Happy Mother's Day

Well I hope all the moms out there had a nice Mother's Day. I was busy this morning making my mother-in-law a card for today. I wanted to do something special and this is what I came up with (card on left). I used a retired set called Toile Blossoms. I got the idea from several different cards and combined them. The DSP was in the last mini, Occasions. I got this gorgeous card from a friend of mine for my birthday and used a few of her ideas here too.

The tissue box I made for my physical therapist. She is getting married and moving to OK. I thought this would be something she could use at the wedding or in her new home. I love the way it turned out. The directions are on splitcoaststampers.com. I lifted ideas from several different boxes and came up with this. I used Shimmery White for the base.

Well I wanted to get this post out on Mother's Day. I'll have to get a picture of the birthday card and put her blog link on the site. She does beautiful work. Cyndy

Spring has arrived!

Well FINALLY! It's warm out, it's not raining all the time and I had time to work in the garden. My husband, John, has been helping and got about a third of it weeded and even planted some tomato plants and corn! Some of my asparagus came up. Maybe next year I'll be able to harvestsome. My rhubarb is really coming along well. Will be freezing a bunch of that this year.

Here are some pictures

of what I've been doing. I have some bird feeders outside my kitchen windows and Buddy enjoys watching them

eat. I'm sure he would love to be out there with them. The picture above is a box I made with the scallop envelope Bigz die. I made it for regional up in CT. I brought along some chocolate for us to nibble on while doing out projects. This fish picture is of our salt water tank. My daughter started it about a year ago and didn't stay on top of it so guess who has taken over. It is finally doing good and doesn't require the amount of work I initially had to do. It really pays to have the right equipment and stuff for the tank so it's not a whole lot of work. Well I hope to be posting again soon, but one never knows for sure! Cyndy

February Update

Well, yes, it's been a long time since my last post. I feel every time I turn around, something else happens and just can't stay on top of things. December was just trying to stay on top of things with the holidays and all. We get together with my in laws a week before Christmas so that makes it even more crazy then usual. January I just couldn't take the pain in my neck and shoulder and started phyical therapy. John and I also went on a cruise for the first time in January. We left right after a snow storm. Good thing we were leaving from NY. The storm came up the coast and if we had to fly down to FL we may not have been able to land the day before! So just before we left, our dryer broke. The day we were leaving, our snow plow truck broke. When we got back the truck had been fixed but then the plow on the truck broke! Then shortly after that the microwave broke. One of my dogs also needed surgery for a tumor. He is recovering nicely and go back for a follow up next week. Hopefully the news will be good.

To top it all off John broke his ankle! Then he had to have surgery, a plate and screws put in to hold it all together. I hope we are done with anything else braking. We are now into February and the bills for this year are getting out of control with everything breaking! My neck and shoulder are still bothering me. I went to a chiroprator and got a lot of relief in my neck, but my shoulder still has pain, almost constantly, so I'm finally going to see an orthopedic doctor. Hopefully that won't be too bad. I'll keep ya posted.

I had wanted to take pictures of the things I did for my shoebox swap at Tina's along with the items I made as well, but with everything breaking, I just haven't had a chance.

That's all for now! Cyndy

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