November Blog Hop, Yuletide!

Happy Halloween everyone!  Welcome to the Damask Diva's November Blog Hop! I know it might feel a little early since the big boo fest isn't even finished but this month for the Damask Diva Blog Hop we are show casing the beautiful Yuletide Carol paper pack. So grab a handful of Halloween Candy and get ready to browse through some beautiful work.

If you came from Jennifer Dykstra's blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Diva's blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.

This months paper pack is the beautiful Yuletide Carol paper pack. I love it it's subtle, slightly vintage, and just plain pretty. 

I know I've been a bit quiet lately but I'm working on recovering from a horrible case a Mono and have just not felt like sitting at my desk and creating. But because we're getting closer and closer to the biggest holiday of the year my crafting juices are starting to flow and I'm getting a bit craft crazy. 
I thought I'd start with something easy... a Christmas Card.

I love how this turned out. 

Close to my Heart Products used --- a 4.25 x 5.5 Colonial White card from the Card and Envelope Value Pack X1410,  Cricuit Artiste Cartridge to cut the shape the sentiment is on. Z1790. The perfectly small Merry and Bright Stamp from the Cricut Artfully Sent Stamps Z3017, Ruby Ink to ink my shape and stamp my little image, Z2170.  and of course, the Yuletide Carol paper packet X7187B. 

See that ribbon and the gold embossed banner? They have literally been sitting on my desk for weeks. However,  I did use my Cuttlebug and an Anna Griffin Border folder to emboss the foil. I just needed a little bit of sparkle.

Next up in our blog hop list is Melissa Fromm. I hope you have a great time on our hop and checking out the creations using Yuletide Carol.  If you get lost, just hop on over to  the Damask Diva's Blog for the full list.

Chantilly Mini Album

I really have to get a handle using my camera for making videos. That said, look what I made!!! It's my very first paper bag mini and I think I'm in love. Love Love Loovve! 

I'd been wanting to make a paper bag mini album for a couple of months now and just hadn't had the time. But. Well, since I was participating in a swap I decided to give it a shot. I had stumbled across Ginger over at My Sister's Scrapper back in the spring I think. She is so stinking talented and lucky for me she has a YouTube channel. 

I am so happy with how this turned out. I used a couple of Close to My Heart papers that had been retired, Chantilly and Lucy. I had a bulk pack of the Chantilly paper that I used on the cover and through out the album to cover the pages. I had also been holding on to a Lucy paper pack because, well, the paper was soooo pretty  and I couldn't figure out what to use it on. One of the coolest things about putting this together is that I used CTMH Picture My Life cards from the Chantilly pack for matting, tags and my cute little waterfall feature on the back cover.

Here is a sample of what comes in the this pack. 

I love the colors and patterns from this pack, it's very feminine and girly and I was really wanting that for this album. Now if you are wondering what the heck all the cards are about I'll explain more near the end of the post.

All the card stock used for this mini was CTMH. Colors used were Pear, Crystal Blue, retired Buttercup and lots of black and I think the pink is Blush. 

This is a tag that fits on the inside of the bags, both sides are matted for photos. 

This is why I wish I had a better handle on the video thing. If I had taken a video I could have walked everyone through all my pretty pages and my tags and talked more about what I used etc. Instead, you have to be satisfied with the few pictures I took. 

This mini has LOTS of space for photos. This little waterfall feature on the inside back cover has spots on both sides of the little flaps. Perfect for smaller photos and journaling.

So the cards I used for matting etc.,  come from the Close to My Heart, Chantilly, Picture My Life set. Some of you might be familiar with the pocket scrapping rage that was started by Becky Higgins with her Project Life scrapping. In short, it was a way to use photo pockets to document daily life without the time it takes to do traditional scrapbook layouts. Now, this is definitely not for some people but it has totally taken off. As for me, I believe what  Alton Brown says "never buy a kitchen tool that can only do one thing." So, I want to make sure that there "other" creative options for using the Picture My Life Card set. That way I'm getting more bang for my buck.  This is one of those. I have a couple other things I'll be posting as well along with some more "traditional" PML pages. They are great fun to work with.

Thats it for today, if you have any questions give me a shout!

September Damask Divas Scaredy Cat Blog Hop

Hi everyone! It's that time again for the Damask Diva's Blog Hop!!!

If you came from Traci William's  awesome blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Diva's blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.”

Well, it's the day before September 1st. FALL. OK, not really fall, we still have a few days of summer left on the calendar but you can't tell from the adds and the store displays. I'm not really happy about that but I guess there's not really all that much I can do about it right? I feel like the summer just went by way too fast and I've been trying to avoid the inevitable. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. My project this month is from the really cool paper pack Scaredy Cat. It's got all the current traditional Halloween colors going on but you could use this for something other than Halloween. 

This was super simple, used 4 Sheets of paper and I probably could have knocked that down to 3 if I had been paying attention a bit more but what the heck. I used my Cricut Artiste Cartridge and Design Studio to cut all my pieces, and whipped out the roll of black tulle I had for another project. After figuring out what I wanted to do it took me about a little over an hour to put it together.

I have this hanging on the door to our downstairs apartment, so the light isn't as great as I'd like. That said, you can't tell from  this picture but the Eek, and several of the bats are all glittered up. Other than my uneven tulle, I'm pretty happy about how it turned out and I may consider putting it up...but not for a few weeks yet. Did I mention that my husband is a huge fan of Halloween? He thinks it just needs to be up now and stay till Christmas. Not sure that will happen but who knows.

“The next blog hop participant on the list Brenda Zimmerman. Hope you have a great time on our hop and checking out all the creations using Scaredy Cat. If you get lost, just hop on over to  the Damask Diva's Blog for the full list.”

Pretty Papers and a Giveaway!

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Hey everyone! I hope you all have been having a great August so far. I know a lot of teachers have been starting back to school in the last week or so, in our area and kids are either in classes or will be back in class soon which seems odd to me since we didn't ever go back to school untill the Tuesday after Labor Day. 

Here in Northern California we have several weeks of hot, hot, hot weather and sunshine left and it seems kinda wrong to stuff the kids and teachers back in the buildings when they should be out soaking it up. I actually haven't done much sun soaking, or lake floating since the begining of July. Heavy Sigh. It's my own darn fault, but that doesn't mean I'm running out of opportunities to do so. 

Today I've been working in my craft room doing some organizing. I have too much stuff. One of the things I've been doing is going through samples of new papers CTMH is carrying in the new Annual Inspiration Catalog. Look at these samples of the glitter paper. Isn't it gorgeous?! The colors are vibrant, the glitter doesnt flake off. It's just beautiful and comes in packages of 3 sheets one of each color. You can find them here.

Another bunch of paper I'm in love with is the Paper Fundamentals Packs. I'm totally enamored with the Adventure pack right now. I love, love love the colors.

The cool thing about these papers are that they come 20 sheets to a pack two each of 10 designs so to speak. One side is the basic color with the embossed design the other side is the basic color but where the embossing is on the flip side of the sheet you have white. These come in 4 color packs Adventure, Whimsy, Enchantment, and the Basics which are your neutral, browns, blacks, greys etc.  Remember we have card stock and ink that totally match these papers.

The Adventure are more of the primary colors.

 The Whimsy above contains our five new colors, Glacier, Thistle, Pixie, Canary and Flaxen. 

Not that guys don't love color but you can do some really masculine cards with the colors above that would be stunning. 

Now, I mentioned a giveaway. Here are the rules.    I'm looking to build up my folowers and I know sometimes you have to start small. I'm looking for 25 new followers, by next Sunday. Tell me which of the paper packs you'd use and what you'd use it for, then go to my facebook page and "like" it. 

If I can get 25 new followers on my blog and 25 likes on my facebook page comments by Sunday night, Monday evening I will do a random drawing for a packet of your choice of the glitter paper. If I get lucky and have more than 40, I'll do a pack of the Paper Fundamentals of the winners choice. So spread the word to your crafty friends.

Here's a breakdown of the rules again...

1- Follow my blog  -- side bar will have ways you may follow (google connect, networked blog, blog lovin', email)..you MUST be following...

2- Comment on this post and tell me which paper pack you love and what you'd use it for.

3. Like Me on Facebook. - find the facebook button

Chalk It Up Blog Hop

Howdy everyone, Happy End of July! I can't believe that this month is gone already but I'm really excited to particitpate in the August Damask Diva's Bolg Hop!

If you came from Scrappin Madge's awesome blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Diva's blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.”

This months hop is very exciting because we are using the Chalk It Up paper pack from the new CTMH Annual Inspiration Book that will be live tomorrow. There is so much to see in this catalog that I can hardly stand it, and of course I want to play with it all.

So for my project I have been working on a small mini album for my  cousins oldest who just turned 12 last week. I spent a lot of time with them when she was a wee one and I used to take pictures of her all the time. Then, when I moved I started stealing photos from her mom's facebook account so I could throw this together. 

For this I used the CTMH My Creations Hip Pic Album. This is so, so so cute and easy peasy to work with.

Ta Da!!!

Along with the Hip Pics Album I also used the CTMH Artbooking Cricut cartridge and Cricut Design Space to cut some additional goodies using the Chalk It Up paper pack. Little Miss is a big fan of blues and greens so I tried to maximize the usage of the beautiful blue color in the pack, but I LOVE the doodle art on this paper. For the cover I cut a pennant frame at 4 1/4" by 5 1/2" and slapped it down over her photo, added some Teal Shimmer Trim and then thought "I need to ad more."

So I added the little pennant cut out, some additional pennants and I cut out the phrase "Sassy" also on the Artbooking cart, and glittered it up before adding it.

I felt that I shouldn't really cut down the photo I used for the inside cover so I decided to mat it with the blue/teal chalk bubble paper and I used the beach ball overlay on pg 39 as it really also reminded me of bubbles. Then I used Chalk It Up for matting rest of the pages  as well.

If you'd like to see what the rest of the little album looks like check back this weekend, I'm in the process of editing my first video. Yay!
“The next blog hop participant on the list Jessica Wilson. Hope you have a great time on our hop and checking out all the creations using Chalk It Up. If you get lost, just hop on over to  the Damask Diva's Blog for the full list.”

Chores

Hope everyone has been having a great Saturday so far. I've been doing all kinds of chores. I started my morning doing an in depth cleaning of my living room and must have removed a half a ton of  dust, dirt and of course cat fuzz. Thus, the downside of living in a construction zone with a woolly mammoth of a husband, and 3 cats. I do not contribute in any way to the mess.   I couldn't even type that with a straight face.

My craft room is next *cough* really *cough* I swear!!!

I'm also doing a major update to my blog so if you stop in and see it a mess, I'm hoping to have the majority of my changes completed by Sunday evening.

Another "chore" on my list today was uploading my photos to my PC from our trip to the coast back in May. I know I want to scrap them but I came home and just put my camera case away and have been using my phone to take pictures.  

I took nearly 200 photos with my Canon DSLR and these are just a few of my favorites.

If you are wondering about the "things" sticking up out of the sea of green in the bottom right photo above. Those are Elk antlers and the sea of green are ferns. The big male elk were laying down in this field and that was all you could see of them were their antlers. It was pretty funny.

The trip turned out to be really nice with very little rain, clouds or fog while we were there. This is not usually the case from past experience on the North Coast. Part of our day two of the trip included a visit to Prehistoric Gardens north of Gold Beach, Oregon.  

That big ole brontosaurus was one of the inhabitants that we got to visit. This is a great place for a little bit of a walk and shade on those warmer days. The guy in both of the collages is my woolly mammoth. Doesn't he look good in red?

Well back to my blog updates. Keep checking in and tell me what you think.

July CTMH Blog Hop - Skylark Part Two

All right I'm back. I had some technical difficulties that took me forever to get worked out. Went to get ink for the printer and realized that I was having network issues with the printer. That took me for EVER to get sorted out, or so it seemed. Which of course meant that I could not print photos for layouts. I'm seriously thinking about having Walgreen's or Costco do them in the future.

Then things were looking like they were going well but they were not. I ended up having to take the computer in to have a problem with my memory cleared up. That took forever and just got it back this evening!

That said, finally here's the finished scrapbook layout that I did using the  CTMH Skylark WOTG. I decided that I needed to add a couple more pictures and then add some cute dragonflies from the stamp set using Lagoon Ink, along with the Live in the Moment Stamp. I changed from the Slate in because I felt like there wasn't enough contrast.

These beautiful people are my sister in law Rene and her family. I didn't get to make it over to the Humboldt Coast with them but heck they had so many great pictures I had a hard time choosing which ones I wanted to use.

Because I was having such a good time working on the first layout I decided that would do a second page. I have to admit I'm not really big on "scrapping." I love making cards and the challenge of 3D paper projects but working the the Close to My Heart Workshops on the Go kits make it super easy. I'm actually looking forward to my next layout. Tell me what'cha think, I'm dying to hear from you guys!!!

July CTMH Blog Hop - Skylark

Happy Almost July everyone!! It's time for another blog hop!

If you came from Cydney Fowler's great blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Divas blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.”


Super short post this morning. 

We have had a totally super busy month, with birthdays and visits from family back east, well Chicago anyway. My sister in law and here family were here for 15 days or so. This trip included dinners, out, movies a houseboat trip on Shasta lake that was pretty amazing and then the camping trip to Patrick's Point that nearly got rained out. I didn't make that trip but I did manage to grab a couple of photos from the trip to document for them. Guess what, this is my first ever scrap book page.

I used the Skylark Workshop on the go paper packet and some of the elements to put together a page and I really like how it turned out.  I ran out of ink while I was printing photos but stay tuned for part two of the the layout later today, I'm off to pick up ink, but tell me what you think of my first layout.

Now on to the super fantastic Kelly Janes.

Card Blank Overload...and the Pink Pipe Cleaner

Well I can't believe May and June have come and gone already. I actually started this post in the middle of May. Time is really flying by and everyone has been crazy busy. I've been working on getting my craft room cleaned up,among what seems like a hundred other things. It seems like it's a never ending battle. I'd like to say that part of the problem is that we use this room as our computer room/game room /supposed to be dining room while we complete the main living area of our house. I basically share the room with my husband and his gaming gear. and I craft on the small dining room table, or I would if it was ever clear... Need I say more.

One of the things in my craft closet is a largish plastic scrapbook paper storage box. It is chock full of card blanks from that time a couple years back when my husband and I were planning an actual wedding and reception that got postponed. Twice. Due to circumstances beyond our control. We eventually eloped.

 The problem is it's not standard sized cards, or envelopes. It's petal cards with square inserts and reception blanks, argh... quite a few of them. I have both white and ivory inserts but only white petal cards due to a packing error. I was very adventurous back then, I chose to keep them cause I knew I'd used them.

I've been scouring the interweb looking for ideas, I'm sure I'll come up with something but until then that keep calling from the closet.

In the meantime I just have to keep my helper here from stealing things off my desk and table and be a little more helpful in the cleaning department.. He believes all art and craft tools belong to him and he's particularly fond of pipe cleaners. (And straws, washi tape rolls, sponge daubers, etc.) Sometimes it's hard to get stuff done.

That's it for today, I'm working on the my post for the July CTMH Blog Hop coming up on the first. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do with these blanks send me a comment, I'd love to hear it. See you soon.

June Blog Hop "Timberline"

Hi everyone, I'm back for the Close to My Heart June blog hop! 

So, if you came from Cydney Fowler's great blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Divas blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.”

This month our little group is working with the Timberline paper pack, it's a great paper pack for more of those summertime camping/outdoor photos or those big and little boys in your life. In my case I was needing something for my mom. She is always writing notes and cards and I find her buying stationary a couple times a year, the last time she was looking she was fussing about wishing there was something a bit more masculine for some of the men she knows. I thought finally something I can give her that she needs and I know she'll use. 

In my brainstorming and trying to find a more neutral/non floral approach to cards I ran across a great inspiration card on Pinterest here. Very elegant and simple at the same time and just enough layers. Even better it is a variation on a one sheet wonder card using a 6 by 6 sheet of paper, meaning I can make several from a portion of a sheet and still have more than enough for other projects and I can extend the paper paper pack.

What do you guys think? My husband saw this and said "Wow, cool, a father's day card? I love the bug!"  Boy approved, yippee.

 All products used in this are Close to My Heart, for this card I used the argyle pattern from the Timberline paper pack, Lagoon actually Twilight and Colonial White cardstock. This adorable dragonfly was stamped with lagoon ink. It's actually from the Skylark Worksop on the Go Scrapbooking Kit.  If you are interested in amy of these projects you can click on the Close to My Heart badge in the corner or any of the product links which will take you to my store.

The next blog hop participant on the list Kelly Janes  Hope you have a great time on our hop and checking out all the creations using Timberline. If you get lost, just hop on over to  the Damask Diva's Blog for the full list.”

May Blog Hop -- Balloon Ride!

Woot!! Hi Everyone, I'm so excited for my very first blog hop!

If you came from Lisa Barefoot's great blog, you are in the right place.  If you have jumped here and just discovered our blog hop, feel free to check the list at Damask Divas blog to find the complete list of blog hop participants.”

In case you were not aware. I am a Close to my Heart Consultant. My creative muscle has been languishing as far as I'm concerned and I this hop was just the thing I needed to help keep me doing creative things. The paper pack we used this month was Balloon Ride.  I love it. Love all the colors but I especially love the balloons.

This is a card in a box. The whole thing actually folds flat and fits in an envelope. To make this I used the paper and some of the embellishment from the Balloon Ride Workshops on the Go Kit. It's full of all sorts of goodies. My favorite thing about this paper pack though is the Balloon Paper from the kit. To make this box I followed the guidelines from a tutorial on SplitCoast Stampers here and went to work. The hardest part of the project was cutting out the balloons from the paper.

I used Lagoon card stock for the box and less than a single sheet from paper pack to decorate the outside of the box. And the clouds were hand cut and inked with Crystal Blue Ink.

That's about it for me right now, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

“The next blog hop participant on the list Traci Williams. Hope you have a great time on our hop and checking out all the creations using Balloon Ride. If you get lost, just hop on over to  the Damask Diva's Blog for the full list.”

Diamonds and Pearls

Happy Easter Saturday everyone. I hope everyone has some great plans for the holiday weekend. I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family at the new home of my Niece. At 18 is the first time she's hosted a family holiday and needless to say she's a little nervous. It should be fun.

Today I've got another set of stick pins that I made for the Stick Pin swap group over at Mini Album Scraps. I know that some people wonder why someone would choose to do projects like this. I have to say I just love how pretty the pins are and I do like pretty and I love seeing what everyone else is doing.

I also like that one of the requirements is the presentation piece that is made for them. It makes me stretch my creative imagination and really work on techniques. My biggest problem is that I think it take me forever to come up with a basic idea and then determining the papers or materials and embellishments to fill the project out. This time in conjunction with a horrible work week I had issues with the cut files I used that were of my own making. There is nothing worse then having a piece of very special paper and not wanting to ruin it so it takes some trial and error to get things just right before cutting.

Again, I'm working on my lighting skills. One day I'll get figure out a set up that lights everything up beautifully on a consistent basis. I have a feeling it's going to come in the form of the light in my upstairs office.

My inspiration for this was from a post earlier this week over at Craftin' Chaos. I loved the little favor box she used and went to the Silhouette Online Store to locate a similar box as her file was not available. You can find it here.  I used Close to My Heart card stock  for the base of my box. I love it, it cuts great and is wonderful to work with. The awesome silver leopard spot paper is by Anna Griffin and embellishments for the box are all Close to My Heart.

The glitter card stock I used was from the DCWV Twinkle Glints 6X6 stack and it's backed with CTMH White Daisy card stock and the grey ribbon was from my stash.

The lighting stinks but I used pearl flourishes on the box along with sparkles. The theme was Diamonds and Pearls after all and what girl wouldn't love to receive a blinged out box of pretty pins.

I think these little boxes would be great for giving small gifts so you may see more in the future.  I hope you enjoyed this and we'll see you next time!

Playing with Color part 1

I'm in the middle of a couple of projects. The first one is in a couple of separate pieces so I thought I'd show you what I've done so far. But first a little background. We've moved the office for our business into our home for the time being and we are using my future walk in closet for the space. Because this will be a bright airy closet sometime down the line not just an office I wanted it to look nice, not just four pale grey walls. (Actually Abalone Shell, lol.) I decided to stencil one of the walls but I'll show you that down the road. I was halfway finished when the move happened so I need to get back up and get it finished.

In the meantime, one of the "features" in the office/closet is the electrical panel that sits right in my face. I don't really want to have to look at it every minute I'm in there and since we cant really cover it that I figured a picture, cork board or something could go over it. Hey, it's removable right?  We brought one large cork board from the old location. It's really pretty ugly too, so I decided to cover and frame it. I had hubby make a picture frame for me with left over moulding from the framing of the windows in the room and I had something special in mind for the covering of the board.

I decided that since the theme of the office is pretty much grey, from the walls and trim to the file cabinets and my desk that I needed something that had some color. I could have gone and picked up a pretty piece of material but I thought I'd use stuff from my stash and stencil some basic lightweight duck or canvas material that I'd picked up for some reason I just don't remember. I've been ordering stencils from Royal Design Studio for my walls and in my last order I received a cute little Blossom Flower Stencil. I decided to use that and my stash of Luminarte Silks make some beautiful material for covering the board.

I love, love love these!  I used 5 different colors; Golden Monarch for all the centers. Then Carmen, Persimmon, and Ginger Peach for the majority of the flowers with a little bit of Wine and Roses thrown in.

Generally you want to use the Silks on material that has been prewashed or with a fabric medium to make sure the paint will be permanent but I'm not planning on it getting wet so I figured I could just take my chances without. I cut the material and ironed it then used my ironing board for the stenciling since it was the perfect height to work on. I used foam sponges and daubers for the paint and started stenciling. Other than deciding whcih color I wanted to use  It was easy peasy.

After the paint had dried I re-ironed it on the back side of the material to sort of did a heat set on the paint. The colors are not eye popping bright but I think after I get everything together it will still give a nice pop of color on the wall. I'll show off the finished project as soon as I get the whole thing put together. What do you think so far?

YPP Christmas Card Challenge

I know I've been gone again. Life happened, and all I have to say I'm free!!! Lots has been going on and I finally finally finally had a chance to do some crafting.
First up are the cards I did for the March Christmas Card Challenge over at Your Paper Pantry. Finished by the skin of my teeth I tell you. I've been playing fill in for the car pool for my brother and sister in law since Thanksgiving.
So without further ado the cards...

I know the lighting is atrocious. Sorry, I've got to get a handle on that and apparently pictures taken on my subterranean craft room on a gloomy afternnon don't help.
Fro this challenge we were supposed to use die cuts and I used a Stocking from the Shaped Christmas Card Kit for my cut. Then with a little help from an Anny Griffin Feathers embossing folder I added some texture.
You cnabt tell in the picture but the ornaments are sparkling from a small amount of Tim Holtz dry glitter in Clear Rockl Candy.
I hope you guys like them.

I cant believe it's been so long.

Well it's the 11th of January and we've had the flu invade the house for a solid week. The upside. I had it much shorter then my poor husband did.

I hope everyone made it through the holidays. The end of September started off promising and kinda fell apart with both my husband and myself each having a parent in the hospital. I didn't get to do much crafting for myself for the holidays or baking either but I just kinda went with the flow of things and figured sometimes things don"t go as planned especially when you have have to start helping out with your aging parents. 

We did have a couple of major milestones during the fall holiday season. Just before Thanksgiving I discovered that my "baby kitty" could climb our fence to make his escape out of the back yard.

And, we did get the drywall completed two weeks before Thanksgiving so we were able to have both of our families at our house for dinner, all set up in our unfinished living room on folding tables. It went by too fast.

The first weekend in December we had snow which is a bit unusual for here in Northern California but it was beautiful.

That's about it for now. I do have a couple of posts all ready to go for the next week or so . I'll show you guys the cute little stick pins I did for a swap just before Thanksgiving and then a small quilling project I did for another swap as well. In the meantime I'm gonna take a little nap and hope to be back at 100% soon.