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Fabulous Resources & I Was Featured!

Posted in Miscellaneous , on March 1, 2009 ,

Tweet! Tweet!

I wanted to share some really neat resources I’ve been lucky enough to be made aware of recently. First of all, I’m twittering!  Yes that’s right, I have become hip and have started leaving little tweets about things going on in life, both crafty and otherwise!  It’s oddly satisfying. If you want to follow me on twitter (or want me to follow you on twitter!) check me out at http://www.twitter.com/pinktoque :) There are SO many crafty people already out there sharing their tweets, and I really like trying to keep up — I see so many neat crafts and cool things that way… it’s very inspiring!

This week I learned about a great online printing service called Viovio.com. Viovio.com was shared with me by one of my blog readers, Sarah, who says, “I’ve really had a great experience with them.  One of the first books I ordered had a wrinkle in it and they replaced it free of charge since it was their mistake.  Also, they print 12×12 pages (loose) for $.75…The cheapest I have found.” Wait, did she say $.75 per full-colour 12″x12″ sheet? That’s insane! So I went over and checked it out, signed up, etc. The latest from Sarah is, “I should be getting my fourth order from viovio this weekend.  I’ve order a 12×12, 10×10, 8.5×8.5 and recently ordered loose 12×12.  LOL  I’ve seen a good variety.  I like the paper used for the 10×10 and bigger best, but the 8.5*8.5 is cheap and makes a good gift book.” Can’t beat prices and customer service like that! Say hello to my new favourite online printing service!

The last site I want to share is ArtFire.com — it’s like Etsy, but free! No listing fees and no fees when you sell things. Of course there is a free user and premium user choice when you sign up, and the premium user naturally gets more options when setting up their online studio (how many pictures you can put up, how many items can be for sale at one time), but… for someone like me that just wants to sell a little here and there when I have it, it’s great and… free. This has inspired me to try and get some things up soon when I have a chance. I’ll let you know when I’m all set up and actually have something available to sell!

Oh and WOW I just have to share… I was honoured to realize that my custom handpainted Mahjong set that I made for Lucas for Valentine’s day (see previous entry) was chosen as one of the Feb 19 featured projects on craftster! This makes me blush! I’m so glad people have enjoyed it :) Check me out on the front page!

And there you have it this weekend! I feel bad that I have a pretty pink Huug the Hug Monster © that is just sitting there waiting to be finished (along with that sweater I’d started working on a month ago) but work has been busy and I feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day on the weekend to get everything done! More crafty stuff coming soon, I promise :) Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!


Celebrate Valentine's Day With Crafts!

Posted in Knit & Crochet, Sewing , on February 14, 2009 ,

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! Lucas and I went out to breakfast at the Pfanntastic Pannekoek Haus, a dutch pancake house here in town that we love, despite the nasty cold I have. We spent the day lounging and I even completed a last minute craft for him. (See below.) … this evening I baked him my “famous” lasagna and we watched the hockey game. Go Flames, go!

So… now that I’ve given my Valentine’s Day present to Lucas, I can reveal all of my crafty goodness here to you!  First on the list is the big one… a completely handpainted, custom Mahjong game/tile set!

A little backstory: a few months back, some friends of ours, Caley and Kali, (the Ckalieys) had us over for dinner and game night. They had recently been taught how to play Mahjong, and they were eager to share it with us. It was somewhat of a learning process for all of us because they were a bit rusty and hadn’t had much practice, and it was fun! They had bought a Mahjong set and taught us to play that night. We enjoyed Mahjong a lot and look forward to playing more with them. Lucas has even been playing Mahjong online lately. That’s when the idea for this present hit me.

It took a lot of searching … I was unable to find blank actual Mahjong-type tiles or anything quite the same. However, I did find that there were people out there selling blank domino tiles with holes drilled into them lengthwise to be used as “beads” for designing jewellery and such. So I bought a large lot set of 350 of these blank wooden domino beads from a seller on eBay.

Once they arrived, I sorted through and picked out 145 tiles. The version of Mahjong we play is a 144 tile set with 1 extra tile to be used as the Prevailing Wind Marker. Then I set to work handpainting all 145 tiles myself, with Wikipedia’s page on Mahjong with little images of the tiles as my guide. I know my characters aren’t perfect, but I am really proud of the turnout. Once the faces of the dominoes were dry, I turned each tile over and then painted the backside of each orange… Lucas’s favourite colour. If this was to be Lucas’ custom handmade Mahjong set, I wanted it to be tailored to his likes.

Anyway, once I was done with the painting part, then I had to spend a few days using spray sealant/clear coat to give each tile a bit of extra durability and shine. The fronts and the backs, of course. Then we found this great paper-mache box at Michaels craft store (Lucas didn’t know what it was for) and I painted it black on the outside and brown on the inside to be used as the storage container for all 145 completed tiles.

I still need to print off the custom instructions I put together based on Wikipedia’s info, but the gift was very well liked, and I can’t wait to use it the next time we play Mahjong.

There are a TON of photos — I took lots along the way as I worked on this. To see them all, check out the photobucket album here… there you’ll be able to see close up photos of the different suit sets and all of the tiles, as well as “in-progress” photos. I posted this one to Craftster and my deviantART account as well.

Today while trying to get some rest and get over this cold, I worked on a little crochet Valentine’s project… a penguin stuffie. I chose to make him as Tux the (Valentine’s) Linux Penguin in honour of Lucas and I both completely making the switch to Ubuntu (Linux) on all of our machines… even mine! Here is a picture of my Tux sitting with my Ubuntu netbook.  It’s hard to tell due to the flash, but Tux is holding a little light pink heart in his left wing there. This gift was well received, and he was a quick and cute project. :)

So that’s it for now! Check back with me later in the week, as I have some Huugs to finish up and share :) It’s Family Day on Monday, so that means a long weekend for us — yay! It’s a good thing, too, as I think I’ll need the extra day to get over what’s ailing me. :( Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! Thanks for stopping by.


Papier-Mache Part 2: Dinosaur Eggs!

Posted in Miscellaneous , on February 5, 2009 ,

The papier-mache dinosaur egg project was a huge success!  Lucas and I spent last weekend papier-mache’ing the little balloons with dinosaurs inside. We let them dry for a day or two and then popped the balloons and removed them completely from the egg, leaving the plastic dino inside.  We secured the hole used to pop the balloons during the second round of papier-mache.  Once the eggs were complete and solid, I laid out a lot of newspaper in our basement and spray painted the eggs an off-white colour. WOW, were the fumes bad! I had both windows open down there for good air ventilation because it was too cold to spray paint outside. That of course meant the basement was freezing, but it was worth it!

The kids got to paint their eggs on Tuesday.  I explained how to carefully handle their precious egg, and that there was a dinosaur inside waiting to hatch!  We talked about what they thought dinosaur eggs looked like and I told them to use their imagination and paint them however they think they would’ve looked since no one knows for sure.  This went over well and the kids had lots of colours to choose from as they painted.  Most eggs turned out to be brown since the kids also enjoy mixing colours together, haha, but it was an amazing project. Tomorrow we are hatching our eggs, and the kids will get to keep the dinosaur that’s inside.  We had so much fun guessing what would be in our eggs, too.  The kids painted pictures of dinosaurs at the easel to show me what they thought (hoped) was inside their egg.  Let me tell you, the Tyrannosaurus Rex is really popular.

So I recently switched operating systems, inspired by the early Valentine’s Day present that Lucas gave me over the weekend… a netbook!  Basically a netbook is just a super tiny laptop.  Weighing in at only 2 pounds, my new netbook is incredibly easy to tote around, and I have the ability to surf the net, check email and do word processing anywhere.  It is running a Linux distribution called Ubuntu instead of Windows, and I love it. Lucas has been running Ubuntu on his laptop for over a year now, and I was excited to make the switch.  I also decided to go with Ubuntu for my desktop computer operating system as well. Bye bye, Windows! ;)

I’m still working on my first crochet sweater (it’s coming along slowly!) and am making more Huugs.  I’m planning on making a mini keychain sized Huug this weekend.  Plus… I am nearly dying of excitement about the Valentine’s Day project I’m working on for Lucas.  This handmade gift is taking me awhile to complete, but the results are going to be worth it for sure.  I can’t wait to share it here after Valentine’s Day!  Happy crafting :)


Papier-Mache (Part 1) and a Crochet Huug©

Posted in Knit & Crochet, Tutorials , on January 25, 2009 ,

This weekend I found a little time to get some crafting done. Mostly because one of my projects I started is also kinda school/work related, so anytime you can combine your hobbies with work it’s a good thing.

My students are going to have dinosaur week the week after next, and I’m prepping ahead of time to have some really cool things available to them.  I decided to start out this papier-mache dinosaur egg project over the weekend because it would need around a week’s worth of time for preparation to ensure they were ready for the kids.

So how do you make dinosaur eggs?  Well, I bought a package of 24 transparent balloons (any balloon colour would work) and two 12-piece packages of tiny little plastic dinosaurs.  Both of these things I found at Dollarama by our house, so it was an even better score!  To make dinosaur eggs, you first put one dino inside each balloon and then blow the balloons up to around “dinosaur egg size” (whatever that is!) and voila! You have a plastic dino inside of a balloon.  Why do I want a dino in a balloon?  Well, the balloon is a vehicle for papier-mache really.  Later this week I’ll get to the messy part 2 and papier-mache over these balloons to create a nice firm egg, leaving a little opening around where the tie off for the balloon is for later.  Once the papier-mache dries I can pop the balloon and discard it from within the egg, then add a little layer or two of papier-mache over the opening to seal up the egg for good. I suppose if you would rather add the dino then, as opposed to earlier you could, as long as you leave a large enough opening to fit the dinosaurs.  I plan to take the hardened eggs into the classroom and distribute them to my students.  After explaining that I found some dino eggs we can speculate what dinosaur eggs looked like and they can have fun painting the eggs however they want :)  The next day when the paint has dried they can “hatch” their eggs and receive the little dino inside as a keepsake of the project.  I’ll post about part 2 later this week :)

Now normally I would prefer the students make the papier-mache and do everything themselves, but our school has a policy about using balloons with the younger kids and I’d rather not risk it. Not to mention kiddos trying to fit dinos into balloons could be a bit of a challenge.  Instead I really like the idea of sparking their imagination when I come in with a bunch of dinosaur eggs I “found” and letting them run wild when they get to paint them.  I also like the element of surprise that comes with them having no idea what dinosaur is inside or what they’ll get when their egg hatches.  All while they are painting their egg they will be able to hear their dinosaur rattling around inside but they won’t know for sure what it looks like or what kind it is until hatching day.  I’m hoping this will be a memorable project for them — and hey, they’ll love being able to take something home with them as a result of the lesson.

As for crochet this weekend, I finished my crochet version of Huug the Hug Monster© — a character I dreamed up one day on the way to work.  I originally created Huug a year ago and knitted the prototype Huug, but this weekend I decided to make Huug in crochet form. I think the newest one turned out pretty well!  He is part of my recent retail plans, as I hope to be able to sell him in a boutique-y shop or two locally. I officially copyrighted the character and his knit/crochet patterns this weekend as well, dating back to last year, for the sole purpose of having that all registered officially on paper and all.  Wish me (and Huug) luck!


Get 25% off My Memories Suite just for reading!

Posted in Scrapbooking , on January 22, 2009 ,

Buy Now at 25% Off! That’s right my friends, I’m now a part of the My Memories Suite affiliate program.  You can save 25% off of the My Memories Suite software by clicking from the pink toque craft blog, just by being a reader! :)

I was very honoured today to be asked to join the affiliate program.  StoryRock and Polaroid are wonderful to work with and are even more wonderful by allowing me to offer a 25% discount on the My Memories Suite software to my readers.  Talk about passing on the savings!

So if you’ve been holding off on purchasing My Memories Suite or have been wanting to get it for a family member or friend, NOW IS THE TIME! :) Not only will you save a bundle, but once you receive the software you’ve got all of my tutorials here to help you out so that you can dive right in from day one… and of course I’m always available to help with your questions via email here on the pink toque craft blog.  You’ve got all the support you need to start making the digital transition.  I promise it won’t hurt ;)

Thanks to all of my readers out there for being you — I do love the comments and emails that I receive from you.  I know it’s been awhile with the holidays and my new teaching job since I’ve made/given away any new freebies, but I think I’ve got an idea or two in mind that I hope to get to soon in celebration.  Plus I’ve been working on a new Huug© and am looking into a retail venture.  Life can be a pretty big adventure, huh?  Wishing you all the best, see you back here soon!

My Memories Suite (Standard Package) SAVE 25% off Regular Pricing ORDER NOW!


My Crafty Husband

Posted in Featured , on January 21, 2009 ,

So I know this is my craft blog and I’m the crafty one of the family, but my loving husband surprised me this past weekend with a craft of his own!

I like to crochet when I’m on the couch watching a movie or a hockey game with my boys — Lucas and our two dogs.  I always seem to end up with skeins that I can’t pull from the center, and so having a bouncing skein of yarn that unravels around the outer edge can be really annoying.  Lucas decided he’d secretly clean out one of the HUGE jars of peanut butter we just finished recently and craft it into something useful for me.  He drilled a hole in the top of the lid and used one of my clasps for making purse snaps to fit into the hole so that the edges were smooth.  Then he printed pictures of him and our two dogs and taped them around the inside of the plastic jar.  Voila!  It was a yarn jar.  I can put my smaller skeins of yarn inside and pull the end through the hole and let the jar just sit there … now the ball of yarn is inside and can bounce around all it likes without bouncing away from me.  What a nifty idea, eh?  It was very sweet of him :)

And when I’m not out in the living room working on a crochet project the jar sits on my computer desk and is a neat little photo display and reminder of how lucky I am. :)


I'm still here!

Posted in Miscellaneous , on January 18, 2009 ,

I’ve gotten a few emails and comments about my absence lately and I’d like to apologize! I promise I haven’t abandoned you ;) Life just gets busy sometimes, as I’m sure a lot of you have experienced before!

As a lot of you know, I finally got a permanent teaching contract — I’m now officially a kindergarten teacher!  The position started after the holiday break and as you can imagine, I have been incredibly busy.  My first two weeks so far has gone really well.  I love the job and my students! I teach both a morning and afternoon kindergarten class at my school so it’s a long day.  I taught 4th grade for four years back in the states so I was prepared for (and have embraced) the work, but because of the age difference it really has been like starting my first year of teaching all over again — lots of evenings spent crafting lesson plans, activities and things for my classroom. But I am so much happier than I was substitute teaching.  So that’s where my crafting and design time has gone lately!

In addition to my new teaching endeavor, I have started a few ambitious projects to keep me even more busy… like I have time! ;) But I’ve jumped in and am working on a retail plan for some of my work — most notably a creature I designed last year and have had copyrighted, Huug the Hug Monster©, along with some other things. I’ve got a portfolio of my work/examples of what I’ve done put together ready for sharing now at https://www.thepinktoque.com. Exciting huh?  I’d love to get some of the boutique-y shops locally interested in my abilities.  And I should mention I’ve started making my first crochet sweater. Egads!  I thought it would never happen, but I’m using Lion Brand’s Side-to-Side Cowl Neck Sweater pattern (free!) and I think I can handle it.  We’ll see!  I’ve just barely put a dent in the project with everything else going on, but I am determined to get it done before winter’s end.

I’ve not had as much digital scrapbooking time lately, however the Ettes and Company has recently partnered with Polaroid’s My Memories Suite software and will be designing work specifically for the program! How awesome is that? Check out all of the details here!  By using their promo code you can get 30% off all software purchases with Polaroid this month.  They have some fabulous products and I can’t wait to see what they make for Polaroid.

So there you have it — I’ll do my best to update as often as possible with new things. I hope to make some new digi scrapping items soon, but we’ll see!  Thanks for reading and checking in :) See you back soon!


Holiday Baking Freebie

Posted in Freebies, Scrapbooking , on December 19, 2008 ,

Holiday Baking Freebie by pinktoque

Today marks the last day before Christmas/winter holiday break for a lot of people, including teachers and students!  Today was the last day of guest teaching for me and I was lucky to have my most favourite of all grade 1 class as my last day.  Now it’s the last day before holidays, but it’s also my last day of guest teaching because I was given a full time kindergarten teaching contract that starts up on January 5th after the break.  YAY!  It’s about time, eh?  It’s a small private school in downtown Calgary and I am really excited.

So for the freebie this week I wanted to present you with a set I made a little while back that I absolutely love.  With holiday baking being a very important part of the holiday season, I thought you would all enjoy a holiday baking set.  This personal use freebie includes a cookie sheet and three different shapes of sugar cookies — bell, star and tree — that come in four different decorated versions — plain, flour powdered, frosted and sprinkled with sugar — to grace your baking scrap pages this season.  That’s 12 different cookies + a bonus gingerbread man I added, too.  There’s even a piece of waxed paper and a freebie paper included of a countertop (our countertop, lol) so you’ll have all you need to create a beautiful baked good layout this Christmas.

Download my Holiday Baking freebie HERE!  Don’t forget to read the personal TOU included.

I hope everyone has a very merry holiday season!  Things will probably slow down around here for awhile as I get adjusted with the new job and such.  Happy New Year and best wishes!


Glass Mosaic Tiles Freebie

Posted in Freebies, Scrapbooking , on December 13, 2008 ,
Glass Mosaic Tiles Freebie

Glass Mosaic Tiles Freebie

As I’m sure most of you are experiencing, December is a very busy time of the year.  I’m having a hard time keeping up around here mostly because I’m working so hard to get my Christmas gifts made (just one project left to go now, woo!) along with doing Christmas cards, the usual holiday baking, etc. etc. etc.  How is it that December seems to sneak up out of nowhere and suddenly it’s Christmas?

I have a little freebie for you today; I wanted to have something birthday-related because tomorrow I turn the big 2-9 (*wince*) but I haven’t had time to devote to creating new digital scrapbooking goodies so I’ve resorted to putting up something I made a month or so ago and have had sitting in my “ready to release” folder.  These glass mosaic tiles are just some extra frills for you to use on your pages: there’s 12 different colours and three different styles of tile… full square, half squares (triangles) and smaller rectangular tiles.  That’s 36 tiles for you to arrange however you’d like to create a neat mosaic design in your scrapbook!

Download my Glass Mosaic Tiles HERE! (and don’t forget to read the personal use TOU included.)

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but we’ve been pummeled lately with snow.  Last week we received a little over a half foot, and then this weekend the temperature dropped to a high of -20 (not including windchill) and we’ve received around a foot of snow with more coming tomorrow supposedly.  It’s so cold!  We managed to dig out the car and go out for sushi at our favourite place close to home this evening for my birthday dinner, but we don’t plan to leave the house tomorrow if we can help it.  It’s kinda nice feeling snowed in, but at the same time I can’t help but think about the drive to work on Monday morning.  Ugh!

I hope to update shortly with a bunch of my finished projects.  I handmade something for everyone in my family this year and on top of that, Lucas and I made special handmade keepsakes for our family and close friends that attended our Las Vegas wedding back in June.  I can’t wait to give them to their recipients!  Once I do you’ll be sure to see what all we made right here on the blog :)  Enjoy the freebie and your weekend :)


Messy Desk QP Freebie

Posted in Freebies, Scrapbooking , on December 5, 2008 ,

Messy Desk QP Freebie

Messy Desk QP Freebie

Yay it’s Freebie Friday!  And look! I managed to remember this week :)

This week’s freebie is a quick page that I call “Messy Desk.”  It’s an ode to my own messy desk right now as I realize Christmas is just around the corner and all of my Christmas gift crafts are not yet finished. I haven’t even begun to think about Christmas cards yet, and if I don’t get mailing soon… my gifts and cards won’t arrive on time.  Ack!  So I’ve been busy and crafty and thought this quick page would be the perfect touch for this week.

Download my “Messy Desk” Quick Page freebie HERE!

Can YOU believe that Christmas is just a few weeks away?  I sure can’t.  Is anyone out there done with everything? Done shopping and Christmas cards finished or nearly finished? If so, I don’t want to hear it!  Haha, just kidding – that’s great, and I wish I had your energy to burn to get through my stuff in time!  Good luck prepping for the holidays and enjoy the freebie :)