Best Christmas gift ever....I do believe so.

Now that Christmas is passed I can share with you the story of my Christmas gift. This year all I wanted was a wooden storage solution for my SU ink pads (I'm not a fan of the plastic ones) so I showed my DH a few examples I've seen around of what I wanted him to attempt to make for me. He said sure no problem but somewhere in all of the panning it went from a small ink storage system and morphed into a full blown desk! See my little plastic table started bowing slightly in the middle, rendering it unlevel which aggravated me to no end since I like to stamp a lot. Anyways here's the tale of my table.....(don't mind the messy garage)

Did you know that Home Depot will cut your boards for you? Since we don't have a table saw yet this little fact came in very handy.

Here is Flipper inspecting all the new things in the garage. I like to call him my old man cat even though he's just 4 years old because he gets in these moods....like a pissy old man.

Slav said, " Argh I forgot to buy clamps to hold the in place." I said, "dude we still have boxes of tile, if all you need is weight save the money and use heavy things in the garage." Another great problem solved and money saved thanks to my quick thinking!

This is one of the lets of my table, its laying on it side. The table top weighs about 100lbs so we needed strong support below. No particle board here, this desk is all solid old fashioned wood!

Here we have 2 completed legs that will eventually house drawers of various sizes to organize my papery goodness!

Here is Slavic scraping the top of the table to level it out with his new wood working tool that was a early Christmas gift from my Nana. Right after we got the table perfectly smooth my MIL saw it and was loving it but then she went upstairs and I went for the hammer and chains. I proceeded to beat the hell out of my table with anything hard I could find, I really liked the texture I was getting from the small end of the vice grips. My MIL came out and almost started to cry at the sight of my freshly distressed table but eventually she calmed down and let me finished the distressing. 

We used a Red Mahogany Oil Stain first, going heavier in some spots but upon drying I didn't like it. So I added some pale blue paint to it and then ran upstairs, grabbed the Distress Ink Pads (I was not about to assault my SU pads but my TH ones I wasn't too worried about) and started to go to town on the table. I realized I needed more deep brown so I used my Early Espresso re-inker to really darken up areas of the table. Right after this Slav added 2 Satin Clear coats to finish it off.

here is a close up shot of the pretty wood but the lighting has slightly distorted the color so between this photo and the others below you'll get the idea.

For Christmas my MIL got me those pretty vinyl flowers so I put those up once my new space was squared away.

He made my desk a few inches wider then the plastic table, I really didn't think a few inches would feel like much of a difference but now I feel like I can breath easily and have more space to work in.

So that was my Christmas gift, after he put my desk in he decided I needed utilize my walls better so he started playing with my tools like puzzle pieces. The bottom part of my desk isn't finished yet but once he gets around to it, I'll be posting those as well. 

Talk to ya'll later,

From my family to you and your family,

Merry Christmas.

I hope all of you were blessed with priceless memories and tummies filled with yummy food!

Lots of Love,

A Delicate Snowflake -Tutorial

I've been dying to make these super cool snowflakes! I had watched a few video tutorials on making these but found the results from the use of the stapler to be a little crude looking so I started to tweak a few things to give me the results I wanted. 

Supplies:

• Hot Glue Gun
• Bone Folder (mine looks pretty messed up huh, I'll tell you the story of that another day)
• Scissors
• Pencil
• 6 - 6x6 squares of cardstock, double or single sided
• Paperclips are optional, we used these when I started to cut out lots of different papers so this is purely for organizational purposes.

*Note on paper: We made some out of regular thin pattered paper but those were pretty flimsy. We got the best results from cardstock. With some of the stiffer sheets I gave them a light spritzing of water to loosen them up.

 Step 1: Fold Paper in half making a triangle

Step 2: Fold the in half again. Flip it so the long side is on top and point at the bottom. I drew 4 lines onto the paper where I will make my cuts so its easy to see on the first one.

Step 3: Cut from the folded side in towards the two open flaps of the triangle. Its also a good idea to hold the long top side tightly while you cut so the paper wont slip and fan too much.

Step 4: Cut all 6 sheets and then open them up. This is when I spritzed them with water to make the bending a little more easier.

Step 5: Bend the center and then place a bit of hot glue to adhere them together. Your pretty much just matching point up to point in the whole gluing process so pretty basic.

Step 6: Flip the paper over and glue the next to triangles together. Repeat this process 3 more times going back and forth.

This is what it will look like once its all glued together.

Step 7: Once you have all 6 sheets glued to themselves you will want to start gluing the outter edges from one to another. If your working with a pattered papper you will want it to look like I've set it up. One plane side to glue to one pattered side.

Step 8: Glue them all together to make a neat little line like this. Now you will glue the 1st and 6th paper pieces together to create your snowflake. 

* Note: I found out after a few that if you do the next step before you glue them into the circle it makes it a little easier. so you would take paper #2 and glue to paper #3 then glue #4 to #5 and do #1 and  #6 last.

These are two bottom ends, I lightly bend them and then glue one the other. This is easiest if you do it as I described above before gluing them into their circular form.

Step 10: You will want to bend those curves on the bottom edges into points. This will make them come together much better and look very clean. Then to finish it of put a few triggers worth of hot glue in the center and then push them all together. 

Wha-la your done!...or are you.....

After we did a few I realized we needed to add some pizzaz to these puppies! Here are some of our completed Snowflakes, some with a little bling, others with lots.

These are just a few of the ones we've made. On the ones hanging from curtains we hot glued a bunch of faux pearls to give them some soft bling.

Thanks for checkin out my tutorial,

Mini Santa Gnome

While hanging out at my friends house I made a few of these little cards to send out for Christmas. I like how the little Santa looks like a gnome, very cute. Oh and this is the last cards I've made before I started my little project. Those cards are soon to come.


What I used on this card:

• Paper: Kraft (Generic), Lines & Holly (My Mind's Eye), Whisper White (SU)
• Stamps: Santa Gnome (Imaginisce-Cottage Christmas), Sentiment ( Scrappy Cat)
• Ink: Walnut Stain, Frayed Burlap, Antique Linen, Tattered Rose (Distress Ink TH)
• Markers: Certainly Celery (SU), Blender Pen (SU)

Thanks for swinging by,

Fun with Flock

I think my style is starting to evolve into soft pastels now, I just love this card, I think this would have to be my favorite one that I've made so far in the 5 months I've been card making. I really dont know if I have the heart to give this away, I almost feel like I should make a shadow box for it so I can keep it safe. Do you ever feel that way?


I experimented with a new stamp set and some fuzzy flock I picked up from the Scrapbook Expo. Okay I also picked up a pink ATG gun too while I was there so this card was a gathering of all the fun goodies.


To get my diagonal stripes I used the ATG gun and just laid down the adhesive in the pattern I wanted when hit it with the Funky Flock. I love that its such a soft look but manages to still stand out with all the other things going on.


Things I used on this Card:

• Paper: White Cardstock(walmart), Pink (Recollections), Scallop thingie (My Mind's Eye: Signature Christmas by Jen Wilson
• Funky Flock in White (the Rubber Cafe)
• Cheers (K&Co BW Everygreen Medallions)
• Stamps: Christmas Silohouttes (Inkadinkado) Clear Stamps Christmas( Fiskars: Heidi Grace)
• Inks: Tattered Rose, Bundled Sage, Walnut Stain(Distress Inks), Sea Breeze (Versa Magic), ColorBox Cat's Eye set for red, Sky Blue (Versa Color)

Hope you like it as much as I do,

Sweet Noel

So I was in a little bit of a vintage Christmas kind of mood and thought I'd use use super cute stamp from Stampin Up.

I stamped this onto plain white cardstock, colored in the design with pencils and then used a lemon Zester to distress my edges before I stared to rip the paper. To get the perfect looking torn little curls I used my paper piercer to roll the paper nice and tight before lightly unrolling to give it that roughed up look. I also mounted this onto white cardstock that I colored with my distress inks. I also added a little touch of glitter to the top color because every Christmas card needs a touch of glitter right?

Things I used on this card:

• Plain white card stock for base card
• Distress Inks in Fired Brick, Walnut Stain, Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap
• Prisma Colored Pencils
• K&Company Grand Adhesions from the BW Evergreen Medallions collection (scored these last season on clearance)
• Hampton Art A la mode Glitter in Red
• Stampin Up: Christmas Collage, For You 

Thanks for stoping by,