Dollar Store to Divine

This week at Shopping Our Stash, we were challenged to use a Dollar or Bargain Bin find. There’s an AMAZING store up near my Grandparent’s house called Northern Merchandise and I have to stop in every time we go for a visit. They have everything. Candy jars and wine glasses? Check! Jumper cables and power tools? Check! Craft supplies and a snake holding salt and pepper shakers? Yup! They have it. I often find some really good deals on craft supplies. I grabbed a little Making Memories kit called Vintage Findings  to use for this project. Here is a look at everything that came in the kit.

All these goodies for just $1.19!!!

I pulled out one of the larger cards and the sequins. I’m not sure how you would even begin to use the yellow bulldog clip. Here’s my card.

Simple Birthday Greetings

I added a few extra sequins I had, one of my punched sparkly bugs and some ribbon. And of course…Fruit Punch Stickles on the flowers for a little sparkle.

I love Stickles!

I think it turned out nice and now that I’ve actually opened the kit, I have a better chance of using some of the other odds and ends and that’s the whole idea, right?

Off to Make Something for day 3!

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Happy Pattern and Polka Dots

The card I made for today’s Little Tangles Challenge was fun. As you might know, I’m really addicted to all the new little wooden shapes popping up. I bought a ton of Prima ones, but I was at Michael’s before the retreat this weekend and found they have a bunch too. So, of course, I had to buy some (or a lot). And they even come in these great little wooden boxes. I’ve already re-purposed one into another challenge project I’ll post later this week. YAY! But I digress… The Little Tangles Challenge for this week is Emboss It!

I wasn’t sure if it would work, and I think I need a couple more tries at it, but I think the little mushroom has some character now.

Good Day to be an Owl!

Here’s a look at the layers of the card.

Layers and More Layers!

It’s a little hard to see, but I colored the mushroom top with shiny red Smooch Ink and then I used the Stampendous Boss Gloss and clear embossing powder on the mushroom top to give it some shine and dimension. The clouds also have shiny resist. Little owl man is stamped from the Little Bear set and the sentiment is from the Fresh Blooms stamp set.

 

And for those interested, I did Make Something with my Scraps today. Day 2 complete. 🙂

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A Pop of Color on a Simple Canvas

I’m enamored of fancy cards full of layers of embellishments that somehow manage to all work together. I try to make them and they never quite work. I’m not sure if I don’t put enough fun things on them, or if I put too many. On the other hand, simple Clean and Simple (CAS) cards are often also out of my comfort zone. It’s nice to have a simple, flat card to mail so I gave it another try. This one is for the Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge.  This week’s challenge is a Picture Perfect Challenge. Here is the inspiration picture:

Picture Credit http://pinterest.com/pin/211387776230002662/

And here is my take:

Simple with a Pop

I used 3 Paper Smooches Stamp sets, I Heart Art, Vogue Abode, and Sugar Rush. I focused on the simple blue and white color scheme and turned the cupcake roses into a real one (although I wish it worked the other way around in the real world!). Just a touch of Stickles glitter glue on the leaf lent a tiny bit of bling to finish it off. The simple design will allow me to send this card for any of a variety of occasions.

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I WILL Make Something Every Day!

Last Christmas I received a book called A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Everyday And Change Your Life. For a long time, I have wanted to tackle a “something-a-day” type project, but I’ve never been able to talk myself into it. It didn’t seem right to go into a project this immense with a feeling that I was going to fail immediately. So I’d forget about it and go on about my business. But it kept creeping back into my mind.

One of my One Little Word resolutions (more on that in the future 🙂 ) for this year is to not use the excuse “I don’t have time for that” unless it’s actually true. As you probably know, most often the hard truth is that we do have time for something, we just use the excuse that we don’t because we don’t want to do whatever that something is, but it makes us feel better to just say we don’t have time because then we aren’t saying no to something unpleasant or simply procrastinating, we just “can’t” and that gets us off the hook. 

So I’m going to do it.

Because I DO have the time, if I just make the time.  I may not do something every day. I really hope I do, and I am really going to try to, but if there are days I miss, then I miss them, and it will be because I was actually busy and life happened. Then I will just make 2 things the next day or decide that I just lose that day.

Now that I decided I’m going to do it, I just need a topic. Something broad enough that I can play with it every day and still have options, but narrow enough in scope that there is an actual theme to the things I end up making. Drum roll please… 🙂

SCRAPS!!!!

Paper scraps, fabric scraps, who knows what kind of scraps! On day 205 I might just have to decide to create a new kind of scrap! I’m not crazy enough to think that I’ll be able to blog every day in addition to making something every day. So right now I’m aiming to check in here with my projects a couple times a week. I’ll show you the good, the bad and the what-the-heck-was-I-thinking?!?!

So that’s it. I’m going to do this thing. Starting today. Starting Now. Here goes nothing!

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Bon Voyage with The Paper Girls Challenge

I have A LOT of travel themed supplies which is crazy. Know why? I don’t travel much and I don’t scrapbook. So why do I have them all? I LOVE the map papers! All the maps, boats, ships, and planes are fabulous. And the stamps…oh the stamps… I have globes and postmarks and map stamps oh my! So this Paper Girls Challenge was a great excuse to get out some of my fun travel supplies. But this really turned out to be a challenge for me. I had a hard time figuring out what sentiment to put on the front. I wanted to be able to send this card for with some of my Swap-Bot swaps so I needed something fairly generic. 

 

I justified buying the new JoAnn’s exclusive Basic Grey Hey You! paper pad by using a couple of pieces from it. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE map paper?) The saying is from a sticker sheet I’ve had forever. 

Pop Dotted Goodness

I wanted to do a little side view to show the dimension from the foam. I also added Glossy Accents to the star and the stacks of the ship. A little shine never hurt anyone.

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1 Layer + Bling = Simply Stunning

This weekend I’m spending a bunch of time with friends at a Crafty Cabin retreat so I’m planning to get a lot done. Runway Inspired Challenge is back again with a simply stunning dress.

Since I’ve been doing a lot of Swap-Bot.com swaps, I’ve noticed that I’ve been needing some flatter cards to send my creations in. Once I get my foam-dot ATC into my pop-dotted card, it’s getting pretty thick. So in addition to using the picture as inspiration, I also wanted to challenge myself to make a one layer card.

And here is my interpretation

Classy and Simple

Sorry about the color, but I really like how this turned out. (I’ll have to adjust my picture taking area for this weekend) I used the really shiny Stampin’ Up rhinestones and Beautiful Botanicals 2 from A Muse Studio. The sentiment is from a Stampin’ Up set called Embrace Life.

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Getting Krafty with Little Tangles!

I’ve probably said this before, but I LOVE paper piecing. Neat & Tangled stamps are really fun to paper piece (one of my 3 favorites). Their newest challenge is all about Kraft paper.

I haven’t used much Kraft paper in the past. Most of the Kraft paper I’ve purchased was pretty cheap stuff in bulk packages. It was more like a piece of brown grocery bag than actual cardstock. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Neenah Kraft cardstock so I ordered some to try. It’s very smooth and really nice to stamp on. It’s a little lighter than I would normally use for a card base, but it’s not too light that it’s going to be an issue.

Paper Piecing Everywhere!

And a detail of the flowers…

I stamped the flowers from the Neat & Tangled set Fresh Blooms and the sentiment is from Kindness Matters. The bottom flower is two of them layered. The papers are from the Fancy Pants collection Park Bench that were in my April Simon Says Stamp card kit.

Of course, since I was in a flower mode, I also entered this in The Paper Girls Challenge #29: April Showers Bring May Flowers.

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Pocket-sized Fashion

The list of challenges I like to enter is pretty long and this one has always eluded me. I would forget, misremember the deadline, or check it a day too late. But not this time! Finally I get to play along with the Runway Inspired Challenge.

source: style.com

I don’t know anything about fashion (except watching a bunch of Project Runway), but I love the pop of color over the busy, mainly black and white, background. So that is what I chose to highlight.

Love the itty bitty Pearls!

I recently received the April card kit from Simon Says Stamp and I’ve been wanting to use it. The paper and colors in the Fancy Pants Park Bench collection are perfect for this challenge! I purchased a 12×12 sheet of one of the patterns and cut out the flowers and popped them off the front. Then I added my favorite CTMH tiny pearls to embellish the centers of the flowers and to dot the “I” in the sentiment. I think this is a great collection that I will get a lot of use from! I also added the flowers to go with The Paper Girls Challenge of “April Showers Bring May Flowers” and entered it there.

Thanks for stopping by!

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It’s Raining Polka Dots!

We’re finally starting to leave winter behind here in WI, but now it’s rain, rain, and more rain. Along with Spring flowers, this weather is creeping into some of the cards I’ve been making. The theme of the current Lawnscaping Challenge is Embossing.

My favorite go-to basic embossing folder is Swiss Dots; making little Swiss Dot clouds was really fun (I punched out A LOT of these at the crop last weekend!) and they were ready to pair with my umbrella man from Tim Holtz. This card is perfect for The Paper Girls Challenge #29: April Showers Bring May Flowers.

I love Polka Dots!

I didn’t really set out to use a ton of Polka Dots, but I really like all the size and texture differences. One of my goals is to try and use more buttons so I added a few of my new ones from the Basic Grey Kneehighs and Bowties collection (It’s okay that I buy them, if I use them, right?!?). If this was the rain outside, I would definitely go out and play in those puddles!

Thanks for visiting and please comment on my giveaway page to win some fat-free blog candy! 🙂

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I’m in Love with Tim Holtz Distress Markers

Shhhhhh!!!! Don’t tell my guy!

Don’t worry he already knows. One of my friends calls Tim Holtz my Very Significant Other. 🙂 I like the products he puts out and the ease with which he makes his projects. And he’s SO nice. I was lucky enough to meet and talk with him and Mario for a while one day and they were both such wonderful people! Ok…enough Tim (never enough!), on to the task at hand.

Flourishes has a Timeless Tuesday challenge and this week you need to use 2 types of ribbon or twine. I have several of their sets, but I really like their Waterlilies Set (SS064). So I stamped out the two waterlilies and watercolored them using my Tim Holtz Distress Markers.

Here’s a detail of the coloring and stamp. The fine details are one of my favorite things about these stamps.

LOVE those markers!

The sentiment is from the Flourishes set Life Lines (SS115) and the Ribbon is CTMH seam binding and the Baker’s Twine is from Stampin’ Up.

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