My Christmas Card "Prototype" ;)

Ok, I've been itching to make Christmas Cards ever since I got Lawn Fawn's new Cozy Christmas Stamps. This will be my first year making my own Christmas cards. **SCARY** I usually go to Costco and buy the 6x7 1/2 photo Christmas cards because, well, I like sending pictures to friends/family at Christmas time, it's super easy, they always have really cute card templates, and... did I mention, IT'S SUPER EASY!! Also, I usually don't buy seasonal/holiday stamps. I just get so sad to file them away till next year, and (mainly) I like to spend my cash on something I can use any time of year - but these sweet stamps were SO hard for me to resist!!! The smiles (on almost everything) just made me so darn happy!! Also, I had fallen in LOVE with Basic Grey's "Jovial" line and thought it would be perfect for Christmas cards!

So I had a dilema. I love sending pictures, but wanted to make my own cards this year...hmmm... So, I thought "I'll just make the cards, and throw in a picture of the kids... that'll work!" but then i got the idea to make my own picture card a-la-costco.

So...after receiving my 2Peas box-o-goodies, I went to town stamping away. Then there was the cutting, and let me tell you, IT WAS ALOT OF CUTTING (at this point, I'm at over 300 lil' pieces - but I LOVE the paper pieced look, so it'll be worth it in the end!!). Last night, I finished my first card :D. I decided to use 4 stockings (cause we're a family of 4, of course) and I also thought it would be super cute to emboss "HO! HO! HO!" with (Hardold ABCs) inside the fireplace. It just seemed like a fun idea to me. I used Copics to color the top of the glass and the bottom of the cookie plate. So, here is the finished product:


I love it!! I've only made one so far, my "prototype" (hee hee) because, honestly, my brain was literally to exhausted to go any further after all the good stuff mentioned above. Plus, I figured I just needed to complete one fully (for peace of mind and happiness), then this weekend I'll go to town. The only difference will be 1. the bakers twine (apparently I'm out of red/while?!?!?, so for this card, I used Martha Stewart's plain red bakers twine) however, I just ordered more red/white twine (from Layer Cake Shop) and 2. the picture. This is one of the random pics I took last year, I just used it to make my card complete. I'll take the real pics closer Christmas - probably the beginning of December. The hard part is deciding how many cards to make. I usually buy 75 cards from Costco (friends...family...everyone at church - and we have a smaller church) buuuuut this year I may have to revise my list, or something, I really don't know. We'll see what happens. I have enough goodies cut and ready for 35 cards. Plus, I've offered to make my grandma's Christmas cards this year, as well. I'll see how I feel after making those. Maybe I'll have to take a little brake at that point. What I do know, is I am SO glad I'm getting an early start. Gives me some breathing room, I think, I am a beginner at this afterall (I have no idea what I've gotten myself into). But I sure had lots of fun with it so far. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!!

My BESTEST creations ;)

Are these sweet little ones right here!





It's amazing how quickly time goes by. It really does fly by. (I don't think) you really even notice "time" until you have (or are around) children. I didn't anyway. One day you look at pictures that you JUST took, and say "Oh. My. God! When in the world did my babies get so darn big"! It almost made me sad to see this, my Lil little Lulu especially! Maybe it's the outfit?!? I dono, but she looks alot like a big girl here. Two years have flown by. My Christian too. Where have the last 5 and a half years gone?!? I must say, it was much harder to get "good" pictures of him. He just wanted to be wild and crazy (making silly faces only) just because he could, I guess. My babies. They're so cute. We made beautiful babies. They're keepers. I love them so! So lucky to be their mama. So blessed by them. Their sweet and spunkiness. Grateful for their health and hearts! It's an amazing thing to be a mom. To be a part of this process. To feel so connected to someone so completely. The hard part must be staying that way. Helping them grow and giving them wings. Hoping you do your best to make them whole and complete and of good character. I feel really happy to be their mama. Happy to be doing this with my best friend. Happy that we're a great team (even on the rough days!).


Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Happy Fall Y'All

Good Monday, everyone! My post today is a mini that I made for my son. I've been getting so crafty lately, that he finally said "Mom, when are you going to make a mini-book JUST for me? Don't I make you things ALL the time?" So... after looking through my mini-chipboard books, I decided to use a Maya Road mini I picked up from Paper Niche (that just the BESTEST LSS in my area!!) last year when they had a great sale (50% off all chipboard books - I got two of these little cuties!!). I just knew it'd come in handy. I was going to do a "Halloween" themed book and then just add in pics after this Halloween, but I decided on doing a "Fall" theme book instead. I had printed all of these pics from my son's (Preschool) Fall Festival 2 years ago (I HAVEN'T EVEN SCRAPPED THAT YET - BAD MOMMY!!). Anyways, I took and printed SO many pics, that I figured it would work out perfectly for this project (and, seriously, if i scrapped all of these pics, it'd be A 10 pager probably!!).

So, I used Basic Grey's "Max & Whiskers" papers. I just think the colors are so fall, and just go perfectly. Of course, I had to use my Lawn Fawn Bannerific/Harold’s ABC’s (also used Sophie’s Sentiments for that adorable little horseshoe!!) because it seems that nothing I can do now-a-days can't NOT have that awesome banner in it(and it fits the word HAPPY perfectly)!!!! I just LOVE it. It makes me happy! Add in some Papertrey Ink buttons, and so much ribbon that I lost track of it all - and I made my little man super happy yesterday! This is the front, back, and a middle view. of course, I HAD to finish it off with my "Made by" stamp (my son's orders - "mom! how will anyone know YOU made it?!?". P.S. In case anyone is wondering. I got this stamp on Etsy from "scribbling club" - and I ABSOLUTELY love it!!!!


That little "thingy" on my chest is my sweet Alivia (she was only 3 months at the time - so, I had her in the Baby Katan). I added a few lil pics of my son in the hay, riding the pony, playing with his friends, jumping in the bounce house...





I still have LAST year's Fal Fest pics to tend to. I do have another Pumpkin ;) hhhmmmm...OH! Wait, this year Alivia will be participatng in the Fall Fest... Exciting!! Well, that's my share for today. Hope you have a lovely day!!

My first Card Order, filled.

So one of my former bosses (whom I dearly love, and who also happened to marry Sal and I) called me one day after I sent him a card to say hello. He said "So, I get this card and I'm like 'wow I wonder where she got THIS from' and I look on the back of the card and it says 'Handmade by Heather Innusa'!! What?!? You make cards!! How did I not know this?!?". Then he asked me if I've ever sold any, and I told him that as a matter of fact, our church just had a craft sale and I had sold quite a few! So, he asked me to make him 10 "Thinking of you" cards to send to his clients when needed (he's an attorney and that would cover alot of basis) - but not "too girly", gender neutral. This was, like, 2 months ago. I was really excited, but the "not too girly" part kinda scared me. I'd say my style is too girly! So anyway. I finally decided to sit down and give it a whirl.

For the first two cards (I made 10 total), I found my inspiration flipping through my "Stamp it! 2010" issue, I decided on 2 layouts from the mag. (Pg. 42, by Kim Jackson & Pg. 81 by Alli Miles) that I made work with some Papertrey Ink Stamps/Buttons and October Afternoon's Thrift Shop line. And here they are ;):


For the next (I only made 1 of these - three each of the others)I used October Afternoon Thrift Shop again (love this line soooo much!!), Unity Stamps,Versa Magic red ink, and clear embossing powder (on one of the Happy Balloons). I got this sketch off of Ashley Cannon Newell's blog.

Then this last one is an idea I found blog hopping (I'm sorry, I don't know who it's from) with the punched circles and then sewing through them. I love the layers of it. For this I used a 6x6 stack of Basic Grey's Origins. Hopefully none of them are "too girly", I'm probably not the best judge.


I asked Sal and he said they are "girly" in his opinion, but "not too bad". UGH! Oh well. I packaged them up with some envelopes from Michaels, some pretty grey bakers twine, and my pretty Hand Made by Heather Innusa stamp - which I used an EK Success scallop punch on.

Hopefully he likes them. Well that's my share for today. Have a great one!!

Christian's Mini-book

And this is my beautiful spunky boy. While I crafted a good part of 2 hours away on Saturday - so did he. I love that he loves drawing, cutting, gluing, and doing all things crafty! It allows me to be crafty AND still spend quality time with him at the same time. We love playing with craft goodies together! So this is what he was making while I was making my Lawn Fawn Stamp home.




It’s a “mini book about my family n stuff” as he called it. He got it for his birthday in April, It has a bunch of foam shapes, a glue stick, a bunch of cute funky patterned papers, and a spiral book to put it all in. He’s definitely a keeper, this little boy of mine. I can’t wait for Lulu to get a little bigger so we can put her creativity to the test.

A place to keep my Lawn Fawn stamps cozy ;)

So does anyone else’s stamp collections look like this? Hee hee.

I’ve got all kinds: Tim Holts, Unity, Papertrey Ink, Stampedious, Hero Arts, the list goes on, and on. I really love stamps. Maybe I have a problem. Lately my new favorite stamps are all from Lawn Fawn!! I don’t really remember how I even found Lawn Fawn - online obviously - but I just stumbled on it one day and loved the stamps. What’s NOT to love? Between the beautiful stamps, their awesome Design Team, and Kelly Marie's fabulous video tutorials!! They’ve got everything to make a crafty girl happy.

So anyways, I’ve been TRYING to keep my Lawn Fawn Stamps together in this heap of a mess for a while now. What I did was put two sheets of stamps in each packaging (that the stamps originally come to me in). This worked for a little while, but the packaging started ripping (uh, duh, that’s because they’re only supposed to house ONE sheet, not two). I know. So they were just free floating in my messy drawer for a few weeks now. I do not like that.

I had bookmarked a mini acrylic book used to house stamps that someone made on the Maya Road Blog last year. I though it was too cool! But when I though about making one, I was so overwhelmed because I have so many different brands and types of clear stamps that I though it would just be a crazy/mixed up mess.

Well, this weekend when Alivia laid down for her afternoon nap, and while my sweet son made his own little mini book with his craft supplies, I decided I would be making my Lawn Fawn Stamps a home! I still had a bunch of this Bo Bunny paper (cant remember the line, sorry) so I decided to use my stash on this one. I also used two Clear Snaps tabbed mini books (1 acrylic and 1 chipboard - exactly the same, but I only used the straight edge paged of the chipboard book) that I picked up several years ago and just haven’t used. The cover is acrylic, (I covered the back of it with paper) and then I put the stamps on the tabbed acrylic pages, and a chipboard page in between covered in that beautious paper so that my stamps wouldn’t get stuck and come off. This is a front/back page view. I kept the back super simple. I had this little tin plate from when I subscribed to Crazy Daisy’s Kit Club. It’s just been hanging around my crafty space for a while, and I absolutely love it. It SO inspires me.

Here are the rest of this pics. As you can see, I distressed all of the page edges - because I have a lot of fun doing that - and I also used the sticker element page and letter stickers that came with this line (Bo Bunny) throughout the book. To finish it off, I stamped “Heather’s Happy Place” on the clear tabs and used my Handmade By: Stamp on the back of the book using black StazOn Ink. I also made a cute little pocket for the stamp casing. I have to admit, I was scared to disregard them. What if this great idea doesn’t work out for me? What if my stamps don’t stick? It would be horrible to have all my pretties with no home...just a precaution ;). But I hope it does work. I love it. So fun. A pretty home to do my “Lawn Fawn Loveliness” justice.





The last page is sad because my Heebie Jeebies are all alone :(. but not for long because I just ordered the "Cozy Christmas" stamps...and they're on the way!! Woo Hoo. I'll probably get them today - super excited!! This is the first time I'll be making my own Christmas Cards, and I'm also making some for my Grandma too ;).
So that’s that. Hope you have a great day!!!

I've got the Heebie Jeebies!!!

Well, so the fabulous Lawn Fawn Stamps sent me my prize for the Facebook "mini-challenge" that I participated in. I was so stinkin THRILLED when I opened that lil envelope and their HEEBIE JEEBIE Stamps were my prize!!!!!!!!!! I was just so excited!! I don't usually buy seasonal stamps - and believe me, it was very hard to resist them when they were released in August because they are SO CUTE!!! The georgeous handwriting for Happy Halloween, the cute lil web - and most of all the lil critters (2 bats and a spider)... sigh! Anyway, i really wanted them, but wanted to save my cash for other stamps that I'd use more often, like the 2 other releases at that time (Bannerific and Sophie's Sentiments) which I bought ;). Anywho, I am beyond thankful and thrilled!! I've also been under the weather got a lovely cold from my baby girl (1st time in school - yay!) so i wasn't able to play on Monday when I got them. Well, I played with them with my son, letting him stamp them in embossing ink and use all my pretty embossing powders (I heated them of course)...fun!

So, last night I broke out my fabulous new My Minds Eye "Blackbird" collection - I LOOOOOVE this paper, just picked it up from my LSS - and my Heebie Jeebie stamps and paper pieced my heart out!! I had this idea that it would be really cool to omit the "Happy" from the Happy halloween sentiment (Thank God for VersaMagic's little cats eyes!) and paper pieced the Happy onto my fave banner from the Bannerific Stamp Set with Harold's ABCs. I made 5 cards just sitting there chatting with my hubs. I really love how they came out! I popped up the cute lil bats for dimension and added some green/white Martha Stewart twine. So thankful to Kelly Marie and the awesome folks at Lawn Fawn for being so generous!! You guys totally rock!!

Family time

Today, I’ll do a lil "family" blogging. I had a very nice weekend. I basically only did 1 project, working on it then whole weekend in every bit of "spare" time I got. It’s for my mom - will it share tomorrow ;). Had lots of fun family-time with my hubby and babies. I just feel so blessed to be these 2 babies mama! Excuse the quality of the pics, as most of them came from my phone. These are my babies. Christian and Alivia. I love these two little people so much. Even when they cant stop screaming and swatting at each other (which is very often now-a-days).





Even when the oh-so-cute little one does DISGUSTING things with her poop (notice the tights with shorts on).

Even when my son dances around so wild and crazy, and does "wipeout" all over my living room, and plays music from his toys so repetitively that my brain wants to relocate.

Even when I feel so overwhelmed and am at my wits-end, I have to remember that all (ALL) I've ever wanted out of this life is to marry a man that I LOVE and to have my babies. It's what I wanted to be when I grew up! I always knew I wanted to be a mommy. I didn't know at that time exactly what went into being a mommy. Having a Christian and an Alivia. It can be hard work, tiring. But it is an amazing journey - and I'm just at the beginning. I can't believe how amazing these little people are. They're so cool! I can't beleiev I get to call them my kids! Yes, I have no clue what I'm doing, or what the future has in store. I may NEVER sleep more than 6 hours again (and that's on a good night). But I love this life. I love these children, and the man who helped me create them and helps me raise them. I love God and that he has allowed us to take part in these two miracles lives. I am blessed. I am in awe. And I am so grateful.

My weekend's scrappiness ;)

Good Tuesday everyone ;). Hope you had a fun weekend. I have to say, I SURE DID!! Yesterday especially. Every other day of the weekend was ok, but yesterday was awesome. We went out for breakfast - which is very RARE for us - and it was great (besides Alivia trying to eat the gum from under the table - at Dennys - gross!!!). Such a nice family day! I was super productive too - thank you Red Bull (no thank you for the WICKED BAD headache it gave me at 10:00 last night). I cleaned my house, obsessivey cleaned my car (also very rare!!), had such nice family time, AND Alivia took a 3 - yes, 3 - hour nap. That left me with some (alot actually)crafty time!! I made several pages, and started a project (a mini) for my mom - but I'll share that another time. Ok, here we go:



First of all...Remember those layouts I entered into Lawn Fawn's Facebook/Mini-Challenge, well Kelly Marie and the great peeps over at Lawn Fawn decided to gift all of the participants :D. So sweet of them!! I had alot of fun making those pages - I had really been wanting to use those adorable Bannerific Stamps on my scrapbook pages (instead of just on cards), so I used the opportunity to do just that. Anywho, when I found out (on FB) that they were gifting all of us, I sat right down and made the Lawn Fawners a Thank You card! I've been kind of obsessed with misting/masking with letter stickers right now, so I used that technique paired with one Kelly Marie just did a video tutorial for (stamping on Dear Lizzie Fabric Paper & paper piecing). I like how it came out. And may I just say, LAWN FAWN ROCKS!!



I LOVE this page. I just got the paper over at my LSS, Paper Niche, it's all Prima - I just LOVE this line!! One side is all girly and the other side is boy(y - ??) and both are absolutely adorable!! I love that I can use it for both of my babies!! The letter stickers are American Crafts - Thickers, of course. I loved how they blended right in. I titled the page "Right Now" and went back to Alivia's 1st Year Baby Calender and wrote down all the things she was doing/eating/saying, etc in June of 2009 (she was 11 months old). I loved the element page that came with this stack of papers. I used 2 of them because, well, I had alot to write! The phrase on it "You are so cute" kinda got lost because I wrote in black ink, so I used my glue pen and traced over it, then heat embossed with AC green embossing powder. Thaaaaats better.



This one just might be my fave of the weekend!! I followed a sketch I found online, and used Cosmo Cricket's Togetherness paper/stickers/letter stickers(LOVE THESE LETTER STICKERS!!!!). Add in some Papertrey Ink buttons and twine - swoon!! I really wanted to try using my circle punch to make a different corner and then inked around the page with ColorBox chalk - Sigh, I really like how it turned out :D.



So, if that one was my fave, THIS comes in a close second!! I just LOVE these pictures, and the October Afternoon Thrift Shop collection is becoming an ALL TIME FAVE for me!! It's just...sigh, I love it! Paired with Kraft cardstock - how can you go wrong, seriously?!? I added in a Tim Holtz tag and some twine & was good to go!



I totally got this idea online. I'm sorry, I dont remember where I saw it (bloghopping I'm sure - and I promise, in the future, I'm going to make note of these things so I can give proper credit where it's due). I absolutely loved the patchwork idea!! So. Much. And I have so many little scraps from Basic Grey's Olivia Collection (letters - both the green & pink, element stickers, & the cute tab are also from this collection). I've been using it ALOT, especially for cards, so this worked out perfect for me. First I penciled in the heart, and boy, it was SO FUN (definately not, I tell you!!!) cutting the patch pieces just so. Then I erased the pencil lines and used pale pink stickles to outline it.

Well, thats all I've got today. I hope everyone had a great weekend!! Also, you should check out the Lawn Fawn blog today!! They're partenering with hero Arts for some fun stamping & blogging!! Love them both lots - check it out...