Getting Re-Situated

I love where life takes me sometimes. Right now I am sitting in a little condo in the town we used to live in. Technically we still “live” here, but since all of our stuff is in storage and I will be back in Minnesota in less than a month, and no longer have a home. I feel more like a visitor in a town I once lived.

 

It is dreary days like these that bring back those long winter months I was here with dog. Working. But now I can enjoy those days with a good book, hot tea, my crochet hook, and some good music.

Some things have changed in this town. Restaurants we loved have closed, new ones have open. Some have moved a few blocks down, and some have re done their menus. But new of all there is now a scrapbook store!

I leave for 6 months, and a month or two after I leave, they get a craft store. Of course they do! I stopped in the other day with the husband… which is never a good idea if I want to buy anything. They have some pretty good paper companies, which is a plus. I only wish I had it closer when I was working on the two scrapbooks I had to make for the squadron over the past couple years.

Unfortunately I can’t get much while I am here, since I brought a limited amount of crafting supplies. No worries, my glitter was in my carry on. I would not leave home without it!

So today, I am just going to enjoy the day. Start my day at the gym, and then come “home” to that tea, my crochet hook, glitter, and hope the day ends up with a gorgeous sunset.

No matter how your day starts, you never know how it will end. And here in this town, you really never do know. Enjoy the the day, and always hope for the best.

peace.love.dove.

Welcome Home!!

Oh I love happy days. Today was a happy day!

I got the love of my life back with me!

My hubby is back! This makes life great.

Surprisingly time has gone by VERY fast this time around, and I am very excited to spend some time with him.

We have a list of things we would like to do before we leave Washington and head to Hawaii so we will be checking them off, one by one. I hope you have a great Memorial Weekend. Stay safe, and I am super excited to share with you all the glitter I have going on for June! It’s going to be a good month for sure!!

peace.love.dove.

Art Glitter Tuesday And My First 5k!

This past weekend I completed a goal that I had been thinking about for a year. I wanted to run a 5K. Well I will say I did cross the finish line, but I must agree with my body, I am not a runner…

I do believe that every runner and person for that matter should look good, and since I am a strong believer in glitter, well what do you think I did… I glittered a shirt! And one for my friend Anna too! So, today I am going to show you how we made some awesome glittered shirts.

First things first. Decide what you want to shirt to say. Anna and I decided to go with how we know each other, our sorority. She is my big sis, and I am her little. We wanted something we could wear again. So we wanted to put our sorority letters on the front, and “Big Sis” and “Lil Sis” on the back. We really do like to represent when we can, even after graduating at least 5 years ago…

I used my Cricut Expression 2 and cut out the Greek Letters (digital Cricut Craft Room), and the Sophisticated Cartridge in Vinyl. Any color will do since this cut out will be used as a stencil on the shirt.

I then cut apart the vinyl and separated the front and back sections. I peeled off the letters so I had the negative of the vinyl left on the sheet. Using transfer tape, I transferred the letters on to the shirt.

After removing the tape, I filled in the letter with Fabric Dries Clear Adhesive. I then poured on Art Glitter Ultrafine Opaque Hologram in #130 Eclipse for one shirt and Ultrafine Opaque Art Glitter in #314 Dew Berry for the other. Anna loves pink, and I love purple and these two colors were PERFECT for our project! We shook off the glitter and let them dry well before removing the vinyl carefully.

I think they look awesome, and it AMAZING how the sun catches the light in the glitter! You could see us coming from a mile away. We sure did look good!

The one on the left is Dew Berry, and the right Eclipse. Click on the image to see them larger.

Now, I want to heat set this shirt. It is on my to do list, but have a fear of putting fabric in the oven, especially when I am home alone. So I will save that process for another post!

I hope this makes you want to glitter something! Stop on over at the Art Glitter Blog and be sure to see what else is being glittered over there!

peace.love.dove.

Art Glitter Layout–Jack & Owen

I am so excited to be part of the Art Glitter Design Team! I can’t wait to share with all of you the exciting things I will making this year. I do have to say that I have been in love with glitter for such a long time, and I am so honored to be part of a team with such talented people!

Today I am going to share with you a layout that I made using Art Glitter.

Jack and Owen seem to always find their way into my scrapbooking life. These two adorable guys are my nephews. Jack is almost two and a half, and Owen is nine months. Most people would not associate glitter with little boys, but I think this is a perfect mix.

For this layout I used the following products:

Glitter (Art Glitter, Ultrafine Transparent in #364 Dreams), Cricut Cartridge (Opposites Attract), Piggy Tales Paper Co. & Design (Simple Simon & Tortoise and the Hare Collections), Precision Application Writing Tool, Designer Dries Clear Adhesive, and a photo of some super adorable children!

To create the glittered letters I cut the letters out on my Cricut Expression 2 using the Opposites Attract Cartridge with scrapbook paper. I then painted on each letter separately the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive and sprinkled on the glitter, I repeated this step for all the letters then tapped off the excess glitter.

I adhered each of the letters then onto the page.

I also used the precision writing tip to make borders around some of the squares of paper, and to glitter up one of the trucks!

This transparent light blue color (#364 Dreams) has a sweet masculine tone to it. When adding it on top of other papers it shows some of the color of the paper below it, and blends in with its surroundings. This color was a perfect addition for the boys, and adds pizazz without over doing it. I like to keep my layouts simple. Nothing super fancy, just some glitter and clean lines.

I hope you enjoyed my layout today! Be sure to stop by the Art Glitter Blog to see more great ideas on how to use glitter in all sorts of different projects! The possibilities are truly endless! Also, check out their large selection of glitters on their website! There are so many to choose from, and they are all amazing!

Hope you have a glitterful day!

peace.love.dove.

A May 5th Wedding!

Today is the big day!

My dear cousin is getting hitched!

I am so excited to partake in the big day with her!! She was my maid of honor at my wedding, and is pretty much like a sister to me. She does have her own two sisters, but we grew up less than 5 miles away from each other, and we are only 2 weeks apart in age! (I’m older)

Here we are at my wedding almost FOUR years ago! Wow, time flies when you are living life to its fullest! We are hoping for gorgeous weather, smooth sailing, and awesome dance moves from the party goers! And below is us three months later at my brother’s wedding trying to replicate the above picture. When I look at this one, I forget that, for several years of my life, I was blonde! Thanks to hair dye of course, since my brown hair is almost back to its natural color!

I wish I could be celebrating International Scrapbook Day with you all, but duty calls. And family is pretty important too! So please scrap something fun for me, and I look forward to seeing what you all have to share on Sunday while my feet recover from all the dancing that I will have done!

To Cassie and Dave! Congrats, and welcome to the family Dave!

peace.love.dove.

Thank You, Letterpress Style

Oh life has been busy. I have been crafting, and not posting. My cousin is getting married on May 5th, and well, she has taken up a lot of my time. I have been watching my nephews more than ever it feels like, and I got glitter on the brain.

I was able to make some cards with my letterpress. I wanted to play with mixing colors. I made the exact same four cards, but changed the background color.

This card is in teal

I added a little bit of gray to this, and it came out with a perfect color

A little bit more gray

And a just gray one.

I used the Damask Printing plate for the background from Lifestyle Crafts, and Bubbly Printing plate for the Martini glass and “Thank you!”

The glitter paper is from Michael’s and was the same paper we used to make my cousin’s table numbers for her wedding!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

peace.love.dove.

Art Glitter Design Team!!

We are so excited for the changes going on at Art Glitter! We not only have wonderful glitter and glue we have become famous for but we have many other products and to help show off our product line is our NEW design team! This talented group of artists will be posting on their personal blogs, but also creating special projects for the Art Glitter Blog! Help me to welcome...

Design Team Lead: Kristi Parker Van Doren

Kristi Parker Van Doren has been creating since age 12 when her parents gave her a rubber stamp and ink for Christmas. 37 years later she is still creating, designing, writing, teaching and more! Kristi loves to create and has been on several design teams including: Spellbinders,Northwoods, Worldwin Papers, Luminarte, Coronado Island and several others. She served three years as a writer for Scrap& Stamp Magazine, as well as having articles published in books and magazines, most recently in Zentangle 6. Kristi is currently serving on design teams for USArtQuest, The Robins Nest, Dreamweaver Stencil, and is the lead for Art Institute Glitter and Connie Crystal design teams. When Kristi is not creating she is hanging out with her family. Check out her blog at www.kristiscreativecafe.blogspot.com!

Now For The Team:

Carrie Hannegan is a Southern California native who grew up near the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, but managed to avoid it (mostly). She has a degree in Animation from the California Institute of the Arts where she learned to appreciate the tedious side of art, one hand drawn frame at a time. After graduation, a bit of panic and a plunge, came the grand opening of her retail gift shop in the Los Angeles area called Violets are Blue. Partnered with her Mother, they filled the store with their handmade creations, hand painted furniture, hand picked vintage items and other fun stuff sprinkled in. Five years later, new chapter, they (very) reluctantly closed the store and Carrie moved to the other coast and launched a new online adventure called Violet Cottage. Violet Cottage started out as a "Violets are Blue, light" web store with lots of various inventory, but slowly morphed into a greeting card business. Inspired by vintage wrapping paper, fabrics and wallpaper, each card design is hand painted by Ms. Hannegan, who describes her card line as "sweetly sensitive, yet colorfully chaotic". The card line is still in its infancy, but has been well received and is growing daily. Violet Cottage cards can be found in many stores throughout the country or online at www.violetcottage.com.

My name is Cherie. I was born and raised in Minnesota, and went to Iowa State University. I married my husband in 2008 and we have a lab/border collie mix, Lucie, who is 3 years old. I have lived on both the east and west coast since being married, and will be moving to Hawaii this summer! I love to travel, geocache, craft, dabble in photography, and most importantly, play with glitter!

Hello! My name is Karen Taylor.

.

I am lucky to have two children Jessie and Douglas. I have been blessed with two grandson's, a granddaughter and another

on the way.

I have been a paper craftier for six years but creating has always been a part of my life.

I was raised by my grandmother who taught me the love of creating. Inspired by her 1930's scrapbooks

I love all things vintage and old. When I am at home you can find me in my studio.I love to create very special layouts, cards and altered items my mini pieces of art.

I have been lucky to have work with major paper craft companies including Spellbinders Paper Arts,Best Creations, Inc, Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker to name a few and in magazines, on TV (Local TV segments, Creative Memories TV Show, Terri O Show, QVC, Home Shopping Network US and Canada and was published in a book last year as well as work in catalogues and at the Craft and Hobby Association Show for the last six shows. For the past two years I have been a VIP speaker at Midland Memory Expo speaking along side Cardmaker magazines Editor Tanja Fox, Creating Keepsakes Creative Editor, Megan Hoeppner and NikkiSivlis, Scrapbook Paper Company owner just to name a few.
I currently am the Design Team and Social Media Coordinator for Want2Scrap and a Spellblogger for Spellbinders Paper Arts

Hi! My name is KC Eddy and I live in Central Missouri, with my husband, two daughters and our collection of furry friends - too numerous to mention. By day I am an accountant, by night I am a craft-a-holic. I also enjoy boating and camping with my family and am a huge Chicago Bears fan! I have crafted in almost every medium imaginable; including paper, ceramics, porcelain and glass. I am especially fond of jewelry, mixed media and anything that glitters and shines. Though I often get lost in a project and make things more involved than they need to be, I try to streamline my projects for teaching and tutorials so that others can learn from my experimentation (mistakes). I am a Design Team newbie so this is a very exciting new adventure for me. I hope you'll join me for the ride!

Laura Drahozal cannot remember a time when she was not creating. As a former art teacher, she has tried almost every traditional medium. She looks for inspiration all around her and loves to combine various products and techniques to achieve what she had previously thought of as impossible. Laura is currently serving on design teams for DreamweaverStencils, Twisted Sketches and Connie Crystal and has formerly served as a Guest Designer for Art Glitter. She is thrilled to be joining the Art Glitter Design Team as she loves all things glittery! Check out her blog at www.rememberinglifesmoments.blogspot.com

Linda Neff

I discovered through my first attempt at scrapbooking I could create art – my way. With rubber stamps, inks, paints, paper, fabric and other mediums, I create a soft, vintage look that is sometimes natural and sometimes a bit more romantic, but always evolving. I enjoy making mini albums, scrapbook pages and wall art to capture my little scrapped treasures.

The mother of three adult children, I live with my retired husband in Michiganand spend my time teaching classes at independent scrapbook and quilt stores. I am Ranger certified and always on the lookout for new techniques. I encourage others to dive head-first into the art of paper crafting, whether it bescrapbooking, stamping or altered art.

Hi! My name is Trudy but friends call me True.

My husband, Robert and I were high school sweethearts and are still very happily married today. I am the mother of a wonderful 26 year old son Kurt and MIL to a beautiful DIL Kristin. I am also super excited that I will be a grandma in October! :)

Since I started making cards a few of years ago, I have been blessed with many new card making friends, been asked to speak and teach at major craft events, and have been lucky enough to have my cards published and featured in magazines and books.

I love sharing my craft with others and following other artists for inspiration and fun! I will soon be teaching online classes, so keep an eye out! :)

I am a freelance illustrator, and I also design for: Want2Scrap, Inky Antics, Discount Card Stock, Really Reasonable Ribbon and Helmar. I am also very honored to be on the CardMaker Magazine blog design team.

I can hardly wait to be covered in sparkles with the rest of my new Art Glitter team members!

What an amazing team! We can't wait to see what wonderful creations they have in store for us. It will be a very sparkling year! Welcome one and all to Art Glitter!

Art Glitter Design Team 2012 Audition

For those of you who know me well, you know that I love glitter. So when I heard about Art Glitter’s Design Team Call, I knew I had to audition since I am so passionate about glitter in general. The passion may have grown in college, and being in a sorority may have helped as well but, several years later I am still playing with it, and love it even more!

While brainstorming I came up with a really long list of things I could create using glitter, and I made a couple projects to share with you all today.

The first project is a glittered wine glass.

I originally wanted to make chalkboard stemmed wine glasses but it just felt so boring. One day I got to thinking and knew that it would be so awesome to have some nice glittered glasses for a fun girls night.

My mom purchased a set of 12 glasses from a bargain store and I got to crafting. I coated the bottom and the stem of the glass with glue and then sprinkled glitter all over the glue. I shook off the glitter and then waited a little while till it was semi dry. I then coated the glitter with glue and added more glitter. I waited this time until it was completely dry.

             

I then took some clear acrylic spray paint and coated the glitter with it. I ended up doing a few coats to make sure that the glitter would not fall off when using the glass. I plan on making each glass a different color of glitter so when you have a party, you will know which glass is yours!

For my second project, I wanted to share with you is the letter “A”. I chose the letter A for Anderson, my maiden name. I wanted to create a cascading effect with color. Starting with blue and moving along to a teal green. Similar to the last project I did two coats. Repeating the process twice.

 

I started at the bottom with my darkest color. The letter was already primed white so it was easy to work with. I applied glue to the amount that I chose for the bottom color, and then sprinkled the glitter on. I shook off the glitter and then applied glue to the next area above it where I wanted to place my second color. I did this until all of the four colors I wanted to use filled the letter. I let it dry for about 20 minutes and repeated the process.

When it was all dry I sprayed it with clear acrylic spray paint. I also could have used hair spray. I find that works as well. You can see how I used that in my post about my mantel piece I made last year.

I hope you enjoyed the projects I shared with you today. I have so many more things I will be creating with glitter this year and can’t wait to share them with you! This fall my best friend is turning thirty and she called me last month and said she knew what the theme was going to be. After she made me guess a million different things that were all wrong, she blurted out, “GLITTER!” WE both screamed in excitement and I can not wait to start planning!

I hope you enjoyed my projects today, wish me luck, and don’t forget to visit Art Glitter and check out the amazing glitter they have!! There are so many different kinds, it is like glitter dream land!

peace.love.dove.