Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends - Week 3

Hello everyone! It's week 3 of Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends.

This week I did a simple card with image no. 21. I got to use more scraps for the image (mostly K&Co.), and used all 4 layers. The card is an A2 made from Papertrey Ink's Spring Moss cardstock which I had stamped with a stamp from the Four of a Kind stamp set (it really is a favorite) using Versamark.

 Be sure to check out what everyone else made!

1. Abby- http://www.scrapbookaholic.blogspot.com/

2. Agnes- http://flowerdiscosscraphut.blogspot.com//
3. Gaby- http://scrapabookaholic.blogspot.com/
4. Helen- http://craftingcricutmom.blogspot.com/
5. Jessica- http://luvcraftingwithcricut.blogspot.com//
6. Melissa- http://melissaward72.blogspot.com//

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday

Okay, this is chaotic, even for me lol. Out of deference to those with delicate sensibilities, I've kept the picture smaller. Of course if you want to see it up close, you can just click on it. The remote is for my CD player. At the moment I'm listening to an audio book. I'm still sad I finished The Graveyard by Neil Gaiman, but didn't want to listen to it twice back to back lol.

About the pink mystery paint last week, the color was an unintended red herring.  It's chalkboard paint. But... I forgot to buy regular chalk so I could test it out in a card setting.  And I spent the last two days mostly looking for my Martha Stewart foils and getting distracted by all the other things I found instead (see picture above lol), so that project got put on a back burner.

I also moved a lovely box with little shelves off one desk to another space close enough to put heavily stickled items safely away from the perils of gravity or forgetfulness. I was reminded to do this by my stickles chart with the three smooshed lines (icicle, crystal and diamond) where I dropped my pen when I was taking the cap off.  Did I mention Grace is one of my nicknames?  The chart is really handy for deciding which "clear" stickles to use and what they all look like out of the bottle.

In the Cricut realm of  my existence this week, I've been using my Superman cartridge a lot. Only with a twist, that I can't show it to you yet.  You can see my test boxes (the grey ones) from the Happy Hauntings cartridge. After I figure out all the bits, I'll make them in Lovely Halloween colors. I love the takeout box with the hand coming out of the graveyard, but I think it needs to be cut from a stiffer cardstock as the hand is very floppy after it goes through the slot!

It's also week three of Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends which is in a separate post after this one, should you care to check it out. Thanks for looking!

WOYWW is a blog hop hosted by Julia at The Stamping Ground, and this, I believe, is week 69. So hop over if you want to see how more crafty people house work and join in  :D.

One Beautiful Blog Award

I was deeply honored to be passed this award from Audrey from Cute and Some. She makes such beautiful projects. The conditions for accepting the award are to pass it on to 15 other deserving bloggers. This is always the toughest part of blog awards for me, once I learned out to post the picture that is lol.  I scooped these up with a net from an ocean of wonderful blogs:

1. Royal Things
2. Beeing Creative and Feeling Cherry
3. Stamping Ground
4. Sweet Violets Paperie
5. A Frayed of Fibers
6. Little Imperfections
7. Flip Flops and Pop Tarts
8. SquirrelyArt
9. Sunshine reflections
10. JoZart
11. Impressionable Art
12. My Time to Craft
13. An Unhurried Life
14. Mom with Paper
15. mix me up!

September Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

The challenge for Papertrey Ink's September Blog Hop was to create a project with a learned stamping skill.

One of my favorite skills (I really can't pick just one!) is using watercolor crayons instead of an inkpad. I learned this as part of the February 2010 Castaway Club Scrap kit. I used  a little spray bottle to spritz the stamp with water, then colored with the watercolor crayons, then stamp. Easy Peasy. I like to use different colors, in this case two greens on the leaves. The flowers didn't pop enough, so I went back and colored directly on the card and then used an aqua brush.  If it's really wet you can use a heat gun to speed up the drying.
When it had dried I drew a thin frame around it free-hand. I discovered that if I do this on a non-stick mat, I can hold the pen in one place and just slide the card. This eliminates the need to pick the pen up in the middle of a line.

Ingredients:
Papertrey Ink Vintage Cream cardstock
Papertrey Ink Four of a Kind stamp set
01 micron pigment black ink pen
small spray bottle with water
watercolor crayons, I used Faber-Castell

I have to say my favorite stamping tip came from my oldest younger sister who convinced me to go to CHA. When we were in the Papertrey Ink booth she said, "Buy Papertrey Ink stamps" lol. OK, she didn't have to twist my rubber arm much :D.

Cricut Lite Botanicals Cards

I love this cart! So since I was lucky enough to be sent as part of a Giveaway on Everyday Cricut, how better to thank Joy and Melanie than with cards made with it :D.

The first card I made using the the butterfly card and the third flower cut in the fourth row. I used Diamond Stickles in the flower centers and Antique Linen Distress Stickles on the butterfly. 

The second card I made to have a bit of a "reveal" when it opened, a little faux stitching with a micron pigma 01 and some Diamond Stickles. I really need to get a flower frog to photograph closed cards lol.

Both card bases were made from Papertrey Ink cardstock, and are a little smaller than a regular A2 because they were cut out with the Cricut. The "You Inspire Me" sentiment comes from Papertrey Ink's  Embellishments stamps set released last month, and the "Thank you" comes from Papertrey Ink's Year of Flowers: Lily of the Valley stamp set.

Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends - Week 2

Hello Everyone! It's week two of Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends.  If you are looking for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, please scroll to the previous post :D.

This week I used image number 14, and I went large with a 5 x 7 inch card. The vase image doesn't come with flowers so I added a flower image from Accent Essentials. The card is from an SEI pad, everything else is from my scrapbook, but is mostly various K&Co. papers. I used some gold acrylic metallic paint to make the flower centers. I dipped the end of the paintbrush in the paint to make the center of the smaller flower as I learned on the Aleene's craft show soooo long ago lol. The small blue dots are actually glittered (by the manufacturer).

 Here is what everyone else made!

1. Abby- http://www.scrapbookaholic.blogspot.com//

2. Agnes- http://flowerdiscosscraphut.blogspot.com/

3. Gaby- http://scrapabookaholic.blogspot.com/

4. Helen- http://craftingcricutmom.blogspot.com/

5. Jessica- http://luvcraftingwithcricut.blogspot.com//

6. Melissa- http://melissaward72.blogspot.com//

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday

Hello everyone!  I'm in between big projects, so you can actually see bits of the workdesk lol. To the right is my Scrapsessories storage unit with the bottle insert. I love this so much! No more stickle burps in the middle of a crucial line (touch wood). The bag of stickles are my duplicates on their way to the storage shoebox where the doubles live.

The bit of blue wool (it's actually wool btw, as I am a spinster with 17 fleeces 3 wheels and I don't put all my roving in one place (moths). And since I decorate spindles, I don't count those either) and the brown rectangle are the cannibalized remains of a contest project that just wasn't up to snuff.... so take 2 is in the works.

The little icon dog stuck to the baby wipes is the negative left from a cut from another project. I use painter's tape to keep the negatives in place and to keep the bits from being lost.

But most of what is on the table is part of my mojo  detection project  or various experiments conducted on wayward scraps.

I practice decoration techniques, test pens and other things on my lists.  Scraps that don't make it into project are likely to be put to use for this. I find if I wait till I have a project, especially with a deadline to do this sort of thing, I don't have that memory muscle thing to help me out lol. I'm testing a new to me glossy finish on the vasey thing, the golden mat is a combination experiment, the black paper scrap is for testing different pens on black. And the pink is something I've been waiting to try to months.  Bragging rights will go to the first person who posts what sort of paint the pink paint is :D.

If you want to see the workspace of lots of other creative people start here!

Happy Birthday Dad

I started with a blank card from Club Scrap, but it was the wrong tone for this card, so I used Antique Linen Distress Ink to deepen the tone. Everything else is from my scrap box (I think it's mostly K&Co.)

The stamp mat is from the Sentimentals cartridge and more Antique Linen Distress Ink around the edges. Dad is from Beyond Birthdays, and sanded around the edges with an emery board. I cut a plaid mat with my tonic guillotine. The happy birthday sentiment is from Lyrical Letters cartridge and it is small (the whole sentiment is 1.75"). This is take 2 lol. The first one I cut was out of a thin scrap paper and it got very wobbly with the glue. So I tore a mat to cover the first sentiment and re cut it.  The second time I used K&Co. shimmer paper. It's the cat's meow for cutting thin letters at a small size. It keeps it's form even with glue, and, it shimmers lol. Rather than fuss with the dot for the "i" I just used a dot of stickles. Then i put some dots on the deoccorative element as well. I love the flip feature. I didn't have to load a second piece of paper for the decorative element, just the flip feature. Thanks for looking :D.

Playing with Serenade by Flowerdisco and Friends - Week 1

Hello everyone! I'm one of Flowerdisco's Friends exploring the long-pined for (in my case at least) Serenade cartridge. The image I worked with this week is #7 (1st row, 7th along), which tickled me to bits because this image is one of the reasons I really craved this cartridge.

I used DCWV cardstock for the base and Stamper's Select White Papertrey Ink cardstock for the Clouds and Raindrops. The bottom layer of the cloud was stamped with Niagara Mist Versamagic Chalk Ink, the middle layer was left white but mostly covered with Diamond Stickles (ooooohhh the sparkle), the top layer is lightly inked with BazzInk Splash.  I surrounded each rain drop (and covered them too) with more Diamonds Stickles. The sentiment comes from Papertrey Ink's Scattered Showers stamp set.

Be sure to check out everyone's projects.

1. Abby- http://www.scrapbookaholic.blogspot.com/

2. Agnes- http://flowerdiscosscraphut.blogspot.com/

3. Gaby- http://scrapabookaholic.blogspot.com/

4. Helen- http://craftingcricutmom.blogspot.com/

5. Jessica- http://luvcraftingwithcricut.blogspot.com/

6. Melissa- http://melissaward72.blogspot.com/

A Card for Fall and a Thank You card

I made this card for a contest, which was timely as I had been wanting to try this all summer lol.  The treetop is made from a fancy cut on Straight from the Nest and it's shadow. The paper is Creative Memories, but I don't remember which set.  The card base is made with Core'dinations cut 5.5" x 8.5"  and folded in half. The tree trunk is from Serenade. and it is sandwiched between the fancy cut and it's shadow.  Please note rhinestones do not expire. I bought these from a now defunct store called Franks back in 1989. I filled all the cuts that have rhinestones in them with glossy accents. I also filled in some of the cuts without rhinestones.

Then I put the finishing touches on a Thank You card I've been working on all week. One of those get an element think about it, let it lie on the card for a while, move it lol.

It started with the flower embellishment which I cut almost 2 years ago when I was just starting out with the  Cricut. I have NO idea which cart it came from or anything.  Then I went to my scrap box and pulled out a thin strip of shiny K&Co paper and my favorite pink, preglittered paper, and a piece of cardstock from Club Scrap's Framed  kit (this is the plain side).  I cut the shiny paper strip in two and used both sides, and strung it through the flower.

The flower looked too plain, so I stamped it with a Papertrey Ink stamp from the Embellishments stamp set, and then covered the ink using a clear glittered copic marker (also purchased from Papertrey Ink). I used my Splash BazzInk cube to tie elements together by inking the edges of the grey mat and to stamp flourishes on the card base.

You can just see the background stamping there. Then I made liberal use of my Antique Linen Distress Stickles and a sentiment made from the Paper Tray Ink stamp set from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for looking :D

Added: The flower is from George and Basic Shapes, in the slotted feature :D

You Are My Sunshine

When my daughter was hours old, I sang "you are my sunshine". Because (as I wrote on one of the clouds, she was and she is). The second song I sang to her was the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies, because I had exhausted my repertoire of lullabies.

That fabulous sunshine paper was in my first kit (A Sassafrass Summer) from Club Ruby Designers. Wendy the Bling Queen did a fabulous layout, but I needed two pages and I only wanted to use one of my sunshine sheets and we live in a single sun solar system (sorry toooo much Star Trek), so I put my twist on it.

Using the very technical string tied around a pencil, I measured out the distance I wanted my circular cut to be, held the end of the string at the corner and drew an arc on the back of the paper. Then I cut along the line and kept the scrap for a future project.

I welded “You” to the top of one of the clouds on the Gypsy, and “are” to the bottom of another one. Welded “my sunshine” to a circle that I had partially off the page. The clouds are from Going Places, the lettering is Doodletype. The clouds are cut from Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White Cardstock at a pressure of 4 and a regular blade set at 3. I also used a really sticky mat, not brand-new-anything-you-stick-to-me-will-have-to-be-pried-off-sticky, but really sticky :D.

From a 3 inch strip of paper off the green print paper in the kit, I cut some hills out with scissors. If it makes it easier, you could also draw hills on the back of the strip.

I used a sepia micro pen for stitching everything except the sun, and for that I used a white gel pen. If I had to do it over again, I would have used a bolder font or put another larger circle big enough to go under the “my sunshine” so it would stand out more. DD’s picture will go in the sunshine mat when I find it lol.

A side note about welding letter to shapes with the Gypsy. I put my shape on one layer, then I make another layer and line the lettering up on the second layer. If everything is on the same layer it’s too easy to accidentally pick up the shape and get everything out of kilter. When I have everything lined up where I want, I hit the save button. Then go to the first layer and click on the shape, then go to the lettering layer and hit the paste button. Then I use the arrows to line up the shape just the way I want it, save again :D.

I hope to have the link Gypsy file posted soon, if you are interested :D.

Let's Get Organized, Organized... erm *looks around, and starts again* ... Let's Get More Organized, Organized.

You know the tune (sing it to Olivia Newton John's "Lets' Get Physical). So this is my work table lol. I just finished one entry for a contest, one card for a series with others, and I'm working on another entry, a blog hop and some things just for fun. And the Halloween stamps are being used as part of my stamp every stamp I have campaign.

You'll note the clearing to the right... That's only there because the Cricut mat would get stuck otherwise and that would waste paper lol.  If you are wondering why I have Cricut cartridges out as well as my Gypsy, the answer is, there are three things better without the Gypsy. Plus if you are going to use the very lovely Graphically Speaking, it's a lot easier with the handbook. After this batch is done, I really need to get to work :D.

Only now I've given myself an earworm lol . You don't hear Olivia warbling?? Noooo good deed goes unpunished lol. But seriously my mojo moves out of the house if this surface is empty. Cluttered desk is to cluttered mind what empty desk is to... Maybe I could make a cute little mojo house!

If you want to see what other work areas look like go here.

If you didn't win the Papertrey Ink Four of a Kind stamp set here...

Or even if you did win the Papertrey Ink CHA exclusive, go here to read about CHA from Papertrey Ink's perspective :D. There are also some giveaways. BTW, when my sister and I got in line it was already wayyyy outside the booth. Over an hour in line (and if you know me well, you know lines just aren't something I do willy nilly), and TOTALLY worth it :D.