Dial-up stinks! ...and a star tree

Sorry I haven't been updating! We moved last weekend (June 21st), and don't have DSL hooked up yet...and blogger isn't so happy on dial-up.

It's hard to believe we all lived like this 10 years ago!! I'm so used to being instantly connected to everything now, that I feel like I'm on some sort of primitive island *wink*

But, I thought I'd share a quick picture of Daniel, showing off his filled-up Star Tree. I made it for him to encourage him to have good behavior at preschool (each start = 1 day with no time-outs). He filled it (25 stars, and he goes to school 2 days/week) in just under 3 months...nothing like a little motivation!! He got to pick out a toy at the toy store, and chose a super-soaker...fitting, since it was a record-breaking 116F the next day!

The whole chart is made from cardstock (if I have to look at it for 3 months, it may as well be pretty, right?), and I cut out the tree by hand. You can't see it in the picture, but around the sky blue cutout is faux-stitching with my Zig writer. The star punch is from SU! and the bird punch is from Martha Stewart Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by! DSL comes this week (*fingers crossed*), and then I'll be showing you some more goodies!

~Michelle

Double Challenge Cowboy Kid!

I made this card as double challenge (SC181 and CC171 on Splitcoast), and it's really starting to grow on me... It's been HOT here (the Central Coast of CA usually has very mild, very stable weather, and right now we're getting into the 90s and low 100s, which is REALLY unusual), and last night I just couldn't sleep, so I made a card picking a set from the one box of stamps that wasn't taped up for moving :)

The whip-stitching along the seam between the two panels took me FOREVER!! I'm really, really not a seamstress, and am only kinda good at hand-stitching, so that's what I chose to do since ribbon didn't seem to 'work'. What I didn't count on was how hard it would be to fit jute through the holes I paper-pierced! I love how it looks, though! I think it really goes with the 'Cowboy' theme *wink*

Thanks for stopping by! Stay cool, wherever you are!
~Michelle

Supplies Used:
Paper: Creamy Caramel, Basic Black, Very Vanilla, and Soft Sky (SU!)
Stamps: Cowboy Kid set (SU!)
Ink: Basic Black, Creamy Caramel, Soft Sky, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Apricot Appeal, and Really Rust (SU!)
Other: Tim Holtz Retractable Paper Piercer (Tonic Studios), Jute, glue dot adhesive (Zots)

Peek-a-boo

Is this not one of the cutest faces you've ever seen? (I say "one of" because I have two incredibly adorable boys...*wink*)

This is Jonathan's new favorite obsession. He recently figured out that he's just the right size that if he stands flat against the slider, he fits between it and the vertical blinds perfectly. :) He'll just stand there until someone says "Where's Jonathan?", then he laughs and peeks out...so cute, but too bad it makes me crazy because I'm always worried he'll rip the blinds down. It'll be nice when we're in our new house (this weekend!), and I won't have to worry about messing up a rental. *sigh*

Since my supplies are currently packed/being packed, I haven't been able to make anything (and don't have any time to, regardless!), but look for something soon! I'm hoping to set up my craft room first (who needs a kitchen or bedroom, right?)

Thanks for stopping by! Make it a great day!
~Michelle

You're the Best

This is the card I made for my husband, and I made variations for my dad and my D-I-L, using papers from my March 2008 Cocoa Daisy kit so that I'd also be doing something for my Crazy about Kits class at Big Picture Scrapbooking...nothing quite like multi-tasking, eh? *wink*

The card is super simple...it's a 5 1/4" square card (to fit in SU!'s medium square envelopes), and I scored the front panel in quarters. Then I placed my patterned paper squares at the edges of the score lines, leaving just a thin line of the Chocolate Chip showing between each square as a 'frame' of sorts (and it also helped me line up my squares!). The I adhered the raw chipboard letters with Glue Dots, and hand-wrote the sentiment above so that the front reads "you're the best".

Thanks for looking!
~Michelle :o)

Supplies Used:
Paper: Chocolate Chip cardstock, UpTown (Cross My Heart...top & bottom left squares), Gibson (Tinkering Ink...top & bottom right squares)
Other: Chipboard letters (SU! On Board Lots of Letters), White Gelly Roll pen (Sakura), Glue Dots

The 'big' 3-0

Today was the birthday party to celebrate our dear friend, Kevin's, 30th birthday! After re-making this card with 3 different designs, I finally settled on this one, using colors from Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration Challenge #9 from last month. I did change it a bit because I had this scrap of Wild Wasabi sitting on my desk, so I used that instead of cutting up a new sheet of Old Olive ;o)

The asterisk and numbers are from SU!'s On Board Lots of Letters, covered with So Saffron cardstock, cut out with my favorite new little Fiskars fingertip craft knife, and then I sanded the edges with a medium/coarse emery board (the kind they use for acrylic nails).

Sorry about the spotty blogging...I'll have to post before & after pics of the new house so you all can see why I'm not online ;o) The house is really looking great now that it has new paint, new carpet in the bedrooms, and a new (reclaimed) parquet floor in the boys' bedroom. We should be ready to move in this week!

Thanks for stopping by! More to come soon, I promise!
~Michelle

Supplies Used:
Paper: Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, textured Wild Wasabi, Whisper White cardstock (SU!); Hopscotch Red Hot lace cardstock (KI Memories)
Stamps: Birthday Whimsy (SU!)
Ink: Pumpkin Pie (SU!)
Other: Chipboard letters (SU!), star snap (Making Memories)

Happy Hellos

This is another card I made for our MOPS group to do on one of our craft days...we made three cards in total that day, of varying levels of complexity. This was probably the 'middle', yesterday's card was the 'easy' (I had all the layers cut, and the one layer pre-embossed with the Cuttlebug, so all that was left to do was stamping and assembly), the 'hard' was a nearly direct case of this card by Kristina Werner (aka starofmay on SCS). I had to change it a bit since I don't have the SU! scalloped punch and used by Marvy mega & giga punches instead, but other than that, it was basically identical. If you haven't checked out Kristina's blog, do it now! (Well, you can finish reading this, then go there) *wink* She is truly an amazing designer, which is probably why she works for SU! :o)

*Hopefully* I'll have brand-spankin' new stuff to show you soon, but I am working on getting one house ready to move into (paint, repairs, flooring, etc.), and our apartment ready to move out of, so no promises...

Thanks for coming by my blog! Let me know if you like what you see, have suggestions, features you like on other blogs (I'm trying to figure out what to add over there ---->)

As my dear Aunt Beetle would say, "talk to you tomorrow-days" ;o)

~Michelle

Supplies used:
Stamps: Lots of Thoughts (SU! Sell-a-bration 2008 set)
Paper: Tempting Turquoise, Wild Wasabi cardstocks (SU!), patterned dp (My Mind's Eye)
Ink: Pumkin Pie (SU!)
Other: Pumkin Pie striped grosgrain, dimensionals, 1 1/4" circle punch (SU!)

Father's Day inspiration

Man, being a (limited-time) single mom is hard! For those of you that have to do it all the time, I'm giving you a HUGE round of applause. I'm so happy my DH is coming home from his business trip! Obviously, I haven't blogged in a few days, but I have been getting our new house ready to move into! (Yay!!) My wonderful father-in-law has been there everyday, painting, fixing electrical, pulling out flooring, putting in baseboard...I've been helping where I can, which basically means painting and buying things :o) I wouldn't even have been able to do that, except my amazing mother-in-law has been watching my boys while I'm over at the house 'helping' Bernie. Chris and Bernie, thank you both so much!!

Okay, on to the card. Father's Day is only 8 days away! Are you ready? Here is a card I made for my MOPS group a couple of months ago, but I thought I'd post it in case any of you are looking for card-making ideas *wink* It's a Joy Fold card - click here for some great directions on Beate's blog. The tab to hold it closed was something I had to improvise (I usually use photo turns, but didn't have that many for my MOPS group) ...I punched a 1/2" circle out of the Bayou Blue textured cardstock, and affixed it with a brad. To figure out the placement, I assembled the card, closed it, then put the circle where I wanted it (overlapping the top layer to hold it closed), and puched the brad to make a mark in the cardstock. Then I punched the hole with my Crop-a-dile so the cardstock wouldn't tear.

Have a great weekend! Hopefully I'll have some more scrapbooking stuff for you after tonight! *wink*

~Michelle

Supplies used:
Stamps: The Wheel Thing (SU!)
Paper: Bayou Blue Textured Cardstock, Cranberry Crisp, Sahara Sand, and Very Vanilla cardstock (SU!)
Ink: Not Quite Navy (SU!) ...it's so close to Bayou Blue I didn't buy the ink pad!
Tools: Cuttlebug and embossing folder (Provo Craft); Crop-a-dile (We R Memory Keepers); Scor-Pal
Other: silver brad (SU!)

Explore!

Last night I finished my very *first* ever scrapbook layout! I love how it turned out, but it took me FOREVER. Probably because it was my first and I was agonizing over everything, just like when I first started making cards.

This is for a class I'm taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking called Crazy About Kits. Even though I haven't ever been a scrapbooker before, the worlds of scrapbooking and stamping constantly collide and overlap, and I love looking at scrapbooking magazines, websites, and how-to books for tips and inspiration. And I love to buy scrapbook kits for all the goodies, so I thought this would be the perfect 'kick' to get me into the big, wide world of scrapbooking. Very, very fun.

This is a picture of my younger son, Jonathan, taken last June when he was ten months old...I just love the determined look on his face as he goes through the grass! I'm really excited with how the layout turned out. That background was good and bad, since it didn't need a lot of embellishment, but it also made me confused as to how to place things. I do think it all turned out well, though. I love to hear your thoughts...I read *all* comments! *wink*

Thanks for stopping by!
~Michelle :o)

Supplies used:
Paper: "About a Boy" dp (Fancy Pants Design), So Saffron cardstock (Stampin' Up!)
Embellishments: Chipboard letters (Thickers by American Crafts); Acrylic stars (unknown); Chipboard stars (Lisa Bearnson); Tagmaker Rim (Making Memories); Buttons (Daisy D's); brads (various); paint (Paint Dabbers by Ranger Ink)

7Gypsies Secret Sister Set

MOPS is a great thing. (MOPS, for those of you that don't know, or that *very* mistakenly think I love to clean, stands for Mothers of PreSchoolers)

Today was our last MOPS meeting before we break for the summer (since there are some that actually have school-age kids as well, and the usual summer vacation stuff going on), and so we did a reveal of everyone's Secret Sister. As I think I've mentioned before, I'm the "craft chick" for our MOPS group, so I felt like there was no way I could make *anything* for my secret sis, since it would totally give me away, right? ALL THAT CHANGED LAST NIGHT! *wink*

Now, this had been brewing in my mind for weeks, since I knew we'd be revealing at this meeting, but I'm a last-minute crafter and work best under pressure, so I cranked out all this stuff last night. (Can you picture me doin' a little happy dance here?) My secret sis, Amber, loves red (her favorite color), and had put down that dark red is one of the colors in her decor, so I decided on these papers from 7Gypsies, then pulled out a mini clipboard, jumbo paperclips, binder clips, a gift bag to put it in, and all the goodies to make everything.

Tutorials for the Altered Clipboard and Paper Clip Bookmark can be found on Splitcoast Stampers in the Resources pages under Projects (just click on the links!). The only differences I do is that I do all Mod-Podged paper on my clipboard (no painting or stamping), and when I make bookmarks, I like to adhere my paper to my chipboard first using my Xyron, then cut with the Cuttlebug. I find that if I face the cutting edge of the die against the paper side, I get a nice rounded, finished edge that doesn't require any sanding.

Thanks for stopping by! Please leave me a comment and let me know if you have any suggestions...what would you like to see? what kind of formatting do you like (pics to the side, centered, text interspersed)? This is definitely a work-in-progress, and I could use all the help I can get! *wink*

~Michelle

Supplies used:
Paper: dp (7Gypsies); Basic Black and Very Vanilla cardstock (Stampin' Up!)
Punches: Mega Circle and Giga Scalloped Circle (Marvy Uchida); Corner Rounder (EK Success) - used to make the scalloped border on the gift bag
Embellishments: Flowers (Prima); Buttons (Daisy D's); Chipboard 'a' (Maya Road); ribbons - unknown
Other: Mini Clipboard, Jumbo paperclips, binder clips (Staples); decoupage medium (Mod Podge); adhesive dots (Craft Glue Dots, Pop-up Glue Dots, Zots); E6000;

Night owl

This is a card I made for my brother's sweet fiancee (Hi Gina!). I just love this owl image from Sassafrass Lass, and thought it'd be perfect for a card for her since she's such a night owl! We often stay up chatting on AOL Instant Messenger until past *my* bedtime, and I'm in California...she's on the east coast...three hours time difference there!

Since I wanted to make him a 'night owl' for Gina, I found a plastic stencil that came as a freebie with a magazine offer, and used it to dry-emboss the moon onto watercolor paper. I will say, even though it was a fairly thick plastic, you do need a light table or a window with a strong light source behind it to do that...I actually took a Sharpie marker and outlined the edge of the stencil so that I'd be able to see the shape, since the stencil I used was a frosted clear plastic.

The sparkle on the moon was achieved by smearing some Stickles Frosted Lace over the moon with my finger (I'm a messy crafter) after it was embossed.

As a side note, can you believe how orange my poor little owl stamp is? I can't seem to get him clean...I even tried Stazon cleaner, even though I've heard that's a no-no on acrylic stamps (I rinsed with water afterward to make sure I got it all off). The owl card I posted earlier is one I made with a group, and I guess the ink stained the polymer. c'est la vie, no?

Thanks for stopping by!

~Michelle

Supplies used:
Stamp: Owl (Sassafrass Lass)
Paper: Soft Sky, Sage Shadow (Stampin' Up!), watercolor paper
Ink: Sage Shadow (Stampin' Up!)
Other: Cloud twill (Martha Stewart Crafts), Frosted Lace Stickles (Ranger Industries), dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)