Sheepish...

Welcome to another Friday Friends with Flair!

I ordered this {ippity} set not too long ago because of the sheep. He's cute, and he reminds me of my grandpa, who was a sheep rancher for a long time.

I was looking online for some jars I had seen with handled lids. They were really cool, but for the life of me I can't find them, but I did find a craft site that had tin... stuff. I ordered some little black tin stars and rusty tags before I reigned myself back in, and I didn't actually use them until yesterday. So, here's my card for the week:

I like the tag because I haven't really seen anything like it, but it does drag some card down. I have tape in very strategic places to try and stop that. Darn that gravity, anyway!

PTI cardstock, ink, dies, and twine

Martha Stewart edge punch

Basic Grey dp

{ippity} stamps

tin tag from craftdirect.com?

Last week, there were tons of projects I wanted to see up close, but either Blogger or my computer kept giving me a blank screen. Everybody who participates always makes such incredible creations and I missed a bunch of them. Grrr.... One of my favorite things about Unity is the kindness they encourage through commenting. I love Fridays and Unity challenges because of that.

This has been a good week- video is done, assignment close to being done, kindness all around... Have a great weekend, everyone!

Shaker cards

This week's Make it Monday is to make a shaker card. I don't have any confetti; I have small kids, so I don't really want any in my house, but I did find the crack-your-teeth kind of sprinkles that look just like gumballs!

I used my cricut to make the base and lid of the machine out of PTI dp. the background papers are echo park and October Afternoon. The cardbase is PTI rustic cream as is the tag. I think the twine came from Mark's Finest Papers and the tag stamp and sentiment are Unity. The foam came from Walmart, and it was already sticky- yay for that- I don't have a sticker machine! 

My kids and I are going to make these as Valentines for their teachers. Off to find more hours in the day!

Side note: I've been having problems looking at everyone else's cool projects, and I'm not sure if it's my computer or Blogger. Grrr...

Re-inkers just made me happy :)

I had to order re-inkers because my ink pads were getting pretty darn dry. And they arrived yesterday in my favorite colors, so I went a little crazy and made 5 instead of just one. I've been really inspired by Jen at The Sparkle Within in her quest to use what she has, although I don't have the willpower to stop shopping, I have been really trying to use what I have and simplify life.

I made these for the Unity KOM Sketch Challenge. It's a little set and my photography can't get the colors right, but I had a good time varigating the bluish-green inks I have as well as using some of the buttons and trim in my drawer.

Core'dinations cardstock

Georgia Pacific white cardstock

Unity KOM for January

Buttons, lace, and embroidery thread from stash

Tuesday Trigger with Huge Rabbit Leaps

This week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger had my brain hopping. It always made me laugh that an explanation would be needed as to how the Trigger inspired me, but now I understand. First of all, here's the picture:

I love the color combination here and fully intended to use all of them, but I don't really like the flowers. They remind me of funeral flowers, so I thought I would make a sympathy card in that color combo. I hate making sympathy cards when I need one because I end up crying on the card, so having one on hand should cut down on tear stains.

Rabbit leap in my brain: the color combination turned into something completely different and there aren't any flowers. I read a book recently about a woman who loses her husband in a car accident and she keeps seeing a butterfly theme in the places intended to help her with her grief. So here's my take:

 PTI Cardstock and twine

Bo Bunny dp

Memento Ink

Unity Stamp Co stamps

Putting myself out there, TV and Movie Version

My new semester has started with a doozy of an assignment- at least for me, and it kind of sums up how I started the new year. We have to make a video or a podcast of ourselves.

Ugh. I am in hardly any of my family pictures because I'm usually the one taking them, and I like it that way. The last time I had to make a video of myself was at the end of student teaching, and the kid helping me had to leave the room for the introduction because I was so clearly uncomfortable.

I'm choosing to look the assignment this way: it's something I need to learn how to do, and my kids are THRILLED that we now have a webcam because they LOVE seeing themselves on any screen. I'm not sure where they get this trait because my husband feels the same way I do about pictures and videos. He laughed yesterday when I told him my dilemma.

And so this brings me to cardmaking, in a roundabout way. I would LOVE to be published. I realized that the only way to get published is to actually SUBMIT something and that takes a lot of courage. I see the fabulous cards in magazines and wonder about my own crafting skills, so in the words of Wesley from The Princess Bride, "Get used to disappointment". But I'm going to keep that hope and maybe one of these days I'll be pleasantly surprised.

So here are my cards for this week's Friends with Flair Friday:

PTI and Core'dinations cardstock

Sizzix embossign folder

7 gypsies dp

Unity Stamp Co. Stamps

Cricut

Mark's Finest Papers pins

This was one of the first cards I submitted that didn't get chosen, and "I'm ok with that" (That guy from SNL in the 90's)

This month's KOM has a daisy that screams Andy Warhol to me, and I found this picture at Warhol.org:

"I love daisies. They're such a happy flower" (You've Got Mail). And this is what turned out:

PTI and Paperstudio cardstock

Basic Grey dp

Unity Stamps

Copics

"Whoever would have thought that I would write?" (You've Got Mail). If you actually read all of this, bless you. I'm not usually a sharer and this took quite a bit of courage, too.

Webcam, here I come!

Ghost masking

I had big plans yesterday to be really efficient and crafty, but because it was MLK, Jr day and my kids were home that wasn't going to happen. Also, like bad hair days, I have bad crafty days and it was one of those.

I realized the other day that the reason my ink pads were getting so hard to use was because I've had them for a long time and they were rather dried out. I switched to some lesser used colors and instead of the lovely lilac color on the label, something wierd was happening and a lot of blue was showing up on the edges of the stamped image. Grrr.

Here's my attempt at ghost masking. I don't have a lot of the matching stamps that go with the dies, so I had to improvise a little:

Georgia Pacific cardstock

PTI stamps

Paper Studio vellum and silver shiny thingies

Tin Cap disks

I was rooting around in our storage room for something one day, and I found some leftover building materials from when my husband built our shed. Here is one of the things I found:

They're tin cap disks, usually uised in roofing. I think. I love these things. They're really thin, and easily punched, so we have made tags out of them. When the Moxie Fab challenge came for household tools, this was the first thing that came to mind. And so my kids and I started playing with them and discovered that we can emboss them and Sharpies work GREAT to color them. But then I noticed instead of  having a cool tool, I had made an embellishment instead. So here we go for the embossing challenge!

I was going for simple and elegant here. I embossed the cardstock first, and then threw three of the disks into the same embossing folder. It was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle after that to try and match up the swirls on the cardstock with the same swirls on the disks so they are all continuous. The sentiment is heat embossed on the bottom and the card is finished off with a little ribbon pleating. Fairly simple!

Papertrey Ink cardstock, sentiment, and ribbon

Cuttlebug embossing folder

tin cap disks

Versamark ink

Zing embossing powder

Paper studio corner punch

Smokin' Deal

Welcome to Friday, my friends!

I did a little Unity shopping over the holidays, and I ordered this Tiny Trinity set:

I actually thought I was getting an itty bitty, which as you all know comes in a baggie roughly 3x4" (I'm guessing here). This set actually came in their normal packaging and is not tiny nor itty bitty. I had to check my packing list to make sure they had sent the right thing!

I've been on a colored pencil kick lately. Every time I try to color with Copics, the details get blurry and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I like my colored pencils MUCH better, although the red doesn't compare to a marker. The sentiment is from the Something Within set, the border is a Martha Stewart punch, and the twine and cardstock is PTI. The background paper is Basic Grey.

Have a wonderful weekend!

More hearts...

Any challenge that dares me to use to use something in an innovative way is guaranteed to drive the creativity right out of my head. Although, as someone once pointed out, it's all art, so it's all good! Also, I found this on Pinterest:

and I'm trying not to let that mess me up... too much!

The Moxie Fab challenge is to use dies in an innovative way. To me that means making something that comes out of the cutter flat into something that has height and/or texture, so here goes:

The hearts were punched, folded in half, and glued so that they pop off of the page nicely. I like the simplicity of it. And it's easypeasy enough that my 7 year-old helped me with the cutting and gluing!

Georgia Pacific cardstock

Paper Studio cardstock, punch, and gem

Papertrey Ink sentiment

Memento ink

backwards thinking and scallops

I love scallop borders until I try and make one myself. Even with non-patterned paper, I can't get the scallops to face the direction I want them to go. This week's Make It Monday is to use border dies for a background, and my scallop die was the first thing that popped into my head.

For this, I colored two pieces of water color paper with various shades of blue for the ocean/lake/pond, and it's a good thing I did because I ran out of the first sheet because I kept cutting the waves too short. The waves are made using my PTI medium scallop die and using the other side (negative?). The sky is also watercolor paper colored with watercolor pencils and swirled. The only boat in my possession was from the free cartridge that came with my Cricut. Cardstock and sentiment is also Papertrey Ink, water color pencils come from Close to my Heart, and the ink is Memento. A nice, easypeasy masculine card!

Plod, plod, plod

I promised my mom that I would make her a calendar. It's now January 6, and it's still not done. Classes don't start for another two weeks and I'm already falling behind. Eeek! I'm looking for motivation- I usually can find it with Unity's Friends with Flair Fridays.

Luckily, I saw this sketch challenge at Chick Challenges. I don't normally combine challenges. Is there such a thing as challenge karma?

My daughter and I went to the Friends of the Library used book sale- she wanted reading material and I wanted some cheap books to destroy. The background and flower are Beatrix Potter's Tale of Peter Rabbit. I used this {ippity} stamp to paper piece it-it's awesome for piecing! The button is from Basic Grey, twine and cardstock are from PTI, and I used my Cricut to cut the letters.

Three months left. What to do, what to do?

Map to Your Heart

One of my goals for this year is to try to join more challenges and see what comes of it. I think sometimes I get stuck in a rut and this might be a way to unstick myself. Plus, it's a way to use all of the paper that seems to be taking over my craft room.

The challenge I'm joining today is from the Moxie Fab World- Map to Your Heart. The paper is from 7 gypsies and I love this car from Unity. There is so much detail to the paper that I had a hard time trying to balance that without the car becoming lost on the card- so I went totally simple. The sentiment is also Unity, the button is Basic Grey, twine is from Papertrey Ink.  I colored a toothpick black for the flagpole.

29 and holding

By the numbers...

I just ordered a stamp that looks a lot like this quilt, but it won't be here in time for this Tuesday Trigger.

I dug through my stamps and found this other number stamp that works just as well. As I was thinking about the layout, I was reminded of my dad who has insisted that he is 29 for the last 30-odd years and voila! Here's my card-

Georgia Pacific Cardstock

PTI cardstock, dies

Memento ink

Microsoft Word font

Paper Studio dp

Unity Stamp Co stamp

I love all of the bright colors. It makes for a pretty cheerful birthday card!