Piggy Bank

I found this little white piggy bank at Target in the $1 bin...

So I took him home and gave him a little makeover with my permanent markers... :-)

Cuttlebug card

My point with this card was to make a card using only my Cuttlebug (well almost, since I also used a ribbon and 2 eyelets ;-)), no stamp, no coloring, just cut and/or embossed paper.

It came out Ok, I really like that color combo. If only I hadn't been experimenting with glue again and ruining the sheen of my ribbon in the process (maybe it will be less obvious once it's totally dry)... I should have known better! *facepalm*

Naomi's card

Naomi started making cards with me, a thing I am delighted about. She really surprised me taking my stamps and doing her little business.

She made this drawing for her aunt's birthday and she actually got the idea of stamping the happy birthday like a rainbow all by herself. That's where I see she pays attention to what I am doing because she did breathe over the stamp before stamping to revive the colors! :-)

Lizzie Anne Contest

I told you a few posts ago, about the Lizzie Anne contest.

I don't own any Lizzie Anne stamps (yet, LOL!) and it was the only requirement of the contest. The cards will be donated to Cards for Cancer afterwards.

So Lauren very kindly offered to send me some stamped images of my choice... They arrived yesterday and my card was in the mail this morning. Phew, now that was some deadline!! I hope my card makes it on time!....

I already told you I don't make holiday cards (yet) so I wanted to make one for a change...

I had the vision in my head, so when the images arrived I went right to work. And I already had my background ready, (thanks to playing with my Cuttlebug the day before...).I cut the window (that was the hardest part!!) with my X-acto blade to show the blue paper behind where I drew snowflakes with my watercolor pencil, and I added this tiny little snowman in the low corner... Of course the window is popped on double-sided foam tape, which you can't see from my lousy pic....

The big snowman is also on foam. I didn't have colored Stickles so I decided to use my daughter's 3D glue pens. What a sticky mess, the mittens took forever to dry!! :-S Looks like there is a reason why they make adult versions of that stuff!! LOL

I used gold glitter glue to stiffen the little thread that was holding my mittens so that they don't fall on each other (and stick to each other!).

As usual by clicking on the pic you get a huge version that will enable you to see details if you wish...

I kind of like the result, even though it is a "childish" card (but winter holidays are all about childhood memories for me), but given the time it took (2 hours?) I am nowhere near starting to make that kind of cards in a mass production! Or I would have to start January 1st to have them ready for the following December... I keep telling myself that once I am more experienced I will work faster but so far I am a slow learner! LOL!

ETA: I just checked the winners'cards on Lizzie Anne website... Waow!!!

There was obviously no way I could have been up there but it was a fun experience all the same!... ;-)

Best recycling ever!!!

Ok, you are gonna love this!

Since I started scrapbooking I have been paying (even!) more attention than ever to tissues boxes. I always tried to buy somewhat nice ones anyway but now I actually keep the empty boxes just in case I could do something with the cardboard.

Recently Puffs came out with a new tissue that is Vicks (Menthol & Camphor) scented.

They remind me some great Kleenex tissues we have in France (they're green and strongly scented with Menthol and Eucalyptus!) so I bought a box last time I had a cold...

When the box was empty I checked it out and was delighted to discover that the inside looks like foil. So of course I put it away for a project... :-)

Yesterday I had insomnia (Dr Pepper in the evening does this to me...) and I decided to play with my new toy (Cuttlebug) to lull me back to sleep....

The pics you see right there are the result of embossing or die cutting the tissue box. Pretty cool huh? At the left is the empty box to help you spot it on the shelf of your supermarket ;-)...

I was so happy with my find that I am almost looking forward to my next cold!! (I said almost...)

I just love it when you can recycle something and turn the ordinary into extraordinary!!

What do you think?

O.M.G I have a Cuttlebug! :-)

My husband is the coolest.... After work yesterday (yes, Sunday) he made a detour to the closest Michaels store because he saw an add with the Cuttlebug on sale and he knew I wanted one as holiday gift...
Turns out this week all Cuttlebug's stuff (as well as Sizzix and Cricut) is on sale 30% off.
So you can't use your Michaels coupon but if you buy more than one thing you really get a great deal right there. Especially since the alphabets cost as much as the machine itself (ouch).
I checked internet and you can find the Cuttlebug for less but then with the shipping it comes to the same or even more...

A few months ago I didn't even know those little machines existed and now I'm like I absolutely need one!!! LOL
At 1st I thought "what would I do with a die cut machine?" Even though I like using the one at my daughter's school when I volunteer there... :-)
What convinced me was the embossing folders. I just LOVE embossed paper, it's one of the most beautiful thing for me, so after trying templates that take forever to rub in I was attracted by the bug..... The great thing also is that you can use the kids' die cuts from the new cuttlekids in the Cuttlebug! So my daughter -who's 6 1/2 and just LOVES all that scrapbooking business ;-)- will be able to use it with me, which was a big selling point for me....

Did I mention how happy I am right now with my little gadget?.... :-D

Trip down memory lane, bath towels and baby blankets...

So I was on Lauren's blog (http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/), it's the 1st one I visit, almost every day, she is wonderfully inspiring in many ways :-). If you never visited her blog, hop over there, you'll thank me later!

She had posted this beautiful baby frame she just made for her friend and asked what was the most original baby gift we had done.

My 1st thought was "huh, I am not original in my baby gifts..." and since I only just started making cards and such....but then all of a sudden I remembered!!!

I remembered my sewing projects! :-) I made those as baby gifts for my (twins) niece & nephew, then did it again for my niece on the other side of the family.

So I went to fish the pics in my sewing box and scanned them. I didn't have a digital at the time and the picture are not wonderful but it still helps getting a better idea of the end product!....

That was quite an adventure and I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into when I started this!! The sure thing is that when I was done I swore I wouldn't do it again! LOL

It wa hard work and took me forever and I thought it would end up in the trash more than once! The bath towels especially were a nightmare because of the tiny details and the bulk of the fabric.

For the bath towels I bought matching bath towels and handtowels from Martha Stewart (quality plush for the bottoms of my nephew and nieces! ;-)) and I made the hood from the hand towel. It was easier than starting from scratch and I was sure the towel wouldn't fray afterward.

Then I made little animals faces on the towels, a cat and a dog for the twins, a frog for my other niece. Too bad I don't have a picture of the frog, I really liked it! :-( ...

For the baby blankets I did the same thing than done before for my own kids.

I bought cute matching fabrics and white fleece and sandwiched the fleece between the fabric. Then I sewn little random patterns on the fabric so that everything would stay together after it was washed. For the twins I put their initial also. For my niece I didn't even know if it was a boy or girl at the time I bought the fabric so I went with neutrals (gingham with little embroidered dragonflies), and with the leftover fabric I made a little bag holder for plastic bags. Those are really convenient next to the changing table, and pretty easy to make, it's just a tube with elastics at both ends (and a little pocket or 2 just for the fun...). I sure used mine a lot!

Thinking about all that, I remembered I did those blankets for both my babies, and my little guy still likes to snuggle with it at night (it was a baby snoopy fabric). And I also made matching changing table covers, little pillow cases for the little pillow on the changing table.

I even made curtains to block out the light in their room (of course they were not cut straight! LOL) a padded blanket for the baby carriage, a matching padded belt : → in France you can strap the carriage (whitout the wheels obviously) on your backseat using the safetybelt buckles, and the baby has a large padded velcroed belt around his/her belly that's buckled in the sides of the carriage. That allows the baby to be completely flat, like in a crib. I'm sure this would never be allowed in the US!... ;-). And I even made little door holders (with the blankets' fabric's leftovers) so that they can't slam the door and pinch their fingers in there (from a Martha Stewart project)...

So, this made me realize that I made quite some stuff for my babies (and others!), and it made me all happy and proud! *pat on the back*

And it's good because I needed a little mood lift today. ;-)

Fluffles is back...

Ok I couldn't stay very long without putting Stickles on something so I got my dear Fluffles out so I could make the flowers sparkly... I stamped my image in brown which I think gives a softer feel than black, and it goes with my ribbon better ;-) ...

Of course the Stickles made the bee's wings smear... :-( I really need to get permanent ink!!

If you read this, please feel free to tell me which one you use! ;-)...

I am really confused by all the different kind of inks on the market!!! :-S

I made the card for a friend of mine who had surgery a couple of weeks ago and is still pretty tired. I thought Fluffles might cheer her up. That's why I went with the polka dots paper also, I thought it was happy paper....I think I will stamp some kind of sentiment inside maybe...

I didn't have any Prima so I made a flower myself with white carstock and paper and Stickles (what else!?;-)) but I would have loved to use a little sunflower, it would have been cute, or even a brown Prima would have been nice there....

Believe it or not, I haven't bought any of those yet! :-P

Coloring

Not much to say about this super simple card, I was in the mood for some coloring (with regular colored pencils, since this ink would run with the watercolor ones...)...

I admit the coloring is a bit "childish" but I don't own minerals to blend it all. I hope one day I can splurge on copic markers but they are really too expensive! :-(... I really like the effect they give!

I like the distressed look of the sentiment done by rubbing against the ink pad (yep it's a new cool thing to me ! ;-)) and I went through the troubles of coloring the stamp with my stamps markers so that each element had the color I wanted. I really like that effect, opposed to stamping a monochromatic image. I think it looks more alive that way.

The colors I used for the background were matching a pattern paper I finally decided not to use, oh well!... :-) I like brown lately, it must be the season...

And I resisted the urge to put Stickles all over!... ;-) (it's still itching me though! LOL Especially since it looks even more dull on a picture)

Winter/holidays stamps

I just stumbled upon those stamps from a SCS banner.

They are really cute, check them out:

http://elzybellsna.typepad.com/my_weblog/winter-collection.html (winter)

http://elzybellsna.typepad.com/my_weblog/stamps.html (holidays)

Birthday pocket

Another double pocket. This one involved a lot more layering since the paper wasn't double-sided and I think I didn't use the right glue for the task... it is so much simpler with double sided paper. In the end there was so much glue smears on my workstation that I had to put paper on the back of the card too.

I like that funky-disco paper with lots of overlapping circles, the yellow circle next to the happy birthday is part of the paper print actually...

The colors are off on the 1st pic but I still haven't figure out how to adjust that on my camera...

I am having a crappy day and things really aren't going my way, it seems to me that I should probably avoid doing anything crafty on days like that. The inspiration just isn't there and I don't have the patience to deal with things not going according to my mental plan! :-( But I wanted the card to be mailed tomorrow so...

Brown medallions card

I made this card today for my aunt (who's also my Godmother) who just turned 60.

It is belated but better late than never, right?...

I love this stamp set and I think it works very well with heat embossing.

I used copper brown powder, I wish it looked a little more brown and a little less copper but I like the monochromatic result.

Update on cards for the troops.

I'm happy to report that the donation box at the local scrapbook store on WCMD brought us 80 cards to send to the troops (7 of which are mine).
It feels good to be a part of this and help people stay in touch with each other at tough times.
I've always loved writing and receiving letters, and I love the idea of being sort of a messenger for someone else's words to their loved one. What could be better than that?... :-)

Somebody told me I should enroll in the RAK (Random Act of Kindness) group at Splitcoaststampers. I'd love to do that but I'm afraid it would be time consuming and I (unfortunately) don't do well with deadlines!! :-(
We'll have to see, tomorrow is another day!, and I try to take my days one at a time...

Connect

Another one for the troops. I really like the soft colors of that paper, and this stamp set is very dear to me since it was made to benefit autism research.

It finally occured to me that I could remove the runner on my table when I take pics... *duh*

Missing You

I really wanted to use navy paper today, (blue is my favorite color, in case you still haven't figured that one out... :-)) and I really love this new set of stamps called Carte Postale, which is french themed...

It's a very simple card, I just wanted to showcase my little embossed medallion...

I just wished I had different ribbons in stock...I think a blue organza ribbon would have been nice....it is a little bit plain Jane like that.

I'm sending it in the cards package for the troops, I think it would still be a nice card to send to your wife.

I wanted to make cards for kids but didn't have time :-( but I am sending my Ladybug and my Fluffles and the Flower Power, I think they're all suitable for a little girl. I don't have much for little boys, I guess I should get one of those sets with wild animals, that would be fun! :-)

Mini recipes-book

So I just sent an e-mail to my friend asking that she doesn't visit that site for the next couple of days (I don't know if she does visit or not, but just to be sure! ;-))

I have been bad because I made the mistake of telling her I was working on a little surprise for her...that was months ago and I thought my little project would be ready in no time, but then life got in the way and also my biggest problem was that I actually had to cook/prepare some dishes just so I could take pics to make my little book!

I considered making it without pics at some point, that would have enabled me to put more recipes also, but I thought it wouldn't be as nice. Somebody suggested I just take pictures from a cookbook but that would be cheating to me...

So this project dragged on and on, even though it was fairly simple to start with, especially since I bought a themed mini-album for that purpose, I added a little rafia tie to close the album and match the rafia I put throughout the booklet.

The cat keeps on coming to try to chew on it so it is perched on top of the bookshelf till it's mailed!!

I was not teasing my internet friend on purpose but I hope I have learned a valuable lesson and will be able to keep it to myself next time I plan on making someone a little surprise!! :-S

Because once I promise someone (or myself) that I'll do something, I do! Only problem is sometimes it takes forever!! :-(

The recipes I put in there are just a few of my favorites, nothing fancy but things I really like (or grew up with) and I thought it would be fun to send some french recipe (one is actually morocan and comes from my husband's Grandma and is a family favorite) to an american girl who likes to cook!! It was actually hard to pic the recipes to start with, because I could only put like 5 of them.

Making the little book was fun though and it made me want to make a Recipes Book for my daughter one day, where I would put recipes from my Mom and my Grandmas, and then when she's grown up she would take it with her in her new household and keep the tradition alive! :-)I don't know when I'll find the time but even if it takes me years, I'll get there... ;-)

So anyway, Happy Birthday Catherine, (since it's her birthday today) and thanks for your patience!! :-) ....

P.S: Since, as always, when you click on the pics they get larger, I recommend that you do so and try some of the recipes yourself!.. ;-D

Happy Thanksgiving! (Canada)

No I didn't completely lose it yet...but it was brought to my attention that it is Thanksgiving in Canada this week-end!

So I just wanted to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to occasional visitors from Canada!

The first one...

OK so I was absolutely convinced this card was already on my blog, because it was my 1st experiment with pattern paper, and layering. I didn't have much of the stuff I have now but used whatever little gadgets I had, like the punches and my new embellishments like brads and Stickles! Now it makes me laugh because I put Stickles pretty much everywhere, and I see brads as a basic!! ... ;-)

So this card was kind of a big deal for me !

And it's really funny to see it again because if I was doing it know I would probably come up with something different...

Turns out I didn't put it up here because I didn't want Erika to see it in case she would wander on my blog!

You see, every Friday Erika (http://stampinmama.typepad.com/) has a "groovy give-away" and I was the very lucky winner of one of those and received a wonderful book from her! :-)

So I was waiting for the book to arrive to send my card and post it here, and then I guess I forgot and assumed it was already there at the very beginning! (probably because I posted it on SCS...)...

P.S: If you are familiar with Erika's blog and her beautiful creations, you won't be wondering why I had to use some kind of glitter on the card... ;-)

Double-pocket Birthday card

Following the tutorial from Beate (http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/) I made a double pocket card for a friend's birthday.

I like how my little scallop circle is part of the design but also removable, and I really like the colors of this paper (it's a double sided paper and I didn't have to add anything on it which was cool!!).

After trying stamping my image in black and coloring it i didn't like the result, and the stickles made the ink run a little which was really ugly (for example the candle's flame). That's when I got the idea of stamping in colors instead and I really like it. I think the result is softer but also more crisp, more "fresh" in my opinion. I don't know if that makes any sense for anybody else! LOL!
So there you have it, my 1st double-pocket card, and much likely not the last one, since this was fun and I love tucking whatever in the little pockets!... :-)