Tea for Two

A couple summers ago my good friend HB (Carol) sent me this adorable vintage strawberry teapot. Jordan and I had been having little tea parties out on the porch, using a bunch of other strawberry themed goodies and HB thought this would make the perfect addition. I adore this tea pot and I think of HB every time I see it. Well, as you know by now Papertrey is introducing a cute new set this month called Tea for Two, designed by Nichole. I immediately wanted to create something for a strawberry themed tea party. So I got out my tea pot, some vintage rick rack, some fabrics I purchased to make a table runner or something cute...and I found these three pages below from my Inspiration File. Zoom in to see the photos, I particularly love the red and white vintage fabrics in that cute table scape.

I went to work right away, starting with some home made patterned paper. I used Guidelines and Guidelines 2 to make some vintage looking patterns, using inks in Pure Poppy, True Black, Aqua Mist, Ripe Avocado, and Spring Moss. These stamp sets remind me of Frank Lloyd Wright patterns (Arts and Crafts style architect). Zoom in to get a good look at the colors.

Here's my finished cards...perfect little invitations for a couple of girl friends. I used my original Tent Topper card layouts for these, putting the teapots front and center.

Here's a close up of the tea pots. I first outlined the inside edges of the teapot image with a tan Copic marker (E31), then blended it with a Colorless Blender(0). The red I used for the details is a Copic red (R29). The teapots are accented with the small strawberries from Green Thumb. Tiny vintage rick rack from my stash is along the bottom of the teapots. I cut and embossed the teapot images with square Spellbinder's Nestabilities and matted the images with a Pure Poppy square Spellbinder's Nestie.

For the bottom of the cards, I used a fun sentiment from Tea for Two, stamped onto a strip of cardstock. I embellished the strip with a Vintage Button (guess the new color), tied with black twine. Vintage yellow and red rick rack from my stash finishes off the sentiment piece.

As a little party favor for my tea party, I made some homemade tea bags using my mom's Orange Spiced Tea recipe. I spooned some into tiny zip lock bags (available at craft stores)...

...and then inserted the bagged tea into Small Glassine Sacks. I punched a scalloped square, then stamped on the *tea for two* sentiment from Tea for Two, and the cute little tea cup from Everyday Expressions(PTI's anniversary set). I finished off the little squares with some tiny red rick rack and then messy stitched the tag right onto the glassine sack.

And here's all my goodies together. Now who could I invite over for a little tea party??

Be sure to check Nichole's BLOG to see more of Tea for Two. I know many of you are already excited...the entire set is so darling and as usual Nichole has added in the best sentiments. I can't wait to see more creations with this set. I know they will be tea-riffic.

Calling All Sports Fans

Edit: Joni asked if the girls were wearing knee pads in the photo below. Oh yes, knee pads are necessities for my girls. They scramble around and dive for loose basketballs all they can and those knee pads are leg savers! We purchased the Nike brand this year at our local sporting goods shop for about $20 bucks each. Thinner than volleyball knee pads so there is more range of movement. Love them.

You won't find any bigger sports fans than my husband Eric and I!! We were active in sports since we were little kids, into high school and even college for a bit. And now to have two great girls that are big into sports.....it's as good as Friday night football in Texas!! And that's good! Here's my girls pictured below with their gold medals they won at a basketball tournament this year. They are like little red hot flames, zipping all over the place. I am one proud sports mom!So naturally when I first laid eyes on Pine's new stamp set called All Star Team (& All Star Team Additions) , you can imagine my cheers of happiness. This is a set that will become a favorite of mine, I know. It's perfect in every way and is THE BEST sports set you'll ever find. You'll be able to purchase your sets on April 15th during the Papertrey release.

I took off running with this set! I really wanted to make something fun for my girls and show them how awesome they are and how much we support them. I created this fun centerpiece for my dining room table that is all for them. It's sporting our school colors of black and white..with some girly pink thrown in.

I dug out some of the girls' trophies from softball season....in 2006 we coached the girls' team...undefeated all season AND we took first place at our end of season tournament! So proud!! I'm also saving all of the girls' sports shoes and am going to install shelves for them to place all their sports memorabilia, trophies and medals.

I found these fun pennant shapes at Michael's a few weeks ago. I covered them with Black and White Basics patterned paper and embellished them with pom poms, ric rac, Vintage Buttons in black and white, and stamped images.

Check out the slightly grunge look to the stamped images. I LOVE that scratchy look!

I personalized each pennant with the girl's names, stamped on a scallop circle punch.

The pennants are clipped to my centerpiece stand with embellished clothespins. I used giant buttons from the Vintage Button selections and a snippet of paw print ribbon to represent our mascot, the Wildcat.

For the stamped pennant border, I cut out the pennants and stitched them together with my sewing machine. You simply feed the next pennant right under the presser foot...the thread is one one strand. I can't wait to try that look for some scrapbook pages.

You can see some of the girls' old basketball shoes below, along with a trophy.

And here's a card I made for our track coach. I thought the *go the distance* sentiment was perfect for track season.

And just in case you noticed under the centerpiece, this is the quilt that Jordan and I are working on. It's pieced with all kinds of black and white fabrics. We're going to make a matching tote bag and maybe a scarf and thermos cover for those cold football games next season.

Sooooooo, what do you think? Don't you just love Pine's new sets? I can't wait to make more goodies!!

Black and White Papertrey supplies: True Black ink and cardstock, Stamper's Select White cardstock, checkered ribbon, Black and White Basics patterned paper, Vintage Buttons, punches

Be sure to check out all the other girls' creations too:

Nichole Heady
Lisa Johnson
Lauren Meader
Becky Oehlers
Heather Nichols
Debbie Olson
Dawn McVey
Niki Estes
Melissa Phillips
Geny Cassady
Betsy Veldman

Mini Mushrooms Thank You's

Edit: For the button with the snippet of ribbon, here's what I do: thread the twine down one hole of the ribbon and up through another hole...both ends are now up through the button....lay the snippet of ribbon over the button...then tie the twine...then tie it again to make a knot....trim the ends of the ribbon.....trim the ends of the twin. The ribbon does not go through the button holes. Easy peasy.

I had a super duper fun day with my friend Carmen. She's a crafty girl like me and we had so much fun just catching up and stamping. She brought over an adorable new Bella stamp so I'll have to show you the cards I made with that soon.

Today I have some little thank you notes to show you. I'm really liking this small size note card to slip into little customer bags,etc. It's the perfect size when you just need a little something special. I used Karen Lockhart's cute little Itty Bitty Mushrooms stamp for the main image. I colored them in with Copic Sketch markers to match my My Mind's Eye patterned paper. The cuteness factor soared when I cut out the images with my little Spellbinder's Labels Four Die Template. I'm loving that new shape of this label!

I finished off the image with a Papertrey Vintage Button and a snippet of Aqua Mist ribbon and twine. These small dies and Karen's Itty Bitty stamps are a match made in heaven, I tell ya!

For the bottom of the cards, I used Pine's Papertrey Journaling Lines and Beyond Basic Borders set to create a lined note paper look, the Aqua Mist scallops and the thank you sentiment.

Oh, and some of you have asked what I do with all the cards I create. I sell some of them, some I give away as gift sets (my mom and Eric's mom especially love these) and lots and lots of them go out in the mail. Make 'em and mail 'em, peeps!

I love you because...

Edit: My links to the other bloggers were not enabled earlier but they are fixed now! Enjoy!!

There's lots of fun projects to see today! The JustRite Blog Team is doing a blog hop to show you some of the new products available. My links to the other girls' blogs will be listed at the end of my post. You can visit the JustRite website HERE to check out all of the products.

Today I have a little gift with a matching card for Jordan. She's been having a really tough time with her asthma lately so I wanted to give her a little something special. While at the quilt shop last weekend, I picked her up a fat quarter of fabric.
Jordan loves to add fabrics to her stash box. I found a fun way to package a fat quarter. Simply roll up the fabric so that it fits into a Papertrey Square Trendy Tube. It's fun to see the fabric design through the clear packaging. It's even more fun to see your own name on a present. To spell out *JORDAN*, I used the JustRiteVertical Stamper. It's a fun way to personalized a gift, card or outside of an envelope. And using vertical phrases is a little different way to add words to your projects. There are two sizes of the vertical stampers, I used the small one for my package tag and card. The set comes with both sizes of the vertical stampers, fonts sold separately.

And for my card, I used the new Celebrations Demi Phrases Set. Half of the phrase is spelled out for you, then you finish up the sentiment with your own words, using individual letters from alphabet sets. What a perfect way to totally personalize a card. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen too many *I love you because you quilt with me* cards at Hallmark. But it's perfect for Jordan and she will love it! We've been working really hard on her first big quilt. I love the time we get to spend together, just chatting and sewing and ironing.

For the circular image, I cut and embossed the sentiment using Spellbinder's Circle Nestabilities Die Templates....a big circle and scalloped layer for the main sentiment and smaller circle and scalloped layer for the smaller image. The little quilt block image is from Papertrey's Quilter's Sampler Additions stamp set. I colored in the image with Copic Sketch markers to match my cardstock and fabric. I finished off the card with machine stitching and a little snippet of fabric I cut off of the fat quarter. This particular fabric line is from Moda and reminds me of scrapbook paper.
I think I'll give Jordan a challenge of creating something fun that uses the fabric and the clear tube. She'll get a real kick out of that! Be sure to check out the other fun creations below. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a little blog hopping:

JustRite Blog Team:
Debbie Olson

Barb Schram
Becca Feekan
Heidi Blankenship
Kellie Fortin
Lauren Meader
Lisa Somerville
Sharon Harnist
Sharon Johnson
Taylor Van Bruggen
www.justritestampers.blogspot.com (Just Rite Blog)

Glittered Bird Embellishments

I've been seeing fun chipboard embellishments lately and they really make a good focal point on projects. So once again, I came up with some of my own hand made embellishments. This time I used the cute Spellbinder's Nested Birds Nestabilities DieTemplates. I cut out the smallest bird using just white cardstock, then glittered my entire piece with Martha Stewart glitter (from Michael's or Walmart). I used The Essential Glue Pad from Papertrey Ink for the adhesive. The eyes are Dew Drops from Ellen's online store.

To add to the fun, I cut out some of the Spellbinder's Labels Four Nestabilities Dies and embossed them. I first stamped them with lines from Pine's Journaling Lines to get a lined notebook look. The branch and sentiment are from My Cute Stamps. I colored the branch with Copic Sketch markers. The glittered bird accents were adhered to the labels with pop dots. To finish off my cards, I used PTI Kraft cardstock, Cosmo Cricket patterned paper, Papertrey Spring Moss ribbon and Papertrey Vintage Buttons tied with twine. I think these label shapes are really fun and trendy right now!

It's so fun to dig into your stash and use those tools that you spent all that hard earned money on. Come on, I dare ya to actually use some of your goodies!!

Cheery Flowers

Happy Weekend everyone! The family will be back from town soon and the rains will be settling in this afternoon.....which means my computer usually gets shut down due to lightning. So I thought I would post a quick card so that I can spend time with my little sweeties. Again, I want to thank you all SO much for the super duper nice comments. I'll keep the posts coming and am going to work on more Copic type tutorials for you. I can tell you love those!
Today I have another fun card using Anna's Posies in a Bucket stamp from Whipper Snapper. When we were without electricity for over 24 hours last weekend, all you could do was cuddle up in a blanket and eat whatever Eric cooked up on our grill. Jordan and I resorted to coloring stamped images while sitting by the big window.

Today's image was colored in more a simple style, just splashing on some Copic colors to match my patterned paper. When I sit down to color images, I always have little snippets of patterned paper nearby. That way I'm not just randomly coloring my images...when I go to make my cards, the images match the paper and I'm not wasting time digging around for papers to match my images.

I paired my image up with Cosmo Cricket patterned paper, a Papertrey sentiment, ribbon and button and simple white cardstock. I still haven't threaded my sewing machine, so I just sewed on some stitching lines around my image piece.

Well, I'm outta here for today. I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Inspiration Notebook-Galvanized Garden Containers

Oh you guys!! You have touched my heart once again! Thank you so much for your wonderful comments. It's ones like this that makes me feel so good:

Anonymous said...
Hands down Mish, you have THE best blog. You are not about telling the world how wonderful you are,as some blogs are!! You are all about helping others and inspiring people with your talent and ideas. I blog hop to loads of spots but you seem to always be about the reader learning something - a gift of yourself. Thank you for being so generous and uplifting - I enjoy having coffee with you each morning!!

I just celebrated my 2 year blog anniversary and I have to say, it's you guys that keep me going. I love to share with you and it's fun to have our little *discussions* via comments back and forth. I'm so glad that I've motivated a lot of you to get your ideas organized. I can usually find a page from my Inspiration Notebook to match each and every project I want to do. It's so much fun to flip through organized pages....now for the rest of my house...that's another story!

Okay, let's move on to a project!! I've been in the gardening/flower mode since we had a few nice days a couple weeks ago and we got to work outside. I pulled out a Whipper Snapper stamp drawn by my friend Anna Wight because she does the best flowers, all with a little touch of country. Well her stamp image (Bucket of Posies) has a bucket on it and I really wanted to color my image to look like an old galvanized bucket.

So into my Inspiration File I dug, knowing I had several sample pages. I found this one that shows vintage watering cans, just the look I wanted to find:

And these pages that show a few more samples, I especially love that old bucket filled with flowers:

And then I snapped this photo right from my back deck, it's my Grandma's old wash tub that I'm going to fill with flowers this summer:

And here's my interpretation from my inspiring photos. For the base card, I used Papertrey Kraft cardstock inked with Fresh Snow ink, Crate Paper patterned paper, ribbon from my stash and Foofala buttons tied with thin twine (Stampin' Up!). I used staples to help adhere the ribbon and to reflect the metal look of the galvanized bucket.

Here's a close up of my galvanized bucket. I'd like to share with you how to get this look using Copic Sketch markers. When I color images like this one, I like to imagine that my Sketch markers are more like watercolor brushes. I use a very *loose* brush stroke and kind of *scribble* on my colors in a very blotchy effect. Yes, I colored outside the lines, zoom in to look at the flowers. But that's okay, there are no rules here. I did the same for the grass and sky(Color: B00 with a Colorless Blender (0)), just using looks scribbly strokes of my Sketch markers. Notice that I used complimentary colors for the flowers with the orange and blues. Amazing tools for coloring, I tell ya!

Now, let's get serious on this galvanzied bucket look. I used these marker colors of blues, greens and grays to get the look: W1, W3, W5, B52, YG93, 0. I did not apply the markers in brush strokes. Instead, I dabbed the color on using the tip of my Sketch markers...think of making polka dots all over the bucket. It looks funny at first but just keep dabbing on the colors, they blend as you add more colors. Zoom in to get a good look...and then go back up to my inspiration phots and zoom in....I really studied those photos for texture and color inspiration. Old galvanized buckets look kind of blue and green and blotchy. Keep adding color until you get the right look. You can go in with a marker and add some final shading strokes. I had so much fun coloring Anna's image!

Now, are you already saying *I could never color like that!*? Don't say that because you CAN do it! Here's proof below. Isn't this another wonderfully colored image with a galvanized flower pot(another Anna image)? My daughter Jordan sat right with me and colored this image, using my guidance. She's TEN YEARS OLD, peeps. I must add that she is super talented and crafty, like her ol' mom so she's ahead of the game a bit...I love that about her, a little *Mini Mish*!! :)

Sooo, get to coloring some buckets now, you can do it!!

What inspires you...sharing my Inspiration Notebook

Let's chat about what inspires you. What gets your creative juices flowing? What makes you want to dive into your art supplies and create something wonderful? Are you not inspired? Do you start our creating by sitting and staring at a white sheet of cardstock?

It's time for you to take a journey with me...a little walk right into my creative soul. It's gonna get deep people so prepare yourselves. Oh it won't be that bad, I just wanted to sound all artsy fartsy today.

Let me share with you a little bit about my creative process and my job as a paper crafter. I never just sit down and start creating without some sort of inspiration. I need something to work from, something to look at, something to make that light bulb brighten up in my head. I feed off of inspiration. Where do I get it?

Ever since I was a child, I have been very curious about my surroundings. I prefer the country life, nature, flowers, old stuff, etc. I think having this simple life has allowed me to just look at things around me....break it down into little pieces....pay attention to details. I can remember laying in the grass and watching ant hills...the tiniest of things intrigued me. So when I look at flowers for example, I don't just see a pretty bouquet. I see colors, textures, shadows....I smell scents that evoke memories of Grandma or other places.......I think about how I can re-create that look in my own house, what I change.....and a lot of times I think about how I can interpret what I see and put it onto paper.....onto a card, etc.

If you want to live an inspired life, you have to really look at things in different ways. Be aware of your surroundings...think outside the box....take photos....take notes......think deeper about things. And the biggest thing to do is to stop having an *I could never do that* attitude. You can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it. So whether you want to make better cards, become a better painter, decorate your house in a really cool style, sew up some funky quilts, arrange flowers, write poetry.......whatever it is, you can do it. You just need to be inspired.

So here's my big secret to being inspired. I have been taking photos, ripping out pages from magazines and scrapbook magazines, looking at blogs, etc......lots and lots......and I have finally organized all my ideas into what I'm calling my Inspiration Notebook. It is priceless to me...I look at it and add to it all the time. Actually I have several Inspiration Notebooks filled to the max with inspiring ideas.
So what's in my Inspiration Notebook? I have my notebooks divided into sections which includes titles like.....gardening/flowers, vintage finds, quilting, organization, gift wrap, table settings/parties, colors, holidays....and the list goes on.

Every time I get a new magazine or find some good ones at the library give away section, I flip through and find photos I like. I rip them out and into my Inspiration Notebook they go. I then keep my notebook handy and flip through it often. The tiniest thing might catch eye...maybe a color or a pattern or a certain flower. It just depends on what I'm in the mood to find.

How do you start your own Inspiration Notebook? Just start collecting items that you like and shove them into a notebook. I use simple 8.5 x 11 page protectors and whatever 3 ring notebooks or scrapbook albums I have laying around. You don't need to spend a bunch of money to get inspired.

And guess what? Have you always wondered what your *style* is but could never figure it out? Once you start compiling your notebook pages, your style will jump right off the pages. It will just all fall into place and it will come to you. What's my style? If you were to look at my notebook, you would see that I like things that have to do with nature...the country life...simple things....flowers....vintage finds....repurposed items.....quilts and items that remind me of home....cooking......colors that derive from nature....family. I don't know what you'd call that style and it doesn't really matter to me. It's not about putting a label on yourself, it's about what inspires you....what you like at the moment...what something means to you.....how you interpret it.

I hope you've stuck with me. Have I scared you away? I hope not. I hope to have inspired you to dig a little deeper...live the inspired life....create something wonderful. Let me know your thoughts. I'm working on my next post which was inspired by my Inspiration Notebook. My hopes are to share my inspiration photos with you and my finished projects. I hope you enjoy my little journey.