I’m Back!!!!! March 6, 2015

Wow!  It has been almost 2 years since my last post and I can hardly believe it!  A LOT has changed in those 2 years, but certainly not my love of crafting and stamping, and ink, and coloring, and more! 😉

I have a card to share today for the MFT Sketch Challenge #218.  This week’s sketch inspired me right away!  I turned it and saw a totally finished card practically immediately after previewing!

Since it has been snowy here and we have had no school for 3 days now, I had time to get into the workshop and play!  Let’s see what you think!

I am always stumped for creating cards for guys, but tis sketch just said “flip me on my side and I’m a shirt pocket!”  My son thought it was funny that I saw it like that – he saw a sunset, and then we turned it again and I said it was a circus tent!  That’s what’s so fun about the sketches – you make it your own vision!!

Well, I hope that this is a card and post to start a trend back to blogging for me.  I have missed chatting with you all and sharing my creations – although I have done a lot of sharing on facebook on my creation page – Another Kate Creation , if you care to pop over and like it.

I’ll share more soon – and if you get this and enjoy seeing me posting again, share some love <3! 😉

Hello Cupcake! March 14, 2013

Happy Wednesday!   Thanks for stopping by!

I have a cute little card for you today that I whipped up a while back but just noticed that I forgot to post.

If you’ve been here before, you know I have a little obsession with cupcakes – and anything cupcake related!  They are SO popular right now and fun to make, create with, and of course, eat!  Yummo!

Here is my little cupcake girl card :

 

Who wouldn’t like to get this cutie in the mail?? 🙂  I love it!

I stamped the image – MFT Pure Innocence Hello Cupcake – in black ink, the paper pieced her dress and cupcake wrapper.  I colored the rest using prismacolor pencils and gamsol blended it.  I used some Spellbinders dies to cut the image out and also a little sentiment.  Finished off with some cute patterned paper and a twine bow.

 

So, that’s it for today – just a little cupcake cutie!

Hope you are enjoying your week!  thanks for stopping by!

kate

Birthday Boy March 11, 2013

Hello friends!  How are things in your neck of the woods?

Things are good here in Limerick, PA – the spring weather this weekend has put a pep in everyone’s step for sure!

Today I have a quick post for you.  My son is helping me write this post, so he got to choose the card today. Everyone seems to need a masculine card now and then – and they seem to be the hardest ones to create.  Why are guys so hard to create for???  hmmm…..  I’m guessing it’s because they don’t like the florals, buttons, and bows that we tend to like to create with.

Well, anyhow, here’s Brendan’s pick of cards for you –

 

This is a simple birthday card for the simple boys.  Made with C.C. Designs Balloon Trevor – I just LOVE these stamps!!

I colored Trevor with prismacolor pencils and blended with gamsol – a fav technique of mine – and then used some patterned papers and die cut the sentiment and he’s ready to go!

 

Hope you enjoyed this “guest post” by Brendan 🙂  Thanks for stopping by!

kate

Gracias To You All February 27, 2013

Hello again!

Short and sweet post for today – I’m here with another Creative Challenge 🙂

I had fun with the last one, and you all left such nice and encouraging messages, it gave me the push to try another one! 🙂

If you don’t know what I am referencing, please see my earlier post “Challenging Myself Creatively” by clicking here.

 

So flipping to find a challenge, I landed on this one…..

This is for Challenge #37 on page 78/79  “Say Thank You in a Different Language”

 

This was a different card for me, since well, I don’t really speak any foreign languages.  But I remembered that when we lived in California, I happened to pick up a great Stampin’ Up! set that was all sentiments in Spanish.  🙂  I grabbed the set and found the Gracias stamp.  Then I thought I needed a bold patterned paper, so I searched my stash and found this bright paper collection (part of my hoard that I actually said was ok to cut up finally!)  I used different patterns and some dovetailed shapes and then tied it all together with the jute twine and a button on the side.

 

A simple, but happy card, I think. 🙂  Makes me think of some of the great people we met out in CA!

Hope all is well for everyone today – thanks for stopping in!

kate

Challenging Myself Creatively February 20, 2013

Good Morning Dear Friends!

My Card today is part of a New Year’s resolution I made for this year in my “crafting life”.  You see, a few years ago, I decided to challenge myself with new things to do creatively and my first one was to get a blog up and running.  DONE.  Then I challenged myself to get published in a magazine.  DONE.  I even took that one a step further and got published in two different publications and several time in that year!  That was an exciting time.  So, now what to do with myself as the next challenge??  I have to say, I was in a slump this fall.  Even as all of my stamp and scrapbook stuff was finally unloaded, sorted, organized, and at the ready to be used,  I just was having a hard time.

So, I thought about what this year’s challenge could be…… and the answer came to me when Paper Crafts Magazine put out its latest special edition called 75 Creative Card Challenges.  Now this magazine is one of my faves to go to in general, but I found this special edition fun to look at and then I thought – wow I would have done this instead of that for this challenge, etc.  SO… I thought, why not DO IT!  I quickly bought the magazine and have now been looking at it and here is what I came up with for a little fun challenge. 🙂  hee hee

I take the magazine and flip to a random page – viola!  Whatever I may land on, is what I am challenging myself to do!  (on a side note, I thought this would be more fun then just going in order 1-75… I think that would be too boring for me)

So here is my first creation:

This is for Challenge #64 on page 136/137  “Make Your Own Rainbow”

Now, I have to say, this card has been floating around in my head since I bought this stamp for a gift (hope you are enjoying as much as I am! 😉 ) and once I flipped to this page, I just knew what I was going to do.

I stamped each of the hearts using a Versamark color rainbow ink pad I have had stashed for several year (not sure they even make them anymore)  but it was one of those variegated pads and since I wanted to ink each heart in a color, I took another risk and ripped each of the little ink pads off the big pad and inked it by hand.  A messy way to go about it, but I am in LOVE with the final result!  I stamped the sentiment in black ink and tied a white organdy bow on the side to add some soft shimmer (maybe I was thinking a cloud?).

Well, so much for me and my first of many challenges for the year – I already have a few more up my sleeve, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, leave me a comment on what you think of my challenge to myself – or better yet, tell me what you are challenging yourself to do this year! 🙂

take care,

kate

Mini Valentines February 18, 2013

Hello there friends!
So I am a few days late with getting this posted, but what’s new right?  Well, last week was a really LONG one here at my house and yet a quick one for my kiddos and school!  They ‘celebrated’ the 100th day of school on Tuesday, Thursday was Valentine parties, and Friday was a day off!

I wanted to share a fun project I made with my second grader for her class Valentines.  She had fun helping mommy choose, design, and work on finishing these cuties for each of her class friends. First, let me tell you that we were designing a fun and cute way to package little tatoo boxes I had gotten on clearance last year from one of the big box stores – I simply can’t just give them out, we HAD to dress them up!

Here’s my Meghan hard at work crimping the ends of the packages – simple white and red striped paper cut and crimped on one end, stuffed in the tatoos and an eraser we also found in the stash, and then crimped on the other end.

Here are the puffy little packages all ready for the outside design. 🙂

Meghan then helped me design a sticker for the front of the packages – we used PTI labels and stamps to make it festive with sayings and lots of hearts. 🙂 Then I tied little bows for each using some fun twine in red and white.

Hard at work getting each package put together…..

And here is a pic of the finished product! Just a few nights of working together and my little one had a sweet surprise to give to her friends! So simple and fun to make and I think she really had fun with them – well, I know she laughed and smiled every time I got out the camera and said I was going to take pics to post! HA!

Well, i hope you enjoyed our fun little Valentine treats!
Take care,
kate

Home Sweet Home February 11, 2013

Okay, so I  am trying desperately to repost my last post so you wonderful readers can actually see the entire thing. I was trying a new app I got on my iPod to see if I could post, and it seems to have posted only half of my post 😦  So frustrating!  I’ll keep trying to work on my technological skills, but honestly, it is evolving faster than I can keep up!

 

So if you would like to see the entire post and more picsof my lampshades in their room and place of honor, click below 🙂

Home Sweet Home.

Thanks for stopping by!

kate

 

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home.

Home Sweet Home February 2, 2013

Hello out there! I know it has been a very long time since I stopped in for a post, but I haven’t forgotten about it. Life just has a way of filling up my days, and well, night too!

I have been getting a little crafty mojo back and wanted to let you know that I hope to be posting a little more frequently here. 🙂

While I was away from the blogging, I have been getting crafty with projects around the house. As many of you know, we just moved into our house in July, and I have had some decorating to do to make it “home”. While I am certainly far from done, I have added a few crafty touches to some rooms and thought I’d share one of my little projects here.

This is a little lampshade that I used fabric strips on. I rag-tied the strips onto a plain white shade and LOVE the effect. It makes the shade a little more country and the fabrics I used really go nicely with the quilt on my bed. Since we have 2 lamps – one on either side of the bed- I made two if these to go on each nightstand.

A night of ripping strips and tying for each, but i love how they turned out. Here’s a peek at how they look on the nightstands with our bed and quilt!

Thanks for stopping in! Hope to see you again soon!
kate

October 19, 2012

Hey there friends!

Did you miss me???  I hadn’t forgotten about you – these past three months have been jam-packed with moving fun here at the Calvert house. 🙂  We moved in late in June and I got the kids bedrooms painted and done before the furniture went in, then it has been just a matter of settling into the house and unpacking the rest of the boxes.  It was like Christmas around here for quite a few weeks as we found items in boxes that we haven’t seen/used for almost 2 years!  But we have had fun unveiling things and getting them into our new house and settling into it and making it our own.

And then I got to work on the basement area and my craft workshop!!!!  Yeah!!  I can finally say that I am all unpacked down there – every box opened and gone thru and put into its proper place!!  Then I went thru and found all of the items I have already made for sale!  I inventoried all of that, priced it all and it’s ready to go to sales this fall!  Yippee!

Then I had a major task of cleaning out all of the boxes of ‘stuff’ I have collected to make/do over the years.  I started one box at a time and I can really say I thought about things, inventoried, and now have a huge “for sale” pile of craft/stamp/scrapbooking stuff.  I made lists of things to do and even wrote down the ideas on the list so I won’t forget!! 🙂  made me laugh at how many things I looked at and couldn’t recall what in the heck I had in mind to do when I bought it!  Oh well – live and learn!  I now know that I have enough stuff stowed away to keep me busy for a VERY long time!

So I have a little project to share this afternoon that I found and made – yes, that’s right I am now back to making things!! 🙂

It’s a little holiday candy jar – a small treat jar for a counter just for fun!

Trying out new ways to take pics of my crafts – here’s a diff. view:

I filled the jar with peppermint candies so I thought the peppermint candy paper and gingerbread houses were the perfect match for the project.

I hope to be back again real soon with some more goodies from the new crafty workshop!

and I’ll update here on what/when I am doing for craft shows too!

Have a great afternoon – thanks for checking in!

kate