Stamping and Recycling

Did you know that stamping can be a great way to recycle and alter something so it can be used again. Two of my items in my previous post are recycled items.

The gift bag is one that I received when I purchased some chocolates about a year ago. It is a wonderfully sturdy bag and I could stand the thought of just throwing it away so I popped it into a drawer. I never could come up with a use for it though since it had the store logo in both sides and a list of store locations on the bottom of each side. It is now reincarnated into a usable gift bag with the logos covered up with stamped images and designer paper and the locations covered with strips of coordinating designer paper.

The bottle is a Starbucks Frappichino bottle. It will be filled with some sort of goodies, probably Hershey Kisses, and given as a special gift.

I'm sure there are many many other items out there that could be wonderfully recycled into altered stamp art and gifts. So stampers can help keep the land fills a little less full!

Here are the final three items I altered with the June craft kit. I also made 3 12x12 scrapbook page layouts which will e used in my Family Cruise album and a total of 15 cards. This has been such fun and such a challenge. I have learned quite a bit about myself during this challenge. When I first received the kit there were many things in it I did not really like. First off these are not colors I would naturally chose to work with. Also I don't particularly like working with stripes ( I don't like striped fabric either!), Then there was this ribbon, all I can say is YUK! (That was one part of the kit I never did work with well. I only used it on one card). Also I wasn't sure about the alpa stickers and had never used giant paper clips on anything.

So what did I learn? I learned that with some perseverance and an open mind, I can create with items I am not originally fond of and for the most part I can be very happy with the results. (I did create a few items I am not particularly happy with, but I also learned that is okay.) I also discovered you can do A LOT with a relatively small set of supplies that do coordinate. During this challenge because I was working with the same papers and embellishments so much I tried several new techniques to try and spice things up a bit when I got tired of looking at the same stuff over and over again. So that was good. I covered my first chip board pieces, I created a glittered background, I finally used my punch for spiral notebook holes (I forget it's real name) and much more. Most importantly I learned that my hyper-focusing addictive personality trait is still alive and well. This is not necessarily a good thing....I kept working in these even when I knew I should be doing other things. But it was so much fun and I now declare this project officially done! Now maybe I can finish the card for our niece's wedding.......

JUNE CRAFT KIT CHALLENGE, Part Two

Continuing on with the June Craft Kit Challenge I've made these two altered items that will be used on our upcoming vacation. The travel journal is a school composition book that I've covered with some of the designer paper from the craft kit. I added some "bling" with the rhinestone brad and the

glitzy alphabet stickers. The back of the journal is covered in paper patterned with a map. I had it in my stash and thought it appropriate for a travel journal.

The photo album was a plain chipboard album that I got in a scrapbook kit. More paper and glitzy alphabet stickers with some ribbon thrown in here and there. The flowers are punched out of the patterned paper that had dots and I positioned a different colored dot in the center of each of the flowers. These were both fun and easy to make.

Busy Morning in Stamp Room

A morning spent in my stamping room; partly out of necessity of needing graduation cards and partly as part of SCS Flybaby June Craft Challenge.

The craft challenge is to use a kit of paper craft items and create as many things out of it as possible. The kit included 2 12x12 card stock sheets, about 6 double sided designer paper sheets and a variety of embellishments. The embellishment pack included ribbons, brads, buttons and ordinary office paper clips.

So far I have created 5 cards (of which these are three), covered a chip board 6x6 inch photo album, decorated a Starbucks Frappachino bottle and put together 2 12x12 scrapbook photo page layouts. Oh, I also altered a photo frame which came in the kit.

This has been fun and interesting. When I began the project I found that I was having a hard time using the items in the kit effectively and was relying heavily on my stamp sets and card stock to make the cards. The "Memories" card is an example of this. The items from the kit are the ribbon and the rhinestone brad in the middle of the flower. My second attempt was the aqua graduation card. Here I used three buttons and some of the designer paper. As I work longer with the kit I got better at focusing on the items in the kit and not my own card stock. The baby card is an example of this. Here I used the designer paper as the card front background along with ribbon and a button from the kit.

I am really having fun with this. It really does stretch your comfort zone when you have to use items chosen by someone else to make projects. In another post I will show some of the non-card items I've made.

Thank You and Goodbye

Our minister is leaving us after being at our church for 7 years. He is also my boss as I work at the church. The staff got together and had a good bye lunch for him several weeks ago. Though we had a gift at the last minute we realized we didn't have a card so I quickly made this one up.
I find it fairly easy to come up with a quick design for women. There are alway flower stamps, but I find it much more challenging to come up with something that is masculine. From what I read this seems to be a common problem for many stampers and card makers. I am going to make this a challenge for my self. Coming up with attractive designs for masculine cards. I like this one but it seems to be missing that extra spark that takes it out of the "homemade card" category.

Carol Doak's 2000 Member Block

Just a little break from stamping over the Memorial Day weekend. I was issued a challenge by a quilting friend to complete this block before midnight on May 28. If either of us didn't get the block completed we would take the other out to lunch. If we both completed the block on time next time we got together we would go out to lunch "dutch treat". We both completed our blocks and my block grew into this wall quilt as well. The block is one that created by Carol Doak for a yahoo paper piecing group that she hosts. It was in honor of the group gaining its 2000th member. Some day I will get the wall quilt actually quilted. When...who knows. Hopefully before August and the county fair.

Final Swap Card

This is what I ended up with for the design for my swap card. Though I really like the original using the "kiss" technique on the U stamp it was going to be much to time consuming for this swap as I needed to clean off the U between each use and I had 50 of the card fronts to make. I still embossed the U with clear embossing powder over the Old Olive craft ink and cut them out. This took long enough. The U is raised to give added dimension. I have two 3-D swap sets to make and one set of card fronts that focus on the Heated Pearls technique. When they are done I will post them here as well. I probably won't work on them for a while though as I am waiting for some of my items from the preview catalog which I won't receive for two weeks or so and then we will be busily getting ready for vacation.

Artist Trading Cards

I have discovered a new love; ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). They are small cards. That are not made to be sold, but only traded. By definition they must be 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. They are fun and very addicting to make. These are the first three designs that I came up with to be swapped in Denver at the SU convention. Because they are small in size they do not use as much raw material also they are relatively quick to make. Also it is easy to try out a new technique because the technique itself becomes the card.

The first ATC here used the Serene Sunflower stamp set, one of the few sets that I own that SU is NOT retiring. I stamped the sunflower on Natural White card stock and then layered a piece of vellum over it on which I stamped the sentiment. I really like the muted effect this gives the sunflower. Also I created the center of the sunflower by stamping it three times with three different colored inks.

My goal on the second card was to create something very glitzy and play with Dazzling Diamonds, a glitter type product from SU. First I stamped the word "happy" using elegant eggplant ink. Then I covered the entire front of that card with versamark ink, poured dazzling diamonds powder on it and then heat set the top. This made the "happy" sentiment quite faint so I went over it with a elegant eggplant marker. The flower from Heartfelt Thanks was stamped on Natural White card stock and is raised using stampin' dimensionals. I used markers to color the flower stamp not ink pads.

Finally, my third card was purely for fun. "Ahoy, Matey" and it's corresponding jumbo wheel is another of my sets that is not retiring. (So is "Heartfelt Thanks" used above). I think this is a cute set, but is pretty child oreinted and so I tried to come up with an idea using it that was more adult oriented. So I used the treasure chest and the words "celebrate and hope" to indicate that hope is important and the hope is in what might be found in the treasure chest. The treasure map at the top of the card is from the wheel. I made 20 of these cards to swap and the challenge was to get the same part of the wheel at the top of each. With care it can be done. I simply colored it in with markers and the sand under the chest was done using a sponge and ink pad. The chest is raised.

One thing I learned making these cards is that they look much better with some dimension and/or embellishment. Simply stamping them makes them rather boring.

Here is another card I am working on. It is a mock up of a design I am thinking of using for one of my convention swaps. The "Thinking About U" set has been around for a while with SU, but they retired so many sets it's one of the few I have that I can use for swaps. I'm not sure about the blue behind the U. I may change that to more Bravo Burgundy CS. What do you think. I'm not sure about the "kiss" technique I used on the U either. It is done with Old Olive craft ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. It's very time consuming doing the "kissing"! I think I will try it just using the U stamp and still embossing to see what it looks like.

A Card Going Around the US

This looks like a very simple and sparse card, but that is the purpose of it. This is my base card for and "Around the World" challenge. (Actually the card will only go about 7 or 8 places around the US, but we're not getting picky with the name.) At each stop along the way an embellishment will be added. Finally it will be returned to me and we will see what we get. This should be fun!

Denver Here I Come!

The stress of waiting for SU convention sign up and the aggravation of fighting my way through the computerized registration process are over and I'm going to my first SU Convention. I am so excited I can barely stand it. 4 days of time spent with other people who love stamping. I can't wait. I have very few friends here that I can share this passion with. My sharing is pretty much all done over the internet, which is fun, but I do wish I had people around me to have fun with too. At convention I will! So now I get to work on swaps and plan my yard sale to raise money for the trip. I have till July 24 to dream about it and what I hope to learn and who I hope to meet. (names from SCS will have faces!) It's interesting that the theme for Convention this year is "Dream With Us" As I get some swaps done I will post them here. I just had to share my excitement.

Its Fixed!

All is happy and the page posted below is now in my SCS Gallery. Seems it was a file name glitch causing it to get kicked out. So the recommendation was to simply change the name and voila it stuck. I haven't had time to do any crafting this week yet. Hopefully some time will become available tomorrow. I need to begin work on some quilted items for the Strawberry Festival at the Sandy Spring Museum. They have a lovely gift shop there where I have some items. The Strawberry Festival is a big event and draws a lot of people and so they are asking for more items for the shop.

I Don't Understand

Here is the controversial scrapbook layout that SCS for some reason doesn't want in their gallery. The moderators approve it and then for some reason they remove it. It's happened twice now. I have no clue why. If anyone views this and has any idea what might be objectionable about it PLEASE post a comment and let me know. I don't want to offend, but can't avoid it if I am clueless as to what I am doing wrong.

This page is from the scrapbook on our families Christmas Cruise in 2005. One of our port stops was in Ohco Rios, Jamaica. And while there my mother, Sister-in-law and I toured the Wassi Art Studio. These are pictures from there and a few of their artists at work. If you ever get to Jamaica I highly recommend visiting the studio and its attached store. The pottery is beautiful.

National Scrapbooking Day!

Today is National Scrapbooking Day in the US. In honor of that day I have taken part in an Internet Day of scrapbooking through Splitcoast Stampers. My flybaby group there. I have uploaded most of the pages I have done today there, but have a few extras that I did that are not part of that challenge a nd so I will show them here. These are pages that are going into the album that I am making about our family Christmas Cruise to the Caribbean in December 2005. Yes I know that I am slow, but I am getting it completed. IT was a 5 day cruise and I am up to day four. I am really enjoying working on this album as it is bring back a lot of fun memories. I really wish we could do this together as a family again, but am afraid it was probably it was a one time event. Unless I want to go back to work full time and make a big salary to pay for it. But if I did that I probably would be so stressed and depressed that I wouldn't want to do it anyway, so I guess for themoment I will be happy scrapping and remembering.

The LIST!

Well the long awaited list of retiring stamp sets is out. It in nice that Stampin'Up gives us lists sorted by item number and by name alphabetically. Check them out Retired List.
Its a long in fact a very long list. Right now I am glad most of my stamping income is made from sales of cards and gift items and not from workshop sales. After checking the list against my list of stamp sets I only have 16 active sets left! OUCH, that hurts. Fortunately I can still use all my sets to make items to sell. I am also thinking of holding a stamping retirement sale or yard sale to sell some of the sets I don't use to make things. We'll see.

I've Been TAGGED!

So Susan has tagged me and now I need to tell a little about my self. Seven facts about me and then tag seven other people. The seven facts will be easy, I think. The seven people may take more time. I'm not sure I know seven bloggers and I can't count Susan since she tagged me.
So here are the seven facts:

1. I absolutely love crafts of all types, but especially quilting, stamping, scrapping and knitting. If I could figure out a way to make a living doing crafts and not have to have a "day" job I would be a VERY happy person. (Heck I'd like to figure out simply how to support my craft addiction, forget about the living part!)
2. I love my Lord and the wonder of sharing my faith journey with a group of 10 other wonderful women on Monday morning's at our church.
3. I love to cook and especially to bake. This certainly doesn't help in the weight department around our house as there are no longer any growing kids around to eat the goodies. So I seek out opportunities to cook for other groups. Currently two groups at church. (I'm make them fat rather than myself. LOL)
4. My DH and I have lived in the metropolitan Washington DC area for over 30 years now and I am ready to move on to a calmer quieter area of the country.
   
5. I love my little robotic vacuum cleaner "Robbie". He gives me more time to craft and spend on the computer since I don't have to vacuum the floors anymore. (a side benefit is I do have to keep the floors free of clutter so he can do his magic!)
6. I very much enjoy teaching those who want to learn. Not so good at teaching kids or adults who don't want to learn, but are told by others they must learn something they don't want to.
   
7. I love to travel and would love to see the whole world. I've done pretty good seeing the US. I think there are only 7 states (including Alaska and Hawaii) I have not been to at least once and many of them I have been to multiple times.

So there are my seven facts. I hope if anyone reads them they find them of interest. I will come back at a latter time with my seven people as I really must get about my daily activities which include a haircut and final preparations for the weekend boutique. Ta-ta!

Not just tiles!

Besides the tiles I have stamped and colored I also have done these wooden blocks. These are really fun to work with and very inexpensive to make. I purchased the blocks from Oriental Trading Co. They come in a package of three. I really like the distressed look.

The blocks work well with stamping and coloring or with decorating with papers and embellishments. As with the tiles when I stamp an image on these I use Stazon and color in eith my markers. When using papers I run the size paper I need through my Xyron and then adhere it to the front of the block. The stamped and colored blocks I do spray with a sealer. Because of the rustic look I use a matte spray. I think and added shine of a glossy sealer would take away from the rustic flavor.

I really like the way these turned out. I hope visitors to our craft boutique do as well.

Stamping on Tiles

Well, I continue to work on items that will be for sale in our Quilt Show boutique next weekend. I have been working on various designs for decorative tiles. This is one I have done. The tiles I use are not ceramic tiles as they have a coating that makes them very slippery to stamp on. These are a rougher unfinished tile which has a lot of texture to it. I have made about 14 of these with various stamped designs. I stamp the basic image using Stazon ink because of the shine on this tile, which is caused by coating the like with Utee Ultra Thick Embossing powder, you can't see that I have attached a small button on the heart. The stamped image had a button here and so for a three dimensional effect I glued on a small button after everything was sealed. I not only seal the inks with the Utee powder but then spray the tile with and acrylic sealer.

A number of people make these tiles to use as coasters. I don't like them for that purpose as I don't think they would absorb the water because of the sealant used. If you didn't use the sealent I would be afraid the markers would run when they got wet. So I place these in an easel mount for a decorative accent in your home.

I purchased the tiles I use for the pardware store. I think they are Italian tiles.

Jr Leagal Pad Project

This is a sample of a line of gift items I am making for the quilt show boutique. I is a covered junior size legal pad. They are really fun to design and easy to make. This particular one uses handmade paper that has stitching on is. I thought that appropriate for a quilt show. I also used prima type flowers as embellishments. In order to make the cover stiff enough it is actually two layers of card stock. This way I can make my stamped and embellished cover and then essentially line it with a inner layer of cardstock that covers all the ribbon ends or brad and eyelet pieces. I use my Xyron machine to apply adhesive to the entire sheet of liner cardstock so everything is well attached and secure.

I'm back!

Okay it's time to kick my butt and get it in gear. I can't believe its been well over a month since I posted hear. I have been working on some projects both stamping and quilting. It is the time of year once again where I am preparing for our annual quilt guild show. I didn't get anything done on time to enter in the show itself this year, but I will have plenty of items for sale once again in the guild boutique. My goal this year to to make enough to go a good way to paying for my trip to Denver in July for the Stampin'Up convention. That is quite an ambitious goal but, well we'll see how it turns out. For anyone who should happen to stumble across this Blog of mine and live anywhere near the Washington DC area come and see me at the show. Here is a link to information on the show. Friendship Star Quilt Show . In my next post I will show one of the projects I have been working on for the boutique.

Well I did do quite a bit of stamping today. It had been awhile and so it felt really good to get the creative juices running again. Unfortunately I don't have any to share as I didn't scan any of them and they are all being sent off to family members who have requested cards. For the fist time I used prima flowers. I think that is the correct name for them. They were sent me as a RAK. I really like them and would like to some time get more and continue to use them. I am noticing that I am beginning to use many more embellishments on my cards. I guess they provide even more opportunities to be creative.

Busy Time of Year Starting

My sister-in-law's and son's birthdays tomorrow mark the start of the busy birthday season in our family. Feb through May host the vast majority of our family birthdays so I am needing to get serious about birthday card making. The cards for tomorrows celebrations were mailed earlier in the week and her is one of my newer cards. I used a new stamp set, Doodle This, which will appear in the Stampin' Up Spring Mini Catalog which comes out in March. I never thought I would say this, but I love the Doodling stamps. I've rediscovered coloring only this time around rather than using crayons I use various watercolor media, markers and pastels. They all give different looks and are much easier to use than I thought they would be.

I also have decided to get more serious about selling my cards and other crafts. I really want to go to Denver in July for the Stampin' Up convention and so need to raise about $750 between now and the end of July. I'm not very good at marketing or asking people if they would like to buy my crafts but I do have the FSQ Quilt Show boutique in April and I need to get more items sewn for the gift shop at the Sandy Spring museum. Maybe now that I have a goal I will get more serious about it.

This week is that wonderful week for love. Valentine's Day is Wednesday. Here is just a sampling of some of the cards I've made for family and friends. The pink one was especially fun as I tried a new technique. The "Love" and the heart are stamped with "craft" ink (pigment ink) on a melted crayon background. to make this background I had to cover the sole plate of my iron with aluminum foil. When it was heated I rubbed crayons onto the foil. They immediately melted and then I pressed the iron onto plain white cardstock. It was a bit messy and you need to be careful to not end up with muddy colors, but it was fun. One warning though don't use a box of crayons that you ever plan to color with again!

Card for Challenge and an Anniversary

Well I am certainly late in posting this! I actually made it for a challenge given by Daring Cardmakers from the end of January. The challenge was to use metal on your card. I decided it was time to break into my hodge podge hardware that I have been hoarding for a year now. (I think I'm afraid to use it cause I love it and then it will be gone: I know silly me!) Anyway I used a buckle and two brads on the designing of this card. I'm pleased how it came out. Now I need to come up with more ways to use this wonderful hardware kit. It's not doing anyone any good or giving anyone any joy sitting on the self in its nice tin box.

Since I gave recognition to my sons wonderful wood burning on my Christmas present bookshelf I also thought I would give recognition to the present he made for his dad. It is of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park outside of Moab, UT. This is a spot we have vacationed in three times now, so I guess you could call it a family favorite. On our first trip out there in 1995 several family members walked out to the Arch after dark during a full moon. This wood burned picture depicts that view.

Here are two of my recent non card stamping projects. They are both easy to do and fun. They make great gift items and I will probably make some to sell at our quilt show boutique and other craft events.

The "Notes" and "To Do" boards are actually metal picture holders that I found at Target. They were very inexpensive, but also very plain. I decoupaged card stock and designer paper onto the metal. Then stamped on the card stock, places a strip of ribbon over the seam and then decoupaged over it all. The flowers on the "To Do" holder are real dried flowers. I decoupaged over them as well. The magnets on the boards are shown close up in the first picture. They are glass discs that are flat on one side and rounded on the other. These I purchased at a $ store. I stamped a design on the flat end using stazon ink. Then painted them using metalic acrylic paints. You could also use pearl-ex mixed in lumiere. Finally I coated over the whole back side of the disc with a white acrylic paint and attached a magnetic disc. Voila, another nice little gift item.

A birthday card for a welcome change!

Finally, a card other than a sympathy card! Made this for and mailed to my brother for his birthday. I find myself using the SU watercolor paper a lot! I love it and with the stamped images and either watercolor crayons or pencils it almost looks as it I can really draw and paint. Ha! Fooled you! Now artistic talent of that sort here.

More sympathy cards

Yet again more sympathy cards. It seems that these are the only type of card that I have made this year. These were made for the family of my husband's Aunt. That's three family members to die this year and one family friend. I think it is now time to move on to joyful family events, right? I guess all these funerals also are hard because they are a sign of my aging. Not many like to face that prospect even though we all know intellectually that it is inevitable unless you are the one sympathy cards are being made for. When you look at it that way I guess getting older is not so bad after all.

On a Happier Note

This is a very special Christmas present made for me by my son. It is a bookcase being used by me to hold DVD's in our family room. He made it extra special by wood burning quilt blocks along each side. And I didn't even know he knew how to do wood burning. Such talent! Do I sound like a bragging mom? Oh well to bad cause that's exactly what I am! Thanks Nate! Now the whole world can see your talent if they want too! Love ya!

By the way the blocks he chose were designed by Carol Doak and are from her book 40 Bights & Bold Paper Pieced blocks. A favorite book of mine. Now maybe I should make a quilt to go with the bookshelf.

Sympathy Cards

Well I did finally get back to making some cards. Unfortunately they are all sympathy cards for family members. I just sat down with my sympathy stamps and a couple of my favorite stamp sets and began working. I wanted them each to be different in case the various family members should happen to see each others. Once again though it was a sad process it gave me time to reflect over the time I spent with my Aunt (she is the one who died) so that was a good thing.

Yeah I finally actually got something finished. I made these Christmas ornaments for each family member that we will be spending Christmas with this year. I had fun once again combining my two loves; quilting and stamping!
The tree pattern is a design by Carol Doak. It is paper piecing which is a block piecing technique which I really enjoy for its ease and precision. Rather than stuffing the ornament I choose to do it like I do my fabric postcards using a stiff fusible interfacing. I stamped the back with year and a sentiment and decorated the front with Swarovski crystals and metallic thread. The edges are overcast with a heavy thread and then I hot glued the star on top with a gold cord hanger. The only problem is I forgot to make myself one!