Happy New Find...

Ok, so I LIED...I just wanted to add a quick link to my favorite "new find." They are these neato necklace pendants that are made from scrabble tiles...check it out here at Home Studio on Etsy.com

I have several on my wish list, but the "Marine Wife" is my favorite:) Check out the moxie fab Christmas Tree too...AND...she's on sale!

"Rate My Post"...

...this would be the post for all those fanatics(myself included!) that LOOOOOOOVE HGTV's Rate My Space. Actually, I love all the shows on HGTV, but this sweet request for a Teacher's Gift was done with a collaboration of previous posts. I try not to give Teacher's gifts that are OVERLOADED with apples because I have a sister who happens to be a Teacher, and I'm sure she has LOOOOADS and LOOOOOADS of apple memorabila...lol Most importanly, I always try to think of something they can use long term...notepads are always a terrific option:) That being said, I also made 2 more sets in this color combo for my Daughter's Teacher's since the supplies were already out! How bout' that HOT pink and black?? I think its kind of snazzy is you ask me!



Monogrammed tote...I use this monogram set ALOT because I think the front is classic in style! I will never part with it.
Little Post-it holder...I added a ring of Star Dust Stickles to the oval after I ran it thru with my nesty die.

Alrighty friends, this will be my LAST post until Jan. 5th! I'm going to be spending my time purging and creating with all my new supplies. And most importantly, spending snuggle time with my girls. I was trilled last night to get out some paper doll cut outs and put them together with the girls. They love bringing in there little Ikea table and crafting with Mommy...AND...I LOOOVE it every MORE!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with family and a prosperous New Year. This New Year's will be nice an quiet for us since we are no longer living in NYC. My hubby and I will be lucky if we make it that late, but hopefully with some yummy hot chocolate and popcorn we can ring in the New Year in our PJ's.

I look forward to sharing many more creations in the New Year!

Lastly, please remember those service members abroad who will not be sharing the Holidays with their loved ones! We love them ALL:)

Sincerely,

Dawn Chau

#1 New Years Resolution...ORGANIZE!

So this will be the start of my organization tools. I was really excited how well they turned out. I picked these calendar booklets at Micheal's in the dollar section to see what I could do with them. Because the casing seemed sort of "flimsy" I wasn't sure how well they'd hold up to extra thickness. The thickness doesn't seem to be a problem after completion. The original front was stapled inside the calendar pocket book, so I took it out and used that as my template. I made this fun and bright one for myself. That sewing pattern looks awfully familiar doesn't? Its one of my fav's! I hadn't intended on adding the orange glittery layer, but it looked a little dull after it was done...stickles to the rescue! The monogram is from Papertrey Ink--Ambassador.
One to keep for a friend...
Since my stapler did not reach to the middle of my calendar book, I ran her thru my sewing machine. I don't recommend this since the booklets are quite thick and its hard on your machines, however, I did turn the knob by hand and it seemed to do just fine. I have since purchased a longer stapler to reach the middle:)
I lOOOOVE the repetition of the boots on this card. It is fairly simple and I just used my CM punches to matte the boots. The boots are from my My Favorite Things--Rain or Shine set. They are colored with my copic markers...see the two different browns?? It was late and I couldn't decipher as to which brown I started with...let's just call this my "eclectic" card...lol The ribbon is SU! Choco. Chip Satin(YUMMY!).

For the Girlfriends...

Some goodies for the friendships I've made along the way. Being a military spouse can be the hardest job there is at times, however when you find great company that empathizes with your experiences, you keep them close. My husband has been in nearly 14 years now(I have been present for 10!)and it seems to have flown by! I have made many wonderful friends and kept in touch with a few close gals and these sweet little gifts are for them....you know who you are:) I have used this pattern before so I will skip the details! And what about some cute matching key chains?? My soldering skills are improving...the bumps are getting few and far between...lol Add a little ribbon as well...its a great way to use up those scraps!

I have decided to "double-up"(several projects per post) on posts this week since Friday will be my last post of the 08' blog year. So there will be lots of goodies to share! I'm really needing some extra time to get my supplies organized and prioritize my work load for the New Year! I'm very excited to see what the New Year brings for myself and my family.

HUGE BLOG CANDY!!!!

Okay, not from me, but I do have fellow design team member who is giving away some really yummy goodies!!! Swing on by PaperMonkey.org and tell Suzy I sent ya! She is also giving away several items from Glue-Art and Paper Studio. This is the company that I've had the pleasure of working with and their products are tremendously well crafted! Have fun:)

I will be back later today with a new post!

ETA: I'm AMAZED at the overwhelming response to my Relay for Life items. There is currently a waiting list for the "Survivor" notebooks and each order will be completed as they're received. I will continue to take orders until supplies run out! I'd like to add that ALL proceeds from the sale of these notebooks will go to Relay for Life Cancer Research. I'm not making any money off of these...all supplies are purchased out of my own pocket! If your're interested in purchasing a notebook for friends or family they are $10.00 each, please contact me at: madscrapper24@yahoo.com


ETA: at this time I'm only shipping the notebooks. The chocolate boxes are only available here locally:)

Thanks so much for supporting such a wonderful CAUSE!

Dawn Chau

Relay for Life Goodies...

Just a few more goodies I've made for Relay for Life fundraising. These cards are pretty straight forward and a great sketch pattern for mass producing. The sentiment is pc generated and I punched them out with my SU! oval punches. A few more chocolate boxes in new colors:)

Post-it note booklets. Since these will be tied and untied ALOT I heat sealed the ribbon ends to prevent fraying. There great for jotting a quick note and putting in your purse!

Inspired...

I'm hooked on my notebooks AGAIN! I have a closet full of things to alter, but I always seem to go back to my notebooks. I suppose its because they are fast and easy, and with 2 little ones, TIME is not something I have alot of these days. When I saw THIS card by Becca Feeken I felt inspired to see what I could come up with. My dear friend Michelle sent me this stamp all the way from Texas...thanks Mish! Sure wish we had a Hobby Lobby close by:(

The patterned paper is made with my PTI Polka Basics and SU! cs. I love the texture of the Bazzill cs along with the Dew Drops ink. The ribbon is from Mike's.

I'm hoping this will be a great raffle at the next Relay for Life Meeting...wouldn't it be great to give to a cancer survivor?

Bringin' Out the Scraps...

...just wish it were on my OWN albums! I don't even want to think how behind I am running on my kids albums. This was a special request album I did for one of the original founders of Century 21 who was retiring after 30+ years in the business. This album is a compilation of personal messages of congrats and farewells. I had a different album in mind, however, Michael's was out of the refills so I found this option...I think it worked well! The front reminds me of a poker game with how I arranged the lettering.
To make the background paper I used my SU! French Script BG stamp and went all over the paper. To add an "aged" look, I ran my shimmering gold ink over the entire page and accented the corners with my PTI First Fruit Stamps.



Matching card to go along with the album. I printed off the sentiment and ran it thru my Wizard machine for a nice beveled oval.
I have several new projects to share this week...just need to get them photographed and edited sooo stay tuned! I will be taking a two week break from posts later this month when my oldest is on Christmas Break. I'm also going to use this time to clean and purge my craft room(its pretty unorganized) as well as contemplate adding a "For Sale" page after soo many email requests. I'm not sure if I will do this as I take orders on request...but it might be a nice feature to offer things I have made, that on are hand, and ready for immediate shipping! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

More Soldering Fun...

Practicing more with the new soldering tools I have. I tried a few different designs here, just to see what works best when soldering. When soldering, you need to be sure and choose your decorations wisely or else they will melt or show thru your patterned paper. You may not be able to see it in the photo, but I have a piece of double sided tape to hold the Hello Kitty in place on the paper and when I went to solder, the tape melted slightly and showed thru. This is why its good to use two pieces of paper(front and back) when "sandwiching" all your pieces together. For the Hello Kitty tag I had a 12x12 sheet of patterned paper and I just cut out the kitty and taped her on the patterned paper. I used my Karen Foster Snap Stamps for "Addison". I'm still working on the soldering the "jump rings" so its always a little clumpy in the middle...lol This one is a bit better since I added the jump ring from the back instead of the middle. You just have to play around with them.
I had some leftover colored images for this princess tag so I just placed my glass over the stamped image and trimmed the edges. Again, I used the snap stamps for the name as well.

If you're just starting out with soldering, this is a very easy template to use. I took some old SU! patterned paper here and stamped it with my Dew Drop(Jumbo Java) and used my PTI stamps. Be sure to let it dry completely before putting the two sheets of glass together or it will smudge.

All these tags were originally made to use at key chains, but my little girls prefer to use them on their backpacks.

American Cancer Society--Relay for Life...

Yes, there is more to paper-crafting then just making things for family and friends. I don't know if its been pure coincidence or not, but the last few months there is someone close to me that has been stricken with cancer. And a few weeks ago I was reading "The Globe"(that is our local military paper here) and there happened to be a young man featured with his two young girls inside. Well, it wasn't just anybody, but a young man whom I went to HS with back in Oklahoma. He had recently passed away from cancer and there was a tree planting memorial in his honor. Also, for my friends like Mark Fry who have a Mother-in-Law and Sis-in-Law both battling the disease together. Cancer does not just affect its victims, but also their loved ones who are their caregivers. I decided to join my local chapter of Relay For Life here in Onslow County. It's my turn to GIVE BACK!I made a few items to be used for fundraising events. If your interested in the "Cancer is so limited" stamp, you can purchase it HERE! A few yummy chocolate boxes! These were a BIG hit!
Cards for the ladies AND gents...lovin' that polka dot card:)
This was the second batch of chocolate boxes I did! I made them a little simpler for mass production. I'm proud to say ALL 66 boxes SOLD and 25% of the proceeds will be going toward cancer research!!

Wishing for a Pocket FULL of Sunshine..

...beacause it has been raining for 2 weeks here now! Mother Nature can be a bit over-rated if you ask me...lol The rain has done wonders for the back of our property, which was recently cleared and seeded...it looks like a beautiful green pasture now:) We have approx. another 1/4 acre that needs tilling and seeding but it will have to wait until Spring.

Anyhoo, on to this snazzy little notebook. I love My Favorite Things stamps simply for paper piecing...its like "dress-up" for the grown-ups! This particular set, Rain or Shine, is a fun one for your girlfriends who many need a little pick- me-up! I used some SU! cs along with some fun patterned paper that was sewn on. The raincoat and ruffle trim on the bottom are paper-pieced. All the coloring is done with Copic markers and the doggie's little coat is shimmered with my Copic Spica pink pen. I added just a few extra embellishments for some bling. The top of the umbrella is a pink Foo-Fa-La button with an adhesive rhinestone in the middle. The sentiment is attached below with a nice pink matte that I ran thru my wizard machine. I have a few different patterns I'm going to be working on this week...I'll share them as they are finished!

One for the Boys...

aHere's a fun little way to include the GUYS too! Doesn't this color combo remind you of a BBQ? I suppose the only thing its missing is a nice, cold beer...lol! The gingham paper is some from my old stash of CM papers, which goes well with the black and red cs. I was trying to think of a neat way to cut out the house but not use my frilly Nestability Dies, so I opted to slip some black cs underneath and just cut a close trim on the edge...looks spiffy! To kill the spaces on the outer edges, I decided to add my SU! Jumbo eyelets...oh boy are these things fun! So there is my little ensemble! The box is empty for now, but it can hold some candies, gift cards, or cash etc.

Monochromatic Boards & Beams...

Tired of "Boards & Beams" yet?? Well, I've got several more projects using this set so there will be at least a FEW more posts:) I'm working with my Realtor(and now friend) at Century 21 and have picked up a few of her co-workers who'd like a few things made. I'm really excited about this opportunity, but more excited to just create! You can see I even broke out my sewing machine which I haven't done in a long time. I forgot how much I love to sew on my cards...its the little things! This design is pretty simple, but elegant. Since I used a pastel pink on the house, I really needed something to help bring out the house and make it pop, so I decided to take my Cool Grey copic marker to help highlight the edges of the house. I then used my new Label One nesty dies to matte the focal image. The bg stamp is my Polka Dot Basics from PTI and I only sewed thru the layer of white paper. You can sew thru both the white and pink cs, but you will have to add a liner to cover the stitch marks on the underside. Lastly, I just added some bling and ribbon to the card and notebook!

There is a 1st time for everything....

ETA: I forgot to add a quick note about the solder I use...it is lead free:)


...and for me that means I've started YET ANOTHER HOBBY! I've been wanting to learn to solder for some time and have become especially inspired by Debbie Olson's designs. I really like how she attaches them to cards:) I'm not quite there just yet, as I wanted to start out with a few simple projects. If your're wanting to get started on a kit that offers all the supplies and then some, I'd recommend Simply Swank which I purchased thru Ellen Hutson. Also, if your a hands-on gal and you need live instruction you can purchase the instructional DVD to go along with it. I can say I'm officially hooked on soldering and can't wait to play some more. The whole process of learning and putting together my projects was fairly quick and simple. The part I struggled with most was soldering on the "jump rings". They are a little tricky, but with soldering its very forgiving and if you don't like it, you can just take your soldering gun and melt it off to start over. I made this princess ornament with an image that was already colored from a previous project. She is from the SU! Pretty Princess Set and I have used her ALOT! This project is done with the largest glass set that comes with the Simply Swank Set. There are 4 sets of glass to use for different size projects. I added a jump ring to the top and tied my ribbon thru it. I will add an ornament hook later...when its time to put on our tree. This is for my little girls this year:)

Annnnnnnnnd, since I rarely make projects for myself, I thought I'd try my spin at clip-art. The "queen" clip-art comes with your kit and I just added the monogrammed "d". There is actually 3 layers of cs on this project, just be careful you don't use super thick cardstock or it will be hard to sandwich the 2 pieces together when it comes time to add the foil tape!
I'll leave you with this fun post for the weekend! I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween:)

Home for the Holidays...

With the very cool and crisp weather coming our way, its a perfect time to pull out the winter stamps and go to town! I woke up this morning getting the girls ready and when I let the dog out, I was hit with a very chilly 30 degree gust of wind! I don't remember NC being THIS cold, but I'm used to much colder weather since we just came from NYC. Note to self: put on a pot of hot cocoa tomorrow morning:)

Anyhoo, I put together this fun Home for the Holidays card with my new PTI extention set. I love the 3-D look on the windows and door. I wouldn't have normally chosen these colors for a wintery mix, but they actually work right?? This is a project I'm working on for my realtors co-worker and these are the colors she requested. I hope she likes them! The base is just simple PTI white cs with my SU! polka dot bg. The focal image is stamped with Pixie Pink Dew Drop and SU! certainly celery. I cut out the icicles on vellum, glued them on, then added the glitter. And just for a little more glitz I added some rhinestones in the corners.

My Sweet-Peas getting ready for a Halloween themed birthday party! Gracie loved her ballerina...I couldn't get her out of it! I was soo thrilled to finally get a picture of Addison with her eyes open!!!! She smiles soo hard all the time...as if she were Chinese...lol I keep telling her, "Addy babe, not soo hard, we KNOW your half Chinese!" Funny girls:)

Scary Sweets...

Another fun and simple gift idea! I'm always looking for a neat way to mass produce that is pretty quick and affordable. With my oldest in Pre-K now its always fun making her Teacher's little gifts. They certainly deserve a sweet thank-you...afterall, I'm not sure I'd have much patience handling sixteen 4-year olds...lol Anyhoo, on to the tags. I cut both the black and orange cs with my nesty dies and for added dimension, I ran the orange cs thru my cuttlebug folder. If you don't have a cuttlebug, you could always use your Scor-Pal and scor a bunch of lines for the pumpkin skin. The pumpkin stem is my SU! tag punch and to pull the ribbon thru easily, I added a SU! jumbo eyelet. The pumpkin face is from my Spooky Sweets Set. I decided for the eyes and mouth to "pop" I'd stamp them on yellow cs and emboss them in sparkly black powder. I find that the embossing powders with sparkle don't always melt the way I'd like...but I'm ok with this imperfection...I'm no expert at embossing, but it sure if fun! So what do you say...celebrate your little one's Teacher's...Lord knows they are overworked and DEFINITELY under paid! My Sister will thank me:)

Couture Oragami Box...

You'd think I'd be lying if I told you this post has taken me over 30 mins. today, and thats just the time spent uploading the photos. Hmmm, must be that storm headed our way that's slowing everything down. You can tell the Holiday's are just around the corner when you see oodles of packing posts from me:) I love everything about this time of year, but I love BAKING the most. If I'm going to be baking for my friends and family, I always try to put my homemade goodies in something just as scrumptious, like this pretty little number. Ok, so I didn't "bake" these chocolates, but you get the idea! These origami boxes are super easy to put together...they don't even require tape!! If you want to follow some very easy, hands-on instruction, you can visit this wonderful post by Kwerner. There is something to classy and elegant about the black/red color combo. Funny, I even dressed my oldest in these colors for school this morning:) I'd better quit before she starts to catch on...lol
Now, you can put just about anything inside you can think of. If your looking for a "low-cal" option, how about some 3x3 cards, gift cards, or even some candle tins. For my gift I used 6 Ferrero Rocher chocolates. They fit pretty snung, but be sure to use some shredded kraft paper on the bottom so they don't topple over.
HOT DIGGITY DOG!!! Its been ages since I've had more than 1 post in a week! I should pat MYSELF on the back eh? I was holding out for 3rd, but that'll have to wait until next week. I'm off to GA tomorrow to visit with my twinkie:) I miss her soooooo much! I think I smell a trip to Archiver's...you with me sis??