Rain Puddles Design

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 rect...

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 cu...

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.

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 ...

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 thin...

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 coul...

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 s...

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.

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

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...

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 taugh...

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.

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, rep...

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.

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...

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 lo...

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! ...