Anxiously Awaiting

Hey folks and happy Wednesday!

I hope today sees you all well. I was in an amazing mood with spending some much needed quality time with God- then I read something heartbreaking and it's hard to focus. I ask all of you that pray- to please pray for my friend Dale. Her daughter was admited to the Stollery Children's Hospital Feb. and has been struggling with infection and illness. She is on the mend, but unfortunatly because of the infection needed to have both legs amputated and her one hand amputated, as well as some fingers from her other hand. It was heartbreaking reading Dale's update when her little girl (one year old) came back from surgery missing these things. She knew and was aware it was happening, but it doesn't make it any easier- you know? So I'm just thinking of her and praying for her. Thanks for letting me express this :)

On a lighter note, (and a very happier note!) my Stampin' Up demonstrator kit is due to arrive by Friday evening. I've been stalking it on the UPS site and it may even be here sooner ;) WOOT! This being said and their regulations for electronic communications I will be blogging more SU stuff and highlighting their products. I also have a Stampin' Up Blog that I'll try to update often (when I have the stuff!) www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/brandienellis/ that's me :) So despite the sorrow in my heart for my friend, I am still looking forward to this venture for myself. I am excited because I had NO idea what a good company they are! Their support and training is amazing and I've learned so much in the few days I've placed my demo kit order. Plus my upline is amazing :) (just in case she adds me to her blog roll :P Lol!) Seriously tho- smart lady with some great ideas that I can not WAIT to implement.

One of those ideas is a Stamp Club. Ummm. HOW Have I never heard of these before? I can't tell you how stoked I am to start one! (or 2 or 3- depending how successful this is ;) ) I am also buying a table at a Trade Show in town for the end of the month and have goodies lined up to give away to anyone wanting to host their own party. Getting excited! Also able to set up the Paper Gift Boutique and maybe get some more orders there. One thing that seems to be a big hit are the stamped t-shirts/onesies. Here are some I made yesterday:

These stamps are not SU ones- but with being a demonstrator I can't wait to take part in the discount and add some letters, trains, MORE flowers (I love flowers) and animals to my sets to do these :) They are WELL receieved by their recipients and doing the letters allows me to personalize them with names or words. I can't wait to make my neice one :D It'll say "Princess Pookie" (Pookie is her nickname).

It's also Spring Vacation up here- but ya wouldn't know it :/ Northern Alberta definatly gives meaning to the sterotype to the fact that there is snow in Canada all year long. Sure feels like it! lol- my son even said it is like we're in Narnia! But alas, thankfully, the snow is starting to melt and I can kick the kids outside (YAY!) *sigh* I love 'em- but the peace was nice.

SO that's it for me- loving this blogging thing and looking forward to sharing some sweet treats I plan on making with my new SU stuff :D take care!

~Brandie~

Yet Another Few Months Go By....

... and then I blog. I actually LOVE blogging and sharing and writting- but life just gets BUSY yanno?
So I guess I have a lot to share on the personal front ;) Little Mathias turned one a few weeks ago and, tho I love him, has become QUITE the sucky baby. Everyone tells me to love this time of cuddles and needyness, but I tell ya, it's driving me CRAZY! I love Mat, I love cuddling him and holding him. I do miss it when the others were this little. But I also miss myself- make sense? Before Mat came along I had more free time to craft (and lets face it BLOG!) and I was getting my business under-way. I guess it's going to take better time managment on my part (and less facebook- damn facebook!) I do know that he'll eventually grow out of this stage (did I fail to mention that this kid does NOT sleep! He slept better as a newborn!)
Despite all this I have decided to start up not one but TWO new ventures!
Venture 1 is starting up a mini-day home. I am not talking a house full of kids- GOODNESS no :/ lol but I do watch my cousin's 2 children (plus my 4 is a housefull already!) It's nice because it's only M-F during the day so that's not too bad :)
Then next one is (and I am SO super excited!) becoming a STAMPIN' UP DEMONSTRATOR! wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
:)
I have put in my app and deposit for a credit card and then I can order my kit before the end of March and start partying it up! I can not WAIT to start hosting workshops, promoting at Trade shows with my other home business (not home selling- just making and selling my crafts) cross partying with other businesses. EEKS! I already have a few people interested in parties and open houses. I am stoked ;)
So that's what I have been busy doing. Now after a half hour on the phone my morning has gotten away from me and it's already lunch!
So to end with, I have a project to share: hopped on the decorative block bandwagon- too fun!
2x2 blocks from Michales, various papers, font Calligraphy Collection Cricut Cartridge, flowers from Prima :)

Have an awesome day everyone~
~Brandie~

Baby Onesies!

I love making baby things. They are so much fun with the variety of colours, stamps, images etc. at our disposal. I also love taking the art of stamping 'out of the box' and doing different things with them. I fell in love with the idea of stamping on baby onesies. I've done 12 (3 different sets boxed up with 4 onesies in each) for gifts, and now these 13 here for sale. I tried selling on line to no avail, but my town has a local Farmer's Market, both in my little 'village' and in the city 10 minutes away- so I'll take them there and see how that goes!
The great thing about stamping on fabric is that you're only as limited as your imagination allows. Much like stamping on paper, you can really go for broke. You can add ribbon and buttons and other embellishments, some people don't as they are afraid of them digging into baby, but I haven't had any complaints yet, so I think smaller ones would be alright, as they would have snaps or zippers on store bought onesies. You can also add glitter. You can't add Stickles, I guess they wash off (found that out through another blog, no trial and error there for me), but you can buy dimmensional glitter glue for fabric. I found mine in the fabric aisle at Michaels, and they come in a variety of colours. I don't do the 3D thing like it says you can do, but I do 'paint' it on, with either an eyeshadow brush or toothpick or lollipop stick. Whatever.The stamps here are a collection of clear stamps from Inkadinkado, with some Stampin' Up stamps thrown in the mix. I have little cat eye pads of Martha Stewart ink and Colorbox ink- pigment ink apparantly works the best, but you DO have to heat set it! I practised on a shirt of mine, and Stampin' Up classic ink does work, but the image fades.
Now, to make it more appealing, I also enjoyed boxing them up in these cute little coordinating boxes. It's tough to try and make the acetate fit into the box base sometimes, but once you get that out of the way, embellishing them are alot of fun! I also enjoyed cutting out sayings and images from my cricut and the New Arrival cartridge and layering them instead of doing a traditional stamp. Hope you get inspiraton from all these and enjoy making your own- I will warn you tho, they ARE very addictive.
Take care!
~Brandie~

Canvas Art

So this week on Splitcoast Stampers in their tutorial of the week is stamped canvas. It's quite cute and I realized that I had about 20 (seriously) of these 4x6 mini canvases hanging around my craft space. I was going to do letter art with them- but I got bored of them- and to be truthful, they weren't as cute as this! All the images are from Pink Cat Studio with their amazingly cute Lily and Billy collections. The images here are from Enchanted Lily and Lily Valentine Fairy. The images are crisp and easy to color. I used Stazon ink and tho it didn't come out QUITE as crisp as I'm used to, it still worked well as art. I used my Stampin' Up watercolor pencils and blender pens to color in the images and then used Stickles to highlight different areas with glitter glue. I also spread the color over the edges (like an inked edge) and used a spounge paint brush and blender pens to blend the color and then highlighted with Stickles

I finished them off with some inexpensive thin ribbon from Michaels and flowers from Prima. I punched holes using my Crop-A-Dial big bite and weaved ribbon thru them to use them as wall hangings- I think these would be cute to hang in a child's room. I am going to try some more using different images- I have Pink Cat Studios "Billy" plate and I am excited to use that for more 'boy-ish' ones. I also have some Inkadinkado clear stamps- the monkey ones (whatever they are called- I forget!)

To do the 6x6 one, I didn't have a canvas, so I used watercolor paper, cut to 6x6 and used Mod Podge to adhere it to a 6x6 peice of chipboard. I used the same idea, but used 2 images from Enchanted Lily, and had space to put my daughter's name. The letters are 1 inch and cut from Cricut's Storybook Cartridge and topped off with glitter.

Hope you liked these :) Take care!

~Brandie~

Cardbox Template

We've heard of cards. We've heard of boxes. Heck, we've heard of boxed sets of cards. Here is my spin on it! I got the idea from Clearly I Stamp, they used a clear box they had on hand. I decided to make my own boxes. I suppose you could use acetate, but I tried that it was hard :S Acetate is NOT the easiest thing to cut straight for box building most of the time!

So here is what we are making today: They are 2 3x3 boxes attached in the center with a 'card'.

So first thing is first, materials needed are:

1 sheet of 8.5x10 sheet of cardstock, cut in half at 5 so you have 2 peices of 8.5x5 peices

background stamps (I used Stampin' Up Jumbo Wheels: It's Beautiful and Scattered Sunshine)

Ink (Stampin' Up Pretty In Pink, Chocolate Chip, Pink Passion)

Paper (Stampin' Up Bella Rose (yes, I still have some!))

Embellishments (I used Stickles, EK Success, Stampin' Up and Martha Stewart Corner Punches and Marvy Uchida Daisy punch in regular and jumbo)

Adhesive

Cardstock to make mini note cards. I used scraps and made my cards 2.75x2.75

Stamps (Stampin' Up: Itty Bitty Buds, Lovely Lables and Say it with Scallops)

Step 1:

Score each peice of 8.5x5 at 1 inch and 4 inches.

Turn it length ways and score at 3, 4, 7, and 8 inches. Cut the tabs as shown, and then cut slits to make the tabs easier to fold in. Cut the top tabs a bit smaller so they tuck in when closing your box, and using a corner punch, punch the corners of the top tab as shown.

Step 2.

Stamp desired background, or using DSP cut and adhere panels of the paper over the front and the sides. Do this to both peices of 5x8.5 sheets of cardstock. On one of the peices, if desired, cut a circle out of the center front panel.

Step 3.

Using acetate cut at 2.75x2.75, adhere to the inside to make a 'window'. I also embossed the acetate using my cuttlebug and a floral Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Step 4.

Adhere boxes with adhesive in the spots shown in the photo.

Here are your two boxes all built together. Decorate the front (window) box as desired.

Step 5.

Then, using a peice of 2.75x5.75 cardstock, score at 3 and 3.25 and in the middle of the 2 scores. Decorate the inside as this will be the card that adheres both boxes together. DO NOT decorate the outside of the card, you wont see it. Just do the inside. Using double stick tape, adhere the card to one of the boxes, letting the crease go just beyond the side of the box (so when you open the boxcard up, the boxes with sit side by side and have some give). Adhere the other side to the back box. Make sure the top of the boxes open in opposite directions.

Step 6.

If you choose to fill it with note cards, using scraps of 2.75x5.5 peices of cardstock, make some note cards. I made 4 of each, totaling 16 cards. Envies wont fit- so you don't have to do that many. You can instead add: Sticky Note packs, chocolates or other gifts :)

An alternative of this, is to make 1 box, forget the cutout circle and attach a card to the front, as shown. Same idea, only using 1 box.

Here are some other ideas using that idea:

box for my parents anniversary:
Valentine's Day cards for the kids:

You can alter the sizes all you want- I've made a 4x4x1.5 box (seen above) and it fit a bunch of chcolates in it for my parent's anniversary. These are so much fun and versatile- think baby gifts, candy, small shirts etc. The possibilites are endless. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and will blog again soon!

~Brandie~

Girly Birthday Set...AND news!

April is a big month for birthdays in the Nellis house. My daughter turned five this month, my neice turned two, two days later. On top of that is my aunts, and my husband's mother and brother. I'm sure there are more family members out there that I'm forgetting- but those are the closest that I can think of. Being as Bella's and Tori's birthday are so close I'm usually a busy beaver making party favours and cupcake treats. I made three batches of cupcakes in three days! To top that all off, I found a cute cupcake wrapper template and decided to jump on that bandwagon! It was fun! I have no idea how people punch the edges out- I tried (and failed) so I improvised! Then, of course, you need the cupcake toppers- cuz no cupcake would be complete without them! So here is the ensemble for Bella's birthday party- I used cupcake wrappers and toppers for Tori's birthday (didn't have time to make the wrappers for Bella's) and the invites and favours were for Bella's birthday with different cupcake toppers.

Pink pink and MORE pink- no greater colour was ever introduced for a little girl! (or boy- no being sexist here!) I remember the old Crayola 8 colours box of crayons. You had your primary and tritary colours- plus black and brown. Pretty basic. Then you could go up to 16 colors- with various shades of the basic 8. And white- that was cool- and pink. Sometimes 2 shades of pink! I joke on those internet quizzes that ask "if you were a crayon, what colour would you be?" and I always answer- as girly of a pink as you can get! I love doing girly projects, I find boy projects so much harder, but girls are way easy with the flowers and the glitter and the ribbon! I am lucky I have 2 girls that I can do that with- but I need to expand my 'boy' repitoir for my 2 sons!

So as you can see- I couldn't figure out the swirl star decorators tip for the cupcakes- I REALLY want to take the Wilton cake decorating class. I can do the star pattern for liscensed cakes- just not that darned "swirl" for cupcakes :( someday tho! I printed out the cupcake wrapper template, stamped it with my jumbo "It's Beautiful" stampin' around wheel and then I cut some mini and small daisies from my Marvy Uchida punch and sporatically 'zotted' them around the top to give a raised look. I finished with some sheer ribbon at Michaels- easy peasy and so cute! I used the colour scheme to make the cupcake topper too- in fact, I carried the scheme to the whole set. I love sets :)

I tried my hardest to make the cupcake wrapper into a mini flower pot by cutting strips on the bottom and adding a circle inside and out for stability- well- they looked so stupid. So I went for the traditonal 'box'. I stamped it with the jumbo wheel, added scalloped edges peices with some 3D pop adhesives and added a ribbon and some more daisies. I filled them with Smarties and Ju-jubes (I always thought they were jubejubes. Meh). Then I went gung ho and made some caramel lollipops covered in chocolate. *drool!* they were so good! I ate all the leftovers!- there were only a few- and I DID share with the kids! The lollipops, for all you candy makers out there, was simple. I have an AWESOME caramel recipe that I used, smooshed into a Wilton lollipop mold (with the smiley faces) and added the sticks. I froze them so they'd be easy to dip then I dipped them into chocolate and let set. I REALLY wanted to make some lollipop covers- I'd seen a really cute pattern- but alas, time ran out! Besides, little 4/5 yr old girls wouldn't appreciate the craft as much as the candy underneath. So I'll save that project for another time!

Now, the invites were REALLY fun and I was looking for something new, so I decided to try the Free standing pop up card tutorial found on Splitcoast stampers!

The second pic didn't turn out too well as the batteries in my camera DIED! BUT I really enjoyed doing these and thing they turned out great! I printed the party info on my cardstock (I love using my printer and all my fonts- makes it easy and then I don't have to buy a multitude of saying and phrase stamps). I used the same Stampin' Around wheel, sheer ribbon and daisy punches. I also used a Flourish stamp set that I have and some silver ink and embossing powder. The moms all thought they were neat- and I love how they stand up on the tabletop- so simple too!

So that's it for birthday party stuff! I made 'Banana Split' cupcakes using white cake mix and it turned out fabulous and then Bella had cherry chip for her party while I made Tori some Spice cupcakes. Fun fun fun- I want to learn how to decorate them SOOOO BAAAAAAAAD- especially with how cute they look with all their paper get up.

Now- I said I had news didn't I? Well, DH is a computer tech and one of the customers came in and they started talking. Somehow the subject of 'me' came up- she was saying she owns her own store and Chris mentioned that I did too- only it was on Facebook. She proceeded to ask what I did and he said that I am a cardmaker and make some amazing things out of paper (his words- not mine- thanks for the ego boost hon!) and she said that she would be interested in seeing my stuff and if she likes it, she'll set up a space in her store for it. EEEEEEEEEEK!!! I KNOW! I love how supportive my husband is! He keeps getting on me to call her and then we went down (they were closed for inventory- so no go this week!) and even let me buy some materials to make stuff to show her (and getting him to fork over for crafting stuff is- well, not very hard cuz he's good about that- but having him mention it is down right miracleous!) I am so blessed to have such a support and encouraging husband :) So I need to go and review some Angel policies and start making tags for them- but other than that- wish me luck! A whole new door is about to open :D

~Brandie~

Just (Hat) Dance

Oh the envy of it all. My good friend is going to Toronto to see LADY GAGA! aigh- so excited for her- so sad that it's not me. But then again- I'm not much of a concert goer- so I'll stick to cranking up her music on my computer while I clean the house. So trying to get this done quickly as SOMEBODY (ahem-Matt-ahem) is having his grumpy time tonite, but really wanting to keep up with blogging more often.

So anyways, my friend-going to Gaga- messages me on facebook asking if I could create a small hat headpeice. Well- I really didn't think I could considering my material of choice is paper. I declined. But then I kept thinking about what she had said (she called me Wise and Crafty One- that kinda goes to a person's head! lol) and THEN I had a dream about the damned hat. Seriously. So then my mind was REALLY reeling on ideas. So I sketched some ideas, looked up how to make lolita style hats on YouTube and blog sites. Went to Michaels and bought a mini top hat (meant for teddy bears) and came up with THIS:

I personally love how it turned out- and thankfully so does she :) It was so simple- basically all I was doing was embellishing an existing item- and what crafter (especially paper crafter) can't do that? I used some black and hot pink silk roses that I found in the wedding ailse, some feathers in the doll ailse and lace, tulle and sequins found at Fabric land. That and some hot glue (soooo much hot glue hurting my poor fingers) and some alligator hair clips and VOILA the look came together- very Gaga if I DO say so myself! And it only took me 2 hours to whip it all together. Now, being a paper crafter I just KNEW this project was not finished! It needed to be displayed properlly when not fixed onto my friends hair-do. So being as the hat is 4 inches round I had to work on a box that would work, and be large enough- which as we know- working with 8.5x11 paper- getting things big enough can be a challege. So after 2 botched attempts- I came up with this adorable box to display the hair peice in:

I basically just made a 4.5x4.5 base out of hot pink cardstock, just a basic box upside down, then attached some black cardstock cut at 8.5x9.5 and scored at 2.5 on both sides, and attached some acetate cut and scored the same length on the front. Then I made a lid, used my Martha Stewart punch for flare, created a tag and finished off with some extra hot pink ribbon and left over black and hot pink rosettes.

So that was my project for today! My daughter turns five in two days and her party is in four- so I'll be busy with some kid friendly party favours and cupcake treats. I found templates for cupcake wrappers and am SO thrilled to get them going for her b-day. But the hat is the it for now- so now that the baby is calm I am taking advantage of it and going to go and relax- have a great night everyone!

~Brandie~