Slacker

Yes, I'm a slacker. It's been awhile since I've posted, but in real life I've been somewhat productive. While away from the blog, I've been helping fellow YaYa Kimberly with some home remodel projects. So far, I've taken down old 3X3 blue tiles circa 1970 out of a bathroom, and yesterday did lots of priming walls. What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! I will share one "adventure" that happened at her house last weekend. I went to the restroom only to find myself "trapped" inside when I tried to leave. The door knob was messed up (partially hanging from the door). I tried for a couple of minutes to jiggle the knob, and the lock. I even tried to unscrew the screws with my fingers (like I said, they were sticking out already). The whole time muttering to myself, "Seriously? Seriously?". Typical me to get stuck in a room... Finally my knocks on the door were answered. Eventually Kimberly and Floyd (the floor guy working in the kitchen) heard my cries for help. After some fruitless tries of jiggling the door knob, and even a couple of TV cop tries of breaking down the door (them, not me), they were able to squeeze a screwdriver under the door for me to use. Thank goodness for the 70's when doors had to have the bottoms trimmed to accommodate shag carpet! With a little coaching from Floyd, I got the screwdriver between the door jam and the door and was able to spring myself free. Too funny. My dear friend Kimberly was there with camera in hand to document the event, and no, you won't be seeing those pictures here.

Anyway, here are some cards that I made last weekend. They're very simple, I just needed to try out some of my new PTI order stuff.

First is the PTI card made with the Remember set and all that beautiful poppy red. We did a little comparison, and the PTI pure poppy is VERY close to SU real red. I think the linen vellum gave a bit of a 3D effect to the flowers.

Recipe: SU kraft cardstock, PTI pure poppy ink, cardstock, linen vellum, ribbon, stamps

This card is pretty boring, but I just had to use this scrap of SU summer picnic DP. Love it!

Recipe: PTI pure poppy cardstock, ribbon, SU summer picnic DP, Cornish Heritage Farms Motivational Centers sentiment.
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend, and happy crafting!

Circles

Looking at what I made today, I think I may be on a bit of a circle kick.
This first card is my take on Taylor's cupcake challenge Taylored Expressions: Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge #29 It's not all the way true to the orginal design, but I think it turned out okay.

Recipe: SU kraft cardstock, DP SU sky blue designer series, SU Summer picnic, SU spring silhouettes, Anna Griffen, Autumn Leaves Lotus, K&Company Margo Large botanical wallpaper flat paper, Sentiment SU wonderful words, Ink Pallette Noir


Recipe: SU kraft cardstock, stamps Michael's margarita stamp, PTI mixed messages

This last card is my version of the sketch challenge found here http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com/2008/08/saturday-sketch-challenge.html at Our Creative Corner.

Recipe: SU certainly celery, real red, and so saffron cardstock, Anna Griffen paisley DP, stamps SU seeing spots, ribbon Michaels

That's all I've got for today. Hope you all have a wonderful week.
Happy crafting,

My Celebrity Look-alikes

Click on the link at the bottom of this collage. It's free and pretty entertaining to see what celebs you look like. I'm thinking not so much...

Of note, Gaines at work has always said I look like "Kristen Drunst" (he mangles her name everytime), so it's pretty funny that she turned up as one of my look alikes.

August Challenge

Our YaYa Challenge this month was to make a purse for our swap buddy. I had never tried this, but found a super easy pattern over at www.splitcoaststampers.com (where else, this is a stamper/ papercrafter's home away from home). I don't think my swap buddy for this month is much of a blog reader so you guys are seeing it first.

Pretty cute, huh. I used double sided paper so the inside would be cute too.

Still, it needed a little something to jazz it up. What else but a monogram?

Much better, right? Love my JustRiteStamper Monogram set!!!
Here's my coordinating card to go with. At first the color combo was kind of overwhelming so I toned it down (I think) by putting it on kraft cardstock.

I think I'll have to fill the little purse with some goodies for my swap buddy. Try out this super easy purse over at SCS. Here's the link to the pattern http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200810&highlight=purse+instructions All it takes is one 12X12 sheet of patterned paper, lots of folding and some adhesive---no cutting!

Purse recipe: DP K and Company Wild saffron, Cardstock: SU taken with teal, PTI summer sun, Ribbon PTI summer sun, Ink SU real red, Stamps Just Rite monogram

Card recipe: Card Stock SU kraft and taken with teal and PTI summer sun, DP K and Company Wild Saffron, Stamps Just Rite monogram.

Happy crafting!

Watermark

Dang, that was pretty easy too. This is one of my Christmas cards from a few years ago. It very likely is a CASE of something I saw in the Splitcoast gallery way back when. If it is, I'm sorry I don't remember who to give credit to.
Recipe: Paper and ink SU white, bliss blue, ballet blue and brilliant blue, stamps SU Snowflakes.

Signature: testing, testing 1, 2, 3...

Okay, that might have been extremely easy. We'll see if it works at the end of the post. I went to http://www.mylivesignature.com and made it for free.

Wow! It totally works!
(again)

A new blog banner!

Okay, I'm so excited. I made a new header. I've been wanting to do this, but figured it was too hard. I even started looking around online for people who created blog banners, but I decided to give it a try, and I did it! Woo hoo!
FYI the images from top L to R then bottom L to R are: A cool row of barren trees at the top of one of the seven hills of Rome, a birthday card, a photo of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, after that 3 more of my cards, and in the bottom right corner a pic inside the Cologne (Koln--needs an umlaut) Cathedral in Cologne/ Koln, Germany.
The back ground papers are SU on the left and right and the black and white paper is from Heidi Grace Designs.
You may see a couple other changes to the blog (if I can figure out how to do it). I'm going to work on a signature line and a watermark. We'll see how that goes. As for crafting, I've been a bum this weekend, so nothing to show.
Have a great week!
Lisa

A day off

I got an extra day off today which gives me a four day weekend! Woo hoo! So what to do with an extra day??? It rained (we so needed it), so I had to have a little nap. Also, that freed up a guy to come put up a ceiling fan (in the room where the light fixture was was off to one side). What he discovered in the ceiling was wood slats (he described it as having hard wood floors, but on the ceiling) covering up a plaster ceiling, above the drywall ceiling that we see in the room today. The wooden slats had shrunk over time, and someone had put concrete mortar between the slats. So the project wasn't quite as big of a deal as we thought it might be
Here's the new fan, and kind of behind it you can see the whole where the old fixture was. Hopefully my painter guy can fill that in. I'm not sure what we'll be able to do to mimic the new texture.


I also tried my hand at the color challenge over at kwernerdesignblog.com. I substituted PTI summer sunrise for SU summer sun since I didn't have any summer sun. Once I had completed the whole thing, I realized I had left out one of the challenge colors (pumpkin). Oh well, here's the card.

Recipe: SU basic black cardstock, PTI bitty baby blessings DP and summer sunrise grosgrain ribbon, SU chipboard stars covered in rose DP, Making Memories shimmer stickers.

Thanks for dropping in!
Lisa

Crafting Smorgasbord

This weekend, fellow YaYa Stacie (check out her blog here: http://staciehoo.blogspot.com/, had some friends over for a "Splatters Platters" party to benefit The Centers for Children and Families. For a set price, we were provided with a platter, and all the paints/ brushes to decorate to our heart's content. Of course, there was extreme potlucking as well (that's in the unofficial bylaws of the YaYas...something about crafting and extreme potlucking). It was so neat to see the designs that everyone came up with. You can check them out on Stacie's blog. I can't wait to see them after they're glazed and fired.
By the time I got home I was pretty tired so I took a little nap. When I woke up I was drawn to the craft room. I broke out my PTI Floral Frenzy set and had some fun. Here are some of my creations.

I really like how this one turned out.
Recipe: Cardstock SU Kraft, PTI white, Stamps PTI Floral Frenzy, Ribbon PTI Summer Sunrise and dark chocolate, Ink PTI summer sunrise, dark chocolate, and SU old olive.

This next one is kind of blah. I do like the look of the sweet daisies, but I think it needs more color/ layers.

Recipe: Cardstock SU Kraft, Stamps PTI Floral Frenzy, Ink StazOn Cotton white, SU Old Olive, PTI summer sun.

As you may know, in the past I was a paper hoarder. Only recently with the help of some of my fellow bloggers have I really started using my decorative paper. Kristina (http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/) has especially helped me to use more DP.
I think this is a partial case of someone's sketch challenge (the curvy cut to the DP). I love how the sentiments curviness works with the cut in the DP.

Recipe: Cardstock SU wild wasabi, DP SU spring silhouettes, ribbon PTI aqua mist, ink Palette Noir, sentiment SU Elegant inspirations.

So, If you've read this far, I'm sure you're dying to know the house update. I've got someone lined up to paint ceilings starting next week. He is a painter during his daytime job, and does some jobs "on the side". He'll be coming over after work to paint. I also got some bids on windows (and had some major sticker shock). I think I'm going to try to save money for another couple of months and then get that done. I had one quote that was twice what the other was...that guy was really trying to make a sale, and apparently thought I was incredibly stupid.
Anyhoo, that's all for now. Happy crafting, and have a great week!