crafting this and that

I actually finished my mini album, woo hoo! I'm getting somewhat more motivated and trying to set aside more crafting time nowadays, but I guess I'll have to see if I can keep it up. This album didn't take too long since I kept it pretty simple, essentially using the PTI library ledger background and date stamps. I guess I should now make one for my son too, unfortunately I wasn't very consistent about taking a photo of him every month with the teddy bear. Plus I still haven't decided on what kind of embellishment to use for a boy, that I can make 12 different versions of. Anyhow, I'm reposting the first page because I added a swirly die cut from a Sizzlet flowery border decorative strip. It looked a little bare, and after I put some leaves on one of my flowers, I went back and added greenery to most of the other pages. This is a folded vellum flower idea from here ...minus the glimmer mist, which now that I see a photo of my flower, actually looks like it woul...

Don't laugh but the birthday card I made for my son is totally off centered.  But he loves this image from Rachelle Anne Miller that I bought from Paper Works Co .  It's called Puddles of Fun.  I bought it cause it reminds me of my family and our 3 kids.  When I showed the stamp to my kids they immediately had to decide which little ducky corresponded to the kids in our family.  The sentiment really matched my son's personality too cause he has always been the silly, happy one since he was an infant. This was the first time I made a T-slide card.  Tutorial was on Splitcoaststampers.  See HERE . I had a lot of fun coloring this image too.  So I'm making a list of the other Rachelle Anne Miller stamps I want to buy too (mostly the ones from Paper Works Co.). I didn't realize that the image would be so huge and that it'd be so off centered.  But you know what?  My son didn't even care.  He loved pulling the tab and sliding the imag...

I decided to participate in a One Card Swap for the month of July.  It is organized by Linda over at Simple and Sassy Creations .  I was paired up with Denise at Tinker Crafts who sent me this very pretty and detailed card. She even included a package of cute stamps!  So thoughtful!  There was a bit of a challenge to it in that we were supposed to use words as our main focal point. This is the card I sent to Denise.  I totally got the idea from Nicole Heady.  You can see the card I was inspired by HERE .   It uses PTI's All About You stamp set.  I really wanted to stick a cute picture on there from TGF or something.  Like Hope and Grace would look so pretty in the middle of those flowers.  So it was challenging to make words the main focus.  I also made Denise felt flowers from PTI felt and the Beautiful Blooms die but I didn't take a picture of those.  Oh well ...  I had fun with this OCS so I signed up for August ...

Here's the sketch for A Crafty Little Place's card challenge--classic vintage.  I don't know exactly what "vintage" is.  I don't think I've made a vintage card before.  Is it like "shabby chic?"  I don't know what that is either.  But here's my card: I tried to find my most vintage looking DP.  I wanted to use something like tissue paper for lace but couldn't quite get it right so I did the ribbon pleating thing.  And I have this really cute Martha Stewart floral punch but it doesn't punch through my PTI cardstock!  It's so frustrating.  In my head, I used the punch on the tissue paper but in real life it didn't work.  Shucks!  Even tried to thicken the tissue paper up a bit but it kept tearing.  Maybe it's the punch?  Maybe it's defective.  I don't know.  I think I'll keep trying. This cute little girl and bunny is from TGF called Snuggle.  She's so precious and reminds me of when my daughter was a...

It's a book inspired Monday Mania over at Club Anya & Friends.  Sad thing is that I haven't read anything since the Twilight Series so I couldn't really think of any books except maybe children kind.  So I had to ask my daughter who loves to read if there were any favorite books or characters that stood out to her recently but she didn't know either.  Geez.  But finally I came across the idea of Charlotte's Web so I made the card above.  It's in the shape of a barn with a window cut out for Charlotte.  I tried to make a web in the front by just wrapping some shiny white embroidery floss around a PTI Beautiful Blooms flower die cut.  I got that idea from my son's preschool class project.  They did something similar but just on a larger scale with a paper plate and yarn. I cut Charlotte out of some Doodlebug Halloween paper and stitched some floss above her. Here's the inside.  I wanted the front to open like doors.  I made Fern wi...

This is the scrapbook challenge sketch over at TGF this week.  I used it to scrapbook my son's "graduation" from preschool.  The school called it an "Aloha Party" but my son couldn't participate cause we were going on our trip the same morning as the party.  I was hoping his teacher could change the date of the party but she didn't so I was a little sad that he'd be missing kind of a milestone event.  Well, he didn't seem to mind too much because we were going to Disneyland after all and his friends still gave him leis and small gifts on his last day. This turned out kind of wild for me.  I was inspired by not just the layout but also this DP that had an apple tree and the alphabet on it.  I would've used it for this layout but the tree was too big so I thought I'd make my own and then I thought of that book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom with the coconut tree (my son really likes the book too).  So that's why I made another coconut tree w...

that might take me a long time to finish, so I'm just going to post the 2 pages I've done so far. I put these away while I made the birthday cards since those actually had to be sent off by a certain date, so hopefully I can get back to this at some point. I still have all my Disneyland summer vacation photos to go through too! Anyhow, during Natalie's first year, I tried to take a monthly photo with the same teddy bear so this is going to be the collection of all of those pictures. At least I know there will only be around 14 pages. I used the Library Ledger mini kit from PTI, minus the patterned paper which is mostly in shades of blue. I stamped all the backgrounds in Sweet Blush on Rustic Cream cardstock. It took me a while to get the hang of lining the background stamps up nicely, good thing the photo covers most of the page (excuse the big face and messy mouth photo, but I didn't really have as many pictures to choose from as I thought). The words are from Simple...

So two of my most favorite cousins graduated recently from Northwestern University.  Isn't that such an accomplishment?  We are so proud of them and I can't wait to see where life takes them next, professionally and personally.   I knew Sunghee's Graduation Cap Box and Almost Square Bag with the Mini Album would be perfect gifts for them once I personalized them.  Note:  Sunghee is closing her store TODAY at After Five Designs and her templates won't be available.  Grab them while you can.   So here are the little hats!  They turned out so cute!  The little top/cover comes off where you can put a little gift inside.  I made the tassels with embroidery floss and attached with brads.  It's funny that I have almost 2 boxes of embroidery floss from when I used to cross stitch but I didn't have the right color orange or white so I bought new ones.  They aren't expensive though and really adds to the caps.  They are ...

Woo hoo, it's a record 2 posts for me so far this week and it's only Wednesday! I don't think it's going to happen again anytime soon though. But I actually made a second birthday card! I figured I better get to using all the new stamps that I ordered. This one is from the Amazing Duo set from The Greeting Farm. I actually colored this one first, which is when I realized that I have to color the skin before the hair otherwise I'll smudge black onto the face! I don't know why his superhero outfit is so colorful...I was trying to find pencils that matched all the little circles and then ended up using every color! The birthday paper and matching cardstock is from a birthday paper pack from Die Cuts with a View from I don't know how long ago. The number is from the Sizzix font set Round-a-bout, it has actually come in handy a few times. I'm not sure where I got the ribbon from...I'm such a collector, it might have come off some packaging of something el...

I actually made a card! Two cards even! But I'm saving the 2nd one for later otherwise I'll have nothing else to post! So a pretty simple birthday card. I mostly wanted to use my new Greeting Farm stamp, Skater Ian, that I got from the Die Cuts R Us sale. He's colored with pencils and baby oil. I basically picked random colors without even looking at paper. I can see why it would help to plan ahead. Or to find some card sketches before hand too, but oh well, hopefully now I can just get it in the mail on time. Anyhow, I was thinking I could somehow make a skate ramp, but ended up just using an oval instead. (It would help if I got all the pieces together before sticking things down too, argh!). I actually got to use some of my toys, I mean tools. Like the edge distresser, although next time I think I'm going to try inking those edges. And my crop-a-dile with the extra large eyelets from We R Memory Keepers. These eyelets actually set a lot better. I had some other brand...

So here I am doing it again!  Entering a challenge at the last minute.  There's just a few hours til this challenge closes at Die Cuts r Us' A Crafty Little Place.  It's a sketch challenge with a stars and stripes theme.  So this is my card entry.  I just got this cute stamp from DCRU today!  It's my first Puddle Jumpers stamp by Lori Boyd.  Hopefully I'll be adding some of her friends to my collection too.  Anyway, she is named Emma and she has a cute bunny friend.  Emma is all dressed in her red, white & blue outfit to go check out the 4th of July fireworks.  (I know it's already past but I like to make up stories for these little characters in my head). Here's a close up of the bunny holding a little flag.  I made it with the smallest rectangle nestability and used felt from PTI.  I stamped the USA letters with PTI's Simple Alphabet stamp set.  I wanted to try this after I saw that Nicole Heady had stamped on her ...

Eva posted the blinkie for the store on our blog, but I never really looked at the website before until this past week when Eva told me about their Getting Ready for CHA Sale . Enabler, I tell you! But so many good deals, I even ordered twice! Sorry this post is kind of late, but the sale ends on July 12.

Here's a layout from TGF's newsletter challenge.  I've been staring at this challenge for at least a couple weeks now.  And here I am waiting til almost the last minute to complete the scrapbook page.  Well, while we were at Disneyland, my kids got a lot of autographs from the characters so I decided to make a page with one of them following the layout above.  Isn't Peter Pan's autograph so humongous?!  Man, I had a hard time fitting that in some where.  I had to use my Never Ever stamp set. I also used PTI's tab die cut to make the tabs and stamped the sentiments from the Never Ever set.  I also found some feathers (while cleaning my storage room).  It was originally pink but I colored it red with my copic pen to match Peter's.  It's attached to a small green felt circle.  I had to put felt in some where. I did a little bit of paper piecing with the girl.  Her dress, book, hands, hair and ribbon.  Overall, I didn't quite...

This is my card entry for TGF's Farm Fresh Friday challenge for the week.  It's my first FFF.  I don't know why I wait til almost the last minute to participate.  It's the pressure of the deadline, I suppose.  So the challenge was to incorporate some sewing or even faux sewing on 2 layers of DP or cardstock.  I have a sewing machine under my craft table and I haven't used it at all!  It's a few years old already and I bought it cause I wanted to learn to sew but never really got around to it.  I didn't use it for this challenge either.  I used my paper piercer that I just got and hand sewed the outline of the clouds in the sky and some of the "waves" in the ocean DP.  So while I was cleaning out my storage room this past weekend I found all this felt!  Ahhhh!  So I made a little palm tree for Dress Me Ian to cool off under.  There's some hand stitching on the leaves and the tree trunk. I used some yarn for the bottom scallo...