Yesterday was my brother's birthday. (Happy 34th, Eddie!) Here is the card I made for him. The "Happy Birthday is the same Heidi Swapp stamp I used for my dad's birthday card. This time, I used Versa Magic Night Sky and clear embossing powder. I wanted to stitch on the card, I really did, but I didn't want to dig out my sewing machine and try and fiddle with the tension and other knobs for a couple of hours. That, and as is often the case, I was working in a 10 x 10" clearing on my table. So, I used the Double Cutter Bee® Piercing Bugs Rotary Tool and drew in the stitches. Cardstock is Bazzill, of course and the pp is actually velum that has been in my scrap-drawer for a couple of years.

This card is the one my niece and I made for him. (Yes, the very same niece that once and continuously calls me a scrapbooking geek.) It is also on Bazzill. All of the Happy Birthday phrases are on one giant wood mounted Hero Arts stamp. I always saw it as a more feminine stamp, but when Niece asked to use it and in the end, I like the look. It's also clear embossing power over Vera Magic (Red Magic). The "Dad" is Technique Tuesday Eiffel letters and are clear embossing powder over Night Sky from my card. She figured out the ribbon and placement of the "Dad" Oval and really liked that you could read.."Happy Birthday Make A Wish Dad" There a bit hard to see, the those five dots in the upper left are Queen & Co Pearls (Blues)


I'm sure when he reads this blog, he'll get just as misty as my dad did when I describes the blood, sweat, tears and product that went into his card.

Leave me a comment here. I'm serious, leave me one! Or two :)

I love, love, love see other people scrap rooms, and I've seen some amazing rooms. When I saw Laura Vagas' on Making Memories' Blog in June, I went absolutely goofy for her "embellishment shelf". Imagine, all of my jars could be neatly faced, on display and within easy reach. Oh it was too much, just the thought made me giddy!

So I felt it out on Craigslist, "How much would it cost for you to make me this..." Wow, the response was overwhelming (I got like 60-70 responses). I was expecting a couple of hobbyits to say, well we could get materials for so much, plus $50 bucks or so to put it together...." and what I got was a lot of professional cabinet makers estimating from 300-$650 before sending it out to be painted. While I am sure their craftsmanship and time were well worth what they were asking, it was out of my price range.
I fell into a deep depression; how could I go on with out an "embellishment shelf"? How could I hold my head up high at the next crop and fain a smile, knowing that some of my jars had yet to see the light of day, hidden behind the first and second row of jars on regular shelf? I shudder at the memory of those times.

In an attempt to drag myself out of the despair with a little compulsive shopping, I happened upon a 729 CD/324 DVD Storage Unit in the CD department at Target. I might have missed it if it weren't for the beam of light from heaven and the choir of angels singing. I felt the depression lifting, some of the old giggles were trying to break though. On the way home I hired two handymen to build my new "Embellishment Shelf" and to build my hope. (BTW, my handymen are very affordable, DS1 & DS2 will work for candy bars!)


So, here is my lovely "Embellishment Shelf". Although it is not quite the size of the other Laura's, it works for me.

Across the top my flowers in small Burken jars from IKEA.

Next row: Lg Tab Punch, Doodlebug flock in sm Burken jar, Mini pail w/ shelf pegs, pharmacy jar of mixed buttons, 7 Gypsies Stamps

Next Row: Clip it Up Clips and ribbon clips in mini pails, clear skittles, Bazzill chips, binder rings in mini pail, more skittles

Next row: Whispers inkpads, Giant Jar o' Stickles, Glitter, Flock and Embossing Powders in large Burken jar, ATC album, skittles, ATC Spinner

Next Row: Re-inkers, Journaling tags, Mark-it markers, colored pencils, Copic markers

Next row: Bazzill Just the Edges in a tall Burken jar, my Bind it All goes here too, but it's on my paper rack for some reason, room to grow, large ink pads.

Last couple of rows: foam stamps and more room to grow.

Right now, I working on cleaning my scrap room, so I'm sure I'll be filling in the blank spaces.

It not a widely kept secret that I am a bit of a geek. Even my dear mini-me niece has been know to call me a scrapbooking geek. And in truth, I did have a bit of a breakdown several months ago when the site that collected my blogging stats freaked out, leaving me with no way to "get my nerd on". So this new little lovely has made me a very happy camper.
I like to keep up on scrapbooking news on Scrapbook Update where I came across at great post about Big Huge Labs Palette Generator. It is easy to use and pretty darn cool. Basically, you either upload a picture from your computer, or after granting permission to access your Flicker account. You can also use Photobucket with it, but I don't use Photobucket, so I didn't try that option. It was definitely quicker to get the photo from Flicker, than upload it from my computer. Once you select your photo, click "Create". (This is where the longer wait is involved when using photos from your computer) The page will refresh with your image and a 15 color palette. I tried it with two photos, one of Sea Lions, the other of a couple of picnicking Jedis.

This is the palette BHL Palette Picker produced for my picture of sunbathing sea lions in Newport Bay. I would have never pick some of these more pink and purple colors and I was a bit surprised when they came up.
So I placed each of the palette chips behind my photo and I was really pleased with the effect. I even thinking of slapping a title on this and calling it my first digi-page.

So I tried it with this pic of my boys as we stopped for a picnic on our way to my cousin's wedding a couple of years ago. What rest-stop lunch would be complete without a little light saber fight? Again, it picked some pinks I wouldn't have, but they were really light.
Here's the same treatment with the palette chips. Not quite as stunning as the sea lion pic, but still, I think I could definitely pick some cardstock from the choices.

I love palette tools, and this one is quite fun. My inner geek is doing a happy dance, trust me it's a good think she's confined to my inner! You also might like some of Big Huge Labs other tools, I'm using their Mosaic Maker to make a Christmas Wishlist.

Google Reader comment here, or you can go to my blog and see it's color palette.

I wanted to blog last night but my keyboard met an unfortunate accident when flailing arms sent a deluge of water across my desk. I had to pull the batteries out of my keyboard and pray it still worked. (It does, yeah!)

So here is my candy bar wrapper. I actually made this for Cuttlebug Challenge #3 at Cuttlebug Challenges. The challenge was to use your embossing folders on something other than a card.

Still in the Halloween spirit, I made a candy bar wrapper. For this challenge, I used the Swiss Dots, D'vine Swirls and Boo to You. Then I went crazy with the Stickles.

And there's the candy bar poking his head out of his wrap. Sadly, coming out of his protected wrapper proved fatal for this guy, as he was attacked by the apex predator in this house, my teenage boys.

Google Readers can comment here without leaving the shelter of their wrapper.

This first ATC was for a Splitcoast Stampers Swap. The theme was $1 Halloween stamps. The bats a Studio G Acrylic Stamp and the October 31 is a $1 Wood mounted stamp (maybe Studio G too?) The bats are embossed in black over a gold lame type cardstock, mounted on DCWV purple glitter cardstock. The orange ribon is American Crafts ($1 too, so BONUS!) I stamped the Oct 31 stamp directly on the black cardstock and embossed it in an off-white. Then I stamped and embossed the same image on off white cardstock, punched it out (circle) and pop-dotted it over the base image. All of it is mounted on DCWV orange glitter cardstock. Oh yeah, pop-dotted is a verb too, you can add it right above xyroned in your scrappy dictionary.

This one is for another Splitcoast Stampers' swap, the theme being owls. So here the branches are made from leaf ribbon in red and brown (some are red and orange, some are orange and brown) It the same type of ribbon used here. The owls are inkadinkadoo. The larger one is from one of my sets, and jr was kindly lent melonscraps (she rocks) I cut the owls out and pop-dotted them on the Bo Bunny cardstock. I once again reached for my circle punch to make the moon opening. All that was pop-dotted over DCWV yellow glitter cardstock.

Thanks for looking at my ATCs, you can leave a comment here.

As I skimmed though the Dollar Tree, I notices some textured mylar foil in the gift wrap section. Too bad you can't emboss that stuff. Or can you...

I tried two methods: First I tried white school glue, applied it to cardstock from my scrap pile and let it dry. The second method, ran the cardstock though my Xyron 510. There no real difference in the results. The glue allowed for more adjustment of the mylar when smoothing it down, but it softened the cardstock which warped while drying.


Above is the silver mylar over orange cardstock, applied with glue. After embossing with the Cuttlebug Boo to You embossing folder. This one I inked over w/ Brilliance Graphite Black.



This one is the back of the blue mylar which is silver over Xyroned (That's right, xyroned is a verb!) orange cardstock. I used the brayer to ink over the embossing.



Here is my favorite result. Xyroned over orange. This time, I inked the folder with a brayer and Brilliance Jumbo Java before I embossed the mylar/cardstock combo. (I would have used black again, but I was getting impatient while inking the brayer and went for my JJ re-inker.



Here is the entire plate mounted on a card. I really like the effect. I can't wait to use it some more.

A couple of things that didn't work: Inking the folder w/ alcohol inks, they dried too quickly and it was difficult to keep the ink in the depressions of the folder. The other failure was sanding. I thought it would be cool to sand of the mylar and expose the cardstock beneath. I looked like it might work at first, then the mylar tore and separated from the cardstock. This happened with both the glue and xyron.

Now, get thee to the Dollar Tree and play!

Tell me about your cuttlebug adventures here.

You know what's great about Columbus Day? I don't have to work and the kids still have school!

You know what bites about Columbus Day? The kids still have school, so I still have to get up early!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....
Here the birthday card I made for my dad's birthday last month. Guess how old he is.

Out of respect for my parents who prefer not to have their pictures on the internet, I cannot post a picture of how misty he got when I told him that I busted out the most precious Basic Grey Boxer paper and rub ons (which I embossed over), and how I hand dyed the acrylic 60 and skittles with Ranger Alcohol ink to match or that since I do not have a ticket corner punch, I used a circle punch to make the corner notches. He even loved when I regaled him about embossing the Happy Birthday from a Heidi Swapp stamp. My mom will say he glazed over for the 45 minute play by play, but I say he was misty, teary-eyed even. It's a matter of opinion.

Comments, comments, leave your comments right here!!

It's been brought to my attention that it's been nearly two months since my last post. Yes, I've done scrappy projects, bought a bit o' swag, continued the ongoing quest for organizational perfection and I've even built a new theme for said blog; I just haven't felt like photographing or blogging it. I don't know why, I have even been letting my Google Reader updates slip into three digits.

But I'm back, and here is one of my projects I did, and even photographed at the time; better blogged late than never, right?

Supplies: Doodlebug Glittered Cardstock, Making Memories PP (Crimped w/ Fiskars paper crimper, and punched w/ Martha Stewart Doiley Edge border punch), Brown Felt, A Jolee's Cherry, Fruit Punch Stickles and Grosgrain ribbon from Michael's $1 basket. I packaged them in glassine envelopes with a seal made up of two Bazzil scalloped circles (Nestabilities) and stamped with a Studio G (Series 7) cupcake.

These were for my first swap at Splitcoast Stampers, I'm a bit nervous about them I hope they're up to their standards. I must confess, I was a bit worried because there was no stamping, so I stamped the back (I forgot to take a pic)

Now it's your turn. Leave me a comment about how much you missed me. WOW I usually only hear the crickets chirping after I tell a joke. Hello? Is this thing on?