Faux Ribbon Tutorial

I found this really cool tutorial for faux ribbon on Croppycatter's Corner blog. I love ribbon but I hate to buy it because I hardly ever use it all. Case in point I still have the ribbon left from making my BIL's wedding invitations 3 years ago and I use it as often as possible (french blue from SU, now retired). So I was very excited when I ran across this post. I am going to have to try it when we get back from the beach.

Faux Ribbon Tutorial

Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #8

I came home last weekend to a box on my front porch from Papertrey Ink. It had my three new stamp sets: Green Thumb, Butterfly Kisses, and Little Lady. I was dying to use them but today was the first day I got to. I was reading all the blogs I follow on GoogleReader and there was Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #8. I immediately wanted to use the Green Thumb set to make the card. Here is what I came up with.




I used the dandelion stamp and stem plus the saying "If friends were flowers, I'd pick you."

Paper: Barely Banana, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red, and Very Vanilla from Stampin' Up!

Ink: Rose Red from SU

Thanks Beate for these great sketches.

Check out Alek's Baby Book!

This is all the layouts that I have in Alek's Baby Book so far. I am about half way through his first year. The 23 pages that I did at Pam's house start with First Bath and 1 Month Portrait. After the first couple pages I started to use pretty much all CM stuff, especially the new Once Upon a Baby Boy Album Kit, Soft Baby Boy Perfect Fit Paper Pack, and the Baby Borders Workshop. Using all of Creative Memories Soft Baby Boy line made it much easy to do so many pages. In addition to the baby papers I used the Great Escapes Perfect Fit Paper to do the beach pages. On the Aquarium page I used CM's Circle Makers to make the fish. Each one is made out of one circle. Thanks Pammy for that workshop too. Check out Pam's website to order any of this or to see what workshops she is holding.

Scrapbooking Pictures

Okay, these are pictures of Pam and I in her craft room in her basement. The one of the two of us is self taken. Once the kids go down for a nap I am going to post some of the 23 pages that I got finished in Alek's baby book. Yes I know he is 3 1/2 and I am really behing. Enjoy the pics.

If you want to spend some time in this great scrapbooking room Pam has a crop night once a month and I am sure she would love to have you. If I lived closer than 6 hours away I would be there. Check out the calendar on her website for a list of her events.

Creative Memories Everyday Display

This past weekend I went to visit an old friend who moved last summer to Eastern PA. She is a CM consultant so of course we spent the weekend scrapbooking while her husband watched her kids. THANK YOU JOHN!!!!!!!! Before we got down to scrapbooking she pulled out CM's new Everyday Display frames, she got one in white and one in black. I am in love. Some how I am going to have to convince hubby that they are must haves. I want two in white to go in my craft area, one for Alek and one for Regan. Wait okay maybe three I think I have the space. I digress, back to last weekend. Pam asked me to help her with what to put on them. On the black one we put stuff for her business. I didn't take a picture because it isn't finished, I have to send her a picture of her at a CM event that I have to finish it off. Then hopefully she will take a picture and sent it to me. The other one, the white one, she wanted to do of her two girls, Elsa and Zara. I love how it turned out. The picture on the left is the blank frame and the picture on the right is our finished project. Check out Pam's CM website if you want to get one for yourself.

Baroque Motifs Sample & SC 129

I thought this set would go perfect with a technique that I was dying to try using Pearl Ex. I found the tutorial on Amy's Prairie Paper & Ink blog. The tutorial is using Pearl Ex with heat and stick powder from SU. I was going to do a swap with this at my demo's house this Tuesday but I'm not sure if I still am since Pearl Ex is retiring and she won't be able to use it next year. I used the sketch challenge from last week as well (SC 129).

Really Cool Project

I found this really cool project today involving embossing photos. I love it. This project used coasters as a 3-D project but I think I am going to try it in my scrapbooks, I really love the effect.

Debbie's Coaster Project

Alek's Altered On Board ATC Trio Album

I totally CASED my album from my demo. I made a few changes but the overall idea came from the album she made for her son. Check it out in her SCS Gallery. I changed out the spine paper and instead of using just his first initial I did his whole name in chip board. It was so much easier than I thought. I just modge podged the letters, stuch them on the paper I wanted, waited 5 minutes and then cut off the excess paper. I used the Designer Label Punch Box's Real Life stamp with the grosgrain ribbon. I thought it was perfect since I am going to keep a wallet of all of Alek's school pictures in it.



Wow just went to SCS to link to the tutorial to do this and there wasn't one. I still have Regan's to do so maybe I will make a tutorial.



I have been wanting to do this for months but I finally got spurred on by one of SCS's challenges. Check it out: WT116 - Never Bored with Chipboard.

Some Cool Tutorials

I can not wait to try these out, especially the tie box.

Colleen's Tie Box

Faith's Baby Wipe Tutorial

Faith's Faux Matting Technique

2 More Sketches

Here are two more sketches that I really like and want to try when I have a chance.

Amy's Super Sketch Sunday #17

Diane's Sunday Morning Sketch

Adding Tutorials and Challenges

The more blogs I read the more techniques, tutorials, and challenges I find that I might want to try. I don't know about you but when I finally find time in the evenings or on the weekends I can't remember whose blog something I wanted to try is on. So I am going to borrow an idea from Stampin' When I Can's blog and just post links to the ones I want to try on my blog, that way I will always know where to find them. YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Tutorials
Cracked Glass
Pearl Ex with Heat & Stick Powder

Challenges
Meg's Sketch
Beate's Weekend Sketch #6

Beate's Weekend Sketch #5 and TLC 119

Again I combined two challenges into one card. This time I combined Beate's Weekend Sketch #5 with SCS's Try a New Technique Challenge (TLC 119). I used More Mustard cardstock and the new print palette in So Saffron. I really enjoyed making the origami shirt for this card. Beate's challenge was to make a gate card and I love how that turned out. The only stamping is the sentiment and I stamped that right on to the shirt instead of putting a tie on the shirt. This is the last of the four Father's Day cards that I have to make. I have to say thanks to my SU Demo for reading my blog and giving me more paper to make more cards for last week's challenge. I am still going to do it but instead of more Father's Day cards I am going to do Thank you cards.

Oh I used the tutorial on Cambria's blog to make the shirt.

SCS Color and Sketch Challenges

This week I combined two of SCS's challenges: color challenge and sketch challenge. I didn't use any SU stamps but I did use their paper: Ruby Red and Elegant Eggplant (and Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon). I have started getting into using acrylic stamps and I used two differnt sets on this card: Cleary Wordsworth Thanks stamp set and Autumn Leaves Swirls V:I stamp set. I had to have the thanks stamp set because it has merci (for my mom) and danke (for me). My mom loves to go to Paris and I was born in Germany and went back there for a semester in college.

Color Challenge - CC 117 was to use Certainly Celery, Elegant Eggplant, and Ruby Red on a card.

Sketch Challenge - SC 127

Year End Teacher Gifts

These are the teacher gifts I made for my childrens preschool teachers. The boxes are for the 4 classroom teachers and the 2 name frames are for the director and assistant director. There is no stamping but they were still a lot of fun to make. I also posted these under the SCS TLC 115 challenge.

Lowes Kids Clinic

The kids had a blast at Lowes today. They got to make picture frames for Father's Day. This week they were able to pretty much do it all by themselves.

Comment on Comment

Wow. Wow. And more Wow. Beate left me a comment on the card I made for her sketch. Sorry but that just made my year so much better. See the little things do matter.

Double Challenge Card

I made this card for my daughter who is graduating from preschool on Tuesday. I got the idea from Beate's Triple Challenge Card and some of the comments she made about her card, hence the yoyo yellow. When I read about the yellow I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had a patterned paper that I have had forever that had yellow in it. I had a dark pink metallic cardstock that matched and it all came together. I even gave the primas a try for the very first time. I love this card. This card qualifies for two of the SCS challenges this week, the Sketch Challenge and the Way to Use it Challenge.

Beate's Weekend Sketch #4

I had so much fun this afternoon that I decided to play with my stamps once my kids went to sleep. I really liked the sketch used in this challenge from Beate's blog and decided to give it a whirl. My father-in-law loves martinis and I had this awesome paper that I bought to use on a card for him, so this is the Father's Day card I came up with for him. The red part of the olives is actually a red rhinestone. How cool is that?

Make 'n Takes

Well I went to my demo's house today to do a buy, sell, trade with her and some of her customers and she surprised us with 3 make 'n takes when we got there. She is just the coolest. Here are the three cards that we made. Oh, she got the idea for the cards from someone else's blog and threw it all together this morning. Check out her blog for more info, The Stampin' Chick.


The first card is for Dad and can be used for several occasions, including Father's Day. Melissa used the left make n takes from this card to make several new ones, or makeovers as she calls them. This is the only card we made that did not use retiring sets.


The second card used a set from last year's summer mini and at the moment the name escapes me. I love the color combo she chose.



The third card uses the soon to be retiring Best in Cluck and it was my favorite. I have never been a fan of this set but I love how it was used in this card.


Thanks again Melissa for a wonderful afternoon.

Lowes Kids Clinic

My kids are just as crafty as me so I thought I would share some of their items as well. We go to the Lowes Kids Clinic every month, now twice a month, so the kids can hammer a way. In May the kids made herb garden containers for Mother's Day and race cars over Memorial Day weekend. They love it. The first time they go the kids get an apron and a name tag, after that the get a badge to sew on the apron and a signed certificate to take home. How cool is that!!!!!