PAPERLICIOUS

Using the Internet (non stamping soap box of sorts)

The internet is wonderful and a big mess -- reflecting the human connection.  It can bring out the best and the worst in us.  Starting with the worst (cause that's how I do it), here's a thought provoking article on commenting on the internet. 

And turning to the best -- here are two blog posts you might find worth your time.  If you cannot help directly, maybe you can share and someone else can help. 

The first is Melissa from Life as a Lewis.  No matter your religion (or like me lack thereof), you will find Melissa and her family and her photos and digi scrapbooking amazing.  At least I do.

Melissa has stage 3 ovarian cancer, but she and her husband are giving up his job and the health insurance that goes with it to move to McKinney Texas for faith reasons.   Her husband is a teacher and really needs a job in or near McKinney.  Just in case you have any leads...

And next up is Momastery.  Two fundraisers.  You cannot read this post without thanking your lucky stars, your God, your whatever.  

And on that note, it is 4 am and time to think about getting up.  Hope your day rocks.

Helping Out a Fellow Stamper With Breast Cancer

If you have a moment, sweet Jennifer Scull is going through some grueling chemo as she battles a very agressive form of breast cancer.  I suspect she would appreciate a note on her blog.  You can find Monday, April 23rd's post HERE.  

I always feel frustrated at how little we can do when someone we don't know is suffering.  However, I think many of us have experienced being surrounded by support on our blogs and I think it really helps all of us in unexpected ways.

Thanks.

Sending You

Decided to just push myself into the craft room and see what happens. 

Saw this card by Dawn, owner of WPlus9, and it inspired me to make this:

The red bird is me, chatting non stop, while Mike listens! 

Card Construction Details:

1.  Trimmed a panel of white cardstock and stamped clouds -- love that texture on the clouds.

2.  Stamped wire and birds.

3.  Added heart notes, butterfly, and bee.

4.  Colored with Copics -- wanted just a few pops of red.

5.  Stamped sentiment and swiped with a Copic marker.

6.  Layered onto black cardstock and wrapped with a bit of ribbon.

7.  Popped up with dimensionals onto an A Muse Studio Winter Sky card.

MOOD WHEN DONE = glad to stamp a bit.

Stamps:  WPlus9 The Birds and the Bees and Heartfelt Mix
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo
Cardstock:  Neenah Solar White, A Muse Studio Winter Sky, and SU Basic Black
Other:  Copic, ribbon, dimensionals

For Janelle

Janelle is a lovely woman who is struggling with a brain tumor.  Her husband, Ken, is her support.   Today I am participating in a blog hop organized by Laurie Willison and Dana to show Janelle and her husband Ken how much we care.  Thank you Laurie and Dana for doing this.  Thank you Janelle for being an amazing example of faith and optimism. And thank you Ken for being a wonderful husband and for keeping us posted on how Janelle is doing.  You are all an example of how stamping and the internet can build us up.

Would you like to participate?  Or see the other cards?  If so, click over to Laurie's blog here and check out the details!

This is just for you Janelle --

Card Construction Details:

1.  Using my Silhouette digital cutter, I designed a layer with Janelle's name embedded as shown.  Silhouette tip below.**

2.  Stamped flowers and colored with Prismacolor Pencils.  Nice and bright for a nice and bright woman.

3.  Adhered with dimensionals on a white card.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Hopeful

Supplies:

Stamps:  Paper Smooches
Cardstock:  A Muse Studio Sugar
Ink:  Memento
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Silhouette, dimensionals

 

**For those of you with a Silhouette/Cameo, once you learn how to do this, you won't stop. I have cardstock with words all over the place! 

These directions assume some basic knowledge of how to make a design with the Silhouette/Cameo. I taught myself over the course of a few weeks -- one of the things I meant earlier when I said I wouldn't be posting as often because I was practicing.  This is a great way to avoid spending money on dies that spell out words.  Or alphabets.

1. Type the word.  A simple block font seems to work best.  Remember that all the letters have to be on the same plane -- meaning a lower case "y" won't work in this design because the bottom of the y will disappear.  For example, instead of "happy" use "HAPPY". 

2.  Resize the word so that the width is what you want.  Use character spacing to spread out the letters for small words if you want the word to span the width of the cardstock. 

3.  Draw a rectangle above and below the word.

4. Move each rectangle so that each one connects slightly with the top and bottom, respectively, of the word.  Remember that every letter in the word has to connect with the top or the bottom.  Don't cover up too much of the letters -- just a bit of each letter needs to overlap the rectangles. 

5. Resize the rectangles so that they are the exact width you want.

6.  Align so that your word is centered (if that is what you want).  Group everything together, press modify and then weld.  The weld functions is what makes the letters connected to the rectangles.

7.  Practice with cheap typing paper until you are happy or HAPPY. 

Saw That, Made This: Julie's Butterflies

Saw Julie's gorgeous card HERE, and made this:

Card Construction Details:

1.  Had pre stamped scrap of sentiment on white Bazzil paper on table from failed former project, so started with that.

2.  Found patterned paper (this is part of a piece with stripes of different patterns and had that bit of black on the bottom).  Trimmed.

3.  Die cut butterfly and stamped and colored with Copics.

4.  Trimmed piece of polka dot patterned paper and adhered to cheap cardstock to firm it up. Die cut with circle nestability.

5.  Adhered flowered paper to polka dot paper, then sentiment strip.  Added white dots on flowers.  Adhered to a white card with dimensionals. 

6.  Adhered glitter to butterflies and added some yellow on top of glitter with a Copic.  Cleaned glitter off Copic (don't recommend this technique, but it did work.)

7.  Added clear Ranger Glossy Accents to body of butterflies and adhered the butterflies with the same stuff. 

MOOD WHEN DONE = Grateful Julie has a clue.

Supplies:

Stamps: Uniko Studio Time; PTI Butterfly Dreams
Paper:  Bazill textured white, PTI polka dot; other unknown paper
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo
Other:  A Muse Studio glitter; BV 02 and 04 and Y15 Copic markers; Glue pen; Ranger Glossy Accents; Bic White Out pen; dimesionals

 

NOTE ON COMMENT VERIFICATION (@^%$!)

Please consider turning off comment verification.  I just tried commenting on a blog and had to input the "words" 3 times and still could not get it done.  So I gave up.  If you are troubled by spam comments or annoying people, moderate comments.  Thanks for considering as I'd love to comment on your blog.

Product Review: Dahle 155 Pencil Sharpener

This week I met the Dahle 155 Professional Pencil Sharpener... and my life will never be the same.  Well, using colored pencils will never be the same.

Stick in a pencil.  Turn.  A perfectly sharpened pencil. 

No batteries or cord.  $30 list price.  

This is the sharpener that Dave Brethauer, owner of Memory Box, recommends.  But now it is also the sharpener that I recommend. 

You have a favorite new product?

 EDITED TO ADD:  I puchased this at my LSS.  I do not know where else you can buy it but a quick romp through google shows that Dick Blick and Amazon have it.

 

Fun New Finds for 2011

or in some cases rediscovering  --

Jill Foster  Stumbled upon her blog Inspired By in late 2010 and was so blown away I read every single post, watched all of her videos, etc.  She hooked me on Ranger Distress products.  Never realized how a product line with the word "distress" could create bold and bright and fun items and not shabby vintage ones.  Thank you, Jill, for opening up a whole new world of ink and color for me.

Amber at Damask Love  Her creativity sets her apart from the pack. And she has a great sense of humor. 

Love and Support on the Internet  Katie, we miss you.  Enough said.

My Silhouette  Such an awesome, easy to use machine and it makes things that I really use and love. (Too bad I can't get it to cut at the moment !! but it will as soon as I have the time and patience to work through some solutions.)

Non or Not Just Stamping Crafty Blogs -- Alisa Burke, Little Birdie Secrets, PrintPattern, The Swell Life  just for starters.

My local stamp store -- Angela's Happy Stamper -- It's a fabulous store with a terrific owner.  Lots of great classes.  Yet I rarely went there because it is about a half hour drive.  With limited time, it wasn't possible to just drop by whenever.  However, I've found myself getting a bit disenchanted with online craft shopping and now make a point of purchasing from Angela's whenver I have the choice (some companies are only available online and that's fine with me too). 

I pop her an email when I want something and Angela either orders it or sets it aside for me.  I also took a few classes there this year, including one with Shari Carroll from Hero Arts. Awesome.  Real people, can touch and see the product, no shipping hassles.  More on all that later!

Getting together with real people to stamp --  made the time to get together a few times this year with other stampers.   Really nice folks and I love this group of ladies -- so nice to break out of a screen and my craft room and connect with real people.  Check out Cheryl's blog post HERE for a peak at our last get together.

Hope to be back tomorrow with some stamping to share! 

Hey, Inspired By

is inspired by me, which is funny because I am inspired by Inspired By all the time!!  Confused?  Don't be -- just check out Jill's blog today. Her work is gorgeous (please don't compare me too harshly!!)

When Jill emailed me last week, I was so flattered. Her videos are the best and if you've noticed an improvement in my work it is primarily due to studying Jill's blog (and the I Love Mementos blog, where Jill is a regular contributor.)  By the way, in a totally uncompensated plug, I've purchased from this shop because of Jill's enabling and it is a great store. 100% on customer service.

Thanks Jill. I can't wait to see what else she creates.

Fun Finds

Been browsing the internet a LOT....Here are some of my favorite finds of late --

-- a cute, easy to make Kraft Bags Advent Calendar by Julie Ebersole on Ellen Hutson's Classroom blog (can also adapt for countdown to other events...)  I give Ellen a 1000% thumbs up on quality and service.

-- free adorable printable gift tags on How About Orange  (hey, add some Stickles and call them homemade...)

-- gift tag ideas from One Pretty Thing

--  Mrs. Prindable's carmel apple gifts (never bought from here and am not going to spend almost $30 on an apple, but there is a LOT of eye "candy" here that are inspiring me to make or eat something!)

 -- Christmas earrings made with paper quilling.  Someone please make these and let me know how it turns out as this is one of those "want to do/know I won't have the time" projects.

 -- Martha's White Chocolate Peppermint Bark   I make this bark (and others) most Christmases.  A nice tin or box, tissue or glassine paper, a ribbon and tag and you are good to go.  School bus drivers, nice people in nursing homes, teachers, postal carrier, neighbors.  Anyone who loves food.  Sometimes I add nuts in place of the peppermint.  (Have you seen the price of pecans lately, though?). 

Enjoy!

Substitute Stamping...Debbie's Christmas Tag (and an update on life...)

Found this pretty Christmas tag (scroll down to the second tag) that Debbie Olson made last year and decided to substitute my supplies and make something similar. 

Here is my version:

Card Construction Details: 

1.  Die cut ornament (Memory Box).  Stamped part of Holiday Cheer from Impression Obsession and colored with pencils.

2.  Die cut tag (PTI) and stamped flourishes from Waltzingmouse on to kraft tag.

3. Stamped A Muse Studio sentiment in Versamark and embossed in white. Trimmed and adhered to tag.

4.  Adhered ornament with dimensionals and added Rangers Glossy Accents.

5.  Adhered strip of red cardstock.

6.  Added ribbon (SU) to tag and adhered tag to card. 

7.  Rounded edges of card.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Relaxed from all that coloring.

If you are interested in reading about my Mom and life, read on. Otherwise, hope your week is a good one.