Funniest Place I Have Crafted

     Wow 2 posts in 2 days! Well I wanted to share with you a funny story. My husband and I went to Florida over Memorial day week to visit our son, daughter in law and 2 of our grandchildren. I am not a person to sit still so I always have a craft project with me (knitting, crochet, tying ribbons on tags and yes, making stickers). I also have my gypsy by my side.
     On this particular trip our flight was delayed 5 hours before we even left. This was when all the tornadoes were breaking out in the Midwest. I had my new camera with me and snapped this shot of a bird inside the terminal. ( Yes, it was inside, lol!!)

     Once we finally bordered I was totally bored. I had read every magazine and could not turn on my gypsy just yet so I decided to continue working on the wedding invitations.I pulled out a circle punch and strips of blue sheen card stock I bought with me. Then I pulled out my Xyron X and started making my ship's wheel stickers for the back of the invitations. Funny thing is that no one questioned me! The Xyron works best in high altitudes. When we had gone down years ago for my grandson's Baptism I was using my Zig pen to glue crosses on tags for chocolate pops I had made. Bad idea. At that altitude the glue just runs out of the pen! Ink does the same thing just so you know!

     Where is the craziest place you have crafted. Leave me a comment I'd love to know!

Nautical Wedding Invitation

     Now that I have been to the wedding shower and know everyone has received their invitations I can finally share the process!Becca wanted a nautical theme, not a beach theme so we looked for ships, anchors, and ship's wheels. Thankful Provo Craft has Life's A Beach and I was able to find all that I needed along with Imagine More.
     I presented her with the idea of a pocket type card to hold the reply card, reception and direction cards as well as the main invitation. I found the perfect kit by Wilton called the "String Of Pearls".

     This was a perfect selection for the outside since it had a wonderful crisp white with a nice satin sheen to it.

     This layout was just perfect for what we were looking for. It was very neat and organized and had a nice bead border almost like roping. The nice thing about this is that the template allowed me to change the font color and style so I could really customize these. Her colors are like a navy and a nice fresh green color so they were a very refreshing color to work with.

     Ready for the finished product? Here ya go:

     I started by adding a band of navy satin ribbon. ( My oldest daughter suggested it. Hey ya gotta give credit where it is due, right!).  had found this roping at A.C. Moore in the yarn section. It has a nice satin sheen to it as well so it was just right for a classy wedding invitation. The image is from Imagine more and I changed the outer ring color to a more navy color but kept the inner ring and ship the same. This was cut @ 2" but I separated the layers but kept them at relative size so that everything was proportionate. I used a glue dot to secure the rope and image but made sure to bring the rope thru the ring.

     Here's the inside. Tada!!! First I used the Imagine More cart again. I chose the cut and print option and cut a 5"x7" with the same patterned paper as the inner ring of the life preserver. How cool is that? The outer layer is a blue card stock that also has a sheen. I bought that at Michael's from their recollections collection.In order to keep with the nautical theme I cut an anchor from Life's A Beach @ 1.25. Since I had to make 100 invitations I wanted to save some money on this project. There wasn't any silver card stock with the right color I wanted so I went to the canvas section @ M's and found this poster board for $4.00. I just cut it to 12x12 so I had 4+ sheets to work with. (Maybe there will be a lot of silver in my Christmas cards this year!)
     Once everything was printed it tucked neatly into the pocket. The only thing I would do different would be to add a silver compass on the directions card. BTW speaking of directions card. The front has directions to the church and the back has directions to the reception. Rather than buy more cards to use for the back, I cut some card stock the same size,printed the directions and used my ATG gun to glue them together.

   This is how the guests received their invitations. ( even though they were hand stamped, thank USPS for the wrinkled appearance, grrr). Bet you were wondering where the ships wheel I was talking about went to. Here is where it ended up! It is also from Life's A Beach and is also cut at 1.25". The circle behind it is from a circle punch with the leftover scraps from the blue background paper. I'll be posting later where I assembled them, you'll never guess!

Pink Lady And Another Blog award.

     I have completed the beginners' Copics classes @ http://simplyscrapping.ning.com/. So I have become daring and colored my first digi stamp. This stamp is from Pink by Design and she has such cute stamps! I also added this to their copic challenge where the only requirement was to use the color pink. ( I think I have that covered, lol).
     I used the following colors:
Face: E01,E00,E000,R20
Hair: E13, E15, E17
Shoes and Hat Ribbon: C1, C3, C5,C7
Dress and Hat: RV02, RV04, RV06
Boa: R81, R83, R85 Spica hot pink
Star: Y13,Y15, Y19
     I also had some trim left over from a Donna Salazzar class I recently finished so that went on the card as well. The paper is from a stack called "All About Girls" from DCWV. I also added some stickles for her necklace.
     The newly added blog award was from Audrey @ Cute And Some.http://cuteandsome.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-im-steampunkin-project-and-blog.html. Please check her blog out she has some great projects over there.
     Upon receipt of this award I have to let you know 8 more things about my self and pass this on to 8 other blogs. First, the 8 things about me:
     1. I love my husband! We have been married for 38 years and are the exact opposites. He is quiet and reserved, I'm outgoing and social.
     2. I love a good joke and can be quite silly at times.
     3. I love my children. There are 5 of them and they all have very unique personalities which I love. They are all very accomplished and talented in their own fields.
     4. I love my grand children all 8 of them! The are so close in age that I feel like Mema + 8! They are truly God's blessing to us and make us realize how fast time goes by.
     5. I love crafting, all types of crafting: paper, painting, sewing, beading etc.
     6. I love learning new things. Perhaps that is why I love taking on line classes. I can learn at my own pace and practice to my hearts content.
     7. I love to wake up to the smell of coffee ( okay, I'm addicted, lol).
     8. I love the feeling you get when you walk out of church, sort of like life is beginning anew.
     Now for the lucky ladies ( and yes there are 2 guys that I follow, lol) who amaze me with their talent. Please be sure to stop by and give them some love.
     1. http://anothermessycrafter.blogspot.com
     2. http://www.217creations.com/
     3. creativeinspirationspaint.blogspot.com//
     4.  http://momsbeenscrappin.blogspot.com
     5.http://www.creativetimeforme.com/
     6.http://paperinkcolor.blogspot.com/
     7. http://scrapguy.blogspot.comhttp://scrapguy.blogspot.com
     8. http://www.scrappyhappiness.com
     Thanks for following me. Hugs, Mary

Happy Fathers' Day!

     I hope all the dad's out there had a great day. This is the dessert I made for the guys we were happy enough to see today. It's a scratch recipe with cinnamon, chocolate chips, walnuts and cheery pie filling, yum! To dress it up I had these flags that I bought several years ago. They are originally for the 4th of July so I just added some rub ons with the "Happy Fathers' Day. Because this cake doesn't need frosting I still wanted to dress it up a bit so I made some chocolate covered strawberries. They really added a nice touch I think.
     I have been taking a lot of pictures with my new camera but haven't had a chance to do much with them. I also have Tim Holtz film strip that I haven't used so an inspiration hit ( at 11:30 pm I do my best work then, lol).

     This is what I came up with. I decided to use the pictures as a film strip and put them on a tag. I know not many guys save cards they receive but, honestly, who could throw this tag away?

     I spritzed the tag with Clearsnaps Spun Sugar spritz and tied the tag with the tag string and added a silver fish charm.

     I came up with this pocket card so the shipping tag fits right inside. I love my Bind It All so I thought it would be great to add some lacing to the side and added a distrezzed tag to the front. I got a deal on Rub Ons from My Sentiments Exactly and they had a lot of Fathers' Day sentiments. Needless to say they loved them.
     My own dad passed away suddenly 34 years ago but I still remember one incident vividly. I was in 5th grade and was devastated to learn I needed eye glasses. The day I got them I was so upset I refused to wear them. I was sitting on our back steps when my father quietly sat down beside me and asked me to tell him what I saw at the end of our yard. I told him there were bushes just a lot of bushes. He then asked me to put my glasses on, just for a minute. Of course I grudgingly obliged. He then said they looked very nice. Why not tell him about those bushes? To my amazement they were not bushes at all but trees. They were huge trees!
I learned right then and there that this was a very wise man sitting beside me. Love you always dad.



    

Best Hand Made Soap Ever!

  Since the weather here has been so cold and dreary lately and since I have several gift occasions coming up (thank you's, house warmings, and just thinking of you gifts) I decided to make some home made gifts. OMG! My cyber friend Audrey had this recipe for home made soap so I thought I'd give it a try. This is so wonderful and easy to make. You can find the recipe here: http://cuteandsome.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-earth-day-gabys-happy-birthday-blog.html.
     Not only was it fun to make, it made the house smell wonderful! I decided to package up the first bottle as a Thank you for a friend of my daughters. I watch 3 of my grand children 2 days a week. The oldest one is in school so I have to drop him off in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon. The morning isn't bad because it's a drive through however, in the p.m. you have to go into the school to retrieve him. It's not bad but in the beginning of the year the baby was still in an infant carrier so it just killed my back. This kind lady offered to get Mattie so I wouldn't have to take the other 2 inside. I jumped at the chance since this winter was so brutal it certainly made my life easier. Anyway I wanted to give her a small token of my appreciation so, what better way than a nice personal gift.

     Audrey's recipe gives you the option of adding fragrant or not (it really doesn't need it) but I had some soap fragrances so I did add some. This particular one has an almond fragrance but some have a Lily of the Valley essence. I also added a silk flower stem to the bottle while filling it. After i hand wrote this tag I found a stash of Wilton tags that you can print on the computer so the others have a printed tag. I added a nice sheer fabric to the bottle top and decorated with silk flower.
     Now that I have my Imagine back, I made a Thank You card using Lori's Garden. The background paper is also done on the Imagine using Imagine More cart. ( Hint, I used this pattern on the wedding invitations I am dying to show you, lol).

     Finally I put it all together in a cute little gift bag. (or so I thought!). I had picked up a package of 12 bags for $1 @ the dollar store. They are so flimsy. I make much better ones using my cricut and my own card stock. Somethings you just shouldn't skimp on, lol.
     As a side note: I had a little soap left over but not enough to fill a bottle so I put some in a heart dish near my sink. When my grandson saw it he asked to try some. He must have washed his hands ten times just so he could use the soap. His verdict: "wow Mema this soap makes your hands so soft and it smells so good !". He actually asked to take a bottle home. Looks like I'll be making more soap in the future. Gotta love those 7 year olds!!!