Love making these trees!

So, this is a sample of my latest venture. I spent all of November making canvas art. This is one of the four I made with the trees. I really enjoyed making the trees :o) They took forever but were a lot of fun and I love how they turned out. I twisted some scrap wire I snagged from the free table at work (isn't free great?!) to make the frame. I then chose a variety of colors of embroidery floss (my mom gave me a huge stash last summer). I took the floss apart and mixed the colors together. Then, I wove several pieces of the floss through the wire frame, letting the left-overs hang out the ends of the frame. Way fun!

For the bg, I painted a variety of blues, purples and silvers. I think sprinkled some ink crystals over the whole thing, spritzed it with water and stood it up on end to dry. I used a Fancy Pants stamp with brown, purple and silver paint in the corner and an old sparkly moon (for which I don't recall the origins).

Some old block letter stamps with black Archival ink followed up with tracing with a yellow paint pen and voila! A baby step in the direction of canvas art :o)

Next time I make a tree I'll try to remember to take photos while I'm making it :o) My descriptions aren't always the best.

Good, thanks

Often, when someone is asked how they are, they give a thoughtless answer of "Good, thanks". I used to think I was one of the few who gave honest responses. However, I now realize I was simply blessed with a wonderful life for many years. When my life took a turn for the worse, I started giving the thoughtless, casual response of "Good, thanks". I was far from doing good but didn't want to share my feelings with others so covered it all with a smile. I now understand that many others may also be covering a pain they don't have the desire to share with me.

I'm happy that for now I can honestly say, "Good, thanks". Shopping is almost done and I don't have to work for another 9 days! Yay!! Looking forward to a lot of crafting with Gwen and practicing some of the new techniques we saw on Tim Holtz' blog.

December Prima Pick

How gorgeous are those flowers... and the precious birds...yumm! Head on over to Prima's blog for your chance to win :o)

Old Random Poem

I found this poem on a scrap of paper from a couple of years ago. (I'm a wee bit of a pack-rat when it comes to anything I might use creatively). Some of it makes no sense to me now and I think altering it would change it too much so I've left it as I jotted it down. I also wrote the following thoughts about the poem:

Bad poem I know but as I lay in bed this morning the crows told me it was time to get up and it just made me smile. I was up late last night, caught in a creative moment. I was still very tired at 8 a.m. today. And here I was gazing out my window smiling at the very loud crows. Then I thought how old am I?! Why am I happy about being wakened earlier then I'd like? Because I can hear them to be awakened and see them fighting for the best spot in the morning sun. Not all are so lucky as me :o)

I'll gladly take the cawing crow
Singing to the sun.
Even when I'm snuggled up;
When my bed and I are one.

I'll take the bickering kids
Not sharing with their toys,
The taunting back and forth
Who's better? Girls or boys?

I'll take my screaming Mother
As she tells me how I'm wrong
It means she's still alive
To give me love the whole day long.

I sometimes see I'm angry
At little things in life.
And pull back to remember
How else those things could be.

I don't want to hear "shut up"
Cuz imagine if they did.
You'd also not year "I love you"
and giggles from within.

-Kelli

Prima Picks

Prima is offering a giveaway on their blog! Check it out here.

Stickles Giveaway

Over at Scrapbooking Supplies R Us, they're giving away some Stickles. Just leave a comment for your chance to win!

Who says Teenagers are the devil?!

I don't!

This morning I woke up and came downstairs and peeked in on the kids to see if they were up. Z (at 14) was blissfully sprawled across his bed. G (10) was not in her bed so I thought she was up. I came down to the living room and couldn't see her so started her game of hide and seek. Not behind the sofa, not under the computer desk, not behind the stools in the kitchen.

Hmmm...

She's a stealthy one!

So I was going to go back up to my bedroom to see if she snuck up there while I was in the bathroom. On my way I passed Z's room again and what do you know... in the corner a shock of red hair. My children were blissfully asleep together. G has been struggling with nightmares and is usually racing to my bed when she's awakened. This time, she sought refuge with her brother and he let her in.

Why is this a shock? Well, while he's a great kid... he really is, he's still a teenager and can be challenging...especially when he has to do anything with or for his little sister. This scene made my heart melt. I wish a photo wouldn't wake them. These are really special moments :o)

Summer Fun

Another layout of Miss G. She's in the midst of a heated water gun fight with her brother and friend.

I loved the swirls and flowers in her bathing suit and pulled from that for inspiration on the layout.

Method Playground #54

Over at Method Playground, they're challenging us to use something from a magazine as inspiration for a layout.

Here is my inspiration:


Here is my layout:


The funny thing with this is that I tore this magazine corner out a very long time ago. So long ago I don't even remember how long ago it was, but it was before April, when I packed all my scrapbooking stuff. When I unpacked last week, I found all the papers and embellies I had pulled aside to go with the magazine page. What perfect timing for me when I saw MP's challenge this month!

Today's Special

Have you ever had one of those moments...days...weeks where you feel like you were kicked in the face? I had one of those moments delivered to me last Friday. Two-thirds of my section received pay cuts "to help the company through these hard economic times" while the third person was promoted. Yes, I'm glad I have a job. No, I'm not OK with how things were handled. There are only 3 of us... did they think we wouldn't notice?

I have to believe in Karma and see how things unfold in the coming months. Only time will tell...

Finally scrapping again

Well, after being on a scrapbooking hiatus since April, I've completed a couple of layouts. I finally signed up for a kit club (which is not yet all it's cracked up to be) and that sorta forced me to scrap. I had myself convinced it has been that I don't have a dedicated space and it's hard to scrapbook out of boxes. But then I remembered that I completed an album for a friend of mine. For some reason, that was easier for me than scrapbooking layouts for me.

But, anywho, here are the two layouts I've completed.



Color Time - Miss G was just so cute in this series of photos. And while I love how the title turned out, I have to admit it came about out of pure laziness. I ran out of adhesive and didn't want to go find more in my boxes. So they got stitched on.



Remember - This was done for the Label Tulip September challenge. We were supposed to scrap a note to 18-year-old self.

Happy Halloween!

Look What They're Giving Away...

...at Scrapbooking Supplies R Us!



Check them out here.

They have great tutorials, too, so check it out :)

Mumsy's having a Playful Week

Our Dear Mother Nature is being quite playful with the weather this past week. It went from freezing rain that bites you to the core to several beautiful days with amazing foliage. Then it snowed for a bit this weekend and temps have been freezing. Yesterday it was all sunshine, a calm breeze and in the 60's. Today is looking to be about the same.

And crazy as it has been, I have to admit it's a lot better then last year. I don't even remember an autumn last year. I think we had 1 week of temps in the 80's and then it snowed the following week.

All this cool weather is getting me back into the crafting mood. I was having a rough time with it for awhile. Pretty much since we started packing for our move in July. I don't have an established craft space yet. I have a corner in my bedroom where all the boxes of my stuff are living but I hate isolating myself from my family and by the time they're in bed, I'm ready for bed. But, I've slowly been taking crafty bits down to the living room to work on projects. It seems to be working for me, if not for my family :o) They're not too keen on me taking over the living room!

More layouts!

I know, I know. I really should post these more often. I don't even have a good excuse as to why I don't. Anyway, here are some of my latest layouts and a tag. I'm really starting to like making tags :o) Someday, I may even put as much effort into a layout!

My most recent tag. It only took me a full day to get this done but I enjoyed every second of it and tried some new things along the way :o) I used my fingers to apply most of the ink here. I first smudged the top and bottom with a bit of peeled paint. Then I stamped the branch, quote and bushes. I sprinkled the whole thing with some embossing powder and slowly applied the heat gun, hoping the force of the air wouldn't blow everything away! Then I used my fingers to smudge some broken china to the top and more peeled paint to the bottom. I stamped the butterfly to a piece of scrap paper, used some worn lipstick and spiced marmelade to color it it and then I cut it out. It's applied with a couple of 3-d dots but that's hard to see here. Before putting the butterfly on, I dragged my peeled paint over the whole base of the tag. Not sure why, it just happened that way :o)


After shopping, I gently dumped my bag of goodies out onto my table. These two papers happen to be next to each other and I instantly loved them together. So, I stitched them together and then started looking for some photos that would work with the paper :o) I normally work the other way around but this color combo just moved me. I am also trying to use up bits and baubles I've set aside as potentially useful so I used bits of grungeboard sprues for my trees and "L".


I love Regina Spektor's song Samson. Enchanting and great lyrics. My title here is from that song and it was the inspiration for this layout. I just wanted a simple layout to match the title, which describes, so well, my family.


Just a layout using my favorite family photo :o)


This is a series of pictures of my daughter opening her birthday gifts. This layout was also slightly driven by the color combo. I also tend to use so much pp that I wanted to try using only cardstock. I like the results :o)


I've used this photo of Alex and Gwen before but I just LOVE it!! She had so much fun that day and Alex was a big part of her happiness. She really bonded with him and he seemed to welcome her tagging along with him :o)


Thanks for looking!

My Latest Page

I created the frame for this photo of Gwen years ago. It was shortly after I discovered Scrapperlicious's Blog and she had showcased how to make your own frames. The paper started out as a light minty green and this was what I came up with. I created it specifically for this photo and then took a really long time to get it into a layout. Gwen used to love dressing up as a Fairy Princess and this is just one of the days she was holding court. She was always so cute when she played fairies. She would call me the Queen since I was her mom and mom's of Princesses are Queens! Gwen helped me with the stickles on this layout and picking the flower to make her top from.


I used Pencil Lines sketch #122 and will enter it into Method Playgrounds Challenge #39. The 5+ paper companies I used are Bo Bunny for the background, Basic Grey for the pink lacy paper, My Minds Eye for the green/cream flowery paper, Fancy Pants for the greenish blue paper behind the photo, Cosmo Cricket for the large flower at the top and Die Cuts With a View for the circles along the left side.

What a Meh Day

I started this blog as a place to keep my thoughts but since starting it, my thoughts don't want to come out. Maybe it's a coincidence that life seems so busy lately that I hardly have time to think. Work is busy and bleh. I get home and am so exhausted I just want to veg out. My grandmother is ill and has been hospitalized. My car is dead and I'm having a hard time finding a new one. These are some of the things that seem to be consuming my life lately. I haven't felt very creative lately, either. Maybe I need to get offline for awhile and just breathe. Or maybe I need to visit someone who can help me reset my inner peace... cuz it's not so peaceful these days.

How do you recharge when you haven't the energy to do anything at all?

I'm a Maniac!!

Of the scrapping sort that is. While I've been slacking in my blogging I've been catching up on scrapbooking. Here are some of latest. I have 3 more I finished at a crop yesterday but I don't have photos of those yet. I'll try to get those up later this week :o)

First is a layout of my son when he was 18 mo. old. This is one of my favorite pictures of him and it's not even a very good photo. I just love how the sun caught his face and he's smiling so sweetly :o)


This is a layout of my daughter last summer. She was having a water-gun fight with my son and some neighborhood kids. When she saw me with the camera, she stopped to pose for me :o)


This is a layout of my love :o) I started this as a just because I don't scrap him enough sort of layout. I have used this photo before but it's my favorite recent photo of him so I just can't help myself!


This is a layout of some London architecture. I was playing around with B&W and color photos and this is what I came up with. Because all the photos were very vertically tall, I wanted to keep the pics tall and thin. I'm not sure I'm done with this one so if you have any suggestions, please let me know!


I made Hats of Character to show off the variety of hats my son loves. He has collected them for years and the more unique the better. This is just a sampling :o)


The Desires layout was made for a Cosmo Cricket challenge to post goals for the coming year. So, I captured a few of my desires here :o)


I love love love this photo of Gwendolyn. We had been playing in the yard and she flopped to the ground just in time for this photo.


That's it for now :o) Thanks for looking!

OOhh, look at these goodies!

Scrapperlicious is giving away some new Clear Scraps mini shaped albums. Check out all the details at http://scrapperlicious.blogspot.com/2009/01/want-to-win-some-fun-acrylic-minis.html

These are my favs:

OMG I WON AN AWARD!!

Wee Faerie has awarded me with the Honest Scrap award. She's so sweet :) You should check out her blog...it's full of so many fantastic pretties (http://weefaeriering.blogspot.com/).

The rules to accepting my award are as follows: A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! B) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

So, 10 honest things about me...

1. I'm a gamer. All out gamer. OK, maybe not as much as Graham and Zach but I do play video games daily and table-top games weekly.

2. I believe Diet Mt. Dew is the sweet nectar of life. I try not to go a day without it even though I'm sure it's really bad for me.

3. I have told my son I will kill him in his sleep. But it's a gaming reference and it just makes him laugh. It has become a show of affection.

4. I could watch A Knight's Tale for 2 weeks straight on repeat play... and have.

5. I broke my tailbone by jumping from one tree to another, 20 feet off the ground, and missing. I grew up in a swamp and it was frozen and I landed HARD. But that's the sort of thing we did for fun growing up :)

6. I sleep with a stuffed wooly mammoth, cleverly named Wooly. Graham hates the competition.

7. I have a weakness for brownies and ice-cream. Can't wait to have some in a few days for my birthday.

8. Some days I wake up humming Elvendrums. I don't know why they enchant me so and I don't much mind :)

9. My grandmother painted a ceramic girl in my likeness when I was 6 and it sits next to my computer. I hardly remember her but I love that she made this for me.

10. Next to my cute little painted doll are a Mindflayer mini (from my brother), Tinkerbell (from my daughter), Drizzt mini (from my son) and a Kai figure (also from my son). They are all gifts from loved ones.

OK, that was hard! When I asked my family for help they said 1. you're a woman, 2. you have short hair. LOL!! Great help they are.

And 7 bloggers who now receive the award:

http://coffee-girl-crafts.blogspot.com/

http://scrappergal78.blogspot.com/

http://susansscrapingandstampingkreations.blogspot.com/

http://papertree.blogspot.com/

http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=blogs&u=205025

http://mauri-cita.over-blog.com/

http://theresawocketinmypocket.blogspot.com/