Tile Coasters

Good Morning,

Wow...I know it's been awhile but....I was busy. I know, too busy for you guys...yeah. Little Xavier came first. Had such a fun time with him. He is such a busy little boy. Towards the end of the visit he was getting really comfortable. He realized there were more rooms in the house than the ones we were in and was starting to go exploring. He really liked it if Nana forgot to close the door to the craft room. There was many things in there that he could reach.

We had a great visit, and the weather co-orporated for the most part. had some swimming in the pool days (we heated it a bit) and some hot tub days. I'll share a few photos in the next while.

Today I'm sharing making tile coasters. You will need a printer, some tissue paper, mod podge and tiles.

The tiles I used are called tumbled tiles and are unglazed. Start by printing your photo off on tissue paper. I did this by taping the tissue paper to a piece of printer paper and then processing it through the printer. Cut your image out to fit on the tile. Apply a thin layer of mod podge to the tile and then carefully lay your tissue paper over top. Try to make sure you get it down smooth with no wrinkles. Now apply another coat overtop of the tissue paper. Once it is dry you can spray with an acrylic sealer and attach felt or cork feet to the bottom of the tiles. It's just that easy!

That's all I've got for today. We are getting down to the last couple of days for you to join in the March card challenge. I do have a couple more entries that were e-mailed to me. I will be doing a random draw for a prize package. You still have time to play along.

I'm off to enjoy a walk and some sun.

Yvonne

helpful...or not?

Hi There!
Lookie - it's Friday! And I have another scrapbook page done.

What cartridges did I use on this one? I really should write it down as I'm going cause I can't remember afterwards.  Gypsy Wanderings was used to make the border. I welded the segments together to make it 12 inches long. The snowflakes and tag are cut from Joys of the Season. The funny shapes mat with stripes was also cut from Gypsy Wanderings and then I re-sized it an 1/8 of an inch to make a shadow. For the font I used Lyrical Letters.

The journalling was done on the computer and then cut out with a nestability. I inked the edges with barn red and peeled paint distress ink. Gave me the shade of red I needed. One layer of the snowflakes I put through the sticker xyron and then added champagne glitter ritz. A pearl to top it off in the middle of the snowflake. Oh, and some very old fibre for the tag. The paper is Basic Grey Christmas Line from a couple of years ago. I think it was called "Wassill".




Next week I'll share my backyard pictures. All I can say is I'm really happy. More landscaping being done today.

Wishing everyone a great week-end. Hey Xavy, Nana's got your summer wardrobe. Don't forget your swimsuit though. Poppy says he'll heat the pool for you!

Yvonne

Tri-fold Card With A Little of Everything!

Good Morning,

Took me most of yesterday to get this card completed. I've posted lots of photos of it cause I used lots of different products.

First of, it's a tri-fold card with a window opening on the righthand side fold.

Circle Nestabilites for the layers and burgundy embossing powder for the sentiment.

The image stamps are from Hero Arts and I've had them pretty much since I started stamping. The ladies who were stamping with me at that time may even remember them. Nestabilities were used to cut the frame for the window box and I also embossed it to give more of a picture frame effect. The window box image was colored with Copics.After I had colored the little bunches of flowers I added a small amount of Flower Soft to each bunch.

The dragonfly is stamped with Stazon on vellum cardstock. These stamps are from Stampin' Up. The dragonfly is from Organic Grace and the word is from Everyday Flexible Phrases. I used the copics and colored on the backside of the vellum. If I would have tried to color on the same side as the stamped image the ink would have smeared and both the ink and copics are alcohol based and do not make for a good combination.  The frame is cut with the Cricut and can be found on the cartridge Home Accents.

The tree is colored with Copics. Notice the different shades of green. Just start with a light colored base of green and then go back and add strokes of different shades of green to give it some life. Don't fret about the light source and is the shading correct. Go for what looks good to you. Most of us don't critique or really know enough to worry about  that. After the roses were colored I added some glaze pen just over the top of the roses for a bit of shine. The plant pot has Glitter Ritz on the scallops.

Now after all that lets re-cap what products/techniques I've used.

heat embossing, glitter ritz, glaze pen, copics, ribbon, nestabilities, flower soft, vellum, cricut and pattern paper and made it a fancy fold too! This card also qualities for this week's "Get Sketchy" challenge. A shaped card with a bonus if it's spring themed.

On a personal note - landscrapers are here..I may have my finished backyard by the end of the week.

To all of you who leave comments - THANK YOU! I love reading them and much as I enjoy sharing my projects with you.

Enjoy your day!

Yvonne

Cool Dude

Happy Monday,

What a nice week-end...Saturday was our first real warm sunny day. I even had to use sunscreen. Sunday wasn't as nice but...hubby put my shelves up in my craft room. All my stamps are unpacked. It is so nice. I can find things again. Tonight he will put up shelves on the other side of the closet and I'm going to re-organize some other stuff. It's looking good.

Scrapbook page today and of course it's of Xavier. I thought this was so cute. He looks like such a big boy. Only 10 more sleeps till he's here.

This page was so much fun to do. Time consuming though. I started off with the paper and then designed from there. The paper has circles with heads of frogs, elephants, & monkeys on it so I knew I wanted to incorportate that somehow. I used my gypsy and Animal Kindgom cartridge with my cricut to cut the animals. Lots of layers but worth it. I also used the cricut markers to outline the animals. You replace the blade with a pen and it traces rather than cutting. Layered the animals up onto two circles. Gave them goggly eyes!

What about the border....I choose different size circles using the "George and Basic Shape" cartridge cut a border and placed a red strip of cardstock behind.

The tree is from Zoobaloo cut on silhouette and shadow settings. and I can't remember which font I used. don't know if you can see it but he has sunglasses on his head, hence the "cool dude".

Cardstock is Bazzill and the pattern paper is from Fancy Pants.

Well I spent my day cleaning and running to the hardware store for more screws so maybe tonight I can craft a little.

What are you doing this week? Crafting, keeping kids amused for spring break...

Leave a comment and let me know!

Yvonne

Mardi Gras

TGIF!

Friday afternoon. Yippee. The sun is shining and I think this week-end I'm either going to a chili cook-off or a wine testing. Haven't decided which. What are your plans?

The scrapbook pages are from our excursion a couple of week-ends ago. I really liked the paper so I didn't want to cover it up too much. Not much to tell you about the project. No special effects or techniques.

This is Marlene's card from last months challenge. Looks like little punched flowers in the basket. That is actually purple ribbon on the left hand side. It looks like a punch. Isn't it gorgeous. The background was cuttlebugged with swiss dots and some of the flowers have a little pearl. Very nice! Watch your mailbox for some goodies Marlene.

That's all for today. Working on another scrapbook page of Xavier. He'll be here in less than 2 weeks. Guess I should get some extra projects completed cause I won't be having anytime in the craft room.

Enjoy your week-end.

Yvonne

Sketch #3 - Winner for Sketch #2

Good Morning,

First things first. Congradutions Marlene K who is the winner of last months card sketch. She sent me a copy of her card and I will post it later today. Also Marlene please send me your mailing address so I can get your prize in the mail to you. Thank you to all who played along and remember if you don't have a blog to link your creation to just e-mail me a scan of the card at ybalmer@hotmail.com

I'm a couple of days behind getting up a new challenge/sketch so here it is...You don't have to follow the layout of the card but your card has to havea window of some sort.

The flower was stamped three times in versamark and then embossed. First time was on blue cardstock and embossed white. The next two images were also embossed on blue cardstock but pink powder on one and white on the other. Both of these images were cut out to make a layered flower. The big brad in the middle was done using the i-top brad maker from imaginisce. Below is a close up for you.

Here's a step by step for making this window. I start with a piece of cardstock cut to the size I want the finished opening to be. On my pattern paper I trace around that square. I used a pencil here - most time I just use my stylus so it creates a score line at the same time and I don't have to worry about any pencil marks.

Take your ruler and exacto knife and make two diangonal cuts from corner to corner.

Lastly fold back on the score lines. You can fold them back just once or do a double. Add any sort of embelishment you might want. Eyelets, brads, buttons, or just glue the flaps down.

The card also fits the theme of "GetSketchy" blog challenge. This week it was any "Spring" themed card.

Now it's your turn to play along.  You have all month to get your project together and post it. At the end of the month I'll do a random draw from entries and the winner will get some goodies from me.

Get Sketchy Challenge #27

Good Morning,

Hope everyone had a good week-end. I did. I'll elaborate a little further at the end of the post.

I created this project from a sketch at "GetSketchy" .I rotated the sketch to fit the image I just happened to have colored a couple weeks ago. Copics were used for the coloring. papers are from Stampin' Up. I also punched hearts. The bottom layer is the Not Quite Navy Cardstock and the top layer is co-ordinating pattern paper for the background. On two of the hearts you can see I sanded the edges. Glued the hearts together and then using a double hole punch neatly made two holes to put the linen thread through.

The sentiment is stamped on white cardstock and faux stitched with Not Quite Navy marker. A couple little buttons are added for balance.  To give the project a little more of a closed in look I put photo corners on the top edges only of the stamped image.

Saturday evening we finally got to try out the spa and fire pit. I did really like it.  Sunday we drove down to Galveston. It's about 1 1/2 hours from our house. Walked along the beach...a lot of beach...that's what you get when you are on the Golf of Mexico. lol Interesting to see most of the homes on stilts. also usually the garage is on ground level and the house is above that, I'm guessing 10 - 15 feet higher. You could see there were a lot of homes abandoned or in the process of being renovated due to the hurricanes. Will definitely go back again as the weather warms.

That's all I've got for today. Still working on a scrapbook page or two.  Maybe tomorrow.

Yvonne