Kathy Rosecrans is fabulous!

Yesterday, I took "Classy and Fabulous" Cards with Kathy at the Hen House.  It was such a blast and she even got me over my fear of sewing on cards.  I know I will be sewing more often.  Take a look at the beautiful cards that we made in the class!

Can you tell that the dress is paper pieced?

Here we used Tim Holtz Stickles...glitter glue on the dress.  It's kind of hard to see on the photo.

Last but not least we used Copics to color the swim suit.  Isn't Kathy just an amazing card designer?!  I know that she is definitely going to make me grow as a designer.  So lucky to be on the Hen House Design Team with her.  Visit Kathy's blog with the link on the right of the screen.

Going Green

I have always LOVED the color green...especially bright lime green.  But it doesn't look that great on me so I never get to wear it.  Although my phone and iPad both sport bright green covers.  :-)

Waiting on the cabinets for my new craft room, I came up with an idea....it started with a patch of green in one closet...

And ended up as a bright green closet bursting with color....

It made me SO happy that I had to paint the back wall of the walkin closet too...

I just love it!!  What do you think?

Upcoming Hen House Class: Fast and Fun Four

Saturday, August 13th. 3-5pm.
Fast and Fun Four.  Nothing is more fun than getting a greeting card, but it means so much more when you get a card that is handmade, because it is made from the heart! We’ll be using some beautiful papers from Echo Park and stamps from Unity to create the cards below along with 3 others. Be prepared to heat emboss and use Distress stains to make the images “pop”. Class participants will learn/review the following card making design principals: balance and dimension. Beginner to Intermediate. Cost: $15.  Call the Hen House at 221.6366 to reserve your spot or register online.

A little craft room progress

A few pieces of furniture will stay in the craft room once the remodel is complete. Two cabinets that I got from Ikea will be dedicated to paper.  I love these cabinets.  They are made of solid wood and have glass doors so that I can see my beautiful paper but keep it dust free!

This first cabinet used to be full of 81/2 x 11 paper trays on one side and adhesives of all types on the other.  With my new Cropper Hopper paper holders, I was able to consolidate all the  8 1/2 x 11 paper from 4 shelves into 1 1/2 shelves at the top right....love it!  Upper top left is my SU paper sorted by paper families.  Other speciality papers (vellum, acetate, fabric, metallic, etc..) and envelopes  are scattered on other shelves.  At the bottom, I was able to put all of my 12 x 12 paper packs and solid card stock.

The second paper cabinet is also from Ikea.  I used it to store SU 12 x 12 Designer Series Paper and other single sheet scrapbook paper sorted by color.

My other craft room project this weekend was turning hinged-door shadow boxes into to storage for my metal dies from Spellbinder.  I rarely used these dies because they were stowed away in a drawer.  Recently at a friend's  house, I saw this great idea in a craft room organization magazine.  You get sticky back magnetic sheets and attach them to the back of a hinged shadow box.  My shadow box was 14 x 18 and the magnetic sheets were 12 x 24 so I had to get a little crafty.  I painted the back panel using the same color as the craft room (stormy blue).  I then cut the magnetic sheet to 12 x 18 and centered it on the back panel.  I used decorative metalic tape on the borders and added some sticky back rhinestones to cover the frame hanging hardware holes.  Then comes the fun part...putting the dies on the magnetic sheets.  This first photo is a bit grainy and there is a horrible reflection from the glass front.  But here are the finished boxes on the wall.

I  hung them so that hinged door opens bottom up.  Here is as photo of one of the boxes with the door open.

This was such a fun project and such a great idea.  I really think I will be using these dies more often.

Make-n-Take Saturday

Today is Make-n-Take Saturday at the Hen House.  Be sure to drop by between 10:30am and 12:30 to learn how to use Distress Stains and from 1:30-3:00 to learn how to use Epiphany Shape Studio tools.  Click here for more details.

One of the perks of working for the Hen House is that I get to play with their stuff.  Look at the cards I  made using products carried at the store. 

With this card I was able to play with colors that I don't normally use and I was able to practice using my COPIC markers.  I don't know if you can see it in the photo but added some Stickles to the flowers for a little bling.

For the second card that I made, I used some Nestability dies to cut the frame for the flower that I colored with Copics.  The card uses a fancy fold and opens up and out.  Drop by the store and check it out.

"Perfect Pear" for SWAP

I have been trying to keep on top of all my crafting commitments, now that I work for the Hen House.  So even though Janea and Lynn's SU swap club doesn't meet until mid August, I am proud to say that I have my card ready.

It uses one of the new Hostess sets and a combo of more mustard, chocolate chip and whisper white paper.  I colored the image with my copics:  YR23, Y17 and R23 for the pear, E37 for the stem, and YG11 and G24 for the leaf.

The card uses a fun foldd and opens like below...

Hope you liked it!

Stage One is complete!

Today I worked from home so that the new floors could be installed in my craft room.  Here is a picture of Steve hard a work...

 And here is a photo of the finished room.  I think it came out awesome!!

Stage Two will be to get all the electrical work done...move plugs up to counter height and add outlets for the undercabinet lighting.  Clayton, my cabinet maker, says that the materials should be in this Friday so he can start work on the cabinets.  I will post updates as they arise.

Faux pearl technique

I have been meaning to share this classy technique for a long time.  My friend, Donna, made the gorgeous card below by using the faux pearl technique.

Follow this link to see a video of the technique.

Stage One of My Ultimate Crafting Zone

You can blame it all on Mary Fish who blogged as she created her ultimate crafting zone.  I was so excited to watch her progress and eager to start my own renovation.  Thanks to my wonderful husband, my dream craftroom is about to become a reality.  New floors get installed on Wednesday so we had to move all the furniture out.  Here are some pictures of the empty mess.

Here is one side of the room.  This is where the custom ribbon and punch cabinet, work table and adhesive/embellishment cabinets will go.

This closet will be transformed into the "color"cabinet full of all the wonderful ways to add color to projects (ink, paint, reinkers, markers, glitter, Twinks, COPICs,  etc...).  I will also have a gift wrap section somewhere in this closet.

This side of the room will be work bench high cabinets to hold all types of equipment and cutters.  A computer desk will be built between the window that will have filing and also a pull out home for my Cricut.

My cutting and embossing  station will be under the window at the left.  Two built-in desks (one for my husband and one for my daughter) with lots of filing space will replace the two desks under the window in the middle.

Last but not least, the second closet in the room is a nice sized walk-in.  (Although you can't tell from the photo since it is packed with stuff that we shoved out of the way so the floors could be put in.)  This closet will be my stamp closet.  I have a collectors cabinet in on the left for my wooden stamps, a shelf for my SU unmounteds and another large self for my other unmounted stamps.  Outside the closet to the right will be my paper cabinets.  I will be using two glass front cabinets that I got from Ikea a long time ago.

I will keep you posted on progress.

SWAP club projects

Last weekend, Lynn hosted our SU swap club and we got to complete 3 awesome projects!

First we made coasters from inexpensive tiles from the hardware store.  We stamped the images on the front of tiles with black Stazon.  Then she put them in the oven on low for about 30 minutes.  When they were done and cool, we used chalk to color the images and sealed with a spray sealant.   I am definitely giong to make some for holiday gifts....

Next we made this beautiful card by sponging ink over a piece of cardstock with a circle post-it in the upper right corner.  Once the rust (cajun craze) and green (lucky limeade) were all sponged, we removed the post-it and lightly sponged some dark brown (early espresso) over the whole card.  We stamped various images to make the scene with dark brown.   I think the resulting card was absolutely stunning....

Last but not least, we used reinkers and made a faux rainbow stamp pads to stamp the flowers on the next card.  I think I am going to try to do a variation of this technique with Distress Stains. 

The Night Before Grand Opening...

I am so excited about the grand opening of the Hen House Paperie tomorrow night!  We have two other local stamp/scrapbooking stores in town but there is always room for more! 

I wanted to share with you the Make-n-Takes that I will be doing on Saturday, July 23 from 10:30am- 12:30pm.  For just $1, you get to play with the NEW Tim Holtz Distress Stains.  I just love them!  You get such rich color and coverage in a snap.   And as you can see in the make-n-take samples below, you can create textures just by playing with how you aply the ink.

The other cool thing is that when you apply the same stains to different colored papers (like cream and white), you get a dramatically different look.  See how the tag on the left (below) looks kind of blue jeanie while the tag on the right has a softer feel to it.

Below is the same layout, using different stains and stamping techniques.  The tree on the left tag was stamped and embossed with black.  The tree on the right tag was stamped by applying the stains directly on the stamp and then spritzing with water before stamping.  It gives it a watercolor effect.



Hope you can stop by the Hen House soon!

It's official...

It's official.  I am no longer a Stampin Up demonstrator.  I will be focusing my time and talent on teaching classes at the Hen House Paperie that will open this Friday.  I really enjoyed promoting SU products but there are SO many demonstrators out there, SU does not need my help.  I will continue to attend the SU swap club hosted by my friends Janea and Lynn.   They always have great stamping ideas to share. 

Today I wanted to share a card that my mom made.  She and 6 other seniors are in a dance group called "Las Mirandas"  --- after the famous Carmen Miranda.  They perform around town.  The card is for one my mom's fellow dancers.  Mom drew the image free hand  and colored it with pencil, markers and SPICA pens!!!  Isn't she amazing!   We assembled the card together using coordinating papers and a new Cuttlebug embossing folder.  The orange paper had a white core, so we used a nail file to bring out the white on the embossed image.

Bye, bye for now.  I will be posting more later.