Recent cards

This is a card I made for my friend Rachel using one of the Bellas I received in an image swap this summer, DCWV patterned paper (both) random ribbon and a handmade crocheted flower.

Here is a close up of the crocheted flower - I need to make more of these - gave away too many! and here is some detail of the inking I did on the edges - green then black.

This card was for Rachel's daughter, Brooklyn - this was extremely easy to throw together as the paper was already printed with all the glittery cupcakes, cute butterflies and the cute critters- the paper was from the Naughty but Nice 6x6 paper stack by Smirk - I was talked into purchasing this paper while on vacation in CT this past summer - imagine that - someone enabling me?? Who'd a thunk it?

I added the chipboard "B" after I inked it an appropriate shade of PINK then distressed and added the little butterfly and the card candy in the corners. TA DA done!

I inked the little butterfly also - it came from the American Girls punch that Rachel enabled me to buy.. thanks Rach!

This card was made for Rachel's little man, Westin who was turning 2 - where has the time gone? He was just a newborn!

I used George cricut cart and cut the 2 three times out of chipboard (was trying out the deep cut blade my niece bought me for Christmas) then covered with orange DCWV glitter paper. The background paper is also DCWV - I think its from Animal Crackers?...

I even broke out the Dyno label maker for this card and some sheer orange ribbon to accent the corner.

trying to catch up on my postings...

This is my first attempt to create with The Greeting Farm stamps - I really like these guys.....this is Hugh NOT Edward as I thought when I made the card. My BFF Karen is a newly converted Twilight fan - so I used a quote from the book for her birthday greeting. I am not a good colorist; only own one Copic which I used for his face; used a combination of Bic, Sharpies and Stampin' Up! markers for the rest.

I used the new Herringbone (I think) cuttlebug folder on the background and some really narrow ribbon from Walmart.

This card I made for my NSSS Jenny for her February package - this image was from an image swap,background paper is from DCWV, Nana's Kids stack (I think),the orange and the lime green are from random DCWV glitter stacks and some purple grosgrain ribbon, hand dyed skittles and some little white baby prima blossoms. I even used my brand new Nesties, label one.

{This is supposed to be me and Jenny}

A simple birthday card

I made this card for my brother in law Dave's birthday using a stamped image I received in a swap, some DCWV paper (from the Green Stack) and some dotted orange ribbon. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

I'm a sucker for flowers of any kind... real flowers, felt flowers, paper flowers, crocheted flowers....since its the middle of winter I have to wait for spring for the real flowers and I've already shown you the felt flowers I created (posted back on March 15, 2009), so know I will show you my paper flowers.

This is one that is SO easy - I just love it...but I don't think I will use it on any pages as it is very bulky - so it will probably end up on something altered. I added some glimmer mist to this one - I made it from regular ol' copy paper.
Those crazy chicks over at My Little Shoebox have a great (and fun) tutorial that you can watch ... and be patient...its at the very end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpAKetnM9c&feature=player_embedded

This lovely specimen is something else I found on my online wanderings.... I found this over at the Pink Paislee website... for some reason I can not get the link to post but the website pinkpaislee.com and the post is from October 2009 wacky wednesday ...I'll keep looking until I can get it for you. If you are really dying for it - email me at jewel@twcny.rr.com and I will get it for you!

And here are my creations... using cream colored cotton yarn. I can't follow instructions so I just made my own version. Someday I will post a tutorial I promise!! The bigger one in the center was made using a larger crochet hook.

Then to dress them up a bit I sprayed them with glimmer mist.

This weeks creations

This past week marked my return to work after being out for my gall bladder surgery. I tried to make the most of the Monday that I had off before going back to work on Tuesday.

Chuck's sister Donna had a birthday so I whipped up a card for her - a Bella that I received in am image swap, the blue polka dotted paper is MME I believe, Red Riding Hood SU! paper and grosgrain ribbon. Brads made with the ITop (still loving this tool) and the sentiment was from a set of clear stamps I picked up at M's ages ago on clearance.

One of my 'sisters" on the Cricut message board really liked the pretties I had made last week so I whipped up some to send to her. I made about 10 of them - didn't want to bore anyone with photos of all of them so I picked out a few to show off.

this one I used felt to make a brad - had to do it twice to get all the stray ends under where they belong.

pretties

I made these pretties the other day when I was trying to decide what to do for my next layout.... for this one I used scraps of Stampin' Up! paper - I do not remember the name but I know that I bought about 4 sets of it as I was afraid that I would run out! I threw in a layer of tulle doubled up to soften it up a little. And I finally used my ITOP that my sister Lisa bought me :o) I LOVE THIS TOOL!!

This pretty was made with some old trim that I had sitting around, I threaded it on some floss and gathered it to make a circle, then did the same thing with the pink trim and then used a super duty really big sticky glue dot to hold the two together; then I reinforced it by stitching them together around the glue dot then I added a paper flower from my stash. This will look very pretty on a page.

This one is made with the same collection of the SU paper - I dampened it by spritzing it with water than wadding it up into a ball and basically taking out all my aggression on that paper ball! Then I cut out some circles (if you can call them that) and again used my ITop for the brad in the middle. I love this tool so much I bought a jumbo pack of brad refills from Oh My Crafts!

This one is my favorite - it looks so rumbled and beat up - I really like the effect of the crumbled paper - this paper was what was left over from Jenny's accordion folder. The button is from PaperTreyInk.


I really enjoyed making these and love the results!! Thanks for looking - and fell free to comment!

Cards from Paisley

On Thanksgiving evening I met up with my sisters and Niece and we went to Michael's for their great sale. I bought myself lots of goodies that night including the new Cricut Cartridge, Paisley.
I made this thank you card for my niece Sierra who helped me during my recovery from gall bladder surgery two days before Christmas. She has a wiener dog, Levi Button, so when I saw this image on the cart I knew I that it would be perfect. I used the Swiss cheese border punch from EKSuccess.


This card was also made from the Paisley cart - my new NSSS Jenny loves owls as much as I do so when I found out it was her birthday I had to make her a card with the cutest owl image. The paper for this card is Basic Grey Lemonade collection.

another accordion folder

I made this one for my new NSSS JennyK for our first package - we decided to alter something each month rather than send each other stuff we have no room for. This paper is from K&Co - not sure of what collection but I do know that I've had it for several years.

The ribbon is PaperTreyInk - really love the quality of their products. This flower on the tag was hand colored with cats eye chalk inks.

This is a view of the first two pockets

and this is the rear view

I love these flowers - I got them from Michael's in a little clear paint can in the bridal department - they cost approximately $5 for at least 1000 flowers - I believe that they are supposed to be treated like confetti and tossed on a table.

full of joy

This layout was very labor intensive. I did not have the right shade of paper with the pre-punched holes so I "made" my own - then spent most of the morning doing the stitching and cutting the petals. (click on the pictures to enlarge - sorry).
I then spend about 30 minutes getting this lace ruffled just right.

This lace flower was much quicker - I really like the results

Here is a close up of the stitching.

thanks for looking!

I'm on a roll

For the second day in a row I've completed a layout - but with my sweet subject how could I NOT?? This layout is of my mom and her first great grand baby Leah. The title is a play on words as mom is Leah's great grandmother and she's a GREAT gramma to all of her grandchildren.

The background paper is from Oriental Trading Company, the lettering, both hearts and the heart borders are from the cricut cartridge Lyrical Letters (fast becoming a favorite) the journaling tag and the title tag are from Accent Essentials - that shape is why I wanted this cart so much - Thank you SO much for getting it for me Rachel!!

2 Cute Critters

Here it is - my first layout of the year 2010 - these two cute critters are my nephew Jeffery and his niece Leah. I finally got the excuse to use my Stampin' Up! set, Forest Friends which co-ordinated with this paper really well, matted then inked around the edges with cat's eye dark brown chalk ink.
And there are owls on the paper, my favorite.

A close up on the journaling for which I used the journaling spot stamps (Autumn Leaves) that my new NSSS JennyK sent me the other day. I used 3 (count 'em 1..2..3..) Cricut carts for this layout - A Child's Year for the red scalloped title background which I popped with pop dots to well..pop....

...the title is cut from Lyrical Letters and the heart is from Plantin Schoolbook. I also used American Craft Premium ribbon - Green Ruffles, hand dyed skittles and the paper is "woodland friends" from The Paper Studio.

All in all I am quite proud of my accomplishment - I've had this floating around in my head for a couple days now and finally got the time to put it down on paper.

Happy 2010!

Today is the first day of 2010.

I don't make resolutions as I never keep them. However I do set goals.

Goals for 2010:

Complete at least 52 Layouts - this means making time for ME.

Read at least 52 books - I reached this goal for 2009 and am very proud of myself. I managed this by taking a book with me everywhere I went, many long hours soaking in the tub and actually reading at the beach rather than keeping one eye on all the kids, doing a continual head count (none of them are mine!) and one eye out for surfer boy. ;).

I also would like to keep a running total on the number of cards I make as well as the altered items I create.

And last but not least - I will attempt to update my blog weekly.


Here's to a Happy and Healthy 2010!!

Birthday Rolodex

Lovely isn't it?

This year for girl's Christmas we decided on only making one gift and we would do a grab bag so whatever we made would have to work for any of the 5 of us. I spent tons of time trying to think of something that would be unique and easy to make as well as suitable for a tomboy (my niece Sierra is not into girly things even though we tease her constantly that we are going to make her something pink and lacy!). I finally found over on Split Coast Stampers a birthday Rolodex. What a great gift idea! Unbeknownst to me - the hardest part of this entire project was finding the raw materials - Rolodex's are fairly pricey and hard to come by!!

I made the monthly card a tad bigger than the cards that would be used to keep track of the birthdays, rounded the corners and then punched the card using a business card punch that I found at the office supply store where I found the mini Rolodex (for under $10 -which was one of the requirements of the swap) and then inked the edges to enhance the distressed, aged look.

Once I had the idea and the Rolodex the next hardest part was figuring out what paper to use - could not be too girly - so I finally settled on a Cosmo Cricket TSV from QVC that I just HAD TO HAVE back in the day - you know, when QVC still had Scrapbooking shows??? Does your memory go back that far?

It was doubled sided and already mostly distressed, a look that I really like.

I used the dollar clear stamps that I had picked up at M's with all the months on them - Studio G's I believe - have no idea what series they were from - just know that like most of my supplies, I had to have them! I then used the oval scallop punch from SU (thanks mom!) to punch out the months, inked the edges with dark brown cat's eye chalk ink and then cut out a larger scalloped oval using my Nesties with co-ordinating paper and inked those edges as well then glued onto the cards I had made from the doubled sided CC paper.

This shows that the month card is slightly larger than the cards which will list the name and date of the birthday person - there is also plenty of room on the back of the card for an address.

I really love how simple and quick these went together and plan on making lots more for friends and family for next year. I will start on these soon as I have managed to find some Rolodexs at my local Wal-mart and have even found a supplier online that is not too expensive.

all dressed up......

I did what I could for her....she was lovingly decorated and before the deadline. Not the usual pretty tree but this was not the usual Christmas~ I had my gall bladder removed on the 23rd so I was done with my shopping and decorating and preparing for the holiday whether I wanted to be or not! Everything worked out fine - my surgery was a success and I had lots of help at home with the last minute things that needed to still get done - my niece Sierra was my in house nurse for the first 36 hours of my recovery and Chuck has been wonderful as well.

We postponed Christmas Eve with the chicks but my sweet Kaytlyn called me to wish me a Merry Christmas and to tell me that she missed me as this was the first Christmas Eve that we did not spend together. She even told me that she didnt think that she had been good enough to get everything on her list from Santa - it was so funny! I told her that honesty counted towards being good so I was sure that Santa would bring her lots of good presents.

I did manage to join both of our families for the holiday - it was good to see everyone; even my brother and nephew from out of town made it for the gathering. My niece Madison was sick so she and her parents stayed home which really worked out well - I dont think I could handle being sick with these incisions!

I am so thankful for having a wonderful caring group of family and friends. I hope everyone is as blessed as I am.

the saddest Christmas tree

yes we paid twenty five dollars for this beauty......she's short, she's fat and TOPLESS! I don't think that this will be one of the beautiful trees that we've had.........usually we go for the not perfect ones, but this is just crazy!!