I used an exacto knife to cut along the line for the ear, so I could make the ear more 3-d.
As you can see, for each elephant, one got to keep the tail and heart, the other is minus the tail and heart, but has it’s ear 3-D’d. I hope that makes sense.
On the base elephant, I put some dimensional foam.
The result is that you get a 3-D elephant that even stands on it’s own.
Here are all the elephants ready to go.
Next, to create the card base…I had the idea to make the white portion, mimic the sky by sewing random swirls on the paper.
Instead of cutting all the threads, I gathered them all up and taped them on the backside of the paper. By doing this the threads don’t loosen and become a nuisance.
To space the elephants, I eyeball it, before attaching them all to the paper.
After attaching everything, I added a clear Happy Birthday Sticker, and here is the final product.
This is my last post for RubberMoon as my term is up! I can’t believe the time has gone so fast. I loved working with all the creative ladies on our team and will miss working with Kristen Immensly!
I hope you have enjoyed all the things I’ve shared! Thanks for stopping by!!
What does this have to do with stamps you say? Well this picture, nothing…but it is part of my RubberMoon post and it will all make sense if you head on over to RubberMoon Arts blog and see my post for today!
It’s birthday time of year and I thought I’d combine this post with a little gift I made for a certain birthday boy who celebrates a birthday this week!
This is to match something that he wants for his room, so although he has seen THIS project, he hasn’t seen what it matches.
Here is how I cut out the phrase and moon to make them stand out.
For another banner piece I used this Denise stamp.
Here is the final project. What do you think?
I put it all together with fabric scraps.
Here are some close-ups.
….and the Birthday Boy himself!!
What do you think? This was a ton of fun to make! I love making banners and using stamps on them is such a great way to personalize them and make them more unique!
I have made a couple of fun things for you to see.
Here is one of them…
But, there is a story behind this picture…if you would be my best friend and head on over to the RubberMoon Arts Blog..you can read about this picture!!
This is going to be a quick recap using my FAVORITE little Mushroom Stamps. I have been sick, oh so sick, and need a couple more hours to finish up on my other Rubbermoon project.
But, I wanted to show you just how many things and how many different TYPES if things I have made with just a couple of the RUBBERMOON stamps.
This was last months project, the one I made with things I had inherited from my mom…
Using the same stamp plus some others, I was able to digitally create this shirt for a sweet friend.
Then using my same magic WOW, computer skills that I used on the above T-shirt, I was able to make this plaque. Do you want to know something pretty cool?
She loved all this so much, and my phrase, she’s actully having the phrase tattooed to her back. I tole her that is awesome, because then I can tell people, something I made up has been, “published.”
Then there was this book mark too!
So can you see how versatile stamps are. You do not need a million to create with, just a couple you really like and the sky is the limit!
I will be making another post soon, so come back then to see what I have created, sans mushrooms!!
When our new RubberMoon Arts Team came together and we were choosing posting dates, I knew I HAD to have today for my blog post.
What is special about today. It is my mom’s birthday!!
She would have been 70 today, IF she were still with us.
This picture was taken circa 1961, when she graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, Ca.
My mom was a card maker EXTRAORDINAIRE! She had one hobby and that hobby was rubber stamping.
I was her only child. She adopted me with her 1st husband when I was just a baby. So because I was her only child, when she passed away, I inherited, ALL of her crafting items!!
Some things I gave to friends, some I donated, others I kept, to have her with me always.
Her scissors…(see her name, in her writing?)
Her pens….(see her initials in her writing?)
…and Oh My Gosh…her STAMPS!!! SO MANY STAMPS!!
I also have a lot of these packets that she’d have all done up with all the supplies pre-cut etc. to make a certain card. The sample was tucked neatly with all the pre-cut supplies.
Today, I am taking one of those packets and putting a RubberMoon spin on it.
My goal is to stay as close as I can to her original design and color scheme, but use RubberMoon stamps.
1st step, I took the Checkerboard stamp and stamped the background.
This is how it looked. I didn’t really like it, but I knew how to fix it.
Sew ribbons on it!!
I added two parallel strips and sewed the edges under the card.
Next, I got all the papers I needed for the paper pieced Shroom Bloom and stamped the necessary pieces.
For the pieces I needed to add color to, I used Inktense pencils and a blending pen.
Here are the pieces cut out and colored.
Here is the little mushroom all pieced together!
Now, here is a close up of my Mom’s card I was design “lifting” from.
Remember, her card was already done and does NOT HAVE RUBBERMOON stamps.
Here is my RUBBERMOON “Take” on her original card!!
Truthfully, I’d love for you to read all my blog posts, because usually I am blogging for someone else, but today I am just writing to get some things said.
I really hope you will come back tomorrow for the blog post I have scheduled.
Tomorrow is my RubberMoon post and it is a tribute to my mom who would have been 70 tomorrow.
She was born April 14, 1944.
She passed away in September of 2008. When I think I have my mom, I still have so much grief and I was comparing it to how I feel about my grandma who passed away in 2002.
My grandma’s death doesn’t have the sting and deep ache like my mom’s does and I wondered why? With my grandma, we all had ample time to prepare for her death.
She was on hospice care and died at home, my mom’s home, which is where my grandma lived from the time I was about 14 and on.
I wouldn’t say her death was peaceful, but she was ready and it was a relief to have her be at rest.
Fast Forward 6 years, my mom had been hospitalized and was in the ICU. She wasn’t a healthy person by any means. She was very overweight, diabetic and had complications from both diseases.
She was in the hospital for something to do with her heart and her breathing. They were having a hard time getting her to keep her oxygen levels normal and she was having a lot of trouble breathing.
I had visited her on a Friday night. We lived about an hour away from where she was in the hospital. I had 7 kids, ranging from 15 years to 1-year-old at home. Getting to see my mom wasn’t an easy task.
But I wanted to see her every day. I couldn’t be there on Saturday and Sunday proved to be futile also. I called in and spoke to the nurses but she was always sleeping and promised they’d let her know I couldn’t make it to see her but that I’d called to check on her.
Monday morning I got a call from the hospital letting me know that I needed to get to the hospital immediately, my mom had slipped into a coma and was unresponsive and was on life support.
They told me they could not get a hold of my dad and I needed to contact him as well. Imaging having this stress on you, lining up child care and then being in control enough to make the hour’s drive alone.
I got to the hospital and met my dad there. They were just wheeling her away to have a CT scan done. They brought her back and we waited. She was just a shell in that hospital bed.
The doctor came in with the bad news, she had suffered a brain aneurysm and was not going to come out of the coma. The brain had been to badly damaged to ever recover.
We had 2 options, let her live on life support, or follow her wishes and take her off of life support and allow her to pass on. This wasn’t even a thing to discuss.
There was no way we could keep her in the vegetative state she was in.
Another doctor came in, a sort of 2nd opinion, and did all the tests they do to confirm that a person is “brain-dead.”
Here is where my heartache begins and never ends. He checked her eyes, mouth, nose and different nerves, etc.
He lifted the sheet covering her feet and I caught a glimpse of the state her feet were in. How badly she needed something so simple as a pedicure.
Diabetics tend to have unhealthy feet and hers had gone so long without being cared for, the image will never, ever leave me.
I have big ol’ crocodile tears running down my face, even typing these words.
But, there is a reason I share this. I don’t think anyone can ever hear enough that you have to live today like it could be your last.
You do not know when you say goodbye to someone, when you will see them again.
With my mom, I would do anything to have a better memory than the one I have when I close my eyes and I see her poor little feet.
I’d give anything to bathe those feet, clip those toenails, smooth those calluses and paint those toes a shiny bright pink for her. She so deserved it and couldn’t do it for herself.
So, learn from this…look around you, who do you love? Is there someone you meant to show kindness to?
Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today, because, tomorrow they could be gone.
Thank you for reading, if nothing else, I needed to get this out.
Please take the time to watch this beautiful video that makes me think of my mom, every time I hear it.
I can’t show the finished project that I made with these adorable Lindsay Ostrom stamps…but I can tell you that the stamps are for sale in her ETSY shop:
A couple of weeks ago, at work, my delightful boss and I were perusing the new Stamps, etc available to order for Valentine’s Day. Some companies send a display board along with the Holiday Themed stamps, to show HOW to use the stamps. My boss, Lindsay, and I were very sad what the new stamps and display boards looked like, so what did we do? Well she ordered what she thought would work, including some fun Rubber Moon stamps and I got to make the DISPLAY BOARD!
Here are some of the products I used. I am in LOVE with Authentique Paper’s new SMITTEN line. I used papers from Smitten for all the cards.
Here is what the board looks like.
Here are individual close-ups of all the cards. They are small cards. They measure about 3″ x 3″.
The Polka Cabana 