I Found My Style

Good morning everyone! As I take a break to type this out I have spent my morning packing for our busy week. Starting tomorrow I will be gone for almost 2 weeks. We are leaving tomorrow afternoon to go up on a friends gold claim for 3 days. Then when we get back we will unpack and then repack and leave the next morning for the Kenai River to go get our yearly supply of salmon. Then we get back take 2 day breather and then repack for camping with our family doing a 4 wheeler fun run. AHHHHHHHH sounds crazy but we love this time of year! So on with my project. I have always been asked what my crafting style was. And honestly I never really knew myself. I would just usually browse sites looking for ideas untilI felt inspired and then create. That was until I founf my style recently. It was like what they tell you when you buy a house, when you find it you will just know. I would like to announce I have found my style LOL!! It seems to come to easily and naturaly to me to create in this style. And my style is....Shabby Chic or Vintage Chic or whatever its called. I have always loved vintage styles. You will find me on most days listening to big band music while I craft and I collect alot of vintage items. My fav era is WWII, the early 1940's. So when we were asked to create a Christmas in July project I thought "What is the first thing I think of when I think of July and Christmas?" July was red, white and blue. Christmas was Santa. I put the 2 together and set out to search for a great pic of a vintage patriotic Santa. I found a vintage music sheet and put them all together you can see the result below! ~*Jen*~

~*Recipe*~

~*DCWV cardstock for their Christmas Stack

~*Chipboard banner and snowflake from K&Co

~*Music sheet

~*Picture of Santa

~*Red button

~*Blue ribbon

~*Half of a paper doiley

Here are a few more cards I have made this past week with my new style...

This one is not finished yet but I thought I wouod still share :)

Just call me 'sketch'y

What a whirl wind weekend I have had! We got back from Valdez Friday night at around 11:30pm and then I threw a baby shower for my sister on Saturday. I still have things that need to be unpacked and put away. I will get to that today. I enjoy having my house in order so it just kills me to walk in and see stuff that is not where it is supposed to go. At least the sun is out today and I can enjoy my day with no where to be. This week was a stripes theme. I signed up for this with one project in mind but then decided to use another. Funny how that happens. I have been putting together a scrapbook for my sister and her soon-to-be-born baby. I am just doing the pages and leaving it open for her pictures and journaling. For this 2 page layout I went with a sketch I found on the Sketch Savvy blog. http://sketchsavvy.blogspot.com/ She has a ton of great sketches. Its nice when you need a little more of an idea. I have not done a scrapbook in forever so I too needed a little boost in the idea department :D ~*Jen*~

Picked out my paper. This is from K&Co
Got my ribbons all picked out...

Started to lay it all out...

Put my top pieces on over the ribbons

And this is the part where you think your done but something is missing


AHHHHHHH faux stiching...there we go!


~*Recipe*~

~*K&Co Carstock

~*Core'Dinations Cardstock

~*Ribbons

~*Photo mats from SweetSassyDiva scrapbook kit

~*White gel pen

A Day for Daddies

Ahhhhhhh Fathers Day! It seems like we were just celebrating Mothers Day yesterday. This year, same as last, we are going to be celebrating Fathers Day down in Valdez with my husband. Last summer it rained almost the whole time we were down there. And we were there quite a bit! This year I hope we get to see a little bit of sun while we are visiting. Speaking of sunshine, our late spring has truely been amazing! We have had a handful of days in the 70's with weeks in the 60's. But with this dry weather comes wildfires and I just saw an article yesterday that said there is 58 wildfires burning in the interior of Alaska. When I took my dogs out to go potty you could smell it in the air. As much as I hate to say it, we need a few days of good rain. My grass is asking for rain too :) Anyways onto my project I had quite the large list of cards to make for this holiday and I made each one different and special. I also had a few retirement cards, a retirement banner and a few birthday cards to make LOL!! I am still waiting for my crafty daughter to make her card but this is what I have so far.....

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




Picked out my papers. One of my new fav things to use is newsprint


Started my layering


Put it all on my Gypsy





Stamped my tags and inked the edges



Did my faux stiching and added the twine


All done!!

~*Recipe for the first card*~

~*cardstock

~*Buttons

~*George and Basic Shapes and Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cricut Cartridge

~*Twine

~*Brown ink

~*Brown Sharpie

Grad Day card

JUNE ALREADY?!?! Where does time go?! Half the year is already over!! I cant believe it! This year my sisted graduated from high school. It may not seem like too big of a deal but believe me it was! Out of the 6 kids only 2 of us (my sister and I) are the only ones to graduate from high school. So up till now I was the only one! I am so proud of her and so glad to not be the only one to hold the title of 'High School Graduate' anymore :D I was excited to get started on this one. I wanted to go all out and make it as special as I could. Her high school colors are red, white and block so I used them as my color palette. I broke out my coveted Core'Dinations Core Coture paper to give it ALOT of sparkle. Have I told you how much I love Core'Dinations paper.......ever......????!! HA HA I used some bling and a ribbon to get it some texture. For the scallop I used the basic shape from Accent Essentials then I added the star from George and Basics over the top to make the star holes. Happy first week of June!!! Enjoy your day!

~*Jen*~

http://www.mymentailinstability.blogspot.com/

~*Recipe*~

~*Red cardstock

~*White Core'Dinations Core Coture paper

~*Black cardstock from DCWV Black Currant stack

~*George and Basics Cricut cartridge

~*Accent Essentials Cricut cartridge

~*Bling

~*Red ribbon

~*Black ink

Memorial Day fun

Wow cant believe May is getting so close to being over!! School is out, flowers are popping out of the ground, the trees are green-ing out, the sun has been spending quite a bit of time with us and camping fun is about to start! Usually our first trip of the year is Memorial weekend. I love, love, love camping. My mom used to take us camping all the time when I was growing up and its something I love to do with my kids! This week was our Memorial Day/Patriotic challenge. I knew right away what I wanted to do. My step-mom's birthday is the 4th of July and she loves decorating with red, white and blue. So I made her a birthday card! I was able to stop into JoAnns this week while E was at baseball practice and I picked up my very first 2 bottles of Shimmer Spritz. I couldnt wait to try them out on this card. I used the 'sparkle' spray on the stars to give them an extra shine. This is also the first time I have used my Sizzix embosser for a DT project. Dont get me wrong I find every reason to pull it out and use it on my stuff, but first time for a DT card. Hope you all have a great extended weekend and enjoy your Memorial Day!

~*Jen*~

www.mymentailinstability.blogspot.com

~*Recipe*~

~*Red, white and blue cardstocks

~*Red, blue and black ink

~*Sizzix Texture Boutique embosser

~*Cuttlebug swirls embossing folder

~*George and Basics Cricut cartridge

~*'Sparkle' Shimmer Spritz

~*Red bling

Soaring High

This weeks theme was 'Kite'. When I think of kites I think of fun, warm summer days and kids laughing. I love watching my kids fly kites. They are so determined to get that thing up in the air and once they do, they have the biggest smile and the look of wonder on their face. Watching their kite fly high in the sky is like them themselves flying in the sky. I started with just a cream colored card and then added layers of blues and yellows. I cut the sun from Accent Essentials and the clouds from Indie Art. Cut the kite out by hand and added in some string with bows and a card was born ;) I aslo faux stiched the edge with my white gel pen. I figired I could write or stamp a sentiment in the space below the clouds and the kite. School is almost out for us so I hope to get my kids out soon and fly some kites!! ~*Jen*~

~*Recipe*~

~*Colored cardstock

~*Accent Essentials cartridge

~*Indie Art cartridge

~*String

~*Brown ink for the edges

Mommas Day!

Its already the 2nd week of May! My how time flys! This week will be my sons first baseball game of the 2011 season and my daughters track meet. Busy is a mild word for our spring/summer's. But it is always nice to take a little time to just celebrate being a momma. My mom has been such a great force in my life. She was a single mom when I was growing up and she tought me to be an independant person. If its broke, fix it yourself. Dont wait around for someone else to do it when your capable. Made due with what you have! Thank you momma for everything you have done! I love you! So this week I made a few Mothers Day cards. And in the true spirit for making due I Sharpie'd in the flourishes because I didnt have a stamp for them :D I hope you have a wonderful week and make sure you tell someone you love just how much you appreciate them! ~*Jen*~

~*Recipe*~

~*colored cardstock

~*K&Co cardstock

~*Accent Essentials cartridge (flowers)

~*Unity Stamp Co stamp

~*Brown button

~*pearl embelishment