Love Never Fails: Bridal Card

One of my co-workers and dear friends is getting married in April.  We are all so excited for her.  We followed triumphs and failures in her love life over the last few years and shared a lot of laughs and a few tears.  But she has found the nicest guy who just adores her and we are all giddy with joy.

I made this card for her bridal shower this weekend.

The background paper and chipboard are October Afternoon.  The sentiment is a Lily Bee journaling card.  I added a doily and a bit of pink tulle from my stash.  A quick and simple design.

I hope you have a great week. I'll be back on Friday with a new card and a fun giveaway as part of the promotion for the Spring issue of PaperHaus magazine.  The magazine contributors are participating in a blog hop that runs March 1 - 7.  There'll be lots of pretty projects and  prizes on every stop!

CARDS: Designer of the Month

I'm so excited to post today that CARDS magazine named me Designer of the Month in its current issue, February 2013, on stands now. 

The magazine chooses 12 designers a year for this designation. I am not sure how I slipped into the mix but I admit: I grinned ear to ear when I found out.  CARDS magazine published an interview with me and featured five of my cards. Four cards were new for the magazine and one was a favorite of mine that I made with Little Yellow Bicycle.  Unfortunately, I can't show the cards until March 1 due to my contract. 

But I can show a scan of the article.

And I can show you two of my cards that were published in the January issue of CARDS. 

This one was for the ribbon challenge.  I used my very favorite ribbon for this one: May Arts chevron twill.  I have it in every color. 

This card I made for an assignment with My Creative Scrapbook, using a kit that featured this cute collection from Echo Park Paper. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back Tuesday with a new post. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. 

Delight: Little Yellow Bicycle Sketch Page

Last week, I took my three-year-old and my camera to the park.  Normally, this is not a good mixture. My son, rightly so, thinks the park is for playing, not photo sessions. But before we went down to feed the ducks, I asked Cory if I could take his picture, and was surprised when he said: yes.  And smiled, to boot. 

To scrap this photo, I used a sketch by Liz Qualman and the Just Because collection from Little Yellow Bicycle. 

I adore this collection.  It's so boy friendly with red, navy and grey with some pops of light and dark teal. I used the grey squiggle paper as my background: it's playful, neutral and matched the winter landscape of my photo. 

This collection had a particularly fun mix of Clear Cuts. You can see the bird and cloud in this closeup. They are very lightweight so they don't require a lot of adhesive. I try to put adhesive in places where it won't show.  On the bird, I used adhesive on the blue wing and under the heart.  On the cloud, I used adhesive at the top and on the far right, which is covered by a chipboard cloud. 

I love the new Naturals embellishments by Little Yellow Bicycle. Here, I used a cork heart pen and a small wood pin.  The ends of the pins are tucked into a pop dot under the bird.

Here's a peek at Liz's sketch.  You can see I took a few artistic liberties - with the photos mostly - but kept the basic design. 

The Little Yellow Bicycle Sketch Challenge runs through Feb. 24.  You can find all the details on the LYB blog and Facebook page. 

Kiss Sandwich: My Creative Scrapbook

Today, I am feeling a little nostalgic and decided to scrapbook a photo from my son's very first Valentine's Day.  He was 11 months old and my parents came by bearing gifts and kisses.  Of course, new momma had her camera and I captured this kiss sandwich.  Love my little boy's expression. 

I made this layout with the February Creative Kit at My Creative Scrapbook. It featured Echo Park's Love Story collection, which was just perfect for this photo. 

Here's a close-up of the banner at the top.  I put brads on either side of the banner, then wrapped twine around the brads.  I used long, trailing tails on the twine to guide the eye to other elements on the page. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend. 

Lollipop Tent Tutorial: Classroom Treats

For the Valentine's Day party at my son's preschool, I made lollipop tents for his classmates and an owl treat bag for his teacher. 

I used Echo Park's Love Story collection and Trendy Twine for these treats.  They were really easy and fun to do. I didn't use any die cut machines to make these treats. Just a paper trimmer, a score blade and a hole punch. 

To make the lollipop tents, I cut strips of patterned paper 2 inches wide by 8 inches long. I scored them at 2.5 and 4.5 inches to make the base and at 7.5 inches to make the closure flap.  Then I used a hole punch to notch a place for the lollipop stick.

These are the tents with the lollipops added. 

To decorate them, I added a sentiment pennant, a twine bow and heart. 

Another view of the lollipop treats: 

A closer look at an individual lollipop tent: 

Here's one of the owl.  I added a cellophane bag filled with M&Ms in his tummy. Yummy!

I have a tutorial on how to make the owl on this post.  The sentiment above says:  Owl Be Your Valentine. 

Linking this to Tip Me Tuesday.  Thanks for stopping by!

iPhone Love: Angry Bird Tutorial

Oh, we have played many, many games of Angry Birds at my house. And when I say "we," I mean my 3-year-old.  He is crazy for my phone and this game.  He is limited to 10 minutes a day, but I am pretty sure it's his favorite 10 minutes of the day. 

I used the February kit at My Creative Scrapbook to make this layout. The kit featured the Love Story collection from Echo Park Paper. It's such a cute line and as you can see here, lends itself well to non-typical love stories. This particular photo was taken on our beach trip last year.  

Here's a close-up of the title cluster at the top. I love the banner stickers in this kit. 

I used my punches to make an Angry Bird. 

Here's the Angry Bird on my page. It was a quick embellishment to make and added a fun touch to the layout. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Linking to Tip Me Tuesday. 

Valentine Mailbox Tutorial

Whenever I walk by the dollar spot at Target and see the seasonal items, I always think: what can I make with that!  So, I picked up one of the red tin mailboxes and decided to embellish it for Valentine's Day. 

It was a fun and easy project. I used the pretty Echo Park paper and embellishments in the February kit at My Creative Scrapbook for this project.  

I started by removing the flag as I thought it would be easier to cover the mailbox with paper if the flag wasn't in my way. I re-attached the flag with a decorative brad. 

I added a Feb. 14 sticker and a ribbon to the flag and added Prima roses and a sentiment sticker to the mailbox.  To measure the patterned paper for the mailbox door, I traced the door onto patterned paper then cut along the pencil lines. 

I covered the mailbox door with patterned paper then added stickers and a ribbon tab. 

When finished, I stuffed the inside with some candy treats to make a sweet Valentine gift.  It's much more fun than a box of candy, don't you think?

Linking this to Tip Me Tuesday.

Baby Love: Echo Park Paper

It's the 5th of the month and time to reveal the new kits at My Creative Scrapbook. The kit club offers several different kits each month. I designed with the Creative Kit, which features the soft and pretty Love Story collection from Echo Park Paper. 

Although Love Story is obviously Valentine-themed, the kit also works well for other topics. I thought it worked especially well for baby girls, like my sweet niece. 

Here's a closeup of the embellishments at the bottom.  I used pop dots to layer some items.  

Here's a photo of the kit.  It includes the full Love Story line, chipboard, brads, ribbon and Prima flowers.  You can find all the details about My Creative Scrapbook kits here. 

I'll be back with more projects from this kit this week, including a fun altered project for Valentine's Day. Thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Peeks: My Creative Scrapbook Feb Kit

It probably won't be too much of a surprise to say that the February kits at My Creative Scrapbook  full of love-themed products. And, wow, are they beauties!!

I worked with the Creative Kit.  Here are some sneak peeks of my projects. 

Do you recognize this manufacturer? I'll be back on February 5th with the full reveal.  

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!