TGIF; Thankful Friday #11

I had a great weekend with my mom, sisters, aunt and cousins. This week I am thankful for my sister, Caroline. She is the one who is always organizing these get-togethers. You know how every time you run into a long time friend or family, everyone always says "oh, we should get together more often", well Caroline makes sure it happens.


Thanks sis.  Love you and appreciate you!

WOYWW #434

Is it Wednesday already?!? It's time to share my work area. I'm working on invitations for my oldest son's engagement party. My future DIL loves the Eiffel Tower so they're going with a Parisian theme. I was messing around last night and here's my desk:

Don't you just LOVE that 3D Eiffel Tower? This was cut with the Cricut. DIL is coming over tonight so we can choose which design we're using and then shop for the supplies. YEE HAW another Durham wedding!

Click on over to the Stamping Ground website to join the WOYWW fun. Check out other deskers, leave a comment and join the link!

Flip Albums & Use Your Paper #5

I'm leaving for a girls' weekend with my mom, sisters, aunt and cousins. During these weekends, we always eat, shop, and do some sort of craft. That's my area! This year, we're going to make these easy flip albums. Now some of them do a little crafting here and there, but I'm the one with all the supplies. Sure, I could ask them to pitch in, but I use this as an excuse to use up my paper stash AND you know we all have tons of paper stash!

I've made many flip albums in the past. Here's some photos of a few:

This one I made for my SIL's birthday

This is one I made for Mother's Day

 My concern was all the cardstock that's needed for 11 flip albums, but I bought a $5 pad of cardstock from Walmart - not the best quality but perfect for this project. I made separate kits for each album which includes the precut cardstock, precut patterned papers, ribbon and typed instructions in case they want to make more on their own. For the most part, they look like this unfinished.

So...how much paper did I use? 39 pieces of cardstock for the albums and over 20 pieces of patterned paper. And that's not including the black & white pieces I'm bringing for matting. WOW! Now that's using your paper!

You know what?!? This barely made a dent in my paper stash.  HAHAHAHAHAHA
Here are some photos of the ones that were made this weekend:

Name Banner; Sweet Charlotte Snow

My friend Rosemary is having another granddaughter. I made name banners for her other two so she asked me to do another one. Let me tell you about my friend Rosemary...she is the sweetest most giving person I ever met & hilarious. I always have a great time when I'm with her but she is one last minute mama.

I only had three day notice to make it. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't get it done in that short amount of time. I finally finished & here's the finished banner. Sorry, I know it's not the best photo, but that name sure is a long one.

She always gives me artistic freedom (as long as I use pink) so I get to do what I want. You know I'm using pink anyway!

UPDATE: Baby Charlotte Snow was born on September 20th!

Cartridges Used:
Art Philosophy for the banners & toppers and white flowers
Mini Monogram for the letters

Punches Used:
Scallopped Punch & Circle Punch are from SU!

TGIF; Thankful Friday #10

We've been having such great weather so this week, I'm thankful for the California weather! It's been in the mid 80's and cooling down a lot at night. We've been spending evenings in our backyard and it's been so nice.

We put some pavers in one corner of the backyard to make a little patio. It makes such a huge difference. Our next big project is to replace the backyard fence. It'll be a biggie and we've been talking to our neighbor. Hopefully it'll start soon. Once we do that, we can concentrate on completing the patio.

Now it's your turn...write what you're thankful for this week in the comment section. I'd love to hear.

WOYWW #433 and Phase II - Command Center Re-do

Hello Deskers and Happy WOYWW!  What's WOYWW, you ask?  Click on over to Julia's website Stamping Ground to read all about it.

Carly and I have been sweating for two days moving and purging and reorganizing the Command Center. Click HERE for pictures of the old room. The old set up had us working back to back and were always twisting and turning when one of us say, "take a look at this". Well...not anymore! We removed Carly's table all together and combined my two to make one large table. Now we are facing each other and can share supplies & look at each others' projects easier.
Introducing the new Command Center:

My sister gave me a bunch of shelves since she's moving and was going to toss them out. I knew I needed them for the Command Center Re-do! I love how it looks more coordinated. I really thought about getting rid of the plastic drawers, but they are so perfect for storing same subject stamps. (Which one day I hope to go through those as well.)

We still have corners and containers that we need to go through, but after filling two large trash bags, we were tired.

Who knew we had so much room in there! (We've tossed that cute butterfly table. The legs are wobbly and cracked. It just happened to still be in there when I took the photos.)

Paint Nite Again!

I joined a couple coworkers to another Paint Nite yesterday. These are so fun. If you've been leaning towards going...DO IT! I love how the paintings turn out so different from each other even though everyone is painting the same one.

I try not to be too hard on myself - it really is just for fun AND I thought this colorful flower would look great in the Command Center especially with the new re-do. But in the end, I absolutely LOVE how my flower turned out!

That's me on the far right!

Go to the Paint Nite website for an event near you!

CWS Mid-Month Inspiration and TGIF Thankful Friday #9

Both Creative With Stamps posts fell on a Friday so I'm rolling two posts into one...again. If you haven't joined the challenge on Creative With Stamps, click on over to the CWS site - it's not too late!  September challenge is LEAVES.


Click here to see my first card - very CAS and here's my mid-month inspiration card:

Pretty much the complete opposite of the first card - LOL! I used a color copy of one of my original pieces and then stamped some of the leaves directly on the background sheet, added a patterned paper strip & added fussy cut smaller leaves & an acorn on top.

There's still time to join the challenge!

AND since it's Friday, I'm thankful this week for my friend, Maricela. Her hubby went deep sea fishing and she brought me some Yellow Tail Tuna steaks. OH MY, they were delicious. I made the coolest thing with some of the tuna - sushi stacks. I'm not much of a cook, but I can follow a recipe. I found this one on Pinterest and it turned out just as it should. Amazing!!


Now it's your turn. Leave me a comment on what you are thankful for this week.

WOYWW #432

Happy Wednesday & WOYWW. I skipped a couple of WOYWW posts but I'm back! What is WOYWW, you ask??? Well, it's a weekly link where we get to take a peek into others' work areas/desks/rooms and just visit. Click on over to the Stamping Ground to visit the hostess, Julia and see the other deskers. Join the link if you're daring enough to show your space LOL!

I've been working on my son's wedding album. Right now I'm just making pages without photos or too many embellishments. I'm still waiting for all the photos so I'm just giving myself a head start.


We're also starting Phase II of the Command Center Re-do. I have some new bookshelves that we are bringing in so we're rearranging tables, etc. Phase I was the closet re-do which we finished earlier this year. Slowly but surely, the Command Center is taking shape!


Stay tuned for more updates on Phase II. But for now, click on over to Julia's blog and take a peek, leave a comment or two, visit and be inspired by all these crafty peeps!

Final Post ICADs 2017 - Week Nine

This is it! I made it! The final cards for the ICAD 2017 Challenge!
This week's prompts:

I decided to use digi stamps for all the seasons this week.  Here are the cards:

Top Left: I created a masterboard and adhered the index card before adding the poppies.
Top Right: The background is part of my brush off/under paper. I had to lighten it a bit before adding the flowers.
Bottom Left: This background was made with shaving cream & re-inkers.
Bottom Right: The background is a copy of a previous piece.


All flowers are from Bloom Art Stamps (Flower of the Month digi stamps) and were water colored and fussy cut before adhering to the backgrounds.

TGIF; Thankful Friday #8

Gosh I love short weeks! With Monday being a holiday, this week flew by. This week I am thankful for my granddaughter. Boy, that little girl keeps me young. She loves everything and anything crafty so she keeps us on our toes. We're always looking for fun & easy things that she can do.

This week, we played with re-inkers and shaving cream to create some beautiful backgrounds for cards. We also made dream catchers, planted some seeds and filled a planter with flowers.

You never know what you're missing until you have grandchildren. I hope to have many more soon but for now, one is enough!

Now it's your turn. Tell me what you're thankful for this week in the comments. I love this new series because it really makes me stop and realize that no matter what is going on - good or bad - I have so much to be thankful for. Counting my blessings one Friday at a time!

This is a scheduled post because hubby & I are joining my nephews to see Mary J. Blige in concert tonight. I'm so excited!

FCCB #309 Back to School Challenge

 Happy Monday and welcome to another Monday challenge at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog (FCCB)!

Challenge #309-Back to School
Create a project that features anything about school

This Weeks Sponsor

Bugaboo Stamps

The prize is 4 digital stamps!

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used. If you use a Cricut Explore machine, at least one cut must be from the Cricut catalog of images.


Be sure to link your project at the FCCB!

Here is my project:

 I have made lots and lots of decorated journals for myself and others so I decided to make another one for my niece. She's entering 7th grade this year and she is so nervous.
I used the Paisley cartridge since she loves owls. This cartridge has so many cute images, I don't know why I don't use it more often.


I hope she likes it!
Don't forget to visit the FCCB site and link your project for your chance to win a prize!!

 

ICADs 2017; Week 8

It's the final countdown for the Index Card A Day challenge. Click over to https://daisyyellowart.com/ to read more about this fun challenge and to get all the prompts. Here are Week 8 prompts:

And here are my cards:

My favorite this week is the ghost/zombie card.  I wasn't going to use this theme and adhered some brush off paper to the index card and saw that head shape.  CREEPY!  So I outlined it and made it my ghost!

September CWS Challenge #18 & TGIF; Thankful Friday #7

I'm rolling two posts in one today. Happy Friday everyone and happy September 1st! It's time for a new challenge at Creative With Stamps (CWS). This month's challenge is:

Sponsor:

Etsy Shop

3 images 

(for Random Winner)

Be sure to link your card at Creative With Stamps.

Fall is my favorite season and I was excited to make this card.

It's been a long time since I made a one layer simple card.  I love how simple it is but with the different colored leaves, still very pretty.  The leaf & sentiment are from Stampin' Up!

Since it's also Friday, I want to continue with my weekly series of Thankful Friday.

This week I'm thankful for the game Sequence. I know, it sounds silly; it's just a board game but our family has been obsessed with playing it. It's easy enough for LeAnna to play but played right with winning strategies, it can be pretty competitive for adults. The kids have been coming over in the evenings to play and we're getting our money's worth on this one. HA HA HA  Not really - it was a freebie from my sister since she's packing up her house to sell. Who knew? I had never heard of this game until recently.

Comment below on what you're thankful for this week and don't forget to link your "leaves" card on the Creative With Stamps site.