LMac's Catered Crops

Christmas in July

Ooh, only two days left in July, so this is just about my last chance for a Christmas in July post. No, I'm not the neighbor that leaves her Christmas decorations up all year. I'm worse; we didn't even get our lights up last Christmas. That's pretty bad, isn't it? Well, this year, I've got just a little jump on that crazy season. Check this out.

My fantastic upline, Melissa Smith, held her first Christmas card camp of the year last week, and we made these adorable, fun cards. Melissa has this fantastic talent of designing beautiful cards that are at the same time incredibly easy to make. So, yes, I am totally copying these ideas for my Christmas card camps starting in September. Easy, breezy and fun. That's the Sidekick Saying hostess stamp set in the back along a Cuttlebug embossing folder, and Big on Christmas in the front with the Flannel Plaid background stamp. Can you see the Dazzling Diamonds on Frostie's face?

There's lots of great news and ideas coming out of the National Stampin' Up! convention in Denver this week. If you don't have access to the gossip, be sure you're registered to receive my newsletter, LMac's Ink-spirations. (Enter your e-mail at the button on the left.) I'll be spreading some of that good gossip in my newsletter later this week. Okay, here's one juicy tidbit in the meantime. All the stamp sets in the mini catalogs will be die cut now, so no more trimming and you can start stamping right away. Woo Hoo!

You Are My Inspiration

My incredible Stampin' Up! sponsor/upline, Melissa Smith, held her end-of-year party this past month. (When I call her "sponsor," I don't think AA, I think supplier and enabler!) She and another leader in her group, Cyndee Rust, gave us this lovely present of all the inspiration sheets since the beginning of inspiration sheets.

[For non-Stampin' Up! folks, "inspiration sheets" used to be offered by Stampin' Up! for demonstrators to purchase and then share with their customers. For selected stamp sets they were sheets with wonderful ideas and detailed instructions. Unfortunately, Stampin' Up! just announced they will not produce them any more, so they're becoming collectors' items.]

Melissa and Cyndee then helped us find a lovely way to bind these sheets for safe keeping and future reference. I decided to give mine one of my customers who has been so influential in my success this past year, so I put her name on the binder. But, I haven't had a chance to get it to her, yet, so her name is blurred in the picture.

This was an easy-breezy project to create using a three-ring binder and the Just Delightful Simply Scrapping kit from this past year's Sell-a-Bration. I spent more time putting the sheets in the sleeve protectors than creating the cover. In their history, Stampin' Up! created almost 100 Inspiration Sheets, so here's a peak of what's inside.

You could use the same idea to bind copies of ideas you've printed off the Internet or pages you've cut out of Stampin' Up! catalogs that contain the stamp sets you own. That's a great way to catalog your inventory of stamps.

Thanks to Melissa and Cyndee for the lovely present and to **name blurred** for being such an help and inspiration to me this year. Ha . . . got you guessing now.

Rockin' Bloggin'

The very talented Catherine Harwood nominated me as a "Rockin' Girl Blogger." I can't begin to tell you how very cool that is. Catherine is one of my favorite bloggers/stampers, and I "CASE" her creations all the time. Be sure to go visit her at 3-2-1 Stamp!

I don't get to sign autographs or spread world peace with this new appointment, but I do get to pass on the honor to five other bloggers. Well, that's a daunting task only because I have so many blogs I enjoy. So . . . with no particular rhyme or reason, here are some terrific blogs I know you all will enjoy. Ladies, you get to assume my crown! Just copy the little icon to your site.

Stampin' On - Amy Celona does beautiful watercoloring.

For the Love of Paper - Chris Twing has some great workshop ideas

Inkspired Treasures - A five-year Stampin' Up! veteran with lots of creativity

Linda's works for Heart - (Nice name!) Her cards are multi-dimensional and gorgeous

Stampin' for Sanity - Renee has beautiful designs using my favorite stamp sets.

My kids will tell you "rockin' girl" doesn't really describe me nearly as well as Jazzin' Woman (one step away from rockin' chair), but is sure is fun to be nominated!

Blog Roll

p.s. I've found a few blogs who have listed me on their blogs as their favorites. Wow, again, what a tremendous honor. If you are linking to my blog, I would sure like to return the honor. Please let me know so I can create and add you to a blog roll. Just leave a comment to this post or e-mail me at [email protected].

Linda

The 411 on a Mini Album

The little Notations mini album I showed you earlier this week is so easy to make. Thanks to Chris Twing for teaching it to me. But, honestly, I'm a little origami challenged, so bear with me as I try to describe how to make this album. It's all in the fold. Start with a 12" x 6" piece of patterned paper.

Fold this in half so you have a 3" x 12" strip.

Fold this strip in half so you have a 3" x 6" strip.

Okay, now there's something in origami about valley and mountain folds. Wish I knew the difference, and this next strip is hard for me to describe. Hmmm . . . maybe a picture will say it all. Fold you strip again into an accordian fold so you end up with a 3" x 3" piece.

Hope you were able to follow that. I'm sorry I can't describe it better. Okay, now, next you fold the corners down on left and right so it looks like this.

And, that is pretty much the entire album. You can used brads to hold the left and right corners down and that makes two pockets. You'll also have pockets at the top of the 2nd and 3rd pages of the album.

Here's another picture showing the 1st and second pages finished with embellishments. I used a circle punch to make the little slot in the second page and you can see the pocket better now.

Your inserts for your pockets are just 2 3/4" x 2 3/4" pieces of paper decorated with the spiral punch, round tab punch, and Office Accoutrement stamp set.

Here are the 3rd and 4th pages.

I embellished it with an origami shirt, since, you know, I had all this great folding zen/zone going down.

And, finally, this picture will show you that you can use a small cover on the album to hold down the ribbon that wraps around and keeps the album together.

Well, if you aren't engrossed in the Harry Potter book that came out tonight (yep, we got ours), have fun folding. I hope you were able to follow along.

Three Generations

My Brushy Creek Community Center buds coerced me into teaching a class on scrapbooking. Okay, while I love to scrapbook, teaching it is just not my forte. But, ever ready for a challenge . . .

I feel more creative turning every day things into a scrapbook page than when I use store-bought pre-packaged embellishments, so we talked about making scrapbook pages with office products. Of course, Stampin' Up!'s Office line was a big source of inspiration. Here's the prototype I worked up for the ladies.

This is a very sentimental page for us. My father-in-law worked as an engineer for Westinghouse for 37 years. My husband has worked for TECO Westinghouse for twelve years as their assistant controller, and my son's first job out of college last May was in the marketing division at TECO Westinghouse. We celebrated my son's new job at a lovely restaurant that used to be a bank. Our table was actually in the original bank vault that they've now turned into a wine cellar. It seemed appropriate.

To make our faux bulletin board I bought a roll of cork sheets from Michaels that was 24" x 48" and cut it down to 12" x 12" sheets, just enough for the eight ladies. The "frame" is from sheets of chipboard cut 12" x 1". I painted them a base coat of chocolate brown, and showed the ladies how to use crackle medium and apply a top coat.

I had a table full of office products, not the least of which was my favorite old-fashioned label maker. There's a picture of it here. We used staples, paper clips, envelopes, stencils, tag, miniature file folders, and just anything else I could drag out of my home office. The Stampin' Up! round tab punch and spiral punch worked nicely, too. And, of course, the Office Accoutrement stamps and Notations designer paper was perfect. Brads made great thumb tacks on our bulletin board.

I wish I'd taken pictures of what the ladies made. One used the ideas to make a school page for her daughter, it was adorable. Another used it to put pictures of a trip, and another used it for her family reunion album. They were all great. And, well, trying to act like I know how to teach scrapbooking, we talked about visual triangles and color balance and anything else I could make up.

We got down to business (sorry, pun intended), but we had fun.

Notations on an Adventure

I know, Father's day was last month. I'm a little late, but I'm so excited the office line made it to the new Stampin' Up! catalog. This was a little mini album I made for my Tom with pictures of all of us in the past months. I had a blast teaching this little project to some ladies at the Brushy Creek Community Center this past week. They're such a hoot, I think I have more fun than they do. Our theme was using office products in scrapbooking, and we made another project I'll share with you later.

Here are the inside pages.

Can you see how many pockets there are? We used the round tab punch with the fun stamps from the Office Accoutrement set and the Notations Paper. It's really a simple album to make especially with some fun designer paper.

[Edit update - Oooo . . . almost forgot. Thanks to JanTink for the design inspiration and to Chris Twing for teaching me how to make the mini album.]

And then we just got these pictures in the mail from our Taos white water trip a few weeks ago, and I just can't keep them to myself. Here's the six of us before the adventure. That's my niece, me and my daughter in the back row; my nephew-in-law, husband and son in the front row. Don't we look like the rugged outdoors type?

A rafter's salute (or what NOT to do in the middle of white water).

And, here we are looking like we know what we're doing. Hey, this time at least I stayed in the boat. (I've been known to swim a rapid or two.)

Here's hoping you're having an adventurous fun-filled week.  Linda

Hi from Italy

I received this wonderful e-mail this week. Rita wrote: "Hi from Italy. I'm very happy to found your blog." She closed her note with "excuse for my English." I was floored and touched. It occurred to me that if someone could struggle through our crazy English language to write me a note from around the world, I could get off my hiney and at least give you folks an update.

My father-in-law is doing well and my  husband and I are much relieved to have some terrific help. His five brothers and sisters will all be here to spend time with Dad by Saturday, we have terrific hospice staff on hand, and some great home health aides around the clock. The church is bringing more food than we can consume, and, God love them, lots of comfort-food sweets. We're not feeling quite so overwhelmed today as we were this time last week and able to enjoy the time we have with my father-in-law. His spirits remain high, and that's the biggest blessing of all.

With all the good help we have on board, I should be able to post some stamping ideas later this week. Thank you for all your very kind and generous posts.  Linda

p.s. You can visit my new Italian friend, Rita, by clicking here. She has some beautiful pictures and crafts, and since her blog is in Italian, she'll make you feel like a world traveler.

Numb

Nursing school prepared me to deliver bad news to patients, it never prepared me to be the recipient of bad news. Yesterday we learned my father-in-law has advanced metastatic liver cancer. Just two months ago he was doing well for a 84 year old man, and today his doctor told us he has one to two weeks of quality life left. He's the pillar of strength, smiling and offering us comfort when we should be comforting him. We're just numb.

This is really rough so soon after losing my mother-in-law last Summer and my Mom this past Spring. You know me . . . stamping is what gets me through these rough times. So, you'll hear from me, just even more sporatically than you already do. Don't give up on me just yet. I'm numb today, but I'll revive.

PG-13

Don't look Ethel!

Apparently I used the word punch, gun and knife too many times.

Pickup Artist

As you can tell, my whole family was just entranced by this truck we found in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico. After driving past it several days seeing it parked in its "rusting place," we stopped to take pictures.

Fast forward to our last day in New Mexico when we spent the day walking around Santa Fe. As we mostly window shopped, we passed Barbara Bowles' studio/shop and were entranced once again by pictures of rusting trucks.

Barbara Bowles has become known as "The Pickup Artist" by her photos of vintage trucks. Her beautiful photographs of the layers of paint and years of life preserved in the rusting metal body of the truck have the look of a colorful impressionistic painting. So how random was it that we found one of her photographs of OUR truck, she calls Turquoise Trail? She explained to us that the make-shift gate in the truck bed meant it probably transported animals. The scratches on the side were probably from the bags gas stations sold to hang on the side and hold water should the truck get overheated.

Talking to Barbara was one of the highlights of the visit for me. I love hearing how an artist has found and embraced her art. She talked about how she grew up in the northeast but was drawn to the light of New Mexico and, upon her 40th birthday, risked all and moved the Santa Fe. She started selling her art at Flea Markets and through a few galleries, but to preserve her artistic freedom, set up her own gallery 2 1/2 years ago in Santa Fe. She did without a bedroom dresser and dining room table so they could be used in the studio to display her art.

With a degree in art, she started taking pictures to use as inspirations for her paintings, but then found the photographs so incredible that they became the art in themselves. She photographs with film, converts the images to digital and then prints them onto watercolor paper. The results are both archival safe and stunning.

Barbara explained that she's known for the creative way she composes her pictures. She says her photography is to document the abstraction in reality. She wants the viewer to discover the object within the photo and to enjoy seeing the world from a different perspective.

So . . . on that long 12-hour ride home I tried to see New Mexico and Texas through Barbara's creative lenses. Take a look at her gallery and see if it doesn't help you see some of the objects around you in a new light.

Fall-Winter Stampin' Up! Collection 2007 - I love punches. It's not uncommon for me to use more than three punches in a single card. With the new catalog we went from 29 punches to 35, yep, I'm in trouble. And without much fanfare, Stampin' Up! added the Crop-a-dile (page 189). I know I'll be getting the Photo Corners and the Scallop Circle, I can see that working beautifully with the circle punches. The Five-Petal Flower matches the hostess set "In The Spotlight". There's a new 3/16" Corner Rounder and, finally, a One-inch Circle punch. The little Star punch will be fun with the Western themes throughout the catalog, and the Snow Blossom punch looks like a lot of fun for Christmas and to use with the In the Spotlight set.

Almost as exciting as the punches themselves are the new stamp sets that coordinate with the punches. I bought the Designer Label punch from the last catalog and didn't really use it as much as I thought I would, but there's a level 1 hostess set, Party Punch, that's going to be a blast to use with it and the Round Tab punch.

Here's a Tipsy Tuesday tip for you. Take a piece of Vellum paper (or regular cardstock will do, too) and use all the punches in your inventory on it. Because the pictures in the catalog are the actual size of the stamp imprints, you can overlay your Vellum template over the catalog images to see how well the punches will work with the images. Cool, huh.