School

A happy Friday friends :)  I thought I would share a couple of layouts with you today.  These were from my marathon scrapping session a few weeks ago when I was trying to get myself caught up.

These layouts are both of Abie the first day of second grade and the first day of third grade.  It's so fun to see how much she changed in the span of a year!

 

Do you have any plans this weekend?  I have a wedding shower on Saturday and it's supposed to rain all day Sunday.  I'm really hoping to be craftily productive this weekend though.  You like my new term?  I just made that up :)

Have a fantastic Friday my friends, thanks for stopping by today and I'll chat with you soon! 

A little tag for your Thursday!

Can you believe it's already Thursday?  It's supposed to be sunny today, all day!  I'm hoping the weather forecast is right because I'm in need of some Vitamin D! 

I wanted to share a little tag today that I made for a gift. 

 

I started out with my base from Bags, Tags, Boxes and More for my Cricut.  I cut two tags at 5" and glued them together because my paper was a tad flimsy.  Then I cut out my leaves and stamped the text on them.  The flowers are from my Storybook Cartridge, I ran them through my Xyron and sprinkled them with lots of Martha Stewart glitter.  I love the way this tag turned out!

Have a great Thursday and thanks for coming by today!

Get Well Card

A happy Wednesday morning to you!  I hope your week is going well.  Things are good here, no complaints anyway :)  Do you make cards as you go or do you have a stash of them on hand?  I have both but I seem to forget about the cards in my stash.  They seem...stale to me.  Haha!  I needed a get well card this week, for a man, and this is what I came up with up:

The orange and green inks are much more vibrant in person!  I really kind of like this color combo, something different.

Hope you have a GREAT Wednesday!  Thanks for the visit today :)

3x3 puffies

Well good morning!  You know I usually love making 3x3 cards.  They're just so dang cute, something about their teeny tininess I just can't resist.  A few weeks ago I ran across the perfect companion for 3x3 cards, KI Puffies!  They are just the cutest little things.  Little teeny tiny puffy felty goodness.  They sell them at Archivers and at Michael's.  I got a chance to work with mine this weekend and whipped up a couple of little bits of goodness.

I used Basic Grey Life of the Party and the colors were just a bit off for the Puffies, but the cards still make me smile.  The thing I really liked about the Puffies were how much adhesive were on the backs of them.  I have a few projects in mind for these, I just need to go pick up some more, so you might be seeing more Puffies around these parts in the future :)

One more thing before I head out, I won a giveaway on CONNIE'S blog last week and she sent me some way cool stuff!  Check it out:

Thanks so much Connie!

I'm hoping to see the sun today.  I need to run by Joann's and pick up a picture frame for teacher appreciation week it would sure be nice to do it in the sun!  Haha!  Have a fab Tuesday!  Thanks for coming by today :)

Sisters Birthday

Hello there, did everyone have a good weekend?  What about a good Easter, if you celebrate that?  We had a busy weekend but I feel like I didn't get anything accomplished.  Do you ever feel like that?  :) 

A couple of weeks ago I got my latest Papertrey Ink order and it had the Button Boutique stamp set in it.  I was so excited to get this set and would you believe I didn't get a chance to play with it until this weekend?  It was the perfect set for a birthday card for my sister who sews.  She is AMAZING when it comes to the sewing machine.  She can make anything, seriously.

Just love that button card!  And the Crate Paper line goes great with the sewing theme!

For the inside I used my new Zing Rouge embossing powder, saw this over on Michelle Wooderson's blog and thought it was the coolest color!  So bright and it really stands out on the kraft card stock.

Hope you have a great Monday and thanks for stopping by today!

New Banner!!!

Good Morning everyone!!!  I'm so super excited today!  Since I started the blog I've just never been happy with my banner.  I tried some of the free ones out there but I'm a ding a ling and couldn't get them centered.  Plus I had a certain idea in my head of what I wanted.  A few weeks ago I began looking around for someone to design what I wanted and I found TWO HAPPY MAMAS!!!!

I emailed them and within days Kristina had created the EXACT banner I had envisioned and had it installed!  She was a dream to work with and my blog looks JUST as I always hoped it would!  If you get a chance, go check out TWO HAPPY MAMAS!

Happy Saturday friends :)

Make it Monday

Good Morning and happy Friday everyone!  We are in for a little sever weather this morning, I'm thinking it will pass us and hoping we just get rain.  I'm grateful for the rain, but will be glad when the warmer and dryer temperatures are here to stay!  My post today is another entry for Papertrey's Make it Monday.  You can see the original video HERE.  A few weeks ago the challenge was to use one of their impression plates to partially emboss a card and since I didn't have one of their impression plates, I used one of my dies to emboss the card HERE.  Oops!  Guess I posted that card a few weeks early huh?  Well, here is my card for this week!

I used my Turning a New Leaf dies to emboss the Spring Moss card stock.  This was also my first time using my Blueberry Sky card stock, it's such a pretty blue, I'll definitely be using it more!  A pretty simple card, but I really liked the way the embossing turned out and wanted it to be the star!

Do you have big plans for this weekend?  The girls are out for Easter break through Tuesday and we're heading over to mom and dad's Sunday for a late lunch.  Today is my sisters birthday :)  I don't think she reads the blog, but just in case I'll wait until next week to post her card!  I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by today!

A spring Card

I'm on a spring kick this week.  Today I have a spring card to share.  This one I made for one of my grandmas.  I plan on giving it to her on Easter over at my parents house. 

I don't know if you can tell or not, but I stamped the background with Papertrey's Background Basics Text in Versamagic Wheat ink.  It looks really cool in person!  Then I just started layering.  Lots of my new goodies on this one and I had lots of fun making it! 

On the home front, we finally had a normal night last night.  I'm a sucker for normalcy, I love my routine and after two nights of things being different around our house I was more than ready to get back to our regular deal.  It was also sunny out so we were able to get outside for a bit.  Abie starts her third and final day of testing today.  She has enjoyed it so far, which I'm thrilled about!  She also likes going to the dentist :)  Lucked out with this one I tell ya! 

I'm hoping to get another spring card made again tonight and my sister's birthday is tomorrow so I need to get on that as well!  Hope you have a great Thursday!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Butterflies!

Happy Wednesday all!  Have you checked out PINTEREST yet?  Holy cow, I warn you, if you haven't, it's addicting.  It's like a virtual bulletin board.  A place for you to "pin" pictures and ideas or just things you think are cool or funny.  You can request an invite from the home page, which is what I did, and after a couple of days, I was able to have full access to the site.  Over the weekend I was perusing the yumminess on Pinterest and came across this card:

It's from http://www.weheartpaper.com/ Isn't it adorable?

Here's my take on it:

I sprinkled the bottom butterfly with Martha Stewart glitter.  It's so sparkly!

Here's the inside of the card.

Last week I won a giveaway at Steph's  Angel Company Blog.  HERE is her card blog.  She is also the founder of CARD CUPIDS!  She's one busy lady yet she found the time to do a giveaway on her new blog.  Here's a pic of my goodies:

How cute are those stamps and I'm super excited about that Perlen Pen!  Thanks so much Steph!!!

Alright friends, I'm out for today.  Have a wonderful Wednesday and thanks for popping in!


 

Spring Bags

I have a quick post for you tonight! I made these cute little spring treat bags for a couple of friends.  They are the small bags from Michael's and measure about 3 1/2 by 6 3/4.  They sell them in just about every color you can think of!

All I did was cover the front side of the bag with paper, trim the top with a border punch and then made a coordinating tag.  (More PTI dies MARY PAT haha)  Really quick and easy but I love how springy they look.  I filled them with more peanut butter eggs,  mmm my favorite!

So you know how we went to the Royals game last night?  Well it was hospitality day at the K and we went to a tailgate party first and had dinner.  Before leaving we through our tickets in the raffle and guess what?  We won a MOUNTAIN BIKE!  Can you believe that?  We were shocked!  The girls were a bit smooshed on the ride home as we had to fold one of seats down, but it's all good.  We all had a great time!

Okay friends, I'm out for today!  Hope you have a fab Tuesday and thanks for popping over for minute :)

Easter Buckets

Morning all!  I have a fun little project to share with you today!  I made these little Easter buckets for my two nephews.  I picked up the buckets for a $1 at Michael's, and had all of the other supplies at home, minus the candy :)

Here's a pic of the two buckets together.

I used my new Double Ended Banner Die from PTI and, after stamping on the banners, folded them in half and adhered them to the bamboo sticks to look like little flags.  I had tucked a bit of floral foam in the bottom of the bucket first so the sticks would have something to go into.

I also made this little tag for the handle of the buckets.  I didn't want anything too fancy, you know they are boys :)

Did you all have a nice weekend?  We bought a new blender Saturday, ours was going on 13 years old and after Mike made fruit smoothies the other night we decided it was DONE!  After talking with my mom, she told me that for maximum ice crushing power it's best to get one with more than 600 Watts.  We found one, on clearance for $29 that was 700 Watts!  We broke it in right Saturday with margaritas and let me tell ya, Mom was right.  That baby blended up that ice like no body's business!  (thanks Mom!)  Sunday we spent doing some spring cleaning and I ran some errands.  We're heading out the Royals game tonight, hoping for good weather!

Hope you have a great Monday! Thanks for stopping by today!

Make it Monday on Friday ;)

What's up ladies?  (and any men reading)  It's Friday and there's nothing wrong with that!  It has taken me all week to figure out what I wanted to do for PTI's Make it Monday challenge.  This week the challenge was to use the negative part of your die cut as a mask.  You can see the original video HERE.

I started off with Papertrey's Stamper's Select White card stock and cut my card base.  Then I cut two pieces just smaller than my base at 4"x5 1/4".  I took one of these pieces and ran it through my Cuttlebug with my Mat Stack 1 die.  I placed it on top of the other 4"x5 1/4" piece and used a dried out baby wipe to blend Hawaiian Shores ink onto the card stock. One thing I noticed about using my ink this way was the difference in color you get with your ink.  The green in the Hawaiian Shores REALLY came out :)  After I got my blending the way I wanted it, I stamped my sentiment and adhere the whole piece to my card base with some foam adhesive.

I love how clean and simple this card turned out.  Complete difference from yesterdays card huh?  :)  Hope you have a fab weekend!  We have nothing big planned, tennis for Abie, maybe a little house cleaning.  What about you?

Thanks for popping in today!

Using my stick pin

Good Thursday morning to you all!  I have a card to share today using one of my stick pins from THIS post.  I had the papers and card base for this card sitting on my desk for a couple of days and the ideas were just swimming around bouncing off my brain.  Then last night they finally formed into this...

I used some of my new goodies from last weeks shopping trip on this including my new Martha Stewart anywhere punch.  I took some crepe paper and folded it accordion style and punched out that lovely little row of butterflies!  I saw Jessica Witty do this awhile back and thought it was WAY cool!  Do you see my little stick pin up there?  I tucked my little birdie in just behind my lacy tag.  I love how fun and springy this card is!

Are you having a good week so far?  I've been productive both at work and home which is such a good feeling.  I am ready for the weekend though, it's going to be a bit cooler this weekend but will still be nice I think.  I hope you have a great Thursday my friends!  Thanks for stopping by today :)

Set of three

Morning all!  Abie has some testing next week.  It's state wide standardized testing and this is her first year for it (third grade).  She's really excited about it but to give her an extra boost, I have made her a set of cards, one for each day.

I used all sorts of goodies on these, including some of my new stamps from last week.  These were a lot of fun to make because they were so small.  I hope Abie enjoys them :)

Hope you have a great Wednesday and thanks for spending a minute of your day with me!

Buttons, buttons and more buttons!

Inspiration can come from the best places sometimes.  I know I've talked about how I get my inspiration from magazines before and have posted about it HERE and HERE.  For today's card I was flipping through Martha Stewart Living and came across an ad of all things and was instantly inspired. 

I used all PTI buttons this time in Enchanted Evening, Spring Rain and Blueberry Sky.  After I had my buttons attached with glue dots, I stamped my sentiment with CTMH White Daisy ink on Enchanted Evening card stock and adhered it to the card with dimensional foam.  It was really hard for me to not round the corners of this card, I've been rounding all my corners lately :)  Do you do that?  Get on certain kicks with certain techniques or tools?

My Papertrey order came last night and we were so busy I didn't have a chance to play with it, just look at it.  Isn't that the WORST?  Ha!  Maybe tonight. 

Have a great Tuesday friends and thanks for coming by today!

A keychain and some embellies!

Goooooood morning!!!!  How are you?  I'm so excited for my post today.  Months ago I saw somewhere in blog land these cute wooden key chains (I can't remember where now) and the person had doodled with Sharpies on the wooden discs.  Well, I'm a horrible doodler so this is what I opted to do...

I picked up some wooden discs, I think at Michaels, and painted this one with lime green acrylic paint.  Then I stamped THIS stamp with Staz On black ink on top of the paint.  Yes I realize it's a bit crooked but it ended up working out better this way because once I had the handy husband Mike drill the hole, he said if it had been centered it may have been too close to the edge and would have split the disc.  He may have just been trying to make me feel better though :)  After that, I just slipped on a key ring!  Voila!  I just love this little sentiment from Paper Source and have really tried to adhere to it lately.  Even if it's just sketching out something or tacking down a few items in my faux Smash book.  It really makes a world of difference in my attitude when I do something creative every day!  I went ahead and had Mike drill the holes in the rest of the discs and thought I could paint those different colors and stamp them with various images for friends and family.  I'll use acrylic stamps though so the off center thing shouldn't be an issue :)

And now for my next trick!  Last week when I went on my little shopping spree, haha, I saw the cutest little stick pins at Archivers.  I think they were from Jillibean.  I first picked them up and then I got to looking at them and realized I could make them my self.  I've told you guys that before, I try to be as thrifty as possible when it comes to my hobby and I knew I had all the stuff to make these pins at home.  Well, fast forward a couple of days to my shopping trip at Michaels and I find these cute little cloths pins in the dollar bins.  I started to pick them up, and again realized I had the stuff to make them at home.  Now in this situation, they were only a $1 but I didn't really like the color, it would have been a waste of a dollar.


 

These took hardly any time at all to make.  The little felt shapes I bought at Michaels several months ago so I just placed a glue dot on the clothes pin and straight pin and then stuck the felt piece on.  As for the butterflies, I punched those out with my Martha Stewart punches and adhered glue dots, then placed glue dots on the clothes pins and straight pins and stuck the butterflies on.  I tried to stick the glue dot on the butterfly first and then put the butterfly on the pin and it didn't work out so well for me, let's just say...crooked.  I've got a couple of projects for you guys later this week using some of these fun little embellishments!

Did you have a nice weekend?  We were outside all day Saturday and a good portion of the day Sunday it was GREAT!  I need to get my head wrapped around the fact that Easter is coming up quick and I haven't done a thing for it!  I hope you have a great Monday and I'll chat with you all later!

Coral and Gray (or Grey)

What's up bloggy craft friends?  It's FRIDAY!!!!  Ya hoo!  I can't tell you how good it feels to be back to making cards again.  I felt such pressure when I was making those scrapbook layouts.  Isn't that just awful?  It really made me realize I need to revamp the way I scrapbook.  Regular old 12x12 layouts just aren't doing it for me anymore.  I think some sort of divided page protector type layouts are going to be the deal for me and you know what, I'm okay with that :)  I'm grateful for going through that process though because now I know!

For my card today, I had the color scheme in my head for a couple of weeks but I wasn't sure I how I wanted to execute it.  Until last night, when I was on the elliptical.  Because if your best craft ideas don't come to you as you're drifting off to sleep, they come to you as you're working out right?  So, as soon as I was done I walked right over to my table and made this card.

I think this would have looked better with a dark gray card stock, but this was what I had on hand.  I still like the way it turned out though, especially with the touch of Hawaiian Shores too.  Just can't get enough of those buttons!

Do you have big plans for the weekend?  Mike and are going to the Harley dealer tomorrow for Demo Days and I think we're in for some decent weather so I'm sure we'll be outside again :)  I bought some ribs for Mike to smoke on Sunday, YUM! 

Have an awesome Friday and a fabulous weekend!  Thank you so, so, so much for all the comments you leave here.  You all are truly the best, I love the blogging community, don't you? 

Make it Monday

Hello there!  I have a quick card to share with you today.  This one is for the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge.  The challenge this week was to use heat embossing on your card, which I love to do.  I made one card and used black embossing powder and the polka dots just looked, well...bad. So I pitched that one in the trash and made this one instead!

I embossed the polka dots with clear embossing powder and I used black embossing powder for the bingo card.  I wasn't sure about the Simply Chartreuse, but it's kind of growing on me.  Oh, and I'm loving the Hawaiian Shores buttons.  It was hard to pick just one!

Paper:  PTI Pure Poppy, Hawaiian Shores, Simply Chartreuse
Ink:  Versamark, Momento Tuxedo Black
Stamps:  PTI Polka Dot Basics II, Tag Its I, It's Official 
Other:  PTI Rustic Twine, Pure Poppy and Hawaiian Shores Buttons, Fiskars Apron Lace Punch 

Alright folks, I'm outta here!  Have a rockin' good time today and thanks for stopping by!

A layout and a bit of shopping!

Good morning friends!  How are you today?  I hope the spring weather is finally hitting your area like it is ours.  On my way home yesterday afternoon it was 72 degrees (22c I know because I hit the button in my car to check for Tracy!)  Although it's a bit windy, it's just beautiful.  Blue skies, green grass and blooming trees.  It instantly puts you in a good mood.  I am reminded constantly of why I love my life.  Mike and I have had this conversation a lot in just the last week and we feel so lucky to be where we are to have made the choices we have.  Sure we have bad days now and then but everything we do is to spend time with each other and our girls.  This is a great life we live and we are lucky enough to realize you only get one.  We're trying to make the most of it!

Okay, enough blabbering on.  Yesterday I was able to make a trip to Archivers.  Yipee!  It felt so good to look around.  I haven't even been in a store for several weeks, since I issued my challenge to myself.  I went in with a 30% off coupon and two things on my list:  a Hero Arts flower stamp and 6x6 paper pads.  Here's what I ended up with:

KI Puffies, Daily Junque Twine, Basic Grey 6x6 Life of the Party paper pad, My Mind's Eye Gertie "Girly" Stamps, Hero Arts Stencil Flower Cling stamp, Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe 6x6 paper pad and Emma's Shoppe phrase stickers.

A couple of things.  I think it was a BAD idea to not shop for this long because I wanted to buy everything.  Or maybe it's because all the new stuff from CHA is out?  I try to be thrifty with my purchases and buy things that I can get a lot of mileage out of.  If I see something I think I can make, I don't buy it.  Like felt embellies, I can make a lot of those but these puffies I'm not so sure about.  Also, I saw some super cute butterfly stick pins, holy cow almost bought those, but then I thought wait, you can make those with your MS punch.  So I resisted. 

I finally put in another PTI order, hopefully will get a shipping notice tomorrow and I plan on going by Michael's today!  (in all fairness to me, they sent me an email saying they missed me.  I take that as a sign)

I have a very simple layout today.  I bought this paper just because I liked it, had no specific layout in mind.  This is something I have since learned NOT to do.  I have to purchase my paper with a layout in mind otherwise the paper sits and sits and sits.  For a year, like this piece did.  :)

Well, that's about it for me today.  I hope you enjoy your Wednesday.  I have a dentist appointment this morning and then am looking forward to my Michael's trip later on!  Thanks for stopping to visit with me!

I DID IT!!!

I finished!  As you know I finished up my Abie's layouts over the weekend and then last night I finished up our vacation album!  I feel so good!!!!  What's funny about this is I got an email from PTI yesterday that the die I've been wanting is back in stock and last night in the mail I had Archiver's coupons.  Now if that's not the universe coming together then I don't know what else is!

I have a quick layout to share today.  Yes, it's Halloween, but you've got to work with what you have right?

Well, I'll be posting layouts the rest of this week and then next week I've got some cards planned and a different crafty project.  That is if I can get my sweet, wonderful, BESTEST husband to help me out.  :)  (he might be reading this so I need to butter him up!)

I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!  Thanks for stopping by today!