Post 101...

Wow, my 100th post was on Friday the 13th!! I thought it might be bad luck to celebrate that, so I will celebrate post 101! YIPPEE!! I have only been blogging since July and it is surprising how much more confident I feel about my style and abilities. I have participated in lots of challenges and spent hours researching, watching videos, looking pictures, magazines, and other blogs to learn and improve. The challenges have motivated me to create. The videos have taught me techniques and craftsmanship. The pictures give me inspiration and ideas. Blogging has improved my paper crafting ten-fold. I love it!! Last week, I mentioned that I was busy...well, I went from a Sunday to a Sunday and I didn't create anything!! So on Sunday night, I organize my craft room and made 8 cards. Yesterday I organized pictures all morning and started scrapbooking my wedding stuff. Today I will work on that a bit more and I am going to a friend's to crop.



Okay, so here is the story with these cards. I challenged myself to use scraps, and a new big letter stamp set that a friend traded me. She ordered two 2 capital letter stamp sets and she didn't know what to do with this set, so I happily took them off her hands so that I could experiment with this Close to My Heart Giggle Caps letter set. Other things on this card include a Martha Stewart butterfly and cupcake punch, CTMH rhinestones, and some buttons and shipboard that were cluttering up my scrapspace. I used mostly Desert sand ink as it matches craft cardstock perfectly.









Oh, and when I was cleaning, I found these great metal-rimmed tags....after I just ordered some new ones so I thought I would use these up too.




The blue card is a mini-3-by-3 using twilight cardstock.

Memory Keeper box workshop pictures

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you were too busy and too worn out to make anything? This is one of those weeks for me. I have been going to bed early to get use to the time change and when I get home I just feel like I don't have any energy so I put my pjs on right away and veg on the couch for an hour or two.

Whew!! I had a workshop Monday night, we worked on Memory Keeper boxes. On Tuesday, I got up super early to go to Jefferson City for YOUTH ART MONTH. Four of my students had art on display at the Capitol. On Wednesday and Thursday I hosted an exhausting after school art club.

Here are a few pictures of the Memory Keeper boxes. (I just realized that I am missing one!!) All of the ladies in the workshop have different styles and tastes. I love that their boxes reflect their individual personalities. A few were making these as gifts, but I just love how they turned out. The boxes and paper packs are from Close to My Heart. Sorry about the bad lighting, it was night time!

Spongebob NO pants and the Pink BOA

This week at school we are painting cupcakes. I am reading a book to my students, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake". A boy actually looked up at me on Monday and said, "This is boring."

Ugh!! I decided that I needed to spice up the lesson and make it more interesting for boys, especially 5-year-old-boys-with-an-attitude. On Tuesday, I got home from school and I wasn't feeling well, I felt like I had a bit of a fever. I decided that I needed to go lay down. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door.

In walked Olivia. This week is her birthday and she knew I wasn't feeling good. In each hand she was holding a cupcake. On top of one cupcake was a little candy Spongebob. On top of the other cupcake was a little candy Patrick. Which one do you think I picked? SPONGEBOB of course!! First thing I did, I took that little candy Spongebob off, and I bit the pants right off of him. I held him up and said look, "It's Spongebob NO pants!!" And then I ate the rest of him and the sprinkle covered cupcake too....and you know what? After that I felt a lot better. I told this story to every class the rest of the week, and they laughed and laughed.

I decided to make Olivia something extra special for her birthday. Today is her birthday party so I went shopping. My first idea was to get her an art kit and a sketch pad. But as I wandered around Hobby Lobby I decided that I needed something else for her...I saw a big pink fuzzy boa....perfect!!

From there I put together an odds and ends assortment of cool things including glow-in-the-dark silly putty, hot pink silly string, face paint facial crayons, liquid metals markers, a slinky, and a really cute notebook.

Here are some awesome stickers I found to put inside the notebook!!


Then I made her a matching card.


I just love it when presents match the cards!!

Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge: #22 Singing in the Rain

Yay!! I was super excited to wake up and make cards today. This challenge was the perfect thing to give me that inspirational jump start. At 8:00 a.m. it was sunny and over 75 degrees...now at almost 3 p.m. it is cloudy, windy, rain is on the horizon and it is closer to 65 degrees. The weather in Missouri is so crazy. I promise I wasn't doing a rain dance when I made this card to the rainy weather is NOT my fault. This card is inspired by the movie Singing in the Rain.

To get the swirled effect in the background, I stamped the spiral design on the inside of the card and used an embossing stylus to make the front appear raised up. Then I sanded the surface of the Twilight blue cardstock to reveal the white cardstock core.



The big daisy was stamped with Versamark and then covered with white embossing powder. This week's requirement is to add something related to water to the card, to an acetate card, to anything that shows some water-ish element to the card. I decided to use Crystal Blue organdy ribbon, a clear flower embellishment, skittles beads, and liquid glass on top of the umbrella. The little quote around the umbrella says: "Live in sunshine, it can't rain all the time." I thought this summed up the movie quite well.



Everything on this card is CTMH except the lightest blue paper, that is from Cosmo Cricket...oh, and the skittles beads....they came from a friend. Other accessories, scallop scissors, Martha Stewart punch.

First FIVE to post a comment get a goodie!!

So to anyone that doesn't make cards, this may sound a little creepy. I woke up very early this morning, like 4:30....and it is Saturday so I was excited to get a sip of water and then lay back down so I could sleep in. Suddenly, all I could think about was cards. I am preparing for a card workshop in April and need to design 5 cards. As I was laying in bed, I dozed off thinking about them....and every time I rolled over I realized that I was dreaming about making cards. I was picturing paper, layouts, embellishments. I was imagining stamping, cutting and arranging. Ha ha!! Anyway, I am excited to get up today because it is beautiful outside. The sun is shining, birds are chirping and it is going to be really nice today, close to 80 degrees!! I am having lunch with my mom and other than that I plan to make some cards as soon as I finish this blog.

I have never really had any blog candy or contests on my blog before, but I thought I would offer something really great today to celebrate spring. I make a lot of things and I love to give them away. I found some really great inspiration today over at Sarah's Paper Tray. I am one of the first five to post a comment.

Now, it's my turn to pay it forward. The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you! This offer does have a few “rules of play”:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make --- but I hope you do!
2- What I create will be just for you --- one of a kind!
3- It'll be done sometime this year (most likely it will be in the next month).
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. Well, a pretty good bet it will be made of paper!
5-The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog!

The first 5 people to leave a comment win a handmade card or gift (or both!) by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! So....who will be the first 5 people?

Even if you aren't in my first five, why not start this on your blog, too? Spread more love FASTER! Ready, set.....who will the first five be??

Memory Keeper box for my Cards

This week's color inspiration challenge is gorgeous!! I love brown and pink. Tonight I made this box for my cards using 2 challenge prompts. The first one of course is the color inspiration challenge and the second prompt I utilized is from The Creative Type blog. This week's prompt left me in stitches! The goal is to use stitching for the lettering on our creation. For the first time, I hand-stitched the lettering on my title. This totally reminded me of Jr. High home economics class.

One of the projects we had to do was make a pillow with hand embroidered names on the front. I got really into embroidery floss and hand stitching. My mom still has the pillow and it has names of my Jr. High classmates, some are first names, some are last names and some are nicknames. I don't even remember who the nicknames are or why they had that nickname...but it is lovingly stitched on the pillow.

I remember getting together with a friend to sew one Saturday afternoon. I threaded the big embroidery needle and realized that I forgot something like scissors. I was sitting on the bed with a friend and I set the pillow down and stuck the needle in the mattress and ran to get the scissors. When I came back I hopped back up on the bed and the eye of the needle went straight into my knee!!! I freaked out! The thread was sticking out and so was the pointy end of the needle. I sent my friend to get my dad. He came in with pliers and carefully pulled it out. I don't remember it being sore or hurting all that much, but it was pretty tramatic...I was in jr. high so every thing was so much more dramatic.

Needless to say, I took shop in high school and steered clear of home ec. Haha....shop is way more dangerous than sewing, but I had had enough! Now I wish I knew how to sew, I haven't threaded a sewing machine since jr. high, but I have used some major power tools so I guess that is a plus...

Anyway, I had fun stitching the letters and I did quite a bit of painting on this box. I mixed brown paint to make all of the elements coordinate. I really like how it turned out...even my husband said "WOW" when he saw me putting the finishing touches on it. Hope you enjoy!!






Supplies used: CTMH unless otherwise noted.
Chipboard 'a' Basic Grey
Chipboard leaf and shape Basic Grey
White screen print overlay, Hambly

Emporium Cube

I love designing workshops!! It is so fun to teach people how to use up their materials. I do lots of 'research'. I read crafting magazines, I look at blogs, I pay attention to trends in the scrapbooking and card making industry so that I can design things that are current. I love being an art teacher, it is sort of the same. I like to tailor what I am doing at school to things that are popular now...not necessarily cartoons, but trends like butterflies, cupcakes, owls and even Matryoshkas.






Here is a cube workshop that utilizes basic paper cutting, a Martha Stewart punch, and the beautiful new Emporium paper from Close to My Heart. I have been showing this at home gatherings encouraging mom's to sign up with their daughters or to let me teach a workshop/birthday class for a party. I have had a lot of positive feedback and this is such an easy thing to make!! Enjoy!

Ohmygosh, I totally won!

Check it out!

Wow, I can't believe I won something!!

Simple Anytime Cards

Last night I got out an oldie-but-goodie stamp set and had some fun making some spring cards. I paired the stamps up with a new paper color, sorbet, and some new mini-medley white daisy accents. Other colors include chocolate and clover meadow. I just love the watermelon colors mixed with brown and white. These cards are some of my new favorites. I did some embossing with my paper trimmer and bone folder, sanding for a distressed look and some faux stitching with a white gel pen. I really like how these simple cards turned out. Enjoy!! (Everything is from Close to My Heart except the big silver brad and the dark green ribbon.)

Butterfly Map Cards

Have I mentioned lately that I a really, really, really into butterflies? At the crop last night I just couldn't stop using my butterfly punch. I made these great cards based on a design over at an Etsy shop: Bombus. I just fell in love with these cards and I decided to make some myself. They are super simple. The punch is from Martha Stewart. The textured cardstock is from Close to My Heart, the black and white paper is also CTMH and the map is vintage from an atlas.