Another Card from the Simon Says Stamp October 2014 Card Kit

Let me start by confessing that I'm not actually in love with today's card.  It's okay.  I think it's that I don't really like the bright colors and I'm not thrilled with my coloring.  They seem just a little bit too much, but I still had fun making it.  I started by die cutting some white Neenah card stock with my American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Plus One die.  I colored the heart with a copic and stamped my sentiment.  On the inner panel of the polaroid, I stamped the mug, colored the coffee, added highlighting to the mug and colored the background.  Then I cut the patterned paper down to slightly smaller than my card base and added my completed polaroid on top to finish it off. 

Celebrating After the Fact

Last week I got the surprise news that a friend and co-worker was getting married (yes, two in one week) when I asked her to set up some equipment for my staff meeting.  She's been very quiet about her engagement and even quieter about the fact that she and her fiancé were planning to have a simple wedding at a local cottage and then take a quick honeymoon to the beach last week.  While others expressed surprise at such a quick wedding, I really wasn't in a position to say anything since Matt and I went from engaged with no concrete wedding plans to married in the space of about a week.  Since it will be ten years next month, I guess that plan worked just fine for us and I hope that she's as happy ten years from now as Matt and I are.

The occasion called for a special card.  I'm still enjoying the Monster Mash set from Lawn Fawn.  I love these cute little monsters.  I colored them with copics, cut them out added the cute bow ties and then had to stop to think about the rest of the card.  I pulled out my box of 6x6 paper pads and was immediately drawn to the Day Dreamer pad from Dear Lizzy and American Crafts.  I found the pretty heart paper, cut it out with the stitched frame from Mama Elephant's Basic Cuts set and then cut some vellum using the scalloped frame die from that set.  I layered them up on my card base.  It still needed something so I pulled out the Home Sweet Home set from Lawn Fawn for the cute little banner in it.

The Last Baby Card with Newton's Nook Wild Child

Okay, so the title may be a bit misleading because I'm sure sometime in the future there will be another baby card from this set because it's so adorable.  But, for now, here's the last baby card I've made with the Newton's Nook Wild Child set that I colored the weekend we went to Seattle for Sandy Allnock's class.

I used paper from the Day Dreamer 6x6 paper pad from Dear Lizzy/American Crafts but I wanted to change things up a bit.  I had bought the Pretty Pink Posh Stitched Border Dies a while back with the idea of cutting some fun edges to my cards, but had yet to break them out.  I had an idea of adding the sparkly polka dots on the background of the white paper that colored the image on, but it didn't look right, so I ended up fussy cutting the image out.  I just used the patterned paper cut with the border and cut the border again on my card base. 

I used that American Crafts Project Life banner to cut out the banner to stamp with the sentiment from the set.  I added some Lawn Fawn Sky Lawn Trimmings to the top with a Glue Dot holding the bow in place. A few pop dots gave some dimension to the image and the banner.  Then I decided to try my sparkly dots on the inside bottom of the card since it would show through to the outside at the bottom.  I used a dot stencil to pounce on some VersaMark and some JudiKins embossing powder in White Diamonds.  It worked much better there, but is harder than heck to photograph with a curved front panel...

 

Another Baby Card Featuring Wild Child from Newton's Nook

I'm still working on using the images from the Wild Child set from Newton's Nook that I inked up and colored while on our quick trip to Seattle for Sandy Allnock's class at Impress.  For today's card, I was inspired by a past sketch up at Freshly Made Sketches. I was looking for something to use as the layout.  I didn't exactly follow the sketch, but it gave me an idea of what to do. 

I cut the colored Wild Child image out using my Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card (I love that die!).  I cut a panel of paper from the Day Dreamer 6x6 pad from Dear Lizzy/American Crafts and cut a few banners from other paper from the pad.  Then it was just a matter of layering them together and using some pop dots for focal image.  I finished it off with some sequins from Doodlebug topped with some Stickles. 

Inspired by Mojo Monday and Featuring Newton's Nook

Okay, so I'm not really a fan of a skinny card, but I liked the sketch and I thought it was the perfect way to combine one of my newest dies from Simon Says Stamp with a Newton's Nook image I colored a week ago.

I gave away my last baby card the other day, so this seemed like the perfect way to start to replenish my supply.  I used the Echo Park 6x6 paper pad from the Everyday Eclectic line, which has some adorable prints that were perfect for a paper card.  I colored the cute little penguins from the Newton's Nook Wild Child set then cut them out with a die from the Frames set from Simon Says Stamp.  I added the sentiment from the stamp set to a banner cut with the die from American Crafts/Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Styleboard dies.  I found a button in my stash and added some baker's twine from Hemptique to finish it off. 

 

Happy Wishes Inspired by Lawn Fawn's Design Team Member Latisha Yoast

I had a chance to pop into my craft room after a week's trip for work and a whirlwind lately in our life.  I used the opportunity to make a card to congratulate my boss on his recent promotion (I'm really going to miss him).  I found this adorable design from Latisha Yost on the Lawn Fawn blog here. I really love this Lunar Lights set and it paired so well with this cute 6x6 paper pad called My Girl from American Crafts.  Okay so, yes, I'm making a card for a boy with paper from the My Girl set, but it's so pretty I just couldn't resist.  It was easy to adapt to my simply style too.  I used my Sizzix Top Note die to cut out the white piece and mounted it on some paper from the set.  I stamped the sentiment and the base for my "lights" on the white, then stamped the light stamps on the patterned paper and fussy cut them.  Then it was just a matter of adding the yellow "light" on the white background and then taping down my lights.  I added three little rhinestones to finish it off.  So cute and easy peasy.

 

Before I dash off to bed, I just had to add this picture of Chewie who made herself at home on my stamps while I crafted tonight.  I can't believe the places she finds suitable for naps!

 

An Inky Thank You

I just had to do one more card with the Inky Antic's Delivery Benton set.  I really do love this set and I'm sure I'll be pulling it out again soon even after the use it's seen the last couple of days.  It's the same combination of Versafine ink, embossing powder and Spectrum Noir pens.  I opted for a sentiment from the Inkadinkado Thank You Words stamped in Versafine ink for the sentiment and added a strip of American Crafts ribbon I found in my stash that seemed to be just the perfect blend of colors. 

Congrats Grad Layout

During Week 21 of Project Life, we celebrated my sister-in-law graduating from college.  While at her party, I took a great picture of her and my mother-in-law hugging.  I knew it needed to have it's own layout in the week.  I started my scrolling through my Pinterest board of scrapbook layout ideas where I pin pages and sketches that I think will inspire me.  That's were I found a page created by Rhonda of Scrappity Dappity Doo based upon a sketch posted by Quick Quotes.  I thought it was the perfect place to start.

I again used the Basic Grey Fact line I've been using for my Project Life pages for Week 21. For this layout, I used some of the paper to cut a tag and created a hidden envelope for it.  A bit of baker's twine makes it easy to slide it out of the hidden pocket.  I took a heart from the 11 Hearts by Lori Whitlock set in Silhouette (Design ID #24813) and opened the nodes.  I moved a few of the nodes around to get a more stylized heart.  I then duplicated it and move a bit of the nodes on the second one so they would be similar, but not exactly the same.  Then it was just cutting my scraps, layering them together until I had a layout I liked.  I added my favorite brown Thickers called Marquis and then finished it off with some Darice studs in a brown color.  This was my finished page:

Bee-You-Ti-Ful

I love the honeycomb and bee theme I've been seeing around for a while now, but I've never used them myself until I found inspiration in SwanLady21's card on the Silhouette blog.  I purchased the honeycomb background and bee at 50% off with Silhouette's sale earlier this week (love those sales - I always have a wish list of things that I want to get some time and those sales are the perfect time to clear out that list).  I didn't have any bee stamps or sentiment stamps that fit, so I cut the "you" and hand stamps the rest with my Ginger alpha stamps from American Crafts.  I used some paper from the 6x6 Take a Hike pad from Simple Stories for the bee body and a page from the Beautiful Moments 6x6 pad from Carta Bella to back the honeycomb.  When I was done, I thought it still "needed something."  I pulled out my black Stickles to accentuate the "you" and added some Stardust Stickles to the dots and the bees wings.  I then still thought it wasn't quite enough so I added some dots of Glossy Accents to the honeycomb.  It's pretty subtle, but I like it. 

Birthday Wishes...

Wow there are a lot of birthdays this week.  For instance, my boss celebrates a milestone tomorrow.  So tonight I looked for a great card for him and loved the inspiration I found in this card pinned from somewhere on the Paper Crafts Connection blog.  It was a fun way to use some washi tape from my growing collection, a favorite Diamonds and Dots embossing folder from Quick Kutz, my new StazOn ink in Timber Brown and whole host of random stamps including the "today" stamp from Heidi Swapp's Memory File, the "celebrate" stamp from TPC Studio's Graduation set, a "is" and "about" built from the Ginger alphabet set from American Crafts and the "you" from the "Hugs to you" stamp in the Sympathy4U set from The Stamps of Life.  Lots of different products came together into one colorful birthday card.

Missing My Friend

So today's Learn Something New Every Day post made think about things that used to be part of my daily life but aren't anymore.  The absolutely first thing that came to mind is my friendship with Val.  We used to talk nearly every day.  Now we're lucky if we talk four or five times a year.  She's busy with school, work, family, church and her other friends. I understand that, but it doesn't mean that it hurts any less that I feel like I don't have a place in her life anymore.  So today's journal entry was about losing that close friendship we used to have and I made a page to go with it. 

I pulled out a collection pack that I bought at the sidewalk sale at Craft Warehouse this summer.  It's Crate Paper's Paper Heart Collection.  It's a pretty lovey-dovey set that I actually bought to scrapbook some of our wedding pictures with, but there's a couple of papers in there that I just love that are a bit more neural, like this background page, which I absolutely adore.

I love, love, love the sayings in the Echo Park collections.  They always just seem to be perfect.  The only problem was that the color of this saying was all wrong for my layout.  So I printed the print and cut design out from my Silhouette Studio, scanned it and opened it in Photoshop.  I then filled the text with colors that went with my layout and cut it out again.  The only problem was the white cardstock I had printed it on was too white.  So I used a little Old Paper Distress Ink to age it a little.  Now it was the absolute perfect embellishment. 

I added some Recollections pearls that were part of my stocking stuffers this year (thanks Mom!), some Prima and Imaginesce flowers and Darice bling.  The little tickets are from a border strip in the Crate Paper collection and the heart is from my new stamp set from Inkadinkado called Hearts.  I finished it off with some Thickers letters (my new obsession) and some rub on letters I found in my stash.  The top flower has an extra little eyelet tucked behind the gem because it's the pull tab for my hidden journalling. 

I had today off and used the day to try the smoker out by myself for the first time to smoke a couple of piece of pork that we had left over from buying meat at Costco.  Pretty dismal failure although Hubby saved the day when he got home.  But my attempt at dinner was much better.  I found a lovely crock pot recipe for Cashew Chicken on Pinterest posted by Six Sisters' Stuff.  I changed it up a little by doubling the sauce.  Then just a little before we were ready to eat, I dumped in a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies.  It was wonderful, although next time I think I'll triple the sauce.

Then we finally sliced the apple pie we made yesterday after canning apple pie filling from the apples we picked in the afternoon.  Yum!

Another Card for the "I Feel the Love" Project

I thought I would make another card for the I Feel the Love Project before I send them off.  So tonight I raided my stash to find some cute DCWV birthday paper and the paper that matches for this week's Mojo Monday sketch.  I added some adorable American Crafts ribbon and then used the other shape that came with the Lettering Delights hat I downloaded from Silhouette Design Studio last night:  balloons!  Aren't they fantastic?  I had some fun scoring the pink paper with the cross hatch design.  Well, now I'm off to bed to see I can head off this headache from getting any worse.