Card Making to Music Challenge

Posted on | June 29, 2010 | 9 Comments

Do you listen to music when you craft? Lately I’ve been crafting with Netflix but last night a few songs went through my head which caused me to pick up different pieces or think of different styles based on the tune.

This one song made me reach for my Webster’s Page paper that I’ve been hoarding. I almost forgot where I hid it!! It’s a 6x6 paper package that I got at CKC last October and when I opened it, it still smells good!! You should open a new WP package and sniff it. It’s got a REALLY sweet smell to it!

NOTE: Those outside of the U.S. most likely will not be able to see/listen to the playlist due to copyright restriction. If this is the case, just hop on to YouTube to listen and watch the video.

Isn’t the song fun? The video is pretty cool too. You need to go to YouTube to watch it though… no embedding allowed by the artist. The video was what made me go for the hodge podge of little things here and there.

Here’s my final card. Does it fit the song?

Since yesterday I’ve gotten curious. I want to know how others translate music to their cards/paper crafting project. I know of another challenge site that I’ve participated in: Scrapping to Music, and the whole idea makes sense but how about a card or an altered?

So here’s my challenge for you… listen to the song and create a card/altered based on what you feel or think after. If it makes you happy try and go for a happy card. If it’s the lyrics that got you, create something based on it. If it’s making you grab that gorgeous paper you’ve been hoarding, go for it! There’s no set rules!! If you want to do a scrapbook page please do so. I just don’t want to focus on pages here since there’s already a challenge like that elsewhere. The most important part is: HAVE FUN! I know I had a great time creating the above!

Materials:

Pattern paper: Webster’s Page
Stamp: WPlus9 Woodgrain Silhouette and Addition
Accessories: Prima flower, Jenni Bowlin Butterfly, chipboard, Creative Cafe rhinestone, Martha Stewart ribbon, lace, EK border punch, Fabric glue and dimensionals

You have until July 14th at midnight CST! I hope you play along!! I have a prize or two for the winner!! If you all think this is something fun and inspirational I can keep the challenge going. We’ll see how this goes for now.

Sweet News!

Posted on | June 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

We’re landlords!! Yes we did want to sell our house and we probably could since it was only aggressively for sale for a few months (and the summer is still young) but we didn’t want to wait. Although we’re not going into the poor house or digging into our savings it’s no fun to have two house payments! So at this point either get a buyer or a renter. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do, right?

A few days after it was put up for rent our property managers found us a family which seems wonderful. Our neighbor met them and he said we got really lucky. Let us hope so since they are on lease for three years! Their request. We’re quite happy about this and really do hope that they’re wonderful as our neighbor and property manager say they are.

I am a big believer in everything is meant to be for a reason. It’s probably not our time to sell and maybe there’s something to learn from all this. My only hope is that it doesn’t mean we have to go back to Missouri when all this traveling fun is done. We love our house, we built it and it’s what M remembers as our American home, and the people in our town was great but you all know I HATE the tornadoes!! My hubby HATES it when it’s just windy out and I’d go: “Is it tornadic, is it tornadic, is it tornadic?” I was so glad we moved when we did because we heard that the weather’s been terrible there! Plus, M said she doesn’t want to go back to America. She said she loves it here, ha! I think she’s a little traveler like me. I don’t think she’ll stay in one place for very long like her mama (although like M I really do love it here too). Maybe in a few years we can try selling it again but for now, we’ll see what it’s like to have people renting our home.

To our oh so colorful home (if you’re wondering, yes our living room’s bright. I had to wear sunglasses the first few days after I painted it. We loved it though after we adjusted!):

The Color Room

Posted on | June 27, 2010 | 11 Comments

Happy weekend everybody! Hope you’re enjoying a wonderful Sunday. We are!!

Last night I got the chance to do some scrapbooking. It was NICE!! The picture I used was the one I did a tutorial on at TDC. While I was looking for some inspiration I came upon the Color Room’s colors and sketch. The sketch I didn’t quite follow all the way. I have the title and three photos and although the journaling isn’t quite where it’s suppose to be on the sketch I did add some. I don’t journal much on my pages. While I love scrapbook sketches I’m not a big fan of color challenges. Unlike cards it’s very hard for me to stick to certain colors on a page. There are just too many pretty embellishments or paper with other colors on it ya know. But I did it and pretty happy with the end result. The page is pretty simple. It just looks busy with all the patterns on the paper.

Page Details:

Let me see… all that you see here came from part of a Studio Calico kit and an October’08 Scarlet Lime kit. Yes, I am still trying to use my old stash up! There is a KI Memories La-Di-Dah flower button, some Prima flowers and alpha, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Basic Grey paper and stickers, and Creative Imaginisce paper.

That’s that and more later!!

Sight-Seeing in the UK

Posted on | June 27, 2010 | 5 Comments

I have a card to share but in this post I want to mostly talk about ways to save money when sight-seeing here in the UK. Who knows, you or somebody you know might be planning a trip here!! Materials will be listed at the end of the post.

When traveling to a city or a country do check to see if there’s some sort of pass. I know Chicago has one because we bought one for it. The rail system in Europe has it too because I bought it and in the UK there are numerous ways that you can save money on sight seeing and transport (unless you’re with a tour group and everything’s included with your price). I’m going to skip the transport cause we have a car but there are many – just Google and you’ll find them! The three sight-seeing passes/memberships I want to share is the English Heritage (which gives members FREE access to places like the Stonehenge or Dover Castle), National Trust (which protects nature more although they do own many places too), and the British Heritage pass (which gives you access to most of the sites in the UK but it’s best for tourist since there’s a short time limit).

Which is for you? Well, if you’re just for a few days the British Heritage might be for you. For a family a seven day pass is £128 where an entrance to just Dover castle for a family is £35. When you’re a tourist most want to hit as many sights as possible right? So something like the British Heritage pass will be worth it. Now, if you only want to do a few sights you might want to check out the tourist version of the English Heritage. The properties are limited to what EH owns BUT if you look at their locations you can still get into A LOT of properties with this pass. For a family a seven day pass is £43!!

For us we’re going to get both the English Heritage (£77) and the National Trust (£66). Both memberships are for a year and the Trust also includes places in Scotland. There are more sites in the EH that we’d like to see but we’d like to contribute to the National Trust because the Trust is a non-profit organization that relies on donations to preserve many of England’s natural beauty. Here’s the catch… we’re not going to buy the yearly membership through the Trust. We’re going to go through Royal Oak Foundation. The ROF is the U.S. organization that supports the National Trust. For about the same price, $90, we can get the same benefits PLUS the whole $90 is tax deductible! London also has a pass but I don’t us hitting up a lot of London sights in x amount of days so we’ll skip that.

There are other special offers for different events here in the UK if you really look for it and it’s just wonderful. We’re on a tighter budget now with me staying home and just trying to get my photography work going so a bit of savings here and there really helps! Although I’ve always been one for a bargain. I hope this info helps!!!

Materials:

Cardstock: Stampin’ Up!
Stamp: WPlus9 Woodgrain Silhouette addition and PTI sentiment
Accessories: Ribbon from MemMarie at Etsy, burlap from Green Frog at Etsy, twine from Olive Manna, and buttons are PTI
Tools: Cuttlebug

The Bad Blogger

Posted on | June 25, 2010 | 6 Comments

I’ve been a bad… actually terrible blogger lately. The last few months crafting and blogging (mostly the blog visiting, commenting and replying to comments/emails) has been one of my many “was gonna” items. Clouds mentioned in her comment that it all comes down to priorities. True! But I think on my part it also comes down to motivation.

It’s kind of surprising. I really did think that staying at home will give me tons of time to be on the computer, to do what a wonderful blogger would do, but no. Jovie is always wanting attention (and I love giving her all that she needs) and when she naps I have a house full of chores that I need to do. I got to do my end of the deal around the house, right? By the time night time comes around, Jovie’s finally sleeps at 10-ish (even if we get to the crib at 8:30/9p), I’m just pooped. I do want to craft and share my work the next day but that’s about it. My poor Google Reader is always maxed out and when I do get to commenting it’ll be a handful of people at the most each day.

Due to my lack of blog hopping and commenting I want to especially thank those who are still stopping by to comment and to those who are still subscribed to my blog. I just checked my Feedburner and I was, still am, surprised that I have subscribers. You all must still not have anything much to do than to read my posts, ha! Speaking of, I’ve gotten emails on how to subscribe to my blog. I guess it’s not obvious. The easiest way is to click on the elephant’s butt that’s on the top right of my blog. It’s above the search text box. The direct link is here. I’ll put it in my imma gonna do list of things to update on this blog of mine.

Also, last night took a bit of time to browse my blog and I found that while I see a lot of improvements in my scrapbooking my card making has kind of gone down hill. Granted the last few months I’ve been on limited supplies and I’ve just recently have access to all my craft goodness I feel like I’m not improving in the card making department – just been kind of static. I think I still make decent ones but nothing out of ordinary where in the past I sometimes surprise myself. Maybe this is due to my lack of blog hopping?

Anyhow, the above is my attempt to do better at my card making abilities. A little bit of stamping, a little bit of pattern paper and a little bit of tools. If you’re curious about the stripe ribbon I used fabric glue (FabriTac is my favorite, lots at WalMart or any craft store — the best and I’ve tried a few) to adhere each pleated parts and to adhere the ribbon onto the paper. To strengthen the hold I used a stapler. There are two staples under the brown twill ribbon. You’ve probably noticed that I use a lot of pattern paper for my solid stamps. This is because I can’t color that well and this method guarantees good results for me.

Have a great one!!

Materials:

Cardstock: Stampin’ Up!
Ribbon: SEI stripes and Martha Stewart twill
Pattern paper: My Little Shoebox and Crate paper
Stamps: Practicing Creativity
Tools: Scor-It, Martha Stewart border punch, FabricTac glue, dimensionals, ATG, and Tonic guillotine trimmer