Welcome, Little One

Love this little card I have for you today!  It's another baby card, and I actually made this one a long time ago.  There's a little contraband on this one... my ribbon and brads are non SU!  

It turned out so adorable didn't it?  The colour combo could be for a baby boy or girl, but if you wanted to go really girly girl, it would be so easy to substitute pink colours for the blue and yellow!

Thanks for looking!  Seeyou tomorrow!

Celebrate The Little One!

Good morning!  I have another baby card for you today!  This one uses a variety of different stamp sets and has alot of little details.  Sponging, paper piercing and distressed edges all combined with the colour combo to create a sweet card to welcome a new baby!  I stamped the greeting  and punched it out with my oval punch and layered it on a stamp from a totally un-baby related stamp set!  Cool, huh?

My colours for this card are Sahara Sand, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue and So Saffron.  I love them together, although the Blue and Celery are now retired!

Stop by tomorrow for another card!

Worm Wishes On Your Bug Day!

Hello!  

 OK... this card is seriously one of my very first cards that I made a few years ago.  I used the Seeing Spots stamp set to create the background.  It WAS the very first stamp set I ever ordered!  I used it alot to make backgrounds on my scrapbook pages.  Those were my pre-MDS days!  And how could I not LOVE the Bugs and Kisses stamp set?  Adorable, no?

This card is pretty self explanatory.  My colour combo is Chocolate Chip, Tempting Turquoise and Certainly Celery.  I used my square punch to speed the process up even more.  Easy peasy!

See you tomorrow!

Animal Stories

Hello!  I'm back with some cards that I made some time ago, but I've not posted these yet.  You'll notice some retired SU! supplies on many of my cards.  I keep all the sets I buy... and continue using them as I am a 'discount' demo and don't do a lot of business!  So if you like seeing cards with some ideas for your retired sets, this is the place to come and look!

You can see another card I made like this one over here using a different stamp set and colour combo, but based on the same layout!  Handy, huh?

 

I am not sure what the lighter purple is anymore... it's been retired for a while now... I think maybe Lovely Lilac or Orchid Opulence.  It was the one that coordinated with the Cottage Wall DSP way back when.  

I am going to try to prepost a bunch of cards for the next couple weeks, so check back in for more!  Have a good weekend!

Hello!

Good morning stampers.... and scrapbookers!  

No card or scrapbook layout today, unfortunately... I'm just stopping in to say that I have not fallen off the face of the earth!  A few people are wondering where I've gotten to over the last few weeks... and the answer is.... lots of things, many of them not really related to anything crafty!  There's this thing called 'three children home all day with me' and we are just having fun together, enjoying summer before it is over!  I just said to my husband last night that it's almost August.  Crazy!

I am working on a few things, but they're not ready to show yet!  And my husband and I are working on a surprise for our oldest daughter's 10th birthday coming up in a couple weeks!  I'm pretty excited about that, and she is gonna love it!  Let's just say she has been asking for a new room and we are pretending it is not gonna happen!  Eek!

So... while I probably get more chances to scrapbook, since I steal little bits of time here and there, I still will try to get cards on here in the next few weeks as well. It is much harder for me to get downstairs to 'work' with the kids home though.... and when a two year old doesn't want to nap because her big sisters are home.... then, yeah, I pretty much don't see the inside of my office.

Here's hoping everyone is having a great summer.  Our weather has been phenomenal this summer!  Just perfect!  We feel very privileged and blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world!  Or at least in Canada, in my opinion!  

Enjoy the sunshine!

SCIC #68

Hi everyone!  I've been meaning to get to this for a couple weeks now, and I finally did it today!  Yay!  I wanted to play along at Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge blog and this fun inspiration photo.  And.... it went in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT direction than I meant it to!  Isn't that funny when that happens?  What's even better is that I love the way it turned out.  A bit different than my normal style I think, but it completely fits the theme of my pictures and the finished overall effect is definitely a sandy beachy seashell-treasure hunt kind of thing.  At least that's the way I see it!

Here's the inspiration photo!

I originally intended to go with the chevron theme AS WELL AS the colours... but as you can see below... that didn't happen AT ALL! I just stuck with the chevrons.

There is so many little details on here.  I changed the opacity on some of my smaller pieces of paper and ripped the ends to make it look like washi tape... or is it just tape?  I really don't know!  I cropped one side of the chantilly ribbon bow to get just a loop for under the edge of the photo and buttons.  I did the same sort of thing with the baker's twine.  My daughter saw a non-digi layout that had a bunch of yarn under the corner of the picture and she asked if I could do that!  What?  Of course!  You can do ANYTHING with MDS!  Just use your IMAGINATION!  My chevrons are made using the tasteful trim border punch filled with one of the grad party papers.  (by the way... I had to enlarge that thing like GINORMOUSLY... seriously!)  A few layers, some stitching to "hold" it all down, a few scattered pearls and rhinestones... and VOILA!  It was like I couldn't stop myself! 

Thanks for taking the time to look.  Be sure to head over to the challenge blog and play along.  It's so much fun!  See you next time!

MDSM22-Lemonade Stand

I literally whipped this layout up in just over an hour.  I skipped an afternoon at the pool and set up the kiddie pool for the girls instead, while I sat on the deck, drank coffee and 'worked' on it!  That is how easy this layout came together.  I played along with the challenge at MDS Monday.

Along with this sketch, the challenge was issued to use elements from just one kit!  Now, I love to use an assortment of elements from all different kits, so I wasn't too sure how this was going to work, but it was so FUN and EASY!

I used all embellishments, stamps, DSP, and coordinating colors from the Lemonade Stand kit.  I created the title by cropping a couple stamps and layering them with Bermuda Bay underneath the lighter aqua (colour matched) to make the title pop a little more.  The background is the little 'water' embellishment which I simply enlarged to cover the 12x12 area.  A few flags, some more stamps, some recoloured Lemonade Stand stitching, some journalling and I was done!  

I have to say... I am QUITE in LOVE with the finished product!  Let me know what you think of it!

Have a great weekend!

MDSM21 on Wednesday!

Just a quick post today.  I am playing along again with MDS Monday.  They've got an awesome sketch challenge on this week that involves grouping photo boxes!  I had a ton of fun making this layout and based some of my elements on something I had saved in one of my folders, but unfortunately I don't know who to give credit to anymore!

Here's the sketch...

Here's my layout!  I used a bunch of papers from the Lemonade Stand kit.  Love those colours!

A few other details about my layout... the 'live' stamp is actually a cropped 'Old Olive' stamp and the black outline on my flags is a freeform line that I did myself!  Lots of fun!

Thanks for looking!  Don't forget to click on over to check out the MDS Monday blog and all the cool ideas you can find there.

Let me know what you think of my "Live, Love & Family" layout.  It's a picture of my father and mother-in-law, their 5 children, 4 spouses (so far!) and their 9 (one on the way!) grandchildren.  One of my husband's sisters had just moved back from Australia with her husband and baby, one sister lived in the Dominican Republic with her husband and three kiddos, and his brother lives in Haiti with their two kids.  We had an opportunity to have a picture taken last summer when we were all together for a space of two weeks.  Believe me... with a group that size, there were plenty of bloopers and outtakes!  Fun, fun, fun!

MDSM20

I'm just squeaking in under the deadline at MDS Monday this week.  I guess with the kids home for summer break my creative time is actually quite a bit more limited then I anticipated!  Oh well.... all these hours spent relaxing around my in-laws pool feels pretty good too!  I want to get this posted before supper though, so I'll get to it.

Here's the sketch challenge.  Truthfully, I really battled with this one... partly because I only had little scraps of time here and there to work on it, and partly because my mojo just went missing this week!

Here's my layout based on the sketch. 

I added a half circle for journalling.  The background is from the Downtown Grunge Photobook Kit to resemble a paper bag!  This brown bagging issue is a real laugh between my husband and I.  We both remember growing up and always having to take "our own food" with on day trips and then sitting at picnic tables eating it, smelling all these burgers and fries from the concession stands nearby.  Now we are the ones taking our own lunches with and our kids are the ones wondering why we never get to buy food at the concessions!  It's probably an endless cycle I think! 

Anyway, thanks for looking!  Have a great weekend!

Way To Go!!! CCMC258, FabFri21

I found a little time here and there over the last couple days to make another card.  I wanted to make a card for one of my dearest cousins.  Shellie just graduated from a Registered Nurse program, and I had seen a little owl dressed as a nurse on Pinterest, so this was my chance to make it!  She turned out so cute... I made another one for a get well card. (I don't have any more cousins becoming nurses right now... that I know of anyway!)  But I'll show you the one I made for Shellie.

I used the colour combo from this week's challenge at Create with Connie and Mary and I also played along with the FabFriday sketch challenge.  This one was a first time for me, and of course I loved it!  Playing along with challenges can really get your creative juices flowing!

Here's the card I came up with using the colour combo and sketch, and my little owl nurse as inspiration!  What a cutie, huh?

Please excuse the picture quality.  I just took this picture at 10:45 pm, so there's not exactly an abundance of natural light around here right now...  but you get the idea!  

I used an old stamp set that I've had hanging around, called Starring You.  I think I got it the year that SU! included stamp sets from the main catalogue in Sal-A-Bration.  This is probably the first time I ever used it.  I use plenty of retired things in my craft room, since I am a "hobby" demo, or to be blunt... a 'discount' demo!

Thanks for looking!  Be sure to click the links to the challenge sites and check out what the DT's and everyone else is linking up!  Let me know what you think of my 'nurse-y owl'!  Have a great day!