03.23.11

 Hello everyone... long time no blog, hey?  It's good to be back!

Today I've got a card for this week's Make it Monday challenge from Papertrey Ink.  The challenge was to color with copics on non-neutral cardstock, which is my favorite way to color with copics.  My crafting time is seriously limited and I want to make the most of it so sitting down to spend an hour coloring isn't feasible, but adding shading here and there is.

This card was made for my cousin's birthday.  She's one of my best friends and like a sister to me, we grew up down the street from each other, got into plenty of trouble and have countless childhood memories to make us laugh.  Love that girl :)

The rose, from year of flowers:roses, was stamped in smokey shadow ink on sweet blush cardstock.  Background basics:sheet music was stamped in sweet blush over it.  Then I shaded with my copics and cut it out.  It doesn't show up very well in the picture but I used a sakura glitter pen to trace the rose outline, it's so seriously gorgeous in real life.

This bookmark was another part of her b-day gift.   Since I gave her a book, she had to have an accompanying bookmark, right?

Well that's all I've got for today, thanks for stopping by!

11.28.2010

Today I'm giving you a look at one of my latest big projects.  I'm calling it DIY dining.  Most of what you see here was made or altered by me.

WARNING: this is a very picture heavy post.

Here's a good look at the table I built by adjusting the plans for this narrow farmhouse table to make it a little wider and added some trim around the edges to make the top look chunkier.  L.O.V.E. it!!  It seats up to 10 if we add a chair on each end.

Another look at the end of the table you can also see the bench I made to match.  There was no plan for a bench to match the table so I had to make that up, but I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I'm working on some matching chairs, just ran out of time before Thanksgiving.

Here's a look at the bench.

I've got to find the before picture I took of these candle holders.  They were this ugly, shiny, old looking gold.  I picked them up for 50 cents each at my local goodwill.  Add some spray primer and black patina spray paint and voila, pretty matching candle holders.

This was the first year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the whole family (both mine and my husbands) and I wanted to make a good impression.  We bought some pretty white plates from Wal-Mart as well as some red cloth napkins.

I found some napkin rings 2/$1 at Michaels, they had leaves and turkeys on them.  Those wouldn't work, so you know I had to decorate the napkin rings.

and a close-up of the napkin ring.  I used a bunch of my Papertrey Ink supplies: a leaf prints die on simply charteuse felt, a pure poppy button with silk ribbon, a limitless layers die, the sentiment from 2009 autumn tags.  As well as some Martha Stewart chunky glitter and practicing creativity's houndstooth background from retro christmas backgrounds

One last look at the whole ensemble.

I love my dining room, and hope you like it too.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

edited to answer a couple questions

The table is 37 1/2" wide and 8 feet long, I basically just added an additional 1x8 to Ana's plans.

The trim I used around the edges is from my local Lowes.

It looks like this, only for my table I flipped it upside down so the chunkier part is at the top.

 

It's EverTrue Pine Modern Casing.

The high gloss finish ends at the edges of the table, it's self leveling so I was afraid it would just drip off the edges if I tried.  It's a polymer compound that starts in two different bottles and you mix them together and pour it on.  Then you smooth it out and it self-levels.  The brand I used is EnviroTex Lite, I found it at Menards but I'm sure you could find something similar at any home improvement store.

I used a gel stain by Varathane called Early American and two coats of wipe on high gloss polyurethane on the rest of the table and bench (not the top). 

PTI Blog Hop

So, the theme this month for the blog hop is to make a tag for the holidays.  In truth, I am just not prepared enough to have a Christmas tag to show you, so I've got one for Thanksgiving.  haha.  I really liked the overall design of this one and it could totally be adapted for Christmas just by switching out the colors.  It's tied onto some banana bread in a little mini loaf pan from Michaels.  Sweet and simple, just the way I like it!

Thanks for stopping by and have a safe and happy thanksgiving!

10.27.10

How's everybody doin today?  We're good here, it's a laid back kind of day today.  The only day this week that I get to stay home all day and have no errands or school business to attend to, yey :)

Today I've got some Halloween favors that my kiddos will bring to school.  They're getting really excessive with the peanut allergy awareness so we went with glow bracelets.  Now, don't get me wrong here, a peanut butter sandwich is never worth risking some poor kids life for, but at our school it's to the point where they won't let the kids bring in anything.  My son's pre-school class wan't even allowed to bring these to pass so I'm having the teachers give these out as if they're from them.

Sorry, got a little off track.  Anyways, here's the project.

Don't they look so fun all together like that!?!

I bought this set simply to have this adorable sentiment, haha, lovin' it!!

I used spring moss cs and stamped with simply chartreuse for the background.  Used palette ink for Frank and the sentiment and colored with copic markers.

This one is lavendar moon cs stamped with plum pudding.

and these are summer sunrise cs stamped with orange zest.

Arent' they fun?!  I'm so in love.

Thanks for stopping by!

10.13.10

Hello Everyone!

Sorry to leave the blog unattended for so long.  I feel guilty not stopping in, but you know how it is, life just gets busy!  So what have I been up to? 

Well I got distracted by

  

Knock Off Wood

Which got me into building furniture!!  So far I've built this Kids elementary table and these storage chairs, then a variation of this book shelf.  I used this farmhouse table plan to make a workbench for my husband, and I'm working on a dining room table using that plan too but I adjusted it to be wider.  Just yesterday I built these totally fun Truss shelves.  Using my own plan I also made a side table for the living room and am working on a bench for the dining room table. 

So, yeah, I got a little obsessed!  Haven't taken any pictures of them yet, but if you'd like to see anything just let me know.

Besides that, the wood for our wood boiler so we've been cutting and hauling that like it's going out of style!  There's been no crafty time for this girly, but I've got a couple more cards from Practicing Creativity.

This one uses the tree and sentiment from Retro Christmas and the presents from The Whole Cycle.  Fun isn't it?!

Here's a tag using hte deer and striped tree from Retro Christmas and happy birthday sentiments from you're the man.

Here's a clean lined masculine card featuring the striped tree from Retro Christmas and sentiments from Chatterbox.

Thanks for stopping by!

10.4.10

Last day of the Practicing Creativity sneak peeks!!  Today we made anything but a card.  I'm trying to simplify my Christmas craft to-do list this year so I made this sweet little hot cocoa packet holder to tie onto a gift bag.

If you pull up the bow it reveals the cocoa inside.

Don't you love this little reindeer?  He begged me for googly eyes, so that's just what he got! :)  I love that the antlers and nose are separate pieces and they are so easy to line up.

I glittered up the tree and put him on some felt snow.

Make sure you check out the DT gals blogs!

Courtney

Karen

Dana

Paulina

and my fellow guest DT members

Heather Pulvirenti

Christina Maclaren

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's PARTY!!!!

Here's one of the 30 invitations I made for my boys' birthday party this year.  We did an undersea adventure theme, so what better stamps to use than Lawn Fawn Critters in the Sea.  Echo Park's A walk in the Park line had the perfect bright colors.

Here's a sampling of the 30+ favors filled with goldfish crackers.  All kids love goldfish so they were a crowd pleaser and the fish went with my theme.

This is my favorite part.  Party Hats!!!  The numbers were cut with my cricut using the Pooh Font cartridge.

The cupcake toppers are all Lawn Fawn stamps which were stamped, colored with copics or stamped on patterned papers.  Using my cricut and the cupcake wrappers cartrdige I cut all of the cupcake wrappers out of 3 different Echo Park papers.

These cupcake wrappers were for the birthday boys, I wish I would have noticed the wave wrapper first because I would have cut them all with the waves.  However, I like the plain scallops as well and they cut easier.  These cupcakes are a kid favorite, party chip with buttercream frosting and of course sprinkles!!  Isn't the turtle soo cute?!?

Here's a closup of the octopus topper and scallop cupcake wrapper.  These cupcakes are sooo tasty!  They're chocolate chocolate chip with butter cream frosting and chopped oreos, yum!!

Last but not least are my absolute favorite cupcakes ever!!  It's peanut butter cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting and chopped peanut butter cups on top. 

Now you know what's kept me so busy for a while.  I was so happy with how everything turned out, wish you could have seen how cute the whole party was.  But I think you have a good idea.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Critters of the sea and Harold's alphabet (Lawn Fawn), A little argyle (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock:  Aqua Mist, Hawaiiand Shores, Simply Chartreuse, Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink), White and Black

Patterned Paper:  blissful days border, tree tops, flutter, playful stripes

Ink: Hawaiian Shores (Papertrey Ink), Noir (Palette)

Punch:  Wave Punch (fiskars)

Fabulous Felt

Woohoo!! It's my first Papertrey Ink Blog Hop!

I was inspired by Dawn McVey's coffe cozy but I only like the coffee I make and only drink it at home usually.  Thus, no need for a coffee cozy.  However, I've been known to drink an occasional twisted tea here and there.  Those bottles will freeze your hands holding onto them, and the dirty old cozy's my hubster has are just that.... dirty and old.  So here's my version, a cute stylish way to keep my drink cold and my hands warm.

Check it out.

I used the dirty old cozy for my pattern and simply traced and cut it out.  Added the scallops and sewed it together, flipped it and decorated.  Voila!

Supplies:

PTI felt:  True Black, Hawaiian Shores, vintage Cream and Simply chartreuse

Dies:  Small Scallop, Mat stack 2, Delightful Dahlia (leaves) Beautiful Blooms.

Other:  Black and plum pudding buttons, sewing machine

birthday gift ensemble

Here's a cute little gift ensemble using everyday button bits, cupcake collection and polka dot basics II.

I cut the tag with my cricut expression and the bitty butterfly is a punch that I've had forever.

An oldie but a goodie ;)

So this should have been posted a few months ago, but it slipped away from me. Things have a tendancy to do that with me occasionally, well more than occasionally. I blame it on the kids, haha ;)

Anyways, enough babble for the day. These are the first day of school goodies that I made for my boys, it was Dylan's 1st day of Kindergarten and Tyler's first day of pre-school. The whole set uses the Teachers pet line from Imaginisce



Here is a pencil holder


Yummy coffeshop cookies with tags wishing them a great first day.


and lastly their super star son card.

I also made tucked away boxes for the teachers but forgot to take a photo of them. It works out that a full bag of ghirardelli chocolates fits perfectly in the box.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wintery Tucked Away

This cute little box is called the Tucked Away template from Papertrey Ink (created by Lauren Meader). They are so much fun to make, love 'em!

Pack a picnic for CC #18

Here's my project for this weeks Chirper Challlenge . I used one of Lauren Meader's Timeless Templates that you can buy from Papertrey Ink. This one is the Pack a picnic and it's soo super cool because it comes with this template and a smaller version of the same thing and it's totally cute! These are so easy too because you just print them out cut on the lines and tape them together, easy peasy.

Anyways, this challenge was to include Brown, Brads and zig-zags. This was my hubby's fathers day gift. I would swear I took a picture of it when it was full with his Dad's day goodies and cards, but for the life of me I could not find it and had to take a new picture after it's been used for a while, ugh, sorry about that! Oh and it has a lid that of course is MIA, haha.




Supplies:
Papers: from Papertrey Ink, Ripe Avocado, Ocean Tides, Craft and Ripe Avocado bitty star basics, and misc. brown CS from stash
Inks: Ripe Avocado and Ocean Tides both PTI
Martha Stewart zig zag punch
Fiskars large star punch (I got mine from PTI)
Cricut Sesame Street Font for #1 Dad
Brads from stash.

Clock for the boys' room.

I made this clock for the Cuttlebug Challenge , the challenge was to use a movie as your inspiration. The second I saw that I knew what I'd make. So this clock is for my boys' room. They love the movie Cars, espically Lightning McQueen. The stars behind the numbers are embossed with the Swiss Dots folder.



Supplies:

Clock: WalMart $3.88
Patterned Paper: Sonburn Designs
Cardstocks: black and white from WalMart, blue misc. from stash
Punch: star from fiskars
Cricut Cuts: Lighting McQueen #1 at 3 inches, Speed I am Speed 1 1/2 inches from Cars cartridge, numbers .7 inches from Sesame Street Font.

Mother-in-law's 50 b-day gift set

I knew it was coming up, my MIL's birthday. However, I'd been really busy so I figured I'd throw together a card, toss in a gift card and call it good. Well.... at about 4 o'clock the night before her birthday my husband says "It's my Mom's 50th isn't it?"

"WHAT???" I can't just do a little cop out gift card for a 50th birthday, especially for someone as wonderful as my mother-in-law.


So I had to do something fabulous, but what? Of course I had no idea what to do and no inspiration. I spent an hour or so searching the web trying to find a simple and cute idea and came across personalized wine labels. :: lightbulb moment ::

Then in my scraproom I found one of these bare elements wine holders that I've had for years and didn't come across the right occasion to use it.

I ended up with a wine holder complete with customised wine bottle, card with gift card and matching flowers.

Not too bad for a moment's notice huh?

Here's the wine holder I put it in.

Inside the wine holder with the bottle of wine

The "Fifty & Fabulous" wine bottle

Another view of the wine bottle.

The quick card, I think it turned out cute though.

Inside the card with a gift card holder

I was really proud of being able to pull all of this together in such short notice and I think it turned out pretty cute, don't you??

Supplies:

wine holder: bare elements

patterned papers: Basic Grey Urban Prarie

cardstocks: bazzill

flowers: Prima

cuttlebug: textile folder

scallop edge punch: fiskars

ribbon: basic basic from Michaels

circle and scallop circle and i (heart) u: mini monograms cricut cartridge

50: Storybook cricut cartridge

Just 4 you: Graphically speaking cricut cartridge

Tag: Tags bags boxes and more or Plantin Schoolbook cricut cartridge (I can't remember which)

misc. silver brads and buttons from stash.