tax time

Pardon my absence. I'm working on our taxes. Back posting tomorrow (hopefully). Wish me luck!

=) Nona

My funky hat

In between moebius orders I tried a new knitting technique called "interlock". It's where you knit a square, then pick up stitches to knit joining squares that all flow in different directions. It's pretty hard to explain, but not that difficult to do. Here is my first hat done in this technique:
The colors are pretty off in this photo (darned night time photography!). I purchased 2 skeins of this yarn for a custom moebius order a few weeks ago, but only ended up using one. The colors are VERY bright lime green and turquoise. The hat is a little floppy, and a bit on the beret-ish side -as far as fit is concerned. I was thinking of selling it, since it is SOOOO not me. But I donned it tonight and actually feel a little bit fresh and funky. I might wear it for a while and see. Chances are good it will find it's way into my etsy store though. LOL...

The colors are truer in these shots:

So what do you think? Is it me? LOL!!!

ps... this is my 250th post!! YIPPEE!

Week 2 Lesson Layout

Here is my digi layout for the "Now We're Rocking" photoshop class with Jessica Sprague. We learned some awesome things in this lesson - like how to burn the edges of our papers (which gives the same look as sponge distressing in real life).

I'm super pleased with this page and can't wait to show it to my mom! That is her and my (step)dad in the photo with their fur-babies. These are the same pupplies I blogged about here in August. Oh my how they have grown. :)

Oh - and for those that are curious - YES! I still paper scrapbook. It's just so much easier to share these pages as they are already on my computer. I have 6 pages to share with you using the Unforgettable papers from CTMH. I'll try to find some time to post the tomorrow. :)


(ps... once again - if you want to read the journaling, just click on the photo to see a larger version.)

More Valentines

Here are a few more Valentines I made on Friday. Enjoy!

Supplies: CTMH - petal cardstock, Other - SU! patterned paper, random ribbon from my stash, baubles, Hilda stamps, 3d foam, copic markers, stickles, rectangle nestabilities


Supplies: CTMH - Key to My Heart paper, white daisy and creme brulee cardstock, just blooms, spring blossom meddley accents. Other - Huggabug stamps, copic markers, stickles, circle nestabilities.

Supplies: CTMH - cranberry, white daisy, and black cs, sillhouette pp, black ribbon, sparkles, pretty pin. Other - Huggabug stamp, copic markers, 3d foam, stickles, round nestabilities.

Quick Challenge

In the "Now We're Rockin'" Digi Class I'm taking, we were offered a challenge to work on today. Create a layout in just 30 minutes! There were other requirements, but I won't bore you with that. :) This is what I came up with.

All papers/elements are Jessica Sprague's "Echoes of Asia" kit. Font is Impact. (if you can't read the journaling, just click on the photo to see it larger)

Valentines

Thursday night my friends Rachel, Sparkle, and Jenn came over for a crafty ladies night. Sparks is always so generous in letting us play with her stamps - and these are a few images I snagged. Aren't they too cute for words?!?! The Huggabug (fairies) are from a new line of stamps sold at Stamping Bella. The Hildas are sold on their own website and come from Sweden!

Then last night I had a crop night for my customers. This gave me an opportunity to make my colored images into actual cards! It was so fun to get to play, and I used up quite a bit out of the "stash bucket". This is a bucket where I throw scraps, ribbon and embellishments to "someday" use.

The one thing that doesn't shine through on these cards is the stickles. In person each card shimmers and shines! They are so pretty and it just doesn't transfer to the computer screen. Sigh... In addition to these, I have 3 more cards to share with you tomorrow, so be sure to check back!


Supplies: CTMH - tulip, white daisy, sweet leaf and blush cardstock, black floral ribbon. Cuttlebug embossing folder, stickles, 3d foam, Huggabug stamps, copic markers, rectangle nestabilities.

Jenn - I made her a red head just for you! ;)

Supplies: CTMH - tulip, white daisy and sweet leaf cardstock, sparkles. Other - Hilda stamp, random patterned paper scrap, 3d foam, stickles, rectangle nestabilites, copic markers.

Supplies: CTMH - Perfect day patterned paper, white daisy and tulip cardstock, just blooms paper flowers, christmas button collection. Other - rectangular nestabilities, Huggabug stamps, Bella sentiment stamps, 3d foam, copic markers, stickles.

Project 365

I'm jumping on the Project 365 bandwagon. Better late than never, right?

For those that don't know, Project 365 is very simply committing to taking a picture a day for the whole year, and then scrapping it. You can scrap a page a day (my hats off to these folks!), a page a week, a page a month, or anything in between.

I plan to scrap a 1 or 2 page layout for every week. The printed pages will be 12x12. This layout features the Wonderful kit from The Shabby Shoppe and a free template from M Originals. Scroll down on the sidebar to get links to both of these awesome digi resources! Fonts I used were ARMY and CTMH Tall Pen (my fave!). Click on the pages to see a larger image.

Hope you like!

Christine and Me

Christine and I met several years ago at a CTMH unit meeting. We'd been emailing back and forth, but something just clicked between us when we met. It was one of those instant connections where you feel comfortable with someone, and you can share anything with them. It was like I had known her all my life!

Through the past few years, we've shared incredible moments of triumph, celebration, and crushing hurts (not caused by each other thankfully). But one thing has stayed the same - our close bond. I'm so thankful to have Christine in my life AND get to call her my best friend. I know that God brought us together, because she came into my life when I badly needed a friend. I hope that we are friends forever!

One of the funny things about us is that we regularly express the same thought at the same time. We do most of our talking through IM (phone calls are difficult with young children), and we may both be away from our computers for hours, but suddenly I'll feel like I want to say something to Christine, and she will IM me at that exact same moment. It's like this when we are in person too. Anyway - as I was working on this layout and getting it ready to post, I went over to her blog and wouldn't you know - she'd posted this same picture! LOL - we really are on the same wavelength.

This picture was taken at the Album Retreat last week. It was such a great pic, I knew I had to scrap it immediately! (the kit is from Jessica Sprague's NWR class - a kit called Carnival).

WINNER!

My random number generator picked comment SIX as the winner!

Congrats Jenn! You'll be getting a set of my digi-made cards!

To everyone else thank you all for reading my blog! I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Smiles!
Nona

ps... I'll be posting something fun later today. I'm going to play with a few new stamps today, and with some new digi kits.

50,000 visits

WOW - I'm so amazed. In less than a year there have been close to 50,000 visits to my blog! I started this site primarily as a place to post my art and random thoughts, and I never expected it to receive such attention. I was so excited when my counter reached 100!

So, I think it's time for a little BLOG CANDY!!! Leave a comment on this post, and I'll draw a winner as soon as I see the counter roll over to 50k. The winner will receive a set of my digi created cards below - one of each card!

Don't delay - yesterday I got over 300 hits, so we should get to 50,000 sometime today! I'll be watching!

Thanks for reading everyone. I hope to continue to make this a place you want to come back to.

-Nona

Digi Cards

A very dear friend at my church recently asked if I would design and make 125 Thank You cards to give to the ladies involved in our Tabitha Ministry. (We bring meals and do light housework for the home bound members of our church.) She wanted the specific quote shown, and wanted them to have a "Valentine" feel - though they aren't actually valentines.

As much as I would have loved to sat and made each of these cards by hand, time and funds are scarce. Soooooo.... I sat down today with PSE and whipped up these babies. I used the Carousel paper kit from the Shabby Shoppe along with a few digital brushes from Jessica Sprague's class. I will be printing them out in 4x5.25 and then mounting onto white 4.25x5.5 card bases.

I'm so happy with how they turned out! Not bad for still being a photoshop beginner, eh?

ps... I loved the music notes accents especially because my friend is the worship pastor's wife. :)

Another Mini Album - and my winning layout

Here are a few more things to share from the Album Retreat.

One of the contests at the retreat was a 12x12 Layout contest with the them "A picture is worth 1000 words". All the entries were very good, so I was stunned when they called my name as the winner. To be completely honest - I thought my friend Christine would win. I really loved her layout. Hopefully she'll post it on her blog.

If you can't read the journaling, just click on the photo. It should open larger in a new window. Yes - Dave actually did the journalig for this page. I was struggling with what to write, and had asked for his help. After seeing all the letters I write to Sammie in her books, he thought it would be a great idea if he wrote a letter to her for these pages - since they are the focus of the pictures! My hubby is just great. =)

close up of page 1:

close up of page 2:
Next, as promised... here is the same book as yesterday (same paper cuts) only using the Stardust paper pack, Stardust My Stickease, and the new Flexi-Label stickers. I didn't realize the potential cuteness factor of this new paper kit until I started playing with it! I don't even have boys and I'm smitten with it! =)

(hmm...not sure what happened to page 10 - I'll have to add that later)

Here is the back cover.

I'm HOME!

I'm home from the fabulous retreat - and I can finally share my BIG news!

Last October, Jill from CTMH Corportate called and asked if I would be willing to design a mini album and then teach it at the Album Retreat!!!

Two of the main reasons I signed up to be a consultant were to create lovely things, and TEACH! So this was an incredible opportunity for me, and you can be sure there was no way I was turning it down!

I was sent this lovely paper packet "That's Amore" (that came out January 1st) and the 5x7 mini binder (which will be released May 1st) and told to create to my heart's content. The only guidelines were that the book needed to be a "10 things" book, and I needed to get 2 books worth of supplies from 1 paper pack. I did them one better - with a little extra cardstock you can get FOUR books from 1 paper packet. =)

It was so hard keeping this a secret for 3 months! But it was all worth it on Thursday night, when I went up in front of 300 women to fulfill my dream of teaching my largest class ever. It would have been nice to have an extra hour or two - as it really is a 4 hour project and we only had 2 hours. But it was so incredible to teach, and everyone was very kind - even though I had to rush them through the class.

I also designed a second book with the same format, but the Stardust papers. I'll post that one tomorrow!

So, without further ado - here it is!

The tag comes out of the pocket on this page:

This layout has a tag that pulls out from between the Tulip paper and the Colonial White paper.The heart on this page folds open to reveal journaling.

The corner of this page is also a pocket for a tag.

Busy, Busy...

I haven't posted much because it's Card Class week. I had my best attendance EVER this month with 20 people!!!

In addition to that I've been gearing up for the CTMH Consultant Album Retreat this weekend. I leave early Thursday morning and will be gone until late Saturday. So things may be quiet around here for a few days unless I really get on the ball and schedule a few posts. But, I wouldn't count on that happening. ;)

...HOWEVER, be sure to check back because I've got some BIG, exciting things to share. I'm sworn to secrecy until the weekend is over. Hehehe.... (that's a big clue that it is CTMH related - not adoption related, so you can all take a deep breath).

So, have a wonderful week/weekend everyone, and I'll be back soon!!!

I <3 Color

I had a custom moebius order last week, and the customer wanted BRIGHT, bold colors for her three scarves. It's hard to tell in this picture, but this first one is a lovely lime green and aqua turquoise blue. The lighting makes it look more green than blue. (You can see the true color in the background of the next picture)

This one was for her daughter: hot pink, tangerine, and little flecks of colored dots in yellow, turquoise and green.

This one was for her friend. I used my normal black yarn, and paired it with a decorative yarn with pink baubles (in various shades of pink).

Don'tcha just love color? It was a great knitting project to start out the year.

Speaking of knitting, I'm going to start a counter on the side of my blog for number of knitted projects I complete this year. I have a goal of 100! That's a project completed every 3-4 days!

Just for fun I'll post my creation stats from last year too. Wanna play along? Just keep track of the number of projects you complete this year. Include cards, scrapbook pages, digi pages, knitted/crocheted items, etc (anything you like). If you are so inclined, also include your GOAL for the year. Then post here so we can encourage each other in meeting our goals. (A Crafters New Year's Resolution of sorts.)

Another Digi Page

Here is another layout from the Jessica Sprague class - Up and Running with Photoshop. =) I'm really enjoying these classes and am learning a ton!

A digi page

For Christmas, I purchased a gift for myself - Jessica Sprague's 3 part series on digital scrapbooking. I feel like I currently know enough to get by, but not enough to do the cool things I see others do. And it just irritates me to not know what certain buttons in photoshop do. =)

I started the first class today. It's a self paced class, and I like the video tutorial format. Jessica has a calm and easy-to-listen to voice, and takes great care in explaining what she is teaching. So far it has been mostly review, but I'm excited to learn more as I delve into lesson 2, 3 an 4.

This is the bonus assignment for lesson 1. I love this digi kit that is included in the class. I can see so many uses for the papers and embellishments!

ps... my watermark is obviously not included on the final version of this page. After a few issues in the past, I've just decided to be smart and watermark all photos I post from now on.