Starbucks Birthday

Oh, that Betsy - she gets me every time.  I loved her video for this week's Make It Monday - and her card was jaw-dropping beautiful.  I would have liked to mimic the very card she highlighted for us, but I don't have the stamp set she used - or the skills.

Luckily, I needed a birthday card for my sister-in-law.  She's addicted to Starbucks coffee and I don't blame her.  If I had to get up and get to work at the early morning hour that she does, I'd be at Starbucks every day.  She orders a "Grande Non-fat Latte with Whip."  Non-fat WITH  whip.  Yes, she appreciates the contradiction too.  

Here's her card - early - I might add.  Score one for me!! (Our birthdays are 6 days apart and I already have my present from her, so technically, she wins the early race!)

Mat Stack 3 dies, Inside and Out: Birthday, Woodgrain IP, Starbucks wrapper!!

Can you guess what is tucked inside?  I'll give you a minute...

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!  Sorry I'm not more frequent with my posts.  Laundry, dishes, cleaning, teaching, cooking, Hawaii 5-0, sleeping...

Happy 29th!

I'm the youngest of 3 sisters.  They are much, much older than I am - like 3 and 5 years older.  I like to rub it in as much as possible.  Birthdays are the best time to do that, right?

PTI: Big Birthday Wishes, Numbers dies, Medium Scallop die, Wonderful Words die

This is my middle sister's birthday card.  (She's NOT 29!)

Here's the inside:

Hero Arts: Curly Alphabet

She has to come and see me to get it, along with the present that is sitting here for her.  I would tell you what it is, but then the secret would be out!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

The Cardinals

I haven't participated in the CAS-ual Fridays challenge in awhile, and loved this week's challenge along with the design team's samples!  (Waving at Dana and Laurie!!)  You can see the challenge and participate if you click here.

My friends will wonder what has gotten into me when they see this card. After all, the St. Louis Cardinals beat my beloved Rangers in the World Series.  And it was hard to take.

But this is a thank you card for one of my friends that went to the series to cheer on HER beloved cardinals.  She brought me back a World Series shirt, which I thought was very sweet.  

So, I used the beautiful cardinal stamps I recently received from a friend, and tried to make a casual card.  It's hard to make a casual card with beautiful stamps.

I created the background with the baseball from Have a Ball, the small star from Star Prints and the smallest star from Fly Away.   The background technique is highlighted for this week's Make It Monday challenge.  

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Cardinals...

I love cardinals.  Unless they are wearing baseball uniforms, and then I really just kind of like them.  I'm a die-hard Rangers fan, and last week broke my heart.

But the birds - the cardinals - I love.  They have a very special meaning to me, but I won't go into that here.

My friends know the meaning of cardinals to me and have given me various gifts - pillows, pictures, cards, earrings, shirts - that have cardinals on them.  For Halloween my friend, Tanna, gave me some cardinal stamps from Heartfelt Creations.  I immediately inked them up and made her this card.

Heartfelt Creations:  Cardinal Family, PTI: Mat Stack 3 and leafy border dies

This is the largest of the 5 birds in the set.  He was very easy to cut out, although there are dies for the stamps also.  Eeek.  Didn't really need to know that, now did I?

So, this was her thank you note for the beautiful stamps with beautiful meaning.  If you only knew...

I have another friend that is a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan and she went to Game 6 and 7 last week.  She brought me a championship shirt back from her trip, so I plan on making her a baseball theme card with these stamps. I'll post it when I'm finished!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

Trick or Treat

Hi, there!

Are you ready for Halloween?  I'm not.  My son doesn't even know what he wants to be - and it's the day before Halloween.  We have options - so it's not like he won't have a costume on, but he is being indecisive.  If all else fails, he'll throw on his baseball uniform and go like that.

I'm not too concerned.  He might be, but I'm not.

I made a card for his teacher.  We are on a first-name basis these days, so being his teacher is either a trick or a treat.  I'm sure it changes every day!

Market Street Stamps: Happy Pumpkin; PTI: Mat Stack 3

I colored and blended the pumpkin with watercolor pencils, and added some glitter to the eyes and mouth.  I paper pieced the leaf with some Simply Chartreuse and added the ribbon and mat in the same color.  

I have to get busy and make some more Halloween cards and a birthday card for a dear friend.  I hope I get it all done.

Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow!  Our weather should be PERFECT for trick-or-treating!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Market Street Stamps

I've recently been converted to a new stamp company and I'm excited!  I ordered several sets recently and just got around to opening them up and playing around.  I'm also playing along with Market Street Stamps anniversary block party.  You can get all the details here. 

I couldn't resist the new set called Sweet Spooks.  Loved the ghost, the spider web, the spider and the argyle.  What a great little set!  I ordered it during the release week, so it was on sale!  SWEET!

Here's my card:

I die-cut some windows out of the black paper then sewed that to a piece of orange paper.  I stamped and cut out the cute little ghosts and ran them through my Xyron before pouring prisma glitter on them.  They sparkle and shimmer and shine!  Love that ghost!  I finished it off by inking the edges with white ink, matting the sentiment and adding a few black rhinestones.  Can't wait to use these stamps again!

You can join in the festivities and the community over at Market Street Stamps!  Come with me!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place

Sunflowers

I've had this Sunflower set from PTI since it was released and have yet to ink it up - until now.  One of my dear friends loves sunflowers and I wanted to make her a card.  She was about to have a very busy day at work today and I wanted to let her know I was thinking of her. 

I used some a new background stamp from Market Street Stamps and some new ink from Amuse.  So excited to find some other companies  that have things I love!

Here's my card:

MSS: Pretty Perfect Grid; PTI-Sunflower, Turning a New Leaf

The ink - oh that ink.  I'm in love with Amuse Ink and I want every single color.  I used it on the grid stamp for the background.  This color is Toffee and is very close to a Kraft color.  Yum.

After cutting out the sunflowers and stamping them, I popped them up with different sizes of pop-dots.  Before walking away from it, I added some Glossy Accents to the center. 

Here's a detail shot:

I decorated the inside a little bit too, but didn't take a picture.  One thing I wish I would have done is to ink the edges.  That would have given it a little more depth, I think. 

My friend loved it.  So happy about that and that is all that matters, right?

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Faux Watercolor

Apparently, I took a break.  Sorry for my absence from my blog and commenting on your blogs.  Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things.  It has taken me some time to adjust to my new school year.  Lots of extra stuff piled on an already full plate leaves me a little lifeless at the end of the day.  The energy is gone, but the desire is still here!  Making this card today sure put an extra bounce in my step and I know I need that creative fix every day.  I think that is part of my problem!

Today's card is brought to you by Make It Monday.  Lisa Johnson had a great video today and I had the day off, so it was a perfect combination!  

In Bloom stamps/die, Tiny Tags stamps/die, Wood Grain IP

After seeing Lisa's video, I went on the search in my collection for a stamp that needed to be colored in, but provided enough details to use the blender pen with.  In Bloom was my choice; I don't use this set enough.  I die cut the flowers, stamped them in Pure Poppy and then used Lisa's technique to color them. After I die cut a panel with Mat Stack 4, I ran it through my Big Shot with the Woodgrain Impression plate and added flower, ribbon and tag.  On a panel of Spring Moss I stamped the leaves, and then mounted everything on a Spring Moss base. 

You can play along with this week's challenge by clicking here. 

I'm very excited about the new stuff coming out this week at PTI.  It's Day 1 and I already have a list of stuff that I want and the total is a bit frightening!

Thinking of you

I made this card for the most recent Paper Crafts magazine call.  Obviously, it didn't get picked up, which is OK.  It's already in the hands of one of my favorite people. 

First, I cut out the heart and stamped the sentiment.  Then I got to empty out a bunch of button bags to look for fun buttons.  I placed them all on another piece of white cardstock with glue dots and placed the cut-out heart panel on top.  All of that was secured on a piece of pure poppy cardstock. 

I have seen this technique done several times, but never had attempted it myself.  It was a lot of fun to create with all of those buttons.  That was the best part - digging through them!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

It's a _____!

I have a friend who is pregnant. She and her husband have decided to wait until the "birth-day" to find out if the baby is a boy or girl.  She's due this week, so I knew I needed to get this card made and in the mail before too long.  She had a shower a couple of weeks ago.  You may remember this card I made for it. 

Melissa Bickford's Bundle of Love set was perfect for this, and I just love that stork.  Here's my card for my sweet, sweet friend:

Bundle of Love, Ripe Avocado Bitty Dots paper and ink, Lemon Tart cardstock/satin ribbon, Fiskars grass punch

I highlighted the bottom of the stork and the baby with a Copic C1 marker, and then gave the lines a bit of sparkle with a Sakura Stardust pen.  The baby was colored and paper-pieced, then the edges were inked with Spring Rain. 

I better get this in the mail before she goes into labor!

I'm sure she is tired of seeing yellows and greens and is ready to look at either pink and blue for awhile!  She has been waiting for this baby for so long and I can't wait for her to finally be a mommy.  She's made for it!  I think I'll make a boy card and a girl card today so that I'm ready for the big day!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place today!

So Thoughtful!

I loved Dawn's video today encouraging us to use non-background stamps to create backgrounds.  I love to dig through my stamps to see which ones would make great backgrounds, so this week's technique was perfect for me!  Nichole does this a lot - and with great color combos!  I used one of the combos that she talked about on PTI Radio this weekend on my card today.  

Here it is:

PTI:  Flower Fusion, Take Three die, Spring Moss, Ocean Tides, Vintage Cream

This particular flower from Flower Fusion was a bit hard to line up.  After I got over the fact that it didn't have to line up perfectly, I was off and running.

You can see Dawn's video and play along with this week's challenge by clicking here.  Hopefully I can get a few more created before the end of today - a holiday! 

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

Blast Off!

School has started.  That's why my blog has been so quiet.  The beginning of every year is always exhausting, but this year is also particularly challenging.  Lots of changes have occurred due to budget restraints, including adding more students and classes to each teachers' load, while taking away half the planning time we once had. So, we have a lot more work to do in half the time to do it. 

Therefore, this beginning is not only exhausting, but challenging too.

But, I can count my blessings when I say, "At least I'm not a coach."  Coaches have different challenges than I do in the classroom, and our football and volleyball coaches' seasons start within the next week.  So, the least I can do is make them a card:

Here they are:

PTI: Have a Ball, Boy Basics, Mat Stack 1 die, Woodgrain Impression Plate

PTI: Have a Ball, Boy Basics, Cloud die, Fiskars grass punch

I made 4 of each of these for all of our coaches.  The inside on all of them says, "Fired Up for a Winning Season." 

I used watercolors and blending on the flames from Boy Basics.  I'll link this up to this week's Make It Monday at PTI.  Here's a close-up:

Hopefully, my routine will begin to get, well more of a routine, and I'll be able to get more crafting done.  Hope to see you soon!

Thanks for visiting My Happy Place!

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!