Meet Me on Monday

1. What are you wearing right now?
My "pajamas".  A pair of the hubby's satin Nike shorts from back when and tshirt from my days with Mars.  It's an American Heart Association Heart Walk T from a sponsored walk.  The shirt's probably 7yrs old and the shorts at least 10... and honestly both are in great shape though worn for years.


2. Do you have any freckles?
Yep.  Across the bridge of my nose and a bit into the tops of my cheeks though they don't really show any longer.

3. What is your favorite Lifesaver flavor?
Cherry or peppermint

4. What is the last movie you saw in the theater?
Harry Potter.  Is it bad that I want to see the last one on opening night... and that's my son's bday?  Yeah.  I thought so too.  Guess we'll wait a week or two... and have to find a babysitter by then too.

5. Would you rather live without tv or without music?
Without TV any day.  I actually went for about a year without back in middle school.  Ours fritzed and my parents didn't get it fixed thinking it was a major repair.  Turned out to be like $20 or so.  During that time, I watched Dallas and Falcon Crest when we went to visit my grandparents on Fri. nights.  Ugh.  Besides, don't take my Pink Floyd, Police, Dave Matthews, B52s, etc. away from me!  Argh!

I'll Be Home for Christmas card

I mentioned yesterday that I thought it closely along my lines to do paper-piecing so I wanted to give it a go.  I tried to come up with a set of stamps I have that would be good for paper piecing and then decided I also wanted to do a Christmas challenge.  I thought the Putt Putt set would be fun and then figured out how to make it Christmasy.  I came up with by air, by ground, by water, I'll get there somehow which made me think of "I'll be home for Christmas."  A bit quirky on the theme but overall, I like the results.

The print paper is all from Making Memories's Mistletoe stack and the background paper is SU's Very Vanilla.  You'll notice the plane says "holiday" on it and the car has a cardinal on it.  Silly but fun.
The stamps are from SU's Putt Putt set.  The ink was simply SU's Basic Black.

Challenges:
Moxie Fab's Stamp It! Techniques Week Paper Piecing
Jingle Belles: Text Me (all of the print papers have holiday sayings and large numbers 1-25)
Bah Humbug #8: Things that fly
Get Sketchy Card Challenge #76

Shimmer Spray Time

Ok.  Another one that's unlike anything I've done before and that I REALLY like.  I wanted to do another card for one of Cath's Moxie Fab Stamp It! Techniques Week challenges.  Paper piecing is something close to what I frequently do so I almost went down that path.  However, the other challenge I've hung onto was shimmer sprays.  I have 1 Tattered Angels' spray and 3 I made from Pearl Ex/Water/Gum Arabic.  I also have a few of Tim Holtz's masks that I've been wanting to try out.  All of that paired with a desire to jump in on Craft Your Passion's Dude Time Doodles Challenge meant that I shimmer sprayed my stencils into a card that will likely be for my father.  When I nail down the purpose of the card, I'll add the rest of the sentiment to the inside.

First I spritzed SU Kraft (Crumbcake) paper with Tattered Angels' Red Velvet, spray, dropped the TH clock mask and then spritzed with my PE Super Bronze spray.  I also double-spritzed, heavy on the red, 2 of the "negative" gear masks and cut those out.  I cooked up the sentiment to match the card and printed it out off of that antique ink jet.  The cut gears were dimensionaled and I added 2 TH metal gears (I can't believe I finally used them!) for accent.

Garden Fairy Katie Card

Even if participating in challenges wasn't beefing up my card supply and cutting down on the number of pages I need to do, it's certainly taking me out of my "box" and comfort zone which is a good thing.  I've mentioned I don't "do" girly.  I don't "do" flowers.  I don't "do" pastels.  That all went out the door, even if it was just for one project.  Two pix- first better lighting, worse angle, second darker lighting but shows the lifted wings better and it's actually straight.

The stamp and sentiment are from Paper Pretties' Garden Fairy Katie.  I like it, I'm glad I have it, and I never would have bought it (see the above "I don't do's" if you wonder why.)  I actually won it in a PP blog hop last year and I'm glad I did.  Katie was colored with Copics.  I thought I did ok considering I have 2 pinks, 2 yellows, 2 oranges and only 1 flesh tone.  I used a bit of irridescent EP on her wings, punched them up a bit more with a bit of bling, and then curled them off the card to add a bit of depth.
The paper is all SU - the DSP's are from two of their Hostess pattern packs.
The flowers are random white flowers from Michaels' floral dept. that I ripped apart into the individual layers.  I wet them and attacked them with SU pastels.

The Corrosive Challenge Blog #104: Magical Creatures
Top Tip Tuesday #23: Bling it On
Moxie Fab's Technique Week: Stamping with Markers
iCopic Lover Color Challenge #18:

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps! Challenge #66



St. Patty's layout

As I mentioned, one of my goals this year is to catch up on my layouts... I have photos from when The Boy was first born.  Some catching up to do.  I was looking at Sketches In Thyme's scrap sketch #36 and realized I had two St. Patty's photos from last year that would work perfectly for it.

Winter, how do I love thee?

The first Feb. challenge over at Better Living Through Scrapbooking is to make a page about how you feel about winter while fulfilling at least 2 of the 4 criteria.:

1. Use “non-winter” colors. Avoid icy blues and lots of white, go for spring-y pastels or summery brights.
2. Use a paper punch.
3. Channel your inner kindergartner – fold up a square or circle of paper and a snowflake!
4. Emboss an element on your layout.

I wanted to do a real wintery page so I stuck with traditional colors.  I also wanted to use the punches, have always really stunk up the place when trying to make folded snowflakes so I stayed away from those.  I love the look of embossed snowflakes so it easily came together.  I did this as a 6x6 because I think I'd like to do one for each season and then put them together in a 12x12 page.

The stamps are from SU's Supersized Snowflake (accidentally shifted when put down but it's a snowflake- they're not perfect) and Christmas Punch.  The little snowflakes were punched with the coordinating Boho Blossoms punch.  The large snowflake and the smaller ones one blue paper were stamped with VersaMark and embossed using an irridescent EP.  The snowflakes on white and the sentiment are stamped with Tim Holtz's Faded Jeans ink.  All snowflakes have a tiny "diamond."  At first I thought everyone was too much but they're snowflakes- how can it be too much?

My take: Boudreaux’s Butt Paste®

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Boudreaux's Butt Paste. All opinions are 100% mine.

As you know, I have a pre-schooler who is finally getting close to deciding diapers are a way of the past.  YAY!   Luckily we haven’t dealt with much in the way of diaper rash in the past year but he and I both have eczema and he had some wicked rashes when he was younger.  We have some friends that swore by Boudreaux’s Butt Paste® and know others that registered for it so we thought we’d give it a whirl.  I can say it worked really well and my husband liked it.  It went on smoothly, didn't clump up, lasted well, and cleared up The Boy's rash quickly.  The one thing I had a problem with was the smell.  Everyone else said it had a great almond scent- I honestly thought it just stank.  Beyond that,  it worked well, I just couldn’t get it past my nose and that one tube was the only we purchased.  You can go to Boudreaux's Butt Paste® to try a free sample yourself (you will need to pay postage.)

The official word from Boudreaux’s:

Boudreaux's Butt Paste® was specifically formulated by a pharmacist with direction from a respected pediatrician to provide effective diaper rash care.

- Pediatrician recommended

Goes on and cleans off easily
Available in convenient sizes
Flip top cap (tubes)
Handy travel size
Pleasant scent
Skin protectant

16% Zinc Oxide
Peruvian Balsam
Treats diaper rash and soothes irritated skin

Featured on:

- Oprah Show
- Tonight Show
- Today Show
- People Magazine
- ESPN
- While You Were Out TLC

Convenient sizes of 1oz, 2oz, 3oz and 4oz tubes, 16oz jar

Buggy Birthday

I want to start building my stash of masculine cards, particularly birthday, and I really like this one for starters.  Dad may get this one this year for his bday.  I took the angled view so you could see the ant pop-dotted on the maroon background circle.  I just thought it made for a nice "pop" rather than just pop-dotting it onto the card alone.

 

I'm entering this into the following challenges:

Sweet Stampin Challenge: Love Bugs
Claudia & Co. Challenge #75: About a Boy
Card Patterns #102

I used SU's Kraft paper (aka Crumb Cake), Whisper White and their Bugs and Kisses stamps.  I believe the red circle was also from an SU textured paper though I couldn't possibly tell you which one off hand.  The striped background paper is from My Mind's Eye.  I lightly inked the edges of the white papers with Tim Holtz's Antique Linen distress ink.  The sentiment is one I cooked up and printed on our antique ink jet printer.

What's Going On

I've been a bit MIA the past week.  Unfortunately, I've missed my own goal of submitting to a challenge weekly because of this past week but I'll make up for it.  Our parents came down to visit for several days for my husband's birthday so I spent a heavy part of the week cleaning up, doing some cooking, taking cars to the shop, etc.  I also attempted to have a Stampin' Up party but the demo and I cancelled it since it appeared that there was only going to be one guest.  That's the catch with not knowing anyone in a new town/state- you end up inviting people that you don't know well and don't know their interest-level in crafting/stamping/scrapping. 

I'm going to try something new here in my uncharted territory... thereby the uncharted territory.  :)  I'm going to try writing some sponsored posts through Social Spark.  I've received 4 offers, only 1 of which I was interested in and accepted.  Thus far it looks like most of them are going to be related to children but it's early to say since there's only been 4 leads.  It's going to be interesting to see if they accept my review since I really was honest.  That doesn't necessarily mean 100% complimentary.  Regardless, I'm going to continue doing things as I have been- a bit about what's going on, a bit about me, a bit about giveaways, a bit more about projects, etc.  I'd love to know your thoughts.

Crafty Steals

Have you heard of Crafty Steals? 

I just discovered them the other day and while I haven't bought anything yet, it's just a matter of time.  From what I can tell, they sell crafting closeouts and discontinued lines.  There's a new offer every day though you can still get a few of the older offers that must not have sold out.  They offered MME's "Stomp" a few weeks ago- wish I'd known about this site before I bought the line from someone else for a higher price! 

Right now they're giving away a prize for sharing them- they have a FB page, blog, twitter, email alerts.  I get the email on a daily basis and subscribe to their blog.  Have a look!

2011 Organization Boot Camp- 5.2

Phoo- forgot to post this one.  One week to go in the Scrappily Ever After Organizational Boot Camp!  I didn't do a huge amount to my stamps since they're pretty close to "there."  I did put a small label on each shelf to make it easier to remember what's on each.  I also went through a few boxes of non-SU stamps and recombined them to sort them more appropriately.  I did the same with my wheels- I moved the boxes of them to the appropriate shelves rather than keeping them all together and I'm ordering a box for the loose ones on Friday.

This is the after-shot which looks a lot like the before though a bit neater.

Before:    After:

I did move a few things around in the unmounted stamps book also.  I originally had some Sizzix/etc. dies/embossing folders in the same book but I split them into separate notebooks to simplify life a bit.  No pix because hey, how exciting are the covers of 2 undecorated notebooks?  I mean, really.

Meet Me on Monday

1. Did you watch the Superbowl?
Watching is a loose term.  I was in the same room where the TV was on and the Superbowl was showing.  Did I watch it?  No.  Did I pay attention to the Soduku game I was playing on the computer?  Yes?  Did I look up for the commercials?  Ocassionally.


2. What is the last book that you read?
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay.   LOVE his stuff.

3. What is your favorite kind of cake?
Yeah.  Right.  One kind.  Chocolate w/ pb or fresh strawberry icing, pumpkin spice w/ caramel, tunnel of fudge, Kentucky Butter... As long as it's not out of a box, there's a good chance I'll like it.

4. Do you snore?
Unfortunately.  I REALLY gotta lose this weight!

5. Do you play an instrument?
I had to take piano lessons as a kid.  Hated them (hated the music assigned to me at lessons the most.)  I wish now I remembered how to play but I also know, accept and even agree with the reasons I quit.

Pink & Black birthday card

This one is definitely different than my norm but I really like it.  I like black but I don't tend to use it much and pink just isn't my thing so I avoid it as much as possible.

However, I really wanted to jump in on GAB's first challenge so I used pink and black.  :)  The black and lined pink are misc. craft store purchases and the black with pink dots from a pack of MME maybe?  The cover was ripped off unfortunately.  The pink paper is SU's Pretty in Pink, the white Whisper White.  The stamped flowers are from SU's Botanical Blooms and the sentiment Birthdays Count.  The pink paper behind those flowers was embossed with dots.  The paper flowers are pop-dotted layers of the same papers punched with SU's Boho Blossoms XL punch and their centers are mini brads I coated with WW craft ink and then put Crystal Effects on.

The challenges:

GAB Challenge #1:

CropStop Challenge #5:

Sweet Stampin Challenge Blogspot: Spring Flowers

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays: Dots & stripes
Tip Top Tuesday: Girlie

Peaceful Wishes Snowflakes

I should probably make a load of these and send them up to my NJ friends... maybe these could be snowflakes they could smile at. 

I used some of my coveted stash of SEI papers, ice and frost I believe, and my snowflakes die (sorry, no name offhand) from SU.  The sentiment is from SU's Peaceful Wishes set and I embossed it in white.  As always, I wish the print in the paper showed up a bit better than it does.

I'm entering this in:

Get Sketchy's #73 Challenge:

Sarah Hurley Challenge #27: Die Cuts

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #88: Roll of the Die

Folded birthday card

I hate to say it but I really don't know what style of folded card this is but I made it anyway.  :)
It was pretty quick and dirty but I didn't want to gloss it up a lot.  It boils down to cardstock, acrylic stamps, inks and Copics.

 

 

It was done primarily for Scrappily Ever After's inspiration challenge:

but I also did a folded card for

Claudia and Company's #73 "unique fold" challenge 

iCopic Lover's #15 challenge (my pink isn't the right one but when you only have 2 pink Copic markers, you do what you can do.)



New challenge blog WITH candy!

Did someone say blog candy?!  Whoo hoo!
I just stumbled on the GAB Challenge Blog (that stands for Gimme a Break).  It's going to open it's doors on Feb 5.  There's going to be a new challenge every week and it'll run for 5 days.  What I like is this:
Our challenges will be posted every Saturday in the following order.
Week 1 - Color Combo
Week 2 - Sketch
Week 3 - Theme
Week 4 - Technique
Week 5 - SURPRISE!

Pretty neat!  Go have a look and get in on the candy- an SU gift certificate!

2011 Organization Boot Camp- 5.1

Scrappily Ever After's Organizational Boot Camp this week has us cleaning up our rubber stamps.  This is where I'm starting.  Each shelf has a different theme- floral/nature, Christmas, Sentiments, Party/Celebrations, Everything else Backgrounds/Easter/Halloween

I keep my unmounted stamps in a binder.

I think at this point, all I really want to do is better label the shelves.  I'd love to get an index of all of the sets but I'm also realistic.  Unmounting everything also sounds great but again, not realistic right now.

2/3 comment:
I think I just looked up something like "unmounted rubber stamp storage" online and found the solid white hard-plastic pages. The first set of stamps there is on a clear plastic page- they actually came on it as did the smaller set you can see through it. The only problem is that sometimes the acrylic stamps won't stick to the pages well and they actually fall off of them when you turn the pages. In the back, I used a 3-hole binder page that probably is meant to hold 9 baseball cards in a 3x3 arrangement.  I keep my little $1 spot types of acrylic stamps in those- they work REALLY well for that.  Just keep the backing paper on them so you can easily double side it.

Overall, I do like the binder since they're all right there. If I had more, it may not work so well since they're not really organized. by any theme, just pretty much in the order I get them or where they fit.

Face Paint spread

I've been wanting to do these pages for a while now.  As usual, I really need to create a decent lighting setup because the photos aren't so great. 

I had way more photos for this than were going to fit on 2 pages so I cut the series showing the face painting process down and put them on the page itself.  I then put the title section into a separate page protector and attached it as a flap above the process pix.  You can see it open in the 2nd picture below.

 

The only thing not showing in these pix is a little arrow that attaches to the meter on the Happy-O-Meter.  I coated it with a dimensional glaze and it's just not dry yet but I wanted to get this posted.

Something that may be difficult to see- the blue paper was randomly stamped with SU's "Print Pattern" in VersaMark to give it a bit of texture.