Christmas House

Here is my latest edition! I do have to look up who I copied this one from. As a demonstrator Stampin' Up! sends us a monthly newsletter and there are also contests for us to do. Well this is one very talented demonstrator. I did change this a bit but love this house. The house is from our Holiday mini (page 37) and if you want to recreate this, let me know asap and I can put a class together. You can only purpose the house until January 2, 2011. I'll be ordering a few more of these to make for the other major holidays. The roof is a little bleached but I used the DSP from the Holiday Mini along with the buttons that coordinate with it. I used the Bells & Boughs set (love this set) and accented it with the crochet trim and cherry cobbler cardstock. Those are the antique brads on the peaks of the roof. Oh, the house also comes with that very cute door knob! I hope you enjoyed this creation also and will post again soon, I promise! Cyndy

November Technique Class

Well I'm again a little behind but getting there. Here are samples from my technique class this past November. Since it was so close to Thanksgiving, I was already in the Christmas mode. This first card is the Crimped Diamond. I saw this technique on Splitcoast done by Lee Conrey. I also used the multipurpose adhesive sheets for the ornament. It just isn't the holidays without glitter! This second card is something I haven't done in awhile and saw it recently and thought it was time to do it again. This is something like emboss resist with a twist. I've heard it called a few things, but I call it Emerging Colors. You take a light colored cardstock and stamp several images in different colors, then take a solid image and stamp it with Versamark and use clear embossing powder. Then brayer over the whole thing with a dark ink and then wipe away the excess ink with a tissue. I used snowflakes for the background in case you couldn't tell and kept with the cool colors of the winter season. Hope you like it.

This last card was a bit of a challenge but with awesome results. I really like the DSP in the Holiday Mini catalog and the Bells & Boughs set. It has a very vintage look to it. It's a pop up card and I love to make pop up cards! They do take some time and of course the receiver needs to be someone very special. I also used the clear tinsel from the mini and the gold pearlized smooch in the main catalog.

Here is a picture of the inside of the card. Oops I forgot to turn the card, it's sideways below, but I'm sure you get it. It's also a bit bulky to mail, but again it has to be someone very special to receive this card! Well I hope you've enjoyed my samples. Cyndy

Update

Well here it is. It's been awhile again. I haven't been very good about staying on top of this, but I really am trying! Here are a few samples of some of the things I've been working on. It was like I was going away every month for awhile. July I went to Valley Forge for CKC Convention. Had a great time with a couple of friends and took lots of classes. Some were ok and some were great. Still haven't had a chance to implement them into my own classes. The whole purpose of taking them! September we finally did our Hoover leader's weekend. That was also lots of fun. I taught them how to make a paperbag album. We did some outdoor cooking, died a t-shirt, learned about chocolate and of course ate lots of it too! And did lots of eating! Then in October was my annual Octoberfest. So I was back at Hoover (that's where my September outing was). I taught the paperbag album again but showed them some different and interesting ways to add even more photos to the album. I also taught another class on different ways to wrap gifts. Some were very simple, others had more steps to them.

My latest project was making this "autograph" type of book. This woman's daughter was turning 16 and they needed a book for all the guests to write something to the special guest, so I came up with this book. I absolutely love the book. She gave me the paper that matched the invitation pretty well and I covered some chipboard with it and stamped some of the pages inside and had to "bling" it up a bit. I did an RSVP pen and added bling to that as well. The whole thing really "sparkled"! I hope Annie was as happy with it that I am.

My next project is to finish the marching band scrapbook that my daughter and the rest of the seniors gave to the director. It looks nice but needs just a bit more. When I get that back and finish that, I'll post a few of those pictures as well.

Happy crafting! Cyndy

Catching Up

Ok, here we go. I went to Creating Keepsakes Convention in Valley Forge, PA and took several classes, hoping to learn some new things to teach. Well here are a couple of cards I did in a technique class, nothing I haven't done before and didn't even really get to do too much in the class, had to finish most of it at home. Although I think they did turn out nice, I added a rhinestone brad to give the flower card a bit more wow factor. The "happy birthday" card has stickles added to the scroll which is difficult to see in the picture.






The next 2 items are the shoebox swaps we did in the evening. I stayed with my friend Lorraine and her friend Karen. We had a great time and we took turns doing a swap an evening. The one is a book mark. There is a pocket in the back part so you can slip it on a page. The other is made from matboard from Sizzix. The opening for the picture was already there. Lorraine covered it with embossed cardstock.



Now the next 2 pictures are from a class I took. It's basically an acrylic album that stands up. It turned out very nice, I added pictures from last years trip to CKC. The group of us is me, Debbie, Ginger, & Linda. The picture next to it is Debbie & Karen. The green above their heads is a reflection from the grass. I also did some scrapbook pages & and envelope album, but haven't put any pictures on them yet, so when I figure out what pictures to use & fill them, I'll post them as well.

Ok, almost to the end. The next card is the thank you I designed for my son to send out from the graduation party we had back in July. Slowly but surely, I'll get caught up. Now for the last 2 pictures are of a birdhouse I've been working on. The front, back, & roof are made with metal. The roof is cooper that I "antiqued". I love the way it turned out. I used some retired SU DSP on the sides.

Well there we go, all done! Hope you enjoyed all the pictures. Cyndy

Technique Night

Well here are the cards we made at the last technique class. The card on the right is what I made as a sample and the card on the left, I made as I taught the class. Same technique, but look very different visually. I love them both! This technique is called "Bargello". You want to use striped DSP and cut different width strips of DSP. I then glued the strips onto a piece of Whisper White and layered it onto Basic Black. A bit early for Halloween, but this was the only stripped DSP I had!



This next technique is called "Antique Wallpaper". I had to use a few things I just got from the new catty! There is this awesome distress kit. I used the inks from that, our new paper daisies, and one of the new embossing folders. Isn't it antique y looking!? The last technique was really quite easy. It's called "Eyelet Border Flower". Another simple technique, but packs a lot of punch! Well I hope you enjoyed the latest projects.

I'll have to get another post out soon. I won tickets to the Octoberfest in July at Shawnee Ski in PA. We had a good time and saw a clown we haven't seen since the kids were small! Hope you enjoyed the samples. See you soon! Cyndy

Happy Fourth!

Well the 4th of July has come and gone! I can't believe it! I bought a new camera in May because our old one just died. It has several features I haven't even attempted yet, but we were at our local fireworks display and thought I'd give this feature a shot. Not bad! I didn't even use a tripod! Imagine how it would turn out if I had a tripod and a remote to snap the picture?! I did crop them before uploading. I did get a bunch of black pictures too, but with digital, who cares, just delete them!





















I've been trying to catch up with stuff at home. Finally getting some energy back. Got a bunch of yard work done and the outside is starting to really come together. I'll post some pictures next time of all the flowers and my vegetable garden. These next 2 pictures are from Matthew's graduation party we had. Jess wanted this cupcake cookbook we saw in the local craft store. So here are some cupcakes she made for the party. She put a lot of work into them. They looked so professional and they tasted great too! I don't know why I was so amazed, she IS very talented! Can you tell how proud I am? I have 2 great kids (yes they do drive me crazy too) and am very proud of both. Matt will be starting college in the fall and Jess will be finishing high school in June of 2011! Boy how time flies!

I've also finally had a chance to get down in my stamp room and get some stamping done! Oh, how I miss that. My friend Debbie came over and we played a bit and came up with some samples for us to do at our next technique class. One of them, I'm going to have to save and send to my friend Chris, she is just going to love it! Now I know that gives none of you a hint as to what it could be, but Chris will know and if Edna, Eileen or Maddy reads this, they may figure it out too. Hmm, maybe I should do a prize for who figures out what one of the projects is. How about a stamp set? Yes, that's what I'll do. So if you're the first to comment or send me an email as to what one of my projects is you'll win a stamp set. Now to figure out what set! Now don't fault me, this is my first time and I'm just getting back into the swing of things. Hope you're enjoying the summer! Cyndy

June Happenings!

Well let's hope I'm back on track or at least close to it. Matthew graduated earlier this week. That was a big relief off my chest. I noticed in my posts in March and April I didn't mention about Matthew in a car accident. Well between me not feeling well and then his injuries, I just haven't been able to keep up with things. I'm feeling much better and Matthew is doing better but still is restricted as to what he can do. We go to another doctor on Monday in hopes of some help and answers. It has been very stressful around here to say the least.
To the left is the card I made for Matthew (a day late) but got it done. The school colors are red, white and blue, so that's why the card is such. I used Brilliant Blue, which is retiring, but am happy with the outcome of the card. Hope you enjoy it too.

This next project is a paper bag album I made for Matthew to take to a friend of his that is having her graduation party today. Of course, this was last minute as everything seems to be these days. This is just the front cover. I used a lot of retired DSP, card stock, and accessories for this as I seem to have so much of it now! I put a few pictures inside, but left mostly blank pages for her to put in pictures of school or whatever. I did have a few of her and Matt from when she was over our place horse back riding and when I had set up a table for one of the Relay for Life events to make cards for cancer patients. Then I also had a few from graduation itself. Tara was Valedictorian for their class. She had a nice speech and I must say she is such a nice person too!

Well I hope you've enjoyed my latest projects. I'm in the process of reorganizing my stamp room. It's a bit of a mess, but getting there. Have to get rid of some stuff so I can get around! I'll try and get some pics up of how things are moving along. It's been hard to get things accomplished, I seem to be on the road taking Matthew to his appointments and school. Now that school is out I'm hoping to have a bit more time. I've also been getting my garden in and mulching some areas that didn't get done last year. I'll have to get some of that loaded too! Hope you have a great weekend and stop by soon. Cyndy

April Update

Well April is here and the weather is finally beginning to change! I love the spring and all the new growth. Things are starting to turn green, my daffodils are blooming, the hyacinths I bought smell beautiful. What could be better? Well the ENT (ear, nose & throat) doctor I went to thinks I have allergies! Oh good grief! I've never had allergies before and I've been feeling miserable for about 2 months now! Today I finally felt like I could do something. I've had migraines, then congestion, nose leaking uncontrollable. Well the migraines don't seem to be a problem and my nose leaking like someone turned on the faucet has finally stopped, but I'm still so stuffed up I can hardly breath! I'm on some medication that is finally helping and I finally slept somewhat last night and I laid down! Before if I even bent over my head would throb! So I am making progress finally! I'm so glad. My temporary filling fell out and need to get the tooth fixed from when I had my root canal. That's tomorrow, so wish me luck. I also want to go to a stamp show on Saturday, so hopefully the dentist won't make me feel worse. I also finally feel like stamping! I felt so bad I didn't feel like doing anything, including stamping! So now I have to catch up on some cards I owe some people. I also have an open house to do on Sunday. In case you didn't know, I'm also a Realtor and this weekend the National Association of Realtors is promoting an open house weekend across the country to promote the ending of the $8,000 tax credit to first time home buyers. So I thought it would be a good idea to have an open house for my new listing. So if you're in the Blairstown area and would like to stop in on Sunday, I'd love to see you! Or of course if you know anyone that is looking to buy, send them over. The address is 2 Spring Valley Rd, Hardwick, NJ. The open house is this Sunday, April 11, from 1pm to 4pm.

March Technique

I had technique class last week, but have been sick all week and just getting my samples posted. Being Easter is right around the corner, I had to do an Easter basket. Don't remember where I got the pattern, I think I got it off the SU site. I also used the scalloped oval frame. The next technique was basically like a resist technique. The base was glossy cs, stamp your detailed image, then brayer over using your lightest ink, then stamp the next medium color, then the darkest ink all using the same detailed image. Finally I stamped the image again and heated embossed with white embossing powder.

This last technique was using metal and double embossing. Love the way this came out. You take a piece of metal and place in an embossing folder, run it through the Sizzix, sand the embossed pieces, then you need to flatten it out by running it through the machine again. Once it's flattened you place it in another embossing folder and run it through the Sizzix, sand again. You can then use sharpies to color the raised areas.

Scrap pages

The spread on the left is a kit I purchased at a CKC in Valley Forge last year. It's from Camp Hoover's 50th Reunion. Deb Hooker is the current camp director and she organized this fabulous event. She also had the path to the Ropes Course named after my mother. That meant a lot to me.

Here's another spread from the reunion. I did this one using the technique used by Tami Potter. I purchased her book at CKC in Valley Forge. Maybe this year, I'll get a chance to take her class.

These next 2 layouts are pictures from a reception for my cousin's son. He got married in Korea last year. The reception was for our family here in the states.

This last layout was also done at CKC, I just finally put in the pictures. It's done on canvas with another smaller canvas on top. Makes it a bit thick to put in a book, so I got a frame for it and going to hang it on the wall.

Life Update

Well I've been trying to find some time to get another post up, but there just hasn't been enough time. I guess that could be a good thing. Was having major headaches and needed to have root canal done and that went fine (much better then expected) but got another headache so back to the doctor! Also had to take my elderly cousin (86 years old!) to the dentist and get her taxes done and shopping. In between all this doing my real estate. This is a picture of my most recent listing. It's a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch in Hardwick. It needs some updating, but a nice home in a nice area. After I got the listing we had 2 feet of snow! Which certainly didn't help to get showings. Now that all the rain has melted most of it, we're swamped with mud! Spring is certainly about here! at least the rain wasn't snow, because we would probably have another 3 feet of it! I did manage to get a few scrapbook pages completed but my camera broke and haven't been able to try and get pictures taken with the old camera. Hopefully this week. Looking forward to getting OUTSIDE to do some yard work, at least it's warmer! Until next time. Cyndy

GS Adult Weekend

Well here was the project I was going to teach this weekend. Now those of you who maybe viewing this site, don't tell anyone what they are going to make! I was going to be at Camp Hoover outside of Newton this weekend, but because of all the snow, they closed camp! It's only Friday and we have 2 feet of snow and it's not suppose to stop until tomorrow. It snows off and on this afternoon so I'm hoping there won't be much more accumulation. Years ago my mother had run an older girl program in February, usually a little earlier in the month to teach girls how to handle different emergency situations, along with building a shelter, finding food & water, and compase reading. So back to my little album. This is a paperbag album. I use 3 bags to make this project. I also used paper from K&Company. Loved the way this turned out. My sideline and friend Debbie Giannos also made one using the same papers, but hers turned out very different. She isn't a Girl Scout! Shame on her! So she wanted to be able to work it in with pictures she would have. I didn't get any pictures of her album, so when I do, I'll post hers as well. I also used a retired stamp set from SU that looks a lot like girl scouts. I hope this set lasts forever! I know many who would anything to get it!

This is the first inside page of my book. It's taken from 2003. My daughter Jess was in 4th grade I think. This was the first time the troop was going camping in tents! I couldn't believe it. We were staying at Valhalla, Camp Hoover's "primitive site". Not really, there is running water and flush toilets. The building you see is a leanto. It's open on 3 sides, but very large. It's big enough to put a good size pop up tent in there! Well I tried to teach them how to make a fire. I had 2 dad's there (I did get one mom to join us)and one was a volunteer fireman, so it wasn't easy. Do you have any idea how much firemen like to make fires?!

We also did the ropes course, they had a blast! The Saturday was a beautiful day and things dried nicely after the heavy rains we had the day before. There are more pages but didn't want to get them all up. You'll have to come to the rescheduled event to see for yourself and make one of your own! Cyndy

John's Birthday

Last weekend was my hubby's birthday and didn't get a chance to make his card until his birthday! Soooo I had to keep it simple and really wanted to use my metal and of course have it look masculine, so I used one of my textured plates from SU. The metal is chocolate. After running the metal through the Sizzix I sanded it so you could see the texture better. It coordinated real well with SU Chocolate chip cs and ribbon. It's accented with tempting turquiose. I amazed myself how quickly I was able to whip this one together. Hope you enjoy it. Cyndy

Technique Night - Belated Happy Valentine's Day!

Well here were my Valentine's! A little late, but here they are. I had fun making them. This is what we are doing this Friday at my monthly technique class instead of last Friday. On the Valentine to the left I used the new heart shape treat cup and the tab on it is to pull and release the M&M's. Unfortunately my daughter wasn't thinking about that when she pulled hers and the M&M's went everywhere! Wish I was there for that one!

This next one was really pretty easy. I used a couple of heart punches and an embossing folder. Got this idea from the Technique Junkie newsletter I subscribe to. So many cool techniques in this past issue.

This last technique I also got from Technique Junkie.
I used the shimmer paint, which is still available, and re-inkers. This was also very easy to do and a lot of fun. Hope you stop by next month to see what exciting technique we do. Or better yet, come to class and enjoy in person! I will be posting other new and exciting things before the next class, so see you soon!

Happy Valentine's Day

Well I know this project has nothing to do with Valentine's Day exactly, but this was a big project I just finished up. Another niece of mine (much older)is having a baby and she just had her shower yesterday. I had made her a baby blanket and a photo album. Really liked the way the album turned out. I stamped the front cover with craft ink and made chipboard letters covered with the crystal effects. I also made the frame from a piece of chipboard and covered it with some DSP. The first page in the album a lifted from the Simply Scrappin Kit that's in the current SU catalog. Just loved that page.

The next page I got from MDS (My Digital Studio) Figured it would be easiest to use the templates from that and just make them for real. I also got some ideas from pagemaps.com They have a monthly newsletter that's free and members are also uploading samples of their layouts. These are just some samples from the album. I did take pictures of all the pages and loved the way it turned out. She loved the book too and fortunately noone else got her anything like it, how could they! Now she'll be all ready for when the baby comes to document her progress!

My technique class was postponed to this coming Friday, so I'll post the pictures from that in the next few days. In case you wanted to come and couldn't make it last week, call me and reserve your spot. For the others that are coming, I'll see you then! Have a great V day! Cyndy