SPELLBINDERS™ SURPRISE PARTY DAY 4: Bundles of Joy!

ETA: My portion of the reveal contest has now ended. Thank you all for visiting and for all of the wonderful comments. They are appreciated!

SPELLBINDERS™ SURPRISE PARTY!!

January 7- 13, 2010

Commenting on this post is welcome but does NOT enter you into the contest. This contest is sponsored by Spellbinders™ Paper Arts. Directions on how to enter are in the Blog Post and Official Rules at http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/spellbinders-suprise-party/. If you have any questions, please e-mail ContestQuestions@Spellbinders.us

Welcome to the fourth day of the Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!!

Spellbinders™ Paper Arts is hosting Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!! We will introduce 25 new Die Templates and 2 Impressabilities™ templates! These sneak peeks are part of the collection that will be released at the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show on January 24, 2010. We want to invite YOU, our greatest fans, to join the party from January 7-14, 2010! See the newest Spellbinders™ products, visit our Designers’ Blogs, and win fabulous Spellbinders™ prizes!

Today you have the opportunity to win a Spellbinders™ prize package (including all three Spellbinders™ Die Templates revealed today) through the contest entry email address listed below. Be sure to visit the other Designers’ Blogs participating today, and enter from those blogs for additional chances to win! You may enter once from each Blog! Each Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!! blog post is open to contest entries for 48 hours. You have until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time January 11 , 2010 to enter this contest through my blog. Be sure to read the rules at http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/spellbinders-suprise-party/ before entering so that your entry will be valid! To see previous Spellbinders ™ Surprise Party!! posts or to go to any of the future blog posts, feel free to visit the following:

January 7

Debbie Olson

Julie Overby

Lesa Rapp

January 8

Becca Feeken

Janine Blackwelder

Debbie Seyer

January 9

Heidi Blankenship

Karen Taylor

Cathy Chlebana/Beth Pingry

January 10

Linda Duke

Jennifer Davis (here!)

Terre Fry

January 11

Keri Lee Sereika

Kazan Clark

Mary Pfaff

January 12

Karen Hunsaker

Christy Farneth Kerr

Holly Simoni

January 13

Sherry Cheever

Kimberly Crawford

Sharon Johnson

After the entry deadline is reached, Spellbinders™ Paper Arts will randomly pick one winner from each Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!! blog event as stated in the rules at http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/spellbinders-suprise-party/. Winner will be contacted by email within 24 hours of the contest deadline. The winner will have 72 hours to reply to that email to claim prize. If Winner fails to respond within 72 hours, a new winner will be drawn for said prize. Entrants visiting all 21 Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!! events and correctly enter the drawing on each Blog will automatically be entered into the SPELLBINDERS™ SURPRISE PARTY!! GRAND PRIZE give away with a retail value of over $350.00. The GRAND PRIZE will be announced on January 24, 2010 on the Spellbinders Blog and consists of super secret products being released at the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show. You WILL be excited!!

The first project I’d like to share with you is a scrapbook page centered around my daughter Hannah’s first bath after coming home from the hospital. I’ve included detailed instructions in the video that follows. Please watch and enjoy!

Nested Ducks S4-262 $19.99 Limited Edition (Largest duck is 4.25″x3.75,” Medium is 2.75″x2.5,” Smallest is 1.5″x 1.25″)

New Arrival I2-1011 Impressabilities™ $6.99 Limited Edition (5.75″ x 4.5″)

These cute products are perfect for any number of baby-themed items. I chose to share an altered frame for my second project featuring a photograph of my son Isaac from the day he was born. From the minute I saw the Nested Ducks die template, I wanted to create “quilted” ducks, and I’m thrilled with the way they turned out. Although these particular quilted ducks are made of paper, I did experiment with fabric and the templates cut certain types of fabric beautifully. The nice, simple lines make these great templates to use for experimenting with applique projects.

RULES For the complete Spellbinders™ Surprise Party!! rules go to http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/spellbinders-suprise-party/ .

TO ENTER CONTEST:

1) Send your email entry to: REVEAL11@spellbinders.us

2) Type the name of the die being revealed on my blog in the “subject” line of the email.

3) Click send!

If you have any questions regarding the contest, send an e-mail of inquiry to: ContestQuestions@Spellbinders.us Thank you for visiting my blog and good luck!!

White Christmas

We’re taking down the Christmas tree today and I can’t help but reflect on how blessed we’ve been this year. We’ve built our own home, we both have stable jobs that we love, our children are happy, healthy, smart and beautiful.

Christmas this year was fantastic. The kids felt both the spirit of giving and receiving gifts and blessings. One of the most memorable parts of Christmas this year was the weather. The whole midsection of the country has felt the arctic chill this season and we were no different. We spent December 23-26 very nearly snowed into our home with drifts at least 7 feet tall in our driveway and the road in front of our home.

Just as we were all recovering from the Grand Christmas Blizzard of 2009, our area has been hit by another giant winter storm. The wind is just howling outside our windows and I have to say, it is an impressive display by Mother Nature. My husband gives it two thumbs up, especially since he received a snow blower for Christmas. I love that I get days off of work, even though I know that we may have to add some on to the end of the school year. I’m looking forward to scrapbooking photos from the blizzard, but in the meantime, I have a layout to share with you from last year.

This layout uses the same Spellbiners snowflakes used in the last layout of Maiah. I especially love the doodle die template that I used to emulate the swirls in the title. It makes me think of the howling wind outside our windows today.

We had lots of snow last Christmas too, but it pales in comparison to the amount we got this year. Isaac loved playing out in the snow last year, even though his sister refused to come out because it was so cold.

I used Clearsnap inks to stencil the dies and Junebug Basic Grey paper for the doodles.

Have a great day! Thanks for visiting.

Snow Day

So, I’ve recently started teaching science again. I accepted a job teaching at the middle school level and the Omaha Nation Public School in Macy, Nebraska. Teaching at a reservation school is both delightful and challenging. Being a mom who works outside the home is even more challenging. (The irony here looms like Mt. Everest, since it has taken me six years to become passionate about being a stay at home mom… just in time for me to start working again.)

Since my first day three weeks ago, I’ve been living for the weekends and working to stay caught up with my many responsibilities moment to moment. I’ve found that something I once loathed has become the thing I look forward to most: the day when school gets canceled due to weather. As a stay-at-home mom, these days struck fear into my heart. It meant that my kids would be home-bound and my normal routine would be completely shot.  Now “snow day” means that I can return to the bliss that is staying at home on a blustery winter day with my kids.

In honor of today’s snow day, I thought I’d share one of my winter layouts that I made a few months ago for the Spellbinders gallery. The photos of Maiah are from last winter. She’s growing up so fast!

Simple Baby Card

Happy Monday everyone! I thought I’d share a card today that I made a month ago to congratulate my cousin on her 5th child (finally a baby girl! YAY!) This card is super quick and simple, since I made it at the last minute just before shipping her a few hand-me-down sleepers.

To create this, I simply rounded the corners of the card and the patterned paper, wrapped embroidery floss around the card, and stamped and die-cut the title. I used one of the newer Spellbinders labels, which I’ve really been in love with lately. The details really pop when a little ink is added to the embossed areas.

Here’s hoping everyone has a great Monday!

Supplies:

Teal Cardstock

Butterfly Patterned Paper: Making Memories

Fancy Tags: Spellbinders

Embroidery Floss

Dimensional Adhesive

Stamp: Hero Arts

Ink: Clearsnap

Forgotten Friday: Feminism and being Mom

I was recently reminded of the miracle surrounding the early months of motherhood by two articles. One is featured in the September issue of Real Simple magazine and written by Diana Abu-Jaber. The other was written by Katie Roiphe and featured online here: http://www.doublex.com/section/kids-parenting/katie-roiphe-my-newborn-narcotic. The common thread in these two articles is the surprise that both feminists express at the joys and miracles of motherhood. I take minor issue with Roiphe’s narcotic analogy. Her words come across to me as somewhat conflicted – maybe even a little two-faced. She seems surprised at the reality of the beautiful nurturing instinct, and conveys an (almost) hidden guilt for betraying her feminist leanings.

“Feminism” is such a widely defined concept that I believe I would qualify as one under some criteria, but certainly not under others. Here’s the ultimate feminist blasphemy though: I see the practice of motherhood as something only women can do best. My husband is a good father and an excellent parent, but he’s a pretty lousy mother. It’s just not in him and this is true for most men I know. If necessary, I’m sure he could compensate to a great degree, but there is something special about that nurturing motherly instinct.  I believe this to be a divine/religious trait, but religion doesn’t have to factor into it. Motherhood is a reality of life and society, and feminists can and should build that reality into their mindset. Being a feminist should be about equally valuing the different traits of men and women, not placing value on how much women can act like men.

I’m sure I’m not the first to say this, but I think that the women’s rights movement of decades past has done women a disservice. It has created a mentality that propagates the idea that women who embrace the uniquely feminine act of motherhood (including those who choose to stay home with their children) cannot or should not be classified as feminists. I would hope that in the future women in our society can find a balance. Being a good mother is a necessary and beautiful, natural part of society and we should not feel like lesser parts of that society simply because we choose to focus our efforts on it. In fact, I believe that choice is one to be encouraged and even venerated.

The scrapbook page I’ve shared here contains journaling written shortly after the birth of my second child when the miracle of new life hit me hard for the second time. The page was created in June, 2006. I hope you’ll take time to read the heart-felt words there. Thanks for stopping by!

A Thanks Card

I am so grateful for all of the people that have helped us over the past six months. My mother-in-law was instrumental in helping me get the entire interior of the new house primed and painted, including doors and trim. I couldn’t have survived the house finishing touches and the moving process without my mother there to help with kids. My stepfather especially was an amazing whirlwind of action in the final week of construction and when we moved. He accomplished all those little things that would’ve have waited months to get done without an extra pair of working hands around.

I haven’t fully shown my gratitude toward these people, but I’m working on it. Here’s a card I made for my mother-in-law to get myself started. I love the SEI paper from a couple of years ago and the brand new Spellbinders Ribbon Tag die with an oval nestability. The stamp is from Hero Arts. Thanks for stopping by!

Forgotten Friday: Chinese Food, Embossing Charms, and Fun with Family

I took my two girls and my husband out for Chinese yesterday and it was a nice, calm, fun lunch hour. Our little local Chinese restaurant is actually pretty good and Hannah was able to run around and practice her walking skills.

It reminded me of another Chinese lunch hour about four years ago, when my son was about the same age that Hannah is now. He was such a little bundle of energy, a lot like his sister.

This page was a study in creating spots of texture. I used stencils embossed and colored with chalk. I embossed metal with texture sheets and Chinese coins, then painted over it to mute the effect. The page was created in June, 2004.

Copic Butterfly Make and Take

I’m really excited to be doing a demonstration this weekend for The Big Art Event at David M. Mangelsen’s store in Omaha, Nebraska. I’ll be teaching a make and take as well as demonstrating a variety of techniques with Copic Markers. If you live within driving distance of Omaha, you should totally stop by for this fun event. There’s also a web coupon available at the store’s website, so make sure to bring it with you.

Here’s a photo of the cute little make and take that I put together for the event. What I love about this is that believe it or not, this is actually a hybrid card. The butterfly is a digital stamp (or brush) created by Obsidian Dawn. I printed the image onto Neenah paper using a laserjet printer. (Inkjet will bleed when used with Copics, but laser printers work better than almost any other ink. It’s awesome! To create the set of cards, I just chose three markers in the same color value and blended them into the wings. Such a fun simple card. To complete it, I colored a piece of white ribbon to coordinate with each colored butterfly. With copic markers, there’s no need to worry about finding the right color, just buy white ribbon and you’re good to go!

Yet another pendant card: rockstar thanks

Can you tell I really love the pendant dies. You know, I wasn’t sure I would. I thought at first that they might be a little too ornate for my tastes, but it took me about 10 seconds of playing with them to change my mind. These dies are really fun and amazing, and as you can tell from this card, I love mixing them up.

This card features some copic airbrusing and some basic inking.  I’ve come to think of the bold color combinations paired with black and bling as a “rock star” look, and I just love it.

Supplies:

Labels 1, Kaleidoscope, Lattice, Eyelet Pendant, Circle dies: Spellbinders; cardstock; patterned paper: Doodlebug Designs; gemstones, stamp