December 2012

Hi!  I have finally finished the last month of my 2012 calendar/scrapbook page using the Pure Innocence year of flowers series!  I just have the cover to make now but I think I will use another MFT sketch for that too.

So here's the sketch for this week at MFT and it really threw me a little.  Really different looking.

I used Pure Innocence Holly Girl stamp and paper pieced her dress. 

Close up.  I love that little red bow!  I bought it from a local store here. 

The 2 pages side by side.  I am so happy to be done with the pages.  Just hopefully I'll actually fill it up with some small photos too!

I'll also be entering this in All That Scraps Wednesday Challenge--Anything Goes.

Thanks for reading!

Love ...

Hi!  Today's a new day.  I realize that I am not only a stress eater but a stress cleaner!  I finished off the chocolate covered almonds from Costco (I shared some too!) and managed to clean all our bedrooms, sheets, fans, carpets and did all the laundry too.  But I had to stop vacuuming because our vacuum just shuts off by itself.  It's been doing that everyday.  I vacuum a room and then it shuts off by itself!  Frustrating.  We need a new one.

Well, I did manage to finish a card!  TGF is now having sketch challenges over at SCS!

I chose to use TGF's Flutter Anya.  I haven't used this stamp very much so thought I'd give her some attention.  I've been trying to use stamps that I haven't even inked up yet before buying even more stamps.  My hubby said this card looked very busy.  I guess he is a clean and simple kind of card guy but sometimes I like to really embellish my cards.

I chose to color her in varying shades of red for iCopic's weekly challenge #67 -- red love.  I added some glitter to her wings.  I actually used some of my son's glitter glue and stickles.  There's some glossy accents on the hearts on her wings.  I added a love charm and a heart die cut from PTI's tiny tags.  The butterflies are from Martha Stewart and the leaves are also from PTI.

I'll also be entering this into Flutter By Wednesday challenge #188.

Thanks for reading!

You're a Sweetie

Hi.  It has been a crazy, crazy, crazy week for all of us.  No details to share but it's amazing how everything can change so quickly.  I thought I'd finish this card that I had started to distract me but IT is always there, lingering in my mind. 

I had actually colored TGF's Reeta for another challenge but didn't get a chance to finish the card until today so now I'll be entering it in TGF's Friday Spyday #17.  This was my 3rd try at coloring her up.  I just didn't like how her face and hair kept turning out.  I think I prefer coloring on PTI's white cardstock instead of the X-press It paper.  The only thing is that PTI cardstock is much thicker to cut out sometimes.

Just a closer shot.  I finally got my latest PTI order.  Geez, it only took like 2 weeks!  I don't know why I bother but I really wanted that heart border die that I used on this card.  Well, you can only see just a bit of the hearts.

My youngest wanted to craft with me tonight.  He made a beautiful card.  He asked me for thicker paper to make this card and the glittery flowers were my daughter's.  I gave him some of the heart border scrap and he begged for rhinestones.  I swear I will have to buy him his own supplies.  He now thinks my stickles are better than his glitter glue and wants pretty flowers like Primas!  He actually had a special aunty in mind to give this too so I told him I'd mail it to her on her birthday.  I don't even know how he remembers but he mentioned her by name.

Well, life goes on, especially when you have kids.  That's the great thing about having kids.  I know tomorrow will be a busy day.  Thanks for reading.

Let's Hang

Hi!  It's been a pretty productive day so far.  Actually did some cleaning which I really don't like to do but I felt a little guilty ever since I read an article saying homemakers probably would get about $90,000 annually if they got paid.  And that is the low end estimate.  So I thought, geez, I don't think I do that much.  I do spend a lot of time just vegging out too when the kids are at school.  But today, I cleaned and swept and got all dusty.  Yucks!  Then afterwards, I got to finish my card.  Yay!

So I'm playing along with TGF's Friday Spy-Day #16 and Anyone for Anya's Bling it On. 

Yesterday, I got some new Copics from iCopic.  It was my first time ordering from them and I'm so happy with how fast my order came.  I ordered on Friday and it arrived on Monday!  So last night I wanted to try out some of my new colors so I stamped TGF's Abbey and colored her bright and fun.  I think I could still use some more Copics!  Hehe.

I added some stickles to her hair, bow, belt buckle, and shoes.  Then added rhinestones randomly around the card and on her bow. 

That's it for now.  Thanks for reading!

What do you see?

Hi!  I decided to make another little project for TGF's SCS Chit Chat Night.  You can view the challenge details HERE.  My inspiration is another children's book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle.  It was one of my favorites to use for speech therapy.  The kids loved it and it was so easy to take the same concepts and expand on it so parents could help their kids too.  I remember I had a whole bunch of these animals printed out and laminated for the kids to play with.  Now, my youngest really loves this book too.  He likes the whole series of them.

So I decided to make a little board book.  It's been a while since I made a little book like this.  I tried to keep it relatively simple.

This is the cover.  I used TGF's Oh Boy Ian since I knew my son would want it after I was done making it.  The cover measures 3x3 inches.  The title was made with rub on letters.

My brown bear is from TGF's Oh Baby set.  I printed all the pages out.  The images are all just stamped onto the page and colored with Copics.

I changed some of the animals but the colors are the same.  This little piggy is from McSplendid Farm.

The duck is from Build a Onesie (girl) clear stamp set.

I like this blue horse the best!  Also from McSplendid Farm.

Not loving the froggy's coloring too much.  Some how my greens got a bit mixed up.  He is from Down By the Pond.

The purple cat is from Ginger Bell stamp set.

The white hen is also from McSplendid Farm.

Do cows have horns?  Is this a bull?  Oh well.  I'm calling it a cow and I was running out of ink in my grays so had to use my black pencil to kind of fill in the rest.  S/he is also from McSplendid Farm.

The goldfish is from Down By the Pond.

My last page is of Teacher Anya. 

I also rounded the corners of the book.  I used tape to attach my pages instead of glue like I've done before.  My kids loved it and of course my youngest claimed it as his.  And I like how cute it turned out especially since it's small for a child to hold.

Thanks for reading! 

Happy Birthday

Hello.  Here's another birthday card from me.  Seems like I only make stuff at the last minute when I really need it somewhat urgently for an upcoming occasion.  Then I have to browse for sketches and color challenges.  So this week I'm using the colors from the Play Date Cafe Challenge #115.  And the Deconstructed Sketch No. 35.

And here's my card...  The 30's have gone by so fast, now everyone is starting to turn 40.

This is the boy stamp that Eva got me from Sister Stamps, so cute with the bowl cut.  He was quite large, so I made the card a little larger at 5.5 by 6.5 inches.  Now I realize I didn't check if I had an envelope to fit the card, oops.  Most of the cardstock is Papertrey Ink, Bazzill for the gray numbers, the patterned paper from Wild Rose Studio, Milton and Co., maybe a little flowery for a boy (uh, middle aged man) card.

I actually tried to sew on my card this time.  I even had some gray thread so I used that as well.  At first I thought the tension was too tight, even on auto, but after I loosened it, the stitches got too loose (hence the bumpy looking stitches on some areas).  Then the first stitched line that I thought was too tight, actually loosened up and ended up looking the best.  Next I have to work on sewing straight.

OK, finally that's it for me, took me so long to type this up between taking a break for the Ladybug game and getting the kids ready for bed.  Bye!

Knuffle Bunny

Hi!  The Greeting Farm had their Customer Challenge & Chit Chat Night "A Night at the Bookstore" and introduced a few challenges.  I have to say chatting was too fast for me and I couldn't really keep up.  It was still early here, and I had to pick up the kids from school and activities and make dinner and eat and so I guess the timing didn't really work out with our schedule. You can check out the challenge details on the SCS forum HERE.  I made this card for Favorite Child's Book category.  It is based on the Mo Willems book Knuffle Bunny.  It's one of my kids' favorites and it's such a cute story.  We actually love reading Mo Willems' books especially his Elephant and Piggie series.  Those books are hilarious!  This challenge also made me realize that I haven't read many books recently except kids' books.  I used to love reading but just haven't given it much time lately.  Anyway, here is my card.

If you've read the story, you know Knuffle Bunny gets left behind in the washer at a local laundromat.  So that's what I made.  A washing machine and a TGF version of Knuffle Bunny.  I used one of the bunnies from TGF's Lucky Bunnies (rubber version).

So I stamped the bunny and wiped off his face and drew in features similar to Knuffle Bunny.  I also added some clothes from TGF's Wardrobe set and flower soft for soap for this shaker card.  The word bubble die cut is from MFT.

I think that is it.  Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!