25th Anniversary card

      I made this for my parents' 25th anniversary. I didn't want to make an all-silver card (because it's the silver anniversary), so I decided on blue with silver.
      I inked the chipboard numbers with silver ink and covered them with glitter. Then I put them on a textured black paper and did some doodling with a blue Sakura gel pen. The light grey paper is stamped in blue with a Stampin' Up mesh-looking stamp.
      The ribbons look really pretty, but it's really easy to do. I added a few eyelets, threaded the white ribbon through, and tied the silver ribbon on with blue thread. It made the silver ribbon look very neat and tidy, because there was no knot to make it go wonky. On the inside the white ribbon is glued down and then covered with a plain piece of paper (to hide the ends).
      This card looks cooler in real life. The colors aren't quite right because it's hard to photograph holographic paper (or glitter). And the black paper looks blacker.

Materials:
Holographic blue, black, and grey paper
Chipboard numbers
Sakura gel pen
decorative scissors
white and silver ribbons
blue thread

I love all the cute Valentine-style cards I've made this year, but this one is my favorite so far. Sugary-sweet cute cards are so much fun for me.

Materials:
Penny Black stamps - 'Every Which Way' set (cat and message)
Whisper markers
Stampin' Up Color Spritzer
October Afternoon paper
Maya Road chipboard hearts
Fiskars circle cutter

Happy 30th!

I love the colors on this card. Those micro beads really dress up chipboard so well. I hope she'll like it.

Materials:
American Craft Thickers (Black Tie - they're fuzzy!)
Chipboard 30 (I'm not sure yet, Scenic Route, maybe?)
micro beads
Anita's 3D Clear gloss finish (for liquid embossing)
May Arts ribbon
blue textured foil paper
ChatterBox patterned paper
black cardstock

Butterfly house mini album

This is pretty much the second mini-album I've ever made. I've learned a few things I wish I knew before I started.

1. Cutting and sanding around the scallops took ages, but the finished product is totally worth it, because scallops and sanded edges look so pretty.
   
2. Smaller photos are easier to scrapbook (I cut these ones down from 4x6).
3. Stamps and inking are great - looks cool, but doesn't make the book un-closeable. (I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean.)
4. It takes me twice as long to make a mini album as I thought it would.
   
5. Finding room for a lot of journaling was the hardest, until I added the journaling pages.
   

This butterfly was very active. It flitted in our faces several times. It was also bigger than most of the other butterflies that we saw. And so pretty.


"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream. -Edgar Allan Poe"
It was so much fun watching this butterfly flying around this flower. I tried to catch it in action but it moved to fast for me.

Our trip to the Southsea Natural History museum was on a lovely warm summer Saturday. It was extra warm in the butterfly room to keep them nice and cozy.

This one was resting on the underside of a potted plant.

This butterfly is the same as the one from the previous page. It decided to move location when I was photographing it.

This was my first trip to the butterfly house but it shouldn't be the last. Ian and I had a lovely day going around Southsea on Sat. July 26th.
"It is never too late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot"

Materials:
Magistical Memories chipboard album

Papers:
Black, white pp -> pinkpaislee (vintage moon collection)
orange stripe -> Fiskars Kimberly Poloson
orange bazzil

Stamps:
diamonds, butterfly and dotted lines -> Penny Black 'Salutations' clear set
Arrow -> hero arts letter S set

brown, black, and white inks
clear embossing powder
Basic grey chipboard alpha
various ribbons and rub-ons

This week...

I've been making scrapbook layouts!
For the rest of September, my favorite scrapbook site (www.myscrapbooknook.com) is having a really fun challenge called "Nook University." All the challenges are school related. You'll see what I mean when I show the three layouts I made for this week.
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This one was for "Math" class. The challenge was to have lots of multiples of three.
Doing threes was easy but having 6,9, or more was difficult. So I have:

9 materials:
Fiskars Kimberly Poloson Patterned paper
Prima ivory felt ribbon
Quickutz Paige and Paige mini alphabets
Stampin' Up Scallop Circle Punch
Making Memories Journaling Pages
Antique brads by Buttons Galore
Tim Holtz distress ink - antique linen
Corner Rounder
Misc. Ribbon

3 photos, 3 patterned paper, 6 brads, 3 scallop circles, 6 scallop edges total, 9 inches felt ribbon, 33 cm brown ribbon, 9 cm teal ribbon, 3 ribbons total, and 15 QK die-cut letters

This is my brother. He's in Australia right now, if you can't guess.
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The next LO I did for "Intro to Art." The challenge was to choose a choose a piece of artwork and use it to inspire a LO.

I LOVE art nouveau.
I chose Alphonse Mucha's 'Moon.'

I just want to show these other two, because they show the curved lines and circles typical to art nouveau.

So here's my attempt at an art nouveau layout:

Materials:
Tinkering Ink patterned papers
Inque boutique chipboard - 'Bee' and swirls
American Crafts thickers - 'bumble'
blue/purple cardstock
SU Scallop punch (punched twice to make the smaller scallops/spikey circles)
1.5" circle punch
Purple and dark blue inkpads
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And my last LO for this week was for "English" class. The challenge was to make a LO about reading, including a photo of myself reading a book and at least 50 words of journaling.

Please forgive the night-time photo. (It makes the photo have glare - it looks like scratches.)

Journaling reads:
"I love reading. As I was growing up there were always books in our house.
When my sister, Leah, was in first grade, she loved reading so much she tried to teach me at age 2! I didn't take to it then, but her love of reading has definitely influenced mine.
I was a big reader in school and even now I'm always on the lookout for a new author or series.
Here I'm reading one recommended by Leah: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.
September 2008"

Materials:
Prima papers, and flowers ('Tea & Silk')
Prima journaling sheets ('whisper')
Imaginisce Crystals (inked black with Sta-On)
crystal brads
May Arts black ribbon
twined thread ribbon
Studio g alphabet stamps

Get Happy!

Just a short video with a quick card.

This would be a really great for a man. Don't you think?

Materials:
October Afternoon patterned paper
black ribbon
black chipboard
American Craft Thickers (white vinyl)

Frank Sinatra singing:
I've Got the World on a String
Get Happy

Goofing off

I've been goofing off at my craft desk instead of actually getting around to making something. One reason for this is because I WON A BLOG CANDY from Jenny over at Stamping Moments! I was so excited to get it in the mail. I played around with it straight away, but I haven't created anything yet. However, I did have to reorganise most of my work space to accommodate the new stamp set. I had a blast doing that (you know how much I love organising)and now my desk looks great.

Here's one thing I did manage to make. I bought these 'Wildlife Reserve' from Stampin' Up and I've had them a few weeks. It's a set of 14 and as you can see most of them are on the small side.
I haven't quite figured out how to use small stamps. PLEASE, let me know if you have any tips.

I stamped the animal, punched it out with the circle punch, masked the animal and spritzed the background. Then I took chipboard letters and painted them with Distress crackle paint


Stampin' Up stamps (Wildlife Reserve), spritzer, 1.5" circle punch,
Distress crackle paint, Whispers markers, various cardstock, and alphabet chipboard (American Crafts???).