Faerie's from Graphic 45 Once Upon a Springtime Stamps and Papers

I went to an all night crop on Saturday night at my friend Leslie's scrapbook store called Whole Lotta Scrap in Norman, OK. I think a lot of people complained that they never had time enough on crop nights so Leslie ran the crop 10am Saturday till 7am on Sunday. I don't think they will complain again for a while. I didn't go the whole time cause 21 hours was just too much of a good thing for me. I went in about 5pm and left about 7am. I turned down a stop for breakfast and went to bed instead.

After chit chatting for the first hour or so I turned to being creative and started making cards. The first thing I finished was the ATC's for a swap on a group I belong to. I cased an image of a full size tag of Tim Holtz using this stamp set and cut it down to fit the 2.5x3.5 card I was going to make. I won these stamps in a drawing on the same group so thought it was fitting to use them for the swap. Unfortunately you can't get the full effect cause the camera just wouldn't cooperate with me in photographing the shiny mirror card stock I used to make the plane. I just stamped the image on with Stazon Black in and cut it out. Believe it or not there are 7 colors of ink on this card! Distress ink black soot, Chipped Sapphire, Broken China, Tea Dye, Straw, Walnut Stain and the Stazon! Fun!! I made 11 of these beauties...9 for the swap, 1 to keep and one to give to the whining friend that sat on my right at the crop. Rhonda is a good friend and I am so mean to her!!

The second group of cards I made were made using the Once Upon a Springtime papers and stamps from Graphic 45. All the card blanks and mats were made using Stampin Up! card stock and the images stamped on Stampin Up! Whisper White card stock. I love the crispness of them image on the whisper white that I have not seen with any other card stock. I think that the cards look a little dark here but the paper tends to lend it self to looking dark cause they have a more dusky color scheme than the traditional bright springy colors. I like it. It calls to my soul!

This first card is the brightest and most girlie to me. I love the vintage cotton crocheted ribbon lace and the mulberry roses. I Stickled the wings(not that you can tell!) and used some Liquid Pearls on the flower bouquet.


The Queen of the Faeries was fun to make. I was pleased that they had the paper in the 8x8 paper pad and the image was smaller then in the 12x12 pad. I used Flower Soft to frame around the Queen. Her crown and wing dots are Liquid Pearls, cantaloupe color. I used Distress Stickles on the wings. I made two of this card.


This faerie is definitely darker. I also made two of this card. I colored her a lot of times but the way the stamp inks up it is just a lot of black or whatever other color ink you use. I tried just inking the stamp but that didn't work for me either. Maybe by the time I got to this image it was getting late! I have seen it inked on some of the blogs I visit that makes it look awesome but...I'll settle for this one. Rock candy Distress Stickles are used on the image.

I may try to revisit these images and try a different coloring technique here at home. I really like the images and the papers. They are lots of fun.

More blog candy!

I was surfing around the WOYWW bloggers today and found another tempting treat I couldn't pass by. Go visit Sunflowers & Dragonflies to see what you have to do to enter. I have added a blinking thing to my side bar that will take to straight to Beth's site. Drawing is March 12, 2011

Webster Pages Wall Hanging

I had a lot of fun getting together a class for WLS for the next weekend. I love the new Webster Pages papers in the Petite Papers Pad called Country Estate! There are three different papers collections in the 6x6 pack that came out so I decided to make a wall hanging using the Country Estate because of the large beautiful roses. I thought that I could use it to display pictures or put a memo pad, sticky notes, pen holder etc on the cards and use it as a desk jockey beside my desk. Most likely it will hold pictures though!

This first picture is an upclose photo of the header on the wall hanging. I am fascinated with the different flowers being used by the different bloggers on the internet. Last September I went to a meeting where they presented a program on coffee filter flowers and I have been wanting to make a wall hanging using the technique. Viola! All the flowers on this header are made using coffee filters that I spritzed with color and after they were dry used a brad to secure the individual flowers. Nice I think!


I thought that I would do some upclose pictures before showing the finished work to show what a little glitz and glitter can do to a paper. This first picture is of a bird that was not enhanced. I love the paper and the pattern but I thought that the bird was depressingly dull.






This second picture is after I used Perfect Pearls on some of the roses and Stickles on some other flowers and the leaves. The bird was glittered then Glossy Accents was applied over that after it dried. Really makes the picture pop now!







In this picture the birds were glittered and Glossy Accents applied. I used Flower Soft and Stickles on the flowers and leaves.

The gazebo was a lot of fun. I enhanced the paper with Perfect Pearls, Stickles, Gold Twinkling H2O, and some Flower Soft.


Here is the finished product. I really like the way it turned out.

Blog candy at Jude's page

While making rounds around the WOYWW group I have run across some blog candy I want to share with everyone. I will link them on the side bar and you can go peruse them at will.
The first is Jude's at Crafts-International. If you are a Tim Holtz fan this is a good giveaway!

WOYWW #90

Wednesday again! Everyone is converging on Stamping Ground and Julia's WOYWW. I have become so addicted that the thought that I almost let it slip by gives me heart palpitations!! I can't allow a lot of personal issues this week cause me to miss out snooping on all those awesome desks around the world!! I am logged in as #148 WOW! Lots of places to go look and snoop this week! Probably will take me till Sunday to get through them all but hey! no problemo! DH is away starting tomorrow for a lecture he is giving in Mobile, Alabama so I will just snoop till my hearts content.

For my friendly snoops I thought I would add I went to the doctor on Friday of last week for a visit to find out why I am having so many problems with pain, balance, and memory. I like to joke it is my advanced age but I am only 58 so I doubt it is that!! I had a lot of lab drawn on Friday (nothing notable showed up!) and MRI today! I probably won't know anything about it until next week.

Anyway back to the WOYWW! Everyone probably remembers my post of my craft room last week! Are you over the trauma yet! (I warned you that only the strong should continue!) Well this is what it looks like this week. (A little better but still not for those of weak constitutions!) I am pleased that you can now see the floor and the pile is actually decreasing in girth and height. I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel but I have also made a decision that the 10x11 foot room is too small for all my stash, furniture, etc and I am going to take of the next bedroom and turn it into my craft room later this summer!

Now on to my desk! All you Timophiles are going to be pleased with the stash on my desk this week! I received my CHA stamps from Stampers-Anon this week. I LOVE them! On the left are some Hampton Arts Graphic 45 stamps! I went to the scrapbook store on Tuesday and the owner made my day by leading me to the display of new Stickles, Stains, and Pearls put out by Ranger! All are must haves of course! I finally put together the craft cube my daughter gave me for Christmas (sitting on coffee table on right in the room picture) and I am going to use it to store all my Tim Holtz/Ranger products. I may have to get a second one to hold all the Idea-ology things when I move into the new room!

I thought you would like a sneak preview of something I am currently working on! I will post a completed project picture next week! This is made using a page out of an 8x8 paper pack of Webster papers, new Stickles, Flower Soft, Glossy Accents, and Perfect Pearls!
Okay this is my post for this week. Hope you have a good week!

WOYWW #89

Wednesday again!! OMG! It seems the world has gone into overdrive this week and everything has flown by in overdrive. If you want to know what the WOYWW is all above visit Julia Dunnit at Stampin Ground. My picture of my desk isn't a desk this week. I decided to pick up and straighten up my craft room which turned out to be a nightmare! Here is what it looks like today! I can hardly move around cause I have cleaned out a closet and piled it in here. This isn't as bad as it looks cause it is all sitting on a futon, coffee table, and end table and piled high!! OMG! I dread going in there to finish up! I couldn't find something and that is what started all this 'straightening' that is in progress. I will get an after picture and post it next week! Hopefully!

The class I taught doing the Tim Holtzish tags turned out to be a hit. I thought I was going to only have 8 students but turned out to be 12 and everyone seemed to have a great time!

Now some family stuff! My sister and I spent the weekend at my brothers new house at Possum Kingdom Lake near Graham, Texas. They have a brand new grandbaby and we had to travel south to met her and see the new house. This a a picture from the front porch of the new house at sunset. I think I could get used to sitting here after supper each night! Beverly, Joel, and Evelyn live in San Antonio, TX and had to travel north about the same distance Carol and I had to travel south so it was a good meeting place.

Melvin and Brenda, my brother and sister-in-law, have two daughters and one son. This is their first grandchild and they are so happy with the prospect of more in their future.
I made it around to every one's blog last week and hopefully I will this week. It is awesome to see every ones desk and what they are up to.

A layout for March

I don't scrapbook much and people who know me are surprised that I am doing it. I have decided that it is fun but I really enjoy making my cards, tags, and altering stuff. Unfortunately the glaring truth of it is I have a lot of pictures that need to be scrapbooked! I have some that are printed and in a dark box in the closet from years ago and then I have thousands (literally!) that are digital and I bought a digital scrapbook program called My Digital Studio (MDS) from Stampin Up! that I am going to learn to operate eventually. It is really an easy program to use but I am very challenged when it comes to computer stuff but until then...

I've decided that I am going to do a layout every month of something that pertains to that month. I haven't done one for January yet because I just decided to do it while working on a design for a February class. While working on the pages I thought what a good idea it would be to do a layout a month (which isn't a big challenge even for a challenged scrapbooker like me!) I love the different seasons and I thought it would be a challenge to make me step out of the box and do something different. Soon I will go back and make up a page for January...I promise. To see the February layout just click here on Valentine/February and it will take you there.

Leslie has an Accucut at WLS so I cut the tree mats out and cut them around to make my clouds! They are distressed with I think Not Quite Navy. The green and white paper is a Christmas paper that I found in the bin and used her Accucut Vintage mat die to make the center mat. Click on it...doesn't look like a holiday paper...looks like a Celtic paper pattern! I decided to give people the choice of using a Celtic poem in the right big cloud, use it as a journaling space, or just leave it a white fluffy cloud. Their choice!



The rainbow is cut using the Cricut cartridge Hello Kitty. I altered it (of course) by adding two more stripes of color cause the cartridge only cuts two colors. I cut all four colors out then trimmed them to fit the rainbow mat. I used some distress stickles to give it just a little sparkle.





The pot of gold is from a different cartridge but I can't remember the name of it. I looked at Cricuts site but couldn't find it so it must be retired. I cut one from black and one from white used the Gold Twinkling H2O on the white coins, cut them off and glued them to the black pot. Just needed a little shimmer.




Materials used:

Stampin' Up! Inks: Basic Black, Not Quite Navy, Always Artichoke
Bazzil basics cardstock: Spring Willow Dark
Blush Red Medium
Sunflower Medium
Yellow Green
Nautical Blue Dark
White
Print Paper
Tim Holtz Stamps
Rock Candy Distress Stickles
Cricut Cartridges
Accucut and dies
Twine

WOYWW #88

WOW! I had a couple of bits of good news yesterday! First Lyn at Spyder's Corner sent me a blog award! Thank you Lyn! Secondly I was one of three chosen to receive product from StampersAnonymous that was unveiled at CHA last week. They were giving away products on Tim's blog so Jan at StampersAnonymous had everyone on the Creativeblock-StampersAnonymous group on Yahoo! comment on what they would like from CHA and she picked us out of all the people who posted. I can't wait to see what she sends!!

This is WOYWW and my desk has definitely been busy this week! Not that you would notice now with old fat cat Stormy lying there like she owns the space. I went to get a cup of tea and a cookie and when I came back this is what I found!


I have been working towards getting my class projects together for this month and so far so good. The tag class for last night was canceled due to the forecast of inclement weather...more snow headed our way I am afraid and and so the class was rescheduled for Thursday. I hope it melts enough so that we can make it into the store because there are eight people signed up and I have made eight kits and there won't be another time to do it before Valentines! The tags all turned out nicely and you can see them here! The next class is my layout of the month and that group is scheduled to meet on 19 February. I have posted that layout and it can be seen here! The kids class meets on the 22 February and we will be making a chipboard book. I can't wait to see what they come up with cause I am going to put stickers and paint and chipboard out and let them go. I want to see how creative they can get!! My example for them is here.

My desk has a couple of tags I am working on for my tag class next month at WLS. I have been working my way through A Compendium of Curiosities by Tim Holtz and several people have asked me to show them how to do it. Most everyone coming to my class has the book and we are learning together. A work in progress so to speak.



I was asked yesterday about how many stamp sets I own...and my anwser is I don't know. Hundreds I am sure. Here is a picture of one of three shelves in my craft room and this one has close to 200 sets on it. Unlike some of my fellow stampers I can't get rid of any of them so I take them off of wooden blocks and EZ mount them so I have room for more. Get rid of stamps! It's like being told I need to get rid of my children, my critters, or my husband...I just can't do it. One of these days when I get my craft room straightened around I will take pictures and let you see all the stash but it is too big of a disaster for me to ever post it on the blog right now!




If you want to join in with all us crazy women who traipse around the globe from the comfort of our desk chairs snooping into other crafter's blogs and work spaces head over to Julia Dunnits site Stamping Ground and see how you can join in the fun.

Blog award

Thank you so much!! Lyn from Spyder's Corner has sent me this very nice award! It's always nice to think that other people out there in cyberland were thinking of you and like what you do! In accepting this award, I need to tell you 8 things about myself and then pass it on to 8 others.

I will be quick listing my 8 things:

1. I love to do crafts! DUH!
2. I like to go to craft shows and see what others are doing.
3. I like to go to crops and workshops and network with other peeps!
4. I love chocolate and coffee...sometimes together.
5. I love being a wife and a mother. Now I love being a grandmother.
6. I liked being a nurse for 36 years but I am happy now to be retired.
7. I like to read paranormal/scifi books. I am on Team Jacob...I am a letch!
8. I love to garden in the summer and hate snow!

Okay I am passing this along to these 8 people because their blogs inspire me to greatness!!

1. Heather Graff at The Wayward Gypsy http://waywardgypsy.blogspot.com/ Lots for jewelry and crafty stuff. Foods
2. Cardiarian at Cardarians Happy Space http://cardarianshappyplace.blogspot.com Lots of crafty stuff
3. Janelle at Stamp and the City http://stampandthecity.blogspot.com/ Cards and scrapbooks
4. Barbara at An Art Soulhttp://anartsoul.blogspot.com/ Crafty stuffs and jewelry
5. Christy at Creations by Christyhttp://creationsbychristie.blogspot.com/ Cards and other fun stuff
6. Denise at Stamping Vacationhttp://stampingvacation.blogspot.com many different challenges and fun crafts and cards
7. Keryn at Poppy Dog http://mckinkle-poppydog.blogspot.com/ beautiful cards
8. Stephanie at Stamp with Stephanie http://stampwithstephanie.blogspot.com/ Fun stuff, cards. Love watching her craft room grow.
9. Michelle at Stamps, Paper Scissors, and Donkey Smiles http://donkeysmiles.blogspot.com/ Michelle is special and I am imspired by her strength and perseverance over the past year with the medical problems she has had. I love her art and she makes some of the nicest cards on the face of the earth. I love her critters.

I know! I can't count. Go check out these blogs! They are awesome!

Valentines tag class on Feb. 8

Thought I would re-post the pictures of the two Valentines tags done using Tim Holtz style and show you the third tag we will be doing in the class on Tuesday. All the techniques I used were taken from A Compendium of Curiosities, by Tim Holtz.

The first tag is the last one done and I really like the way it turned out. I first did a wrinkle free distress and then distressed around the edges in prepping the tag. I stamped and embossed the Cupid and the hearts next then added the red heart felt ribbon and the flower. I love the Adore addage tag held up on a memo pin!



The second tag actually has 3 layers of distressing around the edges and then I stamped the definition of love in layers. Embossed the To My Valentine using red ink and clear embossing powder. I then stamped in two colors of tan/brown the flourishes around the edges. The ribbon is layered after being colored with the distress ink and dried. The picture on the pin is from the paper pad, added a flower with a brad. Rock Candy Distress Stickles around the edges. I tied ribbon to the top and hung a philosophy tag and red acrylic bead from a Trinket pin.



Last but not least this tag was covered with paper from the Seasonal paper pad and then distressed around the edges. Ribbon was distressed allowed to dry and applied to tag. I cut the red hearts out of cardstock and mounted them on grunge board to make them stronger, popped them up with foam dots, and then applied Rock Candy Distress Stickles to make them sparkle a little. Ribbon was attached to the top and a clear red bead and a word stick finished it off.



Materials Used:
#8 manila tags
Distressing ink, Barn Door, Worn Lipstick, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, Black Soot
Distress Stickles Rock Candy
Embossing powders
Flowers, beads, and brads from my stash
Ribbon some from Stampin' Up! and some from my stash.
Paper: Seasonal Paper Stack
Grunge Paper
Addage Tickets, Memo Pins, Trinket Pins, Word Sticks, Philosophy Tags, Muse Tokens

Kids Class project Feb 22, 2011

One of the classes I am teaching this month at WLS is a class for the kiddo's on the 22 February. Last month I had 5 girls show up ranging in age from 5 to 8 years of age. The class ran about an hour and a half and they laughed and had a bang up time making a Valentine picture book. I hope they have as good a time this month cause it is going to be a little more work.



I cut the book out of chipboard on the Accucut and decided to keep it fairly simple but different shaped for interest. The little owl and flowers on the front are also cut out on the Accucut. The primary colors appealed to me and IF I have a boy to sign up then there are enough 'male' colors that he won't feel like it is too girly!






I am planning on setting out baskets of 'goodies' for them to choose from. There are some school day stickers and I have picked up a couple pages of print paper that I have cut in to squares and circles to glue down and there is all sorts and colors of ribbons and fun things to use.






I am sure the kids will focus on stickers and gluey stuffs but that's okay it is their book to do with as they wish. I talked with some of the kids last week and they are really into 'art' and want to paint, glue, draw and just have fun.


I have asked the parents/grandparents of the kiddos to bring 6-10 pictures that they don't mind being cut up and pasted in the book. I also asked that they only help 'a little' because I want the kids to be creative and use their imaginations to decorate.






I thank heavens that the parents/grandparents are agreeable to this because with an age span this young I couldn't do the class by myself. I don't think it will take much to get the kids into the art work. It is fun!

Pay It Forward! I need 5 takers on this!

I posted a Pay It Forward post a while back and only got one taker on a 'freebie' giveaway. I saw this idea again today on Susan's blog and decided to try and see if I could get some takers this time. It is a fun thing to do...check it out.

The idea is to send one of your creations, it could be a card, a tag, a small book or anything you have made, to the first 5 people who leave comments on the post and then you post about it on your blog and Pay It Forward.

I have one of a surprise coming to me from a friend whose blog I saw this on. Now it is my turn to Pay It Forward…

If you would like to receive something from me please leave me a comment and your email address and I’ll contact you for your mailing address. The first 5 people to leave a comment on this post will receive one of my creations soon. Then YOU have to Pay It Forward!

Thanks for looking...

Vickie
okienurse

WOYWW #87 February 2, 2011

Oh my goodness...I read the ladies comments about how fast the week flies around between WOYWW's and this week I feel like I just posted #86 last night!! WOYWW you say, whats that? Check out Julia Dunnit's blog, Stamping Ground and see what I am talking about!

Here is my desk this morning! I was working on getting a couple tags ready to take over to the store to give to Leslie for the class and it is a total mess. I don't do beading but my daughter has helped me with learning how to fix simple drops for my cards and this is part of my equipment to do that with.
Here are the tags I was working on last week when I took my picture. I have made three but...I just don't like the third and so I put it in file 13 and I will make another tomorrow to take.

We just had a major winter storm roll through dropping about 5 inches of snow on top of ice. I doubt if I will be getting out today at all. I will just spend time traveling in virtual space looking at everyone blogs and beautiful weather down south.