HELLO KANSAS!

The fun FLYBaby Gathering in Kansas City is sadly now history. I had so much fun that I am still here. Actually friends Marnie and Mary are here with me. We will all leave tomorrow morning. Many images were shared and new techniques were learned. I actually made a card using one of the new techniques.

Kimilou was very kind to teach us how to do Dahlia folds. I seemed very tedious to fold the 8 petals needed, but with practice they became easier. (She actually showed us how to make a flower using only 4 of the dahlia petals, but I didn't like how my paper choice worked for it so did the full flower.) If you would like to try this you can see a tutorial for it on Split Coast Stampers.

You can't really tell by this picture but the patterned paper the flower is built on has been scored in 1/2 inch increments diagonally in each direction. This gave the paper a really neat quilty look to it. Thank you Marnie for doing this for me.

A very big THANK YOU to Kerianne for putting the weekend together. You did a great job! I hope you get a good night sleep tonight.

It's now time for bed and I do need my sleep as tomorrow will be a long day since my flight doesn't get in to Baltimore till 11:20pm and then I have an hours drive home. So good night.

BUSY TIMES

Wow! This week is going fast and though I have not done any stamping I have been busy. I've been organizing and rolling ribbon. I am amazed how much ribbon can be squished into a quart sized plastic bag!!!!! But it is all neatly rolled and organized and Diane's package is ready for delivery.

The other thing keeping me busy is getting ready for a fun weekend adventure to Kansas City. Lots to do to get ready as it will be a stamping weekend. Decisions to make concerning what to pack and how not to go over the weight limit either of the airline or what I am able to lift into and out of the car trunk! Though I don't leave for a day and a half yet I am pretty much packed except for those last minute items.

Tomorrow is not a work day for me so I think after I do some straightening up around the house I will have some time to spend in the stamp room. I sure hope so anyway. So with any luck there will be something to show off here tomorrow. Please check back.

AND THE WINNER IS.......

Before I let you all know the winner of my little contest I will show you a few more pictures. The first is a clue that will let you know if you guessed right or not. Most of you did figure it out based on earlier comments I made on SCS FLYBaby thread about my making a trip to an Offray Ribbon outlet. We did go on Thursday of last week. It was better than I even imagined! It was kind of funny in that I went up there with a group of quilters and they were not all that excited about going to the ribbon outlet, but had to humor me as I was the driver! I think we spent the longest amount of time there than we did ant any of our other three; not counting our lunch stop that is.

There was every type of ribbon imaginable sewing types, package wrapping ones and bins of paper crafting ribbons and felt embellishments! It was heaven............so the picture in the previous post was indeed spools of ribbon. Huge spools of ribbon, 1/4" grosgrain to be exact! Each of those spools measures about 7 inches across and the cost......drum roll please.....$5.00 each!

Now of course since we had driven 45 minutes and got ourselves quite turned and twisted around (okay LOST) trying to find the outlet I had to make my trip worth while. (Everyone nod in agreement please.) So I picked up a few other things.

Lets see....four smaller spools of ribbon; four plastic bags stuffed with odds and ends of assorted ribbons; somewhere around 10 prepackaged bags of ribbons specific to paper crafting; 10 packages of small crocheted flowers; 30 packages of small felt flowers; and a few other other odds and ends. Here is a picture of my stash spread out on my craft room floor. Do you like it? Doesn't really matter because I sure do and it all cost me









........................................................................$30.00. Yep that's all. So back to the winner, the name was drawn randomly by DH who doesn't know any of you from Adam! And the winner is Diane from MN and mom of 5!!!!!!!! What will see get???? She will get to share in my goodies from the ribbon outlet of course! You certainly don't think I can use all of this do you????

Congratulations Diane. I hope you will enjoy your ribbons and flowers. I will try and get them in the mail before I leave for KC Friday.

QUESTION????

I am not stamping today, because today is a major baking marathon for a missions bake sale at church tomorrow, but I am having fun!

I am going to pose a question to you though and if you guess correctly I will send you a prize. If there are more than one answers that are correct I will have my husband draw a random name from the correct answerers and that person will receive the prize.

So are you ready for the question......it is.....What is this a picture of??????

Good luck. I can't wait to read your answers. Hopefully you will all know what it is. Of cousre unless I can drum up more business around here you won't have much competition. And this contest is open to everyone, no matter where you live.....unless you are on Mars that is since Phoenix is already there and I can't send the package with it!

Good luck. I will pick the winner tomorrow night at 8pm EDT. now I must go as yet another serious thunderstorm is about to move in. I hear it rumbling in the distance and it has gotten very dark out for 3:30 in the afternoon.

KINDRED SPIRITS CELEBRATE!

Todays cards are two of the ones I made using a craft kit put together by Diane, a fellow FLYBaby Stamper.

I may have mentioned before that I've thoroughly enjoyed this kit. But I didn't when I first started. I thought the colors were just to bright for me. I didn't have a clue what I was going to make with it, but then one day I just jumped in and started using it and it was not long before I was in love. Now that I have created a multitude of cards, 1 altered Comp book, 1 altered picture frame, 1 coaster album, and 1 cute little paper purse everything is used and there is nothing left but a very small pile of scraps of patterned paper. And I am so sad.

So I think there has been a lesson learned here. Never ever assume that something you do not like is unusable. Give it a chance. Let it speak to you. You may just be surprised what it says!

The card with the green squares is one of the last ones I made. That why it has lots of little pieces. Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy and not exposed to well. My camera was not behaving well. But that will not be a problem any longer I got a new one. If you want to see what I got you will need to visit my companion BLOG "Life Out My Window." I have a lot of learning to do on how to fully use it, but the basics are pretty easy!

HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Todays card is actually one I dod a while back but never posted here. It is a new technique for me and one that I now love. I is embossing on water color paper and then watercoloring the image inside of the embossed lines. I also used the masking technique to get the greenery behind the flower.

The set I used was Stampin' Up's Embrace Life I love these images. I stamped it in Gold Encore ink and embossed using Gold Detail powder. I had to think how to mask and emboss on the same images. What I ended up doing was stamping and embossing the flower. Then making a mask of it and covering the embossed image. I then stamped the greenery removed the mask and then embossed the leaves being careful not to over heat the original embossing.

I used my watercolor crayons and an aqua painter to do the watercoloring. Finally I distressed the edges of the water color paper. I just love that look and use it often when I am using water color paper.

I wanted to use a fair amount of gold on this card as it was made for some good friends 50th Wedding Anniversary so I embossed the Happy Anniversary sentiment in gold and also used Brushed Gold card stock and gold organdy ribbon held in place with a gold brad.

All in all I liked the effect of this card.

POST NUMBER 2

Okay I know I just made a post no more than an hour a go, but I just couldn't pass this picture up! Isn't it wonderful? This has to be the best and most unique quilt I have ever seen in my entire life! I love it and I want one. It was made by Anne Fitts of Port Ste Lucie, FL to publicize her local quilt show. I bet it got attendance up! I also thought it was appropriate that the Quilt shop site I found the picture on was names Suzanne's Quilt Shop. For another picture of this wonderful creation you can go to her shop site here. It looks like since she posted these pitures that her shop has moved from Palm Beach, FL to Moultrie, Georgia. This is her new web site. If any of my fellow FSQ quilt show buddies pass by here. Don't get any ideas unless you plan to do it yourself!!!!!!!

Okay that's it for the night! See you tomorrow with more paper craft creations.

IT'S GRADUATION TIME!

It's June and that means it's time for High School Graduations.

I received a phone call this afternoon from a gentleman who had received one of my pet sympathy cards from a mutual friend of ours. He said he was so impressed by it that he wondered if I made graduation cards. Well of course I do!
He ordered one for this daughter who graduated from a local High School this morning. He said he had several sentiments that he would like to have placed on the card if possible and he e-mailed them to me.

I received his e-mail, did some research to find out the school colors, which were black and gold, and this is what I came up with. The sentiment he wanted on the front was:
If I could reach up and hold a star
For every time you've made me smile,
The entire evening sky
Would be in the palm of my hand.

I used MS Word and placed it inside of the scroll which I found in its shapes listing.

Inside the card I printed this sentiment:

It takes courage--indeed, it is the act of courage par excellence--to leave the comforts of home and family and go out into the world seeking adventure. There is no need to reach high for the stars. They are already within you - just reach deep into yourself!

I used a lot of gold embossing powder on the black card stock and also on the white. The scalloped circle is brushed gold card stock. Lots of fussy cutting on this card, but I think it was worth it. I hope Kelvin likes it. I think he did a wonderful job finding meaningful sentiments. he indicated they were anonymous ones that he found on the internet.

PLACEMAT SETS 3 AND 4

The final sets of placemats are complete! The whole process...designed, cut out, sewn, quilted and even labeled. They are now ready to go to the museum gift shop. There is only one slight problem...it's not open tomorrow!

So I guess that means I will get up early on Saturday and make a trip up there before the Strawberry festival begins at 10. There is one good side to delivering them then....I can get some fresh strawberries! I sure hope that the severe storms and very very heavy rains yesterday didn't wash them all away or pulverize them while still in the fields.....

Tomorrow I will return to posting cards. Sewing is done for a while.

NOPE! NO STAMPING OR QUILTING YET.

Sometimes it just seems that life gets in the way of creative endeavors. I haven't been able to do any crafting in several days now and that does not make me a happy person. I can get real cranky if I go to long not letting my mind and hands get invloved with making something. BUT I do have something to share. And its something cute, and exciting and it resulted from a challenge that turned into a real learning experience.

Say hi to Eric! Isn't he a cutie. And look what he's holding.


He drew my name! I just love that smile and those eyes peeking over the paper. So why is he holding my name?

During May a group of us FLYBaby stampers on SCS stepped up to a challenge issued by Eric's Mom. The challenge was to not spend on crafting items for the whole month. We were take the month of May and use what we already had and enjoy using it. All of us who took the challenge admitted that we each had plenty of stuff to use. We were not putting ourselves in the position of not being able to stamp and create cards or scrapbook layouts or in my case quilt. In fact at least for me I know I have so much that at times I am unable to make a decision on what to use next. At the end of May each participant had her name put into a hat and Eric drew a name out. That person was declared winner for the month. That's how he got his picture taken with my name. I found that incredibly exciting.

More exciting than seeing Eric with my name though was what I learned during May. I learned that I do not need to purchase everything I see that I like to enjoy making things. I learned that I forget I wanted to purchase a stamp set when I first see it if I wait a day, or week or month to get it. And that this forgetting is much better on my budget than purchasing it right away, receiving it , placing it on a shelf and then forgetting it. It is also much better on my clutter problems. There have been more than a few items I have seen in new set releases since May 1 that I would have loved to get during the excitement of the release. But because of the challenge I couldn't now it's June and I am free to purchase them, but you know what? I haven't had a project I could not complete because I didn't have them and the need to have them just doesn't seem to be there any longer. They will still all be available if and when I project comes up that they are the perfect set for. And frankly I doubt that with any of those sets that will happen soon if at all. I have over ***** stamp sets. (The number is not shown here 1) because I don't really know how many I have and 2) I'd probably be very embarrassed to tell you if I did know.) With all those sets I can make beautiful cards for years I'm sure.

Now don't get me wrong. I will not go years before I purchase another stamp set or piece of fabric. I fact I am sure before June is out I will purchase at least one new one. But I think think the urge to purchase everything I fall in love with as soon as I see it has been broken. I think impulse buys will be made less often. This is what I am really excited about. I hope that this lesson sticks and I can become a responsible crafter. A crafter with good stewardship of what she already has been blessed with. I think this will leave me much freer to expand and explore my creativity out side the trap of consumerism.

Thank you Eric for drawing my name and thank you Christi for this wonderful learning challenge.

As for getting back to stamping or sewing....probably not tomorrow yet, but I hope for Wednesday to have a few free hours. Wish me luck!