One of four hobbies today

I flit between about four hobbies most of the time, unless you count posting to Instagram and eating, then that would be six. Lol. They are crocheting, card making, filofax decorating and project life. Today its recounting the recent crocheting but I do have a lot of cards to make this month and I have to catch up on my filofax for the past two weeks so they are definitely in the wings.

Just some quick pics of my latest crochet projects.

We were in Las Vegas last week and had a blast (the highlight was tweeting David Copperfield that I enjoyed his show and him, not only tweeting me back his thanks, but he wound up following me back! Lol)

Anyway, on the trip there and back I was able to finish one of my latest creations: a filet crochet scarf that spells out "Happy Birthday" followed by the recipient's name. I use a cross-stitch type alphabet that I've adjusted to fit my stitches. Here's the one I finished.

Then I sat and finished a yellow bulky cowl/scarf during Winter Storm Marcus (that didn't affect NJ much.)

Then I finished a Bernat Blanket yarn scarf in a Bobble Leaves pattern (from a Love of Crochet magazine) that's been a work-in-progress for a couple of months. I'm sending it to my sister in a package tomorrow with some other goodies and a card (that I'll make) that says "Happy Galentine's Day!" I hear that's the trend this year. Sending Valentine cards to your gal friends.

I got my latest KnitCrate beginners kit the other day and I'm looking forward to working with the 600 yards of 100% Alpaca that came in it.

Lastly, just shoot me, but I'm intrigued by a Mystery Afghan Knit & Crochet Along event that the Crochet Crowd (on Facebook) is running every Tuesday from yesterday through to April. Sounds fun. Michaels has a 30% off entire regular price purchase coupon today from 4pm to closing so I can pick up the yarn I need for this event at a discount.

Gotta get to those cards and filofax now. Hope you're having a crafty day and thanks for stopping by!

Shake, shake, shake

I was inspired recently by the shaker card that MaryAnn Maldonado unveiled on her Lump, Bump and Clump blog and remembered that I had a new die from Simon Says Stamp called Balloon Bouquet that would work similarly with that card design.

I wound up using the die on a scrap of red metallic paper.

Pulled out some leftovers from a recent Stampin Up (SU) Paper Pumpkin kit to construct the shaker box and a little girl image from Mama Elephant's In My Heart stamp set.

I put all the balloon pieces through a Xyron sticker maker to have good coverage for placing them on the outside of the shaker box.

I put the Copic-colored little girl in the box with the confetti and sequins.

Stamped the SU greeting and matted it with more of that red paper.

The background is another scene from an old saved golf calendar.

I stamped an SU birthday greeting, circle punched it and matted it with more red paper and put it on the inside of the card.

I hope my friend gets a kick out of it. That's it. We're supposed to be traveling on Monday but another snow storm is coming our way. Wish me luck and have a crafty day!

Yarn and Never Ending Card Fun

Good morning,
We braced ourselves for the wrath of Winter Storm Juno but our forecasted 12-18 inches in Northern NJ turned into 4 inches. My heart goes out to those that the forecast was spot on up in Northern New England.
I sat by a fire and watched for the blizzard all while working on another spring-y cowl for my mom. I got through the entire skein of this super bulky Loops & Threads yarn with a Bobble Leaves pattern from Love of Crochet magazine. The yarn color was coincidentally was called Lightening (yes, it does have the "e" in it.) Unfortunately, another skein is needed to finish it, so shopping I must go.

As for the never ending card.... I've memorized the steps to make one from the directions over at Splitcoaststampers.com  If you're interested, once at the site, go to Tutorials, then search for "never ending card." In fact, here is a link to shortcut that for you. Be patient. You'll see the dimensions repeating themselves and if you practice enough, you'll get used to making this type of card. It really lights up the face of the recipient. That's why I make so many of them! *smile*

This one is for a friend. I used K&Co papers, Once the card is complete, I usually go back with fun alpha stickers and add my greeting, the person's name and a handwritten note on the fourth panel. I try to keep that panel light colored and in this case with a lined pattern to make it easier to write on.

Here are the four sides of the card.

I hope you consider trying this cool card design. Let me know. I'd love to see your take on it!
Have a crafty day,
 *smile*

Cowls, cowls and more cowls

So, one of my other obsessive hobbies is crochet. I've tried knitting a few times and I have a hard time getting the yarn off one needle and on to the other. Lol. I will try again sometime but I always fall back on crochet because I find it easy and relaxing. I'm on a cowl kick right now. I made my mom a cowl this past holiday and she hinted that she'd love some in spring colors. I finished a pretty blue one using a pattern from the latest Love of Crochet magazine and just sent it off to her.

I then started this pumpkin colored one (I know, not a spring color but I thought it might work until spring comes.) Sadly, I realized too late that this isn't a one skein project so until I can get another one, I'll just have to start something yellow.

As it happens, I'm following a blog called FatMumSlim and she offers up weekly photo prompts. One of the recent ones was "something yellow." Perfect. I'm actually hoping to keep up with these prompts to fill a Project Life album this year using Becky Higgins new Project 52 kit. I've decided not to feel that each prompt has to be about something that day but could even relate to an older photo with an interesting story because I'd rather fill the book with stories as I'm reminded of them.

Thanks for visiting. I hope to do some daily crafty musings here from now on. Have yourself a crafty day!

Get Well Balloons

While all the crafty stuff was out, I put together a card for a friend who's been in the hospital and is now, thankfully, heading home.

I've wanted to do something special with this Mama Elephant Balloon Letters stamp set so this seemed the perfect time. Only thing I didn't think ahead was wanting to fussy cut all the letters and for this card that meant 11 letters! Then, I had to attach a red thread to every letter to make them more balloon-like. That was a fun exercise in fine-motor activity especially when they all wanted to stick to each other. Lol. But a little patience was all that was needed.

I used a cute boy image from the Mama Elephant In My Heart stamp set. (I added pig tails by hand because I wanted it to look like a girl, since I'm sending the card and this image has his hand out.)
I used Stampin Up markers to stamp the balloons but colored the girl with Copics.

Lastly, I wanted a cute background, so I took out an old 12x12 golf calendar and cut out an outdoor scene.

Thanks for visiting. Off to put this on Instagram and Twitter (@scrapcollectr) then mail it to my friend. Have a crafty day!

Can't Wait

Hello blog friends and thank you for your patience. I'm very active on Instagram because it is sooo easy. I'm going to try to pop in here more but if you have Instagram follow me there! (Find me @scrapcollectr)

Today, I'm here because I made a card for my parents who are going to spend some vacation time with us in a couple of months and I want them to know that I can't wait until then!

You know those posters of a particular city that map out the rest of the country as being inconsequential. You know, like New York City is in the foreground and beyond is wasteland except for the occasional big city. Well, if you get what I mean, that's kinda how this card came to be. I wanted to use my Lawn Fawn Wish You Were Here stamp and die set because I love that US map stamp! I figured that I'd stamp it perfectly over a Road Atlas map of Texas so that my hometown is right where it belongs. The rest of country is kinda... just.... Texas. Haha.

Here's the photo progression.

1. Tore the part of Texas that I wanted from my Dollar Store Road Atlas. Stamped the map once on the map paper and once on white cardstock.

 2. Used my Evolution machine to die cut the two maps. Used a little washi to hold down the die.

 3. Used my Craftwell eBrush to add a little color around the card base. Held the white map in place with temporary adhesive. Coincidentally, the color of the Copic marker is B24 Sky.

 4. I stamped the little arrow in the set, die cut it and then to make it stand out on the card, I stamped over it with a Prima washi tape stamp in Stampin' Up Real Red. Cute, huh?

 5. Used Paper Smooches Graffiti for the greeting.

 6. I glued the thin top map to the one I masked with to give it extra weight then adhered it to the card with pop dots. Thought the card looked too plain so I used the dotted line stamp to make borders. Carefully. Lol.

 7. Needed an airplane so I dug up this old box of DCWV travel chipboard shapes. Glued that and the arrow in place.

 8. Added two little rhinestones for the To and From cities.

 9. And voila! A simple card that completely took over the table space in making it. Oh well, is there really any such thing as a simple card? Lol.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope this inspired you! Have a wonderful, crafty day.