A flower for you

The sketch challenge on SCS was posted early so I decided to play along. The sketch challenge is my favorite challenge each week, I always look forward to it.

I decided to ink up ‘En Francais’ tonight. I’ve had it for a couple months and haven’t used it until now. I just love the way it looks, so pretty and soft. And of course I cut out the flower and popped it on dimensionals a couple times.

I added the hardware and sentiment at the last minute. I didn’t think that it needed one, especially because of the script on the middle panel. But I went ahead anyway and added it. I’m not sure I like it there. Whenever I use this flower I never want to use a sentiment. The flower is so bold and I like the focus on it. Hmmm, stamp and learn I guess.

Tomorrow my oldest, Ava turns 4 years old. I have mixed feelings about it. I have been in denial the past 4 years that she is actually growing up. I kept telling myself she would grow up when she did different things; when she crawls, when she walks, when she talks in sentences, when she didnt nap, and finally when she was potty trained. She has mastered all of these things and now I realize she is growing up and that makes me a little sad. We have a picture of her from when she is a few days old in a frame on her bookcase next to her bed. And she was so little and peaceful and pretty in that picture. It’s odd to look at it and then see the little girl sleeping in a full sized bed. Ok, enough sappy mommy talk.

Ava requested macaroni and cheese and a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for her birthday. I made the cake tonight and it’s frosted and ready for eating! She helped me make sure the frosting was good enough, lot’s of yummy sounds and sticky hands. Tomorrow I’ll make the 5 cheese macaroni and cheese! It’s a bit adult with the 5 cheeses and wine, but the girls like it, and so do I!

I’m not sure if I’ll have anything crafty tomorrow, maybe just birthday girl pictures!

A little eye candy

I got around to making a couple cards last night before my cold set in. I have had a fever off and on all night and today and I have a sore throat. Just plain icky feeling!

But before I got sick I tackled the MFT sketch challenge and the SCS sketch challenges. Here’s the MFT first:

I just love this set and my new paper! I got my package from All that scraps yesterday and there was loads of new paper for me! And some new dew drops, gotta love those! I colored the flower from the SU pretties kit with a copic to get a better match to the DP. I also drew under each raindrop with a sakura glitter pen, the rain was done in irridescent ice EP. And I added some waterfall stickles to the puddle. It’s raining glitter!

And here’s the SCS sketch challenge:

I’ve had this crafty secrets set for about a week and I have been dying to ink it up! I have been debating about this set for about 6 months or so and I finally caved in and got it, I love it! I just love retro stuff, so I knew I would like this set. I have my eye on 2 other crafty secrets sets…..in time. I used some more new DP ‘catching butterflies’ on this, the colors seemed to go so nicely with the image.

I am hoping to get the tutorial for the stamped pendants this weekend and also get the dimensions for the recipe box together too! I just have to do some other stuff first.

Tomorrow Sean and I are going to the Childrens Hospital for a class that is for parents with children who have autism. They hold the class once a quarter, so we “lucked” out that it happens right now. No luck I don’t think, too many coincidences for it all to be luck. Next week will be super busy for us, well actually the next 3 weeks and then I’m sure it will get even more crazy.

I still have my training at the gym Wed and Fridays, every other Monday is my therapist, every other Thursday is my psychiatrist,  on Tuesday Audrey has her OT/ST and then next Thursday (and the following 2 Thursdays) we are the the UW autism research center for the official diagnosis and to decide on treatment. And then the following Tuesday at 2pm we have someone coming to the house that’s from the Snohomish County autism center. They are meeting with us and finding out about Audrey and then they will send someone out to the house to work with us at home. Not too much time to spare.

Oh and next Wednesday is Ava’s 4th birthday, so throw that into the mix.

I’m gonna go crawl under a blanket and watch some tv with Ava. Have a great Wednesday!

Cafe Flora

The ways to use it challenge today on splitcoast is flowers! Seems pretty vague and easy right? Well, I knew I wanted to break into my stash of Prima’s and I wasnt alone. Looks like a lot of us hoard our flowers, they were all over the place today!

I used “Meet me at the cafe” again but a little different. I cut a window in the rust CS to set my scene. Then I stamped the cafe sign in stazon black and lined up the flourishes in the corners and stamped them in white craft ink and then used a rust EP. The image was colored in copics and one of the ladies got a touch of stickles on her shirt!

And as you can see there are a TON of flowers! I did get a bit carried away………………..I know.

I made climbing vines on either side of the window and then adhered the primas with glue dots. The awning was double stamped and sponged around the edges for a little extra depth. Plush the rust CS had rust and cocoa ink sponged on it to make it less solid.

The DEETS:

Stamps: Meet me at the cafe, It’s a jungle out there-MFT
Ink: really rust, close to cocoa, old olive, almost artichoke-SU   graphite brilliance black
CS: really rust, polka dots and paisley-DSP-SU  white-papertrey
Accessories: transparency, copics, sponge, rust EP, dimensionals

Berry-licious!

The color challenge was posted very early yesterday and after the kids went to sleep, Sean went to run a few errands. So I of course hopped down to my craft room to make a card!

The colors are real red, certainly celery and taken with teal. All colors I like and use but I dont think I had put them together before, and I really like it! It’s so fresh and Springy and made a nice setting to break in my berries from “My Punny Valentine”!

At first I only had teal sponged on this main image but then decided to throw caution to the wind and make a layer with it too!

That tag is one I’ve had for 6 or so years. I really need to stop hoarding so much.

I hope you all have a relaxing New Years day. I have a late training session since my gym doesnt open til noon today. But after that I dont think there’s much going on……just chillin’.

The DEETS:

Stamps: My punny valentine, year round puns-papertrey
Ink: real red, certainly celery, taken with teal-SU
CS: white-papertrey   celery & celery DSP, real red, teal-SU
Accessories: white gel pen, sponge, 5/8 red GG ribbon, dimensionals, tag from stash, corner rounder punch

Snow much fun!

It’s been sooooooooooooo long since I did a ‘Featured Stamper’ challenge. I usually take Sundays “off” and spend them doing my Mommy things, or being with family. But lately, as I’m sure most of you have done, it’s been spent on making gifts. And now that I don’t have a ton of gifts to make I suddenly feel very…….weird. Not quite bored, and definitely not stressed. But like I’ve got a LOT more time on my hands! But that’s a good thing, so now I can return to doing things that I want to do. Like my challenges!

Now, I don’t think I’ve mentioned before about the quality of Treehouse stamps, and before you get bored I will promise to keep it quick! Really, all I need to say is that they are awesome! Some clear stamps need some kind of conditioning, or preparing before you can stamp them. I am really happy to say that these do NOT! They are ready to use, with your SU! inks straight out of the package. And they aren’t a flimsy clear stamp either, nice and sturdy.

OK…..review is done! They get the “stamping high-five” from me!

I added some crystal stickles to the hat in the white areas and on the ground for extra icy-ness! And I lined the inside of the snowman with a light blue to give the white a little POP!

I’m starting to feel my stamping energy return so I may have more to share today. I’m toying with the idea to turn some photo’s into gifts. You know, because I have nothing else to do, LOL!

The DEETS:

Stamps: Winter Memories-Treehouse stamps
Ink: graphite brilliance black, mellow moss
CS: mellow moss, handsome hunter, wintergreen DSP-SU   white-papertrey
Accessories: purely pom stitched ribbon, dimensionals, crystal stickles, silver brads, copics

Icing on the bottlecap

A couple days ago I made a bottlecap embellishment. I bought a bag of cleaned bottlecaps about 10 months ago because they were a great deal, LOL. I have always meant to alter them and make magnets and stuff out of them. So I was sitting around soldering some glass and saw my bag o’ caps and decided to alter one later in the day. I wanted to use resin to seal the image, but I also wanted to see how well my diamond glaze would work. I dont like the diamond glaze in place of resin, so next time I’ll whip some up. I ended up with a cute bottle cap and nothing to do with it.

Then last night the sketch challenge on SCS was posted and it contained circles, so I KNEW I had to use my bottlecap! I’m glad I made it to, cause I think it makes a really cute and unique embellishment.

You can find cleaned bottlecaps on etsy or ebay. They are easy to alter, just flatten with a mallet and then punch out a 1 inch circle of patterened paper, or stamp an image. Then fill the bottlecap with resin, or diamond glaze in a pinch. I sprinkled some pink glitter on top of the glaze while it was still wet.

I am super tired today. I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep in the last 2 nights, so when Sean comes home later this afternoon I am taking a nap.

The DEETS:

Stamps: Icing on the cake-MFT
Ink: chocolate chip, graphite brilliance black
CS: chocoalte chip, real red, pretty in pink, retired DSP from SU    white-papertrey
Accessories: bottlecap, copics, 5/8 red ribbon, white ep, fire rhinestone brads, ticket corner punch, sponge

Wild and elegant, for you!

I needed, or wanted to make a card to go inside a gift. It probably wasnt necessary but it gave me an excuse to make a card! And I decided to use todays color challenge; wild wasabi, so saffron and elegant eggplant. To be honest, I had made a soldered glass pendant today but goofed with the colors using handsome hunter instead of wasabi. As I was about to upload it I realized my mistake and kept it to myself.

I am FINALLY using this ‘A beautiful thing’ set from SU. I’ve had it for almost 2 weeks now and it’s just now seeing some ink. I really like it and hope to use it some more. I also used a technique that I saw Mary Jo Albright use with the scallop circle punch. It makes look almost like a sunflower with these colors and I REALLY like that! Thanks Mary Jo!!!!

I cut out the smallest flower and popped them up on dimensionals. And the scalloped sunflower has a layer of eggplant underneath that gives it a little more depth.

I have all of my out of state presents wrapped, and soon Sean will take them out to the post office. WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!! I am finally seeing the end of the Christmas gifts!

I need to clean one of my molds for resin and I want to make a few things for different projects. I also REALLY want to organize my craft space. I feel like it’s exploded down there, and it has. I havent really cleaned in the past month since I’d just have to keep bringing it all back out.  Hopefully after this weekend when I finish my last gifts I can get it all clean.

Only 7 days left and then this craziness will be over. I really feel like a bit of a Grinch this year. So hopefully that means my heart is going to grow 3 sizes soon!

The DEETS:

Stamps: A beautiful thing-SU
Ink: wild wasabi, so saffron, elegant eggplant-SU
CS: wild wasabi, so saffron, elegant eggplant-SU   white-Papertrey
Accessories: Punches; 1 3/8, 1 1/4, scallop circle, tag-SU  dimensionals

My bangle came out!

Hoooray! My resin set and my very first bangle bracelet came out looking lovely!

It has just the perfect shine and the swirls of color and pearl and oh so pretty!

I also made another soldered pendant, but I just dont feel like posting the picture. Without a handheld sanding tool and buffing tool it’s not going to look much better. Im going to research that now.

Super late night card

Last night around 11 pm I decided to play along in the color challenge. My mind was awake so I knew I wouldnt be falling asleep anytime soon.

The color challenge was for these colors:

old olive
certainly celery
summer sun

I knew when I saw the 2 green colors that I wanted to use my ‘Tres chic’ background stamp. I love to use it with a tone on tone look and stamping the olive on the celery give it such a nice look. And I have a hard time using any other set with ‘tres chic’ other than ‘garden whimsy’ so I had my stamps picked out!

I rock and rolled the butterflies first in summer sun then in certainly celery, cut them out and used rain dots (from Gina K) and then crystal stickles on the wing tips. The scalloped circle is olive cardstock that I sponged and paper pierced the “humps” to make it stand out more against the green background.

I just LOVE that ‘tres chic’ stamp! Im sooooo glad it’s still around for the spring/summer catalog. Not that I would sell it or stop using it!

So, now that my challenge for today is all done I have plenty of time to play with other things. Like finally get to working on my designs for Papertrey and actually getting the monogram set out of the plastic! Dont think Im lazy, I’ve only had the set for about a week and it arrived when both girls were sick!

I’ll be back later with something fun!

The DEETS:

Stamps: Tres chic, garden whimsy-SU
Ink: summer sun, certainly celery, old olive-SU
CS: old olive, certainly celery-SU   Papertrey white
Accessories: ticket corner punch, silver brads, sponge, giga scallop circle, circle coluzzle, paper piercer, crystal stickles, rain dots, white organdy ribbon.

It’s that time of the week….

For the SCS limited supply sketch challenge, that is!

The rules were pretty simple:

1. One small (about 1.5 inch squared) stamp as your focal image. As well as a background, swirl or sentiment.
2. Any coloring tools
3. Limit the layers
4. One accessory tool

So I made a cute 4.25 squared card with my little memory box penguins!

When Sean did my 10 day birthday countdown, these 2 stamps were part of the surprises I found! That was so sweet of him! He had also given me a GC to a fantastic store called Rubber Soul in Redmond! And can you believe I havent used that GC yet?!?! I just remembered about it while I was making this card! Can you guess what I will be doing this weekend?

It’s the weekend everybody…..time to celebrate!

The DEETS:

Stamps: Memory box penguin and sentiment
Ink: Palette noir, craft white
CS: Bordering blue, real red-SU    papertrey white
Accessories: nesties, red 5/8 GG ribbon, snowflake, white EP, dimensionals