Birthday, Birthday, Birthday!

Lots of birthdays coming up for me including of course my granddaughter and my daughter (their birthdays are just a day apart).  I have some other special people in my life who are close to celebrating birthdays, too, so I've been busy making a few more cards.  I'm just glad it's not my birthday!  (Well, I celebrated one at the beginning of the month but I'm perfectly happy not having another one for a long time!)

I made this one with stamps from Lawn Fawn.  This cake set is one of those where you can build your own layer cake...too cute!

I used Echo Park paper for the background and distressed the edge.  I also added a little Rock Candy Stickles to the little hearts and some Glossy Accent to the candle flames.  The cake and hearts were colored with Copics.  And of course the cake and hearts were popped up on foam tape for a little extra dimension.  We all need an extra dimension in our lives, don't we???

And I'm entering this in the Anything Goes #64 Challenge at Celebrate the Occasion.

Happy Crafting!

Quick and Easy Birthday Card

I love watching the videos at Lily Pad Cards.  I saw one a few days ago and thought I'd like to scraplift it.  You can see the original version HERE.  I put my own spin on it....added a butterfly and inked my mat but I loved the inspiration I got from the video.  I also stamped my images and then die cut them...I think that was an easier route...at least for me.  The card base and mat were cut out with Spellbinder dies.

I used Broken China Distress Ink to give the mat a little color.  The butterflies were colored and shaded a bit with Copics.  The mat is mounted on foam tape and then the little butterflies are glued into the die cut openings and folded a bit for a lift.

The whole thing took me less than 30 minutes.  I think I will make a few more to keep on hand!

Susan

Watercoloring with Distress Markers

I was going through the closet in my craft room a while back sorting through some old Stampin' Up stamps I had and came across the FIRST EVER stamp set I bought!  My friend had dragged me kicking and screaming to a Stampin' Up party.  I was determined I was NOT GOING TO GET INTO STAMPING!  I just thought it was way too messy and I never could seem to stamp properly with the little stamps I'd picked up at Target or Walmart.  Well, of course with some demonstration of proper technique I got it and became a huge fan of stamping and a huge collector, as well!  I still have some old sets of SU stamps that I just can't part with....and I've kept this set because it was my "FIRST EVER"!  It was called Forever Friends and I got it in 2002.  Ten years ago!  Wow!
Anyway, I remember this cute image and pulled it out and thought it would be great for watercoloring with the new set of Tim Holtz Distress Markers I recently received.

I love the way it turned out....and I learned a few things....like REMEMBER TO USE WATERCOLOR PAPER. 

I forgot after I got going and so I had a little bending of the paper but it flattened out nicely.  Still, the watercolor paper would have been a bit easier to work with.  It was fun using the markers and blending and shading with them.  I was pretty happy with my first time result.
The pink paper and ribbon is Raspberry Fizz from Paper Trey Ink.  The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn.  And I used a little Glossy Accents on the little birds.

Happy Crafting!

Sympathy Cards

Sympathy cards are probably not the number 1 card that any paper crafter desires to make but, unfortunately, sometimes you need a few.  I needed to make a couple so worked on those last night.  I used the DCWV Mariposa papers (I have the mat stack which converts nicely to horizontal cards), some gold embossing powders and Hero Arts stamps.
Here is the first...a regular A2 sized card:

And a closeup of the embossing:

Then I made a 5x7 card....this paper was just too pretty to cut down:

I embossed the "With Sympathy" sentiment directly on the printed paper and then die cut and stamped some butterflies.
A closeup of the butterflies:

I did play with my new Distress Markers a bit and totally messed my little image up at the end!  LOL!  So it's back to the drawing board with those but I know I'll have fun with them today!

Happy Crafting!

They Are Here!

I had ordered the set of Tim Holtz/Ranger Ink Distress Markers quite a while ago but, of course, like anything new or good...they were on backorder!  For a long time, I might add!  But they finally came!  Woohoo....37 lucious colors that coordinate with the Distress Inks and Stains line.  Water based...the tips don't contaminate when you touch one pen with another color ink....these are really great!

Here they are in their oh-so-cool canister (it is all about the packaging!)...

And here they are on their side with the top off so you can see the lucious colors:

But I am not allowed to play with them until I clean up my craft room.  Ho-hum.....
Rules, rules, rules!

Happy Crafting!

Birthday Party Invititations

ABG (Adorable Baby Girl) is turning 1! ....and my own ABG is turning 30-something the day after.  Oy Vey!

We are gearing up for a small very pink, very fluffy birthday party for our favorite little girl.  We just cannot believe the year has gone by so quckly.  Taylor is almost walking....guess she is leaving the baby stage (*sniff*) and becoming a toddler (yikes!).  She can go from 0-90 in next to nothing on those knees though and we are forever pulling things out of her mouth...paper, dog food, dirt,...you name it....if it will fit it will go in!

So much fun!

I made these party invitations...a little purse that I cut on my Cameo from a design from the Silhouette store.  I also cut out a few hearts and stuck on a few buttons and ribbon.  Very fast and we were happy with the way they turned out.

Not the greatest lighting in that photo above...how cool you can see my left hand, though....huh?  LOL!!!

And one of the invitations by itself:

And lastly, a photo of the inside....with the important information blurred out "to protect the innocent".

They were fun and they were fast and very girly...

Happy Crafting!

Flying By...

I spent the last half of the week doing mounds of laundry, cleaning, running errands, etc.  Decidedly uncrafty!  But I did have a little time yesterday and made this little card.  I used the very cute Lawn Fawn set "Flying By"...I thought it was appropriate because who knows when I will be off again! 

I ordered a whole bunch of stamp sets from Custom Crops a few weeks back when they were having a sale, of course....but this was the first one I got to.  I had seen it used on some of the sites around the blogging world and I just loved the little paper airplanes.  I used to fold a great paper airplane.  Note to self:  Show my grandson that skill...he will be awed... :)

 

 I used Echo Park This and That papers, Memento Ink Tuxedo Black, some baker's twine and a Signo pen for some pen stitching.  the card base is a JilliBean kraft card that I also picked up from Custom Crops.

Here is a closeup of the cute little paper airplanes.  I'm hoping a plane takes me overseas again soon!

Happy Crafting!

Where in the World Was Susan and over 1000 Photos Later!

Now that I am back home I can let you in on a little secret!  I've been out of the country on one of my travels again.  I went to Scotland and Ireland last October...remember?  Well, I was far from home once again!  Great trip...gone for 12 days and loved every minute of it....but of course, it is good getting back home after a trip, isn't it?

I don't usual advertise when I'm going to be gone because, of course, I am worried that some stalker who reads my blog will see we are out of town and come steal all my paper crafting toys.  Take the china, take the crystal...take the silver....but LEAVE MY SILHOUETTE!  LOL!!!

Anyway, I took well over 1000 photos and will share a few here...and maybe you can guess where I've been!

 Maybe you've been here and recognize some of my photos.

Well, it may be a day or two before I am back in the crafting mode.  I had a nearly 10 hour flight yesterday and am a bit jet lagged!

Now I need to get working on my next trip....the world is my oyster, as they say!

Happy Crafting!

Easter Egg Hunt

We did a little Easter Egg hunt with David in his front yard on Easter day.  What fun to watch him running around looking for eggs!

And of course I had the fun time of also doing a layout of his little event! 

Here is my two page spread:

A closer look at the left side:

And the right:

and a little closeup:

Happy Crafting!

Easter, 2012

I did a little layout of Taylor's first Easter.  She had on a white dress with little purple flowers on it and it was just so sweet and feminine.  We tried to do a photo shoot in the grass...she wasn't interested in our photo shoot.  She was more interested in finding what she could put in her mouth.  THAT KID!  Everything goes in her mouth!!!

I can't remember what papers I used....It is either from a BoBunny line or a My Mind's Eye line.  I bought it last year and it came with all kinds of fun things including the little egg stamps.  I doubt this paper is still available as it's "last year's model"....but it worked for me!

Here's the right side:

And both together:

Don't you just love the little gingham bows that I tied with a kitchen fork? :) 
Here is a closeup of the glitter border tape.  Love that stuff!

And that's it!

Happy Crafting!

I celebrated my birthday the other day in grand style.  My kids gave me a Kindle 3G so I have had a great time downloading books and I just love that I can check books out of my local library at NO COST! 

We celebrated with all the kids and grandkids at my daughter's house....I just loved that we could all be together.  Most special birthday EVER!

And here's a photo of Taylor after thoroughly enjoying one of the cupcakes we had!
She'll be a year in another month!  Wow!

Happy Crafting!

The Wait...

I just completed this layout but it is of the time we were in the hospital awaiting Adorable Baby Girl's (Taylor's) arrival. 
I didn't get great pictures of little David because he was always on the move but it is what it is....;)
The papers and embellishments were from My Mind's Eye.
Oh...and I blurred the photo in the bottom right of the right sided page.  I took a picture of the epidural site and figured I didn't need to post it all over the world wide web! Both times Amanda wanted to see what it looked like so I was happy to oblige by snapping a photo.  She loved her epidurals as evidenced by the drugged smile of her! LOL!

Here they are...
Left side:

Right side:

And side by side:

Looks sort of lopsided here but it really is pretty even in real life!

And a closeup of the cute little banner.  Like Monet or Picasso I seem to be moving from period to period.  I just left my butterfly period and seem to have entered the banner period.  HAHA!  But I'll probably go back to butterflies at some point.  Did you know Monet was in his blue period near the end of his career because he had cataracts and the only color he could see with any intensity was blue?  I thought that was very interesting....

Happy Crafting and Banner Making!

One Page Layout/Baseball

I don't know about you but for the majority of my scrapbooking life I have been obsessed by creating 2 page layouts.  I prefer when layouts "match" when they are placed face to face in an album.  But in order to simplify my scrapbooking life I have let that OCD-ness in me go a bit.  I still prefer to see 2 page layouts but the world will simply NOT stop revolving just because two consecutive pages in my album don't match, right?

So...having said that...here is a plain old one page layout with no companion page (as of yet) of my grandson with his tball and bat which the Easter Bunny brought him this year.  My son is in the background and was playing with him.  Notice the cell phone in the last picture....LOL!!! It is connected to him, I swear!

I used At the Park Echo Park papers...love those papers.
Here is a little closeup of the little banner done with stickers that were included with the paper pack.

That's it for today!

Happy Crafting!