Happy Easter

This is the Easter card that I will be sending out to family and friends this year. So I needed a quick, simple image and card design to make mass producing easy and fast. I had been running this design around in my head for a week or more and saw that Eat Sleep Stamp had this as a sketch, I knew it was the one I wanted to use!

The image is from Whipper Snapper, DP from Autumn Leaves, Glossy Accent on the bunny's nose, paws and ladybug, a light blue pearl and waterfall Stickles on the flower. The sentiment is from PTI (Mailbox Greetings) and so is the button.

This card is for a few challenges this week. I've recently discovered Pile It On Challenge Blog and I thought it would be fun to try it. They have challenge blogs listed by the day that the challenge starts. So it's really easy to find a challenge to play along with, and all in one place!

List of Challenges:
Pile It On = Animal-Riffic
Eat Sleep Stamp = Sketchy Thursday # 76
Cute Card Thursday = Challenge # 105 Dimensions
Paper Play Challenges = Easter
Stamp Simply = Challenge # 132 Easter
Colour Create = Challenge # 41 Your Choice of Pastels



Copics Used: RV34, RV32, R20, R00, YG17, YG13, YG03, B91


Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Birthday Brooke!!

Sorry no card today.....

Today is my baby girls 2nd birthday. I just want to stop time and keep her this little forever! She's a little chatter-box and has been ever since she was 12 months old. She speaks in complete sentences and boy will she tell you exactly what she's thinking along with the attitude. I swear she's actually 16 years old. LOL

We had her party over the weekend which was Paris themed and it turned out to be so adorable. We had family and friends over and everyone just enjoyed themselves so much. Here's a link to her invitations that I made.

I had French music playing throughout the house and a Bistro set up in the kitchen for lunch. Le Menu....Croissant sandwiches, mini quiche, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Chocolate Eclairs, Peti Fores, Grapes, Cheese, and Pink Champagne (Pink Lemonade LOL). The food was so YUMMY!!



The Cake was made by a friend of mine. It was so elegant and perfect!!



Brooke could not wait to dig in.




And wondering when Mommy will stop taking pictures while she drinks from her Eiffel Tower Sippy Cup. Aren't they so cute?!?!



Well, thanks for stopping by today. I'll have an Easter card for you tomorrow so be sure to come back. :)

Every Mom Needs A Day Out!

Well I was going to post this much earlier today, but I couldn't pull myself away from playing with the kids outside. It was so beautiful that we even had a picnic dinner out by our pool. Just me and the "babies".... perfect evening and so much fun.

Six months ago, my son's doctor urged me to enroll him in a Mom's Day Out program. She didn't say it, but I'm pretty sure she thought I coddled him when it came to his speech and she wanted to force him to make himself understood to others besides Mommy & Daddy. Well, I give it to her...it worked like a charm! He talks so MUCH and so clearly now that I hardly remember how it was before. LOL

I found the perfect place (although it was 20 miles from home) and decided to include my daughter in the program as well. They loved it! A few hours every week I was able to run a couple of errands or go to appointments without dragging the kids along. I'd never realized just how much I needed that time for myself as well. But all good things must come to an end. The program served it's purpose and now it was time to take them out. So today was their last day. While there they had made friends and grown very close to their teachers. I LOVE their teachers! They really loved and cared for my children in a way that I had not expected, but soooo appreciated. (I wanted to include a picture of them with each of my kids, but I didn't ask them if that was okay, so I'm playing it safe by not posting it. )

So I made this card for each of them as a "thank you".

I fell in love with Charlotte by Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps the second I saw her! To me she looks like frazzled little mommy who desperately needs a break! (Boy, can I relate!) I had to have her... those bouncing curls and little eye twitch are so adorable, not to mention, I think she looks a lot like me most days! LOL I had so much fun coloring that hair. Just wait 'till you see the number of colors I used...I just couldn't stop. :)

The photo was taken at night and I just couldn't capture just how awesome this card looks in real life. I'm entering this card for the Copic Creations Challenge # 24. It's their 1 year blog anniversary, and you are to use your favorite Copic technique. Mine is Brunette Hair.


It's also for the Color Throw Down Challenge # 85 to use these colors





Copics Used:
Hair - E57, E35, E34, Y26, E31
Skin - E00, E50 (Cheeks R00)
Dress - G99, G94, YG95
Skirt - BG75, BG72
Dolls - BG75, BG72 & Y26, YR21, Y23

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Baby!!

My husband's nephew and his wife just had their little baby girl Malina!! She's almost 3 weeks old and I got to meet her yesterday. She is a little beauty! Mine are still "babies" at just 2 and 3 years old, but it was so fun to hold a tiny little one. Her mommy looked so beautiful, happy and skinny already! LOL. Since her mommy also keeps all of the cards I have ever made her (love, love, love her for that!!!) I came home and made a card to welcome her little girl !

The image is Whipper Snapper Designs, Bella. I love this image because it is perfect for a boy or a girl. I used Stickles (cotton candy) on her bow, but it isn't showing up well in the picture. The tag was once again made with my Cricut, Storybook cartridge and computer generated sentiment. Quick coloring with my Copics (I think I use too many colors. LOL) and it was done.

Once again here's a close up.



Copics Used:
Hair - Y21
Bow - RV32, R20
Skin - E00, E50 (Cheeks R00)
Diaper - BG0000

Thanks for stopping by!

Cute Card Thursday - 104 Challenge

Hi again!

Today's card I did for the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog. It's Caz's 21st Wedding Anniversary and so that is the theme this week.

I have had this ADORABLE digi image that I got for FREE from Dustin Pike's Blog forever, but could never think of how to use it. When I saw the challenge today on Cute Card Thursday it just hit me how perfect this would be. Don't you just love inspiration like that?

For the cobblestone road, I tried a technique I learned on Marianne Walker's blog, I Like Markers on using the Colorless Blender. She's brilliant with Copic marker's and art design in general. If you want to learn more about using your Copic Markers, you should check out her blog.





Copic's Used:
Armor - C7, C5, C3, C2
Lance/Shield/Saddle - BG15, BG11, BG10
Horse - E43, E42, E50
Horse Mane/Hoofs - E47, E25, E55
Bear - E57, E35, E31
Nose - E47, E25, E35
Road - E39, E35, E33, Colorless Blender

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Baby!

I've been swamped with doing baby shower invitations so I thought I would show you what I've been working on.

The mom wanted pink and brown colors with butterflies and flowers...so this is what I came up with! I don't have any butterfly or flower stamps. I guess I like the cutesy stamp images rather than the realistic ones. So I turned once again to my Cuttlebug for help.



The ribbon is actually a lace ribbon laid over a satin ivory ribbon. I used my Storybook Cricut Cartridge for the tag. (I told you I use that cartridge a lot. LOL) And since I had to mass produce 35 of these invitations, I decided to engineer a "template" on my computer for the Cricut to cut out the pre-printed sentiments for me. So here's what I did...

First, I had the Cricut cut the tag to fill an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I just used regular copier paper to do this since this was going to just serve as a template, no need to waste precious cardstock. (Just set the Cricut to the lightest pressure.) The Cricut had cut the tag 4 across the page and 7 down. Now I knew how I needed to set up my Word document.

Next, I opened a blank Word document with the margins ALL set to zero. I chose my font, and typed the sentiment. I started spacing the sentiments evenly in rows just like the Cricut template. (It took only about 4 test prints of the Word document before I had the spacing perfect, so it was really easy to do.) I knew it was perfect when I laid the cut out tag template over the printed sentiment sheet and it all lined up. When I had it all just right, I printed the sentiments out onto cardstock, placed that cardstock sheet into the Cricut and Ta-Da!!! Perfectly printed sentiment tags cut for me!!! Isn't that so cool? It really saved a lot of time.

Thanks for stopping by!

I WON!!!!

I won, I won, I won!!! (Doing little happy dance) I am beyond excited!!! I just found out that I won 2 Cute Rubber Stamps first challenge. Click HERE to see my card that won.

Okay, I know I've been a bit of a slacker in my posting but I've been so busy with daily life stuff. For the last week I haven't touched any of my crafty stuff. I promised myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't let "home" suffer, so I've been keeping that deal. I'll have things to show you this week, so make sure to check back, okay?

For now I wanted to show you my February page in my calendar.



Isn't she so cute? I don't normally buy background images from Magnolia, but I had to have that scroll love letter the second I saw it! The heart was cut with my Cricut - Storybook Font. If you have a Cricut, you NEED the Storybook font! It has so many beautiful shapes that are just perfect for using on cards. Lots of scalloped shapes too! I tend to use my Cricut more that my Spellbinders because I just don't enjoy cranking my Cuttlebug and I can pick any size I want with my Cricut too.

Oh, and forgot to mention that I didn't really want to use any embellishments on the calendar like ribbon, buttons, etc. because I wanted it to lay/hang very flat and not be too heavy or bulking since I was hanging this on my fridge for everyday use.




Copics Used:

Dress - RV95, V95, V93, RV000 (RV34 for Shadows)
Sleeves - RV000, V93
Socks - V93, RV000
Hair - E53, E25, E59, E49
Skin - E00, E50 (R00 Blush)
Letter - C1 (RV34 Heart)
Scroll Letter - E43, E42, E41, E50 (Colorless Blender in open area)

Thanks for stopping by!

Tilda Calendar - January

Thought I would show everyone my 2010 Tilda Calendar. I love Magnolia stamps, all of the Tilda's are just so sweet. I go crazy when they have a new release...I want them all! I'm being VERY good this recent release and I haven't bought any. Some of my Magnolia stamps have never seen ink. My plan is to not buy anymore until I have used the ones that I have at least once. So I decided to do a calendar so that I could enjoy them all year long and put some of them to use.

I used PaperTrey Ink's craft cardstock as the base for all of the pages (which was a perfect neutral) and used my Bind-it-all to put it together. I have it hanging on my fridge with a magnetic strip from an older calendar. I created the actual calendar pages in a Excel document with all of our families birthday's and special occasions. The calendar is an 8x8 size

I don't remember what DP I used because it was in my scraps. (I love using scraps, don't you?)



I used Dinner Tilda and the champagne glass is from A Lot Of Rubber Stamps. I used Shimmerz and Stickles on the confetti.
These are the Copics I used:

Jumper/Shoes/Socks - BG75, BG72, BG0000 (Blender for hightlighting)
Sleeves - BG0000
Hair - Y21, YR21, E34, E35
Skin - E00, E50 (R00 Blush)
Champagne - Y11, Y13, Y15, Y19
Glass - C5, C3, C2, C1 (BG0000 Highlights)
Confetti - C3, C2, C1 (BG0000 Highlights)



Thanks for stopping by!

Ooh La-La DONE !!!

Finally! I finished my daughter's birthday party invite. It's time consuming to mass produce 20 of them, but I love it and that's all that matters. I can't believe how much time I've spent agonizing over this; but it's such a relief to have it finished. We are going to a family party tonight and I plan to enjoy myself!!

Her party theme is Pink Poodles in Paris. I think the invite fits that perfectly. Don't you just love the Eiffel Tower card holder?
The stamp is a cute set from Pink Cat Studio, it was the perfect poodle! I used a Martha Stewart border punch (but I don't remember the name and it's not on the punch) and then used the Swiss Dots embossing folder. The Designer paper is Recollections Light Pink Damask and the ribbon is from Michaels.
I used rhinestone on the collar and tiny self adhesive pearls around the scallop. Oh yeah, and I used Shimmerz again on the poodles fur to give it a little more glitz.

I love it! It's done! I'm happy!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm working...

I haven't disappeared, I'm working on my daughters 2nd birthday party invitations. I have the theme, stamp and colors all picked out but I am still coming up with the layout and none of them are wowing me. I'm a perfectionist anyway, but when it comes to my kids stuff I go into overdrive. I've made 6 or 7 now, you'd think I'd like one of them! Sometimes something I created and hated one day, I will totally fall head over heels in love with a few days later. So forgive me for not posting but I can't "move on" until I get this invite done. I have to make over 20 of them so I have to factor the cost and time of making each one. So I need simple but FABULOUS! I keep coming up with so-so and time consuming. LOL

Okay enough whining. I hope to post tomorrow with her invitation and spend the weekend creating them and getting them in the mail.

See you soon.
Thanks for stopping by!

2 Cute Challenge

March already? It was just New Years a few days ago, I'm not even sure I remember February it went by so fast! Well I'm looking forward to Springtime and the warmer weather that's for sure.

Today's card I used the Happy Crabby digi image that Heidi, the owner of 2Cute Rubber Stamps is giving away for free and for their 1st challenge. I love her stamps and jumped at the chance to use one for FREE!!! Isn't he cute?

The designer paper is Citrus Stack from DCWV and has glitter in it. I love the colors, so fun and summery. The embellishment is Teardrop Rain Dots by Cloud 9, and of course I used my Copic markers. The sentiment is computer generated using the font Chalkduster. Oh and I used Shimmerz (Pixie Dust) on the crab. I love that stuff.

Hope you like it!
Thanks for stopping by!






Copics:
Crab - BG05, BG02, BG01, BG0000
Bucket & Shovel - YR14, YR12, Y15, Y13, YR000
Sand: E33, E31, E30, E35