More crafting!

This weekend is my Second Official October Craft Weekend (SOOCW). I am spending a few days at my friend Lisa’s house while her husband is on his annual fishing trip with the boys. As it turns out, it’s a perfect weekend to be inside crafting (and a less-than-perfect weekend to be outside fishing), because this is what is happening:

Gross. I mean, the snow is beautiful and all. But not in October. October. And not when it was in the 70s
like two weeks ago. Whatever, weather gods. What. Ever.

But Lisa and I decided to combat the dreariness with that which makes everything better: chocolate. And the smell of treats baking in the oven. Lisa found a recipe for chocolate chocolate chip cookies that uses oat flour and whole wheat flour for a slightly healthier option:

They are delicious. And I might have already eaten three. Oh, wait. Lisa just brought me another with a cup of tea. I guess I can FORCE myself to eat another. Somebody has to do it.

So, for this SOOCW, I decided to not give myself any project goals. This month has been so busy that I just wanted to relax. So I brought my Gelli plate, Distress Oxide inks, watercolor supplies and (lots of) other paraphernalia for play time. Here is my workspace this afternoon:

Woohoo! This is only the second creative session I’ve had with my Distress Oxide inks, and I’m having a great time. (Confession: I still haven’t posted the cards I made from the results of my first session. But they’re coming. Promise.) I think I might just make backgrounds all day today and then turn them into cards tomorrow. Or maybe not. There are no crafting rules!

But I do need to get back to “work,” so thanks for stopping by!

A crazy schedule and a simple card

October is always a very busy month for me. A dozen friends and family members celebrate their birthdays, and two of my cousins just had three new babies -- twins for one of the families -- so that means even more parties! With the craft retreat a couple of weeks ago, another craft weekend coming up, and a very discombobulated work schedule due to the time off, I haven't been able to keep up with my blog. I have things to share, just not a lot of time to write the posts. So I have a quick post tonight, and I'll try to get in one more this week. I'm hoping to be back to a more regular schedule next week.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Sweet Havana (Mama Elephant)
Paper: Whisper White, Marina Mist, Crumb Cake card stock
Ink: Marina Mist, Berry Burst, Fresh Fig, Crushed Curry, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, Calypso Coral, Real Red
Accessories: Sweet Havana dies (Mama Elephant), Stitched Shapes and Layering Circles Framelits dies, Layered Leaves embossing folder, Marina Mist cotton ribbon, 4mm and 6mm sparkling clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), Wink of Stella clear glitter brush pen, corner chomper (We R Memory Keepers), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute Glitter), Dimensionals

For my cousin's baby shower on Oct. 1, I not only made the invitations, but I also made six sets of cards to be used as prizes for the games. Each set had four cards; some sets were all the same, and others used a common layout with slight differences, such as a different sentiment on each card in the set. This card design was for one of the sets that had all the same card.

I used a new set from Mama Elephant to stamp and die cut the jug and flowers. After I layered them together, I used Dimensionals to attach the grouping to a white stitched circle matted with a Marina Mist scalloped circle. For the card base I embossed a piece of Crumb Cake card stock with leaves, wrapped a piece of Marina Mist ribbon around the card front, and added the focal image with Dimensionals. I added three clear sequins and painted some of the flowers with Wink of Stella to create a little sparkle.

This is a simple card, but I love these images. And a set of these cards would be perfect for a variety of occasions. Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday craft retreat

Last weekend, I spent a few days with "the girls" enjoying a birthday craft retreat. We rented a farmhouse in western Wisconsin and had a great time. Here are just a few pictures:

This cute shed was on the property, and the fields seemed to go on forever.

See? More fields (soybeans, I think). It was so cool looking along the straight rows.

My friend Lisa and I took a couple of afternoon walks, and it was amazing how quiet the outside was. On Thursday afternoon, all I could hear was the wind in the trees. No traffic. No underlying buzz that seems to be a regular part of city life. We did see a few cars on this road -- and even a couple of airplanes in the sky -- but overall it was very peaceful.

Birthday dinner! Enchiladas, chickpea salad and black beans with corn. A special shout out to Lisa and my sister for being the chefs for the evening.

Another birthday cake! I will never turn down cake, and this one was my favorite: yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It was also vegan, homemade by my sister and delicious!

I was not very successful at blowing out the candles. I practically had to blow out each one individually. I think someone searched for wind-resistant candles.

Give me an empty crafting table and I will fill it with supplies. That's my table in the foreground, and Lisa sat across from me, working on her Halloween and Christmas cards.

I made fifty-three cards over the weekend. I'll be sharing several of them in upcoming posts (some were from card kits, so I won't post those separately). I actually wish I had finished more cards, but all in all it was a productive weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday cake!

Tomorrow is my birthday (yippee!) so I took the next several days off work to have a fun crafty weekend. But near the end of my shift yesterday I discovered that I had thwarted the plans of the team leads: They had planned a birthday surprise for me today, not realizing that I wouldn’t be there. I wasn’t expecting any sort of celebration, and the gesture was so sweet that I happily agreed to stop by on my day off for the “surprise.” I got a bouquet of lilies, a card, an emoji helium balloon and this awesome cake:

Isn’t that cool? To make it even better, I discovered it was supposed to be a book:

It looked beautiful — and tasted great, too (even if it did turn my mouth blue). What an awesome way to start the celebration!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy robot birthday

I have more than a dozen friends and family members with October birthdays, and several of them are kids. So here's a bright, kid-friendly birthday card.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Robo Birthday, Get in Gear (both Raisin Boat)
Paper: Cucumber Crush, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White card stock
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Cucumber Crush; Tempting Turquoise marker; alcohol markers: Soft Sky, Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, Smoky Slate Blendabilities, YG09 Lettuce Green (Copic Ciao); journaling pen
Accessories: Balloon punch, google eyes (unknown), mini-pinking scissors (Fiskars), Stitched Shapes Framelits dies, Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute Glitter), Dimensionals

I think this robot is fun, and I really like how it looks with the gears in the background. All those gears are separate images, so you can mix and match whichever shapes you want. I picked several gears in different sizes and mounted them together on a large clear block. Then I inked and stamped them all together a few times to cover the background, which was much faster than switching between the stamps. When I was done with the larger images, I filled in any empty spaces with the small dot image.

For the focal layer, I stamped the robot on Whisper White card stock and colored it with alcohol markers. I cut out the image with a stitched circle die and adhered it to the card base with Dimensionals. For a couple of fun details I glued on some google eyes and added a balloon with a hand-drawn string.

I stamped and colored the sentiment on a strip of white card stock and trimmed the ends with a mini pinking scissors to coordinate with the gears. I also repeated that zig-zag element when I doodled the border around the card base.

Thanks for stopping by!

Congrats on your new home

Over the summer two of my cousins moved into new houses. I wanted to send them each a card to celebrate the occasion, and this is one of those cards:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Paper: Fossil house-shaped card base (The Paper Cut); Soft Sky, Old Olive, Summer Starfruit, Real Red, Rich Razzleberry, textured Soft Suede card stock; The Sweetest Thing - Tangerine paper pad (My Mind's Eye); window sheets
Accessories: Brick Wall embossing folder, Grand Flower Box die (Poppy Stamps), curtains from window die (Our Daily Bread), Flowers and Stems die (Taylored Expressions), Ice White Pearl Pen (Viva Decor), micro pop-dots (Forever in Time), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute Glitter), Dimensionals

Isn't that cute? I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I started with the house-shaped card base (which I also used to make a few other cards a couple of years ago) and embossed it with a brick wall texture. I realized after the fact that I used the embossing folder backwards. The bricks, rather than the "mortar lines," should be raised. I must subconsciously like it that way as I seem to do that every time I use this folder. Oh, well.

I had to get a little creative with the window. I have a couple of different window dies, but they were both too big for this card base, so I had to make my own. I cut out the flower box using textured Soft Suede card stock and used that as a guide for the overall size of the window. I cut a rectangle of textured Soft Suede card stock and then used a ruler and craft knife to carefully cut out the inner panels for the windowpanes. (I did draw the outlines for the panes on the back of the card stock with a pencil.)

Once the whole window frame was cut out, I glued a piece of window sheet to the back to create the look of glass. Then I added the die-cut curtains and, finally, a piece of Soft Sky card stock for the background. I adhered the window box to the bottom of the window and added in the various die-cut flowers and stems. (I used micro pop-dots for some of the flowers to add depth.) Using Dimensionals I attached the whole window to the card base.

This definitely wasn't a quick card to create, but it was fun to watch the different elements come together. Thanks for stopping by!