A Year In Review-13 Favorite Cards in 2013

I'm back again today with 13 of my favorite cards from 2013.  :)

Card #1:  Holiday Thank You Card using Frosty digital papers and cutting files by Lori Whitlock.

Card #2: Mitten Winter Birthday Card with gift card pocket

Card #3:  Another Winter Birthday card using stamps and dies by Papertrey ink & papers by My Mind's Eye.

Card #4:  A shaped Valentine's Day card using Silhouette cutting files and Canvas Corp. Papers.

Card #5: An Echo Park Summer Days card using cutting file by Lori Whitlock and sentiment stamp by Papertrey Ink.

Card #6:  A Doodlebug Flower Box card.

Card #7:  A Sunshine card using Silhouette cutting files and Simple Stories Snap 6x6 papers.

Card #8:  A Pebbles Inc. Family Ties card.

Card #9:  A Simple Stories Summer Fresh card.

Card #10:  An Echo Park All About A Boy card with sentiment stamps by Papertrey Ink.

Card #11:  An Echo Park Dots & Stripes card using cutting files by Lori Whitlock and sentiment stamps by Technique Tuesday.

Card #12:  A clear card using washi tape diecut into hearts and Technique Tuesday sentiment stamps.

Card #13:  A Doodlebug Halloween Parade Card using Papertrey Ink tag die and Spellbinders Pennant die.

Well, that wraps it up.  Thanks so much for hanging with me this past year.  You all mean so much to me and your sweet comments left throughout the year always put a giant smile on my face.  I hope you all have a very Happy New Year!  :)

A Year In Review-13 Favorite Layouts in 2013

Today as 2013 draws to a close, I thought I would re-share 13 of my favorite layouts from the past year.

Layout #1: An Echo Park Love Story Layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #2: Another Echo Park Love Story Layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #3: A layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock and papers by Doodlebug.

Layout #4: An Echo Park All About A Boy Layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #5: An 8-1/2 x 11 Double-Page Layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #6: An ombre, rock star themed layout with cutting files by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #7: A Bella Blvd. Birthday Girl Layout using stamps and cutting files by Technique Tuesday.

Layout #8:  A Doodlebug Flower Box layout.

Layout #9:  A Pebbles Inc. Basics layout using a Silhouette background cutting file.

Layout #10- An Echo Park Here & Now Layout using cutting files designed by Lori Whitlock.

Layout #11- A Pebbles Inc. Walnut Grove Layout

Layout #12- An American Crafts Project Life "Honey" layout with Doodlebug Washi Tapes.

Layout #13: An October Afternoon layout with Stamps and matching dies by Technique Tuesday.

I'm embarrassed to say it was hard to narrow it down to 13.  I've never been a very good editor and each new layout I make feels like my favorite.  ;)  I'll be back tomorrow with 13 of my favorite cards from the past year.  Hope you enjoy your New Years Eve festivities!  :)

Day 30- Holiday Wrap Up & December Daily Peek

I apologize this post is coming so late... I had great intentions of finishing up my holiday series with a bang, but my post for Lori Whitlock's blog ended up being rescheduled for next week which left me a bit empty handed and without a project to share today.  ;)

Unfortunately with all the energy and anticipation of planning for the holidays, now that Christmas is over I feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head.  I'm completely exhausted.   Anyone else feeling this way?

I decided for my last installment I would share a sneak peek of what is to come on January 2nd when I will be sharing most of my completed December Daily album on Lori Whitlock's blog.

I also had a handful of Christmas cards that were featured over at Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking magazine's blog this past week which can be seen HERE, HERE and HERE.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and continue to enjoy this week of unwinding from the holiday frenzy.  :)

Day 29- A Technique Tuesday Trendy Trees Layout

Hello and Merry Christmas!  Phew!  We made it!  I hope you are having a grand time stuffing yourselves with all sorts of yummy foods and getting lost in the wrapping paper with those you love.  ;)

Today I have another Technique Tuesday layout documenting my daughters opening our Wii a few years back, along with games and accessories I had been secretly collecting for months.  They were convinced I would never buy one so it was an extra special present that we opened early to enjoy before travelling to several different homes for the holidays.  Their reaction and excitement was priceless!

I struggled for a long time to scrapbook these photos because the colors always seemed a little off with every Christmas collection I paired it with.  Then I realized by using some basic papers from American Crafts with these awesome stamps I could create my own look that matched the random brown and pale pinks my daughter was wearing that day.

For this layout I primarily used Teri Anderson's awesome Trendy Trees stamp set.  Those adorable trees were so much fun to paper-piece using two complimentary shades of green cardstock and I thought they really matched the feel of my other American Craft papers.

I used the Noted Digital Cut File with my Silhouette for my three tabs, one of which helps pull out my hidden journaling.

I finished my layout by adding a few presents under the tree and stamping the word joy for my title.  As an added detail I thought it would be fun stamp the word "joy" on the pink paper and cut them out to fill in the loops of the word.

Merry Christmas and May God Bless you and your family!  :)

Day 28- A Technique Tuesday Good To Snow Layout

Happy Christmas Eve to each of you!!!

Today I have a layout to share which I created for Technique Tuesday using several new stamp sets designed by the creative goddess Teri Anderson and various patterned papers by Doodlebug.

These adorable snowmen are from her darling Good To Snow set.  I ended up paper-piecing them together and stamping them in both black ink and again with VersaMark and white embossing powder.  I wanted my snowmen to be white all over, but this presented a challenge for their faces.  A little Ranger Black Enamel to the rescue and I had just the look I envisioned.  To make my white outlines pop, I rubbed the edges with a little bit of pale blue chalk ink.

For my title, I paired the word "snow" from the set with the word "pals" from the So Very Thankful by 
Ali Edwards stamp set. For my date tab I used their Noted Digital Cut Files along with their Sentiment Tabs by Ali Edwards set to stamp the year.

I created my border using another super cute set of Teri's called Jolly Wishes.  I heat embossed the trees with white embossing powder on both silver cardstock and the red patterned paper, fussy cutting it afterwards.  I'm not going to lie... This was a bit of a delicate challenge.  I tried to cut it out as one continuous piece, but in hindsight I probably should have cut them all out individually and lined them back up later when adhering them to my layout.  ;)

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a warm and cozy evening surrounded by those you love.  :)

Day 27- Carta Bella Merry & Bright Treat Containers

Today is my girls first official day of Christmas break and I'm so happy to say that the last 4 days of my holiday inspiration series will not feature any cards!  Yay!  As much as I love making them I must admit I was getting burnt out on sharing them.  ;)

With my girls home it's that fun time of year where we do some last minute holiday baking to share with our neighbors.  With that tradition in mind I have some treat container ideas to share with you that would be perfect for co-workers, neighbors, friends, you name it!

This first one is one I made using a mayonnaise jar and patterned papers from Carta Bella's Merry & Bright collection from last year.  We love to use these for sharing homemade caramel corn, but they would also be perfect for filling with nuts or candies (you can see similar ones I shared last year HERE).

For the top of my jar I punched the scalloped circle with owl from the Merry Tags paper and then covered the edge of the lid with a satin ribbon from American Crafts.  My tag came from that same Merry Tags paper which I dressed up with a scalloped border punch, an eyelet for the hole punch, a little diecut holly and a stamped "to" and "from".

When I was nearly done, I thought it would be fun to glue buttons to the polka-dot border paper.

I also have a quick little kraft gift box to share which I dressed up using snowflake stamps from two different Hero Arts sets and some red satin snowflake ribbon by American Crafts.

I stamped my box while it was completely flat, alternating which side it was folded on to get my snowflakes to wrap around the edges.  When I was done, I added little dots of white enamel by Ranger.

My Treat Jar Supply List

• Patterned Paper- Carta Bella Merry & Bright (Merry Borders, Merry Tags, Garland, Christmas Countdown, Green Glow/Cotton Candy)
• Stamps- Hero Arts Joy To All, Papertrey Ink Fillable Frames #9
• Ink- Versafine Satin Red
• Bakers Twine- The Twinery
• Ribbon- American Crafts
• Buttons- American Crafts
• Eyelets- Making Memories
• Holly Die- Papertrey Ink Holly Jolly
• Rhinestones- Kaisercraft
• Other- Mayonnaise Jar

My Kraft Gift Box Supply List

• 3" Kraft Box- Craft Supply
• Stamps- Hero Arts (Clear Christmas Reindeer, Cling Holiday Cheer)
• Ink- Colorbox (cranberry)
• Ribbon- American Crafts
• Snowflake Punch- Martha Stewart
• Button- Basic Grey
• Ranger White Enamel

Thanks for hanging with me during this crazy time.  I hope things are merry in your neck of the woods! :)

Day 26- A Jillibean Soup Ornament Christmas Card

Welcome to Day 26 of my holiday inspiration series.  We're in the home stretch now!  ;)  

For today's card I went a little bit rustic with a natural kraft background and basic everyday papers by Jillibean Soup from their soup staples collections found HERE and HERE.  This is another one I created with the challenge of not using any holiday themed products (aside from my sentiment stamp).  

To create my ornaments I used circle punches and cut apart a scalloped circle for the ornament toppers.  These were fun to decorate with small scraps I had laying around.  A little red jute from American crafts with a sentiment banner to hide my strings and I was done.  

Supply List

• Kraft Paper- Recollections
• Cardstock- Neenah (solar white)
• Patterned Paper- Jillibean Soup Apple Cheddar Soup (Sharp Cheddar Cheese), Soup Staples (Red Sugar, Red Salt & Green Salt)
• Circle Punches- EK Success
• Scalloped Circle Die- Spellbinders Nestabilities Scalloped Circles
• Other Dies- Papertrey Ink RickRack Border & Heart Prints
• Sentiment Stamp- Lawn Fawn Ornate Ornaments
• Ink- Versafine Onyx Black, Colorbox (Olive Pastel, Warm Red, Chestnut Roan)
• Twine- American Crafts
• Rhinestones- Kaisercraft

I will be back tomorrow with a winter themed layout I created for Technique Tuesday!  :)

Day 25- From Our Family To Yours Heart Themed Card

I'm back with yet another holiday card that I created with everyday supplies.  This time I turned to my Doodlebug Petite Prints and my Spellbinder Heart Dies.

I knew I wanted to line the hearts up along the edge and then cut a shadow along the edge and I got lucky with the hearts squeezing onto an A2 sized card perfectly.  To adhere them I used a line of glue with a Zig glue pen and then stitched them down the center so that I could fold up the edges for a little dimension.

I should back up though and say that I had a particular sentiment in mind with no stamps in my stash to match my vision.  Before I did started adhering things I ran my card base through my printer and created my own custom sentiment with some cute fonts (listed below).  It worked perfectly and even better it was FREE!  :)

My Supply List

• Cardstock- Neenah (solar white)
• Patterned Paper- Doodlebug Petite Prints (in Limeade, Grasshopper & Ladybug)
• Heart Dies- Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Hearts
• Bakers Twine- Darice
• Thread- Gutermann
• Sentiment fonts: CK Letter Home & LD Text Me)

Hope you are enjoying the holiday season with some relaxing breaks between all the hustle and bustle.  I've been trying to get through my annual tradition of watching all my favorite Christmas movies with all the obvious ones plus other favorites that take place during the holidays like While You Were Sleeping, Love Actually, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle (I could go on and on).  :)

Day 24- A Papertrey Ink Happy Hexagons Holiday Card

Welcome to Day 24 of my holiday inspiration series!

Today I have a card using Papertrey Ink's Happy Hexagon Mini Stamp set and matching Hexagon Cover Plate which I used as a mask for my card.  Nichole Heady provides a awesome PDF and video which helped me in creating a random pattern where no two colors touched based on the number of colors in my color scheme (for my card I used Colorbox Pigment ink in Moss Green, Limeade, Cranberry and Cupcake).  



My sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Think Big Favorites #21 series which was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black Ink.

I also have a last minute project that I couldn't resist adding today.  As soon as I saw these adorable TicTac wraps in the Silhouette store I knew I must make them.  They are sooo easy.  In fact I think the hardest part was removing part of the sticker label on the TicTacs so that it wouldn't show in the cutout windows.  

We are having a unusually small gathering for Christmas Day this year so I thought that I would put them in the center of each place setting at the dinner table.  :)

Wishing you a productive weekend getting lots of things checked off your "to do" list.  ;)