Anniversaries, Birthdays, Babies, and Valentines!

I had a very busy morning today! I needed to do 3 anniversary cards/gifts, 3 birthday cards/gifts, 1 baby card to go with gift already made, and 6 Valentines to go out to nieces and nephews and grandma and stuff! Then I had to package and take them all to the post office and boy, was it busy there!

These are the Valentine's I did with the Happy Heart Day set , Pretty in Pink and Purely Pomegranate paper, Purely Pomegrante, Green Galore, Going Grey, and So Saffron ink. They are pretty simple, but I think they will do the job.

I have fallen in love with the little Take Out boxes I can make with the coluzzle template! I made 3 of them for the Annirsary cards. I even stamped Happy Anniversary with some blossoms branches in the bottom of the box before I folded them all up. Sorry I forgot to take a pic of that though!

Valentine Time!

Once again, it is time for me to come up with some good boy styled Valentine's for my sons to give to their friends and classmates. That is a bit challenging as many of you probably know! Well, I got to thinking about the Matey's Map jumbo wheel that I just got in my MASSIVE order this week. I have been itching to use it and this seems like a good time. So Geoffrey and I sat down and figured out how we wanted to do them and made 4o Valentine's for his classmates and friends. I think they turned out pretty cute! They are basiclally a matchbook with candy glued inside. We used the red marker to color in all of the X's. Geoffrey was actually very helpful. He likes this stuff!

Stamps: Matey's Map JW, Hugs and Wishes, Like it a Latte'

Ink: Basic Brown, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Real Red marker

Paper: Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Very Vanilla

Accessories: Slit punch, Wheel guide, Small and Large Tag punches, Sponge

Then Geoffrey wanted something special for his teacher, Miss Erickson. He found a stamp that is the Chinese character for Friend and said that his teacher loves the Asian theme, so I dug out the Embrace Life set I got a little while ago and used versamark to make a pretty cherry blossom background. I then colored each flower with the blender pen marker I made with Groovy Guava reinker a while back. It makes a very subtle color difference on the Pomegranate paper. Then I used the white gel pen to add the white accents on the flower centers. I got to use my new coluzzle Take Out Box template too! And doesn't that ribbon look yummy! I used the Tag ounches again to make a cute tag, coloring the blossoms with Groovy Guava and Purely Pomegranate blender pen markers. I filled it with Nuggets, can't go wrong with Chocolate!

Stamps: Embrace Life, Everyday Flexible Phrases, Skin Deep (Technique Tuesday)

Paper: Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White

Ink: Versamark, Basic Black, Basic Brown, white gel pen, Groovy Guava marker, Purely Pomegranate marker

Accessories: Purely Pomegranate 15/16" satin ribbon, coluzzle take out box template, small and large tag punches

Cool new product and myfirst big idea with it!

We are getting new hodgepodge hardware at Stampin up! in the Occassions mini that starts on March 1st. I was able to preorder one element of that hardware and I LOVE IT!

I was unpacking my box of goodies last night when I got home from a 14 hour crazy long day at work (and those of you who worked that day KNOW what I'm talking about, LOL! Have I mentioned that charting is my least favorite part of nursing?) when I had an amazing idea. I was falling asleep on my feet, so I couldn't play with the idea, but I managed to remember it in the morning. Here are some pictures of my idea using the new Boho Blossoms punch and the new Flower Ribbon Sliders, and the new polytwill 1/4" ribbon in Chocolate chip (new ribbon also in Occassions mini).

I set this on a piece of the Berry Bliss paper I just got too. It is so YUMMY!

I was going for a sunflower look with this one, but the next one is a little closer. Mind you, I haven't used any of this on a project yet. In fact I pulled them all apart already!

I did use pretty in pink grosgrain on one also.

Let me know what you think!

I AM WASHABLE

This is the latest layout I have done. It was really hard to get a good picture of this, so it looks much better in real life.

Stamps: Wanted, Pick A Petal, Boho Friend wheel, Spiral Bouquet (Papertrey)

Ink: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Palette Canvas and Burnt Umber

Paper: CLose To Cocoa, Purely Pomegranate, DCWV DP- Pocket Full of Posies stack, plain transparency

Accessories: punches- 5 petal, spring bouquet. Cuttlebug with scalloped circle nestabilities, paper piercing tool, flexible ruler from Bo Bunny, white gel pen, Crop-A-Dile, large eyelets, rhinestone brads, flower shaped brads, coluzzle puffy? letter template and cutting system

I first cut out all of my transparency letters with the coluzzle system, then before finishing cutting them out, I stamped on the transparency with the Canvas Palette hybrid ink, then the brown, heat setting each color.

Then stamped my background images on the cocoa paper in Choc Chip and Canvas ink. Used white gel pen to add dots to the Boho friend stripes.

Then I stamped the petal imageds on the DP and cut out the petals. Glued them together the way I wanted then, and put the large eyelet in the center. I later used a red rhinestone brad to attach the flower to the page. The smaller flowers are all sponged with cocoa and the edges are distresed with choc chip marker. layered then attached with flower shaped brads. I then decided to add faux stitching white stems. I made a nice curvy line with the flexible ruler and penciled in the stems, then paper pierced and then erased the pencil and drew in stems with white gel pen.

The scalloped journaling spots are cut out of Purely Pomegranate paper withj the Cuttlebug and a Nestabilities die, sponged with cocoa, and stamped with pomegrante ink for a subtle backgorund.

I used Tombow Mono Multi liquid glue to adhere the transparency letters to the page, worked great.

I guess I have discovered that I really enjoy making my own page accents, and as you probably have already noticed, I love the shabby chic look!

Here is a close up of the right side page. Journaling on both pages reads:

Charlene and Gabby went for a walk in the woods, which is a common occurrence since we have 80 acres of nieghbor's land next door. As you can see, the girls found mud... And what do we do with mud?

We roll in it! Or rather we dance & play in it, strategically smear it on our bodies, carefully avoiding the shirt so Mom won't get mad, then come home and take pictures of our muddy selves! Of course, you had to make sure Mom and Dad saw all the fun you had too....