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.