good ideas from a 6 year old…

Here are a couple more crafts I have finished. The first is my very first canvas! I made it for a girlfriend who has worked very hard for a very long time and finally got her bachelors degree, even graduating with honors! I love this quote from Thoreau and I thought it was fitting for the occasion. I painted the canvas then used stamps to do the lettering (next time, I'll use my cricut!)

The next project started with two orange crates. I spray painted them white and added scrapbook paper from TPC Studio to the inside. I WAS going to just use them as shelves for nick knacks but then my daughter saw them and said "they would look really nice with a picture inside" and the lightbulb went off in my head! I added these beach pictures of my daughters plus some of the shells and rocks we found at the beach this year! They are now hanging on the wall in my downstairs bathroom! I love having crafty children!

Thanks for visiting! 

Happy Crafting!

Finally some craftiness!!

Hi! It's been a while since I've crafted in any way. I've been so busy with summer fun and trying to survive the work on my house. I am now in decorator mode though so I've been cranking out some home decor projects. I have lots more unfinished so those will come in later posts.

I found this rusty old star at a yard sale. I've wanted one forever but could never see spending so much money on them. This one was super cheap!! All this stuff I got for $10!!! 3 of these things are getting altered, but I only have two to show you today!

Here is the new Star, it is going to hang in my scrap/craft room!

I outlined it in stickles but kept it unembellished

Here is the metal tub. I gave it a couple coats of spray paint and then used one of my all time favorite MME lines on it, Bloom & Grow, plus a couple other embellishments. This will hold all the kits I have stashed in various places so they are visible and easy to grab!

This is a birthday card I made for my mother recently

That's it for today! Thanks for visiting!

 Happy Crafting!!

A sad day...

As I've talked about before I lived in Missouri for 4 years and only just recently moved back to New England. While I was in MO I met some amazing scrapbookers, of course my amazing friends Alicia and Janette, but also the ladies of Scrapbook Generation; Debbie, Karen, Stacey and Allison. They do amazing things for the scrapbook community there and it was such an amazing experience to get to be a part of it! (that is a LOT of amazings!)
Today I learned that Allison, for the foreseeable future, will not be updating her inspiring Sketch Support site. It was a great inspiration to me when it started but I was a fan long before she began that endeavor and will continue to be so. She has a great talent and so in honor of her and the ladies at Scrap Gen (as I call it) I am going to post a few (or 10) of my favorite LO's/cards made from or inspired by their sketches. I don't have sketch numbers listed so unfortunately I can't tell you which they are but if you check out their website you can buy their wonderful sketch books and kits and get some for yourself!

Thank you ladies, you have really helped make me the scrapper I am today! Best of luck to you Allison!

A congratulatory gift!

I have a friend that just recently had her first child, a little girl named Emma. I made her this gift a while ago but didn't want to give it to her until I could personalize it with Emmas' birth info. Well, it is all set to now send on to the proud parents. I will be mailing it out tomorrow but wanted to post it here first for everyone (haha) to see. I used the amazing Nikki Sivils Audrey line for this entire frame. First I painted it white and then spritzed it with glimmer mist. Nikki's paper worked so perfectly for this project I think! I hope you enjoy it!

(This picture was taken BEFORE I added the birth info)

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Crafting!!

Whoa, it's April??

I can't believe it's been 2 months since my last post…wait, yes I can, it has been crazy busy in the Marshall household! We finally bought our home and are now in the throes of renovations and repairs! So I have been stealing 5-10 minute increments here and there to get a little crafting in! I have a really cute wreath to share that I am very proud of as it's the first wreath I've ever made! I realized a few weeks ago that I still had our Christmas wreath on our front door, shameful I know! So I decided to try my hand at making a pretty spring wreath. A fun trip to Joann Fabrics and I got great stuff on sale and with coupons! Love saving money on craft goodies! I got out my loooooong neglected hot glue gun and went to town…over several days! LOL! Here are the pictures of the process and then the final product!

Yes, Julie Tucker Wolek, the 'M' is covered with Nikki Sivils paper from the 'Audrey' line! =)

I added a few chipboard phrases to the letter

 I couldn't resist this little paper 'Love' phrase either!

Here it is on our front door!

Thanks for visiting! Happy Crafting!!

Pinterest crafts!!

So I think I mentioned before that I joined Pinterest and was using it as a crutch to get me through the weeks (months) of no crafting. So I've been on it stockpiling cool craft ideas and with Valentine's Day coming up I decided to try a few. This first one if for my daughters' kindergarten classmates, I got the idea from little felt snowman ornaments. I made mine into pockets for a lollipop. I used buttons from my recent shopping trip as well as from my stash!

The second one looked really cool but the instructions were literally in Chinese (or Japanese, I'm not sure) So I just had to go off of the pictures and wing it. I will say the next time I do this I won't get such stiff felt, the red was a bit too stiff. I think both projects turned out pretty cute and I'm really happy with them! If you aren't on Pinterest you should check it out, if you are, look me up! I could always use more people and ideas to glean inspiration from!

A close up

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Crafting!!

Super Scrap Sunday...

A few years ago my girlfriends and I started a tradition of scrapping on Superbowl Sunday instead of watching the game. Well this year, even though we are all in different states, we decided to do it again. I had gone goodie shopping on saturday and found a great score on Valentines stuff for 30% off at Hobby Lobby,so using some of that and a LOT of my stash I was able to make 9 Valentine cards. I also had two more design team submission LO's I wanted to do and I managed to get those done as well. It was a pretty productive day all around!

The first LO is for a new sketch site called Let's Get Sketchy. I'm really excited about it and not only are they looking for a design team but also a sketch team! The DT call ends on the 13th so go check them out!

This next LO is for the design team call over at Creative Scrappers. Their call ends in 2 days so I'm glad I got this one done in time. I really like the sketch I chose to work with from them.

Here are the goodies I found during my shopping trip!

Here are 7 of the 9 cards (2 are for my friends and I don't want to show those yet!)

Thanks for visiting! 

Happy Crafting!!

Eh, I guess….

So yesterday didn't quite turn out to be the crafting bonanza I envisioned in my head, although it was fun to be simultaneously be scrapping with my friends Janette and Alicia. Starting was in fits because every time I turned around I realized I didn't have some important item, like my cardstock tote or the bag with all my pens, scissors, chalk and stickles! I finally got everything together and was able to whip out a few pages…and then the girls started in "mommy this" and "mommy that"! Finally I gave them some paper, photos and stickers and let them do their own pages! It actually ended up being an epiphany for me! On occasion I will do 3 LO's of the same photos (usually using the same sketch too, for efficiency) because we have a family book and they each have their own book. Well, while they were doing their pages it hit me; they can take over from here on out (unless of course there are pictures I REALLY want to do) doing the pages for their own books! Brilliant, and actually they did a really nice job! But alas, even with them busy crafting they were still pretty time demanding and then there was lunch to make and the dog to let in and out and in again! So I only got 4 LO's done, however I found a few LO's that I had done at the last crop I went to and had never posted, so, really I have quite a lot to share!

The first 2 are based on a sketch from this new blog I came across called Nuts About Sketches It's actually their DT Call sketch so I MAY send in one of my LO's and see what happens!=)

(the splotches were a bit of a mistake, I'm still not sure how I feel about them)

This next one is based on an Allison Davis two page sketch #17

(Sorry for the poor photo quality, using glimmer mist makes the paper crinkle up, if anyone has any tricks to avoid this I would LOVE to know them!)

This next one is based on the right side of the above sketch with the Add on Sketch #13 included. The snowman has been flocked, but it's impossible to tell. I did use some flocking on his hat to mimic snow.

Here are the LO's my girls did

Caitie 5yrs. old 

(the writing says "I love snow, I love snow ball fights it is fun" of course it's in her 5 yr. old spelling!)

Rylie (7 yrs. old) 

These are the LO's I found from my last crop 

So now that I know where all my stuff is hopefully I can get more done!

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Crafting!

dry spell...

Well it has been over a month since I last posted, over a month since we moved and even longer than that since I've crafted in any way! I have become obsessed with Pinterest in my crafting dryspell. It is a poor substitute but has certainly given me some great ideas and inspiration! If you are on Pinterest and are so inclined you can follow me and my many pins!

On saturday, back in MO, the tenth Scrap-a-palooza is happening and I won't be there. I'm very sad about this as are my two scrap buddies. The last one of us remaining in Mo, Janette, will be there so this is what we have proposed to do. Each of us will spend the day scrapping, me in New Hampshire, Alicia in Georgia and Janette at palooza, and post our creations in our group on FB. It's a poor substitute (a common theme in my life lately!) but it'll do. The very cool thing is that Scrapbook Generation posted the LO classes being taught at palooza and people went so crazy for them they decided to offer them as kits! So I called immediately and ordered mine! You can see the LO's here, Allison Davis is amazing as are Debbie, Stacey and Karin! I'll certainly miss them on saturday!

Here is my dilemma, I've been so busy with the move and settling the girls into school and us into a new life, as well as looking for a permanent home (we are renting right now) that I have not taken my scrap stuff out of boxes. It is very sad to see the boxes knowing my stuff is just sitting there! I will dig through them tonight though (I may even kiss my cricut!) and get myself as ready as I can be for saturday. I promise to post pictures of my creations from sat., and once my stuff is liberated I promise to create and post more! Here are the sad pictures of the boxed up stuff:

Thanks for visiting and Happy Crafting!!