Wild & Crazy Animals

With the photo this week on Inspired By, I was able to play with some older stamps that have not seen ink in awhile. I combined the older stamps with some new Dotty papers on special next month.

 {inspiration photo}

{Inside of card}

All products are Close To My Heart except the polka dot Smash tape.

Be sure to visit Inspired By for more inspiration and play along with the challenge!

Inspired Birdie #16

There was a very unique photo for inspiration on the Inspired By Blog this week. Since it's "embossing" week at Heart 2 Heart, I also decided to do some more embossing on my card.

 Inspiration Photo

I figured this bird would be great to emboss and the chalks would fill it in beautifully. I was inspired to add a bird to my project, because I am keeping an eye on two grey doves in my backyard. As we were trimming the palm leaves a couple weekends ago I noticed the nest and two little eggs inside. We left a few palm leaves to protect them. They hatched last week and momma bird is taking care of them. My beagle knows there is something up in the tree and will bark repeatedly at the momma bird when she sits on the nearby fence. I continue to bring my dog back inside and give the birds some peace and quiet!

Spring Card Exchange 2012 {part 2}

Alright, here it is...part 2 of my Spring Card Exchange! Are you ready to see the fabulous creations from my talented customers? Be amazed~

First up is a beautiful card by Janet that had so much dimension that she needed to make a box for it!

 Here is the card that was in the box, look at that gorgeous tissue flower~

This is Nanette's sweet Spring card. I love the butterflies and pearls!

This fun little bird house card is from Pat. She curled the pink flowers around a pencil eraser to give them dimension.

Aysa created this bright and colorful chick card, tweet...tweet!

Peggy mingled the Stella and Lucy papers together and gave her card a ton of dimension. Her easel card is stunning and gorgeous!

The butterfly folded up to reveal the sentiment~

Tommy had fun using her Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to cut all her postage shapes and butterflies. This card is a perfect example of how you can utilize your scraps and create a beautiful card!

As an added bonus~ I just had to share this extra card that Nanette made for me. Like many of my customers she is also a good friend and has only been creating with me for about a year. She is a fast learner and has lots of talent to share, wouldn't you say! Thank you for the lovely card Nanette!

I hope you were able to find some inspiration here today. Be sure to leave a comment and let these ladies know what a great job they did!

Happy Spring!

Spring Card Exchange 2012 {part 1}

Happy Monday to you all! This past weekend I held a scrapbooking workshop and my Spring Card Exchange. My customers always create amazing cards and there is always such variety. The cards could be anything with a Spring theme like flowers, birds, butterfly's, bunnies and chicks!

I will post all of their creations soon, but first I'd like to share what I came up with. I am also playing along with the challenge at Heart 2 Heart this week. This bicycle stamp looks awesome embossed in black!

Here they all are wrapped up. Why keep them sealed in a plastic sleeve? Because, each card was scented with a Pina Colada scent. That's what I love about Spring...warmer weather, riding my bike and relaxing with a refreshing cocktail!

Come back soon to see the fabulous creations from my talented customers! Thanks for stopping by!

Creating with Twine

Ribbon Carousel is challenging us to use Twine on our projects this week. That's hardly a challenge since Twine is just soooo much fun to play with! I used some colorful twine to string up some flower buttons high in the sky. Check it out~

Dotty Stars

I am super excited about next month's promotion! It's a fabulous paper kit that you'll go "Dotty" for! Here is a sneak peek at some of the papers. My cards were inspired by one that I saw on Vicki Wizniuk's blog here, who was inspired by Ingrid Danvers card here!

Party Inspiration

From the moment I saw the inspiration photo for this week's challenge on Heart 2 Heart, I was thinking of a dozen ideas! It's a great photo and so many details to work with. From the scallops of fabric to the hot air balloons there were just so many directions to take my creativity. What I finally decided on was making a fun cake banner for my Husband's Birthday. He loved his carrot cake and the banner just made it extra special!

Take a look at the photo and what I came up with ~

All products are Close To My Heart. The colors I chose are Sky, Creme Brulee, Sweet Leaf, Cotton Candy and Lagoon. I hand cut the banner pieces and stamped them tone-on-tone with an argyle background basics stamp. I punched the circles for the "party" and stamped each letter with the Vintage Type alphabet stamp. It was all strung together with some white twine from the basics collection. To finish off my cake stand I tied a bow in front with the chocolate striped grosgrain ribbon.

Butterfly Birthday Layout

Keeping with the theme of this week, I wanted to share with you the layout I did for my daughter's Birthday pictures. I added in some leftover butterflies and stamped some new ones with various background stamps. Please excuse the glare from the page protectors. The reason they are photographed this way was for the flip flap and some of the butterflies are attached as a 3D feature outside of the protector.

Left side~

Left side with flip flap open~

 Right side~

Close-up of the butterflies~

Rainbow Butterfly Art

I have been seeing lots of art with butterflies lately. There has also been a growing trend of rainbows. As a gift to my daughter, I wanted to create a piece of artwork for her bedroom that would reflect her lively and colorful personality! This is what I came up with~

All of the butterflies were cut using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. This project was easy to create and allows you to use up those scraps of cardstock. I found my frame at Walmart which had some depth {similar to a shadow box} allowing the butterfly wings to "flutter"!

Here is Birthday girl with her new colorful artwork! She was super excited about it and cleared some wall space in her room right away to hang it!

Twelve on the 12th!

I love the inspiration found on Dear Lizzy and thought this was a wonderful idea. Capture 12 photo's from your day on Monday, March 12th and post them. Not much happening around the home this day. The kiddo's return to school after a busy weekend {see previous post!}, so that means I get some time to clean up & re-organize! Oh don't worry, I had a little time to craft too!

1. Breakfast 2. Workout 3. Organize Closet & 4. Do Laundry 5. Check on Momma Bird in the Backyard 6. Take Photo's for upcoming post 7. Fold Laundry 8. Play in my Craft room 9. More Organizing (this always occurs after a Birthday) 10. Discover Children Sneaking Peeps before Dinner 11. Yum! Orange Chicken for Dinner 12. Watch Beagle Play in the yard before sunset!

Be sure to stop by Dear Lizzy and see the other amazing photo's captured on the 12th!





Lucky 13!

This week on Heart 2 Heart challenges the theme is "Lucky to have You". That was also our theme over the weekend as my daughter celebrated her 13th birthday. Rather than looking at the number 13 as an "unlucky" number, we feel very lucky to have our beautiful and talented daughter in our lives!

Being so close to St. Patrick's day, we had lots of fun with the entire theme for her big day!
Take a look~

Here is the silly Birthday girl drinking her Leprechaun Float, which were delicious and very refreshing. These would be perfect on a hot summer day!

I created a gift for her that also matched the theme. I will share that with you soon. In the mean time be sure to check out the art on Heart 2 Heart and play along!