Disclaimer: I currently only have access to a few of my stamps and many of those are retired. Most of the images I used are generic enough that you should find something in your stash, or currently available. If you need suggestions, leave a comment and I can help you find the right stamp for you.
I have seen many color challenges or inspirations in the past few years. I don’t know if it was because I already had a long list of projects on my craft desk, or because I like to pick my colors based on what I’m feeling that day, but I never felt the urge to participate.
After several weeks of feeling like I’m trying to scrap with my left hand tied behind my back. I was feeling this way because all our photos, except the latest home remodeling photos, are packed in storage along with most of my paper packs & tools. I saw this color challenge and decided to see if I could get my creative mojo back in line.
First thought, Hmmm, these are not my normal go-to colors. What should I do? I had just done a “retiform” card with some of my ladies. The version we did was just monotone, but why not try it with these colors.
I wasn’t really happy with it, but it was okay. . . remember this was going to be the first piece of my art that I would be sharing with this new California based group.
Next, I had been working on creating a new Cricut design. I had been watching some home improvement videos and saw a guy cutting tile. I thought it might be cute as a focal pattern on a card. So, using the 4 colors from the challenge, I cut 4 of the pinwheels and mixed the pieces. I was happier with this card.
Click the cricut to be taken to the project file for this “quilted tile.”
After a good night’s sleep, I had an idea. I would do a silhouette card and create a sponged background. This is definitely not my go-to style, but I already had the ink pads out from the retiform card, so I did it. Add a few splatters from a black shimmer brush and wah-lah a great card.
This is the photo I submitted for the challenge 🙂
I liked this last card so much, I have plans to make a few more renditions of it and send some happy mail!
This is
a fairly lengthy post with some explanation of what’s been happening
in my world over the last 2 years. If you are more interested in
crafty posts, stay tuned as I have a list of 13 crafty blog ideas
that I will be writing and posting soon!
In the adventure that is our life, we are currently residing in chaos in Glendale, California. How did we get from farm life in a little town, Pop 1300, in Michigan’s upper peninsula to the largest county in California? It took several plane rides, a FULL moving truck, a car hauler, and a little pixie dust.
My husband received a job offer from the company he had previously been doing on and off-contract work. The farm wasn’t allowing us to have much family time and physically we were suffering. After much talk, consideration, and prayer, we decided to accept the job. We did one last harvest in July (2019) then boarded a plane the 2nd Sunday in August and moved into a house we had found to rent.
We decided that the area we picked to rent was a great area for our family so we began the search for our next home. This California market is a seller’s market and we were blessed to have the guidance of the best real estate agent we have ever worked with. She took me around to see several houses, educated us on the ins and outs of location, location, location. (Seriously 2 blocks one way or another made a HUGE difference.)
We hit the housing lottery and our bid was accepted on a home in January 2020. Escrow, close, termite termination, hired contractors for kitchen, bath, floor remodeling, asbestos & lead removal all happened in a 3 week period then Corona hit. Hubby was furloughed which lead us to decide to move out of the rental house and occupy our now, tore up the new house.
The contractor was very quick and had the demolition started the first Monday after we signed the contract for the work.
This is the kitchen as it was when we purchased the house. Fully functional a bit dated.
This is what it looked like after the demolition. We currently have more holes in the walls with some electrical/pipes added and others removed.
I devised a system for our pantry and using an electric camping burner, microwave, and grill we have managed to have some lovely meals. Our washing station isn’t my favorite,
but I can’t complain about the view or the weather. With only one working sink in the bathroom that was not touched, we have a bottle system and try to keep them full for when we need them.
Before we moved into the house, before the furlough news in our state of happy bliss, we were able to work on making some loft areas in the garage and brighten up the place. I currently can’t see much of the walls, floor, or lofts, but I am looking forward to seeing it again, and in the meantime I have photos.
(I forgot to take a before photo, this is after we removed all the piecemeal shelves including a sheet of drywall hung with wire from the ceiling)
Because of COVID-19, our eldest came out and finished his first year of full-time college at the rental house with us. This meant the kids and I could make the mosaic in the garage for my husband as this will be his workshop & a place to park a car.
Top of this photo shows the larger loft filled with Christmas totes & other totes we don’t need access too except a couple of times a year. I love the reflection of the mosaic on the floor!This is about halfway through the movers adding furniture. we managed to save access to the tools along the left edge (sideways squeeze) and the overflow of kitchen & bathroom items on the shelves along the right edge. The floor you see in this photo is not visible today.
In making priorities over which projects we wanted to be done by the contractor, darn budgets, and which ones we would do, we left the family room as a project for us to tackle. After we settled in a bit to a routine of school for our youngest, learning how best to make coffee, new grocery store, finding recipes that worked in our current “camp kitchen,” we began to talk about the family room. In true Ross fashion, we tore up the floor, ripped off the old brown paneling, and dove in with both feet on our project. This is the before photo from when we purchased the house, and the current photo.
This is how the family room looked when we purchased the house.
Northwest corner (kitchen to the left)
Northeast corner
Southeast corner
Southwest corner (kitchen to the right)
We have since been able to finish the drywall mud-ding and have the primer on the walls and ceiling. This progress has been slow as my husband did get recalled back from furlough. (halleluiah!)
All and all we are blessed and try to focus on what we have, the good in our world, and the fact that we are all together, healthy and safe. Besides who can be uncheered when we have a view like this out our back door!
I have
a list of future blog posts and am trying to make crafting time each
day. I would love it if you keep a good thought for our current
chaos and that it has an end sooner rather than later.
If you have any suggestions for what projects, techniques, or blog subjects I should write about, please let me know!
I grew up in a house with an english teacher and an accountant. Word play and numbers were a part of everyday life. It was only natural then that I would marry a man that loves clever, and not so clever puns. We have passed on this love of word play to our kids, and I am often left at a loss when a pun-off is started. (I would like to say it’s because I just can’t do the groaners, but I think it’s more that my head is filled with music and creative creations.)
As I was looking through the new Seasonal expression, I missed several details in my haste to soak in the essence of the offerings. Several passes through the book later, I saw this.
How cute are these?!?
I love all the choices CTMH gives us with the M size stamp sets (Only $2.95 ).
I’ve never been a rah, rah kind of gal, and run pretty level through life. I tend to roll with the punches good and bad. All that being said, I truly am excited for what I am seeing in this new catalog from Close to My Heart! Just the cover is filled with some cool out of the box projects to create and the colors are fresh!
If you haven’t seen one yet, you can view it on line, and if you order CTMH will send you one with your order for FREE!
Just to entice you to look, here’s the new paper packs. (There are new workshops with each of them and new thin cuts and great stamps of the month too!)Chelsea Gardens
I’ve been a butterfly lover for many years, so Chelsea Garden speaks to that and my LOVE of blue! Win/win
I’m thinking it might be fun to make some scrapbook pages highlighting some of our family favorite recipes. Good for memories of everyday life and might make cooking suppers easier if I make the recipes in the next few weeks.
December FLEW by. Between Community Chorus concerts and rehearsals, music rehearsals for church, family needs (many doctor appointments and an outpatient surgery for one) and preparing for Christmas some things had to “give.” The house and the blog were the two that “gave” the most. The house is slowly returning to tame, so now if the time to bring the blog back into repair.
Way back in September our monthly group started learning/relearning some fun folds for cards. Thankfully at that time I did some research and prepared for the next few months of projects. Now it is time to share with you those instruction sheets & cards.
Basic Z fold cards.
I use Pinterest and good ol’ Google for researching different card folds & such. I then compiled a list and tried to start with the basic ones, and, as we continue down this road build into more advance folding cards.
We started with “Fun Fold,” “Z fold” and “Double Z.” I also gave everyone a blank notebook and some tips for modifying it so we could all create a place for all our samples and notes of all these great cards in one place. I will have more on that in another post.
Just so you can catch up, here is my sheet of instructions for the Fun, Z & Double Z folds.
Soon I’ll post my completed Christmas card for 2017. It too utilizes one of our recent folding techniques.
Just the cover is filled with some cool out of the box projects to create and the colors are fresh!
Chelsea Gardens
Basic Z fold cards.
Happy Crafting!
