Missing my Scrap Room.....

I just realized how much I have missed my scrap room. A friend asked to borrow a stamp and a few stamp pads last night along with an idea for making Thank You Cards. I got in there (boy is it a MESS!) and it hit me how much I've missed creating and playing with all my inky fun stuff!!!

I know part of me strayed away from scrapping and my room because I got overwhelmed attempting to sell Scrapbooking products with a direct sales company which resulted in some creativity drainage. Now that I've stepped back from the selling I'll be getting back into my room to play, create and have fun for me and my family! Yeah!

I have jumped back into retail, selling some FABULOUS petroleum free, sootless candles made right here in Pennsylvania. I love the company, the friends I have made, and the wonderful people that I get to work with! We had a good Summer open house to start out our candle venture, made it through the summer and just recently had a great Autumn open house including a dozen vendors the beginning of November and are planning an awesome Winter open house on December 7th and 8th which will include craft vendors, retailers, and direct sale vendors.

Only a few more weeks and the Cider Mill will be closing for the season. As much as I love to drink Cider and have fresh apples right on hand, I'm looking forward to the end of the 12 hour days that seem to surround the Cider Mill. :) Which brings me back to where this entry started....more time to get into my scrap room and get to playing! :-D

Tractors and outdoor stuff....

Oye, wishing I had more time indoors to play these days, but alas, I've been outdoors learning all kinds of new things! Just yesterday I learned to plow a field. I was also told that I wouldn't be able to get the tractor stuck....:-D Guess what....I DID get it stuck. In an attempt to line up with the plowed furrow I turned the front tires perpendicular to the tractor and sunk them into the soft field soil. Woops! Had to drop the tractors bucket in an attempt to slightly lift up on the front of the tractor, taking some of the weight off the wheels while rocking the tractor frontward and backward and attempting to turn the steering wheel to get the tires turned. Finally got it and then stalled the engine out in a new section where old shumac had grown for the last 20+ years. So, my Dad and I switched jobs and I spent the next two hours "dragging" a different field while he finished up plowing. Dragging (rake like apparatice attached to back of tractor, drug over and over and over and over a field to level it out and prep it for planting) is SO very much easier and A LOT more fun than plowing. In a week or two we'll plant the three fields with winter squash and pumpkins to harvest in the fall and sell at our Roadside Fresh Cider Stand.

We have a couple acres of "forest" on our property and a few of the trees have lived their lives to the fullest and needed to come down: rotten centers and leaning over the property line into the neighboring school yard. What an experience that has been. We actually were in the middle of removing one tree on Earth Day...the irony! A large group of 3rd graders came over to the fence to watch and ask all kinds of questions. Mainly, "Why are you cutting down trees on Earth Day!?" We explained the trees were rotten and showed them the inside of the rotten tree pieces. We assured them that we would be planting more and had in fact already planted some throughout our property. That settled the crowd, but one poor lil' boy was completely distraught as he told us that animals make their homes in rotten trees and we were taking away animal homes. He ran off into the school yard in tears. Poor lil' guy. If only he would have stayed to watch the effort we put into cutting and very carefully removing a 6 foot section of the tree that is home to a large hive of honey bees and trucking it to a friend's farm where it will thrive and pollinate there.

Saturday night was our last public roller skating session of this season! What a year! I still can't believe my parents ran the rink for 25+ years! And I certainly can't imagine doing it year round. We MUST HAVE the summer break from all those kids and the drama (OH! MY! THE DRAMA! :p) I'm looking foward to an occasional Friday or Saturday evening out if the weather and our other businesses cooperate. :p

Got our small backyard cleared up and had a small bbq with our RLG (Real Life Group-Small Study group from church) on Sunday. Was so nice to get out and relax outdoors with friends. And the weather? Oh my goodness! It has gone from 30 to 80 in a weeks time. Just silly for this time of year! It APPEARS as if Winter has finally headed North, not sure if Spring has come or if Summer has just pushed right in.

Hopefully sometime in the next couple days I'll get some scrappy fun time in and will share some bits. I am in the process of creating a fun altered book, making some memory pages that my Grandmother requested, making swaps for IFS@yahoo, and hopefully getting enough goodies together and made to set up at a flea market either this weekend or next. But for now, Sleep. :)

Finding time to get back in the scraproom....

One of my swaps this month was creating a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card with a recipe inside. This card has a delish recipe for a "refreshingly fresh strawberry pie" inside. A very simple card, but it was fun to make.

I apologize for the photo quality...this time my camera was out of batteries so I was forced to use the phone camera again. Ah well...
This swap was a "Treasure ATC"..Creating an ATC that had to be opened to find a "treasure" inside. This one was quite fun. Though as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking the front closed is quite boring..... The brads 0n the front are actually plain ordinary brass brads from the local office supply store that I heated and covered with a black sparkly embossing powder a few times. The brads are then wrapped with a piece of brown embroidery floss to keep it closed
Much more interesting inside as you open it up. The top flap has postage stamps stamped and a "for real" canceled stamp on it. The middle's background is made by sponging over a piece of paper lace I had laying about. Very hard to see, but there is a real skeleton leaf from our woods layered over the paper and then layered on top of all that is various bit and bobs from my "bits and bobs drawer". :-DThe bottom flap has a tea bag envelope attached and inside is a lil' tiny teacup stamped and attached to a piece of embroidery floss which is then attached to a scrap of paper with a "Keystone Brand" label for fun. All kinds of lil' things to open and find.
Tonight I intend to get back in the scraproom and make a photo cube for the boys Grammy. "Please to go sleep lil' boys please go to sleep!" ;-D

Whiff Of Joy...

Wish I could take credit for this adorable little guy, but he is just a link over to Whiff Of Joy as part of a promo for the new stamp sets. But he IS super cute!

Whiff Of Joy is about to release their newest set of medieval stamp sets on February 14th (what a great V-day celebration!). Absolutely adorable. You can enter for a chance to win their new set FREE! Check out their blog here (http://katharina1704.blogspot.com/2009/02/whiff-of-joy-preview-1-chance-to-win.html ) and directions on how you can enter to win the newest Whiff Of Joy set. Whether you enter to win or not, the blog is full of inspirational ideas and links to follow. Check it out, and check it often as Katharina is going to be uploading new samples daily.

Wedding invites and other bits of creativity

As part of a wedding gift for a very special friend I offered to make her wedding invitations. They are finally completed and she and her finance' really like them! I was SO nervous, from the time I shipped them out to the time they arrived and she sent me the message that she loved them. Whew!

I created the invitations starting with 12x12 Close To My Heart Sunkiss Yellow Cardstock cut down to 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 cards which I randomly stamped with daisies in CTMH's Sunny Yellow. I then layered vellum printed with the wedding information on top and finished them off with Prima's Iced Got Flowers? Summer Fun Paper Flowers. They were actually alot of fun to make and even with 150 of them I still think I can handle playing with some more prima flowers and can honestly say I still like the color yellow! This wonderful project explains all the yellow scraps around my room.

This morning I created two ATC's for fun. I played with creating my own background paper and randomly stamped a flourish three times on each card, embossing each one with a different color powder (clear, brown sand, and sparkly black). Then I layed some fun bits I had laying about on the background and covered it with some torn vellum and a torn tag with some fun fabric ribbon wrapped about it. Then I topped it off with a cute lil' rose colored using distress inks (my very first attempt using Tim' Holtz's Distress Inks and a water pen). Very collagey......I'm sure that's not a word, but I'll take some creative license and use it anyway. Hmmm, no yellow scraps here-how'd that happen!?!? I finished of card with some chocolate brown ink to distress the edges and DONE! :o) That's all the scrappiness for today. This is quite impressive-months and months with no posts and then a dozen in a few weeks. Now I have to continue living up to the challange of timely posting.

Finally ink and paper products!

So I am finally sharing some of what has been keeping me sane the last week or so. I've gotten a few essential jobs done and finally allowed myself some play time. So, here are a few cards I threw together (trying my darnedest to use up scraps and bits as much as possible!) The card above was made by running red cardstock through my cuttlebug using the script folder and then rubbing cranberry red ink over the raised images till I was happy with it. After distressing the edges of the cardstock I also inked the edges with the same ink and curled them. The face stamp

is RubberStampede and is stamped on a piece of white corecardstock that I sanded first to distress and then layered on another piece of red cardstock. Then I just finished it up with left over red lace and a cute lil' saying and done. Can you say monochromatic? :)I had so much fun making this card I made a few.

This card I used some alcohol inked cardstock I had created and not yet used. I stamped the image using VersaMark and then embossed in GOLD. I originally had no intentions of using lace, but the card needed something more and that is what worked the best. The sentiment is gold embossed on a torn piece of vellum.

This card came out of nowhere. It was a set of three images that I had bought recently because they looked so fun. I stamped in VersaMark on yellow cardstock (I have a TON of yellow scraps-explanation to follow), embossed with clear powder and then used a dense sponge to apply the ink over and over til I had the color density I wanted on each one. Cut them out, layered it up and walla, a piece of modern art. :P

The lace and ribbon bug musta' bit me because I used it again on this card that just kinda came together as I was using up more alcohol ink background scraps and other odd pieces lying about.

The last greeting card came from a card I had remembered seeing online at http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/ . The original was a Valentines Card, but mine took a turn away from Valentines as I was again trying to use my bits and such and not break into my full sheets of cardstock and paper. At the start of the card I had a feeling it was NOT going to turn into any type of respectable card, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out into a quite nice lil' card.

So tomorrow I must post again as I have yet to post the wedding invites I did for a friend. She has received them and is thrilled with them so I'll post a peek at that in the morning.....which will explain the yellow scraps. :)

For a special Gramma far, far away....

Sending some Hugs, Kisses, and Love to Gramma in the Philippines!

For Gramma.....

I generally would not post much of my children on the web, but my mother has gone on a mission trip to the Philippines for three weeks and misses her lil' guys A LOT! I've tried to email and send video but just can't get it to go.....So, here you are Gramma, your lil guy fix. :)

Some fun funky cards

Did some playing last night and actually created a couple cards. No huge techniques or anything, but had some fun and finished with a couple cute, fun, funky cards. Enjoy. Let me know what you think. The "You are special" card is a using an inkadinkado stamp set that is actually in pieces, like playing with a paper doll! I actually stamped her and decided she needed something more so restamped her dress on a pink piece of scrap cardstock and layered it on.

The "Beauty" card is using a Dawn Houser set from inkadinkado. I just love the dress....and the attitude. :) And then I just added a wee bit of bling to finish up the bottoms of the cards. I've been on a button and brad binge for quite awhile and neither of those embellies would really work on these cards, so sparklies it had to be. :)

The "Shoe" card is actually for a swap I'm doing, but it was inspired by a friend's love of shoes. It is from the same Dawn Houser set as the dress. The background is alcohol inks as are the shoes, which I stamped with archival ink on another background of alcohol ink I had made and then cut out. I wonder if my friend would wear a pair of shoes if I alcohol inked them? They would certainly be one of a kind! It's hard to see the sheen, other than on the shoes, but there is gold metalics throughout the background which makes it shimmery and shine as you hold it. Also there is a gauzy ribbon across the card behind the shoes...need a better camera. :P Thanks for looking and hope you enjoyed.

Been awhile yet again.....

Someday I'll get better at keeping regular about posting here! Going on TWO months again! We've been super busy here with snow....snow....snow.....and more snow. But it certainly does give excuse to stay inside where it's warm a little bit more to create and get inky. ;)

I am about to finish up my first order of Wedding Invitations (unless you count my own, then it'd be my second batch :p ). I'll be putting them in a post as soon as the bride-to-be gets them so she gets first peak. I was pretty happy with them, even if I really don't feel like using the color yellow again anytime soon now. :P

Here's hoping for some time to play and create tonight which I can then post later this week! Writers and inspirational block is HORRIBLE! Hmmm.....I do have some empty glass bottles.....maybe some springish bottle people are in order!