Let's Celebrate!

Today is my son's 28th birthday.  I am happy for him that he is having a birthday...but I'm sad for me because it just means one thing.  I'm old! HaHa!  And Lord knows...through his teenage years he aged me prematurely! ;)

I do love that "kid", though. We met him and his bride of nearly 9 months on Saturday for a lovely dinner at a fabulous Atlanta restaurant called Ray's on the River. It is a wonderful location with fabulous food and great service and lots of $$$$.  You think a kid who survived on McDonalds for about 10 years of his life so that he could get the danged Happy Meal toy would be happy to eat at McDonald's now.  Nope...his tastes have changed! LOL! Just kidding...I actually picked the restaurant...he had never been there but really enjoyed it.

Here is my son with his wife:

 

 And I made this card for him which was mailed so he'd get a little surprise in the mail, too...since I won't see him today. 

 

It was inspired by copied from Lucy Abrams and you can see her card HERE if you want to see how closely I copied it.  Oh, c'mon...you went and peeked, didn't you?  LOL! Actually I did change mine a (teensy) bit...I used a postage stamp mat cut with a Simon Says Stamp die and also used twine on my card.  I used that wonderful Ranger Ink Platinum embossing powder that I ooohed and ahhhed over in an earlier post.  Cool stuff.

Anyway, my son won't know that I copied shamelessly.  He won't even much notice the card...he will mostly just look to see if there is money in it! Ha!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!!!

Happy Crafting!

I don't know what got into me but I was on a card making frenzy today! I made over a dozen cards.  Yep, they were all pretty simple...but that is probably a world's record for me!!! It was so fun and I had a great time playing in my happy space.

The two cards I'm sharing today were made with the December card kit from Simon Says Stamp.  How much I loved these colors and the fun paper patterns and die cuts that were included!

Here was a snowman popped up on some foam tape.

Kind of a whacky looking snowman but I loved him! and the Geotag was just a fun touch, you know?

And here is another one:

 I thought the "slides" were so cute!.  I took a few patterned papers and made a few banners and embossed thanks on one of them

Lots of layers but easy to do!

Happy Crafting!

It's Your Day!

This card was inspired by a card made by Kathy Racoosin with the December, 2014 card kit from Simon Says Stamp.
Here is the kit with the items it came with:

Oh, how I loved this kit.  It came with two really fabulous embossing powders....my favorite is the Ranger Liquid Platinum.  What a great embossing powder this is! And my friends know that I LOVE to fire (heheheheh) up that heat gun and EMBOSS! My nickname with some of my friends is "Crispy Chick" because I have been know to crisp (read: burn) some things up in the past with said heat gun! :)
I figured this kit was a great deal...the embossing powders retail for $4.99 a piece and the Distress Embossing Ink retails for $2.99.  that's nearly $13 right there....but with the stamp set and the papers and sequins I only paid $19.99.  Such a great value, I think!
The bad news is that this kit is no longer in stock and kits beginning in January saw a price increase.  I think they are still a great value, though and I am one happy customer!  And my grandkids like the lollipops they always include! 
LOL!
Anyway, the Liquid Platinum embossing powder is very fine and goes on beautifully...and has just the right amount of sheen to it.
Here is my card:

I used my Silhouette to cut the 1 1/2-ish inch circle in the navy cardstock after I'd embossed it with those messy and stitched circles.  None of the assorted punch circles I had were the right size or went in deep enough into my paper...I didn't want the circle right on the edge. 
Here is a closer-up look:

I made this for my son (I always talk about how difficult man-ish cards are for me but I thought this fit the bill!).  His birthday is in the next few days.

I also made another gift box with some papers I had on hand.  Same box as in yesterday's post but instead of cutting out some flower petals which would have been decidedly NON-Man-ish I opted for some other embellishments I had on hand.

I just love these little gift card boxes.   Here it is opened with a gift card...or two.

And that's it for today...I do hope you all are finding a little time for some creativity of your own!

Happy Crafting!

Gift Card Box

I found this very cute gift card box file in the Silhouette Online Store by Jamie Lane Designs.  It cut very easily and was fun to put together.  What is different about this little guy is that it has a little "pop up" that holds the gift card.

I have a friend who had a baby about a hundred years ago and I was really late getting a gift to her so today was the day....

I made the little card box with some Die Cuts With a View papers called Baby Boy Nursery. 

After I took the photo and was heading out the door I realized I hadn't taken a photo showing how the pop up mechanism works so I stopped quickly and took another photo:

And no...I didn't give the new mother a Lowe's gift card....it was just one I had to show how the card sits.

I love it...love the way these boxes cut and I thought the flower on top was so pretty!

Happy Crafting!!

Gift Wrap

I love one of a kind gift wrap. I don't necessarily love gift wrapping but I do love, occasionally, fixing up a box or bag. I think my boxes and bags are sometimes better than the gifts within! LOL! It's all about the presentation, baby!

My cutie pie hair stylist is getting ready to have her third baby...a boy...next month. She has a set of twin girls who are both as cute as can be and are pretty excited, I imagine, about becoming big sisters!

I bought her a couple of little things and then fiddled until I came up with a cute way to give it to her. She loved it and almost had to be coaxed to open the box! LOL!  She is decorating the nursery in a plane theme so I thought it would be cute to do a package with a little plane on it, too.

Here is what I came up with using a design from PPbN in the Silhouette Online Store:

The clouds are some I made with welded circles and I typed the text with the Pacifico font onto a path to get the curved shape and welded it.....this is a great font for welding!  Isn't that just too cute.
They are not telling anyone what name they've chosen for this precious little boy...but their last name is Jones so I added it. 
And then I made this very simple card with another cut file from the Silhouette Online store designed by Daniela Angelova.

And then a little handmade envelope with my We R Memory Keeper Envelope Punch Board finished it off!

It was loved and shared and this made it all worth while, right?

Happy Crafting!

Zipping By...!

I just don't know where the time goes.  I must waste a lot of it!  I just don't feel like I have had much extra time the last 4 or 5 days....it's crazy!  But I certainly don't have much to show for how "busy" I've been! LOL!
I did get a new phone and that, seriously, took 2 days and lots of waiting around.  Shouldn't have been that way but it was! But that finally all got taken care of and I'm loving a phone with more than an hour of battery life! ;)
So here are two more cards with the Simon Says Stamp Card kit of the month for January, 2014.  Love those purples and blues....

Lots of little layers here....you can see a little closer here:

I love the little tickets and the snowflakes.
Simple card....just the bonus diecuts and some foam tape.

And here is another one done with lots of embossing.

I did the embossing around the edges to look like snow on a window.  Yeah, right.  I inked the edges with pigment ink so when I went to emboss the sentiment the powder stuck to it.  LOL...so I just added more ink and more powder.  It was fun. What can I say?
I finished it off with a couple of sequins.  This card is one of those that looks better in real life....trust me.

I'm entering the top one in the Simon Says Stamp 

First Cards of the Year!

I finally made myself a bit of time to go in my craft room to work on a few cards last night.  I had such a good time and cranked out a half dozen in NO time at all.

I skipped over the December, 2014 Simon Says Stamp Card Kit which still sits in its box downstairs...love that kit but wanted to make some thank you cards and the January Card kit for 2015 has a very nice little thank you theme going.

Here is the kit:

Now, 100 lucky subscribers were randomly selected to receive this in lieu of the little stamps above:

Well, guess who was lucky enough to get this? Moi, of course!
So, I got to work making some fun and simple cards with this fun stamp set and the pretty Bo Bunny papers and dies included.
Here is the first one I made:

 Very simple with a little embossing of the "winter wishes" sentiment.  I also used a Paper Smooches shadow stamp at the bottom just to give the cups a little "grounding".

I stamped a simple thank you sentiment for the inside.

I am entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge (Something New) HERE.  The Bo Bunny papers, dies and the new SSS stamp set were new to me!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life:2014 Week 25

This week posed an interesting dilemma for me.  I usually have too many photos and it is time consuming to go through them and determine what will get used...and what will get tossed.  This week was the first time I had the opposite problem. My daughter and I use Dropbox for file sharing and lo and behold when I went in to pull out the photos that she had taken...well, there were only about 4.  Then I looked in my own files to see what I had and I only had a few, as well! I sat here at my laptop with my iPhone to the right of me...texted my daughter that I was sad we had no photos of David for this week.  Not one photo.  She texted back that she had a video of David doing the monkey bars for the first time and within 3 minutes and dropped 6 frames into Dropbox for me to use. Problem solved fairly quickly! As we all say over and over...Technology. Is. Amazing!!

So this is what I came up with for Week 25 using Just Jaimee's June Storyteller kit:

I still didn't have a ton of pictures so I had to sort of improvise a bit.  I loved the photo of Wade sleeping in his mother's arms but I thought it might look more striking as a black and white. I also modified the Becky Higgins template by "elongating" the top left slot (which is normally for a 4x6 inch photo) and made it 8x6inches roughly.  I thought that gave me a nice balanced look to the page.  I made the Week 25 card with a brush from the Story teller kit as well as a 4x6 card.

Here is a closer look at the left side:

Check out Taylor in her bed! HAHA!

Here is the right side:

I used a template from Paislee Press for the photos of David on the Monkey Bars.  The photo of Wade with the booboo nose is from Lori Whitlock.

I love my simple Less is More layouts. Maybe my goal should be to take fewer photos...not MORE!

Happy Crafting!

and for me...? On to Week 26!

Project Life, 2014: Week 24

I am back in the swing of PL-ing our lives. Of course I am half a year behind but I hear worse war stories out there!  I took about a month off creating layouts because I was doing other projects for the holidays...and life just got in the way...I have found that when I take a break it's really hard to get going again.  I don't know if others have that problem but I certainly do!

But I did Week 23 the other day and the mojo I finally got going helped me complete Week 24 which is here:

I used a mega collaborative kit called "Currently" from the Lilypad. It is a wonderful kit packed with all kinds of easy to use stuff!
Here is the left side:

I usually use Wade's month photo for the week card but since were a week late getting it taken I decided to just use it in the week the photo was taken.  That is probably as clear as mud...what happened is that my daughter didn't get around to taking his "month" photo until the week after he turned 8 months...so when I was going through her photos, I forgot about this one as I didn't see it in the photos for last week and I have completed those layouts and am not changing them!  That's PL for me...make it work!
Here is the right side:

I do have blanks in the card about Taylor and her doctor's appointment.  We need to locate her height and weight and as soon as we do that I'll amend my card to include that info.  And yes, I saved out my layers so I will easily be able to add in the text.  Yay, me!

I'm getting close to the half year mark!!!

And now to start on 2015!!!

But first time to get the Christmas decorations down!!!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life, 2014: Week 23

Wishing you a most Happy New Year!

Do I have resolutions for 2015?  Well, certainly.  I've already broken one but just couldn't do it today.  LOL!  I was going to walk on my treadmill a bit but we ended up going to the park with the grandkids and then my surgery foot yelled at me "I'VE HAD ENOUGH!"  But that's ok...I think of resolutions as goals...things I want to aspire to...but if I don't do them all the time...well, that's ok, too.
My big resolution is to start Project Life for 2015 on time...which means I will need to get week 1 done by January 3 as that completes "Week 1".  I will be fine. LOL!!! I did get a few photos today of the kids at the park.  I can do this...I can do this...said the little engine!

So...back to 2014.  I have finished Week 23 which you can see below:

I used Just Jaimee's Storyteller for June and a Lilpad template or two.

Here is a closer look at the left side:

And here is the right side:

 

Not too complicated...I just chose the best photos of the week and stuck them here and there.  It works.  It is done.  On. To. Week. 24.

Happy Crafting!