Musical Ornament & YAY For Me…

Posted by Jen | ABC Friday, Taylored Expressions/Stamp A Sweet Impression, projects | Friday, November 14, 2008

I have known that I was going to do my ABC Friday post with some of the new Stamp A Sweet Impression/Taylored Expressions stamps. Hmmm…what to do, what to do?? Finally I came up with a musical ornament. What is that, you ask? Let me show you…

First, here is a pic of the ornament. I took 5 scallop square Nestabilities dies and scored them about 1/4″ in on each side. I cut the corner pieces off, embellished, glued them together, leaving the bottom open. When it’s hanging on the tree, you won’t be able to see that the bottom has been left open…well, unless you put it at the top of the tree.

Here is a detail shot of what the four sides look like. I used red and brown Prism cardstock from the Christmas Key Ingredients Kit, as well as Papertrey Stamper’s Select White. I colored the image with Copics, cut it out and mounted it on the Swiss Dots embossed panel with dimensional glue dots.

So, how did I make it musical? Well, it started off with a trip to Hobby Lobby to get one of those scrapbook voice recorder thingamajingies. I could not find one, even though I KNOW I saw one there last time I was there {which we all know was not that long ago}. I wanted the one that you can record into because I thought it would be darling to get Ellie to sing into it and that would be a perfect grandparent gifty. Anywhooooo, I asked one of the employees and she lead to me the doll area where I found this Jingle Bells button {for less than $2, I might add}…

I adhered it to the top of the inside of the ornament using 4 dimensional glue dots, 2 stacks of 2 high, to compensate for the ribbon that was pulled through the top panel. Viola…musical ornament.

******

Now I have to give myself a little pat on the back. It’s been one month since I started eating right and working out. I am now down TWELVE pounds! While I am doing cartwheels over that, I know that I still have a ways to go. I met with a trainer and he did all that measuring and fat pinching and assured me that I am still fat. Well, not in so many words, but the numbers and the charts don’t lie! So, I continue this adventure and in another month will hopefully be able to report that I am a total of 20 pounds down.
I’ve had some people ask what I am doing to lose the weight. As of this week, I am counting calories. 1,200 for three days and then 1,500 on the fourth. This is just to keep me on track of my goals. However, I must tell you…Yesterday was the fourth day and we had to go to the airport. Well, Johnny B’s Burgers is right by the airport and I had a DELICIOUS cheeseburger with fries. Next, I am doing cardio 6 days a week. Right now I am doing about 30-35 minutes on the elliptical machine to “warm up” and another 10-15 minutes on the treadmill after my weight training. I do weight training 3-4 days a week. I just hired a trainer to do 5 mini sessions with me. It’s more to show me what I need to do, rather than a coach for me. Although, today was my first day with him and I would love to be able to be coached and put to the limit with a trainer. I did 6 exercises that were core involved. The first 5 weren’t easy, but I didn’t want to curl up in a ball and cry for my mom…the last one was!! I want everyone to TRY this… get into a push up position {palms and toes on the floor, body straight}. Not bad, right? Now “walk” two steps to the right and do a push up. A little harder, huh? Repeat 10 times without resting. OMG!! I have to say that it was awesome, but soooo hard. The only thing that I could do to make it a smidge easier was to do girly push-ups {on your knees, instead of your toes}. Let me know if you try it and tell me what you think!!

Alright, this is getting waaaaay longer than I expected. See you tomorrow with another Sketch For You To Try!

Happy Holidays…

Posted by Jen | Holidays, cards | Thursday, November 13, 2008

Wow!…Can you believe how quickly the holidays are sneaking up on us? It’s been crazy around here and the holidays are just going to make it even more so…in a good crazy kind of way! We will be traveling for both holidays, which is a first for us. I’m looking forward to seeing my parents at Thanksgiving. It will be the first time that I have seen my mom since shortly after her breast cancer diagnosis. It’s been a long, tough road for her and I applaud her for keeping her head up through all of it. Thank you to you all for your continued support, as well. She has greatly appreciated all the RAKs that she has received. We are going to see Tony’s family in San Diego for Christmas and making a trip up to Anaheim to go to Disneyland. This will be Ellie’s first trip there and I think that I am more excited about it now than she will ever be…LOL!
Anyways, onto today’s stamping stuff. The reason I even brought up the holidays is because I made this card using one of the new releases from SU Ink, Deer Ol Santa (yep, I spelled it correctly!). I love dreaming of a white Christmas and this house just says that to me. The green polka dot paper is from Making Memories and the red polka dot paper is from Stampin’ Up!

Stamps: Storage Units Ink
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Markers (Copic)
Paper: Stamper’s Select White (Papertrey Ink); Basic Black, Red Polka Dot Paper (Stampin’ Up!); Green Polka Dot Paper (Making Memories)
Other: Red Twill; Black Brads; Dimensional Glue Dots

What’s Up Wednesday…

Posted by Jen | MFT, cards | Wednesday, November 12, 2008

MFT’s What’s Up Wednesday is undergoing a major re-vamp. Instead of going through all the deets here, you can see them in THIS thread in the MFT forum on SCS. There’s more focus on MFT fans as a way of saying “thank you” for your continued support. There will also be weekly challenges and specials…YAY!
The card that I have for you today does not play in any challenges, rather it’s just a cute image that I wanted to play with again. I love playing on the stars in the images by using star punches as embellishments. Fortunately, the camera grabbed the sparkle at the edge of the stars. I outlined each of them with my Sakura Stardust pen…SUPER easy way to dress it up a little. The center of the stars have a Swarovski crystal in the center and the kitty’s cap is topped off with a white ball. The brown strip across the top was kind of an afterthought. The card needed something to break it up and this seemed to do the trick…easy peasy!

Stamps: All stamps My Favorite Things
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Markers (Copic)
Paper: Stamper’s Select White (Papertrey Ink); Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Dotted DP (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: Dimensionals; Crystals (Swarovski); Stardust Pen (Sakura); White Ball (Savvy Stamps)

Lotsa Verve-a-licious-ness…

Posted by Jen | Verve, cards, projects | Sunday, November 9, 2008

The new Verve Stamps releases are now available. My favorite is the two snow/snowmen sets, but there is a place in my heart for all of them. In case you missed it, you can see my gift set that I did those sets HERE.

Hopefully this week is not as crazy as last week. While I love showing more than one project in a post, I realize that it can be a little overwhelming day after today. HOWEVER, you have to “deal with it” ;) just one more day. I have lots of Verve stuff to show and I hope you like all of them. So, here we go…

Using one of the many Plain Janes that were released, I created a bookmark. I took 2 scallop rectangles and scored one of them about 1″ down from the top. I then glued the 2 pieced together and stamped/embellished. You don’t have to do the score line, but I did so that there was a clean line for where to stop the glue and for the bookmark to rest on the pages.

In a book {that I should probably be reading!}…

My Little Pumpkin…

Using the Ornamental Christmas set…

I love this sentiment!…

Last one! Using Poinsettia Christmas…

That’s all for me folks! If you want to see more creations done with these stamps, be sure to check out the blog of other DT Members and the Verve Gallery!

Sketch For You To Try…

Posted by Jen | Bella, Verve, cards, challenges, designer of the month | Saturday, November 8, 2008

Happy Saturday y’all! I am so psyched that today finally is here. This morning I get to go to a craft fair with Susan and Shannan. I am hoping for some great finds! After that it’s off to get my hair cut and then tonight Tony and I are going to a fancy schmancy gala in Dallas. Hopefully we will get some good pics and I will be sure to share them next week.

Of course Saturday means another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY! So, let’s get to it…

My sample using an image from the chichiboulie line at Stamping Bella and a sentiment from Verve Stamps {being released tomorrow night}…

Designer of the Month, Becca Feeken’s, GORGEOUS sample…

Check out the samples from a few of my stampin’ friends, Amy R., Amy S., Carole, Shannan and Susan!

Wanna play? Here’s what you should know…
1. ANYONE can play.
2. Have fun with this!
3. When uploading to SCS, use the keyword SFYTT.
4. Post a link to your blog or gallery on this post.

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