2012 Artisan Facebook Friday #4

It's Artisan Facebook Friday!! YAY!! I sooo look forward to these ... as my fellow Artisan friends are A-MAZ-ING!! I always love sharing what I've made and letting you take a little spin around the block to see what THEY'VE done!! They blow my socks off!! You should just have come from Sarah Sagert's blog (if you've been following the hop all the way around). Sooo talented, that girl!!

As SOON as I opened the box of Designer Fabric Essentials I KNEW what I was gonna do ... as I mentioned in my last blog post, my son is somewhat of a bowtie afficionado ... a real purist!! So what better thing to make with this fabric than a BOWTIE (or two!!)!

It was fun to discover that my fellow Artisan-friend, Jeanna Bohanon, also was inspired to make bowties. She made little-guy bowties with some fabric and hot glue, while I made big-guy bowties with fabric and a sewing machine!!

Although I HAVE made my son some bowties in the past, it has been MANY-a-year, and I (sadly) could NOT find my old pattern ... so I had to make a new one!

I took one of the MANY bowties from his ever-growing collection and traced a patten of it onto some tissue paper ... I added 3/8" all the way around for the seam allowance.

I then laid the pattern on the fabric and a piece of fusible interfacing and cut through all the layers. Where the bowtie I created the pattern from had a fancy-do clasp-y thing, I just left a gap and made the tie in two parts (two layers of each piece, plus the interfacing). I then ironed the interfacing on to one of its coordinating pieces, sewed up the seams, turned the whole shebang inside-out and then attached the two sides together (I actually tucked a little of one inside of the other to overlap the two sides and make them a little more seamless). Since the spot where the two halves are joined together will not show (as it will be safely tucked under a shirt collar), no one will be the wiser that I didn't have the fancy schmancy hardware!!

My son SWEARS that the red polkadot tie is kinda Minnie Mouse, although my daughter and I have been trying to convince him that it makes him look GOOD!! But I thought BOTH of them turned out pretty fun ... LOVE this fabric!!



Next up? Amy Bollman!!! Go check out her amazingness!!

2012 Artisan Facebook Friday #3

Hey, friends!! Welcome to another Stampin' Up 2012 Artisan Design Team "Facebook Friday!" OHMYGOSH!! Can I say that my doors were TOTALLY BLOWN OFF by all of the amazing things my Artisan friends created for this month!! Like Sarah Sagert (whose blog you just came from if you are following the hop around!)! Her card is GORGEOUS, don'tcha think?? LOVED the vintage-y feel of that!!

This month I wanted to make a "garland" ... primarily because my daughter is away at college and I wanted to give HER something to hang (and she LOVED it, by the way!)! This is a view of the overall thing ... (sorry I can't make the photo bigger ... Blogger won't LET me!! Click on the image to see it more "up close and personal"!)

And here is a closeup ... (I hafta admit the little square ornament with the gingerbread man is my favorite!!)

And another one ... I think the champagne glimmer paper is DA BOMB!!

And another one ... you get a better idea of how all the ornaments look in this one!

And ANOTHER one!! All the crazy ribbon and tulle!! I really LOVE how this turned out!!

Before you ask HOW I got the little "Scentsational Season" dudes in the little clear ornaments, let me just say that is was EASY-CHEESEY!! I just kinda rolled them in on themselves a little and STUFFED 'em down in the hole on the top of the ornament. There is a little piece of linen thread stuck to the top-back of each little image via a glue dot ... the glue dot/thread is then covered by a little punched 1/2" circle. I threaded the thread back through the metal finding at the top and tied it on. That's pretty much it! (And for those of you old enough to remember ... I kept hearing Mr. Bill's voice scream "Ooooohhhh nooooooo!" as I was stuffing the little gingerbread men in!! It made me giggle!).

The sad story that goes with this is that I originally started out with round GLASS ornaments ... hung them on my mantle with painter's tape (since it is what was handy AND I didn't want anything PERMANENT!). I went to go get a quick shower as it was late in the day and my hubby and I were headed out ... he came and knocked on the door and said, "Wendy ... there was a LOUD breaking glass kinda sound out in the front room just now!" "WHAT??!!??" All stinkin' day and TWO jars of champagne glass glitter ALL OVER THE PLACE!! As my hubby dragged out the vacuum and started to prepare to vacuum up the mess I shouted, "NO!! I NEED TO RESCUE MY GLITTER!!" And so, you guessed it!, I spent over an HOUR picking little glass ornament bits outta my glitter so I could use it again (since I had NO MORE GLITTER LEFT!)! The GOOD news is that the really fun and funky-shaped ornaments I ended up using (bought at a big box craft store named after a dude) are PLASTIC!! YEP!! PLASTIC!! And I love the little square one! You can't tell from the photo, but the one with the tree in it is actually kinda disk shaped!! AND, when they fall down they won't SHATTER!! YAY!!

Stamps: Scentsatinal Season
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Cherry Cobbler, Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight
Paper: Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Candlelit Christmas DSP, Champagne Glimmer Paper
Accessories: Holiday Collection Framelits Dies, Delicate Doilies Sizzlets Die, Typeset Alphabet Bigz Dies, Snow Flurry Bigz Die, 1 3/4" Circle Punch, 2 1/2" Circle PUnch, Large Pearl Basic Jewels, Pearl Basics, Rhinestone Basics, Crumb Cake Scalloped Tulle Ribbon, Cherry Cobbler Scalloped Tulle Ribbon, Early Espresso Scalloped Tulle Ribbon, Very Vanilla Seam Binding, Early Espresso Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, Champagne Glass Glitter, Linen Thread, Clear Plastic Ornaments and Hooks

Moving on to the oh-so-amazing Amy Bollman and her OVER-THE-TOP-WONDERFUL advent project. You are gonna LOVE it!

2012 Artisan Facebook Friday #2

Welcome to another Artisan Facebook Friday. We are all sharing projects that we did for Stampin' Up's Facebook page for October ... which means FALL-FALL-FALL.

If you've been following this around, you just came from the incredible and amazing Sarah Sagert ... her "Thankful Book"??? Brilliant!!

I haven't done as much "traditional" scrapbooking since I started making cards (and since I have been playing with MDS). The leaves from the Autumn Accents die just called to me. They were BEGGING to be put on a scrapbook page!!

I had to coerce my daughter to come outside with me to take these pictures ... even with that, I love how they came out!! Fall is just such a beautiful time of year. And with such a beautiful daughter (I AM prejudiced!), I figured they were a perfect match!!

Stamps: Decorate a Daisy, Timber Stampin’ Around Wheel
Paper: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Raspberry Ripple, Cajun Craze, Riding Hood Red, Pumpkin Pie, Orchard Harvest DSP
Ink: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Accessories: Bird Building Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Linen Thread, Brush Bronze Designer Buttons, Autumn Accents Bigz Die, Tasteful Trim Bigz Die, Window Frames Framelits, Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Perfect Polka Dots Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

Next?? On to one of my other friends North of the Border ... Amy Bollman!! Her card creation is FABULOUS!!

2012 Artisan Facebook Friday

We are SOOOOO very happy and excited to be able to do another Stampin' Up Artisan Design Team blog hop!! You should have just come from the ever-so-amazingly talented Sarah Sagert (her Halloween Party invite is stinkin' ADORABLE!!).

Looking at all the fun Halloween-y and fall-ish stuff in the box of goodies we got from Stampin' Up last month I felt a little befuddled (which is strange because I LOVE Halloween and Fall!). So I decided to try something a little different and wanted to use the MDS downloads we had gotten as part of our monthly "stash" (I'm tellin' ya, this is a GREAT gig!!). So, I came up with this little counting book.

I'm a sucker for all the cute apples, pears, flowers and corn on the cob images in the Perfectly Preserved Stamp Brush Set, so I started with those. I used the Oval Accent Bigz Die to cut out the outline for the pages. I used the oval punch in MDS to create the page designs, and I just cut those out with my trusty ol' paper snips ...

See??? More fun pages!!

Now I just need to decide whose cute little person I am gonna share this with!!

Moving on, now it's time to go and take a peek at Amy Bollman's MAD scrapbooking skills. Her layout is beautiful (as is her darling family!!)