Art Journal

A friend of mine, Kim Schofield, of eclectic Paperie, inspired me recently with her post about an art journal that she started.  I have had that on my mind since I saw it, and last night, I bought a journal!  I am so excited about the possibilities of this book!  And it's just for me.  I don't have to create something for anyone else!  I know that that's selfish, but, this is a new experience that I want to try and I am so excited to get started!  So, thank you Kim, for your inspiration! 

This afternoon when I opened my journal to the first page, it (obviously) was blank.  I just sat there staring at it, while in my mind, dozens of images and ideas were zooming around!  I decided to choose my background paper as a jumping off point. 

While perusing my paper supply, I found this from Glitz Designs:

 I LOVE how the roses are so soft, yet vibrant!  And the extraordinary colors!!!  I HAD to copy them!
I pulled out my KSS Hearts and Roses and after some trial and error recipes, here's my final design!

 I did my name in calligraphy.  The paper has a coating on it, so it didn't come out like I had practiced on paper!  LOL!  Oh well!  Makes it unique!

So, here are my supplies:
Stamps: Kitchen Sink Stamps Hearts & Roses
Paper: Glitz Designs, white
Ink: LOTS of SU! colors, Green and LeatherTattered Angels Sprays, Green Distress Ink by Tim Holtz, brown distress inks by Tim Holtz
Dies: Royal Leaves (MFT), leaves (PTI)
Other Embellishments: frames, sequins, brown rhinestones, brown ribbon

Have a wonderful day!

A special card for a special friend

Hi there!  Today I made a special card for a friend of mine who had a bad run in w/ her oven earlier this week.  I made this card, and also made cinnamon apple scones and my daughter and I took them over this morning to visit.

 The pleats that you see behind the seam binding is actually washi tape!  The lace on both flaps are doilies that I distressed.  The pins shown below are from a Swirlydoos kit.  The paper and washi tape are from eclectic Paperie.  The stamped flower basket is from Memory of the Heart, a retired Stampin' Up! set.  I embossed it w/ white powder to show up on top of the polka dot paper.

 I wanted to make a different kind of card, so I decided to do a tri-fold card.  I originally thought that I wanted to wrap it up, but I canned that idea, and just created a bow on the front.  This way, the front flaps will keep the card from falling over.

The card and scones were well received!  And we had a wonderful visit!
Now it's back to Christmas cards!

Have a great day!

Birthday cards for teachers

Hi there!  Today I would like to share w/ you several cards that I have made for the kindergarten teachers this week!  The teachers and those of us on the PTO agreed to celebrate the teachers' birthdays in a different way this year.  Instead of a Starbucks gift card and a huge cake for every teacher's actual birthday, we budgeted money from the PTO and have purchased gifts for each teacher's classroom.  Wish lists that the teachers wanted for their classroom, but unable to pay for it.  We granted their wishes!  Lots of games for indoor recess time, play doh, flash cards, etc.  We are giving the teachers their gifts this week, in front of the students, (since it's for them, essentially!).  Then one day, I will give out my cards, and teachers will get to enjoy cake for one day instead of 6 days and go into sugar overload!

Since I'm the crafty one on the board, I was voted to make the cards!  So, without further ado, here we go!

This is a fun, definite birthday themed, criss cross card!  When you pull up on the balloons to see the birthday message, it's like they are floating up and away!  The balloons are from Kitchen Sink Stamps.

Ah!  Polka dots!  They make me smile!  And I love the red, black and white color combo!  And the blingage!  Now, I do have to say that this is a bad picture.  It just didn't want to film nicely for me!  Must be all the sparkles!  ;D  I am just loving all of the layers!  And the polka dots!!!! 

This is another fun, retro birthday card!  This is the first time that I have used all white flowers on a card!  It looks really cool, if I do say so myself!  I used my new Retro Squares border die-namics from My Favorite Things!  The inside squares that popped out of the border are used in an argyle pattern on the right side!  I love making the most out of my supplies!

Mmm, all these layers!  Yummilicious!  The colors are a favorite of mine as well!  Olive and Eggplant just go so well together!  This was a fun one to create!  I was sad when I deemed it finished!  But, wow!  I impressed myself!  LOL!

This is such a cute little card!  I don't make circle cards often enough!!!  The flowers on here are tulips from Kitchen Sink Stamps' Itty Bitty Tulip Bouquet.  The twine for the Happy Birthday banner is threaded through and tied in french knots.

And last, but not least, this was actually the first card that I made!  I subscribe to Swirlydoos, which I have mentioned on here before.  In last month's kit, I received a jar of gesso!  Oooh la la!  That stuff is awesome!  However, if you are not crafty, you might not know what gesso is!  Here's the definition!  I took my large swirl template and applied several layers of gesso.  I heat dried it, which made it look aged, which was totally ok!  Then, I applied green ink to the top of it, but it didn't want to stay.  So, I sealed it w/ a glittery sealer, also from Swirlydoos! 

Here are the general ingredients for all of my cards:
Stamps: My Favorite Things, Kitchen Sink Stamps, Inkadinkado, Recollections, Stampin' Up!
Ink: multiple inks from Stampin' Up!, Memento Black, Purple Copic
Paper: All paper from Stampin' Up!, white paper,vellum
Embellishments: rhinestones - assorted; flowers - Prima,Petaloo; ribbon - Stampin' Up!; twine - My Favorite Things; Dies - My Favorite Things, Spellbinders; assorted blingage - assorted vendors.

Have a fabulous day!

The Glue That Holds It All Together

To me, a secretary is the glue that holds a business together.  I could be wrong, but I feel like the secretary knows exactly what's going on in her company, school, wherever.  And she/he keeps things running and running smoothly at that!  They are the troubleshooters, the problem solvers, the multi-taskers.  And if the secretary is in a school, they are the soothers, the huggers, the jokers, and the substitute mothers.

As you have seen in my previous post, I created apples for the kindergarten teachers at my daughter's school.  The teachers LOVED the apples!  And the special treats inside!

I have been feeling bad about the secretary at the school.  She is such a super lady.  And we haven't acknowledged her for beginning another school year!  All those hours at school when the teachers have the summer off.  All of the work that she puts in throughout the year.  All of the phone calls that need to be made or taken.  All of the children that pass through her office with a smile and a wave or tears when something is wrong.  All of the messages that she has to send out.  All of the important things that are on her to do list each and every day regarding our children.  How can we overlook her?! 

This is a meager gift for such an important person in our school, but, as I love to throw out my cliches, 'it's the thought that counts'.

Here's a closer view of the plaque.   I hate that I can't write straight!  If there's no line, I'm all over the place!
That's actual chalkboard paper by DCWV and chalk!  I raided my kids' chalk collection at 1 in the morning!  LOL!  The stacks of books and apple are from Kitchen Sink Stamps.  The rest of the paper, including the background paper of the plaque are all from Graphic 45's An ABC Primer.  I absolutely LOVE this stack!  OMG!  I have to grab some more so that I can make future projects!  It's filled w/ tons of great paper!  I have to hoard this!!!!

Have a wonderful day!  And if you know a secretary, tell them thank you for their hard work!  :D

An Apple for the Teacher

Hi!  Today I would like to share with you a project that I made for the teachers at my daughter's Kindergarten Center!  I am on the PTO this year, and we wanted to welcome back the teachers in grand style!  Another board member baked beautiful cookies in the shape of sharpened pencils!  If only I could bake like that!  Wow!
Since I'm handier working with paper, I decided to try my hand at making the apple shown on this page:  SVG CUTS.

Here are my apples!

We were able to fit 2 K-Cups in each one for the teachers!  They were surprised that the apples even opened!  And then were more surprised by the gifts inside!

The paper used was Ridinghood Red, Garden Green and Handsome Hunter from SU!.  Once the panels were cut w/ the cricut, I embossed half of them w/ the Numbers embossing folder.  The ruler is from Kitchen Sink Stamps' School Days.  I stamped the ruler 3 times in a row w/ Summer Sun for the first layer, Crushed Curry for the second layer and Onyx Black for the third layer.

I used straw for the outside middle, and twine from My Favorite Things.  The tags are layered punches from SU!.  Probably retired by now!  Or changed!  I think that about covers it!  Oh, the A+ and the crayons are from a TPC Studio Teacher set.

Have a terrific school year!!!!

Wedding Card and Envelope

I completely forgot to post my wedding card and envelope that I made for my brother in law and sister in law!  I meant to do that, but time got away from me!

 Here is the card, using Kitchen Sink Stamps' Multi Step Wedding Couple & 3 Step Bells.

This is the envelope.  I realized too late that I should have made the bouquet purple on the card, so I made it purple here on the envelope!  DUH!  I was taking the directions for color too literally!

Here are the links to: Multi Step Wedding Couple & 3 Step Bells

A Special Wedding Present

Today I would like to share with you a special wedding frame that I made for my brother in law and new sister in law!  The day of their wedding, in between the photographer telling them where to go and how to pose, I asked them if I could take a few pictures of them.  Well, being who they are, they hammed it up for the camera, and then I got a really nice one of them!

I had the pictures developed and created this beauty that they can display in their living room!

 This is the scrapbook page before going in the frame.  You can see the candid shots trailing down the page.  Then I highlighted the really nice one of them in the oval picture at the bottom.

 Here's the page inside the frame.  This is a shadowbox frame.  And yes, for all you flat scrappers, I used 3-D objects on my page!  Gasp!

 I took different shots of the frame so you can see.  I made their wedding invitations, so I included one on here.  It has the date on it, so I didn't have to add that anywhere. 

 The flowers that you see, along w/ most of the greenery are from Kitchen Sink Stamps sets.  At the bottom, I have them listed.  The other greenery branches that you can see in the above picture are from a die from PTI.  I sprayed them w/ Tattered Angels Olive and Route 66.

 The pearls that are on each picture and the corner of the invitation are from a hardware set from Tim Holtz.  I attached each w/ a circular paperclip (for lack of a better word) from my stash. 

The swirls are from my stash as well.  Some of them from my Swirlydoos kits that I get each month!

Ok, here are the KSS sets that I used:
Wedding Rings:  4: Onyx Black, 3: Basic Gray, 2: London Fog, 1: Platinum Planet
Ivy & Lily of the Valley:  3: Bamboo Leaves, 2: Pear Tart, 1: New Sprout, 4: Cottage Ivy
Lilies, Hydrangea, Lilac, Rose, Zinnia:  3: Sweet Plum, 2: Perfect Plum, 1: Lulu Lavender, 4: (& sometimes 5:) Elegant Eggplant

Thanks Berry Much!

Hi!  Today I created a card for someone special and was able to participate in the MFT Sketch Challenge this week!  I love a twofer! 

To create the strawberries, I die cut Cherry Cobbler w/ MFT's Berry Box Die-namics, and the stem in Garden Green.  I took one side of the box, and cut it to make an individual strawberry.  I rounded the top of the strawberry so that it looked more realistic.  I cut the stem in half (looks like a star) and adhered to both strawberries on the front.  I added a twine bow to finish it off.  Oh, and I sponged around the edges to give dimension.  I did the same thing for the strawberry inside.

Have a wonderful day!

Valentine Bingo!

My friend had a brilliant idea to do Valentine Bingo at her son's elementary Valentine party last year! I remembered her talking about it over the summer and vowed to remember for this school year!

Here's my interpretation of the bingo card! I used SU!'s bingo card b/g stamp and then filled in the squares with valentine images along with easy to recognize images. These were made for preschool so I had to keep them basic! I used quite a few of the Studio G stamps that are a dollar at Mike's and Jo's.

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

It's a Banner Day!

Hello there!  Today I would like to share with you a little project that I have been working on!  My Favorite Things has a monthly challenge for the Guest Designer spot!  I looked at the challenge and it said hearts!  Well, that's a fun, easy topic to stamp about!

I have to do everything over the top and outside the lines.  So, while lots of people are creating cards to submit, I decided to create a banner!

Here are the close ups so you can see all the details!

If you go HERE, you can see my product list!  It's 2am, I'm going to bed!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I know!  Christmas is over!  Well, why not start on my cards for next year?  Haha!  Even I'm not THAT ahead of the game!  I'm just still in the Christmas mood, and wanted to create a card using the PI Christmas Stocking Girl from MFT.  She's fairly new to my collection, and I wanted to ink her up.  It worked perfectly w/ the January Guest Designer challenge of paper piecing that is going on now!

The Christmas tree is actually made out of snowflake dies!  I don't have a tree die, (Kim ~ there's an idea!), so I looked through the dies that I do have and wondered how a tree would turn out if I used snowflakes and glued them together!  Well, this is exactly what I wanted it to look like!

The paper piecing that works for the challenge is on her pajamas!  I added flocking on the stocking top and her slippers to add some texture.

Copics to color her face and hair.  A little sewing around the edge of the dp.  I die cut the post card words out w/ the Framed Greetings die, and added the Swirly Flourish die underneath.

Have a great day!
Happy New Year!