Happy New Year - I know, I am really really late!

So I have been away for quite some time.  So last year, when I disappeared, my dream came true and I finally got a job working from home.  And let me tell you, I could not be happier about it!  But I had some trouble finding time for crafting and that was mostly because I need to turn my craft work space into my office space.  Who else works from home? Have you found a balance between your work and your crafting and blogging?  That's my goal for this year.

So as a welcome back, I'm going to share a card that I made to welcome a baby into the world! One of my bosses was blessed with a beautiful baby boy in January.  This is the card that I made for him and his wife.

The base of the card is craft paper and then I used some colorful scraps and a few pieces of ribbon behind the white cardstock.  I stamped the Welcome message onto some bazzil cardstock, which have I mentioned I love bazzil cardstock?  It has totally spoiled me, I can never go back to cheap cardstock.  And then the highlight of the card is those cute little animals!  They are Ki Puffies which I found at Michael's.  They have several different packs of these and they are all adorable.

The inside of the card is stamped with a Tim Holtz stamp which reads "it's the little things that make life big".  And I have to stay, I just recently purchased several Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous sets and they are great!  They stamp beautifully and I love all the quotes.

 In fact, here's a picture of my recent purchase of stamps:

The four sets of stamp I got are great.  And the little zippered mouth creature is a gift card holder by Basic Grey!  I think he costs like three bucks, so I couldn't pass it up.

So that's it for today.  It feels good to be back!  I hope to talk to you all soon and until next time - Happy Scrapin!

A sympathy card

The card I made today was a sympathy card for my In-Laws, they lost their sweet dog Dusty last week. Any pet parent can tell you how difficult it is to lose your pet, even when you know it's coming.  So I wanted to make them a card to let them know I'm thinking about them and that they will always have the memories of that sweet little girl.

For this card I used the colors from the challenge over at the CR84FN Color Challenge.

This was a CAS card to put together.  The heart stamp set is from Close to My Heart, it's called Hope and it's the set they sold after the earthquake in Japan to help with relief efforts.  

For the inside I used Photoshop and my laser printer.  The flowers are a Photoshop brush. That quote I have always felt explains it all.  I know that is how I feel about my pup.

This is Halloween

Is everyone getting in the Halloween spirit?  I am! I'm getting the decorations up and I've got a bunch of candy for the Treat-or-treaters.  So for today's post I wanted to participate in CAS-ual Friday's challenge this week which is to create a CAS Halloween project with absolutely no orange! So here is what I came up with:

I took some creme cardstock and used distress ink on it for that dirty look. The letters I cut out with my Silhouette.  I cut out the blood drips freehand and then used glossy accents over them to really give it a wet blood look.  The next picture I took at an angle so you could get a better view of the effect.

 So after I finished the card, I figured my nails needed to be done in the spirit of Halloween too!

That's it for today! Have fun with all those Halloween projects!

A Steampunk Card

Okay, so this card is supposed to be for CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week.  The challenge was to make a project with a ribbon tab or loop.  This card ended up more shabby chic than clean and simple, but I went where the mojo took me!  So I hope you guys still enjoy it!  Here it is:

So since this was a ribbon challenge, I started with this beautiful shear teal ribbon from May Arts.  And looking at that I thought it went perfectly with Graphic 45's Steampunk Debutante line. I took a piece of gray Bazzil embossed cardstock and I sanded it down a bit then went to work on the edges with my distressing tool. I added a gray felt flower from Prima and a little metal key from 7gypsies. It's not my typical CAS design, but I really love it.

I also added a matching piece of teal cardstock inside the card and I had picked up this cool stamp of a penny-farthing (yep, that's what those bikes are called) at Michael's in the dollar bin! Don't you just love it when you find a deal like that?


That's it for me today.  I've also been putting things in my Smash book for a while and I know I haven't done an update on that, so I'll try to put that into a post this week. Until then, Happy Scrappin'!

A Fun Monochromatic Card

Hi Everyone!  Today I wanted to play along with the challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays. The challenge this week was to create a clean and simple project using at least 3 shades of a monochromatic color of your choice plus Brown. So here's the card I came up with:

The cardstock I used for the base provided my brown background color. Then I took a simple little flower stamp and stamped it on white cardstock with three shades of green.  I added the "a little note" sentiment in there and the just a touch of Diamond Stickles in the center of each flower. Cute!

I decorated the inside of the card as well, this was kinda hard to photograph.  My camera just did not want to focus in on this.  Just a simple scroll stamp and another flower (also with Stickles) complete the inside.  Now someone just needs to write a sweet message in there!

So that's it for today!  Two of my best friends are coming up to visit me tomorrow and I'm so thrilled to see them!  So I will go ahead and wish you all a happy weekend and happy scrappin'!

I'm Back! And with a Fall Card!

Hi Everyone!  I have been away for about a month! Wow!  It's been a busy few weeks for me.  First we evacuated for Hurricane Irene, then we had to come home and clean up.  Then it was just getting back into routine.  Most recently, this week I got a job!  I'm very excited about it and I am able to work from home! Hope everyone else has been doing well!

Anyway, today I have a card inspired by the Fall weather that's starting to show itself.  I love Fall.  I love the colors, the cool breeze, the nice warm hoodies I get to wear...this list just goes on and on. So over at The Play Date Cafe, they happen to have Fall colors for their challenge this week so I went with that.  Here's the color scheme:

And here is the card I created:



Those beautiful sparkly leaves I found at Target in the dollar bins they have up front!  Amazing deal - they are foam stickers and there's 22 of them on the sheet.  The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Social Club line and the ribbon is from Ki Memories.  The stamp sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Up, Up and Away line (which I love, by the way). 

Also, another thing I wanted to mention today - if you're don't like May Arts on Facebook, you really should!  Not only do they share some wonderful projects and ideas, but they are constantly giving away free ribbon!  I won two contests were you name the ribbon and they pick a winner and send them a huge spool of that ribbon!  Here's what I got:

So this is a great reason to like them. That's all I have for today.  I'm planning on starting to work on a paper bag album over the weekend and maybe some more fall cards.  I have so many projects stacked up to work on!  What are you working on this weekend?  Whatever your projects are - happy scrappin!

Birthday Mini Cards

Mini cards! That was my project for today.  I decided to do this set of three cute birthday mini cards.  I love this 3x3 size because they are so perfect to just tape to a package and you don't feel like you have to write a whole story inside the card!

The patterned paper I used is Basic Grey Blush collection, this one is called Admire.  It's really pretty and I thought perfect for these little cards.  I inked the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.

Aren't those puffy little cupcakes adorable! I found these at Michael's and had to get them. They are by KI Memories  and they're called Puffies.  They have several different designs and really aren't that expensive.  I think I'll be going back for more of these in different themes.  They really just make the card.

The sentiments are stamps onto vellum and then attached to the cards.  I attached one with spray adhesive but honestly I hate working with that stuff.  It smells and it's messy and I just don't like dealing with it.  So the other two cards I just used some glue dots and put some bling over top of where they were on the card so you don't even know they are there! Ha!  The card with the little bow on the edge is the one I used the spray adhesive on.

So that's it for today.  I'm working on a few other card projects that I should have ready to post soon.  I'm thinking about trying to sell some things on Etsy but I'm not sure how I would do.  Have any of you sold on Etsy?  I'd love to hear your experiences with it!