Happy Mother's Day!

Here's a little card I made for my Mom today and a gift box to match. She loves hummingbirds so when I saw the Elements of Style SU! set, I knew I had to have it. The flowers make a nice background as well so I think this set will get some good use. No big plans today except lounging and maybe squeezing in some scrappy time. Hope everyone enjoys their day!

SU! stamps
Scenic Route paper
K & Co paper
SU kraft cs
Sizzix label die
Spellbinders border & label dies
Copics
Powder Keg ep
Tim Holtz distress ink

Some love for Mom...

Hey guys! I know it's been a long time, but I've been working away on a new mini that I am SO excited about!! A long time ago I'd beat myself up over not posting regularly to this blog. I finally decided to just get over it and get on with it. I am not a fast producer. It's the painful truth. And I'm not really one to post just for the sake of posting. This is primarily a scrappy blog and I started it (has it really been nearly 4 years ago??) as a way of trying to keep myself "accountable". Too often I let everything in my life take priority over my creative time and months would go by with nothing to show for all the toys that sat collecting dust in my craft room.

I'm happy to say that this blog has helped me with that and I now take time nearly every day to play. BUT--I don't pressure myself to finish things quickly. I'm a dreaded perfectionist and detail-oriented. It's plagued me all my life. Where am I going with this, you ask?? I share here as soon I've finished something and if there's long breaks in between...it's because I'm working on something and it's probably something big and time-intensive. I hate excuses, and this has really sounded like one, but I was more going for an explanation than an excuse.

That said, I have this vintage beach mini that's consuming all my time right now and I can't wait to share it!! I'm hoping to be finished with it in a few weeks. I'm also squeezing in a little mini I started a long time ago and now I'm desperately trying to finish it before Sunday so I can surprise my mom with it for Mother's Day AND I have this Mother's Day card to share today. I'm finally ready to part with that vintage mini from a few months ago. I'm packing it up today and sending it on it's way along with this card. (I apologize for the photo quality. Mother Nature was not cooperating today)

I used the Crate Paper Portrait collection on this one. What an awesome color combo in this paper! I've always been a big fan of teal and black, but the addition of salmon/orange in this is perfection!

Some of the details:
the black border along the bottom is a Martha Stewart punch
the yellow strip in the middle is the new Spellbinders Parisian Accents (I layered the cut-out border on top of the part left behind on the paper after die-cutting the border-if that makes sense?)
felt flowers are PTI dies and felt
the brad is Making Memories
notebook page is a PTI die
flourish stamps are Kaisercraft Up, Up and Away(LOVE this set)
"for you" is Quickutz Phoebe
"mom" is Tim Holtz Vintage Market alpha
ink is TH vintage photo distress ink

Gotta get back to work! Hope you'll check back here soon when I get this mini posted!

Hope everyone's having a great week!!

Vintage Mini-Album

So here it is finally! This is my first paper bag mini-album and my first attempt at a video. If you suffered through it--thank you! It was a little shaky and the camera was jumping all over the place(that wouldn't have anything to do with the person holding it I'm sure), but a lot of fun to make! I've decided to invest in a little bloggie recorder to {hopefully} make better videos in the future. No promises though--they might still stink...

This post is a little pic heavy too. I wanted to include some still shots for those that maybe don't like sitting through videos, especially ones that bad:)

This mini was supposed to be a Mother's Day gift for my mother-in-law LAST year. Oops. Looks like it's going to make a perfect gift THIS year! I had so much fun making this! I think I've found a new love for mini-albums. I've got at least 4 or 5 planned for the near future.

I used all sorts of goodies from my stash to make this album so it would be nearly impossible for me to list everything out. One major thing I forgot to mention on the video is almost all of the paper is K & Co. There's a teeny bit of PTI paper in there as well. If there's anything you specifically want to know- manufacturer etc, just ask in the comments.

Have a great week!

Hugs to you...

Ok, I admit it. There's something very familiar about this card...hmmmmmm....well, why reinvent the wheel. I really liked that heart doily and that little girl stamp {together} so I tried it again with these Pink Paislee papers. This one is my favorite. These papers make me happy. Maybe it's the unexpected color combo or the pretty flowers? I'm a sucker for pretty flowers.

I mailed this card and the little mailbox from yesterday's post to my favorite sister-in-law. She lives in the land of never-ending snow and I'm hoping these will cheer her up! I filled that mailbox full of various chocolates. You can't imagine how much that thing holds. It should hold her over for awhile. At least until Easter when I make another one of these, stuff it full of more chocolate and ship it off. What? I still have 10 of these things left to decorate. She'll get one for every holiday this year. Well, I might have to rethink that...shipping chocolate from Georgia in July is not such a great idea.

Here's a few details on the card: Pink Paislee Sweetness papers, SU Greeting Card Kids stamp, Quickutz Fiesta and Phoebe,Spellbinders labels,renaissance hearts and scalloped hearts dies, Martha Stewart paper rose, pearls and felt heart, SU cardstock.

My plan is to spend the rest of the weekend blissfully working away on my vintage mini with no interruptions. We'll see how far I get with that...

Enjoy your weekend!

A Funky Vintage Target $ mailbox

I'm having too much fun with these little mailboxes! I'm pretty disappointed in my photography though. A lightbox would be a really good thing... This one is actually hot pink, not the red color in the pics. I tried natural light, Ott-lite, and every white balance setting on the camera and I just couldn't get that pink to come through. Oh well, you get the idea.

I know the vintage style is getting a bit overdone these days, but I find myself still drawn to some of it and these papers had the right mix of vintage and a funky color combo. I'm a firm believer that you can make any style of paper work with your own personal style. For me, it's all about the typography. I'm a font freak. So, while I'll never go over the top vintage, I can still make it work for me by including the things I love the most in the design process. That usually involves lots of dies, alphas, and/or border punches. These are my go-to items and things that make me excited to create. Just some random ramblings I've been thinking about lately.

The papers on this one are Pink Paislee Sweetness, alpha is Quickutz Fiesta, punches are Martha Stewart scroll heart and doily heart border, metal keyhole is Tim Holtz, pearls, paper rose,felt heart and sticker on the flag are Martha Stewart, ribbon is from the $ bin at Michaels, and that white crocheted thing that's supposed to be a rose was handmade by yours truly. I stuck it on there anyway. Thought it looked kinda cool;)

I'm saving the matching card for tomorrow's post. I create way too slow to post two in one day! Hope you'll visit again tomorrow!

Love and Hugs

Here's a little matching card to the mailbox I posted last week. I love these little images in the SU Greeting Card Kids stamp set! They're fun to color and so sweet. I think she's perfect on this one! I played with some new toys to create this card. I used my new Grand Calibur with the large scalloped squares to cut the base of this card. I was going for a postage stamp look and I think it worked out pretty nicely. The papers are more of the Martha Stewart Valentines paper pad and the card base is cut from SU kraft. I used a plain white heart doily that you can pick up for a couple dollars at any craft store. I think this package had 12 of them and I bought them in every size available. They're just fun to have around when you're working on Valentine's projects or layouts. I then cut a heart using Spellbinders heart nestabilities and topped it with the pink heart embossed with an SU folder. I used a package of Martha Stewart felt hearts on the mailbox, but I didn't have any small red hearts left so I cut felt with the Spellbinders die and ran it through my sewing machine to add the white stitching. The "love & hugs" is Quickutz Blossom.

I'm working on another little mailbox that I hope to share in the next few days!

$ mailbox love...

So, I know these cute mailboxes were the 'it' thing maybe 4 years ago?? but this is the first year I bought any of them. I don't really know whose mailbox sent me over the edge, a youtube video, somebody's post on a message board, who knows. I kinda bought 12 of them. I don't even know 12 people that I would give these to. But what does that matter, right? I'm going to send a couple to family for Valentine's Day and then I saw some really cute ones decorated for Christmas. And, of course, I'm gonna have to make one of these for myself:)

I used a lot of Martha Stewart on this one, the paper, postage stamp sticker on the flag, felt hearts, and the trefoil heart border punch. I found it easier to cover it with a few smaller pieces of paper rather than wrapping one large piece around the mailbox. I used my cropadile to punch a hole in the lid to attach a ribbon pull with a brad. Cut through that metal like butter! The large white embossed heart on the flag is a Sizzix die that Stampin Up sells and the postage on the front lid are Quickutz dies. The 'love' is Quickutz Nutmeg mounted on a Spellbinders label diecut.

Gotta make this one a short post today. I have a few more of these to make using a few paper lines I've been dying to work with and I still need to finish up that mini-album from my last post. Hope you all are staying warm inside and using snow days to create!

Hello!?! Anyone out there???

Last time I checked it was October and then BAM! ...here it is halfway through January and the past 4 months are just a total blur. I will NEVER I repeat NEVER go through building a new house EVER AGAIN. It has got to be one of the most stressful things we've ever brought upon ourselves. If there's one reason to do it, it's to get everything in the house that YOU want, not what the people before you wanted. Mission accomplished. I absolutely LOVE my new house! The only thing that hubby and I would maybe do over is adding a second 3-drawer cabinet in the kitchen, but we could always have the cabinet guys come back out and put another one in so I'm not losing sleep over it.

I finally have a dedicated scrap studio! I'm not sharing it with anyone. No guest futon, no office desk for hubby, but maybe I'll share it with my dachsie--she likes to curl up in the chair in the corner. Thought I'd share a few pics of the new casa and scrappy space. I've been working away on a little vintage paper bag mini album since the Christmas break. Almost done with it. I've got a few sneak peaks of the work in progress. I really want to do a video of it, but I can't figure out what equipment I need to make that happen and I've never uploaded to youtube before. It's something I definitely want to try this year. For now, the still frames will have to do. I was hugely inspired by Tracy over at Tracy's Treasures. She has made some gorgeous mini-albums and really nice videos showcasing them. Maybe I'll ask her how to do the videos...

Here's the outside, I have yet to take a good pic with the garage door down! It's a 5 bedroom,3and1/2 bath home. Very deceiving from the outside, but this house is pretty darn big on the inside. Probably way more house than we really needed, but I don't intend to move again so I wanted to get it right this time!


The kitchen

The master bath



My scrap studio


The way it looks right now--yikes.

Vintage mini-album teaser...


I promise my absence from blogger is over now! Check back soon for more pics on the mini and hopefully a video??

'Tis the season for gift packaging...

And even though this gift is for a retirement party tonight(military retirement,people...we're not that old yet), it gave me all kinds of ideas for Christmas this year. I'm not going to lie. Stenciling this box took a little over an hour, but it was SO worth it. I couldn't find any good masculine looking gift bags that didn't have a fish and tackle on them(how cliche is that?) so I bought some plain 'ole white robe boxes on sale at Hobby Lobby and dug out this SU! stencil I bought a few months ago. I have a total fascination with anything even resembing a medallion. When I bought this, I envisioned using it on a cover for a mini-album(still haven't got around to working on that yet), so I knew it would look awesome all over a gift box.

I used Spiced Marmalade, Vintage Photo, and Tea Dye Tim Holtz distress inks and the applicator and used some stencil tape that wouldn't tear the box as I positioned these. Originally I was just going to do the top of the box, but then I thought it would look really cool if I turned it on end and continued the stencil along all the sides. I started by dabbing the Tea Dye with the applicator all over the stencil, then used Vintage Photo from the center out(but not all the way to the edges) and finished with a little Spiced Marmalade in the very center. I love these autumn colors!


I made the tag using a Cuttlebug cut/emboss/stencil folder I found at Hobby Lobby as well. I had never seen these before and I'm really glad I picked this up. It was super easy to make a really nice detailed tag. There's 5 different tags on it too. It cuts and embosses with one pass and then there's a flap on the back that you lift up, place your tag back in it's place and stencil over the embossed areas if you choose. I used Vintage Photo on the tag and a PTI sentiment stamp with white embossing powder to finish it.

A thick ribbon tied in a knot with a bit of jute cording to attach the tag completes the packaging. If you were using a smaller stencil on a smaller box, it would be a very fast way of making your own unique gift box. I have a small Heidi Swapp damask stencil I can't wait to use now!

You know what this means, right? I'll be scouring the stores looking for cool stencils...

Hope you enjoy the Halloween weekend and save some of that candy for yourself!