An ornament and a pass

No, no one made a pass on me or my ornament. 

It’s been a very busy weekend with my next to oldest grandson.  We went to see Harry Potter 7 Part 1 and then to the local Christmas parade.  It was cold!  Brrr!  But not nearly as cold for us as it was for the belly dancers who shimmied down the street with bare midriffs! 

We took Cayden back home today and it was a 6 hour trip total so there’s hardly been any time for my little pink studio and all that paper. 

I do still have a couple of little projects for you.  One is another ornament for my little studio Christmas tree and the other is  a pass.  First the ornament:

This fan is from Ashlyn’s Alphabet and is the second fan.  I used the shadow feature and cut a second fan that I flipped with my Gypsy.  The paper is Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby and the roses are ribbon roses I picked up from the bridal section at Hobby Lobby.  I have a little collections of these as I do so many things. The fan is also edged with Stickles.  It turned out very nice I think.  It’s cut at 3.5”.  I wrapped the handle with ribbon and punched the hole for the ribbon hanger on the side of the fan. 

I am working on some other ornament ideas I hope to share later in the week. 

For my other little project I have some hall passes I made for a friend who teaches high school English.  Her passes have been walking away, so I made a couple of clearly identifiable hall passes.  They turned out cute and very clean looking I think! I laminated them for durability. 

I gave them a little faux stitching to pull it all together.  I used the icon feature on the Mickey and Friends for the bomb and I used Base Camp for the letters and their shadow. I even used George for the base which is 3 x2”. On the back I used Cuttin UP for the lettering, and I welded all the lettering with my Gypsy.  Love my Gypsy!

I’ll be giving Melissa her passes tomorrow and though I know it wasn’t a complicated project or very involved, I know Melissa will love them.  They cost me very little to make as I used scraps, but I know they will be appreciated.  I hope you all have a fabulous beginning to a new week! 

Blessings

We all have them and usually take so little time to think about how truly  blessed we are! As I was creating this banner I did take the time to think about how blessed I am .  That’s what Thanksgiving is about.  We come together in the abundance of our blessings to remember and possibly to think about where we would be without all the things every day that cushion our lives in some way. 

Here is my Blessings banner.  I really like the way it turned out.  However, it is long and was hard to get a whole picture of, so the first picture is just a picture of the whole thing. 

Oh, I am going to have adjust that banner when I get home, and I am really not sure where I want to put it.  For now it hangs in my family room very lop sided.

Now here’s a close up!   

EW!  Blurry!  That’s what I get for photographing it at night with no natural light and in a hurry.

The base of this banner started with a tag from Gypsy Wanderings cut at 6.75 and 4.75”.  Since I got my Gypsy, I’ve used the designer tag feature so many times I can not count.  It’s got great tags and in so many shapes.  I also used Sports Mania for the pennant shape at 5”x 3“, and because I don’t have Tie the Knot, I took the scalloped border from Accent Essentials and used two for each side at 3.45 x .45,  and welded it to the sides of the pennant. Then I cut a regular pennant out just a smidge smaller.  The scalloped circle cut at 2.91 x3.22 is from Mini Monograms, and I can’t remember where I got the leaf swirl.  The fonts used are Cuttin Up and Blackletter.  I used pop dots between the layers. 

The patterned paper is from a fall stack of DCWV from several years ago and the card stock is a mixture of Bazzill and Core’dinations.  I used some Stickles on the leaves and the ribbon is Hobby Lobby from their fall collection a couple of years ago.  I love the colors and think it turned out quite striking in appearance. 

OK, on with some more close ups.

I counting my blessings because this been a hard year, and I need to remember just how blessed I really am.

Giving Thanks

Today is Veteran's Day, and I for one am grateful for all those families who make the sacrifices that come when a family member joins one of our armed forces and serves our country.  It is a huge sacrifice and one without which we couldn’t enjoy the freedoms we now have.  Thank you, all of you, who served and those who endure long periods of time without your loved ones and who sometimes endure the loss of that loved one.  Thanks YOU!

What are you thankful for?  That’s the question I asked myself when I started this project. I wanted to create a project that put all those things I hold dear together and expressed my feelings.  My husband jumped in when he saw what I was doing and added his own thoughts.  It turned out great except for the couple of words that I got crooked and I didn’t catch it until it was too late to change it. 

For this project you’ll need:

One sheet of solid colored card stock

One sheet of background paper

one small scrap of contrasting paper

One 12x12 artist canvas

Paint to cover the edges of the canvas

Mod Podge

Glue

Tools:

Gypsy

Several Cricut Font Cartridges.

paint brush

craft knife

This project started with my Gypsy and really was pretty easy because of the Gypsy.  I used just about every font I have, and I threw in a few graphics in to fill some holes and to add interest to the canvas. 

Before I cut the words out, I took my 12x12 canvas and painted the edges with black paint.  It took at 3 coats to sufficiently cover the canvas.  Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this process as well as all the other steps.  After the sides dried, I liberally painted the canvas with Mod Podge and added a sheet of paper on top of the canvas from the Old World stack from DCWV and then liberally spread a coat of Mod Podge over the paper. 

I cut the words from a sheet of black Core’dinations paper and then left them on the mat until I was ready to glue them on.

When the canvas and paper was dry, I trimmed the edges of the paper that over lapped the edges of the canvas, and sanded off the rough edges.  This meant that I had to go back and touch up the black paint on the edges, but I didn’t do that at this point. I began gluing the words on the canvas using the negative images left in the paper as a guide.  I actually laid the 12x12 negative image of the words on the canvas and began gluing the words on according to the outlines of the words.  I did cut one of the graphics in a deep autumn orange to give a little pop of color and to add interest.

Once all the words and graphics were glued on and dry, I went back and repainted the edges pulling some of the paint onto the edges of the paper.  I like the look this added to the canvas.  Sorry for the glare on this picture.  Pulling the black paint onto the top of the canvas covered the edges of the paper which has a white core. 

At this point it was time for a top coat of Mod Podge, and I was careful to make paint brush strokes as though there were actual paint strokes on the canvas. 

And I was done.  I hung it on my family room wall to show you my work. 

One more look:

That crooked “friends” is really bugging me!  Oh, well!  I like how it turned over all. 

My final words for you all today are be thankful for the freedoms we have and the people who have made it possible.!

And 1 makes 9!

This week is going to be a hodgepodge of whatever strikes my fancy.  Today I’ve got a LO I did for my last grandson’s birth.  We have 9 grandchildren each one as special as the rest, but Chaz is our last and we are trying to enjoy every minute of his babyhood. This means I’ve been spending more time playing with him than I’ve spent scrapping his life so far.  So I stopped recently and started trying to do some scrapping before the details of all those photos disappear from my head.  I’ve scrapped the births of 7 of our nine grandchildren and it’s sometimes been a challenge to have a new take on it. I think that’s what kept me from tackling Chaz’s photos.  We were extremely happy for his arrival but we have been for all our grandchildren.  I also think one of the challenges of scrapping for a baby boy is to keep things slightlymasculine and yet hone in on the sweetness of the baby.  I chose these colors because I think they allowed me to do just that.  I wanted the page to have a slightly dreamy look because he really was a dream come true for our son and his wife as well as for us.  So I added the swirls and start to indicate how heaven sent he was. 

I remember doing lots of layering because I was out of dimensionals, but I think it turned out fine. You’ll also see lots of faux stitching and some ribbon at different points and for different emphasis on the pages.   

I also tried to echo the circle theme of one of the papers with the journaling circles.

Recipe:

DCWV for patterned paper

DCWV and Bazzill for the cardstock

Cuttin’ Up for the font

Ashlyn’s Alphabet for swirls

George and basic shapes for stars and circle cuts

Signo white gel pen for stitching and a blue gel pen for journaling. 

I like the way this LO turned out.  Satisfied—Content!