Where Has the Time Gone?

I guess that should be the name of my blog since I always feel like time slips away from me so easily! I have been so busy with my boys' school that I haven't had much time for crafting. I am helping out with the book fair for their school, going to meetings, trying to meet other moms since we are new to that school, setting up "playdates" (not sure what you call it when they're in 4th and 6th grade), and going to parent-teacher conferences. Whew! And when I do have time to hit the craft table, it's to make gifts for their teachers or for friends. I never remember to take those pics in the wee hours of the night when all I can think of is how tired I am and how hard it will be to get up in the morning... I hate feeling like I rush from one thing to the next but that is how my life seems to be right now. It's just a season and I know it will slow down again.

Here is a card that I made to play along with a couple of challenges. Over at Card Patterns they have a cute sketch that I used to make my tag. And the color scheme came from ColourQ challenge #108.

I wanted to try a distress stain resist element to my project. SweetSteph Card Creations has a tutorial here. I am loving the Tim Holtz distress stains and couldn't wait to try this out. Remember what I said about not having time to craft in the last two weeks? I had some of these distress stains that have been sitting there, unopened! so sad...

Anyway, I used a stamp set from Tim Holtz since I liked the grunge look these stamps had. I used versamark to stamp the starburst image on some manila paper. After heat setting some clear embossing powder, I got out my stains and started to apply them. I have to play with it some more because dabbing straight from the bottle is just too heavy for me. If you have any tips, I'm all ears.

Once I got that all set with my heatgun I looked through my scalloped dies and realized that it looked kinda like a shell. So that is the theme I went with. A beach/surf theme of sorts. I made the card to be a sort of encouragement card. A reminder to get up and try again.

Thanks for looking! I hope you have a fantastic weekend. My kids are on Fall break starting today so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to craft. I have some ideas of some projects I'd like to get started but we'll see. :D

Final Post for Tonight!

Whew! I feel like I am on the home stretch of a blogging marathon. I usually do a post or two over the course of a week... but I'm on my third one for the night!

This last card that I made combined two more challenges. One is from the folks at CAS-ual Fridays and the other is from Sassy Lil' Sketches. Both were a blast to use!!! For CAS-ual Fridays CFC24 I had to make a halloween card without using the color Orange. Seriously?!!! okay, I always like how OTHER people can think of non-traditional color schemes for holidays. Me, however?! I'm hopelessly traditional.

I tried, folks. Really I tried. Not including orange was bad enough but I couldn't think of any other colors that looked right to me other than purple and black and charcoal and green.
The second part to my card is the lovely sketch SS0S8 at Sassy Lil' Sketches. Sometimes that is half the battle right there coming up with a LO for a card... and with creative minds over at SLS they did some of the work for me. I took the sketch and turned it on its side. I framed the tree silhouette with a piece of burlap for texture. I used some cream tulle, a stitched felt pumpkin with metal flower doodad, and some stitched leaves to add a little more femininity to the focal point. And that's it from me for one night!

Have a great evening!

PS. I found out that it wasn't too late to enter the Paper Issues 31 Days of Halloween. So I did! Hop over there to see some amazing projects for Halloween.

Sweet Day!!!

And while I was feeling quite creative, I decided to go ahead and make two more cards! This one is for two challenges, Mojo Monday and ColourQ. I love it when I can combine a sketch and color challenge all at the same time.

For this card I needed to use grey, black, tangerine, and yellow. Not terribly difficult, right?!! My first thought was to make a cute card with a giant candy corn on it. See, it's that fall thing that I told you I'm addicted to. But when I thought about it some more, I wanted to make something that wasn't fall themed after all. But what to make with all those colors? A little light bulb went on and I thought Citrus fruits!!! They are happy and orange and yellow. So here's what I ended up with:

I really liked the way it came out. It reminds me of those old encyclopedias that I used to look at when I was little that would have a black and white picture next to the text of the item I looked up. I didn't want to emphazise too much color but just enough to make it all pop.
The sketch that I incoporated is Mojo Monday #210.

Autumn Elegance - Ribbon Reel Challenge #12

Autumn is in full swing here and I just love making cards that showcase my favorite season. I made a thank you card for Ribbon Reel's Challenge. I also thought that it would work for the Shabby Tea Room's Challenge.

There are so many things to like about the fall. I love the natural earthy colors that get a little glammed up right before the season changes even cooler. Red maples, golden aspens, pale ornamental grasses blowing in the crisp breeze... what's not to love?

I wanted some of those things to come across in the pale card with just a hint of warmth. The challenge at Ribbon Reel was to create an elegant autumn card with orange, neutrals, and flowers. Sounds great to me! I tried something new by making some rosettes out of ribbon. It's not too difficult, just a little fussy trying to get it to lay just so. I stamped a verse on the main flower using PTI's Beautiful Blessings Stamps. The verse is 1 Corinthians 13 and is just a mixture of parts of verses in that "love" chapter. The sentiment simply says, "It's the little things that matter most". When someone does something out of the goodness of their heart and full of love, it really does show. Attitude can be such a little thing but in can make a huge difference!

As always, thanks for looking!

Materials used:

Inks and paints: fresh snow (PTI), Tea stain distress ink (TH), sugar maple (Glimmer mist), cream paint
Paper: fawn, cream, shimmery pumpkin (Bazzill), Simply Chartreuse (PTI) and cardboard; patterned paper "I do" wedding (EK)
Stamps: Beautiful Blessings, Gratitude Journal, and Bitty Background Basics (PTI)
Dies: Mat Stack 1, Beautiful Blooms 2, and Sending You (PTI)
Embellies: Summer Sunrise ribbon (PTI), Organza ribbon stained with sugar maple glimmer mist, cream crocheted lace, small brad, and machine stitching

Live by Faith

Hello, there! I have been a busy little bee these days helping out with my kids' current school and still helping with their old one, too. Talk about both pokers in the fire! I just have to figure out how to make do with only a little sleep. LOL can't say that it's working yet.

Anyway, I want to post this card that I made. I also want to enter it in a couple of challenges and it's down to the wire. The thing that I really liked about this card is that I tried a new technique called Black Magic. I had to look this up on Split Coast Stampers; they have a great tutorial if it's something that interests you. JUGS is having a challenge to use Black Magic on a card. I wanted to pair that up with a Mojo Monday sketch that I saw last week. Too late to enter that challenge but I loved the sketch all the same! I also wanted to used the color palette over at CR84FN. It is just a very warm, feel good color combo; like a cup of coffee and your favorite afghan on a brisk autumn morning!

And I do love kraft so much! To me it goes with so many seasons and it's so versatile. Over at the Kraft Journal they have a Make it Monday with Kraft Outlet using lavish layers and, of course, kraft. So happy that I got my new PTI Tag Sale die. I love adding that extra tag for some layers plus this little die has a great border embossed right into it. The zigzag stitching was also fun to tie the red weathered barn panel to the rest of the card. The inside says," one day at a time" and "Praying for you".

Card deets:
Cardstock: kraft, brown, red and charcoal
Stamps: it's a 2step stamp that I got at SU a long time ago. don't remember the name. Beautiful Blessings (PTI)
Ink: Tim Holtz distress inks (walnut, tea stain, antique linen), Fresh Snow (PTI)
Other: scallop paper punch (EK), Tag Sale #3 die (PTI), Distressed Stripes embossing folder (TH), Nesties scallop circle die, Tim Holtz ticket, machine stitching

I have to get off to bed so thanks for stopping by! Your comments are always appreciated. :D

Our First Snow of the Season

I just thought I'd pop in here to show you pics of our first snow. I know what you must be thinking! Yes, I did say snow and yes it's still the beginning of October. But the great thing about Colorado is that it can snow one day and completely disappear in two. I just love all of the sunshine we get here because it makes the snow so fun when it comes.

Both of my boys enjoyed playing in the snow. There is something really exciting about the first snow when you're a kid! Even our cat, Felix, wanted to join in! I love seeing the world through their eyes when the future holds so much excitement and possiblity. :)

and new friends!

Old Fashioned Christmas Carol

Blame it on the tea that I had this afternoon -- it's almost 1 am locally and I am still up! Which means that I had plenty of energy to work on my first Christmas card of the season. I really wanted to do something old fashioned and vintage looking while keep the card simple. And while I was at it I could play along with Card Patterns and get my submission in with a little time to spare. Oh, and I was able to try a new technique thanks to Papertrey's Make it Monday. So let me show you what I made while I was on my caffeine fix!

I had so much fun making this card and I really liked the way it turned out. I followed the sketch over at Card Patterns that you can see if you click here. It was a nice, clean and simple layout and I wanted to try something that had lots of pizzaz while still maintaining my less is more feel for the card. I made my own background for this card by using lots of Tim Holtz distress ink in various colors and several different stamps. I also inked up the edges of the layers underneath the background to keep the worn look consistent. The next thing that I did was to get my Papertrey inks and stamps out to make my own washi tape. This was the new technique that I was referring to earlier. I love watching the Make it Monday tutorials on their site and the one for this week is titled Make it Monday #35: Custom Stamped Washi Tape. I like the look of washi tape and I found it super simple to make my own thanks to their tut. I used some double sided tape (I don't have Scortape on hand but used something similar in Martha Stewart's line) and some tissue paper. I pulled out Simply Chartreuse ink (PTI) and a houndstooth background stamp (also PTI), stamped the image onto the tissue paper that I already adhered to the tape and voila! Washi tape! sooooo coool. ;O)
I dusted off my cricut and cut out those cute little ornaments using the Joy of Seasons cartridge. I stamped those with distress inks and used some background stamps on them to add some interest. To add a sentiment without taking away too much from the ornaments I stamped the phrase "Fa-la-la-la-la" in a light distress ink to the lower right hand corner.

So, there you have it! Now, I've got to get my hiney in bed so that I can get up at the crack of dawn. Ouch!!! oh, and Happy Friday.

Card details:
Inks- distress inks (TH), Close to Cocoa (SU), Simply Chartreuse (PTI)
Stamps - Background Basics: Text Style, Background Basics: Houndstooth, Bitty Backgrounds (PTI), small alphabet letters (Studio G), some random stamps that I have in my stash that are not labeled anymore
Cricut Cartridge - Joy of Seasons
Other - floss, hand stained lace, machine stitching

Give Thanks Journal/Scrapbook

I have finished this journal/scrapbook and before I put it in my etsy shop I thought I'd preview it on here. After making one for my friends as a thank you for their service in our Kids Ministry at our church, I found myself totally excited about making another one. I don't know if it's like potato chips but I find that one is just not enough!

There are so many times in my life that I can take it for granted that God has blessed me with so many things. I find it helpful to keep a journal to realize just how many blessings I have to be thankful for . I thought I'd make this journal for someone who also would like to journal down all of life's great blessings. I love to go back to my journal during those hard times in my life to remember all of those good things and to help me keep a positive perspective while I am going through the "trenches" so to speak! It helps me to take my focus off of my problems and look instead at all of the wonderful things that God has provided. In any one given day, I can find at least something to be thankful for. Someone at the grocery store helping me with my bags, a song I hear on the radio, a phone call from a dear friend, my son telling me about a good day at school... any one of these can lift my spirits up and remind me of all of the wonderful things that surround me!

Anyway, I think I will be making another one soon. This time I have a specific person in mind. She is a young girl at our church who is quiet and a thinker... she is shy and I see her writing down bits of things on little scraps of paper. Her mother is a single mom who is struggling to raise her and her two other daughters while trying to work and go to school. I think she would love to have a journal and some journal supplies so I will be doing that next. :)
Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what I've been up to this week!
Take care!

Spreading Friendship In a Cup

I just love fall and one of the reasons I love it so much is that the weather cools off. And nothing is as wonderful on a cool crisp evening than holding a hot cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate! So from time to time I like to make fun little gifts and give them to my friends for no other reason than to make them smile and let them know that I love them.

I thought it would be great to make Friendship Tea (or it's also called Russian Tea) mix and package it in a mason jar. A cute label, tag and note and they'd be all set to go... I looked online and found a recipe to make the powder mix; it consists of instant unsweetened tea, Tang, lemonade, spices (like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg) and sugar. Super easy to whip up and pour into clean mason jars. The next step is to make it look cute because we all know that presentation is half the gift! So I whipped out some jar labels using various things that I had on hand. When it's all assembled it looks like this:

I am going to give this to some of my friends this week because over here the public schools go on fall break already. And with the cold front that just came in, this weekend is going to be blustery. :) They could use a good cup of Friendship Tea!

Oh, and before I forget to tell you, this week at Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge the sketch is a simple ornament shape to interpret however you want. I am going to enter the lid label in that challenge since it is the same shape. I love looking at all of the ornament/tag ideas over there so be sure to check them out!

Thanks for looking and happy Friday eve! ;)

(Mason Jar decorate with: )
Paper: patterned paper, manila paper
Inks: distressing ink (TH), brown marker (SU)
Dies/Embossing Folders: Preserves Cartridge (Provocraft Cricut), Pumpkin die (TH), tiny tag (MS), embossing folder is from SU
Embellies:  baker's twine, raffia, ribbon, buttons (PTI), DMC floss