Christmas in August???

So here I am creating Christmas gift tags in the middle of the summer.  These were made for a swap I'm participating in on Splitcoaststampers.com.

I love using handmade tags on gifts.  I am hoping this encourages me to make more - just in time for the holidays...

The bases were cut using the Art Philosophy cricut cartridge.  One is a postage stamp shape and the other is your basic tag shape.  The gingerbread man is a EK Success punch as well as the snowflake punch.

You Are My Happy

I've been busy making lots of memories and hope to scrapbook the pictures soon.  This photo is the only one taken when Kenny, Carly and I went to the county fair.  We went to see Kool & The Gang and then walked around eating lots of goodies.

When you go to the fair, you always need to get a corn dog and something sweet fried.  This year, the only sweet thing I had was the swirl ice cream cone.

Here's the layout I made:

And a close up of the journal tag:

I used a sketch from Let's Scrap challenge site.  Click here to get to their site.

The patterned paper and cards are from the Everday Eclectic collection from Echo Park. 
"Happiness" stamp is from CTMH
Enamel dots are from my homemade dots.
Brick cardstock was from my stash.

When Carly goes shopping, I always jokingly say, buy me something.  Sometimes it works but mostly it doesn't, but in this case, she came home with this scrapbook kit fro Echo Park.  The colors are bright and fun with a carnival theme so I thought the cards were perfect for this photo especially since you can see the Ferris Wheel in the background.  I stamped the sentiment on the card and added a punched heart.

It's a pretty simple layout, but I love it!

49 Crosses

I spent most of the day yesterday making 49 3D pink//white crosses for baby girl baptism invitations. My friend is stamping the card bases with a swirl stamp and then we're adding the crosses.  I'll post the finished invitations once they are put together.

I used the Indie Art cartridge for the crosses.  It took 7 1/2 pieces of white cardstock and 4 pieces of pink to make all of them!  I cut the first layer of white using the shadow option, pink using the blackout option and then the shift key for the top white layer.  The thinner cross was glued directly to the pink base and then that was foam taped (for dimension) to the white shadow base.  Then I threaded 49 pink buttons with pink floss and glued those to the centers.  All the layers were cut at 3".

In case you're wondering why only 49...I made the first one as a sample before making all 50 to make sure she liked the size.

So pretty!

Wall Gallery

After 13 years of all white walls, I decided to paint one accent wall in the front room.  I used the left over paint from the downstairs bathroom project, mixed more dark brown paint into it and used that.  I love reusing materials instead of dumping stuff, but I guess if you're an active viewer/reader of my blog, you'd already know that.  LOL

I wanted this accent wall to be an Art Wall.  No furniture in front of it or anything.  It used to house a dresser that we used as a side table/buffet type of piece.  Here's what it looks like now:

As you can tell, I still need to add more things to the bottom.  Most of these items were on the wall before painting.  The only two things I added were the framed dates print.  I just made that yesterday. I'll show a close up here:

I've been meaning to do this one for a long time.  I've seen similar ones on pinterest but I added my own flair to it by adding the blue or pink foot and handprints for the babies, hearts for our wedding and dog prints for Gracie.

And the square "D" plate is another upcycle of mine.  My friend gave me the platter/plate and I cut the "D" using the Tie the Knot cricut cartridge in brown vinyl.

Font for date art:  Suburbia Cricut Cartridge
Font for "D" plate:  Tie the Knot
Foot and handprint stamps:  Hero Arts (Rubber Paws gift - read more about Rubber Paws by going through the archives for 2013, June.)
Hearts punch:  Stampin' Up
Dog prints:  From my stash - no name on the wood base
Cardstock:  Black and tan from stash