Back, mostly...

I had a wonderful vacation! Even getting my wisdom teeth out wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I was able to walk out of the office mostly under my own steam, just a little wobbly. I was even off the couch and out the next day for a little while! Boy was I glad when I finally bit into the pizza and appetizer combo my mom and I ordered on day 3 when I could finally chew again. A girl can only eat mush for so long! So good seeing my friends and family and catching up. I was sad to leave.

One of my best friends even gave me a parting gift at her birthday party: a cold virus! I started feeling a bit off when I got back to Montreal but I figured it was just all the dry air from the airplanes. Silly me. By the next day I was fully sick. I got back Saturday and I am still coughing and having a stuffed up nose. Definitely on the mend finally though! Hopefully I'll be up to getting creative this weekend with all the fun stuff I got, including my Cuttlebug!

So here's a little something I thought I'd share. My mom's best friend loves Elvis. She is also my godmother and has been so great to my mom in the past couple of years especially. So I thought of something to give to her as a little thank you from me. I went to IKEA and got some decent but not overly expensive wine glasses. Then it was time to go to work!


I found a pattern for a stained glass Elvis online (my apologies, but I do not remember where) and then reworked it until it was usable for such a small surface. I used pewter and gold Pebeo vitrea outliners to trace the design, then filled it in with Pebeo vitrea paints. These are awesome and I've shown some other things with them. You bake them after they dry and then they are dishwasher safe! That's right, these glasses can go in the dishwasher! I made a set of 6 glasses for my mom's friend to put in her Elvis museum for parties with her friends, etc. She loved them and had no idea what they were when she got the UPS box.

Hope everyone has a good Friday tomorrow and has a great time!

Woohoo!

Well, no new cards to share today. I was a little busy as I did the language exam for my degree today. I was assured time and again by the Graduate Program Assistant that it was no big deal, easy to pass. Basically you get a page with an excerpt from some text in French on the religion you study. My supervisor, for the record, gives the most to translate. 5 paragraphs may not sound like much, but it takes a while if it is a relatively sophisticated text and your vocab is only so so. I love my monster french/english dictionary. Anyway, 2.5 hours later I handed in my handwritten pages and called it good enough. Most of it actually made sense! I won't hear anything for a couple weeks as my supervisor is away.

On a side note, I hope I get at least one more card in but I am going on vacation starting Friday. I'm going to visit my parents and all my friends back home for a couple weeks. Also getting my wisdom teeth removed so I'll get nice pain pills and everything! So hopefully I get another card done and posted, but if not, I'll be back after May 18th! My blog surfing will also be non-existent because there are just too many things to do in 2 weeks with people I am away from too much! Looking forward to moving home next year!

Cheers to all!

Martinis for Jen's SFYTT!

I love Jen del Muro's SFYTT! Always makes Saturdays so much fun, even if I don't have time to do the sketch. But I did this week!

I've had this martini paper for a while and I knew I wanted to make a congrats card, probably for the day my friend finally finishes her MA thesis. When I saw Jen's sketch this weekend this seemed perfect! I also bought Sandylion Essentials martini stickers a while back from a dollar store and knew they were going with this. The clear glass is difficult to see, but I did add some shading around it on the cardstock to help it stand out a bit more. The shaker is silver, hence the little reflection on it.

The blue cardstock seemed too plain so I added some hand-drawn flourishes. The white paper I'm not sure of. I used red ink around the edges but not sure I totally love it. It will be ok though. Overall I really like the card. Lots of room inside to write nice things or find something silly to put inside!

Recipe:

Paper: "Cheers" by Karen Foster, white, blue and green cardstock

Ink: light green and red from ColorBox Primary colour wheel

Accessories: Martini stickers by Sandylion Essentials, red ric rak by Offray, black pen

So cheers to all of you!

Party Owls for Lauren's Sketch

Still digging the owls! Today I pulled out both Oliver and Olivia sets to find the perfect owls for Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch. I thought her samples were lots of fun and I just love the 4 circle arrangement.

The owls I picked just looked totally perfect. The one in the upper left looks like she's flying high in excitement! Or jumping. And the little boy in top right looks a little shocked. As does the little girl below him! And the bigger one in the bottom left definitely looks interested and surprised! It is a bit of an owl party. So a congratulations card seemed perfect!

It is hard to see, but there is a little glitter blue on some of the blue circles on the bottom pp. I had to add a little sparkle to it! I also cut a small slit in the fold of the card and threaded the ribbon through so it is still visible inside.

Recipe:

Stamps: Olivia and Pals and Oliver and Friends by Sassafras Lass

Ink: Brilliance coffee bean

Paper: beach design by EK Success, blue cardstock, green paper (Walmart pack)

Accessories: seafoam polkadot from Michael's, congratulations rubon, blue glitter glue

More Cute Owls!

Did I mention I love owls? hehe. They are just so cute and so "in" this season. So I stocked up. This is from Olivia and Friends by Sassafras Lass. I like that some of the stamps look like kids' doodles and some are like this, just so sweet! The two sets, Oliver and Olivia, work together great because you get a branch and cloud with Oliver and two versions of "hoo!" with Olivia. Yummy!

So I've been posting that I was going to CASE a card by Dawn McVey. Well, this is it. You can see Dawn's card on her blog. I loved it. I was scrolling back through her blog, trying to figure out which card I wanted to case. I'd seen a few that I thought were just too much fun but some of them were going to be a pain (lots of circles in different sizes when one only has a single circle punch means lots of cutting down and drawing circles by hand and ick!). I looked at this one again and it hit me that I could use owls!

I put together the base card and the layer of blue design paper, then looked in my ribbon to see what would go. Yummy teal with the yellow! I used it previously here with Jammybella, just ruching it by pulling the yellow strand that comes threaded through it.

The owls were stamped in pink chalk ink on yellow paper and turned out a cute orange. The same with the "hoo!" stamp. I played around with how I was going to sit the owls but this worked best since I didn't quite draw my line at 1/3 of the card. When I got them on I stared at the card and was feeling all squirmy about all that plain orange paper. It just looked so bare, especially with the pattern at the bottom. Something had to happen. So I confined myself to adding 4 dew drops. I am still getting used to placing Dew Drops and the Glossy Accents I used as glue smeared just a little. I think I need to buy some craft tweezers because these things stick to my fingers just enough.

Amazingly enough, I actually think it turned out finished. I am resisting the urge to do anything more to the top. I will definitely have to play around more with this sort of clean style. Of course, I am not giving up all my layering and decorating and adding just a few more bits. But I'm going to try to push myself a bit to do less occasionally.

Recipe:

Stamps: Olivia and Friends by Sassafras Lass

Ink: Orchid Pastel chalk by ColorBox

Paper: blue daisies by K&Co, sunrise cardstock

Accessories: teal and yellow ribbon from Michael's, Flame Dew Drops, orange shimmer brad

ETA: So I couldn't help bringing this up... Have you ever found the perfect pair of shoes, tried them on, felt so comfortable, bought them, brought them home, only to discover they are half a size too large? I was stupidly wearing jeans when I bought them and didn't realize that the heel sticks out too far. They're a pair of cork wedges with cute straps and are super comfortable. The straps are shammi-soft gold and won't dig in or anything. I usually wear flats and I was wanting to find a pair of heels or something heel-like that would actually be wearable during the summer. These were at Winners (Canadian T.J. Maxx) and so were not too expensive. But I just don't think I can keep these shoes. So disappointing. I have an awful time finding shoes I like and will wear. I even found another store that had the same style (for $40 more!) and discovered they don't make half sizes and the next size down was too small and wouldn't even go on my foot. There is no hope of finding this particular shoe in a size that will fit. :( I did, however, get a cute pair of gold heels for very cheap. With reason, since none of the shoe is leather, but they are cute and wearable. But not nearly as great as the wedges. Alas, my search continues.

Gift for Dad

I know it is very early to be posting things for Father's Day, but I have seen some cute stuff and thought I would share what I put together. My dad isn't much for collecting photos. He took videos, but he was more likely to be in the photographs. I had some photos on my computer of my childhood and realized that a large number of them were of me and my dad. I've always been Daddy's little girl so this seemed like a great way to say thanks and give him a reminder of all the stuff we've done together.

I started off with baby stuff. My parents adopted me so I wrote about that and had a cute picture of getting a bath in the sink. It's been a long time since I fit in there!

I also had a picture of my baptism with my dad holding me. How perfect?

Halloween has always been big with my dad. He loves dressing up in costumes and was always excited to get me dressed up and go trick-or-treating with me. One picture is of me when I was little, one when I was a teenager.

There were many road trips in my life, and dad was on almost all of them. We did trips to the cottage and we stopped to take pictures of a Prairie Lily on one. I also had to mention my cute little beetle that my dad helped me get.

Then there was graduation. Proud papa was there the day I got my first degree.

The last picture is from the drive my dad did helping me move. We drove across the country and happened to find the town where Winnie came from. Winnie would be the live bear that a Canadian soldier donated to the London Zoo. That bear later inspired A. A. Milne to write Winnie-The-Pooh. Disney endorsed a statue there and there is a cute little local museum. Winnie the Pooh is special to myself and my dad and has been. So it was just too perfect.


All in all, I am very happy with how the little book turned out. The ribbon is also special. I'm looking forward to sharing it with him! He'll be getting it early as I won't be home for Father's Day but I will be for Mother's Day. We'll just have to merge the two in our family this year!

The outside edges of the book were painted with gold paint to finish off the project.

Card Box

I love my new card box. The box I had made last was just too small to hold all the cards I make. It wasn't wide enough to do two stacks of smaller cards so there was lots of empty space. Moreover, I needed something to hold all the cards I had made for my friend. The box I had made previously was perfect for that so I was in need of something new. I found a great undecorated "recipe box" at my LSS and bought it. It was just perfect, obviously sized for potentially putting cards in it since it would fit a regular card you could buy in a store. It will never see any, but I am happy with it.

I bought all the matterials at my LSS. Patterned paper, a sheet of coordinating pieces by My Mind's Eye, flowers, Dew Drops, letters and ribbon. Yum! I like how it came together although it might be too "busy" for some people. But it's just so bright and fun!

I used Mod Podge to glue on the paper covering the box except for the central pieces on the top. Those were attached using Teriffically Tacky Tape to avoid messing them up. I realized in the end that I got the very center red piece a little crooked but I couldn't fix it and it isn't too bad. The brackets are from the coordinating sheet by My Mind's Eye, the letters are Thickers. The Dew Drops and flowers were attached using Glossy Accents (got that tip from a blog although I forget whose, sorry for that). The ribbon went on with Terrifically Tacky Tape.

All in all, I'm stoked. I still have to decorate the 6 chipboard dividers that came in the box, but I need to see if I can find some cardstock that will go with the patterned paper. That's right, I didn't get it all properly planned out even on my 2nd trip to the LSS. Hopefully DeSerres will have some that will match. The colours I have are all just a bit off. Very frustrating, but not too unexpected.



Recipe:
Papers: Star Brigth Dotty Dude, Day Dream Check Her Out, and Day Dream Accessories Sheet from the Just Dreamy line by MME, Organic Poppy from Bo-Bunny's Back to Backs.
Accessories: Poolside Thickers, flame and water Dew Drops, Heidi Grace Aqua common flowers, blue and yellow checked ribbon from my LSS, Glossy Accents, Terifically Tacky Tape, Mod Podge.


As soon as I get the dividers decorated I will post them also. Could be a couple days. The next project is probably a card inspired by Dawn McVey. If you don't know her then you should definitely check out her blog. She does such beautiful cards and her style is so simple and clean and classy. Plus she's just such a sweetie! I always love posting comments on her blog because she writes me such cute emails back! That, and making her laugh is just fun! So now that she's heard time and again how envious I am of her style and how difficult I find it to just leave a card alone I have to try. If I fail and have to clutter up a card then she'll get a good laugh out of it. So hopefully I can do that perhaps this afternoon!

And I will be praying for a thunderstorm. It is humid and sticky here and I do not like it! Plus I miss thunderstorms. I grew up on the prairies where you could watch the storm coming and enjoy the thunder and lightning. Here in Montreal there isn't much of that and it is a bit disappointing. So here's hoping!

SFYTT with Jammybella!

I finally got a card done for Jen's SFYTT. A bit late, but I was busy with school stuff. I had this image stamped and coloured ages ago but I hadn't come up with a card for it to go with yet. I just love Jammybella and her teddy bear!

The flowers on her pants and shirt have been coloured with a Stardust pen to add a bit of glitter. The flourish on the yellow is actually yellow glitter from the We R Memory Keepers "Foil Glitter Flock" rub on kit. I love this stuff. Makes it so easy and minimally messy. Admittedly sometimes there isn't quite enough glue or it doesn't quite transfer, but I'm pretty sure that's more to do with my error than the product.

Recipe:

Stamps: jammybella by Stamping Bellas

Ink: black by ColorBox

Paper: purple bazzil cardstock, metallic teal (maybe bazzil?), pale yellow and white cardstock

Other: We R Memory Keepers Glitter Foil Flock rubons, ribbon from Michael's, MM epoxy button, "Friends" rubon, black pen, watercolour pencil crayons, Sakura Stardust pen, primas, MM brads

And a special hooray for having completed the last course of my degree! Now on to the big exams. I'm actually kinda excited about them honestly.

Keeping my LSS in business...

Not that Scrapbook Centrale needs my help. From reading their forums it's clear I am not the only one who goes in and comes out trying not to think about the credit card bill. But definitely worth it. I got Dew Drops! "Water" and "Flame." Between the two it should cover most of what I was wanting them for. I also picked up supplies for my new card box (a Be Creative blank recipe box) so I can get it decorated in the next little while! My Mind's Eye and BoBunny papers, some letters, gorgeous ribbon, and some Heidi Grace flowers. Can't wait!

I also had to grab the Olivia and Pals clear stamps by Sassafras Lass. Now I have both sets, boy and girl owls! Maybe a couple for my box? And definitely more cute cards and fun projects! Love my owls!

Hopefully I'll manage something tonight. Trying to finish up last minute research for my paper which is due tomorrow by email. Hard to believe this is the last paper of my coursework for my PhD. Once I email it in my coursework will be complete! Sure, I'll still have 3 years' worth of work to go before I'm all done, but it is very exciting!

And I'm loving the gorgeous weather outside! Cheers to all!

Tool Time Got Inked!

When I saw the sneak peeks of the Hanna Stamps set Tool Time at first I wasn't sure what I thought. Then I looked at it again and I realized it would be perfect. My dad is a handy man. He has always been a jack-of-all-trades, building me a 2 story playhouse and putting electrical wiring in it, fixing stuff that goes wrong at the house, repairing his machinery when he farmed, etc. He grew up that way. Being Daddy's little girl, I went to the farm with him and he and my grandpa amused me by giving me tools to play with, setting up blocks of wood with nails started for me to hammer in. Those nails spelled out my name, by the way, and my dad still has those blocks on his desk at home. As I got older dad got me to help with projects. When I moved out on my own I requested tools for Christmas from my dad. Afterall, he knew what I would need. Then I requested some tools to put in my car after growing up with dad's truck being the moveable tool kit. Most recently I requested a drill which he helped me pick out. So tools definitely make me think of my dad.

At the same time, I feel relatively competent with at least some tools these days. Not big power tools, and only somewhat with my drill, but still. So a set with a girl and tools seemed just right.

I got my set on Thursday in the mail but hadn't had a chance to play with it much until yesterday. I stamped everything. Didn't use it all on this card (although the envelope still needs decorating) but I just had to see it all. The quality is awesome. I coloured in Hanna and the tools with watercolour pencil crayons. I chose to give Hanna short hair since my hair hasn't been long for years, but it was easy since it just meant cutting out a few pieces that I didn't think to mask. Then I went over all the tools with my Stardust glitter pen and glossy accents to make them stand out. Cut everything out and voila! The base card was stamped with a paisley design in a light brown which just barely shows but reminds me of a faded hanky. The blue paper is Bazzil cardstock and with the texture it reminds me a bit of faded denim. I love how it turned out!

Recipe:

Stamps: Tool Time by Hannah Stamps, paisley by Inkadinkado

Ink: black and light brown by ColorBox

Paper: faded blue cardstock by Bazzil, wood grain dp, and red cardstock, Measurement paper by 7gypsies

Other: dimensionals, watercolour pencil crayons, Glossy Accents, Sakura Stardust pen, brushed pewter brads, white Sakura gel pen, black Sakura glaze pen

Loving the gorgeous day here today. Time to get lots of work done on my paper and hopefully get around to a couple sketches (Jen's and Beate's). I might even challenge myself to try something in the style of the fab Dawn McVey since I keep saying how much I love her style and how incapable I seem of managing anything that clean.