SNOW!

Yesterday we had a few hours of surprise snow! As soon as the kids got up for nap we took them outside. Last year they DID NOT like the snow at all, but this year they enjoyed it! They even had a snowball fight with Dad. I was so excited, I wish it would have lasted a little bit longer. We finished the night with some hot chocolate! It was perfect!

Turkey Bowl Frame

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been really busy creating projects for Craft Warehouse and I keep forgetting to take pictures before I turn them in! I will try and do a better job. This is a frame I did with a 4 square wood insert. It is of the "Turkey Bowl." Every year my husband and all of his friends get together Thanksgiving morning and play tackle football. They have had many memorable moments since they started in 2004, and I am always on the sidelines taking pictures. I used the Cosmo Cricket - Nutmeg line. All of the words around the frame were cut with the cricut!

"boy"friend album

I was asked to make the Bo Bunny word album - friend. After talking about it we decided to make it "boy"friend and use it to tell the story of my husband and I while we were dating. I tried to get pictures that showed us through all 7 years of dating from our 1 year anniversary to our engagement pictures. It was so fun to look through all of the pictures and look back at our relationship. We were only 16 when we got together and I can't believe how young we looked.

This was our 1 year anniversary. I used the Cosmo Cricket - Earth Love line. I tried to do a little more journaling to tell the story of us.

I did a 2 page title "You'll always be my baby." I used thickers and chipboard letters (that I painted pink). The"baby" came off of the sticker sheet and I popped them up. I also cut out the leaves to use as a border along the bottom of both pages.

The picture of the left is one of my favorite pictures of us. It was taken while we were dancing at a wedding right before he left to go down to OSU. We did a year of long distance relationship, and it was SO hard, but we made it through. Behind the picture I cut out squares of card stock and patterned paper and distressed the edges of the patterned paper.

On the right, I used the Heidi Swapp mirrors and added some rub-ons.

I had to do a page of us together at OSU. After that one year, I went and joined him down there and we had a blast going to football games, if fact, we never missed one. I added a clipboard and made a couple small pages of journaling. I used grungeboard letters and numbers and inked them orange.

I used a lot of die cut circles through out this album, it is one of my favorite things to highlight pictures. I also die cut the bird in chipboard and patterned paper.

This was one of our engagement pictures. I wrote a little message to him on this page and added "soul mates" in thickers, and another mirror, but this time with a sticker on it.

I hope you enjoyed watching us grow from high school sweethearts to being engaged!

Christmas cards

I was asked to make 10 cards for Craft Warehouse using the new Christmas Unity stamps. I made 4 mini cards (the first 4 pictures) and then 6 regular sized cards. I am still pretty new at card making, but I really like how these cards turned out. I used 3 different sets of stamps.

For this reindeer, I embossed him in copper, colored in the antlers in gold pen, and then added gold ribbon with a jingle bell around his neck. I used graphic 45 Christmas paper for the background and the reindeer.

For this stockings card, I used the Basic Grey - Eskimo kisses collection. I stamped the stocking on 4 different pattern papers and then added a gold ribbon to sting them across. I also edge distressed all of the papers.

I LOVE the penguin set of stamps. I also used Basic Grey paper on this card. After I stamped out the penguin, I added black flocking to him to make him look fuzzy and then added some metal snowflake embellishments.

I used Bo Bunny paper for the Christmas tree and background paper and Basic Grey for the presents. I popped up the two small presents on each side of the tree. I love how the tulle looks tied around the card.

Basic Grey was also used for this card. I used the "lace" paper for the background and then cut out squares and distressed all of the edges. I then used the stamps and colored them in with the water color pencils and blender pen. I added white liquid applique for Santa's beard, red distress stickles for Rudolph's nose and white stickles for the icing on the gingerbread house.

This is one of my favorites...the snow hill was from the penguin set of stamps. I stamped it on white paper and then added stickles to the snow and brown distress stickles for the fence. I then cut out a circle in the middle of the card and added a snowflake border around it. It was to show it being snowy outside but then inside you are all warm with the fire place. Here is the inside....

I stamped the fireplace and then cut it out and colored it in with the water color pencils. I popped out the bottom part and the two hearts...and added the saying "let it snow"

This penguin stamp was one of my favorites because it reminds me of Happy Feet which is one of the boy's favorite movies. The two outside penguins have the black flocking and the middle one has black stickles. I added the tulle and metal charms again.

On this card, I stamped the three gingerbread houses and then colored them in and added the white stickles for the icing. I also punched holes in the peppermint candy paper and threaded two ribbons through it...a red one and a white sparkly one.

I made a bigger version of the reindeer card too. I embossed him again in copper and also embossed the background in copper. I added some ribbon and tulle with a jingle bell.

For this card, I used basic grey paper. The houses I put on the bottom like Santa and his reindeer were flying over them. I also added liquid applique to the roof tops and trees to look snow covered. I also stamped and cut out all 9 reindeer. Every other one I popped up. I also stamped and cut out Santa, using the liquid applique for his beard again. Everything was colored in with the water color pencils and blender pen!

let me know what you think of the cards! It was fun and I really got into card making. Hopefully I inspired you and gave you some ideas for Christmas!

Halloween Time

This was the making memories Halloween album kit. I used all making memories embellishments (except for the mirrors from Heidi Swapp)


The pages in album came with tab's. There were 3 sections, so I added paper to the tabs to make them stand out more and then divided the book into: pumpkin patch, Halloween day, and Halloween night. The fence is made out of wood that I painted black.

These two pages together say "picks of the patch" I used orange crackle paint around the edges of the papers.

On this page, I used the Heidi Swapp mirrors and then put pumpkin rub-ons on them. I also used pumpkin fabric in the background.

Making Memories had a whole bunch of fun embellishments. They had glitter journaling tags, charms, brads, vinyl borders, stickers, rub-ons, etc.

These two pages spell out "mommy's little monster." That is what their shirts said, and when you would touch the monster it would light up. They loved to watch the lights.

They were panda's for Halloween and they didn't want to keep the hood on. We luckily got a couple of pictures of them with it on before they took it off.

After we went trick or treating, we went back to the house and they had fun emptying and re-filling their pumpkins with candy. It was so cute to watch their face light up when they would pull a piece of candy out of the pumpkin.

Mini Albums

I got the idea for this album from the Bo Bunny website. They took their word album "baby" and made it into "Baby its cold outside" for a winter album. I loved the idea and got to make my own version. It is of the boys last year in their first snow. They HATED it! We kept trying to take them out and show them how fun it could be, but they didn't want to be anywhere near it.

I used a new line of paper from Fancy pants designs. On the front, I spelled out Outside in jewels and then I put the "its cold" on a clear tag. "its" is chipboard letters that I put liquid applique on, and then "cold" is in blue jewels.

For the title on the pages, I used chipboard and then inked it red and used the liquid applique on the tops to look snow covered. I also used the liquid applique on the big chipboard snowflake on the page.

I love the picture on the last page. We ended up using it as our Christmas picture last year. I used snowflake lace paper, and some clear snowflakes from Heidi Swapp. On the "y" page I tied some jingle bells on with ribbon.

This album makes me ready for winter! I hope it snows again this year so we can see if they enjoy it or not.

Fall Mini Album

This is a mini album that I did using the new pink paislee autumn line. It is Alex and Derek playing in the leaves last year. I used the Bo Bunny "my edgy album"

The tree on the front cover was cut out of the die cut machine at Craft Warehouse and then I added black glitter to it. I also added plastic leaves that I glued down and made into a pile.

I saw a tutorial online on how to make fabric flowers. This line comes with swatches of fabric so I took one and made a couple of flowers. I really like how they look in the album, and they are super easy to make. I cut a strip of fabric about 1" and then hand stitched along one edge. Then I pulled the string tight and it makes the strip curl and you have your flower!

I saw the Title "the 1st taste of fall" on some other layout and had the perfect pictures for it! After getting used to sitting in the big pile of leaves, they started trying to put the leaves in their mouth! My new favorite thing to do is to use the new Tim Holtz stapler and gather ribbon. I used this technique with black ribbon across this whole page.

One of the things I loved about this line was that it came with a bunch of journaling cards. I love having something that matches the paper perfectly and leaves me a place to journal. If I didn't have something like that, I probably would always forget to journal.

The autumn splendor on the left page is one of the fabric swatches that comes with this line. The tree on the right side, I used the die cut machine at Craft Warehouse. I also used a set of Unity stamps. (the owl's and the gate are stamps that I stamped and then cut out)

I love this album and it makes me excited to take the boys out and play in the leaves this year! Let me know what you think!