The Day Before...

This layout is so special in so many ways. The picture is of my daughter and me (I don't get into pictures TOO often) sitting outside waiting for the Flag Day parade to start. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, or wind, or shade to be found... it was hot. I was 9 months pregnant. My mom talked me into going to the parade in the afternoon, because M loves parades. I worked that morning, went to the parade, got a bit of a sunburn, worked a little after the parade, went home and by then my husband was home from work. He fixed dinner, I took a shower and slathered on lotion for the sunburn. I remember putting on pajamas and feeling so relaxed, I was in bed by 9pm at the latest that night. It was a good, exhausting day. 5:45am the next morning my water broke. :)

This is a layout to remember the day before... I spent the afternoon with my mom and daughter at the parade. Its the day before we became a family of four and our lives changed forever (again)!

So if you made it through all of my ramblings, now you actually get to see it. Its a sweet memory, so I'm a little more chatty than I usually am in a blog post. Or it could be that its past 1am and I wanted to get this posted before I went to bed! :)



All patterned paper/journaling card: Fly A Kite by October Afternoon
Kraft paper: Bazzill
Rose ribbon: Maya Road
Button: Stampin' Up!
Ink: Color Box
Alphas: Thickers by American Crafts

Some closer-ups of the details:

Guest Design Team for Peachy Keen!

Hey everyone - I forgot to post this on my blog, but I was lucky enough to be chosen for a guest design team spot for Peachy Keen Stamps! I'm up for some fun bloggin' and projects in the beginning of June! Watch for me over on the PKS blog and check out the other ladies they have lined up for some Peachy fun!

Scraps!

Here's a fun little card I made this morning while my daughter was doing her schoolwork by herself for about 20 minutes. I'm trying to use up some scraps, but I have this crazy memory though and about 95% of the time (even if a piece of paper is cut into five chunks) I can still remember the brand name.

I used the Cricut Cartridge 'Simply Sweet' to cut the hearts out of the striped patterned paper and simple flipped one over and ran my Tim Holtz 'Fired Brick' ink pad over it to saturate it with that red color. Then, after I hit the heart with a little heat to dry it quickly (I'm impatient), I sprayed it with some bubble gum pink Glimmer mist so it would sparkle a bit. Tie some twine around the heart and I decided to keep it simple and throw the card together. :)



Patterned paper: KaiserCraft (green w/white hearts), We R Memory Keepers (striped and red/red hearts)
Cardstock: Close to My Heart
Stamp Sentiment: Signature Greetings by Paper Trey Ink
Ink: Fired Brick by Tim Holtz/Ranger Ink
Border punch: EK Success
Distressing tool: Distrezz-it-All by Zutter
Glimmer Mist: Bubble gum by Tattered Angels
Twine: Caribbean by The Twinery
Die-cuts: Simply Sweet by Cricut/Provocraft

I entered the Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge - sponsored by the Twinery - with this card! :)

Let's Face It - PKS Challenge!

Hey everyone!
Here is my thank you card for the Peachy Keen - Let's Face it Friday Challenge -- check out their blog for all of the challenges they have going on!
http://www.peachykeenstampschallenge.blogspot.com/

I decided to do a little bit different shape, just for fun.

Border punch: Double Loops by Martha Stewart Crafts
Watermelon AND Face stamps: Faceless Fruit and Princess faces by Peachy Keen Stamps
Stamp Sentiment: Signature Greetings by Paper Trey Ink
Patterned Paper: Lime Rickey by Basic Grey
Cardstock: Core'Dinations
Bling: KaiserCraft
White Pen: Gelly Roll
Ink: Tuxedo by Memento
Markers for stamp coloring: COPIC

Some Closer-ups...



This was my first LFIF! I'm going to try to do more of these this year... what fun! :)

First Music Monday

Angelica from www.handmadebyangelica.com and Erin from www.erinleecreative.com have started a Music Monday Challenge

I decided to play along since I was crafting a bit this afternoon. I did more of a generic Valentine's Day theme for my card, but none the less I'm sure my sweet husband will like it. :) This is probably the simplest card I've made in a long time, but I wanted to play with my new stamps, too! I didn't really do any fun techniques with this one... but I wanted the bird cage and birds to look a little more worn... so I didn't press very hard on the image. Thats all. :)




Card Base: Kraft Paper by Bazzill
Patterned Papers: Be My Valentine by We R Memory Keepers
Twine: Maraschino by The Twinery
Bling: KaiserCraft
Border Punch: Traditional Eyelet by Martha Stewart Crafts
Stamps and Birdcage Die: Love Birds by Paper Trey Ink
Ink: Tuxedo by Memento and Broken China by Tim Holtz/Ranger Ink
Hopefully I will have more posts soon! I have the crafting itch, BIG TIME! Also, if you aren't a follower, please join up! I will be giving away some awesome blog candy pretty soon here. I have a little collection of prizes GROWING!

Holiday Cards and Gifts Blog Hop

Merry Christmas! The holidays are that time of year when papercrafters are going crazy, trying to finish all of their last minute projects for gifts and cards for those special people.

Join all of the lovely ladies in the Holiday Cards and Gifts blog hop to get a little inspiration for those last minute ideas. If you aren't joining me from Nicolette at Beyond Scrappin's page -- feel free to hop back to the beginning so you don't miss anyone.



My project is a fairly simple card that I made for my sister-in-law-to-be's Christmas/ornament-themed shower on Sunday! I didn't use a big sentiment just a tiny 'for you' in the corner so that it would be versatile towards her shower theme and yet still be a Christmas-y card. :) I'm rambling... so here it is!

Supplies used in this fun card:
Cardstock - CTMH
Patterned paper - 'Making Spirits Bright' stack by Hobby Lobby (an old stack!)
Stamp - Hero Arts
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Markers - Copics
Ribbon - Celebrate It (Michael's)
Border punch - Martha Stewart
Bling - KaiserCraft
Pen - Gelly Roll Medium

Popped off one of the ornaments for a little dimension and fun! :)

A little close up of some of the stuff I have going on towards the bottom...


Before I forget --- here is the entire line-up of crafters so you don't lose your place! :)
-Jamie at Glitter, Stamps, and Paper, Oh My http://www.glitterstampsandpaperohmy.com
-Jessica at Overjoyed Scrapper http://overjoyedscrapper.blogspot.com
-Jill at The Scrapoholic http://thescrapoholic.blogspot.com
-Stacey at Stacey's Creative Corner http://staceyscreativecorner.blogspot.com
-Mandy at the Polka Dot Spot http://stamping4u.blogspot.com
-Nikki at The Glamorous Side of Scrapping http://www.theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com
-Crazy about Cricut at http://www.crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com/
-Nicolette at Beyond Scrapin www.beyondscrapin.blogspot.com
-Liz at Skittles and Scrapbooks http://skittles-and-scrapbooks.blogspot.com/
-KarelJ at One by One the Flamingos are Stealing my Sanity http://karelj.blogspot.com
-Sandra at Sandy's Scrapbooks http://sandysscrapbooks.blogspot.com/
-Kristin at Lil Sweetpea's Place http://lilsweetpeasplace.blogspot.com/
-Meighen at Scrappin_3rdeeschik http://scrappin3rdeeschik.blogspot.com/
-Ellen at Card Monkey http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
-Jennifer at Crafty Card Gallery www.craftycardgallery.blogspot.com
-Denise at Dee's Designs from my hearthttp://deesdesignsfrommyheart.blogspot.com
-Jesi at Jesi's Things http://jesisonaroll.blogspot.com/
-Dorly at Moderna Art & Designs http://modernadesignsart.blogspot.com/


Click here to go over and check out KarelJ's project next!!!
Thanks for hopping by! :)

Craft time with the Kiddos

Homeschooling offers a lot of opportunities to slow down and concentrate on some things important to your family. This year my daughter decided she wanted to send some Thanksgiving cards to some of the people who we don't see on Thanksgiving - just to let them know we are thankful for them. How sweet is that? So of course I obliged. We found some super cute felt turkey stickers at Michael's to help streamline our efforts. I have found that if a project takes more than 30 minutes, the kids lose interest. So sometimes I need to cut corners and buy stickers instead of making super-elaborate die-cuts or things like that.

So here we are... we started with a few Close to My Heart ink pads, some Kraft cards and envelopes, felt turkey stickers, some $1 section leaf stamps, acrylic block and stamp cleaning goodies. (Please note that M is in her dance outfit because we were doing this right before we had to run off to dance lessons! :) I don't let her just roam around the house in a blue leotard every day.)



M random stamped different colors of leaves on the cards, after all cards were random stamped in that color she would clean the stamp and pick out the next stamp pad and stamp she wanted to use. Doing one color stamp at a time prevents messing up my ink pads and makes for HAPPY-mom-and-daughter-craft-time. :)


Then J wanted to get in on the action, so I helped him stamp a leaf on the back of the envelopes. That was just enough for him to be excited about doing it. His attention span is about the length of an ant.... so 8 leaves was just enough and he was down from the table flying his airplane in no time.



Putting on the turkeys... almost done!


Here we are --- the final product! She was so happy with her creation. She picked 8 special (and very random) people to send these to... hope everyone had a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

Some Peachy Keen goodness - Playing catch up!

I just 'checked in' on my blog and I realized there are several projects I never posted! We've been busy around her.... we just moved a few weeks ago and getting settled has proven to be a larger task than I thought it would be! Moving is never that much fun, is it? Oh, but did I mention I have a larger craft room now? Wahoo! I'll share pictures of it when its finally organized and ready to be shown off. Ha!

Without further ado, here's a card I made my friend Mandy as a thank you for helping me with a few major projects for my friend's wedding in September. We cut, embossed, cinched, and tied 150 programs for her wedding in ONE afternoon! :)

Thanks again for helping me Mandy --- and here's the card I made for her!

Those are Peachy Keen Princess faces on those cherries... and the cherries are a PK stamp as well! Woohoo!

The 'Hey, Friend!" stamp is from a $1 Basic Grey stamp set that I found buried in my drawer somewhere. :)

I will be posting a few more projects to catch up and I'm also participating in a few blog hops coming up! Hopefully I get back into the blogging groove!

Puppy Surgery

This layout is a page of my daughter showing her love for her stuffed puppy (which happens to be a backpack) after this puppy had to have a little surgery. The arm was falling off, but luckily mommy is experienced in sewing/fixing stuffed animals. :)

I used the Cosmo Cricket 'Material Girl' line for most of the embellishments and papers in this layout, a few handmade embellishments and other randoms. Let me know if you have any questions -- I'm happy to reply!



And some closer shots so you can see the details...