Cropping....

I actually went cropping yesterday at the Scrapbox.  It was the first time since the Scrapbox opened 3 years ago that I have gone to a crop there.  I rarely crop outside my house.  I find the whole process of packing up my stuff, preplanning what I am going to work on and then putting everything back where it belongs afterward, a pain in the royal behind.  There is also the fact of finding the time in between work, the kiddos activities and the business of every day life, is difficult to do.

Since I was off work this week, the kids daycare was open and my lovely husband was working, I decided that I was going to go and crop.  There was nothing stopping me from taking a "me" day.  I had a great time.  The ladies were hilarious and I even managed to get two layouts and a card completed.  My mojo is flowing and I am feeling creative again.

Materials used:  Basic Grey pattern paper, BoBunny pattern paper, Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock, dictionary paper, Tattered Angels glimmer and chalk mist, Distress Ink, Tim Holtz stamps, Basic Grey stickers, Prima vine, roses and leaves, misc. metal embellishments.

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, BoBunny patterned paper, Prima patterned paper, doily border, Imaginesce rub-ons, dictionary paper, Distress ink, American Craft Thickers, Kaiser bling, and Basic Grey stickers.

I need to try this more often....at least more than just the September retreat which I am already counting down the days too.  It really does jump start my mojo.

If you are wondering about the card, I am afraid that you will have to wait until next week when it is revealed at Lets Capture Our Memories Blog.  There will be a new sketch unveiled...and it is one of mine. :-)

Happy New Years Eve....I can't believe that 2010 is almost gone.  It is scary how fast the years seems to be passing now.  I guess it is one of the downfalls of getting older.  One year when you are 10 is only 1/10th of your life and it seems like such a long time but when you are older...than say 40ish...it is 1/40ish and one year seems much shorter.

Yay....all finished!

I managed to get all the layouts completed for my mother-in-laws yearly album last night.  That is a huge weight off my shoulders and it was completed in time to head out with the rest of the Christmas presents today.  I still have a few things left to do on my Christmas list but it now seems more manageable.

My card was posted over at Lets Capture Our Memories blog yesterday.  This week's sketch is a fun one so if you are interested, hop on over there.  I really enjoyed doing the sketch.

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, Basic Grey pattern paper, Pink Paislee pattern paper, Penny Black stamp, Tim Holtz stamp, Copic markers, Memento ink, Distress ink, Prima bling swirls, Krylon 18kt gold leafing pen and lots of pop dots.

Also, mark this in your calendars:

I can't wait.  It is going to be so much fun.  I have never been one of the stops on a blog hop before so I am looking forward to it.

I can't believe that it is already Wednesday and that Christmas is only 3 sleeps away.

Holiday Season

The holiday season is usually a fairly quiet time around our household.  Most of our family lives at least 7 hours or more away from us and if you live in Canada, you are familiar with all the things that can happen on a winter road trip.  We decided that while the kiddos were young that we would not be making the long road trips in winter.

So even though our holidays are quiet, I am still feeling a little overwhelmed with the to-do list.  I have an 8x8 album to finish for my mother-in-law.  16 layouts are still left to be completed -- all of which have to be done tonight.   Tomorrow is the last day that I can ship out the Christmas gifts if I want them to be there for Christmas day.  Oh yes, the Christmas gifts for the family...none of them are wrapped so that is also on the to-do list for tonight.

As I am looking at this list, I have decided that I need to be more reasonable in my expectations.  Do I really need to do any Christmas baking?  There are only 4 of us.  Maybe a quick trip to a nice bakery would be better.  What about make all these Christmas cards?  I love making them and I love giving them but I really don't have the time.  A nice store bought card will have to do.

 Speaking of Christmas cards, make sure to check out Lets Capture Our Memories blog.  The card sketch for this week will be revealed today.  I completed a nice Christmas card....one of the few that I managed to complete this year.  Here is a little sneak peek:

Only 3 left to do...

Three more tags are completed so that only leaves three left to finish.  It is hard to believe that the 12 Tags are finished for this year.  The twelve days passed by so quickly.  It is also hard to believe that it is only 11 days to Christmas. 

It has been a busy couple of days.  I had meant to post these on Sunday but time got away from me.  My son had eye surgery yesterday to correct his crossed eyes.  Everything went really well and he is home.  Today is just going to be a rest day for him and hopefully a bit of a crafting day for me.  The only other plans that we have is a post op appointment with the surgeon this afternoon.

Back to the tags....I really enjoyed making the poinsettia for Tag #7.  Since I don't have the leaves die and I wasn't sure how the Spellbinder's would do cutting through the thick grunge board I was using, I decided to use some fabric Prima leaves as a substitute.

Materials used:  4x6 coaster, manila file folder, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Distress ink, Archival ink, Rock Candy Distress Stickles, grunge board, metal flower (I think it is from Imaginesce), Tattered Angels glimmer mist, and paint daubers.

I love the Prima leaves.  I use them quite a bit as filler in flower clusters on my layouts.

Tag #8 presented a more interesting problem since I don't have any of the holiday masks nor do I have any Christmas dies that I could use to make my own.  What I do have was a couple of sheets of the holiday grunge board.  I had used the large deer from the sheet on one of last years tags so I still had his negative image.  I traced the deer out onto a mask sheet and then cut it out by hand using an Exacto knife.

Materials used:  4x6 coaster, manila file folder, Distress ink, Archival ink, Making Memories metal element, gold embossing powder, grunge board, KaiserCraft rhinestones, Rock Candy Distress Stickles, paint dauber and misc. brads.

Tag #9 came together very quickly.  I had a couple of rosettes that I had made earlier that I hadn't used on a project yet.

Materials used:  4x6 coaster, dictionary paper, Distress ink, misc. buttons, Pink Paislee pattern paper, grunge board letters, Glossy Accents, Melissa Frances tinsel, Prima roses and Dollar store organza.

I am still contemplating what I am going to do about Tag #10.  I am going to have to do some substitution on this one as well.  Lots of thoughts are swirling around at the moment.

Two more down

Last night was a surprising productive night.  Especially when you consider that I wasn't able to get started on any of my projects until after 9:30 pm.  The kiddos were in full bed-time avoidance mode.  I managed to get two more of the panels completed based on Tim Holtz's Tags.  Now, I am only 4 tags behind. :p

My panel #5 is similar to his Tag #5 even though I had to do quite a bit of substitution.  One item that I haven't been able to get my hands on is Sparkly Fluff.  I used Styrofoam instead.  Basically, I rubbed two Styrofoam balls together and "grated" them.  The result is a Styrofoam particles that look like snow.  I was planning on adding in some clear glitter to make "snow" sparkle but decided that I liked the matte look better.  The stickled holly leaves add enough glitter to the panel.

Materials used:  Distress ink & embossing powder, Paint dauber, Stickles, Archival ink, Signo white pen, grunge board, Tim Holtz metal flowers, Tim Holtz stamps, manila file folder, and 4x6 coaster.

Panel #6 required a complete rethink.  I had very few items that he used on his tag.  As I was digging around in my stash, I found a grunge board snowman from a partially used holiday grunge board pack.  He was perfect to use as the basis of my panel. 

I tried to use all the same techniques demonstrated.  I think my favourite was the stamping on the embossing folder.  I can see a lot more cards in my future using that technique.

Materials used:  Distress ink, Paint daubers, Archival ink, Tissue paper, manila file folder, 4x6 coaster, miniature holly garland, grunge board, Spiga pen, miscellaneous red ribbon bow, Cuttlebug embossing folder and Stickles.

I am still debating on whether or not I am going to add in a face on the snowman.  I can't seem to decided which I like better.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to work on the other tags this evening.  Friday nights are fun food and movie nights so we will see if I even get one done.

Running a little late....

I am running late on projects as per usual.  I always have good intentions to get things completed quickly but I seem to need a deadline to actually get something finished.  I know that I have until the weekend after next to finish my mother-in-laws Christmas gift.  She already knows what she is getting since it has been the same gift for that last few years.  I do an album of the kids that show their progression during the year.  It is usually about 40 8x8 layouts.

So how many do I have done? If you guessed, zip, zilch, zero then you would be right.  I seem to be stuck at choosing which pictures I want to put into the album.  This is the part that I find the hardest every year.  When you take so many photos, it is difficult to limit it down to 40 or 45 photos.

So instead of working on the photos last night, I finished Tag #4 of Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas and started Tag #5.  I am not sure I like my #4 as much as the others.  The balance seems to be a bit off.  I think once it is added to the rest as part of the wall hanging it will probably work.  I will be adding other bits and baubles once it starts going together.

Materials used:  Melissa Frances pattern paper, stickers, and chunky glitter, Tim Holtz's facets, Prima bling, Gelatins bling, Distress ink, Ranger alcohol ink, 4x6 coaster, Bazzill cardstock, Maya Road chandelier gems, and miscellaneous beads.

Tonight, I am once again planning on tackling those photos but I have the sneaking suspicion that Tag #5 will call me instead.  I left it at the Stickle drying phase last night.

Happy Thursday...only 1 more day left of this work week.  Yay!

Number 3 is all done...

I had a fairly productive night last night.  I managed to get my mother's Christmas gift done which I am not going to post today.  I also finished Tag #3 of Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas and managed to get a start on Tag #4.

I was hoping today would be just as productive but no such luck so far.  Lots of little things that need to be done around the house have been distracting me.  I am hoping that I will be able to get back to it tonight.

Here is the next panel in my Christmas wall hanging based on Tim's Tag #3:

Materials used:  4x6 coaster, manilla file folder, Distress ink, Ranger paint dauber, Tim Holtz trim, Pink Paislee tinsel, Dollar store moss, tissue paper, miscellaneous button and bling, Melissa Frances sticker, Maya Road chipboard bird, Rock Candy Stickles and Grunge Board.

Since I didn't have any of the tissue paper tape in my stash, I made my own by stamped some white tissue paper that I had for wrapping gifts and tore it into strips.  I, also, don't own a bird die so I used a chipboard bird from Maya Road instead.

It is going to be interesting to see how all the these tags are going to fit together as a panel.  I have a few ideas for spacers to make sure that the portrait and landscape panels fit together.  I am just waiting to see how the rest of the 12 Tags are oriented before making a decision.

Don't forget that tomorrow is the reveal for this week's card sketch over at Let's Capture Our Memories Blog. 

Tag #2

I had hoped to share both my version of Tim Holtz's Tag #2 and #3 today but I am afraid that Tag #3 did not even get started last night. I sat down with my husband and kids last night for a chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone and promptly fell asleep to the sound of my husband's voice.  I must have been more tired than I thought since I woke up on couch this morning.  I usually wake up after a couple of hours and move to my bed if I fall asleep on the couch.  That was not the case last night.

So, here is Tag #2 or I should say panel #2 of my Christmas wall hanging:

Materials used:  4x6 coaster, manilla file folder, Distress ink, Tim Holtz stamps, Stampendous embossing powder, Glossy Accents, Ranger Alcohol ink, Dollar Store bling, Melissa Frances Chandelier drops, Making Memories Chandelier beads, Teresa Collins Blingage, black acrylic paint and unknown ribbon.

I altered the Teresa Collins Blingage accents with alcohol inks and black paint.  I found that it was too silvery and shiny for the tag.  Once I had muted down the metal component, I wanted to change the colour of the jewel in the center from clear to red.   It has a more vintage look to it now.

Hopefully, I will be able to share Tag #3 and #4 tomorrow.  I am planning on spending as much time as possible today crafting. 

A Bit of News

I have a little bit of news to share.  I have accepted a 3 month Design Team position on the Card Team for Lets Capture Our Memories.  I have been a member of their forum since the beginning of the year and have been really inspired by all the talent that their members display.  They are a friendly, welcoming bunch.

My first DT assignment will go live next week on the their blog.  I am pretty excited to be part of a DT again.  It has been a while since I have agreed to take on anything like this due to every day life time constraints.  I don't like letting people down so I don't commit to something unless I am sure that I can make time for it.  The next three months are historically pretty quiet.  It was the perfect time to take this on again.  Plus....I must admit I really needed the kick in the behind to get some cards done. ;-)

Tim Holtz is once again doing his 12 Tags of Christmas.  I participated last year and learned a few new techniques and tricks.  This year, I have decided to follow along again but I am not going to be making tags.  I decided that I am going to make panels from 4x6 coasters which I am going to join together to make a wall hanging instead.

This is the first panel:

 Materials used:  4x6 coasters, Manila file folders, Cuttlebug embossing folders, Tim Holtz stamps & grungeboard, pipe cleaner, Prima wired stars (stars removed), embossing powder (red, green & black), DecoArt Snow Writer, miscellaneous glitter, q-tip, transfer plastic, & Distress ink.

Not bad considering both the house and the fence are cut out by hand.  I raided my sons stash of pipe cleaners to make the wreath.  I wonder if he will notice. :-)

I am still not sure about the rings.  I was originally planning on joining the panels with the rings but I think I am going to join them with ribbon or twill instead.

Tonight I am going to tackle Tag #2, work on my mother's Christmas gift and enjoy the fact that my fingers are stained with ink and covered with paint.

Babbling....

Yep...that is what I am doing today.  Just babbling.  I don't really have anything creative to post so I thought I would just babble for a bit.  You can just ignore this post if you wish.

I haven't had much of a chance this week to work on anything and I have lots to do -- a yearly 8x8 album for my mother-in-law, a Christmas gift for my mother (no more details than that just in case she is reading this), my Christmas cards, and a few other projects that will remain nameless at this point.  Alas, I have worked on none of these this week.  Why you ask?  Well, my in-laws are coming for a visit this weekend.  Since I have been so busying creating the last few weeks, my house work has suffered and suffered badly; and, if I am truly honest, I have never been one for housework.  I do what is necessary when I have to; but if I can put it off for awhile, I will.

Having said that though, even I would be ashamed if anyone came to visit with the state my house has been in lately.  A fellow scrapper may understand the piles of pattern paper sitting on the floor, the ribbon hanging off the backs of the dining room chairs, and glitter covering every horizontal surface but anyone else will most like roll their eyes. So, I have been cleaning, sorting, and hiding things away.  Of course as I have been cleaning, mojo has decided to visit.  I have all these ideas floating around in my head and no time to implement any of them.

Today is my anniversary.  My husband and I never 'officially' tied the knot but we do mark the day we first started dating which was 22 years ago today.  Scary to think that I have been with this man for half of my life so far.  There is a silly story about how we met but he tells it so much better than I do.  I will have to find the story that he wrote about it....all about the red-headed monster and the magic blanket of warmth.  You can already see where the story is going....

Well, it looks like I am running out of things to babble about.  Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.  May your day be full of turkey and pumpkin pie.  To all my Canadian friends, happy Thursday...only one more day left in the work week.

Hopefully, I will have something more interesting to share next week.

Just a Few Cards...

Jenn from the ScrapBox asked me to come up with some cards using the Tim Holtz Rosette die recently. (She also asked for some Christmas cards using Copic markers...I still owe her those.)  I usually make my rosettes by hand so I was interested in see how the die worked.  Was it going to be worth the money to pick up the die when making them by hand wasn't that difficult?

Well, I must admit it was very quick, relatively easy to put the rosettes together.  Jenn had mentioned that since the folding edges are perforated, it was best not to fold the edge more than once otherwise the fold could easily rip.  I thought I would test that out and sure enough, make sure you only fold it once.  The other thing I would recommend is that you glue the rosette to a base scrap piece of paper just to help hold everything together.  It is more stable when it is sandwiched between paper.

I also combined the cards with the challenges for the LCOM Scrap Race.  I might was well kill two birds with one stone so to speak.

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, Echo Park pattern paper, Melissa Frances chipboard, glass glitter and mica flakes, Gold embossing powder, Krylon Gold leafing pen, Tim Holtz Rosette die.

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, Kaiser Craft bling, Micheal's $1.50 bling, Echo Park pattern paper, Pink Paislee pattern paper, India Ink, Krylon gold leafing pen, Spellbinder Fancy Labels and Snowflake dies, Tim Holtz Rosette dies, Marvy Scallop Circle punch.

Materials used:  Bazzill Cardstock, Pink Paislee pattern paper, Making Memories pattern paper, Distress Ink, Liquid Pearls, Stickles, misc. brads, Tim Holtz rosette die & stamps.

So would I buy this die?  Yes, I would.  Would I get a lot of use out of it?  More than some of the other dies that have come out recently.  It fits my style and it gets bonus points for being quick.

A Few More Projects....

I have actually produced quite a bit in the last little while.  Joining into forum challenges tends to get me motivated and the Scrap Race at LCOM has certainly motivated me.  I still can't believe that I haven't been eliminated yet.  I am so slow.  Anyway....here are three of the layouts that I have completed lately.

The first one is dealing with "me"...one of the most uninteresting topics but at least I can make it visually interesting:

Materials used:  American Crafts Just Write journalling cards & thickers, Bazzill cardstock, Prima flowers & masks, Tattered Angels glimmer mist, Ranger Distress ink, Tim Holtz stamps, & Kaiser Crafts bling.

I love how the American Crafts journalling cards looked after they were crumpled, distressed and inked.

The second one is based on a sketch from the Creative Scrappers.  I believe it was sketch number 54 if I remember correctly.

Materials used:  Bazzill Kraft Cardstock, Core-dinations cardstock, Graphic45 pattern paper, Websters Pages Trim, American Craft Just Write journalling card & thickers, Prima felt & bling swirls, Copic Markes, Tattered Angels glimmer mist, and misc. pattern paper scraps that I can't remember the manufacturers any more.

This photo is one of my absolute favourites of my daughter with her Papa.  Just to give a bit of context, my grandmother passed away in the Spring.  We went home for the funeral.  After the funeral, we all went over to my aunt & uncle's for a family barbeque.  My aunt & uncle had recently moved into a great place with a huge, really huge backyard that backed on to the river.  Papa and my daughter had walked down to the water to check everything out.  This photo was taken as they were walking back from the shore and she was telling him all about the flower she had in her hand while he as making sure that she didn't stumble on rocks.

This last layout is about an adventure trip the kids and I took in the Summer of 2009.  We went to a local farm that specialized in mazes -- all kinds of mazes.  My son is fascinated by them.  We spent the whole day searching for the minotaur.

Materials used:  Bazzill kraft cardstock, Graphic45 pattern paper, Daisy D die cut, Ranger Distress ink, dictionary paper, Prima flowers, Making Memories leaves, About a Girl letters, American Craft thickers, staples, and misc. beads.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Graphic45 paper?  If I haven't let me say, I just love them.  I love Victorian, Art Nouveau and Art Deco patterns.  I love the complexity and the colours.  I have such a hard time cutting into their papers.  I always want to frame them.

I have a number of cards to share as well but I will save that for another post.  Some of them were done for the ScrapBox as samples of what you can do with the Tim Holtz Rosette die.  I need to figure out what I actually used on the cards before I post them.  I did a boo boo and forgot to write down what I was doing as I was working on them.

I'm in Love.

I am in love with glass glitter.  I was lucky enough to attend a Melissa Frances class last night that was actually taught be Melissa Frances herself.  The class was making a number of Christmas ornaments out of her new Christmas line and chipboard, etc but the central focus was her line of glass glitters.  We were using it to cover chipboard, edge elements and just basically get a feel for working with it.

The first project of the night was completing this card using pages from her tag album:

We outlined one of the die cuts with the glass glitter.  As the card ages, the glitter will tarnish to give it a more "old-time" feel.  I love this stuff...and Mom if you are looking...look away or you might see something that might end up in your Christmas parcel...

We were suppose to make a number of small ornaments with small tags with scalloped edge kraft envelopes but due to an "oops"...they did not make the trip. Our ornament class turned from a pure do this, put that there type of class to a free-for-all technique inspiration class.  Melissa turned the class around and improvised.  This how you know a great teacher...one that can quickly think on her/his feet and you leave the class with all kinds of inspiration ready to scrap.

So using the original ornaments design as inspiration, we played and tried to come up with interesting cards or album pages using the same tag album pages that we made the first card.  There were some really cool projects made by everyone in the class and here are the ones that I completed using her designs as a base:

I really enjoyed this class and I wouldn't hesitate a second to sign up for another of her classes.  I know tonight I am going to be digging out the glass glitter and playing some more.

Happy Saturday.

A Mini Album....

I don't do mini albums very often.  I find they are hard to store around the house.  If I make one, it is usually because it is going to be a gift.  So imagine my face when I saw that the Week 3 Challenge for the Scrap Race at LCOM was to complete a mini-album in a Halloween theme.

I hummed and ha'd over this one for a while.  What to do?  What to do?  This called for some serious rummaging through my stash.  It had to be 6x6 or less.  I wanted  lots of visual interest.  There is no point in doing something that I am not going to like.

After much searching I found some great Bazzill big chipboard pieces that were going to work perfectly.  Some Maya Road chipboard was added to the pile and then some transparencies.  Digging around some more, found some old coloured envelopes.  I was starting to see the album take shape.  Add in some book covers from 7Gypsies, Graphic45 paper and some Core-dinations cardstock and the album is getting more and more interesting.

It took a few days...{I am not much of a racer}....

Front cover:

Interior Pages:

I used an envelop to make the pocket for the journalling.

Both the round chipboard from the first page and this pumpkin are mounted on a transparency to make it easier for rings.  I wanted them a sufficient distance apart so that the book was a bit more stable.

Back Cover:

Now I just need to figure out whether I am going to keep it or give it to someone for Christmas. 

 Happy Monday.

Happy Halloween

Well, it did this last night....

You can blame it on her:

The Snow Queen has struck.  So if you see her being escorted by Commander Rex and they demand candy....well, I would suggest that you comply unless you want a particularly snowy winter this year.

Have a Happy Halloween!

A finished diorama....

Well Rascal managed to get his diorama finished.  Yay!!  He still has to finish up writing up the research neatly but that is just the fluff.

The subject of the diorama was any animal of his choice.  He chose une carcajou or wolverine.  Surprising, there is not much known about wolverines.  They are pretty solitary animals who can range up to 1000 sq. kms so they are a bit hard to study.  Helping him find the research was the hardest part.  We made a number of trips to the library, the Museum of Nature and the bookstore.   We read lots and lots of websites.  Eventually, he was able to come up with what he wanted to show.

As for making the actual diorama, the only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to make the wolverine out of pipe cleaners.   I, being the A type personality that I am, had to learn to keep my ideas to myself and just help him figure out how to realize what he wanted.  Believe it or not, the only help that he needed from me was a drive to the Dollar store (a bit of cash) and lots of time to holding on to things while the glue dried.

I am pretty impressed at how well it turned out and hopefully his teacher will like it too.

As for my own crafting, I completed this layout over a week ago but I have been sitting on it.  It was for a challenge for LCOM's Amazing Scrap Race.  I was waiting for the reveal over at the site before I posted it.  The challenge was a fairly simple one.  Use a photography that was in black & white and over 10 years old.  The subject of the layout had to be something that you were thankful for.  That was it.  Everything else was at our discretion.

Materials used:  Pink Paislee House of Three pattern paper, Bazzill cardstock, Everlasting Keepsakes Framedangoes, Tattered Angels glimmer mist and glitter glaze, KaiserCraft bling, Basic Grey rubon, Prima flowers and packaging, American Crafts thickers and unknown ribbon.

All the little flowers were made using the Martha Stewart hydrangea punches.  Each flower was dry embossed to give it dimension.

I am actually working on a challenge for the Scrap Race tonight.  I have Challenge #2 completed but I need to finish the "special assignment".  I am just waiting for the kiddos to head to bed...or at least upstairs so I can take over the dining room table.  Hopefully mojo will stick around for a bit.

Ugh...Yet another Monday....

I really, really hate Mondays.  It is not that I hate going to work.  I like my job for the most part.  Of course, there are things about it that I don't like but there are things about it that I love so it is not the reason that I hate Mondays.  It is also not the fact that Mondays are the start of the week nor is it the fact that it marks the end of my freedom from responsibility. 

Nope...the reason that I hate Monday's is the fact that nothing ever seems to go right.  It is the day the Murphy plays havoc with me.  What can go wrong will....Mondays are the curse of lost keys, lost badges, missing lunches, forgotten agendas, crazy traffic, idiot drivers, car gas tanks suddenly on empty, and many other tiny annoyances.  Mondays are the day that I wish I could just hide under the covers and ignore the world.  But alas, that is not to be the case.

The one nice thing about Monday is looking back at what was accomplished over the weekend.  Most of this weekend was spent helping my son stay focused while he worked on his diorama and keeping my mouth shut.  I wanted to give him direction and help but I had to remember that this is his project and how he wanted to make it was totally up to him.  I must say that he is doing a great job.  It is almost finished and it looks like he is going to have it done well before for his deadline of Friday.

While I was biting my tongue, I worked on two projects of my own for the LCOM on-line crop.  One was a layout and the other was a Halloween decoration for the house.  When I was picking up the supplies for my son's diorama, I found a couple of bags of feathers -- really cool feathers.  I had an "Aha" moment.  I could see this layout in my head:

Materials used: Bazzill cardstock, BoBunny patterned paper, dictionary paper, tulle, feathers, ScrapFX chipboard, Perfect Pearls, Distress Ink, Archival ink, Berol Prismcolour pencil crayons, Prima centers, Stickles, Tim Holtz grungeboard, Ranger Paint dauber, iRock bling, miscellaneous feathers & flower stiles.

I made the tulle flower.  I have been seeing this style of flower popping up in embellishment packs recently.  Since I had quite a bit of tulle left over from my daughter's fairy princess tea party, I thought I would give it a whirl.  They are extremely easy and quick to make.

The other project was a pumpkin decoration for Halloween.

Material used: Dollerama wood pumpkin shape, Pink Paislee pattern paper, Basic Grey pattern paper, Bazzill cardstock, Distress ink, miscellaneous ribbon & feathers.

Those feathers made another appearance.  I am not sure where he is going to hang in the house yet but I think he turned out quite well.

Here is hoping that the rest of this Monday passes quickly and fairly quietly.  I think I am going to hide at my desk and keep my head down.  Hopefully, Murphy will choose to ignore me for the rest of the day.  I plan on doing more tongue biting tonight while my son puts the finishing touches on his diorama and hopefully I can work on a project or two myself.

More Retreat Layouts

Here are a couple more layouts from the retreat.  The first one has lots of hand cutting and I used one of the Marianne Designs dies.  The flower die is designed to run a thin ribbon through it.  There are two slits in each petal and the ribbon from the slits down through the central hole of the flower.

Materials used:  Basic Grey pattern paper, My Mind's Eye pattern paper, Echo Park pattern paper, Bazzill cardstock, Prima flowers, American Craft thickers, unknown glitter brads, Tattered Angels glimmer mist, Robin's Nest dew drops, Basic Grey stickers, Maya Road trinket pins, and ribbon from Fabricland.

This is how I will often find my daughter watching TV.  What I would give to be this flexible again.....

Materials used:  BoBunny double dot pattern paper, Jenni Bowlin pattern paper, Bazzill cardstock, American Crafts thickers, Prima flowers & doily, Studio G glitter glue, Kaisercraft pearls & bling, and for the life of me I can't seem to remember the brand of paper I used for the base.

I used a Martha Stewart all-around punch to make the border.  I backed it with cardstock since the lacy look got lost in the pattern of the background paper.  I also used the Cuttlebug quilling dies to make the leaves, the scrolls and the couple of the flowers.

I also made 3 cards at the retreat -- a Christmas card, an all-purpose card, and a little girl's birthday card.

Material used:  Bazzill cardstock, Kaisercraft bling, May Arts ribbon,

Here is yet another Marianne Design die.  I love poinsettias and I just couldn't pass up this die when I saw it.  I curled the petals to give the flower more dimension.

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, Prima flower, dictionary paper, clear glitter, and Tattered Angels glimmer and chalk mists.

The Spellbinder lotus pendant die helps give this card a water lily feel.  As you have probably noticed, I have been on a cyan kick lately.

Materials used:  Bazzill swiss dot cardstock, Copic markers, Memento ink, Kryon gold leafing pen, Prima Flower, Making Memories brad, May Arts ribbon, Prism Simply Smooth paper, & Ranger Stickles.

This last card is the one that came in second for the card sketch challenge.  We were provided with a layout sketch and had to interpret it in a card format.

That is all the projects that I have to share at the moment.  With October being a quieter month, I am am looking forward to being able to do more crafting.  I don't want to loose the momentum or the inspiration that I found at the retreat.

 Happy Thursday....only 1 more day to the weekend. :-)

Where did September Go....

Seriously, I blinked and it is the end of September.  How did that happen?

This month has been crazy busy with school starting, my birthday, my daughter's first class friend birthday party, other family birthday parties, ballet classes, my son's ji-jitsu, work, and travelling.  I only have one more weekend of commitments before I finally get to have a breather.  My parent's are arriving on Friday so this week has been spent re-organizing my tiny house to fit in two more people for the weekend.

Due to all the stuff going on, my crafting time has been seriously curtailed but the silver lining is that I attended a fabulous scrap retreat put on by Sweet Sentiments in Belleville this past weekend.  This yearly retreat is in a children's camp with a fabulous view of Lake Ontario. 

I managed to convince my friend Carmen to accompany me...it didn't take much to convince her. ;-)  She was looking for an opportunity to jump start her creativity just like I was.

We left for the retreat earlier than we planned and was able to stop at Ecstasy Crafts in Shannonville.  I love that they carry products from Europe.  The major score this time was a number of Marianne Design dies.  Wow....I wish I could afford to buy them all but I ended up limiting myself to 3 butterflies, 1 poinsettia and another flower die.

The crop ran from Friday night to Sunday afternoon with the crop room open all night for those individuals who were die hards.  The weekend went by very quickly but it was a very productive.  I ended up being able to finish 4 layouts, 3 cards and a Christmas ornament.  I even won the layout sketch contest and came in second for the card sketch contest.

This was the layout that won:

Materials used:  Bazzill cardstock, Graphic45 pattern paper, Pink Paislee pattern paper, BoBunny die cut paper, Riff Raff chipboard, Prima flowers, Wilton cupcake wrappers, Prima crochet doily, iRock bling, American Craft Thickers, pop dots, Martha Stewart all around punch, Prima packaging, dictionary paper, Tattered Angels glimmer mist and chalk mist.

  

It was the first project that I completed and after that mojo just flowed.  My second layout was about the kiddos and their cousin who looks more like their sister.

Materials used:  Making Memories die cut paper, Bazzill swiss dot cardstock, Prima flowers & doily, Wilton cupcake liners, Reminisce bling, Prima packaging, & Copic markers.

The butterfly in this layout is one of the Marianne Design dies.  I love the lacy look.  The only complaint I have with the dies is that it is not easy to remove the die cut from the die itself.

To be continued.....dinner is calling at the moment.

It is 1 am....

and I am still up.  I have been playing with Mix and Match Flower Outline Stamps.  I picked them up on a recent trip out to Heathers Stamping Haven.  I wasn't sure about them when I was looking at the stamps on the wall but when I saw some of the projects made with them....Cool! was the word that went through my mind.

I could see lots of fun cards and layouts...basically just stamp on whatever pattern paper I wanted a flower.  Cut out.  Give them a bit of dimension by pop dotting and curling them with a knitting needle.  Lastly, glam them up.

Naturally, there are all different styles and sizes of flowers, different centers and leaves.  Oh yes, another reason to be broke.  So I picked up four stamps.  I figured I could start with 3 different styles and sized flowers and one set of leaf clusters.  I would be able to play and layer to get different effects with these three.

So tonight, I dug out that enormously large bin of left over scraps of pattern paper and cardstock hiding in the corner of my dining room (I really need to learn to let things go).  I started to stamp and cut, layer and pop dot, glimmer and glam.....the verdict of this experimentation....I want to go back and get some more styles and sizes.

It is too late to take any photos tonight so I will share tomorrow.

On that note, I do have the card that I completed for the Great Impressions August Stamp of the Month contest to share:

This time I actually designed an interior panel.  I don't normally do much on the insides of cards other than stamp the sentiment but this time I did something a bit more elaborate:

Materials used:  Great Impressions stamps, VersaColour ink, Canson Watercolour Paper 90lbs, Tombow Markers, ClearSnaps glitter, KaiserCraft rhinestones, Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, My Little Yellow Bicycle Zinnia Jewels & Pearls, BoBunny Peacock Lane pattern paper, Spellbinder's dies, popdots, & Zip Dry adhesive

If you are wondering if my card won....not this time but I did had fun making it.  September's challenge is with Halloween stamps.  I am not sure about this one.  I am not big on Halloween cards so I might have to think up some kind of layout instead.

I really should be thinking about hitting the hay.

Good night and Happy Friday....No...Happy Early Saturday of a long weekend no less.  Three days to play, scrap and experiment.  Oh dear, starting to ramble.....