Using Pinterest for Sketches

Pinterest, for me, is like a new and improved way to bookmark the things I find on-line.  I mostly use it to capture pages and cards.  I've just started using Pinterest to capture sketches, too.

My card is based on a sketch by Pamela at Pamelaworldofscrap.  Join in the challenge!

She also included a version of this for scrapbook pages.  I think it would make a fantastic page, but I don't have time right now to do one.  So I 'pinned' the scrapbook version in a new board I named simply "Sketches."  Before, I had been downloading sketches I liked to my computer but I really don't need to do that.  Pinterest will save them for me.

For the card, I used Stampin' Up!'s Trendy Trees and my much underused Lily Bee's Autumn Spice papers.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you are safe, warm and dry during this awful storm.

Treats, quilts and bad weather baking

When the weather is bad, or forecast to be bad, I love to bake.  Sometimes it is biscuits or another bread with homemade soup, sometimes it is a sweet.  Today, I baked two apple pies - one for us and one for my Mother.  My father swears he is off of desserts right now.  Everyone in my family has an infamous sweet tooth so we will see how that goes.  I'm not trying to tempt him; he announced this after I'd already offered to bake Mother a pie.

So far, our weather is just a touch of wind.  I think the worst of it is for everyone north and east of us.  I hope and pray all will be safe.

It's almost Halloween and boy did I get a great treat on Saturday.  We were close to the Mighty Dollar and a friend had told me that had a bunch of new stuff in.  They had TONS of Basic Grey - chipboard, woolies, brads, every kind of embellishment Basic Grey has made the last couple of years.  (no paper though :-(  I haven't been buying as much BG paper so I left the product specific embellies alone and went for the chipboard.  Just love, love their chipboard as you get so many of each letter.  Can you believe I got all this for $10!  Those chipboard packs alone are worth $6 a piece.

One final treat...it's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.  Here is the link to hundreds of gorgeous quilts.  This is a semi-annual event guaranteed to inspire.  If you love fabric or color or just fantastic workmanship, head over and visit a few of these links.

I haven't made anything to enter again this time.  I've done some Lutheran World Relief quilts but those are incredibly basic - function definitely more than fashion.  I loved visiting the festival as I've had an itch to get into my discontinued fabric samples and make something.  Still haven't decided what that something is.  I'd better hurry, I'll soon have more customer fabric to work up.

I did work on a papercrafting project all weekend.  No photos though.  I want to wait until it is all done and there will be some video as well.

Thanks for stopping by! Tomorrow I'll have a card and a tip for you.  Hope you are safe and dry.

Caution: Merging Layers Ahead

My take on this month's sketch challenge on Rainy's (Susan's) blog was to flatten the design and remove almost all the layers.  The challenge is open until the end of the month.

I hadn't really planned it that way but after doing the background, I decided the 3 symbols would stamp really nicely right on the background.  Then it was a challenge to find a way to do the ribbon without adding much bulk.  I split the background paper and put some twine in the groove for a very flat card.

The background is stamped and embossed in clear ink on watercolor paper.  I then used distress inks and water to add the color.  I love the serene feeling and think this would work well for a more modern wedding card.  What better wishes than peace, happiness and love!

Thanks for visiting today!  If you live anywhere in the Eastern US you are probably, like us, keeping an eye to the weather. Hope you are safe and dry in the coming days.

Embossing with any ink

When I attended my first Stampin' Up! workshop, I was taken with the idea of using a pigment ink (Stampin' Up! Craft) and then clear embossing powder to create an embossed image.  I just loved the look.

I still do yet Stampin' Up! no longer offers pigment inks and really, I don't want to invest in pigment inks just for the few times I do embossing in a particular color.  With this technique, I don't have to.  In the short video here, I use the Stamp-a-ma-jig and some Versamark to help create an embossed look with virtually any ink.

Watch at YouTube


In this longer video, I use the same technique and create the Christmas card above that uses current  SU! stamp sets Rejoice and the Medallion background stamp.

Watch at YouTube


Hope this helps you get a bit more out of your products.  Thanks for watching!

Her Day

My Mother's birthday was over 6 months ago.  This weekend I scrapped the photos.  Notice the little question mark next to the 'number' chipboard element.  She won't let me reveal her age.  Other than medical personnel, she doesn't tell anyone how old she is.

A little story goes with this...

At some point when I was growing up - when I was old enough to do basic math and still young enough to believe anything I was told, I came across my birth certificate.  I figured out if I added the age I was then to the age my Mother was on the birth certificate, it was older than what age she was on her last birthday.  Something didn't make sense.

So I asked her about it.  "Oh, they just made a mistake on your birth certificate," she said.

Some time later, I was staying at my grandparents for the weekend and I told my Mother's oldest sister that my birth certificate had a mistake on it.  "What kind of mistake?" she asked.  "They have Momma's age wrong.  It says X and she wasn't that old."

A loud "hmph!" errupted from my aunt and she told me there was no mistake. That was exactly how old my Mother was when I was born.

That night I learned something new and it had nothing to do with math.

So for the most part, I keep Mother's secret and we often refer to her as 'the beautiful woman of unspecified age.'  :-)

For the layout, I used several things from Artfuldelight kits including the October kit.  I don't used a lot of high contrast color schemes, particularly black and white.  This just isn't me, but it is my Mother.  She wears these colors beautifully so the background paper from the kit was a great choice.

I didn't have enough rust colored papers so I stamped and distressed some orange polka dot and cardstock to finish out my paper choices.

There were several Washi tapes in my stash in these colors so I used a few strips and sprinked on some rhinestones.  I think this layout was inspired by the ones Shimelle makes.  Two photos, lots of pattern paper and some tape strips in several places to tie it all together.

Now back to ages.  Have you ever lied about your age?  The only time I have is for things on-line where they have no business knowing my real birth date.  It is just for security.

Thanks for stopping by today!

A Watched Clearance Rack...

never restocks.

But take the entire day to go see a customer and do a tad of regular shopping and Voila!  New stuff appears on the Stampin' Up! Clearance Rack.  Unfortunately, I understand some things have already come and gone.

There are still some great deals.  If you don't already have them, I highly recommend the Pretties Kit or one of the Hardware kits as these are greatly reduced and go a long way in scrapbooking and particularly card making.

Check out SU!'s bargains here.

ETA:  Scratch pretty much everything I just said!!!! I went to place my clearance rack order and the first four items I picked were already sold out!  They were still showing as available until you tried to add them to the cart.  I found this incredibly frustrating.  Stampin' Up! is a large enough company to invest in software that will remove items from their site when they are sold out.  

This is really irritating after checking their site every day the entire month and then the one day I'm gone, the things I want get gone.  If someone else made a good quality 12x12 cardstock, I'd be switching.  

Oh, well, end of my vent.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Boo

Here's my entry for this week's sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  This is also my one and only Halloween card.

For the ghost, I cut a square of scrap white cloth and pinched it together and tied off with twine.  I cut the letters on the Cricut and hand cut the tombstones after stamping with the SU! Sanded background stamp.

Speaking of Stampin' Up!  I've been dogging their website daily to see if they have added to their clearance rack.  For the last two years, they have restocked clearance in October.  They discontinued a ton of stuff last year and I'm hoping some of it reappears on sale.   When they mark stuff down, they really give a good deal.  If I see more items being added, I'll be sure to post on my blog.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Every week?

 "We should do this every week!"  my husband proclaims at least 3 times as we are riding along the greenway in a nearby town.  It was a wonderful outing.  We've biked there before but for various reasons - mostly procrastination and then various aches and pains - hadn't been back in two or three years.

I hope it won't be two or three more years before we load up the bikes and take them for a ride through several miles of flat trail.  A flat, traffic free area of biking is almost unheard of in our part of the state.  We didn't make it back last week and aren't going to get there this week but I do want us to get out and do more things together. We did a window treatment installation on Monday that took several hours.  Does that count as an outing?  It was gratifying but somewhat less relaxing than peddling along on a perfect sunny, not too hot, day.

For the layout, I was inspired by this one from Scarlettbirddesigns.  She used the negative space behind her cutout title to place designer paper. I did multiple lines for my title and different papers for most of the lines.  This was surprisingly easy.  I used my SCAL software and the Cricut but you could use a Silhouette.  I typed each word as a separate entry and then just arranged them in a block.  After cutting, I only had to piece in the center of the 'o' 'e' and 'd' letters to finish off the title.  It is a cheap way to do a long title.

She cut some individual papers for a chevron design.  I liked the movement that implied and cut strips of various chevrons to surround my title and create space for the journaling which was printed on the same paper as the background.  The clouds are stamped on some paper from Stampin' Up!

The bicycle paper is from who else?  Little Yellow Bicycle. Most of the rest of the paper is Jillibean Soup Macho Nacho.  These colors are fantastic and so useful for our pages.  If I could send one wish to the paper crafting community it would be MORE BLUE!  More true blue!

Do you and your honey have outings or 'date days' as we often call them?  What do you do?  I'm always looking for new ideas.

Thanks for visiting today!