BIG Sale!!

November 1 & 2, 2013

9am-5pm

54 Kent Drive 

Victor, NY

It is time. I am purging 3/4 of my stamping supplies. Literally hundreds, probably thousands, of stamps and stuff that will be sold. 

Stamps: Stampin' Up, Cornish Heritage Farms, Stampavie, Magnolia, Verve, Taylored Expressions, Papertrey Ink, Our Craft Lounge, Stampin' Bella, My Favorite Things, Whipper Snapper, Unity, Hero Arts and many more.

Cardstock and pattern paper galore

Big Shot dies, Embossing folders, Spellbinder dies, Punches, wheels

Alcohol markers, ink pads, markers, chalks, Alcohol inks, ect

Embellishments, buttons, ribbon, hardware and more

Zutter Bind-it-All machine, Rubi-Coil binding machine, Xyron machines (2 sizes), iTop Brad maker kit, 

Tons of craft supplies like envelopes, clear boxes, adhesives, Tombo tape refills, notebooks, plain clipboards, cello bags of all kinds, containers, coasters...oh my!!

I think I could open a small store. Here are some pictures...

Contact me if you need more information!

2013 CD Calendars & an Update

Hello friends! I wish I could say I was here to clear the dust from the 'ol blog but not at the moment. My family has been in the midst of many changes and there really has been no time for creating. In fact, my studio is all in boxes at the moment...every Copic marker, every piece of card stock, every stamp and every ink pad. The Harp family is on an adventure. Hubby resigned his position at church to focus the next year on finishing up his doctorate degree. The house is up for sale and we are all relocating back to the Rochester area. The boys have already begun school in a new place. Although much of the last few months has been filled with uncertainty as we took a giant leap of faith, God is good! We are being cared for in amazing ways and are daily reminded that we do not escape God's eyes. Our focus has been on family and getting re-established. I am not sure how long it will be before the contents of those boxes see the light of day again. It will happen when it happens!

Many of you have used my CD calendar files in the past few years and I have had several requests for the 2013 files.  I am attaching them here for you to download. Enjoy!

2013 CD calendar cover

2013 CD calendar January-April

2013 CD calendar May-August

2013 CD calendar September-December

The previews of the files appear to be missing some of the text but when you download the PDF's it is all intact! You can email me if you have trouble.

If you want to read about my previous calendar posts and get ideas, check out this link.

Happy creating!

Sunny Thoughts

Another weekend is drawing to a close. How two days can go by so fast, I just don't know! Two days of work never go by that fast, lol. Here in Upstate NY we are enjoying some fabulous weather! Warmth that is not normal this early in the year. I have driven several days with the sunroof on my Vibe open. The smell of spring and the chirping of birds & critters are so welcome. Today we stopped into a Tractor Supply store and we talked about whether this is the year we finally plant a garden. The thought is nice but the reality of time to tend one is sketchy.

So, for now I will stick to a paper garden. Here is a card I made using a new Stampavie image called "Gardening Fun" by Penny Johnson.

I made a tag that tucks in behind the image. The image is colored with the usual...Copics followed by shading with Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol. I used a fence die and a grass border punch. 

I hope you have enjoyed your weekend!

See you soon...

Spring Fest 5

Nothing creative to post today but I did want to share about the 

5th Annual Spring Fest 

April 28th, 2012

Buffalo, NY

A day of stamping, laughing, eating, prizes, chatting and being inspired

Holly McMillan (Toy) and I started this event 5 years ago, We thought we might get 15 people to come to this day of stamping and ended up with 50! Holly moved away after the first year so I roped several of my friends and family into helping. Here is a picture of our group in 2011...

The registration for 2012 is now open and spots are going fast. If you would like to read more about our "little" event, here is the thread on Splitcoast.

Dreaming of....

Paris! Or anywhere that involves getting away! I posted this project on the Stampavie blog last week and totally got distracted and missed sharing it here. 

This is another CHA project I created for Stampavie. It was out of the box for me and totally fun. I am kinda, well actually there is no "kinda" about it, exact about things. I like my corners square, lines straight, things in order. Collage is not my strong suit but every now and then you have to go a bit crazy, right? 

I had a large wooden star in my stash, ideas for what to do with it have eluded me for years. I couldn't get past the idea of it being for a baby themed project somehow. Once I covered it with cardboard it became a fresh canvas. The image is a new one from the Sarah Kay collection called "Susie Ponders". 

Things I {{heart}} about this...

The window die by Memory Box, I added acetate that reflects like glass

the wooden laser cut Eiffel Tower that I sponged in ink to match

the map design paper I used for the rosette

Thanks for visiting!!

Happy Day

Hello! January is usually a looooong, cold, snowy month and despite it being my birthday month, I am usually happy to wave it good-bye and jump one month closer to spring. This year though, winter has been incredibly mild, yesterday it got up to 53 degrees! Crazy I tell you! My boys are moaning and groaning about the lack of snow and ice for hockey. My heart bleeds, it really does. NOT!

I have a bit of spring fever and instead of stamping, I have been cleaning and organizing the house. When the bug hits you gotta run with it, it may not hit again for a long while. CHA is under way so I do have another sample of a new Stampavie image to share. Let me introduce you to..."Happy Day" by Penny Johnson.

I know. Totally adorable image, right? Birthday cards are always in demand and this image is a super fun one to color. I used primarily Copic markers followed by a bit of Prismacolor pencil work. There is also a hint of glitter pen on the flames of the candles. I made the cupcake card all my myself ;). The base was cut from corrugated card board, I bought a sheet of it at my LSS. It started  out as a square and I trimmed it so the bottom edge is 1/2" in from both sides. The top was hand cut, no pattern needed. A "cherry" button tops the cake. The sentiment is also from a new Stampavie set called, "Sweet Wishes". 

Thanks for stopping by, have a {{sweet}} day!

Winter Warmth

The Stampavie DT is showing sneak peeks of new images being released at CHA at the end of the month. I have never been to CHA but it is fun to think that small pieces of me are on display with the samples I prepared. 

It is hard to pick a favorite collection but I know Sarah Kay ranks at the top of many people's list. The first sample I made was using this new image called "Winter Warmth". 

The patterned paper reminded me a bit of a calico fabric pattern which seemed to fit this image. I paper pieced the hat using both sides of the paper and adhered it to the image with dimensionals. Coloring was done with Copics and pencils. She is so adorable and I love the colors palette of brown and light aqua. My LSS had these wooden cut outs and I adhered one of the leaf designs just as I found it, in its natural state. Stampavie will  releasing more sentiment sets at CHA and the "believe" is from  the set called "Dream". 

This is day 3 of sneaks and for the next several weeks the Stampavie Blog will be full of all the newest images. 

Ohhhh how I love this time of year with so many new goodies to get excited over!

Thanks for visiting.

Know a Sports Fan???

Better yet, know a sports fan who rants and raves at bad calls or poor play? If so, I have a fun gag type gift you can make for them. I saw this cute idea before Christmas and made a couple as gifts. The idea is that the sponge "brick" can be thrown out of anger/frustration without doing much harm but perhaps provide a bit of satisfaction. I was a bit short on time so I did not stamp on the label as I had originally intended but I still thought the idea was worth sharing.

I purchased 2 large, brick sized, sponges at Home Depot. They were originally bright orange so I mixed some brown and red acrylic paint into a container with water and soaked the sponges to "dye" them. Next I squeezed out the paint colored water and allowed the sponges to dry. Once they were mostly dry, a day later, I put them into the dryer to completely dry and harden. The tossing in the dryer also rounded the edges a bit. I made a wrap out of black card stock and printed up labels on the computer. 

When I gave them as gifts I packed them up as a "game time survival kit" with some game time snacks...nuts, chips, beef jerky, and more. With the Super Bowl around the corner, perhaps you know of a fan who might appreciate such a gift!

Another thing that is around the corner is CHA! Beginning on Monday, the DT for Stampavie will be sharing new samples of upcoming stamps that are being released at CHA. Be sure to check out the Stampavie Blog everyday starting on Monday. I haven't seen what the girls have whipped up so I too will be checking in every day. I can't wait!

Birthday Wishes

Happy New Year! How are you? I hope you find your year off to a good start. I am still a bit in awe that we are already in 2012. Where does time go? "Optimist" is not exactly synonymous with Tracy Harp but I do hope and pray that 2012 is brighter than 2011! I prefer even numbers so we there is one thing the new year has going for it, lol. 

I have not posted since before Christmas but it does not mean I haven't been a busy stamper. I have been madly working on some Stampavie projects for CHA at the end of the month. 

Now that the holiday projects are behind me, it was time to get started on some cards for my stash basket. I started with a birthday card I need for next week. I used a cute cupcake design by Tina Wenke.

The fun, cheery papers are from October Afternoon's Sidewalks paper pack. I am really enjoying combining my Copic markers with Prismacolor pencils lately. The key is to do all marker coloring first and then add accents and shading with the pencils. If you go over the pencil with the markers, you will clog your marker tips with the waxy pencil. I added black glaze pen to the eyes and the ladybugs back. The sentiment is from an old SU set. That is it, except for a bit of stitching. It was a game to see if I could make it around the whole card before the bobbin ran out of thread. I made it just barely, lol. 

That is all for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Mistletoe Mice

Just a quick post today to share a Stampavie project with you. I used a couple of items from Tina Wenke's line, the "Mice Under the Mistletoe" image and the "Joy to the World" sentiment set. 

I was really drawn the the traditional colors in a paper pack by Authentique called Wonder. All coloring done with Copic markers.(E42, E43, E44, E81, YG91, YG93, YG95, G94, G99, R20, R29, R37, R39, R59, YR30) I used a black glaze pen for accents on the buttons and eyes and small red rhinestones on the berries of the mistletoe. Peeking out from behind the image is a row of trees done with a EK Success border punch. 

Not sure I will have time to post again before the holidays so I will wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year now!! 

I appreciate that you took the time to stop by.

Santa Favor Box

Good morning friends!! I hope your holiday preparations are going well. I spent my evening last night wrapping all our gifts and on Saturday I managed to get a good load of baking done. Best of all, I have totally managed to avoid the shopping malls this month!

I have a fun little stocking stuffer kind of project to share today. I saw a variation at a craft show last month and after some measuring and tweaking, this is the result...a Santa Nugget Box



I have done popcorn sleeves in the past in a similar look. This time I used a Spellbinders die and some gold card stock for the belt buckle, otherwise the strip of white is simply hand torn. Here is a look at the inside...



It fits 6 Hershey Nugget chocolates. I wrapped them in 2 different patterns from October Afternoon and added foam letters to spell out HO, HO, HO. The foam letters would not be practical if you were making a bunch of these but you could stamp letters onto card stock circles instead. Or leave it plain.

That is it for me, I am off to work. Have a great day, thanks for stopping by,

Frosted Frosty Pin

This time of year there are lots of arts and crafts shows to browse. I recently attended a great show and found lots of great items to inspire me. There was jewelry made of sea glass, wine accessories made of cork, wonderfully knit items and so much more. The talents of some folks just amazes me! And inspires me!

I have a box full of glass slides and copper foil that I have used to create pins with over the years. I was inspired to drag out that box and create something new. This time I used a Stampavie image called "Snowy Cuddles" by Penny Johnson.

The top piece of glass is a frosted piece measuring 2" square, made by Inkssentials (a Ranger product). The image was embossed onto the frosted side using clear embossing powder. This technique originated with Ellen Hutson many moons ago. The frosted glass adds a very fun dimension to the finished piece. Of course, you can always use clear glass as well.

The image was stamped and colored with Copics before sandwiching it between the 2 pieces of glass. I added a piece of pattern paper to the back to hide the bleeding markers. The pin back was glued on with SU's Crystal Effects.

They also make nice magnets!

Now that it is all done and assembled I wish I had given them rosey cheeks! Oh well, guess I will have to make another ;).

White Elephant

Today we are having a gift exchange at work. The kind where you bring something wrapped, you draw numbers and when it is your turn you choose a gift or perhaps steal one from someone else. Our spend limit is $10.00. If I wanted to make sure my gift was a hot ticket I would wrap up a bottle of wine or $10.00 in lottery tickets. Instead I made some items to go along with some fancy hand soaps and lotions.

You know you are a crafter when.... your gift begins with the wrapping, lol! I loved this idea from Tosha. Being fresh out of kraft bags, I used a white one I had. It was too WHITE to leave be, so I covered the front with some fabulous new October Afternoon papers. I apologize for the sorry photos! The top of the lid has the same paper that I used on the tag. I stitched. I added punched borders. I added sparkle. I spent way too much time on the wrapping. But it was fun.

The gingerbread man is a Sizzix die. I adhered the paper to a medium weight coaster before cutting it out. I "sugared" the whole tag with some glass glitter.

I included a matching magnetic list pad and a set of Hershey nuggets wrapped in a tin.

Making little gifts is so much fun!! Hopefully they will also be enjoyed by whoever gets them!

Christmas Card Sample

'Tis the season for shopping, cards, baking and more. Not so sure the cards will be part of my preparations this year. There are just not enough hours in the day. But here is another one of the cards we did at the Stamp a Stack a few weeks ago. At least I can say I helped make some cards, lol.

The stamp set is SU's "Come to Bethlehem", inked in Soft Suede and stamped onto vanilla card stock. The sentiment is stamped in Cherry Cobbler and the star has a little clear rhinestone in the center. The Cherry Cobbler layer was embossed with a folder from Sizzix, it has a frame of poinsettias and vines. We added some dots of gold leaf pen to the centers of the flowers. The stamped panel is up on dimensionals but otherwise no bulky embellishments to put the postage over a normal stamp.

I tried to post this before work this morning, trying to cram more things in than time will allow and ended up spilling my drink all over the keyboard. Sheesh!!! Luckily the keyboard seemed to dry out while I was at work. Deep breath, lol.

Crafty Hair Accessories

We have 2 sons and I love them dearly. My husband, the gem that he is, has taught them to ooh and ahh over my creations and to even seem to appear interested. But they are teenage boys after all. My crafting does little for them and there is little I can make for them personally. Now my baking talents are a whole other ball of ribbon, lol.

I do however have 2 young nieces and for Christmas this year I am having a ball putting together little bags of do-dads for them. I do a LOT of couponing so have scored free lip glosses, eye shadows, nail polish, hair brushes, etc. I made some cute hair accessories for each of them using some of the items in my craft room.

One of the girls loves pink and the other purple. The pink flowers are from Stampin' Up and the purple ones are from Prima. I simply glued them onto some hair pins I picked up from Hobby Lobby. The tags were simply stamped in coordinating colors onto shipping tags.

So simple but fun! I hope they like them.

Thanks for visiting!

40...Something

In my office we hold a monthly food day to celebrate those with a birthday that month. One of our staff is turning 40 so as a little gag, we brought little bags of 40 "something". We had bags of 40 almonds, 40 pieces of yarn, 40 leaves and various other items. It wasn't intended to be anything fancy or costly, just imaginative.

This staffer happens to be on Weight Watchers and she has given me charge over her bag of dark chocolate Dove candy. I dole out 1 piece a day. Yep, call me the Dove Nazi, lol. The best part is I can help myself when ever I want. For a biggie birthday like 40 it seemed only appropriate to gift her 40 Dove chocolates!

They didn't fit nicely in a Ziploc so I packed them in a medium sized kraft lunch sack. The crafter in me couldn't leave it at that. I gussied up a clothes pin and added a tag. I took the negative created by the flower die and used it as a stencil on the tag. The sentiment was a no brainer, lol.

Easy Peasy lemon squeezie!

Curiously, she has not brought back the bag to be rationed ;) I guess I'll let it go this time.

Stable Box

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is now just a week away. That means Christmas is around the corner. Each year it seems to fly at me at a faster rate! Much of my shopping has been done and this year I am also going to try to do the wrapping a bit ahead. I am usually the one wrapping, decorating, baking and cleaning all in one last mad dash the day before.

Here is a small bag I made that will nicely hold a gift card and some small candies.

The image is called "Away in the Manger", from Stampavie's Tina Wenke collection. I colored it mostly with Letraset Promarkers. The acetate "bag" is half of a A2 card size box with wide ribbon attached for handles. I thought I had some kraft colored filling (note to self: buy Christmas wrapping supplies!). Next best thing...the scrap pile! I cut and crimped several slivers of so saffron card stock. At first I thought it looked like straw which matched the scene in the stamp. Now I think it looks like crinkle cut french fries, lol! I must be hungry.

Simple & fun!

Snow Much Fun

Last week I held a Christmas card stamp a stack with friends. Finding time to create has been difficult at best, so prepping for a class was a challenge. But I miss that time of teaching and hanging out with friends so much that I made it a priority.

Here is one of the cards we made using SU's new set called "Snow Much Fun". I {{heart}} the snowmen in this set!

I don't usually plan images that require coloring for a class like this but snowmen are on the minimal side. They even used my Copics {{gasp}}! We used the new color Pool Party...my favorite of the new colors. The top of the panel was embossed leaving the bottom blank so we could stamp the cute little birdie on the snowball. We made 4 each of 3 designs, embellishments were kept to a minimum. I didn't even use ribbon this time, that was probably a first. I like the design like it is, it won't require any additional postage. But it would also be simple enough to add some ribbon or do-dads if the design is too plain for your liking.

I will be back tomorrow with a Stampavie project, hope to see you then.