Crazy Monkey Love

I probably mentioned this when I first started this blog that it's named after my little demon dachsie. No, her real name isn't "monkey" but that's what we end up calling her most days. So, my mom surprised us with a stuffed monkey for her Valentine's gift. This dog has a serious thing for stuffed animals. Sometimes she cuddles with them but most of the time she's just trying to "kill" them. Oh well, it's cute anyhow.

I finally finished a page while cropping at a friends house. This is a first for me. I never get anything done at crops, which is why I usually don't like going to them. I'm a loner when it comes to scrappin. I get in the zone and don't really like interruptions but the biggest reason I don't like going to crops is the inability to pack my entire scraproom and take it with. I was able to just deal with it Friday night and used what little I thought to bring with me and it was so much easier than having all the choices at home. Maybe I should throw random things in a bag more often and scrap in the backyard or something :)

I used some BG Blush from my stash on this page and that felt good. Need to reduce the stash so I can feel less guilt when buying more. For the pink background, I traced a piece of scalloped cs and then cut it out.

Hope you all enjoyed your Valentines Day!

Happy Heart Day!

Just one last Vday card to share. I tried paper-piecing on this one. I've seen this in the SCS gallery but wasn't sure I understood how to do it but it's really pretty simple. At least, this is my version of paper-piecing. I really have no idea if it's the "right" way of doing it but I liked the end result :) I know I've used these same products to death but I couldn't resist. The stamps are Pink Paislee and the white embossed hearts are a Martha Stewart punch. Now it's time to kick back, let my honey take me to lunch today and then squeeze in some shopping.shhhhhhhhh..... he doesn't know that's in the plans....

More bittersweet by the day

Obviously, I just can't get enough of this BG line. Well, I guess I just can't get enough of the QK Storybook alpha either. For this one, I used the Martha Stewart valentine stamps and embossed with a light pink ep. For the labels one, I traced and cut out the mat again and then decided it was missing something so I traced around the smaller of the two with a brown pen. The design was inspired by the gift bag on the cover of the current Papercrafts mag. If you haven't picked this issue up, give it a look. There are some super cute ideas in there!

A few Valentines for the kids

I love making cards for my niece and nephew. It helps to justify the cutesie animal stamps and QK dies I've amassed over the last year. Somehow, I don't think my 15 year old son would appreciate that love bug card. Just a guess. I did, however, think the $ stamp from JoAnn's with the elephants was less-cutesie and paired it with some BG Blush and QK(of course) to come up with a card for him. It's kinda fun giving him handmade cards now. He sees how much time and effort I put in to them and he's actually really appreciative. I never would've seen that coming from him. That's not to say that he doesn't constantly question my obsession with this hobby though.

The love bug card uses another one of those cute $ stamps from Michael's this time and the BG Bittersweet. There's a little bit of QK (be mine) and a little bit of Sizzix (hearts) on there too, some $ ribbon and an MS border punch. On the wild for you card I used a $ giraffe stamp from Imaginesce ,a couple of QK alphas, and a combination of BG Blush and Bittersweet. Do you see a trend here?? Those $ stamps ROCK.

If you do pick up the elephant stamp at J's, be forewarned--you have to color it in FAST with markers and it's not easily done. After stamping the image, I filled it in better with prismacolors.

Spreading Some Love...

One of my most anticipated moments in recent years happened on my birthday a few weeks ago and what did I do?? I forgot to blog about it. I finally entered the wonderful world of dslr's!!! I've dreamt about a camera like this for YEARS. After tons of research and paws-on handling in the stores, I decided on the Canon Rebel XS and it didn't disappoint! I can't say enough awesome things about this camera. I know it's just the beginning of my journey into real photography, and I'm so happy I went with a Canon. I have a wishlist a mile long of the new glass I want and a very cool hiking bag to protect and bring my new pal around with me on our hiking adventure this summer. I can't believe what I've been missing all these years!!

Ok, enough gushing about the new toy--time for some Valentine's cards. I'm still learning the camera but the pics I can get of projects now are already so much better. I don't, however, have a good lighting situation and I sold my ott-lite last year. Really wish I hadn't done that now. I have a pseudo-lightbox setup that's working nicely but still using halogen lights so forgive the icky color-cast. I promise it's not the XS's fault ;)

Here's a card inspired by a sketch on SCS and using a little bit of everything. I absolutely love the new BG Bittersweet line and I'm SO not a pink girlie girl. Of course, being the Quickutz freak that I am, I like to mix these two manufacturers so the ribbon heart is QK punched from velvet paper and the alphabet is the new QK Storybook (SUPER CUTE font!!!). I used the smallest Nestabilities Labels One and then for the mat, I just traced around the Nestie and cut it out with scissors. The next size Nestie up from this one just produces too big of a mat for me.

The scalloped square was made with the long scalloped rectangles Nestabilities. For whatever reason, I just haven't gotten around to buying the scalloped squares and found the rectangles can easily serve double-duty in a pinch. I added a little trim on the bottom using the Martha Stewart lace valentine border punch and finished the card with some American Crafts $ ribbon from Michael's and some rhinestones.

Oh, one last tip--if you are lucky enough to get your hands on that MS border punch, the little hearts it punches out and leaves behind are so cute to use as accents here and there. That's what I used under "love".