Computer Issues

It seems lately that I've been plagued with one computer issue after another.  So very frustrating!  Thank you everyone for being so patient with my infrequent blogging.  Hopefully I'll get this all taken care of soon.

I just found out today that I didn't win the Michael's trip to Paris.  Oh well.  I'm still glad that I entered.  The person who won did a beautiful painting of her daughter seeing Paris for the first time.  A lot of people were upset because she is a professional artist.  I understand their feelings, but unfortunately Michael's didn't have any separate entries for professional or amateur crafters.  They really should have.  Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes, and do better in their future contests.

Lately I've been in bed quite a bit with my pain issues, and that makes it hard to get crafting done as much as I'd like.  A few things I did accomplish was a couple of cards that I created using some cardmaking kits that are made by Anna Griffin, and distributed by HSN.  I love anything Anna Griffin, and HSN is the best place to find her items at a really reasonable price.  Just about everything is included in the kits except the glue.  You should check out HSN when they have crafting on.  Last week they had on 24 hours of crafting items.  Good for me, not good for my wallet!  These are a few of the cards I made with the Anna Griffin kits:

The inside of the card above:

The inside of the above card:

As you can all see these are beautiful cards.  I love the pop ups!  As I said everything is included in these kits.  All you need is a little imagination of where to place the items, and the possibilities are endless.  Give it a try!  Happy crafting!

 

Back online!

Wow, time flies when you don't have access to the internet.  My modem died on me, and it was a good excuse to upgrade our access.  Finally able to get back on the web.  I've missed blogging, and I've especially missed Pinterest.  Yes, I'm addicted to Pinterest!  I know there are lots of you who can relate.

I recently participated in a contest through Michael's craft store called Springtime in Paris.  I submitted the following collage in hopes of winning.  Wish me luck!  This is a picture of the outside of the box that looks like a book:

I made the flower embellishment using a die cut by Brenda Walton for Sizzix.  The paper doll is a rubber stamp by Julie Nutting for Prima.  I hope you all know by now how much I love these paper dolls.  Their so beautiful!  This is the inside: 

I spray painted the table blue, and used doilies for the awning.  Did you notice how cute the purses are?  Their Jesse James buttons that I cut the shanks off of.  I love the balloons made by Recollections!

The framed picture is just a sticker with a frame mounted on top of it.  I added stickles by Ranger to the Eiffel tower to help it pop out a little.  It's hard to tell, but the sparkle is just so darned cute!  I hope you all love this collage as much as I do!  Sometimes it's hard to be objective.  I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed, and who knows, I just might win a trip to Paris!  Happy crafting!

Warm & Sunny Hello!

I hope all is going well with everyone!  Hopefully your not suffering the effects of all the cold weather.  Sorry to tell some of you that I'm in sunny Arizona, and it's been beautiful here.  Highs in the upper 70's!  I know you don't want to hear any of that, but just think, that in the summer I'll be complaining how miserable and hot it is here.  There's always a good to the bad.

I wanted to share a quick card that I made awhile ago.  I really need to spend the day photographing all my new creations.  I've been a busy girl!  This is a fast card that I made with a premade card blank that I found at Michaels.

I just rubber stamped the flower onto card stock and colored it in with some markers, then cut it out leaving a white edge.  Then I glued down the three flowers in the corner, and that was it!  This might take about twenty minutes to complete.  I love starting with the black background.  I've started to do this with my art journaling pages as well.  It just makes all the colors pop!  I hope you all have some time for yourselves to enjoy making art, and give black a chance for your base.  You'll be surprised at how much you love it.    Happy crafting!!!!

Hope you all are doing well to stick to your New Year's resolutions.  I'm going to try and keep mine.  I've decided to try and get more of my work published, (I made this same resolution last year, but I really mean it this year)!   It's always hard to submit designs.  It just seems like you pour your heart into your pieces, and then hold your breath until you know you've been accepted by someone else.  Like Sally Field said at the Oscars years ago, "They like me, they really like me".  Were all just little kids inside trying to feel accepted.  Wish me luck, and I'll be sure to share all my upcoming results with all of you.

A couple posts back I shared with you guys my winners at the city wide art competition that I entered and won first, second  and third prize. You've seen my first and second prize winners, and today I thought I'd finally share the third prize winner.  I think it's one of my favorites, and here it is:

Isn't she beautiful!!  I ended up making another one just like her!  Here are some other viewpoints  of this piece.  

I hope you all enjoyed my lovely mermaid piece.  I know I love sharing all my pieces with all of you!  Have a great day and happy crafting!!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Hope you all had a fantastic New Year!!!  I certainly did.  It was a little crazy since I make my own Christmas cards.  Every year I tell myself that I won't overwhelm myself, but for some crazy reason I always do.  I made over 40 cards, and I was frantically working right up till Christmas.  Next post I'll share a picture of the finished card.

Today I thought I'd share a card that I made for my beautiful granddaughter.  She turned 5 this year and like all young girls she's really into the movie frozen.  I used a template from Hot Off the Press, to make the stepper card.  This looks really complicated, but really is very easy to do.

The paper is from Tim Holtz.  I purchased the snow globes from Michael's, I love the fact that the card stands up, so she can put it on her dresser.  I hope you all enjoy this card, and sorry about the picture, I took it in the car on the way to the post office.  Talk about  a procrastinator!  Have a great New Year, and take the time to be crafty!  Happy crafting everyone!!!!

Collage Crazy

I hope everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays.  Time spent with family and friends are a precious gift.  I know I've been very blessed, and I hope the same is true for all of you!  I've been very busy with collages lately.  Their one of my favorite things to do.  I just get such a kick out of making something so beautiful out of a plain blank canvas.  Sometimes you don't want to try to create for fear that you will mess it up.  I say, go for it!  Sometimes some of my best creations were because of a mistake I made.  It seems to come out so much better than it would have if I didn't make that mistake.

This collage is one that I had a blast creating.  The doll pattern is from the website of GabriellePollacco.blogspot.com.  Her work is so amazing, and she has some great videos on You Tube for inspiration as well.  I hope you all enjoy my collage, and continue to do some happy crafting!!!!   Happy Holidays!!!!

Art Show

Wow, do I have exciting news to share.  I know it's been quite awhile, but I really have a good excuse.  I've been working on some new pieces to enter into a art show.  Every year I submit my collages, and I've been lucky to win first place for the last two years.  This year I entered three pieces. One of them is this beautiful collage, which includes one of Julie Nutting's stamps made by Prima.

This collage won first prize!!!!  How exciting is that?  The animal chipboard pieces are by Claudine Hellmouth.  Aren't they adorble!  Then I won second and third prize for my other two collages.   I already posted the second place collage in an earlier post.  Here is the second place collage:

I'll share the third place collage in a future post.  So you see I really had a good excuse for not posting in quite awhile.  I'm busy working on Christmas ornaments right now.  I'll be posting more on these in a later post.  I hope you all enjoyed my fantastic news.  It just goes to show that you should stretch beyond your comfort zone.  I never thought I'd win, let alone first, second and third place!  Now I'm hoping to send more of my work to some magazines to see about getting published.  Cross your fingers and wish me luck!  Happy crafting!!!

Ballerina Bliss

Hello Everyone!  Hopefully you all survived the first days of school.  My kids are all grown, but I remember the stress of trying to get everything done before the beginning of school.  Luckily, now I have time to do lots of crafting.  Today I wanted to show all of you a card that I made for my daughters birthday a couple of years ago.  I'm not sure of the manufacture of the paper with the ballerina design. It could possibly be by Melissa Frances.   I embossed the top of the cardstock with my Cuttlebug machine. I then took white chalk ink and rubbed it over the embossing.  It helps to pop out the design.  I applied lace to the edge of the cardstock.  Then I added some Recollections bling on top of the lace, and on the left side with some swirly bling.  The very last thing is to add the white ribbon.  I love this card.  It's so feminine.  I hope you all like it as well.

This card is an example of using the beautiful papers that already have designs on them.  It saves a lot of time and trouble of trying to match up the papers.  Give it a try, and let me know what you've come up with.  Happy crafting!!!!!!

Time seems to have gotten by me again.  Today I thought I'd share two projects with all of you.  The first is a card that would be fit for a special guy in your life. The papers are by My Mind's Eye.  All I did was cut out the embellishments, backed them with foam, inked around the edges, and applied them to paper.  The embellishments are by Tim Holt's Ideaologoy, and 7 Gyspies.  This card was so easy to make, it probably took less than a half an hour.  Find paper packs that already have embellishments included on the paper.  It makes it so easy to cut them out and apply them to your card.

The second card is in the shabby chic style.  I love the light pastel colors.  The  paper is by Tim Holtz.  After I cut out the cardstock I rounded the corners.  I used chalk ink around all the edges to help the different papers pop out.Then I used a simple doily that I found in the cake isle at Michaels.   I used a rubber stamp to make the thank you portion.  Then I added some Recollections swirly pearl embellishments.  I found the flowers in the iron on section for tshirt decorating at Michaels.  I believe the paper clip bling and the bling in the center are from Recollections.  

I hope you all enjoy these two very different cards.  I've enjoyed sharing them with you.  I hope your able to take some time for crafting.  Sometimes if you only have a few minutes, you can ink the edges of cardstock.  Or cut out the papers you will need.  You don't need a couple of hours, make the best of a couple of minutes here and there.  Have a great day and happy crafting!

My goodness it's been over a month since I last blogged.  Time sure flies so fast!  Sorry everyone, I wish I could say I was on a cruise to the Caribbean, or out exploring the beautiful mountains of New Mexico, but sadly that's not the case.  I've just been experiencing a lot of computer problems.  Unfortunately I'm still having problems.  Never, ever allow your kids to use your lap top.  I've gone through three computers in the last three years!  Oh well, such is life.

I wanted to share a card that I made awhile ago.  It's in the altered art style. I'm a huge fan of Tim Holtz, and I'm always looking for inspiration.  This card is a little like his style.

I believe the paper I used was by Die Cuts With a View.  The gears are glossy, which give the card a really different look.  Most of the embellishments are by Tim Holtz, which includes the bingo letter, the enameled number, and the game spinner.  I rubber stamped the clock, and used my die cutting machine to attach a scalloped border around the clock.  The background paper was inked around the edges, with chalk ink.  I used foam dots to help give the accents some dimension.  

I hope you all enjoy my venture into altered art.  Lately I've been working a lot with my Julie Nutting paper doll stamps, and hope to be able to share some new collages with all of you soon.  Happy crafting!

Hello everyone!   I hope your all doing great.  I can't thank everyone enough for stopping by during the Where Bloggers Create 2014 blog hop.  I hope you all enjoyed the pictures of my crafting area.  It's very cluttered, and I love it.  At least I was able to clear off my desk so you all wouldn't see how messy it usually is.

Today's project is a cute card I made with silhouettes for the main design.  I'm so in love with the style of this card, as I have always had a love for anything vintage.  I cut out the ladies with my Cricut.  I'm not sure of the cartridge, but if you all really want to know then leave a comment and I'll be glad to go through my supplies and see if I can find which one I used.

Isn't the cameo button so cute?  It's by Jesse James buttons.  I inked the edges of the card with Colorbox Chalk ink.  I hope you all enjoy this card as much as I do.  Take care, stay cool, and happy crafting! 

Where Bloggers Create:

Today I wanted to let you all know that I'm participating in a blog party called "Where Bloggers Create 2014".  It's being hosted by Karen Valentine at the website Mydesertcottage.com.  She has done this for a couple of years now, and this is the first time I've been able to participate.

I was a little leary about participating because I don't have a craft room.  I have chronic pain, and a lot of my crafting is done from my bed.  I didn't want to show you all my messy bedroom so you'll have to settle for my dining room.  My sweety installed some shelves and a custom made desk out of a metal door.  We never eat there, so it was a lot of unused space that had a lot of potential.  I've only had my desk set up less than a year now, but it is amazing to be able to leave my stuff out, and not care.  Here are some of my pictures.

The dining room chairs are some that I picked up at a yard sale for $20.00 for all four.  They looked horrible, and my family couldn't believe I brought home more "junk".  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I knew I could change their look easily with paint and new upholstery.  I love the way they came out, and needless to say, my family was surprised.

The computer desk that is in the above picture was another yard sale find.  It's great for storage.  Next to it is a long dresser that I stacked more storage containers on top of. 

As you can see from the above picture, I have tons of space for storage.  The desk was made out of an old metal door that we painted dark brown.   My sweety then added wood on the edge of the door to make it look better.  I have a magnetic strip for all my tools.  Underneath my desk is another shelf.  This enables me to have more space for those hard to fit items.

This organizer is another great find.  I was on pinterest and saw this on someone's site.  This is from Harbor Freight.  I used a 20% off coupon, so it brought it down to sixteen dollars.  It was so worth it, as it spins around and helps keep my most used items where I can access them easily.

This is on the opposite side of my desk, and is under a wrap around bar that is in the middle of my kitchen.  I was really nervous about sharing my space, but then again I figured that everyone doesn't have a craft room.  A lot of us only have our dining rooms, beds, or laps.  I hope I've given all of you some ideas for storage that you can apply to your own space.  Please check out the blog hop, and I wish you all happy crafting!!!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!  Mine was great!  Very relaxing for a change.  I've been restoring an old dresser that I found at a thrift store, and will be sharing pictures of it on here for all of you soon.  I can't believe the transformation.  Well, on with the craft project I wanted to share today.

I couldn't quite decide what I wanted to share.  It was a toss up between a card or a cute tin.  I decided on the card, and will share the tin another day.  This card I made was done with an embossing folder.  That is the part on the dress with the flowers on it.  After I embossed the design onto a piece of pink card stock, I cut out a pattern of a dress.  I then ran chalk ink along the edges and on top of the embossed flower to help the embossing pop out a little.

Then I made a clothes hanger out of a piece of craft wire, found in the jewelry department in Michaels.  If you don't want to make one, then I think Tim Holtz has some premade one's in his craft line.  I then glued a piece of lace hearts to the bottom of the dress.  I put foam dots underneath the dress and then applied the dress to a sheet of Martha Stewart's patterned paper, which I then applied to a sheet of green card stock, that I edged with chalk ink again.  I applied some pretty flowers in each of the four corners.  Last but not least, is the cute bumblebee (Martha Stewart) that I added next to the dress.  The result is a cute, quick card that a lot of women would love to receive.  I hope you all get some creative ideas, and happy crafting!

Hi everyone!  Hope your all surviving the heat.  Here in Arizona, were at 104 degrees today.  As they say at least it's a dry heat.  It's so much worse when our monsoon hits in July and August.  Then you ad in the humidity and it's truly miserable.  Especially if, unfortunately, like me you don't have air conditioning. I, and many others have swamp coolers that work great unless theirs humidity.  Then it's horrible.

On to the crafting!  Today I thought you all might like to see a different type of craft than what I normally post.  I've posted before on the great benefits of decoupage.  Last time I used a pickle jar.  Take a look at my previous posts, and you'll find the jar I did.

Today I decided to use a cute heart candy bowl that I got from Dollar Tree.  Can't beat the price either.  I used Mod Podge to glue down the light pink tissue paper on the bottom of the bowl. Then I cut out some really cute butterflies and a bird from designer paper napkins that I picked up at Tuesday Morning.  There are usually 2-3 layers of the napkins, so if you can, try and peel them apart to make the napkin more transparent.  If not, don't worry about it, your project will still look great.  Then I glued down the butterflies all around the inside edge of the bowl first.  Next I glued the tissue paper over the butterflies. Now you can only see the butterflies from the outside of the bowl.  Then I tried to match up the same butterflies and glued those on top of the first butterflies.  I then glued the bird to the bottom of the bowl.  Last thing I did was to take a Krylon leafing pen and inked the top edge.  I think this came out so cute.  All you need is some Mod Podge, glass, and some tissue paper, or even a magazine cut out.  Can you imagine the possibilities!!!  Your only limited by your imagination.  Give this a try.  You'll be presently surprised.  Happy crafting!!!

I'm such a terrible blogger!  So sorry everyone, but it's been a busy month around here.  Just got back from a great vacation in New Mexico, and didn't realize how long it's been since I posted on here.  I have been busy creating lately, so that has been great.  Can't wait to start sharing with you all some of my creations.

I've told all of you what a big fan I am of Julie Nutting.  I bought her first book called Collage Couture.  Now she has a new book (that I already ordered, and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival) called Collage Couture Studio.  I'm so in love with all of her products.  She has a paper doll line through Prima Marketing.  I think I own all of them but 4-5.  That's a lot!  Well I wanted to share a tag that I created with one of her paper doll stamps.

This paper doll stamp has a country western feel to her.  I wanted to make her a little more feminine, so I used paper from My Minds Eye for her clothes and hat.  The pinwheel is from Recollections.  I love adding kites to my creations, and this one is from Basic Grey.  The stamp with the saying on it is by Tim Holtz.  I used a cute paper doily, and added a beautiful blue bird from Martha Stewart.  I'm sure you will be seeing a lot more creations with these stamps, because they are so versatile.  You could even stamp them, then scan them into your computer to increase or decrease their size for different projects.  I hope you all enjoy my country gal, and I'd love to hear from any of you that are as addicted to these stamps as I am.  Have a great day, and happy crafting!!!!