THE OLD BOX IN A BAG ROUTINE.....

It's the end of another school year (YAY!!!!) and I need to show the teachers my appreciation for their patience in not beating my children at school (just kidding, we all know none of that stuff goes on anymore --- not even where it is needed...). I tossed around several projects in my head, but ended up settling on the Box in a Bag, in which I will stuff little goodies. I went by a tutorial by Diana Gibbs on Splitcoast Stampers here, but check out her blog here, too. This was, of course, the lazy way out for me, since all of the other ideas would have required much more effort on my part. But I must say, I am glad I did these. I think they turned out great. I used the Sweet Pea DSP (retired, sadly) on all of these, but they all turned out having their own "personality". Here they are:

This one is decorated using the Sweet Pea stitched felt flowers and using the Eyelet Border punch for around the bottom and tied up with Pretty in Pink satin ribbon.

For this one, I punched out an Extra Large Fancy Flower to go behind my Extra Large Two-Step Bird sitting on a branch (the branch is part of the punch). For the base, I used the Scallop Trim border punch. I used Old Olive satin ribbon to close this one.

I, again, used the Extra Large Fancy Flower punch along with the 5-Petal Flower and one of the flowers from the Boho Blossoms punch all held together with a pumpkin pie corduroy button. The Pinking Hearts Border punch was used to fancy up the bottom. This is topped with chocolate (chip satin ribbon, that is).

I love punches --- can you tell? This one has the regular & Large Stars cascading down the front to the Scalloped border bottom. The pumpkin pie striped grosgrain ribbon is what was used to close this one up. Who knew orange would become one of my favorite colors?

I don't know which one is my favorite. How about you? Stop back by in a day or two to see what I did for our group's challenge this weekend.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

AN ODE TO BIRTHDAYS

I love birthdays, as you can probably tell. The majority of the cards I do are for birthdays. And you must admit, whether you are looking forward to your birthday or would just rather skip that day all together, receiving a card from a friend brings a smile to your face. I like to be that smile giver. I love to hand make my smile giver tools. Sometimes a card takes me hours to perfect and, then again, sometimes it can just flow out in a matter of minutes. This card was one of the latter examples. I try to keep them simple when they have to be mailed and SU!'s DSP helps do just that. The main panel is a piece of DSP from the Sweet Pea paper pack (retired). I love this paper. The colors are great and some of the designs, like this one, can stand alone. All I did was add a piece of ribbon, a punched out label and --- wa la --- a birthday card to be proud of (or so I think). This one was done for a friend of mine that lives plumb across the country in Washington state. I hope she had a great day and at least had a little smile for her card.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!!!!!

ANOTHER WEEKEND, ANOTHER CHALLENGE....

I am so loving these challenges my SU! group does every weekend. Cindy is our official "Picker of the Challenges" and, so far, has done a great job IMHO. She is a very talented (and very sweet) person. Check her stuff out on her blog here. 

I'm going to be short and sweet on this post, so if you have any questions on what was used and/or done, just leave me a comment and I will try to let you know. (How's that for fishing for comments?) Anywho, this first card was the sketch challenge and Cindy found it here. I used the Sweet Pea DSP for the main panel and pulled colors from it for the details. Love the new satin ribbon!!! I am so bad at making bows, but this stuff is so much easier to "shape" than the grosgrain ribbon.

The next card was for the color challenge. Cindy didn't find anything that tickled her fancy, so she up and figured one out all on her own. The first picture is her inspiration. Ain't he the cutest little thing? So, you have Ballet Blue, Yoyo Yellow, Soft Suede and Whisper White. Below it is my take on the colors usings the Build-a-Bear stamp set. Hopefully, the bright colors would cheer up someone who was under the weather.

                                

                                

Thanks for stopping by & have a GREAT day!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TONYA!!!!

I had to make another birthday card for another friend who is turning another year older. As a matter of fact, Tonya is the one who started me on this Stampin' Up road by dragging me to a party. I'm not sure whether to thank her or not, but I will use my addiction to wish her Happy Birthday.

I used the sketch that was the challenge for the Little Debbies this past weekend. Cindy picked the sketch from here. I love the sketch and they show some great examples, too. I wanted my card to be bright and festive, so I pulled out my Sunny Day Simply Scrappin' kit and chose this DSP to help me out with color choice. The stamp set is Party Hearty and I used my markers to color directly on the rubber. Behind the cupcake, the white was too much for me, so I used my Color Spritzer to splash some color on it. I ran the outside along my stamp pad to create a "border". To get everything lined up just so, I took advantage of my Stamp-a-ma-Jig --- great tool, if you don't have one. You can't really tell by my picture, but I used the textured cardstock out of the Sunny Day kit for the Tempting Turquoise layer. It is finished up with some silver brads, ribbon and little flower buttons (out of the Playgound Designer Button set). To make the buttons look "attached", I cut thin strips of cardstock & ran it through the holes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TONYA!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by & have a great day!!!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY............

AAAAhhhh!!!! Breakfast in bed, the kids finishing the laundry, getting to watch the movies I want to watch all day, dinner out (no dishes to wash) ---- this is what I didn't get for Mother's Day. But what I did get was both sides of the family at my house for lunch of burgers & dogs & all the fixings. You can't beat family togetherness. This is what I gave my mom and my mom-in-law......

Aren't they gorgeous? Did you know to water Orchids you just give them 3 ice cubes each week? That is just the coolest thing. But considering my brown thumb, I don't think I will test it myself. I did them the same card, but used different color combos. (Note: I really need to work on the lighting of my photos)          

These are using the Happy Together stamp set. I used the Stamp-a-ma-Jig to line the mommy & babies up. The sketch challenge I used is here. The first card uses this color challenge and the second one uses this post on my sideline Cindy's blog. She is the awesome picker-outer of our challenges each week. The sentiment is from Well Scripted out of the Occasions mini. The corners were made using the Scallop Trim Corner Punch, also out of the mini.

My kids both made me cards. Logan also made me an ink pen with a flower taped to the end. He did his projects at school. I guess Lindsey must be too "old" to do projects like that at school (or so the school seems to think), so she did hers on her own at home.

Logan's Card & Gift

Lindsey's Cards

They both did a fantastic job on their cards --- they get that talent from me. Lindsey loves me so much, it took two cards to hold it all. I love my kids and I love being their mom.

I hope every mom out there, no matter what kind of babies you have (2-legged or 4-legged), had a great Mother's Day. Thanks for stopping by and have yourself a great week!!!!

GOOD-BYE, MASHAWN

One of the ladies I work with is leaving for a new job. So, a bunch of us got together and went out to lunch one last time. I made this card for everyone to sign for her. I used the Sending Love DSP from the now retired Occasions Mini. It really makes building a card easier when you have the DSP picked out, which means you already have the colors to use. The sentiment was from a set that was also in the Mini called Well-Scripted. I am hoping this one will end up in the new catalog --- I love the font. That happy doggie is from the Teacher's Pet set. I CASED this from a card out of the Stampin' Success, our demo magazine that I mentioned in an earlier post here, with a few changes. This one was done by Shelley Bohan, who also did one of the ones I CASED earlier. Obviously, I love her style.

Good Luck, Mashawn!!! We will miss you!!!!!