Hi...Butterfly!

Just wanted to share a sweet little card I made using the Tweet Thang set by Our Craft Lounge. I also added some Cotton Candy Pink Sparkly Fluff to the light pink on the flowers and butterfly.

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Tweet Thang); Sparkly Fluff (Cotton Candy Pink); Ink ~ Palette; Copic Markers (YG13, YG03, R81, R83, R85); Nestabilties.

Big Fuzzy Monster Fun!

I've been wanting to play with this image ever since I got the set a few months ago. I think these little monsters are so stinkin' cute! The image and sentiment are both from the Little Monsters Sixlet set by Lizzie Anne Designs.


After I colored the monster, I added some Juicy Orange Sparkly Fluff to the dots and some Glossy Accents to the teeth and eye ~ too fun!

Weekly Lizzie Anne Sketch!

Happy Monday and welcome to MY edition of the weekly Lizzie Anne Designs sketch challenge. Yes, it is my turn to come up with the sketch and share it with everyone. The sketch this time is pretty simple; however, that means there are lots of possibilities for it. Also, if you want to step things up a bit, add some texture to your card.

And here is the card I came up with for the sketch...

I actually used 4 different Lizzie Anne sets on this card ~ Brilliant Blooms (for the flowers), Hello Friend (for the stems and leaves), Simply Sweet July '10 Monthly Mix (sentiment); and, Fancy Flourishes.

A Walk in the Garden

A few days ago it was a gorgeous evening & the sun was just right for taking some photographs with my new camera so I decided to go take a look around my flower beds.

Here is my sweet little pound puppy Peco ~ she came with the name. ETA: Peco is just a terrier mutt that we adopted from the Humane Society.

And here is our beauty ~ Jazmine (or Jazz)

Then I took a walk in our neighbor's garden too ~ we have the best neighbors!

And one of my favorite shots of the evening...

I have a bunch more that I took and will share with you over the next few weeks. Until then, enjoy your Sunday and go take a look at all the beauty God created around you.

Happy 4th!

It's almost time to light up the sky with fireworks to celebrate the 4th of July! I made this card months ago and almost forgot about it. Since the holiday is coming up quick, I thought I'd better get it posted! The set is called Patriotic Parade by Our Craft Lounge.

Supplies Used: Stamp Sets ~Our Craft Lounge (Patriotic Parade, Summer Sweets); Cardstock: Bazzill, Neenah Papers; Copics: N3, R29, YG03, YG11, E00, E33, E31, B97; Crafty Sparkles - Rockstar Red, Sugar; Ribbon: May Arts; Brads: Bazzill; Nestabilities by Spellbinders.

OCL Sketch Challenge #19

Once again it's time for the OCL weekly sketch challenge. This week, I used the Whale of a Tale set and this cute new paper from Imaginisce called Splash Dance. They are a perfect match, don't you think? I used a piece of swirly vellum for the layer so it wouldn't cover up the cute pattern paper.

I'm gonna keep this short today ~ got lots to do & little time these days!

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Whale of a Tale); Ink ~ Palette; Copic Markers (YR18, YR61, YR02, YR00, B00); Big Scallop Circles; Sparkly Fluff ~ Our Craft Lounge (Real Juicy Orange).

Vacation Mini Album ~ It's Simply Sweet!

I am so excited to share my project with you today. The first time I looked at the July Monthly Mix called Simply Sweet, I knew I wanted to make a scrapbook project for one of our trips. I decided to select pictures from the Yellowstone Road Trip we took last summer because I haven't really done too much with them yet.

I found that several of the stamps in this Mix worked great for a travel album ~ the postage stamp background; the diamond border; the journaling lines, "on vacation" and "greetings from" sentiments & the scallop border on a few of the pages is from the Something to Crow About Mix from September '09.

I just love the travel paper I found by Little Yellow Bicycle called Traveler ~ it's perfect for the Road Trip theme. The size of my album is 3 1/4" x 5".

When making a mini album, it's not only important to stick to one theme, but it's also important to have repeating and coordinating elements on each page.

I also love using my little alphabet letters ~ these are from Hero Arts.

The Grand Canyon area of Yellowstone is my favorite part so I had to include a picture of this beautiful site!

The fun matching arrow is from the same pattern paper line by Little Yellow Bicycle. FYI - the photo on the right is a reflection and the picture is not really upside down.

And one of our favorite parts of the trip was going on the Zipline in Big Sky, MT. It's a ski resort that has lots of fun activities and adventures during the summer months too. What an amazing place!

I just love these pictures of the kids & I used some coordinating stickers to add some fun to the pages.

This entire book only took a few hours to put together yesterday because I used coordinating elements and the same stamps on all the pages. I love that I have a completed scrapbook project now for this trip ~ even if it is just a mini album.

Gift Card Purse

Hello Peeps ~ Today I want to share a redo of a project I back in March 2009. I loved My original "Little Chipboard Purse" & when a friend asked me to make gift card basket for a party we are throwing, I thought this would be perfect! I decided to update the look of my purse with some fun bright colors, the OCL set called Tweet Thang & of course, some SPARKLY FLUFF!

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamp Set ~ Our Craft Lounge: Tweet Thang ; Sparkly Fluff ~ Our Craft Lounge Cotton Candy Pink ; Copic Markers ~ R81, R83, R85, Y15; Ink ~ Palette; Nestabilities ~ Circle, Big Scallop Circles.

Lizzie Anne Sketch Day!

I was teaching a card class last night and needed something somewhat structured to do yesterday because my mind was filled with other details. Sooooo, I decided to print out the new Lizzie Anne Designs sketch for this week. It's a cool one! I did change it up just a bit by moving the sentiment, but I like how it turned out.

I used the Hello Friend Sixlet set along with the Digital Paper Pack called Garden Inspirations. If you take a closer look at the flower, you'll see that I stamped the flower and leaves on two of the other patterns in the Digital Paper Pack. I haven't pulled out my paper in a long time & found it so fun to work with again. I love digital papers because you can change the sizes or even the colors when you print them. I just added some shading with my Copic Markers to give them a little more life.

I'd love to see what you come up with for this sketch ~ make sure you leave a link on the blog or on Lizzie Anne Land.

Floral Congrats!

Just a quick card to share with you today. I made this using the floral image from the Lizzie Anne Monthly Mix for July called Simply Sweet. I thought the image matched the pattern paper very nicely and the sentiment is from the Everyday Sayings set.

ETA: To answer Paula's question ~ The floral image is stamped on a new shaped punch by EK Success (Wavy Circle).

Also, the pattern paper is by Jillibean Soup.

Have a great week!

Happy Father's Day!

AND... a double challenge day too! It has been ages since I've done a Splitcoast Challenge & with this card, I managed to squeeze in two challenges. The Sketch challenge (SC285) and the Friday Free For All (F4A17) . The Free For All challenge was to make a card featuring Man's Best Friend with bonus points if you made it into a Father's Day card ~ which this one is for my husband from the dogs.

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Pat the Good Dog, Pat the Dog); Pattern Paper ~ Basic Grey (Max and Whiskers); Palette Ink; Copic Markers (E33, E25, YR18, BG15, YG95); Square scallop Nestabilities.

Unity Sketch Challenge (#HHSC12)

It's the weekend ~ WOOHOOOO! It's been such a busy week that I am very happy the weekend is finally here. Today is mildly busy too, but not as much.

I haven't had much time to play with my Unity stamps lately or the Unity sketch so I thought I would just take a break from some other projects and pull them out. So this week's sketch can be found HERE on the SCS Unity forum. I decided to pull out my Jillibean Soup paper once again for the sketch and use up some scraps I had left over from the IHP Krafty Challenge this week.

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Unity Stamp Co (Naturally You; Bevy of Butterflies); Pattern Paper ~ Jillibean Soup; Ink ~Palette; Copic Markers (G99, YG95, E25); atyou Spica glitter pens (clear, brown); Nestabilities (Circle, Big Scallop Circle).

OCL Sketch Challenge #18

Welcome to another fun Friday and the OCL Sketch Challenge for this week. The card this week that the sketch is based on is actually MINE ~ woohooo! Sooooo...I decided to switch things up a bit and move a few things.

I used the Big Birthday Wishes set and a few other elements from the Vintage Swirls set (the dots under the sentiment) and the Fancy Fringe set (border along the bottom). I thought they matched the pretty candle button I found at Michael's and pattern paper by Doodlebug perfectly.

Here is the sketch and my original card ~ as you can see on my card above, I decided to flip the sentiment and the image.

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Big Birthday Wishes , Fancy Fringe set ; Palette Ink; Nestabilities.

Lizzie Anne Challenge Day!

It's Challenge Day for the Lizzie Anne team and this month Tricia gave us a picture she found on the internet and told us to go at it! I love the lampshade and that is the first thing I noticed in the picture so that's what I went with as my starting point.

However, I'm sure you are going to look at my card and say ~ "HUH?" . Yes, I really did get my inspiration from this picture, but I too had to think about the process and how I ended up with my finished project ~ LOL! It all started with the stripe paper; then I found a cool sketch I liked; then I needed a few more coordinating papers; then I wanted to include green (but the celery color in the photo didn't match my paper); and then I wanted to include a flower (but I didn't have a rose like the picture)... and the card goes on from there. But that is my very long winded story of how this beautiful picture inspired my silly card. Whew...

The fun sentiment & background images are both from the July Monthly Mix called Simply Sweet & the paper pieced flower is from my all-time favorite set called Garden Inspirations.

Now I know you're going to want to go see what everyone else came up with (and I'm sure their projects will be much closer to the photo than mine was ~ LOL!

Tricia Ulberg (Lizzie)
Jeni Allen
Joslyn Nielson
Deb Felts
Bethany Paull
Wendy Price
Jeanne Streiff
Taylor Usry

Welcome Baby Girl...

I love this image for a baby card because it isn't a typical baby look. It's from the Great Expectations Sixlet set by Lizzie Anne Designs. As you probably know, I love to paper piece and if a tree is involved, even better! My Mind's Eye pattern papers are some of my absolute favorites to piece ~ the patterns are just the right size.

Lizzie Anne MIX it up Day!

Welcome to MIX it UP DAY & post #2 for today ~ woohoo! I don't double post very often but everything landed on the same day this month. No problem ~ if you're looking for the IHP DT Challenge, just scroll down (or click on my home page & scroll down).

Today, I used my new July Monthly Mix called Simply Sweet and I can't wait to show you all the fun projects I've been making with this Mix! For my card today, I used the pineapple image and my chalk inks for some light shading. I love playing with my chalk inks, not sure why I don't pull them out more often. The pattern paper I used is from American Crafts and mirrors the pattern on the pineapple perfectly!

Head on over to the Lizzie Anne Blog for all the details. I know you won't want to miss any of the wonderful Monthly Mix Samples from the other Hoppers today ~

Stephanie Muzzulin

Patricia Hays

Maren Benedict

Bethany Paull

Joslyn Nieslon

Wendy Price

Jeanne Streiff

Deb Felts

Taylor Usry

Jeni Allen

Tricia Ulberg (Lizzie)

IHP Krafty Challenge

Hello Krafty Girls ~ today is challenge day for the i{heart}papers design team & I'm sure you've guessed by now that we are using Kraft products today. Kate has lots of fun products to choose from but I picked out some fun pattern papers from Jillibean Soup called A Hint of Gossip & Cannellini Beans. For the solid Kraft paper, I just flipped over the pattern paper and used that so it would match perfectly.

Along with the two pattern papers, I used the Unity Store Kit of the Month for May called Naturally You ~ because you know how much I love to paper piece a Unity tree! The sentiment is also from Unity in the Total Cuteness set.

Other fun products I used from i{heart}papers on this projects: Ink ~ Palette (Burnt Umber), Copic Sketch Markers (YG95, E25); Burlap Mesh - Alexx Kesh

Be sure to take a look at all the Krafty goodness the other IHP girls have in store for you today:

Carolyn
Cathleen
Deb
Gretchen
Loretta
Lori
Lynn
Megan
Tracy
Kate

One other fun note for i{heart}papers today, Petal Press stamps are BACK (after a brief hiatus) with a great new summer set! It is sweet and elegant and even coordinates with some elements from some previous Petal Press sets! With the new release, Kate is also welcoming some new DT faces. They will all have sneak peek samples tomorrow and there will be blog candy up for grabs so you will want to check the i{heart}papers blog tomorrow for all the details!

Boho Patchwork Pal

YIPEEE... It's Monday! Yes, I said YIPEE ~ I actually like the fresh start of a new week and this one will be a busy one with the kids activities so I was happy to be able to sit down and create THREE cards yesterday. I've been having a hard time getting use to the new summer schedule, so that was a real bonus yesterday.


My card today uses the sweet Sixlet set from Lizzie Anne Designs called Playful Pals. I love the puppy in this set & just had to paper piece him using my new Basic Grey paper called Max & Whiskers ~ totally cute! Check out the cute bone buttons on the corners ~ those came from Michael's.

Have a GREAT Monday!

Graduation Season

It's that time of year when we send the grads a big CONGRATS & well wishes for their future. We have several kids in our neighborbood who are graduating this year & some other open houses to attend today. This is one gift card holder I made yesterday...

And the inside that can hold a gift card, cash or a folded check.

Stamps by Our Craft Lounge ~ Bookworm Stamp set.

Happy New Puppy!

Just a fun little gift tag ~ just love the black & white polka-dot bag! Our neighbors who got a new dog yesterday, so we got him a few little treats.

Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Pat the Good Dog & Pat the Bad Dog); Ink ~ Palette, Copics; Eyeliner Black Sparkly Fluff.

OCL Sketch Challenge #17

Hi there Peeps! Welcome to this week's edition of the OCL Sketch Challenge. The sketch this week is based on a card by Deb Felts & you can check out both the sketch and the original card over on the OCL Blog.

My version of the sketch uses the Fabulous Florals and Say it with Flowers sets along with some bright yellow pattern paper by Cosmo Cricket's Delovely Line.

Supplies from i{heart}papers: Stamps ~ Our Craft Lounge (Fabulous Florals and Say it with Flowers); Ink ~ Palette, Copic Markers (Y13, Y15, Y17); Pattern Paper ~ Cosmo Cricket (Delovely); Sparkly Fluff (Lemon Drop Yellow); Nestabilities ~ Labels 8; Ribbon ~ May Arts.

My Birthday Boy!

Yesterday as I was planning this post, I decided to take a walk down memory lane. You see, today is my son's birthday. My baby is 11 years old! I'm not sure how the time flew by so fast, but here we are at age 11 with all the attitude & eye rolling that goes along with it.

So anyway, I thought I would share some pictures of my little guy thru the years just so you can see how much he has grown up. Here he is just a few days old ready to come home from the hospital ~ all 7 lbs of him. Matthew was born right on his due date at 11:31pm. Just a little side note: Megan was also born on her due date of December 10th ~ and the kids are exactly 2 1/2 years apart to the day.

Here is Matt on his 2nd birthday with his fireman cake & fire truck cookies (which turned out to be a dark pink rather than a nice bright red).

On Matt's 5th birthday we had a fish party. He and his friends decorated their own giant cupcakes and then played on the slip & slide out in the yard.

Matt had a big celebration on his 8th birthday. We were in Alaska and he went dog sledding in Juneau ~ we all had a blast! This is a face of pure JOY!

And here is my big guy today on his 11th birthday ~ he still has those great dimples and a great zest for life.

Yes ... I also have a project to share today. Here is one of his gifts ~ or at least the packaging. I made this gift card holder for a gift card to the bookstore. He is a huge reader & will love browsing the shelves for some good summer reading material.

The idea for my gift card holder was inspired by this gift bag. I pulled out every OCL set I have that has a birthday sentiment in it and stamped them in coordinating colors with the gift bag. Then I used the Bookworm set to stamp the main image.

Other sets by Our Craft Lounge that I used for the Happy Birthday Sentiments: Say it Big, Big Birthday Wishes, Happy Shopping, Fairy Dust is a Must, Drake the Dragon, Say it with Flowers, Sunshine Cheer, Coastal Wishes, Tag...You're It, The Botz Family.