For Sterile Feral Craft Sale

I embroidered up several dishtowels and packaged each one with a nice little ceramic spoon rest (or tea bag holder) from August Ceramics. This will be my donation, and hopefully raise some money for Sterile Feral. I have a cat colony (approx. 8 cats, but probably more once winter sets in). Last winter the cats were allowed access to our garage due to the severe cold. We also set up heat lamps. This year we are hoping that straw-filled igloos will keep them warm as it is kind of messy to open the garage up to animals...as well as the occasional opposum made himself at home in there, too! (I have had a racoon up on our deck once that I know of just a few weeks ago...so we can't have all kinds of wildlife in our garage). We also purchased a heated water dish, as well as a doghouse for a 70 lb dog which should be large enough to accommodate the cats for their feeding station. They usually come up individually or maybe 2 at a time to eat. Probably wouldn't hold all 8 at once. So anyway, that is the plan for the winter comfort for these cats. All but one have been trapped and neutered. Shame on the people who turn these poor animals out to fend for themselves. And shame on those who  call Animal Control. This results in sure death as a feral animal is not adoptable. I have to say you do get attached to your colony cats (well, I am mad at one right now since she always lashed out and slashes my finger with her needle sharp claws as I put food into the dish)....but for the most part, they don't hurt anyone. The sad thing is, they crave human attention, and yet are too afraid to get close. They might crouch at the sliding door for hours gazing in...like they remember a prior existence where they had a nice warm home...but now they are in a limbo..not really a wild animal, and yet not capable of being tamed either. Well, at least "my" cats will be fed and watered and provided shelter. It is all I can do.

Halloween...Better Late than Never!

Just cranked out a couple of Halloween cards. These were quite easy. I used an "Eye Chart" download that was featured on Tater Tots and Jello. Printed it out and trimmed and adhered to card base. Used a bit of twine, and some of the Tiny Tags (cut with PTI die). Pumpkin face was from Spooky Sweets (PTI). I think these eye chart designs are very cool! Wish I were that clever!

Baby Boy Giraffe Card

This card goes along with a blue fluffy baby blanket embroidered with feet, as well as a little embroidered bib. I used an old SU set for the giraffe which was stamped and colored with Copics. The background paper is from a Debbie Mumm pad. Sentiment is with PTI's Congrats All Ways.

Pink Fluffy Baby Gift

It is always fun to make baby gifts. Heather ordered this for a baby shower. The tag was case'd from This Pink Rooster. Tag is diecut using PTI Tag Sale #2. The little baby clothes are also from a PTI die, Hanging Out.

Christmas Planning

I received my first skinny notebook several years ago from my sister-in-law, Bonnie. I just loved the cute design and the usefulness of this gift, and was inspired to start making some myself. I believe I originally saw the notebook idea on Michelle Wooderson's blog. She has made lots of them over the years as you can see from her blog link. I always get good ideas to CASE when I browse her blog!

The notebooks are lots of fun to make, and lend themselves to all holidays and occasions. This one was made for my friend, Linda, to be used as a holiday planner. I made a cute little reindeer tag to go along with it.

The notebook base is kraft paper. The jar is a PTI diecut. The green dotted paper with the pinked edge is also a PTI diecut. The peppermint stickers were purchased at Hobby Lobby. The snowflake was punched out and I put glue on the ends and dipped them into coarse MS glitter. The inside features a skinny notepad.

The tag is Tag Sale #2, from PTI. The reindeer was stamped and then  cut from cork and colored with a red copic. The set is new from Hero Arts/Sizzix and features reindeers, snowflakes and trees. The dies are "open" which makes it very easy to stamp and then cut.

Boxes

These cute boxes were made using an Accucut die. It is a 2 3/4" box, so that is a nice size to hold a small gift, or even a muffin treat. I used these for my granddaughters' Halloween treat...I put a tiny My Little Pony (halloween ponies) in each. The paper was a pad of K & Co. 12 x 12 halloween prints. Tied a little bakers twine around it and affixed a spider (also K & Co.), and it was done!

Party Bird

Here is a new design from Urban Threads. I have stitched this twice now and it is kind of a fun design. I normally use textured microfiber dishtowels, but with a "sketch" type of design like this, it requires a flat dishtowel. I found some at Target which are very similar to towels I used and loved from about 7 years ago. They are not exactly the same, but pretty close. 


Note to Heather: if you are reading this, this one is yours! Happy Birthday!

Time to Celebrate

Today's card uses the digital stamp from Hero Arts called SillyScape. I printed it out on PTI Stampers White Select cardstock, and only colored in the clock with a copic marker. The little birthday cake image is from PTI Tag-Its #, stamped onto a diecut (PTI Tiny Tags), tied with yellow bakers twine and popped up. The sentiment stamp is Studio G. 

Anniversary Cards

Here are a couple more anniv. cards. The first one uses SU's Manhattan Rose Folder to emboss the red, as well as to emboss a piece of shimmery cardstock. I then cut the second one to resemble a dress (not my original idea....cased from this pretty card.)


I added a piece of bridal tulle, a half pearl and bow. The sentiment is a Michael's Dollar stamp (quite old).

The next card uses a sheet of wedding paper from my stash for a background. I diecut a small doily using a PTI die, then stamped a sentiment from an old Stampendous set onto it. Ribbon is the new Autumn Rose from PTI, with a Tiny Tag from PTI dangling from it with gold thread.

Anniversary and Wedding

Seems like lots of weddings this year! And a 50th anniversary party to attend. I worked on those types of cards today.


The first two use the PTI Mehndi Medallion impression plate. A card doesn't need much else when it has this pretty design on it. 


Tomorrow I have two more anniv. cards to post.

Here is a closeup of the impression plate design:

Wicked Cool Halloween

Sometimes the simplest cards turn out the best. I like this card which mostly uses stamps from Stampin Up!'s set Wicked Cool. I did use the spider web from PTI's Spooky Sweets II, and stamped it in Versamark for the background. The paper is SU Crumb Cake. A teeny orange rhinestone sits on the brim of the hat. The inside sentiment is "Have a Wicked Halloween". Card size is 3.5 x 4.

The card will accompany this gift....a Halloween towel using a design from Embroidables. The towel is microfiber. 

Wedding Gift

Wine designs are very popular these days. Seems like new wineries are popping up all the time in Illinois, and probably all over. I have a number of nice wine-related embroidery designs. I embroidered 2 different designs on dishtowels that my daughter ordered for a wedding gift for friends, and also made a wedding card using the bride's colors. The card is made using Mehndi Medallion by Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is also from PTI. Black rhinestones adorn the curliques of the sentiment. 

Bitty Bird Birthday

That is kind of a tongue-twister! This card is for my daughter, Heather's birthday. The set is Little Bitty Bird from Papertrey. I also got the coordinating dies which makes it so easy to cut out the birdies. The paper is from the Lime Twist Pad (My Mind's Eye). The tree was colored with copics. I cut a little banner for the sentiment, which is also from Little Bitty Bird. The card was inspired by Erin Lincoln's MIM video on Nichole Heady's blog.


Note to Heather: Hopefully I will get a little gift made for your sisters to deliver to you in a couple of weeks! 

Scrap Tags

I decided that this blog could also be a "home" to some of my papercrafting efforts. All of the crafts kind of cross over with each other anyway.


This is a quick and useful way to deal with some of the smaller scraps of paper you might have leftover from other projects. I call them "scrap tags". But really, they are so cute...and very easy to make.


I used Tag Sale #2 die from Papertrey Ink. But, I didn't use the entire die. Instead, since it was just a scrap of paper, I let the bottom of the die hang off and once I had made the diecut, I just used my corner rounder to round off the bottom two edges.


Any cute stamp could be used. These are some Hampton Arts Christmas trees that were part of a set that my sister gave me. I used a green copic for coloring. I have a ton of green/yellow rhinestones left from my daughter's wedding....she thought these were more green than yellow, and we needed yellow as a menu selection designation on the placecards, so I ended up using a yellow copic marker to color clear rhinestones! (what a mother won't do!). Anyway, I am finding that these unused "green" ones actually work out nicely on these little tags. I just snip off 5 of them and leave them attached and affix the whole chain of them to the Christmas tree. The black on kraft tree uses some red rhinestones in graduated sizes.

The February "Poppy" Wedding!

Our family has had two beautiful weddings this year, one in February and one in June. The bride for the February wedding was our 2nd oldest daughter, Lisa. A lot of the decor, etc. was DIY.....actually most of it was accomplished in a 6 week timeframe....we also dealt with a blizzard about a week before the wedding, and the bride also came down with a bad respiratory virus 10 days prior to her wedding day! Fortunately, all the DIY got accomplished, the bride recovered and no one else became sick, and the wedding was beautiful. I am just posting this one picture today, and hopefully Lisa will get a blog post together that chronicles other aspects of the wedding planning. This photo shows the paper poppies that we made!