Chalk it Up to Lovin' Me Some Vintage!

Yes, I am a lover of antiques and vintage stuff!  Although I don't neccessarily have a lot of valuable items in my own collection, I do love to pick up an occasional piece here and there to sit around and pretty up the house!  And, I do love to go to the flea-markets and antique malls and such whenever I get a chance.  Absolutely love browsing.  So as I was up in my gram's attic helping my mom put some things away one day, I came across a very cool shabbily chic white ornate frame lying in a bag.

Of course my gram told me to take it, and so I did... wasn't going to pass that offer up, lol! At first I was thinking I'd use it to frame a mirror, but then I was looking through either an issue of Country Living or Better Homes magazine, and saw that they took similar frames and turned them into chalk boards.  What a novel and cool idea, so that's what I did with it.  First I had my brother cut me an oval shaped wood board  to fit the frame.

Then all I had to do was paint the board with some black chalk board spray paint and glue the piece into the frame opening and now I instantly have a very chic framed chalk board for my room.

Think I need to soon make another trip up to my gram's attic!  I'm sure there are plenty more hidden treasures! 

As for scrapping/crafting... I had myself a very productive extra-long weekend at Ellen's for our scrappy girls's retreat!  Gosh, did we ever have so much fun.  If it's something we girls can do to the best of our abilities, it's scrap, laugh and eat, lol! We sure didn't go hungry!  Anyway, already looking so forward to our next gathering in November.  But this past weekend I was concentrating on designing a lot of projects with Core'dinations Cardstock, as they have a new Design Team call in the works right now, and I'm planning on submitting for it.  I would totally LOVE to join the Core team and create til my hearts content with their yummy cardstock! Ellen is a part of the current team, and I'm always so amazed by the magic she creates with Core... definitely would be a thrill to join her ;)

I'm not going to show you any of those projects with the Core right now... that will be in a post coming soon!  However, I'll share with you a little gift bag I made for a Baby Shower gift-card.  I was so excited with this one because it was actually the first time I used my Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cricut cartridge!  I believe I've had this cart for a year or more already and never broke it out til this weekend, but I can tell ya it's not going to take me that long to put it to use again...

Oh, I also used my new Sew Easy tool on here from WRMK.  It got a little wonky in areas, but I'll practice with it some more.  Those cool wood stars on there are new wood veneer stars from Studio Calico (thanks, Ellen)... love them!  The papers are from Echo Park's For the Record line, and I used a Papertrey Ink label die with an SRM sticker.  The wee lil' duckie is was cut using the Wild Card cart from Cricut.  And the buttons... again, chalk it up to vintage.  Love my stash of vintage buttons, and I even found a yellow gingham one to match the paper here! And before I head out, also wanted to share a previous card publication.  This one is a Thanksgiving card that was in the Nov. 2010 CARDS issue...

Lots of American Crafts paper there and the turkey was cut with the Cricut Doodlecharms cart. 

Okay.. I'm headed out.  Mornings come way to early and I've got to work so I must find my bed.  But please visit me again soon... I'll be back in a few days to reveal my creations for the Core'dinations DT call!  C-ya! 

Paper Crafts Magazine Newbie!

That's me!! Finally! 

I've been submitting my card projects to Paper Crafts magazine for quite a few years now... not consistently, but still... it has been a good number of years.  I've never had any luck with getting anything published with them, but now that unlucky streak has come to a halt.  Yesterday I came home from work and checked my inbox to be pleasantly surprised with a request for one of the 4 cards I submitted for their upcoming special issue, Go-To Sketches for Card Makers!  What a cool thrill... esp. since I read on their facebook page that there were 2,750+ submissions for this and only 288 acceptances! Plus, I am among 38 newbies to be published with this issue! So that was a great ending to my otherwise wasted and just plain awful week.  Yep, I caught the flu... and it was a doozy too.  Guess that's what I get for going back to work at a Daycare/Preschool.  I haven't been this sick since previously working in Preschool back in the 90's.  But, I'm on the mend aside from the sniffles and sneezing of a cold that just won't go away! 

So today, I am supposed to be working on some assignments for CX, but instead I've been piddlin' around here at home doing much of nothing.  I did create a card though for the Jenni Bowlin Studio crop that's happening this weekend.  JBS has added forums... did ya know?!  If not you need to register and check them out.  Lotsa fun challenges there for the crop, and I've been wanting to do more, but like I said, I've been piddlin', lol!  Anyway, here is the cute card that I did get made...

This was for a challenge to use a JBS Bingo card and at least one punch on a card design. 

I have had this bingo card and house diecut for quite some time now so I was happy to put them to good use at last.  No better feeling sometimes than to use that stash! I also added some personality to the house diecut with a paper doily which I cut, folded and inked to add texture to the roof.  I used my favorite large embossed Curve EK punch to add grass layers, and the heart I added is a Maya Road chipie, which I inked with a Latte color and added a scrap of the JBS red floral "Hotel Lobby" pp behind.  I attached it to the card with a JBS pearl rhinestone stick-pin.  Also used some denim and fabric scraps to make a shabby lil' sun accent and the stamp sentiment is a Kolette Hall stamp from Michaels.

Thanks for looking!

Hope you are finding sometime this weekend to do something fun and crafty along the way! 

Did You Forget About Me?

Lol!  If I were you all, I'd probably forget about me!  I know... I know.  It's been 3 weeks since I last posted to my blog.  Shame on me! I just don't know... the Winter is really taking a toll on me this year.  I just don't feel like doing much of anything (except trying to keep warm).  I really have total lack of motivation it seems and just when the snow finally melts away we get bombarded with more.  I've also been sick... bad cough and congestion and to my hubby's delight, I even lost my voice for a few days, lol! So, I know, I need to just quit complaining and hope that you'll all remember me, lol! 


Anyway, I'm back, and with an award!  I've been bestowed this cool little blog award by the ever so talented, Wendy Price:

So, to accept this award I first need to do a few things:

1.  Thank the person who gave the award.  Thanks soo much, Wendy! 

2.  Copy the award and put it on my blog.  I did!   

3.  List 3 things which I love about myself... 

Ohhh dear!  That's a toughie! 

Okay, I love my first name, Andrea, and always have!  I know, weird thing to love about oneself, but I often hear people say that they don't like their name. 

I love that I can find enjoyment in being creative by scrapbooking, cardmaking or crafting in general! 

And I love that I am a fairly organized person!

4.  Post a picture that you love...

Our babies with their Valentines!!

5.  And now I get to pass on the award to 5 bloggers who's blogs are sure to inspire.

I choose to award:

Rebecca Keppel of My Cluttered Corner

Anabelle O'Malley of Bits and Pieces

Davinie Fiero of My Little Piece of That Azure Sky

Jamie Harder of A Happy Scrappy Place

Audrey Pettit of A Peek Into My Scrappy World

And now before I go I wanted to share something that makes me happy!  I had some creations published in the premier issue of the Cricut magazine from Northridge Publishing and although I haven't gotten my own copy back yet with my projects, good ol' Ellen was able to snag an issue for me at CHA...

Here's a look at what I had published in there...

I really enjoyed this first issue and I'm looking forward to pouring through many more issues to come! 

And I'm also thrilled to say that I'll also have some things published in their next two issues as well!  I'd love to have something in every issue (fingers crossed)! 

Okay, time to get on my way for today, but I promise to not let another 3 weeks slip by bofore posting again!  Enjoy your week! :)

Winter Jammin' and Scrappin'!

Hello!! Good Thursday to you all!  Got just over an inch or so more of the white stuff last night, so not too, too bad compared to some other areas of PA!  I'm still really fed up with being so cold and I'm not at all thrilled about having to send in a $250.00 heating (electric) bill tomorrow!  But, what I am excited for is that we get to go to the Winter Jam concert tomorrow in State College!  I've been waiting for this for months and it's finally here! We didn't get to last year's event so we are really looking forward to this, and you so can't beat the price of admission for this... $10 for 10 bands/artists = a terrific day of entertainment! 

So... what have I been working on this week?  Well over the weekend I scrapped up a storm and it was so fun to have nothing on the agenda but playing with paper!  One of my very favorite scrappy sites, the Nook, had a crop going on so I participated in a bunch of their challenges which were so fun because they all centerd around the theme of a Family Reunion!  I believe I got 7 projects done, so not too shabby for a day's creating!  Here's what all I did...

                                      ( A card for the Monochromatic challenge!  I used lots of pink and mauve from  Bella BLVD. )

( A layout sharing something strange or nutty about a family member!  These pix of my SIL, Wendy fir the bill perfectly! )

( This challenge called for making a page with no patterned paper... all cardstock.  This happens to be one of my favorite things to do... I love all cardstock pages and cards!  I decided to make this one all about me for once.  My dh took this shot of me recently one Sunday afternoon with his new Galaxy phone.  I had not a stitch of make-up on and I don't believe my hair was even brushed, but I still kinda really liked it.  )

( Loved how this one turned out!  These are the last photos I happened to take of my Dad!  We went to vist for a weekend in Feb.of 2008 and I took my camera... I believe God nudged me to do so!  I had always wanted to take pictures of him reading.  I wanted to capture that because that was my Dad's favorite thing to do.  He was always reading and I wanted to get this aspect of him down on a scrapbook page.  I had wanted to get these pictures snapped for so long and then on this day I finally did it.  I can still remember him looking over at me and saying, "What in the world are you doing"?  I just smiled, laughed and said, "You know me... the scrapbooker"!  Am I ever grateful for taking those last special shots!  I never could have imagined that 2 months later he would be taken from us.  I would so regret not having them!  Just confirms to me the power of a picture!!   Anyway, for this challenge we needed to scrap with some of the older product in our stash, and here I used the June Bug collection from Basic Grey! )

(This page required us to use something that showcased "Wood" to represent the Family Tree aspect.  I happened to have the perfect photos for this and the cutest laser-cut tree accent that I had been saving from Riff Raff Designs.)

(This one I kinda got disqualified for because not only were we supposed to use "Timeless Treasures" in the page title somewhere, but we also needed to include a"vintage" photo.  Although the subject of my photos here is vintage, the photos are not, as they were just taken this Christmas!  No worries though because I still got a nice page scrapped! )

(And for this last challenge I did, we had to use a family monogram.  I loved this one because I've been wanting to use my Cricut vinyl for the longest time to create a monogrammed charger plate.  This was so fun and easy to to and I can already tell I'll be making a lot more of these type of projects! ) 

Sooo, geesh, I think this post got a bit picture heavy!  I was going to share another card I did the other night but I think I'll save that for later, lol!  Anyway, thanks to everyone who took the time to go over to the myStamp BOX blog and leave such nice comments for me... I really appreciated it!  And if you want to check out something else I did over there this month, I have a new tutorial posted on the blog again today about Glimmer Mist Stamping!  Thanks again!!

I'm guest Designer for January at myStampBOX!

Just a hurried post this morning before I head out to work! 
Wanted to share that I'm being featured as Guest Designer this month over at the myStampBOX blog!  My first post is up today, if you want to go check it all out!  Thanks blogger friends, and have a good day... as good as a Monday can be! 

A quickie post with more Webster's Pages!

Hello, and Happy Friday!  Just wanted to get on here and make a fast post because I am busy finishing up some projects for a guest design team spot at a fun stamp company that I'll tell you all about later, but for now I wanted to share some other projects I've done recently with my Webster's Pages stash! 

First off I've always loved the home decor blocks that spell out "It's A Wonderful Life", but I never got around to buying a set!  Well, my mom happened to give me an old set of children's blocks this past summer and said I could surely do something with them... they were ugly and I wish I had thought to take a "before" photo of them!  Anyway, with the help of some gorgeous WonderFall, Hollywood Vogue and Waiting for Santa papers from WP, AND some of there teal leaves and a sparkler button mixed in with some other red vintage buttons from my stash, I was able to create my own set of "It's A Wonderful Life" blocks.  The font I used was from the Winter Woodland Cricut cart. 

Then, I also used up some of my very favorite "pinkish" papers that I had been hoarding from their Winter's Wings and Postcards From Paris collections!  I just held onto these papers for the longest time and finally thought of the perfect page to use them on!  This page highlights the Christmas ornament that was bought for our angel babies tree for 2009.  Every year I buy 3 new ornaments ( all the same) for their remembrance tree, so now I'll document the special ornament for each year in a layout! 

For this page I had cut out that beautiful tree and gave it a coating of Diamond Dust glass glitter... I can't get enough of that stuff!  I also used some yummy Core'dinations cardstock in the Gemstones variety, and several punches here from Martha Stewart.  I love that beautiful butterfly border punch that Joyce let me use! 

That's all I have to share right now, but do come back next week sometime to visit if you can... I'll share my projects for that guest dt spot!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! 
Go Steelers!! :D

One Last Hoorah For 2010!

With it being so close to 2011, thought I'd make one last blog post for 2010 today.  I must admit I am for the most part happy to say good-bye to this past year and do just that... put it all in the past!  In some big aspects, this wasn't a very good year for us and I am really looking forward to starting off with a clean slate and hoping and praying for some uplifting and positive blessings for us all in 2011!  I still have faith so that's a good thing!

Anyway, today is a lazy day... hubby is off work and I made us a nice brunch today and now we are keeping warm and cozy fireside.  Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  We never really have much planned in the lines of partying... we usually save that for Super Bowl time, lol!  No really, we tend to stay put safe at home for NYE... order in Chinese take-out and make a few drinks of our own... watch the ball drop in NYC and that's about it.  I believe my niece and her boyfriend will be here so we may get to playing some card games too.

As for Christmas... hard to believe another one had come and gone so quickly... but as usual, it was a very nice one!  Always nice to relax and enjoy the company of family and good food.  Of course my personal Santa was very generous... and he always is!  This year he spoiled me with not one, but two very beautiful rings!  :D  Guess I was nice this year, lol!  I surprised my hubby with a Keurig coffee machine so he's been really enjoying that! He loves his coffee!
 

Not much else going on here these days... but of course I can not make a post here without showing something crafty or scrappy!  I know a lot of scrappy bloggers are closing out their year end posts with a Top Ten of sorts... a review of photos of their top ten favorite scrappy projects they've accomplished throughout the past year.  I'm not going to do a top ten and I did want to share my favorite layout with you all, but then I realized I can't because my very favorite is currently out being published with Cricut magazine!  For now though I'll show you another of my favorite projects I did for the year... this one being a home decor piece that I created...

I made this large hanging snowflake ornament with some gorgeous Webster's Pages goodies... their beautiful teal and gold netting, some of their paper and alpha stickers and a heart shaped Whimsy.  The wood snowflake base I bought from Michaels, as well as the sweet vintage- like resin frame used for the center portion.  The frame was gold but I painted both the frame and the snowflake base with lots of white Tim Holtz crackle paint.  The tips of the snowflake also got embellished with a good amount of Diamond Dust glass glitter.  I'm glad I'll be able to display and enjoy this piece all throughout the Winter months!  And speaking of Webster's Pages... did you know that they are having their first ever "open Design Team call"?  Ohh my word... all I can say is WOW!  Such a fabulous opportunity that would be because I hear absolutley nothing but good things about this company and being able to be apart of their creative team!  The call ends December 31st, so you still have the chance to get in your entries for this fab opportunity!  I did enter... sent in my submission a few days okay, so now I patiently (or impatiently) wait with all the others!  What an honor it would be! 

Now how 'bout a looksie at some of the Christmas card designs I put together this year to send out to family and friends?  I usually do one card design and then make them all alike, but this year I decided to make a few different variations... thought maybe I wouldn't easily tire of doing them this way, and I really did enjoy making them much more!  This first set uses some "Everybody Loves Christmas" papers from Echo Park.

For the Joy card design here I used the "Joys of the Season" Cricut cartridge... my favorite for holiday designs!

I also did a card variation using some Lily Bee "Christmas Town" paper and the Peace card design from Joys of the Season...

AND... I also did a variation using both the Peace and Joy cards and Webster's Pages...

I also made a few others... these all different...

This one used some of the K&Company papers and accents for Christmas.  I also cut the partridge and pear tree from Joys of the Season. 

For the card I used more Echo Park paper, only I used their Sweet Summertime line, and yet again, Joys of the Season...

This one I used some American Crafts stuff with snowflake designs cut from Winter Woodland Cricut cart...

Yet another using Winter Woodland...

I had made this one with the "Deer Wishes" for a neighbor lady of mine who wanted a Christmas card with a deer on it to give to her grandson! 

And one last card... I also made this one for my neighbor lady.  She wanted another card for another grandson who likes to fish, so I came up with this card thanks to my very crafty friend, Wendy!  I happened to be perusing Wendy's blog looking for ideas because I know she always has cute "fishy" stamping designs for her son who loves everything and anything fishing!  I came across this fun set of stamped card designs that she did HERE and knew I could translate THIS idea with the help of Cricut!!  This is what I came up with...

I just love how the ornaments upside down can look like fishing lures!  Again, Joys of the Season and Life is A Beach for the fish image!  Okay, I am sorry that this card sharing went a bit over board... I didn't mean to draw out this post!  But alas, it is the last one for the year from me!  I hope that everyone has a prosperous, joyous and healthy New Year this coming 2011!  Enjoy and Blessings to all! :D

Time Keeps On Slippin'!

How can this be?  It's already well into December... and this is my first post of the month?!! Geeesh!  Time is slippin' away!

So much more yet to get done before next weekend and sooo little time.  I hope everyone has been having a terrific holiday season, even if it is going fast for ya!

Anyway,  last time I blogged a post, I did say that I was going to share with you all a lot more of the projects that I had done for LCOM using the new Bella BLVD. lines that the DT was givin to work with.  I can still share a bit, but I have to tell ya... several of my Bella projects have been picked up for publication!   Yeah!!  Last week was totally a great week of requests for me... I had a total of 6 project, requests!  First, I had 3 layouts and 1 card picked up for the April/May 2011 issue of the new Cricut magazine from Northridge Publishing.  Very exciting because as most of you all probably know,I love, love, love using my Cricut... how cool it would be to have something published in every Cricut issue (fingers crossed)... so far so good because I'm 2 for 2! Then, I also had a card picked up for the May 2011 issue of CARDS, which is one of my Bella BLVD. creations.  Last, I had 2 more layouts requested for the other new Cricut inspired magazine, The Bug Magazine.  They requested 2 pages for the Spring theme, however I could only send them one because the other was already sent in for the Cricut magazine request!  So looking forward to seeing all these things in print in the coming year! 

So yes... here are some things that I can share with you... all using Bella BLVD.  I had never really played with Bella BLVD. before getting these collections in my hand, but they are seriously CUTE lines!  I love how there are 12x12 pages full of coordinating sticker embellies AND alphas... perfect! 

This first card uses the Hello Beautiful line.  Aren't the bold colors fun?  Lovin' the teal paired with the red.  See the embossing in the cupcake to make it look wavy on the blue icing top?  I used the Zebra animal-print texture plate from Sissix! 

I used the Distressed Stripes folder from Cuttlebug to add the texture to the cupcake liner.  The cupcake is actually one of the cut-outs from the 12x12 sheet of Hello Beautiful paper. 

And, here's a layout that I made... this using mostly the Lovey dovey line!  Sorry about the quality of these photos though... for some reason I was having a tough time photographing this page well... the colors just didn't show up well for me at all.  They really don't appear as washed out IRL, as they do here! 

This page has been a long time coming. I've been wanting to scrap this photo for awhile and the Lovey dovey line from Bella BLVD. just seemed to really fit the "feel" that I wanted for this layout! The flower part I cut using my Cricut and then I embossed it with the Meadow Lark Cuttlebug folder. I cut the heart portion from a sheet of the 12x12 pp from the Lovey dovey line and used it for the center of the flower!

Well, as always, thanks for stopping by to visit!  I hope to come back to make another post before Christmas arrives... time willing!  It's been one whirl-wind of a month for sure, but I'd still like to share pix of our Christmas decorations for this year so I hope to do that.  Enjoy your weekend ahead and have fun getting all the last minute stuff together... one more week equals last minute IMO! 

 

Let's Capture Our Memories DT Projects!

My first month of dt projects are finally up for reveal at LCOM!  For this month we were supplied with a fun box of vintage inspired goodies which included papers from the Tim Holtz collections.  Honestly, I was a bit unsure about how to begin... how to approach working with these papers.  I had the idea-ology Lost and Found collection, definitely more vintage in style, and not normally something I would use, but I believe I did a pretty good job of creating some well rounded projects in the end!  Sooo, here's a look at all my creations, and if you'd like to see more supply info..etc... you can check them all out over on the DT projects board at LCOM, HERE! 

This was my Anniversary card to DH for our 10th last month!  :)

 

 

 

Ohhh, and for the above card design, I must give credit to Calia Yang for her beautiful stamp embossed tags above!  I only attached them onto my card, but Calia created those beauties... thanks, Calia!  They sure did make for a fabulous looking card if I must say so myself!  :)