Baby cards!

I made a card to go with yesterdays baby gift, but then saw this adorable pattern for a onesie card and just couldn't resist! I found the pattern here on Lauren Meader's blog! She is super talented! How cute is that!?! And I just love that bunny from the SU! set New Little Someone! I only wound up sending one card though and tucked the second one away for another happy event! : )

I am off now to play with some new stamps that I received recently and am anxious to put to ink! I will be back in the morning with some new things to see!

Have a wonderful night!

Stamps: SU! New Little Someone and BoHo Backgrounds
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Old Olive, Whisper White and Almost Amythest
Ink: Orchid Opulence, Old Olive and Rose Red
Extras: Spiral Punch, 1 3/8" Punch, Corner Rounder Punch, Sparkle bling, Pretty in Pink Ribbon, Gold Brads, flower and Marvy Circle Giga punch

It's a Girl!! Paper Bag Baby Book

My sweet upline's daughter is having a baby girl and so I wanted to make her a little something! This is her third child though so I wanted it to be a unique gift! I racked my brain and finally came back to my good old stand by paper bag album! I used white paper bags and pink and cream ribbons to assemble the whole thing! I used one of my Cuttlebug embossing folders for the cover and my 5 petal flower punch form SU!. I added a tag and stamped it with a sentiment from SU!'s New Little Someone. The first spread has a pocket for the baby's hospital id bracelet and a place to record all of the baby's info! The next spread also uses the same stamp set! I used my corner rounder to make the scallopped edges. The next spread uses the Jumbo Wheel Wash day from SU! I added a real little clothes line up in the corner with baby clothes hanging on it! The last spread uses one of my favorite giraffe stamps! It just screams baby! I added extra pull out pages in all of the paper bag pockets for additional photos and notes! I sure hope she likes it! I am really, super short on time right now! I have to get my kiddo's to soccer, but if you have any questions at all please ask and I will get back to you! : ) I also made two cards to go with the gift that I will post tomorrow!

Have a great day!

Gift Card Holder!

This is the final project from our stamping weekend! This is such a cool project! It was very time consuming because there are a lot of details, but oh so cute! It opens like a book but the center 'page' holds a gift card. It took 7 punches to make this card! We added lots of polka dots with a white gel pen! I personally love polka dots though, so this was right up my alley! Thanks for sharing, Connie!! Hope you like it! : )

Stamps: SU! Baroque Motifs, One of a Kind and Sincere Salutations
Card Stock: SU! So Saffron, Very Vanilla and Old Olive
Extras: 1 3/8 Circle Punch, Word Window Punch, Scallop Punch, Large Oval, Small Oval, Tag Punch and Corner Rounder, White Gel Pen

So Summer Card!

This is project #3 from our stamping event this weekend! It looks so Summer-y to me! Makes me want to set up an umbrella and throw down a beach towel and soak up some summer beach-i-ness! This was a simple, but fun card to make! The neat thing about this project is the background of the card. You may not be able to see it from the photo but the background design is made by sponging a piece of plastic canvas and smooshing it against the card stock! It leaves a faint grid like pattern! Really cool! The bottom edges of the card stock are both torn and sponged and the sunshine circle was cut out using a coluzze. I cut out the rays free style using a blade! (Thanks for sharing, Karen!) Fun project!

Stamps: None
Paper: SU! Barely Banana and Soft Sky
Ink: Apricot Appeal, Barely Banana and Brilliant Blue

Fold Out Coaster book!

How cute is this?! This is another fun project we made at our weekend stamping event! It is made from 2 coasters, some designer paper and lots of fun little pieces and adhesive! : ) It folds open on both sides and creates a mirror image! You could use this little book for photo's or recipes or as a tiny scrapbook! I am a sucker for mini books and this one was a blast to make! (Thanks for sharing Jane!) It uses the SU! set Sweet Serendipity and ties together in three places! LOVE that!

Stamps: SU! Sweet Serendipity
Paper: Brilliant Blue and Brilliant Blue DP
Extras: 5 petal punch, button and Very Vanilla Ribbon

Fresh cut fun!

This is project #1 from our weekend stamp event! We used Stampin Ups! new stamp set called Fresh Cut Flowers for this project. I was on the fence about this set until I stamped with it this weekend and guess what...I LOVE IT!!! The main image from this set is soooo cool! It is a collage of several other stamp sets! I normally like clutter free clean lines, but this crazy stuffed with wonderfulness stamp appealed to me right away! It stamped beautifully and had tons of little details in it! We used it to stamp the cards, which are also from Stampin Up! The image on them is pre- punched and the petals pull away to leave a flower! We used different colors and embellishments on the same blank white card creating really different looks! After we stamped the cards we made these adorable boxes to hold them complete with flower adourned belly band! Wonderful project! (Thanks for sharing, Kavi!)

I will show some more of our projects tomorrow! Now I am off to bed. It has been a looong day! Hope that you day is wonderful!

Stamps: Fresh Cut Flowers and One of a Kind
Paper: Lovely Lilac, Tempting Turquoise DP, Fresh Cut Note cards
Ink: Almost Amethyst, Basic Black, Real Red and Tempting Turquoise
Extras: Fresh Cuts Note Cards, Twine, Black, white and red ribbon, Half pearl and flower made from circle scallop punch, One of a kind stamp and jewel brad, chunky glitter and button

Rooms with a view!

So sorry about my lack of postings! We had a surprise visit from the stomach bug last week and things are just now getting back to semi normal!

I wanted to share my room with a view with you guys! I have seen these all over and couldn't wait to make one! I followed a couple of links looking for a tutorial and was only able to find the directions for sale. I was really tempted to invest in them, but thought I would give it a go and try to reinvent the wheel on my own! It took some playing around, but I was able to come up with what looked pretty close to me like the original project! I was so excited! :)

I went to a stamp event this weekend where everyone brought a project to share and this is what I brought! I made these two samples. All of the supplies are Stampin Up! We had a great time and made some really awesome projects. I will share those with you tomorrow!

Have a great night!

Paper: Blush Blossom, Orchid Opulence, Very Vanilla, Sage Shadow and Lovely Lilac DP
Stamps: BoHo Backgrounds
Punches: Scallop, 5 Petal, Flower, Photo Corner and 1 3/8"
Extras: Brads and Rose Red Ribbon

Box in a Bag!

Good Monday morning! Hope that everyone had a great weekend! We had a quiet, but nice weekend! : )

I stumbled on the cutest project while blurfing (blog-surfing!) the other day and immediately wanted to try it! It is soooo simple to put together and is absolutely adorable! You can find the tutorial here. It uses very minimal supplies, goes together in a jiffy and leaves you with a very cute little gift bag! Now I am thinking you could fill it with chocolate (like that is a big surprise!) or any other candy or trinkets for a quick gift! Just add a matching card and you are set! You could adjust the measurements to make it taller for a larger gift.

I used a hodge podge of supplies for mine! You can use any combo of pretty designer paper, ribbons and embellishments! I used my SU! slit punch to make the scalloped edge, but will soon be able to use the new scalloped edge punch they are coming out with in the new cattie! I also used the round tag punch from SU! to make the tags on top of the bag! If you have any questions about these, please ask away! Fun, fun, fun!!

My calendar is mostly free this week, so I am hoping to get some things done in the house! De-junking, de-cluttering and some cleaning and scrubbing! Wish me luck...I am going to need it! : )

Have a wonderful day!

More ATC's!

I finished up the last of my 7 ATC swaps commitment! I had such a good time making these! Sorry about the poor lighting in the pictures. It has been raining all day here and I took advantage of a break in the clouds to get these photographed! Still not enough light, but I wanted to get these posted! : )

The first one is a Planes and Trains Boy theme. I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the trains and thought the background colors blue, green, beige and gray were perfect for this theme. I had another train car, but the card was too short to hold all three pieces! I really like the polka dot background paper!

The second one is a Sugar and Spice Girls theme. I stamped the image of the cute little ballerina right on the polka dotted vellum! She is from Lizzie Anne Designs. I added the flowers in the corner to hide my adhesive under the vellum! I paper pieced her tu-tu to give the card a little bit of a dimensional look.

The third card is a Sweet Treats theme! I looked through EVERY stamp I had and was not happy with anything I had for this category. Everything I had was a birthday cake! The only cupcake I had was the tiny one I used in the background here. ( ***NOTE TO SELF!!! MUST INVEST IN SOME SWEET YUMMY TREAT STAMPS!!) It was not big enough or impressive enough to be the main image so I decided to try to think outside of the box! If I couldn't stamp a yummy, gooey chocolate treat I would stamp something that some people might feel was an equivalent sweet treat!! I went for the bling! LOL I used the gigantic engagement ring from the Fiskars Wedding set! I stamped the cupcake in the background multiple times and then colored it with chalk. Then I stamped the ring and polished the diamond with Stickles! I added some additional sparkle-y bling and then sponged the edges with Temtping Turquise from SU!

I had such a blast making these ATC's! Tried one yet?! You should!!! Here is the link to a template for getting 10 cards from one 8.5 X 11 piece of paper! Have fun!

Hostess Gift!

Hello! Hope that everyone had a very nice 4th! We had a great day! We went to the house of some dear friends and had a cookout and then drove into town to watch the fireworks! The day was wonderful and the fireworks were magical! :)

I wanted to take a little gift to our hostess today to say thank you for having us! There are a lot of us and we usually travel in a pack so I wantd to say an extra special thank you!! This is the second set of these I have made! I used SU! Blue Bayou to make these pants and stamped it with my canvas background to make it look more blue jean like! I paper pierced the suspenders and faux stitched them along with the belt loops! I added paper from Joey Kangaroo as the pant leg cuffs and used the same paper on the card to pull it all together. The monkey on the front of the card is Changito (LOVE THESE!!!) from Stampendous! I think he is so adorable! I also stamped a second monkey holding a giant thank you flower on the inside of the card! Then I stuffed both pant legs full of Dove chocolate! : )

Loooong day today! I am tired and heading to bed! Have a great night everyone! :)

Happy Birthday Tyler!!!

My oldest daughter turns 15 today! I am so proud of her! She is such an amazing kid! Of all four of my children she has always been the most 'trying'! She is strong willed and stubborn and very head strong! She is also very sensitive and bright and kind hearted! She is a really wonderful person and I love her oodles!

I am sorry about another short post, but I have a gigantic to do list tonight! I wanted to share something though so here it is! Tyler asked me about a month ago to make her a spinner card with a fish on it for her bday! She said it in jest, but was very tickled to receive this card! Moral of this story...do not joke with a stamper! : ) The second photo is of my kid! I cannot believe she is 15 already! Isn't she beautiful! Happy birthday, Tyler! Love you lots!!

And another ATC!

This has to be a quick post! I am administering end of the school year tests for my (home schooled!) kids today and they get my total attention! We are on a quickie brain rest break though so I thought I would sneak a quick post!! : )

This ATC is for a Pink and Brown Swap! I love this SU! set! It is called Blooming with Happiness! I sooooooo want a dress just like that! I used the little tiny flower from SU!'s set Priceless to fill in the background! This looked different in my mind, but I like the way it came out! Not sure about the colored streaks on the flower though! I was trying to pull together more of a brown and pink look. What do you think?! : )

Another ATC!!

I am having the best time making these! I sat down today to work on my Christmas in July ATC swap and thought for sure I would breeze right through it! Wrong!! I went through several designs before I found one I was happy with! I knew I wanted to use this cool Santa stamp from Serendipity and the color scheme was pretty logical! Giggles! I tried coloring Santa and then just shading him and then chalking him, but I didn't like any of it! I tried just coloring the hat and tried glittering different parts of the image, but none of it was working! I finally decided to put all of my color in the background and let the stamp stand on its own! I used the grid technique and marked and drew all my lines in green and then added a few red accent dots. I did glitter his glasses for a touch of sparkle. I used a punch and a red bauble to make a holly berry leaf for my one required embellishment. I am happy with this one! Now to make nine more...Big grin! Have a great night everyone! : )

Recipe:
Paper: SU! Real Red, Certainly Celery, Handsome Hunter and Whisper White
Ink: SU! Going Gray, Glorious Green and Real Red markers
Extras: Punch, Stickles and Red bling from Mike's

Help!!! I am HOOKED!!!

In my defense...I was minding my own business! I was just browsing around SplitCoast like I so often do and happened to wander into the ATC (artist trading card) swap forum! (mistake #1!!) I opened a few threads and followed a few links (mistake # 2!!) and before I knew what hit me I had signed up for 2 swaps! LOL Now I am hopelessly hooked!!! Hook, line and sink-her!! I started working on my very first ATC this morning (mistake #3!!) and I have to admit I am in LOVE!! These little guys are the most fun things to make ever!! Now if you have never made one...you have to stop reading and go do it now!!! They are tiny little works of art! They measure 2.5 X 3.5 and can be used on card fronts or as scrapbook embellishments or gift tags or...list just goes on and on!! You can layer on them and stamp on them and add ribbon and embellishments and sparkle! They really are a ton of fun to make! After I finished my first batch of ATC's for my first swap I went and signed up for 5 more! LOL My only complaint with this whole process is that the swap time frames are soooooo long! You usually have about 4 weeks to sign up and another 4-6 weeks to make and mail your cards. I am so impatient and it could very well possibly kill me having to wait so long to receive my ATC swaps back!! Wish me luck! LOL

It is late so I am not going to go into details on these, but I wanted to share them with you! If you have any questions, please just feel free to ask! The butterfly was my first attempt and the giraffe is for swap #2 (zoo theme!). Hope you like them! I will post more as I get them finished! Now I am off to make more ATC's! LOL : )

Have a super night!!

Part 1 of a 2 part post!

Recently I went with some really wonderful girls to a project class in Winston-Salem! It was so much fun! We made this really cool accordion art book and 4 fun cards! The book was made from envelopes which we stamped and assembled! The theme was art and we had a ton of great stamps to choose from! We fan folded a piece of card stock and attached each envelope to it. then we stamped and assembled inserts for each of the envelopes! We added vintage pictures that really pulled the whole thing together! We finished it by making a card stock spine to wrap around the back and make it book like! I was really pleased with the way it came out! : ) I will definetley be making this sort of book again! : )

Part 2 of a 2 part post!

These are the four cards we made in class! I do not have the paper names, but feel like they were all from the same 'family!' Aren't they gorgeous?! I LOVED them! Our instructor said they were just left over from other projects. The first card is a birthday file folder card. We added a flower for some sparkle! Isn't it pretty?! We stamped on vellum and then added glitter glue which magically curled up the petals! The card opens by unwinding the string! (this one was my favorite!) Card number 2 was made from a giant 'U' pattern and sweet friend sentiment. We added lots of fun ribbons to dress it up! Card number three was the most fun to make! It is a side pocket card! It had the most stamping and we colored the images with chalks! They are not my favorite medium, but I am learning to enjoy them more as I work with them more! Card number four was made using the cuttlebug to emboss the background! That is such a fun toy! We also had to glue each of those letters on individually!! It was fun though! I really enjoyed this class! : )

Sister's Summer Swap Card!

I figured it was safe to post this card now! I participated in a swap with my SBS2 Sisters and mailed them all out last week! The theme was Summer and this is what I came up with! I brayered the background with SU! Orchid Opulence, Marigold Morning and Yo Yo Yellow with a rubber brayer to make the sun appear to be setting. I then added a brayered layer of SU! Brilliant Blue for the water. I tore and layered two pieces of Close to Cocoa to make the beach sand and added some sparkle to the water with Stickles. I used a beach stamp from Rubber Necker Co for the focal image. I paper pieced each bathing beauties bathing suit after adding a little color to each. I also popped each girl up off the sand with pop dots and did the same to each hat to make them look 3D! I drew in some birds and added a sentiment with a brad. Making these made me want to stroll on the beach! : ) Hope you like them!

Hanna Pillow Challenge!

I am participating in the Hanna Pillow Challenge this week! Kristi over at Hanna Stamps offers a fun new challenge each week and then matches you up with a partner! I will be sending my creation to Carolina and this is what I made for her using the pillows Kristi picked out as inspiration! I had so much fun making these little britches! I used My Garden Riley stamp from Hanna Stamps and went with the whole garden flower theme! I filled two little bags with chocolate (caramel filled kisses to be exact!!) Yummmmm-o!! and stuffed them into each leg! I sure hope they arrive to Carolina in tact and not as chocolate soup! : ) Hope you like them, Carolina!

Spinning coaster mini book!

I created this mini spinning coaster book with the intention of tracking my weight loss journey! I used some of my favorite colors and stamps to help keep me motivated! I made the covers from coasters and all of the fun add-ons came from my scrap pile! I used my book binder to assemble the whole thing! These spinning cards are so much fun to make and play with!

Stamps: BarBella, RubberNecker Goddess stamp and SU! BoHo Backgrounds
Ink: Pixie Pink and Old Olive
Paper: Misc papers
Extras: Coasters, Sparkle Bling, Stickles, Ribbon scraps, Tag punch, Word Window punch, gold brads, paper flowers

Spinning cowboy card!

This card was sooo much fun to make and even more fun to play with! This was hubby's Father's day card from me. I have a special place in my heart for cowboy's and just love this image from Lizzie Anne Designs. I thought it would be perfect for a spinner card! He flips in circles across the card! Which just begged for an inside sentiment that read "I am head over spurs crazy about you!" Giggles!

Stamps: Lizzie Anne Designs, SU! BoHo Backgrounds
Ink: SU! Ballet Blue and Cranberry Crisp
Paper: SU! Sky Blue, Very Vanilla and Close to Cocoa
Extras: Word Window punch and Stickles

Every man needs a wallet!

I have to say that my hubby is the absolute greatest dad I could ever ask for for my kids! He is patient and kind and loving and caring! He is truly a great dad and I sincerely hope that my kids appreciate how wonderful he is! : )

Thought I would share the crafty stuff we gave him this Father's Day! We usually get him a wallet for Christmas, but didn't buy one this past year! So I thought it would be cute to make him a paper wallet instead! I used Mel's Faux leather technique (linked below in the tool belt post!) to turn card stock into what feels like real leather ** Disclaimer!! No cows were harmed in making this wallet!** : ) . It was very simple and actually looks like a wallet when it is all closed up! Too cute! The pattern came from Jackie Topa. She has a great blog! I filled it with pictures of our kids and each kiddo wrote him a note to go with their photo!

Also pictured is a card my youngest son asked me to make for him to give to his dad! We kept it simple, but the sentiment on the inside was heart felt!

Wallet:
Stamps: Happy Father's Day $ stamp form Mike's
Ink: SU! Brilliant Blue
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Sky Blue & Blush
Extras: Brads and window punch

Card:
Stamps: SU! Seaside Sketches
Ink: SU! Handsome Hunter
Paper: SU! Sahara Sand, generic paper
Extras: Ribbon and paper piercing tools

Father's Day!

Father's Day is just around the corner and I have been searching for some fun projects to make! While blurfing (blog surfing!) one day I found the most adorable project pattern ever! Now I must preface this post by saying that I am in awe of this particular blogger's work! She is absolutely amazing...*Read paper genius* here! She is one of my SBS2 sisters and I visit her blog often for inspiration! This is her pattern and her template. Her name is Mel and she is quite talented! You can find her here! Thanks so much, Mel for sharing! Be sure to check out her blog! : ) You will LOVE it too!!

I did a couple of things different when making my tool belts! I did not add the ink to lighten the color of the Close to Cocoa card stock and I added paper tools instead of those cute mini tools Mel used. (I couldn't find them anywhere!) I added some chocolate to the box and cannot wait to give these to their respective recipients! These were so much fun to make and are just sooo darn cute! they actually feel like real leather! Toooo coool! I made two! One for my step dad and one for my kids adopted grand-dad! Hope they like them! : )

I wet and crumpled the card stock per Mel's instructions. Then I ironed it flat and rubbed it down with my Versamark pad. I cut out the pattern pieces and paper pierced them all and then added the faux stitching with my Basic Black marker. I assembled the whole thing with sticky strip and added the tag! That was that! : )

Also pictured is the card I made to send my step dad! I used my favorite froggy image from RubberNecker and chalks to color it! I added a little Stickles for color on the flower and added some green sparkle bling!

Stamps: none
Paper: SU! Close to Cocoa and Very Vanilla
Extras: Basic Black Marker, paper piercer, gold brads, gold eyelets, crop-o-dile, sticky strip


Have a great day!

A true challenge!!

Ok , so at my monthly demonstrator's meeting our challenge was to come up with a one layer swap card! Piece of cake! (or so I thought!!) This was by far the hardest challenge I have ever participated in! I was 100% stumped! When it came time to sit down and create this card I was stuck! It is really tough to make a card that has no layers!! Every thing I did just felt naked and blah! LOL So I decided to try to think 'outside of the box'! First thing I did was to change the shape of the card! It transformed from a rectangle to a circle via the help of my coluzzle! (LOVE that thing!). Next I used my gold marker pen to outline the edges of the card. I couldn't stand not adding something else to it though so I stamped that cute butterfly and flower from SU!'s Merci on a separate piece and cut them out and attached them with ribbon to the card! They dangle freely and are not layered on the card so my card still fell into the One Layer Card category! : ) Big, cheesy grin! I was pretty happy with the result! I do think it will be a while before I attempt another One Layer though!

Stamps: SU! Always and Merci
Paper: SU! Sahara Sand
Ink: SU! Pink Passion and Old Olive
Extras: Gold pen, Rose Ribbon, Ice Sparkle Brad, Paper piercer and coluzzle

More graduation gifts and a card!

My oldest son's girlfriend graduated High School today! I made her a paper bag album using all the pieces of the invitation she sent to us! Her school colors are red and white, so I used that color scheme through the whole album! Hope she likes it! : )

Stamps: SU! Graduation set
Paper: SU! Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White and Sahara Sand
Ink: SU! Real Red, Basic Black and Very Vanilla
Extras: Gold brads, Red & White ribbons, Sparkle bling, white gel pen and White craft bags

...and the rest!