Monday, March 25, 2013

Fancy Edges At Sassy Cheryl's

This week's challenge over at the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog is Fancy Edges. The challenge was set by Sassy Judy, the new and very proud owner of a Silhouette Cameo. She's gone Cameo mad and becoming quite the expert with the tool, for which I'm truly grateful(since I was her enabler and she might have hurt me otherwise).

For my challenge card, I'm using the Sketch Challenge from last week's Mojo Monday challenge. I'm with Judy on my love of my Cameo. I quickly created the pieces for the card and then filled with patterned papers.  All of the fancy edges are from the Silhouette Online Store. My image is The Ladybug Bunny. Decided I'd make an Easter Card to send to my grandson. I hope he doesn't think he looks too girly.

I used the combining a fussy cut image with a shape to create the cut out of the bunny. There's a tutorial for the Silhouette over on the right at the top of my blog.

The papers are from Scrappy Cocoa from a kit called Something Spring purchased from Digital Scrapbooking Studio.

As usual, I've waited to the last minute to get my card entered in the challenge. I did however get it made, so that's a plus for me.

Monday, March 18, 2013

A Wedding We Will Go

This weekend, my husband, his sister, her husband and myself are going to the Mississippi Delta to the wedding of the child of one of my husband's cousin. We don't really know the child, but my husband has the fondest memories of time spent with these cousins when he was a child, and you've never seen men that like to attend weddings like the Swoope men do.

I really like to give wedding gifts, that the couple(at least the bride) will remember who gave them the gift, not just the usual  china or crystal. Also not knowing the child, I know nothing of her tastes.This is a picture of a cross-stitch wedding piece that I did for my husband and myself many, many years ago.

 
I certainly do not have the time to cross-stitch the piece, so I decided to make a word art of it to frame. I started out in Photoshop, and quickly moved over to the Silhouette Studio Designer software, taking advantage of a lot of the Silhouette Online sentiments. I was also able to take advantage of the images, to fill in the holes. I stayed with a black and white motif, then added a double black line bounding the word art, and finally filling a layer underneath with a beautiful and subtle ornate paper that I found on line several years ago.  The artist went by the name Pewter 7, but I can't find a link to the web site now. Once I had it all laid out, I simply printed it. There's nothing that says that you just because you cut it in the Silhouette Software, that you have to cut it with the Cameo. It's an 11" x 14" piece, and I love the way it turned out.


I also decided to do a fun piece, so I created a personalized Magnet/White Board with their initial, name and wedding date. It's done in vinyl. This is the first project I've done in vinyl, and there's definitely a trick to it. For starters it helps to have a big piece of transfer paper, instead of 3" strips. Again, I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out too. I just hope the bride and groom like them.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

SPRING

Just had to post these images to let you know that here in Mississippi, signs of spring really arriving are here. It's an absolutely gorgeous day here today with temps in the 70's, almost cloudless blue skies, and best of all SUNSHINE!!!! For once we're ahead on water for the year due to the very wet months of January and February.

So for this week's Show Me Thursday Blog post on Sassy Cheryl's Blog, I wanted to show you pictures of the oak trees behind my house from a distance getting closer. I hope that if you live in a part of the world that has been looking at winter for what seems like forever, you too, will be seeing signs of spring.

 


I have a MonkeyMoo story to share. As you know, he's 6 and this year, he's playing baseball at the park for the first time. My daughter called yesterday to share this story. She says that he can hit the ball(coach pitched  at this age) in practice all the time, but that he has yet to get a hit in a real game. Well Thursday night after the ball game(another no hitter for him), his Dad tells him they're going to practice hitting over the weekend with a real baseball(they've been practicing with a hard rubber one I'm thinking). MM wanted to know why, to which his dad responded, because that's the kind of ball you're hitting at the game. MM looked at his dad and says -----"Dad, are you watching the game? I haven't hit any balls." I think he's got some Amelia Bedelia in him. Thankfully my daughter says that he's not upset about not hitting the balls.

Well, I'm posting my SMT early enough this week, that you all have time to share what you have going on in your lives for a chance at a free SC image of your choice. Come on and join the fun.

I've also added a couple of more Silhouette Cameo tutorials in the sidebar on the right.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Let's It Hear for the Irish

First of all, I hope you are all sitting down, when you realize I'm posting my Sassy Cheryl's Blog Challenge card on Thursday(only two days after the Challenge start)  instead of waiting until the last minute like I usually do.  Okay now that you've recovered from that surprise, let's get on to the Challenge business.

Sassy Cheryl's Irish colleen, Jackie is the hostess this week for the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog.  Her choice of themes is Green, White and Orange in honor of  St. Patrick's Day. Thank you Jackie, for the choice of challenges, since it forced(can you see me twisting my own arm?) to go shopping for some digital papers(I'm always looking for an excuse to go crafty shopping). I found this wonderful kit called Feelin Lucky designed by Crazy 4 Monograms at Just So Scrappy 2.

This delightful image is called Beauty in the Making, and she can be found HERE at the Sassy Cheryls Store. I hadn't planned to use this image for my card, but when I started coloring, all of a sudden she was colored in greens and orange(they actually look like a better match with the paper colors in person). She's colored with PrismaColor and Faber-Castell pencils.

The card is based on this week's Mojo Monday's Sketch. Everything on the card was print and cut (including the stitching on the card) with my Silhouette Cameo, using the   digital papers and and elements from the Feelin Lucky kit.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Silhouette Cameo Tutorials

Again, I've waited to the last minute to type up my blog post for Sassy Cheryl's Show Me Thursday Challenge post. I love participating in this, since I love checking out what other's have going on in their lives. I especially like the fact that it doesn't have to be about crafting at all, and because of that, I've gotten to know more about my fellow crafters.

Among some of my friends, I'm known as an enabler, a title to which I'm very proud of.LOL If I find something I love, I want to be sure that my fellow crafters and friends know about my find.  If you've been reading my blog, then I'm sure you know I have a Silhouette Cameo that I absolutely love and adore. As a result, several of my buddies have purchased one. Not wanting them to be disappointed, and not being close enough to actually sit down and walk them through these operations, I decided to create some tutorials that would hopefully make things a little easier and the learning curve a little smoother. 

My SMT is the tutorials I've done and posted on You Tube. I should tell you that even if you don't have a Silhouette, you can download the Silhouette Software for free HERE, and use it for printing, even if you have to cut by hand. It's great for creating your own Word Art.

All of my tutorials are posted at the top of the sidebar on the right.  If nothing else, you'll get to  hear my Southern drawl, and that alone is entertainment.

Happy cutting.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Hats and Mittens

It's all about sewing this week for the Show Me Thursday Challenge on Sassy Cheryl's Blog. Last week I showed you a pair of mittens I had made for Cec's granddaughter. Well since then, I've made 3 more pairs of mittens. Then I went looking for a hat, found the most wonderful pattern that goes together like a dream and has a video tutorial to go with it.

I have a hot pink fleece jacket that I walk in, and I've been wearing a blue striped toboggan with black mittens. Needless to say add a lime green fluorescent walking vest, ane I'm making the totally wrong fashion statement. This picture is of my new hat and mittens with my jacket.

My walking buddy has a camouflage jacket that she walks in with an orange hunting vest. We want to make sure that the cars see us on the road. Her birthday was Friday so I made her a camouflage hat and mittens lined in hunter orange fleece. She's delighted that she's now matching.

The fleece mitten pattern can be found at Fleece Fun. I changed the pattern in two ways. First I took the curved sides out the top of the mitten(I wanted to be sewing straight when I was sewing the inside mitten to the outside mitten. Be sure to do the same thing for the back side of the mitten.



The second thing I did was to cut one mitten  a 1/4 inch larger or smaller than the mitten. For the children's mitten pattern, I cut the outside mitten larger and for the adult mitten, I cut the inside pattern smaller. Hope that makes sense.


The hat pattern is from The Crafty Gemini.  This is a LINK to both the pattern and the tutorial. I promise this hat went together as well as anything I've ever sewn, and the tutorial is excellent.




Sunday, March 3, 2013

It's SO Blue

This week the theme for the Sassy Cheryl's Challenge Blog is BLUE. Well, that worked for me. I needed birthday card for my younger daughter whose turning 42 on Thursday(this doesn't mean I'm getting old though).

For this card, I chose this image called Sassy Sally and Her Oversized Birthday Cake. When we SKYPED with our daughter and our grandson tonight, we saw her birthday cake. It was a Star Wars 6" cake with 10 cupcakes(seems the cakes are always to please the grandson and not the parent). It certainly wasn't as beautiful a cake as Sally has prepared. She is colored with Prisma Color and Faber-Castell pencils, blended with Gamsol.

The papers are from the Serenity, a digital kit from Just So Scrappy 2. Susanna Boyd's newletter from PaperCraft Planet showed a digital card creating chevrons made with squares. Well, you all know me, I'm not going to cut anything with a pair a scissors, if I can use my Cameo to cut and that's exactly what I did.

Are you surprised that I beat my usual 3:30 on Monday afternoon posting? I want you all to know, that I passed up cleaning house to make my card. Now aren't you all impressed? Guess that's what I'll be doing at 3:30 on Monday.