Any Friend of COFFEE is a friend of Mine Card

Had a smidgeon of a piece of craft paper and a few little coffee goodies that I wanted to make up into a card after I made the page I showed you yesterday for Kraft +. It's a thing with them to make a card or a tag after your layout for an additional entry!  Happy Coffee Dance! Some of the yummy card stuff came from Lisa over at BZ Scrapper and it made me happy to use it on a Valentine's Day card!

While I was making a coffee card, I thought I'd make up one with these pretty vintage buttons,  turquoise key and some dyed seam binding. They both turned out so pretty!

I had so much fun cardmaking this past Sunday. It was warm and sunny, but wet out. My office was all sunshiny and I got all kinds of paper scraps out. Had a nice little scrap Valentine's card making session! Back tomorrow with my pile!

Happy Tuesday!

Hawkeye Layout for Kraft + Challenge

Oh what fun! I've been wanting to play along with a challenge for a while and finally snuck one in! Just at the wee end too. It's nearly the end of the month!

Kraft + has a fun one up called Caffeine Hit that I opted to play along with. I was inspired by the lovely photos of coffee to add a lot of round cut out circles to my page, as if they were tops of mugs. I also went hunting down a stamp that looked like rings a cup makes if the coffee sloshes a little, but never did find it. Instead I found one that said You've Left An Impression on Me and used some gold embossing power. Some brown shimmer spay completed my coffee look. Of course I used a piece of kraft paper. Mine was recycled as I don't have any in my stash...so that's also a win!

I ran with snowflakes and stars to decorate. Hawkeye was adopted over the holidays and was a gift from us to my Mom and Dad. He's a very awesome kitty so I knew I needed to make a page to celebrate! They are currently enjoying having a spastic kitten around who has more energy than a toddler who has sucked down three espressos. I guess the other day he tried climbing the wood stove! Simmer down Hawkeye!

I'm back tomorrow with a card I created for the challenge too! I had more recycled kraft paper and some fun coffee things to play with!

Lexi's Stained Glass Kaleidoscope

I took Lexi's Kaleidoscope that my Mom made her for Christmas outside the other day for some glamour shots. It was too snowy to take the photos in the sun on the walkway. Instead I tried taking one looking into it and it worked! Let me show you what's making all those pretty colors from the other side.

Look at all that pretty glass! Mom must have had all kinds of fun picking the right pieces and then carefully soldering them together! It's a double wheel so you can spin them both and it changes the colors that are produced.

Look at the lovely little scallops & the orange & white roundel work. So pretty!

Nice job Mom!!!

Happy Tuesday.

Hazel Barger's Scrapbook & some Vintage Yummies

Don't ask me how a little scrapbook & school memory book from 1927 and Bynum Texas ended up at our ReStore. We've had a lot of fun here with it at Pratt Inc. because of course it had to come home with me.

I've quite enjoyed flipping through Hazel's School Memory book. I've gleaned important details such as red and white carnations were her favorite, she recalled when someone put a bullet in the stove during Physics class and she was Class Secretary despite being the new girl as a senior.

Hazel was quite a cutie! Love the bow! And as far as I can tell, Jinnie V. is one of her besties. The pile that came home from the store included some much older photos and a couple of newer ones.

This one is BY FAR my favorite. I mean look at those hats! And course we should take a photo with our favorite instruments...

Another gem was a poem....we think was written by Hazel.

In the East, a copper disk

Hangs in a cloudless sky

A thunderous silence fills the air

Shimmers catch the eye

Two thousand miles

From you!

And this moon smiles there too!

I feel your breath I hear your sigh

Your sparkling eyes behold

Brighter than the twinkling stars

Brighter a thousand fold

So far away

My heart

And we must stay

Apart

But maybe you behold the moon

With other eyes than mine

Perhaps another’s arms may hold

You from time to time

I tell the moon to say

Love fades so soon away

Lexi and I had to have a quick google and see if we could find Hazel. We pawed through quite a few searches but didn't really find her. We'll continue to enjoy her albums and eventually we'll make some art with all the pretty vintage things!

Happy Monday!

Hufflepuff Framed Crest with THE CUTTING CAFE Paper Flower File

Over at THE CUTTING CAFE it's a free week, which means we get to pick any cutting file we want to use! I always really enjoy making flowers so I indulged myself. It's the perfect file if you are trying to match a look but all of your flowers are in the wrong colors or you want them a specific size.

In my case I was looking for something vintage yet not overpowering because the crest is so bright. A sheet of patterned paper with postcards did the trick! I used the Paper Flower Template & Cutting File and made the largest size blooms just a little smaller so I could fit two whole sets on my cutting mat.

I always add centers to mine if I'm being extra fancy. This involves cutting a small hole for the stamens to sit in and then I add hot glue. Some of my flowers got some shimmer spray to darken them a little.

A trick to using patterned paper is to pick the really plain pieces for the center with a more interesting piece for the outer part. I also made a flower that looks like it's just opening for some contrast.





































I had to of course make a snitch as well too. That is just a round ball with two holes drilled. I added two bendy sparkly feathers with one side cut off and then some contours with hot glue on the ball. Some gold spray paint completed the project! This project is a gift so it's heading out of here shortly!

Happy Saturday!

Old School Pile o' Valentine's

The family had decided to watch Hidden Figures over the snowy weekend and since I have windows from my office into the living room, I caught a large portion of the show. It was really nice to have a pile of pretties to play with & watch a movie. Good show too. A lot of think about.

The cards weren't anything special. Just a bunch of scraps. In fact, the white is the backing from the foil back tape project I saved from last week. A requirement for Valentine's Day is the heart doily, so I made a bunch with red and others with white.

What fun are those little tickets and the heart gems! Yummy!

I'm not sure if I'll send these out or release into the wild as a RAK. I suppose it depends if I get time to make another pile! I do like to send cards, which is why these are FLAT!!! I could always make 3D ones for the RAK.

Happy Hump Day!

Funkie Junkie Tags and Lindy Stamp Gang Mists

Had a fun little time this weekend with some mists and some goody bags from The Funkie Junkie. Did you know Linda sends along these little cellophane baggies full of cool things for each order? Realized that I had a couple of bags that I had been hoarding not to mention some fun new tag paper and new mists! So I made four tags!

Forgot how much I liked playing with mists. In fact, this is probably why I don't buy them because they are so yummy!

My favorite two tags are probably these two. The little girl image and those cool pieces of foliage came in a recent package. And I can't imagine why I haven't played with that dress form already!

In an ongoing effort to do more Random Acts of Kindness and Be Kind these will get released into the wild of the Corning Area! (Indoors of course, goodness gracious I know paper and snow don't mix!)

Happy Tuesday!

Ghosts, Flapjacks, and Other White Stuff

We headed into the weekend giddy with laughter for two reasons. The first being that we had a big snow coming and virtually all weekend plans screeched to hault. People know their limitations here in the Twin Tiers and cancel things before the first snow flake even falls. This meant I could spend some time with some recently received art supplies and make a mess! Happy Dance!

THE MAN was pleased because then he could play with the tractor a whole lot. (Yes the bird feeders were empty. They are now filled due to the blue jays that kept looking in our windows and menacing us for seed). The other reason I was laughing was due to an early morning Friday meeting at Arbor Housing. I had spotted this post on Facebook the night before and been preparing helpful suggestions.

Our local Habitat for Humanity collaborates with Arbor. They are the big dog in town and do a lot to help the local community from home repair, low-income housing, and in this case, assisting with taking down an old school that couldn't be saved & replace with market rate houses. The fact they were dealing with ghosts was a first for me. After the fifth ghost buster joke, they still weren't laughing which didn't stop us. We then resorted to using the word ghost as many times in conversation as possible for good measure. Us Habitat peeps know how to have a good time unlike those uptight peeps at Arbor. Besides, better them than us.

In other ghostly news, we got Luke's award that he received from Harris Hill. The dude the reward was named after happens to be Gross, although we had a lot of theories on what exactly what a Gross Sky Ghost would look like. Let's not ask Arbor, they seemed to be lacking in imagination....

Pancakes are fun aren't they! Luke's school had a fundraiser and we all got up early to head down to have some hot flapjacks and bacon. It was a nice start to Sunday. The snow was pretty much cleared and I had done enough chores to spend some time playing with my goodies from The Funkie Junkie! I'll be back with a post about that tomorrow!

Happy Monday!

Embossed Foil Back Tape Upcycled Rose Canister

Skip the craft store and get the makings of this project at the hardware, grocery, and second hand store! Seriously! This canister was your typical metal cookie container that got fancied up quite a bit. Don't believe me?

The foil tape was embossed with a new rose embossing folder from Close to My Heart. Due to the size of the embossing folder & tape, you end up making strips, so you pretty much have to piece it together until your entire tin is covered.

I used alcohol inks to get the mottled look combined with some rubbing alcohol. THE MAN says it looks like stained glass. 

A lot of these flowers & even the butterfly came from the second hand store! I'm always on the look out as usually people donate odds & ends and it doesn't take a lot to make something pretty. 

The fun part is that every single side of this container are different! Some of them have more red and others more of that turquoise color I love...I'm on a RAK kick, so it's possible this one will head out to be hidden locally for someone to find as a random surprise! 

Happy Tuesday! 

Velvet & Lace Vintage Scarf Pin

A while back, right before the holidays at work, someone mentioned scarf pins. It was an offhand comment like hey Mitra, you should make some. So, I guess I'm here to confess I'm not even sure if they are really a thing since I googled and didn't find too many.

To be honest, I probably would have skipped the whole thing if I hadn't found a fun piece to play with at the second hand store I frequent. It was fancy and looked fun. I wiggled the pin on the back of it until it broke off and then got crazy with a dyed vintage lace doily, velvet flowers, a little copper piece and some hot glue.

The back was pretty simple. This is just a little clip so really this piece could be added as bling to just about anything. Maybe a hat? Anyhow, it's heading off to hang on some one's desk and they can figure out what to do with it. ;-)

It's certainly scarf weather around here, so maybe it will be used on one soon!

Happy Monday!

RAK Journal for THE CUTTING CAFE

In keeping with my first post of the year, of Being Kind or shall I say Beeing Kind :-) I decided to make a RAK Journal for THE CUTTING CAFE. Randomly (see what I did there?) I got my first RAK shortly there after!

So many cool printable pages for this journal! I used watercolor paper & distressed the edges which made me happy. This is an add on for the planner but could also be made into a seperate book like mine.

I can't decide whether I'll be gifting it to a friend or adding my first Random Act of Kindess in it.


We have kindness rocks here (well, I am sure they are a lot of places) and I found one in the wild today! So cool. I played a little rock music for my ROCK and then rehid for someone else to enjoy!

Happy Saturday! Hope it's full of unexpected joy and loveliness!

Flying into the New Year

A while ago our Habitat for Humanity ReStore had these kaleidoscope kits for sale.  There were a couple of different kinds and since my Mom is a glass artist, I asked her if she'd like to try them out. Turns out she had plans of making them for the kids for Christmas! Luke's Christmas present was this cool plane.

You actually look in the tail end of the plane and the front prop has all the pretty glass that makes cool shapes! Wish I could show you what THAT looks like. It's super cool.

Here's the front! So much fun. Just took a couple of quick photos in the snow. It's super cold here at the moment so outdoor time is at an extreme minimum.

Happy Wednesday!

Erosion Bundle Collaboration Reveal

Since this past August...back when the days were sunny and flowers were blooming....a little bundle of paper, string, fabric, and some seam binding has been hanging out wrapped in tissue paper & exposed to the elements here at Pratt Inc. Well, a couple of days ago it was time to bring it in for a thaw and a peek-see.

Was so pleased with mine! I didn't bury one because somehow I knew we'd be in the single digits here in NY and figured that unburying would be most unpleasant. Not to mention, possibly the ground would be under snow cover. It was hard enough waiting for the gosh darn thing to thaw....I was most impressed with the doily. The age spots make me happy too. I had added a bunch of sumac which dyed the paper a little.

My most favorite item though was quite unexpected. I didn't know that I'd love the wrinkled & faded tissue paper quite so much. In fact, I didn't wait for our collaboration project and started using it right away! I figure I have quite a bit so I can use a little now! It went on like a dream with that sparkly Martha glitter glue.

Wish me luck! I'm dreaming up a big project now for the collaboration!

Be Kind: First Project of the Year for Another Freaking Scrappy

Happy New Year's Day! Just popping in with a little project I made yesterday. I won't lie. It's been extremely cold here and the mojo has been on vacation since the break. Good thing I have been hoarding some really lovely items like that pretty fame and those awesome big blooms which encouraged me to put down the book and get creative!

Anne over at Another Freaking Scrappy gave us the assignment this month of making a layout or project that talks about personal resolutions or goals, or how you want to improve something. It can be bettering yourself, making something better in your world, or the world in general. I thought a little frame that tells us to Be Kind or to Bee Kind :-) would be a good way to start the year. 

My favorite part besides using a lot of super pretty flowers, was making that honey comb out of some cardboard chippies I found. Believe it or not, I used whiteout to paint them white as it's fast drying and then added some ink in yellow. Nobody said I had to be patient yesterday! 

A little marker on the edges helped grunge them up. I actually used a sheet of tissue paper & some gold modge podge on the very back of the piece. The tissue was wrapped around an erosion bundle that I recently brought in that's been outside for about six months. I was supposed to have shown you that already...so I'll be back tomorrow with a few photos! 

Have a great New Year's Day!