crafting this and that

Hello.  Quick post to get my card into the Simon Says Stamp Happy Birthday Challenge .  Technically it's their 4th birthday, not 40th, but close enough, right?  Slightly larger than usual card to fit the MFT Die-namics doily on there.  The numbers were 7 gypsies stamps, punched out with Marvy punches.  Flowers stamps/dies, and sentiment stamp are from Papertrey Ink. I actually decorated the inside too which I don't usually do, but I stamped the flowers about a bazillion times trying to get them lined up straight plus I had to try all the stamps in the set so not all the flowers could fit on the front.

Hello again!  I have another card!  Well, it's been a busy baby season for a lot of people I know, and everyone's having a boy!  So here's another baby boy card.  I need 2 more of these now.  And the only baby stamp set I have is this Greeting Farm one. Colored and cut out all the baby accessories.  Mounted it on a My Favorite Things Die-namics doily.  Embossed the card with a circles folder from Tim Holtz/Sizzix.  Sentiment and banner die cut is from Papertrey Ink.  Going to enter this in The Greeting Farm's Retro Fresh Boy Challenge , embossing challenge , and Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes . Have a great weekend!

Hello.  I know Eva is probably shocked that I actually made something and am posting!  Crafting seems kind of like work, took too long of a break and I got kind of rusty.  I think I forgot how to blog too.  Anyhow, mostly posting now so I can link to some challenges since I needed to make some baby cards. Followed the sketch at Simon Says Stamp ...sketch #1 Used The Greeting Farm's boy baby for the Retro Fresh Boy challenge .  Sentiment is from Paper Smooches.  Maybe a little too much white space but couldn't think of anything else to add.  I actually bought some more Copic markers, excuse the weird coloring of the baby, no blending skills at all, I need more practice...  Dies are from My Favorite Things and Papertrey Ink.  Pretty simple card, had to ease back into cardmaking...

Hi!  So after kind of a stressful day dealing with some school stuff for my daughter, I sat down and finished this card.  I was feeling super bummed and didn't have the energy to go find a sketch.  So left to my own devices I just slapped together this card to get my mind off of the situation knowing that we'd have to deal with it tonight.  Just when you think everything is going great, some kind of mini crisis has to land in your lap.  When does it ever end?  And does raising kids ever get any easier? I made this card for Saturated Canary's Challenge #16 -- Happy Birthday and Simon Says Stamp 3rd Birthday Celebration .  This is a Saturated Canary digi called Ellie's Birthday.  And I colored her in first then realized hey, I don't have any papers that really match so this was the best I could do.  The little circle sentiment is from Wild Rose Studios. Her hair was a bit difficult to color for me being so fine and light.  Anywa...

Hi!  It's been a while since I participated in one of PTI's blog hop challenges .  But I had to play along this month.  Not only did I place an order on release night but I also got my goodies in about a week!  So I had some time to play around with my new stamps and dies.  Hehe.  Below is the inspiration photo. I love the Christmas theme and the colors too so I went with that. When I saw the newly released penguin stamp and die, I had to get them.  So cute!!  I thought this penguin would make a cute spinner card too.  Similar to the froggy one I made HERE .  I also used PTI's In the Meadow dies.  I used the die itself and my hobby blade to cut along the curved edge to create the little cut out for the penguin to slide.  I did that twice leaving a quarter inch space between them. I layered the penguin with PTI's coasters. I added a tiny bell to his hat. He slides down.  The jingle all the way sentiment is from Ti...

Hi!  I've made another card for PTI's Make it Monday #34 Thick Chipboard accents .  I like making cute stuff for kids so I really wanted to use one of PTI's Boy Basics mini stamp sets.  After going back and forth between the trucks or the rocket or the frog, I finally settled on the frog.  And I thought an interactive card would be fun for a kid and thought the chipboard idea would work well since the many layers really make the die cut pretty sturdy. So here is PTI's Boy Basics Frog Hop.  I thought a spinner card would be fun.  You can find a tutorial HERE .  I just made an arch instead of a straight path using my old Coluzzle.  I used PTI's coasters instead of boxes I had around the house.  I layered 4 of the die cut frogs and then the Echo Park DP frog over that.  So the layers kind of make it heavier so it doesn't spin much but it's easy for the child to manipulate and make the frog hop over to the other pad.  Papers over...

Hi!  I think I'm working backwards.  After a bunch of Christmas projects, I thought I'd better get onto Halloween.  And really what pushed me to start was TGF's Farm Fresh Friday Halloween challenge .  I thought I'd also play along with Crazy 4 Challenges C4C106--Halloween projects and Simon Says Stamp--use dies or punches . I thought I'd make a little haunted house for Halloween.  I used TGF's Spooktacular set (rubber version).  It's now available in digi form.  I used Magnolia's Tilda lace die for the roof, Martha Stewart's scary fence punch, My Favorite Things grass die, and Spellbinders' rectangle dies for the windows and door (which got hidden by the witch).  I distressed the edges with my scissors and sponged some white over the house. Here's a little close up. The house opens up from the roof end to reveal a treat!  A gift card!  It's held closed with some velcro.  More trick or treaters from TGF's Spooktacular set....

Hi!  This is the last of my kids' posts for Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge .  My daughter wanted to make an Easter card for their grandma.  She had such a hard time picking a stamp.  She's kind of indecisive but finally settled on The Greeting Farm's Fleur Anya. She used colored pencils and colored in the background too.  She made little birds in the sky which is what my son had copied too on his card creation.  I let them use my old Stampin' Up papers and cardstock.  She placed the foam flowers and stamped the Easter egg from PTI in the centers of the flowers.  I think she did a great job coloring and embellishing her card.  And Fleur Anya looks so pretty! Thanks for reading!

Hi!  I'm still continuing with posting my kids' cards for Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge . This is a card by my older son.  He picked Milton & Teddy stamp from Wild Rose Studio.  I haven't even used this stamp yet so I'm happy he picked it.  He colored it with pencils and did the background and drew in some birds.  He also added some foam flowers and animals.  I think he still rushes with coloring.  He is not that patient but at least he stayed in the lines. I think he chose to give this to his great-grandma for Easter.  At home, the kids did their treasure hunt to find their crocheted animals.  I think I made some of the riddles a bit too hard.  But they solved them all eventually.  We also had Easter egg coloring and a hunt afterwards at their great-grandma's house.  It used to be only our daughter doing the hunt since she was the only child in the family but now there are 5 kids so it gets really fun....

My son got quite excited when I told him about the Children's Challenge at Simon Says Stamp .  While I work on my cards, he often tries to make his own cards too using my scrap pieces of paper.  And then I get a little preoccupied keeping an eye on which supplies of mine is he using.  But below is usually what he does on his own time. For some reason he wanted to make a diorama.  I think his teacher was talking about it at school recently.  So this is his jungle, with trees, vines, bushes, a hanging red fruit, one cloud and a sun, all taped down using his fancy desk tape dispenser from Costco. Then it turned into a jungle battle with Lego Mace Windu and the clones versus the battle droids.  On the ground, there is a snake on the clone side and ants on the battle droid side. As you may have noticed, my son loves Legos and The Clone Wars.  He saw these videos on youtube where some people color their Lego clones, which he tried to copy ...

Hi!  I'm continuing to post my kids' creations this week.  So next up is my youngest.  He has just discovered that scissors can cut really well and likes to cut up any stray pieces of paper.  Before that he used these plastic scissors that would just basically rip the paper instead of cutting it.  So now that he is using real kid-safe scissors, he is super happy to just sit and cut.  He has his own "cutting box" that he cuts his paper into so clean up is easy too.  My older 2 also went through this phase and loved cutting in preschool.  I've also recently organized my crafting table and actually stole my kids' bookshelf to store more of my crafting supplies so there is more space to work on my table.  My youngest now can craft next to me during the day and it gives me a little bit more time to craft in between the requests that he makes to stamp an image here or there on his own paper.  He'll color and cut them out and glue them too....

Hi!  Today I want to share the Easter treats my daughter will be passing out to her classmates.  There are 29 kids in her class!  I think that is way too many.  My son's kindergarten class has 23.  I think that is more manageable but still a lot of kids to teach especially a bunch of active little kindergartners. Here are the treats for the boys.  I did all the cutting and my daughter picked out all the stamps and did the stamping, coloring, gluing, packing and also the cleaning of the stamps!  She loves to clean stamps.  I used PTI's lunch box die and taped the ends to make like an envelope.  It was big enough to slide in 2 silly bands.  For the boys, she used PTI's Tag-its #2 for the circle border and the bunny from PTI's Tiny Treats Valentine's set.  She colored the bunnies with pencils and gave some of them fun designs and even colored in the backgrounds.  You may have to click on the photo to see it better. These are f...