Whirlpool of Imagination

Lacrosse Coach Thanks

There is a dearth of lacrosse stamps out there so what is a girl to do when she needs a card for a lacrosse coach? You have to get creative. (and thank your lucky stars for google).

I googled lacrosse stick in google pictures and ended up with the picture of a stick. That's when the creative aspect came in. (And I'm so not a computer graphics guru so if I can do it, anyone can). Using my picture program, I manipulated the stick so it was at an angle. I then copied that and pasted it in a flipped position, this giving me the two crossed sticks.

The sticks are colored lightly with a gray prismacolor marker for just a hint of color.

The words are stamped with Memento grape jelly ink. I used purple because Meghan's team was named Northwestern and their colors are purple and white.

I plan on making some more in other colors and loading them up my store so if you are looking for a lacrosse card, you'll know where to find them!

CAS Friends

When Splitcoast had its Clean and Simple Limited Supply Challenge last week, I made up this card with the one I previously posted. Since I just got it photographed, I can show it to you today.

  Both the image and sentiment are from Close to My Heart. The image is stamped in garden green and the sentiment in pomegranate (both SU inks). Along with the brads, that's all this card took.

Spray painting yesterday did not go so well. DON'T choose your paint just by how pretty a color the cap is or you may just end up buying floral paint. And when you go to spray your mache boxes, that pretty paint may not apply evenly. After FOUR boxes of this, I realized my mistake. I had a small can of red spray paint but it wouldn't do all of them. So I ended up hand painting them with acrylic paint. I sealed them today with a matte sealer and then are all set for the girls to decorate tomorrow.

I then spent the afternoon today baking sugar cookies for tomorrow too. I will take lots of pictures and show you the different projects next week. Have a great night!

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!

Something To Write In

One thing that I always try to make every time I have a craft fair is journals. I knew my population for this past fair would not be heavy journal buyers but I couldn't help myself, I had to make at least a couple.

This design is similar to others I have made but I like the mix of flowers nonetheless so I continue to make more. All the stamps from this are from Papertrey Ink. I used Doodlebug jewels for a bit of sparkle on either side of the flower block.

These are simple composition journals that I cover with paper. I also cover the inside front and back covers with paper/cardstock that coordinates with the front just to keep things neat. And while some cut the dimensions to the front of the book, I use the foldover method where I then miter the corners. I tried cutting around the edges but it always looked messy. This by far, looks neater so this is the way I go. It does mean I cannot use heavier papers because they just don't fold over well but the trade off is worth it in my opinion.

If you go to the Papertrey site and click on Nichole's blog, you will see a recent entry about teacher journal jars. I have made journal jar sets before but the questions have to do with life in general. Nichole has a set of questions that deal specifically with teachers. I thought they were a wonderful set of questions, so I used them for this jar set.

The words on the jar and the images on the journal are all from Close To My Heart. In regards to jars, I use candle jars, found in the candle making section of either AC Moore or Michael's. I find them to be the perfect size for the number of questions related to these sets.

I think this year, I may make up sets like this as holiday presents for Meg and Conor's teachers. It's always nice to present something a little personal and they both seem to be the type to enjoy writing.

And what are you giving as teacher's gifts this year? I'd love to see!

Berry Medallion

A couple of weeks ago, the project on the Splitcoast newsletter was a medallion element created using the Stampin' Up scallop edge punch. I immediately put that on my "must try" list and finally got around to it today.

  The medallion measures 2.75 inches. By using the scallop edge on all 4 sides, you get this pretty medallion. The stamp I used is from Close to My Heart and I used pure poppy ink from Paper Trey.

The white layer was cuttlebugged with the swiss dots folder and then I used basic acrylic paint and dry brushed the cardstock. From there it was only a matter of layering.....

It's Monday night even though this post was started last Thursday. When I tried to originally post this I realized I had taken the wrong picture and had to redo everything. Then the weekend came and with it, Meg's Halloween party (I have a quick and easy kids project to show you tomorrow from that) and finally, my computer decided to act up on me yesterday. So here it is, a new day and FINALLY a new blog post! Hope your weekend was spectacular - ours was!

Christmas Peace

My pen pal Siobhan was having a CTMH party but unfortunately I couldn't get to Japan for it :). Instead, I did the next best thing - placed a mail order! It's been a while since I've gotten anything new from CTMH so I figured I was due.

One of the sets I picked up was Christmas themed so I figured I'd give the wreath a whirl. The wreath and the paper are from CTMH. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I went round and round on the layout. I kept trying to decide whether I needed another layer or some ribbon. I did add a bit of piercing underneath the sentiment although it doesn't really show up in the picture. In the end, I decided to, as Tim Gunn would say, edit myself rather than trying to go for too much.

Most of my cards are usually an A2 size but this one does top off at 5x7. I think that may have thrown me since I'm so used to working with the smaller size.

Schools were closed today so I had Meg and Conor with me all day. We went out to the pumpkin patch and picked up some pumpkins and hay for the front porch. Meg and I had a few creative differences but worked it out in the end so now we have pumpkins. Hopefully the squirrels will leave them alone!