Thursday, September 30, 2010

A Haunted House Card

So as promised, a day late..but that's besides the point. I have another Halloween card for you.
This one I was really excited about. I completely cased it from a tutorial that Dawn at Dawn's Stamping Studio did. You can see it here. And for a first attempt I don't think it's too bad.

The background is "watercolored" and the house image is embossed. I have big plans for this technique. The possibilities are endless..but probably most of them will involve this house. I love love love Halloween. It is most definitely my favorite holiday.

You can see the house a little better here. Since the watercolor paper is textured it's difficult to get a good transfer when yous stamp on it. In Dawn's video she gives a good idea to help with this, which I tried..but I think I have a better idea and next time I'll try it and see if it works better. This card was a ton of fun and I can't wait to get some more colors to "watercolor" with.

Today is my Friday, and that means 3 day weekend. Tomorrow night we're going to a Ray-Pec football game to see my sister in the band. Hopefully we get to the park a few days, and hopefully I can scrap scrap scrap.

Hope everyone has a good rest of the week.

Jessica

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Broken Glass Halloween Card

Today was my day off after working the weekend..and I was so looking forward to it. Of course it never goes as planned. I like sleeping in, had to get up early for a chiropractor appointment that we had to bump to make room for Jonathan's doctors appointment in the afternoon. (he has what we suspect to be gout, the labs aren't back yet...yes 28 years old, with gout) Awesome! A little tutoring, and finally a little scrapbooking.

This is what I made today..and I think it is awesome!


That image is from a Stampin Up stamp set. I used a brayer (which sucks, that I will be taking back and getting a different one) to roll the background. The inks are Rich Razzleberry and Cajun Craze..also Stampin Up. I stamped it in black over the background, and you probably can't tell but I took a little bit of a white gel pen to some of the highlighted areas..

But the best part is the cracked glass technique! It's about 5 layers of thick embossing powder, which gives it a really cool look, but once it's cooled you can snap it and it looks like broken glass. Cool right?
I tried to get a better shot of it, but you just can't appreciate it unless you are looking at it in person. It was so easy, and looks so cool I pretty much plan to do everything with this technique from now on.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, I do have another card to post..maybe tomorrow. And another Oliver video..maybe the day after. I'm very much looking forward to my 3 day weekend.

Jessica

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Oliver and Why Baby Gates are Useless

This is Oliver's new trick..it's mostly used to get to his Chippy cat that he loves so much.







He had Giardia when we went to the vet earlier this week, but now he's being treated. And since he's all better now, my sweet mellow baby is now fired up all the time.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Jessica

Monday, September 20, 2010

All That Scraps Wednesday Challenge- Janneke's Sketch

It's been a really long time since I've participated in a challenge. It's silly, because I love challenges..and I especially love sketch challenges, so that's what I did today.

One of my favorites is the ATS Wednesday Challenge. And this week is Janneke's sketch...which I like a lot. I love square cards, they're not that much bigger, but I think I have a lot more room to work with.

So I've been working on cranking out the Halloween cards, so my entry is a Halloween card.

Every witch needs sparkly shoes! I've made a couple cards with this set. It's Ollie and Griselda from ATS, of course, that's one of the rules of the challenge. You can see the other card I made last year here. I altered the stamp slightly, but Halloween is really what it's meant for.

I hope this helps you appreciate the sparkles! Last year my Halloween card had green shoes. That was before the blog however, so it's not up here. Use your imagination. It was fabulous.


Here's the inside..and my finger. The sentiment is from the same set. All the patterned paper is from a Basic Grey stack. The cardstock is Elegant Eggplant and Basic Black from Stampin' Up!.

I've got a few more cards to make, I was putting my list of folks to send them to today. If I don't make lists I end up with a serious surplus problem.

I hope everyone's week is off to a good start.

Jessica

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Halloween Waterfall Cards

Finally, a card making blog post. I finally found a little time to get up in the scrap room and do some work.

This card is pretty cool. I watch a lot of how to technique videos, and my current favorite is Dawn at Dawns Stamping Thoughts/Studio. She's a Stampin Up! Demonstrator and she does lots of really cute stuff. You can see her how to video for this card here..if you want to see how it moves.

I followed most of here instructions. Except I thought a staple in the ribbon was a bit tacky..same for being able to see the brads on the back side. There is not a opening part to this card, it's sort of like a post card...well you'll see what I mean.

All the paper is SU!, and so is the stamp set. On this one though the sentiment is from All That Scraps. My ribbon is just something I had in my stash, as well as the glitter brads.

Here's a side view as you pull the slider part down.

Here it is pulled all the way down so you can see the sentiment. Cute right!

This one was my first attempt. It's pretty good, but the slider is a bit crooked..I think I can fix it, but I really like the other one better.

My days off are coming to an end...and I have to go back to work tomorrow. I truly intended to get way more scrapping done, and sadly, these 2 cards are all I made..tragic! Hopefully as we settle into the work routine Oliver will let me have some time this week to get some stuff made before my shift...ha, maybe.

He's doing very well, we have a play date with his cousins tonight..I'm going to try to get some pictures of that..ha!

I hope everyone had a good weekend, and enjoyed this awesome weather.

Jessica

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Oliver vs. A Coke Bottle

So today is Jonathan's birthday, and we're having his family over for dinner, so we're cleaning and getting ready and such. So it happens to be a good thing that Oliver is pretty happy just playing by himself.

One of his favorite things to play with is empty soda bottles.



I'm already wishing that I never had to go back to work. He's so much fun to have. He's probably the most easy going puppy I've ever seen. He had his first vet appointment yesterday..it was a piece of cake. We go back in 2 weeks for shots updates, he's probably not going to be very happy about that...but overall he's pretty ok with most anything.

I suppose it will all change eventually, he's still sleeping a lot. But he still loves the crate, and he's really good about going potty outside. He still sleeps through the night, with hardly any crying..we couldn't ask for a better situation.

I hope everyone is enjoying the week.

Jessica

Sunday, September 5, 2010

An Oliver Update

So I've got a little bit of Oliver video. We shot this yesterday, he's just so adorable running in the yard.




So far he's really been a pretty good puppy. He loves his crate (totally awesome!!) He hasn't had very many accidents, especially not now that we figured out what his "potty dance" is.

He sleeps through the night (so far so good) the first night he cried for 2 minutes then slept from 1045 to 7 in the morning..win! And last night he cried for probably 15 minutes, but then got over it and slept until 7 this morning.

We left him for the first time today. He takes pretty regular naps, and goes into the crate by himself when he's ready for one, so we got him really tired and gave him one of those stuffable Kong toys when we left, I guess we were gone a little over 2 hours. He was still asleep when we got home! Hopefully this is the beginning of something good.

We're both pretty tired, getting up at 7 is pretty early for us, but he could be so much worse.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. I'll get back to scrapping soon I promise. (I hope)

Jessica

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Oliver's First Day Home

So I figured I should blog about our Operation Oliver experience.

We drove as far as Algona Iowa on Thursday night, if you haven't heard of if, I'm not surprised. It's a pretty small town. It took us about 6 hours to get there. And there was nothing to look at but corn.

And, Jonathan's radio was stolen out of his car on Wednesday night, so we had a make shift radio using an Ipod, but it's just not the same.

Anyway, so on Friday morning we drove about 15 minutes north to Burt, Iowa...which is even smaller, we're talking houses, a post office, bank and one restaurant. So I suppose the only thing to do in this town is raise pomeranians. Oliver was the last of his litter to leave, so of course he's been spoiled the past few weeks. He had a few other dogs to play with too.

This is Jon and Oliver playing across the street while I'm eating lunch, we took turns. They were running through the grass and Oliver was jumping, I wish I had video, it was so cute. He wanted me to hold him the entire trip, which I did, because it was the only thing that stopped the crying. He wasn't interested in being in the box we brought for him, or playing with the toys.

We stopped a lot, which was nice for me, but it did take forever to get home. Here he is at a rest stop. He doesn't really get the whole walking on a leash concept, but he's getting better. He loves people, and doesn't seem to be afraid of other dogs, but cats is a different story.

He has his own crate which he loves so far (bonus!) and lots of toys that he knows are his. Last night he was dragging them in and out of his crate. The cats just simply can't believe we would do this to them. But he doesn't bark (not really anyway) or chase them, so they are confused. He's actually afraid of them if they get too close. Bean is obviously the most interested.

I was laying on the floor and happened to get this perfect shot. He has the most adorable face.

He's pretty cute, and I can't wait to watch him grow up. All of the poms from the breeder we got him from (Gifford's Pomeranians) have super fluffy coats, and he'll be no exception. His dad is particularly fluffy. As if we didn't already have a fur problem..this is only going to get worse.

I'm trying to get some good video that I hope to have up here soon, because it's just so cute.

Have a good holiday weekend.

Jessica