Waterfall Card Class!!

I am finally ready to offer my first class! So many of you have asked for it and given me ideas and suggestions and been so patient with me while I try to figure out what I was going to do. I am so excited to let you know what I finally decided!

Since it has been raining SO much lately (and I've had several people asking for it), we are going to make waterfall cards! These are the coolest cards to make and to receive and probably one of my favorite projects to do! If you receive my newsletter than you probably have a little bit of an idea of how one works. Basically it is a moving card with four different panels that are all connected. When you pull a string connected to the panels they all move upwards, revealing each panel, creating a waterfall effect. It is hard to describe but you will LOVE it!! Your friends will "EWWWW" and "AHHH" over it. I will have a lot of different themes available for you to use on your waterfall card--birthday, baby, children, flowers, etc... You will pick the colors and the theme.

In addition to making a waterfall card, we will also learn how to alter wood blocks using patterned paper, monogram letters & stamps. You will be able to choose from various TAC papers & stamps. These are great to decorate your home with or to give as a gift to a friend or to your child's teacher as an end of the year thank you. Here is an example of one that I have done recently--although what we make that night may be quite a bit different (I'm still working on the design). There are so many ways to alter these blocks and I think that once you make one, you will want to make more and more and more!

This class will be Thursday, April 19th at 6:30 PM in Inman at a location to be determined. Please RSVP to me by Wednesday, April 11th (I extended that time frame a little) at jentac@inmanks.net or give me a call. Cost of the class will be $12.

If you have a paper trimmer, scoring blade, ruler and/or bone folder please bring those items with you (marked with your name or initials).

I look so forward to hearing from you!! We'll have a great time!

Make Your Own Buttons!!

I was working on some samples using embossing for a FunShop that I have tonight and finally experimented with an idea that I had originally seen about a year ago.

The button on the page was one that I custom made! It was so simple and you can do it too!

I took the Big Shot Die Cutting Machine that TAC carries (but you can buy chipboard--like cardboard--at Hobby Lobby and cut it out yourself or you can buy precut chipboard shapes and TAC carries some too) and cut a square out of chipboard & out of the TAC Mulberry Meadows paper (LOVE that paper--isn't it gorgeous!!). Then, I rounded the corners of the paper with a corner rounder punch & glued the piece onto the chipboard. Then, I rounded the corners of the chipboard with a scissors and sanded them with an emery board. I then coated the top of the chipboard/paper piece with VersaMark & Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE--also carried in the TAC catalog) and then heated. I repeated this two or three times.

After the piece was cool, I outlined the side edges of the chipboard with Eggplant VersaMagic Chalk Ink so that none of the original cardboard was showing. I punched two holes in the center of the square with my crop-a-dile and stamped the word "joy" (from the TAC Nurture Your Soul word set) with Noir Palette Ink and let it dry (it took a little while to dry). Then, I inserted the ribbon and attached to the page!

Wala! Custom buttons!!!! I tried to get a picture of the button itself but I couldn't get the picture to focus properly. The size of this card is 4.25 x 4.25.

Have fun making buttons and let me know if you have any questions! You can email me at jentac@inmanks.net.

A Little SPRING!!

Well, if you haven't noticed by now, I LOVE bright colors! My eye is just naturally drawn to things that are bright! Even in clothing, I tend to like those kinds of colors although I don't usually buy them because they are usually too flashy!! LOL!!

When I sat down to make this card I was stamping with a Junior High girl from church today, Sarah, and this idea just came to me. I wanted the card to showcase SPRING like the weather outside shouts SPRING today!!

So, what do you think? Does it say SPRING to you???

I colored the Beautiful Places image using colored pencils--that's it! Nothing special, just plain ole' colored pencils. Of course all of the colors that I chose were very bright! Then, I added LOTS and LOTS of stickles. Have I ever told you how much I LOVE stickles?? They are awesome!! If you've never tried them, you HAVE to!! (I'm also very into typing in CAPS today too!!!) The paper is from the TAC Brighten My Day Designer Paper Pack and the ribbon (isn't it gorgeous???) is from Hobby Lobby. The ribbon is great! I got it yesterday at Hobby Lobby and get this--I got 20 YARDS for 50 cents!! Yep, 50 cents!! What a bargain!! I can't wait to get more colors of this!! The paper comes in a pack of 36 (several different colors in each pack) and each page is 8 x 8 for only $6.95.
The sentiment on the bottom of the card is from the new Nurture Your Soul set. GREAT word set!

Want to Know When I Update My Blog??

If you would like to know when I update my blog without checking every day, I have some options for you!

First of all, there is a NEW email subscription box on the left-hand side of this page (thank you Vicki for helping me figure out how to add that!!). It says "Subscribe By Email to Receive Updates". If you enter your email address, every time I update my blog you will receive an email letting you know that it has been updated with a new entry. It is such an easy way to stay up-to-date about specials and provide you with new ideas, samples & techniques!
The second option (and it's a little more complicated to set up if you are unfamiliar with blog feeds so I will walk you through the process the best that I can!) is to click on the orange feed icon that is found at the top of your screen in one of the toolbox menus. A photo of what you are looking for is shown at the left. If you don't have an updated version of Internet Explorer, this option may not be available to you. If you click on this icon (in your toolbar) you will get a message that says something similar to this:

"You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs"

Basically, that just means that when you are connected to the internet, your browser will automatically check the "feeds" that you are subscribed to (basically webpages or blogs) and then will let you know if anything on that page has been updated. If it has, you will be able to find out with a glance and if nothing has been updated, it will let you know. I'll explain more about that in a moment.

Under the note that the blog icon gives you, you will see a link that says, "Subscribe to this Feed". Click on that link. An Internet Explorer box will pop up that lists the name of the blog that you are subscribing to and another box that says "Create In". It should automatically put "Feeds" in that box. Click "Subscribe".

Now you get a note that says,

"You've successfully subscribed to this feed! Updated content can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs that use the Common Feed List."

Now, where do you find the "Common Feed List" that it is referring to and how do you know if my blog has been updated? Look at your toolbars at the top of the screen again. Do you see a little yellow star (at least that is what it is on Internet Explorer)? Click on that. It'll probably pull up your favorites list. But, at the top of the box that you just opened by clicking on the star there is another options menu. It should say, "Favorites, Feeds & History". Click on "Feeds". This will give you a list of all of the blogs that you are subscribed to. If there has been any updates made to a blog that you have not viewed yet, the name of the blog will be in BOLD. If the blog name is not in bold, than the blog has not been updated since the last time your browser checked it.

There is an option to change how often the browser checks to see if blogs have been updated and if you would like help on how to do that, send me an email at jentac@inmanks.net and I'll help you do that. I like my browser to check often but you can also have your browser check every few hours, once a day, etc...

So, those are the options that you have if you would like to keep current on my blog entries. These services will not alert you when the gallery by stamp set has been updated though so you might want to check that periodically. Please email me if you have any questions and sorry that this post was so technical and not a lot of fun!!!