Monday, December 30, 2013

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #146

Good evening fellow crafters, hope you are all having a fabulous Monday! Feeling a little sad as it comes to an end because it is just one more day closer until the new year :( Can't believe it is over, truly feels like this year was the fastest one yet. Christmas just passed and it didn't even feel like Christmas to me. The girls however are enjoying their Winter vacation and are staying plenty busy with all their new goodies!

My latest Papertrey Ink haul came in on Christmas Eve day, which was a treat for me! I couldn't wait to get all these new products in hand, this month's release features so many new Valentine stamp and die sets, and they are just wonderful! I have been keeping myself busy when I am not working, definitely been staying up a little later than usual!

For the last Make it Monday Challenge of the year, Ashley Cannon Newell is challenging us to use up some scraps to create some angled backgrounds on our projects. I really wanted to make a Valentine's Card, I was so tired of making Christmas cards to be truly honest! I used some scrap paper I had left over from last year and started my "angled card". I used a Kraft cardstock base along with Basic White and Real Red cardstock. I used the Cupid's Arrow stamp set from Papertrey Ink. I used one of the banner dies from Papertrey Ink's Notched Heart's Banner Die set. Here is the background before I added the banner die to my card:


I stamped my images and "happy valentines day" sentiment onto the banner die and adhered it to the front of the card. I am okay with how the card turned out, although, I think it might be a little bit too busy. I am thinking for my next card (if I have time to do one before the week is over) I will alternate some plain cardstock with the patterned paper.



It is getting a bit late, going to spend a little time with the kiddos before heading off to bed tonight. In case I don't get to post again before the new year, I truly wish you all the best of luck and love in the New Year, and may it bring you happiness, peace, health and wealth! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Classroom Christmas Favors

Good evening fellow crafters, how are you doing? Are you enjoying the first day of winter? It has been windy all day today, which makes our 42 degree weather seem even colder. We are not used to this type of weather, we hardly ever get snow here and if we do, it usually only lasts about a day or two!

The girls are enjoying the start of their winder vacation, and are definitely excited for Christmas. Although, I have to admit it really doesn't feel like Christmas time. I still have a ton of presents to wrap and need to get some things prepared for our families Christmas Eve get-together. Sadly, this year I was chosen to work on Christmas day. We spent Christmas last year at Disneyland, and although it truly was an amazing experience, we did not have a Christmas tree or any family gatherings, so I was really looking forward to it this year. But since I work, I just can't bring myself to get into the Christmas spirit! I sure do miss Disneyland though, isn't Cinderella's Castle beautiful during Christmas time?


Anywho, at the beginning of the month, I let you all know that my poor Big Shot had broke on me and I was anxiously awaiting for new Big Shot to come in. Well, it did come in a few weeks ago, I wasn't too sure how I was going to feel about it because the cheapest I could find one was through overstock.com and all they have is the teal Big Shot. Well, let me just tell you I love it! The design is so creative and I think it definitely is more fun to use then the plain ol' black Big Shot. So I used it to make the girls Christmas favors for their classrooms. I had limited time and I wanted to make something super easy and fast for both of them.

I have seen this idea several times through pinterest, and my 7 year old loved the idea of the Candy Cane reindeer, so I used Stampin' Up's Two Tag die to make these for her classroom:



For my 9 year old, she wanted something simple and nothing to "childish". This made me a little sad, I will admit. But we did decide to make S'more Favor bags, and I used Stampin' Up's Top Note die to make the topper, along with their Glitter paper and Papertrey Ink's Fancy Flakes dies to cut out the Snowflakes. I used Papertrey Ink's 2013 Holiday tags as well.



I made the S'more's favors late at night and didn't get a good picture of them all together, but I made 18 bags of those. I didn't do too many Christmas cards or favors this year, but I do have to admit I am ready to move on to Valentine Projects. Can't wait for my Papertrey Ink order to come in, did you see all the wonderful Valentine's Products they released this month?!

Thanks so much for stopping by, have a wonderful weekend!

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Freshly Made Sketches #115

Man, I am on a roll! I don't think I have ever had the time to post this many projects at one time ever! I am so blessed to be able to have some extra time this week to myself to just sit down, relax, and finally create!

This card is for the Freshly Made Sketches #115 challenge. This is the first time I am joining one of the FMS challenges, I see their challenges all the time but have never participated in one! I love these sketch challenges though, it is so nice to have someone else decide how they want you to make the layout of your project!


I used a digital stamp from Whimsie Doodles, love all their Christmas images, they are adorable! I colored in my image with some Prismacolor markers: Crimson Red, Dark Brown, Blush Pink, Process Red, Apple Green, Dark Olive Green, Light Peach, and Raspberry. I sure do love my Prismacolor markers, although I do hope to one day invest in some copic markers. I have had my Prismacolor Markers for over 5 years now and they still work like a charm. The only one that is just now starting to run out is the Crimson red. I love the way these markers blend together to create a nice, clean colored look.

My sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Boutique Borders: Christmas Stamp set. I had a left over snowflake cut out from PTI's Fancy Snowflakes Die set, so I glittered that up and placed it behind my digital stamp. I embossed my red panel with clear embossing powder after stamping it with Hero Arts Snowflakes and Edges Cling stamp. The only thing I would change on the card is the red panel, I think it is too much red against all the red in my digital image, but I still like the card anyway.

Thanks for stopping by again, bye!

Dynamic Duos #82

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Happy Saturday! Any big plans for today? Have you all finished your Holiday shopping yet? Truth be told, I haven't even started! I know, I know, definitely need to get a move on it, there are only a couple of weeks left until the big day and it will be here faster than I want it to be!

The family and I are heading out later to our city's yearly downtown Tree Lighting, so I have been spending the morning just relaxing. I needed a couple of Thank You cards for some people at work, and I also wanted to put something together that wasn't too complicated and would be easy to re-create later on as a card set. Ruth over at Flower Sparkle created this same card design and I just love the simple design and look she created using Stampin' Up's Madison Avenue Stamp Set. I hadn't used this stamp set yet but was determined to give it a try. I am submitting this card set for this weeks Dynamic Duos Challenge #82. This is also my first Dynamic Duos Entry!


The colors for the challenge this week are Gumball Green and Primrose petals. I added some Kraft cardstock and a little bit of Crumb cake ink to match the Kraft, and some clear rhinestones for embellishment. The Thank You sentiment is from TPC Studio Card Crafting Thank You rubber cling stamps. I really needed to put this cards together today since I work tomorrow, and needed something easy since I don't have use of a die-cutting machine right now. I am happy to announce that my big shot has been shipped out as of yesterday and is expected to arrive by the 11th. Man, I cannot wait! In case you missed it, check out my previous posts to find out what happened to my poor Big shot :(

Thanks so much for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Christmas Card Set

Good afternoon fellow crafters. Happy Friday! Hope you are all having a great start to your weekend! I go in to work in a few hours, but I did spend the entire morning finishing up the cleaning of my craft room and I am so relieved that I am finally finished! Don't you just love the look of a nice clean, organized craft space? I know I sure do, I can find everything I need faster and hopefully I won't be throwing away any more die sets! :( I didn't have any luck finding my One Liner Die set, as I mentioned previously I misplaced it and I think I may have thrown it away in the trash. Anywho, here is how my room looks now:


There are a few more areas that I would like to organize, so hopefully I will get to that next week. Yesterday night while in the middle of all the cleaning madness, I was watching some Christmas youTube tutorials by Amy over on Prairie Paper and Ink and she had made this really nice, clean simple card with my favorite Kraft cardstock, and I really wanted to make a similar card set.


Since I can't use my Big Shot right now, I really liked the simplicity of this card. I used Kraft cardstock and patterned paper from the Paper Studio's Santa and Friends 6x6 paper pack. The stamp sets I used are Hero Arts Joy to All and a Recollections Christmas Stamp set which unfortunately doesn't have a name listed on it. This was very fast and simple to put together, and I just love it.

Thanks for stopping by, I need to stop by the post office before picking up the kiddos from school and heading off to work. I hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

CAS(E) this Sketch #56 and colourQ #218

Hello again, this is my second post for today and if this is your second time here today, thank you for stopping by again, I definitely appreciate it! Earlier today, I showed you my card for Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday Challenge #143 and you may have read about my Big Shot dying out on me. Well, since I had the day off today I definitely wanted to try and enter a few more challenges around the blogging world, even if I didn't have any way of using my Big Shot! Crazy how much we rely on our die-cutting machines!

I created a very simple, 2 card set today for CAS(E) this Sketch #56 and colourQ #218. This is only my second colourQ card and this is actually my very first CAS(E) this sketch challenge! I have been following their blog for a while now but have never entered a challenge. In fact, I do a whole lot of Papertrey Ink challenges and I decided it was about time I step out of my comfort zone and check out some other blog challenges for once!


I guess the good thing about not being able to die-cut anything right now is that I didn't have to over-think my card today. It was fairly simple to put together since I already had a sketch prepared for me and a color combo as well! I used a Kraft cardstock base and Papertrey Ink's Happy Harlequin Stamp set, along with the Stampin' Up Colors Real Red, Cool Caribbean, Lucky Limeade, Bermuda Bay, and White. I added some Crumb Cake ink as well to match my Kraft cardstock. I used Early Espresso ink to stamp my sentiment, which is from Hero Arts Joy to All stamp set. Very fast cards to put together, I love this color combo for Christmas, it is so pretty!

Again, thank you for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your day!

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday #143

Good afternoon fellow crafters! Hope you all are having a fabulous day! The last few days have been a little stressful and I cannot wait for the weekend! Today is the first day I have had off during the week in a LONG time! I am definitely enjoying the peace and quiet today! I promised myself I was going to spend as much time as possible cleaning up my craft room today because it looks like this right now:


Now this is actually an improvement from last night. Let me tell you, I tore my craft room apart. I was putting together my card for this week's Make it Monday Challenge and I was looking for my Papertrey Ink One Liners Die collection and I just could not find it ANYWHERE. I was devastated. I looked and looked and looked. Needless to say, I still have not had any luck finding it. I am almost positive that I may have accidentally thrown the bag they were in away in the trash... :( I am so sad! I remember last using them and I may have left them on top of a pile of magazines. I might have piled MORE magazines on top of those, and well just this past weekend, I threw all those magazines in the recycling bin without sifting through them. TERRIBLE MISTAKE. I am just praying there was nothing else in there that I wasn't supposed to toss because the trash was all picked up yesterday morning. And the worst part? The One Liners Die collections have been Out of Stock for a while now :( My fault, I guess I have learned my lesson! I still need to finish cleaning up in here and am hoping that by some small chance I end up finding the dies!

Anywho, back to the challenge! This week Danielle Flander's has shown us how to make a card using this technique called "Modern Whimsy" style. I used Papertrey Ink's Polka Dot Parade #9 and the Fancy Snowflake Dies for this card, along with a Kraft cardstock base. The "Bring on the Merry!" sentiment is from Hero Arts Bring on the Merry Stamp Set. I don't remember which paper pack the patterned paper is from because I pulled them out of my scrap pile. I also added some Velum banner die cuts as well. Want to here another devastating story? This is even more devastating than losing one die set. MY BIG SHOT BROKE! I was die-cutting my banners using PTI's double-ended banner die and it just BROKE! I looks like the bottom roller somehow got detached from the crankshot, I tried to fix it, but it is no use. I read around online how it might be possible to fix it, but I just ended up ordering another one and should have it by next week. NO BIG SHOT FOR A WEEK!!! How will I survive?!?!


Of course, I would have loved to add more layers to my card, but there just isn't much I can do without my big shot. I am in mourning until next week. Owell. Guess I definitely have to clean now.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!