OMG I did it....

Firstly, I must apologise for not having posted in so long.  I can't believe it's been since April that I posted!  Life gets in the way sometimes and some things get left behind.


Since my brayering classes in April I have been teaching Margaret a few of the techniques we learned.  I also had a chance to teach the last stamp club in June a brayering class.  We made one basic card, but I think it went over very well.

We used So Saffron, Peach Parfait and Tangerine Tango for the sky and Baja Breeze, Marina Mist and Night of Navy for the water.  The stamp is the a la carte stamp Sail Away from the current mini catalogue.  I have loved this stamp since I first saw it and absolutely had to have it.  After stamping we colored it with the brush end of a basic black marker to create a silhouette and highlighted the sails and water with a white gel pen.  

I hope your day is a wonderful one!

Brayering With Michelle Zindorf

This weekend past I had the pleasure to attend a beginner and advanced brayering workshop with Michelle Zindorf.  For those you unfamiliar with her she is an amazing artist and travels all over the states teaching her techniques to eager students. 

We made a total of 6 cards in the workshops, each more beautiful than the rest.  She covered not only basic brayering but sponging and emboss resist techniques, as well as reflection cards and other topics.  I don't want to give all her secrets away here, but suffice to say I came away with LOTS to think about.  :)

I had originally posted the cards we made here on my blog for everyone to see but I read somewhere that Michelle likes to keep the cards a suprise for upcoming students, so out of respect for her I have deleted all of the ones that we did in class.  The blue palms card is based on a card that we made, that we were challenged to do in two different color families.  I haven't decided the second family yet.  :)

Blue Palms

I am really thrilled with this one, I was a little worried that I would not be able to remember the techniques we learned.  Michelle has over 400 tutorials on her website for cards.  I plan on spending a lot of time time there.   :)  Thanks for looking!

Camper's Wedding

How cute is this!!  A collegue at work asked me to make a wedding/shower card for a wedding that she is going to. The couple are apparently avid campers and outdoors lovers and she asked specifically for something with a tent on it.  I had a look through my bazillion stamps and realised I didn't have anything even remotely camping themed.  My next stop was, of course, the web for inspiration.  I came across this website:

http://crafts.kaboose.com/tent-card.html

Which had the perfect template for me. 

I used basic white card stock for the base, sponged lightly with Blushing Bride to add some dimension. I also stamped "congratulations"  from the All Year Cheer 2 set from 2002.

For the tent layer I used the square lattice folder and for the tent fly I used a cuttlebug folder that I can't recall the name of.  The flowers looked wedding-ish to me.  :)  For the netting I used a piece of net with silver threads from my stash and pieces of silver cord for the "ropes". 

I think it's totally adorable, and hope that it will work for my collegue's needs. 

Hope your day is a sunny one!

March Christmas

A while back I mentioned that I was in the Christmas card challenge over on Splitcoast stampers.  This is my March card.  Six of these are now added to my stash of Chrismas cards for this year.

I used cherry cobbler and old olive for both ink and paper, along with staples white to create this card.  I used the pine tree from Lovely as a Tree to stamp the "branches" and the ornament is from the Delightful Decorations set and punched out with the ornament punch.  The ornament is popped up on dimensionals, and silver SU! ribbon finishes off the ornament.  The sentiment is from A Cardinal Christmas by SU! 

Hope you all are staying warm and cozy, have a great day!

I won!

I 've been playing along with the challenges on the Create with Connie and Mary Occasions edition series for the past few weeks and have had a fun time creating a project for each week.  The series ended this week and I just checked the site to find out that I had won a subscrition to their next series, coming this summer!  How exciting!  I've never won a prize online before. 

Thank you, Ladies!  :)

Deadlines - CCMC-04

Deadlines are funny things.  Some people like to get things done well before a deadline so that they know it's out of the way.  Other people, like me, tend to wait until last minute to get something done. I have been that way as long as I can remember.  I would stay up the night before the paper was due to write it, study for the test...and make cards for challenges.  I've had the sketch for this challenge for a week, sort of bubbling around in my brain until I figured out what I wanted to do with it.  I knew I wanted it to be a friendship card for Ina.  I knew, more or less, what colors I wanted to use in it...and I knew what stamp set I was going to use.  But for whatever reason or other it didn't actually come into being until this morning.  No matter, really...I am pleased with the results...maybe that is why John calls me the procrastinating packrat???

The base is Staples vanilla.  The brown patterned papers are from the retired Au Chocolat pack.  The blue is a scrap from my stash - I know it's from SU! but I don't know what pattern pack.  Random ribbon from the pile. :)  It didn't show well but the polka dot layer is actually crimped to add a bit of texture.  Everything is matted with Chocolate Chip card stock.  I stamped the image from the Simply Said set in basic black and used a blender pen to color the flowers with Tempting Turquoise.  Ina's favorite color is turquoise, so I wanted to make sure to use that color. I used my new I-Rock tool to set the gems.  What a fun toy that is!  The sketch is based on this one:

It's for this week's Create With Connie and Mary Occasions Edition challenge.  If you're interested in the series put out by these ladies check out the link in the side bar.  They are very very talented and you get lots of ideas and tutorials, at least one a day except Saturdays, which are challenge days. I recommend them.  ;)

Thanks, as always for looking and have a lovely day.

Lighting and other craft room related news.

It's funny that we don't always take into consideration lighting when we plan projects.  Without proper lighting colors can look off, and a room's "feel" can change drastically from what was originally intended.  One of the things that I knew I would be sacrificing when we put in the wall was natural lighting into my craft room.  Not a huge deal, in the long run because if I need to check a color I can always go to a window, and I have an Ott light, but I had to think a little bit about how I would ensure adequate lighting over my desk.

On one of our yard sale outings this past summer I finally found a swag lamp.  It's nothing spectacular, just a run of the mill wicker swag lamp.  One might call it vintage.  :)  It was exactly what I was looking for to add light to my area without adding to the already cluttered floor space. 

What I didn't like, however, was the faded shabby dark brown color of the lamp.  My craft room walls are brown, but this just looked dark and drab to me.   SO...after a trip to Canadian Tire's paint section I am in the process of rehabbing my poor shabby lamp.  I forgot to take a picture of the before, so I found this one online to give an idea of the before color:

It's not exactly the same as my lamp, but is very similar...although mine has an upper flare on the top.  This one looks sort of chopped off to me, but it at least gives you an idea of the dark brown color I started with. I have gotten several coats of paint onto it in a light almond color.  Of course, then I wasn't happy with how the old braid looked on it so I've stripped that off and I am going to replace it with new that I had left over from another project.  Just waiting for the latest coat of paint to dry.  It's amazing how much paint older wicker sucks up.  This is my second can!  I will update you on the progress of this project as I go, it shouldn't take much longer to have it done and ready to hang.  John says for the trouble I am going through I should just buy a new lamp.  lol...but why?  This one cost me a dollar, and two cans of spray paint...and will be exactly what I need. 

I have been working on the craft room a fair bit, too.  I papered the "inside" of the new wall last week and put in two new cabinets, as well as moving the other two over.  I have one for embellishments, one for only Stampin Up! stamp sets, one for tools and one for die cutting dies, cuttlebug folders, non SU! sets and the like.  I still think I need at least one more cabinet, possibly two, and will keep an eye for sales on them.  The wooden cubby tower that I had my stamps in before has been moved out as has the cd tower that had my punches in it.  Just those two pieces of furniture took up so much floor space!  I will update this with pictures as soon as I get some taken. 

Congratulations for a Friend CCMC-OM3

 

My dear friend, Margaret has been my SU! demo for nearly 5 years.  We met when she and her (then) boyfriend - they're engaged now, Chris were having a yard sale.  I was brand new to stamping at that point and didn't have many supplies for card making.  I think I might have been at the "dollar store stuff is good enough" stage.  Boy was I wrong...I now am working on a whole room just for stamping and card making.

We have become fast friends in the years since and so have our families.  We often go out with them on adventures (including yard sales) and always have a great time. 

Margaret is celebrating a couple of milestones this month.  She has a new stamping and class studio in her home.  I helped her out a bit when she first started sorting it out but I haven't seen it for several weeks.  Stamp club is tonight and I am really looking forward to seeing it!

She is also celebrating her 10,000th visit to her blog, Whimsical Creations Unlimited , which she reached earlier this week.  Why don't you drop on over and see how fast we can make it 11000!  :)

This card is for the color challenge posted on the Create with Connie and Mary Occasions Edition for this week.  I used a vanilla base and a second vanilla layer that was embossed with the Elegant Lines folder.  I highlighted the embossing and edges of this layer with crumb cake and used the Small Script for the sentiment.  I chose "joy" because Margaret lives her life with such joy and also brings joy to everyone that she meets.

The flower is made with Rose Red, using the wing of the bird punch.  The center is Baja Breeze, using a fiskars flower punch and a little generic brad.  The leaves are punched from Pear Pizzazz.  The flower is popped on dimensionals.  The pearls are generic pearls from my stash.

Thanks for dropping by and checking out my offering today.

To Margaret, if you read this, I love you, sister friend...here's to many more great years to come!

CCMC-OM2 - Wedding Wishes

Isn't it funny how sometimes you start making a card with one thing in mind and as you go along it morphs into something entirely different? That is the way of this card.

When I saw Valita's tutorial for paper roses made with the 2 step owl punch I definitely HAD to try to make one.  John got me an owl punch for Christmas and I am loving playing with it.  I made this flower last night while watching Big Bang Theory - absolutely one of my favorite shows...but I digress.

I had decided that I would use the rose on a friendship card for my friend, Ina.  Somehow, as I gathered my supplies (I am having to lug everything to the dining room table until my room is done) it became a wedding card.  I don't know why...I don't have any weddings to go to...I have a very good friend that is engaged...but hasn't set a date yet.  It just sort of happened to become a wedding card.  I'll just have to create another card for Ina.  :) 

It is for this week's Create with Connie and Mary challenge, using this sketch:

I love sketch challenges, but for some reason don't enter them all that often.  It's fun to see how many different ways people interpret a design. For my card I used Apricot appeal CS, sponged with Only Orange at the edges.  I did the same with the petals of the rose to give it some depth and shading.  The Textured paper is from my stash.  It's from a handmade paper stack.  All of the other supplies are just generic ones that I have had for a while, and I used Teeny Tiny Wishes for the sentiment, punched with the Word Window and matted with the Modern Label punches.  Some pearl beads and sheer ribbon shot with gold thread tied to the rings finished things up. 

I hope you like it.  Have a great day!

Organizing

I admit that I am not a very good house keeper.  Martha Stewart has absolutely no need to feel even remotely threatened by me.  I never learned how to keep a proper house, and envy people that can keep things organized and tidy while actually living in their house.  How do they DO that, anyway? 

My crafting space reflects this lack of knowledgee and disorganization.  I don't have enough space to effectively store what I have (man...so much!) and therefore things are just PUT somewhere.. .anywhere...because they don't have a home.   My craft room is sort of the "catch all" room for the house, too.  "Just put it on Mom's desk" is a familiar sentence in our house.

I have scoured various organizing and decluttering blogs and websites, books and magazines on the subject.  I have come to the conclusion that I have too much stuff for the storage that I have.  I also don't have a specific plan in place, with a place for everything. 

John has been talking about putting a wall up to enclose my craft area a little better for a while.  He reasons that it will provide me with 8 feet of wall space for cabinets to go, giving me a fair bit more storage/organizational area.  It also will give me about another 3 feet of usable floor space, making the room less cramped.  It will also provide a visual barrier so that people coming into the home aren't assaulted by the view of my less than spotless crafting space. 

SO...I now have a new wall.  I mulled and pondered it over for a while and decided that I liked the idea.  I had helped my friend (and demo extraordinaire), Margaret to put her new crafting room together and was inspired.

My rotating cubby tower is on the outs.  So is my teak bookcase.  They don't fit into the room and I don't have space for them elsewhere in the house.  I won't miss the tower too much, but I really will miss the bookcase.  Or at least I think I will.  John has said we can put it on the side of the wall facing the door but I am trying to be realistic and recognise that it will just become a clutter magnet there.  Besides, I have plans for that wall that involve a certain Definitely Decorative tree.  :)  This necessitates me getting rid of some books, but I have been meaning to do that for a while anyway.  I am also unhappy with the CD tower I am using to store my punches and have plans for something different there, too. 

These are the before pictures... as horrifying as they are.  I had already begun sorting things a little bit in the first one, but I would be deluding myself to think that I could explain the mess away because of that.  In the second one you can see John starting the wall.  He has the upright attached to the wall and the footer on the floor.  That gives you an idea of where the wall is now.  You can also see the ever present (and helpful?) Sierra's behind.  :) She always has to be close to me, even if it means being under foot.  I intend to get her a new doggie bed once the room is done so she will have a spot of her own in the room. 

I have plans for cabinetry, pegboard and track lighting, and I will keep things updated as we go.  I am looking forward to sharing my updated and newly organized crafting space!

Christmas...in February??

I know, I know...Christmas is done and past.  No  sense thinking about it until...oh...I don't know...maybe November, right?  Not really!

I haven't gotten Christmas cards out for the past few years, I am ashamed to say.  I didn't have the time when John was going through chemo and radiation and all and then these past couple of year I haven't found the time to get the cards made and out in time.

SO...this year I have joined a challenge thread on Splitcoast stampers to get my Christmas card making butt in gear.  I have committed to making 6 cards a month from Jan until Nov.  By the end of it I will have 66 cards, give or take, ready to be sent to eagerly waiting recipients.  :) 

Dasher was my card for January.  Details of the project are on my gallery on Splitcoast.  It's a peaceful card, and I am quite pleased with the results.

February's card features snowflakes on white.  I sponged squares and stamped the snowflakes over them in Night Of Navy.  I use the older snowflake punch to create a stencil,  which I used to sponge snowflakes above the squares.  I added the sentiment from All Year Cheer II  and a bow made of ribbon from my stash.  I love the clean look of a one layer card.  :)

Cuppycake Favour

I have subscribed to Create With Connie and Mary's Occasion Edition web series.  Every day there is an new idea, project and inspiration for a whole 5 weeks!  Every Saturday they post a challenge for subscribers.

This week's challenge was to create a party favour. 

This sweet little cupcake box is my effort.  Sorry about the pictures, I am going to have to work on photographing my work.  :)

Thanks for looking, as always. 

Mel.

Owl Always Love You...

John and I met online over a decade ago (as near as we can figure we chatted off and on for about a year or so casually before we actually met).  Tomorrow is groundhog day and the 10th anniversary of us meeting in person. 

My life has changed a lot in the years since we met and I have so much to thank him for.  He's my soul mate in every sense of the word.  We've been through a lot and just keep getting closer.  He makes me laugh, comforts me when I'm down and keeps me grounded.  He's a wonderful step dad to my kidlets and has spent so much time helping them to become the awesome people that they are and will be.

This is my Valentine card to him.  I did base the design off of  this card on Laurie Gibson's Blog but changed it up a bit to make it mine.

I used the Cuttlebug hearts folder to emboss the cherry cobbler card stock and layered that panel on basic black on the white card base.  Punched the owls in basic black with the 2 step owl punch from SU!  The branches and wing are punched in bb with the SU! bird punch.  I used a circle nestie to cut out the moon, which is sprayed with Smooch spritz to give it a bit of a shimmer.  Too bad that part doesn't show too well in the photo.  I highlighted the branches and wing with a clear glitter spica pen and put red stickles on the lovey hearts above their heads.   The sentiment is from the Teeny Tiny Wishes set in cherry cobbler ink and punched with the word window punch over modern label mat.  I love that these three pieces work so well together.  The fluffy red bow was made with ribbon from my stash, probably off of a pair of Christmas pj's that I saved.  It matched like it was made for that color family. 

I am very pleased with how this turned out and hope he likes it too.  :) 

Have a great day and take the time to give your loved ones a big hug today.  They deserve it.  :)