NOT A TEAPOT TUESDAY

I still haven't gotten back in the swing of doing the Teapot Tuesday cards. I'm slowly getting caught up.
I'm hoping by next week to have the card-type posts caught up and ready to roll.
In the mean time, I'm going to cheat and send you to another blog. This gal has been my friend for years and is one of the most creative people I know when it comes to detail.

Her name is Carla Bazhenow.  What she does with Zentangle in her recent card is AMAZING! So scoot on over to Carla's Scraps and tell her Miss Kelly sent you over!

Creative Blessings!
Kelly

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Whispers

I've decided my first focus in Mixed Media is going to be to finish the Whispers of Me that I talked about last fall. I started the book about four years ago when I taught my first Altered Book class at Michaels in Peoria. I never finished the project. But I am making a trip to IL for a week in April and will be meeting up with some of the girls from the class. I'd love to take the completed book with me. I have a lot to do but if I focus (there's that word again), I think I can accomplish it.

I have a rolling cart full of the papers, embellishments, etc that I wanted to use in this project. Once the book is finished, I can integrate those items back into my regular paper art supplies rather than in a separate space.

I taught the group (5 ladies and 1 guy) it was okay to 'rescue' a book. To breathe new life into something otherwise forgotten. One of the techniques was to create what I call stair-step pockets on one page. Great for tucking theater programs, love notes, photographs.

This one was just a double-page spread focusing on flowers in the same color tones as I'm using throughout the book. I love vintage tones, ephemera.

Whispers

PBU BLOG HOP WINNERS!

First off, I want to thank EVERYONE who took time to hop around the PBU group to see all the great creativity!  We had so much fun putting this together and inspiring you in the Season of Love.

The winner of my Blog Candy:

was Athina who said:  How pretty! I like the way you did the keys on the second card.
She is very talented. I encourage you to hop over to her blog and Congratulate her!

The BIG WINNER... from all the comments on all the blogs goes to:
Holly Woodcock!

Holly will receive an unmounted rubber stamp from Terry Medaris Art Stamps, 6x6 slab from My Minds Eye, an embossing folder from Darice, and whatever else will fit in the envelope! 
Congratulations!

PLACE SETTING GIFTS

When not crafting, I am writing. Okay, I'm writing more than I craft these days. I belong to a group called Sleuth's Ink. This was our fourth year having a month-long writing event called JANO.. a take of NANO aka National Novel Writing Month. Except we do it in January (AFTER the holiday crazies) and we have an extra day to write. The GOAL... write 50 thousand words of a new (or tack onto an existing) novel in 31 days.

I opened mouth-inserted foot last February and offered to be the JANO 2013 Chair person. I ENJOYED the opportunity to serve my group. Since I live a long distance from our base location of Springfield MO, I don't take on board positions. But with the promise from a great on-sight committee, I figured I could do this. And I did.

Saturday, February 2nd was the culmination of our month-long event. 21 people attended a catered dinner. The food at TheEventPlace was AWESOME! (Thanks Jill!). We also announced winners of various categories such as Best First Pages, Best First Line, First to 50 thousand, etc. These categories as well as a host of others and on-going raffles throughout the night for door prizes, no one went home empty handed.

Every year we get these cute little notepads with our JANO logo at the top. Former chairpersons told me to 'put my own spin' on the event this year. Being a paper crafter, you know where that led me. Right down to the studio where I created these fun little 'suit pockets' to hold not only the note pad, but a pen, Gheradelli chocolate and three raffle tickets.  The logo is our SI group logo.

I have to give a big thank you to my SIL, Kelly Bay. When we visited her last fall she gave me her Scor Pal. I don't know how long it would have taken me to make 24 of these rosettes if it hadn't been for the Scor Pal.

I used SU Black and Poppy Parade. These are made from an 8.5x11 and are 5.5" tall. I scored 3" in from each end (laying horizontal). Then cut a V in the center section.. down 2.5" I believe. I made these at about 10 p.m. on Friday night LOL.. the night before I needed them. Yep... I do everything in crunch mode. It's how I work. 

With JANO out of the way, I can get the blog back on schedule... hopefully :-)

Keep Creating!

Kelly

PBU SEASON OF LOVE BLOG HOP!

Don’t you just LOVE Blog Hops?
And what better time to host one then the Season of Love!

We are a group of ladies from SplitCoastStampers who formed Paper Bloggers Unite!
This weekend we want to inspire your Season Of Love projects… whether it’s creating something for that special someone or just because you want to play.

To be inspired, simply click on each of the links below to see what the Paper Bloggers have come up with and leave a comment.

Some of the ladies have Blog Candy to give away to one lucky person leaving a comment.

But there’s more! As coordinator, I will put all the names (yes, from all the comments across the hop) into one big drawing for a Little Bit of Everything package.

We have products by:
Terry Medaris Art Stamps (Thanks Terry!)
Darice Embossing Essentials
Studio 18
MyMindsEye
And more!

I chose to do two different cards, allowing me to use both of the stamp sets from Studio G (See Blog Candy Post).

This first one showcases the Friends Forever set. Because these are clear stamps, I was able to over- stamp the front and back tires of the bicycle (without using the Stamp-a-ma-jig) to create a Bicycle Built For Two. I paired Stampin' Up Poppy Parade (retired) with a background sheet from Colorbok- Rosewood. Thanks to my husband's way of looking at things, I combined two of the small tear-drop blings from Studio G to create the heart in the upper right- hand corner. A bit of sparkly lace from my vintage stash anchored the image mat. I stamped the sentiment in Poppy Parade.

For my second card, I followed my vintage style. Using the image elements from Keys to My Heart (my name - not theirs) from Studio G, I stamped each with VersaMark then embossed using either Black or Detail Gold (Stampendous) embossing powders. I punched out the heart then cut out the lock opening with the exacto knife. The keys are held in place at the top with a small jump ring then secured with micro-glue dots. When doing vintage cards one of my favorite punches is this lace corner punch from EK Success. The keys are matted on SU Cherry Cobbler, inserted into the SU Very Vanilla frame then anchored onto another piece of Cherry Cobbler.

The base papers are from the Colorbok - Rosewood slab. (Can you tell I LOVE that slab?) I used a background section from one of the rose pages combined with a strip of an all- over background piece of a tone-on-tone KEY image. Yep, just made for this project.  The lace is from my vintage stash (AMAZING what you find at auctions!). The three peals in the corner are from SU.

Now that I've shown you what you can do with the new Studio G stamps, please leave a comment then travel to the other Blogs of Inspiration!

Here are the links to each of the Paper Bloggers Unite Blogs:

Kelly – Kelly’s Creative Dreams (You are Here)

Maggie – Maggie’s CatHouse

Brenda – Disney Girl

Jackie – Kreate With Me 2

Brandy – ibalady’s Gallery Blog

VikkiJo – VikkiJo’s Corner

Nancy – My Little Spot in the Universe

THE SEASON OF LOVE IS COMING!

Our first Paper Bloggers Unite! Blog Hop is THIS weekend. Saturday morning, we will all have some cool projects to inspire your Season of Love!  Some of us - me included - are offering Blog Candy to one randomly selected person leaving a comment Saturday or Sunday.  This is mine.
There are 6x6 sheets of Stampin Up Real Red card stock, The Paper Studio Be My Valentine paper and 4x6 sheets of SU Very Vanilla and Pretty in Pink card stock. You will also receive these two adorable Season of Love clear stamp sets, pink buttons, red bling (my husband said they'd make great blood drops!), and heart-patterned ribbon - all from Studio G!

So come on back Saturday or Sunday for your chance to win this AWESOME Blog Candy Prize Pack!

PLUS... as coordinator, I'll be drawing a name from ALL the comments from ALL the blog participants for a Special Prize Pack! So two chances to Win!

Happy Hopping!
Kelly

SEWING ROOM UPDATE

I didn't realize until I began clearing off the cutting table that most of what I had sitting in the middle of it were all the things I took out of my Polymer Clay tote when I was working on that article in December. I had to empty it so I could photograph the amount of space the tote had to offer. Once I put that stuff all away, clearing the rest of the table off was easy.

Bob hung my temporary peg board. and put a screw in the floor brace above so I could hang my cutting mats. The grey one hanging in the front is what I put down when doing paper/ mixed media stuff. My good quilting one hangs behind it.

I say temporary because I think I want it to come down to just below the edge of the cutting table. But this is what we had on hand and allowed me to put stuff away. We can always do a bigger one later.

So here's a reminder of the before...

And here's the after...

It's not perfect but it's better. At least I can get to the cutting table for all of the paper crafting I HAVE to get done by Friday afternoon.

I know there will not be a Teapot Tuesday this week. We are due for storms all day tomorrow so I'll be lucky if I get on. In the mean time, I have plenty of stuff in the basement to keep me busy.