Tuba Christmas with Maya Road

I may have mentioned before that I think that Maya Road chipboard can be used on just about anything. Here I inked my letters, lined them up very neatly in a cuttlebug embossing folder and then reinked. Then I threaded them through the swirl. One of the thinks that I like about using the cuttlebug on the chipboard is because it comes out so thin. For the full LO you can go to my blog. I am having a little contest. If you can name all the products used in the LO, I will give you a five dollar GC to The Crafty Scrapper.

My Window

The store will be closed 12/31/08 and 1/1/09 all day. There is opportunity to crop on Friday the 1/2/09 from 10 am until midnight, but the store will not be open for regular business traffic that day until after 5pm. Please call the store to reserve a spot. The cost is $10.00 for the day at the store, or $5.00 from 6 to midnight. We will reopen for regular business on Saturday 1/3/09 with a new look in the windows, new product on the shelves and continued pleasure as we serve you-the best customers ever!

OK......here is my window. I made it for my bedroom, so I didn't want to put pictures on it. But they can be made with pictures, stamping, rubons are great, or mementos.
I do not want to receive any emails about the lamp in this photo, YES I know its ugly, but my husband loves this lamp and its the one thing he is allowed to have up in the house, LOL!

PS: We will be doing a class with windows in March...stay tuned.

My little artist on Christmas Eve

Everyone that knows my son, knows that he LOVES to draw. This year he wanted to make Santa some pictures. He amazes me with all the details......
This is his little display he left for Santa, he insisted on leaving him one of every cookie....poor Santa!
Tomorrow I will be posting pictures of my window....so stay tuned, it turned out just the way I pictured.

My Love

On this day 17 years ago I was given the perfect gift of Marrying the woman I Love. I would not trade anything in the world to change one moment that has happened since that day. So today my love may we be as blessed as we were then. Just wanted everyone to know just how much I Love You. Happy Anniversary.

Last minute idea.........

Beleive it or not I have had time this year to make a few gifts. One thing I love to make are my own gift tags and gift certificate holders. I have been blending and inking like crazy since Wendy Veechi was here teaching. I made these gift card holders with the American Tag Company Tags, I used the large #10, inked it with faded jeans and fire brick distressing ink, then folded them, sewed it on the sides and stamped with Tim Holtz new Christmas stamps. There are some lucky employees getting these babies!Heres a pictures of a gift one of my customers, Jennifer, made me. How cute is this, and my Santa picture fit perfectly...thanks Jennifer!

Maya Road Sheer Album

I love these albums. They are the perfect size to be used as a datebook to fit in your purse. I used Andrea Gold's Forever and Ever Calendar templates and kits from After Five Designs. Sam's teacher really loved it. It was a fun hybrid project!

What do you think I am up too?

One hint...its going to be one of our 2009 classes!

Stay tune for more updates...

Distressed Stickles and Chipboard

I may have mentioned before that I really love using the Cuttlebug and embossing the Maya Road chipboard. But now I have added another favorite, the distressed stickles. The peeled paint stickles were perfect for holly leaves. It added great sparkle with a little grunge. Just perfect. I have bought a few more to play around with. The rest of this LO is on my blog.

As promised, my gift........

Michelle made me this adorable reindeer Saturday at the crop. Its hard to see all the glitter, but trust me he is sparkling. Not only is this a special gift because its from Michelle, its also special because Michelle says never finishes anything at crops and this little guy she did....Thank you so much Michelle!

Santa and me........

It was a crazy, fun and buzy weekend and it has not slowed down yet. I wanted to share this picture of us, we did Santa pictures all day Saturday in downtown Waxahachie. Is he not the cutest Santa you ever saw? If you didn't get down for pictures, they will being doing them again this Saturday and Saturday Dec. 13th from noon-5pm. Pictures are $5, all proceeded go back into downton Waxahachie.

Check back later this week. I left my camera at the shop, but I have pictures of a wonderful special gift a customer made me Saturday. Thats why I love the shop.....because I have the BEST customers!

Merry Christmas

Christmas isn't just red and green any more. Look at all these fun colors. I was feeling a little clever here. I had some chipboard pages that I hadn't used in one of my Maya Road books. I used them as covers and cut pages to fit. This is another gft that I am going to give to one of my relatives. This cousin happens to have a little girl that will look great on the colorful pages. I do have to tell you...that I had a great time using the cuttlebug on these die cuts. I also inked like crazy.

You can see the full book on my blog.

Monthly Kit For December

Actually, there are two kits for December. Classic Christmas and Past & Presents.
A choice for you!



The first kit is classic green and reds with a little twist of blue. These papers have more traditional images like trees, poinsettias, etc. The colors are brighter and have a little contemporary look as well. There are many wonderfully fun things in this kit as well: A vintage Lay-Away tag, a glittered word, packages of felt hearts and rub-ons. Lots of buttons and little chipboard pieces as well as large tags.



The papers in this kit have been popular this year. The countdown paper and the journaling tag paper have really cute flip sides too! Below is a layout done with some of the pieces from the kit.



The second kit is a little more elegant and a more vintage styling. These papers do not have traditional images and although they would make lovely holiday pages and projects, but they could work for things all year long.



This kit has lots of fun things too though. It has lots of ribbons, vintage lace, vintage looking tinsel, metal key hole & metal sign. These are in addition to lovely rub-ons and letter stickers. These are all on top of the beautiful papers in this kit. Here is an idea for this kit. Using one of the Maya Road Pennant Books, you could make a fun banner. (The banner shown here has some things not in the kit)



Can you make up your mind? OK. Maybe you'll need both! These are in the store-online and in Waxahachie if you wish to purchase them. As usual, we'll do a give-away for project pictures sent to us. More on that later though!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we had our 1st Santa's Workshop. During the summer our pre-teen crops got so popular, Heidi decided to try a Santa's workshop during Thanksgiving break. She designed 3 projects for the girls to make that could be given as gifts, this event was 10-3pm and included lunch.This week my sister, her husband and my niece and nephew came to visit from California. My sister is the one who got me scrapbooking years ago. We have always enjoyed creating things together, because she has a very demanding job and two kids she has not done a lot of scrapbooking in a long time. So when she came to the shop she eyed this advent calendar and decided to make one. As you can see it runs in the family, she still has it! I will say she still thought eyelets were set with a hammer, she was amazed at the crop-a-dile! Her new favorite things are the stickles! I cannot believe how much our kids have grown up, it seems like yesterday Antonio and Alysia were calling Denton "Baby Denton", they are 2yrs older than him.
Alysia and Madeleine enjoyed some scraptime themselves at my work table. Alysia wanted to go to work with me everyday.
Hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving and being with family and friends, remember the things you are grateful for and eat a lot of PIE!

On Dasher

Have I mentioned that I loved the Maya Road Petal book. I just can't get enough. I wanted to make a reindeer album for a gift. I think this idea works great with any two contrasting colors. I used Cosmo Cricket here....but there are many other brands that would work.

You can go to my blog and see all the pages inside. Click HERE. Thanks for looking.

My challenge with Cheryl.........

If you haven't heard, Cheryl from Ten Seconds Studio and I are having a little challenge. For some reason she thinks she can do more projects than me.......be sure and check the ones that she copied on her blog!

Here's one for you Cheryl, it started out as two seperate projects, but decided to combine them.

Trash and Some Imagination

I am a fan of using anything for projects. Joanna had to buy a BUNCH of vintage Christmas balls for a class she is teaching. Many of them came in these adorable little boxes. Once the balls were out of the boxes though, the question became what to do with the little boxes. We couldn't bear to throw them away, so they were kept.

Here is what Joanna has done with one of them. A very cute little shadow box decoration.



She has also used random objects to make other groupings. Thought you would enjoy looking at these!





The class she is teaching is to make a lovely vintage looking paper tree with the little vintage balls. The second class is coming up in December. Check the Events page for all of the information.



PS: the Sonic cup is not part of the project, although, hmmmm, there's got to be a use for it:)

Somedays you just need to get away.........

...and that's what we did. I had to go out to Ten Seconds Studio today and get more goodies. While we were there we decided to go out to lunch and head to the new Michael's that everyone is talking about.

What is it those girls always say "Do you have big Mamas?"

Or should we say nose picker. They started laughing at me because I was filling up a shopping cart with stuff to make projects. Maybe they were laughing because I never have time for creating things, so why was I buying more stuff! And poor Cheryl keep picking up stuff and asking "how would that look with metal on it?" Megan just looked at her told her to put it back.Cheryl and I went nuts over all the blingy garland and all the possibilities, I finally had to strangle Cheryl because she wouldn't let me get any. She actually told me I could go to the Michael's in Cedar Hill if there wasn't any left, I had to take her down! I managed to leave with 5 bags of stuff, stuff to make Christmas trees, snowman Christmas cones, wreaths and plenty more.

Don't you think it looks like she needs a basket too....................................
Thank you for a awesome day girls, I really needed to get away and have fun. I do not think I have laughed like that in a long time.

"Merry"

One of the items at the front of the store as an idea is this banner made from pages from the accordion acrylic house album by Maya Road. Maya Road has so many great chipboard, sheer and acrylic pieces. It is fun to pull the albums and sets apart and make them into something new.



Here are instructions to make one of these for yourself!

*Take the metal rings out of the book, leaving the acrylic shapes separate.
*Choose 5 shapes you want to work with.
*Cut out the shape in the desired paper. Cut it out so that the front of the paper is what will be against the acrylic shape. You may decide to use different papers for the house and the roof or for the chimney.
*Peel the protective covering off of the back of the house pieces.
*Glue the paper to the acrylic piece. You want the paper design to show through the acrylic. The paper is glued to the back of the piece. Several adhesives work for this. Diamond dust and glossy accents are two that work well.
*Once the glue & paper is dry, sand the edges lightly. This will blend the paper into the piece.

Take each house piece and decorate it as follows:
*Peel the protective cover off the front of the acrylic piece.
*Use a white paint dabber and dab the edges of the acrylic piece. Slide it a little here and there to give it a rough, random design. You are trying to simulate a snowy look.
*Once dry, take an appliqué pen. This one has the white/off white one. Place this along the roof line and chimney and any other place you want a thicker snow look.
*Use a heat gun and heat the paint used from the appliqué pen. Do not get it too close to the acrylic, but close enough to make the paint puff up.
*Place rub-ons or stamped images where desired on the acrylic pieces. Staz-on ink, Copic pens and any rub-on will be essentially permanent on the acrylic. (unless you scratch it off with your finger nail or use some sort of solvent)

Glue the houses together in a banner. The one here was done by gluing wide ribbon to a strip of wood (wood rulers work). The wood will help secure it in a hanging position. The ribbon shows through. If it was not covered with the ribbon, the wood would show through. Just to keep in mind as you decide how you want to do yours. The ribbon on this one is long enough to cover the ruler & to then be used as the hanger for the piece. (4 ft is a suggested length-it can be trimmed down as needed)

In the example, we used zip dry glue to attach the houses to the ribbon, but most glues will work for this.

Prepare other chipboard elements for decoration. (this can be done while other parts are drying)
*paint swirls with desired color (red in the example), stamp with white ink, or draw on it with white pen.
*paint snowflakes with white paint. While still wet, sprinkle white glitter over them. You can repeat once dry by using a glue such as diamond glaze.
*paint letters red (or desired color)

Use these elements to complete the decoration of the front of the houses. In the example, the swirls were placed to where they overlapped the houses. It actually provides a little bit of stability, but not enough to just use by themselves.

Put rhinestones in the center of the snowflakes and strips of them at the bottom of the houses. Add any other little words or decorations desired. Let the banner dry overnight before hanging it.

We'd love to see yours and how you made it unique. :)

As promised and a little tutorial

This is kind of a funny story......last winter we bought these books to do a class, which we never did. In the last year we have tried to give it to different design team members, and it keeps coming back un-done. I found the box of them the other day, and my sales rep. gave me pictures of one that Karen Russell had done. So this is my take on it, and I must say it came out cute.....I do not know why all of you had a problem with this book, LOL!I used the new Basic Grey Wassail, Karen Russell scallop paper and Yellow Bicycles new Christmas Line. As you can see the book pulls out so you can see a little of each page.


Ok here is your little tutorial.....Caroline from Maya Road showed us this, and it turns your chipboard into fancy letters. All you need is Chipboard, ink, stamp, Utee clear embossing powder, Versamark pad and a heat gun. Take your chalk ink and color your chipboard, then stamp swirls or script letters, you can even do a little doodling like the "H". If using pigment ink, make sure it is dry, place colored side down on the embossing pad, then place in Utee embossing powder. Make sure you have a good coating on, then use heat gun. Let it dry and repeat, you may need to do it a third time.

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This is hard to see, but I distressed the scallop paper and then used a script stamp on it.