A Pebbles Inc. Fresh Goods Layout

Today I have a new layout that I just added the finishing touches on using papers by Pebbles's new "Fresh Goods" collection. As soon as I saw a sneak peek of these papers I knew I had to get my hands on them. These colors just scream my name and it's so rare to find true blue colored papers these days to match the blues in my photos so I had to stock up big time!

I had these three little photos of my daughter Sydney from our trip to Tokyo Disneyland a couple years ago and I remembered this design by Tracie based on Sketch #112 over at Pencillines.com that I was head-over-heals in love with here. Anyway, I decided rather than re-invent the wheel I would basically scraplift her idea with a couple small tweaks. :)

Here's my take:

I used my chalk inks to alter the chipboard color for the branch and bird's body and then freehand cut a piece of matching blue cardstock for his wing and added some stitching to tie into the two other hearts (my small attempt to work in threes and create sort of a visual triangle)...

I cut the scalloped background shape from Bazzil cardstock with my Silhouette. This was my first time using my new Silhouette Cameo in all of it's wide format 12x12 glory and I have to say it was WONDERFUL!!! So worth the small price to upgrade. For those of you on the fence I sold mine on Ebay for a fair price and then bought the Cameo at Oh My Crafts found here using a 20% off + free shipping coupon code I found on google (It doesn't look like they have one active right now, but they are always coming up with new specials so sign up for their mailing list and I'm sure they will have one in the coming weeks with Thanksgiving sales). It also looks like they are on backorder until December, but it is so worth the wait and would make the perfect Christmas present to yourself! ;)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

My Supply List:
Patterned Paper- Pebbles, Inc. Fresh Goods
Cardstock- Bazzil Basics
Cardstock Sticker Labels- Basic Grey
Chipboard Branch and Bird- Maya Road
Felt & Corduroy Flowers/Hearts- American Crafts
Denim Flowers- Making Memories
Alpha Stickers- My Little Shoebox (MLS)
Alpha Rub-ons- American Crafts
"June" Stamp- Papertrey Ink
Leaf Diecuts- Papertrey Ink
Buttons- Doodlebug
Scalloped Background- Silhouette
Ink- Colorbox Chalk Ink

A Ground Breaking Week! :)

After over a year of daydreaming, scheming and planning the designs for our new house, it was seriously exciting to take a big step towards it becoming a reality this week with breaking ground! Yipee! My daughter said as we pulled up and saw them digging a bit earlier than planned on Monday afternoon I had the biggest smile plastered across my face. I'll take her word for it...

We were blessed with particularly nice weather all week long and what was supposed to be a one-day excavation (although I never thought that would be possible) has turned into a 5-day excavation. These photos were taken around lunchtime on day 3. Now he has one more day of digging and then they will be ready to pour foundation (insert another happy dance by me). :)

Due to the intense slope from left to right on our lot in the backyard we have decided to bring in a couple rock walls in an effort to level it out and make the backyard more useable so they are building the wall now while they can still get their big machinery in before the foundation gets in the way...

Here is a lovely picture showing the sad reality of our new driveway. It may stink for rollerblading and riding a bike without flipping over the handlebars, but it will be awesome for winter sledding (Maybe Yoshi will finally be forced to give up and stay home on icy snow days--Yeah!)

This last picture is just an amazing cross-section of our soil. It sort of looks wet, but it's clay soil that has proven to be difficult to dig through. Sort of like a beautiful sculpture actually, but the culprit for our "one-day excavation" turning into 5 days. :)

So exciting!
God is good! :)

Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment #3

I was so excited to learn that the design team would be working with Crate Paper's new "Farmhouse" collection this month. The colors completely were calling my name--So yummy!

For this assignment we were asked to make a layout using the collection along with American Crafts Thickers and Tim Holtz Resist Kraft Paper (see on the typewriter print leaves paired with distress inks and again using one of the backsides for the layout base)...

For our second assignment we were asked to create a sign using this wood plaque and the vinyl phrase. Unfortunately this sign is a bit busy in print and sort of an oxymoron given what it says, but I wanted to try and achieve the look of a random homemade quilt with blocks of space to house the adorable cutouts.

To create the pattern I taped two pieces of printer paper together and then traced around the oval shape of the plaque and then got my ruler out and began to trace rectangles onto the shape like a puzzle. I used the ruler so I could plan everything to the nearest 1/8" or 1/4" to make my life easier. After that I just set to work laying out the patterns so that they felt balanced. I did my best to keep the busiest patterns on the outside so that it didn't interfere with the vinyl phrase's readability.

For more detailed photos make sure to visit my gallery at Craft Warehouse's website HERE and check out the rest of the team's fabulous work HERE

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Two Peas September's Stretch Your Sketch

I'm just now getting around to sharing my take on this month's Stretch Your Sketch Challenge by Jennifer Gallacher over at 2Peas.

Here's the sketch she challenged us with...


And here's my take on it...




I searched through my photos looking for anything that might work and I came across these photos of my nephew from years ago. Then I found the doodlebug paper in the perfect shade of blue and the rest just fell into place. So happy to finally have these sweet photos finally in an album (and I actually kind of enjoyed doing a boyish page for a change). :)

Supplies:
Doodlebug Patterned Paper
Bazzill Basics Cardstock
Papertrey Ink Stamps (car)
Technique Tuesday Stamps ("sweet")
Versafine Ink
Basic Grey Label Stickers
American Crafts Thickers
Making Memories Alpha Type Stickers
Making Memories Buttons
Die-Namics Bracket Label Die
Other: Thread, Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! :)

My 2nd Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment

I'm finally getting around to sharing my second assignment for the Craft Warehouse Design Team. You can see more of my past projects I've made for them here and more descriptions here

This month we had the pleasure of working with some of Jillibean Soup's new lines and their fun 6x6 paper pads!

We were asked to create a layout and card with Apple Cheddar Soup...

... And Christmas Cards with Christmas Eve Chowder

A Photo Card...




















A Gift Card Holder...

A Designer's Choice Card... 

And for our last card we were asked to design a simple card that would be quick and easy to mass produce for all the friends and family on your mailing list.  :)

Make sure to visit the other design team members gallery pages to see other great ideas using these fun products found at your local Craft Warehouse!

Thanks for peeking. :)

A Successful End to our Owl Birthday! :)

A couple weeks ago I had posted photos of my daughter's birthday invites along with some cookies I was going to try and make. Well, mine weren't nearly as perfect (these of course are my best ones), but here are the owl cookies I made for her birthday. I'm not much of a cook or a baker so they took me forever to make, but I was pleased with the results. The plate they are on is one that I made at her 9th birthday party a couple years ago where I took them all to a Ceramics place to paint something special. I wasn't going to make anything, but I after about 20 minutes of watching them I wanted to play too (note to self: remember to go back with girlfriends as it was so much fun).

Anyway, for her birthday activity this year (my daughter has grown to expect some sort of entertainment) I took mega inspiration from Nichol Magouirk's Owl Canvas project that she posted on her blog last year. If memory serves me correctly she made this as a guest designer for My Little Shoebox. Isn't it adorable? Love her work!

I couldn't find a 6x12 canvas, but I wanted to make use of this 12x12 paper I found on clearance so we used 9x12 canvases and painted the edges with pale aqua blue paint to match the letters. I ended up using the same Silhouette Owl that Nichol had used so that I could cut out 10 at a time from each paper making the process a little quicker. I made a sample for them to copy, but I learned from a few of my mistakes like skipping the idea of Mod Podge since I got several wrinkles that never came out of mine. I thought it would be fun to make them personalized artwork for their bedroom walls so I cut each of their names out and put all their pieces in little ziploc bags as individual kits.

One of the girls that we invited couldn't make it at the last minute so I ended up assembling hers so my daughter could it bring it to school to give her...

My daughter had a slumber party birthday and some didn't stay the night, but here are a few of the girls posing with their finished pieces the next morning. :)

It was stressful at times trying to help them all at once, but I think they had fun doing it and were proud of the finish piece. :)

Thanks for stopping by. :)

Supplies Used:
Patterned paper:
Making Memories (floral & embossed dot)
American Crafts (pink woodgrain)
Cosmo Cricket (Green Dot)
Cardstock: American Crafts
Tree Branch and Owl Shape: Silhouette America
Ribbon: Fancy Pants
Buttons: Craft Supply

Creating Keepsakes Published My Layout!!! :)

This month I had the pleasure of having one of my layouts featured in Creating Keepsake's October issue!!! This was my first time being published in this particular magazine so I was pretty excited when they contacted me. It actually completely took me by surprise as I had submitted this layout to them back in May 2010--I must have just missed the deadline for Halloween submissions so they held onto my layout for 11 months and contacted me this April to see if they could still publish my layout. I honestly couldn't remember what layout it was anymore. Anyway, very exciting all around (I only wish they had spelled my name correctly... They're sadly not even close... Oh well).

Thanks for peeking! :)

An Owl Themed Birthday...

I'm finally getting around to sharing the birthday invites I made for my oldest daughter's 11th birthday coming up. She made a very specific request for owl themed invites (and since I am forcing her use a mish-mesh of party themed plates and napkins so we can use stuff up before we move) I was only too happy to oblige.

I got my inspiration for the patchwork style owl from Pottery Barn style bedding and some adorable owl pillows I found here

Anyway, I had a ton of this Pebbles, Inc. paper (as much as I love it, Pebbles in My Pocket required that I buy them in multiples of 2) so I was super happy to find a way use up some of my extras. :) I also used my Silhouette to try to speed up the cutting process although with so many little pieces they still took quite a bit of time, but I think they were worth it. Here's the finished card:

My daughter doesn't really care for cake and chocolate and has requested a giant cookie from Walmart as her "cake". To suppliment that, I'm going to try my hand at making these adorable owl cookies I found here.

Aren't those too cute? Hopefully I can do them justice. We're celebrating her birthday slumber party style and these cute little things are titled "Night Owl" cookies so I thought it was quite suiting.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

2Peas Stretch Your Sketch- July/August

I decided to play along with Jennifer Gallacher's "Stretch Your Sketch" class over at 2Peas this month. This is the sketch she challenged us with...

I was particularly taken by Jennifer's version of the sketch...

Anyway, here's my humble take on the sketch challenge...

There was the added challenge to add shimmer and shine to our layout so I played with American Crafts New Pow Blue Glitter paper and DCWAV white glitter cardstock. Also used some foil Alphas for my title for added shine. Fun stuff! Anyway, thanks for the inspiration Jennifer. You rock and I adore your style! :)

Supplies:
Kraft Cardstock
We R Memory Keepers Yankee Doodle Papers
American Crafts Pow Glitter Paper
DCWAV Glitter Cardstock
Papertrey Ink Star Dies
EK Success Edger Punch
Doodlebug Buttons
Silhouette Banner Shape
Spellbinders Circle Dies
American Crafts Thickers
American Crafts Alpha Rub-ons
Ribbon & Star Buttons (craft supply)

A Happy Bumblebee Card

My oldest started her first day of overnight church camp today.  At least for now my ears are enjoying the vacation from screaming and fighting between her and her little sister, but I wanted to hurry up and make her a special card to mail her while she's at camp.  She's extremely shy and after over 3 years at our church she still hasn't found a little girl to connect with.  Last year she went and was miserable (they took an entire bus full of kids, but there was no other girl in her grade and she hated the food and the dirty gross bathrooms).  This year they're trying a new camp and it was a super tiny group--only her, 2 other girls and 2 boys so I am hoping and praying that is the perfect combination for her to finally make some lasting friendships at church.  She actually tends to fall back from large crowds so it may be just what she needs.  Anyway, I thought I would share the card I made her today...

I did a tiny bit of airbrushing on the white background along the edges with my copic marker to sort of help frame the image. The papers are completely ancient scraps I found in my scrap file--In fact the scalloped edge was left over from some picture frames I had made earlier out of the same paper. I ended up tracing the edges with a sharpie over a piece of scratch paper to give them the same outlined feel as the stamped images. Stamps are by Hero Arts "Be Happy" stamp set. Glossy Accents and stickels glitter glue were added to the butterfly wings and flower center.

Thanks for peeking. :)