BELLI CHALLENGE---2 CARDS!

This morning I wrote about finding a fantastic new BLOG to follow and that on this BLOG Creating with Chrissy a Belli Challenge is given every week. I also said I was going to try and take part in this challenge by making a card for it today. Guess what I did!!!!! I not only got one card done but two....though my first one isn't really a card for the challenge since I forgot one of my cake ingredients.

Here is how Chrissy presented the challenge.....

"For the week of January 28, Belli #52, we are hosting a VERY special Belli Challenge in celebration of our One Year Anniversary. ...........

We will be BAKING A CAKE to celebrate our First Anniversary of Belli Challenges.

How do we play BAKE A CAKE? Listed below is a list of cake ingredients. You all must pick 5 ingredients.

Here are the ingredients, be sure to choose 5!

Flour
Sugar
Butter
Vanilla
Eggs
Salt
Baking soda
Chocolate
Nutmeg
Milk
Cinnamon
Powdered sugar

Cream cheese
Cocoa powder
Coconut

Oil

This week to play here is what you need to do...

1. Anyone Can Play! Spread the Word! :)

2. Pick your 5 ingredients!!!
3. Find out what the ingredients equal to in Embellishments!

4. Make a completed project with your CAKE INGREDIENTS -

5. Share the link here in the comments linking to my Blog and CBC52. When you post to Splitcoaststampers or Paper Craft Planet or to your Blog, be sure and put CBC52 as the KEYWORD and mention of the challenge - with a link!
6. I will do a drawing and the person whose name I draw will be a BELLI GUEST DESIGNER the last week of February
7. Deadline for entry is Tuesday evening 7 p.m. Central time."

I have a favorite cake recipe "Flourless Chocolate Cake" so to bake my cake I choose flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and cocoa powder as my five ingredients. I found out what these "ingredients" translated to in card making elements and got to work.

I really like the first card I made, but I guess it probably didn't taste to good because I forgot the eggs! I'll show it to you anyway since I like it..........It's hard to see in the picture here but behind the vellum is a Quilt Block made out of squares and triangles of designer paper. You'll have to trust me that you can see it in real life! I ran the vellum through my cuttlebug with an embossing folder to look like quilting stitches. Like I say I got everything in this "cake" except the eggs! Into the card inventory this Get Well card goes and back to the drawing board or rather kitchen I go to come up with another card that contains all five ingredients!

Here is my second card......Can you figue out what element the eggs are????? You shouldn't have to look too carefully. I like this card also. With the first card I tried embossing the vellum for the first time. (Hint: If you emboss vellum treat it gently it will crack and slip if you are not gentle!) I tried another new technique on this second card. It is one that I read about on the Kub's BLOG back when cuttlebugs were realitivly new on the market. (Yes that long ago and I'm just trying it.) Actually I reversed his process. He showed inking the negative on a cuttlebug folder and I inked the positive and then I embossed the vellum. Like the Kub I used chalk ink to do this. I like how it highlighted the detail to the embossing. So here is my second card.

Can you tell I'm into quilt blocks at the moment. I think its because I have quilt show thoughts on my brain. Serious planning has begun for our local 2009 show in April and I'm on the committee.

So that is my work for the day! I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Oh I suppose you would like to know what the cake ingredients translate into for the card and its emements and embellishments. Here is the list Chrissy gave us to work with......

Flour = brads
Sugar = designer paper
Butter = vellum
Vanilla = ribbon
Eggs = scallop punch/nestabilities
Salt = watercoloring
Baking soda = beads
Chocolate = buttons
Nutmeg = markers
Milk = distressing
Cinnamon = sponging
Powdered sugar = embossing powder
Cream cheese = chipboard
Cocoa powder = hardware
Coconut = flowers
Oil = glitter or stickles

So my card needed to be made with.....designer paper, vellum, ribbon, hardware, and I had to use a scalloped punch. And my missing eggs was the scalloped punch use!

Drat!!!!! I just noticed I still didn't get it right!!!!! I must have ice on the brains.....I was debating whether to use chocolate or cocoa powder for the chocolate in my cake and I just realize I ended up using both!!!!! Oh well.....it will just be a super chocolatey flourless cake!

If I have time tonight or tomorrw I will try a third cake (card). They do say third time is a charm............I hope if you take up this challenge you do better than me!

I FOUND A NEW BLOG TO READ!

It's a very icy morning here in Maryland. A good day to stay home on the computer and in my stamp room!!!!!!! Every morning I do a quick check of the BLOGS I follow through Google Reader and this morning was no exception. One of my favorite places to stop (among many!) is my good the BLOG of my good friend and flying buddy Lee. What an incredibly talented young lady she is....I proud to say I knew her when....meaning when she was just getting started stamping and card making. WOW what a difference a few years makes! She is definitely a fast learner. If you have never visited her be sure and go to My Reality.....Its All Good! You won't be disappointed I assure you......

I was excited to see this morning that she had a new post so of course I visited.....it was from her I visited another amazing BLOG that is also now listed in my Google Reader.....I have heard this woman's name before on other BLOGS and in other places, but for some reason just had never made it to her site......How silly of me.....I've really been missing out, but I won't anymore believe me! So don't you make the same mistake I did. Right now.....well after you finish here....you must go check out Creating with Chrissy......Chris Dickinson is very talented, and very sharing of her talent. As an incentive to visit I Will tell you she is giving away some awesome BLOG candy in honor of her 80,000 hit! (I'll never see that day as I sit here patiently waiting for 5000 after almost 3 years!) You need to visit her by Midnight Central Time on January 31 to enter for a chance to win so don't delay!

While visiting Chris scroll on down and find out about her wonderful Belli challenges that are posted every week. I'm going to try and do this weeks Baking a Cake challenge today. One of my favorite cakes because it is so chocolaty and fudgy is a flourless chocolate cake so my ingredients will be sugar, butter, eggs, cocoa powder, and vanilla. When I post the card later today I will give you what these ingredients were that I needed to use on my card. Don't forget the BLOG CANDY!

PAPER QUILTS

i am finally breaking out my Quilt Block sets from Papertrey. It's definitely time....they have been feeling totally unloved I'm sure, but no more. I am in love. These little stamps are so much fun.

This afternoon I stamped three sheets of white card stock full of various quilt blocks which are now waiting to be colored. That's a lot of quilt blocks since they are only 3/4 inch in size! So far I've only colored my blocks using my Copics. I am somewhat limited in the colors I have for this because I need to use my Original style Copics which have a fine point nib on one end. I feel I have greater control in filling in the tiny spaces using a fine point than the brush point. I want to try colored pencils and Gamsol, but am not sure it will work with the small spaces without blurring. I don't think I would have much success with water coloring either. I will also try my SU markers since they have a fine point on one end and I don't think I will have a problem with a streaky look because of the small spaces being colored.

After coloring each block I punch them out using my Creative Memories 3/4 inch punch, but any brand punch of this size would work. If you don't have a punch you can cut them out with scissors. I am glad I have a punch though because that means all my blocks are exactly the same size so they fit together perfectly. (In this respect I guess paper quilts are no different than fabric ones!) After I have finalized the "quilt" layout I want to use and what it will be adhered to I run my blocks through my Xyron Create a Sticker machine. I love this little tool for things like this. It's so easy to use.

The borders on my quilts for these cards were all created through layering of different colors of card stock. For the first card the scalloped square which is behind the little quilt was easy. I have a Marvy scalloped square punch that is the correct size to be used with the four block quilt. The second card drove me nuts trying to get the scalloped square the right size with good corners on the square. I had to make it using my SU Scalloped Border punch. NOT FUN!!!!! I am now saving my nickles and dimes for a set of both scalloped squares and rectangles from SpellBinders. I definitely need nesties for these........

In all fairness I must say that the first card shown here was cased. It is not an original concept though I did make a few minor modifications. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I cased it from. I was searching through several BLOGS as well as Papertrey's gallery to get some mojo going on how to use this set and I just don't remember where I saw this idea. The second card is my own design. Right down to the felt flowers which cover up a boo boo.....but we won't tell the birthday girl about that.....will we?

SYMPATHY

Once again I had the need for several sympathy cards. It seems that they never end. It's funny (I think I've written this before) but I don't like making sympathy cards and yet I do like making them very much. Both emotions at the same time.

Obviously I don't like making them because it means someone I know has died or someone I know has had someone close die. That's sad. On the other hand when I make a sympathy card I find myself thinking about the person who dies and also the loved ones they have left behind. I find myself praying for all involve. That I find very comforting and a blessing to be able to do. Even when I make these just a card to keep on hand for when it's needed I can pray that the ones receiving the card when ever they receive it and who ever they are are comforted by it and pointed toward God who can heal all sorrows.

Both of these cards were made primarily using Papertrey's stamp set Every Day Blessings. I love the two step cross image in this set. The papers for the rust card came from my Winter Craft Kit and the sentiment on the card is from Stampin' Up's set Refuge and Strength. I'm thinking as I look at this card that I shouldn't have put the two pieces of fluffy ribbon on the card. They actually look like two caterpillars crawling around the card.....NOT GOOD! I'm thinking they will be removed before the card is sent out.

The second card uses papers from SU's Designer paper package Green Tea; which I love. Both the paper and the tea! I made the little flowers using one of my SU punches. I think the sentiment on this card came from a GinaK set that had a variety of sentiments in it, but I'm not totally sure. The little leaf twig is from SU's Refuge and Strength and I used their new Wide Oval punch to punch it out.

I did make a couple of other cards using another favorite group of sets from Papertrey. Their quilt block and sentiment sets. It should not be surprising that I would love those sets seeing as my other passion in life is quilting. Tomorrow I will hopefully be back to show you those cards.

Thanks for stopping by......TaTa for now!

CHECK OUT MY NEW T-SHIRT!

So do you see my new t-shirt. Well my new one in the BLOGing world anyway! It will take you to Melanie Muenchinger's wonderful BLOG. And yes I do love Melanie's stamps which I get from GinaK of course!!!!!!

A SHOUT OUT TO SHEETLOAD!

Two posts in one night...well really two posts in one hour. It takes something special for me to do that and this is pretty special. I want to tell you about SheetLoad of Cards. It's a great site with great helps and layouts for when you need to make a set of cards of the same design. I love it. Their designs are fantastic and I don't have to do any guessing of the measurements of the pieces. They do all that. Also they give you lots and lots of samples of how other designers used that same layout. All of this comes in a wonderful monthly E-zine.

I've also used there layouts to make just one card. And I go back and use layouts from past issues of the E-zine in a new way. The most recent layout I used was from their July issue Christmas in July. But I used it to make a Christmas card in December. You can see it in my BLOG entry here. It is the second card shown in this entry. For other things I done look for SheetLoad in my labels. There are probably others from before I started labeling items as well, but those will be harder to find.

You can see and download a copy of their January E-zine here. Check them out. Also anytime you are visiting me and would like to get to SheetLoad of Cards site just click on there "blinkie" on my right hand side bar. It will magically take you there.

Oh and to be totally upfront and honest, though I honestly do love there site and E-zine, by giving them a shout out and sharing them with you I can be entered into a drawing for some wonderful JustRite products. Another company I love!!!!!

WHEN VALENTINES ARE NOT VALENTINES

Last year Stampin' Up came out with a new Valentine set called Happy Heart Day. I normally don't do special holiday cards except for Christmas, but I thought I should have at least one valentine set in my stamp collection so I ordered it. I did use it to make a couple of Valentine cards for family members, but it hasn't been out of its box since last February. I know that is really sad....With February coming on strong and fast I decided to pull it back out of the closet and see what I could do with it.

There was a challenge on SCS, I forget which one since I haven't gone back and uploaded to it yet, to use hearts on your card. I guess that's why I thought of this set. But I didn't want to do a Valentine card. I'm barely out of the Christmas mind set....I'm not even ready to consider that Valentine's Day is coming in less than a month. I also knew I wanted to kill two challenges with one card and I pulled out the striped designer paper to use from my winter craft kit.

My little mousie friend was holding his heart and I used a heart punch to create some interest along the bottom edge of the card. So those were my hearts. The strip DP had red in it and I wanted my punched out hearts to be red so I placed a red strip of paper under neath them. I then pulled in the blue from the striped DP in to the scalloped ovals. I just felt another color was needed to liven things up.

Going back a moment to the hearts and the red strip of card stock. The scalloped edge under the hearts make the top of the card quite a bit shorter than the back of the card. The card won't stand up because of this, but I don't really care about that. The red is adhered to the inside of the of the card. If I had wanted to design the card so it would stand I could have adhered the red to the back of the card front making the front the same length as the card back.

Looking at the outside of the card alone I guess it could be a Valentine card. BUT.......when you open it up you discover a big birthday wish! You can also see that by adhering the red to the inside of the card rather than the front I could add some more interest with another scalloped edge.

So this is my Valentine card that is not a Valentine. I still have a couple of weeks before I need to start thinking hearts and flowers of February. I do think this might just be a birthday card for someone who has a birthday around February 14, and I know more than one person who does............

BACK TO BASEBALL

I know there are places where the snow is flying but although quite cold here its just rain that's falling. Still neither snow nor cold rain make one think of baseball....I did though. Its time to get back to work on my nephews baseball album. When I got my winter craft kit I knew I would use part of what came with it in making pages for this album and yesterday I came up with five more pages.

Here are two of them. They are actually pages that will go at the front of the album since they deal with information on the season. So I had to move some pages around. I am so glad that I am using and SU album where you slip the pages into page protectors that are help into the album and not the Creative Memory Albums I started scrapbooking with years ago. If you found pages that needed to be made an inserted in between already completed pages it was much harder because it was the pages were attached into the album and the page protectors simply slipped over the pages. (Did that make sense?) So in many cases , and this would have been one of them I could not have kept the flow of the album what I wanted and also inserted these two pages.

Let me see if I can explain this better. I had finished pages 1, 2, 3, 4,.....of the album and they were in a chronological order. The odd numbered pages are on the top, inside the page protector, or the right hand side of the album. The even numbered pages are on the bottom, or the left hand side of the album. I needed to place pages A and B after page 1 so my new order now is 1,A,B,2,3,4,......With SU's system I simply needed to get a extra page protector remove page 2 from behind page one insert A in its place. Than put B in the front of the new page protector and page 2 behind it on the bottom. Of course I need to take the album apart to put the new page protector with pages B and 2 in but that's no big deal.

With the Creative Memory album and many other styles the problem is that your page layout is adhered directly to the album page. So you have to hope that you can remove the page two layout from its foundation without damaging or destroying it. It can be done, but its much more scary to do. The only other option is to forget about the flow of the pages and just insert the new pages so your new order is 1,2,A,B,3,4.........Also if you only have one page to be inserted than you do need to create a second page. With the SU album its a pain to add just one page because you have to shuffle all your pages not just one, but with CM you can't even add one page out of order without having a blank page!

So know I am sure I have either totally bored or confused you. But to end I will just say THANK STAMPIN' UP! Your albums are expensive, but I love them for their ease of use!

A HOLE THROUGH OLIVIA????

I got the glitter somewhat under control and have moved on to the next challenge. This one was not a SCS challenge, but a Sweet & Sassy sketch challenge from this past Monday. I haven't actually posted it for the challenge, but am posting it here.

So why have I titled this entry "A Hole Through Olivia?" Look carefully at this first scan of my card. I decided to paper piece Olivia's belly feathers. What do you think???? I think she looks like someone got her with buck shot, poor baby, and blew a hole right through her! That must have hurt.

So what happened here. I made the mistake of using the same paper for her belly that I used for her background. This just doesn't work. It makes it seem hat you can see right through her to the background. Like I said poor poor Olivia! She needs some emergency medical care before she can be sent out to someone else to bring them Get Well wishes.

Of course the adhesive I used in the paper piecing was a very effective adhesive (my Xyron sticker maker). The stripped paper was not going to come off without some serious damage being done to Olivia.........(can there be anything more serious than an apparent hole straight through her???? I wonder???).....anyway...what I had to do was simply adhere the correcting paper over the top of the offending paper. Voila...Olivia now has a blue belly! No more hole!

Fully cured, she is now winging her way to a friend in need of a little cheering up. I hope her wishes for good health work. It's not fun to be sick...............

Today, I spent the better part of the day getting my creative juices flowing. I must tell you that once I got into the groove I was amazed. But that story is for another day as it is now well past my bed time and I must be heading upstairs. Tomorrow is a big day......the Christmas tree is coming down and being packed away for another year!

GLITTER IS EVERYWHERE!

I have discovered when using glitter no matter how much you try to contain it........IT GETS EVERYWHERE! I think I will be brushing glitter from things for weeks to come after doing this project.

This was the first time in a very long time that I decided to try the SCS Technique Challenge. Of course I had to choose the week when the messiest technique was the challenge. It was to use sticky strip and glitter to make a design element for your card. Well I have lots of sticky strip in various strip widths and shapes.....as well as letters. And though I don't use it very often because of the mess it creates I also have lots of glitter. So I thought WHY NOT???

I must say it was fun and I really do like the sparkle of the card. But no mater how I tried I ended up with glitter everywhere! Not only on my stamping surface, but on the floor, on my clothes and in my hair. Oh yes and on my card....

I chose to use two different width of sticky strip (I purchase mine from Oriental Trading and the package comes with three different width rolls at a price I can life with.). I used a turquoise glitter on the wide strip and a spring green on the skinny strip. Using my stamping grid paper from SU helped greatly in getting my strips straight and evenly spaced. I wanted to make sure my card was symmetrical so I started with the strips at the top and bottom and then placed the strip in the middle of the card. Then I worked from there filling in the top and bottom half of card with three more strips, two narrow and one wide.

So the glitter went on with out the colors getting mixed up I first removed all the tops of the wide strips and covered the exposed sticky with the turquoise glitter. I tapped and rubbed it in fairly hard so that all the areas would be covered and the glitter was well stuck down. I did this over a piece of copy paper so that when I was done and tapped the excess glitter off onto the paper I could easily get the glitter back into its container. Then I gently used first a swifter sheet to get off any other lose pieces of glitter and finally used a small soft paint brush on the card stock to get the final bits off. The next step was to remove the protective strip from the skinny strips and cover them with the green glitter. I used the same method as before and it worked well.

I now had a very glittery card front that still needed an image of some sort and a sentiment. I've needed lots of Get Well cards lately so choose to make another of them. I pulled out one of my favorite SU sets.....Nice & Easy Notes....got the Get Well pill bottle and stamped my image. I colored it with my copics and once again turned to my circle nestabilities. (I can't wait till I can get some other shapes). A little ribbon for embellishment and voila....................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................................
my card!

I only hope who ever gets it doesn't get showered with glitter when they open the card. Or if they do that they have a good sense of humor!

Oh, I just noticed when looking again at the card. When I created the circle to go under the stamped image I decided it looked too plain so I ran it through the cuttlebug using my swiss dots folder. I think it provided just the little additional texture that took the card to the next step.

So there's my messy project. I am afraid that my next few projects may have bits of glitter on them where they are meant to or not................................

A GOLDEN GET WELL

Here is another card that I made using items from the winter craft kit. The reds make it a lot different from the blues and purples I've been using.

It is a card I also made for SCS's sketch challenge 208.

The gold and black I think really complement the burgundy red of the designer paper. I once again got to use my new "nesties" and also my old friend tag punch. I am totally hooked on the nestability dies and hope to some how come up with some "fun" money that I can use to get some new sets in different shapes. I have a few sets that I know would work wonderfully with either the square or rectangle set.

Back to this card.....I used brushed gold card stock to back the black circle. It's a very heavy card stock, but my cuttlebug and the "nesties" handled cutting it just fine. The tag was embossed using a gold encore pad to stamp the image and then detail gold embossing powder. I also used the encore gold pad to stamp the snowflakes on the background card base, but did not emboss them.

Well that's it for today,s card....tomorrow I have a very sparkly project to show you. Not a card that is at all in my "comfort zone", but one that I do really like.

AN ICY STAMPIN' DAY

No snow here to make snowmen with; just a lot of rain and ice! Not as bad as the forecast, but bad enough to make me stay inside and off the roads. So I took the opportunity to spend time in my craft room. If I could do this every day January through March winter might be my favorite season!

I don't often try challenges on SCS. (I just don't think of them.) When I do I really have fun with them so that is what I did today. I actually finished 3 of them, but since I don't know when I will actually get to stamp again I'm only going to show one today.

This card not only was made for SCS's sketch challenge 209 but it uses card stock and papers from my winter craft kit. It's actually a get well card for a friend of mine who is going in for surgery next week. The hope is that the surgery will give here major relief from growing back pain that she has been experiencing for several years.

It is a fairly simple card. I colored the image using my copics and added stickles and white liquid applique for interest. I should have stamped the word "hope" before I put the "Get Well" stamped on the inside.

WINTER KIT

I have a number birthday cards that need to be mailed out this month. So I thought I would make them with a winter theme.

The Stampin' FLYBaby Winter Craft Kit supplied me with the perfect papers and embellishments for this project. I was also able to put to use my Cuttlebug.

The first card I made features snowflakes and snowmen. (Not that we see much of either here in Maryland lately.) I combined embellishments from the kit on a background embossed using my snowflake embossing folder . Of course with that much snow you have to have snowmen!

The snowflakes were covered in glitter and I ran them through my smaller Xyron to put adhesive on the back of them. The cute little snow men are made of felt and I cut the three off a 12 inch boarder strip. I adheared them with mini glue dots. To give the embossed cardstock background a softer look I rubbed Blue Bayou ink carefully over the embossing using a sponge.

For the second card I pulled out my brand new circle nesties....thank you Nate!...I used them to create a background for the snowflake. The layout for this card came from the SheetLoad of Cards Christmas in July e-Zine. You can find it by clicking on the SheetLoad Archives and downloading July 08.

On both of these cards the only stamping is the sentiment. The interest comes from the papers and the embelishments rather than an image. I'm happy with both cards. Especially since they will each be going to a mail I don't think they will be considered to "girlie".

Well that's it for today. Not sure yet what tomorrow will bring........

TIME????

Oh my!!!! Where has the time gone? I'm having a hard time believing that it has been almost a month since I last posted here. Not that I have done a whole lot of stamping or crafting in that month, but the time has gone by soooooooo......fast and so much has taken place since my last posting. Most notably the Christmas and New Years holidays.

So let me take a moment and wish each of you who stops by here a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!! 2009, boy talking about time speeding by we will all to soon be into the second decade of the new millennium at this rate and it seems as if we were all just worried about Y2K just yesterday. My grandmother was so right all those years ago....the older you get the faster the days and years speed by......

Well so much of that bemoaning the speed at which time passes. 2009 promises to be a year of new beginnings as well as a year of many challenges to be met. One of my new beginnings is working toward more playing with my crafting in order to learn and try new things. I want to be willing to make mistakes so I can learn how to do things better and to learn new techniques. I want to stretch myself to move out of some of my comfort zones.

That said, my first projects of 2009 DO NOT meet those goals or challenges. They are fairly simple Thank You cards for the wonderful Christmas presents family and friends gifted me with. I had purchased the Handmade Holiday Card Element kit from SU (item no. 112016). I think I thought they would be quick and easy Christmas cards, which I', sure they would have been if I had time to make Christmas cards. Rather than just pack the kit away for next year, when I probably wouldn't have time to make cards either, I decided to see if I could adapt the cards to make my Thank You cards. (Now that Christmas is over I have more time to craft.)

I think this worked quite well. I to do not particularly like blank card space on the background of cards so I did use some stamps to do a watermark on the card bases. I then simply exchanged using "Thank You" sentiments for the "Merry Christmas" or "Seasons Greeting" that the kit called for. I followed the same basic layout to save time in planning, but didn't follow the particular paper and diecut plans that SU suggested. I put together my own.

I really like the combination of Ruby Red and Mellow Moss for Christmas colors. I think it is a much softer and more vintage combination than the standard Real Red and Glorious Green.

Now that the Thank You cards are complete I can move on to more challenging projects. First up will be beginning to work with my Winter Craft Kit from my SCS FlyBaby group.

I hope all have a blessed and exciting as well as a creative 2009. I hope you visit often and I hope to visit you as well if you have a BLOG!

LOVE MY BUG!!!!

1. I love my Cuttlebug!!!! Unfortunately I don't use it nearly as often as I should, but I will be using it more as a result of two things. I just acquired a bunch of new embossing folders for it, including the much sought after Swiss Dots.
2. I found a fantastic blog site for inspiration it's called "Cuttlebug Challenges"

There is a blinky to the right on this Blog page that will take you to their wonderful blog where you can find all sort of ideas on how to use your cuttlebug in new and exciting ways. Check it out! As soon as I get some breathing space I plan to try out several of their ideas.

THANKSGIVING AND GRATITUDE

It's the time of year when our thoughts turn to things that we a thankful for. Studies have proven that when we look for the good in our lives and regularly focus on finding things to be thankful for our health is better and we live longer.

I find it helpful to have a place to record and keep a record of things that I am grateful for. This way when I go through a stretch of time when I am tempted to think nothing good ever happens I can look back through what I have written down and see that there is much to be thankful for on a daily basis. Big things as well as small. I know other people like to do the same type of recording and so one thing I love to make are Gratitude Journals. I enjoy making each one unique and I definitely try to make each one pretty.

A few weeks ago a friend asked me to make some of these for her to be used as gifts. I made six. Here are three of the designs I came up with. I've also made a few prayer journals and another friend has asked me to make a gardening journal that she can give as a gift.

These are very easy to do especially if you have a Xyron machine that can be used to put adhesive on the back of the various elements of the cover. The books I use to alter as the composition books that are found in most office supply stores. I stock up on them at the back to school sales in August and September when I can get them for 99 cents rather than the normal $1.99 or more. I personally like the college ruled ones, but that's a personal preference. I've made a few for children and then I use the wide ruled.

The backs are covered with the same papers as the front but with no embellishements. The inside if the front and back covers are covered but only in a coordinating solid card stock. If I have a supply of RSVP pens I will often make a matching pen to go with the book.

These make nice gifts to give as well as a wonderful tool to use to daily remind yourself to look for something to be thankful for. Each and everyday no matter how bad things may be going in our lives there will be at least one thing we can find to be greatful for. Even it it is only having woke up in the morning to see another day. I find that when I make a consious effort to look for the good in my life and the workd around me I find plenty. Its only when I forget to look for the good and focus on the bad that life becomed bleak and unbearable. So why don't you join me and make yourself a gratitude journal and make the first entry in it one of gratitude for the joy you had in creating your journal.........

All that said I hope each and everyone of you had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends.

Now it's on full speed ahead into the holiday season how ever you celebrate it.

GOOD NEWS!!!!

Okay I am jumping on the band wagon that Teresa started on her BLOG about good news in November. It's been pretty dreary and nasty here on the East Coast so far this month. Add to that the end o Daylight Savings Time and the darkness that now descends around 5pm and we need some good news to keep our spirits up. December bring the excitement of the impending holidays, but November can be just down right depressing until you begin to focus on Thanksgiving. So post here what you are looking forward too and what is the good news right now in your life and then ask the same of readers on your BLOG if you have one.

What am I looking forward to in November??? Time that will be spent in NC with my sister and mother helping my mother move into a new home. Also my daughter will be joining us so it will be a three generation Thanksgiving celebration. This also means I will be away from work for a week....always something to be thankful for!!!!!!! Just kiding I really do love my job even though it drives me nuts!!!

MORE CHIRSTMAS

Halloween is over and it is still a bit early for Christmas at least for Christmas decorations and carols, but shopping and making items for Christmas has definitely begun so I am more and more thinking Christmas cards. This is one that I made for SCS's November mini VSN. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I will be able to do the full VSN next weekend. I'll have to wait and see what this week brings. Anyway I digress, back to my card.

I used my new SU stamp set Scandinavian Seasons. I think this set is absolutely gorgeous. Especially when it is embossed with gold. Each of the four images in the set is elegant, but I think the tree is my favorite. I also have the coordinating wheel, Scandinavian. I haven't had time to use it yet, but plan to soon.

This really is a very simple card. The embossing is pretty basic. When I emboss with the metalics I always stamp with the same metallic ink so in this case I stamped the tree with gold encore ink and then embossed it with gold embossing powder. The gold edging on the rectanges is using the Kylon gold leafing pen.

PLEASE VOTE!!!!!

I don't have anything to show today. Life and work just got inthe way and now I am headed out to set up our polling area for tomorrow. I know I won't be here tomorrw as it will be a very long day working the polls.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!!

Of course I Would like you to vote for my candidate, but since I'm not going to tell you who that is since I don't want this to turn into a political BLOG please just vote! Keep those of us working the polles as election judges very very busy!!!!

CARDS FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Well it turned out to be a stamping day. No sewing today.

It's now November. Halloween is over and we are rapidly moving towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. A co-workers asked me to design a Christmas card for her using the Christmas stamps she has. Last week she gave me her stamps and today I decided to play around with them and see what I could come up with.

I was a bit frustrated because I didn't have any of the Christmas designer papers to play with and I really would have like to use some of them. But I had to work with what I have that is not retired since if she likes my design she needs to be able to purchase the supplies needed to make them. I decided that I didn't want to just give here one design. What if she didn't like it???? So I decided to increase the odds that I would do something she might like and did three different cards with several different sets that she has. Here is what I came up with.

The first card used a set that SU has retired. It's called Peaceful Wishes. I used Mellow Moss card stock for the base of the card and rolled it with a snowflake wheel in Mellow Moss to make a background. I punched the bottom edge of the front of the card with the scallop boarder punch. The other card stock colors I used were Riding Hood Red and Always Artichoke. The sentiment "Peaceful Wishes I embossed in gold and the pine cone I stamped in Chocolate Chip craft Ink and embossed with clear powder. I did the same with the holly sprig, but stamped it with Old Olive craft ink and then put in small red brads for the berries. The ribbon is the Mellow Moss taffeta ribbon.

Card number two also uses a stamp from the Peaceful Wishes stamp set. This is the full holly branch stamp. I once again used the Riding Hood Red card stock as an accent color this time placing it against a card base of Kiwi Kiss. To make a background for this card I used a snowflake stamp (of unknown origins) and randomly stamped it around in versa mark ink then embossed the whole card front with Iridescent Ice. This give the card a sparkly festive look. Unfortunately it doesn't show up in the scanned image. The holly sprig is stamped on white card stock in Old Olive and I colored over the berries with a Real Red marker. Then I put little drops of Crystal Effects to give a bit of shine and dimension. The Merry Christmas sentiment is embossed in silver. Both the sentiment and the holly sprig element are raised on dimensionals.

Finally for the third card I went with a color scheme other than the traditional red and green. This is basically blue and amethyst. For some reason this card did not scan well at all. (One of these days in my free time, HAHA, I need to work on making my light box to take photos in.) The card base here is Bashful Blue and again I stamped the small snowflakes in Versamark and embossed with Iridescent Ice. The set used for this is Loads of Love which has been around forever! I had to use masking to get the lady in the cab and the tree in the pickup bed. The tag that the pick-up is stamped on is glossy card stock stippled with Bashful Blue, Almost Amethyst, and Perfect Plum inks. It is edged with a silver leafing pen. This really did not scan well at all! If I have time tomorrow I may try and take a photo in daylight to see if it comes out better. I colored the truck with markers. The ribbon was white taffeta ribbon that I ran across the Almost Amethyst pad to color. Inside the card I stamped "Merry Christmas"

So I don't know which if any Nancy may like, let alone choose to make for her family cards, but I had fun making Christmas cards and once again making a mess of my stamping room! Just out of curiosity let me know which one you like the best. We'll see how your choices compare with Nancy's.

QUILTING TODAY BUT A CARD TO SHOW

Today has been a day of small quilting projects. I've made 2 sets of placemats and I don't know how many quilted pot holders. It has been fun being down in the sewing room (aka basement). I don't seem to be doing much sewing these days and I have so much fabric to use up! I do enjoy sewing and using my lovely machine.

However, I haven't taken any pictures to show you. So I have gone into my card archive of cards that were made sometime in the past, but have never made there way to my BLOG. I found a picture of a birthday card I made that has a quilt block on it. I do have this connection between my two passions.

I have added some wonderful quilt related stamps to my inventory. Sometime this week I hope to break them out. Maybe tomorrow, unless I feel that it is a sewing day once again.

I'm trying to guess what the buying public will be interested in next Saturday and see that I have some of it. I would like to do one more placemat set, at least one baby quilt, maybe a wubbie or two. Plus I have cards to finish up and a few framed pictures as well as a couple more journals. This is not a week that I need to have disrupted by the presidential elections! I need crafting time, but I am committed to working as an election judge all day and night Tuesday so I will have to make good use of the remaining non work hours of the week!

If anyone reading this happens to be from the Maryland area I would like to invite you to the 2nd Annual Fall arts and Crafts Festival at our church. It will be on Saturday, November 8 from 9am to 3pm. There will be 16 vendors as well as a large collection of hand painted porcelain collector dolls, a bake sale and wonderful Silent Auction baskets to bid on. Our church is Covenant United Methodist Church and is located in Montgomery Village at the corner of Montgomery Village Avenue and Wightman Raod. The address is 20301 Pleasant Ridge Drive.
I would love to see you there! I will be in the library with my goodies. We are working toward raising money for repairs and reoutfitting of our kitchen. (Which a favorite project of mine as I cook dinner in it every Tuesday night!)

Oh.....even if you live out of town you are invited if you want to fly into town.....well I didn't want you to feel left out!

CHIPBOARD ON CARDS

Using chipboard is not a specialty of mine. I keep forgetting I even have it and trust me I have a lot! When I do remember it I never quite know what to do with it.

Diane included some chipboard pieces in the Fall Craft Kit she put together for the FLYbaby Stampers on SCS and so I decided I needed to use at least those pieces. I needed a get well card and it is fall so I used the kit to come up with this card. I'm ot sure the butons add anything but they are there and stuck well so there they will stay. I don't think embelishements are my forte. I may just leave that aspecyt of card making to my buddy Lee. She does such a great job with embellies of all kinds. If you have never been to here BLOG to see the wonderul work she does you must go there. It's called My Reality....It's All Good! And it is!!!!!!!

I colored the chipboard with my copic markers. They work well for dark colors not for lighter ones. The leaf is a sticker. Normally I don't use stickers on cards but this one worked well and shows up nicely.


I do like the sentiment that I put on the front of the card. Its from SU's set Nice and Easy Notes which is a favorite of mine and of course is retired. I seem to be in a gold embossing mood lately. I've been using it on a lot of cards. Maybe it is the fall maybe it is getting ready for the holidays which are rapidly approaching I don't know, but it is showing up on a lot of my cards.

Well thats it for today. Not sure how much stamping I will be getting done in the next few days. I need to spend some more time sewing for the craft fair I am part of next weekend. I will try and split my time between sewing and stamping this weekend.

See you later. Thanks for stopping by.

JOURNAL FUN

Its getting to be that time of year again: craft shows and gift giving. So now is when I start looking for new ideas for gifts as well as items than might sell and redo items I have done in the past that have been popular and that I like to make.

Altered composition books are one of my favorite gift items to do and people seem to like them. So I made a few this weekend. Especially popular are prayer and gratitude journals so those are what I started with. I also like doing quilt journals and I will work on designs for some of them after I've been to the post office tomorrow morning.

Why the post office you might ask????? Because I have some new stamps waiting there for me. And they are quilty stamps! I've been eagerly waiting for these stamp sets from PaperTrey. They are Quilter's Sampler, Quilter's Sampler Additions, and Quilter's Sampler Sentiments. These are going to be so much fun to use!

Until these here are two of the altered books I have designed so far. It doesn't show up well in this photo of my gratitude journal, but I followed the advice of Susan and altered the black brad that is in the center of the flower in the top left corner of the journal. I used a white rub on flower and put a tiny rhinestone in the middle. Then I coated it all with clear nail polish. It took me three tries and three rub ons but I finally got it right! It is cute. For more detailed information on how to do this check out here fabulous and informative web site Paper Craft Central. Thanks Susan for the wonderful idea and instructions.

NO STAMPING OR PAPER BUT OTHER FUN!

No one has ever accused me of being a single minded crafter. There are only a few crafts I have never tried and even fewer that I have tried that I didn't like. There are ones I can't afford such as needle point on hand painted canvases, but that's a whole different reason for not doing something.

So what have I been up to lately besides stamping, paper crafts, and quilting. Well, at the last quilt show I attended I decided it was time I taught myself how to knit socks. I've been knitting since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Having a very English grandmother I suppose it was only natural that I would learn to knit at a young age. My mother also is an avid knitter so the stage was set. I've done scarves and an afghan or two in my time and even a few sweaters including a very challenging fisherman knit sweater full of cables and popcorn stitches. I loved that sweater even if it turned out a bit larger than I wanted it to. Socks however were something I never took on. The heel scared the dickens out of me. Then our church administrative assistant started knitting socks and I fell in love with what she was doing. It took me 2 years to get up the courage, but in September I bought the needles, yarn and pattern and set out. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, though I have to credit You Tube instructional videos I found with getting me through the turning the heel part of the sock. I know have one done and am on my way with the second of the pair. My main concern now is that the two end up being at least close to the same size........

I think that what I really love about knitting socks is getting to use all the wonderful washable wool sock yarn that there is to choose from. Its so pretty. I already have the yarn for a second pair.

What else have I been doing????? Yesterday I appliqued the aprons for the winners of tonight's Chili and Dessert Cook off at church. It is an annual fund raising event put on by our churches youth group. I think I've made the aprons for the winners for about 10 years now. Every year I also enter a dessert into the competition, but have I ever won.....of course not. Do I care...not really. Usually it's one of the youth group kids that wins the apron. We all think the kids stuff the voting boxes........this year I went with an easy entry. Simply a chocolate sheet cake with yummy chocolate frosting covered with crushed toffee pieces. Not fancy, but it sure smelled good baking!

So that's what I have been up to that is not paper or quilt related. This next week I will be busy preparing items to be sold in our second annual church Fall Arts and Crafts Festival. I have less than 2 weeks to get ready............So you know where I will be if I don't show up here for a while, but I hope to make it by so do stop back and see whats up!

BIRTHDAYS ARE FUN!

There are a lucky group of stampers that were able to spend a week on a cruise with Gina of Gina K, Nichole of PaperTrey and I forget who else. It is something I would have loved to be a part of but well the timing just was all wrong and for a variety of reasons I could only dream about it. But there was some land fun last Wednesday evening when the land lubbers who also love Gina K stamps got together on SCS for a land cruise. There was lots of chatter, questions to answer in hopes of winning a prize and fun card challenges.

I only had time to do one challenge. I had to use chipboard on a card. Now I have LOTS of chipboard and I rarely use it because I can't figure out what to do with it so this was a real challenge for me. I was not very happy with my first attempt. I seemed to be forcing the issue. This is what I came up with. ITs okay, but nothing special. I colored the chip board scalloped ciecle using my copic markers. Since I was using yellows and oranges it took quite a few coats of color. I did have fun uing lots of my punches.

My second attempt made me mch happier. Maybe mainly becasue it is a lighter brighter card. For this one I covered a chipboard circle with designer paper. I wish I could remember the name of the Designer Paper but I don't. All I can tell you is that is is retired and it is from SU. Also it was one of their christmas packs. This is the chard that I uploaded for the challenge. It also uses a Gina K stamp set. The set is How Sweet It Is which is one of her stamps for a cause sets. These are specific sets that provide from their sale a donation to a specific charity. This set benefits The American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. $7.00 of every set sold is divided evenly between these two organzations.

So thats it for today. Tomorrow will be venturing away from stamping to show some things I've made or am working on that are projects from other of my crafting loves.

A BREAK FROM CARDS

Back in early September good friend of mine got married. She asked me is I would be willing to make prayer and wish cards to her reception. This was not her first marriage and she knew from earlier experience that guest books never were looked at after the wedding. So instead of a book for guests to sign she wanted cards that they could fill out writing a prayer or wish for the future of the newly weds. I have never been so nervous making something, but when I showed the cards to her she loved them. Here is a picture of them in the basket waiting to be filled out and then hung on a dowel rod tree. Each one was different and I made great use of all my decorative scissors, prisma flowers and rhinestone brads.

They were a great success. People loved them and wrote very endearing sentiments that I am sure will be cherished by the bride and groom for years to come. My next task it to put them all into an album for them. This was my gift to them both.

Next "I have a "band aid" tin that has been altered to hold tiny treasures. Everything used in this project once again came from the Fall SCS Craft Kit. I never know what to do with these tins. They are such an odd shape for keeping or gifting things in (other than band aides that is). This is what I came up with. I will probably find some small goodies, probably chocolates to go into it and it will go into my craft show inventory. I have a show that I am a vendor in coming up on November 8 so the crunch is on to get things made for it. I am hoping I can offer inexpensive yet nice handmade items for sale as gifts for the upcoming Christmas season. With the state of the economy What it is I don't think people will have lots to spend on expensive gifts this year. At least I know I won't. So I will do what I can to provide nice things for them to gift friends and family with. I may try decorating a few of these tins to hold crayons for kids. I think they are tall enough for crayons to fit. We'll see.

Well that's it for today. See you all later and thanks for stopping by.

MORE FALL THEMES

The weather gets more fall like by the day. The trees here in Maryland are showing their colors and some are falling. Soon there will be enough to rake up. The temperatures are cool even when the sun is shining. While this all goes on outside inside I am inspired to work with fall colors and themes on my cards. Fortunately I have wonderful papers and stamp sets to choose form.

The cards I have here today use a current set and a loved retired set. First two cards with scarecrows from the Happy Blessings set. This is a fun set to color. The first card is colored using Copic markers. I can color with them okay, but don't have the blending and shading techniques conquered yet. I try, but everything still looks flat. I do like the vibrant colors they give though. I so need to save my money to get some nestability dies though. Working to get the scalloped rectangle to be the correct size AND have decent looking corners is no fun.

The second scarecrow card is colored using an aquapainter and watercolor crayons. I don't do a perfect job shading with these either but I think I do much better than with Copics. These give a much softer look. I uses a lot more embelishments on this second card. It uses items from the Fall craft kit from my SCS group.

My final fall card for today uses the retired SU set Autumn Fest. I love the leaves in this set. They are so real. I choose to use the oak leaf along wiith a couple of acorns for this card. It also uses papers from the Fall craft kit.

My goal with this card was to capture the look of leaves that are changing color. I was happy with my results. I used several fallish colored craft ink spots. Starting with the lightest color which was a golden yellow (More Mustard I think) and then progressing through to the darkest color which was Bravo Burgandy I dabbed the oak leaf stamp. I stamped it onto Old Olive cardstock and them embossed it all with clear embossing powder. I made several and just like real leaves they all looked different. Oh, I also used Chocolate Chip on the stem part of the leaf. I did the same type of inking and embossing on the acorns, but they were stamped on Creamy Carmel card stock using Chocolate Chip on caps and Close to Cocoa on the bottoms.

The card base is Sahara Sand and I sponged fall colors around the edge that wasn't covered by the striped paper.

Well that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Please come again.

I'M BACK FROM MY TRIP

I know I haven't been around here for a while, but with good reason. I've been on a cruise to Canada. What fun!

I do have some projects that I've worked on both on cruise and then today I did make a couple of cards, but haven't had time to photograph them yet. Plus I'm up to my eyeballs in photos from the trip.....I think about 600 of them!!!!!!

I do have this card to share with you all though. I did it before we left on the trip, but never got around to posting it here which I guess was good since it gives me something to write about now.

This is one of the first thing that I've made using the Fall craft kit from the SCS FlyBaby Group. It's a really neat kit and so I look forward to making more with it. The stamp set used was Happy Blessings from Stampin' Up. It's in the Holiday Mini catalog The main image was embossed with a really neat embossing powder I found at a yard sale. It's called Gold Dust. It is much more sparkly than regular gold powder.

Then weather has turned very cool here and the trees are changing color so I am very happy thinking fall and getting ready for Thanksgiving. (I don't do halloween any more since kids have grown up. I like watching the little kid come by and we give out candy, but we don't decorate.) I love pumkins and fall leaves. Scarecrows can be fun too.

Thanks for stopping by I will try and get some photos for tomorrow. I not I do have another fall card I can share.

CASTAWAY INK????

Has anyone heard of this product....Castaway ink pads by Jacquard????? I hadn't heard of them until I went to a stamping show several weekends ago. I discovered they are really neat. Rather than putting color on your card stock they remove it. Sort of like using the stamping with bleach technique but much easier and neater plus no nasty bleach to worry about getting on your clothes.

When I encountered these pads at the show I had to have one to try out and play with. I really like the effect they give. The image left is like a shadow or a frosty or hazy background. The colors you get are different with the color of card stock you are using and also the brand. I even had one color that it didn't work on at all. Nothing changed. Here is a picture of two different card stock colors and how the stamp shows up. They are both Stampin' Up products. One is Bravo Burgundy the other is Sage Shadow. I used the Upsy Daisy stamp on both.



You use it by stamping the image you want on the card stock with the Castaway ink. It leaves a wet almost creamy image. You let it set for 5 minutes. At this point the ink has dried and is virtually invisible. Then heat set it using a dry iron on the cotton setting. The image reappears. It is a shadowy image that I think is really cool.

Here is a card I made using the image stamped on Night of Navy card stock. Notice that there are two little circles in the top most daisy. Know what those are????? The steam holes on the bottom of my iron. So a lesson was learned here. Use to bottom half of the iron where there are no wholes to cause a temperature difference on the heated image. Also notice here the image reappeared in a lighter bluish color where as the Sage Shadow showed up a creamy yellow and the Bravo Burgundy a light gray.



The final card I have to show you is one of the first images, the burgundy one, made into a Get Well Card.

I really do like how these images show up. I look forward to experimenting more with it. I saw it used with a snowflake stamp on a lighter blue card stock and it was really really cool. So I will try that when I get out of my fall card mood and move on to winter cards.

Oh the card stock which did not register any color change and the image just faded away to invisability when ironed was Stampin' Up's Almost Artichoke.

POLISHED STONE

I haven't been doing much in the way of stamping lately due to other life activities, but the other day I did once again play around with the polished stone technique. I don't get out my alcohol inks often enough and this is one of the main, okay maybe the only, thing I know to do with them. Fortunately I love the technique.

It's very easy and fun to do. The supplies you need are few: glossy card stock, alcohol inks, ( I use ones from Ranger), a blending solution (also from Ranger), and an applicator . For these cards I also used a copper metal mixative.

When I do this I make a lot of backgrounds at once. Usually I cut up two 8.5x11 inch sheets of glossy card stock into 4 pieces each and prepare 8 backgrounds. It can be a little messy and so I get the mess over with in one sitting. Rather than my trying to explain the technique to you I am going to send you to the experts. Tim Holtz has a video that shows using these inks in YouTube. You can watch it here. This is the technique I used. For those of you that don't have alcohol inks and would still like to try the polished stone technique SCS has a tutorial on doing it with dye ink refills. You can read it here. I have done this as well. I like the Ranger ink version better mainly becasue you don't have to seal it with a spray and I think it is shinier.

One of the things I like about polished stone is everytime you make a background with this technique it is different than the last time. Even when you use the same colors. Becasue I was thinking fall I used yellows, reds, and oranges with just a little green and even less blue in the mix.

The stamps I used are both Stampin' Up sets. The top card uses Upsy Daisy which is in the main Fall Winter 2008-09 catalog and the lower card uses a set which is in the Holiday mini catalog that is currently out. It's a set called Happy Blessings. There is also a cute scarecrow in this set. I especially like the Upsy Daisy over the polished stone background. I think the solid black image is very striking.

I will try and be back tomorrow with some more fall creations. Thanks for visiting.