12 Kits Continued :)

I'm back!  There's some major bedroom rearranging going on in our house, so today was a day of cleaning, organizing, purging, and furniture moving.  Sometimes I feel like it's real life tetris trying to figure out how we're going to make everything fit, but the great news is that being home all day allowed me to take advantage of the sun that popped out for a few minutes.  So I'm back with photos of the rest of the cards I made with July's 12 Kits of Occasions.  (You can see my other cards with the kit HERE.)  All of today's cards use more of Stacey Yacula's Purple Onion Designs' products in the kit.

I have a bag of scraps that I'm trying to eliminate either by using or purging, and I used several on my first card.  All I had to add was a sentiment and this cute snail from the kit.

It's hard to choose favorites, but this bunny card might be it...possibly because of the struggle to finish it.  Most of it came together really quickly, but it took me forever to figure out that it needed grass (I ended up hand drawing it) and to find a sentiment in the right scale and font.

My last card basically made itself.  I simply did a little coloring, cut out the center of the wreath, and filled it with some of the cutest teeny tiny sequins.

And now for my favorite picture every month.  Here they are all together...one big happy summery pile.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Wishing you the best week!

12 Kits of Occasions - July 2018

Good morning!  As shocking as it is that July has come to an end, I'm super excited to share the cards I made with this month's 12 Kits of Occasions kit.  My dear friend Marybeth put together a fun summery kit, and I enjoyed every minute of creating my cards.  I was so excited that she included Pretty Pink Posh's Flourishing Fuchsias...it's super high on my wish list!  I had full intentions to color the flowers, but was pretty delighted to see that they look great in just black and white. And there is something about the combo of colored stripes with black and white that that I just love, so I left them as is.

I was also thrilled to see several of Purple Onion Designs stamps from Stacey Yacula in the kit.  I think her artwork is the cutest!  Our family just got back from a vacation to the beach, so I paired the VW Bus with a fun beach paper in the kit.

As mom life would have it, I only got two of my cards photographed before a storm rolled in, but I actually made five cards, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, make sure you head to the 12 Kits of Occasions Blog to see the fabulous creations made by my teammates.  I sure love this group of ladies.  They make these monthly kits so much fun.

UPDATE: I got the rest of my cards photographed.  Yay!  You can see the rest of them HERE.

Hydrangeas + Technique Tuesday Giveaway

Hello, friends!  I was checking on our garden this evening (we just returned from vacation) and it reminded me that I have a card I forgot to share with you.  A little while back Technique Tuesday sent me their pretty Happy Hydrangea stamp set, and I was definitely eager to use it because hydrangeas have been a favorite flower of mine for many, many years.

I stamped the large hydrangea cluster in an ombre fashion on the background.  Then, I die cut and watercolored the individual hydrangea flowers in the set and clustered them together to adorn the frame.  And I have to say, seeing these pretty hydrangeas just makes me smile.  

Okay, now you need to go right away to the Technique Tuesday Blog as they are having a great contest to enter to win your favorite stamps.  The contest closes July 29th, so go quickly, my friends!  This is all you have to do to enter. 

Here is how to enter for your chance to win some scrapbooking stamps & supplies!

1. Take a peek at the Scrapbooking Stamps & Scrapbook Supplies!

2. Choose your favorite stamp set.

3. Go to Technique Tuesday blog post here: http://techniquetuesday.typepad.com/

4. Leave a comment on the Technique Tuesday post (clickable link above) about your favorite Technique Tuesday stamp set.

5. Technique Tuesday will pick a winner on the 1^st of August!

Easy peasy, right?  Best of luck and happy weekend wishes!

Watermelon Week with The Stamps of Life - Day 3

Hello!  Welcome back to the third and final day of my watermelon cards week.  I'm pretty excited about this card.  It's still CAS per the norm, but it has an added measure of fun.  The Stamps of Life has a really fun Shadow Box Die Set that creates a dimensional card that still fits in an A2 size envelope.  There is a pretty quick YouTube video tutorial that shows just how easy it is to put together HERE.  (The Shadow Box tutorial starts a few minutes in.)  Below is a picture to show you what the dies look like.  

I die cut each piece twice to make my card, so you'll need one full sheet of 8.5x11 paper to create your shadow box (if you have two layers like I did).  On one of the large pieces you'll need to cut an opening.  You can do any shaped die here, but I kept it simple and just place a square die inside. (This is all shown on the video.) 

These are the pieces prior to assembly (except on the final card I left off the "you are sweet" shadow).

The only thing I did different is that I wanted my layers to vary in height but still be flush on the bottom, so I trimmed down the little rectangle piece to about half the height.  Then, I added my watermelons to it, and adhered the layers to the insides of the box.

See how fun the dimension is..

And, like I said earlier, it folds completely flat into a 4.25x5.5 size card that slips easily into the envelope.

Well, it's been a fun week, and I hope you've enjoyed all the watermelon goodness as much as I have.

If you missed the first two days of Watermelon Week you can find them here:

Day 1

Day 2

Thanks so much for joining me!  I hope you have the most wonderful weekend!

Watermelon Week with The Stamps of Life - Day 2

Hello, friends!  Welcome to Day 2 of my watermelon week featuring stamps and dies from a new-to-me company, The Stamps of Life.  (If you missed the first day, you can find it HERE.)  These are super user friendly stamps, and multi-step stamping is a breeze.  

Both of my cards today use the Watermelon2Stamp and Patterns4Watermelon stamp sets and come together in minutes.

The Watermelon2Stamp set has an outlined row of watermelons giving you the option to color it yourself, or you can use the filler stamps found in Patterns4Watermelon to speed up the process like I did here. 

My second card uses the same supplies as well as the Watermelon Die Set.

I absolutely love the fun patterns included in these sets.  Don't they make the cutest watermelons? 

Thanks so much for joining me today!  I have one more watermelon project to share with you tomorrow, and it just might be my favorite.  I hope you'll come back and join me!

Watermelon Week with The Stamps of Life - Day 1

Good morning!  I'm here today to share with you some cards featuring one of my favorite things about summer - watermelon!  I love it, and it turns out I love creating with watermelons just as much as I love eating it. :) In fact, I had so much fun creating with the cutest watermelon stamps and dies from The Stamps of Life that I've got projects to share with you not just today but through the rest of the week.  So let's get started!

I was immediately drawn to the size and script of the die in the Sweet Statement Set.  Obviously this set could be used for countless occasions and styles, but I decided to fully and unabashedly embrace the watermelon theme on my card. 

A little glitter cardstock, some simple embossing, and a few die cut seeds made for a quick but fun card. 

Since not a whole lot of stamping was involved in the creation of my first card, I decided to go the opposite route for my second.

Using the melon portion from The Stamps of Life's Watermelon2Stamp and the patterned rinds from the Patterns4Watermelon set, I created a simple stamped background using a variety of pinks and greens.    

Not wanting to cover up any of those fun watermelons, I simply finished the card off with the layered sentiment dies in the Watermelon Die Set.

The Stamps of Life stamps and dies were so easy and fun to use, and you can find them all HERE and HERE.  I can't wait to share the rest of my projects with you, so make sure you check back tomorrow. :) 

Where Creativity Meets C9 Sneak Peek

Hello, friends!  I'm up on the Where Creativity Meets C9 Blog this morning.  I'd love it if you'd come and take a peek.  Have a wonderful Sunday!