TGIF; Thankful Friday #62

It's Friday again and I'm thankful that my shows are back! We watch quite a bit of tv. I know most people would say that's a bad thing, but it brings all of us together. Hubby and I watch some shows together and others with DS1 and DD; others with DS2 and more with DS3, DIL and DD. Sometimes we watch shows at different locations but then we call or text to talk about it.

We use our DVR a lot so we can buzz on through the commercials and sometimes so we can watch the shows later when we can all be there. It's great family time and I really love that.

I hope you have plenty to be thankful for this week!

Creating Cards with QQ

Hi there. Today I'm sharing the results of my card making spree using Quick Quotes products this week. Scroll down to see the cards and the list of products I used for each one:

What I love about this card is that it shows off both sides of a double sided patterned paper.

I used Anchor Aweigh AW108 for this card since I wanted to make a masculine card. Cut your cardstock at 5 1/2 x 5 1/4" and score at 1" on the 5 1/4" side.

The patterned paper is cut at 4 x 5 1/4". Ink all edges with Deep Sea PowderPuff Chalk Ink on both sides.

Adhere the patterned paper to the 1" tab and that completes the card base. I stamped the sentiment with Cool Gray PowderPuff Chalk Ink, inked the punched circle with Deep Sea PowderPuff Chalk Ink and added faux stitches with a gray marker.

To embellish the card, I added some blue fiber and a blue heart button.

Quick Quotes Products Used:

Anchors Aweigh Paper

PowderPuff Chalk Inks Used: Deep Sea, Cool Gray

Other Products Used:
Sentiment by Unity Stamp Co.
Cardstock by Fun Stampers Journey
Marker, Fiber and Button from my stash

The next card was made by punching squares from the Spring Showers collection. This is a great project for using scraps too!

I adhered the squares on a piece of cardstock for placement only. Once I cut out the size I wanted for the card, I inked all edges with Key Largo PowerPuff Chalk Ink.

Then  I did something pretty cool! I couldn't find a ribbon/twine/fiber with a color I wanted so I inked a long length of white string with the Key Largo PowderPuff Chalk Ink pad - so cool!

I had to go through it twice to get full coverage, but wow! this opens up lots of new opportunities!

I added flat back pearls to each intersecting corner, a bit of lace under the string and done.

Quick Quotes Products Used:
Spring Showers Paper Collection
PowderPuff Chalk Ink Used: Key Largo

Other Supplies Used:
Flat back pearls, string, and lace from my stash
Tin Pail and White Cardstock from FSJ

I hope these two inspire you to create a fun and different card soon. Click on over to the Quick Quotes blog for more inspiration.

Sundays are Made For Football

I did not do one thing of craftiness this weekend but was able to show off the simple 49er t-shirt I made two weeks ago.  The bottom of the "y" got stuck to the iron, so that was messed up, but still a cute t-shirt.

And me...no make up or anything! Just like I want it on the weekends.

I made the SVG by uploading an image of the SF logo into Design Space. Then it's a matter of cleaning up the "white" spots. The lettering was done with different fonts that I've either purchased or are on my computer.

On Sundays, I always prepare munchies for the games. Some weeks, we have a full house and others it's just the two of us, but either way, we have plenty to munch on during the day. If I'm lucky, there are leftovers for Monday too.

TGIF: Thankful Friday #61

Another Friday and another excuse to shout "TGIF"!

DS2 left for college this week and I'm sad...but a good sad. We had a goodbye dinner for him on Wednesday but the rest of the week, I made dinner using Hello Fresh. Ok, a little plug here, but I gotta tell ya, it was pretty awesome!

A coworker had some freebies for your first order so I thought, "why not?" Well, it's pretty cool. I got all three meals delivered on Monday. They came in brown (recyclable) paper bags complete with everything in proportioned packs, fresh veggies, meat and how to pamphlet for each meal. You get to select what you want so you know it's something you'll eat. We loved it!

I decided to continue for a little while anyways. If this is something you have thought of but weren't sure...my advice...go for it!

So this week, I'm thankful for NOT having to think about what I was going to cook for dinner.

How about you? What are you thankful for this week?

Pumpkins and My Cricut

I am part of a Cricut Lovers group on Facebook. The projects that are mostly posted are using vinyl and iron on vinyl. The projects are amazing and have definitely encouraged me to use vinyl more. Plus the fact that my daughter is going bat-crap crazy with decorating her room for Fall/Halloween, I was feeling encouraged to create something last night. I combined both vinyl and Fall and made this sign.

The board I used was used as packing material when we purchased our gazebo. There were four of them and I told hubby to keep them for me. They are just cheap plywood about 1/2" thick and approximately 9 x 20".

I painted the board to look like dry washed wood planks. Let it dry and then adhered the vinyl. (The hardest part of this project was waiting for the paint to dry.)

Close Ups:

I got the image from lovesvg  They have amazing free SVG images and only ask that you "buy them a cup of coffee" but it is not required.

I did chose to make the pumpkins a little larger than the one in the design. I did that by ungrouping the image in Design Space and separating the pumpkins before increasing the size.

I know it's not super fancy, but it's the start of my Fall decorating! Wouldn't this look great with a pile of pumpkins?

What are you going to do with your Cricut today?

I'm entering this on the Bitten By The Bug 2 challenge site since this week's challenge is Anything Goes.

Don't forget to click over to the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog for Challenge #335; Leaves for a chance to win a prize. To see my entry, click HERE.

WOYWW #485

Happy Wednesday everyone! It's a quick post to share my desk top for WOYWW. I actually did a pretty quick job of cleaning up after myself and there's plenty of empty area to create on.

I'm working on my Universal Studios photos and am making some embellishments for the pages.

Click on over to Stamping Ground to join the WOYWW linkage or just take a peek at other work desks. Have a great week!

Bless This Family; QQ Club Q

Check out the layout I created using an assortment of items from the September Club Q kits from Quick Quotes. I just love the papers - the color scheme - everything! I knew I had the perfect photo for these products.

My mom and nine of her 11 siblings were all together for a family party and took a photo. The teals in the clothing look so great with the teals of the paper line.

The first thing I had to do was select which paper I wanted to use as the base page. Then I tore strips of coordinating patterned papers for the top and bottom of the page. Each strip was inked on the edges with both Key Largo and Bermuda PowderPuff Chalk Inks.

I matted the photo in white cardstock and again in one of the patterned papers. I opted to use the three die cut flowers at the corner of the photo. I used a scoring tool to curve each petal before adding a button to each center and adhering to the layout.

I added more papers from the kit around the photo and inked the edges with Cool Gray PowderPuff Chalk Ink. The sentiment above the photo is just perfect for this photo so I had to use it!

I cut the printed banners from the Quote and Phrases Sheet then adhered to the bottom of the photo. I also cut out handmade banners from the scraps for the top left of the page.

I planned to stop there, but it just didn't look complete. At this point, I added some ink splatters, washi tape, script stamping, enamel dots, Nuvo drops and little words from my collection.

Now it's complete:

I think by adding the script stamp in white acrylic paint really made it brighter. It was getting a little dark.

Quick Quotes Products Used:
September Club Q Kit; papers, die cuts, buttons, quote and phrases
PowderPuff Chalk Inks Used: Key Largo, Bermuda, Cool Gray

Other Products Used:
White Cardstock, Assorted Washi Tapes, Script Stamp and White Acrylic Paint from my stash
Nuvo Drops
Pearls by Queen and Company
Little Words by Tim Holtz
Sparkle and Cool Pool Color Splash by Fun Stampers Journey

Click HERE to learn more about Club Q.

Falling for the Cricut; FCCB #335 Challenge

The challenge at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog (FCCB) is:
Challenge #335-Leaves
Make any card, scrapbook layout, 3D sculpture, etc. about leaves!

This Weeks Sponsor



Dreaming Tree SVG's

The winner will receive a $10 Gift Certificate!

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.

If it isn't a card, you will get two entries into the drawing!

Here is my project-

I had so many ideas but eventually decided to do these mixed media cards. I cut the leaves using the Fall Leaves free cut on Design Space. I cut them in two different sizes and multiple colors.

Then I cut down four pieces of white cardstock to 4 x 5 1/4” each. I used a stencil and some chalk ink pads to add a background to the panels. Then used a script stamp here and there in a light color. I used the same color to add ink to the edges.

Once I was done with that, I splattered some gold splash all over and stamped the sentiment in black archival ink. Adhered a cut out leaf to the card front then used a cuttlebug perferator over the leaves onto the cardstock to emulate stitching.

Adhere these to a card base and done.

A couple of cool things that happened with this project:
These leaves had a scoring element for the leaf veins. My machine doesn’t have the two barrels so I had to switch from scoring tool to cutting blade. It was really cool!
I received that cuttlebug perferator thingy a looong time ago...I’m talking over 15 years in a secret sister exchange and only used it once before. I’m not sure why, it was so cool and easy!
Last one - how cool are these mixed media cards?! I would never imagine using my Cricut to create something like this and these leaves are perfect.

Now it’s your turn, click on over to the FCCB website and join the challenge! What can you do with leaves this month?

I'm also joining the DL. Art September challenge which is anything goes and Bitten by the Bug 2 which is also anything goes.

TGIF: Thankful Friday #60

TGIF everyone! Let's see, what am I thankful for this week? Nothing in particular. I had a girl's night out with some coworkers on Tuesday and it was a lot of fun. We attended one of those Paint Nite's again.

Those are always fun. Here's a picture of the canvas I painted:

I really liked the way my sky turned out...pure luck that it looked misty as intended. It sure does help when you follow the instructor's directions.

This canvas is called Desert Sky and the instructor had a cactus there instead of a tree. I thought if I was going to paint a cactus/desert sky, I wanted to do it in Tucson with my sis and mom so I opted for a tree and some grass. I liked my bare tree.

Now it's your turn, what are you thankful for this week?

HLS; Repost

So I combined a bunch of Junk Journal pages on yesterday's post but didn't single out the one I am adding to the Happy Little Stampers mixed media challenge. For September, HLS' challenge is MESSY.

Since I messed up on my linkage photo (don't ask), I thought I'd post it separately.  So, this little page was made by adhering the under sheet, mop up page, whatever you want to call it to the journal card.

My junk journal has a fun mixture of different papers bound together. This particular one was a sample greeting card. Once I adhered the MESSY sheet, I stamped the coffee image and colored in the mug and steam with an assortment of markers and wink of stella glitter pens. I also used a spatula to add white acrylic paint here and there to tone it down a little in places.

Pretty simple since most of the work was already done by using the under paper as the base.

I added a tab to the right since this page is smaller than the pages surrounding it.

Be sure to click on over to HLS site to see other MESSY submissions.

Junk Journal Pages

I had a lot of fun working in my Junk Journal over the last few days. One day I’ll actually complete one of the six signatures that I created. It is so much fun to just play in there.

Here are a few photos:

Do you remember the roses page I did awhile ago (check out my. YouTube channel to see more), but that page was a little shorter on one side. The items that can be pulled are actually cut into strips and I painted the back with black watercolor paint to complete this:

These two are front and back of a sample greeting card that is in my junk journal:

I’m entering this piece in the Happy Little Stamper challenge site.  This month’s challenge topic is MESSY.  Technically all of these pieces work, but since this background is my underpaper, I thought it really worked with the challenge theme. To see more projects, click HERE to get to Happy Little Stamper.

Celebrating the Wedding Season

Apparently it’s wedding season where I live. I get it - the weather is getting cooler but we have two weddings within two weeks of each other. So, with that being said... I need two wedding cards stat. These cards are pretty simple that don’t require a lot of products, but they are so pretty.

I love the patterned paper from the Spring Showers paper collection from Quick Quotes and wanted to show them off. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t love the SG104 paper as much as I loved all the others from this collection. I challenged myself to use it and I gotta tell ya - I love it now!

Even though the collection is called Spring Showers, this sheet has beautiful fall colors on it. Look at those gorgeous shades of orange, green and blue. They are perfect for two fall country weddings.

Here’s how I made them:
Card #1:

• Cut a 4” strip from the SG104 paper.
• Then cut at 4” again for a 4x4” square.
• Make a diagonal cut through the square wherever you want.
• Ink all for sides of both pieces with Vanilla Cream PowderPuff Chalk Ink and then Deep Sea PowderPuff Chalk Ink.
• Adhere the two pieces to the top and bottom of the card leaving a diagonal strip between them.
• Stamp the sentiment in this space with Deep Sea PowderPuff Chalk Ink. I used the MISTI to get a good impression.
• Tie crochet lace to the top in a knot. That’s it.

Card #2:

• Cut a 3 7/8 x 5 1/8” piece from the remaining 4" strip of paper you cut earlier.
• Ink all four sides in Key Largo PowderPuff Chalk Ink.
• Cut a piece of the backside of SG105 at 4 x 5 1/4” and ink all four sides also in Key Largo PowderPuff Chalk Ink.
• Cut a 1 1/4” strip of white cardstock that is at least 6” long. You want plenty of room to work with.
• Stamp your sentiment with Kokomo PowderPuff Chalk Ink. Mat that piece onto a coordinating paper. I used the backside of SG105 and inked in Key Largo.
• Place this strip over the patterned piece at a diagonal. You can place this wherever you want. Trim the excess and ink.
• Adhere the solid piece (SG105) to the cardbase.
• Add twine to the diagonal sentiment piece and a double bow.
• Place a brad to each corner.
• Place the decorated panel to the SG105 mat using 3D foam adhesive.

After making these cards, I can now say I love this paper! LOL Change the sentiment and both these card styles would look great for any occasion.

Quick Quotes Products Used:
Spring Showers Paper Collection (SG104 and SG105)
PowderPuff Chalk Inks: Deep Sea, Lipstick, Vanilla Cream, Key Largo and Kokomo
Brads from Club Q kit

Other Supplies Used:
Stamps by CTMH
Twine by FSJ
Lace Trim from my stash
3D Foam Adhesive by FSJ
Card bases from cardstock from my stash

Check out more projects made by using Quick Quotes products by clicking HERE.