Saturday, January 31, 2009

Home Sweet Ranger Home!


Claudine's Studio Line has been my favorite product of late to build my projects from, so when I was invited to create a house for the Ranger booth, I jumped at the chance! I had a long list of ideas that I was tempted to try, but the one that fit me best was a winter themed "Chalet". It is hard to tell by the pictures, but this bad boy took me nearly a month to conceptualize, engineer and execute. A detail that you can't see is the individually stamped shingles that were glued on with the multi-medium one piece at a time. And getting the roof to be bent, not easy! It took one evening to hand stitch the trees and the next to hand stitch the door and windows. It was definitely not the most artistic house there, but it was the most glitter covered, LOL! And remember the whole glittering with a headlamp incident? Yeah, that would be this project. If anyone is interested in how some of this was done, let me know and I will post more details.
Moxie Fab, the Paper Crafts blog is a wonderful resource for great pictures and inspiration from the CHA show. I saw so many products that I am itching to get my hands onto.
I even had to run to Heartland and pick up some of the new My Minds Eye, and if there had been more new releases already in stock, I would have brought them home too!
Looking to find some crafty time tommorrow, worked on a stamp concept today that I hope I can get figured out, I really like it.
B-

Friday, January 30, 2009

Becky's Bad Babies!

I made it home from the trade show in Anaheim exhausted, inspired and missing my family!
It was so fun! I got to catch up with fabulous friends, and made many more new ones along the way! The flight home was easy and wonderfully uneventful, just the way I like it!
I got to come home to this!!!!!
These are my bad babies, and I couldn't love them more (even if they didn't make as much trouble)! I met alot of people who didn't know what Borzois (Russian Wolfhounds) were, so here is a quick snap of me coming from tennis to be greeted by my big welcoming committee!

I wish I had the pictures or energy to do a big rundown of the show, but I don't, LOL! I recommend going to Scrapbook Update (see link below) for a lot of pictures, and a few online communities have great updates and pictures as well. I did haul my camera around, but had so much going on, kept forgetting to get it out.

A brand new package of the latest Cornish Heritage Farms stamps was waiting for me when I got home. I can't wait to get messy, so this will be a short post, I have some things to stamp, some kids to hug and some dogs to walk...

BEST!!!
B-

Friday, January 23, 2009

I am supposed to be packing...

But of course, I am goofing off on the computer and checking out Facebook. Darn that Facebook, it is so addictive! So while I am trapped in 'puter land, I thought it would be fun to share a sneak peek of the project I did for the Ranger booth. I can't share the whole thing yet, want it to be a surprise on Sunday, but a little sneak shouldn't hurt, right?

I leave first thing in the morning, so now, it really is time to go put a few things into a bag and kiss my kids goodbye!
If you are going to be at the show, please find me and give me a hug!
I hope you all have a very creative week, and please come back to visit, I promise I won't be gone too long!
B-

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Big Love

I haven't shared a layout for awhile, so I thought it would be a good time to share a little layout love!
It is almost time to celebrate Valentine's day, but I celebrate everyday I get to spend with my FAB kids! So this layout was made with all kinds of red buttons that I stitched onto the Pink Paislee paper. Each of those buttons remind of all the big and small reasons that I love each of these wonderful people that have been sent to bless, enrich and strengthen my life. So for me, it is Valentine's everyday! I had to do the play on the title because the heart, and my kids are so big!
I am getting all of my final preparations done for a trip to California to attend the Craft and Hobby Associaiton trade show. It will be a wonderful week of seeing all the new products and trends, and catching up with dear friends that I have made through the years. I know I will be missing my peeps at home, but when I am gone, their dad lets them get away with a little more than usual, so I don't think that they miss me as much ;o)

B-

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Historic day!

Watching all of the inaugural activities today has been very exciting and has me wishing that I could have been in Washington D.C. to witness this pivotal moment in U.S. history in person. Oh well, it will have to be enough that I was able to participate in my own small way through observation on our television.


Another memorable moment for me today was the release of the latest Rummage Bin collage stamp. It is special to me because I had the chance to design this one. The image was built around my oldest daughter who loves to play the piano, and some of her favorite pieces to play are from "Queen" so they are familiar to my husband and I. We love to hear her picking through a new piece to figure it out and have as much enthusiasm for a piece that she has mastered and can play through with meticulous beauty. This talent serves our whole family well as it spreads joy and good feeling through the house, but it also provides her with an outlet to express whatever she is experiencing in her life that she may not wish to vocally articulate. Music gives us wings to fly.

Prism smooth white and brown cardstock, Music Gives You Wings Rummage Bin, Aged Music Scrapblock, Saturday Evening Post Vintage Butterflies, Ranger distress inks and embossing powder, My Mind's Eye patterned paper and the guitar brad is from Creative Imaginations.

Have a wonderful, historic day!

B-

Monday, January 19, 2009

Need a pick me up?


I have been feeling a little blue lately, so I have been making projects with a lot of color and flowers to cheer me up, it totally works. Now I just need a little more creative time to keep up the artificial high, LOL!
This January stamp of the month is one of my favorites right now! It looks great in color and is super elegant for black and white projects. Check out the CHF Creative Blog to see how a few of the other gals used it, so inspiring! Anway, stamping this in my favorite green "lettuce" from Adirondack onto a Scenic Route B side and then stitching with that yummy orange red with my DMC floss in front of the tv one evening was such a calming way to spend a bit of time. The background paper is from the Greenhouse Paperie by Making Memories. A bright spot for a cold winter day!
Hope you are able to find a few bright spots to carry you over to spring. Just keep telling yourself that it is just around the corner, and it will be here before we know it!
Best!
B-

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Big Flowery Post coming right up!

This post will be big on pics! I got busy with it! I used the new Shady Tree Studio images to create a card group to give to my mom for her birthday next week, I think she will love it!
Wanted to share it here before it goes to her house, and since she doesn't read my blog, I am not worried about the secret getting out!
I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Line gesso, acrylic paint, brushes and Sticky Back Canvas to paint these images, and I LOVE how they turned out! The green paint was brayered onto the Daisy Chain Scrapblock and then stamped that onto Prism cardstock for the card base. Then I embossed in white the "Polka Dots" Backgrounder onto My Minds Eye patterned paper, their "B" sides make me all melty inside! A few buttons and some Fancy Pants trim.
I am so excited about this new line, and Claudine's stuff is so easy to integrate into projects of all different kinds! My buddy Ellen will have a darling project on her CLASSroom blog with a really great tutorial!
Thanks for popping by!
Hope you have a happy, crafty and joy filled day!
B-









Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Purple Paisley!


Today is release day for a new Scrapblock! It is a beautiful paisley pattern, and I keep using it on everything!

This is also a sneak peek of Shady Tree Studios "Iris Bloom" that will be available Thursday the 15th. If you want to see what the rest of the previous image sneaks look like head on over to the CHF Creative blog, there are also some other reasons to check it out ;o)

Stamps are "Iris Bloom", MLM Friend Centers, and Paisley Scrapblock, Prism cardstock, Ranger clear embossing powder, October Afternoon green plaid paper, colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Everything on the home front is on cruise control. I am going to start getting preparations made for my trip to California in about a week and half to go to the Craft and Hobby Association trade show in Anaheim. I hope that they schedule some lovely weather for all of us embattled snow people!

Have a wonderful evening!

B-

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Memory Makers article

I had the chance to contribute a project to the Scrapbookers Creativity Kit that was written by the wonderfully talented and super cute Claudine Hellmuth. It is so full of wonderful ideas, and the cards are so cool! Brilliant concept Claudine!!
Anyway, an article explaining it was written in the latest Memory Makers magazine, and I had the chance to contribute to that as well. It was very fun, and I was able to create a project that would not have been on the top of my mind to make. So inspiring!!!
Check it out!

B-

Monday, January 05, 2009

It was a Doozy!!!

The last 24 hours were quite the adventure for me! I have had a few fairly large projects that I have been working on for work and play. Of course it is Murphy's law that they would all cluster into the same time frame, isn't it? So I was "mostly" done with everything, and not actually done with anything, and they all had deadlines of today! I had chunked out a large section of time last night to finish a large project that needed shipped, and a few hours on the computer would get the banner ad done for Kim's big release tomorrow! I was even confident that I would be able to stamp for a few hours with those new Kim stamps, and therein lies my mistake. Interestingly enough, I needed electricity to be most effective and efficient in those goals. Safe to assume that would be available to me without a concern? Shouldn't have made that assumption.

At about 6:30 pm, right in the middle of dinner, the electricity went out. It was kind of fun to eat by candlelight as we huddled waiting for the lights, tv, and heater to pop back on. Didn't happen. The kids roasted mini-marshmallows on toothpicks over those same dinner candles for dessert ;o) they were quite cute, I of course had to snap some pics of that and even roast a few myself, no worries on time, the power would be back soon and the moment would be gone. Didn't happen.

These types of outages happen enough to not create worry or frustration at this point, but would the kind people who fix these little glitches please hurry along as I had things that were waiting for a little power! Well one hour turned into two, and then four and well, there was only so much that I could do with my limited resources to get my goals accomplished. So out came Tyler's hiking headlamp, the dinner candles stayed on duty and out came a couple of flashlights. One was suspended from the lamp overhead that had been rendered useless, and the other scotch taped onto a large pot with a kitchen towel wedged underneath to provide a usable angle of light. Don't you love the look on my tired face as Dave took this picture at about 12:30 this morning. The power was still not on, and the house was quite a crisp temperature. I was bound and determined that this project would make it the shipping deadline I had set for myself. So what you don't see in this picture are the 15 odd shaped snowflakes that I had glittered just a few minutes previously. After I was done with that step, I set the non-stick sheet aside and it was a little to close to one of the candles, luckily Tyler saw it smoking before it went into actual flames. I had glitter everywhere, on a more personal note, I went into the dark bathroom for a few private moments and even found glitter in there that I could see in the dark, ack! Woke up this morning to find it in my hair as I pulled it back into the ponytail that I typically wear for tennis. The lesson I wish to share from that is don't glitter in the dark my friends!
So by 1:45 am, I had done the best I could and called it good. The house was cold and dark, so I even wore my sweatshirt and shearling boots into bed. It took a while to get warm enough to relax and drift off to sleep, and wouldn't you know, as soon as we had made it into a reasonable restful state, the lights came on, the heater cranked up and the tv popped into life. 3:00 am. Yup, back to awake in the cold to get up and turn it all back off again.
Don't take your electricity for granted, keep flashlights handy, and be very careful when crafting by candlelight.
B-