You Are My Sunshine

I do like the look of chevron with dots inspired by Jillibean papers.  You can see my post yesterday for a look at more chevron with just and itty bitty bit of dots!  Say that fast..."itty bitty bit".  :)

After all the rain we've had we have been having some nice sun lately.  The air had gotten a bit cooler...almost felt like fall but now it's hot again.  I like the heat.  I don't like cold weather at all.  I can handle cold and sunny if it's dry but I am miserable when it's cold and windy and wet!  Wah, wah, wah. What a whiner!  I'd rather sweat than freeze any time (well, except when I sleep).

Papers and stamps used are from Jillibean and were sold in an exclusive kit from Archiver's.  The stamps will also work well for Project Life, I think.  They are cute! 

Terrible photo....I cropped it all wrong.  It's on a 4 1/2 by 5 1/2 inch card base of white cardstock.  But you get the general idea! :)

Very fast and easy card....

I am entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Dotty
and the Simon Says Anything Goes.

And that will be it for today!

Happy Crafting!

Just For You

I bought an exclusive card kit from Archiver's recently which came with Jillibean papers and stamps.  The kit was designed to make small 3x3 cards but I prefer to make standard sized cards.  I mean...what do you do with a zillion 3x3s?  They are good for gift enclosures but you can't really mail 'em so I don't need a zillion of them around.  I'd prefer to have a zillion standard cards in case I might, some day, want to part with one and mail it.  :)

The Jillibean paper was very nice....chevron on one side and dots on the other.  I liked that.
Anyway, easy card today.  Simple stamping and embellishing....

I ran the white cardstock through my Big Shot with a Stampin' Up embossing folder that makes pinpoint clouds.  Love that folder and was glad to finally use it! HAHA!

The butterfly was stamped and cut and popped up on some dimensionals.  I added a little bling to the body of the butterfly.

And that's it.  Fast and easy.

I've entered this in the Simon Says Monday Challenge: Dotty
and the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge. 

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 34

Up to date...up to date...up to date.  HAHA.  At least for this week!

Here is my left side of Week 34 (August 18-24):

The little stamped "Remember" on the bottom right is a Unity Stamp stamped with some Hero Arts neon ink.

Isn't this little boy the cutest?  I think so.
Also the cute little paperclip camera is made by Prima. 

The little speech bubble done with stamps and a die is from Hero Arts. 

Here is the right side:

Isn't the little cutie pie on the top left the most adorable?  She's my friend, Linda's granddaughter.  10 months of too cute!  And of course I think my own granddaughter is the cutest ever....
I used a little crystal sticker thingy that I had in my stash.

 

And that's it for today, my friends.

Happy Crafting!

You Make Me Smile

...well, of course, you do!

I finally broke out my August Simon Says Stamp Card Club Kit!  I have seen so many great cards with this kit and really can't wait to play with it a bit more.  But life has been busy this past week!  A good week, though!

Here is a little card I made.  The white part of the card is small and more gift enclosure sized.  I don't use that size often so decided to adhere it to a piece of 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inch sized cardstock by Papertrey Ink to make it more like a standard card.  The heavy cardstock by Papertrey Ink is also very sturdy and can stand alone! :)

It was inspired by a card made by Kristina Werner which was on the idea sheet that came with the kit. 
The stamp set that came with the kit is so cute....and look at how great those stitched lines stamp!  Inks used were from Hero Arts and Papertrey Ink.

I added a brad from Simple Stories which I think worked perfectly! 

Hope you have a fabulous day!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 33

Amazingly....I am caught up.  I keep saying that for me it is just so important to stay caught up on Project Life.  Otherwise I will be Project Lifeless.  It just becomes too overwhelming to me to get behind. 

My big beef with Project Life is selecting and editing photos.  That is just so time consuming.  Project Life is supposed to be about simplifying scrapbooking but this is the part that is complicated and tedious for me.  In fact....I really dislike this part.  I wish there were a professional photo selector out there.  I'd hire in a minute!

But once the photos are printed out in the size I want it's easy goings and so much fun!

Anywhoooo...here is my left side:

I used some We R Memory Keepers papers and embellishments.  I had quite a few photos so embellies were kept to a minimum.  Fewer embellies....less $$$!

The "Week 33" text was done with Paper Smooches stamps and some plain ol' blank ink!

Here is the right side:

Very eclectic themed photos...certainly a snapshot of our lives this past week!

Isn't it funny that when you get things all completed and printed up and then you post to your blog you notice goofs?  Like that the top right photo is the same as the one in the middle of the photo collage.  Oh well...I bet you wouldn't have noticed! LOL!  It is staying.  I'm not redoing this! 

Project Life has also freed me from the thinking that my photos need to be perfect.  101% of the photos my daughter takes of my grand-kids is with her iPhone.  It's great to always have a phone handy but the shutter does not always trip as quickly as is needed to catch a toddler's likeness so I do get a lot of blurry or over saturated photos that are beyond fixing up!  But I don't much mind that now...it's about documenting what they do....and when the little ones see these pictures they don't much care if it's in focus or if their skin is washed out.  They just see, with delight, photos of themselves doing some fun and interesting things!  Right?  Life is art and art is life but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a da Vinci or Picasso! ;)

I think I'm justifying....lol!

Happy Crafting and thanks for stopping by!

Hexagons!

I have loved all the cards and scrapbook layouts I've seen with hexagons.  I love that trend!  But I've done very little with it.  The other day I saw where Fiskars had come out with hexagon punches.  Ohhh....how easy is that?!

So I got the little punch at Archiver's the other day with my 30% off coupon (yay, Archiver's).  I was in Joann's yesterday and saw the punches there as well and this week they are 40% off.  Go shopping!

Here is a very fast and very flat card I made with the cute little punch:

I used Amy Tangerine papers and a little We R Memory Makers baker's twine.
The "hello" stamp is from Paper Smooches stamped with Versafine ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder.

Here's another view of the card closed:

Such an easy and fun card to make!  I think it would be a great design for masculine cards which are always my challenge .... just need to use some more masculine papers!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 32

Well, hellooooooo....

My Tuesday morning tennis team (and not my Sunday afternoon or Thursday night teams.  LOL...yes, summer tennis is busy here in Atlanta!) played in the City Championships yesterday.  Unfortunately the good guys were beat out by the bad guys.  LOL!  Not really....the other team was not made up of bad guys.  They were actually very nice ladies and just outplayed my team.  So hats off to them...but hats off to my team for making it all the way to the championship!  We are finalists and our team came in second out of 20 teams.  Not too shabby. 

And once we get over the loss...which usually takes me about 24 hours...we realize that there is another match just around the corner.  We start practice for our fall season next week!

We did decorate our table a little bit and I used my Silhouette to make the little signs on the front of the table:

One of my teammates made cake pops with donut holes that looked like tennis balls.  I should have gotten a close up picture of them but she had them in those flower pots you can see on the table.  Too cute!

Anyway....I was captain for that team.  A usual season runs 7 weeks but since we went through our regular season PLUS 3 rounds of playoffs and then the city final matches it was a very long season.  I am glad for the season to be OVER!!!

On to Project Life...
Here is the left side for WEEK 32  (August 4-10, 2013):  

 I used some cards made by We R Memory Keepers....not much extra embellishing. 

I added some stickers to the 4x6 card to make a "week" card.  Easy and fast!

And here is the right side:

I used several templates once again to get more photos onto my pages.  This can be a bit time consuming but it is a great way to use less than stellar photos because they print out small.

And that is it for today.

I'm actually up to date....I have Week 33 ready to go!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 31

I've been very slow posting this week.  I actually finished Week 31 last Saturday but only took the time today to get some photos of it!  So much going on....What, you ask?  I have no clue but the time keeps on passing!

This week I used an Echo Park kit that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby during a 50% off sale recently.  Good deal...these Echo Park paper packs have lots of letter stickers, cardstock embellishments and, of course, papers.  I loved this one....it was For the Record2: Documented by Lori Whitlock.  A great thing about the Echo Park kits is that there is also a digital version for the digital scrappers.  I used to do digital scrapbooking and still dabble in it....but I like the feel of paper in my hands so went back mostly to paper.  But I do still do it.  As they say...I am bi-scraptual!
;)

Here is the left side:

 And, of course, I get some lovely glare on my photos...but that's because they buckle a tad because of all the cool stuff I put on the cards!
Heheheheh....
Here is my week card complete with some very cool stitched Thickers and a little layer here and there:

Here is a little filler card with just a few popped up embellishments.

Here is the right side:

...this page is just filled with lots of photos of my grandkids enjoying the "little moments" in life.  I love all the photos of them having fun and doing different things!
I used a few Lily Pad templates that I colored a bit.  Not too extravagant but this week I got away from all the white.  I also did some of the journaling printed directly on the photo.  It was fun!

And that's it for today!

I cropped with friends last Saturday when I completed this page.  It's been nearly a week and my stuff still hasn't been unpacked yet.  Going to go work on that now!

Happy Crafting!

Best Day Ever!

I DID have the best day every yesterday.  I am lucky.  Life is good.  I have the "Best Day Ever" many days a week!  Saturday was a "best day ever" as I cropped with some good friends for the day. That's always fun and ranks among the "best".
Why was yesterday so good?  My Tuesday morning tennis team (as opposed to my Thursday night or Sunday afternoon teams! LOL!) played a playoff match yesterday and we won!  We have survived 3 playoff matches.  Next stop? City Finals!  The championship level!  Woohooo!!!! Now this is for all of Atlanta!  Sounds grand, doesn't it?  Actually, championships are awarded at each level.  Some play higher than we do....some play lower.  But at our level 20 teams started out and 2 remain!  Us and the team that is going to lose on Tuesday when we play.  HAHA!  I'm so confident! LOL!!! Not really but I think it will be some good and competitive tennis. 
Anyway....congrats to my whole team!  We have 15 ladies on this team...and all 15 have contributed to this chance at the championship.  I love these ladies...besides being wonderful tennis players they are fabulous friends!  We have such fun!

OK, on to card making....I took a class at Archiver's recently which focused on selling and yes I bought these oh so wonderful Hero Arts water color looking stamps.  I just love this fun and mostly flat card.  Love the colors and the water color look.  We stuck a little washi tape on for a good measure of fun.

It was so easily duplicated I came home and made another similar one:

Did I say I love these stamps?

Well, wish us luck for Tuesday.....Over my 21 years of playing league tennis I have been to City Finals 7 or 8 times but my teams have only won it once.  I think I'm due for a second one!

:)

Happy Crafting!

Happy Birthday!

A special little boy in my life, JP,  is having a big 5 year birthday in a few days and I wanted to make him a card with a big old 5 on it.

I used some Cosmo Cricket paper from a stash I had.....I'm wondering if I used this same paper on a card for him last year?  LOL!

I cut the "5" window on my Silhouette with the Arial Bold font.  So easy and so fast and I could size it exactly the way I wanted.  I just created a rectangle in my Silhouette Studio software and positioned my 5 where I wanted it and cut it out.  Easy peasy as they say.

The birthday cake was made with a Lawn Fawn set.  I know I should have put 5 candles on top but they were just so teeny and tedious to cut out and I took the easy way out!
The "turning" stamp is from Paper Smooches.

Here is the inside and was done with Penny Black and Paper Smooches stamps:

And lastly, I decorated the envelope with a stamp set from Simon Says Stamp and some Stampin' Up inks:

Not that JP will care but I thought it was a cute touch and since it will travel in my daughter's purse to the destination I think there is a less likely chance that it will get tossed or lost!

(thinking ahead....)

And now that I look at it I think it's calling for some Glossy Accents on the cake.  Off I go!

Big day today...tennis in an hour, hair cut and time with the grandkids later in the day.  Life is good!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 30

Thirty down, Twenty-two weeks to go! With Project Life, that is.

I completed my layouts the other day.  This was another very simple week.  I had purchased a few journaling cards and embellishments from the Simple Stories I Heart Summer line which worked perfectly for this week.

My friend, Kim, had sent me a link on some tips on Project Life and one of the ideas was to put your bulky embellishments on top of the page protector.  So, I am trying that this week...for the most part.  I do think that little 2 and 3 year old hands may pluck them off, though, so will have to watch out for that!

I give myself a B for the layouts...minimal effort, I know...but they are done.  And I give a C- for photography.  I have 5 cameras.  A fancy schmancy DSLR with a few lenses....a point and shoot...a bridge camera....a waterproof camera and my iPhone.  Make that 6 cameras because I do have an iPad, too, which has a camera.  I have tried every single camera and still get sub par photos of my PL layouts.  I have removed the photos from the page protectors and laid them on top.  That's probably the best method but that is time consuming and when I have a bunch of things on my cards or photos I don't like taking them in and out because they can get bent easily.  I have taken photos by windows...away from windows...outdoors...in doors.  On a table....on the floor. 

Sheesh. 

So, it is what it is.  I'm not apologizing for my C-....but hopefully you will look past the quality of the photography and just look at the layouts.  Okey doke?

Here is the left side:

I used a Thickers Alpha set that looks like a little banner.  I thought they were cute!
The camera embellishment has a big brad on it which of course buckled the protector slightly and gives off that icky glare!  But you get the idea!

 Here is the right side.  We visited my kid's grandmother this week and as she is moving from her home of 50 plus years I wanted to make sure I got lots of pictures of it.  So many  memories here.
I remember the very first time I visited here....back in the beginning of 1983....thirty years ago!

I used templates by LilyPad Designs to make my collage prints.  Those are very handy little templates and I've used them nearly weekly, I'm sure!

The right side is pretty much all pictures with one large journaling card.  I just didn't want to mess up the photos by putting lots of other things on them.  

Project Life.  Week 30.  Done.  After I had my pictures printed these two pages took me less than an hour to complete.  The average scrapper could probably get them done in 30 minutes or less but I am a bit slooooow.  

And now that I look I see I still need to add the dates and the last name of Amanda's friend.  :)

Now onto Week 31!

Happy Crafting!

Grateful for Your Friendship

Lazy days of summer going on here.  We haven't had such a hot summer here in Atlanta but boy oh boy has it been humid!!!  We have had so much rain!  Unbelievable and hard to imagine that just a year or two ago we were in a huge drought where we went for weeks without a drop of rain. 

The bad news is the rain has been heavy at times...the good news is that it is so green here...well, except my yard where the yard crew cut my grass too short.  Aaarghhhhh!  But grass is like hair and will grow, right?

Here is another card made with the April Simon Says Stamp Card kit...yep, still using up supplies.  The black ticket tag is actually plastic.  I wasn't sure what to do with it but then I saw some people had used white Staz-On which worked.  Ok....so that's what I did. 

I love the little acrylic button.  It's so cute!  Note to self....order more!

A few pieces of paper here and there and we have what is called a "handmade" card. 

I wonder if I'll get out of the lazy mode and get something going tonight!  It would be a great night for crafting!

Hope you get some time to craft, too!