Babyhood's end

Last month (at 14 months old), my son decided to stop nursing. I wasn't quite prepared for that, but I am glad it was his decision to stop. We wouldn't have even gotten started if the wonderful Lactation consultant at the hospital hadn't worked with us so much. She has helped us through the rocky start, my return to work, and some other bumps along the way. Every third Tuesday of the month, she hosts a Nursing Moms group to lend support and let us ask questions. Tomorrow will be my last visit (at least until the next kid) and I wanted to give her something to show my appreciation.

That's where Lauren's My Timeless Template-For keep{sake} came in! I loved her idea to make it a tea dispenser. When she issued her First template challenge, it all fell into place! I used the Strawberry Lemonade bath wash as my inspiration. It's hard to see, but I stamped tea cups on the yellow oval.

Lily dressed up like a nurse (lactation consultant) perfectly and I thought this baby & "got milk" stamp fit my theme perfectly.

Stamps: Dress up Lily from Pink Cat Studio, Baby Love & Little Gal from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir, Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet
Paper: Papertrey White, Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush
Accessories: American Crafts Ribbon, My Timeless Template For {keep}sake, Dimensionals
Tools: Cuttlebug, Square Scalloped Nestabilities, Oval Nestabilities, Long Rectangle Nestabilities, 1" circle punch, Paper Snips

Easter bunny

So last week, I challenged the SSUS girls to pull out their contraband stamp sets (non-Stampin' Up!). Most of the girls are Stampin' Up! demonstrators so they don't have as many occasions to use their non-Stampin' Up! sets. I figured we'd get a pretty good turn-out and we totally did.

The challenge was to use your most recently purchased (non-Stampin' Up!) stamp set to make a card for your partner. I had just received an order from Cornish Heritage Farms for Kim Hughes' super cute new Easter set, so that was my choice.

The layout of my card is from this month's Verve Release Sketch. I love all of Julee's sketches.

The eggs were glittered which seems to be all the rage this Easter. Pottery Barn is selling sugared eggs and I think I saw them at Joanns as well. For the bunny, I added some gray highlights with my Koh-i-noor pencils and then flocked him with white flock. In real life, he's super fuzzy. His tail is from a piece of pom-pom ribbon I picked up last weekend at Ryco on the way home from Stamp New England when I was visiting my parents.

Stamps: Sweet Spring from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart
Paper: Whisper White, PaperTrey White, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart, Patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket
Accessories: Green striped ribbon from May Arts, White pom-pom ribbon, White Flock, Icicle Stickles, Dimensionals
Tools: 1" square punch, Fiskars Threading Water punch

Trendy Trees

This week's challenge on SSUS was to use mytime's Saturday Sketch #19. I also needed to make 2 masculine birthday cards last weekend. So, I decided to save time and use the same design.

The birthday card I made is on the left. I just love this cute Trendy Trees stamp set. I love this version. The colors are funky and the design is clean and crisp.

In order to fit the SSUS challenge, I had to make a couple of tweaks. First, all supplies needed to be current and from Stampin' Up! So, I used one of the sentiments from the stamp set and changed the ribbon color since this green is retired. The other change is that the SSUS group requires all cards to have two full layers. So, I put the chocolate card front on a green galore card. This is maybe a bit too bright, but whisper white is too flimsy and I couldn't figure out a better option. Finally, I added a button from the Latte buttons in the new catalog. I just can't get enough of them!

So, which version do you like better?

Stamps: Trendy Trees from Stampin' Up!, birthday sentiment from A Muse
Ink: Green Galore, Chocolate Chip
Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Green Galore, Brocade Blue
Accessories: Dimensionals, Apple green grosgrain ribbon, Pumpkin grosgrain ribbon, Latte Buttons, Linen Thread
Tools: 1 3/8" circle punch

Gotta collect them all...

So today I became a Copic certified designer. Before the class, I had never touched a Copic marker and now? Now, I want the all! This is a problem, but I'm sure with enough time I can collect enough for my needs.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Stamp New England and I'm super excited about that! We were challenged to make a name tag for ourselves that matched our stamping style. I took the opportunity to use this little Kim Hughes bird that I colored today at the marker certification. Love it! I also threaded some taffeta ribbon through the cute flower button from the new Latte buttons from Stampin' Up!

See you on the other side!

Stamps: Mocha Chica from Cornish Heritage Farms, Small Polka Dot alphabet from A Muse Art stamps
Ink: Palette Burnt Umber, Chocolate Chip, Memento Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI White, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Retired Stampin' Up! designer paper
Accessories: Dimensionals, Pink taffeta ribbon, Latte Buttons, Retired velvet ribbon from Stampin' Up!
Tools: Paper Snips, Threading Water Fiskars punch

Baptism card

Eric's baby cousin was baptized on Sunday and I needed to make a quick card. When I was searching on splitcoast, I saw a bunch of christening dress cards based on Lauren Meader's onesie tutorial. Perfect!

I started with a linen textured white cardstock and used my threading waters Fiskars punch to make the eyelet edging. Then I just tied some white taffeta ribbon through this cute flower button from Stampin' Up!

Easy peasy! Thanks for the inspiration everyone!

Paper: Linen White
Accessories: white taffeta ribbon, Button Latte from Stampin' Up!
Tools: Threading water punch from Fiskars, Stampin' Up! 1 3/8" circle punch & scallop circle punch

Etsy challenge

I love etsy, don't you. Sometimes I just browse through the stores looking for inspiration. One of my favorite stores to ogle is joom. Since I volunteered to lead the weekly challenges this week on the SSUS group, I figured a joom inspiration challenge was just right!

I asked my partner ahead of time if she wouldn't mind if I used a non-Stampin' Up! set. Luckily for me, Kim is awesome and agreed. I've wanted to use these PTI sets forever, and they are just perfect for joom's look.

As you can tell, I used the pillow on the right as my inspiration. The sentiment is embossed, but the bird and branch aren't because my brown embossing powder has gone bad.

I think I will be making more joom look-a-likes in the future.

The layout is from the clean & simple blog's Fall To Layout #31.

Stamps: Birds of a feather and Out on a limb from Papertrey Ink
Ink: Palette Burnt Umber, Versamark
Paper: PTI Aqua Mist, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Dimensionals, chocolate taffeta ribbon, detail white embossing powder
Tools: Paper Snips, Swiss Dots embossing folder

Mystery Image Swap

It was time for another mystery image swap about a month ago. I am a little late in mailing and even later in posting my version.

This month's hostess was Ms. Technique Junkie herself, Pat Huntoon, and she sure picked a doozie for us. I bet there are tons of cool stamping techniques that you could do with this giraffe, but I came up blank and just colored him yellow. I did find this cool giraffe print paper in the All Boy DCWV stack which was on sale at Joanns. I thought the giraffe looked like he was laughing, so this sentiment from A Muse worked perfectly.

The layout is from Mojo Monday sketch #63.

Stamps: Mystery Giraffe, sentiment from A Muse
Ink: Palette Burn Umber, So Saffron, More Mustard, Really Rust
Paper: PTI White, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, All Boy by DCWV
Accessories: Dimensionals, chocolate felt ribbon from Stampin' Up!
Tools: Paper Snips, Threading water punch from Fiskars, Stampin' Up! punches

Friends 'til the end

I couldn't resist participating in Nichole's challenge today, Friends 'til the end. She asked us to make a card for our best friend. Easy, peasy! My BF loves to garden, so I went with flowers.

I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone by also using this weeks Card Positioning Systems sketch (CPS102) which is being sponsored by PTI! I just love the Gerber daisy from this new set and figured I'd double my chances to win it. :)

Stamps: Green Thumb & Garden of Life from Papertrey Ink, Mixed Bouquet from Stampin' Up!
Ink: Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Aqua Mist, Ocean Tide, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise perfect match Palette Hybrid Inks, Certainly Celery, Garden Green
Paper: Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart, Aqua Mist, White
Accessories: Dimensionals
Tools: Paper Snips

PTI In the Bag challenge

Have you been following PTI's second anniversary countdown? I'm getting pretty excited to see what they are coming out with! Today Nichole posted a challenge called It's in the Bag. We were to make or alter a bag with stamps and then post a link to the bag on her blog.

I decided to tackle a project I've been meaning to do for a while. Can you tell what it is? How about now? That's right, they are reusable produce bags. We stopped using plastic grocery bags about six months ago in favor of the reusable cloth ones that the store sells, but we would still get stuck with the plastic produce bags. Not anymore!

I cut 1 yard of organza into fat quarters, stamped with perfect match ink and then made little drawstring pouches out of each piece. Here's the tutorial that I followed. If you have a sewing machine, you can totally make these. It's just a few straight lines and they are super cute! Now I can't wait to go grocery shopping. :)








Stamps: Green Thumb from Papertrey Ink
Ink: Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado and Pure Poppy perfect match Palette Hybrid Inks
Fabric: 1 yard of organza
Accessories: Twine
Tools: Sewing machine

Mystery Image Swap

This month's mystery image swap was a doozy! Not only did Sue send us this cute little Boxer Penguin from memory box, but she also sent us a piece of patterned paper. We had to use a piece of this paper on our card as an extra challenge. I was a little nervous at this prospect until my envelope came in the mail. When I saw the red lined paper though, I knew I had gotten off easy!

I decided t make a Valentine's Day card since the penguin's boxers have little hearts on them So I pulled out Hugs & Kisses from the Kim Hughes collection at Cornish Heritage Farms. I embossed the Xs and hearts with clear embossing powder onto the red panel. For more shine, I used a Sakura clear gelly pen on each of the hearts on his boxers and I filled in the i love you heart with crystal effects.

The layout is from Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch #19. I just love Lauren's sketches!

I hope my partner likes it! I was pretty pleased at the end.

Stamps: Boxer penguin from Memory Box, Hugs & Kisses from Cornish Heritage farms
Ink: VersaMark, Palette Noir; Going Gray, Real Red and Basic Gray markers
Paper: Basic gray, Basic Black, Real Red, Mystery white and Mystery patterned paper
Accessories: Crystal effects, clear embossing powder, Sakura clear gelly pen, Dimensionals
Tools: Hearts cuttlebug folder, Circle nestabilities

Hey thanks

Yes, I am a child of the 80s, why do you ask? Seriously though, this is a challenge card for the SSUS group. We were to make a thank you card using current Stampin' Up! stamps. Sounds easy enough, but most of my sets are retired at this point. I figured I could spell out thanks using the Jumbo Outline alphabet and was inspired to do it in rainbow colors by the name frame I made before Christmas.

Once I made that decision, I rifled through the new catalog to see what else I had and when I saw that Seeing Spots was still current, I figured I had found the perfect match! I inked up each ring of dots with my marker to mirror the rainbow colors in the thanks sentiment. The whole card has a Punky Brewster vibe to me. Totally out of my comfort zone with the bright primary colors, but I was really digging it. I hope my challenge partner likes it too!

The layout was adapted from a Verve sketch, VSHR2 that I found on splitcoast stampers. The thanks panel came out so large that I had to drop the ribbon, but I think it works.


Stamps: Jumbo Outline Alphabet and Seeing Spots from Stampin' Up!
Ink: Real Red, Only Orange, Yo yo Yellow, Green Galore, Brilliant Blue, Lovely Lilac, Palette Noir
Paper: Shimmery White, Real Red, Green Galore
Accessories: Bold Brights Brads, Dimensionals

Fairy Lily Revisited

I decided to make a second Lily the fairy card. She is just to fun to play with. This time I had her sprinkling pixie dust on a field of flowers. If you look closely you can see that the flowers on the left are sparkly, but the one of the right that she hasn't gotten to yet is not. Too fun! I thought this sentiment from Verve stamps was just too perfect!

The flowers on the bottom of the card are from the Dress up Lily stamp set. All of the images were colored with watercolor crayons and an aquapainter. To make it look like Lily had been flying, I created a fairy dust path behind her by dry embossing the flourish from the Priceless classy brass template by Stampin' Up! I then wiped the embossed part with a white ink pad and highlighted it with icicle stickles. I love this brass stencil because it also had holes to paper pierce.

In the end this card was just what I pictured in my head. I love it when that works out!

Stamps: Dress Up Lily from Pink Cat Studios, Starlight Starbright from Verve Stamps
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: Whisper White, Regal Rose, Vellum Cardstock from Stampin' Up!
Accessories: Taffeta Ribbon from Stampin' Up!, Dimensionals, Iridescent Ice embossing powder, Icicle Stickles, Dazzling Diamonds
Tools: Two-way glue pen, Wavy Cutter from Creative Memories

Pink Cat Challenge

I am so excited about the upcoming Lily & Billy Sweethearts set from Pink Cat Studio. To celebrate, Melissa had a contest. She gave us this sweet little Lily fairy as a pdf file so we could print it out and make a card.

For my card, I wanted to have Lily the fairy grant the frog his wish of becoming a prince. I just love the way the frog is holding his scepter. To attach the crown to the metal frame, I used some Tombow Metal glue. It worked perfectly!

This Howdy paper from American Crafts was the perfect match for my little fairy tale setting.

To make Lily, I printed the Lily image out twice, once on Whisper White cardstock and once on Vellum cardstock. While the ink was still wet on the Vellum cardstock, I sprinkled it with Iridescent Ice embossing powder and embossed it. Then I cut the wing section out of the vellum to give them a more delicate look. As a finishing touch, I blinged it up with some stickles icicles.

Don't forget to check back on the Pink Cat Studio blog for the official release on January 15!

Stamps: Dress Up Billy & Billy Plate 1 from Pink Cat Studios, Fairytale sentiments from Starvingartistamps
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Vellum Cardstock from Stampin' Up!, Howdy from American Crafts
Accessories: Ribbon from May Arts, Pewter Hodge Podge Hardware, Dimensionals, Iridescent Ice embossing powder, Icicle Stickles
Tools: Koh-i-noor pencils, Gamsol

1st Birthday

Can you believe my little guy is a year old already? In some ways it feels like just yesterday that we brought him home, but at the same time I can hardly remember what life was like without him. His first birthday is coming up, so I need to send out some invites for his party.

I found this cute paper from piggy tales at a local scrapbook store over the summer and was so excited that the dump truck from the Dress Up Billy set was a perfect match! I had trouble deciding on a color scheme for the rest of the card though. In the end, we went with the orange card because it pops a little more.

Does the sentiment's font look familiar? I really loved the open numbers from the new Number Fun set from the Kim Hughes Collection at Cornish Heritage Farms, but I am on a voluntary post-Christmas spending moratorium. So I opted to buy a couple of Kim Hughes' CK fonts for less than half the price of the stamp set. The number one is from CK Ed and the rest of the lettering is from CK Brandy B. I love Kim's handwriting and am tickled that I have a couple of her fonts now to really customize my cards. The inside of the invitation is also in the CK Brandy B font so it matches perfectly!

The sketch was posted by Lauren Meader a while back for a Pink Cat Studios challenge. I guess it is fitting that I used a Pink Cat Studio stamp on my card. ;)


Stamps: Dress Up Billy from Pink Cat Studios
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: Whisper White, Night of Navy, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi from Stampin' Up!, Tortoise & Hare collection from piggy tales
Accessories: Striped Wasabi Grosgrain Ribbon from Stampin' Up!, Dimensionals
Tools: 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, Koh-i-noor pencils, Gamsol

Twiddle Bug Mystery Image

I am a terrible Mystery Swapper! This card was supposed to be in the mail before Thanksgiving and instead I just mailed it out this past weekend. I'm so sorry Sue! I hope it was worth the wait...

When I first looked at the Balla Weensie images that Kim sent from Stampotique, I immediately thought of the Twiddle Bugs from Sesame Street. So cute!

Anyway, I thought the thin doodled lines from this patterned paper from Pebbles Inc. would go perfectly with the balla weensie. I colored her in with Koh-i-noor pencils first and then covered her green body with Fun Flock and her tutu with blue glitter from Stampin' Up!

The layout is from a Verve Stamps Sketch (VSHR3).




Stamps: Balla Weensie from Stampotique, sentiment by Stamping Bella
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, Chocolate Chip from Stampin' Up!, blue glitter cardstock from DCWV, Theodore Paisley and Stripe patterned paper from Pebbles Inc
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Tafetta ribbon from Stampin' Up, Blue glitter from Stampin' Up!, green Fun Flock from Stampendous, Dimensionals
Tools: Threading Water punch from Fiskars, Koh-i-noor pencils, Gamsol

Christmas Thank Yous

For my little guy's Christmas thank you notes, I knew I wanted to include a picture of him playing with the toys that he was given. He's obviously too young to write his own thank you notes and since most of the gift givers weren't here to see him open the gifts, I thought it would be nice if they could see him enjoying them.

Anyway, when I saw Jennifer's son's thank you note on the Hero Arts blog I knew it was the perfect layout!

I did change a few things. First, I didn't have the Hero Arts sets that Jennifer used. But I do have this cool He Said She Said punch from Fiskars. So I paired it with the Thank You stamp from Family Phrases from Stampin' Up! Also instead of stamping the background, I used the Cuttlebug Snowflake folder and then wiped the card with Brilliance white ink. These cards were so fast to make! I made 18 of them in an hour and a half from start to finish.

Stamps: Family Phrases from Stampin' Up!
Ink: Palette Noir and Brilliance Moonlight White
Paper: Confetti Tan, Real Red, Whisper White from Stampin' Up!
Accessories: Dimensionals
Tools: He said She said Squeeze Punch by Fiskars

Recipes

As part of his Christmas gift this year, I made my husband a recipe box. I had intended to copy all of our favorite recipes down as well, but I ran out of time. I know you are probably scratching your head right now trying to understand how this could be a gift for my husband. Well, he works from home and makes dinner every night so I don't have to start cooking when I get home from work. He's been complaining that our favorite recipes are scattered through several cookbooks and printouts from the internet and that it would be much easier to have them all in one place. So, the recipe box was born!

I was so excited when Papertrey Ink came out with the Recipe Box stamp set and recipe cards. I love their long skinny dimensions and the fact that they fit perfectly in the egg box.

When it came time to decorate my box, I pulled out some patterned paper from Scenic Route that looks like college ruled paper and stamped images from the retired Mix & Mingle set from Stampin' Up! and the Little Gal, Baked with Love and Hugs and Kisses sets from the Kim Hughes collection at Cornish Heritage Farms in the perfect match ink colors from Papertrey Ink. I wanted the box to have a doodled look to it so I didn't color in the images.

On the inside, I lined the box with patterned paper from October Afternoon and used the Recipe Box stamp set to make dividers for each section. I also used the Polka Dots backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms on the dividers.

To make Recipes plural on the lid, I used the s from the Quirky Alphabet set.

Now, I just have the long task of copying over all of our recipes!

Stamps: Recipe Box from Papertrey Ink; Baked with Love, Hugs and Kisses, Little Gal and Quirky Alphabet from Cornish Heritage Farms; Mix & Mingle from Stampin' Up!
Ink: Aqua Mist, Ocean Tides, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Plum Pudding & Spring Moss from Papertrey Ink, Palette Noir, Palette Burnt Umber and Palette Charcoal
Paper: Scenic Route and October Afternoon
Accessories: Matte finish Modge Podge
Tools: Foam brushes to apply the modge podge

Emily frame

I love making name frames for new babies. I think it makes such a fun and special gift. For this frame I used VersaMagic chalk ink in rainbow colors and the monogram stamps from A Muse. The frame was $3 at WalMart. The clear stamps and clean design made this a much faster project than some of the other frames I've done.

More baby shoes

For some Christmas gifts and my church's holiday craft fair, I made some more baby shoes. For these two pairs, I used metallic and pearl fabric paint from Tulip so they were sparkly and festive. The ornament is from the Heart warmers set by
Kim Hughes at Cornish Heritage Farms.

I absolutely loved this rainbow pair too. Aren't they fun and girly without having to be pink? he rainbow is from the Little Gal set by
Kim Hughes at Cornish Heritage Farms.

The last two pairs weren't stamped at all. I just loved the print on this corduroy from Joann's, so I just had to use it.

That's all I had time to finish before Christmas. I did cut out, stamp and paint several more pairs, so you haven't seen the last of these yet.

For details on how I made these, see my previous post on the subject.

Happy New Year & New Doodlefactory!

Happy New Year to all of you! I know I've been silent on the blogging front lately, but I have lots to share with you (more baby shoes, Christmas presents and thank you cards!)

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know about the awesome new Valentine's Stamps from Doodle Factory. Check them out here!

They are so cute! I especially love the little monkeys!

Anyway, enjoy your holiday! I'll be back later this weekend to share some stamping goodness.