WINTER WONDERLAND IN NORTH CAROLINA

For the first time in 47 years it snowed on Christmas Day in North Carolina.

Here's Kelly with the first Snow Lady she ever made. We got over 6 inches and it's still falling.

Wow, can you believe it? I'm actually posting two days in a row. I'm still in the Holiday mood as you can see. The red cut out portion of this card was created by Penny Duncan. This is an Envelope Easel Card

I know it's been an awfully long time since I've posted anything on my Blog. Life just got in the way. The Holidays are around the corner so I figured that I better get busy making some Christmas Cards. Here's what I've created so far. The first one is a Thinking of You, I made it before I got in the Holiday mood. Hope you enjoy!

Father's Day

Did you ever start to make card for someone and it ended being for someone else.

Well, I started out making a Birthday Card for Kelly's 10th Birthday. Before I was finished the card it ended up being a Father's Day Card. It was suppose to be Kelly's job to make her Papa's Father's Day Card. She loved the way this card turned out, so she doesn't have to make Papa a card this year.

Unfortunately, I now have to come up with a new idea for Kelly's Birthday Card.

With the 2009 - 2010 school year coming end, I should have a little more time to do some crafting. I did find some time to do a little crafting about a week ago. I will be giving this basket once it's filled with all sorts of goodies to my friend's daughter for getting good grades. The magnolia flower on the top of this box was an experiment. I'm not pleased with it. I'll do a little tweaking on the next one I make. I do plan to try a different type of flower soon. maybe it will turn out a little better then this one.

See ya soon!

Here's a card I just finished. It was my first attempt at making the pansies and a flower pot card. The flower pot came from Penny Duncan. Kelly will give it to her teacher at their End of the Year Party. The saying inside the card says

Thank you for helping me

spread my wings,

by teaching me

so many wonderful things.

Hope the teacher likes it!

Life's a Beach

Ok, I had a little time this morning, so I decided to play around with some of my new Cuttle Bug dies.

With both School coming to an end and summer around the corner my mind drifted off to the beach as you can see here. I was sorting through some of my supplies and found a real miniture star fish, I figured what better time to use it!

My latest projects

Sorry that I haven't shared anything with you all lately.

Here's an Autogragh Book that I made for Kelly. I plan to take pictures of each kid in her class and add it to the page they signed.

This is a flower card I made. I can't remember the site where I got the file from. I'll add the name of the site when I find out where I got it.

Inside of the card

Happy Mother's Day

This is the best ever!!! What a wonderful Mother's Day it is!!!!

Kelly is my little "Imp". When she was about 2 everyone called her "mini me". She even tried to rearrange the furniture in her room at such an early age. By 4, Kelly was walking around with my cane and an old heat pack wrapped around her...LOL. What fond and funny memories.

Kelly, pretty much knows how to use all of my equipment and programs. Well, yesterday Kelly asked me how to shape flowers, I showed her how. Then she asked me to put a piece of paper down on her card, heck that's tricky even for me. I had to print out the words for the front, but she did all the rest. I thought I would die laughing, (but had to hold it in) when she finished the card, she told me that I didn't have to act surprised tomorrow.

OK it's now the day of the BIG reveal!!! Kelly and Hubby took me out for Dinner, the food was so good. But probably the best part of the Day was the card Kelly made me. It was absolutely beautiful!!!!!!! Want to see it? Ladies, I have some serious competition!!!

Finally crafting again!

Those of you of that create your own files don't get all the credit that you deserve. I won't name names...you know who you are. Creating SVG's that will actually work can be pretty difficult and time consuming....at least for me it is!

Isn't it the pits when you can't do any crafting, I haven't been able to do much of anything lately. Even though I'm still not up to par, I decided to see if I could make something new....something totally different from anything I've made so far. It wasn't easy! It took several attempts and several different styles before I was satisfied. So I went through my scraps, just had to see if my idea would actually work.
Here's the prototype of what I came up with. That's right it's a shoe! What do you think?

I had the chance to do some more experimenting today. Of course it was cut on the Cricut. The card below is the result. You can download the file here I got the idea for this file from Amazing Paper Grace Becca is an amazing artist.

Do you want to know a secret? This file is two separate pieces.
The Butterfly cuts completely out, then just the very center of the Butterfly is glued back in the cut out area. Then when dried you lift up the wings and add a pearl.

Good Morning Everyone. There's another budding Artist in my home, my DD Kelly. She wanted me to upload a picture of what she made early this morning. Last night she was wishing out loud, wish I had some yarn, wish I had some popsicle sticks. So I dug into my craft supply stash and found the yarn and popsicle sticks. But then she needed 2 different colors of yarn. That's when my brain kicked in gear... sent Kelly to get a sandwich bag. We put 2 strands of yarn in the bag and sprayed Glimmer Mist on the yarn....it worked!! Here's a picture of her God's Eye. She did a great job!!!

Animal Cracker Box

Oh WOW!! I actually accomplished something new and I'm pretty proud of myself. When you get my age it doesn't take much to become proud of your accomplishments.

(Accomplishment #1) I worked with Inkscape today, something I haven't done in months. There was a lot of trial and error, final I accomplished making a file of the Animal Cracker Box. I have tested it out and it turned out ok. I cut it out on 12 x 12 cardstock.

Accomplishment #2 I opened up a 4share account and uploaded my file. If interested you can download it here. Hope you find it useful. This is my first file ever uploaded and shared.

Paper Bow

Here's a Paper Bow that I made several months back. I believe someone made a SVG file for it. I made one but lost it. I might have to make a new file, if I can locate the measurements.

Good Morning Everyone
I hope everyone has a super day!
Yesterday Penny Duncan uploaded a beautiful file on her Blog. Penny is an extremely talented and a very giving person. She works hard creating so many amazing designs then freely shares them with everyone. I immediately fell in love with her Hat Box. I had to try it out right then and there. I finished it this morning...here's the result, isn't it cute!

Here's a mock up of my Anniversary Card to my Husband. I have plenty of time to make the final version of the card, since Our Anniversary is in June. Again the center of the card was created by Penny Duncan...Thanks Penny!

Hello, welcome back!

Today I decided to share the outcome of some of my experiments, the following comments are just my opinion.

For my first experiment I compared UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) and Glossy Accents to achieve "Glass Look Flowers". To be fair I used Ivory Flower Table Confetti in each case. First I colored the flowers using Pigment Ink Pad to color the flowers, let them dry throughly. Then shaped each flower. The next step was to heat my Melting Pot for 5 to 10 minutes, then I pour in the UTEE and let it completely melt. After dipping the flowers in the solution I let them cool off and dry on Reynolds Wrap Release which is a non stick aluminum foil. The flowers had a hard shell high gloss finish....perfect!!!

The second part of my experiment was to use Glossy Accent. I applied it to the flowers straight from the bottle. First off the flowers flattened and it took a lot longer to dry. The flower had a shine but did not have the glass look I wanted and I had to reshape the flowers after they dried.

I also experimented with ways to color the flowers, I need to mention here that the flowers used in this experiment has a shimmer to it. I tried Pigment Ink Pad and Glimmer Mist. The Glimmer Mist wanted to bead up. The Pigment Ink covered very well and dried a lot faster.

Here you can see the how each product turned out in my experiment. Which looks more like glass to you?

Here's a box that idea evovled from an Animal Cracker Box. I just had to try it. I got the idea from Tracy's Blog http://inky-doodles.blogspot.com/2009/06/box-o-animal-crackers-tutorial.html

It's getting harder and harder for me to do what I enjoy most....create! My arthritis is getting so bad that any movement of my fingers on my right hand causes pain that is almost unbearable. Any way I made this card this morning, it's similar to the one I posted yesterday. Unfortunately with the angle I had to take the picture the bottom of the card looks crooked, I assure it's not.
Here's a few labels that I made last week. After I printed out the words, I cut them out with Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Trio 2 and then dipped them into UTEE. Now they look like the epoxy stickers.

Finally getting around to uploading pictures of some of my lastest projects. Here's the flowers that I dipped into the melted UTEE, don't they look like glass. I love explosion boxes, here's a example of an Octagon Explosion box I made, below this picture is what it looks like opened. I created the file so it could be cut out on my Cricut.

My friend made a bag similar to this gift bag. I made a template and then converted it to a file that I could cut it with my Cricut.
I've seen several like the one I made below, so I had to see if I can make one similar.

I'll be posting more pictures later in the week, I hope.

Experimenting

Hello Friends,
I've been busy experimenting and having fun with UTEE. I'm amazed at what all can be done with this product. I plan to do more experimenting soon. So far I've used UTEE on (white) paper flowers that I bought at Michael's in the Bridal Dept. I colored them with Pigment Ink, let them throughly dry then gave them some shape. Then I dipped each one in UTEE....OMG they turned out so good. They looked like glass. For my next project I printed out some sayings, cut them out using my Cuttlebug and Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Tri 2. Then dipped them in melted UTEE...they look just like expoxy stickers. As soon as I can I'll take pictures and post them here.

Cuttlebug Challenges Giveaway

Wow!!! You need to check out Cuttlebug Challenges Blogspot they are having a super give away. Wouldn't you want like to win the new Cricut Cake Bundle with Cartridges? That's just one of the Super prizes they are giving away.

I'm sorry I haven't been a very good Blogger. It's been too long since I have uploaded any images of what I've been creating. I decided that I should finish taking pictures and upload them tonight and share them with my friends.

I got the idea for this one from Dawn 5377 on Youtube, I thought it was so cute. Lemonade anyone? Here I was experimenting with adding coloring to the center of my flowers.

Since I have a love of Spinner Cards I decided to see if I could make a Circular Spinner Card. I designed it in SCAL and cut it on my Expression. The flower was also cut on my Expression. There were three people who had created a similar flower so I can't remember who designed the one I used here. I used homemade fluff for the center.

This Spinner Card was actually my first attempt at creating a Circular Spinner Card.I cut the scallop for the next two cards on my Expression. The first card you can see the paper I marblized, using shaving cream and Jim Holtz Alcohol Inks. I like the look of the double scallops on this one.

Some times I like to make simple cards. This card is an example of double embossing done with the Cuttlebug. This effect is so simple yet elegant. I have a few more similar to this card that I will post as soon as they are completed.Thanks for stopping by, please leave a comment so that I know you were here.