Whirlpool of Imagination

I've Got Nothin'.....

This weekend I never even peeked into my studio, let alone stamped in it. So, for today, I have a few pictures to show. Tomorrow I'll hopefully be back to stamping.

Do you remember Meg's Japan project last month? Meg had to write a report (which is typed up and in the middle of the pictured kimono), then she had to made a physical project that had to do with her topic (which you can see was Clothes of Japan) and finally, she had to give an oral report about her topic.

Here is the finished piece in all it's glory. The kimono is made out of foam core (cutting the foam core was the only thing she wasn't allowed to do herself - no box cutters for the 7 year old). Everything else was done by her. She decided was to put where and what items to use to decorate her kimono.

And to think, this was a second grade project. I dread to think what the projects will be like in a few years........

All of us are big fans of birds. We have two birdfeeders as well as a hummingbird feeder. Last summer both Meg and Conor made little birdhouses with their grandfather and we put them up on our back fence. This year Mo and I realized how lonely those two little birdhouses looked so we asked my Father in law to make us some more. Here is Conor showing off one of the new "condos" in our back yard.

(As a side note, this is the second attempt at this picture. The first time, the birdhouse slipped out of Conor's hands and bonked him on the head. He was a trooper to give it a go a second time).

And here is just a small picture of three of the new birdhouses (me FIL made 5 new ones for us all together). The kids (and who am I kidding, me too) really enjoy watching the birds bring in the twigs and make these houses their homes. A couple of months ago a really portly, shall we say, bird tried to get into one of our smaller birdhouses. The bird would squeeze in but we were really afraid it wouldn't be able to get out again!!

And that's all I've got for today. Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

The Girl with the Purple Headband

Happy Friday everyone. Wow - having Monday off made this week streak by! Today I was playing around with some new images and finally hit upon something I decided was a keeper.

First off, let me say that I adore the color purple. I have since I was in kindergarten and created a book of all purple things. So my little girl today is all shades of purple.

This little stamp from the Greeting Farm is a pretty new stamp. It's either Hope or Grace, I'm not sure which one is which (the set is just called Hope and Grace). She is stamped with palette noir ink and colored with copic markers with a bit of sparkle on her handband using a spica pen.

Copic Markers: BV00, E00, V12, V17
Spica pen: lavender (#01)

The paper I used was from Daisy Bucket Designs - Whimsical Ladies/Empress Catherine.

As usual, the card design is pretty straightforward.

I think I'd like to try sewing on my cards. I while back I bought a Janome Sew Mini and it has sat in its box since I got it. Today, I took it out of the box. I will buy some thread and then maybe give it a whirl. I did see that Gina K has some tutorials so I'm going to read them very carefully. If you have any other tips or helpful links, let me know.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Sending myself sunshine....

Dreary, misty, cold and damp.....it may be the end of May but it sure doesn't feel like it. We have gone from sunshine and short sleeves to long sleeves and sweaters! Well, I'm in the sweaters - the kids still want to dress like its 100 degrees out. I decided that if the sun wouldn't come to me, I'd make a cheery card instead.

I just ordered the newest teenage Anya's from The Greeting Farm so I decided to ink up the summer girl. She's stamped with palette noir ink and colored with copic markers. I added some sparkle to her sunglasses, bow and flip flops with a spica glitter pen.

Copic Markers: E00, B21, E35, Y15
Spica pen: lemon (05)

I sponged some fawn ink (CTMH) under her feet for the look of sand.

Once Anya was done, I concentrated on the rest of the card. I decided to go with the long look and went with my standard 3.5 x 7 sized long card. I wanted a a sunshine-y sentiment so I inked up this one from Verve Visual using star spangled blue ink (CTMH). The bottom of the yellow panel is embossed with the cuttlebug and the patterned paper is from Doodlebug (blue jean sweet stripes). I needed just a bit more sparkle so I added a couple of Swarovski crystals (light sapphire).

This week is flying by here - can't believe that it's already Thursday. Hope your week is going well too!

I want to look pretty......

I left you hanging there on Monday!! Instead of blogging Monday night, I did this......
                                                                                   
Mo just bought himself a fire pit so we got it going and roasted marshmellows and made s'mores with the kids. And once the kids went to bed, we just relaxed by the fire. It was a nice way to wrap up a holiday weekend.

Monday I did get a little bit of crafting in although it was in quick spurts. Meg was marching with the town's girls lacrosse league in the Memorial Day parade so I thought I'd make a quick ponytail holder for her.

These are super easy to make (especially when you have a stash of ribbon - see, THAT'S why I bought all that ribbon!). This ponytail holder uses three ribbons so I cut out seven 6in. strips of each color of ribbon (21 total strips) and then just tied them around the pony O. The 21 strips fit perfectly around the entire length.

I've made these with Meg's friends before - its a great project for kids.

And just to continue with the jazz up your outfit theme, I made a quick pin. I stamped this stamp from River City Rubber Works onto shrink plastic with red Staz On ink. Using my heat gun, I shrunk it down to size. Then using my glue gun, I glued a pin back to the back of the image. Quick and easy project.

I spent a little time coloring at lacrosse practice yesterday so I'm going to get cracking on using those images on some new cards. Have a great day!

Award Thanks

I want to say a big thank you to Yuki and Alfred for naming me for this award in their blogs.       

I will be back later today after I take a few photos. Hope you have a fantastic Monday!

I need a gift.....

A fellow mom needed a gift basket for a Bat Mitzvah she was attending and she asked me to put together something for her.

The first thing she wanted was a personalized notecard set. The invitation was pink and orange so she asked me to use those colors for continuity. The name was stamped with hibiscus ink from Papertrey with the Fresh Alphabet, also from Papertrey. I found this great patterned paper from Daisy Bucket Designs (Rachel's Ribbons) that matched nicely with the hibiscus and was the color scheme I wanted.

The name layer was cut out with the deckle rectangle nesties and the pink layer is on pop dots over the strip of paper. I made a set of ten of these and packaged them in the clear boxes from Papertrey.

From there I created theis altered composition notebook. I used the same patterned paper and this time stamped the name with Papertrey's Trajan Monogram Alphabet with the hibiscus ink. I don't know who the flowers are made by - I went through my stash of big flowers for those. I topped them off with a cute orange button (which I'm pretty sure came from Papertrey).

I didn't bother taking a picture but I also made a matching rsvp pen using the same patterned paper.

I needed just a little something else so I made a jumbo paperclip bookmark. The pink flower is layered onto a circle of cardstock for stability. I then layered the orange flower and topped it off with a doodlebug jewel. All layers are secured with red line tape.

I then used a glue gun to glue this to the paper clip. To keep things neat, I punched out another circle of cardstock and glue gunned it to the back of the clip.

This is the first time I've made these but I like them - you will most definitely see more of these in the future.

Here is a picture of the wrapped up gift. Sadly, I had run out of time for packaging it and all I had for crinkled paper was green. I would have loved to have some pink but such is life.

The paper clip is attached to the comp notebook with the pen and set of notecards in the front.

The metal tin came from the dollar spot at Target. I have seen these at my target recently. I really like the size if them. They are just the right size when you want to add the comp notebook to a gift set.

And here is a close up of the tag I made. These stamps are also from Papertrey stamped with palette noir and hibiscus ink. The tag opens up with a spot for signing inside and is attached with a bit of gold cording.

It's been a busy holiday weekend so far. Yesterday was game day for us with baseball and lacrosse. Today was the bbq day and tomorrow is the parade. Hope your weekend is spectacular!!

Can I Bring Anything?

With Memorial Day just a few days away, I start to break out my summer recipes so today I thought I'd share one with you. This is a great recipe for the hot weather, it's healthy and its a great one to bring to other people's bbq's too.

                   Southwest Bean Salad

1 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 15 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, drained

1 med red pepper, diced   

½ med red onion, diced

6 tbsp red wine vinegar   

3 tbsp olive oil   

1 ½ tbsp Splenda               

2 tsp crushed garlic       

¾ tsp cumin      

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp red pepper           

½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

 

Place beans, pepper and onion in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, oil, Splenda, garlic, cumin, salt and red pepper. Pour over salad and stir to coat. Add fresh cilantro and stir once more. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

We make this recipe all summer long and its always a big hit. Rarely do I make a single batch of this. Most times its at least a double batch and I've been known to even triple the recipe. This is also a great recipe several days later. In fact it's in my refrigerator right now. Mo had me make a triple batch of this last weekend and we've been eating it all week. Enjoy!

I didn't read the directions.....

Do you do this with a challenge? You start thinking before all the directions are processed? You start creating and after you are finished you go back and give yourself a good whack on the side of the head? I did this when I was working on this week's CAS challenge. The challenge was to make a black and white card with a bold bright. I "heard" the black and white with color part but neglected to process the bold bright part. It wasn't until after I'd made this card that I reread the directions.

The flower stamp is from Penny Black and stamped with palette noir ink. The sentiment is from Verve Visual and stamped with pomegranate (Stampin' Up) ink. As you can see, my pop of color is definitely not in the bold bright family but in my defense, pomegranate is such as awesome color and I MISS it now that it's no longer in the SU catty. I added a bit of ribbon and a button (look at that, two older CAS challenges were indeed covered!) and that was it.

I would have posted this yesterday but I got caught up with American Idol. I did my part and voted for Adam but I am a rocker chick at heart. One of my favorite bands in high school after all was Def Leppard (followed by Poison, Motley Crue, etc. etc. you get the point!) I'm not sure I'll be up when the results are finally revealed - it's a 5am morning tomorrow and I need to sleep!

Going Bold and Bright

The Clean and Simple challenge at Splitcoast this week was to make a card using black and white and one color from the Bold Bright family of colors. I think getting up at 5am messed with my mojo today because everything I saw in my head just wouldn't come out on paper. That creative focus was in short supply. I did come up with one card from the challenge but I really felt like this one should have flowed a lot better. I may try this challenge again later in the week to see what I can come up with.

I looked through the bold bright family and really like brilliant blue so that's the one I went with. All the stamps in this card are from Papertrey.

The card itself is ridiculously self explanatory. All the images are stamped with brilliant blue ink and I used a combo of white, black and blue cardstock to create the finished project.

We had a really nice night tonight. Meghan had her end of the year Irish Dance Recital this evening. This is her first year dancing so she danced a jig and a reel with her group at various times during the recital. She looked so cute with her plaid skirt and pretty hair bow (she's too young for the wigs and fancy dresses although the girls with the dresses looked really pretty). I was so proud of her - she gave it her all and I think she had a great time. And after her busy day of school, rehearsal and recital....she went to sleep in about three seconds flat! I'm off to do the same- have a fantastic night!

New Home Houses

Brrr - it's been a chilly weekend here with rain off and on. Mother Nature is keeping Mo busy with yard work - our lawn was looking like a meadow! (After Mo read this he felt compelled to tell me to mention that the yard is looking spectacular now.) This card was a customer request for someone who is moving into a new home.

I have had this cute house stamp from Amuse Arts for a long time and its one of my go to stamps for new home cards. This time I stamped it four times to create a neighborhood type of appearance.

The houses were stamped with palette noir ink and colored with a combo of prismacolor and copic markers.

Copic Markers: B45, G09

Prismacolor Markers: forest green, dark green, creme, cool grey 50%, mahogany red

Under the homes I used patterned paper from Scenic Route (Loveland/Jade Drive) to create a bit of a lawn. I then sponged Brillance Pearlescent Blue Ink (Tsukineko) for a tiny bit of sky.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and stamped with palette noir ink.

Another busy weekend has come to a close. I cannot believe that Memorial Day is fast approaching. Lots of memorizing here as the Memorial Day programs get nearer. While I love hearing my children sing, if I hear the 50 states song one more time, I may scream! Have a great night.