Beginning of another week.

Here we are at the beginning of yet another week.  These days are just flying by and I wish I could slow them down somehow.  My girls are growing up so fast and we have had the best summer, I'm really trying to enjoy the last few days.  We had a heck of a rain storm on Sunday afternoon and it was fab-U-lous!  We didn't even mind the mini river running through our backyard afterwards. 

I have a very simple, one layer card to share with you today, using one of my most favorite stamp sets. 

The stamp set I used was Life from Papertrey Ink.  The sentiment came from Damask Designs, also from PTI.  I used Momento Inks and just layered the flowers on top of one another and then sort of nestled my sentiment in the flowers.  Very quick and easy.  This would also be great to do a set of note cards too.  Hmm, might have to file that idea away!

Do you have a busy Monday, a busy week ahead?  I'm in training today but the rest of my week looks pretty low key.  I have a few packages coming in the mail to me and I can't wait to share those with you as well.  Hopefully they will all get delivered.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you all tomorrow!

Coloring on Kraft.

Are you as excited as I am that it's Friday?  The major week after week long heat wave has finally broken!  Now we still have awful humidity, but it's not 112 anymore :)  This means we might actually see some of our neighbors this weekend.  Haha!

Today I want to talk to you about coloring on Kraft cardstock.  I've seen people use colored pencils and that's what I initially tried.  It looked great, until I colored my second card with my markers.  Then it put my colored pencil card to shame!  I think I just need to go back over my colored pencils with some mineral spirits to even the color out a bit, then it will look just fine.

I used my Bic Mark Its on this and really love the way it turned out!  I added a bit of twine and stamped my sentiment and the card was finished!

What do you have planned this weekend?  We are taking it easy for the most part.  My cousins birthday party and then dinner afterwards on Saturday and I think that's about it for us!  I'm hoping to get some crafty time in, as usual :)  Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend!  See you later and thanks for coming by today!

Good morning and happy Thursday to you!  I'm headed in to work for a couple of hours this morning and then I'm taking the girls to the dentist for a check up.  We plan on spending the rest of the day together, doing what I'm not sure, but I know they will keep me busy :)

Today I have another tag to share.  This one for my cousin's daughter's seventh birthday party which is this Saturday.  I was totally inspired by a card Dawn McVey made a couple of weeks ago with Hero Arts/Basic Grey's Hello Luscious flower set.  She stamped then layered the flowers together and it looked super cute!  You can check her card out HERE!

And now, for my tag...which I used several of my new goodies on that I posted yesterday about!

Sigh, I think I'm in love.  I used Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe papers on this...again ;)  I feel like I've made tons of stuff with this paper and I still have SO much left over from that little 6x6 pad.  I'm telling ya, 6x6 is the way for me to go!  Anyway, I used my *NEW* Hero Arts/Basic Grey stamps and my *NEW* border punch.  See, I told you you had to SEE it to see how pretty it was.  I never would have bought it otherwise.  I just love how this tag came together!

Okay, I'm off to spend the day with my girls!  Enjoy your Thursday to its fullest and I'll see you back here tomorrow!  Thanks for popping in today!

Some new goodies!

It's Wednesday my friends!  Woo hoo!  This week is chugging right along and I was halfway productive last night, just as I had hoped!  Awesome, right?

So you know a couple of weeks ago how  told you I was in the mood to shop a little bit?  Well...I've picked a few things up here and there and I thought I would share them with you.  Please hang in there with me.  I've got a lot of pictures, I didn't think to pile everything up and take one big picture until AFTER I put everything away :)

I picked these stamps up at Archivers.  My first set of Hero Arts/Basic Grey.  This set of flowers is Hello Luscious and I saw an awesome card Dawn McVey made and was so inspired, I had to pick them up!  The other stamp is from Unity Stamp Company and I grabbed it because a) it's adorable and b) it reminds me of our house...sort of.  Although Abie was quick to tell me it looked NOTHING like our house.  Aaahhh, the honesty of a nine year old ;)

This is my first pot of Claudine Hellmuth paint.  I've heard great, great things about this and tried to pick out a neutral color that I thought I would use a lot.  You know, I like to get the most bang for my buck.

Here's another first for me.  Some October Afternoon Sprinklers!  Super excited to try these out with my next purchase...

This is regular old twill tape that I got at Joann's.  Now, I've seen tons of videos where ladies have made wrinkle ribbon with that other tape stuff (the name escapes me now) but I can only find it online and I'm WAY to impatient to wait for delivery through the mail.  So when I saw someone use twill tape to make the stuff, only it wasn't as wrinkly, I can't even tell you how super excited I was!!!!

A new punch I picked up at Joann's.  40% off...of course!  I never would have bought this if I hadn't seen it used on a card somewhere.  So, so pretty!

Some Tim Holtz memo pins and small tags from Joann's, again 40% off.  Saw a super cool idea I want to try with those tags!

Get this...Tim Holtz dies at Joann's now?  Seriously, did I miss the memo on this one?  So excited when i saw these AND they were 40% off.  Now I can make all the same way cool UN-caged birds as Tracy! ;)

 
Last, but not least, some red Thickers, for my vacation mini, and yes...another punch.  This one I've wanted FOREVER!  I picked these up at Michaels with a 40% off coupon.

Whew, are you shopped out yet?  The only thing I still have on my wish list is the Martha Stewart Butterfly Large Double Punch.  Oh, and of course all that cool new paper from CHA in 6x6!  What about you.  What have you bought lately or what are you wanting to buy?

Be sure to stop back by tomorrow.  I have a super fun tag I made with some of my new goodies!  Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Have a fab Wednesday!!!!

Let's talk baby gifts.

Good Tuesday morning to you!  I want to talk baby gifts today.  There's a baby shower at work today I realized something when I was making the tag for the gift.  I don't make baby gifts look like baby gifts anymore.  HERE is one example and HERE is another.  While I may have baby elements incorporated, they may not be typical baby colors.  Do you ever notice things like this about your crafting?  Changes in your style, within certain themes?

Here's today's card/tag.

This little tag was super fun to make.  I stamped the background super quick with Papertrey Ink's Est. 1776 stars in Momento Tuxedo black ink and then layered on some Pink Paislee Hometown Summer paper.  I finished it off with a bit of twine and my sentiment, stamped in on Pure Poppy paper.  Ta Da!

My Monday flew by, I'm hoping the rest of my week does too :)  I have a lot of things I want to get done this week, after work, so I'm hoping I can be SUPER productive in the evenings.  Here's to a fast Tuesday during the day, but a slow and productive evening, right?  Thanks for coming by today and I'll be back tomorrow with some new purchases I've made recently!!  I couldn't resist the buying bug any longer!

Franklin.

So do you ever have one of those weekends that just flies by and you wonder where the time went and just what exactly, if anything, you accomplished?  That was my weekend :)  We were so busy, but I couldn't tell you exactly what we did.

I do know that at some point my sister came over we worked on a project for her classroom.  She teaches second grade and has a new class pet this year.  Meet Franklin.

 

Franklin gets to travel home with a different student each week and at the end of the weekend, the student writes in Franklin's journal about all of their fun adventures.  My sister and I made the cover for Franklin's journal  and she's going to take it to school and laminate it.

Here's the cover.  Jennie picked up several different sheets of patterned paper and we both liked the map paper best, to represent him traveling from student to student.  You can't really tell from the picture, but it's matted on black cardstock.

Did you have a busy weekend?  I can hardly believe July is over and today is the first of August.  We're preparing for school now and enjoying Abie's last days of summer vacation.  She is really excited for school to start back up though.  Have a great Monday everyone and I'll see back here tomorrow!

Using my funk.

Happy Friday everyone!  This is a day I thought would never get here!  For as fast as last week went, that's how slow this week has gone for me.  So happy it's Friday.

A couple of weeks ago I posted my best, surefire ways to bust myself out of my crafting funk:  HERE, HERE and HERE.  Today I want to share with you a card I made using some of my my funk :)  When I go to craft a card, it makes it so super easy to whip one up when I have one of these embellishment pieces already made.  Seriously, this card took minutes to make!

I stamped my favorite Hero Arts flower in Momento Tuxedo Black ink onto the craft paper, added my embellished tag on some foam dimensionals and then added my sentiment.  Doesn't get much easier than that!

So, what's going on with you this weekend?  Abie is taking a painting class this weekend and then we're having snack night Saturday night, always a family favorite at our house.  It's supposed to be a teensy bit cooler, so maybe some swimming too.

Thank you for coming by today and I want to tell you all how much I appreciate your kind and thoughtful comments.  Some of you comment every day and we've grown to be good friends :)  Have a super funtabulous Friday and I'll see you on Monday!

Happy Birthday Mom, lunchbox notes and a little caddy!

Today is my mom's birthday.  I don't think she'll be reading this because her and my dad are on the Harley, on yet another adventure.  But, just in case she is...Happy Birthday Mom!

I want to share with you a GENIUS (I'm being halfway sarcastic here) idea I had.  Now if you've read my blog for awhile, you know I like to send little notes in Abie's lunchbox.  The other night I was crafting the midnight oil when it hit me, why not use my brown paper bags?  She IS going to be a big time fourth grader this year, which I'm slowly coming to grips with .  I thought something a bit more grown up was in order for her fourth grade lunch box notes.

I stamped right on to the bag and added some yummy twine and then trimmed my card stock down to 2 1/2 x 4 1/4.  I rounded the edges and it slid perfectly into the paper bag so my messages can be hidden :)  Now if Abie wants, she can keep the card somewhere safe and reuse the paper bag for a friend.  She'll just have trim a new piece of card stock!  I left this bag pretty simple, especially compared to some I've made in the past.

Up next I want to share with you my new organizational caddy.  Last weekend I was on Two Peas and reading a thread about caddies  and someone posted pictures of one of the Making Memories carousel caddies and I couldn't believe how much it held.  I had been using this caddy for the last several years and I thought it was fine.

Later that weekend, I ran to Michael's and guess what?  All their scrapbook storage was 50% off and they had ONE of their caddies left that looks just like the Making Memories one.  (I wouldn't have bought it at full price)  It was just meant to be :)

Seriously, check out how much this thing holds, and I still have room for more!  Definitely a good buy for $19.99!

Have you bought any fun organizational things lately that you were surprised by?  Have a fun Thursday and I'll talk with you all tomorrow.  Thanks for coming by today :)

CFC #12

Welcome Wednesday, why do you have to be so hot?  We are still stuck in this hot, hot heat with extreme heat indexes up to 115 degrees.  Not too much you can do in that heat, right?  But you can craft!  This week I'm playing along with Casual Fridays Challenge and the challenge this week was to use rub ons.  I have a bunch of rub ons and NEVER use them so this really was a challenge for me.

 

These particular rub ons I picked up at Big Lots several years ago and let me tell you, sometimes there's a reason why things are at Big Lots.  Haha!  These rub ons are American Crafts and I don't know if they were a bad batch or what but they are really crappy :)

Enjoy your Wednesday.  Thanks for coming by today and I'll see you tomorrow!

Another art journal page.

Good morning to you!  I have to say that my Monday flew by.  I was super busy yesterday and had every intention of getting some crafting in when I got home.  Well, that didn't happen.  Always seems to happen that way, doesn't it?  :)

Last week I posted about my little foray into art journaling and STEPH sent me the link to a website that was just starting up a weekly challenge.  You can check it out HERE.  It's 23 weeks long and I wasn't sure if I would be able to play along every week so I didn't actually join up, I'm just playing along from the sidelines :)  I thought I would play along when I could and share my journal pages with you guys!  The first weeks challenge was to spread your wings.  You had to create a free spirit spread, two pages, using the concept of wings.  Well, I only created a one page spread :)  See good thing I'm sitting this one out from the sidelines, huh?

I had so much more fun with this one than last weeks.  I just brushed on some acrylic paint and then added glitter, stamps and punched butterflies.  Super quick and easy.  It could even pass as a mini layout!

I'm still not sure about this art journaling thing, we'll see.  It's definitely a work in progress, like me.  Hope you have a GREAT Tuesday!  Thank for coming by today and I'll chat with you tomorrow!

My new favorite color.

Happy Monday all!  Can you believe it's the last Monday in July?  This summer has, sadly, flown by here.  In fact, we bought Abie's school supplies over the weekend...tear.  Enough about that though.  I want to talk about my new favorite color today.  It's a a light aqua or robin's egg blue.  I fell in love with in a few weeks ago and I just can't stop thinking about it. 

I would LOVE to paint our kitchen that color, but I think it might be a bit much.  Plus it would take a massive amount of effort on my part to Mike on board with it and I would rather use my energy for other, more crafty things at the moment ;)  Like the card I made, totally inspired by this color!

Now those labels are really cool.  I found them at Michael's on clearance for $1.49 and there were 12 in the package!  I'm thinking I might need some more, you know after using one realizing how much I loved it!  As for the sentiment, I heat embossed it with my favorite bright red Zing embossing powder on some old book paper.  Loving how that turned out too!  I was slightly afraid that the heat gun was going to catch that old paper on fire though.  Although I'm sure it wouldn't have been the first time Shakespeare was burned.  Haha.  I love the red and yellow paired up with this beautiful blue color.  I'm not sure there's any color that would look bad against this as it's backdrop.  What do you think?

Did you all have a nice weekend?  It was so HOT here on Saturday.  We cleaned the house up and then did some shopping, swam and then had a picnic/movie night.  On Sunday it was laundry and crafting.  Perfect!

I hope you have a wonderful day and thank you for coming by today.  See you tomorrow!

Art Journaling

So I had this post scheduled to go up Thursday morning and couldn't figure out why it wasn't up.  I checked when I got home last night and realized I had saved it as a draft.  Duh!  Sorry about that friends!  So, what I had planned for today, I'll post next week, okay?  Okay!

Today I wanted to talk about art journaling.  I've heard this term thrown around a lot, but never really understood the concept until last Friday when I read SUE'S BLOG.  She posted a link to an article about art journaling and it finally clicked with me.  I about smacked myself in the forehead.  Duh Becky, why didn't you get this before?  It's basically drawing, sketching, stamping, collaging (is that even a word), or any other technique that strikes your fancy, into a book.  Just make sure you leave some space to write.  Then you journal, about your day or your week or I guess how ever often you feel like it.  I thought it would be really cool to try out.  I didn't want to invest any money into a new journal so I thought I'd try this out in my faux SMASH journal.  I've posted about that before HERE, HERE and HERE.  I thought this might be kind of a cool thing to add to it anyway, right? Right!  Now I must warn you, my creative craftiness lies in the paper arena NOT drawing, BUT that is not what the spirit of art journaling is about my friends.  It's about letting yourself be free, just to create!  So without further ado...my first art journal pages.

The first picture I used my Stampin' Up! watercolor crayons and blender pen all the rest I used my Prisma Color pencils.  Some pros and cons for me of this process...  I really liked just being crafty and getting to play with color.  It was nice to have something portable to play with.  All my tools fit in my lap.  The cons for me were that I had a hard time with the flow.  This was something really outside of my box and I had some difficulties with it, but I think it was good for me.  I'm going to keep at it and see where it leads me :)

Have you art journaled before?  How is/was the process for you?  I would LOVE to hear about it.  Side note:  I'm feeling the urge to shop right now, but want to wait for all the new CHA stuff coming out right now.  Anyone else feel this way?

Okay, what's up for your weekend?  We don't have anything planned.  It's supposed to be HOT again, so maybe some pool time or a movie night is in order.  I definitely need to get crafty, lots of cards and projects on my to do list!  Thanks for coming by today.  Have a GREAT, GREAT Friday and weekend and I'll see you on Monday!

A hodge podge of a Wednesday.

Good morning dears!  I have a hodge podge of photos and things to discuss with you today.  I worked late last night and after a quick dinner I had no time for craftiness :(  But we DID get the girls table finished, which was a priority!  :)  Let me tell you, we made them wait upstairs while we finished it up and they were so excited when we called them down.  They both had their eyes closed, so cute!

Here's Landry, getting down to business...coloring :)

Here's Abie...organizing her new area :)

Now for some not so crafty stuff.  Last week while we were on vacation we went to a few antique stores and flea markets.  I've been on the look out for a floral frog to hold my cards and projects for when I take pictures.  I've found a few online, but shipping is SO expensive.  Well, the first antique store we went into, I found one!

Sorry about the picture here, didn't realize I had focused in on the cabinets :)

This was my other cool find!  I love this old fish scale.  It's going somewhere in the kitchen, just not sure where yet...

Now onto a preview for tomorrow:

Hint #1 my colored pencils.

Hint #2 my faux Smash book.

Hint #3 my watercolor crayons and blender pens.

Any guesses on what I'm up too?  Come back tomorrow and I'll show you.  Have a wonderful Wednesday and thanks so much for coming by today!

Let's talk desks!

Hello Tuesday!  Today I thought we would discuss desks, or tables or whatever you call your work space.  I use to be a sitter but have since converted to a stander.  I fell in love with THIS table but good grief, not the price!  That's when I turned to the power of the Peas and found THIS table at a fraction of the cost!  It didn't take me long to get this puppy made (and by me I mean Mike). 

 

Now this desk is awesome!  I love it.  I bought two Closet Maid 9 hole cubbies from Target and had a piece of MDF cut to 38x55.  I painted the MDF to match the cubbies and Mike attached the tabletop to the cubbies with a couple of L brackets.  This came together in one night, so easy!  I posted pictures of this desk back several months ago, HERE when I did a post on my whole craft room.

The real reason I wanted to talk about desks today is because Mike and I are making a second craft desk for my room.  This time for the girls.  Abie has her own area in my room, but Landry is quickly out growing her little easel table.  So it was time for a little bit of rearranging.  I got to thinking about things, like I like to do :)  and decided on a crafty desk/table similar to mine for the girls.

We picked up two of these three shelf bookcases at Walmart, for just $12.50 each!

Mike already had this piece of plywood in the basement.  ***This picture is unfinished***  After I took the picture, Mike trimmed the wood down, just a bit and painted the tabletop.  While it dried, the girls and I separated Abie's beads out by color, theme and alphabet ;)  I'm so excited that in just a few more days they will have a LARGE work space, just for them!  Bring on the glitter!

I'll be sure to keep you posted on the desk/table and show you pics once the girls are all settled.  Have a great Tuesday friends and I'll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for coming by today!