Smashin the New Year

Hello again, blog-readers! Just have a quick post for today, to show off my first Smash book page of the year. I just recently joined a Smashing and scrapbooking group over at the CMC classroom, and there are monthly challenges to get us inspired. This month's challenge was "new beginnings!" And of course that includes New Year's resolutions, or goals for the new year. Yesterday I posted my goals as part of a 10 Things on the 10th post, and that really helped me get all my ideas down so that this page came together in a snap! There were only minor changes on the page. I also did a page about what I did on the 1st, because I wanted to save my ticket stub from the movie I saw and also remember what a nice relaxing day it was. =) So here are the photos:

Just some simple pages with lots of journaling. The number stickers are Basic Grey Out of Print collection.

That's it for today, told you it would be quick! Time to go feed the cat now (or so he is telling me with his death stare.... =P )

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

10 Things

Hello Bloglandians! Every time the 10th of the month rolls around, I will be reading my blogs and up will pop Shimelle's 10 Things on the Tenth post. I've always wanted to participate in this but I always forget beforehand and then when the day comes I run out of time and before you know it the 11th has arrived (like it tends to do) and it's too late. So here I am - FINALLY - taking a stab at participating in 10 Things. After some deliberation, I've decided to make a list of my goals for the new year. I know this is sort of an obvious, easy topic for this month but it is on my mind right now and I was thinking about making a layout with my goals anyway and this will help me get some ideas down. So here we go, in the order that I remember them:

1) Get into dancing shape by June: Specifically, tap dancing. My community theatre group (Twelfth Night Productions) is doing a production of Anything Goes this summer and I really want to be involved in the show. Mostly I want to be sure that I can do any dancing that may be asked of me, and do it well. This is also kind of a cheat because it's just a disguised version of the "lose weight" resolution, because I do need to lose about 20 pounds. But mostly I just want to get strong. I'm tired of not being able to pick up, say, a box of kitty litter, without getting injured. I'm too young for that. =P

2) Learn to cook: This is kind of tied in with number one, because if I could learn to cook some fresh food for myself, it would help me get in better shape.

3) Scrapbook more: During 2011 I was really able to start focusing on my crafting again. I hadn't really done that since I started college more than 10 years ago. I discovered blogging and the miracle that is the Google Reader. =) I've really learned a lot online from other crafters and had a lot of fun last year. And while I made more layouts last year than in the entire decade prior, I was really distracted from scrapbooking by all the other awesome paper crafting I was seeing and doing (card making, altered art, etc.) That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that I now have such a large collection of scrapbooking supplies that my office is running out of space. I need to use this stuff up! So my goal for the new year is to try to focus more specifically on scrapping, and try not to be entirely distracted by other fun things.

4) Try to get on a design team: This goal was originally "Apply to be on a design team", because as much as I wanted to try last year I couldn't even get past the application process. I had a couple of opportunities but I never even applied because I was held up by fear. And oddly enough, not fear of rejection, more fear that I would actually get on the team and then not be able to deliver. Ah, self-doubt, you are a terrible thing. But I'm feeling better because already in the first week of the year I overcame the first hurdle and actually put my name in for the design team on one of the challenge blogs I follow. At this point I honestly don't care if I make it on the team, I'm just enjoying the victory of overcoming that fear of applying! =)  And now this goal has been updated to actually getting on a team.

5) Blog more: I am a very, very, neglectful blog owner. In fact, this is the first my blog has seen of me since December 2nd. Over a month of neglect! And since this blog is my crafting blog, if I'm neglecting the blog it means I am most likely neglecting my crafting as well. Neither of these things make me happy. This all comes down to time management and I'm really going to have to think about how I'm going to improve here. Sub-goal: make blog look more awesomer. Sub-sub-goal: work on grammar.... =P

6) Learn to sew: Kind of random, and possibly I shouldn't put anything else on my plate (or in my craft room!), but I've wanted to do this for a while and I'm going to try and make some progress on this.

7) Learn to drive: Okay, it's confession-in-a-public-forum time: Hello, my name is Mary, and I am a 31 year old woman who never learned to drive. Phew! Okay, that's over. Actually, as weird as it may seem, I know several people around my age who either still don't know how to drive or just learned. So I'm not THAT weird. =P But all the reasons why I SHOULD learn to drive have finally stacked up so high that I think it's time to finally do it. We'll see what happens....

8) Cultivate patience: I'll admit, I don't have ANY patience. I'm all go, go, go all the time. If I was going to do a One Little Word for the year, I guess this would be it. I need to work on patience, with myself, with others, my family, my cat.... and did I mention myself? =)

9) Save my sanity: In a nutshell, this has to do with work. I stress too much at and about work. And since I don't want to bore anyone with a long tangent, I'll just say that I need to work on this, because something's gotta give, and I don't want it to be my sanity! =P

10) Sit down and think about how I'm going to manage my time to work on all these things over the 356 days I've got left! Hey, we all want extra time, and this year we got an extra 24 hours! So there's no reason I can't manage this, right? =)


Here's to a happy and productive 2012!

*~M~*

12 Tags....Day 2

Hello again! Posting twice in one day to get caught up on my tags... Here's the link to Tim's post for today. This one scared me a little at first but in a way ended up being more fun because unlike the first tag, I didn't have a lot of the supplies for this one. Namely, I was short some Kraft resist paper. So I decided to see if I could make my own by doing some clear emboss resist with one of Tim's Christmas stamps. I THINK it would have worked in theory...but it didn't work out in practice, and I'm pretty sure that's because the paper I used wasn't dark enough and so there was not enough contrast once the stain was on. I ended up stamping over it with Coffee Archival. I could have started over, but.... I guess I was just being lazy. =P Here's some photos so you can see what I'm talking about:

One thing that DID turn out well was my faked holly print. I just stamped the holly image from Tim's Holiday Wishes set with Jet Black Archival and made sure it was set before I used the stain. Then I colored it just like in Tim's instructions and I think it looks great. Hopefully it distracts from my wonky sentiment. =P I'm also liking my lovely lady deer's festive red wreath and jingle bell, which were also modifications made due to lack of supplies. =) When all was said and done I actually had a lot of fun coming up with different ways to do things....and now I know how to fake some Kraft resist properly for next time!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

12 Tags...Day 1

Hello all! I'm a little behind on posting my tags because I finished day 1 after it was already dark (which happens at about 4 in the afternoon now!) and so I couldn't take photos. Like nearly everyone else I was up late at night on Wednesday waiting anxiously for midnight and the first post of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. This is one of the few different-time-zones situations where the West Coast doesn't get totally screwed. (Usually things are done Eastern time and we're just left to deal with the odd hour). It was actually midnight my time and I didn't have to be up at 3 AM like some poor folks. Anyway, I was really in quite a state by the time it posted...and it was so gorgeous! And I was super excited because I realized I had most of the needed supplies! Then a could hardly sleep because my mind was swimming with ideas. =) Finally in the morning I got up and had barely finished my coffee before I was in the craft room making this:

As you can see I didn't have the Noel die so I used my Reindeer Flight die instead. The silver glitter I used is actually tinsel glitter (I didn't have any regular glitter in silver) so he looks kind of fuzzy. =) And he is a HE - it's hard to see but I did the awesome trick Tim showed us last year to add antlers to my reindeer. The only other thing I didn't have was the Tattered Banners die (just came in the mail today-a day too late!) but it was easy enough to just cut one out.

Thanks for looking! I hope you're having as much fun as I am following Tim's posts and getting in the holiday spirit!

*~M~*

Wish Upon A Star...

Hello Blogland inhabitants! Some more Christmas crafting to share today. Last night I finally finished a make-your-own-Advent-calendar project I was working on....after working on it since Thanksgiving! I was feeling a little burnt out on "projects" and just wanted to play. So I decided to see if I could put together a piece for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week, where the theme is 'stars'. As it turns out, there is a serious lack of stars in my stash. I had to dig quite a bit before I found a Jenni Bowlin chipboard piece that was a circle with a punched out star in the middle. I thought it might make a cute bit of Christmas decor if I decorated it and had the punched out star hanging from the bottom. Here is the final result:

I went quite grungy with this one. The first thing I did was cover both pieces with some paper from Tim's Seasonal Stash. Then I sanded the edges and inked them with Vintage Photo. To add a little vintage sparkle I painted both pieces with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. After the paint dried I embellished the small star with some Grungeboard numbers (from the Alphabet Soup set) that were colored with Fired Brick Distress ink and then glammed up with some Rock Candy Stickles. The embellishments on the large piece are bits from the Festive Greenery die cut from the Kraft Core-dinations stack (also covered with Rock Candy Stickles) and a word from the Seasonal sticker stash. I needed a short word, because I didn't want to cover up too much of the star, and I thought "wish" was appropriate, what with the star theme. =) The hanging hardware is just some hitch fasteners and a hinge clip and some Peapod twine that's been aged with Antique Linen Distress Stain. Here's some close ups so hopefully you can see some of the sparkle:

I think that's it! Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*



 

Grungy Monday #28

Oh my, my poor neglected blog! I keep doing crafty projects and then not blogging them, I have been such a bad blogger. I had to have a go at this week's Grungy Monday though, even if I am doing it at the last minute. =) This week the challenge was to do a project inspired by Tim's pumpkin for the Ranger Great Pumpkin Challenge. Tim's gorgeous project involved a lot of foil tape and alcohol inks, so I decided to try and do a tag with some embossed foil tape. Here's my finished project:

I covered a manila tag in Ranger's foil tape, and then embossed with Tim's Snow Flurries embossing folder. My idea was to color the background with blue alcohol inks by just dripping them on and letting them spread through the debossed sections, and then possibly coloring the snowflakes somehow to have them pop out even more. I ended up using the Snow Cap mixative on the snowflakes, but because of the unpredictability of the "dripping" method, the background didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped. I actually almost gave up on the tag, but I'm glad I didn't because after it was all embellished I was pretty happy with the overall look. The Winter Wonder die was cut from Core'dinations Whitewash paper, which was sanded down quite a bit, especially along the edges, to bring out the blue core. I stamped it with the snowflakes from the Reindeer Flight set in Iced Spuce ink, and then a sentiment from the Mini Holidays 3 set in Chipped Sapphire. I LOVE using the Iced Spruce for more subtle background stamping, it's so beautiful. =) The tag was finished off with some Sparkly Fluff and this pom-pom ribbon I got at Michael's along the bottom, and some Idea-ology Baubles and Trimmings dyed with Iced Spruce at the top. Overall it's quite sparkly and "snowy". =)

Along with Grungy Monday, I will also be entering this into two other challenges: the Simon Says Stamp challenge, where the theme is tags, and the Inspiration Emporium challenge, where the theme is tools. I decided to enter it in the second challenge because I used my favorite tool, my Big Shot, twice for this tag, plus I got to use the Tiny Attacher and the Sanding Grip. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*



Some Fall Crafts

Wow, Bloglanders, it's been forever since I've posted. I hit a little bit of a slump for a while where I didn't feel much like crafting, so I haven't had anything to blog. But I just finished up some really inspiring classes this weekend, and also got caught up on my blog reading, which inspired me to get going again. I'm actually going to combine two projects in this post because....well, because I'm too lazy to write two posts, honestly. =P Anyway, the first one is my Grungy Monday entry for this week, hosted as always over on the Studio L3 blog. This week's challenge is to use Tim's Perfect Distress technique, which I have to admit I've never done before. I love Perfect Pearls mists, but every time I try to use the loose powder I just end up making a mess. However, after a refesher from the video, I was ready to give it another go. Here's what I made:

It's not too late for some Halloween crafts, right? =) I made a background just like Tim does in the video but I used TWO colors, Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon. I also have been dying to break out the Seedless Preserves, because I LOVE purple, so I used it on the edges of the tag, for the "sentiment" stamping, and to color the '31' (made with Grungeboard Minis). All of the stamps are from Tim's Halloween Minis set and the technique was done on the cobwebs, with Black Soot and the "Pearl" Perfect Pearls. Despite my history with Perfect Pearls I have to say it turned out fairly well, although I did make a mental note-to-self to do this technique with a less detailed stamp in future. It got pretty runny in places (places that are now cleverly covered up with those rosettes). Here's some close-ups:

I almost forgot to mention, I will also be entering this in the monthly challenge over at the Inspiration Emporium blog. It's a color challenge this month, and if you get a chance you should head over and give them some love. They have fun challenges each month and a great prize! (And no, I am not being paid to say that. =P )

My second project is a little ATC I did, inspired by the Sunday Stamper challenge over at Hels Sheridan's blog. I've been a long time stalker reader of Hels' blog, and I love her work and her posts are always hilarious, but I have never participated in her challenges before. However I couldn't resist one using fall colors, especially when I have new fall Distress Inks to play with! I was going to make a tag and then found these pre-cut ATCs made of watercolor paper that I forgot I purchased =P so I decided to give those a whirl:

I colored the background with Scattered Straw, Ripe Persimmon, and Spiced Marmalade, edged the whole thing with Scattered Twigs and then sprayed the bejeezus out of it with water and a couple sprays of Biscotti Perfect Pearls mist. The colors moved around on the paper and made the coolest blended background. Will definitely be trying that trick again! =) Here's a couple close-ups...one is a goof where the flash went off but is the only photo that actually shows the Perfect Pearls!

I think that about covers it. Sorry for the horrifically long post, and if you got this far, thanks for sticking it out to the end! Hopefully I will post again soon without another long break.

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*