One of Jack's Cards

Today i'm letting my 4 year old take over my blog. He's giving mama a break. Ok, so not really.

Most know this, but there may be a few readers that are newer to my blog, so here's my quick run down. My oldest son is 4 years old. He loves to craft with me and is very independent and adamant what he wants to do to a card or project and i do NOT get to help him! His teachers say the same thing. But at least he likes to craft with me, so i'll take what i can get!

Today, one of his friends in preschool turned 5!!!! He thought that was really impressive. My heart ached at the fact that in the spring... HE will be turning 5!!!!! WAAAAH!

Here is the card he made for his friend... other than getting out the airbrush for him... i had no part in this! (and yes, i'm crazy enough to let him use my copic airbrush... with a LOT of paper laid out on my table just in case!

He chose this alligator from a Close to My Heart stamp set because his friend "likes animals a lot". He colored him in with a G82 copic marker (he wanted to use a G28... i had to explain that it might be a little hard to see the alligator after using such a dark green, so he said ok and chose the G82). Then he cut him out. They have been practicing cutting in school and he was very pleased to cut everything out himself. Next came the airbrush. eeeeeek. This is the first time i've let him use it.

The ribbon at the top he was very pleased with as well. He is very into tying knots right now and he wanted one for his card. then he layed it across the top and said "there, now it's like one of yours". Perhaps i use ribbon a bit too much?

He added the stars in a "pattern". He said he was just going to have to have more than 5 stars even though he was turning 5 because he needed to finish the pattern. Silver Gold Silver Gold, Silver... what comes next mama? Um, Gold i say? Very good mama! Now you can have a star!

Ahhh, preschool.

Then we decided it needed a sentiment and he said just make it say happy birthday. So i pulled out the Birthday Cheer set from Paper Makeup Stamps and told him all of these say happy birthday, so he can choose. And so he did.

He was so proud of his card... he even took the picture himself and told me i could type it for him later. hahaha.

I love my kid.

Read more...

Casein' away on a Wednesday

I actually cased THIS CARD a bit back (ok, like 2 weeks ago) when I wanted to do a simple card with a big impact for the cards crop/class at chic fil a. I browsed thru my "favorites" gallery on splitcoast and found one i had favorited eon's ago by Debbie who is now one of my favorite blogs to browse. ironic huh? Of course i didnt know it at the time. Or maybe it was this card that turned me onto her blog in the first place. Who knows... like i said it was forever ago. :)



Well, unfortunately for me, i dont have the nestabilties plain square to emboss with. but i'm thinking i need it. So instead i layered my colored squares onto slightly larger white squares to help them pop out against the background.
I also changed the color layout just a bit. For the class i have about 16 different colored squares for them to choose from. Go figure, there were only 2 people there and now i have a bajillion little colored squares. But you know... these would make fast and fabulous thank yous! hmm... the wheels are turning. :)

Anyhoo - the flower stamp is from a CTMH mini set called Beauty. The cardstock colors are from the current In Colors by Stampin Up. And the sentiment is from Mixed Messages from Papertrey Ink.

Read more...

Hip Hop Hangover Friday Great Gift Idea!

Ok, now i'm going to go ahead and post this because i'm pretty sure my sister doesnt read THIS blog, and only my other blog. man i hope i'm right! SISTER! If you are reading this - stop now! Do not keep reading or you'll see one of your christmas presents!!!!

(And so you know, i'm not hiding my sister's identity, we just call each other "sister". we always have. :) )

Anyhoo -

There was a challenge in the Hip Hop forum for Unity yesterday to not stress... but DISTRESS! I love distressing. :) Plus i already had some plans to make this gift for my sister, so it was perfect. Before i get into all the details... here is my finished gift... a recipe holder for her kitchen!



Now my sister loves to cook. But she has told me before how annoying it is with recipes when her hands are covered in goo and she's trying to hold up the recipe card to see what comes next. I've seen jumbo clothespins altered before and somewhere a bit back i read someone's idea of using it as a recipe holder. So thats what i went with, but you could easily just alter it to hold a photo like this picture....



This is just me turning the clip around but you could add some flowers or bling or buttons. Endless possibilities really!


Ok, here's how you start... get a jumbo clothes pin (they sell them at all the craft stores and they are really cheap.

Take it apart so it'll be easier to paint. It's super easy to put back together, dont worry.

I then painted mine a brown color. It doesnt really matter if your undercoat layer is dark or light, it just needs to contrast with your top coat. If you wanted to be really festive you could do a red undercoat with the green on top. Really again, its endless possibilities.

(sorry, no photo for this step) Paint crackle paint over the whole thing. You may need to do this in steps so that you arent laying a wet side down on the table. The crackle paint is clear and you can find it in the paint section of your craft store. Its also inexpesnive and gives such a cool look. I'm in LOVE with crackle! :)

Now you'll need to wait a bit before painting another layer. You dont want the crackle clear coat to dry completely though. The less time you wait, the bigger the "splits" will be. I usually wait about 20 minutes or so. Then paint on your constrasting color and the crackle will happen all on it's own!

i wanted to take the worn distress look on my clip 1 step further so i took an antiquing glaze (also in the paint section at craft stores, also cheap) and then took a sponge (i actually used a makeup sponge because thats what i have all over my house but any sponge will do. And then i just rubbed it around my edges. Antiquing glaze is really easy too because it's just a glaze. If you feel like you've got too much on, just wipe it off.

For my "marquee" i sketched it out on a piece of chipboard. This is important because if i had only used cardstock it could have easily gotten bent if it were to be knocked over. After cutting out the chipboard, i traced it over my cardstock so i'd have the same image and adhered it to the top. I chalk inked my edges in chestnut roan cat's eye chalk ink. I used my cricut to cut out the letters. After putting on my letters, i covered them with liquid glass (close to my heart) just to help them stand out.

Now here is when you can do whatever your heart desires for embellishing! Before adhering my letters to the block i created for them, i stamped Unity's distressed dots. If you dont have this background... you NEEEEEED it. Trust me. :) I also sponged my edges with antique linen distress ink and then chalked inked the very edges with dark moss cats eye chalk ink.

(No specific picture for this either) The whole front was sprayed with acrylic spray sealer in glossy. If this was just being used to hold a photo, i would have left it alone, but if my sister's kitchen is anything like my kitchen, it gets messy! I would hate for tomato sauce to get splattered on it and stain the paper. Now if anything gets on it, she can just wipe it clean!

Now dont just stop your hangover here! Go to this thread to see who else has posted some unity love today!

Read more...

A little Etsy Challenge

Ashley of Heart Hugs Designs hosts an etsy challenge every week. I have some fun info to share with you in december about Heart Hugs, so stay tuned.

This week's Etsy Store was Mercy's Mark. Mercy's Mark has adorable totes, purses, wallets and more sporting fresh and fun designs. They are über trendy - just the way i like it! :) BONUS - if you complete Ashely's challenge, you'll be entered to win a wallet, donated by Mercy's Mark! Pretty cool huh?

When browsing the store, i fell in love with this wallet. Ok, so i fell in love with a lot of things, but this wallet was sending me some fun inspiration vibes, so thats what i chose!

Here's my card...
I used Whooo Loves You from Close to My Heart. I've been wanting to ink up this set for sometime and sadly, this is the first time! I decided to paperpiece my owl to get some different shades of feathers on his body. After piecing him all together, i did a little shading just using some warm grey copic markers. I used my word window punch from Stampin Up to punch out a bit of red (of what brand i have no idea, it was in the scrap bin! Then i inked up my sentiment using white daisy pigment ink and stamped onto my punchie. The twine was a last minute thought as i had a scrap piece of it left out from the project before. I think it adds a nice extra dimension.

See how easy that was? Now go check out Mercy's Mark, make a little creation, link it here by noon pacific time on Friday November 28th and then check back to see if you've won! :)

Read more...

Thank You to Alheimer's Caregivers

So my previous post talked about the best blog candy ever, ever, ever! And for a great cause, awareness of Alzheimer's. For those that didn't know this already, yesterday was National Alzheimer's awareness day.

The "challenge" to win this blog candy was to make a card for someone caring for an alzheimer's patient. The caretaker's for these patients go thru a tremendous amount of work and pain. And it is an all too often thankless job.

Here is my card. I put it together while both bpys were taking naps so i was a bit on borrowed time. I sifted thru my drawer of things that were done but not used before (this drawer will be used a lot in the next month or so i think!) If you dont have one of these drawers or baskets, i recommend it! It's so nice and helpful in moments of just not enough time. The only item i pulled for this card was my white cut out that i stamped my sentiment on. It was cut from my cricut using the Accent Essentials cartridge. It was originally cut for another project, but ended up not being the correct size. So into the drawer it went, and it was much easier to pull it out for this card, and not to get out the cricut and cut the paper for this project.

The card size is a bit odd... but it fits into a business size envelope. And i wanted to test out a card of this size. Spice up your business envie by adding some paper to the inside of the envelope! Ok, back the the card.

I used Soft Sky cardstock (Stampin Up) and stamped French Flair background (Stampin Up) in Juniper ink (Close to My Heart). I then added a bit of detail with my uni ball signio white gel pen. I also used my Juniper Marker (Close to my Heart) to ink up just 1 of the birds from the background stamp and then added some swirl detail with the white gel pen. On top of od the bird images i used Glossy Accents by Ranger. (which i got a mini bottle as a freebie just for shopping at creativeplaystamps They always give you a freebie of some sort! :)

Next i layered a bit of Groovy Guava cardstock (Stampin Up) - which also came from the drawer of precuts - and inked the edges with red rose chalk ink (Cat's Eye). My white daisy cardstock (close to my heart) cut out was inked with Amber Clay chalk ink (Cat's Eye) and stamped with the sentiment Thank You in Juniper Ink again, and also using the flowers and dotted circle from Friendship Blessings (Close to my heart). I used my slot punch (Stampin Up) and then wound some brown velvet ribbon thru it to adhere to the card.

And that my friends, is my card!

Read more...

Do Nothing!

I'm still trying to catch up using all of my new sets i've acquired lately! It's really sad how excited i was to get all of them, and yet many (too many!) have not even seen ink yet! *sigh*

Well this card is no exception. I got this set last month. But there are so so so many cute cute stamps in this set! It's the "Do Nothing" set by Close to My Heart. I ended up only using the girl image from the set... now i just need to use the other stamps! haha. I decided to just stamp my sentiment on the inside. It reads "Soak it Up, you Deserve it!" and it's by Great Impressions.
Other supplies are as follows...
Paper: GP 110 white cardstock, Pretty in Pink by SU, Apricot Appeal by SU, Bashful Blue by SU
Tools: Swiss Dots embossing folder by CuddleBug
Embellishments: Satin Blue ribbon (just from my stash), bellas baubles


Thanks for looking!

Read more...

I did a Scrappy Challenge

I participated in a Scrappy Challenge! Which is great because the scrappy blog has great sketches and i need to get caught up before this next baby gets here! Ok, so i'll never get caught up and i've come to terms with this, but it doesnt mean i shouldnt be trying! :) Here's the Scrappy Chick blog if you'd like to see the original and participate yourself!








Supplies
Patterened Paper all from the Free Spirit collection by Close to My Heart
Coordinating Cardstock CTMH (Cocoa, Honey, Indian Corn Blue and Colonial White)
Title cut using Platin Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge
Subtitle stamped with Charmed Alpha by Close to my Heart and then heat embossed using Brown Puffs Embossing Powder by Ranger
All edges inked with Colorbox Chalk Cats Eye ink in Shestnut Roan
Extra Stamping from Legendary Moments by CTMH
Cuddle Bug embossing folder used on circles and ovals was Spots and Dots, was then sanded and inked over using ColorBox Creamy Brown

Read more...

Coaster Frame

This is a frame i made out of cork coasters from the dollar store. We will also be doing this project at my upcoming stamp camp on sunday. :)

first of all, this frame didnt photograph nearly as pretty as it is in person. I still think it needs some extra touches, but there are lots of layers that are popped up with pop dots, but the flash washed it all out so you cant see all the dimension.

Supplies:
Paper: Boom-di-ada Paper from Close to My Heart
Cardstock is Autumn Terracotta by Close to My Heart
Stamps: Cottage florals by Close to my Heart
Spot on Backgrounds by Close to my Heart
Sentiment from SU (let me get the name of the set and get back to you!)
Inks: Chocolate, Autumn Terracotta, HollyHock, Garden Green all Close to My Heart
Brad: is Colonial White by Close to My Heart
Ribbon is Very Vanilla by SU


Tips and Tricks
Anytime I use a mask with a stamp project, i stamp my image to be cut out on good thick cardstock and then store it with the stamp set. That way the next time i want to use the stamp set, i dont have to go thru the trouble of cutting out another mask. For this project, i cut out an image of the main flower and laid it on top of the stamped one in the picture and stamped on top to make my leaves.

To add extra dimension to popped out flowers, wet the edges with a fine mist water bottle (i use evian in a spray can - really meant for your face ) After the edges are dampened, you can then pinch the petal tips to get a cool flower look.

Tired of solid stamp images? Use a background stamp to kiss off some of the ink. Simply ink up your solid stamp, and then stamp the solid stamp onto your background stamp. Some ink will remain on your solid stamp and then the pattern will appear when you stamp your image onto your paper.


Thanks for looking!

Read more...

Coffee Bag Inspiration

I was inspired by a recent PaperTrey Ink challenge of altering and decorating coffee bags. Of course the design team of PTI is absoluletly outstanding so i wont even pretend to think my coffee bag is better than any of theirs! Each design team member came up with a creative use for their coffee bag. One planted a seedling... 1 used it as a cookie gift bag, another for amish bread, etc. I was pretty literal with my... i used it as a *gasp* coffee bag! haha. I wanted to give my dad some yummo coffee and i thought it would be more fun to decorate the bag first. PTI sells some great versions of coffee bags (as well as other gift giving items to alter). Some of the bags are white, others are the "kraft" color. Some have windows and some do not. My coffee bag is one that i snuck away from BiLo (the grcoery store by my house) and in fact i snuck 8 away because i'm cheap. haha. The quality probably isnt as nice at PTI's but they were lined with plastic so that is a plus. I will be using the other bags in coordination with the stamp camp i mentioned in a previous blog entry.

Ok, onto the coffee bag deets...

Supplies:
Coffee Bag from BiLo
Coffee Talk stamp set from Close to My Heart
(coffee beans are from the Gel A Tin's Coffee & Tea stamp set)
Martha Stewart 18x18 cardstock (to cut the strip to go around the coffee bag)
Other scrap paper (i used blue bayou from SU and Colonial White from CTMH)
Brads by Spare Parts
Chocolate Grosbrain ribbon (CTMH)
Distressed Lines embossing folder & cuddlebug machine
Inks: CTMH bamboo, chocolate, grey flannel, SU blue bayou and chocolate chip


Thanks for looking!!!!

Read more...

Chalking and Versamark

A neat way to color is using chalk with versamark (or other embossing) ink. It's super super easy and give a soft look.
Here's what you'll need to start...

* Stamp of choice
* versamark (or other embossing ink, though i recommend one that is "sticky" like versamark)
* chalks of choice

here's a video tutorial of the process (ignore all the noise in the background - i'm hosting a crop at my house and there are lots of ladies cropping away as well as a crying baby and my child getting in the way!)


http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee296/makeupbykatie/classes/?action=view¤t=MVI_4298.flv


(sorry its only a link - my video wouldnt upload to blogger!)

Read more...

My Shoebox Card Kit

This is my card i created from my own shoebox card kit. For the shoebox swap we were to include 1 6x6 piece of patterned paper, some ribbon, a stamped image (bella) and some other embellishments. Sentiments and other paper or cardstock was optional. This was my first shoebox kit and the other kits i received back were simply outstanding. I hope that the other ladies enjoyed mine as much as i enjoyed there kits!!!

My kit included - 6x6 patterned paper from Close to My Heart, More to Adore collection
Stamped image - Fashionistabella from www.stampingbella.com
Sentiment - www.stampingbella.com
Cardstock - Chocolate from Close to My Heart, Very Vanilla from Stampin Up
Buttons & ribbon from my stash
Colored with Copic Markers
Scalloped Corners using scallop punch from Creative Memories

Read more...

A Bella and Bows

First off... i created a new Bella Card! I've been practicing my with copics, and while i'm not perfectly where i want to be just yet, i'm pretty happy with my technique. This card was created using a cardfront given to me by my super sweet Bella Sistah, Kim Stewart. She gave me a whole pack of embossed cardfronts as well as some fun designer prints paper from Stampin Up. The sentiments are part of the Delight in Everything set by Close to My Heart. The punched out flower designs are also from this set. And i used the word window punch from Stampin Up. Bella is the beautiful Gardenbella that i got some stamped images of from a friend.


My other thing i just have to post is i learned how to make hair bows last night. Ok, so i learned to make a couple styles of hair bows last night. There are just so many! My good friend, Sarah, taught me and some other mom friends and we made bows until after midnight! Too much fun! In any case, these are my first attempts at the bows. I'm hoping to learn other styles and branch out and then with any luck, i'll actually have a girl who can wear some! If i dont, watch out friends with little girls - i'll be sending you lots and lots of bows because they are just too fun to make to stop!

Read more...

Oh My My My!

Oh My it's been awhile since my last post! Unfortunately, pregnancy number 2 is kicking my you know what! But i just could not resist in competing in the March Bella Babe contest hostes on the Bellaholics Anonymous board! This month's challenge was a sketch provided by the wonderful Katie Skiff! I had also seen this card on splitcoast the other day and wanted to try out a similar idea. This is the bella card i came up with using Clickabella (www.stampingbella.com)



The card is 5x5 in its folded size. I used Close to my Heart's "Delight in Everything" stamp set to stamp out the background. The large flowers are layered with 2 stamps. Then i stamped over the images using Versamark ink. I also stamped a couple of small flowers with versamark only. Then sprinkled the whole card with Kaleidoscope Embossing Poweder and heat set the whole thing. I colored Ms. Clickabella with copic markers and covered her shirt with a stardust pen to give her a little sparkle as well. And used some colored twill ribbon, primas, rhinestone brads and regular brads as accents.


And even though this is late, i'm going to post it anyhoo. It's my valentine's day card for my hubby. It's a pretty simple card, but i was happy with the way it turned out.



The base is my absolute favorite Stampin Up color, Blue Bayou! Then i used SU set "Baroque Motifs" for the flourish and flowers. The sentiment is from the Close to My Heart set "Adorable". I stamped it in versamark and then used silver embossing powder. I finished it off with some simple ribbon along the side. and Viola!


Hopefully i can get back into my crafting grove and will have more work up shortly!

Read more...