You're the Best!

Today I am sharing another card I made with the Simon Says Stamp October Card kit. Being a big coffee lover....I just adored the coffee/tea themed set. It came with the cutest little metal die of a cup with the sweetest little heart cut out.
Vickie of Clips N Cuts was my inspiration for this card...she made her cups look like they had a tea bag in one of them but I decided I wanted to cut out the "steam" coming out of the cups instead. But I did use her idea of making the cups into little shakers filled with sequins.
So cute!

The paper is Basic Grey....I loved those little foxes.  I heat embossed the sentiment with some white embossing powder and used a sentiment from the stamp set that came with the kit: "What's Brewing".  I stamped the "steam with" some dark brown ink and the put some clear embossing powder over it to give it a little more gloss.
Here is a bit of a closeup:

 

Aren't those cups adorable?

I am off to a friend's house today for a crafty play-date.  I am thinking I will just take my laptop and work on digital crafting, though.  Less to pack, you know?  Then again it might be fun to cut, paste and get a bit inky.  Decisions...decisions!!!

But first....another cup of coffee!!!

Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

 

You Are Missed

Sometimes, just sometimes and not very often...I get a kick out of making a relatively flat card.  Mostly, though, I like lots of layers and SCHTUFF on my cards.  Bling, ribbon, buttons...whatevs...I love all the schtuff.  I personally think dimensionals and foam tape were invented because of me.  LOL!!! Ok, that sounds a bit egocentric but when we all started adding dimension onto scrapbook layouts or cards...well, that made me very happy.  I jumped on that bandwagon and have NEVER gotten off.

But again...flat can be good.  I had a lot of fun making this flat little baby.  I used a Lawn Fawn journaling card die...which puts a little stitched edge around it...how cool.  Stamped the flowers and leaves and sentiment which are all from the Simon Says Stamp February Card kit and put it on some Basic Grey paper.  Very simple and easy and I am happy with simple and easy!

Flatness can be a good thing.  OK, now I realized I fibbed on the whole flat thing...I actually did add foam tape (I couldn't resist) being the journaling card.  but it is mostly flat....I swear!

And here is the February Card Kit again with the fabulous stamp set.  Love it. 

And that is it for today my flat and dimensional friends!

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 37

When you look at my pages for Week 37 you may wonder..."how on earth is she so far behind?  She doesn't do much other than slap pictures in her book.  How long can that take???"  Haha!  Well, it's the behind the scenes that takes so much time for me. That dreaded photo selection and editing!

But I did get Week 37 done...and have most of Week 38 done....and Week 39 was just last week...so I'm catching up!  Yadda, yadda, yadda...

Here is the left side:

I used Simple Stories journaling cards, stickers and papers and a few Studio Calico wood veneers.  I stamped the wood veneers with some Basic Grey stamps. 

Sometimes you just gotta journal where you can...

Isn't this action shot so cute.  My little guy is the one in the white shirt.  I love the look and concentration on his face:

Here is the right side:

The sentiment below is a brush from CZ design.  My daughter has a theory that it doesn't matter what shoes a child will put on...they will always be on the wrong feet!

The journaling card was made on my Silhouette Cameo with a design from Hero Arts and  Simple Stories paper as well as a Becky Higgins journaling card.  I used a little Basic Grey arrow stamp to point in the direction of the photo the journaling is about.

And that's it for today.  Easy peasy...only took me 6 hours.  LOL!!!

Baby watch continues...we are T-6 days from the due date....any day now....  Stay tuned...

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 35

I was able to get a little "forward movement" yesterday working on my Project Life and completed Week 35.  Since we are currently in week 37 I shouldn't feel too overwhelmed that I'm behind but I really do prefer the feeling of being caught up! 

Week 35 was a week where both my grand kids and their parents spent part of the week out of town on a little family trip and where I ended the week by flying to New York City for a few days.  I met up with my sister, Pam, and my nephew, Scott.  Scott works in Manhattan at the Standard Hotel which is right on the Highline in lower Manhattan.  What a great hotel with a fabulous view of Manhattan.  I just love city lights. 

Anyway....back to Project Life!
I did simple layouts using Basic Grey journaling cards, some chipboard buttons and some flair.  Easy Peasy as I like to say.  The pages came together very quickly AFTER I SPENT  almost twenty-two hours working on my photos! LOL!!! 
Here is the left side:

My daughter had and rode horses growing up so I bet she just LOVED that the tots were not scared of the horses.  They loved their pony riding!
I made the week card by just taking one of the Basic Grey journaling cards and stamping it with some Hero Arts stamps and some Jenni Bowlin ink.
I thought these chipboard buttons were really cute:

Here is the right side:

Today also happens to be the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States.  I was able to visit the National 9-11 Memorial which was built in the footprints of where the Twin Towers collapsed.  It was a very powerful reminder of what happened that day but how we were not defeated by these senseless acts of murder.  The niece of my college roommate whose name was Jean Destrahan Roger was a flight attendant on the first plane to hit a tower.  She was 25 years old.  I found her name which was inscribed as are all the names of those who lost their lives and you can see it in the center photo.  We will never forget.

I added a little flair as well....but kept these pages pretty simple. I am going to add an insert page with some of the other photos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art which I posted the other day.

I hope today is a day of happiness for you and that the families of those who lost lives that day get some comfort knowing their loved ones have not been forgotten.

Project Life: Week 26

It's official! Half the year is over and I have a full Project Life Album to show for it! Usually at this time of the year I have 12 layouts done.  If I'm lucky and productive!  But with Project Life I have completed 152 pages!!! That includes all the insert pages I've done, as well.  I amaze myself.  LOL!  My friend, Cyndi, can do 152 pages in a weekend but for me that would be impossible.
And thank you to my friend, Donna, for keeping me on track.  She is doing the digital version over HERE and I just love looking at her pages....she keeps me going even though I'm doing the paper version.
I love the paper version.  Sometimes I wish I had done digital.  Much less expensive and less time consuming, I think...and everything is so neat and lined up...but I love my big fat book with twine, ribbon, bling, layers, etc.
I'm happy.

Last week I took a lot of time creating my own journaling cards with stamps.  This week I went the easy and fast way and used premade cards.  I had so many pictures from this week that I just let the pictures do the talking!  I used a lot of templates from the Lily Pad so that I could use many, many photos in my layouts.  I think the templates are fabulous for adding in photos!

Here is the left side:

I used a few overlays from an older pack of Memories brand stuff I had in my stash.

Here is my week card with some Snap! papers by Simple Stories and stitched Thickers.  I also used some stamps from Basic Grey Hello as well as some skinny Washi tape that came with the Simon Says Stamp July Card Kit.

The card below was a piece of a Becky Higgins journaling card on a Simple Stories card which I adhered with staples.  I added the Washi tape and stamped "family" with some Hero Arts alpha stamps.

And t

Here is the right side:

Lots and lots of photos on this page.  The collage on the bottom left is actually a Tracey Larsen template that I changed up a bit (this will be boring for you but it had two long vertical photos and I made the middle vertical into 2 square photos.  Yawn.).
I only used one journaling card.....again the photos speak for themselves, I think...

Halfway there....
Oh, and here is a photo of my fat book:

Now onto Volume 2!

Happy Crafting!

And Yet Another....

....PQC (Pretty Quick Card) with Simon Says Stamp June Card Kit of the Month....a Father's Day card to be exact!

I used some of the tags from the little Basic Grey tag booklet that came with the kit, some twine as well as a stamp and die cut from the Simon Says Stamp Be die and stamp set.  I love that little "Be" die.
Pretty Quick, Pretty Simple, and Done!

Happy Crafting!

A Five Minute-er!

When I make a really fast card I feel like I'm cheating.  Plain and simple....it's just cheating! HAHA!  I feel like I should have to sweat over a card or a project a little more.  A quick card makes me feel like I'm taking the easy way out! LOL!

So...I surprised myself with this I used the June Simon Says Stamp Card Kit which came with these great Basic Grey tags which were perfect for cards (and I still have a ton left that will be great for Project Life!)!

Once again here is the June Kit...filled with all kinds of Basic Grey papers!

Here is the first card:

I used the little wood banners from Jillibean that came with the kit that are so cute!  Very simple and very fast.
And for once I'm ok with simple and fast!

I entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Simon Says,,,,Transport.

Happy Crafting!

Project Life: Week 9

Yesterday I posted the process I go through to plan for my weekly Project Life layouts.  I really think the hardest part for me is choosing my photos and determining where I am going to put them on my layouts.  Once I get that done the actual page making is pretty quick and simple (Read: Less than 3 hours...).  I am a fiddler and a tweaker....at least half the time I spend scrapbooking is spent fiddling and tweaking.  If I could just learn to leave things alone I'd get things done much more quickly.  But I love to fiddle and tweak.  It's just my nature.

Woohoo....I finished Week 9...according to my calculations I am approximately 17.3% through with the year! HAHA!

Here is the left side...and once again I used Basic Grey Fact and Fiction papers and embellishments.  I had picked up these things a while ago at Joann's 50% off....great deal and I love it all!

 Here is my "Week 9" card...why I added butterflies I don't know except that I like butterflies.  "Week 9" was cut with a font installed on my computer with the Silhouette Cameo.  The butterflies were created with a Martha Stewart punch (Go, Martha!).  I added a couple of staples and some pen stitching as well as a bit of twine and that was it.
The "Today" card was cut with my Cameo, as well, from a design purchased in the Silhouette Online store.  I used one of the Becky Higgins grid cards that I purchased from Amazon (they are 4x6) but I just easily ran it through my Cameo to get the 3x4 size.

And next is another little card cut with the Cameo from an Ali Edwards design that I purchased from Designer Digitals HERE.  I simply imported the .png file into the Silhouette Studio software and "traced" it to get the cut lines.  So simple and works so well!  Look how skinny that little cut is! :)  And again I used a Becky Higgins grid card (or half of one) to make the background of the journaling block.

Next...is the right side of the 2 page layout:

On the top right is a journaling card made with various embellishments from the Basic Grey line.  

I made the little 3x4 journaling/filler card below with some other embellishments including this cute little hanger, a piece of flair and a chipboard accent!

 This card was cut with the Cameo from a design in the Silhouette Online store (so many wonderful files in the store that work perfectly for Project Life). I added a little fabric flower to the card and just think it's so darned cute!

Again I cut the frame for my beach sunset picture from an Ali Edwards 4x6 frame set and then used Lauren Script to cut out the word "serene" which I welded in the Silhouette Studio software.

Another great week!  Life is good!

Happy Crafting!

Valentine Wishes

Here is a little Valentine Card made with a "LOVE" stamp cut from the Silhouette store.  It cut so well on this printed paper called "Love Note" by Fancy Pants....love this little paper pad!
This card worked up very quickly....I used some Papertrey Ink ribbon for a little tie at the bottom.  Very simple and really very fast.  Including the cutting....less than 10 minutes, I'd say.  (Read: more like 20.)

Don't you just love those love stamps? 
Also I wanted to share my insert page for my Project Life album.  Last week we celebrated my son's birthday and I had a few pages I wanted to use so I inserted an 8 1/2 by 11-ish We R Memory Keepers page protector.  It has slots for a large photo across the top which I just mounted to some printed paper and then two 4x6's.
Here it is with some white paper behind so you can see it.  Not a great photo but you get the idea.

And here is the reverse side:

And how it looks without the white paper behind it inserted in Week 3:

And here is a little closeup of the journaling box.  I used some Recollection puffy dimensional stickers to dress it up a bit:

And that's it for today!  Off to play some tennis!

And hopefully some....

HAPPY CRAFTING!

later....

Project Life: Week 3

I was able to get quite a few photos last week which left me with a different quandary than when I don't have many...which photos to use and which ones to omit?!  My daughter doesn't use a regular camera much...she's of the cell phone camera generation but at least now she is sharing those photos with me via Dropbox and I can get the full resolution files. So at least I'm getting better prints now!

I had fun getting my Project Life pages done.  I'm not totally finished, though....still have an insert I am putting in this week with some extra pictures.  But I'm glad I got the 2 12x12 layouts completed.

And here they are:

Left side:

 I used Basic Grey Fact and Fiction papers and embellishments for these spreads.  The "Week 3" box in the top left was one I designed myself in Silhouette.  It didn't take much time at all took forever because I forgot the whole compound path versus a grouped shape and the whole welding thing.  OK, if you don't speak Silhouettese that's ok....but really it should have been easy to do and now I will remember for the next time...well, that may not be true but I did write it down so as long as I remember where I put that little snippet I'll be good to go!  I do like the way it turned out.  I used a new to me Simon Says Stamp die for the banner.  Too cute!  Added a few hearts that I punched out with a Martha Stewart Punch and used a little glossy accents and some foam tape to give it a little more oomph.

I cut a couple of other things with my Cameo, too....the Everyday Life word art which was from the Silhouette Store and "remember this" which is from Ali Edwards....brought the design in to the Silhouette software, traced it and resized it the way I wanted it.

And here is the right side:

It's difficult to see here but "smile laugh and giggle" and the arrow are cut out with my Cameo, too.  The little badge is from the Basic Grey Fact and Fiction line.

The little journaling box was made with an EK Success border punch and the cutest little wooden banner from Studio Calico which I stamped on.

On the bottom left of the right layout (follow that?) there is a transparency that shows from the page before (last week's).  Not sure if I'm going to leave it that way or back it but for now you can see cute Tay-Tay through the transparency and when you are in Week 2 you get a teensy glimpse of week 3.  Not sure, though....not sure....but it is cute the way Taylor's eyes peek through the word "Genuine"!
See?

Pretty simple stuff and if I had remember how to weld, blah, blah, blah with my Silhouette it probably wouldn't have taken me 5 hours! LOL!  (Slight exaggeration!)

Fun, fun, fun!

Week 3 down....49 to go!

I'm entering this in the Basic Grey Challenges: Challenge 85 New Beginnings/Something New.
I used all kinds of new to me things....the banner die, the Basic Grey cutie embellishments, cut files from the Silhouette Store, etc.

Happy Crafting!

Sympathy Card

Sympathy cards....not the "funnest" to make, perhaps, but it's nice knowing you are making for someone who may receive a bit of comfort from it.
A friend on one of my tennis teams lost her mother a few days ago and I made this card to mail to her.

 I used Basic Grey's Little Black Dress papers.  The border was punched with a Martha Stewart punch (one of my favorites!).  The 3 layer flower is from Recollections and had a little Glimmer Mist Sprayed on it.  The brad if you're interested is from Basic Grey....I know we should give credit or acknowledgement for the products we used in cases someone wants to know or use them too...but seriously...a brad, an eyelet?....where a clear button came from?  What 4 types of adhesive I used?  LOL!  OK, I digress....
Here's a closer up photo of the flower...it has a little gauzy shimmery layer which is so pretty to me....

The sentiment is from Hero Arts Everyday Sayings....a wonderful stamp set that I've used several times.

I entered this in the Basic Grey Challenge 76: Punch It!!!

That's it for today....off to get some errands done and hope to get into my craft room later today!

Happy Crafting!