WOYWW #482 - pictures

Welcome, friends!
Several pictures to show you, some based on comments from last week. Let's start with why you are here:

My space as I left it last night. I did all the prep work for a planner video I need to film this morning. I'll need to clean this morning before I start on cards.

Last week I showed you my new book ends unit and explained the unit had been made from cutting up a storage drawer from my old stamp cabinet.

This is the unit. The drawer is one of the deeper drawers - bottom right:

I turned the drawer so you could see how this came from a drawer. The back piece was either the drawer front or back. The underlayment piece  at the bottom.. was the bottom of the drawer. Bob cut the drawer in half according to how tall I wanted the item to be, then angled the sides of the drawer frame to create the book end. No additional nailing/ gluing/ etc involved. This could be done with any drawer from a nightstand or bureau.  Because I wanted this a certain height to accommodate the DVD cases I store embellishments in, that underlayment base is actually the back of the unit. 

Next we discussed carpet vs laminate.

I would really have preferred hardwood but Bob wasn't keen on putting that in. Didn't feel confident in doing so - silly man. Laminate was my second choice as that is what we have throughout the house. Because of the dimension of the room, we would have had a lot of waste. You know that wasn't going to happen! LOL So flare square carpet it is. If I think I'll be doing a lot of wet/ paint stuff, I can put down a drop cloth or work outside on the picnic table. This is really easy to clean... well, except for the glitter that gets in the pattern grooves.  

Lastly, pictures of happy mail. I went on a shopping spree a week ago last Saturday. Darn Tim Holtz and his new toys. I've managed to not buy anything every year when he does his fall releases. This year, I decided I wanted a few things. The antique wardrobe where I had my Yule tree last December will be a perfect vignette for a Halloween display. I'm still waiting on my big order from Simon Says Stamps. Many of the new items were not releasing until the 22nd.  However, JoAnns had TH items on sale 40 or 50% off... can't remember now but they also had $2.99 shipping on the entire order!

Well, the first thing that went into my cart:

I've been waiting on this since he showed it off in January. Some of you  may have ordered this. I don't want to think what you would have paid in shipping. Tempted to take mine to the PO just to see LOL

Well, since the shipping was already taken care of, I had to add a few more things:

Not holiday related items but things that were not checked off in my app.

Finally, I went over to Stampendous for these little jewels:

I have one but Tim said these will be discontinued, when they are gone, they are gone forever. Then he showed one of his new ideology hands holding the lantern and I had to have a couple more while I had the opportunity. Stampendous is the only place I found them still in stock.

Okay... one more thing - not stamping related.. kind of:

This is a 6-box Holiday sampler of tea from Bigelow Tea company. A small family-owned company shipping all over the world. My heroine in An Ozarks Christmas enjoys her hot tea in the evening. I found little pocket booklets made from scrapbook paper that would work great for giveaways. So I ordered 3 of the sampler gift boxes. I contacted Bigelow and they wanted to help with my promotion so they gave me a generous discount. I will tuck a tea bag (individually wrapped) into the giveaway as well as adhering one into the inside cover of each book I autograph for the hotels. 

That's it for my desk this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

TEAPOT TUESDAY - New Home

Two weeks ago, we were asked to make a card for a woman who had just moved into a new home next door to her daughter. There is a gate in the fence between the two yards so they can visit each other whenever.

I knew when I heard the challenge I wanted to use the Stampin' UP! set,  AT HOME WITH YOU. I even pulled the stamp set and put it on the work table. I just couldn't get to it.. until yesterday morning.  So while my card is going to be a bit later than the others, I hope she'll appreciate the thought.  I also added something from a new set in the Holiday catalog releasing September 5th - MANY BLESSINGS is similar to the At Home set but without dies. The potted flowers, basket of pumpkins and box of candy canes are the same size as the adornments in the original set. The only set back is there are no dies. Man, I could have used those cutting out two sets of the potted sunflowers this morning, but at that they only took about 15 minutes to cut both sets.

I started with a Soft Suede A2 card base. Then I cut a piece of Crumb Cake 5-1/4" x 4" and ran that through the Pinewood Planks embossing folder. 

The door is stamped on Whisper White then colored in with Soft Suede, Crumb Cake and Blackberry Bliss Stampin' Blends. The door handle is colored in Dk. Daffodil Delight and I added a gold brad at the top of the door handle where the latch is located. 

I cut the window panes out with my Xacto knife then layered a piece of Daffodil Delight card stock behind that. The door opens. I cut through the door, the embossed layer and the card base front so that you can see the white inside where it says 'to your new home' The 'to' is from Snowflake Sentiments. The rest is from At Home With You. I covered up 'on'. Welcome 'on' just didn't sound right LOL Of course, the Welcome is the welcome mat stamped in Memento Black on Soft Suede.

For the lantern, I cut out two, then used the window pane die to cut out to openings in one. I sandwiched Daffodil Delight between the two lanterns. 

The pot of sunflowers is from the new Many Blessings. I used Cajun Craze for the pot and edged with Soft Sued. The flowers have a hint of Pumpkin Pie beneath Lt. Daffodil Delight. The leaves are Granny Apple Green over top a touch of Old Olive. I stamped and colored the image twice. Then I cut the flowers and the single leaf stem from one of them. The full pot is glued flat to the card front. Then I used mini dimensionals to layer the bouquet, single flower on top. 

This is the first time I've used either of these stamp sets. I look forward to creating more cards with them.

COLOR CHALLENGE - August - Really!

Thank you all for your patience. To top everything off, we found out on Wednesday for sure that Bob was leaving Thursday. I'm glad I took the time off to spend with him.

So here's this month's color challenge:

I fell in love with these colors! So rich.

Here's the SU colors I selected:

Remember, you do NOT have to use Stampin' UP! products. You can use anything. These are just my go-to products. As you'll see in the embellishments, I keep forgetting I don't have to use current product on this blog.That's just where my mind always goes.

I started with the Basic Black A2 base. Used my Martha Steward lace border punch for the accent strip.  The flowers are from PRESSED FLOWERS and the sentiment VERY VINTAGE

I used the Darling Label Punch (available only through the box set in the link) to punch out the floral mats from Whisper White. I punched one from Smokey Slate, cut it in half then mounted under the sentiment mat so that I had a border top and bottom.

For the base mats under the florals I cut punched three, one from each Flirty Flamingo, Mint Macaron and Merry Merlot. Then I cut each one in half and off-set under the coordinating flower color. I used retired SU Share What You Love Artisan Pearls for the flower centers and the top right corner for balance.

Okay.. now the fun stuff!

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

RULES:

There aren't any rules. You may use any company product you like. My only request is if you use a stamp or something special, link to the company so we may add to our stash, too :-D

KEYWORD: KCC18APR

WOYWW - #481

My desk in all its glory this week. I've just finished some of the August Paper Pumpkin cards. Loved the prints I had to work with and in gorgeous colors.

Saturday, I started to clean the worktable and wound up stripping everything off, rearranging as well as shampooing the carpet. I haven't worked with this enough to find out if I like the arrangement but I think I do. Bob repurposed a drawer from my old stamping cabinet and made the  'book' holder you see center back. That's where I put the stamp cases that house current SU embellishments as well as my small self-healing cutting mat and my piercing mat. They seemed to always get buried before. I also have a spot now to stand my paper trimmer up and out of the way instead of always looking for a place to lay it but still keep handy.

Bob leaves tomorrow or Friday... probably for four weeks so I'll have mornings to visit again so should be able to get 'round to more of you.

That's it for my desk this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

COLOR CHALLENGE - August

I woke up this morning and realized today was the third Monday. Man is this month zooming by. Do you realize we are 4 months and 4 days from Christmas?  Yikes!

Torrential rain and storms here so I'm hoping this gets posted before I lose internet. If not, I'll be back to finish.

I did have to shut down. By the time the storm was over I needed to make a grocery shopping trip, come home to fix dinner.. and the day was gone.

COLOR CHALLENGE will run next Monday - August 27th.

WOYWW #480

Good morning, neighbors!

This is what I'm starting my day with. Stuff around the edges needing put away. The white binder is going to become my current SU designer series paper catalog, the brown binder is the beginnings of an October Daily project  using the new Bubble & Toil DSP Stampin' UP! is releasing in a couple of weeks as part of their Holiday catalog. I'll be doing process videos on that so please make sure to subscribe to my KellysCreativeStamping channel on YouTube so you don't miss those.  I'll be doing one for December Daily as well.

Those of you in the UK will recognize the latest issue of cardmaking magazine. All about the bee this time around. Beneath that a 50 ct. package of thermal page laminates. I saw a thing on YouTube for using these to create your own die storage pockets. The system I have, while it works, is bulky and time consuming. I'm a 'flipper' and my current system is a 'flipper' system of sorts. I'll be doing a short video comparison on that as well.

If you've done videos but have trouble uploading them due to size, I recommend ClipChamp. A fabulous on-line tool that will reduce the size of your video without interfering with the integrity. Since being introduced to this program, I'm finally able to upload videos. Yay!!

I've not touched revisions since getting home Saturday night. That's on my desk for today and tomorrow. If you want to see pictures from my research trip last week, they're on my author blog HERE.

That's it for my desk this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

WOYWW #479 - As I left things

Good morning, everyone!

I know I hadn't planned on playing until I was past this crazy deadlines but I was in a cardmaking frenzy on Sunday and this is how I left my desk:

I had invited the recipient of this week's tea party at Splitcoast Stampers. so needed to make sure I had a card to put up for Meredith. She is a cousin to the country duo, The Bellamy Brothers. Meredith lives in a care facility. She is 30 and has Sina Bifida. When I saw her on the guys' show, Honky  Tonk Ranch, I knew I wanted to shower her with card love.

Here's the front of the card:

If you want the details on the card, I have those on my Stampin' UP! blog post HERE

Bob is holding down the home fort while I'm camped out at Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs AR. Today is all about revisions.

Wonder what I'm blabbering about?

That's it for my desk this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~Kelly

TEAPOT TUESDAY - Let Your Love Flow

Good morning, everyone - from so far still sunny Eureka Springs Arkansas. Rain is to move in late this afternoon - about the time I'm headed for the dinner train research excursion... of course. LOL

I am playing in Teapot Tuesday at Splitcoast this week. Even though I'm 'on vacation' I had to participate because I'm the one who brought Meredith Gilmore to the tea party!

Meredith is cousin to the infamous country duo - The Bellamy Brothers. I've known Howard and David for over 25 years. When I watched an episode of their new tv show, Honky Tonk Ranch, the audience was introduced to Meredith. She has Spina Bifida and in a care facility. She is a sweet gal with a ready smile. She loves to make jewelry and catch up with friends on FB.

On the first episode of the show, the guys were debating about doing the show so they 'consulted the mermaids'. That inspired my card for this week.

Sea of Textures is a new stamp set this year from SU so I purchased that set and Magical Mermaid. The two sets are a perfect combination.  I used the swimming fish die and the Embossing Mat to create texture in the background

While the layers don't show up well in the photo, I've used dimensionals for the sea grass by stamping the image twice, watercoloring, then fussy cutting them out. I glued one flat to the card base then popped the other one up with dimensionals. I did the same with the coral in the bottom. To make sure the Tranquil Textures Sprinkles stayed in place, I glued them with dimensional glaze. The mermaid also has dimensionals. 

Here's the inside:

The episode with Meredith is the one episode I couldn't find on YouTube.. but here's the one that sets everything up, including consulting the mermaids:  

ON VACATION!

If you need me, I'll either be here or squired away in my room typing away madly to finish at least two projects. This picture was taken from the waterfall. At night, they pull down a screen and run a family friendly movie. And just beyond that big tree on the right is the enclosed gazebo where there's a hot tub just waiting for me after my long drive tomorrow, or longer days at the computer.

I've tried getting projects ready to run on the blog but between house stuff that needed done before I leave and the packing, there just hasn't been any creative time. Add to that the hot water tank went out today. I'll be traveling sans shower in the morning. So happy I'm not planning on doing much until I get to the hotel.

I won't be home until late Saturday evening, take Sunday off to catch up and spend time with Bob as by then he'll be in sight of getting called back to work. Time is precious.

By then I should have 2 of the major projects flowing and I can play again.  I really want to try Flow Painting. Bob even brought me one of his empty bottles the other day and said 'I thought you could use this'.  hehe 

He is so good to me. :-D

Be creative while I'm gone. I'll see you in a week.

Creative Blessings!