867-5309... Remember that song? I love that song. I admit it, I'm an 80's music freak. I love listening to the 80's on my Sirius radio. I listen to it all day at work and in my car going to and from work. Unfortunately I don't have a Sirius radio in my craft room so I'm not sure that song was the motivator for me to create this card. Orange is not a color I typically use, and I'm not sure what made me use it. But this turned out to be one of my favorite cards! I love the orange paisley paper and orange velvet ribbon. I used wire for the phone cord (just wrapped it around my Zig pen a few times to make it look curly like a phone cord). I think it's so cute!
My LSS, Scrapbooks Plus, is having a design team call. They had one in December, but by the time I got there to pick up a kit, they were all gone. When I found out they were having a second round call, I was there right when they opened so I could be sure not to miss out! Scrapbooks Plus is a great LSS, they carry A LOT of Lasting Impressions stuff. I feel so lucky to have a local LSS that carries so many products that I use all the time.
To be honest, when I was at the store picking up the kit, I almost decided right then and there not to take it and forget the whole design team call all together. I was definitely NOT motivated by the product in the kit. The papers are by Daisy Bucket Designs and are all Valentine themed. (ick - not my style at all!) But I decided to take the kit and challenge myself. I had to create a 2 page 12x12 layout; a 1 page 12x12 layout; a card and an altered item (anything not on a page). The only scrapbooks I have made are small mini-books of my dogs. So I was completely intimidated by the 12x12 scrapbook layouts. One of my friends told me to think of it as a giant card. So that's what I did, and it was SO EASY!
The picture above is the card I made (I chose a criss-cross design because it uses a lot of patterned paper and part of the judging is how much I use the kit, and they gave me A LOT of patterned paper). Of course I added embossed flowers to the card.
For the 1 page 12x12 scrapbook layout, I chose a picture of my dog Zubie. I liked the flowers and flourishes on the right side of the patterned paper so I didn't want to cover that up. If you look closely, the flower petals are actually hearts! I dry embossed a bunch of hearts and used them as flower petals to make my own flower embellishments for the page. The buttons, sticker letters and paper clip (I dry embossed hearts and added them to the top of the paper clip because I didn't like the design that was there) were all included in the kit.
Next, the altered item. This was easy for me to create. I used a papertrey tea tin and covered it with paper, added some ribbon and a scalloped chipboard circle (I painted it white) from the kit and dry embossed a heart for the center of it. I also took the circle center from the chipboard scallop, painted it white, added hearts to it and put it on the lid of the tin. I used paper from the kit to cover some Hershey's Nuggets and put them in the tin.
Finally, the 2 page 12x12 scrapbook layout. I don't have a lot of pictures of any one event, and I wasn't even sure if they wanted me to use pictures, or just create a "sketch" of sorts. But I decided to use the pictures I have of Greg racing in different events and playoff the "love/heart" theme of the papers (since I really steered clear of the Valentine's theme in the card and 1 page layout). He definitely loves to race and I used pictures of him and his race cars on the page. I added dry embossed hearts in different places. I am really proud of myself for going outside my comfort zone to make these projects. Wish me luck!
I feel like a new woman today!! Bunny slept through the night for the first time since I adopted her on January 6th! Whheww! How do people with new babies do it?? She's getting more adjusted to life outside a cage everyday. I'm going to post her picture to the right by my profile once I get her groomed. (probably in a couple weeks once she's a little more comfortable around people).
I always find myself reaching for red, white & black papers when I make cards. I guess everyone has a color combo that they love. Red, white & Black is mine. I just love how they look together. I used Lasting Impressions paper for both of these cards. I might have gone a little overboard with the polka dots on the one card, maybe next time I won't emboss and sand the dots on the heart. Both of these cards were so quick and simple to make. I got some brand new Valentine's templates from Lasting Impressions last week that I'm so excited to use. I'll be posting some cards in a few days using those templates. Have a great day!
I have to admit, I'm not crazy about chocolate. I'm not one of those women who needs chocolate to make it through the day. I don't crave chocolate. I could take it or leave it. But I made this card for a friend of mine who loves chocolate. I thought she would like it. The template and paper that I used are by Lasting Impressions. I love this line of Lasting Impressions' paper. I love the distressed look of it. Hoping you have a great day!
It is so cold here, it wouldn't surprise me to see penguins walking down the street any time now! I don't think my furnace has stopped running for 3 days. January - March is usually when we get our winter in DC but this is unseasonably cold for us! It is hard to motivate myself to take the dogs for a walk in this weather. I made this cute little penguin card in anticipation of seeing those penguins walk by my house! The template and paper are by Lasting Impressions. The metal sentiment that says "In the Frosty Air" in the upper right hand corner is by Lasting Impressions. Hoping it warms up soon, I'm ready to make some spring cards!
I've been working on some Valentine's cards lately. This was my Valentine's card from last year. I love the pink & brown color combo. The template, paper & ribbon are all by Lasting Impressions. I inked the edges with Distress Inks (direct to paper) and used a stipple brush to add some ink to the edges of the heart.
Thanks to everyone who has been asking how Bunny is doing. She is fitting in nicely to our family. She is learning so quickly - she's gone two days without accidents in the house (yeah!). She had her first trip to the dog park over the weekend and she loved it. She walked right up to the people who were there, which is a huge improvement from when we first got her. She still flinched when people reached down to pet her, but I was still happy to see her approach people. (She was a breeder dog and spent her entire life in a cage, she had no human interaction and was very afraid of people).
I have the day off today. Going to spend it crafting! Maybe do some shopping at Angela's Happy Stamper. I still have gift certificates from Christmas burning a hole in my pocket!!
You may not know that I am a huge hockey fan! I love the Washington Capitals! We've had season tickets for 2 years now, and I just love going to the games. They are so much fun. The Caps are having a fantastic season since we got a new coach in late November, and I really think they have a shot at the playoffs. There is a home game tonight but we gave our tickets away to some friends. The last 4 games were home games, and it is tough driving into the city (we live 9 miles away but it normally takes about 45 minutes to get there on a light traffic day) and it is expensive to park there. So we're going to order pizza and watch the game on TV tonight. Sometimes I enjoy it just as much as going to the games (with the DVR we can see the replays that we want to see)! Here is a card I made with the Lasting Impressions Pizza template. I wasn't quite sure what to do with this template. I decided to use the word "pizza" as the background of the card. I embossed it over and over, sanded, and then used a stipple brush to brush distress inks over it to give it a tan look. I didn't want the white core of the paper to show. Then I embossed the pizza slice and pieced it onto the card. I love how it turned out. Let's go Caps!!
Well, we did get some snow yesterday! I had to work all day yesterday and we did not get much there. At home we got about 1.5 inches. Zubie loves the snow but Rusty and Bunny don't like it very much, so getting them to take a walk in it was not easy! This card is fitting for our weather conditions today. The "Brr" letters were traced from some chipboard letters onto Lasting Impressions paper. I cut out the letters and distressed the edges by sanding them. The snowman is embossed with one of my favorite Lasting Impressions' templates, and he is peeking out from behind the letter B. I cased this card from a card I saw at my LSS a long time ago.
We're expecting snow in the DC area today... a dusting to an inch of snow. There's already talk of schools closing early and it hasn't even started snowing yet. hehehe... It's so funny to me after growing up in NE Ohio where we would get 2-5 inches of snow overnight an still have to go to school in the morning. In honor of our expected snowfall, I am posting these snowmen cards. The first one with the polka-dot background that says "Warmest Wishes" is a card that was given to me by my friend Donna. She does wonderful embossing and always encourages me to do more embossing. (She's a bad influence! hehehe, just kidding!) I love that she prints a lot of her sentiments from her computer, I never think to do that. The tall skinny snowman is a card I made based on the color scheme from Donna's card. I usually don't think to use pink, black and white together. I love how the cards turned out though. I'll have to use this color combination more often.
I got tagged by my friend Rae (I'm still bitter that she didn't win the PaperCrafts Gallery Idol, her work is incredible!) yesterday... so here goes!
1. Name your two favorite scrapbook topics. I don't scrapbook much. I'm not married and don't have kids, and one can only make so many dog albums! I think I would have to say dogs and vacations.
2. What are the two best places you've been to? Roatan, an island off of Honduras while on a cruise in 1999; and Canada.
3. Name two things you do every day? Walk the dogs, Go into my craft room (even if it's just for a few minutes!)
4. Tell us two things that everyone pretty much knows about you? I have dogs, and I am addicted to crafting!
5. Two places you wish to visit? Europe and Tokyo (just found out that Greg's brother and his family are moving there for a 3 year assignment. It will be hard not seeing the twins for that long!)
6. Two things you may not know about me are: I collect Cabbage Patch Kids (and any toys from the 80's!) and I have a 1988 Porsche!
7. Two nicknames you've had at some time in your life: I can't think of any.
8. Name two of your favorite drinks? Cherry Coke and Diet A&W Root Beer
9. What are two interesting (in a good or bad way) jobs you've had in your life? I worked in an ice cream store in high school. They made us eat our mistakes (if you scooped the wrong flavor or something). To this day, I'm not crazy about ice cream. Guess I made a lot of mistakes!! And I worked at Babies R Us in the registry department for about 2 weeks. Kill me before I work retail again.
10. What are two things you would like to learn? I wish I was more knowledgeable about religion (never went to church as a child and always regretted not knowing anything about religion) and how to give my dogs haircuts. That would free up so much money for more crafting supplies!
11. What two things would make your scrapping/stamping work space work even better for you? More space on my table, I guess that means organizing a little better. If my craft room were larger, that would be nice too!
12. What are two of your best organizational tips for stampers that do not have a lot of space? Find a storage system that works for you. I have the Elfa storage system from the Container Store. I took my craft room (bedroom) closet and put those shelves in there. They are great for holding stamps and embellishments.
13. What are your two favorite stamping toys? Distress Inks and Gamsol (to go with my Prismacolor pencils).
14. If you could have TWO super-powers, what would they be? To be invisible and to read people's minds.
15. Name two words that describe your stamping/scrapbooking style? I don't know if I have a style. Simple I guess. Embellishment-heavy (Okay, I don't think that's a word).
16. Name two of your favorite colors to design with? Lasting Impressions' Distressed Brown & Red.
17. Name two of your all-time favorite paper collections/lines. I have to say Lasting Impressions' distressed paper line and Basic Grey Figgy Pudding.
18. Name two scrapbooking/stamping tools on your wishlist. Mine is a Scor-it, and some Copic markers.
I'm supposed to tag two people to answer the above questions and then to also add a question of their own. The only requirement is that the question must be in twos. I am going to tag my friends Chrisi and Jennie!!
Well, I'm not sick of this penguin template yet! Here are two more cards I made using the Penguin template from Lasting Impressions. The first card shows the penguin having a little mishap... I guess he misjudged the thickness of the ice! I drew in the cracks in the ice with a Zig pen. The second card was really time consuming. It was frustrating trying to get the floss tied to the skates to make it look like they had the skates around their necks by the skate laces. The stamp "Have an ice day" is by A Muse. Isn't that saying cute? Oh, I got tagged by Rae so look for my post about that tomorrow! Right now I better get ready for work.
I got this amazing address book from my friend, Nettie. She belongs to the Yahoo dry embossing group with me. WOW.... is all I can say! I still can't believe she gave it to me as a RAK. It must have taken her so much time to make. Now somehow I'll have to find the nerve to write in it! Thanks Nettie, and watch your mailbox for a return RAK!
I absolutely love this penguin template from Lasting Impressions. It is one of their new templates that came out in November. This was an easy card to make, but time consuming with all the cutting and paper piecing. I took sandpaper and tried to scuff up the blue paper a little bit to make it look like skate blade marks on the ice.
I try to keep this blog about crafting, but wanted to share that I got a new dog over the weekend! I named her Bunny. She's a 2 year old Westie that I adopted from a rescue organization. She was used for breeding and spent her entire life in a cage! She is so quiet and sweet and is slowly coming around, she is very afraid of people since she has never been around them. She absolutely loves Zubie and wants to play with him every chance she can get. He is completely worn out from playing with her! For the first time since I adopted him, the house was silent last night... no barking! He was sleeping on the couch while we were watching TV last night. That has never happened! He is a high energy dog. I am so glad it worked out and he has a playmate now. Rusty does not really care for the two of them and is pretty stressed out about the two of them playing. Since she is blind, she gets very nervous about where they are and what they are doing. I'm hoping now that Zubie has a playmate, he won't look to me for entertainment and I can get some more crafting time! Here's a picture of her... isn't she adorable?? (Yes she has one ear that stays up and one ear that stays down!)
I'm not one of those people that hoards scraps. Unless it's at least 1/2 sheet of paper, it's not worth the space it takes up to save it, in my opinion. I do however save most of my Lasting Impressions scraps even if they are less than 1/2 sheet. That paper is hard to come by, and is great for embossing. It has a white core, so once you put it on your light box, you can see the template underneath. It makes embossing so easy. Plus, you can sand it after embossing, and the white core shows through. So cool! I made this card using some of my Lasting Impressions scraps. It's a quick easy card. The "Smiles" stamp is by A Muse.
It has been so cold here lately! This is the coldest winter so far that I can remember since moving to the DC area 7 years ago. Usually it is in the 40's or 50's with a few colder days thrown in. Not this year... yesterday it was 19 degrees! There's a reason I left the northeast! Here is a little snowman card I made since I am now in the winter mood. The snowmen were embossed from a Lasting Impressions template. Hope it warmer where you are!
While I'm thinking about recipe cards, I thought I would post this mixer card I made awhile ago. I case'd the idea from a Lasting Impressions idea book. I dry embossed all the pieces and cut them out, and then paper pieced them together. The bow on the front was made using the Bow-Easy template (since I'm bow challenged). I love mine, I think once you know how to use it and practice using it a few times, it is easy to use. If you don't know how to use it, check out this fabulous tutorial on Laura's blog.
I've been signing up for some recipe card swaps on the Paper Crafts Magazine website. I've really been enjoying the challenge of creating on a larger space than I 'm used to (I don't really scrapbook, just mainly do cards). The first picture is a recipe card I made for a holiday treats recipe swap. These cards are 6x6 so they fit nicely in that sized scrapbook. I remember my mom making these candy cane cookies every year for us. They are delicious! I made them this year, took them to work, and they were gone in less than an hour!
The second picture is a card I made for an Iron Chef recipe swap. This was a real challenge! You sign up for the swap and have to pick your category (salad, dessert, beverage, etc) before you even know what the secret ingredient is! I don't watch Iron Chef on TV so I'm not sure I fully understood what I was getting into. I picked beverage and the secret ingredient was oranges. Easy! Whhewww! Turns out my family makes this orange slush every Christmas holiday... only ours is a slightly modified version with Vodka. I forgot to add we freeze it after making it so that is where the "slush" comes in. Oh well.
