Freshly Made Sketches #8

Happy Halloween and happy Monday to you :)  I'm playing along with Freshly Made Sketches today!  I loved the sketch...again :) this week and whipped out a card with some of my "new" 6x6 paper.  Remember I told you I fell in love with my old papers again?  Well I used some of them to make this card for today.

The center piece I stamped with Papertrey ink stamps and ink.  I added a little button and twine to add something to the card because it was looking kind of blah to me :)  No sentiment for me on this one, I think I'll treat this as a note card and just write on the inside.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.  Mine flew by WAY too fast!  We'll be busy tonight with all the Halloween activities.  I'll be grateful for tomorrow night when we can relax.  Ha!  I hope you have a lovely day and creepy night.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow.

I did it.

I can't believe I did it.  I took the leap. I cut all my patterned papers down to 6x6!!!!  Are you as shocked as I am?  A few months ago I read THIS article and was completely inspired and scared at the same time.  I've been wanting to cut my papers down and reorganize them ever since but just hadn't got around to it.  1)  I couldn't find the crate I wanted (big excuse, I know) 2)  I'm somewhat of a procrastinator 3)  I was scared, once the paper is cut, it's CUT!  There is no going back here people.

I finally found my crate at a dollar store.  It wasn't the exact color I wanted.  I would have preferred the pink ones I saw at Walmart in August, but I figure that's what I get for procrastinating, right? 

I started cutting up my paper the other night.  Now I didn't cut my full sheets, just my scraps.  Let me tell you, it felt AMAZING!  I was slightly tempted to hang on to the larger chunks of paper, but I didn't.  I threw them away! 

After all my paper was cut, I made dividers out of manila file folders cut to 6x7.  I used my Papertrey Ink file folder tab die to make the labels and just wrote the different colors with a gel pen.

This really made me fall in love with some of my paper again.  Paper I forgot I even had.  I know this isn't for everyone, but I think it's going to be great for me and I'm super excited about it!

Just a couple of more things today.  Last week Abie and I went to Goodwill.  I was hunting for jello molds and bowls to hold things in my craft room.  Guess what I found?

EIGHT heart shaped jello molds for....$1.99!!!!!  I was SO excited, I can't even tell you. 

Look how happy those buttons and stick pins are :)  Now for some reorganizing...

I also picked up this pattern for $.49, no not for the dress, although I'm pretty sure my mom or sister or I  had a dress like that back in the day :)  I bought it for the pattern paper, to use on some cards.  Super excited about that too!

Okay, are you all excited out now or ready to cut up your paper and hunt up your Goodwill store?  Any big plans this weekend?  I have a staff meeting and mini training at work today.  Also have to work until 5PM, I usually only work until 3:30PM so that's a tough one on a Friday.  It's going to feel so good when I get home!  We're having mom and dad over tomorrow night for dinner.  Other than hitting Costco at some point, I think that's the extent of our plans this weekend.  Thanks for coming by today.  Have a wonderful Friday and a spectacular weekend!

A first birthday.

I ask you, is there anything more sweet than a first birthday?  I'm sure there are many things, but a first birthday is pretty sweet.  So much possibility ahead, right?  Well we have some close friends and their daughter is turning one next week and I had an idea hit me me for a card, in traffic again, and whipped this card up over the weekend.

The oval and the #1 I cut out with my Plantain Schoolbook cartridge.  I actually cut out two ovals.  One at 4 3/4 and one at 4 1/4.  The bigger oval I stuck scor tape all around the back of and that's how I adhered the tulle.  Then I trimmed the excess tulle off.  The second oval, I went crazy with the adhesive and stuck it to the back of the first oval, to help hold the tulle on.

I used pop dots to pop the oval up and then added a lot of Martha Stewart glitter to the #1.  I think this is the perfect card for a sweet one year old girl!  And I'm totally going to do this "tulle around the shape" thing again!  Can't you see tulle around circles?  Black tulle?  Awesome.

We have parent teacher conferences tonight so no grocery store like normal :)  Do you have anything exciting planned for your Thursday?  I'm working on a little organizational project that I am hoping to share tomorrow.   I've been feeling very lucky and grateful lately.  Lots of negativity out there, especially at my work, and it really makes me grateful for Mike and the girls and the life we have together.  I'm so glad I'm able to come here to my blog and share my little cards and talk to you each day, it feels good when there is so much ick out there :)  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow.  Have a fantastic and beautiful day!

A fun card.

Wednesday already!  Man, this week is moving right along, so happy about that!  I have a card today that I think is just...fun.  It makes me really happy to look at it :)

 

I used OA Sidewalks and Boarding Pass patterned papers.  The house stamp is from Unity Stamp Co.  I hand cut the grass and those fun clouds I punched out with my new punch!

 

I didn't add a sentiment to this card 1) because I'm not sure who it's going to yet and 2) I wasn't sure where to put it.  I think this will be a card where the sentiment goes on the inside.

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday my lovely friends!  I'll see you tomorrow and thank you so, so much for coming by to see me today!

Papertrey October Blog Hop!

Good Tuesday morning everyone!  I hope you're enjoying a beautiful fall day today.  We're expecting temperatures in the upper 80's today!  Beautiful weather here :)

Today I'm playing along with the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop for October.  It's been months since I played along and thanks to Mary Pat ;) I'm ready to go this month!  The inspiration picture this month was so pretty and I was inspired by the colors and the polka dots!

I made a 3x5 card, something I've never done before, out of New Leaf, and smudged on some cream colored acrylic paint.  Then came the polka dots.  The first layer is a strip of Bitty Dots Basics in Summer Sunrise and then on top of that is a nice wide piece of Orange Zest stamped with Polka Dot Basics II and embossed with some Orange Zing embossing powder!  I layered on a couple of bits of trim from my stash on top of that to tone down the orange.

To finish off the card I made a a simple flag by folding the largest die from the Double Ended Banner in half and adhering it around a quilting pin.  I stamped my sentiment from Autumn Abundance and added a little butterfly!

If you get a chance, you should check out the cards over at Nichole's blog.  Everyone is so nice and there is some major talent hanging out over there!

Have a fab Tuesday and I'll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by today :)

Freshly Made Sketches #7

ETA:  I was chosen as a Perfect Princess for this card over at Freshly Made!  Thank you so much!!!!

 

Hey there!  Happy Monday everyone.  I hope you had a great weekend :)  I'm here today with a card I made for Freshly Made Sketches #7.  I was really drawn to the sketch this week, it was a fabulous one!

Funny thing about the sketch is I'm not thrilled with my card.  I seem to be  having a difficult time with the Freshly Made concept and find myself creating clean and simple cards.  I'm hoping to challenge myself more and keep adding detail and embellishments, the Freshly Made way...in future weeks, but for this week, here is my card :)

I still love my card and am really happy with the way it turned out, just not sure it's the Freshly Made way, ya know?  I'm going to keep trying ;)

We had a great time at the birthday party Saturday night and it was so much fun hanging out with old friends.  On Sunday we a nice breakfast, just the two of us, and then picked up the girls.  I spent several hours working on crafty stuff :) :) :) and the rest of the night we relaxed.  I'm hoping for a nice quiet week, but I have a few busy nights here and there.  Going to plug right on through them!

Have an AWESOME Monday friends and I'll see tomorrow!  Thanks for coming by today!!!

An embossed birthday.

Man, is it just me or did this week go by fast?  I can't believe it's Friday!  We had a great night last night, very productive.  I hit the grocery store on the way home and then got the house cleaned up and a load of laundry done.  I like to get all of that kind of stuff done during the week if I can so we don't have to worry about it during the weekend.  There's always a load or two of laundry for the weekend, of course, but if I get at least one done during the week then it's not out of control by Sunday :)  This also frees up my time for crafting!  See, it's really all about me.  Haha!

Today I want to share with you a little card I made for a friend at work who has a birthday on Sunday.  This was one of those ideas that came to me while I was driving around town one day and then as soon as I got home I sketched it out!

I'm a bit disappointed in the color of the pictures.  The pink is A LOT more vibrant, but this will just have to do :)

I was so excited to use my new Zing Aqua embossing powder, I just love how it looks on this pink cardstock!

After I stamped my sentiment I used my ruler and Versamarker to draw the straight lines of the watermark.  I'm loving this look!


What's up for your weekend?  Mike and I are going to a surprise birthday party for one of our friends tomorrow night.  My way cool and totally awesome parents are watching the girls OVERNIGHT so I'm super excited about that :)  Love those sleepover dates, they're are few and far between and definitely cherished.  I have a couple of ideas for some cards so I'm hoping to work on those Sunday. 

Here's to a fantastically fabulous Friday and an even better weekend!  Thanks for popping by to see me today :)

What do you do when...

You find out from the teacher that there are going to be four more kids at the party than you made party favors for and you are out of envelopes AND brads?  You raid your stash, of course!  What happens when your raided stash result is WAY cuter than your original though? 

So my first problem was the envelopes.  I didn't want to run out to Hobby Lobby and buy a package of 12 envelopes when I only needed 4, plus I bought all of the envelopes they had last week.  Chances are they wouldn't have had them anyway.  What I did was, I took my BIG envelopes, I think they measure 5 3/4 x 8 3/4, and trimmed them down to 5 3/4 to 5 1/2.  I know they weren't exactly square, but I figured the 4 year olds wouldn't notice.  On the open side, that I just cut, I took a long piece of scor tape and sealed the envelope shut.  Then I decorated the envelope just as I did my others, from yesterday.

The black Cor'dinations marquee pieces I had in my scrap bin from an old project.  I sanded the edges a bit and they were ready to go.

The bit of Halloween border was a pre punched piece that came with my Halloween paper kit, last year.  I just trimmed it down to fit inside the marquee piece.  The fabric brad was in my stash.

I only had three fabric brads so the last envelope got another pre punched piece, this one I popped up with a pop dot.  It's funny to me that I had to make these at the last minute, with scrap bits and pieces and I like them even better than the original ones.  Go figure!

Are you excited for your Thursday?  Remember, it's weekend eve!  I'm heading to the grocery store after work but that is all the excitement on my agenda :)  I hope you have a fantastic day!  Thanks for coming by today!!!!

Finished project! Yah!!!!!!

Is there nothing better than a finished project?  Oh my goodness, I feel so good about getting these little stuffed envelopes done, I can't even tell you! 

I bought 5 1/2x5 1/2 white envelopes at Hobby Lobby last week, 1/2 off :), and trimmed a piece of patterned Halloween paper to 1 1/4 x 5 1/2" and adhered it right to the front of the envelope.

I trimmed out circles with my Cricut at 2" and ran them through my Cuttlebug with an embossing folder.  Then I layered on a Kraft flag and a cute Halloween brad.  The brads I picked up at Hobby Lobby also, 40% off :) 

I stuffed the bags with two mini Kit Kats each and punched a hole in the corner.

Then I sealed the envelopes and tied the tags on with black and orange tulle.  Sidenote here, I've decided I LOVE black tulle!  :)

What projects have you guys finished up lately?  Are you working on anything fun?  I hope you enjoy your Wednesday.  It's going to be chilly here so Mike is fixing soup for dinner :)  I'm headed up to the school to help out with Abie's fall party preparations.  Thanks for coming by today and I'll see you back here tomorrow!

The beginnings of my crafty project.

Happy Tuesday my friends!  How are you today?  Things are good here.  Do you every have one of those moments where you just feel so grateful for...everything?  I've been having a lot of those moments lately and I'm so, for lack of a better word, grateful for them.  Life definitely has it's ups and downs but I choose to focus on the ups.

Today I have a couple of pictures of my Halloween crafty project.  I'm working on something for Landry's preschool class and it's taking me a bit to get these completed :)

I'm making tags...

And stuffing envelopes...

And poking brads through paper...

All in the name of love :)  I hope to be finished up tonight or tomorrow so I can share pictures.  Sure am hoping these turn out as cute as I have them pictured in my head.  You know how that goes, right?  Haha!

Have a wonderful Tuesday!  Thanks for coming by today and I'll see you tomorrow!

Busy, but nothing crafty to share :(

We had a busy weekend and I had/have a bunch of crafty things on my agenda but I have put them off until the last minute.  I started working on a big project yesterday afternoon and don't even have it half finished.  So, today I'm just going to share pics of a couple of cool things I picked up over the weekend.

First is the most awesome color of embossing powder!  I first saw it on Amy's blog Abstracts Mixed with Extracts last week and couldn't stop thinking about it.  I knew immediately the card I wanted to use it on and everything!

The color is Aqua, isn't it beautiful?  Love it :) 

The next thing I picked up was some new Martha Stewart glitter.  I kept hearing people refer to it as chunky glitter but when I went to Michaels this was the closest stuff I could find.  If you know of a Martha Stewart chunky glitter let me know because I think I need that too :)

This is called Icicle Glitter.  I tried to get a good picture so you could see the pieces.  It looks really fine, but the pieces are big.  Does that make sense?  I'm excited to work with this stuff. 

Did you have a nice weekend?  We ran around all day Saturday and took the girls out to ear that night.  Sunday Landry and I went shopping, I picked up some super cute new shoes and a new pair of pants for work.  Mike took Abie to play tennis and then we spent the rest of the day at home.  The weekends go by SO fast.  Hope yours was a good one.

Enjoy your Monday.  I hope you get to do something crafty today.  I know I sure need to :)  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Sidewalks Notebook

Haaaaaaaappy Friday!  I'm excited to show you what I've been working on the last couple of days with all my new goodies!

I picked up this little notebook at Walmart.  Now I know what you're saying, "Becky, didn't you just make a notebook for you purse like a month ago?"  Yes, yes I did.  But this one was only $.94 and it was WAY too cute!  I couldn't pass it up!

I used all October Afternoon Sidewalks papers and stickers and I'm in LOVE with how this turned out!

I stamped the word STUFF on the front with my new Lawn Fawn alphabet and then colored the letters in with my Bic Mark Its.

I used my Papertrey Ink label dies and die cut three labels to make dividers for the inside. 

The notebook did NOT have dividers in it.  I just covered the pages, front and back with patterned paper and then adhered my labels on.

I added a strip of paper at the bottom to help cover up my uneven adhesion :)

Here's a shot of the back.

I must say, I'm a total sucker for notebooks, paper pads, office supplies etc and have been since I was a kid.  I'm sure this isn't the last notebook you'll see.  In fact, I'll probably post another one in a month :)

What do you have going on this weekend?  We're running to Costco on Saturday and maybe a few other places.  Might take the girls out to eat Saturday night.  Looking forward to a peaceful weekend though.  I hope you all have a truly enjoyable weekend and I'll see you back here on Monday!  Thanks for coming by today friends!  :)

Another manly card and a clean pic of my new goodies :)

You know what I love about Thursday?  It's the day before Friday which means it's like weekend eve!  I always seem to be in a good mood on Thursday and I think that is why :)

Today I want to share with you a card I made for my Dad.  He surprised me last week at work and took me out to lunch so I made this card for him to say thanks.  It was nice for it to just be the two of us, always seems like the kids or other family is around anymore :)  My Dad is the coolest and I loved getting to have lunch with him.

I used just a bit of October Afternoon Boarding Pass paper and stamped my sentiment with some of my favorite Zing embossing powder.  That stamp was a $1 stamp from Michaels and actually says "you're the best dad ever" but I just inked it up with my Versamark pad and then used some tape to cover up the part I DIDN'T want to show on my card.  I love using this trick!

I tied some of my dyed twill around the base and added some FABULOUS wooden buttons, also picked up at Michaels in the, now, $1.50 section.  I LOVE them!!!!  A pretty simple card, but it gets the point across :)

Yesterday I shared my workdesk and I had my new goodies from Two Peas all spread out.  I thought I would share pictures today of my goodies before they got all messed up :) so you can see what I bought.

I picked up my FIRST, I know how late to the game am I, set of Lawn Fawn stamps.  I'm in *love* with this alpha!  I think I'm going to use it on everything.  It's easy to color in, easy to cut, easy everything.  Such a great purchase!  (only $14.99 people!!!!)  Quinn's Alphabet in case you want to pick it up, and the letters are around an inch tall.

Then I also picked up some of October Afternoon's Sidewalk collection.  What I like to call "the staples" :)  1) an 8x8 paper pad, 2) a sheet of word stickers, 3) a sheet of label stickers and 4) miscellany.  I usually only buy one sheet of stickers but I couldn't decide between these two and since they were BOTH in stock (that's usually how I make my decision) I picked up both.  Besides, at around $2 each, why wouldn't I?  I was a little worried the colors would be too springy, but after working with them just a bit, I think they'll be fine for some things I'm working on right now.

Be sure to stop in tomorrow, I have a super awesome project I've been working on using BOTH Sidewalks and Quinn's Alpha!  Thanks for coming by today, I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments.  They really are what keeps me going!  I hope you all have a wonderful "weekend eve"!  See you tomorrow!

WOYWW

Happy Wednesday!  I'm sharing my desk today over at Julia's blog, the Stamping Ground.  My Two Peas order came last Friday and I couldn't wait to start working on something.  So here it is!

Can you tell what new goodies I got???? :)

Head on over to Julia's blog to check out more awesome workspaces! 

Have a fabulous Wednesday and thanks for stopping by today!  I'll see you back here tomorrow!