Onesies

Last month a wonderful friend of mine threw me a small baby shower. It's so great to get together with friends and she did a really great job! My favorite part was the craft she had at the end. She brought out a bunch of pre-washed onesies, iron on patch sheets, buttons, and fabric markers and had everyone decorate one! I made a little seahorse onesie and loved it so much that she brought me all the leftover supplies a few days later and I made some more and several shirts for my two year old! I guess technically you're supposed to sew around the edges of a patch, but I think that sounds like too much work, so we're going to try it without- I can always sew around them later, right?

Love it or Hate it???

Here's another that I really went back and forth about even posting. I can't decide if I love it or hate it... It's weird- I make and make and sometimes it works and other times it just doesn't. I wish I had a method to my madness so I really liked everything I made....

I think now's an opportune time to switch from card making mode to scrapbooking mode...

Pocket of Presents

Here's another tracer. I traced the pocket a few times so I could free hand it onto the blue paper and then I free hand drew the gifts based on a separate stamp set (that I also don't own). The yellow gift is a stamp I do own- it has some stickles on the bow and is attached using a dimensional.

I think it made another cute birthday card!

Birthdays for REAL Men

Ok, so in spite of my sister's insistence that the latte cards are perfectly appropriate for men, I had my hubby pick out some stamps from the catalog that he thought were more appropriate. It appears that he thinks serious stuff is best for men... because these are two the stamps that he picked.

He also picked a bunch of hunting type stamps with really intricate, life-like nature scenes, but then, I'm tracing this stuff with a marker, so that wasn't gonna happen. Maybe I should actually buy some of those...

(As always, click on any photo to see it larger)

More Birthdays

Ok, back to making cards for adults. I seem to be on quite a roll with this tracing stuff! These are made from a fun stamp set that I've always been tempted to buy. The base is one stamp and then you can add a cupcake top or a handle and steam! They're really very quick and easy to trace. After making a few of each, it occured to me that it would be very easy to make a variety of mug shapes.

The cards are all on a yellow base with a black layer and then a layer of the fun circle paper. I printed the words on a light blue coordinating paper (the back of the circle paper actually) using the computer. I had to use some glue dots to get them to stick down once I had the swirly paper clip on. The steams are all out of vellum and have some stickles. The stickles made the vellum curl pretty bad, but I found that if you did the stickles prior to cutting the steam out, it wasn't as bad...

When I made 4 of the latte cards I assumed that would be great for guys or gals, but my husband seems to think that they're a bit too fru-fru for real mean! Hrumph! What do YOU think????

Camping Birthday

One last camping card before I move on...

The signs I made up after seeing something similar is a stamp catalog. The lantern is free hand drawn, based on a catalog pic. The bee is stamped in craft ink, embossed and cut out and then attached using a dimensional. The lantern is 'hung' using some poly twine stuff.

More Camping

I have this paper that looks like a photo of a forest. I bought it a long time ago, thinking it would be nice for a camping card or layout. However, I can't ever seem to find anything to use it on. Continuing on my camping theme, I was determined to use some of the tree paper. So, here it is. ha! I guess I really just hid it! oh well.

The tent is traced onto vellum from a catalog pic. The other images are stamped on. The string is sewn on by hand using a yarn needle.

More Boy Cards

I wanted to continue the look I got with the pirate cards, but do something more campy (I like to encourage non-criminal adventures, after all). However, I couldn't find any stamps that fit the bill. So, I just free-hand modified some images to make them work.... But I spent so much time on the drawing, that I didn't spend quite enough time on the embellishments... maybe I'll find just the right thing to add to this to give it the balanced look it needs....

Currently, the image is drawn on, then colored in using my watercolor crayons and a blender pen. The boy is drawn on vellum and colored with pencils. The tag is just written on, copied from a font I liked and secured to the card with a small black brad.

Birthday Boys

So now I'm on to doing some birthday cards. I made this one for my cousin's son. I think I should have taken the picture on something other than a black background, but it's too late now! The card's been mailed!

While I was on a pirate roll, I also made this one for my nephew. I did an inside to this one as well- the map kind continues from the outside to the inside...

I used more of the tinted vellum and a bit of Stickles for the sparkle.

I don't actually own any of these stamps. I did some tracing from pictures onto the vellum and then, once I'd traced it a time or two, it was pretty easy to draw it free hand.

Using my scraps

My sister's always 'encouraging' me to keep and use my scraps. I recently followed her lead by organizing all my scrap paper into little envelopes by color and while I was at it I found these funny pink die-cut things. So, in a effort to use them, I created this. It seems like there's something wrong with it, but I can't figure out what it is. I don't really like the idea of posting cards I'm not as proud of, but maybe you guys have some suggestions for this one- I keep starring at it trying to figure out what's off about it...

Half a Year of Birds

Here's a few more cards I made from that bird calendar. These are so very simple that it makes throwing away any neat calendar a crime!!!

Old Calendars

The little bird pics in this one are cut from the back of my 2009 desk calendar! I've been using all the birdies from that calendar and love how the cards are turning out!

With Sympathy

I guess I got on a little roll with the sympathy cards too- but when I need one I'm not always in the mood to make one, so they're very valuable to have on hand

...thoughts and prayers

This one is a lot more serious and not strictly for fall, but I was on a roll with the leaves and I find when I need a prayer card, I need it now- not when I get around to making it...

I used the tinted vellum again and the perfect pearls on the bird

kid-friendly fall card

I did several cards similar to this one for a few friends with kids. I really like the funny little turkey!

more fall cards

...again, playing with the tinted vellum, but this time with my mother-in-law's leaf punches as well! I cut the tree out using a Cricut machine and then made it metallic useing the new Perfect Pearl Pigment Powders that my sister got me for my birthday!

another fall card

A friend gave me some tinted vellum a few weeks ago and I've really been having a lot of fun with it!

Reactions

I know, you don't have the time to write a full comment, but you want to let me know what you think -or maybe, in an effort to get me to post more often, you just want to reassure me that someone, somewhere, out there, it reading my blog and enjoys checking out the ideas. Check out the new reaction boxes under each post- just check a box like you're voting! (I think it's even anonymous!)

Fall Cards

I recently made a bunch of fall cards to send out to friends and family with NJ's 2-year old photo, so I thought I'd start posting photos of them here, even if I am too lazy to write about them!

Productivity

My good friend came over the other day for a scrapbooking date and I had such great productivity that I just had to share. Here are the 4 cards I made while she was here. The best part about it was that our two boys played together while we worked! How great that NJ's getting to the age that I can work while he plays! Of course I wasn't quite as productive as if he'd just slept the whole time, but still- the fact that I got anything done at all amazes me! I suppose I better enjoy it while I can- according to my weekly Baby Center email, I only have 91 days left until baby #2 is here! eak!!!

Blog Giveaway!

I'm excited to be sponsoring another blog giveaway at Garnish, Deanna, Garnish! Just follow the instructions on her post and you could win my fun handmade note cards (pictured here on the left).

I know all you skeptics are telling yourself "nothing's free" but really, it is- even shipping is free!) If it makes you feel better you can think of it as a form of advertising. So, tell your friends to check it out!!

If you think you're one of those people who never win anything, just go to my etsy site, www.arizonamade.etsy.com, and buy one or two! (pictured here on the right!) Mention you heard about my etsy site from my blog or Deanna's blog and I'll give you a 10% discount (don't pay until I've sent you a revised invoice)!!!

Craft Organization

My Sister has me wanting to reorganize. Well, her and the fact that we need to do a whole-house-furniture-shuffle in order to create the nursery for the new baby. See, the baby is due in Jan., so my third trimester will be during the holidays, which sounds like a bad time to be moving furniture and painting walls. So, I really need to start now reorganizing my office so it can become the office/guest room. I suppose then, that the fact that I'm focusing on organizing my scrapbooking stuff (which I've been told is already fairly organized) instead of working on my office closet is a form of procrastination.... oh well.

As Deanna mentioned, I've been keeping my stamps in clear pencil pouches that I got on sale last year at back-to-school time. They've held up well and I'm happy with them. However, I've been keeping them in a tool box and that's been ok, but it's hard to carry for very far because there's no shoulder strap and I'm constantly on the move with my paper stuff. So, I pulled a dusty rolly-briefcase from the top of my closet and moved in. Now I can pick the thing up of roll it around!

The next problem to be solved was having to flip through all the pouches to find the one with the stamps I'm looking for. For example, let's say I'm trying to make some Christmas cards. I know all the Christmas related stamps are in the Christmas pouch, but I have to pull out every pouch until I run across the Christmas one! So, I pulled out my trusty P-touch Label Maker and labeled them all- even the pouches with felt and ribbon! There's just nothing I love more than neat and tidy labels!!!!

Lastly, I moved all my inks to my cute little pick tote that I got full of paper craft stuff on clearance for $4. I had tried the stamp pouches in it for a while, but that wasn't working. Having the inks in there works nicely because they aren't buried anymore.

Now if I could just figure out how to make my paper lighter. I weighed it today, and my paper bag is 31 pounds (and that doesn't include the new pack of 300 sheets of paper I bought on clearance this week!!!) Suggestions anyone?

Vote Now!

I'm trying to make some cards appropriate for guys. It seems like every time I have an occasion to send a card to a man I'm really stretching to find something that doesn't have GIRL written all over it. So, I made this set of cards last night as Man-cards. I was so proud and showed them to my husband and he informed me that they weren't really all that masculine... huh.

Now, I need to know, is my husband crazy or are these too girly for guys? Help me out here. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being all man and 1 being all girl, how manly are they?????

Journaling, Cut in Half

I know I posted almost the same pic yesterday, but since I got the journaling done, I had to post an update. I really wanted the journaling to run right off the first page and onto the next page like a photo cut in half, but I didn't want to cut any words in half, so I did a crazy amount of work with two text boxes (as shown in this screen shot) and some extra spaces where needed. I really love how it turned out! (Click on the photo to zoom in) Surely one of you wants to share an easier way to do this- I tried right and left tabs, but apparently, I don't know how to make those work either.

32 Photos in 2 Spreads? No Problem

Christmas 2008 is done! ...except for a little journaling, of course.

Retrofit

Several weeks ago (maybe even months ago) a friend and I went to a local expo for women. Now that I think about it, I think it was on Mother's Day weekend... Anyway, one of the businesses there let you sit down and make a fun layout right there. It was a neat takeaway and it involved some techniques I hadn't done before, so it was double cool. Here's a photo of it.

However, as soon as I got home I realized I had no idea what I would do with it. It seems like such a crime to create something so pretty and then never use it, but trying to retrofit a completed layout to my photos is sooooo hard for me. I usually start with the photos and then figure out a layout to show them off.

In early May we got some great family portraits done, so when I picked them up in June I decided I wanted to use them for this rouge layout. Of course, then I realized another problem: I only had one layout and I always do spreads (two layouts that are meant to be seen together). Ug- a retrofit with a challenge...

In the end, I decided to cut the layout and put part of it on one layout and part on the opposing layout. Then I stole some white paper (see photo at right) from where it wouldn't show to frame NJ and added some blue as accents around the other two photos. I did my journaling on the computer and printed on vellum again (even though the snooty lady at the out-of-town scrapbooking store swears it doesn't work). Here's the end result! Now I just need some embellishments...

Happy Father's Day!

Just one more week of class left and then I can get back to the fun stuff! Of course I couldn't let Father's Day go by without a card for my baby's daddy and my daddy!

Nine Years of Marriage

As I'm looking for inspiration to make two father's day cards, it occurs to me that I never shared any photos of the card I'm made my hubby for our anniversary last month (can you tell I've been going crazy?) So, here she is. What I love about this card is that I finally found a use for some of the "beads" that were on this necklace my mom gave me. She said it was just too heavy (no wonder with a bunch of washers on it) and maybe I could remake it into something else. I've been tinkering with some jewelery making, so that's what I original thought I'd do with it. However, when I took it apart and saw how industrial the whole this was, I moved most of the pieces to my card making stuff. I have to say I really like the effect- the photos really don't do it justice! Thanks Mom!!!

She's crafty in a whole different universe

I've been way too busy with getting my lesson plans together lately, so I'll direct you to another crafty girl's blog- although she's crafty in a whole different universe! In this post, she's giving away a dress she found at the thrift store and completely remade! Wow! Very cool! She said it looked a bit like a Hawaiian moomoo before... I actually own a Hawaiian moomoo- my dear husband went to Hawaii without me when I was like 7 months pregnant with NJ and he decided the best thing to bring me back was a moomoo because, now that I was so big, nothing else would have been comfortable to wear around the house! Hum. Maybe I can remake that moomoo into something wearable...

Blueberry Pie Refashioned Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!:

Sell it or Give it Away??????

It's strange, but it's hard not to just post every card I make for sale on etsy.

When I started selling cards on etsy, I wasn't sure I could charge enough to make it worth while. Making a card takes way too much time and most people would just as soon have a bought card, so how could I ever put a price on one?

Then I had my first sale and the buyer (and every buyer thereafter) mentioned how lovely they thought the card was! I was hooked! It turns out that it's rewarding to give it to someone who appreciates it so much they're willing to pay for it!

My sister was recently at my mom's house and noticed a stash of all the hand made cards we'd given her. My mom's not really the type to keep everything, so it means a lot to me! :) (Mom, don't feel like you have to keep them all forever! I'll understand!) All that in mind, after selling four Mother's Day cards on etsy, (almost as soon as I listed them) I decided that I should make 6 for the moms in my life and hold them in reserve, to give them away (even though I was really tempted to sell them all).

Once I got going on the card making, I really got going and made some birthday and thank you note cards too! I think I made 18 cards this week!!! This is especially crazy to me because I usually really struggle to make more than 2 in one night!

Here's a collage of some of the cards. I'm really enjoying working with fabric, felt, buttons, and ribbon. I think I have my sister to thank for that- she's always encouraging me to put more stuff on each card!
It's so exciting to be on a roll, and it's so hard to get there, but now every other part of life has piled up and is waiting on me! So, I am reluctantly breaking my card making streak and resolving to focus on all that other junk.

Thankzzzz

My friends have been so good to me lately that I had to take a break from the Mother's Day cards and make some thank you cards. Here's one I gave to the awesome friend who loaned me their Altima for three weeks while I was in between cars!

Don't you just love buttons!?!

A New Light Box

My sister-in-law recently completed her flight training and is now officially a Flight Surgeon. (Yes, she's a doctor and a Navy pilot.) My husband (her brother) was really bummed that we couldn't afford to take several days off and jet out to Florida for the graduation so he requested that I make a special congratulations card. I think he specifically asked for "something with an airplane on it," but that might have been one of my all-too-real dreams. I'm sure that he made a comment about her golden wings.... So, I hit the internet and found some cool drawings.

Now, I'm a shameless tracer when the occasion calls, but I don't have a light box. I've been looking at them for a long time, but I honestly don't want to have to store one. They're bulky and I'm already short on space, so I just keep pining away.

Today, I was once again in a pinch. I don't have a light box and I don't want to practice enough to draw a good airplane... As I was sitting in my office, it occured to me that my laptop screen was almost like a light box- too bad using it that way would probably damage the LCD screen.... WAIT! My old classic TV isn't LCD or Plasma. hum...

Turns out, the TV is a GREAT light box. I had to use my DVR to find and pause on a mostly white screen, but the best part is that the static of the TV held my paper in place! Way cool!

Anyway, here's the finished card!

Sellin' Like Hotcakes!

It's wrong to complain when a card sells really fast, right?

My sister's been hassling me to put more items up on etsy ("still on 17 items?"). So, I worked on a few more Mother's Day Cards this weekend and put one up Saturday and waited until today to put another one up. But the one I put today sold almost immediately! I told my sister to go check it out and it wasn't there! Here I am thinking I'll get a bunch of cards made, put them up for sale, and then get out my scrapbook stuff, but the darn things keep selling! How silly of me!

So, I'm sorry Deanna, but now there's only 16 items for sale at Arizona Made and it's going to have to stay that way for a few days because I have homework to do!!!

Mother's Day Is Just A Few Days Away

ok, so actually it's 43 days away, but it's the sort of holiday that always sneaks up on me! ("Sir, you underestimate my sneakiness") So, I am diligently working on getting some Mother's Day Cards made- some for family members and some for my Etsy shop, Arizona Made. This picture here is of the latest card I just put up on etsy and I have to say it's my favorite!!! The felt is a real trial to work with and the buttons take forever to sew onto the paper, but look at the result!!!! I love it! Fun Fun Fun!

Felt!

So, I've started experimenting with felt! I was inspired by the etsy shop Adore by Nat and I'm trying to incorporate them into some mother's day cards I'm selling on my etsy shop. I bought several more sheets of felt, but they don't seem dense enough- anyone know anything about where I should be buying my felt??? I'm hoping I start getting a lot faster at working with felt because right now, it's slow slow slow going... it moves around, making it hard to cut and it looks best if I sew the detail by hand (see my attenmpt at ballons in the pic above? I did those on the machine). So, if you receive a card from me with felt, feel VERY VERY special!!!

Trademarks

So, there was a certain item that I had posted on etsy for a few hours when it was suddenly removed due to some possible trademark infringement... I'd guess my first mistake was titling the item for sale with it's copyrighted name and then my 2nd mistake was making it look as close to the real thing as possible. Honestly, it never occurred to me that this would be a problem. Silly girl!

Interestingly enough, in the email explaining why the item had been removed was an additional blurb about the confidential nature of the email... To me, this is the strangest part. When I asked why it was confidential, this was their response:

"This is a legal matter and out of respect to the person that contacted Etsy and to the Etsy members affected by this issue, we request that you refrain from discussing this issue in the public forums. As well, such discussions could result in "calling out" or specifying private information which goes against our Forum Dos and Don'ts."

So, I guess I'll be making some things as give-aways only now. Trademarks don't stop you from making something, just from selling it, right?

Kennel Cover

I just realized that I should put a picture of the kennel cover on. After all, I spent WAY more hours making it than the nursing covers or taggies! So, here it is! Not perfect, but WAY better than seeing black grating when I walk in my bedroom!

Then, since the sewing machine was out (I've got to put that thing away and get back to scrapbooking before Rachel gets back and her Cricut wants to go home to momma) I thought I'd try an idea I saw on etsy. This lady took her scrap material and made these adorable little belts. She was making them for girls so they had fun wild colors and flowers.... but I want to make one for my son, so I thought I'd try the leftover material from the kennel cover. Well, I don't recommend trying it with this heavy upholstery type material- by the time you get it down to baby belt loop size (1 inch) it's way too hard to turn right side out! But hey, it's done now! Here's the big question: is it too girly? I saw all these girly belts on etsy and now I'm having a hard time telling if it's boyish enough... Maybe if it was dark blue or black???

Sewing Extravaganza

I've taken a break from my paper-crafting (Rachel went out of town) to do some sewing! My dear friend, Jana is having a baby and I just HAD to make her a pair of taggies and a nursing cover. While I had the sewing machine out I thought I'd make a few extra taggies and then nursing covers for three other friends and one extra. Then, since the sewing machine was out, I finished the cover for Max's kennel that mom and I started on months ago. And, since the machine was out, my friend Kara came over and we brainstormed about her quilt. Now, since the machine is still out, I'm thinking...