Inspiration of the Day

Thank you...

2011-02-04T12:07:00.000-05:00

Not sure anyone checks my blog anymore--I know I don't! My life has been upside down for the last eight months helping to take care of my father. He passed away last week. Please don't be sad--he is in a much better place, and I hope he's happy.

I have not stamped in eight months but hope to get back to it soon. I have made the decision not to maintain the blog anymore, though.

So thank you all for following me and for all your kind comments while I did dip my toe in the blogging world. I love you all!!!

I think I’m back…

2010-07-26T20:18:00.001-04:00

Been awhile, hasn’t it? Can I start by saying I’ve missed blogging and all my blogging friends!! I hope you all haven’t forgotten about me!!! Why have I been gone, you may ask. Well, this is why:

Yup—that’s my Daddio. I won’t bore you with all the details, but he went in the hospital early in June. After spending about a week in the hospital, they refused to release him unless he was going to 24 hour care. Since he was adamant that he didn’t want to go to a nursing home, we’ve been taking care of him at his home ever since. I’ve taken on the bulk of the duties, and have been living at his house most of the last month and a half. He lives about 40 miles away from me, so I’ve spent very little time at my own house between working and taking care of him. Well, we had a meeting with the Hospice team last Friday, and after all the care and pampering we’ve been giving him, they agreed that we could scale back on his care. So, I think I’m going to be able to spend all week sleeping in my own bed!!! He has his good days and bad days, but he’s in much better shape than he was at the beginning of June. He’s a skinny little thing, isn’t he? He weights 100 pounds soaking wet, even after a month of three meals a day.

I wasn’t able to do any stamping or other artwork while I was at his house—I dragged enough stuff there as it was, without taking inks and stamps and paints and paper…you get the drift. I was able to do some creative things, though. Let me ask all of you—when was the last time you crocheted? I don’t think I’ve done any extensive crocheting for a good 30 years! However, I got a wild hair before my dad went in the hospital and decided to crochet an afghan for my special needs sister, Lisa. Here’s a not very good picture of her and the afghan I crocheted for her:

She’s waving at me, trying to get me to leave! Once I finished that one, I needed something to keep my hands busy while staying with my dad, so in addition to helping my nieces with some of their 4-H projects, I made even more afghans. Here’s my niece, Casey, and the one I made for her. The picture is awful—I took all of these with my phone. The colors in this afghan are turquoise, lime green and yellow:

Then I had to make one for my dad, since he’s always freezing. Here’s his:

Then I made one for my other niece, Morgan. Here she is with hers:

I couldn’t leave out their big brother, could I? I don’t have a picture of him, but here’s his afghan. The colors don’t show up very well—I used a camo variegated yarn and two shades of green:

Wow—was this addicting!!! Now I have Casey hooked (LOL—pun intended). She wanted to learn how to crochet, so I taught her and she’s going full steam ahead!!

I’m sure my postings will still be sporadic for awhile—I have to take care of my much neglected house and yard, I’ll still be going to my dad’s regularly, and work is getting ready to be crazy for the next three weeks. I just wanted to assure everyone that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, and I promise I’ll be back visiting your blogs in the very near future!!!

Drunken Stampers #19…

2010-06-09T21:32:00.001-04:00

I have a quick card to post tonight that fits Drunken Stampers challenge 19—Birthdays.This card is for my wonderful friend, Angie, whose birthday is tomorrow. The card sketch is from Roni’s blog. I used the Medium Bee from Jo Capper-Sandon’s stamp line at Stampotique Originals. The button is a vintage one I found at the antique fair last month, and I broke into the vintage lace my blog buddy, Lynn, sent me. I love that I can tie two lovely people together with a piece of lace!!

Here’s the card:

If any of you follow me regularly—I want to let you know that my blogging may be a bit erratic over the next few weeks. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my blurfing lately, and I haven’t had a chance to play very many challenges. My dad has been in the hospital and is now in hospice—we hope he will be able to come out of hospice, but I think that’s wishful thinking on our part. Please keep him in your prayers.

Aww….I got a blog award!

2010-06-08T21:45:00.001-04:00

Thank you to my good blogger buddy, Lynn, from Trash To Treasure Art, for nominating me for this wonderfully prestigious blog award! Sorry I didn’t get this posted sooner, but I’ve been busy crafting my lies!!!!!

Here’s how it works.

1. Express gratitude to the blogger who bestowed the award unto you. Thank you, Lynn, my Idaho soul sister!!!

2 Display the picture on your blog proudly.

3. Be nice and provide a link to the person who gave it to you. (Here it is again—Lynn at Trash To Treasure Art).

4. Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth, or switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.

5. Nominate seven creative writers who might be into doing this. I am passing this one on to Bloggers who make me smile, laugh, or emote in some way or another.

6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate and let the owners of those blogs know.

OK—here are my lies—or are they truths? You decide!!! (I’ll give you a hint—two are truths and four are lies…)

1. As you all know, George Clooney grew up in the Cincinnati area, where I was born and raised. He and I dated briefly in high school, but I dumped him because he was a lousy kisser. He’s much better looking now—he must have had a nose job or something.

2. While helping a friend in Florida move from her apartment to a condo, I had the opportunity to meet Prince Albert of Monaco at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. I wish his good friend, Bono, would have been with him at the time! (Party like a rock star!!!)

3. When I was in my early 20s (30 years and quite a few pounds ago) I was a pretty famous local stripper. My stage name was Texas Trixie and my costume had a cowgirl theme (explains my fascination with cowgirl stamps, doesn’t it?) The bartender at the club where I stripped had a thing for me, and invented the Buttery Nipple (a “shooter” drink for those of you who don’t imbibe) in my honor. Texas Trixie is long gone, but the Buttery Nipple lives on!!

4. I truly am a famous writer, which makes this award so appropriate! My pen name is Danielle Steele.

5. Everyone knows I’m really a “shrinking violet.”

6. While in Rome, I got on a bus full of Italian sailors (not on purpose!) Rather than give me one of their seats, I ended up standing at the front of the bus while the sailors proceeded to sing to me until I got off at my stop.

OK—now I need to nominate seven blogs for this same award. I didn’t come up with seven, but did do five—I hope the blog badge police don’t get me!!! Here are my nominations:

1. Roni at Ink Stains—Roni is incredibly talented and very generous with her knowledge. She posts lots of great tutorials, and has a fabulous book to boot!

2. Nan at Nan’s Niche—Nan does beautiful work of all kinds. Her scrapbook pages almost make me want to start scrapbooking, and that’s saying something!!!

3. Suzie at Passionate About Crafting—Suzie has lots of hobbies, just like me. She quilts, knits, and does paper crafts. Stop and visit her blog!

4. Peg and Spike at Drunken Stampers—gotta love the blog name, plus they have great challenges (although I confess I haven’t played yet)!

5. Dawn at Dawn…a new day—Dawn does beautiful work and has been a real inspiration to me in my cardmaking. Plus, I love her llama pictures!!!

So many challenges, so little time…

2010-05-31T20:47:00.001-04:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I had hoped to play a little more over the weekend, but other things kept getting in the way! I finally sat down this afternoon while watching some John Wayne movies on TV and worked on this card. When it was done, it ended up fulfilling three different challenges, although I’m only going to officially enter it in one.

My niece is turning 11 in a couple of weeks, and I asked her if she wanted a cute card or a funky card. She said definitely funky! (I knew last year’s cute card was probably the last I could get away with!) Well, the planets were in perfect alignment for funky today, since my Stampotique Originals stamps arrived last week and were calling my name!!

I went looking for a “funky” sketch, and decided that the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge 55 fit the bill. (I’m not entering it in this challenge, because I deviated from the sketch a little.) The Stampotique Designers Challenge 8 is to use purple, and since that is one of my niece’s favorite colors, it was a no-brainer to use some Basic Grey papers from the Kioshi line. (Not entering this one, either, since I kind of CASE’d Monique, one of the DT members—loved the zig zag!) Finally, Gingersnap Challenge 54 is pencils, and I colored the image with watercolor pencils and a water brush. The background uses DI inks, and by process of elimination, this is the challenge I’m entering!

So—here’s my niece’s card in all its Moth Fab glory—let me know if you think it’s funky enough!!

I had hoped to finish the mini-album covers this weekend, but I’m still mulling that over. I’m thinking of metal but haven’t made up my mind yet.

Mini-album, part 10…

2010-05-26T20:33:00.001-04:00

This is the last spread in the mini-album from Roni. The challenges were to use the color yellow (the reason will become evident when you read the verse!) and to use a stamp you have not previously used in the book. Well, the challenge part was easy—I painted cardstock for the background with Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paint in Yellow Pastel, and then streaked it with Touch of Yellow. These colors are BRIGHT!!! You can see them here at Simon Says Stamp. The challenge came in trying to take a picture! It took awhile, but the yellow finally came out kind of close. The challenge to use a stamp that I hadn’t used before was easy, too. I used one of the first stamps I ever bought—who knew it would be so versatile?? The verse for this final part is, “Friendship is like peeing your pants. Everyone can see it but only you can feel the true warmth.” Don’t you love it? Now, here’s my take on the final spread:

I hope you’ve had as much fun with this little book as I have! I need to figure out what to do to the covers, and I also want to go back and distress/ink the edges a bit (you can still see the chipboard edges) and maybe embellish some of the pages a little more. The hardest thing I need to do is decide who to give it to!!

I also want to say again—this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. I really didn’t think I could do it, but it ended up being very easy when it was broken down into manageable chunks. If you’ve been hesitant to try something like this book or any project outside your comfort zone, I say, throw caution to the wind! What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll have a “learning experience?” Go for it, and be sure to share it with all of us!

GC53 challenge…

2010-05-25T22:12:00.001-04:00

Hey, everybody! I decided to finish up a project I started over the weekend for Gingersnap Creations challenge, GC53, Read. The challenge was to, “Use readers, reading, books, familiar stories and text as your jumping off point for this one!”

Let me just say that I had a great idea that didn’t translate very well in the execution. I think we’ll write this one off as “a learning experience.”

My mom’s oldest sister, Aunt Sissy, had polio as a child, which left her increasingly debilitated and unable to walk. By the time I could remember her, she was paralyzed and required complete care. But when she was still able to function on her own, she was an avid reader. She belonged to the Book of the Month Club for years, and had quite a collection. Out of all her nieces and nephews, I was the only one who liked to read, and she gave me all her books. One that she insisted I read was a book called A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter. I fell in love with that book, and it became a summer reading tradition for me from about the 5th grade all the way through high school. It was very romantic—Elnora Comstock was an awkward girl with a cold mother who ended up finding romance. The story takes place in the swamps of northeastern Indiana, where Elnora hunted butterflies to sell to collectors as a way to put herself through school. The whole idea of it seemed so romantic to me—catching butterflies, wandering through the swamp, and especially the name—Limberlost. Isn’t that a great word?

So—on to my project. I decided to use this book as my inspiration. First, I tore some pages from an old paperback and glued them to a piece of grungeboard. I then went over them with DI in Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, and Walnut Stain. So far, so good. But this is where I ran into trouble. I’ve never been a vellum kind of gal so really have no experience with it. However, I have this pack of luscious Webster’s Pages paper that had a piece of vellum in it that happened to have butterflies on it, so I thought I would put this over the glued down text. I used a pretty ordinary technique—cut the vellum to size, covered the text pages with matte medium, and glued down the vellum, which promptly proceeded to curl up into a little roll. Now what? Well, I covered the top of the vellum with the matte medium, too, in hopes that would even it all out. It kind of did, but not very well. The vellum proceeded to get a little misshapen and wrinkled up. In addition, the grungeboard also started to curl. Great. I set it all aside to dry for awhile, then glued a collage image on top of the vellum. There were also some sticker letters in the Webster’s Pages pack, so I used them to spell “limberlost” across the piece. I put it inside a phone book to hopefully flatten out, but when I got it out tonight, it was still kind of curled. There are still wrinkles in the vellum, too, so I decided to cover some of those up with lace trim, which is really too light, I think. I used the same lace to make a rosette, and put a Basic Grey brad in the middle. It doesn’t look very good, but I think I’m going to stop before I waste any more supplies!!! So—here it is, in all its pitiful glory!

If you’re still reading after all of this, I’ll share some more info with you. Gene Stratton-Porter lived in the swampy area of northeastern Indiana where this book takes place. Her home is an Indiana historic site, and I believe the property surrounding it is a nature preserve. I’ve never been there, but have driven past the signs pointing the way. I think I’m going to put it on my list of things to do this summer—I’ll read the book again for the first time in years, and then drive up there for a visit. I’m planning to go to Shipshewana, Indiana, sometime this summer for their weekly flea market—I can make Limberlost a stop along the way. Stay tuned—I’ll tell you all about it when I go!!

Mini album, part 9…

2010-05-23T15:54:00.001-04:00

As promised yesterday, I’ve finished part 9 of Roni’s mini-album challenge. Whoo-hoo! I’m all caught up again!! The challenge for this part was to “Make it Metal” by using metallic paints, inks, embossing powder, or real metal on the layout. I chose to use metallic paints. I randomly dabbed Adirondack metallic gold, silver, and copper acrylic paints to the card stock, then I took Distress Crackle Paint in Tarnished Brass and Antiqued Bronze and dabbed it pretty thickly in vein-like patterns in several places. I allowed this to dry completely, then used an ink blending tool and Black Soot DI all over the whole thing to tone it down and make the cracks in the crackle paint stand out. I’ve embellished with some metal flowers I got somewhere. The verse for this layout is, “This is my oath…I pledge it to the end. Why? you may ask. Because you are my friend!”

Let me know what you think!

Mini album, part 8…

2010-05-22T16:31:00.001-04:00

Bet you thought I’d forgotten about Roni’s mini-album challenge, didn’t you? Well, I’ve been mulling over the part 8 challenge for a couple of weeks, because I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. The challenge was to use at least three different stamps and at least three different ink colors, not including black. The ink colors weren’t the issue—I couldn’t decide which stamps to use. I finally settled on something the other day when I decided to use the faux bandanna technique for the background. The background image uses three different Stampin’ Up! images stamped with jet black Archival Ink. The background was then colored with Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, and Forest Moss. Some of the colors weren’t blending as well as I wanted, so I sprayed the whole thing with a generous coating of Wheatfield Glimmer Mist. You may also notice something different about this spread. If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve embellished every page with the same trim. Well, I’m out of it. I went to JoAnn’s last night to see if I could find another spool, and of course they didn’t have any. I search that darned store from end to end hoping I could find some tucked away somewhere—big mistake. I went for a $2 spool of trim that I couldn’t find, but came out $88 broker! How does that happen, anyway???? So, I’ve used some different fibers for embellishment and plan to go back through the other pages and replace some of the other trim with this combination of eyelash yarn and beads strung on hemp. Let me know what you think, and I hope to be back tomorrow with another spread complete, then I’ll be caught up again! Oh—the verse says, “When you fall, I’ll pick you up and dust you off—after I laugh my rear off!”

Birthday card…

2010-05-15T14:24:00.001-04:00

I’ve been working on my sister’s birthday card today, and I’d like to share it. It’s not part of any challenge—just a plain old card for my sister, who’s staying with me this weekend. I did try out the rolled flowers tutorial that was posted on Splitcoaststampers this week. Hope you like it!

GC52, card 2…

2010-05-09T14:22:00.001-04:00

First, let me wish all you mothers and grandmothers a Happy Mother’s Day. I hope you’re being pampered and coddled by your loved ones today!

This second entry in the Gingersnap Creations color challenge would make a nice Mother’s Day card, I think. Yesterday, I showed you a masculine take on the color Kraft. Today, I want to show you how feminine Kraft can be! Instead of distressing with Tea Dye Distress Inks, I distressed all the edges direct to paper with SU Whisper White ink. This leaves the edges very soft and worn looking. I also added lace, velvet ribbon, and a piece of an old doily. You know, my mom is probably rolling in her grave right now—I think my aunt may have made that doily, and it’s the first time I’ve ever cut one up. But I’m thinking it’s better to share a piece of it with someone on a card than having it hiding in the closet where no one can appreciate it, right? Also—the poppy image is stamped on Kraft and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS—I love how soft that technique looks on Kraft. You may recognize the earring I picked up at the antique show last week—I love the way it looks on this card!! Let me know what you think!!!!

GC52…

2010-05-08T18:55:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago when the Gingersnap Creations color challenge was posted, I thought, “What kind of challenge is THAT???” That’s because the color challenge is KRAFT!!! You may not have noticed, but I rarely make a project without using Kraft somewhere—usually the base. I find this kind of ironic, because beige is not my color! I don’t wear it, I don’t decorate with it, and for the most part, I despise it! So why do I reach for Kraft card stock over and over again? Because it’s so darned versatile! It can be masculine or feminine, young or old. You can dress it up or down as your mood dictates. So, a Kraft challenge? I’m all over that!!!

I’ve done a masculine card this time, and you may have a hard time finding the Kraft, because I’ve distressed it to within an inch of it’s life with lots of Tea Dye DI.

I’ve wanted to make an easel card for quite some time, and this idea has been floating around in my head for awhile—bet the lady I bought the vintage yardstick from last week at the antique show would be having a cow if she knew I cut it up!!!

Here’s the inside:

The verse says, “Give a man an inch and he thinks he’s a ruler.”

I plan on doing another entry for this challenge, but the next one will be feminine and shabby chic, just to prove to any non-believers out there just how adaptable Kraft can be!

Mini-album, part 7, and GC50…

2010-05-06T00:12:00.001-04:00

Let me just start by saying that I don’t like to combine challenges—it feels like cheating to me. So the fact that I’ve combined two here is kind of unusual, but the stars all aligned and it seemed to work. So. The saga of the mini-album challenge posted by Roni over on Ink Stains continues. This week’s verse is, “When you are sick, stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.” The challenge was to stamp the background with something other than a stamp. We’ve all experimented with using non-stamps to stamp with but maybe don’t do it on a regular basis, so this was fun. I looked around for some candidates, and this is what I came up with:

There was still some string laying on the table from the string background technique I did a couple of weeks ago, so I wrapped that around an acrylic block. I also found a piece of corrugated cardboard that I tore a layer off, and a wrapper from a fast food spoon. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a pic of the background before finishing the layout, but it turned out pretty well. The string around the block didn’t work very well, so I ended up wadding the string in a glob, pouncing it on the inkpad, and then pouncing on the background. Did the same with the wrapper.

After I had the background done, I started looking through the cowgirl collage images, and none of them really looked sick, although one did look like she had a rough night and could be slightly hung over. That got me to thinking about some bottle caps I had collected several years ago with the intent of making some bracelets, so I went looking for them, which leads beautifully into challenge number 2, GC50—Found Objects! It did take awhile for me to find them, too! So—the bottle caps are the found objects for that challenge. Now—here’s the layout:

I know people usually use the inside of the bottle cap, but these seemed so appropriate, for both the cowgirl theme and the one who looks hung over (she would be on the right). The gal on the left has a bit of a flushed appearance, so I thought she might have a fever—I know, it’s a stretch!! Next time I’ll think these details through a little better!! Anyway, hope you like my stamped-without-a-stamp background and my beer bottle cap flowers—looks like I might need to replenish the bottle cap stash this weekend! LOL

Now I’m going to try again to go to sleep—if this is a menopause symptom, I hope it goes away quick!!!!

Mini-album, part 6…

2010-05-02T20:04:00.001-04:00

Well, my lovely, pampering weekend is drawing to a close. I guess I’ll be glad to get back to work tomorrow. To wind up the weekend, I braved the rain we’re having here and went to an outdoor antique fair. The way this particular show is set up, vendors can set up stalls completely outside, or they can rent stalls that are under cover. Unfortunately, the rain kept all but the most hearty away from the outside stalls, but there was plenty to look at in the covered areas. I spent about two and a half hours, but my feet were getting soggy and I was getting a chill since my jeans were soaked halfway to my knees!! So, I came home and started working on part 6 of Roni’s mini-album challenge. The verse this week is, “When you are confused I will use little words.” and the challenge is to use words or alphabet stamps somewhere on the spread. Roni kept her layout to a minimum, and I decided to do the same. I did have some fun with the background, though. If you’re like me, you love poking around in the art supply area at the craft store. I picked up some iridescent medium last week, and decided to play with it on this layout. I made a tissue paper background using the iridescent medium and mini misters with reinkers/water in them (how did I live before I got those things? Love ‘em!) So—here’s the layout. You can really see the iridescence. and that golden glow? Wild Honey Distress ink! This is the first time I’ve used that one, and it is very nice!!

Finally, I want to share a pic of my antiquing goodies with you. Everything I picked up was with crafting in mind, so don’t be surprised to see some of these things show up in future posts.

Nothing was more than $5, so I can’t complain. And before you start scratching your head over the bright, spiky earrings on the left—the first thing I thought of when I saw them was some of the more recent Cosmo Cricket paper lines—the colors will go really well!!!

So, I hope you had a chance to pamper yourself and recharge your batteries this weekend!

GC51…

2010-05-01T16:40:00.001-04:00

Still having fun this weekend! I’ve been playing around a bit this afternoon, and completed a card for GC51, Botanical, over on Gingersnap Creations. I have lots of birthdays coming up in May, so I better get busy making some cards!!!

This one also uses this week’s sketch challenge from Splitcoaststampers, SC278.

I’ve used Graphic 45 paper and the stamped image is from I Brake for Stamps. For the background squares, I used the Glassy Embossing technique from the Feb/Mar 2010 issue of Technique Junkies. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits, then covered the image with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. I hope you like it!!

GC49, The Good Earth…

2010-04-30T21:45:00.001-04:00

I’m back for a second post today, and let me just say—today has been just lovely! I had a massage, facial, and pedicure this afternoon, and to top it all off, got to play tonight. Life can be good, can’t it?

I wanted to do something for the Gingersnap Challenge, The Good Earth. When this challenge was posted, the first thing that came into my head was the novel by Pearl S. Buck entitled, The Good Earth. I read this novel eons ago. It’s set in pre-revolutionary China, and follows the life of a Chinese couple.

So, here’s my interpretation of GC49 with an Oriental flavor:

Hope you like it!!!

Never-ending quest...

2010-04-30T09:33:00.001-04:00

Just a quick post this morning. First let me say, THANK YOU to Gingersnap Creations—they graciously gave me another GingerGems award!!!! Whoo—hoo!!!!!

Second, I hope to get LOTS of play time in this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that I can!! I’ve started on something that I should be able to post later this afternoon, but until then, I have something else to show you. If you’re like me, you’re always looking for the perfect way to organized your ever-expanding supply of stuff. I’ve just converted all my Distress inks to a new system that I am hoping works. Previously, I had all the ink pads in one place, reinkers somewhere else, Stickles in yet another place, and ink blenders somewhere else. If I wanted matching items, I had to look in multiple places to find them, and usually gave up before I found everything. Well, this is what I decided to do. I went to The Container Store and found these little clear acrylic boxes that perfectly hold an ink pad, reinker, Stickles, mini-mister, and one of my homemade ink blending tools. Now everything is all in one place! I think this will encourage me to use all these products a lot more.

I am not that crazy about the Ranger ink blending tool—I never was able to get it to work for me. So, I came up with my own version. I purchased these 1-1/4 inch wood blocks and attached squares of Cut and Dry foam to one end and wrote the color on the other end. It was actually a pretty inexpensive solution that works great! The foam stays securely in place with red line tape, but can be removed if it needs replaced. Plus, I got all 36 colors out of a single sheet of foam! The one thing you’ll see missing is the Distress embossing powders and the crackle paint. I don’t have any of the embossing powders—just don’t feel the need—and I only have a few of the crackle paints, mostly in the metallic colors. I’ll find someplace else to store those.

So—let me know what you think! Have you found your perfect storage solution?

Mini-album, part 5…

2010-04-26T19:25:00.001-04:00

Whoo-hoo!!! I’m caught up! I finally caught up with Roni’s mini album challenge over on Ink Stains. The next part airs tomorrow, so stay tuned!!

The challenge this week was to use recycled items. The only cardstock allowed was on the collage images, and you could use brads and other embellishments that weren’t recycled. Roni’s background for part 5 used torn pieces of an old book. I decided to deviate a little, and use a technique that was a result of a successful experiment a couple of years ago. Plus, it’s green!

This is what I started with:

This is a brown paper bag from Skyline Chili. If you’ve heard of Cincinnati chili, this is what they’re talking about, but that’s for another post!

I actually had two of these—you can’t tell from the picture, but they are the size of a standard lunch sack. I tore off the printing and threw it away, then took the rest of the bag and tore it into irregular pieces. I then wadded each piece up pretty tight to get some texture, and then pulled out a bunch of ink pads. I unscrunched each piece of paper, and roughly rubbed an ink pad over the high spots. Once I had a bunch of these little pieces of paper, I adhered them to the album’s chipboard base with Mod Podge. After it was dry and the edges were trimmed, this is what I ended up with:

I love the look of this. I used this on a composition book a couple of years ago, and it still looks great!

Here’s the completely decorated spread:

And here are the individual pages:

The flowers are also recycled. I used the new Tim Holtz flower die to cut the flowers out of pages from a phone book. I sprayed them with various ink colors (yes, I finally got some mini-misters!), glued together, then dried with the heat gun. Once they were pretty dry, I sprayed them generously with Wheatfield Glimmer Mist, then dried them again. This time, the paper started to get a little “crisp” but the petals started to curl beautifully. I have to say—so far, this is my very favorite spread!!!

I hope you like it and that you like my distressed paper bag background.

Looking forward to the next installment in Roni’s challenge!!

Mini-album, part 4…

2010-04-25T00:11:00.001-04:00

I got a little time to play today (shhhh…..I brought the laptop home and should have been working!). The next spread in the mini-album from Ink Stains was calling my name, so I took the background paper from a couple of posts ago and used it on this spread. Let me say again how much I like this glue distressing technique! I used it on the stamped image I incorporated into this spread, and think it turned out pretty darned good! This verse of the poem says, “When you’re scared, we’ll high tail it out of here.” This is getting pretty fun—I hope Roni hasn’t created a monster! I’m looking forward to making another one soon!

Here’s the two-page spread:

Here are the pages individually:

I am having some issues with this whole concept, though. I’ve never worked with collage images before, and I’m not quite sure what to do with some of them. I’ve been using them pretty much as is up until now, but on the second page of this spread I cut one out (the cowgirl on the horse in the upper right corner). For you folks who do this regularly—I salute you! They are very difficult to cut out!!! Embellishing isn’t coming easy to me, either. I feel like there needs to be more layers and “stuff” on these, but I can’t quite figure out what to to. Maybe when the whole book gets done, I will go back through it and add embellishments. If you have any suggestions, be sure to let me know!!!

I’m still one spread behind—maybe I’ll get caught up tomorrow. The technique for the next one is “recycle it”—Roni used pages from a book for her background, but I have something else up my sleeve. I’m looking forward to showing you.

Hope you’re having a good weekend where you are—it’s raining here. Good weather to stay in and play, right?

Quick update…

2010-04-20T20:11:00.001-04:00

Just thought I’d let you know I got the grass mowed today. My house doesn’t look like a foreclosure property anymore!! Also—I thought it was high time I put a picture of myself in my profile. This is a couple of years old (I get my pic taken as little as possible!!). My hair is a little shorter and I have different glasses. Otherwise—that’s me!!!

Background, please…

2010-04-19T21:59:00.001-04:00

Just a real quick post. I didn’t get the fourth spread done for Roni’s mini album challenge, but I did get the glue distressed background paper done. What a very cool (and easy!) technique!! I can imagine lots of possibilities with this one! I didn’t have the Aleene’s Super Thick glue, so I substituted Mod Podge. Seemed to work fine—at least I’m happy with the results!!! In looking at Roni’s example, I should have smeared the Mod Podge around a little more, but I think this looks fine. This 12 x 12 piece of cardstock will look even better when I cut it up for the album background. What do you think?

OK—now I need to vent. This is info I should probably be too embarrassed to share, but you’re all friends. When I got home from work today, there was a pickup truck sitting in my driveway. They backed out when I turned on my signal to turn in. I got the car in the garage and they were still sitting in the street. The woman rolled down her window and said she wanted to ask me a question. They are interested in moving into the neighborhood and wanted to know if my house was under foreclosure!!!!!! THE NERVE!!!!!!! Anyway, guess that was the kick in the pants I needed—the lawn mower is hooked up to the battery charger right now so I can get it started tomorrow night and get the darned grass mowed. But a foreclosure???? I’m still fuming. I’m sure there are plenty of you single gals out there who know how hard it is to keep up with the outside of the house, the inside of the house, and a full time job. That leaves no time for crafting, and a girl has to have her priorities!!!!! Obviously, mine hasn’t been the grass!!! So—the mini album spread will have to wait—I need to mow the grass tomorrow night!!

Mini album, part 3…

2010-04-18T19:47:00.001-04:00

Slowly but surely, I’m catching up with the mini-album challenge that Roni Johnson is sponsoring over on Ink Stains. This verse says, “When you smile I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.” I’ve been trying to follow the techniques Roni has used for each of her spreads. The challenge here was to use glimmer on the spread. Initially, I wasn’t sure I liked the way this Northern Lights technique turned out, but the darkness of it lent itself to the theme that eventually emerged. I didn’t have any of the ink refresher, so instead I used a gold Glimmer Mist with the Perfect Pearls, and it turned out OK. I hope to get the next spread done before Tuesday, then I’ll be all caught up!!

In addition to the collage image (lower left) I also used some Oxford Impressions stamps from the Cowgirl Blues sheet. BTW—if you’re wondering what the brass embellishments are, they are spent .45 cartridges. Nuff said….

GC47 challenge…

2010-04-15T23:34:00.001-04:00

Well—I think the mojo has come back to roost for awhile! I really wanted to do something fun for the Gingersnap Copper, Ginger, or Rust color challenge. I’m going to get kind of mushy here, and say….

I love Gingersnap Creations!!!

I’ve really enjoyed their blog ever since I found it, and appreciate the fun, low-key challenges that have lured me into the whole challenge world. Thanks, GC—you’re wonderful!!!

OK—end of mushy. Now onto the challenge creation. Let me start by reminding you that I love weird, funny, suggestive, and totally off-the-wall sayings. I refer to these as “rubber stamp wisdom.” Well, I saw this stamp online awhile ago, and the double entendre possibilities really tickled me. (Yes, what you’ve heard is true—my mind is never too far from the gutter!) I’m hoping it tickles the Founding Femmes, too.

I bet when Tim Holtz created this “Dream” ticket this isn’t exactly what he had in mind! It did get me to thinking, though. As I was looking through all the tickets, word sticks, and other assorted “word” paraphernalia, I wondered if Tim will ever come out with some tags or tickets that say things like, “Snicker,” or “Ticked” or anything really meaningful like that. I would have loved a “Frustrated” ticket for this little hangy thing! LOL!!!

I also want to apologize for the photo of this one. I had no idea how to display it so the fringe would dangle, so it’s hanging from my paper towel holder that is sitting on top of a roll of packing tape. Oh well, at least the fringe dangles. And speaking of that fringe—isn’t it fab??? I picked it up at Tuesday Morning for cheap!!

So—I hope to get some more playing in this weekend. I have two plays to go to, though—my 10 year old niece is in her school’s production of Sound of Music, and my 15 year old niece is in her school’s production of Meet Me in St. Louis.

So—Happy Anniversary, GC—looking forward to the next year of fun challenges!!!

The more I do….

2010-04-13T18:22:00.001-04:00

…the behinder I get!!! Sound familiar? I’m still two spreads behind in Roni Johnson’s BFF album challenge over on Ink Stains. These little album thingys are hard to do!!! Like I said, this is my first attempt at one of these and my first time using collage images. So far—not sure I’m too successful!!!

First, I want to thank Roni—she posted a picture of my first spread on her blog today. YAY!!! Thanks, hun!

After looking at that first spread, something seemed missing so I added another image—here’s the modified page:

Not a huge change—just added the cowgirl on the bucking bronco.

I also finished the second spread. Loved the technique Roni used on the second spread, and I changed very little. I was worried about the brown chipboard showing through, so I covered the spread with some pages ripped out of an old book before creating the paint/reinker background. Before I show you the spread, let me warn you about this—I wanted the cowgirl to look like she was turning blue, so I smeared some blue Stickles on her face. She looks more like she has a case of chicken pox!! Oh well. So, here is spread number two:

And here are the individual pages:

I think these need more embellishments, but have no idea what to use. I made the yo-yo flowers with pages from the same old paperback, and the centers are some cool buffalo buttons I found awhile back. There just isn’t much “umph” to any of these pages so far, is there? Go ahead—you won’t hurt my feelings if you say so! I have a strange feeling I’m going to be fiddling with this little book long after it’s “done!”

Now, I have a challenge for you—why don’t you go over to Roni’s blog and play along!! I would love to see what you do with the challenge!!!

I hope to get caught up before the next spread’s challenge is posted next Tuesday. So—off to play. Leave a comment and let me know what this danged thing needs, OK???

Mini album…

2010-04-11T17:18:00.001-04:00

OK—I’m back again today with the first spread of the mini-album I talked about yesterday. Since I was in a pinky frame of mind yesterday (and the pink stuff was already out!) I decided to go with pink for the first spread. Since I’ve never done one of these things before, those who know me well know I’ve been thinking it to death!!! I’ve decided to go with cowgirl images throughout and I picked up some trim at the fabric store a couple of weeks ago that I’m going to use on every spread to tie the whole thing together. Before I show you my spread, I want to talk a little bit about the trim I’m using. I’m sure most of you know this little trick, but for those of you who don’t—I tea dyed the trim to tone down the colors and make it work better with the shabby nature of the album. Here’s a pic:

The trim on the left is straight off the spool, and the trim on the right has spent about 15 minutes in some hot tea. This is my favorite technique for “distressing” fabric-y items.I wasn’t sure how it would turn out since this trim is nylon, but it worked great!!

Now, on to the first spread of the album. Roni used what looked like cheesecloth to add texture to her album. I couldn’t find any at the fabric store, so I picked up some burlap instead. It was a bit of a challenge to work with!!! And once it was adhered with the gesso, it seemed like nothing else would stick to it. I got it eventually, though, and here is the result:

Here are the individual pages, if you’re interested.

I may need to embellish some more—let me know what you think! Now I need to get moving on the next verse so I can get caught up! Keep an eye out—maybe I can get that done and uploaded tomorrow night.

Anyway—this is my first foray into the world of collage images—let me know if it looks like I’m doing something wrong. I think I’m going to need all the help I can get with this project!!!!

GCSP3, take two…

2010-04-10T20:11:00.001-04:00

Last weekend when I was playing around with the string background tutorial for the Gingersnap Creations Blue Moon challenge, I ended up with a couple of “trial and error” samples, so I decided to use one of those for a card today. I love this stamp image!! Can’t remember who makes it and am feeling too lazy to go look it up right now—sorry! I do know I picked it up at Stampaway last year. I haven’t played with the new Distress Ink colors a whole lot yet, but I’m loving the Victorian Velvet—what a yummy color!!! The other thing I tried on this card was something I saw in the latest issue of Stamper’s Sampler magazine. There was a gal who made backgrounds by gluing down paper scraps and then going over them with watered down gesso. I did that with some paper last night, and liked the way it turned out, so I used that for the background. The Prima flowers have been hanging around here for awhile and I finally decided to use them. I altered them slightly by rubbing some Victorian Velvet ink on them and edging the petals with a little Rock Candy Stickles. Hope you like it!!

I can’t mention the latest issue of Stamper’s Sampler without calling attention to the fabulous article on Wendy Vecchi—doesn’t she do amazing work? And of course, the magazine also features some gorgeous creations by the even more fabulous Lynn Stevens!! You go, girlfriend!! When are we going to see a feature article about you?

I know I shouldn’t jinx myself by bringing this up, but I hope to post something else tomorrow. I mentioned something a couple of posts ago about the great mini-album challenge Roni Johnson has on her blog. I’m going to start on that. The thing is, I’m going to try to incorporate collage images, something I’ve never done before. Not sure exactly how to start on that, but I did make a resolution at the beginning of the year to try some different things, so this is it. Wish me luck!!!

Til tomorrow—TTFN!!!!

Dragging the mojo home…

2010-04-03T16:45:00.001-04:00

Thanks to everyone who has wished me well in trying to find my mojo. It’s slowly coming back, but is not up to par yet. I did a card this afternoon that I’m not crazy about, but it’s better than nothing! It’s in response to the GCSP3 Blue Moon Challenge over on Gingersnap Creations. The challenge is to create something using your take on one of the tutorials that have been posted on their blog. I chose the string background tutorial written by the fabulous Jo Capper-Sandon. It’s a great looking technique, but if I want to use it very often I’m going to have to break down and get some mini misters. I tried to do it by just sponging ink onto the paper, but that didn’t work very well. So, I ended up mixing some reinkers with a little water in a big misting bottle and then dumping out what I didn’t use. So—guess I need to get some mini misters or figure out a different way to do the technique! Anyway—here is the result. Like I said, it’s not great but it’s better than nothing!

I used Crushed Olive and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks for the background and then stamped the image from Magenta in Crushed Olive. The border was cut from copper metallic paper using one of the new Tim Holtz dies. I randomly stamped a flourish on the card base and then overstamped French text to mimic the text on the stamped image. I toyed with embellishments, but nothing seemed to look right so I left the card as is. Let me know what you think!

Guess who?

2010-03-25T20:11:00.001-04:00

Just like Santa and the Easter Bunny, I do exist!! Wow—when was the last time I posted? To be perfectly honest, my mojo has flown the coop! I just haven’t felt at all crafty or creative. Do you ever have those periods? I even took a creativity workshop at the local art academy last week, and it didn’t help. I did make a card last night that I’m going to share with you—I hope you like it:

Love these stamps from Oxford Impressions! You know, I haven’t even kept up with my daily blog reading—that’s how bad it’s been. So if you’ve missed comments from me, I apologize!!! I did take a quick look at Roni’s blog, Ink Stains, this afternoon, and I may have to step up to her mini-album challenge. Check out the poem here.

I hope to get myself motivated soon. Until then, if you see my mojo will you tell it to get the hell home?????

Get inky…

2010-02-20T18:54:00.001-05:00

Hey, folks! Not much of a chance to play this weekend—I have my sister with me, so it’s a full weekend taking care of her and watching the Game Show Network! However, I did sit down this afternoon and play with my new Tim Holtz Distress Ink colors!! If you haven’t seen them in person yet, you will not be disappointed. Those of you who know me know that I LOVE the Distress inks—they are my absolute favorites. And these new colors? I can already tell I’m going to love them!! If you decide to get them, be forewarned that the colors on the lids don’t reflect the actual colors as accurately as you might think. The ones that surprised me the most—Pumice Stone and Chipped Sapphire. On the lid, the Pumice Stone has a brownish cast and the Chipped Sapphire looks a little purple. IRL, Pumice Stone is a wonderful gray color and the Chipped Sapphire is a dark navy with no purple at all. They’re all gorgeous, though, and I can’t wait to play with them! So—if you haven’t gotten your new ink pads yet, what are you waiting for? And if you have, let me know what you think of the new colors!! Finally, if you’re looking for the colors, I bought mine online from Simon Says Stamp—they had a good deal on all the new colors and reinkers.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Under the wire…

2010-02-13T19:14:00.001-05:00

I’m just squeaking by today in a couple of ways. First, tomorrow is my dad’s birthday so I decided I’d better make a card for him!! You know me—the ultimate procrastinator. I’m also squeaking by using said card for the Gingersnap Creations GC39 Color Challenge—Metallics (the deadline is tomorrow). First, let me say that the picture sucks! I’ll try to post a better one tomorrow when I have natural light. I also noticed that the whole thing has kind of slid down a bit—guess I’d better fix that, too!!

Let me just say that EVERYTHING on this card is metallic! The base of the card is Stampin’ Up! Brushed Gold cardstock—it’s also used as a mat. The other layers are metallic bronze and metallic copper. I bought these papers right after Christmas at Marco’s, but didn’t realize until I got home that they were text weight and not cardstock. So, for this card I’ve mounted the papers onto cardstock to give them some weight. The rearmost layer is the bronze with Rock Candy crackle paint and then gold metallic rub-on massaged into the cracks. The next bronze layer was run through the Cuttlebug with the distressed stripe embossing folder, and then I rubbed some of the gold rub-on onto the raised areas. The image is from the Artistic Outpost “The Outpost” set. I embossed with copper metallic embossing powder on the copper metallic paper. The coppers didn’t match real well, so I took some of the metallic rub-on stuff—this time in a brown color—and rubbed all over the whole thing to blend everything together. I wanted to do some sort of funky embellishing, so I stitched a random mixture of copper and gold seed beads around the bottom gold mat using copper craft wire. It was finished off with a Tim Holtz thingy. Whew! It doesn’t look that special considering all that work, does it?? Oh well—my dad will like it. He is probably the biggest fan of my cards—he loves to get them.

A couple more valentines….

2010-02-07T14:57:00.001-05:00

Before you ask—yes, I’m almost done! Maybe I’ll even spare you from the last two or three I’m going to make! I am going to make you suffer through the two I made this morning, though!!! Neither one is anything really special. It’s kind of hard to mess them up when you’re using Basic Grey papers!!!

Here’s the first one that uses Basic Grey Blush and Splitcoaststampers sketch SC243:

Here’s the second one that uses Basic Grey Porcelain and this week’s Splitcoaststampers sketch, SC266:

Now I need to find something to eat—I put some chicken curry in the crock pot this morning, and the smell is making me hungry!!!

GC41 and other ramblings…

2010-02-06T19:06:00.001-05:00

Whew! What a day!!! Unfortunately, I didn’t play nearly as much as I wanted today! When I woke up to this out the back door…

…and talk on the news about snow emergencies, etc., I thought I would have a nice quiet day to play. Instead, I spent the morning e-mail flirting with my Alabama boy toy (Chester, you know who you are!) and the afternoon with company and then on the phone for an hour and a half. So, the card that should have taken me not-very-long to put together ended up taking all day. That’s OK—e-mail flirting is fun and it’s always good to have company and there’s always tomorrow to play!!

I’m trying to get all my valentines done this weekend. Here’s the one I did get done, and I’m also using it for an entry in the GC41 Chestnut Challenge, Romance. This is just the first of my entries for this challenge—I’m sure I’ll have lots!!!

This also uses the Splitcoaststampers sketch SC207. I hope to be back tomorrow with more valentines and a birthday card for my dad, who turns 79 on Valentine’s Day. Til then, have a good evening!

Quick post…

2010-01-29T00:05:00.000-05:00

I did another Valentine that came together pretty quickly. This one is for my nephew.

I know it doesn’t look much like a Valentine—not a heart in sight! The inside sentiment is cute, though. It says, “I’m a-tractored to you.” Let me know what you think! The sketch used here is SC247 from Splitcoaststampers.

Bad poetry…

2010-01-28T17:30:00.001-05:00

Before anyone says a word, I know I’m not a good poet!!!! Having said that, I’m still kind of proud of the corny little verse I composed for my niece's Valentine. Take a look:

Front

Pages 2 and 3

Pages 4 and 5

Back

I think it needs more embellishments, but am not sure what to do. Any ideas???

This is for my 10-year-old niece. She loves to stamp and make stuff. As a toddler, her favorite things to play with were wrapping paper and scotch tape! She’s gone to Stampaway USA here in Cincinnati for the last two years—two years ago with me, and last year with her mom. Do you think that could be considered “contributing to the delinquency of a minor?” LOL!! Anyway, I think she’ll like this.

Big “thank you”…

2010-01-28T05:33:00.001-05:00

I’m so excited, but it’s almost embarrassing—I’ve received not one, but TWO Ginger Gems badges from Gingersnap Creations this week!!! I was very excited on Tuesday to see that my card had been chosen for the GC36—Resolutions challenge. Now this morning, I logged on and found that my entry for the GCSP2—Case a CAS challenge was also selected!!! Thank you for making me feel so special!!!

It’s been a busy week so far, but I hope to post another Valentine either later today or tomorrow, so stay tuned. Take care and stay warm—temps are supposed to drop throughout the day today into the teens! That’s especially depressing, considering it was in the 50s here last week!!! Welcome to Cincinnati weather….

Another Valentine…

2010-01-24T10:59:00.001-05:00

Have you figured out yet that I love to make Valentines? I guess it’s kind of silly—a 50 year old woman giving Valentines to all her friends and family—but it’s so much fun!!! It makes me feel like a kid again. Don’t you remember being in grade school and cutting a hole in the top of a shoe box, decorating it, and taking it to school to be your Valentine mailbox? I guess part of me has never grown up!!!

So—here’s another Valentine I made last night. I’m loving the Artistic Outpost Geek is Chic set—this is my second Valentine using it!

Of course, the inside sentiment is the “I {heart} nerds” stamp! Let me know what you think.

I’m off to make one or two more Valentines today in between doing laundry! Oh—and if you wondered, my nephew liked his sock monkey birthday card!

***EDIT***
I forgot to mention—the card sketch I used is from Splitcoaststampers—SC252.

Monkey and a cupcake…

2010-01-21T21:23:00.001-05:00

Well, I finished the card for my nephew and as promised, it’s a sock monkey card! I’m sure my card making buddies will tease me about it, since I included a cupcake! As you have certainly realized by now, cupcakes are a trend and have been for awhile. Let me just say that I don’t like cupcake stamps!!! They’re too darned cutesy. Well, my friends threaten to get me cupcake stamps, they made a cupcake card for my birthday—they tease me about cupcakes whenever they can. So, gals (and you know who you are!) this cupcake is for you!!!!!

I had some fun sewing beads on this card—that’s a first for me. If you’ve ever visited Mel McCarthy’s blog, you know that she does this pretty often and I love the added touch, so I decided to try. Let me know what you think!

I hope to do some more Valentines this weekend, so please come back and visit!!!

Whoo-hoo!

2010-01-19T21:45:00.001-05:00

I logged onto the Gingersnap Creations blog this morning, and guess what? I’m a Gingersnap Gem!! That means I can proudly display this badge on my blog:

I’m oh-so-excited! Thank you Shar and Ali for this wonderful honor!!!

Otherwise—had a busy weekend, so no new posts. I need to make a birthday card for my nephew who turns 17 on Friday, so that should be posted in the next day or so. I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do for him. I’ve been so tempted to make him a card using the Stampin’ Up! sock monkey set—maybe this is the year! Of course, there’s a story there. I played with a sock monkey as a little girl—my grandma made it and it was always at her house. I now have that monkey and it means so much to me. When my nephew was two, I decided that he needed his very own sock monkey, too, so I found a place that sold those funky socks and a pattern, and made him a sock monkey for Easter that year. He loved to play with it when he was little. I remember my sister calling me once and saying that Tyler wanted to talk to me (he was about 4 at the time). He was so distraught. “Aunt Kim,” he said. “My monkey’s innards are coming out. Can you fix him?” Of course I did! About that time, I asked him if I could make a sock monkey for his little sister, and he said no. So, Tyler is the only one who got a sock monkey from me. Sounds silly, but I’ve always thought of it as our special bond!!! OK—how stupid is that? Good thing he doesn’t know I have a blog—he would be so embarrassed!!!!! That settles it—sock monkey card for sure!!!! Stay tuned…

Gingersnappin’!

2010-01-14T21:20:00.001-05:00

Tonight was the night I decided to tackle GC37—Time over on Gingersnap Creations. This challenge has been posted for awhile, but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Of course, this is January and there’s the whole resolution thing, and the passing of time, and reflection and a bunch of other deep things that go with the theme, but I haven’t felt particularly deep lately. So…. this is what I came up with.

It’s pretty simple, but I love this image! There’s me, second from the left… This is kind of a fun way to interpret time, don’t you think? I like the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Word Stick, too—it says “Hope.” I guess no matter how old we spinsters get, there’s always hope, isn’t there??? Be sure to visit the Gingersnap Creations blog and see all the entries for this challenge!!!

No stamping required…

2010-01-10T10:28:00.001-05:00

I was at my friend Wendy’s house Friday night for a “play date,” and we were looking through the Splitcoaststampers sketch challenges. I came across this one and my mind went completely blank, so I decided yesterday to challenge myself and try to make a card using it. (You see my masochistic tendencies coming out her, don’t you? LOL) This is in keeping with the Valentine theme I’m into right now. Let me know what you think about this non-stamping card!!!

Snow day…

2010-01-07T16:06:00.003-05:00

Well. Those of you who live in the Cincinnati area know it’s been snowing non-stop all day. I took the weather forecast as an excuse for a vacation day. I was going to work from home but nothing came up, so instead of working I played!!!!

Have you played with any of the stamps from Artistic Outpost? I’ve admired these stamps forever, and finally ordered a couple of sets awhile back. I work with engineers every day, so the Geek is Chic set has always appealed to me. What a better set to use for a special Valentine? (Yes, I’m still making them!)
I wanted to do another hanging—this one incorporates lots of grunge paper flowers and Tim Holtz Idea-ology tidbits. I’m pleased with how it turned out! Here’s the front:

The Idea-ology Muse Token didn’t quite make it into the photo (the thing hanging down in the lower right corner). It says, “Knowledge.” Of course, the Einstein stamp is from the Artistic Outpost set.

Here’s the “secret message” on the back, also from the Artistic Outpost set:

Hope you like it! The whole hanging was inspired by Wendy Vecchi’s work, and uses several of her stamps.

Looks like the snow is beginning to taper off—guess I should go shovel……. 1-2-3-4-5….. OK, that urge has passed!!

I hope something I’ve shared here today inspires you to go make some Valentines. If not, check back this weekend—I should have one or two more!!!

Stay safe!

I’m in love…

2010-01-03T15:21:00.001-05:00

…with this card!!!!!! I’ve been piddling around with this card all day, and have to say I love it!!! It has such a vintage-y/shabby chic feel, tons of layers, and lots of embellishments. Not sure who will get this one. Guess I can’t give it to myself??? :-) Let me know what you think!

Love is in the air…

2010-01-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

I don’t know about you, but I love to make Valentines. Next to Halloween, Valentine’s Day is my favorite card making holiday! So, I’m getting a head start and making some Valentines. The two I’m sharing here use non-traditional Valentine colors and my two favorite heart stamps. I hope you like them!!

The first one uses SC261, this week’s card sketch from Splitcoaststampers and is my favorite 6” x 6” card size.

This one uses SC260 from SCS. I got some nice kraft cardstock the other day that’s 8.5” x 14”, so I decided to do a 4 1/4” x 7” card. It was kind of a challenging size to work with! For some reason, the colors didn’t photograph well on this one. The heart is embossed with Ranger’s Verdi Gris embossing powder on kraft cardstock, and neither is quite this bright. The trim is not orange, either, but more of a dark kraft color. Not sure I’ll ever get this whole photo thing figured out!!! Anyway, hope you like them, and look forward to many more during the coming month!

If you’re looking for any other inspiration, check out Ink Stains with Roni—she’s just started some tutorials for making a calendar out of CDs. It looks like fun—I’m going to try and play along and I hope you do, too.

If you had the last week off work like I did, enjoy your last day of freedom tomorrow, because Monday is back to the grind!!!

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T21:02:00.001-05:00

I’ve been busy the last couple of days. Made great strides getting the unmounted stamps catalogued. I hope to finish up tonight. Today was quite the day—I bought a new car. I had an issue yesterday—while doing some running around, I got in the car after one of my stops and BANG!!! The latch thingy that holds the back of the driver’s seat in position broke loose and I was suddenly flat on my back! Luckily, it happened in a parking lot and not on the road, and also close to home. Have you ever tried to drive with nothing to lean against? It’s darned near impossible! So this morning, I was on the phone with a service shop to see how much it would cost to fix, and the estimate was around $300. Well, the car is 10 years old, also needs new tires and brakes and has an oil leak that isn’t getting any better. The air conditioning broke a couple of years ago and I never got it fixed because it was going to cost $1300 to fix it then, and now the car has 132,000 miles on it. I’d been planning on getting something new in the next year or so, so I decided that today was the day. So—now I hope I’m set for the next 10 or 15 years!!! If all goes according to plan, my next new car will be when I retire in 15 years, and that car is going to be a shiny red Cadillac!! Well, at least a gal can dream, can’t she???

I did do a quick card this evening. A new challenge was just posted over at Gingersnap Creations—GCSP2—Case a CAS. I chose Ali’s clean and simple (CAS) Warhol Style. I love doing things like this that are out of my comfort zone. White card bases are unusual for me, and I don’t usually do anything CAS, so thanks for the great challenge!!!! Here’s my card, the first of my Valentines:

Hope you like it—be sure and let me know!

In the meantime, have a very Happy New Year! I wish you all happiness and health in 2010!

Organizing and a question…

2009-12-28T18:17:00.001-05:00

I haven’t created anything today, but I did go to Archiver’s to see what was on sale! I was going to go to JoAnn’s, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby, too, but I spent enough at Archiver’s to make up for missing the other ones! I’ve been sitting here for the last hour or so trying to decide if I should start on some Valentine’s, but instead I’m going to work on that never ending task, organizing stamps. Do your stamps seem to multiply when you’re not looking, too? I swear—they’re worse than rabbits!!!

So here’s a question for you—when you have sets of stamps, do you break them up or keep them together?? Any insight would be greatly appreciated! I made the decision awhile ago to go to CD case storage for unmounted stamps. However, some manufacturers, like Oxford Impressions or Artistic Outpost, put lots of stamps in a set—more than will fit a CD case. In these instances, do you split your sets or keep them together in some alternate type of storage? I know—this is the age-old question for stampers, but I would love to hear how you handle it! Oh—and while I’m organizing the stamps, I’m actually going to clean them (gasp!).

I hope to get started on Valentines and a birthday card tomorrow, but until then, have you seen the video tutorial for this card? I got this stamp today—definitely see some of these for next Christmas!

Another challenge completed…

2009-12-27T20:44:00.001-05:00

Whoo-hoo!!! I’m kind of excited—I’ve finished all of this month’s Gingersnap Creations challenges, which was a personal challenge to myself! The GC34 Spicy Supply challenge was to use sandpaper. That was pretty easy, given that I love to distress everything!! This is also the first time I’ve ever made one of these little hangy thingys with a Maya Road chipboard shape. It was kind of fun. So—here’s my challenge entry:

Ever since I started stamping, I’ve been a huge fan of what I call “rubber stamp wisdom.” You know what I mean—those quirky sayings you see that make you laugh but that you know you’d never use. Well, if I see ‘em I buy ‘em, and this sentiment stamp was the very first one I purchased about 5 years ago. I even bought the outhouse image to go with it. And yes, there is a story behind it but we won’t go there! I sanded several things on this. The background paper uses one of my favorite techniques, faux fresco. In this technique, you Mod Podge crumpled waxed paper to cardstock, sand it, rub it with an ink pad, and then run it through a die cutting machine with an embossing folder. Once it’s embossed, you sand and ink some more. The texture is so interesting and very shabby chic, depending on the colors and EF you use. I did a variation on the technique for this project—instead of waxed paper, I used a page from an old phone book. Somehow, that seemed appropriate to the theme (both the outhouse and sandpaper theme LOL). I even used some of the phone book page as the mat behind the phrase. All the edges are also sanded/distressed. Thanks for taking a look, and I hope no one is offended!!

On a roll…

2009-12-26T16:55:00.001-05:00

Yes, this is my second post for today. I need to make up for lost time! Over at Gingersnap Creations, they’re running a resolutions challenge. With the exception this year of resolving to start my Christmas cards next month, I typically don’t make New Year’s resolutions—I tend to make resolutions around the time of my birthday in September. This past September, I made the resolution to nurture my creativity more. Taking a drawing class, starting this blog, and participating in challenges like GC36 are some of the things I’ve done towards that goal. I’m also really excited that I only have one more challenge to do to be all caught up on the Gingersnap challenges for the month!! I hope to get to that one tomorrow. So—here’s my card:

It’s kind of a stretch because it’s black and white, not a color scheme I usually use. I think this is only the second black and white card I’ve ever done. The stamps are from Paper Artsy. I was so excited before Christmas when I went into my local stamp store (Stamp Your Art Out, the best stamp store on the planet!) and found that they had started carrying some Paper Artsy stamps. I love them, but have been hesitant to buy from overseas. So, while I was buying some Christmas presents, I had to get this for me! (Is anyone seeing a trend here??? LOL) Anyway, I hope you like it!

Take care—hope to post more tomorrow!

Thinking of you…

2009-12-26T15:01:00.001-05:00

Well—did everyone survive Christmas? We had a very nice time at my sister’s. I didn’t know how the weather would be, since it started out raining and the weatherman predicted temps would drop during the day. The roads were OK, though, so we got there and back just fine.

I decided to do a “Thinking of You” card today for a friend of mine. When ordering Christmas presents, I had to throw in something for myself, and ended up with this Stamping Bella cutie! She’s Gertie from the Lulu Collection. I also broke into the Basic Grey June Bug pad. What do you think?

Bye for now—I think I’ll go make something else!!! Have a great weekend.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T18:35:00.001-05:00

OK—I’m back! Has the last month been incredibly hectic for everyone else, too? In addition to the normal holiday tasks of shopping, wrapping gifts, making cards, sending cards, attending holiday parties, my dad was in the hospital for a few days last week and that really threw things off! He’s home and doing OK now. Thanks for all your prayers!

I don’t know about you, but I am SO over Christmas!!! There just wasn’t enough time to get it all done this year! I do have a New Year’s resolution—I’m going to make 5 Christmas cards a month starting in January. That way, I should have all that I need by about October. Waiting until November to make cards is just crazy!!!! So—here’s a question for everyone—do you want me to share the Christmas cards throughout the year as I make them, or save them all to share at once next Christmas? Let me know!

Well, it’s a nice, laid back Christmas Eve this year. I got my sister this morning, so you know what we’re doing right now—that’s right, watching the Game Show Network. There was a Family Feud marathon on all afternoon. Whoopee!! So, I took the opportunity to sit here and do a Gingersnap challenge!!! A couple of weeks ago, there was a color challenge posted—the colors are green, purple, and gold. I immediately thought Mardi Gras, since those are official Mardi Gras colors. I didn’t want to go too over the top with a Mardi Gras theme, so this is what I came up with:

I love the fleur-de-lis and it is the official symbol of New Orleans, so I used it in a couple of places on the card. I had initially stamped it in green on the kraft cardstock and then sprayed the whole thing with gold iridescent Glimmer Mist, but the stamped image got so soft looking that it didn’t show up very well. So, I stamped it again and embossed it with clear embossing powder before cutting it out. After I cut it out, I sprayed it with the Glimmer Mist and then hit it with the heat gun to dry. It gave it a very interesting texture as the embossing powder melted and the Glimmer Mist dried—it’s really textured. The purple paper was also sprayed with Glimmer Mist and then embossed with a fleur-de-lis embossing folder. I picked up the beaded trim at JoAnn’s in the clearance aisle awhile ago. It’s kind of a white iridescent color—the kind you would see on bridal veils. I hit it with a gold metallic Adirondack paint dabber to change the color and added to the card. What would New Orleans and Mardi Gras be without beads???

OK—I need to fix supper for Lisa Bug. She loves dips and anything you spread on a cracker, so we’re having cheese ball and a hot onion dip for supper. No diet food here!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Thank you for your support as I continue blogging in 2010!!!!!

Christmas card—final version…

2009-12-06T16:14:00.001-05:00

Hey there! I posted my prototype Christmas card earlier—here’s the slightly modified version. I stamped in white on the card base and inked the edges of the kraft mat behind the image. I know these are subtle changes, but they make a real difference, at least to my eye. Hope you like it! Oh—I didn’t change border punches. I was going to switch to the Martha Stewart doily punch, but it wouldn’t go through the SU! burgundy paper. So aggravating!!! Also—the image was stamped in Peeled Paint, not Shabby Shutters as previously reported. Finally—I forgot to give credit to SCS for the sketch—this is SC150 from Splitcoaststampers. Let me know what you think! Otherwise, I’m getting a cold just in time for jury duty tomorrow morning. Great. Have a good week everybody—hope I get a chance to play this week and have some more things to share with you!

Christmas card prototype…

2009-12-06T00:12:00.001-05:00

Some people laugh at me because if I’m making multiples of a card, I always make a prototype. I don’t think there’s anything weird about it, but I’m also the same person who designs card layouts to scale in PowerPoint! So—this afternoon I worked up a prototype of my Christmas card for this year. Yes, I send the same card to almost everyone. It would make me crazy to make individual cards and figuring out which one to send to what person! It’s hard enough for me to settle on a design and paper for just one kind!!! Having said that, I showed you the paper and image I’d chosen in a post awhile ago. Now here’s the prototype card.

There are a couple of things I plan to change on the final product. I like the kraft mat around the image, but it needs something, so I’m going to try distressing the edges with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink (that’s the same color used on the image). I’m also going to use a more ornate border punch on the edges of the striped and burgundy panels. The one I used here doesn’t seem quite ornate enough. I’m also wondering about using some sort of background stamp on the kraft card base, just to give it a little more interest. What do you think? I definitely need to get started on the cracked glass images tomorrow!

OK—off to bed soon. I’ll show you what I end up with on the Christmas card tomorrow!

Catching up and a Christmas project…

2009-12-05T12:06:00.001-05:00

Hey, folks! What a week! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Did you get lots of shopping done on Black Friday? I don’t go out anymore because my sister is with me that day, and this year was no exception. I spent Black Friday with her, totally engrossed in a 2-day Deal or No Deal mega-marathon (nothing but Deal or No Deal on the Game Show Network from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm both Thursday and Friday). It was very stimulating (NOT!). It seems like it’s been one thing after another for the last couple of weeks, but I did finally finish a project that’s been percolating in the back of my mind for a month or so. I don’t know if you remember, but back in October I shared a link to a terrific project that Linda Elbourne posted on her blog. I decided then and there that I wanted to make a special Christmas card for my dad based on her project. Well, I have to say that this is probably the most ambitious project I’ve ever tried. I’ve struggled, cussed, messed up, started over, and changed directions more times than I can count while doing this, but I think in the end it turned out OK. Let me know what you think about it!

Here’s a picture of the front of the card.

Ignore the thing sticking out of the side for now. You really shouldn’t be able to see it, but the danged thing is too bulky to close. You can see I tried the icicle technique Tim Holtz used on his first tag, but mine doesn’t look as good as his (of course!). Part of that is because when it comes to some things, I’m so impatient! I knew I had Picket Fence Stickles, but when I couldn’t find them I decided to improvise with a combination of Rock Candy and the pewter color. Of course, as soon as I had that combo globbed on, I found the Picket Fence, so I put that on top of it. That’s why the whole thing looks pretty bulky. Oh well. One thing I am happy about is the way the Prima poinsettia turned out. I found the red brads in the center at Archiver’s in the $1.99 bin awhile ago—I wasn’t sure what I would ever use them for, but they looked interesting. I think they add the perfect touch of sparkle. There’s a lot more sparkle and shine on this—I don’t know how well it shows up in the photo. The bells were added this morning to cover a mistake—I got punch happy with the Crop-a-dile last night and punched holes where I shouldn’t have. Ergo, bells.

When you open the first flap, this is what the card looks like:

I really dug into the grungeboard shapes for this card! The letters, holly, trees, and reindeer are all grungeboard.

Now here’s the card opened fully:

The verse isn’t specifically a Christmas verse, but somehow it feels like a Christmas sentiment to me. It was especially appropriate for what I wanted to say to my dad. The thing in the middle of the center panel is a door made out of Ten Seconds Studio metal. The snowflake is cut out of the same metal using the Spellbinder’s Build A Flake 1, just like the one I gave away. Of course, I’ve already lost one. (Like I said—what a week!) I’m hopeful it will turn up at some point. The door is hanging a little wonky, despite all my efforts to glue the brad butts to within an inch of their lives!

Finally, here is the door opened:

Let me tell you—that little box was a pain to make, attach, and decorate! I think it turned out pretty cute, though. Aren’t the ornaments cute? I found those at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago.

So—there you have it—my dad’s Christmas card! I’m going to link this to the Gingersnap Creations blog for their Winter Wonderland challenge. I think it fits the bill!

Now I need to get to grocery. I have to make a dish for a Christmas party tonight and wrap my white elephant gift. I hope to be back tomorrow to show you something else (assuming I don’t have too good a time at the party tonight!).

Thanksgiving ramblings…

2009-11-26T19:37:00.001-05:00

Well—the leftovers are all put away, most of the dishes are done, the family is gone, and it’s just me and my sister, Lisa, sitting here watching TV (the Game Show Network, of course!), still stuffed from our Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t get any better, does it? LOL!

I remember the first Thanksgiving dinner my youngest sister, Lori, and I fixed—our mom was in the hospital and we went to her house and cooked Thanksgiving for the family. As soon as we had eaten, we packed a big dinner for Mom and all went to the hospital to see her (and seek her approval for the meal we had prepared). That was in 2003, and it was Mom’s last Thanksgiving. I remember how apprehensive Lori and I were trying to do what Mom had made look so easy all those years. Now I feel like I can whip out a first-rate Thanksgiving feast without thinking twice. I read a blog entry over on the Simon Says Stamp blog right before my family showed up today. It put me in this somewhat introspective mood, as Heidi shared the story of her Aunt Madonna teaching her to make pies. (Please take a minute to read her post.) She went on to say that “recipes are treasures.” I’d like to share my comment to that post:

Thank you for sharing. I agree that recipes are more than directions to make food--they are links to our past and ensure that those who are no longer with us physically are still with us in spirit. I thought that yesterday as I made the coleslaw from the recipe card in my mom's handwriting. I hope that someday my nieces will also understand the special connection these family meals give us to the past and the passed. Now I'm off to finish up some last minute details--the family should be arriving any minute. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and know that your Aunt Madonna and my mom are smiling down on us.

I hope Mom was watching us today and is proud of the feast I was able to put on the table for our family. If she was watching, I’m sure she smiled at my 10-year-old niece mashing potatoes, and my 15-year-old niece dishing up vegetables and filling glasses at the table. I know she will be equally proud of Lori as she hosts our family’s Christmas celebration in a month or so. Even though Mom is no longer with us, it’s comforting to know that we can carry on the unspoken values that were so important to her—putting a meal full of love on the table and bringing our family around that table, if only for a few hours.

If you celebrated Thanksgiving today, I hope it was full of family and the tradition of the tried and true tastes and smells that link us to our past. Take care of yourself and your loved ones, and have a wonderful evening.

Being bad…

2009-11-21T11:07:00.001-05:00

But it feels so good! OK—get your mind out of the gutter. My house is a wreck, I’m hosting Thanksgiving, and what have I done this morning? I made a card! I’ve been wanting to do some of the challenges over on the Gingersnap Creations blog, but haven’t had the time. I needed to sneak something in that was more my “style”—everything I’ve made lately has been so clean and simple! This card was made for GC31—Monochromatic. It’s not terribly involved, but definitely fits my favorite grungy/shabby style.

I know there’s a bit of glare on this pic, but I decided to leave it since it really shows the shine from the Glimmer Mist. In case you can’t read it, the verse says, “The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.” Both the verse and the image are from I Brake for Stamps. Lynn featured this new stamp plate on her blog a week or so ago. I can’t do justice to them the way she does, but I can aspire to! The wide, woven ric rac came from the clearance bin at JoAnn’s—don’t you love it?

I’ve also made some progress towards getting the house cleaned up, although I can’t tell by looking around! I wish someone could tell me why I’m such a terrible procrastinator. I’ve had some shelves to put up in my craft area for a couple of months, so when do I decide to put them up? This morning! Like I really need to be doing construction projects less than a week before Thanksgiving!!! Now I just need to collect the stamps, paper, and various other art supplies from throughout the house and get them piled on the new shelves. Organizing it all will come later (much later!!)

I do hope to get some creative stuff done next weekend. For those of you who don’t know me, I have a special needs sister who lives in a group home. I’ll be picking her up Wednesday morning and keeping her for most of the weekend. The only thing she loves to do is watch the Game Show Network from the time she gets up until she goes to bed. She gets mad if you try to watch something else! So, I always try to spoil her when she comes to stay and we watch GSN from morning til night! Needless to say, I’ll be bored to tears, so I’ll drag the craft stuff back out and hopefully make something fun, or at least get started on my Christmas cards!!

So—I need to get back to work. For those of you who celebrate American Thanksgiving, have a safe and happy one!

Update on OWH and Making Smiles on Faces Award!

2009-11-17T18:50:00.001-05:00

I know a lot of you were skeptical about our ability to make 250 cards in one sitting for Operation Write Home and frankly, I thought it was overly ambitious myself. However, I counted up the completed cards this afternoon and they totaled 241! Wow!!! Granted, they’re not completely finished. We still need to add the liners, stamp the back with the OWH logo, and put them in envelopes, but all in all I think we did great!!! The most important thing—everyone had a great time while supporting a worthy cause. Having said that—I’m taking a break tonight! It’s TV for me—no cardmaking to be had—well, maybe not. LOL!

I’m also excited about something else—I’ve received my first blog badge!!! Of course, it came from my sweet online friend, Lynn! Her one year blog anniversary is tomorrow, so be sure to stop by and see her at Trash to Treasure Art!!

Here’s the badge:

I’m required to tell you five facts about myself and then pass the award on to five more people. OK—let me think of some things you don’t know about me…

Fact 1: My favorite ice cream flavor is butter pecan

Fact 2: I could watch old westerns and classic film noir
on TV 24/7 (while eating butter pecan ice cream)

Fact 3: At heart I’m a shy person (don’t even think about
laughing!!!)

Fact 4: I can’t even get a date using online dating services

Fact 5: My favorite clothes are sweats and a flannel shirt
(maybe that explains the date thing!)

Now I need to pass this badge on to five more people. I pass it on to:

Angie
Cheryl
Pam
Roni
Sherry

Have a great evening everyone!

Operation Write Home

2009-11-15T11:48:00.001-05:00

I finished up the sample cards for the Operation Write Home project we’re doing tomorrow after work, and I’d like to share them with you. When we first started discussing this, we decided to make two birthday cards, two Valentines, and a miss you card. Here’s what I came up with:

Here’s the miss you card. I need to get Cuttlebugging—haven’t cut these panels yet!

The first birthday is the card I'm least satisfied with—it definitely needs something! I think we’ll end up putting the stamped image on pop dots—that should help.

On the OWH site, they suggested that birthday cards meant for kids are always welcome, so we kept that in mind. I think this sentiment will also get pop dots. The orange piece has been embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Also—if anyone can give me any tips on photographing orange so it looks less like a construction cone, please let me know!!!

Here is a Valentine we’re sending—this is my favorite card (probably because of all the layers!).

Finally, here’s the second Valentine. I think we’ve all been enamored with the SU Fifth Avenue watercolor roses—I hope this isn’t too ambitious for us!

I want you to see the inside of this, too. The OWH site had this great idea, and we’re going to use it in all our cards. This is the only card with a sentiment stamped on the inside.

The inner lining of the card is a full sheet of text weight paper that can be unfolded for letter writing. Don’t you love this? Guess I’d better get busy folding and trimming 250 pieces of paper, huh???

Finally, I’d like to share a comment left this morning by Linda:

Kim OWH is a great project! But 250 cards in one hour? Well if you have enough people to help that should be the easy part, the kitting is the crazy part. Hope all goes well and smoothly for you! As a Mom and MIL of military personnel, THANK YOU for taking the time to get the cards ready for them!

Comments like that make all the effort worthwhile—thank you, Linda, and thanks to your family for helping to protect our freedom!

Now I have to get busy finishing up the kits and getting Angie’s blog candy packaged up to be mailed. Have a great Sunday, everybody, and I’ll let you know later in the week how close we got to making 250 cards!

And the winner is…

2009-11-15T07:24:00.001-05:00

…Angie Hall Haviland, who said:

“Yummy, blog candy!! Please enter my name :O)”

Angie—send me your mailing address and I’ll get everything out to you ASAP!

I want to thank all of you who took the time to visit here at Inspiration of the Day and leave comments. I enjoy doing this blog, but it’s gratifying to know that you all like it, too. I hope you’ll continue to visit now that the blog candy is gone!

I’ll be posting again a little later today with pics of the Operation Write Home cards. Until then—have a great day!

Saturday ramblings…

2009-11-14T18:28:00.001-05:00

Well—I just woke up from a two hour nap, and feel quite refreshed! :-) The card class you’ve been hearing about went pretty well this afternoon. I think everyone enjoyed the projects. We had some experienced folks as well as some first timers—we may have recruited some new stampers and cardmakers! They loved the gift card holder, and came up with some beautiful designs. I wish I had remembered my camera so I could have shared all of them with you!

A big thank you to Angie and Rena for inviting me to help with their class—I had so much fun, and everyone is so nice!! I can’t wait to do it again sometime!

Now I need to move on to the next project—Operation Write Home. We have an organization of women engineers at the place where I work, and they approached me a couple of weeks ago about making cards for the military. I told them about OWH and we decided to start making cards on a recurring basis for this worthwhile group. Monday after work is our inaugural card making session, so I need to finish kitting up all the parts and make sample cards this weekend. We have the very ambitious goal of assembly line producing about 250 cards in an hour or so—wish us luck! I’m going to work on that this evening and tomorrow, and hope to post pics of the sample cards sometime tomorrow.

Also tomorrow—be sure to tune in for the blog candy giveaway! I plan on posting the winner around 8:00 am EST. Good luck!

Quick and easy gift card holder

2009-11-13T10:38:00.006-05:00

Tomorrow is the Christmas Card class at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church with Angie and Rena, and in addition to the Christmas cards I showed you previously we’re going to make a surprise project. It will be a surprise to the ladies, but I decided to give you a sneak preview. Before I get started, please be kind—this is my first tutorial! Actually, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a tutorial—this is so simple. There are no special techniques involved, and you can easily alter the size to be smaller, larger, or whatever. So—here goes.
You will need:

Cardstock
Patterned paper (scraps work great for this!)
Embellishments, stamps, and punches of your choice (any or all!)
Scor-Pal or other scoring tool
Adhesive

Cut your cardstock to 6” x 10”. Score along the long side at 2” and 6” and fold along the score lines.
Apply adhesive to the edges of the 2” section similar to this:

Fold up the 2” section and adhere. Your gift card holder will look something like this:

Now it’s pretty much done—just decorate and embellish as much or as little as you want. Here’s my finished gift card holder:

OK—see why I hesitate to even call that a tutorial?? It’s embarrassingly easy! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and will make some fun gift card holders for those boring gift cards we all give as gifts to someone on our list!

Oh—here’s what I used for my holder:

Cardstock—Stampin’ Up!
Patterned Paper—Papertrey Ink
Flower—Hero Arts
Stamp—Wordsworth/Rubber Soul
Lace—clearance bin at JoAnn’s
Snowflake brad—haven’t a clue…

Please be sure to stop by throughout the weekend. Tomorrow I’ll let you know how the Christmas card class goes, and Sunday I’ll announce the winner of the blog candy! I will post the winning name around 8:00 AM EST (assuming I roll out of bed in time). I’ll also be talking a little bit about Operation Write Home on Sunday, so be sure to come back!
Have a lovely Friday, everyone!

Some FOOD inspiration!

2009-11-11T18:21:00.001-05:00

After a hard day of stamping, what could be better than some cake? Here’s a recipe I just discovered on the Kraft Foods website and it sure is yummy!

Pumpkin Spice Cake

1 package (2-layer size) yellow cake mix

1 package (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding

1 cup pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup water

3 eggs

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Cream Cheese frosting

1/2 cup chopped, toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cake mix, dry pudding mix, pumpkin, oil, water, eggs, and spice in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer on low speed just until moistened. Beat on medium speed 4 minutes.

Pour into greased and floured 9 x 13 baking pan.

Bake 32 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack. Frost with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with pecans. Store in refrigerator.

The recipe says to cook your own pumpkin, but all the reviews said canned pumpkin is just fine.

I need to work on kits for an Operation Write Home event coming up on Monday—more on that later.

Finally, a huge THANK YOU! to everyone who is visiting. I love that you’re stopping by and leaving comments! The blog candy winner will be announced first thing Sunday morning, so be sure to visit then!

Is the weekend over already?

2009-11-08T18:14:00.001-05:00

They go too fast, don’t they? I don’t have anything of my own to share with you today, but if you’re looking for some quick little projects for the holidays, be sure to check out the Holiday Blitz tutorials that have been happening over at Splitcoaststampers all week. I know you’ll find something there that will inspire you!

I hope to have a little something for you next weekend. As part of the Christmas Card Class I’m teaching with Angie and Rena next Saturday, I’ve come up with a bonus project—it’s a very simple gift card holder. My goal is to put together my very first tutorial and post it for you next weekend.

The other big thing next weekend will be the blog candy giveaway! I’m confident I will get one more comment from someone new so I can draw names for the candy. Remember—if I don’t get another comment from someone different, the prize defaults to Lynn!

I did get the grass mowed this morning in time to go for the Sunday drive I mentioned yesterday. I’m glad I took advantage of the beautiful Indian Summer day we had here in southwest Ohio. I have a feeling it may be the last nice weekend. It’s supposed to start raining Tuesday and get cooler. I hope you had the chance to do something relaxing that you’ve been looking forward to!

Can one think about crafting TOO much?

2009-11-07T17:44:00.001-05:00

The short answer is, YES! But of course, if you’ve learned anything about me by now, you know I never have short answers, so here’s the story!

I just got back from the grocery store. When I left, I was thinking about a particularly challenging construction issue I’m having on a current project. It wasn’t until I was halfway to Archiver’s that I realized I was supposed to be going to Kroger’s! I’m sure people thought I was crazy, because I was laughing out loud by myself in the car! I was good, though—I took a detour and went to the grocery instead of continuing on to the scrapbook store!! Aren’t you proud of me?

I’m sorry I don’t have anything to post for you this weekend. I’ve been busy wrapping up the kits for the card class with Angie and Rena—all the paper is cut and kitted, the crocheted flowers are tea dyed, and now I’m finishing up by putting embellishments in the kits. I will finish while watching TV tonight. Whew! That’s a load off! Although I would love nothing more than to play tomorrow, I need to mow the grass for the last time this season. I don’t think I’ll have any more opportunities after this weekend. I might also take a Sunday drive. I haven’t done that in ages, even though it’s something I love to do.

If you haven’t taken note of the comment count lately, we’re getting close! I think we’ll be up to 15 by next week, and I’m so excited! Thanks to all of you who are playing along!!!

Oh—one more update. I did Pilates again today—I don’t think I’ll be moving very fast tomorrow!

Trash to Treasure Art

2009-11-04T20:45:00.001-05:00

My wonderful first follower, Lynn, is celebrating her one year blog anniversary and is giving away some of her beautiful art. Here is just a sample:

If you would like to win this or one of another stunning works of art, be sure to visit her blog!

Gaining momentum

2009-11-03T22:53:00.001-05:00

Nothing fun to post for you this evening. I just wanted to say a great, big,

Thank You!

to everyone who has stopped by to visit and leave a comment. I’m up to three followers—whoo-hoo!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I’ve been working on kits for the Christmas card class at Angie and Rena’s church on November 14. I need to get those kits finished up so I can get started on a project for Operation Write Home. Stay tuned for more on that later. I’m ready for bed now, though! Be back later…

The Marco’s Rundown

2009-10-31T16:07:00.002-04:00

OK—now that I’m back from getting my hair cut and colored and braving the Saturday crowds at Stehlin’s Meat Market and Jungle Jim’s, let me fill you in on my foray to Marco’s yesterday. Like every other visit I’ve made to Marco’s, this one was a treasure hunt. As anyone who has been there knows, there are goodies jammed into every possible space! I initially went looking for blog candy, but that was an earlier post!
As soon as I got in the door, I picked up the latest issues of a bunch of stamping magazines. I don’t know why I get sucked into that—I usually thumb through them once and that’s it. Oh well. I headed towards the area where the snowflake dies would be, but got distracted on the way by a whole end cap of Tim Holtz products. It seems like most places carry a handful of idea-ology items, but not as many as Marco’s. The Foliage was calling my name—I’ve wanted some for awhile, but hadn’t been able to find it. I also picked up a pack of plain, uncut grungeboard. OK—enough Tim Holtz stuff. Let’s get on to the dies! So, I headed in that direction, but got waylaid by a whole display of embossing folders. Hmmm… haven’t seen the fleur-de-lis one before, so into my basket it went! There were others that were new to me, but I resisted. Now—off to the dies. I finally made it there, and found the Create A Flake 1 for the blog. Of course, I couldn’t give it away and not get one for myself, so into the basket two Create a Flakes went! As I was digging through the packages of dies, I found Labels Six nesties. I have Labels One through Four and want to get the rest of the labels, so this one jumped into my basket. After all, they were on sale for $19.99! I moseyed over to my favorite corner where the green grocer products are. I LOVE the brown bag paper envelopes. I have square ones, but decided to pick up some #10 size, too. I poked around a little more and ended up with some JudiKins detail black embossing powder, a huge jar of UTEE (35% off!), and a package of Ten Seconds Studio Humungo Killer Tape, and decided it was time to get the heck out of there! We won’t discuss the painful grand total. Oh well. Guess I’d better get busy using this stuff, though!
The other thing for those of you who have been to Marco’s either in Dayton or to their booth at a convention—you probably know Karen and know that she recently had a stroke. Well, I’m happy to report that she checked me out and is doing fine!
OK—I’m off to do some cookin’ before I turn out all the lights this evening and watch scary movies! Have a Happy Halloween and be sure to leave a comment!!!!

Halloween “Candy”

2009-10-31T09:25:00.001-04:00

For those of you who read my post yesterday, you might remember that I was toying with the idea of going to Marco’s when I left Rosa Parks Elementary. Well—it was such a beautiful day that I couldn’t resist the drive up there. I’ve had an idea rolling around in my head for a couple of days and the trip to Marco’s sealed the deal. What am I talking about you may ask? The answer is….

BLOG CANDY!!!!!

And why am I giving away blog candy? I was very excited the other day to discover that I have my first blog follower!!!! Thank you, Lynn! Be sure to check out Lynn’s blog, Trash to Treasure Art. Lynn does fabulous work. And be sure to check out her items published in the latest edition of Somerset Studio magazine—on sale now. I picked up a copy at Marco’s yesterday and Lynn’s pieces are beautiful!

I know—you want me to answer the most important question—what might that blog candy be? Here it is:

Those are the Create A Flake 1 Shapeabilities from Spellbinders and some tags (a la Tim Holtz) thrown in for good measure, since he will hopefully be doing another 12 Tags of Christmas this holiday season and I want you to play along. As for the Shapeabilities—if you’re wondering why I chose these as my very first blog candy, be sure to check out the wonderful tutorial from Sherry Cheever (aka Bad Sherry) over on SCS or on her blog. After you do, you are gonna want these dies!!!!

I’m sure by now you’re wondering how you can win this splendiforous prize. Well, this is where the challenge comes in—between now (October 31) and Saturday, November 14, I want to get comments from a minimum of 15 different people. On November 15, I will put all the names in a box and draw one—that lucky person will get the blog candy. However… if my blog doesn’t get comments from 15 different people, then the blog candy goes to my very first follower, Lynn.

So if you want to be in the running for the dandy candy, leave a comment and get all your friends to leave comments, too.

Let the fun begin!!!

Friday fun…

2009-10-30T08:28:00.001-04:00

Every month the Gingersnap Creations blog publishes a list of reasons to stamp for every day of the month. The November list is now posted. Check it out! My eventual goal is to make something for every single day—unfortunately, it’s not going to happen in November, which is shaping up to be a pretty busy month for me! But that doesn’t mean you can’t play along. I challenge you to make something inspired by the list. When you do, be sure to share it with me—I’d love to post your work to inspire everyone else!

I also want to make sure you see something that has had me drooling for days—this stunning work of art created by Linda Elbourne, that wacky gal from the UK who can make art with the best of them! For those of you who may have seen the Valentine I made for my sister earlier this year, you know that something like this is right up my alley. I think there may be a really special Christmas card lurking on the horizon for my dad. Guess I’d better get busy!!!!! In the meantime, have a fabulous weekend. I’m off to get my hearing aid adjusted and then tutoring at Rosa Parks Elementary in Middletown. I’m also thinking a trip to Marco’s Paper might also be in order this afternoon… Stay tuned for more info on that.

Clean and simple inspiration…

2009-10-25T09:05:00.001-04:00

Those of you who know me know that clean and simple (also known as CAS) cards aren’t really my style. However, I know many of you love CAS, so I want to share a great inspirational tutorial with you today. Gina from Gina K. Designs is responsible for StampTV on YouTube and recently uploaded this fabulous tutorial for tone on tone embossing. Check it out—I think you’ll love it!

Baby shower and other ramblings

2009-10-24T09:34:00.001-04:00

First, I want to say that I’ve certainly deviated from the intentions I vowed in my first post. I said I would try to post every day, but it’s shaking out to once a week, isn’t it? I also said I wouldn’t be posting much of my own work, but it seems like that’s almost all I’m doing! Please leave a comment and let me know if this is OK or if you would rather see more inspiration from other people (like the sidewalk artist or Michael DeMeng links). I can take this in any direction you want! In the meantime, I’ll show you a baby shower card I threw together last night. I’m not particularly happy with it, but it serves the purpose. This is for my cousin’s son and daughter-in-law who are expecting their first child around Christmas. The baby shower is today—they know it’s a boy.

I also found another bit of inspiration while blurfing this morning (love that word!). There is nothing artsy or crafty about this site, but it’s certainly inspirational! Corey Amaro is an American living in France with her French husband, and she blogs about her experiences there. I’ve always wanted to visit France, so I find her photos especially inspiring. Her blog entry for today talks about “brocante.” I had no idea what this word means, so I found a handy-dandy online French to English translator and checked it out. “Brocante” means “second-hand goods.” doesn’t brocante sound so much more romantic?

If you want even more inspiration, check out Tim Holtz’ blog (there’s a link to the right). He has a couple of fun videos up—one from his recent art cruise to Mexico with Wendy Vecchi (pics on her blog, too—Studio 490, also to the right), and another one from his trip to Japan last month. Enjoy!

More weekend creativeness…

2009-10-18T16:09:00.001-04:00

I hate to admit that I’ve squandered this beautiful Sunday sitting inside making cards, but there you have it! I have some Halloween cards to show you. I’ve always sent Halloween cards to my nieces and nephew and have handmade them for the last few years. These are the cards I’m sending them this year.

This is my first attempt at a stair step card. I stamped the fence and monster silhouettes, embossed them, and cut them out (at least partially). That accounts for the glare on the monsters—sorry about that! The pumpkins, haunted house, and bats are Tim Holtz grungeboard painted with black acrylic paint. I sponged some yellow over the blue behind the house to give it an eerie green glow, but am not sure it looks that good. Oh well. I cased a card from Bad Sherry on SCS—hers is definitely better! You can’t see the sentiment between the pumpkins very well, but it says, “Bugs and Hisses!”

Here’s the next one. I used SCS sketch SC240. The stamp is Impression Obsession and in case you can’t see it, the charm has a skull and crossbones and says “Beware.” I picked these charms up awhile back—I think at Archiver’s. The paper is the new Basic Grey Eerie.

This one gave me fits—I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. I knew I wanted to use this Edgar Allen Poe image from Oxford Impressions, but didn’t know what else to do. The Graphic 45 paper was pretty fabulous on its own, but I embellished it with some spider web stamps, a raven, and a spider. The black border on the right is chipboard cut with the Cuttlebug, as is the frame. The border was inked with black ink and the frame was painted with Antique Brass Crackle Paint. “Nevermore” was stamped on a piece of parchment looking paper that was torn and distressed. I attached another one of those cute charms—this one has a spider and says, “Creepy.” What do you think?

That’s it for this weekend—be sure to show me some of your creations soon!

As promised…

2009-10-17T19:31:00.001-04:00

I didn’t get as much playing done as I wanted to today, but I did force myself to settle on paper for my Christmas cards, which is a huge relief! Here is a picture of the paper and the image I’m using in two different colors. I haven’t decided yet whether to go with the red or green. The image is from Cornish Heritage Farms. What do you think?

I also made a birthday card for a friend who I found out celebrated a birthday last week and I didn’t know it. Here’s a picture of it.

I’m not sure how well some of the detail shows up in this photo. First, I want to credit Splitcoaststampers for the layout—this is SC232 if you’re interested. I used some of the yummy Basic Grey Indian Summer paper, and a Tim Holtz
Idea-ology Muse Token that says “Wonderful.” The stamped image is from ERA Graphics. It’s been treated with the cracked glass technique (as are the Christmas card images)—I’m on a roll with that. I haven’t finished the inside yet, but I picked up a terrific stamp a couple of weeks ago at the best stamp store on the planet, Stamp Your Art Out! It’s from their very own stamp line, Verses, and says, “Surely a star danced in heaven on the day you were born.” I hope he likes it!

That’s it for today, Pussydoll Cats! I’m going to keep on inkin’ and will try to post more creations tomorrow!

Artistic inspiration and just plain fun…

2009-10-17T09:40:00.001-04:00

Well, alrighty then. It’s been a hectic week—worked pretty much OT and wore myself out. I hope to have some inky fun this weekend, though. I need to make Halloween cards and a birthday card—I’m looking forward to that when I get back from Pilates! At least I feel partially recovered from playing paintball yesterday. I have decided—aerobic exercise is highly overrated! I’ll post pics of the cards as soon as I get them made.

In the meantime, I have an inspirational link to show you, courtesy of Suze Weinberg’s blog. I’m sure you’ve all been e-mailed at one time or another pictures of those amazing trompe l’oeil images created on sidewalks. Here is a link to the artist’s website. Have fun looking at these—they are amazing!

Suze also shared a link to a fun photo altering site. I don’t have many photos on my computer, but I know you all do. So check out this site and have fun playing with your pictures!

Hopefully I’ll get some cards done today and can post them later. In the meantime, have fun and make something! Inspiration is everywhere!

As promised… more inspiration today!

2009-10-10T17:58:00.002-04:00

Well—I’m back from Pilates (it was a little harder this week—ask me about the tabletop position and the C-curve). I took some more pictures this afternoon of cards I made and cards that were inspired (at least a little bit, I hope!) by Inspiration of the Day.

Here are a couple of Christmas cards I recently made. Angie and Rena have given me the honored of teaching a card class at their church in November. These two cards are the ones I came up with. Let me know what you think about them!

Here are some birthday cards we made for Wendy. It was loads of fun—we hauled all our stuff into work and made them at lunchtime in a conference room. Aren’t they fabulous? (You can click on the picture to see a bigger image.)

	This card was made by Amy—isn’t it great? Amy isn’t typically a card maker, but you couldn’t tell by this beauty! We love the inside sentiment, too—“I’ve got crumbs in my cleavage that have been around longer than you!” Unfortunately, I can relate!
	This beauty was created by Terry, who isn’t a stamper, scrapper, or card maker! She is an artist, though—she free handed the cupcake! Isn’t it great?
	This card was made by Sandy. She is a new convert to stamping and card making and has jumped in with both feet. The inside of this great card says, “We’re not exactly old, but let’s face it… our thong days are over!”
	Angie is our resident Stampin’ Up! demo and has been making cards the longest. Don’t you love her clean and simple style? Thanks to Angie, we can keep our paper addiction well fed!

A fun technique!

2009-10-10T10:17:00.001-04:00

OK, folks—I was asked to post some of my cards. I really am apprehensive, but here goes….

I spent some time last Sunday teaching some crafting friends how to use a few of the fun products that are out there, specifically embossing powders and alcohol inks. Here are a couple of cards I recently made that combine the two:

Both cards have alcohol ink backgrounds with the images heat embossed and matted on cardstock. The train card on the right uses a sketch from one of the World Card Making Day challenges over at SCS. So, I would like to encourage you to get out those alcohol inks that you had to have but never use, and make some backgrounds! You can make some stunning cards with very little investment in time and effort. And as always, be sure to share your creations with me!

I will try to post more cards later this afternoon (specifically the Christmas card samples I’m teaching at Angie and Rena’s church next month). But for now, I have to get ready for Pilates and then go to work (bummer!).

P.S. Queen Pam: Thanks for the tip about Live Writer—it works like a charm!

Has anybody seen my mojo?

2009-10-08T18:57:00.000-04:00

Has this been a crazy week for anyone else? It seems like all I'm doing is working! In the meantime, my mojo has flown the coop! But tomorrow is Friday, and I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet (and hopefully creative) weekend.

So--sorry I don't have much inspiration for you at the moment! I did get some new rubbah in the mail today, though, so I'm going to go open it and maybe get inspired!

And for those of you who are wondering (Queen Pam, you know who you are!), Pilates was fabulous last Saturday. I have another session this Saturday, too. I'm required to complete four one-on-one initial consultation sessions before signing up for any classes. I'm really looking forward to it!

Take care, and I hope to post more over the weekend!

A provocative piece of inspiration for today...

2009-10-04T12:46:00.000-04:00

I was blurfing (new word! combination of "blog" and "surfing") this morning and ended up at Michael DeMeng's blog. If you don't know, Michael is an assemblage artist who makes his art pieces from found objects. Many of his pieces have a religious or mythical theme and can be kind of dark and moody. I would like you to visit Michael's blog. Please keep an open mind and scroll down to read his post from September 25. The background information is fascinating, and the art piece, Daughters of Lilith, is amazing. It's definitely dark and not everyone's cup of tea, but it amazes me how he has translated his inspiration into such a unique piece of art. I would love to be this creative! So whether you love it or hate it, please be inspired by it! Let me know what you think!

Happy World Card Making Day!

2009-10-03T08:26:00.000-04:00

This is one of the year's major holidays for us papercrafters, isn't it? I hope your plans for the day (or at least the weekend) include spending time in your craft area doing something creative! If you need some inspiration to spark that creativity, you need look no further than Splitco aststampers. Their member companies will be issuing challenges for you to play along with all day long, and if you post your creations, you could even win fabulous prizes!

Another place you can post your creations is in the gallery on the World Card Making Day website. Here you can find the history of the holiday, some ideas to help you celebrate, and some sample cards to inspire you.

I've done a quick blog search and found lots of people who are celebrating today! Have a look at some of their creations:

For the love of life
Inkurable stampers
Little Birdie Secrets
Moxie Fab World

There are plenty more fellow papercrafters and papercrafting/stamping companies out there who are celebrating on their blogs. If you would like to search for more, here's a link to Google's Blog Search tool.

I'm off to get ready for my first pilates session, but I hope you will get inky! And be sure to take a picture and share with me--I'll post your creation right here!

It has to start somewhere...

2009-10-02T07:32:00.005-04:00

Hi! I'm Kim, and I'm a craftaholic, technique addict, and research fanatic! I discovered paper crafting and stamping about five years ago, and have been hooked ever since. My style leans towards the shabby and distressed, and I love all things vintage-y and retro.

I am lucky enough to have a group of friends who also stamp and papercraft. I started sending them an e-mail every day that I call "inspiration of the day." This e-mail has links to fun and inspiring cards I find in the gallery on the Splitcoast Stampers site (the greatest stamping site in the universe and home to some real stampin' rock stars!). The whole point is to get all of us to look at items that are maybe outside our comfort zone, both design-wise and technique-wise, and inspire us to stretch ourselve creatively when we craft. Well, the list of people who want to be on my e-mail list keeps growing, so I decided that it's maybe time to switch to a blog format. While you probably won't see much of my own work here, you will find links to lots of inspirational blogs, fun techniques, and interesting products. I can't promise that I'll post every day, but I'll try to be as regular as possible.

Please leave comments and let me know if you enjoy my postings, and I would love to see the projects this blog may inspire you to make!