Show & Tell – Love scrapbook page & un-du review

Nika and I have been looking at her baby pictures a lot lately in anticipation of her little brothers arrival. This photo of Nika and me is one of my favorites. Vlad took this just after she was born. I just love it. Here’s the layout I put together for it.

The layout is one I made last year at CKC Seattle in the “2008 Latest & Greatest with Basic Grey” class. It’s not exactly how the instructor taught it as I always like to make my own version of what is taught. I like how it came out. This photo worked on here perfect! The papers and embellishments are from Basic Grey’s Urban Prairie line.

When I pulled out this pre-made layout I had put some stickers on there that I didn’t want to use with this photo. I went out and purchased a bottle of un-du. Un-du is a sticker, tape and label remover. I had heard this stuff works great and it does!! I was able to remove the stickers without damaging them. If you are in need of re-doing a layout that you’ve already stuck down you’ll want to give this a try. I highly recommend it. You can check out all kinds of videos demonstrating the many useful ways this stuff comes in handy. Watch the videos here.

Here’s a few more close-ups of my layout.

It’s hard to see in the photo, the text reads: love (luv) a strong, deep, affection and devotion for another, unconditional and unexplained.

Thanks for stopping by today! XOXO

Show & Tell – Wire wrapped birds nest charm & tutorial

I’ve seen these wire wrapped bird nest charms around and just love them. I had no idea how easy they are to make. Here’s my very 1st attempt at creating one.

They are surprisingly hard to mess-up…I love that! For mine I used 24 gauge wire, about 25″ in length. For the eggs I used the small pearl beads from the Stampin Up pretties kit. Here’s how it turned out.

I watched this tutorial to learn how to make it.

I also referred to this blog for some tips too.

Show & Tell – Love wedding tag

I wasn’t able to attend my friends bridal shower yesterday. I’ve had a nasty cold for a week now that won’t go away. I spent the day in bed catching up on my blog reading and did a tiny bit crafting. I made this “love” wedding tag to put on their shower gift. Thanks for stopping by today!

Products used

• Shipping tag (purchased from Staples)
• Journaling tag (K & Company)
• Chipboard heart (Heidi Grace)
• Beaded trim (purchased from Ben Franklin)
• Love stickers (Making Memories)
• Antique Distress ink (Ranger)
• Amaretto chalk powder puff (Quick Quotes)
• Adhesive (Kokuyo & Aleene’s)

Show & Tell – Cherish butterfly tag

Today I turn 36 (I think), lol. Some times I’m off by a year. I have several friends who share June birthdays with me. I enjoy swapping cards with my crafty friends. I made this “Cherish butterfly tag” and tucked it into a card for one of my Fisk-A-Teer friends in Canada.

I hope she likes it. Happy Birthday to all you fellow twins! I decided to take a peek at my horoscope today. I actually used to to be an avid horoscope reader when I was younger. I would get those mini horoscope scrolls from the gas station (my dad called them horrible-scopes). Here’s what Horoscope.com has to say about being born today.

“Celebrate in style on your birthday in preparation for great things to come. As your own personal new year sets in, you will be offered a number of appealing opportunities to choose from. Love, work and travel top the list, and your own problem may be choosing just a few from so many exciting options. Try to remember what is really important to you, and what you value in life above all else. By September, you should have a clear idea of what direction to take, as your life moves forward in a completely different direction than you might have expected. Fall is your transition time, as you make the leap from one reality to the next. Go more slowly then, but do go.”

For my b-day celebrating I’ve got a dim sum lunch planned with my honey and Nika. Then a little crafty shopping. Tonight Vlad’s mom is having a family dinner party for me (home cooked Russian food)…yay!! I hope you have a fabulous day today. Big hugs & kisses!! XOXO

How to get started art journaling

I’ve been wanting to start an art journal for a while but wasn’t really sure how to go about it. I found my way to Sarah Whitmire’s Soul Journaling site. She has a FREE online Soul Journaling workshop and a wonderful yahoo group dedicated to art journaling! I have finally started my very 1st art journal. Take a look…I’m following the prompts in Sarah’s fun and easy tutorials. Here’s what my 1st page started as.

Here’s the next step of  me painting over my journaling. I still need to add more and finish it. That’s the beauty of a journal. Always a work in progress and I can flip around and come back to when ever.

This is how pages 2 and 3 started.

This is page 3 after the fun scavenger hunt. This page still needs some doodling before it’s complete.

I’ll share more of my pages as I go along. This is such a great way to try out new techniques, play and just be free to create.

You can access all of Sarah’s Soul Journaling prompts here. She really makes getting started so easy and fun. If you are interested in art journaling be sure to join the Soul Journaling Yahoo group too. Thanks for stopping by today! XOXO

Inchie collage on wood

I’ve had this inchie collage project waiting to be finished for some time now. I finally got around to completing it this weekend. I’m really happy with how it came out.

These inchies are from the 2008 Fisk-a-Teer Christmas inchie swap I participated in. I knew that I wanted to display them all together in a type of collage. While poking around in my husband’s wood shop I found the perfect scrap block of wood. My honey finished off the edges of wood for me by rounding them out and off I went. First I painted a few coatings of gesso on the wood surface to prep it for the collage. Next I used a blending tool to rub antique linen distress ink around the edges. I also used a willow acrylic paint dabber to go over the edges too. For the background paper I traced the wood block onto the back of my paper and cut out. I also used a corner rounder on the edges. To apply the paper I painted on a generous amount of gel medium and placed the paper onto the block of wood. I used a brayer to make sure there was no gaps between the paper and wood block. Gel medium was used to apply the inchies and embellishments. For the metal hardware I used Zip Dry glue. I also sanded the edges of the paper and glued the silver tinsel ribbon with Zip Dry. Thanks for checking out my project! XOXO

Products used

• Wood block 5 ¼” x 5 ¼” & 1 ½” thick {scrap wood from my husbands work shop}
• Paper {Cosmo Cricket}
• Stickers {K & Company & Stampendous}
• Flower & half pearl {Prima & Stampin Up!}
• Scrap music paper {left over from a previous project, made with Crafty Secrets stamp}
• Dream sticker {left over from another project made with Dymo label maker}
• Antique brass hardware {Stampin Up!}
• Tinsel ribbon {purchased at Michaels}
• Adhesives {Golden Regular Gel Medium & Zip Dry}
• Gesso {Golden}
• Ink {Ranger}

Paper Casting with Toilet Paper…really!

Yes, I’ve been playing with toilet paper and look what I made! It took maybe 5 minutes not counting the drying time. My friend Michelle had a blog post about paper casting recently which led me to this tutorial here. I had to try it and it really worked and was so easy.

For mine I used our household toilet paper (the Costco Kirkland brand) and tore off 10 squares. I wasn’t fancy about my process, I took the 10 squares and let water drip on them from the sink faucet. I wanted the paper good and wet. Once soaked I put them on the counter and stamped the butterfly image (use a good amount of pressure when stamping). Next I flipped over the soggy TP stack with the stamp still squished in it. I used a hand towel to put more pressure onto it and also to start soaking up the water. I found using a paper towel to soak it up didn’t pull out the water as well as an actual towel. Next I used my fingers to squish down on the image some more and then removed the stamp. I left the paper cast to dry overnight. It turned out great! To finish it one off I used Key Lime Pie Glimmer Mist and some Lime Green and Magenta Stickles.

I think this would be a fun project to do with kids. Toliet paper and water…fun and easy! XOXO

Show & Tell – Mini Ephemera Altered Houses

I’ve had this super cute “Funky Little Ephemeriffic House Charm Kit” for a while. I finally got around to putting them together over the weekend. This was a fun project to make. Here’s some photos of my completed house charms.

I purchased this kit from Ha! Designs and highly recommend it. For $12 you get everything you need to make 4 house charms. The kit comes with a bunch of great ephemera to play with. The roofs even come pre-drilled for the screws too. Check out Heather’s Etsy shop lots of fun stuff. She also has a shop with really cool vintage art supplies too!

Easter ATC

Here’s an Easter ATC I just finished making for one of my friends. I really like how it came out. I’m going to use this same image to make some Easter tags too. I got this adorable vintage image free from Vintage Image Crafts monthly newsletter. I highly recommend signing up for this e-newsletter lots of great projects, free downloads and it’s totally free!

To make this I resized and printed out my image. Instead of cutting out the image I just tore around the edges. I think the tearing adds to the softness/vintage look of the card. Next I sprayed Pearl Glimmer Mist onto the image to give it a little sparkle. I adhered the image to lavendar cardstock using Kokuyo, Dot-n-Roller adhesive (love this adhesive)! The pink ric-rac ribbon is from American Crafts and I wrapped that around the front and back of the card using Aleene’s Tacky Glue. The lace (purchased from Joanns) and pastel circle confetti was applied with Aleene’s too. To finish it off the silver piping was adhered with Zip Dry. Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you like the card. XOXO ~ Cathy

Meeting online friends

This weekend I got to meet a couple more of my online friends from the Fisk-a-Teers forum. All my fiska-friends I’ve met in person have been just as fabulous in-person as they are online. It’s always so fun and exciting to finally meet people whom you know online. On Saturday Angela was in town for the NW Paper Chase and we met-up at Ben Franklin in Redmond.

Here’s Nika and I with Angela and her giant orange Fiskar scissors! She came into town just for the Paper Chase.

I also got to meet Amanda (pictured below) who was accompanying Angela on their massive Scrapbook store tour of the NW. She was also fantastic and super sweet! The girls drove about 600 miles, visited 21 of the 28 stores in the Paper Chase, participated in 5 store events and spread all kinds of Fiskar-cheer and goodness to hundreds of scrapbookers. You can read all about their trip here and there’s some fun videos from their trip too!

So great to meet both of them!

Valetine ATCs

Here’s all the Valentine ATCs I received from the swap hosted by Merlene. This swap was done through the Fisk-a-Teers forum. There’s always lots of fun swaps going on there if you are looking to join one. Great place for newbies too!

You can see the card I made for this swap here.

Show & Tell – Valentine ATC

My talented and crafty friend Merlene is hosting a Valentine ATC swap. There are 22 of us participating in the swap. Here’s the design I created.

I hand-cut all the hearts from flocked polka-dot paper. The girl image was a free download from my friends at Vintage Image Craft. I also used white mesh, sheer polka-dot ribbon, and the butterfly was made with Fiskars butterfly pop-up punch.

For the back I printed all my swap info onto white paper. Then I sponged antique linen distress ink over the paper. To finish them off I tore around the edges.

I packaged each card into a 3×4 baggie and topped off with some stripped paper. Hope you like the cards. I can’t wait to see what everyone made. Thanks for stopping by today. XOXO

Show & Tell – Nika’s artwork card

Today is my honey’s birthday and I wanted to make him a special card that incorporated some art from little Miss Nika. She loves to draw and color. Every day she colors on her easel. I tore off a piece of her picture to use in our birthday card.

Here’s the card I made. This was so easy to do and he really loved it. I just used my paper trimmer to cut-up the piece of paper, adhered to a card and added some puffy stickers. {Cardstock and stickers are SEI}

This is the inside of the card.

Thanks for visiting me today. XOXO

Show & Tell – Birds of a Feather kit

My friend sent me this super cute Birds of a Feather kit. This was exactly what I needed to play with and wind-down after all the holiday crafting I did. This fun little album is made from library cards. I incorporated some embellishments from my stash and this is what I made.

I’m going to send this to my little crafty niece who’s birthday is coming up. I also altered a binder clip and used it to keep all the cards together. The kit is from Emily Adams and she still has 1 left in her Etsy Shop for $5. Thanks for stopping by today!! XOXO

Show & Tell – Clear (acetate) Santa card…and where to go for great Santa pics!

Here’s this years Santa photo. I’ve been wanting to make a clear (acetate) card and thought I would try it out with this photo.

For the card base I actually used an overhead transparency. I had a pack laying around that I had purchased from the office supply store. I cut and scored the card, then folded using a bone folder. Next I distressed the edges of the patterned paper. After matting the photo onto the paper I embellished with a rub-on, sticker and flower. I also stamped the date. To finish off I used a foam brush and painted gold metallic paint around the edges. I really like the effect the paint gave to the card.

Where to go for great Santa photos
For this years Santa photo we went to Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah Washington. It’s our favorite local zoo and also the best place we’ve found for Santa photos. They have an annual reindeer festival during the month of December that includes admission to the zoo, a visit to Santa’s house, hourly stories read by elves, a place to do some holiday coloring and write Santa a letter, lots of festive holiday decorations and a cool giant sled for taking fun pics. One of my favorite things about getting the Santa photos done here is that you have the option of using your own camera! They ask for a $5 donation if you use your own camera. The Santa house is really nicely done too. Santa has a gorgeous hand carved wood chair, wonderful Christmas trees (the kind you would see in your own house), lots of toys and stuffed animals everywhere, and a bucket of candy canes and chocolate!! Santa also has a whole herd of REAL reindeer. The staff will help you take photos with the reindeer from inside the Santa house. You can also feed Santa’s reindeer while there. We went on a rainy day during the week and there was only 1 other family ahead of us in line. The weekends are much busier. If you are not a fan of the mall for Santa photos I would highly recommend a visit to Cougar Mountain Zoo.