Valentines Treats

Cutest Treat Tubes EVER!

I was even able to dress up the tops of the tube caps.

Did everyone have a good Valentines Day?  My day ended well. Chinese take out and DH got me the cutest little "Cat" necklace which is so appropriate as my nick name to a bunch of my online friends is Kat. I, on the other hand sat my behind down a few days ago and did a digital scrapbook of our first year of marriage for my husband at Shutterfly with the Digital Project Life Templates. 
Then I printed the book and had it sent to delivered. It turned out really great and he was thrilled and I was very pleased with the results. It was kinda like getting a school yearbook and made me realize that going digital (or hybrid) is actually easier than I thought.
Then, I made 24 of these cute little boxes with treat tubes for my mom to use at her discretion. (Being a good daughter I was.)  I thought she'd use them to give to kid in her reading room at school or something but I think she gave them out to teaches instead. They were really fun to make after I narrowed down the design elements. I started off my project thinking that I was going to do something very different and elaborate for each of the four colors. I was so wrong... I used the Close to My Heart, Whooo's Your Valentine Kit that I snagged when I had an opportunity.  They were very well received from what I understand although I believe she gave them out to the teachers. It's probably because the treat tubes are VERY generous. I think a 16 ounce bag of M&M's filled half a dozen tubes. The treat tubes are available through CTMH and although the kit came with the boxes, they are not selling those. BUT, if you have a Cricut, I do have a cut file available using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge that I will make available.  I'm thinking these would be really cute for wedding or shower favors...  I may have to make some just to see.

Well two projects down and I can now get the next one going.

Finally Some Creativity

Hope everyone has had a fabulous Valentines Day. I had to work so no crafting today, which brings me to a question. Do you ever feel like you just don't have time to do anything creative? I do. Often.

Weekends generally look something like this;  start with a trip to Home Depot for a window for our bathroom, some conduit stuff,  electrical miscellany, a single roll of insulation and for me darn near every Behr paint inspiration sheet at the paint chip wall  any sort of home improvement project the husband needs my feedback on. Then random other things, errand, groceries etc. But I'm finally getting some time or rather making it a prioity.

While DH is upstairs listening to music working on some task to get us closer to to getting our sheet rock up. I on the other hand am working on cleaning up my craft space (never happens, things just get moved around) so I can get my sewing project finished. Currently my table looks like this.

Its slightly cleaner now but not much.  I moved on to getting a card made for my MIL's birthday last week and got a couple of pictures taken.  I got myself the new Anna Griffin Cuttlebug package from HSN for my birthday. It came a little over a week ago and  I'm tickled with all the folders. I haven't figured out how to get a good photo of the  folders so I cant show you what I was working with.  I'll be working on my picture taking skills, and I'm taking suggestions too.

I am a big fan of the white on white cards. So using four of my Anna Griffin embossing folders I made small panels and adhered them with my tape runner.
I used basic white card stock, misted it all with glimmer mist and then added my final (smaller) square set on a diagonal. Bear with me while I lean some photography skills. I swear my pictures will get better. This was the best picture I got of the card but practice makes perfect.

Tomorrow I'll be posting the adorable treat boxes I made for my mother to take to her reading room kids. Also be on the look out for some changes on my blog. I'm doing a bit more with Close to My Heart and while I don't want to be a full blown non stop advertisement for it, I do want it to have a bit of a bigger presence, but more on that later.

Happy New Year!

Good Morning and Happy New Year!  Ok, I know it's not New Years Day technically. But it's my birthday and I like to use my birthday to start my resolutions. I figure I've half heartedly started at least one resolution at the beginning of the year probably already stopped or my enthusiasium has totally flagged on something so it's my party I can start new resolutions if I want too. LOL

I have a couple of broad categories, not specific resolutions. #1 is  to my health. In the last 18 months or so I've done three big things. Got married, my husband and I started a new (thriving) business and we moved into our house. All good things but stressful, lets face it. All three of those things are a work in process but the house more so than anything. It was slated to be condemned when we got it and it's a major, from the studs up remodel. We're are living in the completed basement apartment while we work on the main living area. So I need to be kinder and take better care of myself. You know, eat better, get more exercise  get regular haircuts. (I am so bad about that :-) )Wear more dresses!

Which brings me to #2 finish my current projects. They just keep multiplying like bunnies.

In the next day or so I'm going to sort my projects, see exactly how many I have and get them on my calendar for working on them and getting them done. Along with that I'm going to be doing more documenting (blogging) of what I'm working on with links to finished projects going up on my Pinterest Board. What better way to keep track of a big goal.

The first project I'll finish is the apron I'm working on. My DH got me two great additions to my craft room at Christmas. My little Singer sewing machine and a Silhouette Cameo! That man is the best.

I currently have my material out, my pattern pinned and I'm ready to start cutting. Hopefully I'll have a cute little apron by the end of the week. This may also help in my goal to wear more dresses and skirts as I'm enrolled in a sewing class.( Can we say sewing assignments.) My fingers are crossed.
Then we have the Cameo, sitting and waiting patiently for creativity to strike. I have a couple of things line up for in in the next couple of weeks as well.

In the meantime I will not start anything new, or purchase anything to start something new.I swear! My craft room stash is about to swallow our little living space. But. In the spirit of full disclosure I do have two things in the mail winging their way to me. A small charm pack quilt kit. (to practice sewing  straight lines I swear!!!) and this little beauty...

The New Anna Griffin Cuttlebug set that was on HSN last week. It should be here today and I can hardly wait.

On that note, off to the salt mines. I can't play if I don't get my chores done and on Mondays that means invoicing our customers. Hoep everyone has a good day and I'll be back soon.

Birthday Card for Ally

So my most favorite pretty girl turned 16 a couple of weeks back and we had a party for her.  I wanted to make a card she would ohhh and ahh over and I have a ton of cards and card stock from my paper stash. (That's what happen when you plan a wedding twice and then elope!) Can we say card stock out the wazoo...
Anyhow, I decided to uses some of the Color Me Paper  for my background and to keep it fairly simple.
I embossed my petal of the card with my swirl embossing folder and my cuttlebug. Cut my butterflies with my Sentimentals cartridge and layered them adding just a bit of bling.Used Ranger Distress ink for my color and made sure I got all my edges. Then I sprayed everything with sparkle Shimmer Spritz added na nfew pearls, Et Voila ! She loved it.

Flower Obsession Interrupted (or This cat is a pest.)

Ok, I know I'm obsessed with paper. Flat out addicted to it in fact. But, I tell you if it's a craft and it involves flowers I'm right smack in the middle of it. I have no self control. No will power. None! Crepe paper flower? Yup! Love to make 'em. Origami flowers, yup. Quilled flowers for cards and lets not talk about my rubber stamp collection and the flowers there. I was recently reunited with my PSX Botanical Stamps and my husband said he really didn't realize girls squealed over stuff like that. 

I think the only thing more important than flowers or paper is holding the big black cat who consistently invades my personal space. He is a space hog to say the least and he has no conception of boundaries.

Ace

OK, let's be clear. He thinks it's more important. Period. And as cute as he is, he can be a pest. Especially if I'm working on things that include long strips of paper. (Quilling) Any form of ribbon, floral tape, yarn. You get the picture.


Today I came home from work as soon as I could because during my run home at lunch, the mail man came with goodies for me from Custom Quilling. I was so excited. I still have a mass amount of paper strips for different projects but today in my order was a new book! Yay! I'm also addicted to books.

This is what came!!!

This book is a beautiful project book by Alli Bartkowski called Quilled Flowers. I've been home for an hour, had a cup of tea and looked through the whole thing, and drooled. I'm not ashamed. I was. DROOLING!

I can hardly wait to whip out my paper strips and get started. (cat be damned!) The photography is simply gorgeous, as are the projects. I mean heck, look at the cover 3 dimensional quilled flowers. If that doesn't inspire someone to learn how to quill I'm not sure what could. Also, all the directions are clear, she does a great job of going over the basic quilling shapes and breaking down what you need to do the projects.

I just can't decide what to do first, but I have some teeny tiny and smallish glass bottles and vases that need some flowers so lets see what I can do! Without the cat's help.

I'm a Bad, Bad Blogger.

Ok. We are NOT going to talk about where I've been. Let's just say that life got in the way and move on.

For those wondering, I did NOT get to have my DIY paper-filled dream wedding I was hoping for but I did get married. YAY. It was a nice little trip to Tahoe with my nearest and dearest, back in November. Of Course in this very mild fall and winter that we've had here in Northern California it chose that weekend to snow which was kinda cool but the intimate service with my friends and family was perfect.
Besides my dress, my bouquet was my most favorite accessory of the day. Not my crepe paper flowers I was hoping for but considering I had a very short time to get them done, (24 hours to be precise) they turned out great.

I was wish I'd been able to make it larger but time and supplies on had were very limited. I used several glass buttons for centers to give it some bling and then floral filler picks for doing regular flower arrangements to add another dimension. I hand cut all my squares from hand colored "Color Me" papers from Hot Off  The Press. a couple of sheets from my Anna Griffin stash and a couple of sheets of a really nice 12 x 12 script that I picked up from Joanne's.
Ok that's all I have time for today as I've been forced at keyboard point to do an update and I've got the flu so it's taken me all day to get it done.
Time for a nap....

Flower Number Two

Ok, short post today. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and we have a few hours before it may thunderstorm again. I've got oodles of lawn to finish mowing, (Again) So, I'm gonna make hay while the sun still shines, so to speak. 
I've just been working my way through my paper flower book and here is the second flower variety I've managed to complete. I can't say I've "mastered" the techniques yet but I'm certainly getting more comfortable with them. So the next flower was the water Lilly style Dahlia. There are three dahlia style flowers and this was just really fun to do. It's much larger than the first rose, but then again in real life they ARE bigger than most roses. I love it! I'm gonna see if I can't get a couple of flowers done later today after chores, and I have a cute little Easter treat I need to finish for my mom's kids at school. I should be pretty busy this afternoon. If I get that finished I'll post it as well.