MWM-Turquoise 9

Sometimes time and an inspiration sketch is all you need to get going! I cut this doily out on my Silhouette a few weeks ago for the Authentique June Challenge and had stashed it and used the scraps from it for the page instead. Looking at this week's Scrapbooksteals.com sketch I knew that the doily would be just right!

I inked up the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, layered on some coordinating papers from Blissful, added the Tabloid and some scraps from Gathering to tie into Squirrel's shirt. The pearls and lace Prima piece really added some depth and the Pedoodles flower really pulled all of it together. 

I'm still trying to figure out this whole Distress Ink thing, so if you have any tips to share, I'd love to hear them! 

MCM 90

Here it is the day before vacation and I have to sit down and scrap. Scientist thinks I'm a tad obsessive. He's probably right. I wonder what he'll think when he realizes I'm packing a small scrap stash into my suitcase. HA! That my dear isn't obsession, but dedication!

Basically I know we have a lot going on but sometimes I'll need to take a break as much as the kiddos will and as I'm not a napper pursuing my hobby definitely seems to be the best bet!

Anyway, so packing's going on which means my camera cord is in the bottom of a suitcase (I hope! eek) so I took this pic with the computer = lousy but at least you can all see it, right? I'm really happy with it.

There's a little Paper Studio Affinity (I'm really trying to use all that stuff up! It was my last big pack purchase before I fell in love with Scrapbooksteals), some Authentique Gathering and a little MME Follow Your Heart Be Amazing, a touch of blue and green Distress Stickles and some Color Box Bronze as bling and inking, a generic button, and a MME Lush 2 Orange sticker gem.

Trust me the photo doesn't do it justice.

Authentique June color inspiration challenge

I love a good challenge and I'm falling more and more in love with Authentique the more I work with their paper! So vibrant. So luxurious. So textured. *sigh*

Anyway, this month they reinstituted an inspiration color challenge, as I read the post I was struck at how their summery pictures/color palette reminded me of Gathering. 

I set to work using a recent sketch from Scrapbooksteals as a starting point. I really wanted to use the tag and the scalloped edge. I also knew that I am supposed to be not obsessing about leaving town for a few days so it was time to implement a new technique - that way card making would take longer. 

I chose to bust out my new Distress Inks. Fun! Though it did move the more summery colors of these pieces to a tad more fall. You live and learn...

This is what I came up with. The photo is really bad because of the lighting/web cam camera, sorry about that but vacation packing means the good camera and cord are already packed so I don't forget them! I did realize after editing the photo that the ink edging should be a little less uniform and I edged it into the inner part of the card a bit more - at least if it still looks funny it's for my mom and dad as a sort of thanks for taking care of the kids (they did a one kid at a time sleep over for the last week and a half which means life has been peaceful here!) and parents tend to just be glad their kids remembered their manners. Right?! ;) 

Authentique product list:

Blissful "Euphoria" 12x12

Gathering Tabloids

Gathering 6x6

Other products:

Paper Studio button brads

Walnut Stain Distress Ink

Stash white paper, cut and glued inside as a liner

Turquoise 8 - I Da Man

I love when an experiment turns out even better than I'd hoped. Having never used a mask for mists before I wasn't certain what spraying through a 12x12 Doily would look like but the depth it added to otherwise boring cardstock is fabulous! I'm so gonna have to do that again. 

I'd actually misted this pink for another project and had done to many pages so this piece was scrap and hanging out on the desk when Scrapbooksteals posted their Turquoise 8 sketch. Kristy had done an awesome job with the sketch and had even done a page about her recent adventure into the 40s. Given how much time I spend scrapping two adorable little guys I've tried to follow her lead and when she scraps about herself, I find something quirky about myself to share too. 

In this week's case we have "I Da Man" -- a page about my high school drama experience playing a dude. I'm not entirely sold on the title's appearance, but it did allow me to use several stashed letters! YES! I wanted to contrast my dude-ness with a very feminine page, so there's lots of pink and lots of flowers. 

Misted Doily was Basic Grey
Paper Studios cardstock and Affinity printed papers
Authentique die cuts
Prima Say it In Crystals - female silhouette and photo corners
Pedoodles flowers
buttons stash
MME ribbon
Target pink alphas
BasicGrey Oliver Alphas
ColorBox Chestnut Roan
Studio G Brown glitter glue

Homemade Monday: Wash/Dry

We have a sink at our kitchen window - even better it has one of those mini greenhouse windows! It would be an awesome view if it weren't of our apartment parking lot! Over the years I've dressed it up some, I started with baskets to hold wash cloths and kitchen towels since I didn't have enough drawers. Then I added some  plants in the greenhouse.

Now back when dishes were my chore (Scientist would do laundry) the wash clothes and towels stayed  in their respective baskets. All. The. Time. without fail. And it was super useful, so useful that we stopped using paper towels and in our thriftyness only use cloth.

These days not so much with the organization. Which means they fairly often get used for the "wrong" tasks if what you want is less accessible.

So I made these nifty little tags for the baskets: Wash and Dry. I'd had some plastic tags (ID badge tags from the office supplies area) left from labeling the toy storage containers and sized them to those.

 

At least if they don't help the "problem" they're still pretty cute.

For these tags: MME Lush 2 Orange, MME Lost and Found Union Station, Karen Foster alpha stickers, Colorbox Sour Apple (for inking edges and alphas) and Twine.

You fill my world with color

Paper Girls Challenge Blog issued a new challenge this week and this one was tough for me. I looked at the photo below several times before I finally came up with an idea that seemed to fit my style - I'm not really a rainbow person nor did I feel up to making a mosaic of scraps (which would have been epic had I been up to that level of challenge this week, alas with getting ready for vacation next week there's no time).

So here's the photo inspiration they provided. 

The mosaic was created and made by British artist, Natalie Warne. You can check out her online gallery here.

And here's my interpretation:

I really liked the movement and the colors in the inspiration piece so I started by wrapping washi tapes across a 4x6 card stock scrap. The colors by themselves lacked interest so I finished by putting the black washi in the space/overlapping the colors. That gave a lot of dimension and made it more interesting. Then I cut the corners off and made it an uneven hexagon. 

Scrapbooksteals Turquoise 8 was a launch point for this page but something I really wanted to adhere to on this one was limited color so that my "wheel of washi" would really pop. Lots of neutrals and muted colors with only the ribbon and the photo bringing other bright colors onto the page. 

Materials used: 

Paper Studios Affinity paper and ribbon

MME 6x6 Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks

MME Good Day Sunshine and Abbey Road die cut pieces

MME Lush 2 Orange brad

MME Holly Jolly ribbon

Piggy Tales Twinkle Twinkle 

Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts sticker

BasicGrey Oliver Alphas

Amy Lou font sketched with Silhouette Cameo

WRMK washi

Target washi

ColorBox Chestnut Roan

photo editing

It's Saturday night, my craft desk is a mess and I've been working on pre-scheduling some posts. I'm really hoping that I can get a nice little collection set up before leaving for our vacation. As I was working on doing so I started to feel badly for myself - I haven't done much scrapping this week. And then I realized why!

I took my first jessicasprague.com class this week. It was a freebie she was doing during her birthday week: Photoshop Top 5. I feel like I really learned a lot in the lessons I've completed - the 5th lesson was a live webinar on creating a blog header that I couldn't make it to so I'm waiting for it to be posted tomorrow or Monday sometime. Hopefully you'll see a fun new header in the coming weeks from that experience!

But for now here's a picture I edited based on the lesson on apply textures.

Squirrel flying his Lightning McQueen kite.

There, now I feel better for having something tangible to share and hopefully you'll start seeing some better photos because of this experience. Now to just find some tips on how to take photos of layouts and cards because you can only improve a poor photo sooooo much! 

MCM 89

I am becoming a card making fiend in an effort to stop filling up so many albums and still get my craft on. Side bonus, that box of cards for OWH is filling up! If only I could convince myself to make cards in multiples of the same it would be super full - no repeats yet. Can't seem to do it.

This week's MCM was inspired by the fabulous Kerys Sharrock. Every time she posts something on the Scrapbooksteals.com Facebook page I love it! Seriously. And I loved the sketch. Her task was to use a border punch and I substituted a strip of paper since I don't have any, but I think that the scrolling on it sort of makes the card have the same feel.

So really cool here for me are two new "toys"slash techniques. First, that blue strip on the top that was distressed? It also has Crackle Accents applied. And I thought Glossy Accents were cool! Eeek!!!!! So exciting. No words.

Okay, so second up, I bought a whole bunch of the dollar bin Studio G acid-free glitter glue (aka cheap Stickles) and then colored in the flower's center with them. The colors sort of blended together as they dried and look awesome. Then I applied the glue again to the "stripes" on the petals, let it sit for a bit and then scraped it off. The glues left nice coloring but not the glittery texture and dark color.

In addition to the previously mentioned products: card, flower, and paper strips are Paper Studios Affinity, word stickers are Authentique Gathering.

Butterfly cards - OWH

I have two more cards done for my OWH box that I have to have ready by mid July for the WRMK card drive. Giving myself an early card deadline since I still need to stamp the back info and stuff all the cards!

I wanted cards with butterflies. The horizontal card came first, but I didn't like the "one of a kind" text on it so I left it without a sentiment. I really liked the look so I repeated with it vertically and the sentiment worked much better!

For these cards I used Paper Studio Affinity cardstock and papers, stash cardstock and Jenni Bowlin butterflies, ColorBox ink. Sentiment from Authentique Uncommon.

Lending a card making hand

Some people cook, drink or play games with their family. I scrap with my mom. Or shop. Or shop for scrap stuff. And sometimes we take a break to play with the boys and my dad. Okay, most trips home include some variation of all the above. Because I'm much more connected to the blogging world - and all the tutorials and sketches and inspiration photos, etc. - I often have new techniques or ideas for her to try out. It's nice to share all this stuff that I learn about.

So this weekend she was working on making birthday cards for her teacher-mates. She has some 40 cards to make for this coming school year and that doesn't include all the thank you's and baby cards she'd love to do. The problem is that she wants each to be unique - in general and if possible for the individual. That takes time and lots of it!

Together we made about 15 of her 40, 2 made entirely by yours truly when I really needed a break from the project I was working on (a whole bunch of ATCs, can you say repetition kills?!).

Now these photos were done in horrible lighting and on my ever more-dinosaurific phone so please excuse the horrendous quality and just note how cute they are.

 

Both have MME card bases but both are made from an assortment of scraps that she had - bonus for her  since she seems to always be wanting to use through it!

Homemade Monday: mirrored, again

Sometimes I get into a design rut. Same thing over and over and over. So I altered a mirror again - rut. Sort of, this was the original mirror project and Squirrel managed to break off some of the spoons so I regrouped and made the papered mirror for the Paper Variety's challenge a couple of weeks ago.

But I still wanted the spoons to hang in my dining area (next to a mammoth one a friend gave me that used paint sticks a la Pinterest) and I really wanted it to still have that starburst effect to complement the one from my friend.

Here's what I had done: Gorilla glued all the spoons to the back of the mirror. In normal, non-preschooler circumstances it would have worked. It was mirror side down and he went under and popped the spoons off of the mirror. Grrrrr

Having learned to never trust my creation when preschoolers are nearby the second time I traced the mirror on cardboard and cut it. Then I started hot gluing the spoons down, more immediately secured that way. When the spoons were two layers deep I squirted a whole bunch of Gorilla glue in the cavity created from the spoon ends as well as across them. Carefully placed the mirror and a heavy object on top of it all and left the house for a few hours.

When we got home the mirror had slid a little and I could see part of the cardboard. Not enough though to need to scrap the project or anything. Instead, I took some ribbons and a flower and gave it a more decorative feel. It had been feeling really empty to me anyway and I think it was a nice touch.

Now where did all those weird looking spoons come from? Well, the friend who gave me the starburst mirror had around the same time discovered Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt. Our two families went together one evening, and while the yogurt is tasty and the restaurant is tons of fun I fell in love with the unique shape of the spoons. So I started making everyone give me their spoons when we went out. There's 38 there, that's a lot of sharing good times with friends and family.

The mirror I'd picked up for $2 at Goodwill.

The ribbon was leftover from a couple of other projects - some MME Lush 2 Orange and some Paper Studio.

The flowers are Imaginesce with a MME Lush 2 Orange brad.

Father's Day

Now normally the Scientist and I just sort of ignore the "hallmark" holidays, but I went to great efforts to make our moms cards this year, so I made some for the dads too (and didn't get those in the mail on time, oops!) so I felt like doing a little card "from" the boys would be appropriate.

This one is CAS, just a MME card with some Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks 6x6 woodgrain, Authentique Blissful (ruler) and Jenni Bowlin mini alphas and all the edges inked with Colorbox Chestnut Roan. The inside is stamped with a stamp I picked up in the clearance bin the other day at Hobby Lobby (used Chestnut Roan again).

And then I let the boys color messages inside for Daddy.

Sketchbook

Nothing brightens my mood like Amy Tangerine Sketchbook. I mean, how can you I not be happy looking at it? So colorful!!! It's like being outside on a spring day. That being said, I needed a little pick-me-up after doing some intensive house chores (because not all of us do our spring cleaning in the spring) and busted the Amy Tan out along with some of the photos I took on a glorious spring day. 

No sketch per se, just all those MWMs and other sketch challenges I have under my belt. I wanted to see how well I can fly these days without one. 

Everything I used was from the kit they sent me for posting on the American Crafts Facebook page. I've done a few projects and still have tons!

Authentique June Challenge: Proud Mom Moment

This sketch challenge made me pretty excited - I busted the Cameo out and cut my first doily! I adore doilies but have never made my own. Not so much love yesterday though. I just couldn't get the background to look like any of the inspirations and it was falling short for me. So I took the outside/waste part of the cut and framed the page instead. Awesome! Now I was ready to work.

I did a little fussy cutting and a lot of layering and inking on this one. The argyle 3D strip is actually three layers deep with thin foam dots. And those buttons? They were totally part of the waste from cutting the doily - I layered them up and then punched holes, threaded brown twine, added some foam tape between layers and then put Glossy Accents on them. I'm really proud of those buttons. I was even more excited when the cream "waste" from between the grey in the Argyle was a perfect spacer for the buttons. I think it looks awesome on top of the ruler paper and ties the two elements together.

Authentique product list:

Blissful Euphoria

Blissful Pleasant

Blissful Paradise

Classic Type #SCS004

Diction SMI004, SJO004

Other products:
ColorBox Chestnut Roan
Ranger Glossy Accents
WRMK brown floss

Totally excited that Scrapbooksteals just had Gathering on as a steal because my Blissful supply is looking a bit dismal. I need that paper to add to my inspiration for next month's sketch! Or to do a second entry for June. ;)

MCM 88

Some of you may remember that I posted a couple of weeks ago about creating cards for Operation Write Home. Well, nothing made my heart happier on Monday than reading the SS blog to discover they'd teamed with We Are Memory Keepers for the steal and participation in the WRMK card drive to support OWH. Aha! Now I have a deadline for all those cards I was gonna make anyway. So totally need one of those to keep me in line. And a chance to win stuff?! Bonus! 

Kristy Lee created another fabulous card sketch to follow using a star and americana theme. I don't really have much for that particular theme, but I did have a pretty fun starburst file in my Silhouette library. I created a text path and sketched the design on, cut the outer shape out, colored in the lines (some with Stickles, yes!) and had a grand ol' time.

While the Stickles dried I layered out the strips of paper behind - some of a MME Good Day Sunshine die cut, a little MME Indie Chic Nutmeg Washi, and MME Orange Lush 2 papers. Once good and dry (aka the next day) I glued it all together and inked the edges with Color Box Dark Peony.

Now time to stamp the backs of some of these cards that are done and get them ready to ship at the end of the month.

MWM Turquoise 7

Sometimes a sketch speaks to you. Well, to me. I don't know if they ever speak to you, but this week's Scrapbooksteals MWM screamed at me - I almost instantly knew what papers, pictures and techniques I'd use to get this one done. I also knew that with just a little fussy cutting I could also enter into the MME first June challenge. I love when I can get two for the time of one. 

Here we have mostly MME Miss Caroline Dilly Dally, but there's a teeny bit of 6x6 Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks. All of the flowers are fussy cut from Dilly Dally - the big ones were layered over themselves and then over a "shadowed" fussy in the same shape, after layering I used glossy accents to give them a bit more punch (can't tell from the pic though, sorry). The mini alphas are Jenni Bowlin and the larger alphas are AC Thickers Typo. There's a lot of distressing from the actual papers, some twisting/crumpling, and then some from inking and using the Imaginesce D-stress. 

Half-baked Wednesday: GF blueberry cobbler

More GF baking this week. I finished off the "bisquick" mix I'd made last week, used it for a blueberry cobbler. I still hold that if I'd used a better mix of flours to make the mix last week that it would have turned out better, but it was delish anyway! I made my own pie filling using fresh blueberries and sugar - didn't use a recipe just cooked and smashed a little like when making cranberry sauce during the holidays. This is another delicious recipe, can't wait for the next one! 

slice of GF cobbler that I tested ate

flower and vase

Sometime last fall Pinterest and I became acquainted. Among projects that caught my attention early on were all the numerous glass bottles wrapped in string - mostly jute. Now for some reason I don't have any hanging around, but I do have some fuzzy yarn thanks to my crochet days. So I wrapped a bottle in this fabulous cheap purple yarn. That day I felt a need to accomplish a mindless project - scrapbooking would have taken to much brain power that I didn't have to give. The bottle's shape warranted some hot glue in a couple of spots, just in case you feel the need to try this project out. I don't know if any of the original projects used any glue, I only ever looked at the pins of those particular projects!

Anyway, so I had this purple vase on my desk since a couple of days before we converted it from the crib. In my world, that's a long time for a project to not have a home or a purpose so today's project was to make some flowers for it.

I logged into the Silhouette store and found some lovely 3D tulips. After cutting them on pink card stock (why did I feel a need to buy so many solid card stock packs when I started scrapbooking? I have tons of solid that I.NEVER.USE) I used the instructions with the file to layer them. The first two looked eh, but then I got the hang of it and went ahead and inked up the rest of them. Scrapbooking tape was okay, but you really had to hold it in place. I gave up and used hot glue since it dries so fast.

For the stems I wanted something psuedo realistic - the floral wire I had was to thin and pipe cleaner was fat and fuzzy, so I used wooden skewers that I shaded with two green markers.

I'm quite happy with the result. Next time I do a glass bottle project from Pinterest it should probably include fire - I'm really feeling the need to do one of those cut glass projects...

MCM 85, 86 plus one

Father's Day is next weekend so in honor of our dads I made some masculine cards. So hard. Every time there's a guy card to make I struggle. But these ones sort of make me happy, and I even managed to make an extra to have in my stash for a birthday, thank you, whatever. Excellent.

For MCM 85 (a sketch by Cyndee Kawa) I used a Paper Studio card base and papers with MME Abbey Road die cuts and a Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts sticker with Jenni Bowlin mini alphas.

For MCM 86 I used another Paper Studio card, ribbons, and cardstock, MME Good Day Sunshine papers and die cuts, some MME Indie Chic Nutmeg Washi, and inked all the edges with Color Box Chestnut Roan or Pumpkin Spice

The other card I made used Paper Studio card base and cardstock, a MME Abbey Road journaling card and chipboard tag, Jenni Bowlin mini alphas, a little bit of cord, some paper ribbon that I bought ages ago (so probably Paper Studio) and the Sew Easy Stamper.

zoo day

With the grandparents living in St. Louis there are many many (so many many) trips to the Magic House and the St. Louis zoo - and that means I always have tons of pictures from those weekend trips that need to get scrapped. Nothing makes that task easier than an awesome multi-picture sketch. This week's Scrapbooksteals.com Turquoise 6 was no exception - designed by guest sketcher Julie Koets this one really packed them in, especially when I cropped two of the picture spots into two extras! Awesome.

I also packed a little extra something into this one - the challenge over at the Paper Girls Challenge Blog was to use Subway Art in a project. Subway Art being a body of text arranged horizontally and vertically in an assortment of fonts.

Well, in place of journaling I "Subway Arted." I laid out the text in the Silhouette software and just wrote the words with the sketch pens, easy peasy. I like that the format allowed me to include key words but made the page just a little different than what I'd normally do.

MME Good Day Sunshine paper and embellishments
Paper Studio blue cardstock
MME Laundry Line and Lost and Found ribbons and twine
Buttons, stash
MME Abbey Road brad
Sew Easy Stamper
Color Box Chestnut Roan inking

Overall I'm fairly happy with this one. If you were going to change mine up a little, what would you include?

mirror mirror

A few weeks back I was at a thrift store and found a stack of mirrors for a song, so when The Paper Variety Challenge was to create something using paper other than a page or card I instantly turned to my new toys! They were begging to be used after all.

I started by cutting 12x12 sheets of MME Lost and Found (two colors, 16 triangles) into 6x6s and then triangles. Then I inked them all up and folded into ruffles and glued them to the back of the mirror. I used some scrap cardboard and cut a hangar groove out of the back and then Gorilla Glued the cardboard to the paper/mirror. When it was nice and dry I used hot glue and adhered two layers of ribbon to the beveled edge. Then I misted a too white Prima flower with my Wheat Field October Afternoon Sprinklers, layered all the flower pieces together with a MME Lush Orange brad and then hot glued them to the ribbon seam. 

close-up of the flower

Add caption

Half-baked Wednesday

I've been taking a bit of a plunge into Gluten Free (GF) baking for a few weeks now so I thought maybe I would share my exploits every Wednesday. To start the GF baking process, a month ago I bought about $40 worth of flours and a $15 cookbook. While my kidlets do get to enjoy the yummy treats part of my purpose is to help my mom to break out of her baking rut...or really, help her rediscover baking from scratch. Huh hello? The woman went to culinary school partly because she loved baking.

This week's baking challenge? I took recipes that used a biscuit mix from that ever famous Betty and not only made my own mix but two yummy treats with 2 cups leftover mix to spare.

My "Bisquick" mix. The recipe said to use whatever flours I wanted and whatever starches I wanted. Not knowing any better I just used what I had on hand from making an all-purpose bread mix in my first project. My flour blend ended up roughly:

1.5 cup white rice flour

2.5 cup brown rice flour

2 cup Garbanzo/Fava flour

and the starches were half Tapioca and half Potato

Next time I will probably try a different blend of the flours but for winging it, the results were tasty!

These are pictures of Lemon Blueberry Muffins. The batter tasted a lot like garbanzo beans and I was really nervous but as they cooked they sweetened up and were a nicely textured muffin. The fresh blueberry probably helped a lot. Another thing I'll have to consider is upping the sugar in this recipe, the store bought mix has a lot more sugar in it than my mix did. 

Squirrel is asking for seconds just looking at the pictures so you know they're tasty regardless!

 

While the oven was still warm I wanted to toss in another "bisquick" recipe. This one is Cheesy Garlic Biscuit. Delicious! I didn't mind the batter flavor as much in this recipe but that may just be because the garbanzo was toned down by all the garlic and butter. I also used Pepperjack cheese instead of the cheddar in the recipe. Yum.

 

Both of these are totally getting repeated in our household, especially if the Grandma is gonna be around. It's nice to know I can make something special/tasty for her now. :)

new space

Squishy for some time now has been able to climb like a mountain goat/monkey. We've been waiting for him to scale the baby gate (he so totally could!) or to launch himself over the side of the crib (he climb up the sides a bit from the front and it wouldn't take much to get him on top). Given that we don't know what's holding him back, other than our prayers, we decided that the best way to train him to sleep in his big boy bed (think August birthday, brother's December birthday and Christmas) was to have a few months of accessibility to toys without the allure of a ladder. Yep, we put the mattress on the floor.

And in so doing created my new creative space.

We spent several hours on Memorial Day disassembling and reassembling it to get it from one room to the other, and after a trip to the hardware store for some particle board I was ready to make a desk like this one I'd seen on Pinterest. The picture takes you to the original blog. ;)

Since I wanted a desk for me, we positioned the springs on the infant (highest) setting. I spray primered that particle board, then spent the next two days painting on the layers. After painting the orange base color, I achieved the chevrons with the help of my handy dandy Silhouette by using vinyl to create a mask. Not quite happy with how some of them still became uneven (uh, hi, no surprise here that even with help I couldn't achieve a straight line) I took a Sharpie and edged all the stripes to sort of finish them off. That helped a lot. And then after a coating of spray acrylic to seal it all in I set up my new craft space. 

new desk

You'll notice in the picture my sewing machine, Silhouette Cameo, laptop (with Target Washi keyboard, another idea from Pinterest) and my Silhouette advent calendar that I've already repurposed to hold all those little things that I used to avoid using because I hated pulling out their containers all the time. Now they're decorative and accessible! Time to make some flowers for the vase and it'll be ready to go. Much better than that rickety old card table I'd been using.

Memorial Day Weekend

Eventually this is about crafting, but let's start off with I ran my first 5K in over 3 months. Killer.  See me here at the finish line? Nope, not the smiling one. I'm the other one. Want.To.Die.Must.Cross.Line. Yep, that's me.

Me running the Go Girl 5K, finished in roughly 37 minutes

My shirt did make me giggle a couple of times though, so it was well worth the effort I'd gone to to make it. I used some Silhouette heat transfer material and ironed on a phrase "this is not the hardest thing I've ever done." When I started ironing it I thought about it as a way to push myself, I'm out of shape, I can do it though, sort of thing. By the time I was done I was feeling like maybe it was a teensy bit cocky of me to have put on a shirt. So I asked the Scientist. His response, "it looks like a shirt with words." And that made many happy moments for me while I was running. 

While cleaning up/cooling off before a late breakfast with the in-laws I chanced upon Facebook and some of my favorite manufacturers were part of a blog hop for Operation Write Home. What a cool project. I make cards, military personnel send them back home to their families. 

I'm not a typical patriot. You will never see me wear Red, Blue and White *together.* Ever. I can't do it. Daddy was in the Air Force for a large portion of my life so I have a huge respect for those who choose to defend us/have done so in the past. But I can't figure out how me wearing those colors makes life any better for any of us. Rosie the Riveter made pieces of machinery, not cute RBW outfits after all.

But spending a little of my crafting budge to make cards? Cards that support the heroes out there just because I made one? Cards that support the families because they got a special something in the mail? THAT I can get behind. Plus, it gives me an extra reason to play along with card challenges, I just have to make sure to follow the OWH criteria too. Easy and fun.

So I've spent a couple of days sorting through my card stash, pulling all the older ones that will work and setting them aside. Then, Friday I used MCM #86 to make my first official OWH cards! YES!

American Crafts Amy Tangerine Sketchbook
Marth Stewart ink
WRMK Sew Easy Stamper
Glossy Accents

Scrapbooksteals Turquoise 5

 It's crazy to think that we're already on Turquoise 5! Wow!

For this MWM I took my scrapping outside of the "book" and designed it on an all wood but canvas-styled plaque. Last weekend I found the plaque at Goodwill for $3 and knew it'd be perfect for scrapbooking on, went home and proceeded to glue this paper down for no other reason than that I really liked that paper. It sat on my desk naked for four days. And then Wednesday I was flipping through pics to match the sketch and didn't like any of the boys and decided that I'd just do something with some of my extra wedding pics (I did my scrapbooked album nearly 3 year ago, eek! my style sure has changed, good thing I wasn't a scrap every picture taken sort of bride). Anyway, I came up with this and now it's hanging in the "red bathroom" and looks quite nice.

Basic Grey Origins
American Crafts Thickers, Lullaby
Prima Flower
MME Miss Caroline "Lucky" sticker, brads and stick pin
MME Follow Your Heart Happy Day Tag/Brad and twine
Glitz Designs "Follow" sticker
Girl's Paperie Toil and Trouble 3D embellishment
Paper Studios Affinity Blue and Cream papers
Color Box Chestnut Roan
Vellum and gemstones, stash

In between family moments with my in-laws Memorial Day weekend I snuck time to make the card last week too (#85). I made several of them like this as reminder cards about a girls night I was hosting at my house. The inside reads "Breakfast at Tiffany's and Dinner at Jessica's" plus the date and time. Catchy, huh!?! I'm such a dork.  

MME card
Authentique Gathering 6x6 paper, alphas and "gather"
WRMK twine
Colorbox Chestnut Roan
Brads, stash

More about Memorial Day weekend to come. Next time, darling, next time.