Whirlpool of Imagination

Confident CAS

Ooops - what happened to Frinday? I'll tell you what happened. My pen pal Siobhan got a bunch of us to join Facebook (yes, it takes me a LONG time to get with things) and then I spent far too much time fiddling on there yesterday. Of course if you, my blogging buddies, are on there, drop me a line and say hi.

The other thing that kept me busy was the Splitcoast Limited Supplies challenge for the week. It was Clean and Simple stamping. How awesome is that - me, the girl who adores CAS, was loving it. I actually haven't even gone through the LSC gallery yet. I want to have time to peruse leisurely so I'm waiting until I have a good stretch to just surf.

Here is the first of my CAS cards. I do have another but haven't taken a pic yet so that's for another day. I have different definitions in my mind about CAS cards. They can be ones, like this one, that have lots of open space. They can also be ones with simple, clean layers and some open space. I feel that much of what I do falls under the CAS umbrella.

The leaves are from CTMH and are stamped with SU garden green ink. The sentiment is from Gina K and is stamped in SU pomegranate ink. I am liking that color combo and in fact, the other CAS card I stamped used the same combo. And that is pretty much it. Did you do the challenge yesterday? Please show me - I really would like to see!

And now I'm off to clean and shop and clean some more. We're having a birthday dinner for my MIL tonight and I haven't done anything for it yet. Hope you have a great day!

Chicken Stew

For a while last year, I was sharing a recipe a month that we use on a regular basis. I missed sharing some so I thought I'd start back up again since it's a new year and all.

We found this recipe from the newspaper. I do not believe it was/is found in a cookbook so I have nothing specific to reference. I did change a few things - the original had bacon and for health reasons, we skip bacon and such in recipes.

BUT we have tried this recipe and it came out yummy. It is cooked in the crockpot which I just adore. I am always on the lookout for tasty crockpot recipes as they make my life SO much easier.

Here is the recipe in plain printed form if you'd like to print off and try at home.

Crockpot Chicken Stew

 

6 boneless chicken breasts                    1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. paprika                                       1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. sugar                                           1 tbsp. salt

1 cup med diced onion              2 cups med diced carrot

1 cup med diced potato                        2 cups med diced butternut squash

1 cup brown rice                                  3 cups chicken broth

1 tbsp honey                                        

 

In a bowl, mix chicken with ground cumin, paprika, onion powder, sugar and salt. Put the chicken into the slow cooker. Add the onion, carrot, potato, squash and rice. Pour in the chicken broth and honey. Turn to HIGH and cook for 3-4 hours. Serve with a crusty bread.

Enjoy!

Glitter Butterfly

I'm coming in just at the deadline for Julie's week 1 Splash theme challenge. She challenged us to make a card using butterflies and glitter. Well, I love butterflies and glitter so I immediately wrote down the challenge to keep it in mind. I mulled over the idea for several days and finally got down to starting it yesterday. This morning I was able to iron out a few wrinkles and officially get the card done before the next challenge goes up!

 I'm sorry the ligthing is not the greatest. It was snowy and yucky all day so no real natural light for this one.

I first created the glitter background. I was inspired by NikiE's stamped line background last week and decided I wanted to do something like that with glitter. I alternated widths of red line tape onto my cardstock. I pulled the tops off the wider strips and added the light purple glitter. I then pulled off the tops to the narrow strips and added the dark purple glitter. (After getting myself glitterized I was ready to go from there - found glitter all along my hair yesterday - how in the world I did that is anyone's guess).

The stamp which is from Papertrey was stamped in concord grape distress ink. I went through almost every purple ink I had before landing on this one. I matted that with a nice nestie scallop oval. The background paper was another great find after going through all my purple cardstocks to find a lighter color that would suit me. This is sparkly mica cardstock that was just the right shade. Plus, it's pretty because it shimmers. I embossed that with my cuttlebug to match the swirls in the butterfly, adhered all the layers and voila. Challenge completed.

Leslie was here today working on my studio. The kids had a snow day so we created an instant playdate for them and one for us. I don't have any pictures to show you but suffice it to say, we worked hard. Give me a little more time and I'll have some more pictures to show you. Have a great night!

Award from Barbara

                                                 
One of my fellow Paper Crafting Society members gave me this blog award. Thanks Barbara! I am supposed to list 5 addictions of mine:

1) buying stampin/scrapping supplies - I love looking at all the new stuff out there and am constantly tempted to add to my evergrowing stash of supplies

2) doing the daily crossword puzzle - one day I will finish the hard Friday and Saturday puzzles!

3) reading- always have a book to read and a spare ready to go!

4) talking to my pals on SCS - I've met such wonderful people there and SCS is a great resource for any crafter

5) blog surfing - so many talented people out there - love the inspiration!

Party Invites

I told Meghan that she could have a Valentine's party for her friends (the Halloween one went so well that I decided I'd be brave and let her have another holiday party). As soon as I saw the newest Lily and Billy plate from Pink Cat Studio, I knew that those were the stamps I had to use for the invite.

I spent a lot of time working on this layout. I knew that I wanted Lily in a heart and that I would mount that on the scallop heart but from there I was stumped. (And that was a good excuse to order the heart nesties!)

I finally decided on the red scalloped layer. I used the SU scallop border punch for the bottom and I scored the lines with my Scor-It.

Lily herself is colored with copic and prismacolor markers. I used a Sakura metallic gelly roll pen for the outer part of the heart. The sentiment is from Papertrey and stamped in Tulip ink (CTMH).

I fell back on the pink, red and brown color combo. This is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. I think I need to do some more in these colors to get it out of my system!

Girl and Bird Friends

Edit: I forgot to title this post and it's driving me nuts. Had to come back add one!

I have been slow to jump on the Elyzbell bandwagon. So when last December, there was a free shipping offer, I just had to give them a try. This past week, I finally mounted a few up and have been inking away. I'm still busy coloring some of them but I have my first creation to offer today.

I have always thought this was one of the cutest images so it was the first one I sat down to work with.

I used palette noir ink and copic and prismacolor markers to color her in. For her hair, I used a prismacolor pencil and baby oil to smooth it out. The sentiment is from Gina K stamps.

I was really pleased with these stamps. I really like the unmounted option and they are nice and deeply etched so they stamp like a dream. I am quickly becoming a fan!

Paper Organization

Today I did not stamp. Today was all about organizing supplies. My friend Leslie came over and spent over three hours trying to get me organized. We have a LONG way to go but she's keeping me on track. The first area that seems to be under control is my paper and cardstock. Paper in my house seems to multiply like bunnies. Whenever I turn around, the stack just gets bigger and bigger. (Well, if I stopped buying all the cute new papers out there, I wouldn't have such a problem!).

So let's talk patterned paper first.

This is my tower of patterned paper. I bought wire cubes from Target and made the base squares. I then gave Mo the job of creating my "shelves". Using the wire sides and zip ties, I had him create the shelves. About 9 shelves fit within each cube.

Leslie then went through all my paper and separated it by color. Then there is a shelf for multi-color stripes, one for dots, Halloween, Christmas (3 shelves for that), spring and I'm not sure what else yet. I told her to do whatever she wanted. I wasn't about to complain! It also turns out I like pink. Apparently there are three shelves of pink alone!

In the picture, you'll notice some plastic drawers next to my tower. Those are 12x12 stacking shelves I got at Walmart. In it I put large scraps of cardstock, sorted by color. I also have a drawer for patterned paper large scraps. To the left of the door in the background is a tower of 8.5x11 plastic drawers that contain all my small scraps of cardstock, seperated by color. (With a drawer for patterned paper). The key to these is removable drawers. That way I can grab the color drawer I want and bring it over to where I'm working to go through the various shades of scraps that I'm looking at. Not every plastic unit has removable drawers so if you want to take and go, watch what you buy.

Here is a close up of some of the shelves. It may take some time to look through a certain shelf but it sure beats have to go through a three foot (no lie) stack of paper.

Now we turn our attention to cardstock.

  One thing I would point out is that I do not use a certain brand of cardstock exclusively. Therefore I mix and match my cardstock within whatever storage unit I am using.

Here I took a magazine rack (bought at an office supply store) and turned it on its side. I have tried it right side up but I found I could get the papers much easier when they were vertical.

I then just separate the cardstock by color using a basic ROY G BIV scheme. I have realized that I have a LOT of blue cardstock. I ran out of room here in the racks and have quite a bit stored in my back room to use when these run out.

And that's a little peek into my slow to be organized studio. Right now a lot of stuff is everywhere as it has to be brought out to be properly organized. But I got rid of a bunch of stuff today and I am trying to keep what I know I will use and weed out the rest. If you have any great organizig tips, I'd love to hear them!

Snowcream Snowman

I love new stamps. And with so many fantastic images being produced on what feels like a daily basis there are lots to be tempted with. I have to say that January has been the month of new stamps. I have indulged myself a bit (but then I don't get any presents for Christmas, instead I just get to shop for myself). Recently there was a post on Splitcoast about really cute snowman stamps from Plum Purdy. I have a soft spot for those frosty guys so I took a peek. And what do you know, she was having a sale. Cute snowmen + sale = Laura is buying a new stamp.

  That snowcream set was just too cute to pass up. These stamps come on a rubber plate. They need to be cut and mounted. I was very pleased with the quality of these stamps. The are nicely etched red rubber. They took to ink very easily and because they are deeply etched, there was no issue of catching ink on the corners.

This little guy here is stamped in palette noir ink and colored wth copic markers. I used clear glaze from CTMH for the cherry on top. I have crystal effects from SU but it is completely stopped up (after about one use). CTMH's glaze, on the other hand works beautifully time after time. I am most impressed that it doesn't seem to get stopped up.

The paper is from a Papertrey stack.

I have been doing a lot of coloring lately so now I need to create some cards with these images. I'm hoping for some good crafting time tomorrow to sit down and play.

Meg is sketching again

Last year Meg did up a couple of sketches for the blog and my job was to make something with those sketches. Then she went through a dry spell where she was overthinking them so she gave it up and just started to draw things (meanwhile, I have some fabulous Star War scenes that she has since created!). Last week I gave her one of my stamped penguins from TAC to fool around with. Before you know it, she comes up with a card created. I really liked the layout so I challenged myself to create a card with her design.

Here is Meg's finished card.

And here is my version of Meg's design. The background is created using red line tape and Martha Stewart glitter. The words are from Spunky Stamps (yes, the last thing I did was stamp that crooked joy but I'll just have to learn to live with it). The bella is from Stamping Bella. She's paper pieced and colored with prismacolor pencils and baby oil and for the heart I used a copic spica pen. I wanted a bit more sparkle so I added Swarovski crystals for the corner.

Would you like to create a card with Meg's basic layout/design? If you do, please leave a comment - meg gets such a kick out of checking out your creations.

Have a great night!

Purple Sympathy

Happy Monday. It's a lazy day here being a holiday and all. It snowed a couple more inches last night so the trees are newly covered. The sun is shining so everything just seems to sparkle. It's quite pretty sitting here.

 My hand is doing much better - thanks for all the well wishes. It pays to keep a supply of aloe in the house!

  I needed a sympathy card this week and while I could have just used one in the supply, I wanted to sit down and just create.

As per my style, it is very clean and simple. I inked the flowers (from Stampin' Up) with SU ink and colored the stems with a Dee Gruenig marker. I am a big fan of her markers for direct coloring onto a stamp, by the way.

The sentiment is from Onyx Expressions and is stamped in the same SU ink.

My LSS is having a one day sale today so I'm off to do some shopping. I'll let you know what goodies I find. Have a great day!