Catching up

Hello all,

Sweet little Charlotte is now 7 months old. She is crawling, standing, and getting around quite well. I just love her to pieces and spend almost all of my spare time with her. My craft room has been sorely neglected. The only thing that I’ve done in there recently is go through lots of stuff and make a pile of things that need to find new homes.

My creative endeavors

Over the last six months I signed up for a few online classes and I’m behind in all of them… but I’ve enjoyed the inspiration and luckily I can do the creating when I want to. Those classes are She Art 2, Soul Restoration 2, and Spark Your Christmas.

Last Fall I was really lucky to get in to a local class taught by Melody Ross, cofounder of Brave Girl’s Club.  I SO admire her and when I found out that she was coming to Camas to do an art show and teaching an art class I could hardly contain myself. My piece is not quite done (no surprise there) so look for that in the future (no promises when, heehee). I was also lucky to get one of Melody’s art pieces during the silent auction.

I also took a couple of fun workshops with Denise (Junque Soiree) that were awesome. We created a fabulous “Wicked” banner for Halloween and some really cool mini scrapbooks. I am looking forward to more of those. It seems that scheduling time out of the house to be creative works the best for me these days.

Resolutions?

I decided that I really have to do something this year besides gaining another 10 pounds. I’ve done that 5 years in a row and it ain’t pretty. So it’s not really a resolution, more like just a decision that I need to do something.

So this year I am taking Move More, Eat Well at Big Picture Classes. The Move More, Eat Well class is about documenting your year long journey to healthy living. I can’t say that I have been super successful in that area lately.

January was a hit or miss kinda thing but I am moving in a direction. One of our assignments was to commit to doing one thing. Could be a small thing, or a big thing. My one thing was to stretch every day. My massage therapist, Stefanie Adams, had given me two charts with stretches that would help with the pain I’ve been experiencing behind my left knee and some for overall body flexibility. Out of 31 days I did it 15. A mere 50%. OR Woohoo, I have a 50% success rate!!! YAY!

Valentine’s Day is coming up…

Here’s a pretty card that I made for Valentine’s. I have several different ones that I’d like to sell – I need to find a little shop where I can do that.
I can’t possibly tell you the supplies that I used since I made it last year. It’s actually the a card front rather than a card that opens. It measures 4” x 6”. The base is a pretty pink. I used three strips of patterned papers and a piece of textured white that I stamped En Francais (retired Stampin’ Up! background stamp) in Soft Suede on to. In the corner I added a white pearl.

I covered a chipboard heart in Real Red ink then covered it with glassy glaze and chunky clear glitter. I also tied a piece of lace to it. I layered the heart on to a bingo card that I added a bit of lace sticker to. 

Look at all the lovely glitter! I also really like the bit of lace sticker that I added to the bottom of the Bingo card. Originally it was white but I inked it up a little to give it a little pop.

For those of you that are Stampin’ Up! enthusiasts, Sale-a-Bration is here!

Take a look at the brochure (pdf) and all the wonderful free items you can get when you spend $50 (before shipping/tax). When ordering online don’t forget to select me as your demonstrator to get the preferred pricing.

There are also extra free items when you host a workshop. Demonstrator kits are $125 plus you get designer paper or digital downloads for a whole year! Now that’s a great deal! Sale-a-Bration ends on March 31 so don’t delay.

Happy crafting!
Desiree

Art banner

Creating a banner was a bonus project in the She Art Workshop that I took recently online. Christy used canvas fabric pages and spelled out dream. I used paint canvas and I only had three, so I spelled art. Take a look:

Ha, you can see my toes in the bottom of the photo, heeheehee. Each of the canvases is 6” x 8” and since I live in a rental, I will use the Command Strips to place them on the wall in my little studio.

I started out with a light sky blue paint as a base. Then I sprayed olive Glitter Mist over a doily. I stamped with Stazon and distressed with Ranger distress ink. I used stamps, rubons, and paint to add texture and color.

I didn’t have any templates for the letters so I jumped on my laptop and made my own. I experimented with different fonts till I found one that I liked.


I printed it and cut it out. Perfect. I used purple paint and then outlined with black ink. I used Mod Podge over the rubons and I also used a spray sealant. Then I covered the entire canvas with Mod Podge.

So not quite a banner since they will hang separately although I could use my Crop-a-dile to punch holes and string it up. Perhaps…

Have a great weekend!
Happy crafting,
Desiree

Get ‘em before they are gone forever!

Stampin’ Up! has just released their annual retiring stamps and products lists. Please take a moment to check out the lists of retiring products. Many items have been discounted up to 40%!
If there is anything you want please order online. Stamps are available until July 1, however all other products are "while supplies last" and they go fast!

Looking forward to the new catalog… One perk of being a demonstrator is preordering some of the new goodies. And wow – if the preview is any indication of what’s in the new catalog, we are all in for a real treat!

Happy crafting!
Desiree

I’m amazed….

As you know I am such a sporadic poster, it amazes me that I ever have any visitors. So today I opened Blogger and just for funzies I clicked on the Stats tab and this is what I saw for visits last week…United States 53, France 15, Colombia 9, Canada 4, Ukraine 3, Germany 1,Israel 1, Japan 1, Netherlands 1, New Zealand 1.

Yep, I’m amazed especially because I hadn’t posted since March. People actually do come to my blog. Folks looked at lots of different posts, some as far back as January 2009.

So a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who comes here to take a peek at my occasional projects.

I’ve been taking a great class called the She Art Workshop. It’s over now but if Christy offers it again, you should take it. It’s a great way to learn mixed media, as I did, or to have fun learning techniques using products that you haven’t used before.  I’ve just begun her next workshop She Had Three Hearts.

Here is my latest She Art girl. The style for this lesson was vintage. So I used a drawing of a 1950s woman on a McCall’s sewing pattern as my guide. Definitely the hair is all wrong, it should be lots shorter and closely cropped. I haven’t come up with a four letter word I want to put on the banner either.  I like the overall coloring and enjoyed figuring out how to create a pattern from an image.

Here are some close up shots.


Creating the backgrounds is my favorite part. Papers, paint, stamps, rubons, ink, texture, sprays, pens. All on a 6” x 8” canvas. All supplies are from my stash and are things that I’ve picked up over the years.
Christy’s videos are so fun to watch. Not only are they informative but she has such a fun personality and it really comes through as she is working on her examples.

I hope that you have all had a wonderful and thoughtful Memorial Day weekend. Thank you to all who serve our country in the military; past, present and future. Thank you Dad, and thank you in advance Lauren (my niece)!

Happy crafting!
Desiree

A little ATC challenge

I haven’t created an Artist Trading Card in ages. However on the Our Creative Corner blog the challenge was to use a particular color palette and use it to create an ATC. This was a fun challenge. At first I felt intimidated because the canvas area seemed tiny. What can you do with such a small space???

So I gathered supplies in the color palette: Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Very Vanilla plus one other color. I chose Old Olive. Pretty quickly I knew what I wanted to do with the paper. Then I pulled out Pocket Silhouettes stamp set. Small images, perfect! So it almost put itself together.

Those little rosettes are so stinkin’ cute! I am so glad that I bought that die. I used the First Edition DSP to make them but I sprayed the paper with Olive Glimmer Mist first. I also sponged the doily in the lower left corner and the doily tape at the top before adhering to the ATC. The Crumb Cake banner is raised up on dimensionals.

Maybe I’ll make a few more of these.

Not all of the supplies are Stampin’ Up! on this ATC. ATC card is by Strathmore, the music notes paper is from 7 Gypsies, the rosettes die is a MFT Dienamics die, Glimmer Mist, Miss Elizabeth’s doily tape, generic doily and mini rick rack.

Happy Crafting!
Desiree

Edited to add: I received a Top Trio Award from Our Creative Corner!!!

Stampin’ Up! Supplies Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Crumb Cake and Basic Black cardstock, First Edition Designer Series Paper, and a scrap of retired dsp 
Ink: Old Olive, Basic Black
Embellishments: Dazzling Diamonds Glitter 

Fabric flower

I saw this card on Schwoo!’s blog and decided to CASE it. I love the flower and I watched the video on how to make one with Gluber. I don’t have Gluber, so I cut a circle out of a piece of Stampin’ Up! Sticky Cuts adhesive sheets. The fabric strip that I had in my ribbon box was hand dyed with walnut ink and stamped with a leaf image. I got it at my local scrapbook store, Arts and Scraps.

The flower is fairly easy to make and will get even easier with practice. Using a Gluber would be better then the sticky cut circle I think because it seems that it’s more gluey. Maybe I am imagining that since I’ve only seen it in the video. I did end up adding a bit of glue here and there under some pieces of fabric as I went along.

The card is simple with the focus on the flower. I really like how it turned out. Besides the base, all other pieces are from my scrap pile.

I am still having fun with my SheArt Workshop. Here’s one of my recent canvases. The head is a bit too big, but she’s in Paris so who cares, right?

Can you see the texture? Underneath her is a crumpled sheet of a McCall’s pattern, there are doilies, journal paper, textured paint, rub ons, and stamped images. 

Tomorrow I am meeting a guy I’ve been matched with on eHarmony. Wish me luck!

Happy crafting!
Desiree

Supplies - Stampin' Up!
Stamps: Just Believe, Vintage Vogue
Paper: Naturals, scraps of designer series paper
Ink: Soft Suede
Embellishments: Antique Brad, fabric strip