BoBunny Love

Well as many of you know I have been crafting a lot with BoBunny products lately...I have just really been loving all of their lines and have been fortunate enough to be able to work with them for my local scrapbook store. So, with CHA I was following their blog to see all the new goodies coming out and I have not been disappointed. I love the beautiful new Sophie collection and I am a big fan of their double dot cardstock so I was excited to see lots of new colors being released. And if you do any camping, I think Bobunny's new Roughin' It collection is a must have!

Anyway, while I was following their blog they issued a challenge: Cards with Heart. I knew I had to play along! :) I recently finished up several projects for Lasting Memories using BoBunny's Persuasion line and so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use up my last few scraps (cause you know I kept them all!).

Here are the two cards I created:



For the first card the words are popped up on foam squares to add a little dimension and help them stand out. I liked the raw look of the chipboard so I didn't paint it...just added a little scrap of patterned paper behind the heart cut out.

I really love the softness of my second card. I tore the sentiment and distresssed the edges of the pink paper as well as the chipboard piece. I painted the chipboard an off white shade and just added a few rhinestones to finish off the card.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Be Mine - Etsy Inspired Challenge #73

Oh I could search Etsy all day and still find new and fabulous shops to be inspired by...there are just so many talented people out there and I love that so many are a part of the Etsy community. This week for the Etsy Inspired Challenge we are featuring another adorable children's shop, Elies Happy Hats which is filled with some of the cutest crocheted hats for kids.

Our sponsor this week is Pixie Dust Studio and they provided the DT with two brand new adorable digital images to work with...the Blueberry Fairy and the Strawberry Fairy.

I was inspired by the colors in this sweet hat from Elies shop.



And the little heart shaped wings on the cute Strawberry Fairy immediately inspired me to turn her into a special Valentine's Day card.

I kept the image fairly large and flipped it so it printed feet first at the edge of my paper. Then I scored and folded my paper right up by her hat and cut around the image to create the card. Then I just colored her in and added the little Be Mine heart.

Wouldn't these make great class Valentines?! And you wouldn't even need to make them into folded cards. These days most kid's Valentines are just like little postcards so you could just print her out on nice cardstock and cut around her, color her in, and then put a message on the back...easy peasy! And if you play along in the challenge this week you could even win the Strawberry and Blueberry Fairies! :)

All you need to do is visit Elies Happy Hats and find an item that inspires you, create a project of your own and link it up to the Etsy Inspired Challenge blog (challenge post #73) for your chance to win one of this week's prizes!

Be sure to pay a visit to the rest of the Design Team too!

• Ashley
• De
• Emily
• Heather
• Heather P. (January Guest Designer)
• Jackie
• Joy
• Shannon
• Tiffany

Peace

Yesterday I wasn't feeling so well and the boys were both home...one with a little cold too. So needless to say it was a looooong day. Once the kiddos were in bed I spent my quiet time on the computer and managed to get another treasury. I titled it Peace. Click HERE to see the items up close along with links to the shops.



I thought I'd also post another link to the Hearts for Haiti shop on Etsy... HERE.

I'll be back tomorrow with my Etsy Inspired Challenge project!

Spreading a little sunshine!

Hello all! Hope you are enjoying this beautiful day! I am hanging out at home with my boys...just playing and relaxing. This evening we will be spending time with family, celebrating my dad's birthday.

I snagged another Etsy treasury this weekend so I thought I would share. Click HERE to see the treasury up close with links to each talented Etsian/shop. I titled it Golden sunrise...enjoy!


And if you've been looking for ways to help those devastated by the earthquake in Haiti, Etsy has put together a shop filled with donations from tons of Etsy sellers. So you can purchase a little gift for yourself or someone else, while helping the people of Haiti at the same time! Click HERE to check out the Hearts for Haiti shop on Etsy.

Have a sweet day! - Etsy Inspired Challenge #72

Happy Saturday! Are you in need of a little inspiration? The Etsy Inspired Challenge is here to help! :)

This week's featured Etsy shop is Sweetie Pie Tutus. I am sure the great color combinations or adorable babies and tutus in this shop will inspire you. Or maybe you will even be inspired to use some tulle on your project!

I was inspired by this darling Valentine tutu...I mean really, how cute is this?!

I stuck with the Valentine's Day theme and colors and made up a fun little lollipop tag...perfect for those school Valentines!




Simple but sweet! :)

Check out the Etsy Inspired Challenge blog for details on how you can play along and find out about the sweet prize you could win too! Our sponsor this week is May Arts...I just LOVE their ribbon!

Pay a visit to these talented ladies for more inspiration:

• Ashley
• De
• Emily
• Heather
• Heather P. (January Guest Designer)
• Jackie
• Joy
• Lee
• Shannon
• Tiffany

Enjoy your weekend!

Inspired by Ali Edwards

As an avid reader of Ali Edwards' blog I am often inspired by her posts, her work, her creativity. This week she is doing an introduction to digital scrapbooking and although I have not read it all or tried anything out yet, I know it will be my first go to guide for when I finally get ready to venture into the world of digital scrapbooking.

However about a week ago, Ali shared an idea that I did already find some time to try...scrapbooking holiday cards. Don't you just hate throwing away all the great cards you receive at Christmas time, especially when many include photos of family/friends? Yet keeping all your cards in a box every year can get to be a lot and do you ever really look back in those boxes? Not very often I'm guessing. However, I do peruse my scrapbooks on a regular basis so when I saw Ali's post about scrapbooking her holiday cards I knew it was a perfect solution for me! It's super simple, no embellishing or anything needed...just punch or cut out sections of cards (photos, sentiments, holiday images, signatures) and arrange them on a 12x12 page or two if you have a lot. You can see Ali's pages HERE and here is mine:



I had a hard time cutting down my images...I tried to do all 2x2" squares but I just couldn't part with certain photos or sentiments. I really liked including some signatures too. And I love that my Christmas cards were reduced from a small box full to one 12x12 page, yet I still feel as though I did not lose any of the memories. I think this will be a new holiday scrapbooking tradition for me and I am considering doing this with the cards I saved from my baby showers/kids first birthdays too! :)

Okay, this is the last Christmas post...just wanted to share in case it might be a helpful idea for some of you! I'll be back on Saturday with my Etsy Inspired project!

Love is in the Air

Valentine's Day is around the corner so I figured I'd better get some Valentine/love themed items up in my Etsy shop! :) Here is what I just listed today:

Do it Yourself Heart Tags and a Love Themed Creativity Kit (perfect for scrapbooking/card making!)



Also, I recently did several projects for my scrapbook store...Lasting Memories. And one of my favorite projects was a mini album titled 'Living My Happily Ever After' using the Bobunny Persuasion collection. You can see a sneak peek of one of the pages in my album HERE (mine is the middle project).

Hope you are having a lovely day! I am happy to say that I am almost caught up on getting all our photos into albums...yeah! I'll be back later this week with another project or two!

Turquoise Dream

Well today I spent a lot of time playing with my kiddos and I got up to date a little on our photo albums...only 8 months behind now! :) Fortunately hubby is home tomorrow so I am hoping to get a lot more done. I also spent a little time on Etsy today (surprise, surprise) and snagged a treasury.

I chose one of my favorite color combinations - Turquoise and Yellow. I love any shade of blue and yellow is just so cheery! :) Click HERE to see the treasury in its full glory along with links to the fabulous shops.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my new blog look too! I was just playing around with it this evening. I liked my other one but I like the clean, more professional look of the white when I visit other blogs. I also changed my header to my Etsy shop banner. What do you think...better or not?

I LOVE Etsy Inspired Challenges! :)

It's time for another Etsy Inspired Challenge! This week we have a really unique soap shop for you to be inspired by, Amethyst Soaps. They actually have soap that looks like Amethyst...it is beautiful! However, with Valentine's Day coming up I was inspired by the sweetheart soaps.


Here are the sweetheart soaps that inspired me:

The heart background on my card is from our fabulous sponsor this week, The Cutting Cafe. I love the versatility of these open hearts. I chose to randomly color in a few but you could color a rectangle to create a frame or randomly color them using several colors...the possibilities are endless! :)

Okay, now for your chance to win some gorgeous soap from Amethyst Soaps or three digital stamp sets from The Cutting Cafe, you need to:
-Visit Amethyst Soaps and find an item that inspires you
- Create a project of your own and post it on your blog or online gallery
- Link your project to the Etsy Inspired Blog (Challenge post #71) by Friday at noon

Take a peek at what the rest of the DT has created this week:

• Ashley
• De
• Emily
• Heather
• Heather P. (January Guest Designer)
• Jackie
• Joy
• Lee
• Shannon
• Tiffany

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I have been busy designing projects for my local scrapbook store and trying to organize/clean up my craft space (a never ending process)! I'm hoping to get a lot of pictures into our regular photo albums this weekend and do some purging as we have a truck coming by on Monday for donations. I'll have lots to share soon!

A little Love - Etsy Inspired Challenge #70

Happy Saturday everyone! Hope your weekend is off to a good start!

We have another fun Etsy shop for you to get inspired by this week...Skylar's Candy Clips. She has adorable hair clips and accessories for girls.



I was inspired by this cute flower clip.

The pink and red inspired me to head to my scrapbook store and purchase the My Mind's Eye be loved collection! And then I came up with this card. :)

Okay, now it's your turn!
- Visit Skylar's Candy Clips and find an item that inspires you
- Create a project of your own and post it on your blog
- Link your project up to the Etsy Inspired Blog post (Challenge #70) by Friday at noon PST
- You could win a headband from Skylar's Candy Clips or some beautiful silver papers from our sponsor this week, Paper Temptress

Paper Temptress has an amazing selection of gorgeous papers...from metallic and pearlescent to leather and velvet touch papers...you will be sure to find paper for all your scrapbooking and card making needs!

Be sure to pop over to see what the rest of the Design Team has whipped up for you this week!

• Ashley
• De
• Emily
• Heather P. (January Guest Designer)
• Jackie
• Joy
• Lee
• Shannon
• Tiffany

And if you are still with me...thank you! :) If you haven't seen my exciting news, be sure to check out THIS post. And if you like discovering new Etsy shops, browsing treasuries, or love the color red...take a peek at the treasury west I created yesterday: Cherries and Cream

I'm so excited!!!

Hello friends! Remember how I said I have some exciting things to share?! Well, today is the day!

December was a very exciting month for me. A week before Christmas I received an email letting me know that one of my projects had been accepted for publication!!! This will be my first project to be published in print! It was a wonderful early Christmas gift for me and getting published was a goal for me in 2009 so it was nice to meet that goal before the year ended! :) I of course will share my publication with you all later this year and hopefully this is the beginning of many more published projects!

On Christmas, my wonderful aunt and uncle surprised me with a sewing machine! I had been talking to them about all the amazing layouts and cards I see with sewing on them as well as the great items on Etsy and how I would love to learn to sew. Well, now I can! :) I just started learning to use it a little this week and I even created a fun little paper garland (which seems to be all the rage on Etsy).
They are super easy to make, so if you have a sewing machine, some patterned papers and cardstock, and some punches, I highly recommend giving it a try. Here is a look at my Valentine's Day garland.


And finally, as a New Year gift to myself, I purchased a Canon Rebel XSi DSLR camera!!! I am super excited to learn to use it and become a better photographer. Costco had a really great deal that I just couldn't pass up since I have been wanting a DSLR for the past year and our point and click digital camera is getting a little old.

So, this year I hope to continue to share with you my scrapbook layouts and cards as well as some fun sewing projects and maybe a few spectacular photos too! :)

I have been working on some projects for my local scrapbook store this week using My Mind's Eye Colorful Christmas collection (which I love!) so I thought I'd leave you with a card that I created today.


Wishing you lots of joy in the New Year!

Back in Business!

Well, my oldest son started back to school today and I am missing our whole family being at home just enjoying time together. It was a wonderful winter break but the new year has begun and I am getting back into our regular routine.

So, my Etsy shop is back up and running with a few new items and more to come! I will be introducing a variety of creativity kits this year which are great for all kinds of paper crafting or if you have purchased a card making kit for kids from me, these creativity kits are a great way to help your child replenish their craft supply!

This Springtime Creativity Kit features paper from Cosmo Cricket and is perfect for all your Valentine, Easter, Baby, and Spring crafting needs!


I also have a Brand New Tinkering Ink stamp set for sale that would be good for Spring projects.


And if you love embellishing your projects with chipboard, then THIS is the set for you!

The paper crafting world seems to revolve around holidays, so even though Christmas is just barely over...Valentine's cards are in the works! :) I'll share more soon!

I'll leave you with a treasury I created today. Here is a peek:

To see these items in their full glory and get the links to each of the shops, you can click HERE to see the treasury on Etsy.

Have a great day!

Simple Stories - Life Documented

I am an avid reader of Ali Edwards blog and every Saturday she has amazing giveaways from a number of various sponsors. This weekend one of the giveaways is for a Simple Stories Life Documented Kit by MemoryWorks. I really loved the look of this kit so I checked out the Simple Stories site for more details and I was quite impressed! The kit is filled with great looking journaling cards, patterned papers, quote cards, and more! The kit is designed to help make your scrapbooking a little easier, yet still fabulous, and works extremely well with my favorite album, We R Memory Keepers, and their divided page protectors.

So, I just thought I would share this exciting new find with you all! And there is still time to have a chance at winning this kit over at Ali's blog. There is also another chance to win this kit over on the Simple Stories site...check it out HERE.

They also put together a great little video showcasing the kit HERE. If you have never scrapbooked before this kit seems like a great start! Even though I do a lot of scrapbooking it is impossible to keep up with the hundreds of photos I take. I think this kit would be a nice way to do more with my photos than just stick them in a photo album but also not be as time consuming as creating 12x12 layouts for all my pictures. I'm already excited to see what other kits they will release in the future! :)

Have a great weekend!

Birthday Wishes - Etsy Inspired Challenge #69

Happy New Year everyone! I hope the first few days of 2010 are going well for you! Today is the first Etsy Inspired challenge of 2010 and we have an adorable shop for you to be inspired by, Manic Muffin Totes. Just look at this cute little owl!


So I took my inspiration from the colors of this sweet owl and combined it with a fun digital stamp from our sponsor this week, Tiddly Inks, to come up with this birthday card.

The birthday wishes sentiment is from a dollar stamp I got at Michaels a few years ago. I really didn't think this card needed much besides this adorable image. What's so great about digital stamps is that you could enlarge it to create a matching gift bag or make it smaller to attach little tags to the party favors...so many possibilities! :)

So, how about starting off the New Year with a little challenge and a chance to win a prize?!
- Visit Manic Muffin Totes and find an item that inspires you
- Create any kind of project you would like and post it on your blog or an online gallery like SCS
- Link your project up to the Etsy Inspired Blog (Challenge #69 post) by Friday at noon PST

You could win 3 digital stamps of your choice from Tiddly Inks!

If you have never played in an Etsy Inspired Challenge before, we would love to have you join us! And even though our Design Team consists of mostly paper crafters, you do not have to be a paper crafter in order to participate. Take a peek at the challenge rules HERE.

Be sure to leave my fellow DT girls some love too! :)

• Ashley
• De
• Emily
• Heather P. (January Guest Designer)
• Joy
• Lee
• Shannon
• Tiffany

I have lots of exciting stuff to share with you all in the upcoming month or two so stay tuned!!! :)