Cleaning and one more DE project

Hello! Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful time last night whether you stayed at home and relaxed or whether you partied it up until the wee hours.


We had a small get together with family/friends (only 5 of us total, and the dog). I also finished up my last Decor Elements project since I'm doing Christmas tomorrow with one of my dear friends. She is a HUGE Life is Good fan and when I saw the Decor Elements of that saying, I knew immediately that I HAD to get it and do something for her. Plus, she just recently moved into her new condo and the bedroom was already blue. So, blue and brown - PERFECT!


The frame job is AMAZING, courtesy of my favorite shop that I've talked about before, Frames for You in Summit NJ. What you can't tell from this picture is that the saying is on a piece of glass that is floating underneath the top two mats. The blue mat is behind all of it.

So, in case you're looking to reproduce this at your own local frame shop, the stack is (from front to back): top glass, white mat, brown mat, foamcore spacer, glass (with Decor Elements applied), foamcore spacer, blue mat, foamcore backing.

I applied the Decor Elements to the glass and then some of my rub-ons from last year's SU! SAB (Love and Happiness) to the blue mat. Here is a close up. I love the dimension and the shadows that are created from the Decor Elements on the glass.

I'm so glad that a few others have decided to join in on the One Little Word for 2009. I've heard from a handful of you and really encourage you to visit Ali's blog and read about it. I'll be giving you Balance Checks occasionally so you can see how I'm doing. This ties in again with my gymnastics background. Coaches are always telling you (especially on the beam) to constantly do balance checks to make sure your center of gravity is where it needs to be.

Moving on...

I love before and after pictures. I desperately need to clean my stamping studio. I know I've said that before but I've been too embarrassed to show it to you! But who cares, right? We're all friends here. :)

Plus, now that you've seen it in its disaster form, you can appreciate all the hard work that went into it once I post after pictures! This is what I'm working on over the coming days. Be sure to click the picture for the larger version to see my 8 x 4 working space in all its gloriousness. It's hard to believe that in a 250 square foot room that all I have is 32 square inches of space to work in! That has got to change...and soon!

Do you have embarassing, messy pictures of your space? I'd love to see them! It would make me feel SO much better! Please link to them below if you care to share! I'll be back (hopefully sooner rather than later) with after pictures to show you.

Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

More Decor Elements and blog candy alert!

I finally spent some time last night finishing up two more Decor Elements projects that I had started. Only one more to go!

The first one is the silhouette sleigh shadowbox. It is a very shallow shadowbox that I filled with Diamond Dust for snow. It's fun to tip and slide it around. I love the sparkle of this!!!

Here is a close-up of it.

Isn't it pretty?

Yes, for those of you paying attention, this is the
6th installment of my "Difficult Things To Photograph" series. :)

Oh! Before I forget! Carolyn, from my awesome design team, is offering up some Valentine's blog candy. So, if you're ready to move off of Christmas and start thinking about the next holiday, head on over and tell her who you make Valentine's Day things for!

OK, my last project for today is the long ornaments.



This didn't turn out as nicely as I hoped (or imagined in my head) but it's OK. What I can't capture is that shimmery snowy white mat. It is really, really gorgeous. I used some fabric ribbon curls that were starched to help them keep their shape and stuck them down with glue dots.

I'll be back later this week with my gingerbread men cookies. I've got to put together my Christmas menu tonight and go shopping tomorrow before the massive snow storm hits. I'm SO excited!! I definitely {heart} snow. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT. I'm just a little excited, can you tell?

Hope you're enjoying your Christmas preparations and taking some time to really relax. Thanks for taking a few minutes to stop by and say hi!

More Decor Elements

Yup, I'm back to photographing things that are difficult. This time, mirrors!

This is my Decor Elements mirror and you can see I've been decorating for Christmas! Isn't this frame just totally perfect?!! It's from my favorite frame shop, Frames For You in Summit NJ.

Not much to say about this but I'm really pleased with the way it came out - especially the frame job.

Two more Decor Elements projects to go this season so I'm not done yet with the troublesome photography. Anyone have any tips for these uncooperative items??

More Decor Elements

OK, so before I resigned my SU demonstratorship (*waving hi to all my Stamping Queens!*) I stocked up on a bunch of Decor Elements. As I said before, I wasn't totally hooked on them but boy do they make nice and easy home decor gifts! I guess that's kinda the point huh?

When I showed you the Thanksgiving one, I was complaining how hard it was to photograph. Well...then I met this puppy. How on earth do you photograph mirror?!! Anyone? Oh well. Meet the inside of my light tent.

I am VERY fortunate that I have an "in" at a local frame shop and get really amazing things framed for cost. VERY lucky.

Anyway, I ordered the frame and mirror custom and then just slapped the Decor Elements on there. How perfect and adorable is that green and red? And, it is laquer and shiney. PERFECT.

I have at least 2 more Decor Elements things I am working on for Christmas gifts so you'll have to endure a few more posts from me about it.

But, I do have a BUNCH of IHP posts lined up for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so make sure you stop back then so see what I have up my sleeve. *grin*

Some non IHP samples

So in between filling lots of orders today (people are realizing the coupon expires soon!) I put these together.

First, I know this isn't really IHP related but what girl doesn't love PTI?? It is ALL PTI, except for the Cuttlebug background and Goldenrod Stickles.

Summmer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate, First Fruits DP, First Fruits set and PTI sheer gold ribbon.

Then next, I picked up my finished home decor pieces, made with SU! Decor Elements. When these things came out I complained and was deadset against them. But, I tried them and eh...they're not so bad. :) They make nice gifts, don't you think?

So here's the story with these. I made two of these - one in yellow and one in red. One for me and one to give away. Tee hee.

Here is how I did it. First, I went to the frame shop and picked out a frame and mat. They made the shadowbox out of the mats for me. Here's what they looked like.

At the same time, they gave me the cut glass to take home so I could lay it on the box, decorate the box and apply the DE to the glass.

I got a steal at Target with buying some leftover Decorative Potpourri Filler. All of the leaves and acorns and pinecones were in there. SCORE!

So, here, the DE are applied and the glass is just resting on the box. I glue dotted the nature stuff in certain spots and then left a pile of it at the bottom loose.





So today I returned to the shop and they put the actual frame on it and put it all together for me. Normally when I photograph framed things I do it without the glass, to reduce the glare, but obviously that can't happen so. So...sorry for the pictures. The glass was reflecting my light tent.


I actually did some IHP crafting today but until I send those cards out (and certain people have received them,) I can't really post them. Sorry!

Hope you like my DE and PTI card!

Thanks for stopping in!

Kate