KellySCreativeDreams

Magazine Monday

2012-02-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

Another beautiful day in the Ozarks. It is hard to believe we are still in the throes of winter. It is 54 degrees outside but if you are in the sun, it feels much warmer. I even ventured outside to photograph today's card.

Today's inspiration comes from the February 2010 issue of Crafts n Things Magazine. The card I chose was 'Love is the Reward' by Crafts n Things Design Team member, Elizabeth Allan. Her cards are beautiful and I encourage you to stop by her blog for a peek and say hello.

She used a 4.25x5.5 vertical card. Her card title echoes the sentiment she stamped on white CS, matted and tied with the striped ribbon at it' base. She used 3 square brass brads positioned on-point to the left of the sentiment. Her card has a distinct vintage feel that caught my attention.

I was inspired by the color scheme and the simplicity of the sentiment. And I think my choice of DP is just feminine enough to cover my tastes without being too girly for my husband's valentine. What do you think?

For my husband's Valentine, I chose to flip Elizabeth's design horizontal to coordinate with the layout of the sentiment from SU Holiday Best. I ran the ribbon beneath the sentiment rather than tie it. I used SU Cherry Cobbler and Chocolate Chip CS and a print from My Minds Eye called Love of My Life Floral. I followed Elizabeth's design of giving the brown mat for the sentiment a scalloped edge to soften the look, again just soft enough for a girl but man enough for my 6'4" hubby. To balance everything out, I used three gold brads in the opposite corner.

Whatever inspires you, make it yours....

and share with someone you Love!

Magazine Monday

2012-01-30T15:04:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon!

The weather here today was gorgeous, so instead of going down into the 'dungeon' studio, I got outside. When I did come back in to play, I found two challenges which I could use on today's Magazine Monday.

1) I knew I wanted to use one of the images from Sandie Huggett over at The Outlawz Creative Freebie Challenge. I never seem to get my cards in over there in time. I'm surprised they still let me play.

2) S2S12C - The Stamp 2 Spend Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers - Use our favorite pizza as inspiration - and make it round. I'm a garbage pizza person. You'll notice I've picked up the green pepper colors in her socks, Italian sausage on in her shoes color and her dress the color of warm tomato sauce swirled with melted Mozzarella. Her hair also brings in the extra cheese.

3) While cruising for a magazine with an inspiration card, I found a dreams card in the February 2012 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. It is a design by Sue Czosek. Sue was inspired by a design of a Borders gift card holder. She used it and a sheet of newsprint to create a beautiful round card. Sue's card was a 5.5" circle. I used a 4.5" circle and then a 4" oval mat.

4) And lastly, since Valentine's Day is approaching, I might need one or two more cards to share so I went with the heart theme. Where I have used hearts (Sizzix Sizzlet), Sue punched flowers from news print and inked them to coordinate with her color scheme.

On Sandie's original image, there was a halo above the faerie an where I have the puffy hearts going off to the side off of her hand, they were actually a print part of the image. I chose to cut them away to give a cleaner cut to the main image then added the puffy hearts in their place.

I used SU Real Red CS and DP (inside covers), My Minds Eye Candy Stripe and DCWV - sentiment The image was colored with Derwent watercolor pencils. I added EK Succss puffy heart stickers.

I love how she turned out and I hope you do to.

Artful Thursday... plus

2012-01-26T14:32:00.001-08:00

Plus I'm backing up to actually show my Teapot Tuesday card for this week. It was another one of THOSE weeks where what I had in my head just would not transpire to something tangible. I finally ditched my original concept completely and found a new jumping off point.

The card this week goes to Betty. She lives in AZ and has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She loves flowers and her nickname is Sunshine. So I went with Daisies and yellow.

I chose a sketch from the SCS Sketch Challenge (SC36) and tweaked it by adding the sentiment bar at the bottom. I also went looking in the SCS Color Challenge (SC36) and found the pairing for the base color of Daffodil Delight I'd chosen to work with. SC36 suggested Concord Crush and Pear Pizzaz. I LOVE Pear Pizzaz and have been ordering a pack every time I place an order because it's an In Color and will be gone this year. The sentiment stamp is from a set from Studio 112. The Daisy is one I picked up at $Tree years ago.

Then there's the Art Journal project Michelle over at the Paper Dog and I are playing with. After Saturday's fiasco of trying to draw a face on the cover, I'm stalled. I loved my cover then after I attempted the face it looked horrid. No, this wasn't the inner voice. I truly looked like an alien. So I painted that area back over with white gesso, then a layer of vintage rose acrylic before adding a piece of the original paper back into place.

Next week when I'm not so focused on working on my current novel, I'll have time to sit and play with the face more. Only after I've sketched something I can look at, will I add it to the cover... hopefully for next Thursday's post.

In the mean time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the collage.

Creative Blessings!

Teapot Tuesday - sort of

2012-01-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

Teapot Tuesdays are partly about sending love, hope, blessings and a smile to someone who could use a little cheer.

I don't have a card for today's TeaPot Tuesday. I'll try for later in the weekend. I've been really focused on working on writing the novel this month and making up for the two weeks of writing I lost.

But today's post isn't about me... it's about a Paper Bloggers Unite member.

Samantha's grandmother passed away last Friday. As I read her Goodbye, Grandma , I bawled like a baby. You see, her grandmother was the type of woman I am trying to be for my granddaughters. Everything she describes she did with her grandma, I have been doing - or will do as Adrian grows up. And I'll do them with Abigail when she gets older (she's only 3 months old now so I hope I have time).

Samantha has lovely memories of times spent doing things with her grandma. I hope those memories will bring her love and comfort in the days ahead.

But in the mean time, would you please drop by her blog - Blissfull Domesticity- and leave her some love?

May you be blessed.

Magazine Monday

2012-01-23T05:44:00.000-08:00

It appears as if we're to have a beautiful day in the Ozarks. When I get days like this it motivates me to try and conquer the world. We'll see how I do.

For today's card, I have the remake of the card gone bad I had attempted for last week. The card was inspired by 'Funky Birthday' in a 2005 issue of Stamp It! I tried to locate the artist, Julie Medeiros without success.

I stuck with her layout but changed the theme and colors. She had chosen Olive green for her base, deep red for her ribbon strip and the base of the sentiment. Her sentiment was stamped on sky blue and it was used for the base mats on the images. Julie used the present, party hat and cake from Let's Party (retired SU) and stamped everything in a blue dye ink by Hero Arts. The alphabet blocks to spell Happy Birthday were also Hero Arts.

I needed a Valentine card. Initially, I had used the 4x5.5 and the 3 mats, no matter how small I cut them, made the card look crowded. I did not like it at all. So I set it aside and found a new card for last week. But I knew if I played with it, I'd figure it out. When I switched it up to a 5.5x6, it became less cluttered. Though I think it still looks elementary, I'm positive my granddaughter will be thrilled to get mail... especially if I stick a sucker inside :-)

The heart explosion for the background and the heart image on the far left are from Doodles By Design. The other heart is from an old Valentine foam set I've had for years - you know, back when you bought stamps before more refined options came along. The sentiment is my Katie & Co. I'm still trying to use up my ValuCS so I can use those two file drawers for something else. I used Primary Red and Baby Pink. Everything is stamped in SU Real Red.

I'm proud of myself for not trashing the original but instead, making it work. Here's to a great creative week!

Friday Frenzy!

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Friday Frenzy can be anything from a current project I'm working on to a Challenge(s) card.

Today I'm showcasing a Challenge card for The OutLawz Creative Freebie challenge. The ballerina figurine under glass was created by Sandi Huggett. This was such a pretty image to work with. I want to mess with it again at some point and try for some dimension with the globe.

I printed the image out on GP white and rounded the corners to complement the globe. I used Derwent watercolor pencils for the image. For the top of the wooden base, I didn't add any extra color, just the 'wash' that was left on the end of my water brush.

I used SU Concord Crush matted against a SU Lavender Lace (retired) base. The letter stamps are Antique Alphabet by EK Success. Two Lavender brads help draw the image out of the globe. Dance and girly must have some frill so I chose this feather fiber in the darker purple.

I've already downloaded the 2 new freebie images from Sandi for the next challenge round. They are Valentine themed. I'm looking forward to working with them.

Blessings for a Great Weekend!

Artful Thursday.. Getting it together

2012-01-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Today begins a series of something I love to play with but don't devote near enough time to... mixed media art. I don't think I've very good but then again, being any good at art is irrelevant. Truly, 'good' is in the eye of the beholder.

Last fall I met a wonderful person on Splitcoas t Stampers. If you look over under my Paper Bloggers Unite list, you'll see The Paper Dog. That would be Michelle. As soon as I found out she loved art journals, we started chatting. And something just clicked! I love when that happens. It's like you've been friends forever. In six months, that's the way Michelle and I have become.

We decided for our first joint venture, we would walk through Taking Flight By Kelly Rae Robe rts. I'll talk more about the book next week, but actually delving into a long-term project prompted me to get my art together. I mean everything in my stamping studio is organized, my writing life is organized but the tools of the art trade seemed to be everywhere in the house.

Last week while in Springfield I found this soft-sided scrapbook tote for 50% off. It's brown, cream and black. There were just enough pockets to hold the basics plus space to add specific items for individual projects.

As you'll see from the photos, I have it well organized. I wanted to make sure I could get to everything easily. And if I ever attend an art retreat, I can keep my tools somewhat contained, not infringing on someone else's space.

The inside of the flap has three pockets. I've designated one for glue sticks, one for small punches, and one for my water color pencils and brushes case.

Each end has a big zippered pocket plus an open pocket.

Not shown, but the zippered pocket on one end of the bag is full of Tombo Mono adhesive refills and some cardboard sheets. Can never have too much adhesive on hand when working a project. That's why I order mine by the case from Penwa office supplies. Their prices are reasonable (about $1.85 per refill as opposed to over $2 -with coupon at the craft stores- when purchase by a case of 100). They also ship in a reasonable time frame.

The other end pocket holds my chalks and oil sticks in the zippered compartment and the pen keeper with all of my gel pens and fine black writing pen in the open pocket. I LOVE all the colors I have to work with.

There is a big zippered pocket across the front that for now is holding my small alphabet stamp sets. These are by Studio G and sell at WM and Michaels for $1 per set. They're the perfect size for journaling or small ring tags and ATCs.

But the real treasure is inside the big open compartment. I had this multi-pocket bag from my days as an instructor at Michaels. I emptied it when I had Bob build that sectioned compartment along the front edge of my work table to hold all my scrapbooking tools. It fits perfectly within the main storage space.

Within the parameter pockets I have a misting bottle, bottles of stickles in various colors, cutter replacement blades, basic office supplies, Mono applicator and dimensional glaze. The inside pockets are large enough to hold my containers of Gel Medium, White Gesso and Clear Gesso. I also have dry baby wipes, needle mat, various applicators like chenille balls and Qtips, and CS mats for tags and a container of Watercolor paper mats, clear stamps and acrylic blocks.

When this bag is stowed away in place, I can place my writing instruments book on top, as well as my paper trimmer. The writing instruments book is composed of Elmer's Pencil Pouches in various colors and held together - book style - with 3 ring clips. Each pouch holds something different. Twistable colored Pencils, broad tip markers and Flair Pens. This keeps all of the writing items together (and horizontal for longer life). Plus I can stand it up easel-style in front of me and flip the 'pages' to the items I want.

Wherever the creative journey takes you... go in style!

Recycle Wednesday

2012-01-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

I have so much stuff in my studio, it's hard to know what to play with. And I find myself going back to the same old stuff... or should I say new stuff. Do you work that way?

I decided for this year I want to work on the 'reuse/ reduce/ recycle' concept a bit more. So every Wednesday I'll showcase a project that has something recycled on it. It might be the base of the whole project, or it might be something as minute as a small piece of paper... like today's project.

During Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) at Splitcoast Stampers last fall we were given a challenge to use 'recycled' wrapping paper in our card. We couldn't take it off the roll new. It had to be some that was 'saved' from a previous Christmas for whatever reason. Come on, admit it... you have some!

My plan was to have a Christmas tree with presents around the base. All the presents would be from recycled Christmas wrap. I spent the entire evening (notice I didn't say 'wasted') trying to make my plan work. The presents just didn't work right. So I went to my trusty PrintShop program and found an image of a stacked row of presents.

Thankful I'd just put in a colored ink cartridge, I sized it to fit a 4x 5.5 greeting card, printed it out and then cut the strip out. Okay... got my presents, but how do I incorporate the 'recycled' gift wrap? These presents come pre-wrapped LOL

Can you spot my wrapped packages in the card below?

One is easy to spot... it's the Santa on the far left. The other one is the blue package right under the 'creative' part of my watermark.

I cut the shapes of those two packages out of white card stock then adhered them to scraps of wrapping paper and glued them into place over the existing packages in the preprinted strip.

The card base is SU Pacific Point. I used a scalloped oval from Cricut cart: Lacey Labels. The tree is from an Original Sizzix Die (retired). I added the garland with Red Stickles. The star is a small snowflake punch. I determined it's position on the mat and chalked behind it with SU Daffodil Delight. The package strip is popped out with pop dots to give them a bit of dimension.

Okay, not a big recycle project but it's where I'm at as I try to get caught up after being off work for so long.

Remember: every piece we reuse isn't sitting in a landfill contaminating Mother Earth.

Magazine Monday

2012-01-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

Yep, running a little late.... okay... by several hours late. But with good reason.

I'm usually 'one of those' who can look at a design and know exactly what I want to do... and have it work the first time around. This week, when I needed it to, was not the case.

I went to my magazines for inspiration last night and found a layout I thought would work. It was a cute and simple card. So I set to work putting it together. I hated it. Yep, I couldn't bring myself to even photograph it, let alone post it to the blog. So I called it a night.

This morning began Bob's last day home before he leaves for 3 weeks. Try as I might, we just can't seem to NOT have to go anywhere on his last day. It always means last-minute errands. So before I could go back to the card, we had to leave the house for the day.

As soon as we got home (about 2 hours ago) I headed back down to the studio, put last night's card aside and pulled out a new magazine for inspiration. The very first card I spotted was the one I knew I wanted to do and it came together in 10 minutes.

I went back to the Spring 2006 issue of Take Ten and found a card called Solo Shoe by artist Clintine Steele. You can see her on FB at Bean Up The Nose Art.

Clintine's card was a 4.75 x 6.5 laying horizontal. She used a black and grey polka dot pattern on white paper, edged with black on the top and bottom as her base. Across the center she put 2 red squares and one black one as the second layer. Then the solo shoe image went on a white rectangle, stamped in black. She colored the bow on the shoe in red and used a black pen to apply a dot border around the edge of the mat. A very basic and elegant card.

To create my version, I flipped mine vertical, used SU black CS for the first mat and a scrap of pink dot patterned paper for the 2nd mat. My center mat squares were from a red oriental patterned scrap and SU black CS. I stamped one of the heart images from the new Hero Arts 'Untitled Hearts' stamp set with Memento Tuxedo Black on baby pink Valu CS (I'm trying to use it up and get it out of here). I added a black satin bow. I wanted something a little lighter but the satin was all I had.

I like the way this one turned out though I think next time I'll use a slightly smaller image so more of the black mat square will show at the top and bottom.

Tea Pot Tuesday!

2012-01-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

This week's destination is a precious 5 year old boy in Oregon. You can read Joshua's story HERE

Joshua (not Josh) loves Sponge Bob and Legos. Well, I forgot the Legos part but I knew I wanted Sponge Bob to be the center of attention on the inside of the card.

I used the Starry Night #2 CB folder on yellow ValuCS. I placed brown Valu CS to represent his pants. Because it's a valentine, I put a red heart over the belt where his tie would normally hang.

The inside is covered in a misc. water print paper from my stash and everything else was computer generated. I used Socket font and the Sponge Bob image is from 4kraftykidz. I added a couple of glitzy heart stickers. The only thing left to add is a bubble in the bottom corner with my name and location.

The Tea Potters at Splitcoast Stampers are a pretty awesome group bringing love and smiles to people all over the world who could use a little bit of cheer. Won't you join us? It's way more fun than should be legal!

Magazine Monday

2012-01-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

With the head cold working it's way to where ever colds go, I'm back to creating again. I felt so good last night I didn't want to leave the Studio. I created today's card plus cut the base mats and stamped the images for 9 more. Yep 10 more Christmas cards for 2012 will be done by the end of today.

I was inspired with today's card from a member of our Christmas Card Challenge 2012 members. Colleen (Katchoo1 on SCS) showed us her January card using a layout she used back in 2006 in the spring issue of Take Ten. You can see her card HERE. Although I have several back issues of Stampington publications, this was one of only 2 back issues of Take Ten I have in the Studio and am glad it was. WOW!

This LO hits all the marks:

EASY

SIMPLE

CLEAN

USES STASH/ SCRAPS

IMPACT

Here's the recipe:

5x6.5 card (I created mat dimensions for both standard card sizes)

DP scraps from DCWV Christmas 2010

SU Pacific Point CS

SU Pacific Point ink & water color crayon

SU Big On Christmas stamp

Black and Red Perma Marker

Blue snowflake (gift wrapping trim - Walmart)

Dimensions:

5x6.5 card -

Base Mat - Cut 2- 5 1/8 x 1" + Cut 2- 3 5/8x1"

DP - Cut 2 - 5x7/8 + Cut 2- 3.5x 7.8"

Center Mat- Cut 1- 3 7/8x 2.5" (CS) + 1- 3 3/4x 2 7/8" (white)

4.25x5.5 card-

Base Mat- Cut 2- 4x1" + Cut 2- 2 5/8x1"

DP - Cut 2- 3 7/8x 7/8 + Cut 2- 2.5x7/8

Center Mat- Cut 1- 2 7/8x 1.5" + Cut 1- 2 3/4x 1 3/8

This card also fulfilled the January Challenge for the PBU thread at Splitcoast using the theme 'Let It Snow' direct our creativity.

My next plan is to pull out my scrap drawer, cut the DP strip sizes I need and then match with CS to make several cards for the All Occasion Challenge thread. I already see one in browns and earth tones with Noble Deer featured in the center for guy cards.

I hope your 2012 is off to a creative start!

Collage Playground

2012-01-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

Collage hasn't changed much over the years. It's still about cutting pieces of this, pictures of that and a little bit of everything else from our creative stash and gluing them to a surface. The end result is a beautiful, recycled piece of art.

When playing with our art mediums, it is so easy to get stuck in the rut of doing the same old thing every time we pull out our toys. In Collage Playground: A Fresh Approach to Creating Mixed-Media Art by Kimberly Santiago, we are introduced to 25 projects and 10 simple crafting techniques that bring the art of collage to it's pinnacle of creativity. I have Kimberly's book, Altered Book Pages and refer to it frequently when looking for a way to do something different. Funny thing is, most of us have all the things we need to create beautiful pieces of art. We just get attached to our favorites and forget about the gems just waiting for their turn. Kimberly reminds us to pull those treasures out and let them shine.

Whether you are into Art Journaling, Mixed Media art forms or Scrapbooking, Collage Playground offers tips for every artist. And yes, you are an artist. If you like to dream, explore and create, you ARE an artist.

And if you'd like a chance to win a free copy of Collage Playground, follow this LINK.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

2012-01-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

This week I'm not sharing inspiration from a magazine. I've joined a new group of creative people called The Outlawz. A couple of their members, Sandi Huggett and Anne Fenton, do beautiful digi images and offer up 2 Free every two weeks. To get the next ones, all you have to do is make something using the current freebies. Last week I squeaked in just under the wire with this candle card.

I used Pacific Point as my mat and colored in the candle an charger with Derwent watercolor pencils. The wick is a 6-strand piece of black embroidery floss.

Tomorrow is a very special Teapot Tuesday card.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:46:00.000-08:00

My gift for you today is the pictures of my tree and village. The village is no where any way how I want it but at least I got to unpack it and play this year. I had 2 stores and the Mayor's Mansion I couldn't fit in. Next year I'll have a full 4x8 sheet of plywood to actually construct side streets, put up the gazebo and large center-of-town Christmas tree. A few things were broken but E6000 glue is wonderful stuff.

So first, the tree:

I didn't think when I bought the lights last year that I'd purchased solid color strings instead of multi-colored and how interesting it would be trying to put them on the tree. I still managed to wrap each individual limbs but I have vertical rows of color. It's still pretty.

Then there's the village. This isn't the best shot of the village but the only way to get it all in. I have 2 book stores, quilt shop, pie shop, Dollar General, pub, Duffy's Tavern, Chinese restaurant, Lighthouse and pub, 2 toy stores (one is musical), school, church, train depot, Guns and Ammo shop and a Mountain View Lumber. We found the lumber store at Menards in Peoria the year we bought the house. Had to have it because we'd been purchasing remodeling items from Mountain View Lumber in our nearest main shopping town - Mountain View MO.

As you'll see in this next picture, there is a sledding hill. Every town should have one, right? What these kids don't know is that when the town is quiet at night, Santa's elves come down through the timber to collect the bags and bags of mail shipped into the train depot from all over the world. They trudge back through the snow with their parcels to the North Pole where Santa

waits to check the list.

Mrs. Claus directs the activities from Gingerbread Headquarters and elves spend hours in the Confectionery baking yummy treats to fill the stockings.

I hope you'll come back next year to see how the village expands.

Merry Christmas!

On Holiday Hiatus... sort of.

2011-12-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

How is everyone doing? Are you ready for Christmas? I'm done shopping. Now if I were just done decorating. I was talking to a blogger friend a few minutes ago and realized why I'm dragging my feet with this tree. I really don't like change. This is the first year for this tree in this house, new lights, new placement. I'm having to refigure everything and it's just sucking the creativity right out of me like an ornamental vampire.

Well, despite the fact I've been up since 4 a.m. (no clue why) and really want a nap, I'm determined the lights are going on this tree today. Thus, no card posting. If I break for one more thing, this tree will be a dark albatross in the middle of the dining room till time to pack it away.

Other than the tree and final decorations, I'm not planning on any other postings the last two weeks of this year. I want to get things in line so I can be ready to stay consistent with my postings beginning with the new year.

So bear with me.. there WILL be a tree AND a village by the end of this week if I do nothing else :-)

Merry Christmas!

Amazon Order

2011-12-14T07:11:00.001-08:00

I have to say, that with the holidays approaching, the Amazon sellers I've been dealing with lately have been... FABULOUS! I ordered 2 books and a DVD last week. Everything arrived this week. The first item was a book that is part of a trilogy. I'd been unable to find the book locally so ordered it. I want to read it then share the entire collection with a friend as a Christmas gift. She doesn't mind 'used gifts'. We're good that way. LOL The DVD was to replace my husband's VHS of the John Travolta movie classic, Pulp Fiction. Sorry, I don't see the appeal of this particular movie but hubby likes it and has been searching for a replacement for months. If it will make him smile, that's good enough for me.

The third item I ordered was The ART JOURNAL WORKSHOP by Traci Bunkers. It comes with a Live Time-Lapse Video of the projects being created. Pretty cool. I know... I don't NEED another art journal workshop book but I love looking at different takes on the same techniques. Every artist brings their own vision to the table.

Now when you order from someone on Amazon, it's a good thing to notice the SELLER RATING. Ideally, you want to work with someone who has 4-Star or higher, or 98% Success rate. HOWLING FOREVER BOOKS has a 5-STAR rating. And with good reason.

The art journal book was well packaged - maybe too well. It had been packaged so tightly - within bubble wrap, mind you, that the CD in the inside front cover cracked.

The first thing I did was take a picture of the cracked CD, still in the plastic sleeve inside the book cover. Then I emailed the seller at amazon, explaining that although I had already given them a 5-star rating I have since noticed the broken CD. When I checked mail the very nex morning I had a response from Howling Forever (via Amazon) and they had already refunded my purchase price. The felt the CD was an integral part of the book and wanted me to have the funds to purchase a new copy of the book locally that would have a workable CD. Wow! They didn't ask for the book back (that would probably cost more in postage than it was worth). They simply said Merry Christmas!

Granted, it wasn't their fault the USPS has to stomp on our packages, but Alex and his team did the right thing! And that's all the counts. I will work with Howling Forever Books and I hope when you're shopping at Amazon, you'll check their store front and know what you're ordering will be handled with professionalism.

Now.. to make time to play with Traci's book!

Free Holiday Images!

2011-12-13T12:58:00.001-08:00

For you mixed media artists, I encourage you to check out Lisa Vollrath's site at Ten Two Studios . For just about every holiday, Lisa offers up some of her favorite images for download. The catch... to get them free, she only releases one per day for the duration of the offer. Her images are always vintage and beautiful to work with. Her Christmas images began December 1st. So you can go in now and download each one up to present. Just remember to check back every day until Christmas to get them all!

Merry Christmas!

Magazine Monday!

2011-12-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

I took a break from decorating over the weekend to play over at the VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) at SCS. The hostesses for those events come up with some amazing challenges to coordinate with that particular VSN theme. This time it was Winter Wonderland. So with my mindset in the Christmas groove, I made a batch of cards for each challenge. By the time I've completed all of the challenges I will have my Christmas cards for the CCC12 (Christmas Card Challenge 2012) complete BEFORE January! LOL

The first challenge was to create a card based on what gives us Warm Fuzzies during the holidays. We could take the 'warm fuzzies' literal and go with furry pets, warm gloves, etc. Or whatever gives us that 'comfortable' feeling.

For me, Christmas is my baking season.Nothing says comfort like great smells from the kitchen. Growing up, my (step) mom introduced me to baking around the age of 9. I fell in love with the kitchen and have been baking/ cooking ever since. I don't bake a lot during the year because if I did, Bob and I would weigh a ton x3 between us. We like our home baked goodies and know if they're in the house, they're going to be eaten. So instead, I save my massive baking for the holidays when I can divide it all into treat boxes for friends and businesses who've served us well throughout the year.

Since our daughter's favorite cookie is my gingerbread men, I pulled out my Martha Stewart Gingerbread set from Christmas 2009, along with the coordinating paper. Then I went to one of the many Christmas issued stamping magazines packing my shelf. I chose the December 2007 issue of Scrap and Stamp Arts. I found a simple, yet great card from artist Grace Tolman called Merry Christmas. Sometimes a card is fine the way it is. The layout, right down to the pierced scalloped edge is the same with three exceptions. Grace's tag was more centered on the card front, bearing a Christmas tree withe the saying Merry Christmas, her candy stripe paper also had shades of green and she used white ribbon where I used green and white yarn.

I chose to separate the two. I stamped the gingerbread man on the tag and scooted the tag to the left. This left room for the sentiment on a separate tag on the bottom.

I used SU Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler CS. I decorated my gingerbread man with gold stickles and a black glaze pen.

Ten of my family/ friends will receive this card for Christmas next year. Maybe you'll be one of them!

Christmas Decorating Day 2

2011-12-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm one of THOSE people. At least that's what a lady in JoAnn's Fabric accused me of one day (several years ago). I was purchasing fabric for Halloween curtains for my kitchen. She asked what I was going to use it for. When I told her she said 'Oh, you're one of those people'. LOL Okay..

If one of those people is the type of person who loves to decorate for the holidays and make my curtains coordinate with everything else in the room, than I plead guilty- with pleasure. As I said yesterday, I've determined it all relates back to color. I love colored lights - or tons of lights in general (like looking out over a city from the 16th floor of a hotel), colors portrayed in fabrics, ornaments, embellishments. Just give me color and I'm a happy girl. If I were one of those people (sorry, no offense intended - just couldn't resist), I'd have Color My World playing on here to greet you every time you visited.

I began decorating with the gingerbread theme in my kitchen several years ago. It started with this adorable fabric I found by Marcus Textiles. I can't remember for sure but I think it was suppose to be for a tree skirt. I saw valance. At the time I had 2 very wide windows and the fabric called to me. I wound up not only making valances but also an apron. Coordinating fabrics in the line were the images you'll see on the table centerpiece and the fabric covering the canisters. There was the all-over gingerbread baking images as well as panel fabrics with the small gingerbread boy/ girl/ heart and the larger image I've turned into pot holders. Little by little I've added other things to the kitchen but this is the first year I've been able to bring it all together. In fact, I spent yesterday making the canister covers, pot holders, condiment basket liner and the embellishments for the front of the glass jar canisters.

So let's take a walk around my kitchen.

Our dining room table normally doesn't sit in the kitchen. When I show you the Christmas tree on Sunday, you'll understand why it's in here for a few weeks. I made place mats and the hot pads yesterday to dress it up a bit. I painted the little plate several years ago for a county fair entry.

This picture is of my favorite 'alcove'. The counter gets totally cleared off when I do my Christmas baking. It is my rolling / cutting station. The baking supplies are in the cabinets above, measuring spoons/ cups, parchment paper and baking-only spices in the drawers. The cabinets below house all of my jumbo mixing bowls, cooling racks and baking pans as well as my prized kitchen aid mixer. I have puck lights underneath the upper cabinets for a nice work-light.

My other favorite spot to be is at the stove. I love to cook and bake. The microwave oven is a bit high for me but it makes a nice display shelf for my candy jars and the little peppermint candy tree. To the left are the canisters and the condiment basket. A picture of the 'naked canister' is below so you can see how just a little time and fabric can really change the appearance.

Of course, I was designing the pattern yesterday so it took awhile. But now that I have that part done, I can see these covered for other holidays as well. The condiment basket is a pint canning jar box! I like being able to move the entire box of bottles to clean rather than shifting them one at a time. It will also help keep the counter clean of drips. I can just remove the liner and toss it in the laundry. Yep, definitely making more of these! Because I have yet to get hubby to install the puck lights under these cabinets, I ran a 20-light string of Christmas lights to brighten the corner.

What's left in here? Eventually I'd like to make chair pad covers for the chairs and add woven/ braided/ or crocheted rag rugs in a deep brick red and hunter green. I have a hunter green/ white checkered fabric already cut into rolls of long strips. I'm on the hunt for a solid brick red of the same weight so that might take awhile.

I'm taking tomorrow off the blog to work on the dining room and the Christmas tree. I'll be away to a writers meeting on Saturday. So my hope is to have pics of the tree/ dining room for you on Sunday. After that, the only thing left for this year is my village. My poor houses/ stores haven't seen the light of day in over five years. I've missed them. Just not sure where they're going to go. LOL But I'll have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to figure it out while you look at cards.

Sweet Treats!

Christmas Decorating!

2011-12-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

I LOVE to decorate for Christmas. And this year I finally figured out why. Yeah, it's a lot of work but it all reverts back to my love of color. Colored lights, colored ornaments, shapes, sizes, textures... Decorating is an ART!

I do miss decorating the 200 yr old, 11-room Victorian I lived in up in Illinois. And there are so many things I just couldn't give up when we moved to a much smaller single story ranch house here in Missouri. There are days I wish I could put that Victorian on this 25 acre secluded lot. But that's not going to happen so I work with what I we bought all because we loved the location LOL

My favorite room in this house is my bathroom. The kitchen comes a close second and I'll share it tomorrow. I finally got the bathroom I've always wanted. Linen storage, a nice vanity, a big window for light and fresh air and a bubble tub.

The wall board we used is a creamy white with what looks like brush strokes of color in a sea foam green. But if you put blues with it, then you get more of a bluish tone than a green from the sea foam. So for Christmas I went with powder blues, white, snowmen and snowflakes.

With the linen closets flanking the vanity and a huge mirror to fill the space, I went simple accents. You can't see them actually in the picture but hanging from the light fixture at the top of the mirror, there are three of these snowballs spaced evenly across. The center snowball hangs a bit lower than the 2 outside. I still want to make a snowman cover for the hand soap pump.

The snowball candle holder in the top right of the vanity and again on the back of the potty is actually an antique glass potting jar. It's textured like a snowball. I've placed a jar vanilla candle in each one.

I also collect Pooh Bear... well, bears in general.. but these two Pooh Bears from the Disney store dressed as snowmen found their way in here. I didn't even think about placement when I put them on the potty tank. Honest!

And then there's my favorite spot in the whole room. The BUBBLE TUB! I've surrounded it with snowmen. The white lights hanging down either side of the window also work as a place to hang beaded icicle ornaments. All of the beaded snowflakes and icicle ornaments are from swaps I used to do with a Christmas Notebook group I belong to. There's still room for more snowmen at the opposite end of the tub and I'm always on the look out on after-Christmas sales.

Tomorrow I'll have pictures of my kitchen. The kitchen is all about what else... GINGERBREAD!

Tea Pot Tuesday

2011-12-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

We're taking the month of December off from destinations, but MotherMark is still giving us challenges to play with if we have the time. You can read about this week's challenge HERE .

I used Dasher, minus the antlers (since leopards don't have antlers) and gave him a leopard look. Dasher is stamped in SU Daffodil Delight then the spots are created with Black Perma Marker.

Because the teapot is actually a Santa, I gave the base of the card that Santa 'look' by adding a strip of SU Black CS run through a pop can top ring for a belt/ buckle. The corner looked bare so I added the sentiment from SnowGlobe and turned the Vintage Labels punch vertical. A final touch rounding two of the corners on the image mat reflected the 'roundness' of the Jolly man.

Merry Christmas!

Magazine Monday!

2011-12-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

This week, I'm getting a jump on Christmas 2012. I was part of a Christmas Card Challenge at Splitcoaststampers this year. Aside from pledging to do X-#of Christmas cards every month, I mailed out a prize envelope to one lucky stamper who made their personal goal each month. This year I am co-moderator. My co-conspirator, VikkiJo, works out of town part of the week and doesn't always have internet access. So we decided to team up this year so no one got lost in the daily postings. To set a good example, I'm going to try and have my card posted by the 1st day of the month.

I'm still playing in the Volume 4 of Take Ten. The card I chose this week is by Sylvia Yu. I couldn't find a link for her. I hate CASing a card without giving credit back. I can tell you my card is very close to Sylvia's. Sometimes you just like a layout the way it is. Where I used GP White CS, Sylvia chose a pearlescent vanilla CS. She also used actual ribbon for the vertical strip, and punched small holes in her silver-embossed tree so the 'red balls' would show through when she matted it on the red CS. Her tree and border were from Art Impressions.

How is mine different? I used SU Real Red CS and Ink, Lovely As A Tree, and Sculpted Style. I also cut the front flap of the card back 1" and stamped the Sculpted Style border on the right edge of the 'inside' of the card. I added the sentiment mat using the Nauveu label shape (Cricut) at 1.25" and the shadow. I added dimension by popping up the tree and sentiment mats.

So... 6 cards done for 2012 and 46 to go. Now to get this year's mailed!

Magazine Monday!

2011-11-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

I'm squeezing this in as we prepare to get on the road for 3 days in Nashville. Adrian turns 4 tomorrow! Hard to believe. So instead of a typical Magazine Monday, I'm showing off the Birthday Card I made for her as well as the cake.

When I was little, I remember getting a birthday card. I think there was a clown on it. But I remember him holding balloons. Each balloon had a slit in the center to form a pocket big enough to hold a coin. There were different sizes for quarters, dimes and nickles.

Since I was creating multiple pages to this card, I decided to update the technique a bit and use glue dots to place the Chuck E Cheese tokens on each balloon. They'll come off the token easy when we're ready to use them tomorrow. This kid loves to go to the 'mouse'!

I didn't have a mouse stamp but she also likes Pooh Bear and Pooh Bear loves balloons so I thought it was a good match.

I used 2 long cards and put them together to form a fold out. Then I dusted the pages with pastel inks. The 4 is heat embossed in multiple layers of Purple Scepter powder.

I started with one balloon on the front then added a balloon to each page until we got to a total of 4 on a page.

When I saw the cake, I knew it would be one I could create here in MO and transport easily to TN. Because of the 5 hour drive, I chose to leave it in the baking pan and only decorate the top.

I found this cake in the 2012 Wilton Year Book. They have a new product out called Sugar Sheets. You can PUNCH any shape from these thin sheets of sugar. They kind of remind me of the old flat pieces of bubble gum found in baseball card packages. The sheets are 8x11 and come in a wide variety of primary and pastel colors, white, black or colored alphabets, as well as designs like stripes, zebra and hearts. These had to have been created by a someone who scrapbooks... or at the very least pays attention to the crafting industry. Aside from the sheets, you can purchase a punch set and individual cutting inserts. There are 6 basic shapes, then hearts, circles, scalloped circle and star each come in 3 layering sizes. Add 6 different border punches and there is no end to what you can do with these. You can get an idea of what is available and what you can do with them HERE.

The only things I wish I'd done differently were purchase the alphabet sheet (I used my Fiskars ABC template and an Xacto knife) and not glittered the letters of her name as it doesn't allow them to stand out. But I was going for bling! LOL This was the first time playing with this technique. I'll definitely use it again but now when I can't find something to use my 40% on at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, I'll pick up a new punch... for cake decorating!

So I'm closing down and packing the truck. No TeaPot Tuesday or What's only my Work surface Wednesday. I'm going to be enjoying my family for a few days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kelly

Teapot Tuesday Plus

2011-11-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry I didn't get these posted yesterday. I just felt icky most of the day. Didn't do much of anythig except sit on the couch. Really getting tired of this every other day thing. LOL

If you don't 'get' what Teapot Tuesday is, you can check out this LINK on Splitcoast.

A couple of weeks ago, you saw the sympathy card I did for Katie Renz's family. You can see her story HERE, on the blog she journaled about her cancer journey. The most recent posts have been made by her husband, Kevin as he continues to work through his own grief just the way Katie would have had the fate been reversed.

Katie's twin boys turn 6 this week. We teapotters know this is going to be the beginning of many 'firsts' for this family so we wanted to make sure we helped them celebrate their birthday the way Katie would have.

Will and Nate are typical six-year-old boys. They love cars and trucks. We were asked to keep this theme in mind when creating matching cards for the boys. I went with a sketch challenge (SC39) from Splitcoast and used the same papers but did one in blue and one in red.

I hope these cards bring a smile and they understand how much we care about them.

It's also WOWW. Well, today as I planned to sit and work, I had extra help.

Spirit decided if he couldn't have the chair I planned to sit in, he'd just make himself comfy on the desk. He is such a pest and can be a real cry baby. But I adore him and will be lost without him in the very long-distant future. I trained him to be a sociable cat but there are days I ask myself 'what was I thinking?' LOL

Not sure I'll get in again before Sunday. Bob gets home tonight and we have company coming in on Friday. I must get this house presentable. Hopefully I'll have a picture of Adrian's birthday cake to post Sunday night. We leave for Nashville on Monday. Can't believe my grandtoddler is going to be 4!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Magazine Monday

2011-11-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

Bet you thought I'd be a no-show today, huh.

Well, we had unseasonably warm temperatures of 80 degrees in southcentral MO. I took the opportunity to get the storage shed straightened up, moved all 6 of the tubs of clothes Adrian has outgrown (each tub holds a different size from 12 mo. - 4T) to the shed as well as the Halloween decorations tub. Oh yeah, and a load of laundry on the line to beat dry in the gusty winds.

It was only after dark when I could sit down and make a card. I had one in que but then I remembered it's just like last week's card but with different papers so decided you needed something different.

Our SCS card kit swap group is still going strong. Sadly, as my freelance writing has picked up I've not had the time to play as much as I'd like. But when I began seeing what everyone was doing with this adorable scarecrow image by Whiff of Joy, I couldn't wait to play with him. My friend Maggie was this months packet person and she stuffed the envelope with all kinds of goodies. Check out her blog to see what a creative person she is!

I used my Derwent Watercolor pencils for the image and combined two of the papers Maggie provided. They are from the SU Autumn Vine DP collection. I added the paper twine, Jesse James corn stock button and the orange brads. To bring the stark white oval up a bit, I inked the edge with More Mustard.

I think this little scarecrow is just the cutest image!

Tomorrow I'll have a special Birthday card to share with you on Tea Pot Tuesday.

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Piece Valley Quilt Shop Hop

2011-11-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

A week ago today I started off on what despite a couple of bumps, turned out to be the weekend I’d envisioned. FUN!

Piece Valley Quilters held their annual Fall Shop Hop November 3, 4, 5. I’d been on a couple of scrapbooking shop hops and I’m always playing in the on-line blog hops for authors, stamp companies, etc. But this was my first Quilt Shop Hop and I was looking forward to covering the 10 stores in a minimum of 2 days. I was initially shooting for doing them all on Thursday, thus freeing up the rest of my weekend for NanoWrimo but a flat tire on my truck early that first morning changed the scope of the whole weekend. But it was an enjoyable three days despite drizzly weather on Thursday.

The plan was to visit all ten quilt shops, purchase something at every one (though not mandatory for the grand prize) and get my passport stamped at each destination. If the passport was validated at all the shops, then my name went into the drawing for a $50 gift certificate (one given by each store) and the Viking Sapphire 850 by Husgvarna Viking. My spending goal was to attempt to keep it under $20 at each shop, with the balance of my $200 being spent at my LQS.

The first day, I covered over 300 miles, hitting the stores at the opposite farthest ends of the list. My first stops were the two shops in Van Buren, MO. The Pin Cushion where I found these adorable garden fabrics. I’m thinking a small lap quilt perfect for when I’m sitting in a chair on the porch (still to be built) of my garden shed (existing) while I thumb through garden magazines and enjoy the peace of my twenty-five acres. I spent $17.43

Next was Carol’s Country Quilts where I spotted the pretty fall-hued stripe fabric. I picked up coordinating fabrics. Not sure what I’ll use it for, but I loved the patterns. Total cost: $12.32

Then it was on to Mt. View MO and Calico Cupboard. This is one of the first quilt shops I found when we moved down here. He has a beautiful collection of old sewing machines and hard to find patterns. Because I knew I’d be purchasing floursack reproduction fabrics from my Local Quilt Store (LQS) last on the hop, I picked up coordinating reproduction fabrics from Grandpas Garden and Grandma’s Treasures collections. $18.47

After a quick cup of coffee at the local diner, I headed out of town for Ava MO and the Dogwood Quilting. Found some lovely red fabrics and the brown dot. My first thought was chocolate covered cherries. I’ll add from my stash for a Valentine’s style quilt. $13.69. Despite the weather, I enjoyed the drive to Ava. Good thing, because I’ll be going back soon to spend my $50 Gift Certificate! Thank you Connie!

For my last stop of the day, I had just enough time to drive to the opposite end of the hop, to Thayer MO. Coffee Cup Quilts was a neat little shop and I adored ‘Bat’, the shop owner. We had a great visit. I found this pebble-looking fabric that is so not me. But it just jumped off the shelf and put me on the hunt for the coordinating fabrics. This is the only shop where I purchased more than a ½ yard of any one print fabric. I was so excited I purchased two yards. $20.99

After dealing with getting my tire replaced on Friday, I headed for Willow Springs and The Stitchin’ Post (I forgot to stop there on my way to Ava the day before!) I found a dark green fabric that would be the perfect ‘dark’ for the garden quilt. Total: $7.27

With only 4 shops left to go, I drove to West Plains. Sew Connection is a great ‘sewing’ shop outside of West Plains. The beautiful drive took me to a well-lit shop with a friendly staff. I spotted more reds for the Valentine quilt and a paisley I’m not sure what I’ll do with, but I liked it. LOL $11.89

Back in town, I stopped at Gammill Sewing Center. They’re not a huge fabric store, but if you need something for your machine, they’ll have it. I wasn’t sure which size needle I wanted to purchase as I keep breaking my #14. We determined it might be the brand I’ve been buying so I am going to try a new one. $4 and change.

Last on my list for the day was Ozark Sampler Quilts. I’ve been in their store a number of times as they are in the same shopping center as my favorite coffeehouse – Heroes Coffee. I found an additional fabric for the reproduction quilt then headed for fluffy coffee and Internet visiting. $7 and change.

Saturday morning took me to my final stop. Hide Away Quilt shop is my LQS owned by Jean and Jim Asberry. They are super people and some of the first friends I made when we began the move down here. I knew Jean had a 12-bolt collection of Floursack fabrics. I picked out ten plus enough white broadcloth for the background squares to use with them. I’ve decided to do an appliqued 1930’s butterfly garden quilt. No two butterflies will be identical. I also found a quilting stencil for the magickal quilt I’m working on next and a large star stencil, which put my mind on track for a new quilting book. $73 even.

I had a great time seeing how each of the stores was different both in atmosphere and selection. I didn’t win the sewing machine but I already know what I’m looking for with that GC from Dogwood Quilts. My grand total for the ten shops was $186.06 I’m already planning to attend the spring hop. Would you like to go with me?

WOYWW

2011-11-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

As you can see, my desk is a bit of a mess. The candy items you see should be gone first thing. They are for goody bags that go out to participants on my Cauldron Café thread over at National Novel Writing Month. I always send little ‘survival’ bags at the beginning of the challenge.

If you’re not familiar with National Novel Writing Month – NanoWriMo for short – it is a month long endeavor to write a 50,000 word novel (approx. the size of Moby Dick for you visual artists) in 30 days. This is my 9th year as a participant and the 4th year I’ve hosted the Cauldron Café chat thread.

Once the goody bag stuff is gone, I need to see where I stand on my 2011 Christmas Cards. I’ve already begun co-hostessing the 2012 Christmas Card Challenge (CCC12) at SplitcoastStampers so I need my cards done for 2011 ASAP. Well, that and I try to mail the Monday following Thanksgiving at the latest.

Part of my co-hostessing duties is to send out goody packets every month. For every person who meets their personal monthly goal and posts a link to the card in their gallery, their name goes into a drawing for a goody envelope full of stamped images, designer paper (DP) and cardstock (CS) mats. My co-conspirator, Vikki Jo, draws around the 2nd of the following month and I like to have the envies all done up for the year. All I have to do is put the address she PMs me on the envie and pop it in the mail. It’s worked well this year.

To add to my artistically chaotic life, Splitcoast has a Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) beginning on Friday the 11th. So somewhere between clearing off my table and writing the next best seller, I plan to play with stamps just for FUN! LOL

Oh and if you don’t think my work table is a mess, take a look at my quilting table and you’ll wonder where I plan to work on all that fabric I’m going to show you tomorrow!

Creative Blessings!

TeaPot Tuesday

2011-11-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

What a fun card!

I looked at the challenge last night and by the time my eyes opened this morning I knew I wanted to do a black and hot pink card for John and Jane. I mean really, aren't those the colors that come to mind when you hear the word DIVA?

The Diva Cats are what John and Jane lovingly call their two very spoiled kitties. Diva also means bling so I made sure their collars were all decked out!

John is in Stage 4 of lung cancer. Through it all, John and his wife have remained the same upbeat, fun couple their family and friends know they are. You can read more about their story HERE at our Teapot Tuesday Destination Station post on Splitcoast Stampers.

Although it doesn't show up well in the pic, the black panel is run through the Swiss Dot CB folder. I layered the black ric-rack over a hot pink sparkly ribbon. The jewels on the color are set with clear glaze. Don't want those girls losing those precious stones in shipping!

The cat is a stamp I got on a freebie sheet in a Paper Crafts. I think she is so elegant and perfect for this destination.

Because John and Jane have 2 Divas, I had to make sure there were two on their card. Animals are like kids and you don't dare leave one or the other out of anything. I'm speaking from personal experience. I also know they are sometimes best separated so I placed one of them inside out of claws way.

I hope this card brings as much pleasure to John and Jane as I had making it.

Tomorrow... you get to see the tornado that hit my work table (and my quilting table). Well, not really, but it sure looks like it!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Magazine Monday

2011-11-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

I love fall. It is my absolute favorite time of the year. Warm days (usually), followed by cool, crisp nights perfect for sleeping. It also brings to mind yummy comfort foods such as turkey, pumpkin pie, and apple crisp. I found these things listed on a pattern paper from a Fall holiday slab.

I hope I have the right Heidi Erickson. In the Take Ten Vol. 4, she is listed as living in Mosinee WI. As you’ll see in the link above, that Heidi

has a shop in Schofield WI. I’ve heard from Heidi and because she’s submitted so many over the years, without seeing the actual card she can’t be sure it’s her either. Hehe I’m linking to her studio anyway. If they’re two separate artists, both are very talented and inspiring!

Okay, the LO this week again features the long, narrow card. Heidi’s card is a simple one perfectly adapted to any occasion. She did a Happy Birthday patterned paper for the main focus. Her image is a slice of birthday cake stamped over a shadow square (both from A Muse). She used monochromatic shades of greens in both her CS and her ink.

I chose to pull the colors from my patterned paper, too. I used Stampin' Up Cajun Craze and Old Olive. The green ribbon wasn’t exactly the shade I wanted but what I had on hand. I also felt it needed some hardware so added the 4 brads.

Next week I'll have another Fall card showing the versatility of this LO.

Creative Blessings!

TeaPot Tuesday

2011-11-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm a day late with this one. I was hoping to at least get it posted last night but I got caught up in working on my current novel-in-progress and didn't get back here.

I had a quick card in mind yesterday morning and it went together in about 20 minutes. But then I got this bright idea to cover it with glaze so that meant drying time - all day. ::: sigh ::: That said, I do like the way the card turned out. This is my first paper flower and I know I need to fine-tune my technique but they are uber ea

sy to do with an awesome vintage effect.

This week's Destination Station is fellow teapotter, Kathy. She recently lost her sister, Joanne, to cancer. We were asked to do a mosaic. Because Kathy's mother, aunt and two younger sisters all battle breast cancer I knew I needed to showcase the pink ribbon. You can read about Kathy and her sister Here.

I selected words like friend, remember, believe, soul, as well as a butterfly and a scroll border. I stamped them on Pretty in Pink, cut them out and arranged them mosaic-style to fill in the GP white ribbon. The flower is punched from pages of a book of poems about love and support. I dusted them with Pretty In Pink ink and added a Memories brad for bling. Gotta have bling!

I hope this card reminds Kathy she is not alone in this struggle and that she is loved.

Creative Blessings

Magazine Monday

2011-10-31T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today’s card is a play on the production ‘Wicked’. I love the frog stamp. Don’t you think he’s cute?

My inspiration came from a card by Diane Jackson in the Take Ten Volume 4 called CELEBRATE. Each Take Ten issue has a challenge LO. This one called for a 6x3.25 card. I chose to use a 9x3.25 to accommodate a business-size envelope. It also meant I had a bit more room to work with. The first card was a challenge for me because I don’t work with this size as a rule so it took adjusting my creative brain to the new format. Once I did, I had fun creating cards – as you’ll see over the next 3 weeks. (yep, my cards are done and ready to post!)

I like to include links to the original artist’s page whenever possible. However, I could not find one for this Diane Jackson (Ponte Vedre Beach FL). If you know her, please let her know I thank her for her inspiration.

Diane used a black base with a purple print panel. Then a smaller white panel and a grape vine/ word patterned paper. Where I have WICKED, she spelled out CELEBRATE on white. My adorable frog replaces her cluster of grapes. I loved her card but needed something for my Halloween post.

My papers are from an old holiday slab, ValuCS neon green and SU Vintage Violet ink (letters) Tuxedo Memento Black for the frog

Tea Pot Tuesday

2011-10-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

It was nice to go down to the studio before the sunrise this morning and work. I'd love to spend the whole day there but panic calls from my daughter have begun so who knows how long I have.

For now, I have a card for Chip. Chip has had some serious foot issues resulting in adjustments to his life and passions. You can read Chip's story HERE .

One thing Chip does enjoy is fishing. So I created a small lake with a 'no limit' option. Chip can relax and enjoy a long day of drowning worms.

I used the masking technique to create a bank and lake full of fish. I chose the pine tree background from Noble Deer (retired SU), LePlume markers in green tones. The sky and lake colors were created using SU chalks. Those little fish swimming just below the surface are actually small fish buttons from Jesse James themed buttons. It looks like Chip's already snagged a big fish (Mike's $1). I used an actual fishing hook and line.

Here's wishing Chip a speedy and full recovery so he's home with his family soon!

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday

2011-10-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

This week’s card covers Magazine Monday and the September challenge from the Paper Bloggers Unite! Thread at SU.

I chose Elizabeth Allen’s card from Crafts n Things Oct. 2009. You can see another of her cards at Penny Black. I also hope you’ll take time to check out their website and browse their catalog. I liked Elizabeth’s LO, though I did eliminate 1 layer from hers to create mine. Where I have black stickles, she used black brads.

I used SU Very Vanilla and Old Olive and ValuCS Orange. The SU Seasons of Thanks images were stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa. Back to watercoloring with Derwent watercolor pencils and Crayola colored pencils. I used a rich chocolate velvet ribbon for some texture.

I'm still waiting on the call from my daughter. So as of now, we'll cross fingers I get to make the Teapot Tuesday post tomorrow. :-)

Creative Blessings!

Teapot Tuesday!

2011-10-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

Yep... I'm on the ball today.

This week's card destination is to a lady in Painsville OH (so appropriate at the moment) who has several foot surgeries and is unable to travel to Arizona to see her granddaughters. It sounds as if it is something she was doing on a regular basis until this whole foot thing started.

Sharon loves Purple and Hydrengias. I had plenty of purple on hand but the prettiest flower (other than my favorite Stipple Rose) I had to work with was this Iris I got from a recent image swap.

My inspiration came from artist AJ Otto's card in the Fall 2011 issue of Paper Creations Magazine (pg 55). AJ did a Halloween themed card but I really liked the layout. Where I've used the strip of DP, AJ had used some black scroll work tucked under the top left corner of her image mat. She also did not mat her sentiment and I added the pearls.

I used Lavender Lace as a base and matted the flower and sentiment with ValuCS deep purple. The sentiment is stamped in Lovely Lilac. Derwent Water color pencils were used to color the image and a white ribbon, pleated, softens the look.

I'm about done crafting for the next couple weeks. I have cards done up so that wherever I am, I hope to be able to upload and keep on track.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday

2011-10-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

Wow!

It seems like it's taken me forever to get to this point. And, granted it's Monday evening before I'm getting the card up... let's just say life still isn't slowing down. I'm like an expectant father every time my phone rings or I get a text message I fear it's my daughter telling me to head for Nashville. Yep, we're still waiting on the granddaughter. But technically she isn't due to make an appearance til around the 14th, so we have some time.

This week's card was inspired by Michelle Boyer. Rather than go back to an old magazine, I decided to periodically pick up a new one and showcase a current artist or technique. She is in the Fall 2011 issue of Paper Creations (pg. 33). My copy pretty much fell open to this page. Combined with the fact I had the perfect image from

an kit swap I'm in at SCS, it just seemed to fall together. Oh yeah, and my challenge on the Stamp2Spend thread at SCS this week was to incorporate APPLES and CINNAMON... but the cinnamon had to be done in such a way that it scented the card - like a scratch n sniff.

So here's the card I came up with:

I think it's the energy-saving bulb that gave this a yellow cast. It really is Very Vanilla.

The image is from The Greeting Farm as are the apples. I water-colored the image with Derwent watercolor pencils. I colored the apples red and embossed them with a mix of Red Tinsel embossing powder and ground cinnamon. The image and the apple paper in the upper-left corner were from the kit swap, everything else came from my stash. The only thing I did different from Michele is where I have the all green background, she used 2 different DP papers in a top half, bottom half LO. She also used a vanilla strip where I have the polka dot and the sentiment was stamped directly onto it. I raised the image, vintage label and the apple in the upper corner with pop dots.

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

I'm back!

2011-09-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

It was not an easy journey. The HughesNet guy, Trevor, was really sweet. He had 3 modems on his truck 'new' from the company. It took the 3rd one to get one that worked. I also learned that I shouldn't have to shut my modem down. It sounds like HughesNet was hoping to extend the life of my modem until the warranty ran out and then I'd have to replace it. LOL I love their connection - just not their customer service.

On a more creative note, I'm scrambling to finish up 2 sistah packets to be mailed tomorrow. My daughter called this morning to ask how I felt about becoming a grandma NEXT WEEK! Ummm... if Abigail says that's when she wants grandma there, I guess it will have to work. LOL So I'm trying to get all of my deadline stuff out of the way by Monday - just in case.

So Monday, I will have a Magazine Monday card for you, at least 1 Teapot Tuesday card and then from there it's whatever I can accomplish while I wait to hear from my daughter.

Creative Blessings

Kel

Off-Line

2011-09-23T14:56:00.001-07:00

Just a quick pit-stop to let you know the root of my recent internet issues has been found. My Hughes Net modem died this morning. I drove into town to update everyone and let you know I won't be back on-line until middle of next week.

In the mean time, keep being creative!

Blessings

Kelly

Done!

2011-09-20T16:31:00.003-07:00

I'll post my Tea Pot Tuesday Destination card tomorrow. I just don't have it in me to cut and glue another piece of CS tonight. I've been working on the finalizing of this mini album for almost 11 hours. I'm beat. The good news is - the album is DONE!

Yep. My photos for the More Outstanding Mini Albums - Call for submissions have been uploaded into Jessica Acs capable hands. I won't know for a few weeks if Adrian's To-Do List made the cut.

But however it works out, I have a 'first reader' type of mini album for my tootsie pop! The book is centered around all the things she has to do when she comes for a visit. I've done the journaling in simple words and phrases so she'll gradually be able to read it on her own. Hopefully it will be something she'll treasure as she gets older. Her mom isn't the type to 'collect' keepsakes. She hates clutter. So I guess the album will be an Adrian and Grandma thing until she's maybe graduating from High School. What a kick that would be for her to look back on 16 years from now!

And if I know Adrian, she'll love reading the book as much as I've enjoyed making it for her.

Sorry, I can't share more than that. If it's chosen for publication, it can not be previously published anywhere.

Here's hoping you'll get to see it in print!

Creative Blessings!

Kel

Magazine Monday

2011-09-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, everyone!

There isn't going to be a new card for today. I'm on the final touches of the mini-album for the More Outstanding Mini Albums submission deadline. Which is tomorrow!

So for today, I'd like to suggest that you click on the I've been featured in Outstanding Mini Albums button to the right and see the new mini albums that Jessica has showcased in the past couple of weeks. The people who submit to her are so very talented. I hope I can produce what she's looking for. I don't want to compete - just fit in.

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Teapot Tuesday

2011-09-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Yep... a day late. I had a card yesterday but the more I looked at it the more I just didn't like it for the challenge. So I made a new one today and I'm much more pleased with the results.

I pulled the idea from a card by Mary Ayers in PaperWorks June 2004. Mary does lovely work and one of her signatures I've noticed in her cards is stitching. I made her card minus the stitching. Instead I added lace and pearls. Otherwise, the cards are very similar. I used lace where she used a torn paper strip beneath the narrow accent strip. She backed her sentiment tags with the same paper. She also put eyelets on the left hand side of each tag in the upper and lower corners and used those to thread twine through then tied them around the accent strip.

I wanted a bit more elegance for this challenge. For Tea Pot Tuesday this week, our destination is a creative lady in WI who in the past year has had the rug pulled out from under her in a variety of ways, forcing her to start her life over. Our mission this week was to send her blessings and cheers as she moves forward on her journey.

Although it looks vintage here, the background of the pattern is white. I used the pearls as 'bullet points' and pop dots to add dimension to the tags and butterflies. Those butterflies are cut from the same 12x12 sheet of paper as the background.

SUPPLIES:

DCWV The Four Season - Spring butterflies

SU - Baja Breeze CS and Ink

Recollections - Pearls

Vintage lace trip

I also took a tip from my dear friend, Carla, and added embellishment to the inside using more of the same 12x12 sheet and one of the butterflies. If you've not been to her blog, I highly recommend it. Her work is just AWESOME! and ever so ELEGANT.

My desk looks pretty much the same as last week except I have the laptop in my work area. I need to let it take over the dining room table for the next couple of weeks while I put a lot of time actually designing/ creating in the studio.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

2011-09-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, everyone!

Yep, I have a card and on time this week. I could say miracles happen but truth be told, I needed a card for my oldest sister's birthday last week so decided it was a good time to try and stay ahead of the game.

I'm still pulling from the 2005 issue of Take Ten Studios Volume 4. My card is done almost identical to Kathy Skinner's God Bless America (pg 70-71) She used a stripe stencil as her template to roll the stars and stripe wheel over to create image-stamped stripes on her white background. Would never have thought of that. (I'll have to do a card using that in the near future) She cut her red panel ribbon from CS, sponged the edges of a Stars and Stripes image (SU) and matted it on blue as her focal image. It was very striking and I thought the layout would play well with other images.

I chose to dry emboss my Very Vanilla base with the Happy Birthday folder, I made the ribbon from Anna Griffin DP and stamped the flower basket (Memories of the Heart - SU) I love working with my Derwent water color pencils. For the flowers I chose Light Violet, Deep Cadmium, Copper Beach, Sap Green and Pink Madder Lake.

Bob leaves for his 3 weeks in Chicago tomorrow. My plan is to do the Tea Pot Tuesday before I outline the rest of my very long To Do list.

Creative Blessings!

Tea Pot Tuesday and WOWW

2011-09-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm squeaking in tonight to post this. I have 2 things to share with you today.

First off, I started the card yesterday as the challenge for Tea Pot Tuesday. The destination of this week's card is a woman who received many

cards last year from our group - for her 108th birthday! Can you imagine? Well, Eula Cousins is an extraordinary woman. Last year she sent a Thank You note to the group and told us a little bit about herself. You can read it here:

TEAPOT TUESDAY DESTINATION STATION #MMTPT162

I thought someone as special as Eula deserved a special bouquet so I chose my favorite floral stamp, The Stipple Rose - retired from SU.

I stamped the image in Tuxedo Black, water colored the image in Derwent watercolor pencils in Sap Green and Crimson Lake. I masked it off with a oval mat and chalked the remainder of the base in Creamy Caramel. I matted it with Certainly Celery and accented it with Red Seam Binding Ribbon (SU). As a finishing touch, I added iridescent Stickles for a little sparkle.

I need to write a brief note to Miss Eula, telling her a bit about my life in the Ozarks then it's ready to mail.

The other picture today is today's What's On My Work surface Wednesday. The table isn't too bad right now. I'm sure this will change next week once I have the house to myself and am finishing up the album for More Outstanding Mini Albums. For now, I have some Pearl Ex watercolors I made and am sharing with a SCS buddy. I'm going to make mine in the water paint wells (round pallet in the right background)

I doubt I'll be back this week... but you never know :-)

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday Returns!

2011-09-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

Yep, although it is late afternoon I do have a card for this week. As I told you a few weeks back, I'd selected several 'inspiration' items from the 2005 Take Ten by Stampington. This week I combined MM with my SCS August Challenge envelope from Shell.

Shell's items for us to play with were some stamped images from Clear Dollar Stamps, a couple of mats of DCWV Blossoms and Butterflies paper and embellishments. I decided to get ahead of the game and get my daughter's birthday card done ahead of time. Sometimes I manage this better than others.

My inspiration card is by Jenn Mason. Her concept was Gifting in Ten Minutes... cards that include either a handmade postcard or a gift card. I'll be including a Starbucks GC in my daughter's. Although she isn't a big fan of pink, the color lent itself to the paper I had to work with. She'll live through one year. With a new baby girl due in just 4 weeks, it's not the only pink she's seeing these days.

You'll find a link to Jenn's website HERE and a link to her BLOG For Birthday Kitty, she used a beautiful image of a cat with a birthday hat from Lost Coast Designs stamped to the far right of a tri-fold card. She also used ribbon/ bow to attach the mat on the front of the card bearing the sentiment. I went girly and simplistic with mine. With my daughter, the less froo froo the better.

Because I know this is not a 'keeper' card, I used ValuCS in Baby pink to go with the DCWV DP.

I cut the 2 scoops of ice cream apart and popped the caramel scoop with 1 pop dot and the cherry with 2 pop dots. I also added red stickles to the cherry.

The grandtoddler is here this week so I don't see a lot of stamping going on. Well - except for her. She picked out 3 of her own stamps at Michaels yesterday and was stamping with Grandpa before bedtime... and again right after breakfast this morning.

Creative Blessings

Happy Monday!

2011-08-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

I have about 5 minutes this morning. I have everything organized and spread out across my work surface in prep for the More Outstanding Mini Albums submission - due tomorrow! Yeah, I know. It's a crunch but I had another deadline over the weekend and a speaking engagement. What's an artist to do?

The weather is overcast with on-and-off shower. Beautiful day to have the house all opened up - and me in the basement studio LOL Today would be the perfect day to have that backyard studio with all it's glorious breeze and natural light. Someday!

I can't post pics of the project I'm working on for Jessica's submission call, but I will pop in later today and add a pick of my project-in-progress to give you a sneak peak at my creative mess.

Until then....

Creative Blessings!

Checking In

2011-08-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

I know I missed Magazine Monday. I've been busy trying to dig out this house. It seems like I've been trying for over a year to put it back to it's 'new moved in' organization. I think I've finally seeing the light of day.

Of course, that means I've also not been creating. For the first time in months, I can't even find my work table. Need to change that Sunday as the deadline for the OMA submission is on Tuesday. I've done pictures, sketched my layouts and know what embellies I need to shop for on Saturday while I'm in the big city. Put nothing is actually put together yet.

And somewhere between getting that sent off and the following Thursday, I need to come up with at least one (preferably 2) crib quilts in time for my daughter's baby shower. I leave Thursday for Tennessee. I'm not sure the one for my toostie pop will get done. As long as I have the one needed for the shower, I'll be okay.

Splitcoast is having their VSN this weekend -with a rodeo theme. But I'm going out with my husband tomorrow night and I'm speaking at a writers conference on Saturday.

So here's hoping everyone has an awesome weekend and that I have something to post on Monday :-)

Creative Blessings!

Squeeeee!

2011-08-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Whenever I am inspired by someone else's work, I try to link back to them whenever possible and drop and email so they know.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from Jessica Acs this morning, informing me she was featuring my CD album on the Outstanding Mini Albums blog. Please check out the blog. There are some amazing artists there and I feel honored to be included!

After checking out Jessica's blog yesterday, I had trouble sleeping last night. With a 'call for submissions' for her next book coming to a close, I had all kinds of ideas swirling through my head. After pouring through her first mini albums book and discarding ideas that had already been done or just didn't seem right, I think I finally hit upon the book I need to create. So I'm off to do some photographs today so I can get them developed while I'm in town.

So what albums have you created? Post a link in your comment so we can all take a look and leave some Love!

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

2011-08-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

We're back on-line and back to normal. I really enjoyed the peace and quiet without power last week. I was off for 48 hours - almost to the minute. Rather than try to clear the desk off downstairs, I sat and read the newest book in the Sons of Chance series by Vicki Lewis Thompson. She has become a dear writing friend over the past couple of years and has guest-blogged for me a couple of times at my author blog. It was nice to actually read a book while it was still new on the shelf. LOL

For this week, I'm taking a bit of a detour. The concept behind Magazine Monday was to apply some of the ideas I find in magazines. Well, I think it also applies to those technique books we just have to have. One of my favorites is Outstanding Mini Albums by Jessica Acs. She is such a talented lady. You can see her blog, as well as a link to purchase the album HERE

I told you a few weeks about about the altered CD mini-albums I was creating and teaching a class on. So I thought today I'd show pics of the completed album. I used the poem, 8 THINGS THAT DON'T COST A CENT. I have no clue where I got it from so if you know, please drop me a note so I may give credit where it's due. First the pics, then I'll give you a couple of tips.

The ones I did for the swap, I obviously had my brain turned off. To have enough pages to fit the poem, you need to cut 12 circles. I had 5 albums to make plus mine and I cut them all by hand! When I got ready to make up the kits for the class, I was inspired to use my Cricut. The circles are 4.75". I chose flowers from Recollections that matched the 50's style DCVW slab. I printed the poem on vellum so the background papers would still show through.

I love how this turned out. It could be used for so many things and a great way to repurpose those old CDs and DVDs.

Until next time...

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday - delay

2011-08-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Happy August, everyone!

Just have a couple minutes on a borrowed computer to let you know there won't be any posts this week. We had a major storm blow through last night. I have four large trees down in my yard, one of which took out my power lines.

Good news, I don't have anything I can do today but play with stamps when I get back home. LOL

I'll get back with you as soon as I have power.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

2011-08-01T17:49:00.001-07:00

I don't know about you guys, but it seems forever since I've been in here. I spent most of the month of July fighting to keep my internet on line. Basically, it boiled down to my HughesNet modem overheats. After three calls to their out-sourced call center in India, I finally got someone who spoke English well enough to understand my problem. A $10 fan from walmart blowing onto the box whenever it's booted up has solved my problem.

So today I'm showcasing the card I had ready to run a month ago.

I found this card LO in a Take Ten 2005 from the artist Lenita Gratz.

The medallion to the right is a bottle cap with a stamped image of a snowflake in the center. Her card is very elegant. She used a silver mat with a midnight blue ribbon against the white background. It's a beautiful card. But I'm a traditional artist so I took my Christmas card to the country.

I used the CB folder for some texture as well as a fabric frazzle strip. The bells are from Bells and Boughs (SU). I made gold paint from Metallic Gold Pearl X and Gum Arabic. Although it doesn't show up in the picture, the bells really sparkle!

One of my future projects is to create watercolor paints for all 24 of my Pearl X colors. Keep an eye here for how you can make your own Pearl X watercolors.

How are your Christmas cards coming along?

Magazine Monday!

2011-06-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's storming in the Ozarks yet again but I did want to grab a quick couple of minutes and show you this week's card before I drop it in the mail.

I've nearly depleted my magazine stash. I find myself going back to the same ones over and over. That's a good thing, right? One area I haven't touched are the Take Ten magazines from Stampington. I love this quarterly publication because it's all about cards created by people who LOVE to play with ink/ stamps/ paper and cardstock. So for the next several weeks, all of the designs will come from my back issues of Take Ten.

This week I'm starting the series from the 2005 Volume 4 issue. Rather than be inspired by a layout, I had an idea in my head and went looking for one to coordinate. I spend a lot of my mornings in a local small-town cafe called Flossie's Apple Barrel. There are your regulars who come in. One gentleman just turned 95 years young last month. Ray Haynes is as sharp as a tack and has grown up around Winona MO all his life.

Until a week ago he's been getting around under his own steam. Still drives his little blue pickup to the cafe several days a week - just to get out of the house. But last week, Ray took a nasty fall and he's looking at several weeks in rehap at Birch Tree Care Facility. So I wanted to send Ray a card to hopefully brighten his day. Now if I can just sneak him in a piece of his favorite pie :-)

So with Ray in mind and a pre-stamped image from a swap in hand, I went through the Take Ten. The closest I could find to an idea I had is from Linda Beeson - check out her blog at PaperCutting Kind of Day. It's a really cool blog!

Linda's creation for this issue was called Giraffe Greeting. She used a image and sentiment from Stampin UP, coloring the giraffe with a yellow crayon (when's the last time we used those!) Her center panel is an animal print layered on a black cs strip. Her giraffe image was layered over a caramel stamped background which she'd mounted on black and it was off-set to the right of the card. She stamped the sentiment on a smaller matted square and overlapped the image a bit. Everything was neat, clean and crisp. Very pretty card.

Well, you know I like texture and before finding this, I'd already torn my paper strip. LOL All my papers were from the DCWV Old World slab and the image is from a retired SU set.

Here's what I came up with for Ray:

I decided not to color the truck. I thought it looked fine just the way it is. I think I am going to add a little color to the flowers. I was so concerned with getting this uploaded before I had to shut down due to storms, I didn't even think about it. LOL So picture those flowers with a bit of color.

Tomorrow I'll show you pics of the CD albums. They are finished and ready to go postal!

Magazine Monday

2011-06-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday friends!

You'll notice an absence of card this week. I'm not even going to attempt a Magazine Monday on Tuesday kind of post. I'm just going to fluff off :-)

Today is the final day I'll have the teenaged friend and my husband home. Tomorrow he will drop her back off at her home in central IL on his way back to work in Chicago. Then my time will be my own to do whatever for the next three weeks.

Today, I'm taking Kassie to our local library where she can shop for used paper backs to take back home. Hard to believe my once 5 week old daycare child is now old enough to read the softer Harlequins :-D They grow up way to fast. But I am very proud of the young lady she has become.

This evening while Bob is off fishing, Kassie and I will be creating a CD album. This album is a project featured in Outstanding Mini Albums by Jessica Acs. I love her projects. They are so basic to do with beautiful results. I'm creating 5 of them for a swap with the theme... 8 Gifts That Don't Cost A Cent.

But first we're off to soak up the humid weather in search of a Pepsi Can. I'll explain it later... with pics.

Oh and while you're out and about... pick up the latest issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Studios. There are some great storage ideas you won't want to miss. I'm always inspired by these gals and it's how I met Roberta from The Love Shack!

For now... Have an awesome Crafty Week...

Magazine Monday - Storm Delay

2011-06-14T06:19:00.001-07:00

Yep. Remember that 103 degrees I was battling last week. This week I get storms - and I'm to have 15 people here for a backyard cookout this afternoon. The sky doesn't look any more promising today than it did yesterday.

Anyway... here's the card I had ready to post before the thunder rolled. Last Tuesday I took my weekly stroll through the neighborhood quilt shop and found some fabrics I knew would go great with a 'new' set of stamps I'd recently purchased from a friend on SCS.

About ten years ago (man, has it really been that long since my first swap?!) I was introduced to FRAZZLES. What are 'frazzles'? Well, unlike my nerves at times, they are strips of cotton fabric, frayed on at least 2 sides, usually all four. You cut your fabric to size then begin stripping the threads away one by one until you have the desired width of 'fray' aka FRAZZLED.

This week's inspiration came from designer Rhonda Palmer. Her 'Pastel Daisies Thank You' in the Spring 2006 issue of Paper Creations Magazine gave me the idea to use the frazzles.

Rhonda chose Green Daisy, Blue Daisy and Petal Pink Daisy DP from Scissor Sisters. Her image is matted on Yellow Daisy. She accented with a 3/8" black check grosgrain ribbon and a 3/8" green button.

I used a 5x6.5 So Saffron base. My sunflower fabric was cut to a 2" width then frayed on all four sides to about 1/8" width. My image is from Simple Flowers (SU) and matted on Certainly Celery. I inked only the flower and stems on the mat. The sunflower centers are inked with Black Glaze for a bit of dimension. Then I cut the vase from a pale blue vellum and layered it over to give the water-filled vase effect. Thinking Of You is from Three Little Words (SU) and I accented with 3 green brads.

With all the wonderful fabrics SU has come out with recently, here's one more way for you to combine the fabrics and their coordinating images.

Don't let it FRAZZLE you!

Magazine Monday - Really!

2011-06-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday Everyone – Oh wait… it’s Tuesday (and evening at that). Monday was just nuts! I’m still trying to get the garden situated and the heat lately has been crazy hot. We were 103 yesterday… didn’t drop below 100 before 9 p.m. Tired of this already.

Add to this I have a visiting teenager. I’ve not seen Kassie in two years so we have lots of catching up to do. Luckily she likes to craft with me – still at 14! I’m so proud of her. She got in late Thursday night and we’ve been on the constant go doing stuff since she got her. Which means Monday was my catch-up day for business. All I managed to accomplish toward today’s post was to cull the magazines for the card I wanted to do.

My inspiration for the card this week came from a swap I’m in. Our challenge is to create a card showing our favorite things. I love flowers. Not necessarily daisies, though they are very pretty. My favorite is actually roses or lavender. But I loved the stamp set I bought and thought it would fit perfectly.

I LOVE Crafts n Things magazine. I get so many cool ideas. This week’s card came from the April 2008 issue and has been changed very little. Tracy Sauer’s card is called Twinkling Daisy. She used linen background, stampng the harlequin image in the same place I did with Certainly Celery. For her main image, she used a single large daisy

flower stamped using Twinkling H2Os in white and yellow against a harlequin patterned paper (the pattern is shadowed on a black background then the white daisy stamped in the middle). She matted the image on Certainly Celery CS then on black CS. Where I used the Pear Pizazz Ribbon Seam Binding (SU spring mini 2011), she used a sheer green swiss dot. I replaced her black accent knot on the beaded safety pin with a snag of white to offset the white mat.

I chose So Saffron as my base, stamping the harlequin image from SU Background Sampler in Certainly Celery. The image is from Studio112, a $1 stamp line distributed by K & Co. It’s called Love Grows in my Garden. Rather than brads, I let Kassie add the light green Stickles in a diamond pattern – her idea – to mimic the diamond pattern in the harlequin design. Told you she was crafty!

I’m really happy the way this card turned out and I hope the recipients in the swap are too. What do you think?

Magazine Monday

2011-05-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday, Everyone.

I hope everyone had a safe extended weekend and took time to remember the importance of the holiday.

For the final card from the Welcome Baby Swap I fell in love with a card by Julie Ebersole.

It’s “Welcome Little One” from May 2005 CardMaker Magazine.

Julie used a white CS base. She matted it with a pale yellow which she had cut a 1-3/8 window in the top left corner – for dimension.

I opted not to do a window. But I did want to keep it just as simple. I chose to center my image and added the embellishment to the sentiment.

I used Barely Banana, a misc. stripe DP, Tuxedo Black and Barely Banana inks. The baby stamp is a Dollar General stamp I’ve had for years and the Oh Baby is from Katie & Co. I accented with a flower punch and brads.

I think this makes the perfect 'baby' card to have on hand.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-05-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

It's a Boy!

I also took the baby boy card for the BOY category of the Welcome Baby Swap from the 2005 StampIt!

Designer Bonnie Lotz did a beautiful card using a variety of materials and techniques. For the card base, she used a Navy blue matted with white CS. From the sketch below you’ll also see she used stitching, buttons and two different styles of ways to showcase the words WELCOME and BABY.

I took the design a bit simpler and utilized what I had on hand. I didn’t have a large enough handprint so I substituted the pair of foot prints from StampCraft. The letters are from EK Success. I used Bordering Blue CS with Bashful Blue ink. The blue DP is from a misc. slab.

The neat thing with doing swaps is you send out 4 alike and you get 4 different ones back, making for a nice ‘All Occasion’ set always on hand.

Next week – the Neutral card, using up the last of my Barely Banana CS.

Creative Blessings!

WOYWW #1

2011-05-18T12:40:00.001-07:00

Yep, this is my first step into the world of WOYWW - which stands for What's On Your Worksurface Wednesday. Ever since I found out about it at Silverwolf's blog , I've wanted to play too. Unfortunately, I just jump right into my projects and forget to take pics of what it looks like.

So here's how it looked this morning just after I'd completed a Teapot Tuesday challenge card:

Today I'm in the garden most of the day. But they say rain is moving in tomorrow for an extended stay. That will leave me plenty of time to clutter up the table :-)

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-05-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

And I've returned with a vengeance. I spent 9 glorious hours creating in my studio yesterday. Mind you, most of what I created had to do with swaps I'm currently in (5-total). But it was wonderful to sit and play. I was surprised when I looked at the clock to see it was way past my normal bed time.

One of the swaps I'm in is titled 'Welcome Baby'. There are three spots - Girl, Boy, Neutral - making 4 cards in each spot. Well with a new grand-baby coming in October I just HAD to play. And I HAD to take a spot in each one. Hehehe. So I went through my magazines yesterday and found three different layouts.

This week I'm featuring a card by Jenny Grothe from STAMP IT Cards 2005. The only thing I've changed about Jenny's layout is the image. She used Stampin Up products including the baby's left footprint (I'm Here - retired set) in pink ink to match the dark mat underneath it. Jenny also did a zigzag stitch the length of the DP on the left hand side of the card and her base CS was a darker pink.

I chose to go with softer tones but used the darker mat to coordinate with the 'baby' in the bottom corner so it would pop off the DP background. I didn't have a footprint stamp large enough but it did give me the opportunity to use a 2-step stamp I've had for about 6 years and NEVER used!

I used Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo and a Making Memories Maddi Narr Stripe. The background stamp on the tag mat is from Fresh Fillers (SU-retired). I added yellow glaze pen to the nipple. Ribbon and fiber were from my ever-present stash.

Next week I'll introduce you to the Baby Boy card.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Sidetracked

2011-05-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

Sorry I've been sidetracked this week. I'll add a picture to this post later to show you why.

When the rain finally stopped, Bob and I set to work on remodeling the living room - 4 days before company was to arrive! He put the last board in place around 8:30 p.m. est on Wednesday night. We were tired and headed for bed. Thursday morning we began the process of filling the shelves, moving the furniture back into the living room and getting the house ready for company - that arrived 2 hours earlier than I'd anticipated! LOL The house was nothing like I would have liked for them to see it the first time but they were good sports and had a good visit anyway.

Aside from this I got tired of fighting the Dial-Up internet and am now a Hughes Net customer. So far the connection has been AWESOME! I added a wireless router from NetGear so I can take the laptop just about anywhere within the immediate house/ yard area I want to travel. It certainly makes uploading cards and pics much faster!

So it's been a week of transitions and digging out around here. If you've ever done a remodel - or moved from one place to another - you know what my life has been like the past week.

I will have some cards and ATCs to show you over the coming days. For now, laundry must come in off the line and be tended to.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday!

2011-04-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

First off, I want to apologize for not running the pics last Wednesday. I spent the morning in between storms trying to get the house presentable before my husband got in. When he's gone for three weeks at a time, I always spend the days he's on the road driving to and from Chicago occupying my mind with house work. I totally spaced even turning on the computer. I do have those pictures and weather permitting, they will post on Wed. We've been dealing with lots of storms and lots of rain, having acquired 12 inches of water since Thursday evening. Storms have also meant very little internet time. I'm squeaking this post in between storms.

For my Magazine Monday challenge this week I pulled a copy of Stamp It Cards 2005. However, I did not select a card from one of the projects. Instead, I took my inspiration from a card in a Stampin Up ad. I just liked the card and new it would be perfect. I needed Mother's Day cards for the Little Rock Arkansas Ronald McDonald House.

The card in the ad used an image of a cake and a frame from FRAMES & GREETINGS (Su 2005) I chose to use a variety of stamps Many Thanks, Dear Friend, Days Gone By, Studio G and Hampton Art. I did eight cards in Almost Amethyst and eight in Pretty in Pink for a total of 16 cards. I watercolored the images.

The inspiration card included eyelets on the four corners of the very vanilla mat. The mat was also background stamped with a scroll image and then LOVE from another SU set stamped in black near the top. Sage organza ribbon went across the bottom of the card about 1.5 inches up from the bottom.

I didn't have a ribbon I liked to match either of my CS colors and try to reserve my metal embellishments for cards I know are going to be kept. My take on this card was just to do it simple yet perfect for a child to give to their Mom.

With this week's Magazine Monday I encourage you to donate your creative work to a deserving group. It might be your local hospital, senior center, assisted living or someplace such as Ronald McDonald House or St. Jude Children's Hospital. Let your creativity bring joy to someone you don't know :-)

Creative Blessings!

TeaPot Tuesday!

2011-04-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm finally getting in here with a TeaPot Tuesday Challenge post. I'm not sure if I'll get to post the actual picture of my card today. Depends on whether I can get it done to upload before storms take over my day. They say we're in for severe weather. I'm hoping it holds off til this afternoon. So I'm posting a picture of one using the same stamp I'll be using for this challenge.

The concept behind TeaPot Tuesday started at SplitcoastStampers using a teapot as the inspiration for your card. The hostess has sinc

e exhausted her personal collection of 100 tea pots and now searches on-line for teapots to share with us.

When we're not using tea pots for our inspiration, we are directed to make/ share a card with someone who could use some cheering up. A Random Act of Kindness (RAK), if you will.

This week's card is for a 'young' woman by the name of Kay in Canada. Kay is 91 years old and has had some challenges since breaking her elbow back in February. At first they didn't want to operate because of her age but have since done the surgery and she's healing fine. She also suffers from Vertigo and has been in the hosp

ital the entire time because she lives alone and wouldn't be able to do for herself with only one hand... things like use her walker to get around. They were discussing assisted living but that too has changed and she'll be going home in the next day or two with a visiting care assistant. Yeah! She must be thrilled. From what I read she's very independent. LOL

Kay loves cards and those cute little funny animal forwards. One of the things she's missed most in the hospital is her computer. She's been active on the net for a couple of years. She loves her email and computer games. Sounds like my grammy (stepmom). Like most women, Kay loves flowers so I'm going to make a card similar to this one:

I don't know the name of the stamp company. I bought the stamp from a LSS going out of business. I like to stamp the image as is, then stamp another image to cut apart and paper piece in to give the dimensional effect of stepping out of my garden shed and into my garden. May my garden truly look like this someday.

I hope Kay enjoys it.

Tomorrow, I'll finally be posting pics of my new kitchen curtains for Needlework Wednesday.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-04-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

We all know how crazy March was for me. Needless to say, the March Christmas Card Challenge at SplitcoastStampers wasn’t met on time. So I decided this week I’d find something quick and easy while pairing it with Magazine Monday. I didn’t realize I was going to find something THIS easy.

I pulled out the Winter 2005 issue of Paper Made Easy. I only have 3 or 4 of these magazines but really enjoy the projects they include.

Card designer/ artist (and I do mean artist in multiple mediums) Loretta Mateik 4-page spread on 9 simple cards. The first 2-page layo

ut used a Vintage Christmas Collage Paper from Paper Love Designs. She matted them simply, added a sentiment and called them done. With the exception of one card, her only embellishments were brads to adhere the sentiment mats.

Loretta said she purchased the collage paper and coordinating card stock. Everything else came from her stash. Now that’s the way I like to play! She says, “I hate to let anything go to waste!”

So I pulled out a 12x12 sheet of Vintage Santa Postcards from Flair Designs and matching scraps from a Christmas Slab I’d purchased about 5 years ago. To keep these super simple and perfect for the recipients I know won’t cherish the car

d past the holidays, the only embellishment I added was Christmas Red Stickles (a gift from my Secret Sister back in February).

I made the 11 base cards from Mello Moss cardstock (Retired SU). I used Always Artichoke to accent the Mello Moss for the pine bough punch outs and stamped the sentiment in Mello Moss ink (Retired SU). The sentiment is from SU – Bells & Boughs set. I stamped the greeting on Very Vanilla and matted on the inside.

Now to think about April's Christmas Card Challenge.

Magazine Monday - on Tuesday

2011-04-12T07:19:00.001-07:00

Good morning friends.

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday. I spent the entire day in a funk. I thought it was because I'd gone back to bed at 5 a.m. and not gotten back up til 10. Going back to bed in the mornings will give me that 'drugged' feeling so I try not to do it. I found out later, it was probably had more to do with a soul visit from a dear friend.

A couple months ago I posted an eagle 'get well' card that I'd made for my friend, Wally Bailey. I've known Wally, his wife Sonja and their families (both immediate and extended) for over 20 years. Yesterday we all had to say goodbye to the husband, father, grandfather, our friend. It's a difficult time and my heart aches for them. The only thing I know to do from this distance is to offer up prayers of healing and to pour my feelings into my art.

We had been told on Friday it was about making Wally comfortable. So the first card I made yesterday morning was a sympathy card I knew I'd need. I just didn't realize how soon.

The card was inspired by the March Card Kit Swap Soni and I both belong to on Splitcoaststampers. The Kit Hostess for March 2011 was Dody and she sent a great envelope of things to play with. I came up with 7 cards mixing and matching Dody's items with my own images and paper scraps.

The design idea came from the April 2003 issue of Crafts n Things Magazine and artist Melanie Douthit. She is a talented freelance artist who morphed into using scrapbook supplies in her art. I hope you'll take a few moments to click on her name - linked to her blog.

Here is the sketch from the inspiration:

And here's what I came up with from Dody's kit. This is the only card of the seven I didn't add anything to except Wild Wasabi card stock to accent the yellow and the scalloped circle Dody included.

I'm going to miss Wally. All of us who knew him, will. But it seems appropriate the items to make this card came from within Soni's circle of card artists to send her comfort and love.

And the Award Goes To...

2011-04-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

Okay.. Awards may seem vain, and maybe they are. But if an award comes with comments that help define WHY the award was given, then it's a big help in determining our strengths and weaknesses. I like to know these things as they help me understand what a magazine editor might also be seeing in my work when I submit.

I received notice from Heather at SplitcoastStampers the bunny card front I'd made for the Easter Ronald McDonald House Swap was chosen as the Overall Nicest Card. Cool, huh? Remember, this is the card I designed during VSN last month with the layout representing the chambers of the heart.

Here’s a replay of the card and what Heather had to say:

Detail wise, the embossing folder background is really nice as it breaks up the pink space … . The images are cute and well proportioned, it has great use of negative space … they are just well laid out and not busy or crammed but at the same time do not look like they're missing anything. It's just a real nice clean look to it. When I look at it I see "elegant" rather than "kid card".

Please take time to check out Heather’s Gallery at Splitcoast. She does lovely work in a variety of mediums.

Creative Blessings

Magazine Monday!

2011-04-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

Wow!

It felt really good to get back into the Studio this morning and work on a project. It didn’t take long to clear the desk and pull open a magazine I’d been looking at last week.

Isn’t it funny how you start with something and wind up totally different from where you began? For this week I went to the October 2009 issue of Scrap and Stamp magazine.

They did a 2-page feature of former Our Daily Bread Designs designer, Kelley Holland. First off, her work is BEAUTIFUL! Layers, texture, well-coordinated colors. Kelley blends everything into a work of art. If you’d like to see an example of Kelley’s work, you can check out her GALLERY at Our Daily Bread Designs.

By the pictures in the magazine spread, it looked as if all of her samples were square cards. I don’t work with square cards mostly because I don’t want to have to buy/ make square envelopes. So I went with the traditional rectangle.

A monochormatic card in browns and caramels first caught my eye. There were 4 layered tiles in the corner positions with a larger centered tile for the focal image. I thought cool! I’ll do it in caramels and red and use a Pooh bear image for the Ronald McDonald house RAK. I pulled my Pooh Bear image and got ready to pull cardstock.

Oh wait! (my mind has caught a delicate one on the other page) This one is really pretty. Elegant and simple. Base white, matted pink and then a matted white that had been run through the CB dotted swiss and edged with the MS Lace punch. Kelley then used a scalloped oval in the Spellbinder in pink to mat a slightly smaller duplicate in white. She stamped a sentiment on the white oval and added a shaded pink grograin ribbon about 1.5” down from the top of the card. The hinge of the card was at the top.

Although she used a religious sentiment I thought it would make a perfect baby card. But while pulling images, I had yet another epiphany. One of the gals in our S2S thread at Splitcoaststampers put out a challenge earlier in the year to make a batch of Sympathy cards. With that in my head, I was off.

I liked the oval scalloped mat. I don’t own any Spellbinders but I do have Lacey Labels for the Cricut . This is what I came up with:

I used Very Vanilla and Almost Amethyst (retired SU) CS from Stampin’ Up . For my image, I selected Garden Collage (retired SU). Everything was edged and stamped in Vintage Violet.

Because the card front was larger than the CB folder, I only embossed the bottom 4” and left the remainder plain. Since I used the MS lace punch, I decided against ribbon. I thought about the ribbon, but I liked the scalloped edge of the MS punch playing off the scallop of the mat. What do you think?

Not where I started, but I like how it evolved into something that might bring comfort to someone when they need it.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Playing Catch Up

2011-04-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well as you can see, nothing posted the whole time my granddaughter was here. I wound up with a head cold and didn't do much of anything the whole time she was here except watch Bambi, Cars or Nemo over and over and over and ... well, you get the idea. Lots of snuggling. Lots of napping when Grandpa could take her out to blow bubbles and hike in the woods. She loves to take timber walks.

She left on Sunday and hubby left on Tuesday. I feel better but I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday finishing up 2 swaps. One was a 6x6 Tea Time Recipe swap. I created recipe cards for 2 categories - Vegie salad on toast points and mini Eclairs. Wouldn't you know it, I put both in the mail without taking any pictures. So I'll have to post those when the swap comes back in a couple weeks. I'm only signed up for 1 more swap between now and June. I don't plan on playing in any others. I have plenty of other projects I want to work on - not 'have to get done' things.

I got the kitchen curtains made. I'm hoping to get the blog back on track on Monday and keep it up to speed. I'll have 2 weeks to practice before Bob comes home and we tear into a living room remodel. LOL

Isn't it always something?

What are you working on?

Magazine Monday...

2011-03-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

... with a twist.

First off, I apologize for not posting last week. The week passed in a blur of trying to get the attention of a literary agent and making my house presentable for weekend company. Oh yeah, and hubby came home on Wednesday after being gone on the boat for 3 weeks. I didn't tend to any business at all last week.

Today's Magazine Monday isn't from a magazine layout. A couple weeks ago I took part in Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) at SplitcoastStampers (SCS). I had a blast! Over the course of the two days, I completed all 17 challenges based on the theme You Make My Heart Sing. Seventeen Hostesses took a turn at offering up a challenge based on the theme. I had a couple of favorites.

The first challenge asked us to create a card based on the layout of the 4 champers of the heart. For some reason, my mind went directly to Easter LOL. I made this card for the challenge and liked how it turned out so much I made 20 more for a Easter card front challenge for Ronald McDonald House.

I used a combination of Studio G stamps (carrot and sentiment) and the bunny/ basket from Hello Spring (Retired SU) I'm still trying to use up as much of my Valu CS as I can so I eventually work exclusively with SU. The cardstock was from the ValuCS Garden collection. I added texture with the CuddleBug Dotted Swiss folder.

But one card really surprised me. I was challenged to use a technique I'd never done before (well, not on CS anyway) and to make it for a guy. The Soot Technique required using a candle flame to burn off the glossy finish on Glossy Cardstock to give you a black/ sooty effect to dry-stamp into. I knew I had to use the STAG from Noble Deer (Retired SU) The scorched edges were an accident but wound up adding to the overall effect.

This card was chosen for the Honors Award! I was soooo surprised. One card is chosen from each challenge for the award. I didn't even knew there was such a category! LOL I think what surprises me most is that it was on a technique I'd never done before.

This technique reminded me of the old burnt paper bag technique I learned years ago from Aleene's Crafts.

Because my three-year-old granddaughter is here for two weeks, instead of a magazine layout next week, I'll showcase a couple more cards from VSN.

Creative Blessings!

All About Me

2011-03-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

Back in January I applied for a staff position with Scrapbook News and Review, an on-line scrapbook magazine. Part of the application required submitting a layout showcasing ourself. It took me a while to figure out how to tell them about me in a scrapbook page. I referred to various idea books, including The Book of Me by Angie Pedersen and Scrapbooking your Adult

Years from Memory Makers . Finally it hit me. Everything I do stems from my love of COLOR. And I knew what the basis for the layout needed to be. I needed to include the color wheel.

I also needed to submit 4 other items that showcased my work - items I am the most proud of. I chose to use 2 additional layouts - 1 of a 2-pg spread and one of a single - as well as a card and a altered tag.

The 2-pg layout. It is a tribute to my late brother-in-law, Dan. A. Fellows. He was career Navy and served a tour of duty in Diago Garcia - his only unaccompanied tour. While there, we corresponded and I learned a lot about my brother-in-law. In the LO, I included a poem his wife (my sister) wrote about his leaving her and their 2 young children behind, called A Family Says Goodbye, which I chose as the title. I used a Christmas card he sent me from the island as a pocket to hold the letters I received.

Eventually I'll change the layout a bit to include the Navy insignia embellishment from K & Company. The military items were released after I'd created this for a competition.

The single page layout showcases a dear friend (and former daycare child/ Daisy Girl Scout troop member) She was only 6 in this picture. She's now 14! Man they grow so fast. But regardless of how old Kassie gets, I know she's always going to be very much like me.

Next week I'll have a springy layout to show you, introducing you to my very first daycare child. She recently became a mother for the first time. Remember what I said about them growing up so fast? Whether it be your own child, grand child or just a young one you have a fondness for, cherish each moment in your heart and on a scrapbook page. You'll be happy you took the time.

Creative Blessings!

It's in the Bag!

2011-03-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I was able to surprise my secret sister at Splitcoast with a selection of goodies based on the Banishing the Winter Blues theme. Remember, one of the categories was to include 'Blue Jeans'. My husband and I came up with the same idea... to create a bag for Maggie.

I used a pair of my Old Navy jeans, cutting them off right at the top of the legs and putting a 3" gusset in the bottom. I didn't gusset the sides so it wasn't 'too' full. I lined the bag with the same bandana sytled fabric you see for the waist belt. To finish it off I removed the waistband and belt loops from a matching pair of jeans to create the handle. I added 2 belt loops on the sides - one on either side of the side seam and attached a D ring to run the waistband/ handle through. It had been awhile since I'd sat down to the sewing machine and the first time using the extension table Bob made for me last month before he left for the boat.

Next week I'll be showing off new kitchen and bathroom curtains... with a story to share :0)

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday!

2011-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday, everyone!

After a storm moved through here in the wee hours of the morning, disconnecting my power for a few hours, I'm happy to see blue sky, sunshine and have power again. :-)

Friday night and for almost 11 hours on Saturday I had a BLAST at Virtual Stamp Night (VSN for short) over at Splitcoaststampers. Awesome hostesses put together a series of challenges - one new posting every hour - around the theme, You Make My Heart Sing. I'll try to squeeze in some of my favorites of the SEVENTEEN cards I made for the event. But it was one of the participants' take on a texture challenge that had me thinking. Then when I went magazine cruising for this week's card, the VERY FIRST one I came across lent itself to the technique. I had to do it!

This week I used Christmas Crafts for Kids - a Better Homes and Gardens publication from 2002.

Here's the sketch:

The sky blue background with blue and white snowflakes almost looked like a stamp resist. The mitten on the outside mimics a row of 3 hanging 'clothes line' fashion across the center of the opened card.

What I liked: The busy background and the layers

What I didn't like: Lack of real 'image and lack of texture. The background was busy but it was too flat for my taste.

So I inked up the inside front of my Cuddle Bug snowflake folder with Bashful Blue ink (SU), then proceeded to emboss the front panel with textured snowflakes. I loved how it came out:

Instead of one big centrally located, multi-layered panel I did 2 separate panels to incorporate an image and make it more Christmas rather than just winter. I haven't settled on an inside quote yet. I'm still shopping. But for the most part, I have 12 of these made to complete the Christmas Card Challenge for February at SplitcoastStampers.

Are you thinking Christmas cards? I guess now is as good a time as any to remind you there are only 10 months till Christmas!

Creative Blessings

I love my Secret Sister!

2011-02-23T05:36:00.000-08:00

First off, beginning in March I'll have regular topics I post each day. Wednesdays will be for Sewing/ Needlework. I'm hoping spotlighting different areas of my creative vein will help me get some of these UFW (unfinished works) caught up.

But for today..

Over at our Quackers thread on Splitcoaststampers, we had our Secret Sister Reveal last night. I've known who mine was for almost 2 weeks as she mailed way early just so my box could sit here and tease me until time to open! Onery isn't she?

My Secret Sis was also our Hostess and she devised an AWESOME plan for us to implement. We were to include our interpretation of 11 different categories.

The theme was WINTER BLUES BUSTER!

The Categories?

1 - Blue Christmas

2 - Deep Blue Sea

3 - Blue Suede Shoes

4 - Winter Blues

5 - Blueberries

6 - Blue Jeans

7 - Red, White, Blue

8 - Rhythm and Blues

9 - Bluebells

10 - Blue's Clues

11 - 1 Altered Item of our choice

Here's a group shot of all the goodies my Secret Sis showered me with:

Oh Yeah... Who was my Secret Sister? Shell. Please make time to check out her blog:

Shells Stuff She's on the design team for Clear Dollar stamps and is a whiz with the SCAL program. You'll love her work!

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

2011-02-21T17:42:00.000-08:00

Normally I find the CAS card in the magazine and let it be my inspiration. This time I went in reverse.

For this week’s Magazine Monday I’m combining a couple of challenges… my own and the one at Stamp2Spend (Splitcoaststampers thread). I asked the thread members to create a card using CHERRY. It could be an ink/ cardstock color – as long as that was it’s official name – or use the image of a cherry(s) in some way.

I found a strip in a DP from DCWV Sweet Shop slab. And what doesn’t go better with cherries than either chocolate or whipped cream. I went for chocolate with this card and combined it with SU DP from the Brights collection.

With these elements before me, I went snooping through the pages and found this layout in STAMP IT! Cards 2005. It was entitled Happy

Hanukkah by Nicole Keller. Notice how the mats are large and the bottom one overlaps both the center band and part of the other.

I worked with a scan A6 card and smaller sentiments so mine didn’t have to be that large. I came up with this:

I tried various embellishments on the card but nothing seemed right. When I took them away, the basics seemed to be all I needed. What do you think?

Tomorrow I’m going to introduce you to a regular Tuesday feature so I hope you’ll stop back by

Creative Blessings

Magazine Monday - on Wednesday!

2011-02-16T12:37:00.000-08:00

Yep. I'm late. Between being gone over the weekend, Monday being the 28th Valentine's Day I've spent with my husband, and his last day home before leaving for three weeks... well, creating just wasn't on the agenda. Tuesday are always spent cleaning. I fret like you would not believe knowing my husband is out on the highway for that 8-hour trip to Chicago. I clean like a madwoman the days he's traveling so I don't have time to worry.

So, here it is Wednesday. And I have a springy card that will work for lots of occassions. I am sharing it with a lady who fell on the ice and broke her wrist. Can you imagine being a stamper and having a broken wrist? I'd be going nuts. So I thought this card might brighten her day.

The card I'm featuring this week is from Take Ten Volume 4. It is on page 4, 2nd row, 2nd card. Artist Marianne Harris did a great basic card using Close To My Heart stamps - including a butterfly. Her card is almost identical to mine minus ribbon. I liked the color tones, the layout and the stamped background. But I thought it needed some texture.

RECIPE:

Paper - GP White, Lavendar (Anna Griffin), misc swirl

Butterfly - Anna Griffin

Sentiment - SU Three Little Words

Ribbon - stash

Ink - background Almost Amethyst (ret. SU), butterfly - Lavender Lace (ret. SU), sentiment - LePlume Amethyst

The bow is done in 2 pieces. The band of ribbon is attached to the card front, then the bow was tied and adhered in place with a glue dot.

Magazine Monday!

2011-02-07T10:39:00.000-08:00

What spurs you into making a card? Is it the desire to be creative? Is it because you need one for an occasion?

For me this week, it happens to be both. I love to play... I've done more of it than writing this year. But I also have a very dear friend who's finding himself unable to do the things he's used to doing on a daily basis. It's trying for him and for his wife who has gone from having her daily routine sidetracked. I've been there and I know what she's going through. Maybe I should have sent her a card this week. Hmmm

But I knew Wally could use some cheering up so when I sat down to create the card for Magazine Monday last night, I knew it had to have a masculine flair.

I chose a card from the May 2005 Cardmaker Magazine. When I pulled the magazine off the shelf, it literally fell open on the desk to Butterfly Wishes by Karen Robinson . The card was all soft green and leaf patterned paper with a butterfly and sheer green ribbon. AND it was a Get Well card.

I thought it a bit feminine for Wally's card. So I pulled out the Elegant Soiree paper from SU. Have you seen this? It's beautiful, elegant and goes great with Baja Breeze SU CS. I just got this package and am already planning on ordering more next month.

Okay, back to the card. I followed Karen's basic design layout. Where she stitched around both mats as well as where the two papers met, I chose to only do the latter. She used a gold all-purpose sewing thread and machine stitched. I chose to hand pierce and stitch with a blue-toned crochet thread. I replaced the butterfly with an eagle. Wally likes eagles. I also bypassed on the ribbon and just added a touch of the Baja Breeze CS beneath the sentiment mat.

Mine isn't as elegant as Karen's. It's more basic and simple. But sometimes it's more about letting you someone know you're thinking of them than it is about the decoration.

Creative Blessings!

Kel

Magazine Monday!

2011-01-31T13:44:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this is the final Monday of January, 2011? This month just seems to have flown by.

How many years have you found yourself scrambling at the last minute to get your Christmas cards made and ready to mail? Or ::: gasp ::: caving in to sending store bought cards. If you are an avid card maker, you know how painful that last ditch effort to wish everyone merry is for you.

On Splitcoaststampers, I belong to a thread called the Christmas Card Challenge 2011 (CCC11). The concept is to have all of our Christmas cards ready to mail by the end of November, rather than waiting until the last minute to get them finished. You determine how many cards you need to mail and divide it by 11. That is your target number of cards to make each month, January through November. By December 1st your handmade cards are finished, ready to mail and you can stress over something else about the holiday. (You know you will. We all do!)

My target goal per month is to make 10-12. Technically I only need 10 per month but I seem to have started doing things in sets of 12 lately so I’m adjusting my goal. This month I pulled an idea from the December 2007 issue of Stamp and Scrap Magazine. This card is designed by Sandie Bachand. I wish I could have found a blog or website for Sandie. She does lovely work. For this particular article she chose to showcase the fundamentals of 4 stamping techniques – embossing, masking, direct-to-paper and watermark inking. I did a modified version of her MASKING technique.

Sandie’s card LO is close to mine. her matted JOY is more centered, with 3 red rhinestones in a column below it (near the edge of the printed mat) , and an Antique Gold Snowflake charm.

We both used an A2 card for our base. However, I liked positioning my JOY mat lower – eliminating the rhinestones at the bottom. I didn’t have a Cuttle Bug embossing frame so I chose to just cut the center out with my Sizzix Md Square sizzlit, but keep the deckle edge. It still gave it a ‘framed’ look.

Recipe:

Tools- Sizzix Md. Square Sizzlit, Fiskars Deckle

CS- GP White, SU Wild Wassabi

Stamp- Village Arts Press (VAP)

Ink- VersaMark

Embossing Powder- Stamp n Stuff Red Tinsel and Gold Tinsel

Accessories- Folk Art Metallic Inca Gold acrylic paint

So January cards are done. Now to figure out what I’m doing for February. It’s a short month so imagine how fast it will pass. ::: smile :::

So, are you thinking Christmas now?

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-01-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday!

I’m really enjoying Magazine Monday. It encourages me to go through the stash of magazines I have and actually try some of the projects that have caught my eye.

This week I pulled out the Feb. 2008 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. The designer, Lindsey Botkin is multi-published in magazines and is a SplitcoastStamper member . I hope you’ll check out her blog and her GALLERY. She does great work!

Here is a sketch of the card Lindsey created. If you can get a hold of the magazine, check out her color scheme. It is pretty and went well with the verse image she used.

She used Dutch Girl Collection – Audrey papers, black buttons, a white heart, and narrow

black organza ribbon with white polka dots.

I kept the sketch as it was but changed it up a bit.

I substituted the buttons for bling to help pull the bling from the sentiment mat. I also chose to go with a more Victorian look with the lace and color tones.

The papers are from a K & Company vintage slab.

What magazine do you have stashed back for 'someday'. Pick your 'Someday' and play!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Stylish Blogger Award

2011-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

I LOVE Happy Mail!

Who doesn’t right? So imagine my surprise Wednesday when I opened an email from my bestest buddy, Carla. She has given me the honor of the…

Please check out Carla’s Blog. She is an amazingly creative woman!

Deciding what things to share with you that you might not know about me is proving difficult. So is deciding who to share this award with.

I’m going with the easy one first. I have four blogs I check frequently… beside’s Carla’s. hehe Each of these talented people are listed for their individual and varied styles.

Please make sure to visit:

Curt

The first time I visited his blog I felt ‘at home’. He’s fun, funny and overflowing with talent.

Michele

Michele is one of my buds on the Stamp2Spend thread at Splitcoaststampers. Her generosity towards others is inspiring.

Michelle

I’ve known Shell about 5 years. She is such a talented designer.

Soni

Over the past twenty years Soni and I have been friends and co-workers. I’ve watched her talents emerge. She’s slow to give herself credit when her work deserves so much more.

Okay… now what you don’t know about me. This one is tough!

1. I love water but am petrified of being in a boat

2. I twisted my ankle at a charity event and was carried to a chair by Tarzan (actor Miles O’Keefe)

3. I would love to visit Italy

4. I used to be afraid of voicing my opinion to a group (really!)

5. I’m self-taught in everything I do except One-Stroke painting. (thanks Carla!)

Magazine Monday! - On Tuesday

2011-01-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

Yep... a day late and I apologize. I took off yesterday to make use of the WiFi connection in town so I could work a little quicker in getting caught up. Left the house with out the flash drive holding all of my pics.

So here we are today - Tuesday. I'm showcasing another one of the items I created for the Babies Are A Blessing swap on SplitcoastStampers This one comes from PaperKuts - Pure Girl 2003 Page 24. This was a special issue from PaperKuts that if you held it right side up on one side - it was all Girl pages half way through the book. Then turn it over/ flip it up and you had all Boy pages coming at you from the other direction. I fell in love with the Angel page for a single photo layout... something I don't normally do. I like to put lots of pictures on a page but this one just grabbed me.

Their ANGEL and live joyfully quotes came from Deja Views. Not having the items, I recreated them in my Print Shop Program.

I chose Marina Mist (current) and Blush Blossom (retired) SU CS/ DP for my color pallet. The vine paper in the middle is from my scrap drawer.
The 'a' was cut from Base Camp, the scalloped mat from Lacey Labels and the flowers from Recollections Boutique Fleur. The butterfly in the top of the ANGEL quote is a Martha Stewart image stamped in Marina Mist and given dimension with a Pop Dot. You can't see it well in the photo but to create the antenna, I dyed a 1.5" length of paper twine by coloring it with a black perma marker, bent it in half and secured with a glue dot.

I hope to do an Adrian page very soon to show you what this layout looks like with a photo of my ANGEL of a granddaughter.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-01-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

This week I'm going to give you a peek at a swap I took part in over at SplitcoastStampers. The swap was entitled "Baby's Are A Blessing", inspired by the hostess who will become a grandma for the very first time on Feb. 11 of this year. She's so excited. They've just closed on a new home so she's in a decorating frenzy, she's going to be a grandma... her year is off to an awesome start!

Anyway, since I've not actually STARTED my grandtoddler's book yet, the swap seemed like the perfect fit for me. It was the largest swap I've ever taken part in, object wise. I normally stick to ATC's, Tags, Cards, Images - that kind of thing. But this one just called to me to play. There were three categories: Card Candy, 2 pg LO - components only (no background page) and a 1pg LO all inclusive.

For the Card Candy category I found the CUTEST project in ScrapbooksEtc - Baby 2007 on Page 29. It's 1.75 x 3 mats - one for each month of Baby's First Year. Great for doing an 8x8 album.

The items at the very bottom were bonus for the packs. But I love this set and can't wait to put them to use.

Valentine Additions

2011-01-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

Because Creative Dreams is about ALL things I get my fingers into, I was planning to show you a picture of a baby quilt I made last fall. I have another one to make just like it. But for some reason I failed to save a picture to the flash. I can't believe I failed to do that. I THOUGHT I saved a pic of everything. Guess not :-) So here's your tip for the week... make sure you file a picture somewhere. You never know when you might want to share it with someone.

So instead, I'll show pics of the other 2 Valentines I told you about on Monday. I really liked how they turned out and I hope they bring smiles to the children at Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock AR.

This first one is for the BOY category. I used the school boy from Stampin UP that reminds me of the old Dick and Jane primer kids. He is part of a single stamp with a little girl. He is carrying his lunch sack in his right hand and books in his left. The little girl half of the stamp is carrying an apple for the teacher. I used my exacto knife to separate the kids and masked off the books. Then I stamped a heart, heat embossed it with Stamp n Stuff Glitter Red embossing powder and placed it in his left hand.

The NEUTRAL card was made using images from a foam stamp set I got years ago. I stamped the center heart on the balloon on scrap GP white cardstock and colored it with a red LePlume

marker. Then I gave it dimension by placing it on the card with a small pop dot.

Until next time...

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

2011-01-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

This week we're going to visit Crafts n Things Magazine

I'm in a swap at SplitcoastStampers to create Valentines for the children at Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock Arkansas. I have the most adorable stamp set from Stampin Up called Greeting Card Kids. I've combined it with some $1 stamps from Michaels and HEARTS stickers from EK Success . The CASEd pic is from February 2008 Crafts n Things Magazine.

In making these cards for kids, I've modified it a bit but the basic sketch is there. I used ValuCardstock in Baby Girl and Seaside collections. The stripe through the center is from ThePaperStudio. I stamped my own DP on the Baby Girl CS using a $1 stamp and SU Regal Rose. Both the little girl and the sentiment are matted on the SeaSide mint green. After coloring with Memory Maker pencils, I added a puffy heart sticker to her hand and smaller ones as an accent.

I made 5 of these for Ronald McDonald House - Little Rock AR. I have 5 I'm doing with the little boy from this same set. I used the school boy but eliminated the bundle of books from the image and placed a heart in that hand. I'm using Blue tones of the CS. I've also created this same layout in Lavender using a bear image. He appears to be drifting through the sky with a bundle of heart shaped balloons. Hopefully 15 children will like what I've created for them and make them smile when there are days they just don't feel like it.

So, What's in your Magazine?

Creative Blessings!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

Yeah! A new year, a new start, and my time is my own again. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED spending time with my granddaughter. I wouldn't have traded the time I spent with her for anything. That said, it does feel good to be playing in the Studio again.

The remodel of the Studio is nearly complete. Just a couple of decorator touches like the table skirt and finding a place to put my Christmas presents :-) We measured the finished area last night and I'm working in 73 square feet of space! On one hand that isn't a lot of space. But it does put everything at my fingertips.

Yesterday I finally got to sit down and PLAY. I'm going to be posting at least 3 times a week. Once everything gets into a routine I hope to post every day.

Mondays will be Magazine Monday. What is Magazine Monday?

How many scrapbooking and stamping magazines do you have on your shelf? Have you bookmarked projects you want to try? How many of them have you ACTUALLY tried?

Well, I've pledged not to buy another magazine in 2011 until I've used everyone I have bookmarked as a spring-board for a project. And every Monday you get to see what I've come up with. I'll tell you which magazine it came from, a shot of the project I cased (if it's a really old magazine), and direct you to their website for current projects.

So let's get started!

Closing out 2010

2010-12-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, it was brought to my attention I've not updated this blog since September. It's just been a really crazy, unusual year for me all the way around. But things are FINALLY settling into place and I've learned some things along the way.

Beginning the first week of January I will have specific types of things posted every day. Some days will have pictures, some days not. This will have to be based on the days I'm able to travel to WiFi. I hope you'll follow along on my new journey. I look forward to sharing it with you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A-Z Grunge Tags

2010-09-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

Wow... very chilly morning in Nashville. I wound up not getting into town last week so just decided these pics could wait until I got to my daughter's in Nashville. I can sit comfortably on her sofa and use the WiFi. I'm so spoiled. But I'm headed back to MO today... with my granddaughter as my co-pilot. She gets to spend the whole week with grandma so I probably won't get much creating done. Though she does like to play with my stamps, so.... maybe.

Here are pics of the Grunge Tag swap, I promised. I had the letters R and W. I had to make 26 of each letter and I'd get 26 tags back - 1 for each letter of the alphabet. Well... I wound up making 52

of each! The first set I mailed out, never made it to NY so 2 days past the deadline I was frantically recreating the 26 tags. When I create something, I keep a 'recipe' card of how I made it so when I post it to a gallery I can list what stamps, inks, papers, etc I used. Good habit to get into if you ever plan to submit for publication -just a tip. :-)

Well, it's time to pack up the laptop and head for MO. I'll check in later in the week with a couple of links I think you'll like.

Creative Blessings!

New Creations

2010-09-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

FINALLY!

I was so excited to have the house to myself a couple weeks ago with nothing on the agenda except create. I managed to create 9 of the 17 cards for the Splitcoaststampers AUG. VirtualStampNight challenge. Each of the challenges had something to do with summer. Many suggested using a specific technique.

The first one I'm going to show today were were given a color pallet to work with and what we think of when we think summer. For me, it's camping. Of course, now that my house sits amongst 24 acres of timber I don't camp as much as I'd like. But I have the view from my back yard on any given clear night. The stamps I used were from 2 different SU sets. In The Sky is a retired hostess set and the other is one of my favorites... Lovely As A Tree.

One more card to show you. This one was to be reminiscent of the beach. We were to use a shell of some type. The only 'shell' I had was a stencil from the art box I used to use for daycare. I pulled out the light box, dry embossed several, then cut them out. The flip-flops are a Michaels $1 stamp. The netting in the background is drywall tape!

I'll be going into town in the next week and be able to share more with you. I've recently taken part in an A-Z Grunge tag swap. I made 26 identical tags for each the letter R and the letter W. In exchange I got 2 each of every letter of the alphabet made by some very creative gals. Can't wait to show you!

Creative Blessings!

Blog Hop

2010-09-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

If you've never experienced a Blog Hop, then you really need to get a glass of your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. They are a BLAST! And so full of creativity.

A Blog Hop is usually put on by a several creative people within a particular group. Sometimes they are sponsored by a company blog to feature their design team members and new products. I've been on Blog Hops with as few as seven designers and as many as 36! Now that's a lot of creativity. With my dial-up, I don't get to visit as many as I would like.

This week you might want to visit the PPA gang. Their theme is Fall/ Halloween. You can find them by clicking on Carla's button to the left of this page. She is #7 on the list. Look for the Blog Hop post for Sept. 14th. At the bottom of the post, she has a list of all the designers participating. I recommend clicking on Ann's link at the top of the list and working your way through. Make sure you leave some love on their blogs. They like to know you stopped by.

Happy Hopping!

Creative Juices Flow

2010-09-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Wow!

Once I'd finished the Handy Manny headboard, I spent the final four weeks between then and July 4th soaking up all the grandma love I could get before my granddaughter moved to Nashville with her mommy. The house has sure been quiet without her giggles and constant activity.

The day she left, I dug into the office/ creative space. I love my daughter to pieces but she leaves behind a real negative energy sometimes and my space just needed a good cleansing and reclaiming. I needed to make it something it hadn't been in over eighteen months - MINE.

I started on the office side, emptying out the filing cabinet, sorting everything as I went, and donating it to my hubby for the hard work he had ahead of him. I designed a low, deep bookcase to replace the stereo cabinet and the filing cabinet. I wanted a smooth line from my counter top desk across that whole South wall to the book cabinet.

So on the way back from a writers conference, I stopped at the home improvement store for the lumber he would need. In the process of getting into the back of the truck to secure the load, I tried to blow my left knee cap. By the time I'd gotten home my knee was the size of a large cantaloupe. So for the next 3-4 weeks I spent lots of time with it elevated... not making trips up and down the stairs to the 'dungeon'. Although I still have to watch how I step, the knee is better. I'm slowly making progress in the office and hope to finish it up this week.

I've also been getting some creative time in, which I hope to show you pics of soon. But for now, I just wanted to let you know that posts will becoming through on a weekly basis again. Sometimes even more if I have the opportunity to upload pictures of a project. So check back on Saturdays to see what's going on in the dungeon.

Creative Blessings
Kelly

Handy Manny Headboard

2010-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

My granddaughter is a Handy Manny fan. If you don't know who Handy Manny is, check out the DisneyChannel. This is an animated daily show on Disney. Manny is a handy man in the little town of SheetRock Hills. His 'talking' tools - Phillipe (phillips head screwdriver), Turner (flat head screwdriver), Dusty (hand saw), Pat (hammer), Rusty (pipe wrench), Squeeze (pliers), Stretch (tape measure), Flicker (flashlight), and Fix It (robotic dog made from various parts around the shop). The show has a Latin American flavor teaching basic words in Spanish as well as life lessons. If you watch, you can see traits in each of the tools that will remind you of kids you probably went to school with. Some of the voice-overs are provided by characters from our own past. Remember Mrs. Cunningham? (Richie Cunningham's mom on Happy Days)She provides the voice for Mrs. Lopard (her son owns the candy store).

As my granddaughter prepares to leave the nest she's occupied for the past 16 months, she'll be leaving her crib behind for a 'big girl' toddler bed at her mommy's. The bed is a white wrought iron with open grilling. I decided it needed a little comfort. So with nothing except a full size comforter for Handy Manny bedding to be found, I created a headboard and side rail covers.

My initial intent was to use the center panel from the comfortor for the headboard but Manny's head wouldn't even fit, let alone all the tools. So I bought a coloring book at WM and inlarged one of the pages to fit. Using a light box and a quilter's iron-on pencil, I transfered the image to white broadcloth. Then I colored it with Crayola crayons, and heat set it with an iron. Once the front panel was complete, I quilted it a backing fabric sandwiched with 4 layers of cotton batting. After creating a band and a back panel, I handed it off to my husband to place 5 sturdy gold flathead snaps to the bottom edge. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

And it's still raining...

2010-05-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

... though I guess I shouldn't complain. I could be living in Nashville with my daughter. Her work and living arrangement were unaffected by the flood but I guess everything in downtown is a real mess.

My creativity has still be spent in the yard. I've added a new rose bush which is just gorgeous. The roses start out a very pale yellow at the base but the more they open, the softer white they become. The garden (all I'm doing this year) is in. I've planted 20 Big Boy tomato plants, 4 Big Bush tomato plants and 4 Brandywine tomato plants. Brandywine are an 1885 Amish Heirloom tomato. They look like they'll be big slicers for buns and very meaty. I also added 2 cucumber plants... salad type, not pickles. The strawberries are going gangbusters. They are early this year and I'm picking almost a quart every other day. Adrian has discovered the difference between the red and green ones. She loves to go pick her 'snack'. I still need picks of 'strawberry face' for her Many Faces of Adrian album. The carrots don't seem to be doing very well, but the beets look good. The first dry day we get, I need to get them thinned. I have to do that while Adrian is napping. I can just see her watching me thin them out then going behind me and pulling the rest of them up! LOL She just likes to do what grandma does.

Bob will be home on Wednesday. I'm already looking ahead to the weekend when I'll have time to play and upload pictures. I've finished the Christmas Cards for the March CCC at Splitcoast. I haven't decided what I want to do for the April - and now May - cards yet.

For inspiration I sat and went through all my back issues of stamping/paper craft magazines this week. I put a little post it strip on every page showing a card or technique I want to try. When I do get to sit and play, I won't lack for ideas to channel the creative juices.

So this week I challenge you. Pull out the oldest copy of a scrapbook/paper crafting/stampng magazine you have and select a project. Make sure you let us know where you post pics so we can give you some love!

Creative Blessings!

Hello Spring

2010-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

I recently made a set of 12 ATC's for the MO stamping loop. When I heard the theme was SPRING, I knew instantly I wanted to use my favorite retired SU set - Hello Spring. With the help of chalks to create the background, my Stamp-a-ma-jig to position the tulips across the bottom, it took no time at all to put these together!

Creative Energies flow

2010-04-26T18:53:00.001-07:00

WOW!

With the assistance of my wonderfully supportive hubby, I spent most of three days down in my studio creating. It was so great to get to sit and play again. And I accomplished so much.

To start things off, I had an idea for a shelf I wanted on top of my SU cabinet. Hubby took the idea and added to it. I know have 2 shelves that almost form a pyramid. I did some rearranging than set to work. Unfortunately I might not be able to upload pics until he gets off the boat in three weeks (he left this morning). But trust me... it was an AWESOME three days.

My initial intention was to participate in Virtual Scrapbook Night and Virtual Stamping Night over at Splitcoaststampers. Over the course of an evening (or 3 in the case of VSBN), challenges are posted at specific times and you have a certain length of time to complete them. I thought what a great way to get some things done. I did the first VSN challenge which sparked creative ideas. From there I moved on to other challenges I was backlogged on and an ATC swap needing to be mailed this week.

Over the course of the three days hit and miss, I learned how to make a Joy pop up card.
See tutorial here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/joy_fold_card/

From that one, I modified the design to create a second one to use as a graduation card for my niece who's graduating from nursing school. I made a pocket on the inside to hold an AppleBee's GC.

I made a set of 12 ATC's with a Hello Spring theme for a swap in my Missouri stamp group. I used my favorite spring set from SU... Hello Spring (retired), a couple of smaller stamps from Studio G and chalks. They were bright and spring. I'll hope to post pics soon.

I even found some time to finally unpack the Cricut Create hubby bought me back in January. I had fun playing with it but will get much more use out of it once I can start scrapbooking.

I won't be doing much stamping over the next three weeks. But my granddaughter and I will spend lots of quality time outside marking out creative ideas to incorporate into the yard...

if it would only stop raining!

Creative Blessings!
Kelly

Spring has sprung...

2010-04-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

in the Ozarks and with it, my lack of time on the computer. So much to do now that I can finally get outside. Many things have had to wait until my husband got home off the boat, but there were still lots of smaller tasks I could do. Of course, right now those smaller tasks take a little more time than normal with the 'assistance' of my granddaughter. I don't mind though. Watching her wonderment at things this spring as opposed to this time last year is amazing.

Last spring when my daughter and granddaughter first moved in with us, Adrian was just walking good and being able to walk around outside was all new to her. So many things to touch, smell, and yes even taste. (Pig Nut Hickory nuts are not tasty according to her reaction on those.) Last year I took several pictures of her sitting in the tulip bed, picking the petals off each and every one. I loved watching her discover them. This year, not a single tulip came up. I'm blaming the mole on this one. She did, however, get to enjoy the daffodils and the hyacinths. But her interests this year at 2.5 years old are all about the dogs, the dirt and the sandbox. She loves to put earthy treats in the dogs water buckets. I'm not sure they appreciate it but they are patient with her. We have three outside dogs. Trixie and Buddy are brother and sister of mixed breeds. Both have a lab vein but Trixie (totally deaf and blind in her left eye) has some Blue Heeler and Dalmatian where Buddy shows Rottweiler and Dalmatian. Although they tend to argue with each other, they are very gentle with Adrian. Buddy is her favorite. Then there is Bear. My big wooly Great Pyrenees. She calls him Boo. He follows her around as far as his lead will allow.

Yesterday we planted beets and carrots in an old galvanized wash tub. She loved shoveling in the dirt and later, helping me water the strawberries. Today will be a bit less 'muddy' as I begin the creative adventure of mapping out the yard. I love to draft plans for things. I did the ones for our house, right down to the outlet placement. (I did learn something in 9th grade Home Ec my step mom hadn't already taught me at home) Now it's time to put landscaping plans to paper. Where will all of my new flower beds go? How far out into the back yard will the new studio protrude? Where do I want to put the pond? How many more Strawberry beds can I add? Do I have room for grape vines? What shape will my Herb beds take? (I'll need one for healing, one for cooking and one for crafting)

And from all of these things will sprout endless opportunities to create.
How does your creative garden grow? Plant your seeds today and let the creative growth flourish!

Creative Blessings
Kelly

An added Bonus - OSW Christmas Cardss

2010-03-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

The individual shots of the OSW Christmas cards I showed a couple weeks ago have been uploaded to my gallery at SplitCoastStampers. You can see them here...

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=32055

I hope you'll pop in and leave a comment or two. ;-)

Creative Blessings
Kelly

JustRiteStampers

2010-03-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

It seems as if I've had this head cold for ever though in reality it's only been a little over a week. I've had stamps and playthings sitting here on the table to work with and no energy. I've spent the biggest part of my time either in my chair watching TV or here at the desk chatting with creative friends.

Thursday I began a 3-day tour of 88 blogs featured by JustRiteStampers... 88 extremely creative people from all over the world. The designs they were to create had to feature Jan/Feb release stamps by www.JustRiteStampers.com and SpellBinders.

Along the tour I saw a lot of innovative cards and other ideas filled with color and embellishments that were spot on... nothing too over the top. Every item was a representation of why these designers were asked to participate.

If you go to http://justritestampers.typepad.com/justrite-inspiration/2010/02/introducing-beautiful-blossoms.html and look on the right hand side of the page, you'll see 3 2" Buttons labeled Day 1 Day 2 and Day 3. Within each of those links you'll find links to over 25 designers and the items they created for the Hop. I don't know how long these will be valid so you don't want to delay in your journey amongst some awesome examples of stamped creativity. The Blog Hop and Prizes part is over. It ended yesterday, but the links should be archived for awhile so you can visit.

Beginning next week as part of the Creative Souls spotlight, I'll introduce you to some of the gals whose work really caught my attention.

What did I learn from my travels? That I really need to step up my game and just let the creative juices flow. I've been keeping it really simple while my play time is limited but that won't last forever... or so my daughter tells me. ;-) In the mean time, I have an order with JustRiteStampers to place ;-) That 20% off Sale is too tempting to pass up.

Creative Blessings!
Kelly

15 Christmas cards

2010-03-07T12:57:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I issued the One Sheet Wonder challenge to my S2S group at Splitcoast stampers. Here are the cards I came up with....

All of the striped papers are from the OSW I designed (see previous post). I accented with scrap & full sheets of Valu Cardstock from their Heritage and Garden collection. The chipboard embellishments were from a K & Co. Chipboard Tag collection I purchased while on vacation last summer. I used SU Always Artichoke and Bravo Burgundy inks for stamping images, distressing and edging. I used a variety of stamps from sentiment collections and $1 stamps. I can't upload to Splitcoast today (Sunday) but when I do, I'll let you know so you can check out the complete supply list and single pictures of the cards.

Have one piece of paper you're not sure what to do with? Turn it into a OSW and a whole lot of cards!

Creative Blessings
Kelly

Tools at my Fingertips

2010-03-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

Next on my list of organizational duties has been to declutter the workspace. I like having everything where I can get to it easily. When I began teaching classes at Michaels several years ago, I invested in the scrapbook tote to keep all of my essentials handy. I could set it on the table during a crop or next to me on the floor - within my reach but not taking away workspace from my students and cropmates. Now that I no longer haul my tools anywhere, this bag didn't seem practical... and it was overflowing.

So after sitting at my worktable trying to envision what would work the best, I came up with a design for a long stretch of upright cubbies. My husband and I make a great team. I draft it up, complete with measurement's (architecture lab from 7th grade home ec still comes in handy) and Bob puts it together. This is what we came up with....

This desk style window box is made from 1"x 4" trim boards. It measures approximately 45" in length. Each cubby is about 3 and 3/4" square. I have 10 compartments to separate, adhesives, glue, scissors, standard punches, piercing tools, pliers and anything else I use frequently in my card making projects. This opened up a lot of flat work surface. I just completed the OSW challenge (pics in next post). The stamps I was using lined up in front of the window box and still left me plenty of stamping space.

Gals, you can do this. Had my husband not been home for 4 weeks and needing projects, I'd have constructed it. If you need particulars, feel free to post and I'll give you more details.

And the organization continues.....

Creative Blessings

Kelly

One Sheet Wonder

2010-02-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

I have seen templates for doing One Sheet Wonder card collections using an 8.5x11 but not for 12x12.

The concept behind One Sheet Wonder (OSW) is to stamp an image randomly all over a sheet of cardstock. Then cut it apart in various configurations giving you mats for 12-15 cards. I wanted to do 12x12 and instead of stamping CS, I am planning to use printed paper and then cutting CS mats to coordinate. (Yeah, I've been known to reinvent the wheel and do things backwards hehe)

So here's the pattern I came up with. Feel free to modify or post a link to your favorite version and the cards you make.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Card Creations

2010-02-25T16:13:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I took part in my first VSN - Virtual Stamp Night - over at Splitcoaststampers. The forum leaders would post a challenge every hour and you had 45 minutes to rise to the challenge. The theme for the evening was the Winter Games. For this card the challenge was to use Flower Soft or a homemade version thereof. The homemade version is a shredded Styrofoam ball.

I did a repeat of a Christmas card I designed for our final Christmas in the Victorian house. For the original I had used white embossing powder. I love the glisten and the texture of this so much better.

Another challenge required using RED fiber to signify the red mittens worn in the games. I pulled out a Christmas Slab and came up with this one... I used the cuttlebug folder - snow for texture and a twisted red fiber with a gold thread running through it.

I'll have more to share next week, I hope. My WiFi time is limited for a few more weeks. But I'll try to keep you at least updated on all the things I'm playing with.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

The Organization Begins

2010-02-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

My dear, sweet hubby offered to build me a studio - Creative Dreams. His offer came just before Christmas when he decided I needed out of the 'dungeon' (as he has dubbed the basement office) and into a more creative space. I probably won't sit at the desk and create in the studio for another year or so, but lots of other things can come in advance.

The floor plan is formulating, the colors are chosen and the organization process begins.
I've spent the past week cruising the 'creative space' gallery at Splitcoaststampers (sww.splitcoaststampers.com). 5, 967 photos of people's amazingly organized (and not so organized- but works for them) creative spaces. I've amassed a wide variety of pictures of things I'm thinking of implementing into the new studio.

To start with, while I have only a few stamps (one gal on SCS has over 6000!) my first project is to compile a index and image sheet for all of my stamps. I am using a 3-ring binder as my Stamp Binder. There will be five categories:

* SU Stamp Sets
SU unmounted Sets
Clear $ and misc. unmounted
Misc. block sets
Misc. block stamps

*SU indicates Stampin UP (www.stampinup.com)

The SU Sets will be indexed according to theme. At the top of each 8.5x11 sheet I have the Name of the set, catalog #, price and will stamp a Capital R if it is a retired set. Then I've stamped each image from that set in Night of Navy.

SU unmounted (new product) will be cataloged the same way and stored in photo pocket or baseball card sleeves

Clear $ and misc. unmounted are stored the same way

Misc. block sets will be stamped on an 8.5x11 sheet with their category (i.e. Christmas) stamped at the top of the page and filed in calendar appearance order.

Misc block stamps will be included in the 'block sets' category in the same manner.

This way... when I'm creating, I only have to pull out the binder and flip through the pages (upon pages) of images to get an idea of what I want to play with. Once I've decided on the project, I only need to pull those stamps - not several taking up work surface space.

As soon as I've finished doing the cataloging this weekend, I'll post some pics. For now... I have a few images left to catalog.

How do you organize your inventory? Do you know EVERY stamp you own? Are there any you purchased but NEVER used? Tell us your story.

It's all in the colors

2010-01-22T19:13:00.000-08:00

When I was little I was fascinated, as most children are, with the colors of Christmas. My first memory is of the old fashioned colored lamp casting it's rainbow upon the aluminum Christmas tree. Later, it was the big bulb lights and the bubble lights. As decorating yards for the season became the rage, I loved riding around in the old station wagon with the backward facing back seat to see all the light displays.

Carnivals are a huge attraction for me. My earliest recollections are from the mid 1960's and Longmont CO. Mom or Dad would take me at night when everything was lit up. Walking along the midway, I could feel the energy of every colored light from the rides and booths.
4th of July would find me sitting on a blanket at the park in Longmont oohing and ahhing at the firework display

As a teen, I lived in rural Platteville Co. Our house sat on a hill - the highest point in the county We could see for miles from the outer reaches of Denver where DIA now sits, across to Boulder and all along the front range and back to the northeast and the city lights of Greeley. I would sit on the picnic table in our yard just watching all the twinkling lights. Often times I could detect the flashing blue/red of an emergency vehicle. The view was incredible.

As I grew older and really got into crafting, I always blamed my varied interests on being a Libra... a creative soul. I love to sew and quilt. I can wander for hours among bolts of fabric. For awhile I was an UndercoverWear lingerie consultant. It wasn't so much the clothes that attracted me as it was the fabrics and the hues that drew me. Cake decorating wasn't so much about the creating as it was all the colors of icing I could play with. Floral arranging in high school again, put me in the heart of natures colors. Don't even get me started on Polymer clay colors and the possibilities with canes. Then I was introduced to stamping and paper crafting. Oh my! Between the inks, papers, cardstock, embellishments, chalks... I was in color heaven!

It took me a long time to realize it wasn't so much about wanting to try everything as it was the colors and all their variations. I wanted to play with anything that put me in touch with the colors. For Christmas I asked (and received) the Crayola 120 count box of crayons. Now if I could justify purhasing the 160 count tower I saw at Michaels last week! :-D

My rainbow is full of color. What color is yours?

Stamping Challenges

2010-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

Finally, time to play with my stamps. I belong to three forums at splitcoast stampers.(http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/). One is a Stamp 2 Spend challenge. The idea is to be mindful of what we're spending compared to what we're actually using. Its much easier to find time to buy pretty new toys and bright colored papers than it is to make the time to actually use them. In Stamp 2 Spend, we hope to find a balance. So, out came my scraps and Valu cardstock Iwant to use up for these two cards.

One of the other forums has begun a kind f Use It challenge. With this challenge, we are encouraged to go back through and find stamps (parts of or whole sets) we haven't used. We just had to have them, but there they sit, ink-free. The stamps I used in both of these cards fall into this challenge. They are part of a retired hostess set from Stampin' Up calle Sculpted Style. In the case of this set, it might not have been one I 'had to have' but more of it was the best of the Level 1 Hostess set that fit my tastes or I didn't already have.

So here's a challenge for you...

What stamp have you never used or haven't used since it's initial purchase use? Pull it out, give it some ink and link us to your creation.

Creative Blessings!

Kel