Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Lola is Painting a Spring Picture!

This card was created for Challenge #71 at Kraftin Kimmie. 

Meet Lola....  She is an artistic gal and one of my favorite Kraftin Kimmie stamps.  Spring is in the air and Lola is preparing her favorite seasonal artwork.  She just loves flowers and the colors of the season!

Bazzill Cardstock
Reminisce Patterned paper
Copic Markers
Versamark Ink
Petal Pushers Stamps by Bo Bunny
Recollections Brads
Prima Flower Embellishments
Pressed Petals Metal Embellishments


Sunday, March 27, 2011

"Oh my..."

That seems to be the phrase of the weekend.

Ok people, my mom and I are on a five day shopping adventure. 5 days, 6 states, 7 scrapbook stores, one VERY empty checking account.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

First, it's my birthday, you can email me for my address to send presents to. Just kidding.

So me and my mom planned a road trip. First thought was to San Antonio. We love the river walk, sea world, etc. Then my mom gets this bright idea to visit the Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, TN. And so it was.

We Googled all the scrapbook stores between Dallas and Lynchburg, saved our pennies, and here we are, 15 miles outside of Lynchburg, ready to "drink" in the local....culture?

Day 1
We set out from Dallas around 1330. I had an amazingly boring class for work to attend until noon, got out, had to eat something, then we got on our way. The plan was to make it to at least Little Rock that night. Ot first stop was in Greenville, TX. There is a wonderfully friendly scrapbook store there named "Scrapville." they just moved to a new building, so it appeared as though they were still getting their space squared away. (www.scrapvilleonline.com) we buzzed around Greenville for a short time, and decided that it was time to head to Little Rock. It was a VERY long trip down IH-30 to Little Rock. We made it at about 2230, exhausted.

We woke up the next morning and went straight to the scrapbook store in town, "Scrapbook Corner." the ladies there were SO friendly, and they even pointed us in the direction of the best scrapbook stores in Memphis, our next stop. They had such a wonderful selection of quality scrapbook supplies and stamps, you MUST stop in if you any where close to LR.

Ok, now the fun begins. Every day is an adventure with my mom, however, we had not gotten quite warmed up yet with our usual antics until we got to Memphis. The scrapbook stores up to this point were great, but let me tell you, the ones in Memphis are worth driving out of the way for.

We arrived in Memphis at around 1400. By this time, I'm pretty sure I'm getting some sacral breakdown from sitting in the car so long, and I'm almost afraid to get up because I just know that I'm about to throw a blood clot from my legs. All medical diagnoses aside, we arrived, and as of this point, were still intact (physically, anyways.) I had it on good authority (thank you Sarah N.) that Rendezvous in downtown Memphis was some BBQ that should not be missed. So, we Googled it. By this time, the temperature outside had dropped into the low fortys and it was most definitely raining on us. Not easily swayed in the face of Memphis BBQ, mom and I pressed on. Of course, if you have ever been to Rendezvous, you know it's stuck in a back alley, down some creepy stairs, and in a questionable area of town.

Our server was Fred. Fred did not smile. Fred did not greet us. Fred did not acknowledge our existence. Fred was in fact so unimpersonable, that when he went to change the trash bag in the garbage can sitting within two feet of my head behind me, I was quite certain he was readying a receptacle for my remains.

All that aside, the ribs were AWESOME.

...and we got a small smirk out of Fred as we left.

A visit to the Peabody to see the ducks. Let me just say, they are "ducking" crazy about ducks. Ok, that was bad, but really. Soap ducks, chocolate ducks, metal ducks. Ducks on cars, signs, purses and shoes. I mean really. The Peabody ducks are pretty cool, but it's excessive. Anyways, we didn't stay to watch the duck march. Instead we bought some Vera Bradley purses--our indulgence purchase for the week. Well worth it, might I add.

Well then you cant be in downtown Memphis and not visit Beale St. So off we went. VERY reminiscent of Bourbon St. It's a place so rich in history and culture, it's worth the four block walk from the Peabody. In the rain.

Ok so we loaded up, and decided to go to our hotel, which was the Wolfchase Hampton Inn, which, coincidentally, is in the same parking lot of one of the best scrapbook stores we have been to yet, Eclectica. this store is huge, and has simply the best selection of scrapbook/card making supplies we have seen. It ALMOST made us call our trip in Memphis instead of going ahead to the distillery. However, the Jack Daniel's Gods smiled upon us and we were able to get reservations at Miss Mary Bobo's, a treat that CANNOT be passed up. upon walking into the store, our only thoughts were "oh my." hence, the title of this entry. As in "oh my, there goes all our money...."

The is also a great scrapbooking store about .5 miles from Eclectica called Archivers. This is a chain store (which is new to me) and they have a great selection of merchandise that most individually owned store don't carry, and at very affordable prices. We signed up for a Copic marker class, and this particular store happened to have a work area that we could use for free. Our plan developed to show up when the doors opened to craft, at ten our class, then go to Lynchburg.

And here we sit. Hampton Inn in Tullahoma. Broke, sore, and tired.

I wouldn't change it for the world.

More to come,
Abby

Monday, March 14, 2011

What a Weekend!

Wow, we have been incredibly busy all weekend, but what a wonderful sense of accomplishment. We opened our new Etsy store and created several items to place into the store.

We also attended our stamp club and learned a couple new techniques. The one I have been using the most is the creation of clouds on a card using a punched scalloped circle, a sponge and an ink pad. The clouds look amazing when completed and it is so easy. You simply place the scalloped cirle at different areas on your piece and sponge lightly with blue ink all around it. You must be careful to keep your pattern random but the result is beautiful. Take a look at the Father's Day card in our shop (abbyscrafty.etsy.com) to see the results. Who would have known it was so easy?

Until tomorrow....happy crafting!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

ETSY SHOP!!!!

Hey Everyone!
Courtney here. Just wanted to let you all know that we have started adding all of our handcrafted goodies to our brand new etsy shop!

http://www.abbyscrafty.etsy.com/, if you're interested!

Mom and I went shopping today to start mass producing items to list for sale in our shop.  We had a lot of fun getting to buy things like "It's a girl!" stickers, that we wouldn't usually have bought. It opened up a whole new world to us, which is good for us, bad for our checking accounts. o.O

So anyways, go take a look, and buy something, buy everything!

Happy crafting.
Abby

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Sneak Peak of Some of Our Favorite Stamps

Today is an exciting day for us.  Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps is showing sneak peaks for the March release of their new stamps.  Hop on over there and check them out....http://www.kraftinkimmiestamps.com/!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

New blog!

Hello everyone!
Courtney (aka Abby) here! Welcome to our brand spankin' new blog! My mom and I started this blog as an idea and inspiration blog. In it, you will also find stories about our adventures, because yes, every shopping trip, road trip, and even trip to the bathroom is an adventure with my mom (although I will spare the details of the latter). We don't claim to be experts in this stuff, we don't claim to know everything, but we do claim to love creating and crafting. And the wonderful thing about art, is that is the only prerequisite.

At this point, we are specializing in card making. That could completely change in the next month. We like to...what is it people always say..."dabble" in all different forms of expression.

Expression is extremely important to me. Just so you know who is behind the computer screen, I'll briefly introduce myself....I am a recent college graduate in Nursing. I work in a very busy cardiac ICU, at a very large inner city hospital. Art and crafting is my escape from the very real stresses of my job. If you look closely in some of my art work, you might just pick out small nuances reflective of my profession. Or...you might not.

So thus begins our foray into the blogging community. I encourage you to comment, link and post on our blog. I leave you with my favorite quote from a VERY fitting source:

"There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you will be free, if you truly wish to be." -Willy Wonka

-Abby

Welcome!

My daughter (aka Abby) and I love crafting and anything to do with crafting.  We are currently focused on papercrafting and love making cards for any and all occasions. 

We are also currently involved in a couple of Artist Trading Clubs.  If you would like to participate, please check out our fan page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Artist-Trading-Card-Swap-Dallas-TX/139336096125542.

In the future you will find handy hints and tips as well as images of some of the many craft items we have created posted within this blog.  We hope you enjoy browsing.