Cindy deRosier: My Creative Life

My Creative Dad - Intarsia

2013-05-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned several times that my dad is a very talented woodworker. He's done a huge variety of wood-related projects over the years (furniture, cabinetry, picture frames, shelving, etc.), in addition to large-scale projects like home additions. But his favorite hobby is intarsia.

Intarsia is a woodcraft in which the artist uses different sizes, shapes, and species of wood and fits them together to make a picture. There is no staining or painting - all color comes from the choice of wood. It is a very time-consuming and exacting art. The results are stunning.

My dad has made hundreds over the past 15 years or so. We have around a dozen or so on display in our house, plus another handful that are seasonal and come out for Christmas. My parents have a couple dozen of his pieces on display in their house as well. The last time I visited, I snapped pictures of a few of my favorites. Remember, all the color is the natural color of the wood.

This USA piece is about 5 feet across.

I'm blown away by the colors and patterns in this fruit bowl.

Isn't the cornucopia amazing?

His designs come from a variety of sources. He buys some patterns from Judy Gale Roberts and creates his own patterns from coloring books and photographs. One of the coolest was the Trouble intarsia he made for Trevor for Christmas 2011.

I've made exactly one intarsia project in my life. It was a very simple Winnie-the-Pooh that I made for a friend's baby shower gift back in 1993. I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. After working on such a very easy project with so few pieces, my appreciation for my dad's amazing artwork rocketed. He makes it look so easy, always a sign of talent and many years of practice.

Happy 65th birthday Dad! I love you.

Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and....

2013-05-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

At least once a month, a friend hands me something unusual and asks, "Can you use this in your crafting?" It's never normal stuff, like fabric scraps, or glitter, or egg cartons. No, it's weird stuff. Like this:

It's a full box (12) of extra large rubber finger tips. And by "extra large" they mean "far too big for human use." Someone at a friend's work purchased this huge size and couldn't use them. Since she didn't know any giants, she passed them along to me.

They sat on the back corner of my desk for at least 8 months. I knew there was a craft in there somewhere, but I just couldn't find it. One day, I was tired of them sitting on the desk, so I opened the box and lined up 4 of them in plain sight where they would inspire me.

Within minutes, I knew what to make. I grabbed the paint and did a test run to see if acrylic paint would stick to the rubber. Yes! I grabbed my beloved microtip scissors and carefully cut little triangles out of the bottom of the four finger tips. Then I painted them. One red, one pink, one green, and one orange. When they were dry, I added googly eyes.

I rooted around the craftroom to find some yellow cardstock and a clear lid to make a quick accessory. Then I lined them all up to take this picture.

Obviously, the Pac-Man needs work. Eventually, I'll probably think of a cute way to make a Pac-man that will stand up. I might need to resort to clay or something similar. In the meantime, I'm really happy with my Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and .... do you remember the orange ghost's name? It's Clyde. Just a little '80s trivia for you. If you got it right, you're totally tubular.

Happy Birthday Suzanne!

2013-05-21T05:00:00.001-07:00

Today I'm joining the rest of the Flamingo Scraps Design Team in wishing Suzanne a very happy birthday! Each of us made a card using Flamingo Scraps supplies.

Do you recognize the supplies I used? They're leftovers from the six months I've been the Flamingo Four Coordinator! Here's a rundown:

November Flamingo Four: I used the Clam Bake Glimmer Mist to give some color and shine to the paper that holds the sentiment.

December Flamingo Four: A little grey paint transformed the Maya Road chipboard frame into a resting place for the initial.

January Flamingo Four: The only item still left from January was the sparkly Pink Paislee Vintage Vogue button. It adds fun shine to the card.

February Flamingo Four: The base of the card is Heidi Swapp "Vintage Chic" patterned paper. There's a subtle ledger print on the B-side, which provided nice, straight guidelines for writing my message on the inside.

March Flamingo Four: The yellow and striped papers are Pink Paislee's "Indigo Bleu." I love the colors and subtle patterns.

April Flamingo Four: The S is from Pink Paislee's 'Parisian Anthology' Corrugated Alphabet. This was only the second letter I've used from the package, so expect to see these pop up plenty of times in the future!

I had so much fun challenging myself to use up the leftovers! It was tempting to skip a month (I'm looking at you, January button...) but in the end I think the card shows a perfect marriage of Flamingo Scraps products and my style.

You can see all the other designers' cards over at Flamingo Scraps. Be sure to wish Suzanne a very happy birthday when you're there!

Whole Orange Cake

2013-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned our prolific orange tree many times. This year, there are more oranges than ever before, which just didn't seem possible. We eat oranges morning, noon and night. We've given dozens away. The tree is still full. It's May. As far as problems go, it's a great problem.

Last year, I discovered a recipe for Blender Quick Orange Bread that literally uses the whole orange, peel and all. I was extremely wary about a bread made from orange peels and pith, but it was delicious and I've made it several times since. Then I discovered another whole-orange recipe, Orange Cookies. Also delicious.

Now that I know that orange peels and pith do indeed make delicious baked goods, I was really excited to find a recipe for Whole Orange Cake in the March 2013 issue of Sunset Magazine. I went outside and picked some good-sized oranges, washed them, cut them into chunks, and threw them in the blender. Then I measured out 1.5 cups.

The batter came together quickly and easily and smelled really good.

The house smelled amazing while it was baking. The cake looked perfect when I removed it from the pan. It was hard to wait to add the glaze.

The verdict? Absolutely fantastic! Another great recipe to add to my file of what to do with a bumper crop of oranges.

Anyone have any other great recipes using oranges?

"Mommy! Watch this!"

2013-05-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is the last of the 14 layouts I made for National Scrapbook Day challenges. (I made 11 of them on NSD and the remaining 3 the next morning before Grandma delivered Trevor to me.) Not knowing what the challenges were ahead of time, I didn't preplan any pages... with one exception. When I printed these pictures, I thought the jumping picture desperately needed a speech bubble with Trevor yelling, "Mommy! Watch this!" So I found a die cut and had him write those words in his handwriting before he left for the weekend.

When the challenges were announced, one of the first I tackled was Scrapbook.com's "You Spin Me Right Round Baby" challenge, which required us to make a pinwheel and add it to a page. I made a pinwheel, intending to pair it with the picture of Allison, but it wasn't working for me. I thought the colors of the pinwheel worked with the colors of the corn bath, so I built this layout around it.

I would never have put a pinwheel on this page if not for the challenge, but I love how it turned out. The challenges really pushed me outside my comfort zone and stretched my creativity. More than anything, that is what I love about National Scrapbook Day. My calendar is already marked for May 3, 2014 and I'm counting down the days.

Streamers and Colors

2013-05-16T05:00:00.001-07:00

Here are two more of the layouts I made for National Scrapbook Day challenges. The first was Scrapbook.com's "Party on a Page" challenge. We had to use a party supply (like a goodie bag, straw, or cupcake wrapper) on a layout. I used some of the streamers that were left over from the Cub Scout pinata I made. I created the ruffle under the photo, then I experimented with using crepe paper in a punch. Once I had 5 semi-acceptable hearts, I layered them with the best looking one on top and added them to the upper left corner of the page.

This next layout was for the Fiskateers Color Challenge. We had to use at least three colors from Pantone's Spring 2013 Color Report. I chose Grayed Jade, Tender Shoots, and Dusk Blue to make this layout.

I have one last layout to share from my extremely productive National Scrapbook Day. I'll share it tomorrow!

Washi and Triangles

2013-05-15T05:00:00.002-07:00

Today I'm sharing two more of the layouts I made for National Scrapbook Day challenges. Both use pictures from Halloween.

The first was for the "Ways to Washi" challenge at Scrapbook.com. Part 1 of the challenge was to watch this 40 minute video demonstrating 12 ways to use washi tape, then the second part was to make a layout using at least three of the techniques. I freaked out a little bit when I saw that the video was 40 minutes long as was worried that I'd be wasting precious scrapbook time. But my worries were for nothing, as the video was excellent and gave me lots of ideas. I played along as Kels demonstrated and learned so many different ways to use my growing stash of washi tape. As you can see, I journaled on washi, used a strip as a border, and framed the whole layout with washi.

I made my "Angry Squash" layout for the triangles challenge at Scrapjazz.com. I struggled a lot with the color scheme for this layout. I wanted the layout to read 'Halloween' but it's hard when the only picture is red, green and blue. After playing around with all sorts of colors, I settled on what you see. The tiny red and blue stripes and the green word provided a connection to the photo.

Here's the story behind the Angry Squash, with pictures of the Gourd Foreman Grill that won the competition.

I'll share more National Scrapbook Day layouts tomorrow!

Challenging Challenges

2013-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

They're called "challenges" for a reason, but some of the National Scrapbook Day challenges were far more difficult for me than others. Today I'm sharing two that really pushed me out of my comfort zone.

I made this layout for a Scrapbook.com challenge to use a punched top layer of cardstock or patterned paper with another piece of cardstock or patterned paper as the base. I'd never done anything like this before. I found a large circle punch and cut a bunch of holes into a piece of white cardstock. The punch only reached so far, so I had to be creative in where I placed my pictures so that it looked like the pattern was all over the paper. I backed it with blue patterned paper, then chalked around the cardstock to add a little color and interest.

I made this next layout for the Fiskateer Hexagon challenge. I don't have a hexagon punch, don't have a die-cut machine set up (I finally put my Wishblade away after not using it for about a year), and couldn't find any hexagon paper. I did, however, discover a hexagon foam stamp. I carefully stamped gold-on-gold all over the background, which was a major nightmare with a foam stamp you can't see through. I added the photos, title and journaling about our 'new' year's celebration, then tucked glittery hexagon cut-outs behind that.

More NSD projects tomorrow!

More 'Then and Now' Layouts

2013-05-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

As you all know by now, my absolute favorite scrapbook pages are Then-and-Now layouts, or any that show growth or changes over time. Today I'm sharing two that I made on National Scrapbook Day.

Back in November, Trevor and I did a major cleaning and donated of a bunch of toys and clothes he'd outgrown. One of the items in the giveaway pile was a Bob the Builder hat and tool belt that he'd LOVED when he was a toddler. I found some pictures to show him... and the next thing I knew, I'd talked him into recreating one of those pictures. I love this layout. It's amazing to see and remember how much he has changed in 5 years. I used my own Sketch #4 for this page.

This next layout isn't quite the same as my other Then-and-Now pages because the two photos aren't of the same people. The first picture is my nephew Timothy holding my son Trevor on the day he was born in 2006. I didn't take that picture; I'd had a c-section two hours earlier and was so focused on the itchy tubes up my nose that I barely registered that we had visitors. I did take the second picture; that's Trevor meeting his new cousin Allison (Timothy's sister) the day she was born back in February.

This was for a Scrapjazz.com sketch challenge. I love how it turned out. I don't think I could have come up with a design like this for these pictures without the sketch inspiration.

Project 41: May

2013-05-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'll share more of my National Scrapbook Day pictures on Monday. In the meantime, it's time for May's Project 41, my plan to try each flavor-of-the-month at Baskin Robbins with a different friend as a year-long celebration of my 41st birthday. Three months in, I'm SO incredibly glad to be doing this. It has turned into so much more than just eating ice cream.

This month, I asked my friend Sara to join me. I met Sara a few years ago when we were both serving on the board at our preschool. Her kids are younger than mine (kindergarten and preschool), so she only has 3 hours a week when both kids are in school. We met at my neighborhood Baskin-Robbins during her one free time block.

We went up to the counter and scanned for the flavor-of-the-month. Not there. The employee told us that there was an error and they were sent last month's flavor and that they wouldn't have this month's for a day or so. He was extremely apologetic and offered us free ice cream then and we could come back the next day to get the flavor-of-the-month. But Sara wasn't free the following day. What to do?!

The employee graciously offered to call other Baskin-Robbins stores in the area to see if any had the correct flavor. The one in the next town over did. We hopped in the car and headed over. It was one of those tiny ice cream counters inside a gas station mini mart, a far cry from the store we'd just left - clean, large, with good indoor and outdoor seating, as well as an adjacent shaded courtyard. But they had the correct flavor, Blueberry Shortbread, described as "delicious shortbread and blueberry flavored ice cream with a tasty and textured lemon shortbread cookie swirl."

I presented the buy-one-get-one coupon Baskin-Robbins had sent me (which the gas station employees didn't recognize) and ordered two cones of the flavor-of-the-month. I tried to pay with my Baskin-Robbins gift card, but they said they couldn't accept it. (Grrr...) We brushed some lettuce off one of the small tables in the mini mart and sat down. Here we are. Take note of the beer and chips in the background.

Sara and I had a wonderful time despite the less-than-ideal lead up. The time flew by. We spent the majority talking about parenting philosophies, difficult decisions and thoughts regarding our children's education and schools.

So how was the ice cream? Well... when I'd first told Sara about Project 41, she'd made the comment that even if you don't like a flavor, it's ice cream, so it can't be that bad. And that's pretty much how we both felt about Blueberry Shortbread. It definitely wasn't BAD (I ate it all and enjoyed it), but I won't be ordering it again. I liked the shortbread part and the lemon swirl, but I didn't love the blueberry and didn't think all the flavors really went together.

Thanks to Sara for joining me! I'm so excited to see what future months of Project 41 will bring!

For the Love of Stuffed Animals...

2013-05-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Trevor LOVES stuffed animals and always has. He's almost 7 and I keep wondering if he'll outgrow them any time soon. He still asks for a new stuffed animal for every gift occasion and always chooses a stuffed animal as his souvenir from a trip. They're a big part of his life.

I've scrapped about Trevor's stuffed animals exactly once before, in a layout about his daily routine of feeding breakfast to the animals before eating his own breakfast (you can see the layout here). Yet I had dozens of unscrapped pictures of the animals and more stories to tell.

One of the stories I wanted to tell was about Trevor packing stuffed animals any time we go on vacation. He puts a huge amount of thought into what animals get to come along on a particular trip, carefully packs them, then arranges them neatly on his bed when we get to the destination. This was on my mind as I watched him pack for an overnight with Daddy at Grandma & Grandpa's so that I could have the house to myself on National Scrapbook Day. So early the next morning (around 4:00 am - I take NSD very seriously!), I made this layout with pictures from the trips we took Trevor was 2-4 years old:

(Inspired by Vanilaa, who used a Cathy Zielske template)

When Trevor was almost four, he and I lined up all of his stuffed animals and took pictures. My intention was to make him some sort of mini book with the names of all the animals recorded, but his birthday was only a few days after I took these pictures and, of course, he received more animals. I was not in the mood to set up the black backdrop and record the new animals, realized I could never be caught up with the book, and promptly gave up on the idea. I decided I'd scrap the 119 animals as they were that day in June 2010. Nearly three years later, I finally made the layout I'd been thinking about all that time:

I'm so glad to get these pictures out of the photo organizer and onto the pages. I know the time is going to come, and probably fairly soon, that Trevor is no longer into stuffed animals. He's given away a bunch that he's outgrown, like the Sesame Street characters. Eventually, these pictures and our memories will be all that's left of something that was once very important to him. And it makes me really happy that they're in the scrapbook.

Helping Hands

2013-05-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm sharing another of my National Scrapbook Day layouts. This was a recipe challenge at Scrapjazz.com. We had to mix together:

1 piece of patterned paper for the background
2 photos, any size
1 envelope, any size
2 different colors of washi tape

Once I clarified that it was ok to include extra pictures, I got right to work. For years, I've been wanting to tell the story of Trevor's volunteer work. Because I wanted the layout to be especially special, I've held off on making it. (Anyone else do that? Just me?) I'm glad I finally scrapped this. It turned out to be just as special as I'd hoped.

I started with four photos from some of Trevor's earliest experiences volunteering. I trimmed three of the photos to fit as a border along the bottom and edged them with two colors of washi tape. I matted the focal photo with a blue envelope. (First I checked that it was acid-free. It passed.) I secured that in place with more washi, then added the title.

Those handprints are actually Trevor's from when he was about 2 months old. I'd traced his hands onto green cardstock (no idea why I chose green), then carefully cut them out and set them aside. I knew I'd eventually want to make a project with his tiny handprints. For nearly 7 years, I've kept them stashed away for just the right purpose. I covered them with black ink and added them to the layout. I'm not usually nervous about journaling directly on the page, but this time I was. I loved the layout so much that I was really scared I'd botch the writing and ruin the layout. Fortunately, no problems.

I love everything about this layout. I am so grateful that this challenge provided just the right mix of ingredients and inspiration to make this page so special to me.

Playing Angry Birds

2013-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Like many kids, Trevor loves Angry Birds and asks to play it all the time. Unlike most kids, he isn't talking about the video game... at least, not since we made our own homemade Angry Birds game.

Materials: 7 toilet paper tubes, scissors, paint, q-tip, Sharpie, fuzzy elastic hair bands

We began by cutting one of the toilet paper rolls into three equal parts. We painted them green, inside and out. When they were dry, we added noses.

We used a q-tip to make white paint circles on either side of the nose.

When the paint dried, we added pupils, eyebrows and a mouth.

Next, we painted the remaining tubes brown, inside and out. When they were dry, we used a brown sharpie to draw wood grain onto them. Then we carefully flattened them first one direction, then the other, so that the tubes had four flat sides and could easily stack.

To play, we set up a challenge for each other by arranging the pigs and logs on a chair. We try to make each "level" more difficult. The shooter sits about 3 feet away and uses soft, fuzzy hairbands (which don't hurt if you hit someone or if they snap back on you) to send the pigs crashing.

Trevor absolutely LOVES this game and has spent hours playing it. He's planning to play it during his Angry Birds birthday party. I love that he is so entertained by a bunch of empty toilet paper tubes. Totally awesome.

Living Large

2013-05-06T05:00:00.001-07:00

When Trevor was 20 months old, we went on a cruise to Mexico. Trevor LOVED it. He especially loved the sports deck and would spend hours playing ping pong, tennis, miniature golf, and chess with the pieces that were almost as big as him. But his favorite was shuffleboard. Every morning when he woke up, the first thing he wanted to do was play shuffleboard. When we got back from our cruise, I went through my pictures and fell in love with this one.

On a whim, I entered it in Princess Cruises' quarterly photo contest. Imagine my surprise when I opened their newsletter months later and saw my picture. I wasn't the winner (that person got a free cruise), but I was the runner-up. I got $25. Quite a disparity between first place and second place, but I was happy with my $25 and the knowledge that I had actually placed in a photo contest.

I scrapped the cruise shortly after returning home, before I'd learned that my photo had placed in the contest. (This is the ONLY layout I made about that cruise due to my unusual quirk.)

Fast forward almost 5 years. I've always thought that I should go back and record the story of the winning photo. I told myself that telling the story of entering a photo contest is not the same as making a second layout about a trip, so I printed an extra copy of the picture and waited for inspiration to strike.

Inspiration took the form of a Fiskateer challenge on National Scrapbook Day. We were challenged to include an anchor on our page. I immediately knew what I wanted to do.

I love everything about this layout, especially the flags. Any idea why I chose the three that I did? They're the International Maritime Signal Flags for T, S and D... Trevor's initials! I was really pleased with myself for thinking of that. For the record, that series of flags can spell TSD (Tango Sierra Delta) but they can also signify "Keep clear of me; I am engaged in pair trawling" (T); "I am operating astern propulsion" (S); and "Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty" (D). That amuses me, as I don't imagine a lot of cruise ships engage in pair trawling.

Tomorrow I'm sharing a kid's craft, then I'll return to NSD projects on Wednesday.

National Scrapbook Month

2013-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

So, did everyone have a good National Scrapbook Day? I sure did! I worked for 18 hours and finished 11 layouts and 9 cards, plus I organized photos and cleaned my scraproom. I spent time on 4 different sites and checked in with most of my scrapbook friends.

Here's the first layout I made. It was for a sketch challenge at Scrapbook.com.

Here's a card I made for a Fiskateer ombre challenge.

I'll be sharing the rest of projects I made over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have some happy news for those of you who are disappointed that National Scrapbook Day is over... May is National Scrapbook Month! And Flamingo Scraps is celebrating by offering you some fantastic deals all month long. Each of the designers has a special coupon code, good for all sorts of discounts. I get to offer you 10% off your total purchase through the entire month of May! Click the image below to take you to the store, load up your cart, then enter CINDY10OFF to get your discount.

Happy National Scrapbook Month!

Happy National Scrapbook Day!

2013-05-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Happy National Scrapbook Day, my absolute favorite day of the year! Lots of people spend the day at events or crops, but I'm spending the day the same way I always do - at home and online. You can find me chatting and completing challenges at Scrapbook.com...

... at Scrapjazz.com...

... and with the Fiskateers.

I'm also going to be popping over here regularly to check on entries for One Crafty Contest:

There are already some amazing projects submitted! If you're thinking of entering, you have one more week to link up your best work from the past six months.

Happy NSD to all of you!

Back in Party Planning Mode

2013-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Trevor's birthday is in a little over a month. Being the advanced planners that we are, we've been brainstorming this party since approximately five minutes after last year's Lego Party ended. Trevor decided immediately that he wanted an Angry Birds theme, and he wanted his invitations to use the Angry Birds Shaped Cards he made.

I photographed his Red Bird on a piece of blue cardstock, leaving plenty of space for text. I cropped to 4x6, then added the text using Picasa. Then all we had to do was order prints.

Here's how the invitation turned out. I love that it incorporates Trevor's artwork.

So what else is in the works for the Angry Birds party? We're creating several themed games, goodie bags, decorations, a Red Bird pinata, of course, an Angry Birds cake. Stay tuned!

Lost Tooth

2013-05-02T05:00:00.001-07:00

I'm finally finishing up the photos from Trevor's 6th birthday eleven months ago. We're deep into party preparation for his 7th birthday, so it's definitely time to get last year's pictures into the scrapbook.

I'd already done my usual three birthday layouts (his birthday portrait, the family party, and the friend party), but I had one more story to tell. One of the most memorable things about Trevor's birthday was when he bit into his cupcake at his friend party and his tooth popped out. I thought about including it with the rest of the pictures from that party, but I thought it deserved its own page. If his tooth had come out any other day, I wouldn't have thought twice about scrapping it. No reason to skip that story just because it happened at an event I was already scrapping.

I love the way the layout came out. One of my favorite parts is the party hat I cut from patterned paper and put on Trevor's head. It makes me smile.

Backyard Fun

2013-05-01T05:00:00.001-07:00

Here's the May sketch from The Scrapping Stamper:

And here's my interpretation:

Here's what I did to make the sketch work for me:

I took the overlapping pictures and separated them out a bit. (I tried to overlap them, I really did. I just couldn't do it. It's simply not me.)
I wanted to use tan vellum to make the large circle from the sketch, but I only had a very small piece. I cut the largest circle I could and set it above my focal photo, then used the teeny scraps to make the other two circles. None of the circles are complete. If you were to peek under the photo mat, you wouldn't see any vellum hiding under there.
I moved the title down so that it rested on the horizontal strip, then dropped the journaling underneath that.

I love that my layout is all about the pictures. My eye goes first to Trouble munching on swiss chard, then to his awesome tail, then to his giant back feet stretched out behind him. Adorable.

This layout provides a good opportunity for me to talk about a facet of owning a house rabbit that I didn't discuss during Bunny Week, which is outdoor play time. All rabbits need plenty of daily play time where they can run at top speed, investigate objects, and interact with toys. Trouble has free run of our downstairs from 5:00 am to 8:00 pm, so he easily meets his exercise needs indoors. When the weather is nice, we'll take him into the backyard with us to provide a different environment for him. When he is running loose outdoors, we do not take our eyes off of him and are always just a few steps away. A rabbit can easily dig under a fence and escape or become victim to a hawk or other raptor, which are numerous where we live. When we're doing yardwork or picnicking or crafting or doing anything where we cannot watch him every second, we put him in a large x-pen under our shade structure (to block raptors from seeing him). We still watch him, of course. We do not leave him unattended outdoors, even for a second. Trouble loves outdoor time - running at top speed without his paws slipping on hardwood floors like they do indoors, grazing in the garden, and lounging in the cool grass.

I Finally Get to Share....

2013-04-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

... that I was selected to be one of the judges for One Crafty Contest! I'm so excited!

One Crafty Contest is an annual crafting contest held each May/June. Starting tomorrow, prospective contestants can link up one project. Twenty crafters will be selected from all the applicants via reader vote and judges' decision. They will continue on to compete in five crafting rounds, each of which features a different material. To learn more and to see the schedule of important dates, go here.

There will be prizes for the winner of each round, as well as 1st, 2nd and 3rd place overall. More details are coming, but you can see the list of sponsors here. You can see what last year's winners received here.

I'm so excited to be a part of One Crafty Contest! If you think you have what it takes to be a contestant, please enter. If you're not up to entering, I hope you'll follow along and vote for your favorites. If the entries are anything like last year's, you'll see some AMAZING creations!

Copic vs. Prismacolor Showdown

2013-04-30T05:00:00.002-07:00

I absolutely love Prismacolor markers. When I blogged about how much I love them, a friend commented if you compare Prismacolors with Copics, the Copics win hands down. Ever since then, I've wanted to do a side-by-side comparison to decide for myself. I finally got the chance when my friend Jennifer brought her Copic Sketch markers with her during our recent scrappy get-together.

The first thing I noticed is that the basic nibs of the two brands are quite different. The Prismacolor's wide end is somewhat wider than the wide end of the Copic, and the fine tip of the Prismacolor is significantly smaller than the fine tip of the Copic.

I should mention that Copics can be refilled and the nibs can be replaced (or exchanged for different sizes). Neither of these is true for the Prismacolors. But my goal was to compare the two brands as they are sold. While I'm sure that there are many people who switch out the nibs on their Copics, I'd guess that there are at least as many people who use the Copic exactly the way its sold, especially given the cost (between $5 and $8 per pen).

People who love Copics rave about how well they blend. I was curious to see if there was a noticeable different in blending between the two brands. I drew lines, colored designs, and filled in some images. I did not find much of a difference between the two. What I did notice is that it was much easier to fill in tiny parts of a stamped image with the fine tip of the Prismacolor compared to the brush tip of a Copic.

Next, I did a word art project, inspired by Artisan des Arts. There's a tutorial on her post.

I made a second project, filling in all the spaces to see how it would look and to really give the pens a chance to show what they can do.

After all that experimenting, I came to a conclusion: I actually prefer the Prismacolors, mostly because of the fine tip end (which can be bought separately for Copics). I can see a lot of reasons why the Copics are so beloved. They are an excellent product, and the environmentalist in me really likes that they are refillable and the nibs can be replaced without having to throw out the whole pen. The price tag of a Copic Sketch is daunting at double the cost of a Prismacolor, but for serious artists who go through pens frequently, they are probably more cost-efficient in the long run.

What about you? Copics, Prismacolors or a different brand of alcohol marker?

3 Papers, 7 Cards

2013-04-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

When I get together with friends to scrapbook, I almost never actually do any scrapbooking. I have a very hard time putting layouts together while chatting. In fact, I can't even scrapbook with music or podcasts on in the background. For whatever reason, scrapbooking takes my undivided attention.

Cards don't. I can work on cards while I talk, with music on, etc. So when I get together with friends, chances are good I'll be making cards. The last time we got together, I decided to make as many cards as I could from three coordinating sheets of Doodlebug paper that I'd recently unearthed. The copyright date on them was 2002 and they had a notation of "Acid-free, lignin-free and laser friendly!" next to the date. I have no idea what laser-friendly means.

As we chatted, I whipped out 7 simple cards before I ran out of paper.

It took well under an hour to make all seven, I used up some alarmingly old paper, AND I had a great time chatting with my friends. Awesome!

A New Look

2013-04-27T11:57:00.003-07:00

If you're reading this via email or in a reader, you won't notice anything different. But if you're visiting my blog, you'll see some major changes. I'm so excited about the new look!

I've been wanting to change my previous header for a long time. A really long time. I never really intended the old header to be anything but a placeholder until I could design a header I loved, but the next thing I knew, two years had passed with the same old header that I didn't really like.

Along with a new header, I wanted a fresh look with a brighter color scheme. While I love brown, cream and green together, not all of my projects are complemented by those colors. Switching to a white background would better showcase my photos.

I started experimenting with new header designs. When I realized I could use my One Little Word tags as a header, everything fell into place. I based the colors on the tags, changed some fonts, and kept tweaking things until I found the combination you're now seeing.

I took a screen shot of the old design before making the switch. Quite a difference, isn't it?

The only downside to the new look is that I'm going to have to update it in January to incorporate my new One Little Word tag. Oh well... it's well worth it.

April Flamingo Four

2013-04-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's time for another Flamingo Four! This month, three other designers and I worked with these products:

1) Pink Paislee 'Parisian Anthology' Corrugated Alphabet
2) Prima Raja Sequin
3) Maya Road Kraft Mini Calendar
4) Graphic 45 Metal Clothespin

This is my 7th time doing the Flamingo Four and I am definitely used to working with challenging items. But my fellow designers and I agree that the metal clothespin in this month's Flamingo Four has been the most difficult item to date by far. It is extremely heavy... much too heavy for most of the common uses of clothespins. The fact that it has a word printed on it means you pretty much have to use it horizontally. Quite a challenge!

I experimented with the clothespin. If I put paper over it, could I do a rubbing and get a decent print of the engraved word? Nope. If I inked the clothespin and treated it like a stamp, would the word show? Nope. What would happen if I took the clothespin apart? Hmmm....

While I mulled over possibilities with the clothespin, I got right to work with the rest of the supplies. I decided that I was going to use the packaging from the alphabet as the base of my project. The clear window would be perfect for a picture, so I printed out one of my new niece, Allison and inserted it behind the window. The box would be ideal for holding those little momentos that don't fit in a photo album, like her hospital bracelet.

Next, I chose one of the round calendar shapes, then punched a circle from black cardstock. I selected an A from the corrugated letters, covered it with lavender ink, and then brushed gold ink over the top. I pulled out two of the sequins.

When I layered them all together, it looked like this.

Here's the finished project:

Did you notice the clothespin? I ended up dividing the two halves and gluing them toward the bottom of the box. With the weight cut in half, the pieces weren't too heavy for glue to hold.

To see what the other three designers made with these four items (and how they dealt with that crazy clothespin), head over to Flamingo Scraps. It's always so fun to see how four people can use the same products with such different results!

Koala Puppets

2013-04-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Trevor and I have been brainstorming projects for the letter K. (Click to see the rest of our A-Z crafts.) We decided to make koala puppets. Not only would puppets be fun, but "Make a Puppet" is one of Trevor's Cub Scout electives. Perfect!

To make a koala puppet, you'll need grey and black cardstock or construction paper, scissors, glue, and a black marker. We used an awesome double-sided 12x12 mottled-grey cardstock that is dark grey on one side and light grey on the other. I wish I knew what brand it is, but I don't.

Fold your grey paper in half, then use the scissors to round off the top.

Open up the paper and make a "candy cane" of glue on one side. Obviously, it is important not to put glue anywhere else or you won't end up with a functional puppet.

As the body is drying, use the grey scraps to make a light grey belly, two dark grey outer ears, and two light grey inner ears. Cut a black nose.

Glue all the pieces in place, then use the pen to add eyes and a smile. Here's Trevor's:

And here's mine.

We're making great progress - only three letters (J, U, and Y) left on our list!