My Girl ~Generations Crafting~

My Girl

I really need to take a moment before I continue with my post to apologize to everyone that has handed me wonderful blog awards! I know we all had a few coming around, even from weeks past...I SOOOO totally appreciate that I am thought of, that I have you guys as friends! So PLEASE forgive me for not posting them! I did, or hope I did, go to each of you and thank you so you do know that I acknowledged them....and I do plan on being much better in the future!

Thank you friends!

Wanda, Amanda, Sandy, Monique and Barb

(I think there may be more but I just can't remember, guess I should keep better track!)

(Let me know if I did indeed miss you and I'll put you in! xoxo!)

These fun pages are for my DT spot for Generations Crafting!

When recently emailing with Floren, the owner, she said that this line by Bo Bunny, Flower Child was her favorite line by this past CHA.

You can find the entire line Bo Bunny Flower Child HERE!

Well since I am really doing these projects to show case the product at Generations Crafting, I figured I should stretch myself and see what I can do with the printed paper! And I have to say that I do enjoy a "challenge" if you will...I find myself ever growing in this craft and I love that!

So with that said I used the design cut out from Aquarius (the blue swirl) and put that over Far Out. I distressed the edges to bring a bit more texture (not that you need too much with this paper!) but it did help to define the edge a bit more.

I used another part from Aquarius for the bottom right corner on top of Hippy. Now because of the blue in Aquarius I punched blue circles from Groovy and added those over the design on Hippy, the flowers on the top. The print itself has more color but I liked the extra blue!

I used Cosmo Cricket black chipboard and covered it in Flower Child (red side) to match the LO. This is my very first time covering chipboard and it was a bit time consuming but I thought it turned out great! I did learn a few tricks rather quickly!

My all time favorite craft glue, and pretty much what I use exclusively is Tombow Mulit (in the green and white bottle). This was the first time that I used the larger tip but it was beyond perfect for spreading the glue in a larger area, and in a thin layer. I first tried cutting the paper around with scissors but realized my pen craft knife would work best and that made it pretty darn easy to do! Then I distressed the edges using my Basic Grey Precision set and used the tool (or any tool) rubbing down. Let me explain...if you are holding the piece in your fingers, you use your tool and distress sweeping AWAY from your body. That way you will not pull up the paper that you just glued down!

(and because the glue is so quick to dry, by the time all the pieces were assembled I did not have to wait to distress!)

If you haven't tried covering chipboard, I would highly suggest it and with those little tips, you should have no problems!

This is my very very very first time ever using rub-ons and these are also by Cosmo Cricket. You can find lots of great looking rub-ons HERE!

You can also see a bit better my photo mats. The first layer is Love Beads and the blue is Turquoise Double Dot.

Oh can I say that the Bo Bunny Double Dot paper might just be one of my total favorite lines! It is double sided heavy weight paper with a dot print on one side and a solid on the other! Floren has matching pieces of this with the lines for Bo Bunny...really smart if you are looking to put together a line!

Lastly I have a picture of how I used that blue circle to cover part of the design...I added a few MS butterflies (I do find I use them often because they are the perfect, simple last touch to add on any project). I also made my own teeny tiny pearls using Ranger Liquid Pearls.

Thank you for checking this out and if you need paper...I have to say that I think the collection of lines at Generations Crafting is pretty unusual and therefore a great place to look!

The Cuttlebug Spot Color and Stamp Challenge

We had a neat double challenge this week for The Cuttlebug Spot.

Nilda challenges us to not only use a stamp on our project but to ONLY use the blog colors..green, pink, black and white!

I had this stamp for awhile and had never used it so I knew I wanted to use of and try something different with it.

I stamped the image onto green cardstock with Versamark and used white embossing powder. I stamped the image a second time making sure I only inked the outside of the image and not the butterflies on the inside. Then I cut the "blank" inside and CBed that with Floral Fantasy (that as well as the white card base.) I stamped the image a third time onto pink paper with white embossing powder and cut the butterflies out and popped those with dimensional squares.

In this photo you can see what I did a little better...the inside part that was cut out and the embossing, both with powders and the Cuttlebug. I used textured DCWV cardstock for this because I wanted to lightly sand the inside embossing so that it would show a little better and it gave a bit more interest with the texture, you can see it well with the pink paper.

I finished this off with adding some adhesive gems.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready for your new week! Please if you get a chance...see what my DT sisters did with their projects!

Monstrous Kind of Love ~SOUS Challenge~

Monstrous Kind of Love

This week at Stuck on U Sketches we chose a sketch from my friend Aymee Gandy!

I have to say that this sketch is by far my favorite of hers..at least for now that is!

This photo is one of my all time favorites of my son. I was at my parents house in the backyard with my entire family playing ball and goofing around...got this photo while my son was laying in the grass (cute photo but he paid for it later with the rash he got from rolling around!)

Maybe I should be on a DT for DCWV since I think I only use their paper! LOL! (ok maybe not "only" but close!) Printed paper is from Doodling Around, prints for all year. LOVE this stack! I pretty much fell in love with the whole stack just over these little glittered monsters!

Well of course now I have no idea what fonts I used (maybe I should get into the habit of jotting down notes as I do some of these projects.) I cut the title out of Grundgepaper, inked it with Distress Inks. Cut layers for the eyes out of glitter paper and added a googley eye.

After I cut this out I realized that the font didn't show up enough so I put it over the printed paper. That did not turn up exactly how I wanted it but thats ok. I do love the heart from Indie Art (thanks Donna!) that was covered in Stickles.

The brown border is actually a piece of fabric I cut out of a fabric sample book, along with a piece of green fiber from a lot I bought off of Ebay (need to find another one of those! they were great!)

I knew I needed something in this corner because I wanted to follow the sketch but I just didn't know what to put there...until I figured I could paper piece my own matching little monster! And that's what I did!

I hand drew the monster with the same "sketchy" outline as the printed paper monsters. Punched the circle eyes and used white and yellow behind them and paper pieced the rest of him. I also added some Stickles here and there.

This shows some of the detail better along with the glitter I added to it!

And the last picture shows my journaling. I used a border punch and added some random brads to every other spot.

I guess that about covers it! I am really excited to get started on another LO and to use these bold, fun and funky prints! Makes me happy just to put the project together!

Have a great weekend all!

Bee Me ~The Cuttlebug Spot~

Bee Me

I thought this weeks challenge for The Cuttlebug Spot was pretty cool...



If I had wings....I would be....



Well pretty simple for me to choose with my love of bees. Not sure where the obsession started or why. Funny because my girlfriends and I signed a pledge to get bee tattoos when we were freshman in highschool. One did get a bee tattoo, another one but not a bee...and no tattoos for me (now don't feel bad because I had more piercings (all gone now) then they could ever have tattoos!) LOL! Ok gettting super off topic here...



This is my very first scrapbook page of me! I took this photo while we were doing photos at Christmas time, got to love the $4 coupons for JCPennys!

Around the flower circles I wrote...mommy, sister, daugher, friend, nature, create, fun, so silly, happy, faith and



This page is also for my DT spot for Generations Crafting. The paper line is Bo Bunny Flower Child Free Bird and some pieces from Love Beads and Bo Bunny Double Dot in Paprika and Coffee Dot. (you will be seeing more from these lines!)



I also used Prima's Say it In Crystals, Doodlebug Sugar Coating and Stickles. Lots of gorgeous bling can be found at this great store as well!





Font is Storybook. Photo frame is from A Childs Year. Flowers and bees are from Walk in the Garden.

Cuttlebug Highlight~ Swiss Dots for the circles under each flower, distressed and the bee wings.

Other supplies. Gold and Silver ink. Apron lace border punch. White gel pen. I think that about covers it! Thanks for checking this out and when you have a chance...head over to The Cuttlebug Spot for some inspiration and then to Generations Crafting for some shopping! Sounds like a good day to me!!!!

Snowy Wishes ~SOUS March 19~

Snowy Wishes

This week we have another guest designer at Stuck on U Sketches. She is a fellow Cricut MB gal (JBock) and one hell of a scrapbooker! If you frequent the LO forums then at some point would have seen her Disney album posted in 2008 with well over 100 comments..it still manages to get bumped up! She is extremely creative and is a wonder with Cricut cuts!

I am also pleased to say she is a very good friend of mine, I feel honored to have her join us!

Thank you Jennifer for playing along!





Not too long ago I posted a little video of my sweeties playing in the snow. The FIRST snow I can ever remember at my own home! Ok, so maybe some of you will look at this and laugh but for us...it was total excitement! It was barely light enough to get these photos as it was very early morning. A memory I will certainly treasure! (Donna I still can't believe we had snow!)






Printed paper is from DCWV. The Peppermint stack (pink glitter) was a Joann's exclusive. And the fun and very sweet snowman print is from the printed paper Christmas stack from last year.




This large felt piece was something that my niece gave me. Thought it would be good for my crafting and turns out she was right on!




Snowy Wishes is cut from Winter Woodland (my first time using the cart!)










Snowflakes are a punch. Lots of Stickle Glitz "gems". DCWV glitter stack for the white here and the blue snowman.







This is Frankie, my neighborhood watch dog...NO! you may not crap on my yard! ;o) Really lets not get me started on people not picking up after pets..do you know we partically play "dodge the poo" on the way to school everyday!







Just welded a few circles together in DS for the snowman. Layered 3 times, blue glitter, white cardstock and pink cardstock from DCWV. The pink fiber has a bit of sheen to it and was also put across the bottom ban on the LO, on that blue snowflake print I also put tiny dots of Stickles.

Also want to say Happy Birthday to Jordyn! My baby girl turns 4 tomorrow! Love you my little Pinkie!

Lollipop Bouquet

Lollipop Bouquet

Or wolly-pops as my daughter would call them!

I thought since kids often celebrate their birthdays in school that Jordyn could bring goodies to her dance class. I asked her what treat she wanted to bring and wolly-pops was her choice!

I couldn't just give out a plain old piece of candy and came up with this idea!

Flowers were cut from Mini Monograms at 3 and 4 inches. I cut a slit into the middle of each flower, wrapped it around the lollipop and used small pieces of tape to insure it keeping in place. Butterflies is a MS punch (my only one which is why I use it so often) cut from orange glitter paper. PP is DCWV spring stack 2009.

I have to laugh at my "vase"! I couldn't find anything the right size until I came across my flour sifter. Totally kid friendly and has a handle! Perfect!

My little girl picked the paper (just glad they had so many coordinating prints!)

Happy Hump Day!

A couple cards ~The Cuttlebug Spot!

Cute Crawlies

Over at The Cuttlebug Spot we have a wonderful new sponsor Lily Boos Boutique! She has the most darling digi images and I was lucky enough to get to pick a favorite collection to use for a card!

Cuttlebug Highlight~ Floral Fantasy

I inked the folder with brown onto yellow cardstock.

I also added a few spots of distress embossing powder as well as some chalks.

We ended up getting a new printer AFTER I did this project. The digi image printed light gray so I went over it with a black marker. Sadly I had a great idea which played out horribly so this was my second go at these images.

Close up of the coloring and the distress stickles.

This was already posted at The Cuttlebug Spot but I never posted it here so thought I would go ahead and add it in!

Dies are Cottage Cutz. I think, hands down, these are the CUTEST dies out there!

Road Trip ~SOUS March 12~

Road Trip

Tahoe 2000

Here is a peek at this weeks sketch from PageMaps.

We have a little spin on this weeks challenge at Stuck on U. One of our wonderful sponsors, Generations Crafting, has donated paper and the Design Team had to come up with not only a take on this weeks sketch but with the SAME paper as one another!

If your coming here first, please check out SOUS to see the other cool interpertations of the same sketch with the same paper...but with totally different outcomes!

The road sign shape is from Going Places. I cut that twice and cut the pattern paper to fit the inside of it. The word "road" is black chipboard from Cosmo Cricket. The word "trip" is Alphalicious. I used a ticket paper punch for a couple pieces. I hand cut the trees, embossed with Swiss Dots and then used a black marker to highlight the spots. And did lots of writing!

Pretty simple this week in terms of what I used. But let me tell you that it was challenge enough to have to use those papers...and I mean "all" the papers! While challenging it was a lot of fun as well!

I have had these photos for awhile...and have many more! My 2 childhood friends and I have gone to Tahoe for vacations together since the early 90's. I have some of the most treasured photos of those trips! Would be fun to put together an album someday!

Thank you for checking this out and have a wonderful and safe weekend!

Exciting News!

~please scroll down for today's Cuttlebug Spot project~

This morning I did want to share some news with you all....

I have been asked and have accepted a design team spot for Generations Crafting.

I am very excited to work with Floren, the owner. One of the reason's that makes them extra special in today's market is that they are family owned and run AND that they are all crafters! That means a lot to me that the products are chosen by those that actually use them and not some guy somewhere trying to make money. Know what I mean!

When you have time please check them out and their unique array of products...also stop in at their BLOG to see what the new DT comes up with! (you'll see some familiar folks there as well!)

I will be posting my projects here as well...thank you for letting me share!

You'll find today's Cuttlebug Spot project below....

Do you love me? ~ The Cuttlebug Spot~

Do you love me?

This week The Spot is going vintage! Anything vintage goes! I searched online and found lots of interesting things but nothing that really caught my attention and then it hit me that I had a bunch of letters that my Mom had sent my Dad (well before they were Mom and Dad!)

I looked through the cards and found one that I loved and felt a connection with. Yellow is one of my favorite colors and I just loved this sweet little couple!

Now before I got started putting this page together I had to borrow photos from my Mom's house. You know the picture booths at fairs and boardwalks? Well one of these photo strips is on the frig at my parents house and I got my hands on it and used it for this LO. I didn't have permission to use these directly in my LO so I had to scan and print them (with my totally crumby printer) so these are not that best quality and are printed on regular cardstock, but I do like the vintage feel to them, so it worked out just fine!

The photos are from 1973 when my Mom was 23 and my Dad, 28. Fast forward to the photo of my parents on my Mom's 50th birthday in 2000 (yes Mommy, that means the big 60 this year!)

This wonderful card is from 1970 (letter written in '73). I really wanted to preserve the card so it is held onto cardstock with photo corners so that it can be taken off and looked at (and to reveal my Mom's beautiful handwriting, the same handwriting she has today!)

The printed paper is K&Co and then solid black cardstock. My retro VW bus (my dream car in high school) and tv are from Cosmo Cricket, black chipboard stacks. Regular chipboard flourishes were distressed with a sanding block and are from a value set from WM.

All flowers are from Prima.

These were CBed with a few different folders. I sprayed these with Pearl Ex and they are totally gorgeous IRL! You can kinda make out the shine here.

A piece of advice, after you put flowers into the CB machine, they are going to be squashed! So I pulled each petal over the edge of my bone folder and it helped bring some shape back.

I have played quite a bit with different inking techniques with the CB folders but just figured out something I have never seen before!

It hit me to use the embossing folders as 'stamps'! I inked the raised side of the folder, laid it onto my paper and rubbed gently across the surface. Having messed around with this I found that this works best with full designed folders (like the paisley one I used). I did also use the floral fantasy in yellow but most of that got covered up.

I hope that some of you try this out...it's a whole new set of possibilities!

Well my goodness...that was certainly was a mouthful! LOL! Thank you for the opportunity to share and I hope you all have a wonderful start to your week!

~SOUS Challenge March 5~

Untitled

A sketch with some bling bling challenge!

This week we have a wonderful sketch by Becky at Pagemaps!

And as if that is not enough we also have a wonderful guest designer at Stuck on U for this week, Debbie Burns. You will find her blog HERE. Thank you so much Debbie for joining us this week, we love love your take on the sketch!

As for me, well I think this is pretty different for me. Something softer with a slight Asian feel to it. The photo is a family shot from 2007. This was my first evening out after I had had my daughter (ok, this may freak some of you out but she was well over a year old, I nursed exclusively so she was "attached" so to speak! LOL!) I got to buy a new dress and a red one to boot! Is wearing red to loud at a wedding? awww who cares, I looked hot! LOL!

Here is a close up of the family...my BIL, Jerrell, Kerri, myself, my Dad (aka, Pop Pop, also known as Russ), Amy, my niece (Kerri's DD) Maddie at about age 7 (who was part of the wedding party), Katie and my Mom (aka, Marco, also known as Linda)

Now for some close ups!

All printed paper was from DCWV's The Far East stack.

All cuts from Storybook.

I used Stickles Glitz for added shine as well as rhinestones.

As this is white core cardstock I used my handy sanding block and distressed all the edges.

I am soooooo sad, you have no idea, that this next detail just did not photograph well, if at all.

And here comes the story....

So because this was a bling challenge, I thought I would add some shine by using my Pearl Ex.

I chose my colors, a chunky bronze and golden yellow and mixed that with a little water in my mini mister sprayers.

Remember that chunky part? Well that wouldn't spray out (and has offically ruined that sprayer)

Ok, next try. I mix golden yellow with a reddy pink. And spill it! ok ok, deep breath. I pick up and funnel it back in using the craft mat...where I knock over the package and spill (thank God closed) bottles onto the floor.

I finish up and put everything away only to realize I want to do more, so I start all over again, minus the mishaps, and add a bit more.

So, the photo frame as well as the large scallop piece have the most beautiful shine to it. A touch that makes this LO lovely in person!

And one last picture for good measure! LOL!

I have to say that this week has been the most smooth moving and project filled week I have had in awhile! It is great to feel a little mojo flowing through the veins!

Have a wonderful weekend all and see you monday with my Cuttlebug Spot project!

Card Set and Wine Tags

Ok, here's the deal...the photo is crooked and after taking these photos, well 4 times for various reasons, its staying crooked! LOL!


Aren't I full of wonderful mishaps lately!


This month my son's school is having their largest fundraiser and each class is expected to put together a basket for auction. Both my husband and I agreed that we have done a ton of spending already and were not going to give this time. But I started to feel guilty and thought up something that would cost time, not money. I happened to have this wonderful stamp and thought it perfect for the occasion! The gift basket theme is "experience Livermore". We have a ton to offer in our town and we were voted a top city in the whole U.S.!

Marque was a clear stamp, stamped twice in 2 colors and hand cut. Wine basket stamp from Hampton Arts (colored with Prisma pencils). Distressed Stripes CB folder used to add texture to card base.

A bit of doodling, brads, eyelets, twine and other fiber.

I think this will be a nice addition to our class auction basket! Happy Hump Day! And I'll see you with my friday post!