Summer Card Camp 2011: Week 1: Card 2

In the Summer Card Camp 2011 we also learned a cool technique to make a window card with acetate.  Jennifer McGuire did a really pretty one for a demonstration.  And here is mine:

I had seen a card where the window was off center and that appealed to me as a something different for me to try.  Jennifer used acetate on hers to make a window but I didn't want that affect for this card so left it off.  I've done that before, though...and stamped on the acetate which is fun to do, too.

I love that Cricut has many window cards on various cartridges and I make them often.  This time however I did it a different way using the Nestabilities Scalloped Circle and my Cuttlebug.  I thought it would be easy to cut out...well, I should have done a regular circle...the scallop was actually difficult to line up and I sort of went through a few sheets of white paper...and a few scrap pieces of my pretty printed papers. But it finally worked and I got it done!

Besides the Nestabilities I used Doodlebug Petite Prints, Bazzill cardstock and BoBunny Punch Dot papers.  I am not sure what the cute stamp set I used is from but I think it's an Itty Bitty set from Unity Stamps...I know it is made by Unity Stamps but I'm not sure what the name of it is. I recently purchased Gazpacho Soup by Unity from Crafty Steals and this came with it but was packaged separately.  Anyway, it's a cute bathing suit and fun sentiment and it's what I chose to use.
I also used some Offray ribbon and a Hero Arts Gem.  I used Stampin' Up Markers and ink as well.  All the challenge colors are there...the inside is actually lined with the sky blue print and the sentiment is mounted with purple.  It's all there...I promise! 
It was fun...but again...it took me much longer than I thought it would.  I think I might do a few more of these but use the smooth edged circle to speed things up.  There is probably a simple way to using the scalloped die...I just couldn't figure it out! :)

Happy Crafting!



Summer Card Camp 2011: Week 1: Card 1

As the little graphic above suggests...I am participating in a Summer Card Class taught by Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire.  Our color palette for week 1 is shown above...a purple, a pink, a sky blue, an orange and a white.  I love these very summery colors and thought it would be fun to come up with something.

OK...changing the subject sort of...when I see the colors on my computer they look one way...when I print them out they look another way...and when I viewed them on my iPhone they looked yet another shade of those colors!  That was a bit aggravating so really, when I chose my papers and pretty things I wanted to use I just went with the colors as I thought they were supposed to be.  So if they look off...well, that's just the way they are! :)

Anyway, here's my card:

I don't ordinarily stamp and color...just not usually my thing but I bought some Gamsol (odorless mineral spirits and a blending stub) a couple of months back and thought it would be fun to color.  Well, great...I could find the Gamsol but I couldn't find the colored pencils I wanted to use.  I found watercolor pencil after watercolor pencil but couldn't find the regular pencils I know I have!  Oh well...I pulled out the zillions of markers I have and stamped this cute little girl image.  I colored her in, added some Glossy Accents to the flowers and her bows and FOR ONCE I did not touch it before it was dry.  I usually cannot resist touching it to check it and of course I end up with a huge mess!

I used pink and purple Bazzill papers (including the pink Double Dot paper), white cardstock, a strip of blue that was colored with a marker and run through a crimper. 

Besides the Bazzill paper I used:
Stampendous Cling Posie Picker Set (Stamp)
VersaFine ink (onyx)
Glossy Accents
Stampin' Up Grosgrain Ribbon
Stampin' Up Border Punch
Stampin' Up Writer Pens
American Craft Stamp Markers
Fiskars Crimper
Glue Dots, Zig 2 Way Glue, and my ATG adhesive.

And the colors are pinker and purpler than they look in the photo.  It was fun to do!

All Work and Little Play...

....make Susan aka TenSGal a dull girl!  No creating this whole weekend.  I mostly cleaned!  After 2 weeks at my daughters the house needed it and it certainly didn't take care of itself while I was gone.  They can put a man on the moon but they can't come up with a self cleaning house???  And what is it with dust???  Why does there have to be dust?  And why can't it just stay outside where it belongs!

So, I cleaned...and straightened...and cleaned...and straightened.  And the house is looking a bit better but sadly for me it left no time to go in my craft room.

I did get to spend time with AG and NBG, though...so that was great, of course!  AG is learning to blow bubbles and it is so cute watching him try. 

Hopefully this evening I'll get down to the business of creating.  Ideas are just swirling around in my head...waiting to get realized!

I also signed up for the Summer Card Camp 2011 with Jennifer McGuire (one of my absolute favorite designers and who I have been privileged to take a couple of classes with) and Kristina Werner who is just as awesome.  Class started today and I'm excited about the color palette and the cards that both ladies shared with us.  I'm looking forward to learning some new techniques and ideas!

And just for the heck of it I am throwing in this cute picture of AG I took in October of last year:

Happy Crafting!!!

Cricut Challenge 11: Create a Critter

Since this is my challenge I can change the rules as I go along.  It's good being Queen of your own blog, you know.

I will confess I am cheating a little bit on today's posting.  I've used Create a Critter several times so  I didn't feel the need to make something new just yet.  I just couldn't get motivated to go into my "studio" (doesn't that sound high fallutin'?....btw...what exactly is a "fallutin'"??) today.  I had a tennis match this morning (we lost...boo!) and then ran up to see my daughter, AG and NBG.  They are all doing great by the way.  AG has learned to say "Omie" which is my 'grandma' name.  Did you know that it is possible to say "Omie" 132 times in 60 seconds?  I know because I was there! LOL! That little 21 month old is learning all kinds of new vocabulary and boy is he using it!!! 

And NBG is getting chubbier and chubbier...we meant to have a photo shoot today again but after we went to the mall for a little while this morning we were just all too tired and elected to take naps instead!  But she's doing great and getting bigger and bigger...and starting to look at your face.  She turned 3 weeks yesterday.

So, I confess I didn't make anything new for today but I do have two things to share:  one card I already made with Create a Critter is posted HERE and is another of my favorites.  I bet you didn't know that the postage stamp was on the cartridge...that's what's so fabulous...you find all kinds of goodies with Cricut!

Create a Critter has all kinds of cute images...birds, animals, fish, reptiles...even a dinosaur or two.  It also has lots of cute layers for the images so you get a more "complicated" but visually pleasing figure.  And there is some very cute word art on this cartridge!  It's really a fun cartridge made up of happy little characters!

The other card (picture at the top of this post) was an invitation I did for my grandson's 1st birthday party.  

I used some very old (greater than 5 years!) Making Memories paper and some plain old cardstock and kraft paper I had around.  I used a Fiskar's border punch.  The little horsie was run through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder.  Simple but cute for his little western themed party.
Here is a picture of AG on his birthday in his western wear.  Howdy Pahdnuh!  Wow...he'll be 2 in 3 more months!  I guess I'd better be thinking of an invitation design!

I also entered this in the CAS-Friday challenge (to use a border punch)...I think it's Clean and Simple...don't you?

Cricut Challenge 10: Country Life

I LOVE THIS CARD!  You know how it is...sometimes you just make something and just love it!  I loved this finished card so much that when I showed it to my husband I asked him if I should just send it to him so that we could keep it in the family!!!  I have issues...I know...I know...

Today's cartridge is the really cute Country Life.  The more I look at it the more I see some really cute things on this cartridge.  First of all there are some really cute country images...farmers, farm animals, foods, vintage looking images, as well as a great fonts, a banner and other nice features. 

I did another card from this cartridge back in April....you can see it here if you'd like.

For this SEW SWEET card I used papers from DCWV Linen Closet (including the cardstock stack)

and a sheet of chocolate brown cardstock I happened to have on hand.  I always love when I can find things to use I have on hand! 

I used my Gypsy and my Expression 2 and cut all images and layers at 4 inches (this card is actually a 5x7 card).  It assembled nicely...I just used my Zig 2 Way glue pen (the greatest)

 and all those little babies just adhered nicely!

The measuring tape and the Sew Sweet sentiment are Unity Stamps (love that brand...those stamps are such great quality!)...and are cobranded stamps with Cosmo Cricket and are from the Material Girl sets.  The top label is an EK Success punch and the label that I used as a mat is the Fillable Frame Die from Paper Trey Ink.

I added some metal flat head beads and did a little pen work on the sewing machine as well as a little dark brown satin ribbon I picked up at JoAnn, etc.

and that's it.  It really is SEW cute!  I don't think the picture does it justice but trust me....it is adorable if I say so myself.   Don't you just love that vintage sewing machine?  It reminds me of my grandmother.... :)

Happy Crafting!

Cricut Challenge 9: Cindy Loo

When the Cindy Loo cartridge first came out I just HAD TO HAVE IT!  I actually have used it already...on a scrapbook layout I completed a few months back...but I've only used it once or twice to date.  One good thing about this challenge for me is it makes me really sit down with the handbook and look at the different items and features. Cindy Loo is a great cartridge that has some really cute flourishes and filligrees, frames, borders and fonts.  I decided to make 2 cards with it.  The first one I did shown here

was done with the flower image on page 52 of the Handbook.  I cut out all pieces at 3 1/2 inches ...there are 5 different layers done with 4 different feature keys.  (I actually used my Gypsy with my Expression 2 and it worked just fine!) I spritzed the flowers with water, crumpled them up and left them to dry.  Once dry I painted then with the Ranger Ink Distress Crackle Paint Clear Rock Candy to give it a little sheen

and let that dry.  I layered the flowers and put big piece of Teresa Collins bling in the center.  The papers I used were from the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely 6x6 pad

 as well as some stock cardstock I had around.  I cut the really cute scalloped edge with a Paper Trey Ink Edgers die ( am crazy about that die...works so well and leaves such a beautifully shaped edge).  I used a little Zing bright yellow-green (or is it green-yellow?) Zing embossing powder for the sentiment (which was stamped with "hello" from the  PTI Mat Stack 3 collection).  The yellow grosgrain ribbon is from Stampin' Up.

Such a happy card!

The second card I made was done with Crate Paper Portrait papers. 

I used one of the fancy filigree cuts (the one I used is on page 30).  And here it is:

I tied some ribbon through the center of the layered filigree and placed the image on a rectangle of kraft paper which had been run through a paper crimper.

I added some inking and some crystals and that was it!

Easy Peasy!

Hope you have a wonderful crafting day!

Cricut Challenge 8: B is for Boys (Lite)

Last night I worked on a companion page for the layout I posted yesterday (with the Boys Will be Boys cartridge).  I wasn't quite able to finish it but decided I'd share what I'd done anyway....I need to get a few photos developed to finish it off and add a few more embellishments, I think.
My grandson, David...is ALL boy....it amazes me that at 21 months he is all about cars, trucks, planes, tractors, "cottadoos"...anything that moves!  He has stuffed animals which he has little interest in...if it has wheels or moves he loves it. 
We got him this Little Tikes car for Christmas and he loves scooting around in it.  I had seen on the B is for Boys cartridge that there was the shape for that little car and I thought that would be adorable on a layout.  The Lite cartridges are available exclusively at Walmart (well, excluding places like eBay) and frankly I think they are sort of high priced at $39.99 a cartridge.   They generally have quite a few images but they don't have very many feature keys.  Still...I couldn't resist buying a few! Of course...
So here is my partially finished layout... I am still going to add a few things to bring it up to snuff!

Again I used Echo Park papers and American Crafts, Bazzill and Coredinations cardstock.

And here are a few pictures of David in his little car...

David calls cars "Car-Car".  I love his language!  



Cricut Challenge 7: Boy Will be Boys

It sure was great to get in my craft room last night and make something!  I am so far behind on my scrapbooking!  I have so enjoyed making cards recently but know I need to be doing a bit more scrapping, too.  So, this challenge to use the Boys Will be Boys cartridge I thought would be perfect for a little layout of my grandson, David (A.G.).
This is a wonderful cartridge with some really cute boy items...cars, trucks, sports equipment, etc....plus it has a couple of cute fonts.  It also has some really cute word art, too!
Here is my layout:

What is a "cottadoo" you ask?  Why it's a helicopter as said by my nearly 21 month old grandson.  He consistantly calls a helicopter a "cottadoo".  I just love hearing him say it.  I know he thinks he is saying "helicopter" but "cottadoo" is how it comes out.  So I decided to do a layout of a remote controlled "cottadoo" that his daddy was playing with.  On the inaugural flight it got tangled up in some blinds and we all had a good laugh over that.  I have yet to get the photos delivered...will hopefully pick them up in the next couple of days to finish this off.
I cut the helicopter and layers out at about 4 inches and added a few pieces of metal bling:

I used the Spellbinders Eleven labels to make the journaling block.  I ran the red mat through my Cuttlebug with the Circles and Dots embossing folder and added the metal bling to that as well. 

The title was cut out with the Alphabet cartridge that comes pre-installed on the Cricut.  I think this turned out pretty well...and it really didn't take very long to do. 

My next cartridge is the B is for Boys Lite Cartridge and I think I'll make a companion page to this with the same papers.

By the way...the printed papers were by Echo Park (love that paper....it's double sided) and I also used American Crafts and Bazzill cardstock.

Happy Crafting and see you later!

Lucky ME!

I just found out I was a winner over at Keshet's OVER THE RAINBOW blog. Yay Me and Yay Keshet!  Looking forward to my surprises!  Thanks, Keshet!

I had all intentions of going to my craft room and play with my toys yesterday but was just too tired after having my grandson spend the night so didn't make it down there!  But I got a good night's rest and maybe I'll get something going later.

BUT...I'm most excited about heading to Archiver's to shop as of course I NEED more and my 30% off coupon is wearing a hole in my iPhone screen.  (OK, you just can't say "Burning a hole in my pocket" for a virtual coupon, you know?)

Have a great Father's Day...don't work too hard and make some time for some creativity! (or shopping!

Baby Photography

As I've mentioned before I love dabbling in photography.  I sure have a lot to learn and lighting seems to be my biggest challenge.  I especially love indoor portraits (well, I like taking portraits outside, too) but inside lighting can create difficult situations in terms of getting something with the right amount of exposure.  I probably should learn to shoot in RAW so I can make adjustments more easily but I'm just a tad to lazy right now to learn that.
Anyway, here are some photos I've taken of NBG (ok...so her name is Taylor)  in the past week and a half:

I love baby feet...so cute and wrinkled!

Our diva in training....

Our little prima dona...

A mother's love...

Held up by her parents' hands...symbolizing the support that she will need need from them...

We have a shot similar to this of her big brother taken in the hospital when he was just a day or two old so my daughter wanted to duplicate it ...

So precious, so innocent, so pure....

*but one day she will be a teenager!

Not Around the Corner but Not too Far...

I got a few emails and comments about my returning home today.  I probably make it sound like I'm going across state lines but in reality my daughter and her family only live about 20 miles from me.  Just a bit northeast of me a bit...but still in metro Atlanta.  She lives quite close to Archiver's....I'm so glad she decided to move there and perhaps in a few years hubby and I will sell our home and move out that way.  It takes me 35-45 minutes depending on the traffic so not bad at all.  I see her several times a week...but I just won't be spending the night here. 
Their new house has an "Omie room"...it's my room and doubles as a guest room when I'm not here so I am very comfy.  I even have my own bathroom!  I'm very lucky, indeed!
My daughter has been complaining that we only have a few pictures of me holding New Baby Girl which is true since I am the family photographer...so today I handed the camera to her and she snapped this one of me and NBG.  NBG is 15 days old today and look....my daughter captured a smile! :)
NBG looks big but it's really just because I'm little!  She's about 7 lbs. now. 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Heading Back to Reality...

Today I will be heading home after 2 weeks here at my daughter's helping her following the birth of my second grandchild.  We have had a wonderful 2 weeks and I'll miss being here!  I am looking forward to getting back into my craft room, though...and getting myself covered up with paper and adhesive!

I went to Micheal's the other night as I said...I had some time to kill...wasn't really looking for anything in particular but I love looking for the clearance items.  It's sort of like a little scavenger hunt because I just walk up and down the aisles looking for the clearance tags.  I did find a few good buys, I think....

Here are the things I bought:

1. 6 rolls of ribbon at $1.50 a roll.

2. 2 Jolee's Hotfix Swaroski Crystals which I can use with my Irock at $3.50 a box (they are usually $4.99 a box)

3. 3 Pack of Paint Dabbers at $4.99 (I used my 50% off coupon on this item)

4. A 2" Recollections Border punch on cleanance for $5.99

5. An EK Success Heavy Duty Corner Rounder punch also on clearance for $5.99.  I do have other corner rounder punches (like a Corner Chomper) but I love the way these EK Success punches fit in my hand and are smaller yet sturdy enough to cut through chipboard)

Can't wait to get these things home, opened and slapped on some paper! :)

And here is a photo I took yesterday of my beautiful daughter, handsome son in law and gorgeous grandchildren:

Bold Backgrounds: Card 4 (Or How to Make a Mess with Paint!!!)

This is the last card in the "How to Make a Mess with Paint" series.  I actually found myself at Michael's this evening (how DID I get there?!) and actually bought a 3 pack of Paint Dabbers...so maybe I'll Dabble  (haha...get it?  Dabber...Dabble...HAHA!) in a little more paint in the future.
Anyway...here is the last card we made at Archiver's during my recent class.  I didn't design this....kudos again to the Archiver's design team as this card was very cute, too!

Isn't it lovely?

The first thing we did was paint all 4 edges of the basic kraft A2 card.  We took another piece of cardstock that measured about 4" by 5 1/4" and used it to make a background.  We did this by taking a large stamp called the Classic Fabric Design Cling Stamp (love that Damask look which is so popular right now!)

dabbed some paint on it, laid it face up on the table, put our cardstock piece over it....ran a brayer over it and we had a fabulous printed background!  I love this method!

We stamped "Kindness" on a small piece of canvas and frayed the edges a bit.  We had stamped and cut out the large blue flower and then used Crackle Paint on it...we also glammed up some paper flowers by using Glimmer Glaze...added some bling, a painted piece of twine and a painted button.  I really loved the result...don't you?

Creative Chaos



Christina from Creations with Christina has asked us to show our crafting spaces.

I love my Creative Chaos!

I use that term a lot...it's how I justify my big mess!  I am pretty lucky in that I have a huge room for my scrapbooking stuff in my basement.  I have lots of space...but don't you know...there is a direct correlation between how much space you have and how much stuff you acquire??!!  HAHA!  So I went from a 4 foot table with two Iris carts in my bedroom at my old house to  big room with a couple of 6 foot tables, a couple of 4 foot tables, more storage units, shelves, etc.....but it AIN'T PURDY!  I envy those of you who have nice, pretty and inspirational spaces....I know I could paint my walls but that just requires way too much effort!  Maybe some day... :)  And in my room there is a door to the outside...a door to a storage room ... a door to a closet and a door to the main part of the house....so there is a good bit of wall space used up by doors and windows....I just don't have much room for hanging pretty things.  But I love my room and I'm lucky to have it and thank my lucky starts that my DH supports the accumulation of even more stuff! :)....in fact Paper Trey Ink has will have their new stuff available tomorrow and I'm already drooling over what to buy! 

Oh...and this only shows about half my room...the other half has paper storage, my die cut machines, my ribbon stash, my sewing machine and more stuff that I absolutely NEEDED TO HAVE!

:)

Happy Crafting!

Bold Backgrounds: Card 3 (Or How to Make a Mess with Paint!!!)





And here, my friends, we have Card #3 in my How to Make a Mess With Paint and pass it off as an oh so cute and artsy card!  Did I succeed??? :)

Acutally, of course, this is NOT my design...I give all credit to the designers at Archiver's (now THAT would be a fun job, huh?)...I was just taught how to make it.

I liked this card a lot...and it was really pretty simple to make.

We took an A2 kraft cardstock sized card...and then took a mat which was approximately 4" by 5 1/4" of kraft cardstock, as well. We took the poppy colored Paint Dabber and a blue (I believe it was Peacock) Paint Dabber and just stroked it horizontally across the page to create a background "print"...  I LOVE THESE 2 COLORS TOGETHER!  Once it dried we stamped it with a big Hero Arts Stamp called Antique Writing which is shown below:

What a great stamp!  We covered it with the Espresso Paint Dabber and put it face up on the table...our dried (but painted) mat that we had just created and then ran a brayer over it.  I don't know about you but sometimes with larger stamps I don't get good impression over the whole image.  Using the brayer really helped...we didn't use an acrylic block...just the stamp, the paper and a brayer.  Smart technique, I thought!

We also painted about a 2" by 2" inch area with green...waited for it to dry and then stamped it with the large butterfly image on the stamp above...waited for it to dry and then cut it out.  Then we covered it with Rock Candy Crackle Paint:

(Love that stuff and yeah, I bought some after the class!)
We stamped "Friend" on a small piece of painted cardstock.... stamped the sentiment on some other cardstock...painted a small paper flower...used a few staples from the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher:


(If you don't have one of these babies...trust me...you NEED one! You can click on the image above to see it at Amazon.com.)
Added a little twine and some bling...and VOILA!...a cute card for a good friend!
I really liked this one...loved how we used the paints to make the background...I think these techniques make you look like you've created something rich and with a lot of work but really it was pretty simple.

Bold Backgrounds: Card 2 (Or How to Make a Mess with Paint!!!)

Here is the second card made Sunday at Archivers in the Bold Backgrounds class I took:

We made 4 cards during this class and the theme was using paint...especially for backgrounds.  

The first thing we did was to take a paint dabber like one of these here:

to run around the four edges of the outside of the card (no need to paint the whole card as we were putting the mat sized corrugated paper over it).  The color we used was aptly called Raspberry.
We did have a corrugated piece of paper and we rubbed a Sandal Pint Dabber over the raised edges for a little distressed look.  We stamped the sentiment on Kraft cardstock...the sentiment was from the Live and Laugh Words set by Hero Arts and cut the sentiment apart into 3 pieces edging each with a Paint Dabber. These were adhered to the card front with Pop Dots.  We stamped a flower image 3 times cutting them out with a 2 inch punch and a 1 1/2 inch punch.... The large flower on the bottom left has a bit of Distressed Stickles added to it.  To make the flower on the stem we just sort of freehanded some notched out areas to give it the look of petals.  We also punched out a circle and painted it and edged it with a contrasting color for a little more dimension.  I freehand cut the stem and leaves and painted those...and then ran an Espresso Paint Dabber on the edges. They were also adhered with pop dots.  I love the way that flower turned out!  This card was actually fairly simple and was put together really quickly.
And I love that corrugated paper and the effect it gives.  Note to self: Buy a sheet of that!
As I mentioned...I don't know how heavily I will get into painting....I'm sort of an impatient cardmaker or scrapper and don't always like waiting for things to dry...but I will admit that the Paint Dabbers are easy to work with and the paints dry relatively quickly.
I did buy the sentiment stamp set mentioned above....I liked the boldness of the sentiments.  I am a sentiment junkie, anyway...I love them...big ones, little ones, fancy ones, simple ones....love them all!

Card 3 will be presented tomorrow so stay tuned!