Hip to be Square

The challenge was to scraplift something from the Circle Blog. My personal challenge was to do it without going out lol. The project I chose was Kristen Swain's Snowman made with round paper mache boxes. I didn't have any of those so I made some square boxes out of kraft cardstock. I spritzed it with Tattered Angels Marshmallow Glimmermist, which got clogged in the middle so I poured it into a mini-mister and spritzed the rest Easy Peasy. I used Cosmo Cricket Material Girl Calico paper to make a scarf.

I cut the face out from the Snow Friends cart and covered the eyes and nose with Stickles. The snowflakes are from Gypsy Wanderings.

Beachy Ornament Souvenir Second Set

I made a second set from a different trip. It needed a different box so I could easily sort out which souvenir was which because not everyone went on both trips.

I can't stress how much I love Inkessentials Glossy Accents for sealing the little holes in the ornament topper. Trust me, you need to seal them or you'll be saying as I did, why is there sand all over the table? I just put a little over each hole and you really have to know it is there to see it. Sand weighs a lot, so a little bit of sand in each ornament is all you need. Plus this way you can sort of shake it like a snow globe (again important to seal up the top). The sand also makes it not a typical Christmas Ball in that you can set it down and it doesn't roll. It could of course be batted about by cats if they gave it a go.

It's lovely to see how different sands look up close. Oh to have some of the lovely black sand from Ms. Dunnit's recent vacation lol.

Learning my lesson from the first set of boxes, I scoured the local Hobby Lobby for six identical sheets of sturdier cardstock. I found the kraft cardstock was my best bet, and decided to just punch a little border with this EK Success beach punch. Wonderful except there was a little glitch in it that prevented the paper from cutting clean away so it had to be wrestled after each cut. At the end of the second strip I realized I had a Martha Stewart beach edge punch that might have been a little easier to use. See what happens when you put things away? I abandoned the idea of using a different ornament so I could use the same Gypsy file for the box (one of the boxes from the Cricut Wrap It Up cartridge).

Off Label ScrapCessories Usage

You just never know when scrapping tools will come in handy for off label usage. The ScrapCessories were the perfect size to weight down the bin that contained the mouse so I could go cut the cardboard and scoot it under the bin.

Life Expectency for a mouse that breaks into a house with 4 cats and a dog is not usually long. Except that I caught the mouse with an empty sweater box (being extremely mindful of the fact that mice do play possum and can jump on your shoulder from the floor per DD's personal experience last year). The cat who had to drop it was quite miffed BTW.

So I get the mouse outside (yes I really do wish I had gotten properly dressed today) the mouse ran off through to snowbank, back to the plowed driveway, straight under my car. Then there was prolonged blinking whilst I processed this new development. I was no longer caring that I was just wishing that I'd gotten properly dressed today.
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Another example of no good deed goes unpunished lol.

I need to get dressed properly so I can look for little pawprints leading away from my car. I still need tea or something.

UPDATE: The pawprints went under the car, towards the front porch, veered away suddenly (sometimes neighbourhood cats shelter under the porch) and then there were bounding pawprints leading away from the house. Where the quick retreat I saw the pawprints were maybe 3" apart at the point of prolonged bounding they are at least 8" apart. Fast, fast mouse. The cats, however, are still miffed.

Holding the Line Layout

It's not easy being the oldest, and this scrapbook layout touches on that. The butterflies are from the Picturesque cartridge. The Look Here is from Printing press. The base is cardstock from a package of scrapbook paper, too nice to throw out. The large mat is Aqua Mist by Papertrey Ink. The yummy brads are from Tim Holtz. The red cardstock is from my stash. The sombreros are from my grandparents lol. Very jaunty, no?

WOYWW

It has been a busy week. I wanted to get the last of the Beach Ornaments done before I went to bed tonight, only I couldn't find my glasses. I could have sworn I left them on my desk, but no, they were on my shirt. I've been playing with wood this week (see yesterday's post for a little stamping fun). The blue squares are chalkboard painted. The clothes pin/peg is holding the itop snap ring (I'm including a snap bobby pin as well). The others will be turned into earrings by the magic of jump rings. I've found a tube for the chalk to fit in the giftee's purse. Under the glass ornaments you can see the end of my little crop-a-dile. It punched through those wood pieces like buttah. Only one piece broke and it was too close to the edge. The pile of ink pads were used in my wooden experiments (except for the chalkboard bits).  I'm having a ranger fest today, Distress Inks, Glossy Accents, Misty thingies, and color wash..

The ornaments are filled with sand, tomorrow I'll make the boxes and label the ornaments. Luckily two ornaments fit into a brown lunch bag.  The punch in front is for the itop.

Here's a picture of me from longggggg ago. I wasn't shy, I just couldn't/can't stand having the sun in my eyes. Girl Scout Sunday, you can just make out the fingers of the gloves. This was a printer experiment gone awry, so Friday I'm hoping to experiment on photos :D.

If you're curious to see what other people are doing on their workdesk this Wednesday, head over to Julia's Stamping Ground and have a gander. Better yet, join in the fun.

January Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

This month's challenge is to use an under-utilized stamp set, so I put Wonderfully Whimsical to work. I used some wooden craft squares which came in an assortment of sizes ranging from approximately 1/2" to 1.5". I used Aleene's Primer before I started stamping to create a cleaner stamped line. The ink is Memories Sepia. I used watercolor pencils on the larger image. The smaller squares are punched with the smaller Crop-a-dile punch. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with these yet, I might put a pin back on the larger one and use the smaller for earrings or I might use them for embellishments.

Hop over to Capture The Moment to see seriously enabling Papertrey Ink projects.

Easy Holiday Decorating

It is very difficult to shop for my father, he has everything he really needs, and it's difficult to think of things he really wants lol. He and his wife travel a lot, sometimes they are home for Christmas, sometimes they aren't. I made these decorations so they could remember places they've been, but would be easy to store and easy to put up and take down.

The die cuts all come from the Destinations cartridge, the hanging ornament stamp comes from Papertrey Ink's Holiday Button Bits. I substituted paper circles for the buttons. Merry Christmas comes from Making Memories, Fa La La stamp set. The snowflakes were stamped on the background with versamark. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy... once I decided what to do lol.

Lighthouse Card

Fine Linen Papertrey Ink cardstock for the card base. I have definitely not used my Wall Decor and More cartridge as much as I could (it's got so many great images on it). The thank you is made with the monogram-shift feature. The blue is one of those metallic shimmery cardstocks. Simple, basic, but I like it :D.

WOYWW 85

I'm up to my neck in projects. Actually I have so many ideas, I've had to go play Hatchlings to sort them all out lol. Today has been a bit of a feast. I got my star punch and matching PTI stamp set today as well as the new Stamp It magazine and the Tim Holtz ticket stamp set. The picture frames are used in a late present for my dad. The stack of CD cases are all filled with luscious PTI stamps. I'm trying to find my least used set for the PTI blog hop this month.

So if you want to see more crafty workdesks, hop over to Julia Dunnit's Stamping Ground and have a gander. Better yet, join in :D.

Thrift Shop Challenge

The challenge is to restyle an item from a thrift store with Cricut cuts. So I started with a frame ($1.53 including tax) and turned it into a pin display.

I started with multi-surface primer and then put in a couple of coats of brown acrylic paint. Then I applied a few coats of old gold paint over that. I used one of the frames on the Sentimentals cartridge, cutting out the shadow, base, and 2 of the layers (the gold shimmery paper is layered over the cream with Stampin Up Dimensionals).  I put some wool over the glass and then covered that with fabric, put on the back and a frame is turned into a display for pins :D.

Feeling Frosty Challenge

I used the snowflake from the Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons cartridge.  For the shadow I used some of the 3M adhesive paper and made a stencil with the shadow cut and painted it on with white paint. Then I used a cream colored paper for the base and a shimmery eggshell for the layer cut. I used four brads from my stash and Stampin' Up Dimensionals for the snowflake layer cut and some really thick pop-ups for the mat. The card is made with Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink. The brown is from Anna Griffin and is shimmer also. Sadly the photograph doesn't pick up the subtle reflections.

Sandy Souvenirs and WOYWW 84

It's a late WOYWW post for me. I did take a picture of my workdesk, but my battery was flatlined and apparently didn't register the picture ... then I forgot I had to retake it ... so this week it'll just be a project I've been working on.

It's snowing like mad today, so I'm making beachy souvenirs as gifts just to balance things out. I have a bit of a compulsion to collect a bag of sand at every beach I go to, unless it's a national park, then I just take pictures of the sand. So I used some clear glass ornaments, put in some sand and sea glass and wrote the name of the beach and the year we were there with a copic pen.

The boxes are made with a cut from the Wrap It Up Cartridge and decorated with squares of paper from a K&Co. beach pad. After the first four, I learned it was way easier to put the decorative paper on before the box was assembled lol.

If you'd like to see what other crafty folks have on their workspace, hop over to Julia's Stamping Ground, or better yet, join in the fun :D.

Phun with Photos

This is my cat Dilly who loves to sit in observation places (like the shelf I was assembling) where she can watch everyone in the room. I captured the essence of her, but the quality of the photograph was minimal so I used one of the artistic filters in Photoshop Elements.

Then I used the watercolor effect on the Christmas Quilt picture.

And the poster edge effect on this picture of a gnome in my garden (the effect should be more pronounced if you click on the picture).

Christmas Quilt

This is the awesome quilt my oldest younger sister (Sis O'Snap) made for me! The colors are amazing, and best of all, around the border are Eiffel Towers! My jaw hit the floor when I unwrapped this. She made the same quilt in different fabrics for our other sisters each of us was tickled pink! The white specks are snowflakes.