Plain Jane Storage

I've searched on the internet a few times for ideas on how to store my Verve Plain Jane stamps, but haven't really had an issue with them just laying on my counter. I use them almost all the time.

The last time I purchased some Plain Jane's I was feeling a little overwhelmed at which one I had used for a bible verse project I'm working on so I decided I should figure out what to do.

One of my searches resulted in going to a local office supply store and I thought it was simple enough to remember so I didn't bookmark the site. So I procrastinated a few weeks and now today I've decided to make due with what I have around the house.

My supplies:

Clear Heavyweight Sheet Protectors

Full sheet of chipboard

Pencil and Pen

Ruler

Food Saver Machine (not pictured)

I started to write a tutorial and I got hung up on the measurements to give you so I scratched that and just tell you the basics.

I drew two lines each horizontally and vertically, equally spaced so I had 9 rectangles on my sheet of chipboard. I drew two extra lines about 1/8" - 1/4" below the two horizontal lines when the chipboard is in a portrait position.

Next I slid the chipboard into a sheet protector and with a ballpoint pen (or permanent marker) I marked the outer edge where my first 4 lines were. I next used a ruler and my xacto knife to cut slits on the extra two lines being careful not to cross over the two main lines.

I took out the chipboard, turned on my Food Saver setting it to Seal Only, and then lined up the top most pen marks along the teflon sealing area. Holding onto the sheet protector with one hand I closed the Food Saver carefully. I sealed that line for a quick 10 seconds. I rotated the sheet protector and repeated this until all my main lines were now sealed lines.

It was complete! Here it is in a binder.

Verve Project Parade - I made it all from scratch!

Easter is almost here and I've been seeing a lot of card ensembles over at Splitcoaststampers and with the Verve Divas. So I decided to make a cardfolio of Easter cards to send to my mom to use.

It didn't start out as a folio. I wanted to make an egg-shaped box. Thought I could play with some Cold Clay Porcelain, but it wasn't the right material and I had never used it. I moved to chipboard and designer paper. Too stiff. So I moved to something simple and made a cardfolio.

I have a stack of chipboard from my father-in-law's office supplies so I started by covering it with some discontinued Stampin' Up designer paper (sorry I don't know what the name of it is. I bought it at a garage sale.) The spine cracked when I folded it in half so I made an accordian strip of paper to allow for expansion when closed, but it also cracked from being scored. Any sugestions for next time would be greatly appreciated. I wanted an egg-shaped embossed paper for the cover. The cuttlebugged (Textile emboss folder) egg shaped paper needed to stand out a little bit so I used some scrap quilt batting and built it up before putting. Another piece of covered chipboard with the egg shaped cut out and a ribbon and the cover was done. Really. I had to add the ribbon afterwards because it looked to plain. The edges just barely fit into the crease of the two front panels.

I hope my mom gets time to use these cards for Easter. I'll put a panel of stamps in with it so she won't have to go buy them. Here's the inside of the folio.

I used my new set of Verve stamps for the images on the card and the sentiment on the front. It's called Everlasting Life. I love my Verve stamps. It took me a while to get use to the differences of rubber stamps, but I think I do like photopolymer stamps better.

The cross and sentiment were stamped with Staz-On Timber Brown and then I used my own set of watercolor pencils to do a little bit of green on the swirls and blue around the cross. I add some Lime Green and Waterfall Stickles to complete it. The sentiment card is also Staz-On Timber Brown. I used Stampin Up Old Olive and I think Brocade Blue to go along with the DSP. Thanks for stopping by.

If you have a chance to go see all the of the other projects over at the Verve Blog, they are a must see.

Viva La Fini!

I have finished the Viva La Verve March Sketch challenges. It's been so much fun and extremely more doable than my last attempt. I stayed up all night going off of the champion challenge post deadline and I missed the deadline by a typo. Bummer. Creating those cards were a bunch of fun, but my husband walked into my craft room at 6 a.m. and said, "What the heck are you doing?" and I quickly replied, "I've decided to stay awake all night.". He turned and went back to bed.

Okay, this card was fun, but I'm afraid the colors resemble Christmas colors more than an Easter card. It's amazing where I started in my mind with this card and where I ended up.

I like it. I think it might be disqualified for the challenge {CAS} because it was only suppose to use one embellishment and I added thread to the buttons.

Thanks for stopping in to see my latest creation.

Very Sunny Birthday

Happy Birthday CJ!
I have a special birthday card to share today. My mother-in-law's birthday is Monday and I had prepared to make a card this evening and then either show up at her door or mail it to her (yes, I procrastinate). About 2 p.m. the phone rang and among other things my mother-in-law said something like "...and you're brother said yes." I hollered to my husband to tell him this cryptic message and he said okay. I don't remember the details if we were on the phone still but my husband replies, "Oh we're going out for mom's birthday tonight."

Yipes! I hadn't even showered yet (yep, I'm lazy and didn't get us to church in the morning. We had coughs and runny noses, so I thought we should just stay home)... more importantly I hadn't even made the birthday card.

I went off to another part of the house to mull over the design of another project I've gotten myself into for Verve's Project Parade, and the next thing I knew it was an hour before we were to meet at the restaurant. I little side note, we went to Famous Dave's and it was my first time. I felt like a contestant for the world record barbeque eating contest. Was it good? I'm stuffed. Does that answer your question? Okay back to the card.

Let's see, with about 15 minutes to complete the card, and change a dirty diaper I had to think fast. I need to make it her favorite color. Check, yellow. I needed to use Cuttlebug, check. okay now what! Well we were a few minutes late because of the card but I just had to put on some embellies or it wouldn't have been finished.

The card is special because she's one of my favorite people to be around, and if you know me a 15 minute card is almost unheard of if I'm doing it.

Details:
Stamps: SU Perfect Pairs
Paper: LSS yellow and white
Ink: VersaMagic Thatched Straw
Accessories: Cuttlebug Textile Emboss Folder, SU Pretties pearls, SU grosgrain, Martha Stewart Lace border punch, MM kate kids trim daisy ribbon

Among Many....Fly

Mojo was with me (I think) as soon as I found out the sketch for Mojo Monday. I knew I needed to get the butterfly stamps from Beautiful Kindness on the off-center panel.

This color combination is not me. The paper idea came from the Inspiration challenge IC172 which was to use an item of clothing for sale at Little Daisy Designs. I've been running across the DP just too many times not to use it once I saw this dress at Little Daisy Designs. Then I matched SU inks the best I could.

I've been wanting to do some masking since coming across the How'd They Do That? 3.18.09 this week over at SCS. I didn't do it the fancy way Susan showed in her tutorial, but it made me think I needed to do some masking techniques sometime soon. Out came 3M sticky notes.

The butterflies? I thought I would have butterflies sparsely placed at the bottom and then increase and layer as they got to the top. I wanted to keep the rounded bottom from the Mojo Sketch, but now looking at it I think I would have kept the Mauve Mist butterfly at the bottom whole and then began the rounded bottom from it to the right side. When I started to cut the wing tips on a few butterflies I hoped I wouldn't get to quick and ruin all the masking work. When I got to the one at the top, I just had to get out my aqua pen and incorporate all the SU inks onto the wings. I couldn't keep a steady enough hand to drop the Frosted Lace Stickles down so they bother me a little bit, other than that I'm happy with the way it came out.

Thanks for looking!

Details:

Stamps: Verve Beautiful Kindness

Paper: Slab Pack ?, white

Ink: Mauve Mist, Almost Amythest, Mint Melody, Bliss Blue, Creamy Caramel

Accessories: Xacto knife, LSS ribbon, Stickles Frosted Lace

Bloom Birthday

Today is my neighbors birthday. We've known each other before we were neighbors, but something just happens when you become backdoor neighbors and choose not to have a fence across the back of your property. You just become closer friends.


Today is her birthday and I've just wanted to make her a cookie bouquet for a while, so I stayed up late last night to finish one.

Over at my splitcoaststampers gallery I got so excited about telling all the details in this post, but now I'm worried I might not be able to explain it all in a manner of few words, so let's see how I do.

I made a bunch of flower cookies on a stick and asked her husband what color they should be. He said blue and then thought maybe pink but then went back to blue. So I started decorating blue. I wanted to make it meaningful so I thought maybe I could decorate one of them a different color and then it would stand out amongst the other cookies. For me, this is where my mind started smiling because I could feel a great idea coming.

I ran to my card making supplies and new Verve stamps and voila!, there was a flower stamp set that had three flowers that looked somewhat like my cookies. I have wanted to do the third March sketch at the Viva La Verve forum and guess what! The {twist} Amber had us do was BIRTHDAY.

For those of you that came here from my gallery this is where all three things just came together.


So here is the card that I came up with for the Viva La Verve Sketch Challenge.



I started out with the flowers and stamped them with Versamagic Midnight and then when I went looking for the ribbon I found some Happy Birthday ribbon in brown text. So if there was one thing I would do differently, it would be to re-stamp the flowers so they would match the rest of the card. (But when you see the cookie bouquet you'll know why I started out with black ink.) I did watercolor on the flower and stem with an aqua pen and then used matching SU markers for the darker rims of the petals. I used my Cuttlebug Happy Birthday embossing folder on the blue and pink paper and assembled it all together, added more ribbon, rhinestones and sentiment and I felt good about the outcome (minus the black ink vs. brown ink on the flowers.)

So I made the cookies earlier in the day and then after our children went to sleep I went back to the cookies. Some day I'll have my camera on hand to show you how I make the cookies, but I never think about a camera and photos when I'm making the cookies.


The photo just doesn't show the real colors of this bouquet. The "red" flower is a very bright pink and the blue flowers are so bright and cheery. Oh well, I'll tackle taking pictures of food some day. I think I just need a bigger Macro Photo Suite.

Thank you for staying with me on this post for as long as you have. I'm almost done. Now have you figured out the extra coming together piece. I didn't connect it until I was putting the last touches on the card. The Verve sentiment says "Bloom where you're planted" and the cookie bouquet has one pink flower in it with a couple of healthy green leaves. I will be so shocked if my neighbor gets all the subtly of this packaged gift.

Okay that's the end of my post! You made it!


Have a blessed day!

Let's Celebrate!

Thirteen years ago on St. Patrick's Day marks the beginning of a relationship. It wasn't for anything green, or out of the ordinary and it was almost by accident.

I was suppose to go to a soccer game with a friend of mine. The game got cancelled due to soaked fields from a day's worth of rain. I had nothing to do for the afternoon. I got a call to go to a movie.

The twist of the day was that the soccer game was meant to bridge a relationship between my friend and a coworker. The coworker called me to say the game was cancelled. Moments later, I got another phone call...the coworker asked me out. We met at the theatre, late getting in because of my long distance phone call, last row center seats and shuffling by a couple of ladies... all of the sudden we hear something to the effect of a rain stick. Odd don't you think? One of the ladies had a large bag of M&M's in her lap and trying to keep them hidden, manage to drop them while making room for us to shuffle past their seats.

I will never forget the day. St. Patrick's Day, first date and pronounced entrance to our seats by a raining of M&M's down the theatre floor.

I quickly put together this wrapper/sleeve for a bag of M&M's today to give my dear sweet hubby of 10 1/2 years.

I love you sweetie!

Macro Photo Suite for Free!

Hi all, I've been so tickled about my homemade photo setup that when I ran across someone asking how everyone took their photos, well I just decided to make a post about it.

I searched on the web and ran across some great instructions. I proceeded to go through the house and find everything I needed. So my box was free to make. Well, I had bought the lightbulbs and workshop hanging lamps at The Home Depot a couple of months before I made this small box, so I guess it was about $10.

Go to the "instructions" link above to get the details, but here is my setup and the object I took a shot of in my photo suite is the photo at the beginning.

A Lil' Kindness

I got some new stamps from Verve's March release and just could not wait to use them. So when the children went to sleep and my hubby went to exercise, I sat down and made this card for Mojo Monday #77.

It came together so quickly for me...2 hours... and the only supply I had to search for in my craft room was the Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

The card looks unfinished to me, but it looks clean and I like it. I trimmed back the right side of the front to keep the tabs within the A2 card size.

Details:

Stamps: Verve Beautiful Kindness

Paper: white, close to cocoa, pink passion, dp from rob and bob studio slab pack

Accessories: Coluzzle circle, circle and flower punch, file folder tab punch, scallop scissors, Stickles Diamonds, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Cuttlebug EF: Dots and Spots

Dinner FAST!

Over the years, I've collected food magazines and tried to come up with fun ways of eating old things. Post children I've gone back to basics. I've pulled out the tried and true, "Better Homes and Garden" Cookbook (red and white checker cover) and the results have always been positive.

Tonight I made a "Creamy Herbed Pork Chops" on page 232. Since I don't know if I can legally write out the recipe I'll give you a general idea of the recipe. It has, of course, 4 servings of pork and cooked in a skillet with butter and finely chopped carrots. When cooked, no more pink, you remove the chops and put in flour, parsley and a mellow herb, beef bouillion and then milk to thicken. Finish with a splash of dry white wine or water. Ours was sans wine. I loved it. My husband liked the sauce. The kids however, was a mixed review. Our son is under the weather so he just wasn't eating and our daughter said she like the sauce but didn't eat much of it.

No matter what, it was quick and I had everything on hand. You have to like that!

Another passion other than cardmaking?

Oh, I love to keep my fingers busy. It might be my mind that's really what I must keep busy, but I'll believe only my fingers. I've been tatting for about 2 1/2 years now. I tried to teach myself and failed miserably and then when I was about to leave my corporate job to start my domestic endeavors a coworker and I found out we had the same passion. She helped me out in the "flip" and then all I had to do was practice.

I gave birth to my daughter and that was the end of tatting practice for over a year. When we went off to Wisconsin so the extended family could see her in person I ran to the nearest Wal-mart and bought supplies to tat. After three days I finally got the "flip". After that I jumped right in and made a pair of booties for a friend of mine. It took me over 6 months to complete them.

These aren't the first booties I made, but the same pattern from Lenore English.

So now I'm wondering how much I've taught myself that isn't correct or at least could be done more easily if I took some classes.

Cherry Delight - It's Your Day

Here's a quick post about Week 2 challenge at Viva La Verve forum.

The challenge's {twist} was to use the color combination of red, pink and green. I looked at the paper I had on hand and thought this was about the most clashy combination... so, I went shopping for the right paper. {chuckle}

I have to admit that the photo isn't the finished product. I went to my Stickles stash and started using it all over and I'm afraid I might have ruined it. I'll show you some photos below. Oh, I need to update later. It's time to go get my son out from his crib. Thanks for looking.

Verve March Release Party is TODAY!

If I'm seeing my computer clock correctly, TODAY is the day that Verve Stamps will be releasing new stamps sets and Plain Janes (stamps that are not plain but low cost at $3 each). I personally own all of the Plain Janes as my blog and gallery will verify.

If you haven't done an online release party, this one might be the best place to start. I believe you need to have an account on Splitcoaststampers. Then find the Verve forum and click on Release Party. That's where you want to be by 8pm ET on March 8, 2009.

I had fun making this card. I wanted to try a technique that I haven't done before and it turns out that the Color combo challenge (CC53) over at Splitcoaststampers not only gave me a great color scheme but the ticket to try something new. I wanted to do resist emboss. I'm amazed that I haven't tried it before. I never have any cardstock (CS) the color that I need so using ink to make the card stock match the rest of the card (sentiment, repeat color elements, etc). Guess what? I actually had the blue and green in a scrapbook packet that was gifted to me (thanks, Lori) a while back. So since I had the CS I didn't need to dry emboss. I ran across the "Kissing" technique on video over at Gina K's Design blog a few days ago. I didn't have time to perfect it, well not even to try it a second time, but it gave a nice texture to the background of my sentiment.

Thanks for stopping in and taking a look.

See the details at my gallery.

Is it me, or does this post have a large sum of links?

Have a blessed Sunday!

UPDATE: I just had to use the rest of my Filigree stamped paper so I made another card with the same Verve Release Sketch. Here it is.

New Cover to my Craft Room Door

Hi everyone. Today I ventured up a ladder to do something that I have been itching to do. Now I am not a ladder person, I'd rather stay on the ground.

So today is the day I decided to just climb on up and install a curtain rod on the entrance to my craft room. This room is at the end of our upstairs hallway so there isn't a door. I put the rod up and then went to my closet and pulled out an old sunbleached flannel sheet. Oh yes, I did. I went to my sewing machine and made a rod-tunnel (anyone know the seamstress name for that?) on one end and then slid it on the curtain rod. It is not pretty at all. My intent is purely utilitarian.

I've wanted to do this for two reasons. The craft room is just a few feet away from my children's bedrooms and any noise I make seems to echo to loud for my liking. The second reason is the light goes down the hallway. Okay so here's the no money door cover I put up this afternoon.

Mojo Monday Sketch 76

I am getting so excited to see the entire Verve Stamp release this coming Sunday. There have been sneak peeks over at the Verve Blog. Go check it out.

This is my first Mojo Monday sketch! I had SO MUCH fun! I did exactly what I said I was going to do and went to my Verve stamps first and found one that I thought would go with my Cuttlebug Emboss Folder, "Fancy Corners" (and yes they were very hard to cut out the same size, please don't look closely. Okay now that I've said something, you have all looked haven't you). Then I realized I would need to make my card an A7 or 5" x 7" to even come close to the sketch. So with a little bit of creativity I came up with this card.
I wanted a rounded button so I punched the smallest circle punch I had and then used the foam pad from my Stampin Up Piercing/Embossing kit and just rolled my stylus around until it became concave enough. A dimensional and voila! I wanted black ribbon so out came the black cardstock again and did the same thing to the top and bottom of the strip after cutting the "V" at the bottom. My hubby says he likes this one the best of my card making frenzy.
Thanks Julee for such a wonderful Mojo sketch. If you are interested, jump on over to MojoMonday blog and find out the details and deadlines.

Details:
Stamps: Verve Plain Jane
Paper: White, SU Black, Metallic Gold
Ink: Stampin Up! More Mustard (on EF), Basic Black, Encore Ultimate Metallic Gold
Accessories: Hole punch (standard size and SU smallest size), Cuttlebug Fancy Corners EF

Rain Puddles

Do you remember my memory that sparked the name of my company and now this blog? Read it here.

Well, I was so tickled to see my two children pouncing on the puddles in the parking lot on Tuesday this week, that it reassured me that my memory was so correct. They giggled bubbly and didn't care that they were getting their shoes, pants and eachother wet. They watched intently how the water came out from under their shoes and made ripples in the puddle. How extremely fun it was to just let my children be themselves. Carefree and full of creativity.

I didn't get in and jump with them, but my heart and soul was right there with them. I even nudged them on by asking them where the water was going in the gutter near by.

All this puddle jumping made me, well, creatively inspired to work on my logo. I pulled out my sketch pad and woodless pencils from my college stash of eons ago. And freely drew puddles and boots and splashes. Stay tuned. You might see the making of a long awaited logo.

Blessings....

Viva La Verve Challenge with a Button {Twist}

Amber over at Viva La Verve Challenge gave us a Friday Challenge for the first week of March that seemed to be an easy one. Apparently not easy for this jane. I ran off to play with paper and the sketch and then couldn't figure out a clever way to add buttons, so I moved to the Verve Stamps I own and none of them would fit in the spot I made. So I went with a couple of stamps from Stampin Up. I really need to get some more Verve Stamps. Oh yeah, the {twist}! In the end I just glue dotted the buttons on the bottom of my card and said, "Finished". Ugh.



The card didn't come out at all how I thought it would. Maybe next time I can work around the Verve Stamp and {twist} before I get to the paper and layout. {smile}


Stamps: Stampin Up! Expressive Flexible Phrases
Paper: Various 8 1/2 x 11 from the local craft store
Ink: Stampin Up! Positively Pink, Taken with Teal; Hampton Arts White Stamp Pad
Accessories: Black buttons, MS Hydrangea punch (smallest flower), SU! Scallop Edge Punch, Cuttlebug Forest branches and Spots and Dots, SU! Crystal Effects, Yellow Stickles Glue