A Look Back at 2014: November and December

Finally we've reached November and December in my look back.  Two of my favorite projects from November were projects I did at Michelle's awesome scrabook weekend.  The first one is one that Dan and I will treasure for years.  These sweet silhouettes of the kids are so cute and they came out fantastic!!!  They were too easy too.  I took silhouette pictures of the kids, cut them out, painted them black and modpodged them to a plaque.  THAT'S IT!!! What a wonderful keepsake!!! 

This was one of my all time favorite projects from any Scrapbook weekend.  I adore this flower and on the canvas and stand is just way too cute!!  This is something I'd have lots of trouble doing at home, the 3 layers of flowers took a loooong time to color and then cut.  That's one of the many many many reasons I love scrapbook weekends, I have the luxury of time, something I don't have a home :)

Even though I'm still very new to shaker cards, this was one card that I loved making and will have to try again.  I'm super excited to do more shaker cards of all shapes!  Sequins are quickly becoming a favorite accessory of mine.  I'm all over the shine and the sweet touch they add to a card!  Look for LOTS of sequins in the new year too!

Finally my last one is a card I shared just over a week ago.  I've been waiting for some fun word thinlits and I'm so excited that they're here in the Occasions Catalog!!!  You'll see me sharing tons and tons of fun ideas with these thinlits!!  I've had a great 2014, hit huge milestones, made amazing projects, learned some new things and had lots of fun sharing them here!  I hope you'll join me again in 2015, as it is tradition with the new year I have some new goals for my blog and business, hopefully you'll see all those changes soon!  Have a very, safe and Happy New Year!

 

Thanks for looking, see you next year!  

A Look Back at 2014: September and October

I really hope that this Curvy Keepsake box carries over into the new Catalog.  There's still soooo many boxes I haven't had a chance to make!  This was one of my favorites.  I love these little pumpkin lanterns.  They're sooo cute!!!  You can read more about the pumpkins here. 

 

This card was another one of my favorites.  The bird and house are so sweet.  I don't even remember what I made this card for, but I love it!  It's a sweet Christmas card that anyone would love to get.  You can read more about this card here. 

This set has to be one of my all time favorite Christmas sets.  I don't save many sets that retire, but if this one ever does I'll have a really hard time parting with it.  This card is one of my favorites that I've done with this set.  It's so pretty.  Even though it's time consuming to color, it's worth it!  You can read more about this card here. 

The last one for today is a project I loved making.  I made these scarecrows for one of Michelle's craft weekends.  They came out adorable and they were such fun to make!!!  You can read more about the scarecrows here. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

A Look Back at 2014: July and August

I also had a lot of posts from my June scrapbook weekend in July. This was another one of my favorites from that weekend.  I still have this castle sitting on my desk.  It makes me smile to see it.  You can read more about this castle here.  

Another one of my favorites from July was when I did rainbow week.  Remember rainbow week.  I had a lot of fun with those cards. This card by far was my favorite from that week.  I love the watercolored look.  I love how the colors are blended. So fun!!! You can read more about this card here . 

I made this set of cards in August.  They were fun to make, especially with all our matching embossing powders.  One of the great things about this card is that they're flat, perfect for mailing!  I know sometimes lots of buttons or bows can charge more to mail, this card is just as stunning with no extra cost!  To read more about this card click here. 

This was the first card that I made with this set.  I still love this set.  I know the big mustache guys aren't for everyone but I love them!  I especially love the look the Blendabilities create.  I've used them quite a bit since their release in June and I love them so much!  I can't wait to see what new artwork SU has in store for us next year!!!  You can read more about this card here.

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

A Look Back at 2014: May and June

We're making our way through the year pretty swiftly.  I'm enjoying this look back.  I don't usually get a chance to go back and read my blog after it's posted so this has been fun to look through my blog and pick some of my favorites (some months have been more challenging than others, too many favorites).  June was one of those months, we'll get there though.  This card has always been a favorite of mine though,  I love the soft sponging and the embossed greeting on vellum.  There's 3 versions of this card, all different colors.  This one was is my favorite of the 3.  So pretty!  You can read more about this card here. 

I had to include an MDS page, this one is one of my favorites in our album.  I love black and white photos.  Maybe it's because we don't see them much or maybe it's because they add a softness to the photo, whatever the reason I love them.  I love the bright colors with that black and white photo too.  You can read more about this page here. 

 

Now we get to June, this month was so hard to choose favorites.  One reason was because this month was one of the three scrapbook weekends that I attended over the year.  This one I did more punch art then ever, this one I did projects that I just adored, there were a lot of posts in June with those projects.  It was really hard to pick.  I decided to go with the letters I made for Logan and Megan. They're hanging on the kids doors right now.  I love them now ever more than I did 6 months ago!  You can read more about Logan's letters here. 

Megan, I think, didn't understand her letters until she had time to look at them for a while.  It wasn't until they had been on her door for a while that randomly one day she said "Hey Mom that E looks like Elsa, there's Anna!"  I don't think she quite understood it when I first showed them to her, even though we explained it.  She loves them.  I don't know how long these letters will last, after all they're chipboard and cardstock.  I hope, though, that when the kids look back on them they'll have fond memories of them.  You can read more about Megan's letters here. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

A Look Back at 2014: March and April

We're looking back at March and April today.  I'm happy to say that 3 of the 4 cards today were cards that we did in my classes.  That really makes me happy that some of my favorites are ones that I did in classes.  Perhaps that's why they're my favorites :) First up is one we did in my masculine card class in March.  I love this shirt card.  It's adorable and perfect for any guy!!!  You can read more about this card here. 

Next up is this beautiful butterfly card from March.  I love the colors, I love that it's masked off with a white border, I just love everything about this card!  You can read more about this card here. 

The last two cards for today were from the same class, my spring punch art class.  I love this mirror card.  It's super simple but so stunning.  You can read more about this card here.

Finally the last card for today.  This adorable little crab.  How cute is he??  Even months after this class I still love love him.  I'm a sucker for punch art.  I'll have to look back on the 31st and see how many of the 24 projects were punch art :)  You can read more about this little crab here.     

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

A Look Back At 2014: January and February

Since we're in the final days of 2014 I thought it would be fun to look back at some of my favorite projects throughout the year.  I'll be posting over the weekend too, we'll finish up the look back on December 31, just in time for the new year.  Today a few of my favorites from January and February.  I'll include links back to the original posts so if you missed it or want to read more about it you can go back to the links.  First up is this sweet alligator.  I think he's one of my all time favorite punch art creatures ever!!!  I just adore him!!!  You can read more about him here. 

 

Next is this card from January.  This was a Sale-a-Bration set, it didn't start out as my favorite but I sure loved it and missed it by the time Sale-a-Bration was over!  I think these colors go so well together, I think that's what made this card really pop!  You can read more about it here. 

Into February now.  This card I still love, I think it's sweet and cute and perfect for Valentines, anniversary, newly weds, etc.  So cute!!!  The little people were from a Paper Pumpkin kit.  I love that you get so many 'extra' pieces with the Paper Pumpkins so you can use them to make fun cards like this.  You can read more about this card here. 

If you have a coffee lover in your life you might remember this one.  These boxes were designed specifically to hold the K-Cup coffees.  The larger box holds 3 (I think), the smaller one holds 2.  These are great gifts for anyone who enjoys coffee and they're easy to make!  You can read more about these boxes here. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!  I hope your holiday is filled with joy, love and laughter.  As for me we'll be celebrating a quiet Christmas at home where I'm sure Santa will be VERY nice to the kids ;)  For you, I have lots of giveaways on my Facebook Page.  If you haven't checked them out yet, go do that today!  I'll be drawing winners tomorrow.  All you have to do to enter is comment!  Have a very Merry Christmas!
Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Shaking Paper Pumpkin

So December's Paper Pumpkin was pretty much awesome!  It involved 2 of some of my new favorite things: shaker cards and sequins.  I'm a little hooked on both of these things right now :)  Included in the kit were supplies to make 9 cards, 3 of each design.  For these 3 cards I went a little light on the shaker filling......I really want to hoard the BEAUTIFUL Bermuda Bay sequins.  There's still plenty to shake but standing up they don't look like it.....

....there much better :)  These cards were super easy to put together, and fun!  Part of the fun with Paper Pumpkin is you never know what amazing project is coming!  If you're not signed up for Paper Pumpkin you need to be.  The kits are amazing, and getting better and better.  This months kit also included a sweet Christmas gift ;)  You can sign up for a monthly subscription of Paper Pumpkin here with me or buy 3 month, 6 month or 12 month subscriptions.  These make AWESOME gifts!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Glitter Thanks

You know that days I work with glitter are good days.  This card was a very good day :)  I usually try to keep the glitter contained at least on my desk, I guess I haven't been doing as good of a job at that as I thought.  Megan got her haircut over the weekend and the hair dresser asked Megan if she had been helping me decorate for Christmas because there was glitter in her hair.......ya that's not from Christmas decorations :)  Glitter, like dimensional backings, just have a mind of their own and are found pretty much everywhere in our house :)  Back to the card though, these thinlits as well as the new butterfly ones in the Occasions Catalog are so much fun to work with, but they don't have a lot of room to adhere them down.  So I've been working with different ways to get them to stick.  I remember a long time ago I saw a video that used the adhesive sheets to stick intricate dies down.  That's a great idea and worked great!!  I stuck one side down to the cardstock and the other side I covered in glitter, because why not???

After the words were stuck down on the cardstock I covered it with Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  THE BEST GLITTER!  It's so fine and soooo sparkly.  It works great for this!  I used my bone folder to really rub the glitter into the adhesive sheet.  After it was covered in glitter, the 'thanks' wasn't standing out as well as I wanted it to, so I pulled out my blendabilities, (this was another technique that I've seen in videos only with different markers) so I thought I'd give it a try.  I've colored on our glimmer paper, BUT the glimmer paper is so rough that it tears up the tips of your blendabilites easily.  Not good, so I was a little more careful with this.  After coloring the T, I knew my blendabilites would be just fine!  Because the Dazzling Diamonds is so fine and stuck so well to the adhesive sheet it was a nice smooth texture, no damage to my markers at all!  No glitter stuck on my markers either!  I think I just found a technique that I'll use for every. single. thinlit. I. own.  If you were in a 5 mile radius of my house, you probably heard the cries of joy!  Glitter in all colors, that's going to happen. Watch out 2015 it's going to be a SPARKLY YEAR!  This technique was really fun and really this card really didn't take long at all to make!  So much fun!!!   

 

Thanks for looking see you soon!!!!!

Sale-a-Bration Celebration!

It's time to sign up for our annual Sale a Bration stamp camp!!!!

Spaces are going FAST!!! Don't wait to sign up!!!!

Stamp camp this year will be Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 10am at St. John's Cathedral in downtown Albuquerque, NM.

You'll make 6 amazing cards using NEW Sale-A-Bration and NEW Occasions Catalog products. Sign up during the early bird period and save!!

Registration is $20, it increases to $25 on December 29.

Here's some things to keep in mind about stamp camp:

• You MUST register at this link to attend 
• Space is limited and going fast sign up early!
• Because space is limited only those registered will be allowed into stamp camp.
• Sign up before December 29th to get the early bird price of $20. The price will increase to $25 on December 29th.

During Sale-A-Bration you get to choose a free Sale-A-Bration product with every $50 you spend (before tax and shipping). There's no limit to the amount of products you can earn!!!!! This years choice of Sale a Bration products are incredible!!!! There's stamp sets, paper, ribbon and more!!! Don't miss this years Stamp Camp!!!!  Sign up today!! 

Crazy About This Set

The new Occasions Catalog is one of those catalogs, where every time you turn the page you're adding more and more to your wishlist.  I know for me, I had a really hard time narrowing my wishist down to an 'affordable' amount to get first.  Dan and I have different ideas of what amount we consider 'affordable' :)  This set and coordinating thinlits was on my list to get right away.  The thinlits I'm referring to is the 'you' on this card, there's also 'thanks' 'happy' and 'hello'.  Then there's a stamp set that coordinates with the thinlits that has just about every greeting you'll ever need!  When you see this card in person you'll see that the card is flat, at least the hearts and the 'you'.  There's no layers on that part.  I cut all the hearts out and the centers out and puzzle pieced them together. Then I glued them all together and cut the 'you' out of it and stuck the 'you' I previously cut in the empty space.  I love this in-laid look.  It's really fun! 

I embossed my greeting in black embossing powder.  After I did the heart and all the inlay work, the white background needed something.....so I pulled out my stencils, this time the circles and I used my Vanilla Smooch Spritz.  It's subtle but it adds just the right amount of sparkle and detail in the white space.:)  We're just days from Christmas, I have 3 more new posts for this week, that will take us through Christmas.  Then I'll be taking a break for rest of the year.  I still will have posts everyday through December 31, including Saturday and Sunday, I'll be taking a look back at some of my favorite projects for the year. If you're a follower of my blog, you may have already seen them all but it's a fun look back.  I hope you still check out my blog :)  

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

Glitter Butterfly

When I saw the new Butterfly Thinlits in the new Occasions Catalog I knew that would be included in my first purchase.  I LOVE them!!!!  This is the largest of the 3, there's another beautiful detailed one that's a little smaller and a third one that just a butterfly outline, but coordinates with a gorgeous set.  I didn't use the set today, this butterfly is pretty large and takes up most of the card.  After I cut out the butterfly I covered it in Versa Mark then in Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder.  So pretty, so sparkly!!! 

When you're dealing with intricate dies sticking them to your card can be tricky.  I prefer to use dimensionals on almost everything, but there's really no room to attach dimensionals to this butterfly or other detailed dies.  But I still want the dimension.  So I used a tip that I've seen in a variety of places, I die cut 4 of the butterflies out of Rich Razzleberry cardstock (you could do more or less depending on how thick you want it to be) and stuck them all together.  This gives me the dimension and it makes the butterfly more sturdy.  I just used tombow to stick it all together, you could also use Crystal effects, or even adhesive sheets.

This card is really fun, I cut out the butterfly again in the center of the card, so that it all fits together when it's closed.  It's really pretty and really fun!!  There's not a lot of room for a message but you can always get creative and write around the wings.  It's so pretty and just so sparkly!!!  How can you not love this card!!!!?!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

12 Week Til Christmas Countdown: Week 12

Here we are at the end of the countdown.  That can only mean one thing.  Christmas is one week away!!!  I think I saved my favorite card for our last week of the countdown.  This card has bright colors and glitter.  What's not to love!!!  This card took the longest to make of all the cards I made, this is one you do not want to make 100 of, but it's fun to make one for someone special.  To start, I cut 5 of each letter in each of the colors.  Then I used my Tombow to glue all but one of the the Melon Mambo M's together, all the Tempting Turquoise E's together....etc.  Why on earth did I do that?? I wanted the letters to pop up but cutting tiny pieces of dimensionals wasn't the best plan.  I know, I've tried dimensionals with these letters before, they work ok, but I knew I that I'd only be sticking down the top part of each letter and I needed something stronger to hold them down.  Stacking the letters gives them the dimension I waanted while also being able to glue them down with the stronger glue.  The last of each of the letters I stuck down with some temporary adhesive on some scrap paper.  Then I covered them with Versamark, Heat and Stick Powder, heated them, then Dazzling Diamonds.  Then they were super sparkly!!!!  LOVE!!!!!  After they were sparkly I wanted the shiny too, I covered them with Crystal Effects.  At this point I had to let them dry for a while.  Once the letters were dry I attached them to the stacks of letters I had done previously.  The pictures don't show how shiny and sparkly these letters are!

The rest of the card was pretty simple.  I stamped snowflakes in coordinating colors and added rhinestones to them.  I added a thin piece of Vanilla cardstock on the bottom of my snowflake piece and covered that in Crystal Effects.  Once that was dry I glued on my letters and finished my card with 'christmas' stamp.  I could have stuck my letters down on that Vanilla piece while the Crystal effects was still wet but didn't think of that :)   I've had lots of fun with the 12 week countdown!  I hope you've enjoyed it too!!!  If you need to look back at any of the past weeks they're all listed below. 

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!

New Stuff!

You may have saw this A-DOR-ABLE card on Facebook last week when I posted it.  It's so stinkin' cute, I can't get over it.  This entire set is perfect for me for soooooo many reasons.  Let's name them: 1) I love coloring with Blendabilities, um hello this set is perfect for that!  2) I love sets with animals in them. This could be used for adults or kids, plus with an image this big the kids can stamp and color it to (NOT with my markers though-I'm sure you understand why).  3) I'm a sucker for stamp sets with silly puns.  I will get them all!  This one has fun puns like 'it's pasture birthday' 'from the herd' 'party animals'.  So cute!  How could I resist!?!!  

Obviously I went with Blendabilities to color this image....this time.  I really want to watercolor it too :)  Just when I get all the colors of Blendabilities in the catalog, Stampin' Up! releases more colors!  Of course!!!!  There's two new colors on here, can you guess????  I'll give you a hint Pink Pirouette for the pig and Soft Sky for the sky.  Guess that was more than a hint :)  So super cute!!!  You'll see lots of this set in the future! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Customer Appreciation

I have a really quick post today.  It's really late and I've spent the better part of the day in the kitchen beginning my Christmas baking :)  I mentioned yesterday that every December I do a free class for my customers, these are the 4 cards they got to make at my class.  The cards are always quick and simple for this class.  December is a busy time for everyone, this class is not aimed to focus on a technique or product, but rather for me to say 'THANKS!' to my wonderful customers friends with a class that's free for them.  Enjoy the cards.  They're cute but really simple and pretty straight forward. 

This card is so cute and so simple.  No stamping at all. The letters are made with the cute alphabet thinlits in the Annual Catalog. 

We made one card with some new products coming in Janaury.  This sweet balloon set will be in the Occasions catalog.  I love being able to give a fun sneak peek!! 

Finally a quick fun birthday card.  Oh how I love my Gorgeous Grunge set! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Happy Root Beer

I don't remember where this idea started, I know that I've seen it lots of times on Pintrest but this was the MOST adorable idea and I knew that I'd be doing this for a class. When my customers come to a class, usually I have some sort of 'thank you' gift.  Usually it's chocolate in a box, bag something cute.  Sometimes though I have a non-chocolate treat, it's rare but it happens sometimes.  I had a customer appreciation class over the weekend.  This is a free class that I do every December (check my blog tomorrow for the cards they made).  They make 4 cards, they're all very simple and don't take long to complete.  It's a fun break from the busy Decembers we've come to know.  These were the 'thank you' gifts I made for them.  They're way too cute!!

They couldn't be easier to make!  I used brown pipe cleaners for the antlers (you could use any colors for the antlers though).  I just twisted them around the top of the bottle then formed them a little so they looked, a little like antlers.  I found some red rhinestones at a big box store (you could also use red pom pom, red glitter, foam, really anything for the nose).  I used a glue gun to attach the eyes and noses.  So super easy!!  I made 20 of them in no time!

Then you attach a tag, I printed at home and used MDS to make the tag.  I cut them apart, added some bakers twine and tied it around the bottle.  So easy and fun.  The tag reads: "Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Root Beer"  (PS sorry this photo is so dark I had to take pictures on my cell phone at the class since I had forgotton to do it prior!)  

I was able to get 12 tags per sheet.  I have an old, basic, super un-fancy printer, I hardly ever print anything at home, but I needed the tags in a hurry so I tried it, worked great to my surprise!  When you print from home in MDS I like to save my project as a PDF, then open it up and print as a PDF instead of straight from MDS.  I think it's just easier this way. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Project Life Christmas Cards

If you follow my blog you know that I'm a My Digital Studio scrapbooker, not a Project Life memory keeper.  But I still love their cards and they're perfect for putting together quick cards.  There is not one ounce of stamping on this card.  Every image you see is from the Hello December Project Life Card Collection by Stampin' Up! These cards are perfect for greeting cards.  They're the right size, they have great images and backgrounds.  How could then not be made for card makers?!!!  I trimmed the cards down a little, the snowflake background was trimmed a little and the 'O Christmas Tree' greeting was cut off another card.  I layered them on some coordinating cardstock.  Super quick and easy! 

The tree was on another card I just used the tree punch to punch it out!  How simple!!!  I added some glimmer paper, because why not!?!  I popped it up on dimensionals and the card was complete!  So fun!  Look through your PLxSU cards and make your own greeting cards!  This was was so fun and soooo quick! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!!

12 Weeks Til Christmas Countdown: Week 11

I have a different kind of card for you today (don't worry it still has embossing).  I made a fun shaker card! It's so cute!!  I think in my stamping life I've made a total of 2 shaker cards, that include this one :)  I may be wrong and just don't remember other ones but this one is soooo sweet and I love it!!!  For the snowman's shape I used the circle framelits, I believe I used the 3 smallest ones.  I started with the largest of the 3 and cut it out toward the bottom, then did the middle and the top.  Because the circles overlapped I could only do one at a time, but even though I had to run it through my big shot 3 times it still went quickly.  Then I got to build up my shakers card.  I put a window sheet over the circles I just cut out then dimensionals all around the circles.  This part was a little time consuming.  I did learn a tip after I made this card (of course) to use fun foam to do your shaker cards!!  Brilliant idea.  I'll do that for my next one!!  But the dimensionals worked fine.  Once I had the dimensionals on there I put in my sequins.  I put in a lot, probably more than I should have, there's so many of them, there's not a lot of room for them to 'shake', next time I'll also put in some glitter too.  I don't know why I didn't do glitter!  Stick the back on when your shaker is filled and that part is done!!  It really was simple. 

Then I just had to complete my card.  I stamped and embossed my greeting on velum and wrapped it around my snowman.  Then I added some fun texture along the sides of my card.  I used some washi tape and glimmer paper.  This was a really fun card and I'll make more shaker cards in the future for sure!!!! 

Remember to join me next week for week 12. If you've missed the past weeks click the links below.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!!