Another photo from our trip to California in December! This one was taken by Alex on a trip to Target with her Auntie Emily (Joe's sister) and family. I love Holly's "I'm so bored with all your shanigans" look on her face! Of course, you can't help but laugh at Em's sideways pose. I hope the excitement of this photo brightens your week :)

For some folks, Ebay or Craigslist are very dangerous but for me, nothing is more dangerous than Etsy! If you are a crafter on any level or you love handmade items, this is the place for you because everything on the site is either handmade or can be used to make handmade items. Besides paper, sterling silver jewelry is a weakness for me (big reason why I sell Silpada!) I love unusual, well-crafted, good quality sterling silver jewelry and the piece I received in the mail today certainly met those qualifications. The ring, called Silver Tempest, was designed by Alicia Istanbul of Istanbul Designs and is just lovely.

I finally got out my new light tent and started playing with it...can you see the difference in my photos already? I have no clue what I'm doing with the tent or my new camera but I figure I'm staving off Alzheimer's by teaching myself how to use this stuff! Ha! This is a simple card I designed for the German ladies at my church using the gate fold. Felicia Escalante, one of the SU! demos in Ramstein, taught our demo group how to do this simple card fold but I never went back and played with the design. What an easy way to make cards!

A few months ago I participated in a swap and discovered that just about everyone I craft with has the same scissors! Most of the folks I craft with are either SU! demos or purchase SU! products and so most of us own paper snips and/or craft and rubber scissors, which is fantastic until you put your scissors down on the table and don't know which ones are yours. My friend Tasha told me about a seller on Etsy who sold scissor charms so I thought I'd check it out.

The cracked glass technique has been around for quite some time but is a technique that I never played around with much. While trolling around my list of blogs looking for ideas using the new SU! circle scissors I came across a beautiful card by Beate Johns using this technique and decided to give it another whirl. Beate's cards are always beautifully layered and detailed, using color combinations that challenge me to be more creative. Here's a simple how-to:

1. Stamp image on cardstock, doing any distressing or detailing before going on to the next step. (I distressed the cardstock edges, sponged the image with ink, and added the pierced holes)
2. Press your cardstock image onto a Versamark pad, thoroughly covering the paper.
3. Sprinkle UTEE or SU! Glassy Glaze over the cardstock, tapping off any excess.
4. Heat the image until the glaze is melted.
5. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4
6. Place image in a plate in your freezer until well chilled.
7. Remove cardstock from freezer and bend paper, creating the crackling effect in the glaze.

You can see the cracked detailing a bit better here. You can also sponge over the image to work ink into the cracked glaze to give it a vintage look. My card isn't nearly as stunning as Beate's card but I'm still pretty proud of it! I hope this inspires you to try this technique.

Supplies: SU! Not Quite Navy, Shimmer White, and Baja Breeze cardstock, SU! Urban Garden Designer Series Paper, SU! Not Quite Navy and Baja Breeze Classic Ink, Versamark, SU! Scallop Edge, 3/4" circle, Boho Blossoms, small oval, and large oval punches, paper piercer, SU! Circle Scissors, SU! Glassy Glaze, K & Company adhesive pearls, cotton thread (Listmann's), sponge, Scor-Pal, heat embossing tool, and dimensionals

I'm starting to get caught up! This was one of the cards completed by my stamp club in January (okay, so it's two months overdue!) I originally case'd this from a stamper on Splitcoast and didn't keep track of the link for it. I really need to do a better job of that because I hate for crafters to not get credit for their work. :( Yet another Big Shot project, this card features the lovely scalloped envelope die and a monochromatic pink scheme. The SU! Love You Much bundle, which came with a punch, designer paper, and a stamp set, was a big hit with me this year, especially the punch. Most anyone who has seen my craft room knows about my passion for craft punches! I hope you enjoy the card and Happy Valentine's Day in March...ha!

Supplies: SU! Shimmer White, Pirouette Pink, and Regal Rose card stock, SU! Regal Rose Classic ink, SU! Love You Much stamp set, SU! heart, scallop, and 1 3/8" punches, 3/8" white satin ribbon, three-way glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Michael's Dollar Spot pink sparkle gemstones, Big Shot Scallop Envelope die, and dimensionals

This is overdue as I promised to post this last week but better late than never! (I think this is my life mantra since everything I do always seems to be late!) Recently I put in an order for Papertrey Ink stamps and accidentally ordered two of the Out on a Limb Sentiments stamp set. Rather than go to all the trouble to return the set, I thought I'd do a drawing and give it away for free! Here's what you've gotta do to be entered in the drawing: respond to this posting with a link to your favorite crafting blog or online craft store and tell me why it's your favorite. It can't be something already listed on my blog...it has to be something new and exciting! Your name will be entered in the drawing and I'll have my hubby draw a name by Sunday. Can't wait to read your posts and who knows, maybe I'll offer more than one prize if the responses are REALLY good!

I'm discovering I have some favorites among our recent photos that would be worth sharing and this one fell into the "favorite" catagory. For those of you who don't know my background, Joe and I met in high school at the restaurant shown in the picture, later marrying at the ripe old ages of 18 and 19. Ah, the glory days of working in a fast food restaurant! Who knew that selling hamburgers could lead to true love :) We thought it would be fun to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary at the place that started it all (I can hear some of you laughing as you read this so be nice!) plus it was a cheap way to celebrate our anniversary and see everybody at the same time. Anyway, Joe's mom loves to take photos and I managed to capture this priceless look on Joe's face as she got up close and personal with her camera. What a hoot!

I finally bought a light tent! Why, you may ask? Look at how dark and fuzzy this photo is and you don't even need to ask. I'd really like to take some photography classes but in the meantime I can use a light tent to take clearer photos of my projects so that perhaps my blog will be a bit more professional looking.

This is a card I did for a workshop quite some time ago and apparently never posted. The Chalkboard Technique is very simple: stamp your image on cardstock using a thick pigment ink such as SU! Craft ink. For this card I used white Craft ink on a chocolate chip background. Using sponge daubers, dot desired color of chalk over the image so that the chalk adheres to the image but doesn't smear it. Lightly wipe a dry Swiffer pad over the chalked image to remove excess chalk and set the image. The photo just doesn't do the card justice as you can't see all the paper piercing and layering details clearly. If you want to see a similar example from the source that I CASE'd this card from, visit Beate Johns blog (the link is listed on the right of my blog page). Happy crafting!

It's March and I'm STILL working on uploading all my projects from December! Despite the madness of traveling from Germany to California and back (as you can attest from my previous blog post) we had a terrific time while we were home. As I mentioned previously, we hadn't been home in four-and-a-half years and while Joe has been back to the States for training, the kids and I haven't visited since 2004 so it was interesting to see how things have changed. Some things were the same (clam chowder in a sour dough bowl at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey is still fabulous and did I mention See's candy?) but other things like the mass commercialism of strip malls that plague California are a sad sight to see, especially in light of the current state of our economy which is partially due to massive credit card debt. What's funny living overseas around so many Americans is the way some people talk about things in the States with a sort of hushed reverence, "Target, do you remember how wonderful Target is?" almost as though Target was a deity. Believe me, I spent my fair share of time (and money) in Target over the holidays and I loved every minute but it also made me realize how much I enjoy the opportunities I have living overseas. We were in Williams-Sonoma one night and I laughed to see some of the pricey "gourmet" food items available for inflated prices, as some of them are just regular items you can buy at any grocery store overseas. "Fleur de Sel" which is a specialty French sea salt, was $10.00 for a 2 oz. jar at a gourmet store and I purchased a 1 kilo bag at a German Weihnachtsmarkt for 5 euros! Anyway, there are times when it is difficult living so far from home but when I realize how many wonderful opportunities I have right where I live, it makes me long for the conveniences of home just a little less and appreciate things like living four hours away from the Eiffel Tower just a bit more.

So I'm finally sorting through all my photos from our trip to California in December! Amazing, I know! It was our first time traveling home in four-and-a-half years and the grueling schedule of trying to get to California reminded me all over again why I DO NOT fly home every year. Let me give you a brief synopsis of our travels up to the time of this now infamous layover. We flew from Frankfurt to Chicago, having been up a total of 13 hours at that juncture. The layover time between our flight to Los Angeles from Chicago was not long enough for us to make it through customs and security AND to our next gate so we spent almost five hours in Chicago before taking the last flight out to L.A. Upon our arrival in L.A. at 11:20 p.m., United told us we had two options: get a hotel and come back at 6 a.m. to check in and go through security all over again or stay in the airport. We opted to stay in the airport and when we looked around us, the airport was completely deserted except two other folks from our flight who were sacked out at the gate. Exhausted, I plopped my stuff down in front of a row of chairs and passed out until 3 a.m. When I woke up, Joe and the kids were STILL awake and happily gaming on their various electronic devices. After using the little girls room, I began to document our adventures in LAX. The picture above is a happy picture of my little gerbils behind the gate counter at United. Come fly with us! (Don't you just love how happy Jordan looks?!)

As promised, here is part two of my recent escapades using the Big Shot. (Gasp! I know you're all in shock that I've actually remembered to blog the second part. I'm getting better little by little) Here's the horrible part: I can't remember the blog where I found the inspiration for this project! Once I find it, I'll edit the blog to include the proper credit for this project but in the meantime I thank the currently nameless person who designed this adorable box.

Part two also utilizes the Top Note Bigz Die, with two dies cut for the lid and the base. The size is such that you can create four of the same template from one standard 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of cardstock=two lids/bases for two boxes.

Here is a side view of the box, where you can see the lid lifting up. The lid is attached, similar to that of a pizza box or those gift boxes of Lifesavers you can buy during the holidays. The design can be shifted so that the box is in the portrait position as well. The free Sale-A-Bration set "Yummy" stamps perfectly within the design of the cut piece. Another marketing ploy by SU! that sucked me in!

Sale-A-Bration is here again! For those of us addicted to Stampin' Up! products, Sale-A-Bration (SAB) is our favorite time of year as it gives us an opportunity to earn crafting freebies for every $50.00 spent. In today's economy, who doesn't love freebies?! My club projects this month have focused on the free products offered during SAB, as well as my favorite new tool: the Big Shot! My wonderful husband purchased the Big Shot for me as an anniversary gift.
I'm so spoiled!