Lisa Crafts Too

Lawnscaping Challenge #64 - Distress - I'm Wild About You

As usual, I am entering this challenge at practically the last possible minute, lol! I have a ton of Distress products so I definitely wanted to play along with this week's Lawnscaping Challenge #64 - Distress Maniacs to use distress products on my card.

 

 

Ok, so this card started out REALLY awesome, I swear! First, I used my distress paints to create the background scene - I just did the grass with two shades of green (Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn) and the sky with blue and white (Broken China and Picket Fence.) IT LOOKED AWESOME.

Next, I used my distress markers and a water brush to color the animals and tree on watercolor paper.

Once I colored everything and ran it through my die cutting machine I had just half an hour left to finish this card, take a photo and link it to the challenge (sigh.) This is where an initially awesome card turned not so awesome. I put all the pieces together to create the scene, but it was missing something at the top. I decided to add some lawn trimmings to make the bow. Ok, but it was still empty-looking at the top.....so ---and this is where I'm not happy--- I tried to add in some yellow distress paint to make a sun to fill up the space a bit more and it totally wrecked my awesome background. I strongly dislike it....(sigh). Now I feel like the end result resembles a child's fingerpainting, lol. I also wish I had mounted the painted panel to a colored background before adhering it to the card. Oh well. I got it done in time for the challenge, it just didn't quite work out awesome as I had envisioned it. I also kinda wanted to use some distress stickles, but I plan to give this card to my husband and he's not the biggest fan of glitter (he somehow ends up with glitter on him all the time from my crafting.)

 

In other news, while I still had to take the photo in my poorly lit basement, I did buy that little plastic easel so it is at least propped up and easier to photograph!

 

Supplies used:

Distress Paints in Peeled Paint, Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Picket Fence, Mustard Seed

Distress Markers in Peeled Paint, Crushed Olive, Forest Moss, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Broken China

Tim Holz detail water brush

Lawn Fawn stamps: Critters on the Savanna, A Birdie Told Me, Handmade With Love (on back of card)

Lawn Cuts: Critters on the Savanna, A Birdie Told Me

Lawn Trimmings: Vivid Triple Pack Cord

Spellbinders Grand Calibur

Sympathy card....

Just a quick post here to share a sympathy card I made for one of my students who lost her grandfather last week. I find sympathy cards difficult, so I just decided to keep it simple.

 

 

Supplies used:

Lawn Fawn: So Much to Say, On the Mend, Handmade with Love (on card back), Bright Side Petite Paper Pack

Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge! Cool Shades

I'm back, I'm back! FINALLY I am back to entering challenges again! For those who don't know, I recently got married, and between all the wedding crafting and planning, the wedding itself, and the honeymoon I stepped away from card making for about 4 months. Well, I'm SO GLAD to be back and to be entering the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge again with a sweet baby card. This week's challenge is a Cool Shades challenge and called for using the following color combination:

 

Cocoa, Coral, Kraft, Yellow

 

As usual, I'm entering the challenge at the last minute, lol! I had a couple of baby cards I needed to make and one of them I cannot post here because it's for another challenge participant! The card that I made for this challenge is actually for Raffaella, the girl that took my too-small wedding dress and reworked it beautifully so that it would fit me absolutely perfectly! Raffaella was a delight to work with - a truly wonderful and funny person - and she was very pregnant while she was working on my dress! I really wanted to make her this card to celebrate her new baby, little Levi, who arrived at the end of July. I've heard that both mama and baby are doing wonderfully. So, here's my card:

 

One of these days I will actually take well-lit photos, especially since I always end up taking them after the sun has set for the night. In the meantime, though, this is what you get - so sorry!

I tried to make a card for a baby boy given the color chart, so I used the coral for the mama elephant and the light yellow for the baby elephant and then kept the other elements to the card either yellow or neutral. I think it works! The only coloring I did was to use white gel pen on the tusk and toenails.

Supplies used:

Paper Smooches Stamps: A Little Lovin

Lawn Fawn: Pink Lemonade paper, Lawn Trimmings in Lemon

 

Happy Birthday Card for my New BFF Morgann!

While I was in the Poconos teaching flute camp last month I made the most amazing new friend in one of the other flute instructors. We just completely hit it off right from the start which surprised me because it's a rare occasion that I meet someone like Morgann, someone who will certainly be a friend for life. I call her my BFF (Best Flute Friend) and since she already has a best flute friend, she calls me her FFF (Fast Flute Friend). Whatever you want to call it, we've become great friends very quickly! She's awesome and we have practically everything in common, from our love for teaching the flute to our love of owls and shopping. Here's a photo of the two of us in action at camp:

 

 

See how our clothes even coordinate? -and that was the first day of camp, totally unplanned! Well, Morgann just celebrated her birthday earlier this week, so I just had to make her a card - what kind of BFF/FFF would I be if I didn't?? I had originally planned on using one of my owl stamps, but the cute little turtle set from Lawn Fawn that they released for their belated Year 2 birthday was calling to me, and I hadn't yet used it. The paper is a scrap that Lawn Fawn sent with a stamp order - I think it's from their Pink Lemonade collection, as is the green twine I used. I just love how her card turned out!!

 

It's been a while since I made a card, so this was fun! And for once I made a card just to make a card and not to enter into a challenge. I've got a few other cards that need to be made this week, so be sure to check back and see what else I come up with!

 

Supplies used: (I promise to figure out the inlinks widget thing soon so that these will show up as pics!)

Lawn Fawn: Banneriffic, Year Two, Pink Lemonade paper, Lime Lawn Trimmings

 

FO (Finished Object) - Honeymoon Socks

 

While this is the first knitting project I've shared on my blog, this is far from being my first knitting project. Actually, I've been knitting (on and off) for an entire decade now! These socks are actually only the second pair of socks I've ever completed. I knit a pair for my mom about 8 years ago and have also knit two random socks (one for me and one for an evil ex-boyfriend) that I set aside and need to finish (luckily my hubby has the same size feet as the evil ex and happens to like said sock!)

Knitting was actually my first hobby. It became clear a decade ago that I needed to find some creative way to spend my time outside of practicing my flute. My mom suggested knitting since she knew how and could teach me and once I got the hang of it I was hooked. I like that it's portable and relaxing - the act of knitting each stitch is very theraputic - and I just think it is so cool that I can take a ball of yarn and make something wearable. I know that I will always knit. I might not do it every day, but it's something I will continue to do throughout my life.

I have a habit of visiting yarn shops whenever I can when I am traveling and while I was on my honeymoon my husband indulged me and let me drag him to a few yarn shops (3 or 4 maybe?) It was during our stop at a wonderful yarn shop in East Greenwich, RI formerly called Unwind (I think it's now called Love to Knit, but I might be misremembering that) that I picked up some beautiful sock yarn called Tough Love Sock in the colorway Stormchaser by Sweet Georgia Yarns. Wow, they have so many wonderful colorways that it was difficult to choose! I will definitely be ordering more of their yarns for future socks!

 

After the honeymoon I was eager to get this yarn on the needles and I decided to knit up the Traveler's Socks, a pattern by Stephanie Bold that was featured in the Fall 2012 Interweave Knits. The pattern was very easy to knit up, although I will admit that my first few attempts needed to be unraveled because I initially misinterpreted the instructions just past the cuff. Once I figured out where I was going wrong, however, it was smooth sailing from there on. It took me about 2 weeks to knit up this pair of socks and I used just about the entire skein of yarn (400-something yards.) I knit these cuff-down and was getting pretty nervous toward the end of the second sock that I would run out. I've got small feet so I knit the small version. If you have larger feet and use this same yarn and pattern and only have 1 skein to use, make the legs shorter. These are actually pretty long in the leg. I'd also use a solid colorway rather than a variegrated as I did here - the cabling would show up much better. I plan to knit these again in a solid. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled with how they turned out. There are a few small mistakes, but that's the beauty of the variegrated yarn with the cabling - it's hard to impossible to tell. Overall they fit really well, so I'm very pleased and happy to have knit my first pair of socks for me!

 

 

 

I'm alive, no worries!!!

Hi everyone! I hope you've all had an amazing summer thus far. It's nearly over (well, technically there's still another month util fall, but I head back to school next week so once summer vacation comes to an end summer may as well be over! I'm so sorry I haven't posted for 3+ months. So much was going on that this blog ended up getting pushed aside until life returned to normal, which it now is once again! Not that my life was abnormal - just abnormally busy! This was definitely the best summer of my life because on the fourth of July I married my best friend who I can now at last call my husband! Then there was the honeymoon (we went to Newport, Rhode Island for a week) and then just a couple of weeks later I went to the Poconos, Pennsylvania to teach flute camp for a week (I'm a mean wife as I left my hubby alone with his in-laws while I was away!) Now that it's mid-August I've finally had a chance to catch my breath and am slowly adapting back into a normal routine. I've got so much to share with you all and will definitely be back to share wedding pictures and I plan to do a post on all the wedding crafts that Bryce and I worked together on for our big day, as well as share how we spent our honeymoon. For now, though, I just wanted to say a quick hello and let you all know I am back and plan to get posting again on a more regular basis. Bye!!

~Lisa