A Ladies Diary Card

Once again, following the amazing Charlie Jones via youtube, I created this birthday card for my sister-in-law.  I used Krafty paper for the base of the card and papers from the Ladies Diary paper collection by Graphic 45. The corners were cut on my Cricut using the Picturesque cartridge, and the paper flower was cut from the Accent Essentials cartridge.

Birthday Reminder Book

Another wonderful project by Charlie Jones via YouTube (charliejones2686). This one is a birthday reminder book, that has a spot to write down names, plus pockets to hold tags that will be ready when needed throughout the year. This entire book was made using the "Place I. time" 8*8 paper stack by Graphic 45, with the exception of one sheet that was 12x12 which was needed for the covers.  The tutorial actually used the paper bags from Celebration, but I didn't have any and Charlie gave instructions on how to make the bags using krafty paper. I was able to complete the entire project in one day, which was awesome! Because ordinarily I'm super slow - so yeah, yay me!

Busy, Busy, Busy

     With Valentine's Day right around the corner, my hands have been very busy making cards.  I also have a brother who is going to have a birthday on February 1st so I also created a birthday card for him.  Here is what I've done over the past couple of weeks.

This is the birthday card made for my brother.  I used Tim Holtz Ideology (Lost and Found) paper stack.

This was made from the DCW Be Mine paper stack and the Damask Cricut Cartridge card feature.

This is a set of 6 stationary papers made from the Recollections Love Letters stack.

another one made from the DCW Be Mine paper stack.

also from the Recollections Love Letters Stack.

made using the Damask cartridge.

Made using the Be Mine paper stack and the Damask Cricut cartridge.

Another one using the Recollections Love Letters paper stack.

Made using the Cricut Wild Card cartridge with pink paper and white cardstock.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope that the coming year will be bigger, better, brighter than last year!

I'm already looking ahead to the holidays of the New Year, stating with Valentines Day!  I made a set of Valentine Cards with a matching Gift Bag to hold them.  I'm sending this to my niece for a birthday present and I'm sure that she will put the cards to good use.

The gift bag is made from a paper bag and to make it, I followed a YouTube Tutorial that can be viewed by following this link: Paper Bag Purse .  The hearts on the gift bag and the cards are from the Cricut Home decor cartridge.  The center section of the card (the one with the oval) was made from a Cuttlebug die cut which I got pre-owned without it's booklet and I've no idea of the name of the die cut.  I used white cardstock to cut it out and pink cardstock to cut the mat behind it out and just kept layering pink and white.  I ran the base card and all mats through the cuttlebug to emboss them.  The inside of the card simply reads "Happy Valentines Day".

Confusing blog theme

I loaded up my blog and laughed when I re-read the first post.  I have since changed themes and the link that is in the post below this one no longer applies.  This blog, the Christmas themed one, is from Cutest Blog on the Block.  So if your confused about where I got which theme, don't worry - so was I!  I also added a falling snow blogmation effect, but it's very hard to see with my white background.  Still.... I thought it was nice and it's free from blogamation.com.

Changing Blog Look!!

I love changing my blog's background for the seasons!  I have absolutely no idea how to design blogger backgrounds so I use background themes made by others.  This particular background can be found at http://plumroselane-bckgrnds.blogspot.com/2010/10/golden-moments.html  The owner of the site has some amazing backgrounds and I encourage everyone to check them out.

I got in trouble with the Blogger Police!

I was very miffed at my experience with the Blogger Police and my first reaction (ok second reaction, because the first was anger) was to remove the offending post and let it go.  But.... since it's my blog (mostly) I figure I can complain.

I was send an email from blogger stating that I have broken the copyright infringement laws (according to the person complaining). I was not given a chance to respond and my item was placed into a "draft" category by blogger.  I was told that if I did not completely removed the item that further action would be taken against me.

Here is what happened.

I decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking.  I saw all over the internet "free to use for personal use" templates and whatnot's   I downloaded like a mad woman and started putting my pages together.  I wanted to share my progress by putting them on my blog, which I did.  Apparently, the "free to use for personal use" comes with a condition: you must give credit to the artist.  Well that's all fine and good and I can understand the artist wanted credit.  But.... if your an artist and you DEMAND credit be given, then don't make your creations "free to use".  Because the demand of the credit is a cost of the item, and thus it becomes NOT FREE TO USE.  I did not intentionally set out to insult the artist by not giving credit.  I just did not, in my flurry, of downloading stop to note all the artist's of all the items and for this I was basically called a thief.  I had one artist actually contact me and ask me, very politely, to please give credit for an item of her's that she saw on my website.  I very much appreciated that email and as soon I read the email, I went to my blog and gave the credit that was asked for.

Whoever it was that accused me of stealing her item did not give me a chance to make the correction myself and that is what I object to most.  I would have given the credit if I had known who the artist was, or if the artist had given me a chance to correct my error but she didn't.  Don't make your item free to use if your going to accuse someone of theft for using it.

I am NOT A THIEF and I don't appreciate being treated like one.  If your an artist and you find an item of yours that you gave away "free to use" on a personal blog (not being resold, not having download links, etc.) and you want credit.... contact the blogger, don't send the blogger police after her.

Changing Blog Themes

I love to change the background of my blog to match the seasons and the holidays.  I would love to take credit for this gorgeous background but it would be a lie to do this.  This beauty came from http://plumroselane-bckgrnds.blogspot.com/2011/09/making-magick-blog-theme.html, complete with headers and tags ( I haven't figured out the tags yet lol).  If your in the mood to switch your background, jump over to her site and take a look at her beautiful creations.

Baby Shower Invitations

My niece is having a baby ( a girl!) and I offered to make the baby shower invitations.  I scoured the internet looking at different invitations for inspiration and came across the cutest Onesie Invite, so I went with that theme.  I'm trying to do better in giving credit to the people and products that I use in my projects as they definitely deserve the credit.  I did not write down all the info for these, so as I remember it.....
The onesie shape was cut from the Cricut using the Cricut Craftroom basic shapes. I used the Craftroom software to "design" it but putting up 2 images, then rotating one of the images and lining it up at the bottom (where the legs would go) and welding it together.  I used the Martha Stewart Score Board to score the area and make folding the card easier.

I made the paper lace around the arms and legs using the same cricut cartridge by cutting a scalloped oval frame and running them through the cuttlebug to emboss (I no longer have the packing for the emboss folders so I have no idea what the name of the folder is) tiny roses those areas.  The printed paper I used is from two of my favorite paper stacks by DCW - Lace and Linen and the Rustic Stack. I used Studio G ink pad to distress everything, there isn't a name on the container but it's a soft pink.  The pocket that holds the information cards was made out of single sheets of pink patterned paper, cut with the Fiskars paper trimmer and edged with a pair of design scissors.  The tiny hand-prints and footprints and other stamped images were from cling stamps that I bought from JoAnn's ( my stamps are no longer in the original package so again, I have no idea of the name).  I embossed the flaps of the envelopes and attached a little pink paper duck which I also cut from the cricut and tied the whole shebang up with a pink ribbon.

Fall Leaves with the Cricut

I'm finally getting around to putting up some photos of my recent project.  I cut this leaf using my cricut (I honestly cannot remember which cartridge), then I used the cuttlebug to emboss it and  rubbed Tim Holtz Distress ink and lightly went over the raised areas of the leaf.  I just love the look of it.

I was watching You Tube one day when I happened across a video about how to make a paper bag mini album. (there are many, but I was originally inspired by this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXOY3DyFjvQ  I thought it was amazing and decided to make one myself as a birthday gift for my daughter's girlfriend.  This is my first paper bag mini album.  It's also referred to as an "Active" album and I can only imagine that it's because of all the different pockets, wallets, flip fold, etc that it has.  Since this is a paper bag mini album, there are pockets where 4 large mats  that will hold 6x4 photos insert in each pocket with a total of 3 pockets.  These mats are attached to a black and white ribbon and pull out from the side of the album.

A New Quickpage

Here is another digital scrapbook page that I put back together.  My sister and I were out at Coal Vines Restaurant at the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri for a wonderful Mother's Day Lunch.

I did not make any of these elements, simply put together some "free to use" digital scrapbook elements together and slipped my photo behind it.  The flowers in the corner are from a paintshop pro tube.

Morning at the Market

Here are all 3 of the photos that I had taken put together on a digital scrapbook page.  The paper and bird that I used was from a freebie "A Town of Memories" kit designed by Darleen Araujo.

Another example of using Color Splash technique

I went to the Kansas City Market very early one morning, just as the market was opening up.  It was a wet, drizzling morning and I thought the market scene at that moment would make some awesome photos.  I whipped out my iPhone (haha, didn't have an actual camera with me) and took these photos.  I then used the color splash technique (see post directly below this one) and this is what I ended up with.  You can tell that in the 3rd photo, the brightness/contrast of the photo is more intense, I adjusted those levels in PSP and I think it actually looks better than the other 2 photos, makes them seem more aged somehow.

First up in my new "Video's for my Sister" series.

So I made this video for my sister who lives in a different state to try and help her learn some of the fun features of paintshop pro.  We like to scrapbook together, be it traditionally with paper and scissors or digitally and we usually scrap via Skyp.  There are many times I try to tell her how I accomplished a certain task and without any visual it's difficult to understand what I'm saying.  So keeping in the spirit of "A picture is worth a 1000 words" here is my first how-to video.  What this colorsplash does is isolate one color or one aspect of an image and have only that piece of it in color, it's super easy to do.  If you would like to see the larger version of this video, you can view it on my new Pinky Finger Crafts YouTube Channel.

Learning New Things

I followed a tutorial for Paintshop Pro that taught me how to turn a colored photograph into a vintage style photo, then to isolate certain parts of that photograph and colorize only those parts.  My first attempt at it turned out fairly well.

The actual scrapbook page was another amazing "free to use" find. It's called a "quickpage" because it's already made for you and all you have to do is slip your own photo into the transparent space.  This is how all of my digital scrapbook pages were put together.  Thanks to all the amazing artist's that off their items to those of us who are not so artistic, much appreciated.  I do believe that I got this particular one from Linda-ohwhatfun.blogspot.com

A few more

and here is sweet baby Alice...

One of these days, I am going to learn how to make my own scrapbook papers like these! The ladies that designed these are simply amazing and although I cannot remember who they are, I thank them all.

One of my commenters advised me that I could drag images into images.google.com and find out the originating artist info, so I did and discovered that the top page was made by http://www.scrapbooking101.net/articles/how-to-create-a-baby-album.html and the gorgeous middle page was another one by linda-ohwhatfun.blogspot.com.  I'm happy to find some info on these wonderful artists.