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!

I'M GETTING TO OLD FOR ALL THIS!

This picture is in honor of our guild quilt show this weekend. I have spent all of today gathering things from home to take to it and helping set it up. The show opens tomorrow and will run through 5pm Sunday. I really enjoy working with it and being at it all weekend, but boy I can sure tell that I'm not as young as I used to be. This is at least the 15th show I've been involved with.

The stamp I used to watercolor for this framed picture is another of my ones from Impression Obsession. I have used it to make note cards but Diane suggested it was so pretty it should be a framed picture. I decided I agreed with her and here it is. Thank you for the suggestion Diane I love this picture.

This is probably all I will be posting until Monday unless I perk up one of the other evenings when I get home from the show. So since there probably won't be anything new here if you have never visited Diane's Designs take this opportunity to do so. She does marvelous work!

FINAL STAINED GLASS CARD & A SURPRISE FIND!

Here is my final, for now anyway, stained glass card. This is the image colored with Twinkling H2O watercolors. The shimmer doesn't really photograph well at all but is very pretty in real life. I cut out the image and mounted it with dimensionals on a piece of So Saffron Designer Paper. I then places Brilliant blue brads in the corners and mounted this all on a piece of Brilliant Blue leaving only a sliver of it showing for a very thin boarder. The card itself is So Saffron. I really like this one though I am still not sure which is my favorite from this series of cards.

Now on to my surprise find. I was in Michael's the other day looking for who knows what. I think maybe a CuttleBug embossing folder and I decided to check out the Clearance section. I rarely do this anymore because our Michael's only puts the real junky stuff on clearance (unless its holiday stuff) and then it's not usually marked down all that much anyway. This day though I hit the jackpot. I found a Martha Stewart kit for making paper table favors and decorations for a tea party or some such thing. It was marked down from $19.00 to $3.00. The kit was all card stock weight paper embossed and punched out to look like white eyelet. There are several different styles some scalloped and embossed on both edges others flat on one edge and scalloped and embossed along the other. There are also various widths and lengths. I don't know how much total there was in the package but it was enough to make 8 each of napkin rings, votive candle holder covers. name cards and various other items. I snatched up one of the kits and when I got home and opened it up and sorted through everything I loved it. Here is my first card I've made with some of it. This is the narrowest double edged paper eyelet.

What do you think? I placed a strip of Purely Pomegranate satin ribbon behind the center of it. I didn't have time to do any coloring on this eyelet piece but I think I want to give that a try on another card. I think lightly running an ink pad over the eyelet so only the raised embossing picked it up.

The quilt block stamp is from Impression Obsession and the sentiment is from a Stamping Up! sentiment set. I forget the name at the moment and am too lazy to run upstairs and check. (My 5 am wake up time is catching up with me!!!)

Who knows tomorrow I may even go back and see if they have anymore of the kits left. This will be great fun to play with.

DEALING WITH THE IMPORTANT THINGS!

I finally cut and worked with my What's In Your Tin stamp sets that I purchased from GinaK at the end of last month. These were so fun to make.

I altered some old Altoid tins using cards stock, designer papers, ribbons and various other embellishments. This was a project for which I was very happy that I have a Xyron machine to coat the entire back of the paper with adhesive so things would stick down well. No curled edges at all. I used sticky strip to adhere the ribbons to the sides of the tins. At the last moment I decided to also cover the bottom of the tins to cover up the nutritional and ingredient labeling for the Altoids.

I am very pleased with how these turned out. Of course the best part, the "essential" part is on the inside. Five lovely little Hershey Special Dark Nuggets with Almonds! Yummy!!!!! I placed the nuggets in a small cellophane bag, folded the edge to the back and placed a small piece of sticky strip on the bottom of the tin to hold things in place. I thought this made for a more finished presentation then just loose nuggets.

I've used up all my nuggets so now I think I want to alter some more tins this time as "Tooth Fairy" tins. I'd like to do some mini sewing kit tins, but I don't have any supplies to put in them so that project will wait for next year. Or maybe the Christmas boutique.

Thanks for stopping by.

STAINED GLASS

No I am not getting into another craft craze. I have enough of them already, thank you very much! But I did find this wonderful rubber stamp from The Artful Stamper in London, Ontario, Canada. It reminds me of a Tiffany stain glass work.

When I first found it I though of the Faux Cloisonne technique. Alas it was not a good stamp for that. I think the open spaces are too big. A smaller and more detailed stamp works better for that technique. Giving up on Faux Cloisonne I moved on to finding other ways to use this stamp.

It is a rather large stamp so I haven't come up with many different layouts for it. It pretty much takes up the whole 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card front all on its own. So I've had to focus in on coloring and backgrounds for it. This has been fun in and of itself. Some of the techniques I have come up with don't show up will in my scans. I will try and describe those as best I can.

The first one is stamped on a piece of polished stone background paper that I made when I was playing around with that technique. I never came up with something I wanted to stamp on is so I just set it aside. I think this stamps works wonderfully with it. To give it some dimension like the stained glass has I stamped it in Black Craft ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then cut the image out and mounted it on white mulberry paper. I don't like how the glue dots show through the mulberry paper so I used crystal effect and glued a rhinestone over them. I thought of using rhinestone brads to hold the paper down, but I don't like the brads showing on the inside of the card either. This is the least bold of the cards and I think I will make some more polished stone backgrounds and play with this more.

This next card is colored with a combination of Copic and Prisma markers. The image was stamped on plain white card stock with the Black Craft ink and also embossed. I found the raised edge of the embossing really helped me stay within the lines. I used my Canvas background stamp on the ruby red card stock with ruby red classic ink. Once again I cut out the oval image and mounted it. This tile though not totally centering the image so I had room for the sentiment.

The third and fourth cards are also colored with the markers. The difference being that on the third card the spaces that look white are actually cut out. There is an additional oval layer underneath the stamped image that is coated in Dazzling Diamonds for some added "bling" that shows through the cut out areas. The colored image is attached to the glitter layer using dimensionals so it appears to float over the backing. On this card I did use rhinestone brads in the corners since I had the additional layer of patterned paper they could go into and not show on the inside of the card itself.

The only thing unique about the forth card is that I laid out the card in a portrait rather than landscape fashion. Also the background is stamped using the direct ink pad to card stock method. You can't tell but there are actually about three different colors of ink used here.

I have one other image I am working with but haven't actually put it to a card yet. As in all the others I used Black craft ink and clear embossing powder so I would have the slightly raised edge. For this last one in the series though I have painted the image in with Twinkling H2O's. I like how it turned out with the little bit of shimmer. But I don't think the shimmer will show up in a scan. I have several other techniques I want to try, but they will have to wait a bit. I am now busily working on items to sell in out guild boutique so I can earn some fun money to get a few more toys......All of the cards are headed to the boutique.

A BLOOMIN' CHALLENGE IS DONE!

I have been piecing, ironing and quilting for a day and a half straight to get all my projects completed for next weekend's quilt show. With only 4 and a half hours sleep last night I am now more than very tired and think a nap will be in my future today. But staying up half the night was well worth it and all three of my quilts are finished and delivered to the quilt show committee. I even managed to get them there 2 and a half hours before the deadline!

As of yesterday morning I had one quilt done, but missing a label. One top finished but still needing to be basted together with batting and back, machine quilted, bound and labeled. And this quilt that I'm posting a picture of here was only a half pieced together top still needing all the basting, quilting etcetera as well. To say I knew it was going to be a long day and night is a major understatement.

But as I said with only 4 1/2 hours sleep between 6:30 am Friday and 12:30 pm Saturday I did get them all done and delivered.

This quilt was part of our guilds annual "Bloomin' Challenge" in which we are given 3 pieces of very bizarre and challenging fabrics and told to make a quilt or other quilted item out of them. I added the black fabric to the mix and this is what I came up with. I felt the black toned down what were otherwise all very bright bold fabrics. The corner appliqués are made up of flowers I cut out of one of the pieces of the fabric given to us. All in all I am very happy with how this quilt turned out and hope others enjoy viewing it also.

I'm not posting pictures of the other two quilts I am entering in the show since I have already featured them in other posts. If you would like to see them once again you can click on their names and you will be transported back to the original posts. Bucket Inspired Stars and A Bowl Full of Traveling Dreams.

I love quilting and am constantly amazed at the energy I get from it. The marathon quilting session was great fun. I wish live had more time available for such things, and for marathon stamping. Unfortunately there is a reality called work and life which now I must get back to. After my nap that is............

REDUCING AND ORGANIZING

I am running out of space! Or more accurately I have run out of space!!!! So I decided it was time to take drastic steps. No, I am not going to stop purchasing stamps. That's just not realistic is it? (I am assume those reading this post are fellow stampers and not my DH!) Christine had a segment on ScrapTime that dealt with "unmounting" Stampin' Up stamps. That is taking them off the wood.

Now don't anyone get me wrong I love my wood. It is so silky smooth to the touch. It's soft, well at least softer than acrylic. And I think it smells nice. But it takes up so much room having every stamp mounted on a 1 inch thick piece of it. If I had a 20 x 24 foot stamping room or some such thing I could manage, but in my little bedroom turned stamp room space just plain ran out!

I've actually been thinking of doing this for a year or so. That's when I first read a thread about it on SCS. The folks talking about it there loved doing it. (Well most did.) But they made it sound very time consuming and very expensive. They were talking about removing the rubber not only from the block but also the foam padding and remounting it on E-Z Mount which at over $5 a 8-1/2 x 11 sheet was more than I wanted to spend. Also there was much talk about storing the newly unmounted sets in binders verses plastic CD jewel cases. I was over whelm with the prospect and kept putting making a decision about it off even as free space dwindled more.

Then Christine showed how quick and easy it was to do this and also that there was no need to purchase new foam. I saw the light and I have begun. Thank you Christine! Here is a photo showing the stacks of stamp sets that when unmounted will fit into the wire CD basket sitting next to them. Unbelievable!!!! What once took up a 10inch deep x 12 inch wide and 24 inch tall stack now fits into a 11inch deep x 5-1/2 inch wide and 6 inch tall space. I LOVE IT!!!!!!

I use my microwave to soften the glue enough so I can gently peel the stamp off the block with the foam still intact. I experimented and found that it does take 20 seconds. For the small stamps it takes about 15 seconds. The picture labels also peel off nicely, though as Christine said they come off cloudy. Doesn't bother me though. The labels I place on the outside top of the CD holder. I had started putting them on the inside of the top cover till I realize that meant when I looked at the CD holder the image was reversed which made it very difficult to read the sentiments. They stick nicely. Here you can see what a set looks like in its new home. This was a set that I hadn't actually mounted yet so the label is not cloudy.

With sets that haven't been previously mounted this is very easy, but you do have to tape the stick foam on a fabric service more than the others to cover up some of the stick. I found this tedious to do, but certainly not hard. Some of the stamps I unmounted did not have much adhesive left on them at all, but I think enough that they will hold on the acrylic block to stamp with them. If not I will try adding some Scotch Double stick tape.

I did find that I needed to tape the label down on the spine of the container. I used clear packing tape cut in a strip wide enough it would wrap around the edges. Here is a picture of the CD box with the individual cases in it. That was this morning. Now I have only 3 or 4 more jewel cases to fill. Then I need to head back to The Container Store and get a few more of the metal boxes. I like these because they have handles, they stack and they are relatively inexpensive. I think they are $6.99 each. I also got the jewel cases at the Container Store. They were $6.99 for 10. But thanks to Christine I have found a much less expensive source on line. It's called Effectuality Inc. Even with shipping they are much less expensive so I think I Will be placing an order with them.

I do have one problem now though.....what do I do with all these empty blocks????? They are stacking up. Yikes! Clutter!!!! I might try and sell them on E-Bay in a large batch. Who knows? First I need to get up the courage to post items on E-Bay. And I do need to do this since in doing this I can no longer ignore the number of sets I have.....I've done over 25 sets and I haven't even scratched the surface. Some must go! The question is which ones??????????? Well, it's too late now to think of that. Such a vexing question will have to wait till tomorrow.....or the next day....

TOTALLY NOT STAMPING RELATED!

This is totally not stamping or quilting related but I have to shout it to the mountain tops.....Carolyn won!!!!!!!

Now you are all probably wondering what this is all about. I have a good friend from our church who I have known for years. She is the sweetest lady. The most calm, quiet and soft spoken person I know.

AND I JUST LEARNED SHE WON THE PILLSBURY BAKE OFF!!!

I am so happy for her and her husband (Dennis is a sweetie also). When she told us she was one of the 100 finalist in the Bake Off and would be going to Dallas for the grand prize we were all so thrilled for her especially when we learned this had been a life long dream of hers.

DREAMS DO COME TRUE!

Way to go Carolyn. We all at Covenant can't wait till you and Dennis return. You had better wear a lot of padding 'cause me thinks you are going to get a lot of hugs!!!!!! And we all hope you will bake us some more of those yummy prize winning cookies!!!!!!!!! They are soooooo good.

If you would like to try out her recipe you can find it here..........

SPRING & SHEETLOAD

A card celebrating spring.

This is another card made using a template for cutting found on SheetLoad of Cards. Is was the January issue of the e-zine.

I had to make cards for a Spring Floral swap in SCS with my FLYBaby stamping friends. I really had fun making these. Since the basic layout and sizes to cut were all planned out for me it left me free to use my time coming up with techniques and other design elements to use. I came up with a lot to use.

I embossed the purple card stock using my cuttlebug. I rolled the green cardstock with my rough edges jumbo wheel, dug out my retired Botanicals set for the flower stamp that I then colored using my watercolor pencils and embossed around the colored image. and I used ribbon with the wonderful little ribbon slides.

I had planned to place the set of five layers (first layer being the purple floral DP) on a ivory 6x5 inch card base. When I laid it out I didn't really like the starkness of the ivory background so I sponged it with Perfect Plum classic ink. That was better, but know I felt that there was not enough definition between the DP layer and the sponged card. With 5 layers on the card already I really didn't want to add another so I tried outlining the glued down layer using the perfect plum marker. I simply ran the brush end of the marker right along the edge of the DP. I thought it worked pretty well.

The finishing touch on the card was stamping "happy birthday" on the DP in Elegant Eggplant craft ink and then embossing with clear embossing powder. I used the birthay sentiment from Brithday Whimsy. This was the final technique and element on the card. Now I need to get them to the PO tomorrow.

Card Recipe:
Stamp Sets--Botanicals, Birthday Whimsy (both SU retired)
Papers--Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, and Ivory CS, Retired SU DSDP Carte Postale coordinate?
Inks--Perfect Plum and Certainly Celery Classic, Elegant Eggplant Craft, Black Stazon
Accessories--Mellow Moss Gingham Checked Ribbon, Silver Ribbon Slide, Cuttlebug and embossing Folders, Perfect Plum Marker, Sponge, Ivory card and Envelope, Clear Detail Embossing Powder

FAUX CLOISONNES

I forget exactly when it was but several weeks ago I think the Splitcoast Techniques Challenge was Faux Cloisonnes. I have been intrigued with this technique ever since I first heard of ot, but had never tried it. I think part of my problem was I was never exactly sure what type of stamp to use.

I knew it needed to be a line stamp with a fair amount of detail, but also enough open space so that you could see the paper that was stamped on. I also felt it needed to be a fairly "classic" stamp, meaning not very contemporary like the "doodle" stamps. Because of these perceived, if not real, stamp guidelines I never could find the right stamp to use. Finally one day while in our local stamp store I thought I had found it.....I tried it out and it was all wrong. The design itself was great but the open spaces were too open. You will see this stamp in a later post as I have come up with what I think will be the perfect projects for it, but Faux Cloisonnes did not work.

The next time I was in the store I looked again and again I thought I found the correct stamp. This time it was the right one.......it was the perfect butterfly! Here are some of the images I did.

Faux Cloisonnes is when you stamp with metallic ink, I prefer gold as that is traditional, and emboss with the same metallic powder an image onto a glossy picture that has a variety of colors or textures. It can be a dramatic or a subtle variety of color. As you can see some of the images I cut out with my paper snips. This is what you most often will see, but one I punched out with a circle punch and mounted on a scalloped circle punched out of Brushed Gold card stock. I found that old calendars that have glossy pictures works really well. You can also use pictures out of magazines but the paper they are on is of a much lighter weight. The calendars is more of a card stock weight.

So what did I make using the images. Well, once again I have had the need for Sympathy cards and I thought these images would be perfect. So I created a series of sympathy cards from the 8 or so Butteflies I made while playing with different backgrounds to stamp on. For right now I'm just showing you two of the cards as this post is already getting long enough and I know you are probably ready to move on.

I always find Sympathy cards a challenge to do. I want to get the right balance of simplicity and beauty to honor the one who has passed on with a cheerfulness and message that can bring comfort and hope to the person who has lost a loved one. Frivolity just doesn't work on a sympathy card, at least not in my opinion. Butterflies in my mind symbolize new life and in my belief system death is a passage into a wonderful new life. A life that will be spent in the presence of our Creator, so they are very appropriate to sympathy cards.

CARDS FOR OUR HEROES/SHEET LOAD OF CARDS

Here are two of the cards that we made last Saturday for the Cards for Heroes. They are the ones that I used the Sheet Loads of Cards templates for. The Love You card is from the April issue of their ezine.

I am working on using up some old patterned papers that have been hanging around way to long so I have no idea whose they are ore where or when I obtained them. I do know they are not Stampin' Up as they do predate my SU days.....
The card stock is SU's Elegant Eggplant and Lovely Lilac. And the Sentiment is from the retired set A Light Heart. This is the set SU had for the American Heart Association a while back. The rhinestone brads are from Oriental Trading Co which for bulk card production are much more affordable than SU's. I do love Stampin' Up but sometimes their embellishments can be a bit pricey....After layering all the various pieces I then mounted them on some large card blanks I had that also have been hanging around too long. These are the value packs of cards and envelopes that you can get from craft stores like Michael's or Hobby Lobby.

The second card is from the November issue of the ezine. It's a bit harder to find on the BLOG to download as they started a new BLOG in December of last year. You can go here and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the post. Or you can go to their front page of the BLOG and on the left there is a link to their archives of past magazines. Look for November and down load.

Once again I am using up old patterned paper....got to make room for new you know....The stamp I used is one I picked up at the going out of business sale of our local Stamp store...so sad...I don't know what company it is from as it was a demo stamp of the stores and has been used so much the marking on the wood are worn off. But I love the scrolls on it. The ribbon is a $1 roll from Michaels. Once a gain I love SU's ribbon, but some times you just find a nice one else where. This has a wonderful gold edge to it.

Sorry the scan here is a bit crocked. The card itself is straight. The card stock I used is SU and it is Certainly Celery and Lavender Lace with the sentiment stamped with Lavender Lace on Whisper White. Everything is places on a Whisper White 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 top fold card.

So there you have it. We also made two other card designs which were my own designs. For some reason I don't think I scanned them. I guess I was so excited about showing how I used Sheet Loads of Cards and also in a hurry to get them mailed out in time for them to make it overseas to be used for Mother's Day. Trust me though these were the better of the four......

SHOUT OUT TO SHEET LOAD

I love this site. If you have never been to it you need to go and check it out. It's called Sheet Load of Cards and if you ever need to make a quantity of one card you will find it invaluable.

I used two of their design sheets this weekend when I needed to have patterns made and kits cut out for a bulk card making session during a Women's Health Day at our church. Of course I put this project off until the last minute. (My parents didn't give me a middle name at birth but it should have been "Last Minute"). I began at 8pm the night before and I needed to be ready by 7:30am the next day.

With the help of this site I did it. By midnight I was finished and had kits prepared and packaged with a sample of each design to make 45 Mothers Day cards for Cards For Heroes.

Using Sheet Loads of Cards allowed me to get some sleep that night and the women most of who had never made cards before loved putting them together!

So don't forget click here and go explore Sheet Loads of Cards.

QUICK POST BEFORE WORK

This is the card that I made for the "metal" swap at last Sunday's stamp club.

I wasn't sure what to do. I am not a big "metal user except for brads and eyelets and I wanted to use a bit more metal than that. So I remembered these sweet little double heart charms I found at Michael's in the bridal section. Still not a lot of metal on this card but better than what I normally use. I think the reason I don't normally use much is I am always worried that the card will be too bulky to mail for just 41 cents.

The rest of the items used for this card other than the Prima flowers were from scraps lying around on my stamp table from the preparing of card kits I needed for Saturday. There is only one stamp used on this card. It is the Happy Birthday sentiment from SU's Birthday Whimsy sell-a-bration set. The diagonal strips look like ribbon bust are actually scraps of Elegant Eggplant card stock.

A very quick and easy card.

A NEW TECHNIQUE AT LEAST FOR ME

Yesterday I went to a Stamp Club meeting at our LSS, that sadly is closing sometime this month. Besides working on another new project for me, using old CD's, we had a card swap. Each month there is a different theme for the swap cards and this month it was "metal". We could do what ever we wanted as long as we used some sort of metal on the card front. This is the card I received. When I first got it I thought that the center strip that is embossed was aluminum foil or some sort of foil paper. WRONG! It is a foil tape used by either electricians or plumbers. I forget which she said. (It's a senior brain thing!). The woman that made the card said it is really neat stuff and is self adhesive with a paper covering that needs to be removed to expose the adhesive. So she embosses it, colors it with Ranger Alcohol Inks and lets it dry before mounting it. The piece under it is also a tape like a cloth duct tape that she also colored using the Alcohol inks. I love how you can see the texture of the tape under the colors. Then she simply taped both pieces to here card stock. The card is quite striking in real life.

So now I need to find me a hardware store or maybe check out Wal-Mart. I want to give this technique a try.....my list to try seems to be getting longer by the day. If and when I find these items used in this card I will report them to you immediately. If you happen to already know what they might be, please leave a comment.

A RARE MORNING POST

Good Monday morning! For those viewers in my age bracket this is one of those mornings that brings back memories of The Carpenter's. So I have really dated my self with that comment! If you don't know about or remember the Carpenters Click on their name and you can learn more about them than you probably wanted to know. Unfortunately their musical
career was tragically cut short when Karen Carpenter died of the effects of Anorexia Nervosa. She really was the one who brought this terrible eating disorder into public awareness. More later on why these memories come back on days like this if you haven't already guessed.

Back to my morning post. A couple of weeks ago I tool up a challenge issued my my SCS FlyBaby friend Misty to organize our coloring tools so that they were more readily accessible and used more. I wanted to show you what I came up with. Another friend of mine who is the world's best bargain shopper found a bunch of planter sets made up of three little buckets on a tray. (To s how you what a shopper she is they normally retailed at $9.99 and she purchased them for $ .25!!!! Why can't I ever find those bargains???) She graciously gave me two of the sets. One of them you can see here. I have in them my Prisma pencils, Prisma markers and Copic markers. Aren't they cute? There was enough room between the pails on the tray for me to place my SU pencil sharpener.

I still had the problem of what to do with all my watercolor pencils????? I am trying to become more creative with recycling items, both to save money and our environment so I rummaged around in the box of containers I've saved from the trash can and found an International Coffee container. I wanted something tall enough to hold the pencils without their falling out but short enough that I could still find the pencils as they get shorter from sharpening after all the use the hopefully will now get. This is a closer view of what I came up with. They do lean, but don't fall out. I also keep my water coloring paint brushes in with them. (I keep my Aqua Painters in another container nearby.)

I used my Xyron to completed cover the back side of the designer paper I used with adhesive and then wrapped it around the can. The 12" length of paper was not long enough to go all around so you have to to cut a patch or add a sticker or flower to cover the gap. I didn't take a picture of my back, but I used a coordinating paper and placed a Prima flower on it for decoration. I checked and rechecked my measurements which were straight and even, but the can wasn't so there were a few gaps along the bottom. I added a band of ribbon along the top and bottom to cover those up. Finally I found a sticker from one of my many SU Simply Scrappin' kits that said create on it which I though t was appropriate and fortunately was a coordinating color. (don't know which it was, but know it is retired). After stamping Water Color Pencils on the sticker I was done. Very simple and easy.

In the first picture you can see that the boxes of SU watercolor crayons and Stampin' Pastels are still in their original containers stacked with my Twinkling H2O's which have been placed in a SU plastic container that has the dividers in it. It works perfect for the little jars I have. These will probably stay like this as they are accessible and I like their containers.

So their you have the organization for my coloring products. A big THANK YOU to Misty for this wonderful challenge. The scary thing about doing this was discovering just how many coloring products I have!!!! Now I really do hope that I use them more as I have discovered that I really like bringing out my inner child through coloring just like I use to in all the coloring books I grew up with. Hopefully my techniques have improved a bit since kindergarten, though sometimes I wonder.

Now back to The Carpenter's and today. If you haven't already guessed the connection. Or if you have and just would like a short walk down memory lane with me check this out..........Have a great Monday and hopefully I will be back tonight with another project post.