OOOOPs I've been MIA!! More candy goodness and a sneak peek

Wow - has it really been a month since I've been here ---YIKES! Sorry gang! I've been very crafty and busy but didn't get any of it here :(

I did get back into my first love - scrapbooking  - but alas - I made mini albums for others and gave them away - one was to a friend of my DDs that took her to Charleston SC for spring break - and typical me - I made the album the day they left and didn't get a chance to take any pictures. I used a retired SU! kit. I love using coordinating products for mini albums - makes them go super fast.

Here is a sneak peek of 2 that I made as demos for the Sounds Easy Voice Recorder that will be at CKC Manchester this week.

Later this week I"m going to post a tutorial on how to make them - The Sounds Easy folks will be giving out a tutorial handout at CKC Manchester as well.

What else have I been doing? Well I finished the candy boxes for my friends daughers Bat Mitzvah - all 120 of 'em.
I used SU! certainly celery, apricot appeal and rose red cardstock. The photograper took a few shots and once Audrey gets the pictures back - I'll put a better picture here. I used a 4 x5 rectangle, embossed with the SU! dots embossing folder, scored with the scor-pal, taped with scor-tape and a bit of glue dots, filled with candy (fortunately we were able to get the easter candy wrapped in pretty colors on sale) and tied the bows - easy peasys.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Andrea

Passover Crafty

Another Craft It Wednesday inspired post!!As I figured - belonging to Craft It Wednesday has motivated me to share and/or create.

So tomorrow is the first Sedar of Passover and we will be hosting at our house this year. I decided I wanted to make some Passover specific flower holders for centerpieces. During a Sedar there is ALOT of stuff that has to go on the table so I wanted a centerpiece with a small footprint and was low enough that people could see over.

I love african violets and this was a great excuse to get some new ones!!. I took some matza and broke it and hot glued it together to make a planter...let me tell you a couple of things - it is really difficult to break matza into approximately the same size rectangles - and it makes a HUGE mess!! LOL - crumbs all over the place. Unfortunately - I couldn't find our hot glue gun so I used one of those low heat hot glue guns --- yuck - I don't like them! They asre better for kids to use but the glue hardens so fast its really difficult to get the matza on their fast enough!

I  decided to make the second planter from some scrapbook supplies. I really like the bright cheery flowers in this paper. I took some twill and made it Passover Twill. I used brown stayz on ink and the Judaic stamp set from PaperTrey Ink. - I didn't get a picture of all of it - but I really like how it came out!!

So tomorrow - before I cook - I really would like to make another planter - if I do I'll try and post a picture. My goal is to use another piece of the twill I stamped at the same time -some scrapbook paper and maybe to "hot" glue a piece or two of matzo to it.

For those of you who celebrate it - Happy Passover.

Thanks for stopping by! Andrea

Crochet Platypus

Two posts in one day!! HOLD your seats!!

Isn't he CUTE???

I made him for my DD's friends BDay gift - for some reason - they love the platypus.

I googled and found directions by beavisfreak at craftster.org.

I'm gonna have to make some more of these crochet animals - they are TOO cute - actually - I just started a bird

thanks for looking. Andrea

Growing my Color Scheme Comfort zone.

Growing my Color Scheme comfort zone has long been a goal of mine. So what better way than to play along with a challenge? I'm also using this for the weekly Craft it Wed. Challenge. A 2:1!

This is the second time I've played along with Stacey's Curtain Call Color Challenge - I love her choices. You can visit her blog at http://www.stampinwithstacey.blogspot.com/

Aren't these colors great? I needed to make a sympathy card and decided to use Thinking of You vs the more traditional with sympathy verse.

I wasn't sure if this challenge is supposed to be SU! only so I made 2 cards.

This first card is all SU!. I used the flower vine from Vintage Vogue with versamark on Barely Banana to make my own subtle patterned paper. I put that on an almost artichoke card. The butterfly is a SU! bigz die cut with certainly celery. I cut 2 and pop dotted the second one for some depth. Again I used versamark to and the vine stamp. The swirly trail of the butterfly is the large (and small) swirl from Priceless (Yes Sharon - if you're here - I DID use that set). The inside of the card is layered with Barely Banana so I can write my letter.

This second card uses the same c/s colors. The stamp is Gina K Designs Spring Floral. I colored it with copics. This is my first Gina K set - and I really like how crisp it stamps. I'm soooo new to copics and don't have a lot of colors. But this was fun to experiment with. I colored the flower with a yellow and pink that I tried to layer so it made an almost orange color - cuz I don't have orange LOL.

I also tried a new to me but ancient technique or piercing the corner and the border strip for some more dimension.

I love these colors - I think I'm going to use a small rolodex holder that I have, the SU! rolodex die and one of my punches (not sure which yet) to make a rolodex file of color combos I like... if and when I start it - I'll post pix.

Thanks for looking!!

Andrea

So a Mini Album" to be" became a Birthday Card for a Friend

So it all started with some empty boxes of cereal. My Dad brings me his and I save ours. I was looking at them the other day - thinking how much I really missed making scrapbook pages or mini albums. If you've noticed I'm into cards (fast and easy) or crocheting lately.

So I took a bunch of the cereal boxes and the SU! scalloped Sizzix die. And made a bunch of mini pages - a bunch of stuff later from my massive stash - and I had a mini album - well sort a - I decided to make it into a Birthday Card for my friend Lori.

Course - those of you that know me IRL know that I often decide close to a "deadline" to make something - so in typical fashion I decided to make a coordinating box a half hour before I left the house - its "pretty" but a smidge too small LOL

Although the box has some "issues" since its the first I made of this type - I really really really like the way it looks - I love the thick ribbon (which when I first got it I felt was too thick to work with) and the clear sticker is great on the cover. I will be doing this again.

Da Cover


The first two pages - with my personal note in the pocket on the right page.

I like to hide "goodies" in the pockets - like this butterfly.

Isn't that little bird in the cage cute? Its from one of the SU! Saleabration sets - I forget the name and will check and hopefully add it later.

I had fun finding all my "friends" quotes etc in my stash.

Another - pocket - so I "hid" another saying

Ever have a "page" that comes out in a way that you just LOVE - and know you have to repeat again SOON? Well this is the one from this project. The bird is from the new SU! bird punch. Its hard to see but the navy background is dry embossed with a cuttlebug folder. The text is a stamp I've had forever that says Love Live Laugh..and ya gotta love the pearl "bling"!


The ending... I had fun heat embossing with the SU! Vintage Vogue set and some random stash friends stuff.

Have y'all heard of the Sounds Easy Voice Recorder? It allows you to make 30 separate 30 second voice recordings. Wouldn't this have been a perfect album - IF I'd thought about it in time - I could have asked a few of her friends to record a message for her and the recorder that also plays back the sounds would have made a great gift for her. Here is the link to their home page.

http://www.sounds-easy.com/

If you've been here for a while my 7/31/09 post Sounds of Summer shown here

www.mycreativesanity.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

uses this product and I love it!!

Ok - I've sure turned this into a LONG LONG post - sorry but I was "excited" to share.

Hope ya'll enjoyed it - thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Card for a Challenge

So I decided to try some card making challenges. I've never really done them before but thought it would be a good way to step out of my comfort zone and try some new things.


Here is the challenge I tried. Its from www.stampinwithstacey.blogspot.com


What fun colors! I haven't used Kraft much at all so I was excited to try a new color combo. I wouldn't have put these together on my own and I love 'em and will use 'em again!


Jeeze - whats with the blurry photos??? I used the new SU! embossing dots folder and LOVE it!! The packages/gifts are from a saleabration set and are paper pieced. I ended up having to put the flower on the top note because the happy birthday sentiment left a little mark from the edge of the rubba - I ended up liking this little flower so much in real life that I put some on the inside of the card.

I always try and decorate the inside of my cards - not sure that the flowers fit the birthday theme but I loved them...so there they are! They are part of my USE IT UP personal challengs - I used a punch I've had for ages and little green brads that I've had for ages and never end up using ..turns out they almost perfectly match the old olive!

Thanks for stopping by -- hey I've been on a posting roll this week! Andrea

Is it an Afghan or a blanket? It grew!

My entry for this weeks Craft It Wednsday is a crochet "masterpiece" .

The title sure is appropriate! This started off as an afghan for my DD. I had just finished making a couple of afghans last year that all used one stitch throughout the entire afghan - different stitches for the different afghans but 1 for each individual one. When I started this one I wanted variety - I was kind a bored with using one for an entire project.

So I took a crochet afghan sampler book and made strips of different stitches.

I made a total of 7 stripes. Here are a few of the different stitches I used. It was fun to mix it up!

LESSON learned: I wasn't an experienced crocheter to realize that using different stitches used different amounts of yarn - so I would need way more yarn than in my prior 2 afghans. RESULT - I ran out of the varigated blue yarn before I was done....and of course - I had started the project last year and couldn't find any more this year!!

SOOO I bought some purple yarn that coordinated and made 2 purple stripes. Here is one of 'em.

I then used the purple yarn to make a border around each stripe and single crochet stitched the borders together...actually there is another LESSON here - I didn't measure all the stripes to be exactly the same - sooo RESULT/FIX - I had to add some purple "patches" to some of the blue stripes. Definately makes it look homemade :(

but hey - its still if I may say so myself gorgeous - its huge tho! I had to make some purple stripes to tie it all in together and it sure made it large - which is great for my DD cuz she loves to snuggle under blankets! Thanks for looking