I'm Back....

WOW where has time gone?  I want to get back to posting at least weekly on here which will help immensely towards getting me to use my stash of scrapping supplies.  I recently swapped rooms with my kiddo and can't believe the amount of stuff I had crammed in that smaller room - YIKES!

Here are the photos of the *almost* finished room - 1 wall is painted CI 65 Pine Bark and the other 3 are CI 55 Celery Root.  I still have some boxes to unpack and all the photos etc to hang on the walls but I am loving the room to move I have in here and I can't wait to actual scrap in here. 

I am also training for my second Race To Robie Creek because I have totally lost my mind.  In honor of this I will be scrapping my photos from last years race as the first project in my new & improved area (once I find them again).  Watch for them next week!

Up to my ears in PINK

And if you know me you know I'm not all that comfortable with that...  I'm not a girly girl and I have red hair so pink has never been my friend - however as I have matured (I heard that chuckle) I have made peace with it - some what.

I do try to avoid it but the last couple of weeks have kept in right in my face (maybe cleaning the scrap area and putting it away would change that - HMMMM) so I used it on 2 more card.

The first is for a challenge over at Skipping Stones Design Sketch #60 Best part of this was I only used scraps for this - some MME, ChatterBox, FancyPants on a Bazzill base.  Eyelet from my stash.  I didn't use a sentiment as I like to do a few blank cards every month.

 This was my first sketch challenge at Skipping Stones Design but I don't think it will be my last :)


 The next card was for the Mid Week Throw Down at the OWH Stars and Stamps blog.  It was using white on white with a pop of color - easy peasy for me as I'm up to my ears in pink at the moment {wink wink}

I used as Prism base and all the pinks are Bazzill (if you really want to know the shades check out my earlier blog post).  The sentiment is my favorite stamp from Stampabilities and the eyelets and button from my stash.

Hope you enjoyed the visit :)

Two for One

Today's card was done for 2 challenges - the color over at Moxie Fab World and the sketch challenge over at Operation Write Home's Stars and Stamps.

The Moxie Fab World color challenge was to use the Bazzill Basics Paper color equivalents of Beetle Black, Lily White, Pink Fairy, and Tangelo Blast.  Again with the pink but now a pink I couldn't find...  However I think I got an equivalent from the Soul Food collection by Melody Ross for gcd Studios.

The base is Lily White with a strip of Tangelo Blast over the Beetle Black.  Those were accented with my Pink Fairy equivalent from the Soul Food collection mentioned above.  The sentiment from Stampabilities is in Orange from ColorBox on Lily White.  I also inked the edge of the card in the orange from ColorBox and took an old toothbrush and pounced the orange on the orange strip of paper.  I was trying to give it more dimension but not sure I succeeded on that one.

Ok now I must get back to cleaning which was neglected all weekend while my shoulder recovered from a strain/pull...

Moxie Fab Color Challenge Part 2

I just finished the Jewel color challenge over at Moxie Fab World where we were to use Bazzill Basics Paper equivalents for Sugar Cookie, Sunshine, Pansy, and Blue Calypso.  Easier said than done for me as I couldn't find the Blue Calypso or Pansy in the local stores I tried - one of them was Archiver's...  And as I know that colors can be very off when reproduced on screen I was a little worried about matching something I hadn't seen in person.  But if I can do PINK I can do anything and so undaunted I put the following together for this challenge.

It's simple but I love how the HI just jumps off the card at you.  I used Sugar Cream Bazzill as the base and layered that with 3 strips of BasicGrey Marrackech Palace Blue.  I cut the oval from the Sunshine Bazzill using my EK Success Curvy Cutter.  My sentiment is BasicGrey Thickset letters painted with Making Memories paint in Grapesicle. I based this on a CreativeSketches CS12 2010 sketch I stumbled across while looking for inspiration.  I was tempted to bling it up a bit but after looking at it I wanted to keep it on the masculine side as Operation Write Home (where this card will end up) always seems to need them and kids cards. 

Now off to see if I can make it 3 for 3 with the challenges...

Moxie Fab World Color Challenge

I am not sure what possessed me to do a PINK monochromatic color challenge but I suspect it was the oxygen deprivation I experienced Saturday morning somewhere around mile 1.5 at the top of the hill...  At any rate things just seemed to fall together for this card so who was I to resist fate?

The colors are Bazzill - Pinkini, Precious, and Bubblegum.  We were to use this exact color combination in an innovative way.  We could use cardstock, patterned paper, embellishment, ink etc but were to ensure it matched JUST the colors listed.  (Adding a neutral, like white, was ok)

So off I went to 2 different stores trying to get one of the 5 color combinations that were posted over the last week.  I never dreamed it would be as hard as it was - the only one I got all the colors of Bazzill was this one.  I do have equivalents that I think will work for the others so watch for those to be posted shortly. But I digress...

Even though I am totally out of my comfort zone I am very pleased with the card.   The base is from my stash and if it's not Bubblegum it is it's twin sister, added a Pinkini layer which had been embossed with the Cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder, and the Precious was stamped with the sentiment from Hero Arts Messages set (a new release I LOVE) and was stamped in Versa Color Orchid.  The ribbon and flower are Michael's own brand.

The flower is a clip and can come off the card so the recipient can wear it - how cool is that?  I make cards for Operation Write Home and and totally see some Service members little girl wearing it to school and saying her Mommy or Daddy sent it... Yeah I'm weird (wink wink)

Mini Me

I totally need to get back to creating on a daily basis... Maybe not a full LO but something as I feel so energized when I do.  On Saturday a friend came out to play with paper and I finished a mini album I had been working on forever - well at least it seems that way.  If you are interested you can see it all on my Flickr account.

I also did this one which is just waiting for hubby to journal - I am lucky he does all of his own but rarely at the same time I finish them.

Then tonight I did these two after the photos *jumped* out at me today.  Literally I was walking by a stack of photos waiting to be scrapped and these 3 fell out - yeah scared me too so I figured if they were that insistent I needed to get them done.  I used a wonderful paper stack I won from Moxie Fab World  from the Melody Ross designer collections by gcd studios called Soul Food (I know some are thinking why does that woman not use capital letters appropriately - well I copied what was on the cover.  Who am I to correct them?)

Here is LO one... My Grandma Reece taught me many things one of them was a love of her garden.  I had just been flipping through the stack prior to the photos jumping out at me and knew the 2 belonged together.   The photo of me in her garden was taken 40 years ago - wow I feel old.  The color is WAY off but good help is hard to find so my hubby might loose his *job* over this one.  {wink}  The colors Melody used are more subdued than what appears here as is Grandma's dress but I was excited to have finished not 1 but 3 LOs over the last 4 days so didn't take the time to retake these last 2.

Here is a photo of me trying to get to the TV, at least now I know where our son got his fascination with it.  I don't want to discuss when this was taken...I'd get depressed.  Colors are closer here but the lacquer on the lovely lady made it hard to get a good photo of this at all. 

Well that's it for today but I hope to be back at least once more this week and try to get back to some sort of schedule for posting.  I miss doing this almost as much as the creating.  Thanks for looking :)

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.