Oh Dear!

Oh dear, I must apologize, I've gone a whole week without posting. My mom has been visiting, and I've been having so much fun, that it just slipped through the cracks. Well, my mom's gone home now, and I thought I'd post a card. This card was done with images cut with my Silhouette, Sampin' Up! stamps and card stock, and My Mind's Eye patterned paper.
Scraptiv!ty's April kit release is Thursday, so check back here Thursday and Friday and I promise to have lots of new projects both days using the kit. It's one of my favorite kits so far, you won't want to miss it!

A tale of 2 cards

Well, I know I've said it before, but I do like stepping out of my comfort zone to make cards. It helps me grow as a paper crafter, but it's not always ad successful as I'd like it to be. I have 2 cards today. 1 is 100% in my comfort zone and the other is way outside it. 1st up is the not so comfortable card.

This is for Moxie Fab World's Doilies and Lace challenge. Vintage, shabby chic, or whatever you want to call it isn't really my style, but hey, it was fun to give it a try. Most of what you see up there is from my February Scraptiv!ty kit. I cut some of the lace into strips and twisted it up to make the lace flower. Then I used some brown ink to dirty it up a bit. All of my non-kit items came from A Walk Down Memory Lane (AWDML) and include the journaling tag from My Mind's Eye, the pretty stick pins from Jenni Bowlin, the i love you stamp from Heidi Grace, and the Sunburst border punch from Fiskars.

Now up is a card that's 100% in my comfort zone.
This card uses paper from My Mind's Eye Andrea Victoria Collection. The border punch is one of my favorites, Apron Lace by Fiskars. The Happy Birthday stamp is by Cornish Heritage Farms. The rhinestone brads and ribbon are from Stampin' Up!

Erin go Bragh!

A happy St. Patty's Day to you all. I'm and Irish girl through and through (at least on my mom's side), so I wanted to make sure to stop in and wish you all a Happy St. Patty's. This is a repeat card for 2 reasons. 1. It's one of my favorites and is perfect for St. Patty's Day (Erin go bragh translates to Ireland Forever). 2. Moxie Fab World is having a lace and doilies contest. You can find the details here. That lace made from glitter is perfect for the contest. If you haven't already, you can get this lace and doily kit (full of gorgeous paper, too) from Scraptiv!ty.

Deja Dino

If you're thinking these photos look a little familiar, they are. I used a few of these photos before on this layout. My parents got a pet dinosaur, Kota, for my boys for Christmas. It's really pretty amazing, you feed it, it makes noise, plays music, and you can ride on it, it even falls asleep if you scratch it under its chin. After scrapping the pics of the boys taking care of Kota for myself, I decided that I couldn't let my extra My Mind's Eye Abbey Road Stomp papers, brad, and chipboard stickers go to waste, so I decided to do a page for my parent too.
As you can see, I left a blank space for journaling, so my parents can write what they'd like to on the page. "Dino Dudes" was cut using my Silhouette and a free font from DaFont.com called Rock It.

Another Post !?!

I know, 2 totally separate posts in 1 day! Can you believe it? Here's the deal, I just received the new American Crafts new Heat Wave Line (which I won when they were doing a CHA sneek peek give-away). This line is so full of summery goodness. I think I caught my husband rolling his eyes at how excited I was opening my AC box full of papers, flowers, rub-ons, Thickers, chipboard pieces, and more! I can just imagine using this line for sweet summer photos like this one: But for now that will have to wait. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little (ok, a lot) to make this card for my sister's 30th birthday later this month. I thought I would be kind and not put a big 30 on the front.
Just in case you don't know, every Friday AC releases a new challenge you can play along with here on their blog. Entries are due by the Thursday after the contest is announced. Wouldn't you know, this week's challenge just happens to be a card challenge!
Supplies:
American Craft Heat Wave:

Cherry Cowabunga Papers

Beach House Glittered Paper Flowers

Swell Remarks Stickers

Surfs Up Flair

Wake Mini Marks (rub-ons)

Niki Riki Thickers

My Mind's Eye Sketch Challenge #9

My Mind's Eye has another sketch challenge going on. You can click here for all the details and deadlines. The sketch has a twist, it must also include a "blast from the past". I have so much fun with these sketches, I hope you'll consider playing along too (if you haven't already!). Here's the sketch:
And here's my take:

And a few close-ups:
All of the paper is Ooh La La from My Mind's Eye. I just love the way the colors in this paper combine to add to the vintage feel of the photograph. The pearl brads are from MME's Lush Line. The regular pearls are from Kaisercraft. The border is punched with Fiskars Sunburst border punch. The brad in the middle of the flower was made using MME paper and my I-top brad maker.

Stamping Olympics - Love

THIS CARD IS COMPLETELY STAMPED! The background was created using stamps, inks, and embossing powder. I created a similar card for my local scrap store, A Walk Down Memory Lane, using patterned papers. I was inspired to re-create it using stamps instead. The stamps sets are Cornish Heritage Farm's Collage Elements I and The Greeting Farm's Sweet Deal. I stamped images using SU! Chocolate Chip Craft ink, SU! Certainly Celery Craft Ink, and Versamark ink. I then embossed these images with American Crafts clear embossing powder. Finally, I sponged on ink (Ranger Distress Ink Broken China, SU! Bashful Blue, and SU! Certainly Celery). The ink will not stick to the embossed images leaving home made patterned paper.

Stamping Olympics Birthday, and a Perfect Picture

First up is an all stamped birthday card. This is another new set from Unity Stamp Co. that I picked up at A Walk Down Memory Lane this weekend.I have to apologize for all of the bling, but I just couldn't help myself. Plum is such a perfectly girlie color, that I just had to add the Kaisercraft rhinestones. The couch stamp and sentiment are Unity Stamp Co. Comfy Cozy. The couch and background are stamped using stamps from Technique Tuesday's Casablanca set. The card stock is Bazzill Kraft. The ribbon is SU! Elegant Eggplant. The purple inks are SU! Perfect Plum and Pale Plum. The watermark ink is Versamark.
I also had to share with you this great picture from this weekend. I was trying to take a picture of my youngest looking at the ducks at the zoo. My oldest walked in front of the camera right as I was taking the picture. I went to delete the picture thinking it was just going to be of my oldest's jacket, and was happy to find this instead:
I feel a layout in it's future!

Stamping Olympics - Thank You

Well, my crafty weekend was hijacked by a thoughtful husband, a couple of busy boys, and a fun trip to the zoo. I did manage to get 1 card done. I have 2 more ideas bouncing around in my head, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have a little more for you. For this card I was going for a bit of a modern color combo by using Barley Banana, Not Quite Navy, and Going Grey. The card is so much prettier in person, but I guess that's just how it is sometimes. Here's the card:
The background was stamped using Technique Tuesday's Casablanca set. The Frame is attached with foam dimensionals and was stamped using Unity Stamp's A Noteworthy Occasion. The paper, ink and ribbon are all Stampin' Up!

Stamping Olympics - Season's Greetings

Ah, leave it up to the Moxie Fab Blog to give me a challenge I really need. I started out in the paper crafting world as a stamper. Amid all the pretty papers, I often forget that and end up only using my stamps for a greeting, or a focal point set on patterned paper. Moxie Fab Word is having an Olympics of Stamping Challenge. It ends Monday, and you can find all of the details here if you're interested in playing too. I'm really enjoying the call to go back to where I started: stamping, stamping, and more stamping. I'm actually creating backgrounds with my stamps instead of reaching for those pretty papers. So, over the weekend (Monday included, I'm sure), I'll be posting mostly stamped cards as I finish them and get good pictures. First up is a card for the Season's Greetings Category:
At first this card may look simple, but let me tell you it took a bit of time. "Merry Christmas" is a single rubber stamp from Stampin' Up's Teeny Tiny Wishes set that I stamped over and over again. The card is also scored about 3/4" in from the folded edge and adhered, so the card has a sort of bound edge and opens just to the inside of the ribbon. The card stock is also SU! Kraft. The ink is SU! Whisper White and Really Red. The ribbon is ribbon by the yard from my LSS, A Walk Down Memory Lane.

Spring is in the Air!

I can't tell you how thrilled I am that the days are getting sunnier and warmer. I am so very ready for spring, and so are my fellow DT members over at Scraptiv!ty. We're having a Spring Fling Contest that will last from now until May 1st (National Scrapbooking Day) and includes 6 challenges. The prize is a guest Design Team spot for 2 months. That means you get 2 Scraptiv!ty kits to play with! You can check out all of the details here.
The other great thing about sunny days is that they bring great natural light for me to photograph my pages. This weekend I was at my local scrap store. I was dropping off some DT work and then going to pick up a Birthday present for my Mother-in-law. I was not going to buy anything for myself (I know, I can hear you laughing). Well, I just happened to walk past the new Studio Calico papers and FabRips embellishments. Of course, I had to buy some. Here's a page I made with Studio Calico's Homefront line.
What I love about this finished project, is a few of the unexpected details. Check out the journaling a little closer:
I embossed a piece of paper with the Quickutz Retro Square embossing folder. It goes so well with the feel of the Studio Calico papers.
The title was cut using my Silhouette. Man, I love that machine!
And, of course, I couldn't help adding a few brads from Basic Grey and a grommet from We R Memory Keepers.
Now I'm going to go out and enjoy the sun!

Garden Cook Book

Today, I've got my last Cosmo Cricket Early Bird kit project (for now at least) to share with you. Last summer, we finally put a garden it. I had so much fun growing and then canning food from the garden. I decided to use the papers and stickers from the Early Bird Kit and a Cosmo Cricket Blackboard Album that I just had lying around to create a canning recipe book. I have a feeling after another summer of canning and freezing produce, I'm going to need to go out and buy another album so I can add more pages to my book! I'll show you the pictures first and then give you some info about how I did the pages. As you can see, I kept this book simple. I plan on using it, a lot, so it needs to be durable and still look cute with food stains on it. The recipe cards are print and cut cards from Silhouette. If you don't have a Silhouette, any small recipe cards will work...I just couldn't pass up those adorable Silhouette cards that just happened to match the Early Bird paper. I also used a feature on the Sil that allows you to scan a page from the board book and then turn it into a cutable image. That's right, no tracing and cutting the paper for all those pages, I just scanned a page, converted the image, and cut the paper with my Silhouette. So fast and easy! Then, I embellished the pages with a few card stock stickers and strips of Early Bird paper (some of which I punched with my Fiskars border punches). Easy peasy, and very useful! I have to say a big thank you to Cosmo Cricket once more for sending me this great kit to play with!!!

Early Bird Cards

I promised you cards, and today I have 5. Bear with me, I have this broken up into 5 posts, but I'm doing them all at once. I'm going to keep the chit chat short, because this post is going to be long on pictures! All of the cards use the patterned paper and card stock stickers from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird Paper Crafting Kit. This is the same kit that I used to make yesterday's layout. This kit just makes me want to sew, sew and sew some more, so you'll see lots of stitching. Did you know that Silhouette and Cosmo Cricket have teamed up? Can you say match made in Heaven? This first card uses the Cosmo Cricket dress form image:The center dress form is popped up with foam dimensionals. The corner punch is a squeeze punch by Fiskars. The sentiment is a stamp by SU! (Chic Boutique).

Birthday Bird

This card also uses a Silhouette cut bird cage. I then added some hemp twine, a stamp by Cornish Heritage Farms, and my Fiskars Apron Lace punch:

Hey There Cookie

Another Silhouette image. The apron is on the front of the card, and the "Hey There Cookie" sentiment is on the inside of the card:
The stitching was done with the aid of a Bazzill In-Stitch Template.

4U

When you receive the Early Bird Kit, the top sheet is a piece of card stock that has minimages of the paper, journaling tags, and card stock stickers printed on it in miniature. I loved the miniature versions of the patterned papers, so I cut that sheet up too and made these cards:

Thank You

Whew... that was a lot of cards. I hope they inspire you to go out and create some of your own. I'll be back later this week with a mini-album of sorts using the Early Bird kit.