random.on purpose.

Good Day, Sunshine!

I'm still playing along with the Lovefest challenges on Splitcoast, and managed to squeeze in one of the daily challenges, as well!  Friday's challenges are "Free For All", and this past Friday's challenge was to "show a little sunshine".  One of the Lovefest challenges was to doodle on a card.  I made this:

The lettering is a throwback to my high school days ('70's, baby), and the rest is just to see if I could...  No stamps or anything (look Ma, no net!) - just markers and a Micron pen.  I was going to leave it as a one-layer card, but decided that it looks better with the orange behind it.

Another challenge was to share something about storage/organization (hmmm, do I ever do that?)  My latest fun find that I've re-purposed is one of these medicine shelf organizers.  It works really well for acrylic blocks, small scissors, piercers, tweezers, a Stamp-a-ma-jig, a Tiny Attacher, etc.:

Inside the drawer are the smallest blocks, refills for the attacher, erasers and pencil sharpeners:

Yes, I realize that my blocks are a mess.  That just means that I USE them - go, me!

Alrighty, then - I have LOTS of other projects waiting for my attention, so I'm off to see what I can accomplish before the day is completely gone!  Have a good one!

I Love You, Drooly

Beginning on Valentine's Day and continuing through until the 25th, Splitcoast Stampers' Member Companies (stamp-related companies that pay a fee or something to join SCS and have their own forums and announcements and ads and such - or something along those lines) are having a "Lovefest".  Challenges and prizes and "getting to know you" posts and such-like.  I made two cards last night, and guess what?  NEITHER of them is a Christmas card!  Are you as shocked as I am?

This card was for the "Puppy Love" challenge that kicked off the whole event.  We were asked to make a card with a furry critter.  Back in the day (and I'm mean WAAAAAY back!) I had some punny Valentine stickers, and one of them was a bulldog with this caption, which has (obviously) stayed with me ever since.  Yes - that's the sort of stuff that Odd Brain collects...

The bulldog has a flag on his chest and I contemplated cutting the stamp apart (I've been known to cannibalize others), but there was no clean way to do it, so I resorted to camouflage - a diecut heart and two punched hearts there.  The edging on the diecut heart is a strip of text-weight paper punched with Stampin'Up!'s pinking hearts border punch, trimmed quite narrow, and snipped between the hearts to allow it to "bend" around the curves.  The other happy thing is that the pawprint that came with the dog has heart-shaped pads is you stamp them upside-down - bonus!

Stampingbella hosted the next challenge, and we were asked to use a favorite spring stamp.  This is their "Pippa Loves to Plant" image, from the Uptown Girls collection.  She's fun to color, and this card will be going to my friend Della for her birthday, as she is an avid gardener and likely to appreciate it...  Because of the shape of the image (triangular) and the shape of the panel (inverted square), there was a lot of white space in the upper corners.  My answer was to cut a couple of slits to feed a ribbon through, wrap it around the back of the card, and tie it on the right side - done!

I guess that's about it for now - I'm off to breakfast as soon as Greg re-discovers the driveway (more snow last night - there's a reason that word has four letters, ya know).  We'll see what the rest of the day brings!  Have a good one, and stay warm!

CARD ONE:  Stamps: Inkadinkado G'Day mini set, unknown alphabet, Basic Grey Two Scoops Heart Smudge; Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Close to My Heart Dutch Blue, Versafine Onyx Black; Paper: Stampin'Up! Purely Pomegranate, Georgia Pacific White; Tools/Accessories: Stampin'Up! pinking heart border punch, EK Success mini folk heart punch, Spellbinders Vines of Passion die, The Cat's Pajamas Talk to Me die, Bic, Prismacolor and Spectrum Noir markers, Fiskars ladybug decorative-edge scissors

CARD TWO:  Stamps: Stampingbella Uptown Girl Pippa Loves to Plant; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Paper:  Stampin'Up! Pink Pirouette, Georgia Pacific White, DCWV patterned paper; Tools/Accessories: Lifestyle Crafts inverted square die, ribbon, Bic, Prismacolor and Spectrum Noir markers

Ink Cube Storage

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you up front that this was not the idea that I mentioned in my post about making your own "stampin' spots".  I planned to make a little "ink dresser", with drawers that fit ten cubes each and would sit nicely on a shelf or desk and look oh-so-cute.  I had the drawers figured out and a couple of them made, but hadn't started on the shell to slide them into.  A trip to the grocery store sidetracked that plan, and what I'm presenting here is the new idea...

I shop at Wegman's - a regional chain that carries a wide variety of items besides groceries, and brings in things from various places that you might not expect (one of my daughters lives in the wine country of California and was giddy when she spied her favorite craft beer from a small brewery there in our store all the way out here in central New York, for example).  But, I digress...

Wegman's is currently having a sale on storage/organizational-type items, and I spied these:

They are Really Useful Boxes - specifically Really Useful Pencil Boxes.  If you can't find them locally, I've got you covered ('cuz I'm cool like that).  Go HERE.  Lots and lots of other options available at that link (and it's good for US and UK), too...  One of the reasons I abandoned the earlier plan in favor of the new one is that - while the lids close fairly tightly - they are not "airtight", and I didn't want to risk having them drying out too quickly.  This new plan essentially locks them in a little more securely.

I bought a couple of the pencil boxes ($1.99 each) to test my plan.  The "drawers" that I made did, indeed fit inside the box as a second layer, so I can get twenty of the DIY spots in one of these little really, really useful boxes!  Lookee:

Yes, there is some wiggle room, but I'm totally fine with that, as I need to be able to get the little things out of the box without swearing - there's room for my fingers to get in there and grab ahold.  Ditto on the space around the "drawer", which is now - obviously - a "tray" instead.

I made the drawer/tray from matboard.  I bought a "value pack" at Hobby Lobby.  Here's a link for one similar:  Mat Board Value Pack.  The one I bought is 11" x 14", but you'll have less waste if you go with the 8" x 10", anyway...   Cut a piece 4" x 7 1/2" and score 1/2" all around.  To score mat board, you actually cut through several of the layers, while leaving some intact, so you can fold it up more easily.  Cut away the corners completely, so you have something that looks like this:

When you fold up the sides, the cuts are on the OUTSIDE, and the intact layers are on the INSIDE.  I just used Scotch tape to tape the corners (going for function here), but you could go all crazy with your washi tape if you wanted to up the cuteness factor...

A couple of things you need to know:  This plan will ONLY work if you use the smallest of the boxes that come in this set (of which there are only 16):

If you use the larger ones (which are still quite small, just not as) then you will need to scope the other Really Useful Boxes link above for a size that works, or - easiest solution - leave them in the case they came in!   I checked to see if Darice offered the mini boxes by themselves, but couldn't find any.   An alternative that looked promising were these:

You may not even need a case of any kind, as they appear to stack quite nicely.  If you go that route, or if you buy the uninked cubes or ready-made, already-inked "spots" (like the Hero Hues), there are a couple of other options;  Back when I had all of Stampin'Up!'s spots (which I gifted to a friend who was just starting out in the stamping thing), I had them in the little carrying case pictured above.  Here's a partially-filled one, so you can see, sort of:

They all just stack in there and the whole thing sits upright on a shelf like a little suitcase (It would work that way for the boxes that come in it, as well).  There are 24 spots in there now, so it obviously holds quite a few.  The most obvious downside is getting the little cubes in and out.  I found it kind of a nuisance, anyway...

Another option would be to re-purpose the clamshell cases that Stampin'Up!'s wood-mounted sets used to come in:

The one pictured above is the 6" x 9" size.  Twenty-four cubes fit in there just right!  (Any guesses as to which of the above cubes has seen the most use, lol?)  Just in case you were wondering about size comparisons, here's a visual for that:

I think I've just about covered the whole shebang on this topic, so I'm going to stop now!  If I've overlooked something or if you still have questions, shoot me an email!  Happy Valentine's Day, have a fabulous weekend, and thanks for stopping by!  (And if you're in an area buried under snow, my sincerest sympathies - we're digging out, too...)

Not So Grim, After All...

I decided that it would be a good idea to show the digital stamps on a card or something if/when I post them to sell, in addition to just a pic of the stamp itself, so I set about playing with a couple of them today.  Here's the first one:

Stamp: RandomBliss digital Not-So-Grim Reaper; Paper: Core'ordinations Black Magic, DCWV green and black textured cardstock; Accessories/tools: DIY texture plate, Martha Stewart graveyard border punch, Recollections ribbon, colored pencils, Gamsol

I used the Gamsol Magic technique to color my reaper.  It just seemed like he should have an acid green aura, so I went with it...  Curious about the embossed/sanded bats in the background?  Read on:

Remember this post, where I shared how I made my own texture plate?  Yeah, I forgot about it, too, until I read a thread about making them on Splitcoast a couple of weeks ago...  I decided that I needed to make one with bats for Halloween (after all, I have new digi stamps that need company), so I got a Ritz cracker box and my Martha Stewart bat punch and made this:

Here's a closeup of the texture:

After I ran the cardstock through the Cuttlebug with my new texture plate, I sanded the surface to expose the color core (in real life it's yellow, not white).  I got to use some fun Halloween ribbon I bought on clearance last year, and an as-yet-unused Martha Stewart border punch, too!  I didn't really think the card needed much else, so I left it alone.

And that's that!  I have a witch all colored and ready to go, too, but I'm not sure when I'll actually get the card made.  I didn't want to hold up this post waiting on that card ('cuz I'm just so excited to share what fun I'm having, don'tcha know?), so...

Thanks for stopping by, and please post a link if you decide to make your own texture plate - I'd LOVE to see what you come up with!  G'night!

Mileage

Happy Saturday Night!  Did you miss me?  I've been a tad busy, since I'm back to work and found my mojo again (at least a little)!

If you're like me - and most of the rest of the known world - you like to get the most "bang for your buck" or "mileage" when you spend your hard-earned cash on anything.  This is especially true for me when I buy crafty stuff - I like to look for multiple uses for things.

Sherry and I went on a mini-adventure last week (or was it the week before?  I lose track...) and I bought two Pure Innocence stamp sets.  My favorite one was "My Umbrella", which is the set I'm featuring in this post.  It has one image and two sentiments, and the image lends itself very well to paper piecing, so I made this with the main stamp:

All of the papers used here are from the Basic Grey Urban Prairie paper pad.  I got a little carried away with the pockets and the boots, but I thought she turned out pretty cute!  The sentiment is a straight-line stamp, but I wanted a vertical sentiment, so I stamped one word at a time.  I used a Souffle pen for the umbrella handle.

While Sherry and I were browsing at Stampin' and Scrappin' Time (which is where I bought these), I spied a quote on a stamp that I really liked and filed away in Odd Brain for future reference.  Of course, I had to pull it out and make something with it, so I paper pieced just the boots from the main image and made this:

I used Urban Prairie on some Kraft, which I embossed with a raindrop texture plate from Fiskars (which is next to impossible to see in the pic), and also cut with Nestabilities Labels One.  I thought it was kinda cute, but sort of blah compared to the other one, so I made another go:

Yeah - happier now!  I added a bit of ribbon from my scrap jar that I cinched with a button brad from Making Memories.  Wondering how I got those cute designs on the boots?  Here's a pic of the paper I used showing where/how I stamped before I cut them out:

Some fun, huh?  I also wanted to do a card or something with just the umbrella, and then I noticed that the "Ways to Use It" challenge this week on Splitcoast was to use pins, so I stamped this:

 
to make this card:

I used a glass-head pin wrapped with ribbon to make the umbrella handle, and added a little safety pin to my button/ribbon accent.  The circle sentiment is from Stampin'Up!'s Riveting set.  The shiny trio in the lower left corner of the card are three dots punched from dp with the Cropadile and coated with dimensional glaze.

I'm thinking I definitely got my money's worth with this stamp - several very different looks with the same stamps and papers!  What are your thoughts?

Okay, that's all the fun I can stand for now!  Gotta go finish sewing curtains for our office (One pair of panels done, one pair about half finished) and hit the hay in a couple of hours!  Have a great night and a blessed Sabbath, and thanks for stopping by!

Buttons 'n' Bows

I read a thread on Splitcoast Stampers regarding the bows w/buttons that seem popular these days, and how I did mine wasn't the same as how the other posters on the thread did theirs, so it inspired me to show you my method.  Please excuse the fact that I'm not making an actual card - just using card "ingredients", and please forgive the "old lady hands" - my 'day job' is doing upholstery and such-like and does a number on the digits...  'Nuff said, here we go:

I'm frugal (cheap), so I don't like to waste ribbon, so I just cut enough to wrap to the back, where I adhere it.  Leave it a bit slack (I didn't, but I did adjust in later steps):

 

Determine how big you want your bow to be by sort of overlapping like this, and cut a bit extra, just in case and for trimming neat ends.

 
 
 Wrap your twine behind the ribbon and through both holes of the button, leaving a loop, as shown.
 

Slide your overlapped ribbon(bow) into the loop of twine, pull it tight and tie the twine into a bow.

It will look wonky like this, but don't be a-skeered - just manipulate the ribbon and the bow until it looks normal (this is why you needed to leave a bit of slack in the ribbon in the first step - I didn't, and it made the card bend and the ribbon do odd things - I adjusted it before moving on...).  Trim the ends of the twine and the ribbon, and you're done!  Here's mine all prettied up:

 

I'm really liking the one-tail-up-one-tail-down look these days, but you can also make the bow so both tails are down, simply by changing which way you put the overlapped ribbon/bow through the loop:

Flip the overlapped ribbon/bow over so the tails are against the card to slide it through the loop, then carry on, and you get this:

(sorry - I got in too much of a hurry and didn't trim the other tail even...)

You can also add a flower into the mix (or snowflake or heart or whatever) like I did on this card:

I just brought the twine through the hole in the center of the flower before threading it through the button, then slid the ribbon/bow into the loop and finished as above.  This entire bow/button/flower assembly is held on with a glue dot, rather than tying it around a ribbon on the card itself. 

And that's all there is to it!  Have fun, have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

Derailed

Super-quick post because I totally blew off work all morning to make a card:

It's for a little boy whose family is celebrating Christmas this week instead of waiting until December, because little Noah will probably have passed by then...  I read about it this morning when I checked the Limited Supply challenge on Splitcoast for today.  You can read the challenge and find a link to the story HERE.  Needless to say, this project pre-empted the one I previewed yesterday...

Here's a view of the card when it's opened:

I got to use four of my Whippersnappers (aren't they sweet?), and just plain ol' random-stamped snowflakes on plain ol' white cardstock (the snowflake stamp is from Stampin'Up!'s "Flakey Friends" set).  I computer-generated the "We wish you a" part of the sentiment (Comic Sans font), and the rest is an Inkadinkado stamp.  Pretty much all there is to tell on this.  Oh, wait - I need to tell you this, too:  I used a light box to see through the cutout images so I could color the backs and add a few detail lines (not as detailed as the fronts, though), so it would look decent on both sides...

Okay, I really do have to get to work now...  Have a great day, send Noah a card if you can, and thanks for stopping by!
  
 

Back in the Day...

So -  I managed to step away from the sketch I seem to be obsessed with long enough to do yesterday's Inspiration Challenge on Splitcoast.  Sarah Collier is a fabulous artist that mixes vintage pics, text, and other images into very unique creations.  I was inspired by her entire Flickr gallery, as opposed to one particular work, to make this:

  

It's a collage of various images that hold meaning for me personally.  Here's the scoop:

• Led Zeppelin was the first concert I went to, and the old man on the cliff and the runes are from the cover of my favorite Led Zep album.
• The Beach Boys and the entire beach culture were highly influential in my childhood and youth, and I went with my sister and friend to their "Endless Summer" tour with the band Chicago at Anaheim Stadium.
• The snippet of map in the upper lefthand corner shows Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach - two of the places I frequented regularly.
• The girl's face is a charcoal rendering I did in high school, and it had a quote that went with it that I still find meaningful: "Within you there is a solitude and peace to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."
• The other two girls are the cover of a pattern I made several articles of clothing with back then - I also wore my hair like that, only longer....
• The peace frog is just representative of the era.

I plan to mat and frame this some time in the near future - or possibly use it as a starting point for a "Book of Me" type of scrapbook.  It was fun and nostalgic and introspective and all of that while I was putting it together...

Then - of course! - I had to go back to the obsession and crank out another card:

 

Stamps: Stampin'Up! Arachnophobia and Best Fiends; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Black StazOn;Paper: Provo Craft dp, Close to My Heart Smokey Plum, Paperbilities black; Accessories: Cuttlebug w/bubble embossing folder, sewing machine, transparency, Souffle pens, Prisimacolor and Bic markers, 1 3/8" round punch

Same sketch - different papers, stamps, subject, etc....  The bat and dangling spider were stamped onto transparency with Black Stazon, colored on the back with Souffle pens, cut out, and adhered with clear glue dots behind the colored areas.  The rest is self-explanatory...

Well, loverlies, I'm gonna sign off for now - I've been partying with the Fabric Mill girls all afternoon and poor Greg was home all alone...  I need to go spend some time with him now, I'm thinkin'!  I'll take some pics of the fun stuff the girls gave me when we have daylight tomorrow, and share with you then.  Have a great evening, and thanks for stopping by!

Organizing on the Prairie (Urban, that is...)

First things first:  If you downloaded a calendar from my post yesterday, DELETE IT FROM EXISTENCE!!!  I tweaked the templates to fix a typo (January 2010 was misspelled "Janauary"), and now they're formatted so you can stack and cut all four pages at once (see instructions in yesterday's edited post).  This will make your projects MUCH faster and easier to execute!

Why did I need a calendar, you might ask?  Well, Sherry's having a birthday tomorrow (Happy B-day again, GF!), and we got together yesterday to celebrate in true papercrafting-geek style!  She has developed some food allergy complication-type issues, so going out for lunch was not in the cards, and we've been trying to get together for-freakin'-ever to play with some of our stamping/crafting stuff, so she said for me just to come over and do that.  I asked if she wanted me to come up with the "project du jour" and she was stoked to not have to think of something, so we made these:

 

It's a coaster box/desk organizer thingy, made with coasters and Basic Grey Urban Prairie papers...  This side has the calendar (no duh, right?).  The other three sides are:

 

A dry-erase side (transparency cut same size as coaster and attached over the top of the paper - I tried it and it really works!)

 

A cork board side...  I have some thumbtacks around here somewhere that I'm going to add bling to to use here, but I haven't located them yet - may have to buy more...

 

A Post-It and flag side...  Where are the flags, you're most likely wondering?  Yeah, still at the office supply store - I'll buy them when I get my new thumbtacks, I guess.  They'll go next to the little bee...

Want to make one of your own?  Splitcoast Stampers has complete instructions here.  I made a couple of changes.  The first one is that I followed Sherry's thought of punching holes in the bottom coaster and looping the ribbon through them, instead of gluing the bottom on:

  

and I made a divider for the inside.  To make the divider, cut 1/4" off the top of two coasters (cover both sides with dp first), then slit one halfway up from the bottom, and the other halfway down from the top, then slide them together and slide the whole unit inside the coaster box.  I don't have anything holding them in place, they sort of just stay there on their own.  And that's the whole story!

Sherry says I should post the card I gave her here, even though I posted it already looooong, long ago!  She mentioned when I first made it that she wanted it, but I never got around to giving it to her until yesterday (great friend, huh?!)  Anyway - here it is (again):

 

Okay - I'm out, kiddos!   Have a great weekend, and see you next week!

Aloha!

So, we have another domino effect today, but a GOOD thing, for a change!  It's Sunday, which means "featured stamper" day on Splitcoast, and today's FS is Jaymerz.  As I was looking through her gallery to select a card to CASE, and the one I wanted to do was this one because I loved the layout and color combo.  Frou Frou - another SCSer - sent me some images she stamped for me from the Tickled Pink set (flamingos - love 'em!), and I've been wanting to use them and thought this card would work, but then I looked at the swiss dot embossing on the orange panel, and thought "I wish I had a hibiscus embossing folder - the swiss dots just don't do it for me with flamingos..."  Then I remembered about this tutorial that Mel posted on her blog showing how to make your own texture plates, and so that's what I spent the day doing!  First off, here's the card:

 

I obviously didn't CASE the one I thought I was going to...I CASEd this one instead.  Changes include color and theme, orientation, added layers, and I moved the circle off to the side, included the sentiment on it, and changed it to an oval.  I watercolored the images with smooshed inkpads and water.  The shadow is a Prismacolor 10% cool gray marker.  On to the fun stuff!

I'm not going to write this as a tutorial, since it was Mel's brilliance and she's written a fab tutorial already, so refer to hers (link above) for full instructions.  I'm just going to show you a couple of the things I did that may be helpful.  First off, I trimmed down two pieces of a cereal box to 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" - one to use as the base of my texture plate, and one to use as a shim with it.  I made them this size because they filled most of the Cuttlebug plate this way:

  

and if I want to do a 5 1/2" square, say, instead of just a standard A2, then I'll have that capability.  Mel suggested using a light-colored or waterproof ink (like StazOn) to stamp your images to cut out, but I just used Versamark, so there's ZERO chance of color transference or bleeding.  If it's hard for you to see where to cut, then use something that works for you.  I used the smallest hibiscus stamp from Close to My Heart's Hang Ten stamp set and stamped it repeatedly all over more of the cereal box pieces.  It's easier to do the inside cuts first, before even cutting the images apart from one another - more to hang onto to move the cardboard around as you cut (I used a glass mat and a craft knife):

 

After I got them all cut out, I arranged them how I liked them on my base piece, then glued them on with Royal Coat decoupage medium.  Following Mel's lead, I also sealed the entire thing with Royal Coat after everything was stuck down.

 

Here's a closeup of the embossed panel:

 

And a pic of the whole piece attached to the card base:

 

Pretty darn cool, eh?  The embossing isn't quite as defined as I'd really, really like, but I think it's because I didn't mist it lightly with water before running it through the Cuttlebug.  That would be due to the fact that I have yet to locate my mister (Mr?) since the reorg...  Still, all in all, I'm content with it as is!

Okay, beddy-bye time for this girl!  Thanks for stopping by, sweet dreams, and I hope your week starts off fabulously!

Stamps: Stampin'Up! Tickled Pink, sentiment from Studio G; Ink: SU! Tangerine Tango, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Creamy Caramel, Yo Yo Yellow, Certainly Celery, Versafine Onyx Black; Paper: SU! Tangerine Tango, white, black, watercolor; Accessories: Cuttlebug w/DIY texture plate, oval and corner punches