I know It's Only Rock and Roll

Hey we have a winner from our Toadally Frogs Blog Hop!

Congrats to Doverdi who said
Toadily cute tissue holder. Thanks for the great tutorial too!

April 24, 2011 3:47 AM

 I will contact Dustin Pike to arrange for your credit to Doodle Dragon Studios!
Thanks to everyone who blog hopped with us this weekend. I appreciate all your wonderful comments and I appreciate you all for taking some time out from a busy holiday weekend to hop along with me!
I hope you will join me in May for Karelj's flower blog hop. I am hoping to design something fun for this!

Speaking of fun, how about a Kenny K card? I know I have said it before, but I LOVE these stamps!  I am surrounded by guitar players, so when I spotted this digi, I had to have him. I am lucky that I have a teenage nephew who actually enjoys my cards, so I knew right away who I would make a card for. When I gave it to him, he put it on his dresser and his Mom tells me he still has it there! I feel so loved!
I used some old DCWV Rock paper for the base of the card and We R Memory Keepers Teenage Angst for the design. I had some funky bling left in my stash from Halloween, so I used one of the goth crosses on the sentiment. I kept it simple. I colored the Rock Dude with copics, but unfortunately, my clean up crew (aka: son) came along and put them away for me before I could make a list for the post. He should be so obsessive with his hot wheels!
                                                     Here's a close up of the Rock Dude

I love his telecaster guitar! It's hard to see in the picture, but I added some Diamond Glaze on his tongue and teeth. It looks hysterical! I tried to make him look grungy. My shading is getting better, but I need to focus on grounding my images. I usually fussy cut my images, so I haven't given too much thought to learning to ground them. I need to think more about it because he looks like he's standing on a pile of dirt! LOL! If anyone has some hints on grounding, I'd love to hear them! Almost 2 years of coloring with Copics, and I still have so much more to learn!
Thanks for stopping by the blog today! I hope everyone had a wonderful, blessed Easter and was surrounded by love!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Welcome to the Toadally Frog Blog Hop!

Got A Frog In Your Throat?

Sneezing due to colds or allergies? Maybe you can use a tissue?

Welcome to the Toadally Frogs Blog Hop! We have "Toadally" amazing crafters hopping along and we are out to prove that Frogs can hop on Easter, too! You should have come from the very creative  Patti's blog.  Isn't her project "Toadally" awesome? Did you just happen to stop by my blog today? Why not go back to Karelj's blog to hippity hop from the beginning? You will "Toadally be hoppy" you did!

Today for our Toadally Frog Blog Hop, I have a fun project that is a perfect little just because gift for a friend, teacher, family member, or maybe even yourself! I really enjoyed the tissue box cover that I made for my Father-in-law's girlfriend, and I started thinking that it would be fun if I could make a smaller version for a desk or nightstand. I did an Internet search and found a nice tutorial on making a mini tissue box cover here,  I thought that would be perfect on an easel card! So I set to work.

                                                       

I used the same size paper as used in the tutorial, a 4.5 x 8.5 piece of cardstock, and scored it at 2, 3, 5.25 and 6.25 inches. I used a piece of scrap paper and drew some lines to show where you would score the paper for the purpose of this post. I used my MS scor board to make this project because my Scor Board doesn't have the quarter measurements.

I used a small nestability to cut the opening to dispense the tissues. The tutorial is a little more involved, but since I was planning on adhering it to the card, I went very basic on my tissue box. The tutorial gives extra instruction for adding a border on the tissue holder. I really liked how my paper looked on the card, so I skipped that part.

Tape or glue the bottom of the box together.

Easel card 

Then I made the easel card. I followed the basic instructions at Splitcoast Stampers but I made my card 5.5 inches. I scored it at 5.5 x 8.25, and used a 5.5 x 5.5  square for the base.

Once I taped the square on it looked like this

I used some craft cardstock for the easel base of my card. Once the base was done, I got to have some fun decorating it. I used a Dustin Pike monthly stamp from the March collection. I was surprised at how many Froggy digi stamps I have. I never even looked in my rubber or acrylic stamps for a frog. I love this frog! I colored him with Copics G0000, 05, 07, 14, 16, 17, 21,  for the frog and E23, 34, and 47 for his sign's handle. I used my computer to print out Gesundheit on green cardstock, inked the edges and paper pieced it to the stamp. How about a close up?

 I was going to use "Bless You" on his sign, but I thought Gesundheit was more whimsical. And really, isn't this a whimsical frog? He's "Toadally" cute and wishing you good health!

I used We R Memory Keepers Papers for the background on the card and I inked the edges with some distress inks. The papers I used are from the Hippity Hoppity Collection. This collection has some really fun papers with it! The paper for the scallop and the tissue holder are from K&Company's Berry Sweet Collection. If you have been following my posts of late, you know I am trying to finish out a full stack of paper while on my paper ban, and Berry Sweet was the stack I chose to use. I am down to 3 pages left! Woo-hoo! I found a left over butterfly on my craft table so I added it to the tissue box. I used my I-Rock to adhere some Jolee's hot fix crystals and a bow. See that bow, shh, don't tell my hubby I told you this, but HE made that bow! Really, he did! I have had a bow easy hanging on my clip it up for over a year, I never used it. Nope, not once. In my effort to use my papers, I realized I have slew of tools I have never used either. This is one of them. So I removed it from it's clip and set out to use it, after all, I must have really needed it, right? I found a video on You Tube and after 6 tries, called my hubby in just to see if it was the tool or the mechanic. My experiment proved that it was.....THE MECHANIC! Yep, he had a bow on his 3rd try, and he's left-handed! He then tried to get me to promise to NEVER admit to a soul that he made a bow, I laughed and said I going to use it on the card and was going to tell everyone! So his secret is out, he can use a Bow Easy, and I can't! It's fabulous bow, isn't

it?

                                                         Here is a side view of the card.

   

                                                        

The easel makes it easy to fold down for mailing. I am mailing mine to a girlfriend that has been under the weather lately. I hope it will cheer her up. Here's one last picture for you.

How about some blog candy? Since I used a Dustin Pike's image for the project, I am giving a $10.00 credit to  Doodle Dragon Studios so you can try some of Dustin's digis for yourself, what's even better is that there is a big sale going on now, so that will get you ALOT of digis! Leave me a comment and I will choose a winner Monday. Don't forget to leave me a way to reach you!

Thanks for stopping by the Toadally Frog Blog Hop today! Your next stop will be Janice at Cricut Confessions. Wait until you see her beautiful blog! I know you find her project for this hop absolutely "ribbeting"! It's spellbinding!

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Kraftin' Kimmie Challenge #72 It's a Stripey Kinda Day!

Hi friends and fellow crafters! Thanks for stopping by the blog today because I have a crafty confession. I have a problem with stripes. I have paper stacks with tons of striped papers that sit unused on my shelves. I don't know what my aversion is to stripes, but you will rarely see them on anything I create. I have used them to cut letters on occasion, but mostly, they catch dust in the craft room. This brings me to my challenge entry for Kraftin' Kimmie this week. I was horrified to see that Stripes were the order of the week. I was considering skipping the challenge, but there's a reason why they are called challenges, right? This is a great challenge for me. I am still on my self imposed paper ban and I have been challenging myself to finish a full pack of paper before the end of April. The pack I chose to finish is my K&Company Berry Sweet collection. I am down to about 7 sheets of paper, so I reached for the striped pattern paper, got my stamps and went to work.
I wanted to try something new, so I went to Splitcoast Stampers and found a Tissue Box Tutorial. ENABLER ALERT!!!! If you have the chance, stop by the tissue box gallery and see some of the amazing creations there! I am warning you, there are some fantastic stamps used on the boxes! I saw quite a few that are on my wish list!
OK, back to the post. The box was super easy to make. I used a piece of Stampin' Up Raspberry Cardstock I ordered a couple of years ago for the lid. It works well with the striped paper, don't you think? I embossed panels for the top of the lid with a cuttlebug edge flower folder. I used a Martha Stewart Punch to create the scallop edge. I used a piece of yellow cardstock, a cuttlebug swirly embossing folder, and a nestability to make the top panel. I added just a little bit of ink on it to distress the edges. Once the box was done, I went to work on the images.
I could have called this post "A Tale Of Two Berries" Stella Strawberry is making a second appearance on the blog.  I discovered Kraftin' Kimmie because one of her stamps was the same name as my Mom. I have a thing about that, :-) and I picked up Stella Strawberry to make something for my Father in Law's girlfriend. I bet you can't guess what her name is? The first time I colored her, I went with soft pale colors. This time I wanted to use deeper colors. I got the idea from here, there are several finished cards to inspire you. I chose the card done by Elaine Hughes for my color inspiration. She is becoming my "go to" copic artist for ideas and tutorials.

I used the sentiment and extra stamp on the next side of the box. I cut two scalloped ovals with my nestabilities, stamped the sentiment with Stampin' Up raspberry ink, outlined the image with a Copic glitter pen (Atyou Spica) and added the little strawberry, here's how it looks.

So with half a box done, I decided to use another stamp from the same collection. This is Lily Lemon

I think she's a perfect match for Stella Strawberry. I decided to go with RV's and R's for her. I can also see her in yellow with pink lemons, too, so I know she'll be here again!



 I repeated the same design on this sentiment side of the tissue box

Now you see how it's a little crooked? That is because I had some help from my son who so kindly placed it on the box when I stepped away from the craft table for a moment. It's only on with pop dots, so I could have reset it, but I decided to leave it as it was. I figured she would enjoy Dan's take on it, plus it does suit the sentiment, doesn't it?

I was going to add my usual frills and embellishments to the sides, but my hubby talked me out of it. He really liked the clean and simple look. It was another challenge for me, just leave it alone! So all in all, I think I did OK with this challenge, I used stripes, I changed up my coloring, I kept it simple, and I used the paper on hand!

Maybe I'll go see what other striped paper I have hanging around now!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen

Shine A Light On Autism

Shine a light on Autism

Today, on the 4th Annual World Autism Awareness Day. Prominent buildings across North America and the world — including the Empire State Building in New York City and the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada  will turn their lights blue to raise awareness for autism and to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day.
To see a wonderful slide show with amazing photos in blue go  here. The pictures are stunning. I love the Empire State Building, but I think  Christ the Redeemer is my favorite. It is truly majestic bathed in blue.
Light It Up Blue is aiming to light the world blue all throughout April — city by city, town by town — by taking action to raise autism awareness in our communities. So help us, LIGHT it up BLUE this month!

Dan in blue

 April is Autism Awareness Month. I remember back when we first started the drive for Autism Awareness. The month was March, and the color was green. I had hundreds of green ribbons made up with the words Autism Awareness. I think it was around 1994. Danny was just diagnosed a year or so before. I passed them out to friends, family, teachers, strangers, anyone who asked about them. We were so proud of ourselves because we got the Mayor of our city to declare March as Autism Awareness Month. Today, the President issues proclamations on World Autism Day.
The stats were 1 in 10,000. Today, the stats are 1 in 100. 1 in 100, wow, the numbers are staggering. If you don't already know somebody with Autism, you will. They say better diagnosis is the cause for the incredible rise in the numbers. I don't know if I believe that. I will never know why Dan went from talking, imitating and socializing to his world of Autism. I have my theories, my friends and family know what I believe caused it, but today, that is neither here nor there. Dan is Autistic. We are the parents of a child with Autism. It was such a scary prospect 17 years ago. What were we going to do? How were we going to handle this, emotionally and financially? What would happen in the future? It is now 17 years later and we have survived, we are even stronger. Dan still can't speak, but we are his voice. I know what he wants, I know what he needs. I can look at him and know how he's feeling. That all works for me. Our marriage has survived, and we are still in love. We are still friends. We are a better family than I thought we could ever be. So whatever those fears were 17 years ago, we are still going strong.
One way I have of dealing with some of the stress involved with our day to day lives is through crafting. I picked up a set of adorable digi stamps from Dustin Pike about 6 months ago. I decided to break them out and make a simple card today.

I used my circut to cut 4 puzzle pieces from Don Juan. I printed out the dragon and colored him with copics. I used two flowers and a button from Bo Bunny's Abbey Road collection for a little embellishment. I plan on making a few more projects this month using some of the other stamps from Dustin Pike, so I hope you will stop back soon!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen