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Belated Blogger and Happy New Year

I think this must be the longest I have ever gone and not posted. I have even considered doing away with my blog but I love doing it. It's just that lately with various health issues and the holidays I have been unable to find the time. However, I hope to remedy that in the New Year! Speaking of which I want to wish everyone who visits a happy, healthy, peace filled and stress free New Year. I hope the world becomes a better place in 2012, at least in small ways. This country especially needs our prayers to turn around the problems facing us so if you have a moment once a week or so, offer a small prayer for that reason. I am a firm believer in the power of prayer and lately I feel it is the ONLY way to remedy our problems. I thank you for that and hope you have a happy new year weekend!

The Newest Member of the Family

I would like you to meet Grace, the newest member of our family. I have wanted an old vintage dress form for as long as I can remember. I was finally successful in securing one and she's a beauty. The petticoat she is wearing, which hides her metal cage, belonged to my husband's grandmother and the pocket watch was my great grandfather's. She arrived just in time for Christmas. I don't know what her permanent spot will be yet but right now I am enjoying her here next to my desk. Sigh!

A night time photographer I'm not but it looks nice nonetheless. I took this the other night after my husband had finished with the lights. I am recovering nicely from the rotator cuff surgery. First couple of days were rough but I'm relatively pain free now. Now comes rehab! Hope you are finding time for yourself during this busy season to create a little something and stop to remember what it's really all about. Enjoy!

A few more houses......

Well I decided to try my hand at some larger paper mache houses. These are available at your local craft store. I used PTI's Home Made stamps for the doors, windows etc and some bottle brush trees, K&Co tags, glittered snow flakes, stars and mini candy canes and a little vintage reindeer I had. My studio is covered in glitter. I love the effect but I hate the mess! Yuk! I wanted to get these finished as I am going in for out patient surgery on Monday. I have a partial tear of my right rotator cuff. But I'm hoping to at least get on my blog and Pinterest after the first couple days. Don't know for sure. Have to wait and see. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for don't we?

Christmas and Cereal???

I bet you're wondering what this post is all about. Well as you can see I have been busy making small christmas garden type houses which have a rather vintage feel and I made them from the cardboard cereal boxes. The houses themselves are made from the small individual serving size cereal box. The corners of the buidings correspond to the folds of the box. If you try this make sure you open them carefully. The roof and other extra pieces are made from full size cereal box chipboard. Here are the patterns and directions: http://www.issuu.com/inspired-ideas/docs/christmas?AID=10752329&PID=3872207&SID=skim1847X546955Xe8230083fd7fcaea3b6d7068c8ed0bc5

This is an online magazine. Just click on and page through. At the end you click on the Index for the patterns which you can print on your copier. You may have to adjust the patterns slightly for your cereal boxes as I found they weren't quite true but no biggie! A little paint, a lot of glitter and some mini trees etc. and you have a little village in no time. Enjoy!

I forgot!!!

I forgot to tell you that the Flower Shoppe cartridge also has ten different shapes of leaves for your flowers. I added a leaf or two to the first flower I showed you in the last post and then made a different flower /center/leaf for the other photo. The white in the center is glue which hadn't dried! Can you tell I get excited over this stuff!! Enjoy!

Don't you love flowers???

Don't you just love flowers? I do and I love making them. This little flower I am holding is from the Cricut cartridge Flower Shoppe. Check out the center! This is why I held it close to the camera for you to see. This cartridge has dozens of flower layers and you can choose how you wish to put your flowers together. The centers are cut then rolled around a dowel or chopstick. Then you glue the layers together. But the fun is choosing how you want the petals to look. This is only one of many combinations. I added a bead for the center and then sprayed with Perfect Pearls Mist in Forever Red (a Ranger product). Click on the picture to see it larger and you'll see the effect of the Mist. And if course you can make them in any size you want. You can use graduated sizes as I did here or you can make many layers of one size for a very full three dimensional flower. This is one cartridge that is going to get a lot of use in my studio. Have a great week everyone.

Punch Tricks

Hi everyone! It's a beautiful fall day here in north east Maryland, sunny and cool! I just got back from a shopping trip to JA's and Mike's and have something really fun to share with you. Martha Stewart has a Christmas deep edge border punch out called Skyland Snowflake. The magic comes in that you can use it for a double edge border punch as well as a single snowflake in addition to being a deep edge punch. I hope the picture demonstrates this.

I began with a strip of paper cut 2 and 1/4 wide and used the punch in the typical way to go down the edge of the strip. That strip is on the far left in the picture. You can actually begin with any width and then trim to exactly 1 and 1/8 from the inside edge of the punched strip to the trimmed edge. I hope that's clear! Then line up the punch along the opposite edge so that the very center mark of the snowflake is lined up with that mark on the punch--this is on the end snowflake and punch again. This will give you your full round center snowflake. Move the strip and do the same again for each complete circle on your strip, however long it is. If it doesn't come out the first time, fudge on the width of your strip a little. Luckily mine came out the first time but I can see where you might have to adjust depending on your paper cutter, your eyes, etc.

Then to get one complete snowflake, use sharp paper scissors and just trim one out from the row, clipping carefully around the tiny scallop edges where necessary. This really expands the use you will get from this punch. It was $18 at JoAnn's and I used a fifty off coupon which made it $9 plus tax so I'm a happy camper. If all of this isn't clear to you, just drop me an email and I'll help you through it or post more photos if necessary. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Sorry I haven't posted as frequently lately. I've been so busy just with projects around the house and doctor's appointments, etc. I really had nothing to share today so I thought I'd put up a picture of a small bulletin board I have on one wall. Things change there seasonally. You can click on the picture to enlarge. Mostly fall and halloween things (older stuff), a few small dolls and other inspirational things. I also took note that the number of my followers has shot up quite a bit and I want to thank everyone who signed up. That's very flattering and I'm so grateful. I wish each and every one of you a fantastic fall season and lots of mojo and inspiration to keep creating!

Happy Fall Y'All

I'm so happy fall is here. I love the cooler temps, the falling leaves and comfort food type meals. I also love fall crafting. This is a little tree I did. The glittery black tree is from JoAnn's. I made the decorations from the Tim Holtz Rosette die, Spellbinders scalloped and round dies, and halloween stamps, buttons, flowers etc. Adds a nice little accent to the jelly cabinet in my kitchen. I think I originally found this on Pinterest. Hope you are enjoying the season too!

You'll Never Guess......

You'll never guess what the leaves are made from in this little wreath!!! Plastic packaging!! Yup! You know the kind of stuff that your Tim Holtz dies and Ranger products as well as a gazillion other things come in. I save the large pieces (mostly fronts and backs). I saw this done on a blog last year but now can't remember whose it was but it was definitely not an original idea of mine. I used Tim Holtz leaves die to cut about 40 leaves out. Then use your heat gun and shape each leaf however you want. They soften with the heat but then firm up almost immediately, so work quickly. Then you sponge them with alcohol inks in fall colors and also had metallic paints in gold, copper, green etc. Then glue them to a large circle of chipboard, add your berries and ribbon in the center. And don't forget a ribbon hanger. Be sure to enlarge the pictures by clicking to see the leaves up close. Have a great weekend!

Halloween Hoot!

This cute little owl was a dollar stamp from Jo Ann's. I made a rosette using two 4" strips of DP and scored at every 1/2". Then I mounted the circular piece on a Spellbinders large pennant die cut and added a ribbon for hanging. The image was gussied up with Stickles.

Another Inkalicious Project

This next project is done using a very old chipboard book I've had sitting around for a couple years. I believe it was by Maya Road and I chose to use it vertically rather than horizontally. Again on this project I used the TH Distress Stains and I can't say enough about how wonderful these are for quick coverage. This project is also all about ART.....there are some really funny sayings from Wendy Vecchi stamps on this one. The top page with the EK Success rolled flower and the glitter wings is just so pretty. The glitter on these wings really sparkles brightly. I used a new glitter from Donna Salazar called Fairy Dust and the color is Mixed Berries. It is sooo fine and just sparkles like diamonds. The last long page uses a flower pot from Art Parts and some grungepaper swirls for stems and leaves. All the flowers were handmade and they're all different. My favorite saying on here is "Art is therapeutic and thus it should be tax deductible." Do you agree? I sure do! Anyway I have showed you most but not all of the pages just to give you some idea of what this little mini book is all about. Enjoy!

Happy Fall Y'All!

This is my favorite time of the year and I seem to have more energy and am finally feeling like I'm putting this go round with bronchitis behind me. I have a couple of exciting projects to share with you today. The first is the project shown on the cover of Wendy Vecchi's new book. It's done with her product Art Parts and mostly all Wendy and Tim Holtz products. I didn't have every piece of Art Parts that she used so I improvised and am very happy with the results. This project was soooo much fun to do and didn't take as long as I thought. The new Tim Holtz Distress Stains are a blast. You can cover a large piece with ink in no time at all with them and the colors are luscious. This piece is all about ART! All the little sayings involved deal with art and inspiration. I hope you can click on the picture and get a good look at the rubber stamp sayings that were used. Enjoy and I hope be inspired!

Fall is Here

The last few days here in Maryland have been gorgeous. Sunny most of the time and deliciously cool temperatures. Today I worked on a few Tim Holtz tags. The images are from last year's impressions folders and the pumpkins are a Sixxix die. I used a TH bird and a MS chandelier and added a sentiment and tag to each. Used Wild Honey Distress Ink sponged on the tag first and then Walnut Stain after the embossing was done. Simple and easy! Hope this finds you enjoying the weather in your part of the world!

A Little Fall Treat.........

This is a sweet little witches shoe card that I ran across initially on Pinterest. Following the link I came to a blog called the Craft Spot. Here is the link: http://www.craftspotbykimberly.blogspot.com/. Just scroll down and you will see some lovely pictures and a nice tutorial on how to make this. Be sure to click on the picture to see it up close. It's actually a card and Kimberly tells you how to do this. The ribbon I used is plain Snug Hug seam binding in cream and I sprayed it on my craft mat with Perfect Pearls Mist Copper. So easy to make custom colored seam binding ribbon. Also, forgot to say that the pattern for this is from the Happy Haunting Cricut cartridge. This was a fun project and I hope you will try it.

Have been out of commission from a nasty case of bronchitis. Just finished my second course of antibiotics. Hubby had it too so it's been quite the contagious place to be here. Hopefully I will be able to get back to my creative work soon.

Are You Prepared???

As if an earthquake wasn't bad enough, now we here on the East Coast are bracing for appears to be a very bad hurricane! I am preparing by making a couple tags today to share with you. Both tags use a new product called Goosebumps by Tsukineko. It's a texture spray. On these tags, I sprayed Goosebumps, dried with a heat gun, then distressed with ink. Then I sprayed again, dried and used a different color ink. Then embellished. The Goosebumps acts as a resist so you get a textured mottled spotty kind of look. Very nice. I found it at Michaels which shocked me that they even had it but I know it's available online a lot of places. The faith tag has a large flower I made, a smaller prima flower, a few vintage religious articles and the Faith bingo card. If you're a catholic, you'll get the tongue in cheek innuendo there! The other card of course is Halloween using Tim and Martha dies, stamps and paper. All the inks used were Tim Holtz Distressed inks on both tags. Be sure to click to see the pics larger and hopefully maybe you can catch the texture effect. Stay safe and dry!!!

A EARTHQUAKE in Maryland?????

Well we just experienced a 5.9 earthquake here in Maryland. The epicenter apparently was north of Richmond VA and it was felt from North Carolina to Boston, Massachusetts. I was at my desk, felt the initial shaking, stood and had to grab onto the wall when the worst hit and it shook a little longer and stopped. I heard what sounded like a big wind and looked outside and (so spooky!!) NOTHING was moving. We knew right away it had to be an earthquake. What an experience!

A New Adventure

Maybe you noticed the little red link at the top left of my page. I joined Pinterest. If you haven't joined yet, give it a try. It's free and so much fun. I'm not much on these technical things but this is actually very easy to learn how to use. Think of it as a giant set of bulletin boards that you want to save things to. You can save decorating ideas, papercrafting ideas, crafts, designs, signs, rooms, quotations, recipes and anything else YOU can think of. You can get started by looking at my boards or others and see if it's something you'd like. You can also follow the boards of other friends who are members. If you see something on someone's boards that you like, you "repin" it to your boards. And one of the nicest features about doing this is.....when you click on an item you like on someone's boards, it will take you directly to the website it came from. So often you get right back to a tutorial that the item you like was made from. So cool. Create boards of your own and save the things that inspire you. One warning.....it's addictive. Like You Tube, you can spend all day on Pinterest! Have fun!

Inspiration

Here are two views of a little card I did this afternoon. The background was the most fun. I saw this technique on Stamp TV. You take a piece of DP. I think it should be what I call a "quiet" print, in other words not a large print or loud motifs on it. I used SU's Newsprint. Then I ran it through the machine with Tim Holtz clocks embossing folder. Then I used Black Soot Distress Ink brushed across the raised portion, just very lightly so you don't tear the paper. Then I used some Vintage Photo around the edges for a vintage look. I stamped the clock and the saying from SU 's a Sense of Time set. Then I cut them out with Nestabilities scalloped circles and long rectangles. Distressed them with Vintage Photo. With a little black sheer ribbon and a TH charm that says Moments, I completed it. Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them to get a really good look at the background.

A Second Fall Cut

This one is from the catridge Nursery Rhymes. Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.

Playing With Cricut

Playing around with the Cricut today and this is an image from a new cartridge called Damask Decor. I used the Silhouette feature to cut the background and the layers. This is fairly large, about 8" across and 7" tall so it would be good for use on a scrapbook page or the top of a box or a large bag. I was just seeing what the images on this cartridge are like and chose a pumpkin because I am soooooo ready for fall and cooler weather. Been in kind of a mojo slump lately. Don't you hate it when that happens! I'm trying to hard to get back in the groove. A new season and nice weather would help. We're all ready for that right????????

These lasst flowers are made with a five petal punch. You can make as many layers as you like and depending on how you work with them using a flower shaper tool or even the end of a marker will work, you can make them very tightly closed or more open. The one on the right has a MS punch for the leaf base (hard to see) and the left one uses an SU punch for the base. Sort of makes it look like a water lily. The video for this is also on You Tube. I think you could sit on there all day and just watch paper flower videos. There are so many but it's nice to add a few new flowers to your repertoire.

These are some of the new roses I mentioned in this morning's earlier post. They were made with the Spellbinders Rose Creations die. This die was designed by Donna Salazar. I really like it because it actually has a bud i n the center. You die cut all your layers which have a hole in the center. You secure them all together with a brad and then start shaping. Glitter and Glimmer Mist help make them something special. This video is also on You Tube.

A morning spent among the flowers.....

This is a new flower technique for me. I found it on You Tube under tea bag folded flowers. You use a scalloped circle for the petals. I used four. Each circle gives you two petals. All in how you fold it. Used it to make a quick sympathy card with some older SU paper and Nestabilites and SU oval scalloped punch.

My Sunday Afternoon.....

It was kind of a stinky hot muggy day with lots of cloud cover and finally some much needed rain. I spent the afternoon working on this card using the MS Punch Around the Page punch along with MS punches for the flower spray (told you this wouldn't be the last Kitty C. card!) and a prima flower in the center. I used my old favorite Flourishes strawberry stamp and popped the large strawberry up on dimensionals. Colored with Copics and the sentiment is an SU set called Whimsical Words. I'm working on some new paper flowers, roses to be exact, and hopefully will have them to show in a few days. Enjoy your week everyone!

Tribute to Kitty!

I am a big fan of Kitty Caracciolo's work and she has developed a beautiful style with paper florals. This card is my first effort at her style and it won't be the last. Looks sort of Christmas-y but wasn't really. I just love red and green! The sentiment is from ODB. The flower is another of the ones from the EK Success flower punch I showed you below. Foliage and tiny flowers are MS punches as is the punch around the page edge. Thanks Kitty for the inspiration!

SOLVED!!!

I was in a major funk when I found out the MTC software was not available to me yesterday. But my wonderful son figured a work around. He took a version of the software on the internet and was able to extract the Plug In for it from the old computer hard drive. Problem solved! I am elated!

I'm In Shock..........

While finishing up some remaining programs to be installed on my computer, we realized that my papercrafting software called Make the Cut was no longer on my computer. When I purchased this software for approx. $70 about two years ago it was an internet download and I was told all I needed in case my computer crashed in the future was the registration code which I have. I had no disc. I have loved using this software. So I wrote to them and because of legal action they had with Provocraft the maker of the Cricut they can no longer allow me to download the older version I had of this software. I am left with nothing. Not only that but I have hundreds of file, both free ones and many I purchased which are no good to me because the Cricut Design Studio Software does not work with these files. Only the Make the Cut software did.

Sooooooo, I am appealing to anyone out there who might have had the last version of Make The Cut before the recent update (which doesn't work with Cricut). I wondered if someone could copy their disc for me and mail me a copy. I am willing to pay for it because otherwise I'm up a creek without a paddle so to speak. I'm disappointed in MTC as well as Provocraft that they have left their customers high and dry. Provocraft even will tell you that use of Make the Cut software invalidates your Cricut warranty. This is big business at its worst my friends! So if you have the disc or you could ask among your crafting friends if they have it, I would be eternally grateful.

I'm Baaaack......

I apologize for being gone so long. The whole computer update thing has taken longer than anticipated. My wonderful son is my resident geek. He built my new computer from scratch with a new motherboard and processor and I also got a new keyboard and mouse. Typing is so quiet and things are much faster. As I said in the last post, I wanted to share a few things with you. The first is this: The punch you see is a new EK Success punch purchased at JoAnn's. Looks like a normal border punch but what it makes are these beautiful flowers. You simply cut two 12" pieces, glue them together, off setting one strip slightly from the other and then roll around a pencil or quilling tool or whatever and glue the end. Add a little gem or center ornament and you're done. The punch is one of several EK Success has come out with and JA's has them. What fun! (NOTE: Unfortunately I can never get Blogger to place my pictures where I want them in the text. GRRRHHH!)

The next thing I wanted to share with you is the current craze for Kanzashi. What you ask?!?!

Kanzashi are Japanese flowers made from fabric. They're so fast and easy, bet you can't make just one! I'm just showing a few styles. There are several and endless variations. Clover has some templates out for making them without doing the traditional folding but I haven't tried those yet and there is a book available from your local library called Kanzashi in Bloom. Joggles.com has all the supplies, books, templates etc as well as videos on the how tos of making them. It's simple folding and you really don't even need an iron, unless you want to use one. They're great for scrapbook pages, altered projects, clothing, on tote bags, hair barrettes, jewelry, etc. Endless possibilities. Also if you google Kanzashi you'll see lots of info and examples. Great summer fun and girls of a certain age really love them for hair accessories! Give it a try.

I am here........

Just stopping in quickly to let you know I have been off line for about 5 days due to my son building me a new computer!!. I'm not back completely yet but hopefully in another day or two. I have several really cool things to share with you so check back in again in a few days.

Sewing Machine Mini Book

OK! I've been working on this for the last 2 or 3 days and I swear it took as long to get the pictures taken, organized and uploaded in the correct order. You are seeing them beginning with the front cover, the inside front cover, the first page, back of the first page, etc. DON"T FORGET YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PICS TO MAKE THEM LARGER. The major details are: I used the Graphic 45 Le' Romantique paper and sanded and distressed all the pages with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink. All the elements were also distressed with the same ink. I used lots of flowers, both Prima, Recollections and home made. I also used hand made pearl bling as well as Recollections bling. Many of the little images are from Crafty Secrets and several are from my personal collection of antique vintage sewing trading cards. The page with the doilies has paper doilies as well as one made on my embroidery machine. The button cards are vintage. I also used many Tim Holtz metal findings, Dusty Attic laser cut chipboard, coin envelopes, several pieces of an old tape measure, charms, vintage mother of pearl buttons, etc. If you have any questions about a particular embellishment or about anything I did, just ask. I also spritzed the front and back cover with silver Glimmer Mist. I punched all the holes with my Big Bite (so easy peasy) and added a ribbon blossom made from a tutorial on SCS around the ring which holds the pages together. Whew! Hope I covered the important stuff. The naked chipboard book I think I got at Michaels in the dollar bin but it's been a long time. I hope you enjoy this project and especially all you sewers and needlewomen out there! Have a wonderful evening.