Sites of the week

I have never played any kind of ladies night in game before {like Bunco, etc.}, but a while back I was invited to play Pokeeno and last Thursday I was finally able to go. Yay!! What the heck is Pokeeno, you ask? Well, you get a card that has five rows of five playing cards on it. There is someone that calls out playing cards from a well shuffled deck and, just like Bingo, you try to get a line across or diagonal. We also played where you had to get the whole border, or a certain letter, etc. It was fun!! Everyone had to bring a gift in the $10 price range. I, of course, wanted to make what I was bringing. I was recently inspired by THIS acrylic block set from Becky Oehler’s and decided to do my own spin on it and this is what I came up with.

I made this with the $1 block from Michael’s. They are less than 2 inches square, so they would not work for coasters, but they did work nicely for this wall hanging. I also used rhinestones instead of the {Bella} baubles that I am hoarding. The letters are cut from the Red Tag Cuttlebug Alpha and the paper that I used on the back is from American Crafts. The SU! Old Olive ribbon is adhered with 2 strips of red liner tape on the back of the blocks. To get the loop to stay, I sewed it down {sorry no pic}. The bow was adhered with hot glue. I also made a matching tea tin to package it in. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things and the circle is from PaperTrey. This turned out to be quite a hit, and I think that it would be fun to make more of these with different holidays in mind.

Verve Visual has gone CLEAR and has released FOUR brand spankin’ new sentiment sets…and they are only $6 each!!! It’s ok to do a little Christmas shopping for yourself!! If you liked the first release from Verve, Thoughtful Phrases, you are gonna LOOOVE the new sentiment sets. You can check them out HERE. They fit right inside the word window punch from SU! In addition to those sets, Julee “remixed” both Starlight Starbright and Wonderful Wishes! Oh, and by the way, you might just wanna check out the sale section, too!!

Today I am sharing a little ornament that I made using a small clear top tin from Oriental Trading Co. I lined the inside with my new favorite pattern from American Crafts…gotta love the red with white polkas! The inside edges are lined with SU! Basic Black cardstock. I glued the lid on using Crystal Effects and then wrapped black twill around the tin. The bow was created from black twill, too, and then adhered with hot glue. The sentiment is probably one of my faves of all time and is from the Wonderful Wishes set. I stamped it on SU! Whisper White cardstock and then punched it out with my Marvy scallop heart punch {the yellow one}. This was such a fun and easy project to make!! I am going to write a little sentiment of my own on the back and we will have this on our tree for years to come.

You can see more projects from the Verve Visual Design Team HERE. To visit the Verve Blog click HERE; you’re gonna flip when you see what the others have come up with this week!!

I have been working on a lot of Julee’s {aka Verve Visual Creative Genius} Mojo Monday sketches and I am taking this opportunity to post them all at once. Rarely do I ever get the sketch done on Monday…or Tuesday or Wednesday for that matter, so I have a little time to think about what I want to do with the sketch. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes getting right down to business is better. I actually did the this week’s Mojo Monday sketch the day that she posted it…thank goodness for a long naptime!! Coincidentally, I like this card the best. I think flying by the seat of my pants works best for me {as you might be able to tell from yesterday’s post, as well}. Anywhooooo, I will quit my rambling and get to the pictures. Hope everyone is having a good week so far!!

Mojo Monday #13

Mojo Monday #14 {flipped}

Mojo Monday #15 {this week’s and the card I like the best of these 3}

A week or so ago, my friend Susan came over to play while Ellie was at school. She said she wanted to try doing an altered file folder like the one that Taylor had on her blog. Susan said she wanted to make hers a Christmas planner. While I thought it was a super cuuuute idea, I never intended on doing one of these, especially since my Christmas shopping this year is super light since our family decided to draw names (woohoooo!!) and we are not hosting any kind of festivities (HUGE wooohooooo!!). Once she got here I decided to give it a shot. WOW!!…that was fun…and A LOT of work, especially since I had no plan for it and was flying by the seat of my pants. You’ll notice that there isn’t anything on the inside cards because I intend to give this away as a gift to a dear friend of mine and I would like her to alter it as she sees fit, maybe a scrapbook of sorts, maybe an organizer…who knows!

Here’s a shot of it closed. I chose not to put a ribbon closure on this one, but think that it would be best to do on organizers, especially if they will be rattling around in a purse.

Here’s a shot of it opened up. I chose to do something a little different, yet a little the same for each of the panels.

I used a combination of papers on this projects. The red and white polka dot paper is from American Crafts. The ornate green has the reverse of the red, green and white stripes and is from Making Memories. The cardstock that I used is from SU! The images are (from L to R) SU!, Stampendous, The Cat’s Pajamas and PaperTrey. I do not have the exact dimension of the cuts that I made, but Taylor has a very helpful tutorial that you can see HERE.

***ETA*** The stamps that I used on the front of this are from the $1 section at Michael’s.

Yay!!… It’s Saturday! To me this means two things. Most importantly to me this means that Tony’s first semester as an MBA student/candidate is OVER. This past week he has been spending 12 hour days at school working on a project that was 10% of his grade in every class…how’s that for some pressure!?!? I am glad that he will be home for the next month and we can spend some real time together. In truth, he has had a pretty decent schedule, but I can be selfish with time with him, can’t I?
Secondly, Saturday means that there is another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY! Hip Hip Hooooray! This is one that I personally found a bit more challenging, but am happy with the end results. I just love these cuuuutie patooootie stamps from C.C. Designs (I think that I need to send Lauren the bill for this purchase…it is all her fault!!…LOL). The background stamp is Pretty Pattern, a new one from Cornish Heritage Farms. They just came out with a whole line of new backgrounders that are to die for!!! I made sure to get a detail shot of it since I have found that red on red is really hard to photograph and does not always show up in detail.

You can also see some fantabulous creations from a few near and dear friends of mine…Carole Burrage, Shannan Teubner and Susan Liles. **Don’t forget**…be sure to link your creations here and if you are uploading to SCS, please use the keyword SFYTT. Have a wonderful and warm weekend. Word here is that the high come Monday is going to be 36 degrees….ewwww!!

Here’s the sktech…

And, here’s my sample with a couple detail shots…

A few details…
The image is stamped on PaperTrey white cardstock (love this stuff!!) and then I colored in the image with Copic markers. The snowman is popped up on SU! dimensionals and the ground and part of the snowman are covered in Diamond Ice Stickles. I highlighted the words “snow day” with a Copic marker and then applied Crystal Effects to the highlighted part. Tony, in his most loving voice, told me the it looked like I wiped boogers on it by doing this. ahem…I beg to disagree. The dp is from Imaginisce and I am in love with it and cannot find it anywhere…ahhhhh!!!