*MyMentalInstability*: 2011

Thursday, December 8, 2011

String 'em up!

I love to make, send and receive Christmas cards! Usually I just hang a red yarn string on my wall and hang them on that. I saw an idea a few months ago that I kept stashed in my attic(mind) for a great project to make! Its not just like the one I saw but its my own version. I was so excited to start it! I know exactally how I wanted it to look and I think it turned out better. I sifted though my paper to find the perfect vintage looking Christmas sheets and then got on with the show!

I cut out my tags

Cut out my layers

Cut out my 'Merry Christmas'

Inked my edges and started layering

Added my letters and snowflakes

Decided I wanted shadows for my letters

Inked my edges and added bling!

Added big bling to my snowflakes

Used my new Tim Holtz alcohol inks to color my paper clips

Pigment inked my clothes pins

Glued it all together and strung up my new stringer :D

You can see where I added the paper clips so that I can hang more cards from strings if need be.

And now for the moment you all have(n't) been waiting for! A pictures of my super not so secret anymore 2011 Christmas card, card, card, card.....(I added the echo for dramatic effect)

TA DAH! :D

~*Recipe for Christmas Card holder*~

~*DCWV paper from last years Christmas super stack

~*Core'dinations card stock in white, red and green

~*Cricut Cartridges Winter Lace, Lacey Labels and Old West

~*Red Tim Holtz alcohol ink

~*Paper clips and clothes pins

~*Red pigment ink

~*Jen*~ www.mymentalinstability.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Its begining to look alot like winter.....

Hello my fellow crafty friends! So have you started? Have you started to think about Christmas? I am! I have my Christmas music playing right now and a few days ago I managed to get my Christmas lights up with the help of my son. Last week we got a nice little covering of snow but then a few days later the winds kicked up and blew it all away! Its been sticking in the low 20's to high teens durring the day. I am doing my snow dance every day lol! I dont know if its more of a dance or something like convulsions HA HAHA AHA! As you may know every year we try and make it up to North Pole to take the kids to see Santa. I try and start my cards early so I can have them done in time to mail out from there so they get the North Pole post mark. One year I was seriously sitting in the truck on the way up try to glue buttons on them. Thats when I said never again, I will get them done BEFORE. So I guess your thinking I am going to show you my Christmas card I made for this year.....and what I have to say to that my friends is THINK AGAIN! Its my little game I like to play called 'keep the card secret'. No one gets to see 'the card' ahead of time. I like to think that people are excited to see what I create every year (and actually some of my friends are!). I even have friends that try and trick me into giving up detals of what it looks like. So for this project I had to pull a card out of my butt or the air whatever...but it is not 'the card' I will be sending out this year he he he! I will post that after I send them out. This card is one that I saw on one of my Facebook pages but was done with fall colors and done a little bit differently. I of course took the idea and made it my own!

Laid it all out on my Gypsy....1 inch circles

Got all my shades of blue paper ready to cut

Got a bunch of blue balls I mean blue circles....

Ran them through my Sizzix Texture Botique

Laid them out on my card and started to glue

Added a 2 layer strip across the top

Cut out the white card you couls see along the bottom and sides

Made my rosette

Finished product!

~*Recipe*~

~*Blue card stock in lots of shades

~*George and Basic Shapes Cricut cartridge for the circles and Accent Essentials for the little snowflake on the rosette

~*Sizzix Texture Botique and embossing folders

~*Button and string

~*Jen*~ www.mymentalinstability.blogspot.com

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I {heart} Papaers challenge entry

I made this card for the I {heart} Papers 3rd Birthday Color Challenge. I love the way it turned out!!

Monday, October 3, 2011

BOOOOO to YOUUUU

One of my besties sent me this great pack of stickers a few weeks ago and I just cound not wait to jump in and use them! At first I wasntr sure what to do with them but I wanted to do something cause they are so darn cute. Then it hit me! Make her a B-day card with one! Her birthday was on the 13th of this month so I have already sent it out. I wanted to make it looked a little haggared and distessed and a little spookily fun. I layered up a bunch of cardstock with sanded edges and use some gauze and velum. The placed Mr Frank front and center. Added some ribbon and tulle and a glitter button. I am really happy with how it turned out :D

~*Recipe*~

~*Cardstock
~*Ribbon and tulle
~*Glitter button
~*While gel pen
~*Gauze and velum
~*Frank sticker from K&Co

Trick or Treat

Hello! Have you missed me? I took the whole month of September off! It was a nice break to hang out with my husband & the kids and get ready for winter. We have all started to try and predict when we will get our first snow fall. I say Oct 25th. I guess we will wait and see! The leaves are almost all out of the trees and in my gutters lol. I plan on putting up my Christmas lights soon so I will clean them out then. For this weeks project I was back and forth on what to do. I had at first had a great idea I planned to use from a wreath I had seen over on Splitcoaststampers back in August. But that idea was seen by another popular blogger and caught fire so there was tons of people making this style of wreath. I just couldnt bring myself to make it after that. So I sat and sulked for awhile until I got this brilliant idea. Back in July I hosted a baby shower for my sister. I made tissue paper flowers for it and I thought 'hummmmmm I bet I could make a bunch of these flowers and glue them down onto a circle and make a wreath!' Thats just what I did. I dug through my tissue paper stash and pulled out the Halloween colors I wanted and as they say....the rest was history. Take a look to see how I did it below....

I wanted to make a somewhat circle so I used the ole string and pencil trick (it looks like a toilet seat)

Gathered up my tissue paper and cut it into rectangles

After layering the tissue I folded it accordion style then tied it in the center

Trimed the ends into a point then unfolded them

Started pulling the paper up one layer at a time

Until you are all done with the layers and then glue them to your toilet seat I mean paper ring

I cut out some spooky shapes on my Cricut using the Post It craft paper that I peeled the back off and glittered the sticky side

I made the words 'Trick or Treat' on my Gypsy using Blackletter and glittered them as well and wrapped the weath with green Fun Fur yarn and a purple ribbon

~*Recipe*~

~*Cardboard circle

~*Tissue paper

~*Post-it craft paper

~*Chricut Cartridges Blackletter, Gypsy Wanderings, Doodlecharms and Indie Art

~*Green Fun Fur Yarn

~*Purple ribbon

~*Lots of glitter

~*Jen*~ www.mymentalinstability.blogspot.com