Thank you

Hi Everyone!

It's Saturday morning and I could be sleeping, but my mind is racing so I decided to get up and be productive. I have been a fan of Lawn Fawn stamps since their first stamp set arrived on the market.  I own most of their stamps and have owned all of their 6" x 6" paper pads.  I follow their blog and watch their videos on YouTube.

In the video that I watched the other night Kelly Marie showed a cool technique using a cloud cutout  and distress ink to create a sky background.  You can watch the video at this link.  I don't have Lawn Fawn's tag stamp or die, but I have several other tag dies and keep a stash of die cut tags on hand.  I like to create scenes on them and add them to blank cards.

I am working on 2 different gift sets that will be all thank you cards so that's what you'll mostly be seeing on my blog for a while. 

Here's the card I created last night. 

 

The rainbow paper is from Lawn Fawn's "Hello Sunshine!" small paper pad.  The sailboat is from Lawn Fawn's "Float My Boat" clear stamp set.  The sentiment was created with a Stampendous wooden stamp that was sitting on my work table. 

 

I used Kelly Marie's technique on 2 blank white tags.  Then I stamped a sailboat directly on the first tag.  I also stamped it on a scrap of rainbow paper, fussy cut the sails and adhered them to the tag.  I cut down the second tag and used a Fiskars waves border punch to create waves on it.  The tag is attached to the card with foam tape.  I rounded the corners on my layering paper and card to mimic the rounded corners on the tag.  The buttons remind me of port holes. 

 

Have a great Saturday!

Carol



Western theme cards

Hi Everyone!

When I learned that the theme for Lauren's bridal shower was a Western one I looked through my papercrafting supplies to see what I already owned that could be used for a Western theme.  I found an AccuCut Zip'e Slim die with a boot and a cactus on it, a Sizzix die with a larger cactus, and a Sizzix die with a cowboy hat.  That was all I had so I bought a few more things.

I bought a Paper Smooches "Buckaroo" clear stamp set and Lawn Fawn's "Happy Trails" clear stamp set mostly because I wanted the 'Happy Trails" sentiment in it.  I also purchased a QuicKutz horseshoe die, Carta Bella's "Giddy Up Boy" 6" x 6" paper pad, and Best Creation's "Cowboy Up" 6" x 6" paper pad.  I couldn't  resist buying multiple packages of SandyLion Western Essentials dimensional stickers. 

My standard gift for most occasions has become cards or some other papercraft.  I wanted to make cards for the bridal shower, but wasn't sure how many to make.  I asked a few friends and they suggested 20 to 24 cards.  I decided to make 24 cards, a gift box, and a bridal shower card. 

Many years ago when my employer at that time asked me to create 75 Christmas cards for some reason I made 75 different ones and that took more thought than was needed.  After I did all of the work I realized the cards were going all over the country and it wouldn't have matter if there were duplicates. 

So this time I was smart.  I made 2 of each card which meant I only needed 12 different ideas.  Here are some of the cards.

I stamped the boots twice.  Once on a tan textured paper and once on a dark brown textured paper.  I fussy cut the tan ones and adhered them to the brown ones.  The hearts are Country buttons I found in my stash. 

 

There was a set of "trading cards" for lack of a better word in one of the paper pads.  I cut them up and put them on some of the cards.

 

 

 

These boots were also cut from textured paper.  The stars are brads.  I folded the sentiments banner to add dimension to the card.

 

 

 

This was a super easy card to create.  I just cut down a piece of the paper so that it measured 4" x 5.25" and adhered it to a tan blank card.  I used a word bubble stamp from The Alley Way Stamps "Talk to Me" clear stamp set for the word bubble, fussy cut it and stamped "thanks" in it. 

 

 

 

The boots on this card are SandyLion Western Essentials stickers.  I used a die to cut a stash of tags and used one of them on this card. 

 

That's it for today.  I'll be back soon to share more of the cards.

 

Have a great day!

Carol









Happy Trails

Hi Everyone!

It's Patriot's Day in Massachusetts.  I started to pack up all things Easter and pulled out some of my patriotic dishes.  I think I get the most mileage out of my red, white and blue decorations because I usually pull them out for Patriot's Day and leave them out through the 4th of July.  I am taking a break from decorating to write this post.

Two weeks ago I attended Gayle's daughter-in-law to be bridal shower.  Gayle and I worked on the shower favors for weeks.  We started out by walking through Michaels, AC Moore and JoAnn's to see what we could find for the "Western" theme that had been chosen for the shower.  We found some lavender paisley fabric in JoAnn's and decided to use it to help us decorate some small canning jars.  Lavender is one of the colors for the wedding. 

 

Gayle used pinking shears to cut the fabric circles that she put under each lid.  I used the "Happy trails" stamp from the Paper Smooches "Buckaroo" clear stamp set to stamp the sentiment.  I used standard Nestability circle dies to cut the white and black circles.  We used a glue dot to adhere the sentiment to the fabric.

 

 

Gayle used Scor-tape to attach 1/4" white ribbon around the jar's lid.  We used an AccuCut Zip'e slim boot die to cut boots out of black tag.  We outlined the details on the boot with a silver gel pen.  I used that same pen to write "Rick and Lauren" on each of the boots.  The star is a brad.  The boot is attached to the jar with a glue dot.  The jar was filled with Trail Mix. 

 

It was a beautiful shower.  The favors were a hit.  



Have a great night!
Carol

Easter Appetizers

Happy Day before Easter!

Marie and I have been preparing some of the food for tomorrow.  I thought I'd share photographs of the appetizers we just made.

We used a flower vegetable cutter and a small round cookie cutter to create these cheese daisies.  The stems are scallions.  The cheese will be served with an assortment of crackers.

 

 

I saw the idea for these stuffed grape tomatoes on Pinterest.  I wanted to buy a package that had red, orange, and yellow grape tomatoes in it, but they were much more expensive this early in spring.  I used a sharp paring knife to cut an "X" in the stem end of each tomato.  Then I pushed a strip of scallion through the X.  I lay each tomato on each side and cut three slits through the tomato (that created 6 slits).  I scraped out the seeds and piped some chive cream cheese into each tomato.  I put a few spinach leaves on the platter before I added the tomatoes.  

We saw this idea on Pinterest.  Marie made the cheese mixture and shaped it into 3 carrots.  She added fresh parsley for the carrot tops and laid the carrots out on some spinach leaves.

 

Marie arranged celery, red peppers and carrots on an egg shaped plate to create a "veggie Easter egg" that will be served with dip.  She complained about the red peppers I bought and said I should have bought yellow ones because "red" didn't belong on the Easter egg. 

 

 

That's it so far.  Will be back with more pictures later....

Carol



Easter Goodies

Hi Everyone!

There will be 9 of us for Easter dinner this year.  I wanted to make something festive to put at each place setting.  I decided to use the Rounded Wrap Up template from PaperTrey Ink to create some Easter boxes. 

 
I used an oval Nestability die to punch a hole in the front of each box.  I added a piece of clear transparency film to each of the holes.  The basket was created with a Martha Stewart paper punch.  I punched 2 baskets and put a piece of foam tape on one of the baskets.  Then I added paper eggs to the basket and then layered a second basket directly on top of the first one to create a dimensional basket.  The bow on the basket was created with a Martha Stewart paper punch.

I used some Lawn Fawn clear stamps to create the sentiment and the bunny.  I added a tiny white pompom to the bunny for a cottontail. 

Happy Easter!
Carol

Graphic 45 By the Sea cards

Hi Everyone!

It has been more than 4 months since I posted.  I spend a lot of time on schoolwork, but I have been creating cards and other papercrafts.  Most of the time I haven't stopped to photograph them.  However I have photographed some of the cards and crafts that I made lately and plan to share them with you. 

My friend Patty celebrated her "29th" birthday again yesterday.  She owns 2 homes and her favorite is by the sea.  The instant I saw Graphic 45's "By the Sea" collection I knew I had to purchase it to use for cards and gifts for her. 

I bought the paper on Sunday so there wasn't a lot of time to create cards by Wednesday, but I managed to create 6 of them for her along with a birthday card and gift bag.  Here are the 6 cards I made her.

 

The sailboat, rope and stars are Recollections stickers.  The sentiment and anchor are from Lawn Fawn's "Float My Boat" clear stamp set.  

 

 

The seashell sticker is from K & Company.  The text was created with an Impression Obsession wooden stamp.

 

 

The seashell sticker is from K & Company.

 

 

The sentiment was created with and Impression Obsession wooden stamp.  The sea castle is a sticker from SandyLion Essentials.

 

 

 

I found the brads in my stash.  Not sure where they came from.

 

 







 The sea star sticker is from K & Company. 

 

That's it for today.  I'll be back tomorrow to share the goodie boxes I created for our table for Easter.

 

Have a great night!

Carol