Odds and Ends

Still crazy busy at school; I guess it's just going to be one of those years. I haven't colored in a while, but I did finish up some projects this weekend. Check out my Charm page for an update with the rest of the "Human" theme and the first of the "Patriotic" Theme. I finished my Patriotic charms yesterday;  now I need to get the packaging done. It's our last swap. I have really enjoyed doing this swap, but am glad to take a break. I think that 6 is my limit for members of a charm swap; more is a chore.

We had our last Spirit Doll swap yesterday. I gave this doll to Elaine. Check out the bottom of my Beading page to view all of these treasures. I can't believe the work Anita did for my baby!

What is going to be our next challenge swap? Let's schedule it for January, please; I have Christmas to plan.

I have been spending a bunch of time on Pinterest; check out my boards: http://pinterest.com/celliott53/

Charlotte really wanted to be a part of our swap - actually, she wanted the yummy carrot cookies that Anita made.

 

Cult Challenge and Birthday Celebrations

Jan chose the sketch this month: SCCSC134 and I thought it was only fitting that I use the sketch to make her birthday card - with flamingos of course. The image is from Custer's Last Stamp: Flamingo Standing Tall CR1058-L. The dp is MME: Nolstalgia. The cs is copic x-press-it with black Memento. SU cs is also used: blush and pool. Pearls are used for embellishments as are retired SU shell stamps. MFT dies were used: fish tail flags and mini doilies. I think the flamingo die is from

Copics are used to color the images: Y21 and Y26. R20, R22 and R14. E30, E33 and 0 for the ground. The background dots are BG11, G00, Y21, E50 and R00. The "dot" background technique is one that I learned at my copic certification class. I am not sure if I like it better than the one that I normally use.

We celebrated both Jan and Joyce's birthdays tonight with cake and more raspberry slushes. I hope they like their presents - I made them each a "December Daily Smash Book." I really enjoyed writing in mine last year and have been planning these presents for a while; my first plan was to make these over the summer-needless to say- I operated on plan B: get them done by their birthdays. I used 31 printed, one-sided pieces of cardstock. On the white side, I spritzed with perfect pearl mists; stamped and embossed the date, and decorated with a strip of dp. Jan's is in blue and silver and Joyce received the earth tones. I included a variety (sizes, colors, papers, designs) of embossed envelopes and decorated a number of tags. I also included a folder of embellishments - many are die cuts along with some stamped and colored images - for them to use to personalize their pages. I had so much fun making their "card candy." I have included a slide show of some pages from their books.

St Augustine Treats

Just getting ready for our monthly stamp club meeting. Our challenge this month was to create a Halloween Treat Exchange. I found my idea on pinterest. I love how it came out. The 'skirt' at the top is black cs cut with the top-note die the folded in half and embellished with the Holtz large rosette cut from dp and has ink blended around the edge. The rosette is layered with a scallop punch and the verse is from SU. The striped ribbon is also from SU. The shoes are just cut, embossed and decorated with trim and a button. There was only one slight problem: peanut MMs do not easily fit the skinny cello bags. I had to pick through the bags and find ones that fit. The regular MM are too small and I couldn't find any of the fat ones; and I would prefer another color. Of course, if I hadn't left it to the last minute..... all in all, I liked how it turned out.

I plan to take my camera to the meeting and will add pictures of other treats - if Jan reminds me to get the camera out of my bag.

Inky Fingers

The cult came together yesterday to get inky. We worked on creating backgrounds for our art journals. Jan catered - delicious BBQ and raspberry adult slushes. We laughed from 9 to 5 and made a wonderful mess. I really love creating the backgrounds using sprays and stencils. Anita came over again today to finish up some pages. I completed the first page in my journal - I thought it was the "perfect" words, my favorite colors, some doodling, copic coloring and of course - glitter! I intend to fill this book with inspirational words.

Here are a couple of pictures of of play day.

It didn't take long to get inky fingers.

MFTWSC#92

It's seems like forever since I have had time to color a weekly challenge. For this birthday card I used MFT: Lil Pumpkin. She is stamped on copic x-press-it with black memento ink. The dp is from BoBunny: Apple Cider that I picked up on our last cult road trip. The cs is from SU: expresso and gumball. I used nestie circle and scallop dies and only partial cut the circle so the pumpkin can extend past the border. The ribbon is from my stash.

She is paper pieced and colored with copics. Markers used include: E30, E21, E11 and R02 for skin with BV00 for cast shadows. Her hair is YR23, Y28, and E39. Her paper-pieced dress is shaded with YR23. The stem is YG25, Y28 and YG17. The pumpkin is R23 and YR15 as a base with shading done with YR18 and YR68. The background is Y000 and YR0000. Her hair barette and dress heart is colored with a Melon spica glitter pen.

MFTGUESTDT1012

I used this month's sketch to make a card for my friend, Beth, who was voted Teacher of the Year at our school. She is a terrific math teacher. I stamped MFT ALM "An Apple for Teacher" on neenah cs with Memento black ink. The sentimenta are MFT's:"Teacher's Pet" and "Clearly Sentimental about Teaching." The apple is from PTI. The dp is from Echo Park: Happy Days. Our school colors are red and black and the graph paper background is perfect for a math teacher. The cs is from SU: red and black. The red ribbon is from Ellen Hudson. Fishtail flags stax and a MFT star border die are used. I used the negative part of the star border along the bottom edge. I partially cut one of the smaller rounded banner stax dies to extend the length to fit the longer ALM image without adding unwanted width.

She is colored in copics: Skin is E21, E11, E13 and R02. I am trying to use the darker tones like Colleen suggested in our class. The hair is YR23, E13 and E37. Her shirt is E40 and E42 and her shoes and skirt is C3, C5, C7 and C9. The apple is YR21, R14, R24, R29 and R39. The leaf and stem are YR23 and E37; YG25, YG63, YG95.