Inkyheart

Glimmering Memories Album

I have three small children who are fascinated with pictures and stories from when I was their age.  Yes, I know this will be short-lived!  But for now, I am the all-knowing, wise Momma - so let’s just go with it.  LOL!  My husband dug up a picture of the two of us from about 20 years ago and I realized how few pictures we have like that. I didn’t keep up with photographs like I do now.  So I decided to make up a book, with journaling prompts, that I could fill up with photos and stories for my kids to read.  For a laugh, I’m calling it ‘In the Old Days’.

I started with a Regal Glimmer Glass Window Album.  For the cover, I took a ‘bit too bright’ patterned paper and made it into a lovely texture by toning the color down with Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist and a bit of Pink Bubblegum thrown in too for fun.  While the paper was wet from the Glimmer Mist, I crumpled it up good and flattened it out to let it dry.

Crumpled and Glimmer Misted

Once this paper was dry, I placed it underneath the cover page of the album.  I used a dark pen to trace the fleur de lis pattern from the cover onto the patterned paper.  I used an exacto knife to cut out the shape.  Your paper has to be dry for this step, or it will tear easily.

I gently removed the coil binding from the album and adhered my patterned paper over the top.  Holding the cover piece over a light box, or even against a glass window, I used my exacto knife to make an ‘x’ in each binding hole.  Gently place the cover page back into the binding.

I stamped my sentiment onto white cardstock and then dipped the edges into the leftover Glimmer Mist on my craft sheet.  I then gave it a quick overall spritz of Gingerbread Glimmer Mist as well to make it off-white.

Stamped and Glimmer Misted Title

I sprayed two Creme de Rouge -Regal Glimmer Chips, a key and keyhole with the Coffee Shop Glimmer mist.  Because I wanted a heavier application, I then placed these face down on the craft sheet to get a puddled amount on the key.  I sponged the Glimmer Mist heavilly on the keyhole as well.  I wanted to give them a slightly rusted look.

'Rusty' key hanging from Ribbon

 I adhered the Fleur de Lis Glimmer Window piece to the back of the cover page.  To make it more prominent in the design, I sponged Coffee Shop Glimmer mist along the edges and finished it off by tracing the image with Distress Stickles in Vintage Photo.

Glimmered and Distress Stickles

And so now I am working on filling up the inner pages.  As I find pictures, for example:

• of the pets I had as a child
• our house after a tornado
• from the senior prom (egads)
• and so forth

along with a list of favorites, wishes, accomplishments, things that I want to do…

This book will be a sum of me - but very simple to fill and something that I would recreate for my Mom, my Mother-in-law, any significant adult in their lives to fill out as well.  Watch out, pretty soon every family member will have one.

I’ll keep you posted with pages and prompts.  Thanks for reading.

MUSE: PURSE-onality

Remember this post?  When I went all background attack on an innocent piece of white cardstock and created this?

 

Well DOH! and behold, I forgot to post what I made from that glorious piece of no-longer-white cardstock goodness.  So here goes!

 

I used it to decorate my ZBecky Brown purse!

First I used a Clear Paintables from Prima, which was colored in places using metallic and pearl Paint pens.  I cut it into quarters and placed it at the front, back and sides of the purse design on top of the stamped cardstock.

Next, I cut two long scrollwork pieces from blue embossing foil (Amaco) using Spellbinders' Illuminations die.  This is a 12" die, so two passes created all I needed to wrap around the bottom edge of my purse.

I cut and embossed a piece of cardstock and blue embossing metal foil (Amaco) with the Spellbinders' Label One die.  I used these as the backdrop for my glorious butterfly charm from Rennaissance Art Stamps, which I colored with Copic Markers.

Finally, I topped it off with a large flower from Prima, sprayed with Glimmer Mist and a couple of metal charms.

Everywhere I go, from the grocery store to the bank, somebody always comments on this purse.  And the beauty of it is I can pull it all out and start over in the Spring with a new design.

I saw the ZBecky purses for a good price at Stampington.com recently btw, if you would like to get one of these acrylic purses.

Surround yourself with the things that you love, in every aspect of your life.  Whether it's your coffee mug, your purse or your checkbook cover - embellish something and make it a part of your every day.  It feels good!

And check out Spellbinder's Blog.  Today is the beginning of their 5th Anniversary Blog Party!!!  Lots of prizes too.  I'll be posting my Spellbinder's sneak peak artwork on the 17th.

2009 is the year to {Draw it Yourself}

 

It's a brand new year!!!  This year I will be bringing a new set of workshops to my classroom, DIY Simply Lettering with Copic and DIY Simply Doodling with Copic, featuring the Copic Sketch / Ciao Brush Markers, Multiliner and Spica Glitter pens.

Even if you say 'I can't draw', we are going to remove that 'T' by Trying something new.  I've taught lettering and doodling classes over the past ten years, and just like any other technique, it is the tools that make the technique.  A bit of instruction and you'll be putting your markers to more use than coloring stamped images.

And if you've been coloring your stamped images this year, my guess is you've already been thinking outside of those stamped lines and adding backgrounds and foregrounds with your markers.  If not, let's do it!

2009.  Wow the last year just flew by.  I'm really looking forward to this year and jumping back into the classroom.

More locations and details will be added to the right hand sidebar soon.  I hope I can meet many of you in person this year.

Doodle do! SL

Big Blog Giveaway - Rhonna Farrer digi kits...

Just got an e-mail about this and must share a great blog give-away.  Yummo!

 

http://rhonnadesigns.blogspot.com

From the lady who all but invented the swirl and flourish... :)  What a way to begin a new year!

Monday Mobius

Is more than one mobius called something else?  Is the plural for mobius, mobii?  You may be asking what on earth IS a mobius?  Well this is a tale of four mobius/es/ii.  Ok, I won't spin this into a long yarn... :)

A fellow crafter, Nona D. is making these really great scarves that are a big loop, with a twist in them, and called a mobius.  They are the perfect solution for my three 'short people' for whom any ordinary scarf would simply fall off and be forever residing in the lost and found bin at school.

But enter the mobius, and they all want to wear it.  They drape them over their little heads, and play about snuggling their ears inside the cozy mobius.  All three of them, and a friend (who had on MINE!) wore them ice skating today.  It was the perfect cozy accessory.

And certainly not necessary to wear more than one.  But it was fun to pile them all onto Courtney who is literally up to her neck in the four of them.  And that peacock purple one is MINE.  In fact, where has it gone off to now that the kids are tucked into bed?

... off to find the traveling mobius.

Check out Nona's Etsy shop (www.nonapearl.etsy.com) if you would like your own cuddly Mobius.  100% of the proceeds go towards their adoption fund.  Hey, that makes you feel warm on the inside too.

Keeping the little things that matter...busy!

School is out until the fifth of January.  Combined with some serious wintry weather here in New England and, well one just hopes that the Christmas present do the trick and I won't have to work too hard to keep them busy.

The first craft was a nice winter-themed one, that they can keep in their rooms throughout the season.  It's seriously easy to make and fun for the kids.

 

We took empty Belle Fleur packaging and inserted a 3 1/2 inch square patterned piece from the Dude colletion inside that I'd printed on my printer.  Then I took an adhesive 'foamie' snowflake and removed the adhesive backing.  This we sprinkled glitter all over.  Yep, we be sparkling!  And finally adhered the foamie to the paper with a dab of Fabritac adhesive.  If you don't have empty packaging like this, you could use an empty CD case too!

Back to keeping busy, one of the most often seen things on my kitchen table are teeny cootie catchers.  My goodness - the kids go on a cootie catcher bender every know and then!  

While surfing around the internet, I found a website that actually used cootie catchers as menus / programs for a wedding reception.  I think that would be a valid use for these in our home one day.  But let's put that off for a decade or two, ok?

You can make a holiday card based on this great form factor!  Here is one that I just dressed up like the Dickens.  :)  Pardon my pun.

   

I took the Voila Victorian Ovals self-adhesive ribbon in Cream, and cut off two ovals.  These I cut in half and adhered towards the pointed ends of the flaps.  Then I decorated the flaps with flowers from the Christmas Bubbles floral assortment, and decorated these and the interior selection flaps with Build a Bauble gems.

The cootie catcher has grown up and gotten all sophisticated.  LOL!

But if you have already rocked around the Christmas Tree and need something quick to keep the short people at bay, here is an 8 1/2 x 11 printable cootie catcher template with a Santa theme.

Download the 8 1/2 x 11 (1) cootie catcher template

It is a .JPG file, that is full sized for printing out on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  I typically use a nice patterned paper, that either has a very subtle color on the side I'm going to print on, or is blank on one side.

If you are lucky enough to have a 12" wide format printer, such as an Epson R1800 / R1900, you can make a 12" wide version.  In fact, during the summer I bought these really cool pieces from Prima that were designed with the cootie catcher in mind.  One side could be used for a BIG version, or the other side has four 6x6 versions waiting to be made!

Download the 12 x 12 (4) cootie catcher template

Whichever you choose, please print out on a piece of scrap paper first to make sure your printer likes what I did, and adjust as necessary.

Your starting piece has to be a square, so once you've printed it out, cut out the printed piece to square and let the folding begin!  If you don't remember how to fold one, never fear!  I found a great website with directions for folding these little cooties.

http://www.momsminivan.com/article-cootie-catcher.html

Have fun!  Stay warm.  Keep busy!

A Gift That Really Keeps on Giving

Neil and I ordered this really nifty wireless 10" internet photo frame from D-Link (the DSM-210 to be specific).  Unlike the digital photo frames that I've seen all over Costco, what I like about it is that it is a wireless device that I was able to easily setup to receive photographs from my Flickr account, as soon as I upload them through an RSS feed channel.  Ok, that is geek-speak - but it is like when you subscribe to a blog and get an e-mail whenever there is a new post.  Same concept but picture to frame.

And not to be so centered on just our family, ANYONE in the family can send a photograph to an e-mail address that I setup specifically for this frame, and SHAZAM! there it is.

It's not perfect.  It doesn't automatically rotate photos.  It likes landscape photos, so if you've got something in portrait orientation, it needs to be rotated 90 degrees before they send them as the frame is setup for landscape viewing - but I truly believe that this is something that will come about in a firmware update in the future.  I bet that stuff is in the EXIF data somewhere for that picture, right?

So for now, I'm loading its 1GB internal memory with a bunch of photos from family reunions and their trip to Scotland with Neil so that it will have some images they could make portable if they wished.

I've manually programmed their wireless network's SSID and access password into the device.  It should be plug and show & tell time when it arrives at their door.

This is really great!  I can see giving this to any of my relatives that aren't internet or computer savvy.  What a perfect gift for a family member that is in a nursing home or hospital.  So many of them have wireless internet these days.  You can even send videos to it.

I know the minute the kids open the presents from Grandpa and Grandma MacDonald, I'll be saving those pictures to post to their picture frame that very day and they won't have to lift a finger to get updated photos right there on display in their family room.

This is a piece of technology that works and that the whole family can take advantage of.  Loving this.

Frosty the Snowman card

Here in Connecticut, we've gotten 9 inches of snow today.  Mother Nature decided to do it big for the first real snowstorm of the season!  No little dusting would do.  The trees are full.  The puppy's fur is full of little balls of snow as we sit by the fire 'melting' together.  But my driveway is, thankfully, plowed.  However I have no intention of going out tonight.  And I have to finish up a winter card swap.  But I really don't like making every card alike.  Just like a snowflake, they all need to be different in some way.  So let's play with some FROST colored Glimmer Mist instead!

To recreate a bit of the winter wonderland on this greeting card, I decided to mix it up with the surfaces a bit.  I want the shine and sparkle of ice and snow to be incorporated into its design.  So I started with a patterned cardstock, with a subtle monochromatic print as the card base.  To this I added a printed transparency with numbers printed all over it.  To me, this was reminiscent of how much snow is falling outside.  I love it when they say, '6 to 10 inches'.  Such a big range.  It really does seem like they are guessing.  LOL.  So lots of numbers in a subtle print.  Then I used a pretty crystal swirl, to be like the wind whipping around my scene.  And then I placed my chipboard letters and Glimmer Glass snowflakes in place. 

Now it's time to bring everybody together.  I sprayed this entire design liberally with Glimmer Mist in Frost.  I love how Glimmer Mist has such different effects on the many surfaces.  When you apply it to a glossy surface, such as a transparency, or Glimmer Glass - you get this more 'chunky', watercolor effect.  It dries quickly enough though.

 

And for the chipboard letters, I dabbed it on a little more heavilly with a makeup wedge, so it would deposit around the edges nicely.

And now onto that snowman.  He's pretty special.  I started with the printed Frosty Memories snowman, the smaller one in the set.  I thought it would be fun to color in his carrot nose, so I brought out my Copic Markers.  But I couldn't stop there.  

 

I shaded around the edges of the image with BG000 and B00, pulling these together with the Colorless Blender to make them fade nicely.  Then I used B91, B93 and B99 on the scarf, to make it match my other card elements.  I used the cool gray, C0 on shadowed areas, such as near the buttons, under the scarf and under his top hat.  I knew that these markers could handle an application of Glimmer Mist, since the markers are alcohol based -- so I put a light dusting of Frost onto the snowman as well.  Look how the Glimmer Chipboard just SpArKlEs!

So like snow and ice, the play of surfaces is very different when you apply Glimmer Mist to them.  There are so many lovely visual effects.  And like icicles, the transparent nature of the Glimmer Mist doesn't eliminate the background colors - it amplifies and adds to them.  I love how just one color can help unite several pieces of your project together.

Stay warm.  But get your hands on some FROST.

Twilight of the Twoth Fairy...

It's 2 am and I'm making a second gift from the tooth fairy in two days.  Courtney is losing teeth left and right and Cameron is yet to lose ONE, much to his consternation.  They even compete at this level?

Neil and I realize that our $2.00 bill collection has been seriously depleted by Courtney and Brianna, so I came up with a cute coin holder idea instead.

Inside is a Big Y BLUE coin - Courtney's favorite color.  Highly prized in our family.  LOL!  And several state quarters.

And now for silliness before I collapse from all this crafting.  What this video if you are a Twilight Fan.  'What do you give if you can give forever?'

http://www.take180.com/s/The_Twilight_Before_Christmas/ep5l7

A riot.  Meredith Fenwick posted about it on Facebook and I had to share.

Night!

The Weekend Wrapup...

I love this time of year!  Wow, what a weekend!  I cannot remember having this much going on in one weekend before - but all GOOD stuff, not just schmack-tivities (my shorthand for scheduled activities).  Speaking of time...this is the time of year when my idea of an alarm clock for the kidoodles is turning on the bells on the stairwell.  ding ding ding dong dong.  :)

First a HUGE thank you to Lori and Laura, who respectively hosted the kids on Friday night so that Neil and I could go do a marathon shopping trip.  I wrapped up a digital layout for Club Scrap Digital's CSJr Kit (being released today) and then we were out the door.  We had a very successful evening, not only a serendipitious moment of finding two boxes of Bakugan character thingies just sitting there on the shelf at ToysRUs (Moms of little boys know what I'm talking 'bout here), and also got to grab dinner together.  It was nice.  I'd say we are all but done with the kids' shopping.

So on Saturday, we picked out our tree at Jones' Tree Farm in Shelton.  The rainy week accompanied by a light dusting of snow that morning made it a bit sloggy walking through the fields, but the kids found all manner of 'treasures'.

 

Cameron held onto that tall 'stick' and led the parade down the hill.  Courtney was beating on a drum (tree stump) with a stick and Brianna had the bits of branches and ferns to scatter along our path.  Good lord, what will I do when they outgrow my silliness?  They come up with all of this stuff on their own and I keep getting nostalgic about how much they are growing up.  I want to freeze time.

That afternoon, Neil took Cameron to his basketball game with the girls in tow, while I stole out to get one last gift.  It almost didn't fit into the car - but I got it, and snuck it home.

Sunday was busy, but blissful.  I hosted the coffee hour at church, with Neil's help of course.  I thought we had over bought and over-baked, but there was NOTHING left.  Bye bye to all of those gingerbread cookies!

Later in the day, Cameron finished his addition to my favorite idea of a Christmas village display with  these adorable little houses from Maya Road.  I snagged them for half price at a Black Friday sale at Express Yourself in Bethel and the kids went to town decorating them.

 

They've made a bunch of spoon angels too, after Brianna showed the twins how to make them - but those are drying after Mommy helped to spray some Glimmer Mist on their wings.

Then we went to church for a Gingerbread Christmas Craft Celebration.  Rae and Melanie put this together.  It was fabulous.  I made a double batch of royal icing - which hopefully made it's way mostly onto the houses.  The children were very creative.

 
   

Now I know I'm not supposed to have a favorite gingerbread house - but I've got to give it to my little man for detail-oriented design.  

On this side, look closely and you will see Santa's sleigh (of pretzels), with his bag (large marshmallow), stuffed with M&M presents and Chocolate Santa himself on the sleigh as well as the Christmas tree and several small Quaker Oats decorated presents.  But Cameron didn't stop there.

 

On the other side of his Gingerbread house, he made a tiny manger, with baby green M&M Jesus with his gumdrop blanket on an Andes Mint bed.  Cameron told me Jesus is attached for safety with lots of frosting.  And to his credit, Cameron's creation actually did make it home in one piece.

   

Do you think I have enough inspiration growing up around me?  Just when you think that your heart couldn't hold any more love, it is about to burst like the big hug Cameron gave me when he was done.

And so we brought the creativity home to show Daddy.  The kids had dinner and we lit the fire and watched the Sound of Music together.  About half of it.  We'll watch the rest tonight.

I spent the remainder of the evening, once the short people were off to bed, watching The Colbert Report with Neil and making something for the tooth fairy to give to Courtney.  She lost TWO front teeth this weekend.  Which makes the word GROCERIES, which typically comes out 'gwowth-sure- wreath' anyways - all the more unbearably cute.  Here is how her $2.00 bill was packaged:

This is a vintage brass business card holder that I purchased from Renaissance Art Stamps.  I adhered the ladies (from Crafty Secrets) with Matte Gel Medium, and brushed more across the top to protect the surface.  When it was dry, I attached a wing to one of my 'fairies' and sprayed a light coating of Glimmer Mist in Walnut Gold over the entire piece. 

Final touches included edging with Stickles in Patina and touching the jewels on their outfits with a Copic Spica marker in Clear.  See how the jewels sparkle on her dress and wrist?

And of course sprayed the $2.00 bill with Glimmer Mist as well before inserting it and the card into the holder.  I think we are officially out of $2.00 bills now.

I've spent the rest of the evening (or should I say morning) and well into this afternoon organizing my craft area.  And I've got to say - this is the best thing I could have assembled on my birthday.  If you didn't see that post, I got the Original Scrapbox Minibox in November.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.

With all the holiday shopping you are doing for others, this is something you should get for yourself.  And they've got free shipping to boot!  That's huge people!  Click on the image and type FREESHIP1025 when you place your order for either of the Scrapboxes.

Personally, I have the MINIbox - and I absolutely adore it.  I close it up and my office actually looks NEAT, which is quite an accomplishment!  LOL!  Open it up and you've got a craft CAVERN inside.  It holds so much stuff! 

For example, the paper trays.  We all know what they are capable of, but did you know that they are deep enough to handle the 'cut strip' as well?  Many paper trays can hold 12x12 cardstock, but don't take that extra bit into account.  And a LOT of manufacturers of patterned cardstock and transparencies have that cut strips on there, for the bar code, item # etc.  I can think of one manufacturer that even uses one side as a decorative edge!  So this is necessary in a paper tray.

The other narrower drawers have so many uses too.  They may be narrower than 12" - but they are just as long.

 I use this drawer for my wet adhesives.  Just look at how much fits in there!  It allows me to hoard Zip Dry, Fabritac and Glossy Accents.  These I can never have enough of. 

And the narrowest drawers are once again, 12" long inside.  You can use them with the provided dividers, for say, putting your flowers into color sets, and also remove all the dividers and it is the perfect storage for 12" long embellishments such as these adhesive Voila felt ribbon borders.

But here is perhaps my FAVORITE thing about the MiniBox.  I attached some magnetic tool holders to the inside panels.  These are blank, and only on the MINIBOX is there room to do this.  The full-size Workbox needs this room to store the table surface.

And this is where I store my low-profile metal dies.  The Spellbinders Nestabilities are shown here.  (ok, well three of them are blurred out - but you are just going to have to wait for CHA to see those!).  But do you see the possibilities?  Unused space becomes a functional dream!!!

And with the 'nesting' design of these dies, you get the whole set in the space of the largest piece. 

The magnetic surface is so strong, that you can stack pieces on top of each other, for example with my Shapeabilities Sunflower set:

Isn't that great?

Ok, I'm back to sorting flowers for the moment, which is why I wanted to bring this up.  Organization is such a blessing.

So whatever you do for the holidays, I hope that you will treat yourself to some time, to create, to organize, to PLAY.

I've got some deadlines coming up and (oh yes, one that is past due!) as we wind up the year and head into CHA next month.  So if you have made it this far, thank you for staying with me!  And I hope your days are just as merry and colorful.

SL