Life happens...

So much for posting cards everyday, right?!  Oy.  Life happened in big ways the past two weeks.  First, my biggie came down with the 6 year old version of RSV, with a fever and horrible cough for a week.  Then I was sick with a massive head cold all weekend.  THEN my 3.5 year old had a fever/cold for a couple days.  I was about to sit down and start a new post on Friday when I heard the news about what happened in Connecticut.  It just didn't seem right to be posting Christmas cards when so many people's lives had just changed forever.  I just wanted to spend the day holding my girls forever.  It's sad that it takes such extreme situations to make us realize how blessed we are, but when we do, it hits us hard.  I spent the weekend soaking up as much of my girlies as I could and now I am ready to share some more projects with you.

This is a card and travel coffee mug set that I made for one of my preschooler's teachers:

I love how they both turned out, but man alive was it hard to get the piece of paper into the mug!!  After all of that work I put into making it look nice, I didn't even take the thickness of the paper into account when I was trying to stuff it into the mug.  Sheesh!

Anyway, that's what I have for now.  I'll be back soon with more.  Until then...

Christmas Copy Cat...

Recently Paper Smooches had a blog hop showcasing their latest new releases.  When I got to Teri Anderson's blog, I noticed that she was doing a "25 in 25" challenge.  (Making 25 cards in 25 days.)  What better place to find inspiration for cards than a blog showcasing exactly what I'm working on?!

This is a card that Teri made:

And here is my version:

I think this card turned out beautifully.  I love finding inspiration on blogs and Pinterest because there are people out there who are way more talented than myself and they deserve a bit of copy cat flattery.  :)

That's all for today!  Until next time...

Some swanky snowmen...

Hello!  Today I am back with a couple more Christmas cards I have created.  I recently purchased a cute stamp set by Paper Smooches called Swanky Snowdudes.  I love the cute little snowmen and accents in this set. 

Here are a couple cards I've made with this set:

This first card is one of my favorites.  I paper pieced the scarf and hat and heat embossed the sentiment onto the banner.  I'm not a pro at doing the heat embossing thing, but I still like how it turned out.  

This second card is my girls' favorite.  This is one of the first cards where I've used blocking to create a layered effect.  I paper pieced the scarves and colored the rest in with colored pencils.  To make the colors look more blended, I used mineral spirits to soften everything out.

Thanks for stopping by again today!  I'll be back with more soon!

Until next time...

Christmas Card Time!

I decided this year was the year I take a stab at making my own Christmas cards.  It always seemed like way too daunting of a task in the past, but now that I'm more comfortable making cards, I figured now was as good as ever.  For the past couple weeks, I've been making a card or two every few days.  No two cards are the same yet, so I'm still having fun creating them.  :)

I thought I'd share a couple with you throughout the month.  If I can inspire someone in even the slightest way, well then I've done my job.  :)  And some of my crafty friends may join in and show some of their creations along the way as well...double bonus!!

Let's get started!  Two of my favorite things to work with this year are kraft paper and jute twine, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of both in my Christmas cards.  Below is the first card I made this season.  It's simple yet to the point.  And it would have been better to practice with the glitter glue before I actually put it on my card...total party foul.  Oh well.  You live, you learn, right?  

This next card was super easy and fast to make.  I think that's why I'm enjoying making these cards because they're not overly intricate or detailed, so they don't take much of my time or energy.  Something I have little of at night when I get to sit down and create. 

That's all for today!  Until next time...

Paper Smooches Picture Perfect Challenge

Ok, I lied...I'm back with one more entry for you all.  :)  I made something for this weeks Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge and wanted to show what I created. 

Here is the inspiration picture for this week's Picture Perfect challenge:

And here is the card I created:

The ink I chose was a bit too light for the background, but I like how it all turned out.  I pulled the yellow, grey and salmon colors from the inspiration photo, as well as the different patterns.  It came out just as shabby chic-y as I had imagined in my head.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is HERE!

Happy December 1st, everyone!  I don't know about you, but now that I have kids, this season takes on a whole new meaning each year.  What used to be a season of pretty lights, traditions and cheer has turned into seeing those things through the innocence of my girls' eyes.  There is absolutely NOTHING like it!

I wanted to share a few traditions that I have started with my girls.  The first, which started today, is our Christmas Advent Calendar.  This is something my parents used to do for my brother and I when we were little and I wanted to pass on the tradition to my girlies.  My brother and I used to wake up every day so excited to see what was on the card or in the pocket of my mom's handmade calendar.  This is what I created this year for our new calendar, thanks to a steal from Scrapbooksteals.com...

The calendar itself came as plain as can be with naked wood and cardboard.  I painted mine with acrylic paint to match the papers I was using.  I also created a file for my Cameo to cut out the pieces of paper that I wanted to cover the front of the drawers with.  Some of them turned out a bit wonky, but wow did that make it So. Much. Easier!

I used papers from Crate Paper's Snow Day collection, which was also a steal which I purchased at Scrapbooksteals.com's retreat in October.  I love this collection because it's not overly Christmas-y or holiday-ish.  It can be used way beyond the holiday season.  

The collection that I purchased at the crop didn't contain all of the papers from the Snow Day line, so I was pretty giddy when I found a 12x12 paper pad at Michaels that had all of them!  If you want to look for it, it is the Recollections brand and it's called Peppermint Twist.  My daughters had so much fun picking out fun trees and presents for me to cut out and place in the shadow box.

This morning, our Advent Calendar contained something more than just a note about where the girls would find their new Christmas pajamas...our resident elf, Holly, decided it would be a good place to spend the day.  :)

This is a tradition that my husband and I started a couple years ago and we absolutely LOVE it!  I found this adorable little elf ornament at Target a couple years back (they still have them and they are MUCH cuter this year, to boot!), cut the loop off the hat and decided she would be our friendly elf friend.  My girls love running around to see where Holly is hiding and always run up to me with excitement to get me to go look at where she is.  The girls talk to her (sometimes read: tell on the other sister to her) throughout the day.  (Side note:  I love that our elf isn't the typical Elf on a Shelf elf because how in the world would I explain it when the girls see that one in the stores and catalogues??) 

A few weeks ago, Holly left a note with the two journals below...

 
These are the "Dear Santa" books I created last year when I was on the Authentique Design Team, thanks to inspiration from fellow DT member and friend Heather.  The note that was left with them said that the girls should work on their lists and then she would return the books to Santa on the first night she returns to our house.  It was so fun to look through the first lists that the girls created last year and have them add to it this year.  I really hope the girls "believe" for many years to come as I think this will become a treasured memory of their childhoods.

Do you and your families have any fun traditions for the holiday season?  I would love to hear some!  Be sure to check back tomorrow...I will start sharing Christmas cards that I have made!

Until then...

Feeling Funky...

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I used Pinterest frequently to find inspiration when I am making a layout of creating a card.  I thought I'd show you all a layout I created recently using a pretty funky sketch I pinned. (And I use the term "funky" loosely - it's funky to me because this novice brain wouldn't ever think to use a sketch like this.)

Here is the sketch, which comes from colorconspiracy.typepad.com:

And here is the layout I created:

I absolutely LOVE how this layout turned out.  It's so fun and different and yet still kinda me.  :)  I used Echo Park's Everyday Eclectic collection with a mix of various embelishments that I had lying around.

If you look in my stash, these are the colors that I have the most of.  :)  The pink flower was originally white, but I sprayed it with a couple different colors of Glimmer Mist to match my color scheme.  My newest obsession favorite embellishments are flair buttons.  So fun!

I love this cute little pennant.  :)  The canvass flag is from Maya Road, but I switched out the grommets to match my color scheme.  The stamp I used is from Studio Calico's exclusive Lawn Fawn set that was in their debut Card Kit.

Thank you for stopping by again today!  I hope this sketch/layout inspires you to venture outside of your comfortable scrappy zone.  Good stuff can happen if you do.  :)

Until next time...

Feeling Challenged...

Hello, all!  I know my posts are few and far between lately, but I usually show up with good stuff, so hopefully you don't mind.  :)  Today I am back with something I created for this weeks Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge.  This week's theme is

When I saw that the challenge was typography or subway art, I immediately knew I wanted to try and create a layout using Paper Smooches stamps.  Their sentiment stamps are PERFECT for this!

Here is the layout I created:

Here is a close-up of the burlap flower I made.  The pink flower was white until I sprayed it with some Mr. Huey's in Pretty Pink.  

I came to the realization recently that I have a "style" when I create cards and/or layouts of late.  For the most part, my style is shabby chic.  I think this layout does a good job of showcasing that.  I used MME's Nostalgia collection and created the burlap flower to go with it.  The muted colors go well with the colors in the picture.

I hope you enjoyed my latest creation!  Until next time...

Thankful

Since today is November 1st, I thought I'd start this month of giving thanks with a card I made at the Scrapbooksteals.com retreat.  You may have seen this card used as an example for Monday Card Madness on their blog a couple weeks ago, as well.

I used a BUNCH of different Paper Smooches stamp sets that all have a "thanks" stamp of some sort and created a background with them.  I thought this was a fun card to give to one of my daughters' teachers.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Until next time...

Showing some Paper Smooches love...

I recently stated that Paper Smooches stamps were solely responsible for reigniting my love of card creating.  I reach for their sentiment stamps for almost every card I make lately.  The Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge Blog is looking for new design team members, so I thought I would throw my hat in the ring.

I created this first card on Tuesday for my daughter's birthday using the challenge from May 28th (and some Pinterest inspiration):



Here are some cards I've created from some past challenges:

 

Here are a few more cards that I recently created while attending the Scrapbook Steals retreat this past weekend:

And, because I am on a roll, how about a few more that I've created:

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I don't have much of a creative brain.  Heck, I don't have much of a brain left period after talking to short peeps all day for the last six years.  :)  I do much better when I have a sketch or some sort of inspiration to follow.  That is why the SPARKS Challenge Blog is right up my alley.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my cards as much as I've enjoyed creating them!