Miss You...

What I what give for another 3 day weekend we just had! We celebrated Gracie's 7th birthday over the weekend, had some family in town, and just enjoyed our time together. I didn't do too much on the decorating end since we had her party at Chuck E. Cheese, but I did do her invites and goodie bags. I will be sure to share those pics later in the week.

Today I've got a sweet lovebird card. I used Aviary from SU! Birds of all sorts seem to be a big trend right now and as much as I wanted this set, I'm finding the cling hard to use on my acrylic blocks. I'm sure if I play with it enough, I will get use to them, but I've been using clear stamps for the last few years and them seem to be much easier to place for me. Aside from my crooked birdcage, I'm still loving how it turned out.
I mixed a few sets from PTI on my design as well. Basic Polka Dots and Little Lady (the small ladybug body for my heart).Another PTI set, Masculine Motifs was used for the sentiment.
I plan on donating this card, along with a few others to deployed troops to send to their sweeties. It's hard when your in the field and don't have a Hallmark or P.O. nearby. I know when my hubby was deployed, he'd hold on to the cards and letters for several days until they were back safely to address and mail them off. Happy Crafting my friends!

Valentine Montage...

slip-in a little love...because they matter... ...and tug on my heartstrings and love will always bloom here......because I see how magical he truly is...through THEIR eyes

Papertrey Ink Button Challenge & Tutorial...

Plugging away with another PTI Challenge. I had other projects slated to share this week, but I'm having a TON of fun thinking outside of the box! This card was a loooooong work in progress. I actually started out with a plain heart and "attempted" to sew around the edges...BIG mistake! Once I regrouped and gave up in the impossible, this was my end result! Scroll along with me and I will show you how you can make shadow hearts too. Stamps sets used: Masculine Motifs (sentiment), Text Style II, Studio Style.
1. Stamp your bg cs with Text Style in Versamark ink. Cut scalloped heart images from copier paper saving the heart image AND the negative. You could probably use Eclipse Tape here, I just wasn't sure if it would leave sticky residue on my cuttlebug plates. 2. Take your first scalloped heart, place it where you like, use a cotton dauber and vintage ink and rub the outsides of the heart image.
3. Now you have a "shadow" effect.
4. Take your negative and lay it directly over your shadow image. 5. Hold your negative snug and stamp away with the buttons in Studio Style. Look at those inky paws! 6. Tah-dah! Loads of buttons without the added weight!
7. Once you have your first heart done, you can repeat as many as you like! I do plan on giving this to my sweet husband! There are no ribbons, frills, or embellishments that wouldn't make this perfect for a male card.

Sweet Buggy Love...

Rounding out the last projects with vday candy! I'm hoping this will be the last of the candies I have to resist eating while making goodies for others. Making good use of some 3x3 clear bags (thanks Donna!), I stumbled (yeah right!) upon some mini snickers that when put side-by-side, fit perfectly in this size bag. Since I wanted a LARGE heart, but needed it a little less round on top, I used the lady bug body from Little Lady and turned it upside down. Letters and bug are also from PTI.I hope all of you have a Superbowl of a weekend! There are no sports fans in this house (I'm so lucky, aren't I?), but we do find it a good excuse to make some goodies and watch the commercials! Enjoy!

Valentine's Fun Dip Bands...plus tutorial!

Sorry my first official post of the New Year is running a little late today...see, we sort of have a little snow on the ground...roughly 5 inches...and we had to go play FIRST! And to think we were only slated to get an inch! It's just so pretty outside right now. The view is better enjoyed from my warm comfy couch.

Anyhoo, I've finally gotten around to updating the ol' blog with some fun projects and today I even have a quick tutorial to share! I'm always on the look out for goodies that I can dress up and use for the kids Vday cards. This year I decided to come up with something different for these Fun Dip packages. In case you need more ideas, HERE and HERE are the ones from last year. Lets get started! Take a sheet of 8.5 x 11 kraft cs and cut into 1 inch strips. Be sure to scor the strips at the 3 and 7.25 marks on your scor-pal. Stamp your polka dots only in the center with versamark ink. You can use whatever stamp you like, I'm just addicted to my polka dots! I used the medium dots from THIS PTI set...it fits perfectly between your 2 scor lines! Now it's assembly time! Add your cute little vday image to your strip and now your ready to band the Fun Dip packaging To add the band, add 2 small strips of adhesive.Once you add the band, it will "bunch" slightly around the cello bag...that is OK, you want a snug fit so the band does not slip off...or you can add a strip of adhesive (1 of 2 strips in the above pictures) so it attaches to the cello bag.

Wrap your band, seal the cello bag and now your ready to send to your favorite Valentine. There is plenty of room on the back of the band for the kids to write on.If you'd like to skip the manual labor and make up some quick kits yourself, I've added a few to my Etsy Shop. The kits includes 10 bands (2 of each design), fully assembled, with 10 cello bags...all you have to do is add 2 adhesive strips, attach the band, and candy.

I {heart} Valentine's Cards...

Another rendition of my last post and the Valentine notebook. I chose the same layout for these cards. The only thing I left off was the ribbon, thought it'd be a bit too heavy on such a small space. I ran out of the MM pearl brads, but found some vintage creme buttons that worked just as nice!
I'm hoping to get in my craft studio this afternoon as we are expecting a rain/sleet mix all afternoon and into the evening! Stay warm, especially up North:)

I {heart} Valentine's Notebook...

I had to laugh at myself on the last post about my hubby installing "Foxilla"...lol Just shows how little I know about computers...it was Firefox Mozilla! I still have to do some adjusting when uploading my pics and I "think" I may have corrected the change in my HTML format...THAT much I DO understand:)

Anyhoo, another Valentine notebook to share with you! I really do love this K&CO Valentine paper deck and unfortunately I wanted to get more at Micheal's and they are SOLD OUT! This paper deck, although sold as "Valentine" paper, really can be used all year round...that's why I'm addicted to it!After trimming and adhering all my cs, I did a little ink distressing and sewing before I did the stamping. For the stamping I used Dew Drop Inks (Plumeria Pink, Sahara Sand) along with my PTI stamps (Polka Dot Basics, Text Style II). The ribbon is Martha Stewart in a very soft cocoa shade.Like my previous post, I once again used my EK success double edge punch, but this time I turned the scallop design to face the top vs. the bottom. I sewed my edges for a finished look and added some pink adhesive rhinestones. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps and I used 2 shades of pink for the heart, a light pink for the entire heart and a darker pink on the outer edges. Using 2 different shades really allowed for the heart to have added depth on the card stock.

Valentine Bag Toppers...

One my New Year's Resolutions was to get things back on course and enjoy what l love! When I started out paper crafting, it was ALL about scrap booking. As I was browsing through some old photos (the kid's baby books!) the other day I realized how much I missed scrap booking! I have my nearly 6 year old's book done, and very few pages in my 3 year old's. Last week I took on the task of organizing all our photos from 2008 and had them developed! Surprisingly, nearly 300 photos only cost $44.00, which would have cost tons more had I sent them ALL in for printing. It was such a "chore" going through all my saved photos, but I picked ONLY the best shots for developing. So, now your asking yourself what all this has to do with tonight's post right? Well, tomorrow evening I'm going to a refresher course on scrap booking and I will be in the company of great girlfriends and LOTS of laughter! I wanted to bring a little something for them and I came up with these cute Valentine choco/heart bags! The bag toppers are cut with my nesty die (the largest of this design) and all stamps are from PTI (Polka Dot Basics, BG Basics Text Style II). The hearts are punched from my Valentine K&CO paper deck. The sentiment is 3 separate stamps from PTI's First Fruit. I lined all 3 stamps up together on one acrylic block. If you have the arcylic blocks with a built in grid, it comes in handy in this case! My cello bags (clearbags.com) are the perfect size to fit 4 Dove chocolate hearts.I made up an extra kit for purchase in my Etsy shop if your are interested. This kit will include enough supplies for 10 Valentine goody bags (cello bags included!). I have already assembled 2 of them, so your work is cut out for you:) To break away from my Polka Dot Basics, I decided to break out my Damask Designs set. I love how it made the whole look more "vintage" when I used SU! classic inks.

The Kiddo's Valentine Cards..

A special project shared with my oldest! Both of my girls love to craft and I knew when I saw this K&CO paper, Gracie would *squeal* with delight...actually, it was probably ME, more than her! The characters (froggy, lion, and robot) come on a full 12x12 page and I simply punched them out and added a matte on the back. There are several sheets of each design so you could be making V-day cards for days...if your crazy like that...haha! I purchased the cookie and cracker packages at Sam's and you get 36 for $9.00. If you don't want to purchase the cookie bags, and your school allows home baked goods, you could use glassine bags with these toppers. Mr. Froggy! I did the stamping and Gracie did the sticking! She picked which friend would get which animal and then glued on the button!Ms. Robot! I love the off-centered button here:)Mr. Lion!Handwriting of a sweet pea! The "to" and "from" sentiments are from an old Crafty Secrets set. Now, I haven't been making cards for "days" but I did make up an extra kit for purchase. This kit includes 10 bag toppers, all supplies (minus the cookies of course!), you just need adhesive. These toppers can also be used on glassine bags. New notebooks are also available in my Etsy Shop!

Old Fashioned Valentines...

Nothing quite says, "I'm in LOOOOVE!" like these little folks! A 12x12 sheet of Rusty Pickle's Old Fashioned Valentines. I've had this paper for 3 years now (only remember because I purchased it on my last trip home...3 years ago...lol) and I'm not sure I was really "hoarding" it per say, just really didn't know what to do with it! Scroll the next few pics and you can see what I finally came up with! How about a sweet little notebook for starters?!! Love HER! Also the first projects I used my new big scallop border punch. Those punches with the smaller scallops are great too, but I'm thrilled to have found a scallop that was wider...the others were starting to bore me:( All solid paper is SU!, the red gingham is My Mind's Eye-Be Loved, and french script paper is from K&CO. The polka dotted heart was also a selection of hearts on a 12x12 sheet, but I cannot remember the vendor. I made a little boo-boo on the sewing, it's not perfect on the bottom right corner, but I feel it adds more of a vintage-y feel anyway. My paper had gotten soft from distressing it, and then I decided it would be brilliant to sew afterwards...big no no! Sew FIRST, then distress...avoids getting your paper caught in the sewing machine!
6 sweet little cards! Kept the layout simple and sweet and just switched up my scallop border. You will notice the card on the left has no sewing around the border. Just wanted to share that you could still achieve the same vintage look even if you don't own a sewing machine. I added some dew drop (gingerbread) around the borders for an "aged" look.


This one reminds me of my twinkie and I:) We both had a love affair for our Kewpie dolls!
Hope your day is filled with old fashioned warmth! We are expecting snow this evening. Time to cuddle up with my kiddos and some hot "cho-cho" as the wee one says!