"When our eyes see our hands doing the works of out hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us, the doors of our soul flies open and love steps forth to heal everything in signt"

-- Michael Bridge

Monday, January 30, 2012

Whatcha been up to???

Hi there! Just wanted to share a picture of what we’ve been up to... making Valentines for the kiddies school friends/teachers. Using Lawn Fawn of course!!!

That’s it. Hope you have a great day!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Just let it go...

Hi there. Just wanted to share a set of cards I made. Inspired by something I saw on Pinterest!


Very simple. All of the stamping is Lawn Fawn. The patterned paper is Basic Grey’s Lauderdale 6x6 pad. This was my motto for yesterday. Sometimes life can feel so out of control. Just gotta let it go.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Monday, January 23, 2012

A Memory Lasts Forever...

Hi guys. Today I wanted to share a card that I made for Kelly Marie Alvarez (A.K.A. Mrs. Lawn Fawn). Last week, her grandpa passed away and a few amazing souls started a card drive for she and her family. I couln't NOT participate in this. Kelly Marie is one of the SWEETEST girls I've met through crafting/blogging. She's been super sweet to me and has extended many kind wishes my way when I needed them most. There is simply no one like her. The inside of the card is stamped with a sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Say Cheese II set "A Memory Lasts Forever". I wanted to keep the outside plainish. The patterned paper and jeans just made me think of my grandpa, who we lost 2 years ago :(.

I went rustic and (finally) got #10 checked off my "32 Things to Do While I'm 32" list: "Use my Old Jeans for Art" :). I used THIS Sizzix Rose cutting die to create the two roses and spun the other flower by hand. The patterned paper is from Crate paper and the Rustic Twine is Papertrey Ink.

Anyway, I hope she likes it and that it brings a smile to her face. Thanks for peeking and I hope this week is off to a good start for ya.

Friday, January 20, 2012

TGIF

Hi there. Yes, I am happy to put this tiring week behind me and make it to the weekend. I have a few fun things planned for the kids. Just normal weekend stuff, but it should be fun. I'm also hoping to work on Valentines :).

Anyway, today I wanted to share the final two Sympathy cards that I made for a friend:
and here is the last one:

While Sympathy cards are not something I usually do, I really like how well they all turned out, and when I get a minute I think I'll make a few more to stash away and that way I have them when I need them. I think I'll make a few for my Pastor too. God knows he needs them every so often.

Anyway, hope you have a great weekend, thanks for peekin' in on me.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

With Sympathy

Hi guys. Today I’m continuing my week of Sympathy. If you missed it yesterday, I created them for a friend who “ordered” a set of 6 of them. He’s an attorney and in our line of work, well, you end up needing them often :(.

Anyway, I’m here to share 2 more of them with you. For both of them, I've used Hero Arts images and a sentiment from Paper Smooches. and here's the other one

I love how vibrant the Copic coloring shows up on the second one. Beautiful images to color. Anyway, back tomorrow with two more. Hope you have a great day!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A week of Sympathy cards... beginning... now

Hi there. A friend of mine (who is an attorney) asked me to make him a set of Sympathy cards. I knew this would be somewhat of a challenge for me because I usually lean towards a "fun-ish" stye. I don't think I've ever made sympathy cards before now. I decided to go for it because I'm up for a challenge. I pulled out some Hero Arts stamps, Copic Markers and My Minds Eye 6x6 pads and got busy.
I ended up making a set of 6 using Hero Arts' Special Note of Thanks and Antique Engravings 4x6 stamp sets. Here is another:

I really love these stamps, and they are really fun to play with. it was a challenge as I had expected, but a fun one. Hope your Wednesday treats you good ;).

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Dude, you color my world!

Hi there. One last stop on the ol' blog before the weekend. Today I wanted to share a corner bookmark I made last weekend. I actually made it for a friend, but I can't seem to part with it just yet - it's so stinkin' cute!
Cuteness isn't it! Another project made from that My Minds Eye pad Chari sent me. I've gotten a lot of use out of that baby! I Copic colored in the super fun Tucan from Paper Smooches My Peeps stamps after first stamping it onto some Copic Paper. Then I paper pieced onto the bookmark. I love the sentiment too, which I created by combining two sentiments from Paper Smooches' Word Salad stamps (a Christmas gift from my work peeps). I just love the fonts they use - so super cute!

Anyway, that's all for me this week. I hope your weekend is awesome!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

...and another Thank You Card...

Yes, I'm still sharing Thank You cards made with that fabulous 6x6 pad of My Mind's Eye paper that Chari hooked me up with! I've been cranking them out for about a week now. I really love the purple pages in this stack of paper. All different - all pretty. I decided to Copic color the Sea Critters in Pink and Purple for a girly touch. I'm also LOVING this Lavender Jenni Bowlin Ink. Matches perfectly. It also matches PERFECTLY with this Milled Lavender Distress Ink which was used around all of the edges.

Anywhy, that's it for me today.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Happy Birthday - Lawnscaping #25 2nd Entry

Hi there. I decided to enter another card into this round of the Lawnscaping #25 Happy Birthday Challenge ;)
Here I used the Lawn Fawn Critters in the Sea combined with October Afternoon's Seaside's 8x8 pad. Another fun kiddie Birthday card ;).

So, there it is. Hope you have an awesome Tuesday friends!!!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Thank you friend ;) - YCU #5

Hi there! Hope you had a great weekend. I wanted to stop in really quickly and share another card I made using the fantastic My Minds Eye 6x6 pad that Chari gifted me with a few weeks ago!
{Excuse my crooked photo - oopsies} I Copic colored a few of the Lawn Fawn Critters and created a sentiment using Sophie's Sentiments. The bracket was cut using a Spellbinders Die and my Cuttlebug, and then I highlighted it and the strip of graph paper down the center of the card using Mulled Lavender Distress Ink.

Pretty simple, but it makes me smile. I'm entering this into the YCU #5 Challenge since their theme this time around is Clean and Simple.

That's it for me today - I hope you have a good day!!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Few Thank You Cards...

More cards to share!

I got a way cool My Minds Eye 6x6 paper pad in a batch of Happy Mail from my friend Chari (THANKS CHARI!!!) after a particularly bad week. I just love all of the colors included in the pad. Beautiful purples, blues, mustards, graphs, and ledger paper. Matches made in heaven! It was the first thing I wanted to use when my creativity struck last weekend!

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’ve been whipping up Thank You cards. Here are a few of them that I made using this patterned paper pack and some Lawn Fawn Goodness:

and another:

Just one more ;)

I'll share more (including my favorites of the bunch) next week! have a great weekend!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Lawnscaping #25 - Happy Birthday!!

New year, new challenges! I was excited to see that the newest Lawnscaping (#25) Challenge is a Birthday theme!

This weekend I made a list of lists of Thank you Cards that I need to make/write. It’s a long list, believe me. I got about 7 of those done, and have about 8 to go. While I was making Thank You cards, I was inspired to make a few birthday cards as well.

This is my submission:

I like patchwork style cards. I used Lawn Fawn’s Critters in the Burbs, Critters in the Forest, Hats Off to You, Admit One, and Say Cheese Too and some fun Bakers Twine from The Twinery :). I thought it’d be a good “kid” birthday card. Fun.

Honestly, I was desperately trying to finish up an 8x8 pad of October Afternoon’s “Seaside”. I don’t know why (I was so “desperate” about it). Seems like I’ve made SO many things from this little 8x8 deck of paper. I had tons of scraps saved. Because those are REALLY good for stamping/paper piecing! I just really felt the need to get rid of some scraps. I made 2 birthday cards, 2 Thank You Cards, and 12 Corner Bookmarks - and still had scraps left over. It was like Jesus feeding the 5,000 I tell ya. The scraps seemed to keep appearing. I thought I’d never finish that pad. I finally decided that I’d been a good steward long enough and tossed the few remaining scraps. THEN, I went to organize the drawer that I keep my mini decks of paper in... yea, I still have 8 or 9 whole pieces of this paper. Did it multiply while I wasn’t looking? Weird.

Anyway. Also here is one of the Thank You cards I made using the same paper pad along with one of the Lawn Fawn freebie stamps - LOVE THOSE!


Ok, that whole paragraph was weird, but I’m leaving it in there ;). Hope you have a good Wednesday.

Monday, January 2, 2012

My faves of 2011!!

Hi friends!! Hope Tuesday is treating you well. I had a post all set to go up today, but decided that first I's like to send 2011 out properly (like it's not already gone... I know).

I have some new following friends (BIG WAVES---HI THERE!!!) and I am surely thankful for my friends who have been following me for a while. I love hanging out in blogland with you guys! Your encouraging words, thoughts, and prayers always mean so much to me, and I love visiting your blogs too!!!!

2011 was a very fun year for me creatively. I think I did a lot of evolving. Trying different techniques and products, but staying true to myself. My projects using Lawn Fawn Stamps (which are usually my absolute favorite projects) made their way onto Lawn Fawn’s “Fawny Flickr Friday” 11 times in 2011!!!!! Crazyness! I never kept track of how many times my projects were featured until I recently applied for a DT and wanted to count them out to add it to my “Creative Resume”. I was totally surprised to see that number! To me, that is such an honor, to have had so many of my projects featured on their blog along with so many talented ladies!!

Here are 11 projects (in no particular order whatsoever) that I really loved making in 2011.

Mirrored Polaroids: We Really Click ;)

My Lawn Fawn Stamp Binder - quite literally my most used item - OF THE YEAR!!!:

Happy Anniversary to Lawn Fawn (3/2011)

My Sweet Littlest One - and her 1st Pony!!!

Literally, one of my all time FAVE layouts!!!

Lots of techniques and LF stamp sets going on here:

Happy Birthday w/ hand colored Seam Binding ;)

My Corner Bookmarks - I love making them so much!

"Up" themed Birthday - love all the Textures here!

Lots of patchwork & rustic twine:

Critters in Costume!

Love these clouds!

Ok, so that was 12 :). Thanks for taking a look back with me. Here's to more fun projects to come in 2012!!

What to do with those thin DIES - I have an idea!!

Hi there! Happy 2012 everyone! I've know I've been M.I.A. lately but I'm happy to be back and crafting again! I rung in the new year right: making 20 corner bookmarks (as gifts for my mom's bible study group), 13 cards, and this:

It's a binder to house my dies!!! I got the idea from the binder that I made to house all of my Lawn Fawn Stamps - you can check it out HERE. I literally use that binder ALL the time, and recently purchased a Cuttlebug and have started a little collection of dies. The problem is that I had dies sitting all over my craft space - which is essentially my kitchen table ;). And since we do need to eat on it at least twice a day, I never leave it untidy. So, I was stacking them up and shuffling through them every time I needed one.

I decided it'd be fun to TRY to make a binder to keep all of them in. I went to Michaels and got 2 rolls of magnetic "paper" (it's actually for, like, childrens' art work - so you can cut it out and stick it to your fridge or whatever). Then I went to Office Depot and grabbed a Kraft binder and index tabbed dividers. When I got home, I used Glossy Accents to glue the Magnetic Paper to the Dividers. This didn't work out brilliantly - they aren't "perfect", but they'll do. I covered the back of the Divider (they were 8 1/2 X 11) using various pages from various Crate Paper Collections, and then did the same with the covers of the book. The Chipboard Stickers on the cover are from the Neighborhood Collection (Crate Paper). Here is a look at how the pages came out - and a look at my die collection ;)





As you can see, in the back of the book, I used a pocket/page protector to keep instructions for the various dies/embossing tools, and embossing folders in. works out pretty well. This magnetic paper isn't the strongest, but it does work. I just have to be careful at how I turn the pages; if I turn them to rough or bend them too much the dies fall off the page - hee hee, I told you it wasn't perfect - but it is functional ;).

Anyway, thanks for peeking. Hope it inspires you ;). Again, I wish you a happy healthy 2012. catch ya tomorrow.