The End of Another School Year

Today was the girls' last day of school. Not that you could really call it a "day". They attended the Grade 7 Grad ceremony and then were dismissed at 10:30!! Paige was "graduating" from Kindergarten too so I of course was there with camera in hand. Look for that post on my other blog soon. Hopefully!

The reason for this post today is to share the cards I made for Marley and Paige's teachers. Check them out.

Fun huh?

I used Twitterpated DSP (SO glad this wasn't retired along with everything else as I LOVE this paper set!) Stampin' Up! has a new stamp set (and paper line) that features blue ribbon motif but I do not own it so I made my own.

The sentiment was created using 3 different stamp sets - Patterned Party, Family Reunion and Morning Post Alphabet. Oh, and the hatch was hand drawn using my Riding Hood Red Stampin' Write Marker.

Here's a close up of the blue ribbon embellishment.

Inside the card I simply stamped "Thank you" from Wacky Wishes.

Thanks for coming by today. I hope you liked my cards. Just a reminder that I will be participating in a Blog Hop on Sunday and there will be prizes so I hope you'll come back for that. Here are your links from today's project.

Twitterpated DSP

Patterned Party stamp set

Family Reunion stamp set

Morning Post Alphabet stamp set

Wacky Wishes stamp set

Delightful Dozen stamp set

Stampin' Write Markers - Regals Collection

Masculine Birthday Card

The colour scheme is probably going to look awfully familiar to you by now!! :)

This was made for my Father-in-law who celebrated his --th birthday (numbers are no longer allowed!!) on Monday. We got all his grand kids together to celebrate the occasion last Saturday and this is what I gave him. The papers are from International Bazaar DSP and, of course, I had to throw in some of the wood grain pattern from Natural Composition Specialty DSP. Told you it was a familiar combination!!

The sentiment on the front of the card is from Wacky Wishes which is a new Hostess Rewards stamp set. The sentiment above (on the inside of the card) is from Delightful Dozen. Both sets are excellent to have on hand for any and all occasions!

To dress up the front a tiny bit, I used one of the new wood look Naturals Designer Buttons.

Thanks for checking in today. I have exciting news! I am going to be participating in my first ever Blog Hop!! A group of like minded Canadian Crafters and I are going to Celebrate Canada Day in a way that suits our passions - by showing off our Canada inspired cards and layouts. Here`s a teeny tiny sneak peak ...

To see the rest (and my card) you will have to check back on July 1st at 9:00AM PST. There will be prizes so I hope to see you all then.

Here are your links from today`s project:

International Bazaar DSP

Natural Compositions Specialty DSP

Naturals Designer Buttons

Wacky Wishes Hostess Rewards stamp set

Delighful Dozen stamp set

Starting Point layout - Bookclub Retreat

Is bookclub one word or two? Hmmm ... perhaps two. Oh well.

This week's Starting Point layout with Shimelle Laine was a lot of fun to work with. Click on the link to be taken to her site and the inspiration for my layout.

Here is my finished layout.

And where I started from.

These papers are from Fan Fair. I loved the map print and the keys (the girls in my book club were Sorority Sisters and our symbol was the key). The bicycles are just for fun!

Oh, and the text paper isn't from Fan Fair but is a piece of First Edition Specialty DSP. I liked the little type writer image and felt the paper went with my story about a book club retreat. 

One of the most exciting papers in Fan Fair is a sheet of cut-a-parts. The back side is a gorgeous pink lace pattern which I will use on a different layout but for this one, there were two images that I wanted to cut out. The little journalling tag with the red type writer and the one you see above of the quote with a lovely scroll-y border. 

Here's a look at the journalling tag.

I don't usually position my titles vertically but as I was playing with my stamped title (seeing if I wanted to cut it all apart or leave it as is) I really liked how it looked placed vertically between the photos and the journalling embellishment cluster so ... what do you think? Does it work? I wanted to play on the theme of type writers so created the second word of my title to mimic type writer keys. 

To get the ink splashes I took my re-inkers, squeezed a little bit into an old yogurt container and then used a well saturated paint brush to get the ink splotches. You could also use your Aqua Painter.

As a pop of colour I picked up the More Mustard from the bicycles images and used my Quint-Essential Flower stamp to create these flower images. A More Mustard Designer button and some Jute finish it off. I am planning to enter this into the Creative Accents buttons and twine challenge.

Thanks for stopping by. Please be sure to leave a comment so I can come and visit your site to do the same.

Here are your links for this project.

Fan Fair DSP

First Edition Specialty DSP

Quint-Essential Flower stamp

Morning Post Alphabet stamp set

Simply Serif Mini Alphabet stamp set

Designer Buttons - Regals Collection

May 2012 P12 Featuring Summer Smooches

This catches me up in my 2012 Project 12 album. What a nice feeling!
Since the main event this month was our family trip to Disneyland, I felt it appropriate to use mostly Disney pictures!

Here is the PageMaps sketch that I used (from the May 2012 sketches.)

I flipped the sketch to accommodate my chosen photos.

And here are close ups of each page.

As you can see, I didn't do a whole lot of stamping on this layout (just the 'happy birthday' underneath Greg's picture and the numbers.) Sometimes I'm "feeling" the stamping, and sometimes I'm  not. And that's okay! For this layout it was really more about playing with all the different paper patterns in the Summer Smooches collection. The red and white polka dot is NOT from Summer Smooches however, it is from another new collection called (appropriately enough) Polka Dot Parade. Check out the links below to see all the colours this comes in. It's a great set to have on hand to enhance other collections.

It was Greg's birthday on our last day at the park so I made him go to the City Hall and get a birthday button. To further highlight this picture I created a little banner below it and just stamped the 'happy birthday' sentiment from Best Dad Ever. My Basic Black ink pad needs to be re-inked so to make it look intentional I stamped off some images to give them a more faded look. 

My title. 

I cut out the letters with my Typeset Alphabet die and the numbers were stamped using one of the stamps in the Patterned Party stamp set (really finding this super versatile!!) and then fussy cut. (Also did this to get the '42' for Greg's birthday picture.) To dress it up a bit I added the pen faux stitching. I liked the stitch look so much I did it on the rest of the layout!

My journalling block.

And one last picture to highlight (you Moms out there will know why I'm highlighting this!!) Yes, this is Christine in the potty. The story is this; Christine is my last baby and while she's been wearing Pull-Ups for months now and we had been flirting with potty training, we hadn't committed 100% to the process. For many reasons, not least of which being my resistance. Not because I wished her to remain little (although that may have been a tiny part of it) but because I still retained very vivid and horrid memories of potty training Paige and didn't fancy repeating them with Christine. As it turned out I needn't have worried as she took to it very quickly (once we'd fully committed - after returning from Disneyland) and now I am revelling in the process of getting rid of things like diaper bags, change tables, diaper pails, etc etc etc. Ah, freedom!!

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked this please leave me some love! I may even visit you and return the favour!! Last but not least, here are your links.

Summer Smooches DSP
Polka Dot Parade DSP
Patterned Party stamp set
Best Dad Ever stamp set
Typeset Alphabet Die

Birthday Birthday!

My niece and my daughter's best friend both recently celebrated turning 6!
Happy Birthday girls!!

I got crafty and created these cards.

I used the new Patio Party DSP and Primrose Petals from the 2012-14 In Colours. 

I made this one first. To create the background I cut out the numbers 1-9 with my Big Shot and laid them down on a piece of Whisper White card stock using re-positional glue. Using my Colour Spritzer Tool and my Baja Breeze Stampin' Write Marker, I sprayed the entire sheet with ink. Once I removed the numbers, I was left with this cool, subtle number back ground. 

I wanted to highlight the number 6 so I cut out an image from one of the Patio Party patterns, mounted the original sprayed #6 on it and voila! The Happy Birthday To You banner stamp is from the Patterned Party stamp set.

Inside I created this sentiment using my Fabulous Phrases stamp set.

For this one I wanted to accentuate the banner paper in this pack. I used those numbers from the first card, mounted them on Primrose Petals card stock cut into different sized banners. Super simple but quite effective if I do say so myself!

Thanks for stopping by. If you enjoyed this post please be sure to leave me some love!

Here are your product links.

Patio Party DSP

Color Spritzer Tool

Patterned Party stamp set

Fabulous Phrases stamp set

2012-14 In Color card stock

Project 12 using Floral District

I am finally caught up with my Project 12 album - yay! It is unusual for me to get 2 months behind so it was really weighing on me. A lot of things have been weighing on me lately which (if you follow either of my blogs) you probably gathered just by the fact that I've been a bit MIA lately. I think I may be back on track ... ish ... but time will tell.

As an aside, can I ask a favour of those (few) of you who do follow me here or on Facebook? Can you please share this post with your own followers/friends? I am feeling a bit of frustration that my sites are not growing as quickly (or at all!) as I'd hoped so am reaching out to you good people to help spread the word. While we're at it, do you have any suggestions for content or improvements? I would really appreciate your input!! Thanks.

Okay, back to my Project 12 layout. This is for April and I see that I used the same sketch as my buddy Roxy. Here is my interpretation.

If you've taken a look at Roxy's layout you'll see that I have quite a few more pictures on mine. It's a weakness of mine, I admit it! Must. Use. Many. Pictures. Always!

This is the PageMaps sketch I used. Loosely! 

And some close ups ... first the left hand page.

And the right hand page.

Some close ups of the details.

Loving my new Alphabet die! 

Here you can see some of the papers in the Floral District DSP pack as well as one of the new Naturals Designer Buttons - lovely wooden buttons!

I loved the stamping I'd done on Starting Point layout so added it on this one too.

Okay, that's it. Here are your links - thanks for stopping by. If you liked this please leave me some love!

Floral District DSP

Flowering Flourishes stamp set

Naturals Designer Buttons

Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die

I've decided to enter this into Creative Accents Buttons and Twine challenge for June. Check them out at the link above.

Happy Father's Day

This is what Christine and I came up with last night for Greg (Marley and Paige did their projects at school.)

I gave Christine a piece of Whisper White card stock and a couple images from the Best Dad Ever stamp set along with 3 colours of ink and let her go nuts. VERY hard to give up control like that!! I think the results are pretty good though. She is only 3 after all!!

I chose what I considered the best portion of the "masterpiece" and used my Top Note die to cut it out in a pleasing manner. Does the colour scheme look familiar? I totally stole it from the card in my last post - the papers too! The one substitution I made was Island Indigo instead of Pool Party I think this may be my new go-to colour scheme and papers for masculine cards!!

Here's the inside sentiment.

And this is what the entire set looks like.

Thanks for stopping by and I wish you and yours a very Happy Father's Day.

Get Well card

Greg emailed me yesterday asking me to create a Get Well Soon card for a colleague who had broken his leg. Sure, I said, no problem. I'll just whip something up! Ha!! If you ask me to make a card for a girl I'm good. Flowers, pink, lace, hearts, butterflies, glitter, done! But ask me to make a card for the masculine of the species and I am stumped.

Stampin' Up!s new Natural Composition Specialty Designer Series Paper to the rescue! It's gorgeous kraft based card stock that's been embossed with a variety of designs in brown. Here, take a look ..

I took the wood grain pattern, ran it through my Big Shot and came up with this ...

The stamp set is called Word Play and is a great set for all occasions. I also used a piece of First Edition Specialty DSP and the argyle pattern stamp from Patterned Party on some Pool Party card stock to create extra texture. Backing the sentiment is a piece of International Bazaar DSP. This pack has some great patterns and colours that I think are going to be good for masculine layouts and cards. I can't wait to use more of it on future projects!

There are more layers here than I normally would use but I really like the end product. Thanks for stopping by. Links to all the products featured on this card are listed below.

Natural Composition Specialty DSP

Word Play stamp set

First Edition Specialty DSP

Patterned Party stamp set

Top Note Die for the Big shot

First Girls Weekend

One of the blogs I like to stalk is Shimelle Lain's. She runs a regular challenge called Starting Point where she  gives you the base of a layout and then her finished layout and you give it a go with your own products. Here is the link to the most recent Starting Point post.

Since I am now the proud owner of a whole box full of new Stampin' Up! products, I got busy this afternoon. Here's what I came up with ...

It's a bit out of my normal style but I have been watching Shimelle (and her alter-ego Glitter Girl) create layouts with piles of layers and I just love them! 

Here's the finished layout.

This is the Comfort Cafe Designer Series Paper and it is SO YUMMY!! Soft Suede (my favourite of the Neutrals), Cajun Craze, Pool Party, Very Vanilla and Midnight Muse - one of my new favourites from the 2012 - 2014 In Colours Collection.

And the butterflies ... as soon as I saw the new butterfly punch and matching stamp set I knew it would be on my first order. It does not disappoint! Other new items are the Ticket Duo Punch, the Simply Serif Alphabet stamps, the Flowering Flourishes stamp and the Bigz Alphabet Typeset dies for the Big Shot.

Aren't those little butterflies darling?

Here are the links to all the products. Thanks for stopping by.

Comfort Cafe DSP

In Colours 12 x 12 smooth card stock

Elegant Butterfly Punch

Papillon Potpourri stamp set

Flowering Flourishes stamp set

Simply Serif Mini Alphabet stamp set

Ticket Duo Punch

Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die

New Catty

If you are a fan of my Day Designs Facebook page (and if not, why not? come on over and Like me!) you may have seen my link this  morning to the new 2012-13 Idea Book and Catalogue.

Did you have a chance to check it out? I am eagerly awaiting my shipment so I can start creating and then sharing the goodies with you nice folks out there in BlogLand. 

If you missed it, here is the link to the online PDF catalogue. If you want your own to hold in your hot little hands (and believe me, sticking post it notes all over your computer screen is not going to help you find your favourites when the time comes to order!) drop me an email and I will be happy to send one to you. OR come to my Catalogue Launch Party (and garage sale) on June 23rd and you can go home with one. Details of the even will follow but if you can put it into your calendar now, you'll help make it a huge success.

That's all for now. Enjoy!