Back to School

Last week was Back to School week for our local School District and a VERY good time for me to be camping in the RV!  This was Katie's first trip and our friends laughed and told us we sounded like new parents after we delightedly told them that she had stayed in her bed and slept the whole night through!  Of course, I think it was Cocoa's good example, right?

One of the things a teacher must think through is how to manage supplies.  I was thinking about the Master J's little desk and how to organize his pencils when I remembered the candy cane holder from SVG Cuts.  I didn't want any thing so big and gingerbready looking, so off I went into DS looking for a school house with a roof.  I found a very plain one among the images in Classroom - August and September.  I added windows and doors from Sweet Tooth Boxes and the trim is my hard working Falling Water punch.  Here's my box: -

I added the last two apple brads from my collection and the Explore wrote the "Sharpened"  and "Pencils to be Sharpened" labels for the sides.  I could not resist popping a Bird Crazy image behind a window!

I am linking my pencil organizer up with the BBTB2 Back to School Challenge here.  There are some fun projects on the blog!

And to the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog here.

Thanks for visiting with me today.  : )  Christine

Bird Crazy Halloween!

I was NOT going to jump on the band wagon and buy the Tim Holtz Crazy Birds even though I think they're fabulous!  Nope.  Don't need them.  Haven't even made one card from the blueprint stamps that I HAD to have. (In my defense, I have practiced water-coloring a few of them  Not a pretty sight!) Then, sigh, Mr. H. introduced the accessory stamps and dies and I pushed the 'Buy' button.


Here's my card:-

If you haven't tried a cascading card before, go here for easy peasy directions from Flowerbug.  The trick is to use a nice heavy 'designer' double sided paper AFTER you have practiced with some old, ugly card stock. 

This was a lovely project to work on a little at a time while it was my turn to watch the puppy. (Just to make sure she was not chewing on her stitches.)  I used my Spectrum Aqua watercolors and a small paint brush to pick up the color from an acrylic block.  I love the vampire owl with his fangs and the HP bird with his wand which is really the paint brush stamp with the brush end cut off!  The sweet little bunny bird's tail is the fluffy ball from the end of the Santa hat stamp.

The sentiments were written with my Explore and say "Trick or Tweet!"  "Happy 'Owl'oween!" and  "Flying by with a witchy "Hi!"  Such a fun, fun card to make.

Thanks for visiting with me today.  I'd better go watercolor some more birds!   : ) Christine

Friends!

Just a quick, last minute post to share my project for this weeks Bitten By The Bug 2 challenge "Friendship."

A couple of weeks ago, Master J was reeling off the names of his friends to his mama, and he added at the end, "And Grandma is my friend."   Can we have a collective "Awwww?"   Love that little boy!  Anyway, I wanted to make him something to celebrate all his friends and came up with the idea of photo blocks to which he could add little pictures, including, of course, Grandma!

I made little 2 inch pockets with my Fuse tool and adhered them to the boxes with scor tape.  The font is The Mickey Font and I added the characters since Master J is a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse devotee!

Thanks for visiting with me today and please pop back tomorrow to see my blog post for She's a Sassy Lady.  It was the most fun project EVER!  : )  Christine

Aha! Another Gift Card Holder!

O.K.  Maybe I am a little obsessed with all the varied ways crafters have come up with to give gift cards!  Amy, at 'All Things Beautiful' shared an adorable matchbox pop - up card she made for her nephew and of course, I had to try one too!

I needed a couple of holders for my DGD's gift cards and since their bedrooms were restyled over the summer, I decided to match their room themes rather than the usual pencil, notebook, school bus Back to School theme. 

I followed a You Tube video - here - but be warned, read her comments below the video before embarking on the project.  Just sayin' ...   It was really quite easy and such fun adding the pop up embellishments from Design Space.  I haven't used "Back to the Beach" or "Summer in Paris" forever and I hope this qualifies for the "Old School Challenge #79" at the Cut It Up blog.

Here's a look at the pop - up elements: -

Plenty of room for the gift card: -

(It's a prop, Miss G!  I'm not really giving you a movie gift card.  Haha!)

The monograms on the lids come from the new cart 'Monogram Motifs.'  I can see this becoming one of my favorites.   : )   Thanks for visiting with me today.   : )  Christine

'Minc'ing Christmas

A new box of Anna Griffin Minc goodies arrived in the mail yesterday.  There's foil, glitter paper, extra toner sheets, tons of die cuts, and two toner pens.  Unfortunately, some of the die cuts are not usable because they are badly off center.  : (  Sigh!  I can't decide whether to cancel my auto ship or not.  I guess I'll see how much I can salvage.  I'm hoping to use the pens to 'repair' some of the black patches I sometimes get when foiling.  I'll let you know if that works out or not.

I pulled out my little Minc machine this afternoon and foiled one of the background papers.   Lovely!   Then I was inspired to run the used foil through again over a piece of toner paper to make use of the negative space.  How cool is that!

Next, I tried the glitter paper on the holly leaves.  I ran it through twice and flipped it over between passes.  Look at the leaf in the corner and you'll see that part of the vein line is missing.   I have no idea how that happened but it was probably OE!

Since the puppy was still napping, I tiptoed up to the craft room and assembled this card in about 5 minutes.  Know what?  This is a pretty good card and will work perfectly for several of the non - crafty people on my Christmas list!

Off to play with some more cuts until Katie wakes up and demands to go out.  Shhh!   Thanks for visiting with me today.  : )  Christine

Fruits of the Summer Shaker Card

I wanted to participate in the BBTB2 'Fruits of the Summer' challenge and make a card to remind me of the wonderful bounty we've gathered, eaten and  preserved this summer.  We've had cherries, blueberries, raspberries, a few gooseberries that the deer graciously left for us, and we're still picking and enjoying strawberries and blackberries.  I brought in the first of the plums today and the apples and pears are ripening nicely.

An aside note - our little flock of chicks are almost fully grown and such fun to watch as they explore the orchard.  They have discovered that apples are yummy and leap up to peck at the lowest growing fruit.  We're quite happy to sacrifice a few apples in exchange for newly laid eggs.  My DD suggested that we name these ladies after Downton Abbey characters and so we have Cora, Violet, Mary, Rose, Sybil, Edith, Daisy and Mrs. Patmore!

On to the card!  I loved this sun image from Summer Celebrations and thought it would be fun to make it into a shaker card.  I cut an extra 'sun' layer from acetate to use as a template to make the shaker pouch from the page protector and it worked!  The Fuse tool slid around the acetate and made a perfect sun shaped pouch.

Then of course, the pouch had to be concealed between the layers of the card and I solved that little problem by slicing a thin sun shape out of the shadow layer and gluing that over the shaker pouch.  Unfortunately, the rays of the sun looked 'wrong' somehow and the Fuse got plugged in again and I traced around the half circle sun shape and cut off the rays.   Much better!

I had to ink the edges of the fruit because although CTMH card stock cuts beautifully, it has that oh so visible white core.  Ughh!

Lastly, I pop dotted the word 'summer' over all the other layers.  Such a fun and challenging card to make and it exactly captures the long, hot summer of 2015 and it's yummy fruit bounty.  I'll have to  make more cards for myself!

Thanks for visiting with me today and please do consider entering your own card in this fun challenge.  : ) Christine

A Bendy Card from Bird

Hello from the sunny PNW where we are longing for rain!  This is Christine from iamcocoasmom.blogspot.com with my latest post for Sheila at She's a Sassy Lady.

One of my favorite 'freeby' sites is Bird's Cards.  She designs amazing cards, freely shares her files and responds with variations on her designs at the request of her followers.  Crafters are the nicest people!

I have been waiting for a chance to cut this file for a "Special Day" bendy card.  Unlike the more elaborate three piece bendy cards available from the Sil store, this card is just one piece with a single top layer.  I needed to resize the card after uploading it to DS so that it would cut on a 12 inch mat.  I made the card 11.1 inches wide and then ungrouped.  After selecting the card, I attached the score lines and changed the color of the top sentiment layer. Easy peasy!  I chose to use the Graphic 45 By the Sea stack and it cut beautifully.

Hmmm!  Lovely, but it's not exactly 'special' enough for my sister's birthday card.  I wanted to add more dimension and so cut a strip of coordinating paper 5 3/4 by 1 inch and scored one end at 1/2 an inch and the other at 1/2 an inch and at 1 inch.  I attached it inside the bendy front:

and after fussy cutting some of my favorite images from the stack, I collaged them to the inside of the card and to the strip.

Much better! I kinda like this shadow box effect.   I tied the card with a twine bow and a compass charm from Tim Holtz and called it done.

Don't forget to pop over to Bird's Cards.  You'll love her inspirational designs.  

This week's theme over at Die Cuttin' Divas is "Nautical" and I love the variety that the DT shared.  Here's another blog you might like to peruse.  : )

Thanks for visiting with me today and thank you Sheila for the opportunity to share.   : ) Christine