Papertrey November Blog Hop Challenge

Hi!  It's been a while since I participated in one of PTI's blog hop challenges.  But I had to play along this month.  Not only did I place an order on release night but I also got my goodies in about a week!  So I had some time to play around with my new stamps and dies.  Hehe.  Below is the inspiration photo.

I love the Christmas theme and the colors too so I went with that.

When I saw the newly released penguin stamp and die, I had to get them.  So cute!!  I thought this penguin would make a cute spinner card too.  Similar to the froggy one I made HERE.  I also used PTI's In the Meadow dies.  I used the die itself and my hobby blade to cut along the curved edge to create the little cut out for the penguin to slide.  I did that twice leaving a quarter inch space between them.

I layered the penguin with PTI's coasters.

I added a tiny bell to his hat.

He slides down.  The jingle all the way sentiment is from Tiny Treats Xmas.  Just traced the space with a pencil and curved the stamp to fit the curves of the opening.

He can spin all around.

I added lots of glitter.

I also got the new alphabet die!  These are so cute!  I layered the red jingle with PTI's coasters too.  I colored the edges of the coasters with my red Copic so it wouldn't look white.  I added some green bells so, you know, it would read jingle bells. 

I was happy with this card but then I realized the hop wasn't until Friday.  I don't know why but I thought it was on Thursday.  Anyway, I thought since I had a whole extra day, why not make something else too?

So I made a tag.  Well, I wanted it to look like a snow globe.  I used PTI's Tag Sale #4 die and added the little piece (Spellbinders Reverse Wonky Rectangles) below it for the base.  The front has clear cardstock.

There is flower soft in it to look like snow.  So if you shake it, it looks like it's snowing on the penguins.  It's similar to making a shaker card. 

So a spinner card and a snow globe tag.

Also will be entering these into Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Tag You're It! and Young Crafters Unite Challenge #4--Use dies.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  Can't wait to see if there are any good sales on crafty stuff.  Thanks for reading!

Where are my googly eyes?!

Hi!  I've made another card for PTI's Make it Monday #34 Thick Chipboard accents.  I like making cute stuff for kids so I really wanted to use one of PTI's Boy Basics mini stamp sets.  After going back and forth between the trucks or the rocket or the frog, I finally settled on the frog.  And I thought an interactive card would be fun for a kid and thought the chipboard idea would work well since the many layers really make the die cut pretty sturdy.

So here is PTI's Boy Basics Frog Hop.  I thought a spinner card would be fun.  You can find a tutorial HERE.  I just made an arch instead of a straight path using my old Coluzzle. 

I used PTI's coasters instead of boxes I had around the house.  I layered 4 of the die cut frogs and then the Echo Park DP frog over that.  So the layers kind of make it heavier so it doesn't spin much but it's easy for the child to manipulate and make the frog hop over to the other pad.  Papers over the lily pad die cuts are also from Echo Park.

There he goes, concentrating on that fly.  I couldn't find my googly eyes for the longest time.  I really wanted the frog to have some googly eyes cause he looks so much better with them.  So of course I had to go and buy more though I know I must still have some from before.

Made it safe to the other side. 

I think it would be cute to make similar cards with the trucks and rockets too.  There's so much you could do, make winding roads for the cars or have a race and it could be much larger than a card.  And the same with the rocket too.  This reminds me of my days making speech therapy materials for my kids.  So many concepts you could work on!

I'll also be entering this into Wee Memories Challenge #69, Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Anything Goes, and Paper Sundaes Challenge #88--Anything Goes.

Thanks for reading!

Halloween Gift Card Holder

Hi!  I think I'm working backwards.  After a bunch of Christmas projects, I thought I'd better get onto Halloween.  And really what pushed me to start was TGF's Farm Fresh Friday Halloween challenge.  I thought I'd also play along with Crazy 4 Challenges C4C106--Halloween projects and Simon Says Stamp--use dies or punches.

I thought I'd make a little haunted house for Halloween.  I used TGF's Spooktacular set (rubber version).  It's now available in digi form.  I used Magnolia's Tilda lace die for the roof, Martha Stewart's scary fence punch, My Favorite Things grass die, and Spellbinders' rectangle dies for the windows and door (which got hidden by the witch).  I distressed the edges with my scissors and sponged some white over the house.

Here's a little close up.

The house opens up from the roof end to reveal a treat!  A gift card!  It's held closed with some velcro.  More trick or treaters from TGF's Spooktacular set.  I embossed some spider webs using Tim Holtz's embossing folder and sponged them in white.  The sentiments on the web are from the same TGF set.  The letters for Boo! were die cut using my Sizzlit alphabet die.  I'm not sure what it's called.

Here's a little close up of where the gift card goes.  You can see the spider sticker too.  I cut a small slit with one of the Spellbinders rectangle dies.  This house was made using the whole length of an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of cardstock.  The widest part of the roof measures 6 inches.

I thought this would be a cute way to give a gift card to one of my kids' teachers for Halloween.  Adults need treats too, especially teachers!

Thanks for reading and hope you're having a great weekend!

Happy Birthday To You

Hi!  So after kind of a stressful day dealing with some school stuff for my daughter, I sat down and finished this card.  I was feeling super bummed and didn't have the energy to go find a sketch.  So left to my own devices I just slapped together this card to get my mind off of the situation knowing that we'd have to deal with it tonight.  Just when you think everything is going great, some kind of mini crisis has to land in your lap.  When does it ever end?  And does raising kids ever get any easier?

I made this card for Saturated Canary's Challenge #16 -- Happy Birthday and Simon Says Stamp 3rd Birthday Celebration.  This is a Saturated Canary digi called Ellie's Birthday.  And I colored her in first then realized hey, I don't have any papers that really match so this was the best I could do.  The little circle sentiment is from Wild Rose Studios.

Her hair was a bit difficult to color for me being so fine and light. 

Anyway, I just got some new toys/tools to play with today so hopefully I'll have time to share what I make with them this week.   I hope anyway.  I guess it'll depend on the mini crisis.  Thanks for reading!

Fleur Anya for Grandma

Hi!  This is the last of my kids' posts for Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge.  My daughter wanted to make an Easter card for their grandma.  She had such a hard time picking a stamp.  She's kind of indecisive but finally settled on The Greeting Farm's Fleur Anya.

She used colored pencils and colored in the background too.  She made little birds in the sky which is what my son had copied too on his card creation.  I let them use my old Stampin' Up papers and cardstock.  She placed the foam flowers and stamped the Easter egg from PTI in the centers of the flowers.  I think she did a great job coloring and embellishing her card.  And Fleur Anya looks so pretty!

Thanks for reading!

Milton with Teddy

Hi!  I'm still continuing with posting my kids' cards for Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge.

This is a card by my older son.  He picked Milton & Teddy stamp from Wild Rose Studio.  I haven't even used this stamp yet so I'm happy he picked it.  He colored it with pencils and did the background and drew in some birds.  He also added some foam flowers and animals.  I think he still rushes with coloring.  He is not that patient but at least he stayed in the lines.

I think he chose to give this to his great-grandma for Easter.  At home, the kids did their treasure hunt to find their crocheted animals.  I think I made some of the riddles a bit too hard.  But they solved them all eventually.  We also had Easter egg coloring and a hunt afterwards at their great-grandma's house.  It used to be only our daughter doing the hunt since she was the only child in the family but now there are 5 kids so it gets really fun. 

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Simon Says Stamp Children's Challenge

My son got quite excited when I told him about the Children's Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.  While I work on my cards, he often tries to make his own cards too using my scrap pieces of paper.  And then I get a little preoccupied keeping an eye on which supplies of mine is he using.  But below is usually what he does on his own time.

For some reason he wanted to make a diorama.  I think his teacher was talking about it at school recently.  So this is his jungle, with trees, vines, bushes, a hanging red fruit, one cloud and a sun, all taped down using his fancy desk tape dispenser from Costco.

Then it turned into a jungle battle with Lego Mace Windu and the clones versus the battle droids.  On the ground, there is a snake on the clone side and ants on the battle droid side.

As you may have noticed, my son loves Legos and The Clone Wars.  He saw these videos on youtube where some people color their Lego clones, which he tried to copy with markers!  Except he used washable markers (whew!) and most of the ink ended up smearing off the plastic pieces.  But then he asked Dad to help him color it again with Sharpies!  So smart Dad says, hey, you should design your clone armor on paper first before you draw it for real on the Legos.  So they found a picture of the Lego Clone Trooper online and printed out multiple copies...and my son went to town with the Sharpies.

 I had also found a picture of a different type of trooper too, I think that's a storm trooper on the bottom.

 And more clones, with accessories.

 And even more clones...(and using my white Sharpie poster paint pen, ack!).  There were literally like 10 pages of these colored clones, some were getting wild, like zebra and tiger stripes even.

And lastly a crayon drawing.  It had rained really hard twice now over the last month or two.  Both times also happened to be on Saturdays when we had to spend all day outside.  And since it usually doesn't rain all that much around here, and we're usually not outside all day when it does rain, he thought it was so fun!  (Notice the stick people smiling in the freezing cold rain and 40 degree temperature! - they are even sharing a heart!)

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!

A card for Kewie

Hi!  I'm continuing to post my kids' creations this week.  So next up is my youngest.  He has just discovered that scissors can cut really well and likes to cut up any stray pieces of paper.  Before that he used these plastic scissors that would just basically rip the paper instead of cutting it.  So now that he is using real kid-safe scissors, he is super happy to just sit and cut.  He has his own "cutting box" that he cuts his paper into so clean up is easy too.  My older 2 also went through this phase and loved cutting in preschool. 

I've also recently organized my crafting table and actually stole my kids' bookshelf to store more of my crafting supplies so there is more space to work on my table.  My youngest now can craft next to me during the day and it gives me a little bit more time to craft in between the requests that he makes to stamp an image here or there on his own paper.  He'll color and cut them out and glue them too. 

So this is my youngest one's creation.  He loves the images from Lawn Fawn's My Silly Valentine.  He calls the socks, boots.  I stamped the images where he wanted them and he then colored them in with pencils.  He stamped the egg image which is from PTI's Tag-its series all over the card.  He tried coloring the background like how his big sister did on all her labels but kind of gave up.  I think he colors pretty nicely for a 2 year old.  Maybe even better than his big brother who still rushes through his coloring.  We have lots of foam stickers so he added some flowers as well.  Love his layered flower look.

I asked who he wanted to give this card to and he said to our cousin who he loves to play with.  I know he will love seeing his card on the computer, and he'll be entering this in Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge.

Thanks for reading! 

Easter Treats

Hi!  Today I want to share the Easter treats my daughter will be passing out to her classmates.  There are 29 kids in her class!  I think that is way too many.  My son's kindergarten class has 23.  I think that is more manageable but still a lot of kids to teach especially a bunch of active little kindergartners.

Here are the treats for the boys.  I did all the cutting and my daughter picked out all the stamps and did the stamping, coloring, gluing, packing and also the cleaning of the stamps!  She loves to clean stamps.  I used PTI's lunch box die and taped the ends to make like an envelope.  It was big enough to slide in 2 silly bands.  For the boys, she used PTI's Tag-its #2 for the circle border and the bunny from PTI's Tiny Treats Valentine's set.  She colored the bunnies with pencils and gave some of them fun designs and even colored in the backgrounds.  You may have to click on the photo to see it better.

These are for the girls.  Yes, way more girls than boys in her class.  It's been disproportionate like that since kindergarten.  For these, she chose to use PTI's Tag-its #1 for the scalloped border and Lawn Fawn's My Silly Valentine bunny.  Again, she gave the bunnies some fun designs and colored in the background too.  We took about 2 days to finish all of the treats for my daughter's and son's classmates.

She is excited to enter her project in Simon Says Stamp Special Children's Challenge!

Thank you for reading!

Easter Tags and A Happy Blog Anniversary

(Scroll down for Cheryl's post.  We actually posted at similar times!)

Hi!  Well, Cheryl and I have actually made our one year blogging anniversary!  Happy Blog Anniversary, Cheryl!  Hmm, we're not quite sure how to celebrate it.  What should we do?

This week I'll also be sharing projects my kids have made.  Simon Says Stamp is having a special children's challenge.  And since I have 3 kids and they all like to craft, it may take this whole week to post their projects!  I'll try to keep it short.

These are just some simple goody bags filled with Easter grass and 3 mini eggs in each bag.  Each mini egg has 2 silly bands--those fun shaped rubber bands that kids seem to love to collect.  I cut the tags from PTI's Fillable Frames 9 and my son stamped the Easter egg from PTi's Tag-its #1 and wrote his friends' names on them.  The boys got the Easter egg tags.

These are the tags for the girls.  Same tags but he decided to use the bunny from Lawn Fawn's My Silly Valentine set.  I did break down and bought a couple of Lawn Fawn sets a while ago although I really wanted to buy a whole lot more.  The images in My Silly Valentine are so cute!  My son stamped and colored every tag.

I bought those silly bands last Christmas during a sale.  There was a whole bunch so I stocked up.  Tomorrow I'll post my daughter's goodies for her class.  She worked really hard on them too and she had to make way more.  So many kids in her class!

Thanks for reading and have a great week!  (I almost forgot to use my new signature that Cheryl created for me!  Thanks, Cheryl!  Isn't it so pretty?!)

A Hello Kitty Happy Spring

I actually have another card!  I was debating about posting it, but I figure since I actually spent time making it, I might as well, otherwise who knows when I'll get a chance to make anything again.  Plus it took me so long to die cut the Hello Kitty.  So again, I found a sketch, this time at Card Positioning Systems #213.

I wanted to use my Sizzlit Hello Kitty that Eva got me probably from a year or 2 ago, along with the Easter eggs.  I actually used this die cut last year, but my son used it for his own crafts, then before I knew it Easter had passed.

So I mainly got to work first on die cutting Hello Kitty and giving her a hot pink bunny suit.

And then I pasted her suit on and realized I had forgotten to color her whiskers!  So I penned it in and it looked messy...so I had to cut everything again!  The second time I used a tip I read on someone's blog a while ago, and sorry, but I forgot who it was.  I think it was someone from Hawaii and I found it by googling something to the effect of "how to Sizzix Hello Kitty whiskers."  But essentially she recommended die cutting the face first in black, then layering a white face with the whiskers cut out over the black layer.  Although I guess since these whiskers are hiding under the bunny suit, I could have just taped a black piece behind the cut out whiskers.  Hello Kitty was also holding a cute basket full of flowers, but there didn't seem to be enough room on the card.  Plus those flowers were tiny, my stubby fingers and nails would have had problems trying to glue them down.

Anyhow, then I used PTI New Leaf cardstock for the base and some Spellbinders paper that I had bought from somewhere, possibly the Bazzill warehouse sale from years ago.  The main problem was deciding what kind of paper to use for the rounded rectangle.  Initially I considered a PTI bitty dot paper in light pink, but wanted something more contrasty, then ended up using the embossed lemon tart cardstock, which blends in with the green paper too much.  So I don't know, I should have looked up a color challenge somewhere to help me out with colors, or else I shouldn't have glued down the green paper so soon and picked a different pattern.  I inked the embossed parts with Antique Linen distress ink, but I guess it's not too obvious in the photo.

I used another PTI Tag-Its sentiment on the egg.  Then added some stickles to the wavy strips.  I am also going to add this to the Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Spring/Easter.