From This Day Forward...

Yet another wedding card! This was wedding #3 this year, with 2 more to go... eesh :) But then it's an excuse to make pretty cards!

I had a hard time coming up with something so I just started stamping! I was FINALLY able to order Guidelines from PTI when it came back in stock but didn't play with it until a few weeks later. I did have one boo-boo side but that's ok, you just flip it over and try again. I will say that it does take a little practice to get the hang of it but WOW, the finished product is maximum effect with minimum effort

I was initally going to have one more layer but it seemed like a travesty to cover up the pattern :) so I kept it simple by just adding a "tag" with a monogram & ribbon.


Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Guidelines, Flower Garden, Birthday Basics ("H")
Paper: PTI Dark Chocolate, Vintage Cream, Sweet Blush
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Sweet Blush
Accessories: PTI Sweet Blush Satin Ribbon, Sakura Clear Glitter Pen, Making Memories Slot Punch

Thanks for looking!

Pretty in Pink

Another one of my good friends got married recently and I wanted to make sure I kept the standard for gift baskets high :). I first made the card and chose pink & brown to go with her colors.


Before I wrote on the insert for the card, I lightly traced the pocket onto it with pencil so I knew where not to write. This way, once inserted, you don't see the writing. I blocked all the writing, it's personal people! :) I'm really, really happy for my friend but sad cuz she's moving to Boston because of her husband's job - but hopefully they'll be back in a few years!! YAY!


So then I wanted to wrap the gifts creatively... I usually try and make it a theme but SOMEONE, who will remain nameless, bought up all the baking supplies on the registry. Making it hard for me to make a baking themed basket. And there wasn't anything thing else "theme-y" so I ended up buying up all her pop-up tupperware things and another boxed set of storage items. In addition I had to buy something extra for the honeymoon!! :)


I went to Michael's to see what baskets were available and found this flat one with brown lining - perfect! Then I carefully folded the unmentionables into 2 of the containers so they showed through and a jewlery box in another. For the 2 empty cannisters I just used pretty paper to line them. I tied pink ribbon on the ones that had something inside and dark chocolate ribbon on the empty ones. so the bride would know which ones to open. Then I stuffed extra wrapping paper around them so there wouldn't be too much shifting. The big box is just the boxed set wrapped up.

Here you can see more detail of how one of the unmentionables shows through :). I also shrink wrapped the basket for a professional finish then tied it together to the gift wrapped box with pink tulle and taped the card to the front. I love tulle.

Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Boxes, Bags, & Tags, Shapes by Design ("Celebrate")
Paper: PTI Dark Chocolate, White; SU! Purely Pomegranate & DP
Ink: PTI Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Dark Chocolate
Accessories: PTI Sweet Blush Satin Ribbon, random button, Scor-Pal, Corner Rounder punch, SU! File Folder Tab punch

Thanks for Looking!!

Mr. & Mrs.

Here is a gate-fold card I made as a wedding card. It's a 5x5 card and I used the tutorial from SCS. I also made an envelope using a template I had from Paper Source out of a 12x12 sheet of Vellum. The oval "Mr. & Mrs." helps hold the card closed.

The designer paper is sponged in Dark Chocolate and the white square is sponged with Spring Moss. The only thing that did not show up in the picture was the background I stamped in Aqua Mist behind the Mr. & Mrs.

I covered the flowers with my Stardust pen to add a little sparkle. The close up kinda shows it :).

I also stamped the branch image inside and outlined it again with my stardust pen. I used my Making Memories slot punch to punch out slots to hold the gift (check). While leaving some room to write something.

Fine Print:
Stamps: SU! Artfully Asian; PTI B&C Monogram Edition, Mixed Messages
Paper: PTI Aqua Mist, White, Dark Chocolate; PTI Everyday Blessing DP
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss
Accessories: Sakura Stardust Clear Pen, Copic Markers, Making Memories slot punch

Thanks for Looking!!

Thank You Card for being 30

Not much to say with today's post. Just wanted to share the thank you cards I made to go along with the birthday theme from my last post. The hard part was getting my husband to write them. Anyone else have trouble with this? I even wrote out an outline for him to use but that totally backfired! I figured that since I had written the ~150 thank you's for our wedding, he at least owed me 8 of them for his own birthday?? Oh well, at least they'll go out soon, I hope!!


Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Beautiful Blooms, Flower Garden
Paper: PTI White, Aqua Mist, Dark Chocolate, PTI Father Knows Best DP
Ink: PTI Aqua Mist, Dark Chocolate
Accessories: Making Memories Square Brads

Thanks for Looking!!

Who's turning 30???

Hahaha... my husband finally turned thirty in August, he's 9 months younger than me. I know, I know, "gasp! younger man?!" What can I say? heh heh heh just kidding. He hates large groups and noise (already acts older than he really is) so we just had a handful of friends over for Korean BBQ. But I wanted to make it a little special.

Sooo... I made this pennant banner to liven things up.

Here's detail of one of the pennants. The letters are also from Archiver's die cut letters, also from the "Chunky" font but I used the capital letters with the shadows. Also if you notice, I use a lot of sheer navy blue ribbon - um... I have a lot, I mean A LOT of it leftover from my wedding (from 2 years ago!!) so whenever I can I try and use it and I mean WHENEVER.

So now you may now wonder where I got the color scheme? Well I got the idea from Amy Rysavy. She had posted a gift she made for her husband using the Father Knows Best paper and set and I filed it away for later. When I was thinking of a theme for the party, this came to mind. I thought the color scheme was nice, boyish but not typically so. Therefore I take ZERO credit for the idea, I only changed the main image and the sentiment. Then I made the pennants to match.

Oh and I used SU! Soft Sky instead of Aqua Mist just cuz I had bought a bunch of it along with the ribbon. But I used it with PTI Summer Sun.

I filled nugget tins with matching Jelly Belly's. Don't they match the color scheme exactly?? I got Berry Blue, Pink Grapefruit, and Peach flavors

The flower from Flower Garden and the sentiment from SU! Simply Said are embossed with White EP.

Also to make it even more special, I ordered a cake from Cake Girls, in Chicago. If you can't tell, my husband likes golf. He has moments when he is obsessed but I have moments when I'm obsessed with crafting so we always consider ourselves even :).

His reaction was so funny cuz he kept asking "what are you supposed to do with it? Do we eat it? Do we eat it? What is that? What is that?" And I had to keep responding with, "yes, yes, we can eat it, it's a cake!" It took some convincing for him to cut the cake but don't worry, we cut that sucker and ate it! It was really good!


So even though we don't have any kids, that doesn't mean you can't have themed parties for adults, right? And without the cheesy kinds you get at a party favor store. After I had spent so much time on my friends' 1st birthday party & baby shower, I felt I had to step it up for that special person in my life - just didn't seem fair to not spend my time on him :). Overall it went well, my friends sorta made fun of me for it but I don't care! :P

Thanks for looking and be sure to send any questions my way!

All wrapped up!

So for the presents that go with the card in my last post... I made my own wrapping paper for cuttlebug dies that I bought my friend, Heidi, for her birthday.

I used regular printer paper because I was in a pinch and PTI Beautiful Blooms randomly all over. I used almost every PTI ink color! Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart & Summer Sun. Sorry that the colors don't show up in the pic, I was using early morning sunlight before work.

Then as the baby shower gift, the group of crafty girls at work decided to make scrapbook pages so she'd have a head start by the time the baby came . Here are my pages.


This one is a total scraplift from the page I took a picture of at the Jolee sticker booth at CHA. I changed the writing to be like a birth announcement. It was pretty simple and I like how the hand drawn borders give it a whimsical look. I'll post a similar one I did in blue later.


Here's a close-up. I'd never thought to layer the stickers from Jolee but it adds so much more! I'm gonna try and do it more often.


Let me know if there's anything you'd like to know about the stuff I've used.

Thanks for looking!!

Birthday AND a Baby?!?

We threw a surprise Baby Shower/Birthday Lunch for one of my scrappy friends at work and I made this card for everyone to sign. I used the CMWC15 sketch from the PTI forum, kinda. I had just gotten the Green Thumbs set from Papertrey Ink and was itching to try it. I used the rock & roll method for the flowers, I'm still workin' on it :P.

The neat thing with this card was making a slot for a gift card. I saw this on someone's site but I don't remember where- I'll be sure to post where when I do. Before you adhere the layer to the card base you cut a slit just a little larger than the gift card and use a circle punch to punch a half circle. Then stick your layer on but be sure to leave the middle adhesive free.

Fine Print:
Stamps: Green Thumbs, Bitty Baby Blessings, Women of Life additions (&), B&C Monogram Edition
Paper: SU! Kraft, PTI White, Spring Moss, Misc. Lavender CS, Bitty Baby Blessings DP
Ink: SU! Lavender Lace, Almost Amethyst, PTI Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Palette Charcoal
Accessories: PTI Spring moss Grossgrain ribbon, Sakura Glitter Pen, circle punch, foam adhesive, markers (for stems & pitcher).

Thanks for looking!

Baby Shower Galore

So to continue my baby shower theme, here is what I came up with for a gift. I got my friend a diaper bag from her registry and filled it with some goodies. I made a last-minute gift using fabric and stamps to make some unique onsies. I got the idea from Taylor of Taylored Expressions. The fabrics are from something I picked up in Japan last September. I realized I only had very floral fabrics and so I picked the most "boy-y" looking one to make these :).

Three onsies fit inside one of the larger PTI boxes (the ones that the stamps come wrapped in). I made a belly band to match the card I made.

Here's the diaper bag filled with everything and ready to go. I stuffed some paper on the bottom so that things would stick out and tied up the handles with some ribbon.


I also made a banner for the shower (one that I could keep and re-use :) ). I tried to make them look like baby blocks but don't know if I accomplished the look.

Here's a close-up. I used PTI cardstock, Aqua Mist, Spring Moss and Dark Chocolate. The letters were die cut at my local Archiver's using the "Chunky" font. I randomly punched scallops with my SU!, scored lines and rounded the corners.

Thanks for looking!!

My Scor-Pal & Awards

It's been awhile since I've updated, no? I've been so busy crafting and creating that I haven't had a chance to sit and go through pics and to blog. I apologize - to all 5 of you :) - my faithful readers. But stay tuned! I'm working on a bunch of new entries with lots of projects and pictures! First things first - I was awarded some awards!!!! How neat-o is that?

Erica from One Creative Life gave me the Brillante Bog award.

And Mary K awarded me the "I Love Your Blog" award.

Thanks so much ladies... I'm gonna be a rebel and just say to check out my blog roll for my most commmonly read/most inspiring blogs!

In other news... I finally was able to get a Scor-Pal. I'll admit I opted to wait for a coupon from Archiver's. It makes me feel better when I get a bargain. So once I got it home and unwrapped - it was off to the web to discover all the cool things you can do with it.

One of my first creations with the Scor-Pal ws to make a lattice pattern to dress up a card base. I used SU! Very Vanilla. Then all I did was attach as a focal point, an ATC from our PTI ATC Swap. I used one from Regandags, perfect for a baby card for one of my husband's co-workers. So easy-peasy!

Fine Print: (From Regandags)
Stamps: PTI Mixed Messages, My Punny Valentine, Polka Dot basics
Paper: PTI White, Lemon Tart
Ink: PTI Lemon Tart, Dark Chocolate
Accessories: Offray Ribbon, Oval nestabilites, Swiss Dots folder, Tiny Tags

Thanks for looking!!

Oh Baby!

Gosh my friend has gotten a ton of "air" time on my blog. I made her a card when we found out she was pregnant, then another card b/c she was so sick early in her pregnancy, I made her baby shower invites, and now a card for her present!

I used a sketch from Amy Rysavy, for some reason I really like her sketches... I got the idea to paper piece the baby buggy from our PTI Baby ATC swap... Thanks Charlene (Willow01)!

Stay tuned for a baby shower banner... kekeke, I made that too. Just forgot to take pictures before I gave it to my friend who's hosting. I'll take some this weekend to share with y'all!

Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Bitty Baby Blessings, Polka Dot Basics, Borders & Corners Monogram Edition
Paper: PTI Spring moss, DarkChocolate; SU Bordering Blue, So Saffron; Autumn Leaves Shangri-La DP
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Versamark
Accessories: SU! Wild Wasabi DS Grossgrain, SU! Scallop Punch, Marvy Jumbo Circle punch

Thanks for looking!

Sew Pretty!

If you didn't know... I'm famous :). Hahahaha... just kidding... but check this and this out!! Ain't that SO cool?? It's cool too cuz I got like 100 hits in ONE day. I know that's chump change for some of you but for someone where 1/2 the hits are from yourself... that's a BIG deal :).

Anyways, if you check out that first link, it's to Lisa Johnson's blog and you can see that she was at the Marvy booth at CHA the whole time. She was showcasing their new Fabric Paint Pens and we got to decorate canvas bags with them using her Flower Garden set. That inspired me to do something similar.

TADA!

I used the stamp as a template to embroider a few things. I've NEVER done this before, cross sticth, yes, but embroider, no. Lisa's design TOTALLY lends itself to it though.
I first embroidered my digital camera case. I liked the case but didn't like the lettering on it so I thought I'd cover it up. I stamped the flower with white craft ink and the threads eventually covered it all up. What do you think? Not bad for my first time, no? It was kinda hard b/c the fabric was stretchy and if you pulled to hard, you squished the design. You can tell I'm not that consistent but I got the hang of it for the next project.

This was for a canvas bag for my MIL for her to take to doctor's visits. See, I improved!! :) I was going to do a lot more but my hand started hurting so I figured simple was better :P.

Thanks for looking!

CHA Day 2

Oh Man! Sorry everyone for leaving you hanging for so long! :) Here are some more pictures from CHA - that are SUPER DUPER late.

These are from the McGill Punch Booth. They had LOTS of ideas but I really liked this one of a placecard. I would probably never have a party nice enough to make these for but aren't they SUPER cute?

This was from the EK Success Booth, near all the Jolee's Boutique stickers. I really liked the layout, so I took a picture. You may be seeing a similar page by me soon! :)

This one and the next one are from the Doodlebug booth. Such cute cards!

These 2 are from the Just Rite Stamper Booth. And I swear, I think the Kraft paper is from Papertrey. Who knows, maybe the designer is a PTI designer too.

Ok, now that that's all done... on to crafting!

CHA!

Hi People! I am still sorta in a daze. I had an AWESOME opportunity to attend CHA (a.k.a., Craft & Hobby Association Convention & Trade Show). My PTI forum friend Lynn generously offered passes to anyone who was able to go. I jumped at the chance to go but had NO idea what I what to expect. I had always heard about this convention, especially since I live close to Rosemont, where's it's been held for several years.

This is a picture of Me, Lynn & Debbie at the Mrs. Grossman booth, posing with the Ace of Cakes cake.

I'm totally behind in the posting seeing that everyone else has already posted...but here it goes! And just to warn you, this is a very long post but it has lots of pictures!

My first day I got there and met up with Lynn and her friend Debbie (side note: there are a lot of crafters out there named Debbie!). They were SUPER nice to have let me tag along with them. I had so much fun hanging out with them and seeing all the things that had to be seen. Thanks Lynn & Debbie!!!!!!!!

One of our stops included the Marvy booth and guess who's there demo-ing their new fabric markers? None other than Lisa Johnson of Poppy Paperie & PTI Stamp Designer extraordinaire! I kinda geeked out but she was so nice to me - even took a picture of me in action! Check out her site. We used her stamp set, Flower Garden from PTI, to create designs and color them onto canvas bags. Incidentally, I was due to get an order from PTI that day and Flower Garden was in the box when I got home!

Here we are at the Provo Craft Booth - it was HUGE! They were doing a raffle when we happened to walk by and guess who made an appearance! The Cricut and purple thing (?)!! I had to have a picture... too bad my eyes were closed!

The one cool thing was that not only did all the companies have out all their wares, they also had tons of completed projects on display. Here is a wall of scrapbook pages (sorry, don't know where from). I was again, overwhelmed and didn't know what to take pictures of or who or even what to stop & see. Kinda just followed Lynn & Debbie around. :)

We stopped at the Ranger booth, another HUGE one and they had like a ton of well-known crafters doing demos. This is Claudine Hellmuth doing a demo on sticky backed canvas. I didn't even KNOW she was famous until I saw the sign over her head. This is what I'm talking about... how clueless I was :).

Here of course is Tim Holtz, the rockstar of the crafting world. It was so funny because when he came up to start his demo, ladies came out of nowhere and surrounded the table. If you look really closely at the blond lady behind Tim, that's Ali Edwards!!

After spending close to 8 hours on the floor, we still hadn't seen everything! But there was still dinner! "What!" you say, there's more?!? Oh yes, there's more! Kimberly Crawford, also from the PTI forum, organized a dinner. At first it was going to only be Lynn, Debbie, Kim & myself. Then we kept hearing that Nichole Heady and some others were coming. Little did we know that 4 would soon become 12! But what a 12 it was!

Here we are post dinner... there was Jennifer Buck, Lisa Johnson, Dawn McVey, Nichole Heady, Heather Nichols, Michelle Wooderson, Kimberly, me and two of Heather's friends. Lynn & Debbie missed the group pic!! I wish there was more time to sit and talk to each of these ladies. The surprising thing was not only were they NICE, they were so REAL :). That's a compliment, I swear! I felt like I knew these ladies but only through the blogging world, it was beyond AWESOME to not only meet them but HANG out with them.

Here's a picture from Dawn McVey's camera, thanks for sending it my way - I may need to frame it :P, dorky, I know! You can tell by my smile just how dorky I am :).

I have just a few more pictures to post from the Day 2 so stay tuned... and I will start posting some crafty things too, I promise.
Thanks for reading!

Helloooo!

Hi Everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. This weekend was busy and I haven't had time to sit down & post. So do you like my new banner? Just thought I'd try something new. It's acutally a picture I took while I was stopped at a red light. :). Every morning I pass these really pretty blue-purple flowers and one day I happened to stop right in front of them. I opened my passenger side window and snapped a few. I have no idea what kind of flowers these are but they grow along the road everywhere around where I live (suburbs of Chicago). Anyone know what they're called?

I had a chance this past weekend (thanks to Lynn) to attend CHA! I just downloaded pictures last night so I'll try posting some of the things I saw. I also go to meet a lot of people from Papertrey, including NICHOLE HEADY herself! It was SO cool!!!! So stay tuned for pictures. I'll also be posting some crafty projects soon too :).

Thanks!
Debbie

Out on a Limb

Here's another birthday card. I hadn't used Out on a Limb by PTI in awhile so I brought it out. It really is effortless to get a beautiful and elegant focal image with this set.

It's hard to tell but I embossed the "Happy Birthday" for a little something extra!

Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Out on a Limb, Birthday Basics
Paper: SU! Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate, PTI Stamper's select white
Ink: Palette Burnt Umber, PTI Perfect Match Spring moss, Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet
Accessories: SU! Ticket punch, Rhinestones, clear embossing powder

Thanks for looking!

Cutesy & Fun Baby Shower Invite

So I got a call from a friend who wanted to know if I had time to make baby shower invites. Of course I said yes. Then she said, "Uh, I need 36 by next week." I then said it would end up being pretty simple and she was ok with that. :) I also asked what kind of theme she wanted and I gave her the choice between elegant or cutesy & fun. She chose cutesy and fun. :)

Here's what I came up with... a pocket invite, where the pocket is held by the ribbon so there is no gluing and I can get three 4" pockets from a 12x12 sheet of paper. Easy AND economical. I also chose a paper with pattern all over so there would be minimal decoration needed for the pocket. I actually tried to find a double sided paper but nothing seemed to fit what I was looking for.

Here is the insert with the shower information. I printed the information onto vellum and then layered it over green cardstock. I stamped a border using the itty bitty animals from Bitty Baby Blesssings and stamped the onesie so it showed through the vellum. Sorry, had to blur out some personal info. Then the two layers are held together by the eyelets. I also stamped a border along the "fold" of the pocket.

Here's a closeup of the stamped details:
Obviously, or I hope obviously, she's having a boy. So the colors are in the boy palette range, she's actually the same person I made this for and she is doing MUCH better.

Fine Print:
Stamps: PTI Bitty Baby Blessing, Stampendous little star
Paper: DCWV Glitter Boy Stars DP, Vellum, Archiver's Apple (?) CS
Ink: SU! Mellow Moss, Apricot Appeal
Accesories: SU! Bashful Blue grossgrain ribbon, Making memories eyelets, Fiskars small corner rounder

Thanks for looking!