April SOM - Sample

Being a consultant I get the Stamp of the Months ahead of the time and this one has been sitting there not saying anything to me. I mean fish - who wants to stamp with fish not me for certain. I make it a challenge to myself to teach each month though using the set so my customers get to use it and see if they like it.

Well I need to make samples for April sooner or later and decided to start with the hardest first - the fish..........I used the masked frame technique which I shared a card for last month I think or was it in December now I think about it. Time flies while your having fun stamping. I hope you like what I came up with, especially if you come to my classes as you'll be making it in April. The colors are olive green, cocoa and indian corn blue. I had made the masked circle and then couldn't think what to do next with the open space on the right hand side of the card. I find most embellishment very feminine for male cards so struggled with this. Then suddenly I saw the fishing rod stamp and the fly and I saw how my fish could be jumping to catch the fly. Now I'm even thinking I could improve it again and stamp the fish again and pop it off the front of the card. Maybe I will have to try that.......



Added - Ok so I have added a 3-d fish. I think I prefer the card even more now. What do you think?

Scrapbook Store - New Find for Me!

The Crafty Scrapper in Waxahachie is my new find. What a great store. Two large rooms full of some great products. The papers are embellishments are kept together and in themes. The staff were friendly and informative. They even had some soccer papers which I hadn't seen (I thought I owned ever type there was!).
http://www.thecraftyscrapper.com/

The drive from my house is just under an hour so not somewhere I will go every week but it was a nice adventure for Spring Break. The kids and I ended up spending nearly the whole day doing it as we ate lunch after visiting the store at the Chisholm Grill just up the road. Then we decided to walk around the square and found this great mosaic store. We were able all to choose our own design and make mosaic wall hangings. Philip made a guitar, Eleanor a peace sign and I chose the gecko. The price included everything you needed to decorate the item you chose. If you want you can come back the next day to finish the grout but we were able to take this home and that's todays job! You can check them out on their website. I'd love to plan a girls day to do this again Mosaic Shop Website

Flights of Fancy

I've started another online scrapbooking class with big picture scrapbooking this week. Not that I really have time for another thing in life but I do want to get scrapbooking more and it seems the classes push me to do it. The class is about scrapbooking on a shoe string or using up what you've got. The first assignment this week was too much for me - you are meant to do an inventory. AN INVENTORY - I don't think they realise the problem I have - this would have taken me every waking hour to do and then still I wouldn't have been done. Never mind the other things I should be doing this week. So I decided to give myself permission not to do this.

The second assignment was easier a layout. I can do that and that's what I want to do to reduce the picture backlog and the supply mountain. On the layout you had to use something that sparkles, something with a decorative edge and something that sticks. Well not too hard really - my sparkles are not very sparkly but the layout didn't need too much sparkle. The decorative edge I created using a punch I purchased the other week. Its a new EK success punch which is a wave with dots. Then I finally used a bird die-cut I had purchased which I first turned into a sticker using my sticker machine.
The journaling is using a new type of journaling from my latest scrapbook mag which suggested using analogies. The journaling of these bird pictures would have been rather hard if I hadn't used this way of writing. I think I'll be doing this more in the future. It allows you to write beyond the pictures really and make comments on life.

Soccer Pages - Gazelle Digital Cutter with Funtime

Thought I'd share my latest scrapbook creation. When you have a son who plays soccer for 2 teams and for 2 seasons a year you have a load of soccer pictures and so to make it all look a little different you have to come up with something unique. Well I have my gazelle digital cutter which I can create my own cutting files for (if I have time). I decided to use some of my time at Basketball practice, forgot to add he plays that as well, to make a file for soccer. It took me a while as I've never done such a complex file but I made it work and this last weekend I managed to get it cut. This is the result - a great page if I say so myself and cheap which is important in these hard economic times. Cost 4 pages of cardstock - well maybe 8 as I messed up the cutting on a few until I had my settings working and everything. I get out of practice sometimes. Note to self use cutter more often as its cheap way to make pages when you have it all down.

If you have a digital cutter and what this file email me and I'm happy to share.

Creations From the Past

Several months ago I taught this dress card in my clubs (the picture below). Its great then at a later date to be shown something that someone else has done with the idea. This is the card designed by one of my customers daughter (the picture above) - isn't she talented (Sorry Tracye I lost the piece of paper I wrote her name down on - email me and I'll add it to this post). Its a party invitation. I suggested she'd do well as a consultant but she hasn't signed-up yet but you never know. She could help to pay her way through college doing this.

In my clubs this last month I offered everyone an incentive to create another project using what I taught them and if they bring it back the following month they'd earn a goodie from my goodie bag. Well I hope to share more ideas as the month goes on to show you how people have adapted what they learnt.

Male Cards

Male cards are so hard to make and I had to come up with one today for Philips soccer coach. As many of you know soccer is big in our house and Philip plays on two teams. His coach has been his coach since he was 5 and as he's 10 next month so that's a while. The two families have become close friends as we all live on the same street although we never knew each other before we signed up for soccer. I wonder if we would be as close friends if it wasn't for soccer. Funny how live could turn out differently.

Anyways Jim has his birthday today and we off to eat Pizza at our favorite pizza joint - mama's



I realised I didn't have a card for him as I find male cards so hard that I didn't have any made ready to go. So this is what I came up with. Its using a technique I'm teaching in March called pierced spotlight. Its fun to do and I think it makes a cool card. I won't teach this card as not everyone is so soccer nuts but something more general which will suit all.

Have a great weekend.

Ronnie

Stamping with Solid Images

When you use acrylic stamps with solid images sometimes you have problems when they are new getting a good image. I've tried many ways to fix this and the one I use most often is stamp clean stamp and clean again. The following blog entry though gives you a good review of some other methods to use.

Notice she recommends the foam mat - ever wondered what that foam was for in CTMH stamps well thats your answer. I though as many of you know keep the large foam mats on hand - plus remember the CTMH self healing mat has foam on the back just for this reason.

Anyways here's the link to the blog -Preparing stamps blog