Friday, November 28, 2008

A Touch of Asia



I made a set of 8 cards for Cathy's birthday gift. The idea evolved like this:
I know Cathy likes Asian-themed cards. I pulled out my Asian frame stamps (Magenta) thinking I am going to make some square cards. I pulled out all my Yuzen papers, but none coordinate with the cs I wanted to do the frame stamps with. I put away the frame stamps. I dig through my drawer of cards & envelope sets. I have exactly 4 of theses hand-made India cards in each color. I perused my 6x6 Yuzen papers and found 2 squares that went with each card. I cut them into 1.5" strips (yea, no scraps!) I mounted each strip on white cs, added ribbon, then layered on gold metallic cs. I added the 2 Queen & Co. white flowers with some gold brads. Wow! That fit the length of the card exactly (4.5"x 6.25"). Dumb luck! I'd rather be lucky than smart :) The India paper is rather flimsy, so I added rectangles of white cs to the inside, which will also allow Cathy to write easily. Now for a sentiment...how about some Class-A-Peels? Done!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Sweets for the Sweet!


I am overdue on some thank you notes. I made two like this one...with one exception :) See that flower over the sentiment? When my daughter 's morning cod liver oil went airborne, a splat went on the card. I covered it up by trying to create a flower like one in the dp.
Didja notice I used my Nesties?
To my American friends: have a happy turkey day tomorrow! DH & I will take the girls to my maternal grandparents. This is my FAVORITE holiday :)

Monday, November 24, 2008

Celebrate!


I made this birthday card for someone special. Her birthday is TODAY! Happy Birthday, Cathy :)
I used my Nesties for the circles and scallop square. The cs is Bazzill, the dp is My Mind's Eye, The base card and mini brads are DCWV, the rub-on is Creative Imaginations, the felt flowers are SU!, and the white ribbon is from Michael's.
Make it a great day!

Friday, November 21, 2008

Teacher Appreciation Cards

I did not get any cards made yesterday for my grandmother, so I decided to give her a few of these that I completed last week. I CASEd this card from my SU friend, Sue. We made a card almost exactly like this at her open house in August. The only difference was we used SU brown dp with tiny white polka dots. I had this polka dot dp in my self-addressed.com stash.

I am saving the rest for teacher appreciation in May. Now if I could just get ready for Christmas :)

I hope to "see" you Monday. Remember I'll be in Indiana (leaving in a bit), so I won't be blogging before then. Make it a great weekend!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Paisley Appreciation

I fly to Indiana this weekend for my step-grandmother's 90th birthday party. I wanted to make her a large set of thank you notes. I was hoping to make a set of 10 or more. I've made two. Two like this one. Hmmmm. I don't know why it took me so long just to make these two cards. I hope I have better luck tomorrow :)

The sentiment stamp is SU (I used my Nesties to do this!) The purple and light green cs is Bazzill. The dp is DCWV pad "Once Upon A Time." The metallic ribbon is old old old stash. And the paisley dry embossing is a Cuttlebug embossing folder :)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Got Some Verve Goin' On


I have 3 months of card kits dh bought me for Mother's Day 3 years ago that has not been used. They were from self-addressed.com (no longer in existence). The kits came with 6x6 coordinating dps and embellies. They are great little kits, but the girls were only three years old at the time and I never got around to using the stash. I thought I would design cards using the entire sheets of 6x6 so there would be no scraps. I never got around to it, but Julee did! I followed her guidelines, adding some SU chocolate chip cs and dimensionals, QK icings, BBP sentiment stamp & primas, a Hero Arts sentiment stamp, and DCWV & ProvoCraft brads.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Oh, Boy!

Oh, boy! Six days since my last post. Where is the time going? I don't even know what I've accomplished this week. Until yesterday...(stay tuned; I'll explain at the end of the post).
I did finally get a chance to get into my craft room. I have sold all of my baby boy cards at both stores, but I still have plenty of baby girl cards. Oh, boy! I made six like this. It feels nekkid; I wanted ribbon, but couldn't come up with anything. The oval stamp (SU) "Little bundle of JOY" has stars (one tiny one on the left and one tiny one on the right). I remember my SU silvers kit has these large brads with stars. I remembered because I wondered when I would ever use them. Funny how often I think that, and I usually end up using it and it is one of the first things I use. The dp is DCWV; the blue is Bazzill cs. The dp has glitter on the pufts of smoke, so I used my Sakura to add glitter to the SU stamp stars and stroller. This card seems really dull to me...the case of the missing mojo...
Next I tried to finish up a set of cards I started 2 months ago. I'll post those tomorrow. Still feel like my mojo is out of focus, but they are done. Now I need to make a birthday card for my friend, Reagan. Her birthday is tomorrow! I'll be a day late, I guess :(
So after I finished these cards, I started a load of laundry and went to the basement to see if dh and the girls were ready for breakfast. The girls were watching Doug finish playing our Wii fit (we've had for 10 days and we are totally addicted.) I decided to go ahead and weigh in and play a balance game (I love the one with the balls!) When I was at the second level, I heard water running. I said to dh, "I think the girls left the water running in the bathroom sink." Doug checked, but no, that was not the case. Water was dripping out of the ceiling vent in the bathroom, which was coming from the floor vent in the laundry room. Oh, boy! Doug ran upstairs and yelled for me to come up. There was a lot of water in the laundry room, ready to overflow into the kitchen. So you now know how our Sunday morning went :)
Here is the good part. I am a classic tangential thinker. In fact, my blog friend, Leslie (and now real life friend too...we've met twice in person) posted a funny read on this very topic:
After the water was finally soaked up and dh was wringing out the towels, sheets, beach towels, and rags we used to soak it up, I started to clean behind the dryer. I've had this on my "to do" list for a while, so now was the perfect time. So I went under the kitchen sink for my cleanser, where I noticed the large container of soft soap was nearly empty. So I re-filled the soap dispenser so I could recycle the container and clean out under the sink at the same time. There was a ring on the laundry room floor from a paint can we used to paint the girls' bedroom, so I also needed an SOS pad. Kathryn asked for some juice, so when I went in the refrigerator, I saw that some beef I defrosted had blood that went down the shelf and soaked the base of the fridge (inside the fridge, but under the bottom drawer vegetable crisper.) So I pulled that drawer out and started scouring that nasty mess up. While I had out the SOS pad I did go scrub off that rust ring on the laundry room floor. I've also wanted to go through the door of the fridge. ~6 months ago my doctor found I have a sensitivity to fructose. I am not supposed to have any fructose or sucrose, and absolutely no artificial sweeteners. That translates into almost no condiments, dressings, or sauces/marinades which I keep on the fridge door. (Don't pity me; I've lost 15 pounds and I'm off my blood pressure medicine. My doc says undiagnosed sensitivities can cause lots of health problems and for me this was weight gain and high blood pressure even though I eat healthy.) As I started filling up counter space with condiments to be dumped and containers rinsed to recycle, I noticed the 25 lb. box of almonds that I recently purchased, that I stuck in the laundry room when it arrived, but was now taking up counter space from the flood :) So I went into my cabinets where I keep my Tupperware containers for storage/leftovers. I pulled out my largest containers until the almonds were neatly put away. We have plenty of these containers for leftovers and pantry items, but sometimes we keep tubs from store bought items as containers. Why? I decided to clean out this cabinet now. In less than 5 minutes, I put all the store bought containers in our recycle bin and the cabinet is neat and organized. While I re-org'ed the containers, dh dumped the condiments, rinsed the containers, and put them in the recycle bin. Back to the fridge: Oh, boy! These shelves are dirty. I pull them all out and start washing. DH politely tolerates these episodes of mine. He lovingly calls them my "panic mode". He dried the shelves while I washed. You may be thinking I should nominate him for dh of the year, right? My spree did not end there. We also did our deck (it is windy here in the 'burg, and our furniture blows around out there and our grill cover blows off.) In less than 10 minutes, we threw away some summer toys the girls used and destroyed, we swept up all the leaves, straightened up the furniture, and covered the grill.
I did the kitchen pantry and lazy susan corner cabinet last weekend for the annual food drive. Our entire house is purged and clean now except for the basement and my craft room. I do these area house purges every few months. I like my house neat and orderly, and cleaning out is very liberating. I've also been inspired recently by Oprah's Peter Walsh de-cluttering homes. He advises getting rid of anything you have not used in a year. I can't quite do that. Especially in my craft room! But I continually work toward this goal. I especially would love a craft room makeover :)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Miss You & Love You

I tried using one of Julee's Mojo sketches (#50)with that Cloud 9 dp, dimensional sticker, and chipboard sticker (see below) I don't want to put away. I had just one dimensional sticker left, so I used it on this first card. I did not do Julee's sketch justice.

Julie, an awesome teacher assistant that works with my daughter, Julia (confused yet? Julee, Julie, & Julia???) asked for "I miss you" cards for her to send to her special guy.



This one is too plain. I probably should have stamped in Versamark to create a patterned paper or something. Any suggestions??? The sentiment is a QuicKutz icing (rub-on).

Monday, November 10, 2008

Oh, Lilo!

I took the We R Memory Keepers "Lilo Thoughts" I had cut out to make these four cards posted today.

These first two include dimensionals and black grossgrain (Michael's.)


The second card has some scrap black cs, dimensionals, and two MM mini brads.



And this one does not have a Lilo thought, but a SU sentiment from the Upsy Daisy set. This card is ~ 5x7. The card base is my very last Magenta card base from my stash. I love when I use stash up! I also used SU punches: large oval behind the sentiment in black cs; punch for the sentiment; slot punch for the scallops.
I hope your Monday was a good one! "See" you tomorrow :)

Friday, November 7, 2008

From Scraps to Sketch...June Houck Style

I have this 12x12 We R Memory Keepers "Lilo Thoughts" among my autumn dps...I think I purchased ~5 years ago :) I used it with some coordinating "Lilo" WeRMK dps back then to make a thank you card. Until yesterday. Yesterday I randomly cut some sentiments from it.

You know the Wild Asparagus "I Love You" card from yesterday's post? I eked three cards from it, leaving two little rectangles & one small square of scrap. Those three little scraps inspired the following sketches of my very own :)

This was the first card. I am so happy with it! Sweet & simple. Very ME.


This one is just okay for me.




And I like this third card. Is my mojo back on? On this one I broke out my Nestibilities (square scallop) that my parents and dh gave me for my birthday a month ago today :) I've waited MONTHS for these babies. I saw so many cards that inspired me on various blogs and I would think, "If only I had Nesties!" Now I have them and couldn't make anything come together using them until now :) I popped up the square on dimensionals. All cs is Bazzill and the 3 card bases are all DCWV.
Make it a great day!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I Love You, Giant Cupcake

I cleaned up my Halloween dps and embellies and pulled out autumn papers. I was having trouble making anything come together in my head or coordinate with my DCWV card bases. (I was looking for quick & easy.) I found this one sheet of Wild Asparagus ds dp. It does not match perfectly with the pale yellow DCWV (you know I like perfectly coordinating papers...one of my Monkish qualities.) So I left a thinner border...less than 1/8". The blue is the opposite side of the floral dp. I used a scrap piece of the WA dp for the tag (a QuicKutz die). I wish now I had cut the corners of the floral dp to coordinate with the tag, but I glued it down good. I tried to use my Un-du, but the paper wanted to tear. Oh well. I found this pale yellow ribbon in my CTMH stash. The brown rub-ons (tag outline and sentiment) are QuicKutz icings.


How did I do trying to channel Lauren? I scribble doodled with my CM black marker.
The dps are from my Cloud 9 Design pack. Hey, it is still sitting on my table...I might as well use it...easier than trying to find a place to put it away :)
The mustard and dark red cs are both Bazzill. The white card base is DCWV. For the Hb sentiment I used SU punches and stamp. The chocolate brown mini brads are American Crafts from ACMoore.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

So Sweet of You set of Cards II

So sweet of you to not give up on me. I have not created anything for over a week.

I needed to: #1 make two more thank you notes and #2 re-build my card stash for the coffee shops. I still had my little pack of Cloud 9 Design papers out, so I decided to go with those. The paper coordinated fairly well with these DCWV card bases. The stamp is SU and I used my SU chocolate chip ink pad. The floral brads are Provo Craft that I purchased at Mike's (I think). Very few brain cells left; I gave them to my children. The blues coordinate much better IRL; trust me on this, okay?

I made a set of So Sweet of You cards on September 5th using SU scraps. This is a different sketch, and I used Cloud 9 dps. I love using my scallop circle punch and it works so well with this stamp too.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope I never let 8 days go by again without creating/posting. It seems like forever. I'll be back tomorrow, since I need to re-build my card stash. Birthday cards are my biggest seller, so I will probably make same giant cupcake cards and ***hopefully*** channel the uber-talented Lauren :)