New Card for the Recruit

The inspiration for this card came straight from Robin at My Pink Stamper.  She posted a video for the cutest card the other day, and I was just so excited to make one myself.  I don't have the Cricut cartridge she used, and it was going to be about $30.00 to buy it (not the time of the year for extra stuff like that) so I looked through the ones I already had.  I found this cute little birdy on my Create a Critter cartridge, which I have NEVER used but just HAD to have.  I actually have a lot of cartridges that fall into that category.  I really need to start using more of my stuff.  I don't even know what I have!

Isn't he just the cutest thing?  I used Night of Navy from Stampin' Up! for his body with a brown I got from Michael's during one of their 8 sheets for $1.00 sales.  The yellow came from Hobby Lobby and the patterned papers are scraps that I've been using for all of his cards (leftover from the sendoff back in September).  I drew a little 'glint' in his eye, because it seemed so plain.  The ribbon is 1/4" grosgrain from Stampin' Up! in Chocolate Chip.

I don't have any of Robin's stamp sets (sniff sniff).  I never could decide which one I wanted to start my collection with.  Then she announced her retirement and it was at a bad financial time for me.  By the time I could get any, all the ones I wanted were sold out everywhere.  Ah, well.  I can take the same ideas and use my Eclips (Which I named Soleil Moon.  I know.  By the way, I named my Cricut Jiminy and my Samsung Galaxy is named Andromeda.) to draw the words for me.  Zoomed in, it doesn't look very clear and pretty, but you can't tell it by just looking at the card.  I used my Night of Navy stampin' markers.  The Eclips drew the trace-line, which it wasn't supposed to do.  I filled it in after.  I'll be playing around tomorrow to find out why it did the outline when I asked it to just do the 'fill'.

Overall, I really like it.  :) 
 

You Only Live Once Card

Another quick post just to show my latest card to my youngest at boot camp.  It's based on a cute birthday card with frogs that we did at our Stampin' Up! hostess party last night.  I really like how it turned out.

I used Kraft from a paper pack I got from Michael's a long time ago and Night of Navy from Stampin' Up!  The stars and patriotic paper are left over from his send off back in September.  I used the decorative label punch for the sentiment, which is from a set called "Fifth Avenue Floral."   You wouldn't think a flowery set would be the one to go with for a marine recruit, but the sentiment goes perfectly with how I raised him and his desire to succeed in this endeavor.  

I used a cheap pair of zigzag scissors that I got from Michael's years ago to cut the border under the stars.  The scissors did not like the thick Stampin' Up! cardstock and you can see that's it's a little bit of a rough cut, but I actually like it better that way.  It looks distressed and goes perfectly with the "tone" with the Kraft paper and other dark colors and ink distressed edges.  It's even better in person.  I hope he likes it.  :)

Latest Card for my Marine Recruit

Earlier I mentioned that I needed to get another card made for my youngest.  He requested some pictures from home and it was time to send another round of power bars and Gatorade packets anyway.  

By the way, we're a little over a third of the way through.  I miss him so much!  I can't wait to see him again in January!  :)

Here is my latest patriotic card.  I'm sticking with the patriotic theme for his cards, because he's a homebody, and this is actually the last thing we expected him to do.  He has asked us to share his address with everybody so I know he's homesick and wants to connect.  I don't want to do anything seasonal that would cause him to think about what we might be doing to get ready for Christmas without him.  I want him to remember what he's there for when he sees red, white and blue with stars and stripes.  :)

By the way, I couldn't find a manly border so I used the decorative label punch and only punched the edge, lining it up as I went to make it look more borderish.  I'm undecided as to whether or not I like it.  On the one hand, it's interesting and not girly.  On the other, it's not bordery enough either.  Guess I'll have to head back to Hobby Lobby to find something I can use.  There are just some hardships in life we must bear.  LOL :)  

So Excited About This Card!

I've had this card in my mind for several weeks now, but I wasn't sure if it would turn out the way I wanted to so I procrastinated.  I gave myself permission to just go for it and if it didn't turn out it would be okay.  I have to do that for myself sometimes, because I'm a perfectionist and will drive myself to distraction to get something right.

Anyway, turns out I didn't need permission to accept that it might not work out, because it worked out just like I had hoped.  Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

 
The background was printed from a photo file I got from Google after searching for "marines digi camo."  I placed it on my mat in eCAL and set it to cut the mat size I wanted.  The "dog tags" I printed the words in reverse on the back side of silver paper and then cut them out.  Then I used my scoring tool to trace the words so that they would 'pop' out on the front side.  I cut out the black as shadow layers larger and smaller than the silver and then did back minus the front to have a cut-out space.

If you have SCAL or eCAL, you understood all of that.  If not, you need to get it.  It's awesome!  It will rock your world!  I kid you not.  I mean, look at the proof.  :)

Happy Veteran's Day!

Just wanted to do a quick post to thank all of our men and women in uniform (past and present) who have served in the military.  I'm so grateful for all of you and never forget the sacrifices you make so that I can enjoy the freedoms I have and so that others can experience freedom for the first time.

I received another letter from my son in boot camp, and it put me in the mood to make another card to send him.  It's a quick and easy card based on a Christmas card we made at our last Stampin' Up hostess class.  Lisa Marie always finds us the cutest things to make, and they're always versatile enough to alter for different occasions.

I used the same patriotic paper that I had used for his send off.  I had some of the little stars left over and have been wondering how I was going to be able to use all of them up, but I think I might be able to in the cards I'm sending him.  The little square bling came from a lanyard that I bought at school in our school colors.  Our colors are blue and white (my favorite blue).  The jewels started to fall off so I decided to just use them in my crafting.  How convenient!  LOL!  It's actually the cheapest bling I've ever bought, and I'm thinking of buying a couple more lanyards just to use in crafting.  Always looking for a bargain!  :)

Here it is.  I hope you like it!  :)

 

Patriotic Card for the New Marine!

My son has been gone two weeks today (sniff, sniff).  It was really tough to start with, but the family briefing packet the recruiter gave us the day he left has been a great comfort.  It helps me to know what he's doing from day to day.  The letter the senior drill instructor sent made things even better.  He pulled me out of my funk and put me into a more patriotic mood so I decided to make another card to send to boot camp.  Here it is.  :)

I kind of wish I had sponged the edges with brown instead of blue, but it's too late for recriminations now.  ;)  It still turned out really cute.

My First Blog Post Ever!

Okay.  So, I created this blog so that I could enter a contest on one of my favorite blogger's site.  One of the requirements was that you had to have blog-not necessarily one that you had actually posted on.  I thought, "I can do that."  As I was creating it, I thought it would be cool to really have my own blog one day-for real, but who has time for that?  (Thousands of people do, apparently. LOL!)  Anyway, over the last year, I have noticed that my favorite craft bloggers are posting fewer and fewer projects and, I'm still craving creativeness.  Then it hit me that others might be feeling the same way, and I have a craft blog so maybe I can add to the world's craftiness and pick up where some of my faves have left off.  Maybe I have something to share that someone else would be interested in.  Let's find out!  :)

My first post is going to be about what I have been working on over the past couple of weeks.  My youngest son, my baby (sniff, sniff), is leaving in a couple of weeks for Marine boot camp, and we had a 5th Sunday dinner at our church this morning.  I had asked the church if it would be okay to include a "send-off" for him into our church dinner and they said it would be fine.  We're a pretty close church family so I new it would be.  :)  I have spent the last two weeks planning and making all kinds of cute stuff based on ideas that I got from other crafters' sites and YouTube.  Where I can remember the original locations, I'll link you up with them.

One of the first things I decided to work on was some patriotic cards that I could send my son throughout his time at Parris Island.  I also decided it would be great if he could hear from some of our church family from time to time as well.  So I decided to make little note cards that can be included with my notes to him.  I laid them out on the tables in the fellowship hall along with some pens so that friends and family could write a little message before they left this afternoon.  It went over very well.  Here is the first card I'm going to be sending along with some of the blank note cards.  The base paper for the card and note cards is Very Vanilla from Stampin' Up.  My dealer, I mean my demonstrator is Lisa Marie Smith and she's awesome!  She's from Crestview, FL so if you're local and looking for a fun time, get some friends together and arrange to do one of her classes.  I have linked her Stampin' Up site to her name above.  You can also just order from her online if you live too far away for a class.

Another project is a tile with vinyl lettering.  I love, love, love this one!  I got the tile from Lowe's for less than a dollar and the vinyl is from The Paper Studio.  I got it from Hobby Lobby.  (I seriously love Hobby Lobby!  You'll see that I get a lot of my supplies from either them or Lisa Marie.)  I'm not sure I like that vinyl for this project, though.  It works okay on glass and other surfaces, but it was really hard to get it to stick to the tile.  I think I'll stick with Oracle for tile projects from here on out.  A great place to get craft vinyl in all kinds of colors and styles is the Vinyl Super Store.  Her prices are great!  She had an eBay store at one time, but I don't know if she still does.  I got a great deal on a whole bunch of vinyl from her on eBay once and now just order as I need from her regular store site.  The actual cutting file is an SVG file that I bought from My Vinyl Designer.  It's PA019 and it was ONLY $1.95.  Doesn't it look just awesome!?!  Whoever designed it did a wonderful job.  :)  I have bought several of their designs and buyer's remorse never visits my craft room after a purchase from them.  I used my Sizzix Eclips (that my ever so spectacular husband bought me for Christmas last year) and used eCAL, which is the Sure Cuts a Lot version made especially for the Eclips.  Both the Eclips and eCAL were purchased from Oh My Crafts.  I do have a Cricut Expression, but I highly recommend having more than one means of cutting shapes for projects if you're dealing with Cricut since they're so picky about having to use only their cartridges.  I have a ton of their cartridges, but sometimes you just need one shape and don't want to have to own a whole cartridge just to get it.  You can get free cut files all over the Internet or purchase some for a small fee from some really talented people who don't care what you use to cut their designs with.  (Can you tell I have a soap box handy to stand on when I talk about this topic? LOL) 

Wow!  This is a REALLY long first post.  Apparently, there has been a blogger inside me screaming to get out for a long, long time.  I promise future posts won't be quite so long.  How could they be?  There won't be much left to share when I get done with this one.  ;)  

Just a couple more projects to go.  I'll make it quick and painless, I promise.  The first one is one I saw on Pinterest.  I can't remember what it was called, though.  I visited the blog site but forgot to save it.  I'll try to find it and share it in a future post.  She has some really cute stuff.  She had mason jars with treats in them and these really cute layered stars hanging from the lid in rustic Christmas paper.  I decided to make some stars like hers with the same paper I had used for the cards and notes. Here is what I did with them.  Aren't they pretty?

One of my favorite crafters is Diane Hill.  You can find her fantastic videos on YouTube and/or visit her site paperpastime.blogspot.com.  She's phenomenal!  (manamana do do do do do manamana do do do do)  Sorry.  Channeled the Muppets there for a second.  Anyway, one of her videos is about making barn stars with scrapbook paper.  The ones she did were in solid colors, but I decided to use the same scrapbook paper that went with my patriotic theme and they turned out so great!  Thanks, Diane!  You don't know me, but I am a huge fan.  That's not creepy, is it?  :)

Last but not least............my favorite project, because it was the MOST FUN to make!  The rosette wreath.  (cue trumpets daah da da daaaaaah!)  I got the idea from Pinterest and then checked out videos on YouTube for how to make the best rosettes.  I had made a couple in my Stampin' Up hostess class last year about this time.  I loved them so much that I kept them in the forefront of my mind this WHOLE time looking for a project where I could use a bunch of them all at once.  Someone pinned this adorable wreath in spring colors for Easter over the summer and an idea was born.  I was going to do a Fall wreath for my mother-in-law's birthday, which is coming up this Thursday.  A hem (cue sheepish look).  I don't think I have the energy to do it now after all the crafting I've done the past couple of weeks.  I am a middle school science teacher, and 9 weeks' exams are coming up so my focus needs to shift back to non-craft related topics for the next week or so.  Who knows?  I might come in from work tomorrow evening bright-eyed and bushy-tailed looking for some paper to score and fan-fold.  Stranger things have happened.  LOL!  Anyway, I used the same gorgeous patriotic paper that I have used throughout.  By the way, I don't think that I mentioned that the patriotic paper I've been using is from The Paper Studio, which is probably my favorite line of scrapbook paper in the entire world.  No, I haven't seen ALL the paper in the ENTIRE world, but I think that if I had, I would still love The Paper Studio's paper best.  I'm never disappointed in the quality of the end product when I use their paper.  Running a close second (a very close second) is Stampin' Up paper.  The colors are so pure and I love how their scrapbook designer paper matches with their inks/markers/plain paper colors/ribbon/embellishments.  You can't go wrong with either brand.  I've lost my train of thought...........oh, yeah!  The rosette wreath!  Isn't it pretty?  I'm just in love with it!  It looks really good with those barn stars, too, doesn't it. 

So thanks to all the great crafters that gave me these wonderful ideas to work with and to the great craft supply companies that give us so many wonderful products to work with and my awesome husband, who puts up with the sounds of my paper trimmer, Cricut, and Eclips during his favorite television shows.  You have helped me to put together a fantastic collection of projects that we can all enjoy.

Okay.  So, I broke my promise of a quick and painless finish to my first post.  Well, I hope it was at least painless if not quick.  Thanks for visiting........I hope someone visits...........and doesn't give up when they see how long it is.................and comes back for more...........<3