Too Early for Christmas?

Some of my Demo Sneak Peak stuff arrived on Friday and I could not wait to tear into it and test it out. I have to admit that even though I was skeptical about the Scallop Edger when I first heard rumblings that one would be in the new catalog, I have to say after making this card for the Make & Takes at the SU Convention that I officially love it. While it has it's limitations, it's super easy to use and makes short work making a scalloped border. I think I was expecting too much and hoping that it would also allow me to make scalloped circles as well. Now that would rock. :p

Anywho, in my last attempt to finish up make and takes for the SU Convention (I need to get these express posted to Heather tomorrow!) I used some of my new paper and the stamp set "Deer Friends". Love this stamp set it's soo cute!
Recipe:
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip
Stamps: Warm Words, Deer Friends
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Ribbon, Mat Pack, Scallop Edger, 1"/1 1/2", 1 3/8" Circle Punches.

Pillowcase Dress.

I must have some skill that trickled onto me from my mother (who is awesome at sewing just about anything!) because I tried the dress on Tash this morning and it fits perfect! The ribbon is a bit long but I can cut it if need be. Right now I like it the length it is because I can dbl knot the bows so she can untie it.

Here are some pictures:

The fabric is called Paris cats. While I was out this morning I picked up some more fabric to make 2 more dresses. I might even venture further and try making just a top. I have a pattern for the pants as well but I don't think I'm ready for pants. heh

I have a sewing machine?

heh, yeah I actually have one, one I bought I don't know when and have used a total of 4xs, including tonight. :p

Today when I was out running errands I stopped by Frabricville with the idea to buy some flannel to make some receiving blankets. No, I'm not pregnant, I'm just looking for a new project and thought I'd make some up. :0) Instead of finding any flannel that I liked, I found this beautiful cotton fabric that was 40% off. Those that know me will know why I fell in love with it, it's a pale blue, a touch of purples and greens and it's Cats and the Eiffle Tower. Yes, the two things I love in one pattern so of course I had to buy it.

At the time, in my head I was going to make a quilt with it. Yes, laugh now I'll give you a minute. :p

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While I'm finishing the rest of my errands though, I keep thinking about it and decide to try a pillowcase dress for N. Now, as the name suggests, you are suppose to use pillowcases to make them. I however, do not have any of those pretty hand embroidered vintage pillowcases so I used this fabric instead. Everything I read online suggested it would take 30 mins to sew it up. Well I started around 7.30pm after I washed and dried it and just finished about 5 mins ago at around 11.15pm. :p I definitely think anymore I make will go much faster since I know what I'm doing now. Plus I'm going to make a couple of teeny changes.

The directions made me waste a bit of the fabric (which I could still use to cut blocks for a quilt though) , but next time I'll know the right length for cutting it. I also found the double folding of the hem made it a bit bulky in places. It was definitely easier to flip it over x2 rather then fold down a tiny pc then fold it again, but it does add considerable bulk. So when I make another one (I might sneak back tomorrow for some cherry fabric I saw in the same bargain bin) I'll have a better idea how to do things.

I'd post photos, but my child is sound asleep so I'll try it on her tomorrow when she wakes up and take pictures then. It's cute just on the hanger but I want to get some pics of her in it and share those. I'm was so excited about it I actually snuck into her room and laid it over her to check for length. ha!

You mean Everything to Me

I was able to get some time to myself this afternoon while the "kids" were sleeping and do another card for the make and takes. Once again I found inspiration by visiting Danielle's blog and her SCS Gallery. I love this stamp set and when I saw her card I thought it was so beautiful! I think one of my favourite images of this set are the mulberry twigs? Branches? There are just so many options and ways to use it!

I changed it up a bit by adding paper piercing using my mat pack, a scalloped edge at the bottom and a different saying plus the bird and heart. I really like how it turned out. I'm a bit iffy on the Very Vanilla ribbon, I was considering chocolate chip but I thought that might be too much brown? The only problem I'm having with these Make and Takes is that I have very very little SU Ribbon, all my ribbon is from Michaels. I love ribbon so I needed to pick a colour combination that matched up with some of my limited SU stock.

Edit: It was bugging me too much I took the Very Vanilla ribbon off and used Choc. Chip. I think it looks much better. :0)

Recipe: Paper: Close to Cocoa, Rose Red, Berry Bliss DSP. Ink: Rose Red, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip. Ribbon: Chocolate Chip. Tools: Mat Pack.

Make and Takes.

A couple of weeks ago (maybe even longer!) Heather sent me an email and asked if I'd like to do some Make and Takes for the Stampin' Up Convention that starts on July 31. Her idea was to have all her downline ladies make some cards and then she'd take them with her and get our 'swaps'.

M of her downline team is in ON but she was nice enough to email me and see if I'd like to mail them to her and in turn she'd mail me my 'share' back. At the time I thought it was a great idea. I figured it would be a nice variety of cards and I'd get to take a look at a ton of different styles, plus my cards would be 'out there' for someone else to enjoy!

The only rules for the Make & Takes are that 1) All the supplies used have to be Stampin' Up and 2) None of the stamps can be retired stamps. They all have to be stamps that are readily/easily available. Oh and the card is actually only the front of a card so half a card. :0)

My first idea today was to try some different colours that I normally do not reach for and secondly, a stamp set I had not used yet or hardly ever use.

I had originally bought Pre-historic Pals to do some boy birthday cards (my nephews) and some scrapbook pages but until this afternoon I had yet to even cut it and mount it!

I also tried out a new technique for this card, cloud making! There have been a few times where I've stamped some images and thought, you know this would be so nice with some clouds. I had read I think on Julie's blog that at one time SU had a cloud making tool but had since been retired and for the life of me I could not figure out a way to do them unless I made my own Template. So of course this delayed me even attempting it.

Then this morning when I was bouncing around blogs I started to read Stampin' with Di and she had a Masking Tutorial where she showed how she made her clouds. It's sooo easy I can't believe I never thought of it before. She just takes a scallop punch of paper and sponges around it! Easy peasy eh? Although not super easy bc when I made clouds for the "sky" I sponged the bottom of the punch not the top so I guess I have upside down clouds. :p

Recipe: Stamps: Pre-historic Pals, Fun & Fast Notes. Paper: East Coast Prep DSP, Real Red, More Mustard, Garden Green, Tempting Tourquoise. Ink: Real Red, Old Olive, Garden Green, Tempting Tourquoise, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard. Tools: Scallop Punch, Tab Punch.

My second card I also decided to pick out some colours that I rarely use, I really like the Night of Navy and Pale Plum together. :0)


Recipe: Stamps: Priceless, Warm Words. Paper: Night of Navy, Prints Pack, Whisper White, Pale Plum. Ink: Real Red, Almost Amethyst, Pale Plum. Tools: 1 3/8" circle Punch, Clear Embossing Powder, Mat Pack.

Tomorrow morning I have to work for a few hours but hopefully I can do a couple of more cards in the afternoon. :0)

Welcome Natasha

Back in I think December I finished Natasha's first year scrapbook album. The only issue really was that I hated her hospital page. The colour combinations, the patterned paper, the layout and even the photos! Shortly after she was born (around 1 month) my laptop HD crashed and I lost the first 3 months of photos except for about 10 that I had stored else where online. So I had very limited photos from the hospital or even from the first few weeks. The lucky part is that my mom when she came to visit last November had a ton still on her camera that she never took off the memory card so I was able to copy them over to my computer.

Anyway, over the last few days I decided it was time to re-do the page to something I liked. The main picture on the left hand page is my favourite photo of her. She was only a mere few minutes old and I can still remember so vividly how warm she was and just all the emotions I felt those first few minutes of her life! I love that photo and luckily it was one that was stored on an online site so I was able to recover it.


Recipe: Stamps: Nursery Necessities (I think!) Paper: Pretty in Pink, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Tourquoise, Certainly Celery, Flowers for you DSP. Ink: Regal Rose, Certainly Celery, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Tourquoise. Tools/Accessories: Flower Punch, Opposites Attract Cricut Cartridge, Mat Pack, Slit Punch, 3/4" Circle Punch, Dots/Checks/Dashes Ribbon, SAB Rub-on.

Kwerner CI #14

Well I was about a day late to submit my card for this challenge but I decided since I was suddenly struck with a card idea that I'd do it anyway. I'm not quite sure where the time went but for some reason I thought I still had time tonight to submit my card. Oh well, next week!

This week Kristina's colour inspiration was from the Cupcake Tees which are mostly monochromatic but to make things fun, she added Ruby Red and River Rock to Whisper White, Basic Grey and Basic Black.

I was probably late for this challenge bc I just did not seem to have any motivation this week and trust me, my house shows it well! Also, I kept going back to Kristina's blog, looking at the colours and the cards other people had already submitted and could just not come up with an idea for my own.

Anywho, enough rambling! Tonight after my daughter was in bed I sat down, pulled out the paper colours and came up with this card. In hindsight I probably could have just cut the stamp in rectangle panels. After deciding to add ribbon to it, you can't really tell that I cut it out into 6 3/4" squares.


I'm fairly happy with it. Looking at it I sort of wish I had done some sponging on all the layers but at the time I could not really decide on a colour for sponging. Anywho, I need to get to bed, the stampede starts tomorrow and we are getting up bright and early to go see the parade!

Recipe: Paper: Basic Black, Going Grey, River Rock, Ruby Red. Ink: Basic Black, Moonlight White (Stazon I think!). Stamps: Priceless (flower), Baroque Motif. Ribbon: Dots, Checks, Dashes. Tools: Large Oval Punch, 3/4" square punch, Mat Pack.