Friendship Card for The Crafty Pad Challenge #145

Happy Halloween folks! We started a new challenge today at The Crafty Pad. Challenge #145, "Friendship". I'm using a cute little digi stamp, "Roshell Friends with Basket", available at The Crafty Pad Design Store. Our sponsor this week is Michelle's Scrap with a rubber stamp prize, Best Hugs by Alisa Ramirez. The Crafty Pad DT's have assembled a lovely group of cards expressing "Friendship", come play along with us!

My card is actually a hanging card. It has both a hanging ribbon and a magnetic strip on the back.

My lovely card was a deceivingly easy make for me. I selected a favorite digi background and printed the back layer of the card. This included the white bordering that was later punched and the sentiment. I sized and printed two 11 inch x 2.5 strips for the medallion. My duck stamp is altered to white with a blue line, I do this in my Corel 14 graphic program. I also have handy my Martha Stewart border punch, it's wonderful. The last item was a printed 2.5 circle with the now white stamp on the same digi paper.

There is zig zag sewing around the faux border, and I punched the medallion strip too before the folding. I've used a single blue silk rose and punched out little leaves. Punched holes for the ribbon to be knotted through and a business card sized magnet on the back. Whee, beautiful and fast for me. I need that sometimes.

Thanks for visiting me and my latest creation, please feel free to look all around The Crafty Pad blog for great ideas to enhance your creative fun!

This card is also entered into these fine challenge:
Penny Black Saturday Challenge, Sketch Time (11/5)
Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog, #52 Clean and Simple (11/2)

Halloween Candy Bag

Hello, it's time for a new challenge with The Crafty Pad. This week we are using a Halloween stamp from The Crafty Pad Design Store. A great place to get digi's! And our challenge is one for the season..."Halloween". I hope you join us. I've taken another craft avenue other than cards again this week. A Halloween Candy Bag for my grand daughter, Emma. She's going treat or treating as the vampire in "Adventure Time". I have no idea idea what that is:)

This bag is digital and handmade. The purple frame is borrowed from the internet. The stamp in the center is from The Crafty Pad and it is computer colored with pop tape layering. The words and skulls and eyeballs come from a K & Company Halloween pack. I cut a black and green circle then corner punched the black for a creepy lace curve and did a pinking cut for the edge of the green circle. I cut both in half to create the top and bottom accents on the purple frame. My ribbon at the top of the bag looks like a spider. Cool. There is also a little bow and spider at the bottom. In this bright sunlight it's hard to see just how much stickle glitter has been used. Orange, yellow, black, diamond and red. I love glitter.

So fun to make. Take any bag and dress it up for a Halloween goodies bag. This is a great project to make for your little kids too. Take a second to visit Kids4Crafts.com. It's my other blog, it's been slow lately but it's starting to pick up. There's fun Holiday crafts for you and the kids over there. Enjoy.

Thanks for the visit, please come by anytime.

This craft is also entered into these fun challenges:
Allsorts, #126 Halloween (10/29)
Crafty Boots Challenges, Autumn or Halloween (10/30)
Papertake Weekly Challenge, Spooky Hues (10/25)
Crop Stop Challenge, Halloween (10/27)
Delightful Challenges, Halloween (10/26)

UPDATE: Goofy me! I just realized this treat bag won at Crop Stop! Cool, but dumb on my side. I use "Victoria Lavender" as one word and as my online moniker. On all my past wins I would check Feline Playful through their search box under my moniker, but I just realized some folks repeat my name only as "Victoria". So I just found that I've won a couple challenges. It's terribly rude to win and never contact. I'm so sorry to anyone I've been impolite to.

The Crafty Pad #143 Monochromatic Challenge, My Pencil Holder and Reindeer Pencil Topper

Monochromatic Challenge with The Crafty Pad. Our stamp we are using for challenge examples is "Albert Snoozing" and he's available at The Crafty Pad Design Store. I just returned from a nice long trip to Maryland, and beside putting my house back together (1 son, 1 dog and 5 cats can trash a house when Mom is away) I needed to come up with my DT project quick!

I decided to make something that could also be used as a last minute gift item. My Grandmother used to keep a shelf in the closet for odd gifts she had made or purchased throughout the year. She was always ready with a present for ANY occasion:) While you're here please take a quick peek at my Reindeer Pencil Topper too! (Seen in the pencil box and a post at Victoria Lavender and Kids4Crafts) I wish I still had my Grandmom, this is the type of project she might have taught me once upon a time. She and my mom were great at sharing crafts with us as children. My sister, Kemi, and I shared this project with lots of kids already when we used to run "Kids 4 Crafts" demo sessions in Tucson and our crafting blogsite.

My little pencil holder box started out life as a Jack O' Lantern Box from Micheal's. I resurfaced the pumpkin face with "Albert". I made three layers out of him. He has a base scene, cutout of him and third layer cut outs of his hat and tacklebox. All nicely pop taped. Oh I wished I could have found my Cinnamon sticks, it would have smelled so good! But I've used twigs from the yard. Also used were natural wood buttons and hemp cord. Simple, manly and monochrome.

As always....THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS VISIT! Please take a second to check out the Reindeer and/or wander around Kids4Crafts. I'm looking for GT's for weekly posts on great family crafting. If you are playing the challenge at The Crafty Pad....Thanks so much - is'nt it fun! If you aren't...whats keeping you? Join the fun. Peace.

This card is also entered in these wonderful challenge blogs:
Wags'n Whiskers Stamps, Fall Colors (10/27)
Joyful Stamper, Inspire Me Fridays, "Always Anything Goes" (10/26)
Sweet Stampin' Challenge Blog, "Masculine" (10/21)
Southern Girls Challenge, "Slugs, snails and puppydog tails" (10/17)

Reindeer Pencil Toppers, reposted from Kids4Crafts.com

Hi, this is a November 15th 2008 repost from my other blog, Kids4Crafts.com.

These little reindeer are darling, even if I do say myself. Last month I made a few pencil toppers and the spiral ones gave me the idea to create these odd fellows. Really fun at school and make nice gifts from kid to kid. I borrowed my niece Holly for these step by step photos. Holly is 10 and did a wonderful job as my assistant. These are the now famous “Reindeer Pencil Toppers” that we will be doing in our demonstration on Dec. 13th at Bookman's on Speedway in Tucson. Children of all ages are welcome at the show and please try these at home and send us a note and photo.(UPDATE: this event was really quite a blast! We did 3 demo's and had lot's and lot's of kids:). I called these "now famous" because these Reindeer Pencils Toppers get SO MANY VISIT/HITS each fall and winter it's nearly monstrous!

Items Used:
2 Pipe Cleaners
1 New Pencil
Spare Pencil
5 Shiny Pony Beads
1 Red Pony Bead
2 Googly Eyes

Tacky Glue or Heavy Duty Glue Dots or Hot Glue
(depending on child’s age group)

Directions for Righties: Pick up 2 pipe cleaners. Even up their ends (see photo above) and hold in your right hand. Using your left thumb press pipe cleaners against a pencil about 2 inches below the eraser at the ends and start wrapping tightly about 3 times around the top of the pencil with your right hand. Try to keep the pipe cleaners flat as you wrap upward toward the eraser, this will form your reindeer face area (see photos below).

Your thumb is very important to spiraling the pipe cleaners around pencils so hold it firmly while you wrap. Twist the 2 pipe cleaners together where you stop just behind the eraser, and separate them a little (like giant rabbit ears).

Take the spare pencil and repeat the spiral wrapping on each pipe cleaner antler. Holly took a short cut here by taking the spare pencil and placing it midway atop the reindeer pencil on the eraser end and wrapped both sides of the spare pencil. It looked like a big letter “T” her way. And I've found it to work great for me too. Gently slide the spare pencil out of the wrap you just created. Now your have 2 antlers and a plain face.

Through trial and error we have found that you should glue the face on last and slide the 5 colored beads down the antlers now, 3 on one side and 2 on the other. Glue on googly eyes and little red bead nose (I glued the nose vertically and the hole is seen from the side). On a few pencils at my house I tied a little bell on a thin red ribbon around the bottom of the reindeer’s neck, though this might not be a good idea for pencils to be used in school.

You have a cute reindeer pencil! Make some for your school chums and teachers as gifts.

This is an original Victoria Swanson/Lavender Design, and was published in 2008. It's my most famous creation (if any of us can have that kinda thing) and I'd love you to have fun making these in your home or re-selling for charity (like we've done at my church) it's quite cool to repost my Reindeer, just please remember to give credit and back link to either kids4crafts.com or victorialavender.net.

Thanks so much for this visit. There's fun things to make for the Holidays at kids4crafts. By the way...I need help with kids4crafts. New posts of great ideas are welcome for review. If they fit the criteria for the website, you could be a guest designer. Cool huh?

Peace, love and chicken (Homer Simpson)

The Crafty Pad #142 Vintage

Hi everyone! New challenge this week with The crafty Pad. This week the DT's are working with these lovely Sewing Elements digital stamps! As always you can locate these and other great stamps at the Crafty Pad Design Store.

The Crafty Pad Challenge # 142, "Vintage"

I had so much fun again in the making of this one. There are three dress forms and cute sentiment tickets in this collection. I've used the stamps as a background image and as an embellishment with pop tape for depth. Inside I've added an extra page inside for writing space and the dress forms have traveled inside too. The ladies are a "Vicki Stamp". I create stamps for myself and I pulled the ladies from a past vintage card I've done earlier. (Vintage Stove Cards) My color range for this card has been carefully selected to give the vintage feel too. Old fashioned gingham, some old lace and buttons (each with a rough tie) and real seam binding is used for the ribbon. Sewing pins and zig zag stitching round it all out.

I am really proud of this one. I sure hope you've enjoyed a peek at it too. I wish you all a great week and please join the fun with us at The Crafty Pad's challenge, Vintage.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!
Victoria Lavender

This card is also entered in these great challenge blogs:

The Crafty Pad Challenge, "One for the Boys" #141

Hi again, I'm still on vacation in Havre de Grace, Maryland enjoying the Susquehanna River and head of The Chesapeake Bay. This week for our challenge with The Crafty Pad we are having fun doing cards with the boys in mind. We are using some great element stamps by Debbie and they are available at The Crafty Pad Designs (our store). Digital stamps are so versatile. You can print them and then color, print out pre-colored, print just the outline in any color, size to your need, flip the image if you want or even print on pre-printed papers. Boy Howdy, what fun!

I really enjoyed these stamps. I used the little gears to create my bottom paper and I ran it through a crimper for effect. After locating a cute chain I created a paper pocket watch. I've used a couple colors of stickles to help give the sparkle of glass. Even the chain has stickles. A puffed length of ribbon as a bow beneath the watch, and ribbon and punched paper lace to wrap it up like a package. My sentiment is a "Vicki Stamp". That's what I call anything I've created digitally and saved for later use. Spellbinder punches create a good looking label.

I am starting to create my style a bit more. I like sharp detail that catches the eye. Looking completed but still less complicated than Shabby. Clean, well nearly. I haven't placed anything on this card that didn't need to be there. No extra "puff" because a bit of space is showing. Yet, I still don't have a "label" for my type of cards. Got any style name ideas?

I hope you've enjoyed my card and are looking forward to joining the challenges with us at The Crafty Pad each week.

Thanks for the visit! Have a great week. Peace.

My card is also entered in these wonderful challenge blogs:
Celebrate the Occasion, Challenge #32
Deep Ocean Challenge, #9 Happy Birthday (closes Oct 9th)
Die Cuttin Diva's, Challenge #34 Shabby Chic or Vintage
Paper and Such Design Blog, Challenge Time "Recipe" pick 3 (paper lace, ribbon, digital paper-my favorite one) (close Oct 8th)
Inky Impressions Challenges, #26 Punches or Dies
Paper Pretties Wednesday Challenge, #173 Sentiment as a Focal Point
Stamping Royalty, KISS (Keep it Simple Sweetie)
Shelly's Images Blog, "Recipe", (Silver, FREE, Digi) (close Oct 6th)