A Couple of Weekend Projects

Hello! I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend. Mine has been wonderfully relaxing! We went and saw a performance of Chess in Concert, saw a couple of movies and just hung out. I also got to spend some quality time with my Copics in my crafting area. Michelle Perkett is having a design team call, info can be found here. I decided to use one of my all time favorite images of hers, Willow the Autumn Fairy. She is gorgeous colored in autumn colors, but I love coloring this image with a variety of colors. Right now I am in a blue/teal mood, so those were the colors I chose to work with for this card. I love pairing those blues with black too. I added some satin ribbon, some pearls and some Prima flowers to complete my card. Her wings were painted with Twinkling H20 paints.

(Copics used: Dress - BG000, BG01, BG02, BG05, BG07, BG09, Hair - YR23, YR24, E07, E19, E29, Flowers - RV21, RV25, RV29, Leaves - G20, G24, G29)

I also decided to make this journal using another one of Michelle's images. I made this for the preteen daughter of one of my friends. Pink and green are her favorite colors. After coloring the dragonfly with Copics, I traced over all the drawing lines with a glitter pen. I added ribbons that can be tied to keep the journal closed and some pink and green blingy flowers along the side. Thanks for visiting today!

Apron Card

Happy Friday to you all! I am off today but have a ton of errands to run and will start the day at the Jeep dealership getting one of my windows repaired. My MIL is going to go with me and drop it off and then we are going to do a little shopping and have lunch. It is so convenient that the Jeep place is across the street from Michael's and within a mile or two of both JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby! Not to mention all the other stores that we both enjoy shopping in together. I have been so busy lately with my kitchen re-do that I haven't had a ton of time in the crafting room. I am hoping to get some needlework pieces done this weekend and then once I get them framed and on the wall, I think I can call the kitchen pretty much done. I am so happy with the way it is coming together and will post pictures as soon as I get it finished.

Since I am going with a kind of retro theme in the kitchen and using some aprons as part of the decor, I was inspired to pull out one of my apron stamps by Karen Lockhart. I know I have at least one more from her and a few in digi form too. I am thinking of making some wall hangings using some apron images and coordinating papers to match the fabric I picked out for the curtains. This image was colored with Copics and I used DCWV papers.

I love aprons and even have a couple of the short ones that were made by my great-grandmother and passed along to me by my grandmother. My mom bought me a new apron for Christmas this year and when I was at Michael's last week I found a cute little apron for Samantha to wear when she is here cooking with me. If you have a budding little chef at your house, they have a bunch a cute, useable, kid sized cooking tools.

Thanks for dropping by!

Two Cup Morning

I loved this stamp the first time I saw it, but once I read the sentiment, I loved it even more. The monkey is too cute clutching his two cups of coffee, wearing his PJs and little bunny slippers. That is me in the morning just about any day though, it takes at least two cups of coffee to really get me going. I picked that DCWV paper because of all the circles reminded me of coffee rings. Thanks for dropping by to see me today!

Feb. Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop

I can't beleive it is already time for our next Designing DIVA Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop. The idea of this hop is to pull out some of your older supplies that haven't see any love in a while. Since I have been sorting through all my craft stuff, I am finding all kinds of things like that! You should have arrived her from Cindy's blog and if you want to start from the beginning you find start at Brenda's blog. If you do, I can guarantee you won't disappointed, there is some serious talent in this group.

Now on to my card. I have had this stamp for a very long time, so long that the manufacture's name is kind of unreadable! I love this image but for some reason it had gotten lost in the back of a drawer. After stamping the image, I colored it with Copics and then added some yellow Stickles to the center of each bloom. To finish it I used some purple ribbon that was at the very bottom of my ribbon holder and some little pearls. The paper is from a DCWV stack that I have had for a very long time. Other than the pearls, everything on here is an "oldie but goodie". Your next stop on the blog hop is Heather.

I have decided to make more standard A2 size cards from now on. I will still make larger ones when I am making something specific that I know I will be seeing the recipient in person, but I realized as I was going through my card stash, I have lots of 5x5 or even 6x6 cards and since those cost more to mail, they end up not getting mailed at all. I do like to send out my cards but have a limited budget for stamps and postage and I have decided I would rather send more cards to hopefully brighten the day of more people and I can do that if I stick to that standard size. Or does anyone have any suggestions for cost saving ways to mail the larger cards?

Thanks for stopping in today. Remember Heather is your next stop on the Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop!!

Happy Birthday Abby

Hello! We are going to be celebrating my niece Abby's 10th birthday tonight and this is the card that I made for her. To celebrate this birthday her mom has planned a fun night, with all the girls in the family. So my SIL, MIL, Abby and her other aunt are all going out to dinner, then Abby is going to get her ears pierced and we might manage to sneak in a little shopping too. Should be a lot of fun! We got her some pretty earrings that she can wear after the studs can come out. When I saw those rhinestone butterflies, the reminded me of the earrings so I wanted to include them on the card. 

I have mentioned that I have been in the process of moving my craft supplies and sorting through all my "stash". It is taken forever it seems like and I still have stuff to go through. It is amazing how much stuff one can buy and then forget you have it. Especially things that I bought for a specific project. I will use the items for whatever project that it was purchased for and then the leftovers seem to just get shoved into the back of a drawer. I also have a very large stack of images that are already colored that have just been sitting there waiting to make it onto a card. For the next several months (or years!) I am challenging myself to use those images and all those opened packages of embellishments on at least one card a week. 

Not only have I been working on organizing the crafting area, I have been trying to re-do and decorate the kitchen. I have shown you part of the items that will be used in that room and will post pictures as soon as I get it finished. I have gone through drawers, cabinets, rearranged and moved things trying to make the kitchen a little more functional. This kitchen was definitely not designed for someone that loves to cook in mind. I am trying it make a little more cook friendly. My Mom was here last weekend and we went to Hobby Lobby to pick out material for curtains, she has them made and is going to mail them back to me. After that, I will post some pictures. She is teasing me though, she texted me after they were done and said she liked them so much that she thought she might keep them and re-do her kitchen around them! Thanks for stopping by today!

Organizational Pictures

Wow, that took longer than I thought it would! I have been working on so many household projects lately. You might remember that it was our downstairs that had some flood damage last year. We had to rip out all of the carpet and everything. Since everything had to be moved out of the entire downstairs are we took advantage of the POD that was here and kept the stuff in there while we moved everything around. The large den area pre-flood was our bedroom; also in this area was our treadmill and some seating--a couch and a couple of chairs. The laundry area and my craft room was off of that area and then we also have a very small bedroom, bathroom and a storage room in what used to get the garage before hubby bought the house. We decided to convert this room back to the living room and moved my craft area into part of that space. As the water was still coming in, we were trying to move things out of the way and a lot of my craft stuff got shoved into the back (dry) corner and then other things got piled on top of that. We still had lots of boxes for when I moved in after we got married and a few from when Kip moved into the house. Plus moving all these rooms meant that the rooms upstairs got rearranged too. Our pre-flood living room is now the formal dining room, Kip's office is in another rooms and so is the master bedroom and the guest bedroom. To say the least, the house has been upside down for almost a year now. At times it was so overwhelming trying to get it back into some sort of order that I would just look at it and start crying. But finally it is coming together. 

Here are a couple of shots of my craft corner. I actually have three of these shelves but only two are pictured because the table is still a little messy and you could see it in the pictures. I don't have any pictures of the whole space yet because we still do not have furniture in the living room part. And you know how it is rearranging your craft stuff, you get it arranged and then when you sit down to craft, you realize it doesn't flow right or whatever so it gets rearranged. And then rearranged again! I am happy with the way the shelves are organized and so far this is really working for me and because it is working, it is easier to keep clean. I put labels on things so you can tell what they are and if you click on the picture, you will get an enlarged version and it will be easier to read the labels. I was going to do all the paper on one shelf, but the height of the individual shelves dictated what would go where to some degree.

Jenna and especially Samantha still craft over here with me quite a bit. Now the things that they use most often are easier for them to get. I still have to get down the stamp pads for them but since they are in a basket I can pull them all down when they are here to make it easier. Since like things are grouped together they are finding it easier to get what they need which means they can put it away on their own too. They each have their own baskets of things that they have bought with their money or things that I have bought them. Most things we share, but we all have a few things here and there that we have bought and are saving for specific projects that we keep in our own area. 

I do lots of different crafty related things and some are still in storage in the old crafting space. But the things I use most often are in the new space. Thanks for taking a look!