Ridgeview Card Class for Mother's Day

Hello!

My card class at Ridgeview is coming up soon, so I spent some time designing a card for the ladies (and the odd gentleman) to make. This process usually involves a lot of trial and error, but eventually I come up with something that's do-able. 

Once the design part of the process is completed, I make up the cards far enough that the residents are able to put them together and derive some pleasure and satisfaction at making something nice themselves. I love seeing the pleasure on their faces as the cards come together.

Last time some of the ladies told me that they had sent their cards off to friends and relatives. I was so blessed!! I am so glad they're putting them to good use and that others are also enjoying their creations!

Here is the initial template I made up. The instructions I put on there were written for me, and so they're not too detailed. If you want to try it and you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

Here is the front of the card

The flower holds the flap down, but as you'll see later, I decided to stabilize it with a small brad. The front of the card was looking a little empty, so I added a stamp...

Since most of these ladies are quite elderly themselves, I thought I'd go for a bit of a neutral greeting, although they'll have a choice of what stamps to use. I also decided to add a punched edge on the top and bottom of the purse. 

Note how the ribbon is taped on before the rest of the inside was attached. In keeping with the outer design, I added another punched edge to the bottom.

And then I stamped the rest of the greeting inside.

Here is the completed card. It was designed so that it's easy to put together, but still something they can be proud of.

Hope you enjoyed it. I loved having you visit! I only wish we could actually have coffee or tea while visiting...and a home baked cookie, of course. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Who Needs a Candle Lift?

When it comes to decorating, I get an F-...not because I don't decorate, but because I am just not all that comfortable with it. If you look around my newly painted living room, you'll see framed pictures standing on the ledge waiting to be grouped and hung. I'm just not sure how to proceed.

At the same time I have things that have stood in the same place looking the same way for the last 5 years--at least. (blush). Like these candles and holders:

So, since the thought of trying to hang photos just intimidated me, I decided to play with the candles and hopefully make them feel fresh and new...sorta like a face lift, but a candle lift instead.

I just bought a paper stack from Michael's today and decided to use a piece of it on the candles. 
Don't ya just love that sparkly ribbon framing the top and bottom of the paper? I think I got that at a dollar store, truth be told. The flowers are Prima and dollar store flowers which have been misted with suede glimmer mist and dazzling diamonds glimmer mist.

I thought about adding something else, but couldn't find anything suitable...so I left them like this for now.

Hopefully it won't be another five years before I put something different in that spot...but don't hold your breath!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Art Journal

Lately I've been watching Marion from A Piece Of Craft on Prima's Ustream. I don't always make it to the live shows, but I have been going and watching them after the fact. Recently she showed us how to make an Art Journal, and I've been wanting to make one ever since. Especially since I had a couple of sheets of the Prima Paintables that I'd picked up while on holidays last summer.

 

Here's a little look at the first part of the process. I painted the chipboard pieces with black acrylic paint and punched some holes for the lacing.

 

For the inside of the book I cut out 12 X 6 inch paper and folded it together. I think there are about 4 pieces in each bundle, which would make 8 pages in each bundle, 48 in total.

I sprayed one side of the two larger pieces of chipboard, and two pieces of the paintables with spray adhesive, then stuck them together to make the front and back of the Journal.I was not generous enough as I've noticed that the front has buckled a little bit.  :( 

I'll know better for next time. Once that was done, I began lacing the front and back to the spine with thin black ribbon.

 

I bound the bundles of papers to the spine with more of the thin black ribbon. 

Then the fun began!! I pulled out my glimmer mist, smooch, ink, stamps, flourishes, and Prima flowers.

There are some Prima paintable pages here and there in the book. I have painted some of them with the glimmer mist and a paintbrush. I still have more to do, but I'll do them over time.

Pretty sparkles. :))

If you ask me, there can never be enough glimmer mist!

Think I'll find a saying to put in this space...

Again, this has all been glimmer misted. It looks so nice in real life!

I used manila folders for some of the pages. This was because I wanted something strong enough to put a pocket on that could hold some of my templates. Here is one I made. Some of them will be larger than this.

The rest of the pages are just normal paper for writing instructions and ideas on.

The front of the book is not quite complete yet. I want to put a wide ribbon on the spine tying the ribbon from the bundled pages together to tighten them a bit, and for looks. It'll be a nice big bow!! The glimmer mist doesn't show up at all in this photo. A pity, really...

I used chipboard letters for the title which I painted and then covered them in UTEE. I let it dry before using the heating gun on them. This gives a bumpy texture. This is one of the techniques I picked up from Marion Smith at A Piece of Craft. I really love this effect.

For those of you who are interested in watching a live show, there are a few different ones during the week, but Marion is on Thursday nights at 6:30 p.m. PacificTime.

Well, that was a bit of a long post, but I hope you enjoyed it. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I appreciate all of my followers so much!! Have a great day!!

Stamped Hang Tags

Hello! 

I've been busy working on an Art Journal. It's almost finished, but in the meantime I made some tags for my etsy shop. There's so many stamps I'd love to have and I'm sure you all feel the same...but who can afford them all? So I thought it would be fun to stamp some images on various tags and offer them for sale. Since they're stamped with Staz-on they won't run and can be inked or glimmer misted, etc. That way people can customize their own and enjoy some stamps they may not have.  Here's a few photos of some of them...the rest are in my shop.

 

 Oops...this one has a shadow on it...oh well....

 

Love the birdcage!

 

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by!

Beautiful Blogger Award

Good Morning!!

Heather@PixieDust has very kindly passed on an award to me. THANK YOU Heather!! Please go and check out Heather's Beautiful Blog and remember to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her today! :)

                                            

The rules: Write 10 things about yourself that people may not know and pass on the award to 10 others. 

10 Things About Me

1.       When you first meet me I come across as quite a serious person, but I have a quirky side that most people aren’t aware of unless they know me well.  I am also a very spiritual person and aim to be kind and considerate of others. 

2.       I love to make things, but I hate a messy home. I will clean rather than craft (my husband's a 'messy', smart but messy)...but I’d really rather craft. I love and will try most crafts.

3.       I once lost a lot of my belongings in a flood that happened in a friend’s basement.

4.       I’ve been kidnapped twice. Once by bikers (long story), and once by some friends who thought I’d be glad they did. I was not impressed.

5.       I was very athletic when I was young and could outrun the fastest boy in my grade 7 class. He still hasn’t caught me.

6.        I’ve taken belly dancing classes. I know, I can't believe it either.

7.       I used to play a Melodica, but I have no idea what happened to it (maybe it met its demise in number 3). I play classical guitar when the mood suits me.

8.       We have always been very computer literate in our home since my husband worked with computers from 1984 and on. Our first computer had a pong game on it, and all we had was DOS.

9.       I have a banking background.

10.   People have a hard time figuring out what nationality I am. Mexicans think I’m Mexican, East Indians think I’m East Indian, Italians think I’m Italian, etc. I’m Dutch, but my father was from Curacao...so I guess that makes me Milano.

I'm a bit of a rebel when it comes to rules, so although I am passing this award on to 10 very deserving bloggers, please understand the spirit in which it's intended. Basically, I love looking at your blog and thank you for taking the time to share all the wonderful things you put out there! If you decide not to participate, I am fine with that. Just know I'm sending a little love!

10 Bloggers of the many that I love to visit:

1. A local CTMH Blogger, Lisa @ Moments Matter 

2. A new blog I've just discovered, Where the Grass is Greener which focuses on turning trash to treasure.

3. This popular blogger needs no introduction. Her blog is inspiring in so many ways!! Visit Beth at The Stories from A to Z.

4. This is one funny lady, check out Lid at 2nd Cup of Coffee.

5. Bonnie, aka LaBonita from Scraps of My Life does some gorgeous pages!

6. Have you seen the Shabby Shic Cottage? This girl has a huge fan base, and it's no wonder why...go love her Blog!

7. I  OOH and AHHH every time I go to visit Ingvild at My Paper Art! How does she do the things she does with paper?? So in love!

8. Emma is a SU demonstrator form the UK. Her blog Creativity is Key is full of good stuff. I especially love her brayering post.

9. While visiting Emma, I came upon Michelle from Midnight Crafter and got sidetracked. WOA! is all I have to say!!

10. This girl is a Card Diva! Visit Jeannie at A Place for my Cards. You'll be so glad you did!!

Okay, well that's it. Hope you had fun looking at all these fantastic blogs.

Thanks for visiting today! :)

My New Purse

Hello Ladies!

Yesterday I was window shopping in the Mall and I found a little purse for a great price! I needed wanted a new purse, so I bought it...there's nothing in it yet and it's lying flat on the table, but you get the idea.

I think it's adorable. I especially love the texture of it...and the fact that there's a bit of a patterned sheen. In fact I loved it so much I decided to make a card that looked a bit like it. I didn't have the right color of cardstock, so I improvised. Here it is:

 Do you like her? Let me show you the back of both of them:

None of those really showed you the cardstock texture...I hope this photo will do it justice because it has a really nice sheen to it.

The ruffle was a bit tricky, but I mastered it.
I may or may not put a closure on it because it lies fairly flat when it's closed properly.
I still have to do something with the inside of it so I may add a photo to this post later.

I really enjoy making these little purse cards. The first one always takes a while because I'm messing it up designing it, but this one is the second attempt...and it's not too bad if I do say so myself.

Thanks for stopping in! Have a great day!

Easel Card for Ridgeview

Hello!

Life has been so busy lately. Since Christmas, it seems that we have had overnight company every weekend and longer. For a little over a month my son and his wife stayed with us while they made the move from the Island and needed time to find a place of their own and settle in. It just seems the scurrying hasn't stopped though, and along with it my love of crafting has taken a bit of a beating. But...there's only so many hours in a day!

In fact, today I prepared some cards for Ridgeview Extended Care. Really, all I do is cut things up and get them ready to glue or tape together. It's fun to prepare, and even more fun to do it with them. The ladies are quite limited in their abilities, and sometimes that means I do a lot of it for them. In the end, they have a little card they can give away, and they've had a little fun in their day. It's a good thing! So, there's not much to show you today, but I'll include a photo of the card we're making.

These are called Easel Cards since they sit up for display. The middle one is almost complete. The ladies will be stamping the flowers and the sentiments on the front and inside of the card. I'll just draw in the grass for them with a black felt pen.  I'll probably provide some acetate butterflies as they may look nicer. I used different backgrounds for the cards, as I've shown in the photo below.

Here's the inside. The punched edge is what holds the top part of the card in place like an easel. That bottom piece should be attached with pop dots, but I couldn't find mine so I just used dbl sided tape for now. They may have got mixed up with Ridgeview's supplies...

Thanks so much for stopping by!