It's a Birthday Blog Hop!

It's a birthday bloghop for an uber special blogger, my in real life friend, Elise of Mamacow Creations!

She rocks the creative span, ranging from oodles of papercrafts (card making to scrapbooking to home dec to food art...you should see what she does come pumpkin time!) and on down the line, to gorgeous fine art paintings (the first one here is  my current fav).  Elise is known to tickle a funny bone, get silly in the wee hours, write and sing an ode to the creative man, Tim Holtz, and make so many of us smile with her sweet heart.

Thanks to the gals at the Just Us Girls challenge site, I'm thrilled to be able to wish her a Happy Birthday!!!

And the birthday gal needs a birthday card, right?!

Elise had been begging for spring not too long ago and when I walked by a few of my Dew Drop ink pads, they whispered to me.  (No, really, they did!)

Well, their shape awoke some slumbering inky card making mojo and so I had to run with it!  I started with the orchid and then filled in with the purple.

A birthday needs sparkle, so after adding a piece of chunky purple bling for the flower's center, spica glitter pens went to work, laying on oodles of sparkle onto the vine ribbon used for the flower's stem. (It doesn't show fabulously in the photo, but it really does sparkle!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Elise!!

I'm grateful for your friendship and
hope your day is wonderful, launching an awesome new year! :>

I hope you'll hop along, visit the partiers, and most of all, stop by Elise's Mamacow Creations blog and leave her some birthday love (even if you're not a papercrafter, we know how fantastic the community of bloggers can be and would love if you stopped by to wish her Happy Birthday! :>)!!!

Supplies:Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Tsukineko Brilliance Dew Drops
Ribbon: May Arts
Bling: rhinestone - stash;  Spica Glitter Pens - Copic
Other:  FabriTac, foam tape, ScorPal

PTI Card + Amy Tsuruta = Flashback!

Amy, Tsuruta Designs, posted a Flashback Friday challenge and asked us to join her in posting our first cards posted on our blogs.  Yikes!  So, I'm being a Brave Girl and digging mine up from February 6, 2009, when I began blogging. 

Isn't that scary photography?!  Actually, I took a cue from Amy and lightened the pics up as they were even dreadfully darker than they are here! 

Thankfully, not only has blogging been a fantastic adventure, I've learned so much along the way....from fellow bloggers, friends, and all of my favorite search engines.  Many thank yous to all sources of information & learning (and old & new friendship & connections!)!!  Hopefully, it has led to picture taking that doesn't require me to be a Brave Girl. :>

Happy Birthday {card} Baby Girl!

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What?! What's that??!! She made a card??!! Really??!!

REALLY!

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Our baby girl is another year older.....sigh.  I do not recall giving her permission for her next birthday to come so fast!  Really, I don't!  Though, watching her grow, learn, and thrive is such a treasure.  And I am truly blessed every day I see the world through her eyes and am amazed at her sweet perspective......thank you, Baby Girl!

A few months back, I tied off some pink ribbon with pink embroidery thread sewn through turquoise buttons and made another handful of the same bows, with the colors reversed.  I think I intended them for a challenge or two.........that I never got around to completing.  But, they have been staring at me....a lot!  And I remembered my sweet girl asking me to use them......a lot!  So, of course, they had to come out an play on a sweet & simple card for her birthday. :>

The card is uber simple.  Twill buttoned bows are adhered with a little Fabri-Tac, the bottom bubbled up with a border punch, and a sweet little bit of polka paper is adhered to the bottom of the inside of the card. 

Our Baby Girl (she might not be a baby anymore, but she'll always be my baby!) has picked out oodles of The Little Mermaid's Ariel to celebrate with this weekend and I'm looking forward to baking her cake (gluten, casein, & soy free, of course), singing to her, and watching her smile from ear to ear!

Supplies:
Paper:  Hawaiian Shores - Papertrey Ink;  Nana's Nursery - Die Cuts With A View
Ribbon:  Hibiscus Burst Twill - Papertrey Ink

Buttons:  Stash
Embroidery Thread:  Making Memories
Punch:  Martha Stewart

Lisa's Poppy Seed Challenge & Fabric Fun for EBTKS

Wow! As busy as this week is, I'm so happy to have crafted a bit of time for some paper, ink, stamps, bling, and fabric!

I had fabric in mind to play along with the Everything but the Kitchen Sink challenge. Actually, I thought I was going to use some of the fabric that I bought recently, but instead found myself digging through my old stash and even using a wee piece of the pink gingham that was in my daughter's nursery!







And I was so excited to see Lisa Johnson diving in and starting her own challenge, that I knew I wanted to include her three Poppy Seeds in my card!







I made my fabric circles essentially the same way I created them HERE (for a scalloped paper flower) and HERE (with an Easter egg dye paper towel)......only with fabric. Once they were layered, I pinched the fabric in the middle, threw in a couple of stitches, and then sewed a button on top with embroidery floss. I really love how it came out and will have to make one again!

This little sweet sentiment is from my stash from about fifteen years ago and its one of my favorites. Isn't that exactly what a card is meant to do, no matter what the occasion is??!

A couple of last details to share......I stamped that little flower stamp all over the lemon tart card base in Versamark for a subtle pattern (you can click on the photo to enlarge it) and then stamped it again, in teal, on either side of the sentiment. A couple pink crystals and my happy little card is complete.

I'm off to enjoy some of today's happy moments......my daughter is going to her second dance class with her Grammie and I'll be heading back to my son's school to watch him perform Tiki Tiki Tembo, which they have been working on this trimester in Drama class. He tells me he's the Old Man in it and has to walk very slowly. :> Should be fun!

What's making you smile today?



(I'll be back with a supply list this evening!)

I'm back and here's my supply list:

Supplies:
Cardstock: Lemon Tart - Papertrey Ink
Stamps: Flower - Stampin' Up!; Sentiment - Love You To Bits
Ink: Versamark; Taken with Teal - Stampin' Up!
Fabric: Stash
Button: Stash (I think its Autumn Leaves)
Thread: Coats & Clark
Embroidery Floss: Bazzill
Bling: Lisa Bearnson

Detailed Fun with Just Us Girls & EBTKS

Come & Color, I did....but not with markers, pens, or pencils. But, I did have so much FUN with these colors for the Just Us Girls 21st challenge! I mean there were little giggles, lots of smiles, and oodles of delight as I played!

And all that delight is most definitely in the details! But, before I tell you about those details, let me share where the rest of the card came from.........the current sketch challenge from Everything But The Kitchen Sink! I have wanted to play along with the EBTKS crew from the beginning...thank goodness I finally did! :>

Okay, okay, back to some of those details! I cut some lovely K & Company printed paper into four squares, used some temporary adhesive to adhere them all butted up against each other (as in one big square) and then using coral and raspberry ink, I inked up some fun stripes. If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now (or again) that I feel just like a kid when I get all inky....instant happy pill!


Next, I spread out those four squares, adhered them to a piece of raspberry cardstock, pierced around the edges, using the Tim Holtz Clear Design Ruler (I LOVE this tool!), and hand stitched with vanilla embroidery thread. Matting the whole thing onto a chocolate card base, I turned to the rest of those fun details.

That fab scalloped square chipboard frame took a quick bath in some ivory paint and then went for a good soak in some of Tim Holtz's Distress Rock Candy crackle paint. I stamped that wonderful sentiment (that oh so fits my love of the little things in life!) in brown StazOn onto vanilla cardstock, cut it out with a circle Coluzzle (still do not understand why it was discontinued!) and it too went for a soak in Rock Candy. And when they started cracking like mad, can you see why giggles were escaping me?! When they were all dry (the cardstock curled, but I simply bent it back and smoothed it out), I rubbed some coral ink onto it and rubbed off the excess.....its a very subtle effect, but it does add to it. I also did the same dry rubbed ink on the sweet vanilla wood button.

The last bit of details rest in the fibers. I layered the stitched raspberry ribbon on top of chocolate ribbon...I just like the subtle extra bit of chocolate in the middle of the card. Now the stitching on that raspberry ribbon is white and that just didn't work. So, I took a Q-Tip, dabbed it in some Distress ink and ran it over the stitches. Again, very subtle, but it took the edge off of the white stitching and made it applicable to the color challenge, which calls for vanilla, not white! I tied the whole bow together with some brown embroidery floss and that sweet vanilla wood button!

Big Thank Yous to both the JUGS & EBTKS teams for creating their fabulous & fun challenge sites! So glad I crafted some time to play!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week! I'm off to celebrate some of the cherrished details in my own life.....in fact, one is smiling at me right now, while nibbling on her carrot! :>

And don't forget my Blog Birthday Giveaway is still going on!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Dark Chocolate & Vintage Cream - Papertrey Ink; Purely Pomegranate - Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper: K & Company

Ink: Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate - Stampin' Up!; Vintage Cream - Papertrey Ink; Timber Brown - StazOn by Tsukineko; Old Paper Distress Ink - Tim Holtz for Ranger
Stamps: Life Bundle - Kolette Hall
Chipboard: Scalloped square frame - Stampin' Up!; circles/Chips (2 circles under the sentiment) - Bazzill
Paint: Ivory - Delta; Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint - Tim Holtz for Ranger
Ribbon & Fibers: Purely Pomegranate Saddle Stitched, Chocolate Chip grosgrain - Stampin' Up!; Chocolate embroidery thread - Making Memories; Vanilla embroidery floss - DMC
Button: sweet flower wooden button - La*di*dah for Ki Memories

INSPIRED: artist Charles Clary

Edited to add: The artist that I took inspiration from, Charles Clary, left a comment here with his BLOG....please do check it I out, I know I will! :>

Have you seen the February issue of WIRED magazine? The bit I am specifically asking those of you who love papercrafting, art, beauty, and the truly inspired is the article on paper artist, Charles Clary. There are a series of pictures of his work there. He hand cuts his paper and layers them perfectly for free form, amoeba-like shapes. My jaw just dropped when Hubby pointed the article out to me. After looking for more of his inspirational work online, I found his resume at The Rymer Gallery and a collection of photos of even more of his amazing art!

Charles Clary definitely inspired me! I used Kazan's Sketch 46 from 2 Sketches 4 You, flipped it vertically and started playing. And oh how much fun I had playing!

I started by stamping the nested outline heart stamp from Papertrey Ink's Heart Prints.....it looked like the layered papers from Charles Clary's pieces to me.....only in a single stamp! I liked how airy his pieces feel, so I stamped on transparency with Staz On and colored the images in with Bic Mark Its. I played with those, Sharpies, and the handful of Prismacolor markers I have and they all will work well.

I used some Glossy Accents under the center hearts to adhere the transparency to the card base. Using the coordinating heart punch, I punched out three, adhered them together, and glued the hand cut out heart on top, and then freehand cut (that was a challenge for me!) two more layers for a bigger heart. I punched out several more hearts, adhered them together and used them to lift up the nested heart center piece (foam tape or pop dots would work the same, but since the transparency is reflective, I didn't want it white....yes, you could just color it, but I had the heart punch handy). Wanting the largest heart to stand out a bit more, before I glued the whole smackaroo onto the card, I ran a black marker around the edge. Not sure that I like that, but it does help to define it more.

Pink Elephant's challenge this week is to use ribbon.......that should make room for lots of us to play!

Are you inspired by Charles Clary's art?? I would love to know what you think. And if you are so inspired to create something yourself, leave me a link so that I can come see!! :>

Don't forget about my Blog Anniversary Giveaway and to comment! You can read about it HERE and find out how you can get in on it!


Supplies:
Cardstock: Marigold Morning - Stampin' Up!
Ink: Black - Staz On
Stamps: Heart Prints - Papertrey Ink
Punch: Heart by EK Success (purchased at PTI), Corner Rounder - Marvy UCHIDA
Markers: Bic Mark It
Ribbon: Stash (bought it awhile back....think I got it in Michael's dollar bin)
Transparency: Office Depot

First Blog Birthday for Me, Giveaway for You!

Toes are a tappin'. A smile is on my face. And I'm getting on my Happy Dance! Its not pretty, let me tell you....coordination is most definitely not my strong suit. But, I sure can tap those toes and smile, bright and big and like that Chesire cat!

One year ago, I finally left the mere ideas and thoughts of maybe someday possibly blogging and actually started one. I wasn't sure that I would have enough time. And then Papertrey Ink was celebrating their second anniversary and I wanted to play along. It gave me the final push to stop thinking about it and actually do it. And I needed a name for this adventure. I quickly realized that what I would be doing is crafting my time, and Time Crafted was born.

While I thought blogging could be fun, I never realized just how rewarding of an experience it would be! I love reading each comment made and I treasure the connections that I make with such wonderfully creative, witty, and fun people all over the world! Thank YOU for visiting and being such a joy in my life!!

February is quite a fun and celebratory month for me. I was engaged in February eleven years ago, my birthday is in a handful of days, there are several family and friends' birthdays this month, Valentine's Day, and now a blog birthday too! Since blogging has been a present all wrapped up in paint, paper, ribbons, bows, bling, and creativity for me, I thought it's time for a present from me to you! And since it was Papertrey Ink's anniversary celebrations last year that gave me the final push to jump into this blogging adventure a year ago, I thought it would be appropriate to include them in my own anniversary celebration this year.

Who wants to help me celebrate my First Blog Birthday and win a $25 gift certificate to Papertrey Ink??

So, here are the deets........ Since the whole month of February is a celebratory month for me, I am leaving the giveaway open for the whole month for you. Every comment made on my posts in February, starting with this one, will give you an entry in the drawing for the PTI $25 gift certificate. If you like my blog, I would love for you to follow me, but it is not a requirement. And if you blog about the giveaway, you will get an additional three entries (either leave me the link in your comment or you can email me).

I'm looking forward to another fun year of blogging, creative play, meeting new people, and continued visits with so many of you! Thank you again for visiting me and sharing in this fun adventure!!

Source:
Spell with flickr

Who can {Resist} some Valentine love?!

Nichole Heady has issued another challenge this Day 5 of Papertrey Ink's anniversary festivities and I got on it. We've been asked to create using the emboss resist technique (Nichole has a video on her challenge post with a demo of this technique).

When I first started stamping over fifteen years ago, I used to emboss anything I could get my hands on. I worked in a rubber stamping store and always came home covered in ink, glitter, and embossing powder (I never said my creative process was neat!). And like many things that are played with over and over, embossing was put on the back burner for awhile and only fairly recently have I started playing with it again. This is one time I'm glad I can be a pack rat as I saved all my old embossing powders and have only bought one set of colored embossing powder in over a decade (I had a ton of stuff from when I started stamping.....just had to love a 50% employee discount, right?!).

For the background, I dug deep into that stash of stamps from the nineties and pulled out an old All Night Media sweetheart set......conversation heart stamps...too cute! It always feels so good to pull from supplies I've had stashed away. There are nine stamps in this set and I chose four to randomly stamp. This set has come in handy over the years as my son has used them a couple of times, back in his preschool days, for handmade Valentine's. I especially remember him using the heart that says, "COOL" quite often!

So, this is another flat card, but its not for the easy mailing, reasonable postage pile. I left the ribbon and bling off of it and stuck to the brown and red color scheme to keep it more masculine......because its for my Hubby! I've tucked it away and this time around, I am going to remember to not dump my camera's pics onto the family computer!! lol

Are your Valentine's made? I haven't decided if we're going handmade or the pre-printed uber cool character ones this year for my son's classmates yet. I suspect, like last year, that it will be the latter! Hope your week has been a good one and that you have a fun and peaceful weekend ahead of you!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Kraft & Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink
Stamps: Sweetheart conversation hearts - All Night Media; love - Vap! Scraps (it was a dollar stamp from JoAnns, I think)
Ink: Creamy Caramel & Real Red - Stampin' Up!; Versamark
Other: clear embossing powder - stash

Happy Birthday PTI {Card Two}

Holey Camole Macarole! Leave it to PTI's Nichole to help me along with a FIRST! Two posts in one night....that is a first for me! :> So, there's one more card below for this same challenge. And again, I had the same plan of attack........attack??!!.....more like fun loving, child-like playtime!

Like the previous post, I colored this fun and whimsical image from Becky Oehlers with simple Sharpies and my lovely and favorite Spica glitter pens. Like I said, it felt like that free loving and fun of a child's arts & crafts time and for that, after coloring, I found myself smiling.

And again, another flat card to add to the easy mailing, uber reasonable postage stash! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; White - Georgia Pacific
Image: Becky Oehlers for Papertrey Ink
Pens: Sharpies; Spica glitter pens - Copic

Happy Birthday {Papertrey Ink}!

Papertrey Ink is celebrating their third birthday and we get the presents!! How cool is that?! Nichole Heady introduced the designers for PTI for 2010 and each of them designed an image for us to download.....Free! And it gets even better......you can link up a card (or seven!) with the birthday images the designers have given us and be entered for a drawing for a hot giveaway of seven PTI stamp sets! Its like a papercrafters stamping heaven with inspiration and oodles of goodies every day...definitely worth checking out (IF you are not already addicted, like so many of us are and ran there when the festivities started yesterday!).

I used the image from Beth Silaika of Freckled and Fun for a quick CAS birthday card. A little color from my trusty Sharpies, lots of sparkle from my favorite Spica glitter pens (the entire WISH is glitterfied....you may have to click on the photo to see the sparkle), and whole lotta Raspberry Fizz love make up this card. My favorite part about this card is that it is flat! Its nice to have some cards that easily go in the mail without tag board to pad it, packing tape to keep any bling from punching through, OR any increase in postage! I love my ribbon, bows, and multi dimensional bling, but I also really love having options. :>

Supplies:
Image: Beth Silaika for Papertrey Ink
Cardstock: Raspberry Fizz & Plum Pudding - Papertrey Ink; White - Georgia Pacific
DP: Bitty Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink
Pens: Sharpies; Spica glitter pens - Copic

Sparkle and Shine!!

Uh-oh........it has begun. What? What's begun? The Christmas music! The Christmas music that pops in my head throughout the whole year has started to escape from me. I found myself singing "Winter Wonderland" this morning. While I was lucky enough to experience the wonders of a white Christmas as a kidlet, snow doesn't visit these parts very often.....at all (as in decades between light dustings!). So, I enjoy the white wonders of Christmas through happy, snow filled, winter Christmas music!

So, how about a little sparkle reminiscent of Christmas? Okay, okay, so its a birthday card, but the red glitter sure does sparkle and make me want to get Christmas crafty!

In April, I made a card with the intention of giving it to Hubby for our anniversary (but, that is a whole other story.....). I really loved the simple elegance of that card and so I gave it another go and just changed up a couple of things. I kept it to two colors, like the first card, but changed the black to red. And instead of using bling/gems, I went with an all over sparkle, using a technique called burnished velvet (using glitter) that I used here for the first time and learned about from Dana at Paper Daydream, who saw a fantastic tutorial for this from Spike at Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot.

Yup, yup, it definitely has an all over sparkle! Not the greatest shot, but I really wanted to show you just how much the burnished glitter really does sparkle and shine!!

Do you have any Christmas songs singing in your head? Or are you just trying to get ready for Thanksgiving, if you are in the States? Would you believe that I have yet to start thinking about what we need for Thanksgiving dinner? Well, except for figuring out how to make a GF/CF pumpkin pie, which I am putting recipes together for, but have yet had the chance to try out....yikes!

Hope you're heading into a fantastic and relaxing weekend! I have some trips out to Mom's, lots of cleaning as we have friends coming the day after Thanksgiving, and apparently, working on that GF/CF pumpkin pie recipe! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampers Select White, Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink
Stamps: Damask Designs
Ink: Real Red - Stampin' Up!
Glitter: Garnet (fine) - Martha Stewart
Other: Quickie Glue Pen - Sakura

Home is where the heart is....

Hello there! Long time no see, huh?! I have been running around like that proverbial chicken.....still! There was lots of company last month, a kidlet birthday that actually stretched three weeks into this month, a four day scrapbook retreat which takes a couple of days to pack for, two or three times that to unpack (I write this as we are still tripping over my dozen plus bags in our entry way), and a couple of weeks to recover from the uber late nights! We also had the usuals, school, homework, art projects, games, playdates, and the typical daily stuff. And one of my best friends unexpectedly lost her father.

I've been in shock since receiving the news and can only imagine her and her mother's grief. They were an extremely tight family and loved each other so much. We said good-bye to this wonderful man on Friday night. My friend asked us to hug our loved ones and enjoy them for whatever time we do have with them. She also asked and hoped that whatever we learned from her father, we take out into the rest of our worlds. He was an optimist, a problem solver, warm, loving, and opened his home and heart so willingly. And his whole family makes me smile!

Hmmmmm..........I suppose I've surprised myself as this is not where I was going to go with this post. But, because I think so much of this man and his wife and daughter, my friend, I am going to leave this in here.

And just so you do not think I have completely abandoned creative pursuits, including card making, I'll share a card with you as well. There are four of us best friends and I made this card for another gal in this group, my best friend that I met over twenty years ago.

My apologies for the shadows. I did not realize they were so strong when I took the pic and I have already given her the card and cannot retake the pic. I stamped images from PTI's Boards & Beams. The small topiary trees, I colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and then cut out with a craft knife. I stamped the house twice and cut the windows out on one of the images with a craft knife as well. I then layered the cut house on top of the uncut house with foam tape for depth. I wanted you to be able to look inside the windows. And as I have discovered many times now, I seem to like the graphic look of stamped images uncolored.

Here you can see those layers a bit better. I layered all of the pieces on a Kraft base, stamped the first half of the sentiment on the bottom, and added a Sweet Blush satin bow. On the inside, I stamped and punched out a heart from PTI's Heart Prints and stamped the othe half of the sentiment from Boards & Beams.

I chose to share this card today because the sentiment rings so true. My friend's parents built their last two homes and chose every detail, but it was the people inside that made them homes that they relished being in.

My own home definitely needs updates, new carpet, a redone kitchen, and some pruning in our yards. But, it is my family that lives inside these walls with me that warms my heart, makes me smile, share hugs with, laughter, and even tears that make my life what it is. And today, I am choosing to smile as football is on the tube, my daughter playing in imagination land under the dining table, my son yelling out at the top of his lungs for every touchdown, Hubby enjoying his first real down time day in over two weeks, and me, in the middle of all of them and finally checking back in with all of you! :> What are you smiling about today?

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampers Select White, Kraft - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Onyx, Sepia - Versafine
Stamps: Heart Prints, Boards & Beams - Papertrey Ink
Ribbon: Sweet Blush Satin - Papertrey Ink
Punch: Small heart - EK Success (from PTI)
Other: Craft knife & Prismacolor Colored Pencils