Wedding Shower Card

This card was made for my niece's wedding shower this month. I was so happy when my prize package from Cathy Lynn over at Ink, Thread and Paper arrived just in time to add some embossing and the perfect embellies. I was having fun playing with my new Spellbinders Nestabilities Lattice Rectangles dies from Stamping Scrapping and needed something to cover up a little boo boo at the bottom. Well combine half of a scalloped square die cut from the clear Bigz die I got from my best Stampin Up! gal Shelly May. The sentiment is from a retired Stampin Up! hostess set Occasional Quotes. The big red heart is cut using a Sizzix die called Tipsy Hearts. I made the pin with red and black beads. (Note to self:  make a list of everything while making the cards so you don't have to keep jumping up and running to the next room to find out what it is!) Ok, I promise to get more organized in the future and make those really nice lists at the end of my posts showing all the ingredients, but hey, I'm lucky to get this far after making 150 cards for my whirlwind Operation Write Home project while working full time outside the home, taking care of four dogs and three cats, a husband (well actually HE is the one who does most of the work around here while I play!) Oh and one last thing..... I won another prize from Market Street Stamps! I can't wait to play with the fun products in the kit! Ok, now you can look at the wedding shower card...

Challenge for the New Year

I can't believe it's been an entire MONTH since my last post! Where has the time gone??? Unlike some of you who have very busy lives with children and/or grandchildren running around the house during the holidays, it's just me and my dear husband and menagerie of dogs and cats. Sure we have an occasional visit with our daughter and son-in-law, sometimes along with one or two of their dogs; but for the most part it's just the two of us. I think that my mojo got sucked up in the thick atmosphere and blew away for a visit somewhere else!

What have I been doing? I dare not show any pictures because of the perpetual mess my craft room is always in, but I will tell you that things are moving along. Like some of you I am trying to use up what I have on hand in my stash. This MIGHT be the time for me to finally make the switch from paper to digital design, BUT not until I've gotten my stash down to a reasonable amount. Here are some thoughts I've had lately:

1. Create card kits to sell on Etsy.
2. Create scrapbook page kits to sell on Etsy.
3. Put stuff together for a swap with friends.
4. Donate a bunch of stuff to groups that make cards for charities.
5. Make cards to donate to Operation Write Home. DONE
6. Make cards to donate to a local church that in turn donates to homeless shelters (currently doing this one.)   DONE
7. Make card assortments along with boxes to put them in to have on hand for gifts.
8. Offer some blog candy (coming soon, so stay tuned!)
9. Make upcycled embellishments and other products for Zeleny Art Fair coming up in April.

So there you have it! The past few days I've been digging through my stash and pulling out all those assorted paper embellishments that I cut or punched out in bulk for who knows what reason (just because!) and am attempting to use them to make card assortments. Isn't it funny when you look at something that you've hung on to for several years and you can't for the life of you figure out what you were thinking when you made it??? The paper-hoarder in me finds it extremely difficult to throw anything away that might possibly be used on a card, scrapbook page, collage, jewelry or whatever. Don't you love seeing and reading about all the cool things people make out of what would normally go in the trash? Sorry folks, but I've actually begun throwing away those little bits of paper that are left behind when cutting borders with the scalloped border punch! Yes they make squares look like postage stamps, BUT if they haven't gotten used in over two years they're GOING BYE-BYE!

One last thing I'll kind of share with you is that I have a huge reason for needing to downsize, but am not quite ready to post in for the public yet. I guess I don't want the plans to get jinxed somehow, so will wait until time gets closer, but trust me, this will be a big life-changing and very exciting thing! No folks, I'm NOT pregnant (way too old and the plumbing's been removed since 1994!); but it DOES have something to do with family. Like one of my favorite movie characters once said, "That's all I have to say about that."

Christmas Cards I've Made

I'm just about done making Christmas cards and wanted to share a couple of them with you. The first one is extremely clean and simple (CAS) using only one piece of cardstock embossed using my Cuttlebug, a bow and a brad and some tape to adhere it to the front of the folded cardstock. The second got a little more involved and took much more time to punch all those little branches and get them lined up, but I love the way it turned out. The last one is super fun because it's in three parts. I got the instructions for it on Julie Davison's site and found all kinds of tutorials that I want to go back and try. The snowman stamps and the sentiment are from Stampin Up. What really makes this card special is the custom die that I used for the outer circles. It's called Embroidery Anglaise Circle and can be purchased here by itself or with matching stamps. Cindy at StampingScrapping has some awesome custom-designed matching stamps and dies and also has a TON of other products in her store. The Merry Christmas sentiment on the white card with the branches is from the matching set of stamps. She even gives discounts to subscribers of her Yahoo group. Disclaimer:  I am not getting any compensation for telling you about her store, I just personally LOVE it and wanted to share the love! Ok, back to the cards.... enjoy!

Oriental Trading Post Haul

Ok Ya'll, please don't laugh, but I finally made a video to share a haul with you. I discovered that my daughter has the best place ever for making videos, so might just have to spend more time granddogsitting in the future. Or I guess I could just go when she's there to keep the dogs out of the room. Anyway, here's a video showing all the cool stuff I got from Oriental Trading Post.

Blog Candy for Gratitude! -- CLOSED

If you've been reading my blog you know that in one week's time I was the recipient of four blog prizes. This past week has been an all time high for me, making me feel almost guilty, but mostly grateful and appreciative of the generosity of others. The best way for me to show my gratitude is by paying it forward, so ..... drum roll please.... I've got blog candy!!! Yup, I put together a package of ephemera, vintage ribbon, buttons, vintage wallpaper, handmade embellishments, twine, silk flowers and other fun things that would be great for making mini albums, embellishing scrapbook pages and cards or anything else your imagination desires. This blog candy will run until October 29 with the winner announced on October 30. To be eligible all you need to do is the following:

1. Become a follower if you aren't already
2. Leave a comment
3. Tell someone else about the candy. If you want to post this on your sidebar that would be awesome, but is not a requirement. You can just mention how you are spreading the word (twitter, facebook, blog post, etc.) in your comments.

Oh and please leave me a way to get in touch with you. Here's a picture of what I've gathered so far. I will be adding more as the month progresses and if I get over 50 comments I'll start another box. Woohoo, let the fun begin!!!

Steampunk Mini Album

I've been very busy for the past few weeks trying to get inventory ready for the craft show in Lawrence next month. Emily and I are so excited about finally being in a venue that really appreciates the concept upcycled crafts and jewelry. I keep hearing about this thing called Steampunk (or is it Steam Punk?) and figured it was high time I got on the bandwagon and try my hand at creating something along that line. I went to my favorite site for finding free vintage graphics, The Graphics Fairy and grabbed a bunch of steampunk and vintage graphics for this project. I used cereal boxes for the covers and embellishments, upcycled junk mail envelopes, keys and metal washers from  the garage (actually I think the keys came from my father's old collection), my new favorite purchased embellishments from K & Company and paper/cardstock from my stash. Here's a look at the finished product. I'd love to hear what you think of it!

The grunge flower on the front is done using a technique I learned while at an awesome Stampin Up retreat held by my favorite demonstrator Shelly May. I happened to pick up some 2 inch wide rolls of floral ribbon on clearance at Hallmark and was able to cut a strip 15" x 1" for this project.  Then I cut slits all most all the way through at about 1/2" intervals, wound it around in a circle on to some sticky tape and zapped it with the heat gun. The finished product was just perfect for this album, don't you think? Oh and that button in the center is one of those spares that came with a jacket that has long since gone bye-bye. I tucked a bit of lace around one half of the flower to stay with the vintage feel.

I love this little graphic of the fireman running with a ladder. I colored him in with red pencils just to make him pop, then found some red ribbon studded with clear bling (the stuff is great to mimic dog collars in the pet albums!). The tag is held in place by some clear acetate.

One of my favorite keys from the collection is this one from Sears. Paired it with a Graphics Fairy pocket watch and an old rusted metal washer.

Yes that really is a picture of a young girl peering through some paint on the junk mail envelope page. She was just far too cute to paint over completely and makes me smile every time I look at her!

The envelopes are sewed together in groups of three (called signatures I think?), then attached with black cardstock which is held together with a binding made out of some leather-look cardstock/paper (thin adhesive cardstock from Sizzix).

Don't you just love the eye peeking through the window envelope on this page? It is enhanced with a metal washer over the eye and another very large washer serves as the tab for the tag.

I used platinum UTEE on the edge of the tag below, then embossed it quickly with a border stamp.

Here's some of that K & Co I told you about. The clock is a Graphics Fairy, the rest is K & Co exept the picture of the book cover for Lady in the Attic (more junk mail, although the book does sound interesting!)

I just had to show you the page below which I so fondly call my lemonade page. You see that upside down bicyclist? Well that was totally unintentional, but when the tape ended up in the wrong place (gee, can't imagine how that happened!) I decided that it was perfectly ok, no beyond okay, it was awesome!

Well that's all for now. I am currently working on mini albums made out of #10 junk mail envelopes and will post pics of those later. Like I said, I'd LOVE some input. What would you expect to pay for something like this?

Pet sympathy card using my very own SVG cut file!

What's a girl to do when she's got a totally cute stamp set by Clear Dollar Stamps, but not the perfect embellishment to go along with it? Well, she gets on her computer and starts designing her own! I made an awesome svg file using Sure Cuts A Lot 2 and cut it out on my Cricut Expression. I also created cut files for the stamps to save my arthritic fingers from that pain that comes from too much fine detailed cutting with scissors. There are still some adjustments to be made to the cut files matching the stamps, but for now I'll use  the ones that turned out ok. Don't you love the cloud embossing on this card? That has got to be one of my favorite roller/embossing combinations!



This card is currently listed in my Etsy Shop, Eco Chique Boutique along with a bunch of other pet cards. My daughter and I are donating a portion of the proceeds from all the pet cards to our local animal shelter, Helping Hands Humane Society where we have both adopted dogs and cats.