The World's Greatest Dad

Hope you had a great Father's Day with the men in your life.

I made this card for my amazing dad. I also designed a very similar one for Kalino to give to my husband. Unfortunately my card didn't get to my dad in time because I mailed it too late.

I love the flexibility of the Print & Cut feature of the Silhouette Studio software! I added The World's Greatest Dad design on top of a lovely chalkboard frame design. I selected the text and specified "No Cut". I gave the text an outline and fill color of white so it looks like chalkboard writing. I still can't get enough of chalkboard designs.

The patterned paper is from American Crafts and the card base is kraft cardstock. I used my Stampin' Up heart punch to punch out a heart. Thanks for stopping by!

  

Thanks For All You Do!

This poor blog has been neglected long enough! Do I even remember how to create a blog post?

I'm back with some new cards for our secretaries at school. I was inspired by this week's free shape from Silhouette. Instead of making a flower pot with a bouquet, I shrank the design way down to create mini tulips on a card. The sentiment is also a Silhouette design.

Have a great day!

Thanks for Administrative Professional's Day

Hi there! Here's are the cards I made for our secretaries at school last month to show appreciation for all they do daily.

The layouts for the cards were inspired by a card on the cover of the May/June 2013 Paper Crafts magazine.

I got to use up some pretty scalloped washi tape, some pretty paper flowers, and a free Lawn Fawn stamp.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great Mother's Day this weekend!

Easter Centerpiece - PSA Essentials Blog Hop

Welcome to the PSA Essentials Blog Hop! If you are hopping along, you arrived here from Jeanne Streiff's blog. To start from the beginning, go to the PSA Essentials blog.

The Blog Hop Grand Prize: 1 custom stamp, 3 Peel & Stick stamp sets, 2 notecards, 1 alignment tool, 1 black ink, 1 2-color ink, and free shipping to the winner. Value of the package is $150.

How to Enter: If you'd like a chance to win, you can enter here (scroll to the bottom) or go to the PSA Essentials blog.

The inspiration for this centerpiece came about when I had my 6-month dental appointment a few weeks ago. I was reading "All You" magazine and spotted this gorgeous picture inside. I knew I wanted to make something similar.

I have a 3-level cake stand my mom gave me years ago, so I knew exactly what I wanted to design.

Since I want to save these eggs and use them again, I poked holes in the eggs to blow out the contents, rinsed, and dried the eggs.

I tried using Copic markers to color some eggs. I didn't like the results; too many streaks. This yellow egg is an example. I tried stamping directly onto the egg, but it was too hard to get a good impression. I stamped onto white tissue using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I trimmed out the design and used Mod Podge to decoupage the sentiment onto the egg. The stamps I used today come from these sets: Topiary and Little Bunny.

Here's another example of my technique. This time I colored in the bunny using a Copic marker before I decoupaged the design onto the egg.

Most of the eggs where dyed with Paas egg coloring.

Here are some other details on my project. I like the look of the washi tape; that idea also came directly from the magazine.

To get the bunny Peeps to stand up, I trimmed the bottoms so they would be flat.

The guys love Lindt chocolates, so I love the looks of these little Lindt bunnies. My son Kalino gave me input as to where the bunnies should be placed.

Your next stop on the blog hop is over to Julia Aston's blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Enter here:

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It's Your Birthday

I made this card for my friend, Kim, last month. January was a busy birthday month for my friends and family. It's terrible that I can't even find time to post cards on this blog. Well, at least I posted this card on Instagram last month.

The stamps are from Lawn Fawn and Papertrey Ink. The patterned paper is from Amy Tangerine for American Crafts. The baker's twine is from The Twinery.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday to You

Hi there! There's something very appealing to the heavy use of black in card design. When I saw this month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop - Black challenge, I had to participate.

Here's my card. Using my Big Shot, I die cut the Leafy Vine Border Die  several times in different colors of cardstock. I glued them onto black cardstock. I die cut a scalloped circle from black cardstock and then white embossed the birthday sentiment (from the Signature Greetings II stamp set) onto a scallop circle die cut. As a final touch, I added some bling.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday, Norma!

I made this birthday card for my friend, Norma, who celebrated her birthday today.

I also made this card for the Papertrey Ink Make It Monday Challenge since it's a chalkboard challenge. I like the look of a Plum Pudding chalkboard, how about you? I used stamps from the Birthday Bash Sentiments set, Holiday Photo Finishers set, and the Little Labels stamp set.

Two cards made for a challenge; I've never done that until now. I was very inspired! If I had more time, I was going to make another chalkboard-inspired card.

A quick note...these last two blog entries were partially done on my iPhone; photography, adding watermarks to the photo using the Phonto app, and the Blogger app.

Have a great day!

Chalkboard Thank You - Papertrey Ink MIM Challenge

Happy New Year, everyone! 

I couldn't resist when I saw Papertey Ink's latest Make It Monday challenge was a chalkboard challenge. I just had to participate. I loved Betsy's tutorial in November; my Christmas card was inspired by her cards.

I embossed the Thank You sentiment with white embossing powder. The flourishes were stamped with white pigment ink. Besides Versamark Ink and white pigment ink, I also used colored pencils on my "chalkboard".

I paper pierced the perimeter of the die cut to give some visual interest to the edges. I added some buttons and some baker's twine and that's it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas - Chalkboard Style

To my friends and family here and all around the world, Feliz Navidad! May this season bring you and your family blessings and good health.

This is my annual photo Christmas card. The stamps are all from the Holiday Sayings set from Hero Arts, except for the Lawn Fawn banner stamp.

With all the inspiration on Pinterest regarding chalkboards and when I saw Betsy Veldman's chalkboard-inspired cards here, I knew I had to create our Christmas card with that inspiration. This card is probably one of the most time-consuming cards I've ever tried to mass-produce. It involved embossing, die cutting felt, using a white pencil to color in chalky details, rubbing white pigment ink over everything (my favorite step) to give the chalkboard authenticity, and slicing an opening above the banner to insert the photo. I ran out of steam after creating 60 of these babies. Sorry to all my local friends who will not be receiving one of these cards this year.

Thanks for stopping by! I've got to get downstairs to get dinner prep started. Ho, ho, ho.

Happy Birthday, Judy!

I recently spied this cool Silhouette design in the Silhouette Online Store. Now that all the designs are 50% off until Nov 30th, I decided to download several.

Today we had an impromptu birthday celebration at school for my friend, Judy. I made this card for her.

The cardstock is from Stampin' Up and the rhinestones are from Michael's.

Thanks for stopping by...especially, my sweet blogging friend, Amy, who always manages go leave a kind word. Woman, you were up in the middle of the night just like me!

Simple Tag Using An Instagram Photo

I love Instagram! It's got to be my favorite app on my iPhone.

Last month, Kalino went to a birthday party for Lillie, my friend Nadja's daughter. A while back, Nadja posted an awesome photo of Lillie dressed as an Jedi. I love girls that love Star Wars. I loved the photo so much, I used it to make the tag for her gift bag. I love that Nadja has a chalkboard wall in her house. I didn't add "Jedi" and the arrow, that was on their wall. I wish I had a chalkboard wall. So cool!

I used the editing tools in Picasa to add the Happy Birthday text. Before I could add any text, I had to "erase" their light switches in the photo because it was right where I wanted to put the happy birthday sentiment. I downloaded a free Star Wars font. I glued the photo onto a plain shipping tag and I was done. Very simple! Thanks for stopping by.

Happy World Card Making Day!

My dear card-making friends,

I hope you had a great World Card Making Day today and found time to make some cards. I didn't get time to make anything, so I'm actually showing you a card I made for my friend, Lutex, back in August. The design is completely based on this great card by Nichole Heady.

The floral stamps all come from the Natural Beauties set from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from Birthday Bash Sentiments stamp set (also from Papertrey Ink). The papers used are also from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Janet, We Will Miss You!

I just posed this question on Instagram:

Am I still a card blogger if I haven't blogged since August 2nd? 

I still consider myself a blogger. Life has gotten in the way: volunteering at school and having work done to the exterior of our house.

I have made cards during the summer, I just haven't posted them on this blog. Well I'm back today.

I made this card for a dear friend at school, Janet. She and her family are moving to Salt Lake City very soon and all the volunteers and staff at school are really going to miss her. She was such a great volunteer in our library and all other events we had. We took her to lunch on Friday at a really good Vietnamese restaurant I'm town.

The stamps I used are all from Lawn Fawn: Quinn's ABCs and Harold's ABCs. The papers are from a great paper pad from My Minds Eye called Dolled Up. The heart button is from an older American Crafts flair collection.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 9th Birthday Kalino!

Yesterday was the Little Guy's 9th birthday. This is the card I made for him.

The card started with this Silhouette design. Instead of using a number in the middle, I used the same photo I used on his Evite.

This kid loves his birthday. For example, on New Years Day he said "8 more months until my birthday." And he's been counting down every 1st of the month ever since. He also loves to have his party on his actual birthday, and since it's summer time, we have been able to accommodate his request. He invited 8 friends from school to play laser tag at Laser Quest in Mountain View. He attended a birthday party there last month and was totally excited to have his party there. Since they didn't open until 2PM, we took all the kids out for burgers at In N Out before driving to the party location. He had a great time. Here's a collage I posted yesterday on Instagram.

I did very little crafting for his party. Kalino and I decorated small water bottles with By the Numbers Papertrey Ink patterned paper. My friend Judy added numbers to the bottles so the kids could keep track of their own bottle. I also wrapped the same Papertrey Ink paper on jars that I up-cycled to hold the spoons and forks (didn't include a picture).

Instead of giving a traditional party favor bag, I bought gift cards at Baskin Robbins and made these gift card holders (Kristina's pattern). I added a photo of Kalino with a speech bubble that says "Thanks for making my day sweet." I used the Phonto app on my iPhone to create the speech bubble on the photo; I love my iPhone!

I researched laser tag cake ideas on Pinterest. I found several that all had glow sticks. I found several packs of them at Big Lots for $.60 for a pack of 4. Just stick the glow sticks in and "break" them to start the glowing effect. I had Costco customize their All American chocolate cake. I asked them not to put chocolate shavings on the perimeter. I also asked for neon-colored frosting. Did you know that Costco customizes more than just their sheet cakes? You can even take swatches of color and they will color-match the frosting to your color(s).

Thanks for stopping by!

I Love My Dad

I loved the free Father's Day frames from the Silhouette Online Store this past week. It made it easy to create a couple of Father's Day cards. I made this one for my Sweetie. He is such a great dad. My son is a lucky kid.

I took this photo of the guys at Legoland during our Spring Break. I processed the photo using Instagram on my iPhone.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Sweetie

Hi there! Today I made a birthday card for my hubby. We happen to share the same birthday. It's been a great day already: lunch with friends, hugs, flowers, gifts, red velvet cakepops, and a red velvet cake. Oh my...such sweet friends!

I love this Happy Birthday design from the Silhouette Online Store. It felt like a perfect design to use on a masculine card. The patterned paper is from Stampin' Up and the heart was cut from an older piece of Cosmo Cricket paper (I think). The letter stickers are from Cosmo Cricket.

The guys and I are off to dinner this evening to continue the celebration. When the principal at school asked me if I had any philosophical thoughts on my birthday, I remember saying I didn't have anything profound to say. But, I really do believe that age is just a number. It doesn't define us unless we let it.

Life is good. Thanks for stopping by!

Look Who's Turning 2

Our friend, Little Miss A, turned 2 this weekend. Here's the card I made for her 2nd birthday. The white card base was made with the heavy white cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I recently bought some new washi tape from Target and Groop Dealz, so I layered different washi tapes on the card base.

The design and dry embossing was completely inspired by these cards Lisa Spangler made where she dry embossed the washi tape after she placed it on cardstock. I loved the look so much, I had to try it out immediately. I used the By the Numbers impression plate from Papertrey Ink on front of the card.

I took this picture of Little Miss A when the kiddos had a playdate and I ran it through the Instagram App on my iPhone. After printing the photo on 4x6" photo paper, I trimmed it to look like a Polaroid photo.

The sentiment stamps are from Papertrey Ink and the chipboard number is from American Crafts. The baker's twine is from The Twinery. I also got a great deal on this baker's twine from Groop Dealz.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the inspiration, Lisa! 

Wishing You All Things Wonderful

Hi there! Here's a card I made last month for Daisy, one my favorite school secretaries who transferred to a different school. My son won't be done with his school year until June 15th. I'm sure most of you with school-age kids are already on your Summer break.

All the stamps are from Hero Arts. They were a gift last year from the fabulous Jennifer McGuire. I sewed several dozen flower pins for the Hero Arts booth at CHA last year and sweet Jennifer sent me a lot of stamps as a thank you. The sentiment stamp is from the Just Find Me set.

The papers are from Stampin' Up and Papertrey Ink. I love the weight of their cardstock.


I'm watching "House Hunters" on HGTV right now and the couple featured on the show are searching for a house in Maui. Lucky! Ahhh...love that island!


Well, thanks for stopping by!

Earth Day Notebooks

Hello, my dears!

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while. We were on Spring Break last week. We took a trip down to Southern California. We spent days in Legoland, Disneyland, and California Adventure. It was Kalino's first time in Disneyland. This kid is not a Disney kid. He's never wanted to go to Disneyland until now. He loved Tomorrowland.

Here are some notebooks I made for my sister-in-law's students to celebrate Earth Day. The notebooks started with recycled cardboard from boxes of crackers, cereal, packaging, etc.

I covered the cardboard pieces with various papers. I used a lot of Hambly overlays and Hambly papers. I also used a lot of other papers from various companies, like Stampin' Up. Each notebook is approximately 4.25" x 5.5". Some notebooks were a little smaller. I used various types of binding. Mainly I used "cola de rata" (rats tail...I know...weird name). I also used bamboo skewers for binding on some of the notebooks. The stamp I used was perfect. My sister-in-law provided the stamp. I can't remember the manufacturer. It shows the Earth surrounded by children; perfect for Earth Day!

Well, I've got to get to bed soon. We have an early morning. We are doing a Community Cleanup event at Kalino's school tomorrow. We are also showing all the great art the kid's created this week during our craft camps. They up-cycled trash into great works of art. The kids love the event that all of us mom's organized. Thanks to our leader, Nadja! I heard comments like "this is better than recess". That's a huge stamp of approval. They had so much fun. Yesterday, I helped the 3rd graders glue their robot creations together. Kids love building robots; not just my robot-obsessed son.

Happy Botday Dante!

I've said it before, but I love robots! And nothing says young boys birthday more than a birthday card with a robot on it.

We went to a birthday party for 6 year old cousin Dante this past weekend. Here's the card I made for him.

Here's a closeup of the Best Bots Forever stamps from Stampin' Up.

The embossed background was created with an embossing plate from Papertrey Ink.

It's been a busy week here, so I'll make this short and sweet. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!