Fall candy acorns!

I know, I know, I haven't posted in months due to a major relocation to another state.  I'm still adjusting to everything.  However in the meantime I did snag this cutie-patotie idea from Pinterest. OMG don't you love Pinterest (and hate it at the same time, I'm definitely addicted to it).

So here are the cute little "acorn" cookies.

Made with mini-vanilla wafers, chocolate kisses and chocolate and butterscotch chips.
I used a chocolate frosting (out of a tube for easy squeezing) to "glue" the "kiss" & the chocolate piece to the vanilla wafer.  So cute the gals at scrappin gobbled 'em up quickly!

Enjoy,

Nancy

Painted vases-who knew!

As I was browsing Pinterest one day I discovered someone who had painted a variety of vases to mimick retail ones that sell for quite a bit of money, so I thought I'd give it a try as well.  I thought my newly painted accent walls in the kitchen deserved a new color scheme for some of  the vases and knickknacks.

Here is a "before" picture of all the different shades of blue and mixed patterns:
Nice, but not what I wanted anymore.

Here is an "after" picture of the same vases after being spray painted with white paint.  I used what ever type of spray paint I had on hand as long as it was white and since I was on a roll I found a few more to add to the collection too.

Here's a picture of some of them on the shelf over the pantry doors .

 Here's the rest of them over the kitchen window

Someone also mentioned if you painted the inside as well the colors wouldn't bleed through.  I didn't take the time to do that as most of my colors were easily covered.  The trick however, is to make sure you do very light coats (several times) to avoid streaking and I spray painted mine outside on the patio.

Hope you like them as much as I do, thanks for looking.

Nancy

SIL Birthday!

Well since I seem to have forgotten to send my SIL a card for Father's Day, I figured I better get on the bandwagon and get his birthday card done in time!

He is an adventuresome soul and has the good fortune to have a job that allows him to travel to one of his favorite locations, Africa, several times a year.  So I though a card with something about travel would be quite appropriate, and this is what I came up with.

I'm quite pleased with the outcome of this very CAS card.  I stamped the map on vellum using black ink and made a tiny slit in order to slide the "Birthday" banner underneath the vellum so as not to interfere with the map image, did I say I was quite pleased with the outcome and hope you like it too.

Here's the card now:

 

Here's a peek at the inside as well:

 

I'd love to hear from you and hope you take the time to leave a comment, many thanks,

Nancy


Supplies used:
PTI World Map and sentiment stamp
Stampin' Up Vellum paper and PTI Fresh Linen Cardstock
Die, PTI Photo Finish and Stamp

HALF YEAR BIRTHDAY

My granddaughter's birthday is in December so somehow she warrants a half-year birthday in the month of June  (apparently this is becoming more popular).   Her parents along with her are into "bike" riding and sometimes ride for miles, just tires me out thinking about it, but they seem to enjoy it.  So, I thought it was fitting to make a half-year card for her with the image of a bike.

And what little girl wouldn't have something tucked in the bike basket although I don't think their dog, Sadie, would tolerate sitting there, but I thought the idea was cute.

There seemed to be quite a bit of white space in the upper left hand corner so I thought it was the perfect place for the sentiment on an angle, since I seem to put everything on an angle (says my daughter)!

What do you think, about the card, not the angle.  I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks,

Nancy

Supplies Used:
Card stock paper Stampin' Up's Wild Wasabi, Whisper White
Stamps Papertrey Ink's Pedal Pusher and Peaceful Garden
Sentiment computer generated

PAPER PLAYERS CHALLENGE - MOTHER'S DAY CARD

Well I was trying to hold off posting the Mother's Day card I made until my wonderful daughter could receive it in the mail, but then along comes Paper Players Challenge, what's a person to do?  Naturally post the card of course! (especially since I happen to see a Mother's Day card on her blog as well).

If you haven't made your MD card yet, check out some great inspiration from Paper Players.

I  first made this card for my daughter for Mother's Day and liked it so much I made it two more times for May birthday celebrations.

I love the idea of using a designated flower of the month, in this case Lily of the Valley, for the focal point.  I love Lily of the Valley flowers probably cause I'm a May birthday person, plus I remember their fragrance from many, many, years ago in Canada at my grandmother's house one of just a few memories of her unfortunately.

I die cut the flower twice, once using old olive cs and again on very vanilla and stamped the image.
After die cutting onto the vanilla card stock I separated and fussy cut the blossoms from the leaves.  I cut a slit on the stem of the leaf where I wanted the blossom to be and slid the blossom stem into the opening.   Then tied a little twine bow over the spot where the two connect to cover the opening.

I stamped my sentiment on the crumb cake cs, before I ran it through the big shot, using a wood grain plate.
Just a matter of popping up the image onto the crumb cake panel to finish off the front of the card.

Here's a peek at the inside.  I stamped the same image directly onto the inside of the card and printed my sentiment on a piece of vellum and adhered it over the stamped image.  I thought it looked nice this way and added a little something to the inside.

Well that's it for now, hope you and my daughter like my Mother's Day card to her.
Thanks for lookin' and remember to leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.



Supplies used:
Papertrey Ink Flowers of the year-Lily of the Valley stamp & die
Stampin' Up  old olive and very vanilla card stock & vellum
Miscellaneous ink and twine

HAPPY RETIREMENT!

I have a nephew who has been in the United States Marine Corp for 25+ years and has decided to retire the first week in May of this year.  The retirement ceremony will be held in San Diego, California and as much as I'd like to attend I just can't at this time.

So, the next best thing is to make a special card just for him.  My inspiration came from Margaret Moody of Pals Paper Arts.  I used her sketch and of course the colors she used were the exact colors for the Marine Corp so I had to go with the same.  I  added 4 gold brads to the corners to give it a military look and although it's difficult to see the "ribbon" has been dry embossed with lines.  I was able to find the USMC emblem online which I printed on photo paper to make it look more realistic and popped it up.  The sentiment was computer generated (also CASED from Ms. Moody) and thought it was so appropriate for someone who has served so many years in the military.

Here's my card, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

I know he will get a kick out it, and that's what it's all about!

THINK SPRING!

No matter where you live it's time for Spring, right?  I made this card for a family member back in MI and I know they're hoping for Spring-like weather soon so I thought this card reflected that thought.   It's rather hard to see but the center butterfly has bling on his/her antenna and I just had to add some paper piercing to two of the corners.  It's so hard for me to leave "white" space, how about you? What do you think?  I'd love to hear from you.

My card will be entered into the The Paper Players Challenge for a  CAS one layer card.

Here's my card...

Here's a peek at the inside of the card as well.  I love stamping an image and then adding the sentiment over it, kinda ties it all together.

Supplies used:
Stampin' Up ink, Primrose Petals, Daffodil Delight, Kraft and Wisteria Wonder
Stamps, PTI's Over Under Easy & Stampin' Up's Everything Eleanor
Cardstock Stampin' Up's Very Vanilla & Soft Suede
Piercing tool

The Play Date Cafe Challenge

Check out these fabulous colors at The Play Date Cafe, aren't they yummy colors? This should certainly help everyone get into warmer weather mode!

I chose a very simple design for my card letting the sentiment do all the work, added a bit of ribbon and a couple of enamel dots, popped the white cs onto a turquoise card base.

A very quick and HAPPY card, hope you like it.  I'd love to hear from you.

Nancy

CITY CRAFTER CHALLENGE BLOG - HAPPY 3rd ANNIVERSARY!

If you haven't already checked out the blog at City Crafter you should!  In honor of the 3rd anniversary of their blog, they're having wonderful challenges, contests and some major looking prizes.  There are a variety of ways you can play along, check it out.

 Here is my Happy Birthday card for the blog, I hope you like it.  In my excitement to catch a late afternoon picture of my card with some flowers in my yard, I didn't notice one of the flowers deposited a droplet of water on the upper green leaf (well I'm going to think of it as being quite appropriate, water, flowers, get it)?

Anyhow I die cute my beautiful violet flower, heat embossed both with versamark and clear embossing powder, added a touch of bling to the center, die cut and stamped a few leaves attaching all to a white CS framed in the same color as the flowers.  I stamped the sentiment by masking off one of my stamps to get just the words "Happy-Spring" then die cut the word birthday from the same color CS as the flower and popped it up below the sentiment.

I think it's a perfect card for one of my gal pals who has a birthday in May, don't you agree?

Also kinda happy to show off some of my container flowers that are doing quite well and helping to perk up the patio area.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my card,
Hugs,

Nancy

Supplies used:
CS from Stampin' Up
Flower stamp and all dies f rom Papertrey Ink
Container flowers from Nancy's patio!

Birthday cards

It's always good to have a few Birthday cards on hand, I tried my luck with this new Water Color Stamp set from Maile Belles of Papertrey Ink and a few of their other newer stamps.
All three cards are quick and easy one layer and the colors you choose are the key to everything.  I sometimes need a masculine card and never seem to have one on hand, so I thought the card in the upper right hand side would work.well.

What do you think?  I'd love to hear from you,
Hugs,
Nancy

Easter greetings

Happy Easter to everyone, hope you're having a fabulous day!  Here are a few little tags I made to attach to little candy treat bags to adorn our Holiday Brunch table.

These were so easy and fun to make and they really looked adorable on the table.
Hope your Easter was festive and Hoppy oops I mean Happy!


Supplies used:
PapertreyInk, bunny die, stamp, sentiment and tag die
Paper anonymous
Ribbon from Stampin' Up

Gator Fans!

If you checked out my previous post here you'd see I'm on a roll making these adorable little hair barrettes!
My granddaughter is a Florida Lady Gators volleyball fan and attends some of the games with her parents.
I thought the LG colors would be quite the fashion statement for her to wear to the games.  What do you think?

Don't you just love the packaging it just really sets off the barrettes.


Supplies used:
PapertreyInk barrette, packaging dies & glassine bags
Stampin' Up Vintage Faceted clear buttons (so cute)!
Anonymous colored felt and barrettes

Blog challenge winner @ PTI

My granddaughter and I did the happy dance this morning when we discovered our's (I made, she modeled)
entry for PTI Blog Challenge was selected as one of the three winners!

I just love these little barrettes, gotta get going and make some more.

Here is the winning post from PTI, I'm very happy to be in such good company!

A is for ADORABLE!

I made these absolutely adorable barrettes for my granddaughter and I think she (and; her Mom) like them as much as I do!  I also think they qualify for PTI's Blog Hop beginning today, March25, 2013.

I used one of PTI's newer dies designed by Erin Lincoln of  PTI, that is so clever (how come I can't think up things like this) anyhow they're so easy to use, although I did have to refer back to the original blog here when I started to stitch the 3 pieces together.  Not once, but twice I stitched the three pieces together and then couldn't open the barrette, after reviewing the posting I realized what my mistake was.

The top barrette is for my granddaughter the bottom (single flower) one is for her American Girl doll, Kit,  Kit always has to have a similar item!  The flowers were ready made, I just added a rhinestone to each and backed the flowers with some felt leaves.  Of course I had to add some leaf stamping to the plain white card stock holding the barrettes, After assembling the die cut felt pieces I stitched them together with some pink embroidery floss (only took a minute or two since the die cuts holes showing where to stitch, then a dab and I mean a dab of hot glue to adhere the flowers to the felt barrette.

My daughter, Nancy Lempinen Leedy of Canopy Crafts,  pointed out the barrettes hold better in the hair because of the felt...definitely will be making more of these.

Here's a picture of the barrettes...

AND how about the gorgeous packaging!  Also from PTI a die to attach your finished barrettes to for gift giving and the sentiment at the top of the card, such fine detail and stamps beautifully, I'm in love.
 

Here they are all encasing in a glassine bag ready for gifting.  The topper handle is also a new die from PTI so versatile and perfect for dressing up the little bag.  Did ya notice I couldn't stop myself, had to repeat the little leaf pattern on the bottom corner of the bag.

Here's a picture of my granddaughter wearing the cute little barrette.

Supplies used:
Everything EXCEPT the little crochet flowers from Stampin' Up are from Papertrey Ink


That's it for now thanks for looking and I hope to hear from you!

Nancy 

Baby card

A cute "Baby buttons and bows" clean and simple challenge from Anne Marie going on over at Paper Players.  You have until Friday at noon to enter the challenge at Paper Players.

Also a second challenge at City Crafter using Glitter.  You have until February 25 to enter their challenge.

Here's my take on the challenges:

I used a large scallop die (upside down) to create waves on my paper and then sprinkled glitter  on the waves as well as embossing the top portion of the card with a cloud embossing folder for the sky.

  I love this little whale, but I thought he/she looked a little lonely so I added a school of baby fish to accompany him or her.  Unfortunately I didn't have any small buttons so I used  tiny pearls as my substitute on the cloud sentiment, the "bow" as you can see is tied to the whales tail (perhaps this establishes the gender  of the whale)?

Thanks for looking and I hope you have a minute to leave me a comment,

Nancy

"Home Made for Papertrey Ink"

Yet another challenge celebrating Papertrey Ink's 6th year anniversary.  If you follow their blog you'd know that they are releasing quite a few stamps and dies this month to do with "Hand Made".  So the challenge is to make something home made, barrettes, brooches, flower pins, hair bands, etc. whatever.

I didn't have a lot of time so I opted to go with a simple "Frilly Flower" die using PTI's beautiful gray felt with just a touch of green for a couple of little leaves to peek out from behind the flowers.  I hot-fixed a rhinestone to the center of each and hot glued the felt flowers to the flip flops.  Normally since I love bling, I would have added many more, but my hot-fix wand wasn't working correctly (Murphy's Law, right)?  I thought the gray flowers coordinated well with the insole of the flip flop showing the gray/white flowers.

Here are my finished flip flops just waiting for some dry, warmer weather.

Here's a close up of the felt flower, you can see it really is gray!

 

 Supplies used:

Papertrey Ink Frilly flower dies, gray felt

Pair of flip flops and rhinestones

Thanks for looking and Happy Anniversary PTI!  I hope you have time to leave a comment.

Nancy

 

What Time is It? Party time of course!

I need a birthday card for this coming weekend and thought I'd combine my need with  The Friday Mashup challenge making a card using an image of a  clock, time piece, or black card stock or all of the above.

 Here is my card:

The stamped clock was heat embossed. I then individually (yes, one at a time) added the Roman Numerals (I was worried after all the prep work that I'd put the wrong #'s in the wrong place, so I used an existing clock  for the 9, 10, and 11 numbers).  I know, I know, I too learned the #'s in school, but that was a long time ago and I seldom  have occasion to use Roman Numerals.  The numerals were also heat embossed to give added shine. 
I purposely placed the clock face off center to add some interest plus my supply of very vanilla card stock is zilch at this time, so I had to use scraps and yes it is Very Vanilla not white as it appears in the photo (what's that all about)?

The die cut hands of the clock were cut on white card stock and then I literally dragged a black ink pad back and forth to color them.  I added a glitzy brad to the center to hold the hands and to match the color sentiment at the bottom of the card.  It must be 5 o'clock somewhere and you know that means "party time"!


Here I was trying to show the heat embossing, I guess you can see some of it.

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, it makes my day!

Nancy

 Supplies used:
Focal stamps Papertrey Ink
Sentiment "    Cas-ual Stamps
Card Stock - SU Very Vanilla (I know it looks white)
and black 
Inks: Versamark, SU Primrose Petals & Basic Black

PTI's Year of the Flowers

Here's another card celebrating the 6 year anniversary of Papertrey Ink.  The challenge was to use one of the flower stamp sets from the Year of the Flowers series.  Since I only have two of the sets from the series one being the Christmas poincettia, I opted to use the other one Year of Flowers: Mums.

I used a dark gray card stock, dry embossed with a tulip edge and heat embossed the flower using versamark ink and white EP.  I added a little "glitz" in the center of each for a little pizzaz (although it's almost impossible to see in the photo)!  An angled rectangle label die and a little sentiment finishes off the card.

Thanks for visiting today and be sure to leave me a message, I'd love to hear from you.

PTI's 6th Anniversary Challenge

Here is my card using one of the free downloads from Papertrey Ink, celebrating their 6th successful year in business!  Congratulations to PTI and thank you for all the opportunities for free gifts,  Who wouldn't love to win one of them?

Hope you like it.

Valentine Card

Wow, it's been too long since I've posted to my blog (gosh, what happened to my New Year's resolution, to post more often)?
Well here is a Valentine card I made and thought I'd share it with you.  Unfortunately the photo shows the separation of the "tail" of the party cracker, which isn't visible in real life, must be the angle the photo was taken from, but you get the idea, right?

I'd love to hear your comments on this card.

Supplies: All Papertrey Ink, except the polka dot paper (SU)

Get well card

This is my second post for today, seems I forgot to post this card I made a while back.  I CASE'd it from Papertrey Ink.  I needed a get-well card for a friend up North and thought this might make her feel a bit better.

Oops seems like I cut off the top of the card and already mailed it so I can't redo the photo, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Nancy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Here's another quick masculine birthday card I made for a friend.  Stamped a "happy birthday" sentiment repeatedly as my background.  The die cut label was heat embossed for a little bit of shine which of course is always difficult to photograph

Here's the card, would love to hear from you with your comments.