handmade cass

I am having so much fun this year writing down all of my daily highlights in a Heidi Swapp planner . I wish I had started doing this sooner, because I stopped scrapbooking as soon as my kids were born and those first few years had a lot of milestones I would have liked to remember. Better late than never! The stickers above were from my February 2017 Pipsticks subscription . Perfect timing for my annual houseplant purchase. I have also used my planner as a place to color. I stamped the "large cottage" flowers from Paper Source and used Prismacolor colored pencils to try out some blending. I ended up liking the colors in the tiny blue one in the corner best, so I will have to try it out again. The gold coffee cup sticker is from Pipsticks (intro pack). And the tiny heart is an old wood mount from Memory Box Stamps. These animal stickers from Pipsticks (February 2017 subscription) reminded me of the raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. I am trying to keep my plan...

We kept busy this summer with crafts for the whole family. I started by making a book with all the best scraps of patterned paper I had after cleaning up my craft room. There were spots for my daughter to color, draw, and write stories. My trusty, old Zutter book binder pulled it all together. I took the time to fussy cut some of the stamped images I had mixed in with the scrap paper. This matryoshka from Hero Arts is one of my favorites. A friend was having her first baby and I wanted to make an extra special card. I used Distress Stains to ink smoosh a background. The stars are hanging on gold thread. When my daughter saw that I was making my own coloring sheets (with a stamp from Paper Source), she insisted on helping me watercolor it. Then I had to give it to her because she loved it so much (even though I did too). Update: she still has this hanging up in her room 2 years later We took some visiting family members to the local ceramics painting studio and I made a b...

This was another card that I spent a crazy amount of time on, because it was for a crafty friend's birthday and I had new stamps to play with. I have had these two step floral stamps for a while but this was my first time trying them. They are red rubber cling stamps and a little bit difficult to line up perfectly. Supplies : Stamps - Stampin' Up | Paper Source Ink - Stampin' Up | Hero Arts Twine - Papertrey Ink Jumbo glitter - Tree House Studio

When I first saw the Paper Pumpkin kits from Stampin' Up last year I was intrigued. I liked that they gave you the supplies to make specific projects in a short amount of time (they say a 30 minute creative escape). And the fact that each kit comes with a mini stamp and ink set is awesome. This was the suggested card  for the first kit: I got a coupon to try the first two months for $10 each (half price), so I took a chance. I was pretty sure that everyone got the same kit as their first one, and I'm not crazy about it. The ink splotch stamp is not my style and I will never use it, so I used my own birthday stamp from Paper Source. But I really like that the embellishments that are included are actual stickers instead of punch out cardstock that you have to trim and adhere. And being able to match the kit colors to Stampin' Write markers that I already have is an added bonus. And this is what I came up with for the first card - 3 more to go. Now that I'm loo...

I saw a very punny valentine in the last Paper Source catalog and had to make my own version.  Now I am using the hedgehog stamp from Lawn Fawn's "Critters in the Forest" set on all my valentine's cards.    And I am squeezing a sentiment about hedge-hugs wherever I can. This bookmark using the Lawn Fawn hedgehog will be included in a card for a friend that is always reading. These were the colors I used for inks and Copic markers: And I made a couple valentine's cards at my last monthly Stampin' Up card class.  I love the new honeycomb embossing folder! This card also has a bookmark that tucks into the die cut heart pocket on the front.

Almost every Friday morning I have a babysitter come over for two hours to distract the little one.  I originally thought I would clean the house and feel great about it.  But it turned into a two hour vacation in my craft area.  I try to get as much done as I can and feel like I am racing the clock.  But I've always worked better under pressure.  If only I could get those Christmas cards started... I have next Friday all planned out already.  I am going to read up on  Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas  ahead of time (for all the new techniques) and get as many tags done as I can.  I love this series on his blog!  And my wish list of supplies is growing every day he does a new one. Today I wanted to use up the rest of my twine zig-zags since I worked so hard on them.  The layout has a similar feel to the original but I needed a birthday card this time. Chevron patterned birthday card I also wanted to package it up in my ne...

Managed to get a whole hour of crafting time last weekend and used it to clean up my space and then get a birthday card together for my brother.  As always, I started with a few scraps that I had laying around - white cardstock with some gold Smooch Spritz and a flourish rub-on from Basic Grey. I used some kraft cardstock to make the card, and then did a layer of the gold Smooch Spritz paper with the flourish.  For the birthday sentiment (stamp from Paper Source) I had a library card stamped and distressed around the edges already (stamp from Hero Arts).  Layered that on top of some red Stardream metallic paper with an EK Success punched border.  And to top it all off I used my date stamp that I have been dying to ink up. It still looked like it needed a little something extra so I added the baker's twine stitching.  Jury is still out on using baker's twine for stitching.  A) I think it looks funny because you can't see the color swirls very well. ...

It's been too long!  And I have been dying to finish this album.  Not just to post the pictures, but because I have been planning all of the special pieces of the album for months!  Still not 100% finished but here it is: I used a big sheet of paper from Paper Source for the covers.  It took two tries to adhere it, but the spray adhesive from 3M did the trick.  I haven't had much luck when trying to use the acid free version of Mod Podge.  And it was a lot more work than I planned on in order to cut out around the scallop edges of the covers...but worth it I think.  Also used some Thickers for the title, red crystals, and gold stickles to enhance some grungeboard swirls. I started planning the album way back in January when I saw these new covers and page protectors from Zutter at CHA.  Love them!  And all the pieces finally came together.