Small Things....

Splitcoast has a challenge going on to use scraps to make a card. It just so happens that I recently decided to take out a bag of scraps I had collected from a lovely pad by K&Co. called Olivia Rose. Here is the pad:

Notice the inset of images on the cover. Those represent cutouts found within that complement the papers. I figured that I could take scraps like these...

.... combine them with some cutouts and whip out an easy card.

So, some scraps and a couple of cutouts made up the base of my card. The sentiment comes from Unity's April 2011 retired Kit of the Month called, what else? Small Things Matter Most. I stamped it on another scrap, used my Decorative Label punch (Stampin Up), inked the edges, found a scrap of white seam binding and stapled it to the label. Added a bling heart and a couple of little crystals in the corner and I now have a cute baby card to send to my cousin's daughter.

Thanks for dropping in. Always more to come.... *smile*

Grillin' Good Birthday....

One of my brothers was born the day after the Fourth of July. I don't have a memory of that holiday but my mom tells a good story. She was very young. Already had two little girls, me and my sister. I'm not sure what her due date was but it was a hot Texas summer and my paternal grandmother loved to picnic, so, according to my mom, the holiday involved driving half an hour to the Guadalupe River to celebrate. She says that she remembers being hot and uncomfortable as she sat on a big rock with my 1 year old sister and watched us all swim. The trip back was spent in the back seat with us girls while my grandma sat in front with my dad. Sounds just like an old black and white John Huston movie, doesn't it? Well, the next day, she went into labor and gave my dad a namesake. He grew up to be a sweet soft-spoken ex-Marine who, strangely enough, loves the water.

Every year he gets a holiday-ish birthday card from me. This year, I'm celebrating his love of outdoor grilling. I used Paper Smooches' Al Fresco stamps, an old Hero Arts sentiment block, and Pink Paislee's Hometown Summer patterned paper. I made all the images fit within a 4"x6" white panel that I then cut up and glue onto the background with small margins. Inside the card, I expressed my wish that someone else does the grillin' for him on his special day.... but I know it'll be him wearing the chef hat, as always.

At least, every year since, my mom has been able to celebrate a little more comfortably....

Thanks for dropping by. I still must make that baby card.... so y'all come back now, ya hear?

*smile*

What's on Your Workspace #159

It's time again for What's on Your Workspace Wednesday. I haven't been able to submit for the last few weeks due to the craziness of the end of the school year but here I am now with a little backwards action. I took the photo this morning before I got down to the business of working on my dad's birthday card. When I finished it, I posted about it, so you'll actually find the card in the post before this one.

This post will just be about the mess desk in the studio. The large pile with squatter's rights on the left side of my desk is all types of baby-themed papers. It is there to shame me into making a few more needed baby books. The pretty flower topped accordion file is there because of my latest hair-brained idea to use it for small scraps. I do tend to use them for the "Made By..." stamps that I put on the back of my cards. A few Paper Smooches stamp sets are lolly-gagging about. I have a monthly subscription so there is never a lack of them around. The pretty brown card in the center of the desk is one of Hallmark's finest. I loved the design of it so I used it as inspiration for my dad's card. What looks like a big blue bloodshot eye in the top right corner is actually a wooden tortoise's shell. It decorates the top of a perennial block calendar that is showing the number "14". I guess I should change it to "20", huh? Lol. Finally, those pretty flowery paper is from a recently found set called Cutie Pie from Stampin Up. Recently found in my stash, that is. Lol.

Thanks for coming by. I did say that a baby card is next on deck. Watch for it coming soon.

If you'd like to see more workspaces, check out Julia's blog. You'll be inundated with choices!

*smile*

Hippo Hooray...

I know, I know. Hippos are usually happiest sitting in water and covered with mud, but this one is celebrating his birthday among the ferns of a jungle miraculously located somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

I had two birds to take care of with one stone (if you don't count the one on the banner.) One, my dad's birthday is next week and, two, Paper Smooches has a Color Challenge going on over on their SPARKS blog. The colors are a peanut butter and jelly throwdown of sorts. A bit of challenge on a jungle card but I made the ferns a little parched so they're yellowing. (Remember the rock and roll technique of adding color to the outsides of your stamp by rolling the edges around a darker color... well, that was what I tried to accomplish with the ferns...)

The design of the card was inspired by a Hallmark card that hubby got for Fathers' Day. The stamped image is on a separate folded card that attaches to the base under the red margin. Pretty cool.

I used Zoo Crew for the happy hippo, ferns and sentiment and Pip Squeaks for the banner string and little bird. I cut the pennants by hand and just added handwritten letters to each.

Thanks for stopping by. Next up, a baby card for my niece that is due to give birth any day now.

Back to the hippo party.... see ya later!

How Harvey saved Fathers' Day...

I am the master of procrastination. And sometimes it gets me in trouble. But things always seem to work out. Maybe I have a mischievous 6 ft. tall pooka (in the form of a rabbit) named Harvey watching out for me. I should explain.

I was able to scramble this week and get a card off to my dad to arrive in time for Fathers' Day but I kinda forgot about my father-in-law. Suddenly it was Saturday and I realized that even if I made a card, I'd have to get hubby to fill it with heartfelt wishes and get it to the post office by 12 noon... and it would still be late. Sigh. Not gonna happen. Now all I could do was put one together that would be mailed on Monday. Oh the shame of it.

For months, the plan for this Saturday was to take dear son #2 to see Jim Parsons in the Broadway revival of Harvey, the movie made famous by Jimmy Stewart. We are all Big Bang Theory fans (of which Jim has won numerous awards for his character, Dr. Sheldon Cooper.) In addition, because of an invite to a Sunday wedding, that meant that we wouldn't be seeing my father-in-law for Fathers' Day. (My dad is 1000 miles away... not seeing him either.) Suddenly, as if Harvey intervened, dear son's friend couldn't go to the show and dear son deferred his ticket so that we could invite another couple to go with us. Eureka! Invite the in-laws, make a card to take with us and there you have a gift and the card delivered on time! Lol.

Now I still didn't have a lot of time to make a card so when I spied this card that I made for hubby a few years back (and he's nice enough to keep it in his bureau), I realized I had a very easy design to copy. I had used a Stampin Up set called In the Wild and one of their designer series papers.

In less than half an hour, I was able to dig up a Stampin Up set called The Back Nine (and found that I had stamped an extra image for future use), pull a few SU papers from my stash, stamp sentiments from Paper Smooches Word Up and Qwick Quips and call it done. (I tried to put a decorative clip on it but it didn't work.)

I had just enough time left to run upstairs, hand the card and a pen to hubby and dash off to get ready to leave for our dinner and that wonderful show with the in-laws.

Whew, thanks Harvey.

Fathers' Day around the corner....

I read somewhere that a deadline is the greatest form of inspiration. Lol. That was true today. I had to get a card made to mail to my dad (Priority Mail, at this point) and I only had a couple of hours so I perused my stash of Paper Smooches stamps and found three sets that had all the right ingredients for a cute card. Zoo Crew had the giraffe and part of the sentiment, Whimsical had the tree branch, leaves, bird and clouds... and Word Up had the word "Dad" in that cool script font. Already lying on my desk was a scrap of blue paper and that branch that was originally intended for another card. I stamped and colored the other images with the exception of the leaves. I like how they came out when I used the same grass paper that is on the bottom of the card.

I think Dad will get a good guffaw out of this.

Thanks for coming by. Next, I have to make another Fathers' Day card for my father-in-law. Here we go again!

*smile*

Special to be a Dad

On Mondays, I like to come up with an Ippity card so that I can submit it to the weekly blog hop. Seeing that Fathers Day is around the corner, I gotta get crackin' on a couple of cards. I've been wanting to use the Ippity set called The Man for awhile. I love the buttoned down shirt and tie. I remembered a few cool Dad sayings on Unity's retired Feb 2010 Kit of the Month (Nothing but Blue Skies) so that worked, too. I turned to Operation Write Home's sketch library again and found Sketch #19 to be the right fit. What paper to use was the issue. I decided to use a boyish set of papers by K & Co. called Rough and Tumble. All the cute boy sayings and sports motifs went well with my sentiment (plus I was able to get golf and lacrosse images in there... sports that my boys play.)

Wanna hear about a little serendipity? I marvel sometimes at how things work out. I wanted a manly way to present the sentiment so I came up with using an I.D. tag punch. Then I thought it would be cool to add the little ball chain do-hickey so I dug through my stash and found one. But then I noticed in my tools, a little EK Success lady bug scoring tool that had a cute little ball and chain with a charm on it that says "Score".

Okay. How could I not use that on the card? I only have all those sports references on the paper! Isn't that cool?

This card will be for hubby. I have a card still to make for my dad, so check back in. I have to get it done soon because it has to be mailed and received by Sunday. Yikes.

Later,

Hello Baby

Like I said, we have a baby naming to go to tomorrow so today was the day to get the card done. Luckily, I made a baby album as a gift awhile ago so there was no mad dash to get that done, thank goodness!

I recently got two stamp sets from Paper Smooches (PS) that are perfect for the job at hand. One is Pip Squeaks and the other is Word Up. I stamped the baby, bear and clothespins on white cardstock and colored them in with Copic markers. (Fussy cutting those clothespins was a challenge... good thing I had Micro dots for gluing them in place.) I even stamped a clothespin on top of the baby's head to look like a lock of hair peeking out of the bow. Lol. The clothes and sentiment were stamped on an old scrap of Basic Grey paper. I love that it was a collage of pinks. The grass is from a Photo Stack set by DCWV. I just snipped it up to look more like grass on the card.

The patterned paper background is one of my favorites from a Designer Series set by Stampin Up called Domestic Goddess. (It's still available HERE as a digital download.) How cool is it that I could start my card with a base that already had a clothesline with clothes on it? The sun in the corner is from one of the other sheets in the set and it is a throwback to the days that my sister and I used to draw little outdoor scenes and always had a sun peeking out of the corner. *smile* I think this qualifies for the latest PS Sparks Challenge to use patterned paper on a project.

Thanks for dropping in. I have a silly card idea tickling my brain so I have to make it soon. Check back sometime to see.... In the meantime, have a nice weekend!

A summer birthday....

My nephew is turning 17 in a few days and since I tend to make frilly-glittery-usually-floral-sometimes-pink cards, I had to pause to think of a masculine and not kid-like approach to his card. I recently received a school related stamp set from Paper Smooches (PS) called Smarty Pants. Since my nephew lives in the south, he's out of school before his birthday rolls around so I thought I'd use the stamp set on the front of the card with the caption "School is Out" and on the inside, I'd have a birthday cake with the caption "Birthday is In!"

So here's the front. I loosely used Sketch #51 from Operation Write Home's sketch library and a great glittery school patterned paper from My Mind's Eye Academy stack. I stamped the caption with PS's Alphadot set.

Here's the inside. Simple. I stamped the wedding cake from PS's Hubby and Wifey set and made it a simple birthday cake. The acrylic numbers from KI Memories act as candles and the caption was partly from PS's Sentiment Sampler and Alphadot. A little Creamy Caramel ink (Stampin Up) on the edges and done.

Thanks for coming by. Next up, I have to work on a baby card for my neighbor's baby naming on Saturday. I've got a cute idea germinating so stop by soon and see how it came out!

*smile*

Put on Your Party Dress...

I'm telling you, the sketches over at Operation Write Home are so great to use when you start to make a card. Their latest sketch challenge enticed me to use it on my sister-in-law's birthday card. It's Sketch #124 If you use it, post it there so we can all see it.

I'll be stalking Ippity's website today to see if they're having their Monday blog hop because I used my new favorite stamp, Angie Girl. I love that it's a large stamp and that it's a girly girl. So many ideas come to mind. One is to treat her like my very own paper doll. Stamp her clothes on different patterned papers, etc. We DO do this crafting thing to feel like little girls again, right? Lol.

I did a little masking with the flowers that come with Angie Girl, then found the perfect sentiment in the Unity set called Undeniably You. I'm also lovin' text papers (like this Stampin Up one) and papers that are already embossed and glittered like this one from The Snapshot Stack by DCWV. It's so new, I can't even find it on their website but if you click on DCWV that I highlighted just before, you can go see their other stacks. Love them all.

Used my favorite die of the moment, too. Spellbinders Nestabilities Lacey Ovals. They work perfectly with the standard oval set, yay.

Thanks for dropping in. I need to work on a card for my nephew, so I will be back soon.

Oh, and I set up an email subscription widget so if you want to know when I've posted again, sign up and it will be delivered right to your inbox! *smile*

Regal Legal Eagle

Tomorrow, ds#1 turns 21.... yikes. Where does the time go? In honor of his big day, I made him a corny card that had an interesting birth. See, first I thought about the word "legal," because that's what 21 means. Then, I remembered that Paper Smooches (PS) has a cute eagle in a set called Circle of Honor. "Legal" rhymes with "eagle." So okay, I'd put a "21" somewhere on the eagle. I decided on a pendant. That's when I noticed that a PS set called Green Acres has an egg stamp that makes for a perfect pendant. Lol.  (I just had to use a tiny number set from My Favorite Things to fit in on the egg.) Then, for some strange reason, the word "regal" popped into my head and I thought, That's easy. I'll just plop a crown charm on the eagle's head. (I'm telling you. I should work in the Corny Dept. at Hallmark.) So the theme became a "regal legal eagle."

I used Sketch #1 of the 100 free sketches I downloaded from the generous folks over at Operation Write Home (here's the LINK again for those sketches.) I love these papers from The Green Stack, a recycled paper set by DCWV. The tree die is from My Favorite Things. The crown is from a retired trinket set at Stampin Up. A little copic coloring on the eagle and a computer generated sentiment finished the job.

I have a quick tip to share with you regarding floss. Whenever I have a new skein of floss, I always manage to get it knotted and tangled when trying to use it directly after buying it. I found out tonight that if I remove the paper band and open the circle of floss up and wear it like a bracelet, I can then wind it easily around a little cardboard floss holder for better storage. Here's a pic:

I couldn't resist buying this as a gag birthday gift for my soon-to-be-21-year-old. I'll say that he's finally legally of age to be able to eat these. Lol.

Thanks for dropping in....