Baby Shower Gifts...

Even though the ol' blog was empty in posts, I certainly stayed busy behind the scenes the past few months. Today's post is another special request for baby shower gifts. Since the shower was being held at The Wilmington Tea Room, I knew I had the perfect teapot set for the occasion. I hadn't realized until now, that these colors actually match my banner as well! The colors are pulled from the shower invitations and I used several different stamp sets to create my own patterned paper. First off, we started with a notebook for the mom-2-be. The notebook is for the shower gift thank-yous and maybe later she can use the extra pages to write down all the 'firsts' of baby's year before she transfers them into a baby book. Prima flowers, grosgrain chocolate ribbon, and button accent. Love the teapot notebooks! Without any intention here, I used this tag die which also looks a lot like a tea bag! Added a few 'note tabs' on the inside. A couple of notebooks for the Men who attended. I'm was really pleased with how well the cattails came out. I did not have a 'pond' themed set, so I had to make my own cattails from the SU! small slot punch. I then went back and sponged a cocoa brown ink for my first layer, then back with a darker brown for the outer shading. The pond looks more realistic with crystal effects! Love that stuff!

Chipboard Notebooks...

ETA: I didn't realize I pulled from 2 different paper pads...I also used Garden Variety from Cosmo Cricket!

Today's notebooks are not of the 'mini' type, but rather the larger(Reporter's Notebooks) ones I normally use. The patterns and colors I chose for these notebooks are a tad on the vintage...70's-ish side! Boy I HEAR it coming loud and clear now...lol! I used a mixed-combo of products here! The sentiments are from THIS PTI SET. The paper is from COSMO CRICKET and coordinates with THIS chipboard...super ca-ute! The glitter heart make look familiar...it's from my heart strings that I hung on my chandelier for my Vday post! Re-use and recycle! I took a close-up of the little girl so you could see how 3-D she is! Now her clothes are separate, so you can dress her up in a few different outfits. Once you decide, you cannot redress her...the entire chipboard piece is adhesive backed and it is STRONG! When I packaged her up in a cello bag, I didn't have to worry about snagging her threading needle...she's NOT going anywhere!
A few more fun pieces! Love the vintage colors on the dress form! I laughed when I saw this sewing machine was smiling. Lord only knows my sewing machine is not doing the same when I shove paper through her...ha! Funny thing is, this is the only notebook I did not sew on...signs?!

Grocery Notebooks...

SQUEE!!! As promised, here are the grocery list notebooks! I absolutely LOVE this paper...I'm biased about cherries...even though I have roosters in my kitchen! As I was cleaning out my craft supplies this last week, I'd remembered I had some cooking charms....somewhere! I believe I bought these at Archiver's years ago. They came in a package of 8 and used all of them! The favorite part about this paper is the TEXTURE! The entire paper pad is actually made with recycled paper, so it has a grocery bag look on the back side, with a grid-texture on the front side.
Thought I'd do a few with strawberries ;)

Feeling Spring-y...

An appropriate post for the first day of Spring! It's a bit chilly where I am, but I can't complain as the last 2 days here in NC were in the 80's! I'm feeling very ready for Spring and Easter this year! I've been wanting to make some simple, but fun cards and had BRIGHT scallops and white ink in my heads for a few days now. I dug out In Bloom and white craft ink for this project. I love how well the white ink shows up on these bright colors! The top scallop is just plain white cs that I added my pastel yellow ribbon on to. My scallop strips were originally cut in 2 inch increments, but after punching them out, I discovered they were much too wide. I cut off a 1/2 inch and used those strips on notebooks! How fun, right?! The sentiments used are from Take Note! I love the little pencil! Stay tuned to the blog this week...I will be dedicating this weeks posts to all things mini-notebooks! I even found some old cooking charms that worked perfect for my grocery list notebooks...squeee!

Buggy Teapots...

Who's ready for FRIDAY?!!! So much to do, so little time! We have a BIG project planned for this weekend (tile job in the kitchen...YIPPEE!) and some friends will be here to help us, so I thought I'd better update the ol' blog before I'm too tired to type and covered in grout! I went to see my dear friend DonnaK last week and before we hit the LSS, I rummaged through her stamp collection and she loaned me out a few sets to play with! I could not wait to get my hands on this cute, Enjoy The Ride, set! SQUEE! Looks how fun she is?!! The green gingham frames are actually ALL scraps (negatives) that I used on another project (will share in next post!) and was intending on throwing away. I tossed them aside, then came back to them realizing they would make neat frames. The pink gingham is paper pieced from the Princess Pack.
I covered the inside tab with hippy flowers...otherwise it has STAPLES across it!I'm a "little teapot"...I really don't know where I was going with this one! The teapots started out in pink gingham, but were too plain, so I added some chocolate chip ink over them and I think it did the trick? On the middle frame I added a small strip of lace from my local fabric store. To hold the lace down, I made a simple paper border on top, and adhered the lace to the back side.
Buggy LOVE! I didn't want to get too frilly on this card since my focal image was so large. Just add a check and send to your favorite GRAD.

Princess Notebooks...

A sweet Valentine gift for my girls. I had some jr. notebooks cut at Staples last weekend and for some reason, I thought they would be the same size as my old ones...they are not! I used to be able to get 2 notebook covers out of 1 sheet of 8.5x11 cs, but this time around I noticed my notebooks are cut 1/4 inch larger. I'm sure if I do some finagling I might be able to squeeze one more cover out. Anyhow, the girls love to doodle and draw dolls all day long so these will be perfect for travel and on the go! The paper is from a 12x12 Princess Pack. There are several sheets included that have the clip art (castle and princess I used here), which is easy to cut and matte. My nesty dies did not fit a matte for the princess so I used some patterned paper and buttons to add texture.

Finished them off with monograms. I'm hoping I can keep these a secret until Valentine's Day!

Odds And Ends I've Forgotten to Share...

These were some special request projects I worked on a few weeks back and I'm just now getting around to sharing. I often take the pics, edit, save to a folder and forget about them. After getting all caught up in the craft show stuff, some things had fallen by the wayside....sooo, since I'm overdue with new pics, you get 3 fun projects to check out today!!! First up are some cancer survivor cards made with Papertrey Ink's Anniversary Set...2nd or 3rd year? I made my own patterned paper with pink polka dots, then added the bird scene over it. The "square-ish" shape is from my nesty dies and for a little added texture I used versamark with my wood grain stamp.
Ice cream and sweets overload! Love the old fashioned ice cream cup complete with shine and oozing marshmallow topping.You can "almost" taste it right?This notebook was hard to photograph, but looks just lovely in person! Without intending, the design looks like a quilt with all those dots. The patterned paper is Graphic 45...they have such a fun and vintage look to their papers.

Craft Show Goodies Part 6...

Notebooks GALORE! You know, this weekend I packaged up a lot of completed projects and put them in the baskets I plan to use on my craft table. As I got to looking around, I realized the majority of things I have created are ALL notebooks of some kind. I didn't intend for this to happen, but I'm hoping to finish up this week with some other new goodies. The craft show is this weekend...eeeek! CRUNCH TIME! I hope all of you had a wonderful Veteran's Weekend. I'm a little biased, but I couldn't help overload with the Marine Corps notebooks. I know it looks like I went crazy with the Kraft cs here, but only the notebook base is Kraft, the other Kraft "looking" cs is actually brushed gold. There are 6 of these notebooks, 3 in blue rhinestones, and 3 in clear.Dontcha just wanna squeeeeeeeze this little doll?! Crystal effects to make happy heart more desirable ;)Mini-tag notebooks...I will be selling these for 5.00 each.Now these mini-tag notebooks will not be at the craft show! But I did make these up for some dear neighbor friends and decided to post them all together. The "D" is mine...all these years in crafting and I finally made something for myself! I use this notebook for passwords and supply lists.More post-it pads in NEW colors!WHEW! That's a lot of work! This week is going to be very busy, but I plan to share some more things before I off like a headless chicken! Stay tuned for my next post....I will be sharing the candy goodies for sale! Happy Monday!