WOYWW #99 April 27, 2011

What a week this past week has been! I have been busy both with life and with my crafting and now when life comes knocking my first inclination is to head to the studio and lock the darn door!! It hasn't been the happiest of times and I am sure that it could be worse but right now I am in a poor frame of mind to judge...

On to what is on my work desk this week. I have been busy making cards for a swap and as soon as I can find them I will put them in a post for you to see. Some how in cleaning up my desk to move on to the next project I sat them down 'some where safe' and can't remember where I put them!! This is what my desk looks like today. I am working on ATC's for a swap at OutlawWomenScrapbookEmporium. This is an eclectic group of women who do all sorts of paper crafts and altered art...like this group...on Yahoo! Once you belong you can buy products from the Emporium at a reduced price. Check it out.

The ATC's were suppose to be related to spring so I stamped the flowering tree from the Stampin'Up! set Easter Blessings in VersaMark then embossed it with clear embossing powder on Crumb Cake card stock. After the embossing cooled I used painted bleach on the flowers to bleach the color out. Oh yeah! I used the Tim Holtz ATC die to cut the cards out. Nice huh.





The butterflies are cut from Graphic 45 Once Upon a Springtime paper using a Creative Memories mini butterfly punch! Oval and sentiment from Stampin'Up!













Here is the finished ATC...now don't make fun of me this is only the second one I have ever made and I think I am getting the hang of it but...sometimes small isn't my forte! I like the bleach resist and found that a lot of the card stocks don't necessarily just fade out but take on a different color when bleached so take care if you try it.








Now I bet I have you wondering what I am going on about with the WOYWW stuff. Head over to Julia's place The Stamping Ground and check out all the awesome sites we hop around (as in blog land hop)to each week and snoop into whats on their work desk this week. I am off to check it out. Have a great week!

New Mothers day layout

I am really getting into the Tim Holtz style grunge tags and altered items but I still have a love of bright colors and cutesy things and I have been trying to do a little of each style each month. This month I combined that love for the bright colors with vintage floral prints and flowers cut with dies to create a sentimental Mother's Day layout for my April layout of the month. I think for someone who doesn't scrapbook I have been good keeping up with my New Years resolution to make at least one 2 page layout a month. Now all I have to do is start putting the pictures with them!!








When I saw this designer print paper by Crate Paper from Emma's Shop Collection called Fabric I thought to myself that it looked like the fabric that my Mom or Grandma would have used to make a shirtdress out of. The mat on the left page is meant to hold a 5"x7" photograph of Mom!


















The three mats on the right page are cut to hold 4"x6" photographs.
I love the multiple hues of pink on the cream background and just new that I had to make something out of it. I think that this has enough nostalgia it is perfect for a Mother's day layout.










I really thought making the flowers would be a lot more work then what these turned out to be. I almost didn't try and just opted for the precut/packaged flowers. Don't think I will do that again. I think that with a little more practice I will be able to make them even better then what these turned out!


Materials:
Stampin Up! card stock, whisper white
Bazzil card stock, dark green, pink, hot pink
Designer paper by Crate Paper
Stampin Up! Bigz dies: Flower Daisy's #2, flowers(retired)
Stampin Up! scallop trim border punch
Martha Stewart Butterfly punch
Tim Holtz dies: tattered leaves, elegant flourishes
Stampin Up! stamp Messages for MOM
Stampin UP! Ink pads
Stickles
Brad and Dew Drops

Here Comes the Sun

Last year I took a class at WLS that was new mini edgy album with a clear acrylic cover. I didn't get the book finished until just last month so thought I would share it with you today. I really think the book is so retro and really cool and far out. The book is decorated with BoBunny’s Flower Child paper collection.



I used Glossy Accents to adhere the flower to the front of the clear cover and on the bling to make sure they were well protected. I have been making a lot of the mini books and giving them away but I just might have to keep this one for myself! I bought several extra sheets of this paper so I could make something else with it! Isn't it cute? Thanks for looking!

WOYWW #98

It has been a very busy and chaotic week around here this week. I am actually looking forward to Wednesday now cause WOYWW is my anchor to what day it is....not to mention how much fun it is to snoop around everyone desks! Stamping Ground is J. Dunnits blog and where you need to go to check it out!

My work desk is a disaster this week. I have all sorts of stuff left out that I have been using this week and haven't got it all put back where it belongs! I don't think anyone else here does that...or do they? I wouldn't tell...as you can see I staged this and cropped that part out of the picture!!

I wanted to share some things I received this week. I won some blog candy this past week from Charlene! It was some fun ribbon, two stamp sets, some brads, and other stuff. As I was putting the ribbons away in my ribbon bag I thought that I would show off the bag I bought to hold the bits and pieces. It has holes all around the clear walls and you just punch it through and viola! I don't know how they don't get tangled but they don't!

Secondly, I was talking with my daughter about wanting to do a art journal she gave me a big pot of Gesso, a Strathmore Sketch book, and some itty bitty watercolor canvases! Yay! I am off and running now!

I have been fairly productive this week, made 10 cards for a friend to use at church. Made several tags one of which is my first steampunk tag(maybe to cute for a real SP tag), made another tag for the Grungy Monday challenge, another tag for a friend that passed and I put a tribute on my blog, and did some more organizing of stash in my craft room. Still have a lot of organizing I need to today. I sounded like a sailor that had been at sea a year when I opened a cabinet and everything jumped out at me.

On non-paper craft stuff I did a little work out in the yard. I planted the planter around the patio with petunias, sage, begonias, and other stuff. I also planted some tomatoes, peppers, and onions in the garden. Tomorrow I am going to plant some peas, beans, and maybe some corn. I will wait a couple more weeks to plant the okra cause it doesn't like too cold of feet and the 100+degree weather is what it likes best! Payday I will buy more flowers to go in the flower pots and maybe get the swimming pool open so I can get so less stressful water exercise in.

Okay thats it for me I am going to start my tour around the blogs. Take care and have a good week.

Vickie

A tag and a story!

UPDATE: Freddie Haddad passed from this world April 17, 2011 at 10:40pm.

I met Leslie and Fred about 3 years ago when Leslie opened up her scrapbook store Whole Lotta Scrap on Main Street in Norman, Oklahoma. They are a really awesome couple and you can tell that they genuinely love and care about one another. We have spent birthdays, holidays, and other events with them and they have become part of our family. Leslie has taken to calling me Momma and she is my other daughter by another mother! The beginning of March Fred went to the doctor thinking he had some kind of stomach problems and was given some bad news. Fred had Stage 4 Liver Cancer that had spread throughout his body. It was so sudden it was a shock since Fred hadn't been ill and there hadn't been any other warning signs that it was growing.

Fred is in the hospital tonight and the doctors have told Leslie and the family that Fred most likely won't make it another 48 hours. I went to the hospital to visit with them for a while tonight and say my goodbyes. Fred was asleep...and chances are he won't wake from this sleep tonight. My heart breaks for Leslie. Fred will be missed by many!

I made this tag today thinking I would give it to Leslie and Fred when I went to the hospital today. I think I left it on a table...I can't remember now.



I think the closeup picture of this tag says it all about how Fred enjoyed life to the fullest! He loved and cherished his family and was loyal to his friends. Professionally he was respected by all his colleagues and known to deliver what he promised and took pride in his work.
Fred loved to go to sports events and NHRA races in Ft. Worth. Fred actually took a couple pictures of my husband Chuck at a race in TX before they even met each other last year. He loved going to his land with Leslie's Dad, Claude, and four wheeling and cooking out. Fred loved a good gossip and would come to the store when we had crops and would sit and joke and kid around with the women there about this and that and he got so comfortable just hanging with us we dubbed him and honorary scrapbooker! He liked nothing better then play pranks on some of the women and would enlist Leslie's aide to help him pull it off. Fred would come in and cook hot dogs and hamburgers for us when we had the OU/OSU football bedlam each year, one year smoking out the store. Everyone that knew Fred knew what a hard worker and how sincere a person he was. If you had a problem he had a solution! Freddie was always willing to help carry stuff and would make multiple trips to the cars packing out the too much stuff we packed in and when the women told him they needed lockers to store their stuff in he built them! He was priceless!

Yep, I think Fred Enjoyed the Journey...we enjoyed Fred!

Grungy Monday #3.2 color washes

After I posted the steampunk tag I went back and read the whole post over at StudioL3 and was going to look at some of the other tags. What I read disqualified the other tag because this is a product specific contest and you had to use the color wash put out by Ranger/Tim Holtz. Lucky for me that after I started making that tag I received a bottle of the Meadow Color wash from GloMom at ATT so now here is the tag I made for this challenge.


I think it turned out pretty cute. Steampunk to cute! I like them both!

Materials used:
Tim Holtz - Cling Mounted Rubber Stamp Sets - Good Thoughts - Reflections
Ink:
Tim Holtz® Distress Stains™ Broken China
Tim Holtz® Adirondack® Color Wash Meadow
Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pads vintage photo, walnut stain
Tissue Tape—Sketchbook
Hole reinforcers
Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch
Leaf punch
Stampin Up Card stock and embossing powder
Mulberry Paper Flowers(?Prima)
Ribbons

Grungy Monday #3 using colorwashes

This is an interesting challenge for me in that I didn't have any color washes because no place in town sells much in the way of TH products. My local scrapbook store has started carrying stuff because I have asked for it but she hasn't gotten any of the color washes and only 5 colors of the stains in so far. I 'made' a color wash using a faded denim ink and decided to also add Perfect Pearls to it to give it a "little shine." Well maybe a lot as is evidenced by all the sparkle and shine on the tag!! I also decided to pull out the Graphic 45 SteamPunk papers and try a little steampunk style on this project. What do you think? I think it has all the elements of steampunk and it really isn't as bright and sparkly in person. I think I like it.

It is a lot different then anything I have done before but then when I first started grunge I wasn't so for sure I was going to like it. love, Love, LOVE it now!




The girl and round tag is cut from the Steampunk pad and then I glued them onto a square fragment and a round fragment tag with the Glossy Accents.





The cogs are made with the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers die mini gears using grunge paper and chipboard. I sprayed the gears with the home made color wash. The roses are by Prima and the leaves are a Martha Stewart Punch. The ribbon and fibers are from my stash.

I wasn't from sure I was going to like this but I think it turned out nice!