Dresser Re-do

     I’m so bad about posting what I do!  Here is a little project I worked on in the dead of winter.  It was for my mom for Christmas, but she goes away, so I had it ready for her when she came home in April.  Yes, it took me a while to get to it.  Meh.  I’m a procrastinator.    

     I picked up this dresser at a yard sale last August.  For free.  Yes, I love that rock bottom price.  No haggling.  Friends of ours were moving their mother closer to where they lived and they told us to take what we wanted.  Well, I’ve wanted to paint a piece of furniture for some time now, so we took it!  Once I got it home life of course happened, so it sat in the living room collecting dust for months!

     After we got it all sanded (my boyfriend did this part) we went shopping for the perfect color.  We got this one at Lowe’s.  I love the beach house feel of it.  We had wooden drawer pulls at home so they got sanded up a bit too.

     I did two coats of paint.  It took weeks for it to dry.  It was the primer & paint all at once.  I like it. It gave good coverage.  It just stayed tacky for a bit.  The pulls I painted white, and I was going to finger paint teal and coral swirls on them, but alas, that didn’t look good.  Instead, I looked around my studio and thought “What can I paint on these pulls?” and then I grabbed the stack of DCWV Hey Sailor paper.  Between that and the nautical stuff I have laying around I was able to create some nifty pulls!

     My mother loved it.  It took her a couple weeks before she decided how she was going to use it, but now it has its own place and it is loved.

     Remember – comments are always welcome and so appreciated.  You have no idea!

Chipboard Book

Helloooooo!  So here I am and I thought I would share this really cool little book that I made out of chipboard and craft paper.  I have wanted to make one of these for a while.  I actually started one about a year ago with homemade page holders and pockets but I became discouraged because the projects I watched on www.youtube.com  were so awesome!  Lol – so I stepped back and tried my own thing. 

I laid out the outside of the book in 5 pieces.  I made the spine large enough to hold a black binding comb that I recycled from work.  One end was broken, so I cut it down and voila!   I had something to hold my pages in place.

I then covered the chipboard with black cardstock, leaving about a quarter-inch between the individual pieces of board so they would bend.  Just watch the videos here:   https://www.youtube.com/user/mysistersscrapper

 – They are amazing.  Ginger is so talented! 

I used DCWV Travel paper stack.  I used the solid colors as my pages and the printed for the front, back, inside and spine.  I also used some of the paper as embellishments, fussy cutting them, and then gluing it onto chipboard. 

The flowers on the front I made from the DCWV flower stack.  I like the way they look.  I even put a little center pearl in one. 

I made this little album for the postcards that I’ve received from www.postcrossing.com .  I love receiving postcards from different countries, hearing about other peoples’ lives, and seeing the (mostly) beautiful stamps.

I hope you enjoy, and comments are always appreciated!

May Scrap-A-Holic Challenge

Finally!  I finished my page for the DCWV May Scrap-A-Holic Challenge!  I really wanted to do the card as well, and maybe I’ll have time this weekend to do that.  I don’t know.  The weekend is pretty full.  Here’s the lineup:

Friday:  Pick up kids, bake something for the Village bake sale tomorrow (benefits the local historical society)

Saturday:  Village wide yard sales, put garden in, cemetery, work on 4H projects, possibly kayak

Sunday:  4H projects if we didn’t get them done on Saturday, dinner, bring kids home

I may be able to make the card while the kids do their projects, if I’m not helping too much.  Maybe it will distract me from hovering… lol!

I hope you like my attempt at this challenge!

Have a great weekend!

The Challenge!

My answer to the challenge!

Products used:

Alphalicious Cricut cartridge, DCWV Hey Sailor Stack, Inkadinkado, Martha Stewart crab punch, Memento ink

April Stack-A-Holic Challenge

It’s April and it’s also time for the Scrap-A-Holic Challenge from DCWV.  I realize it looks as though I’m only working on these challenges now, but they are my kick-start.  I’m also working on something very special which I will show to you soon – just not today.

As you may know from previous posts, I am a year behind on my scrapbooking.  For the April challenge, I have scrapbooked my mother’s birthday from a year ago, yesterday.  I’m hoping her birthday this year will get scrapped sooner! 

I used the Scripts and Music Notes paper stack from DCWV as the background.  I love this paper!  It’s so dreamy and soft and feminine.  Perfect for my mother’s birthday. 

I also used my Creative Memories Border Punch system to create a notebook effect on the side of the page and my Suburbia Cricut cartridge to make the tea cup and lettering.  When I think of mom, I think of tea.  That’s her go-to drink.  She used to take it with one sweet-n-low but now she’s switched to a teaspoon of sugar, and milk.  I propped the teacup on foam squares to give the page dimension, although you can’t see it here.  I also gave it a little bling with some glitter glue.  I love that stuff!

Did you see my flowers?  I used the leftovers from cutting my border and made them into stems and leaves!  So cute and a great way to use scraps! (Scraps? Scrapbooking?  It's a win!)

I have an extra pad of the DCWV Scripts and Music Notes paper that I will be giving away in the future.  Please follow my blog so you’ll know when that will be happening.

Syrup Time!

Several weeks ago I completed several surveys through DCWV and received a lovely paper stack from them!  What a surprise when they contacted me!  Thank you so much DCWV!  

I received the Luxe Lodge stack about a week after being notified and at first I thought to myself “How am I going to use this?”  Well, I had just started scrapbooking again, after a self-imposed hiatus (because I have no room in my house) and as I was going through my photos I came across the Maple Syrup Weekend photos from 2015. 

Here is a sampling of the different papers:

This is my favorite

Ok, as you can see, I love plaid...

        We do MSW every year with the kids and it’s so much fun because we get to taste NEW maple syrup and maple candy, smell the sap being boiled into liquid happiness, pet the alpacas, and ride through the countryside and woods in a wagon drawn by beautiful draft horses.  We always look forward to it, and we always say we’re going to try a different place the next year, but then we end up back there with the animals.  We love them.  Every time I see the alpacas I want to get a couple.  Unfortunately, living in the village put a stop to that.  Maybe someday…

So anyway, I took some liberties with the March challenge.  The main one being that I used two photos instead of one.  Most of the pages I create have two or more photos on them – I like to get as many memories in there as my scrapbooks have taken the place of my photo albums.  I used the birch tree paper as the main background page as it gives one the feeling of riding through the woods.  

I used the pine cone paper as my photo mat and my title words.  I love the pine cone paper!  

One of the circles under the photo matting is DCWV burlap paper from the 6” stack.  I love the texture!  It also lends itself to the outdoorsyness (NOT a word but using it anyway) of the photos and paper.

My Cricut was useful for the letters and the arrows for the forest signs.  I traced around them to make them stand out a little more and then added some directions for fun.

I had a really great time doing this challenge.  It’s been awhile since I have even tried, though I wanted to, and it just seems to me that I need to make time for what I want to do.  Even if it’s just a half hour a couple times a week.  Being among my paper and crafting supplies was therapeutic. 

DCWV January Stack-a-holic Challenge

   First, this is not the project I was going to try to get to today.  The first project I wanted to do was to sand and paint this great bird feeder we have - except I can't find the sand paper and my boyfriend has the flu, so I am out of luck on that one til I get to the store or he gets better.

   I've been wanting to get to the DCWV challenge so this evening seemed like the best time.  Although I'm not sure if I will be asked to drive said boyfriend to the ER.  He should have gone earlier but he thought he'd be ok.  He's got a temp of 101.2.  And he's a man.  And he's sick.  So I'm basically living with an oversized child right now.  I just hope he feels better soon.

   Anyhoo, I got down to business and took the card challenge.  Here is the challenge drawing:

   Here is my interpretation:

   I used plain cardstock, patterned paper (Switchboard)  from Pinkpaislee, burlap paper from DCWV, and dimensional hearts by Pebbles.
   
   The notebook border was made by using my Creative Memories border maker and the tag was made with the Creative Memories Shape Maker Circle Tag.  I used my Fiskars 3-in-1 Tag Maker that I won several months ago.  I do love that little piece of equipment!  Actually, I love everything I have or I wouldn't have it!

   We just received Christmas gifts from my bf's sister this past week and I thought this would be a great opportunity to tell her thank you!  I will be writing her a personal note and then sending this out and I hope she likes it as much as I do!

DCWV November Challenge

          I am so excited to get in on the challenge this month!  I chose to do the card layout because the scrapbook pages I am doing this year are in a different format.  Basically in picture pages instead of straight 12” x 12”.  Another post on that later…

For the challenge I decided to use the “Hey Sailor” stack that I coveted for so long.  It took forever to get to my Joanne’s store that I ended up ordering it on-line!  It is a simple 4x6 card on Kraft paper, inked around the edges.  I decided to do a “standing” card instead of the usual side fold, something I rarely do and feel I should do more often!  I used a fabric flag and glued it to some twine to create a rope, keeping with a sea-worthy theme, and added some silver star bling.  On the inside is a note to my cousin who recently had knee surgery, hence the Arggh! On the front of the card!  I hope you like it!

 

 

 

 

 

A Trip to the Studio

A while back I took a beginner’s pottery class.  I did a semester in pottery in high school but my area, although filled with artsy fartsy folks, doesn’t offer “real” pottery classes.  Not often anyway.  That said, the reason I told you about the class is because the instructor found out that I was a scrap booker, sometimes card maker, painter and paper crafter and I referenced my spare room as a “craft room”.  He told me that it was my studio.  Any artist’s room where they create is a studio. 

I have a hard time calling it that.  It’s just a room in my house and I’m an amateur at best.  I don’t ever see myself painting anything as beautiful as Monet did, where people just want to gaze upon my work.  Sometimes though, I like the idea of it and I may make a sign that says just that.  STUDIO.  Big caps that will force me to open my eyes and realize I can create – anything.

So, the other night I went upstairs to the studio and took out the kid’s school days books to add their school photos we received last week.  While doing that I found last year’s photos too, so I made pages for those too.  I took a photo of Hannah’s because I thought hers came out really well. 

 

 

I used the Mariposa stack from DCWV and did a little layering.  I used my border punch from Creative Memories and added a picket fence.  I like the idea of her still being behind a fence, being protected just a little bit longer.  The world is going to invite her out to play soon, and then there’s no going back.  <sigh>  It’s already happening.  This was last year’s pic.  I cut a butterfly from one of the accent pages in the stack and layered that on with a couple of those thick stacker squares.  She just looks like she needed that on her page.

I was really happy how this turned out.  It’s an 8-1/2” x 11” layout which I don’t use very often.  I’m considering a title for the page but I wanted to get it in the album so she could see it.  It’ll get done soon enough.  I’m just glad I did it.