Remembering: Sending snow to Guam

Today I am sharing an oldie, but goodie … this post is from 5 years ago, but I thought it would be fun to share again!My son, a corpsman in the U.S. Navy, is currently stationed in Guam. This will be our first Christmas apart.

He called last week and asked for me to send him his ornaments and I included a special gift from Mom.

It is a tradition I started when my children’s father and I were divorced. Each Christmas I give them a personalized, usually handmade, gift from me.  They open their special gifts on Christmas Eve and then I make them listen as I read “The Night Before Christmas.”

This year, since we will be apart, I thought I would send some of our traditions to him in the form of a mini wooden book.

It started with a mini album from KaiserCraft. I love their Beyond the Page line. You simply cut, sand lightly and cover with paper.

I wanted a winter theme, since he is living in the tropics, so I chose the new winter paper line from Bo Bunny.

I made a shaker box (super easy with Shake It from Impression Obsession)  for the cover and filled it with “snow,” in the form of Art Glitter and a Grungeboard Snowflake.

Inside, I shared some photos of him, along with the gifts of Christmas. I think he’ll enjoy showing his friends how cute he was when he was little!

In addition to snow, I sent him my love …Our tree (with Misty hiding underneath … she loves Christopher almost as much as I do!)And Santa … along with a photo that I know will make him laugh.On the last page, I made a stocking and filled it with a copy of “The Night Before Christmas.” I know as my kids got older, they only endured the reading to humor me (and because my husband told them that Santa wouldn’t fill their stockings if they didn’t make their mother happy), but traditions become important as you grow up, so I thought I would send it anyway.

Assuming he doesn’t read my blog, which I doubt he does, he should be surprised by his little book in another week or so … it takes a long time for mail to get to Guam!

Love at First Sight

I am excited to share this page. Inspired by “Letters to Juliet,” it is one of my all-time favorite pages.

Click here to read about my inspiration and get step-by-step directions for creating this type of Mosaic Moments page.

Holiday Gift Album

Mini albums are quick and fun gifts to make and receive.

I created this 4×4 mini album using RTC Grid Paper from Mosaic Moments, a new paper/sticker collection from KaiserCraft and a few other embellishments. It is ready for photos and journaling to remember this Christmas.

The last page in the book has a little pocket where you can insert a gift card. Imagine the delight of the recipient to receive a beautiful mini album and then, when they turn to the last page, a gift card to their favorite store or restaurant!

To see the rest of the pages in this little album and to learn how I did it, visit my page on Journella.

 

Birthday Fairy

 

I made this card for Crop ‘N Shop, a scrapbook store in Burton, MI.

The Toread stamp is from Crafter’s Companion, colored with Copic markers. The background papers are from KaiserCraft’s 75 cent line.

I’m going to be doing a similar card as a class in October. But you can see this card in person at the store  (or click on the image to see a larger version).

Gobble, gobble

This is the second year my husband and I have raised turkeys.

Turkeys, I think, are the cutest poultry babies there are and I love watching them grow.

Of course, I also love to eat them.

People wonder how I can possibly eat my babies, but it is not as hard as you might think.

First of all, I just take the turkeys for a ride and drop them off at the processor. I go back later that day and pick up turkeys sealed and labeled just like you buy at the store. So, I have no idea which cooking turkey was once part of my farm and I do not see any of the butchering process.

Secondly, turkeys get rather unattractive as they mature. They are not loving like a dog or hen. They have horrendous table manners and if you do not keep their coop clean, the smell is awful. So, by the time they are ready to butcher, the novelty of raising them has totally warn off.

Finally, these turkeys are bread to become food. They grow quickly, cannot reproduce and will die of a heart attack if not butchered in the fall.

So, you see, it isn’t really hard at all. I get to enjoy the experience and then taste the fruits of my labor!

To see how I put this page together and for close up views, visit http://www.journella.com/storyboard/fullview/id/10925

Be sure to cheer me on … if I get more cheers than any other members of the design team, I’ll send one lucky supporter a wonderful gift basket of goodies!

 

Bottle of Angels

The challenge this month on Scrap It Girl is Angels or Arrows. For me, angels was much more challenging, so of course I had to choose angels.

I selected paper from KaiserCraft’s new baby boy line and cut out the banner, title and cherubs.

 

After I cut them out, I used Vintage Photo Distress Ink to color the edges. This helps to soften the edges, covers up the harsh white line around the paper and helps to cover up any cutting errors. Notice the difference in this photo with the cherubs on the left, uninked, and the one on the right, inked.

Then I coated the cherubs and the banner with a thick coat of Glastique. This will make the paper cut outs look like epoxy. It will also make them durable, so the piece can be dusted without tearing the paper. And, it will allow me to mold the images to add a bit of dimension. (If your store doesn’t carry it, you can get it online by clicking the Globecraft & Piccolo Shop Here link on the side of my page).

While that was drying, I grabbed an old bottle I had.

 

Prima sold these little milk jug bottles, several years ago, filled with tiny paper flowers. While I have used most of the flowers, I kept all of the jars for a future project — like this one.

I used Art Glitter Designer Dries Clear Adhesive to attach everything to the bottle. It dries quickly and holds well. I wrapped the jar in papers, ribbon (May Arts) and lace (Webster’s Pages). Then I added feathers, the cut outs, flowers (KaiserCraft) and Dew Drops (Robin’s Nest).

For the lid, I wrapped some twine and added a bit of paper to the top.

You can click on the pictures for a larger view.

so that is my angel project. It is now your turn … you can create anything: altered art, a card, a mini album, a scrapbook layout or anything else you want and submit it to Scrap It Girl this month. There is a HUGE prize package for the winner and I hope it goes to you!

Click here for details.

 

 

 

 

Altered Spring Spoons Class

I love making altered spoons. They are both fun and adorable.

I have a winter-themed spoon hanging in my kitchen, but I thought it was time to create a spring one. Then, I decided a trio might be better and I put this together:

I used Authentique paper, Glastique, sponges, Tim Holtz dies, KaiserCraft flowers, feathers, gems, wire and more to create this lovely trio.

I am teaching them in a class at Capture A Memory on Monday, March 18. And yes, the spoons are included in the price. Stop by the store to see these in person or call to register for the class today.

 

Sometimes Simple is Superb

It is easy to feel intimidated when looking at another person’s creations.

Some pages are so beautifully layered, I cannot imagine ever doing something so fantastic. When I see something like that, I have to remind myself that is a special page and not all layouts can be like that. Many are designed to inspire or sell products, not necessarily to preserve memories.

Sure, I like to create beautiful art, too, but I have neither the time, nor the funds, to make every page outstanding. I have too many stories to tell and I take too many photos. Besides, simple pages focus on the photos much more than those done in the name of art.

Personally, I would rather see someone adhere their photos to a piece of cardstock and take the time to write the story behind the pictures rather than just frame one photo with tons of embellishments.

So, today I am sharing some of the pages I did last week during my scrapbooking retreat. They are not “artist” pages and wouldn’t be found on display at CHA. But they help me remember those special moments and maybe they will help inspire you to relax and get your memories recorded. (Click on the photos for a larger view).

These are some random pictures of my son while he was in Guam. I used paper, die cuts and a transparency from KaiserCraft. Some of the photos are behind the transparency and some are on top … I love the way they look! The tags talk about how wonderful it is to live in paradise.

These are photos of the chicken tractor my husband designed and built for our chickens. It is designed to be picked up and moved around the yard every week. This way, the chickens always have fresh grass to eat and the yard doesn’t get turned into a sand pit. I was pretty proud of the way he researched and engineered it. It can comfortably accommodate seven chickens. So far, it has worked exactly like he planned!

These are some pictures of my son I “stole” off of Facebook. The quality of the photos isn’t quite what I expect, but they work just fine. This is the first time I have “seen” him working since he joined the Navy, so I was pretty excited to see these pictures. When I went to scrapbook them, I couldn’t find any military paper. I didn’t want to work on plain cardstock, so I used the back of one of the Valentine’s papers from Authentique. I thought it worked perfectly … although it does make me laugh when I flip over the page to lovely pink flowers!

This page commemorates our first time growing vegetables and preserving them for later use. This year, we canned two different kinds of salsa, three different kinds of pickles and two different batches of yellow tomato preserves. I also made sun-dried tomatoes and vegetable broth and froze green peppers, corn, zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant. My mother-in-law also made pickles (her bread-and-butter pickles are so good, I won’t even try to make them), beets and tomatoes. I love looking at all of the food we put up. There is an amazing feeling of pride every time I open that freezer or closet door!Many of the elements on this page are cut from paper, including the tags I journaled on and the jars along the bottom. This is a great way to embellish pages without spending a lot of money … after all, an extra sheet of paper is about $1; embellishments usually run $4 to $5. I used Pop Dots on the jars to make them stand out. This page uses papers from October Afternoon’s Farm Girl line.

So there you have a few simple pages. Hope you can find some inspiration in here, too!

 

From cigars to cards

I love to take something functional and make it pretty. This time I repurposed a cigar box.

This what I started with …

First I painted the edges so if I miss a part with paper, it will still look nice.

Then I covered the box, inside and out, with paper (from Kaisercraft) …

Then I cut out the bird from another sheet of paper and adhered it with Pop Dots …

I added a bit of lace to the inside and a Piccolo enameled with Vintage Gold to the front …

And it is done!

I set it by the front door to hold mail during the holidays.

 

 

Altering Spoons

I have a new addiction … altering spoons. I cannot seem to stop.

Part of the fun is in finding the spoons. Since I am going to be teaching how to alter them at an upcoming retreat at Sunset Shores, I have been searching for them for the past month or so … antique sales, flea markets, Goodwill stores. I have quite a collection that my husband has lovingly either bent or drilled holes into so they can be hung easily.

Yet, although I have more than enough, I can’t help myself from looking for more!

But the fun of altering spoons is more than just hunting for treasures. They are so small and so easy to work with that decorating them is exciting, too. I have been using up a lot of those spare parts I had laying around from other creations, as well as cutting up some Christmas paper.

The one at the top is wrapped in twine. Then, I added a few cutouts from so old paper, which I had inked with Distress Ink. (I found that Glue Lines, made by Glue Dots, and dimensional foam tape seem to work the best at attaching things.) I coated the paper in Glastique to give it some additional strength and a bit of shine.

Then, I added a Piccolo (laser-cut, compressed chipboard) which I coated with Vintage Black Enamel Powder to the front.

Finally, I added a bit of sparkle with some glitter from Globecraft Memories.

 

I fell in love with this print on a sheet of paper from KaiserCraft. I didn’t want it to be a plain rectangle, nor did I want to cut out the children on the sled, so used a Lifestyle Crafts die to cut out an interesting border and then inked it with Distress Ink.

I added Art Glitter Dazzlers to the bottom of the spoon to replicate the snow and tied a bit of tulle to the top.

I sprayed a Maya Road flower with Perfect Pearls Mists to give it a hint of blue and attached that over the tulle.

Then I coated a Piccolo key in Vintage Gold Enamel Powder and added a little plastic flower from Bazzill. I love how soft it turned out and this is one I can keep up all winter …

This last one was inspired by the Piccolo bird cage and little birds. With the exception of the Piccolo parts, tulle and paper, all of the items on this spoon were sitting on my desk in a little bowl my daughter made when she was little. I toss all unused and leftover embellishments in there for later use — although I rarely use them later! Anyhow, I wrapped the spoon in tulle, coated the cage in Vintage Bronze and the birds in Cool-Set Enamel, also from Globecraft Memories. Then I wrapped around a bit of red tinsel (Tim Holtz). I cut the saying out of  a piece of Reminisce paper and added Distress Ink and Glastique to it. I added a bit of Distress Ink onto the flower and attached it.

The crochet flower is handmade by a customer at Capture A Memory in Flint Township. The center piece was a Maya Road plastic flower I airbrushed with a Copic marker and then never used. I think it works perfect here, don’t you?

I hope you have fun trying your own altered spoons … I know we will this weekend in Clare!