April 29, 2008

Patriotic arts

I've been working on some 4th of July projects. These were super easy to make with the help fo some chipboard, designer paper and punches.

The small red star at the top is simply designer paper covering a star chipboard. The navy stars were created by tracing the stencil that remained once I removed the initial chipboard star. I find by tracing the inside of your chipboard stencils you get a much better fit to cover your peice.

The bright red star on top of the Nayv and the little white star on top of that were both created using my Stampin' Up! star punches. These are peices I'm using for an upcoming class in June at the Whole Food market. I've even painted a pot to match!




I purchased this cute wooden Liberty heart at a local antique shop (although...I'm sure it is not antique). It was the perfect inspiration for creating the cardstock covered chipboard heart over on the left. I finished off the entire peice by rubbing my white craft pad on top. The small white stars is from a Christmas stamp set I purchased earlier in the year. Just goes to show how versatile rubberstamps really are.



April 27, 2008

Barq's Rootbeer memorabilia

Today I spent some time in the old Barq's Rootbeer warehouse. One of the owners emailed Friday asking if I was interested in any of the old bottles and crates. You Betcha! They have leased the warehouse and the old bottles and crates had to go.

There are LOTS more that still need to be moved, so, if you are in the Baton Rouge area, make plans to stop by. Best thing.....it is all for FREE! Here are a few pics. Spread the word to your friends who are interested in doing assemblages and such.



What a lovely display these make....even old and dusty.



An old rootbeer vending machine.






This machine is da BOMB! Amazing how things have changed.



I'll share the other photos tomorrow, my little one is calling me to bed.

April 26, 2008

Creative Cards

Well, the weekend is almost over. I spent hours catching up today on my papercrafts. First I tried to mimic the card Judy created in my previous post. You can see what I came up with below.



Here's a spin on the project. What do you think of the Ultra Fine Cosmo Glitter around those flowers? That is the 5 Petal Flower punch I cut in half for a different look.



My next project was working on Chipboard. Stampin' Up! is having a big promotion in the Month of May and I want to make sure everyone has ideas for using their chipboard. Most of my creations were geared toward the 4th of July and Patriotic colors. The past two years I have taken an interest in the red, white and blue patriotic colors. In fact, last year I took tons of photos with the patriotic theme of objects I came across. I'll be sharing those photos as the 4th nears (possibly sooner). Until then, here's a glimpse of what I worked on today. More photos to follow tomorrow so make sure you come back to see.


The tool I'm using here distresses the edges of cardstock. Each of the crevices on the grey wheel has a tiny blade for slightly shredding the edges. The other two tools are for scoring and a rotary cutter.



Lastly, I wandered out to the garden today to take a break between crafting. I photo my garden each year in hopes of making a Garden Album of some sorts. Maybe I'll get to that this year.





That should do it. I'll be back tomorrow to share my other chipboard projects. Hope to see you then.

April 25, 2008

Fancy Fold Mother's Day card

Look at this beautiful artwork my fellow demo Judy DiScipio created. Isn't it lovely? It uses the new Stampin' Up! 5 petal flower punch, Ginormous Flower stamp set, Priceless stamp set (which is what the vellum cardstock is embossed with), white embossing powder, white craft pad and mellow moss satin ribbon.
Thanks Judy. I LOVE it!

I share some of my other beautiful cards tomorrow. All great ideas for upcoming Mother's Day and Father's Day.

April 22, 2008

Extended weekend...

Hello friends! Been wondering where I've been? Here's the scoop.
First I'd like to say hello to all of my new stamping friends and vendors I'll be seeing many of you soon at my May 2nd Mother's Day, Father's Day event at Whole Foods in Baton Rouge.

Let's bring out my latest stamping ventures. May 2nd I will be holding another stamping workshop at the Whole Foods Market in Baton Rouge from 6:30pm - 8:00pm (check my EVENTS link in the sidebar for more info). If you'd like to join us, you should RSVP soon. The class is half filled already! This month we will be working on Mother's Day and Father's Day cards. Cards that can be used for any woman or man in your life really. As an added bonus, I will bring marble tiles and show everyone how to create a wonderful home accessory. Here's a sneak peek of the two cards we will be doing:

Here's an image of our feminine card:



...and our Masculine card:



The following is a sneak peek of my Rose Cottage Quik card class. This class will be available May 17th in the a.m. Find out all the details HERE. In a nutshell, I have created 12 cards from this one Simply Scrappi' Kit and still have 1/2 of the product left over to make another 12 cards! I couldn't think of anything better to for those end-of-the-year teacher gifts! What teacher wouldn't enjoy hand-made note cards?

Sneak peek 1:



Sneak Peek 2:



Sneak Peek 3:



Now, on to non-craft related business. This little beauty has nested once again in the coconut basket I had sitting on my grow rack. Last year she had 3 different broods (if that's the correct term for multiple dove pregnancies). Probably not the best thing to have around, a dove in a fiber basket. They carry lice and amongst other things, but I love having them close by. Did you know a Dove means Peace to your home (or so I was told)? The babies last year hung around the house for weeks (even though they could fly).

These babies must have hatched recently because Sunday I checked the nest and didn't see any babies. Can they grow that big in two days?

Here she is in her third trimester. Why, she doesn't look uncomfortable at all. What IS her secret?



....and here as a proud mom. Notice how she is holding her chest up much higher? Besides for being proud of her accomplishment, she is cover this second hatch ling underneath.



Other antics of Sunday included taking photos of the kids on my wooden star. My neighbor found this beauty at a garage sale a year ago and decided after a year she'd didn't want it. I LOVE it! She had it in her carport and you could see it from the street. It always looked so nice there. Now it's all mine. Not sure what it was used for originally, but I can tell you what it's good for...and what it's not.

It's GREAT for taking photos of the kids on. I've also taking photos of my cards displayed on it before.



What it's not good for is hanging on. When you find it in THIS position......



THIS happens.........














Poor baby. We were having so much fun until I walked inside for just one minute. Maybe if it wasn't the four year old it wouldn't have been so bad. He tried to run as it was coming down but just couldn't get far enough. Now we're dealing with a broken foot.



Needless to say I've been home since Monday with him, carrying him everywhere. He just started putting a little pressure on it today.




In between carrying our not so little one around all day, I popped out into my garden to see my beeeeeeeeutiful amaryllis blooming. Luckily I was able to see this before it broke, unlike my Red Lion Amaryllis (....due to the basketball bouncing mysteriously onto the patio table and knocking it off....hum).




Isn't she lovely? I'm going to make a garden album of it one day! What do you think of those triple layered petals??








Here she is from the side..








....and a close-up of the throat.








OK. I've got lots of time to make up at work tomorrow so time to hit the sack...and pick up the house...again.

April 15, 2008

Catchin' Up!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy working on displays for Allie's Store "Croppinsville" . Make sure you check out that link! She's got some great slide shows of The Paper Lofts wonderful papers. SO pretty! You'll want to also read through her latest post "Rainbows End" and leave a comment telling her to POST SOME PHOTOS of those wonderful finds she recently purchased. She's gonna have some amazing store displays.

I've been doing double duty, creating for Allie and preparing for the local Craft Show Parkview Baptist Spring Festival. I've actually got the craft show pretty much worked out as i've been doing them forever! I love being able to share with others how to use rubberstamps in their artwork and show them how stamping has progressed over the years. Here are a few samples of what I've created for the show.


First, more paper weights. These came out SO NICE! I'm really pleased with them. I used some of my designer paper Le Jardin, my retired French Script background and a Fleur de Lis from my Carte Postale stamp set.



Next, I have hand-crafted note cards. I think these came out great as well. They were created with a retired Simply Scrappin' kit. There are 11 cards in each bundle and ALL of them are different.

For those who haven't tried the Simply Scrappin' kits to make your own notecards, you don't know what you're missing out on. You get 12 x 12 sheets of solid cardstock & 12 x 12 sheets of patterned paper along with several sheets of stick-on die cuts. You only need to cut your paper down to size, fold over and start adhering the die cuts. You can get AT LEAST 22 cards from each pack. I know you can get that because each of these bundles below have 11 full sized cards in them and I still have paper and die-cuts left over from the kit




Well, I have lots to prepare before Thursday's setup so it's back to work!

April 10, 2008

Revealing Inspiration

Here are a few more images of my Yummy Blog purchase that I promised. First I should introduce the artist. Her name is Lisa Harshbarger and her blog is called "One Star Away". Lisa works mostly with glass and soldering. Lisa is also an admirer of Sally Jean (as am I).

Here is a sample of some works she posted on her blog "New Shop Things". You can find ALL of her wonderful creations in her ETSY store. Make sure you find the mermaid in her shop! I REALLLLLLLLY wanted it...but, I had my heart set on the party hat.

OK, now to share my yummy purchase from Lisa. I LOVE this piece! It even had my initial on it (I took that as a sign it was meant for ME).

Here's the full length piece.




A close-up


....here's the wonderful glittery "M".

April 9, 2008

Yummy Blog purchases

I have spent the past several months visiting countless Blogs and Flickr accounts, discovering the most AMAZING artists! These men and women (OK..mostly women..and stay at home moms at that) can transform anything and turn it into art. Each artist has inspired me in some way, whether through a particular color scheme, an embellishment or the entire composition.

Last week I made a wonderful purchase from a self-taught artist. I only discovered her last week through another blog. I'm going to share more about her lovely work and blog tomorrow, until then, enjoy this sneak peek of my yummy blog purchase that arrived in my mail just yesterday.


Office Accessories

It seems my weekend ran over into this week. I've been working on several projects at once, something every avid crafter does I'm sure. This Friday is my Carousel Purse class. The class will be held here at my home. It's been quite a while since I've held an actual class in my home (most have been at my local Whole Food Market). I'm preparing for several more classes at the house and just need to make sure the dates coordinate with our other scedules.


I've also been making a list of all the goodies I'm going to make for my friend Allie over at Croppinsville! Still pumped about being on that design team.


Last Fridays Whole Food card class (held the first Friday night of each month) was great. Here are a few samples of what everyone created.





Next month, we'll be designing cards for mom and dad in honor of Mother's and Father's day. Everyone attending will also be creating a hand-stamped tile, so make sure you register early, there will be limited seating. Class cost is $12 and you can read more by selecting the link on the sidebar "Melanies Events".

Here's one of my latest projects. It's a paper weight and I designed it for a friends website BuyLouisiana. He's got gaboodles of Fleur-de-lis home products and some speciality "Louisiana Foods", anything from crawfish to king cakes!

Here's a sneak peek of something I've created for him. I think they came out quite nice!



April 5, 2008

Croppinsville!!!

Hi Bloggers! I've got some BIG news! I've been selected to be part of the design team for the new Brick and Mortar scrappin' and stampin' store "CROPPINSVILLE".

I can't tell you how EXCITED I am! I met the owner Allie Gower a few months ago and we have been pow-wowing some fun project ideas.

Allie has got TONS of top-o the line products on the way to stock her store. She's got some great things planned like a "sneak peak crop" on National Scrapbooking Day followed by the "Grand Opening" on May 15th. Check out her blog and let's celebrate the big opening together!