Card for a Dear Friend

My friend, who is also my "dealer", has had to deal with a lot in her life lately.  She handles everything with such grace that I just wanted to do something for her.  I know it's a small thing, but she likes to get cards in the mail from her customers/friends, so I decided to make that my next project.  And I decided to make her work for it.  lol  Just kidding!  I asked her to challenge me with 3 colors from the new Stampin' Up! catalog, so she sent me two combinations.  One of them was Pacific Point, Gray Granite, and Soft Sea Foam, so this is what I came up with, with the help of Pinterest, of course.

I did cheat a little.  I haven't had time to stockpile embellishments in the new colors so I used some baker's twine in Early Espresso.  I think it works very well with the Gray Granite that comes out a little more brownish than gray. (not a complaint-just an observation-it's very pretty)

My next card will use the other combination she suggested, but we may have to wait a few days for that.  This is a very busy teacher week for me for some reason, and I have a race this weekend so....I don't know.  I may get back up to my loft tonight and work on it since I'm anxious to see if the other color combination is going to be as pretty as this one was.

The layers are:

• standard 5.5" x 4.25" card base in Whisper White
• Pacific Point card stock 5 3/8" x 4 1/8"
• Whisper White 5 1/8" x 4" (for stamped images)
• scrap of Whisper White and Pacific point for sentiment.

Other supplies pictured below:

As I'm looking at this picture, I'm wondering if I'm missing one of my scalloped ovals.....hmmmm  I'm going to have to check on that.

Easy Sympathy Card

One of my coworkers recently lost her mother.  I've known her for almost 30 years, and our children went to school together from Kindergarten through high school graduation.  I really wanted to make her a card, and I've really wanted to get back to my craft blog, so I decided that I would go ahead and post this one.  I was inspired from a pin on Pinterest but changed it up a little to make it my own.

I used Stampin' Up! supplies:
Very Vanilla and Rich Razzleberry cardstock
Flourish thinlits and the Layering Ovals framlits
Pretty Label punch
I can't remember the name of the embossing folder anymore, but I believe it's retired now anyway.
The fine tip glue pen made it easy to adhere the flourish die cut.

My layers were cut at 5.25 x 4 and 5 1/8 x 3 7/8 with the basic card base measurements of 5.5 x 4.25.

Wedding Card Box

This is my first wedding card box.  One of my former students approached me about doing it.  I'd never done one before so I Googled it and got some inspiration from one of the posts.  I would love to link you to it, but I didn't save it (just a picture that I will share at the end when I figure out which computer I saved it on). I'll try to get pictures of it set up at the wedding with the décor and everything.

I used my Eclips to cut out a free font I downloaded from the Internet.  The swirls, I believe, came from myvinyldesigner.com.

Not bad for a first attempt.  The boxes came from Hobby Lobby and were very hard to cut with my hobby knife.  My husband is buying me one of those little handheld rotary saws.  There is a sanding attachment, too, so I can whip through my wood projects easily as well.  :)

I'm linking this to D. L. Art's Linky Party.  Visit to check out some great projects that link to some really great craft blogs.  :)

Pearls? Nuh uh!

 Some of you probably already know about this trick, but the rest of you should probably sit down.  This is mind-blowing!  :)

 

See these pearls in this picture?  Well, those aren't pearls.  They are hot glue dots covered in PearlEx Powered Pigments.  Yes, I said hot glue dots.  Watch this video for the details.  I don't have a fine tip on my glue gun like she does, but I think I will get a glue gun that has a tip like that.  I had a lot of trouble controlling the "glue webs" and you can see the irregularity of the 'pearl' on the right.

 

Whoever discovered this for the first time, THANK YOU!  :)

 

Friendship Card

I have been away too long.  I have missed coming here and sharing my fun projects.  I have a lot of them still to share, but I just haven't made the time to sit down and get them posted.  Tomorrow is my monthly crafty day so I'll work on getting my projects organized and getting some pictures taken to share.  In the meantime, I found this recently in my blog photo collection.  Honestly, I don't remember all of the details.  I know the punches came from Stampin' Up! as well as the paper.  The ribbon, I think, is from Michael's.

 

I cut the card base as a normal A2 card and then trimmed about half an inch off make room for the scallop border.

Update:  Guess what I stumbled upon in my craftroom first off today?  You're so good!  You're right!  It was this paper.  It is from Stampin' Up!, and it's called Springtime Vintage.  All Stampin' Up! Papers are two-sided and this is the front and back of one sheet.  The stamp is from a Stampin' Up! set called Wings of Friendship.

Katie's Candy Bar Tower

I know I said I would be posting more often.  I'm sorry.  It's been kind of tough waiting for my son to finish up training, then going to get him up in Missouri and then taking him back to get on a plane for Japan.  Yes, Japan.  That hit me like a ton of bricks, which is why he probably waited until two days before we went to get him to tell me that was where he was being stationed.  Stinker.

Anyway, I've been deep cleaning and purging as well.  Both are things I never get to during the school year.  Summertime is my catch up time for cleaning.  It was supposed to be my catch up time for crafting........grrrrrr.

 

This project is an older one.  My daughter got a job about three months ago that she just loves.  I made this to celebrate her first paycheck.  It's called a "cookie tower" and can be found here.  This lady is an svg box genius, ya'll!  

My daughter loves Payday bars so it worked out perfectly.  Paydays for payday.  lol  I put 5 of them in there and had room for another 1 or 2 more.  It's designed to hold about a dozen standard-sized homemade cookies.  Isn't it cute?

 

My daughter is a true country girl and will probably wear a denim wedding dress. lol  Maybe not.  She loves denim and bandanas and anything rustic so I used a chocolate brown paper I had gotten from Michael's during one of their 8 for a$1.00 sales.  It's finely textured and gives a little bit of an elegant-rustic feel to projects.  I usually snag every bit of it they have.  Sorry!  The patterened paper and the ribbon also came from Michael's.  The paper is just off their racks-no kits or paper packs.  The twine came from a military surplus store my son loves to visit when he's home.  It was much thicker than what you see so I just pulled the fibers apart to make it thinner and easier to manage for a small project.  The tag, I think, came from my eCAL software.  I'm not a hundred percent sure.  If it didn't, then it was a free download from someone's blog.  I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but when I got my Eclips the Christmas before last, I was so happy and taken with it, that I barely slept for three days, searching for free downloads, perusing, and downloading tons of free svg's.  Then I cut all kinds of templates that I keep in a storage container so that I can look at them to visualize future projects and get ideas.  My husband had to put me on lockdown so that I could go back to work after Christmas break and be able to function.  It was worth it!  Anyway, I could have gotten that tag from anywhere is what I was trying to say.  lol

 

To make the frame, I cut the tag regular size and as a shadow from the bandana paper.  I used the cut-out from the brown paper to make the tag.  I also cut it from denim and bandana in the same size and then trimmed down to fit on the tag itself as a simple embellishment.

The window is plastic cut from Cricut cartridge packaging.  I just cut out a small rectangle and red-sticky taped it on the inside.  I do have transparency sheets, but I tend to keep plastic packaging for stuff like this, where I only need a small piece and need it to be sturdy.  Waste not, want not!  (You can clean it so food can touch it.)

Quick tip:  Cut another cookie tower out of wax paper (swipe your blade with Goo-gone before cutting to avoid waxy residue building up on your blade) and then glue to the inside of the box before assembling.  That way, oil from the cookies doesn't seep through and ruin your design and you can still see the delectable treats inside the box.

By the way, I'm linking up over at D.L.ART.  Go on over and check out all of the cute projects and link up one of your own.  :)  

School Bulletin Board

Here is the bulletin board I did for the end of the school year.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

I used the Stampin' Up! In Color 12 x 12 paper pack 12-14 for this project.  All the colors went nicely with the background paper and color of the frame, I think.

 

I cut the crabs out at 3" from Create a Critter.  I think the shells were cut at 3" as well, but since they are an accessory they cut out just right for the crab to hold.

 

 

I used my Gypsy, and I have many fonts.  I can't remember which one I used right at the moment, but I'll look it up when I get back from New Orleans and let you know.  :)

 

 

On one side of the sea shells was the number of days left of school.  On the other, is a yellow layer that makes it look pretty.  As each day ends, I removed a sea shell from a crab, turned it over and stapled it at the bottom with the sea weed.

 

 

You'll never know how happy I was to take that last number down!  lol  I loved my students this year for sure, but it will be so nice not to have to be "on" all day 5 days a week (and when I see them outside of school in the afternoons and weekends).  I can relax a little and not have thoughts of lesson plans, tests/quizzes, missing homework, etc.  Oh yeah, and I can clean my house and bake something yummy.  I have time for Pinterest again!  Wow!  This is getting exciting thinking about it all.  lol

I'm including this on D.L.ART's page for the SPLASH Challenge.  The challenge implies anything "wet" so I think my bulletin board fits since the crabs are under the water.  :)