I-tee, UTEE, we all tee!

...look at me with all the creating!

It's been a pretty good evening for it. For date night, The Mister and I went and bottled our wine that we had made (Kiwi Melon Zinfandel - YUMMY!) and even though I don't really drink wine, it's always so much fun to bottle! If you're interested in making and bottling your own wine, I highly recommend Vintner's Wine Cellar - if you have one in your area. Very good prices - we've been coming back since we made our ice wine favors for our wedding and I've also referred a bunch of people, so now, whenever we make wine, we get a lot of good discounts and referral discounts! It's always good to have them as last minute gifts, just-because gifts and of course, to drink! Can't say enough good things about making wine...I always make our own wine labels and I gave a bottle to the owner of the particular cellar where we make and I've had a few request to make labels for other people. I don't know why I put that last part in there, irrelevant really...but for all you creative folks out there, if you're getting a bit tired of decorating flat paper, you could always take your creativity to some wine bottles!

SO! Onward we go, our project for this week on Pezadoodle.com is focusing on Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) and get ready for some messy, FUN (I have embossing powder stuck to my feet as we speak! LOL) Go ahead and check out Marti's blog for the tutorial and examples, I will just be posting my creations here. As always, most of the materials used can be found at her online website, everything else will be otherwise noted.

Up first is my card:

I have no idea why my cards have been quite dark lately (I've been LOVING all over black cardstock lately...) Anywho, just a pretty simple card, as the focal point of the card required quite some effort.

The "Remember when..." is actually some decorative chipboard I got at Dollarama and all I did was smooshed (don't you LOVE that word, say it with me now, "SMOOSH") the chipboard into an embossing inkpad (or versamark, whichever you prefer) and then covered all over with the UTEE. Shake off the excess and heat and then repeat the whole process until you've got a nice, thick coat. Disclaimer: Be careful! Everything can get REALLY hot and it doesn't feel nice to have hot, melted embossing powder all over your fingers! So, as soon as you're satisfied with your coatings, let it set and then toss it in the freezer for a good ten minutes. Once it's nice and cold, CAREFULLY bend in some areas to create the cracked glass look. I say carefully very LOUDLY as if you bend too excessively the hardened UTEE could POSSIBLY flick right off your item and POSSIBLY hit you in the face...I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not I'm speaking from personal experience. LOL...

Alright, getting away with myself, I said I wasn't going to tutorialize the whole thing since Marti's already broke it down so well!

The rest of the ingredients are generic ribbon (Dollarama), Sakura glitter pen, Fiskar's border punch (of which is now completely dessimated - thank goodness it fell apart [LITERALLY] after the LAST punch was made), green paper from K&Co.

Next up is a neat little project I came across on Cambria's blog - I'll have to let you Google that on your own as I am too lazy to Google it myself to get the address from you. It's a nice little bag/pouch or whatever you'd like to call it. The tutorial is on her website, once I've gotten over my laziness, I'll post a link.

Anywho, keeping in line with the UTEE project, if you look at the tag, I guess you could say that I UTEE'd the crap out it. The tag was from a cool punched out set from my LSS (I bought a paper grab bag for only $5 and this was one of the things in it!), I stamped my sentiment in Adirondack Espresso Dye Ink and again, SMOOSHED it into my embossing pad. Pour UTEE, heat and REPEAT!
If you look at the tag carefully, you'll see that there's a piece missing...that MAY have been the little bugger that totally flew off the tag when I went to crack it, and it MAY be the missing piece that totally got up close and personal with my face. You may want to consider wearing safety goggles when embarking upon this project - otherwise, Marti and I can NOT be held liable. Consider yourself warned...LOL!

...and for one last bit of gratuitous picture posting, here are a few more things to look at - please try not to gasp too loudly at what you see next:

...but I DID find this EXCELLENT find at Wal-Mart this evening, it was on clearance sale for $13.00! Woohoo!

CURRENT MOOD: SATISFIED CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: NOTHING MUCH

All that shimmers...

...is so PRETTY! So, I am writing this entry from a completely different computer at a completely different desk other than mine (here at work) because my video card is apparently busted (I have no idea how since I've been on vacation since Friday and haven't even been using it!). What makes it worse is this is all the internet time I'll be getting until tomorrow or Thursday because my wonder Mister was using my laptop and opened that UPS virus that was going around. HE OPENED IT!!! AAAARGH!!! So I was laptop less over the weekend because my lazy bum couldn't get it in to get fixed until yesterday.

Plus, Tiana's birthday party was on Sunday, so we were über busy with the little munchkin! She was soooo cute - she was so excited for her birthday party, all she was talking about was SWIMMING and CAKE! Then when she saw the presents, she whispered to her Dad: "Look, Dada...presents!" And her eyes got all big and round!

Anywho...I played some yesterday with all my wonderful DT stuff and got a little bit done...mojo still ain't running like she used to, but whatevs, I'm still chugging along.

The first card is one done up just like Marti's on her blog - using alcohol inks and glossy paper!

I know it's not too exciting, but I didn't want to do too much more to cover up the nice background. I know it doesn't look like too much, but there was a lot of things done to this card. Lemme see, lemme see - all material, unless otherwise stated can be found at Marti's Pezadoodle store.

So first off, I took some glossy cardstock (to reiterate if I haven't already done so, this isn't the same as PHOTO paper - glossy cardstock (in white AND black) can be found at Marti's site, already pre-cut to size).

I used my wonderful, new foam ink tool and my alcohol inks (Denim and Slate) and just dabbed all the ink over the whole piece of cardstock. Then I took my WONDERFUL shimmery Tsukineko inkpad (I don't have it with me so I don't remember the colour) and I dabbed it over the cardstock after I Cuttlebugged it with the snowflake folder. After that, I decided it needed some lighter aspects so I took my Adirondack pigment inkpad and WHITE and laid the cardstock over the raised pad and just tapped the cardstock with my finger on certain spots to give it a frosty, white colour on some of the raise, snow flake areas. Once that was all dry, I stickled some of the snowflakes using Crystal and I also covered my white snowflake with the same stickles. I just used some clear mini "Skittles" for the arms of the flakes and generic ribbon from my stash, and VOILA! Wintery flakiness!

This one I actually started a while ago, but I got side-tracked with the other events that were going on - so I finished it up last night. Let's see...I used my Chinese garden stamp set from Stamp King and I stamped with Perfect Medium so instead of leaving a colour, it left a nice wet area for me to dust over with Perfect Pearls! I used Perfect Pearls in gold, eggplant, and green (I'm not sure what the name of the colour is) and dusted with a dry, fluffy paint brush - all on black cardstock!

So that's that...I've got more pictures to post, but it'll have to wait until I'm up and running again!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

Clip-It

...it's weird, I didn't even have any coffee today and I STILL feel like I'm rarin' to go!

Work was actually quite busy today (I am SO minus MSN right now because a lot of people were fooled by this virus from UPS we all received and a TON of people at work opened it before our tech peeps could tell us not to, so I'm trying to keep a low profile since I already JUST had my computer completely wiped out of all the crap in it). I got home and The Mister and I got into cleaning mode - and I actually CLEANED!

My assignment was to tackle the NASTY amount of dishes and things growing in the sink and The Mister's was to clean out our closet to make room for stuff and I had a little fun along the way à la this:

...yes, yes, that really IS the coolness of me. I wanted to put my wedding dress on too, but The Mister refused to get the dress out of the box and lace me up. MEH...dress up = DENIED. Ah well, if you're wondering, I did take the veil off shortly after this picture was taken (after I ran around the house and fanned it out for a bit...)

After the cleaning I was kind of pooped, but I had gone and had a little fun at Dollarama and found these fabulous Post-it notes and I tried my hand at making some post-it clipboards - hence...CLIP-ITs!

So these are for my co-workers and myself. We've recently become quite the bonded trio after my co-worker's personal stuff and it's been a fabulous time at the office (also less drama from the most dramatic one who's FINALLY off for a while). The first clipboard says STRONG for the co-worker going through the personal stuff, the second says CHARMING just because she SO is, and the third says BRILLIANT because I TOTALLY am! *LoL* It's kind of an inside joke between the three of us that worked out really well since I had the metal plates...I probably won't remember it the next time I read this...

So, onto the materials!

Coaster chipboard - http://www.pezadoodle.com/
Paper: Glitter Stack - Chapters
Flowers: Prima - Cafe Prima
Ribbon: Generic - I don't even remember
Post-it pad - Dollarama
Clip - Dollarama
Metal plates - Dollarama

Oops, and I almost forgot, some Princess Pops I robbed from myself!

P.S. Oh and a little off-topic, but my cousin's wedding that happened a few weeks ago...I'm going to be a GODMOTHER! She brought home a little honeymoon peanut!

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They LOVE me, they REALLY LOVE ME!

...I've been nominated for an award!

Thanks Diane for the award! I'm always so happy to hear from people who come and visit - I didn't even know you were one of them! YAY for ME! I love your blog as well! Always so clear and concise and picture-friendly with the tutorials of all the things you do! Love your work!

The rules of this award
1. The winner can put the logo on her/his blog
2. Link the person you received the award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs to win this award.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you've nominated to receive this award.

I'm going to have a teeny, tiny problem with this part as I don't think I know of seven blogs to nominate - especially since the first person I would nominate was already nominated by Diane as well! The other person that I wanted to nominate also got the same award...but let's just go ahead and nominate them anyway, if you were already nominated, you don't have to do the whole thing over again!

1. Marti - http://pezadoodle.blogspot.com/
2. Katie - http://katiespaperhaven.blogspot.com/
3. Okie - http://okieladybugsscrapnmore.blogspot.com/
4. Michelle - http://bcr8iv.blogspot.com/
5. Chris - http://ole682000.blogspot.com/
6. Robyn - http://www.thepinkstamper.blogspot.com/
7. Kopperhead - http://kopperhead100.blogspot.com/

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

Holy Moly, I'm BACK!

...it is SO hard to get back into the swing of things!

My body succumbing to sickness every couple of weeks doesn't help either, but I guess that's my way of telling myself that I need to REST.

I spent the better part of today in a NeoCitran induced sleep, but after waking up a few hours earlier, I was feeling MUCH better. Taking a peek at Marti's blog and seeing how MUCH I've MISSED and WHAM! The creativeness was itching to come out!

...Not that the creativeness manifested into anything ACTUALLY creative, but I made a card and got back on my DT horse!

After I saw what I was missing, how could I NOT get my greedy, craft-starved hands on DIMENSIONAL pearls. Not only are they all 3D and yummy, but after I SMOOSHED them (which was the recent tutorial) when you look reeeal closely, you can see that they are all SHIMMERY and SHINY. Now if there's one thing all girls love, it's SHIMMER and SHINY GOODNESS!

So without much more chit-chat (that'll come later, I promise - the non-sick me is feeling veeeery CHATTY!) here are some PICTURES:

...Okie dokie! While my nit-picky side doesn't really think it's the BEST I could have come up with, the other sides of me are shrugging and saying, "Hey, it's the ONLY thing you came up with," so we're going to ignore nit-picky me for a while until I can get 100% back into the game.

So let's see, ingredients, ingredients!

Cardstock - Walmart
Shimmery Paper - Dollarama
Dimensional Pearl SMOOSH: dimensional pearls in Eggplant and Bottle, Pezadoodle.com
Glossy Paper - Pezadoodle.com
Brayer - Pezadoodle.com
Ink: Adirondack pigment ink in Pitch Black - Pezadoodle.com
Stickles - Pezadoodle.com
Stamps: Bellastamps.com and Studio G

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

This and that...

...slooowly getting back into the crafty swing of things. I think I was feeling a lot of pressure to jump back in and be all creative after the hectic couple of weeks and I was getting frustrated with myself when I wasn't coming up with anything even remotely spectacular. So with some advice to "RELAX" from my fantabulous PIC, Marti, I took a deep breath and just tried to do things slowly. Focused on my beads and all the problems I've been having with shipping (I'll be shipping with UPS or Purolator instead of Canada Post for a while just to see how that goes!) and tonight I'll be working on CLEANING and maybe a nice, cleaner space will help get the creativity flowing some more.

I made a card last night to go with my Mom's Mother's Day present (yeah, I still have it, but she saw it already), it's a huge box of assorted cards for her to have! It's one of the first in the housewarming section...

So to be COMPLETELY honest, it's not EXACTLY my favourite of creations, but I'm happy that I was able to actually complete something. I don't know why I don't really like it...it's just one of those days where everything you try to make feels like it's not really coming together, you know? But I was able to try out another one of Marti's tutorials on her blog and this is the multicolour distress embossing powder technique. You can't really see it all that well, but each part of the card (the flowers, the diamonds and the lattice) are done in different colours of embossing powder. And the little house USED to be a Studio G wood-mounted stamp of a church, but I covered up the steeple to make it just a regular looking house.

So ingredients, ingredients!
Unless otherwise stated, all materials are from http://www.pezadoodle.com
Glossy cardstock cut down to size
Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder in: Tattered Rose, Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint
Pezadoodle stamp: Harlequin Flowers, stamped with Perfect Medium
Studio G wood-mounted stamp (from ScrapHut), stamped with Adirondack Pigment Ink in Pitch Black
3D pop-dots (from Dollarama)

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A little breather...

...*sighs* and there it is! I definitely could do with catching a little breather! I have definitely been MIA for quite a while, haven't I? It's all these events and weddings and parties and MORE events, more weddings and more parties! I'm not really complaining because I LOVE planning them all, but it sure takes a lot of me...and I MISS my scraproom!!! I haven't been in it in so long. Everytime I get a spare moment, I just want to SLEEP!

My cousin's wedding went really well though, I'll post some pictures later, when I'm not feeling so lazy! And just yesterday was my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary so we threw a big bash for them to celebrate and I had a lot of DIY things done for that...pictures of those later too, since I still don't have the energy.

On the crafting front, I got a package from Marti from Pez-a-Doodle and say it with me: oh. my. gosh. It had the funnest most YUMMIEST ink pads and goodies in there!!! I got a whole series of Adirondack pigment ink pads and WOW. When I say so smooth and thick and creamy, I mean the INKS! I opened up the package and pulled the protective plastic over the pad and was already impressed! I stamped an image with the cranberry ink and it was SO NICE! I know some of you won't get how excited I can be about ink, but honestly, take up stamping and start with the regular ol' inks and then try THESE inks and you'll see what I mean!!!

I took a picture of all my goodies, but they're still on my camera so it looks like I've got a lot of photo posting to do when I get home.

Also, before my tiredness causes me to forget...oops, I had to stop and now I've forgotten what I was going to say! I'll write again when I remember!!! Yikes!

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