birthday cards a plenty

During the year I had discovered that I did not have a deep enough stash of birthday cards to get me through the year. Or even a last minute party! What is up with that? So this summer I plopped some DVD's of my favorite shows that I had gotten behind on into the computer and went a crafting. I worked on coloring with pencils and all kinds of different stamp companies. Found some fun techniques to try and just had a really good creative time. Oh yeah... and caught up on some of my shows!

The first three cards are stamped using The Alley Way Stamps set Cake Day. They have some really cute stamps. Papers are all from my stash. Most of them from DCWV paper stacks and are at least two years old (and some older than that!) Added some Stickles and used the Lawn Fawn Stitched hillside borders dies as well as Simon Says Stamps Stitched Rectangles dies.

A little bit of fussy cutting, heat embossing and 3D tape and this one is done.

Lots more fussy cutting but so worth it in the end. Gold thread to tie the balloons together.

The little bear is from Simon Says Stamp Circle Friends set. The frame he is sitting in is from Lawn Fawn Flirty Frames. The sentiment and the tags are from Paper Smooches.

This next one is made from the same set of stamps as the bear above and includes the bee hive stamp. I have been having fun making shaker cards lately. Glad to see this trend return and with such creative ways of making them!

Of course creating shaker cards sometimes results in the shaker ingredients not staying where they are placed. This is especially true if you somehow manage to spill the contents while trying to remove the backing tape from the foam tape. augh!! Such a mess and nightmare. I will also mention that in this pile of stuff all over my desk included some glitter and we all know what happens once glitter is on the loose-- there is no stopping it. I am still finding it on current projects!!

Made this cute little penny glide/ roller card. The images are from Paper Smooches Party Posse stamp set. Love this little hamster dude. He looked pretty cute in his ball and even cuter once he was spinning around across the card!!

Don't fear, there are more cards coming. I am currently spending a few days actually cleaning and organizing and getting ready for back to school. Even though the kids are in denial that it is going to happen next Monday, I am ready. I miss hanging with the kids and watching them learn. Gonna be a good year. Hoping to keep a better work/ life balance this school year. Which means more time for crafting and blogging.... and oh yeah... the whole family time thing.

valentine's day cards

I had a fun time creating some Valentine's cards this year. I usually forget to make them but this year I was ahead of the game. So far ahead in fact, I was even able to mail some out to family and friends!! I know amazing!!

These ones below I used my Sybill (Silhouette) to cut out the circle accents. There were three of them which is where I got the hearts that are on the front of the cards. But I liked these two styles better so they made it onto the cards. I added some stickles to the red hearts. The sentiment is heat embossed with white powder. I was happy with myself for getting these to turn out pretty close to what I had in my minds eye.

These next ones were so much fun to make. I created the background myself using one wooden stamp for the large red hearts ($1 bin at Michaels), the pink hearts are from a $1 acrylic set from Studio G and then inside the red hearts there are clear embossed hearts that I had from one of my Paper Smooches stamps sets. Pretty sure it was the sewing themed set.

I then used another wooden block $1 stamp for the 'with love' circle. I heat embossed that as well. Added a bit of twine and called it done. 

I shall post more tomorrow. Lots of stuff going on around here. Have you heard there is a HUGE vote coming on March 11th?? Make sure you vote yes for the new school. Thanks!!

Even the minions know we need a new school!!

a card for a special couple

There is an amazing couple whom I know and love (and flat out treasure) who were celebrating their anniversary. These two are my connection to the alien world around us. So they needed a very special card to celebrate their very special day and yes it needed to have an alien theme.

I started with stamping this really cute guy on his way with my anniversary wishes. It has to be a green based card and was lucky to have some amazing alien green papers!! I have had the together metal plate for the longest time ever. I do believe I was waiting for this card to use it on.

Here is a close up of this adorable alien. He has a google eye and his cockpit was pop dotted as well as his antennae on the ship. I added some green stickles and some glossy accents to give the cockpit a glass like feel.

This is the inside of the card.The astronaut was cut out and colored and pop dotted. I added the small red heart brad since he is on a mission of love. I used some white ink to stamp the sentiment and all those adorable stars. Both the alphabet and the star is a set of stamps that I bought years ago at a dollar store and they work just as well as any other I have purchased. And since I love purple, this little guy had to be purple and connected to his ship with a bit of purple twine.

Close up of the astronaut. I did add glossy accents to his helmet face.

I will admit that I totally forgot to take pictures of this card and had to beg the recipient to take them for me as I wanted to share this card with everyone. Thanks to my sweet Alien for doing that for me and for being in my life. Here's to many many more years of happiness for you and yours!!

christmas 2008 continues

And here we are again back to Christmas 2008 and all the fun it was. I have a much smaller pile now and am feeling very motivated to continue. Here are the latest two creations.

This layout was so much fun and yet so simple. Love it when that happens. I found the paper in a stack I had and it screamed for these pictures. I used my Fiskars apron border punch to mimic the gingerbread roof for the top of the page and for the top of the journal box. I used some chipboard letters I have had FOREVER! I added stickles and puff paint to the house on the background paper to give it a little pizzazz. The kids look so young!!

This next one I am loving so much right now. I do not want to put it in an album because I will miss it!! Sometimes it just happens. These are pictures I took after Alex got a haircut right before Christmas. You can see the major difference between the page up above and the one below. He ages so much in a few days with the haircut!! I used some Basic Grey papers that I had which worked with the colors in the pictures. Added in some chipboard stars that I covered with paper and inked the edges of. I used my stitching tool from We R Memory Keepers and used some embroidery floss for the sewed border around both pictures. Like I said, I am loving this layout right now.

Have a great one! I am off to make some cards. At least that is the game plan- we'll see how far I get.

card sketch challenge- june

Christmas in July. But it really is the June sketch challenge. But anyways... I have made another five Christmas cards to add to my stash.

We were given this sketch in our group. Look at all the potential that is there!! I would love to say that my interpretation of this sketch was a worthy one. But alas, I am not feeling the deep down love with the card I created. I think I let the paper take over and got lost somewhere. Here is the sketch....

And here is mine.

Not my favorite by any means. I should have stopped and ditched it but I continued forward. I am thinking maybe a bit of stickles around the sentiment element would help a bit. And maybe some on the blue and green cardstock couldn't hurt.

This did not turn out how I wanted it to at all. I may have to give the sketch another chance to inspire me. I feel I have let that beautiful sketch down. oh the shame.

cards and teacher gifts

The first two cards that I am sharing today are safely in my stash... for now. Again they were both made from the scraps from other projects that were laying on the desk and they screamed to be used. So I did!

The next four cards are for Alex's teacher. There are three of each design. I had fun making them but I really am getting "carded out". Good thing its the end of the year and I won't have to make any more for a bit.

And this is the card purse that all those cards are in. She likes green so I thought this would be a good fit.

This is going to be Kira's teachers gift. I will admit I found this idea on Pinterest and I am so happy I went for it. I had a blast making this up. It was so fun picking out the buttons and the different brads to fill in the spaces as well as the mini star confetti that I have been in possession of for quite awhile.

Here is a close up shot of the J. Kira loves it. Hubby says I have too much time on my hands if I stitched all of those buttons. He may be right. LOL

I think I am off to scrap a layout. Feeling the need to do a page instead of cards. Can't imagine why.

pirate and princess party at walt disney world 2008

When we took our vacation in 2008 to our favorite place on earth, we were so excited that they were having a special after hours event. Mickey's Pirate and Princess Party. Was it worth the extra ticket price? Heck yeah. Was it worth staying up until well after midnight? Heck yeah. Would we do it again? You better believe it!!

The empty the park out of the regular visitors which are easy to identify since they don't have a special neon colored bracelet on. Of course there were a few who lingered but once the employees spotted them, they were escorted out.

I pulled out my pictures from this wonderful evening of total fun and started working on them. And then realized I had to finish up my end of the year gifts so the rest of the pictures are now waiting to be scrapped... but I am getting there!

Once again I have turned to my beloved PageMaps for inspiration on all of these layouts. I am truly a fan of these sketches as they can be used in so many different ways and they never look the same twice!

For the evening, I had purchased a princess Mickey ears hat. It even had the tulle on the back!! My family opted to be pirates. Kira was Captain Pluto and daddy was first mate even though he did try to be Captain a few times! The crown eyelets I have had forever. I purchased the Mickey pirate Jolee's just for these pages as well as the Captain hat and ship brads. The pattern paper is from a package of pirate goodies I purchased as Hobby Lobby. 

These pages include our tickets so we can look back and marvel at how much money we spent that night. Thank goodness Alex was free!! I had to change the title of the party since I couldn't very well cut apart the "party" part from the "pirate" part and still make me happy. The times flier as well as the map of the park that had where the "treasure" spots and the character spots were are in the pocket on the right hand page. I added the word stickers to make tabs for easy removal. The Mickey and Minnie on the first page was another flier. I had a couple of those so I put them on the page so that you could see both sides of it. I also had extra maps so that is what is on the front of the pocket.

Great pictures and even better memories!! Kira LOVES Abu. And he is one of those characters that they didn't have out so she was thrilled to see him. As the line was moving closer and closer to him, the character wrangler was letting people know that Genie and Abu would be leaving but that Princess Jasmine and Aladdin would be coming out. Kira was ready to get out of line and leave. Seriously, she is NOT a princess kind of girl (if you couldn't tell by her choice of attire that night) Thank goodness there was a little girl in front of us who only wanted to see Jasmine so her mom was letting people by so they could be in the front of the line when she appeared. Worked for us!! The 'flowers' on this are the Spellbinders Moroccan Motifs which I added a bit of stickles to make them happy.

The group picture was one taken by the Disney PhotoPass people and you could add the little graphic to the print. Works for me!!

Here is what my desk looked like as I started working on the next page. Hubby and kids got me the Cuttlebug Mickey Pirate ship die so that I could use it for these pages. (So sweet to encourage my hobby/ sanity saver) I had never even opened it and once I did, I wanted to put it back. Oh my word!! The number of pieces I had to cut and paste and work together! Holy smokes Batman! I have a much greater appreciation for all of you who do this type of thing free hand or even with the help of a Cricut. WOW!! You are truly special folks and I loves you for it! And happy I don't have many of this type of die. :)

And here is the completed ship on the layout! I think it came out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself (and I do) Plus it adds just enough to the layout since the pictures are stinking adorable!! That's my mom hanging with Kira. She didn't want her picture taken with me but wanted to be with Nana. Works for me. The flag on the bottom is also from that Cuttlebug die. I added some dimension to the flag by adding pieces of cardstock. Looks pretty nifty in person.

And here I am!! Of course I went all Princess colors for this page. So much fun and we were so tired!! The park was getting ready to close but we HAD to get these pictures. I'm glad we stayed for them. So fun.

I have more pictures that are needing to be loved. Hopefully soon I can finish up these teacher gifts. I'm getting there but somehow there always seems to be someone I have forgotten about. I think I have them all covered, but who knows.

my donation for the pta basket raffle part 1

Every year the PTA puts on an amazing week of activities that were part of the National Turn Off TV Week. Our school vacation always falls during the 'official' week so we have always done it the week after. This year, we have changed the name of the event due to many students (mine included) saying that they could play video games and play on the computer since we were only "turning the tv off". So this year the week long event will be called Newmarket Elementary Unplugged Week. 

Not only are there activities to bring families out and together, there is also a basket raffle. The PTA receives donations as well as purchases items for these baskets. This year I am contributing a few baskets as I have been picking things up throughout the year as I find them on clearance and such. One of my baskets is a handmade card box with cards.

I have been working on this amazing card box that was a tutorial found on my LSS's blog in November!! Seriously, I have been working on this project since then. At times I thought I would never get it done, but I have. whew...

The box was made from half of a tissue box. No seriously it was. Added some chipboard to give it enough sturdiness to handle the 28 cards that are now happily living inside of it. The box itself was pretty easy to make. The creating of enough cards to fill it up took much longer. 

Front view-

Side view- The other side and back look the same just different angles.

Here is the start of the cards that are now living inside. The first four are Hello/ Hi cards. Some I have had on hand and some I have been cranking out since November. They are mostly made up of scraps from my stash. Love being able to use up some of my stuff.

Obviously this is a Hi card. LOL

Used a Fiskars border punch and Cuttlebug embossing plates on this one. And yes Stickles!!

These are the Sympathy cards that I created. The sentiments on all of these were created with stamps from Getting Cricky with K Andrew. Amazing stamps that I totally love! The set is called Sympathetic Sayings.

This is the inside of the card above.

Slightly blurry due to the picture being taken at night. Sorry. Home made bakers twine. See card below for more information on that yumminess.

This one is stamped on the inside. The bakers twine on this one is some that I made myself!! Found how to make it on Life {Sweet} Life's blog. Love that I can now have any color of bakers twine that I want.

The following are Birthday/ Celebrate Cards. The stamps used for this I have had for awhile and don't have the original packaging so I don't know who to credit for them.

There are two of these in the box.

The following four are Thinking Of You/ On My Mind cards. I was having some fun trying new things out. Totally love to play!

This one is stamped inside and heat embossed. I know I have shown these four before when I created them, but wanted to get them all in the same post!! Sorry for the repeats.

 I'm gonna finish this up in another post. Don't want this to be too photo heavy!! Catch you in a few!