CraftyEngineer

Never too late to be a ROCK STAR!

I made some cards a while back with some stamps that I had laying around.

Definition: "laying around" - never put away from their initial purchase. <roll eyes>

I really liked the "rock star" sentiment. I think I got it about 4 or 5 months ago. Whoops!

Anyway, those "kid" saying stamps always crack me up.

Somehow this card made me think about my son's 2nd grade teacher. Not sure why. But it does. :)

The girl rocker is all sparkly, of course...

Busy weekend around here. Cub Scout pinewood derby races this morning, PTA fundraiser this morning, party this afternoon, party this evening... and um, a party tomorrow. And guess what? NONE of them are kid ones! YAHOO! I hope you have a great weekend!

Holiday Crafts! Part 3 - Glass Etched Ornaments!

Every year my neighborhood does an ornament exchange. The rules are simple... wrapped ornament with your name on the inside, NOT a tacky ornament, and each ornament can be stolen a maximum of 2 times. We play the traditional "white elephant" rules without the tackiness! But boy, some of my neighbors are vicious! It's always a good time and I look forward to it every year.

This year was no different than the years past... I always make my ornament. I tried glass etching many years ago and really had an idea that I wanted to try out. So I revisited glass etching!

The hardest part of this endeavor was finding glass ornaments with holes already in them. Sure, I looked online but they were pricey and I wanted A BUNCH. I called up my BFF and asked her about sources... she has done much stained glass and I knew she would know of some good glass sources. Turns out she cut me a bunch herself from her scraps and her husband drilled the holes for me! SO NICE!!! I so appreciate them doing that!

Here is the ornament I made for the exchange:

I made a few other ones too for various friends (Longhorns and Twilight... is there anything else??):  click on the thumbnails to see them all.

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Have a great day!

Holidays Crafts! Part 1

SCHOOL IS OUT! I can finally take a moment to post... whew! I'm so excited it's out and the boys are home, too. Like a little kid at Christmas! Seriously!

So, if you've been around here for a while, you know last year I did that crazy "25 days of projects"  (25 projects in 25 days). This year I decided (actually on day 26 last year!) not to do that again. I did actually get injured during that process last year and now have tennis elbow going on a year (ssssh don't tell my dr. - he thinks it's from lifting kids!) Anyway, I still made up a ton of projects for myself to do and most are done except for those Christmas Cards! But I have an idea... just have to wait for the paper to come in (yeah, that's my excuse!).

Anyway, I'll try to post my creations more frequently but here's one for you today...

I've decided that this is the year of orange and white! Good Christmas colors, eh? Well it is a Longhorn year and all..

I got a custom pillow box die recently and that came in very handy for the ever-so-popular gift card gifts for my fellow longhorn lovers:

Have a great evening!

Sucker!

Me. That is. I've been trying to be so good for the past few months... trying to only buy stuff that I'll use or *need*! And then WHAM! this Scottie Dog barked at me at my LSS last month. It's a Quick Kutz die and it's a "limited edition". Know that means, right? It means better. buy. it. right. now. or. it'll. be. gone. forever. DOH. or I should say SUCKER! GAH. I am a dog lover. I am. I have 2 dogs. Never had a Scottie but still had to get it. WHAT???

Alright so I decided to use it for some birthday thank yous that I needed to make. Isn't this doggie cute? See what I mean? I saw a sample at my LSS similar to this with a plaid background and thought if I paired it with the A Muse gingham paper, I think it worked out pretty well. The thank you sentiment is by Memory Box.

I think this is one of my first die cut cards. I'm not sure if I like die cut cards. But it was fun to make. I'll have to try some more sometime.

In other news, we're back from vacation in Mexico and school starts in a week and half. Sadness. I'm not ready.  It's been a great summer with my boys. They are at a great age now and much less "work". More time for fun. I need to get crackin' on some back to school stuff here soon. A few weeks ago, I tore my studio apart and haven't put it back together yet. Need to do that in a flash so I can get to creating again! Anyway, thanks for stopping by. 

 

Wedding Invitations.

As you may know, my husband's nephew is getting married in May. I've been playing wedding planner and helping my so-to-be niece with some of the stuff. Including designing, creating, all paper items for the wedding. So, wedding invitations. I worked on this design for a while before committing to it. I really like it but it had to be feasible. I needed really long paper. I've told you about my friend, Edye, who owns LMNOPeople. She found me this Stardust card stock from Papersource but at wholesale prices! WOHOO... it's 22x26" - Perfect. It's a shimmery ivory heavyweight card stock and it has matching envelopes (BEAUTIFUL)!

So, pressing on... I made the invitations I wanted to. I needed long paper to make an envelopment type structure to hold all the inserts (rsvp card, info card, map, and work-parties invite). I used my cuttlebug to dry emboss the outside flap. This cardstock took to dry embossing very well.

I'm so happy with them. I'm SO happy they are done. WHEW.

M-I-C-K-E-Y... MOUSE!

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You're as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse!

Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Now, you'll have that song in your head all day!

Gotta love it when you can get 10 invitations done from start to mailbox in an hour - um, ESPECIALLY when the party is 10 days away! ACK! Luckily, it's a family party so everyone already knows about it! Whew.

My youngest turns 3 on March 7th! YAY! For this past year, Mickey Mouse clubhouse was big in our live! So, simple and quick is the name of these invitations. I've had the design floating in my head for a while, just no time to actually get it done.

So, I suppose the old Mickey Mouse song was the "M-I-C" version and the new hip, happening one is the Hot Dog song. And Toodles... you probably don't know who Toodles is if you haven't seen this version of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But my son likes it. :)

I'm a bit of an electronics gadget freak (go figure). So I got myself a new printer the other day. One for my stamp room. We have one of those HP does everything already but I wanted a invitation printer that I could feed paper in without it getting bent. My dear friend, Edye, who owns LMNOPeople, is in the business of making invitations and personalized notecards (at an AFFORDABLE price!) told me about her Canon printer. So, I researched and researched and found a little mobile Canon that is SUHWEET. I like it. And made this invitations super simple. I just fed the A Muse notecards directly in and voila! I use MS Publisher. Oh, since I'm mentioning Edye... one of my most FAVORITE things she makes is the itty bitty people books with 12 pictures in it... GREAT GIFT for grandparents or teachers! OMG. Remember that.

The Project Hero Mail challenge/contest ends today with all items needing to be postmarked by today to be sent to me. So, I'm on the lookout for them. I've received quite a few already and can't wait to see how many cards we've made for the troops! More soon!

Dorky bird...

 Every time I go to Stamp Salado, this little "dorky" bird looks at me. He (because girls are not dorky! LOL!) comes in 3 sizes... this is the medium sized bird. He is made by Stamps by Judith.

I just think he's fun and cheery. And well, a stalker, too. Jumped right into my bag and came home with me this time. Naughty bird.

A few months ago, I saw this sentiment there at Stamp Salado and loved it too. So many times I want to send a card (rarely DO I...shame, shame) with that sentiment.

Paper is retired SU! Marigold Morning and ribbon is May Arts.

Happy Wednesday!

Saltbox Color Challenge!

The Saltbox team has issued a color challenge using these colors and any Saltbox stamp:
Swiss Red and Cabana Blue

I picked up some Saltbox stamps sets when I was in Seattle back in November. I used this cute Saltbox Celebrations Sayings Set on this card because it has the best sentiments! You may remember that I'm pretty active in my son's elementary school. Well, of course, almost everyone I work with is there doing volunteer work. This sentiment is the best. I think I'll make up some thank you cards for the PTA to use to thank all of our volunteers!

A Muse Cabana Blue, Swiss Red; A Muse Cabana Blue Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, Saltbox Celebration Sayings Set.

Check out the other team members that played:

elena

jen a

mary rose

lexi

lori

novell

rhonda
sherry
emily

I'm going to call this next part a "slick" trick but it's really a "oops, I gotta fix it"...
While stamping this card I smudged one side (the side I was going to use as the front) so I didn't want to throw it into the scrap pile. I turned it over and did my front. Then when done I put a strip on the back to cover up the boo-boo! I used the new Martha Stewart mini hearts border punch.
 

Happy Monday!

25 days of projects - day 23: More Ornaments

I just *love* the way these turned out! Definitely will make this for the ornament exchange next year. I wanted to make this one for this year's but the die didn't come in time. I still needed to make some more ornaments. Every year, I give my boys and a nephew an ornament. I usually make them if I can think of something crafty. So, this year, these are it! And yes, I am covered in glitter! I let my boys pick which color glitter they wanted (green and purple!) and then red for my nephew.

No stamping on these but it did take a bit of *thinking* to figure out how to make it 3-d. The die is just the outside star and then the inside star. So, I ended up making 2 of each PER ornament. I have nylon thread in between the smaller star pieces and have it hanging from the bigger one. All glittered first, of course!

Details: Sizzix Starburst Die, Martha Stewart Glitter, 2 way glue, SU! Sheer Ribbon (wide organdy)

   

Happy Tuesday! Gotta get some grocery shopping done here. What are you doing today?

Oh boy! Oh boy! Just 2 more sleeps...

Something different...

I finally got around to inking up some of my new stamps. I got this CHF stamp and corresponding word set to make some masculine cards to keep on hand. I tried a couple of different color combos and layouts. It got progressively better (in my mind at least).

This one with the red words is my favorite. Do you like any of them? I think the first one is too light.

Anyway, I *think* my family had a car like this before I was born ;) but I remember seeing pictures of it.

Happy Labor Day!