But first….a coffee selfie.

This is a thing.  Did you know this is a thing?  Selfies are so 2014.  The #coffeeselfie is what all the cool kids are doing.

The string of photos I used for this layout are all from my daughter's instagram feed.  Clearly I need some grandchildren if it's come to this.  Scrapping someone else's coffee selfies. 

So check it out.  Those leaves on the background paper?  Weren't there when the paper came home from the Love is in the Details store with me.  I totally added them with a stencil and a Sharpie, some distress ink and a blending foam tool!  Pretty dang cute right??!

I also used some of the Prima Coffee Break die cuts, some Kaisercraft paper, Thickers and some Robin's Nest Dewdrops.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Days….

I've got another layout to show you!  

Paper Issues ran a online weekend crop awhile back and I was inspired to create a layout about me and something I love.

I used some Gossamer Blue kit supplies (the Happy Days card and the background text paper which is vellum!)

I also dug into my Studio Calico kits for a few bits - the wood veneer banner, badges, and circle label.

And some Amy Tangerine rub-ons came into play, as well as those yummy WeR Memory Keepers floral stickers!

So yes, days at the beach in Sarasota Florida, book in hand, hat on head, snack close by…just, the best.

Thanks for stopping by today!

More color swatching...

You might remember, a bit ago, how I was all about the color scheme pins on Pinterest?  My next favorite thing to that besides donuts are paint swatch combos from the Home Store of your choice.

Again, the hard work has been done for you!  So you can just hit play on your favorite podcast and start messing with paper and stuff.

 For both of these cards, I clear, heat embossed a stamped background image, and then using a sponge applicator, blended colors of distress ink onto the stamped image.  Because of the heat embossing, the ink doesn't stick and you're left seeing your stamping very clearly!  Then I added some die cut sentiments and even shared that label between the two cards.  Waste not, want not.  

These cards were part of our National Card Making day challenges last fall at Love is in the Details.  Good news is, I'm almost caught up with posting over here! 

3 Friends….time for a layout.

My son's Mother-In-Law is my good friend.  And has been for a lot of years.  So I'd long heard about her other good friend (since Kindy) and suspected we'd all mesh well.

I was not off base on that surmise and we proved it during a long weekend visit last year, where we toured a museum, and the Huntington Gardens, ate at the most aMAZing restaurant featuring molecular gastronomy!  Where we could only barely identify what we were eating.  I know right??  These are the  things that bond people for life!

We have in common, a love for literature, culture, gardens, decorating, languages and interesting food.  Oh and Downton Abbey.  And there is so much more I'm sure.  Which we will continue to discover the next time we are able to all be together again!

 I created this layout for a challenge (to use no card stock) issued by Paper Issues for National Scrapbooking Day last month!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Art Journal Cover...

I've been meaning to show you this for a long time and today is the day!

Last summer I bought some of the Peerless Watercolor paint swatches (and they are lovely, bee tea dubs!) but they are very pigmenty and they will get color where you don't want it if you aren't careful.  So even storage can be tricky.

I stumbled around the internet for awhile seeing what other people were doing with their swatches and decided I really like the small 8"x8" pocket pages with 4 pockets per page.  I found mine at Hobby Lobby.  (Baseball card storage pages would work as well).  

Well, a system that efficient needs a cute outside package right?  And wouldn't you know, I still had a nice chunk of the white Kraft-Tex left.  Remember Kraft-Tex?  From here and here?

To hold it all together I just threaded some cord through the binder holes and used a needle to pierce the cover and run through a couple of buttons on the outside.  

Because it's a paper fabric, it doesn't fray so the edges are just cut and left that way.  I started by stenciling some colors and shapes onto the Kraft-Tex, using gelatos and water color paints and then layered on more color and design by sponging distress ink with more stencils.  Where some color got too intense, I brushed white Gesso overtop to make it more transparent.  Then I added some random stamping, some fine line Sharpie drawing and hand lettering and that was about it.  Big impact with deceptively little effort!

I found the quote somewhere else on the internet and of course my practice efforts made me happier than what's on the actual cover, but isn't that always the way?

Thanks for stopping by again today!

Painting inside the lines...

Elizabeth Craft Peel Off Stickers.  That is all.

Seriously though, you want a fun way to easily create some beautiful cards without messy stamping or embossing? 

Then these are for you.

You can even alter the silver sentiment sheets to match your project, using colored Sharpie markers!

I've watercolored these cards, but you could easily use anything else, from colored pencils, to Copics, to watercolor pencils.

I posted these cards at Love is in the Details awhile back, and you can find more samples over there.

Grab Bag

Today is a complete mixed bag of cards to show you!  We're getting down to the bottom of the box of cards I've yet to post!

This first card is one I'm pretty sure I'd seen somewhere (probably Pinterest) and wanted to try for myself.  I used the Nellie Snellen Cherry Blossom embossing folder to create the background and then punched an assortment of tiny flowers.  Which I then individually edge-inked and rounded with a ball tipped stylus.  Because that's the sort of thing I consider gainful employment.  I glued them on and put rhinestones in the center because c'mon.  Rhinestones!

This card was a happy mix of a roll of MT washi tape and a sheet of floral vellum (Tim Holtz I think) that matched perfectly!  I cut those letters with the Tim Holtz Alterations dies and machine sewed them on.  The leaf die cut is a cut-file, downloadable from Wilna Furstenburg, cut on my Silhouette.

Next, a fast and simple card using supplies from one of my kit club packs.  Gold foil thickers can do no wrong!  Anywhere.  Anytime.

And these last two are cards that I used to demonstrate a stencil/embossing technique for a class at Love is in the Details, way last summer!  I taped the stencil securely onto a sheet of white cards stock and run it through the Big Shot with the rubber pads.  Leaving the tape in place I then used sponge daubers to apply distress ink in a variety of colors.  This part needs to be done carefully and sedately so as not to shift the plastic stencil and get color where you don't want it.

This was actually a really fun technique that I should try again!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Felted ball garlands

As promised way back here...

So when I saw something like this on Pinterest, and having just come from my local yarn store, where they have a lovely selection of wool roving for all your felt-balling needs, it became my life's ambition to make many many felted wool balls, in all the colors, and string them together attractively, as gifts for my girls.  Pinterest and the Yarn Shop Owner provided various tutorials for making said balls, and none of them seemed very hard.  That should have been my first clue.  I was under something of a deadline, so I didn't have a lot of time to experiment.  I needed success the first time round, and lots of it.

Then I made one.  

Ball, not garland.  

It's pretty cute but I realized this was going to take more time than I currently had.  So I wandered over to Etsy.  I found I could buy garlands already made up!  But that's not a very hand-made gift, when all your hand does is click on Add-to-Cart.  But then I found a whole tribe of people who have apparently mastered the felt ball art, and would happily sell me any number of loose balls in any color I desired.

When my "supplies" arrived, I promptly got to work, stringing ball garlands, leaving enough space to clip on photos, ephemera and anything else the recipient might like.  3 different color schemes for 3 different girls.  Here are some of the results!

Then it came time to figure out how to ship these without them ending up a tangled mess.  This is the method I decided on.  Easy to tuck into a large padded envelope and neatly organized and secured for the journey!

This was a fun way to "use up" some embellishments, and I left enough clothespin clips empty so the girls can add their own ephemera to the garland.

 I still plan to learn to make my own felt balls.  Since I still have a large bag of wool roving that may or may not have been flung into a corner at some point.  Or maybe Pinterest will show me something else I can try with roving.  Pinterest is handy that way.

Thanks for stopping by again today!

An experiment and some Copic play….

I'm up today at Love is in the Details, and this is what's going on over there.  Two cards.

This first, is the result of an experiment to see how well the first 3 months of Tim Holtz's Colors-of-the-Month play together.  

I smooshed the three colors, Cracked Pistachio, Abandoned Coral and Mermaid Lagoon, onto a craft sheet and used a wet paint brush to water color onto watercolor paper.  These distress inks are great for that technique!

I found that both the blue and green should keep their distance from red (as with any medium).  The mixed result is unappetizing.  However blue and green are quite lovely together and as long as they border but don't mix with, the blue and green, you'll have a very pretty combo.  Here is the card I made with the watercolored piece.

Next up is a card I made so that I could play with my new PoppyStamps Teacup Stack die.  

I picked these yummy colors to justify all the time I spend on Pinterest pinning food and flowers and decorating and color scheme pins!  Feel free to click that link and follow my board; I'm adding to it often.

I adhered the die cut to some Neenah Solar white card stock because that's the best paper to use with Copic markers.  10 out of 9 Drs recommend Neenah Solar White Cardstock to their coloring patients.  Oh yes, and I bust into my new My Mind's Eye, On Trend paper pad.  Gold foil dots.  The stamped sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp - Absolutely Delightful.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Now who would like a cuppa tea?

Folded Book Art

Hi everyone!  6 days blogging in a row!  I have another catch up post for you today!

Years ago when I was a small business owner and "maker" (to use the 2015 lingo), I would have people come by my craft show booth and see something they liked and go "I could make that" to their friends.  And then pull out their cameras and take a picture.  

It never bothered me because:

1. I knew they probably wouldn't.

2. For every one of them, there were 25 other people, happy to give me their money!

So last year, just before Christmas I walked into Barnes and Noble and saw this cool book.  And thought to myself, "I could do that!"and I pulled out my camera phone.  Only the difference was, I really would!  And off I went to the Good Will for some books.

Turns out, there aren't instructions and tutorials just all over Pinterest or the interwebs.  I really had to dig!  But I finally found a YouTube video that showed me how to make the pattern in Photoshop and I was off to the races!!

Basically, you need to make a bunch of lines through the whole icon you want to create.  And then you line up the book page with the line in the pattern, mark it top and bottom and fold there.  Really quite mindless once you get humming along.

I started with something nice and easy.  Like a heart.  

 Ok, good, now how about an alphabet letter?  J - for one of my kids!

After that I was unstoppable!  Multiple letters!  With multiple strokes in the letter!

I really had fun with these and hope to make a few more.  Or maybe next year, I'll just buy one.

Thanks for stopping by today!