Weekend wrap-up

~Hello~
As I wrap up the weekend, I am thrilled! Why? Because I have one more day to my weekend, hooray! I don't want to say I am happy for dead presidents or anything, but I am glad we have the day off to reflect on their dedicated service...ya...and 1 more day off! On to the weekend wrap-up...


I got a few projects done, the first one was for Julz Inspiration challenge over at The Scrappy Tree, it was so gorgeous! Even though it was her inspiration piece I will post it here because it is just amazing!


Her Inspiration, isn't it yummy! my take on the inspiration is below.


I ran into the red paper in a new LSS I found along with the trim (which believe it or not, I have in red already), the lovely ceramic button was in my stash along with the sheet music and doilie. I added the white sheet music because I could just picture a white grand piano in the opposite corner and the doilie because Julz actually used one and it inspired me too :) The background paper is a coredinations paper in Lavender that I sanded and inked in teal, I think it worked, I can't even tell.


My Next project was inspired by browsing through one of my Grandmothers old sewing baskets. She had a million, which I am now lucky enough to own and treasure. In digging into it, I ran across a bunch of her miniature doilies and between the G45 papers I already had my eye on and the doilies I couldn't resist. Initially I did not use a doilie, it seemed wrong somehow. So, I posted this at TST as my weekend project without the doilie, than thought more about it. If I can't share them with others like she did with me, I wouldn't be honoring her memory very well, so I added one and a string of black pearls and captured a few new pictures. I love how the wall hanging reminds me of her passion for sewing and being the fashionista that she was, now I need to find room for it somewhere :)



I love these little paper flowers, they are so delicate and the perfect hue for the rest of the piece.


This bottom image was from a piece of Steampunk paper vs the rest from a fashion themed one but she was dark haired like my Grandmother and seems to be draping a dress form, so again, it reminded me of her and seemed to fit in.



This last picture shows one of her beautiful miniature doilies and some of the vintage pattern paper I found in her basket, back when pattern paper still meant paper you make patterns out of, for me at least :) I pleated the PP and stitched it to some lace and the image, then added the doilie, button and pearls.



Well those are the two projects I got done but I am planning another quiet day without interruptions tomorrow, so we'll see what else I get done :)

Have a lovely Sunday evening, cheers!

Kxx

Hearts and Flowers...

Valentines Day for me this year was somewhat tainted, mainly due to being surrounded by an extreme number of hearts in all different shapes and sizes, but also being so busy leading up to the actual day, I had no time to figure out what, non girly, less than lame thing I could give my hubby. Both of these things had me really worried , I was convinced I would not have a good day regardless. For some reason instead of over thinking it, I made a card, which always calms me down. Feels good to get creative! Then I bought my hubby something totally not lame, Elvis Costello tickets! I knew he would love them.




The card for the hubby.


I also had fun making Whoopie Pies...okay not really, it was actually kinda traumatizing. The reason being....

Looking at this freaky looking batter!!! It is a box mix of Red Velvet cake, but all it reminded me of was ketchup and blood, two of my least favorite things! Not very relaxing baking but they turned out kinda cute and I listened to some new music while I baked, so it worked out.
This is the box, from Michaels of all places, ya probably not the best place to buy a mix but the box was cute so it sucked me in....
The end result was a lot less ketchup and bloody looking, so we did enjoy tasting them and boy they were rich but not bad for a mix in a cute box.

Our actual date night was sushi and a movie (the King's Speech). The sushi was awesome, the movie was also awesome. The best part of my day was coming home to beautiful red Tulips from my daughter and gorgeous red roses from my valentine hubby, he is so sly. So in the end, my Valentines Day turned from hearts to flowers, a great day :)

Here are my lovely tulips from my DD...

My beautiful Roses from the hubby :)

I hope your day was spent with a Valentine or loved one.

See you soon,

K xx

I can see the light....

Hi Everyone,
I can see the light....no literally! I have finally shipped enough hearts and heart projects out of my studio that the light is shinning in my room again...Hurray!

As I sit here in my brown uggs, my black yoga pants and a long sleeve grey t-shirt and stare at this ...
on my computer...I realize I need a serious catch up day to wash laundry, organize/clean my computer files, and then step away and maybe take a hike, yes again literally, somewhere :)


Before I do those things, I did want to share these things

My Studio re-inspire project: As you may recall, I was doing a re-inspire project to my crafty space. I claimed it was to make more room for books but it didn't actually work as planned. Oh well, I am liking the changes, it's something new to draw my attention to and keep me dreaming about crafting new things and it does give me more storage.

The main wall of storage, my recent book purchases are now under the globe, and the others, on the bottom shelf.

The two new focal points that are cheery and make me smile. The suitcase on the right holds my ATC collection but I may need a bigger one soon! The Wales Starbucks cup is from my friend Gayle, and on the left some bright and cheery flowers, glass candle holders and a lovely new tray I will use to snap pictures.

The shelf above my window, I gained some storage here with another new suitcase and the New York storage box on the left, also a few hollow books, great for hiding all my secret money :)

The entire storage space, I bought this years ago at Ikea, great store! The storage boxes are all from there as well. I was lucky enough to adopt some stock photo books from an old Ad agency I worked for, I really need to cut them up and play! The two fabric teal boxes hold my Jewelry making materials and yes, more beads :)


Next up: My favorite picture I took this week; the 85 lb. lovable Princess Layla



One last thing,

I wanted to mention our Create a Heart Challenge over at the Scrappy Tree, there are two days left to join in and a few details below. Follow the link and to post your project, go to the bottom of the post and use the inLinkz add link option, I hope to see you there, the prize is AWESOME!

Create a Heart for Hope Challenge for Save the Children- Haiti Relief

In typical Scrappy Tree fashion, we don't want to hinder your creative flare, so create a Heart Project, of ANY KIND and upload it here to submit Or to our Scrappy Community site, under, Challenge for Charity Group. The contest will close February 13th at 10:00pm PST.

Now the awesome prizes: First The Scrappy Tree will donate $50 dollars in your name to Save the Children- Haiti Relief.

Next, we will brag about you a lot :) But wait, there's more...

And Charee and Diane over at Graphic 45 have generously pulled together some of their awesome product to shower on the winner, see the pics below:





There are two 12 x 12 Pattern paper stacks, a cool envelope mini journal book and some of the coolest new embellishments, chipboard buttons, graphic 45 style paper flowers and beautiful ribbons and lace.

~ Our auction is still going online, through the end of Feb. We have been very lucky, some awesome Artists and Crafters have donated their projects to benefit Save the Children, and so far we have raised over $300 bucks, yeah!

http://myworld.ebay.com/tst-scrappytree/

~It's not too late to donate your project, contact us via email at thescrappytree@hotmail.com, with your name, and details of your project, including size, color, etc. and attach a few pictures.

I should be done dealing with hearts soon, I can't wait to catch up on all of my blog reading, I really miss all the inspiration I get from all of you.

If I don't make it back until after, what I now refer to as "the heart holiday", I wish you all a lovely Valentines Day with your loved ones :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Kxx

Free Giveaway Friday!

TGIF!

Hi
Everyone,

Head
over
to
the
Scrappy
Tree
for
Free
Giveaway
Friday!
Loads
of
grab
bags
to
be
had.
See
you
there!

Kx

Hi all,

I finished a few gold inspired ATC's for my WCP Challenge and played with some new toys/techniques while I was at it.

Soar ATC

Supplies used

The first was darker than the sample gold I introduced to you all but that was because I used a great new paint I found (new to me, not the market) It's a liquid acrylic (liquitex and FW make great colors). They come in a bottle with a dropper. What makes them great is they are dilluted so they are much thinner to work with. For the first card I covered the whole card in a layer of Acrylic Kaiser- yellow, FolkArt metallic inca gold and Golden Transparent yellow iron oxide, then used an iridescent rich bronze liquid acrylic by liquitex. I started small by dabbing a few drops and ran the color up and down the card, then went the other direction. That's when it turned darker than I wanted but hey it was fun to play. While the bronze was still wet, I took some small hole screening and laid it over the card to create some small circle patterns in the paint. It worked perfect! I then used a quickie glue pen in some of the holes on the screen and added some 24kgold sparkly fluff by craft lounge. The sprakly fluff was another toy I bought awhile ago but hadn't tried out yet. I love the look of it but it was like flocking powder, a bit brighter in the bottle than on the project but it added some shine and texture. I then added some doodling, metal findings, from who knows where (probably from Dime store emporium, my fav Etsy store), a few pieces of baker twine, rhinestones, tape border and lastly inked the edges. No wonder this one is not my fav, it just sounds busy :)

Mediterranean Ceramic ATC

Some supplies used

This one was much easier :) The ceramics of the Mediterranean inspired this one and the color base ended up much closer to the Gold I chose as the color. I applied it with the pink paint roller seen in the other picture above and the same yellow acrylic by Kaiser. They was a bit of Inca gold added. I then added a few rub-on's by studio 112 and the bottom border is Basic Grey as well as the star. Then I ran fired brick over the whole thing to warm it up, inked the side of a blank ATC card and added the green ink border lines, then a bit of doodling and a few rhinestones.

Crazy Bird ATC

My last and perhaps my favorite. I started with the same yellow base which quickly disappeared when I added the cute birdie and the crazy jungle looking rub-on flowers around him. They are all Basic Grey and the bright colors reminded me of the original gold that had inspired the challenge. I added some broken china Distress crackle paint in the corners and sanded them a bit and added a few rhinestones just because :)

The whole group of ATC's and supplies.

(Not pictured; Basic Grey and Studio 112 Rub-on's)

Visit; dimestoreemporium.com for the metal findings.

I really had fun with these, just getting dirty and playing with some new toys and techniques, I hope they inspire you too!

Have a great Sunday, Go Packers!

Kxx

Hi all,

Another week almost done...yippee!

I am looking forward to a heart free weekend in my re-inspired studio. I can't say re-organized, cause I really only moved a handful of things and then added a few pieces into the crazy, so it's still a work in progress. Of course my husband's response was, were are you going to add anything more...silly silly man, there is always more room for artsy stuff :) The goal was to kinda free up some space for more books but also to clean up some messy flat surfaces and add a few Christmas gifts into the room. I finished all but my main storage shelf (which is where the books will go) and even tackled my closet. Now beware, I say I actually finished but it's still really cluttered, I have a lot of stuff!! Also note, this is the only room in the house that is this crazy, I promise!



These are corner shelves I put up to store some of my nicer beads because they were taking up a bunch of counter space on my main storage unit. They are shiny and pretty and are nice to look at. Then above, I added a few knick knacks to go with the travel theme in the room. I love this elephant, it's from the Aladdin show premiere we did at Disneyland, I think it was a center piece, now it's just an elephant holding a glass candle holder :) As far as the oriental inspired mug and the feathers, they just seemed to fit.


These shelves are constantly bugging me, I have way too much krap on them and they always look messy, so I bought some of the bare wood organizing boxes and sorted my journaling tags, my T!m Holtz stuff and my metal findings. That helped a little, then I added the piece of dowel to the shelf hinge and was able to use a few large stamps, that don't really fit in a drawer anyway, to decorate a bit with. I think the twinkling lights from my friend Andi are the best feature :)


This was a lantern I got for Christmas and we hung it from the ceiling to free up some counter space. It's kinda fun and lights up the whole ceiling when lit.


My Husband hit a home run with this one, I had pointed it out during a shopping trip and he actually took notes and went back and got it. The dress form barely fits without touching the ceiling but I love it!

I will post a picture of the main storage when complete. For any Michaels fans out there, they have some really fun Paris and garden/spring themed items in the store right now, that is what sparked this whole project, check it out!

I also wanted to share my WCP Wednesday challenge from the Scrappy Tree with you, I changed it a bit and hope you feel inspired to play along. This month were are creating ATC's and using the colors below as inspiration. Check out more details on TST blog or at our Scrappy Community.




Don't forget to check out the charity auction on eBay! We have some things closing soon!
http://myworld.ebay.com/tst-scrappytree/

Have a wonderful Friday!

Kxx