Ketchup

When we were first married, my mother-in-law gave me some wise advice: buy ketchup in bulk. What? Huh? Why? Boy, was she ever right! The husband went through ketchup like nobody's business. And now that I have two little boys along with my "big" boy, I am constantly purchasing ketchup...it seems that trait was passed to both boys. Ketchup goes on everything from potatoes to even green beans. Once, they experimented with cheetos too!

Every once in a while a stamp set comes along that you have to have, and Vegtastic was one of those for me, because of the "ketchup." I was inspired by the image at the latest Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge-incorporating the tomatoes, fabric, pin, textures and colors into my card. I am smitten with the way the canvas texture looks against the clean lines from the embossed card base, I've been trying to work with different textures since Moxie Fab World's Textured to Perfection Challenge came out.

Supplies: Cardstock: (Marigold Morning) SU
Stamps: (Vegtastic) Paper Smooches
Ink: (Walnut Stain Distress) Ranger
Other: (Beads), (Hat Pin), (Markers) Copic
Fibers: (Canvas Circle) Canvas Corp
Tools: (Grid Impression Plate) PTI

The Waiting Game

It's a beautiful Saturday morning here and I've got a list a mile long of things to do today, so I'll be quick! I'm a firm believer in the waiting game, as good things do come to those who wait.

I have some exciting happenings on my blog the next few days, as my birthday and The Bald Dragonfly's anniversary occur on the same day. Look out for a giveaway!

I wanted to throw my hat in for Market Street Stamps Special Edition Block Party. Congratulations to them for turning a year old! There are some fabulous entries so far, I was a bit intimidated to enter this one, but I couldn't resist, I love their stamps and I think I added some cute personal touches. This snail from Slow Movin' is so cute, it is a large size so it can hold its own on a card. I added my own touches by replacing the stamped shell with dyed rolled ribbon and the antenae with knotted string. The grass is from Homegrown. I added a touch of pink ink for the cheeks-too cute! and softened everything up a bit with some creamy brown ink on the edges.

Supplies:
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI
Patterned Paper: (Stella & Rose) My Mind's Eye
Stamps: (Slow Movin', Homegrown) Market Street Stamps
Ink: (Vintage Photo Distress) Ranger, (Sabd Beige, Petal Pink) Versacolor
Fiber: (Ivory Silk, Natural Burlap String) May Arts
Other: (Medallion Chalk Mist) Tattered Angels
Tools: (Corner Chomper) WR Memory Keepers

Halloween History

"Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits." ~ History.com

This week, CAS-ual Fridays is asking for a clean and simple Halloween creation that does not feature any orange, not a speck! There's a lot more details, challenge rules, information about our fabulous sponsor, Clear Dollar Stamps, and great inspiration from the other Girl Fridays over at the CAS-ual Fridays blog.

My card was inspired by the above photo from this site. I sprayed layers of purple and black mist onto a card base, added the sentiment sticker, stamped the spooky spiders and web and finished the card off with some burlap string.

I can't wait to see your no orange Halloween creation!

Supplies:
Cardstock: (White) OfficeMax
Stamps: (Spider from Happy Halloweenie) Skipping Stones Design, (Web from Spooky Tags) Our Craft Lounge
Fiber: (Black Burlap String) May Arts
Other: (Sentiment Sticker) SRM Press, (Purple, Black Spray Mist) Shimmerz
Tools: (Corner Chomper) WR Memory Keepers

A Red Bird & Modern Holly

"Oh little red bird /Come to my window sill / Been so lonesome / Shaking that morning chill / Oh little red bird / Open your mouth and say..." ~Gillian Welch

As I create, some cards just lead to a song and I can't get it out of my head for days, such as the case for this Little Red Bird Card. I'm so excited as today Christina from Sea Glass & Sentiments is joining me on a Carbon Copy post! We are both featuring Wplus9's Woodgrain Silhouettes and Additions stamp sets and participating in the gorgeous color scheme at CR84FN.

Let me tell you, if I may, Christina is so talented. I can spot her cards from a line up because of their perfect execution and fresh designs. To sweeten the pot, Christina is one of thee nicest blogging pals a gal could have! Please stop on over to Sea Glass & Sentiments to see Christina's take on the Carbon Copy!

In other exciting news, I was asked to feature a card and sketch over at Scraprendezvous during their month long feature of holiday cards.

Please mosey on over to Scraprendezvous and take a peak at my sketch. I'd love to see your take on it too!

Glass Ornaments

My Christmas Tree each year is far from Clean and Simple. Far, far, far from it. I love the additions of the handmade ornaments each year from the boys, or the special godparent ornaments for them, or the fact of changing out the styles of lights due to circumstances beyond my control Perhaps someday I will have a big house where I can showcase two trees, the kind mentioned previously and one that is pristine, cultured, thoroughly thought out. It would have beautiful sparkling glass ornaments hanging delicately from string and showcased by twinkling white lights.

Welcome to the blog hop showcasing Skipping Stones Design's beautiful new set, Christmas Song and the sketch for Challenge #97! Wasn't Tammy's project wonderful?! (If you just happened along my blog today, start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design.  The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.)

I stamped one of the ornaments in this set three times onto a textured embossed base, being sure to mask where necessary. The images were then colored and outlined with markers and strings drawn with a pen. All the design elements, except the sentiment, were outlined with a very light gray marker to add some depth to a one layer card.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs.  This month we are welcoming Andrea Ewen, Tammy Tutterow and Karen Christensen to our team as Guest Designers!  Cristina Kowalczyk will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop! So, head over to Katie's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration and please link up your creation using this week's sketch at the Skipping Stones Design blog.

Sacks, Acorns & Vases

My time is pretty limited with two boys in school so I appreciate those fall decorations that can last through the holidays in fall up until the first of December. I am really excited to be a guest designer at Lessology! What a great site for inspiration and great tips on upcycling items to create beautiful projects.

I asked my two boys to save their brown paper lunch sacks for a couple of days so I could use them for this project. It took a couple of days for them to remember, but after a while I ended up with some lovely textured kraft medium. I knew I also wanted to incorporate natural items found this time of year, as nothing forces you to upcycling than the change of seasons! Both the lunch sacks and nature items, along with just a few other supplies, helped me create some decorative, abstract fall flowers.  Since I decided on a monochromatic landscape for my vase to set and for the flowers, I wanted to incorporate a lot of different textures into each ball.

^

To create the dried hydrangea flower, I die cut numerous scalloped circles from the upcycled paper lunch sacks, scrunched them into a bud shape and glued them onto a styrofoam ball. The stem is simply a skewer stick from the kitchen section at my local discount store!

^

The smallest flower is simply punched circles in varying sizes from the left over from the paper lunch sacks. These were then glued in an overlapping fashion to a styrofoam ball with my boys' school glue. The stem again, is a skewer stick.

^

The final flower, and my favorite! consists of a number of acorn tops hot glued to another styrofoam ball that had been covered with paper sack strips, complete with a skewer stick stem.

^

I tucked the three flowers in a vase, secured them with whole acorns and embellished the overall look with dried wheat grass to give the piece some height. The backdrop is a recycled cranberry crate-I love the worn, washed out look of the wood and found the blue hues complimented the orange hues of my flowers nicely.

I had so much fun creating this project! I enrolled the help of my sons to pick the acorns and toppers, my sister and I brainstormed to come up with for the hydrangea and I have a decorated spot in my living room that both my mother and aunt would be proud of! Thank you to the Lessology crew for inviting me to be part of their challenge, and I hope to see your "doggie bag" ideas soon!

Pressed

**For my Operation Julie's Smite post, please click here.**

I often wonder if my boys' eyes will turn from a deep chocolate brown to hazel, like mine did. Is that a trait that they will inherit from me? What about my little one's caring nature and interest towards all things little and furry-will that continue until he's older? Or my oldest's fascination with the social studies-will he grow up to be the next adventurer?

My friend Erin is the guest designer over at Yvonne's blog, Do More with Less, and she showcased this fabulous faux letterpress technique. I started with some watercolor paper and a slightly watered down mix of green and brown distress ink on the damask embossing plate. After running it through, I inked the edges and finished the card with some string, a tag and pin. The end result is a stunning mix of ink patterns and texture. Because of the colors I've used and the lovely results by using watercolor paper, I'm going to enter this into Moxie Fab World's Textured to Perfection Challenge.

Also, Young Crafter's Unite challenged participants to create a coordinating envelope, so I carefully ran just the flap through as well to create an embossed patterned. The front of the envelope recieved an inking treatment on the edges.

Supplies:
Cardstock: (Kraft) PTI
Stamps: (Mega Mixed Messages) PTI
Ink: (Peeled Paint, Vintage Photo Distress) Ranger
Fiber: (Natural Burlap String) May Arts
Tools: (Damask Impression Plate, Tag Die) PTI
Other: (Hat Pin, Bead, Watercolor Paper)

The {stasche}

Did those cute little eyes peeking out from underneath a mustache make you smile?

You did smile a little, right?

Welcome to The Bald Dragonfly, your next stop on Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop.

You should have arrived from Jinny's blog-she is showcasing a fabulous project!

(No worries, there is a complete list at The Sweet Stamp Shop Blog if you stumbled here or lost your way!)

So, why is this hop happening?

1. For you to see fabulous inspiration from paper crafter's all over the world coming together to support a friend.
2. Julie Ranae's got to get a new smile. You know Julie Ranae... She's hardworking. She's kind. She's loyal. She's a super design team coordinator. Like one of the best. Serious. Due to some circumstances beyond her control as a child and a recent injury to her teeth, she's got to get an entirely new smile. A nice new Julie Ranae smile. And it's a lot of money. It is the goal of all of these generous friends and sponsors to help make this situation more do-able for Julie so that she can share a brand new smile with all of us soon. More details are on The Sweet Stamp Shop's blog.

There are $2500 in prizes donated by fabulous and generous companies and you could be a winner for donating to Julie's cause (button on my sidebar through the weekend!) and/or commenting along the way! Any amount is appreciated and ALL DONATIONS will be eligible for prizes from our sponsor pool.

The CAS-ual Friday girls are all hopping today, and the challenge this week is influenced by Operation Julie's Smile. Create a clean and simple creation inspired by the quote "Everyday you spend without a smile is a lost day." If you create a card and link it up to the challenge, you have a chance to win a prize from our fabulous sponsor, The Craft's Meow!

The unbelievably cute mustache and sentiment on my card is from the stamp set Fun{tache}tic by The Craft's Meow. Check out all the challenge details and rules, read about our sponsor and find more about the prize over at the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge Blog!

Your next stop on the hop is Virginia! Make sure you have your smile ready, because Virginia's project for the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge is going to make you grin!

Pendant Necklace

I have a really easy and short tutorial live at the May Arts Blog today on how to make what I think is a gorgeous necklace... Please hop on over there and let me know what you think!

Special thanks to my uber talented sister, Heather,

for helping me choose the jewelry findings and putting up with all my questions-

I couldn't have done it without you!

~kb

Promises & Pearls

"Promises are meant to be kept,

for they are like precious pearls in an ocean,

their value is high and quality genuine and true,

and once they are made they can never be broken."

~Anonymous

As the sketch challenges enter a new month at Skipping Stones Design, so does the sketch artist and guest designers. Cristina has designed this fabulously clean and simple sketch for this week's challenge that offers up many possibilities...

My card features a partial frame image and sentiment from the classical set Sentiment Frames and a single pearl for an accent. I first stamped the frame onto the solid cardstock, then onto an unsecured patterned paper panel, matched them and adhered the patterned paper with dimensionals to the cardstock base.

Check out the details and prize over on the Skipping Stones Design blog, as well as great samples from the regular team and our guest designers, Cristina, Tammy, Andrea and Karen.

Supplies:
Cardstock: (White) OfficeMax, (Lavender Lace) SU
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Stamps: (Sentiment Frames) Skipping Stones Design
Ink: (Walnut Stain Distress) Ranger
Embellishment: (Purple Pearl) Queen & Co.