Simple Heartfelt Thanks

I needed a quick thank you card. With Valentines getting close and the fact that I don't really get to make too many grown up valentines, I thought it would be fun to incorporate my v-day stuff into a thank you card! Super simple and quick, I just punched out big hearts, one from each pattern paper design in the Simple Valentine paper set from Papertrey Ink. The circle hearts were already cut out from my love you a latte Josh card (they didn't work out on the card so I kept them for later). Stitching adds just a little extra detail as well as some dimension since I flicked up the sides a little. Enjoy and thanks for popping by!

A "Lovely" Birthday

The #27 challenge on Sparkle Creations is the theme "Love is in the Air"! I've been in the mood to make valentine's goodies but haven't had much time for crafting. In fact, I should have probably been revising one of my papers instead of playing around, but sometimes a girl just needs a break! I cased Sparkle's sample card so that I would spend less time thinking of a layout ;) This card is for my sister since her b-day is the day after Valentines. There are some fun sparkles on her dress ruffle, hat, and party horn. Enjoy and have a terrific Thursday!

Stamps: Celebrating Chloe from Sparkle Creations, sentiment from Cupcake Collection by PTI
Paper: Simple Valentine and cardstock in Pure Poppy by PTI
Other: white brads, Nestibilities, colored pencils, copic marker, white gel pen, Fiskars apron lace border punch, EK Success heart punch

A Camera Strap Cover

My SIL came over this weekend and wanted me to test out her new sewing machine, so I made a quick little camera strap cover with the scraps I had from A's dress that I made in the summer. Next time I'll try for a wider one, since it was a pain to get this one turned right side out, lol. But it turned out cute so I won't complain too much ;) She's already made good use of my test run, as she called me to troubleshoot a couple things on Sunday. Sounds like she's already putting it to good use! Anyway, just thought I'd share real quick what I did craft wise over the weekend, since I didn't have time to post it then. I spent the rest of the weekend with homework, 2 take-home tests (which unfortunately for me aren't as easy as they sound), and I finished 3 of my 5 panels for a 2D design project I'm working on. Hopefully I'll have time during the week to play in a challenge or two, but for now I hope you enjoy my little project and have a wonderful week!

Birthday Chloe Inspiration Challenge

This week at Sparkle Creations the challenge is to make a card from an inspiration photo of some darling Pottery Barn luggage. I finally colored up one of my b-day Chloe images. She has fun sparkles on her dress, hat, and party horn though the camera didn't pick it up. I just kept the card simple since I don't have a lot of time to play at the moment. I just needed a break from homework ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy! It's back to reading textbooks for me. Have a terrific Thursday!

My Model

I started and ended my crop pages with the pictures from the same session - C modeling the Analise Dress. C still wears this even in the winter. Of course she has a darling red sweater or her hot pink cardigan that she puts on over it ;) I've been going over some of my other dress patterns, the ones I bought during the summer but haven't made anything from yet. There are a couple I'm really excited to try out. Hopefully I have enough fabric onhand to make a few more dresses this spring, maybe over spring break, but we'll see. In the meantime, I'll just be happy my girls still love the dresses I made so much! That's all the layouts I made from the crop. I hope you enjoyed the pages! Thanks for visiting and have a lovely Wednesday!

Papers by Crate Paper and My Minds Eye; Print Flowers, Sticker, and Brads by Sassafras; Flowers by Imaginisce and Prima; Thickers by American Crafts

Fairy

A loves Tinkerbell. She basically loves everything fairy, princess, or mermaid and she'll often skip or dance or twirl around the house. It's so stinkin' cute and I love having my very own little fairy running around in the house. She is also such a poser. A always wants me to take pictures of her and she'll really ham it up when I pull out the camera randomly, which is another goal I want to focus on. Once I started classes in the fall I almost never took pictures and I'm really sad that happened. So this semester I'm making a pact with myself to take out the camera at least once a week (hopefully more often than that) to snap some shots & to get at least a couple pics of me each month ;) Enjoy the page and thanks for stopping by!

Papers by Crate Paper and My Minds Eye; Rubons and Glazed brads by Bo Bunny; Rhinestones and rhinestone butterfly by Kaiser; Thickers by American Crafts; Butterflies from Basics 2 Slice card;

Modern Patchwork Razzelberry Apron

I'm gonna shock you with some actual pictures of me, lol. After making aprons for the girls, for gifts, for my mom and my MIL, I've finally made one just for me ;) I've been eyeing the fun aprons at Pier 1 for more than a year now but haven't wanted to fork out the $20 for something that is more frivolous than practical, at least in my mind. When Kelly started posting tutorials this month for a bunch of different knock-off aprons, I knew I would end up having to try my hand at sewing one of them up! So this past holiday weekend I used her Razzelberry tutorial to make my apron. It has the halter top style like the aprons I had been looking at. Then I improvised with a modern patchy look, both for fun and out of necessity (most of the fabrics I used are scraps from other projects). I love how it turned out!

A was taking the pictures and wanted me to do a 'dance' pose. Instead I just tried to do a cute mini jump though I'm not sure if it turned out very cute at all, lol. You can't tell from the pictures but all the ties are white, as is the lining, and then the white ruffle at the bottom just pulls it all together. I did have to make some adjustments to the pattern in the tutorial, since I'm a bit top-heavy. I just added an extra inch to the bottom of the halter pieces and then a half inch on each side for more coverage. Since I actually sew with 1/2" seams it simply made the finished halter pieces about the same size as the pattern. Anyway, Kelly had a few tutorials on different types of aprons like the Charlie Brown Apron, the Sail-Away Apron, and the Sandalwood Apron, all of them were part of her Be a Cutie in the Kitchen - Apron Week. If you've got the sewing bug, I recommend heading on over to her blog and picking your favorite style of apron to whip up! Enjoy and thanks for stopping by! Have a fabulous Monday!

Tis the Season Josh

Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge called to me this morning and with such a fun sketch posted, I couldn't resist playing along! Funny that I made my order specifically to get birthday Josh and Chloe, yet I can't help but reach for little cafe Josh for my cards lately. I'm finding he's quite versatile ;) Eventually, I would like to get singing carols Josh but until then, I'll improvise. I'm using up some Cosmo Cricket Christmas papers with this. Maybe if I get some Christmas pages scrapped, combined with making cards, I just might use up all my winter papers by this next holiday! I'm hoping I do because it was so hard not buying any new holiday paper this past year. I told myself I need to use up the rest of what I have before I can get more. So far I only have 7 full sheets left, but I do still have quite a few big scraps. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the card and have a lovely Sunday!

Felt Food and Pink Milk Repurposed

Today has been a lazy kind of day. I wanted to really get some hefty craft time in this weekend, maybe make one of the cute aprons that Kelly from Sewing in No Mans Land has been making tutorials for this past month like the Razzelberry or Sail Away apron. But today I ended up with a huge lack of motivation to actually do anything. After the girls lunch, I realized the pink milk (Strawberry Quik) jar was empty. It seemed too wasteful to just throw away, so I decided to cover it up with some Adobe papers from American Crafts ;) Then my mojo started to sputter back to life and I figured since I have this cute box now, I should make something to fill it with. I've been eyeing all the felt foodies online, planning to make some for the girls, but my hand sewing skills are pretty atrocious. Even so, I figured I could give some felt cookies a shot and I ended up making a full dozen! They are so addicting and a lot of fun. Plus, all I used for these guys were scraps. I'm excited to try making more felt food. I think next up is donuts, lol!

Hula Hoop

C tried so hard this summer to learn how to hula hoop and she nearly got it down! I noticed that the smaller, lighter hoops were easier for her to use. She is so cute to watch! This page was the second layout I did at the crop. The Slice and Thickers title was the inspirational starting point for the page. I knew I wanted to cut the word hula out with that Basic Grey paper and then layer the Thickers over it but that was about it, lol. Luckily the rest of it just came together after that ;) I hope you enjoy! Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Love You a Latte Josh

I got my Sparkle Creations goodies in the mail yesterday and I've been anxiously waiting a break so I could use them. Which is why I'm so happy I didn't have much homework today! After getting new tires on the car (my big errand for the day) and of course making dinner and reading stories to the girls, I finally got a chance to sit down and play with my new stamps! There are so many cute Valentine cards getting posted right now that it got me right in the mood to do my own ;) So here's love-you-a-latte-Josh Papertrey Ink style! I used The Sweetest Thing's #99 sketch challenge for the layout and then all Papertrey goodies to put the card together since I'm all excited for their release this month! The tiny treats birthday set looks too cute and I'm hoping to snag a sentiment set as well. The sentiment on this card is my own handwriting. I'm trying so hard to improve it, lol. Enjoy the card and thanks for popping by!

Twirl

Right after the New Year I printed out some 2010 pics so I could crop with Julie. I picked out all my papers and embellishments and then chose photos to match before printing. I had a total of 13 pictures and I'm so proud to say that I scrapped them all at the crop! Twirl was the first page I made. While cleaning up my folders on my laptop I found inspiration in a very cute valentine layout and committed the things I loved about it to memory specifically for this page. I love how it turned out! Enjoy and have a lovely Wednesday!

Paper by Crate Paper and Basic Grey; Ribbon by Pebbles Inc.; Stitched Brad by Sassafras; Glazed Brads by Bo Bunny; Rhinestones by Kaiser; Thickers by American Crafts; Flower by Imaginisce; Just Chillin card on Slice by Making Memories

Sketch Challenge - SCRS

I finished up my homework tonight and had some time to play! One of my nieces has a birthday coming up next week and I need to get a card out in the mail soon. So I grabbed one of my prestamped Chloe images and went to work. This card is super simple and flat so that I can just slap a stamp on there and send it out. We'll be putting some fun stickers inside for her as well as a couple images to color ;) She's a year younger than A so I figure she should enjoy about the same things. Everytime I stamp out some images for later, I end up having to stamp some out for both my girls. They love Chloe (she's their favorite) so I'm sure they'll be extra excited when my new b-day Chloe gets here. I know I will be! Anyway, this card is using the sketch challenge going on at Sparkle's Creations this week. The sketch is super cute and so easy! I'm sure I'll be using this one again in the future. Enjoy the card and have a great Tuesday evening!

Covered Containers

I know this is nothing new, but I thought it would be fun to share. Lately, the girls have loved collecting little containers and since we like to repurpose things when we can, I gave them cleaned out Stephen's hot cocoa jars to store stuff in. But they're rather ugly to look at, unless they have hot cocoa mix in them of course ;) So I decided to cover them up all pretty! This is a great way to use up that leftover paper as well. Gotta love that!

Here's my jar. I used a cleaned out honey roasted cashews jar. It's perfect for tossing in my scrappy trash when I'm making cards and for sharpening my pencils so I don't get shavings everywhere. You can use these jars to hold paper clips, pens, tape, or whatever little bits and bobs you may have! It's a great way to organize without breaking the bank ;) I'm back in school today but I still have some layouts I did from my crop that I haven't shown you yet so you'll all get a few more posts before I go MIA in bloggo land. I hope you enjoy and have a happy Monday!

Cupcake Inspiration Guest Designer

This week I got to be a Guest Designer on Cupcake Inspirations! Here's the card I made for the challenge. I have to say, that site is dangerous! Everytime I visit, I end up wanting to bake some goodies, which really isn't good for my waistline ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy the card! Thanks for stopping by!

Tie It Up Challenge

It's the last day to play in this weeks challenge on Sparkle's Creations and I finally got my card together. This one was a real stumper for me. I love ribbon and baker's twine and I actually have quite of bit of it, but I do have a hard time using them on my projects. Thankfully the design team's cards were full of inspiration on that ;) This is my card. I'm so happy with the way her dress and hair came out! Enjoy and have a lovely Sunday!

Our Snow Day

Click here to view this photo book larger

Christmas Challenge #5

I thought it would be a great idea to get a head start on my Christmas cards for this next year, at least so I've got enough for the ones I need to mail out ;) So I'm playing in Sparkle's weekly Christmas Card Challenge. This week is embossing. It's been so long since I last used my embossing folders! I forgot how fun it could be ;) Anyway, we didn't get snow for Christmas, but we did get some right after the New Year! It was nearly all melted by noon, but we got out there early at around 8:30, so I got a lot of super cute photos of the girls as well as some of Paul and me! I'm hoping to remember to always get pictures of Paul and I throughout the year and I'm so happy to have a good start. The big plus is I had a free Shutterfly 8x8 book to make, a gift from a friend, so I used those photos to create a fun book and it's on its way! I'm so excited to see how it turned out ;) Anyway, enjoy the card and have a fab Friday!

Watch Over You

I've finally gotten around to printing some photos from 2010, lol. Maybe I should add to my resolutions this year to print and scrap more of the current year ;) As I was looking for photos to print I realized there are a ton of darling 2010 pics, so I printed out 16 that coordinated with some papers and got to work. This is my first page of 2011. I actually printed all my photos to go with a single set of papers, but when I saw the big and little elephants in my Sassafras chipset I knew I had to use them on this daddy/daughter page! Thanks for visiting and have a lovely Monday!

Hooray for the New Year!

I hope everyone had a great Happy New Year! We had a fun casual get together and then yesterday I spent our usual first weekend after Christmas to take down all the decorations. I also managed to get in more organizing - hitting our closet and underbed storage, the junk drawer, and the laundry room, yay! My goals this year are to really concentrate on enjoying and appreciating my family. When I started back to school in the fall, I noticed that I didn't spend enough quality time with my girls during the week. It got to the point where they wouldn't come to me anymore if they needed something because I was 'busy doing homework', C says. I don't ever want my girls to feel like I'm not there for them, so my main goal this year is to find a balance where I can manage school while still giving my family the time and attention they need. I also want to maintain a 3.8 GPA or higher (I'm at a 4.0 right now) so that hopefully I can get a scholarship this fall. And I also want to take time at least once a week to do something for myself. Just a few goals, but very important ones to me ;)

After Christmas I've been in an organizing storm and each day I take on a different part of our home. So far, including what I did yesterday on the 1st, I've organized the armoire that holds my scrap stuff, our entry closet, the girls' closet, our outdoor storage closet, our bedroom bookshelves, and our living and dining areas. It's amazing how much a freshly organized space can motivate you to create! I'm sure it also helps that I haven't had the time to papercraft as much as I used to, lol. I used these same papers to decorate my binder and dividers and I'm really proud of myself for using up all the leftover scraps in these pages! This page is of A helping make the green coconut grass topping for her B-Day cupcakes back in '09. Look at those chubber cheeks!

Here's another of A the same year. She practically lived in her swim 'soup'. The only time she wasn't wearing it was when it was in the washer! Of course we live in a desert where summer seems to last from April through October so it completely makes sense, hehe. It's so fun to make something pretty at the beginning of the New Year. Today I even get to go over to a friend's to crop! I haven't done that since August! I hope you enjoy the pages. Good luck with your own goals this year and have a wonderful weekend!