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.

St. Patrick’s Day 2012

St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year. Of course I was crafty but it was not in paper form…

My friend Emily had nothing to wear since the weather was almost 80 degrees here in Minnesota, which is so unheard of! So we came up with a shirt for her to wear. I happened to tye dye a plain white shirt the day before, since I had no idea what I was going to wear.

We cut up the shirt and made it a lot more fun! I also had a project for myself to wear out. I love dressing up. This year my friend Anna and I made tutus!

When you do something like a make a tutu when you go out, make sure you are not the only one… I went to a bar later that night without my friend, and a bunch of guys came up congratulation me… They assumed I was out for my bachelorette party! I had to explain to the many men, that I have been married for almost 4 years, and this is just my St. Patrick’s Day outfit!

I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day! I am going to head out and enjoy the day again today! The sun in shining and I am not going to pass this up! Who knows how long it will stay around!!

Cheers!!

peace.love.dove.

A Bridal Banner

My cousin Cassandra had her first bridal shower of the year this past weekend. It was the family shower. Both sides of her family got together and put together a great shower filled with fruit and chocolate for her.

Cass was my maid of honor in my wedding, we are super close. I am 2 weeks older than her, and our mom’s are sisters. We grew up living less than 5 miles from each other. We lived in different school districts so we never went to school together, but we hung out often. She is the closest thing I have to a real sister.

So in honor of wedding season, I made a banner!

I kept it pretty simple so it can be used again… Cassie’s sister is getting married in July!

It is made up of two different teal papers and two different pinks. The Banner is cut from Stand and Salute (don’t quote me on that, but I think that is what I used), and the letters are from Simply Sweet cartridge.

Have a great day!

peace.love.dove.

March Madness

Nope, nothing to do with basketball. No offense to those who love basketball, but it is NOT my sport. On the other hand my husband loves it. My March Madness is a crafting madness. Lots of projects on my to do list, and some even completed!

My parents have been wanting to re-do their bathroom. The one that I use, so I think it is considered the guest bathroom. Several fixture in the bathroom are original… such as the medicine cabinet and the lights. My mom bought all new towels, and a new shower curtain. The big thing… painting.

I offered to do since I have been wanting to paint something forever! They even let me pick out the color!

The original tile is gray and black. So I went with a nice purple paint color to go with the tile. Before it was gray with maroon and white sponge paint. It only took me a day to prep and paint! My dad was a little shocked at my color choice, but then again, if they wanted something different then he should have picked the color! Even as a kid, I had a weird sense of color choices. I had a teal room with white and dark purple sponge paint… {why was sponge painting so cool back then? Maybe in 10 years purple would have not been the right choice too.}

Anyways. Here are some before, in the middle, and I will post a final picture later this week when we get all the stuff back in the room!

                  BEFORE                                    ALMOST DONE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of stuff coming up this month. If my mom’s sewing machine is working I will also be participating in a sew along! I think I will start on that tonight! I have the fabric cut and ready to go. Just keeping my fingers crossed on the machine! I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

peace.love.dove.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today was my Mom’s birthday (and yes, I am writing this post at 11pm). She is a whopping 59 years old! So hop on over to her blog and give her some belated birthday love!

This is us having tea in a castle in England this past summer!

Being at my parent’s house, finds me not as inspired to create things, since what home décor I make I will leave behind… or for the fact that I don’t have MY printer, or all MY paper. But things will turn around, I might just be in that post holiday slump. I have my nephews a lot, and I love the time I get to spend with them, but little ones take up your time! One is 2 years old, and the other 6 months old!

With that being said, I have decided that my dream job would be to work for a craft company. Whether it is a store, paper company, or any sort of crafting anything. Then comes in Hawaii this summer, so I will have to wait a few more years for that dream I think. For those of you from Hawaii or have lived there, any recommendations on craft stores on Oahu?

Now onto what I have been up to. I have been living at the gym it feels like. Everyone there seems to know who I am. All the employees know that I am the girl that is trying to lose enough weight to go to Fiji (and to live in Hawaii). Oh yeah, Fiji, its my weight loss bet with my husband. To take me on a trip to Fiji if I can reach my weight loss goal before he gets back. I do have the worlds greatest husband. Today was weigh in day. We took my measurements a month ago and again today. So what were the results?

I am down almost 4% in body fat… which means I bumped myself from being in the overweight category, to the healthy range!! I am still on the high side, but I am working on bringing that much further down. I can still lose 10% more and be healthy… I should work towards that! In the process of losing body fat, I also gained 5lbs lean muscle mass. Which is a good thing my trainer said.

My waist is an inch smaller, my hips and inch and a half, my bust an inch, and my thigh, is bigger! More muscle, again, my trainer said it was a good thing. Next step, healthy diet and drink more water!

These results make me feel good. Like I am actually making progress! I just have to stick with it. I am going to start taking Tai Chi with my mom next week, and I do Zumba once or twice a week. Throw in some running, and weight training, and lifting a baby all day… well that is what I got going on in a nutshell. Don’t be confused with a turtle shell. I am not a ninja turtle, but that would be pretty cool if I was…

I want you to all know that this in NOT my New Years Resolution. This is my life resolution. I want to be more fit for me. I want to be in good shape when we decide to start a family. I want to be healthy, happy, and have more energy. This is a me project. I know I can’t fix it a short amount of time. I know that it takes time, energy, determination, and dedication. But I AM going to do it!

Anyone else working on a me project? Weight loss, crafting, home projects?  I think I might scrapbook my progress. Now there we go, I have a project! Something I want to do. Ah, crafting rut no more. Ok, it was only a week long or so rut, not too bad! Sounds like I just made some plans for Saturday.

Oh, and I took up crocheting, but more on that later.

peace.love.dove.