A Quick Mother's Day Treat

So I'll start by saying that if you happen to be Marty, my own, personal mother, STOP HERE! Ha! Spoiler alert!! You'll be seeing this very shortly in person, so Happy Mother's Day in advance!!

Let me say that I am becoming very aware of the fact that I'm an extremely good shopper! I have an eye for bargains, and I know exactly what styles I like to work with. That being said, my space is extremely limited as far as storage and workspace. I've put myself on a shopping freeze (except for my monthly kit subscription...I need my Scarlet Lime!!), and I'm forcing myself to use up the enormous stash that I have. 

I picked up a cork board at a crafty store for $1 (before the shopping freeze!), not knowing what I would eventually make with it (but seriously, for $1?!? I could come up with something, surely). I have a bag of flower petals my best crafty friend was getting rid of (free!), and a super huge stash of Thickers -- one of those craft items I like so much I never want to use! Add some American Crafts ribbon, some Craft and XL Glue Dots®, and you've got yourself an awesome cork board for someone special!

Quick, easy, inexpensive, and a Mother's Day present your mother might actually use :)
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots design team

Random Act of Cards, Week Two!

Hey there! I know most people's excitement of new things happens at Christmas, but this year, mine was this last weekend! Although I was dreaming of seeing the new releases at CHA in person, my reality wasn't far off! I spent a long weekend with my mom doing all things crafty. Shopping, scrapbooking, eating (HA! That's a real part of crafting in my books!), and introducing my mom to canvas work! We had a blast. I'll be showing you the little amount of work that I actually got done in the next week, but today I'm on to Week Two of my Random Act of Cards.
Last week's card met it's purpose perfectly. I got a note from the recipient that it came at the perfect time, just when they needed a little boost. That's exactly the main reason behind this adventure.

This week's card is a new one. I was trying to use up some scrap papers in my stash and came up with this creation. I love the little owl that my husband bought for me (he has good taste!). Let's hope week two goes as well as week one!

 

 

I still have spots available on my recipient list, so if you're interested in getting one of my Random Acts of Cards, leave your email address in a comment here and I'll email you for your address!

Hi Girly Face!

I finally got a chance to read through my latest issue of Paper Crafts Magazine, and I felt the creative urge to get back to craft land a make something whimsical and fun. I had a basic idea in my head, and here's what I came up with!

Girly Face 'Hi"

This little Girly Face was sketched onto a dictionary page and cut out. I used Faber Castell gelatos for the cheeks, and I used Faber Castell Artist Big Brush Pens to color the scrap doily hair. Buttons for eyes, scrap papers from My Mind's Eye (Stella Rose) for the backgrounds, paper tape from Recollections for decoration and Thickers letters complete the card. I adhered everything with Mini Glue Dots.

I think she's a lot of fun!! Can't wait to have more time to make her some little friends and get a card pack together!

Sketch Challenge for Friendship's Garden

Hello again!!
Things in the Deeply Rooted house are in full packing mode, which means chaos abounds! If you missed my last post, my family and I are packing up house and moving out of state...new job, new home, and hopefully some new crafty friends!!! There are a million things to due with half as much time to do them in, more projects in my head than hours on a clock face (am I describing most of your lives?!), and did I mention we're having a birthday party this weekend?? Yikes!! Little Miss O will turn the big 0-2 during the move, so we're having some family and friends over this weekend to celebrate a bit early.
You know, "Just another manic Monday"...and Tuesday...and Wednesday...

In the midst of the chaos of it all, I managed to sneak through my packed-into-boxes craft lair (that's a whole depressing post all in it's own!!) to mellow out and make a card for the sketch challenge over at Friendship's Garden.

Becky, our resident botanist, has given us a great sketch to create from this week:

I love the simplicity of this card! It would have taken no time to make, had the thread not run out on my bobbin and pierced holes where thread should have been! Yeeeeahh, with that being the last element to add to my card (and not wanting to start completely over!), I reloaded the bobbin, lined my card back up on the machine, and painstakingly cranked the hand wheel to exactly line up with the holes so lovingly punched the first go round. Live and learn, right?!


I can't wait to see what you come up with using this sketch!! Use the link on the Friendship's Garden site to show us your Valentines card. While you're working on that, I'll be trying to get "M-I-C-K-E-YYYYYY, M-O-U-S-EEEEEE" out of my head from this party!! I promise to do a post about it (and the cake...always the cake!) so you can share in my misery celebration! :)




Materials used in this card:
Cardstock base: Hollo's Papercrafts
Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye - Union Square
Letters: Thickers
Image: Vintage sewing pattern
Staples: Making Memories
Hearts: Doodlecharms Cricut Cartridge, paper scraps from stash
Sewing machine with green thread

Non-Christmas(ish) Party Fun with Glue Dots!

I love birthdays! I love that everyone has that one special day that they get celebrated.
But.

 {are there any Christmas babies out there??}

Yeah. Christmas babies tend to have their birthdays accidentally forgotten in the hustle and bustle of the season, or may get a 'combo gift'...
                "This present is for your birthday and Christmas!"


So this year, I wanted to do something special for my 'Christmas baby' friend. We'll be having a normal, non-Christmas(ish) party for her this year. I was in charge of dessert and favors.   (!!!)

As much as I love birthdays, I love a good sale, too!! In all of the crafty stores, Christmas displays and goodies are speedily being set up and readied for the upcoming Christmas season...with $ales!! I went shopping for favors and was viciously attacked by 50% off Christmas items!!

So with my non-Christmas(ish) party theme, I snatched up an arm-full of clear plastic Christmas ornaments :)

Favors:

These are super easy to make and a lot of fun, too!! I'll walk you through the steps. Ready?
You'll need the following supplies:

• Clear ornament (I chose plastic...from experience!)
• Glue Lines® and an assortment of other Glue Dots®
• Coordinating glitter, ribbon and paper flowers
• Glittered chipboard letters (I used Thickers)
• Wood floor finish (I've used a few different brands that have all worked)
• Small piece of plastic wrap

 
The first step is to pour a bit of the floor finish into the clean ornament, cover the opening with plastic wrap, and make sure the entire inside of the ornament is coated.

Once the inside is coated, pour out the excess liquid and pour in the glitter. Give it a good shake to make sure it gets everywhere! Put the hanger back onto the top.

Cut your ribbon to fit around the ornament and apply your Glue Lines® to the back.

Peel off the plastic from the Glue Lines® and adhere your ribbon around the ornament. Use Ultra Thin Glue Dots® to apply paper flowers and finish off with your chipboard letter!




For the second ornament, I glittered the inside and used varying sizes of Glue Dots® (Mini, Permanent, and Craft) and randomly adhered them to the outside of the ornament. Press the dots into the glitter and wipe off the excess. Decorate with paper flowers and chipboard letter.

Cake:
When it comes to cake, I ran straight to the cupcake shop!! I love making kids cakes, but thought cupcakes would be more appropriate for this party. I wanted to dress them up a bit, so I used the Cindy Loo Cricut cartridge to cut out cute butterfly cupcake wrappers. I cut out some coordinating paper to line the wrappers and used some Micro Glue Dots® to adhere them.

Can you see those micro dots?? They're there!! Get out the magnifying glass!!

Use a 1" Glue Line® on the end where the tabs are (I don't care for using the tabs...they always fall apart!), wrap the liner around the cupcake and glue for a perfect fit.

I love them! I think everything turned out really well and we'll have a great non-Christmas(ish) birthday party.

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

Quick page...and I mean QUICK!

So I'm on my own for a bit! My wonderful hubby took the kids to visit his parents out of state until Thanksgiving. It's only been a few days since they left, and I think I've slept the majority of the time away!! Hopefully I'll be able to get quite a few posts up while I have a bit of extra time on my hands.


I've had this piece of cardstock since I started scrapbooking in 2008, and I could never figure out how I wanted to use it. It's a very bold image, and already had a title printed on it. This combination can either equal a quick page or a challenge that takes 3 years to figure out!

I bought it because I was sure my son, in the years to come, would do something that would make me want to use this paper. While I'm sure that he did, this cardstock still never 'spoke' to me. It wasn't until my daughter came along that I wanted to pull this out!

Cardstock is Write Print Crafters 'Engine Tach'

All I did to complete this LO was to trim my pictures down to fit into a cluster to the side of the title and add my beloved Thickers letters (these were Iguana). I had run out of i's, so I used one of the tilde pieces to replace it! This page might have taken me 5 minutes to complete!


Are you ready for my tip of the day when it comes to using a sheet of letters? 

Use a water soluble marker to mark over the letters on the plastic packaging for the letters you'll need. You can easily tell if you'll have the correct letters for what you want to spell, and the marker will wipe right off with a tissue or baby wipe!




A lot of scrapbookers I've talked to say that they'd rather have their pages done, even if they don't love the page. While I have a hard time with this motto, personally, I think this page meets the best of both worlds!