Back to School Monday

Gosh, it is Monday already. Today is the first day of school for us in this area of Arkansas. It is going to be a long, long day. I am pleased to be seeing my sweet student faces again, but it is going to take both the students and myself a week to get back in the saddle or the routine. Scheduling is rather strange this year too.....

Today I am going to post a card that I fell in love with at Convention. I do not know who created this card. One of my lucky roommates (and I am not sure which one of them) received it in a swap. To me this "spinner card" (the eyeball actually spins!) is the best use of this stamp set I have ever seen.

I am going to try to re-create this card to the best of my ability. I know the artist stamped the 2 monsters or aliens from Make A Monster stamp set onto Designer Series paper and then hand cut them out.  The base of the card is Pacific Point. The main mat is black and I "think" that the white you see is done with a gel pen. Remember all I have is a photo to go by.  The moon is So Saffron and the planet is Gumball Green. It appears that there are 2 layers to both the moon and the planet. The artist used various circle punches on these pieces. The Word Window punch was used in the center of the black mat. This created the window for your 2 pennies and the dimensional and big moveable/goggly eye. If you go over to splitcoastampers, you can find SPINNER CARD in their tutorials.  It is very simple to create a spinner card. Need a punch like Word Window, 2 pennies, a dimensional, and something to add to the topside (like the moveable eye). I will show you my interpretation when I get it finished!

Another card I loved was an Anniversary Card. Again, I do not know the name of the artist. Just can tell you one of my 3 roommates, (Sandy, Gail, or Pat) received this card in a swap. Love the card.

They used the new Gold Glimmer paper and Very Vanilla paper. The stamping was done with Soft Suede or is it Crumb Cake?  I can tell you the cardbase is 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" (once folded). The Gold Glimmer mat is 5 1/4" x 4". Then the Very Vanilla mat is 5" x 3 3/4" and run thru the Big Shot with the Square Lattice Folder.  I can see the Very Vanilla Doily and all those Boho Blossoms flower punches out of Very Vanilla. The leaves are Crumb Cake. The beautiful butterfly comes from our new stamp set as well as the wording for the sentiment. This is another card I want to recreate.

Okay dokey, my time is limited this morning. Still need to shower, dress, take my meds and my shot and hit the road. I have one more thing to copy off before my class needs it this afternoon. I have all the rest of my classes prepped for this week and next week. I simply just ran out of time on Saturday and decided to stay home on Sunday to tackle the laundry and clean my scrapbook room. Got the laundry done (okay 3 loads) and then after cleaning the scrapbook room, I even cut out my technique card for September card class. Tonight I type up the technique to print onto cardstock for our card rings. Only 3 cards to go and I can have class! Figure by this weekend, I will be ready to announce card class dates.

Have a great day!
Arlene

It's a Busy Saturday~

Pictured above is my Card Candy swap entry for my Convention 2012 Card Candy Swap. I first heard of Card Candy from SUDSOL SU Demo Bobbie Ganley. She hosted a Card Candy swap at Leadership 2012 in San Antonio this past January (you can see the samples from that swap in my January blog posts). I liked the idea so well, that I hosted a Card Candy swap at Splitcoaststampers for the 2012 Convention.

You wonder what is card candy? My best explaination is that is a homemade Jolee. You can make them and hand them out to your hostesses or as door prizes (or even to make fast cards yourself!). This is just a nice way to showcase the versatility of a stamp set. The items are placed on acetate (transparency film) with a glue dot to make them easy to remove and use at a later date. I also place my transparency on a piece of chipboard. Again, I cut up all the whitechipboard that comes with my Stampin Up DSP paper. I attached my transparency to the chipboard and later attached the stamped/matted images. Then I slip it all in a SU cello bag and add a topper.

When I find where I hid my camera I will take photos of all the Card Candy swap entries. We had 2 groups of 8. The swap was awesome. I will be doing it again at the next Convention! The above pictured Card Candy features the stamp set MOUTHWATERING. I wanted to make sure each stamped image had a sentiment to match it or to go with it. I had alot of questions about my purple popsicle. I used the Elegant Eggplant marker. Then  I cut them out and attached them to real wooden mini sticks I found at Hobby Lobby.

This is a busy Saturday weekend. I am in the midst of laundry right now. Then my friend Stacy is coming to do a scrapbook layout. After that I need to head to Little Rock to the teacher store and pick up a couple of items I need. I need more rings for my chart stand and I want another chart holder. Then out to the school to make copies and work on lesson plans. Tomorrow I have a lady coming from Hot Springs to see some SU products and get a catalog. Then Monday morning school starts back full time. Plus on top of it all, I am out on Friday for my 70th chemo round. My mantra is "Only 2 more years.... only 2 more years". I have already handled 5 years, so we know it is possible.

You have a great weekend!

Arlene

Oh my! It's already Mid-August!

Above is a simple 12 x 12 layout I did for a Convention Swap. It would be so easy to do a matching page layout design to complete a 2 page spread. I don't know about you, but I prefer a 2 page spread in my scrapbooks... that and I prefer the bases of the spreads to be alike (I mean the color). I am not fond of using a red background on one page and then a yellow on the other. I want my eye to flow across the pages and focus on the photos -- not the different backgrounds.

In this layout I got to showcase some new items in the 2012-2013 Catalog. Among them are:

* The Sizzix Typeset Alphabet Bigz (page 192)

* Delicate Doilies Sizzlits L (page 191)

* Be of Good Cheer DSP (page 164)

* Gumball Green Cardstock - new In Color (page 152)

Let me clue you in on a few things I did on this layout. I applied some of the Cherry Cobbler Cardstock to a thin layer of chipboard. I used the chipboard that comes in my DSP package. Then I cut out the numbers, 2012 out of that cardstock covered chipboard. I raised up the numbers using dimensionals to give the page some depth. I often use cardstock covered chipboard to cut die cuts or with my framelits. It simply gives the paper more weight and stability. Try it with your label framelits sometime, and then use dimensionals to lift the framelit off the base of your card or scrapbook page.

I cut the Gumball Green cardstock with the Delicate Doilies Sizzlets. I stamped the sentiment NOEL onto a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and punched it out with a circle punch. Then I added the doily to the layout. Once it was adhered, I added the circle punched sentiment to the center of the doily and the pearls surrounding the doily to give the page some *pop*.

I cut my DSP into strips. Here are my measurements:

* Cherry Cobbler Stripe  (Be of Good Cheer DSP) - 3/4" x 12"

*Gumball Green Dots (from In Color DSP stacks) - 2 1/2" x 12

* Cherry Cobbler Candy Design (Be of Good Cheer DSP) - 1" x 12"

* Multi Dot Design (Be of Good Cheer DSP) - 1/2" x 12"

* Gumball Green Stripes (from In Color DSP stacks) - 1/4" x 12"

I placed the DSP paper about 1/8 to 1/4 inch apart (just enough to allow some Cherry Cobbler to peek thru) horizontally across my layout. The varying sizes of the DSP gives the page some movement visually and adds interest (in my humble opinion). Also notice I have some Gumball Green cardstock punched with the scallop edge punch along the bottom edge of the Cherry Cobbler Stripe. My large rectangular mat and the 4 other mats are Very Vanilla. You could use one of the 4 mats to journal or just add photos to each of the boxes. A piece of Gumball Green cardstock breaks up the large Very Vanilla rectangular mat and the Very Vanilla photo mats. Overall a simple design that will focus on my Christmas Papers.

I ended up with 4 of these layouts left over (folks who missed the swap) so my three roommates Sandy, Pat and Gail all confiscated one each. The 4th I gave to my new friend Debbie and I still need to make 1 for my other new friend Lynn (who is Debbie's sister). You need to visit Lynn's blog at http://www.starzlstamps.com

  Lynn even posted a photo of the three of us in the Shiloh Inn Lobby.

Now the other stuff to catch you up on.... I had scans last week that were great but Dr. Baltz feels that I need to stay on chemo every 2 weeks at least to November . Ugh... same thing he told me in June... and I feel certain he will tell me the same thing again in November. I really just want to get out to 3 weeks between treatments. But he knows best... I am just anxious to resume life.

School started (well in services) on this past Monday. Of course the week began with a severe thunderstorm. A transformer was hit by lighting and knocked out the air conditioning in the 3 floor Middle School. These days they do not put in windows that actually open and close in school buildings, so the room was an oven and we had to work in our rooms that day. I had Jenny (my sister) bring me 2 fans that I had loaned her this summer back to the classroom but they did not make much of a dent. At lunch I bought 2 more powerful fans and the room got to be at least tolerable. Yesterday they got all the a/c fixed. Just in time for our Open House last night. Students arrive on Monday. Today and tomorrow are all day in service meetings once again.

One more sad note to add. Barbara (bbkk on Splitcoaststampers) tells me that my friend, Jan Hoyt (Inkerzaway on Splitcoaststampers) lost her father in the past 2 weeks. Jan, if you are reading this, please accept my condolences. I will have a card ready for you this weekend. Have lost your phone number again, so I could not call (okay I know I am a Baby Boomer and that is tech stuff...). Thinking of you Jan.

That's all for me today. I will try to get better about posting.... July just flew past me with Sheffield Sleepover, prepping for Convention swaps, taking treatments and actually going to Convention. Came home SUPER EXHAUSTED and still no transfusions --- ugh.... Plus let's add that week of In Service (okay 4 full days) of In Service training that occurred between my chemo (that I got the day after I came home from Salt Lake City) and the following treatment and scans last week.

Prepping for a stamp class. Will announce dates once I get the rest of the cards cut. It will be at least another week before I can do that. I have my 5 designs and just need to prep. We will be starting with our TECHNIQUE classes too. The first techinque is going to be TRIPLE TIME STAMPING with the stamp set Gently Falling (a fall leaf set)....and I have a masculine card all prepped with the stamp set THE OPEN SEA....

Arlene