Followers

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Broken Gadget

Hello all, no card today. I've actually been kinda sad and frustrated to find that my google gadget to follow this site is glitchy. I'm not actually sure when this started because I tend to update and blog from my ipad, on which the gadget shows up/works just fine. The other day I logged on from my laptop and found that the spot that contains my follow this site button as well as my (few but well loved) followers was utterly blank! I checked from my phone, my mom's phone, the Hubster's phone and again from my ipad and voila, there it was just where I left it! Happy day, right? Wrong. While my blog was up on my ipad I also pulled it up on my laptop. Laptop = no 'follow this site' gadget all mobile devices = gadget alive and well -____-  . I've tried a little of everything but nothing works and I'm at a loss, and would love some advice on how to fix this bug!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Excuses are like....

SO... as my visit to my parents' comes to a close I realize, I've been very unproductive! There have been so many challenges I wanted to enter but either did not have what I needed or just plain ol lacked the motivation and ideas to make it happen. Very upsetting! I did however managed to create a few gems and I am very proud, and after all, its quality not quantity right? Or is that just the excuse some people (me!) use when they've been slacking off and didn't get nearly as much done as they could've? lol! Whatever the case may be, I finished this one and was too busy worying about quality of my next (not even in the works) card creation to take a picture ^.^ I do have one today for you guys though so here ya go! Don't judge, it was taken at 5am with my phone :)
Anya Lifts


She's not for any particular contest at the moment. UPDATE : I have entered this card in the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge  and also the Splendid Stamping with The Greeting Farm: Retro-Fresh Challenge- Polka Dots and/or PlaidsA co-worker of my mom's daughter is having a birthday tomorrow and she wanted to give her something special and this is what I came up with. I paper pieced the shirt because I absolutley adore that DP from MME and for absolutely no other reason ^.^ she was colored with copic markers and look! my first attempt at coloring transparent objects and it came out AWESOME on my first try! SCORE! <---Inside joke between me and my good friend, Mrs Bea LOL

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Girly Glam


Not much to say about this little lady other than I had a lot of fun coloring and paper pieceing her! I used copics 40, 41,42,43 for the hair and prisma color colored pencils for her skin. I paper pieced from a paper from my scrap pile. I used Judykins Diamond Glaze on her boots and purse and Crystal Stickles on the paper pieced zebra stripes. I plan to enter her in the Anyone for Anya? Sketchy Sort of April Challenge , Deep Oceans Challenge Blog- Favorite Color Combo , Splendid Stampin with The Greeting Farm: Retro-Fresh Challenge- Polka Dots and/or Plaidsand also the Simon Says Stamp & Show Color Challenge . It looks like its missing something to me so I may do something else to it and update the picture, I've never been able to leave well enough alone!
(Before)

Done with the touch ups and I am extremely happy with the way this turned out!
Anya Styles
(After)


Monday, April 22, 2013

A Gift From The Heart

Hello wonderful people! As much as I would love to prattle on and on, I will try to keep this one short and sweet since its so very past my bedtime :) but I'm very excited about how it turned out!
Queen Bean
Queen Bean

This week for Farm Fresh Friday the challenge is to alter/recycle something. I knew right away what I wanted to use, especially after looking through the DT's projects for inspiration. A few months back I thought it would be cute to create heart shaped valentines for a few friends. Each box would have different contents and be decorated according to the particular reciever's style and personality. As if on the same wavelength, my local CS had gotten in these adorable but so very blah chipboard heart boxes in different sizes for about 99 cent each! I scooped up a few and well... As you can see, at least one was recycled for this project, let us not speak on where the others went... coughs *closet* ^.^
Anyway, this box was collecting dust in my closet, the stamp used was TGF's Queen Bean colored with my trusty copics and blinded by my candy cane, crystal and black diamond stickles. I'm not sure where I got the roses but I dyed them with copic r29 to match her highness and glittered them with stickles as well. The bottom half of the box was decorated with papers from a recollection stack I can't recall the name of at the moment lol dumb joke but what do you expect at 1am? Along with TGF's Farm Fresh Friday challenge, I'm also entering her royal highness in the Allsorts week 203 challenge- A Passion for Flowers ,  as well as TPE Challenge #196 Lift It since it was inspired by a DT member of Splendid Stamping's Altered gift box. Lol thanks for putting up with my nonsense you guys are awesome, now I can sleep soundly. See you guys tomorrow...well later today!
P.S. I may also do a small haul insert later as well


Friday, April 19, 2013

See you soon

Hello wonderful people, I apologize for my unannounced absence from blogging, but a last minute trip out of town to visit my parents came up. While I enjoy visiting I can't very well take my entire craft stock with me so I've been in a bit of a creative slump :( . Some people can craft and create anywhere with just a few supplies and I commend them, however, I had the misfortune to find out that I was NOT one of those people. Nope, not even close. I feel so out of my comfort zone so it's taking me a while to come up with anything and its sooooo frustrating! Though I haven't had much time to myself, I have managed to begin work on another card but its incomplete at the moment. Keep an eye on this post I promise there will be a card here by tonight especially since i absolutely LOATH creating posts without at least one picture (it looks so naked!)


I love you all for dealing with my scatterbrained-ness! Thank-you,

-Krys

Monday, April 15, 2013

Double Trouble

Good morning wonderful people! If you've read my profile or even my blog description you know I am a very proud mommy of two DDs that can be quite the handful, but really at age 2 and 3 (newly 4) who wasn't?

Well both of my girls are natural (you would think at their age this would be obvious, but apparently not!) so I've been on a hair care journey as well with them to find what products work for their two different hair types to maintain moisture and help retain length. It's been a long road from dry, brittle, breakage-if-you-look-at-it-wrong hair to healthy, strong, and (thank God) getting long hair. That being said I do take time away from cardmaking to keep a good hair care routine and today happens to be wash day for my two naturals. Over the next two days you probably won't see a card but I have been toying with the idea of adding a hair care section to my blog, featuring my two little monsters so that I may better keep track of the progress we make on this hair care journey. If I have time I will definitely squeeze a card in but I don't believe in just throwing something together if I can't give it my all. Of course it's not expected, since this is after all, a card/craft blog but you are more than welcome to come along for the ride and follow along. Besides, what is hair care/styling but another medium of art? It's all about perspective and personal preference, sort of a 'glass-is-half-empty' kinda thing ^.^

Enjoy your day!
-Krys

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Sulking in the Sun

You know how some days all you can think about is getting home sitting in your workspace (whether that be craft room, office, or like me, kitchen table) and crafting your little heart out? well yesterday was NOT one of those days for me. Extremely rare as these days are, they happen and they are frustrating! Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day, crisp blue sky and fluffy white clouds, the kind that remind you of cotton candy at a fair. I wanted so badly to get in there and make an awesome card, had my mind set on it but my heart wasn't in it. For the life of me I couldnt get any good ideas, no spark of creativity, nothing and it was nerve wrecking! I even went through some of my favorite blogs and with all the beauties out there and gorgeous handiwork, I just wasn't feeling 'it', you know? Well before I knew it the day was over the kids needed a bath and a few bedtime stories and the Hubby would be home soon, most likely wanting just a snack. I gave up, threw in the white towel and admited defeat where I instead turned my attention to making a nutritious (yeah right!) batch of chocolate chunk cookies. Hubby loved them and apparently the smell of fresh baked homemade chocolate chip cookies make an excelent alarm for a 2 and 4 year old up way past their bed time :)
I wasn't ready to go to bed so I decided to stamp a few images so I could have them all ready to color when I needed them. I started coloring one of my favorite Amelia stamps from TGF and started to feel that creativity bug biting! I decided not to push my luck and end up ruining the coloring so I put it away to work on it more this morning. Sure enough just as I was finishing the coloring I could feel my creative juices flowing and in no time at all I had a sketch in mind and was in the process of finishing up the card I wanted so bad to make yesterday. Here it is all finished!
Amelia and Oliver 'My Favorite Thing' set

I colored her with copic markers and used prisma colored pencils to add detail. As usual I stickled quite a bit of this card with the color Crystal, LOVE that stuff! All the papers came from my stash and the clouds and sun were cut using my Cricut Create a Critter Cartridge (say that 5 times fast! O.o) and inked with copic markers B000 & 0 and Stampin Up! yo yo yellow.The plan is to enter this lil cutie in the Farm Fresh Friday (FFF) Challeng- Clouds and also Creative Card Crew challenge 33- Clouds

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Thinkin Pink...and Brown!

Still on a roll today I guess because I was up burning the midnight oil... well actually it was more like the 2 AM oil but that just doesn't sound as good. Well I just could not sleep so I was up making cards early this morning and these are the two that I came up with:
Latte Anya
The Greeting Farm's Latte Anya: As close to 'simple and clean' as I've ever been able to get, how did I do?

Cheeky Geeky
Also from TGF, Cheeky Geeky. I absolutely love this adorkable stamp and she's been colored up for weeks to be honest all because I was practicing my 'ash blonde' hair coloring. All the embellishments were either odds and ends that have been hiding out in my craft drawer or from my recent haul from my LCS' clearance or discount bin. The papers used for both cards came either from the DCWV Garden Tea Party stack, my stash, or were made by me.



Now, can you keep a secret.....? Me either. I'll tell you anyway because someone should know;
I'm addicted, no, OBSESSED with pearls! I LOVE to use them, they are my absolute favorite embellishment and they managed to sneak their way into even the manliest of cards! Whew! there I said it, I feel so much better. A newer but no less excessive obsession would be my love of stickles. I tried for years to avoid buying them because I knew everything would be stickled once I got my hands on them. I recently gave up my strong attempt to deny the awesome and bought 5, Spun Sugar, Black Diamond, Crystal, Candy Cane, and Waterfall as well as a 3/4 oz jar of stickles dry fine glitter in Diamond. Can I just say I fell in love all over again and have been stickling everything stamped from the smallest shoe to the biggest blingy bows! and I'm ashamed (and a little excited ^.^) to say I bought more on E-Bay and am currently waiting on my next few colors! Bear with the bling till it dies down please, I am a woman bedazzled by bling, do they have a self-help group for that sort of thing??? I'm considering entering one of these beauties in the TGF Retro-Fresh Challenge - Polka Dots and/or Plaids over at Splendid Stamping but its still early in the challenge so I may change my mind and create something else that I like better. I just wanted to share with you guys, enjoy and please comment, I'm the new kid on the block and would love to get some feedback
Thanks!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

On a Role!

I guess I've been bitten by the inspiration bug... Or the excitement bug...wait, is there a such thing as an excitement bug? and if so, is he by chance related to the inspiration bug who happens to be close relatives to the love bug????? Sidetracked? maybe, but it IS something to think about, right? Well i digress, the point is there are so many amazingly inspiring challenges going around that I couldnt stop at just one card today I also created this little darling!
Fleur Anya
Doesn't she just sing spring?! This cutie is Fleur Anya from The Greeting Farm, colored with copic markers. Her flower headband was glittered with waterfall stickles. the cardstock was just a value pack with multiple solid colors. I'm a huge fan of making my own patterned papers so I stamped the yellow papers using a flower stamp I bought a year ago on clearance for a custom paper (it's been my most used of all since).  Darice 'Scrolls' Embossing Folder paired with clear embossing powder on the turquoise paper made a beautiful oceany wave look. But, my most favorite thing about this card would have to be the Plumeria! I love these little flowers they're my favorite and they always make me feel better when I'm down so I figure what better flower to include on a card to just say Aloha! I made a few different sizes, colored the petals with Tim Holtz spun sugar distress ink and Stampin Up! Yo Yo Yellow, and finished the look with a sprinkle of Stickles Dry Fine Glitter in Diamond. all in all I'm very proud of this card and it may be my favorite card, EVER! I plan to enter her into the following challenges,

The Pink Elephant Challenge- TPE 194
Double Take Tuesday (DTT) - Color Challenge

Mad about Magnolia

Good morning beautiful!
I had to say that lol one of my favorite YouTubers always says something like that at the beginning of her tutorials and it makes me happy so I thought I'd give it a try! Anyway the post of the day is actually dedicated to my first coloring of a Magnolia image for a card and here she is:
I have a bad habit of buying cute little odds and ends from the 50 cent bin at my local craft store with every intent of using it on...something? Well that something never comes up so my great buys just pile up. Oh come on don't look at me like that, I can't be the only one! Well I finally did something about it and the majority of my embellishments used on this card were actually less than a dollar! This magnolia stamp is one of the many Tildas, colored with copics on Georgia Pacific cardstock. I added stickles to the cream colored parts of her outfit and inked the edges with Tim Holtz Distress ink in the color spun sugar. The glitter paper was from my scrap pile but the rest of the papers used were just plain ol cardstock from Walmart that I took a stamp and some creativity to. The flowers, roses, buttons, ribbon, lace, and pearls, as I mentioned before, were all out of the 50 cent bin from my LCS. This card is probably my least expensive to make and came out a beauty! I will be entering her in the following challenges;

Marvelous Magnolia Challenge- anything goes!
Buttons Bows Or Beads Challenge!!!
Oozak challenge #13- Anything Goes with Pearl, Lace, and Ribbon

Friday, April 5, 2013

Tea time in Wonderland

Since I already created a post for today I'll Keep this one short sweet and to the point:

My Alice Bean as well as my Queen bean arrived today and I wanted to use one for the card I made today. I made a tea themed card so I chose Alice over the Queen (sorry your majesty). I plan to enter it into the DTT Challenge as well as the Farm Fresh Friday Challenge, over at Splendid Stamping with The Greeting Farm, assuming I figure out how lol. Also the Marker pop Challenge #20 anything goes! If not it was still a really fun card to make ^.^ Wish me luck!
Alice Bean
I turned the sketch for the DTT challenge on its side and Blinged it out with pearls tinted with E34 copic marker as well as adorning Alice with a super sparkly bow and shoes to match by using Rangers Holographic Embossing Powder how fun is that?! Papers used were SU! Chocolate chip cardstock and the DCWV Garden Tea Party Stack. The tea cups were from a patterned paper from the same stack and  if you look closely the flowers on top of the tiny tea cakes have been fussy cut from a leftover scrap of the main background paper, can you say finger cramps??? lol Enjoy

Stamp Storage with Style!

So many stamps so many storage options, which to choose....hmmmmm?????
That's the question many avid stampers find themselves having to answer, and with an ever and seemingly infinite expansion of options and collections we find ourselves needing more and more space. While some use binders for organization, a few months ago I came across an awesome creative idea that's also budget friendly, no, SERIOUSLY  budget friendly from a fellow stamper on YouTube. I've provided the link here.  And honestly, who doesn't love to save a little change here and there, I know I do. Money saved= stamps, stamps and more STAMPS!
These are just simple photo storage boxes. I spent just around $5 for both boxes at my local Michael's Craft store.



 I bought 3 large-ish sheets of plexiglass also around $5 each. Using a ruler, sharpie, and utility knife with retractable blade, got roughly around 14 (4x6) 'pages' from each. (careful the edges will be SHARP!!!) To solve this problem I bought a roll of patterned duck tape that coordinated with each box and covered those sharp edges. I think it gives them a nice finished look and they match the box now!
 
I found that each of the 'pages' can hold around 3 full sized magnolia stamps or 2 of the 3x3 TGF stamps and one of the large Miss Anya stamps along with the included sentiments. Also they hold quite a few small stamps depending on size, shape, and your level of skill at playing Tetris (I was never very good) :D

The stamps fit inside very well and can be organized and sorted easily to your personal preference making them more convenient to located when working on a project. I only bought two boxes to start because I wasn't sure how much I'd like the idea but I absolutely LOVE the convenience and the limited space they take up since my kitchen is currently doubling as my craft room (I'm certain hubby isn't entirely thrilled about the lack of kitchen table but he's never so much as frowned about it, ain't he a sweetie ;-D). Well I hope this inspires someone to give this simple project a try. If binders aren't your thing, I HIGHLY recommend this idea! Thanks for stopping by I'd love to hear from you, leave a comment below!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

No Paper? No Problem!


It's cold and rainy and miserable here so what better time to do a little shopping without ever leaving the couch? As you'll soon find out I am a serious stampaholic and recently my absolute favorite company in the world, The Greeting Farm, just released their Wonderland Beans Collection I placed my order and will be stalking the mail man until my stamps arrive :D In the mean time I decided to do something constructive and make a few card bases so that when they arrive I can just color them up with my copics add a little stickles and layer them on. After going through my plethora of paper packs (try saying that five times fast) I realized I don't own very many red patterned papers and I was downright upset! I immediately found a lack of the stuff on my usual sites as well. Then suddenly an idea hit; why not just make my own?! From this what I'm calling the "Queen Collection" was born. Now in actuality these are just made from scraps of plain red or white paper that I had lying around paired with some random stamps I've had for ages. This 'stack' was inspired by the red queen of course.





 Take a look tell me what you think, this is my first time trying my hand at creating my own patterned papers to coordinate with my cards. Since I was really enjoying myself I started on a smaller set inspired by my absolute adoration of the color pink and cupcakes.
It has no name yet but I'm open to suggestions! Thanks
 UPDATE:  I finished the collection I think I shall call it the 'Cupcake Collection' on account of all the cupcakey goodness! here's the updated picture of the completed stack:


-Krys

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Yay!!!!

Hello all! It is 5am do you know where your stamper is??? Ok serious time now *chuckle... Well about as serious as I'll probably ever be this early in the a.m. aside from a threat of impending mortal doom :D. Anywho this is my first blog ever and I have no idea what I'm doing hehehe! So pleeeaaaase bear with me till I get my sea legs so to speak. Well hopefully I get the hang of this sooner than later :) see you guys around!