Road Trip with Madelyn Day 1

Jul 1, 2014

Road Trip with Madelyn Day 1

Last week, my niece Made­lyn was vis­it­ing. Tues­day, start­ed our insane­ly fun road trip. We left Frisco bright and ear­ly (7AM) to head to San Anto­nio. On our way we saw bill­boards for the Inner Space Cav­ern and decid­ed that once we got to George­town we would stop and tour this cav­ern. We loved the tour and high­ly rec­om­mend it. It does get a bit humid and warm inside but we all felt it was worth the sweat. If you decide to take a tour make sure you are wear­ing run­ning shoes. Flip flops would be a real chal­lenge when walk­ing into the cav­ern. You are walk­ing at a slant for quite a bit, it is wet and in some areas a bit slip­pery. We were all glad we were wear­ing run­ning shoes. Hav­ing some cold water bot­tles wait­ing for...

read more

Altered Art Journal Pages 1 & 2 ~ Same Paint Different Styles

Jun 29, 2014

Altered Art Journal Pages 1 & 2 ~ Same Paint Different Styles

SAVE THE DATE: July 19th     TIME: 2:30      PLACE: The Crafty Scrap­per     CLASS Length: 3–4 Hours     LEVELS: All In this class you will alter one page (front and back) of a Wendy Vec­chi Art Jour­nal Cov­er Page. Some of the prod­ucts you will use in class are vin­tage papers, The Crafters Work­shop Sten­cils, Wendy Vec­chi Stu­dio 490 Gold Emboss­ing Paste, Dina Wak­ley Scrib­bly Birds stamps and Dina Wak­ley Media Paint. Page one is full of tex­ture, mut­ed col­ors and accent­ed with a wood­en cameo, seam bind­ing bow, vin­tage rick­rack and inspi­ra­tional words stamped onto vin­tage paper. Page two is bright and whim­si­cal. I will show you how sim­ple it is to cre­ate sil­hou­ettes and hand paint­ed whim­si­cal doo­dles. The tips and tech­niques you learn in this class can...

read more

All The Gals ~ Collage

Jun 19, 2014

All The Gals ~ Collage

Here is a small 4″ x 6″ col­lage I cre­at­ed using one of the gals stamps from Dina Wak­ley’s new All The Gals stamp set and her new Media paint. First, if you have not tried her paints you are real­ly miss­ing out. These paints spread like but­ter and are heavy enough to cre­ate peaks and brush­strokes in your art. They are AMAZING. To cre­ate this lit­tle art jour­nal page I first cov­ered the left side of the water­col­or paper using pieces of a dress pat­tern and Mul­ti Medi­um as my adhe­sive. Using Jet Black Archival Ink I stamped one of the All The Gals stamps onto the water­col­or paper. Using water­col­ors, I paint­ed the gals stamped image as well as all around the back­ground of the stamped image. Using a sten­cil and Dina’s Media paints...

read more

Being an Aunt…

May 29, 2014

Being an Aunt…

Means you can sur­prise your nieces before bed for a sur­prise adven­ture in their jam­mies. Means you can load your nieces up on a Son­ic Shake sug­ar high right before bed, take them home and let your sis­ter deal with their sug­ar high. Means you will crawl out of bed bright and ear­ly to take them to school for Muffins with Mom & their Book Fair. Means the only pay­ment you want for get­ting up super ear­ly to attend Muffins with Mom and the Book Fair is a sweet self­ie with your nieces plus one best friend. Means you get to throw a sur­prise mini birth­day par­ty for a very spe­cial 7 year old when she comes home from school. Being an aunt is the next best thing to being a mom. Aman­da, Brit­tain, Made­lyn and...

read more

Observations from an Alcoholic’s Sister ~ Emotions

Apr 16, 2014

Observations from an Alcoholic’s Sister ~ Emotions

There are so many dif­fer­ent emo­tions fam­i­ly mem­bers of alco­holics feel. One emo­tion I def­i­nite­ly felt was anger. I was angry because of what I saw Richard’s alco­holism doing to him and to our fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly mom. I felt as though Richard was being self­ish and unap­pre­cia­tive of all that mom and dad were doing in hopes of him get­ting sober and it made me furi­ous. I under­stand alco­holism is a brain dis­ease but like any dis­ease most do what they can to con­trol or get rid of their dis­ease, most don’t let the dis­ease con­trol them or end their life with­out some sort of fight. Alco­holism is a beast to con­trol and I saw first­hand how strong the crav­ings were but I still felt Richard could have tried a lit­tle hard­er to gain...

read more

10 Years

Mar 28, 2014

10 Years

Today marks the 10 year anniver­sary of my brother’s death. Ten years is a long time yet it still feels like yes­ter­day, I was enjoy­ing a fab­u­lous morn­ing sun­rise train­ing my gold­en retriev­er, Son­ny in the field. I went to my car to get us some water and noticed I had a bazil­lion missed calls on my phone. I called home ask­ing what was up and I will nev­er for­get Alan’s words,” Its Richard.” He didn’t have to say anoth­er word, I knew he was gone. I could hear it in his voice and I felt it deep in my soul, my lit­tle broth­er was gone. At that moment, my life and the lives of my fam­i­ly changed for­ev­er. Mom and Dad lost a son, my sis­ter and I lost a broth­er, my daughter’s,...

read more

Have Fun and Show you Care

Jun 15, 2013

Have Fun and Show you Care

Today, I am par­tic­i­pat­ing off and on at a won­der­ful online event, Okla­homa We Care Online Crop. This crop will ben­e­fit Okla­homa Tor­na­do Vic­tims as every sin­gle pen­ny raised goes direct­ly to the Okla­homa Unit­ed Way. The awe­some thing is, if you can­not join us today you can still par­tic­i­pate in the chal­lenges and games as you have a week to com­plete them so this real­ly is a win win sit­u­a­tion for every­one. This crop is spon­sored by some awe­some com­pa­nies as you can see in the fli­er below and lots of design­ers in the indus­try are host­ing chal­lenges and games with great prizes. To sign up for this crop go to cheekychicsscrapbooking.blogspot.com ~ on the upper right side of the site is an Okla­homa Tor­na­do Fund Pay­pal But­ton ~ click this but­ton and...

read more

Stained Glass Boiled Eggs

Apr 1, 2013

Stained Glass Boiled Eggs

Ans­ley and I had so much fun mak­ing these eggs, last night. She heard about this stained glass tech­nique for boiled eggs and want­ed to give it a try. After she explained it to me I had to see if it real­ly worked so off to the store we went to get some eggs and neon col­ored food col­or­ing because well that is how Ans­ley rolls. No vin­tage col­ors for this girl. It’s bright neon or noth­ing for her. I can’t believe I birthed two daugh­ters that want noth­ing to do with any­thing vin­tage. How did this hap­pen? To make your stained glass eggs you will need the fol­low­ing: boiled eggs, food col­or­ing, vine­gar & Ziploc sand­wich bags First boil as many eggs as you want to make and let them cool. We ran cold...

read more

Imperfect is Perfect to me.…

Mar 29, 2013

Imperfect is Perfect to me.…

When I found this beat up old util­i­ty cart at Frisco Mer­can­tile I could not get my hands on it fast enough. I had been walk­ing up and down each and every aisle look­ing for some­thing to put in this very spot. I knew I need­ed it to be a cer­tain width and height, want­ed it to be an open piece so it would not close off the room too much, look nice and it had to be large enough to hold all the items seen. Well when I stum­bled onto this cart and saw that the price was $18.00 it was sold. Yes it is scratched, yes it leans a bit to one side (but it’s still lev­el) and yes it squeaks when the wheels roll but I think it’s imper­fec­tions are what makes it...

read more

Artistic Journey 2012 ~ French Couture

Oct 4, 2012

Artistic Journey 2012 ~ French Couture

I’m real­ly excit­ed for this week­end. I will be teach­ing at Artis­tic Jour­ney in Wax­a­hachie, Texas along side Dina Wak­ley and Angel­la Pear­don. This week­ends event is held at The Crafty Scrap­per and is filled with loads of fun. It starts off Fri­day evening with three fun make & takes, a tag swap and din­ner. Then Sat­ur­day morn­ing bright and ear­ly all three of us teach­ers begin teach­ing our exclu­sive class­es. I’ll be teach­ing an assem­blage class that has the atten­dees alter­ing a dress form. As you can see they are going to be busy, busy, busy dur­ing class. But once they fin­ish their dress form they’ll each have a beau­ti­ful­ly altered dress form to dis­play in their home or give as a gift. So now I’m off to pack, check my to do...

read more

Maya Road Linen Album

Jul 12, 2012

Maya Road Linen Album

So hap­py to final­ly be able to share the Maya Road Cat­a­log for CHA-Sum­mer. They have some awe­some prod­ucts com­ing out this release and one of my favorite’s is their new 4″ Binder Linen Album that has 3 linen pages and 3 chip­board pages. I fin­ished my mini album using this album just in the knick of time too… I leave bright and ear­ly… no, wait it wont even be bright when I head to the air­port Sat­ur­day morn­ing, just ear­ly… ugh. I’m so not a morn­ing per­son… I just hope while I’m passed out in my seat on the plane I don’t drool. Okay enough of my trav­el­ing and on to my mini album… I had fun alter­ing this album with lots of amaz­ing new prod­uct. Notice the key in the cen­ter, it’s...

read more

Surprises are so FUN!

Mar 26, 2012

Surprises are so FUN!

Ter­ri and I head­ed down to Beau­mont, Wednes­day to sur­prise my mom and dad. This sur­prise has been in the mak­ing for over a month and if you know me well, you know it is a mir­a­cle that I kept the sur­prise. The pho­to above was tak­en on our way home because on the way down it was pitch black. We decid­ed to leave at 8 o’clock in the evening instead of bright and ear­ly, Thurs­day morn­ing. This means we arrived at mom and dad’s at 1:30 in the morn­ing. There is noth­ing more fun than sur­pris­ing your par­ents with an unex­pect­ed vis­it and of course hear­ing your moth­er come out of a sound sleep say­ing, “What in the hell is going on” (still makes me gig­gle) as Ter­ri, Aman­da (my niece) and I...

read more

Stepping out of your comfort zone…

Sep 2, 2011

Stepping out of your comfort zone…

How many of you fear step­ping out of your com­fort zone? I know I am rais­ing my hand high in the air on this one. I am so guilty of stick­ing with what I know how to do and not ven­tur­ing out of my com­fort zone. When it comes to cre­at­ing I love play­ing with vin­tage finds and tex­tiles, beau­ti­ful ecru, black and shab­by chic col­ors. I can promise you the first few items I grab for are not sten­cils, mod­el­ing paste or Twin­kling H2O’s… they are more like Dia­mond Stick­les, sewing nee­dles, embroi­dery floss and vin­tage, vin­tage and more vin­tage embell­ish­ments. WELL, let me just tell ya, this week I’ve been dab­bling with a 7″ x 9″ can­vas that is WAY FAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR out of my com­fort zone we’re talk­ing bright col­ors, sten­cils and...

read more

A Blast from the Past…

Aug 25, 2011

A Blast from the Past…

I thought it would be fun to show you some lay­outs I cre­at­ed using Cocoa Daisy kits from around 2007. Now that Ans­ley is a senior this year I find these lay­outs even more spe­cial. She grew up way too fast. In the lay­out above I felt there was too much white space in the back­ground of Ans­ley’s pho­to so I used the end of my paint­brush and some acrylic paints to cre­ate a pol­ka dot back­ground. I like the pop of col­or the pol­ka dots cre­ate and they fill in the white space per­fect­ly. To pop the pho­to a bit more I paint­ed yel­low acrylic paint all around the edge of the pho­to cre­at­ing a bright col­ored bor­der. To fill in the white space on the pho­to above I attached clear but­tons to...

read more

Just a note.

Aug 19, 2011

Just a note.

Hel­lo again! Chris­tine from Cocoa Daisy here to share a cou­ple fun cards I made using this mon­th’s kit “Siren’s Call”. Every month before I put my kit away to start work­ing with the next one I like to make a cou­ple cards with the left­over bits on my desk. This mon­th’s kit had the per­fect bright, pri­ma­ry col­ors to cre­ate a cou­ple cheery cards. For this first card I punched 1″ cir­cles from the Cos­mo Crick­et paper and then ran them through my sewing machine, let­ting the machine run a few stitch­es in between each cir­cle to cre­ate a ban­ner like affect. I laid them out on the card in ran­dom order, plac­ing foam adhe­sive under some to add a lit­tle dimen­sion. I fin­ished off the card with a tag and this cute...

read more

Smile Sweet Heart Card

Jul 1, 2011

Smile Sweet Heart Card

Here is a bright and cheery card I cre­at­ed using the Cocoa Daisy Main Kit “Urban Loft” and the “South Loop” Add On Kit. I’m lov­ing all the bright col­ors and designs on these flow­ers and accent­ed with self adhe­sive pearls which are includ­ed in the main kit, makes them even cuter. You all know how much I love pearls! Today, I will be cre­at­ing with some new CHA release prod­ucts for Maya Road which make me so hap­py, just wait until you see them… oh my good­ness did Car­o­line and Deb ever out do them­selves with this release. I think it’s my favorite ever. Then tonight, I will be edit­ing into the wee hours of the night, again. My Aunt would cringe if she saw my sleep sched­ule right now it’s worse than...

read more

Sunkissed

Jun 2, 2011

Sunkissed

This is one of my favorite sum­mer pho­tos of Ans­ley. It was tak­en the sum­mer before her fresh­man year of high school. All the bright col­ored pat­terned papers work per­fect­ly with her swim­suit. I inked, punched, stitched and dis­tressed all over this lay­out. The cir­cle back­ground is stitched to look like a sum­mer gar­land and I had to add but­ter­fly accents because what would sum­mer be with­out but­ter­flies? The dis­tressed edges of each cir­cle add dimen­sion to the lay­out. Dia­mond Stick­le accents added to the edges of the tags, but­ter­flies, hor­i­zon­tal strip and the pho­tos edges and mat bring on the bling which as you know, I love so much. The ver­ti­cal edges of the aqua and white mat are trimmed with scal­lop scis­sors to add some inter­est as well as a lit­tle pop...

read more

Tomorrow is REVEAL day…

May 27, 2011

Tomorrow is REVEAL day…

I’ve been hav­ing a blast cre­at­ing with the Cocoa Daisy June Kit and since tomor­row is reveal day for sub­scribers, I thought I would give you some sneak peeks of what I’ve been cre­at­ing. You don’t want to miss out on this kit and I fear you will if you’re not a sub­scriber. It has been so fun work­ing with bright sum­mer col­ors. And GASP… not one book page or vin­tage but­ton was used in any of these projects! I’m amazed… real­ly you all know how I love book pages and vin­tage but­tons. That cer­tain­ly does say a lot about this kit being so awe­some! I’ve cre­at­ed 3 cards, 3 projects (one sneak peek can be found here) and a lay­out using the main kit and a few of the add ons and STILL...

read more

Cherry Soda

May 19, 2011

Cherry Soda

Yes­ter­day, felt like a play day… no work just play. I start­ed cre­at­ing a project using the June Kit ~ Cher­ry Soda by Cocoa Daisy. This kit and the add ons are so bright and fun I can’t put it down. As you know most of my work is done with lots of cream col­ors from old book pages and oth­er ephemera so this is quite a change. And a change I guess I need­ed at the moment. I’m hav­ing so much fun that I thought I’d share a tiny sneak peek with you. Just love the loads of sum­mer col­or. If you’re a Cocoa Daisy sub­scriber you can pur­chase the main kit and add ons start­ing, May 28th. Those that are not sub­scribers can make pur­chas­es, June 1st. But… this means you take...

read more

A Little Something for Me

May 6, 2011

A Little Something for Me

If you haven’t checked out Suze Wein­berg’s etsy shop you need to… she cre­ates some real­ly cool and funky neck­laces. I pur­chased one a few months ago that I just love and talked about it here. Well the oth­er day I took anoth­er look in her etsy shop and BAM found anoth­er neck­lace I had to have. I tell ya I can only go and look every few months because I would pur­chase one every time I vis­it­ed. This one has all the col­ors I wear and I love all the baubles she added, so what’s a girl to do… click add to cart. The qual­i­ty of Suze’s work­man­ship, beads and baubles is top notch but then again, I would not expect any­thing less from her. And today, I will fin­ish book project #60...

read more

All Things Winter

Nov 14, 2010

All Things Winter

I’m so excit­ed to tell you about my next upcom­ing online work­shop. This work­shop “All Things Win­ter” will include win­ter and hol­i­day themed projects from my book “Delight In The Details”. This work­shop will include step by step instruc­tions, col­or pho­tos and tips to help you recre­ate the projects list­ed below. Page 15 Mer­ry & Bright Orna­ment Page 26 Joy Ban­ner Page 30 Joy Mini Album Page 42 Snow Day Lay­out Page 44 Win­ter of 78 Lay­out Page 72 Gift Tag Page 76 Christ­mas Cook­ies Lay­out Page 91 Silent Night Christ­mas Card Page 95 Christ­mas Greet­ings Christ­mas Card Page 125 San­ta Baby Lay­out The cost for this online work­shop is only $19.95. FYI… I will not be teach­ing the tech­niques as those are in the book, just the instruc­tions need­ed to make recre­at­ing these...

read more
css.php