Where has the time gone?????

                     

I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't done a blog post since April!!!! Oh dear! Life sure does get busy sometimes, doesn't it?

I spent most of May and early June getting my garden up to snuff for my son's graduation. With a bad back all last summer and thus no gardening, needless to say the weeds were

HUMUNGOUS!!!!!

But I got it all done and we had some lovely pictures and the weather cooperated for photos!

 

 

Congrats to my "baby", Scott on his graduation! He's off to Stephenville in September to do mechanics.

 

Now I have some other exciting news to share with you!!!!

I am now a proud member of the Design Team at www.catherineandcathycreate.com

 

I am on their Tag DT along with the talented  RHEA SKOMORSKI and one of our fearless leaders, CATHY CAINES . There are so many other talented crafters on the other teams...cards, Christmas, memories and the Monthly Challenge . Please visit www.catherineandcathycreate.com to check out their work and join in our challenges!

 

Here are my two tags for this month. All products featured on CatherineandCathyCreate are Stampin' Up.

 

With my first tag, I  decided to incorporate this months color challenge with the tag challenge of the theme 'Party'.

 

 

The cupcake was made by simply scoring a strip of cardstock at 1/4 " marks and fan folding. The 'icing' is a 1 1/2" circle punch that was then punched along the bottom with a scallop punch and glitter glass glued to the bottom. Sentiment is from the set " Sweet Little Sentiments' and colors used are Bermuda Bay and Rich Razzleberry.

 

My second tag is more true to my shabby chic style!

 

 

Again, all products are Stampin' Up.

I've used:

 

Chocolate Chip cs and ink.

Leaf stamp is from " God's Beauty"

Sentiment is " Apothecary Art"

SU Banner punch

Butterflies are made with SU Embosslet "Beautiful Wings"

dimensionals

pearls 

 

Thanks for dropping by today and may I add a HUGE congratulations to Cathy Caines on her appointment to Stampin' Up's Artisian team! Woot woot!



Blog Hop Winner!

 

                                              WINNER!!! WINNER!!! WINNER!!!! WINNER!!! WINNER!!!!

 

Hi ladies . The winner of a little bit of blog candy from me for participating in the April Crop Circles blog hop is.............. Alison Goodyear! Congrats Alison! You can email me at m.marks@nl.rogers.com with your address and I'll get your prize in the mail. Thanks for playing along this week.

Spring has Sprung! April Crop Circles Blog Hop

Hello everyone! Happy Spring and welcome to our April Crop Circles blog hop! The topic of this month's hop is, curiously enough .... SPRING!  You should have arrived here from SARA'S blog and if so, then you're moving in the right direction! If not, head on back to Cathy's blog and start again right HERE.

Cathy Caines - http://cathycaines.blogspot.ca/

Sara Case Strickland - http://sarathings.com/

Michelle Marks - http://michellesscrapbits.blogspot.ca/

Kymberley Wragg-Machamer - http://kymberleyscraphappens.blogspot.ca/

Natasha Connolly - http://goldhalo.blogspot.com/

Cheryl Ashworth - http://cherylane.wordpress.com/

 Shar Strahan- partner with Cheryl Ashworth Brande Strahan - partner with Cheryl Ashworth Catherine Stockley- http://catherinelovesstamps.blogspot.ca/

Rhea Skomorowski - http://www.rheaski.blogspot.ca/

 Darlene Head Whalley http://cherrytat.blogspot.com/

Lori Smith - http://itsabouttimeblogspot.wordpress.com/

 

 

To me, nothing says spring more than my first crocuses and daffodils poking through the barely thawed ground, so I figured this photo was the perfect place to start.

 

As some of you might know, I've bit the bullet and started a small kit club for some local gals. Our first kit featured the gorgeous Graphic 45 SECRET GARDEN COLLECTION.

{blog post about that to follow lol}

 

So here's my LO dedicated to spring..............

 

DEJA VIEW?

 

 

 

and no... I did not spell deja view wrong...it's a play on words. I'm "viewing" this little flower all over again.....get it? Ah come on, humor me! Oh well, I never claimed to be a comedienne.

 

I'm offering up a little blog candy again this time for those of you who comment here today . You don't have to be a follower but it would be much appreciated { nudge nudge wink wink! :) }.

This is in addition to the awesome Maya Road prize that Cathy Caines will be awarding to one over all lucky blog hopper.

 

 Please note that our hop will continue till April 12 th...so you have lots of time to play along! Thanks for hopping here today . Enjoy as you now hop along to KYMBERLEY'S .

Toodles!

 

 

 

Playing with some G45 { and Kelly's birthday gift}

 I  soooooooooooo love me some Graphic 45!  How can you not ? All those gorgeous papers  just begging to be fussy cut  into all those beautiful little pieces! and I love fussy cutting...tedious but yet somehow, relaxing.

So the other night, I dug out the gorgeous graphic45 Birdsong papers that KELLY brought me when she visited last September.  Another thing I love {and collect} is birdhouses. Well this seemed like a marriage made in heaven and I decided to tackle one {of the many} wooden birdhouses that I have sitting around my scrap room waiting to be decorated. This is what I came up with....

 

and a little close up...

 

 

 There is a double thick layer of dimension dots behind the birds and flowers for support.

 Back view... I left this pretty plain actually { Kelly told me not to add anymore lol}.

 

 So if this little birdhouse was for me, I bet you are wondering what I made for Kelly's birthday?
  I can share this now that she has received it... a tea box made with g45's LADIES' DIARY  pps. {Yes the same ones I used for my wall tray a while back... check it out HERE }. Kelly and I share a love of tea ...she has introduced me to some wonderful herbal teas and I have taught her how to enjoy the traditional Newfoundland cuppa... Tetley with Carnation milk! lol. Would you believe she didn't even know tin milk was for tea until I told her???? Fresh milk in tea? BLECH!

I've been sending Kelly selections of Newfoundland Teas made by DARK TICKLE COVE so I thought I'd create a little keepsake box to send this batch in.

                                                                             KELLY"S BIRTHDAY TEA BOX 

and the inside....

 
I sent a variety of teas this time...some Newfoundland teas, a yummy chocolate mint from President's Choice, two kinds from DAVID'S TEA and a Lipton ice tea {she loves that too!}. I hope she knows how much love went into this gift!

Would you like to see how I made this gift box?

I started with a plain wooden tea box that I picked up at Dollarama. I removed the hardware and then painted the box inside and out with black acrylic paint....

 Next I measured and cut out  the floral side pieces for the box. I cut the pieces  leaving about 1/4"
margin so that some of the black paint showed around the edges { I also inked all paper pieces with Distress Ink in 'Black Soot'}. I added sook-wang {aka Skor tape} to the paper pieces to adhere them to the box. I loooove sook-wang...awesome  and powerful adhesive!

Next I trimmed off the beautiful edges of two of the papers in this collection to decorate the top and sides of the box top..again leaving a small margin of the black paint showing and inking all edges with Distress Ink. You might also notice that I mitered the corners... personal preference... I just think it looks neater.

Then I added a row of beads around the edge of the glass with a liquid glue and made and added a TEA banner for the upper corner of the top. I loved the alpha sheet that came with these papers...so gorgeous and elegant!

 

 

 As you can see by the above photo, I lined each compartment inside the box with various papers from the collection...fiddly work no doubt, but I was pleased with the end result!

 

Here's how I made the floral clock embellie on the top.....

Pick out the piece you want to use and fussy cut....

I inked all edges with 'Black Soot 'except the clock face on which I used 'Vintage Photo'. After fussy cutting, I found the piece was too thin so I backed it on to a heavy black card stock and fussy cut again, leaving a tiny margin of black cs all around. I then covered the clock face with Crackle Accents. I rubbed a little more 'Vintage Photo' into the clock face when it was dried to accent the cracks. I added some pearls and dabbed a little Stickles in the center of the flowers for a little bling...a girl gotta have bling ya know! The piece was supported underneath with dimension dots.

 I also fussy cut, layered on black cardstock, and fussy cut again, a teapot and cups to decorate the front of the box. Re-attach all the hardware and fill with your fave teas. Viola!

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial today. Happy Birthday dear Kelly...save me a cuppa for when I come to visit again in September. Thanks for popping by today ! Toodles!

Crop Circles's Blog Hop!

 

Happy first of March  and good morning to all you crop hoppin' ladies out there! Welcome to the first ever Crop Circles Blog Hop!

 

 

Crop Circles is an on-line bunch of mostly Newfoundland ladies {or those who have a tie to the island!}. We love to share and inspire each other and hope that you'll enjoy hopping with us today and maybe even catch a little inspiration along the way.

For every comment you leave on the participating blogs, you will be entered to win a Stampin' Up bundle worth $50!!! Some of us are also offering extra blog candy along the way. I will be sending out a little scrappy gift to one lucky hopper who leaves a comment on this posting { and signing up as a follower would also be greatly appreciated! }

 

 So if you have arrived here from Catherine's Blog then you are on the right track. If you've gotten lost along the way then just find your way back on track in the links below:

 

Cheryl Ashworth - http://cherylane.wordpress.com/

Shar Strahan & Brande Strahan - partner with Cheryl Ashworth
Kelly Klapstein-http://kellycreates.blogspot.com/
Rhea Skomorowski - http://www.rheaski.blogspot.ca/
Natasha Connolly (partner with Rhea)
Catherine Stockley- http://catherinelovesstamps.blogspot.ca/
Michelle Marks - http://michellesscrapbits.blogspot.ca/
Darlene Head Whalley http://cherrytat.blogspot.com/
Corina Mayo Thorne - http://craftycorina.blogspot.com/
Sara Case Strickland - http://wp.me/p280bG-FE
Lori Smith - http://itsabouttimeblogspot.wordpress.com/
Elaine Lambe Beck (partner with Lori Smith)
Liz Davis - http://piecesofmyeverydaylife.wordpress.com/
Rexene Lockyer (Send to Cathy Caines)
Cathy Caines - http://cathycaines.blogspot.ca/

We have decided to use a sketch from Sketchbook365 for our hop today.

Isn't this cute?

 

 

I'm more of a shabby chic kinda girl myself and find it very hard to stick to the clean, uncluttered look... I practically had to sit on my hands to stop myself from adding more stuff! But I persevered and this is what I came up with--- a cute Lo of my adorable pup, Jasper, basking in the sun last summer.Well, pup is probably too loose a description of my Jasper given that he is almost 14 years old and full of arthritis!  I tell everyone he's my little ole man! I figure he's the equivalent of a little 85 year old man lol...but a sweeter, more gentle dog you'd never want to meet! We really lucked into an angel when we adopted him from the SPCA about 7 years ago.

Did you notice the cute dog collar across the bottom of my LO? Wanna see how I made it?

 I first came across this belt-like embellie when it was shared by the super creative, fellow Canadian scrapper, Gabrielle Pollacco on her BLOG a couple of years ago. Now she is one truly artistic and creative lady who absolutely loves to share her ideas with everyone. She is the queen of shabby chic and it would really be worth your while to pay her a visit! She originally used it as a ladies belt .... I just adapted it slightly as a dog collar.  All you need for this embellie is :
two 1" x 12 "strips of card stock in the color of your choice,
one 1/2" x3 " strip of the same color card stock,
 a white marker{ brown works well too! }
Tim Holtz Distress ink in Vintage Photo {or brown ink of choice]
 and a circle tag {I bought mine at Staples}.

 Start by cutting your two strips of  1" x 12" card stock and rounding the end of one piece... I did this free hand.

 

 Using a ruler , draw a white line on both sides about 1/8 th " in from edges...again, I free handed it around the curved tip.

Now start to add dots along these lines to mimic needle holes.

 

 

I also cut {and doodled sewing lines} on a third piece of cs approx 3/4"x 3 " . Ink all edges with some Vintage Photo distress ink..Glue the rounded piece of belt on top of the other  1" x 12' piece at the length you want across the page  and then  wrap the thinner third piece around it to create the belt loop , securing behind with two sided tape.

 

 

I used my Crop-a-dile to punch a few belt holes in the strip but I'm sure a hole punch would work just as well.....

 

 

 And finally, I finished it off by printing Jasper's name inside a circle tag from Staples and twisting it on to the belt loop.

 

 

 I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial for the dog collar.

 

Now hop on over to Darlene's Blog and check out her creation using the sketch.

 

Thanks for playing along today. You have until March 3 rd to complete this hop and be entered for that fab Stampin' Up prize! and I'll be picking a lucky hopper from those who leave a comment on this posting and sending her on a little bit of blog candy too! Good luck everyone. Thanks for popping by! Toodles

Mod Podge Madness plus Sketchy Challenge!

Well way back last summer I received an email from Michael's with these absolutely COOL Mod Podge superhero shoes. Dang! I wished I was twenty and could get away with wearing these...but alas, I figured they were a little too brazen for a 40 something woman to wear. However, my DD was just as enamoured with them and begged for a pair. "Great " thought I "...she has a birthday coming up". I immediately went out and bought a pair of shoes like some she already had and found totally comfy...and put them in my craft closet......and totally FORGOT about them.

Well, Christmas was on the horizon and I stumbled across said shoes still hanging out in my craft closet. Perfect! Now she's forgotten all about the shoes so it'll be an even bigger surprise when she opens them on Christmas morning. And it was soooo worth it! Check out her expression when she opened the box!

 

 I had totally planned on doing a blog post on how I made these cool shoes , but....DS {who emphatically denies it} somehow sent the photos I had taken as I was making the shoes into cyber no- man's land...never to be seen again. But, suffice it to say, it involved a lot of fussy cutting from a ton of comic books and layers and layers of Mod Podge. I had a lot of fun making them!

 

Of course I had to turn this into a scrapbook page. February's Sketchy challenge at CANADIAN SCRAPBOOKER by the talented Sue Sykes was perfect for it. Check it out...

 

 And here's my take on it....

 

 

The background piece involved more fussy cut comics from my leftovers which were adhered to a 4x10 piece of cs and then mounted on a 4 1/2 x 10 1/2 piece of black cs. The title was such a fluke! After wasting about an hour trying to free hand draw the title I wanted, I decided to look through all the comics and lo and behold! I stumbled across the perfect words for my title. Serendipity for sure!

 

So while I'm on a sketchy roll again, I'd like to share my take on KELLY KLAPSTEIN'S newest Double the Fun contest going on over at CANADIAN SCRAPBOOKER. I encourage you all to give it a try!

 

 

Here's KELLY"S  gorgeous  take on her double sketch ...

 

 

and here's mine...

 

 

 

I used the lovely January kit from ScrapThat that featured the gorgeous TurtleDove papers from KAISERCRAFT. The poinsettias in the corner were made using a great die from SPELLBINDERS.

{Thanks Susan for letting me borrow it ...and the beads for the centers too!}

 

Well that's it for today. Thanks for popping by. Hope you are all keeping warm with these nippy February days {and hopefully getting some scrapping done!}. Toodles!

Screechin' Kelly In/Jan Sketchy Challenge

Happy {belated} New Year to all my scrappy friends! I can not believe that January is almost at the half way mark {Happy Birthday to my dear dad on the 15th! }. Seems like forever since I had time to scrap,but I guess December is always busy, busy for most of us .

 

So to get my creative mojo flowing again, I headed over to CANADIAN SCRAPBOOKER  to check out their  January Sketchy challenge! And I wasn't disappointed! Check out this cool sketch by Sue Sykes
 

 

 

 

 This sketch was just perfect for a series of photos I've been wanting to scrap of me performing a "Screech In" of my dear friend Kelly Klapstein when she visited me here in Nfld last September. For those of you who are not familiar with a "Screech in", let me educate you!

The "Screech In" ceremony is a fun little adventure offered to CFAs { Come from Aways} to initiate you and make you an honorary Newfoundlander. It is usually performed in front of witnesses{ the more the merrier...more to be embarrassed in front of ..lol}. It involves salt water, some Nfld food, drinking a shot of Nfld Screech {our famous rum!} and most importantly ....kissing the cod! Yup... a real cod fish! Right on the lips! For tee totalers and those under legal age, we will use a shot of Purity syrup in place of the rum.

One part of the ceremony involves being asked if you wish to become an honorary Nflder, to which you must reply ........  "Indeed I do me ole cock, and long may your big jib draw!". This saying is actually a wish for good fortune in the future and means may your sails always catch the wind. Hence the name of my LO!

Kelly was a a real good sport about it! I decided to perform this little screech in at Deidre Edison Clarke's Scrappy retreat in beautiful Springdale where we stayed at the gorgeous RIVERWOOD INN. Such a beautiful peaceful place! Check it out!


So here's my take on Sue's sketch.

LONG MAY YOUR BIG JIB DRAW
 

 The journaling tag under the main photo reads"Well I certainly couldn't let Kelly leave Nfld without being " Screeched In"! Luckily I had a few screech ins under my belt so I was up to the task! Deidre's scrap weekend in Springdale was the perfect opportunity...and of course it also provided more witnesses! Kelly was a great sport about it. She was baptized with saltwater, ate "wild" baloney and Purity Jam Jams, survived a shot of screech and most importantly, kissed the cod! An honorary Newfoundlander for sure! "

 I should also mention that Kelly wasn't my only victim...ummm, I mean CFA! I also had the pleasure of Screeching in a fellow scrapper Julie F! Julie thought she was safe...oh no my friend! Just because you are married to a Nflder and have lived here for several years , you thought you were safe???? Ummmm....NO!
 

 

Julie was a real good sport about it too, and...... she had been let in on the secret of Kelly's screech in before hand and she had the most beautiful gift for Kelly! Julie's hubby makes Nfld Ugly Sticks!!!! and she had him make one specifically for Kelly! Wow , we were soooo impressed. It is the nicest ugly stick I've ever seen. He's quite the craftsman.

  Here's Julie teaching Kelly to play her new Ugly Stick. If you haven't  figured it out yet an Ugly Stick is a handmade musical instrument used here in Nfld! Google it...

 
This was such a fun weekend! A big thanks to Deidre for allowing me to perform this little ceremony during her scrappy retreat.

 Thanks for popping by today. My New year's resolution is to try and be a little more frequent with my blog postings. Hope you'll continue to visit in 2013. Toodles!