sentiment stamped on it. I haven't broken out my Twinkling H2O paints in a long time, so this was something I was itching to try when I got home from the hospital.

I had the background sitting around for more than a week. I created the background by inking up some white card stock with some Distress Inks by Ranger in Fired Brick and Scattered Straw. Then I stamped the Wood grain background stamp on top with some of the Scattered Straw ink. While all of this was still wet, I spritzed the Tree with water and stamped it on top. I left the stamp down for a little longer than normal to let the water get soaked in. When I peeled it up I let it dry for awhile. When the ink dries, the image that is stamped with water has bled and the ink sort of moves away. It looks so pretty.

To create the leaf I took a scrap of white card stock and water colored it with a bunch of the twinkling H2O colors. When it was all dry I punched it out with a leaf shaped punch I have by EK Success. I stamped the greeting on the leaf with some brown Stayzon Ink. Last I matted the tree background piece on some dark brown card stock and added the ribbon and string. I pop dotted the leaf on and added my buttons. The body of the card is a craft card I have that has a matching envelope. I can't wait to send this to someone special who has an upcoming birthday.

Here is a close up of the leaf and background. The wood grain stamp is really subtle there along with the tree image. I can't wait to enjoy the beauty of autumn. Here in Colorado it is a wonderful time of year. I hope I will be able to blog some of the fun soon.

The computer is up and running.

2010-08-31T09:51:00.006-06:00

Hello everyone. Our computer was out of commission for 5 days. We were really missing it. Here are some things that I have been taking pics of and doing.

On Saturday my husband was mowing the lawn and noticed our cat playing with something. Again. (He catches stuff all the time.) Here is who he was playing with.

These pics make him look like he is about to attack our garden shed and continue destroying the town. I took these with the macro setting, so he is kinda big, but not cheesy sci-fi movie big.

His green eyes are kinda freaky. We put him in the tree afterwards. We don't want the cats eating him for a snack.

I started on my daughters' school albums. I took pics of the cover pages, but not the rest of the pages I have completed yet. I will share those soon. I am excited to be getting going on these. They bring home so much paperwork. I will be nice to have the important parts tucked away. Plus, they LOVE looking at albums about themselves. :-)

I made this card last Thursday, and then the computer died. I wanted to sneak in one last entry to the Hero Arts contest for August. Oh, well. Here it is 5 days late. I have been very inspired by lots of patterned papers I'm seeing out there. Wood grain is popular, but with some unexpected colors. I stamped this one on a pink card and heat embossed the wood grain with clear embossing powder. Then I inked it up with a distressing tool and added more yellow, and two shades of pink to the background.

I stamped the greeting on a piece of white card stock and added it to the chipboard banner shape. Once the glue was dry I sanded around the shape to clean up the edges. I spritzed the flowers with glimmer mist. I love that I can color white flowers to whatever color I want this way. Last step was some HA gems.

The whole thing just shines.

Hope your last few weeks of summer are going well. I have a headcold. It's on it's way out though. :-)

Thanks for looking.

One more tag for the challenge

2010-08-19T13:18:00.026-06:00

Hello friends. I have made one more tag for the Caardvarks challenge. I am loving this Christmas stuff. It's all the fun of Christmas and winter, but it isn't the holidays yet. I can create while under no stress to be shopping, baking, decorating, or driving in the snow. Yay!

Here is my next tag. I wanted to use a house stamp, then dress it up a little to make it Christmasy.
Here are the initial supplies that I pulled out to use. I chose this particular house because I could make the roof brown to match the rest of the house. I also pulled out some Liquid Applique. This always looks like winter to me.

I inked up the stamp with black Memento ink. This works really well with markers, especially Copics. They won't bleed.

I stamped it on the tag....

and then heated it up a little to set the ink.

Then I dumped out all of my Copics and tried to decide what colors to use. I knew I wanted the house to be tan, but the rest I wasn't sure of.

I decided on these colors.

I colored it up. I paid some attention to shading a little around the door, windows, and roof. I added a little puddle of gray under the house to anchor the image.

Next I pulled out Antique Linen and Old Olive distress inks. I inked up all of the empty white space on the tag. First the Linen all over and the Olive just at the edges.

Now it looks like a cute tag, with a house on it. It needs some Christmas spirit. I pulled out this Hero Arts Christmas sayings stamp set. I decided on just simple old "merry Christmas".

Next it's time for the liquid applique. I love how if you add glitter, when it's wet, it looks just like snow.

I carefully applied the applique. I wanted it to look like it was dripping off of the roof a bit. Then I set it in my tidy tray.

Then I sprinkled on some magic and let it dry for a few minutes.

When I couldn't wait any more I heated it all up with my heat gun. Now I know that the bottle of Liquid Applique says to let it dry over night. I have done this lots of times and taught classes where we use this product as well. I find it's fine to let it dry for just a few minutes and then heat. Just don't go picking at it, or setting something on top.

Here is my snowy house. I decided to use a clear Stardust pen to add some shimmer. I colored just some small areas on the windows and at the bottom of the house where the snow is piled up. I wanted it to look frosty.

Can you see the shimmer? I love that pen.

Last I added some Christmas ribbon to the top. It's all ready to be put on a package. Just a final note. I didn't photograph this part. Since Copic markers soak through the cardstock, I added a plain white tag to the back side. I just used some tape runner to glue it on. Now I can write on the back of the tag.

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for looking.

Challenges

2010-08-18T17:06:00.007-06:00

I'm hoping, now that the kids are back to school, I can participate in some on-line challenges. I find that they make me think outside the box and offer some fun. I am getting started with a Caardvarks challenge. The challenge is to make a tag or mini card for the Christmas/Holiday season. I know I will be making some home made treats this year, so I started with a tag that I can put on something yummy and give to some friends or family.
I stamped the snowflakes with an old Stampin Up set that I have, using Stayzon white ink. This ink resists the Distress ink by Ranger. I inked the background with Broken China and Stormy Sky Distress inks. Then I stamped the flourish and the small snowflakes with Broken China ink directly over the background. Next I stamped the "From our home to your home" saying in black Archival ink by Ranger. Lastly I highlighted the snowflakes with a Stardust pen by Sakura and some clear gems.

Can you see some shimmer?

On the back I kept it simple and just stamped "To and From" in the same black ink. I added two colors of ribbon for more interest and just cuz I love ribbon. :-)

I know it's a little early for Christmas, but if you start early on some small projects, you will have them on hand when the business of the holidays begins. I know each year gets more and more busy at our house.
This was a fairly quick project, but I'll be trying to make some more items for this challenge. Check back with me to see more or play along. Thanks for looking.

Big Picture Scrapbooking

2010-08-15T09:41:00.003-06:00

I'm participating in a free class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I'll be posting my creations in their gallery and over at my Flickr account. If you want more info. please click on the link over to the right. If you want to participate, it's free, sign up and play along. :-)

Lots to share

2010-07-30T17:38:00.006-06:00

Hello everyone. There is so much to share. We have had a busy and exciting month of July. We went lots of places and saw lots of faces.

At the beginning of July we took a 9 day trip to California. We attended a family reunion, for Duane's family for 6 days. It was tons of fun. Except for some epic sunburns that Duane and I got. But that is another story. The last 3 days we went to the San Francisco area and toured around. We saw a gold mine, went to the Exploratorium, met up with an old friend of Duane's, took a boat ride under the Golden Gate Bridge, saw the Aquarium of the Bay and drove around the city a little in our rental car. It is a beautiful city. The bad part was on day 8 our camera got lost/stolen. We aren't sure which. It is pictured below in this cool photo. We were inside a mirror kaleidoscope at the Exploratorium. Duane had the old camera and I had the new one that got lost. So almost all of our photos are gone. We are still sad, but at least everyone got home safe and healthy.
Some other things that have been going on are that Sarah learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Hooray! She is super proud of herself.

We went to Casa Bonita! I don't have any pics of this that turned out OK. It is kinda dark in that place. If you aren't from around here, or haven't seen that South Park episode you might not know what it is. It is a Mexican restaurant in Denver. There is cliff diving, a cowboy and gorilla show, puppet show, caves, video games, and tons of other funness. The food is gross, but the place is fun. Plus we went with Pam, Kristi, Kristi's friend that I forget the name of, and two kids that Kristi babysits. So we had a blast.

We had a play date this week. The kids had tons of fun. Here they all are smashed into our little, pop up, play house. There is one kid in there that you can't see. Six in all.

We went to the pediatric Endocrinologist about the Ostiopinia that Sarah and Theresa have. He said it is very mild in both girls so we have nothing to worry about. No extra vitamins or treatments needed. Just feed them well and make sure they exercise. Well there is no shortage of any of that going on around here, so we are relieved.

Here are some fun cards I made yesterday. I had these flowers sitting around for awhile. I had stamped them on water color paper and then water colored them in. I used some pretty shades or card stock and some K & Company striped, patterned paper on the body of the cards.

Of course I had to add some pretty ribbon and gems. I like that they look so happy. Have you made anything this week? Gone on a vacation? Learned something new. It's a great summer for all of that. Hope you are enjoying yourselves too.

A Project How-To

2010-06-24T14:02:00.043-06:00

Hi everyone! Have you ever made one of these? I've been making them for years. It's so fun and easy to change the look of a composition notebook. Plus they come in all sizes and shapes so you can create a set of them if you want. I especially love the ones with graph paper inside so that you can use your decorated creation as a sketch notebook for projects. The tiny ones are great to carry around in your purse. If you would like to see how I decorated this one, please scroll down and follow along with me.

You can use so many great things to decorate these notebooks, but this time I'm sticking with card stock and patterned paper. With stamps you can change the look of plain paper in a jiffy.

My project started it's life as this little black and white number below.

I was wanting to use this stamp set that I got from Archiver's. I love that the large floral, in the label shape, matches the small floral sprig, in the upper left corner. I will use these matching stamps to create my project.

When I'm decorating one of these notebooks I like the front cover and the back cover to be the same. So I chose two sheets of green card stock in the same shade. I also chose some patterned paper, white card stock and some cute green Thickers. The ribbons I will decide on, for sure, at the end of the project. These are my top two contenders.

I'm ready to get started, so I have my small floral sprig stamp mounted on a clear block and some VersaMark ink ready to go. I want the background to match, but still be subtle. That is why I chose the water mark ink.

I want the floral sprig to cover the whole background of the front cover, so I am stamped the flowers over and over again. I'm started at the top of the page on the right and went down the side making vertical row of stamped images. Each time I stamped the image I rotated the stamp. So at the top I started with the image being right side up, then I turned to the right. It looks like the image is tumbling down the page. I even went off the edges a tiny bit. I wanted it to look like wrapping paper or fabric, with the images printed all over the entire expanse of the background. It's a little hard to see below, but scroll down farther and see a larger photo.

See it?

OK, so I did that to both pieces of green card stock. Then I set those aside so that the VersaMark could dry and darken up a bit.

Next I got out my trusty red-line tape. I love this stuff for this type of project. I wanted an adhesive that was dry, so that the cover of the notebook doesn't bow or warp. It needed to be strong enough so that the paper doesn't peel up after you start to use the notebook. This red-line tape is so strong! I was also worried because the cover of the notebook is slick and the card stock isn't. If I were to use Mono Adhesive or some other dry line adhesive in a dispenser, the layers might let go over time.

I put the red line tape all around the four sides of the notebook and then one line through the middle. That will hold it perfectly. I put the tape as close to the edge as I can. Then there won't be any lifting up at the edge. I don't put the tape on the card stock. An 8 & 1/2" by 11" sheet of card stock is larger than the cover of the notebook. It's easier to put the adhesive on the notebook and then lay your paper on top. Then the adhesive grabs hold and you don't have to try to trim away the excess with any of that strong tape gumming up your knife.

Soooo anyway...I get it all on the front and then peel up the red backing.

Then I laid down the card stock nice and straight. By nice and straight, I mean that it lines up with the black part that covers up the notebook binding. Be super careful at this step. The red line tape is so strong, if you get it crooked or have any lumps, you will never get that paper back up in order to fix it. So go slow. I didn't cover that black part up on this notebook, I left it as it was. You could cover the black binding and create some paper, wide ribbon, fabric or some other fabulous stuff to cover it up, but this time I didn't.

Then I smoothed it with my bone folder. I do this every time I adhere something down to the project. I don't want bubbles, so I flatten and press each layer down.

Here is the notebook flipped over. As you can see the card stock is larger than the notebook. Here I will open the notebook and trim away the extra card stock with my craft knife and metal edged ruler.

I line it up and slice it away.

Then there are these little triangles of green showing at the corners. You could leave them there, but I slice those away with the knife too.

Here is the front cover all trimmed up. Notice the scraps on the right? The fat ones will be bookmarks by tomorrow.

Next I will be adding the patterned paper. Isn't it fun?

Below you can see me lining up everything to try and decide how much of the patterned paper I will need. This is the only time in the project that I actually measured something. The rest of the time I eyeball it. I decided that the stamp measures about 3 & 1/2" so I want the dots to measure 4" tall.

Here I lined it up on the trimmer and sliced away.

I will be using double sided tape for the rest of the project. It works well for adhering paper to paper.

Then I smoothed it down with the bone folder and sliced the extra away.

Now I'm ready for more of my favorite part, the stamping. :-) I stamped the large framed flowers onto some white card stock with red, dye based ink.I love clear stamps. You can line them up and not waste any card stock.

Then I cut out the stamped image. I cut right on the red line. I didn't' want any white to show around the edge.

Oh, and clean your stamp. I use baby bum wipes.

Now you can see how the label looked against the pattern. I felt like there was no separation. They were melting into each other too much. I found a black card stock scrap in my scrap bin....

Perfecto!

So I laid the cut out frame shape onto the black card stock in the trimmer and trimmed around it. Then I got out my trusty corner rounder and rounded the edges. This corner rounder is a large one.

Much better, don't you think? It matches the binding nicely.

Now I'm ready for the Thickers. I was going to have it say, "Notes", but I discovered that none of my packs of Thickers had a "T". So "Diary" it will be. I like to start in the middle, and then spell the word out wards from there. Then you know your word will be centered correctly at the end.

See?Now it's time for the closure. I will be using ribbon this time. I have, in the past used ribbon and paper with magnets and Velcro. It all works great. This time I want to tie it shut with some pretty ribbon. These three look like promising contenders. I decided to use black eyelets, so I excluded the black and white ribbon. The check looked wrong against the dotted paper. Red it is!To attach the ribbon to the front and back cover I punched a hole through the ribbon and cover at the same time with my Crop A Dile. Then I used an eyelet to keep it all in place. Because the ribbon is so thin, I decided to fold it over and punch the hole through two layers, in order to keep the ribbon strong.

Here we go. It isn't comming off. Ever.

I did the same thing on the back cover. If you dont' like the edge of the ribbon showing you could have it on the inside of the cover. Then I tied the bow and trimmed my excess ribbon away.

OK, at this point I looked at my project and decided it needed a little something more, so I pulled out the gems. Pearls are my favorite, so of course I went for them first. ;-)

There were plent of flowers to add them to. Hee Hee.

At this point I want to say that you might notice as you fill in your notebook that writing on top of the Thickers and gems might be awkward. If you don't like lumpyness, keep your project flat. I hope you enjoyed this and got some ideas for your own project. Thanks for looking.

Hope it was a good one for you

2010-06-21T10:39:00.002-06:00

Happy Father's Day!

We hope it was a great day for all of you. Duane had breakfast, cards, and gifts in bed, went to see Toy Story 3, and supper at a resturant he loves. Hope all of you dads had a great day too.

New stuff, and brave stuff

2010-06-18T19:27:00.005-06:00

Hello everyone! :-)

We are having a great summer so far, how about all of you? We have been keeping busy. The girls (and I) have been reading, taking swimming lessons, reading, doing workbooks, reading, going to the park, taking walks or riding bikes to Sonic for ice cream and reading.

Today we went to the Lego store and guess what the girls got? What? No one in this house would ever play with that stuff? Ha! This set is so pink. They are loving it.

Here is a pic at the last day of swimming lessons. They loved it again this year. They impoved a lot. There is still some apprehension around putting your whole face in and blowing bubbles out of your nose, but they are doing all the other stuff, so I'm not complaining.

Here is a quick little video of Sarah going off of the diving board. She needed a little help the first time. After that she was a pro. Theresa didn't want to go off. We told her it was fine, she can just keep trying. ;-)

The new air conditioning has broken about 3 times now. We are getting a little annoyed at this. Hopefully we get the kinks worked out soon.

Those of you who are friends with Duane and I on Facebook know that Theresa took a tumble a couple of weeks ago. We found out from the ER doc that she might have osteopenia. It is a pre-cursor to ostioperosis. We went to the pediatrician and talked about it. He sent us for a bone density scan on both girls. We had that today. It was super simple. (They just lay on a bed and the scanner goes over them on an arm. Very easy and Star Trekish.) We will hopefully hear soon what the results are. Some of you might be wondering why Sarah had the test too. We and the pediatrician feel that since they are identical twins, and this problem sometimes occurs with premies, that Sarah could possibly have the same problem. (They formed from one egg, so they have almost the same genetic make up.) I guess we will find out. For now we are trying not to worry. We are just thankful that when Theresa fell that nothing was broken. She healed up very quickly and is back to her old wild self.

We hope all of you are having a wonderful summer too. Keep safe and remember to have fun.

School Is Out

2010-06-02T09:55:00.002-06:00

Sarah and Theresa had their last day of school on May 27th. I just wanted to reflect on some things that the teachers shared with me and that I observed over the year.

Theresa and her teacher Ms. Kohler are pictured above. Ms. Kohler told me in the middle of the school year that every kid wants to be Theresa's friend. I think that is the nicest compliment ever. She also wrote on her report card at the end of the year that Theresa will be a famous author some day. That made me giggle. Both of my girls have heads full of wonderful stories. I'm so proud of her eagerness to learn and her ability to sit down and do her homework. Her reading and writing skills are out of this world. Her desire to try and try again with math is inspiring. Science is a love of both the girls and Theresa has wonderful questions to ask us. Her sparkle comes out with everything she does and says.

Sarah is pictured above with her teacher Ms. Morinville. (Yes, I realize that both teachers look like models. Geez! ) Sarah had a tiny bit of trouble breaking through her shyness at the beginning of the year. Once she jumped the hurdle she was helping kids in her class with things she was good at. That makes my heart sing. Sharing the things that you love is what makes friendship so precious. Sarah impressed all of us with her reading and writing abilities this year as well. For more than a year she has been saying she is a non-fiction girl. If there is a book about space anywhere near her she can't put it down. She also loves books about bugs, snakes and all kinds of historical books too. Sarah absolutley loves science. I can't wait to see what kind of projects she does in future years that excite her. Sarah likes to be slow and take her time. She reminds me of that Mr. Rogers song that he would sing on his show. "I like to take my time, I like to do it my way. Yes, I like to take my time." That is Sarah through and through. She won't be hurried. Homework time takes longer with her, but she gets it done and it stays in her head. That is what counts. She is sweet and sensative, sometimes she would be sad after school, about something someone said to her. It always got worked out the next day, because the other kids love her for that sweetness on the inside.

I hope that next year they will continue to grow and learn at the amazing rate they always do. Mostly I hope they continue to be kind and sweet and learn what it means to be a good friend. The book learning is important, but so are the lessons about life. They determine what we will be like when we grow up. Learning to be good, honest and kind to others are some of life's most important lessons.

Hero Arts

2010-05-24T09:25:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to add this fun new blinkie by Hero Arts. They will be releasing another new catalog of yummy stamps on June 1st. I'm sad that I will no longer be able to use my employee discount from Archiver's to buy stamps. I'll have to use a coupon just like everyone else. :-( Oh, well. I will still be checking out this flower. It has so many possabilities.

Monochromatic Challange

2010-04-25T18:04:00.004-06:00

The new challange on the Cardvaarks website is to create a monochromatic card. I gave this one some thought. I decided on a pink, baby theme and got myself started with some wonderful Core'dinations cardstock. I chose a sheet from their whitewashed collection. One side is pink and the other side is a textured, whitewashed, super pale pink color. It is hard to tell because I allready hacked up the sheet, but I think it was called "Corner Hutch". I love the soft effect I got on this card.
I started by cutting the Core'dinations cardstock with a scalloped flower cookie cutter die by Quickutz. Then I put the shape into a Quickutz ebmossing folder that had a shape that mimicked the scallop very closely. As you can see, they didn't line up perfectly, but I think you get a little distracted from that by the ruffle that runs around the edge. Next I lightly sanded the embossed scalloped edge. Next I added red line tape all around the back edge of the scallop shape. I then added on the satin, pink ribbon by ruffling it and pressing it onto the red line tape around the edge of the shape on the back. Just a little peeks out, but it adds some girly fun.

The next step was to add my sentiment. I found this fun "Bonjour" stamp by Stampin Up in my collection and these fun Doodle Bug letter tiles. They seemed to contrast each other in a fun way. I stamped in black Stampin Up classic ink and added the tiles with Glossy Accents by Ranger. After all of that was dry I put a ton of foam adhesive on the back of the scalloped shape. I wanted it to float a little above the body of the card and not have the ruffles be squashed down. Last I added the pink Prima rose and the Hero Arts pearls. I absolutley love pearls. They are my favorite gem on my projects. They add just the right amount of bling.

I hope you enjoyed my monochromatic card. I am allready thinking of another fun one in my head. I just need some time. Anyone want to come over and give the kids a shower so that mamma can play some more?