Mojo Monday for the holidays

I found these great little plastic cups at Kohl's for $2.10 and I could save 20% off that...so they were a no brainer.  The issue with them was that they were graduation cups, but upon further inspection, I realized the inserts came out and you could customize with a photo of your graduate.  Then I thought, "think out of the box".  I took out the entire insert and put in one of my very own.

I used the Mojo Monday sketch and created my new and improved inserts to go along with this week's sketch.  These things were very hard to photograph and for some reason, they appear to be sideways.  I am still having the issues with the Mac portion.

I can't wait to give this to a certain special someone.


All materials are from a kit that I bought years ago by Westrim Crafts, with the exception of the flowers.  The paper flowers are from CM and the fabric flowers are from an arrangement at my house. 

The wild 1930

Lately, I have been watching TONS of 1930's movies and reading 1930's books.  The later stems from not having any extra funds to buy new books so I browse the free section.  I have read some interesting books and some that well were horrible (maybe it's a changing times thing).  Anyway, I have noticed that the entertainment is coming into my work.  And influencing my choices on the materials I purchase.  

I recently got this stamp and die set from Spellbinders (featured above), that is move of the Art Nouveau time, but still it is old fashioned.  While at Trace Creek this year I found many stamps that featured ladies from olden times (flappers, gothic, classic art works and victorian).  I bought them all!!!

One of these stamps is featured on this weeks Mojo Monday entry, do you recognize her?  She is exquisite!.  

My last new purchase was a die that made the cute flowers. I have the scoring board, but I found this easy and fun.  I love the look on the Thanks card below.  

Now I will give you recommendations just in case you too are bitten by the old fashioned bug.

Read American Rose (about Gypsy Rose Lee the queen of burlesque)

Watch "You can't take it with you" featuring Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart

Watch "It happened one night" featuring Gable and Claudette Cobert

And read Hollywood Babylon...it's gross but interesting.

Next I am back on my 1950's kick.

Sunday afternoon work

This Sunday afternoon, I had laundry to wash, dry and fold; lunches to fix, clothes to put away, regular lunch to fix, bathrooms to clean, floors to mop and on top of that I had to teach Trevor how to do some art things.

The kid whined but he did it, he made some great creations.  Even had time to go to church.  And in between it all I had time to make three cards for CR84FN.  Yay.


I will go backwards one day and tell you about the Trace Creek Crop.  I love this day for many reasons but my favorite reason is that this day provides the mixing of my very favorite thing with Jesus!!!  The fellowship with some fine ladies is a little bit of perfection.  The shopping divine (I only spent what I made yesterday).  I completed an entire album.  I will have to show you that later because it is for a Christmas present.  I will show you my cards.

Loretta Young

I don't know if you are like me or not, but I got through phases with the actors I watch. Most recently I was watching Gene Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, but this week I started watching Loretta Young and Clark Gable.  Not everyone knows (especially not back when they were alive) that Clark and Loretta had a mad affair while filming Call of the Wild (if you have not seen this you should).  The result was a baby. Loretta went away to have the child and then she "adopted" the child.  That's right the child we all thought was not hers was really hers and the baby daddy was Gable.  

Call of the Wild was on TCM the other day, and I made all the kids watch it.  For one it was about Alaska, Two Clark Gable and three it is a wonderful story.  Today I was thinking of Loretta Young and I knew she had said something about God once and I wanted to remember so I googled it.  

That quote inspired my entries for the CR84FN color challenge and this week's Mojo Monday sketch challenge.  

The quote is "I'm grateful to God for his bountiful gifts...He gave me courage and faith in myself" (I featured it as the inside of the top card)

And while I was looking I found one more that was worthy of remembering.

"No one is ever too old, too rich too poor, to pray"

Then I painted my version of I perceive Loretta to look.  Both cards today feature what I think Loretta looked like as a Follies girl. 

Labor Day weekend projects

I have accomplished tons this weekend!  Friday I took the girls to the mail and met up with my buddy Andrea.  We had $2.00 grande frapps!!  Saturday I woke up early drove to Mayfield to get my mom in laws haircut and do a bit around the house.  After that I headed to Paducah to watch Trevor play football.  Trevor then took a much needed shower and we headed to the lake for some ocean boneless fish.  

Grandma needed groceries so we headed back to Mayfield and did some walmart shopping for her.  What a long day.

Sunday I worked on some projects...All the ones featured here.  Oh and I did 3 loads of laundry.  It is now bed time and I am just now eating!! 

Enjoy my stuff....oh, why are there no photos on the layouts?  Because I am out of photos to scrap. I have to take more.  Being caught up stinks when you need to scrap.  

A little man in your life (but don't forget the girl)

Today I was working on some more manly cards.  It worked for me for some time and then I just had to make some girl cards.  I wanted to make some manly cards so that I could prepare myself to make this shower curtain for a friend.  She wants a patchwork curtain from super hero fabric.  I have high expectations for this curtain. I will feature it probably next week.

The first two cards were made using this weeks Mojo Monday formula.  What a great way to showcase my new gears die cut...love it!!!  Materials used:

Gears die cut by Sizzix

Paper by The Paper Company

Patterned paper by K&Co (Wild Saffron)

Lines embossing folder by The Paper Company

Script stamp by Technique Tuesday

Umbrella man embossing folder by Tim Holtz

All inks are Distress inks by Tim Holtz (Peeled Paint, Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, Walnut Stain)

Paper for gears is from my scrapbin

For my next man card, I used the Tim Holtz car embossing folder, the large gear from my Sizzix set, Stickles in Gold, and ribbon from my ribbon jar (and I have no idea who made it).  The rest of the supplies are the same from the previous two.

Time for some girly cards....This one uses my new Sizzix circle die, a stamp by Hot off the Press (that I painted with watercolors), the girl image was stamped using StazOn, all other papers and inks same as above.

And lastly, Marilyn.  I cut the Marilyn stencil from a plastic icee cup from Hucks.  It took me a very long time, but it was worth it completely.  The music stamp is by Close to My Heart, the flower by K&Co, the embossing folder by The Paper Company, ink from music by StazOn, all other ink by Tim Holtz (Peeled Paint, Evergreen Bough, Spun Sugar).  Paint is raven by Americana. 

My final project was attendance taking awards for the people I work with, let's hope they work.  I have not pictured them because I want them to be a surprise.

The Aquas have it

A couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law complained to me that her great-grandkids played in the freezer and then it made a puddle of water under the door.  She cleaned it up and that was the last I had heard of it........UNTIL Sunday!!!!!

It's Sunday around noon and I get a phone call.....my mother in law was taking a nap and a boom happened.  She then heard the carbon monoxide detector going off, but she could not get out of bed.  She said it took her a few minutes to get up and when she did she unplugged the detector.  She had her smarts to call the neighbor (but not to get out of the house). And they called the fire department.  Turns out the freezer (that was about 40 years old) decided it was time for it to die.

John and I head that way with trash bags and coolers in tow.  Our goal to save some of the food.  We get there and the house smells like an electrical fire smoke.  Pretty strong and pretty terrible, I am surprised my Mom-in-law could stand it.  I open the freezer and there is water everywhere.  I start looking at things NOTHING is frozen....this thing has not worked for a while.  Meat has started turning brown, things are starting to smell.  I am throwing things in trash bags while my mom in law is not liking that and she is trying to save things by putting them in the fridge.  John gives her a Popsicle that was completely melted and she puts it in the fridge!!!!

After 6 trash bags and one cooler, the freezer is empty and still a big smelly!!!

We decide she does not need another freezer because nothing in there was touched for probably 5 months, so we clean up the floor while John removes the freezer from the home.  There is evidence of a fire under the freezer, a nice burned area.  Well, we know why the house smelled like an electrical fire.

What a complete mess and waste of money (all that food)!

I came home and made a couple of cards to destress from the conversations that were going on while all the above was happening.  And there is NO way you want to know what was said.


The beach card was made with:
Balmy stamp set by Stampin UP
Buttons from my stash
String by DMC
Grungeboard sign frame by Tim Holtz
beads and star from my cross stitch bin
string paper and torn papers from my scrapbin
inks
Evergreen Bough, Mustard Seed, Iced Spruce, Old Paper, and Crushed Olive by Distress/Tim Holtz
Black ink by Ranger/Archival

brads by Making Memories



A thing of beauty:
Photo of Theda Bara from the internet
Doily from my stash
script paper from a Prima package
Font is bleeding cowboy (inside font Calli)

inks
Evergreen Bough by Distress/Tim Holtz
Black by Ranger/Archival

First week of school

Here we are after the first two days of school.  It has been an extremely busy week, but I have found time to do some of the things I love....such as shop at Michael's, Kohls and Hobby Lobby.  I ate a meal at Chili's.  Went to the Goodwill store.  And watched some of the Olympics!!!!

Today I spent a little time helping Trevor make some notebooks for school and while his glue was drying I wiped up these cards.

For the flower card I drew a spiral onto a sheet of cardstock.  I cut little petal shapes around the edges as I was cutting.  I then inked the shape with distress inks (Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint and Chipped Sapphire).  I wet the flowers thoroughly and did some shaping. I bended them, folded them, curled them...whatever suited me and dried with a heat gun.  Then I hot glued them together. I used all scraps on this project.  The edge was cut using a Tim Holtz Alterations Die.  The Happy Bday stamp is by Fiskars.

This card was somewhat of a departure for me.  I have never made a halloween card.  I decided to "write" boo with wire and adhere it with wire to the card.  I then fashioned a spider from velco leftovers and I wove ribbon onto wire for the legs.  All paper is scrap paper and the edges are cut from the same Tim Holtz Alterations Die, I just used the other side of the die.  I used Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire only on this card.  This was a fun card!!!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Today I read Tim Holtz's new blog post...he had posted this months tag.  Tim used a silhouette of a Victorianish age lady...I thought, "wow that would look good with a little steampunk".  Inspired I was....here is what I made...

I started with a cardboard base.

 I don't have a book plate embossing folder so I made a template from cardstock so that I could have a void in the middle of the embossing folder and therefore leaving the middle blank.  My cardstock template was 4 sheets thick and I used tab 2 on my multipurpose platform.

Then I took the embossed cardboard and painted it with Distress paint dabber in Picket Fence (Distress inks will resist this and it will help in the color process later).

Tim used a pretty frame stamp, but again I did not have this stamp (or anything like it) so I used a tab stamp.  I inked part of it with embossing ink, stamped onto the paper...poured on Midnight Black powder by Stampdenous...then reinked half the stamp and repeated the process.  The next step was to heat all the powder with the heat gun. 

I then found a clip art of Mary Poppins on the internet.  I glued to the center of my frame. 

The next step was to use Seedless Preserves and Evergreen Bough Distress ink and ink the tag all over.  I let that sit for a minute or so then I wet a paper towel. I took this and dabbed at portions of the tag where the paint was.  Then I took Misting Spray in Sterling Silver (by Michelles Musings) and sprayed the whole tag.  Tim's next embellishment was roses made from his tattered pinecone die.  I do not have this either so I drew my own.  I drew the design onto a piece of white paper. 

I used this for a pattern to cut two spirals from cardstock.  I inked the cardstock with the Seedless Preserves and the Evergreen Bough. I then wet the paper with a misting bottle. I got it pretty wet.  I took a toothpick and put some Alene's quick dry glue onto one end.  The next step was to wind the flower onto the toothpick starting with the wide end first.  I really tried to get the center nice and tight.  It was difficult with wet gluey paper. I set the flowers aside to dry.

While the flowers were drying I took a sheet of green scrappaper and hand cut a leaf.  After that I inked the entire thing with Evergreen Bough.  I wadded it up like it was trash, opened it and then used Vintage Photo Distress Stain. 

It was now time to put it all together!!!I used a metal tag saying "altered" and painted it with the Distress Picket Fence paint.  While that was drying I wired a silver shoe (from an old necklace), two kinds of purple ribbon (scrap) and a #17 for the street where the Banks family lived (#17 Cherry Tree Lane).  I stamped gears onto 3 different spots on the tag using Archival Black ink by Ranger.  I added a camera by K&Co, rhinestones by Recolletions and a butterfly stamp.  The butterfly stamp and the gears are by Hampton Arts.  

This was fun Tim, thanks.