Big News

Well Boys and Girls.... or anyone else who happens to stop by here. I have big news. I have become a Close To My Heart (CTMH) Independant Consultant. I figured that I love to make cards and layouts so I should share my love with other people. The sailing season is over and there have been some other big changes in my life. My website isn't finished just yet, I have to get up some of my CTMH art but I would love for you to check out my website at http://colleendewis.myctmh.com/. The best part is that there is a special on this month that you can buy any 2 stamp sets and get a 3 for FREE!!!! That is right, I said FREE!!! All you have to do is place an order on the website and it will ship straight to you your door.

I love these products, and I especially love the paper packs that come all fully coordinated for you so there is no searching the store. Then as if that weren't enough, the colours in the papers match the ink, ribbon, brad and marker colours too so you can coordinate with ease!! How sweet is that?!?

Anyway, I will get back on track with my blogging since I am pretty much on a leave of abscense from life, and I am going to use it as a place to share ideas other than just finished projects that I create. Have a good one!

Simon's Challenge for this week

So I am so sad that Beary Box has stopped doing challenges, but I am super excited to say that I have found simonsaysstamp.com which also has great designers and fun challenges. So this week they are celebrating one of the designers birthday (Happy birthday Heidi) and they have an amazing prize.



This week we were given a sketch and here is my take. The papers are Close to my heart from a kit I got when I went crazy one order last year. Flowers are something random that were on sale and the stamp is Rachelle Anne Miller (wish I had enough skills to put a happy face here). I just realized when I went to the blinkie that half the cards were done with RAM images. TEEHEE!!Coloured with water colour pencils and ink from CTMH.



Hope you enjoy it, thanks for looking.


Just realized that you can't see the embossing that was done with the cuttlebug folders on the green parts. It is the swirly one.

Simon's Challenge

So I am making a blogging comeback, starting now. I found a new site that with neat challenges, and I am always open to more so leave me links in comments if you know of any. This one is from simonsaysstamp.com . The challenge was to create a Christmas card. I wanted mine to look sort of like an ornament for on the tree. I love the stamp on it!

I will post more as I get back into the groove of things but for today here is the picture. I used some felt fusion holly and eyelets to go with the sponged ink.

Feels good to be back!

So Many Challenges and NO Time

So today I had every intention of getting to school nice and early so I could get a whole lot of work done on my term paper so I could get out for an early walk and all that good stuff then come home and unpack my scrap gear from the crop I was at on the weekend. Well obviously my day never goes as planned EVER so I overslept (only by 3 hours though...) and then I am up the dear boy gets an email from his office. Here is the story; yesterday he called in sick with some "flu like symptoms" however just a little lower GI issue, touch of fever and maybe a little headache. Well don't they decide that he can't go back to work because he may be carrying the swine flu... yep no word of a lie. He hasn't been to Mexico, stepmother we don't live with was there maybe a month ago but has showed no symptoms, some people in his office were there but he hasn't really had contact with them. So in order for him to be let back in the door he has to be showing NO "flu like symptoms", fill out a questionaire to their satisfaction and have a doctor's note.

Even though we live in Canada and have free healthcare, getting in to see a doctor can be a pain in the butt. We are lucky that I am at university and they have a doctor each day who only does same day appointments. So I call and tell them the situation and they give us an appointment but tell us not to come into the main waiting room, so we basically get quarantined. We also get the crankiest nurse I have ever met in my life (most nurses are so wonderful, so I find her strange especially since she is always like this) who freaks out at us for pretty much wasting the doctors time. She then calls the department of health to complain about the dear boy's work even though they are only trying to protect their other 500 employees who work in the building. So I am sure that there will be some fun with that when he is finally allowed to go back.

Anyways since he isn't allowed back in the building until at least monday, we ended up taking advantage of the remainder of the gorgeous day we had and went for a walk. So we got home and I was exhausted (now I am awake though, since it is time to go to bed..) and just sorta crashed and did some bloghopping. I have to say I love having the little dashboard thing that will show me my stalkee's updates and when....

SOOO there are so many challenges want to do, but first I gotta get the stuff unpacked and probably sorted back out because there is nothing organized about a crop!!! I need a better way to pack for crops I think, I can't seem to plan ahead enough to not take anything I own. I am not a good planning scrapper, I am more a dig out absolutely everything I have and see what I like and fits scrapper. Does anyone else suffer from this problem? I don't even know how all you people with kids manage to get any scrapping at all done, especially those who work on top of that.

Well thank you for reading my mildly scrapping related rant, have a great week and happy crafting!

Intregued

Well that is most definately spelled wrong, but it is ungodly early and I have already been awake for too long today so I am not going to figure out how to fix it. So there.

In my blog stalking this morning I have found this cool online event happenning this weekend at Cuttlebug Challenges which I thought I would share. There are a ton of prizes going on and I am not exactly sure how things are going to work, but I am a sucker for winning stuff and may crawl over my own mother for a free cuttlebug!!! I would imagine that there will be some challenges and some chatting with other paper-holics so that will be spiffy. Here is the info

Beary Box 23 Entries

Hi all,

I hope everyone is having a great week. Mine was super busy trying to finish up cards for a charity auction I was organizing, as well as trying to finish gathering items from sponsors and making sure people showed up. I am really disappointed at what my cards sold for actually, but oh well, I know they went to good homes (my Mom, and 2 friends) and I do know that if they would have paid more if the bidding had made it further.... just not a lot of people into handmade crafts I guess.

So today was another round of Crop 4 Cancer which is an all day, 16 hour crop!! I missed some of it for my sister's birthday dinner, and of course I was so not ready to be up and out of the house for 8am this morning after the fundraiser last night!

At the crop today I made a card and 2 layouts, one of which is for the contest. I was really not anywhere near as productive as I had hoped, due in part to an epic battle with a Cricket machine. I am pretty sure the Cricket won.

So my card for this week is using a super cute stamp that reminds me of my 2 great aunts who used to swim everyday in the summer, bathing caps under the chin and all. They would then join us for cocktail hour. I coloured in the image with my watercolour pencils, and there are some glossy accents on the glasses (both drink and sun) to give them some oomph. I obviously needed to use a drink brad in the center of my flower as well. I didn't want my sentiment to be too overpowering, so I put it on acrylic and used drink eyelets to hold it in place.

My LO for this week is of my gorgeous neice and I earlier this year. I used some CTMH flourish stamps as accents and had some matching chipboard and paper that I got at Michael's that I obviously can't remember the brand of and am way to lazy to go look up. I have a little bit of bling for accents, and did some stippling on the matting to give it some depth. sorry that it is sort of at a weird angle.

Thanks for looking, love to hear your comments.

First House Mouse Submission

So I have always loved the House Mouse line of stamps from stampability and they have been on the list of things to buy for a while. However after my blogstalking resulting in finding the House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge I had to splurge. I am REALLY certain that the definition of addict is to make a special trip to the stamp store for a challenge you think sounds like fun. I am so full of excuses.


So the challenge was to use multiple images on your project in any way you wanted. I ended up with 2 versions of my card and don't know which one I like better so I am posting them both. They both have several uses of multple images.

1. I had to stamp each image multiple times to get all the details to show up the way I wanted



2. I wanted to make the lollipops stand out so I stamped the image first on cardstock, then again onto white vellum. I cut the vellum lollipop wrappers out so they are a little crinkley like real suckers would be.



3. In one card I sent cut out a 2nd bunny too.

So both cards are on CTMH cardstock, coloured with their inks and I used a sentiment from them as well. Dollar store ribbon. To make the lollipops shiney and have some definition I added some Glossy accents, and it doesn't show up very well on the picture but the cup is painted with Vanilla Bean twinkling H2Os. Also I wanted to have some dimension in the sucker sticks they are embossed with a plain white.

I am glad I found this website ladies, you are going to get a christmas card for next week because that was the only other house mouse stamp that our store has in stock (apparently they can't keep them on the shelf right now!!).

Bryn's Beary Box Entry

My friend Bryn also did up a layout for this week, but we forgot to take a picture of it until just now. His faceplant posting was a pain to link to so until I can convince him to get his own blog or whatnot I will share.

I have to tell you that I am so excited for Bryn, his work is looking really good especially considering this is his 2nd lo EVER!! That is right, EVER. I have brought him over to the darkside, and got him into cards and everything.

Beary Box 22

Boy oh boy am I cutting it close today. I am going to post first, then go post the link then come back and edit.

Ok first the card. Love these little hedgehogs from Rachelle Anne Miller. I used some CTMH ink to colour them. The paper is SEI and Daisy D's, hearts are die cuts off my sizzix. Had to add a little bling so I used some glossy accents on the stamps and some stickles.

This is another wedding layout from Denices wedding. In the picture is my sister, me, Denice's sister and of course Denice. Sitting in the chair is one of our childhood nanny's Elizabeth who we were so glad to see her there and looking pretty healthy.

The title is vellum one from one of the DCWV "Once upon a time stacks" and the patterned paper is from another one of their stacks and is all flocked. I wanted to keep the background fairly simple, but I thought it needed more than just the flowers so out came the sewing machine. I have added a closer view of the stitching because I am impressed that an old hand-me-down machine had such a cool option. If you look really close you will see that there are slightly different shapes, which is because one was done in forward, the other was done in reverse.

Have a great week ladies.

Blogstalking!

So I have been blogstalking again, and there is a whole series of people having "blogoversaries" with give aways. The catch is posting a link on my blog, so here I am! Seriously, this is what happens when I am sick, can't get to school and can't sit up to scrap or stamp. It is starting to get a little out of hand here eh?


I would seriously LOVE for someone to tell me how to be able to link with a picture on a sidebar so if you know how PLEASE tell me.

Loras Cards

Carols's Paper Playce

Everything Paper Crafts

Lainys Little Blog

Stamped Smiles

Creative Ideas by Katharina

Yvonne's Creative Cards

All The things I love

Judy's Crafty Moments 10000 hits celebration!!

Starsdust ribbon and gems (open until 14th)

Malin's Birthday giveaway (open until 12th)

Crafty C's Creative Library (Closing on the 18th)

Inked Inspirations (closing on the 19th)

yummy scrummy create (this is a reminder to myself cause it hasn't happenned yet!)

Beary Box 21...

Oh wow, I knew I had been off the ball but I hadn't realized it had been this long since I spent quality time in the scraproom!! Well one course is totally done, and so long as I can make it to school during the days that leaves the nights wide open for getting some challenges done. A word of warning I still have a TON of wedding pictures requiring attention for my dear Denice so I should probably get going on those!

Ok so on to the challenge pics. I was so inspired by the butterfly and my new CTMH set that I knew exactly what I wanted to do as soon as I saw it. So alchohol ink on transparency, then stamped with staz-on in, cut out and bent a little. Almost everything is CTMH because I am on a binge with them lately (also they are still in the top of the pile!). Ribbon and the paper on the right edge are random Michael's brands. Sorry for the strange angle, my camera is acting up tonight. Oh I had to add a little stickles for some bling!

I wanted to show a side view because the camera didn't do justice to the gorgeous way the butterflies stand off the page, I am very happy with them.

Last but not least, for those of you who aren't face stalkers you may not be aware that one of the fabby DT member Shirley is having a very important birthday today!!! Happy 40 Shirley!!

Thanks for looking.

Beary Box Card Challenge 13

Happy Valentines Day to those of you who celebrate it and have people to share it with. If you are like me and are of the school of telling those you love how much you love them at every possible opportunity, yeah for less jewellry ads!!

This week I am away from the scrap space because I am house sitting. My Dad and I do lots of really random art projects which I will post as I get my part (ie the painting part) done. I didn't even bring scrap stuff with me because I am so behind on my painting his folk art projects! Maybe I should go take a pic of the stack....

So on to more exciting things. I know that my nanny will have a Vday card for me, so I definately had to make a card for her, and my aunt is having a rough time lately (the doctors thought she may have cancer, turned out to be pre-cancer so that is good) so I made one for her too. I also divided a clover plant the other night so I am going to give each of them a clover plant too.

I haven't decided which card is for who yet, I just love each of them so much. I think that the amazing dragon (from... shoot I forget, but I bought it from treehouse stamps) is going to go to my nanny and the rainy day (bought from BearyBox of course) will go to my aunt. I hope that you like them!

Images are stamped with staz-on, then coloured using watercolour pencils. I just got one of the brushes that has a resevoir in it... best thing of life!! Used a little cuttlebug embossing folder action to get the swiss dots, and the hearts were all cut out with sizzix. Sentiments and the flower border is CTMH.

SOO, I am a little behind.

So I have been feeling like my scrapbooking mojo has been off the past few weeks, I haven't had any desire to craft at all. I have loved the sketches that bearybox has been doing, but just haven't been able to get my butt in gear. I am home on a snow day today and thought "Well self, you already cleaned the house, cleaned out your closet and you have no school work home with you. Lets see if we can jump start some creativity".


I decided starting with a sketch would be the place to go. Again I am still working on my friend's wedding album so they get priority.



Here is the sketch

And here is my take. I got these great flowers from the boy when he wanted a new video game and they were still on my desk, so I started with them! Journalling is left blank for the bride to fill in with her thoughts.

I also had a page that was half done for a few weeks ago, and I love the brads that I used on it so I am going to share it while I am here. I finished it up today, although its not award winning or anything! The pics are from us getting ready for the wedding ceremony at the bride's parents house. I did the hair for 3/4 bridesmaids.

How cute are the hairdryer and lipstick brads?!?

Happy Scrapping!

Some new Challenges

So I have been blogstalking and checking out stamp sites and all sorts of things over the holidays. I have found some interesting challenges, and as my stamp collection is still a work in progress there have been a few I haven't been able to participate in, but have been added to the wishlist for later.

I have also found some sites that are ok with you using products that aren't their own. I am really enjoying http://sweetnsassystampers.ning.com/forum . They had a really fun release party with a blog hop on friday night and I have started working on their challenges. I will also be purchasing many of thenew sets that were released because they are gorgeous!!

The first was the technique challenge was to use the paper tole technique in which you stamp at least 3 images they cut 2 of them apart and layer sections of the origional image. The result is beautiful, but is seriously time consuming. I pulled out a stamp that I have had for at least 10 years for this one, and it was probably not the greatest choice. The cutting was insane! It can be seen below from both the front and the side so you can see the pop ups.

The second challenge I have done is their colour challenge using black, grey, white, pink and gray. I really am enjoying the new Bazzil embossed cardstock, it makes me smile. Again these are stamps that I have had for so long I am not even sure what brand they are, but if anyone is interested I will go find them again. I like the colour combination in this one and I hope that you like the way it turned out.

I did a little bit of water colour penciling on the stampted images now that I have gotten the technique down a little better, it took a little while but one can do it with a brush, you just want a small one. And you REALLY don't need much water. So I have found if I take the brush, dip it in the water, run it up the side to get the extra water off then blot it on a paper towel I get a much nicer effect than I had been previously. This will even work if you are using a regular cardstock and not watercolour paper, just for the record.

Thanks for looking.

Its been a while

Well I have been rather deliquant over the past few weeks, even though I have a bunch of things to post and have become super into stamps over the holidays. I got a shiney new camera for the holidays, so I am excited about showing you some of my pictures!! I would like to take the time to show you my first real christmas decorations with the man I love.

So that is the tree all lit up and not so lit up. I know the tree is big, but it looks SOO real and you wouldn't know that the lights were LED unless you got really close. That was the selling point for me actually and so the dear BF bought me the tree! If you will look closely you may notice that the top of the tree has a hideous topper on it, but it was the most acceptable thing we could find. I will have to either learn to crochet or hit some craft shows next year. I made the skirt myself, but its fairly plain so I won't dwell too much.

I also decided that since this is our first christmas living together and that the BF has never had his own stocking I would make one very special for him. So off we went to the craft store to pick our fabrics. He had never been to a fabric store, and very little concept of what fabric he could use. The first one he chose was drapery material and was super heavy and like $100 a meter or something obscene like that. Then next was flannel. The third he was convinced was perfect; it was a thin cotton, so I could totally make it work. He wanted pengiuns so he got them. Then I edged them with some bling ribbon so there could be a little shine, and then embroidered his name on it just for him. I did however realize upon completion that there was no place to hang these stockings other than putting tacks in the walls and that they may be a normal size but I get carried away...so the stocking was filled to overflowing and put in a pile with the rest of the gifts from santa.

Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday and is looking forward to a year of wonderful suprizes, crafting and breaking every resolution you made. Within the next 3 weeks if you are trying hard enough!!