Just so peaceful

Continuing on my trek through the project pictures that I have stored, I encountered photos of one of my favorite layouts in the kittens' scrapbook. My little girl (OK, so she's the bigger one, but she's still my little girl), just looks so peaceful and sweet when she's asleep, so, being the scrapbooker that I am, I grab my camera and take pictures of her bliss... Here's the layout!

I used the Caprice paper pack - one that I had not been fond of until I started to play with it! Now, its charm and versatility have me sold :-)

The picture of Angel sprawled over the back of the couch is actually an interactive picture. I took one of the storage sheets of six 4x6 pictures and cut it in half, then cut my page protector where I wanted the interactive photos to go... Wha-la, what was the space for one photo now can hold FIVE pictures!! Talk about a space saver!

The letters are cut on a Cricut using the "Jasmine" cartridge. Then I took clear Stickles and went over the letters for the shimmery, dream-like effect.

There you have it! Another kitty lay-out!

Emporium Cards

OK... So I'm in a posting mode today!
A while back (don't exactly remember when), I was playing around with the Emporium paper pack and created a couple of cards - one for the Shepherd Ministry at my church and one for my hubby. Thought that you all might enjoy the ideas!

The first one is a simple 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 card using the striped B&T. There is a stripe of Vineyard Berry CS in the center, on which the sentiment is mounted. The sentiment is embossed with gold EP, and the edges are distressed with an edge distresser tool, then sponged in pigmented ink and dipped into EP and embossed to give it a really neat effect!

The card for my hubby is a little more complicated... Used my Sizzix sidekick to punch out a couple of hearts, then sponged around their edges... Embossed the wording in gold EP. Edges of the vineyard berry CS are distressed, while the edge of the fleur-de-lis paper is lightly sponged and embossed as above...

Hope that you enjoyed looking! Now to see if I have any more project pictures to share!

Stationary Swap!

I mentioned in my last post (which went up only a few minutes ago!) that I completed TWO swaps this past week.. Well, here's the results of swap #2!

This swap involved creating a set of stationary. The folder is an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of CS, layed out in landscape (wider side to side). It is scored vertically at 5 1/2" and horizontally at 2". There is a small notch cut out where the folds meet to decrease the bulkiness of the fold. The ends on each side are then sealed in order to hold in the stationary!

Each set contains one holder, three cards (all of mine were identical) with coordinating envelopes and one altered item - a pen, notepad, bookmark, etc.

My first set uses the "Life Delights" paper pack (striped B&T), chocolate, blush, and lilac mist CS. The stamped image is from the stamp set that came in the "tickled pink" kit. The pen - which I am only now realizing that you can barely see at the bottom of the picture - has an insert of the striped B&T.



My second set uses the Emporium Creative Basics paper again (LOVE that paper!). The floral B&T is mounted on Twilight and Sweet Leaf CS. The flowers are from the larger Just Blooms collection and are dyed in a concoction of Vineyard Berry re-inker and 90% rubbing alcohol, then spritzed with Glimmer Mists (candy apple red) to make it sparkle. The button centers are from the winter cozy button collection.

Birthday Card Swap!

Last week I had the chance to really play in my scrap room, and finished up two swaps. The first was a three-round birthday card swap. I challenged myself to use the same paper pack for all three rounds. I chose the Emporium Creative Basics kit.

For the "general adult round, I went with a monochromatic theme that uses the sweet leaf side of the striped B&T along with sweet leaf CS. The ribbon is from the retired organza ribbon rounds (in topiary), and the sentiment (from the "for every occasion" set) is stampted in topiary ink and sponged in sweet leaf before being mounted on a topiary CS backing. The large eyelets are from JoAnn's.


For the adult male round, I used the Twilight side of that same B&T paper (gotta love two sided papers!). The striped paper is mounted on a Bamboo CS strip, which is mounted on a piece of sanded chocolate textured CS. The sentiment comes from the "say it in style" stamp set and is mounted on bamboo and twilight CS, which are both distressed with the edge distresser. The ribbon is from the retired ribbon round collection, and the safety pin is also retired from the accessory kits that CTMH used to carry (I have lots of retired materials laying around - better get scrapping and use it up to make room for more!)

The final round for me was for an adult female... Used the floral pattern B&T in addition to the twilight side of the striped B&T. Background CS is crystal blue, as is the stripe under the flowers. The remaining CS is Vineyard Berry. Sentiment is again from the "For Every Occasion" stamp set (same sentiment as the first card in this post!). Flowers are from the just blooms white daisy collection. Large brad is the twilight courdoroy brad from a collection and the smaller brads from from the winter cozy brad collection.

Hope that you enjoy the final products!

Sunshine on my card...

Makes me happy!!!

I participated in a "summer themed" card swap a while back, and wanted to play around with an unconventional layout for a card... Since saying "thanks" always reminds me that someone has brightened my day, I decided that this would be the theme for my card. Hope that you like it!

Baby sized cards

For some reason I have been into midget sized cards recently - just little 3x3-ish cards that I can slip into a package for someone or to give to a patient of mine when they're having a bad day or done something that has been hard for them. I thought that I'd share some of my creations with you all!


All papers are from CTMH. The stamps for the wording from from either the "Say It in Style" or "For Every Occasion" stamp sets. The designs are simple - but that's what these little midget cards are about - a quick way to say what you want / need to say!


I left the sentiment square on this one blank so that I can write in whatever I want to say when I use the card.
The Outdoor Denim and Colonial white squares are lightly sponged with each other's colors (the colonial white CTMH ink is pigmented, so it will show nicely on dark colors).
The stars in the corner are made using a white gel pen, then adding a rhinestone center. Fun stuff to play with!


This little guy uses the butterfly B&T from the "Blue Ribbon" kit. I distressed the edges around the sentiment, then sponged on Cranberry ink.

This one comes from the Silhouette paper pack. I used some black ribbon and a little red safety pin that I had laying around.

This little guy comes from the Good Times paper pack. The edges of the sentiment and backing are distressed, then sponged with the color of the opposite layer (Chocolate is sponged with Sweet Leaf and vice versa). Then I anchored the sentiment with two Bigger Brads.
Just a little tip - put your brads on before adhering the sentiment to the card, then the tails won't show on the inside of your card :-)

This is another Silhouette card. Again using the black stitched ribbon (LOVE this ribbon). Below the sentiment, I adhered three red rhinestones (two tiny ones and one slightly larger).

This card I love... It uses the Stardust paper pack papers. I stamped the polka dot B&T with Playful Flourishes stamps in Moonstruck ink, then tore the bottom edge before adhering it onto the Honey cardstock. The cute tag is from the Stardust flexi-labels.
It was fun, because the little girl that I gave the card to took the label off and put it onto her backpack to remind her to dream big and not let her disorder run her life... SOO fun to see that!


This next card uses the Sarsaparilla paper pack. When I first saw that paper, I was really not sure about it, but it's become a favorite! I'll post the kitten album layout with this same paper later on, but suffice to say it's more versatile than it looked at first to me!

Anyway, for this little card, I tore the edges of a piece of flourished B&T and black cardstock, then adhered them onto the background piece of flourish B&T. I used three little flowers from the White Daisy Just Blooms collection (which everyone KNOWS that I'm addicted to!). The centers are black bitty brads.



That's all for today - Back to my scrap room to play!

A tag for you, my dear?

I just finished a "glitter swap" - where every item created had to have a central feature of GLITTER!! Now... I'm not usually a glittery gal, but this one intrigued me, so I signed up.

Just wanted to share with y'all my little tagged creation:

The base is Black CTMH cardstock.

The printed paper is from the Silhouette Creative Basics kit.

The flower is one of the Big Pinks sprayed with Rose Petal Glimmer Mist, then dried and a central circle of Liquid Glass was placed then dried THEN a dot of Icicle Stickles to finish it off! (whew!)

The wording is from a CTMH stamp set. It is stamped in Black StazOn ink. I distressed the edges, then inked them up with Versamark ink and dipped them in gold tinsel embossing powder (I forget the company). I used my heat gun to set the EP. THEN, I sprayed the wording with Wheatfield Glimmer Mists and allowed it to dry before adhering to the tag.

The ribbon is black organza with baby pink organze (these are retired CTMH ribbon rounds).

That's it! I had a lot of fun making it and am SOO looking forward to getting the other submissions back in the mail!

Have a great day!

Kitten Album intros!

Those of you who know me are aware that the past month has been a blur for me - Nana fell and broke her hip on April 28, requiring an emergency hip replacement for her at 96 years of age. She is back at home now (with a LOT of support from friends in the community and neat gadgets in order to get daily living things all done). SO, I am trying to do a lot of catching up. Prior to April 28, I had lost my password to this account and had not posted in almost three months - so there is a lot to catch up on!

Today, I just wanted to post some layouts that I did to showcase my two fur-children. I am doing an entire scrapbook of them and their antics. They are such a part of our lives that I couldn't leave them out!

SO, introducing Angel, our supposedly older and definitely larger cat-child:

I wanted to do a layout that basically introduced the general factoids that one needs to be aware of regarding the Queen of Cat-itude :-) The paper that I chose has a wonderful swirl of yellow and orange - in honor of both he coloring and her craziness! I just wanted two large pictures on the layout, so that I would have a LOT of room for journaling - and even then I needed to add in flip-pages to accomodate all that I had to say about her!

Then there is the infamous Mooch. We don't actually know her birthday, as she is a rescued cat, but she will be the perpetual kitten regardless of her actual date of birth!

The paper that I chose here is from the "Perfect Day" paperpack from CTMH. The embellishments are paper flowers that have been Glimmer Misted to achieve the colors. Again, I had too much to say, so I used a single flip-page add-on to accomodate my wordiness!

I hope that you enjoyed the brief look at my cat-children's album! I'll post more pics later this month as I get more of the album completed!

Calendar workshop!

I was able to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon with two friends making calendars using the January Stamp of the Month. We used 4" square heavy-weight coasters as our base and used a clothespin glued onto the back to prop the calendar up for viewing. Calendar pages are stamped onto 2x2 squares and held on with decorative paperclips so that these calendars can be used year after year. SOO cute!!

Hope that you enjoyed the quick look! I know that I will enjoy using mine!

HERE WE GO STEELERS!!

Ok, so this one is NOT artwork of mine, but I *do* find it inspiring! This is a picture that a friend of my husband posted on Facebook and I have fallen in love with. In light of the VICTORY last night against the Ravens, I thought that I needed to post this picture here. It is *definitely* getting scrapped soon - along with highlights. Look VERY carefully at the picture - there are several details that will explain why I love it so much :-)

Now, onto those Cardinals. :-)

My Infamous ScrapCave

OK, so I keep telling people about my favorite escape spot on the planet, and decided that it's time that I share it with you all :-) I will apologize in advance to those on dial-up, but it took me 12 pictures to get it onto here...

Going around the room from where you enter:

This first picture is my WONDERFUL stack of papershelves -acquired when my favorite LSS went out of business :-( - these shelves are filled with my random Cardstock paper collection.

The little yellow squares that you see on the left side are labels indicating which colors go where (for when I pull them out to go to crops, etc). All colors are in an expanded form of ROYGBIV order- which earns me a great deal of harassment from a few friends who say that I have "OCD" tendencies... Just because a gal likes to be able to find things!!

Next to the shelves, I store my newspaper tablet- you know, that paper that you put under things so that you can make a mess without having too much clean-up to do!! I also store my guillotine trimmer there. VERY handy tool!!

This lovely piece of furniture is a drafting table / lightbox that my husband's late grandfather gave to my father-in-law, who then passed it down to my husband, who then gave it to me. To say the least, it is very special to us.

We believe that grandpa might actually have made this table, but we can't be sure, so if you did, Grandpa, we love it!

Underneath the drafting table, I have a Cropper Hopper paper storage bin - this is where I keep the majority of my B&T - you'll see the rest in a bit...

This is a combination of two plastic drawer units. The top, smaller, unit has candles to make my room "stink pretty," as my husband calls it. The other two drawers have stamped images - like my Bellas- and cards that I have made with no specific person in mind.

The bottom, larger, unit houses all of my stamps. Currently, the top two drawers house my CTMH stamps while the bottom three are a combination of my other unmounteds. Eventually, I have a feeling that I will need to use all 5 drawers for CTMH stamp sets and find a new home for the others, but I'm not there yet, and have some time until I am, so I just enjoy this arrangement.

This is my main work table- with all of my inks, Stickles, acrylic blocks, adhesive, work mat, OttLight, spray bottles, chalks, sponges, texture tools, and book holder. This is where I spend the majority of my crafting time. The table itself is another drafting table that also came from the same grandfather.

You can't see it in the photo, but there are two large drawers under the work surface - one houses my mounted stamp collection and the other houses my embossing supplies.

This is the wall next to my main work table.

It houses some of my ribbon collection as well as alcohol inks and Glimmer Mist bottles, my card collections from CTMH, and my Whisper stamp pade. The OttLight that is attached allows me to see what I'm doing on the table below.

Below this shelf are five pegs, on which I store rings with fiber cards, sketch images that I have found online, and CS samples from CTMH.

This is my journaling desk, placed right in front of my window to the outdoors!

The desk was made my taking some small shelf units (of the MDF kind), and topping them with an Ikea desktop. LOTS of storage and a wonderful writing space! The baskets hold my adhesive collection, acrylic paints, cleaning supplies, embellishments, stickers, and rub-ons.

On top of the desk, I have my Pampered Chef Tool-Turnabout with pens, etc, and a shelving unit that I found on clearance at Target. On top of that shelf, I have a shelved "Lazy Susan" that I fould at a thrift store. My Crop-a-Dile lives on top of the desk, as does my inspiration kitty. When I'm not using this desk, my real live kitty occupies it in order to stare out the window!

This is my second wall. My stereo is mixed in with my embellishment storage and my 8 1/2 x 11 CS supply.

This is the shelving unit under the photo above. My dear husband build these shelves for me back while we were in college - they are, I swear, indestructible!! They house my inspiration collection and my photos to be scrapped.

The bins hold my re-inkers and punches, memorabilia, tools, and gadgets :-)

This is my design desk.

My CTMH books sit next to a bin full of CTMH CS.

This is my remaining B&T storage shelves - housed under the design desk. These were made my using cable ties to hold wire shelves horizontally in one cube while the bottom cube just allows everything to stand semi-vertically.

This is my cutting task table - all of my paper trimmers and shapes are housed here. Another OttLight keeps it luminated :-)

The clipboard on the wall was made at one of my first papercrafting projects outside of scrapbooking.

This is my messy closet - anything without another home goes in here - all grouped by cube or bin :-)

It looks messy, but it is a good kind of chaos.

Well, I hope that you liked the glimpse into my little scrappy world!!! Now I'm off to go play in it!

New Year, renewed effort to blog!

Well, the end of this year has been busy for me. Lots of projects created, and many were not photographed... But let me show you some that *were*!



This card is one of my favorites, and I have made several versions of it recently. I sponge multiple colors in layers to create a sunrise or sunset effect, then stamped images from September's Stamp of the Month set (Treasure Life) in black ink - first and second generation stamping.
Mat the sunrise/set onto darker CS and attach to the card front. This one uses a saying that is also from the Treasure Life set.

Each time I make this card, I love it more!! Play with the colors in your layers to get the effect that you are seeking. I don't think that this can be done badly!




This next one was a wedding card for two very dear friends of mine, who, like me, LOVE all things Celtic.




I found a Celtic heart knot online and blew the image up, then used a light box to trace the image with a gold pen. Then, I matted the image on a sheet of green CS and gold vellum, rounding the corners of each layer.


The sentiment was printed on my home computer, using RGB codes to match the green CTMH paper, and matted in the same manner.





Lastly, I was involved in a 6x6 Scripture verse swap- 23 pages of Scriptural inspiration. All entries used the "Boom-di-Ada" paperpacks and related stamps. All of my Scripture verses were printed on my home computer using RGB codes.

My three submissions were as follows:




For this entry, I did a LOT of intricate cutting.

I used three different flowers from the Cottage Floral set, cut them out, layered them using foam tape and adhered to a circle that was sponged around the edges with Garden Green ink.

I also took the striped B&T paper and cut out the scallops to make a paper ribbon.

The remaining pieces that you see are the green polka dot B&T and buttercup CS.






This was my first attempt at "paper quilting." It wasn't until I was done that I realized that the effect was lost because of the paper patterns that I used - oh well!!! The inspiration was from a quilting block book that I own. I took two 3x3 squares of the orange floral B&T and two 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 squares and cut each into triangles, then pieced these into the quilted pattern. I went over the seams with the Simple Stitches stamp set in cocoa ink. Then adhered the CS with my verse- making little cross stitches using the new orange floss. I will definitely be doing this technique again - can you say "workshop?!?!"





Finally, my experiment in total distressing!!
The striped B&T is sanded.
The Barn Red CS is edge distressed.
The buttercup CS is sponged on the edges.

Three eyelets were set in with my favorite tool - my Crop-a-dile, and wha-la, there is one beautifully distressing layout!







I hope that you enjoy these creations as much as I do!!!
Talk to you soon!