Swap-bot/Sheep n me:-)

Hello! Hello! I thought I would post some things tonight while I have the motivation. I have tons of pictures that I have been taking to post about and just have not gotten to this actual blog to post them and talk about the. I am not even sure I will remember everything. So, I gonna try to find those photos and post them and then talk some about them if I can;)

Ha! Ha! Sorry I saw that in my photos and had to add it. This is Poppy one of the three momma sheep we have had since Jan. 1st of this year:-) She is the leader of the pack and is very dog like in her personality. 

This sweet momma above is Winnie. She had twins but the first one died....I waited too long on reaching in and pulling the babies out:( Yea, very first lambing for us too, so it was an unforgettable learning experience for sure. You know before they lambed (sheep labor), hubby and I would joke about which one of us would have to stick our hand...I mean arm (lol!) in and pull the babies out cause well we really didn't think it was that common.....hmmm yea, it was me and come to find out it is more of a common practice then we thought!! So, this is Hersey and she is the oldest of the four babies. The very first one born died and the very last one born died. The last one couldn't stand up at all and we stomach tube fed it and it just did not perk back up enough:( Anyways, we got two for the dinner table and two more mommas! 

Me and Matthew.

Okay finally some "mail" stuff. These are currently waiting stamps. The four packages are stuffed full of fbs and going to CA, HI, IL, and "CAAAN-NUH-DUUUUH!!!

The top ones are letters. Well, one is for a swap that I will show below, The letters are going to PA, Germany, The Netherlands, and "CAAAN-NUH-DUUUUH!!! The one to Canada;) is a new penpal that I just met on the lovely Facebook. It's a nice sized intro letter;) I like my letters long usually, but intros are usually shorter then established correspondence. Oh, and on swap-bot I signed up for this pen pal swap and we have 5 partners! Yea so that is a potential for 10 new pals. I will have to admit I have become more picky on friends I make through snail-mail. When I started out, I did not really mind writing to pen pal collectors or to people who send form letters, but now I kinda have my own preference and understand how important it is, for me, to really enjoy building a friendship. 

So, the booklet below is for a swap on swap-bot. We were to get inspiration from a YouTube video and make a booklet and also write a letter to a potential new pen pal. So here is mine. I will not comment on all the pages.

The binding is just washi tape most pages feature a pocket. The binding does not allow for tons of room for pics, it's very flat..but I still think it's very cute and cannot wait to see the one sent to me:) I inserted my intro letter in the last pocket. Well, I think that is all I will get around to tonight. I do have other pics from a while ago...maybe when I run across them, I will post about them. Have a great day!!

Couple Things

Hello, there have been a couple things that I have been working on here lately. The first are several Valentine themed neat fbs that I have made for some members of a group on facebook called Friendbook Frenzy. Its a new group and well I just felt like joining the first swap. March is coming up and the kids birthdays are that month...well all but Henry and so I will try not to join any swaps or get in anything that will require much attention from me. But, normal "just my crafting" will still take place:-) Anyways, here are the fbs....

    

These are the fbs for the group. I mass made them, so all of them are similar in some way. I wanted to use my stamps because I did not want to print anything off on the computer. I really don't know how much more printing I can get from my cartridges, but I really do not want to go buy ink now, that is like 70 dollars to fill the printer. I always buy them in the packs....I think its cheaper....I think:-) For a while now I have been printing off on the best setting for my fb images and it uses more ink then the "auto" settings. I was pleased with how these turned out. Now I have to label them and get them sent to each swapper that joined in that swap via that group;)

Oh, and we have to post pics to the group. So, that is probably what I will do later today and get it over with :-) 

Okay, on to my other project. This is the 3rd mini scrapbook I have ever started. I say started cause the other two are still in progress!! LOL. I am not sure why I started this one and now I am very happy that I did. But before I post pics of that....look who I caught getting into my stuff!!

He thinks he's gonna do something....

Okay maybe he is....

He's so funny. And "yes" my craft desk stays that messy most every day. I usually have to clean it back when I need more room to work on. That is just the way I am....it would drive me crazy trying to keep it "perfect" everyday. 

Below is the mini book I was wanting to share. 

Just kidding its us! LOL!

OK for real now.....

Above is the cover so far. I am very pleased with the way the binding came together. I used the fabri tac glue I posted about before. That stuff really sticks, but totally stinks. I still have a lot more creativity that needs to go in the cover. This album will be sent to a dear friend as a gift. That is all I will say, she might read this blog?? Anyways, I have a white mini picture frame that I might put on the front. I wanted to show the birds, but I think that they will eventually end up covered up:-) O'well, I think on my next mini, I will use a closely decorated general patter. 

Okay, so above is just a picture of the pages. I have one page front and back done, I am working on the second page. I have a half inch of room between pages, because I like to add, and add, and add on mini booklets, pockets, etc. I am trying not to over due it. I know my friend likes to write, so there will be plenty of writing space here along with plenty of picture space as well.

This above is the inside front cover. I wanted it simple and cute. I didn't want it to be complicated and bulky. The vintage writing with loved stamped on it is a tag and where the ribbon and three flowers are is a short pocket. 

Above is the front of the first page. It is an accordion fold out. And on six of the pages there pockets located on the top. I still have a lot of learning when it comes to closures for my little booklets and fold outs. I do not have any magnets at the moment. Actually, I might but I don't know where they are...:-) I still want to do a little decor on this page, but I am pleased to move on for now with other parts of the mini. Also, I don't have any specific list of things or directions. I am just trying to remember what I can from watching YouTube videos on the subject:-)

So, this is one of my favorite pages above. It is an add on to the pocket that is located on the side of each main page. I added a flap and then thought, why end there, so on the back of the first main page, there is a full page sized book. It is 6x6 (the mini cover is 6 1/2 by 6 1/2). I love the little distressed lolly pop flowers or trees and wanted to use it to close the book with a string you wrap around it...but of course when glueing the last page, I forgot to leave room on one side to glue the string under it. O'well, my friend is very forgiving and if I cannot come up with a way to close this, it does well the way it is:-)

This page above is in the middle of the booklet on the back of the first page. There are two side pickets and two small booklets that fit in the pockets. 

This is the page I am working on right now. The distressed pink paper is a vertical belly band and the grey/yellow flower paper under that can be removed and will be a little booklet for journaling and pictures. I want to decorate the belly band, but not sure if I want to keep it simple with a picture matte or to make a little flippy water fall thing....not the real waterfall with the pull out, I am just not "there" yet:-)

Like I said, I do not have a plan, and hope that I don't run out of any ideas and am stuck with not knowing how to finish the album. I am thinking I might do the booklet thing on all the back pages?? And then think of different things for each front page. So, I am pleased with it, and can see me learning and making progress. 

Thanks for reading and looking at my pics!!

Blue Nose Friends HQ fbs

I want to share with you the two fbs I made for the yahoo group Creative-High-Quality-Crafts. These two fbs will be traveling to Sabina in Sweden to be signed first, by her:-) Well, here they are....

I have many other Blue nose friends images to make fbs with because they are so cute. I have thought of making a couple baby cards with them as well. 

I have a couple more swaps to fill for this group, but they are due at the end of February so I think I have time:-) I am gonna try not to sign up for any swaps during March since two of the kids have birthdays that month and it will be a nice break from swapping....if I can do it:-) Wow, it's almost March....I cannot wait for Springtime and then Summer!!

Handmade card for swap

Last night I actually did get some crafting done. I did this card below with a two year old in my lap the whole time, nursing off and on. He got to play with my beloved butterfly cling stamps. Usually I don't really keep up with what he plays with...unless it could hurt him, but if he gets my poly clay roller or something like that, I don't bother to see where it ends up, but I was on him like a hawk with my stamps...I love those things!! LOL! I know that stuff he misplaces will show up eventually. 

I had fun with this card...

    

Okay, now that I am looking at this card...I think I need to add something on the ribbon part. I am going to put a couple flowers there....maybe I have a nice brad too....or button? hmmm...

Anyways, here is the inside....

And I think that I like the format of the inside better then the front of this card. Lets see what I can go do real quick and I will post another picture on below here...:-)

Okay so I ended up seeing my washi tape and the flower on top is dark so I thought it would go well together. Then I swap my distress ink and had to darken the edges of the card...then I saw my glimmer mist and did a little of that, so now I think it looks tons better:-) To me, it just looked to plain before, not it's not so plain....I hope my partner is pleased. The group the swap is from takes pride on doing nicer than normal work, so I hope my card is ok.  

It was a little difficult gluing the flower with all that stringy stuff around it. My regular favorite glue is the Scotch quick-dry adhesive. That is some fast drying glue and does not warp the paper as bad as other slower glues, but it does not do well with "stringy" stuff, but this Fabri-tac is the bomb! It is so good, better the got glue. It will grab and hold anything...and its clear:-) Really, if you cannot find a strong glue for your mixed media art, this stuff will do the job. The only bad thing, is it smells like it is dangerous! LOL! Yea the smell is just...hmmm...just don't smell it:-) 

Okay, well that is what I got done yesterday. I am hoping for some more crafting time tonight at some point. I am thinking of doing some "very high quality" fbs via yahoo groups:-) I feel crafty and will probably get them creative-crushing, but very flashy border stickers out;-) Have a great night you all!!!!!

Mail In ^_^

Hello, so we were pretty much sick the whole day yesturday. Me and the kids have terrible fevers, body aches, and a raw cough. Ella's temperature got up to 104.7, but finally everyone was okay. Now today, my husband Matt has it. Poor guy went to bed around 6 o'clock. He should sleep well, I remember sleeping good yesterday off and on all day. So, I did not even make it down stairs to even touch my crafting things. I thought about crafting though...as usual. If you wonder what I think about at night while lying in bed...its usually crafting or art of some sort! LOL! Or I am going over what swaps I have due when and how I will make them so it goes by faster. I tend to procrastinate a lot, and so when I am not actually crafting, I am thinking of how I am going to design that ATC or card, or fb or whatever. But, I must say I do some of my favorite art when I am pushed for time. Also, when I don't really try hard...that may sound weird, but it seems when I "just do it"...(yea not like the poly clay "just do it"!!), but like putting papers down, stamping, washi taping ATCs and such....I learn some of the best techniques and it is really stress free when I just don't think too much about the process. 

Okay on with the incoming swaps:-) Here are the pics!

The card above came in from a swap on Swap-bot. It was via the group Crafting Queens group...Happy Birthday card with a butterfly on it. I am very pleased with it. First one I have seen that opens like this....(see Below)

   

It says, "In all the things of nature there is Something of the Marvelous" by Aristotle. 

This next pic here below is of a two swaps that I got yesterday but was too sick to post about. They are very fat, which it is great to get "fat" mail. The first I will share with you all is from Elizabeth in IL. We just started swapping via facebook group USA fbs.  We have done a couple quick swaps and I will have to take my time with her return swap this time cause of all these lbs I have. I think we try to fit about 20 fbs and 20 lbs in these 6x9 envies! I just love getting a stuffed 6x9 envelope of fbs. We swap nice n neat fbs. Before we started she asked me what I considered nice n neat for a friendship book. I told here the ones in booklet-form that have some sort of decoration on the front:-) Which, I think others standards for nice n neat might be higher, but as long as it is in a neat booklet with some effort on the front decoration, I will swap it:-) I do have hq swappers that we just swap hq fb, and that is fine too. I just like to see more swappers in fb. When you get to the high quality, you tend to see the same swappers over and over. And you know I love all yawl, but I do like to see more variety. And since I am REALLY trying to swap only in the USA except for swap-bot and yahoo groups, its nice to see some US peeps in the fbs. 

Okay on with these pics. The second swap is from Joy in HI:-) We been swapping LONG TIME:-) Joy puts a smile on my face....great friend. We pen-pal as well. She is the first person that introduced me to the world of hq fbs. I remember when I first started swapping, seeing a Hello Kitty fb that she made with those beautiful border stickers and thinking...how on earth can someone put something like that together...."its just out of my reach". She has helped me a lot with learning about making quality fbs. 

Here below is the lbs that came with Elizabeth's swap. Anyone taking excess lbs??

 Here are some of the fbs that she sent in her swap.

Below are some of the hq fbs that Joy sent with her swap.

More fbs below from Joy's swap.

Here below are some nice hq fbs that are going to Jonna A. in Finland. Two are homers for her and one is for Diana in Bulgaria and the other to Silvia Maja in Germany. Jonna is kind enough to send those other two home:-) Thanks so much!!!!

I guess that is it for now. I have been trying to think of what I want to make tonight. It is almost 8 so I do have enough time to make a couple swaps up. The kids are watching a mermaid show on the I-pad.....arguing....

  

.....bad attitudes, now Matthew is on my phone watching his "own" movie:-) Okay, I gotta go check Facebook and get to my craft desk. 

Key ATC

Here is an ATC I made last night for a swap on Swap-bot called "ATC with a Key". I had fun with it. At the moment I am really into shimmer misting everything either with the gold or with the silver colors. I just feel like it brings everything together. I really like my pens too, they are sharpie paint markers. To me with such a small budget, the silver and gold colors work best with the different accents to my projects. If I had enough money I would get the other colors of shimmer mist, paint pens, etc. I guess I do tend to favor more earthy rustic colors in my projects though. And that depends on what I am making. For some reason with the fbs, I do more of a scrapbook style. But, that is changing. I had a slight burn-out with the peel-off border stickers. Its just that, when I use them, I cannot stop! LOL. When I make an fb and put the border stickers on there, I cannot just enclose one thing with a border sticker frame, I've got to do another, and another, then add some to the corners, then add.....etc. I think fbs that have a lot of these stickers are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I felt like me personally, I was not able to be more "creative" with my tiny pieces of art when I used these stickers. Maybe that made sense? I hope.

First time with Poly Clay

Okay, so I just wanted to share my first experience with heating polymer clay. I will let the pics speak for themselves!!!

Nice huh? My first time and this one above turned out so well. I cannot believe how well I did. I must be a natural polymer clay artist now!!

Just look at that color and the perfect definition of a key. 

Okay, seriously this one above is keep-able right? LOL!

Such nice bubbling action going on above! Ok, ok, so I burnt the heck out of them! Yep, my "craft room" went up in smoke....nice lung-warming carcinogenic smoke! Yawl should have seen me herding my kids upstairs and opening up all the doors, grabbing the closest towel to me and fanning the air. Not sure what happened...actually that is a lie. I thought all the things that I was doing wrong as I was doing them. Okay, mind you I have been thinking this process over in my head for years. I have read and watched youtube videos about it, I just never tried it before. Well, my memory was slitely rusty on the subject, but I got the motivation and urge to "just do it" Nike style right? Wrong!! I'm still alive and have learned. Anyways, some of the things I remember thinking while I was placing the pieces (they are key molds by the way) in the small toaster oven (yes, toaster oven), I thought...."hmm they seem so close to the top burners." Did I do anything about that nope, just kept on placing them in there. I turn it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit....I think (yea I went to public school). For some reason, I just knew that was the right temperature. No I don't have the bags to check...not that I would have anyways. And ends up that was way too hot. They should be like 260 degrees, depending on the brand of clay. But, the great thing about being an idiot and making a huge mistake is you learn and the things you learn will stick with you for a really long time...maybe your whole life. So, I learned the hard way to really research the process again before actually trying it, even if you've studied it off and on for years. Also, that even though they almost caught fire after like 5 minutes, they still came out hard...like it really worked. They are not clay anymore, so that was a really positive feeling for me, since I have only felt one other home-hardened polymer clay piece before. I felt like, "I did it!" even though, I will trash most of them. I am going to test the two that came out "ok", to see if they make nice keys for some of my projects. 

1-25

Well, I am back at it. Hopefully, this will be a great place for me to share my swapping and crafting with all my friends that share in the same passions as I do!!

Below is two pictures of some fbs that I got from a swap. The swap is from Saundra in AL. She and I use to swap regularly years ago.....until I was such a prude about quality and we nicely departed as swap pals. It was a time in my swapping that I thought I had to swap the nicest most high quality fbs and I did not want to swap nice n neat fbs. Even still there is such a big "grey" area on the whole issue of nice n neat versus high quality....and *gasp* Very high quality! LOL! So, now as I have learned...it was a little ridiculous of me. I'm not saying that if others want to swap the highest quality it is ridiculous...but for "ME" I see now that it was. So, I am so happy that Saundra in no way seems to be irritated or "holding a grudge" at me for that. THANK YOU!! Of course there is more to be said on the issue of quality and the categories of fbs. Just the other day there was a short baffle debate on Facebook about categorizing fbs by quality. maybe that can be discussed at a later date;-)

 First pic of swap

Second pic of swap

If you ever happen to see an fb in there that you made...PLEASE feel free to comment and say, "Hey! I made the one with the......!" I think that would be pretty cool and you would know that it is with me at the moment:-) 

So, I am having a hard time figuring out how to put info under my "About me" section on this blog. For some reason I just cannot find the right button to press or whatever and I refuse to sit here for hours trying to figure it out.....I have some crafting to do!! YAY!

Okay, but before I go, I want to share to 6x9 envelopes that I have decorated for my first two mail art...arts! LOL! It was really fun, but I am a little concerned at all the modge podge and how that is going to affect the wieghts, especially the one to the UK. But, it is well worth it. I was not sure how they were going to turn out, but with this, "messy just keep adding" style I got going on here it turned out to be nice:-)

 This first on here is for a swap on swap-bot, in the group Creative Christian Divas...I think that is the name. I will have to learn that linky thing people do when they refer to other places on the web;-) I guess I am a little lazy right now....and wanting to get to some crafting. So, the front in back is decorated in a Christian theme. Really cool! I love My God! Okay so here is the back below....

Yea that is right...I want it X-tra large...I want you to see it, read it, and think about it! LOL!

Here is a swap for a new swap  pal here in the USA! She is more of a mixed media collage style decoer. I got four lovely decos in here to send to her. Maybe I will think next time to take some pics of the entries I have decorated and add them here so you all can see. I met Erica on swap-bot and she is really cool....we will probably be swapping together for a while:-)

Front of course

and back

Okay, I better quit for now. I do have something else I want to share with you all but it will wait to tomorrow...or the next day...or next week...or ....well I hope soon! Thanks for stopping by!!