Making Decisions

I have made a decision. When I started this blog I thought I would do a post  maybe once a month, but since starting I have realized that if I want to have a successful blog I need to post more often. I’m told by my designer friends that I should be posting a few days a week. Wow! A few days a week? That sounds like a lot to me so I decided that I would do a post every Monday and see how it goes. What the heck do I have to talk about?  Maybe after I try that for a while, I’ll be able to post more often. Baby steps, let’s just start with baby steps.

For this post, I’m sharing a card that I designed for Clearsnap. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Clearsnap has the best inks on the planet! Love, Love, Love them!!! I hope you enjoy the card.

Until next time…

Lisa

Stampin’ Queen Creations

©2011 Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations

Butterfly Thank You Card 

Materials

·         Tan card stock- 6”H x 12”W folded in half to a 6”W x 6”H card

·         Tan card stock- 1 ¾”W x 1 ½”H for Thank You sign

·         Brown cad stock- 5 ¾”W x 5 ¾”H

·         Tan card stock 2”W x 1 ¾”H for Thank you sign

·         Pattern papers

·         Sparkling Harvest Finishing Touches™ kit by Clearsnap®

·         Clear embossing powder by Clearsnap®

·         Fools Gold glitter by Clearsnap®

·         Terrifically Tacky Tape™ by Provo Craft®

·         Ruler

·         Heat tool

Instructions

1.      Fold 6”H x 12”W tan card stock in half to make a 6”W x 6”H card. Distress the sides of all papers. Using the watermark inkpad (in kit) stamp flourish randomly over brown card stock. Lay ruler on brown car stock diagonally. Lay tape onto card stock three times, 1/8” apart. Remove red liner of tape and sprinkle cinnamon spice (in kit) and fools gold glitter onto the tape. Shake off excess and return to container.

2.        Stamp “thank you” on tan card stock. Repeat glitter lines as in step one. Adhere to brown card stock with Glue Gloss (in kit). Stamp butterflies and four corners on scrap piece of tan card stock, using chestnut pigment inkpad and coca bean embossing powder (both in kit). Use heat tool to set powder. Cut out.

3.      Cut out pattern papers. Using Glue Gloss, adhere pattern papers, butterflies, “thank you” and four corners to brown card stock. Adhere brown card stock to tan card with Terrifically Tacky Tape™.

Designer tip- Use Glue Gloss to adhere all papers except when you layer the brown card stock to the tan card. The Glue Gloss dries very quickly and is much better to use on smaller pieces of paper.

My Favorite Craft Technique

Sunflower Photo Book

© Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

3D Stamping

How to Make Your Cards and Pages Pop!

Welcome back for another fun round of blog hopping with the Designer Connection group. For this month's challenge the designers were to create a project using their very favorite crafting technique. I am very excited to see what my other fellow designers are going to do and I'm sure you will be too. And don't forget about our PRIZE GIVE AWAY!!! This month we are giving away FIVE DIFFERENT PUNCHES!!!  

To enter to win you will  have to hop around the webring then comment on Julie's blog at  juliemcguffee.blogspot.com  about which technique you liked the best, which one you are going to try and which one was the most unique.  
The winner will be announced on August 15th.

One of my favorite rubber stamping techniques is three-dimensional stamping. 3-D stamping is created by rubber stamping an image on your project then stamping the image multiple times onto a piece of scrap paper. Color the images with your colors source, i.e. pencils, markers. Cut out portions of your scrap paper image. Adhere to your project image with some foam tape or 3-D dots. Now, your image just “pops” right off of your card and scrapbook pages. If you're using a floral image, as I have in this sunflower photo book, you can add an extra bit of shine and shimmer by adding the Sparkle Fibers from Clearsnap to the centers of your flowers. It just gives your stamped images a little extra bit of Wow!!

Materials

·         Craft Plywood- 4”W x 12”H  ¼” thick by Midwest Products®

·         Strip Bag Balsa Wood™ 3/8” and ¼”  thick by Midwest Products®

·         Easy Cutter Ultimate™ by Midwest Products®

·         Super Sander™ by Midwest Products®

·         White card stock

·         Pattern papers

·         Vivid!™ dye inkpads- Taupe, Olive, Vintage Green, Butterscotch, Sky Blue and        Corn Flower by Clearsnap, Inc.®

·         Vivid!™ dye re-inker- Tuscan Tan by Clearsnap, Inc.®

·         Sparkle Fibers™- Icicle Blue & Pineapple by Clearsnap, Inc.®

·         Zip Dry Paper Glue™ by Beacon Adhesives®

·         Chalk pencils by Faber-Castell®

·         Ribbons

·         Miniature hat and ladybug

·         Gem flowers by EK Success®

·         Preserve It™! Paper Protectant by Krylon®

·         Foam tape

·         Scissors

·         Small paintbrush

·         Metal ring

·         Hand drill with 3/16” drill bit

·         Garden Fence rubber stamp by Make An Impression®

Materials for inside pages

·         Pattern papers

·         Various colors of card stock

·         Cricut Personal Cutting Machine™ by Provo Craft®

·         Home Accents™, Doodlecharms™, and My Community™ cartridges by Provo Craft 

·         Various brads, buttons, stickers and garden themed chipboard pieces

·         Ribbons

·         Various tags and frames

© Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

© Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

Instructions for Cover

1.       Using Easy Cutter Ultimate™, cut two pieces of 3/8” wood strips, 3 ¼” long and two pieces 1 ¾” long. Cut one piece of ¼” wood strips 3” long. Sand all wood strips with Super Sander™.

2.      Paint wood strips with Vivid! Tuscan Tan re-inker, using a paintbrush. (Note- use re-inker like a wood stain). Lay rubber stamp down on surface, face up. Ink with Taupe inkpad. Lay wood strips on top of stamp, pressing down for a clear impression. Set aside.

3.      Cut white card stock 3 ½”w x 4 ½”H. Re-ink stamp with Taupe inkpad. Stamp once on white card stock and once on a scrap piece of white card stock. Color images with chalk pencils. Spray images with Preserve It!™ Paper Protectant. Cut out image on scrap card stock only.

4.      Adhere wood strips to stamped card stock, using stamped image as a guide. Add the cut out stamped image to wood strips with foam tape to give a three dimensional look. Add Sparkle Fibers™ to flower centers with glue. Ink edges. Set aside.

5.      Cut craft plywood 4”W x 12”H in half, 4”W x 6”H to create the front and back covers of book. Cover wood pieces with pattern paper. Ink edges with Butterscotch inkpad.

6.      Using small hand drill with a 3/16” drill bit, drill holes in front and back covers. Adhere stamped image to front cover. Adhere hat, flowers and ladybug .

7.      Once inside pages are completed, gather front, back covers and inside pages together. Add metal ring. Tie various ribbons to metal ring.

Instructions for Inside Pages

        

1.  Cut six pieces of white card stock 3 ½”W x 51/2”H. Adhere various pattern papers to both side of white card stock.
2. Using Cricut Personal Cutting Machine™ with various cartridges to cut out various garden themed images. Use images, stickers, chipboard pieces, buttons, ribbons, brads, tags and frames, to decorate inside pages.

CHA Summer Show 2011 "Minute to Craft It!" Challenge

I just recently returned home from the Craft & Hobby Association’s Summer Show in Rosemont, IL. Although the show was small, everyone that I spoke with felt the show was great! I know for me, it was a blast! There were lots of new products with make-it, take-it’s being enjoyed by everyone that was taking them.

My favorite part of the entire show (aside from seeing all of my designer friends), was a new event that CHA introduced at the show called the “Minute to Craft It! Challenge, which was coordinated by CHA staff member, Keri Cunningham. The event ran for three days at 12:00pm, 2:00pm & 5:00pm. I was fortunate to be asked to be one of the hosts for this new event along with Theresa Cifali, Jen Cushman and Terri Ouellete. The idea behind the challenge was for me to pick three audience members to participate and one to be the time keeper. They had a table on the stage with them that was covered with products donated by our very generous manufacturers. The contestants could take any product from the table to their area and they were given 10 minutes to create their masterpiece.

While the contestants were in a frenzy creating, I had the pleasure of interacting with the audience members where I would ask them all kinds of craft questions and throw various products out to them. It was a very crazy, fun time! Once the contestants were finished with their project our three judges, Marisa Pawwelko, Ana Araujo and Joy McDonnell, picked the 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd place winners. Each winner along with the timekeeper received fabulous prizes from our manufacturers.

All in all, the event was a huge success and I hope that CHA will consider doing it again at the CHA Winter Show in Anaheim, CA. Here are a few pictures of the event.

ENJOY!!!  Stay tuned for more show news

Until next time….

Lisa

Stampin’ Queen Creations

Me with the Minute to Craft It! Challenge Poster



Hosting the Show

Throwing lots of Manufacturer's products at the audience!

Making Friendships That Last!

Hi Everyone,

I’m Back! Again. For those of you who follow my blog, you know by now that I have Crohn’s Disease. I haven’t posted in a while because once again my Crohn’s reared it’s ugly head and I had to have surgery again (this was my 21^st!) But, instead of letting this disease knock me down for good, I fought hard and now I’m back! In honor of that I have decided to share a project with you about friendship.

Friendships are one of the most important relationships that you will ever make in your lifetime. It’s the one relationship that will sustain you through all of the highs and lows that life throws your way. My best friend Tina, or Teen as I call her, has always been there for me. She has never let me down in the 33 years we have been friends. She is one of the most important people in my life and I don’t ever want to think of what my life would be without her.

 A few years ago, Teen sent me this quote. It says, “A good friend will come bail you out of jail… but a True Friend will be sitting next to you saying, ‘Girl…we screwed up.’” For me that says it all. When Clearsnap called me and asked me to create a new project for them, I knew what I wanted the theme of the project to be: Friendship. So in the name of friendship, and in honor of my best friend Teen, I dedicated this book project to her. And I want to say to her, “Thanks for having my back and know that I will always have yours!”

 With that said, why don’t you do something special for your best friend? A scrapbook page with pictures of you both is a great way to tell your best friend how much you love her. Or, you can create a book like the one I designed. It’s so easy to do. For my book, I used Design Adhesives, glitters, and ink pads from Clearsnap. To use the Design Adhesives, peel the backing off, place on your project, sprinkle glitter and shake off excess glitter. That’s it. You’re done. They are simple to use and they give your projects that extra glittery shine. Doesn’t your best friend deserve a little extra glitter in her life? I know mine does.

Until next time...

Crafty Hugs,

Lisa

Stampin' Queen Creations

©2011 Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations

 Book of Friendship

 Materials

• Design Adhesives- Dancing Hearts & Daisy Daze by Clearsnap®
• Glitters- Sapphire, Peidot, Sparkling Amethyst by Clearsnap®
• Watermark inkpad by Clearsnap®
• Colorbox inkpads- Black & Sky Blue by Clearsnap®
• Mini accordion book
• Card stock- Blue, Green, Lavender, White
• Cardstock stickers
• Zip Dry Paper Glue by Beacon Adhesives®
• Assorted color brads
• Ribbon- Green
• Chalk Pencils by Faber-Castell®
• Heat tool
• Rubber Stamps- Friends Forever by Rubber Stampede®, Hearts by Inkadinkadoo®, Mini Star by
• Stampendous, Girlfriends, Phone, Purse, Dress & Glasses by All Night Media®

Instructions

1. Cut card stock as follows: One white 3 ½” x 4”, three green and three lavender 3 ½” x 3 ¾” and four blue

    3 ½” x 3 ¾”. On white card stock, stamp “Girlfriends” with black inkpad. Stamp “Friends Today” with blue

   inkpad. Dry ink with heat tool. Color image with chalk pencils. Apply glitter to stamped image. Attach brads.

2.  For front inside pages 1, 3 & 5, stamp pages with watermark inkpad. Decorate pages 2 & 4 with Design

    Adhesives and glitters. Attach brads to pages 2 through 4.

3.  For back inside pages 1, 4 & 5, stamp pages with Watermark inkpad. Decorate pages 2 & 3 with Design

    Adhesives and glitters. Adhere all pages to accordion book. Adhere stickers to pages.

4.  Adhere stamped white card stock to front of book. Attach ribbon.

Project Note- Add brads to the front of the inside pages only. Adding to both sides of the pages will cause the book to become too bulky.



©2011 Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations



©2011 Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations

Designer Craft Connection

Blog Hop

“The Big Day Book”

Welcome back to the next installment of the Designer Craft Connection Blog Hop!

This month our theme was Mother’s Day/Father’s Day/Birthdays. I chose to focus on birthdays. As before, simply click on the Designer Craft Connection button on the right side of my blog and “hop” to the other 50+ professional designer’s blog for tons of ideas and inspiration. Have fun and please enjoy my project, “The Big Day Book” that I have included below.

 I don’t know about you, but I have found that the older I get the more forgetful I become. There was a time in my life where I didn’t need to write down the dates of my family and friend’s birthdays. I kept all of the information inside my head. Well, let me tell you, those days are long over. At this point I feel like I’m having a great day if I can remember what I had for breakfast!

 When my brain began fading, I thought the answer was to write everything down on sticky notes. Each time a family member’s birthday would be coming up I would write it down on a sticky note. What a great idea that was. I thought I would never miss another birthday. Everything would go back to normal and none of my family members would hate me ever again. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? It really was a great idea until I started forgetting where I put my sticky notes! The special day would come and go and I’d find the note under an unfinished project in my studio about a week later. Yikes! I once again found myself hurting someone’s feelings because my brain seemed to function only half of the time. This was the reason behind the creating of this project.

 This book is easy to create by using your scrapbook supplies and a Photobook Creator Machine by Unibind.  The machine makes it easy to create the page and bind it into one of their hard cover albums. The machine melts the spine of the album, so when it’s finished the page is securely glued in the album just like the pages of a book. Of course if you don’t have a Photobook Creator Machine, you can just as easily create this project by placing your page in a three-ring binder or any scrapbook album, although if you can purchase one these machines, I say do it! You won’t be disappointed. This is a great machine and I love using it.

 Here’s what you need to do to create this project. Using your scrapbook supplies (I listed what I used below) create a pocket page. Make a list of all the birthdays and anniversaries and adhere it to the front of the pocket page. Next, create a card for each of your family members and friend’s birthdays and anniversaries and place them in the pocket page. You can create your cards as easy or as difficult as you want. Once you book is finished, all you need to do is pull the card out of the pocket page, place it in an envelope and mail the card to your loved one.

The Big Day Book

©Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

 Another variation of this would be to create one pocket page for every month of the year, so you would have twelve pocket pages instead of one. This variation is a lot more time consuming, but if you have the time, it’s worth it.

 This project allows you to keep all of your cards together with a list of all of your important dates, all in one place. This means no more heartbreak for forgetting your mom’s birthday and no more headaches looking for those sticky notes.

Now, if I can just remember where I put MY “Big Day Book.”

Crafty Hugs,

Lisa

Stampin’ Queen Creations

The Big Day Book- Card Front

©Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

The Big Day Book- Pocket Page

©Lisa Rojas, Stampin’ Queen Creations 2011

 Supplies

Photobook Creator Machine by Unibind

8”x 8” white album by Unibind

Cricut Personal Cutting Machine by Provo Craft

“Beyond Birthdays” cartridge by Provo Craft

Cardstock- White, Red, Lime Green, Great Lakes, Evening Surf, Love Potion by Bazzill

Birthday themed pattern paper- Hats GP287, Balloons GP286 by Best Creations

Birthday themed stickers by K & Company

Vivid! Dye-based inkpads-Black & Purple by Clearsnap

Prismacolor color pencils by Sanford

Gamsol solution & Blending stump by Inky Antics

Mini blue brads

¼” Hole punch

Zip Dry Paper Glue by Beacon Adhesives

Ultimate Trimmer Paper Cutter by Purple Cows

Birthday cupcake rubber stamp #97628 by Inkadinkado