Another Different Baby Card

At least I hope this one is kind of different... I really love this Flourishes "Rock-A-Bye Baby" set - I think it's so sweet, and sort of vintage-y and unusual. It's kind of a pain to paper-piece, with the little ribbons and things, but it looks SO good that way.

I couldn't get a great picture, but the moon is embossed with a sparkly embossing powder, so it has a little dimension and glitter.


Stamps: Flourishes Rock-A-Bye Baby
Paper: BasicGrey LilyKate, Stampin' Up! Pretty In Pink
Ink: Palette Umber, Versamark
Accessories: Ranger Holographic Embossing Powder, Cuttlebug embossing folder, eyelet

Embossing for Baby

I went to a baby shower yesterday for one of my good friends, and for whatever reason, the photos of the card on its own didn't turn out at all, but the photos of the card with the gift did. So you get to see both!

The card is a little bit of a non-traditional baby card - no bunnies or blocks, but I think it's really perfect - sweet colors and a perfect sentiment for a little one with the whole world ahead of her. The background is dry embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder to give the idea of a sky and wind, and some of the clouds and balloons are popped up on foam adhesive to give the whole thing some dimension. The clouds and balloons are heat embossed to keep the sweet colors but give them some detail.

I made a hooded swaddling blanket as my gift - it's from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones, and is one of my favorite baby-gift patterns. I make it with a simple cotton print on the outside and a thin-ish flannel on the inside... I figure in Texas, it's really not necessary to put in an extra layer of insulation or a warmer flannel. The original pattern has a sash-type tie... I leave that out, not because I'm too lazy to learn to do the buttonhole-style holes for it (although I am), but because somehow sashes and babies don't go together in my head. Seems like a bad idea. I embroidered "Sweet" on the hood (I actually had some glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss in exactly the right colors, so it glows in the dark!) - the pattern is a transfer from Sublime Stitching the book, which is from my favorite embroidery website (seriously, check out their amazing patterns - it'll make you want to learn to embroider!) - also the source of the glow-in-the-dark thread.

My goodness, I'm chatty today. Anyway, here's the whole thing together.


Stamps: Up, Up & Away and Just the Ticket, both from Papertrey Ink
Paper: Stampin' Up! Blush Blossom, Papertrey Classic White and Aqua Mist
Ink: Palette Umber, Versamark
Accessories: Dimensional foam adhesive; heat gun; Cuttlebug with swirl folder; cloud, balloon, & ticket dies from Papertrey Ink; Ranger Embossing Pearl in Silver

Fun with felt

This stamp/die set is part of the package I ordered a couple of weeks ago from Papertrey, so I wanted to get it out and get it broken in.

The die didn't quite cut through the felt, so I spent a while cutting it through the rest of the way with scissors, and then it ended up being kind of a background element... I think it would have been more worthwhile if I'd used it as a main centerpiece. I do like the effect, though, of the felt "shadow" behind the gingko leaves.

I love the sentiment that comes with this set - "Take a moment to remember how special you are & how lucky the world is to have you in it." I accented the sentiment (and some outlining around the leaves) with a glitter pen.

Something I like about Papertrey is that they frequently include with stamp sets a coordinating "Handmade just for you by:" stamp, which I can put on the back with my signature stamp. That was another I couldn't get a good close-up of (actually, that was because my camera batteries died and I need to go get some more...), but I appreciate the little touch.

Stamps: Papertrey Harvest Berries
Paper: Papertrey Stamper's Select White, Aqua Mist
Ink: Palette Umber, Ocean Tides
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Harvest Berries Die, Fine Linen felt, Sakura glitter pen

If at first you don't succeed...

...build a diorama.

Isn't that how it goes?

So you might remember last week's disaster. I spent some time this week fixing it. This time, rather than hanging them up in front of some cute paper and calling it a day, I got crafty.



This is the same box, with the same background and same figurines, but I added a little context. The tree is a bunch of lengths of twine, twisted and hot-glued to the box, with some die-cut "leaves" and button-apples. I figured I'd have the Lion hiding behind it and the Tin Man nearby like he might chop it down. Dorothy, of course, is on the yellow brick road, and since the Scarecrow was conveniently positioned like he was on the scarecrow-ing pole (do those have a name?), I made him one out of a stick.

With the balloon (die cut and stamps by Papertrey Ink), I was trying to make it look like it was floating up behind the tree, but from some angles it just looks like it's coming out of the Tin Man's head. If I can think of a way to move it without leaving adhesive behind or tearing the background, I probably will.

Hearth Centerpiece

I just finished working on the other main element of my over-the-hearth setup - this gorgeous framed board game that was hanging in my room when I was a kid. It's called "The Wonderful Game of Oz" and I think it's from the 30s? Maybe the 40s?

It was originally framed in red (double-glassed, because of the beautiful art on the back), and when we painted my room lavender, it got a new coat of paint. You can see both colors and the back glass here. (And yes, that's my sonic screwdriver behind it... I actually use it ALL the time because it's the easiest screwdriver to find and has 6 different heads. And it makes cool noises while I'm using it...)



The lavender doesn't really go with my grey-green walls in here, so I thought I'd paint again, this time white to go with the shadow box (insert sad trombone sound effect here).

Unfortunately, right after I took this picture of the artwork on the back (and progress in taking off the frame), I picked up the game and glass, and the glass cracked. On the bright side, it was the back glass and not the front, so I taped it... the tape doesn't look great, but if I ever want to somehow display both sides I'll just replace the back glass.



Other than that, I painted the frame and re-framed it without incident (actually, putting the frame back on was MUCH easier than taking it off). How gorgeous is this?



A closeup of my favorite part - Quadling Country. I spent HOURS looking at this game when I was little, writing new Oz stories in my head with the characters.

When a good idea goes horribly awry

This week, I've been trying to work on my over-the-mantel arrangement, and get everything looking like I want it. I'm sort of going for a vintage-childrens'-literature theme, and I've been obsessed with The Wizard of Oz forever, so that's pretty much the dominant book. This involves painting a frame that I really should have figured out how to paint without taking it off the glass, and finding a great way to display some gorgeous Wizard of Oz ornaments that Emily gave me for Christmas. They're really too pretty (and not too Christmasy) to just be out at Christmas.

And so enters my great idea - I'll do a shadow box or display box, where the figurines can be out all the time. I went to the dollhouse store (very cool, by the way), where I found a perfect display box - pre-painted, easy to assemble, perfect dimensions. They also had some little wooden... things... that were originally meant to hold up shelves, but had holes through them. I thought, hey, the ornaments have twine loops, I can just loop them through the holes. Still all sounding great in my head. Even better, I had the idea to cover the back with a nice scrapbook paper. Lovely, right?

Here it is, upside-down, right after I glued in the hangers. Looking great, no? Nice paper, cute hangers, good-looking box...



This was all great until I'd tied on the ornaments and stood the box upright.



...yeah.

Ornaments on a tree are ALL hung from something, so it looks normal, but human/humanoid figurines, hanging at a time other than Christmas from twine on their heads? SO SO SO CREEPY AND MORBID.

So.

This project is being re-thunk. Look for it again when I figure out how to re-work it to not look like the witch's forest was just entirely too dark and depressing.

Scentsy Style

My aunt sells Scentsy products (check out the link - there's a sale!), which, if you don't know, are flameless wax holder... um, things? They're awesome, anyway - I was a tiny bit skeptical ("Don't I already have enough scented-wax things with all the candles sitting around here?") until she got me one as a housewarming gift, and it's AWESOME. It's kind of a basic setup - a light bulb inside a ceramic box warms up scented wax in a tray on top - but I LOVE that I can leave it on during the day and it keeps the downstairs smelling nice (I have it in the bathroom, and the scent isn't overly strong, but it does make the downstairs pleasant), and I don't freak out if we've gone somewhere and I remember I didn't put it out.

So the reason I'm telling you all this is because the one she got me for a housewarming gift is one of their DIY ones - a plain white (I think they have brown or black too) model that comes with rub-ons so you can customize it.

I actually plugged mine in right away in the bathroom, to see how it worked, and LOVE how the plain white looks in there with all the other white, so I haven't decorated mine yet, but she got me two sets of rub-ons with it. One of them is more what I think would work well in one of the rooms downstairs if I do decide to decorate it, and the other set is SUPER cute but a lot of stuff about friends and friendship - which is perfect for cards, but maybe a little weird to decorate a thing to go in my house with.

So, I'm using them to make cards, and they're really great rub-ons... go on easily and look really good.



The ribbon is on the bottom because, well... I got this Martha Stewart edge punch that I've been wanting forever, and it turns out it'll only punch through really thin paper/cardstock. I tried to do it on this (layer of thicker cardstock + layer of paper) and it just made marks, so the ribbon is covering up the marks.

Dang, that was a ton of explanation for a really simple card...