All in the Family

Weldon Name plate
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

When I placed my order with M, I was super excited to receive 2 stamp sets - All in the Family and Family Accessories. I've seen tons of cute cards, gift card holders, CD holders and this Name plate all made with these stamps and in the SCS Gallery and on Heather's Blog.

Overall I'm happy with the result, except for the glaringly obvious crooked "D". I think the ribbon looks a bit candy cane-ish but over all not that bad. It was definitely a lesson in patience when it came to lining up the letters and trying to make them straight, as you can see I lost my concentration for a bit when it came to the "D". Funny how I had just said, "Wow so far so good!".

It's rather easy to make, it just takes some patience. First I lightly penciled a line across an 8.5x11 pc of white cardstock, then I started stamping my family. Once completed, I drew another pencil line above them, centered my letters first, then stamped them on. For the "L" and "D" I used a masking technique that I learned about on Heather's blog. I re-stamped my head and my husbands on a pc of scrap paper, placed it over the original heads, and then stamped the "L" and the "D". I wish I could have gotten a bit closer with the "D".

I tried a different colouring technique this time from what I used on my Birthday Cards as well. Instead of colouring directly onto the stamped image, I heavily coloured a swatch on scrap paper, used a wet brush to 'blend' and once I had the consistency/shade I wanted, I coloured on the stamped image. I still need to improve on my colour skills, but I liked this method a lot better then colouring the image directly and then wetting it with my brush.

Recipe:

Ink: Ruby Red (Letters), Basic Black (stick figures)
Stamps: All in the Family, Headline Alphabet (borrowed from M!)
Other Supplies: Making Memories Petunia Brads, Ribbon from Michaels (I need to get some coordinating ribbon from SU!), Pencil crayons.
Purpose: I'm not sure yet, I think I'll just mat and frame it and set it on one of the end tables in the living room. Eventually I'll have to do it again when we have a 2nd child.
Difficulty: Fairly easy, it just takes some patience as I mentioned to make sure everything is all lined up and centered. That's the reason I used a letter size piece of paper, I centered on that first, then cut it down to size. I definitely plan to do this again, as this was my 'sample' one. I want to make one as a gift to a friend.

Birthday Card Exchange re-visited.

Happy Birthday!
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

So if you saw my earlier post on this, you may notice I did a couple of changes to the stamping. The animals did not look 'right' in the order I had them before, so I re-arranged them and I think they look much better this way.

If I were to pick, the only thing I'm not 100% happy with on the card is my writing and the 'colouring'. I used watercolour pencils, but I have decided after some practicing and doing 10 of these cards, that I'm really not a fan of water colour pencils.


Recipe:
Paper: Brazill Basics Lemonade (yellow), green, white
Stamps: Hero Arts - I think it's called Playful Animals?
Started: back in January. They've been completed all but the "Happy Birthday" for weeks now, I just got around to that part this morning.
Comments: Not that I need another tool, but I'm considering getting a thing-a-ma-jig from SU to help me line up my stamps better if I continue to make a lot of cards. I really suck at lining stuff up.

I've asked a couple of people what their favourite colouring 'device' is and was given a few other options to try out;

1. Stampin' up (or any really) markers, aqua pen and watercolour paper.
2. Stampin' up inks and a blender pen. You squeeze the ink so that you have some on the cover, then use the blender pen to colour your stamped image.
3. SU crayons or their watercolour pencils.

I think I have too heavy of a hand for the crayons and I already know I do not really like watercolour pencils so I think I'm going to save up and invest in their markers/blender pens/aqua pen and try that option as well as the inks. I think even with that, it will take some practice at "moving" the colour around to get the 'right' effect that I see on Split Coast Stampers (SCS) that I like so much.

M is going to be bringing her markers, aqua pens and blender pens to the next crafty night on the 11th and show her techniques, so I'll get a better idea then if I want to go the marker/ink route for colouring.

Surprisingly, I do not have many projects on the go right now. I'm working on Tash's Birthday page for her scrapbook (I found some perfect Heidi Grace paper that matches her cake to a T!) and cross stitching the EMS Butterfly Baby.

We had friends over last night and I was happy to hear she is having her shower after the baby is born, so I'm going to hold off on deciding the colours for the crocheted baby blanket I was going to do for her so I can make it more gender specific instead of gender neutral.

A little Improvision.

I've spent most of the weekend (when not playing with my daughter or doing housework) pouring over Split Coast Stamper's Gallery for card ideas and adding stamps to my wish list. When I was not there, I was visiting Heather's blog - Stamp with Heather. I'll give you a warning, if you visit her blog you might lose several hours of your life pouring over her entries and drinking up all her wonderful ideas!

So, here was my problem, we have a Birthday party to attend tomorrow for Owen's neice and nephew and I wanted to hand make them some cards. My only problem was, I do not own a single birthday stamp nor do I own a cricut cartridge that has any birthday fonts/embellishments on it. I did recently place a Stampn' Up order which qualified for a free Sal-abration stamp, of which I picked "Birthday Whimsey" but I won't receive it for another week or so.

Back to the online catalogue I went, and on page 43 inspiration struck from their stamp set "Big Birthday Candle". Now I do not own it, but I did know the image on the page is the same size as the stamp, so I printed it out, cut out the candle/flame and used it as my template. I used the same 'idea' but instead of a band/stripe I used my Happy Birthday embossing folder. The only thing I wish I did have was a small "happy birthday" stamp or "birthday wishes" I hate my printing! It looks even worse in this reduced size image.



Recipe:

Paper: Brazill Basics Paper - Fushia, Olive, Very Pale Yellow (sorry I do not know the exact names!)
Ink: SU Barely Banana, black Zig Pen (decoration on the candles/flames), Fushia Pink (over embossing)
Brads: Making Memories Flowers
Other: Cuttlebug Embossing Folder - Happy Birthday!

Unfortunately, I do not have any boy paper, so his nephew will get a store bought card this time around. He's in his teens so I'm not really sure how he'd feel about a handmade card anyway.

Riley Park - Natasha's Nine Month Photo Session

Riley Park / photos by lulufoto
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

When I first told my husband that we would be having photos done of Natasha every 3 months, he told me I was crazy. I will readily admit that I was being a "sheep", everyone else was doing it, so I wanted to do it. We probably did not need photos of her every 3 months, and my husband and some friends have said I could have taken just as nice captures, but then I would not have had any family pictures! heh

These captures are from my favourite photo shoot, her nine month session that we had done at Riley Park. At the time, I thought the session was a complete wash, Tash was fussy, my husband was late arriving (he came directly from work to the park), and she just did not seem to be in the 'photo mood'. I can't really blame her, she's had a lense in her face since the moment she was born, so I think by Nine Months she just had had enough.

Lulu and Rich of lulufoto surprised us both though 2 weeks later when she emailed me a link to the slideshow with some beautiful captures! Somehow, between the crying, grumpy faces, and her general unco-operativeness, they had a CD for us of 70+ images, most of which we loved. This session also produced my all time favourite family shot of all of us. It's not included on my scrapbook page, but I do have it printed in 11x16 and framed on the wall in my living room.

Doing this page was very enjoyable for me, and brought back some great memories of the day in the park. :0)

Recipe:

Paper: Brazill Basics (rosey pink), Daisy Bucket Designs - Sweet Marabella/Carmella (flowers/stripes)
Brads: Brazill Basics Paper Petunia
Lettering: Circut Cartridge - Opposites Attract, Upright Function used, Zigg writer pen (word "the")
Scraplifted from: I found this layout in the Becky Higgins "Best of Sketches Book". I liked it because it allowed for a lot of photos (I had way too many favourites I wanted scrap'd for this page!) but still had a nice flow. I used different paper, brads and my photo sizes are not the same.

The photos were not matted, I simply printed them off with a border.

As an aside, it appears I've been 'discovered' so I've adjusted my comments, I now am approving all comments prior to them being posted, as well as, I opened things up so those without a google account can still comment. :0)

Time Journey

Time Journey
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

The first year of Natasha's life, at the end of each month was marked with a picture of her with a white bear my mother gave her when she was born. It was suppose to be a 'fun' thing to do, but as she got older and more of a personality, I started to obsess about the photo each month and try and get the 'best' smile/pose/laugh etc. I know, silly to think about now, but at the time they seemed super important.

Anywho, this page is the reason why I've not posted any scrapbook pages lately. I've been stumped on design, paper and layout for these photos since early December, and for some reason, instead of moving on and scrapn' different photos, I just stalled on these photos instead. My problem being, that all the layouts I could find for 12+ photos were not very 'pretty'. They were always lining them up or they were so small you could not really see the pictures.

Finally earlier in the week I found a layout I liked (Becky Higgins - Best of Sketches book), bought some paper and finished it last night. I have to say it's a huge relief to finish it. I'm only about 3ish dbl page layouts away from finishing her first year album, so it's pretty exciting!

Recipe: (word stolen from Heather)
Paper: Brazill Basics - Red, Patterned Paper: S.E.I - Kitty's Place, Catnip (Butterflies), S.E.I - Kitty's Place, Cat walk (checkered)
Ribbon: S.E.I - Kitty's Place
Inks: Versamagic Chalk Ink - Red Brick (lettering)
Font: Cricut Cartridge - Printing Press

Happy Birthday - A card exchange

Happy Birthday
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

On a msg board I frequent a few of us decided to get together and do a card exchange. We each make 10 cards, then at the deadline, the organizer will take 1 of each batch of cards, put them in packages and ship them to each participant.

I love the Stamps I used and the colours are super bright/vivid, which I think is great, I just do not like the stamp "Happy Birthday". I purchased the Cricut Design Studio today while I was out getting water colour pencils and once Tash goes down for her afternoon nap I'm going to install it and see what I can come up with as an alternative to the stamping of "Happy Birthday".

Keep in mind it's a 'sample/test' run of the card, so it's not perfect. My stamps are not lined up and I smudged the "happy birthday" stamp. If you look really close I 'coloured' outside the lines as well. :0P

Materials used:

Paper - Brazill Basics green (I forget the exact name it's some leftover paper I bought for cmas cards, Lemonade (yellow), White
Stamps: Hero Arts - Playful Animals. There is also a Monkey in the set that I did not use on this card.
Size: 4.25"x 5.5"

Blanket by Bev Ireland

My original intentions when I saw this pattern were to make it for a friend who is due in March. My plans soon changed when I started having so much trouble with it and also ran into some 'issues' that required I do some unravelling as well as having problems with the edging. I think in an earlier post I explained how I originally decided the pattern was incorrect and that 23.5" was not wide enough, so I decided to make it wider, then half way through decided it was too wide on top of the fact that I started with the incorrect colour, as well as it curling downwards at the bottom bc I did not make my chain row loose enough.

So I unravelled it all and started over again. My second attempt faired much better, but when it came to doing the edging, I had a few issues, and then when it was time for the braiding, I got one braid done, ran out of the "wood" colour and could not justify spending another $6 for 3 strands of Yarn so it only has the braid on the bottom. After all that, of what I would call a rather simple pattern, I decided to keep it for myself. You can see in the photos that the edging is 'curling'. My husband does not think it's a huge deal but it annoys me. It matches well with my stroller which was not my intent when I picked out the yarn, I just really liked the red and brown together.

Project Name: Seija Set by Bev Ireland (I did not do the matching hat)
Pattern: Found in Stitch N' Bitch - The Happy Hooker
Yarns: Lion Brand Wool-ease Wood/Cranberry and Fisherman
Number of Skiens: 2 Skiens of Wood and Fisherman, about half of a 3rd Skien of the Cranberry due to the border.
Started & Finished: I can't remember, I think between all the unravelling I spent about 2 week-ish working on it?
Level of Difficulty: Easy. The entire blanket is all DC and changing yarn is super easy. The only thing that I found hard was doing the edge down the sides, since there are no perfect "Vs" to slip your hook into, you have to sort of guess and space them evenly, which as you can see I was not able to.

I had "planned" to work on a cross stitch block next, but I got invited to a baby shower for Feb. 10th so I started a hooded baby blanket from a book I have "Learn to Crochet". I'm about half done and have no idea if I'll complete it before Sunday.

Lana the Lamb

Lana the Lamb
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

I think I'm addicted to making these cute little Crochet toys by Owlishly. Lana is my favourite so far, as well as my daughter's. I will admit there was a lot less unraveling on Lana then Luke and I was able to stitch her up in about 5hrs total. I highly recommend that if you like to crochet, you head over and visit Owlishly's blog or stop by her Esty store to check out her Crochet Toys.

She's suppose to have hair, but I tried to use my c/s floss to make some and I just could not get it to turn out right. :0( I also picked up some of the safety eyes today at PM Hobby so I no longer have to sew on glass beads.

Pattern: Lana the Lamb
Designer: Owlishly
Yarn: TLC White, Black, Tan
Started: Last night
Finished: Today
Difficulty Rating: Beginner

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I also completed the baby blanket I was working on by Bev Ireland. I have to say that while it was a rather simple pattern to follow and complete, I doubt I'll do it again. Let's just say that edging is not my forte and I need some serious work in that department. I'll take some photos tomorrow when I have more light and share them.