Something I found in San Francisco...

I had a long but safe and uneventful drive home.  There were a few things I needed to finish up for the Sweet Treat Thursday post on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot.  Be sure to check out the all of the creations by the Design Team and then come back here for more details about my projects later on Thursday.

While I was finishing up my photos and putting away my new finds, I discovered a few things I bought in San Francisco (in Japan Town) last month.  This paper tape is very popular and available in many colors and patterns.  You can see more on the website, www.masking-tape.jp (the English version is HERE).  If you have time, be sure to read the story about "the birth of mt" - very interesting!

I also got some of this pink tape which is made in China.  It is polypropylene and shiny.  I simply added a few strips to cards to see how it adheres.  Both kinds of tape are easy to work with and repositionable.

I thought the inside of the tape roll had a great message!  I will do some more experimenting with this tape as soon as I get caught up from my trip.  Have you tried any of these tapes?

A bit of this and that...

 I took the this flower photo in my sister's back yard - I think the simple star shape is so pretty.

In a funny coincidence, I found this little pin (costume jewelry) in a charity shop here in Pennsylvania.  How could I resist it for $2?  It has given me a design idea that I can't wait to try when I get home.

If you can handle a little more enabling after yesterday's post, you may want to check your local Michael's store clearance aisle.  I found this Martha Stewart 5 pound value pack of paper (normally $24.99) marked down to $4 at the store near my Dad.  The paper is smooth textured, a nice heavy weight (80 lb) with solid color throughout (no white core).  There are 10 sheets each of 12 "vibrant colors" (as you can see in my photo).  They also had the punch around the page corner and border in the "Traditional Eyelet" style reduced to half price.  You can see the border it makes on the light gray sheet of cardstock.

I had a nice note from Shelley who used the note card folder that I designed for her cards.  Here is a LINK to the post of her finished creation.  She also makes beautiful paper flowers.  I am always happy to hear from people who have used one of my ideas or files.

If you visit Shelley's blog you can enter her giveaway to win the folder, cards and lovely flowers in the photo above (I have used these photos with her permission).  The directions for the folder I designed are at THIS POST.

 I will be heading back home tomorrow - I hope the weather is fine for the drive.  It was beautiful in Pennsylvania and then this afternoon the skies were dark and it was really windy - another crazy May day!  Happy Cinco de Mayo tomorrow!

Nursery Rhymes - enabling...

One of the newest Cricut cartridges is the Nursery Rhymes cartridge.  It has a great font and charming silhouetted images from many favorite nursery rhymes.  You can get more information and ideas for using the cartridge at this LINK on the Cricut website.  You can download the complete handbook from the link on that page.  I am happy to see the improvements to the website that make it easier to find out all about a cartridge before you buy it.  Most cartridges have much more than you can see in the image on the back of the box.

I am away on a short trip to New Jersey and Pennsylvania - to see my son's concert and to visit with my Dad.  One of the side benefits to a trip to see Dad is a chance to go to a "super Jo-Ann's" just a few miles from where he lives.  The Jo-Ann's stores near my home are all small stores.  I stopped there tonight and saw that they have tons of Nestabilities, the new Cricut Cake and most of the accessories including frosting tubs and sheets and many paper packs that are not at "my" store in Massachusetts.

I have always liked Debbie Mumm's designs and I found a cardstock stack that will be perfect to use with the Nursery Rhymes cartridge.  The sign said that the Debbie Mumm papercrafting supplies were 60% off but when I got to my Dad's I realized that they had charged me 40% off.  I'll have to call in the morning to check on this - it is possible I misunderstood the sign.  (Of course, it would be better if I had noticed this before I left the store...).  I think this is probably an older stack that never made it to my local store.


I took photos of all of the pages so you could see what this stack has to offer.  It is late so I won't give you my usual "commentary" but I will do a review of the Nursery Rhymes cartridge soon after I get home.  So, without further ado,  take a look at a whole lot of cute!

Here is a closer view of the front cover listing the featured nursery rhymes.  12 of the patterns have glitter and 12 are plain.  There are two sheets of each design in the stack.

One more "green" tip - on most of the stacks made by DCWV (they manufacture the Debbie Mumm papers for Jo-Ann's) there are small squares of the papers on the cover.  Don't throw away the cover - these little pieces can be used for projects with a bit of careful trimming.

One last photo from after the concert - I know stripes and plaids don't go together but somehow they work for our son (you should have seen the rest of the outfit!).   The concert was great and now he just has to take his finals and that will be the end of junior year. 

Another Vintage Find - Digitized!

 I have been doing a lot of creating with digital images.  It is fun to create your own elements and alter them in various ways to suit your projects.

This hand embroidered pillow top was in the heaps of old linens at the rummage sale.  I thought the images were charming and picked it up to use as a source for some digital embellishments.

For my first attempt, I chose the blue butterfly.  The embroidery is worked in yarn on a linen weave fabric.  I took photos of each image, edited the photos in CM Memory Manager and then imported the images into my CM StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 software.

 I tried using the magic wand tool to eliminate the background but I had trouble because the edges of the butterfly were too close to the color of the fabric.  I ended up creating a custom shape with one of the cropping tools to get a better edge.

 It is a slow process to do this - not difficult but you do have to be fussy and make many minor adjustments.  I like to make the image as large as I can and zoom in to get as close as possible on the details.  The embroidered antennae on this butterfly were particularly time consuming.  The image above is my current version on a 12 x 12 page. 

If you start with an image with a light background, it is a good idea to review your result with a dark background to help you see places that need cleaning up along the edges.  I may do a bit more fussing with this but I think it worked out nicely.

 I like to experiment with the special effects and filters.  The screen shot above shows the oil painting effect which is one of my favorites.

I also like this mosaic effect.  Once you have your basic image there are so many variations possible - you can create something that is uniquely yours.

When you save your image as a png file you can resize and copy and paste as many as you want for your project.  I have added this version of the butterfly to my User Content in the StoryBook program so I can use it whenever I want to.

I wonder if anyone noticed something a bit odd about this butterfly - a sign that it is truly handmade....

(I drove to New Jersey today - it was very hot - the car thermometer said 94 degrees!  I am here to see our son's music composition final performance tomorrow afternoon so this is just a quick trip.  I am not as able to check email or comments but I will catch up with everything when I get back home)

A quick organizing tip

I hope you had fun on National Scrapbook Day.  I know that there were many stores and websites hosting special events.  Unfortunately, I had plans that prevented me from scrapbooking today.

I thought I would quickly show you what I did with some of the frames I bought at the rummage sale.

These were the inexpensive frames that are sold at many discount stores - and often show up at tag sales.

When you remove the cardboard box that holds the items in the frame, you are left with a nice tray that is the perfect height for holding wood mounted rubber stamps.  They will fit in the jet max cubes that are sold at Michael's, one per shelf.  If you remove a shelf, you can stack three in the space.  They can get heavy so you may not want to do this on the upper shelves.  If you bought your jet max cubes at A. C. Moore, they have cubes with four shelves instead of five and you can fit two per shelf for a total of eight per cube.  You can see the edge of the cube to the right.

I don't have many wood mounted stamps (certainly nowhere near the amount I have seen in some scraproom tours!) so I think that I will be able to use this system for all of my stamps.  I may ask my very handy husband to build a case with spacers at exactly the right height for the trays - in his spare time! 

I hope you are having a great weekend - the weather is beautiful here in New England.