Make It Monday- OTWC

This week's Make It Monday was H-A-R-D...hard. First, you really, really, really need a pen that works. Really.  That's pretty much it, so there is no "second."

After several attempts to make something, I finally managed this:

I love Melissa Bickford's Way to Go Kiddo! set and have not used it nearly enough.  So, I thought the caterpillar would make a good "base" for the card and a natural place for the line to come and go. The sentiment seemed like it would compliment the caterpillar by being in the opposite corner, but then the whole thing just looked bare - which is the idea around the frame - to tie everything together.  So, to avoid throwing the whole thing in the trash, I added some flowers and rhinestones.

Do you like the color combo?  It is the palette that Kim Wilson gave us at Off the Wall Craftiness.  You can play along by clicking here. Here's her inspiration.

I hope you find the time to play in one of these challenges this weekend!  Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Easter Cheer

I had a few Easter cards to hand out on Easter Monday, and wanted them to be bright and cheerful for some friends at school.  A couple were to thank my friends for some Easter gifts they gave to my son, and others were just to cheer them up during this week - state standardized testing!

Here's what I came up with:

I managed to make six of these in about an hour - easy to do when you are make smaller cards. First, I stamped the bunny on 2009 Polka Dot Basics paper in Kraft, Soft Stone, and Hibiscus Burst.  I cut out the bunnies (super-easy!) and highlighted them with either a red gel pen or a pink marker.  Then, I cut the 3x3 mats, inked the edges and added the grass to all of the mats.  After stamping and coloring in the tree leaves, I added the rhinestones, sentiment and secured the bunnies.  I left their ears loose so that they would look a little floppy.  I added another white mat and then used New Leaf as the card base. Here's another angle: 

 On the inside, I included the sentiment "Sending You a Happy Hello" from the Sending You set. 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!  

Make It Monday - #11

This week's Make It Monday was brought to us by Heather, who showed us a great technique using our dies to emboss.  I waited until the last minute to make a card for the challenge.  Life was busy last week - or was it just me?  My family was in town for Easter, and I didn't think they came to visit me while I worked in my craft room.

So I waited until they left to make this:

Pink and green.  sigh...I love it together.  It may be my favorite color combo ever.  Any pink with any green - you just can't go wrong.

 I embossed the frame from the Sending You collection on a piece of white cardstock, and then masked it to stamp the Gingham background.  I used the die for the leaves and punched out the flower with my 1-3/4 inch punch.  I had a yellow button in the middle, but it just didn't look right, so I took it off and added the rhinestone.  It gave it just enough bling.  

Both of these sets were sent to me by my blog group - The Paper Dolls.  I haven't had a chance to play with the sets much, and I'm so glad I reached for them for this card today.  The Dolls have a challenge going on right now with a great inspiration photo.  You should check it out and play along.  I just now got an idea for it.  You'll be seeing Sending You again very shortly!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

A Layout For...

Papertrey Pages Monthly Challenge!

Beth (babiestwo) over on the PTI forum started challenging the members to create scrapbooking layouts using our PTI stamps, dies and anything else around.  She gave me the opportunity in March to challenge everyone, but we didn't get around to finishing our projects.  So, this month we are continuing our challenge by USING STITCHING ON OUR LAYOUTS!  The stitching can be by machine, hand or even faux-stitching.

I live in Texas where Spring wildflowers bloom like crazy.  It is not uncommon to see cars parked on the side of a major highway, kids climbing out and plopping themselves amongst the flowers so their parents can take pictures.   We do it every year. 

Here's my layout for this adventure from LAST year.  (I'm a year behind in my scrapbooking.) 

I cut some Echo Park Little Boy paper, Orange Zest and Simply Chartreuse cardstock into 3x3 squares, then secured them with a little adhesive to a 12x12 piece of cardstock.  After fighting with my machine for about an hour, I finally figured out that I hadn't threaded the needle correctly.  I don't know where my mind was.  (Actually I do, but that's another topic.) 

I sewed a zig-zag stitch to mimic a quilt.  Love the look!

I matted the pictures with white cardstock to help them stand out a little.  Otherwise, in front of the awesome patterned paper, they kind of blended in.

The tag was cut from the Tag Sale #3 die, and I stamped the title with Practicing Creativity's Carved Loved letters (small but super-easy to line up.)  I masked it when I finished and then stamped some flowers from Life in Orange Zest, Enchanted Evening and Color Box's Sky Blue.  Adding a knot with two ribbons was a final touch to the title tag. 

The subtitle was cut from the Double Ended Banner die and again stamped with the same letters in Enchanted Evening.  I had to use a little bundle of wildflowers cut from Larger Than Life and stamped from stamps in the set.  The green twine is from Martha Stewart, and is pretty sweet!

I hope you like the layout!  You can join us over on the PTI forum if you want to participate.  We just have fun together and "force" each other to get busy on our layouts!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

P.S. Here's a picture from THIS year's adventure.  Hopefully, I'll it in a layout before this time next year!

OTWC - Easter

This week at Off the Wall Craftiness, Kim gave us just this Easter photo inspiration with no specific colors.  Look at her beautiful collage:

How could you choose just one color scheme from this?  I couldn't, so I focused on the rabbits at the bottom and tied in several Easter-y colors.  (Yes, I made up another word.)

Here's my card:

The rabbits are from Hero Arts Happy Day Animals.  I tried to mimic the colors of the Peeps in the picture.  I added a green one so that I would have 5 rabbits  instead of 4.  The tree branches are from Little Bitty Bird and the sentiment is from Tag Its #1, both from Papertrey Ink.  I die-cut the clouds in Vintage Cream felt using both cloud dies from PTI. 

Yes, that's my grass border punch from Fiskars I love so much.  I've seen several in the stores now.  I guess they are seasonal.  You should pick one up if you don't have one yet.  I got mine at Joann's and I've seen them at Hobby Lobby too. 

I added a few more details by securing the pearls in the tree to represent buds and the crocheted flowers on the ground.  What a fun card this was to make!

You should play along with Kim's challenge.  You can see all the details by clicking here. 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Play Date Cafe 77

ETA:  Thanks to the girls at Play Date Cafe for choosing this card as a Fab 4 for the week.  See the announcement here.

I love, Love, LOVE the colors over at the Play Date Cafe this week!  Does it get any better than this?

 I know...beautiful, right!?

Here's what I came up with:

I used my Scor Buddy to create a frame on the Kraft panel for my new favorite find - CANVAS!!  I cut a rectangle to fit in the frame and used some tea dye duo on it.  After die-cutting the leaves and stamping them, I added them to the canvas.  The green twine is from Martha Stewart and goes perfectly with New Leaf.  I used Tiny Tags again (kind of addictive) and added some rhinestones to the bottom portion.  Threading some Rustic White twine through the New Leaf buttons and securing them was the last detail.  I mounted everything on a New Leaf mat and then to the Kraft base.

Here are a few close up shots:

 

I hope you can play along with the challenge!  It's a good one!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Make It Monday - Masking - Card 2

 

I know...another one?  Yeah, I got busy tonight with Lisa's challenge this week.  Two cards in one night is a record.  Add the fact that my child was fed, played with, homework helped, bathed, read to and put to put with snuggles and I think I'm in line for Mother of the Year - or at least Mother of the Day. I may just go upstairs and make another one.

Oh, wait.  There are bills to be paid.  Maybe tomorrow.

Here's my second card using the masking technique and PTI's Take Three die:

I love Lisa's set, Life.  So when Larger Than Life came along (with a die!), it immediately jumped into my cart.  I haven't used it much lately, and wanted to pull it out for this card.

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place...again!

Make It Monday - Masking

For those that don't know - Lisa Johnson is one of my craft idols, so that fact that she is hosting this week's Make It Monday is not only awe-inspiring, but craft-inspiring too.  You can see her video HERE on Nichole's blog.  She's showing us how to use dies for masking.  I've had this card in my head since I saw her video and couldn't wait to get home to work on it.  I almost left early, faking illness, but then common sense prevailed.

 I masked the cloud dies for this one and sponged the cut out with Fresh Snow ink.  After it dried (with the help of my heat gun) I stamped the large Gingham pattern in Spring Rain.

I'm loving the Leaf Zing embossing powder and used it again today with Floral Fusion 1 and 2.  I already had those cute flowers cut and grabbed some buttons to attach for centers.  After using my Fiskars border punch on some Spring Moss cardstock, I wrapped some Rustic White twine around it, used a die cut and sentiments from Tiny Tags.  After matting it and throwing on some bling, I was finished!

Thanks to Lisa for wonderful inspiration day after day, and thanks to you for visiting My Happy Place!

Make It Monday-Embossing Card 2!

This is my second post for today, so please scroll down for the first one too!

I loved this challenge and this is the card I had in mind when I first saw Dawn's video last week.  It just took me awhile to get it executed.  Here it is:

I used Scattered Showers and heat embossed the umbrella and sentiment with Zing Leaf embossing powder. The raindrops were embossed with Zing Metallic Silver powder.  I added the border die, some silver beads and silver twine.

Here's a close-up:

This has been a fun PTI week with a great challenge, fun sneaks and the projects starting today!  It'll be a very inspirational week, I'm sure! Can't wait to see everything!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Make It Monday-Embossing

I finally got around to creating something for this week's Make It Mondays challenge on Nichole blog.  You can see Dawn's video and participate by clicking HERE.  It's all about heat embossing - which I was dragged into kicking and screaming a few years ago.  Now, I can't imagine life without a heat gun.  I know - sad.

Sue Ann (yankeefan on the PTI forum) sold me the In Bloom stamp set which has been on my list for a looooonnnng time. (Thanks Sue Ann - waving!)  The first thing I wanted to do was heat emboss the large image on Pure Poppy.  I knew it would be pretty!  So excited to finally have this set - now I need the die, paper and impression plate.  Geez!

Here's my card:

Can you tell I popped up the center part of the flower?  I also heat-embossed the sentiment from Tiny Tags on the die.  This was a fun card to make and I may be making many of these in a wonderful rainbow of PTI colors!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Pink, Green and Yellow!

Kim Wilson has done it again with a fabulous color challenge!  Check out this week's inspiration and play along by clicking HERE:

Seriously pretty, right?  I love pink and green together already, now throw in a little yellow, and it's pure springy-ness.  Yes, I just made up that word.  Here's my card:

 
I used Kim's set from Wilson Designs called Everything's Owlright for the flowers, and I added some stickles to the center for some sparkle.  The little tag and sentiment are from a new die Papertrey Ink, Tiny Tags, that my blog group, The Paper Dolls, sent me a couple of weeks ago.  Still can't get over their generosity.

Speaking of them, I'm going to submit this to this week's challenge brought to us by Katie.  Use your scraps!  You can get the details and play along with us by clicking HERE.  The white panel, yellow and pink pieces were all in my scrap pile! Glad to get some use out of little pieces of paper.  You don't want to let any usable piece get away - (it's made of gold, you know!)

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Everything's Owlright (Wilson Designs), Flower Garden, Tiny Tags(PTI)
Ink:  Hibiscus, Spring Moss (PTI)
Paper:  Hibiscus, Spring Moss, Harvest Gold, Stampers Select (PTI)
Tools:  Tiny Tags die (PTI), Fiskars border punch, Spring Moss Twill (PTI)
Other:  Stickles, twine

Paper Smooches Wedding Hop

Kim Hughes, former PTI Design Team Member and Former Paper Crafts Go-To-Gal was married yesterday! (This, I suppose, also makes her the former Kim Hughes.) Her design team from her new stamp company threw her a Wedding Card Blog Hop using her own fabulous stamps she designed.  The hop started on the Paper Smooches blog here.  There you can see the details of the contest and join in on the fun!

I recently purchased 2 sets of Paper Smooches stamp sets - Giddy Bugs and Vegtastic.  It's been so recent that I still haven't received them in the mail yet, so I decided to use one of Kim's digital stamps instead.  The Flowery Bird image is free on the Paper Smooches site and you can edit it any way you want.  I enlarged it, and flipped it so that I could have 2 birds facing each other.  Here's my card:

I colored the birds with Aquacolor pencils and blended with my Dove Blender pen.  I outlined some of the lines with my Sakura Stardust pen. I've been on the search for the grass punch from Fiskars or Martha Stewart, and finally found it.  It may be the best border punch...ever. (And I love border punches!)

Congratulations to Kim on her wedding day!  Can't wait to hear details!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

Supplies: (finished size 5x7)
Stamps:  Paper Smooches digi, Big and Bold Wishes (PTI)
Ink:  Versamark
Paper:  Spring Rain, Summer Sunrise, New Leaf (PTI)
Tools:  Cloud dies, Tiny Tags die (PTI), Fiskars border punch
Other:  Clear embossing powder, Aquacolor pencils, Dove blender, Sakura pen, twine

Card Aisle Challenge

Laurie Beth, over at Soap Box Creations, challenged her blog readers to roam the card aisle to find inspiration. Then we were to go home and use the inspiration card to create one of our own.  Of course, it turns out that the cards in the aisle are way overpriced, and this just makes you feel better about all the money you spend on crafting supplies.  Well, it makes ME feel better.   You can find all the information about Laurie Beth's challenge  here and play along!  You have until Sunday. 

I didn't technically go to the card aisle to find a card.  I have received a lot of cards recently, and this one just today.

It's beautiful, I think.  I love the Ocean Tides color, the embossing look and the little bit of bling in the center of the flowers.  I would have never put this color combination together either.  It's so pretty.  I love this card.

Here's my take on it:

I heat embossed some leaves from Turning a New Leaf on the Ocean Tides cardstock, die-cut a couple of strips from the Eyelet Lace border die, and added some bling in the centers.  After stamping the sentiment on a Spellbinders die and adding some twine, I was finished.  Easy peasy.  It's not quite as fancy as the store bought card, but I love this one too. 

This was a great challenge, Laurie Beth!  Thanks for the wonderful inspiration!

And thank you for visiting My Happy Place!