Cleaning The Craft Room Today

Hi Everyone!
It's rainy and soggy and muggy here today so instead of playing in the garden I decided to clean up the craft room (or the craft pit - depending on how you see it).   I've had this idea in my head of lining the face of these storage drawers with patterned paper, so I got started on that first.   These particular drawers are pretty old and looked beat up, so I like the makeover!

I also used some of the same papers to line my cups where I keep my tools, pens and painbrushes.

 I got my Cricut cartridges all in order too and tidied up the little box where I keep precut card stock.

This is the storage drawer where I keep all my scraps of patterned paper.   Each color has it's own cellophane bag and I keep one for large scraps and one for small scraps.   I throw away nothing!

Here's a jar of my grandma's buttons I keep on one of the shleves above my workspace.   This is the grandmother who taught me to plant flowers and sew and cross stitch, so  I don't use these buttons on projects because they're sentimental.   When I was little she used to let me sprawl them out all over the floor so I could look at them, and sometimes I still do.  :o)   If you look at the bottom of the glass jar next to the buttons you'll see a bunch of rocks that my son gave me when he was little.   He colored some of them and I'm just too sentimental to get rid of them.

Next we have one of my punch drawers.   I keep all my huge ones in one drawer, border punches in another drawer, then medium and small in their own drawers.  

And lastly I have my ribbon drawer which ... errrr .... needs some work.   LOL.   I wanted to point out the ribbon wound up on clothespins though.   These are my grandma's clothespins and sat in a bag in my closet ohh... for the last 30 years since she passed away.   I finally put them to good use in a place I could see them all the time.  

Well I hope you enjoyed your view into my craft room today!  I'm back downstairs to continue cleaning!

Have a blessed day!

Hugs!  Sue :o)

Gift Tags

Hello everyone!    I've been on a bit of a tag making kick lately so I thought I'd share a few of my creations.   I actually have a whole container of them in my craft room but you can only share so much on your blog at once, right?   These tags were actually pretty simple once I got in the hang of making the rosettes.   I found a tutorial on making them here on Lolly's blog.   She is so fun, isn't she?   If you've never visited her blog before do so right now.   She's hilarious and actually very informative.

Along with rosettes I added some quilled fluffy flowers too (that's what I call them anyway) and I think they added a nice touch!   I used card stock to make the rosettes, quilling paper to make the fluffy flowers, and the tags were cut on my Cricut from K&Co. paper.

These tags were super simple to make too.   Much simpler than the rosette/fluffy flower tags.   I cut the tags on my Cricut (again K&Co. paper) and the flowers were also cut on the Cricut using A Walk In My Garden cartridge.   I added the buttons because ..... I like buttons.

That's all I have to share today.   I hope you're having a lovely start of summer.   Today is my son's last day of school and then (hold on a minute let me get a tissue) I'll have a high schooler on my hands.   Seems like just yesterday I was fretting about leaving him at preschool and now I'm starting to panic about college savings and just how much money it's going to cost to insure him when he starts driving.   :o)   God is good though and I know He's gonna see me through this just like He has everything else in life.

Have a blessed day!  Hugs!
Sue :o)

It's a Happy Flowery Day

Hello Friends!
Today's blog entry has nothing to do with stamps or paper.   I'm one of those crazy people who have a BUNCH of different hobbies and I regularly bounce around amongst them.   Next to paper crafts, gardening is my favorite hobby eveeerrrrrrr, so come take a look in my yard and see what I do in when I'm not crafting or cleaning my house.  :o)

This is the view you'd see if you were sitting on my deck and looking through toward our little pond.   Notice my husband's gargoyl?   I hate that thing but I let him keep it because he lets me have real pets. 

Here's a clearer view of the pond.  

This is a view standing by the pool and looking back at the house.   I feel like I need a tree in there somewhere but hubby is saying no.   I'll work on him.

This is a view of the front of my house.  Notice no gargoyls.   

A closer view of the little bed by my front door.  Something is already chewing on my rose.  Grrrrr.

This is one of  a bunch of allium I planted around our river brich in the front yard.   I had to straddle a bush to get this shot, but you gotta do what you gotta do to document your hobbies, right?

And finally, some happy yellow flowers on my front porch.

I hope you enjoyed peeking into my yard this afternoon.   I don't know about you, but flowers just make me so darn happy.  :o)   The way I see it, flowers are a visible manifestation of God's love and creativity and beauty.   HE created these things.   He thought up what every one of them should look like, smell like and where they should grow, and I do believe He delights in their beauty every bit as much as we do.  

If you scroll down to the very bottom of my blog, I'll be posting weekly pictures of my garden until it starts to snow!

Here's wishing you happy yellow flowers today!   Hugs!
Sue :o)

Give a Hoot!

Hello Everyone!   I just wanted to share some cards I made with my new Give a Hoot Cricut cartridge!   The images are on this cartridge are just too stinkin' cute!   I knew right away that I wanted to use my DCWV green stack with these images - especially with the card above.   Love that little bird background paper!

I used the same papers on this card and the sentiment is from SU.   So I'm having fun - right?   I'm cutting, gluing and assembling little critters - and then I got to thinking that these little critters needed some dimension.   So I broke out the chalks and my markers and my white gel pen and did this....

I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of doing that, but whatever ---- better late than never, right?   All I did was add decorative chalk around the edges of the images (I seal it with good old fashioned cheap hairspray), and then I added some accents with my white gel pen.   It adds something, don't ya think?   Oh, and on this card I used K&Co. background papers. 

Well, that's all I have to share today.   I have a nice stack of critters on my desk that need to be attached to cards, so as soon as I do that I'll have more to share.   I hope you're all having a great day!   God bless!

Sue :o)

Bloom!

Hey there!  I wanted to share this cute little project I made a few weeks ago.   I bought this wood shadow box/barn at the dollar store several years ago and it's been sitting in my craft closet waiting patiently all this time.  :o)   Just goes to show that sometimes hoarding is a good thing.  Before decorating I gave it a light sanding and then lightly washed it with white acrylic paint.  I wanted it to look whitewashed so I left some areas of wood showing through the paint.

Then I went to town with lots and lots of paper flowers.   Some were cut on the Cricut, some were cut on the Cuttlebug, some were punched and some were quilled.   It's amzing how many flowers you can make with paper, huh?

After filling all the little boxes with flowers, I added embellishments like quilled circles, buttons, and rhinestone dragonflies --- oh and dew drops too. (Can't get enough of those dewdrops).

I had a lot of fun making this bloom box and honestly it wasn't hard at all.   The quilling took the longest to do but I love doing it so it wasn't like work.

I hope you're all having a great spring/summer so far!   I'm excited because my son only has a week and a half left of school and then SUMMER VACATION!   I can't wait to sleep in and enjoy a little more relaxed routine.  Thankfully he decided against taking summer school this year so we don't have to be out the door by 7:15.   Yeesh!

I'm hoping to post some more projects this week.   I've been having some technical difficulties with my computer - or as my husband puts it "operator error" but it seems to be working now.   :o)   Have a happy Monday!

Hugs!
Sue :o)

Mother's Day Cards

Hello Bloggy Friends!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and got lots of crafty time.   I got some and will actually have a really cute Cricut/quilling/punch art project to show you just as a soon as a I find my hot glue gun and can finish working on it.   I have nooooo idea where that pesky little glue gun went but I'm thinking it might be at church.   Hmmmmmm.   Anyway, I was in the midst of vacuuming when my vacuum cleaner died (WHAT LUCK HUH?) so I thought I'd share some more cards.

The above card combines two of my favorite things to do - stamping and cross-stitching.   I intended on paper piercing the corners when all of a sudden I spotted some embroidery floss and thought - well why not?   The stamp is Penny Black and I have absolutely no idea who made the paper because it was in my scrap stash.  Once paper ends up in the scrap stash it's origins are a complete mystery to me.   :o)

Here's another one that actually just sold this weekend.   The bird stamp is from The Greeting Farm, and I embossed it on patterned paper, cut it out and then attached it to the card on foam tape.   I do know who made these papers - K&Co., and the punched flowers have dew drop centers.  

I promise I'll be back with some more Cricut creations - just as soon as my rechargeable batteries recharge and I can take pictures again.   I better go see if the vacuum cleaner is really broken or if I just overheated it.   I do that sometimes.  :o)

Have a wonderful, happy, blessed day!
Hugs!
Sue :o)

Man I've Been a Bad Blogger Lately

Have you ever been really really busy and really really burned out and just BLAH?   Well that's where I've been for the last few weeks.   Luckily I think I'm coming out of it - thanks to the wonderful sunshine and warm-ish temperatures.   There's nothing like digging in the garden and getting stabbed on rose bushes to bring me out of my wintertime blues. :o)

And speaking of my garden check this out....

I know!   It really is spring when the grape hyacinths come up!   Yay!

In addition to getting muddy and injured in my yard, I've been quite busy in the craft room too.  I just put 17 new cards in my Etsy shop and I'll be posting some new Cricut creations this weekend.   Here's another Mother's Day card in the shop...

Ha!   That's not a mother's day card - it's a rhododendron!  I couldn't resist!   Seriously now - here's another card...

I hope you're all having a great week!   Thanks for visiting!
Hugs!
Sue :o)

Stamp Credits:  Pink Bear Card - Stampavie
Blue Butterfly Card - sentiment is by Stampin' Up!