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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Lunar Eclipse and Gift Giving...

What better thing to do while you are trying to stay awake while waiting for a Lunar Eclipse?  Make gift boxes!  Of course!  First of all, check out this awesome shot I got of the eclipse by holding my camera up to a pair of binoculars:
Pretty awesome, isn't it?  My hands were shaking so hard in the cold that it was difficult to hold the camera steady.  But, it was very beautiful.  Now, on to crafting....

Using the Martha Stewart Score Board you can make some really cute gift boxes.  It's super easy too!  All the dimensions and where to score is included in her handy-dandy guide located inside the score tool storage area.  I used 2 sheets of 12x12 paper to make this box for a co-worker Secret Santa gift.  I then added a few embellishments to deck it out.  It's a great alternative to something different than a standard gift bag or christmas wrap.


Saturday, December 18, 2010

Caramel Treat Bags

It's the last Saturday before Christmas and here I am finally making my cards and treats.  I am typically more prepared than this, but it's been a crazy month.  I am fairly well pleased with the little toppers I made for my treats for co-workers this year though.  I used the Doodlebugs Cricut cart to cut out the trees and embellished them with a little glam-rock and ran through my Embossing Boutique using the Swiss Dots folder.  The ribbon was from Michaels and the stamp was from DOT's.  The caramels are of course from ME.  Recipe to follow:


I also made a few cards to send out that followed the same simple theme.  Simple was the key word for me this year!
Microwave Caramels

1 Cube Butter
½ Cup Sugar
½ Cup Light Brown Sugar
½ Cup Light Corn Syrup
2/3 Cup Sweetened Condensed Milk
In a glass bowl, melt butter. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Microwave for 7 minutes (Stir after 3 minutes). Pour into buttered, 9x9 pan. Cool to room temperature. Chill, cut and wrap in wax paper or wax coated candy wrappers.
You may want to microwave 15 seconds less or 15 seconds longer to get the consistency you like. It may take a batch or two to determine which time works best in your microwave. For chewier caramels, microwave longer.
For a fun variation, add nuts before pouring into pan.
 
They were easy to make...the hardest part was wrapping them all!  But the best part is eating them!!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Winner!

I thought I would take a moment to announce the winner of the "It's a Small World Blog Hop".  Using random generator it selected:

Melissa said...
What a gorgeous tag and thank you for sharing the history of St. Lucia!

Melissa
www.disneydreamerdesigns.blogspot.com
December 12, 2010 2:48 AM

Melissa, please send me an email with your physical address and I will send the prize right out to you.

Friday, December 10, 2010

It's A Small World Blog Hop....Sweden's St Lucia Day

Happy Saturday everyone!  I am pleased to be included in the, "It's a Small World" Blog Hop hosted by our wonderful Jess over at KinderstampO.  If you have just joined us you can start all the way back at her blog, or you may have arrived here from Christine's Blog.  My little stop in holiday traditions is from the wonderful country of Sweden.  I have a special place in my heart for this country and am thankful to have visited there a couple times in the past.  One of their very special December traditions is the celebration of St. Lucia Day.  Here is a little history about this holiday:
Around Christmas time in Sweden, one of the biggest celebrations is St. Lucia's Day (or St. Lucy's Day) on December 13th. The celebration comes from stories that were told by Monks who first brought Christianity to Sweden.
St Lucia was a young Christian girl who was martyred, killed for her faith, in 304AD. The most common story told about St Lucia is that she would secretly bring food to the persecuted Christians in Rome, who lived in hiding in the catacombs under the city. She would wear candles on her head so she had both her hands free to carry things. Lucy means 'light' so this is a very appropriate name.
December 13th was also the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, in the old 'Julian' Calendar and a pagan festival of lights in Sweden was turned into St. Lucia's Day.
St. Lucia's Day is now celebrated by a girl dressing in a white dress with a red sash round her waist and a crown of candles on her head. (Normally electric candles are used for safety!) The crown is made of Lingonberry branches which are evergreen and symbolise new life in winter. Schools normally have their own St. Lucias and some town and villages also choose a girl to play St. Lucia in a procession where carols are sung.


A national Lucia is also chosen. Lucias also visit hospitals and old people's homes singing a song about St Lucia and handing out 'Pepparkakor', ginger snap biscuits.
I thought long and hard about how I would convey something and have it translate into something we could appreciate if we weren't from Sweden.  After following the Tim Holtz blog the last week and his 12 Days of Christmas Tags I decided I would make a special tag.  I definately improvised, because I don't begin to have a fraction of the supplies he uses or have the techniques figured out that he uses, but I somehow thought the vintage feel of tag would go along perfectly with what I had in mind.

I made the tag by simply cutting up a craftpaper folder with my regular paper cutter.  Sure, you could use a fancy die-cut or buy a tag, but gee...how hard is it to cut a strip, angle the corners and punch a hole in the top!  I distressed the edges and used distress inks in "Tea Dye" and "Old Paper" to make it look vintage.  I also sprayed it fairly heavily with Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz and then zapped it with my heat gun to dry it quickly.  My St. Lucia was my very own stamp from Shelley Bean Stamps "Wish Upon a Star".  I added some very light color using my Copic Markers and I framed the stamped image with Shabby Shutters Distress Stickles.  I went and snipped a piece off the garland over my fireplace for the crown and used 3 birthday candles (cut down) with a touch of gold stickles for the flame.  It's all about improvisation!!  I used some beads and charms to attach to the ribbon and blinged out the bottom edge a little bit and added a holiday verse to finish off my tag. 


And now, before I send you off to the next stop along this wonderful hop, I wanted to share a free give-away!  I am going to randomly choose a winner from the comments left here now through Sunday.  The prize is my Wish Upon A Star stamp that I used to make this tag.  Simply leave a comment.  I would also love it if you became a follower of my blog and my stamp blog.  But, I won't make it a requirement this time.  I also have a friend page over at facebook that I would love to have you come visit and "like".  I often do give-aways there as well.  "God Jul" everyone!

And now it's time to hop along to Vickie's Blog!  If you lose your way along the hop, here is a listing of all the wonderful blogs participating today.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Cute Little Critter Card

Where have I been?  It sure hasn't been in here posting fun projects like I should be!  I made this card about a week ago and took a quick picture before my team at work gave it to our trainer at work.  She flew back and forth between Bismarck and Boise during an 8 week period to get us all trained up and last week was her last week with us, so we wanted to honor her with a goodbye card.  Of course, your's truly had to make the card!  :)  She has a love of rat-terriers and so I thought what better than getting out my Create a Critter cartridge and firing up the cricut.  I pretty much had to dust the poor thing off because it has been sorely neglected as of late.

I made the verse with my computer and the rest pretty much speaks for itself. Happy Crafting!

Stay tuned because tomorrow night at 11pm mountain standard time, I will post my craft for the big "It's a Small World" Holiday Blog Hop.  Please come back by and say hello.  There will (of course) be a giveaway!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Tags, Tags, and More Tags...

I have been sitting here in my crafting lair watching the snow gently fall and finishing up the tags I committed myself to for the Kinderstampo December Tag Swap.  What a relief to get them done!  In my head they were going to look a lot different than they turned out and were definately a work in progress.  I was a bit frustrated the whole way through because things didn't seem to evolve the way my imagination said they would.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?  Ah well, here they are!  I used a brand new design I created as a digi image at Shelley Bean Stamps.  I will be adding this and a few other holiday inspired designs there later today.  I would be extremely flattered if you jump over there and take a peek at what I have to offer.  I accept payments through paypal or drop me an email and we can work something out if you don't use paypal.

You still have time to join in the card swap.  Check out this link for more information.

Friday, November 19, 2010

"I'll Have a Blue Christmas Without You"

I am going to do something different.  Join my Facebook page and submit something Christmas-like there and I will randomly choose a winner of this digital stamp shown below!  You have until Sunday night, 11/21 to share them with everyone.  So please check it out! 

We are still thinking snow here in Boise this weekend, so what better than a snowy inspired card?  Anne is having another fun challenge over at Paper Patch Crafts facebook page and so I decided it would be fun to play along.  As usually is the case, she gives us a sketch to follow and we do the rest.  Here is what I came up with for the sketch that follows:



The snowman is one of my drawings.  I am thinking about making him into a digi stamp.  Would anyone be interested?  I colored him a little bit with my Copic Markers.  My blues were:  B97, B95, B000 and the snowman was shaded in C1.  Then I shadowed him a bit in B000.  I added Frosted Lace Stickles here and there to make him extra sparkly. :)  The paper is from Coredinations.  It's there new paper that is textured with shiny relief images that you can ink up and then wipe away the excess that lays on the relief.  Love this paper!  I also added some of my Glam Rocks to finish things off.  It was super easy!  I was thinking a sentiment would be great...but...decided this time it could stay simple as it is.  Hope you enjoy!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Santa Baby

Hello again!  It looks like we might get some snow this weekend, so that has me in a holiday frame of mind.  It's just in time too because I have a lot of holiday inspired items I want to share in the upcoming weeks.  I think I have mentioned that quite a few years ago (during the 90's to be more exact) I did a mess of scrapbooking.  It seems so very old school compared to the scrapbooks of today.  So between wishing all my 8 1/2 x 11 books were now 12 x 12 and a big divorce later (does anyone but me find it sad to look at old pages built around a broken marriage?) I have slowly been trying to break down the old scrapbooks and give them a face-lift.  And I have to repeat over and over again...I am not a very good scrapper!  But, alas...I try.  And either way, they are really fun to look at.

Here is my latest page.  Once again I utilized the very fun papers from  Little Yellow Bicycle Christmas Delights.  You can purchase these papers and embellishments plus a whole lot more from Paper Patch Crafts!  The paper is nice and heavy weight and in most cases double sided.  There is a lot of foil, sparkles and texture to the papers too and that is always so fun to work with.  My image doesn't begin to do it justice because of the camera's reflections off the sparkly paper.  But here is what I came up with:


This was my youngest sons 1st Christmas.  Ah, the memories....

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Bucket-O-Goodness

I know you have seen all those cute plastic clear pails and buckets at your local craft store.  I have, and a few weeks ago I bought a few of them because I knew I would eventually come up with something to do with them.  Then, a couple weekends ago, Archivers was having a make and take at their store and for a small fee we could assemble a really cute one.  I went and participated.  It was pretty fun.  The other day I was looking at my empty buckets and decided I could replicate the one I made at Archivers.  Well, my version of it anyway!  I utilized some of the scraps left over from the mini album I shared with you the other day and this is what I came up with:

Kinda cute?  Here it is again, this time filled with candy.  Now....who to give it to?
Does everyone know how to make the fun accordian fold flower embellishments at the top?  I have seen them all over but really didn't know how they were made.  It's actually fairly simple!
1.  Cut a strip of paper as wide as you want the size from the middle out
2.  Cut the length depending on how full of a flower you want.  I think this one was about 8"
3.  Score the strip at 1/4" intervals
4.  Accordian fold on all the score lines
5.  Adhere the 2 ends together "rooftop to rooftop" (just picture it in your mind..it makes sense!)
6.  Push the circle of folds in at the center.  It's a little wonky at first, but it will work if you mess around with it.
7.  I adhered mine to a circle of paper so it has something to stick to.  Use glue and hold in place until stays. 
8.  Top it with any embellishment you like.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Mini-Album Made with One 12 x 12 Sheet of Paper

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope your weekend was fantastic.  Mine was busy!  On Saturday my youngest son and I were priviledged to participate in the annual "Rake Up Boise" event.  (And I have the sore muscles to prove it this morning.)  Afterwards, we spent the day with 2 of my sons and their wives.  Which also means, I was able to hug on that little grandbaby of mine!  The perfect day really!

Today I want to share with you a very cool project (I think).  While I love to make cards, and consider myself mediocre at scrapbooking, I DO love to learn and explore other things that can be created without having to have tons of expensive new tools (although I love having those tools!).  I discovered this simple and creative project while watching youtube videos awhile ago and thought I would share with you how it's done.  You may remember seeing it included in the Pink Blog hop I was recently involved with.

Before I get started I want to preface this tutorial by mentioning that all the papers and embellishments I used can be purchased over at Paper Patch Crafts.  The new Christmas Delight papers by Little Yellow Bicycle are what I used to put this fun little album together.  I recommend checking her store out and browsing through the fun items she has for sale. :)

Here are a couple close up images of the mini album, and then afterwards I put together a video demonstrating a more detailed look at all the pages of the album and of course, a tutorial on how to build one for yourself.  I hope you enjoy!



And here is the video!

Friday, November 12, 2010

A Thanking We Will Go!

Hello, and welcome to the "A Thanking We Will Go" blog hop!  If you haven't met me yet, my name is Shelley and welcome to my blog!  You may have arrived here from Nicole's blog, but if you just happened upon this you can also start from the very beginning with Jessica.

Today I thought I would share with you a little project I have been working on to share with my friends and family during this holiday season.  Apple-Slider Cards!  The Stamps are my own original drawings and now available at Shelley Bean Stamps!  I colored them with Copic Markers (which I adore)




I put together a little video tutorial to show you how you can make your own Apple-Slider cards too.  I had so many goof-ups while making this silly video....at the very least you might be entertained if you enjoy watching someone make an idiot out of themselves!  Ah well...it's all in the fun of crafting!

 
Okay...now it's off to the next stop along this hop.  Please pop over to Sigrid and see she has to show you. 
If you find yourself lost along the way...here is a full list of the stops along this hop!
Happy Thanksgiving!!


Sunday, November 7, 2010

In Honor of Veteran's Day

I thought I would share a scrapbook page I made this morning in honor of Veteran's Day and also my son, Jordan who is currently serving in the Coast Guard.  I used the pagemaps sketch as given for the challenge going on at Paper Patch Crafts now through the 11th.


And this is what I came up with:




This page was a definite labor of love.  The challenge was to use the basic red, white and blue colors and other than a little touch of gold behind the journaling, I decided to stick with that because I liked the look of the clean and formal feel of the page.  Using the Stand and Salute Cricut cartridge I built the Coast Guard Emblem (anyway a broken-down version of it) mixing some different cuts together.  Instead of using another background paper as demonstrated in the sketch, I instead drew small hash-marks to frame the page and pull it all together.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

2nd Chance Winner!

Hello!  I am ready to announce the official winner for the Halloween album.  I am sorry you weren't able to receive it before the actual holiday this year, but now you can archive and document all the fun you had, so better late than never!

Using random generator the winner is:

The Creative Mind of Melia said...


i love the cornacopia stamp....
melia~~
wifey7799@gmail.com

Melia, get in touch with me so I can send that out to you. :)

Whew...life has been a roller-coaster lately full of good intentions and very little follow-through on this end of my life.  I am taking it back under control though and hope to deluge you all very soon with the creative things going on in my mind.  I have a bunch of fun new products to share with you from Paper Patch Crafts, as well as tutorials I promised in past posts...like: hand-made flowers, mini-albums, scrapbook layouts, creative cards and the list goes on and on.  This afternoon I don't have anything ready to post, but please check back because I intend to get a lot accomplished this week.  And please stay tuned for next weekend because there will be another fun blog-hop coming up!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Inking Pink Winner...and other things of mention

Good morning all.  This morning I wanted to announce the winner of my blog candy in the Inking Pink Blog hop of last week.  First of all though, I had a few other things to fill you in on.  There are new digi-images available over on my stamp site, Shelley Bean Stamps.  Here is a sneak-peek of a few now available.  Please check it out to see them all.



I also needed to announce that the last blog candy I gave away for the Funmare Before Halloween Hop was never collected.  I left a notice here on my blog and sent an email (that bounced back to me) so I am going to give that away again.  Instead of just picking a 2nd winner from the many responses...I decided to do something very different.  Leave a comment after this blog entry.  I think I will choose from the visitors that actually visit my page and support me regularly (even when there isn't a blog hop going on) to be the winner of the Halloween Album.  So, leave those comments and I will pick someone at the end of the week sometime.

And now for the winner of the Inking Pink Blog Candy:

Jen said:
Love this ....it's amazing!! I'm already a follower on your blog. Love your work. Thanks so much for taking your time to do this blog. It means a lot. My Mom is a survivor!!

hugs to you,jen
jennyscards.blogspot.com
jenniferhogge07@yahoo.com
October 26, 2010 4:37 PM

Congratulations Jen!!  Send me your physical address so I can send that right out to you!

Everyone have a wonderful Tuesday!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

A Card for Fall

Hello!  Click here to continue along with the Inking Pink Blog Hop now going on through October 31st!

In the meantime, here is something I thought I would share with you all.  Anne over at Paper Patch Crafts is holding a fall inspired card challenge and so I decided I would create something to share.  And here is what I came up with:

The digi stamp is available at my very own stamp site, Shelley Bean Stamps.  I colored my little indian maiden with copic markers using the feathering technique.  I think it added a little texture to the fabric of her dress.  The background was embossed with a cuttlebug folder and the tiny Prima flowers were purchased from Paper Patch Crafts.  I embellished them with my I-Rock tool and Glam Rocks.  It was super fun to create.

I hope you enjoy!  Please check out this and other fun rubber stamps and digi stamps now available at Shelley Bean Stamps
UPDATE!!! New digi-stamps JUST added at Shelley Bean Stamps.  Please check them out!!

Copic Markers used:
Dress:  E99,E13,YR12
Flesh tone:  E11,E00, R20

I also would love to invite new friends to join me at my facebook!  There you can share all your ideas and creations with me.  Ask me questions or show me the fun things you have made too!  I would love to get to know you all better!  Please come and join!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Inking Pink Blog Hop

Welcome to our Inking Pink Awareness Hop! Our paper crafting community spans the globe and brings all of us together under a common roof. We are grandmothers, granddaughters, mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, best friends, wives, cyber-friends and design team teammates. Many of us have family or friends touched by breast cancer and all of us want to encourage all of you to check yourself!


This hop will take you around the world, so please sit back with your morning coffee or evening tea and celebrate our stories and projects with us. Some of your fellow crafters along the hop are even offering blog candy! Please give a little comment love to each and every crafter along the way. We hope you enjoy our hop, and most of all we all want YOU to give yourself the greatest gift and do a self-check tomorrow. The more you do it, the more breast aware you will be!

Our hop starts at Patricia's blog so if you started some where else please start there you don't want to miss what we have for you.

If you have just arrived from Nicole's blog, I am sure you were treated to her wonderful talent.  She always has the most creative ideas to share.  As for me, as I thought about what I wanted to share today I knew it would be another album.  This time I had in mind my 2 sisters and how much I love them and appreciate them.  I built this album based on the idea when I finish it I will include pictures of the 3 of us as we grew up together.  But for now, I will share with you my ideas in their rough draft.  (because these albums take a lot of work and forethought, and I want it to be "just right" in its' finished format.  When I do get it completed, I will show you all again with a video.  For now...here it is! (There are a lot of pictures...I hope you enjoy!)


The flowers are handmade.  I will show a tutorial soon on these.  The frame was made by making faux chipboard with the Stretch your Imagination Cricut cartridge

The fun slider card!  Tutorial coming soon!
The mini book made with 1 sheet of 12x12 paper.  I think there is another tutorial in the works!
Lots of pockets all through this paperbag album for tags and photos.
Flip out album...lots of fun pages to add your photos or journaling
Now for some blog candy....


To win this candy it's very simple!  Become a follower of my blog, leave a comment and remember to include an email address so I can contact you should you win!!  Here is what you will win.  One original rubber stamp designed by me from Shelley Bean Stamps.  3 handmade flowers and a mini book for you to accessorize however you would like.

Now it's time to check out the next blog along the hop!!  Stephanne has something great in store for you! 

And in case you need some direction...here is a list of all the wonderful blogs included in this hop!

Monday, October 18, 2010

And the Winner is....

Good morning all my craft-lovin' friends!  I have a winner for the Paper Bag Album to share with you from the Funmare before Halloween Blog Hop over the weekend.  Before I announce that though, I want to thank all of you for your wonderful comments and the support you have given me.  This little blog here goes a long ways in my life, to give me some balance and an outlet for my creativity...but also to feel a sense of sharing when I might show you an idea that inspires you to be creative as well.  With all that being said though...it is going to be really hard to part with this album today, so I am hopeful the winner truly loves it and gives it a good home.  :)

I used the random generator to pick my winner.  And the winner is:

ReinasMomma said...
Thanks for sharing! chrisbrown19732hotmail.com My favorite Halloween costume- Scary Spice
October 16, 2010 3:38 PM

Okay, ReinasMomma AKA Scary Spice...send me your physical address via email so I can send the fun little album out to you!!  And Congrats! 

For everyone else...stay tuned and visit often, because there is always something being given away sooner or later.  :)

Now to share with you a scrap page I made yesterday.  This one was of my son Trey (now 14) and a vacation we had while visiting the Oregon coast.  (my hometown)  He and a seagull were having an interesting time together seeing who could stand their ground better.  I am not sure who won the battle.


 I hand-lettered the words on the page. And added some gemstones with my I-Rock tool to frame everything a little bit.  The seashells were made with the Stretch Your Imagination Cricut Cart and the scallop was created with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.  FYI: If you set the dial to 1 3/4" size it will make a scallop that utilizes the whole width of your 12x12 paper.
This page is part of a challenge over at Paper Patch Crafts using this layout sketch:
Go take a look and enter your scrap page idea before midnight October 19 and you could win a fun prize!!


Saturday, October 16, 2010

Funmare Before Halloween Blog Hop!!!

Wooooooooo....are you totally terrified by now?  Has the hop been a blast so far?  Well, it's not over yet!  I have more to share with you!  You most likely just left the fun and frightening blog over at Nicole's.  I am sure she delighted you with her cool and creative talent!

So, here is what I cooked up for you today!  A Paper Bag Album!  I had such fun creating this too.  It became a bit more involved than I had anticipated because I just couldn't stop adding more and more things to it.  After I show you all the photos, I will have a video of the details of the album as well.  (It is uploading as we speak...if you don't see it here yet...you will shortly).  Be sure to read to the bottom because I have some very special blog candy to offer you!

Without further ado...here it is!!


I made the buttons on the left side using the Brad Maker by Imaginesce.  The stamped images are my very own Digi images now available over at my stamp site ShelleyBeanStamps. 

I created many tags to slide into all the fun little pockets hidden throughout the album.  The images were cut using the October 31 cartridge with my Cricut.

The papers and most of the supplies used were mainly provided very generously by Paper Patch Crafts!
The Chandelier was cut from the Home Decor Cricut Cartridge
It's easy and fun to create little photo mats with coordinating papers.
You can make your own photo corners by cutting a square scrap on the diagonal and popping tiny glue dots in each color.  The photo can simply slide into the corner pockets.

And here is the video!
I learned how to make the basic's of the album by watching the how-to video at this link.

So, what did you think of this album?  Would you like to learn to make your own?  How would you like to own THIS ALBUM?  Well, that is what I am offering for my blog candy.  Become a follower (if you are not already) and leave me a comment WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!  And for fun, tell me what your favorite Halloween costume has been.  I will randomly choose 1 person as a winner Sunday night and ship this fun little album out to the winner on Monday.

Now it's time to hop on your broom and head on over to Tammy's Blog and see what she has prepared to scare you with today!!

If you have lost your way...here is the hop line up!