Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. It's one of my favorite holidays of the year. So fun and festive. Not a lot of work, though, which is nice. I am going to make our annual special dinner. Ryan, Fran and I are having filet mignon, crab cakes and chocolate fondue (for dessert).

Here are some Valentines that I made recently using Crate Paper's DIY Shop line. Crate has some gorgeous Valentine's lines, but I wanted to make something with a different color palette. There are several gold embellishments with the line, so I decided to use gold and cream as my predominant colors.

  I spritzed the background with gold mist and added a gold doily on this one.

Here, I layered some die cuts and added that fun clothespin.

 I love the gold chevron tag! I added a gold flower die cut and some Thickers to round out this one.

It's fun to find other lines that work so well for different holidays!As a matter of fact, that gold flower does resemble a poinsettia. Maybe I could use it for a Christmas card!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Happy Valentine's Day!

Bright Ideas Class

Can't believe it's been a week since I've updated! But, I have been busy. I signed up for Studio Calico's class, Bright Ideas and have been having a blast with all of the challenges. This week, I was able to complete several of them.

This first card was for the create something using maps challenges. I LOVE maps. I decided to make a simple Valentine's card using Crate Paper Fourteen. I used a chipboard and die cut heart and added book paper cut out hearts to them. I topped them with some Webster's gems.

I added some stitching and an Ali Edwards's stamp to finish it off.

My next page was for the 'Stitched Title' challenge. The page is about my Christmas cactus. I've had it for over 15 years. This year it didn't bloom in December. I was thinking it might be dying or something, but lo and behold, it was a month behind. In January I had some beautiful blooms!

I used some Studio Calico, Jenni Bowlin and Basic Grey papers on here. The title is the negative space from a Silhouette cut. I stitched around it for some fun texture.

That's all for today. I'm off to work on some more challenges. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Stamp Storage

One of my 'Scrappy Resolutions' for this year is to stamp more. I have collected stamps for years, but really want to use them more. So, before I could do that, I decided I needed to organize and purge. That's done and now I can access my stamps much more easily. I thought I'd share what I did.

First, I got rid of a lot of older ones that, even though they were loved, I knew I wouldn't use. Then, I invested in some Office Depot CD plastic cases. I've seen these used by several stampers and I knew that being able to flip through my stamps would be best for me.

I placed the larger sets into the CD cases and put them in baskets on the shelf right behind my table. Here's a closer look.

 My next thought was what to do with the smaller or single sets. I decided to punch holes in the top of their packaging and put them on rings so I could easily flip through them, as well.

Since I have so many PTI stamps, I placed those rings in their own basket in front of the PTI CD case sets.

I am really happy with how this turned out. I feel like my collection is manageable now and I can find exactly what I'm looking for!

So, since I'm on the topic of stamping today, I thought I'd share a card that I made recently for Paper Crafts Stamp It 3 Ways  issue.

(I love this issue so much! There are 3 cards for each stamp set and you get so many ideas on how to use stamps in a versatile way.)

I used PTI's Hello Sunshine set. I decided to turn the sun rays into pennants!

I stamped and embossed them with American Crafts Zing powder in Butter and Mustard. The paper and little chipboard balloon are Echo Park.

Well, that's about all for this morning. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

Skylanders

Sorry it's been a while. Time got away with me and then the stomach flu hit. Ugh! Just now starting to feel human again, so I thought I'd post while I had some time.

I had some time to play along with Studio Calico's member challenge last week. I've been wanting to do a page about Ryan's love of Skylanders for a while. What are Skylanders? Well, if you have a boy, you probably know what I'm talking about. It's a video game. But, they suck you into buying these cute little figures. You pop them on portal and they appear on the screen. He's been hooked for a while. The interest started to wane this fall, but lo and behold came Series 2- Giants! So, now we are on the hunt for them again. LOL!

 The challenge was to use 4 squares, strips of paper, letter stamps, misting and 3 small embellishments.

 Most of the items I used were from January's Block Party kit. I added several of the printable die cuts. I love these things!

 I added a stitched border around the edge to ground everything.

The misting came in on the wood veneers. I used Mr. Huey's Real Red and Gold. I substituted some washi for my paper strips.

Can you see all of his Skylanders in the photo?

Here's another page that I did recently for Emma's. It's about my other little guy in the house - Pulu. This cat LOVES boxes. I snapped this shot a while ago. He cracks us up. He lays in wait and jumps out for the attack whenever we walk by.

I used a lot of American Crafts goodies on here.

 The title was cut from my Silhouette and I lots of stickers, enamel dots and wood stars.

 The 'hello bubble' and arrows were stamped with Pink Paislee Portfolio stamps and embossed with Denim Zing powder.

Well, that's about all for today. Still recovering from this stomach thing, so my burst of energy is over. Off to lay down. LOL.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Challenge

The beauty of having a long weekend with no major plans is I got to scrap, scrap, scrap! And I did a ton of organizing. One of my goals is to do more stamping. So, organizing my stamps was great because I got really motivated to use them. Plus, I found a bunch that I'd forgotten I had.

I decided to pull out a favorite Studio Calico stamp to create this card for the Moxie Fab World challenge - creating background paper. I used my new Hero Arts Neon pink pad to shadow stamp the sentiment several times on the paper, then cut it out and used it as my center panel.

I don't know why the color looks magenta. It's really a bright, neon pink.  I added the Pink Paislee heart and topped it with two Studio Calico potty people that were heat embossed with Silver embossing powder.  I topped them off with a heart that was stamped with the Neon Pink pad. TheWebster's gems were a perfect addition.

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I had originally wanted to make this a masculine card, but with all the pink not sure that will work. I do have the neon green pad, so maybe I'll try that.

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great day!

A Couple of Challenges

It has been FOREVER since I've had the time to participate in some online challenges. But, I finally got the chance today. :) I loved the image for the current Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger.

I paired the colors with the sketch from Studio Calico's Sunday Sketch. And here is what I came up with.

I used lots of goodies from the Block Party card kit. I added the Amy Tan globe and the wood plane.
I also added a bit of washi. The stamp is from the Studio Calico Airmail set.

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(Here's the Trigger.  I would love to have this sweet bed and bench in my room.)

I made this next card with the Block Party card kit, too. I love that Pebbles envelope! I added some Pink Paislee chipboard hearts. Can't get enough of those right now.

The stamp is from the kit, too. I love the little heart between the two people. I thought this card might be a good masculine one since it's not too girly!

Well, that's it for today. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Crate DIY Shop

Well, CHA has come and gone. This was the first winter show I haven't been at in several years. Sadly, because of my new job, I had to miss it. The good news, though, is that I got to play with the new Crate goodies! I created this page for the CP booth.

DIY Shop has so many fun elements. There are a couple of cute mustache elements and they were perfect for this photo of Ryan and his little friend. We have a local roller rink and they love getting the mustaches out of the gumball machine. They put them on and skate around wearing them the whole time. My journaling talks about how, at 9, they think this is so cool. Just wait a couple of years...LOL!

 I added several gold elements to this page. I spritzed the paper with Heidi Swapp Gold Lame. (I could use that stuff on everything.) The 9 was cut from glitter card stock. And I used some of the new twine which has gold threads in it!

See that chevron tag? It has gold glitter on it and is my favorite die cut from the line. The viewmaster reel is definitely a close second.

You'll be seeing more DIY projects soon.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!