Epiphany Crafts Holiday Blog Hop

Happy Holidays! If you are here via Samantha, then you are in the right place for the Epiphany Crafts Holiday Blog Hop.

Our lovely Design Team has created some wonderful holiday projects, brimming with inspiration and of course, Epiphany Crafts epoxies, buttons, and tools! Visit each Design Team members blog to see what inspiring projects they have to share. Leave a comment on each blog. When you reach the last blog, you’ll receive the final instructions on how to enter to win a fabulous prize pack filled with Epiphany Crafts goodies, straight from Santa!!

My ornament was created from a frozen juice can lid.  I added a sentiment from Cosmo Cricket’s Mitten Weather line, some coarse glitter, and used my Crop-a-Dile to punch 2 holes.  One hole is for the string to hang it and the other is for the Epiphany Crafts epoxies.  I used the round shape studio tool to create 2 epoxies using red foiled paper and then I sandwiched them back-to-back around a jewelry head pin.  I love that I got to use some of my jewelry items on this ornament.

Thanks to my hubby for getting my pictures uploaded… finally.  I hope you thought this ornament was worth the wait.

Now head over to Julie‘s blog; your next stop on this blog tour.

I know my blog has been long neglected but it’s just so much easier to post what I’ve been creating on Facebook.  I have Great plans to post my creative stuff here and if you keep checking back, it just may help kick me into gear.

Thanks for checking out this fun blog hop. Hope you are inspired.

Merry Christmas!!!

It’s an Orange Blog Hop!!!

Welcome!
If you just came half-way ’round the world from Australia and Lyn Dwyer’s blog, Fiskateer #1110, then you are in the right place. If you have stumbled upon this blog hop, then you might like to start at the beginning from the Fiskateers blog and find out what the Fiskateers are all about.

For this blog hop I decided to share an old standby ‘thank you’ note design that uses scraps. It seems that I always need thank you notes and this one is quick, easy, and I don’t feel guilty about using some of my ‘best’ stash on it. (I have to face facts that not everyone considers a homemade card a treasure like I do.)

I used the new Fiskars postage stamp border punch on both sides of a strip of paper, but any border punch will work as I’ve tried most of them. Then I lightly inked the design edges to help it ‘pop’. I added a rub on ‘thanks’ sentiment and then added the Epiphany Crafts button studio flower epoxy as the final touch. It’s simple yet says ‘Thank You’ in a way a store bought card can’t.

I hope you are enjoying this Orange Fiskateer blog hop. The next stop on this blog tour takes you to Fiskateer #352 Debbie Buckland who lives in New Zealand. You sure are racking up some frequent flyer miles today.

Have a Crafty day and I hope to see you back here again!

I Would Love to Win a Little Yellow Bicycle

One of my favorite companies, Little Yellow Bicycle, is hosting a contest at Two Peas in a Bucket where the grand prize is an actually little yellow bicycle.

I would just love to win a little yellow bicycle. I’d add a big basket on the front and a thumb bell and bike to the preschool everyday. I was so excited about the possibility of winning an actual little yellow bicycle that I quickly created this entry:

I Love this quote… “If You want to know how much I love You, count the waves.” To make it work, I broke up the words on the LYB cardstock stickers and used them in a ‘ransom note’ way. This was one of those times when the end result turned out exactly the way I pictured it.

And here is a detail shot of the Epiphany Crafts custom epoxies that I love so much!

The contest ends Sept. 15th and details are here. I hope you get a chance to enter, too!

My Kindergartener

Back to school has started and we have a Kindergartener in the house!

I love the ‘backpack’ photo. (It’s almost as big as she is!) You know this pic will end up on a scrapbook page.

And Emily waving ‘good-bye’ to Mommy throught the window. (Here’s where I *almost* lost it.)

With any new change, there have been a few bumps. But Emily loves school and her teacher so that helps.

Cape Cod Mini Album

I love Cape Cod. I am lucky enough that we get to spend a week there every summer, but I would LOVE to live there! This year we had an amazing week with perfect beach weather, so of couse I had to create a mini-album right away. Now we can re-live our vacation anytime.

The first thing I did was select a paper line and coordinating embellishments. This was the easiest part! I chose Little Yellow Bicycle’s Boardwalk collection. The papers are such a good quality, they feel almost like linen or canvas. And the embellishments went perfectly with our story.

I took a Cloud 9 board book that I’ve had for a while. It can be challenging to scrap with this album because once you start adding ‘stuff’ to your pages, the book doesn’t close. I decided to cut the book apart, drill a hole with my Fiskars hand drill, and use a binder ring to hold it all together.

And this cute little button heart is an Epiphany Crafts custom epoxy button.

Another custom epoxy shape. (Did I mention that I am on their design team? This is such a fun tool!)

“I wish summer would never end.” Such a perfect sentiment for me. I love all 4 seasons, but I best enjoy lazy summer days at the beach.

Don’t be jealous that I’ve already scrapped my vacation. I’m a non-chronological scrapper. Some days I scrap yesterday, some days I scrap last year (and belive me, I have a lot of last year, and the year before to scrap). This vacation and the LYB papers inspired me to start And complete this project and I just LOVE how it turned out.

Hope you feel inspired to get crafty today!

Epiphany Crafts Card-A-Palooza Sweepstakes and Blog Hop!

Welcome!!!  If You have come here via Julie’s blog, you are 1/4 of the way to naming all 12 sponsors of Epiphany Crafts Card-A-Palooza Sweepstakes and Blog Hop.  And if this is your first stop, be sure to visit Jennifer’s blog so that you can start at the beginning.

Once you visit all 12 design team member’s blogs you will know the names of all 12 companies sponsoring ECs Card-A-Palooza.  Then, visit the Epiphany Crafts Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Epiphany-Crafts/138008244814 and leave a comment on the Card-A-Palooza thread listing the 12 companies (abbreviations are okay) to be entered into the drawing for a GIANT prize package. If chosen, You will be receive product from each of the sponsoring companies plus tools from EC. Best of all, you will be receiving all 12 handmade cards shown on the blogs, ready for You to use throughout the year. This is a huge giveaway that you won’t want to miss!

I had the pleasure of creating a card using Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker papers from the My Friend Birdie collection.  These papers are so beautiful that they deserve to be highlighted. Therefore, I created my card by layering the paper and adding  a custom epoxy heart made with the Epiphany Crafts shape tool. I love the way that the simple design looks!

But, for me, creating one card with this paper wasn’t quite enough.  (No, I’m not always an overachiever, but this project took me in two different directions so I decided to share both).  My second card again uses My Friend Birdie collection and an Epiphany Crafts custom epoxy, but being a ‘tool girl’ I just had to put on my Fiskars fingertip craft knife and get to work.

I hope you enjoy my cards.  Both will be included in the huge prize pack so be sure to enter for a chance to win.  Please stop by and visit my blog often to follow more of my crafty adventures!

Now for the next stop on your Card-A-Palooza.  Please visit lovely Linda, and tell her I sent you. http://elendae.wordpress.com/

It was Fisk-a-Fabulous!

My 2 year term as a Lead Fiskateer was Fisk-a-Fabulous.  I met some wonderful crafters who I am now happy to call my friends.  Being a Lead was a wonderful experience and I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to share my love of crafting with others.

During my time as a Lead I had little time for personal crafting.  So this Summer I have been crafting, crafting, crafting and I am going to share all here.  I hope You enjoy what I have to share and stop back often.

Here’s a video I did showing how to ‘go round the corner’ with the Fiskars border punches.  No measuring required!  I used Fiskars, but I bet this template method with work with other border punches, too.

Have a Crafty Day!

Just a little bit longer…

I am so Excited!!!  My term as a Lead Fiskateer starts tomorrow as well as the launch of the new Fiskateer website.  To quote my fellow lead, Rebecca, “Pinch Me!”.

The new site looks awesome and I know everyone will love it.  And I hope the Fiskateers are ready to get their ‘craft on’.  These next two years are going to be Rockin’.

Madison, WI…here I come!

Finally, I’m heading to Fiskars Headquarters in Madison, WI for Lead Fiskateer training.  Since the announcement on April 22nd, I have been so excited looking forward to this trip.  And I am just as excited today as I was on April 22nd.

I seriously get choked up every time I watch that video, which I’ve done about 100 times.  I am looking forward to the next two years and working with the other wonderful leads; Angela, Cheryl, Rebecca and Wendy Jo and meeting as many Fiskateers as I possibly can.

While we are in Madision, there will be a Live Chat from Fiskars HQ on Monday, 6/23 at

6:30pm Eastern
5:30pm Central
4:30pm Mountain
3:30pm Pacific

The Chat will be a Q & A with the New Lead Fiskateers.  I hope to ‘see’ you there!

All in a Week-ends Work

This is what we (and by ‘we’ I mean Nate’s brute strength and my managerial skills) did all weekend.

Before…

And After weed-whacking, roto-tilling, spreading 2 loads of soil, planting, fertilizing and watering…

I love veggies fresh out of the garden!

I think ‘we’ did a good job, if I say so myself.