Easter Card

Easter is just around the corner. Here's a card that cuts corners - oh, what an awful pun!   Anyway, I lifted the idea for my oval card from this card at Two Peas in a Bucket by joyfulitl.

She used Close to My Heart's Cricut cartridge to cut the shape.  This looks like a fantastic cartridge with lots of versatility.  I've never ordered anything from CTMH but it looks like they have some very pretty products.

I used my SCAL software and my Cricut to come fairly close and add a second layer.  For the flowers, I used the Upsy Daisy stamp, markers and a spritz of water before stamping to give that watercolor look.  I learned the hard way that one light spritz is all it takes or your flowers look like they have been through a flood.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Upsy Daisy and All Holidays by Stampin' Up!
Markers:  Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasbi, Pretty in Pink
Twine:  Doodlebug
Cardstock:  Melon Mambo

Stamp Organization

As I'm working through this latest issue - nerve pain in my legs - I've had some days where I can sit and craft almost normally  and some that I still have to stand or walk around in the house.  Wednesday was one of those days.  So when I put some stamps away and said to myself for the hundreth time, "You really need to get these baskets sorted out,"  I figured this was a good time.  That was a stand up activity right there.

I pulled out all the stamps from these and from 4 more baskets I have in drawers and sorted them.  I didn't change the categories I used all that much but did finally get some labels made using stamps from each category.

The categories here are:  Backgrounds, Elements (flourishes and other designs that aren't a specific thing but embellish a page or card), For Punches (stamps that coordinate with a punch), Nature, Greetings, For Scrapbook Pages (journaling blocks, date stamps, phrases).

The stamps in the closet are the ones used the most.  In drawers are flowers, holiday, alphas and some cute stamps.

So now they are all ready to use again.

Thanks for visiting!  I'll have an Easter card posted this weekend.  Hope you have a great Friday.

Here Comes the Bride

And here comes the first wedding page from my stepdaughter Amanda's.   She's been married nearly two years now.  I'll probably do these pages a little at a time in with my other pages.

This will be the first page for the wedding in our album.  I guess it is an unusual choice to do a photo of the father-of-the-bride and the bride rather than the happy couple.  Since it is our album, the focus is a little different.  I'll have plenty of photos of the happy couple coming along.

Speaking of photos, the photographer she used did an amazing job.  I do not have her name as I post this but I'll be sure to get it so I can credit her work.  I think she was a friend of Amanda's.  I don't know if she has gone into wedding photography professionally or not.  If you are in the Little Rock area and want a wedding done, I'd be happy to get the name and info and pass it along.  She did such unusual angles and all the photos were just stunning.  It will be hard to choose which ones to print.

Anyway, for the layout I kept this very simple.  It may even be my first monochromatic layout ever!  Seriously, I love color.  The wedding colors were royal blue and teal so I'll get lots of chances to work with colored papers and ribbon, too.

The little flowers are petals pulled off a silk geranium stem from Hobby Lobby.  The half pearl centers are from Stampin' Up! as is the designer paper.  I'd been saving that paper forever to do some other pages but figured there was plenty to go around.

Thanks for visiting today!

A Gift of Notecards

At our card class last week, we did these two cards as examples of cards you could make from one set of designer paper for notecards.  Here are some suggestions for creating notecards as gifts:

Make all cards the same orientation either portrait or landscape.

Keep them flat enough for one postage stamp.  While you may know the postage rules or be willing to go the post office with a questionable mailing, others are not so leave the buttons and large brads off.

Choose papers and stamps that cross the seasons.  This paper from Stampin' Up! would work anytime of the year.  Choose papers from one collection for easy matching.

If all papers come from one collection, you can probably use the same color cardstock base.

I've given note cards as gift several times.  Sometimes I monogram them.  In the second card above, a monogram would fit nicely where the inchie is.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Designer paper:  Everyday Enchantment by Stampin' Up!
Stamps:  Vintage Floral by Stampin' Up!
Adhesive paper lace:  Making Memories
Ribbon:  Seam Binding in Baja Breeze by Stampin' Up!

Being a Date Detective

Unfortunately, these photos of my mother and I taken some time in my teens were not dated.  Practically none of my old photographs have dates on them.  So I needed to do a little detective work.  It seems obvious that these were photos taken on Easter based on the flowers and that we were all dressed up for church.  So I used the flowers and the weather to help me figure out which Easter it was.

I knew it had to be an early Easter because of the forsythia still in bloom in the background.  It was fairly easy to find the dates for Easter with a simple search on the Internet.  This help narrow it down to two or three possible years.  Then I needed to know what the weather was like.  Did you know that you can find the weather for any date back to the early 1970's in the Farmer’s Almanac online?  Here is their website:  Farmer's Almanac Weather

I finally settled on 1980 because it was clear weather, that Easter date was early enough and I was not yet wearing glasses which I had to get for my driver's license.  I'm still not absolutely certain, but it's close.

For the page I’m using a lot of my older supplies and I gave the Cricut some exercise which was one of my New Year’s resolutions.  I got the idea for the tone-on-tone white background from this great page over at Sue’s blog.  I used the Storybook cartridge to cut the same image twice.  One of the cuts is a flipped version of the other.  I don't use white that much but I like how it turned out.  The Cricut  also helped me with my title and my flower.  For the flour I cut out a couple of flower designs and used as templates for marking mulberry paper.  That old mulberry paper makes a great flower.

I still have a few older photos to scrapbook and will probably need some dating tools.  What did we do before the Internet to look just about anything up! 

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  DSP:  DCWV; Ledger MME, Other papers from Stampin' Up! Sweet Pea pack

Brad:  Fancy Pants

Chipboard:  K and Company

Letters:  Emerald Thickers by American Crafts

  

Caught 1

When Lenny visited his grandson last summer, they went fishing almost every day for nearly 2 weeks.  They caught 1 fish.

Lenny tells me that it isn't about how many fish you catch.  It is about the time they spend together on the lake, it is about the process, not the results.  Hmm.   Dillon sure looks happy with that fish.

Anyway, if they enjoy it, that is all that matters.


I used the March ArtfulDelight sketch for this layout.  Most of the papers and many of the embellishments are from Little Yellow Bicyle's Saturday collection that I featured in this shopping video post.  We all seem to get photographed wearing blues and reds so I wanted some papers to go with those photos.  These papers are particularly good for boy pages, too.

The chipboard stars have been in my stash forever.  I used a negative image for part of the border.  For some of the stars, I coated them with Versamark and embossed in gold, copper.   One is done in a pewter color which comes from a pigment ink.  I made my own flags using some Authentique word stickers and the LYB stick pins.

The circular die cut at the top is the one I really used after cutting the slightly too fru-fru one that was used on yesterday's masked card.  This was a little more masculine, to me.  Finally I cut some of the pattern paper and stitched for the large flag behind the title.

I did this layout mostly standing up and it worked pretty well.  I can't get too attached to that new table in my workroom; it is too large.  Maybe I could get a smaller version...

Thanks for dropping by!

Ingredients:  Designer Paper, stick pins, tag and 6" Die cut from Little Yellow Bicycle Saturday collection
Cardstock:  Kraft by Bazzill
Letter Sticker:  Pebbles
Star Sticker:  MME Fun Day collection - ArtfulDelight Jan kit
Word Stickers:  Authentique

Using a Discarded Diecut

What do you do with die cuts that don't work out for your layout or card?  Sometimes I cut things and they aren't quite the right size or shape.  Or maybe I don't really like that paper color after all.

When doing a layout this weekend, I cut a shape from the Storybook cartridge on my Cricut that I love but not on the layout.  I went with something from another cartridge in the end.  Sometimes these old cuts end up on other cards or layouts.  This time, I used it as a mask for misting some card background.

Watercolor paper made a great surface for the misted background.  I distressed the edges with some Tea Dye distress ink and then added the sentiment (Cloud 9) and a variety of ribbons.

This one is going for my Mother's birthday later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll have a layout up soon and some new cards, too.

What's happening

Here I am using a cute baby as a lure.  This is John Thomas, my cousin's grandson and the latest addition to our family.  His great grandmother is holding him.  We had to wake him up for the photo and I had to take it quick.  He went back to sleep as soon as his photo op was over.  It was our first chance to meet him as he and his parents live in several hundred miles away.

Things are happening in my craft room these days.  I just don't have much to share quite yet.  We have card class coming up next week and all the cards are complete and cut.  One has already been on the blog and I'll get the others up after class.  Don't want to spoil the surprise for my ladies.

What I'm most working on this week are projects to submit for a design team.  I've never tried out for one before so I'm nervous about my projects.  I will share them after they are submitted and a decision made on the team.

Things are moving at a little slower pace also because I've picked up a new 'pain.'  I have a pinched sciatic nerve.  I'm not sure of the cause.  There are three possible culprits that I know of:  the egg crate I added to the bed about a month ago to help me sleep better. It really works with the sleep but I think it has made the bed too soft.  My doctor thinks it is my new car :-(  Of course my husband and I have considered this and I'm not driving it for a few days to see if things get better. We really like the new van but of course the seat is different; it rides lower to the ground than the old one, etc.  It is really easy for me to have bone, joint and muscle issues so this is a possibility.  Finally, it could be my arthritis - low back pain is nothing new.  I've just never had my left foot go numb before.  It is happening a lot when I sit and almost always now when I sit in any vehicle no matter what kind or whether I'm the driver or the passenger.  I drove my husband's truck to the doctor a couple of days ago and well, it wasn't good.

So one new thing has been added to my craft room - an old work table I used to have in my sewing room when we built the house.  When I started the window treatment business, my 8'x10' sewing room was way inadequate as was this table so I moved it to the basement and we built a much bigger work table. This little table has been collecting junk - ah, excuse me, my husband's important pinball paraphernalia.  It is the perfect height for a standing work surface; the little skirt even matches my upstairs bedroom.  So for awhile it is going to the already crowded craft room/guest bedroom so I can stand and craft at least part of the time.  I see a lot of craft room photos on-line where people having standing worktables only. I do this for my window treatments; we'll see how it goes for papercrafts.

Not being able to sit very long at a time is a real pain in every way!

Next week, I have a regular appointment with my acupuncturist I've been seeing for TMJ and also a physical therapy appointment.  One thing I got out of last year's expensive TMJ and muscle strain ordeals were lots of good resources.  I'm employing them early in the problem this time round.

And I've taken the egg crate off the bed, just in case.

Thanks for visiting.  Hope to have something crafty to share in a few days.