A New Wall Banner for a New Season

Apart from greeting cards and scrapbooking, I also like to occasionally make some crafty things as home décor. Last fall, my intention was to make a wall banner for each season. I started off well and made one for the Autumn season...

But then life got busy and I skipped Winter and Spring.... My husband made a comment like 'soon we'll reach Fall anyway and you'll be up-to-date'. Well that made me think, OK it's time to change that banner! It will be almost a year since it's been up! Crazy how fast time flies!

Anyway... I made sure that was one of my goals this week, and it took a lot shorter than I thought to make one! Here's my new Summer banner:

 

This hangs in our dining room. I love how it brightens up the room!

 

 

I used Scallop Square framelits/nestabilities and added layers of cardstock and designer paper to each scallop square. I used Stampin Up's photopolymer stamp set entitled "Larger Than Life Alphabet & Numbers" for the letters. They are stamped, cut out and popped up to give the banner some dimension. A small flower with a rhinestone in the centre is added to 3 of the squares to embellish them. The squares are attached to burlap ribbon to make the banner.

Father's Day Weekend Recap

Last weekend was a busy one! Saturday I spent the day with two of my nieces. We had a great time together! I know these two girls (ages 3 and 7) love to craft. Each time they come over, they head straight to my craft room wanting to draw, write messages to friends, stamp, and glue paper cut-outs to create their own piece of art. So, since I had them for the day, I wanted to organize a crafting 'workshop' for them. Father's Day was the next day, so I thought it would be perfect for them to make their own cards for their Dad. I created a couple samples for them to follow:

Simple with lots of white space for them to add to it. They loved it! It was so fun to watch them think of how they wanted to decorate their cards, making it their own. I find crafting brings out creativity in most people, especially kids.

I also gave them a couple more blank cards for them to decorate for any occasion. Here they are showing off their completed cards:

Father's Day was a special day this year, as we celebrated my husband's first year being a father! Kevin is a wonderful father to our little girl. He loves her so much! I had Raya make him her first card...

It was quite the challenge to try and get her hand prints... as you can see on the card front, I was unsuccessful, but it still looks like a piece of art, right? :)
Tracing her hand and foot was a little easier.
My hubby loved this card!

I decided to make a card with a gardening theme. Kevin has been working on our gardens quite a bit over the past couple months and is doing such a great job! Not only did he plant trees, bushes and flowers, he also made a vegetable garden with its own irrigation system - very impressive!

In fact, we harvested our first vegetable - radishes - a couple weeks ago. So fun to watch everything grow from seeds!

Having said that, here's the card I made for Kevin:

I was inspired by this card and decided to CASE it, however making it somewhat my own by adding woodchips in the wheelbarrow and a spade shovel on the side. Both the wheelbarrow and shovel were made from scratch using pieces of cardstock.

And finally, I made a Father's Day card for my dad and father-in-law, using the "Building Blocks" card fold.

For this card I used the tie stamp from the "Something for Baby" Stampin Up stamp set. I thought it was perfect for my Dad as he loves to wear a shirt and tie every now and again.

We refer to my father-in-law as "Pop". He celebrated a birthday also this past week so I added a 2nd sentiment on this card :)

Building Blocks Card Fold Instructions:

To make this card fold, simply start with a piece of cardstock measuring 5.5" x 10.5". Score on the long side at 3.5" and 7". Fold to create one mountain fold and one valley fold.
To create the blocks, cut 1.5" in from the valley fold at the following measurements:
3/8", 1-5/8", 2-1/8", 3-3/8", 3-7/8" and 5-1/8".
Decorate each panel as you like!

Sweet Sorbet Birthday Card

One of my favourite Stampin Up designer series paper this Spring is the Sweet Sorbet collection. I love the patterns and the bright colours. I decided to make it the central focus on the card I'm going to share with you today. As always, Cardabilities has a fabulous sketch this week and I'm entering this card just in the knick of time. 

Not only did I use the designer paper for the card front, I also die cut flowers from the DSP as well, and I love the way it turned out! All it needed was a simple birthday sentiment against the busy background and pearls to embellish the flowers. 

Finish it off with a matching envelope and voila! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Crisp Cantaloupe, Sahara Sand, Pool Party, Pistachio Pudding, Whisper White, Sweet Sorbet DSP

Ink: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pool Party

Tools: Floral Fusion sizzlit die, Little Leaves sizzlit die, Itty Bitty punch

Accessories: Pearls (Michael's)

KCRR37 & MOJO334

Lately I've been feeling the winter blues... we are having another cold snap here in Prince George, which is making me think Spring is a long ways away yet! Cold weather usually means lots of indoor activities... and that is when I resort to papercrafting! It's gotta be my favourite winter-time hobby. One of the things I decided to pick up on again is scrapbooking! I've been talking about it for a while and finally decided now is the time to sort through pictures, memorabilia, and souvenirs and put together scrapbook pages! I've been working on a career album for my husband, putting together pictures of hands-on learning activities in college, graduation ceremonies and multiple training courses. This past weekend I designed 8 pages! Here's a snapshot:

It's actually quite challenging, scrapbooking masculine pages. I tend to use the same colours (blues, browns, greens). But I tried to keep it interesting by finding scrapbook layout sketches on Pinterest and using those as a guideline, making each page unique. I hope to complete more this coming weekend! 

Moving on to our new KCRR challenge!

Paper Piercing

Love & Sympathy Stamp Set

Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder

I combined this challenge with the Mojo Monday sketch this week:

I decided to make a card with no sentiment and used pastel colours - Calypso Coral, Pistachio Pudding and Crisp Cantaloupe. 

I love how the vintage wallpaper embossing folder adds so much detail to the card! The bottom half is layered with strips of designer paper and the Pistachio Pudding piece of cardstock is paper pierced along the edges. Rhinestones embellish the card. 

I made a matching envelope using the new envelope punch board from Stampin Up. This punch board makes it SO easy! They have the exact measurements on the punch board itself for any size card you can think of! It also has a corner rounder punch - brilliant! 

Thanks for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for a new inspirational photo challenge!

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Love & Sympathy

Paper: Calypso Coral, Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Whisper White 2013-2015 In-Colour DSP, 2012-2014 In-Colour DSP

Ink: Calypso Coral marker, Old Olive marker

Tools: Circles nestabilities, Scallop Circles nestabilities, Paper Piercing tool, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder

Accessories: Rhinestones (Michael's)

Inspired By... a Vintage Teacup

Happy Friday and Happy Valentine's Day!

For this week's inspirational photo challenge, I browsed Pinterest (one of my favourite places to look for inspiration) and found the perfect photo!

 

IB #35

 

I thought this was something quite unique. I like the vintage feel to this photo and decided to incorporate that into my card design. I also pulled some of the colours from the photo, including Pistachio Pudding, Sahara Sand, Raspberry Ripple and Crisp Cantaloupe.

Deconstructed Sketch had another great sketch this past week and so I decided to play along with their challenge as well.

Here's how it all came together:

 

A card with lots of layers! I love how the colours combined so well together! The swirls on the designer paper really add to the vintage style in this card. The tea cup from Tea Shoppe stamp set is probably one of my favourite stamps. It can be used for so many different occasions! One of the things I love to do with this image is to pop up the flowers on the tea cup to add some dimension. I also added pearls to embellish them. I decided to not put a sentiment on this card, so that it can be used for any occasion.

 

 



Thanks for stopping by! Hope you all enjoy this Valentine's Day. Tonight is date night with my hubby :) I will share the special card I made for him tonight!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Tea Shoppe
Paper: Pistachio Pudding, Crisp Cantaloupe, Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla Raspberry Ripple, Print Poetry DSP
Ink: Raspberry Ripple, Crisp Cantaloupe
Tools: Distress tool, Circles nestabilities, Bird Builder punch
Accessories: Pearls (Michael's)

KCRR meets Deconstructed Sketch - A Patterned Occasions Baby Card

A 2nd post of the day, a little unusual... but I just had to participate in this week's Deconstructed Sketch challenge! I decided to combine it with our KCRR challenge (posting this a day early :)).

Elements to use this week:

Patterned Occasions Stamp Set

Pistachio Pudding

Ruffled Stretch Trim

Combine it with this fabulous sketch:

And this is the end result:

When we randomly chose Patterned Occasions as one of the elements, I tend to lean to... a baby card! The little elephant in this stamp set is so cute! I wanted to make use of the other stamps, however when Pistachio Pudding is one of the colour elements, it just seemed like the perfect pastel colour for a baby card. And so I went with it... I chose Smokey Slate for the card base and added in Crisp Cantaloupe and Calypso Coral. I finally got to make use of the new In-Colour Boutique Details!

And finish it off with a matching envelope...





Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Patterned Occasions, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: 2013-2015 In-Colour DSP paper stack, Smokey Slate, Calypso Coral, Crisp Cantaloupe, Whisper White
Ink: Smokey Slate, Calypso Coral
Tools: 1-3/8" Circle punch, Large Scallop Circle punch, Word Window punch
Accessories: Pistachio Pudding Ruffled Stretch Trim, 2013-2015 In-Colour Boutique Details, Rhinestones (Michael's)

Inspired By... A Summer Garden

Happy Friday!

How 'bout a "High Five for Friday"??

Here are some highlights from this week:

1) My hubby and I enjoyed the most delicious elk roast dinner on Tuesday night. It was so nice to relax with a glass of red wine after a long day! Love random date nights during the week!

2) I had a great Zumba workout on Wednesday night. We just started a new session last week and this week I felt like I was really gettin' a hang of the new routine! We end each class with one of my favourite songs lately: "Say Something" by A Great Big World.

3) Found this beautiful quote the other day. It is a wonderful reminder to be patient, trust in God's plan, and praise Him always.

 
4) My newest niece, Amara, has been in the hospital for the past week due to distressed breathing. She has been showing signs of improvement and finally went home last night!

5) I found a brilliant idea for menu planning on Pinterest! Click on this link for printables. Simply print out a menu plan template, laminate it (or put it in a picture frame) and use dry-erase markers to create your own menu for the week! What a great idea!

Now onto the Inspirational Photo challenge!

This week was Karly's pick and she chose a picture of a summer vegetable garden:

All this greenery makes me long for spring! At first glance, I wasn't sure how I would use this photo as inspiration for my card design... however, I went through my stamp sets and found a few that would work out quite well with the garden theme!

I love how this card came together. I first chose the colour combo: Chocolate Chip, Pistachio Pudding, Crisp Cantaloupe, Very Vanilla. I popped up the stamped images to give the card some dimension and added butterflies embellished with small pearls. My favourite part is the ruffled ribbon underneath the sentiment. It adds the perfect embellishment to the soft, pastel card!

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting! Hop on over to Karly's Creations to see how she was inspired by this photo!

 

Come back tomorrow for a post on a Harry Potter punch art card that I made for my nephew's birthday this past week! 

 



Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Simply Sketched, Wetlands, Inspired By Nature
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Pistachio Pudding, Crisp Cantaloupe, Very Vanilla
Ink: Pistachio Pudding, Chocolate Chip, Crisp Cantaloupe
Tools: Beautiful Wings embosslits die, blender pens
Accessories: Crisp Cantaloupe ruffle stretch trim, pearls (Michael's)