A Birthday Card for a 2-Year Old!

I'm a little behind on this post... but better late than never! A couple months ago, we celebrated our niece, Emma's 2nd birthday. I had the chance to spend some time with this adorable girl a couple weeks ago at West Edmonton Mall. She was full of smiles and cuteness with her pigtails and fashionable outfits. It was hard to say goodbye, but I got one last cuddle in before we went our separate ways. Here's wishing her the best year yet! 

The card I made for her was inspired by one of Karly's cards a while back (click here for the original post). I used the animal stamps from the stamp set "Pun Fun", cut them out and stacked them just like this:

I love the colour combo of Summer Startfruit, Primrose Petals and Raspberry Ripple - it's perfect for a girl's birthday card! I added rhinestones to embellish the animals and wrapped stitched satin ribbon around the card front.

I added a strip of matching polka dot designer paper on the inside of the card as well. I think I may do this more often. It's a great way to use up scraps of designer paper! (and I've got lots!)

Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for a new KCRR challenge! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Pun Fun

Paper: Raspberry Ripple, Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals, Print Poetry DSP

Ink: Basic Gray

Tools: Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Circles nestabilites

Accessories: Raspberry Ripple stitched satin ribbon, rhinestones (Michael's)

A Productive Saturday and a Special Birthday Card

Good morning! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! My Saturday was quite productive! As I mentioned in my "New Year, New Goals" post, I'm taking on a project of organization in our apartment and in life, in general. So far, I've tackled our laundry room and entry way. On yesterday's list was the kitchen. We have one of those not-so-handy corner cupboards and I simply re-organized the cupboards and put the items that I don't use as much in the corner cupboard so I don't have reach in there as often - things like serving platters and large dishes/pots. I think it's a big improvement! Another project I tackled was the pantry. After removing all items from the pantry, I lined each shelf with a fun patterned adhesive liner and I love how it turned out!

 

 

And voila! An organized pantry with pretty shelves! 

 

 

I spent my evening crafting, making a custom birthday card for a friend. I love the challenges she gives me! Really gets my creativity going! For this request she asked for a red birthday card with an angel on it, making it somewhat discreet. The angel was in memory of a little baby that had recently passed and the initials of her name spelled out A-N-G-E-L - how special and unique!

I started off with a sketch from Deconstructed Sketch and chose the colour Crisp Cantaloupe to go along with Real Red.  

Here's the sketch:

And here's how the card turned out:

I love the layers in this sketch! I first embossed the white background with a diagonal stripes pattern and then layered pieces of Real Red designer paper and Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock. As an added embellishment, I bordered one side of the polka dot DSP with Crisp Cantaloupe ruffled ribbon. The angel was creating using punches and I put a little 'a' on it to represent the baby's name.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! Have a relaxing Sunday!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Fabulous Phrases
Paper: Real Red, Crisp Cantaloupe, Whisper White, Summer Smooches DSP, Brights DSP
Ink: Real Red
Tools: Chevron Border punch, Large Scallop Circle punch, 1-3/4" Circle punch, Spiral Border punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Diagonal Stripes embossing folder
Tools used for Angel: Pennant Builder punch, Butterfly punch (ret), Elegant Lines embossing folder, 1" Circle punch, 3/4" Circle punch, Cricut for the letter 'a'
Accessories: Crisp Cantaloupe Ruffle Stretch Trim, Rhinestones (Michael's)

Very Merry

It's been quite some time since I've posted about my latest papercrafts (sorry about that!). After craft fair season, I start preparing for the upcoming Christmas season. And like every year, Christmas seems to sneak up on me!
But, I always love this time of year - the lights and decorations everywhere, cheery Christmas music, the smell of evergreen Christmas trees, delicious turkey dinners, gift exchanges, time spent with family, and most importantly, celebrating the birth of Jesus. It really is a wonderful time of year!

Today, I want to share with you a Christmas card I made just this past week for a friend of mine:

 

I love how this card came together! I've been wanting to use the Pennant Parade stamp set on a Christmas card, and finally got to making one! The pennants in the stamp set are so versatile! I love that you can use them for either a banner or little trees!

 

After stamping the lined pattern from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and placing the trees on the embossed cut-out circle, there was just too much white space (clean and simple just isn't my style!). I created a banner from striped designer paper and placed it in one corner. I then added some linen thread to fill the white space on the bottom half of the card. And finally, I completed it with rhinestones.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Pennant Parade, Gorgeous Grunge
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Whisper White, Soft Suede, Season of Style DSP
Ink: Old Olive, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler
Tools: Circles nestabilities, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder
Accessories: Linen thread, rhinestones (Michael's)

KCRR #30 - Happy Birthday Cupcake!

Last night I started another session of Zumba. It has been a while since I've had a good workout! One thing the instructor told us is that "there are no mistakes in Zumba, just unexpected solos" :) I thought this was quite funny, because I'm sure I'm one of those unexpected solos in some of the routines! In any case, it's still a lot of fun!

We introduce a new KCRR challenge today!

The items that were randomly chosen are:

Patterned Occasions Stamp Set

Pumpkin Pie

Pool Party

Patterned Occasions is a stamp set I use quite often, however I tend to use only one or two of the stamps in the set. This time I used the cupcake and made a colourful birthday card using the sketch from The Sweet Stop challenge this week.

A sketch with lots of layers - I like it! I chose Island Indigo and Daffodil Delight to go with the Pumpkin Pie and Pool Party colours. It makes for a fun colour combo, I think!

Thanks for stopping by! Hop on over to Karly's Creations to see how she used these elements in her card!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Patterned Occasions
Paper: Island Indigo, Pumpkin Pie, Pool Party, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Polka Dot Parade DSP
Ink: Island Indigot
Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Scallop Border punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

1st Birthday Wishes!

Finally home after an awesome road trip! We did a lot of driving, but got to see SO many amazing sights! God's creation is awesome! We have a couple thousand pictures to sort through and I hope to share with you sometime this coming week!

Feels great to be back into blogging again and hope to start papercrafting this weekend. I miss it!

Today is a special day. We celebrate my niece's first birthday! She is one of the cutest, happiest little girls I know. Unfortunately, I don't get to see her often, as she lives in Uganda, Africa with her family, but my thoughts are with her and I'm sending virtual birthday hugs and kisses her way!

The first picture above is of me meeting Eliana for the first time. The 2nd picture is of Eliana wearing the dress I bought for her birthday (it arrived a month early!). I think it looks adorable on her! She is such a blessing to our family!

Along with the dress, I also made this card for her:

I used an older sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketches as a guide for this layout.

 

I changed it up a bit, but it closely resembles the sketch, I think. I chose Pink Pirouette and Melon Mambo as my main colours. The "happy birthday cupcake" stamp from Patterned Occasions was the perfect image for a 1 year old birthday card! I added a foam sticker number 1 as an added embellishment. Melon Mambo organza ribbon is wrapped around the card front and I stuck with a polka dot theme and embossed the background with Perfect Polka Dots.

Here's wishing her the best day!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope to post more regularly now that I'm back home and settled!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Patterned Occasions
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Regal Rose, Whisper White
Ink: Melon Mambo
Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Scallop Circles Nestabilities, 1" circle punch, 1-1/4" circle punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder
Accessories: Melon Mambo organza ribbon, foam sticker (Michael's)
 

Spring is in the Air...

Yesterday, I spent most of the day setting up a personal budget. It's a lot of work, but I'm hoping we can keep it up! It would definitely help us to save for our big road trip in June! I got my spreadsheet template from this website: Christian PF. They have some many useful household budget tools. I found this to be the best I've found so far!

I wanted to share with you a couple of fun adorable greeting cards I made for a customer. Her friend's twins (a boy and a girl) are turning 2 this week and she asked me to make "pirate-style" birthday cards. Here's what I came up with:

 

 

Aren't they adorable?? I just love that owl punch - so many characters can be made with it! I added stamped images from the Open Sea stamp set - perfect for a pirate card! 

So for today's card, I used the new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and the springy colour combo from Fab Friday. I am so ready for spring! Even though the first day of spring is still a month away, I know it will be here before we know it! The snow has been melting here in Prince George and the temps have been hovering around 0 degrees for quite some time. I can feel spring in the air :)

What a great sketch! And the colour combo is just perfect. These colours go so well together and are perfect for spring. This is my first time participating in the "Fab Friday" challenge. They have some great challenges and I'm looking forward to using them as inspiration in the future!

Easter is quite early this year (March 31st), so I thought I'd create a card for that special occasion. Here is my interpretation of these two challenges:

 

I created a 5"x5" square card with a matching envelope in Wild Wasabi. I like the simplicity of this sketch. It can be used in so many different ways! I added patterned paper in Perfect Plum and Baja Breeze for the background. The butterflies are the central focus of the card. I layered two butterflies and embossed the smaller one with polka dots. Rhinestones embellish it. I added a swirl in the corner and finished it off with the sentiment "Happy Easter".

 

 

Card Ingredients:

 

Stamps: Everything Eleanor, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Wild Wasabi, Baja Breeze, Perfect Plum, Whisper White, Twitterpated DSP, Subtles Collection DSP

Ink: Elegant Eggplant

Tools: Beautiful Butterlfies die, Circles nestabilities

Accessories: Rhinestones

 

Thanks for stopping by!



Inspired By... A Purple Flower

Hope you are enjoying the weekend so far! Friday night was a crafting night for me since my hubby is out of town for work. While I do love to go out occasionally on the weekends, I also enjoy those weekends where I get to hang out in my comfy clothes, watch a couple movies and create!

Saturday means it's time for another new challenge of:

This week, Karly chose a beautiful nature photo for inspiration:

IB #3

 

I like how this single purple flower is growing amongst all the stones. I thought of how I would incorporate this into a card and this is what I came up with:

I don't use purple very often in my cards, so this photo inspired me to pull out my Elegant Eggplant ink pad and cardstock. I paired it with Wisteria Wonder and Basic Gray. The flower is stamped with a two-step process--one stamp for the inside of the flower and the other to outline it. Of course, me being a perfectionist, I had to pull out my Stamp-a-ma-jig (the best 'tool' ever!) to line it up perfectly. The center of the flower is embellished with small rhinestones. I popped up the flower using dimensionals and bordered it with a doily die. To make the doily stand out against the dark gray background, I cut a large circle  in Whisper White from Circle Nestabilities and put it behind the doily. I think it adds some elegance to the card.  I realized just today that I used the same sentiment as my last card (KCRR #3)... didn't mean to do that! Just goes to show how much I love that stamp! :)

 

 

Make sure to head on over to Karly's blog to see how this photo inspired her! 

 

Card Ingredients:

 

Stamps: Fancy Flower (ret.), Petite Pairs

Paper: Wisteria Wonder (in-colour), Whisper White, Basic Gray, Elegant Eggplant

Ink: Elegant Eggplant

Tools: Circle Nestabilities, Delicate Doilies Sizzlit, 1-1/4" Circle punch, 1-3/8" Circle Punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

Accessories: Rhinestones (Michael's)

 

Thanks for stopping by!



A Cheerful Friend

Hello!

It's the beginning of a new week! Can't say I accomplished a whole lot this past weekend, but it was nice to have a couple days to lounge around and do a bit of crafting. I also did some research on top sites to see along the west coast. My hubby and I are planning a 2-week road trip this coming June through Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah and Yellowstone National Park. SO excited! It's going to be a trip of a lifetime!

I decided to play along with the Paper Players colour challenge this week. These three colours coordinate so well together!

I had a look through my designer paper stacks and came across the "Ice Cream Parlour" DSP. I had bought this on clearance from Stampin Up not too long ago and just loved the bright and cheerful colours! I picked an older sketch from Mojo Monday and this is what I came up with:



The accessories coordinate so perfectly with the designer paper! I just love how vibrant and cheerful these colours are together against the Basic Gray card base. Using embossing folders is probably one of my most favourite 'techniques'. I love the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder. It is my "go to" when I want to add a little something extra to a card.



The bottom of the card seemed a bit empty so I added three small rhinestones to complete the card :)

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Button Buddies, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Basic Gray, Daffodil Delight, Pacific Point, Whisper White, Ice Cream Parlour DSP

Ink: Basic Gray

Tools: Decorative Label Punch, Circles Nestabilities

Accessories: Ribbon and buttons (Ice Cream Parlour), Rhinestones, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder

Thanks for looking!