ZTA Legacy Tea

The local Zeta Tau Alpha Alumnae Chapter hosts a Legacy* Tea each December at the collegiate chapter house. Last year my mother and myself were on the hunt for a turquoise** party dress for my daughter. Mom finally found one. I started looking early this year, and actually found a cute silver** A line dress at Gymboree and figured I'd accessorize her in turquoise. Then I found THE SKIRT and all plans had to change! I knew she'd be wanting to wear the skirt to dance class, so a long sleeved black leotard was the best bet as a shirt. I Zeta-fied it with a rhinestone crown.**

*A legacy is a direct relation of an current sorority member.

**ZTA's colors are turquoise blue and steel gray; the five pointed crown is our most recognized symbol.

London Calling

I am on the Board of Directors at my daughter's preschool, and I had the privilege to host the teaching staff's Christmas party this past week. Their gift from the Board was a large insulated lunch tote (we're probably extending school hours next year, and the staff will be bringing their lunch), a customized coffee tumbler from Starbucks and homemade cookies provided by the school parents. For our sole male staff member I made the above tin which contained a gift card...He is a college student, and is headed to London for his final spring semester and a girly lunch tote and bulky coffee tumbler just were not going to cut it! To mat the gift card, I printed a piece of card stock with "Ho-Ho-Ho! It's off to London you go!" I resisted trimming the flag in glitter :)

Paix sur la Terre

Holiday and birthday craziness have kept me busy crafting, leaving no time for blogging...These Fleur de lis cards were custom made for my mother to give to her office co-works. I really wanted to create something with a French flair to honor our heritage, but was having a difficult time coming up with something that was holiday neutral. I finally found a stamp set from Stampin' Up! that consists of four holiday sentiments, and comes in English, Spanish or FRENCH! The sentiments are: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings and Peace on Earth. I had recently made a card using a sticker that had Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's quote, "Peace on Earth! Good will to men!," on it so I thought that would work perfectly for the interior of mom's cards. I then just used my handy dandy Cricut die cut machine for the Fleur de lis et Viola!

BITTEN by the BUG ScrapNfonts Contest

BITTEN by the BUG and ScrapNfonts are holding a contest on brithday cards where red & green are used as the primary colors. I chose to use one of the cupcakes from the Cricut Celebrations collection on top of vellum and paisley paper from Doodlebug Designs.

BITTEN by the BUG design challenge

One of the blogs I follow is BITTEN by the BUG - it's all about creating papercrafts using the Cricut die cut machine from Provo Craft. This week's challenge was to create using the grass image from the Walk In My Garden collection. I wanted to create outside the box and use the image for something other than grass. I brainstormed, I had Tom brainstorm and I ended up going with my first idea...teeth! When I first looked at the image all I could think of was Mater, from the movie Cars, and his big 'ol buck teeth. I scoured my other Cricut collections and decided upon the Animal Kingdom rabbit, surrounded by Prima paper flowers, and finished off with Stickles.

Shout out to all my Zeta sisters...

Check out this gift tin (filled w/ cards) and journal I made recently. Trying not to toot my own horn, but aren't they awesome?! I made them for a raffle the Austin Alumnae Chapter had at the fall kick-off meeting to support ZTAF scholarships.

I love the tin/journal combo because it's so versatile . I made another set in a Texas theme that sold for $75 at a silent auction!

Rejuvinated Business Plan

Two weeks ago I went shopping at a popular annual craft fair held at a local church. The second booth past the entrance was already jammed with shoppers and the fair had just opened. My stomach (and my heart) dropped to the floor as I realized the booth was full of handmade greeting cards and other papercrafted items. My mood immediately soured as all I could think was "That should be me!" I tried to carry on and enjoy some shopping, but I kept coming back to that booth - mentally and physically. After less than half an hour I marched back to my car, drove home, sat down and my desk and immediately wrote out my four main goals to get my business back on track.

1) Actively sell cards and papercrafts from home (to local family & friends and online)

2)Have my work published in a papercrafting magazine or on a papercrafting web site

3)Participate in craft fairs

4)Open a commercial business (either papercraft supply store or ideally a scrapbooking

retreat)

So for the last two weeks I've been making cards, taking photos of them and posting the photos to my online store. I also entered a contest at micheals.com. Goals 1 & 2 will keep me busy for a while. I figure 3 & 4 will have to wait until Charlie goes to Kindergarten and both kids are out of the house all day...

Please visit my store over at http://www.shophandmade.com/Store/Fleurdelis. If you see something you like, you can register with the site and place your order or send me the items you'd like to buy in an email.

More posts coming soon with fabulous goodies for the upcoming holidays!

New Gallery Link

It's a long process, but this evening I started transferring all the photos of my cards for sale over to a new gallery (link at the upper right of my blog page).  The old site (ShopHandmade.com) was a great site, but for my particular needs to maintenance intensive.

Still more card photos to come, so keep checking back!

Buttercup

Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge: The Princess Bride

The ladies at CSCC could not have picked a better movie to challenge our creativity this week! It seems The Princess Bride is on everyone's "favorites" list!  My card was inspired by our heroine, Buttercup.  I googled buttercup for some ideas and stumbled upon the lyrics to The Foundations 1968 hit song "Build Me Up Buttercup."  The lyrics fit with Wesley's (as Dread Pirate Robert) torment over Buttercup's betrothal to Prince Humperdink.

The card is a standard 5.5 x 4.25.  I printed the song lyrics repeatedly as a background with the one highlighted phrase, then just bordered it and added the flower (Prima) and dress (Cricut's Dreams Come True covered in Stickles).

There's no place like home...

Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge: Wizard of Oz

I just stumbled upon CSCC this past weekend and became instantly intrigued!  Every week co-creators Sankari and Brooke post a papercrafting challenge based on a motion picture.  I love how the movie theme forces the creative juices to flow!

As soon as I read about the Wizard of Oz challenge, an image of Munchkinland popped into my head, and I couldn't get it out!  I eventually came up with this Yellow Brick Road/No place like home card inspired by Dorothy's journey.  I think I did O.K. for my first challenge...I'm excited!

The card measures 5.5" x 4.25".  A green piece of card stock is used as a base for the Prima flowers and a matte yellow road.  The flowers are attached with vellum adhesive, and crystal brads for the three larger blossoms.  The Yellow Brick Road is made from yellow card stock with hand drawn bricks and covered in metallic gold paint.  The road was then attached with a foam adhesive.  I cut the "Bon Voyage" with my Cricut Expression and covered it in red Stickles (my motto is "Stickles make everything better").  The interior sentiment was created on my computer then printed on an ink jet printer.