April's Challenge Card

The Challenge for this month was:
Circle card
Magnolia image
Paper doily
Pastel colours
Flair or Wood Veneer

The hardest part of this card was to make the circular shape to it.
I don't have a die big enough, or a circle cutter for that matter.
So I used a few different things to get my circle shapes. A coaster from Montana's Steakhouse, a page from a Christmas ornament chipboard book, and a plate.  Use what you have…right ;)

These Magnolia images are just so cute. I share how I did the sky in this post "Here".
If you look just below the flags, you will see the paper doily.
And Look, I used some lace again!

I think I did pretty good with the pastel colours. I seem to lean toward more vintage colours or deep/earth colours.
We were suppose to use flair or wood veneer. I wanted to use wood veneer as I have quite a bit of it. But nothing I had, looked quite right. So I used this small heart flair.
It is hidden amongst the flowers.
Actually it is a brad…shhhhhh.

I made this card into an easel card.
These cards are so fun to make, and I like that they can be displayed so nicely :)

Now thats not all…..I also made a video :)
If you would rather watch it on my YouTube channel, just click my link "Tracy's Treasures24"

I also went back and posted my video on my April tag on yesterday's post :)

I hope you all had a very creative Wednesday :)

Tracy :)

April's 2014 Tag

I thought I would get my tags done early this year….not, lol.
Here is my tag for April from Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014
I am trying to get more colours into my tags for this year.
As much as I like the vintage/grunge look, it seems to be my safe choice.
I love colour…pretty colours make me happy. So I find it odd that the brown vintage look is what I seem to do more of.
So I am making it a point to use more colour on my projects this year :)

I don't have the die that Tim used. But I wish I did, I love the look of that die.
I used some embossing paste. I had never used this before, but really like it.
I usually use dry wall compound, which works just as well, in my opinion.
I coloured some paper with distress paint, stamped the butterflies and then cut them out. I also popped them up on foam dots.

The flower and leaves are also pained with the distress paints on white paper and then punched out.
The pink rolled rose is another one from Lesli's flower kit she had.
She left it on my table, so I nabbed it and it goes perfectly with my tag ;)

The blue flower was made with this butterfly punch ;)
I punched out the bottom of the butterfly 3 times and then adhered them in a circle.
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with myself on this one, lol.

Again here is the finished tag.
I had fun with this one…even though I was on a tight timeline.

I also made a video on how I put this tag together.
If you would rather watch it on my YouTube channel, just click Tracy's Treasures24

I hope you had a very creative Tuesday :)

Tracy :)

Playing with mists on an ATC

Today was spend doing errands in preparation for my crop on National Scrapbooking day this Saturday.
Can you tell I am excited about it ;)

Last Friday I decided to make a swatch of all my mists so I know how they would look on paper.
It is hard to see the real colour in the bottles.
I punched out these tabs with my punch and started spraying.
Kristy thought it looked like a lot of fun, so she took over.
But that was okay, as I used my label maker to write the colours and company who makes them on the back of each tag.

So not much creating was done by me today.
But while Wayne and I watched Resident Evil, I decided to play with my mists.
I am still playing with Spring-like colours.
I have this boot box that I use for spraying my mists…looks pretty doesn't it ;)

Now this looks Springy….doesn't it?
Because I am using water based inks, I don't want them to make my stamping bleed, so I am using Archival ink.

So far I really like the background.
I have made a few ATC's and I like how the background looks, but after that it seems to go down hill, lol.
I have a bit of an idea on what I want to do with this one….lets hope it looks as good as it does in my mind ;)

I hope you all had a very creative Monday :)

Tracy :)

Birthday Card with CC Designs fairy

I made this cute card at my FNS.
I love my Friday Night Scrapbooking nights.
I love to spend time with my friends and create with them :)

I coloured this CC Designs image with my Copic markers.
Isn't she adorable…..that really wasn't a question, but more of a statement ;)

On Friday a couple of my friends wanted me to walk them through on how I colour up my girls.
I stamped up this same image for each of us.
Lesli is collecting Copics, and she has a nice collection so far.
I  wanted to use the marker colours that she had, so when she coloured at home, she would have the colours that go well with what she has.
I really don't think they needed any advice at all, they did great!
Here is a close up of my coloured image.
Thanks for the rolled flower Lesli ;)

Here is Lynne's coloured image on her card :)
Lynne doesn't have Copics and has no plans on purchasing any, so she didn't care what colours she used, and went with blonde hair.
Great colouring Lynne!

Here is Lesli's coloured image on her card :)
I love that we all coloured the same image. Even though they are all the same CC Designs stamp, they all look a bit different :)
Here is Lesli's blog link with a side by side of both our cards, my photo turned out blurry :(
Great colouring Lesli :)

Here are the invites I shared with you yesterday.
I thought you can see the slight difference in how the colours came out from copying the card to the actual card.

And Guess What!!!
I have a video to share with you on this card and the invites :)
If you want to watch it on my YouTube channel, just click the link Tracy's Treasures24
I hope you all had a very creative Sunday :)

Tracy :)

Spring is on its Way Crop Invites

Today was spent organizing my rec-room for a 13 hour crop that I am going to be hosting on National Scrapbooking Day on May 3rd :)
I am so excited about it, I can hardly wait!!!
Ashley was helping me with the plans, Kristy and Blake were helping me with the heavy lifting :)

I spent the rest of the evening making the invites :)
I had coloured this card last night for a friends mom's birthday, I will share that one in more detail in another post.
But then I photocopied the card for the invites and stamped "create" on each one.
I am so impressed with how well they turn out.
I had done this a few Christmas's ago with my Christmas cards. The copied ones turn out a bit lighter, but still excellent quality.

I hope you all had a very creative Saturday :)

Tracy :)

Flowers in the Snow

Happy Friday :)
I am so glad its the weekend, even though it shouldn't matter to me.
I enjoy having the family together :)
I bought these beautiful hydrangeas yesterday….before the snow started to fall.
I figured since I can't do any planting yet, I would bring the flowers outside for a little photo shoot, lol.
It snowed all day today, I think we received between 6"-14" depending on if you live in town or the country.

I just love the contrast of the bright rose coloured blooms against the white of the snow.
Yes it was snowing as I was taking this photo.

I had my scrapping gang over tonight, there were 6 of us here tonight…the more the merrier in my opinion ;)

I hope you all had a very creative Friday :)

Tracy :)

Ugliest Card Tradition

Soon to be the worlds ugliest card, if it isn't already :)
My SIL/friend, Sharon and I have been sending this same card back and forth to each other for our birthdays.
It all started when she mentioned that her husband gives her the same card every year for their anniversary.
I told her that is pretty cheap of him.
I made her this card for her birthday about 5+ years ago, she added something to it and then gave it back to me for my birthday.
I thought I would show her, and added something to the card and gave it back to her.
So now it is our tradition.
The rule is, we have to add something to this card and give it to each other on our birthdays.
I added the banner this year.
I look forward to seeing what she adds, and she looks forward to seeing what I add.

I did some errands today and one of them was delivering my jeep full of donations to the donations centre.
I used to do this twice a year, but I haven't done this for a while….and I could tell, lol.
We went to Sharon's after supper to celebrate her birthday.
As soon as we walked out of the jeep it started to snow….and heavy.
I hear we could get up to 20+ cm of snow tonight.
Not the best photo as it is dark and snowing.

We get snow every year at this time, so it shouldn't be any surprise to us.
But by this time of the year, we are all just so tired of it and want to see some grass and maybe plant some flowers.

I hope you all had a creative Thursday :)

Tracy :)

Found some goodies this time around ;)

I had a great day today.
Went out for lunch with my friend/SIL Sharon and my daughters.
We went to Montana's for lunch….I think they majorly upped their prices, because lunch was very expensive…I ever re-tallied the bill.

So to ease my pain of the bill, we when to Michael's ;)
Remember I was there the other day and left empty handed?
Well I made up for it today :)
Some of the Heidi Swapp products were 70% off.
What I did notice was Recollections has a whole new line out that looks very much like the Heidi Swapp products.
I picked up some of the Recollections spray to see how it is.
I have also noticed that there are a lot of Recollections products that are mimicking other brands, hmmm.

I am tackling another room on our house.
It isn't an actual room, but an area behind our water heater and furnace.
I used to store all the business papers, tickets and supplies in here. But since selling the company, I don't need to use it for that anymore.
It has actually turned into a storage area…..that nothing is stored very well, lol.
I am planning on turning it into an area for my sewing and wrapping gift area.

One thing I have learned while working in this area is
1. I don't use gift bags. I save them when we get a gift, but I seem to like to wrap my gifts or decorate my own gift bags.
This tote is full of gift bags….I will be donating many of them to Ashley and my SIL, who I am sure we received them from ;)
2. I love paper and office supplies.
I can not allow myself to purchase one more note book, note pad or writing paper.
Every time I turned around, I found another stack of note pads, lol.
I am hoping to finish this area tomorrow.

I hope you all had a very creative Wednesday :)
Internet is still off today :(

Tracy :)

My first ATC

This is my first ATC ever!!

I am happy with how it turned out. 

You may be wondering what is an ATC?

It is an Artists Trading Card. Now I have never claimed to be an artist, but these are a fun way to use out artistic supplies ;)

What they are meant for, is for artists to create on these tiny 3.5 x 2.5 inch cards and trade with each other...no selling 

I am in a one on one swap and we decided on a Spring theme. As you can see my ATC is far from Spring. 

I was trying out my Dylusions ink sprays. Didn't know there were such a deep colour. 

Her were my plans for this ATC....funny how once I sprayed the card, how my direction totally changed.

This one I am going to keep :)

One of the reasons I decided to make ATCs was to play around with my art supplies on a smaller canvas. This way if I really hate how it turns out, it's bit like I spent a lot of time or product on them. 

But mostly to use my art supplies :) 

We are having trouble with our Internet supplier. Actually everyone in my city is. I had heard it was even on the news. So I am not sure how much blog visiting I will get done tonight. 

I am blogging from my phone on 3G right now.

I hope you all have had a creative day :)

Tracy:). 

Divergent…and time with my Heather

I had a wonderful day with my daughter Heather today :)
Heather and I (as do all of my daughters) have the same taste in movies.
We enjoy going out to a show every now and again.
Yes she is taller than me…as are all of my daughters.
But being 4' 11", its not really that hard to be taller than me ;)

There was an afternoon show for Devergent.
I have to say it was really, really good.
Both Heather and I really enjoyed it.
It wasn't until after the movie, that heather told me that there is a couple of books in this series.
I didn't even know this movie was made from a book.
I like to read the book before watching the movie…maybe I will still pick them up though.
I love a good book.

After the show, we went to Michael's. I was looking for some inks to use on my ATC's with watercolours. But came out of Michael's empty handed.
When we got home, I put supper together and then worked on my monthly card challenge.
I can't believe how fast this month is going by….as much as I can't wait for nicer weather and summer to get here, I still want the months to move a little slower.

I hope you all had a creative Monday :)

Tracy :)

Happy Easter and some Chocolate

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed the long weekend with your family.
I know I sure did :)

When are you too old for an egg hunt?
NEVER, is my answer ;)
Mind you, now that my girls are much older, we like to hide these chocolate eggs…hey, there was even some extras for Wayne and I ;)

A little story:
When Wayne and I were first married (and when we were dating) we would hide chocolate eggs for each other.
One year we were in Winnipeg visiting family on Easter, so we hid the eggs in the hotel room :)
One would go into the bathroom while the other was hiding them around the room.
We have always been young at heart and I hope we never change.

Today we watched the Hobbit series, as I worked on that card I had shared yesterday.
I had to keep running downstairs to my craft room to get more supplies.
Finally I gave up and started to create an ATC.
I have never made one before, but I like how my first one turned out.
Funny thing is, I still had to keep running downstairs to my craft room as I wanted to use mists and other supplies I don't keep up near me, lol.

I hope you all have had a creative Sunday :)

Tracy :)

Making a Spring card in hopes of Spring ;)

We received some more snow today, so a perfect day to stay inside and create.
I'm a "my cup is half full" type of person ;)

So I thought I would start on my card for this months challenge.
I seem to be a saver, or what others like to call a hoarder, teehee.
I made a pact with myself that I have to use my new supplies instead of hoarding or saving them for the perfect project.
So today I decided to try my hand at misting on my card.
I used a sticky note to mask off the areas I didn't want colour.
That would be the clouds and the bench.

I wanted to see if I could get my Copics to work, so I  set it up ;)
If you want to see a more detailed look at how to do this, check out Amy R's video.
She did this (2009) way before Tim even thought of putting his name on this product. Actually Stampin' Up sold it then ;)
To see Amy R's Video, click here.

I misted the sky in B00, and the grass in a YG something or other ;)

Here is the front with the sticky notes removed.
As you can see, I forgot to cut out under the bench.
But it is fixed up now ;)
As you can see this is a circular card, that is why I have a circle pencil line.
I am very happy with the end results.

I hope you all had a very creative Saturday :)
I spent the day working on this card and watching Demon movies. We have watch every zombie movie we have many times over, so on to something else ;)

Tracy :)

A Gift from the Heart

Just a quick post today as I have had a busy day spending time with my family :)
Last night I had Scrapbooking Night and was so excited that my friend Lesli gave me a gift :)
I was so touched that she had seen this drinking coolie and thought of me :)
Isn't this perfect for me.
Thank you again Lesli, you don't know how much you have touched me heart with your thoughtful gift :)

We had our turkey dinner tonight. Yeah no cooking for me all weekend :)
Just Wayne, my girls and their boyfriends :)
As the food cooked, we played a fun game…as Wayne snuck away to peel some potatoes.
During dinner I had mentioned to Ashley that I wanted to put an all day crop together for National Scrapbooking Day.
So my go-getter daughters put the boys to work and helped move around the rec-room to see if we could get the area to work for my plans :)
Ashley has a way about her that everyone just does what she says….so I went upstairs to put the rest of the dinner away and she supervised, teehee.
There is a bit more to do, but I think it may just work :)

I hope you all  had a creative Friday :)

Tracy :)

Chocolate Egg Bribe

Yummy :)
Every year I make these treats around Easter.
They are marshmallow filled eggs :)
My Father-in-law loves these and one year I made him one that was about the size of a Nurf football.
I think he polished it off in 2 days…my mother-in-law was not impressed with the speed in which he ate it, as she kept a watchful eye on his eating, teehee.

There is a reason I made these today though.
Remember I had mentioned that I am having Friday Night Scrapbooking tonight as the holiday is on Friday.
Well, I am bribing my scrappy friends with these ;)

Why, you may ask do I need to bribe them?
We got a dumping of snow last night, and it hasn't stopped all day.
So these are their rewards for braving the storm, lol.
I think I am the reason for all this snow though.
I was finally able to take down my outdoor Christmas decorations as the snow melted enough for me to get to them….even though the extension cord for the mini trees is still buried under that snow pile you see there.
Then I put out my hand made bunny on the door.
Yup, I jinxed us.

I am planning on working on my stamp inventory sheet.
I started this many years ago, and need to update it.
I only do this for my cute girl stamps. I will share this in another post :)

I hope you all have a creative Friday Thursday :)

Tracy :)

Project 365…The Beginning

I am doing Project 365 again this year.
You can check out my 2011 Album..click HERE.

If you are unfamiliar with Project 365 (P365), it is where I take a photo every day and then journal about the photo or about the day.
I am pretty sure it was started by photographers to help improve on their photography skills.

I have been asked which page protectors I use.
Actually I don't use any page protectors.
This is just your ordinary photo album…remember those, teehee.
I print my photos in 1/2 size which is 2x3. I can fit 2 photos per sheet.
I then adhere them to a journal block.
I use all different types of journal blocks as well as my recipe/index cards.
I then slip them in the photo pocket :)

I am a bit behind…oops.
As you can see here I am sharing my January pages.
As a matter of fact, I have only completed the month of January.
I put a photo on every day.
Don't look to closely as I had my date stamp wrong and have 2013 instead of 2014…I'll have to change that.

As you can see, I take photos of everything.
It seems odd now, but in 20+ years it will be neat to see the mundane everyday goings on in our family.
One thing I do notice is that there is a lot of food photos, lol.

The other year when I did this, I didn't do any embellishing. This year I am trying to embellish more, but still trying to keep it pretty flat, as I only want one book per year.

For the last few years Heather has looked forward to getting a Cream Egg McFlurry from McDonalds.
Every year we just miss it.
So after grocery shopping today, I took her for one.
She isn't following our healthy eating….except for the meals I serve ;)
I have to admit that I did try a bit of hers. It was good :)

Because of the holiday being on a Friday, I have asked my friends and decided to switch Friday Night Scrapbooking to Thursday.
I think we will have our turkey dinner on Friday so we can enjoy it all weekend, and I don't have to cook all weekend ;)

I hope you all had a wonderful and creative Wednesday :)

Tracy :)

Smash booking this past weekend

Here is a page I completed in my Smash book, during the 12 hour crop from last weekend's Scrap for Autism.
I use this Smash book for all the little trips I take with my family and friends.
Once this book is full, I'm not sure if I will do another one in this theme, as we seem to do and go to the same places every year.
I will do other Smash Books, but they will be on other themes instead.

I have mentioned before that I don't really like most of the images on the pages in my book.
I am not complaining as I was gifted it in a RAK.
But how I am rectifying this problem is to add my own papers over the images I don't care for.
This is what I did on these two pages.
I like my pages to have a cohesive look to them, so if I cover one side, I usually cover the other side.

For some reason when I was working on this page, I kind of just sat and looked at if for a half hour or so.
I am not sure if it was because this is the last thing I was working on at the crop for the evening, or I was just stumped.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to span these photos between the two pages, or just make a one page layout.
Well as you can see, I choose for the one page layout.
The photos on the left, I made into a pocket to add my journaling in.
That is one thing I do like about these Smash pages, because they are not in page protectors I can add interactive elements or more bulky item to the pages.

Today was a bit of a sad day…I picked up our income tax from the accountant…the government is going to be  very happy to get our return this year, lol.

I hope you all had a very creative Tuesday :)

Tracy :)

Take Out Treat Boxes

Every time I go to a crop with my friends, it gives me an excuse to make some type of treat boxes :)
I have always enjoyed making treat boxes and goodies for my girls classmates, but since my girls are all out of school and I have no one else to make them for.
So this way it is a win win…I have fun creating these and my friends enjoy the goodies inside ;)

I picked up these little take out boxes from the dollar store. I think they are meant for baby showers, but does it really matter…nope.
I used this stamp from Stampin' Up and coloured the cute little bunnies with my Copics.
I then punched out the circle and then used a scallop punch with a spring colour card stock.
I added a banner label on each box and a matching ribbon on the handle.
Lastly put some chocolate mini eggs inside :)
I did a very quick video on these cuties.
If you want to watch it on my YouTube channel, just click on "Tracy's Treasures24"

I hope you all had a very creative Monday :)

Tracy :)

Winner, Winner, I'm a winner ;)

At the crop yesterday, I won a prize.
They drew a prize every hour and I was lucky enough to win the first one :)
My table was pretty lucky as out of the 4 of us, 3 of us won :)
There were 9 of us at the crop, but the tables were only set for 4 scrappers per table.
But we did get to all sit close. Well all except Lesli, they had her at the other side of the hall, all by herself…but we fixed that :)

Here is what was in my big blue basket of winnings :)
A little bit of everything….hair products, health products (Kristy claimed the water bottle), candy, make up and of course crafty goodies :)

The candy is from a company called Sugar Bees, so I thought it was cute that they had candy bees hidden in the candy jar :)

Today was a really lazy day….I mean really lazy. I didn't even unpack from the crop.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a creative Sunday :)

Tracy :)