Happy Sunday :)

     Howdy everyone! I just wanted to give you all a quick little update and an apology for not posting in a while. My family and I have had quite an adventurous couple months. Due to my health issues I am limited on my wifely duties, which a lot of people say I am lucky because I get out of doing the laundry, dishes, and cleaning. So that means my husband is way more than just the bread winner of the household... he is in every way the man of the house. He is the most amazing man and husband a woman could ever ask for. He cooks, cleans, does laundry, does all the major physical activities with our kids like go to the gym, and he still manages to do the "manly" things of the house like trash, lawn care, fixing broken things etc. Like I said, he is AMAZING and because of so many more reasons beyond that, he is my hero!
     So just imagine how much our world came to a complete stop when he had a freak accident. If I told you the story of what happened it would gross you out but it would make you laugh at the same time. Only my crazy family can take a tragedy and turn it into a comedic event. I will save you the horrific details and just say that because of the accident I have had to step up big time. I have had to really push myself to do things that my body and health otherwise tell me I can't do. To say it has been an extreme challenge not only for me but for my family is an understatement.
     My husband has a long road of recovery yet to go but things so far are going good. To him this accident is a walk in the park compared to when he had cancer in his 20's. To be honest even though this was a terrible accident it could have been much worse, so we truly feel God was watching over him that day and is still is because everything has gone right despite all that could have gone wrong.
     So to sum all this up in a nut shell, because I have had to be more physically active it has caused me to also be in a lot more pain which is why I haven't been able to be my crafty-self lately. Now that things are beginning to calm down a bit and my husband is starting to do a little more on his own it won't be long before I am back to my crafty-time. I have a ton of "Thank You" cards I need to make so I will be sharing those with you once I get them made, plus I will be working on my Thanksgiving and Christmas cards too. Something else I am wanting to do is to blog on a more regular basis so after the holidays my 2015 goal is to blog regularly and I would really love your opinion on which you would prefer... Would you prefer me to blog a couple times a month showcasing several projects at once or would you prefer me to blog once a week showcasing 1 project (occasionally 2) every week? Would you prefer I mix up the blog posts by one time showcasing a project, the next a technique, and then other show products? Let me know what you think either by leaving a comment or sending me a message. I really would love to make it onto the Design Team of my favorite crafting products so I greatly appreciate all your support and feedback because you help me to continually grow :) I wish you all a wonderful week and I will 'blog at ya' soon ;)

Some more creations for you :)

     Howdy everyone! Well it's been quite a busy couple weeks for me. I have a lot of health issues and a little over 2 months ago one of them decided to make an appearance and so I have been going to therapy several times a week. My daughter has been so wonderful in helping me since I basically have been stuck in a recliner for these past 2 months. She has been better than any nurse could have been and has even been helping me so that I could do my crafts in the recliner. Doing crafting from a recliner has been a challenge all in itself, lol!
     If that wasn't enough to deal with we lost 2 dear family friends and then my step dad was involved in a motorcycle accident. I am blessed to say that while we had some scary touch and go moments with my step dad he pulled through and was home in time for Father's Day. When they removed his ventilator he whispered to them that he wanted to go home. Well of course in the eyes of the doctors that was not going to happen, after all he was just on a ventilator. Knowing my step dad we knew exactly what he was going to do, he was going to prove them wrong, and he did just that. Being he fought and survived the Vietnam War, he was going to fight and survive this accident too. Not only did he do what doctors told him to do but he did even more and just 3 days after being on a ventilator he was released from the hospital. My step dad is one very stubborn man but his stubbornness in this case was a great thing to have :)
     The creations I share with you today reflect these events. The first 2 creations are two tags I made for my daughter to say a little thank you for all her help. Her big thank you came in the form of a increase in her allowance, lol! The third creation is a card that I made for our family friend. Her husband is one of our family friends that passed away. They had just celebrated their 50 year wedding anniversary and had renewed their vows. What a blessing it was that they were able to have that moment of celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary before he passed. The fourth creation is a treat box that I made for my step dad. He LOVES nuts so I filled it with his two most favorite, cashews and peanuts. He certainly loved his treat box especially after being on an IV diet for days ;)
     Since being stuck laid up due to my health I have had lots of time to learn how to do things. So one of the things I learned was how to link up some of the products I use. So now on some of them you will be able to click the name and it will take you to where the product is sold. That way if you want to learn more about the product or purchase it, then it will be easier for you to do. I as well learned how to ad tabs/pages to the top of my blog which you may have already noticed. In addition to crafting I love doing photography but most of my photographs are outdoors, so I thought I would also take this time to learn more about indoor photography. I learned that I needed to build a "mini" photo booth for my creations that way the pictures will come out better and brighter. So as I learn more you will start seeing the changes being applied to my blog. I am hoping these changes will make my blog easier for you to navigate and view, as well as for me to be caught up with times, lol!
     Now that I have filled you in on everything it's time to show you my creations :) I wish you a wonderful and blessed day! Until next time, Happy Crafting!

This is the first tag I made for my daughter. I used Core'dinations cardstock for the big flower. The flower insert, smaller flowers, leaves, and tag base were plain inexpensive cardstock I found at Walmart. The butterfly was colored using Spectrum Noir markers. The stamping inks were from Stampin' Up. From the Stephanie Barnard - The Stamps of Life I used the hot4balloons matching dies to create the flower petals & flower center, the sandal die set to create the mini flowers, the bubblegum4me & moregum4me stamp sets were used for the bubbles & sentiment, and the crazy4daisies stamp set was used for the leaves as well as a couple of the bubble centers. For the butterfly I used the die set from My Creative Time called the Pretty Butterflies & Dragonfly Dies

This is the second tag. I used Core'dinations cardstock for the big flower. The flower insert, smaller flowers, leaves, and tag base were plain inexpensive cardstock I found at Walmart. The butterfly was colored using Spectrum Noir markers. The stamping inks were from Stampin' Up. The rhinestones are from Studio G. I used the Stepanie Barnard - The Stamps of Life I used the sandal die set to create the mini flowers, the bubblegum4me & moregum4me stamp sets were used for the bubbles & sentiment, and the crazy4daisies stamp set was used for the leaves as well as a couple of the bubble centers. From My Creative Time I made the flowers using the Flower Petal Dies and for the butterfly I used the Pretty Butterflies & Dragonfly Dies

  This is the card I made for our family friend who lost her husband. The digi image is from Some Odd Girl Some Odd Girl it's called Grand Dance. (The wings are not part of the digi) I colored the digi to match the way my friend and her husband on the day they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and renewed their wedding vows. For this digi I was not worried about doing proper coloring, such as using light sourcing and blending. I knew none of that would matter to my friend because it would be the overall concept that would matter to her the most. For the wings I drew them on a frosted white velum then colored them a light blue. I made a halo in the silver glitter cardstock but in the end I chose not to add that. All the coloring was done with Spectrum Noir markers. The accenting of the cardstock pieces such as the silver trim around the front edging of the card was done with Momento inks. The plain white cardstock, the silver glitter paper, and the already made black card were purchased from Michael's. The other cardstock I used came from Core'dinations. I happened to win my Core'dinations card stock but I believe you can find it at most craft stores. Although it's hard to see from the picture, I did used some foam dots on the couple and the sentiment to raise them up a bit. For the clouds and the sun I used Stephanie Barnard - The Stamps of Life hot4balloons matching dies.
 

 This is the inside of the card. The concept for the poem came from a song called Dancing In The Sky by Dani and Lizzy but I took that song and put my own spin on it by adding lyrics to it and changing it around a bit. So if you hear that song you will see some similarities but I tried to change the majority of it to make it apply more to my friend. Once I had the wording then I just simply typed it and printed it out. I inked the edges Momento ink. I used the same clouds from the front of the card to decorate the inside. I didn't use any foam pop dots on the inside because I thought the adhesive I was using already gave it a little bit of a lift that I liked.

 This treat box design is from My Scrap Chick. It is called the Healing Heart Trio (This is an svg file so you need to have an electronic cutting machine and compatible software) I used various paper and cardstock that I had purchased from Michael's and Stampin' Up. I added some glitter trim to the edge but the next time I make this box I think I will skip the glitter. Don't get me wrong it still looked good, in fact much better in person, but I ended up liking it better without because I think it looked more like a band-aid without it. (I apologize for the one picture of the box being a little blurry. I didn't take pictures before I gave the box to my step dad so I had to have my mom take the pictures and send them to me)

(Disclaimer: Any supply links listed above are links solely being used as a guide to show you what those items are. Some links may come directly from the manufacturer while others may not. Unless otherwise stated all products were purchased with my own money and in no way am I affiliated with these links nor the businesses associated with them. Please use discretion should you choose to shop from the links listed above. Thank you)

THANK YOU Veterans & ALL Military!

         I know today is not Memorial Day but being from a military family myself, loosing a family member who was killed in Iraq and having many military friends, I just wanted to spread the word on how important it is that we honor our Veterans and Military everyday not just on Memorial Day. I've seen first hand how Vietnam, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the daily military life can be and there are no words to describe what this is like for the those who have served, those currently serving, and even for their families.This Memorial Weekend and each day forward, please take the time to thank each and every member of the military you cross paths with. It's just a few seconds of your time to shake their hand and say thank you. After all they have given way more than a few seconds of their time for us.... They have given a life long sacrifice! 
         I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU FILLED WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO ALL THE SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN!!!! My family and I will never forget all you have done, currently do, and will continue to do for us!!! THANK YOU!!!
        While I am posting today about our military, I know a lot of my fellow crafters have been busy making cards for Operation Write Home this past week and I wanted to say thank you for participating in an awesome cause. I am still working on mine so sorry it's not ready to show, but in the mean time before I wrap up this post, I might as well share with you a couple other cards I have made earlier this week :) I wish you all a safe and blessed Memorial Day!

        This is a card I made for a close friend of mine who is expecting a baby. For several reasons this is seriously a huge event that we have been flipping out over, more than the usual expectant pregnancies would have. So I decided to make an "Oh Baby I'm Flippin' Out!" card. Do you see my concept ;) I paired up Stephanie Barnard's The Stamps of Life flipflops2stamp/sandals4summer, sandal dies, and sampler2love along with some baby themed stamps I purchased from the Oriental Trading Company. (Just a heads up that while I loved the images, I was not that impressed with the stamp set from Oriental Trade Company as it did not stamp well and took me many tries just to get a fairly clean image). The banner die is from My Favorite Things Die-Namics Banner Greetings. For the base of the card I wanted to make my own flip style card using my own dies so I used a tutorial from brandyscards.com (if you would like to see the tutorial simply go to brandyscards.com and type in the word flip card in the search box). Then I used 2 embossing folders from Sizzix - an alphabet and a dot pattern, Spectrum Noir markers to color in the bottle, duck, pacifier, and onesie. Stamp inks came from Stampin' Up, rhinestones Studio G, and the paper is out of the Simply Delightful scrapbooking pad from My Mind's Eye. I as well made a matching envelope.

Front of the card

Inside of the card

Card and Matching Envelope

It was my mothers birthday and I had yet to try out this stamp and die set from The Stamps of Life by Stephanie Barnard. It's the pb&j2enjoy stampset and pb&j dies. So being that my mom is a wonderful cook, baker and dessert baker, I thought peanut butter and jelly was perfect for her. I also wanted to add balloons so I grabbed my favorite balloon die set from My Creative Time called the Stitched Party Dies. I love these dies because they have the stitched edging and the long squiggly balloon. I used a happy birthday embossing folder from Cricut to emboss the back front panel. The paper was from the scrapbook pad Simply Delightful from My Mind's Eye which matched the card stock from Stampin' Up perfectly. I used colors Crisp Cantalope, Raspberry Ripple, Baked Brown Sugar and Coastal Cabana along with standard black cardstock. The ink I used was Tuxedo Black Momento Ink. Then I used simple embossing thread for the balloon strings and a little holographic butterfly sticker from the dollar store. This was a simple, quick, and easy card that my mom loved!

Front of the card

Inside of the card

Guess Who's Back.... Back Again, LOL!

     Hello Everyone! I know it has been quite some time since my last post but things have been absolutely crazy!!! Since my last post we have had several holidays such as: April's Fools Day, Easter, Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Firefighter/Nurse/Teacher Appreciation Day and quite a few other holidays - so I hope you all had wonderful, blessed, and fantastic ones! 

     I had fantastic holidays all the way around, plus celebrated a ton of birthdays including my own, but sadly I also had a couple of deaths as well as memorials to deal with, which despite the unbelievable amount death I've experienced in my life, it never becomes bearable. 

     I was very blessed for my birthday this year as my kids and hubby had several surprises planned for me. They took me to a Brett Eldredge and Michael Ray concert, which they had also set up a "meet & greet" for me with Michael Ray :)  Then, while we were waiting for the concert to start, our local radio station called my name for a "meet & greet" with Brett Eldredge. I tried to keep my cool, but I think the grin on my face from ear to ear gave away any coolness I had, lol! So I was pretty stoked, but that wasn't all they had planned for me. The next day they took me to a local "BikeFest" which happened to have some of my favorite people from the Michael Ballard's Full Throttle Saloon, stunt performers Cory Dady and Joel Hickman, as well as Uncle Kracker. All of that alone blew me away not to mention made numerous things on my bucket list happen. Those types of things are a rare opportunity, so I am still in disbelief that I was blessed with so many all in one short weekend! 

      Since I have so many health issues, all of that awesomeness unfortunately caused me to be bed ridden for over a week, so for the day of my birthday party, "I was snug as a bug in a rug" tucked away in bed. So no birthday party took place in the end but I was perfectly o.k. with that, as I of course was not expecting anything else because after all, I had just been totally spoiled. Having such a wonderful husband and children, just when I thought they couldn't spoil me any more than they already had, the 3 of them come into my room carrying this huge box. Can you believe those little stinkers got me a Sizzix Eclips machine! I had already shed so many tears with all the surprises and blessings they had given to me that I thought my fountain was dry, but nope.... the fountain kicked on full force and the tears started streaming full force! 

      You just can't imagine what my heart felt receiving all those blessings! My birthday ends up getting treated like a normal day. Since I have so many medical bills, I usually make my husband and kids promise to not buy me anything because we spend more than enough on me as it is throughout the year with doctors appointments, tests, and medications so I usually just get a verbal "Happy Birthday". I can't imagine what I did to receive such wonderful and amazing blessings this year but I am savoring each one of them and thanking God every chance I get!!! 

       So, since my family got me this AMAZING cutting machine, I've been quite busy making all kinds of goodies, which I will be sharing some of them with you today :) This machine is literally so easy to use that I made these crafts right from my bed. How cool is that!!! 

      Another project I will be showing you today is I a storage unit for my ink pads. Making that was pretty intense and challenging to say the least. Just as I was feeling better from all the birthday craziness, the ink pad storage unit had other ideas and felt it should send me back to my bed... Apparently you can develop an allergy to cutting Styrofoam/foam board, so that came with a fun little reaction, just kidding! The allergy was actually quite awful! However, despite the allergy, I was pretty pleased with how the storage unit came out so I am thinking about building one for my markers. This time I am wearing goggles, a mask, and making it in a well ventilated area... outside ;) 

     Anyway, enough of my blabbing ;) Thank you so much for listening and letting me share my past couple months with you! Now, lets get on to showing you my creations. I hope you like them :) Have a blessed and wonderful weekend!!!!  P.S. A quick update on the Design Teams I applied for: Unfortunately, I was not picked this time, but I will try again upon the next open call. In the meantime I have been making creations with the intentions of entering them into certain challenges but then I am always a bit hesitant on entering once they are completed. So I ponder on it for a bit and then remember.... where's the fun in that :) So have decided to follow through... "go for the gusto".... and enter my Saturated Canary "Celebrate Your Day" card into the Spectrum Noir Challenge for May. Fingers crossed :)

For these 3 adorable bunny treat boxes I used the "Trio of Bunnies" - Bunny Box - svg file from My Scrap Chick. The "Trio of Bunnies" file actually comes with this bunny box, a card, and a tag but I only used the Bunny Box for this project. I cut them out using my Sizzix Eclips machine, to decorate them I added some sponging ink touches, pattern stamps, a bow on the girl from a My Creative Time die, and then before giving them to the kids, I filled them up with tons of Easter candy :)

I made this Easter card using the Framed Frills Easel Card svg file and the free Easter Cross file from My Scrap Chick. I cut the card, cross, and words using my Sizzix Eclips machine. I also found some cool stamps and ink to add a few little designs.

  My entry for the Spectrum Noir May Challange

The card above is the card I will be entering into the Spectrum Noir Challenge for May :) 
 I love this card!!! I made it for my mom for Mother's Day. For the base of the card I created a standup card by cutting pink cardstock 11" long by 5 1/2" wide, scored the length of the cardstock at 5 1/2, then folded (so at this point the card should be 5 1/2 by 5 1/2). Then on just the top portion of the card I scored it at 2 1/4 (this made the stand up portion). The beautiful girl is "Fancy"a digital stamp from Saturated Canary. I colored her with Spectrum Noir markers. I used Sizzix dies for the swirls, and the background shapes. I used some embossing folders to emboss the shapes, I made flowers out of pink, lavender, and Stampin Up coastal cabana cardstock. The larger flowers are the Die-namics Hybrid Camellia flower dies from My Favorite Things, the corners dies are the Die-namics Four Corners dies, and the small flowers are the Rolled Flower dies from My Creative Time and the banner is the Stitched Party Dies from My Creative Time as well. The sentiment came from the Celebrate Big stamps set from My Favorite Things. (The word mommy was just handwritten by me with a lavender sharp tipped marker). Lastly I blinged it out with the Stampin Up clear rhinestones and Studio G lavender rhinestones.

This is the ink pad holder I made using foam board. It cost me less than $5 to make this ink pad storage and I so much foam board left that I will be making marker storage. I purchased the foam board at Walmart as I found it was the least expensive price for the size. The size I got was about 4 feet by 4 feet (because some pieces were a little bigger than others), they were 1/4 inch thick at least and the cost was under $1 per piece. There are only a couple areas that needed to be secured which you could use a hot glue gun, liquid craft glue, contact paper or even tape.

Birthday card I made using the Cake Easel Card svg file from My Scrap Chick. I cut this file with my Sizzix Eclipse machine. This file included all the pieces I needed, the only thing I had to add was the name "Dylan" which I was able to cut with the letters provided on my Sizzix Eclips eCal Software.

Card closed 

This is one of the sympathy cards I made. To make this card I acutally used some left over paper I had. For the butterflies I used the Die-namics MPD Fancy Butterflies from My Favorite Things as well as used the Clearly Sentimental About Sympathy clear stamp set from My Favorite Things. (Outside of card - card closed)

(Inside Card)

Here they are.. My Some Odd Girl Design Team Submissions

Here they are! Three of my designs that I submitted for my Some Odd Girl Design Team application.

For this one I used the Sock Hop stamp set from My Style Stamps which can be found here www.mystylestamps.com and colored her in with Spectrum Noir markers. I then took black card stock and die cut out random hearts with a heart from the My Creative Time Stitched Sweethearts & XOXO Dies. I found a single sheet of pink and white animal print paper and cut it down to fit behind the open die cut hearts. I stamped a sentiment and music notes from the same stamp set inside one of the hearts with black ink. I found an old piece of matching solid fushia colored paper and embossed it with music notes from an embossing folder from The Paper Studio. Lastly, I added attached my gal with some foam dots and then finished the card by adding some enamel dots that I made. (I will be adding a tutorial soon on how I made these enamel dots by melting mini pony beads)

For my second card I used the adorable Some Odd Girl clear stamp sets Preppy Pups and Clever which can be found here www.someoddgirl.com I colored them using my Spectrum Noir markers. My base card stock is Crisp Cantaloupe from Stampin Up and the back ground card stock is some old scrap card stock I had. I felt it needed to be jazzed up so I used some clear liquid glue to make some strips and sprinkles some white iridescent over the glue. Viola, I had a blinged background :) I then took three colors of string from my daughters friendship bracelet stash and wrapped it at the bottom in a straight line. I also wanted it to look like the kitty made a mess of the string so I made little balls to look like yarn and glued some of it loosely on the card even wrapping it around the kitty. As I was laying it down I got an idea to form a heart into it as well. To finish it off I stamped some sentiments from the set onto some scrap card stock, I took some Stampin Up ink pad colors that matched to trim the edges of my sentiment bubbles by rolling the edges around the ink pad, added some plastic bows to the kitten and puppy, and also added some rhinestones to give the puppy a diamond color :) Oh, and I popped up the puppy, kitten, and sentiment bubbles with foam dots.

For my last card I used this beautiful clear stamp set from Some Odd Girl called First Dance Mae which can be found here at  www.someoddgirl.com  Again I colored them using Spectrum Noir markers. I used black card stock for the base and background behind the couple. I also used Coastal Cabana card stock from Stampin Up to attach to the top of the black card stock. I embossed the Coastal Cabana card stock and black center card stock with embossing folders from Sizzix. The flowers came from Michael's Crafts that I found in their dollar bin. The sentiment came from a My Favorite Things stamp set (sad to say they no longer make this stamp set). I stamped the sentiment onto a mint colored vellum using Versa Mark then I sprinkled black detailed embossing powder and heat set it. I hand cut the vellum into a banner shape.To make my trim at the bottom of the card just behind the banner, I found some matching ribbon and attached it to some strips I cut from some black card stock. Lastly I used foam dots to pop up my couple, I added oval enamel dots that I made, and using glue dots I positioned the vellum banner to make it appear as though it was raised off the card.

This is the inside of the card. The corners I made using the My Favorite Things "Four Corners" Die-Namics, The first sentiment is from the Stampin' Up "See You Later" set, all of the remaining sentiments (except for celebrate) are from the My Creative Time "Chocolate Greetings" set, the hearts are from My Creative Time "Stitched Sweetheart & XOXO Dies" set, envelope came from My Creative Time as well - It's called the "Mini Stitched Envelope Die" and lastly the celebrate sentiment as well as the wine glasses came from Oriental Trading Company "Celebrate" clear stamp set. The black ink was Momento "Tuxedo Black", the teal ink is from Studio G, and the silver is actually Smooch Pearl Accents.

Some exciting stuff has been happening!!!

          Hello everyone! I haven't forgot about you all! Things have been pretty crazy but crazy in a GREAT way! My hubby and I celebrated our anniversary and he was so good to me this year! He bought me a crafting desk so I have been busy setting everything up. I didn't realize though how much work would go into arranging everything.
          I also have been working on some projects for my application to the Some Odd Girl Design Team and I actually just officially submitted it this morning. I am saying a ton of prayers, crossing my fingers, my toes and anything else that can be crossed ;) I have applied for some other Design Teams before but I REALLY want to be a part of this one, so it has been super nerve racking but that excited type of nerve racking. You know the kind of feeling you get right before you go on a carnival ride or roller coaster :)
          I love everything about the Some Odd Girl clear stamps and digital stamps. Kristy (the owner) creates the most adorable designs!! If you haven't checked them out before, you should! There is also a Some Odd Girl blog, Facebook page, Pinterest, and so much more. Kristy even does Color Along's which are awesome! Here is the link to the Some Odd Girl homepage www.someoddgirl.com. You will be able to find all the other links on there as well plus you can shop all the fantastic clear and digital stamps. Also be sure to visit the Some Odd Girl Facebook page. It is such a wonderful community of people sharing ideas, projects, and more. 
          Speaking of sharing, I will be sharing the projects I submitted for Design Team application with you in the next day or two, as I am keeping them a bit secretive until the application deadline is over. So stay tuned. Well that's all for now. I will be back with those projects and I will also share some pictures of my craft table and area once all the final touches are done :) I am also still busy working on my dad's case that I shared with you all in one of my earlier blog posts. (It still has a long way to go though) Have a wonderful and blessed Sunday!

My Beautiful Mermaid/Fantasy Fish Tag

YAY ME, I finally got some alcohol markers! I got Spectrum Noir and they colored wonderfully for me! So to show off my new markers I wanted to share my beautiful mermaid tag that I made with two challenges in mind. I have not decided for sure if I will enter the challenges as I've never entered one before, but in case I do I wanted to make my project work for either of them. The first challenge is for the Spectrum Noir January 2014 Animals/Critters Challenge, which to me mermaids are a form of fish. They live in water, have fins, a tail, and scales therefore they are an animal/critter. The other challenge is for Some Odd Girl January Tag Challenge, which you needed to used a tag someway in your project. I also wanted to add some of my of my other favorite goodies that I got for Christmas so in addition to Some Odd Girl and Spectrum Noir, I used items from My Creative Time, My Favorite Things, Stephanie Barnard and Sizzix. All in all I was pretty amazed with how I did on coloring this ADORABLE Some Odd Girl mermaid for it being my very first time coloring with alcohol markers. I was so nervous before I started using the markers but I actually ended up having so much fun and nervous nelly went away within seconds. I have to give all the credit to the amazingly talented ladies on the Some Odd Girl Design Team and the Mrs. Some Odd Girl herself, Kristy, because they have done some spectacular tutorials and they were so gracious answering all the gazillion of questions I have had about coloring with these type of markers. I will list the colors of the Spectrum Noir alcohol markers I used just above my picture. Here are all the other products I used: The mermaid is from the Some Odd Girl Clear Stamp Set called "Under the Sea Mae". The swirls are from the Stephanie Barnard/The Stamps of Life/Sizzix Framelits Die Set w/Stamps called "Swirls". The tab, bow and two of the flowers are from My Creative Time. The bow is called the "Fun Size Scallop Stitched Bow Tie", the tag is the "Stitched Circle Tab Die" and the flowers are the 'Rolled Flower Dies". The other flower is called the "Hybrid Camellia Flower" from My Favorite Things Die-namics. (on this flower though I only used part of it which was the "rolled" flower. Lastly I used Sizzix embossing folders from the Textured Impressions "Summer Set". I added miscellaneous accents like rhinestones, glitter, ribbon and Smooch Pearl Accent liners to make some pearly swirls in her tail which the camera didn't pick up. What do you think?? Doesn't Mermaid Mae look just gorgeous!!! I must say I am quite in awe of myself at this moment, LOL! Just kidding... but for all you newbies out there like me, DON'T EVER GIVE UP because you WILL be just as amazing as those who have been doing crafting for years! I wasn't confident in myself at first but once this project was all done, I couldn't believe how fantastic it turned out! If you haven't already, please go check out these and all the other amazing products offered from these terrific companies and don't forget to check out my other favorites. All the links can be found on the right side of my blog under the heading "My Favorite Sites". Thank you so much for stopping by my blog! I greatly appreciate all of your support and kindness!

Spectrum Noir Marker colors: For skin - FS2, FS3 For lips - PP1 Hair - GB8, GB10, EB5, EB8 Eye Color - TB3, TB6 Eye Dazzle - LV3 (and the same glitter I used for tail and fins), Tail/Fins - you LV3, LV2, LV1, PL4, BT1, BT2, BT7 Torso - you BT1, BT2

 www.someoddgirl.com

(Disclaimer: Any supply links listed above are links solely being used as a guide to show you what those items are. Some links may come directly from the manufacturer while others may not. Unless otherwise stated all products were purchased with my own money and in no way am I affiliated with these links nor the businesses associated with them. Please use discretion should you choose to shop from the links listed above. Thank you)

One of my newest projects

Hi Everyone! Now that the holidays are over and I have been dealing with so much over the past couple of months, I decided it was time to get back to my safe place of crafting. I call it my safe place because that is where I can go to relax, create, and just let my mind be free. So while this newest project of mine is very sentimental and gets me emotional every time I work on it, I just knew this was the place my mind needed to be. So I wanted to share this newest project with you. It's a work in progress, but this project is totally worth all the time it will get because it is very dear to my heart, as it belonged to my dad. My dad is a Heavenly Angel now but back in his younger days when he was an Earthly Angel he had many talents, one of them was being a barber. This was his very first barber case that he received when he was in barber school. This case is over 50 years old, as he had it about 40 years and I have had it for over 10. So it's very old and has seen many days, but it's a very lucky case because it's getting a makeover from me :) I struggled a lot on whether or not I should do this as there is so much I can remember about my dad and my childhood all from this case. But since I have all of the original contents such as his scissors, clippers, cape, duster brush, etc I realized that those are what I remember the most. Those are what "make the case" and so by changing the material of the case doesn't mean I am changing the memories. After all of the tools will be going right back into it so in essence so are the memories. For privacy I have blocked out the areas that had his name engraved and I also blocked out another area where he had signed his name. I wanted to remember his signature, which he had signed on the inside of the case, so you will see there is an area that I have cut my paper around. To preserve his signature I put a clear laminate plastic layer over it. I chose papers that I thought would match the brown wood and outside brown covering. I loved the paper that has the sayings!! Every single one of the sayings means something to me so that was a must paper choice for this project. The papers and my over all concept were also to combined a bit of his masculinity along with a bit of my girlishness. I am not worrying to much about certain area seams as I am going to be covering them up with somethings that I want to include. I will be adding a collage of things that remind me of him and yet again combined some things of me, after all he's a big part of the woman I have become. Plus one day this will be passed down to my children and this way they will see that combination of the two of us. I have a ways to go yet on this case to make it just the way I want so I will keep you posted on the journey and final outcome :)

Outside of the case which I am leaving as is for now. I will just cleaned it up. I may decide to color the metal hinges at some point though as I would love to see a rustic hinge look in a gold or copper tone. (The two lighter brown stripes are just in the picture as that is where his name is engraved. I blocked it out for privacy)

This is the top inside of the case before it got overhauled, lol! (On the top left, that is where his signature is, which again for privacy I blocked it out)

Bottom inside of case - before

Bottom inside at mid-makeover status

Inside top at mid-makeover status (The top left again is his signature which-blocked out for privacy-but that is where I took and covered it with a thick clear laminate sheet to protect it so I will always be able to see his actual signature)