Sunday Challenge #3

I'm so glad Sonja has made it home safe and sound and has joined me in finishing these challenges. I hope we can get some more ladies to play along. Last week's challenge was to use ribbon. I did on a few cards I made, but forgot to take pictures of them before I sent them out. I did however finally finish a layout for one of the frames here in the house using a little bit of ribbon. It's an 11 x 14 frame, so I couldn't print a picture big enough to fit it and decided to do a layout. I loved the rose that was printed on this paper and didn't want the photo to completely cover it so I cut out the edge with an X-acto blade and tucked the photo under it. The ribbon simply helps soften the line where the 2 different papers come together at the bottom.


This week's challenge is to use chipboard letters. Cover them with paper, paint them, ink them, distress them, whatever you like, but use them on a project this week and tell me all about it. Since my printer is working again, I am hoping to get some of Angel's pictures printed and do a few pages for her album this week.

In other news, I'm hoping to get my Stampin' Up! business up and going again soon. I think I'm going to start with a card swap. I just got my new catalog in and am in the middle of sorting through my retired stamps and reorganizing them. Hopefully I'll have that done today and start making a few things with my current stamp sets. It's good to get my office put together and have a place to be crafty again. :o) Especially one with such a beautiful view to look at while I'm working!

One more bit of crafty news. Today was the first Sunday of the month which means we had "potblessing" at our church today and I made a cake honoring all those with a Birthday or Anniversary in August (which includes Mike and I--21 years together and he's still my Knight in Shining Armor!) I decided on a picnic theme for this month's cake. This was so much fun to do. I felt like I was back in art class at school again playing with play-do. :o) Here's a picture of it. I'm going to upload some close-ups onto our Picasa site if you want to check them out.


Well, I better close here and get busy on these stamps. Till next week, God's love and blessings.

New challenge this week.

I am so excited! It came down to the wire, but I did meet my own challenge. I know Sonja didn't get a chance to do any crafting this week as she is driving all over the country right now, but maybe this will be inspiration for her when she returns (Hi, Sonja!).

Here's the project that I used glitter on.


It uses one of the new embossing folders from Stampin' Up! I embossed a piece of vellum and then cut off the area above the flowers. I then traced over the embossed image with a glue pen and sprinkled it with glitter. This card is going to my Sister and her hubby for their Anniversary this month. (Don't look, Pam). The ribbon on the side helps to hide the adhesive that shows through the vellum a bit.

This week's challenge will be to use ribbon-preferably ribbon scraps. You know, those little pieces left over from other projects. See what you can do with them on a new project this week. One of my favorite techniques is to fold a 2-3 inch piece in half and staple it to the side of a photo or other element on a page. I need to work on some pages in Angel's album, so I'm sure it won't be hard to use up some ribbon.

Well, have fun, and happy craftin'!

Finally Settled

Yes, it's been a long time in coming, but we're finally settled into our new home. I don't think I can possibly explain in words how much I love this place. It's not what I thought was my "dream" home, but it is absolutely perfect! One great thing is that I have plenty of crafting space, and I was able to get most of my supplies well organized and easy to reach.

I just finished a super half-week with my crafting buddy, Sonja, and we were discussing how difficult it is now to get motivated to do some crafting now that we're so far from each other and the other ladies we used to scrap with. We've decided to try some virtual crafting together by challenging each other to do or use something specific each week and then post pictures of what we've accomplished. We both feel it would be a lot more fun if more people joined us, so from now on, I will do my best to post a challenge here each Sunday afternoon along with a reminder update on my Facebook page. Some challenges will be using specific products or techniques. Some may be finishing a certain number of pages or cards. I'm not sure what all the challenges will be yet. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

I would love to see the projects that you accomplish with the challenge. I don't know all the ins and outs of posting things on the web, but I do know that you can post pictures to your Facebook account or comment with a link to some other place where you have your pictures stored online (ie Picasa). You don't have to post pictures, just comment on here and let me know you finished the challenge. I know there's a lot of forums out there where you can do things like this, but I thought this would be more fun to do with the ladies I know so we can help motivate and encourage one another--besides, I also like seeing pictures of you and the projects you do.

So, in honor of the sale items I picked up at Archivers yesterday, this week's challenge will be to use glitter on a project. It can be a scrapbook page, card, or any other project that you've created. I can't wait to see who will play along with us. I'm going to close here. I've got pictures to print and glitter to glue!

Till I post pics of my projects...

God's love and blessings!

Lookie what I made!!

I got this idea from the trinket boxes that several ladies were posting at Splitcoaststampers. I had been wanting some way of organizing my daughter's hair accessories by color to make it easier to find what we needed each morning, and this seemed the perfect thing. I made some changes to fit what I needed. First off, my drawers are considerably larger than theirs and I made 8 that all face the same way. I didn't want to have to turn the box around to find the color we needed.

I made a blue one for Michelle, and a purple one for her friend Helen's birthday. Here's a shot of the front. The drawer pulls were made by punching shrink plastic with a large flower punch and shrinking them down. They were attached with rhinestone brads and unused eyelets behind to pull them away from the drawer.

Here's the top. I used my Wishblade to cut out their names and my Sizzix to cut out the butterfly. I also used my Sizzix to emboss the front of Helen's drawers.


I decorated the sides with more punched out flowers.


Well, all I have to do now is get Helen's in the mail to her. (It's already a bit late, oops.)

I think I'm going to start planning some projects for classes. Lord willing, we will be settling into a new house soon and I can start teaching again. Yeah!!!

Till next time...

God's love and blessings!

I've Been Scrappin'!

I don't have any projects to post today, but I did have to post to say that I've been scrappin"! It's been quite a while since I've had a chance to work on any albums, and I've really enjoyed a relaxing few days of playing and reminiscing. I think one of the benefits of being behind on the albums is that it gives me an excuse to go through pictures from years ago, and be amazed at how fast the time goes and the children grow.

Since the day after Christmas, I've finished 13 pages in Michelle's album which takes me about half way through her 2nd year (she's 5 now!). I'm in the middle of 4 more, but I ran out of adhesive so will have to wait till I can get some more. :o( I'll try and scan or get some pictures of the pages I finished a post a few next time.

Till then, God's love & blessings,

Well, here's the pictures I promised of the ornaments I made for my nieces and nephews this year. I found these tins on sale at Target and thought they'd make good shaker-box ornaments. These are the 5 designs I came up with.



You might recognize these 2 guys from the light box in the last post. Aren't they cute? I found these snowflake buttons after I'd already finished the snowman ornaments, but I thought they'd be cute with the little ice skater. I snipped the button hoop off the back. One of the snowflakes is loose in the ornament, and the other is glued to the front. I also put some glitter and fake snow inside the ornament to shake around. I stamped extra ornaments for the bottom one and coated them with dimensional glaze to make them shiny.


I have to say that this little guy is my favorite. He was a lot of work though. I stamped all the little candies and cut each one out. There's gumdrops, a lollipop, peppermint candy, jellybeans, and of course, the gingerbread guy. Since I made 6 of this design, that was a bit of cutting. The fake snow didn't look quite right in this one, so I put microbeads to look like sugar in the bottom along with a plastic candy cane and some of the jellybeans I cute out. What do you think?

Well, I seem to be coming down with something, so I think I'm going to call it a night and get some sleep. Thanks for looking!

I'm Crafting Again!

Well, we've finally settled in here and Mike has set me up a nice crafting spot in the room we're in. It's quite large, and we were able to get my crafty stuff out of storage, so I've had a chance to play around a bit lately! First off, here's a candle I made for our new Pastor and his family for inviting us over for lunch a few weeks back.

What do you think? Carole and Darlene had a fun time watching me make the candle. I hadn't seen their house yet, and had no idea how they decorated, but figured these colors would be pretty neutral.

Then I saw this neat "light" box over on Splitcoast. I didn't have the same stamp sets she had, but I thought Stampin' Up!s Holy Tritych would make nice Christmas gifts. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a battery operated tealight in the bottom of the box so it lights up.

After I had finished several of the ones above, I found these hedgehog stamps from Penny Black. My friend Sonja loved the little hedgehogs that Stampin' Up! used to have, so I knew I had to do something with these for her, and this is what I came up with.

I managed to get a picture of it with the light on inside. If you click on the pictures, you can see them bigger and some of the details better.

Well, I'm off to get the little one out of the tub before she becomes a little prune. Tomorrow I will post some pics of the ornaments I made for my niece and nephews this year.