CELBRATE A CHALLENGE!

Did you know that Shelli...the Stampin' Up Shelli has her own BLOG now? If not you need to check it out. It's called So Shelli and it's not just for SU demonstrators. She just started BLOGing after the SU convention so she is still new at it, but there are some wonderful pictures from her recent trip to Australia. She got to hold a cute Koala. Though I hear they can be mean...Susan tell us more about Koalas.....

Also Shelli has a Creative Challenge that she has given out to her readers. You can find the info on it here. But don't wait too long to check it out if you are interested. Submissions are due by Aug 30. In honor of SU's 2008 convention theme which was Celebrate 2008 the challenge in short is to make a project with the word celebrate on it. Post your project on the internet, a BLOG or a gallery and then comment on the challenge BLOG posting with a link to your project.

Since this weekend was a big stamping weekend and since I didn't get to celebrate at convention this year I thought I would make one of my VSN cards using the word Celebrate and join in with Shelli's Celebration Challenge.

So here is my card. It was made for the Color Purple challenge on SCS and I actually think it is all SU (Though being so is not a requirement for Shelli's challenge.) Thought the stamp set and ribbon I used are both retired. Send a Celebration is the stamp set and it is one of my favorites. I love it and use it probably the most of any of my sets. It's just so fun.

The card didn't scan perfectly. For some reason the card stock layered under the green always scans blue when it is actually Lovely Lilac. It blends together much nicer in real life. You will just have to take my word for it.

Thank you Shelli for the opportunity to use this set again.

AUGUST FUN ON SCS

Its late and I really need to get to bed, but before I Go thought I would just stop by and share a bit of my VSN fun that I had on SCS this weekend.

First let me say that I loved all the challenges that were offered. I found time to finish about half of them. In the process I tried some new techniques and I also dug out some stamp sets that have not been used in quite some time. That's always fun.

I chose the card that I am featuring here tonight becasue it is one that I was ready to upload as a finished card when I looked at it again and decided that it still needed something. There just was something that didn't look right. I couldn't see it on the card itself for some reason, but when I looked at it on the computer I noticed that there seemed to be a big empty space in the lower right corner.

Because of the 45 minute time limit on making cards for the challenges I didn't have a lot of time to figure out a fix so I thought a moment or two and came up with something to try. Fortunately it worked. I rescanned the card and uploaded it with only a few seconds to spare in the 45 minutes.

Before I show you my fix let me tell you a bit more about the card itself. I was designed and made for the Alice In Wonderland challenge. All the challenges were based on books. This is what we were given for this challenge:

"I’ve heard recently that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are going to team up to make a movie of “Alice in Wonderland”. My favorite passage from Alice in Wonderland is this:
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So in tribute to this passage, your challenge is to make a card using pearl-ex, twinkling H2Os, lumiere or scallops (circle, square, whatever scallops you like)."

That was it. I created a shimmery water picture using pearl-ex, twinkling H2Os, and lumiere to paint the image of the crab and then sprinkles a glittery gold embossing powder over it all. If I had nestibilities I would have used an outer scalloped circle behind the stamped image but I don't have them so I had to settle for another plain circle out of brushed gold card stock. I placed it all on a background made using one of my cuttlebug embossing folders that sort of looked like bubbles in water to me. Finally I added a Birthday Wish also on brushed gold card stock.

So back to my final fix. Simply three small rhinestones glues in a row. Maybe not the perfect fix but one that allowed me to finish in 45 minutes.

Now I will go to bed and in the next few days I will have lots to share. After stamping like a mad stamper all yesterday; designing and making 7 cards. This evening I went to a meeting with some of my SU stamping cohorts in the area and made 8 more projects. 7 cards and one post it note holder. Plus I still have more fun from the fall craft kit to share........See you later!

SOCK MONKEY FUN

I remember sock monkey's from when I was a kid. I don't think I ever had one but I thought they were so cute.

Then when I was a young adult they became popular again and I though maybe I would make one. IT wasn't hard to find a pattern because when you bought a pair of men's rag wool work socks they came with a pattern for them. You didn't even have to go to a craft store. Just ruin down to your local Sears and Roebuck or "Monkey" Wards, which is what our family called Montgomery Wards. Those of you who are youngin's have probably never heard of them as they went out of business I think in the last 1980's. Anyway, I did get socks that had the pattern and I did intend to make one, but.......I think it was about 10 years later I found the socks on a shelf, couldn't find the pattern so got rid of the socks and of course immediately there after found the pattern. Needless to say I never made me a sock monkey!

Now Stampin' Up has come up with a stamp set that will let me easily make a sock monkey for just about any occasion. He comes with his own party hat, banana, cupcake, balloon and more. Plus they have a companion accessory set with even more fun things for him to wear and hold.

Here is my first "monkey" card. Doesn't he have just the cutest grin? And he is ready to party! I colored him with my Prismas and OMS. I need to visit my buddy Lee again and get a few lessons on coloring well with these. An artist I am not when it comes to coloring and shading. But I am happy with my little guy.

So tonight is the start of SCS's VSN. Don't you just love acronyms? That's Split Coast Stampers Virtual Stamp Night. IT will be a fun night and then Saturday of stamping challenges. The theme for this event is authors and all the challenges will somehow relate to books and authors. I hope to take part in a few of them. That probably means I need to go up and do some cleaning in my room. There is a 45 minute time limit for making each card so you really do need to be organized and clean when you start because a mess will quickly develop! It is fun though and there is a lot of laughter and chatter on line along the way.

One final comment....in case you haven't noticed I still am using up bits and pieces from my summer craft kit.

LOVELY TREES

Two more cards here using the Lovely As a Tree stamp set from SU. They sympathy card actually was one of my fair entries. It was judged worthy of a red, 2nd place, ribbon which made me very happy.

Once again both of these cards use papers and embellishments from the Summer craft kit. (Don't worry I'm almost done using up everything and will soon move on to something else.)

I used watercoloring and masking with both of these cards, but think it worked out much better in the sympathy card. The birthday card is okay, but I am not totally happy with how it turned out. I think my background sky ended up to dark. Oh well live and learn. Right?

CARD AND PAGES

The 2008 Montgomery County Fair is now history! That means there is once again time to get back into my stamp room and play. My playing involves finishing up the use of the papers and embellishments in my Summer Craft Kit. The papers are almost gone. Only scraps remain, but since I mainly used this kit to make pages for my nephews baseball album I have quite a few embellishments left, especially the flowers. Somehow they just didn't seem appropriate to the baseball theme. Don't worry though they will not go to waste! They will be used on other projects in the future.

So here are two more pages for the album. I now have February and April
pages complete. All the pages I have completed so far have been fun though challenging. There are not many photos like you see in a lot of albums. Mainly the memories are of newspaper clippings and programs. Lots of print. Of course this does mean I don't have to do much if any writing which I do like.

One thing I have discovered is that rubbery (sticker) embellishments though really neat do not make sliding the pages they are on into page protectors very easy. They want to stick to the protector. So you have to be real careful with them. I do like the way they look however as they are thick and give a 3 D look. Also the ones I found are great colors. The strip of baseballs down they right side of the first page are these type of stickers as is the baseball bat and ball on the first page here. Come to think of it so is the "varsity" pennant. This page was a real bugger to get into the page protector, but I did it!

I didn't want to stop with the two pages so I also made another sympathy card. I used my new Stampin' Up scalloped border punch to make the scallop fringe that peaks out from the right side of the patterned paper strip. I then used the tip of my finger to "fluff" the scallops up a bit so they didn't lie totally flat against the card. I love this punch and know that it will get a lot of use.

I once again used the Lovely As a Tree stamp set from SU. I don't know why I waited so long to get this set. It is quickly becoming a favorite. I really like how the pine tree turned out here. The paper I stamped it on is a plain side of one of the double sided papers that came in the kit. It had a texture to it. Normally I don't like to stamp on textured paper because you get a texture showing on the image, but I like it with this pine tree stamp. I think it gives the feeling of the pine needles.

I hope you've enjoyed these and hope to be back to a more regular posting schedule. If you are interested in my week at the county fair I am posting about that on my companion BLOG Life Out My Window. Feel free to stop by.

FAIR TIME!

It's county fair time here in Montgomery County MD and that means the only crafting I have completed in the last few days are fair entries. I would like to say that I have pictues to show you, but alas not yet. As usual I was working on entries right up to the last minute so there was no time to get our the camera. I will go around on Monday afternoon and take a picture of some things if they are displayed in a way I can get a decent photo.

Entries were way down in areas other than baked goods last year so I did my best to help and boost the count for this year. I ended up with 28 items which includes one tote bag that will be donated to Headstart at the end of the fair.

While waiting for anything crafty to post here I will share with you an award I was given by my BLOGing friend Susan, who lives in Australia. Hmmmm....seem to be some cyber errors so I can't get the award image to upload onto my page which is too bad since it is a really cool image. It is the Wylde Woman award, which personally I think is totally appropriate for me as I am a total wild woman! LOL! To see it you will have to go to Susan's BLOG which if you have not been there is not a bad place to have to go. Not only does she create great things but you can also learn great things about Australia while you are there...like Wombat Day which is celebrated in October.

Well that's it for today. I hope to have some actual pics to share with you soon.

DREAMY BIRTHDAY

I needed to make a special birthday card for a friend so that was my project today. I didn't have any original mojo so I totally CASED a card from SCS and Maria.

I did make a few changes and tried a few more that didn't really work. This card uses a stamp set that will be in the new SU catalog which can be ordered from on August 11 which is next Monday. It is called Dreams du Jour. I love it.

I watercolored the Dreams stamp using watercolor paper and my watercolor crayons. Also to add a little sparkle I used stickles around the scalloped circle edge and around the edge of the Dreams stamp.

So that's it for my stamping today. Next up is cleaning in my stamp room....somehow it got our of control.

PLAY BALL REVISITED!

I am continuing to make progress with my nephews baseball album. I don't know why I have been putting this off for so long!!!!! I am rediscovering with every page how much I enjoy scrapbooking.

This album does have its own set of challenges. There are not sofar many pictures. It's mainly newspaper and internet articles. I do have lots of pictures on my computer that I downloaded from his dad's computer and I do need to go through them and have some printed up. But until I get to that project here hare two more pages that I finished this week.

These are pages from stories and games in April. The plan of the pages at least was determined by my sister in that she nicely gave me an accordion folder of stuff sorted by month. That solved the problem of determining the flow of the album. And the mice thing is I don't have to work on the pages in order as long as I work on them a month at a time I can go in what ever order I want. So far I have February and now April. I still have one more April page to finish.

Once again these pages use papers and embellishments from the Fall Craft kit. On the second page you will notice that there seems to be a green tab just floating in the middle of a page of writing. There are actually two pages to this particular story and I wanted to come up with a way that I didn't have to put them side by side. The front page was shorter than the back one and so I layered them and put this little tab at the bottom of the first page. (Punched out using the SU tab punch of course.) Personally I thought this was rather ingenious. Of course if they want to read the whole story they will need to slide the page out of the page protector.

Just for fun I have included a close up of one of the elements on the second page. It is one that actually does have a photo. (By the way Ben was a pitcher.) I purposely placed the cut out picture so the flower at the top looked like a halo around his head. (Not that he is an angle or anything! Though he is a good 22 year old guy.) But I didn't really like how it looked with his feet covering up the bottom flower so I got out my craft knife at cut around some of the flower petals so I could slip the photo behind them. I did like how this turned out.

Okay enough chatter on my part. It's your turn if you would like to leave a comment. And thank you for visiting and putting up with my ramblings.

SEWING NEWS!

It's county fair time and that means it's time to sew up some projects to be entered. I spent Tuesday doing the sewing and made a coordinating set of placemats and potholders. I can't tell you what patterns I used as I just began with an idea and built on that as I went along. This is what I ended up with.

The ideas came from the base fabric which is the print on the off white background. I can't even tell you how long I have had this fabric.....I'm thinking it has been about 10 years. I don't know for sure, but I think I may have purchased it for a project for the celebration of the 50th fair and this year os the celebration of the 60th fair!!!!!! Oh well at least I eventually use what I purchase. At least most of the time I do.

I have more idea about thing I would like to sew. Only time will tell if the get done. I always have more ideas than I have time. At least I have reached the point where when I make items to enter in the fair I do so using materials that I already have in my craft or sewing rooms. At one time fair prep was a very expensive time because I went out and purchased all sorts of stuff. No more...if I don't have the materials on hand the project won't get done. Of course I can do that because I have way too much STUFF already lying around in closets and on shelves.

I have a few other sewing ideas and I have also been stamping and doing some paper crafts. Of course I always have more ideas than I have time. All entries must be complete and ready to turn in by one week from today!!!!!!!

POCKET BOOK OF FUN!

Another project using supplies from my Summer Craft Kit.

One of the items included was a template to make a box. I didn't really have any idea when I first swa it what the heck I would do with it. I'm not a big box person. I never seem to know what to do with them when I finish them and then they become "clutter"! But the template came in the kit and so I challenged myself to use it.

First I traced and cut out the box from the card stock. I used Wild Wasabi....a color I will so miss when it retires in another two weeks. Well not really as I just bought a whole new package of it so I wouldn't run out so quickly. I scored the fold lines and with those two things the easy part was complete. Now I had to figure out how to decorate it???????

I still didn't have a clue what the box would be used for, but I knew I had lots of flowers and brads I could use in decorating so it was going to be something girly.....I also had a scrap of ribbon that would look good with the Wild Wasabi so I settled on a purse. I didn't realize when I took the picture that you can't see that the ribbon handle is held on by a brad and flower at each end. I wheeled the design using one of my jumbo wheels and Wild Wasabi ink. I still didn't have a clue as to what this was going to be used for when I spied a box of crayons.....the wheels began to turn....would they fit???? AND what could I add that would give an idea of what was inside???

Yea! The box of crayons fit. (And I'm thinking a deck of playing cards might also if I ever want to make another box.) I don't have a stamp that says anything about color or crayons and so I used my computer and played around till I came up with a nice looking sentiment "color your world" that would fit inside the small oval punch. Then I layered it over a large oval punch of Tempting Turquoise which coordinated with the flower and the ribbon. By the way I positioned the flower so it would look like a closure piece, but it is not. It's purely decorative.

In the picture of the little purse with the crayons I set them so you could see the crayon box, but it actually fits by laying on its side. So after all that what do you think?????

By the way this is pretty much how I design a lot of my projects. I just begin with a minimal idea of what I am going to do and it grows. It tends to take longer this way, but I have fun beginning and not really having any idea what I am going to end up with. I often sew this way also. I made a set of potholders today using this method. I will try and take of pic of them to post tomorrow.

WOODEN BLOCKS???

I have mentioned here on this BLOG that I am no longer mounting my red rubber on wooden blocks. Don't get me wrong I love my wooden mounted stamps....the problem is I have run out of space to store them! However now I am ending up with a very large supply of unused wooden blocks. I can't just toss them out. That is not in my nature and since my dear husband has terrible allergies we no longer use our fire place so I can't burn them. The question is now what do I do with them all????? They are multiplying faster than rabbits.

I was reading some of the BLOGs I subscribe to and Sweet & Sassy had a wonderful idea. I have been thinking they could be used in some sort of a project and now I have an project to start with. If you would like to see it you can click here. As soon as I get some of my own made I will be sure to show you.

I know that I will not be able to use all that I have for projects like this as I have way too many, but at least it is a start. Anyone else have any ideas? If so please leave a comment here to let me know. Mt guest room is being over taken by wooden blocks!

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY CARD

So are you seeing a pattern here lately? There for a while everything I was doing was pinks, yellows, and other bright pastels. Now I've moved into the blues and browns with a bit of limeish green thrown in.

This is because I was working with the spring craft kit and now I've moved on to the summer craft kit. I will be finished with the summer craft kit much faster I think though. So far I've made 3 scrapbook layouts and they use up a lot of the supplies so no more of them I'm thinking, but already I can tell I will not have near as many cards to show either.

There is the third birthday card I've made with the kit. I also used some more of the white "eyelet paper" which I sponged to make it sky blue background. I love this stuff and will be very sad when I've used it all up. The butterflies are actually stickers that came in the kit. Normally I don't use stickers on my cards, but they are part of the kit and the worked with the design. I think they are flying through the sky above a field of flowers.

Sometime this weekend I will try and get a picture of my third layout page and a cute little box I made using a box template that was in the kit. For now it is bedtime. Sweet dreams to all!

PLAY BALL!

I'm finally making some progress on my nephews album which highlights his Junior year of collegiate baseball. I don't know why I don't scrap more????? Its so much fun!

I've been collecting stamps, papers and stickers for over a year now to use in putting this album together and it is time to get serious about using them....like I haven't said that before!!!!! Hopefully this has given me a kick start and I can really get moving on it. He graduated from college this past May. I will set a goal of Christmas to be complete. Now all you who visit here have hear me say this so please help keep me on track friends and if you don't see anymore pages for a while gently ask????? No make that give me a swift kick in the hinnie and demand to
know where the next pages are!!!!!!

On totally different topic and one that makes me smile.....today I get to go with some quilting friends to attend Quilt Odessy a wonderful quilt show held in Hershey, PA. I know I will see lots of fantastic quilts and hope as well to at least get to say hi to Carol Doak who is teaching there. She is such a wonderful lady and an amazing quilter, designer and teacher!

Plus being in Hershey, PA an additional benefit is CHOCOLATE!!!!!!

So have a nice day all please find time to enjoy a little bit of creativity during it. After all creativity is what keeps us sane and young! (That's my new mantra!)

So what kind of a fruit might you be???? I found a link to this fun quiz on Lee's BLOG and I'm a banana. Now given my height I think this is very appropriate in for no other reason than bananas are "tall" fruit. This is just a fun interlude. Hmmmm my new Sock Monkey set has a banana stamp in it....maybe I need to make a Banana Calling card.

You Are a Banana

You are mellow, easy going, and a total softie on the inside. People find it really easy to get along with you. You suit most tastes. And while you're very sweet, you're not boring or ordinary. You have an attraction to the exotic, and you could show up anywhere... doing almost anything! You are spirited, energetic, and a total kick to be around. You're also quite funny. Your sense of humor is on the goofy side, and it fits you well.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

EXCITMENT & A CARD MADE

I found this comment a few days ago in my inbox!

"Congratulations!! You were caught wearing the SheetLoad of Cards badge. Please send your mailing address to me at sheetload@comcast.net (with "I've been caught" in the subject line)and I will get your stamp set in the mail.
Thanks,
Alicia
ps: here is the link to the original post: http://sheetload.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-caught-wearing-our-badge-and-win.html "

What excitement it caused. I love winning things. It doesn't happen too often, but my karma seems to be improving......I you have never checked out SheetLoad of Cards you really should do so. If you ever need to make a large number of cards quickly it really is a great resource. You can click on the link here or click on my Sheet Load badge to the right. I can't wait to see what I get and to use it!

Now here is my card for today. It's a Birthday card and I used items from my SCS FLYBaby

craft kit as well as some of my new SU stuff. The green is one of the new In Colors , Kiwi Kiss. Its such a nice fresh color. It's a lighter shade of Old Olive. You can see one of the sentiments from the coming new stamp set called Heard From the Heart. There are three other stamps in this set.

They read "kindness comes in many forms", "may all your wishes come true", and "welcome Christmas into your heart".

I also used my new scalloped border punch here. It sure is nice to make a scalloped border without having to use the rounded corner punch without the guide. This is a very easy and quick punch to use. I highly recommend it.

I hope you have a fun day or evening stamping and check back later. Next I have two scrapbook layouts to share with you.

A HAPPY DAY!

I love days like today. Its been almost 4 months since I have put in a personal order from Stampin' Up. But judging by the fun I had today it's been well worth the wait.

I had met my sales quotas for April - June sales period with outside orders so I decided to save up my SU spending dollars and do one big order that combined any desired retiring stamp sets, and the preorders of new catalog stuff. I think I did very good with this order. Between the discounts on preorder stamp sets, the In Colors and retiring Hodgepodge sets and then the hostess benifits that come with an order this size I received a lot of fun things to play with today!

This is a picture just of the new catalog items that you can be looking forward to in less than a months time. August 11 is the first day to place orders for items from the 2008-09 Fall/Winter Catalog.

I wasn't too sure at first about the new In Colors for 2008-09, but I am sold on them. They are gorgeous. So far Kiwi Kiss is my favorite....but then it's the only one I've had time to actually use so far. The Pink Pirouette is so pretty and soft. I know it will be a favorite as well. I also had purchases some 2007-08 In Color Card Stock as replacements before they are gone and I noticed that Kiwi Kiss and River Rock are yummy together and also Soft Sky goes very well with Baja Breeze and Pacific Point, so I can kep using my old favorites along with the new.

The new Scallop Border punch is very easy to use and is so much easier than using the round corner punch without the guard. I am falling in love with scalloped edges. Now if I could only manage to save enough to get some nesties I could have all the scalloped edged and shapes I wanted.

I also got 5 new stamp sets (also one oldie but goodie: Lovely As a Tree). I can hardly wait to break out and use my Sock Monkey. He's just the cutest! If you look real carefully he's in the middle at the very back. I love that all the new stamp sets are coming die cut. My thumb is really appreciating that. I still have a raw spot where my craft scissors rubbed while I was cutting some alphabet stamps on Sunday.

So there is a preview of my fun....there also were a few other toys such as retiring Hodge Podge kits and supply replacements such as ink refills and new stamping scrub pads. All in all it was great fun unpacking this big box. But it will be even more fun as I get serious about creating and crafting with it all!

BACK ON TRACK!

At least for the moment I seem to be back on track with my crafting MOJO! It feels so good.

I am currently continuing to work with the items from the Summer Craft Kit. Part of it was a nice wooden box to alter. I have worked with these before and love turning them into decorated containers to hold a pen and scrap paper for notes. They come in handy on a desk or by the phone.

This is what I did in altering this plain holder. Before I painted the box with acrylic paint I did need to do a bit of repair work on it. A portion of the handle was splitting apart. I find this often happens with these holders. (After all you can often find them for only a dollar a piece.) I used some crystal effects squeezed down into the crack that was pulling apart and then held the glued part together with a large binder clip while the CE dried. It worked like a charm. I used the CE because of the narrow tip of the applicator. It was easy to squeeze just what I needed in.

I used a foam applicator brush to paint the box and to give it a nicely finished look I painted the inside as well. It took two coats to get it nice. Then the holder was decorated with the paper and the letter stickers. I used a decoupage coating to give everything a nice shiny finish to it. After that was dry I tied some ribbon from the kit around the handle and placed the three flowers with brad in there centers on using the pop up glue dots from SU. (The big ones that I never seem to know what to do with. They worked really well here.)

Inside the holder is a stack of paper I cut down to size and an RSVP pen with a roll of the patterned paper in the barrel so the set is coordinating.

I really enjoy making these and think I may just need to check out Michael's and AC Moore to see if I can find some more to alter and decorated for Christmas gifts.......Christmas is coming sooner than you think!

AN AWARD AND THANKS!

I was blessed with receiving this special award from my blogging buddy in Australia, Susan. She is a doll and her BLOG is wonderful. Visit it and you will be treated not only to great cards and scrapbook layouts, but also marvelous photos. Stop by and check it out.

And who will I pass this on to.......there are several sites I regularly visit that so deserve this.

One is Sarah Stamper. She has been making wonderful album books lately using her Bind It All. These are NOT to be missed. If I ever get extra dollars to play with this amazing tool is going to be at the top of my list. (Right up there with a Score Pal, Nesties, and other assorted goodies!)

Second is Christi and her BLOG Story About a Girl. Her work is also amazing. A very talented young lady. She used a wild variety of stamps and is very adapt with card style ranging from contemporary to classic.

Finally, though I know she has already recieved this award from Susan, I need to add and echo by also giving this to Lee for the amazing sharing of her creations on her BLOG My Reality...It's All Good. Her reality may be good, but her cards are even better! This is one talented lady! But don't take my word check her out your self.

There are so many more that are deserving of this award, but I will stop here. Thank you to all who stop by here and leave a comment or two. I really do appreciate all the encouragement that you give.

MASCULINE HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A bit of my stamping mojo has returned.

Summer is well underway and so I decided it was time to dig into my SCS FLYbabies Summer Craft Kit. I got so excited with the bright springy colors of the spring craft kit that it has been another challenge to switch back to the more muted colors that I normally work with. I'll get there though, just be patient with me.

I decided to work on a masculine flavored birthday card and this is what I came up with. The stamps that I used are all from Stampin' Up. Ones from For Father and Terrific Tags. The punches I used are also from Stampin' Up. The two Tag Punches and the Ticket Corner one. The final items I can easily identify are Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware. I used two brads and one of the shaped clips. Stampin' Up is retiring this hardware set and it's companion sets in Antique Brass and Aged Copper. I will miss them all and may just have to stock up while they are still available and also on sale.

So this is what I accomplished today. Not much but at least something............

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME!

I can't believe how long it has been since I have posted here! Life has just three days and taken off at a record speed it seems. After my trip to Kansas City I was home for three days and then we left for an unplanned trip to Michigan for over a week. So........nothing has happened on the stamping or sewing front in quite sometime. However, when I returned home late Monday night I found I had a telephone message that was very exciting. The quilt that I made for our quilt guilds "paint Bucket" challenge was part of the group accepted into the American Quilters Society (AQS) show in Nashville. It will hang there as part of the Ultimate Guild Challenge competition at the end of August.

The quilt is based on a block designed by Carol Doak in celebration of the 3000th member of her group on Yahoo that shares in the love of paper piecing. I had two yellow and two gray paint chips that I had to match to fabric and also had to use the black and white fabric that is in my border. I actually have shown this quilt on this blog when I first made it, but seeing as I haven't created anything new for a while thought I would bring it out again with the good news.

I wish I could go to Nashville and see it hanging there as well as the other wonderful quilts that will be on display, but I don't think that will happen this time around. But it is an honor that it was chosen to be on display in any case!

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!

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