January SFYTT ~

Hello again!  I alluded to another resolution for 2012 the other day, and I’m here today to tell you what it is!  How exciting!  {snort} 
I’m a huge fan of sketches, they take most of the guess work out of card making for me.  One of my all time favorites is the monthly Sketch For You To Try over at i{heart}2stamp.  So my resolution is to make two cards a month with the sketch.  One can be whatever and one has to be a Christmas card.  I really enjoyed being on the Christmas Stampin’ All Year Long team last year because I was so well prepared for the holidays – well, that and I got to be on a team with a bunch of other fabulous ladies!  I want to be at least minimally prepared for the holidays this year, so I’m forcing my own little challenge!  Anywho, yesterday I sat down and colored up two images to use with the sketch.  Now all I have to do is make the Christmas one into a card, photograph it and blog it!  lol

Say hello to 60’s Willow from Tickled Pink Stamps.  Isn't’ she darling?!?  I chose some papers from the {new to me} My Minds Eye Lime Twist Life of the Party line for my color scheme.  The base is Cool Caribbean – I had to cut up my last full sheet!   :(  I added a cute little flower tag with ‘eat cake’ to make it more like a birthday card since the inside is stamped with a large HB sentiment.  
Thanks so much for stopping by!  Hope you’re having a great week!  :o) lyss
CHALLENGES:
SFYTT: January
Crazy 4 Challenges #120: Kid’s bday (I’d give this to a pre-teen girl…she’d think it was peachy keen, jelly bean!)
Let’s Ink It Up #19: Anything Goes
Tickled Pink Stamps #52: Something new (papers)

Map to your Heart Challenge ~

Hey there!  Have you seen the Map to your Heart challenge on the Moxie Fab blog?  I love maps!  I don’t know what it is about them, but I just love ‘em!  I’m posting a project that I made 8 and a half years ago.  I had hoped to re-vamp the project now that I know a bit more about craftiness; however, in my newbie tenacity, I used a hot glue gun to adhere everything down – including the pictures! lol

I was in my college roommate’s wedding in Bend, Oregon in 2003, so the {now} hubby and I decided to make a motorcycle trip of it!  We rode over 3500 miles on a Harley through sunshine, wind, driving rain, snow, sleet, you name it, we rode through it!  We rode up to Bend then continued out to the Pacific Coast and followed it on down to San Francisco having many an adventure along the way.  I used our road atlas to make a shadow box keeper of our trip.  {I apologize in advance for the uber bad pictures!  It’s hard to photograph a glass fronted frame without glare and equipment}

   This is an 11x14 shadow box that I got at a big box store with a 40% off coupon – always the bargain shopper!  I used a spray adhesive on the back piece and covered it with sand.  I wish I would have matted the pictures, but I didn’t have any craft stash at the time, including any paper.  This is even before a digital camera!  lol  There are shells, driftwood, sea glass and small rocks that we picked up along the way.  The starfish is not the one I’m holding in the bottom pic – that was a dead starfish we found and were going to try to dry out but it turned into a very smelly underground parking garage in San Fran and ended up in a trash bin!

I highlighted our travel route on the map and then distressed it with hot tea and coffee, crushing it up to wrinkle it and give it more texture.  Unfortunately, the route was kind of lost in the process, but when I tried highlighting it again, it just looked too bold and fluorescent.  One of the funny things to note in this pic is the dimension of the photos.  Like I said, I didn’t have any crafty supplies at the time, so I used some broken bits of tile we had left over from tiling our kitchen and bathrooms to pop them up!  lol  So that upper portion is Oregon and here’s California

Again, sorry for the crummy photos, I had to turn the flash off which turned into blur city!  This is a project that still hangs in our downstairs bathroom and gets a lot of comments.  It was so fun to make.  I’m totally intrigued to make a photo mat from some of our Europe vacation maps – I think that’s such a cool idea!  I also love those map lampshades – such a fun way to recycle the maps we get and have a little memento around the home.

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Have a super day!  ;o) lyss 

Lenten Rose ~

Hello!  How are you all doing?  Geez, it’s been quiet on this old blog.  I can’t seem to get the want/need up to post here.  I’ve been creating some things for submission to the Paper Crafts Stamp It! Cards Volume 9 call, so I don’t have much that I can post. 
One of my crafty resolutions this year is to focus on submitting and selling my cards more.  I have soooooo many cards just hanging around my craft room – it’s ridiculous!  So hopefully I’ll be setting up my little acs paper creations store blog pretty soon.  It’s been a blog site for ??? how long!  It’s time to finally bite the bullet and sell some of these cards {crossing fingers!}.   I’ll tell you about another crafty resolution if I actually get a card done for it.  What about you?  What are your crafty resolutions for 2012?
Ok, so back to the real reason for this post…my mother-in-law has a birthday coming up in a few days.  I would like to be a bit more prepared for events in the coming year…we’ll see how that turns out, as it is always a resolution of mine…so I started on this around the 1st of the month!  lol  Ever since I saw this card on Leslie Miller’s blog, I’ve wanted to re-create it.  It’s just so beautiful!  With mojo lacking, I went ahead and gave mine a go.  This is Lenten Rose by Flourishes.  I chose to color with Copics since my fave thing to color is flowers and water coloring with distress inks just isn’t my forte! ;o)

To shadow around the image, I had used E41 and E42.  When I went to sponge Antique Linen ink around the edges because the rest of the card was all too white, I found that the colors did not go at all!  Aack!  So I had to color a thick line of E42 around the entire edge and the cut out edge in the center and then blend it in with E41, as well as soften the edges of everything with the colorless blender.  While the crisis was diverted in the long term, I wish it were a bit smoother looking.  A sweet little silk bow, some Copic colored pearls and some clear star Sakura sparkle pen in the flowers finish this off!  Hope she loves it!  Thanks for stopping by ;o) lyss

Challenges:
 The Pink Elephant #131: favorite colors (warm shades of red)
 Papertake Weekly: Buttons, Bows, Bling & Blooms  (all but the buttons)
 Let’s Ink It Up #19: Anything Goes

Nothing but Happiness ~

Hey there, hi there, ho there!  I don’t have much time here, but while the hubby is watching the final minutes of the Broncos/Steelers game, I’m going to post this little card I made this afternoon.  My friend just got engaged before Christmas.  I’m so very happy for her because she went through hell with her last husband (a$$hole!).  I thought I’d make her a little card today when I saw this super fun new Mojo Monday sketch.  It’s #222 – I can’t believe Julee has been posting sketches for this long!  How does she come up with all the ideas and layouts??

I adore this sentiment from Verve’s Blessings set!  It’s absolutely perfect for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, you name it!  I altered the sketch a bit for a square card and used some fun paper flowers I got at my LSS.  So easy with minimal stamping and get this…NO coloring!  Aack!  lol  Hope you are all having a wonderful day!! :) lyss

Fireman Birthday ~

Hiya friends!  How are you all doing?  I thought I’d bop in here and share a cute little birthday card. 

Zane started preschool two days a week this past fall and has had so much fun!  His little personality has changed so much, and he’s made a few friends.  That makes me so happy – I was worried since he’s been home with his parents and his grandma that he’d be a bit of a loner.  No worries on that though!  Z was invited to a birthday party, so I just had to make a card ;o) He had his party at the fire station and then went back to his house for cake and play.  I pounced on the fireman theme and pulled out some Pink Cat Studio stamps that I bought when I was pregnant (4+ years ago).  This is Dress Up Billy.  I just knew that this little set would come in handy for so many things!

I used an old Sketch For You To Try – once I find a good layout, I’ll keep coming back to it!  Plus, I was in a time pinch and just needed to knock his card out quickly.  The papers are from the My Mind’s Eye collection Lime Twist Out of the Blue.  His boots look a little sparkly in the card picture, but they’re not sparkly, just glossy.  I covered them with a glaze pen after they were colored. The fireman accessory with this stamp set is an axe, but the mom is totally against weapons and I didn’t want to possibly offend her in any way, so I left it off.

When I ordered from PTI last month, I ordered the Friends til the End dies but received the alphabet dies.  I decided to keep it rather than go through the hassle of returning it.  Apparently, PTI has been having some customer service issues.  Since I had this wonderful die, I just had to personalize the card! lol

    

All righty!  Here’s a couple challenges I’m entering with this one:

The Pink Elephant #129: Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes

Paper Sundaes #101: Something Old (stamp set) & Something New (Alphabet die)

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a super day!  :) lyss