Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Well, I turned the big 22 yesterday. It was a busy day. I taught at the middle school for a good portion of my day. My students were pretty excited to get to spend the day with me. Made a quick stop at Subway--which they have a new chicken sub that I am in love with--and I ended up eating it in class. Had class and a quiz, and then headed to Buffalo Wild Wings for a quick dinner with my friends. They all had a night class, so it was an early meal. They even brought me a cookie cake--my favorite.  I had to share the collection of cards I got. I even had a few handmade.

My little sister remembered my thing for owls, and made a pretty nifty card. I give her a lot of credit for using what she could find in her dorm room.

My friend Becky pulled out her sewing machine for my card. I have never seen machine stitching in person before,but it was beautiful. She even misted on her flower, which I love the golden shimmer.

And of course my sweet little 4 year old goddaughter made me a masterpiece. It was a day late, since she used so much glitter glue, it took forever to dry.

It was a great day. Super busy...which is pretty much the norm right now. We got a bit of snow on and off during the day, but we still have a month of winter left up here.

A Fall Favorite

If you haven't figured it out already, one of my favorite places in the world is Door County. The colors are absolutely gorgeous up there in the fall. The last two years in a row, for my fall break, we have gone up for a trip. And both years the weather was phenomenal. We had high 70's the last two years. So we have been spoiled.

One of our favorite places to bike, no matter what time of year, is at Peninsula State Park. This place is huge. We ride anywhere form 10-15 miles at a time, and there are great trails. I have mastered the art of taking pictures while on my bike.

 

There are definitely more fall pages to come. I needed a creative break from lesson plans this weekend, and I wanted a simple one page layout before I went to bed. I have been planning this page for some time. I love the paper (Little Yellow Bicycle) and the cute little felt trees. We had an awesome trip up to the Door this fall. 

I'm looking forward to summer already. Last weeks 80's have been replaced by snow and 30's. I was not a happy camper breaking the coat back out this morning. 

A Very Special Birthday

Its a very special day today! Its my Grandpa's 85 Birthday!!!! So I had to show off his card. I am hoping he likes it. It was a little more abstract than I normally do.

My Grandpa is a great guy! Not just anyone lets their granddaughter eat fudgesicles on the white couch at 9am in the morning. Or plays football in the house with their six year old great grandson. Or buys you a watermelon when you visit in the summer. We love our Grandpa!

As I was searching through pictures, I realized I need to get some new ones. This is a really old picture-December of 2006 to be exact. I was a young 16 here. This is my grandparents and my little sister!

My not so scrappy weekend

I had the best intentions of having a scrappy weekend! I didn't have much homework and I was going to get ahead on all my lesson plans.

And then it was 80 degrees out. This is not normal for us. We should be in the 30's and have mounds of snow. So I had to take advantage of the gorgeous weather! Two weeks ago my car was buried up to the hood from a blizzard. I was sweating that day just digging out. Fast forward two weeks, and I'm jogging down the trail along the shores of Lake Superior. And there are hundreds of people at the beach....and people are actually in the water. Lake Superior is always cold, so you can really jump in as long as there isn't ice. I didn't swim, but I did walk in it for a bit.

I was in shock. I had to take advantage of this weather. And of course, I got lots of pictures! I don't stay at my apartment in the summer, and boy does it get hot in there fast. We had the windows open, and it quickly jumped to 85 inside. I never thought I needed a fan in the spring...but this is just summer weather. I had soup on the menu for this weekend...but that quickly got changed to ordering pizza, I had no intentions of adding anything else with heat inside.

I will not be a happy camper the next time it is snowing...but for now I am going to enjoy my flip flops, sun dress, and the fact that all my coats are hanging up in the closet. We will still get our April Blizzard. It happens every year-never under 10 inches. Until then, I'm going outside.

When Life Gets Tough...our little joke

A good friend and I always joke that when college gets tough we are running away to Florida to be Princesses at Disney or Penguin and Dolphin People at Sea World. The good news is we are only 8 more weeks from finishing our degree's...so hopefully we don't need to do any running away.

So was my friend's birthday yesterday, and I made her this card. I am hoping she doesn't read my blog post, because it just went in out the mail a few minutes ago.

I cute the cute little guy on my Cricut from the Create a Critter Cartridge. The twine is my ever favorite doodlebug, and who doesn't love some stickles! Needless to say I have a lot of card to keep making. In a 7 week period of March and April, we have a good 15+ birthdays coming up...including me!

The Start of Senior Year

I like to start every year of my college albums the same. I do my first two page spread about the first semester. I include my schedule of the classes I took and the teachers I had. I also put pictures of where I lived. I finally was out of the dorms this year, and I don't miss it one bit. The day before I started this page, the deans list came out in my parents newspaper. I always make it archival, and then include the deans list.

I always struggle to get everything I want on this page. I decided to only use a few pictures, since I had more writing this time. I was really excited to make my own stick pins. A friend gave me some pins to play with, and I had some beads from my dabbles in jewelry making long ago. 

I love how the pins sparkled and shined with the rest of my paper and embellishments. I used some Prima and Imaginscense flowers. The aqua brads were Making Memories. I am also in love with American Crafts Glittery Buttons. The big aqua flower was too bright for my page, so I ended up inking it with some metallic silver, and it toned it down a little bit.

I am very excited to start the rest of my senior year pages. I did so much through the fall, and have some really fun supplies I am looking forward to playing with.

Inking with the Cuttlebug

Over break I had a chance to try out a new technique with my cuttlebug. I mainly use my cuttlebug for embossing, since I have a cricut to do all my die cutting with. I saw this video by Lisa K (http://stamptv.ning.com/video/distressed-letterpress?xg_source=shorten_twitter) and I had to try it out. It took some experimentation, but now I have a new technique.

The first thing to do is pick your embossing folder. You pat the ink onto the folder, on the side of that will be pressed down into the paper. My embossing folder is Paisley from ProvoCraft. The ink is night of navy from Stampin Up. You can see how the groves of the Paisley are raised, and that is what I inked.

Then center the paper in the folder, on the opposite side of the ink, then close.

I ran all of this through my cuttlebug. It was a normal embossing sandwich with the "A Plate" then the first B Plate, the embossing folder, and then the second B Plate on top.

When you pull it out, you can leave it as is, or run a second color of ink along the top. It is important to gently swipe from side to side, that way you are not pushing the ink down into your already inked areas. I am looking forward to using this on some of my upcoming pages. I have a lot of earth toned fall pages, and this will be perfect. I was looking for a new way to use my cuttlebug.

My second layer of ink (more mustard from stampin up)

I learned some things along the way. It is better to put your darker color down first, and go over it with a lighter color, or else you will loose the light color if that is your first color. Also, you must use a water based ink such as Distress Ink or Stampin Up's Ink. I used Stampin Up Ink, with good success. I was able to clean all my embossing folders with regular stamp cleaner and a paper towel.

Finishing my Junior Year Album

I finally finished my junior year album. I am a chronological order, and definitely scrap more events than every day life. I have thought a lot about scrapping more of the every day, but I realized my life is quite boring. Its one ongoing cycle of class, study, gym, eat, sleep, repeat. I definitely have some ideas brewing that I do want to preserve before I graduate, but I am trying to decide how to tell my stories with no pictures--like the day the bear ran in front of my car on the highway. I didn't have my camera, and I was so freaked out by the bear.

I had one last page to finish up from my cousin's wedding. We had some great family pictures that I wanted to find a spot for in my album. The patterned paper is from BoBunny and the metallic cardstock is from Coordinations. I fussy cut the black swirls from the BoBunny and used my I-Rock to add some extra  bling. The flowers are from Imaginscene--my new favorite source for flowers. The bottom flowers were originally white, but I used my American Crafts metallic silver pen and colored them to suit my needs.

My last page was our day at the zoo. Every year my cousins and I go to the zoo in my parents town. Normally we do lunch and then the zoo. This year we went to the zoo when it opened, and had a late lunch. The animals were so active and alert. We got to feed the giraffes, they are adorable. You could run their heads, and feed them crackers. They were so gentle and friendly. My other favorite animals are always the penguins and the moose.

 I'm enjoying my last few days of spring break laying around. I still have one last lesson plan to write for the week I am teaching in the middle school. I have been watching all sorts of fun craft videos, and I am hoping to make some time to play before I head back to school.

Alcohol ink Class

This morning I took a class at my Local Scrapbook Store--Creations Galore. I have attended their crops in the past, and had a great time. Back in November I sat with a gal who was doing Alcohol Inks on her Christmas Cards, and they were beautiful. When I saw this class on the calender during my spring break, I knew I wanted to attend. The class was $20, we learned four techniques, and then got a 15% discount on anything we used or talked about during the class. Our instructor was Nicole, and she did a great job. She calmed all our fears, and we had a really great time!

All the work we did was on top of the Ranger Craft Sheets. Alcohol Ink is permanent on clothes, but other wise can be cleaned up with rubbing alcohol and an old rag. It came off the craft sheets very easy in between projects. The first technique we learned was called "pouncing". We used the Tim Holtz Ink Applicators with the felt toppers. I really like how my pounced pieces turned out.

All the ink was by Adorondack-Tim Holtz Line. The colors I used on my first piece were Wild Plum, Raspberry and Pool Blue. I finished it off with a Silver Mixative. I was going for wintery colors with this first attempt. I had a hard time initially controlling the arrangement of the colors.

I really love my second piece from the pouncing technique. My color combos where Rust, Butterscotch, Terra Cotta, Sunshine Yellow, and then topped with the Copper Mixative. We are in the process of putting in new titles, and we met with a flooring rep yesterday. I realize that the diagonal pattern we were talking about putting in our kitchen was coming out in my designs today.

The second technique we did was a striping and plaid technique. We changed our application of the ink to the applictor, by lining up all the colors. I had to go over this paper a few times to get the richness of the color I was looking for. My colors were Terra Cotta, Lettuce and Sunshine.

Our next technique was the "messy technique". We sprayed our ink right onto the mats and just swirled and swished around. I really love this piece. Initially I wasn't so sure about it, until I got my silver polka dots on. I am all for glittery metallic fun on my work. I am not a big fan of distressed or messy work, but I really liked this. It was something new and different. My color combo was Wild Plum, Cranberry and Denim, along with the silver mixative.

Our last technique was resisting. We stamped a clear image on, and then putting white embossing powder over the top. We heated the image on the paper without any ink. We then inked over the embossing powder and let it dry. Overall the ink dries very quick. Like 5-10 seconds. The only thing that took time was my messy technique. My silver ink took about 5 minutes, because it was thick. After everything was dry, we remelted the embossing powder and pulled it off with an iron.

I love this first resisting piece. I was shooting for the color patterns found in BoBunny's Winter Joy line. I love the turquoise/purple/green combo, and can't wait to start scrapping my winter pages. My color combo here was Pool, Lettuce, Wild Plum, topped with silver.

My last resisting technique was a flower stamp. I am hoping to use this piece with my fall pictures from this year. I have some big ideas for this piece. Nicole encouraged us to keep track of the colors we used on each piece, and I am glad I did. I really like some of the combos I made today. The sunflower colors were Butterscotch, Rust, Terra Cotta and Peach Bellini. I didn't like the peach color, so I added more terra cotta to cover it up. Then I used a gold mixtive to give it some more shimer.

I had an absolutely amazing time at my class today. There were 6 other women participating, and we all really enjoyed it. Creations Galore had like very color available to play with. I really am happy with my creations, and I can't wait to try more. I want to change my base. Today we used glossy paper, but I am thinking of pulling in some metal next, and I want to try some dry embossing. If you are ever in the Green Bay area, you have to check out my LSS!

Thinking Summer

Spring Break started a day early last week. I was supposed to teach and have one last class on Wednesday, but we had a blizzard roll through the area. We got about 8 inches on Wednesday. So I had to stay in town an extra day before I could head home. This was our second snow day of the school year for the university. Last year we didn't have any snow days, so I happily will take them.

 So I had to work on at least 1 scrappy page. And I was thinking anything warm at that point. I found one last set of beach pictures that I wanted to use up. We had such a fun day. The beach was deserted and the water was a bit choppy. It never stops my sister and I from swimming in the waves. I actually like it when the water is a little rough. I seemed to use the same Echo Park paper line throughout all of my Door County pictures for Summer of 2011. I really love their happy and bright colors.

 

I cut the circles on the bottom from the Echo Park paper, and mounted them with a foam pop dot to give them some dimension. I blinged them up with some Stickles, and then framed my kraft paper with some Doodlebug twine. 

I did make it home for spring break safe and sound...and just in time. The day after I left another blizzard rolled into town. This time they got nailed with 18 inches. The town just west of us got 27 inches. I was a little sad not to see all the snow, but then I remember that it took an hour to dig my car out of 8 inches on Thursday morning. I cannot imagine how buried my car would have been with this storm. Tomorrow I am taking an alcohol inks class at my local scrapbook store. Can't wait to show you my creations!