My 200th Blog Post!

Hello Friends & Followers!  Can you believe it - 200 posts!  From the girl who thought she'd never have a blog no less!  I think a little candy might be warranted... do you?  ;)
     While I am mulling that over, let me show you the two quickie cards I created today (I KNOW!  NOTHING for the entire month of January and now - BOOM! - two in one day!).  Both were for Papertrey Ink's 6th anniversary celebration sketch challenges.  The first was for Sketch 1:

(Shoot!  I just realized the sketch was in portrait and my card is in landscape - sniff sniff... does it still count?)  

I used PTI's 'Sign Language' for the little boxes which were punched with a 1" square and matted with a 1 1/8" square and popped up with dimensionals, and 'Simple Valentine' for the sentiment.  Added a large heart shaped rhinestone and VOILA - clap clap, done!  The second card is based on Sketch 5:

(Oh thank goodness, got the orientation right on this one!  Goodie!) 

The geometric elements are from PTI's 'Dot Spot' and the sentiment is from 'Think Big Favorites #7' (I really need to get some more of these big bold sentiments for my collection, I have a precious few).  Colorful and postage friendly - two good things right?
   Alrightie, back to the issue of celebrating my 200th post.  Since I used PTI this week and they are celebrating their anniversary, why don't I celebrate with a PTI prize?  One person who leaves a comment on this blog post will be randomly chosen to win PTI's Life stamp set (unfortunately, with the increase in postage rates I cannot afford to ship  overseas anymore, so I have to limit the celebration to USA residents & APO/FPO addresses only, I feel very badly about this, but just can't afford the shipping with my tutoring sessions being so few and far between at the moment, I hope you understand and can forgive me).  
     Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope your weekend was wonderful and that you have a terrific week ahead!
~ Crafty Math Chick

At Long Last... I Create Again

(FINALLY right?)  ;)  Hello again Friends & Followers - I thank you all so much for not abandoning me when I was sick, then better for a few moments, then sick again, then almost better, then sick again (seriously, this is getting ridiculous!).  Short version - THANK YOU for haning in there with me!
     Today's creation was for one of Papertrey Ink's 6th Birthday Challenges - It's a Wrap - to create a wrap, tag or gift packaging product inspired by something we saw on the internet.  I have seen tons of people make these adorable multicolored crayons using silicone baking pans (I found mine in Target's 'Dollar Spot' for $2.50), so I got out a pack of Crayola crayons I got at Walmart back during 'back to school time' when they are only 25 cents each (good time to stock up, oh, and you DO want Crayolas specifically for this - I have tried this in the past with Rose art crayons - all the colors ran together making almost a dark blah monochrome crayon - don't need to go through all the work for that), cut off the paper bands, broke the crayons into pieces, filled the impressions and baked them at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.  When they were completely cool I popped them out and packaged one in a clear bag with a tag made using PTI's 'Tiny Treats - Valentine':

(please click on photo for clearer resolution).  I tried to make the heart in the image multicolored like the crayons, using the fine tips of 6 different primary colored markers.  Here is a close of the tag detail:

Can you see all six colors?  Well, I tried!  I also used 5 strands of embroidery floss for the bow as well (I discovered I don't own a bright purple, will have to remedy that sometime).
     Thanks so much for looking!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and that my friends in New England are safe, warm, dry and have power!!
~ Crafty Math Chick