Another Trip around the World

After I finished the Christmas Trip around the World, I was pumped up to quilt, so I pulled out some material I purchased at a local quilitng store, and went to work.  I love the colors, and this pattern is so easy, it was together before I knew it, so I went to town with my Mother in law and visited the quilting store to purchase additional fabrics for the borders.  I had some of the material for the back, but not quite enough, so I pieced a long strip from the scraps, I believe I have used all the left over material, that hardly ever happens!  I had just received a quilitng magazine and they showed the backs being pieced, so I thought what the heck!  Now I just need to get them quilted.....

Tulips, My Favorite!

I have a group of friends who annually make a calendar, we each pick a month, or maybe two months, we each make 12 pages all the same for that particular month, we send them to one of the ladies, who collects all of the pages, and binds them into a calendar, then sends us the finished project.  It is a great little calendar to have on my desk.  Each month is different, and it is fun to get them back.  This card was done with some left over Tulips, my month was April, and the tulip stamp just jumped off the rack!  I used 4 tulips per page, and I colored each one with colored pencils, in a different color, and I tried to be creative and tried to shade them, they turned out pretty good.

Trip around the world/Christmas

I have had the material for this quilt for some time now, I cut the strips according to Eleanor Burns, Trip Around the World, then I stopped and put it all away, away for a long time.  After I finished my King Sized quilt, I pulled this one out and I have been working on it at craft night at church for the past few months.  I pulled it out yesterday and finished it, and I do like it.  On the selvage edge of one of the pieces of material it gave a copyright date of 1991.  That means that the material is as old as my daughter!  So to say I have had the material for while would be an understatement!  I had a large piece of one of the materials and I assumed it was large enough for the back, however, I am incorrect so I will need to visit a quilting store to purchase enough of something 'christmas-ie' for the back.  It is lap-sized and I think it is a great size for one person.  I checked through my fabric stash, and I have other fabrics, a group of pink, purple and green, would be nice for a little girl, and I have bright colors that I purchased on the clearance racks.  So maybe I will get them out and cut them into strips as this design is nice looking and Eleanor Burns makes it easy to put it together.

Birthday card for Cory

Our friend Cory turned 50 this year, so I needed a 'man' card, of course all of mine are flowers, hearts, pastel colors etc.  So I sat down and made this card for him.  I like this stained glass stamp, I have several, but this one is the most manly of them.  I took this photo without the flash, so it is yellow, the colors were much better on the original.

No crafting lately

 We spent 4 days in Lincoln city at a rented house right on the beach with our good friends from California, Cory and Lisa and their children.  We had a great time and the weather was wonderful, wonderful by any standard, but especially by Oregon Coast standards, we had wonderful sunsets each evening.  Cory and Lisa and family also stayed with us the next week, they just left on Friday the 22nd and our house is so lonely and quiet, we already miss them.  It was awesome to spend time with them, and we are already looking forward to their next visit.

Now with the house so quiet I really need to get to work on Crafts, I did not do a stamping class this month, and I really miss getting together with the gals and crafting and creating.

Mitford Tea and Quilt Show October 9th 2010

Entryway to the  Tea Room aka Fireside Room



Quilts lined both sides



These were dated circa 1920





This is a quilt that my Mom had, but I don't know who made it.




This is a quilt top draped accross the chair is one that Larry's Grandma, Mable Brumley made.





Jacket made by a friend of my moms, the back is bargello.



At Bethel Church in Chehalis, we had a Mitford Tea and Quilt Show.  Mitford is a town created by author Jan Karon, she has many books, and even created a cookbook based on the food mentioned in her books.  The church asked for quilts to be brought in for display, and boy oh boy were they varied, and beautiful.  I just love quilts and it was awesome to see some very old ones, dated to 1920 and some very new ones, it was awesome.  The church borrowed teacups and saucers, so at each table no two cups were the same, they also borrowed teapots and again no two were the same.  We had wonderful food, little finger food type of sandwiches and sweets.  We also had 3 of Esther's Orange Marmalade Cakes to enjoy.  Larry's Mom Doris prepared 2 of the 3 cakes, very good.   It was an awesome day. 

In the Wild

This is one of my favorite sets, In the Wild from Stampin'Up!  I have used it for childrens cards, masculine cards, as well as feminine cards. No need to color the images, just stamp with the stamp pad of your choice.

Stampin' Up! Bird Punch

Yesterday I played around with Billie's Stampin' Up! bird punch, and I used the wing piece to make these tulips,  I thought that using 2 colors of cardstok made them more interesting.  I had a old Stampin' Up! stamp set which had the stem and leaves.  Tthe Welcome to my garden was an unmounted stamp and I acquired at a stamp convention.

Then I used a different set of stems and leaves to create the second card.  I like them both, and both are very easy. 

Also creating a 2nd use of the bird punch.  I also like the branch/leaves that this punch does so I also punched out different colored cardstock so I can use them with the Birds or Owls.  Thansk Billie for sharing your punches with me!

Pat's scrapbook continued

 Every 2 years, my employer takes all of his employees on a Retreat.  We have visited Bend Oregon, Victoria Canada and this past September we went to Las Vegas.  We arrived on Thursday afternoon, and we returned to the Pacific Northwest on Sunday.  We had a great time, the weather was very hot, so everyone (almost everyone) enjoyed the heat, we stayed at the Monte Carlo and they had a great pool area where many of my co-workers hung out. I made these pages to highlight the various sites in Las Vegas,  M&M World was right accross the street from our hotel, Vegas Showgirls the ultimate icon of Vegas, the Humpty Dumpty was at the Venetian.  My husband and I were able to see a show, the Blue Man Group and that was an awesome evening.  The tortise sculpture was at the airport, "The New York Skyline" is the outside of New York, New York which was next door to the Monte Carlo,  the Eifle tower marked the Paris Casino/Hotel, which had lovely bathroom sinks, they were beautifully decorated with flowers and such.  One of the evenings, we took the city bus to the downtown area and the neon signed were beautiful, very much what I think of when I think Las Vegas. 

A nice place to visit, however I am glad that we no longer live in an area that gets so hot, plus the people were EVERYWHERE, the cars were crazy.   People standing on the corners flipping cards, like baseball cards, except these are advertising the services of Ladies in various degrees of undress.  People take them, see what they are then drop them to the ground, they are just everywhere. 

It was good to get home.

Owl Punch

 I borrowed Billies Stampin' Up! owl punch to use on my scrapbook for Pat, so of course I had to punch out multiple owls and today I glued them together, they are so darn cute, a little hard to work with being such small pieces, but I found a pair of tweezers is required along with a 'Quick Glue Pen' which is actually like a ball point pen, so the glue can be used very accurately.  Today I found someone who added eyelids to the owl and it makes them look 'sleepy' so some are wide eyed and some are sleepy eyed.  Very cute.

I put a card together, using Pixie Pink cardstock for the base, and some background paper for a little strip.  The branch/leaves is from the Stampin' Up! bird punch, also borrowed from Billie. the corner design is a Close to my Heart stamp, like an old one when they were called DOTS, the words are from Great Impressions.  Thanks Billie for letting me borrow the punches!

Next two pages in Pat's book

 I was trying to include photos of people who worked with Pat and we  had a box of photos at the office, of course they were not marked with names, the event was marked on the back with the date, but I am sure that whoever put them  in the box assumed everyone would 'know' who was in the photos.  Not so!  I had to ask several co-workers to help me identify the photos.  After I scanned these pages in I went back and printed little tags that I cut out and mounted on cardstock near each photo so each person is now identified properly.  The colors on these pages are also certainly celery from Stampin' Up, I used a jumbo wheel for the floral background.  I used Billies Sizzex letters to create the title, which was time consuming, had to punch each letter in black, then in the certainly celery, but do like the effect.

Scrapbook for Pat

This was the first page of the book, I thought it was appropriate to use her photo to begin the book,  I was keeping the pages on the simple side, and I happened to have the chocolate chip shape already punched and her name fit perfectly, well how much space do you need for "Pat"?  I borrowed Billies Stampin' Up! bird punch, it really is cute and maybe I do need to buy it for  myself.  the page is certainly celery from Stampin' Up! the punches are also from Stampin' Up!

Monday 9-27-10

I like this color combination, the blue with the green, and I found this ribbon at Michaels most likely on the $1 bin, as I hate to spend too much money on accessories.  Most of my words 'go with' flower stamps.  This is a stamp set that my friend has and I love to use it, easy to color and it looks great! I imagine the green was Green Galore from Stamping Up! as that is, one of my favorite colors and I tend to pick that first, then pick the other accessories and colors to go with it!

Masculine Card

Masculine cards are so hard for me to design as I much prefer flowers and butterflies, but I found this stamp at a stamp convention and I really like it.  I have made the guitar various colors but I do seem to like it cut out then used as a layer with something behind it.  Of course I had to use ribbon and eyelets, what card would be complete without those items?

New Blog first post

I have enjoyed browsing through other peoples blogs, and thought that maybe I should start one of my own, so here I am!  I plan on talking about my crafting endeavors, whether they are are paper arts, card making, rubber stamping or scrapbooking.  I have also enjoyed many other crafts in the past, including crochet, knitting, quilting, sewing, beading, stained glass making.  I enjoy creating things and I do not like to sit and just have idle hands.  I hope to share some of my crafting projects with you through photos.