Summer Breeze Blog Hop

See the curtains hangin' in the window in the evenin' on a Friday night

A little light a-shinin' through the window lets me know everything is alright

Summer breeze makes me feel fine 

blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Summer breeze makes me feel fine 

blowing through the jasmine in my mind

See the paper layin' on the sidewalk a little music from the house next door

So I walked on up to the doorstep through the screen and across the floor

Sweet days of summer the jasmine's in bloom 

July is dressed up and playing her tune

And I come home from a hard day's work and you're waiting there not a care in the world

See the smile a-waitin' in the kitchen food cookin' and the plates for two

Feel the arms that reach out to hold me in the evening when the day is through

Summer Breeze Lyrics by Seals and Croft

We have a super creative group of ladies that are participating this month as this will
be a monthly challenge where the players may change but the creativity is phenomenal:

Participant Blog Addies for Summer Breeze

1. Lynne Kirsch ~ http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com
2. Kimberly Pate ~  http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com
3. Shelly Lynn ~ http://kccroppers.blogspot.com < YOU ARE HERE!
4. Lucy ~ http://www.love2createitall.com
5. Lisa Peters ~ http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
6. Edwina Brown~  http://edwinascreations.blogspot.com/
7. Anita Cannon~ http://www.anitaandbugs.blogspot.com
8. Miriam -  http://miriamscreations.blogspot.com 
9. Janet Smith ~ http://www.ladyluvbug.blogspot.com/
10. Jenny~ http://cccjalessi.blogspot.com/

If you have come to visit me today, I'm honored but I wouldn't want you to miss a single
creative spot and would want you to start at the beginning which is Lynne at
http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/. You should have arrived from my
creative accomplice Kimberly at http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com

Now, to showcase my creativity (with help from Julie and Traci at Paisley and Polka Dots,)
I have for you today... a mini album (kit project) from http://paisleysandpolkadots.com.
I absolutely LOVE their mini album kits.  If you have never checked them out, please do so.

I altered the original album a bit.

 OOPS...
I added the pinwheel sticker (above) when I completed the album
and forgot to take it off the backing sheet before taking the pic.

   
My toothpick on the flag was to short so I created the butterfly above the flower.
Using Maya Road cream colored scalloped trim and a trinket pin.
(Close up below)
  

Thanks for stopping by!

With all this being said, sadly, I must send you on your way to our next super crafty friend,
Lucy at http://www.love2createitall.com

Summer breeze makes me feel fine; blowing through the jasmine in my mind!

Stay tuned for next month for I Double Dog Dare YOU. If you want to particpate,
let either Lynne Kirsch at hercraftiness@gmail.com or Kimberly Pate at KPKre8tions@gmail.com
where we are going to be challenging your creativity mojo
where the only limit is yourself with a theme of "First Readers"

~ Shelly ~

Piece of Cake

Well, not exactly. My husband got a Cricut Cake last year for his birthday (I honestly did not put him up to it- he asked for it of his own accord!), and since we haven't used it a whole lot, we thought we would pull it out and give it a shot when making a Thank You cake for Shell and her husband John, who had watched our pets when we traveled over the weekend. I picked a design from the "Just Because" Cards cart, and we were off. Our theme was watermelon, so I baked a red velvet cake with chocolate chips in the batter (to look like seeds), and frosted the cake green. So far, so good. We figured we would cut the three easy decor pieces out of gumpaste, slap 'em on top, and be good to go for afternoon delivery.

Yeah. Like that was happening.

Instead, we spent the rest of our Saturday afternoon cutting and recutting gumpaste.

Some things we learned:

1. Gumpaste needs to be pretty stiff to cut. Add more powdered sugar than you think you need.
2. Stiff gumpaste dries out quickly. And it cracks. So don't make it too stiff.
3. Intricate cuts like letters are a no-no. Maybe they work better with fondant.
4. The color printing on our old Farberware flexible cutting mats apparently comes off on gumpaste you roll out on said mats. Who knew?
5. There needs to be a pressure setting between Minimum and Low on the Cricut Cake.

We finally got the job done...for an eight o'clock delivery. All that said, it was fun to work together on a project with the husband. Next time, though, I think our theme will be circles. Or squares. Perhaps straight lines.

Seeing cute hubby in an apron makes it all worthwhile ;-)

Stamp Storage Part II

I had one heck of a time trying to photograph my second stamp storage method, so I bit the bullet and made a video. Hope you enjoy it (^-^)

Stamp Storage Part I

Stamps are a lot of fun, but they also take up a lot of space. If you want to be serious about stamping, it means over time you will accumulate a lot of them- and then what? For me, "then what" consisted of tossing them into a drawer, and taking everything out to look for the stamp I needed every time I would work with them.

Well, I'm here to tell you- that sucks!

So, I went looking for non-sucky storage alternatives. Shell had her husband construct a little stamp shelf for her wood-mount stamps, and as it seemed to be a relatively low cost, efficient way to store those bulky wood stamps, I followed suit. Here are more pics of my stamp shelf:

ScrapStation Alpha had an awkward little wall that was just begging for something constructive to be done with it.

Close-up shot of the shelf. Now stamps are easy to find. I'm going to have fun filling this up ;-)

In all, the shelf cost was about $9, and it took about an hour and a half of labor to build. I bought furring strips from the local home improvement warehouse for less than $1 an 8 ft. piece, used some old paint that was left lying around, and sandpaper from an earlier project. I also bought some picture hanging hooks to mount it with, though nails probably would have worked. I also had to invest $4 in some 1 1/ in. nails for the nail gun, but I have a bunch left for other uses so I only count $.50 of the cost of the shelf to nails.

I  obviously made the shelf to fit my awkward little space (56 in. long, 19 in. wide shelves) but you could really set this up in any configuration that suits you. I do really advocate using behind-the-door space, though. What else can you put there? If you have one of those little doorstop guards, you never have to worry about your door bumping the shelf, because the shelf won't stick out that far. I spaced the top shelves at 3 in. apart, as I mostly buy small-ish stamps for cardmaking. I made the bottom two shelves larger at 6 in. spacing for my few bigger stamps. I didn't run it all the way to the ceiling or floor because I thought it would be awkward to get stamps from very high/low shelves, but that's totally a personal preference thing. I also have cats, so I didn't want to tempt them with too much low-hanging fruit. 

So, that's it. Easy as can be. And cheap. And efficient use of otherwise dead space (at least for me- I bet you've got some behind-the-door-space that would be perfect for stamp storage lurking somewhere in your house too). And a fun, quick little project you can do with someone (props to my husband for helping with the cutting and nailing) because it really does go more smoothly as a two-person job. Let's see- any more "ands" I can throw in there? Oh yeah- and a great excuse to buy more stamps!

Part II- unmounted and photopolymer stamp storage. 

My Cute Stamps 50% Off

I just cruised by the My Cute Stamps website and saw this. So, if you love MCS like I do, hurry over and scoop up some bargains! These are great quality stamps at a great price.

Konnichiwa Card

Sorry it has been a while- end of the school year stuff, combined with lots of errand running and two sessions with the dentist (just finished today, and the anesthetic is wearing off. Ouch!) have kept me busy. This is a card I made for a coworker who is leaving teaching to care for her daughter and just-born son. I love these Konnichiwa stamps from My Cute Stamps sooo much!

We're Off To See The Wizard - Revisited

We're Off to See the Wizard the wonderful Wizard of Oz to hopefully get the Tin Man a heart, the Lion courage, and the Scarecrow a brain! But there's the poppy fields to beware of as you could get very sleepy! The Wicked Witch but we know she's afraid of water. The flying monkeys . . . just totally freaky looking!!!! You're probably still dizzy from the spinning whirling twirling house and watching all those things passing by like a nightmare expecially that Miss Gulch on her bicycle! Poor Toto hiding in the basket, but can you blame him? Don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain as he knows not what he speaks! And then there are the delightful munchkins that sing 3 octives highly than humanly possible. I almost forgot the good witch Glinda - how could I forget her --- she was just too sugary sweet to my standards but as a Good Witch goes, she was the best, but why didn't she just tell Dorothy she had the power to return all along and wait until the end - geesh!And then only bad witches are ugly --- come on now! Its the Merry Old Land of Oz! I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore Toto. . . .

We're paying homage to the Wizard of Oz today with our blog hop! So, grab your beverage of choice and those ruby red slippers of yours, click them twice and repeat after me - "there's no place like home, there's no place like home"!

For Blog Candy we have a 7 - piece paper assortment of 12 x 12 pieces of paper by Paper House Productions

We have a great line-up for you today and you should have arrived from Kimberly's blog at http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com. If not, or you just dropped in to visit today, we don't want you to miss a single story of the travels of our "characters" from start to finish and would love for you to begin at the beginning of our hop at Lynne's blog http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/.

For my projects, I made two cards... the first one is a card that I had scraplifted from a fellow blogger. You can check out her blog here ( http://my3escrapbooking.blogspot.com/2011/02/wizard-of-oz-birthday-invitation.html )

She used different cartridges to make the cuts... I cheated and had hubby create svg files for me because I didn't have all the carts that she used to create the card.  I will be adding the FREE SVG FILE to the freebies soon.  I also created another card using Graphic 45 Wizard of Oz paper.

As every good story, it has a beginning and a happily ever after - Dorothy went home and all was well with the world and Dorothy told Auntie Em - there's no place like home!!!!!! AWWWW how sweet! Hope you enjoyed my project and I must send you along your way to Tami's blog at http://tamboscreations.blogspot.com and a place beyond the rainbow.

~ Shelly ~

Our complete line-up in case you get lost along the way due to those darn flying monkeys:

1. Lynne - http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/
2. Jamie - http://thesassyprincess.blogspot.com
3. Kimberly ~ http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com
4. Shelly - http://kccroppers.blogspot.com
5. Tami - http://tamboscreations.blogspot.com
6. Amy - http://www.lovetocrop.com
7. Rhonda - http://www.scraphappenswithrhonda.blogspot.com/
8. Lisa - http://handmadewithlove-lisa.blogspot.com/
9. Suzanne-http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/
10. Inga- http://mommahobbit.blogspot.com/
11. Janet - http://www.ladyluvbug.blogspot.com/
12. Berenice - http://karbersweetescape.blogspot.com/
13. Susan B - http://susanascorner.blogspot.com/
14. Gill - http://creationsbygillm.blogspot.com
15. Anita~ http://www.anitaandbugs.blogspot.com
16. Pamela ~ http://kraftykatstampstudio.blogspot.com