Resurfacing...

I am so sorry I've neglected my blog for so long. First we all came down with a stomach bug. That knocked us out for several days, and it happened in the midst of another project that's been consuming my time. I'm trying to reorganize my stamping space. I've gone through everything and gotten rid of a lot of stuff, and I'm really hoping I will have better organization that will stick and help me keep the space looking nice all the time. I will show you photos when it's ready for public viewing, LOL, but I'm working on it in the middle of getting ready for club, Sarah's birthday, and my mom and stepdad coming from Indiana. I hope in the next week it'll be (at least mostly) done.


For now, though, I do have a card to show you. Our May hostess over at Our Creative Corner, Loretta Lock, gave us a really fun challenge this week: make a Mother's Day card with no flowers. I love a good challenge and this one really got me thinking! I'd seen this card by Vicki Webb and I thought a stencil with a sentiment stamped on top would be super cool, and would give me a place to start that didn't involve flowers.

I chose this stencil from the Elegant Trio set (sigh, remember Carte Postale?) and a monochromatic color scheme of soft suede and very vanilla. I sponged the ink over the stencil with a dauber, very lightly and unevenly to get a vintage look. Then I stamped the sentiment from All Holidays over it. For more vintage style I used the color spritzer and my soft suede marker over the panel. After using the ticket corner punch on both layers, I sponged all the edges for even more shabby goodness.

Early on I thought I wanted to use vanilla satin ribbon. I decided to keep the background simple to allow the image and the bow to shine, so I simply cut a panel of Thoroughly Modern DP to 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", sponged the edges, then wrapped three lengths of ribbon around it before adhering it to the vanilla card base. After I made my bow, I wrapped gold elastic cord around the center, leaving tails to string the Pretties Kit beads. To get the beads to lay flat, I tied the cord in a knot right under the ribbon knot, then strung the beads and knotted the ends of the cord. Tip of the day: Knot the ends of the cord twice or it won't be big enough to hold the beads on. The center of the ribbon didn't look so good with the gold cord wrapped around it, so I just covered that up with one of the larger half pearls from the Pretties Kit.

I have to say, I love how this turned out. I'll be using this for a club card this weekend and I hope my stampers love it, too. All the rest of you, go be inspired by all the other wonderful creations from the OCC team, and thanks for stopping by today!

Dreams

Today I have a project that represents something I'm doing for the first time - entering the monthly contest at Shelli Gardner's blog. (For those who don't know, Shelli is the CEO of Stampin' Up!) When I saw what this month's contest was, to use stencils, I immediately envisioned what I wanted to do. It took me nearly until the end of the month to find the time, but I'm pleased with the final result. I can see it framed in a shadow box and hanging on my studio wall, but for now this is what I have to show you.

The stencil I used is from the Folk Flower set that's in the mini catalog. This is a fairly large stencil so I imagined putting it onto a 12x12 background of some kind. I used sponge daubers and certainly celery, pretty in pink and rose red inks to create the design on very vanilla cardstock. I used regal rose textured cardstock with the scallop trim punches for the largest layer. I've used Gretchen Barron's tutorial for getting the right size layer to use with these punches, but Gretchen didn't go big enough for me on this project, LOL. So after some tinkering I figured out that a 9" square will work. If I get time I'll see if I can figure out some other large sizes - don't hold your breath on that one! *wink*

Here's a close-up of the flower - it's such a gorgeous image. I accented parts of the flowers with rhinestones from the Eggcellent Eggs kit, and I also used the rhinestone strips for the butterfly centers. My butterflies come from the Beautiful Butterflies die and the Beautiful Wings embosslit.

I wanted to add some kind of quote at the bottom. This stamp from Live Your Dream was perfect, even though it's (sniff) retired. I love the saying - I even have the Decor Elements version - and it fit nicely inside the oval frame die. I finished off with a nice big bow made from rose red stitched grosgrain ribbon. Since this is a large project it can take a serious statement from some wide ribbon, and I was happy to have a chance to make this fabulous bow!

I hope you enjoyed this stencil project. It was truly a joy for me to have time to create it. I really felt like I was making an art piece and I loved every minute that I spent on it.

Craft Fair ABCs

I am now on the other side of my only craft fair event of the season, and I would say that it went well for me, even though attendance was a lot lower than the preschool hoped it would be. I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite ABC projects that are new this year.

Last year my tumbled tile coasters were a big hit at the fair so I figured I'd better make some new ones. Click here for the SCS tutorial on making these. I was working on some other designs and trying to think of what else I could do, when I thought of the Vintage Ornament stencils I'd just received. They are in the Decor Elements catalog, and they are really wonderful! This one was the best size to fit on the tiles - it actually would have fit the whole thing but I liked it better offset a bit. I used daubers and Stazon ink in black cherry and jet black, then added the sentiment from Berry Christmas.

Here's another project - Christmas countdown blocks. I just loved how this set turned out. I made some of these when I first started doing craft fairs two years ago, but I never posted them here. I did find the idea somewhere but I'm afraid the link is long gone... I don't believe a tutorial was posted with that link, though, so here is mine.

1. From your local hobby store get two plain wooden blocks (I used 2" blocks) and an appropriately sized base, and sand edges.

2. If desired, paint base and edges of blocks with acrylic paint. These look great natural too, but I wanted to paint mine white. It took two coats to cover the base, but the blocks looked okay with just one.

3. Cover each side of your blocks with a square of designer paper (my squares are 1 7/8"). I used Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper. If possible, it's nice to use 12 different prints so you know two of the same print won't end up next to each other. But if you don't have that many prints to choose from, putting the duplicate prints on the same block will take care of that problem.

4. Add the numbers. You need the following: 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. My numbers are embossed chipboard numbers (naked chipboard by Basic Grey, embossed with old olive craft ink and clear EP). The easiest way to emboss these is to leave them in the chipboard sheet, cover them with ink, emboss, and punch them out.

5. Adhere the numbers to the blocks. In theory these Basic Grey numbers were backed with adhesive but I used Tombow mono multi just to make sure they would stay on. VERY IMPORTANT: It matters how you arrange the numbers so you will be able to make all necessary combinations. On one block you need: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and on the other block, 0, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8. Note that you need to make sure your 6 can be turned upside down to make the 9 - for that square use a paper that can be turned any direction and a number 6 that looks OK both ways.

6. I printed the "Days till Christmas" text on the computer onto whisper white then adhered to the base with sticky strip.

For selling these sets I wrapped them in clear cellophane and tied them with a ribbon. I only had two sets and both sold in the first half hour of the fair! So I'd say these were a hit and I'll definitely be making more. I think my kids would love them too, so I'd better make a set for them to keep!

Thanks for stopping by. I know I've been quiet this week - I was actually hoping to stamp today but I woke up with a horrible headache that hasn't really gone away. Maybe tomorrow... I thought I would at least share these projects today, and hopefully I'll be back with more cards soon!

Look what I finally have on my wall!

I've had these Decor Elements since I think March - considering how little time it took to actually put them up, I can't believe I waited this long! It took less than 45 minutes to put up the whole thing. I loved this tree paired with the sentiment as it's shown in the catalog - so I guess I don't win any points for originality but it's really perfect for me and my space. Sorry that the photos aren't the best - it was difficult to get good shots where there wasn't the greatest light and I was dealing with a corner in my way.

I put these up on the wall that's in the stairwell leading up to my office/studio, which you can sort of see in this photo. (I am lucky enough to work and stamp in a wonderful space over the garage that we finished out a few years ago, once we had Ben and my current office became the nursery.) I feel like the quote from Thoreau really expresses what stamping means to me - that after so many years and so many different paths, I think I've finally found what I love to do most and it feels wonderful to be pursuing this passion in my life.

Here are a couple other shots of the tree. It comes in six separate pieces that you put together on the wall to make the whole tree. (The sentiment is sold separately.)

Since this was my first time putting these on my wall, I have just a few tips.

1. Read the directions! and follow them! Let's just say that I started out making a big goof that fortunately I was able to fix.

2. Go sloooooooowly. I often found that the small leaves and letters didn't want to go onto the transfer sheet very easily. It took a lot of rubbing and sometimes even a bit of fingernail to get some of them to transfer initially. Once I figured out how to do it, I got better at it, but if you are a first-timer I would recommend a larger and less detailed image, LOL.

3. You can think of these a lot like rub-ons, on a much larger scale. I recommend trimming around the image somewhat so you have less extra backing material, and always make sure that everything is transferring as you peel off both stages of paper.

4. If you have them, it would be really helpful to have a large flat surface, like a table, available where you're putting these up. I managed to get by just holding the pieces on my lap and using the landing for my flat surface, but a table would have made it a lot easier, had I been able to use one where I was working.

I am sure I will be getting more of these now that I know how easy they are to do. If you want to see the catalog, you can click here - there is such a great variety of these available, as well as stencils. Try it - I think you'll love the result!