Something Just For Me ...

I have a mid year's resolution (like a new year's one but just 6 mths late!).  I want to be more organised and I knew I needed a tool or two to help me achieve my goal.  I love "To Do" lists but find that the paper variety just don't work for me, I jot down notes on them, they get messy as I cross jobs off.   A white board would work, but I don't have a handy wall to hang one on, not where I would see or easily reach it.  My solution was to make one out of a picture frame.

The Beau Château DSP has a sheet with a lovely flourish in the top corner and lines all down the page, perfect for the task at hand.  I used my paper trimmer to cut it to size, and then did some fancy cutting around the flourish.  I added another sheet of the Beau Château DSP behind this, choosing a soft pattern in Blushing Bride.  The "To Do" is done using the Junior Type Alphabet dies.  The glass in front makes a perfect surface to write my list on, and with a whiteboard pen the jobs I do wipe straight off - the pen sits in the Blushing Bride tube you can see attached to the front of the frame - no losing the pen now!  Best of all it sits near my desk nice and handy but not in the way.   

I decorated the front of the frame with three flowers, two made from the Fancy Flower punch and the larger one from the Blossom Punch.  On the inside of each is a single layer punched using the Blossom Bouquet Triple Layer Punch.

It is really nice to make something just for me, and it was so easy to do I might even make myself another one for my work desk!

Happy Stamping

18th Birthday

Today I want to show you the second card I made for my daughter's weekend of birthday celebrations.  This one is for a lovely young lady who is turning 18 this week, they had a sleepover on Saturday night, and surprisingly actually got some sleep!  

Because I was on a purple roll I decided to make this card with Wisteria Wonder and Island Indigo. Because the birthday girl is a fun loving girl I wanted to make a fun sort of card for her, and wanted to use Mixed Bunch stamp set in some way.  I punched one of the flowers out of the front layer of DSP and embossed one of the flower stamps with White Embossing Powder, I just love how the white gives a project real 'pop'.  The flower I punched out made a backing for another Wisteria Wonder flower embellished with a White Jumbo Brad.  The other flowers all have a rhinestone in the centre for a bit of bling.

Here is a look at the inside of the card, you can see there is a middle panel that has a hole in it and you can see the second part of the sentiment through it.  Petite Pairs stamp set is just perfect for this style of card, and I can see me making a few more with this design.  I added a lovely sparkly "18" with my Timeless Type Junior Alphabet dies, I just love these, especially teamed with glimmer paper!

Here is the centre of the card photographed at a different angle.  I also wanted to point out that the paper the card is sitting on to be photographed is a personalised matching wrapping paper that I made using an A3 sheet of photocopy paper that I have stamped on in Wisteria Wonder and Island Indigo using stamps that matched the card.  I also added some light sponging.  It looked so cute together when the gift was wrapped, and of course I stamped on the envelope to match.

Here is the video from Dawn, it is well done with clear instructions and has all the measurements up on screen to make it easy to follow.  You can also find more of Dawn's samples on her blog Dawn's Stamping Thoughts.

Happy Stamping

16th Birthday Card & Gift

This weekend my lovely daughter had two birthdays celebrations to go to and I offered to make her a couple of cards to take. The first one I will show is the 16th card and matching gift box holding a very special hand made gift.

The first thing I made was the gift box.  I tried a couple of options, but the Box #2 die worked best with the gift (sorry no pic of that) but I will tell you about it.  I wanted to use the Framelits die for the cut out on the front of the box as I knew I could then use the larger frames on the birthday card.  I knew the birthday girl likes purple (I think a lot of 16yo girls do!), and so chose Elegant Eggplant, a colour I used to love but haven't used in ages.  I decided it would go very well with Pool Party, to give it a lift.  I chose Pool Party Seam Binding ribbon to tie up the box and hold the lid shut.  The sentiment is from Memorable Moments, stamped and than hand cut.

With the colour pallette for the project sorted out, and knowing I was going to use the Framelits all I had to do was come up with the card - sounds easy right?  Well it mostly was, I started with the Very Vanilla layer, stamping the flourish from Creative Elements in Elegant Eggplant, and then colouring in the leaves in Pool Party with my Stampin' Write Marker.  The Elegant Lines Embossing Folder seemed to go quite well with this so I embossed the Pool Party layer to give some extra texture.  I still wasn't quite happy, so used the oval from the Designer Frames lightly sponged with Elegant Eggplant to give a subtle highlight to the frame.  I added the Happy Birthday sentiment from Perfect Punches punched out with the Extra-Large Oval punch and sponged around the edges with Pool Party.  I finished off with a little bit of bling on the sentiment, Seam Binding to tie it in with the gift box,  and "16" cut out with my Junior Type alphabet die.

 Here are the two together.  Now what is in the box?  My daughter had to design a project for her textiles class this semester, the criteria was that it had to be affordable and easily manufactured.  She did a bit of research and came up with a concept, the first I knew about it was "Mum can I borrow your Big Shot?"!  She had decided to decorate a Bobby Pin with some material cut out with the Perfect Pennants Die, using two different colours of material.  Her project was chosen as one of two in the class!!! I found out while I was at Convention and actually sold one of her creations to one of the demo's there!  So she had decided to make two of these for the birthday girl, one in purple and a dark brown, and the other a purple and cream one.  They look great and are her first creations as McCrazzy Designs!

Happy Stamping

A Different Kind of Challenge

Today my 'baby' turns 16 ... a challenge on so many levels!  

She is a great girl, and in herself not that much of a challenge, I am so proud of the young lady she is growing into.  The challenging part comes from the age and all that it brings - social expectations, a relaxing of rules while still maintaining boundaries, learning to drive (though that will primarily be hubby's challenge lol), and just the support needed for 16 year olds these days - maintaining that balance between mother and friend.  

Here is the card I made for her.  I used some of her favourite products, firstly the rose image from Fifth Avenue Floral, she loves this stamp set, particularly the rose.  Her other favourite on the card is the new In-Colour Island Indigo, which I paired with Pool Party, lastly is glitter - what girl doesn't like glitter!!!  I used my new alphabet die to cut out the letters and numbers and embossed them into the extended bookmark with the square lattice die.  The "16" I cut out of adhesive sheet and applied super fine glitter, ideally I would have used the new Sticky Sheets as they would have held the glitter better, but sadly had none on hand!  I hope she likes it and has a wonderful 16th Birthday.

Happy Stamping