NO STAMPING BUT TAGGED!

I've been busily getting ready for a yard sale we held at our church today so haven't had time the past few days to stamp or sew. It sure seemed like I sold a lot of stuff, but at days end it only added up to $100. Oh well I guess it takes a lot of 25 and 50 cent items with a few items over $1 to make up that amount of money. Also it is a $100 more than I had this morning and my house is at least a bit lighter!

Anyway I was tagged by a BLOGing and FLYing buddy Teresa who can be found at Tilting at Windmills and now must share some UNimportsnt facts about myself......common Teresa there's nothing UNimportant about me....yeah right! So here goes......

1. I lived in the same house when I was growing up for 15 years and said I would never live that long in one place again. We have now lived in our current home 25 years and have no immediate plans for moving!
2. I have worked at my current job which is at our church for 11 years which is 9 years longer than any other job (paying that is) I have held.
3. I cannot crochet or tat, both of which I have tried many times and failed each time! Oh can't paint anything other than a stamped image either.
4. I have way to many LP albums, cassette tapes and VHS tapes. All of which technology has or is making obsolete! And I can't stand the thought of just throwing them away.
   
5. I have been married going on 37 years and other than baby room and children's room furniture we have purchased new 7 pieces of furniture. Rest of furnishings are yard sale or "early family attic" which was only to be used as newly weds till we found something better!
6. We drive our cars into the ground before we get rid of them.
   

So that is the UNinteresting facts about me. Now if you would like to play along I have just tagged you! Please let me know if you list 6 things about yourself so I can come visit. Here are the simple rules to follow. The last of which I just broke. And I must say that I personally find anything I learn of any of my BLOGing friends as interesting. So sorry if you find my items more interesting than I do.
1) Link back to the person who tagged you: here's the link
2)Post these rules on your blog
3)Share six (6) unimportant things about yourself
4) Tag six (6) people at the end of the entry

A SNAILS PACE

Todays card is on honor of how I feel today has been going.
I feel like I have been moving at a snails pace all day and consequently not much has been completed.

I just love this little lady snail. I'm claiming she's a lady because what self respecting male snail would have flowers growing out of his head and decorating his shell.

This is another of the images that I colored this spring when I was in North Carolina visiting my mom. I'm just about finished using those images. But I have plans for coloring lots more while visiting Kansas City in three weeks for a wonderful stamping gathering. I have discovered I really like having a supply of precolored images ready to go when I need a quick card. I can spend my limited time on layout and embellishments since the coloring is all done.

Also I want to tell you all (if you don't already know) about some amazing BLOG candy give aways. If you haven't yet visited Diane's Designs or Lee's My Reality....It's all Good! You are definitely missing out on some good stuff. And when I say good stuff I am not just referring to the chance to win BLOG candy. These two women are amazing paper crafters. I guarantee you will not be dissappointed by either of them. They also are amazing women. You will have to put some though into possibly winning their candy though they have some specific questions for you so be prepared. (Don't worry they aren't hard questions!)

One final thing and then I am off to bed. Lee gave me this wonderful award. First of all thank you so much Lee. I look forward to your visits here and reading your comments. Even more though I look forward to seeing you again in three weeks. (Yes, Lee AND Diane will be at that special Kansas City gathering mentioned earlier in this post. So look for wonderful creations to come!) Secondly isn't this a beautiful award. It fits right into my love of quilting as well as stamping. Thirdly the hard part. I so want to send on this award to someone special. I have quite a list of BLOGs I read regularly and you know what Lee already awarded this same award to most of them. So for now if you read this and are on Lee's list all I can say is DITTO! So now go and check out Lee! And don't forget Diane.

DINING IN STYLE?

The placemats are complete. At least these two sets are. I hope to get one more set done before they are due at the gift shop. I have the design for that set done and the fabric picked out but have not done any cutting let alone sewing on them. But I am very happy to have these done and also am very happy with how they turned out. The third set will be a rust red basic fabric with small sunflowers and then accent fabrics that are gold and green.

If the time for sewing is more abundant than I expect it will be I might even try and put together a fourth set which would be in blues. No design in mind for them though and it will only happen if I can manage to schedule and use my time over the next few days very wisely! The chances of this happening is probably very slim to nil, but miracles do happen.


If there is an abundance of sewing time, which means if I can schedule and use the next few day

FROM THE STAMPING ARCHIVES

I didn't do any stamping today. I spent my crafty time sewing today. I'm working on quilted placemats I need to have completed to take to a small museum where I have items on consignment in their gift shop. The first weekend in June is their annual Strawberry festival on the museum grounds and the manager of the gift shop is trying to stock up on merchandise.

The placemats are not ready to be photographed yet and I wanted to post something today. So I went back into my collection of items that a relatively recent creations which have not yet found their way to this BLOG and found some cards that celebrate my love of quilting as well as stamping. All three designs have stamped and colored quilt blocks as their focal point. I love these stamps from Impression Obsession. The images on all three of these cards were stamped on watercolor paper and colored using water color pencils.

Maybe by tomorrow evening at least one of the two sets of placemats I am working on will be completed and ready for the camera.

MEMORIAL WEEKEND AND THE BEACH

It is the Memorial weekend here in the US. Here in MD it is the weekend that traditionally all outdoor pools open and the beach season officially begins. I will neither be going to a pool or heading to the beach, but I do have a quilted beach scene to share with you. This small wall quilt was made from a pattern designed by Carol Doak. It is all paper pieced. I find paper piecing a relatively quick, easy and precise way to piece quilts.

I hope you all have an enjoyable and relaxing Memorial Day weekend and please don't forget to reflect on the reason we celebrate this holiday and remember in thought an prayer those who have given their life on the battlefield while serving our country and also the family and friends they leave behind.

ONE LAYOUT; TWO CARDS

I should be going to bed. It's past my bed time but I wanted to get something posted before I go.
And guess what it's not from the Spring Craft Kit. (Don't worry there will be more from it later probably.) being very No these are actually two cards from a very old, at least a year, kit that I was able to purchase from SU as a demonstrator. I thought I would use them in a workshop or class, which is their intended purpose. Of course since in my almost 3 years with SU I have not
been able to interest anyone in having a workshop and I've pretty much given up on offering classes I've never used the kits and they have sat in a drawer feeling very unloved I am sure.

This first one is the actual design that SU gave for the card. The exact stamp set and all. I like it and it's 'okay, but except at the holidays and my birthday I don't really have two much use for Thank You cards so I certainly don't need to make 24 of these. One type card I do seem to need a lot of lately are Get Well cards. So I kept the same basic layout design and changed the sentiment to get well. Added a few stamped and cut out Bluebirds and voila a Get Well card from the kit supplies.

I'm not sure I am too enamored with either card though so may get back to the drawing board with the precut kit pieces and see if I can come up with something a little more exciting. When I find it I will let you know.

Now it's off to bed for me. Tomorrow may be Saturday, but it will be a work day for me!

MORE SPRING CRAFT KIT CREATIONS

I've been continuing to work with the items that came in my Spring Craft Kit and here are a few more of my creations. You know it is very interesting that when I first received this kit I wasn't too excited about it. It was much brighter and more pastelly (is that a word?) than I like. I put off for over a month even looking at it again. BUT.....once I got started using it I fell in love! I am now going to be so sad when there is no more to play with and I must move on. And that moment is coming real fast there is not much left but a few scraps of patterned paper and even less of the card stock. I think I may have a dozen or so brads left and that is it for the embellishments.

So why did I fall in love with this kit once I began using it. Well for one thing I think that anything I determine to throw myself into creating with I eventually fall in love with. The more I use something that seem useless the more I seem to find uses for it. Also it has been so rainy and dreary here in Maryland this month (over 9 inches of rain so far) that the papers in this kit provided a much needed cheery bright spot in my day. I found myself smiling as I worked with them.

This first card didn't start out to be a baby girl card. In fact it started out a disaster. I began working with one of the self adhesive chipboard flowers that came in the kit. (They were my biggest challenge). I added the oversized brad for the middle of it then tried to put it against the patterned papers I had left. Nothing worked it kept getting lost. Next I thought maybe a scalloped circle under it would help and I had a piece of the pink patterned paper, but the scalloped circle was too big so I placed a smaller circle between it and the chipboard. That worked but it was still boring so bring out the piercing tool and white gel pen. Finally I had something I liked that worked against the striped background paper, but wow it's 4 layers! To balance the vertical stripes I added the ribbon on a diagonal line under this medallion. At this point I needed something in the lower right to balance everything and I wanted it to be a sentiment. For some reason that even I don't understand when I looked at the card I thought of a baby rattle and since the medallion was primarily pink it became a baby girl card by stamping the New Baby sentiment on pink! It works for me how about you?

From babies to birthday's. This second card also has a chipboard flower with a large brad on the inside. But this one looked just fine with no other additions. Maybe because it is a more normal shaped flower image. I echoed the flower by rolling the background on the card stock using So Saffron and one of my jumbo wheels from SU. More flowers on the panel of paper down the left side of the card. Then I was tired of flowers and so stamped the happy birthday message on a striped paper. Cutting around it with the same scalloped scissors I used on the sides of the panel. Something more was needed and I decided it was a splash of color so I found a strip of golden yellow card stock, but it was narrower than the sentiment piece! What to do? Well you can see what I did. I scalloped just the ends of the strip and cut it long enough to place a brad in each end than put the sentiment on top using dimentionals. I think it looks like it is floating on a stip if paper ribbon. Finally,I wanted to put three brads in the lower left. Now that I was almost done with the card I got to hurried and lazy to get out a punch template and ensure that the brads would be evenly spaced. (I blame it on my ADD kicking in.) So of course when I put the brads in they were all wrong and totally ruined the card. <> I was ready to kick myself around the room and scream in frustration. I took a break, came back refreshed and looked at the card again....more sighing....Ah ha! I'll cover up the holes that are miss punched. You can se what I came up with. Now the only problem was that when I opened the card there were those pesky holes still staring me in the face! HA, guess what's on the inside covering the holes........A second little punched strip of the patterned paper that you see on the left hand side of the card. Problem cratively solve and card salvaged!

THANKS & AN ALTERED FRAME

Thank you to all for the advice on whether to put more covered coasters or doubled up card stock for the interior pages of my little album. I think what I am going to do is take Susan's advice and make a set of pages using the card stock and load it with my photos and embellies and see if I like how it holds up. If it works to my satisfaction I will have more coasters for more albums.....if I judge it to flimsy to hold the embellies nicely I will redo it on a coaster.
Thanks Susan for this suggestion.

Now on to my next altered project using items from the spring craft kit. A while back I purchased a bunch of 4 x 6 inch molded plastic acrylic frames from JoAnn's for fifty cents each. Also even longer ago I received a gift from a FLYBaby Stamping friend a cute little post it note holder stand with a pen. I love it. It sits on my stamping table so I have a pad of paper always handy and the pen doesn't get lost since it clips right to the stand. The frames I purchased aren't exacly like the one I was gifted with but very similar and so I made my self a post it note holder stand and pen that I can now gift someone with.

Here is a picture of it. I used some of the patterned paper as a base and punched out two 5 petal flowers from two scraps of card stock using a retired SU punch. To give the flowers a little more texture I sponged them both with So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie inks and layered them together with a brad. The n-o-t-e-s was punched out from letters stamped using one of the stamps from Alpha Bits using a quarter inch hole punch and attached with glue dots. I did attach the post it notes pad with a piece of red sticky strip so it would stay put. When used up it can be replaced with a new one. The pen is a Pentel RSVP Pen with a piece of the background patterned paper rolled up and placed in the barrel. I love these pens. Staples and Office Depot used to carry them, but at least ours here in MD don't seem to any more so when I run out of my supply I guess I will have to resort to ordering them on line.

That's it for today. I hope everyone is having a restful Sunday and will be ready to take on a new workweek starting Monday morning! Thanks for stopping by.

COASTER ALBUM

This is my first Coaster Album and I have to say so far it has been fun to make. Once again it is made with items from the SCS Flybabies Spring Craft Kit as part of the challenge. The chip board coasters are 4 inch square and I purchased them in bulk on E-bay for a stamp camp project.

It was a very easy project, but so far it is only the front and back covers. There are no pages inside. This is partly because I don't quite know what kind of pages to put inside and I am hoping to get some advice here and on Splitcoast. Should I cover and embellish more coasters for the pages for strength? Or would card stock pages be strong enough since the pages are relatively small and so the photos will also be small? Especially if I use two sheets of card stock adhered together back to back. All advice welcome. I also plan to eventually put ribbons on the rings for decoration, but I am totally out of ribbon from the craft kit so have to wait till challenge is complete for that.

So is anyone wondering how I did this? It really was very simple. The only piece of special equipment that I would deem necessary to keep it easy is a crop-a-dile. They make punching the holes for the rings a breeze! Like punching through a single sheet of card stock. Here are the steps I followed in creating this.

1. Cut two pieces of patterended paper slightly larger than 4" square
2. Cut two pieces of solid colored card stock slightly larger than 4" square
3. Run all four squares through xyron to adhere adhesive to their backs. (If you don't have xyron use favorite strong adhesive like sticky tape or mono-multi glue)
4. Carefully adhere patterned papers to one side of each of the two coasters
5. Carefully adhere card stock to other side of each of the coasters
6. Trim the papers as close as possible to the edges of the coasters. There shouldn't be much to trim, but don't forget to round the corners.
7. Use sanding block to smooth the edges of the covered coasters
8. I sponged a coordinating ink around edge of coaster. (In my case I used So Saffron) This colors the white edge of coaster so it blends into the papers and I also sponged a bit onto the patterned paper sp it softened the edge
9. Embellish the front of album as desired. I used letter stickers that I outline with black gel pen to spell out "Mom Pics" I wanted mom's but didn't have room. I also punched out little circles with pictures from a coordinating paper (the lady bugs) and after they were attached I circled them each with a ring of Star Dust Stickles for some added bling. You may wonder why the button with flowers on in at the top of the "c"....don't tell anyone, but it's a creative boo-boo cover. (The pen slipped while I was outlining and left a nasty black line which is hidden by the button) If you want to use brads as a embellishment I would probably place them on if possible BEFORE I adhered the patterned paper to the front.
   
10. Punch your holes for the rings using the large punch on the crop-a-dile. Make sure the holes line up on the back cover.
    
11. Insert rings and decorate with ribbons as desired.
    
12. Don't forget pages on the inside for the photos.
13. It's done......wasn't that easy?

So now you know how to make these and they are so easy. Why not give it a try. If you don't have coasters head out to your favorite restaurant or bar and order a drink. They often serve them to you on a nice little square coaster. (Except at Red Robin they are round, but you could then make a round album!) Oh, don't forget to take a friend who also needs to get a drink becasue you need TWO COASTERS...........

A 7 GYPSIES GIRL!

I took a quiz mentioned by Susan on her BLOG and I am a 7 Gypsies paper type of gal....They actually said....

"You are 7 GYPSIES paper!
Oh la la...you are sophisticated and enjoy fine wine and a candlelight dinner. You envision traveling the world someday. Your scrapbook pages are elegant and well thought out. "

Oh yes I like that! Fine yep that about says it all for me! Now I guess I better go check out 7 Gypsies as I don't have a clue what they are about!!!!!!!!

If you would like to find out what paper you are check it out here......

GET WELL KAREN!

Today's card is another that I did using the supplies from my spring craft kit. It's reall amazing what you can get made out of four sheets of 12 x 12 card stock, four or five sheets of 12 x 12 double sided patterned paper, a few lengths of ribbon and various other assorted embellishments.

I needed a get well card for a friend from church who after over a year of set backs finally had surgery last week which will hopefully allow her to get out of a wheelchair and walk again.

Once again I seached through past SCS card sketch challenges and found the one this card is based on. It is Sketch number 64.

I pulled out another one of my favorite stamp sets that is retired,Nice and Easy Notes. It was stamped on whisper white card stock and colored in using Prisma pencils blended with orderless mineral spirits. I'm not a fan of noted ribbons with is what the model for the sketch shwed and so I used a flower on a ribbon belt.

A VERY SPECIUAL BUNNY!

Isn't this little guy just too cute! Thank you to Christi for giving me this reward and her kind words. She certainly made my day by giving it to me. And he (the bunny) makes me smile just looking at him. I will have to work on finding folks to award this to. There are many out there that make my day. They give me inspiration and call me friend as I do them. Many of them I have already awarded a earlier version of this award, but they all still deserve the award! Lee, Susan, Teresa, Beth, Diane, and Sarah. You are all fantastic. And there are other stamping friends who are inspiration but don't have BLOGS. Thank you to all of you and consider yourself awarded this award every time I visit your sites or few your creations elsewhere. Click on any of the names here and visit them you will not be disappointed. A couple are in the midst of family moves and so are not stamping too much right know, but look out when they get everything set up in the new location!!!!!! Stamps will fly!

ANOTHER HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This card is another birthday card that I made from items in my Spring Craft Kit. I've also been going back and looking at old SCS Sketch Challenges and this layout is #55. I really like looking through the older sketches.

The fun thing I did on this card is that the flower in the lower right is actually placed on the inside or the card and shows through a hole punched in the front. I also sponged Certainly Celery around the puched hole so it would stand out more.

The stamped flowers are colored with my copics. and to give them a little pizazz I used brads for the flower centers and some yellow stickles above the tulips for some sparkle. The green card stock the flowers are stamped on is layered on some burgundy mulberry paper I found laying around when I organized my paper scraps. Isn't it amazing what you can find when you clean up piles that are lying around. I didn't even know I had any colored mulberry paper!

My background was stamped in Certainly Celery with my Pattern background stamp.

So now I just need to wait for another birthday to crop up. I think it is my DS#2.

ANOTHER SYMPATHY CARD

I think in the past two years I have made more sympathy cards than any other genre of cards. And today I made another. This one goes to a family at our church. The matriarch of the family passed away last Friday. Ellen was 100 years old. Almost 101! She lived with her daughter and son in law who have taken care of her for years. It was not an unexpected death, but one that will still be mourned.

I used one of my favorite stamps from the set A Measure of Life. IT is a retired SU set, but it will not be retired from my collection. I love all the stamps in this set, but this one of the dragonfly with the verse from Ecclesiastes inscribed around it is the one I use the most. For a while it was a stamp that frustrated me as the verse was almost illegible. Then I discovered the black VersaFine ink pad and WOW what a difference in clarity.

The card stock and ribbon I used for this card are from my Spring Craft kit that is a Stampin' FLYBabies challenge. So is the ribbon. I used Stickles on the wings of the dragonfly to give them some irredentist glimmer. I tried to use Pearl-Ex and gave up. I've seen wonderful things done with Pearl-Ex but I can't get the stuff to work for me. Also to make the body of the dragonfly stand out a bit more I outlines it with colored pencil. The background of the card is my retired background stamp from SU French Script. This one will not be retiring from my use either. Since I don't yet have nestabilities I used my Mary punches for the oval and scalloped oval.

MOTHER'S DAY

Yesterday was Mother's Day here in the US and also in many other parts of the world.
This is the card that I made and sent to my mother. I hope she enjoyed recieving it as much as I enjoyed sending it.

ORGANIZING FEAT

I have a goal for this month. I am working on mot spending any money on craft supplies for a month. I am actually going to try for a month and a half. I have so much stuff, both for stamping and quilting that I am discovering I can't find what I need when I need it and so my first response is to buy more. Also I have so much disorganized stuff that I forget what I already have and buy it a second time. This is stopping as of May 1. I am ORGANIZING!!!!!

I started with the project of unmounting my stamp sets and this is a long term project. So far I have 28 sets unmounted and in cassette cases. Then I worked on organizing my paper scraps and placing each SU color in its own hanging file folder with a label in the color of card stock using the SU printed labels. Both of these projects have worked very well and yes I am using my scraps much more efficiently rather than cutting into a new sheet for a small piece creating of course even more scraps.....

Yesterday I went made a trip to the container store for another CD case holder and also found some nifty divided boxes that I thought would be perfect for my next much needed organizational project.....my ribbon scraps and odd lengths of ribbons. These scraps were simply jumbles in a plastic shoe box. This storage method did keep the ribbons from spilling out everywhere, but it did not really make them usable. I couldn't really see what I had without digging through the mess and spending time untangling them.

I purchased three boxes which each had 30 small slots in it. My thinking with having three boxes is I have one each for cool, warm and neutral colors of ribbons. I decided since most of my ribbons are non Stampin' Up ribbons that it made no sense trying to do boxes for each SU color family and one for neutrals.

I can't take credit for this storage idea. Several months ago a friend of mine showed me her ribbons in this type of a system. And at that time I knew it was what I wanted to do with mine. I love just looking in the boxes. The colors are so fun. Here is a close up of the warm color box. Isn't it fun to look at?

I still have my spools of ribbon in two sets of SU's plastic ribbon holders, but frankly I don't like them and if they had been so blasted expensive I'd get rid of them. I don't know if I haven't figured out how to use them correctly or what, but when I try to pull out a length of ribbon to use all the spools in the row turn and their ribbons unroll also. I end up either with a mess of unrolled ribbons or have to take time to very tediously re-roll them. I know I probably shouldn't say negative things about SU products being a SU demonstrator and all, but I just can't recommend something I think is poorly designed and their ribbon holder is one of those things. Sorry SU.......

So now my ribbon pieces are wonderfully organized I wonder what will be my next project will be? Other than continuing to unmount stamp sets that is.

In case you are wondering I am doing some stamping during this whole process, but so far the only one I have a picture of is a Mother's Day card for my mom and you will have to wait till after Mother's Day to see it. She just may drop by here and I wouldn't want to ruin her surprise.

A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU

I had mentioned that at our Women's Health Day event we made Mother's Day Cards and sent to Cards for Heroes. I wanted to share with you the lovely Thank You card I received from Mindy in PA on the behalf of this wonderful organization.

I can not say that I am in favor of this war going on in Iraq, but I am in favor of the heroic men and women who are serving our country over there. I pray that God keep them strong and safe as they do their jobs. And I also pray for their families who anxiously wait here at home for their safe return.

I would like to encourage you also to support them but making some extra cards to be sent to them. It's too late to get them cards for Mother's Day, but Father's Day is soon coming and there is always a need for birthday cards as well as just general "Thinking of You' type cards. Please check out their site.

Note to Lee.....Isn't this a wonderful "mousie" card!

It's hard for me to believe that it's been almost a week and a half since I was last able to post here. Sorry about my absence, but boy life has been busy. The quilt show was fantastic. Of course at this point that was a week ago! The week after it was spent in a recovery mode from all the flurry of activity getting ready for it.

I did spend a good part of that recovery time not only catching up at work, but cleaning and reorganizing my stamping/craft room. Now that was great fun. The sad closing of our local stamp store p rovided me with the opportunity to purchase a set of paper racks to store my card stock on. Of course this meant I needed to totally redo my closet space. I wanted to put the paper racks in the closet so I could close the doors against the sunlight and fading it causes. Here is what thing looked like when I began this process. I'll warn you it was not a pretty sight.I wasn't sure I was ever going to be able to recover from this mess. BUT I persevered and with some serious work I was able to get the paper racks set up in my right hand closet as well as my stamp sets that are seasonal, sentiments only or background stamps organized in hanging show holders. I love it! I can just loose myself in looking at color so I find this closet space a wonderful thing to look at. AND at a glance I can tell what colors of card stock I need to reorder! What do you think?
Of course once I had this all organized I couldn't stop there so I moved on to the top of the chest of drawers I have in my room. The chest drawers hold my chip board pieces, alterable items, old catalogs and fliers as well as packaging materials. The top of it is where I store my stamp pads ribbons and punches. Plus many other off and miscellaneous items such as glitter, stickles, primas cutting tools etc. This is how it turned out.....

Finally I had to clean off my stamping table. You know all those scraps from finished projects. I've also figured out how to organize my scissors and various coloring implements on this table. This helps me remember to use them. Underneath the table I have my hanging file folder container which has a file folder for each of the card stock colors from SU and the In Colors as well. This is for my scraps.

I really hope that this new organization system for papers, punches etc will help me not create such a mess when I go in to a stamping frenzy. It's only been a few days but so far so good.

I am real good at organizing things, but not so good at keeping then organized..........we will see what this coming week brings! I need to replenish my card inventory after the sales to my mom and at the quilt show boutique. AND some time I really need to get back to doing some serious scrapbooking!