Happy New Years Eve!

Happy New Years Eve!

Well, another year has come to an end. I am looking forward to a quiet night at home with my boys, I couldn't think of a better way to bring in the new year. The biggest change for me in the new year is that Craig will be starting pre-school on January 5th, I am happy and sad all at the same time. I guess I am just going to have to get used to them moving on to bigger things!

Thanks for stopping by and I wish you all the best in the new year!

Love Life!

I have had some decor elements to put up for a while now, I have been putting it off because I was concerned about how it would turn out. I decided to start myself off small, so I put the Love and Life up first, now that I think of it it was kind of silly for me to use my front entrance wall as my tester wall....to funny! I didn't find these small words difficult to rub on at all...we will see how it goes tomorrow when I tackle my big project. These pictures were taken within days of each of the boys being born, they are resting in my husbands hand. Most people cannot tell which picture is of Craig and which is of Ryan. It is amazing how similar they look in these pictures.

Thanks for stopping by and have an excellent day!

This is the gift that I made for my nephew, he is very artistic. Every time we go over there he seems to be working on something. I purchased a 9 x 12 sketch pad and decorated the front to suit him, he enjoys playing the guitar so I thought this stamp was perfect for him. The tin is not one of the Stampin' Up! ones, it is a little bit longer. The cover I made is magnetic so it can be changed if he ever wants something different. Inside I made a magnetic pouch to hold his art pencils, an eraser and a pencil sharpener. I was excited to give it to him and I got the reaction I hoped for, yey! I love when people appreciate the effort we put in!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with all your family and friends!

Merry Christmas!

Sorry I have not been posting much lately, I have been so busy with getting ready for Christmas, spending time with the boys and I just can't fight this cold. I spent almost the entire day on the couch yesterday watching movies with my family. My husband was so great today, he knows how horrible I feel so he did the laundry, dishes, cooked supper and he even cleaned the bathroom!

These two pages were created in MDS. I think these pictures of our boys turned out so cute, it sure is hard to get them both sitting and smiling at the same time. I really like Old Olive, Chocolate Chip and Real Red colors together for Christmas. I used the Schoolbook Serif Alphabet, A Holly, Jolly Christmas and the Old Saint Nick Stamp sets.

Have a great day!

Baby cards!

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I forget where I saw this layout, maybe on SCS. I really like it and you will probably see it again in the future! I used the Bundled in Love stamp set that is retired and the little cutie is from Nursery Necessities. Both those sets are my favorite for baby cards. I water-colored the hippo and the bunny to make them a softer color.

Have a great day!

One Year Old!

How cute is our little boy! It is still hard to believe how fast his first year has gone by. This page is done in My Digital Studio. The background is Garden Green and I set the opacity to 89% so that I could have the stars pop out. I really like how the program allows you to enlarge the punch shapes to be what ever size you would like. I was amazed how well the Garden Green and Night of Navy colors matched Ryan's shirt.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Finally, Ryan's thank you cards

So I have finally finished Ryan's thank you cards. I am not usually this slow. I feel so busy yet I don't seem to have much accomplished. I wonder if my list will ever come to an end, ha, not likely! So his cards are made using lots of different Stampin' Up! colors, punches and the Scallop Circles #2 die. I have enjoyed making all these Sesame Street characters but I am not going to be upset about having a little break from them.

Have great day and thanks for stopping by!

MDS Card!

I wanted to try a card on MDS so I thought I would try a birthday card. This is a very basic card and it didn't even take me 5 minutes to make it. I am still learning the program so I am starting out with simple projects. This program really is great, I definitely see me getting lots of use out of it. 

Have a great day!

Ryan's Birthday in MDS!

I decided to do a couple simple pages in My Digital Studio from Ryan's birthday. MDS is such a quick way to get caught up on scrapbooking.  I still do prefer cutting my paper, stamping and punching, but, sometimes it is hard to find the time. I think MDS is great because I can make an online book they way I would want it while everything is fresh in my head and then when I find/make the time to scrapbook I can refer to it.

I am excited, I just put in my Occasions mini pre-order, Yey! The new mini will start January 5th so if there is anything you still want out of the current mini you better get before it is no longer available.

Ryan's invitations

These are the invitations we sent out for Ryan's birthday party! I thought I posted them yesterday and then noticed I didn't, oops! I made these with the Scallop circle for the Big shot and several different Stampin' Up! punches. The last picture is of the box I created to hold one of each card. I will hopefully get his thank you cards done today, my fingers are crossed. My older son Craig who is almost 2 1/2 loves all my Sesame Street creations, he is constantly playing with them and naming who each character is. I am working on an alphabet punch book for him for Christmas. I have over 70 different punched creations that I have created my self as well as some that are other peoples that I have seen on different blogs and SCS. Whenever we are in my craft area he grabs my 6 x 6 pages and likes me to name them so he can repeat it, he has learned so many new words through my punched art.  He can even pick some of them out and tell me what they are. 

Ryan's 1st Birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday Ryan!

Here is the birthday boy, enjoying some cake. We were pretty happy when the blue icing washed off both the boys, they looked stained.

I really like to make my own birthday cakes. I am really happy with how cookie monster and elmo turned out. Ryan was eager to get into them, he already started to eat the word's before I got a picture!

This is the Birthday card that I made for Ryan. I have seen similar ones on SCS.

This is the card that Craig and I made for Ryan. I wanted a stamp that was just an outline so that Craig could color the picture in for Ryan. This stamp is not from Stampin' Up!, unfortunately they do not have any Sesame Street characters.

Here are the party favors that I made, I came up with the boxes on my own and then used the Scallop circle for the Big SHot. I did get the idea from SCS, I just don't remember who, sorry. I put a box of crayons, a bag of cookies and a Sesame street ornament on each of the young children's boxes, in the big kids I did the cookies and smarties or M&M's.

Sesame Street!

So I am getting ready for Ryan's first birthday! Wow does time ever fly by, I can't believe our baby will be one already. It is kind of sad yet exciting to move on to the next stage of his life. I am doing  a Sesame street theme and will be using these characters I made using SU punches. I will post the invitations, his b-day card, thank you's and treat bags this weekend.

Have a great day!

Dasher!

I cased this card from one of my fellow Demonstrators Sam Fung, she creates such beautiful cards. I really like this layout because it is so simple and clean looking, I look forward to using this layout to make some more cards. I chose to use Very Vanilla, Soft Suede and Riding Hood Red (retired). I used Dasher and Heard from the Heart stamp sets. The scallop is from the big shot, the circle is from the circle scissor and I used the scallop edge punch.

Now I have to go and clean my stamp room so I can start some more projects, it is a disaster. 

Have a great day!

Beautiful Butterflies!

I feel like it has been so long since I've posted, I have been so busy with the boys and preparing for the craft sale that I have had to let certain things slip the last couple weeks. Now that the sale is done I will be back to my regular, almost daily posts and for my house, it is getting cleaned and decorated for Christmas tomorrow. I never used to be one to decorate much, a little ornament here, a tree of course, but ever since I have become a mom and a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, which happened within 5 months of each other, I feel the need to go all out for every occasion. I want our boys to be excited about celebrating the holidays and spending time with family and friends and I think that all the effort we put into decorating pays off by the look on their faces. I can't wait for Christmas this year, this is the year that our boys are going to be into it and ripping every present open, I am so excited! 

Enough rambling and now on to today's card. I recently got the Butterfly punch so I thought I would test it out. I decided to do a card the same as my big shot butterfly card, you can click Here to see it. This card is simple to make, I used Rich Razzleberry c/s and ribbon, Whisper White, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay c/s. I folded the brads up to make the little antennae, I love that I discovered this, it looks much cleaner then using c/s for them.

Christmas Gift Card Holder

Sorry it has been a while since I posted, I have been preparing for a craft sale that is this Saturday so I have been spending all my extra time in my craft room. These gift card holders are a beautiful way to give someone their Christmas gift card. I saw this idea on Heather Summer's blog , She always has such great ideas. 

To make the Top note gift card holder you simply take a 5 1/2 x11" sheet of card stock and score it at 3 1/2, 5 1/2, and 7 1/2", fold your c/s so it looks like a W and line it up on the top note die just below the top blade so it doesn't cut a complete Top Note. Use a punch such as the Word Window or the Key tag punch to make a slit on the inside of the Top Note holder to create a spot for the gift card to slide in. Use sticky tape to stick the two scored edges together. Makw sure you punch the holes for your ribbon to go through before you stick it to a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4" piece of C/S. I also made one using elastic cord and brads to hold it shut, this one is great for those who don't like to tie bows. I will post that one later.

Have a great day!

COloring card

I have seen a few different coloring cards on Splicoast Stampers and I just thought they were such a great idea for kids cards that I had to make one. I came up with my own style of card that I haven't see anywhere. I made the bottom of the inside of the card like a box base so the crayons and coloring sheets would fit in there and I used velcro to keep the card shut. I made four coloring sheets for each card and used the Beary Best Friends and the All in the Family Accessories stamp sets for them. I know these are the In-colors from last year but I have a bunch left and thought I would use some of it up making these cards. I liked the look of the crayons being out of the box they came in so I made my own with Window sheet and then wrapped a colored piece of card stock around it to hold it together. One of the other reasons I made a box and didn't just put the crayons in the card was because they would move around and mark up the coloring sheets. 

Hope you have a great day!

Gift tag box template

I had some requests for the template of the gift tag boxes that I made so if you click here it will take you to the template. To make the lid I simply duplicated the base and made it 1/8 larger so it would fit over top of the base. I used the hobby blade to cut out the center and then taped a Window Sheet in the hole to make a see through top. You may want to adjust the lid dimensions as you see fit, there are no measurements on the template so I just printed it out and measured it with my ruler.

Have a great day!

Scenic Season

I got this card at Regionals as a swap (I will post who's card it was later when I find the swap) and I had to make one of my own. Scenic Season is such a beautiful stamp set, I like how the trees, greeting and bird are all on the same stamp, it definitely saves time if you want to use this set to make several Christmas cards. I used always Artichoke, Whisper White and Real Red for the colors. It is hard to see in the picture but there are Dazzling Diamonds at the base of all the trees for snow. 

Have a great day!

Gift tags and box

Aren't these great!

 They are great to make and use for yourself or to give as a gift. I used the Delightful Decorations stamp set with the matching punch to make these tags. I am excited to start wrapping my Christmas presents so I can use these. Some of the tags flip open, to do this you just need to score and fold your paper, stamp your ornament with the top at the fold ( I found using the Stamp-a-ma-jig made it easier to line up) and then punch over it making sure the punch hangs over the folded edge. I am going to try to have a post with the box instructions for you sometime this weekend.

Have a great day and happy stamping!

My Digital Studio!

I am very excited that I got My Digital Studio!  I have been playing around with it for the last couple of days and it is easier to use then I expected. This scrapbook page of my son Ryan and I is my first project and I like how it turned out. I think this program is great for several reasons, I especially like that I can design my pages on here and then go and make them with all my supplies!

I hope you have a wonderful day! 

Todays card is using the Patterned Pines Hostess set and the Four the Holidays set out of the mini. I told you I liked this set and would be using it lots! The card uses Whisper White, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip and Real Red. These colors all go great together for the Christmas season. I saw this layout on Splitcoast and had to give it a try, sorry I do not remember who made the original card I saw. I am hoping to get some scrapbook pages done tomorrow, I took lots of pictures of the boys playing in the leaves today. I was happy because I even managed to get a family picture of us, we don't have very many.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Tree's

I really like how this card came together, I wasn't in a hurry to get the Patterned Pines hostess set and now I wish I was using it sooner! What a pretty set. The trees fit perfectly in the Top Note die for the Big Shot. The Merry Christmas is from the Four the Season stamp set that is in the mini catalogue.

Have a great day!

A little boy's wish for Christmas cards!

I saw a message on Facebook about a little boy, Noah Biorkman who is just 5 years old and is in the last stages of his battle with neuroblastoma cancer. His family does not expect him to make it to the end of December so they have decided to celebrate Christmas with him this weekend. His wish is to receive as many Christmas cards as possible and since we are all card makers I thought we could make this brave little boy's wish come true. If you would like to send a card to Noah you can email me for his address or google his name and you will find it.

It is important to take the time for your family everyday and let them know just how special they are to you.

Delightful Decorations

 I was very excited, the UPS truck came the other day and I got a big box of stuff! In that box was this set, Delightful Decorations with the matching Ornament punch. I am so excited to use all my new stuff! The colors for this card are Whisper White (textured with backgrounds 1), Close to Cocoa, Real Red and Old Olive. I used the Berry Christmas stamp set to make the ribbon the ornaments are dangling from.

Have a great day! 

Berry Christmas

I really liked the layout of the card that I made yesterday so I decided to try it again with a christmas theme. I used the Berry Christmas stamp set that I got when I went to Regionals in Cincinnati in September. I think the Whisper White, Soft Suede and Certainly Celery with a touch of Real Red go great together for a Christmas card. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Best Wishes!

I was going through some of my paper last night and decided I should challenge myself to use some of the colors that never get used. So I went with Garden Green and Cameo Coral, I don't think they look to bad together. I saw a layout like this on Rochelle Gould's blog and thought I would give it a try. 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a great day!

Happy Halloween!

These are the treat bags I made for my nieces and nephew, I filled them with different treats based off their ages, the older kids got candy of course and the younger ones got goldfish and cookies.. The monsters and spiders are peppermint patty chocolates, yummy! I saw the monster idea at a meeting I went to but don't know who made them, sorry, I added two more legs to mine to make them a little different. I have seen these spiders done by several different people on blogs and Splitcoast, I also added more legs to make a total of eight. 

Here are our little munchkins, an elephant and a lion. Ryan was happy in his costume for the last two days but didn't want to stop crying for me to take a picture. I am hoping my sister-in-law got a good one. Beside each of them is their pumpkin, Ryan obviously had lots of help with his, he actually kept taking the pieces out instead of putting them in! Craig would show me where he wanted each piece to go and I would start it for him and then he would push them the rest of the way in.

I was amazed at how well he trick or treated today.  For a two year old he picked up pretty fast that he was getting chocolate, he started to lead the way up the driveways after about the 3rd house. 

Halloween Treats!

These are the treats I made for the boys to take to the Early Years center today. I made little baggies of goldfish for the children and the Owl bags for the staff. We really have wonderful staff at the center I go to so I like to do something special for them whenever I can. 

I had to post this picture because Craig is stealing a bag of fish while I was trying to take a picture, I probably had to take 10 pictures. His hand almost looks spooky like a ghost!

I hope everyone has a great and safe Halloween tomorrow!

I don't have any pictures right now but will be back in the morning with some. I am taking our boys to a halloween party at the Early Years center so I have been busy making treats. It is funny how we know an occasion is coming up yet we still procrastinate and save things till the last minute. I will take some pics of them in their costumes and of the treats that I made for all the kids to show you in the morning. 

Snow Burst

I really like how todays card turned out. I used the Snow Burst (retired) and the Season's Greetings from the Snow Swirled set. The colors are Chocolate Chip, Whisper White and Kraft. I saw a card like this on Splitcoast stampers but forgot to write down the name to mention you, sorry, feel free to message me so I can give you proper credit. 

Have a great day!

Snow Swirled Christmas tree

So I am not very happy with todays card, I decided to try a different layout and this is what I got. I decided to post it still because it may give you some great ideas for your own projects. I think it might be the colors I don't like so I am going to try it with different stamps and colors. If you decide to use this layout I would love to see what you come up with, you can email me a picture and I will display it on my blog for everyone to see.

More Dasher

So I was a bad girl today...I went over to Port Huron shopping and got all excited in the craft store. I just can't help myself, I am so lucky that I have a husband that lets me spend on all my different craft hobbies. 

So todays card is Dasher and Snow Swirled again! I guess these stamp sets must be on my favorite's list. I chose to only use two colors, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla. I have been seeing a lot of cards lately using the Top Note and figured since I have it I might as well use it.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fantastic day!

My son Craig was cute while I was stamping tonight, every time I would have the backing to my sticky strip on the table he would pick it up and throw it on the floor. And when I would set one of my punches down he would grab it and every scrap piece of paper I would put down and try and punch it. I think he is going to be my stamping buddy :) 

For my card tonight I decided to use the Dasher and Snow Swirled stamp sets. The colors are Kraft, Real Red and Whisper White. For the ink I used Soft Suede and Real Red

Thanks for stopping by and Have a great day!

My first Guest Stamper!

My friend Sherri Mills made these beautiful scrapbook pages for me, she is so talented. How cute are the Frankenstein head and the spiders! I can not wait until Halloween so I can fill them with pictures of the boys. I think this is such a great layout because I like to put lots of pictures onto my pages, you will probably be seeing lots of pages with this layout from me in the future.

Thanks Sherri!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!