crafting this and that

Hi!  It's the end of January!  But I have to admit that January kind of felt long for me.  I don't know if it's because of school starting again for the kids or all the holidays they had or the mornings that seem to be dragging on because of the all the roadwork happening right outside our house.  All the construction outside is driving me crazy and really does not help me focus on crafting.  Also because it's February in a few hours, I've decided to mark down the 2017 calendars in my shop.  If you're interested, please take a look. Here's one of my favorite cards using Lawn Fawn's Monster Mash.  That sentiment cracks me up!  And I gave the bigger monster a bow tie.   Here's a closer view. Thanks for stopping by today!

Hello!  Oh my goodness, I have finally used up my 2017 calendars.  Talk about some procrastination!  So, I knew I wanted to use the unicorn stamps from The Greeting Farm that came out last year but I never got around to actually completing this project.  I stamped them but never colored them and I thought I wanted to turn the calendars into shakers but that didn't quite work out how I wanted.  In the end, I went with just keeping it simple.  Here is the first one.  I can't keep the names of all these unicorn stamp sets straight anymore.  They are from The Greeting Farm and there are so many different ones!  The stitched rainbow and cloud dies are from My Favorite Things.  And it does take some time to cut out the rainbow colors so I did use a lot of cardstock for this.  But gotta say that after I was done, I loved it.  Here is the purple one.  Usually I stamp all my sentiments in black, sometimes in red and also go...

Hello!  Here is another Valentine's Day card using a Lawn Fawn set called Flamingo Together.  So I admit I wasn't all that into this set but it has such cute sentiments and that decided it for me.  Plus the flamingos are fun to color and I think it's a unique idea for a stamp set. Sorry, now that I look at this photo, it looks a bit blurry!  Ugh, my eyes are getting so bad!  But you get the idea. Here's a closer view of the card.  I've been trying to use my time a bit better this year.  I'm even trying to take my coloring with me while I wait to pick up the kids.  Plus I can see better in the natural sunlight!  Why do our eyes have to get old too? Thanks so much for stopping by!  

Hello!  I started making some Valentine's Day cards for my shop.  I love Lawn Fawn stamps and their punny sayings!  So I used a bunch of their stamps recently.  And I totally thought I would be good and not get anything from their new release but those dies!  I want the Fancy Box and the Scalloped Box Card Pop up!  Here is one of the cards I've made recently using Lawn Fawn's Wheelie Like You set.  I had to do some selective stamping to stamp the Wheelie three times and in red.  I use a small post it and cover up the words I do not want to be inked up.  Then I remove the post its and stamp only the word I want. Here's a close up.  I fussy cut the little guinea pig out and adhered him onto the wheel.  Wait, he is a guinea pig, right?  Could he also be a hamster? Well, hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.  We had an incredible day of traffic yesterday!  My husband and daughter were stuck on the road for about ...

Hello!  I'm going to backtrack a little and share these Christmas tags I made last year. I stamped these cute penguins from Mama Elephant on to some tags.  I made similar ones last year.  I think the speech bubble is from Lawn Fawn.  Simple & cute!  Okay, it's a little bit more complicated than simple but not that much more. I also made these super cute snowman tags.  This snowman is a die from Paper Smooches.  And yes, it's hard to glue all the tiny pieces and face details so these were a bit more time consuming.  So I bought a sticker maker!  I bought a sticker maker just for this project because those eyes and skinny twig arms are hard to glue.  But the sticker maker makes it all easy!  I'm hoping I can make more of these for this Christmas. And lastly, I made these tags using Concord & 9th's bough dies.  I love these so much!  They are also a little time consuming with making all the small ribbon bo...

Hello!  Okay, I'm slowly using up these 2017 calendars!  I still have 3 more to use so hopefully I can get motivated and finish them.  I did finish one calendar using Mama Elephant's Lunar Animals stamp set.  Kind of similar to the ones I made last year except these are a bit larger because I used the tear off calendars instead of the color printed ones. Here are all the animals from the set.  I just adhered all the calendar pages onto this yellow cardstock which has a bit of a shimmer to it.  Then I used my Cinch to punch all the holes at the top. I made a cover with the year and used some green wire binding. Here is a side view. And this is how it looks standing up.  Love this cute bunny! I also brought in 2 different flower sequins recently.  One is pink and the other a clear iridescent color.  These are different from the other flowers in my shop, not only in color but shape and size.  These new ones are more of an ...

Hello!  So after I sewed up the zippered pouches for my daughter's friends, I finally started on the towels I wanted to sew for our cousins' children.  Truth be told, I had found the towel tutorial super early on in the year and was pretty excited about making these.  I even bought a lot of the terry cloth material but after I got all the materials, I was just so unmotivated!  My sewing machine pretty much sat neglected for months and the my fabric just sat in the box.  I'm not sure, but I was always tired and didn't feel much like crafting.  I guess I was in a total crafting slump.  I think I started on these towels just a couple weeks before Christmas.  I prewashed everything to prevent shrinkage later. This was the first towel I made using this tutorial HERE .  The only thing I did not follow was the rounded hood part because I think it's just easier to sew the binding on when it's straight.  It's just personal preference.  A...

Hello!  I took a break from paper crafting to sew up some cute pouches for my daughter's friends.  It had been such a long time since I sewed that I had to look up the tutorial I always turn to when sewing these zippered pouches.  You can find the tutorial HERE . I made 6 pouches using different fabrics and fun colored zippers that I already had in my stash.  I had the batting also.  So now hubby thinks I have way too much stuff.  And it also helped having a zipper foot and a walking foot to sew.  Such good investments to my sewing hobby.  So glad I didn't have to order anything last minute during the busy Christmas season. This was the first pouch I made using a cute Tsum fabric from Japan.  Love these fabrics from Japan.  The quality of the material is really good. Here is another Tsum pouch.  Love the print on here too but this one is not from Japan and the material is a bit on the thinner side. Then I made a moch...

Hello!  Happy New Year!  Yes, I know I haven't blogged in a really long time.  I didn't even realize it's been that long.  I think the days just fly by and time is accelerating!  I haven't shared all of my projects from 2016 either.  I stopped at Halloween and didn't share a bunch of my Christmas projects. I want to share that I did make more 2017 calendars to list in my Etsy store.  They are late as usual and I still have 4 more calendars to use.  The first batch I made, I ended up giving away as gifts to teachers and my kids' doctor's office because I just didn't have time to make new ones.  I made 4 Year of the Rooster calendars using Mama Elephant's Lunar Animals and Lunar Extras.  I used a metallic gold cardstock back with pretty pink/red washi paper.  The whole calendar has a chipboard backing and an easel back to stand. I love this arched die set that I got from MFT.  I think it fits the layout of the calendars n...