Love me some scraps

I love scraps! I hoard scraps! I cannot stand to throw away scraps! Luckily, I had some extra time and some creative energy. The extra embellishments did not hurt. Thus, I made a few thank you cards and a tag for fall. Something about tags always inspires me. Little bits of creative play.

Hope that you enjoy!

Crate paper arrived!!!

I ordered the Crate Paper 6x6 pad of Paper Heart collection. Such fun!! It is so Valentine-ish and romantic with hearts and flowers and of course, polka dots. I could not resist and decided to use this pack as the basis for my Valentines. Here is the first round.

Hope that you enjoy!

a little bit of love in your heart

Here is another round of valentines. And these were made with paper that I have been hoarding since last Valentine's day. I am a serious hoarder! Luckily, I was invited to participate in a Valentine swap and therefore had a great excuse/ reason to use up the last of my favorite heart paper.

I started out thinking I was going to make one kind of Valentine and duplicate it. But it was more fun to play with paper combinations and stamp sets. Sometimes I get carried away. There is a bit of bling on each though.

Hope that you enjoy.

A good start

Scraps again! I pulled out some old fun PEEP scraps and Stampin' Up's Life Cycles stamps and had a ball. Nothing like some magenta ink and bling to make my day!

Here are my first round of valentines. I had a lot of fun using the tandem bicycle stamp. It is so cute that I cannot resist using it whenever I get the chance.

A little bit of scrap paper to bring a smile to the lips and put a little love in the heart. Cannot wait to send them out!

A good way to spend an afternoon

When I get a little free time and space on the dining room table, I like to play. I pulled out some old scraps from past kits, and a few extra embellishments. Then, I grabbed some buttons (hard to do any fun play without some buttons) and ribbon. And then it was good times. I worked on a few cards. A birthday card or two, a few thank you cards and a then just a few scrappy fun pieces. Nothing too adventurous but not too staid either.

Most of the scraps came from past Apron Strings kits. My Mind's Eye and Echo Park paper were the front runners in these endeavors. Sometimes it is just nice to have a great play date with glue, glitter and some dogs!

The Wizard of Oz

My friendly, playful niece likes several things, but two of her favorites are mail and the Wizard of Oz. Thanks to Graphic 45, I can give her both. Recently, Graphic 45 came out with a Wizard of Oz collection that is just too fun. Being a huge fan of Graphic 45 I snagged it right away. I took an old paperback that was dying (losing its binding, etc) and made flowers using my punch. Then I threaded some gingham ribbon through some thrift store buttons and glued them on for a center. I really liked the result. Will definitely be using that technique again. In the end, it was just a matter of cutting, gluing and arranging. A nice way to while away the afternoon. Hope that you enjoy!

Birthday time

I have been wanting to use this Bella image for some time. It is quite cute and playful! I colored the image and then started to choose paper. Yes, that is probably backwards of what I should have done, but it worked out alright.

In fact, it was swell! I got some Cosmo Cricket Social Club in my Apron Strings kit. I have been wondering what to use it on and then the Bella came. I was able to stamp the card base with a flower from Stampin' Up's Remembering You. I also used their Night of Navy ink. Then I layered some pattern paper and cardstock. Finally, I popped a flower on the image and called it a day. Hope that you enjoy!

Christmas in June...and heading into July

I am gearing up for the holidays and trying to get my ducks in a row. There are only six months left until the holidays and I need to be ready. So, I headed over to Jingle Belles and worked on their Christmas card challenge. This week it is on layers. The theme is "all bundled up" and we were encouraged to use three or more layers. I look at this card and think... "I threw everything I had on it." I have a tag, a flower, a brad, ribbon and multiple pattern papers. Still, I am happy with the result.

Most of the papers are from Graphic 45. I cannot leave them alone when it comes to Christmas! Hope that you enjoy!

Father's Day

Be prepared! Father's Day is coming up and I finally got to sit down and put together some cards. Now, while my father and my father-in-law do not fully understand my cult...hobby, I meant hobby, they do enjoy the results. Both my father and father-in-law love getting homemade cards. In fact, at the ripe old age of 30 something, I have managed to make it to the refrigerator again! High praise! Hopefully they will enjoy these as well.

The paper is scrap left over from Adorn It Family Heritage. I threw in some old silk flowers, buttons and a hand cut heart. (Can you believe that despite my love of punches, I do not own a heart punch?!!) This card is scraplifted from a Papercraft magazine from 2008. It is one of my favorites and had several variations of this card.

Hope that you enjoy!

December will be here before we know it

Thanks to Jingle Belles I am back on track! They have a fabulous challenge this week. In honor of Earth day, they are encouraging participants to reuse or repurpose items that would otherwise be thrown out.

This was more fun than I anticipated! First, I started gathering up items that were "trash bound" and reviewed them. I came up with a scrap of fabric, an old tan envelop and a group of clothing tags. Now, most of you know, fabric is not my medium. It makes me nervous. But, I put on my big girl panties and went for it! I cut it into little hearts. I figured I could not screw it up that royally and I didn't! Next, came the lovely tan envelope from some junk mail. I stamped a "from the heart" image. When I was done, I stamped a few other Christmas images and saved them for later. I then moved onto the clothing tags. I stamped a tree image onto the inside of these tags. There was already a fun chain-link image there, so the tree image in brown really looked fun and textured. Lastly, I pulled some paper from the box o' Christmas scraps. I would love to tell you what paper, but I do not remember as they are now scraps. Pulled some buttons and paper flowers from the stash and Bob's your uncle, we have Christmas cards!

I am back in the game and making some serious headway, thanks to the lovely ladies of Jingle Belles. Seriously, anyone who needs some Christmas card inspiration should head right over. They have what you need! Now come December 1st, all I have to do is turn on the Hallmark Channel and address my homemade cards! Thanks again Jingle Belles!

Back in card mode

Back in black...well, actually I am back in pink and green. Thanks to my Apron Strings Smaller than a Breadbox kit, I have new We R Memory Keepers Peep to play with. What does one do if one has lovely Easter paper and no Easter pictures...you make Mother's Day cards!

This was a great deal of fun and even though the pinks do not entirely match up, they will be loved. How do I know this? Because they are mothers! Both women think it is lovely that I make them handmade cards...it is not grandchildren, but they are still grateful!

Oh, the holly tree

Thank you Jingle Belles! Another song prompt to get my Christmas card making back on track. The suggestion is to add ivy and holly. Luckily, I am using graphic 45 and Making Memories. Both had some fun holly accents and were so pretty with a lot of old world charm. The design team's inspiration was fabulous and inspired me to collage.

It was more fun than I could possibly imagine. This may be a new trend for me...playful collage.

A simple housewarming gift from afar

My fabulous friend, Becca is moving! As I type, she is moving boxes, two labs, toddler, baby and husband to a new pad. And I thought I was tired.

After turning to my Apron Strings kit again, I pulled out the We R Memory Keepers' family keepsake line and made her some treats. First, I made her a simple housewarming card. A little bit of Bazzill cardstock and some embellishments and it was complete. Then I thought that she might be busy...pause for understatement. And it will take her a while to scrap a page on the new house, or move. Or even worse, she might forget to take pictures of the moving process and new house. Hence, the playful 8 1/2 x 11 layout for her new home. All she has to do is add the picture and through in a little bit of journaling if she wants.

Another day of sending love from one coast to another.

Who needs pictures?!

Often times I am more inspired by the paper than the pictures. In this case, I simply had no pictures to distract me. For the first time ever, I missed my little niece's birthday. It would have been impossible to fly from L.A. to Ohio for one weekend. Which means my sister took the pictures. Which means because she is using the excuse of working full time, going to school part time and raising a wild four year old (niece in question) she will give me some lame excuse about not having time to upload pictures right away. Let's hope she does not read this post! :)

I decided to do a page anyway and then like a light from the heavens, my Apron Strings kit arrived with Imaginisce's Animal Crackers line. Oh my goodness, it is a whole lot of circus fun. I cut and played and added some fun baker's string. Then I cut the white cardstock to 4x6 and added them to give my sister an idea of picture placement. So much fun!

Once the layout was complete I was even able to make two cards...with fun sequins! Unfortunately, my terrible photos do not do the colors and the paper justice. Please check it out on Apron Strings website. Nothing like super fun paper and sequins to get the creative juices flowing!

All owls all the time

As part of a thank you card project for the troops, I created six cards. I played around with some of my favorite paper. This is another round of paper I was hoarding. Adorn it paper from the Fern Collection has owls and stripes. It is so much fun! I love this paper, I have been holding it for all my "male" cards. So, after playing with my "owls all around paper", buttons, prima flowers and my thank you stamp I have some fun, funky cards.

Nothing like owls to remind you that crafting is such a hoot!

Tis the Season

The season for making Christmas cards that is. Thanks again to Jingle Belles and Sparkle's blog for giving me inspiration. They also gave me guidelines which is really good for me as I am totally a rule follower.

So, the goal was to use a sketch. Actually, to use a special sketch that both Jingle Belles and Sketchy Thursdays teamed up to create. Like it gets any better than that. Then, Sparkle Smith gave her Christmas card challenge and it was a color challenge. Sparkle's Christmas challenge encouraged us to use, dark and light blue, silver and white. So, with a sketch and a color pallet, it was pretty much easy living. I even got to use up the rest of my Bo Bunny Christmas paper from last season. Let's hear it for scraps! And great challenges!

A no-red Christmas card

The dogs have been walked and fed. The bathroom and kitchen have been cleaned, and there is a brisket happily cooking in the crockpot. It is finally time for some crafting.

Thanks to Jingle Belles, I am working on my Christmas cards. This weeks challenge is a Christmas card without any RED. It was so hard! I adore red. I try to sneak red into everything I do. In fact, I just got some cute red and white polka dotted ruffle ribbon. So, this took some thinking.

Luckily, I got a new stamp set from Stampin' Up. This is the Loads of Love set. I used some paper from the Graphic 45 Christmas Past Collection. This is the Letters to Santa sheet. Lastly, I used a set of lined post-it notes. All in all, I am happy with the result and cannot wait to try another one. Thanks Jingle Belles for getting me outside my comfort zone!

Cleaning out the stuff

I have been working hard at cleaning out my scrapbooking supplies and making this place more livable. In the course of organizing and purging, I found some stamped images that I never got around to coloring or using. It was time.

Since I felt a little under the weather today, I colored! It was strangely comforting, like an artistic chicken noodle soup! Quite nice. I love the image of these two little girls but could not come up with a good plan for them. The only thing to do was to head over to the Mojo Monday folks and get a great sketch idea. Next, I hit my scrap draw. I am going through a lot of older paper. Paper that I like and have finally found a use for.

These cards look like Gillian cards to me. Gillian just turned four, as in this week, just turned four. She loves people, she loves to be creative and would probably just love to have some fun cards to send to her Grandpa and her "bestest Rita."

So thanks to the Stamping Bella group for the fun stamp, and thanks to the Mojo Monday folks for the fun sketch!

Getting the flock out of here

Years and years ago, I purchased flocking material to give my scrapbooks and cards some fun, velvety texture. And of course, it has stayed in the package until now. I also had some fun kid cutouts I got in an old kit from a friend a few years ago. Today, I am proud to say, they were all used!!

Thanks to Jingle Belles Christmas challenge, I pulled out the goodies! Their theme was "Baby, it's cold outside." They were encouraging felt, mittens, warm, etc. What is warmer and cozier than velvet flocking? Maybe some hot chocolate, but it is so hard to get cocoa on a card!

A few Christmas cards down, already I am feeling organized!!

Hello February

January has flown by and now February is here in full force. One of my goals for 2011 was to stick with my plan to make one to two Christmas cards every week until December. I decided that I would give myself the month of January off, but come February, I would work like a fiend.

To get me through this abbreviated year of cardmaking are several sites. There is Jingle Belles that will have challenges weekly. And Sparkle Creations also has weekly Christmas challenges. Plenty of inspiration to keep me going. But today, I started with an idea and some scraps. Love to be able to pull out some Christmas scraps and finish a card.

Gearing up for Christmas, here we go!