Brushos!

Finally a little blog post.  Forgive the camera quality, I'm learning to blog with my cheapo Acer tablet.  Still don't know why some devices tilt the picture orientation, no matter what direction I'm holding the camera, grrr!

Here is A little "brusho" backgrounds play on watercolor paper and CTMH stamp set spring critter #C1638, stamped with black memento ink.  I used a paintbrush with water to remove some of the ink and smooth it out on the stamped images.  Brusho is highly pigmented powder that can be mixed with water, alcohol, and various adhesive mediums.  When mixed with water or alcohol it is not permanent unless fixative of some sort is used.  The bottom three were sprinkled with dry Brusho power then spritzed gently with water.  On the top two the paper was wet first, then sprinkled with powder brusho then wet a little more to spread the colour.
Aren't they pretty?  I can't wait for spring!

Busy Book aka Quiet Book aka Toddler interactive book

Long title, huge 16 page project!  We've been through 8 "bugs" since January so blogging went by the wayside.  I've been enjoying taking a detour from paper crafting to create a book for my toddler boy who is now 28 months.  Little hands will keep themselves busy, or we can guide them with interesting things.  Screens and electronics are nice, but they are only two dimensional.  How does anyone learn to manipulate their THREE dimensional environment without engaging with it?  Plus toddlers are major league growing and learning, even though their communication can't always keep up. 

So, last year I mined Pintrest and Google images and drove my family crazy planning 3 books.  All of March 2015 I've been driving everyone crazy as I try not to drive myself crazy building this one book.  I've had so much fun figuring out details and making sure it will grow with my boy for awhile.  I've also been researching "free motion sewing", basically doodle sewing by machine on Youtube. A new friend gave me her extra free motion sewing foot to try.  That lit a fire under my motivation and made it even more fun, and bonus it sped up the sewing.  Here are some process pictures to show the sheer mess I work with.  Trust me, I know what I'm doing and that works for me, LOL!  I think I take after my Dad's creative process, he would make a huge mess as he worked too.

organized piles of all my flotsam & jetsam donated and thrifted stuff

classic, sewing at the kitchen table complete with makeshift ironing board on a thick piece of felt fabric

free motion sewing in action

close up of altered free motion foot, zig zag stitch in use

Leah Day on Youtube shows exactly how to alter a generic free motion sewing foot to make this work.  The foot "hopping" she mentions wasn't a concern for my machine so I only altered the foot from closed (oval) to open (C) shape.  I recommend her videos if you are interested in learning free motion sewing.

Basically I checked my sewing tension, put on the free motion foot, left the feed dogs up, switched my stitch length to ZERO and switched from zig zag to straight stitch as needed, foot down of course.

After 7+ heavy days of sewing, many evenings of handwork details, I finished this book last night.  I will show more posts over the next few days since it is going to be an Easter gift to my little boy.  I'm so excited to see him enjoy it!  Happy Easter and Happy Spring everyone!!!

Valentines day cards

 Boomer doesn't care if it's Friday the 13th.  He is loving his little red fortune cookie cat nip toy. He wants everyone to know, he loves you too. 

These are cards I made using the CTMH Heartstrings workshop on the go card kit.  I did all the cutting out in about 40 minutes, assembly in 2 hours. 

 The stamp set is nicely versatile so I can mix the stamped sentiments any which way and still have it turn out nicely.

 I just gave them away at a scrapbooking weekend with friends last weekend.  And of course, I varied it up the placement of pieces, just because I can.  I think the last picture really shows
that no matter what arrangement, they look pretty good.

Happy Valentines Day!  (in advance)

Artfully Sent Robot Birthday cards

Don't you just love my ghetto watermark?  I'm so pleased I started remembering to do that, LOL  Another card created with Artfully Sent CTMH Cricut cartrige, and unknown papers, possibly Recollections brand.  Just plain cut, it looks okay, but needs brightening.  The orange and red wasn't doing it for me.

Sorry, another sideways picture, but its actually in my favour for once.  I used my pencil trace and layer in holographic glitter tape from the dollar store for the sentiment.  I decided I wanted the outline of the robot to stand out a bit better.  So, I traced it with a black marker, maybe sharpie I forget, and slipped and wrecked the card.  So I just kept going and doodled all over, added some "punchies" for decoration like stars and called it done.

What do you think?  Was it saved or wrecked?

Artfully Sent I'm crazy card

Another Artfully Sent CTMH Cricut card, cut at the suggested 7" size, unknown paper brand.

This shows how I lightly penciled through the cutout words.  I then covered my pencil lines with glitter tape from the dollar store.  Because it will be covered by the overlay, the silver really pretties it up compared to the first picture.  I'm all about easy tips, and this is a game changer for overlay cards in my opinion!  I think this took all of 25 minutes to create?  I can spend longer hunting for cards in the store by the time I've loaded up, parked, searched it out, stood in line and returned home to then find postage.  Again, this was all done with my low tech old Cricut Expression machine.

Thanks for looking, I hope you have a fabulous day!

Artfully Sent Happy Birthday card

30 minute card made using CTMH Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge, sized 7", unknown brand papers, CTMH dots embossing folder, and stickles glitter glue.  The "Its time to celebrate" stamp is included with the Cricut cartridge.

I've been purposely using non CTMH papers, because I seem to have a bunch in my stash, and mixing with CTMH products.  I've found that all CTMH products, including inks and papers, really cooperate nicely with other brands.  To me that is the hallmark of a good company practice.  I'm still an independent CTMH consultant, if you need goodies or just want to look at pretty things have a look at my online business address:  http://karenrichardson.ctmh.com/ 
Thanks for stopping by!

Artfully Sent Congrats card

Quick card, about 30 minutes, made using unknown papers, and the CTMH Artfully Sent Cricut cartridge.  I backed the "congrats" with silver glitter paper and coloured it with Sharpie markers.  The green starburst behind it was silver, recoloured green with Sharpie marker.  The envelope sized automatically with the automatic settings set at 7".   I made this for a my son's friend who's graduating high school early because he has enough credits.  Every Mom knows that's a success!

Sorry I'm still struggling with some pictures coming out sideways with blogger.  I have no technical fix skills to stop it, so I will continue to apologize each time it happens.

Winter layout

Just a quick post to show you my Artbooking cricut cartridge scrapbook layout.  I created this using CTMH chevron resist paper for the background (base) papers, and some oddball Recollections brand papers for the blue pieces.  I made this quite awhile ago just using the cartridge, handbook and my Cricut Expression machine.  I know it was quick and easy, maybe 20 minutes to create.  Now I've got to find the pictures I have set aside for it!  Thanks for looking!

Punchies

Here is the post showing my Mantle snowflakes, and the Christmas explosion that goes with it, and my poor old dog wondering what happened.  Using my Cricut Expression I made huge snowflakes from white paper, and holographic dollar store papers to hang above the mantle for the winter season.  They really were pretty because they were so simple.  I just came across the "waste paper" in my stash.  Funny the things that are squirreled away that turn up.  My inner crow was rejoicing, mmmmm, shiny!  Now, what to do with it?

An old tip is to punch scraps into shapes so the last bits truly are trash.  I follow Lindsey, "The Frugal Crafter" on YouTube, and she recently made a video diy-paper-sequins-without-a-fancy-die".  I wanted to try.  A friend gave me her hole punch and it was handy so I tried it.  I soon gave up poking holes into them, it was too time intensive for not much difference on such busy paper. 

Working on fun foam with a lowly click pen to push into the centre of each punchie yielded perfect sequin like cups.  So I got brave and dug out a little bitty dollar store flower punch, just as cute if not cuter.  The upper half of each picture shows them pen poked, the bottom half shows them flat.  I didn't bother poking them all, many remained flat.

So I punched,

and punched, and punched, and punched...  Look how they'd make cool eyes!

Then I thought, no need to mess around with glue.  Just stick them to 3/18" glue dots.  Except at first I didn't.  At first I messed around with Liquid glass, bubbles of it, just waiting, begging for cat intervention.  Thankfully they were not investigated by any cat people and the experiment progressed.  I put a dot of liquid glass on a few, others got completely covered with it.  When they were dry, they looked remarkably like pre-made glitter products, like these glitter gems, that are faceted, but not the same since my knock offs are smooth bubbles.

When will I learn, natural daylight isn't quite enough.  Sorry about the blueish hue, I promise that it was a bright and sunny day when I photographed these.

So I got smarter and put the punchies on the glue dots, THEN put the liquid glass on them in small and large bubbles.  Aren't they pretty?  The best part is, I have lots to play with, and they cost me almost nothing, and I gained 2 hours playing around in my craft room. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Fourth Annual Canadian Cricut Circle Swarm Challenge #3

Challenge #3  by BarbPoll

"My challenge is to use your Cricut machine to create 6 treat boxes of some sort to give to elderly people in your neighborhood this Halloween."

I have no idea how to watermark pictures, so I've been busy doing it the old fashioned way, right with the picture.  This was fun to make.  I used #B1453 Frightfully Fun stamp set, black memento ink, Recollections brand paper, Mayarts.com thread-web-lace, or that's what I'm calling it.  The bags are cut at 4" from Artiste CTMH Cricut cartridge, page 79, button 49 Feature key "3D Objects."  The "repeat last" button is really useful for this type of project.

I arranged the clear acrylic CTMH stamps on the paper how I wanted, then stuck the stamp block to the whole works.

I curved "Happy Hauntings"to complement the scalloped edge on one side of the block, and "trick or treat" on the other side of the block to stamp the bottom flap. This makes it an easy assembly line.

 Aren't they pretty? I was watching the time, and from start to finish, this project was done in 1.5 hours.  I raced the machine, scoring one as the cricut expression machine cut another, and I couldn't win.  But I was close!  Scoring with a ruler and bone folder or stylus makes the folding so much simpler.  These only needed two strips of Sookwang adhesive tape to assemble them.  That tape is neat, no scissors required, just tear what is needed.

They are loaded with candy, ready for my pharmacist friend to give away to customers needing pretty happiness.  I will be taking the whole works to them tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it.

I challenge you to try these challenges yourself.  Or create anything you like, just give the end result away.  We are so fortunate to be able to create the things we do, sharing it makes the world a better place.  Happy belated Thanksgiving!  

AND, Happy Halloween!!!

Fourth Annual Canadian Cricut Circle Swarm Challenge #2

Challenge #2  by Hrvatica

"Very simple challenge here. Make a fall themed tag or incorporate a tag in a fall themed card, scrapbook layout or other project. Fall themed can include Halloween, Thanksgiving or even just the use a fall colour palette."

My entries are kind of funny because of the size difference.  I had an idea, rushed through it and they're still nice, simple tags.  Using Artiste CTMH Cricut cartridge, page 32, button 2 I cut 2 tags from Recollections paper; the yellow at 7", the red at 6.75".  I originally thought to layer them but changed my mind half way.  I chose this size to fit the not available stamp of the month #S1309 "Poster Tidings".  They were seriously lacking at that point.  So I used another not available SOTM #S1209 "Fall Favorites."  I think I used Cocoa Ink.   I used some MayArts.com thread-web-lace, and some bakers twine to pretty them up a bit.  I look at these pictures and I could've coloured them, but I doubt I will get back to do any more to them now.

Using Recollections brand paper and the Artiste CTMH Cricut cartridge, page 79, button 49 at 4" I cut 6 tags. These are made using the not available SOTM #S1209 "Fall Favorites" stamp set, stamped in Memento Tuxedo black ink, and coloured with CTMH Watercolour pencils, and smoothed the colour with a Blending pen.  They are topped with Bakers Twine from "The Twinery" from my stash.

 Again I am giving these to my local pharmacist to give away to people who would love something pretty.  They've got a good bag of goodies coming!

Fourth Annual Canadian Cricut Circle Swarm Challenge #1

On the Canadian Chat in the Cricut Circle messageboard we do an online "swarm" where people that offer prizes can issue challenges to win their prizes.  Its a lot of fun to see what everyone creates.  Unfortunately this is probably the least active year since its begun.  Fortunately, I've found some time and done all 3 challenges!  As always, click on any picture to enlarge details if you like.

Challenge #1: 
My challenge has 3 parts. As everyone knows from previous swarms, we are soooooooooo (not) very strict about our rules, LOL! Just play along, have fun, cross enter your entries in other things if it suits you. Just show us what you make to count as an entry.

I challenge you to fulfill your entry with all 3 components.
A. Create 6 cards: all the same or all different, any size, any theme, but they must be functional cards, not tags or postcards.

B Stamp an image on each card and Colour it however you desire: colour all or part, colour with chalk, colour with ink, colour with markers, colour with pencil-crayons, colour with water-colour... You get the idea. You could even go crazy, colour the embellishments, colour the paper, have fun! BUT, at least one of the 6 cards must be Halloween themed, interpret as you like with colour, season, image, etc...

C. Post a picture of your creations, and then give them away, with envelopes to fit. Give them to a nursing home, an elderly neighbor, a charity group, a shelter program, it's your choice where, just give them away and let us know how that worked out for you. This is a way of celebrating being thankful for our creativity, and the Thanksgiving portion of this season's challenge.

 This is the Blooming heart Stamp #M1045 stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink, coloured with ShinHan twin touch alcohol markers, cut on white daisy cardstock to make 3 inch note cards.  With black pen I hand doodled a rustic outline.  The image is matted on retired CTMH paper.  I've seen these done on youtube and a few blogs and had to try it.  It's a great way to play around with the new markers.

The next 6 cards are made using the "Better with a Friend" #D1608 page 9 Hostess rewards, of the 2014-15 CTMH Idea book.  It (and 2 other stamp sets) came with my new ShinHan markers as a consultant perk.  Images are stamped using Memento Tuxedo black ink, and coloured with those fancy new markers.  The sentiments are stamped from the "Artfully Sent" cartridge.  Yes, I scraped together some cash and got my hands on it, more on that later!  Some of these cards are edged in CTMH Washi Tape.  That's fancy Japanese trend speak for patterned paper tape that is all the rage right now.  Really great value with CTMH, the rolls are not stingy!  A few of the cards are grounded using Bakers Twine, both CTMH metalic, or from "the Twinery" company which I won a few years ago.

 Honestly, I don't know why these are sideways.  If anyone out there in cyberspace can help me figure it out simply and easily, I'd appreciate it.  The silly thing is that I took all the pictures in the same orientation, baffles me why blogger turned some but not all.

 The one above uses remnants from my "Pathfinding Cardmaking Kit."  I doubled it and made 30 cards, and still have scraps to make more cards! 

 The green blocks pattern paper is from my stash, unknown manufacturer.  I love how it complements her skin tone, LOL!

Here is all 6 cards, thankfully not cockeyed!  I will be giving these cards to my pharmacist and his wife to give away to their customers.  Together they run a locally owned business called Tabour Pharmacy.  They are really kind, caring, generous people.  They will know just who will need a little something pretty to share happiness with.