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.