Happy Father's Day!!!

Ok- here is your warning- this is a long post!!! I just have sooo much I want to share!

First, Happy Father's Day!

This is my dad. We all met for lunch at Oreganos yesterday. If you have never eatin there- then you are missing out on the best dessert! Yummo!!
And here is my DH. I got him the outfit as a Father's Day gift. He loves Hawaiian shirts. Did you notice that my dad does too? I swear I married the blond version of my dad!!! Something weird- Scott is always squinting in pictures. I can't find one where his eyes are open!!!

Now on to some stamped creations!!

First- this is the card that I made for my dad and for my DH. I told you they are a lot alike- so the same card worked for both!!!

I used Nichole Heady's wallet tutorial. Isn't it adorable!!! The DSP is western Sky and that cute sentiment is from Papertrey. Nichole actually used a sewing machine for all of her stitching. I had to make faux stitching with a paper piercer and a white gel pen. I think it turned out cute! My dad's "wallet" had a Starbucks gift card in it. But Scott's was empty!!

I made this card for my mom to give to my dad. It was super simple! And a Hawaiian shirt just like my dad loves! I used the Spring Break DSP. (I am LOVING that stuff!!) I cut the DSP to about 3 3/4x5 1/2. I folded it in half and then cut a small line done the top middle. I folded that paper down to make the collar. I cut the pockets out a of a scrap and added some brads. I stuck a piece of Old Olive cardtsock inside the shirt so my mom would have a place to write. The sentiment is also from Papertrey. In order to keep the shirt closed. I added a couple of brads under the collar where you can't see. My mom has already asked for a new insert so that she can reuse the card! She'll probably give it to Scott!!!!

Here is the card that I made for my mom to give Scott. Isn't it sweet that she gives her son-in-law a Father's Day gift? I used the Family Accessories stamp set and the Jersey Shore DSP. The cardstock is Real Red and More Mustard. Here is my tip for making the circles equidistant from one another: Start by adhering the DSP onto the Mustard cardstock. Then use scrap paper to punch out 3 circles. Snail these circles onto the strip. It is easier to measure and eyeball them this way. And if they don't look perfect- carefully move them. Then use the circle punch again to punch the scrap circles out of the DSP strip. Does that make sense???

I actually glued a white strip down and then put the DSP strip onto the card with dimensionals. Then I took the baseball stamp and added it. It worked since the stamp is so small.

Now on to the story of the box: My mom bought Scott 2 tickets to a Diamondbacks game. She asked me to make a baseball box for her to put them in. So I bought this round box at Target and I used White acrylic paint for the lid. I tried to put some red faux stitching on it- but it didn't look right. My hubby came in and so I told him that my mom wanted it for my dad. He took one look at it and told me that I was doing it all wrong. He repainted the lid and added the stitching (with my Copic) himself. He made his own gift box without even knowing it! He sure was surprised when my mom gave it to him filled with game candy and the tickets!

So here is my DH with all 4 of his babies. I took this pic BEFORE church this morning. That is why my DH is still smiling! He had to teach Sunday school this morning and he ended up with 30 kids all by himself. They were all between the ages of 2-4. He was kinda cranky after that!!! But who wouldn't be?! It just so happens that church went long today!!!!

Now I have to show you a few pics that I took yesterday of the twins. The other 2 kiddos were at my parents house so we got some alone time with Danika and Makenzie. We painted nails (Scott helps by drying them), put on makeup (Scott put eyeshadow on their cheeks!) and I flat ironed their hair!


Aren't they just adorable?!!! Danika normally has curly hair so we were all amazed by how long her hair is when straight!

Ok I am done!!! See you tomorrow for another scrapbook layout from my Got Sketch Class!

Retirement List!

The list of retiring stamps is out. Click here to check it out! If any of these stamps are on your wish list, contact me now to place an order! Also, the in-colors will be retiring. This will include paper, ink, ribbon, and any Simply Scrappin' kit of patterned paper with the colors. All of these things will only be available until August 10th.


I will be back later tonight with some Father's Day cards!

Summer Days

I went to Jill's house to scrap again last week. She was making a mini album with the Summer Days Simply Scrappin' kit. I was drooling over the paper! When she was done with her mini album (very cute and quick to make!) she had some patterned paper and stickers still left from the kit. So I made this 12x12 layout for her!
I added some of my Flower Fusion and some of her Rhinestone Brads but everything else came from the kit!
I made her promise to take some pics of her adorable girls at their swim lessons to finish the page! We made another page together. I will have to show ya next week!

Last night I ordered the kit for myself! I just HAD to have it!!!

I have received many inquiries as to why I do not do more 2 page layouts and so I am putting my response here for everyone to see. I love 2 page layouts! I love 1 page layouts! I used to only scrap 2 pagers. But I found it tough. I often had trouble filling the second page. I LOVE big titles so the first page was always a breeze. So in my early scrapbooks- I love the first pages and am not happy with the 2nd page. So I finally gave up the rule that I had set for myself. Now I get more scrapping done! If a 1 page layout comes to me- I go with it! Some people say that they just have too many pics to do one page layouts. Personally- I don't scrap all my pics. (I take about 500-600 per month.) But I also find it quicker sometimes to make two 1 page layouts than to make a 2 page layout. It just depends on my inspiration! And honestly- I am having so much more fun scrapping! So tell me what you gals think. Do you do 1 page layouts or 2 page layouts or a combination of both?

Some yummy guys and a handsome boy!

I am back from the Brad Paisley concert! So are you ready to see a picture of me and my man?!!!!



Isn't he yummy?? That is me with Chuck Wicks!!! If you listen to country music then you have certainly heard his hit song "Stealing Cinderella." Oh yeah- and that's my hubby with us!!! He was a good sport about the whole thing! After all- Jewel wasn't too hard on the eyes for him either!
Here's our self-portrait. Our seats were great. Thanks again Matt and Arrione!
Isn't this a great picture of Brad Paisley? I took it from my seat! He's yummy too- ladies!

Now- moving on to some pics of my handsome boy! I finally gave in and got signed up for the Got Sketch class. I LOVE scrapping with sketches so I just had to do the class!!! I have a little catching up to do- but no complaining here! So yesterday I whipped up the first assignment. It didn't take long at all and I am loving the end result!
Sorry the color is so bad. Can you believe that I do not own Photo Shoppe???

I sometimes find it really difficult to scrap my son because you can't just add flowers as an embellishment! But I love what I did with this page and I have my 2-year old to thank for it. She was watching me scrap and saw my collection of buttons. She kept saying "Use buttons, Mommy. MORE buttons." So I used the clear buttons from SU! and punched out circles of the Spring Break DSP to go under the buttons.
The title was done with on-board chipboard by SU! I traced the letters onto the Spring Break DSP and then cut them out and snailed them on. Then I took a sanding block and sanded the edges.
Behind the photos, there are 2 tags with journaling. I had to add ribbon to my tags!!


So I NEED some suggestions. I LOVE the Spring Break DSP for pics of my son in his swim suit. It matches so nicely! But I need some paper for scrapping my girls in their swim suits. They have pink, yellow and green swim suits- so I want some paper that is more girly. But I still want it to be a fun summer print. Anyone have any suggestions??

See you tomorrow! I have more scrapping to show you!!! And then on Sunday- I will show you the Father's Day cards that I made this year!

Sun Fun!

Guess where I am going tomorrow night!!!! I am going to the Brad Paisley concert!!! If you don't know who he is- SHAME on you!!! Just kidding! But seriously- click on the link and check him out. He's so good lookin'! And the lyrics to his music are always funny! Chuck Wicks is opening for him (super hot!!!!)- and guess what!!! I am going to get to go to a Chuck Wicks meet and greet!!! You wanna know how? My super sweet stamping and MOPS buddy- Arrione- arranged the whole thing. Her hubby works for RCA and travels with the RCA country artists when they are on the West coast. Cool job, huh? You should have heard me squealing when I read her email! Thank you, Arrione and Matt!!!! Matt- you may regret inviting us to the meet and greet. I think I might be a groupie!

On to the stamping. I was working on my Great Swaps Girls first swap card last night. I finally came up with a card that I really like. It can be tough for me to come up with swap cards because I am a lover of pre-made embellishments (ie. Flower Fusion, Pretties, Hodgepodge) and since you have to make so many of the card- I actually have to stamp the embellishments! Anyway- here is a card that I rejected as my swap card....


I actually used Andrea's tutorial for yesterday about making your own dew drops. Very Cool! You should give it a try!
Recipe:
Stamps: Life's a Breeze
Paper: Spring Break DSP, Old Olive, Whisper White
Ink: Pumpkin Pie
Other: circle punches, Pumpkin Pie Striped Ribbon, crystal effects

I am off to stalk the Chuck Wicks' website!!! Have a great night!

Pool Side

I have been busy in my stamp room! I am working on swap cards for GSG, Father's day cards, and birthday invitations for a friend. But I can't show any of those things here- yet. So today I am going to show you a super fast scrapbook layout I made yesterday.

The cardstock (Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, and Whisper White) is all from SU! but the rest is stuff I purchased a long time ago for a scrapbook for my mom. Hmm.....I never finished that book. Anyway- it was fun to go through my stash of neglected supplies and put a few to work. I LOVE the sketch layout of this page. I got it from Becky Fleck's book Scrapbook Pagemaps. If you are a scrapbooker- you NEED this book!!! It is the best sketch book I have seen! And the samples are amazing! So that's all for my enabling!

My puppy is sick! We are thinking that he must be having a tough time getting used to his new food and home. We had to let him out to go potty every 15 minutes for the majority of the afternoon. And we can't leave him outside since it was 108 degrees today!

daddy

I origiannaly made this card for last week's Make-Over Monday challenge on Andrea Walford's blog- but since I am just posting it now- I guess it can be for this week! The challenge she issues every Monday is to find a non-Stampin' Up! project and re-make it using all SU! products. The card that I am CASing is on page 157 of the June Cards magazine. I loved the tilted layers! Here is my version:
I love the way the braket looks like denim when it is inked in Blue Bayou classic ink!

Recipe:
Stamps: Live your Dream, Friends Friends Lowercase Alphabet
Paper: SPring Break DSP, River Rock, Old Olive, WHisper White
Ink: Blue Bayou, Old Olive
Other: Chipboard, Old Olive Ribbon

Monday Mojo on a Sunday

I finally made a card for last Monday's Mojo Sketch! It was a tough sketch!When I see circles in a sketch- I always think of flowers! So here is what I came up with:

The silk flowers are from the Pretties kit. I colored the smaller one with an aquapainter and some Soft Sky ink. I decided to leave the larger flower white and just ass bling. So I smooched my VersaMark ink pad all over the flower and then embossed it with Iridescent Ice embossing powder. I love how sparkly it is! I stamped the butter fly 2 times: once on Whisper White and once on Soft Sky. I used a Sukura glitter pen to add a little sparkle to the butterfly too.

What do you think? I promise to show you the Father's Day card tomorrow. I just got too excited about this card and had to show you!

Recipe:

Stamps: Pretty Amazing

Paper: Afternoon Tea DSP, Chocolate CHip, Whisper White, Soft Sky

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky, VersaMark

Other: Pretties Kit, Silver Hodgepodge Hardware, Soft Sky ribbon, Iridescent Ice embossing powder, Sukura glitter pen, circle punch, scallop circle punch, white gel pen

My Sweet Pea!

I have had a long day!! I was up late with friends last night and then the kids were up early this morning. We spent a lot of time playing with the new puppy, went swimming, out to dinner and ice cream with my parents. I am more than ready for bed!

Here is one of the scrapbook layouts that I made yesterday. I just used some of the scraps I had left from my Special Delivery Boy Simply Scrappin' kit. All I added were some silver brads.

I am sorry the pic isn't too good. I will try and take a better one tomorrow. (My DH took this one!) But now- I am off to bed!!!

I have an SU! Father's Day card to show you tomorrow!

You're Super!

This is a card I made a couple weeks ago with my Billy Stamps from Pink Cat Studio. These are the best boy stamps!!!!

Recipe:

Stamps: Billy Stamps

Paper: Jersey Shore DSP, Brilliant Blue, Real Red, and Whisper White

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Brilliant Blue, Assorted Copic Markers

Other: Red Grosgrain Ribbon, Nestibilities, circle punches

I did get some scrapping done today!!! I just haven't had time to photograph the pages yet. I'll show you tomorrow! Right now I am off to have Chicken Parmesan with an old friend from high school.

Meet Cooper!

Sorry I didn't post last night. For some reason my Internet was not cooperating. Plus- I took some allergy medicine and about 30 minutes later I was out like a light. I think it was like 8PM!!!! Do you want to see why I needed allergy medicine?!!!








We adopted a puppy yesterday! His name is Cooper and he is about 2 months old and a Lab mix. He is sooo good with the kids. He has quickly become Kyler's best friend! Kyler even read him a story last night! My DH is super happy too. He is a dog kinda guy and has wanted a dog for some time!

Sorry I don't have any stamping to show you right now. I did make a scrapbook page yesterday but I can't show it to you yet!!! I am going to scrap with Jill again today so I promise to have some eye candy to show you tonight!

Blog Candy Winner

My blog candy winner is Carrie Atkinson! Congrats!

2 for 1!

I was so excited last night to get 2 challenges done in just 30 minutes and 1 card! First challenge is the Great Swap Girl Sketch challenge.And the 2nd challenge is Beate's Be Inspired Challenge.

From this picture, I took the colors Soft Sky, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie and Rose Red. And I decided to add Old Olive for fun! What I was inspired most by was the soft colors and then the unexpected bright flowers. So that's what I did on my card!

This card size is 6x3.

Recipe:

Stamps: Fresh Cuts

Paper: Fall Flowers DSP, Textured Soft Sky, Whisper White, Old Olive

Ink: Soft Sky, Old Olive

Other: Flower Fusion, Silver Brads, Soft Sky Ribbon, Oval Nestabilities, white gel pen

I will be back later tonight to give away the blog candy. All you have to do to be entered is subscribe to my blog's feedblitz!

Bright Scrapbooking

I got together this morning with my good scrapping buddy (Hi Jill!) this morning. We were both able to get 3 layouts done in just over 2 hours! And that included a lot of talk time and 2 kiddos running around. Jill used Ginger Blossom DSP and made some girly pages. Maybe she will send me pics of them so I can share (hint, hint!). I decided to go with some bright and cheerful colors. I used the Jersey Shore DSP. The chipboard is from Target and I got it on sales a few weeks ago.

The first layout I used pics from when my son was only 8 months! Now he's 4!

And this is a page with pics of my son that I took about a week ago. He's changed a bit, huh?

I used my Curvy Cutter again for the circles. And the DSP came from a retired Simply Scrappin' kit. It was a hostess gift in the last catalog. This is another layout that I cased from Jana Wilson.

The next layout is that sweet pic of my twins on the slide that I shared last week. I enlarged the pic to 5x7.

On this one I used the Die Cut Blooms, the Flower Fusion, Build a Brad and Bashful Blue Brads. I got a little flower happy! Oh- the letters stand for Makenzie and Danika.

Challenges and some candy!!!!

I had a very successful stamping weekend and so I have several things to show you. And then I have the blog candy announcement that I promised!

The first card is for a GSG challenge. The challenge was to CASE a layout from the Occasions mini. I CASED the card on page 8.
The DSP is from Bali Breeze. The sentiment comes from an Occasion Mini set called Sassy Suzi. I also used Die Cut Blooms from the mini paired with Flower Fusion and a clear Rhinestone brad from the Pretties kit.

I inked up the Die Cut blooms to give them a little more dimension. I also added some white polka dots with a gel pen.

This next card is for Beate's weekend sketch challenge. I especially loved the challenge this week. As soon as I looked at the sketch, I knew that I wanted to use the new Fresh Cuts stamps. Beate used the same stamp set- but I think I made mine look much different that her beautiful card.

I just has to use the Afternoon Tea DSP AGAIN! I love that stuff and I figure I best use it all I can before it retires at the end of this month. I am also on a soft Sky kick so that is the color I chose for the base and for the ribbon. I had trouble tying that bow- but I think I worked it out! And isn't this silver hodgepodge awesome?!! I hope it makes it to the new catty!

The next card is for SCS featured stamper challenge. As soon as I saw that the featured stamper was Maren Zany not Crazy blog- I knew I needed to participate. I have been stalking her blog since the fall. I am always amazed at how much stamping she is able to do while taking care of three young boys! I chose to CASE this card:

Since I still had the supplies on my desk from the last card- I used them again! I just switched the Soft Sky Ribbon for Groovy Guava.

I kept Maren's layout and just changes the stamps, ribbon, colors, and DSP. I liked how both of these Fresh Cuts cards turned out! It is quickly becoming my favorite stamp set. I will give you more details about my Fresh Cuts class tomorrow. This post is just too long!

Next I want to show you the scrapbook page that I made on Saturday morning. I took the pictures of my son at the pool on Saturday afternoon.

I CASED this particular layout from Jana Wilson. The DSP is Spring Break and I am just loving it! The colors are sooo yummy! I stamped the word "waves" with the Best Friends Lower Alphabet. The journaling is computer generated. I cut the huge circle with my Curvy Cutter. I love that thing! And I used some more of that silver hodgepodge to include the date.

So are you impressed that pictures from this weekend are already in my scrapbook?!

On to the candy:

I am giving away the retired Double Line Doodles stamp set (minus the heart stamp that went missing at some point) a retired Daisy punch and 2 classic ink spots: Purely Pomegranate and Wild Wasabi. All you have to do to win is sign up to receive my blog updates through email. My Feed blitz sign up is on the top left of my blog. I will choose a random winner on Wednesday night from the list of my subscribers!

Fresh Color Challenge!

I made this card for Kristina Werner's color challenge. The colors are: Whisper White, Old Olive, Bashful Blue, So Saffron and Not Quite Navy.

I have never been a huge fan of Not Quite Navy. I almost didn't participate in the challenge. But I gave in. And I am so happy that I did because I love the final product!Since getting this new Fresh Cuts stamp set- I can't stop using it! I stamped the background stamp once in Old Olive on a piece of old olive cardstock and again in Not Quite Navy on the the fresh cuts note cards. The bashful Blue flower was punched with the 5 petal punch and I added a old olive flower from the flower fusion. They are all held together with a So Saffron brad. The final touch- Old Olive ribbon- my fave!!!

What do you think?

I will be back tomorrow with a scrapbook page, info about my Fresh Cuts class, and blog candy!