WOYWW #217 and Today I am the guest

It is WOYWW#217!  This world wide blog hop of crafters desks!  Go here to our lovely Host's Blog :   http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/2013/07/whats-on-your-workdesk-wednesday-217.html
and start the hop!!  and may I suggest you actually Read Julia's blog, she is so funny and down to earth, as well as informative!

Not much on my desk this morning- it is actually Weds morning here, I didn't write todays' post early.  I was having to much fun last night!!  Dinner, A birthday celebration with three of my Life long friends.  Those are such sweet times in the busyness of every day life!!

Here is my desk:

It will be busy in a little while!  That binder is my DT schedule for four teams and today and tomorrow I am going to get the month of Augusts requirements done.   See that cart under the desk, that is my Genesis Cutter.  I took all the bins out of that unit, they were those  multi color sliding drawers.  I took them out because they continually slid off there holder and collapsed to the next drawer below or to the floor.  Such a pain!!  But having the cutter available under the desk was so helpful .

It gave me a lot more room to work and this machine cuts so perfectly, I really like to have it at my side.

Today I am the guest designer over at Word Art Wednesday! I love Word Art Wednesday, I love What they are doing, How they are doing it and Why they are doing it!!  Go here: http://wordartwednesday.blogspot.com/  read about this Blog with a mission and then join in the fun!!

The Scripture today provided by Karen Murray  http://www.papercraftmemories.com/

Here is my Guest designer card:

 

It is so wonderful think that the Great Creator, The Almighty God, The Redeemer of all Men loves us so much that he will  also be our Help.

If you don't Know The Lord in this capacity, I invite you to start reading the Love letter he wrote to Mankind, we call it the Bible!  Start with the Gospel of Saint John, it begins with the beginning!

 

I'm off to my busy day, I'm now at 47 more days to go in my no craft spending fast,  my micro pen just dried up!!So instead of running to the store and picking 5 more up I am going to try to add a drop of alcohol ink to it.

And Since I am doing so well at disciplining myself in the spending department, I'm going back to the gym this week!  UGH! I am so out of shape and summer is hard on my because of a circulatory problem in my legs, but I have to do it.  I got totally off track taking care of my husband and my mother last summer .  So time to get back at it while I still can.

I started running at the age of 48,   my husband really got me motivated and I started one telephone pole at a time. He ran with me and  I worked through Asthma,  vein issues, bladder issues, blood sugar issues and after a year of sticking to it I could run 5 miles at a time and I did that 3 times a week for about 2 years.  It took me a year to get there and I'd like to get back.  It all starts with the first step. Actually  EVERYTHING starts with the first step doesn't it!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!!
Ginny M

 

 

Twist of Faith Tuesday , Mojo Monday, Less is More Challenges day 13

The challenge for the Twist of faith this week is Children, you can go here for details and enter your own card; http://twistoffaithcards.blogspot.com/ 
The purpose of Twist of faith is to enhance a community of card makers with positive quotations, scriptures and family friendly images in a God Pleasing way! Check it out and join in!!

This weeks sponsor for Twist of Faith is 'Milk Coffee'  

The Challenge this week  is "Children"
 I love designing for Twist of Faith, I feel like it is more another  opportunity to teach  about the Love of God as much as I do about making an inspiring card design.  We all do things for a reason including our hobbies/work and if we are Christian and we ask the Lord to bless the work of our hands, it all boils down to one thing, what ever we do, it brings Honor and Praise to The Lord.
I work behind the scenes with a fun, funny and fabulous group of  talented women who have turned their Talents over to God and have the same desire; to be a blessing and to get the WORD out!  We use our cards to get the WORD in peoples hearts and minds, to bless and encourage. 
What are you doing with your hobby?  I encourage you to do the same!
Go on over to Twist of Faith Join the Challenge and be a  Blesser!

The Milk Coffee Company puts out great digital images that are very easy to play with!!  Here is my card:

Isn't Charlotte sweet!  I paper pieced her dress! 

 

With the same verse and a different stamp:

 

This stamp is made by Renaissance Art Studios in near by CT.

The verse is my own done in the Papyrus Font.

For both I used memento ink .

 

Next up on the challenge list was Mojo Monday

http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/

 

 

I do the Mojo Challenge for the training benefit, Sketches are a great tool, they especially help me crank out cards for OWH! 

                                                                         

 

I really enjoyed this card, it also inspired me to try some I'm going to blog about later on!

The image here is a digital stamp!! 

If you would like it, I would be happy to send it to you, just let me know!

 

 

Less Is More offered a fun challenge this week too!  The Cue was a pair of Black High heels!  Check it out here:

http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2013/07/week-130-pinterest-picture-inspiration.html

 

Here is my spin on this:

This card really is in a very snappy black and white!

 

 

All of my cards for the last 12 days have been made with out purchasing any new Crafting supplies

Today is day 13  with 47 more to go!! almost two weeks into the spending fast and I haven't made a dent in my stash!  I wonder if I will by the end of it!!

 

I hope you are having a great day, thanks for stopping by and I hope you not only check out the challenges but join in the Fun!!

 

Ginny M

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speedy TV Monday Challenge and a few tips on clean and simple card making

Today is the Friends of Speedy TV Monday Challenge!  Go here  for the challenge: http://mfpspeedytv.ning.com/page/fostv-challenge

 

If you enter and win you will receive a free set of stamps!!  How fun is that?

Today theme is Clean and Simple Challenge #83

 

 

 

This is my DT card using the Daffodil Delight set birthday greeting the set .  I love this 'Happy Birthday' stamp!!

This card has one layer of designer paper, one piece of ribbon and two butterflies , pretty simple! I outlined the greeting with black marker to give it more definition on the patterned paper.

 

 

I few hints on clean and simple card making. I am loving CAS cards more every day and I am enjoying making them too.    Here are a few ideas for your CAS card making!

I think the most important thing is to use really good base paper. 100# paper gives you a beautiful sturdy card.  When it is in the hand it feels heavy, even if you are only making and A2 size card (half sheet)!  Light weights, and thing under 80# for CAS is going to feel flimsy and not be nearly as appealing.  The hearvier papers are just more elegant, it is like the difference of eating a hot dog on a cheap paper plate or china, of course it is going to taste better on china!!  It is all in the Setting

 

 

 

 

Use contrast!!  Simple still needs to an attention grabber!

 

Use quality bling very minimally

Tie it all together Simply!

 



 More than anything else, make it with Love!!

Thanks for stopping By, Have a great day and if you were wondering :

I have 48 more days to go and I am doing good!!!

 

Ginny M

 

 

 

Just a quick CAS project!

I made these tonight, something clean and simple, these will be for welcome cards to church visitors, first batch is 24.  They are made on solar white papers, I love solar white!!

Having a lighting issue, which wasn't going to get taken care of at 1am!

 

Those strange lines of color are from the camera...

The butterfly has a coat of sparkly light green nail polish over the purple and blue wings.

 

The background scripture is from Eccl. 3

 

A time and a season for every purpose.

 

I hope you are having a great weekend, Thanks for stopping by!!

Ginny M

 

 

The Fast continues Whack a stack results.

Today is day 10, 50 more to go.  I thought I was doing really very well until I went out to breakfast with my friend Betty.  Betty is my pastors wife and one of my best friends. I see her at least four times a week  but finding a time to chat is almost impossible.  Today we went out and we were very busy solving all of the worlds problems.  I had mentioned a project I wanted to take on and she was all for it which lead to some discussion on my craft spending fast.  Well I wasn't discussing, I was whining and then she just had to mention a big sale going on at Michael's.  The next thing out of my mouth was "so since it was my birthday last month, how about you go there and by me a trunk full of paper?   Can it really only be 10 days??  Can it really be 50 more to go?  The next thing I said was if you buy me something today I will pay you back in 51 days, I can post date a check, I can wash your car, I'll mow too!!  Pathetic.

 

 

Any Way the paper project, since I can't buy any more I am having fun discovering what I forgot I have!

Because my wonderful craft room is on the small size I use every inch of it especially the walls, all of them are lined with shelves.  The most narrow of them on one end of room is only about 5 feet wide and that is where I store my printed papers. I like to keep my craft room supplies organized by purpose, that way I know where everything is and can put my fingers right on the needed items. 

In this instance it is the printed paper, solids are on another wall, ready to go card bases are in drawers.

 

Here is an overview of the whack a stack saga:

 

First I glued the opposite glued edge, so now the top and bottom are glued.  I used Alenes' tacky glue with a brush.  The glue takes about 3 hours to set up completely.  By having both ends glued, it is much easier to cut.

 

This picture is showing the new top glued together of what is now a 6x6 pad

This is my stack cutter, it has a 12 inch  blade throat, I can cut the pad in one chop. I cut it in half horizontally first and the I cut the two pieces vertically, giving me 4 pads from the original one.

 

This is about half the pads.  The next task was to organize them.   I placed all my 6x6 pads that were purchased  into about one pile (less than 12 of these).  Next from each pads set (the 4 from the original 12x12) I took one pad and set the other three in one pile and the one in another pile. Lastly I separated them by color - white bases went in one pile and ivory bases went in another pile. I am referring to the base of the pad colors, they are usually printed in cool tones (white) or warm tones (ivory).  This makes a difference when selecting the card bases.

 

Next all the store bought 6x6's went into one bin because there were no duplicates.  Next the new chopped 6x6's , one bin of the warm tones and one bin of the cool tones.  The remaining 3 of each set went into bins on a higher shelf ready to come down when I run out of the lower 1.

 

And here it is:

 

 

This wall is only about 5 feet wide, oops missing a bin on the second shelf!

I have my sold , G45 and fancy papers in the three drawer bin, I'm not going to cut those papers up.

On the top shelf there I have a2 card bases for OWH ready to go, received cards and 9 containers of embossing powders.  Fortunately I am 5'7 so I can reach everything!!  These bins now contain about 75  12x12 stacks, all of them are movable and I can uses them on my desk.

 

This is my wall section of my wood stamps.  I un-mounted most of them and they are in the drawers underneath , I'll  show a picture of that storage another time.

My husband had the wonderful idea of lining the room with shelves and it has worked perfectly!

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Ginny M

Tutorial time Challenge, hanging treat box! Spending rant

On Fridays it is Tutorial Time on SpeedyTV. Tutorial Time is a group of designers that create a new tutorial for new techniques every week.    Try something fun and learn a new technique!
This weeks challenge is a hanging treat box!  Go here:  http://mfpspeedytv.ning.com/page/tutorial-time-on-speedytv  just click on todays' date for the current tutorial!  If you would like to join in on more challenges, Speedy offers a week full of them, there are even prizes to be won!!  Go Here: http://mfpspeedytv.ning.com/page/challenges

Here is my finished result for the hanging treat box tutorial:

The stamp is from Marks Finest Papers and Stamps set "Mothers Magnolias"

Go on over to Speedy TV, give it a try, enter your challenge and you may win this new stamp set!!

 

 

 

One of the things on my list of to do's is  today is to finish my 12x12 paper chop project!

Last night I cut most of my stacks,  I did not cut my solid papers because I will use those on my electronic cutter. I did not chop up my G45 papers.  I don't scrap book so none these pads will be needed for scrapping, it will all be going into card making .

I'll post pictures on my storage solution for these now 6x6 pads once I figure out what I am doing with them!!

 

 

I'm using an Alenes' Tacky glue paste with a brush on the new binding, it takes about 2 hours to dry and works perfectly!

 

 

Since I spent about two hours going through all my patterned papers, it really helped me to remember what I have and sparked a bunch of great ideas, I also went through all that paper and pulled out the sheets that I did not like for a give away pile, that took out about 15% of the paper .  I'm not a pastel fan so that was pretty much what went into the "for friends " box!!

 

51 more days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on my no craft spend fast!!

 

Has it been difficult?  YES!!  It does however make you reevaluate your spending priorities and your level of Habit!  My stash is modest compared to some (sounds like an addict statement doesn't it?), but it is the idea of all ways adding to it that is so addictive!!  Spending habits can be fixed on anything,  I know two  ladies that have several hundred pairs of shoes and continue to shop the shoe sales every week, like they need shoes.  Crafters think they need all the special stuff at the big box stores, The stores know you need it so they send you coupons to help you.  The crafter can get so involved in the purchasing they never end up doing the crafting!  A person can feel paralyzed mid project till they run out and purchase that new and very special embossing folder, got have that one because one of the 80 they all ready have just isn't perfect enough!  It is all in marketing, create a need, push the need, supply a coupon to purchase the need.

 

Okay, I'm off my little soap box!!  Remember this was all inspired by the you tube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3D77sMmwd8&feature=player_embedded

 

Have a wonderful day!!

Ginny M

Word Art and building a digital card

I'm a little late posting today, but the morning is so nice I had to spend some time in my Garden.  My garden consists of a jungle of perennials, they just grow and grow and grow! I have two beds in front of the house, to the left and right of our front steps and porch.  Nothing elaborate and so far no one has come to take pictures to replicate my landscaping for their own homes.  The biggest challenge to my garden  weighs 165lbs and for some reason thinks this is the very best place in entire world to roll.

 

 Here is my garden Foe:

 

He just looks innocent!

 

 

 

I am blogging about my Word Art Wednesday  card today, you can go here to check the blog out and hopefully enter your own Word Art Card!!

http://wordartwednesday.blogspot.com/

 

The verse:

I suggest you go to the site and down load from there as the image is much clearer.

 

This is a wonderful blog and it has so much to offer!  I hope you enter in the challenge, make the card, post it and then send it on to someone who has made a difference for good in your life!!

 

 

 

 Here was the process:

 

 

 

This card was specifically going to be for Word Art Wednesday

 

I had thought of the Deer for the verse would work:

 

I located  the deer in my Animal files, then imported him into Word for the correct sizing  for the project:  I always print at least two .

 

 

I  cut out the Deer, still not sure exactly what I was going to be doing with it. 

 

I decided to do a sponged background with masking.

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say I need a little more practice with this, should I mention that at least 3 times had the wrong duster for the area! I  added brown to my yellow sky and green to the blue sky?  My mountain mask slipped and made a weird halo.

 

Next the Deer:

                                       First layer of color, just random distress ink

 

 

Next, alcohol markers

 

 

Well this was a disappointment!!!  So I started reworking it, after sinking in 30 minutes, I wasn't going toss it.

So I printed a little more drama for the background   I hand colored the image a bit, was more careful with my color duster brushes, used alcohol markers to pen in some details of color. I mounted it on a black base card after framing it with brown, green and silver.  I added a layer of modge podge on the buck,  the mountains and trees just to give it more interest, as it was flat looking. I used my home made glue dots to adhere the buck to the card. 

Here is the finished card:

 

 

Hope this might have been a little helpful, I am about to clean my room now, Since I am not spending I feeling like cleaning and finding new homes for things I am not using.

      I have 51 mores days to go!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not foaming at the mouth yet. Not yet!!

 

Have a wonderful day!

Ginny M

 

WOYWW #216, OWH and CAS and A Tip

Today Is the day to start your international work desk blog hop!  Start Here; http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/  At Julia's blog where every week she so kindly hosts' this around the world craft desk tour!

 

My Desk today :  Fun, clean and simple stuff! 

 

I'm working on two cards tonight, this is my stand up work area and I am making my entry for the CAS Blog, this week's theme is GOLD.

I love gold, so this was easy, and it would have been a ten minute card if I hadn't taken 20 minutes to "sand off" smudged liquid pearls!!

Here is the card, it is a 5x7 and I used Elizabeth dies for the Koi (Gold Fish).  I used wrapping paper for the gold work!

 

 

For more CAS fun go here; http://casology.blogspot.com/

 

 

The Next challenge is for a cause near and dear to my heart, Operation Write Home!

With this challenge, OWH supplies a card sketch for the card and you choose everything else.

http://operationwritehome.org/sketch-challenge-182/

 

Take a moment to go over to the OWH Blog.  This is a Non Profit organization dedicated to sending our military Heroes beautiful cards so that they have something to write home on.  OWH has teaching videos, classes, challenges and even a weekly TV show to help us become better card makers.  So while we are helping others, Sandy Allnock is helping us become better card makers and crafters!  It is a total Win - Win!! 

 

This is the sketch for this week;

 

My card:

 

 

This was the first picture, I decided I didn't like the white showing.

 

So here is my tip: the terrific edge coloring  tool

 

 

 

It is the edge of my distress pad, I just rub it along the edge and I get a perfect cover up every time!!

 

 

 

The edgw was actually supposed to be black, but alas, I am pretty nearsighted and the dog just can't do colors yet, he keeps telling me everything is black or gray!

 

 

We are both working on it!

 

Just in case you were wondering:

Day 7 on my no craft spending and my husband has asked me to make this for 60 days!!!!!!

Well, since he never says no to me, how could I say no to him?? I couldn't so now it is

7/60

Today I had 20.oo in my wallet, and I almost stopped at Michaels, twice, there were two of them on my way home today!!!!   I just kept going.  I think my jaw hurt from the clenching, but I did it!!!

 

Enjoy your day and the hop!!

God Bless,

Ginny M

 

53 DAYS to go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!