Animal Stories Color Sampler

I made a sampler with the new In Colors to give to the ladies in my card club when they picked up their new Stampin Up! catalog.

In color Sampler

Specs:
-card stock and ink: soft suede, dusty durango, crushed curry, melon mambo, rich razzleberry, and bermuda bay
-stamp set: Animal Stories
-accessories: crushed curry polka dot ribbon, scallop and circle punch, book ring

I also finished my 2nd card for my swap, here are two versions. I ended up going with the hello card for my final swap.

Friend to Friend

Specs:
-card stock and ink: soft suede, dusty durango, crushed curry, melon mambo, rich razzleberry,
-stamp sets: Animal Stories, Teeny Tiny Wishes
-accessories: Big Shot, harlequin texture plate, crushed curry polka dot ribbon, staple

Hello

Specs:
-card stock and ink: soft suede, dusty durango, crushed curry, melon mambo, rich razzleberry, bermuda bay, whisper white craft ink
-stamp sets: Animal Stories, Teeny Tiny Wishes
-accessories: Big Shot, harlequin texture plate, brad, word window and modern label punch

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Autumn Wishes and Sympathy

I’m participating in a small swap using the sneak peak sets and the new SU in colors.
My first card could work as a masculine birthday card or sympathy.

Specs: (all supplies Stampin Up!)
-card stock: crushed curry, very vanilla, soft suede
-ink crushed curry, soft suede
-stamps: Autumn Wishes, Teeny Tiny Wishes, Sanded Background
-accessories: word window and new modern label punch, brads

Here’s the 1st version of the same card it was okay but it wasn’t really ringing my bell.

Things I’m in love with right now: the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set. It has 28 greetings, they fit in the word window or modern label punch perfectly! Love that I can have nearly any type of sentiment in one stamp set! I’m also loving the new in colors especially Soft Suede, it may be my new go to brown color!

So there’s one card done now, I have to come up with one more……….

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how to stay organized

I hate to brag, but I admit there are some things that I do better than most. No, it’s not organizing. It’s procrastinating, I am a world champ! My craft table has looked like someone dumped a garbage can all over it for longer than I’m going to admit (maybe over a couple weeks). I just look at the piles upon piles and can’t work up to uncover my desk. So yesterday while the kiddies were playing I started. But then I got sidetracked by an empty paint can and a file holder.
So I grabbed the Mod Podge and paper. And made this.

Yes, I did it right on top of the pile of other stuff.

I told my hubby the other night I needed a couple of more shelves. And he asked “do you need more shelves or less stuff?” My answer was both. But he’s right I do need less stuff because when I want to sit and make a quick card or scrap page I can’t because of my mess. So I made a list of what I do on the desk and what I use all the time.

There’s another reason why I really need to get this under control: a job. I am interviewing for a few high school science teaching positions for this fall. I have mixed feelings about going back to teaching which I may get into later. But I know that going back to teaching after being home with the twins for 3.5 years is going to be a transition and crafty time will be pretty limited.
Now I am sorting, making hard choices about what to keep and what to donate/toss, and what to put away that I may come back to.
My steps:
1) make a list of what I most often do at my desk and the tools I always use.
2) take everything off the desk and shelf, put in boxes.
3) wipe down everything with a baby wipe-really gets all the paper bits and dust!
4) start putting back the things on the list
5) figure out what to do with rest

I am only on step 3, I will post my other steps later!

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Creating Small Bits of Art

In between paper crafting, chasing kids I’ve been trying to get back to painting and work my way through a pile of 4×5 canvases that I bought for a deal. I admit I may not be the best or even medium artiste but these have made me happy and I’m being brave sharing this online. Yay for me!

First up: Daily Bread

Starting point was vintage hymnal sheet music. I was hoping to find “How Great Thou Art”, my favorite hymn of all time but didn’t have it in my stash of stuff.
This piece is a story of the crashing waves of the ocean and how it seems you can really feel God’s power and wonder at work. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen near enough.
Specs:
Modeling Paste applied with a palette knife over the sheet music, then acrylic paint applied after drying in layers, wiped and applied a few times. One cool trick I tried was spraying my stampin mist on the semi dry paint layers and wiping off. Gave a cool effect to the colors. Honestly there was a lot of brushing and wiping and layering for such a small piece! To finish it off I applied matte medium on the entire piece, used a pointy stick to add a bit of detail on the wet medium and let dry.

Second: Be Happy

Starting point was a dictionary page, applied layers of watered paint (yellow ochre, sage green, sap green, burnt umber) wiping some off here and there. The flowers are inspired by zinnias with their big, round, pouffy, happy, blooms. Found in my scrap box the vellum piece with the quote from Tolstoy. Then because the piece seemed old-fashion looking I added a strip of white card stock punched with the SU eyelet punch.

Third: A Tree

Starting point was also from sketches I’d done of large Elm trees at the park downtown. I love big old trees that remind me of the cottonwood trees my great-grandfather planted on the family farm where I grew up. As a girl my grandma showed me pictures of how the home place looked with the little trees planted. And I would marvel at these big massive trees where a swing was hung from. I’ve been playing with a few ideas of a family tree canvas but different from a traditional family tree. The background paper is from my scrap box, an paper from 7 Gypsies (at least 4 years old), tree painted, layered with words cut from another scrap of paper.

I have a couple of more to share but I feel that they need a bit more something.

Have a great day!

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Tuesday Morning-rolling with things

With my little girl still in bed, daddy gone to work, my little guy and I had some quiet time together. When I came downstairs after getting dressed I couldn’t find my little guy. So I looked in the back yard and this is what I found:

My little guy with all of his metal toys on the glass patio table. I had a second to think, no! But then he was so happy and just driving and loading them that I just rolled with it.
There’s a story with all these old toys. Our last trip to Montana, my father in law was packing his shop to move and he got all of his old trucks down. He gave Jack a few of these really old toys. The old ones were his as a little boy and my husband played with these all the time as a little guy. My father in law can be a real softie and told me the stories of each of the trucks. Some of the newer ones he found at the old dump when his kids were little. They didn’t have any money, young couple, 1960′s, two little kids, so he was always on the look out for things he could fix for the kids. I wrote some of the stories down, I’m thinking I’ve got a couple scrapbook pages waiting to be made. Maybe a mini-book dedicated to these old toys?

Now, some of these toys are probably collectors items. But my father in law wanted his son to play with them and his grandson to play with them. Who cares about collecting stuff just to collect?
(I really need to remind myself to not collect just for the sake of collecting.)

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finding little worlds on a monday morning

This post on Shutter Sisters inspired me to grab my camera and find something special in my backyard at this moment. When I first looked at my backyard I thought there was nothing special just a lot of kid toys, grass in serious need of mowing, beds in need of weeding, and bushes needing a trim. Then I looked down and found tiny mushrooms (since we’ve had more rain than we normally get) and thought of little worlds. And as I crouched in the wet grass I remembered when I was a little girl and I thought mushrooms were a magical place where teeny tiny fairies lived and how I liked to play in the old lilac bushes in our yard where it was a special little world just my own. Funny how something so simple can spark a sweet memory.

Just a reminder that there is always something special to find.

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Vote for your favorite page and make the most of your time!

Big news!
Time is short, life is busy, and we all have too many things we should/would/could do if we had the time! Scrapping for me has been one of those things I used to do lots and in the last year or so time’s become even more precious than before so it gets pushed to the back and neglected. So in an effort to get a shot of mojo and make my scrapping time more efficient I’ve come up with a simple exercise to to get back into scrapping and to simplify the process so I can make the most of the time I have. (note: these ideas are the results of my collecting and reading too many mags, idea books, and blogs and distilling down into my own little simple theory)

So first I found a few pages that I’ve made and just really love and came up with a list of questions to think about, if you are ambitous you could write these out but you get the idea…
Look at the page (s) and see:
a) what I like, b) what’s missing, and c) final verdict.

#1 Two of my first pages I made after having my babies. (2006)

-what I like: very clean, simple, no doubt the focus is on the photo, love the contrast of my hubby’s hand with these little faces. Love that I have these photos, love the little ache I get in my chest when I see these.

-missing: journaling? None, not even a date it was made. I think it needs at least the date don’t you? But then I look at these pics and there’s so much to say that can’t hardly be written in the space provided.
-verdict: might not be the best but I still love these pages, and wouldn’t change anything but adding a small date. Keep this technique in my tool box for those photos I want to highlight but maybe add a pocket behind the photo or mat where journaling can be tucked in.

Next
#2 Square collage (2006)

-what I like: all the squares, all the little photos, all the cute patterns, sanded edges, handwritten journaling
-missing: journaling is a bit random which is fun but each of the photos is part of a bigger story, have I told it? The title was a oops and I just made and went with.0
-verdict: more squares, like using lots of patterns in small bits and photos. I like this LO but I think a few of those photos need separate pages to tell their story

#3 Motherhood so far (2006)

-what I like: the photos of course! clean and simple (after cathy z) typed journaling
-missing: nothing? the typed journaling (after ready cathy z’s book)
-verdict: like the focus on the photos, and that somehow while being in the trenches of taking care of 2 babies I had a moment of clarity where I documented how they would wake up each morning.

Final Verdict: (again it’s been said lots of others in a variety of ways but here’s my take)
-Love focusing on a photo for the sake of the photo
-Two kids, usually two sets of photos, perfectly okay to do the same for the boy and the girl–geeky but there it is
-Every photo has a story, tucking journaling in pockets is a way I like to use when I want to focus on the photo
-Journaling is important, I don’t have patience/time to mess w/typed so I’ll just write it out
-Love the squares, going to do them even when they’re way un-cool!
-Try to capture those special little nuggets of our life, but not stress that I might miss something! And like my dad the original smart alec likes to say “your kids have to be the most photographed kids in the world it’s not like you’re missing out on anything”. And I have to say he’s right, I’m not missing anything. But I’m sure my kids aren’t the most photographed kids in the world. Just look at Brad and Angelina’s family!

In conclusion (just like high school debate) if you are trying to get scrapping or just make the most of what you’ve got I’d encourage you to try this exercise.
-coming next time, pages recently made loosely following these ideas! exciting!!!

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Big Sky Country

Lately I don’t feel that I’m taking many really good photos but there’s been a few. Here is one from our recent trip to my hubby’s family in Northern Montana. They live on a lake, and yeah it’s as cool as it sounds. June in Montana it’s really not warm enough to be in the water, but the kiddies and I were bound and determined to get in the water. We did, it was cold, and we lasted about 30 mins!

Now, I admit this may not be anything special in the technical or artistic world of great photogs, but to me this shot defines Montana. Blue skies, big cumulus clouds (see, I remember one thing from meteorology class) and big rugged mountains. I think this shot shows why Montana is called “Big Sky” country.

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More club cards (cupcakes, butterflies, and birdies)

Along with the super cute cherry dress card I came up with 3 other cards. Here they are.

Sweet cupcake card, made with the SU Big Bold Cupcake die that I borrowed from a friend and now must have for my very own. I’m thinking I will try cutting some lightweight fabric with this die, how cute would it be to make cupcake patches for my little girl?

Polka Dot Birdie card, trying to use a nearly full pack of Tangerine Tango!

Great Friend card, cased from Julee Tilman. Hers used the Great Friend stamp set but I love my butterfly die (beats hand cutting!)

Specs: (all SU)

Cupcake card
-Washington Apple Designer Series Paper
-riding hood red and whisper white card stock
-Sweet little sentiments, hostess stamp set
-accessories: big shot, Big Bold Cupcake die, glue dots, silver brad

Polka Dot Birdie
-Good Friend Designer Series Paper
-tangerine tango, pacific point, and whisper white card stock
-tangerine tango and pacific point ink
-accessories: big shot, SU Texture Polka Dot texture plate, scallop punch, circle punches, and scallop border punch

Great Friend
-Walk in the Park Designer Series Paper
-baja blue and whisper white card stock
-baja blue and pink pirouette ink
-Great Friend stamp set
-accessories: big shot, butterfly die, top note die, basic gray taffeta ribbon

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Classy and Fabulous, Just like Caroline!

Last night was my card club and since it was the last one with the current catalog I wanted to come up with some really fun cards. A while back I was browsing my favorite blogs on my google reader and found the cutest card on Craftin Caro’s blog. And while I’ve cased cards online before, I normally change it to make it my own. But this card was so cute I just had to copy to the ground! (okay, I changed a few details) I had seen other versions of this scallop dress card but loved this one the cherry paper! So here’s mine

Normally I ignore the inside but I had this cute stamp set that just seemed to fit with this card!

Now, while I’d seen several different versions of this in blogland I couldn’t find a good template so I made my own by counting the number of scallops on the top and bottom of dress, then experimented with the best lines to cut to get the shape.
Specs: (all Stampin Up!)
-Rockabilly Speciality Designer Series Paper
-card stock: kiwi kiss, riding hood red, whisper white
-accessories: Big shot, large scallop circle die, trio flower punch, silver brads, kiwi kiss satin ribbon
-stamp set Classy and Fabulous

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