Birthday Fun

Today is my 41st birthday.  While I was growing up, doctors kept telling me I wouldn’t live to be 40, so I am considering these my bonus years.  Now is the time to go out and do all the things I never had time for, or couldn’t risk before.  If all goes well, I will be going sky diving with my brother and cousin soon.  That is something I have wanted to do since I was a teenager, but after I got married and pregnant in college, I couldn’t take the risk until the kids were grown.  My youngest is now 18, so I plan to try it.  My husband and kids think I’m nuts for taking the risk, but hey, this is my second bonus year, so I’m going for it.  After that, I want to learn to scuba dive.

Recently, I’ve started asking God what He wants these bonus years used for.  He gave them to me for a reason, so I want to make sure His plan gets accomplished.

I wanted to share one of my cards with you, as it is perfect for this year.

When you think about it, please pray that God will show me what He wants done with my life.  I know it has something to do with crafting and others, but not sure exactly what.

Thanks for spending some time with me today!  I’ll try to post some card stuff soon.  I got stamps for my birthday, so I’ll need to get working.  Also, bought my first Copic marker today.  It is the colorless blender that I’m supposed to be able to use with Sharpies and Bic markers.  I’ll post some pictures soon, when I see if it works.

Enjoy your day!

Teabag Folded Pinwheel

It is the first, so I thought I would share another Teabag fold with you.  This one is a Pinwheel and I love the look of it.

You want to start with 8 squares of paper.  For this one, I used 1-1/4″ squares.  Start with the white side up and fold in half diagonally, then unfold and fold in half diagonally the other way.

Now, with the folded, long side down, fold both sides down along that center crease you made.

Fold the bottom point on the right side straight up.

Now flip your piece over.  Fold the outside slanted edge of the bottom piece up along the bottom of your piece, then unfold it.

After unfolding the small bottom piece, you want to open it up a bit and smash it down with the center crease right along the bottom edge.

Do the same for each of your squares.  They should look like the above picture.

To put your Pinwheel together, you want to put a little adhesive along the piece just above and to the right of the small diamond you formed last.  Lay the small diamond of the next piece right up against it and work your way around until all 8 pieces are adhered together.  You may need to wiggle them around a bit to get them to lay together the way you want.

This is quite simple to make and a really cute embellishment to add to a card, scrapbook page, or just for fun.

Thanks for spending some of your time with me today!

Digital Scrapbooking

I’ve never tried digital scrapbooking.  My attempt at actually scrapbooking didn’t go so well.  It turned out okay, but just wasn’t my thing.  My daughter keeps waiting for the scrapbooking bug to bite, so I’ll do a scrapbook of her youth.  She has been waiting for a good 10 years and has a lot longer to wait.  I enjoy my cards and candles.

However, this digital scrapbooking looks interesting.  I saw this pack that is an add-on that actually intrigues me:  Affinity.  Hmm, I’ll have to think about this one.

Have a great day!

Color Blending with Colored Pencils

I did some reading on using colored pencils and blending using odorless mineral spirits, so I had to try it.  First I had to go find some odorless mineral spirits, so I got that and tried it with the Crayola and Rose Art colored pencils I already had.  It turned out pretty good.

So, I did some research and came up with three different types of colored pencils that were supposed to be quite good and blend well.  Unfortunately, when I got to Michael’s with my handy-dandy coupon, they didn’t have any of them.  They did however, have these colored pencils from Koh-I-Noor, which is the same company that made one of the types I was looking for.

Okay, I did rearrange the order in the two trays so all the similar colors would be together.  They worked pretty good, and blended better than the other colored pencils.  I did add a bit of lighter and brighter color afterwards (see the two on the left) as it seemed a bit dark when I was done.  It will probably improve with practice.

Here are the two images side by side.  The attempt was to make them as similar in color as possible, so I could really see the difference.  Using the cheap pencils is the image on the left, using the new pencils is the image on the right.  Obviously I didn’t get the colors as close as hoped, but they are similar.  You can see that the one on the right blended a bit better, so I’ll keep working on coloring and blending with them and hope to improve.

Here are the two cards I made with the images.

Thanks for spending a bit of time with me today!

CASE or Plagiarism

This morning, as I checked to see what the StampTV Free For All Friday challenge was, my son was sitting at the computer.  The challenge was to CASE a card of one of the Design Team Members.  As I explained to my son that CASEing was looking at a card someone else has done and either doing the same thing, or something quite similar, he said, “So you plagiarize it.”  Well, sort of.  It was interesting to try and explain to him that in card making magazines and on card sites, the reason they give you what the card was made with, was so you can try and do it yourself.  This led to a long discussion about the fact that yes, it is plagiarism, but it is allowed.

I’m one of those people that loves going to craft fairs and seeing what other people do and thinking, “Oh, I could do that.”  or, “It would be really cute if you did it with this and/or that changed.”  Sometimes I bought the items, so I could look at it closely, figure it out, then do it myself.  A lot of times I changed it up, but not always.  I don’t look at that as stealing someone’s idea, I see it as inspiration.  No, I don’t try and sell it or make a profit from it.  It is just inspiration for my own project, or a gift for someone else.

When I put my work up here, I hope someone else tries it.  I’m putting it out there for anyone to take a look at and try.  Here is the card I CASEd:

And my take on it:

What do you think, is it inspiration or plagiarism?

Thanks for spending a bit of your valuable time with me today!

Fold a Spiraling Star

If you are participating in the CardSwap Summer’s End Card Crop, you need these instructions to participate in the Saturday, August 13, 2011, challenge by me.  Here is how to make a Spiraling Star using teabag folding.

You will need five 1-7/8″ or 1-1/4″ squares of paper.  Start with the back side up and fold in half horizontally and unfold, then fold in half vertically and unfold.  Now, fold in half diagonally and unfold, then fold along the other diagonal and unfold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn your square over so the patterned side is up.  You will gently push in on each vertical side and fold together so you have a triangle shaped piece.

Each side point will have two layers.  You want to take the top layer on the right side and bring it to the center.  Then you need to insert something inside that upward piece to separate the sides (I used the point of a mechanical pencil) and squash it down so the fold goes straight down the center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you will take the point that still remains on the right and fold it down along the edge of the fold you just made.

Do the same with the top layer on the left side.

Do the same with the rest of your squares.  To attach them, you will put some adhesive along the left piece that was not folded and line up the right side of another piece with the folded piece on the left side.  If you use liquid adhesive, use very little as it will squish out all over.  You may want to do this on top of a craft sheet or scrap piece of paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adhere all of your pieces together in this way to wind up with your spiraling star.

Pretty simple.  Now, make yourself one or more and make a card using it/them.

The picture on the left was made using the 1-1/4″ squares.  The picture on the right was made using 1-7/8″ squares.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for spending a bit of time with me today.  Have fun making spiraling stars and show me what you did with them at the Summer’s End Card Crop.

Summer’s End Blog Hop

Thanks so much for joining us on the CardSwap blog hop.  Be sure to hop on over to the forum for more fun, games, challenges, and…. PRIZES!!  The crop is going on from August 10-13, 2011 and you have until 11:59PM CST on August 16, 2011 to get your projects uploaded.

But, you aren’t here for all that… you are here to hop along and get inspired, right?

The theme of our crop and blog hop is Summer’s End.  If you started at the beginning, you’ve seen hostesses that helped you spell out SUMMER’S END in products, techniques, embellishments, or anyway they can.  If you haven’t seen each one, start at the beginning with Lora’s “S”.

Since I’m the end, I made a card with “d”istressed “d”iamonds on a “d”iagonal with a “d”ragon.  (Those were all the ds I could come up with.)

In case you missed any of the stops along the way, here are all the hostesses for the blog hop.  I hope you have had a lot fun.  Your next stop is the Summer’s End Card Crop at the forum.  Check out the challenges and participate in as many or as few as you would like.  Don’t forget to check out the game section, too.  To participate in a challenge, all you have to do is follow the challenge and make your project, then upload a picture of it to the challenge thread.  There will be instructions on how to do that in the Crop area.  I look forward to seeing you there!

S – Lora
U – Jane
M – Ashley
M – Meredith
E – Ana
R– SusieQ
S –Tina

E– Angelina
N – Jeanette

D – Golda (you are here)

SUMMER’S END CARD CROP!!

An Inspired Design

On Stamp TV, the Mix It Up Monday challenge was to create a card inspired by the following picture:

I was really inspired by the edge of the apron and table, the rocking chair and the white and bluish colors.  Here was the card I came up with:

Hope you enjoy my creation.  Thanks for spending a bit of time with me today.  Don’t forget, I’m part of the CardSwap Summers End Blog Hop tomorrow, so check back in and check out the Summer’s End Card Crop, too.

Shifting Star Teabag Fold

Here is another teabag fold or Kaleidoscope Origami pattern called Shifting Star.  Well, I’ve found that many of the different patterns have the same name or are very similar, but folded slightly differently.  Hope you enjoy it.

You want to start with eight 1-7/8″ squares.  Wrong side up.  I cut some wrapping paper into squares.  Because of their slickness, not all of my squares are perfectly square, but close enough.

Fold your square in half horizontally, then unfold.  Along the left edge, fold the top corner down along the horizontal fold line, then the bottom corner up along the horizontal fold line.

After both those corners are folded in, refold in half horizontally with the open edge along the bottom.  Then take the upper right corner (folded edge) and fold down along the bottom (open) edge and unfold.

You will then open the piece slightly so you can fold that corner down inside.  Do the same for the other seven squares.

To put the pieces together, you will put the front corner inside that back folded edge you just made.  To attach, you will fold the front and back pieces that stick up over and into the back folded down section on the piece you just laid inside.

         

Do the same until all eight pieces are folded together.  It is a bit tricky to get the last piece into place and attached.  You will probably have a few of those little folds come untucked and have to re-tuck them.  You will need to slide the pieces together a bit so the center is tight.

The above photo is the way you just put them together.  The below photo is the back side.

I hope you enjoyed this fold.  Thanks for spending some time with me today!  Don’t forget, I’m going to be part of a blog hop on Wednesday that leads to the online card crop at CardMaker Magazine’s CardSwap.  I hope you join us for that!

Upcoming Events

Next Friday I am having another test done.  You should see a post from me on Saturday, but if not, I’ll do it when I’m feeling better.

CardMaker Magazine CardSwap is having a Summer’s End Blog Hop to kick off their Summer’s End Card Crop on August 10th.  I will be participating in both the hop and the crop.  Come join us for the online Card Crop August 10 through 13.  All you have to do to participate is follow challenge directions to make a project, take a picture of your project (or scan it, etc.) and post it on the challenge thread by midnight CST August 16.  Participate in as many or as few challenges as you like.  There will also be games to participate in as well.  It is a lot of fun and I hope to see you there.

Summer’s End Card Crop August 10-13