Monday, December 31, 2012

Punky Sprouts New Year's Eve Hop

New Year’s Eve Punky Party!

Punky Sprouts is having a blog hop to celebrate 2012 and ring in 2013.  Hop along with us, leaving comments at each blog to enter to win a great Punky Prize Pack! You could win an album of your choice along with Punky embellishments and a Lindy’s mist!   Here’s the order of blogs in case you get lost along the way.

Erica
Erin
Ilene
Joscie
Kimmy
Miriam
Noel
Pattie
Shelly
PS Blog

Punky Party Rules-Leave a comment on each designer’s blog and then on the Punky Sprouts blog to be entered to win the Punky Prize Pack. Comments must be posted by midnight, Friday, January 4th PST to be eligible for the random drawing.

OK, so now that we have the housekeeping out of the way, here is my project:



I don't know about you guys, but I always feel like I want to go shopping during New Year's....something about it makes me feel like I need some new stuff, so I created some new home decor for us. 

I've always wanted one of those wooden family 'established' signs and decided to make one of my own.

The base is a sheet of punky playground - which is 12x12 cardboard with those great scalloped edges.  I covered it with a sheet of Outdoor Denim cardstock that I cut to fit by just tracing around the piece and carefully cutting away the excess.

The yellow patterned paper is from Carta Bella's Traditions collection.  Also from the Traditions collection are the windows/door on the house which are actually cut from the sheet of paper that is just a bunch of tags.  The base of the house is a pattern from CTMH's Pemberley collection. 

The roof is several Lil' Cork Petals that were glued to a base piece using Helmar 450 Quick Dry.  I used a sponge with some Chocolate ink to deepen the color a little.



Letters and numbers were cut from Outdoor Denim cardstock using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge. 

When I laid the project out it looked like it needed a little something more, so I created those cute little corners from the smallest Lil Lacy Blossoms.



This was a lot of fun, and actually pretty easy to do, would make a great gift for newlyweds too!

Thanks for coming by, your next stop is Noel.  Don't forget to leave comments all the way through the hop to be eligible to win!

And enjoy your New Year's Eve!

Supplies Used

Punky Sprouts products (http://getpunkysprouts.com/store/?page/63371/shop-punky):  Punky Playground, Lil' Lacy Blossoms, Lil' Cork Petals

Other Products
Paper/Cardstock;  Carta Bella - Traditions collection; CTMH - Outdoor Denim and Chocolate cardstock, Pemberley papers
Ink:  CTMH - Chocolate
Other:  CTMH - Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge, Antiqued Copper brad, Bonding Memories Adhesive, Helmar - Quick Dry 450; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Xyron - 5" Creative Station; Kuretake - Glue Pen

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Hi!



Bonus post!  I'm popping in to share a new card today.  I'm linking this up over at my friend Annette's blog. She's celebrating a year of achievements and I'm happy to celebrate with her.

This card uses one of Jenny Suchin's Your Next Stamp sets called Basket Animals.  It's such a cute set and this was such a fun card to make.

It's hard to tell from the photo above, but there are actually about six layers to the balloons. I wanted to create some dimension/depth, so I layered them coming forward.  You can see in the picture below how thick it is at the front of the bunch of balloons.



The coloring is done with my trusty Spectrum Noir markers, and I added the blue sky color using my CTMH sponge tool.

I cut the vellum clouds using Lil Inker Designs' dies.  I used them both on the 'right' and 'wrong' sides. 

Hope that you are having a wonderful weekend!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - White Daisy; Bazzill Card Shoppe - Wax Lips; Michael's - Open Stock Vellum
Stamps:  Your Next Stamp - Balloon Animals
Ink:  Memento - Tuxedo Black; CTMH - Sky
Other:  Lil' Inker Designs - Rainbows and Clouds Dies; Spectrum Noir Markers; CTMH - Sponge Tool; Tombow - Mono Adhesive

Year in Review

I wanted to do a year in review post like I did last year.  I picked my favorite project from each month of the year.  It was fun looking back, and also nice to see improvement over the course of the year. 

So here you are, my favorite projects from this year.

January - Moxie Fab World Cutting and Trimming Card
 



February - Moxie Fab World Cutting Challenge card



March - Ribbon Carousel/Paper Issues Challenge Card


April - Sweet Stamp Shop Monthly Challenge Card


 
May - Gallery Idol Top 20 card


June - Sympathy card


July - Slurpee Card for Shaping Up Blog Hop


August - Triple Take Layout for Elle's Studio Sketch


September - Sweet Stamp Shop Inspiration Photo card

 
October - Unity Stamps WCMD color challenge card


November - Jane's Doodles Father's Day card with background stamping technique

 

 
December - Punky Sprouts and My Little Shoebox layout

 
This was a fun year, I feel like I really got into the blogging groove, was able to cross a lot of things off my list of goals, and met some great new crafting friends.  Thanks so much for all your visits this year.  Come back tomorrow for a fun New Year's Eve Punky Sprouts blog hop.
 
 

Thursday, December 27, 2012

What's the Matter?



Feeling SO much better, finally!  But SO behind! 

We've been  having a great time visiting with family, but as a result I haven't had much time to do any new non-DT creating, so I thought I would pop in and share this card that I created a while back.

Kind of appropriate for the crud that I was dealing with the last couple weeks too.

I hope you guys had a great Christmas....looking forward to getting back into the swing of things!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Bazzill Card Shoppe - Banana Split; CTMH - Holiday Red, Black, and White Daisy cardstock
Stamps:  There She Goes - Cutie Pi; Hero Arts - Silhouettes
Ink:  CTMH - Honey, Holiday Red, Dutch Blue, and Gypsy cardstock; Memento - Tuxedo Black
 
Other:  Spectrum Noir markers; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape

Friday, December 21, 2012

Quick and Easy Tags



Wanted to share some other tags that I created this year for Christmas gift giving.

These are all cut with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge as is the snowflake on the tag on the left.

I love that you can pump these out so quickly and they really add a special touch to your gifts.

The two tags on the right were created using the stamp set from the Pear & Partridge card workshop.  For the center tag I clear embossed over top of the colored stamping to add some shine, but if you're in hurry it's totally not necessary.

The twine on the left and center tags is Maya Road and that's Trendy Twine on the right.

Still trying to lick this cold/cough thing, but I'm offically done with shopping, and just a couple things to wrap up.

Tomorrow is the clean up the house/car/pack to go day, although just a really quick trip to spend Christmas Eve, and we'll be back here that evening so we can spend Christmas morning at our place before we head out to my parents.

All this to say, you may or may not see anymore stuff from me before next week, but ya never know....

Have a wonderful weekend!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - Desert Sand, White Daisy, Colonial White, Cranberry cardstock
Stamps:  CTMH - Pear & Partridge card workshop set, Say it in Style
Ink:  CTMH - Chocolate, Cranberry, and Olive; Versamark
 
Other:  CTMH - Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, Kraft buttons, Sponge Dauber, Clear embossing powder; Maya Road - Shine Gold and Watermelon; Trendy Twine - Krazy for Kraft

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Little Tangles Challenge #3 - Holiday Colors



Welcome to the third Little Tangles challenge!  This time our theme is holiday colors, and we want you to create a project using red, white and aqua.



I had a great time creating this card.  I used the large candy cane from the Sweet Home set.  Lots of fussy cutting, but really easy to put together.  Just added a little bit of adhesive to each end of the candy canes and put them together to create the flower shape. 

I used large Dodz adhesives to adhere the flower to the base and the button to the flower. 

Here's a close up of that candy cane flower.



Would LOVE for you to play along with the challenge.  Danielle has some cute freebie images available over at Little Tangles, and as always, there are free Neat & Tangled stamps at stake!

 

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Bazzill Card Shoppe - Robin's Egg; CTMH - White Daisy
Stamps:  Neat and Tangled - Sweet Home
Ink:  Memento - Tuxedo Black
Other:  Spectrum Noir Markers - DR5 and CR11; The Twinery - Caribbean twine; 3L - Large Dodz Adhesive; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Polka Dot Whimsy - Woodgrain Button

Monday, December 17, 2012

Some more stamp carving


Hey everyone, thanks for all your well wishes.  Still slowly recovering, but I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Just praying for some good rest tonight!

Thought I would pop in and share some stamps that I carved recently. 

I've been wanting to get back to Julie Balzer's Stamp Carving 101 class, but the next project is to do an alphabet set, so I want to wait until I have a bigger chunk of time to tackle that.

However, my friend Alexandra recently started carving and inspired me to get back into the act, so last week I created these....they are some thank you gifts for crafty friends of mine who have really helped me along, been great encouragers, and have sent some great goodies me way recently.

Stamp carving is so much fun, and I have a whole list of stamps that I want to create.  I'm off for most of next week, so hopefully I'll have the chance to get some more done!

Hope that your week is off to a good start!
 

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Thankful

This weekend has not been at all what I expected it to be. 

I got sick.

Mamas are not supposed to get sick, but yesterday afternoon I was sick as a dog, huddled under the covers shivering and shaking.

Thankfully it appears to be a quick mover....I'm still not 100%, but WAY better than I was feeling yesterday!

Being sick at this time of year, combined with the sobering events of this past Friday really made me think, which made me thankful for:

1) That were were able to squeeze in visit with a college friend yesterday morning before things really took a turn for the worse.

2) An AMAZING husband....the house has not suffered a whit since I have been sick, rooms were cleaned and vacuumed, the kids were taken out to the pet store to look at animals and then to Chick Fil A to retreive dinner all while I remained ensconced in my bed.  In fact, as I type, he's out to lunch with Ellie and then they are going to do the grocery shopping.

3) The realization that I don't need to do it all for Christmas....this was going to be a baking, present making, Christmas Card finishing, Christmas tree decorating weekend, and the fact of the matter is that I've just realized that most of this stuff is not going to happen and it's OK.  We are still going to celebrate Christmas and it is still going to be wonderful, and maybe this will actually help us to better focus on the reason for the season.

4) My wonderful daughters who have also been a little more helpful and kind since Mama isn't feeling well.  Especially Ellie....I was a little afraid that she'd freak out when I brought up the idea of not getting the big tree (we do have lots of mini trees sprinkled throughout the house and all the other decorations are up), but she was OK with it.  We talked it over, and decided that we would put our Christmas tree money to good use, so this is what we ordered this morning:



A goat from World Vision for a child who could use it more than we need a Christmas tree.

So, was it the weekend I expected?  No, but it certainly brought into focus how blessed I am, and I am so thankful.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Crafting with Ellie - Collage

Taking a break from writing/addressing Christmas cards to brag a little about my eldest. 
 
Many of you know that I started working part time this year when Ellie started kindergarten.  I drop her off and pick her up, so we have an hour and a half or so after school to hang out.
 
On Monday Ellie decided that she wanted to do a project.
 
So (and this was ALL her) she selected a 12 x 12 orange piece of cardstock and cut it in half.  Then she took some scrap pieces of cardstock that were kind of a craft fail and cut them into strips.  
 
Then she said that we were going to glue them onto the orange paper.
 
So we took our craft sticks and glued.  Once we were done, we needed to add 'details'.  Ellie pointed out that my strips kind of looked like a city and she was right, so I kind of ran with that.  She decided that the name of my city was Big City.
 
 
Ellie made a picture of China.  There's water, and people living in houses by the water, and it's night time. 
 
 
I am totally going to let Ellie plan craft projects for us more often!
 
Have a great evening! 



Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Grandparent's Day



Another great Elle's Studio sketch this week.

These photos are from the Grandparent's Day event at my parents' retirement community back in September.  My parents moved down to Virginia last year and are about a half hour away now (as opposed to 7 hours).  It's been wonderful for us all to see them regularly (and take advantage of free babysitting).  I especially appreciate it because when I was growing up, my grandparents were all overseas.  Andrew's parents are also pretty close, and it's so nice for the girls to have close relationships with their grandparents.

This was a fun, and pretty quick, layout to put together.  The base is a new CTMH color called Slate.  It's a great medium toned neutral which I think is going to get a lot of use around here.  Patterned papers are from Basic Grey's Paper Cottage collection, there are several Elle's tags, and those fun flat sequins are from a Polka Dot Whimsy kit.

The journaling is on hidden behind the top photo.  To hold it in place, I used dimensional foam tape - it serves a double purpose, adheres the photo and acts as a stopper.



I'm also going to link this layout up at Paper Issues because it contains gray AND Basic Grey.

Have a great day!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Basic Grey - Paper Cottage 6x6 pad; CTMH - Slate cardstock
Other:  Elle's Studio - Noted Journaling Circle Tags, The Sweet Life Tidbits, Collected Note Tags; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape; Basic Grey - Konnichiwa collection pack alpha stickers; May Arts - Twine; Punky Sprouts - Lil' Lacey Blossoms; Polka Dot Whimsy - Red Sequins; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; 3L - Small Dodz

Monday, December 10, 2012

Punky Sprouts + My Little Shoebox



Hey everyone!  This month Punky Sprouts is teaming up with My Little Shoebox.  I received the Coming Home collection to work with.  It's adorable, and there's a little something for everyone.  There are lots of pinks, but also plenty of boy and neutral colors.

I created two layouts to share.



Pie charts seem to be all the rage these days, so for this layout I used my canvas and denim Lil' Petals to create two pie charts.  I wanted to get some additional variation in color, so I used both the front and back of the denim Lil' Petals to get a lighter shade of blue.

To create the pie charts I used a circle cutter to cut a cardstock circle, covered it with adhesive, and then just lay the Lil' Sprouts down on it.  Really easy to do.


I added some of the Coming Home stickers for accents....those little paper airplanes are so cute and just the right zing of color.

This collection was so appropriate for this layout too....these photos are from our flight home from Georgia tihs summer.  It was the first time we flew with Carina and since she was under two we didn't get her a seat....she's pretty squirmy.  She was not that fussy, but she's active and all over the place, and many apologies to the people who sat in front of us, because there was a fair amount of kicking despite my best efforts.



My second layout is a little more 'girly'.  For this one I cut triangles the same size as the Lil' Petals and alternated them to create the banner/border at the bottom. 



I also really like layering the Lacey Blossoms (doilies) and Parchment Blossoms.  Here I put the Parchment Blossoms behind the Lacey Blossoms to add just a hint of color. 



Coming home was just such a sweet collection to work with, and I hope you liked the ideas for some different ways to use the Punky embellishments. 

Thanks so much for coming by!

Supplies Used
Going Home Layout:  Punky Sprouts (http://getpunkysprouts.com/store/?page/63371/products) - Denim and Canvas Lil' Petals, Parchment and Lacey Lil' Blossoms; My Little Shoebox - Coming Home collection; CTMH - Outdoor Denim cardstock, Edge Distresser amd Dimensnional Foam Tape; Taylored Expressions - Skinny Number Dies; Helmar - Permanent Adhesive Runner; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Pigma Micron Brown pen; Sewing Machine.

Two Ribbities Layout:  Punky Sports - Lil' Canvas Petals, Parchment and Lacey Lil' Blossoms; My Little Shoebox - Coming Home Collection; CTMH - Colonial White Cardstock and Dimensional Foam Tape; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Helmar - Permanent Adhesive Runner; Pigma Micron Brown pen.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Easy Bella Cards



Hey everyone, just a couple quick and easy cards to share tonight.

These were created using Bella Blvd's Birthday Boy collection.

I love the mix of patterns and colors that you get in each Bella Blvd collection, and these are really easy cards to put together, which is why today's post is going to be so short. 

 
I just wanted to say hi and share a little eye candy before heading off to bed.  Please come back tomorrow, I've got some layouts to share from the Punky Sprouts/My Little Shoebox swap that I'm really excited about.
 
Have a great evening!
 
Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock/Stickers - Bella Blvd - Birthday Boy (small strip of stars on the first card is from Super Stud); Bazzill Card Shoppe - Whirlypop cardstock
Other:  Little Yellow Bicycle - Hello Spring Sparkle; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape; Tombow Mono Adhesive

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Little Tangles Challenge #2 - Holiday!



Good morning!  I'm really excited about our second Little Tangles challenge!

We had a great response and some really beautiful and fun cards for our first challenge, so I can't wait to see what you guys come up with this time.

This week's theme is Holiday.

Here's my card:



I used the gumdrops and star from Sweet Home to create the tree.  This required a little bit of masking.  I colored them with Spectrum Noir markers and then added some sparkle with Prisma glitter.



I also used the Little Tangles stamps set to add the pattern to the red background piece. 

So show us what you've got.  You have until December 16th to create a holiday project, and link up over at the Little Tangles blog.  Don't forge that Danielle has some really cute free digital images here that you can use (although N&T stamps aren't required, we love to see them).  Can't wait to see what you make!



Supplies Used
Stamps:  Neat and Tangled - Sweet Home, Little Tangles
Ink:  Memento - Tuxedo Black; CTMH - Holiday Red
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - Holiday Red, Topiary, and White Daisy cardstock, White Daisy bulk card base
Other:  CTMH - Liquid Glass, Prisma Glitter; Spectrum Noir markers; Tombow - Mono Adhesive


 
 

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Waiting is the Hardest Part



Quick post to share my layout for this week's Elle's Studio sketch. 

These photos are from our lake vacation.  Carina and her cousin Collin were literally crying atnd banging on the door trying to get us to let them out that first day. 

I'm mostly using Echo Park Everyday Eclectic.  I love the patterns.  They are great for scrapbooking because they are pretty subtle, great for backgrounds.  I used three of the patterned pages, a liberal does of Elle's Studio tags, and some MME enamel dots and Dear Lizzy Neopolitan brads. 



That one brad on the right in the photo above is a Dear Lizzy brad base.  I had used the center of the brad to decorate a button on this card, and above I just added one of the enamel dots to create a new brad.

I also added some Liquid Pearls as accents to the pink strips of paper.  And Amy Tangerine foam thickers.

Hope you are having a good week.  Busy here.  I need to get as much shopping done before Friday as possible since my gift wrapper is coming over Friday night.  I play with paper all the time, but I ABHOR wrapping presents, just seems like a waste of time, I mean it gets ripped off in seconds.  Anyway, I have a good friend who really enjoys wrapping presents, and she comes over to wrap mine every year for me while we watch a chick flick.  She rocks.

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Echo Park - Everyday Eclectic; CTMH - White Daisy
Other:  Elle's Studio - Pink Pennants, The Sweet Life Cutouts, Summer Lovin Large Journaling Tags; Echo Park - Everyday Eclectic Alpha stickers; American Crafts - Amy Tangerine Journal Foam Thickers, Dear Lizzy Neopolitan Brads; My Mind's Eye - The Sweetest Thing Enamel Dots; Ranger - Liquid Pearls; Dylusions - Vibrant Turquoise Ink Spray; Studio Calico - Plum Thumb Mister Huey's; Tombow - Mono Adhesive.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Glory to God Tag



Glory to God is one of my go-to Christmas sets.  I love the images:  they are classic, and reflect the reason for the season

I'm linking this tag up with this week's CASual Friday's tag challenge.

It's an easy tag to create and mass produce.

The tag was cut using the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  I embossed the sentiment/star with clear embossing powder, and the sponged Pacifica ink over the tag until I got the saturation that I wanted.  Then I stamped the wise men in Cooca.  The twine is Maya Road.

Hope that your week is off to a good start!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - White Daisy
Stamps:  CTMH - Glory to God and Pear & Partridge cardmaking kit stamp set
Ink:  CTMH - Pacifica, Cocoa; Versamark
Other:  CTMH - Clear embossing powder, Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge; Maya Road - Slushie Blue Twine