Michaels helping Operation Write Home

We had a great turn out last night for our first crop at Michaels, Flowood store! We had a total of 6 croppers and these ladies graciously used some of their crop time to make cards for Operation Write Home! Thanks so much to each of you! We have about 75 cards made now and will be sending them soon!

Operation Write Home

For those of you who are card makers, check this out! This organization sends cards to our troops for them to send back home to their loved ones! It's an awesome project! For those of you who are local, we are doing this at Michaels in Flowood on a monthly basis. Let me know if you are interested and I'll get you the dates. OR you can send your cards to me and I will make sure they get included to mail in to OWH.

 http://operationwritehome.org/

Yea!

Yea! One of my cards made the glitter treasury list by Color Boutique! The list is here:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=120302

And this is the card:

A Hand Crafted Affair

Hey, if you're in the area, come shop and support a great cause at the same time! See the details at the link below. 20% of all sales will go to support a mission trip to Honduras!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=369389630249&ref=nf

March Kit - finally!

I finally have my March kit completed and WOW is it a WHOPPER!!! This one is seriously a huge deal! You won't believe what all is in this! This kit is all about fun, bright colors, bff, pirate princess type stuff! Great for all those colorful pictures from spring and summer!

So, starting with the colors - as always I started with the color of the birthstone for the month, aquamarine. Add in some Me & My Big Ideas papers in March's blue/green birthstone, aquamarine, plus juicy lime green, bright fuschia pink, funky orange and sunny yellow and you have a great collection of spring/summer love!

Then pile on the embellishments with 12 yards of ribbon and fibers, almost 100 brads and eyelets, lots of Colorbok chipboard, painted wooden buttons, sticky stitches (not counted in the 12 yards of ribbons/fibers!), and tons of flowers, and WOW! You have one MEGA kit and kaboodle of stuff! And it all goes together!!!

Take a look at my etsy shop for a complete listing of everything in this kit. Just the embellishments alone would cost you more than the price of the kit!

I've added lots of extra for the same delicious price of $20.00 this month for a few reasons which are:

1. No samples this month. Sorry, getting ready for a local craft show and just no extra time.
2. These Me & My Big Ideas papers are adorable. BUT they are not true 12x12. They are more like 11 7/8. This bugs me but what can I say?
3. It's national craft month! So I'm helping you be a little extra crafty at a thrifty price! Hey, every little bit helps, right?
4. Cuz I just felt like it!

So happy crafting everyone!

No kit but a journal . . .

Nope, no kit yet. But I do have a journal done. And I've started a new account with ArtFire.com where I listed the journal. Any of you familiar with this site? If so, let me know what you think!

Anyway, here's the journal. As always, the images are all clickable to see a bigger view.

Yikes!

Wow, is it already March 16th? Seriously? Yikes! I haven't gotten my March kit ready to list yet! I try to have that done by the 15th each month. Looks like it will be a long night tonight!

Experience is a brutal teacher. But you learn. My God, do you learn. - C. S. LEWIS

Say a prayer for my friends Chuck and Beth today. He is having tests for cancer.

New tip . . . getting unstuck!

Many of you scrapbookers are familiar with a product called Un-Du. Or is it Un-Do? Oh, well, no matter.
It's a wonderful product. You may also know of all the hoopla over it being taken off the market, then put back on the market . . . but no one can find it . . . etc, etc.

If you aren't familiar with it, here are the basics:  It's an adhesive remover/deactivator that works wonders when you accidentally stick the wrong thing in the wrong place on your scrapbook page. So this is what happens - you pour this liquid on your page and it deactivates the adhesive so you can lift off the item without damaging your page. While it's wet you can gently rub over the sticky and remove it completely from your paper.

However, you may be wondering why I'm telling you this if you can't find the crazy stuff in the stores. AND it's pretty pricey when you can find it. SO, HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!

Are you ready for this secret? Plain old lighter fluid that you can buy at any grocery store or dollar store does exactly the same thing! Yep, the kind they use in cigarette lighters, about 3 bucks a bottle, is perfectly safe for your layouts. (Not the kind you use in your grill! It may be the same stuff but I'm not sure, so, just sayin . . .)  IT DOES NOT HURT YOUR PAGE OR YOUR PICTURES!  It completely evaporates, leaves no greasy residue, and does not change the color of your paper. It works for tape runners, xyron, glue dots, and just about any kind of sticky mess you can think of.

What it does NOT work on is dried, liquid glue. Usually, that is. I haven't tried it on EVERY glue but that's been my general experience. And I haven't found anything that it damages. And believe me, I've unstuck some pretty unsightly messes!

Obviously there are common sense warnings - like don't have a candle burning close by when you open it.  And you probably shouldn't be frying bacon when you use it. Not that you would be while you're scrapbooking, but just in case. And if you smoke, um, well, hopefully you can figure that out. So if you're a pyromaniac, this is not a good product for you. But for the average scrapbooker, it's really awesome! I have even used it to remove an entire piece of paper that had been run through the xyron with permanent adhesive. I was altering a notebook and had already stuck it down and it wasn't straight. Yep, soaked the whole front of the notebook with lighter fluid. Took about an hour to completely dry out but no damage done! So, now you know how to get UNstuck!

PRIMA FLOWERS CLEARANCE!

Michaels in Flowood has a bunch of Prima flowers on clearance.
Bottles of Iced Got Flowers in Fresh Green - reg. 6.99, now .99!
The Calypso Tins in green, orange, yellow, and teal- reg 6.99, now 3.99!
Not that I would contribute to any of your addictions or anything.
Nope, not an enabler here.
Just being informative.
Just sayin . . .

I did a layout!

. . . and it's NOT for a kit! I know, shocking, huh? This is my youngest dd, Crystal, in her graduation pics from K-5 and highschool side by side. She's such a sweetie! I love the K-5 pic so I used it in 3 sizes. After all, she's 19 now. I'm obviously not mailing them out to relatives at this point! lol As always, pictures are clickable for a better view!

 

I used A Child's Year Cricut cartridge to make the scalloped oval. It had a diploma in the center but I cut it out to put her name in. The scrollie things in the corner are from the Home Decor Solutions cartridge. The font is Plantin Schoolbook. I used the tag curler for the little "congrats" tag on the ribbon.

The next one is a layout I did about a year ago. (Yeah, the picture is older than that!) But I still love it. So decided to post it here. It's of  my granddaughter, Jolie Grace, when she was 3 months old. I've blogged about her birth before. She truly is a precious little gift to our family! That's her mom's hand and her dress in this picture is a newborn size. She was a little bitty thing! 

I used paper glaze on the letters, around the picture, and on the edges of the tag to give them shine. I sewed the layers together. Each layer has a different stitch pattern. Then I used chipboard flowers and glitter, Jolee's mini flowers, and some Michaels flowers and butterflies. The tag has a rub-on but I don't remember where it's from. The papers are mostly Martha Stewart, a K&Co., and can't remember what else.

Sometimes when God opens a door the hard part is knowing we have to close another.

Sunny and 60 degrees! Welcome back southern style winter!

Wow! Just figured out I can update my blog from my phone! Awesome!

Free Download at Creativity Prompt

Check out the free download of cool journaling tags on Creativity Prompt.

http://www.creativityprompt.com/fancy-a-freebie-printable-journaling-labels/

Feeling unproductive . . .

Ever just have one of those unproductive weeks where nothing seems to come together for you? This has been one so far. Friday night Crystal was up all night with stomach virus. So since I didn't go to bed till 4am Sat morning, I got nothing done all day. Of course I did manage to babysit sweet little Jolie for a couple of hours Sat night. But no creating done.

Sun night hubby was up all night with the bug. So Mon I was a zombie again. But I tried really hard last night to make this cute little purse mini book. It just wouldn't cooperate. I finally put it aside and gave up and went to bed.

Today I worked this morning then came home and crashed. Tonight I'm sitting here on the laptop. Nope, not creating. I really should get busy. Really. I should. Seriously. Maybe if I just pull some papers out and look at them. . . .