Friday, March 19, 2010

It Started With a Little Flower (or two.. or three… or six… or twenty…)

Well this HUGE, HONKIN, BIG OLE, GRANDMAMMY OF THEM ALL post is a few days in the promising… to Jeanne, at least. Sorry, Jeanne, I’ve been so crazy busy this week! I was going to blog yesterday but after my dentist appt I decided to stay up north in the “big city” to do some shopping… I really shouldn’t have since I did some “shopping” with Miss Jeanne while visiting Denver, but, I just HAD to. Went to a couple of consignment stores and did some perusing, bought a new to me Liz Claiborne leather (BLUE BLUE BLUE BABY BLUE) purse (which I LURVE and looks BRAND spanking new) for under $20 and some cutesy boutiquey hair clips (which I am going to case) and then stopped at Real Deals in Lehi and picked up some fun house decorations and a couple of birthday presents :) WOOT!

ANYWAY

This post is dedicated to Jeanne Tomshack.
Because it’s really her fault in the first place, so there. :P

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When Wendy posted in this post and then this one and again another one about her new craft addiction and blamed it on me in the first one, I decided that I had to clear the air and keep on passing the buck back to it’s rightful owner and clear my good name as a “responsible crafter”… hahahahah.. just kidding… but seriously… We owe this new and fabulous addiction to our sweet and delightful and unselfish friend, Jeanne Tomshack, who has delighted us with her beautiful creations and has even sent a few of them to a few of us!

A while back Jeanne sent me some loverly little tiny crocheted flowers that I have used from time to time on cards. I begged her for more. LOL! She told me I could do it even when I said, “I just can’t do it right!”. LOL! Well my friends…

Just a little over a week ago, while in Denver for a work trip with Brent, I got to visit Jeanne again.

This is what awaited me at Jeanne’s house when I arrived.

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Jeanne made this absolutely out-of-this-world stunning doily for me for my birthday (which was the day before I arrived). Look at the DETAIL!! A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! Thank you Jeanne for such a beautiful gift! I am currently displaying it on the antique hutch/buffet in my front room. It makes me smile every time I walk past it.

BONUS for ME: I was the lucky recipient of a ONE on ONE personalized crochet lesson from our resident crocheting professional on said professional’s couch!

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AHHHH THE MASTER @ WORK! I like to think that the top left photo is a special memory her girls will have of their mother when they grow up…. Lovingly creating very special treats for family and friends.

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First she showed me and then I followed along….

“Mastah, I just don’t get it!”

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“Be still young grasshoppah and become one with the yarn…”

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“Yes, mastah… become one with the yarn…”

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This is the look you get when you question the great mastah… or maybe it’s when you annoy the bajeebers out of her by constantly snapping photos while she’s trying to teach you something important… like taking the crochet hook out and THEN turning the row… LOL! <<ducking so that the crochet and knitting needles that J’s gonna chuck at me miss me as they come flying through the monitor>>

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We went and picked up the girls from school in the mid afternoon… here’s a couple fun shots I snapped while waiting for the bell to ring.

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In the photo on the right I am wearing the necklace Jeanne made for me for Christmas and Jeanne is wearing the necklace I made for her on the way out to Denver in the car. (Btw, it’s a copy of the necklace Wendy gave me in my roomie goodie bag at CU. Full circle, full circle….)

We had some fun snapping pics with the girls after school, too. Here are a couple of my favorites. I slipped my little blue flower onto my bobby pin and into my hair… super cute! LOVE IT!

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And did I continue crocheting? You bet your crafty little bum I did….

Now I am hooked… pardon the pun. I have been crocheting on and off over the last week during my free time. I crocheted a gatrillion (yes that’s a real number now, at least in my book) tiny flowers during the daylight hours on the drive back to Utah from Denver… and then… because of WENDY.. hahaha… yes, dear Wendy, it’s your fault, too…. I made a HAT! Jeanne lessoned me in the proper forming of the first row and turning around for the second row and Wendy further tempted me… buwahahaha.

Here’s some snapshots of some of what I’ve been up to my arms in lately. (I have since learned that I can’t really do the tiny flowers for very long because they flare up my fibro hot spots in my arms, but big things like the big red hat… not so bad. :)

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Just some flowers and odds and ends I was messing around and experimenting with… practicing stitches and whatnot. The big puffy white flower started out to be a hat… but then I didn’t like how fuzzy it was… not really a good “spring” hat.. maybe for next winter… so I changed it up and started making a giant fuzzy flower. hehe! (You can click on photos to view larger.)

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The brown flowers are made from hemp. I thought they might be cool on a tropical or even a masculine card… or maybe just a card or project that wasn’t all “girlie” colors. The hemp was a little tough to work with and my fingers were a little sore, but the overall end product is cool.

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This cream colored hat is for my niece who is turning 4 in May. I thought it would be a super cute spring hat. :) It was also a pain in the bootay to do… It took forevvvvverr… and my arms ached for two days after I finished it.

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This red hat was my first hat! {Gotta love the goofy self portraits!} I had some crappy old cheap acrylic yarn from a previous project and decided to just follow along with the youtube video that Wendy shared and try it out. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be so I kept on casting stitches onto my hook…. I added an extra row of puff stitches and copied Wendy’s idea and made up my own brim. I really like it… it’s so cozy and comfortable that I switched out the red flower for a cream colored flower (experimenting again) and I’m even wearing it today and totally not matching… LOL!



SO… A BIG, FAT, YARN WOVEN THANK YOU goes to my dear friend, Jeanne, for getting me hooked on yet another crafty bit of goodness. Jeanne, I am so glad we’re friends and glad to be able to get to pop in and see you when I get dragged to Denver with the hubs for work! You ROCK!

~ Inky Smiles

PS… this post has been brought to you by the letter B which stands for Buster who couldn’t keep his paws off me during my visit. {You "ain't" hearing any complaining from this dog lover.} What a cutie patootie! I {HEART} you, little man!

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Chick Chat 2 – Two More Cards

I loooooved playing with the Skipping Stones Design Chick Chat set!!!  I made a couple of extra birthday cards while I was fooling around with the set for Tuesday’s Sketch Challenge.  

Here’s what I came up with:

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These are both simple cards playing on the same basic idea… but different, lol.  I was fooling around with the flowers and grass for the top card and popped everything out with foam tape.  I love how the grass looks “real”.  I used a Sakura glitter gel pen to highlight the grass and the flowers. (You might have to click on the photo to view it larger to see more clearly.)  The inside is blank.

The bottom card is a quick n easy peasy card for my little friend across the street who just turned 9.  I was playing with the chick and felt like it needed something, so I added eyelashes to the eyes.  I wish StazOn made markers to match their nice inks.  The inside says “from one cute chick to another”.

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I’m off to get some things done around this house, like laundry and whatnot… or maybe I will edit the pics of my visit to Jeanne’s house so I can share!

~ Inky Smiles

Skipping Stones Design Sketch SSD016: CHICK CHAT new release & Blog Hop!

Hey friends! I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s Photo Roundup of Creative University Make N Take projects!  They were so much fun to do!  Today is a special Sketch Tuesday as it’s our first Design Team only blog hop.  We’re celebrating the release of two new Spring/Easter Inspired sets

If you just happened upon my blog today, you’ll want to go back to the beginning at Skipping Stones Design. You should have arrived from Jamie Bova’s (aka Sgt Stamper) blog.   Jamie is also our March Sketch Artist!

We'd love for you to play along with today’s sketch. Just remember to use the keywords SSD016 if you are uploading to any online galleries (like Splitcoast or TwoPeas or Papercraft Planet, etc) or link your card at the Skipping Stones Blog. We'll be looking soon for Guest Designers so you never know....

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Today’s sketch is a fun one and I took a few creative liberties with it… I flipped it and bumped down the white focal piece to fit what I wanted to do with the sketch.  And then I left off the stringy things since my paper was busy enough. :)

Here’s the sketch… before and after.. haha! I mostly just rotated it. :)

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The stamp set I decided to use today is the NEW Chick Chat set.  I LOVE this set and have made 3 cards already with it. (I will post the other two later this week, like soon, cuz I have it scheduled already, hehe!)  I couldn’t resist all the cheeky chick humor and had a lot of fun with these stamps!

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Here’s my spin on this sketch.   When I showed the card to Brent he literally busted out laughing.  Glad it had that effect on him. Haha! Sometimes my quirky humor is lost in translation…

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The layers on this card are all sorts of popped up.  I wanted DIMENSION, baby, on this card and needed some good shadows for the full effect of the birdies.  The branch is hand drawn and hand cut from chocolate brown cardstock.  The little cherry blossom flowers are really old CTMH paper flowers that I dyed pink with some Glimmer Mist.  I wish I had actually stitched on the card instead of using a marke rfor stitches.  Hrmmm… maybe I can re-do that layer later. I used 3 beautimous Kaisercraft rhinestones in each corner to “anchor” the whole thing.  The chicks are all colored in with watercolor pencils and blended with a blending pen.

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How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, our DT has blog candy up for grabs.  So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!!

If you want to win MY prize (hint * which is an UNreleased stamp set * hint) here’s what you gotta do:

Leave a comment and link back to this post on your blog. :)

Your next stop is Kandi Phillips.

~Inky Smiles

Supply List:
Stamps – Chick Chat by Skipping Stones Design
Paper – Imaginesce, CTMH
Inks – CTMH & StazOn, CTMH blending pen
Miscellaneous – Watercolor pencils (Various brands), Kaisercraft rhinestones, adhesives, CTMH paper flowers.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Photo Roundup: Creative University 2010 – Make-N-Takes

I’m finally getting around to sorting through my photos from Creative University.   Let me just tell ya… I had SO MUCH STINKIN fun!!! n (Ok, well Stacey and I missed the “stinky” part because the Friday group had the water run out on them and nobody got showers…)  We made some projects and crafty goodness on very little sleep. LOL!  Here is a brief photo summary of the projects we made.

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Wall Hanging w/Elegant Paper Flowers
~ designed by Denise Anderson-Turley

This beautiful project that Denise designed was fast and easy to put together … that is… until… we had to make…. THOSE CRAZY FLOWERS.  LOL! 

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That little tag on the left slips in and out for hidden journaling.  The papers are all distressed with Tim Holz’s distress ink in linen and tea stain (I mixed them up).  I also spritzed some shimmery schtuff along the top left corners and the bottom right section of the artwork.  The flowers are also shimmery.   The leaves of the flowers are inked to death with Tim’s tea stain distress ink. (Denise’s original piece was not as inky/messy/aged as my piece.  I just wanted it shabby.)

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The flowers are crumpled “paper ribbon” flowers that are hot glued as you go along.  I burned my fingers and got annoyed with the hot glue so I gave up and went back to my seat and used my Helmar 450 glue.  It dried fast, but did not burn or dry TOO fast (like cooling glue). It took me a while to get the technique down and once I did the project flew right along. 

I need to get a “class” photo to put on this piece o’ art. :) :)


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Vintage Songbird Necklace
~ designed by Bren Yule

OOOH… a girl can’t go wrong with a JEWELRY making class!  Yeah babeeeee!   Bren designed this BEAUTIMOUS necklace using a key fob and some crafty supplies including rhinestones, a paper flower, a bird “brad”, and some vintage style music paper.

Before and After….

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Watercolor Pencils Cards & Scrapbook Layout
~ designed by Nona Davenport

I haven’t finished mine yet, but here’s Nona’s.  Mine is sitting here on my desk waiting for me to create a title and stick some photos on it… hahaha…like I ever stick photos on my pre created layouts. I’m so bad.  I need to develop some CU pics first!!!  I took some liberties with making mine …well, MINE.  I changed up the layout a bit and added some shimmer to it.. cuz all ROCK STAR layouts need some shimmer!

My cards are also half done.  I am trying to get everything finished up tonight so I can have everything DONE!  I should have finished everything AT CU, but we were having so much fun visiting and doing other crafty things, too. LOL! 

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See… it’s sitting there… waiting.. for you know who.  But I’d rather take a shower and hit the sack than finish it up tonight.    The cards are in the little baggie in the very far left corner…. also waiting… poor little cards.

 

 

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Spring Banner

~designed by Tresa Black

OOOH!!! This banner is so fun and sparkly and springy and just delightful!  We made each “block” at different stations over a period of two days.  There wasn’t anything “difficult” about this project, just a lot of steps on each block and LOADS of glitter and glittery goodness to let dry. LOL!

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I’m going to hang this in my front room for some SPRING cheer tomorrow!

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“Unofficial” Crocheted Necklace Class
~ held during free time by yours truly

Several ladies wanted to learn my crocheted necklaces so I told them I’d teach them during our free time at CU.  I was surprised how many actually brought their supplies and were eager to make the necklaces.  It just made my day!!!

Here we are learning and playing:

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Thank you to Wendy Tunison for the photos!  She’s my Paparazzi girl! LoVe HeR!

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That’s Connie Dryer in the above left photo.  She went hog wild making crocheted necklaces…  She holed up at a nearby table when we were done and made SEVERAL more crocheted beauties!  So glad to get ya HOOKED on another hobby!! :)

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That’s it for the first Photo Round Up from CU… I will post more soon! 

~Inky Smiles!

PS.. Tuesday (March 16th) is a blog hop for Skipping Stones Design and I have something to give to a lucky somebody!  See you Tuesday!