Scrap page of Jake's 1st day

I had a play day on Friday (yippee!!) with just Emma. Too fun! Although she was more than difficult in the morning, we went to playgroup (swimming, no less) and had so much fun. Then, as she napped (and I did a little work) I started some real playing. Saturday was the kids and I b/c Terry had to work (what seemed like all day), so I did housework all morning, but finally got some time to play last night and this afternoon.


One of the fun things I did was the scrap page for Jake's 1st day of Pre-K... it turned out exactly like I had in my mind (isn't that the best!!)...

I used some paper and embellishments from the Storytellers club (class I went to at GASC)... the green cs and red ribbon is just random and the blue cs is from the DCWV summer stack. The brads are Queen & Co. and the metal "paper clip" is from CTMH. I also used white craft CTMH ink around the 2 4x4 pics/frames and on the file folder. The white ink is some kind of gel pen.

Inside the file folder I made a few notes pages of memories of mine (and 1 of his) from that first day.

Cute idea, huh?

Enjoy!

Kristin

Another set to win

Good morning all! Terry's alarm woke me up at 4am and try as I might I could not go back to sleep. About to get ready for the day, but wanted ya'll to know of another blogger giving away some goodies. She does this frequently, but I really like this set and wanted to share (she also does fantastic techniques!!)...

Go here to see what you could win and good luck!

Enjoy!
Kristin

Win Stamps?

One blog I read regularly is is offering up the chance to win a bunch of stamps if you donate to a cause to stamp out hunger.

While I am not in a position to donate right now, others might be...

Go here to see the post if you'd like!

Enjoy!

Kristin

gift #2

So, I wanted to make a 3x3 box with notecards and did!! The pic above is the "finished" version. A lot more time intensive than I was expecting and I used OLD paper that I didn't mind "wasting" if I hated it. (problem is, I can't find the tutorial off of splitcoast stampers that I used)

I made 6 3x3 notecards (2 Thank yous, 2 Hello Friend, and 2 thinking of you). I just changed the placement of the pink grosgrain ribbon and sponged the edges (all with amethyst).

The paper is Doodlebug and the ribbons were random from HL and/or Walmart.

This was made from 2 sheets of pp that I glued together (for stability and for prettiness).

Enjoy!

Kristin

"A Gift"

Well, I wanted to make this candle I saw on Lauren's blog and I finally had a reason to do so!



Best part?? Except for the actual leaf stamp EVERYTHING was already in my house!! And, I got the stamp for under $5!!! Yippee!!

So, read Lauren's blog to get all the details, but essentially you stamp images onto tissue paper, wrap around a candle and use your heatgun to melt the wax over the tissue paper. Then I did the topper.

All colors are CTMH: Goldrush, Autumn Terracotta, Cranberry, Barn Red, organdy ribbon, paper studio clear stamps for sentiment.

You can do this!!

Enjoy!

Kristin

First day

Today was Jake's first day of Pre-K in the "big" school. He did great and his teacher had lots of wonderful things to say about him!

It was actually pretty easy this morning (for me)... wonder what next year will be like!

"No Sea of Humanity...

... He sees you."


This weekend I attended Women of Faith with a bunch of women from my church (and their moms, and their friends). These are not any women, but they are friends. These are the women who brought us food after Emma was born, cried with me when I had to go back to work after maternity leave was over, the women whose children are friends with my children, the women who encouraged me, prayed for me, and have celebrated with me as I left to start a private practice with Lisa. And, hopefully, they know how much they inspire me, uplift me, and challenge me.

As *some* of you may know, I am not the easiest person to get along with... (we'll just leave it at that), but I can be funny, witty, and am always a loyal friend. I love God. And so do they. With all their hearts, with all their minds, with all their lives- through and through. I so enjoy the time I spend with them (even though it isn't much).

During the weekend, I had a renewed perspective of who our God truly is... there were thousands of women in the American Airlines Center (haven't a clue as to how many), but it was a massive amount of women!! At one point, Natalie Grant- great singer- said "When God looks down at the earth there is no sea of humanity, He sees you"...

Now that is personal! At one point in the weekend, a friend and I were in another part of the arena looking to see if the rest of the group was getting up to leave... even though we KNEW where they were sitting, we couldn't see them (and she even has GREAT vision!!- I do not! ha).

But He sees you- where you are, what you are doing, loving you. Not from a distance, but up close and personal.

I know this veers WAY off of what I usually post, and thanks for reading all the way down, there will be more stamping stuff another day, but this was the most important thing for me to share today.

Enjoy!
Kristin

I "love" this page

I did this page over the weekend in a couple of hours (maybe less?)... no real sketch, just found a picture I wanted to scrap, started matching colors, and away I went.


I LOVE the glossy accents on this... it's on the flower at the bottom right and on the words: live laugh love (they looked like they're stamped with paint, so I wanted to give them dimension).

The papers are from StoryTellers Club (and embellishments). The burgandy & black cs are OT stack. I added a bit extra ink using Ranker Ink distressing ink- frayed burlap and vintage photo. Stickles for a little bling.

Here's a close-up of the flower with the glossy accents...

Enjoy!

Kristin

One of my favorite cards!!

Morning all!!!





Well, finally I get to show you this fabulous card that I made from susiestampsalot sketch on August 12th. I really liked her card, but had no idea how to do the "ticket punch" look (on the smaller image panel) without a ticket punch.





No, I did NOT go buy a new punch!! :-)





I became inventive... you should try it-haha!





I actually used a corner "fancy" punch... turned it over and stuck a corner in on one side and ta-da... out came a ticket punch look.

First, the stamp is MFT "Take a Break"... I got it at that stamp store for a few dollars (where I got the Stamping bella images). I colored it with my copics, then used green stickles on the leaves and glossy accents on all the metal parts... looks great in real life!! I used pop-dots and adhered it to white cs, matted with chocolate PTI cs. The "pink/peach" color is PTI Berry Sorbet (as is the polk dot ribbon). The green cs is from that OT stack I've mentioned before. The card base is the same PTI chocolate cs (LOVE that stuff!!).

It's just a great card... simple and elegant!

Enjoy!

Kristin

Blog Candy and Emma update

So, Emma's rash is gone (yea) and she seems a little better. Jake, though, has been eaten alive by something- spider, ants, we don't know. Poor child is itching half to death and is covered in pink calamine lotion!!

Just a note to tell you that some Blog Candy (stamp set) is being offered here so check it out and post a comment to see if you win!!

Finally, my "favorite card" that I mentioned yesterday will actually be tomorrow's post!! Since I post *ahead* of time, I forget when things are showing up (sorry!)

Enjoy!
Kristin

Eloise Greengrass

So, with some birthday $$ in hand, I went to a local stamp store to look around. I found some Stamping Bella stamps!! I was so excited. I had wanted to see these in person before ordering blindly online (even though I've seen them used plenty of times).





I inked them all up and just started coloring them for fun (no cards in mind). There were only 2 that I liked... and I really couldn't think of what type of card to put "her" on, but wanted to share it anyway.

I colored her with copics, put green stickles on her wings and purple stickles on the flower (it's too much glitter!... shoulda stopped at the wings). Then, I totally messed up b/c I then outlined her in grey- I don't think it should have been on her legs!! Oh well, live and learn!

Enjoy!

Kristin

A sick girl

Well, Emma's been sick now for over a week. First time in almost 9 months (maybe longer) that Terry and I had to do sick days for her. She had a low-grade fever and beginning of a cold last weekend, and by Wed had a 103 temp that even went to 104 early Thursday AM.

Took her in to see my old ENT boss and she had a bad ear infection (again!). But, she is apparently allergic to that antibiotic... woke up this AM with a rash on her tummy that is spreading!!

Just talked to him and if some benadryl doesn't start helping we'll be off to Cook's for them to have a look at her... what a weekend!

So, we're praying for a good nap and some help with the benadryl. We'd hoped to go out to dinner with friends tonight for a birthday celebration (already posted the card I'm giving)... but now we're not sure.

Okay, enough of that!! Be back tomorrow with one of my favorite cards ever!

Enjoy!
Kristin

Good Luck

After work on Friday, Lisa and I met up with some old friends to wish "Good Luck" to a young woman going off to college on Monday (and Tech, no less--- Go Red Raiders!). I am super proud of her and know she can accomplish anything she wants.





I wanted to make her a cute card, but my fave thing is the silver brad I matched to the paper/ribbon with green stickles (it has a fancy name but I can't remember and it's in the other room... lazy me) and then topped it with glossy accents after the stickles dried so it'd be smooth like a brad. Awesome!! Great idea from Melissa at CTMH.

Have a great day!

Enjoy!

Kristin

Check this out!

Okay, I know you all have to go so long during the week for a post if I didn't do several pre-posts over the weekend (sorry!), but the thunderstorms woke me up super early today and after making a card for a young woman I know going off to Tx Tech (Go Red Raiders!) I started catching up on the blogs I read.

This woman is fast becoming a favorite... No Time to Stamp? today had a FABULOUS card and great challenge (I might try it this weekend).

But, I LOVED her cards so much I had to share with ya'll... look at her original card and then the 2nd one she just made. Aren't those awesome??

I've got at least 2 cards to show you starting tomorrow... and I'll try making more (plus I am formulating a cute idea for a scrap page).

Enjoy!
Kristin

thank you card choice

So, here's the card I made that was the "winner" as our office thank you choice (at least for now). I got the idea from Splitcoast Stampers (Mitch47).

I used some cs I got from Big Lots (a LONG time ago) for the card base and image panel. The brown cs came from Oriental Trading big stack of 150 sheets for $20. The ribbon is from American Crafts. The stamp was from Walmart and I used my nesties for the scallop and panel.

Enjoy!

Kristin

Some thank yous...

In my new private practice Lisa and I came up with a need for some thank you notes. We didn't want to have to spend a lot of money so I offered to make a couple of different ones and she could pick which one we could use. I wanted to make it somewhat easy to assemble AND I needed to have enough of the products to make several cards.





This is the one we didn't choose... I felt it was not professional enough and she agreed. But it is SUPER cute!! (It also would have been the harder one to make several of)...

I used DCWV blossoms and butterflies paper and the Summer CS stack. I used my Friendship Blessings stamp set for the flower and sentiment. Nesties for the square scallop and panel for the image. Random pink satin ribbon (from Walmart?). I *think* the ink color is CTMH bubblegum and watermelon.

I actually know this card is going to someone special... she just doesn't know about it yet!

Enjoy!

Kristin

Fun Card

So, I wanted to use one of my birthday gifts... a stamp set called Friendship Blessings (thanks Lisa!!). It is one of the best sets I've seen from CTMH... but it's not in their current catalog.

I used some of my PTI paper and ribbon (Lavender Moon) along with DCWV glitter stack paper. The fun thing about this card is you can do the 2-step stamping b/c the set has the solid flower or leaf as a separate stamp from the outline flower or leaf.

I used glossy accents on all the "dots" around the flowers and stickles on the "F" in friendship and the centers of the flowers.

Sometimes it's good to just do a card for fun and inspiration!

Enjoy!

Kristin

New stuff!

If you'll look on the right sidebar of my blog below my "blog list" you can now see all the labels I've worked on since starting the blog. I figured there are enough of them, that if you wanted to find something specific, now you could! Also, you can subscribe to the blog feed too (if you don't already) and it looks much easier than before.

Enjoy!
Kristin

What, a scrapbook page, REALLY???

Ha! You can stop laughing! I actually completed this page awhile ago, but kept it out thinking maybe it needed something else. I finally decided it was done, took a pic, and then never uploaded my camera.

So, here it is...

Again, I will sing the praises of Stacy Julian and Photo Freedom. I remember taking these pictures like it was yesterday (but it was Sept '06). But, b/c I liked to scrap in chrono order and mostly events... I never knew how to put these in Jake's album. So, I gladly looked for these pics when I decided I was ready to scrap a boy page after having created my Photo Freedom folders.

I pulled out my new CTMH Rustic Trail (new, ha... it had never been opened and I swear I ordered it in April!), chocolate and olive ink pads, my Cricut Base Camp/George carts with the design studio fired up on my computer. I created a sketch from a combo of the latest Scrapbooks, etc mag/online and pencil line sketch website and was DONE in under an hour.

Love it!

Enjoy!

Kristin

celebrate birthday continues...

Well, you've seen lots of birthday cards lately, but tomorrow you'll get a scrapbook page!

Today, though, is ANOTHER bday card (although b/c it only says "Celebrate" you can pretend it isn't a bday card if that makes you feel better, lol!)

I am pretty sure I know who the recipient of this card will be, but no telling yet (in case I change my mind!).

This was made with a .cut file from Capadia Designs- it is a standard card size with the scallops and punched holes (nice, huh). I actually used it twice- once for the blue cs that is the card base and again on the DCWV b&b printed paper that is glued to the top.

The paper is itself is so glittery and pretty, I couldn't figure out what to do next. I had seen on several blogs the idea of stamping onto vellum and then coloring it with copic markers. So, that's what I did. It turned out great! To make the butterfly look like it was flying I stamped it on a pink cs that matches the paper and only glued the body down. I took my *new* Glossy Accents onto a couple of spots on the wings for shine. Finally, I stamped the sentiment from my *new* stamp set and ink pad and went over it with the G.A. too. I matted it and was done.

Enjoy!

Kristin

Many Happy Wishes for the Birthday boy!

boy is a "bit" of a strong word, but he's definitely a kid at heart! (Funny story... the other day he and a college guy were sitting and waiting to start some important training. They both had "clicker" pens and decided to race to see who could click their pen the most in the shortest amount of time!... pretty sure they were doing that for my benefit, but you can NEVER tell!)

So, I decided to do a more grown up card and am pretty pleased with the result

Now, you might be asking yourself... birthday? Really? Hmmm....

First, I will explain the technique, then the birthday part.

1) I saw the other day on this blog (a MUST if you have a CRICUT, want a CRICUT, love your CRICUT), a very cool technique that she found called cuttlebug inking. I HAD to try this. Watch the video on Linda's blog and it'll make sense. I used chocolate CTMH ink on that paper (it was MM cs -wheat, I think) with the script cuttlebug folder. Then, I took another cs and distressed the edges, sponged them with black and chocolate inks and then crumpled it up. Pressed out flat and rubbed/sponged more ink over it. On an ivory textured cs I stamped the image in black. Pulled out my blender pen and colored it with black and brown inks.

2) On the inside is stamped "happy birthday"... but what I've written is something to the effect that we may not be "two of a kind" but there is no one else I'd rather be with than Terry.

Enjoy!

Kristin

p.s. this here proves that stamp images can be REALLY versatile, depending on how you use them!

Terry's 1st birthday card...

So, yesterday was MY birthday and tomorrow is Terry's! Back when we were dating he always said he wanted to get married on the 4th (the day in between) so he'd never forget any important dates. I looked at him and said, "what makes you think I'd LET you forget??!" He shoulda known then....





Anyway, I made 2 cards for him- 1 from the kids and 1 from me (mainly b/c I finished the first one and decided it was a little too childish to come from me).





Here's the one from the kids:

I am positive I worked from a sketch but I can't find it in my book! I used some MM cs and pp for the layers, random brown ribbon, 3 brads, and the stamp set I bought somewhere at sometime in some store (I used it for my mom's day cards this year, if that helps!).

As you can see, it really isn't my best work, so I am glad to hand it over to the kids and let them give it to him.

Enjoy!

Kristin

you say it's your birthday, da nah nah nah nah nah

it's MY birthday TOO yea, da nah nah nah nah nah...





That's right, today I am OLD (er) than yesterday! Really weird to be "this" old, b/c when you are 10, 16 years seem old. When you are 16, 21 years seems old but 25 or 28 seems REALLY old. Then, you are in your twenties and ANY number over 30 is almost too old to think about. And I am in my middle 30's, wow. Where did the time go??



But here's what is great (and funny) about life. My 30's have been far better than my 20's (and my teen years couldn't even hold a candle to my 20's). So, for that I am blessed! God has been very good and faithful to me.



So, I got some goodies from my friends and family, here is the first card I made with the some of the fun stuff I bought with a Joann's gift card (thanks Erica!)...

I got a "birthday" clear acrylic stamp set. It had the cupcake image (I masked it so I could stamp it in multiples) and the multi-candle image (again, used it twice, just masking the cupcakes). And, it had the sentiment as well. There was actually several sentiments and several images including the pink ink (stamp pad) that shows up well in the sentiment and middle cupcake and candles, and a clear acrylic block too. ALL that for $7!! What a steal! I also bought a "mini" acrylic block for a $1, and got some Ranger Inks Glossy Accents for $7. Only had to spend about a dollar of my own $$ (and that was mostly the tax... so I did GREAT).

The glossy accents stuff is kinda like CTMH Liquid Glass that I've wanted for a very long time (but I always wanted other stuff more) and this was essentially free for me, so I finally got it! The sketch came from Steph's stampin stuff which is actually from Taylor's cupcake challenge
I "flipped" the image (sort of) b/c my pink paper got a little messed up, and when I tried to tie my bow to hide it I tied it 'upside down' (if that makes sense)... so I just flipped everything over. I think it looks good though. The colored cs is all DCWV summer stack and the pp is DCWV butterflies and blossoms. The brown cs and ribbon is PTI.

My favorite part, though, is what I did to the candles and cupcake tops. I colored the flames with my copic marker and then added stickles for bling. I colored the sprinkles with my pink copic and then added the glossy accents. It dries to a clear, hard, raised (embossed) feeling. So, in real life this is one AWESOME card. Eventually, I'll give it away, but for now- it's my bday card to myself :-).

Enjoy!

Kristin

Stunning Card... (not mine)

Howdy everyone! I have to post this amazing card done by my friend, Sarah, in Las Vegas (hi, sarah!!)... she emailed it to me earlier this week and I promised to post it... so here it is for it's debut on the "world stage" (of the 4 people who read this! haha)

Don't you LOVE it???!!! She saw a challenge on a blog she read and decided to "go for it"... Good Girl! My absolute favorite part is actually the paper piercing that runs 'loopy' down from the dragonfly (brad? is my guess). I simply love that. So elegant, but super easy.

Stay tuned over the next few days, I have cards AND a scrapbook page to show!!

Enjoy!
Kristin