I'm all giddy about the wedding we're attending this weekend! We're at the stage (or I guess, old age) in our lives where we really don't have too many friends getting married anymore. Divorced seems more like the case now. yikes. I met the cute couple 3 years ago when I went on a trip to Korea to see Jeff and it just so happened it was the 2 weeks I was visiting when their relationship began so it's just all the more cool to get to see them get married. So, on a happy blissful wedding note, I wanted to share this little wedding gift I put together this week.

I've gone a little vintage for this wedding. Well, a lot vintage. Right down to my dress, shoes, jewelry, handbag and of course, the card/gift. It was right around the time I bought my vintage style dress that the DCWV La Creme stack was released in all it's gorgeous vintageness. It was perfect for what I had in mind. All of the papers I used on this project are from that stack except the cream card base( I think it's a Wausau brand specialty paper) and the insert paper inside the card that I have no idea where it came from but I'm SO glad I had it.

I won't bore you with all the little details but I will list what products I used and explain a couple new-to-me techniques that may be of interest. First, I stamped the wedding bells with black ink, let it dry, and then traced the image with a fine-tip Zig glue pen and quickly spread black fun flock over the image and pressed it in. You then let it fully dry and shake off the excess flock. Voila, it's that simple and matches the beautiful flocked paper on the front of the card. Getting the insert paper inside the card to stick was another challenge. I finally found Tombo multi-glue (the green cap) run down the inside seam will actually hold the paper in. It's about the only adhesive that will hold the paper in. Trust me on this. And last, the envelobox. After I tied off that wide wired ribbon on the card, I realized there was no way it was fitting in a regular envelope. I had planned from the start to use the tutorial on the Scor-Pal website to make my own matching envelope, but there were NO instructions for making an "envelobox" -- at least not for the size card I had made. So, I searched the internet. And searched, and searched. I can't believe no one has done a Youtube video on how to make these. So, I improvised using the Scor-Pal envelope tutorial. It's basically adding 1/4" to the measurements and adding 4 extra 1/4" score lines. Jeff is going to help me make a video tutorial for this so stay tuned....

Now the products:

DCWV La Creme stack
MS doily lace border punch
EK scallop border punch
MS dotted scallop border punch
Offray ribbon(cream and black)
Hero Arts pearls
SU! rub-ons
Spellbinders Nestabilities
Stampendous "Bells of Love" and "Bride and Groom" and Fun Flock
Scor-Pal (tutorials for envelope and square box also used)

Happy Friday!

So glad it's the weekend and the weather's gorgeous here for once! Here's a birthday card using that cute Quickutz birdie. I'm loving the new Fiskars Apron Lace border punch too! I have the whole weekend to myself to spend scrapping while Jeff's on a golf weekend with the guys in Myrtle Beach and I'm hoping to work on a wedding card and gift holder for our friends' wedding we'll be attending next weekend in Columbus, GA. After that, the weekend's open for hopefully some layouts. The annual PageMaps contest is open now through May 25th and I'll probably submit again this year. You can't win if you don't play, right? Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!

Some Easter cards to share...

So another year and another Spring Break that we sat right here wishing we had remembered for Jeff to put in for leave. Duh. I have to say the kid hasn't complained at all this week about staying home and except for rude exec types wearing golf attire and driving aggressively in their rented cheap-a$$ sedans, it's been a pretty good week :) That said, I'm already planning our vaca escape for next April. I've been scrappy all week with Easter fast approaching and another commissioned end-of-tour gift to get done. I'm absolutely going out of my mind wanting to scrap some layouts but needing to get other projects done first. So much product, so little time.

Here's a few of the cards I knocked out this week. Both were somewhat lifted from a few blogs I browsed(Cupcakiehelen is the original artist of the bunny card and I'm not sure about the artist on the sheep card but I think I found it on 2P's or SCS. I can't find either of these blogs again, so if it's yours, please let me know so I can give you due credit) and I just tweaked them a little to make them mine. I received the most awesome RAK in the mail last month from one of my online buddies (thank you Beth!!) and the papers and ribbon have been perfect for these!

I used SCAL to cut the title and eggs on the bunny card. I love having the ability to cut pretty much anything I need to with my Cricut now. The font is WhoaNelly-better known as the MM Jewelry Box sticker font. Of course, it will never replace my QK fonts. I still reach for those most of the time. I used QK Dragonfly on the sheep card and funflocked that little guy. He's so cute and fuzzy now! I added a little funflock to the centers of the bunny ears too. Very cool product no longer collecting dust in my scrap room:)

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".

In Answer to a Question on 2Peas

Here are pics of our kitchen remodel. A girl on 2Peas asked for input on kitchens with white cabinets and how to deal with them and I can remember just hating these cabinets when we moved in and at a total loss as to where to go with it. I hope this inspires her to work with what she has. It can truly be beautiful and fresh looking. I'll never go back to oak.

Looking back, I'm amazed we even bought this house with the kitchen looking like this. Jeff and I completely remodeled our previous house in El Paso to our tastes and had such a good time with it, I guess we wanted to do it again. I don't recommend buying a house with ANY wallpaper. Never again.

I do love my kitchen now. It's bigger than any other we've had with tons of cabinets. My plans are to rip out the awful white laminate countertops and install a brown/black fleck granite but we have to wait and see what Jeff's retirement holds for us.

Happy New Year!

Now that the holidays are behind us and things are quieting down, I found some time to scrap again.woohoo!! It was a really good scrappy Christmas and I've been looking forward to playing with some new toys. The first was my new Cricut Storybook cart. I just LOVE this font! I cut it a few times and layered them together and then used SU! iridescent ice ep to make my own glittery thickers.

I know some of you might ask "why would you scrap pics of your dirty laundry and washer??" And I say--why not?? It was a really stressful time for us(well, primarily me) when our old one crapped out and we(again, me)had to research new washers and make a choice and then await the glorious delivery day. Everything went as planned, until the machine was unloaded from the truck and unboxed with a HUGE dent in the front. Yikes. I just couldn't accept it. I'm a perfectionist and let's face it--the new front loaders are BIG cash. So, they loaded my old one on the truck and the new dented washer along with it, and I was left with nothing. No washer for 2 weeks. I think I actually shed a tear when my I saw my old one sitting up there staring down at me asking "what did I do wrong? why do I have to go?". Crazy, I know. I was attached. We had that washer since day one of our marriage and it's made at least 7 military moves with us. It's been like family.

Well, I got over it. The new one is truly a thing of beauty (when it finally arrived dent-free). But I knew the LO I did of this really had to be about my feelings about saying goodbye to the old one.

Hope everyone had a relaxing and wonderful holiday and you get back to scrapping again too!