Sites of the week

Exciting News! I have been asked to be on the GLUE design team. I have admired their stuff for awhile now!! HERE is one project, a 3×3 album, that I have done in the past. I also have a 3-tiered cupcake stand that I have started to work on, but just can’t commit to using adhesive yet. My first official assignment was to alter a dress form to match my personality. Yikes! Which one would I choose? LOL! Just kidding!! I wanted something to reflect my taste…pretty, but casual. I love all the pretty trendy things {and all the bling that goes with them} that are out there, but I am a jeans and t-shirt gal through and through. So, I took a pair of old {a.k.a. my butt can’t fit in those anymore} jeans and traced and cut out the outline of the dress form. To adhere it, I used a thin layer of Mod Podge, as I did not want any to come through the fabric. From there, I create a skirt made of ribbon. I began with a satin piece and adhered organdy ribbon to the back with red line tape. The edges of the ribbon are cut into a “V” and a small acrylic flower that I topped with a Swarovski was attached with hot glue. For the base of the form, I gather Primas and adhered them with hot glue. The edge of the base is wrapped in May Arts ribbon and finished off with more bling bling {Swarovski crystals}. For the top, I added a drawer pull and added a necklace of glass beads. This was so much fun to make!! I’d love to make some more for some friends. I think I covered most of the details that may have been less than obvious. Let me know if you have any other questions about the project, and I will ETA them here.
Full view…

A couple of detail shots…

Now onto Ellie with Elmo…

As you may know, Tony’s grandparents are here visiting. We are all getting spoiled, especially Ellie. Shocking, isn’t it? Great Grandparents fly in from out of state and the lil’ one gets spoiled rotten. It’s quite cute to watch her with all her new goodies. Grandmama {yes, that’s spelled correctly} and Papa Jack gave her Tickle Me Elmo today. Here is a brief photo diary on how that went. Let me tell ya, she was a little less than impressed with all the giggling and gyrating that Elmo was doing!!!!! Then she warmed up to him…finally!

Opening the box {which makes sounds}

What the heck is that thing doing???? Notice Cooper is there for protection. Abby is obviously bored {yawning dog in the background}.

Seriously Elmo, what the heck are you doing?

No Elmo! You stay over there!!

Whoa Elmo!!!

Ok, we can be friends, but be quiet already!

Last, but not least {for sure!}. This is the look that Papa Jack got when he asked if he could see her new Elmo. I think that may translate into “Papa, you be crazy!” PRICELESS!

Thanks to everyone that participated in last week’s Sketch For You To Try!! The random winner of the goodie bag is…

#26 Ileana
You can see her cute Easter card HERE.

Ileana, please email me {link under pic} your info and will get something out to you shortly.

Usually on ABC Friday I bring some sort of altered item or bag or box. Not today. Yesterday I spent all day in bed being sick! Ugh! I hope to pull out of it very quickly, as we need to finish the patio and clean house before Tony’s grandparents come to see us from San Diego next week. YIKES!!

However, I do have some randomness to share with you! Have you ever heard of a site call ICANHASCHEEZBURGER ? They have cute pics with funny {and wildly spelled} captions. I pulled a couple to show you and hopefully make you laugh. See ya here tomorrow when I have another Sketch For You To Try! YAY!!

see more crazy cat pics

see more crazy cat pics

see more crazy cat pics

This is wrong on so many levels. LOL!! Carole…Cammie…do you have anything to do with this??

see more crazy cat pics

1. You don’t want to be thinking about jellybeans all day
2. You don’t want to be singing a cheesy one hit wonder

So, now that I got that lil’ disclosure out of the way I can move on to the business end of this post. Well, it’s Friday. TGIF! All that means for me is that yesterday was Thursday and tomorrow is Saturday and that I have a lot of work in the yard to do today. Building the patio is proving to be a little bit more difficult than originally anticipated {thank for that, Dad!}. I don’t mind getting down and dirty, but Texas soil is a beast to work with. We have to dig down, just so we can build up…nice, huh? Here is a pic of the “progress.”

By the end of today, we would like to be much closer to actually laying the brick. Wish us luck!!

Being that it is Friday, I have a little something that is not a card, hence ABC (anything but a card} Friday, to show you. I decided to make one of the little treat holders that Beate did a tutorial on this week on SCS. It was super easy and you can do several using a fairly minimal amount of paper. There are a plethora of stamp companies that are used on this little thing. On the So Saffron base, I stamped the butterflies from the SU! Sprinkles set. The cute little bunny is from MFT and the eggs are from Verve Visual. How about that sentiment!?!? LOL!! I snagged this one up real quick at the stamp fest thingy that Susan and I went to in January. It is from Rubber Cottage. I am not entirely familiar with their line, but if you recall from the pics from that event, they also have a stamp that says “What The Hell Were You Thinking?” LOL!! I didn’t get that one, but I can think of a million and one uses for it, as I am sure you can, too!! Anyways, here is the {in my oh so humble opinion} cutie patootie treat holder. BTw- The Jelly Bellies are in a mini cello bag that is attached with red line tape.

Now for the part that my itty bitty disclosure refers to…
So, I was making this project last night and, of course, I had to have some JBs to snack on. I learned my lesson to not just grab any 2 and pop them in your mouth. Red and blue are not necessarily both berries!! In fact, I think I ended up eating cinnamon and blueberry together. Blech!!! Gag!! Gross!! So, that got me to thinking… {uh-oh} What would be the worst combination of flavors. Here are my top three {in no particular order}:
1. Popcorn and Grape {really, you could insert just about any thing after popcorn and it would work…or not work, I should say}
2. Coffee and Banana
3. Mint and Pina Colada…

…which brings me to part 2 of the disclosure. I got to thinking about the gross-ness of the Pina Colada combo and then the song, “If You Like Pina Coladas…” gets in my head. Needless to say, I have been humming it all night in my head. It’s still there and I am pretty sure that you are either humming it or just singing it out loud right this moment!…and if you are not, just wait…it will come!
So what do you think is the most nasty flavor combo? I only chose 2 at a time, but I imagine you could get real creative with this!

Finally…

And the winner of the goodie bag from me is…

VICKY GOULD!! You can see her creation HERE.

Yay for Vicky!! Vicky, email me your addy and I will have some goodies in the mail to you soon!! {email link is under my pic}

Well, I promised a box template today, so I am delivering a box template today. Of course I had to make another sample, tho! This box uses the PaperTrey set, Out On A Limb. I did not get this set when it first came out, but then I kept seeing GORGEOUS creations made with it and I realized that it really fits my style and I will get a lot of use from it. So, now I the proud owner of yet another PTI set!

Here are the previous open and closed samples, and the template. **Click for larger views**

Please note that the template is not to scale is drawn for you as a reference to the directions. If your box “bows in” a little at first, don’t worry. It will stabilize when you add your decorative layers. If you have any questions, just let me know. My email link is under my pic.

Tony went to OU {University of Oklahoma} and is very much a Sooner fan, along with all his OU buds. A couple of his friends married UT grads {blasphemy according to Tony}. I made this for one of the girls that went to UT we are friends with.

In Texas, they say “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes.” Maybe not literally, but from day to day there can be some drastic changes! This week has been CRAZY. Monday night we were under a Tornado Watch, Tuesday it lightly snowed, Wednesday it was 80 degrees, Thursday is snowed 5 INCHES! {I know some of you have no pity on that!} and today it is sunny and cool. Here is a pic from yesterday’s snowfall.

A couple weeks ago, Lauren posted THIS TUTORIAL on how to make Easter baskets with Nestabilities {stinkin’ cute, huh!?!}. OMG!! I could’ve smacked myself in the forehead. I have been doing these with circle PUNCHES for sometime now. It never dawned on my to break out the Nesties! It’s good to have {PS} friends around to turn on that light bulb from time to time. Anyways…Lauren and I got to chattin’ and we came up with a little challenge for each other. To make one of these fun little boxes/bags/basket {you pick whatever name you want to call them} with Priceless from SU!. In addition to using that set, we set forth colors to use, too…Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate, So Saffron and Certainly Celery. I didn’t get started on my creation until last night after Ellie went to bed. I’d like to think that it’s cuter in person than the pic shows because of poor lighting. I sewed each of the panels and the hearts are mounted on dimensionals. The handle of the basket has two holes punched in the top of it so I could tie the ribbon through it. The handle is actually glued into the inside of the basket, but appears to be held on by Build-A-Brads {which I have been hoarding for months now!}. If I were to re-create this, I think that I would clear emboss the swirly on the Certainly Celery. I probably will re-create it just because I think that it would look much better with the embossed image; I was just way too tired last night to even think about making more than one of these {even though they are fairly simple}.

Be sure to check out Lauren’s blog to see her beautiful creation.

Other stuff you may want to know about~
*Tomorrow is another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY, the announcement of a new GUEST DESIGNER and the announcement of a new someone that is going to play and do samples with us every week…YAY YAY and more YAY!!
*Tomorrow is also the release of THREE new sets from Verve Visual. There have been some fun sneak peeks on the Verve Blog and on Julee’s blog.
*Sunday is Tony’s day to blog here. He’s in the middle of mid-terms and mid-term projects, so be sure to come offer up some “rah-rah” support.
*Monday I will have a slew of new Verve projects…stay tuned!

one more thing…
If you are interested in winning stamps from MFT, be sure to check out THIS POST on SCS.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND