Evening Walk

A few shots from my evening walk with the hubby

Not everyone's cup of tea

This saying spoke to me, so I turned it into one of my truth cards

You are not everyone's cup of tea and that's okay.  Be who you are.  You are enough.

Look for the good people, doing the good things...

I made a digital Facebook Header inspired by one of my truth cards. I wish I had the ability to take the picture of my actual card and make it the right size for Facebook, without distorting it, but this works as an alternative.

And for good measure, (and to share) this is the truth card

Soul Restoration Through Art

Back in March, I headed out to Fallow Field Farm for a Find Your Wild Heart soul restoration workshop.  We made truth cards, and pretty boxes to keep them in.  This is one of the Brave Girls Club projects. If you're interested, I recommend looking them up at bravegirlsclub.com .Since attending this class I have lurked around on their site, browsed products, signed up for their daily truths e-mails, and have been all around inspired. Maybe I'll explain my personal journey with this in another post at some point, but I truly believe there is something there for everyone.

New

A new home.  A new season. I love it here, feeling blessed.

Gifts for Girls Camp

This is my daughter’s second year going to girls camp.  Something they are doing this year that they didn’t do last year is exchanging gifts “secretly”.  They call it “Secret Sisters”.  Each girl has drawn a name of another girl and will do something nice for her each day of camp.  This is not supposed to be an expensive thing.  All the little gifts combined shouldn’t be more than about $5.  I’m glad I have a daughter that likes to craft with me, and I think she’s glad she has a crafty Mom.  Here are a couple of the gifts we have done for her to give.

The first project we started on was a cute bracelet.  We knew the recipient’s favorite colors were purple and aqua blue.  I had a bunch of beads in my craft stash but we did buy the center purple bead for the band, which cost about .39 cents.

It was remarkably hard to get a good picture of it on my daughter’s wrist, so here it is next to a tied friendship bracelet she’s also giving her.

We had also decided to make her a cute boxy pouch which we found on this site here.  Click the link – they’re seriously cute.  We’ll be making a few later.

However as luck would have it, we received this cute little bag from Target in the mail the next day.  Free.   You can’t beat free.  And the color was perfect.  She’ll be putting something cute inside, such as a mini manicure set and a fingernail polish, etc.  (You can sign up to receive your free Target beauty bag by “liking” The Target Style Facebook Page.  They give them away quarterly on a first come first served basis.  They come filled with coupons and samples.)

I am a sometimes couponer, which comes in handy for stuff like this.  I was able to score a nail polish in one of her favorite colors for less than $1.50.  The mini manicure set will come from my “think ahead drawer” of things I just pick up here and there for exactly these kinds of little gifts.  I got it a a dollar store for…. you guessed it.  $1.

Our next project was Bath Fizzies!  Such a fun thing.  We got the recipe from marthastewart.com and used the epsom salts version.  We also used my heart shaped silicone molds instead of boring square ones.  (Just kidding, square would be cute too)

Then we put them in a cute little box I already had and printed out a personalized label from a jam label site that I use for my seasonal jams.  The box held 10 of them perfectly.

Cute, right?

So, so far we are at $2.89 of her $5 limit and I think we have a few really fabulous gifts.

Our other ideas:

The Pop Top Cans that have been swimming around on Pinterest – filled with her  favorite candy. 

Altered composition book with pen

Glitter and Color

I’ve found myself using really bright, fun colors lately on my cards.  Maybe it’s the weather turning colder and I’m trying to hang onto the sunny days a little longer.

I made this happy card and gave it to my beautiful cousin for her 4th 39th birthday .

It features lots of shapes cut with my Cricut, Making Memories metal letters and eyelets, and glitter for bling.  I was going for a ‘clean’ feel so I left the background stark white.

I also made this thank you card.

More paper from stash, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Prima flowers, Making Memories buckle andof course more glitter!

Gotta love the BLING!

-Brooke

Attempt at a Celtic Theme

I was going through some of my pictures of cards I have made over the last several months and came across this one I made this past summer for a dear friend.  I thought I’d share it here, even though it’s an older one.

I was going for a Celtic feel, which proved to be quite hard.  There is not a lot of Celtic/Gaelic themed items out there.  (If there are, I’d love to know where to find them).  These rub-ons were the closest I could find to a Celtic feel, in the color I wanted.

I used fiber paper on the front, combined with antique ribbon, and some lovely buckles.  It’s a very simple card, and also one of my favorites.

-Brooke

Awesome FREE digi kit blog hop

For all my Digital Scrapping friends. The Design House Digital designers are doing a blog hop today to celebrate digital scrapbooking day.  The blog hop features 8 free downloads all creating a great kit. Check them out if you're interested!  

Poke around some if you’re not familiar with them.  I LOVE this site and all the designers for awesome digi files and inispration!

Design House Digital Fall Blog Hop

Birthday Monogram

It was my sister’s birthday last week, so I made this tri-fold card and matching envelope just for her.

The second flap:

The inside:

All items used were in stash, so the following list is from memory:

Creative Memories Cardstock

Making Memories ribbon buckle, “P” charm, metal tag, and eyelets

Unknown- celebrate & happy birthday plaques

Basic Grey rub-ons

Tuskinek pigment ink (black)

patterned paper

bulk ribbon

Little Messy Missy’s Bookmarks!

 

I received my package in the mail today from Little Messy Missy’s bookmark swap.  I was so excited to open it and see what great creations were inside.

 

Wow!!

 

I LOVE them! 

 

this one comes to me from Maree Gordon in Australia!  I think that’s the furthest away I have ever received anything from.   I love the stitching she did between the butterflies, and the French text.

 

The second one comes to me from Ruth.  The picture just doesn’t show off all the details.  The flowers and butterfly are embossed with a beautiful glaze.  Pretty lace and ribbon, and a charm which I adore.

Missy also included a couple extra ladies!  I just can’t say enough how much I love them all!

Thanks so much for an awesome swap!

Turtle Drop!

 

Madi and I dropped our first toy for The Toy Society!

 

 

The Toy Society is a craft/street art project spreading love throughout the streets of the world.   If you’d like to know more, you can visit them here.  Or you if you just want to browse the photo gallery of all the great toys that have been “dropped” check out their flickr gallery here.

Thanks again to Little Messy Missy for turning me on to this fun project!

Technorati Tags: The Toy Society,Handmade Toys

Bookmarks!

 

I opted to make 2 different styles of bookmarks for the swap I recently participated in.  The first one is probably my favorite, but that may be because of my love for the tin flower embelishment I used on the tip.  It fits nicely over the corner of your page.

 

 

For the second, I was going for a somewhat earthy feel.  I used fiber paper as well as fiber strings as some of the components.  I thought the rub-ons directly on the fiber papers gave a nice effect.

 

 

And here they are together:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I look at these and I see two different personalities, if bookmarks can have personalities.  They were very fun to make.  In fact, I think I will make some more!

Book Mark Swap

Today I finished up my bookmarks for a bookmark swap hosted by my friend Missy at Little Messy Missy.  I even remembered to mail them!

I don’t want to spoil the fun when she gets the package, so no full pictures for a couple of days, but here are some teaser sneak-peeks of the 2 book marks.

 

 

I’ve observed many, many swaps, but never had the nerve to actually participate in one, so this is my first, and I’m excited!

A Little Bundle of Cards

 

I put together a package of cards to send to my Aunt.  She mentioned wanting some Christmas cards she could send out, so I made her a little bundle of 10 Christmas cards with envelopes, along with 6 Any occasion cards and 6 tags.

Here’s a sampling of the Christmas cards:

The eyelets are Making Memories, as are the eyelet letters and woven labels.  The white ribbon with red edging is Martha Stewart.  The other ribbon is bulk.  All the patterned paper was from various stash.  I mounted all the card fronts on Basil Cardstock. 

Now I need to get to work on her actual Birthday card to accompany the package.

Pysanky and Thank You Cards

I know it may seem like I’ve stopped creating, but I really haven’t.  It has slowed down quite a bit.  Life has thrown some unexpected hurdles in my way – but in doing so has inspired a new project I’ll be working on. 

Years ago my Aunt gave me a nice Creative Memories Album that she had started for my Dad.  She had done a number of pages already which included some pictures of him when he was younger and also some treasures like pictures of my great-grandparents.  The intention was that I would pick up where it left off and put together pages of his later life, grandkids, his horses, etc.  I never got around to doing that.  Now that his time here has come to a close I’m feeling inspired to get moving with that project.  I’m still in the organizing phase of it all, but it is moving along.

I also worked on some more Pysanky!  I used patterns for these 3 new eggs.  I’m getting a better feel for the colors and applying the wax.  This is such a relaxing hobby.  So here are the latest 3 eggs.  Maybe I’ll get brave again for the next one and work on an original design again.  We’ll see.

 

 

Next Tuesday marks the end of the school year for my kids.   We had an extended year due to lots of snow days that needed to be made up.  With everything that’s been going on, I didn’t get as much time to work on their Teacher’s cards as I’d have liked, but I think they turned out well in spite of  it.  I put these all together last night using only things I had in stash already.

 

View Full Album

 

The papers used are from Basil (the card itself), My Mind’s Eye, DCWV, and Making Memories.

Embelishments include flowers from Prima and Petaloo, ribbon, Making Memories brads and charms, Me and My Big Ideas icons sticker, and Basic Grey chipboard letters ink’d with Tsukikek pigment ink in Coffee Bean.

I dug out one of my old D.O.T.S. stamps for the “just for you sentiment” and because I’m such a great stamper (laugh) I went over the image again with a matching pen.  Maybe one day I can enlist one of my stamping friends to tutor me. :)

Sultan Bakery

I surprised my friend Holly this morning by calling her and asking if I could take her to breakfast or lunch for her birthday.  Breakfast it is!  She told me about this great little place near her house, which I had never been to, and we decided to meet there.  If anyone lives near Sultan, Washington and has not eaten at the Sultan Bakery, you are missing out.  It’s located just off of Highway 2 on the north side of the street and if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss it.  It’s one of those charming ma and pop shops that are all (sadly) disappearing.  This little place was fabulous!  The food was so very good, so obviously fresh and portions were big enough to feed 3!  Even in this poor economy it would seem people can’t stay away from this place.  There was a consistent flow of people the entire time we were there.  I’m glad we got seats!  Don’t let the name fool you.  It’s more than just a bakery, they have more breakfast choices than you can decide on, and (if I remember right) I’m pretty sure I saw sandwiches for the lunch crowd too.  I will definitely be eating there again.

This is Holly’s birthday card.

• Papers: Basil Cardstock, Three Bugs In a Rug - Color Me Pink; a touch of pink & The Back Porch; Florence, White fiber paper from stash
• Making Memories –Buckle embellishment
• Ranger - Inksentials Memory Frames
• Ribbon from stash
• Me & My Big Ideas – icons stickers

And Then I Cracked It

A good friend of mine has been making Ukrainian Easter Eggs known as Pysanky.  I have always loved these eggs.  My Grandparents had a few over the years that they had brought back from various vacations.  I’ve never known anyone who has made these beauties and so the thought never occurred to me to attempt to make any myself.  The art form itself is over 2000 years old and has been passed down from generation to generation.  After a bit of information gathering from Jennifer, a bit of browsing around, and getting more inspiration from Jennifer’s sister Melissa’s eggs - I ordered a kit from Ukrainian Gift Shop.  It arrived about 3 days later – talk about fast, and I didn’t even expedite the shipping!  I sat down the next day, sketched out a design and gave it a shot. 

After dipping the egg into the second color dye I dropped it while applying the next layer of wax… oops.   It’s a pretty good crack, actually, but it managed to hold together while I finished it.  I’m not sure how long it will last in the long run though.  When I mentioned this to Jen, she let me know she had cracked her first too! I guess dropping your first egg is some kind of rite-of-passage or something.

So here it is.  My first attempt at making one of these eggs.

It’s not great, but I call it a good first attempt.  The design only barely resembles the one I sketched out and the colors aren’t what I’d pick if I did it again, but I learned a lot!  I think I’ll be sticking to the designs that came with my kit for the next couple of eggs to get more comfortable with it.

Mom

It was my Mom's Birthday on Wednesday.  She must be coming up on 30 now ;). We sure miss her and we're looking forward to seeing her in about 4 weeks, when she comes for a visit. It's been way too long! The kids are really excited to see their Grandma.

Have a great birthday, Mom! We love you!

 

Papers:

• Three Bugs in a Rug - Color me Pink, Blush
• The Paper Company - Flocked Stripes with Flowers
• Basil Cardstock (frame insert, upper right cir. & inside)

Rub-Ons:

• Sticker King (flower border)

• Little Yellow Bicycle (It's Your Birthday, Time to Celebrate + Swirls)

Embellishments:

• Ranger - Inksentials Memory Frames

• Making Memories - Vintage Hip Trinket Pins

• Making Memories - Shaped Clips (Swirl)

• Prima Flowers

• Baby Blue Embroidery Floss

• Small Red Button

• Translucent Baby Blue Ribbon

Knot Tree Cards

I made some ornaments for an ornament exchange a few years back by tying knots in some fabric strips and then hot gluing them onto cinnamon sticks in the form of Christmas trees. The ornaments had little wooden stars at the top, and a hanging loop made of floss. I thought they turned out cute, and they smelled quite nice.

This past Christmas, as we were decorating our tree it dawned on me that those little trees just might look just as darling on the front of a card. Cinnamon sticks were a bit bulkier than I like to put on cards that will be traveling through the mail system. I wasn't sure how well they'd hold up, and thought they might crumble (at least a little) so I decided to use flat craft sticks in their place for the cards. I stained each stick using a Dew Drop Pigment ink pad. Instead of stars for the toppers, I used the yellow buttons I had laying around.

I embossed some using my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I doodled a border on some, and others I simply stitched around the edges using my sewing machine (without thread) to make a border.

For the sentiments I used a few different products. Mrs. Grossman's stickers: Card Captions Christmas adorn the inside of quite a few of the cards. The cards with sentiments on the outside were made with rub-ons. I used both Mrs. Grossman's and S.E.I. rub-ons for those.



A closer look at the details: