Happy Easter

I just wanted to wish Happy Easter to all of my friends! I love celebrating how Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was raised from the dead three days later. In doing so, He made a way for us to have a relationship with God that will last forever. So very wonderful!

I wanted to share a couple more Easter cards that I made this week...

For this one, I used some scraps that were leftover from the Easter tags and card that I posted earlier this week. I used some Echo Park patterned paper, along with some Papertrey ink cardstock (harvest gold, stamper's select white), stamps (Happy Day) and dies (mat stack 4, fillable frames 7, get a handle on it), twine and buttons.

And this next card was made with the same sentiment stamp, but this time I used ocean tides cardstock and Crate Paper patterned paper. The chipboard is also Crate (I love the Pretty Party line so much!) and some My Mind's Eye enamel dots.

Thanks for looking!

Super sweet!

Good morning! I'm thrilled to say that I was asked to be a guest designer for the Sweet Stamp Shop this month. Nicole has just been so fabulous and sweet and she sent me this stamp set to play with. It's called Alpha-Tabs and is a great set!

I made two projects with this stamp set. The first is a card that I made using Alpha Tabs, along with the raccoon and acorns from Furry Friends Forever, which I paper-pieced using some My Mind's Eye patterned paper.

I lined my alphabet stamps and the word on my stamp press and inked them all up at once. This made it super easy to keep them evenly spaced and straight (a must for someone like me!)

For my second project, I made some tags to go along with the Butter Crunch filled treat bags that we brought to our teachers for the parent-teacher conferences earlier this month.

The trick for these was to make them assembly-line style. I diecut 11 PTI Tag Sale #7 tags. Then I arranged all of my stamps on my stamp press to spell out the sentiment. Then I removed all of the stamps except for the one colour (the "j", the "t" and the "o"). Then I inked them up and stamped them on all 11 tags. Then I added the next coloured letters (the "u", the "r" and the "y"), removed the first set before inking and stamping them. I repeated this process until all the letters were stamped.

I tied up the bags with a PTI enchanted evening button and twine. Here's a close up of one of the tags:

And I just have to share this.... when I was stamping them out, I told Jonah: "I can make these with an exclamation mark at the end or a heart. Which one would you like on the tags to give to your teachers?"

He told me: "An exclamation mark. Except for Mme. Poiron (his classroom teacher). She can have a heart." Awww! So sweet!

Click HERE to see all the new release sets from Sweet Stamp Shop for the month.

Thanks for looking!

Easter's on its way!

I can't believe how Easter is just sneaking up on my this year!

I decided to carve out some time to make a card and some coordinating tags. I used this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Watercolour Stamping Plus Embossing.

I chose some Echo Park patterned paper for my card. For the technique, I pressed some ink (aqua mist, harvest gold, new leaf) onto my stamp press and added some water. I pressed the back of the bunny & ears from PTI's Scrambled Eggs into the ink and then onto my cardstock. Then I stamped the bunny and ears image with Versamark and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. I diecut the patterned paper with  PTI dies (mat stack 1, mat stack 4 & fillable frames 7) to frame the bunny and added a PTI bountiful banners diecut stamped with the coordinating stamp, on which I stamped the sentiment from Scrambled Eggs. The little circle is a stamp from Birthday Style.

 

Here's a close up:

And for the tags, I used the same technique and supplies...

I used the PTI Tag Sale 7 dies for these two tags, with the egg from Scrambled Eggs.

And for this last tag, I used two LL:oval dies and the little chick stamp from Scrambled Eggs. I tried to keep the inks more separate for this guy, so the chick would be yellow and his egg shell would be blue.

His banner is from PTI's Fabulous Frames stamp set and die collection.

I'm entering this card and these tags into this week's Simon Says Stamp Challenge: anything goes.

Thanks for looking!

March AEI♥U Challenge

Today, I'm posting a card that I made for the latest Avery Elle Blog Challenge, which is to use the following photo as inspiration for your card:

I'm really loving this shade of green!

I used one of the free Avery Elle digital stamps to create my card, along with some Papertrey Ink cardstock (rustic white, classic kraft) and My Mind's Eye patterned paper. For the dock, I stamped my WMS woodgrain stamp onto the kraft cardstock in versamark and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. I added an Echo Park chipboard butterfly onto my flowers.



For my digital stamp, I printed it out onto the rustic white cardstock and cut it out with my craft knife. I pressed some PTI new leaf and ocean tides ink onto my stamp press and then took a paintbrush dipped in water and mixed up the inks and then painted around the frame and the leaves. I pressed a little more ocean tides ink onto the stamp press and then watercoloured my flowers. I added some SU! pearls to finish it off.

Thanks for looking!

PTI March Blog Hop

Once again, I'm participating in the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This month, the challenge is to use sequins on our projects.

I made a card and a layout for this challenge, using my new Birthday Style stamp set.

First up is my card. I was inspired by Nichole's card (bottom, right hand side of the inspiration photos above) to create a shaker card using a Fabulous Frames die. I stamped my background cardstock using the sweet banners from Birthday Style. I also stamped the sentiment from the set onto a diecut from my new banner die from Get A Handle On It.

I used some foam adhesive to adhere the frame to my card, putting the sequins in between to make a shaker embellishment.

For the layout, I scrapbooked some photos from Jonah's last birthday party. (I've got to say that these photos were really making me long for summer!) I used some AC cardstock for the background and some new My Mind's Eye patterned paper. I inked some Pink Paislee chipboard stars with harvest gold & aqua mist ink and then stamped with these same colours using the confetti stamp from Birthday Style.

I added my sequins to my confetti stamped images to add a little sparkle and dimension.

And I kept my journaling short and sweet.

Thanks for looking!

A joint effort

Sage has been enjoying playing along with some of the online challenges that I like participating in.

Earlier this week, she stamped (with PTI's Hands of Time) and inked (after I took care of the heat embossing for her) a background for a card for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Inked Backgrounds. She then chose her coordinating cardstock and diecut a banner for the title, but never finished putting the card together.

Since she went to a sleepover tonight at her grandma's & the deadline is tomorrow morning, I asked if she wanted me to finish the card. I adhered the inked background to two cardstock panels (hibiscus burst and raspberry fizz) and then stamped a sentiment from PTI's Stylish Sentiments: Birthday on the banner she diecut and put it together.

I'm sorry for the poor photo!

Thanks for looking!

Five for Friday

1. Things I'm looking forward to....

spring to arrive (oh, please come!)

the snow to go away (I'm totally done with it!) 

Sage's assembly this afternoon (she's playing corn -- I'm sure she's going to nail it!)

spring break (it starts officially at 3:50 today!) 

scrapbooking with my friends tonight at my at my LSS 

2. Festival season has begun. I've been volunteering as chairperson for a few sessions, including Wednesday's vocal session where Sage and Jonah sang with their respective choirs. So fun to see them perform!

I also got to go along to Brandon last week for their Jazz Festival. Austin's Jazz Choir performed three songs.

(Austin is in the centre of the back row.)
I was asked to go on stage during the second and third songs to hold the music sheets for the pianist, so I was able to take this cool shot.

3. I made another layout for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Inked Backgrounds. I found these photos in my photo box that I took two Easters ago...

I used some Crate (off-white background) and My Mind's Eye (diagonal stripes, photo frame) patterned paper. I stamped some rustic white cardstock with my new Waltzingmouse Stamp and then inked over it with some CTMH Cranberry ink.

For my title, I used my new Headlines Alphabets stamps from PTI, as well as some MME enamel dots and a Pink Paislee arrow that I inked with PTI Harvest Gold ink. I also used a PTI Basic Labels stamp for the date.

4. I thought I'd play along with the 10 Minute Craft Dash #14.

Or maybe I should say, attempted to play along. I picked out my supplies and decided to use Retrosketches #54:

So, here's the card I made... using Echo Park patterned paper, PTI cardstock (classic kraft, berry sorbet), my PTI tag sale #5 die, PTI classic kraft button twine and a SU! build-a-brad. I stamped the sentiment with a Simon Says stamp in PTI Ripe Avocado ink.

And here's my time....

So, yeah, epic fail.


5. But determined to succeed, I tried again. I used most of the same supplies, but used a PTI Fabulous Frames die and some PTI buttons instead.

Here's what I ended up with...

And here's my time...

Success!

I'm always amazed at how quickly 10 minutes go by!

I'm also linking up these two cards for this week's Simon Says Stamp Challenge, which is to make a spring/easter card.

Thanks for looking!

Stamp Set Roulette challenge

My friend, Kara, posted an interesting personal challenge on her blog the other day. She grabbed two of her stamp sets at random and challenged herself to use them together on a card.

Thinking that this sounded like fun, I decided to give it a try. I reached into my basket of stamps, closed my eyes and pulled out two sets: Beautiful Butterflies & Embroidered Blooms. This was even more challenging because I wanted to incorporate this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Inked Backgrounds.

I decided to stamp different sizes of butterflies on my background white cardstock using versamark and heat embossing them with clear embossing powder. I inked over the butterflies using fine linen ink.

To incorporate Embroidered Blooms, I stamped a leaf image over and over again on a diecut piece of aqua mist cardstock. The sentiment is also from Embroidered Blooms.

The banners were diecut using my double-ended banner die. The patterned papers I used are My Mind's Eye (floral) & Teresa Collins (music notes).

Thanks for looking!

With sympathy

I wanted to share another card that I made for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Inked Backgrounds.

For this sympathy card, I used PTI Stitches and Swirls stamp set for the inked background technique. I heat embossed the stamped images with clear embossing powder on a vintage cream background. Then I added some sweet blush ink.

The tag is made out of vintage cream cardstock, stamped with a sentiment from Communique Sentiments & an image from Modern Woodmats and impressed with my Simple Stripes impression plate. The butterfly was diecut from the front panel using a Beautiful Butterflies die and attached with a spring moss button and rustic white button twine.

Thanks for looking!

Back to back layouts

Well, spring might officially be arriving this week, but you wouldn't know it here. We had a snow day yesterday and are having another one today! Last year on this date, it was plus 20C..... yesterday, we went down to -22C -- that's a difference of more than 40 degrees!

Oh, well, since we're stuck inside, I making the best of it.... by carving out some crafty time! LOL! I'd started a layout on Sunday and finished it yesterday.

I used some of my new goodies.... some new My Mind's Eye patterned paper and enamel dots and my new PTI Friends Til the End and Headline Alphabet.

This journaling card was perfect for Sage. ;) I added a few enamel dots to it, as well as one to the centre of my flower. I had diecut a piece of Pink Paislee patterned paper and heat embossed it with white embossing powder. The "perfect" chipboard is also MME.

For my title, I diecut the letters from hibiscus burst cardstock and then stamped over each one using hibiscus burst ink.

Here's a close-up of my journaling. I ended up using four different dies on this layout (PTI tag sale 5 & double-ended banner die for my journaling).

After I finished my layout, I decided to make another one on the back of it, so as not to let the cute hexagon pattern go to waste.

I added some more MME patterned paper to my background, as well as some MME chipboard and journaling card for the title.

I made the pink patterned paper using PTI Cutting Garden, for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Inked Backgrounds. I heat embossed the images with white embossing powder and then added Berry Sorbet, Hibiscus Burst and Scarlet Jewel ink to the background.

 This journaling card just said it all, so I didn't add anything else. The buttons and twine are PTI.

Thanks for looking!

Miss me?

It seems like it's been a while since I've blogged.... LOL!

Well, I'm back today to share a card I made using some new goodies..... a new woodgrain stamp set from Waltzingmouse Stamps (it's my first stamp set from them and I'm really liking it!), as well as Papertrey Ink's Friends Til the End and Stylish Sentiments: Birthday.

For my background, I stamped some PTI soft stone cardstock with the WMS woodgrain stamp using A Muse Studio ink in Slate. I'm linking this card up for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink": Inked Backgrounds. Now, let me just say that the video wasn't working this morning and all the challenge said was to use an inked background, so I'm not sure if this applies or not.... but my background is inked with the stamp.

I stamped the flower and leaves onto some My Mind's Eye patterned paper that I'd diecut with the coordinating dies. I stamped the flower again and then cut out the middle and layered it over top, adding a MME decorative brad to finish it off. The sentiment from SS: Birthday was added using the AMS Slate ink. I used the PTI pinking border die to diecut the patterned paper along the bottom and then adhered this cardstock panel to my card using dimensional adhesive.

Thanks for looking!