Be Creative

TGIF

So happy today is friday! Looking forward to just relaxing and hanging around the house! I'll be working on my newsletter so if you haven't joined my email list please do, so you don't miss it! To temp you even more, This Card  is going to be given away to someone on my list this week!

For a while i've been wanting to share with you a project I did for Sizzix. I actually sewed something! I made this apron with no pattern, just with lots of help from my friend Debi who is an awesome seamstress! But you don't have to make an apron you can just add some die-cuts to an apron you already have! Any Mom would love this for Mothers Day!

How to: Apply fusible web to felt with iron. Die-cut Bird w/Branch from several colors of felt. Layer and arrange on apron and iron in place. I also stuffed a little batting under the bird to make him chubby! Embellish flower centers by handsewing buttons in place.

This would only take about a half and hour if you weren't making the apron. That my friends took me all day, but I leared some new sewing techniques and I didn't want to throw the machine out the window so it was a total success!

Here's a close up... You can get the die Here ...

Thanks so much for all your comments and blog ideas. I liked them all and next week i'll dedicate a post to each idea. Tonight was Niguel's night to pick a card give away winner and Leslie you are the lucky winner tonight, so send me your address and i'll send it off to you!

If your at Reflections tonight (Friday) come say "Hi" to me!Check in this weekend I just might have a new post up! Have a great weekend!

Hello Today

I loved this quote when I saw it in the new catalog from Fancy Pants, luckily I came home from the show with an extra copy. Tonight I cut it apart and made this card... hmmmm, who to send it to???

How about one lucky person that leaves a comment today with a  suggestion of what they'd like to see a blog post about! I'll have one of the girlies pick someone tonight!

Today i'll be cleaning up my craft room. Its a total disaster zone from all the kits and projects i've been making!People around the house are starting to refer to it as the crap room! I always know its time to clean up when that happens. After all... love your craft room and your craft room will love you back!

Go Here to see some organization before and after shots of my craft room. Plus my take on the clip it up! 

Don't forget to comment and leave me a blog suggestion! Hope you love life today! Smiles...

Luch Box Love

Yesterday Niguel jumped in the car and started crying. It was the second time in as many days. Niguel is a rule follower and she is very sensitive to any injustice. Her class is having a little trouble and she feels very upset by the firmness her teacher has had to take with them. I can't imagine that any other child in the class gave this one more thought when they left the classroom. But to Niguel her perfect world has been terribly wronged. To top it off she heard a few of her classmates say some unkind things about her. These are tough lessons she will have to learn and we spent a good deal of our evening talking about life experiences and how she should be proud of herself. Please don't think that i'm one of those parents that thinks my child wears a halo. This girl drives me craaaazzzzeeee at least once a day. She's a normal girl that gets in plenty of trouble but never, never, never at school! Oh, so on to my point... I thought she could use a little love in her lunch box today and made her this card with a little note from Mom inside!

 If you love this card, its a die-cut and you can find a slightly bigger version of it Here.

Elsa Hagner... Come on down your the winner of yesterdays card give away! Email me your address!

Hope you all have a day filled with Smiles! 

3 Things

I wouldn't want to scrap without. I have about 10 things on my workspace that get a heavy workout every time i'm crafting. I thought i'd share 3 of my favorites with you today.

*Edited* I know i've said it before and I won't say it again till next quarter... :) I can still take a few more sign ups for my Creative Cards homeschool. If your're interested please go Here . And if you've already read this a thousand times, please forgive me.

May I introduce you to my good friend the Scallop Circle Punch! I have this baby in the Mega and Giga size and i've worn out two of the Giga ones. It just looks great on everything and if you take a gander at my galleries you'll see this shape all over the place! Grab one of those discount coupons from your craft store and get yourself one of these! I hear there is even a new Mega Giga Size!

   

Another favorite is the Color Box chalk ink cat eyes. My favorite is the Lime pastel and I also use this alot! It compliments my favorite color Bazzill cardstock (Green tea) well. Use it to ink the edges of everything... it goes on super creamy and smooth. My other favorites are creamy brown, chestnut and pink. So much goodness for a very little price!

This little item is probably my oldest crafting friend. I remember glittering the heck out of every school project I got my hands on. Big 'ol lines of Elmer's glue and tons of glitter sprinkled on top. I haven't let up since. God must have given me daughters solely based on how much I love glitter. I never ever wear it as part of my wardrobe or makeup! I just not that flashy! Well unless it has fallen on me from crafting. Since i've grown up a bit I indulge in ultra fine glitters. I really like the Sparkle and Sprinkle ones I mentioned yesterday and the Martha Stewart ones are nice as well.

 Here's my latest creation with my three favorites!

Since I just can't keep all these cards today i'm going to give this one away to someone who leaves me a comment.

Hope you have a beautiful day! Smiles!

Technique and Winner

Please visit my main page for my latest posts. Go Here

*Edited* I know i've said it before and I won't say it again till next quarter... :) I can still take a few more sign ups for my Creative Cards homeschool. If your're interested please go Here.  And if you've already read this a thousand times, please forgive me.

Here's a technique to start off your week. This may not be new to you but, I bet part of it will be. See I always knew how to change the color of brads by using embossing powder but I used to try to coat the whole thing with embossing ink and then use several coats of embossing powder. It usually resulted in a changed color but it was usually very pitted and uneven looking. Then the gals at my favorite Glitter Company  showed me the light! All you have to do is eliminate the the embossing ink. Here i'll walk you through it...

You'll need... An embossing gun (heat tool), Embossing powder, tweezers and brads.

Pick up the brad with the tweezers and heat it up with the embossing gun. I did mine for about 50 seconds or so.

Here's was the magic new part for me... just dip it into the embossing powder.

The embossing powder melts on the hot brad resulting in a smooth shiny finish.

Want some of those trendy glitter brads? After you put on the embossing powder just hit it with the heat gun for another quick second and then dip it in glitter! 

What about brad colors that are ugly or you just need something different. You can fix those too...

See all pretty...

Now you can make something adorable with the glittery brads you just made.

I made the card below, and if you'd like it to be yours i'm giving it away to one lucky person this week. Just sign up for my email list and on Sunday i'll pick someone from the list.

Hope you have a beautiful Monday! Smiles!!!

Happy Friday!

A big first time "Hello" to Chica and Jo  readers... welcome to my blog. Grab some coffee and stay awhile there are lots of things to browse in all of my photo albums and side bars. If You like what you see check out my links for Cute Kits on the right side bar. Please bookmark my site and come back often. And one last thing, please join my email list (its on the top right side of my blog) I'm always sending out announcements and newsletters, and i'm giving away the card below!

So here are the results of my personal challenge to use the oldest items I could find in my stash. Here it is...

The paper is from 2004 from NRN and Sonburn Designs. I really don't know if they are even still in the scrapbooking business. Flowers are from Prima, one of their first releases, the Rub-on is from Heidi Swapp its fuzzy and it must be at least three or four years old. The ribbon and rhinestones are new. And that border punch is from Fiskars.

This is the card that i'm giving away this week. Sign up for my email list and on Sunday i'll pick one person from the new sign ups.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I'm hoping to get in some craft shopping time tomorrow, and make a few more things from my stash of supplies. Maybe something for the house??? Join me, make something from your stash and send me a photo. Take Care!

Not exactly crafty

But I made it for dinner and it was oh, so delicious!

I got the recipe from Here. I make salad like this pretty often but it was the dressing that really caught my eye. Can't be much lower calorie than this and it tasted delicious!

I changed just a few things for personal taste. I used sun dried tomatoes since hubby and I don't much care for fresh. I used sweet onion instead of red. I added croutons because you can never eat to much bread and/or bread products IMHO! I also used steak instead of chicken because I had it left over from last night. There are a ton of great looking recipes on her site so check it out!

I didn't get to go looking into my stash of crafty goodies till about 7 pm but I can tell you I found something in there that still had a receipt from 2004. Good Gravy! It will be really hard to decide what's the oldest.

 It was a busy day, here's what I did instead of working in my craft room like I said I would. Someone asked me if I twittered... uh, no but here's my version .

I finished the May calendar for Timeless Treasures, I did my grocery shopping (with coupons), I went to Homegoods (found nothing except two huge pedestal cake stands that I loved but were out of my price range), I went to the mall (got a new pair of shorts, some candy for a project and made sure someone bought the cute puppy I really wanted last weekend, he went home with a nice girl and her mom), I got a great pedicure and an ok manicure, had lunch at one of my favorite Mexican places, Picked up my girls from school, spent to much time on the computer, folded laundry, helped with homework, made dinner, dropped off the calendar, supervised showers, watched some TV and snuggled and now after the girls are in bed I put in tomorrows load of laundry and I'm here blogging. Now i'm done and i'm off to bed! Goodnight! Have a good day tomorrow!

Antiques

Today I finished the scrapbook page of Niguel that was inspired from This Post. What I have really loved about scrapbooking more is using up some of the things that have been just sitting around for far to long. Seriously I have some stuff that is soon to turn to antique. Vintage isn't something I find at flea markets, I can dig to the bottom of any jar in my craft room and find it. When I scrapbooked this past weekend I opened my tote and there like a time capsule was all the stuff from the last time I went to The Scrapbook Oasis with Steph. It was a mere two and a half years ago. Now it hasn't been that long since i've scrapbooked but obviously that long since I drug out the old tote! Sad, sad little tote!

Here's the page...

Swirls - I painted them yellow, they are at least 5 years old!

Yellow acrylic flower - I bought that little guy at a bead store 3 years ago.

Sticker sentiments - Probably a year and a half old.

Buttons - Now those really are antique and vintage they are from my grandma! I strictly use them on things that are for me personally. I love every single one of them!

Here's a close up of the flowers. Tomorrow i'm challenging myself to find the items i've been holding on to the longest and make something from it. Want to join me in the challenge? So glad I gave away that sticker binder!

Have a great day!

Don't read if you still have snow!

It was over a hundred degrees here today. Typical for Southern California. No spring, straight from freezing to summer. I doubt the heat will let up, i'm pretty sure its here for the summer. Oh, it will be gray for a month in June but it will be HOT!

So we made our first trip to the pool!

 

 

I pretty much blew off everything I should have been doing so I could play. Got a bit of an arm workout in throwing the girls so they could do back flips. Hope you had a good day too!

Winner and Kits

Kits available for my Just a Note Cards. Here is the link to purchase. 

Sale Price $12

With each kit you will receive supplies to make both purses (Red and Green) and two sets of 8 notecards and envelopes to put inside the purse! Cards are A2 size and fit into the purses.  

  

 Hope you have a great day!