Prettie Wednesday with Lexi

I have my Paper Pretties post for you today. I made two cards using one of the newest releases, Made With Love. The main image in the set is of Lexi holding a tray of cookies. It has so many possibilities...especially with Mother's Day just around the corner!

For my card base I used a shimmery pink cardstock. I then took a piece of brown cardstock and cut an oval from it using my Coluzzle oval template. With the idea of wallpaper in mind, I added floral patterned paper from Chatter Box behind the cut out oval, and then added Lexi on top of it. Lexi was stamped with brown StazOn, water coloured with SU! crayons, cut out (that took a while!) and then added with dimensionals. Phew.....

I used another piece of my pink shimmery cardstock on the top layer, also with an oval cut out. Four mini buttons were glued onto the corners. I used decorative edge scissors to add a bit of white cardstock to the top and bottom of my main image.

The sentiment was a combination of an SU! punches and hand cutting. The ribbons are from CTMH. I really love their ribbons. The colours always seem to work for me.

My second card is a real mix! I used Lexi from Made with Love again, but then I added the sentiment from Looks Who's Perky. The tea cup and tea bag are actually from an MFT set called Hot Stuff. The swirly border around the sentiment is also from Look Who's Perky. I then coloured in the swirls with a Le Plume brown marker. The tea bag and tea cup were paper pieced using water colour paper and then they were coloured with SU! crayons. The brads are from a Making Memories mini brad assortment. The papers are all the same as my first card.

BTW....these cards both measure 7 x 3 1/2....I decided that long cards were the way to go this week!

Have a great day!

She Loves Lavendar

I recently had to make a card for a customer, and the info I was given about the recipient was, 'she loves lavender'. So, that was where I started! I pulled out all the purple papers I could find, and picked the ones that I thought worked the best together.

I saw a card using this sketch over on Andrea Walford's blog...and I have really been wanting to use it. It seemed to work in this case, so with my sketch and papers selected, I just had to choose my stamp.

I decided on Sending You Sunshine from MFT. I really like this stamp, and since I haven't had much chance to use it, I thought I would give it a shot. The recipient is actually very musical, I was told, but unfortunately, I don't have any music themed stamps! Gasp! I guess I will have to buy some! *wink* If anyone out there has any favs, leave me a comment and let me know! I don't have any in mind at the moment....

The ribbon is from CTMH. The patterned paper is from Anna Griffin (I actually know the manufactuer this time!).

I don't know what was going on when I took this photo...but nothing seems centered in it.....hmmmm.....I must have had two kids hanging off me and screaming......

Mother in Law.....

This card was made for one of my card club customers. She needed it for her MIL, who loves blue flowers. I decided to use my Gina K Spring Blooms stamp set...I had just trimmed it up, and was waiting for the chance to use it!

I actually stamped some extra blooms and added them using dimensionals to give the card a bit more depth. I used my Coluzzle oval template to cut out my ovals. I then stitched them together on my good old Kenmore sewing machine.

I coloured the blooms with my SU! water colour crayons. The ribbon is from CTMH. I used scissors to get the decorative edges on the navy cardstock. The papers are from.....you got it....my scrap bin! One of them might be from Anna Griffin, but I can't even be sure about that. Some of the scraps in my bins are older than my children (6 yrs. and 3 yrs), so I can't always be precise about where they came from! Add to that the fact that in the fairly recent past we have lived in three countries, and I really can't hazard a guess! LOL.

Oh, and I almost forgot....this sketch was from over at iheart2stamp on March 29th!

Have a great week!

This Is How I Feel!

The sentiment on this card expresses how I feel in my life lately! I feel like I am two steps behind where I should be! This week I feel like I made a bit of headway...so maybe there is some hope....sigh.

I made this card for my friend's daughter....whose birthday happened to be three weeks ago. Hence, the sentiment on the card. I LOVE this stamp....and I am sure that I will be getting a lot of use out of it!

The stamp is from Just So Hippy from over at Gina K. The papers are from a Super Slab by Provo Craft. I used watercolour crayons from SU! and an aqua painter to fill in the image.

The sketch was mojo #30 over at Poetic Artistry.

Have a great weekend!

It's Wednesday Again!

It's Wednesday again.....where does the time go?! I haven't even posted since Friday, and now it is Wednesday and time for another Paper Pretties post!

I have so many things to post...on this blog and my other blog, but I just have to find the time!!

I have a fun card for you today! I hope you like it!

These stamps are from Sealed With A Kiss over at Paper Pretties. I came up with the idea that I wanted Luke and Lexi to be kissing through a window....and I needed an anniversary card, so the two came together. Why would married folks be sharing a kiss through a window, you may ask? I like to think that Luke was rushing out to work (I wish I had a briefcase to put in his hand!) and couldn't resist coming back to steal just one more kiss. LOL! Isn't that what your life is like?! :)

In this close up shot, you can see the scoring at the corners of the window frame. There is actually quite a lot of scoring on this card, but much of it can't be seen in the photo. The whole side of the building has scored bricks on it, and the sidewalk segments have been scored also. In other words...it doesn't look quite as plain in real life! :) The scoring gives it a lot of texture and many of the elements are popped up with dimensionals to give it depth.

The papers are from Cloud 9 Design...The Wood Stone Collection. The paper on the wall is called Naples and the paper that is on the sidewalk is called Florence. Luke and Lexi were stamped on watercolour paper and then were coloured with SU! watercolour crayons and an aqua painter. The mini blossoms are from making memories. The wallpaper behind Lexi is from my scrap bin.

That sums it up! Have a great Wednesday!

Mini Note Cards

The first time I ever made one of these little tins, it was with my stamp club girlfriends.....led by friend and SU! demonstrator, Joanne. Basically, Joanne stands over us with a whip and says things like 'no talking' and 'stamp!!'. It is more or less just a sweat shop. *wink*


Seriously though, we all have great fun and always get to make a new project to take home. One of those such projects was a 3 x 3 mini tin with four note cards and envelopes inside. I scooped up one of the extra tins, and this is what I came up with.

It definitely makes a really cute little gift. I will likely make more in the future!

The flower on the lid is a chipboard flower covered in cardstock and then distressed a bit around the edges. I used a sanding block and a bit of ink on the edges to get the look that you see in the pic.

Just for the record....the swirl on the lid of the tin is a rub-on. It was a NIGHTMARE to get it on there. I don't know if the surface of the tin was too shiny, or the rub-on I had was just crappy. Either way, it wasn't easy! I ended up doing two coats of mod podge over the lid in order to make sure it would stay. I had little faith that it would have stayed put otherwise!

In the end it turned out OK, and into the mail it went...to my friend in Switzerland. I am actually so behind on posting, that she already received it! LOL! She loved it. :)

She's a Girly Girl

One of my recent projects was one of these cute little card totes....requested by my friend, Stefanie. She needed it for a b-day gift for another friend and I was thrilled to help out!



I was told the following....the gift is for a woman who is a 'girly girl'. She has three sons, and rarely gets to enjoy the 'girly' things in life as a result.



I went straight to my Chatter Box papers from the 'Cottage' line. I have several different sets of this paper, and love them all. They are some of those papers that have been in my 'stash' for a very long time simply because I couldn't bear to cut them! This selection is really feminine without being too over the top and flowery.



I chose some fun shoe stamps from one of my Close to My Heart acrylic sets as a starting point. I had a hard time finding an ink to match my papers....I guess that is what you get when you aren't loyal to any one line of products! I found a chalk ink in my stash that matched surprisingly well, after a bit of searching and testing. I stamped the shoes onto white cardstock (four different styles.....of shoes, not cardstock!) and then punched them out with my Fiskars oval punch...which broke in the process! No worries though....a call to Fiskars, and they are going to replace it for me!


Here are two of the four cards....




I felt the cards still needed a bit of 'something', even after adding rhinestone brads. So, I sprinkled some dazzling diamonds onto each of the shoes for just an added bit of shimmer. A bit of stitching with my sewing machine would have been nice too.....maybe next time.


For the front of the tote, I used a chipboard flower which I covered with a complimentary pattern of paper. The center of the flower is actually a button coated in Crystal Effects Lacquer, which was then sprinkled with dazzling diamonds while it was still wet. The whole thing was then set aside to dry.





Have a great weekend!