Pink Seashell Scrapbooks

Ella!

I am so thrilled that my niece has entered the world for all of us to meet! She arrived yesterday, August 10, at 10:15am after a long wait (especially by her mother!) Momma and baby are doing very well.

Just a little card that I made for her. Hopefully I'll get to meet her on Thursday. I can't wait... another little gem to spoil!

My brother and sister-in-law are not really 'pink' people (that's putting it mildly! I am a Lilly girl...) I have tried my hardest to keep anything that I get for my niece away from pink!

I made this card using the June Bug line from Basic Grey, which I am completely in love with. This line screams summer to me! The background is navy/ white polka dots, called Admiral, and the red polka dot flower is the back side of Broken China. I stamped a little saying from the Stampin Up set "A New Little Someone" in red, put it on navy paper. Tied a yellow gingham ribbon that I added a little yellow flower and red rhinestone to. The letters are from the June Bug line, which of course I had to add stickles to!

A card

Here is a card I did about a month ago. I loved these papers fromPrima that came out sometime last year. the fushcia, orange, green, purples were just so beautiful. I came across them when I was looking for something so decided to make a 'thank you' card from them!

I cut the flower out of one of the papers and then dressed it up with some stickles and rhinestones.

I layered a piece of cardstock from the pack on top of a light citrus card and added some fibers along the edge. The big flower is raised up with some pop dots. I added some other flowers with pearls in the middle behind the big flower. A quick tag that says 'thank you' attached with a little ribbon.

Sweet and actually pretty simple to do!

Gardening 2009 :: DAY 1!

YAY!!!! I got out there today... almost 60 degrees here and a beautiful day to start the gardens! I've been looking forward to it for months. Especially b/c I knew the first days would be about prepping the veggie garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empty and ready for prepping!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the necessary tools to get started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There I am. I had to do this with the self-timer so that's as good as it gets for today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3/4 way done with one plot!!! This was a lot of work. I had to turn the soil and get any leftover sod out = lots of bending! Also mix in the manure. Took longer than I thought. I LOVE the look of soil turned over and all clean with no weeds.

I stopped at Agway the other day to ask about onions. They had them which was a bonus. They are all ready to go in so that will be my first planting. I am hoping by next weekend. I still need to do a plot for all the stuff I have. Mom definitely went over board on the seeds... but it will be fun! 4 different kinds of beets, red carrots, fennel, peas, beans, lots of lettuce... you name it. The 2 things I am going to do with plants that were already started are tomatoes and peppers.

Although I"ve been spending A LOT of time on photography and playing with PhotoShop, I am trying to get some craft time in. I made this card this week. It was in the Feb issue of Simply Handmade and I just thought it was so cute. I used the papers from Pink Paislee.

 

A few more cards

When I sat down to make my cousins birthday card the other day, I decided to make a few more cards! I've been doing one-offs for occasions and really need to stock up on some basics. I also just love making them b/c you can use products in different ways.

 

I went on a hunt for the Swiss Dots from Cuttlebug. I love that texture. I finally found it at Joanne's. I cut a strip of that and then used my Stampin Up! scallop edge (which you will see regularly from me!) for the top. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Sultry line. I love those 6x6 packs. All the stamps are from Stampin Up! The butterfly is from the Merci set - I think I got that as a host. I used the watercolor pencils, added a bling to the middle and a little stickles to the edges. The frame for the sentiment is from Frames with a Flourish. The sentiment itself is from Sincere Salutations. I embossed that with the lettuce from Ranger. I think this ribbon is from Micheal's - now that I have my ribbon ring I don't know where any of it comes from anymore!

The card size is 5x5.

   

There is that scallop edge again! The pattern paper is from Basic Grey's Lilypad line. The actual card is white layered with Pale Plum cardstock from Stampin Up! (Guess I decided to use all the stuff I've been getting from Stampin Up!)

The stamps used on this are again the sentiment from Sincere Salutations and the frame from Frames with a Flourish (I've had these for a while and been wanting to use them.) The flower in the vase comes from the It's a Stretch set. I think that set is so simple and cute! I just added some ribbon and fiber!

I made this card very quickly a couple of weeks ago. I love these vintage images from Melissa Frances a few years back! Simple card with some Foof-a-la paper and buttons... the one in the middle is from Jenni Bowlin's new vintage buttons!

Birthday Card

I made this card for my cousin, Riley's birthday. I am completely into cupcakes, ice cream and the fun things that go along with them! It's all just so cute... as you can see in recent posts that have birthday cards!

  

I started the card based from the Heidi Grace Valentine papers. They have cupcakes and shakes all over so I purchased that more with birthday stuff in mind. I also love the shades of purple in the papers. I cut a strip of cupcakes and lollipops for the bottom of the card. I found a piece of orchid color polka dot paper from My Minds Eye 29th Street Market line that I used as the background. Then I took out my tin of chipboard cupcakes and ice cream cones from Maya Road... note the recent theme with them! I can't get enough of them. I painted the cone a matching purple and the 'ice cream' part a magenta that went with a color in the Heidi Grace paper. Once the paint dried on the ice cream part I spread glossy accents all over to create the glossy finish. Just before it dried I added rhinestones all over. Finally I covered a Heidi Swapp raw chipboard letter R with glossy accents and sprinkled Doodlebug glitter on it. Of course a card also isn't complete unless fibers are added!

Birthday Cards

Just a quick posting with some cards I've been working on this week. Two of my cousins, I only have 5, have birthdays this week. (Yah, that's this week...one will be very late!) I'm really having fun trying out new mediums and textures so I've been applying them to cards.

For the card on the left - I am completely into cupcakes right now... all the fun things you can do to decorate them! Maya Road has the chipboard key chain of cupcakes as well as the tin of cupcakes you can build with - both of which I needed! I recently purchased a kit from my all time favorite kit person, Ranjini of Scrapologie, with the most incredible combination of papers. Some of which I had and would have never put them together! The paper covering the card is Sassafrass Lass and the papers on the cupcake is My Minds Eye. I covered the top of the cupcake with Glossy Accentsto give it a glossy finish and right before it was all dry I added the little pearls. The cherries are also a new fav of mine - a little set from Stampin Up. Stamp and glitter those cute little things! I put foam underneath to raise it up some. Finally I painted a grunge-board 'R' with purple paint, inked the edge with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and also covered it with glossy accents. I cut a few pieces of corresponding ribbon and tied a bow around them and glued that on the R.

The card on the right was pretty easy. The paper is Melissa Frances. The word stamp is "Many Happy Returns from Stampin Up - they put all th words together. I stamped it again on white paper and embossed a few of the words to do some layering. From the "It's A Stretch" set also from Stampin Up I used the presents. I stamped with black on white cardstock and cut it out. I used watercolor pencils to color and added some Stickles - :)! I painted a chipboard heart with metallic silver paint and then inked it with Dusty Concord Distress Ink - a trick learned from Tim this week! It looks really cool. Gives it a shiny finish vs the matte finish of just inking chipboard.

 This card is for a friend of mine. The background paper is Basic Grey - one of the 6x6 books. The scallop circle is a set of cards I bought from Stampin Up. This is one of my favorite stamps - it's from the Outlines Stamp company. The possibilities are ENDLESS! I watercolored, layered a few of the boxes with pop dots and then added tons of Stickles! The Happy Birthday is embossed with white.

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for the Advent Calendar ( I know it's the 11th!) and some Holiday Cards I've made. I am having so much fun having all this time to play!  

A Christmas Tradition

When I was about 3 years old a tradition started with my parents and their friends around Newburyport. My parents have this group of friends that extends to 30+ people and they truly know how to have fun! I don't know how or why the tradition started - likely they all wanted to do something with the kids and most don't have families around so this started. Christmas Eve we go to the Simkins house - this is a picture of the house in all the glory of the gardens during the summer. At Christmas Richard spares nothing on decorations - wreaths in all the windows in the front of the house with candles, a big tree - it's magical. We get all dressed up and head over for a lovely party, a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and a visit from Santa. Each year one of the kids reads 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and we all gather in the living room to listen. Jason & I were the oldest so we were 2 of the first to read it and now we are getting into the next generation and soon enough James' boys will be able to read.

About 10 years ago my brother, Stratton, took the reigns of dressing asSanta. Now that he has a little boy it's even more fun. (It will be interesting when Theo recognizes his Daddy's voice, but I guess we'll cross that bridge. The benefit is that he calls Strat "bubba' so maybe no one will figure it out!) A few years ago I took over making the invitations for the party. I spend half the year deciding what I want to do and then scramble before Xmas to do it! This year I am actually done early with plenty of time for the invites to get out (really it's just protocol, everyone knows where they are going on Xmas Eve!) I had a lot of fun doing this years invitation - incorporating a few vintage images, a picture of Theo on 'Santa's' lap from last year, some Tim elements (after all it is the 12 tags of Christmas), and of course glitter and fibers.

Here is a look of the front... I designed it in a matchbook sort of way with a little fold at the bottom that I scallop edge with the new Stampin Up scallop edge punch - love this - and inked with a gold cats eye.The patterned paper I used on this was from the Kaiser holiday line - Deck the Halls. I loved the red with the green holly leaves - simple and pretty. I then layered 2 vintage images - one is the words to A Christmas Carol (otherwise known as Twas the  Night Before Christmas and the other of Santa with his sleigh and reindeer. After putting all the images on the front (I did stickles last), I picked a ribbon - I used a different ribbon on each card b/c I have a problem and I just buy ribbon. Therefore I need to use it. I have to say, the American Crafts ribbons were really easy to work with, the bows tie very nicely.

Once the front and ribbon were done I worked on the inside. Because everyone knows where Christmas Eve is, I don't really have to do the whole Where, What, When, Time, etc. Using a label format in Word, I printed off a quick time, place with Simkins & Nichelmann's (their daughter and her husband) using the Richard Murray font - love this font! I think I got it off dafont about 5 years ago. What was very fun about the inside of the card was that I have the 'December' calendar stamp by Tim so I used that and found a little circle to use in circling the 24th. I stamped the calendar with Peeled Paint Distress Ink and the circle with Black Soot Distress Ink. I let them dry for a minute - found out the hard way that they will smudge! While that would dry I cut the time label, inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and distressed the edge a little. The last element of the inside was a sticker from Melissa Frances - again, apparently I have a problem b/c I had several sheets and decided this would be a great way to use them. I put the calendar in with a little fiber around it, inked and distressed then used pop dots to raise it a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned above, the final step was decorating the front with a little stickles- a girls best friend! I used both distress stickles and the good ole glitter stickles!

Here's a look at the products I used: