Long time, no updates!

Life has been crazy busy for me. Anyone who follows my main blog knows how crazy it's been. But, I really want to get back into the swing of crafting. I've made some changes in my "stuff" and I'm ready to get going. I made a sweet hedgehog card for a friend who has been bedridden for years (she was in a terrible car accident several years ago and has been in declining health since then). I hope she likes it.

Once I get some cards made, I'll be back into posting them. Stay tuned!

New Christmas card idea

I am so NOT an artist. I can see things in my head but have never really been able to figure out how to get them out of my head and onto paper. That was before the Cricut machine came along... Thank God there are artists out there who have seen what I want to create and have done the hard part.

I decided I wanted to do a diorama type of card and knew that it would have to be a pretty big card to encompass everything that I wanted to put on it. I started last night and worked for hours - and I do mean HOURS. I didn't go to be until 2:30 AM (Ron is out of town) and got up at 8:45 this morning and hit it again. I'm still not finished but I've been writing down what cartridges I'm using and what sizes I've made my cuts. I've had several failed sizes so writing them down will help me when I make more. I will make more, if only for my own grandkids and a few other kids I know. To sell, this would be a $7.50 card (easily, and probably worth $10 in time and effort).

The outside (not finished yet)...
Can't decide exactly what I want to do here. I may leave this one as is and experiment with adding a night sky for the next one. We'll see...

The inside, also not completed. I plan on adding a table with cookies/milk for Santa, some presents under the tree, and a pet curled up by the fireplace. The card base is made with a 12 x 12 piece of white cardstock, cut in half. Then, each piece was scored at 6 inches. I glued the right side of one to the left side of the other to make a three-panel card. The "wall paper" is done with double-sided cardstock (12 x 12). The middle and right is made of two 6 x 3 pieces and the left side is two 3 x 3 pieces. The chair rail is cream ribbon.

So far, the cartridges I have used are Christmas Cheer and Winter Frolic. Not sure what other cartridges I'll be using to get the cookies/milk, table, and pet.

I still need to add the Christmas sentiment and maybe a few "decorations" on the walls.

I hope you like it.

Thank You Cards

I was sitting at my workstation this morning trying and trying to get the lettering exactly perfect on my cards. They're a special order and I just want to make sure that everything I make to give away or sell is as perfect as I possibly can. It suddenly hit me that I was fighting a losing battle. God doesn't expect perfection in us, so what business do I have in expecting perfection in myself? God wants us to do our very best, which is what I always do. But, there is no perfection in this human flesh.

In order to remind myself to expect no more of myself than God, my cards will always have some sort of imperfection in them. They won't be perfect. Just like me.

My pictures aren't perfect either. They were taken with my cell phone and the colors are not as 'true' as they really are. They are black and white with different shades of green as accents. I made all of the flowers, except for the two neon green flowers.

Thank you cards

Amy received a TON of stuff from a lady at work who recently had triplets, two of them being girls. She gave Amy all of the stuff the girls have outgrown, plus a bouncer, plus loaned her a pack-n-play with a basinet sling in it. Needless to say, Amy was thrilled and deeply touched.

As such, she wanted to give Tina a special thank you card, and not something that just anybody could go buy off the shelf. So, I made her this:

I put a picture of it up on my Facebook page and another friend saw it. She messaged me and asked if I could do something similar with neon green. So, I made this one to show her:

She liked it so well that she ordered 10 cards. They are all going to be Thank You cards and she wants them all to be in the same color family. I'm not sure if the accent color is an issue or not, but I'm going to make a few and show them to her. If she wants them all exactly alike, that's OK - I'll just buy enough papers to do them all the same. If so, I'll have some extras to put up for sale. If she's happy with the accent colors, then we'll be good with that.

Baby shower is over!

I've been meaning to get this post up but life has been a bit hectic... Everyone enjoyed the shower and Amy got a lot of really nice gifts. She totally loved all of the decorations and how the cake turned out. Here are just a few of the pictures.



Topsy-turvy cake made by my sister; I did the animals



She has Anna's room just about ready for her. Now, all we have to do is wait. Five more weeks...

Early cards

My sister and my mom have been in the process of cleaning out my mom's cedar chest. She's been saving things and putting things away into that cedar chest for most of her adult life. It holds a lot of treasures, including such things as what she wore on her wedding day.

It also contains "treasures" that she received over the years from her children. I knew she probably saved some things (don't we all?), but with seven children it's hard to say how much she could realistically save from each of us.

Well, it seems that I've been doing handcrafted cards, complete with embellishments, way before it became the "in" thing to do. I don't even remember these items, so that tells you how old some of them must be.

This is a selection of cards that I made over the years. I "love" the tissue paper flower on the Mother's Day card:

For this card, I went all out. I think the best "touch" must be the artificial flowers that are STAPLED to the outside of the card.

The inside:

On Mother's Day 1964, I was not quite eight years old (would have been a little over three months until my birthday). Too funny... In retrospect, I did a pretty good job on this artwork for a seven year old.

Baby Shower Decorations - getting there...

The shower decorations are coming along nicely. I went to Michael's last night for glue and ribbon, Walmart for sucker sticks to mount my cutouts, diapers ,and a baby receiving blanket (ended up finding a few basket stuffer items), and Dollar Tree for shred and floral foam.

Although I still have the banner to make and some small table decorations, I'm pretty close to being ready to just sit back and not worry about the next two weeks. I have purchased the plates and napkins, but no plastic table ware or cups to drink out of. Amy and Rex are helping with some of the expenses because it's kind of expensive to host a nice shower, or party of any kind, these days. I still have a cake (or cupcakes) to get ordered and some kind of punch to drink. Because of where we live, we can use the center's recreation room for free, which saves about $75 dollars.

I'm not sure exactly where these decorations will go, but the stork will for sure go on the gift table. The other two will probably go on the "food" tables.

The stork was cut with my Cricut New Arrival cartridge and then layered for strength. I ended up putting his neck on a sucker stick and sliding that down into the package. I made his bow and tied that on around his neck and the stick for added stability. The other bow is one that Michael's had on clearance for $1.99 (I couldn't have made it for that price). His receiving blanket package is filled with diapers.

This basket was supposed to be done to look like a bathtub, but it just wasn't the right shape and I couldn't find one that was. So, I decided to use it as a gift basket instead and put in things that add up in cost, but are things you might not think about needing. I made the bow and used diapers in the bottom as filler. Then, I put in some floral foam for my items that are standing up. They're glued to the sucker sticks and then those are stuck down into the foam. On top of that, I added shred to hide all the "hardware" needed to put it together. It's got two headbands (with bows), bedtime lotion, body wash, socks, alcohol-free hand sanitizer, nail clippers/files, stuffed hippo and giraffe. I picked those up because they are very close to the animals on her invitations and on her bedding. I just couldn't resist them.

This basket has all of my Cricut cut-outs in it. I used the New Arrival cartridge again. I used grocery bags as filler and then added my floral foam for the sucker sticks. The cut-outs are glued to them and then attached to the foam. On top of that, I added shred and some iridescent shred (I added that after this picture was taken). It's kind of hard to see everything, but there is a bathtub and duck behind the rattle, the circle in the middle is a cut-out of booties, then the right side has a bottle in front and two onesies behind it. The safety pins are attached to one of the diapers. The three "heads" are attached to soft rattles and I got them because they matched the other animals.

Amy loves them and was very impressed that I was able to find the animals. Actually I was, too.

Next up, the banner. I'm used the baby bottle as my background and then added "Anna" to it. Once they were made, I attached the letters together with ribbon.

 

She likes it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used this post to enter a giveaway hosted by a very talented artist blogger - Dribble. She does things I only dream about doing. I have to have a machine to help me create; she does things with paints and brushes and canvas. Very cool. Check it out: http://just-tish.blogspot.com/2011/09/do-me-doodle.html

And, the winner is....

Rene Vaughan!!!

Rene - please send me your email address so I can provide it to the My Memories consultant.

Thank you to ALL who participated. Remember, even if you didn't win the free suite, you are still eligible for a discount.  As a special gift, everyone who places an order from My Memories will receive a $10 discount and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store – a $20 value! To get this special offer, visit the My Memories Digital Software Suite store, click "Add to Cart" and enter this code STMMMS48018 on the shopping cart page. Finish the checkout and the discounts will be applied.

Thanks!

My Memories Giveaway

Don't forget to enter the My Memories Software Giveaway. To show you another example of things you can do with this software, I decided I'd take another (free) download and create an invitation to a Halloween party. Because you can export the album pages as JPEG images, you can import them into other projects online and have them printed (such as card-sized invitations). This example is just one thing you can do.

This same idea could be used for birthday party invitations and Christmas cards. The only limits are your imagination!

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at digital scrapbooking, or have already tried it and wanted to find an easier program than what you’re currently using – I’ve got a deal for you!

I’ve tried digital scrapbook programs before (I have actually bought, installed, and tried to use three of them) and did not like how they were not very user-friendly. I didn’t like the results and I didn’t like the available “paper packs” or layout templates.

I was recently contacted by a company that I previously hadn’t heard from before and they wanted me to try out their software. So, I did and this is what I discovered…

My Memories is a great company with a software suite that is so easy, I was able to create a five page layout without even reading any help files, instructions, or anything more than just the on-screen helps. Seriously, this software suite is so intuitive and easy to use that I was amazed.

These layouts were created in literally 30 minutes with no outside instruction. They’re cute. Very cute!



(hehe - forgot to add text to the empty blue box)

These pages demonstrate how totally easy this software is to use and how cute the results are. There are so many features to explore with this software suite that I can't even begin to cover them all. There are a ton of videos on YouTube for you to review and PDF documents available to read and save. These are all available for your use. You can use pre-defined templates and embellishments, or add your own touch to the existing ones. Seriously, it's just that easy to use.

Now… for the best part of this post. My Memories not only wanted ME to try out their digital scrapbook suite, they also want YOU to try it out as well! One lucky reader will when their own copy of My Memories Digital Software Suite for yourself! To enter, all you need to do is this:

For one entry, visit the My Memories site, choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout, and leave a comment here telling me what you’ve chosen.

For a second entry, go “like” my Facebook page, then come back and leave an additional comment.

Entries will be accepted until Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 6:00 PM Central time. Tuesday evening, I'll put all of the entries into a spreadsheet (each separate entry will get a separate number) and then use Random.org to generate a winning number.

As a special gift, everyone who places an order from My Memories will receive a $10 discount and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store – a $20 value! To get this special offer, visit the My Memories Digital Software Suite store, click "Add to Cart" and enter this code STMMMS48018 on the shopping cart page. Finish the checkout and the discounts will be applied.

Be sure to come back and tell me which items you discovered and liked on the My Memories Web site. I think you'll find so much there to use and enjoy that you'll go back time and time again.

I know that I will.

Finally... the baby shower invitations are finished

And, ready to be mailed or hand-delivered. I may need to make a few more (but they will be much simpler), but I have 26 ready to go. Someone is getting the prototype but only because I was at the end of the current list, and short one. So, off it goes. That means I don't have one for myself or one to take to work, but I'm going to keep Amy's copy for a while and take it in Monday to show the "girls" I work with (who care... hehehe - some don't and I won't punish them).

The giraffe is cut from Birthday Bash (4"), the hippo from Create a Critter (2.5" - I think), and the bottle from New Arrival (circle, shift at 1.75"). On the Birthday Bash cartridge, the giraffe has on roller skates. That just wasn't going to cut it for a baby shower, so I cut them off. I put the layers together first and then did the cuts for each giraffe one at a time. Time consuming to get the legs just how I wanted them but they look more "child like" now. One of the other cartridges I have also has a giraffe with legs that look like this, but the body was all wrong. I decided this one would be the easiest to modify.

This is Amy's copy of the card. I punched a hole into each of the registry cards and threaded a ribbon through it. Then, I put those inside the card so when the card is opened, the card can be slid out and kept for shopping purposes. The ribbon will help locate it in a wallet or purse.

The whole group. I decided to do the baby bottle cut-out instead of the baby shower words. I just didn't have enough time to cut those delicate letters out (twice) and affix them to the card. This was much simpler. The bottle is cut at 1.75 inches and the green circle is a 2 inch punch. The cards actually have a variety of ribbons. I had less of the green (on the card) than I thought, and we're 45 minutes away from the closest store to buy that ribbon. I had to make do with what I had in my ribbon stash so that is why there you see more than one color and style of ribbon as the decorations. But, I can truly say that the cards are one-of-a-kind (mostly). Ron wanted me to stamp each one "Limited Edition; # of 25" on the back.

I know Amy loves them. What do you think? I'd love to hear your comments.

Baby shower invites

I probably shouldn't post this before I'm satisfied with the design, but I decided to go ahead and post anyway. The invitations will be based on the bedding Amy has bought for Anna's bed.

I took the main colors and am planning on duplicating them as closely as possible. This is the first one and will get dressed up a bit with some ribbon the next time (I glued the animals down before I realized I wanted ribbon on it).

The card will lay flat and the shower information will be on the inside panel.

Suggestions? Comments?

Amy's new nephew

Amy's sister-in-law had a new baby boy last month. Since they were going to go visit, I decided I'd make her a congratulations card. It's not fancy and the silly rivets took me 3-4 tries to get right. But, I think it turned out cute.

I hope she likes it.

Just had to finish it

I couldn't go to bed with this only half done. I used the Sweethearts cartridge that I won in a drawing. I wasn't sure that it would be a cartridge I'd use, but it's really got a lot of cute stuff in it.

The couple are cut at 4 inches; the word "Love" is cut at 3 inches; the single balloon is cut at 2.25 inches. Although it looks like there is a blue gem on the balloon, it's actually clear. I used the shadow cut for everything, then layered the sparkly paper over thick Kraft paper to make the cuts thicker and so they'd pop off the paper better. After I took this picture, I spaced the pearls out a bit more.

I wanted to just do the couple in silhouette instead of trying to do clothing. I'm not sure what color of hair the groom has so this just worked out better for me.

I hope she likes it. I'll be mailing it off this week so I'll report if it was a hit or not.

It's good to be back!

Feels good to be doing something constructive in the playroom! I know someone who is getting married and she's doing the big-time planning. I thought this would be a nice way to help her along the way. It's not finished, but just wanted to post a little tease...



Using my Cricut and some sparkly brown paper for some embellishment

Brown and Pink look so elegant (at least to me)

The brown on pink polka dots are the inside covers. The ribbon is really silky and is pink on one side and brown on the other. I wasn't sure what I'd do with it when I bought it but I just fell in love with the texture.
I don't know what her colors are or even if she needs a journal, but it will either be something she can use or something she can pass on to someone else.

It's Finished! Reveal time!

In my old house, I had a WorkBox from The Original Scrapbox. You can see it here. It was nice but once I put everything in it, I couldn't see what I had. Plus, I knew that when we moved I didn't want to take the chance that it wouldn't fit or that it would get damaged in the move. In hindsight, it probably would have been OK if it had been taken apart into the major sections. Oh well... but I did manage to sell it for $600, which was nice.

This new place has a 2nd bedroom that is a very nice size and my goal was to have a scrap/craft area, office area, and {hopefully} get a twin bed for someone to sleep in if we had overnight company. I'm not sure I can get the bed in there, but I might be able to find a chair that unfolds into a sleeper. I know there's no room for a sleeper sofa (maybe a sleeper love seat but those are expensive) so maybe a sleeper chair would work.

I had been using plastic tables after I sold the WorkBox and those just weren't working for me. I usually worked right in the middle and, since they folded, it was not great. Any time I'd try to do any stamping, it would not stamp cleanly. I'd have to go into the kitchen to use the solid surface in there. So I started looking around the Internet to see what others were using.

Jetmax Cubes... I had seen these at Michael's but hadn't really researched them. Once I did, I found that a lot of people love, love, LOVE their cubes and that convinced me that I could build my room with them. I can tell (now that I'm finished) that I needed to put a little bit more thought into the layout and exactly what cubes I needed. I should have bought more paper storage (I got two and could have used two more) and less drawers.  I tried to see what everyone used as working surfaces and didn't really find anything that said how deep people had made their work area, or how they'd gotten it that deep.

Once I lined up the cubes (which I put together all by myself!), I knew they needed to be anchored but I also knew that I couldn't put a toe board along the wall of this unit because of the holes it would leave behind. Ron's friend, Chuck, is a carpenter/home builder so Ron asked him if he would help me out. I knew what needed to be done, but I didn't have the skill to do it. Chuck jumped in and we got it done. Yesterday, I started working on the room and getting all of the boxes unpacked and/or moved out of there. (In order to do part of it, I had to clean out the hall closet to make room for stuff that was still packed and I now have a garage sale box in the living room, plus two boxes of nick-knacks that I can't unpack until I get a bookcase or two.)

I'm really pleased with how the room turned out, although I think I might be buying enough to make a free-standing island and maybe put it on wheels so I can move it out of the way if I do have company over to sleep.

Here are the pictures. What do you think? Those of you who have craft rooms, what else do you think I could use or should have? The drawers are not all full so I do have room to grow (hehehe!).


This is from the door looking straight in toward the corner.



Looking to the left. The stuff in front of the bookcase still needs a home.

From the door looking more to the right. The paper cutter is on a temporary table. The other bookcase I want will go where the tote goes.

The closet. LOL - it needs some work. The shelves are nice but too close together to do too much good.
Once I get my island built, I think I'll take the picture boxes (the pink ones) and move them. Maybe.

I am not sure if I want more shelves above the work area on the right or not. The right side is supposed to be my office area. Those are drawers without hanging file storage. I do have a file cabinet under the window that has our household papers in it and I got one hanging unit under the glass door cube for scrapbook papers and files. I need to go back and label my drawers now because I have no idea where some things are.

I probably did not need the work center because it doesn't really hold anything except overflow items (it's against the wall in the picture that shows the bookcase). Even at 40% off, it was kind of expensive. Michael's had all of their scrapbook storage items 40% off or I would not have been able to do this. Even so, I have about as much invested in the room as I would have if I'd bought one of the Sauder desks at OfficeMax or Office Depot. Our garage sale money paid for the whole room, which was nice - I've got no out-of-pocket expense.,

I have much more working area and storage space than one desk would have provided - and the desk would have been harder to move if the need to move would come up in the future. The cubes are screwed into the shelves and the shelves are anchored to the wall in a couple of places with L-brackets. They can be taken apart very easily and moved to a new location. The biggest "oops" we did was not allowing for electrical cords behind the shelves so my son-in-law is going to have to bring his hole cutting drill bit over and make a couple of holes for me so I can feed my cords through.

All in all, I'm very pleased. Once I get the walls decorated and maybe some shelving up, I'll consider it done. One more thing I need to figure out is how to store my punches. Right now, they're in the pink tote that you see in front of the bookcase. Someone else said they use a "shoe bag" that hangs over the door and others use towel bars to hang them from. I'm not sure I want to put towel bars up on the wall so I'll probably just keep them in the tote until I decide what will work best for me. I love my punches!

Time to get some projects started!!!

Soon... I promise...

I am working on my play room this weekend. There is so much to do! Many of the boxes from the move were stashed in there and I've been slowly going through them. My problem is going from 1496 square feet to 973 square feet. I've gone from 2.5 baths and 2 linen closets to 1 bath and 1 linen closet. I've gone from a laundry room to a laundry area. From a pantry to just cabinets. A walk-in closet to a regular reach-in closet. A built-in desk and bookcase (big) to none.

It's a lesson. It's a challenge. It's not really what I'd call "fun." Once again, I'm in this on my own. It's not like anyone could really help me except to say, "you can probably trash this." But, I sure wish I had a couple of extra bookcases to help me out. I am seriously going to reconsider what books I want to keep, but I also had a hutch where I put all my little figurines that my kids have bought me over the years. I don't want to leave them in boxes forever.

So, until I can get a working surface in my room I will just plod along and do the best that I can. Until then, I hope you don't leave me and that you'll stick around for the reveal.

Have a great weekend!

I am having withdrawal!

My craft room is still in boxes! I had birthday cards to make... can't make 'em. I had other things I wanted to do... can't do 'em.

But, with luck, I will have that room unpacked within the next week or so.

Then, look out world because here I come! I have a ton of ideas!

New blog name!

I'm moving this weekend but I wanted to say that if you're looking for "Tee's Treasures" you are at the correct location! I had an epiphany last night and changed my name. I used to be afraid of my Cricut and finally said to myself, "Seriously, it's just paper!" When put into that perspective, spending fifty-nine cents on a piece of paper to try something out isn't that big of a deal.

So, Tee's Treasures has officially become "Seriously, it's only paper!" and will soon (as soon as I possibly make it happen) be sporting some new stuff.

Welcome to my new followers. Glad to have you and I will be checking out your blogs.

New (baby) Triplet Card

I showed my Easter card for the triplet girls (whose dad I work with) to another lady at work and she really liked it. So, she asked me if I could do a new baby card for someone else who had just had triplets - two girls and one boy. I said that I sure could and started planning.

I have to say, this is my new favorite card. LOL - each new one I make seems to be my new favorite.

These babies were 37 weeks gestation and were excellent size. The boy was the smallest,  at 6lbs 9 oz and 19 inches in length.