A funny thing happened...

on the way to the stamp table :) Ok so that sounded funnier in my head LOL

I was working on today's challenge, the Featured Stamper one... oh if you haven't checked out ked's gallery, you should! It's really awesome! Oh yea, back to my post LOL I found the card I wanted to CASE and got working on it. I changed it around to suit my needs and I LOVE they way it turned out!

I turned the card to make it vertical, so I could use my giraffe from Bundle of Joy (LOVE that set!) The card base is Bashful Blue with the edges DTP with white craft ink. When I do this I don't really swipe the ink I kinda just push the piece into the foam of the ink pad, I seem to get a nicer look that way. Then I used my mat pack (LOVE it!) to poke the holes down the edge. The giraffe is colored with ink from the ink pad lids and a watercolor brush. I tried with my aquapainter, but it just got all runny and messy, the paint brush worked out much better this time!
My favorite part is the little MM clip do-hicky. It actually came with the Halloween set, but since it has a moon on it, I thought it would be perfect! I added a little piece of So Saffron under the moon so the moon is yellow :) Then I tied some ribbon around the edge. The focal piece was a bit too wide for the clip to be centered where I wanted it, so I trimmed away a tiny little piece of the Saffron mat to make it fit :)

I chose my sentiment, I really love using the Warm Words with EFP. I don't know why, but I think it's neat LOL! Then I realized I needed a strip behind the focal image. I found some large white rickrack and ran it through my Xyron X. I added 2 Bashful brads to finish that part off.

So now I'm done and need to take a picture of my card. No biggie, I do this all the time! I get my little area all set up; one piece of white paper on the desk and one piece upright supported by whatever I can find, then I get my OTT light down and aim it at the card. Usually this works perfectly and I get really nice shots. Well today the sun happened to be shining in the window and I kept getting a reflection ring on my picture. So ok I decided to turn the whole thing around so the sun was shining on the card. No biggie, it's easy to do. But taking the picture from that angle is a bit harder. So I get myself all situated and lean over on my desk and take the picture. GREAT shot!

An hour later my DH comes up to me and says "Hon, what's that on your arm?" Huh??? what are you talking about? "It looks like a tattoo!" So look at what happened when I was taking the picture! I had used my lego-ma-jig to get the giraffe placed just right on the paper and since the clear part I use is acrylic the ink didn't fully dry LOL SO now I have a Basic Black Bundle of Joy giraffe on my arm! LOL

Ribbon, Ribbon, Ribbon!!!!

Who wants some ribbon???? ME, ME, ME!

Here are the colors I can get:

Soft Subtles
Pale Plum (close)
Pretty in Pink
Barely Banana
Certainly Celery
Bashful Blue
Almost Amethyst (close)

Bold Brights
Glorious Green (close)
Green Galore
Gable Green
YoYo Yellow
Only Orange
Real Red
Pink Passion
Orchid Opulence(close)
Lovely Lilac
Brilliant Blue
Tempting Turquoise

Earth Elements
Chocolate Chip
Creamy Caramel
More Mustard
Really Rust
Ruby Red (close)
Cameo Coral
Summer Sun (close)

Rich Regals
Ballet Blue
Night of Navy
Taken with Teal
Handsome Hunter
So Saffron
Regal Rose
Bravo Burgundy (close)

Neutrals
Kraft
White
Black
Very Vanilla (close)
Going Gray

In Colors 2007
Buckaroo Blue
Caribbean
(NOTE: the ribbons are NOT SU ribbons, but match the colors very well!)

If it says (close) next to the color, it's because the ribbon doesn't match perfectly, but it's VERY close! I checked them under my OTT light :) I'm really picky about color matches and I'd use these colors!

These are all 1/4" grosgrain ribbons.

The cost is $1.05 for 5 yards. EDITED TO ADD: There has been some confusion about the amount of ribbon you can order. I'm selling the colors in 5 yard increments. So the smallest amount you can order is 5 yards of each color you'd like! PayPal only please, it's just easier for me. I can take Credit cards through my Paypal account! Shipping and a small Paypal fee will be added to your total once I know how many yards you'd like. Please e-mail with your choices (my e-mail is next to my name in the Copyright section to the right.) If you could put ribbon in the subject line, that would help a TON! Canadians welcome!

This is the first time I'm doing a ribbon share, so please bear with me :) I'll try to get it out as soon as I possibly can, but there might be delays that I cannot foresee.

Because this is my first share, I'll need to sell at least 30 - 35 yards per color in order to get the discounted price. If I don't get the 30 yards, I'll let you know before I order the ribbon. I don't see this being a problem, but I wanted to be upfront and honest with everyone :)

Once the share is filled, I will post the payment instructions, my paypal addy etc...

Pergamano attempt

Wow what a stunning craft! After I saw today's tutorial, I thought, "I can do that!"(I seem to think that a lot about crafts LOL) Anyway, I went searching online for any patterns I could find, and more instructions and such and then after being totally overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of this craft I decided to use the K.I.S.S method! (Keep it Simple Stupid!)I always want to make the fanciest, most perfect piece the first time out and that's never going to happen LOL

This is a case of needing the right tools for the job. And I did NOT have the right tools for this technique! I used your basic 2-sided embossing stylus and regular vellum CS.

My first thought was "Oh Parchment paper, like what I use for baking. I have that!" and I grabbed some from the kitchen to try and it was WAY too thin! I tore through it the first try and I was being VERY gentle! Then I actually READ the instructions and realized that I needed my Vellum. Ok ok, so I'm a bit impatient sometimes. Anyway, once I got the right (or at least closer to right) paper, it went a bit easier. You still have to be SUPER careful not to tear through the vellum. It rips SO easily!

I have the whole thing done and then I decided it needed more. (Why can't I leave well enough alone?) So I poked tiny little holes randomly in the centers of the flowers with a pin. It looked "ok", but not that great. So I then decided to cut out the centers. WHY??? Again, if I'd had the right tools, it might not have taken an hour and a half just to cut out those little pieces! I used my Coluzzle blade and paper snips. Oy!

Ok now that part was done, what do I DO with it? I had originally had made it to lay over the card base, but quickly realized that wasn't going to work right, so I trimmed the focal piece off and started playing around with it. I finally decided "Less is More" and attached it to the Night of Navy card base using my Glue Pen! (Love that thing!)

So there's my first attempt at Pergamano. Like I said, it looks ok, just needs something, but I'm not entirely sure what.

Coaster Box Prismacolor Pencil holder

So I'm in the middle of trying to get my stamping space organized and I decided I needed a better way to hold my Prismacolors and such, so I came up with this cute little box!



The basic box is the same as you've seen in a gazillion galleries and blogs, but the center divider and Gamsol holder are mine :)

You need:
8 4" medium weight coasters
15 4" squares of PP
small corner rounder
Modge Podge (I like the Matte)
a large-ish paint brush
sanding block
20 4" - 5" lengths of ribbon
good scissors or kraft knife (I used my Kai's and they worked great!)
a ruler, a centering ruler is nice if you have one
a hole punch (I used my Crop-a-dile)
good strong glue (I used Glossy Effects, basically CE)
2 6" lengths of 1/4" elastic

First thing you want to do is use the corner rounder and round the corners of your PP. Then adhere them to the coasters using the Modge Podge. I like to use a fairly thick layer so it stays wet and if I mess up the placement of the PP, I can move it around a tiny bit. Then I put a piece of CLEAN copy over the top and rub so there are no bubbles. I also use my brayer to make sure the PP is down really well. Do this to both sides of 7 of the coasters and 1 side of the last one, this is the bottom of the box.

Let these dry. I like to weigh them down while they are drying so they stay flat. If you don't, they will warp slightly and that just doesn't look as good. Once they are dry, decide which 4 will be the sides and which 3 will be the center divider pieces. Sand down the edges and corners for a shabby-chic look.

Using the templates as guides (these are NOT to scale, please go by the measurements!) make the 4 side pieces. You need 5 holes in each side. I used my Mat Pack to get them even on mine. Punch out holes with hole punch or Crop-o-dile.


Again using the templates as guides, make the 3 center divider pieces. I used my Kai scissors to cut the slits and they worked perfectly! You want to make the slits the width of the coaster, maybe "slightly" thicker. And only go down about 2 inches. These slide onto each other creating the 6 spaces for the pencils, stumps and sharpener to go in.



Now you want to make the box. If you are adding the holder for the gamsol, take the elastic and poke one piece through the 2nd and one piece through the 4th holes down and tie a knot in the back. Run them across the front and poke it through the same holes on the other side, pull taut and tie another knot. You want the knots to be on the inside and the elastic to have a little bit of give, but slack enough so that you can fit the Gamsol bottle in. Now you can construct the box. It's pretty self explanatory. For the bottom, I take the last coaster, the one with one one side covered with PP and kinda force it into the bottom, PP side up. Then I run a bead of CE around the seams. Let dry before putting the divider inside.

I have my pencils by SU color family because this is how I am used to all my colors. I have a separate box for the rest of my colors. I really like having all my Magic Pencil materials in the same space. I can keep the whole box on a shelf and when I want to color with them, I just take the whole thing down and I'm ready to go, everything is right there together!

What a fun day!

I meet SO many new people online and very rarely get to actually meet them IRL (in real life) so when the opportunity comes around to get to meet my "friends" for real I jump! Seriously, I talk to these gals DAILY, it feels like we've known each other forever, but in all actuality, we've never met. That's the hardest part about online friendships. Usually we live SO far away from one another it's impossible to meet, but every now and then, I mean once in a blue moon, I get to meet one of them!


That happened just this past Saturday! I got to meet Sara (Sassyat30) from SCS!!!! Woo Hoo!!! She was down this way to help her sister paint her new house. What a nice sister, to drive 6 hours just to help her paint! Well it worked out great for us :) We got a chance to meet for lunch and do a 'little' shopping. The only thing I wish was that we'd had more time to spend together! When you've talked online for months a couple of hours for lunch and shopping just isn't enough!

Danita (another "online friend" turned real life friend, HI Danita!) and I met Sara at her sisters and then we went to lunch at a really neat place. It used to be the newspaper building years ago and they turned it into a really cute little restaurant. During lunch Sara mentioned something about wanting to buy some Fabriano note cards but not really wanting to get them online. So I said that any "good" art store should have them. Danita told us there was a good art store on campus, so after lunch we went! Sara got her notecards and Danita and I got a few more Prismacolor pencils for our collections! (I only need 17 more to have all the SU matches! LOL)Unfortunately after that it was time to take Sara back to her sisters, I mean she was really there to help paint, not to go gallivanting around with us LOL!

We had a great time! It was like old friends meeting again after a long time! There was never a lull in the conversation, heck it was hard to talk sometimes cuz we're all talkers LOL! We are definitely going to have to figure a way to get together again! Here's a couple pictures from our get together! Sara is on the left, I'm in the middle(I wish someone would have told me I was eating my hair!) LOL, and Danita is on the right!

"Cow" Tipping

I LOVE the movie Cars! And this tractor is just perfect for the "Cow" tipping part! Mater is hysterical!



The card is 4.25" x 4.25" in Really Rust stamped with Flannel Plaid in Really Rust then sponged with both Rust and Chocolate Chip. The strip is Old Olive with Linen stamped in Olive and then sponged too. I printed the quote using the SF-Heather font.

I stamped the tractor 3 times then masked it and did the grass and clouds. I just made a cloud template from a sticky note. The "hub caps" are silver snaps, attached using my Crop-o-dile (LOVE it!)

All in all a pretty simple card, but I just think it's hysterical!