Dude Time Doodles Challenge

I took a short break from my Christmas preparations to put together a card forOWH Stars and Stamps challenge using images from Dude Time Doodles.  I LOVE the images, you can see the second one at the OWH link, so *had* to get at least one card in the challenge. 

Still not sure why images on my computer that are oriented correctly are not loading that way but...I give- UNCLE UNCLE (wink).  I will repeat this card but with the sentiment stamp on white and matted like the image.  The colors are off in this images as my photographer is still at work and I needed to get it done.

Flying High...

First here are the pegs before and after...  LOVING the after!

Again with the photo loading incorrectly...  Seriously people just have your monitor on a swivel so you can tilt it to see my photos the right way up.  I'll continue to work on it - I promise... Now on to the real reason for today's post.


I am not a stamper...I play at it but I smudge/have uneven inking/etc so many that it is a chore still I drool over images from Hero Arts, Unity Stamp Co, Stampabilities and many many more.  But I have put myself on a buying freeze until I get every stamp I currently own inky!  Now that I said it out loud for you all to hear will it help me do it?

I am also not a color-er (is that a word)...I try but it is not the fun, relaxing activity that so many of my talented friends claim it is. I stress over staying in the lines, picking the right colors and on and on and yet I am out of room in the small tote I have for my Prism markers and some of my Stampin' Up Watercolor Wonder crayons are showing use. I went with Prism after seeing all the pretty colors my friend Nej has and fondling them when we got together to craft - they were less expensive than the Copics and frankly less intimidating with all those numbers to figure out (wink wink).

All of this being said I am sharing a card I made last night after stamping and coloring and that, surprisingly, I LOVE. That might be due to having hubby sitting beside me and helping with the colors (so if they are *off* it's his fault) or it might be due to the fact I did 7 of them in one sitting so one was bound to be pleasing.

I have had this patterned paper from SugarTree (the J.Q. Outdoors Scrapbook Collection JQ30) so long I thought I'd never use it.  I literally bought out the store I found it in because it had a German Shorthaired Pointer on it (see the bottom left corner) and those are hard to find in scrapping stuff.  The card base and mat are random cardstock pieces from by stash.  The sentiment is from Stampabilities - love that it is masculine. The image is from SU Wildfowl set released in 2004 I believe (think I've stamped each of the 4 images once and ran from the room in terror at the thought of coloring it) and I colored it using SU Watercolor Wonder crayons and a very small tipped paint brush...  And now because I know you are dying to know the color list: eye - Rose Red, head - Glorious Green, far wing & tail - Close to Cocoa, close wing (underside is always lighter I was informed) - Creamy Caramel, back - Brocade Blue, foot - Summer Sun, beak - Yoyo Yellow, underside - Really Rust at neck blended with Bravo Burgandy as we progressed to the foot, the wind currents - Bashful Blue.  The ring on his neck was left white.

So what do you think?  Did we (hubby and I) get the colors right - no comment on the actual coloring itself needed [wink]

What I Did This Weekend...

But first some catching up as I have been remiss...  We had a hard drive crash and all the photos I promised to upload were on that hard drive but thankfully our camera's card rarely gets deleted. Here are some of the photos taken of Reece in his last session with his Speech Therapist Miss Amanda...  We miss her.

 

On Friday I was inspired by a fellow crafter posting photos of her progress on re-organizing her scrap room and so I started mine.  It has been over taken by boxes and 'stuff' moved to allow us to get some items needed for my husbands hunting adventures.  We have little storage here so often to get something seldom used out we need to relocate things that are in front or on top of it...  I can't believe I am going to share these...ICK!  I'll do this in stages - first my peg board

Frankly I had grown to hate it!  I had pegs that were not serviceable and just gathered junk.  Jay asked if cutting them down would help...ummm YES! So off they went to the angle grinder to lose the top totally useless piece and shorten the bottom piece.  After that was done and I went through things this is what I ended up with...

No idea why it loaded sideways but I can't get it to reload at all so while I work on that and find the ones other of the 'altered' pegs this will need to do...   I am loving that is more a decorative element now than storage and what items are on there are tools I use frequently or things I don't want to forget about.  In fact I just realized I have a cut stickles storage that was added after this photo so will retake it and try to get it to load correctly (wink)

I will be sharing the closet next but it might take until after Thanksgiving as I am not 'loving' it at the moment so it is still a work in progress.

Feeling the LOVE...

It's November so it must be time to be making Valentine's cards - right?  Well it is if you make them for Operation Write Home to send to deployed soliders so they can write home to loved ones with them.

I have a bunch to share but will be starting with the one done for this weeks sketch challenge at OWH Stars & Stamps blog.  I used one of my favorite stamps from Unity Stamp Co - So & So Loves is perfect for anytime but I really like to use it for Valentine's as it allows the giver to 'carve' their & their loved ones initials in the trees.  I stamped it using Tuxedo Black from Memento and then colored it with Prisma markers (PM-1, PM-19, PM-79).  I also barely skimmed the edge wanting to give just a bit of definition but not to distract from the image.   I had this scrap of black paper with the metallic pink hearts in my stash that was just waiting for the perfect card to come along and the base is from my stash as well and I believe it was from a cardstock pack I picked up several years ago.

Below are a pile of the othe Valentine's cards we made this weekend and a few from last when I was at a crop.

Now my favorite - which surprised me just a bit... I'm not a huge black and white flower person nor am I all that keen about ribbon but I love this. 

Sometimes you find a patterned paper that stands alone and for those times a little something in the card is all that is needed.  I uses such a paper this weekend - Sugar Rush from Basic Grey - and I put the love birds inside for interest.

I then did up some birthday/general use cards as the images I had didn't really fit with the whole Valentine's day thing.

I plan on being back a couple of times a week at least and tomorrow will be sharing some photos promised long ago and some of what else I was up to this weekend. I hope you enjoyed the visit as much as I enjoyed being back blogging :)



World Card Making Day - Recap

I so need to get back on schedule...  For some reason this fall it is much harder to fit it all in during a 24 hour period.

I had great plans for WCMD but alas they didn't happen quite the way I envisioned and instead of a quiet afternoon of listening to Elmo with the child sitting enthralled with the furry red guy and me making cards I squeezed in 1 single card just before midnight.  It was based on a card I found here which was based on a sketch from the Sketch Frenzy Friday Team Blog.  I am not sure why this keeps loading on it's 'side' but I admit defeat...  Anyway turn your head on the side over your left shoulder and you'll see my WCMD contribution.

Sunday morning I had everything out and ready to go so when I gave up sleeping I got 16 more Christmas cards together for Operation Write Home.  It was a good day.  Below are a sampling:  the first card is a second go at the sketch but I made the green snowflake paper slightly smaller dimensions and I like it better, then is just 4 squares of co-ordinating paper with a cute wreath from my stash that is wrapped in metal, I took strips that were leftovers from cutting the paper to size and layered them for this card (the Merry Christmas is across the top and hard to see but once it's down it down so this may be swapped out and stay in my card stash), and the last in this grouping used holly that was in the same package as the wreath.

 This grouping is using  a vellum quote adhered with 10 brads (my spacing was slightly off so it too may be swapped out), under it is just a simple layered card using patterned paper and sticker sentiment and last is another simple layered card.

 All paper is from a 8x8 Making Memories paper/sticker pack I have had for some time.  The Vellum quote is from DCWV and the rest is from my stash. 

I still have some promised photos to get up on here but we ran into a slight problem in that the hard drive is fired on our other computer that was used for all our photos.  And before you ask no a recent backup hadn't been done....  I'll be a nag about that in future you can count on it.

Bad Blogger VERY bad blogger...

My apologies for not posting sooner.  I have no excuse except life happened...  I have several great shots of Reece and Miss Amanda on their last day together however we had techincal difficulties (read fried hard drive) they will show up soon I promise along with a bunch of cards I have recently done.  Well once we figure out what is wrong with the photoshop on this computer.

Without further ado here is what I worked on yesterday and finished today.  With only a few (3 off the top of my head) exceptions everything is from one of my favorite manufacturers ~ Fancy Pants.  I got the All Fall album, 8x8 paper pack, printed chipboard alphabet and printed chipboard shapes at the MemoryWorks Retreat (2009 I think) for a killer deal.  I used a kraft cardstock base (half Prism and half Archiver's) on all pages, ribbon & brads from my stash are used sparingly.  The 'crayons' on his First Grade page are ancient - purchased shortly after he was born if memory serves... The album covers 3 years of Preschool - Grade 12 and has 4 pages for activities etc at the back.  Since my son is only in Second grade I am way ahead of the game for once and will place one school picture from each year with limited journaling in this one and do more in depth stuff in his 12x12 album.  The design for these pages was found in the MiniMaps November 2006 it is the 4 across the bottom of the page there.

It takes a village...

and a member of my son's village is moving on to new adventures. 

Today's post is hard for me to write but maybe if I get some of the tears out today doing this I'll make it out of the building tomorrow without completely losing my composure.  As some of you know my son has Down syndrome and as yet is non-verbal.  We have had many wonderful Speech Language Therapists over these past 7 years but no one has *got* Reece like Miss Amanda - NO ONE!  She can read his mood almost as well as I can, she calls him on slacking off when instead of work he wants to play and she has helped to give him a voice through PECS.  And now when he is on the verge of saying his first words she is leaving Elks Pediatrics.  Don't get me wrong we are thrilled she is embarking on a new chapter of her life and wish her only the best and I'm sure his school therapists will be glad to no longer hear - that's not what Miss Amanda does.   But...I can't help but, totally and completely selfishly, wish she wasn't exiting our lives not when we are so close to her seeing the culmination of her hard work.

And so the gift for Miss Amanda had to be as special as she is - no pressure there right?   I am not sure I pulled it off but I am pleased with the end result even though I see some things I would tweak here and there.  That said I don't think there has been a project I haven't felt that way about {wink wink}.  And now without further ado I give you Miss Amanda's Farewell gift...  

I found this tray at Fred Meyer and saw so much potential even before I knew my friend Alex had these awesome stamps.  Once I got it home I used black StazOn ink to give is some character then due to the tray being 14" long and not wanting to piece together a solid base I used 2 smaller pieces of My Mind's Eye Star Bright Paisley Pop from the Just Dreamy line.  Once they were glued down I applied several coats of Mod Podge. 

I then stamped the Sign Alphabet rubber stamp set from http://www.deafresources.com/ (thanks Alex).  I colored each finger a different color using Prisma pens (thanks April as I forgot mine at home).  They were punched out using a 1" circle punch which was then mounted on a 1 1/2" circle cut out of Bazzill using my Cricut (thanks Jay).  I then covered them in clear contact paper and hand cut those out (yeah I suck at cutting but it's clear so you don't really notice they aren't perfect - SHHH! don't burst my bubble).  They then had a piece of magnet place on the back so they would stick to the tray (thanks Nej for recommending the magnetic vent covers at Home Depot).  Here's a close up...

The thought is that Miss Amanda can use this from time to time with the kids she works with which is why I colored each finger a different color to help show what each finger does in each letter/number.  I made it to hang as, honestly it was the only tray they had and it was a tad warped so will not sit flat. 

This awesome image is courtesy of my friend Alex, who also colored it.  And it has very special meaning to all who know the story behind it...see that isn't just any little fairy - that my friends is the BRANDT Fairy.   Named after Alex's youngest who just happens to sign due to a hearing impairment.  And you too can get a Brandt Fairy at Paper Makeup .  And so it truly does take a village to raise a child and make a farewell gift for a special lady who means so much in his life and thereby ours.  

So thank you to Alex, April, Nej (who is also color consultant - even tho I didn't have time to recolor the images for this one I'm making a second set for Miss Amanda) and Jay for helping make this gift happen.

And THANK YOU to Miss Amanda for your years of work with Reece - for getting to know him, for giving him a voice, for helping him get to where he is and for just being one of the best SLPs we have had the honor of knowing.  May your new journey be rewarding, fulfilling and full of people as special as you are...

Christmas in July and other holidays...

Wow where did the time go last month?  It seems like just yesterday July was starting...  I have been a bad blogger but am hoping things have calmed down somewhat now and I can get back to a regular schedule. 

For now I am sharing a card I did for Operation Write Home's Christmas in July challenge.  This was posted last Wednesday on the Stars and Stamps blog.

This is a Dustin Pike image colored with Prisma PM-4, PM-31, PM-61, PM-172.  The patterned paper is from my scrap bin so no idea who made it (sorry) and the Happy Holidays stamps are really cool ones I won.  They are from a set of self inking stamps that sit in a tray - all Christmas themed.  *Note to self get a photo of them!  I think I need a touch of bling on here so am looking for something to go before, between and after the Happy Holidays.

Next up is one of 2 Halloween cards I did.  Image is also by Dustin Pike and also colored with Prisma PM-16, PM-25, PM-111, PM-147.  I love the little feet so can see myself using this image again and again.  Ribbon is from my stash and patterned paper is from my scraps.

This card is made using all the same materials as above but I did not use Prisma PM-147 on it.  I did take my black Colorbox Chalk Ink and a paper towel to 'scuff up' the image as I felt it fit the theme better.

Next up is a card I was inspired to make after looking through the July/August 2010 issue of Paper Crafts magazine.  The 'Thank You Very Much' card on page 39 was designed by Heidi Van Laar and I LOVE it!

In her design Heidi used 16 squares that were small enough to fit 4 across a 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 card.  We use 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 for OWH as envelopes are readily available for a decent price and you can fit way more of them into the shipping boxes {wink wink}.  I again raided my scraps bin, you'll be seeing that a lot if you come back, and used the only square punch I have at the moment and punched as many 1 inch squares as I could from each pattern - bonus they are double sided so twice the bang for my buck.  I then rounded the 2 opposite corners and placed then with the pointed corners to the middle.  Used a 1 inch circle punch for the center also using the same paper to get what I am calling my pinwheel card.  I see so many possibilities with this and am looking forward to playing with the rest of the squares to see what I come up with.  I inked the edges of all the patterned paper with Colorbox chalk ink in Chestnut brown.  Sentiment is a Stampabilities stamp using black Memento ink.

Now just for fun I did a card using one of the stamps (a Kolette Hall for Studio G) my cousin Shauna sent me.  We are both Canadian born but now living in the US.  We recently discovered our love of anything with 'home' on it when we are together in Edmonton.  This will get a sentiment when I figure out who is getting it and why  but I still wanted to share.

And to close today a photo I took last night.  I love 90% of the ones we got but this one just screamed share me today.  I did the shoot hoping to find one to enter in this years photo contest at the Fair but am having a hard time deciding.  I think I have it narrowed down to 2 which are being printed as I type so we'll see if they look the same in person as they did on the computer last night.