Card Making Helpers Interrupters...

Tonight I found a cute card from Clean and Simple Stamping that I wanted to make.  I'm on a masculine card kick, which is a great thing since those are usually the hardest to make and the ones I'm out of the most.  I used some scraps from the My Mind's Eye Twinkle Twinkle Little Boy pad, with stars cut with my Cameo.  I found a couple of flourish stamps that I've had so long I no longer have the packaging and stamped the sentiment from my Inkadinkado's Garden Flowers set.  It was fun to put together.

I also wanted to show you what cute little interruptions I have.  You see they know I have Temptations in my craft room and they come in for a treat all the time.

 

My first onesie project...

A dear friend's daughter is about to have a baby making my friend a grandmother for the first time.  How weird is that?  My friends are becoming grandmothers.  I guess that really is the signal that I'm too old to become a mom.  Anyhow...I've had this idea about making a onesie for a while and this is the first opportunity to try it out and to try out the heat transfer and rhinestone template materials from Silhouette.  A while back, I bought a great deal on Plum District for Silhouette products.  I ordered heat transfer material, rhinestone template materials and a bunch of rhinestones. It's all sat in the box since the end of July, until now.  I must admit, like anytime I try something new, I was a little intimidated, but then I've been using my Irock for what seems like years and the rhinestones, well aren't they just a bigger form of the Irock? 

So I started with the sweet pea design I had downloaded from Silhouette quite some time back.  I was surprised at how easy the template cut and how easily all the rhinestones were to drop into place.  So now, on to the heat transfer material... well, the video that came in the kit made it look all so easy, but didn't quite explain it very well (well, let's be honest, there were no words spoken on the video and the few printed words in the video didn't answer important questions, such as what setting on the iron?  Neither did the little booklet).  So I cut out my design using the most important piece of information I learned in the video - reversing the text... 

The I ironed... and ironed... and ironed.  Apparently the setting on the iron has to be quite high and I really had to push down firmly on the piece to get the letters to transfer (then had to fix a little boo boo where two of the rhinestones moved).  Once I pulled off the sheeting and pressed the letters one more time (oh and fixed the boo boo where two of the rhinestones moved), I stood back to admire my finished project.  Super cute!
 

And speaking of super cute, how cute was my snoopervisor today when I was shucking the corn to can? 



 

Of course, it wasn't long before he was distracted by the fact that Chewie found the canner box and, well where's there's a box, there's a cat in our household...

 



But with a little patience, and after surviving a little scare when he knocked the box over, he claimed his rightful place.

Chewie was "Laying in Wait" - DCWV June Stackaholic Challenge

It's been a lovely day off here as I burn through some "use it or lose it time."  After sleeping in, reading my favorite blogs and watching a little long marathon of Drop Dead Diva (love that show), I settled in to play with DCWV's June Stackaholic sketch. The super cute pictures of Chewie stalking a hummingbird last summer that I wanted to use had the portrait and landscape that fit the sketch, but only really worked for me once I flipped the sketch on its side

The circle pattern in the sketch was perfect to turn into a flower to highlight a photo of the hummingbird that my amazing hubby was able to catch in mid flight. 

I looked through my stacks looking for something cheerful and happily selected the Lemon Flower Stack.   I managed to make the whole layout using only pages from of the Lemon Flower Stack (even the white in the title came from that stack by simply flipping over a scrap and using the backside of the paper).  But I was sure sick of fussy cutting by the time I had the glittery flower strip cut out! 

So, now it's your turn.  Let's see what you can create from this sketch: 

A little bit of fun

I"m back! After a crazy week getting ready to leave and an equally crazy week at a conference in Phoenix (Scottsdale) Arizona, I'm so happy to be home. I've had three whole days to get settled back in and I loved every one of them. Friday was my day to myself to get my house clean, take care of some errands and get things back in order. I didn't get any crafting done that day, but I did get a lot of baking done with a couple loaves of banana bread (thankfully hubby didn't toss the bananas while I was gone), homemade granola and some meatloaf and a whole week of meals planned in advance (love that!). Then Saturday, hubby and I spent a great day with my parents. Mom and I checked out the warehouse sale by Boxer and I spent a lot (!) of money on some great scrapbooking supplies. Then we had a great lunch and it was off to IKEA. I haven't been to the one they built near us and it was huge! Amazingly I restrained myself from buying all new furniture for my craft room, but I'm plotting (ha ha). Then today, I finally had some time to simply play in my room. I finished sewing on the buttons on a baby sweater I made a while back for a co-worker's new baby. Now that he's back from family leave, I can give it to him, but I needed a card. I found a super cute one for the Cameo.

I used all my scraps again and ran the white background through the Sizzix Big Kick with an embossing folder for a little more texture. Quick, easy and perfect to go with the little sweater.

Oh, and I just have to share this adorable shot of Smoke and Chewie that I snapped today. It's rare that they are so close on the same post. Well, I'm off to bed since it's back to the office tomorrow for another crazy, busy week. Hopefully it will also be very productive!

Sketch Inspiration - Mini Snow-cation!

I have some exciting news! I'm sponsoring the prize over at Sketch Inspiration this week. I just love this site. I find so much inspiration there, so I was so happy to be able to show my support. So this week features a marvelous sketch that I really found inspiring. In fact, I had picked out my Echo Park paper from the Winter Park collection and my pictures of the furballs playing in the snow, but hadn't yet found the time to put the layout together. Then hubby and I took a three day camping trip to the coast where it snowed! By the time we got home, I knew the furballs pictures were out and the camping trip pictures were in. My absolute favorite picture right now is this one of Chewie and hubby napping together on the couch in the RV. Just too cute! I really had fun with this layout. I speckled paint on the stripped paper to bring it more in line with the speckling pattern in the other papers. I used my great Stampin' Up paper piercer to prepare the paper for hand-stitching with DMC floss. I made the title in the Silhouette Design Studio. The "Snow" is is cut in glitter paper (unfortunately that doesn't show well in the picture). The snowflakes are also cut out in glitter paper on the Cameo. The snowflakes were an image downloaded from Silhouette's Design Studio. Did you know that Echo Park has shapes that match some of their paper lines in there? I didn't until I found these and that just gave me one more reason to love the Silhouette and Echo Park (as if I even needed another reason). I just really love Echo Park paper! This Winter Park collection perfect for this time of year when we all get such great wintry pictures, well except DaisyMae Maus who lives in sunny Sandy Eggo, where it rarely, if ever, snows. But the paper also has some pages that would fit any time of year too. That's why I picked it for the prize for this week.

So, go on over to Sketch Inspiration and upload your take on the layout for a chance to win the entire Winter Park collection pack from Echo Park plus a bonus page of white glitter paper.
If you can't participate this week, stop by Sketch Inspiration any time you can. You'll always find an inspiring sketch and lots of inspiration in the gallery.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming..

Since we had a long weekend for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, we decided to go camping. Because the forecasters mentioned the possibility of snow at lower elevations, we decided to head to the coast rather than the mountains. The perfect thing about needing to make a baby sweater is that it's much easier to pack the supplies when going camping than taking supplies to make cards or layouts. In fact, I was able to finish not one, but two sweaters over our three day trip. I found this quick and easy pattern on Lion Brand yarn's website and was able to use some yarn leftover from other projects. I must confess that I did not crochet the entire time. Mom and Dad came over to visit for a while and have a lovely lunch. After they left, I crocheted while we watched a DVD. Then, on Sunday, Matt and I hiked some of the trails (even in a little bit of falling snow) to the local brewery and back. Then while Matt and Chewie napped, I crocheted the second sweater.

I just had to get a picture of them napping in similar positions: But then it started snowing. No problem because we were toasty warm in the RV, but as you can see from the foot prints, I did have to run out to clean off the satellite dish. That was pretty cold on the feet, but worth it.

But I must confess I was a little nervous for the drive home. We rarely get snow so people drive like idiots in it. Plus the RV isn't the easiest to drive in the best of conditions and drivers rarely recognize that it will not stop on a dime or quickly get out of the way. But Matt's a great driver. Even though we saw several cars and trucks in the ditch, we made it home safely and I was able to get some great pictures. A little snow on the side of the road by the beach:

Some great waves:It snowed a bit while we were driving (have I mentioned that Matt's a great driver?)

But snow didn't keep people away from the casino (although it did make it a little hard to see):

We know that they plowed our side of the road and we did see this one heading toward the casino:

What's funny is that there was more snow at the beach than there was inland near our home, but it was still beautiful.

But I'm really happy to be safe at home with the RV unpacked and life back to normal, although it is still snowing outside, but it's not really sticking so I guess I have to get back to the grind tomorrow. Oh well. It was a lovely break.

Hmm...

I've heard about other people losing posts before but it's never happened to me until now. Earlier this week, I lost one I had written and now I just lost another one. It's frustrating, but, oh well. So here's the card I made based upon Freshly Made Sketches sketch #17. While the sketch was very inspiring and I had all these wild ideas, I realized the card was for a man, so I had to keep it simple. So I did and kept it to just a stamp from Inkadinkado's All Occasions stamps, some random paper from my scrap bin and some crochet thread because I didn't have the right color of baker's twine...

But while I was looking for the picture of the card, I saw this great one of Chewie from our walk during our last camping trip that I just had to share.

My second cut...

Also did not go so well due to human error, but boy was I excited with what I learned. I knew I was not going to be happy with just cutting out what Silhouette has available in their library. Sure they have a lot of fun looking designs and I know I'll enjoy using those, but since I have had Sure Cuts a Lot with my Cricut for a long time now, I've gotten used to being able to cut out whatever I can dream of (as long as it wasn't a perfect circle - Cricut just could not cut that). Lately, that's mostly been cutting out around stamps of the stamp sets I have so I don't have to fussy cut anymore. I have almost all of them scanned into my computer, which is nice for organization and knowing what I have, but also meant that they were handy to play with. I opened up my favorite stamp set (Meow Meow from Recollections) and found my favorite stamp: the one that looks like Chewie. I erased all the other stamps, traced the outline of Chewie, then printed it and cut it with the Cameo. Only problem: I somehow ended up with a stray cut line that decapitated the paper Chewie. Oops... You can see the extra cut just above the collar where I taped it together: On my second try, it came out much better. I colored it a little with my colored pencils and added a little rhinestone and now it's perfect for... well for something. I'll figure out what later, but boy am I loving this new machine.

My first cut...

Well, not really, more like my third, but let me start at the beginning. Believe it or not, I've had my Silhouette Cameo for an entire week, but didn't take it out of the box until today. I forced myself to finish up a few projects and Christmas tasks I was working on before I would let myself get it out of the box because I knew once I had it set up, I would want to play. But now the big tasks are done. The wrapping is done. The meat is bought and Matt's already "test smoked" a bird. The cards are all mailed. A few have even come back - if you didn't get yours, here it is (Although the picture doesn't do it justice because the white is hand flocked paper to look like the fur on the suit, the black is shiny to look like patent leather and the the gold is shiny like a real gold buckle. The holly has texture, the stickles add that special bling and the sentiment is hand-stamped and hand colored.): But now that I'm ready for the holiday but for a little cooking and cleaning (neither of which I can do right now - there's no sense cleaning this house with the cats until the last minute), it was time to open the box. I barely had it out of the box and the cats were playing... with the box that is...

But first I had to figure where I was going to put it. Last night I found the inspiration. I cleaned out a cubby that held layout sketch books, kits and new frames and put my Expression in there so that I could have the prime spot for the Cameo. Only problem: the cord for the Cameo isn't that long and wouldn't reach my computer. So I flipped them and put the E back into it's old place and that worked perfectly (don't you love my kitty cover for the E? I'll have to design something for the Cameo to match): (Yes I am just a little too "label maker" happy. If it isn't used up immediately, it gets a label)... I loaded the software, watched the little video, read a bit of the manual and decided to try the "print and cut" feature first. It's one of the things that most intrigued me about the Cameo. I picked a stock butterfly picture already loaded in the software, printed it out my computer, loaded the Cameo and cut it out. Well, it went through the cut motions, but it didn't cut. Hmm... I checked a few things and tried it again. Still didn't cut. Finally I realized I didn't have the blade inserted all the way. Well duh... Third time was the charm. It cut beautifully, even on my cheap copier paper. The mat was a dream to work with compared to the pain in the @$$ ones from Cricut. At first I was worried because I didn't think about it being a new mat. I would never use thin copier paper with a new Cricut mat. I know I would get a ripped up mess that wasn't very usable and would be a pain in the rear to clean off the mat. But even the thin copier paper released like a charm off the Cameo mat (well except for the fact that I'm not very good with a spatula and used a little too much pressure since I'm used to fighting with the Cricut mats). I am absolutely stunned but how easy the mat was to work with and how nicely it released the image. Now I'm just curious to see how long the mat lasts. But, I am soooooo excited. I can't wait to learn more.

But first, I have to do some more reading on how to use it.

Argyle card

Wow, what an amazing week! We just returned from part two of our vacation. This time we motored over to the coast and spent three nights at a lovely park over there we've never stayed at before. The weather was glorious, not too hot, not to cold. It was even nice enough to venture into the water to splash in the waves.

I had such a fabulous time. It's been a long time since I've laughed and splashed and played like that. It made me think of Cely from Creating in Carolina's love of the water, so I had to write her a little message in the sand.After all that play, I got a full day to spend crafting in the RV while Hubby played with the Wii. I can't believe how many cards I finished. It's also amazing how much of a mess I can make doing that:

Chewie didn't help much.

But that's okay, because I was having a hard enough time trying my hand at a handmade argyle pattern:

It was a heck of a lot harder than I thought it would be. Tomorrow I'm off to Scrapbook Expo to see what inspiration I can find.

Meow birthday card

Yeah! I'm back from a great long weekend camping with the dear Hubby and Chewie. We had a fantastic time. The weather was perfect. My parents came down on Friday, so while Dad and Hubby fished, Mom sorted her pictures from our Southern California trip two years ago and I made a couple of cards.

Here's a picture of Hubby and Dad coming up the river to the docks just beyond our site to check that us "girls" were okay. (Hubby's standing, Dad's sitting) By the way Aunt Margie, tell Uncle Gordon that Matt still loves the boat. He and our camping neighbor talked boats because the neighbor had an old Seaswirl that was also still in amazing shape. They are really great boats. Hubby and I fished together on Saturday. Well mostly I drove the boat - yes, I have a license to do so! Although we caught a few, mostly we threw them back, which secretly makes me very happy. I'm a catch and release kind of girl. The only drawback was that Hubby sat on a bee and it stung him on the ankle. Good thing he's not allergic!

But with all that fishing, I didn't get any card making done. Instead we ran to town afterward and got mixer for margaritas so we could have a relaxing evening with Hubby playing Metroid on Wii and I finally had some time to catch up on my Creating Keepsakes and Scrapbooks Etc. issues I hadn't finished reading. Chewie went crazy when Hubby was trying to top off my drink. I think she wanted her share! On Sunday, I started making cards when the phone rang and Hubby's parents said they were going to stop by. So I quickly finished a card. Chewie was a little upset at being left in the RV when we were chatting outside, so I took Chewie for a walk (yes, she walks a leash. She's pretty good too. I just have to be patient and walk at Chewie speed - which is painfully slow at times!) and then she was ready to nap so I could visit. So I guess you can tell that I'm totally in love with this spoiled rotten cat. Well honestly, I'm totally in love with all of our spoiled rotten cats, but Chewie's the only one who is happy to go camping with us (Tigger has decided he doesn't like to have his routine interrupted so we leave him home now).

So it's not surprising that I'm so in love with this stamp that looks like Chewie that I keep gravitating to it. I needed to make a card for my nephew's birthday and Paper Player's Clean and Simple Challenge was to make a card with an animal or plant on it, so I took that as another excuse to use my Chewie stamp (although I think Chewie thinks she's human, not an animal - but we won't tell her that). It's a quick and easy card, the only problem is my camera doesn't really pick up the coloring of the stamp (silver just doesn't really photograph well with my limited skills). I drew inspiration for the layout from flipping through some sketches in my notebook. I'm pretty sure this one came from Mojo Monday, but I couldn't tell you which one anymore because I looked at so many things in my old notebook for inspiration, I'm not 100% sure anymore.