Thursday, December 8, 2011

Christmas Card Sneak Peek

So no tag today but I thought I would give you a little sneak peek at my Christmas cards. My plan is to make 50 this year but its taking longer than I wanted so I'm still plugging away at it. Why go through all this work you ask? Well its one of the few things I can give of myself to let people know that I care about them, to me its worth the effort. And as frustrating as it can get when things don't want to co-operate I still enjoy doing it. It's one of those Christmas traditions that I do to get in the Holiday mood. It also challenges me to come up with something different and original every year. So here is just a glimpse of this year's cards.

 50 white pieces of cardstock that have been embossed with a new embossing folder and then brushed with Pearl-Ex powder.
 50 glittered and layered snowflakes

 50 each of 2 designs of swirls cut from paper that has been Glimmer misted and cut with Spellbinders dies.
 This year I wanted to include some of my own artwork on my card so I printed copies and cut them plus 2 other papers with my Spellbinders dies
 This is my holding container until my cards are ready to be assembled.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Following Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas Day 2 (officially)

OK, so yesterday I posted the tag for day 3 so here is day 2, the real day 2 tag, hope you like it. You can find Tim's here. I also added his 12 tag blinkie on the right so you can click on that to be more up to date on his tags( seeing as I'm a bit behind).

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Following Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas Day 3 (apparently I missed day 2)

My day 3 tag didn't turn out as good as I would have wanted it but here it is. You can find Tim's here. Now back to day 2, lol.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Following Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas

Every year  Tim Holtz does a 12 Tags of Christmas series and this year I wanted to follow along, so here is my tag for day 1(I'm a little behind but that's OK) You can check out his blog and follow along here.



Thursday, October 27, 2011

Scrapbook Layout


I couldn't resist making this layout when I saw this paper at Prairie Chicks. The inspiration for this layout came from a YouTube video I watched a couple of days ago from the I am Roses YouTube channel. You can find it here




Paper is from FabScraps
-Shabby Chic Fleur
-Shabby Chic Chandelier
-Timeless Travel Stamp

Saturday, October 8, 2011

My First Ever Background!

After a lot of trial and error I finally designed my own blog background! I've wanted to do this for so long already and make it more personal. The pictures on the sides are of a chickadee painting I did a while back. My background is not perfect but I will experiment some more with measurement and such.


Thanks for stopping by :)

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Everything I've created in the last month that I haven't posted yet.

Sadly I'm kinda ashamed that I haven't taken the time to post all the things I've made in the last month. I have actually done a few things, and will be doing hopefully a lot more this month as I have put a scrapbook supply restriction on myself for the month of October. My rules are that I may not purchase anything in the scrapbook area (even if it wasn't intended for scrapbooking) except adhesive if I run out (not too likely as I seem to stock up on things like that) and card stock only to finish a project that I have already started. If I have not used a substantial amount of my inventory by the end of October, I will have to go another month without buying anything. The idea is that my stuff stays within the bounds of clean organization (no overflowing into another area or my counter space) And this also motivates me to use what I have and be more productive.

This is the latest project for a swap I participated in at Scrapbook.com. Its a small noodle box and micro mini album. Lots of fun. The mini album measures 1 1/2"x 2 1/4"
















This is a not so mini album that fits 5x7 and 4x6 photos. I was playing with a dream effect in Photoshop with the rest of my pictures.


Shabby Chic embellishment organizer 







Some of the cards I made in September




Ok this one is a little older. I made this for the guest design team I was on back in July, I just had never posted it officially on my blog. 


Another two cards I made back in September



I decided to take better pictures of the Card and Envelope minis from the previous post.



and this album I made for a swap that never materialized, so I still have it. (sorry about the overly dreamy look, got a little carried away)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Cards and Envelope Mini Album Videos

I have wanted to post this for so long already, I'm glad time has finally been on my side the last couple of weeks, so I could get it done. One thing about making these videos is that I think it's time to upgrade my video camera that my brother so generously gave us for Christmas one year, it has come in so handy. It's too bad that technology moves faster than I do, or I would be totally content using this camera. But it's taking longer and longer to get the video off of it and as other programs improve, the camera I have seems to get worse :(


I've made this video so you can make it along with me, you can just pause in between to catch up. The supplies you'll need are listed below. It helps if you pre-cut  all your paper before hand. This book comes together really fast.

For personal use only please

Supplies you'll need if you want to follow along:
1-pkg of 6 cards and envelopes (I used Kaiser Craft)
(if you are using different cards and envelopes just cut your pages 1/4" smaller than the card face or folded envelope)

24- 3 3/4" x 5 1/2" pattern paper  
20- 4 1/4" x 3" pattern paper
6- 3 3/4" x 3" pattern paper for pockets (or width of your card paper x 3")
10- 4 3/4" x 2 1/2" tags( I used Ranger's #5 tags)
6- 6 1/4" x 3" tags ( I used the Tim Holtz Tag and Bookplate Die from Sizzix)
10- 1" strips cut from one of the envelopes
1- 2 3/4" x 5 7/8" cardstock scored at 1" and 1 3/4" (or the length of your cards x 2 3/4")















Thanks for watching!





Saturday, August 27, 2011

finishing up some projects

Its been a while again, I've been trying to finish up some projects lately and have several new ones started all the while waiting patiently for kids to go back to school ( I have mixed feelings about that this year, usually I'm so ready for them to go back). I am planning to make some new youtube videos as soon as the kids are in school (its impossible to do this while they are at home) I guess I thought the older they got the more free time I would get. Not this summer anyway. My oldest daughter lies in wait to catch me doing a video so she can laugh, critic and say I sound like a dork, lol. So she isn't getting that opportunity, hah. Teenagers! Last week I celebrated my 40th birthday, sigh, oh well. So now that life is slowly getting back to a routine, maybe I can get back to doing things in a more organized manner. Anyways I have a new quilt to show you, just finished it yesterday. And I'll post soon about the cards I made last Tuesday, I really like the way they turned out!

The pattern is called Twisted Bars from the book Modern Basics-Easy Quilts to fit Your Budget, Space and Style by Amy Ellis, Fabric is Lovely by Sandy Gervais and a few other pieces of various fabrics I threw in.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

more home renos

While my husband is finishing our basement bathroom I thought I would see what was under the blue paint on my counter top, I was very pleased to find this creamy Arborite underneath. So after 8 hours of stripping and scraping paint, 2 cans of paint stripper, I have a new counter top in a much more neutral color. This will tide me over until we can afford to redo the kitchen altogether :)



before


after



Monday, July 18, 2011

Catching Up

So I have been trying to catch up with blog posts now that some things have slowed down for me. As I said in my last blog post, I have been creating things just not having time to post anything. As some of you know from reading my posts in March, I was accepted on the http://flamingoscraps.blogspot.com/ guest design team and it has been tons of fun creating things for their blog this July. You can see the things I've been working on through the links below, also check out the rest of their blog and other DT members posts, they are absolutely wonderful!

http://flamingoscraps.blogspot.com/2011/07/getting-to-know-jen-julie.html

http://flamingoscraps.blogspot.com/2011/07/guest-dt-jen-unger-grandma.html

http://flamingoscraps.blogspot.com/2011/07/guest-dt-jen-unger-cards.html




Saturday, July 16, 2011

Busy Summer

Wow , so far this summer has been really busy. I have been creating but haven't had the time to post. We also purchased our home that we live in so we have been doing some small reno projects. This was my first project, done from scratch all by myself ( granted I wouldn't let a real carpenter inspect it but its good enough for me).

Storage room/Pantry

Before:





During the process:


I drilled all these holes myself. My arm was ready to fall off!




Cleaned out room with boards ready to assemble:



First part of assembly, no they are not not crooked, just the camera angle. I used a level and measuring tape:)


Shelves, yay!!


Final result, minus the painting of the shelves (I'll do that when I'm feeling ambitious again)