In honor of her very cute kitty's 3rd birthday, my favorite crafting instructor, Jenn Shurkus, is hosting a raffle on her blog. In order to enter we needed to make a birthday card just for Mr. Harley and send it to her. I'm coming in just under the wire and submitting it just after midnight on April 13th rather than on Mr. Harley's birthday, but I think he'll forgive me. I had a pretty long day and he is a very sweet guy.
Materials I used to make this card:
Stampendous - Kitty Silhouettes clear stamp set
a muse - Happy Everything clear stamp set
Ichiyo- Cat with long tail stamp (not the real name, couldn't find it online)
a muse square note cards (unavailable)
Shake it Up - mini mat stack papers
Memento Ink - Tuxedo Black
Dew Drop Versamagic Ink - Pretty Petunia
Spica Glitter Pen in Olive
a muse olive ribbon
foam tape
mono adhesive
patience of a saint
So, while this wasn't what I had planned to do originally, it came out nice and I am happy. I need to exercise my paper crafting and stamping juices more often... this card took me way to long to finally figure out. Oh well, hopefully more stampy goodness to come in the future!
I hope you had a wonderful birthday Harley!!
Edited for spelling and grammar issues. Apparently, one shouldn't blog tired ;-)
I take lots of classes... No really, I mean lots of classes. At least once a month I take a cardmaking class at my LSS (local stamping store). This month, in addition to my usual class, I signed up to take one to make a reusable Advent calendar. Advent calendars are something my mom gets for me every year as far back as I can remember. There is something so fun about opening up the little door each day to see a picture, read a verse or get some candy. The calendar I made today is of the candy variety (although I could add some random verses when I set it up for us this year). I have always wanted an Advent calendar that is more permanent than the flimsy card stock ones that are sold in stores. So, it was a real treat to get to make one for my little family.
This is the first year our instructor Jenn, aka Creative Chick, has brought her yearly Advent calendar class to my LSS. How she made it is really cool. The base is a metal bulletin board and each day is a little metal tin that is decorated and then stuck on the board with magnets. Here is a close up so you can see what I mean.
Isn't it sooooo neat! I'm so excited that I just kind of wanted to put it up now instead of waiting until Dec. 1. Now all I have to do is figure exactly what kind of candy and cat treat I am putting in each one!
Unfortunately I don't have time to put up the details of this card right now, as I am about to head out to a class taught by the lady that will be the recipient of this card, but I promise I will add the info in later. Stay tuned!
So, I'm still keeping up with my one card a week goal, which I'm pretty psyched about. Doing these cards has been getting easier and easier as the weeks go on. This week I thought I would do a thank you card since I have more than a few people who could use some thanking in my life. I'm also really excited because A Muse just came out with their spring release, which is called Everything's Rosy (I looooove floral stamps). I'm so psyched because in a couple weeks I'll be going to a class featuring the use of all these new stamps. AWESOME!!! You can get a sneak peek at some of the new stamps by checking out A Muse's blog. Papers:
1 A Muse Lavender Square Card (these are unfortunately discontinued, I just happened to have some)
For my week three card, I have yet another birthday card. I certainly do seem to have a lot of friends and family who were born at this time of year. I've actually been holding off on posting this because I wasn't sure just how long the card would take this card to get to it's destination. However, I am happy to report, it made it to the birthday girl on time, so now I can share it with everyone!
Week 2 of card making was successful!! So what if I cheated and actually made this card last Saturday? I was on a paper crafting roll and knew I would see my friend Bob that day so I could give him his birthday card, albeit belated. Whatever!! What matters is that a card was made :P
To further aid my Card a Week posting goal, I bought a whole bunch of 8.5 x 11 A Muse papers when I was up at Ink About It on Wednesday night for my class with Jenn. We made really cool things that night, but I will share that lovely creation with you in another post. I think I might have come close to buying one of every different color and style paper they have, but as they are only 45 cents a sheet, the bill wasn't too destructive :-)
Papers:
1 A Muse Orange Square Card (these are unfortunately discontinued, I just happened to have some)
To keep myself blogging regularly and increase my paper crafty skills, I recently decided to make a card a week and put it up on the blog. I really enjoy stamping and doing paper crafts, but I generally have a very hard time creating things on my own. It's like I get overwhelmed. I came to this conclusion when I took the Creativity Bootcamp Class at Ink About It a few months ago.
So, I figure, the best way to get myself to be less uptight about making cards is to just jump in and do it, even though it might be uncomfortable for awhile. So, I did and this was the first card I came up with. It's a little busy, but that is ok. Making my cards too busy is another one of my usual downfalls. I just don't seem to know when to stop. Anyway, back to the point.... so if any of you are crafty and want to make the cards I do for my card a week, I will include in the post a list of materials needed to recreate them.
Papers:
1 A Muse Blue Square Card (these are unfortunately discontinued, I just happened to have some)
Yeay, I was creative! I decided that the Easter Bunny needed to see my family members, so I came up for this card for my folks and used the same cute bunny lineup for making gift tags for mini Easter Candy Takeout Boxes. Not too shabby if I say so myself. All the cardstock, stamps and ribbon are by A Muse and the ink pads I used are Memento Dew Drops. I just adore how everything coordinates so well. These literally only took me a few moments to make and they look adorable!
These are the 5 incredibly cute cards mom and I made tonight at Jenn's Amuse Valentine's class at Ink About It. Both mom and I really liked this year's release for the holiday because the stamps can be used for so many things other than on a valentine. Now, I admit I have been neglecting my stamping for a bit now, but that doesn't mean that I don't still love it and want to create cute things. I just seem to get a creative block whenever I try to make something myself... must work on that.
Anyway, thanks to Jenn for yet another lovely class! I have the Amuse Addicts Get Together on Sunday, so I should come home with lovely stamped items to show off then. I should have 20+ cards to share, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Ok, so this post is officially on restriction... I was very close to being done with it, having looked up all but two of the links I needed and written out all my lovely commentary. However, that post was not meant to be. Somehow it managed delete itself and then auto save before I could hit undo.... so, the original is lost somewhere in the sea of ones and zeros that is the internet. Hopefully I can remember all the neat things I was going to share now that my temper tantrum is over, lol. Well, here goes...
The actual Ten on Tuesday topic for today is 10 Things I want, but wouldn't buy for myself, but I decided that it wasn't particularly my style. I always end up feeling a little bit like a greedy monkey at this time of year, with everyone asking what I want for Christmas, so instead of focusing on what I want, I decided to focus on ways I can be creative in December. Fortunately for me, there are lots of great ideas out there. Here are ten that I thought would be worth sharing. I do want to put in a disclaimer here... while I have tried out some of these crafty projects and I do plan to try out others, I have not tried them all, so.... I refuse to be held responsible if you project is CraftFail worthy : P Believe me, I've had plenty of those moments myself.
1) Knit a Christmas stocking - As part of my knitting insanity this year I want to make Christmas stockings for my little family. I just love the idea of those really cool multi-colored faire-isle ones that have your name knitted into them and look like they took hours to make. So, I hopped on Ravelry and found the pattern for Cascade Christmas Stockings. This pattern is great because it allows you to customize your stocking by section and color. For each section, the pattern offers a few options so that way you can mix and match your favorite designs. Now, if you don't want to dive into a project like that, but you like the idea of a stocking, you can try out this pattern for Mini Knitted Christmas Stockings.
3) Make an eco-friendly garland - You can make a cool eco-friendly garland out of all sorts of things you can get at the grocery store, or even in your backyard. Some good ideas are cranberries, popcorn, dried fruit, cinnamon sticks, pine cones, and acorns. Instructables has directions on how to make a Delightfully Dehydrated Garland of dried fruit slices and Ocean Spray gives some good tips on how to string up cranberries and popcorn. What's great about these garlands is that when the holidays are over you can put them out on your bushes in the back yard and they will mysteriously disappear!
4) Bake cookies for your friends and family - This is something I do every year with both my mom and friends because baking for people is a great way to give them something special when your budget might be a little tight. In early December the girls get together for cookie day and we each make enough cookies from recipes we each pick so that everyone to bring a dozen home. It really makes getting all that baking done fast and fun! My current favorite recipes are the Lemon-Honey Drop Cookies and Molasses Cookies from Cooking Light magazine, but I have also made a family favorite, Chocolate Crinkles. A really great resource for recipes in general, but in this case cookies is MyRecipes.com.
5) Make your own holiday cards - Now, I have tried to do this for several year, each year with different levels of success (or failure). I love card making, but I am not the best designer so I tend to do most of my paper crafting and stamping in the classroom with Jenn our instructor (who is awesome). But, when I do endeavor create on my own I stick with stamps from one company and that is A Muse. They offer the cutest stamps ever and their slogan is perfect... think simple. think a muse. I can't speak highly enough of their quality stamps, papers and other accessories. So, go to their site and check them out. They have excellent examples of holiday card ideas you can check out at their design studio.
7) Cut out paper snowflakes - Now, I know this sounds just silly, but they are a lot of fun! You can either find a pattern and follow it to get a snowflake to look exactly how you like or you can be a rebel (like I normally do) and fold your paper and attack with the scissors. I honestly haven't come out with a bad one yet doing it this way. You can also try your hand at making a 3-D Paper Snowflake.
8) Make soap that reminds you of the season - I have never gotten the chance to make soap and there are many ways to do it. You actually have a few options if you are interested in soap making, first you can just melt down pre-purchased soap and add other ingredients such as dyes, exfoliants or the scent of your choice. You can also purchase the ingredients to make glycerin soaps (this is the one I really want to try). Lastly you could make lye soap (which I really wouldn't recommend). Idea Queen has some recipes up on her blog for you to try out. You should be able to get most of the ingredients at Michael's or AC Moore. The only thing I would stress is that anything you use for these recipes should NEVER touch food again! So, once you have used a pot or a wooden spoon in soapmaking, it is married to that function or the trash for life.
9) Make a wreath for your door - Either go the traditional route with tree branches or use something you already have, extra scarves. You can see some great ideas here at Country Living or at Martha Stewart's website.
10) Make a fruitcake - Nah! Just kidding :-) I'm scared of those, but here is a neat article on the Great Fruitcake Toss held every year in Manitou Springs, Co. Also you can listen to Robbie O'Connell sing about Mrs. Fogarty's Christmas Cake (one of my favorite Christmas folk songs):
This is a shoebox project I made for the A Muse Addicts get together at Ink about It back on Sunday Sept. 20th. A rather large group of us came from around the state and even further to spend some time together and celebrate our love of all things A Muse. For 10 Treat-Filled Halloween Matchbooks you need:
Take a slate note card and put it color side up on the scor-pal so that the long side is against the ruler edge.
Score your card at 1" and 6", repeat this for all 9 remaining cards.
Fold the cards on your score marks so the fold at 1" is the flap to catch the matchbook lid and the one at 6" helps form the wide edge of the matchbook.
Distress all edges of the slate cards with the paper distresser so that you can see the white of the card stock beneath it.
Using the black pigment ink pad, distress (or flip according to Jenn :P) the edges of all 10 pieces of the vintage orange. You can do this as lightly or heavily as you prefer.
Using mono adhesive, attach a distressed vintage orange piece to each card so that the left, top and right sides have an even amount of space between it and the card.
Using the black dye ink pad, stamp the pumpkin basket on the vintage orange pieces.
Stamp 10 images of the pumpkin basket on your piece of Natural White and color in with the Copic marker.
Cut out each pumpkin basket you just colored (ignoring the handle part) and attach one to each of your cards with foam tape directly over the one on the vintage orange.
Using the Black dye in pad, stamp Open if you dare on the 1" x 2" Palm green rectangles.
Use the paper distresser on all sides of the green rectangles. Then, bend each of them so that they look crumbled.
Attach the green rectangles to each card using foam tape.
Flip open the matchbooks use mono adhesive to secure your favorite candy inside (I personally prefer Gummy Body Parts). Make sure to leave room at the top to stamp Happy Halloween above the candy.
Finally, tie the orange polka dot ribbon around the bottom of the matchbook to secure the bottom flap and keep the matchbook from opening.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first attempt at designing a little project. I had lots of fun working on it and getting it ready for the A Muse Addicts for last weekend. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or send me an email.
