A pocketful of posies

I spent last week at my parents' house in the Midwest with my boys; my last big trip before the baby comes. It was lovely to spend a whole week in central air conditioning, have access to good public pools, and generally relax a bit. The boys had a blast with my parents, playing with all the toys at their house, swimming, and generally running around like crazy people, and while the flights were a bit crazy (Boo is still a lap child, and, at 31 weeks, I don't have much of a lap anymore...), it was worth the trip home. My mom is also a stamper, and wanted me to show her a few tricks, so I'll post those cards a bit later this week (hopefully). I'm expecting a box from Mr. Brown tomorrow, so I'll have some new schtuff to play with this week as well.

I'm so stinkin' excited about today's card that I had to post it right away--you know how that is, right? I will be honest and say that I can take no credit whatsoever for the original idea, but when I saw the original card by Joanna featured over at the PPA a few weeks ago, I saved a copy of the post to make one for myself. I loved all the little details--the stitching, the hand-pieced 3D flowers, the pearls, everything! I love all the 3D flowers I've seen on cards lately, but other than my Pansy Cart (click HERE to purchase the tutorial), I haven't really had the moxie to try one yet. I had all the supplies except for the Build-A-Blossom builder punch. I debated whether to purchase the punch or to cut the petals by hand and hope for the best; in the end, I decided on what I think is a brilliant compromise--MDS!

I bought the digital version of the punch, downloaded it to My Digital Studio, made a few copies of the petals I needed, and then printed them on Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler, and Pear Pizzazz cardstock. It was a little pesky to cut them all out by hand, but as I'm not a huge 3D flower maker, it was a more economical way to make this card (plus I'm starting to have storage issues with my punches, and am trying to be selective about which ones I buy now). I'm thrilled that it worked so well! The back side of each petal has a bit of gray shading from the printer, but no one sees that part anyway. I crumpled each piece to give some texture, and then sponged each petal and leaf with the same color as the cardstock, although I think I should have gone a little heavier on the crumpling and sponging, or used darker ink on the sponging, but live and learn (and get Luvs...) If I were to do it over again, I'd use Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi, and Bravo Burgundy on the flowers.

Oh, and on that stitching. I admit that I'm not much of a sewer. I used to be--I went through a phase where I sewed a lot of clothes for myself, but at the time, I had a very temperamental (read: cheap) sewing machine that was prone to fits of tension and bobbin issues and projects that should have taken an hour took five. It sort of took the wind out of my sewing sails. By the time I inherited my grandmother's excellent Bernina, I didn't have much motivation left in me to sew. The machine has largely languished in storage these last few years. I really wanted to replicate the stitching on the card, but didn't want to haul out the machine, so I hand-stitched the whole thing. Yes, I'm really that afraid of my sewing machine that I will paper pierce an entire edge and stitch by hand rather than pull out a sewing machine. I would only do it on one card, though.


Supplies:
Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Pear Pizzazz, Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler cs, Nature walk dp (retired)
Nature Walk, Fabulous phrases stamp sets
Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz ink
Pearls
Off white embroidery thread
Antique brads
Digital Build a Blossom punch
3/4" circle punch (to mount each flower)
Paper snips
sponges
Victoria crochet lace trim
Ribbon rosette (dirtied up with crumb cake ink)
dimensionals
mat pack and paper piercing tool

Super start

This morning is off to a stellar start (not really.) Piglet has been screaming with a tantrum for the last 30 or 40 minutes, and it doesn't look to end any time soon. Fortunately I have my sitter here this morning so she is handling it, although I still have to listen to it. I can feel my blood pressure rising with each minute. Hopefully things improve soon.

I have two masculine cards to share today. The first is my husband's Father's Day card (that I also used as my swap for the June Philly Inkers Meeting) and the second is my husband's birthday card (for tomorrow!) He loves to sail, and while he hasn't had the time or opportunity to indulge his hobby since we moved out east, I knew that the Sail Away stamp would be perfect for him. If you only buy one stamp out of the summer mini catalog, this is the one to buy! It is so versatile and lovely and I can't wait to play with it some more. You probably recognize the layout of the birthday card from last week; I just changed the colors to Early Espresso, Bashful Blue and River Rock after I saw a similar card from splitcoaststamper Andrea61.


I really like the layout of the second card--I'll probably be using it again. Oh, and did you notice what date it is?? July 1st!! D-day for the 2011-12 Stampin' Up! catalog!! I love it. The new in colors are great (the first year I've really loved almost all of them), lots of fabulous new sets, embellishments and other wonderful goodies. Can't wait to place my order for new schtuff! I'm helping my upline Claire with an event this month and am designing a few of the cards for her, so most of my order is dedicated to the stamp sets for those cards, but that is fine!

Card 1 Supplies:
Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobber, Whisper White cs, Nautical Expedition dp
Sail Away, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets
Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso inks
Cherry Cobbler baker's twine
Silver brads
Modern Label and Large oval punches
dimensionals
sponges

Card 2 Supplies:
Early Espresso, Bashful Blue, Whisper White cs
Sail Away, Occasional Quotes stamp sets
Early Espresso, Bashful Blue, River rock, Crumb Cake inks
1 3/4" circle punch, decorative label punch
Early Espresso baker's twine
Square lattice embossing folder
dimensionals

Mount Washmore

I'm digging out from under today--we had an eventful 24 hours with Boo and now things are settling back to normal, but I'm tired and just need to cool my jets today. He is fine, we are fine, but it has been pretty chaotic around here since yesterday afternoon. On the upside, Piglet seems to be getting the hang of the potty (I never thought I'd say that!) and I'm starting to feel better about the whole process. I'm finishing the laundry and trying to figure out how much energy I have to tackle a project this afternoon, so a short post.

I have two baby cards to share today. I made them on Monday in a fit of needing to create something easy. I saved the ideas for these cards from Diana Gibbs' blog a long time ago, but just now got around to recreating them. I tweaked the second one quite a bit, but it definitely owes inspiration to her original card. The first one is pretty much a straight copy of her card, with a few minor changes here and there. I love the dp on these cards--it is the same piece, but one side is gingham and the other is floral. I'm sad that it is retiring. But there is much to look forward to in the new catalog, so I'll be alright. I'm really glad we get another year of Poppy Parade!

Is it September yet?

Oh man, it is humid and hot today. The kind of weather that makes you wonder why you bothered with a shower in the first place. I realized with some dismay this week that I'm as big right now as I was when I delivered Boo; as I have 9 or 10 weeks to go yet, I'm a little frightened by how much bigger I might get. (And how much summer we still have to endure).

My sitter was with the boys this morning, so I had a good block of time to work in my nicely air-conditioned office (the only room in the house with AC), and so I holed up in there for most of the day. Unfortunately, I had to turn the AC off this afternoon because when it is running, I can't hear the doorbell, and we often receive packages from UPS and FedEx in the afternoons.

I've been working the last few days on the ongoing scrapbook project, and I'm so pleased with how the last few layouts have turned out that I wanted to share a few with you. For those just tuning in, a college friend who lives a few hours away asked me to scrap her 2010 photos for her. We agreed on a price and she gave me a year's worth of photos (did I mention she is a professional photographer??), and I started work in January. I can't do a ton of scrapbooking all at one go or my layouts start to look all the same, but my goal each month is to complete one month's worth of photos. I'm hoping to get ahead this summer so that I'm not caught out when the new baby arrives. Right now I'm in the middle of her summer photos.

My apologies for the quality of the photos--I don't have a very good set up to photograph 12x12 pages (my light box is very small) and had to photograph the pages in the protectors while the book was sitting on my desk. But you get the idea anyway. The photos on the pages are stunning in real life! You can check out my friend's photography site at emilybwilson.com if you want to see more of her amazing work.

How do you like my bubbles? I came up with that idea all by myself! The photos were of blowing bubbles, and after I laid out the photos, I thought the page still needed something, thought of my vellum cardstock and circle punches and got to work! I mostly just stuck the "bubbles" down where they fell when they came out of the punch, which worked great!

The other little gem I happened across in the last day is Jen Peel's blog, which has tons of great scrapbooking layouts. I usually find preset layouts overwhelming and hard to adapt to the photos I'm using, but for some reason, I found her layouts very easy to work with. She has several mini books for Kindle that have even more layouts. You can download the Kindle program for your PC from Amazon.com and look at the book that way.

I also had the brilliant idea to start creating my own embellishments using MDS! I'm really getting into this program (ask me more if you want to purchase your own copy!)--there are so many different uses for it! The brilliant thing about using MDS for embellishments is that you can size the stamp for the area you need it on the page--many of the stamps would be too small for the space in real life (or are long retired), but it is easy to size them up or down on the computer, print it out, and then punch or cut with a circle cutter for additional interest. I think I may need to get some of our bigger scallop circle dies for more versatility with matting.

The potty monster

We are in full potty training mode this week after a whole year of chipping away at the monster. Honestly, I can't believe it has taken this long!  The three day boot camp method never worked for us, and it has been a slow slow march to the potty. I spent this morning running around after Piglet, emptying the small potty every 10-15 minutes, and cleaning up floors when he forgot or missed the potty entirely. This wouldn't be as big of a deal except that I have to go up a flight of stairs every time I have to empty/clean a small potty, so it was a lot of stair climbing for this pregnant momma. Oh, and Boo is teething like crazy right now, so is crying over every little thing, refusing to eat, and sleeping poorly. (And has a rather unhealthy fascination with the small potties around the house so we have to keep him and Boo separated for the moment, a challenge with our house layout). Did I mention that the humidity is about 80% right now? At least it is in the upper 70s and not in the high 90s. I'm hoping it will rain and break some of the mugginess soon. So a long morning after a long day yesterday. Piglet is also in the process of giving up his nap, so we are transitioning to quiet time in the afternoon instead, but I don't think he quite gets the concept yet. le sigh.

My nephew has his 6th birthday on Saturday, and I almost always end up sending his card late because the end of the month catches me unawares, but this year, I was determined to get it out on time! I made this card last night for him, and I love it! I CASEd it from splitcoaststamper Eileen LeFevre. Just changed the sentiment to Happy Birthday from Happy Father's Day. Did I mention that I love this stamp? If I were to get only one stamp from the Summer Mini catalog, I think it would be this one. And at $9.95, you can't beat the price!


Supplies:
Pacific Point, Early Espresso, Whisper White cs
Sail Away, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets
Early Espresso, Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango inks
Sponges
1 3/4" circle punch (for mask), Curly label punch
dimensionals
Square lattice embossing folder
paper snips (for cutting out sails)

Invitations everywhere...

Happy Monday! I spent this morning grocery shopping, going to the post office and working on a project for a client. I am hoping to get caught up this week after last week's inefficiency. Luckily my to-do list isn't too bad, and I don't have much going on this week (at least not yet!). I directed our church choir this weekend (Saturday night and Sunday morning), which meant a long time on my feet, so I'm a bit tired and swollen today, but at least it isn't so hot as it was. Last night, we celebrated Father's Day with M's godparents at Zahav, our favorite restaurant in Philly. They are very good about accommodating all my allergies, so it is nice to go there for special occasions.

My project this morning was to make birthday party invitations using the (retiring, sniff) Choo-Choo set. I think this is one set I'm going to hang on to--it is so handy for little boy cards and projects. Unfortunately, it was difficult to photograph this project--the Pacific Point looks way darker than in real life and all the colors seemed dark. I did my best editing the photo, but there you have it. You get the idea anyway. The invites turned out very well, I must say. They are postcard style and have spaces on the back for the time, place, etc. I made a version of this invite a LONG time ago, and perhaps posted it on the blog, so if it seems familiar, it probably is. I made a few tweaks to this version and like it much better than the original.

I probably should have spent the afternoon working on projects with deadlines, but sometimes you have to play to be creative. I actually spent this afternoon playing around with My Digital Studio. I've been wanting to recreate my Sesame Street Punch Pals invitations using MDS, but the last time I tried, I got frustrated and gave up. Since then, I've learned a few tricks about layering with punches and wanted to try them out. I think it is a reasonably good copy of the original! And a lot less time consuming to create. Like them? I'm putting them in my etsy store, along with the Choo Choo Train invitations.



Supplies for Train Invite:

Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise cs
Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Real Red inks
Choo Choo stamp set (plus Hugs and Wishes digital brush set for MDS), All aboard standard wheel
White 3/8" taffeta ribbon
glue dots

Eventful Week

I meant to make time to write a post almost every day this week, but was thwarted every day by some new disaster. So now it is Friday evening and I'm getting in my post for the week. This week was crazy busy! Monday morning, my husband asked me to make some kind of photo gift for my father-in-law for Father's Day. I ended up spending most of the day on it, using MDS (pics to come...), which was not on the schedule! (At least I only had to design one photo book, and then have three copies printed--I figured one for my father-in-law, one for my dad, and one for my husband) I had my monthly Philly Inkers' meeting on Monday night out in the suburbs; Tuesday, I taught a class in Newark, Delaware; Wednesday, I hosted my book club at my house; Thursday, my husband went to Washington DC all day for a reception for Justice Kennedy; and today, I spent the entire morning at my midwives' office for a three-hour-long blood test. I did manage to bake cookies for the class, and had enough left over to serve the book club the next night, but the baking was wedged in between crises on Tuesday afternoon.

Just to keep things interesting, on Tuesday afternoon, Piglet stuck two small rubber tires from one of his little cars up each nostril, necessitating an ER trip, a return visit the next day to an ENT, lots of crying and traumatic procedures to get it out, interrupted sleep because of nightmares due to said trauma, missed naps, etc. but at least the wheels are out! Thursday, I took the boys grocery shopping at Wegman's, and while I was doing the self-check out, somehow a bottle of Soft Scrub opened up all over my cart, my toddler, and half the groceries in the cart. It has been sort of nuts around here.

I entered both of today's cards into the monthly art contest that Stampin' Up! holds for its demonstrators. The contest was to showcase products from the Summer Mini, and I love this set! I'm always interested in new masculine sets, and this one fit the bill. I also like nautical stuff, so this is a great set for me. I didn't win anything this time, but perhaps I'll try again in a few months.

The first one uses heat embossing to create wave crests, and I have to say, I redid this card two or three times (including all the brayering and embossing) before I got a version I liked. I had seen a painting I wanted to recreate, and it proved quite a bit more difficult than I had thought (plus I made a bunch of dumb mistakes on the first go-round). I'm reasonably happy with this version. The second card is one I've been teaching at my brayer classes.  I love how it came out. I know it is sort of similar to the first card, but isn't it amazing how a change of color scheme can change the whole feel of a card? I'm a bit too tired to type up a supply list, so if you want particulars, just send me an e-mail.