Terry's Gift

This is a layout I created for my niece, Terry, for her 16th (?) birthday.  I snapped a sweet picture of her during Christmas of that year and downloaded some really nice digi-scrapping supplies.  If I figure out where I got the supplies, I will post it on my blog.  This is my very favorite layout thus far.  I have her popping out of the frame I placed around her and it looks beautiful!

To give her surrealistic look, I duplicated the original photo and played with the ink outlines and find edges filter settings.  Then, I used a soft, round brush and erased parts of the top layer, leaving parts of the photo untouched and parts showing through to the layer below, concentrating on the edges so they looked harder and well-defined.

Magnetic "Frames"

A while back, I was in pursuit of a cute way to display some of my scrapbook layouts that I could switch out quickly and that didn't cost me an arm and a leg.  On one of my bi-weekly Wal-Mart excursions, I found some 12x12 colorful magnetic dry erase boards.  I tend to print out 8x8 layouts (rather than 12x12) because it's much easier to fit this size on a shelf, so this size of boards are perfect.

So, I bought four blue boards and stuck them to the wall with 3M Dual-Lock Fasteners.  Then I created my layouts (below) and stuck them to the boards with the provided magnets.  The final display turned out very cute if I do say so myself!

The Lion Blanket

So, I mentioned in this entry that it took a couple of years before my dream of making a lion blanket came to fruition.  It isn't exactly what I had wanted it to look like, but I think it's cute all the same.  It is currently for sale in my Etsy shop if you are interested.  It's my very own design, made of light brown, gold, and black fleece.  The fleece panels are tied together along the edges to create a lion's mane.  Check it out!

Nemesis: Twilight Angel

So, I chose this beautiful angel design to give to my mom for Mother's Day 2009.  As you can see by the photo that it is still not completed.  I realized I had bitten of more than I could chew about a day before Mother's Day when I realized that I had only gotten as far as completing the face and wings.  Just this week I have buckled down on completing it, but it is still eluding me. I only have the bottom of the dress to go, some smoky stuff on one side of her, the outlines, and the sparkly stars that are surrounding her.  I hope I can get this done by the end of this week.  I'll send it to my mom as soon as it's complete.  I showed her what it was going to look like on Mother's Day.  She probably thinks I'll never complete it...or she's forgotten about it totally.

So far, so good.

It all started with a wish, a vision, and a mission...

I have always loved crafts and being creative.  From a very early age, I was encouraged to be creative and think outside the box.  My mom used to make silk flower arrangements and make clothes.  She entered and won several contests in our local county fair.  I definitely have my mom to thank for my resourcefulness and creative talents.

My interests are varied.  I love to create graphics using Photoshop and editing pictures.  I can absolutely lose myself in designing scrapbook page layouts.  I also enjoy cross stitching, sewing, photography (this interest is from my dad), drawing, calligraphy, and even interior design, among other things.

"So, what inspired this blog?" you might ask. Two years ago, my husband saw a blanket made out of alpaca fur that had pictures of pandas (my DH's favorite animal) on it.  It was beautiful, but extremely expensive.  Therefore, it became my goal to create a blanket for him that featured a panda that was more within our budget.  I came across how to make a tie fleece blanket online and immediately found my inspiration.

I wanted to make an over-sized blanket, as my DH is a big guy, so I got 3.25 yards of black fleece and 3 yards of white fleece to make a panda blanket.  I looked online for pictures of stylized panda drawings, and, using regular old printer paper, drew the eye pattern and cut out two copies.  I also drew out the nose pattern and cut that out.  before prepping the material for tying together, I pinned my eye and nose patterns to the black material and cut out the pieces.  I kept the selvage and used it to form the mouth pieces.  All of the pieces were pinned to the white material in the places they needed to be sewn and then I sewed all the pieces together.  After sewing, I trimmed the black and white materials to make sure they were the same size and followed the instructions to tie the blanket together.

I think it came out adorably!  He really loves the blanket, too!!  After I completed this blanket, I immediately thought that making a lion would be great.  However, the lion didn't actually get constructed until this year...two years later.