21st Century Pillow Book

Ok…So I didn’t quite wait until the 11th hour here did I? Plus, I’m doing TWO projects at once here! What am I talking about? Well, for one, I had not yet made the July Twilight Tuesday Sketch Challenge … and since it’s only July 30th… I figured I should get it done before August actually gets here. Second, I wanted to make at least one more project this week using one of the stamps from Dragonflycurls . Remember… she hand carves her stamps! I love that! So here’s my card… It’s pretty gilded… I don’t normally use much gold (being the silversmith that I am!) but I had a need to do something shiny and metallic. So, I used these scraps (I love using scraps!) and put this baby together. The red paper is from The Paper Company, and the metallics are from Prism. The fiber is from EK Success and I inked the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink. It’s hard to see in the photos, but everything is really metallic except for the oval that actually says Twilight. So, that’s it! I’m lookin...

It may be Wednesday, but there is another TTIC challenge for this week! Bonus! Here’s the story: Today we are so excited to tell you we are doing an EXTRA challenge today!  Graciously sponsored by Audra at Dragonflycurls. She makes some amazing handmade Twilight themed stamps.  Make sure you go and check out her site! Here is the link for her etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6867385 And here is the special bonus challenge for you: What team do you play for? Team Edward or Team Jacob? Are you still loyal to your original team? Or have you switched sides? Or do you play for both teams now? Let’s show some love for the boys ladies! Fangs or fur, vamp bites or dog breath? Have the trailers for New Moon maybe changed your opinion of who you used to like? Come on now…be honest! Sincere thanks to goes out to Audra from all of us at Twilight Tuesday. We’re really happy to collaborate with dragonflycurls for this fun challenge! Our Design Team has...

This week’s Twilight Tuesday Challenge has been thought up by Jen. Here is her challenge: Blue. Edward loves Bella in blue. "That color blue looks lovely with your skin," he said, watching me. I was surprised; I looked down, flushing, of course. So this week the challenge is simple... create anything you want focusing on the color blue. Twilight related? Well that's up to you. Comment challenge... What's your favorite color to wear and why? So here is a simple little layout that I made of Phoenix and his “Blue.” He calls his blanket Blue. He loves this blanket so much. You know how it is when you have a favorite blanket… Well, this is his. And I can’t blame him. It is divinely soft and cozy! Wish it were big enough for me! I especially loves when he wraps it around his face! He looks ridiculous and adorable! I kept this layout pretty basic. I didn’t want to add too much “stuff.” Thought it would take away from the simple charm of a boy and his blanket. Used my fav...

So I am participating in my very first swap. Of course, it is Twilight related. My friend (and I am proud to say she’s my friend) Tia is hosting this swap on Split Coast Stampers. I’m taking part in a couple of the categories. The first of which is “tags.” They’re supposed to be 3x3, but I just had to use my little Edward stamp again so the tags need to be a little bigger than 3”. Here’s my little creation: I also used stamps from Artful INKables …just can’t get enough of those either! I colored Edward in using my EK markers, except for his skin, which I used a pearlized hard pastel. It’s hard to see in a photo. And his eyes are sparkly because I used Sakura’s Jelly Roll Stardust pen in a topaz color. A little bit ‘o Stickles, some layering and ta-da! A cute little tag that I hope whatever swappers receive it, will enjoy.

I am SOOOO excited about this week’s challenge! Why? Because it’s MY challenge! As I Guest Designer for Twilight Tuesday (gosh- that never gets old!), I got the opportunity to create a challenge during my term. Well folks, here it is! This one’s a thinker kids! It’s no secret that Breaking Dawn is my favorite book in the series. So, now that it’s my turn to create a challenge (which I am SO excited about!), of course I would pull something from that book! Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read Breaking Dawn, then stop reading this post and pick up that book! Then, you can come back and read the post, and complete the challenge! One of the things I love the most about Breaking Dawn are Jacob’s chapter titles. They’re hilarious! My favorite is: “What do I look like? The Wizard of Oz? You Need a Brain? You Need a Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have.” Chapter 17, page 329 This chapter title perfectly depicts what Jacob is going through but in a sarcastic, tough, Jacob kinda ...

Ok, so I’m sure that many of you had seen the card I made for the extra TTIC challenge last week. If not, then go to last Wednesday’s blog to check it out! I had mentioned that I had already colored in another Edward image from The Greeting Farm that I also wanted to use in a card. Well, I finally got a chance to finish it this weekend. Here he is! Excuse the shadow. It’s dark out now, and I just wanted to get this post up… so I had to take the photo in crummy light. But ain’t he cute??? Here’s a close up. See those numbers? Those are the pencil color’s identifying numbers for his hair. I didn’t want to forget which I used, and I am a huge Paint Chip fanatic (you should see some of the cards I made with Paint Chips! Hmmmm, another blog post for another day), so I decided to actually attach the colors to the card! This way, I’ll always know what I used! I had planned on keeping this one anyway. Plus, you may notice a line going down poor little Edward’s face. I am an ass. I should kn...

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather outside, and have had lots of wonderful photo opps within the past few days. So I decided to share some of them with you. Rhiannon is 7 months old now! I cannot believe it. She’s gonna be walking and talking sooner than I can imagine. And how COOL is her shirt? It is such an Alison shirt! I love it! And here is my boy. Playing with 2 of his favorite things. His sand box and his front end loader. And no, this was NOT done in hoto shop! It was done IN my camera! It’s a Cannon 850 digital elph. Love!!! Yes, Phoenix is climbing UP his slide. At 2 and a half! Is that normal??? Should he be able to do that already??? I think it’s hilarious! He just started doing it this week! And my Girl…ain’t she sweet? This is today. Again, growing so fast I can hardly stand it!!! You may see a little red mark by the shadow ade by his chin. My poor boy got stung by a wasp today! It flew in to his shirt! Luckily, it flew right out, but of course stung little ...

Ooh! I am so excited about this! Twilight Tuesday is thrilled to announce that we are collaborating with The Greeting Farm ! Have you seen their ADORABLE stamps??? Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not usually a fan of super cutsie things.. but this company has won me over! Margie (one of the TTIC designers) introduced me to this company (via her blog) a short time ago. She had featured her Anya stamps, and gave us a peek at a super fantastic little Edward stamp! I fell in love with him! He was so great! Well, needless to say, I now am a proud owner of the little Edward (thanks so much Marie!). So, we now give you a special Twilight Tuesday Challenge! We were to create something using The Greeting Farm’s Edward and by using the colors black, red and white (or silver). These are the colors that most Twilight Fanatics (including myself) use on their projects. Here’s what I created! Now tell me… can you resist this little fella??? I can’t! I love his outfit too! It’s so hip! Lots ‘o layers! ...

If you did not complete the Twilight Saga… then STOP READING!!! Tons of spoilers are in this post, and I don’t want to ruin it for you. But, why the heck haven’t you finished the series yet?!?!? This week’s Challenge is brought to us by Dani, my buddy who loves NCIS just like I do! Anyway, here’s the scoop! I’m nothing if not thorough. Edward Cullen, Breaking Dawn, Chapter 5, pg.78 The Challenges: Craft – Make something that you feel represents Bella and Edward’s honeymoon. Comment – Tell us about your honeymoon (no personal details please!). Did you go somewhere or see something special? Or did you just hide out from the world and enjoy being with your new spouse? If you haven’t been on a honeymoon, that is ok! What is your dream honeymoon? For my honeymoon, Gene and I went to St. Martin. It was so beautiful there. And the food…oh the food… I will never forget how my taste buds danced! We were there for 6 days, and we had such a fantastic time! We bought our first digital camera the...

It is far too nice outside (finally!!!) to sit indoors. Since there is a bit of lovely wind, it precludes me from really getting any crafting done. But I wanted to post today anyway. Here, I am sharing some photos of a couple of lovely flowers I am lucky enough to have in my garden. I haven’t really been able to spend much time outside since it’s been raining as if we were in Forks here, but fortunately, I do have some lovely jewels around my home. Enjoy! This first flower is a Passion Flower. I have worked three years to get it to bloom! I purchased it with a couple of flowers on it… but after that, it never flowered again. I was so thrilled to see these beautiful and unusual blossoms. It’s a spectacular plant! Here is my proud and lovely Crystal Calla Lilly. For some reason, the very first bloom this plant produces each year is a double. One flower inside another. It’s pretty wild to see! What’s really great about this particular variety of Calla, is that as the flowers age, th...

Well, folks, I got a lot of wonderful feedback last week when I blogged about the Twilight Necklace I made. Here’s the LINK if you missed it. So, I decided to make another necklace… I actually really wanted to anyway, since the beading bug has bitten me again. Plus, I still had Pam’s charms so… Here’s my latest creation. Most Twi-stuff is depicted in red, black and white, but the movie had such a blue cast to it, I decided to use that as my color inspiration. You can see here that it’s got a tiny photo of Edward and Bella, during the piano scene, in a bottle cap. I put 5 little charms on the chain, plus another hanging off the back of the piece. I lov e the colors, and I really like the combination of sizes and textures of all of the elements I used. I even listed it on my Etsy Shop so that if you want it to be yours, it can be! I plan on making more of these little babies, but if there’s a specific scene that YOU want to wear around your neck, let me know and Pam and I will...

Hey everybody! Because of the Holiday, TTIC is taking a break from releasing a new challenge this week. Instead, it’s going to be a catch up week, which is great because there are definitely some challenges I wanted to do but couldn’t for one reason or another. So, I decided to use Beth’s Challenge from May 26th: Favorite New Moon Quote. Click on the title to check out the original posting. Here’s the quote I chose: “Before you, Bella, my life was alike a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars- points of light and reason. …And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly, everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. “ -New Moon pg. 514 And here’s my project. I have been on a mega jewelry kick lately, and all I wanna do is make necklaces, so I thought that I could translate my quote into a piece of wearable homage to Twilight. I used a beautiful piece of dichroic glass for my interpretation of Bella as the meteor. The starlight sky is the glimmeri...

I was on the TTIC forums the other day (big surprise!) and we were discussing ways to distress paper. I had mentioned the Burnt Paper Technique developed by Ranger for Tim Holtz’s Distress Inks (cannot live w/out these!!!). Some of the girls didn’t know what it was… so I described the technique… but it’s always better to see pictures. So… here it is! So, let’s start with the colors. You need Antique Linen, Walnut Stain (or Vintage Photo), Fired Brick, and Black Soot. You can add a little Tea Dye too, if you’d like. 1. Tear the edges of your project (I will eventually put this little piece on a card) 2. Start with Antique Linen, buffing the edge of your project with the pad, or if you're comfortable with a sponge, you can use that. You will go in the deepest with the Antique Linen. All other colors will be less represented, if that makes sense. The sponge will give you a softer look too. I wanted to make what I was doing pretty harsh and obvious, for the purpose of this tutorial. ...