Bazinga!

My son gets a kick out of The Big Bang Theory, as do I.

So when I saw this card by Taheerah, I knew I had to make one too.  

Here's my version of her card...

Cole's birthday isn't until August, so I will give it to him then as a birthday card. 

He will be turning 13.)

I know he will like it.  :)

He has a red t-shirt with the same print on it, so I added the black lightning bolt to my
4" x 8 1/2" card similar to what was on the t-shirt.  For that part, I just sketched it out with a pencil onto black cardstock and hand cut it with my scissors.

Here's that tissue photo canvas I made a while back with him wearing the t-shirt.

I just want to mention that Close To My Heart is going to be retiring their E-sized stamp sets at the end of July.

I used the Posterboard Alphabet on this card.

So make sure you get any E-sized sets you need before they retire!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed today's card. 

Happy creating!  :)

Supplies used (all CTMH unless otherwise noted):

Paper:  Holiday Red CS - retired, Honey CS, White Daisy CS, Black CS

Stamp:  Posterboard Alphabet

Other:  Circle Coluzzle - retired, Pencil, Micro-tip Scissors, Craft Knife

June Paper Trail Blog Hop... Tommy

Welcome to the Paper Trail Blog Hop for June!

You should have arrived from Amy's blog, but since this is a circular hop, it doesn't matter where you begin.  ;)

This month we are featuring the Tommy Paper Packet.

I wanted to show Tommy in a different light.

It is a fairly masculine, sailing themed paper pack, but it can be used in other ways, too.

Here is a perfect example of that in a card I created for today's hop.

I stamped the flower from Card Word Puzzle onto one of the patterned papers using Outdoor Denim Pigment ink, sprinkled Clear Detail Embossing Powder over top and heat set it.  

I used a Creme Brulee marker to add a little shading, then trimmed it out with my Micro-tip Scissors.

Then I took a Chalk Marker to the center of the flower.

I used 3D Foam Tape to adhere the flower.

The leaves were just hand-cut and I ran them through my paper crimper.

The grey velvet rub-ons are a retired item, but it adds a nice little detail.

(You could also use a nice flourish stamp instead.)

The birthday sentiment is from Joyful Birthday, and I used some 3D Foam Tape underneath the center part of the sentiment strip to pop it up off the card.

Here are what the papers in the Tommy Paper Packet look like:

And now that it is a new month, there is also a new Stamp of the Month available for $17.95 or you can get it for just $5 with a minimum $50 order.

A Flowering Bunch

Thank you for visiting me today.

Please continue along the Paper Trail Blog Hop by visiting Karen's blog.

Happy creating!  :)

Supplies used (all CTMH unless otherwise noted):

Paper:  Tommy B&Ts; Colonial White CS

Stamps:  Joyful Birthday, Card Word Puzzle

Inks:  Outdoor Denim Pigment, Outdoor Denim ink, Creme Brulee marker, Chalk marker

Embellishments:  Grey Sparkles, Grey Parlor Velvet Rub-ons - retired

Other:  3D foam tape, Micro-tip scissors, Paper crimper (Fiskars)

Claire and Tough Times Card

The perfect card to give a friend going through a difficult time.

Hopefully I won't need to give it to anyone anytime soon.  ;)



I will be back on June 1st with a new creation for the Paper Trail Blog Hop.

Hope to see you then!



Happy creating!  :)

Supplies used (all CTMH unless otherwise noted):

Paper:  Claire B&Ts; Colonial White, Outdoor Denim CS

Stamp:  Words of Comfort

Ink:  Outdoor Denim

Embellishments:  Blue Epoxy Bubble, Whisper button, Clear bitty sparkle, Pearl opaques

Other:  Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge - flower, Dienamics Doily Die (My Favorite Things), Micro-tip scissors, 2 1/2" circle punch (EK), White embroidery floss, Needle, 3D foam tape

I'm Back... with Moxie Fab!

I finally am able to do a little paper crafting.  Yay!

My eyes are getting a little better each day, although I still feel I have a long way to go to be more back to normal.

And they still tire easily.  So by afternoon, they are quite blurry.

Just need to give myself time to heal.  ;)

Anyways, on to my card.

I created this one for the Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World.

Hopefully it is in focus for you, as it looks a little blurry to me.  lol

I used this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches for the card layout. 

I'm going to keep it short today.

Happy creating!  :)

Supplies used (all CTMH unless otherwise noted):

Paper:  Dream Pop papers; White Daisy CS

Stamp:  Fabulous You

Inks:  Slate pigment, Juniper, Lagoon, Creme Brulee, Goldrush, Whisper; Creme Brulee marker

Embellishments:  Rosette Ribbon, Sparkle Trim, White Daisy RicRac - retired

Other:  Clear Detail Embossing Powder, Micro-tip Scissors, Waterbrush, ScorTape (ScorPal)

Hang in there... ♥

Hi, my dear blog friends.

I just want to check in with all of you.

I had lasik surgery on my eyes this past Thursday, so my eyes are slowing healing and my vision is improving a little more each day.

It may take another week before I can actually start crafting again.

I will post something new as soon as I can, so please be patient with my ol' blog, and hang in there. 

I'll be back soon.  :)

♥♥♥

Switching to Bloglovin'

Well, I'm sure by now you have heard that my/our beloved Google Reader will be shutting down by July 1st.

I've already been noticing some issues with Google Reader over the past month, so today I decided it was the right time to take the plunge and make the change.

I was going back and forth in between switching to Bloglovin' or Feedly, but I do believe (at least for now) that I will be using Bloglovin'.  (I am going to check out Feedly a little more, too, just to make sure I have the one most suitable to my personal needs.)

But for now, Bloglovin' it is!

So if you wish to, you can...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

♥♥♥

Edited to add:  I had a question come up and thought I would add it and my reply here, too.

Q:  Would you mind sharing why you selected this as opposed the other or Word Press? I haven't been able to add to my blogspot BB for months and never even got notice, but am not surprised based on whacko error msgs.

A:  I just had lasik surgery on my eyes on Thursday, so I will have to try to keep my reply short as I can't see very well yet.  I chose Bloglovin' because after doing a lot of reading up on the topic, it seemed the most similar to Google Reader in the way that I like to use my reader.

I really am going to miss Google Reader, as I haven't found anything as good.  I will be checking out Feedly as well, so I can see if I like it better.  But for now I will be using Bloglovin'.  There are other readers out there, but these two are the ones I am hearing the most chatter about online.

If you are worried about making a wrong choice, you don't have to be.  You can change your reader anytime you want to by simply joining it.  I have uploaded my blogs I follow into both Feedly and Bloglovin', and it can still access Google Reader until it shuts down.  So no worries.

I hope this helps answer your question at least a little.

Kid's Mother's Day Art Project... Hand Print Canvas

This is the Mother's Day craft my little daycare boy will be giving to his Mom this year.

I thought it turned out pretty darned sweet.  

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest, and I had to give it a try myself.  The picture shown on Pinterest was of canvas art similar to mine, but there were multiples stacked up and in a bunch of different colours in the photo.  Unfortunately, whoever pinned it didn't do it correctly, so it didn't go back to its origin.  I wanted to read up on how theirs was done and to see if it were a print or whatever, but since I couldn't follow the link back, I just had to wing it on my homemade one.

I took a 6x8 canvas and painted two coats of blue acrylic paint onto it, allowing it to dry between and after coats.

Then I literally painted white acrylic paint onto the little boy's hand (to keep the paint thickness fairly even to prevent it from looking too smudgy - I wanted to be able to see the lines and creases in his hand), then helped him place his hand print in the center of the canvas.  

I then added his name and the date with a black Sharpie marker.

Then after his hand print was dry, I added two coats of Mod Podge to seal it well, letting it dry in between coats.

The above photo is how the wet Mod Podge looks when applied, but it dries clear.

Anyways, he will be giving it to his Mom later this week.

I'm sure she'll treasure it.  ♥

I was thinking I might do another, but with his foot print and in a different background colour (perhaps in green), for Father's Day.

We'll see.  ;)

Happy creating!  :)

DIY Photo Canvas

After we got back from our trip to Yuma, AZ, during spring break, I took one of my favourite photos of Cole out in the sand dunes, and made a canvas print with it.

I simply took a piece of white tissue paper, wrapped it around a piece of printer paper, taped the the overlap   of tissue paper to the back side of the printer paper, and simply printed it out using my printer.

Then I took an old 6x8 canvas that I had bought years ago at the dollar store (pack of 2 for $1), and painted a layer of Mod Podge onto the canvas.  Then I centered my tissue print (that I trimmed to size while it was still taped onto the printer paper), and pressed it onto the wet canvas, using my brayer to roll over it, lightly pressing it into the canvas.

I let it dry, then applied a layer of Mod Podge over top.

Once it dried, that was it.  Pretty easy.  And not bad for my first try.  :)

Note:  I think if I were to do it again, which I totally plan on doing, I will look for some type of a spray to seal the tissue layer before applying it to the canvas, because I noticed that when I painted the top layer of Mod Podge, it was picking up the ink a little, making the ink bleed.  So if it were sealed, it wouldn't do that.  I'm also thinking that if I had used a laser printer, it might not have bled either.  But my laser printer needs new ink.  Why is laser printer ink so expensive?  It is like $120 for each colour.  Crazyness!

Happy creating!  :)