Maya Road and Me

early mornings

So I must confess to being a late night owl. But with 2 babies that is when I can get a lot of stuff done. Deb and I work on products, chat with our production people. I find the middle of the night is when my best ideas come!  It has gotten a wee bit harder with another baby in the fold but we are adjusting.

I hung out with my family a lot this weekend- but how can I resist when I have this:

 

and this:

to look forward to? I also got to spend some time with DH, play a couple of soccer games and work on a set of stamps I am really excited about!

I have also been working on having our first every Maya Road Chat/Crop/Challenge. I prepared a couple of tutorials which I will share during the chat - it includes these cool tags I made:

And I found this resource which is pretty cool if you have school aged kiddos - you can print out handwriting worksheets to whatever words you want your kiddo to write! It is also pretty cool if you want to print some cute lettering for your scrapbooks.

Check out Noah learning to write his name here:

all my boxes are packed and ready to go

so all of our shoe boxes are packed and were dropped off today at a local drop off point. we ended up with 26 boxes in all. after we had packed the first 20, it seemed like our basket was still overflowing with stuff so we kept packing til we were out! it has been a wonderful experience for us to share with noah. noah even helped to label each box. i would tell him whether the box was for a "b" (boy) or a "g" (girl) and he would look through the boy and girl labels to find the "b" or "g".  he also helped me mark the age for each box and then helped me to tape it to the top of each box.

and i wanted to share with you this tag i made of noah's visit with his great grandma last year - a very simple tag using some ink, stamp and rubons.

it is hard to believe that time is passing so quickly!

i was just looking at some photos today and check out the difference 2 years can make. here is a photo of noah and jonathan from 2 years ago. noah is trying to figure out how far he can reach.

here are the boys again from a couple of weeks ago. noah and jonathan LOVE to be with each other now. they play, laugh, scream, yelling, talk, run, jump and fight together. it is so cute. they got to spend some time together a couple of weeks ago and you can tell they miss each other already. i will ask noah if he misses jonathan and he says "of course".

hope everyone is having a great monday!

my advent calendar

also i have been posting some bits and pieces of my advent calendar this week.  i wanted to share with you tonight some hightlights from it.

to start, i was inspired by katie's advent calendar. she has a way with shabby i can't do - LOL - but i can still be inspired by her stuff! here is a link to her calendar.

for mine, i left the cookie sheet the same it was born with - metal. i used papers from luxe, pink paislee and MME.  katie had developed a template to print out for the 25 days, i found that some of my embellishments were too big for the square she had designed but because it was done in word, it was very easy to use the ruler edges to modify the template into rectangles.

i love that you can mix papers from different companies and still have a unified look! pretty much everything else on the advent calendar is maya road except for a couple of stickers i pulled from some other places where i had leftovers.

you will see for some of my "days", i used some leftover journey tins that our embellishments come in. i thought this would be cool so that i could leave a little note about that day and fill it in for that day like you see below. you can also see that i attached some paper leaves to the maya road flowers as accents.

 

now someone had a question about some glitter! for that i do have some suggestions. what i have found that i love glitterwise are the martha stewart glitters and the pink paislee glitters. i didn't do a lot of glittering on this one since i knew that my son would wanting to help out. i did end up glittering this bird:

i used double stick tape along with some pink paislee glitter here for this bird's effect. if you want the glitter to not come off, you can use crystal lacquer, then apply the glitter and then apply crystal lacquer again. i have done that in the past but this time, i opted for a simpler method! there is still a tiny bit of glitter that comes off but it doesn't bother me.

but aslo for this project, i found a better solution if you don't want to wait on the glitter. have you seen glittered foam sheets that are adhesive? i found a pack a couple of weeks ago at a local craft store. the glitter is already glued onto the foam sheet and is the same color as the foam sheet. the foam sheet also has adhesive on the back so all you have to do is cut it in the shape of your chipboard and apply it! i used that for a number of the pieces on this project like #13 and #9:

and well that is about it! oh yeah, i had mentioned the bow - i tied it up top where i put the hanger. check out the post i had here about how to make this.

here are a couple more photos:

and i think that i will store all these pieces in one of our maya road coffee break tins for safe keeping!

i am excited to be able to use this soon!

and i wanted to share this photo of noah during a birthday party today we went to.

noah is getting the hang of ball "dunking" - LOL. yeah the hoop is at his height but he loves throwing the ball.

little notes

so around this time if the year, i often times will need to send out some notes. i try to keep a stash of generic cards around the house. here are a couple i made the other night. these aren't Christmas card per se but just some cards to keep if i ever need to jot a note.  i will often times as i am working on a project use the scraps to make a stack of 4-10 cards and keep them in our stamp/card drawer to use when i need them. each card just needs a little touch to make it special!

speaking of special, make sure you peek into the Maya Road DT blog and the MR creative corner for projects from our DT and customers! you never know when you will see something beautiful that will inspire you!

it's early

it is very early here in texas. tomorrow is friday, i get to play a lot of soccer this weekend that i haven't had a chance to this fall with the amount of traveling i have been doing this year. i am excited. i find i am a much better mom, wife, business person when i get the chance to get some running or exercise in.

but before the weekend arrives, i want to share this with you. wendy (one of our talented DT members) was down here teaching a little while ago and she was talking about ranger alcohol inks and how you could change the color of our jewel flowers with them. so i did this the other day:

i pulled out one of our jewel flowers and also one of our jewel topped pins.  i then pulled out one of my favorite colors of alcohol inks and away i went to create this:

you can add more to get a richer color or add some blending solution to clean it off or lighten it up. how simple is that? crazy huh?

enjoy! and more inspiration tomorrow with another giveaway!

one more mini album creation to share

so you know the journey tins that our embellishments come in? have you ever thought about turning them into mini albums for the holidays? check this one out - i used some of the stickers i printed at moo.com and created this album in abou 45 mins. i started by decorating the cover of the tin with one of the suede flowers and a leaf cut out of felt.

next i cut a  1.75" x 1.75" square (and rounded the corners) to cover the sticker label on the back of the tin.

just think you can personalize this back as you wish! or how about adding a magnetic sheet so you can attach an album to the fridge?

next i cut a 1.75" x 8.75" piece of patterned paper. fold every 1.75" to form an accordion. ink the edges. and round the corners.

next add photos and rubons and stickers to decorate each page (i used photos i made at moo.com from the sticker book - totally cool and easy!)

i used our scroll II rubons (black) and damask rubons (white)

do you know what good embossed chipboard looks like

so i will admit it, i bought myself a cuttlebug a couple weeks back. no, i didn't buy it to cut anything really (though i did pick up 2 cute dies for noah which will be perfect for some cards he will make)- i bought it to emboss. check out our chipboard butterfly run through the cuttlebug. the embossing is deep and beautiful. and you know what, when you mist our chipboard with the maya mist and then you emboss it, check out what amazing things you can do:

seriously, how cool is that butterfly? now some people might thing that grey chipboard is a not aesthetically pleasing but i-love-it. i love that you can mist our chipboard, run it through with an embossing folder and sand the edges and get something that is very cool. the grey edges are a final touch that you can get by sanding it.

so check out this layout i did of noah. i can't believe this photo is already a year old!

did you see that i misted our chipboard butterfly and then then embossed it? after i was done, i sanded it. the result is amazing.

it had been a while since i have done a layout - i needed to do something quick to jump start my creativity again. that is when i turn to layouts for.

i encourage you to experiment with the embossing. make sure you don't force the chipboard with the plates! if it is having a hard time getting through, you need to experiment with the plate ratios to get it right. your chipboard and sheers will never be the same again!

friday creating post

so even though i live in the HOT HOT HOT state of texas, i have always loved hats. big hats, small hats, athletic hats. my big head (and trust me i have one) has always looked better with hats. but some of my favorite are more suited for winter weather. but i don't care, if it gets down to 50F , i am bringing out the hats! i have a couple that have mudflaps that i have had forever but i love them and refuse to give them away.

in fact, i just added a new one to my collection. i found this one at the thrift shop a couple of weeks ago.

it was a lovely knit hat with a warm warm fleece lining and who could pass it up for $4?? but it.needed.something. to spice it up a bit.

so check out this cutie pie that i hand cut out of some felt i had.

he was quiet easy to make - in fact i cut him out while watching an episode of psych (love that show and the obscure references to other shows like wow wow wubbzy!) i then used some fabric glue to put him together and i added some of my favorite maya road flowers for the finishing touch. when deb and i were working on flowers, she loved the suede stitched ones and i couldn't resist the softness of these felt ones (do you know that the beading in the middle of the flowers are individual and not one slapped on piece?)

just think what a cool gift this would be for you or a friend! and in fact, you can easily make this cute hat for under $10! so enjoy creating!

i will take photos of me wearing this sweet hat when it gets cold enough here for hat wearing this winter.

sharing friday

so i decided that when possible on fridays, i will share a project i have done. might be an old old card or something i worked on this week but i hope you enjoy it!

check this out:

if you haven't tried embossing our chipboard or sheers, let me tell you - you are missing out! i will share a tutorial about that really soon (some time in november). anyhow, i decided to try and see what a little alcohol ink (color and metallic) on the chipboard would look like - when i was at paper trails in canada, they had told me that they liked to use the metallic mixative with our chipboard.

even though the alcohol ink (made by ranger) is meant for non porous materials it looks pretty cool on this embossed butterfly - it has almost a watercolor look to it. i added the pearl and currant alcohol ink to the felt pad and dabbed it onto the butterfly!

how cool is that?

i hope you all are having a great Friday; i am off to finish making some posole (made from hominy) complete with my DH's family recipe for red chile with pork for a pot luck dinner at noah's school. the house is filled with the fragrant posole. have a great friday!

tired (and old too!)

i am tired today. it has been a whirlwind of travel for me the last 6 weeks; i usually don't travel this much nor in this many time zones.

in the last 6 weeks, i have done the following:

• been in 4 time zones
• taught 10 classes
• run a half marathon
• played a half a soccer game
• watched my baby boy start school for the first time
• been in 3 different countries on 2 different continents
• seen a lot of airports
• had like 500 emails waiting to be answered
• worked on LOTS of new products with deb (oh wow are you all in for a treat come CHA-W!)

i ended up taking a nap today with noah in the afternoon because i was just so pooped.

i have had a couple of people ask me in the last couple of weeks how old i was. i am flattered - LOL.  if i look young, thank my genes (not jeans), my vitamins i take and the sunscreen i wear. i am approaching my mid-30s and i have a nice patch of grey hair that i refuse to dye.  but i feel young most days and that is what matters most. eating right and excercise help me a lot too!

my travels are not done yet but i am going to be chilling at home for a bit and hanging out with my family for a couple of days.

i did have a fabulous weekend with some of the girls from the MR design team. we went down to the crafty scrapper and carolyn surprised me with some cake and awesome presents for my birthday. she is so sweet. i did some major shopping while i was down there. and i was determined that i would create some albums since i rarely have the time anymore. i set a goal to do an album for each class slot wendy taught (while i was there) and i did finish 3 albums while she taught 3 classes. i will share some photos of all of those soon but here is a peek at the first one - an acrylic album i did.

i love our acrylic albums. we had them made of a nice and thick 2mm acrylic and every single album matches a chipboard one - think how cool it would be to mix and match them! the price on them can't be beat either (this beauty i show here is about $6.75 retail)

this will be showing up with some more photos on the design team blog so check that out soon - i will be sharing some acrylic tips there too!

more soon.