PAB Yellow and Red Color Challenge

Good Morning! Welcome to the second Pholkart Blessings color challenge! The colors for this challenge are RED and YELLOW. It just so happens that those are my favorite two colors so this was a fun challenge for me to do. I used this fun Back2School image for my projects today. 

I have a friend that teaches kindergarden in a low income school and she usually has a few students that are lacking school supplies. I know she puts lots of her own money into her classroom so I try and get a basket together for her at the beginning of the year with some of the basics from her class supply list. Not only am I able to help out a little, it works great for me since I LOVE to buy school supplies and have no little ones to buy them for, so it is a win-win for both of us. 

One of the things I love about digital images is the fact that I can change the size of them depending on the project that I am making. On this Post-It holder, I was able to make the image small enough to fit on this 5 x 7 frame. I added some alphabet paper from DCWV and some 3-D apple stickers to finish the project. 

I also wanted to make her an altered composition book, personalized with her name. I used the same image, but larger this time since I had a lot more area to work with. So they would coordinate, I used the same alphabet paper, the same red and yellow card stock papers and then I used a Sizzix alphabet to cut out the letters in her name. 

And here is the final basket:

We would love for you to join our challenge! 

Remember the colors are red and yellow and you can win 2 images of your choice from the Pholkart Blessings store. You do not have to use a Pholkkart Blessings for your entry, but if you are the randomly chosen winner, and you have used a Pholkart Blessings image, you will win an additional image of your choice. I can't wait to see your entry!!

Shadowbox for My Niece

Good Morning! I don't know about you, but I am very happy that the weekend is finally here. My birthday was Wednesday and Kip gave me tickets to see the musical Little Shop of Horrors, and the performance is tonight. I have seen it live before, but I adore musicals and can watch them over and over and over again. 

I have been working on this shadowbox for my niece for a couple of weeks now. I went back to my hometown while she was on spring break to spend some time with her, just the two of us. She is almost fourteen and still thinks hanging out with me is kind of cool. She definitely has a creative streak in her and that is something she identifies with me as something that we have in common. In the course of that visit she told me that her dream is to one day go to Paris. {A little background here, I grew up in a small town with very limited views of what could and could not be accomplished in one's life. I moved away and have been gone for many years. Everyone thought I was crazy for picking up and moving to a city where I knew no one and no one thought I would make it on my own. Add in the fact that I moved to a "big city" and that further cemented me as crazy}. Anyway, back to the shadowbox! Zoie also mentioned that she didn't think that was something that she could ever achieve and could never make happen. I asked why and she said that people laugh at her when she tells them that. I am a pretty laid back person and will almost never say anything negative about someone else, but that infuriated me! Basically I told her that they only reason that people laugh at other people's dreams is because their imagination is not big enough to dream and that if she can dream it, she can make it happen.

She is in the process of redoing her room so that day I took her shopping and we bought several Paris themed things. I had bought this shadowbox from Michael's a while back and decided it would be perfect as a type of dream board for her.

I started with painting the box in the colors of her room. I knew I wanted to include things about travel and Paris, but it took some thought to fill out all ten of those squares. 

The top one has a wooden Z that I painted black and a couple of fleur de lis, because she likes those and I thought it framed her initial nicely. and going left to right, there is a wooden word "believe" that I found at Jo-Ann's and painted black. That center square is the one that took me the longest to decide on what should go there. I wanted something that encouraged her to keep dreaming those dreams. I settled on this paper box that I painted black and added some pink and black paper to. The box had a frame so I popped it out, put in some pink paper and a sticker that says "dream". The box can pull out and open and is intended to be a space that she can write down her dreams and keep in one spot. The final square is a photo from a cafe in Paris that I bought at a craft fair a couple of weeks ago.

The three sections on the right side have a cross that is a charm from Blue Moon. I picked this because it was black and because Zoie likes ornate crosses. the section below that has a world map that I found on the Free Vintage Digi Stamps blog. The rectangle has a glass jar filled with pink, black and pearl beads.

These three sections contain a vintage postcard of the Eiffel Tower that I also found on the Free Vintage Digi Stamps site, there is also a mini canvas that I painted and a little flower picture that I just liked.

I took a close up of the canvas I painted and made. I knew I wanted to include some kind of encouraging quote. I decided to just go with what I told her in the beginning, "if you can imagine it, you can achieve it". I also knew I wanted something with texture and different colors. For some reason, I wanted to create something that vaguely reminded me of an old leather map case. To do that I knew that I needed different tones of color, but since I was making this for my girly niece, I decided to include a little pink and some glitter. It ended up looking like that picture I had in my head, and that doesn't always happen when I am painting! I had the map and passport from a Joilee's set and the Eiffel Tower brad from Hobby Lobby and added some silver rhinestones to set off the map.

If you are still reading this far, thank you!! It was important to me that make her something that would remind her to dream and that if she believes she can do it, she really can make it happen. I also wanted to share part of the story behind the making of this project as well so that you could understand why it was so important to me. 

Have a great weekend!!

Composition book

I have always had a love of paper and pens and pencils, it didn't just start with stamping and my love of patterned paper and Copics. When I was a little girl, my Grandmother and I shared a love of written words. Not only books, but things that we would write down from our own imaginations or sentences or quotes that we would hear and write down so as to better remember them. She was known for the off the wall gifts that she would give us each year for Christmas and birthdays. She was a little forgetful so my sister received about five nail dryers on consecutive birthdays and Christmases. I have always been a coupon clipper, and one year she presented me with a box of coupons that she had carefully clipped through the year. I don't think she realized that they expired! She was forever clipping things for magazines and the paper for me to read; things that struck her fancy that she thought I would appreciate. I have a box full of comics and other things that she clipped for me that I can't let go of. Some of these she had given to me and some my Mom found after my grandmother passed away. Most of them have the date of the paper they came from written by her on them. But no matter what gift she gave me, I always got something to write on--a pack of stationary, a journal, a notebook or just some pretty paper she found. It is very rare that you will ever see me without a notepad of some sort near by, there is always one in my purse or my car. I made this book for myself. I kept the embellishments to a minimum because I know it will get shoved into my iPad case, my computer bag, or a purse so I didn't want anything to rip off. The image is from Hampton Arts and was colored with Copics, the papers are from My Minds Eye and the Paper Studio, ric-rak is from Hobby Lobby and the "dream" and "hope" tickets are Tim Holtz.

I love gadgets too and do a lot of stuff on my iPad. Kip and I use an online calendar to keep up with shopping lists and our schedules, most of of recipes are now found online and I am always reading some blog or another! But I still always have paper and pen nearby too. When I catch myself reaching for my paper to write down a thought or quote I think of my grandmother. And it makes my heart smile.

Recipe Binder

Yesterday I told you about my some of my Christmas traditions. Another one is that I always take the girls shopping when it is time for them to give a gift to their mom. She has done an excellent job raising them to understand the joy of giving to others. She has always included them in the giving and having them select well thought out gifts. Both girls do get a lot of joy giving gifts to their friends and loved ones. Since she can't take them shopping and still be surprised, I take them shopping for Mother's Day, her birthday and Christmas gifts. I have so much fun doing this too. They usually have something in mind before we go out and this year was no exception. Samantha wanted to get her mom a cookbook because she is eating healthier and a more vegetarian diet so she was set on getting her a vegetarian cookbook. Jenna wanted to get her a charm for her bracelet, but she also pointed out that Judy could use a binder to organize all of the recipes that she has been given or printed off the internet. She knew she wanted a binder with dividers and sleeves to protect the recipes. This is the binder that I ended up making to hold all the loose recipes. I used paper from  Jillybean Soup, some buttons from my stash, a Sizzix alphabet and some Nestabilities. I wish I had thought to take the cover out of the binder before taking a photo, but I was in a hurry! I decided that the letters didn't stand out enough, so I took a white gel pen and traced around the letters. It made a huge difference, but I forgot to take another picture. 

 I also will take the girls for most of the day a week or so before Christmas so Judy can finish wrapping and do some last minute stuff. Sometimes that is the day that we do our shopping but we had already done that so we made and decorated cookies. We made sugar cookies, shortbread cookies and gingerbread men. 

 They take cookie decorating very seriously!

Almost every container of sprinkles that I have made it out for decorating.

Here are some of our final designs. The girls did almost all of the decorating, I did the "gingerdead man" ones for my zombie loving hubby. 

Frying Pan Cover

This was a very different project for me! First a quick backstory on our Christmas traditions: I met Jenna, Samantha and their mom, Judy when Jenna was three and Samantha was about eighteen months old. Judy's job situation changed and the new job required some travel so I became the girls' nanny. The first Christmas, she asked if I wanted to spend Christmas with them and I took her up on it. It was probably the best Christmas ever, other than the ones when I was a little kid. So spending the night with them became my new tradition. Kip and I got married the week before Christmas and it was late Christmas Eve when we returned from our honeymoon so we stayed in our home our first Christmas but after that, spending Christmas with the girls became our tradition. After being married a while, I gave up being the nanny, and so the new nanny is Ms. Faye. The newest tradition is that we all now spend Christmas with Judy and the girls! Ms. Faye wanted to give Judy a new frying pan (which is something she wanted) but because of the shape of them they aren't the easiest things to wrap. Even in a large gift bag, its awkward. She was watching something on TV one day and seen someone dress up the packaging on the pan to look like a Santa face. Ms. Faye is a quilter and does beautiful things but she doesn't work with paper, so she asked if I could pull something together for her. 

Since I didn't see the program she had seen, I just went on her description and this is what I came up with. The packaging had a large circle on the back with all the information about the pan. I traced that circle onto white paper to get my face. After that, I punched out a pink circle and two black ones. The Santa hat is covering the handle and after I glued down the eyes and mouth, I put down some tacky glue and then crumpled up some tissue paper for the beard and hair. I added some pink chalk around the cheek area too. I think it turned out pretty cute and Ms. Faye was happy with the wrapping. 

It's been interesting making these new traditions. I will be forever grateful for Judy for sharing her Christmas mornings with me,  and now my husband. As a single adult with no children, Christmas had lost a lot of it's magic. They gave me that back, and even as the girls are getting older, the magic is still there. The girls are old enough now that they can plan Christmas morning surprises and that brings another level of joy for all of us. I have learned that family can be the people that you choose to love, not just the people you are biologically linked to. 

Altered Dominos

A couple of weeks ago I was grocery shopping and found a huge box of dominoes on clearance for about $2.00. I think there are 90+ dominoes in that box! Being the clearance rack shopper that I am and adding that I love to alter things, into my cart they went. I decided to make these little butterfly pins first. After sanding them a little, I added color by using my Copic refills B12, V12 and RV02. When the color was dry I used this small butterfly stamp from Studio G and stamped the image using Staz On ink. Pretty quick and easy and I am happy with them. I am sure you will be seeing more domino projects in the future!

Altered Dominos

I decided to try something that I have been seeing a lot of lately. My altered dominos will be made into magnets. I would love to make some into necklaces but other than drilling holes through them, I don't know how to do that. I have seen them done others done with a clasp type thing but I am not sure what it is I need to be looking for.  If anyone knows, I would love it if you would leave me the info in the comments. 

The first three are all done with Ranger alcohol inks and then were stamped with black Staz On and then I went around the edge with a gold pen. The stamp set is from Clear Dollar Stamps. The second was done using Copic refill (B01) and the pearl additive from the Ranger line. After I got it the color I wanted it, I embossed it with white embossing powder and edges it with the silver pen. The snowman is from a Studio G set. 

Isn't this sweet? My hubby brought it home to me the other day. I love fresh pineapple!