Inspire Me

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Well after yesterday's wicked witch explosion (See post below) today I worked on finishing Frankenstein's head and helping out at a pre-school party for 30 kids.

We just got home from Trick or Treating in the neighborhood and I'm taking a deep breath. It's been one of those non-stop crazy fun days with lots of children and lots of laughter and squeals. Some of my favorite noises in the world, children laughing.

But I hope you'll indulge me as I share my two guys with you on this most exciting holiday for them:

My little guy was wearing a dragon costume with these awesome sparkling wings. But he wanted to be a dinosaur, so we showed him the scales on the back of the tale and told him he was like a super hero. And so a new hero was born - Dino Dragon Man! He loved it!

The more scary guy is my Frankenstein. We made his costume from bits & pieces of old clothes around the house - the best kind of costumes. An old wool blazer that we cut up and closed together with duct tape. Stuffing in the shoulders and guess what he has on his head? An empty milk jug that was cut and painted! He did the scar on the front himself. The boots are from an old costume my daughter had years ago when she was dressing as some disco queen - but they were perfect for this, don't you think? Anyhow he loved the finished product and as you can see he played the role very well, ha-ha.

Here are a few more:

 

A little blurry, but they wanted you all to see the pumpkins they had craved with Dad. Notice how each pumpkin matching the feel of their costumes. One scary, one cute.

And one more of my little guy. He was just so cute!

I hope that everyone heard as much laughter as I did today and got to smile at least one big grin.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

MarshMallow Witches

Wondering what I've been up to lately with all my free time? Well making self portraits of course.

Just check these babies out. 100 of the cutest, yummiest most darling little witches. Told you self portraits. (He-he) Production line work has never been so sweet. I made these for both of the boys classrooms and their teachers.

I still have yet to finish a head piece for my son's Frankenstein costume. At which point I will have a dragon/dinosaur & a Mr. Frankenstein. I'll share those photo's with you tomorrow.

Edited to add:

I wrote all that this afternoon, before actually starting the damn little witches (oops did I say that?!) Well those little ladies just did not want to cooperate and I was doing my best to let my 4 yr old help. I persevered and made 40 then just stood there crying. Even as witches they were bad, like they had all fallen off their brooms and were run over by a tractor trailer truck. Take a look for yourself, here are the fallen witches: Enlarge the picture only if you dare.

Oh the pain of it all. First I didn't count on the marshmallows that I had bought would be all squished, so they wouldn't even stand up. The more weight I added to them the more they toppled, the more they toppled, well...... you get the sad picture.

So to show you what they really should have looked like I scanned the photo in the book. Looks so simple doesn't it? I want to know where they got such perfect marshmallows. And now what do I do with ALL that frosting??? Never mind the unwrapped PB cups, Hersey Kisses and opened chocolate wafers - UGH!

And here is what they really should have looked like:

That's okay we move on, So on to plan B. DH runs to the store for more goodies and we end up making monster mix and filling small ice cream cones with the all candy mixture. I call it monster mix cause when these kids are done digesting all that sugar they will be little MONSTERS!

So that's my scary Halloween story. Nothing is ever perfect and thank goodness for plan B's :)

 

In the meantime, Happy Halloween to everyone - enjoy! You know if you would like to really make me feel better you would share a scary Halloween story of your own. I mean if we can't laugh at ourselves than why not laugh at each other?

 

 

 

BOO!

Tiny Trinity Thrill

Okay, so I know it's a really corny title but I was looking for the Triple T thing. See there I go again Triple T Thing (3 "T's), bad, huh?! I suggest you grab your drink of choice and sit back this post may be long. I have a few cards to share and a great technique.

Last week I posted the cutest spring card using the Tiny Trinity set from Unity Stamp Co.

   

Well, I am just so in love with this set and I haven't stopped playing yet. In this card I used a great technique that was shared by Debbie that creates a diagonal background, using your Scor-Pal. (That has to be one of my most favorite new toys!) So playing off of that technique I made this card:

I used SU Paper in Sahara Sand & Very Vanilla. Kaiser self-adhesive pearls which I changed the color to a darker green with my Copic markers. The tree and Sentiment are stamped in Espresso Adirondack dye ink and the inside of the tree is colored with a green Twinklette marker. Who knows where that ribbon came from - oops. But isn't this sweet? Such a great technique that Deb shares and it makes such a huge difference on your cards. So if you don't have a Scor-pal then run to your nearest LSS or e-mail me and get one today!

My next card is also with the Tiny Trinity set but here's where I would like to share another technique with you. It's been called shattered glass or impress embossing or many other things. For today's purposes I'm just sharing a technique and you get to call it whatever you would like. First, here is the card:

 To start:

1. Using a piece of matte cardstock  and any colors of dye based inks. Rub, dab or smoosh the ink color(s) onto the cardstock. This is also referred to as the direct to paper (DTP) technique. Once you have your paper colored the way you like proceed to step 2. (I used ink spots to do my background) - Also note that you could stop right here and just use this as great background paper for any of your projects.
2. Stamp your image in any color Staz-On
3. Color your image, if desired. I colored the inside of my tree with various Twinklette markers. I love the shimmer and in real life (irl) you can truly see the shimmer come through in the final steps.
4. After you have stamped and colored, cover your entire piece with versamark.
5. Dump either clear embossing powder or clear UTEE (I used UTEE) onto your project and heat set. Repeat this step a second time.
6. Repeat step 5 for a third time, only this time have your stamp inked with any color pigment ink (I used encore metallic in copper). Cover image with UTEE  and heat set. While the UTEE/embossing powder is molten hot stamp your pre-inked image into the hot UTEE on the card on top of the original image. Leave it there. DO NOT TRY TO PICK UP YOUR STAMP UNTIL THE IMAGE HAS COOLED. Once cooled remove your stamp. You now have a totally awesome embossed and impressed image with great depth and dimension.
7. At this point you could stop and just use this image - I went one step further. When my piece was completely cooled (approx. 15 minutes) I bent and cracked the corners and edges. Being careful not to crack the embossed areas of the tree.
8. Using a very dark dye based ink, rub the top of your entire image. With a tissue or paper towel wipe off the excess ink. What happens in this step is that the ink clings to the cracks but not to the smooth embossed surface. This is sometimes also referred to as antiquing.
9. Then simply finish your project as desired.

Now, you could have stopped at any point and time in this process and just finished the project. So no step is mandatory. However I love what multiple layers of UTEE do when a stamp is smosshed into it. NOTE: If you do not have UTEE then you could also use regular clear embossing powder and you would need to do at least 5 layers of heat embossing before placing your stamp into the image.

To finish my card I used cardstock from Cut Cardstock, just love their metallics line. Patterened paper from Basic Grey, ribbon from Offray, self-adhesive pearls from Kaiser.

Okay I still have more to share with you. Using this same technique as described above only instead of cardstock as my base I used a broken CD. So let me share a few things before getting into the technique:

• In case you're wondering, Where do you get free CD's? At your local Wal-Mart or any place that has the free AOL or internet trial memberships. Those CD's are fine.
• To make breaking or cutting them into smaller pieces easier either run them under very hot water or heat for a moment with your heat tool. Be sure to hold the CD with tweezers.
• Then using a pair of junky scissors cut the CD into wedges or pieces of any shape and size.
• Once you have your CD piece you may paint or use Staz-on to color the silver side of the CD. Or you can leave it as is. I used Staz-on since I wanted to be sure that my colors would not lift or run together. Once you have covered your background, heat set.
• Then stamp your CD piece with your image. Of course I used the Tiny Trinity set again - so cool!
• If you wish to color at this point you can use q-tips and Staz-on. Do not rub in the color just dab it where you would like it to go.
• From here repeat steps 4 thru 6 from above.
• At this point you have a really awesome embellishment, piece of jewelry or larger pieces make great window hangings.

This technique is so easy that even my 4 yr old got in on the fun. Of course I did all the heat setting but he did all the inking and stamping on his own. To be honest with you I love his piece!

Here is a finished card with my CD piece on it:

Using my Crop-A-Dile I punched two holes in the top and two in the bottom. It is best to do this while your piece is still warm so that you don't crak and chip your UTEE. Adding a few jump rings allows for me to add ribbon and charms. I could have turned this piece into jewelry if I had wanted to also. Using the  Basic Grey Ambrosia collection papers and Cut Cardstocks metallics for the actual card, I finished with a few Hello's from the Tiny Trinity set.

Now for my 4 yr olds' piece. We haven't done anything with his piece yet since he wants it to hang somewhere. His CD piece was origianlly colored with three Staz-On colors and the taller of the trees was the stamp he chose. After cooling we edged it with a silver leafing pen from Krylon. Without further ado:

 

Doesn't this look like a stained glass window?

Hope you've all enjoyed this fun technique and that you'll give it a try. If you do try it I would love to see the results.

Take care!

Getting Organized with UHU

For the second month in a row I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the UHU Sample of the Month. Each month UHU Glue has a sample that is sent out to the lucky readers of their blog. Here are the details.

So this month I received a Clipboard from Saunders and the UHU glue roller:

 

Here are some of the features of the UHU Gluer Roller:

Acid-free and solvent-free formula

Innovative micro-dot glue pattern means a clean break, no stringing effect

Bonds paper, cardboard, photos, plastics, glass and other smooth surfaces

Dries quickly and permanently

Adjustment screw for constant tension on tape

Contains 39 ft (12m) of micro dots

Ergonomically correct - I love how nicely it fit into my hand

It makes a really cool clinking type noise while you are rolling it. Kinda musical :)

It's a nice bright yellow so I don't lose it on my workspace. Don't laugh, how many times have you picked up your tape runner and put it down unable to find it until 2 days later, lol.

I've altered lots of clipboards over the time and I really wanted to do something special with this one. So it sat on my workspace for a few days while I gave it some thought. Until one typical morning of getting my 7 year old ready for school. The poor guy, some days I think it's lucky his head is attached cause he surely would forget it! Organization is just not his forte'. Everyday he has a "special" at school, it could be music, art, gym etc. But in any case how we dress usually matches the day. Gym days - DON'T forget to wear sneakers and socks! Art days wear an older shirt so when he gets "stuff" on it I won't cry. So you get the picture, mornings can definatly be a circus around here. And this doesn't even take into account getting the 4 yr old ready. Oh wait and was I supposed to wear real clothes? LOL! I digress but you get the crazy picture.

So here is what I ended up with:

 

I used the paper from DCWV Grade School Stack. Since I eagerly glued my base paper to the clipboard before I put the days of the week on it I had to come up with another way to accomplish what I wanted. So I printed on acetate and trimmed it to fit the board. The tags were made using SU tag punch and mounted on velcro in case the school ever changes when or what the specials are for that day. The tags a re mounted on top of the acetate. While his name is mounted under the acetate, as is the School Days & things to remember sayings. (Sayings from Karen Foster) Then I brought my project, that I was so proud of to him and guess what he said?! My son wanted me to add some ribbon,  him he asked if I couldn't "spruce it up a little" Oh, I do love him there's a bit of me in him after all - (wiping my weeping eyes) What he really wanted was some flash, some BLING! Although you can't see it this whole collections of papers have glitter on them. After I brought it back to him with ribbons everywhere he loved it, see?

And yes, if you're wondering that really IS the color of my dining room walls - orange. So after I took this picture I realized just how colorful it was. Between my walls, his shirt and the clipboard - WHEW! But, anyhow he did love it and he actually remembers to look at it every day! So bug {{{HUGS}}} and kisses to UHU. You may have saved my life and possibly his on any given morning, lol.

I made the clipboard to either hang or sit on a shelf.

• So remember to put Alyssa and the Glue with UHU blog on your favorites and keep an eye out for the November sample of the month.

• So far I have had a chance to use the UHU Twist & Glue and the UHU Gluer Roller. While I have loved components of both. My current vote for favorite is the Twist & Glue. It seems to be a combination of glue and Diamond Glaze (A.K.A. Glossy Accents, Liquid Glass) So it's great for adhering embellishments but also for use with glitters and items where you need the adhesive to dry completely clear. I haven't found anything that it hasn't worked on yet.

• As for the great mini clipboard from Saunders, it's:

• A Board made from 100% recycled and/or recovered materials

High capacity clip holds up to 1″ paper securely

• Built-in hanging hole
• Environmentally Preferred Product Certified by the Composite Panel Association
• Assembled in Mississippi by Adults with Disabilities ( I LOVE THIS!)
• Made in USA
• 

So be sure to add the Glue with UHUblog to your favorites and go and check out what all the other Gluershave been doing. There are some pretty awesome projects!

Flower Soft Scrapbook Wedding

WOW! I finally scrapbooked! I love scrapbooking and I especially need to finish my wedding book. So when I saw the Kit from Flower-Soft it was a perfect match! Check this out:

Here is the Kit:

For $11, you get 12 sheets of 12 x 12 paper. That's 3 of each design. Plus you get 2 sheets of toppers in the shapes of ovals, rectangles and hearts. It's just stunning and the quality was awesome!

To complete my page I used just one color of Flower-Soft, Sweet Pea. How easy is that? A little glue, sprinkle it on, add your pictures, a few embellishments and you're done. Can you imagine a whole album done like this?

Okay, I know just show the page.......

Here is my page:                                                

This was such an amazing day! We were married under a cabana on the beach in Florida. We had a wedding party of 6 and that included us. It was so perfect and I love my DH more today than I did that day! I know pretty sappy huh? But it's the truth, he's an amazing guy!

So after the ceremony we went out onto the beach for some pictures.

Now if only I could be that small again, ahhhhhh.

I want you to see how textural and what great soft dimension this page has, so I took a close-up of the hearts.

And here is a close-up of the amazing texture and dimension:

 I used rub-ons inside the hearts, on the bottom of my photo and in the journalling block. I also used a topper from the Edwardian Elegance set to mat my dancing photo on. It's a perfect match! A metal photo corner on the corner of my journal block and a larger one in the corner of the page finished it off.

 

And in case you are wondering........... Once the Flower-Soft is on there is no flaking off. I just made sure that once the glue was dry to give it a rub & a shake. It's been in a page protector now for over a week and nothing has fallen off, not even when I removed the page to take a photo. So how cool is that?

I really am pretty happy with this page and it felt so good to scrapbook again! Looks like you may be seeing more pages in the near future.

And here is Flower-Soft's page, I just realized that we used the same design of paper, too funny:

Like I said all you have to do is decide where you would like the Flower-Soft placed, add a dab of glue, sprinkle it on. Tap off the excess and keep going.

Aren't these pages just so elegant?

And I am just so excited to have finished another wedding page. Of course I have to make a matching page since I typically only work in 2 page layouts.

I currently have 4 kits in stock if you're interested just e-mail me.

 

Hope you enjoyed the scrapbook page. Tomorrow I have an altered project for you so stay tuned.

 

Bling On!

Cheryl

I love Your Blog

I just received the most amazing e-mail from Hev. Before I reveal her e-mail let me just start by saying or asking,

Aren't you just amazed by all the creative talent that exists out there? And how the discovery and creation of blogs links all of us together as if we were neighbors?I visit so many blogs and am just humbled every day by the individual talents that exist. When I started my blog over a year ago I never thought it would get this far, and yet I have made so many wonderful cyber-friends. I wish I could meet each and every one of you! But until that day huge cyber {{{{{HUGS}}}}} to all my local and cyber friends. And without further ado this is what Hev nominated me for:

So the instructions that go along with this are.....

The rules of the award are:
1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from. Hev
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.

This was hard to be limited to picking just 7 blogs, but here goes:

1. Pink Poison
2. Enjoying the journey, Donalda Cox
3. Bev
4. Karen Madden, Lilacs and Lupines
5. Libby Hickson
6. Tasha - She's just started and already has some awesome cards!
7. Julie Masse

I'm sure that some of these very talented ladies have received this award already and probably more than once. But since I just love what they do I wanted to share them with you. Like I said I am just amazed and my jaw often drops when I open their blogs. I now have a permanent towel that sits at the bottom of my keyboard to catch my drool as my mouth drops open with oohs & ahhs, LOL!!

So thank you Hev, you're amazing and thanks to everyone else - this was just too exciting to keep to myself - WHO-HOO!!

Bling on

Cheryl

Tiny Trinity

Well I'm going to try and get back to doing my posting. My son seems to be doing better and I'd to thank all of you for your wonderfully supporting comments and care that you sent our way. We still have no answers and are still waiting for some test results. Now if I could just catch up on some rest...... But I desperately am missing my craft room and all of you.

So onto a really neat project:  This is a spring card. I found the template for it on the Scor-Pal website. What a great site, there are tons of free projects and templates there for you to use. Plus I just love my Scor-pal, not sure what I did without it before. I had another scoring board but it is/was no where near as versatile as the Scor-pal.

So since you can get the pattern at Scor-Pal let me share the great stamp set I used for this. It's called Tiny Trinity from Unity Stamp Co. I have now purchased several stamps from Unity for the store and for my personal use. To see what I have in stock just click on New Products in the left column. But here is Tiny Trinity:

Isn't this sweet? So many cards come to mind when I look at this set.

For my Spring card I stamped in brown Staz-on and colored with my Twinklettes. (have to have some bling you know) If you enlarge the picture you can see the twinkle. My background is colored with YR31, Light Reddish Yellow Copic marker. But be careful not to touch your Staz-on with the Copic or it will smudge. And of course all my cardstock comes from Cut Cardstock's Metallic collection. The patterened paper is from A2Z.

Along with getting the basic instructions for this card on Scor-Pal I will also give you my version.

Download spring_card_instructions.doc

Since I need lots of directions I added a few measurements and steps.

So that's it for tonight, thanks again for all your support and be sure to check out the new products section. I guarantee you'll love these stamps. Oh, did I tell you that they come already cut out, mounted on cling foam and a re completely ready to use? Just grab an acrylic block and you're good to go!

Quick Update

I so hope to get back to posting regularly very soon. But I wanted to give you all an update after my last post about my little guy. It's been a long two weeks and we've been in & out of the hospital with him. After dozens of tests, we still have no answers.

Although for the first time in over two weeks he is up and moving about - so that's great news! We're waiting for more test results to come back and as soon as I get a little sleep I'll be back creating and posting. Plus he's been very clingy and wanting Mom to just hold him and sit with him, who could refuse? It's been so precious just cuddling with him. I just wish it had been under better circumstances.

Then as a side bar note, a very good friend of mine also became ill and I wanted to be with her and there for her as much as I could. She/We are so fortunate that it's a solvable issue and soon she should be back on her feet, teasing all of us again with her great sense of humor. We love ya Terri!

So thank you everyone for being so patient and you'll be hearing from me very soon!

 

Take care & Bling on!

 

Cheryl