Deck the Halls

Happy Post-Thanksgiving all! I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know that we did. We traveled to my  home town and spent Thanksgiving with family. One of my dear friends is moving to Cameroon in January and this was the last time I was able to spend time with her for a few years. 

Anyhow, now that Thanksgiving is passed I thought that I would share some of the Christmas cards I have been making. My favorite Christmas card paper pad is Authentique paper pad that is a couple of years old. I also fell in love with a gorgeous reindeer red rubber stamp from Inkadinkado.

I am hoping to get my  Christmas decorations up this week before hubby and I leave for our vacation and I will share some pictures with you!

 

Crafting Up a Storm

So, I have so many projects that I can't wait to share, only they are Christmas presents so I won't be able to post them until after Christmas!!!!!! Aaaaggh! I will however will be back in the next few days to share some Christmas cards that I have started on. I participate in a card drive every Christmas and I basically start back up every January and work on them all year round so that I have enough for the charity and for our personal Christmas cards.

What are you working on right now?

Hubby's Graduation

This is a looong overdue layout share. My hubby graduated with his Master's Degree in Theological Studies in April of this year. I actually finished these layouts a couple of months ago, but totally forgot that I hadn't processed the photos or shared them here.

I used several sheets of pattern paper from Lori Whitlock's "This and That" collection, as well as scraps from her "For the Record 2" collection. I used woodgrain chipboard thickers, green foam thickers, some of my favorite glittery-gold foam thickers of all time, and small red letter stickers from Webster's Pages. For embellishments, I used miscellaneous pieces from various different collections.

The third layout shown below has a large pocket that I made to slide in the graduation ceremony program and a few other mementos. While I often cut up mementos and use them as ephemera for layouts, there are some things that I like to keep in original form. However, I do not like clutter - at all - so what better way to save it then to slip it in its own scrapbook layout???

My oh My

I am not doing a very good job at making my little blog feel loved this year, but fear not... Even though I may not be posting as much I am still crafting away!  I just popped on today to say hello and to share a few cards that I made for Mother's Day (I know, I know..... that was 4 months ago.... what can I say... better late than never, I guess :0) )

I made these cards using an American Crafts valentine paper pad and a very old paper pad from MME. The card with the cute little puppy was made using a stamp from Crafter's Companion and the rest of the cards were created using a stamp set from Stampendous. I used two Colorbok Chalk inks in Charcoal and Brown for the super cute little bird cage image and Tuxedo Black Memento ink for the image of the puppy. I colored in the image of the puppy with my Copic markers and paper pieced the little birds in the bird cages using scraps from the papers I used for the base of the cards.

I typically try to make unique cards for each person I send a Mother's Day card to, but I was really enjoying using the Stampendous ink set.

Now, on to the pictures!
 

On an unrelated note..... While I do love summer, my favorite part of fall has arrived for us in Northern Virginia.... Pumpkin Spiced Lattes from Starbucks.... Can anyone say, "Yummmmmmy!"?

Happy Crafting, friends!

Too Cute for Words.....

Hello! Today I thought I would drop in and share a few layouts from the album I made for myself of one of my niece's first year.... With all of the births in my family these last two years, I am seriously going to have to start consolidating albums or my apartment is going to become overrun with scrapbook albums, lol. 

There was no particular theme for this album. Most of the papers and embellishments are quite girly - appropriate for my little princess of a niece - but I like to mix and match collections, using whatever I have on hand.

I hope you enjoy these layouts as much as I enjoyed making them!

Gearing up for Mother's Day

In preparation for Mother's Day, I have been adding new items to my Etsy shop as gifts for mothers, but are generic enough to be used for other events for women. The latest additions are sticky note holders for 3x3 sticky notes. I kinda just started with one or two and then the next thing I knew, I had made 8, lol. I also used the opportunity to play around with taking pictures of my creations with our new camera. It is great having a good camera now because we have no good lighting in our apartment and it is really hard to get good pictures.

The flowers I used were a really random fine in a dollar store in Baltimore. All of the packages were like a dollar and a few were $1.25. I bought like 15 packages while I was there because I didn't know when I would come across such a good deal again.

Sending Hedgehugs

Hello all, I'm back, sharing another set of cards that I sent in for the Caring Hearts Card Drive for the St. Jude's Children's Hospitals. For these cards I used a super cute Lawn Fawn stamp set and a Cosmo Cricket and Dear Lizzy's Neapolitan 6x6 patterned paper pads. Like the previous cards, I kept embellishments to a minimum so that nothing can get ripped off and choke on anything. I was not in the mood for coloring with my Spectrum Noir markers and instead broke out an old set of colored pencils.

Valentines Galore!!!!!

Hello All, I'm back with a few more Valentine's Day cards that I sent out for the St. Jude's Hospital Caring Hearts Card Drive (click the heart banner on the right for more information). For these cards I used Mama Elephant Honey Boney set along with some miscellaneous DCWV papers and a few other pattern papers that I'm not sure of the manufacturer for. I finished several of the cards off with some enamel dots.

Hello Valentine!

It's a new year and with the new year I thought I would try to be better about posting things to this here poor little blog. :) Every year I participate in a Valentine's Day card drive for St. Jude's Hospital (click on heart icon in right panel for more details). I just sent in my package to Winter Sim's the card drive coordinator and thought that I would share a few of those cards. For these cards I used a Cosmo Cricket 6x6 paper pad and a super cute Valentine's stamp set from Mama Elephant. The cards need to be as gender neutral as possible with nothing that can be pulled off of the card and be a choking hazard so I tried to keep the cards as bright and cheerful as possible and I absolutely loved these Panda Bear stamps!

Etsy

Happy New Year All! I hope that you all had a very blessed Christmas and New Year with your families. I just thought I would start off this new year by sharing some projects I have been working on to add to my Etsy Shop. I found some 5x7 clear acrylic frames on sale at Michaels a few weeks ago and wanted to try creating something that had a 2015 calendar, as well as sticky notes. I had a very feminine paper collection that my mom had sent me from my birthday so I thought I would pull that collection out to work with. I am pretty happy with my results. All calendar/sticky note sets come with a small pen or pencil to make notes with.

Enjoy!