A Little Help for a Friend

Something happened in my dining room yesterday. I'd promised to help a friend with creating an album of her mother's birthday celebration. It's amazing how hard it can be at times to just get going. I finally called Mary and we set a date for her to come. Yesterday was the day. I took this first photo after she had been working for awhile getting things organized. I believe she had run to the car for a Pepsi at this point, so her chair is obviously vacant. I also took the opportunity to quit working and grabbed the camera thinking of my blog. I think she also needs a picture for the end of her album, just to show how hard she worked on it.



Mary has returned and is again hard at work. She was so tickled with how this is going and has decided that she is really enjoying herself.

She has a ton of pictures. She purchased a Creative Memories Premiere Album with extra pages. We finished the first set of pages and started on the next set. I think she was surprised that I didn't expect to finish the whole album yesterday. I had to laugh about that.

She finally gathered up her album. It had been raining hard, and I was a bit alarmed about her carrying everything off in the rain. She just couldn't leave it at my house as wanted to take it home to admire her work. I sent her home with a few tools and pictures and album wrapped in a trash bag for protection. She looked eager to carry on with the project. I hope to see her and the album again soon.

It is a wonderful thing to capture life's little moments and use a little creativity to tell stories. I know that she is going to happily share her album over and over. Of course, she is taking it to her Mother to enjoy. I'm probably going to give her a call soon and check to make sure she is journaling. We talked about that a lot.

Crafting Ida's Card Class Project 1

Our little card group met yesterday under the skillful tutorage of Crafting Ida. It is a fine thing to have a really skilled artist to teach us. This Stampin Up demonstrator KNOWS what she is doing. We are blessed in that.

I meant to take another picture of our group, but I got so busy working that I forgot. That thought just went out the window of my mind. I was engrossed, busy, learning, doing, and I just didn't think about pictures. Don't color me a photographer.


So, on with the show.
Our first project yesterday was this wonderful bookmark. I really think I've fallen in love with this one as it is just unlimited. So, here is the recipe:

• We started with a 2 1/2" x 6 1/4" piece of glossy paper. Photograph paper will do nicely. Using black StazOn, we stamped this pretty flower from SU Embrace Life.
• Using a white crayon, we colored in areas on the flower that we wanted to remain white. Mostly those were areas around the middle of the flower and on some of the petal edges.
• Next we used SU dye ink and sponge daubers to lightly color the pink and yellow areas of the flower.
• We then laid a mask of the flower over our flower and sponged the green lightly around the edges. (The mask was made from stamping the flower on a paper, then cutting it out and covering our work with it. I'll bet you knew that. )
• Taking some soft toilet paper, we gently rubbed the areas that we had colored white with the crayon. We wanted to remove that.
• We used the SU corner rounder to trim the corners.
  
• Out came that fabulous Crop-A-Dile to punch a hole at the top and insert a brad.
  
• We inserted ribbon and now have a great bookmark.

I must say that Ida let us flounder around a bit on the ribbon. Then Lindy came up with the idea of folding the ribbon in half and inserting it from the backside to the front. Then you can pull the loose edges through the loop. It makes a nice neat way to do the ribbon.

Of course, I was trying to get the ribbon out of the way to take a picture of the bookmark. I really love the technique and can't wait to get more made. I'm thinking they would be great to tuck in other cards... a little something for a gift.

I asked Ida about who thinks these up. She said our work yesterday was hers. Go, Ida!

Our Happy Group

Crafting Ida (in green) has taken our little group in hand to teach us a few new skills. She came with kits to help us make three cards (shown below). We worked on embossing as none of us had really worked with that. We are Newbies.

We are SO glad to have Crafting Ida as our Stamping Up Consultant. She's great!

We also got our new catalogs. Oh, by the way, I'm taking the pictures... so no me in them. One of these days, I'll remember to have someone else take a picture.



Embossing 101














Checking out the new SU Catalogs