Doodle Fun!!!

I have to admit that I just can't watch television for the sake of just watching television......I have to be doing something else at the same time. The television is just really background noise but I do have my favorite shows that keep me the most entertained. My favorite show is 'The Voice' right now. I'm so glad a new season has just started again. I love the banter that goes on among the judges and I enjoy the incredible talent. 

I'm usually at home in my Scrap Room working away to keep busy but when I'm in a hotel room, I need something to keep me busy there as well. On my recent trip to Montana, I brought paper, markers with several nib widths and colors. I just doodled away while being obsessed with the Olympics.

Here is my original sheet that I used to teach myself how to do this:

............and here is what I did with my doodles.

For Scrapbooker's Paradise Blog, I put together a little how to that will help you get started so that you too can Doodle away the time!!!

I just got back from yet another trip. I went to Phoenix with my PMS group. This would be the 'Pre-Meditated Spending' club. There are 10 of us in the group and after 18 years there are still 6 originals in the group. This was our first trip together and I needed nothing to keep me busy with this group. We laughed so much and so hard and we really had the greatest time. Some of us got bad news from home while away but together we all got through it. We saw a sign........

"I Laughed so hard the tears were running down my legs!"

......and we knew it was about us.

The Botanical Gardens were AMAZING! The Chihuly exhibit that runs until May 18th.

Here's a link to the Chihuly pictures that I took. I find the idea so inspiring that I think I will have to base an upcoming project on one of these pictures.

Have a Great Week,

I finally finished my Box!!!

 Here is my Kaiser Box that I started some time ago.

I actually had all of the drawer fronts done except for two and all I had left was the actual box. I do LOVE how these turned out in the end. My biggest reason for the procrastination was trying to decide on the last drawer pulls. In the end I chose the faucet knob and the zipper pull.

I was going to paint the box but I was inspired by the Kaiser Baseboard papers and I'm so glad that I chose this different wood grain for the back portion. I'm so happy that the back is completely finished.

I took 3 sheets of the main paper and there are no folded edges here as all the pieces were cut to fit and glued on individually. The top piece actually has 3 pieces that are joined and the joints are not at all visible.

Here it is all finished and put together. LOVE IT!!! I can't wait to start the next Kaiser box.

hope you enjoyed it!

This and That!

Here is how the metal embossed tile is really supposed to look when you use the right chipboard. I used a thinner chipboard on my Blog tutorial for Scrapbooker's and the difference is quite significant.

One of my favorite storage finds is this old metal toolbox. This is how I store all of my rubons and stickers. This may look like a lot but most of these came from goodie bags. I tend to make my own embellishments so I rarely use stickers but I do use rubons. My favorites are the ones that I can just cut chunks out of and all of the definition words from Kaiser.

STAMPS are my real weakness! I would need at least a dozen of these boxes to fit my stamp collection. I couldn't help myself this week when the NEW Red Rubber stamps, Riley and Company and the Pan Pastels came into the store and I've had to add a few to the collection. I used one of my favorite Red Rubber stamps to create my background project below.

 Here's my latest project on Scrapbooker's Paradise Blog. The tutorial is for the background paper which I created from a plain white piece of paper. I'm always up for getting messy!

I can't wait to show you what I'm finally finishing up for next week!!!

Hope you have an awesome week,

My Muse(ings) is 1!!!!!

I can't believe how fast a year has gone by......

I haven't been too disciplined but I haven't been bad either! 

I'm excited to get this New Year under way and it actually started last Sunday with the plate bake. I hope that some of you tried this. I've been using my baked plates all week and I swear they also puffed a bit. This is good as some of them started needing shimming.

This week I am showing the finished layout using the technique that I did on Scrapbooker's Paradise Blog. I love how this turned out and I will use this technique again to create a background. I also used some of the leftover petals from a previous 'Paradise' post.

This weekend I get to judge at the Alberta Winter Games and I get to celebrate my Birthday with some great gals. The games are being hosted by the beautiful town of Canmore. The people will be awesome, the venue will be awesome so now it's all up to the WEATHER! I sure hope it warms up.

My favourite thing in the last week is the billboard on the outside of the church down the street.

"WHOEVER'S PRAYING

FOR SNOW

PLEASE STOP!"

I concur,

Have a Great Week,

Cutting Plates are FLAT again!

My plates were so bowed that I had to give this a try. Here is a picture of my cutting plate before I did my little experiment.

I did two plates at a time. I wrapped them in tin foil individually and preheated my oven to 325 deg.

I laid them side by side on a flat cookie sheet and covered them with a heavy glass (oven proof) dish.

I baked them for 30 minutes.

When you remove the plate from the tin foil, you will be able to wipe off old bits of dark cardstock.

Here is my flattened acrylic sheet. It's not 100% flat but it's pretty close and it still won't replace a brand new plate but it will give it more life and will save you when you can't get to a store when you need a fix at the most inopportune time.

The plate will still have all the cut marks, but it will be more translucent.

Here is a different view to so that you can get a better idea of how well this works.

Go ahead and give it a try!

Time to do a bit of Catching Up! Yikes!!!

This is my latest project with Scrapbooker's Paradise and I was showing how to use old bits of embossed metal that were all different colors and sizes. However, I loved the background so much for this card that I decided to make a 12 x 12 background page that I can use for a layout.

I LOVE how this turned out and I can't wait to use it for a Layout.

Just doing some catching up so here are the cards from the previous weeks.

Daryl had a Birthday so, of course, we got a Katrina Karina Cake.

His favorite movie is "The Big Lebowski"........

And what's and update without the babies.......I LOVE when we get to look after Lexi!

They are adorable together and two is easier than one. 

Mack is exhausted when she leaves but he has so much fun with her. 

Have a GREAT week!

Christmas Table Surprises!!!

I actually had a lot of fun making these Christmas crackers this year.  As soon as I saw the 'Candy Box Punch Board', I knew exactly what I would be doing with it.  We do Christmas Crackers every year and it was always hard to find some that matched nicely with the rest of the decor.  Mine were going to be filled with chocolate, candy, something personal and of course the jokes, riddles and another note that said exactly this:

"NOTE: There is no SILLY HAT in this cracker"

I love using 'Wordle' to personalize things so this is how I created my background paper. I've put up all of the instructions on my post for Scrapbooker's Paradise.  Finding the actual 'snaps' was an issue but Micheals brought some of these in for the Christmas season and you just can't have real crackers without the 'SNAP'.

The instructions for the 'Punch Board' say to trim your paper width to 7" and length to between 4" and 12". I changed the complete look for mine and added a 5^th side so I left my width at 8 ½ " and I cut an inch off of each end to keep my printing centered.  I simply followed the directions on the Board for the rest of the cracker.

Cardstock is a little thicker than the average cracker material and it still needs to 'pop' open without having to open each end so I ran a solid scor-line down each length at between 1 ¾ " and 2".  For this I just used a scoring blade in my trimmer and then I just had to make sure not to play around and tear this prematurely.  I just added a dab of glue to one side of the snap and cut the ends so that they lined up with my outer edge and finished the assembly portion and that was it!  Once I got the proper pattern figured out and my first one out of the way......it was super easy and fun to make the next dozen!

I forgot to take a picture when the table was completely set but here's how it looked with all of my crackers set out.  I just got a little busy with my guests and making sure that we didn't forget anything.  My wonderful husband cooked the entire meal!  Our awesome neighbors also brought some of the goodies and we had a fabulous meal as usual.  The 4 dogs were extremely well behaved and the 6 missing family members were missed and talked about. Traditions!!!

Give this a try for your next party or gathering.