First Tri-Shutter Card & More

Well, since my last post, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Left to Right:

A) Sympathy Card

B) Sympathy Card detail

C) Grunge Valentine

D) Welcome Baby Boy Card

E) My first tri-shutter card! (Birthday)

F) “A note of Thanks”

(Click on hyperlinks to view in my Scrapbook.com gallery and for specifics)

Thanks so much for looking and for your comments!

Sunday Scrappin’ 6/28/09

TA-DAs

Well, this was another good crafty week for me (which means I didn’t get a lot of other important stuff done, but shhh….don’t tell).  Last week’s challenge was to do something in honor of dads, about dads, etc…and I managed to do a component of a LO here.  I tried the iris folding technique several weeks ago and loved it, but it does create lot of bulk behind the mat.  In an attempt to rectify that, I tried an iris effect without folding the strips (and using ONLY scraps).  It came out ok, but I had to add white gel pen because the scraps had such a busy pattern, the effect was obscured.  This will go on a LO about my family, since it is a picture of my dad and his mom, circa 1943 or 44.

iris effect

My biggest accomplishment from last week is that I completed my first quilling project!!

And here are two ta-das from previous weeks that I couldn’t show because the recipients hadn’t received them yet!

You can find all the particulars on the cards in my gallery at scrapbook.com.  I did want to mention, however, that the last two cards use some great Anna Griffin border stamps that I got from Anita at Anita’s Arts.  Do check out her site!

Finally, I whipped this quick card together mostly as an excuse to use my new cherry blossom stamp from inkadinkadoo:

TO-DOs

Amy has challenged us with this for next week:

I’d love to see something that represents your summer. Not necessarily a layout of summer activities… though that would work… but maybe something inspired by the color of your neighborhood pool, or something that reminds you of your garden. Get creative with summer inspirations!

Maybe I’ll integrate it with my next quilling project!

Sunday Scrappin’: June 14, 2009

Join us over at Sunday Scrappin’, won’t you?

TA-DAs:

• This week’s challenge was to let Christine’s work inspire us.  I liked this layout, and while mine doesn’t really look like her’s, her LO inspired me to use circles for the first time, and the ribbon at the bottom is en homage to her LO as well. It is another LO for my Childhood Album.  It is a tribute to the house in which I grew up.

MATERIALS: PPs: Martha Stewart; Textured Paper: Martha Stewart; Rub-on Alphas: Anna Griffin; Journaling Sheer: Maya Road; Paper circles: Crate Paper; Photo Corners: Jolee’s Boutique/EK Success; Ribbon: American Crafts & Michael’s.

• I’m also working on a series of “scrapwork quilt” cards in an attempt to use up my paper scraps.

Most of the papers are Marrakech (Basic Grey), Paper Source, and Amy Butler Designer Mat scraps.  I hand-etched the gold foil ribbon to give it some texture. The decorative ribbon tape is Martha Stewart and the brads are from Queen & Co.

• I participated in this week’s Creative Therapy.
• And I made a Father’s Day Card for my dad–his name is Bob, so I altered a vintage Bingo card and each square has an image that has some meaning or significance to my dad.  His initials are RVG, so that’s why those are in there!

• And finally, I made one other card, but I can’t show it just in case its recipient happens to look at this blog anytime soon.

TO-DOs:

• Sunday Scrappin’ Challenge for this coming week: Think about your favorite color. Now, think about what’s on the opposite side of the color wheel… and use those two colors in your project! Hmm…that means I’ll be working with red and green.  Christmas in June I guess!!
• A couple of other secret projects…

Sunday Scrappin-June 7, 2009

Once again, I’ve been forced to take a hiatus from Sunday Scrappin’.  But I return!  I’m awfully glad summer is here…I’ll be VERY busy this summer, but my time is more my own.  I spent this weekend organizing my craft space, and to celebrate–I did a layout for my “Childhood” album.

This is the other side of this layout.

This LO posed several challenges.  I chose to use bright (but NOT TOO BRIGHT) colors because the photos are old (1979) and the colors are washed out.  My bedroom was actually creme and light blue, but there was no sense in tryng to bring that out in these photos.  They were taken by my late grandparents and I’m so grateful to have them even though the photos aren’t super.  Because I was working on the reverse side of another LO (that had embellishments and texture), the stamping did not come out very well.  I covered up the middle stamp with a ribbon and I just let the owl go—live and learn.  I’m happy, however, with the colored photo corners.  They really made the LO much prettier and helped disguise the fact that the photos aren’t great.  The photos were also cropped with rounded corners (which I didn’t like), so the photo corners helped with that.

PP: Martha Stewart; ALPHAS: Thickers (American Crafts); RIBBON: American Crafts and Martha Stewart Decorative Tape; STAMPS: owl (Inkadinkadoo) and border stamp (Anna Griffin); INKS: Lavender and Silver (ColorBox); EMBOSSING POWDER: Rainbow Sparkle Lite (JudiKins); PHOTO CORNERS (waste not paper).

I’m excited that Christine is going to be co-hosting Sunday Scrappin’.  Next week’s challenge is to take a look at her work for inspiration.  The inspiration will be easy–it is the execution that might be a problem, LOL!

Catching up!!

Well, I’ve been super duper busy with professional obligations and doing the calligraphy for my friend’s wedding invitations, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done some crafting!
In the middle of a crazy week I took time out to do my annual layout for a friend’s daughter’s birthday—she’s two!!

MATERIALS: “Baguette” double sided pp (American Crafts); “Dapper” alphas (All My Memories Couture Monogram alphabet); “Far Out” pp (Now & Then Collection–The Paper Loft); Marrakech pp (Basic Grey); pp from Target; 3-D butterfly stickers (“Spring Fling” line from Making Memories); laser cut bee stickers (Mrs. Grossman’s); #574 “Pretty Pink” Cardstock stickers (Doodlebug Designs–Double Takes); rub-ons (Anna Griffin)

And I got started on some thank you cards for the people who sponsored me for a music charity walk!

MATERIALS: PPs include “Musical Notes” (Design Originals), “Music Notes” (Boxer Scrapbook Productions), Hambly, #034 “Floral Garden” (g.c.d studios), “#051 “Floral Pinwheels”–Cosette Collection (g.c.d. studios); Maya Rd rub ons (“Scroll”, “Cubicle” and “Noah” alphabet); Anna Griffin rub ons; Martha Stewart decorative tape, “Scallop Sentiment” border punch (Fiskars); Coluzzle nested circle template; rub on alphas (EK Success); and a lot of stash materials.

Stash Challenge: patterned paper scraps

I didn’t get a lot of crafting done this week, but I made two cards.  The first one is a good demonstration of how to use those tiny scraps of patterned paper you have in your stash.  Some of the flowers  are design elements from small bits and pieces of patterned paper I had lying around.  I also used miscellaneous stickers and brads to give it a more random/natural look.  As part of my USE YOUR STASH month-long challenge (see sidebar), neither card is made using newly purchased materials.

Detail of flowers:

MATERIALS: white cardstock, Marrakech paper pad;  assorted flower brads (“Spring Fling” line from Making Memories); epoxy stickers (owl, butterfly, leaves on flowers) from Paperchase, flower stickers (Jolee’s Boutique by EK Success); flowers cut out from scrap pp; alphas are “French Market Alphabet Stickers” (Rusty Pickle, ST71).

THANK YOU CARD:

MATERIALS: white cardstock; Marrakech paper pad; decorative tape (self-adhesive ribbon) from Martha Stewart, alpha stickers (Sarah Milne’s “Sumner Squares” for Scenic Route (SRS 494).

NEXT POST: Creative ways to REUSE candy boxes and other containers for craft storage.

Musical Mix Cookies

Sigh.  So…gone are my plans to make all my Christmas cards, as I once again ordered cards on Snapfish.  My craft stuff is boxes (still), my dining room table is my office, my living room is my bedroom, and the guest room is a nightmare.  The only room that both looks and functions as it is supposed to is the kitchen (thank goodness).  So, last weekend, for my concert’s reception, I made these:

And yes, I will admit it.  I used a mix.  For sugar cookies!!  But it was Martha Stewart’s Crispy Sugar Cookie mix which I picked up at Macy’s (I needed flour for cookies and didn’t have time to run to the grocery store on top of shopping for a new black skirt since I can’t find the box that holds the one I already own).  I added the eggs and butter, rolled them out and cut them so it felt like I did the hard part.  And those decorations?  That’s all me, thanks (including individually placed red round sprinkles to create holly berries…let’s talk about the ways I spend my time, shall we?).

They were good.  What was really funny is that all the eighth notes went first (it was a concert, after all) even though they tasted exactly the same as the stars.  I guess people really do enjoy novelty.

IF I can get through next week, my hope is to bake a lot of cookies (from scratch) for Christmas gifts.  I also have a project I’m working on for my sister, so I’ll post info about that one of these days.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (for those in the U.S.!)

Sunday Scrappin’ #49

I feel like Sunday Scrappin‘ needs a theme song, don’t you? Come join us in this weekly blog meme for papercrafters where we post our TA-DAs, TO-DOs and participate in optional challenges!

TA-DAs for this week:

• Three halloween cards (my first!)
• contact papered the drawers at my new house, LOL
• An encouragement card (see below)
• A “Thank You” card that I can’t show yet.

This card also fulfills last week’s challenge to use something clear (or clearish).  I know the picture isn’t great (sorry).  This is one of my favorite quotes which I have used for a different card, and I had this leftover piece of vellum with the quote on it (the margins weren’t large enough for the other card, so I stashed it in my stash).  Well, I pulled it out for this challenge, cut the cardstock to size, added some Martha Stewart paper, tacked the vellum on with four eyelets (Paper Source), and added a Victorian kitty sticker (Punch Studio) because the recipient likes cats. I also used a Hero Arts “designed by” stamp on the back (not shown). The vellum has rose petals and pieces of grass in it.

TO-DOs

• birthday card for my MIL
• birthday card for my godson/nephew

NEXT WEEK’S CHALLENGE: “something fuzzy. It could be a fuzzy embellishment… a layout with photos of your favorite fuzzy sweater… anything you can connect to the word fuzzy. Have fun with it!”

THANKS FOR LOOKING AND COMMENTING!

Sunday Scrappin’ #47:Paperclips

It’s Sunday Scrappin’ time—the weekly papercrafting meme where we post our TA-DAs from the week, TO-DOs for the coming week, and participate in optional challenges.  Won’t you join us?

The challenge for this next week:

Make the majority of your project the color orange. It’s a great fall color, but one a lot of us don’t use often. Do you have a fall scrapbook page to work on? A Halloween card to make? A recipe to scrap? Looking around my craft area right now I can see an orange giraffe that’s waiting to go on the cover of my zoo book… my orange paper cutter (Maybe a layout about scrapbooking?)…. and some orange flowers. See what you can come up with that’s orange this week!

TA-DAs

Well, even though I only accomplished one thing this week, it did fulfill the Sunday Scrappin’ paperclip challenge from last week!  I didn’t have any cool paperclips in different shapes, so I made do with a color combo inspired by the ones I did have. I made a birthday card for a friend:

And on the inside, the middle paper clip held a “Birthday Token” (aka vellum tag) redeemable for a dinner out at the place of her choice:

MATERIALS:  Paper is from Martha Stewart “Salon” collection and “Blossom Clover Chartreuse” (Paper Source); “Green and White Checkered Ribbon” (American Crafts); Rub-on flowers (source unknown); vellum sticker “Sticko” (Cathy B. for EK Success); “Rosebud” pigment ink (ColorBox) embossed with Ranger Clear EP, then outlined with a Pigma Micron green pen (Sakura, 0.30 width); stamp is #550H03, (Posh Impressions by Dee Gruenig for All-Night Media)

TO-DOs

Well, we closed on our house this week!! so I’ve got my hands full cleaning 30 years worth (or so it seems) of grime off our new kitchen, pulling up carpets, hiring contractors…but I’ve got to get a birthday card done for my dad, at the very least!

I hope everyone has a great week!

I just had to make SOMETHING…

I was talking to my mother this weekend and I said, “My list of HAVE to-dos is the longest, next comes the SHOULD to-dos, and then finally the WANT to-dos.”  If I do them in order, I’ll get to the WANT to-dos on my deathbed.  The real problem is that it has been my priority system from day one.  But I’m at a place in my life where that priority system, should I accomplish it, may make me productive, but not terribly happy.

SO, forgetting for the moment that there are certain things that actually fall on all three of those lists, I decided that I would take an hour this evening and make a birthday card for a friend.  I got home from work, dragged all the materials out on the table, and this is what I made:

Unfortunately, the colors are not perfect in the photo, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it looks really nice in reality.  It is a lavender and green color scheme.

MATERIALS & TECHNIQUES:  Paper is ALL from Martha Stewart (a pack of coordinating craft paper in green and taupe).  I sponged lavender pigment ink (ColorBox) on the textured taupe paper (bottom of card) in order to bring out the pattern.  The ribbon is from my stash, but I love it because it has that stitched look in the middle.  The stamp is one of my favorites, an oldie-but-a-goodie from All Night Media (“Tweetheart” 403F) that I cut out with a craft knife.  I embossed it with JudiKins “Candy Violet” EP.  The “Happy Birthday” (Stampendous, D07)) was embossed as well, but the poor stamp is so old it doesn’t really stamp very well, so I ended up going over it with a purple sharpie.

Although the Happy Birthday tag looks a little lumpy in the photo, I actually like the fact you can see the ribbon underneath it because the whole card actually looks more like fabric in real life.