The one tool every papercrafter needs...

It's starting to become quite a tradition to make a card on Friday night. I'm becoming addicted to watching Creations with Christina's Stampin' on Friday videos. The cards are always so cute and inspirational. Now usually I don't have the products she shows and today was no exception. I don't have the cute little ticket die or the stamps, so I made a ticket using Sure Cuts a Lot. Once I had the basic outline made, I copied it, shrunk, put the new image on it's own layer, and used the program to center the smaller one in the middle of the bigger one. I then drew the smaller outline using my Cri-kits pens and then cut the larger outline to get my "ticket." I chose the word from the "Warm Words" collection from Stampin' Up because I need a thank you card to send to a woman who provided us a lot of help in a recent project at work. I used the paper scraps from the birthday card for my mother-in-law last weekend, and some plain grosgrain ribbon I picked up at Dollar Tree. So, unlike how nice Christina's looked, mine still looked a little plain to me, which is odd because normally I really like a plain style. But this time, it needed something. So I added a mat with DCWV card stock, a little pierced line using my Stampin' Up paper piercer and added some Cotton Candy Stickles to the centers of the big flowers.

Now it looked better, but something just wasn't right, which brings me to the one tool every paper crafter needs: the Cricut Spatula. Now you may be thinking, really? I don't even have a Cricut. Or maybe, I have a Cricut but I rarely use the spatula. How can it be that important?

Well let me ask you this: Have you ever taped down a piece of paper on your project and realized it's not straight at all or you don't really like it there only to discover that the paper has adhered enough that you can't really move it? Okay so you all may be perfect, but it happens to me all the time. Like tonight on this card where I realized that what was wrong was the ribbon knot was too messy looking. Of course that meant I have to take up the paper. So I slipped the thin blade of the spatula under the paper and used the blade to separate the mat from the patterned paper. The tape sticks to the spatula and can easily be rubbed off the metal surface (you can still see a little on my spatula in the picture since I hadn't really cleaned it yet). It worked like a charm and I've done it probably hundreds of time now. Once they were apart, I tied the ribbon again to get a neater knot and then re-taped the paper with my ATG gun.

So that's it. Now I'm happy with it.

Rare sight - Zoey playing!

At nearly 17 and 3/4 years of age, it's very rare to see Zoey playing. She has a pretty set routine of drinking water out of her cup in the bathroom, sleeping on the bed and coming downstairs usually only for dinner or when she wants some attention. For a while I really worried because she had lost so much weight and was arfing up food all over the place.

But lately, she's been more active. She's fought back instead of running away when she see another kitty. The other night she and Cha-Ching had a pretty good hissing match. But Zoey got back at him, I noticed last night she had arfed in his food dish! It's the first time she's arfed in a while and she's gained a little weight back. She finishes all her food again and, today, I caught her playing with catnip banana so I just had to grab some pictures.

Waiting impatiently...

I am not a patient person. I accept this about myself. While I love the internet, I'm not an online shopping fan. I hate buying something and then having to wait for it to arrive. I want instant gratification! But sometimes online is the only way to go.

I've had this project idea percolating in my head for a while, well actually I've had several percolating there. Unfortunately, I can't find the supplies I need around town. Argh... so I broke down tonight and ordered online. It all started when I was helping Glenda move her mom in with her today. When we were done, there was no way I was going home to cook, not even if it was something as simple as a Hungry Girl recipe. So we called my parents to see if they were eating out and where so we could join them. While at dinner, my Mom and I started talking about ordering some things online, if I had finally ordered the vinyl that I've been talking about for a while and if I need her 40% off coupon for Craft Warehouse.

Well it got me thinking. It doesn't matter what coupon I have if the stores around me don't carry what I need, so I finally broke down and ordered the vinyl I want online. I found what I wanted at Oh My Crafts (who also happen to have a 10% off coupon right now - the code is summer10). I was going to order six sheets since they had it on sale for $9.99 for all six (what I would pay at full price for two sheets of Cricut vinyl), but then I realized that most of what I wanted was in a bundle of 20 sheets of pre-selected colors for only $14.99 (plus 10% off that - woo hoo!). They had such a great selection and a great price. Even though the shipping is a little spendy, it's still way cheaper than buying the Cricut vinyl even if I had a coupon (plus I'm not so happy with Provocraft over the whole Sure Cuts a Lot/Make the Cut issue so I love that I get my vinyl without having to support the company). But the problem is now I've got to wait a whole week for it to get here and that just isn't working for me. I'm all itchy to get started crafting RIGHT NOW!

Happy Father's Day

Today this post is going up as we drive to the restaurant to share a meal with both my father and father-in-law. It's wonderful that I still have them both in my life and that they live close enough that we can spend time together all the time (like on Friday night when we called my mom and dad on the spur of the moment to see if they could have dinner with us). I know that I'm very lucky in that regard.

So today I want to share with you the father's day cards I made. I was trolling the blogs on Friday night when I came across a video posted on My Creative Time about using punches on a card. Well, of course, I didn't have the right size of punch, sheer ribbon, a cute little charm or anything like that, but I did have my imagination. I cut the squares, the used my Sure Cuts a Lot program to cut a scalloped mat that I found on the DoodleLicious blog, then cut the charm out of the Fabulous Finds cartridge and stamped it with this stamp from the "It's All Good" set from Stampin' Up. The charm wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it gets the job done. I used regular ribbon instead of sheer. The best part about it is the whole thing is the paper. I had this little 6x6 Mini Deck from the Cosmo Cricket called Wanted that I won at a Cricut class at Craft Warehouse some time ago. The paper has these little cowboys on it. Since my father-in-law worked on a dairy, I thought it was perfect. The sentiment on the inside says "Happy Father's Day to a true cow-boy."

My dad's card was inspired by a post I found on the Paper Zone blog. It wasn't so much the twisted easel format, but the argyle design. I immediately thought back to this whole pack of paper I bought at CKC this year. I just LOVE argyle, especially this argyle paper from Fancy Pants called Recess in the All Fall line. I immediately thought of that paper for my card. So while I wasn't up to trying a twisted easel, I did get my inspiration from their project. I made a little square ribbon slide on Sure Cuts a Lot, used my Cri-Kit gel pens to write the sentiment (although it does look a little fuzzier than I would like. Then just matted the paper with some card stock from DCWV and made the card body with kraft paper from The Paper Company. At first the ribbon slide seemed a little too stark. It was a much brighter white than the argyle paper. So I used a waded up tissue with little Stampin' Up Old Olive ink to give it a little more color to match the bit of color in the argyle paper. You just can't really see that detail in this picture.

Then I still had to make a card for my mother-in-law's birthday tomorrow. I had just watched a video on a shutter card on You Tube and decided to give it a try. I turned out okay but I did learn that you need to use STIFF card stock for your base. I chose a textured card stock that wasn't very stiff after all that cutting and folding, so it makes the card a little difficult to close back up. I'm pretty sure this was a very old piece of DCWV because I found it loose in my paper cupboard when I was looking for patterned paper, but I don't know for certain. The [patterned paper was also a loose piece in with some others that I found when looking for a coordinating color for the original paper I had chosen, which I abandoned for this one. I liked the butterfly pattern on the other paper, but I couldn't find a coordinating paper that I liked. This one is a double sided paper and I thought both sides were perfect. I also learned that laying out the pieces with the card open doesn't work. I had them all arranged in a way I liked, glued them down and then closed the card and, eeeekkkkk, it looked terrible. I had all the same papers on the front of the card. So I did a double layer of patterned paper on a box on the front to give it a little mix. So if you try the card, don't glue down the paper until you've seen what it looks like closed too. So then I just stamped my front sentiment from the "Lots of Thoughts" stamp set from Stampin' Up and added my inside sentiment stamped from the Stampin' Up "Congrats" set.

I'm thinking that if I try this card again, I might try using pictures where all the yellow paper with the soft blue mats are (the ones you can't hardly see in this picture). These are all hidden when the card is closed but would be something that would be really nice to display for a while for the recipient.

Michele come get your flip-flops...

Hmm... I can't believe that the weekend's over already. It seems like it's flown by. Certainly this rainy Sunday afternoon has. The kitties have napped but I've been busy. The laundry is done, the groceries are bought and stowed away, my thank you cards are written, the house cleaned and the floors vacuumed. I even found time to make some summer flip flops for around the house or out camping ( I was planning to break mine in by going to get a pedicure, but that plan evaporated when Matt did the grocery shopping with me and managed to buy $25.00 of cherries - I knew to be nervous when he gets around the meat counter but it never occurred to me that I had to worry in the produce aisle too).

These were super easy. Michaels had them on sale for a $1 and I just added some flowers I had in my scrapbooking stash, a large rhinestone and a bunch of Irock gems. Mine were a little more complicated because I had to dye the red flowers, but still, an easy project.

Thank you cards

Even though I still have a few cards left in my stash, today I made a few specific thank you cards using some new techniques I either just learned or had never tried. Last night, when I was puttering in my scrapbooking room playing video games, surfing blogs and watching YouTube, I watched Creations with Christina's Stampin' on Friday video and was very inspired by the cute vintage newspaper card she made. Well, of course, I didn't have the newspaper stamp, the twine, the tiny tags die or stamp, but I figured I could still make it work. Hmmm... thinking about it now, that was a pretty strange assumption - I don't have anything she uses in the card except card stock and yet I still thought I could do it. Fortunately, I have Google. So I searched Google images to find a suitable newspaper image. I substituted embroidery thread for the twine. It isn't quite as cute, but it works:

A few months ago, I was shopping at Paper Zone and bought a little spray bottle of Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz in a shade called Sparkle. I've never really tried spraying on my layouts or cards but I've really liked when I've seen others using it or similar products. So the little spray bottle has languished in the top drawer of tool cart for probably about three months now. But today I decided it was time to give it a try. First I ran my background paper through the Sizzix with an embossing folder and then sprayed the background (I used my garbage can to contain the spray. It was surprisingly simply and dried quickly. I used some of my stash of flowers, some Irock gems and a little Offray ribbon to finish it off. Yeah for using my stash!

So after Christina's video ended, I started watching videos by 2stampis2b.com. I saw this wonderful video using embossing folders that left a void in the embossing so that you can stamp an image without having the texture where your image is. It's really hard to see, but in this picture, the card stock under the bunch of flowers is flat and all the rest has the texture from the embossing plate. It's a really amazing technique. The video demonstrating it is available here. I just had to try it. So I made my stamping void using a recycled part of an old box that held page protectors. It worked perfectly. Although next time I will probably make the void a little bit bigger. I then colored in the flowers with my Stampin' Up pens and sprayed the whole thing with Sheer Shimmer Spritz in Sparkle (and since that little bottle is running out quickly, I'm definitely going to try her spray that she shows how to make here). I then used Inkscape to make the ribbon slide and imported it into SCAL. I added the words "Thanks a bunch" and used my metallic Cri-kits pen to write it then cut it out. Then just layer the pieces and it was done. The picture shows the shimmer mist really well and the light really reflects off the writing much more in the picture. The shimmer mist is really much more subtle in person and the writing is in much starker contrast.

So now I just have to make a sympathy card and I can get back to my layouts. Oh, and I have to actually mail a whole bunch of cards that I'm behind in mailing out too... Oh well, better late than never I guess.

A little scrapbook therapy

Work finally came around and turned out okay by week's end, but it was a rough, rough week. I think my bosses are afraid I'm going to look for another job. I think about it some times, but I really do love where I am even if sometimes I question the sanity of that.

My father-in-law is still in the hospital from his chest pains. We'll be heading down there shortly. But in the meantime, my friend's dad died this morning. He was in the hospital the week before last with kidney failure and fluid in his lungs. They thought he was on the mend and he went home to finish his recovery, but things took a turn for the worse and this morning, she and her daughter were called over there to find the police and fire truck. Her dad was gone. So I guess, all in all, my horrible week isn't so bad in comparison.


So last night I played in my scrapbook room for a little while. Mostly I watched You Tube videos on techniques and played Dr. Mario, but I did a little moving of paper too. But hubby was tired so I knocked off early to watch a movie with him (Duplicity - it was okay, a little slow but I liked the story). Then this morning I couldn't sleep so I got up and played some more in between loads of laundry and Chewie demanding attention. I finally finished this page based upon the Sketchy Thursday's sketch from last week.

It's funny how sometimes a page just all falls together quickly. Then there are others that seem such a struggle to put together and somehow never still look right. Lately, I'm having a lot of the latter.

But I did have fun with the flowers on this one. It's actually an EK Success border punch but I did a little snipping of my own to make separate flowers. In fact, there wasn't a lot to this one, considering how long it took to make. The background is Karen Foster Design paper called Zoo Life Collage. The polka dotted paper and orange papers are some I had left over other projects. I'm guessing it's probably DCWV, but am not sure. The little strip of green shimmer paper (left over from last year's Christmas card project) was distressed with some Tea Dye Distress Ink. The blue card stock I'm pretty sure is from Paperbilities and it's been hit with some Color Box white ink. I actually just realized that it's missing the border strip I made with the scalloped EK Success border punch that goes along the right side of the picture. There are some Irock gems for the center of the flowers and a Darice gem to dot the i in the title.

Boy am I behind

I found all these great sketches to use as inspiration and I have them open in Windows on the bottom of my screen. Unfortunately, I haven't felt much like scrapping the last few days. We got a call that Matt's dad was in the ER with a heart episode on Monday so we left work early to go reassure ourselves that everything was fine (it is and he's home now), but by the time we left, I had developed a headache. So it was straight to bed when I got home. Then yesterday I still had the headache so I didn't feel like do much in the evening but going back to bed. Tonight my headache is finally starting to subside, but I'm still not quite up to be very creative. I just did a little to finish up this layout from the Sketchy Thursdays that they posted nearly two weeks ago!
I just have to point out there is some rare handwritten journalling. I really hate my messy handwriting so I rarely journal by hand. But for this layout, it just seemed like the right thing.

What a weekend!

It's been such a fun weekend. Friday night, the hubby took me on a date to see Xmen: First Class. It was good, but it drug in some places. When I have time to start thinking about things about the movie, such as how Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick really do go together as a couple, and if January Jones was pregnant when they were filming this or that came after, you know that they didn't do quite a good enough job.

Then yesterday morning we got up at the time we normally get up for work (no sleeping in, boo), but that was to meet Mom and Dad for breakfast. Then hubby, Dad and I took the boat out fishing. It was about a twelve hour jaunt. They (because I drove the boat all day and hardly ever touched a pole, let alone had the privilege of reeling one in) caught as many as they threw back and we still reached our limit. Those fish are already on their way to the neighbor's smoker, but boy was I tired today.

And speaking of smoke, today I got to play in my craft room (after I cleaned it up) because it's close to the laundry room and I spent a good portion of the day working on the laundry. I've been working on the same page for nearly a week. I "finished" it, but it still doesn't look quite right. So I set it aside to work on another project I've had in mind for a while: replacing my old 20 bumper sticker that we bought at Fontana back in 2007. So it still says Tony Stewart, even though that hasn't been his number for quite some time now. Unfortunately when we went to the race in 2009, they didn't have a bumper sticker (or maybe it was they didn't have one I liked). Anyway, at the Creating Keepsakes Convention (back in February!!!!), I got the idea to cut my own out of vinyl. So today, I searched the Internet high and low for the Clarendon Italic font, which I'm pretty sure is the one for the 14. Well, the only places I could find it wanted over $20 for it. Sorry guys, I'm a cheapskate so that wasn't going to work. So I did a Google Image search and found this one I liked that had the 14 and his nickname Smoke at the bottom. I really liked and the image imported into SCAL beautifully. I was all ready to cut when I flipped back to it for a second and realized that it's a bumper sticker that they are selling now. Well, if I'm going to cut this thing myself, then I want it to be custom, not just something any old person could buy off the web.

So then I flipped over to Tony Stewart's web page and saw that the website had this cool image of the 14 in a circle with flames coming out either side. Now that was cool, but it was in a place where you only get to see it for about two seconds every 20 seconds or so, and you can't copy it. So I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture so I would have a reference point. I started building it myself: number 14 in white taken from first project, check, outline number in black, check, red circle outlined by white circle, check, circle sized so that the letters are just as big as the outline, check. Okay so now flames. Well, since I couldn't grab the image, I was going to have to come up with flames on my own. So back to Google Images. I found some I liked and played with them for a while, but it wasn't quite right. Then I found the half-circle of flames and immediately knew that my image wasn't going to look like the one on the web page, because these flames sparked a new image in my mind of the flames cupping the number. But even then, I knew that I needed something more on the flames. So I went back to the original image I had started with and grabbed the name Smoke and plopped it on top of the solid part of the flames, added a black outline to the name and knew it was perfect. Now this is no bumper sticker. It's my new, original, car tattoo:

A few cuts later, a little cleaning of the back window and on it went. Unfortunately, it was already starting to get dark outside, but I still think the picture came out pretty good.