Sweet Summer

I'm on a roll!!  Well, at least I hope so. I actually got a layout done this morning.  Just in time for me to add some of our summer pictures to it.  I used a sketch from one of Amy Elkins layout blueprint books.  I love her sketches.  Of course, I had to add some Diamond Glaze to it. 

New Card

I made this sympathy card last night.  It came together pretty quickly.  I used Walk in my garden cartridge for the flower and leaf.  The stamp is from a set from the Angel Co. that I've had for quite awhile.  I'm hoping I'll have some time this weekend to create.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Cherry on Top Award

Cherry on Top Award

We've been on vacation and look at what I came home to!!  I'm so excited my very first blog award.  Thank you Christina, I'm so very flattered that you would choose my blog.  Please check out her blog here.

I'm supposed to list three things I like about myself - Oh boy, this is hard!!
1. I'm a caring person
2. That I enjoy creating
3. I love my family and friends

The fourth thing we're do to is post our favorite picture.  This picture was taken a few years ago and I just love it.  It's of my Dad cuddling my daughter.  One of the very few I have of them being so close.

The best part, I now get to pass this award on to 5 other blogs.  Please check them out:

1. http://scrap-obsessed.blogspot.com/

2. http://craftingwithkatie.blogspot.com/

3. http://almabrooksblog.blogspot.com/

4. http://thegreenbeanscrafterole.blogspot.com/

5. http://scrap-it-cathy.blogspot.com/

The rules in accepting this award are:

1. you must thank the person who passed it on to you:  Done.


2. copy award to your blog.  Done.


3. list three (3) things you love about yourself, Done


4. post a picture that you love on your blog,  Done


5. pass award on to five (5) others  Done

I won

Take a look at what I received in the mail.  I won some blog candy last week from 2kraftygirls and I received my prize yesterday.   I can hardly wait to start playing with these stamps.  If you haven't checked out Connie and Susan's blog, I suggest you hop on over to their site.

 

My favorite new technique

As many of you know, I'm taking Claudine Hellmuth's class over at BPS.  I've been a little behind on our homework for the last couple of weeks, but I finally had a chance to catch up this weekend.  I wanted to share what I've been working on, plus what has become my favorite of all of the new techniques that we've done.

It's an image transfer onto the back of Sticky back canvas.  What I used was a piece of double sided scrapbook paper and it was so easy and I love how it turned out.  When you are wanting to turn a piece of scrapbook paper into a "fabric" look this is the technique to turn to!! 

The next technique was Extra time photo tinting.  It's where you take a black and white photo and tint it with acrylic paint and extra time.  I had to do this one a couple of times to try and get the hang off it.  It just doesn't turn out good if you try and go over it twice.

One of our assignments for this past week was an embossing technique using the backside of the Sticky back canvas.  I have to say that I am loving using this canvas!  This technique was to create a faux leather look.  I used a Tim Holtz mask and then some red embossing powder, then after removing the mask everything was set using my heat gun.  Then I dusted the white part with Perfect Pearls, I of course had to play around with a couple of different colors!

I'll share one last technique with you and that was a Faux Batik.  We used the Multi Medium and a foam stamp.  Then when it was dry we used watered down acrylic paint to go over it.  I really want to play with this technique again as I like the look's of it and this would really make a neat background paper for a layout. 

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed seeing some of these techniques.

New Cards

I have some new cards to share, but unfortunately I'm only able to take credit for one of them.  If you can believe it, I just got the Wild Card cartridge this past weekend.  I got a good deal on Ebay for it and couldn't pass it up.  I can't believe I thought I could live without this cartridge, it is wonderful!!  My 9 year old daughter has been playing with it for the last couple of days and I can't even get in to play with it!!  She loves it too.  So you'll see a couple of cards that she made.  The first one I did and it's the flower card.  I had it done in just a few minutes, good thing too, as she was wanting the Expressions back so she could play some more!!

The next couple of cards is what my daughter made.  She made the phone card for me, because she apparently thinks I spend a lot of time talking on the phone!!  I have not a clue why she thinks that. LOL 

The next card she did with Create a Critter and she made that one for her Dad.  Before, I show the card to you, I should tell you a little background first!!  My dear husband has a hobby which is restoring old cars.  Mainly, it just seems like he collects parts for them, but that is another story!!  Well, this past weekend and this week, he has spent most of the time out in the garage, covered in grease and re-building an old engine.  He came in the house and I was quickly shooing him out because of the grease on him and my daughter said, Geez he looks like a "grease monkey".  Shortly, after that she went upstairs and created this card for him.  The black "dots" you see on the monkey is supposed to represent the grease and the black puddle at the bottom of the card is a grease puddle that he is swinging over.

Thanks so much for looking and I hope you have a great rest of the week.

Life is a beach card

I made this card for a friend.  She loves fishes and has a huge aquarium, so I hope she likes it.  She needs a little "pick me up".  It was very simple to make and only took a few minutes.  I used Life is a beach and cut the square card out at 5 inches, I added some glitter to it, which I think you should be able to see.  Gotta love Stickles!!  Unfortunately, the color is not showing true, the base of the card is a very pretty pale orange.

I have another card that I'm in the process of making using the Tinker bell cartridge.  Hopefully, I'll get some time today to finish it, so I can get it posted.

The rest of the projects are more of the @ Home with Claudine assignments.  The first one is Reverse stamping, which didn't turn out very well for me at all.  The second one is Tinted paper, which I've done before with tea, but not with paint as in this one. The last one is Faux paste paper, which my daughter wanted me to make it look like a spider web.

New Card

I used to make cards all the time, but over the past year or so I've gotten away from it.  But, I need to get back into it.  I had a friend pass away on Friday morning and I needed to make a sympathy card for her husband.  I got this idea off of the Cricut MB.  I had a really tough time with this card.  Sympathy cards are just hard for me to do anyways.

This next picture is one of our assignments in the class I'm taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  It's called watermark resistant stamping.  I'm anxious to try this for a background on a layout.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.  Now, I'm off to go clean my scrap room.!! 

Summer Classes

I hope everyone has had a great Fourth of July weekend.  We've had a super weekend and had some friends and family over yesterday for a BBQ and then in the evening we set off some fireworks.  Stayed up late and then slept in today!!

I wanted to share with you a couple of new techniques that I've done.  A few weeks ago, I signed up for a couple of classes at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  I thought the summertime would be a good time to learn some new things. 

I signed my daughter and I up for the Kidding Around class there and she is busy working on her pre-class assignments.  The kids are to make a paper doll to share there summertime adventures with.  She has had to make a few of them (six to be exact) and there not quite ready for their debut yet.  But, everyone here will be the first to see them!! 

I signed up myself the @home with Claudine class.  I've played with acrylic paint a little bit, but that goes to the maximum of stretching myself out-side the box.  So, I thought it would be good to take Claudine's class so I could learn some new techniques and challenge myself a bit.  This past week was our first class and our assignment was to do a Gesso Etching and then a Gesso Transfer.  This was the first time I have ever tried Gesso and I have to say I am loving all of this.  It has been so much fun to play with all of the paint and other mediums.   The first picture you'll see is of my binder that we are making which will become our "recipe book".  I didn't have the chipboard book that Claudine recommended, so I am improvising with what I have on hand.  In the end when I'm done I'll bind it using my trusty old bind it all.

The next picture is of the Gesso Etching, all I did was make some swirls in it, and kept it pretty simple.  My daughter added her little drawing to it of a "teddy bear" that I'm sure you'll see in the picture.

The last picture is of the Gesso Transfer and I have to say that I can see a lot of possibilities with this one and am anxious to play around with it some more.

 

I'm looking forward to our next class to see what we'll be doing!!  Thanks for taking a look.

Couple of new layouts

I've got a couple of new layouts to share that I've just recently finished.  I'm still having to use my camera for the photo's as I still can't get my scanner to work.  I used some Adornit cardstock stickers that I had along with a few cuts with my Cricut.  The black piece of cardstock on the Mom layout was cut using the Going Places cartridge and the brackets on the Grandparents layout was cut with the George and Basic Shapes cartridge.  Hope you enjoy them.

Baby Album

I've had lots of questions about the cartridges I've used for this album.  I apologize I should have included them in my post.  Just my ignorance at being new to blogging!!  The cartridges I used were New Arrival, All mixed up and Base camp.  The other shapes, such as the baby food jars, mirror and scissors were paper piecing from the Baby Girl set of Cropy Cats.  I hope this will help everyone.  I promise next time I'll list the cartridges!!

I thought I would share a few pictures of a baby album I did for my Niece.  I did this in a 8x8 size, which I really do enjoy doing.  I used my Cropy Cats for this along with my Cricut.  I had so much fun doing this.  I apologize for the not so great pictures, but I need my Hubby's help in getting my scanner working again. 

Still Around

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, though many would think so!!  I've just been taking a little break and trying to get some things done around the house and get my self organized before school gets out next week.   Once, school is out my time is never my own!!

One of the things I also want to do is to go over to Walmart and check out the new Cricut Lite Cartridges.  I honestly don't know if I want to spend $39 on a cartridge that doesn't have all the features that the other ones have.  I usually don't spend more than that for the other cartridges that I buy.  What is everyone else's opinion on these cartridges?  I would love to hear what you think about this.

Also, if you have the Design Studio there is a new update out.  It has all of the Cricut Lite cartridges on it.
Okay, off to get some things done around here!

Random Photo's

I'm feeling better, I just don't have my energy back yet.  Just thought I'd share with you, what we did yesterday.  My daughter has been wanting to make dog treats for our 2 dogs, so we tried out two different recipes.  They liked them both, but they definitely loved the pumpkin cookies!!

Just a couple of pictures of Daisy and Sparkles enjoying their treats.

Plus, I thought I would share with you a picture of a hand-made doll that my daughter received from her Great Aunt.  It is so beautiful!!  She put so much work into in, to knit the little outfit and everything.  Definitely a keepsake.

Need a couple of days

I've got some layouts and projects that I want to share.  But I'll need a couple of days.  It's been one of those weeks when one person in your family gets sick and then a couple of days later it's spread to everyone.  I think we need the sun to come and bake it out of everyone!!


Hope to be back and more put together in a couple of days!!

As promised...

Okay, finally as I promised some pictures of Katrina's poster board.  It's been a long weekend, as she's been sick the whole time.  It looks like she'll be home from school tomorrow.  It's a good thing she's not scheduled to give her presentation for a couple more days.  I tell you we never had to do anything like this in the third grade!!

Now for a few close up shots.  We've had my Expressions going non stop for a good couple of days.  We used a variety of different cartridges, going places, paper dolls, sweethearts, mickey and friends and I think a couple of others!!

I have to say I love this one scene she did of the frogs in the bayou.  I think it turned out so cute!!

I'm so excited for tomorrow.  I signed up a couple of weeks ago to take a class called 25 days of templates.  It's being taught by Tiffany Tillman through Renee Pearson's website.  I've just started to do a little digital scrapbooking and working with templates.  So I should learn alot, as long as it's not too advanced for me!!

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!!

Happy Memorial Day

Just stopping by and wishing everyone a great Memorial Day. I have some pictures to post, but will need to do that a bit later.

I'm in Love!!

Oh how I love my Expression!! I have both the baby Cricut and the Expressions, but I just don't get to play with them as much as I would like. This thing called work keeps getting in my way. But, when I do get to play with it, I remember why I love them so much!!

I'm helping my daughter put together a poster board for a visual presentation that she needs to go along with a speech she has to give. I will post pictures later this weekend when we have it all together.

This project has enabled me to purchase a couple more new cartridges. I knew I would need to get these fast so I ordered from scrapbookpal. I've ordered from them in the past I get everything super quick (within 2 days), plus shipping is free for any order of $25 or more. You can check them out here