On Holiday .... FINALLY!!!

This week my family and I are taking off for a long delayed and well deserved holiday. Hubby and I are even getting to leave the three oldest kids with the very brave Nana and Pops while we get to go on a 5 day cruise!

We are all unbelievably excited. I will be back posting next week with a project for a new company I am working for - Miss Arts Papercrafting School and of course a new project for the My Pink Stamper Pinkalicious Blog Hop on the 8th of April.

Take care and I will be back soon - tanned, relaxed and full of new inspiration,

CarrieAnne

Thank You Very Much

This week has been a real bruiser and a I am lucky to have great friends and family in my life who look out for me. I made this thank you card for a sweet friend who brought my family dinner last night.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend,

CarrieAnne

My Pink Stamper March Design Team Project

I am a bit hooked on Paper Quilting this month and our monthly My Pink Stamper challenge was to do a layout, so I thought I would combine the two! The piecing and hand sewing on this layout did take quite awhile, but I loved how it turned out. The hearts were cut from the "Create a Critter" Cartridge. The Heidi Swapp distressing tool was then used to rough up the edges.

Robyn's clear stamps are amazing for their versatility. I used two stamp sets on this layout; Sweetest Cupcake for the "Sugar and Spice" sentiment with which I created the border around the heart and "Sweet Baby" for the "Sweet Girls" title.

I used a watercolor marker to color in the Sugar "&" and Spice separately and then stamped them individually to create the border. Key to this technique is THOROUGHLY cleaning your stamp between each impression so no over stamping or blurring occurs.

To check out the entire My Pink Stamper Team's projects be sure to visit http://www.mypinkstamper.com. If you don't have every single one of Robyn's amazing clear stamps be sure to do some window shopping here where all of her stamps are pictured and her retailers listed.

Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne

Squish and Glue Flowers: Converting old Primas

With the advent of Spring I get an incredible urge to clean out the clutter. I sell my children's out grown clothing, donate their old toys, tidy up the yard and yes even attack my crafting space. Part of decluttering my craft room involves repurposing my stash. I have a rule - if I haven't used or even thought about using a product within a year I have to either sell it or make it into something I will use. Otherwise all the junk piles up and drives me nutty. I thought I would share with you some of the new ways I am using stash items over the next few weeks.

Today I am sharing how to repurpose old Prima flowers. My girls call them "squish and glue flowers" and they are so easy my 5 and 8 year olds can do the basic version without help.

I have ton of these old flat Prima flowers - the ones that look like daises and come in a hundred different sizes and colors. I don't use them anymore because I am now drawn to the more dimensional flower types out there on the market today. Here is how to spruce those old blah Primas into something a bit more wowser!

Don't forget to stop by on Friday for the My Pink Stamper blog hop - I put together something extra special for the post!

SUPPLIES

Prima Flat Flowers
Aleene's Tacky Glue
Scissors
VersaMark Ink
Flower Punch (for the leaves)
Green Cardstock
A Stylus






THE HOW TO'S

1. Sort your flowers by size, shape and color. As each repurposed flower requires 3 or 4 flat flowers this will help you to choose how best to build your flowers. It will also expedite the process to be organized up front.













2. Apply a nice dollop of the tacky glue to the flower center.







3. Using your fingers squish the bottom of the flower together. Allow 30 seconds to 1 minute for glue to begin to adhere.












4. Add a dollop of glue to your next flower and squish it around the first flower. Continue to glue and squish until you are happy with your flower's fullness. Allow flower to dry (30 minutes) I like 4 flowers of the same size together. I like 6 flowers if you are layering them smallest to largest and using different sizes.

5. The bottom of the flower (where it was squished) will be long and pointy. Use scissors to snip the end so flower will lay flatter.

6. Use flower punch on green cardstock to create leaves.

7. Remove a few petals if needed to scale leaves to match flower size. Score leaves with "vein" lines and crumple leaves up.




8. Ink leaves with VersaMark ink and adhere to flower with tacky glue.







9. Don't be afraid to embellish these beauties with other scrap materials you have laying about. I inserted two pearl sticks and some scraps of tulle in one and swirled a few drops of water in an almost empty bottle of Stickles and sprayed the petals to sparkle up the another.

10. Fluff and reshape petals as needed.









The flowers will turn out differently depending on which shape the flat Prima's start out as.

Save your packaging! I reuse the cello bags for all sorts of things and I will be sharing a mini album I made from the Kraft sheet the flowers were on later.

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Hand Delivered Note

At 31 I am very blessed to have all my grandparents still living. I try pretty hard not to take them for granted and let them know how much I love them. This week both of my grandfather's have been hospitalized so this week I will be sharing a few projects I made to send them to cheer them up.

I am mailing out this "hand delivered" card later today. Inside the envelope is a personal note. The "stamp" was cut out from Creative Imaginations paper and then "canceled out" with a marker. I like the idea of the hand having painted nails that really looked painted so I painted on embossing ink with a liner brush and heat embossed clear enamel over the red nails. I am mad about tulle these days so I tucked a bit into her shirt sleeve and hand made the little rose with a flower from the Mother's Day Bouquet Cartridge.

Recipe:

Cricut Cartridge: Sentimentals, Mother's Day Bouquet
Patterned Paper: Graphic 45, Creative Imaginations
Ink: VersaMark, Stampendous Clear Embossing
Embossing Powder: Stampin' UP!
Pearl, Tulle: Stash


Thanks for looking,

CarrieAnne

Vintage Suitcase Card

I love vintage suitcases - the travel stickers that tell stories of someone else's adventures, the cracked leather, and the beauty of scuff marks and tears hard earned in who knows how many countries. This shaped card features both heat and dry embossing to get that faux crocodile finish. The "travel stickers" were hand cut from Creative Imaginations paper and then coated with a bit of Mod Podge to give them a slightly lacquered look. The suitcase itself is from the "A Child's Year" cartridge. It was intended to be a tag, but I cut it out at 9 3/4" to turn it into a card. The cluster with the hat pin, Eiffel Tower and button is a compilation of fun vintage stuff from my stash.

I am entering this card in two challenges. The Fantabulous Cricut is featuring a challenge for shaped cards this week and the Cuttlebug Spot is hosting a challenge for projects using a hat pin.

Recipe:

Cricut Cartridge: A Child's Year
Cuttlebug Embossing Folder: Animal Prints
Patterned Paper: Creative Imaginations
Embossing Powder: Stampin' UP!
Ink: VersaMark
Halfback Pearls: Reminisce
Hatpin: Jenni Bowlin
Sealing Medium: ModPodge

Thanks for stopping by,

CarrieAnne

Have you had an Epiphany?

There has been lots of fun stuff going on here the last few days so I don't have a project to share with you today. I do have a great announcement though ... I have been selected to be on the Epiphany Crafts Design team!!

My personality and crafting style have always been of the "teach a girl to fish and she'll eat for a lifetime" variety. With this being said I love tools that give me amazing mileage for my dollar. It is the reason I love my Cricut Expression and it is also the reason I am stoked to be a Designer for Epiphany Crafts.

This company has some amazing tools for the paper crafter who wants to truly personalize her own embellishments.

Check out their website here: Epiphany Crafts

and this awesome Youtube video which showcases their button maker (The Button Studio) and their epoxy embellishment maker (The Shape Studio).

http://www.youtube.com/user/EpiphanyCrafts

I promise you will be having endless Epiphanies when you do :)

Some fun crafty stuff coming later in the week,

CarrieAnne