Color Class

May is so quickly coming to a close and so I thought I had better get in one last post to wrap up the month.

AJ was so excited to finish school - he met one of the major goals he set for himself and he got the teacher he was hoping to for 4th grade. We finalized his timesheet/chore chart for the summer and came to an agreement in the allowance negotiations. He has been going to the chart when he gets bored and is looking for something to do rather than hazarding whatever Mom might pick for him. Perfect!

Cookie waiting for her boy to come play with her.

We've been taking a ton of stuff to Bookman's and decided to do a family puzzle together on the dining room table. We didn't want AJ to get too discouraged so started with a 500 piece puzzle. We did come up with one piece missing - right in the middle of the puzzle!! Oh well. It was fun and we'll go back for another one (another one with a lot less green leaves!).

I am excited! I just got a big ole box from Dick Blick Arts with supplies to go along with an online class I will be beginning soon. I signed up to take "COLOR LOVE 101 - whimsical art journaling" by Joanne Sharpe. It is a 5 week class and will be exploring all kinds of art materials and lettering techniques. I CAN'T WAIT!!! The class starts on June 11th, so I have until then to clear me some space to work in the craft room.

Look at all the pretty new art supplies!!

Well, hopefully I'll have some fun stuff to show you soon and we can get June off to some creative fun around here!! See ya!

Summer is Here!!

"School's Out?? Today?? No - seriously. Really?? Today?? Are you sure???"  This was my end of the conversation I have been having with my son and myself all morning long. Add to that the last three days of 104-106 degree temps and it is official - it's definitely summer! Those of you in other parts of the country or without children may disagree, but in our house here in Tucson - summer begins at 12:30pm today and it will be heralded in with a trip to Cold Stone. :0) Now to figure out how to get through the rest of summer!

We have a lot on our plate for this summer, AJ and I. Brian will be doing his thing, working, all summer long without a break it looks like. So AJ and I need to keep busy and try not to get on each other's nerves too badly. Thankfully, he has just discovered that reading is fun and not the chore he once thought. So we will be signing him up for every reading program out there. He is also going to be starting his summer schedule and this year it comes with an allowance! We are all very excited about that. So between the work he'll be doing for me, the chores Dad has lined up for him, and all his normal summer activities - summer is actually looking quite short.

Here is a sampling of what I've been up to this past week:

I am hosting a swap where we are making cards and coordinating 4x4 bag fronts (these will be attached to the front of a plain gift bag). Here is what I did::

This is the card.

Close up of the card front.

the 4x4 piece to attach to a gift bag.

Sorry, my pictures all seem a little blurry - need to figure out why! The next project I did is a tag for a swap I am doing:

The background was an experiment with distress inks and then a transparent modeling paste. I etched into the paste a bit and then added some pearl mist before stamping it with a script stamp. I love how it turned out. The only thing I wasn't happy with is that my calligraphy spread more than I wanted it to. Oh well. Next is an envie I did for a calligraphy swap (address blurred for privacy):

The envelope was first hit with some twinkling H2O's so it looks watercolored, but sparkly. And finally another project with my H2O's - I am part of a monthly postcard swap and so this month I did a resist technique with clear embossing powder and then watercolored on top of the design:

I love how these turned out! Well, that's it for this week, now I need to get in and clean up my mess so I can start in again. Have a great summer and be sure to find time to play!!

Chopped - Round 3 Results!

First, a recap of Round 3:


ROUND 3 - Desert course, A 3-D item or something altered.
Your mystery basket contains 5 ingredients for this round. All the ingredients must be included on your item in some way. Let's open your basket and see what you must use on your 3-D or altered item:

• Button
• Tape
• Metal
• bead
• something hand drawn

All items must be represented, however the items can be in whatever form you chose. You can combine the metal and the bead or button, if you don't have a bead or button, you could make one out of tape!..... you get the idea. Now, go make something!!


And now the results:::


Rec'd from Jessica:

I made a 12 pocket tag calendar album (still working on the monthly tags though)

• Button ---orange and red buttons
• Tape ---black tape with white dots
• Metal ---a silver metal brad
• Bead ---I had no beads so I used a star shaped button
• something hand drawn ---“2012” was handwritten/drawn (I have to be honest-I used repo tape so I could remove as I could not come up with anything
  hand drawn to fit the front—the book has monthly pockets with pull out tag inserts. The descriptions of photos/memories will all be handwritten and doodled on.)

Rec'd from Christi -

So here is what I came up with.  An explosion box.

It is a 3D item.

Button --  I have four on the center around the flower

Tape --  There is alot of tape on this one.  I used tons on this project and even used some red sticky tape which I had not used before.

Metal  --  The center of the flower in the middle of the explosion box is a metal brad.

Bead  --  I added to blue "bling" beads to the flowers.

Something Drawn  --  I hand drew the dash lines on the first layer of the explosion box.  On all four of the first items. 

Christi Murray

Independent Close to My Heart Consultant

Cedar Park, TX

 www.scrappingoodtime.blogspot.com

And here was mine:


My 3rd round is finally done! I chose to alter a metal tin. The top is covered in layers and layers of masking tape. I doodled the flower on top of that with sharpies  and then went over it all with distress ink to highlight the texture of the tape. It's finished off with a metal button and a string of beads on wire. I think I covered all the ingredients!!

Hope you all enjoyed playing along or watching us play anyway!! :0)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mom's Day to my wonderful Mom, my Mother-In-Law, and all of my mom friends! I hope you are all having a fantastic day!!

My Mom wanted some new turquoise earrings and I couldn't decide what kind of turquoise - so I did three!! This first pair is my favorite, but impossible to photograph. Very dangley and shinny!

This pair I wanted to be more of a natural turquoise look....

This last pair is more my mom's style. The beads have silver paint running through them.

Hope they arrived in time! Happy Mother's Day!!

I WON!!

I posted a link to LULU's wonderful blog and her 2012 Spring Give Away asking people to enter and guess what??? I WON!!!

I am so excited!! I have never won a blog contest giveaway and this one was HUGE!! So I am sending LuLu tons of happy thoughts and kisses and am so excited to be getting my craft on soon!

Please give her blog a looksie if you haven't yet, she has wonderful tutorials and lots of pretties to look at and is all around a fun gal to spend some time with online.

Thanks Again, LuLu!! and one more time.... WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!

Chopped Round 2- Results

Here are the submissions for round 2 so far:

Here is my funky card:

I decided to go with a card for this one. It's 6x6

I first stamped the large flowers in versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. Then I used some very watered down paint in a blue color and orange color over the top of everything. The M and the buckle on the flower are both chipboard painted with the orange paint. The ribbon was white, but dyed to match the blue color. I liked it and thought it looked funky, my husband said I just made a big 'ol mess. :0)

Cathy's Scrapbook page:

Ella chased this odd butterfly around all day - it was hard to photo but we got a few I am out of photo paper 

But you know how I love my phone book prints and loved this one

Nickalli's list:

paint- puffy dots on top of girls dress

chipboard- title

Embossing- still trying to locate my heat gun from retreat eeek lol (will check trunk again in the light tomorrow)

Ribbon- is the Orange lol 

www.leavingalegacyretreats.com   

http://ctmh.com/gcathy

http://petalsofcathyslife.blogspot.com/

Here is the outside and inside of a card Christi made:

I painted the chipboard at the top of the card with some brown paint.  I stamped an image on it but the paint was to dark for the image to show so I painted another one and just left it alone.  I embossed the lettering on the inside of the card.  Ribbon is brown on the side.  And orange is in the tree.  I think that I like the card better without the chipboard.....but it works.  Hope you guys like.

Christi Murray

Independent Close to My Heart Consultant

Cedar Park, TX

 www.scrappingoodtime.blogspot.com

Chopped Round 3

Alright you guys, here we go!! Last round

ROUND 3 - Desert course, A 3-D item or something altered.

Your mystery basket contains 5 ingredients for this round. All the ingredients must be included on your item in some way. Let's open your basket and see what you must use on your 3-D or altered item:

• Button
• Tape
• Metal
• bead
• something hand drawn

All items must be represented, however the items can be in whatever form you chose. You can combine the metal and the bead or button, if you don't have a bead or button, you could make one out of tape!..... you get the idea. Now, go make something!! These are due by Tuesday evening. Have fun!!

CHOPPED - Round 2

Would you like to join me in a game of crafter's style CHOPPED? I am playing with a group of on-line friends and we are going to be sharing the pictures of each round we complete. Please play along!! No eliminations, just send me a picture and I'll share it here.

ROUND 2 - Entree course, A Card or scrapbook layout.

Your mystery basket contains 5 ingredients for this round. All the ingredients must be included on your item in some way. Let's open your basket and see what you must use on your card or scrapbook layout:

• Paint
• Chipboard
• Embossing
• Ribbon
• the color orange

All items must be represented, however the items can be in whatever form you chose. Paint can be watercolor, acrylics, housepaint... whatever. Embossing can be dry or embossing powder, chipboard can be a purchased product or part of a cereal box..... you get the idea. Now, go make something and email me your completed project to nickalli@gmail.com then check back to see the completed projects for Round 2.

Chopped Round 1 - Results

Results from CHOPPED - Crafter's style round 1: These turned out so very very cute!! If you played along, please send me an email with a picture and I'll post it below! Round 2 will be posted soon!

Cathy's Book Marker

  Textured Paper- is the lavender scalloped 3birds Textured borders

  A Sticker-  Bookish 

  Green- matting

  Word/words- Phrase 

  Brad or eyelet - 2 in the flowers 

 PS- the ribbon was handmade for me by Betty Geis

www.leavingalegacyretreats.com   

http://ctmh.com/gcathy

http://petalsofcathyslife.blogspot.com/

Jessica's Book Marker:

Textured Paper – Green Paper was run thru a crimper

A Sticker – Kiss the Cook sticker pop dotted onto a square sticker with corner accents

Green - paper

Word/words – “Kiss the Cook” sticker

Brad or eyelet – coffee color brad in lower right hand corner

Christi's Book Marker:

Love that she did a corner bookmark! Here's what she posted about it:

Green on sticker and on paper which I ran through the machine to give it texture but it does not show in my pics.....tried several times.

 

Brad at the top along with wording.  Hope you like it.  This was a fun and simple one to make.

 

Christi Murray

Independent Close to My Heart Consultant

Cedar Park, TX

 www.scrappingoodtime.blogspot.com

And my submission for this Round:

Chopped challenge items: textured paper, sticker, words, brads or eyelets and green.

I used yellow cardstock and distressed the edges. There is textured handmade green paper at the bottom and top, up close it looks like it was made out of grass. The three flowers on the bottom all have eyelets in them. Everything else is from a cute set of stickers I loved but had no idea what to do with. The saying says:

My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness. ~ Michelangelo

LuLu's Give Away is almost here!!

Do you like mixed media? You know I do!! 


I love this site and LuLu is having a Spring Giveaway!! 

Check it out HERE. 


Please enter and win! And if you do win, remember... I'm now 40 and you love me... right? right?? 


Good Luck!!

CHOPPED - crafter's style

Would you like to join me in a game of crafter's style CHOPPED? I am playing with a group of on-line friends and we are going to be sharing the pictures of each round we complete. Please play along!! No eliminations, just send me a picture and I'll share it here.

ROUND 1 - Appetizer course, A Book Marker or something of similar size.

Your mystery basket contains 5 ingredients for this round. All the ingredients must be included on your item in some way. Let's open your basket and see what you must use on your book marker (or similar sized item):

• textured paper
• a sticker
• word/words
• brad or eyelets
• the color green

All items must be represented, however the items can be combined in any manner you like. For example your textured paper could be green, your brad or sticker could contain your word or words, your sticker could be textured and green.... you get the idea. Now, go make something and email me your completed project to nickalli@gmail.com then check back to see the completed projects for Round 1.

Round 2 - Entrée mystery basket posted tomorrow evening!

April in review

It's May. I did stuff in April, I really did - it just didn't make it on here. I was a bad blogger, a very bad blogger. Oh well. Life goes on... did I mention I turned 40 yesterday? Yep, life goes on and it goes by FAST!!

So here are just some pictures of the stuff I did do in April. Jewelry and calligraphy mostly.

First I'll start with the jewelry. My mom wanted one of those long blingy necklaces and sent me a bunch of stuff she found so I could put one together. I bought a few additional things and made a set of earrings to go with it.

My mom also loves flashy earrings and I try to make a pair in every color to go with whatever she's wearing, here are a few I made this month:

. 

I also joined a couple of calligraphy exchanges with an online group. Something fun to welcome spring. I'm not very good, but I love playing. I blocked out parts of the addresses for privacy. One of the exchanges was to do a zentangle envelope and exchange (black and white doodles).

zentangle card

front of zentangle envelope

back of zentangle envelope

And finally, just a few odds and ends. I made some funky cupcakes for a Mother and Son cupcake rodeo, some spring postcards and a couple of cards with gift certificates for teacher appreciation week. 

Outside of teacher's card

Inside of teacher's card

Hope you had fun glimpsing into my month of April!!