Lumiere Crystal

Years ago when I first started stamping, I remember doing a technique called Caught in Crystal with the Future Floor Finish. The results were stunning, but man, what a lot of work.

I came up with a cheater version of this that meets my, "it can't take too long or be too much work" rule. Instead of Future Floor Finish, I used Lumiere paints and I thought the results were fantastic. Very pretty and easy to do. Lumiere Crystal is my December technique.

I made a bunch of backgrounds and used some as backgrounds and others I made die cuts from and I loved how they turned out. Here is a butterfly I cut out (from one of Tim Holtz' dies) and I just stapled it on so that the staple forms the main body. I was so pleased at the result.

Believe

I have been teaching my quick cards class for a couple months now and I'm enjoying it so much. It's a small group of awesome women and we have so much fun.

One of the cards we created this month was a quick Christmas card. Once again, it features some of my favorite Tim Holtz stamps (the trees and a different reindeer). I love how I can use them so many different ways. The trees are from "Reindeer Flight" and the reindeer is from "Season's Silhouettes."

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't been stamping much (at all). I figure it will continue like this until after Christmas. Then I'm hoping to go hard for a couple of weeks and maybe, just maybe, get Nathalie's pages done until her first birthday. It's still a possibility.

Until then, here is my Believe card.

Dazzled Flower

I got crap last week for ignoring my blog, so I thought I'd try harder. I might not type much, but I do actually have things that I can share, so I will try to do at least that.

I've been actually working through my journaling book (the one I posted about last week or the week before). I am LOVING it. I bought a little journal and I already have a ton of notes about stuff to journal and write about.

We were decorating the tree on Saturday and I asked the kids about their favorite Christmas Traditions, so I will definitely be doing a page about that for this years Christmas pages.

I'm finding myself quite inspired. What I seem to be lacking is time to do something with the inspiration. I can't seem to get everything, can I??

Anyway, here is a card from my last Quick Cards class. I love how simple it is, but how the Dazzles make the flowers pop.



My next Quick Cards class will be Thursday, January 5, 2012 from 12:30 - 2:30 pm. Let me know if you are interested in attending.

What makes a Scrapbook?

I have three young children and as a result, I have many friends also with young children. As mothers do, we will often exchange stories about something funny or frustrating one of those young charges did. Or we will share photos. I'll sometimes ask if the mom has scrapbooked it. Generally, I get a reply something along the lines of, "Oh, I can't scrapbook. I'm not creative or patient enough."

A scrapbook doesn't have to be a traditional paper, embellishments, journaling one. It can really be anything you want to capture the memories. I have spent time the past few years going through photos of my mother's and of my two grandmother's. Thankfully someone is around to tell me some of the stories, but it would have been very cool to have a book with that. I know my kids love to go back and look at my scrapbooks; not because they are entranced with the brads and ribbon, but because they want to see the pictures and read the stories. I figure it is one of the best gifts I can give them. I enjoy remembering some of these things too, as our memories fade and we forget details.

So, even a little coil book with plain paper where you glue a photo or two and write a story is a great gift. Or they have those little photo albums with the sleeves that hold 2 four by six photos. You can put the photo in the top slot and write a small journaling blub on an index card and slide it in the bottom one. It doesn't have to be fancy to record the memories and mean a lot to someone else.

With that, I will leave you with a layout I did about Nathalie and BJ, my old cat (we recently had to put her down although at 18.5, she lived far beyond what anyone expected for a little barn cat). I don't love the layout, but in years down the road, that won't matter. It will just be cool that I can see the photos and that Nathalie will one day have a pictorial memory and notes about the cat that once adored her.

My Struggle with Journaling

I feel like I'm back in grade one and just learning to put sentences together sometimes when I journal. I will write something out and then reread it and it sounds so awful. Simplistic sentences and boring content. It's turned into me dreading journaling which isn't good since it's probably one of the more important parts of scrapbooking. I want the kids to know the real story and not the crappy simplistic blob I just wrote.

I was really excited to find a whole big book devoted to journaling: Journaling Solutions for Scrapbookers by Creating Keepsakes. At almost 300 pages and with lots of quizzes and challenges, I'm hoping that I can work my way through it and improve this skill. It's full of layout ideas too!! Total win.

I have one extra book for sale if anyone is interested. Cost would be $20.

Feeling Cocky

I have a lot on the go right now stamping and scrapbooking wise and I'm almost on top of it all. I'm feeling a bit cocky about it truth be told.

I'm teaching my Quick Cards class on Thursday and I have my four samples done. Yeah!

I have my technique figured out for December's Technique Club and I have 4 samples done.

I have two layouts done for my Paper Pack Club for December.

I'm feeling a little cocky. It's seemed to come together. I am hoping this means that I am getting back into the groove and that things will continue to go well and not that I'm due for a smackdown by the Creativity Fairy.

At any rate, I seem to be doing well now, so for today, I'll take it. And to celebrate, I'm going to share a sneak peek of one of the December Technique Club samples.

The technique is called Lumiere Crystal and it's a play on an old technique.

The Dilemma of Unmounted Stamps

For years, I avoided unmounted stamps because I was scared of them. Not scared like a mouse just ran over my foot or like I heard a noise late at night when I'm alone, but scared like I didn't know how to deal with them. I didn't have a bunch of wood blocks to mount them and frankly, I didn't really like the look of homemade mounted stamps (I'm snobby about how stuff looks). Eventually some friends convinced me to get some and I used Tack It Over & Over on them and just used them to stick onto my blocks. That was OK, except, where do you store them? I stuck them to acetate and threw them in a box where I ignored them and rarely used them.

Then the clear stamps came out (OK, they were probably already out, but they became popular enough that I saw them) and I came up with a system of sticking them to acetate and throwing them in the drawers with my regular mounted stamps. While I was at it, I threw in the other unmounteds too. Then I proceeded to not really use them because they'd get buried in the bottom of the drawer.

Then one day at a stamp club meeting, my friend Toni showed us these DVD cases she had found and I was sold. I found a distributor who would sell to me and brought in a ton. That was several years ago and I'm still using the system. I love it. And my Brother Label Machine 1/4" labels fit perfectly along the spine of the DVD case. I titled them and organized them and they sat on a shelf above my work area.

Then I discovered Tim Holtz stamps and fell in love again. I put them in my DVD cases and soon my shelf was full. Originally, my Tim stamps were put in order with my other stamps and all mixed in. I found myself reaching for them most often though, since I'm often doing samples to show off stuff I sell and it's helpful when I can actually bring in the stamps in the samples. And it was like my Tim stamps got lost amongst the other stamps.

Finally, I had a brainwave and put all my Tim stamps together in order and my other stamps together. I wanted to be able to quickly differentiate my Tim stamps from my others, so I put little red dots on the cases. Sometimes, I'd get overwhelmed looking for a set I knew I had that I really liked. Then the lightbulb really went on and I labeled my favorite stamps with little blue dots. So now I have a great visual of my favorite and my Tim stamps amongst a great system of storing my unmounted stamps.

Here you can see how I've labeled them and you can see all the red and blue dots.

And here is a more wide angle shot of my whole shelf.

A Cake for Jayson

My sister's brother-in-law is turning 40 and they were having a surprise birthday party. And what is a party without a cake??

Not a party, that is for sure!

So, Becky, her mother-in-law and I made a cake.

Overall it went pretty well which is impressive. Each time we do this, we learn something new and sometimes it feels like the blind leading the blind, but that's OK. It's still fun!!


I've been organizing my craft room lately and I have a few posts planned out coming up about that. I've also been stamping, so hopefully, I'll have some good content to share soon.

The Cat's Out of the Bag

My sister and I have been frantically working on an album for our parents to recognize their 40th Anniversary. It has consumed us for the better part of a month, but we gave it to them last weekend, so the cat's out of the bag now.

It was a huge album and I loved some of the layouts. Unfortunately, because they all had pictures of other people on them, I don't feel right sharing them here. And as a result of my time and energy being spent on this album, I haven't had time to create as much to share here. The good news, though, is that now I can!

I wanted to share a quick layout I did for Nathalie. It was so simple. I just cut out a background, mounted photos and cut out a title. Overall, I like the simplicity though.

Stained Distress

I sat down to do my technique club the other day and morphed a technique that I love. Here is a sneak peek.

The set is a Tim Holtz set: French Marketplace. I quite like it and can't wait to play a bit more with it.

Paper Pack Club

I've decided to start a paper pack club. I have a few people who are interested, so I'm going ahead!

Each month, you will get a paper pack. They're my new favorite thing for scrapbooking since everything matches!! You just grab papers from the pack and they'll go together. It takes so much of the time and guesswork out of it. Anyway, each month, you'll get a paper pack and some kind of embellishment or stamp or something to go with it. I will use the paper pack and embellishment to create a layout and you'll get a copy of that layout with the instructions for recreating it. Cost will be no more than $30. Some of the packs are a bit cheaper and I'll reflect that in the price. I can't wait to get started!!

In the meantime, here is a simple layout that I did for Nathalie.

So Sad

I saw a layout like this in a magazine and loved the simplicity. Normally, the most difficult thing would be to find 4 matching, but different, but coordinating papers to use for the strips. But nope! I grabbed my Basic Grey paper pack (Out of Print) and chose four papers that I liked. I cut them into strips, tore the ends and then glued them down and stitched across the top. Mounted Photos, cut out a title, a quick journal and I was done. And I loved it which was good because the layout before this one (which shall not be named, nor seen) didn't end up in the I love it pile.

Another Pearl Resist

I really like how this card turned out. I did a Pearl Resist with Silver Liquid Pearls and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink and then I just stamped the verse from Urban Tapestry by Tim Holtz. I distressed the edges and mounted it.

Sweet

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel regarding Nathalie's scrapbook. The pile of photos is going down and I've set a goal to be done layouts to her first birthday by the end of 2011. That may not seem too difficult, but I just don't seem to ever have enough time. So, I'm just going to push hard and see what I can get done on her album.

I saw a layout in a magazine which inspired this Sweet layout. It's very simple; just a 12x12" piece of patterned paper, a scalloped frame which I cut from my Cricut (but you could just cut if you wanted) and 3 small embellishments. So simple, but I love it.

Camping

A couple of years ago, I decided I needed to deal with the plethora of magazines which were taking over my craft room. I almost never looked through them and so they were taking up space which could be used for more product! I kept a couple of magazines that I really liked (Take Ten) and went through all my scrapbooking magazines and ripped out pages with layouts and ideas that interested me. Then I put the pages in a drawer. When I'm not feeling inspired, then I go through the drawer and rifle through the pages.

When I told people what I was doing, they looked at me like I was crazy. How can you get rid of those magazines, they asked? For me, the answer was simple. I wasn't looking through them. I'd get overwhelmed looking at all of them, so now I just have some pages to flip through. I did keep all my Simple Scrapbook magazines since they're totally my style and I decided I'd keep one years worth of Creating Keepsakes magazines. After a year, I'd go through and rip out the pages that I liked. That way, I'd never have a ton of magazines doing nothing.

I went to scrapbook the other night and grabbed an inspiration sheet and it was a cool paper piecing camping type one. I don't normally do paper piecing, but one in awhile, I really like it. This one was quite quick to put together and while it's somewhat cute, I still really like it.

New Product

The kids were off last week and Glenn took vacation as well. You would think that would give me a ton of extra time to stamp, scrapbook and play, right? Well, I did a bit, but since we were both home, we spent a ton of time cleaning and organizing the house. The basement is looking great which makes me very happy, and in turn, feeling much more creative.

Today, I went through two boxes of new product. There wasn't a ton of new stuff, but that's OK. It was still fun.

The biggest news is that I have four packages of the Winter Distress Inks in stock now. These are a limited run and when they run out, they run out. Each store was allowed to order 9 packages and that was it. There are no reinkers for these, but the Distress Pads do very well without needing to be reinked. You could always use some Perfect Ink Refresher by Ranger too. Each set is $18.00. I'm offering them to my blog readers first.



I also have these somewhat cool little 2x2" stretched burlap and stretched canvas things. I didn't read the description very well and I thought it was a package of 2x2" burlap and canvas. I figured they would be cool to stamp on and staple onto a card. Out goes that idea, but they're still kind of cool. I haven't figured out exactly what to do with them, but they're cheap and so I might just play and make an embellishment of some kind. They would be quite cool to decorate and then make into a magnet for the fridge since they're only 2x2" They are $2.50 each.

Lastly, I ordered this cool Tim Holtz Stamp set. I love the script type background and I really like the windmill too. I figured I'd show it off in case anyone was interested. Otherwise, I can't wait to play with it and have some samples.

Peace Card

I loved my calendar page so much, that I wanted to create a card based on it. I didn't, however, want to cut stuff out with the Cricut for it; I just wanted to use stamps.

I did the same basic layout, but I reversed my colours for the script background and used Aged Mahogany and then stamped a flower on top using Versafine Onyx Black. I added a couple silver Dazzles to the centre of the bigger flowers. Then I just used a small stamp in the bottom right corner.

Overall, I really like it. It's so simple. I really like how the Dazzles just finish it. They're flat, so easy to mail, but they have so much dimension.

Peace

I was at a retreat last weekend and my goal was to finish my Calendar Swap pages and my Christmas Cards. I sat down a few days before I left to start my calendar prototype. I was very nervous as typically, it takes me hours to finish a prototype that I like. Well, that day, it just came together. I did a few things and then it was done. It's very simple, but I love it.

I started out by wanting to cut something out of the Cricut and I found some cool flower spray. They turned out to be poppies.

Then I found that I was missing some texture, so I stamped a little background script stamp (Stamping Bella). I wanted a stamp for the bottom right and I chose a scripty Peace one.

I had November and I wasn't even trying to do a Remembrance Day theme, but it just happened. It was so bizarre, but I love how it turned out. So simple. So perfect for Peace.



Take a moment today to remember all those who have fought and who are still fighting for our freedom. One of my strongest, most powerful memories is from standing on Juno Beach in Northern France. It is the beach the Canadians landed on for D-Day and imagining what happened there years ago really hit me hard.

Pearl Resist

A couple of months ago, I did a Pearl Resist for my technique club. I love any kind of resist and if it is shimmery, then even better!!

For this one, I used Ranger's Liquid Pearls. I only had the Pearl, Silver and Gold to play with, but they make a bunch of different colours, so it could be quite cool.

I squished some of the Liquid Pearls on my craft sheet and then just used it to ink my stamp and I stamped. I heat set it, cleaned my stamp right away and then just used Distress Inks overtop with my Ink Blending Tool.

I love how this card turned out. I really like this set (Curtain Call 3 by Hampton Arts).

Chalkboards

I was so excited when I saw Chalkboard paper in the new stuff at one of my distributors. I ordered a couple pieces and instantly had an idea.

I thought it would be fun to make cool chalkboards for the kids so they could write notes and such. Kayla loves to write us notes and have us write them back. She had this little pouch thing on her door, but it always fell down, and wasn't ideal.

I ordered a couple of nice 12x12 black frames by Prima and just put the 12x12" chalkboard paper. The tricky part was trying to figure out how I was going to adhere it to their doors without wrecking them. I didn't want to put a nail in the door and I wanted the frame to be more stable and secure. I finally settled on the 3M Command Velcroe Strips. These are the removable ones; they have the hooks too. I put the velcro on the door and on the frame and it works great. We can take it down off the door if we want, but when it's on the door, it's really secure and sturdy.

The kids love it and were so excited. I hung them and then just wrote Kayla's Room on hers and Eric's Room on is (original, huh?). Within minutes, the kids had erased them and Kayla had hers all allocated for comments.


Eric had written Star Wars on his, along with characters and Transformers.


They've since added more stuff and changed them several times, but they love them! I have ordered more of the chalkboard paper as I think it would be cool to punch out pieces and attach them to cards with a handwritten note.

More Goosebumps

I remember when we used to ink a whole piece of cardstock with Versamark and then put clear embossing powder on it, heat set, repeat to get a texture on our panels.

I liked the look; hated the work. Now, I can get the same idea with Goosebumps. I cut a panel out of one of my Spellbinders Labels and stamped on it. Then I sprayed quite a thick layer of Goosebumps on it and let it dry and when it did, it had a nice coated layer to it. So cool.

Just remember when you use your Goosebumps, cover your work surface well so that you don't end up with sticky stuff everywhere (it's not easy to get off when it's dry - believe me!!) And also, clean out the sprayer with hot water. I didn't do that and mine is now permanently clogged. It's almost all gone, so I'll just get a new bottle and swap out the nozzle.

Elmo

When Nathalie was born, my friend, Melanie made her the cutest card. It's a Sesame Street card with Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar the Grouch & Big Bird all done from punches. It looks so cool and I imagine it would have taken forever to make (probably not forever, but it's a lot more finicky than I could ever do). I've kept it on display in my craft room because I just love it.


On Saturday, we celebrated my nephew's first birthday. He is quite the Elmo fanatic. I used Melanie's card as an inspiration and then checked out the internet for ideas on how to make it just an Elmo card since there was no way I'd have the patience to make 4 faces. In the end, I just made an Elmo head card. I used my Spellbinders Circle and Scalloped Circle sets and it was very quick.I cut two scalloped circles and then just cut a piece of white cardstock to 2x2.5" and scored it at 1" and folded it in half. I then attached it to each scalloped circle to join them into a card that opened. The mouth is a large circle cut in half.

Overall, the card was so quick, I was surprised.

Spider Goodness

It's been awhile. Again. And I feel guilty about that, but with three kids and a business, sometimes I don't get here. That's the bad news. The good news is that I have several blog post possibilities lined up, so I should be able to hang out here for at least the next little bit.

Hallowe'en was on Monday and I wanted to make some cool cakes for the kids to take for their Hallowe'en parties, so I made spider cakes. All told, they were some of the easier cakes I've done and overall, I was fairly happy with how they turned out. I bought the sparkle spiders from Michaels and lucked out getting blue (Eric's favorite colour) and purple (Kayla's favorite colour) since they were almost sold out by the time I made it there to buy them.

The kids were thrilled with them and they were a bit hit at the parties.

More Goosebumps & A Sale

For some reason I don't have very many stencils. It never bothered me, since I never really used them. However, with my recent discovery of how much I love Goosebumps, I was dismayed when I only found a couple that were currently in my "I own it" stash. I even checked my "you need to sell this" stash, but I apparently sold most of those too.

Then I had a bit of a brainwave and thought, what about Spellbinders Impressabilities? They're a stencil, right?? And I tried it out and it worked awesome. I have a few of these that I tried to use like an embossing folder, but I just find them too fragile. As a stencil, however, I love them. Yeah! I'm happy to have found a use for them.

As with the plastic stencils, you can generally get a positive and negative from them. This card was made with the negative. It got kind of messy, but it still looked nice when I added a few stamps. I love how it gives you an instant type collage type background without a ton of work.

In honour of my newfound inspiration, I have all my in stock Impressabilities on sale for $5 each. I have limited quantity of each, so when they're gone, they're gone (well, I can order you one, but it will be regular price).

Paisley

Cherries

Diamond & Stars
Flower SilhouetteFleur De Lis Pattern
Fleur De Lis StripeButterfly

I've got Goosebumps

I've had a bottle of Goosebumps Texture Spray on my desk for over a month and finally sat down this week and played with it and I love it! It is so cool. For anyone who knows me, they know that I love anything resist. There are so many different techniques for doing resist and with the Goosebumps Spray, there is one more.

I ordered a bunch of stencils from Prima a couple of weeks ago and when they came in, they were so gorgeous. I went to get one when I was playing the other day, but I must have sold out at PMS (Pretty Mean Stampers) last week. Oh well, that's a good thing, right?? I'll just have to order more. I ended up pulling out a pretty stencil from Crafter's Workshop instead. It's of a cherry blossom and a little bird. It's so simple, but I really like it.

I found some information on the Internet about Goosebumps and then just started playing. I cut some white matte cardstock and placed the stencil overtop and just spritzed a bit. You really don't need a lot. And you'll want to wash the stencil off right away because when it dries, it's very difficult to get off the stencil. But, not to waste any, I put a piece of cardstock on top of the stencil before I washed it so I could pull off the negative. Then I washed it.

You can either heat set the spray or let it air dry. I then added Distress Ink with my Blending Tool. You can stamp some background stamps with Distress as well. Wherever there is Goosebumps, it will resist. When you're happy with it, then spritz some water on a paper towel and wipe the ink off the resisted areas. You can then stamp with Versafine or Chalk Ink which will cover the resist areas if desired.

Again, I used the Cherry Blossom template and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink. I stamped French Script (Hero Arts) as a background in Aged Mahogany and added the saying (Inkadinkado) in Versafine. It's a very simple card, but I love how it turned out!

I love how you can get a resist by using a stencil instead of a stamp. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for me. Needless to say, I have just added a whole bunch of template stencils to my next order.

Nathalie Squares

I was flipping through the latest "Creating Keepsakes" and found this simple layout that I just loved. It's just a plain paper with squares of patterned paper to form a background. A couple of embellishments and a photo. Just up my alley.

So, I grabbed one of my Basic Grey packages and chose 5 sheets of patterned paper that I liked. I knew that anyones that I chose from that package would go together, so I just picked the ones I liked best. I cut a bunch of 2x2" squares and inked the edges with Dark Brown Chalk Ink. I stamped a couple stitches borders and added a sticker or two and the matted photo. I really like how it turned out and it really was so quick.

Thankful

I've been absent. It was Eric's birthday September 6 and then we had his birthday party last weekend. For each, I made a giant Star Wars cake with my cousin, who is an awesome cake woman!! It turned out awesome, so I'll share photos soon.

This weekend is my parents 40th wedding anniversary party. We are having a ton of people and we are doing the food ourselves, so it's been a lot of work just getting organized and we haven't even started cooking. I love my mother because she's very anal like me and so I feel good about the onslaught of food prep which will begin tomorrow (seriously, we've made a list of all our food and assigned a serving dish for each one so it's all set out and ready to go. I've even put post it notes in each one so the girls doing the food know).

There is so much going on, but today I had a wonderful day. I spent it with my friend, Bette Lou. She's in town visiting from Madagascar, where she and her husband moved back in January. I miss her terribly. She emailed to see if I had a day to spend hanging out and scrapbooking and I'm so glad we could find time. I even convinced her to let me have a potluck party this evening so a bunch of us could visit.

I truly had the most wonderful day. We scrapbooked (I finished 2 layouts!!) and we reminisced. I remember being 9 months pregnant with Kayla (my first child) and thinking this baby was going to be trapped inside me forever. I was going crazy and so Bette Lou set up a series of adventures for us to go on to keep my mind off my the fact that I was destined to be pregnant forever. When I decorated the nursery, I found a Winnie the Pooh picture that said, "A Grand Adventure is bound to occur" which was perfect.

Anyway, I had the most wonderful day and evening. Tonight, we just sat around and ate and chatted and it was so fun. It made me so incredibly thankful for my friends, but also for this hobby that has allowed me so many opportunities. It's introduced me to so many wonderful friends and taken me in directions I could not have ever imagined. I am so truly thankful.

I'm not the kind of person to get really mushy and sentimental, so I'll stop there. I just thought it was important to make note of feeling thankful and content. And I thought I'd share the cake I made for Bette Lou.


It would have been so easy to say, "I'm too busy." I know I have craft for 15 minutes on my daily TO DO list, but lately, I just haven't had time. I need to make time though since it is so important to have that outlet. And it's important to take the time to be with friends since the other stuff can just about always wait.

Distress Paint

I am behind. I think it's going to be perpetual for awhile, so I think I just need to allow myself to be OK with it.

I finally got my August & September Technique Club sheets and samples done. Here is a card from the August technique: Distress Paint.

Sizzix Embossing Folders

I haven't spent much time in my craft room lately. I haven't even spent much time thinking about stamping lately. I seem to be entirely too busy and so I feel like I have nothing to share.

I was looking through some new product stuff today and see that there are some new embossing folder sets from Sizzix so I thought I'd share those.

Each set is $12. Let me know if you are interested in ordering any.

Botanical and Beaded Ribbons


Christmas Stockings

Holly Swirl & Sheet Music


Sending Christmas Love


Snowflake & Flourish


Starry Night