SS Transparent challenge

Good evening,

I'm back entering another challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Blog.  I have to say since I've started paper crafting more and more I can't believe I took such a long break.  I'm so glad that I got back into the swing of things.

This week's challenge is called "I can see clearly now" and the take is anything transparent, vellum etc.  I knew right away that I wanted to create something to fit this theme.  Now remember, I save EVERYTHING.  Seriously, it's baaaddd, but clearly I have exactly what I needed for this challenge.  I started with

the packaging from a cricut cartridge and cut it down to size 

then I embossed it with my cuttlebug Stars folder 

Perfect embossing. 

I did want some of the stars to pop, so I masked them off 

and using my Stazon ink I inked direct from pad to star. 

I cut out a star with my cricut and inked around it and the saying 

"You are a Star" 

I laid the "transparency" on to the card and created a pleated ribbon to make it look like a curtain. 

Easy, easy, easy and oh so much fun!

I hope you've enjoyed my quick card and hope to see you again real soon.  

Remember, if you are looking for a challenge, the Simon Says Stamp Blog is a great blog to participate in.

As always, have a great day and God Bless!

Mini challenge at ABAC

Good afternoon

I saw that Anything But a Card had a mini challenge up today and I couldn't wait to play along.  Today's challenge is using 2 or more stencils.  I, however, do not own any stencils.  Weird actually since I seem to have everything else.  I guess I take that back I do own a couple brass stencils, but really have never used them.  I decided today was the day, since I'm trying to branch out a bit again.

I wondered what would happen if I incorporated my stencil and my Amazing Casting Resin.  You do know how I love to experiment.  So off to the races we go...

I spread out some of my resin onto baker's paper.  I do not own one of those fancy Teflon sheets, but this works just as well.  

Now, normally this resin sets up within 5 to 10 minutes, but when you 

spread it out like this it takes a bit longer.  Therefore, I was able to 

prepare my brass stencil with petroleum jelly (vaseline).  I coated both

sides of the stencil because I had no idea what would happen  

you can tell when your resin starts setting up, because it starts to turn milky.  

When I saw it do that I laid my stencil directly into the resin and pushed it in. 

Once the resin had set for a bit I pulled my stencil up and some of it came up with the stencil,

but overall I am pretty happy with the outcome. 

Here is my resin piece.  

See how pliable it still is? 

I just trimmed off around that main piece with my scissors.  

Before the resin really has time to set up, scissors work fabulously. 

Then using some alcohol inks, I started working on painting my piece.

Alcohol inks take very well to the resin.

I love the look of this...very antique like.

Now, this challenge calls for 2 or more stencils,

but like I said, I don't own any "normal" stencils.

I decided to create my own for some etching.

I cut this flourish out with my cricut on some vinyl scrap. 

and attached it to my bottle.

it really doesn't have to be perfect as long as you get the pieces

stuck down that matter the most and be careful that you get it all stuck down.

Sometimes the etching cream will "seep" into tiny crevices.

and now for some etching.  I haven't used my etching cream in forever

and wasn't sure it was still good before even starting this project. 

Paint your etching cream fairly thick onto your vinyl and let it sit for about 10 minutes 

I usually scrape the rest right back into my bottle.  I'm frugal like that

and then run it under warm water and pull your vinyl off.  Now, you won't

be able to reuse that particular piece of vinyl. 

but the etching is wonderful.  I guess my etching cream was still good!

I applied some E6000 to my resin piece and centered it under

the flourish etching.

Then I "taped" it down with some bingo tape (like painters tape) to keep it in place. 

and now I have a mini wine bottle turned into a beautiful vase.

I glued some pink ribbon around the top of the bottle and attached a brad.

Adding some pink flowers completes it.

I absolutely love how this turned out. 

Now I may not have use traditional stencils for this project,

but sometimes you just have to come up with your own when 

you don't have the right stuff.
Experimenting is good!

I hope you've enjoyed my little project today and I can't wait 

to see what the next challenge will be over at ABAC.

As always, have a great day and God Bless.

Wall Hanging - Anything But a Card challenge #33

Good morning,

I have been so busy creating lately and have just had an awesome time doing it.  I decided to take on a few more challenges and today I am going to be adding my creation over at Anything But a Card Challenge 33: Sparkle.  I really need to get back into doing some scrapbooking and I think this will be the perfect avenue for me to pursue.  While I did not make a scrapbook layout per say this time around, I did do a layout wall hanging.

I started with some plain beer coasters and  I covered the first coaster with glittered card stock in purple.  I am seriously trying to use up as many scraps as I can so I have no idea where this paper comes from.  I cut "It's a Girl" from scraps with my cricut.  Then I added some fake flowers with some rhinestones and of course some butterflies.  Each of my grandbabies have an animal associated with their name and Alexis is butterflies.  You will be seeing more of my grandbabies and their "animal" personalities in the future.  The butterflies are made with my Amazing Crafting Products.  When I pour my molds I usually create multiples of them and I happened to have 4 butterflies; love it when I have the perfect embellishment on hand.  I painted them with Terri Sproul Mixers by Sakura.  Isn't that just the sweetest sleeping picture?

The second coaster was also covered with pink glittered cardstock paper.  I printed her date of birth, weight and length from my computer on some scraps and tore the edges and layered it.  Again the same fake flowers with some more rhinestone embellishments and I also made 2 pins with her name.  The big butterfly was also created with my ACP and you can see here how I did it originally.  I added some glitter to the butterfly for more "sparkle" affect.

The third coaster was covered with another purple glitter card stock.  The same fake flowers, another butterfly and I cut a "dress" trying to mimic her outfit in the picture.

Before adding paper to the back of the coaster I added "ribbon" to hold them all together.

Now for the most "sparkly" part.  I created the "hanger" for this lovely wall hanging.  I had a picture frame that broke and it had this awesome metal hanger.  I thought I could probably mimic the hanger by molding and casting it and manipulating it however I wanted.

Here is a step by step tutorial on how I did this:

here is my hanger molding with Amazing Crafting Resin mixed with Alumilite Metallic Silver. 

Before the hanger was completely cured I demolded it and while it was still plyable I 

taped it down to create the shape that would fit my coaster and let it cure the rest of the way. 

Then I painted it with some pink acrylic paint and while the paint was drying I sprinkled some glitter all over it for that "sparkle" affect I was going for. 

Once that was completely dry I hot glued it to the back of my coaster.  

The backside isn't the prettiest, but who is gonna see that?

and now I finally have Alexis' birth layout done! 

Very SPARKLY for this "sparkly" little girl! 

It's pretty sad that she just turned 2 and this is one of the first things I've done of her.  

Things are about to change!  

Stay tuned because I may be sharing some exciting news pretty soon!

I hope I've inspired you with this out of the "scrapbook" layout and can't wait to hear what you think.  

Leave me a comment and let me know if I've inspired you to do a layout for a non scrapbook.

Lucky "U" 7 Simon Says challenge

Good morning,


I'm here today to show you a card I made for the challenge over at Simon Says.  The Monday challenge was "Lucky".  Since Monday was St. Patty's Day they thought that would be an appropriate challenge.  I say "yes"!

I started with a green background and distressed it a wee bit with some black ink directly to paper.  Normally I like to make everything even.  Layering my paper directly in the middle, nothing off balanced but I decided to get a little funky and go a wee bit off balanced.  Not that I was off balanced on Monday, LOL!

I knew I wanted to use the clover (mold) that I created with from my "pink ladies" necklace that I created.  I used up all my clover charms and luckily I created a mold so I can duplicate that lovely clover over and over and over again.  When you create a mold with Amazing Crafting Products Mold Putty you will never have to buy another embellishment.

Here are the ribbons I made for the St. Patty's Day Parade and you can read all about how I made these here.

Here is my mold 

and here is my finished resin poured clover painted with two shades of acrylic paint and highlighted with some black ink. I also did NOT pour my clover to it's entirety so that it isn't as bulky as the original.  

 I then glued it to a "lucky" coin I found on the parade route.  

Yes, I will pick up anything interesting on the street.   

I had a few of the horseshoes that I created with Amazing Casting Resin and Alumilite silver metallic powder  on hand and you can see my original post here.  When I am pouring molds I will usually pour a few at a time so that I have embellishments on hand at all times. 

Just a couple of days ago I received my package from Amazing Crafting Products (since I'm on their design team) and recently they have partnered up with MakeLure.com.  

In my box I found 10 shades of these fabulous colors of Alumidust.

I didn't really know how to use them, but I figured I'd give it a try.  I mixed a bit of the lite green with some hairspray (later I found out they already have a binder in them so water will work just fine) and created a mist to spray on my horseshoe.  LOVE the sparkly shine!!!  I added a few green rhinestones and my lucky horseshoe was ready in about 10 minutes from casting to finished product.

I attached everything to my card front after "painting" a bit of the green acrylic paints to my accent piece.  Used some rubons of 7 and miscellaneous bursts.  I even "spilled" some left over resin onto my accent cardstock and highlighted it with some rubons, ink and more of the Alumidust mist I created.  

I had also painted my rhinestone with the acrylic paints and then just before they were completely dry I "wiped" some of the color off.  LOVE it!!! 

What I love so much about this card is that my embellishments were made with the Amazing Crafting Products and are so lightweight.  Plus, you can also make them "less bulky" by not pouring your mold to it's entire depth.

I hope you've enjoyed my card for the SimonSays Monday challenge 

and look forward to seeing you all soon again.  

Head over to ACP to grab your own mold putty and create any embellishment for a fraction of the cost; plus, right now they are offering a 20% off coupon.  

Use this COUPON to shop at the Amazing Mold Putty

website HERE and receive 20% OFF your purchase.

Please use coupon code " shamrock " {no quotations}.

Coupon expires March 31, 2014.

As always, have a great day and God Bless.

St. Patty/Pink Ladies Parade 2014

Top of the morning to you!

hahaha, I couldn't resist that since this post is all about St. Patty's Day.  Oh yeah, and of course Pink Ladies and Amazing Crafting Products.  Let me give you a little background of why this is so special to me.  I have been participating in a dart league designed especially as a fund raiser for Breast Cancer.  A bunch of ladies and MEN got together and formed a league where all our proceeds go to help out local people with expenses and such in fighting breast cancer.  We've raised a lot of money in the year that we've been doing this and again, all the money we raise stays local.  I love that!

Last year the league formed shortly before St. Patty's day and we participated in the St. Patty's Day Parade.  I was on the Sakura and Creative Paperclay design team at the time and I created "Pink Ribbon dart pins".  You can see the original post here.  They were a huge hit.  I sold over 25 of them and still have people asking me about them to this day.  I donated 75% of all the money to our benefit at the end of the dart season.  It felt really good to hand a check over knowing it was going to a great cause and staying LOCAL.  This year again I will be participating in the St. Patty's Day parade and wanted to make something different.  I did not go overboard and make a lot of these as they are kinda just meant for the one day, but you never know.  Some of the ladies might want one...
Here are a couple of pictures of us last year.


This is the banner of the bar that I threw out of last year and our motto "Stick it to Cancer".  The bar owner and I were a team.

This is Jane and I at her bar after one of the matches.            

A picture of our float as we are getting ready to head out to the parade route.  We even had a dartboard on our float.  It was so much fun to participate in such a great event.

This year I am throwing out of a different bar and I am also throwing with my daughter.  This will be the first time we have been on the same team.  I'm pretty excited about that.

SO back to my original post.  Again, I decided to do something different and this is how it went.

I started out with one of the Creative Paperclay ribbons I had made and created a mold of it with my Amazing Mold Putty.

then I used the  Rose Pearl Terri Sproul Mixers with the Amazing Casting Resin and made sure I mixed them up very well.  Always put your color with your Part A and mix that up well before adding your Part B

then I poured my mold(s)

I always seem to make too much so therefore I keep molds on hand that I might need to pour :)

Once the mold cured  it came out like this

Love the color!

I also added a bail while the mold was curing and it seeped to the bottom, but no doubt I could fix this  

Then I used my Martha Stewart alphabets to stamp onto my ribbon which works so very well with StazOn

I used a plastic clover charm (which I no doubt bought last year on clearance after St. Patty's day) to figure out my placement and stamped away.  Not perfect but I'm very happy with how it came out. 

I glued the clovers to the center and added a rhinestone and a pink dart over the top where the bail showed through attached them to some beads and there you have it.  My homemade St. Patty's Pink Ladies beads for my daughter and myself.  I do believe I am ready for the 2nd Annual St. Patty's Day Pink Ladies parade!

What do you think?  

I hope you've enjoyed my tutorial today and as always have a great day and God Bless!