Enjoy the Little Things

Hello everyone!  Happy Friday! Are you all excited to start another weekend? It feels like full summer mode has kicked in here, and we are loving every minute.  I adore the lazy mornings and extra time I get to spend with my kiddos…just enjoying the little things. Taking the pup on walkies with Miss Nik, hanging out at the neighborhood pool, staying up waaaaaaaay past our normal bedtime.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

Today I have a card project to share that’s all about celebrating the little things in life, featuring this week’s Digital Doodles stamp release called Garden Mouse.

This adorable mouse makes me think of summer, the farm, and flower gardens, which is the inspiration I used in creating my card.  So I paired my mouse with some golden yellow paper to evoke a sense of sunshine and a bit of red and white checks for the fun of a picnic out in a field of flowers. Wonderful little things to enjoy, indeed.

The Garden Mouse digital stamp was printed onto the yellow patterned paper and paper-pieced with the red checks and a touch of shabby cream for the mouse. Placing the image over a printed journaling card gives the look of an entire garden of flowers in the background.

The sentiment is a combination of rub-ons and computer printing.  I’ve added machine stitching, a simple hemp bow, and a few buttons for detail. Had fun creating one of Dawn McVey’s awesome puffy flowers that I layered with shabby seam binding for a final touch.  You can watch Dawn’s video tutorial on making these here. I think I could get addicted to these!

I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the Digital Doodles blog to see the adorable Garden Mouse projects from the rest of the team.  And check out the fabulous freebie and contest Kathy has going on, too. It’s one you won’t want to miss!

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

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Comforts of Home

Hello everyone!  Today is Monday, and that means that there is a new challenge up on The Shabby Tea Room blog.  This week’s challenge, entitled the “Comforts of Home”, is to create a card or project based on this lovely photo from Pottery Barn.

The colors and textures of the bedding, along with the lace trims and botanical prints, inspired me to create this card.

I was drawn to the quilt on the right-hand side of the photo, and used that as inspiration for the blue card base and the quilted background.  I pieced a patchwork panel using old Anna Griffin papers that reminded me of the prints in the quilt.  Then, using a straight edge ruler and my cutting mat grid as a guide, I lightly drew diagonal lines across the panel and machine stitched each line. I then rotated the panel and repeated the process, giving me a finished quilt piece.

The focal image was made from a recycled clothing tag and a botanical print flower that I hand cut from the patterned paper.  I added a touch of color to the flower using my chalk pastels.

I added a simple sticker sentiment and a row of chipboard buttons and twine.  Used some vintage white trim from my stash as a decorative edge around two sides of my card base.  The trim originally came from a pillow case, which I thought was just perfect to mimic the lace on the cases in the inspiration photo.

I hope you’ll come play along with us in the Tea Room this week.  We have lots of beautiful samples from the design team to see, as well as a creation from this week’s fabulous guest designer, Joanne Basile.  And take a look at this week’s prize.

A Cosmo Cricket 6×6 paper pack!  Yum-O!

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Hope you have a wonderful day.

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You & Me

Hi everyone!  It’s challenge time over at the Cardalicious blog again!

The challenge is to make a card using at LEAST 2 flowers, 1 sticker, and polka dots.

I made my card with a combination of papers, journaling cards, cardstock stickers and chipboard accents from Cosmo Cricket’s Early Bird and Earth Love collections.  Rub-ons are October Afternoon and wooden flourish is KaiserCraft.  I added polka dots with an Anna Griffin journaling tag from her current Valentine line. Such a fun and easy challenge!  I hope you’ll come and play along with us!

I took some photos today that I would love to share with you all.  I received a rather unique and unusual gift from an old college buddy that you truly have to see to believe.

So are you screaming “eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww” yet?  Is that not about the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?  Where my friend found these gourmet chocolates shaped like banana slugs is beyond me, but I have to say…..they are probably the BEST chocolate I’ve ever had. And why, might you ask, would he send me banana slug chocolates?  Well that’s in honor of my old college mascot.  Yup…..really.  We were the banana slugs.

True story.

I guess this goes to prove that people can manage to make money doing just about anything.  And that banana slugs as an art form can be beautiful.

Well……..maybe that’s pushing it just a bit.

Thanks for stopping by everyone!

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Firecrackers

So my mother emails me yesterday and reminds me that I have teased you all with unfinished projects for way too long now.  “Where are your finished toilet paper tube goodies, and what about that gluing/yarn mess you were working on?”  Of course she phrased it a bit nicer, but I get the point.  It’s about time I showed you the end results. After all, I have been finished with them for weeks and weeks, so what on earth am I dragging my feet for?

Nik and I started this project with toilet paper tubes back in early August.  I wanted to work on some kind of Halloween project (of course), but Nik thought it was way too early for that business.  And even though the 4th of July was already over, we decided to “plan ahead” for next year.  I had seen some gorgeous, metal firecrackers at my favorite gift shop that gave me the inspiration for these little cuties.  Of course theirs were big and sturdy and beautifully made, and mine are well………..toilet paper tubes.  But hey, we’re not comparing, right?  Here are a couple of photos of us at the beginning of the project.

You can see we managed to create quite the big, ol’ mess.  But it was worth it.  Here are our finished products.  We made a trio of firecrackers of varying heights.  The smallest one is a single tp tube.  We got the other two by sticking one end of a tube into a second tube.  You have to squish one end fairly well to get it into the second tube, and have to do some adjusting to get the piece straight, but it does work.

We stuck to the same materials for starters, but tried to make each firecracker a bit unique.  I dug into my stash for any 4th-looking papers and came up with an assortment of lines including old Basic Grey, Anna Griffin, KI, and Autumn Leaves, plus some newer Making Memories.

The smallest tube is made up of paper strips going in every which direction.  I glittered a chipboard star for each, and topped every one with matching red, foam stars.  The bases are made from scalloped circle punches.  I also used a circle punch to create the tops of each firecracker.  The wicks are bits of rolled paper, and I used floss to secure the lids in place.

the middle tube is decorated with lots of small, torn, rectangular pieces.  It, too, has it’s glittered star, along with an old Soft Spoken fireworks sticker, buttons, and a bit of ribbon.

The tallest tube has horizontal rows of paper strips, another glittered star, buttons, ribbon, and a Soft Spoken embellie from my archives.  It sure feels good to use up old junk (e-hem…..I mean treasure) from the stash pile.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I will share our other crafty project another day.  And in the mean time, if you all have any other ideas of uses for toilet paper tubes, I would love to hear about them.  We always seem to have plenty lying around!

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Sketch This #56

It’s another week, and another sketch is up over at the Sketch This site. I love the papers in my card this week. They so put me in the mood for summer with their bright, bold colors. I’ve had these papers and this fun fabric label in my stash for a looooong time. High time to break them out! This is what I did.

Now doesn’t this make you want to hop on over to a 4th of July BBQ?? Or a party??? Or something??? Me, too!!

The paper on here is a mixture of older and newer Anna Griffin lines. The fabric label is also from Anna Griffin. I started with the label, and then plowed through my rather large, enormous, gigantic stack of Anna’s paper until I found the mixture of colors I wanted. I added a stamped greeting from Stampin’Up! and finished the card off with a couple of Foofala buttons. Now if only I had a party to go to!!

Have a great day everyone!

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Day 2 of my new blogging life!

I have to say that I am feeling a bit more confident today about this blogging business. After playing around on the WordPress site for quite some time yesterday afternoon, I felt I made some real progress. And then last night, I got a tutorial from my brother, Paul, who has been blogging for awhile. If you ever need any help with your computer, he’s the one to ask. He owns and runs his own computer tech site, designed to help with any problem, big or small. check out his website. APlus Computer Aid

He has been a life saver to me on WAY more than one occasion.

Thank you, Bro!

And on to some scrappy news for today…..

Here is my card for the Sketch This blog this week.

Patterned Paper is from Anna Griffin, the rub-on greeting is K&Co, and the buttons are My Mind’s Eye. The satin ribbon is Offray, and the 2-toned bow……well, that I don’t know. Just some ribbon from my stash.

Thanks for looking!

Have a great night!

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