Back to School Cards

Tomorrow is the first day of school.  I've already been back at work for over a week now getting things ready for my students, attending meetings and working on curriculum.  Finally, we have kids tomorrow, which makes everything more fun at school.

I made 30 of these cards I'm showing today to put in my department and grade level teachers' boxes in the morning.  I'm sorry I wasn't able to make one for each teacher on campus, but I'll get something to each of them some time soon, I hope.

Here they are - all the same design, but with different ribbon.  I can't decide which I like better.

 

PTI: Signature Greetings, Woodgrain impression Plate, Fruit Fusion apple die

I cut the Kraft bases and ran them through my Big Shot with the Woodgrain impression plate.  Then I cut the gray mat from Smokey Shadow.  I heat embossed the sentiment and inked the edges so it would look like a chalk board.  I die cut the apple, popped it up, and tied the ribbons around the gray mat.  Easy peasy - and 30 of them are ready.  Happy about that. 

I wish I had more of the ribbon that looks like a ruler.  I haven't tried the fabric stores yet, but that will be my next stop.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!  After school gets into full swing, I'll be back here more often.

I'll Be Back

(credit)

I'll be back here, once I'm done getting back to there.  ^^^

It won't be long!

So Happy For You!

This card is for a friend of mine that is having a baby - in just over a month.  Her shower is Friday, and I'm sorry I have to miss it, but I'm sending a little something to her, along with this card.

She is waiting to find out what gender the baby is, so all she is receiving are neutral items.  She and her husband have decorated the baby room with yellow paint and a circus theme. She's so talented that she painted circus murals on the walls - including elephants.  So, that is the inspiration for this card:

Hero Arts Happy Animals, PTI Turning a New Leaf stamps and die, Simple Circles die

I used the Fiskars punch...again.  I love it!  I thought that patterned paper would resemble grass and plants.  The circles are cut from PTI's Simple Circles die.

Hero Arts All Occasion Messages, PTI Sunshine Impression Plate, Border die

Here's the inside:

PTI Signature Greetings, Angled Labels die, Fiskars Grass Punch

I'm entering this into the Hero Arts contest for the month and to Wee Memories challenge for this week, which is to use no less than 4 colors!  I think this one fits!  Click on those links and play along!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

A Note of Thanks

As I told you in my last post, I was recently at my local Archivers (which is 5 minutes from my house!!) and ran across a bucket of Lawn Fawn stamps that hadn't been placed on display yet.  I sifted through them and pulled out two sets that I couldn't live without.  Smitty's ABCs was the one I used yesterday, and today's set is called "Many Thanks."  I can't find where it is in the store, which makes me wonder if I should even have it yet.

I used it on two cards today for the challenge at the Lawnscaping Blog - to use distressing.  I distressed all the edges on the wood panel with Tea Dye Duo (PTI).   Click here to get the details and play along. 

Here's my first card:

Lawn Fawn Many Thanks, PTI Sending You die

First I stamped the cute image from Lawn Fawn's "Many Thanks" on Rustic Cream cardstock.  I masked the bird so that I could stamp him in red.  Then I used the Sending You die to cut out a window in the wood panel and used an exacto to cut out the window in the red base. 

Here are a few more shots:

 

 On my second card, I used the die cut from the panel above and stayed with the same color combo.

Lawn Fawn Many Thanks, PTI Leafy Vine Border, Sending You dies

I kept this one CAS.  I'm still a little torn on whether or not I like how the ink is bleeding into the wood panel.

Hmm...

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

 

Notebook Cover

My sister teaches third grade and was recently at her campus retreat.  One of the tasks at the retreat was to scrapbook a cover to slip into their clear binders.  What did she do while all the other teachers scrapbooked their covers with the provided supplies?  She texted me and told me I was going to make hers.  She's 5.5 years older than I am and has bossed me around for over 30 years.  Besides, in her words, I "needed something to do."

So, I did it.  Just like any little (younger, much younger) sister would. 

The list of stamps and supplies for this project is lengthy, but I will tell you that I was very, very (did I say VERY?) excited to see that Lawn Fawn stamps were being sold at my local Archivers.  The sets weren't even out on display yet.  They were in buckets ready to be processed.  The sweet ladies at Archivers told me to go ahead and look through them to see what I wanted.  I got two sets (to start off).  One set was the FABULOUS Smitty's ABCs.  Wow!  I love how they line up with each other and how there are mulitple letters so that you can just stamp ONE time.  LOVE THAT!!  (Honestly, I didn't notice that until I started to use them on this project - then I was even more excited about this set.)  I'm submitting this project to this week's Lawnscaping Challenge which is to use distressing. 

 I used ink to distress each of the panels below with PTI's Tea Dye Duo. I'm also submitting it to Wee Memories challenge this week which is to use more than 4 colors!   Click on those links above to play along with the challenge. Both have fabulous prizes this week!

Here's the cover my sister made me make:

Patterned Paper:  Bo Bunny Learning Curve Collection

Smitty's ABCs are right in the middle.  I love the font, and again, they are so easy to line up.  I used a lot of Hero Arts and Papertrey Ink on this.  Supplies are listed below each picture.

Here are some close-ups:

Lawn Fawn Smitty's ABCs, PTI Sending You, Beautiful Blooms & TANL dies

HA Playful Animals, PTI Merry Little Christmas and CanvasIP

HA Playful Animals, PTI Merry Little Christmas and Sunshine IP, Fiskars punch

HA Froggy, PTI Cloud die and Polka Dot IP, Stampabilities Wave Border

HA Playful Animals, PTI Vineyard IP, Simple Circles and TANL die

Oh, this was fun to make and I loved combining so many of my supplies.  Made me feel justified in buying them all.  Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today and looking at so many pictures!

Dying Eggs

I can see the end!  I'm almost finished with my son's pre-school year scrapbook, which is a good thing because he's going into 1st grade in a couple of weeks!  The end of his scrapbook is May - his birthday.  I'm in April now and worked last night on a CAS layout for Easter.

Here it is:

I used the colorful stripes paper from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection, and stitched the pieces to a piece of Harvest Gold cardstock from PTI.  Can you see the stitching?

Then I used my Fiskars Grass Punch on some New Leaf cardstock to create the grass for the rabbit.  The rabbit and eggs are from the set "bunny4Easter" from Stamps of Life.  I colored the bunny with Aquacolor pencils, blended with a Dove Blender, and then added some glossy accents for dimension.  I adhered the body of the rabbit down, but popped the ears up.

Here's a close-up:

I have about 4 more layouts left.  Some of them may be double pages, so it may take a bit.  I'll share here as I can!

For now, I'm submitting this one to the Wee Memories challenge this week.  Jenny challenged us to use no less than 4 colors in our projects.  You can read details and submit your projects here.  

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Faith, Hope and Love

Today's card is another one I created while I was on the Amber Ink team last month.  Before I began running with the torch, I had already downloaded several images to play with.  I used the sentiments to create this simple card:

I edited the sentiments to make sure they were the same size and then colored the "Love" red.  I wanted it to pop a bit.  After printing and cutting them, I ran another white panel through my Big Shot with a Cuttlebug folder.  I adhered the sentiment panel with pop-dots to give it a little dimension. 

I just ordered the last of my son's pre-K pictures to finish that scrapbook.  They should be here on Friday - just in time for the weekend!  I finished his Kinder year before his pre-K year.  Doesn't seem right does it?  I'm hoping to get the last of those layouts completed and then I'll be caught up.

I'll share some here as soon as I can.  Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Blog Hop for Laurie

The Papertrey Paper Dolls are hosting a blog hop today in honor of our fellow Doll, Laurie Willison, who made it to the Top 10 in Gallery Idol.  We are so proud and in awe of Laurie and wanted her to know that she will always be OUR Gallery Idol! 

The task sounded simple.  Head over to Laurie's blog, find one of of creations to CASE and post on our blogs for today's hop.  

As I was perusing her blog, so many choice jumped out at me.  I settled on several cards to CASE, printed them off then set to work.  What I discovered is that Laurie's style is very difficult to replicate.  There is just something about her color choices and simple designs that are hard to make your own.  The simple task turned out to be difficult for me and I ended up case-ing 2 cards that I hadn't even printed out in the first place. 

Here's the first card I CASEd of Laurie's.   You can see the blog post if you click here. 

 

Laurie does a great job with those beautiful rolled flowers.  In fact, Renee challenged us last week on our Paper Dolls blog to use those rolled flowers in a project.  You can see the details and play along with that challenge if you click here.  So, I thought I would use Laurie's rolled flowers for my card.

Here's my version:

Can you see the Background Basics Retro on the yellow panel and my new embossing folder on the green?  Excited about both of those.  I already had the Hawaiian Shores card base in my scraps, so I went ahead and used it.  By the way, I found rolling the flowers to be very difficult at first, but after I figured out a few tricks, I began to enjoy it.  If you haven't tried it yet, why don't you give it a shot.  I followed the tutorial Renee provided us on our blog that is linked above.

The second card I CASEd of Laurie's was one she submitted for Gallery Idol.  I loved the design and haven't ever stamped on vellum before, so I gave it a whirl.  

Here's the card of Laurie's.  You can see her blog post here.

I made two cards for this one.  One monotone and one with a favorite color combination of  mine - red, aqua and cream.  

Here they are:

I had to put the red plane higher on the panel because I didn't want to hide that cute bird on the cloud.

I hope you can hop with us and show Laurie how much we appreciate her talent.  Here's a list of today's participants:

Amy (kolling143)
Christy (christea)

Suzanne (*suzanne*)

Katie (choc0holic)
 Kristin (jcmom04)
Lee Anne (Lee Anne)   <--- You are here!
Renee (Renee L.)
Sara (hiinaz)

Tanna (tfiskers)
Paper Dolls Blog

Remember, if you want to play along with us, go and visit Laurie's blog and find a card to CASE.   Link it back up over on the Doll's blog.  We'd love to see what you create!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

Texas

I'm from Texas, and I'll be the first to admit that for the most part, Texans are snobs as far as state pride goes.  We are a friendly bunch, that is for sure, but we are raised to believe that there is no better place to live than Texas.

I remember going on out-of-state trips with my family and we'd stop at every state line to take our picture sitting on the marble stone carving of the state.  When we would return back, my dad would always comment that he sure felt better once we crossed back into Texas.  Home.  We were home.  Even though we were still 600 miles from home, at least we were in Texas. 

Late in her life, my grandmother traveled to Philadelphia to see my cousin get married.  Philadelphia.  You really don't get more historic than that city.  Upon completing her tour of the main, historical sites, she looked at my uncle and said, "We have better history in Texas." 

Wow.  See - snobby.

I can't say that I am doing anything differently in raising my son.  We touched down at DFW airport after spending a week in California.  What does he say to me?  "Texas.  Home, sweet home." 

We toured the Capitol building this weekend along with the Texas State History Museum.  In the gift shop I spied a magnet that I knew I had to get for my sister.  It had a quote on it that we have heard and spoken many times growing up.  I grabbed it.  Then I saw another one with a different design and the same quote.  I couldn't decide which I wanted to get for her, so I did what anyone else would do.  I bought both.  She recently purchased a new house, so I thought it would be fitting to get her a little something - complete with a card.

Here's my card:

PTI:  Scattered Showers, Wreath for All Seasons, Woodgrain IP

The magnet?  Well, it's a famous quote by Davy Crockett spoken after he lost a United States Congress election.  It summed up how my dad felt about Texas, and I suppose I do too.

Here are the magnets:

I know.  Snobby.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today.  I won't be such a snob tomorrow, when I have a very, very special post honoring one of my favorite blogging friends - and she's not even from Texas.

P.S.

Love you!

I submitted three cards to the recent Paper Crafts publication call, and one of them got picked up.  I can't show that one to you now, but I will show you one that didn't make it into the issue.

This one didn't make it:

The theme for the call was Valentine cards since the issue will be for January/February.

I used Kim Wilson's set titled Everything's Owlright.  I stamped the owls on Kraft, red and pink cardstock and paper pieced them onto the moon, which was impressed with the canvas impression plate from PTI.  The heart stamp, sentiment, cloud and heart tag are also from PTI.  

(Click for link.)

Last night I  finished a HUGE project - my son's Kindergarten year scrapbook which was done with Project Life.  I began last year on June 1 and continued it through this last May.  When I picked it back up to finish, I had only printed pictures from January through April, and hadn't done any journaling.  So, I had to sort pictures, insert them, write dates and journaling for the five missing months.  Then, I had to select pictures for all of May and get those printed also.  There were a LOT of blank places that didn't have pictures, but I had to get over that and just cut patterned paper and inserted the pieces into the sleeves.  MOVE ON!  

I didn't fancy anything up in the project like some people are doing. I used what was in the kit with only a couple of extra pieces of paper.  If I do it again for another year, I think I'll be able to use more embellishments and make it more my style.  But for now, I'm just happy that I have pictures, journaling and mementos all in one place.  

When I began this project last summer, I knew it would be an important year to capture.  Kindergarten, after all, is a huge milestone.  Little did I know just how important documenting this particular year would be.  It's been a huge life-changing year for our family, and I have it all in one little big binder.  And that is what scrapbooking is all about - keeping track of our history.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Thank you, Amber Ink!

I have had a blast working with the girls at Amber Ink for this month.  If you head over to their blog here, you will see that it is time for me to pass to torch to the next torchbearer, a wonderful girl named:

Suzanne!

She is ready to grab the torch and run with it.  You will be amazed at her ability to use patterned paper, combine different patterns perfectly and use different color combos that you have never thought about.

She is a gem inside and out.  Go and visit her blog

(Click to be amazed!)

and welcome her to the group.  You may want to bookmark her blog or add it to your Reader, because believe me, you don't want to miss a thing she posts!

Again, thanks to Amber Ink!  Your products are amazing and I appreciate the time you gave to me to design projects for you!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Make It Monday 25

 

Here's my THIRD post today!

Heather challenged us to use our Fresh Snow ink to color in images.  After looking through my stamps for a good outlined image, I finally settled on Flower Garden.  If you follow me at all, you know it's my favorite floral set.  FAVORITE!

I stamped it in green and colored it in with Fresh Snow ink.  Then I used my kraft knife to cute out a couple of the petals so that I could tuck in the white panel.  I thought the loop on the sentiment went perfectly with the loops in the vines.  

You can see Heather's video and play along if you click here. 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place...again!

Papertrey Ink's July Blog Hop!

This is my second post for the day.  I know.  Crazy.  Please scroll down to see the first one!

This month's inspiration for Papertrey Ink's Blog Hop is this amazing photo: 

Nichole said:  "Look closely and there are so many directions to go in!  You can choose to focus on the colors, the motifs or the overall design!"

I think I focused on the colors and the design for my project.  I love Papertrey Ink's colors of Ocean Tides, Aqua Mist and Orange Zest.  So, I used those colors, along with a technique Nichole challenged us to use in the Stamp-a-faire Challenge #10.  It is to add a stamped focal point over a stamped background, all in the same layer!

Here's my card for the Blog Hop and the Stamp-a-faire challenge:

You can play along with both challenges by heading over to Nichole's blog here. 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!