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Friday, June 29, 2012

LWR Quilts


Wrapping up the month with one last challenge - this week's Starting Points from Shimelle.  I flipped the sketch vertically and used the single rectangle to hold my title.


 Most of the journaling is hidden under the title.  A few years ago, making these quilts for Lutheran World Relief helped me work through a particularly challenging part of my life.  Creating something useful for someone else was wonderful medicine.  I've made quilts most other years since usually in the summer when business is slower. I wrote about the challenges and my feelings.  The photos are from last summer.



Most of the quilts were made with decorator fabric.  I had tons of stuff I'd bought for making samples for various events and extra fabrics from my own projects.  Most customer fabric is returned to the customer.  Sometimes there are odd size scraps that fit into the quilts.  For the page's embellishment, I used some scraps of decorator fabric to represent the fabrics.



I decided on buttons rather than misting to fill in the empty corner and bring the eye to through the layout.

Unfortunately, I am out of fabric to make quilts for now. It takes about 5 yards per quilt depending on the width of the fabric.   I'll be keeping my eye out for some good sales.  


Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Ingredients:  DSP:  grid paper from Peppermint Collection by Crate Paper; Prairee Hill by Pink Paislee
trim:  Twill tape and pom pom fringe by Stampin' Up!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Rainy's June Card Sketch


June is almost gone!  I can hardly believe it, can you?  With the month drawing to a close, I figured I'd better get busy on some challenges.  Here is my card for Rainy's sketch challenge.  See sketch here.  There are still a couple of days left to get one completed.

This card came together very quickly.  I made a couple of these for my Operation Write Home box.  The stamp is from Stampin' Up!'s new For the Birds.  I tried so hard to resist this set but I just couldn't. One of my stamp baskets is for 'Fun sets.'  It is kind of an all other category for things that aren't flowers, backgrounds, alphas, etc.   I should probably label it Bird Stamps as that is what seems to be in there.  I just love birds and the images in this set were so cute and cover just about everything you might want on a card.


For the ribbon, I combined two twines.  The red is Doodlebug and the blue is Enchanted Evening from Papertrey Ink.  Their twine comes on a pretty, old fashioned spool and is very fine. You could use it for hand sewing.

Thanks for visiting today!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

It's like shoveling snow...


 ...during a blizzard.

One of us is cleaning and one is making more and more of a mess.

This may be my favorite layout so far this year.  Originally I was just going to share what we did on those confining January days.  I resorted to some extra cleaning partially due to boredom but mostly because I had some congestion and thought dust might be a factor.  It wasn't.  Anyway, I was glad I got in a little extra cleaning.

When I started looking at the photos, I couldn't help but notice the contrast of these photos taken on the same day.  I'm uncharacteristically cleaning.  Lenny was and continues to be especially busy this year in his business so his work area just keeps piling up with more and more projects.  I don't even try to clean his work area.  I wouldn't know what was trash and what was treasure!


For the layout, I used Jillibean Soup's Macho Nacho collection as the colors were perfect matches to the photos.  Some Stampin' Up! snowflake stamps and a snowflake punch helped with the embellishments.


There was one bland area in the layout above the photo of my husband so I cut some circles and layered them in a tone-on-tone look to fill the space.



Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  DSP: Jillibean Soup Macho Nacho collection
Stickers:  word - Authentique, letter - October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket
Thickers by American Crafts for titles

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Quint-essential Flower Sampler



Got scraps?  Here is a card that uses lots of little pieces of pattern paper and also the new Quint-essential flower stamp from Stampin' Up!  You could sub a flower or another scallop design here quite easily.

The video also shows a new SU! firm foam ink pad and the Paper Piercing mat pack which has gobs of pretty designs to pierce. Warning though, it is a real enabler.  I just want to go out and buy all kinds of things that coordinate with that mat pack.  Will have to wait on those for now as I've already blown by budget in June so I'll have something to look forward to.

Watch at YouTube


The papers are from Basic Grey's PB&J 6x6 paper pad which has quickly become a favorite.  I love all these bright summer colors.

Thanks for watching!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Lacy and Lovely Sampler



Oh, the goodies in my box from Stampin' Up!  This was my first pick from the new catalog.  It was presented just above the Circle Circus set which has been on my wish list forever.  I love circular elements for cards and pages.  Lacy and Lovely set has those plus 3 beautiful greetings so it moved to the top of the list.


For this card, I cut three circles in Bashful Blue cardstock and filled them in with various images from the set  using colors found in this pretty stripe paper from Fancy Pants.  I took a cue from the SU! catalog and used markers to color the prettiest image - the design with small paisleys and faux stitching.

As I've had time this weekend, I've been editing pictures from our trip.  I hope to get those off to the printer soon.  Isn't it funny, we used to say 'developer' and now it is the 'printer.'  Technology changes everything.

I'm dying to start scrapping some of our events and funny moments.  Of course tomorrow I actually have to get back to work!  I'm kind of looking forward to some routine structure back into my days.  Do you ever feel that way after a vacation?

Tomorrow I'll have a card with another new Stampin' Up! stamp and a video.  Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Lacy and Lovely by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock:  Bashful Blue by SU!; Lemon Tart by PTI
Ink:  Warm Red and Chesnut Roan by Colorbox; Bashful Blue, Crushed Curry and Old Olive by SU!
DSP:  Fancy Pants, Bella Blvd, and October Afternoon

Friday, June 22, 2012

Biltmore and Back


Hi!  I'm sure you recognize this famous residence.  It is the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC.  It is one of the places we took Lenny's daughter, husband and two children on vacation this week.  I have a couple hundred photos to sort through and decide which to scrapbook.

Everyone had a fun visit.  We stayed in a vacation home near Cherokee which was central to many of the activities.  The Biltmore was actually our longest day trip.  We did a variety of things with my husband leading some and me as tour guide for others.  It was a good chance to catch up with everyone.

Two hours after we got home the UPS man arrived with my Stampin' Up! order.  I couldn't have timed it more perfectly!  So this weekend I'll have many projects to try out with lots of new stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be sure to have some cards and pages up soon!


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Thinking beyond the background


Sometimes a busy background stamp can seem kind of limiting.  I wanted to do a little more with this pretty floral one.

For the Large Blossom Hero Arts background stamp, I stamped and then cut the pointed square shape out before coloring.  For the background, I stamped two images knowing the shaped one would cover the seam.  The last use of this background stamp was to create the single flower popped up on top.



Thanks for stopping by today!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Cake Cutter


Thank goodness for Shimelle and a sketch of the week.  I'm having a very busy weekend and needed something to help me get in a quick creative fix.  I used her single photo sketch found here.

This photo is from the 90's when I was cutting the cake at a friend's wedding.  Here is my journaling:

It's an honor to be asked to help with a wedding.  I think I should stay at my post and wait on the bride and groom.  They will be here any minute.  Boy, that buffet looks wonderful.  It's an honor.  Here comes the happy couple!  And the hungry crowd.  Cut faster, cut faster.  It's an honor.  Cut faster.  Keep them coming.  Cut faster.  It's an honor.  Cut faster.  Whew!  What do you mean their is nothing left on the buffet?  It is an honor.

Originally their was to be another lady and I cutting and serving the cake, however, they decided to keep the groom's cake for the reception and serve both.  So the other lady served that cake and I did the wedding cake.  We both cut and served at record speed!  The bride was amazed at how her guests went through the buffet and the cakes. We all thought that mid-afternoon they wouldn't be that hungry but the food was just too good.

Too late, I realized the perfect title for this layout would have been "let them eat cake."  Ah, well, that is what I get for rushing creative genius :-)

One of the hungry crowd was my gynecologist at the time.  Have you ever seen your gynecologist in a social setting?  He looks at me, looks at Lenny and back at me.  Trust me, IT is Weird!

Anyway, it was a beautiful wedding.  I've been fortunate to participate in many other events with my friends.

For the layout I used Echo Park's This and That from Artfuldelight's May kit.  The Storybook cartridge had some cuts that perfectly matched the design of the background paper.  I tried Glitter Girl's ideas for hand journaling something I normally avoid. I can't say I love to do this but it fit in with my need to do something quick.  I used different colors of ink to distinguish my mantra "It is an honor" from the thoughts going through my head as I served.


Hope you are having a good day.  Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Unbearably Cute


Here are my husband and my Mother again.  This time they are posed for the camera with a very decorated bear.  We were never sure what the purpose of the bears were.  They were all over Hendersonville, NC - a lovely little town about 20 miles from Asheville - last summer.  Each bear was painted up differently.  Lenny and Mother picked this one to pose with as he was decked out in black and white, my Mother's favorite and currently what she was wearing.


If scrapbooking were fashion, I'd be committing a major faux pas in mixing black and white and navy.  That pretty little chevron there is actually a dark navy but I don't care. I loved it and all the other pretty papers that coordinate with it from PB&J by Basic Grey.  My husband is wearing dark blue in the photo so I'll use that as my excuse. The 6x6 paper pad is going a long way.

The layout is from Artfuldelight's June challenge.  I'm also entering this at Two Peas for Memory Keeping Monday.  The emphasis this week is on ways to add color and pattern to wooden embellishments.  I misted my heart. The woodgrain shows through the mist so it just has a subtle color. The arrows are embossed in gold.


Also on the layout are some old die cuts from Crate Paper. I love it when I can mix old with new and even black and navy blue!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  DSP:  background is River Rock by SU!; PB&J 6x6 paper pad from Basic Grey
Thickers:  Marquis, Forest and Paperback from American Crafts
Stickers:  Bella Blvd.
Wood embellishments:  Studio Calico
Brads:  Teresa Collins


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Father's Day Card


Boy, Father's Day snuck up on me.  I just got this one done.  The sentiment for this card is from the Macho Nacho collection from Jillibean Soup.  The rest of the papers are from a My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad - On the Bright Side .

Just got in these wooden hearts and arrows from Studio calico.  I'd been wanting to try the wooden elements and these have been out of stock forever at Two Peas.  I'm glad I waited. They are so cute and really easy to work with.  I colored them with a Stampin' Up! marker which is water based.  I understand you can also use Copics.  I added some Ranger Glossy Accents to one of the hearts.


I've been catching up on Kristina Werner's video and her style inspired the card.  I love the idea of using several paper strips to create a more masculine look.  The background is splattered with Maya Road buttermilk mist.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Page from 6x6 Paper Pad



Several months ago I shared a sketch designed to work with 6x6 or 8x8 paper pads.  Today, I have another for you.  I used hexagons but you could use any shape working from one corner to the opposite corner of the page.  This sketch puts the photo right in the middle which is atypical for me.



On this page, I also had my first try at the DIY Thickers from Two Peas.  These are white canvas.  I've used a marker and paper towel to get the desired color.  The video shows my process.


With so much pattern paper, embellishments are simple:




The video goes through the entire page from selecting product to the final embellishment.  I just trimmed out some of the monotonous things like trimming papers and gluing things down.

Watch at YouTube



If you don't have a hexagon punch or a die cutter, you can easily cut your own using a pattern.  Quilters have hexagon patterns.  Here is a link to one.  Also, you can draw a hexagon in Word or any drawing program and print it out for a pattern.

The page was about my husband's flower gardening and my mother's talent at arranging flowers.  She used to do a lot of arrangements for us.  The photo is from 1997.  I can't believe I actually recorded the date on the back.  I never remember to do that!  Now she does arrangements for a friend of the family who is 97 years old and in a nursing home.  Everyone oohs and aahs at Mother's flowers.

I used the same sketch to do this card substituting hearts for hexagons.



The inside greeting is "loves you?"  The stamps are from Hampton Arts.

If you try the sketch, please leave a comment with a link to your project.  I'd love to see it!
Thanks for watching!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  One of a Kind by Stampn' Up!
DSP:  Basic Grey PB&J 6x6 Pad
Stickers:  My Mind's Eye Lime Twist
Brads:  Paper Studio
Thickers:  Niki Riki, DIY Mistables from Two Peas in a Bucket

Sunday, June 10, 2012

10 TV Favorites



Television gets a lot of criticism.  Some of it deserved.  I'm the first to complain about un-reality TV.  Yet there is a lot of good on TV now and in the past.  I'm a TV girl through and through. I don't see a lot of movies, never have - well, except for my dating years - but left to my own, no.  I just can not get emotionally involved in a story in 2 hours.  I want to know the characters histories and where they are going.  I want to get to know the supporting cast.  In most movies, I can't even remember their names much less understand what motivates them.

But with TV, you have time.  Time to learn their story and to really relate.  Time for many of the characters to be your friends or someone you love to hate.  TV also teaches.  Sometimes I worry about what today's TV does teach, but the TV of the 60's was my afternoon companion and my teacher.  There was this perfect American to emulate.  I didn't watch the 60's shows here until the 70's.  The list is a mixture of shows I saw in syndication and those I watched with my parents in primetime.  Whenever I watched them I got to know these characters.  I learned about the Korean War my Dad was a veteran of.  He rarely talks about it, but I learned more from M.A.S.H. about war than anything I've ever seen or read.  Since they took many of their stories from true histories, I don't think it was a false education.

Some of these of course are silly and pure fantasy.  "I Dream of Jeanie" gave me a character I could dream of being and know it was just for fun.  I wanted to go to see the Hawaii of Magnum P.I. and eventually I traveled there.  Lucy showed me a woman could live on her own.  Note: this is "The Lucy Show" rather than "I Love Lucy."  It is the one she did with Vivan Vance and "Mr. Mooney" and I like it much better than her being Desi's foil.

If Daddy and I shared M.A.S.H., Mother and I wondered "who shot J.R." in the best cliff hanger of all time.  Years later she and I would tour the real Southfork together.  It is much smaller in person.  Wonder if they are using the house again in the new series?

The Waltons are a classic, but "The Dukes of Hazzard"?  What can I say, I grew up in the south and was a teenager in the early 80's.  

So these are shows that found a place in my heart and history.  I started making a list into the 90's but had to cut it down.  There were just too many.  Plus what was important to me as a child and teenager changed as I grew up.  I'll save that for another page.


For this page, I know it is a bit on the busy side.  Still I had fun with it.  I did my own garland by sewing together the punched circles like one I'd used before from My Mind's Eye.  To do this start sewing on scrap paper so you can sew many stitches before you get to your first circle.  Then you have a 'tail' to attach to your page.

Why the shows are important to me is typed up in the pocket.



With all that was going on on this page, the upper right corner was still lonely so I used cirles in tone-on-tone paper to fill it up.  When I got in this paper with the little TV's I knew I'd have to do a page like this.  The colors in this collection are wonderful!


Thanks for stopping by for this 10 on the 10th.  See Shimelle.com for more.


Ingredients:  Jillibean Soup Macho Nacho papers
Chipboard letters:  numbers from Basic Grey; Niki Riki thickers from American Crafts
Arrow:  wood arrows by Studio Calico

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The boy, the raft and the Adventure



Dillon and Lenny are already plotting their fishing expeditions for this summer. Thought I'd better wrap up my pages from last summer. I did this one earlier in the year and posted here:


I wanted to continue with the same products and style.



Last summer, Lenny ordered a raft for him and Dillon to fish from.  We were all dubious of this activity.  There was no motor.  They were going to row.  On the first day out, they rowed around and fished on a very tranquil lake, no fish, no big deal.  Then came the 2nd day...

I needed Lenny to capture the real story .  There are many angles to this story. My stepdaughter might tell it differently. I was brought into the adventure about 7 p.m. on the infamous 100 degree day when Lenny had not arrived home and had not called.  (I was 900 miles away and fairly useless.)  Actually Jaime called me at 6:00 to know if I'd heard from her dad.  Neither of us were that concerned at that point as 'we both know Dad.'  But as the day drew shorter, the worry grew at least for those of us on dry land.  The two on the lake didn't seem to have a care in the world.

Here is 'grampa's' story:


To plan our fishing trip, I used Google earth and Mapquest to check the layout of the lakes around Jaime’s house. I decided the thing to do was to spend a couple of days on Table Rock Lake getting used to the new raft.  The times I’d been fishing on Taneycomo there was a strong current in the lake; research told me that was not an unusual condition. The water could start flowing suddenly & quickly. So my plan was to put in by the Bass Pro Shop landing.  We would float the horseshoe part of Taneycomo down to an inlet less than mile from Jaime’s house.  In thinking about this I realized the prudent thing to do would be to explore that inlet before floating the entire lake and a part of me decided not to do that.  I thought it might be a lot more of an adventure to just go out there and find it.  So we got up early and Jaime took us to Branson Landing at 6:00 a.m. She wanted to drop off the truck we would later row ourselves to and get to work at ridiculously early hour. All went well; we got in, fished, had fun, and Dillon caught a small trout.  There was no current. We floated, talked to people, & went about 1000 feet during the morning. 
   At lunch time we pulled in downstream of Bass Pro Shop, Dillon picked a sit down seafood restaurant and got cheese sticks. He told our waitress we were fishing on Tanneycomo and when the current turned on that we would get out above Powersite Dam.  The surprised waitress said, “how are you going to get there?  That will be a long way to row.”  She insisted we drink an extra couple of glasses of water.  Then we took off and I rowed.  Dillon fished, and I rowed.  We watched the campers at a summer camp putting their canoes out, they had a speed boat and took off.  Dillon tried rowing for a while but kept going in a small circle.  So I rowed.  We got up to the horseshoe part of the lake and discovered a nice echo chamber up there.  He was delighted to yell and hear his echo come back.  It was then I decided we probably wouldn’t get any fish this trip.
   Earlier in the day, I turned off my cell phone because of the constant beeping.  I looked up to see where the sun was, I thought it was approaching 5 p.m. I came around and saw the beach and some of the things that had been on the map, but I never saw a line of telephone poles in a cleared area leading back up from the bank.  Some trees had grown up a little bit. We came around to a big cover and I didn’t quite know where we were so I thought I’d check in with Jaime. That is when I found it was actually 8 pm, that Stanley had left work to look for me and that the water patrol had been alerted. I learned that Jaime had been reprimanded for putting “a 60 year old man and a 10 year old boy in a raft on a 100 degree day with no water” and she was pretty much an emotional basket case. She asked where we were and I couldn’t quite tell.  I asked her to honk and I’d listen for her. She refused to cooperate. Instead she asked me where I was. I could see a motel on the lake about a half mile away. She told me to row there & wait for them.  So we waited and waited. It was about 30 miles from her house to the motel because she had to go around the dam.
   We had a good time. Dillon and I still laugh about some of the things. 
It was worth it even if I did get grounded the next day.


So Lenny and Dillon took a day off from fishing and more importantly the raft.  Then they went back to fishing.  They didn't catch much but certainly had fun.  And this year a motor has already been ordered for the raft.

One other funny note:  Lenny was out there for 2 weeks and went to see his sister a couple of hours away over the middle weekend.  He took the raft out of his truck to leave it at my stepdaughter's house while he was going to be gone. Dillon told him, "I think you should take the raft with you, Grampa."

"Why, Dillon, I don't need it."

Dillon replied, "It might spring a leak while you are gone."  (No damage came to the raft then - well, the next week there was a twister but that is another story...)



I couldn't resist the 'are we lost?' sticker from October Afternoon's Campfire collection.  To do the stitching around the star, I cut a star out with the Cricut and used it as a pattern for marking my stitching lines.

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients:  DSP and stick pins:  Saturday's collection by Little Yellow Bicycle
Banner:  Funday by My Mind's Eye
Letter stickers:  October Afternoon and Pebbles

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Getting more out of a set


I've used the largest stamp in Stampin' Up!'s Elements of Style set countless times. It is a great background and makes up very pretty when the flowers are colored in as in this card:



There are several other stamps in the set that were not getting much exercise.  So, for the card at the top of the post I worked in 4 of the 5 stamps.  The video shows making the card.  I hope it inspires you to find different ways to use some of your stamps, too.

Watch at YouTube



Thanks for watching!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  SU! Elements of Style
Cardstock: Marina Mist, Wisteria Wonder and Rose Red
Ink:  Prussian Blue, Not Quite Navy and Wisteria Wonder
Ribbon: Organza from Hobby Lobby

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Circles, Circles!


This week's Memory Keeping Monday challenge at Two Peas was to use designer paper on your layout all with the same type of print - all stripes, all chevron, all circles or whatever element.  At first, I'm thinking - 'no way can I combine that much of the same type of pattern.'  I loved Shannon Tidwell's idea to use frames to hold the different papers so I decided to give it a try.

She suggests using various scales of prints so some of my circles are tiny and others larger scale.  The papers are from three different manufacturers so that mixes it up, too.

To carry on the circle idea I used round chipboard frames.  Three of them are stamped with a woodgrain and embossed white.  The other two are just stamped with a crosshatch pattern to give a distressed look.  Actually I have to correct that, the smallest frame isn't chipboard but paper cut with the Cricut.  I just didn't have quite enough chipboard circles the right size.  Sahara Sand cardstock from Stampin' Up! makes a good sub for chipboard.


Thickers helped out with the title along with some new butterfly stamps from Inkadinkado. Their cling stamps are wonderful!

I picked the photo of my friend Karen and me for the circle theme.  Our friendship has grown even more in the last couple of years and we really rely on each other for listening, advice, support and laughter. We have talked recently about how our conversations have changed over the years.  We are talking about a lot more medical things.  I think if you had asked us about this years ago we might have predicted such conversations about our parents, but not so much ourselves and our husbands!  I cherish having such an understanding friend to lean on.

And that is why I put a quote on the page from Oprah - Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.


Amen!



Thanks for stopping by!


Friday, June 1, 2012

Something Different



Sometimes you just really need some new stamps or paper or something crafty, don't you?  Last weekend, I went to Michaels and AC Moore with 50% off coupons and came away with a couple of stamp sets.  One was Asian Inspired from Fiskars and the other a sentiment set from Hero Arts.

Normally I don't gravitate toward Eastern inspired designs, but I really loved the background stamp in a set by Fiskars.  I've only had one other Fiskars stamp set. The stamped image quality is so good, I knew I'd like another.  With the coupon, I think I got a set with a background stamp and a bunch of other images for about $9 - a super, sweet deal.


These cards are my first takes on the set.  So far I really like this try at a little bit different style.

For the brown panel, I used the Martha Stewart Scoreboard to make score lines every 1/8" and then used the back side of that.  I was trying for a bamboo look.


Have you tried any different styles or techniques lately?  Thanks for stopping by today!
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