MOPS auction items

Well, after much preparation, we finally had our MOPS auction tonight- it is our only fundraiser, which we rely on to offset the costs of running our MOPS group. God blessed us again this year with a great result- it's exciting because it opens up more possibilities for how we can serve not only our MOPS ladies, but those in our community too. I made a set of cards, the 'live, love,laugh" votive holders, a bunch of the magnetic memo boards (the leaders had set the minimum bid for $5- which I thought was too much to start with but I didn't quibble about it,) and to my surprise, they not only sold but were bid on higher than that... go figure! They were very basic... I also made a bunch of gift tags with my scraps that I hate to part with, a couple of altered notebooks, a "mother" themed mini album, and a crackled paint picture frame. I was also surprised at how much people bid on the gift tags.. again, go figure. I also made an 8 1/2 x 11 inch layout to be framed, but I ended up in my rushing to leave for the auction leaving IT on my kitchen counter... ugh! Anyhow, it's always gratifying when something you make sells. It would just be nice if I could actually make a profit from crafts in general. I think I just have to stick with making them for gifts, it's more fun that way... :)

The latest card...

I saw the original version of this card in a stamp shop in Poulsbo, WA while spending a weekend with my best buddy. I needed a card ( the other one of two) for a card craft I am heading up for my mother in law's ladies evening out at her church in Tillamook, OR on Friday. Anhow, we each bought the stamp that was used. The original had a script stamp for the background of the paper that the flower was stamped on. I didn't want to buy another stamp just for script, so we came up with the idea of using the Cuttlebug Script embossing folder for the paper covering the card base instead. In an ideal world, I'd probably be inclined to ink around the edges of the all the pieces, but since this is for a group of up to 20 women, who mostly haven't any experience with cards (haha.. like I have much either!!! :) ) and inking and techniques used often in scrapbooking and cardmaking, I was trying to keep things as simple as possible. I will be stamping all the images ahead of time, and making kits for the cards, and my best buddy helped cut out the paper - the mat was cut with a die from Quickutz, most excellent layering I would say!! :) I used pop up foam dots to pop the white paper up from the rest, I like how it adds another element to the card. I used organza ribbon to complement the colors of the card with the color of the flower- also added another element to the card which I liked The original had this tiny little bow which was so perfect, but I don't want to try and get a bunch of women (pardon the pun) all up in knots over trying to make bows for the cards. A simple double tie worked great for me. I think I will be using the Script embossing folder a lot, I really like how it looks.

Card Day for MOPS service project

This last Saturday, ladies from our MOPS group got together to make cards to go in kits for families of deployed military. These kits have cards for various occasions during the year- birthday, Mothers/Fathers Day, 4th of July, Holiday, First Day of School, and blank (just for fun), along with postcards for the recipient to send back to their child/family, and stamps. Our group's card efforts will be going to Fort Lewis. Despite not being much of a card-maker, I made some efforts to create some cards too. Here are some of the results- I ended up making a set of the green cards for our MOPS auction- from a suggestion of one of our fellow MOPS members and card maker that day. I used a couple of card sketches to jumpstart me- I still struggled, but I'm satisfied enough with the results. My category was "just for fun".

Beaded Glass Taper Holders

These taper holders ended up being pretty simple to put together. I used a piece of stem wire- 18 gauge (pack of 20 at Jo-Ann's was about $2), wrapped it around the taper holder, and used needle nose pliers to curl the ends up a bit. I then used thin wire to add the beads to the stem wire. These particular flower beads I found at Jo-Ann's also for about $4 for a pack that had 192 in it- this included those pretty green leaves too. They had several colors. I used a seed bead threaded onto a loop of wire to hold the flower bead on to the wire (also made a pretty center for the flower too. :) This will be our MOPS craft tomorrow, hopefully the ladies will like it. I hope you found some ideas to play with for yourself.

Votive holders with Cricut- cut vinyl words

These little votive holders were so much fun to decorate and so fast! A friend of mine who borrowed my Cricut to see if she'd like it well enough to get one for herself- (she did :) ) came over this morning to show me how to cut vinyl with it and I am hooked. We used the Home Decor/Design cartridge and cut out the "live love laugh" at 2 inches, and the little flourishy/vine feature too (in white)- I think that may have been at 1 1/4 inches. Then all I had to do was stick them to the glass votive holders. The votive holders were bought from Ikea- 4 to a package for under 2 dollars. I can't wait to play some more with it! These holders will go to our MOPS auction in March- nice to have something cute and inexpensive already done for that.

"friends" layout

Here is my latest layout which was 'lifted' from another layout that I really thought was neat, so I did my best to replicate it. I used a transparency over the pictures, stitched and inked over the pictures, and inked around other elements of the layout. I would have used my distresser but I hadn't brought it with me when I started this at my in-laws, and I figured it looked alright with just the inking instead. I used some acrylic letters that I'd had for a while, and added a few stitches around them to add interest too. The papers were from a paper pack from Michael's with a distressed/shabby chic theme. Lots of fun, and I'm giving this to my best buddy for a gift. Thanks for stopping by!

"good sport" layout

This was a layout I did using a sketch- which took a lot of thinking work out of it. I like the clean look of it. I distressed the striped paper, picture mat, and the journaling strips. I just used some embroidery floss to add a bit more interest to the title and the journaling strips. I used the bubbles embossing folder from the Cuttlebug to add more texture to the letters. My original intention for the title was to use chipboard letters, but I didn't have enough, so I traced around the chipboard letters onto cardstock, then cut them out and embossed them. It was one of those pleasant surprises with how much I liked the letters in the end, despite having to compromise.