A few cards

Here are a few cards I've sent out recently. The first two are for two friends that were having surgery. A group of friends got together and sent them a package of get well cards. Both of mine were inspired by Pinterest cards again. Here is my first inspiration card,

And here is the card I made

Here is the second inspiration card

I made mine a bit more feminine and went with pink

The last card is something I put together for a friend that really deserved a thank you! I hope she knows how much her hard work is appreciated

These are projects 61,62, and 63. Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

Happy Birthday (project 60)

When I got my hands on some of the free bird series from Authentique I was so excited! So many of the papers are so masculine and since my main scrapping subject is my daughter, I have a serious lack of masculine papers. Knowing that my father in laws birthday was coming up I couldn't wait to get started on his birthday card.

I don't usually do square cards but I love the way this one turned out so I might have to try it more often. I used papers from Comfort, Delight, and Warmth, I love how the three themes coordinate so well together. All I had to do was add a Happy Birthday sticker I had laying around and I few embellishments and the card was done! I hope my father in law enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it. 

Falling in love with Authentique

While I was in Salt Lake City a group of friends and I were lucky enough to sneak off for a tour of the Authentique warehouse! We were able to see they're office, workspace and shelves and shelves of beautiful Authentique paper! Meeting Sam, Bret, and Melodee of Authentique was an unbelievable experience. They were so kind and welcoming and really interested in what we had to say. It was amazing to learn that Bret makes and paints all of Authentiques paper displays and that all their paper is printed in the USA. This was my first experience with Authentique and the quality of their paper alone is enough to make me a loyal customer add in meeting the people responsible for it and how truly genuine they are and I think I might just have a new favorite!

Here are a couple pictures from the tour,

                                                            

                                   From left to right, Bret, Venetia, Heather, Me, Melodee and Sam

Now that I'm back from Utah and settled back into my routine I wanted to send Bret, Sam, and Melodee a thank you card to let them know how much I appreciate the time they spent with us. I of course made it with Authentique paper. I used some of their 6x6 Free bird series and a few diction stickers (which I love!)

I hope they enjoy my card and know how thankful I am that they took the time out to meet us. It was an experience I won't soon forget!
 

Christmas cards and Salt Lake City

Last weekend I went to the Scrapbooksteals retreat in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was such an amazing experience! I finally got to meet so many women that I had made friends with in the last year.We had classes taught by Teresa Collins, Dan from Fancy Pants and Melodee from Authentique. Scrapbooksteals really pulled out all the stops! We had amazing swag bags an unbelievable amount of giveaways and a tour of the steals network boutique. Kristy and Lisa of Scrapbooksteals hung out with us the whole time scrapping each night until 2am. It was an experience I won't soon forget and look forward to repeating next year, and every year after that!

I needed to pack as few supplies as possible because I was flying and knew I was gonna need space to bring back my prizes and purchases. So I decided to work on my Christmas cards. I pre-cut all my pieces before I left and spent all day Saturday at the crop stitching Christmas trees.

I know everyone thought I was crazy stitching all those trees but it was easy to work on while I was preoccupied talking to everyone. This is my first time making Christmas cards and since I'm not buying any supplies, my goal was to come up with a card that I could make with what I had left of last years Christmas kit. Here is the end result,

I made 25 of them and since they were mass production I decided to count them as 5 cards equal 1 project. That makes 58 projects total and now my Christmas card just need a family photo inside and they are ready to be sent out! Almost makes me feel like I'm not behind on Christmas projects!
 

My new wall calendar

I have a large space on a wall in my new kitchen that I couldn't decide what to do with. I knew I wanted something I could write notes on or pin stuff to. My fridge has cabinets on either side and since I am a constant list maker I've really been missing that extra space that I used to fill with lists and schedules. I kept going back and forth between wanting to put up small white board tiles or a large white board or small cork boards. I even considered painting a large section of it with chalk board paint. Finally I turned to Pinterest for some ideas and found more than enough inspiration! My favorite was this picture frame, white board, calendar,

I switched mine up a little and here it is!

I needed mine to go long ways across the wall for two reasons, 1) I have a long wall and I wanted to fill it up and 2) I'm short and wouldn't have been able to reach the top frames if it was the other way. I spray painted some frames I had lying around and added my favorite papers in orange, red, and yellow, to match my kitchen decor. Then I used my silhouette to cut out each day of the week in vinyl. I love it so far! I love that I have so much space to write out the days schedule and I love that if I ever decide to change my kitchen decor I can just swap out the paper to match!

Half way there!

It's ATC time again! The crafty group I belong to decided to do another round of ATC's. We had a much larger group that wanted to participate this time, 35 total! It wasn't required to make all 35 but since I'm trying to get to 100 projects I decided I would make them all! The theme was Fall and I went with a fairly simple design since I knew I wanted to do some stitching. Stitching 35 cards adds up to a lot of work but here they are!

I started out by cutting out a stitched leaf pattern on my silhouette. Then I place the pattern over plain white cardstock and used my paper piercer to poke the wholes through on each card. I used three different colors of my tattered angels glimmer mist for the background, Brick, Flower Power, and Peach Delight. I broke them up into a few smaller groups to spray them which is why there is such color variation between the cards. After the mist dried I sprayed them with a coat of Modge Podge clear sealer spray. Then the really time consuming part, the stitching! Here is a closer look at it.

I backed them with plain white cardstock and kraft paper to give them a frame and make them I bit more sturdy. So following the agreement that every 3 ATC's count as 1 project that put me up to 51 projects. Getting me past the half way point just in time for my trip to Salt Lake City over the weekend and a little scrappy spending!

Project 39

Project 39 is a birthday card for one of my scrappy friends. I have met some of the most amazing women because of this hobby and Kristy was probably my first scrappy friend. So of course I had to send her a birthday card! As usual I went to Pinterest for my inspiration. I found this card and knew it was perfect!

And here is my card

I love how this turned out! I used My minds eye, Lime twist, Life of the party, and my silhouette to cut out the sentiment and the presents. I also love the chance to bling out any project with my iRock! I'm sure I will be using this card more often I think is the perfect birthday card. Happy birthday Kristy!

83 days till Christmas

I'm not actually counting down the days to Christmas, what I'm counting is how many days I have to finish the mountain of half done projects on my table! I'm focusing on this number and these projects so that I don't panic about the half done projects that have to be completely done in three and a half weeks for Brianna's birthday! Anyway with 83 days left till Christmas (Less if your counting at least a week early for mailing time) I really need to get a move on the 8x8 scrapbooks for my mom and mother in law. So this is project 37 and 38, two more pages in the Christmas books!

Here is the original double 12x12 that I based the pages on.

For the 8x8 I'm sticking with one page layouts so I cut out the second page with the journaling. I also switched up the photos on the 8x8, just because those three little ones were my favorite and I wanted to make sure they were included. I used my Die cuts with a view Jewel colored cardstock stack for the base and the photo matting. The stickers are from Echo Parks, A walk in the park. I thought the little tree was perfect for the page! The other page is a little different because I was running out of letter stickers in the right colors. They both turned out great and I'm one step closer to finishing one of many Christmas presents that needs to be done soon!