Giggle

Zoinks! Looks like I forgot to post this one...Way back on November 12, Tracy hosted the weekly color challenge for the PTI forum; this time it was an inspiration challenge, based on this photo:
I really liked the plates in this picture, and wished I could be sitting at the table, having a party with that table setting. So I decided to make a plate on my card, and put it on a busy table cloth.

Mom likes the sentiment on the inside, so I printed a sentiment in Chopin Script:
"Hope your day is blissfully sparkly."
The card is really more square shape IRL, and is a bit larger than usual (5x5.5). Anastasia announced that our Christmas Crafting Colors for this year are green and silver (last year they were red and white). So, I had to put the silver glitter on the edge of the plate.

SUPPLIES: Stamps...hummingbird, flower garden (Inkadinkado); Ink...Pearlescent Poppy (Brilliance), Antique Linen Distress; Paper...Neenah Solar White, red from my stash, DP (Scenic Route); Misc...plain & scalloped circle nesties; white satin ribbon (Joann's); sterling glitter (Martha Stewart)

I'm going to send this to Mom tomorrow to get her in the holiday mood. She likes red, so I hope this will give her a giggle.

And here's something that gave me a giggle...it was in the window of a store (I won't say the name, so they won't get embarrassed). It just struck me as funny; like saying "food is good to eat," or "cold weather can make you cold." Hope it makes you giggle, too.

Autumn Pearls

Well, once again I needed a quick card. Maybe that's how it's going to be for this year: quick & simple...as long as I don't get sloppy, it should be okay. This one is for Mom & Dad for Thanksgiving. Their cards have to be mailed (they live 600 miles away) and the Post Office has been giving me quite a hard time with cards with bows and brads. So, I've started making their cards less layered and a bit more simple, just so I can mail it straight from my house (and not go in to the Post Office).

This one features my Inkadinkado set "Fall Season." I have used this set so much this Fall; I really thought I'd use it only for the tree, but I think I've used all of the images...

You can't tell from the photo, but the leaves are shimmery! This was the first time I used Perfect Pearls, and it is so much fun. You just stamp using the Perfect Medium (instead of ink), then brush on pigment powder to the wet image, then brush away the excess powder. After all images are pigmented, spray the whole thing lightly with water or hairspray (I used hairspray).

Here is a photo of the set I used and my little travel size hairspray. I applied the pigment powder with the smaller brush, then brushed away excess powder with the larger brush.


I colored some images with copper and some with bronze powder. I definitely need more practice with this stuff, though. I had some smudges and unevenness in pearl coverage, but it was still a lot of fun.


SUPPLIES: Paper...Natural White (Neenah), Caramel (Paper Company); Stamps...Fall Season (Inkadinkado); Font...Harrington (printed in dark brown on laser printer); Misc...ribbon tag dies (Spellbinders), brick piped ribbon (Martha Stewart), Antique Linen distress ink, Perfect Pearls (bronze & copper), Dove hairspray

And for absolutely no reason at all...

This a weird photo that I took the other day at the Costco parking lot. It just struck me as pretty: dark bird on dark branches against a gray sky. That bird was in no hurry, too. There were tons of cars in the parking lot and lots of traffic, but he just sat there...sat long enough for me to grab my camera out of the car, which really irritated the guy who wanted me to leave so he could have my parking spot (so he finally gave up and went somewhere else; the bird, however, stayed).

Somedays, it really helps to find "pretty" wherever you are; even if it is at a Costco parking lot.

Quick and Simple

Last week was the final session of our homeschool co-op for the Fall semester. So, the kids and I decided to make some Thank-You's to give to their teachers. I had a few cards in my stash that they could use, but we made a few more: simple, quick, easy!

The first one was inspired by this card from Michelle Wooderson's blog. I stamped an Itty bitty Lockhart apple on cardstock, then had the kids color it (I think they used a Copic marker). I thought it'd be cute to have "An apple for the Teacher" as a sentiment, so I had Sophia be in charge of putting all those tiny PTI Simple Alphabet letters on the grid block (she has young eyes to see tiny things, and nimble fingers to grasp those little guys). We stamped the sentiment on about 6 card bases, because we might as well mass-produce while we had the supplies out. I showed them a couple of layouts, and this is the one they picked:

Very quick and easy!! Plus, they made it themselves (I only cut the cardstock).

SUPPLIES: Paper...Solar White (Neenah), Berry Sweet (K&Co), Love Bird (Martha Stewart); Ink...Noir (Palette); Stamps...IB Apple (Lockhart), Simple Alphabet (PTI); Misc...Classic & Scalloped square Nesties, dimensionals, Copics

This next card is one I've been making a lot of lately. I sometimes leave the "Thank You" off and use it for a note card. Really simple, and it looks nice too! I have to laugh at this stamp set: It was Stamp of the Month at CHF in January 2008. I wasn't going to buy it, but put it in my cart so that I could get free shipping on my order. Little did I know that this would become one of my most used stamp sets!

I make these in white cardstock with black inked images as well as ivory cardstock with brown ink....Anastasia prefers the latter.

Just make a card base, emboss rectangle Nestie, stamp, color and done! I did also heat emboss the sentiment, because I like to do that.

SUPPLIES: Paper...Natural White (Neenah); Ink...Brown (Palette); Stamps...Image and sentiment (Stamp of the Month 1/08 Cornish Heritage Farms); Misc...clear EP, Prismacolors, OMS & blending stumps

And this is why my cards have to be quick and simple:I think I spend most of my time letting Pippin in and out of the house, and entertaining her...doesn't leave much time for very involved crafts!

Touchable Things

I made a couple of Inchies in September (wow, was it really a couple of months ago...seems like yesterday) for Ellen Hutson's "Inchie Inklings Challenge." The theme was 3-D Inchies...This challenge was alot of fun, and I actually had tons of ideas. I ended up making 2 inchies. Peter thought they were cute...which is sweet, because he never really comments on the cards we make, but these were worthy of his close-up examination; how sweet is that?


Anyways, the first was made using the Itty Bitty Lavender stamp. I found this neat product called "Flower Soft" (www.katysuedesigns.com) at my LSS. It comes in a variety of soft colors, but when I saw the lavender, I knew I just had to use in on my Lockhart stamp.

To use it, just apply glue to paper, and sprinkle the product on...let dry, then fluff it up a bit (kind of like you do with Fun Flock). I also decided to make some mini lavender stems for my daughter's doll. This was done by dipping small pieces of floral wire in glue, then pressing the Flower Soft on glued area.



The second inchie was done by stamping a Lockhart IB butterfly on vellum. I colored it with colored pencils, covered the image with versamark, then mixed glitter and clear embossing power together, and heated it. The result was sort of opalescent; kind of neat. Background paper is Ariel from Memory Box. I first stamped the sentiment on the paper, but messed up, so covered it with sentiment stamped on vellum. Sentiment is from PTI's Mixed Messages. I wanted more sparkles, so I applied glue and crystal glitter to the edges of the inchie...Then I glued the little butterfly on the paper so that it looked like her path was one of the swirls on the DP.




And for some more Touchable Things...
Ziggy's school had an Open House, and we got to check out some of his classes. The school recently opened a new permanent exhibit, which I absolutely love. It is called "Sensory Safari" and is a room filled with taxidermied wildlife for the students to touch. With each animal is a printed and brailled description of facts pertaining to that animal (as well as an audio description, which can be listened to on headphones).

Here are Ziggy and Peter checking out one of the animals:
I am so excited about this exhibit...when Ziggy was young, I had no way of showing him what wild or exotic animals looked like. Most children can watch a video, check photos on the internet, find a picture in a book, or even go to the zoo to see these animals. But blind children have no way to do this. I used to try to give him a sense of what these animals were like by using small toys. I would also "make" exotic animals by describing an animal based on known animals' parts (like a giraffe has neck kind of like a horse, but much longer...a lion's paws are like the cat's paws but 7 times as large). I know it seems like a trivial thing; there are other issues to worry about. But to not have this basic knowledge or exposure to nature is just one more thing that sets these kids apart as different. And it bugs me...

When Ziggy was 6 years old, we got to visit a sensory safari at a conference for the blind. I cried tears of joy to see him finally touch a lion...and it was quite a sight to see him with one hand in his mouth, and the other in a bear's mouth, comparing teeth! I hoped that it wouldn't be the only time in his life that he would see these things, though.

So now, he's 15, and gets to see the animals again. But not just the one time! The exhibit is there permanently..and not just for him, but for the other young blind students at the school. And that warms my heart...

These are some touchable things I love to look at.