Have you picked up

your copy of Paper Crafters Magazine July/August?? You just might find a sneak peak in there somewhere. ;0) I can't say if it really is 'true' but what I read was new for me! I'm kind of surprised SU would let it slip out, so maybe it's just a 'white herring'. :p

I can tell you as a demo I'm excited for Monday. We get our Sneak peeks from the new cattie (which will include the new "In Colour" line) and the Last Chance list will be published. Hopefully none of my favourite stamps or accessories are on there!

Bundle of Joy

This has been in my drafts folder since March! It was for a friend's shower, which she finally had a few weeks ago, so it's now safe to post the card w/o worrying about her seeing it before the shower. ;)

I've seen this layout in SCS galleries numerous times. I loved it from the first time I saw it and always wanted to try it. As luck would have it, last night while I was looking through a stamp gallery I came across the tutorial for it on Diane's blog. I did not think it would be too hard to do, but I always enjoy a good tutorial, so it was nice to find one and read just how easy it was to do this simple but cute card!

She created a cute thank you card, but like I said, I've got tons of friends due to have babies soon, so I grabbed my "Little bundle of Joy" stamp from "Punches Three" and made it into a cute Baby card. I saw a similiar idea on SCS (uses the same DSP and stamp), but to change mine up a bit I used Kraft as a base for the card and added some ribbon. I love Ribbon and try to add it to most of my cards as I do not get much opportunity to add it to my scrapbook pages.

I would have loved to have used some jumbo brads or medium brads for the ribbon to go through, but unfortunately both were too big and I did not like the look of the 1/8" ones (reg. size). I did so a little sponge around the edges with So Safron Ink and had some fun drawing on my stitches. :0) The only thing that would have been nice would have been having a 1 1/4" square punch. I made my 12 "blocks" using my paper trimmer (I seem to have every punch but the square ones) and there is a bit of room for error if you do not trim each one exact!

I love the colours on this card, it's perfect for a boy or a girl so if you do not know what the expectant mom is having, this makes a card with some lovely colours.

Two baby shower cards down, 2 more to go, as well as 2 kid birthday cards.

Recipe:
Paper: SAB DSP, Kraft, Bashful Blue, So Safron, Whisper White
Stamps: Punches Three
Ink: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, So Safron
Accessories: So Safron Ribbon(SAB), Wide Oval Punch, Dots Embossing Folder, Big Shot, Close to Cocoa Marker
Inspiration: Diane's Tutorial, Arlene Mantle's card on SCS - It was not until I was browsing the Punches Three Gallery and saw her card that a) I knew what paper to use and b) found the link to Diane's tutorial. :)

Funny Faces

Another scrapbook page. This uses some of my favourite DSP - Sweet Slumber. These photos of Tash were taken I think in January. She was suppose to be eating lunch and instead was laughing, giggling and making faces at me. So I grabbed my camera and surprisingly she continued to perform for the camera. :0)

Animal pile-up

I sadly missed my friend's celebration of her son turning 2 this past weekend due to work, but I still made a card and dropped it off the following day.

I gained inspiration for this card from several 'animal pile ups' that were on SCS. It's a the set "Wild about you" (I think!) and the leaves are from the set "Season of Friendship" and the balloons are from "In the Family". Of course after I gave it to her and her son I said "Whoa I should have totally use the scallop punch to make clouds!

I sort of cursed all the cutting out I had to do for the animals but I think in the end it made a great card and it really was not that bad with all the cutting.

I actually had fun piling them up and shading the animals as well as stamping out the leaves. The photo is pretty good in that you can tell that I used a lot of dimensionals!

Ingredients:
Stamps: Wild about you, Season of Friendship, All in the Family, Circle of Friendship. Paper: Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White. Ink: Going Gray, Basic Gray, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Summer Sun, More Mustard, Buckaroo Blue, Bordering Blue, Certainly Celery (I think?), Old Olive. Accessories: Scallop Punch, 1.25", 1 3/8" circle Punch, my scissors! hah

Zoo Favourites

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a fancy smancy lens for my DSLR (Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS) and the following day we headed to the zoo. It was my first visit with a nice zoom (my biggest is 105) so I took full advantage and got some great close ups of the koala, gorilla, bear and many other animals. It was a great visit and N had an awesome time at the playground and seeing the animals! I also got to take a lot of photos as my MIL and Husband were there to watch N while I took my time taking photos.

This page gives you a 'sneak' peak of the some new DSP "Walk in the Garden" that will be available for purchase in the new spring mini! I loooveee this paper, it's so pretty. What makes it even nicer is that it's Baja blue, one of my favourite In Colours. For the title I used the Cricut Cartridge Zooballoo at the LSS. Of course after I had done the letters I realized I should have made them smaller, but I don't think it looks too bad. I also got to use my newly purchased Corduroy buttons. I love the cord. buttons!

The kangaroo statue is new! It's right by the playground. Since we went on a weekday that was not too warm there was no waiting to take N's photo in the pouch. I imagine this summer there will be kids getting piled into it all the time.

funSHINE

I finally made it to the LSS this morning to do titles for my scrapbook pages. This page is actually a sneak in from 2008. I had not "planned" to add anymore pages to her Year Two album, however when I was looking through it a week ago (admiring my work! ha) I noticed I had 2 empty pages side by side. I flipped back and fourth a bit hoping what was on either side of it would jog my memory, but it didn't.

So I went through her archives for Year 2 and chose these photos from a visit to Arbour Lake with some friends. I had originally wanted to scrap them, but it was one of those situations where there were not quite enough photos for a double layout (which I prefer to do), and I was unsure on what pictures to use. Obviously I figured out a solution!

I used I think Jersey Shore DSP (I have 2 pkgs that had not even been opened yet!), Real Red for the framing and I hand drew the flower and cut it out. I like how it micmic's the flower on her bathing suit. :0)

Ingredients:
Paper: Jersey Shore, Real Red, Only Orange, Bashful blue, Certainly Celery, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Night of Navy. Accessories: Cricut - Opposites Attract.

I'm around. :0)

I've been busy doing scrapbook pages! Since the weekend I've done 2 layouts and am finishing up the 3rd layout today, hopefully. :0) I've not taken any photos or posted them as of yet though because I need to still do titles. I think I mentioned on here that I sold my circut? Well I now have a membership at the local scrapbook where I can use their circut, but I wanted to have a few pages done first before I headed over (it's 5mins from my house) to do titles. So this weekend I should have some pages to share.

Nothing too busy or extravagant, I've been sticking to fairly simple layouts lately. I also need to get my but in gear and do a mother's day card and 3 birthday cards, 2 for my sisters and one for my mom. :0)