My Other Pages

To make it easier to read about our trip to Ireland, I have made a page that is just for that. There is a tab above for Ireland Trip 2014 or click on the Home tab to read my other posts. I have also created a new page for My Weight Loss Journey if you are interested in that, click on the tab above.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Peeking Out!

BOO!
Halloween is getting close,
and here is the last card in my 
Halloween series
Again I was inspired by Vicky at Clips-n-cuts
who made a card similar to this one.
I used paper from my stash,
cut slits into it and tore and distressed them 
to leave the holes.
I drew on the spiders and cut out the bats
after drawing them onto black card stock.
Inside, I stamped the sentiment using 
a 7 Gypsies alpha stamp set that was in my stash.
Sorry I can't find a link to this anywhere.
I used a couple different sizes of google eyes
that I got from one of the craft stores.
I love how this turned out and I think
my Godchild will get a kick out of it too.

Thanks for stopping by,
hope you'll be back soon.
I hope you have enjoyed my
Halloween Card Series.

Until nest time,
enjoy some crafty time!


Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

All Wrapped Up

Hi All!
Today is day 3 of my Halloween cards.
I was inspired by Vicky at Clips-n-Cuts
when she made a similar card.
I used Crushed Olive and Gathered Twigs
Distress Inks to distress some 
green card stock, then tore it into 
strips, then used ATG tape to adhere it
to a black piece of card stock.
I stamped the "BOO" with an alpha set
from 7 Gypsies, I couldn't find a name
on the package and can't find them on their website,
they are a quite old set, so may no longer be available.
I love the gold google eyes that 
I used from my stash.
(I may have picked them up at The Dollar Store)
I used the same alpha set to stamp the 
sentiment inside the card.
I love the distressed look, I think it's perfect for 
a Halloween card.
I used Gathered Twigs Distress Ink
for the stamping.

Thanks for stopping in today,
I hope you are enjoying my 
Halloween cards
Come tomorrow for the last card
in my Halloween series

Until then
Happy Crafting!


Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.


Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Monster face

Hi there, welcome back!
Today is the 2nd day of a series of Halloween cards
that I made.
These 2 are for a couple great nephews.
I started with pieces of green card stock,
(Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint and Gathered Twigs)
to get the color I wanted for the faces.
I simply tore the black card stock to make the 'hair'
I punched circles for the eyes and 
cut strips of scrap black card stock for the mouths.
Then glued them all together to make the face.
Inside I stamped this cute sentiment,
I have no idea what company it's from,
I borrowed it from a friend and forgot to make note
of it.
These cards were easy to make and could even
be made with kids.
I love how they turned out.

Thanks for coming by again today,
there will be another Halloween card tomorrow,
so be sure to pop in.

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.


Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Boo!

Hello blog friends!
I have a few young great nieces and nephews
and this year I decided to send out Halloween cards
to them.
Today I'm showing you the 2 ghost cards I made for a
couple great nieces.
I used a die to cut the "body" of the ghost.
To make the fold at the top, I simply made sure that the
cutting edge of the die was off the fold so it didn't cut.
Since the die cut was a little smaller than a standard size,
I adhered it to a piece of black card stock.
I hand cut the eyes and mouth from scraps.
Here you can see better that I embossed the front 
of the ghost, by running it through the Cuttlebug with
Inside the cards I stamped BOO and drew in
the little spiders.
I think these cards turned out adorable,
I hope the girls I'm sending them to do too.

Thanks for stopping by today,
in the next few days I'll be posting the 
other Halloween cards I made,
so be sure to come back and see 
how they turned out.

Until next time,
Happy Crafting!

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Shaker Cards

Hello friends!
Today I have a couple Christmas cards to show you.
I was inspired to make these when I saw
For both cards I used  Christmas papers
from my scrap stash,
which happens to be quite extensive.
I really shouldn't keep everything, 
but it served me well in this instance.
I decided to make them into shaker cards.
I do wish I had put more bits and pieces
into the shakers, but I haven't done that many shakers
and it sure looked like more than there actually were.
I used some bakers twine to string the 
Christmas Lights together as well as at the tops
of the ornaments in the second card.
For both cards I cut the openings with 

Thanks for stopping in today to see what
I've been up to.
Come again soon,
until then
have some fun crafting!

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.



Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Caring Hearts Card Drive

This is the 7th year that Vera Yates and her crew
have organized the 
This card drive is near and dear to my heart.
This will be the 3rd year that I will be helping to 
distribute cards to 
Brothers of Mercy Nursing Home and Rehab Center
and 
Sacred Heart Adult Care Home
where my Mom lives.
Many people in nursing homes and assisted living
centers don't receive many cards and visitors.
This is one way to bring some cheer into their lives.
When Mom receives her cards, she has been thrilled
to show them to me and tell me where they came from.
They are always a big hit in the dining room where the
residents find them at their places.
They share them and compare them and are so 
excited to receive them
Be sure to follow the link above and see how
you can help with this card drive.
Here are some cards that I've made to send in for the
drive.
(click on the pictures to see them larger)
I stamped this cute snowman
onto white card stock and also a piece of 
Post It paper to use as a mask.
I covered the snowman image with the mask
and used my MISTI stamping tool to 
repeatedly stamp the Holiday Wishes sentiment
onto the card.
I'm sorry I don't know what set that sentiment
is from.
On this card I stamped 
from Biblical Impressions
and used the same process as above to 
from 
CAS-ual Fridays
This one I used 
a border stamp from 
I colored the images on all the cards with

Thanks for stopping in today,
I hope you will join me in donating to
this very special
card drive.
Come again soon,
you never know what you'll find on
Kristie Kreates.


Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
except where specified,
and you may find better prices elsewhere,
I am in no way promoting any particular site.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Simon's Inspiration

Hello, I hope you're having a wonderful day!
I have a friend who has 3 boys, 
she is always posting things on facebook
about them.
One day, I guess she was having a tough time with
something and her 9 yr old son
told her
"There's is no running out of tries.
As long as you are alive
you have forever tries."
I have that quote on my desk in my office,
just as a reminder to not give up if I am frustrated.
I'm sorry for the quality of this picture, I placed this 
in a scrapbook page protector and the glare is impossible.
I used 12x12 water color paper for this project.
I wet the paper with clean water and used watercolors
to drop color onto the paper.
Once it was dry I used a brush to flick
more color onto the project.
I love how this background turned out.
I used my light box and a colored pencil to 
trace the quote onto the painted piece.
This is one of my favorites of my 
inspirational series, I just love how it turned out.
Thanks to Simon for this wonderful quote!

Thanks for popping in today,
hope to see you again soon.
Take Simon's advice and keep trying
at whatever you want to do.

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
and you may find better prices elsewhere.
I am in no way promoting any particular site.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge

Hello everyone!
This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Did you know that 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed
with breast cancer?
That is why the Cas-ual Fridays Challenge
 this week is to use 8 of something on your card.
I'm entering the 2 cards below into the challenge.
This first card was made using the 
"Smile"
I used Versa Mark Ink to stamp Smile
down the panel of the card.
Then I used Pan Pastels and 
made colored stripes over the words.
The words show up beautifully with this 
technique.
There are 8 different colored stripes on this card.
This is the inside of the card, the sentiment
is from the same Sassy Smiles set..
Love that sentiment, it never fails to make me smile.
For my 2nd card, I used the same technique,
but this time I have stamped "Smile" 8 times
The sentiment on the inside of this card is also from
the Sassy Smiles set as is the little heart next to the sentiment.
I love this stamp set and have already used it for a few cards and
only got it about a month or so ago.
CAS-ual Fridays has some great stamps and dies
so why not pop over and take a look,
you might find something you love too.
And while you're at it, stop in to the 
and see what they are all about.
Join along in the fun and maybe you'll win 
a prize, someone has to win, so maybe it could 
be you.

Thanks for stopping by today,
come again soon and see what I'm up to
in my creative world.


Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
and you may find better prices elsewhere.
I am in no way promoting any particular site.
Except when I specify that site, as above with CAS-ual Fridays.

Monday, October 10, 2016

More Inspirational Quote Projects

 Hello all!
My last post was about some inspirational quote projects
that I made for our scrapping/crafting studio.
Today I have a few more to show you.
This is one of the walls at My Happy Place.
The banner at the top says CREATE,
I made that banner quite a while ago and it was 
hanging in a different spot, so we moved that over on
this wall.
The background of this piece was created
 with watercolor crayons.  I colored a few colors onto
my craft mat, added water and 'smooched' the 
watercolor paper into the color to pick it up.
After it was dried I used my light box to 
trace the words and painted them with 
I adhered the project to a piece of matting and strung
the ribbon through holes around the sides and to make
the hanger.
This one was done by stamping the flowers onto
I love the smooth surface of this paper for coloring.
I used VersaFine Onyx Black ink for the stamping,
did the coloring with my Fantasia Colored Pencils.
The words were painted with pearlescent watercolors.
This last piece was the start of my whole
"journey" into making these projects.
It started with this inspiration
from Kristina Werner.
As I said in my last blog post,
It's all about 
Inspiration not Re-creation.
I'm not as talented as she is,
so I used my light box to trace 
the words that I had printed onto a 
piece of computer paper using
pearlescent watercolors.
(Can you tell that I love them?)
The background was made 
with the 'smooching' technique I 
mentioned above using Distress Inks.

Thanks for stopping by today to see what I've
been up to.
I hope you'll come again soon.
I have one more project to show you in this
"series" ..... well, until I get some more done that is.
I hope you are enjoying them and have gotten some 
inspiration from them.
Until next time:
Make Pretty Things!

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
and you may find better prices elsewhere.
I am in no way promoting any particular site.



Saturday, October 8, 2016

Inspirational Quote Projects

Hello my blog friends!
A while ago I showed you this project
and I wasn't sure how I was going to hang it.
Well I figured it out.
What I did was put the 12x12 project into a scrapbook
page protector, I used some scrap matting to cut 
strips for the top of the piece.
I punched holes where the holes were in the 
page protector and adhered the project between
2 strips of matting with ATG tape.
I then used a ribbon to make a hanger.
Here is a close up of the final project.
My daughter and I went over to 
My Happy Place,
the scrapbooking/crafting studio that a 
couple friends and I run, to hang it and some
others that I've made.
Here is Kelsie, bravely standing on the table
to find the correct spot for this piece.
"How's this Mom?"
Perfect placement!
These 3 that I'm showing you today are all
on walls at the end of the tables where we create.
The next wall says Laugh, unfortunately, my camera
dies and I didn't get a picture with the whole wall,
but this is the one I placed there. 
Not sure if you can read that last line, 
it says
"Projects Half Done"
Don't we all have some of those?
I had fun creating the elements on this,
but it was difficult to leave things half done.
That little knitting project was fun.
I took a couple bamboo skewers and made little 
knitting needles and knitted that piece with 
embroidery cotton and rolled up a little ball of it
to glue onto this project.  
The last one is the word Create and I thought this was 
appropriate for that wall.
This hangs right above the end of the table where I always
work.  I do draw a lot of inspiration from different
beautiful things and projects that others have done.
I think it's very important to remember this,
use it as inspiration and don't try to 
re-create it.  I think trying to re-create things exactly
makes for disappointment.
Inspiration is the key,
see something and then put your own twist on it.
For all these projects I stamped or traced onto the
paper and colored with colored pencils.
For the last one, the writing was painted on with

That's it for today.
All in all, Kelsie and I hung 7 projects.
I have a few more in the works and will be posting 
them all in my next few posts.
I like the idea of having some inspirational projects
hanging where we are creating.
I sure hope the ladies at 
My Happy Place
will enjoy them.
I had a wonderful time creating them and plan to 
make plenty more.
I hope you have enjoyed my projects and are 
inspired in some way by them.
Thanks for stopping by today,
hope you'll stop by again soon.
Now go create something and have fun! 

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
and you may find better prices elsewhere.
I am in no way promoting any particular site.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Give Thanks

Hello all!
Today I have a fun technique to show you and 
a couple cards I made using it
I started by covering a piece of card stock with 
double sided tape.
Here you can see where I have removed the top half of 
the release paper and still have 2 pieces covered.
I had chosen 4 different fall colors and cut strips of
card stock in different widths.
Once I removed all the release papers, I started by laying
down one of the strips on an angle.
I then laid down more of the strips.
I decided to follow a pattern with the colors and 
continued applying the strips until the entire piece of 
card stock was covered.
And at this point, my camera died.
So I will have to explain the rest without pictures,
but I think you'll understand what I did when you look at
the finished cards.
Once the card stock was covered, I turned it over and
trimmed the extras off the edges.
I then used a die to cut out the pumpkin with orange
patterned paper and embossed it with a matching 
embossing folder.
I did the same thing with a piece of green paper,
then I cut the stem and leaf off and glued it to the 
pumpkin.
I also used Distress Inks to add a bit of shading and
highlighting to the pumpkin and the leaf.
Then I used the same die to cut the pumpkin out of the 
center of the striped piece.
I used the same technique with the leaf die.
I used foam tape to adhere the striped panel to the card
base.  I then put glue on the back of the pumpkin and leaf
and glued them to the card bases through the die cut opening
on the striped panel.
Here you can see from the side that the leaf is sitting 
down inside the die cut space.
I stamped the
"Give thanks"
onto a coordinating color with
and fussy cut it and adhered it over the
pumpkin and leaf with foam tape.
The give thanks is part of the 
Give thanks stamp (#34109) from Biblical Impressions
The entire sentiment reads
"Give thanks 
to the Lord"
I masked off the part of the sentiment
that I didn't want and stamped the part I needed.
I love how these 2 cards turned out,
I think they will make great Thanksgiving cards.

Thanks for stopping by today,
I hope you will give this technique a try.
You can use any kind of paper to make the stripes,
plain colors or patterned papers, you'll be surprised
how easy it is and how great it turns out.
Come again soon,
until then have some fun trying something new.

Note the links are only to give a reference so you can
see what the products are.
I didn't necessarily purchase from these sites,
and you may find better prices elsewhere.
I am in no way promoting any particular site.