Love this nest.

I love making these simple nests. It's just strips of paper, but the overall effect is just lovely. (If I must say so myself!)

This nest also makes a great embellishment on a scrapbook album title page. When my youngest was born, I used one of these nests with the title, "A new bird in our nest." Sigh. So sweet!! Now my little bird is five years old! Whew. Time really does fly on by when you have kids! (Pun intended. Get it... birds, nests...flying?)

Shark! Halloween costume.

I got into the Halloween spirit a bit early this year and this weekend I was given the opportunity for uninterrupted craft time. (Hubby was out of town!)

So naturally, I ran down to Hobby Lobby and picked up some supplies to make this shark costume. A friend of mine from school that I'm now friends with on Facebook, has this adorable picture on her page of her and her little brother from a Halloween many moons ago. In this picture I was given the inspiration to take a stab at making a shark costume for my youngest child. Her mother, who was my elementary school art teacher, had made this glorious shark costume for my friend's little brother. I took the picture and figured up a pattern. After a couple hours of sewing and a little bit of hot gluing, here's my cute Chase posing in his new costume! I may sew the glued items down later on, but for now it will do!

The second photo gives a better view of the sleeves/fins. Chase was asleep when I finished the costume so his big sister tried it on for me. This was before I added a few more teeth!

Blog Candy at Playing with Paper!

Check out the awesome blog candy that's being offered at Playing With Paper!

NES Controller Birthday Invitations

My son will be 10 a week from today! I can't believe it! This is probably the last year he'll let me make his party invitations, so I wanted to make something that he would really like. Here's what I came up with and he LOVED it!

I love it too! Obviously it's a simple design. I used my paper cutter for the base and background. For the buttons, my Cricut Sans Serif cartridge proved to be very useful! My little Xyron was a life saver for all of these tiny parts. This was a fun project and I love how it turned out!

I made a skirt! A real skirt!

Alright so I've played around with making pillows, sewing buttons on and little things like that, but this is the first thing I've ever sewn from start to finish using a pattern. And it wasn't terribly hard! Just a little tedious and time consuming at most.

When I first pulled out the pattern I almost stuffed it back in the envelope and walked away from it. I was just so over stimulated with it all, but then I sat down and took one step at a time.

I started by cutting out the pieces that went with the skirt that I chose to make from that pattern. (Skirt C) And then began pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric.

Here's where I almost stopped again. Pattern lingo is so simple that it's confusing to a beginner! I didn't know what the heck "Cut 2 on Fold" meant. I called my mom (the master seamstress) and she didn't answer. I tried her 3 times! I even tried calling my dad to see if he could put my mom on the phone. Then I finally Googled it.

So here it is. I can't believe that I didn't mess anything up. I almost did a couple times, but I kept my brain on and here it is! My creation. And my beautiful daughter posing in it. It's a little longer than I thought it would be, but I'm still proud of it!

Digi Stamps, Anyone?!

My Stamp-Shack friend, Kirsty, has just launched a blog where she's sharing her digi stamp creations! Check it out and be sure to leave her a nice comment. She has some cute images on there and it's so sweet of her to share! :)

http://kirsty-j-freedigistamps.blogspot.com/

LandMark Letters

I opened an Etsy shop that I call LandMark Letters a couple weeks ago where I post photos of letters that I've seen in architecture and nature. Here are couple of my favorites that I took on a hot day in Savannah, GA.

Here you see the letter J that I found at the top of a building, an A that I saw standing in front of a fountain, and the letter H found on a bridge.

I have my last name framed and it looks so neat! In fact, I have several good friends that will soon be receiving their last name in LandMark letters as gifts from me! Check out my shop!

Father's day card for my awesome dad!

I just love this image from Unity's June kit of the month. It makes me think of all those old photos of my dad from his surfer days growing up in San Diego. Like so many other dads, my dad is a sucker for tools. I do believe that's where I get my paper crafting tool obsession from!!

Cards for Teachers

This school year has flown by! Whew. I was in such a hurry to get these cards made that I did them assembly line style. I just love that Teachabella image by Stamping Bella. So cute!!

Home sweet home!

Home sweet home! I just spent the entire day on a zoo field trip with my first grader and my four year old tagging along. It was hot, it involved lots of walking and I'm exhausted! The kids behaved extremely well and did great on the two-hour (each way) car trip. It was a fun day, but I'm so glad to be back home!

Here's a scrapbook page I made with my daughter. I let her do most of the stitch marks with my Uni-ball Signo pen. I think she did a great job!

Mother's Day card with Sweet n' Sassy Stamps

I was out of town for Mother's Day attending a wedding and my awesome mom (and dad!)was wonderful enough to drive to our house all the way from Florida to stay with the kids. I left her gift on the dining room table with this card attached to the box and she had the hardest time waiting until Sunday to open. She did confess that she opened the card early. She just couldn't take the suspense any more! I love this sweet image by Sweet N'Sassy Stamps. Unfortunately, this stamp is no longer available. She's pretty much all digi now. (I'm not!) I believe she may make this available as a digi stamp to those of you who have moved into 21st century stamping.

I be Scrappin'!

I haven't scrapbooked since last June, so I'm so pleased with myself for starting up again! Here's a premade page that I whipped up for some family photos. My parents live in Florida so we have lots of Florida pics. I layered the ocean waves and used dimensional foam to make them pop. I used Jolee's stickers, which I love. They make scrapbooking so easy! I'm also a big fan of that paper. I found it as a stack at Michael's--and it was on sale!

Wish you were here!

I made this card with some scraps that were leftover from something I was scrapbooking. I couldn't resist that pad of paper at Michael's. K&Co. I believe. I used an old Creative Memories paper cutter to make the waves. The palm trees are from Stampin Up. Prehistoric Pals. I bought that set right before it was retired. I knew it would get lots of use. The dolphin and sentiment are from the Ocean Treasure stamp set by Close To My Heart. The Sun is from the Daydream stamp set by CTMH.

Quick and simple!

I wanted to ink up a stamp set that I just got in the mail, but I didn't want to go through all the thought process of choosing coordinating papers, cutting them to size, trimming borders, etc. So I just made a simple card using brown ink, some ribbon, Kraft paper and a couple rhinestone stickers.

Here's my creation! I kind of like it. :)

Thinking of You

This fun image came with Unity's March 2009 kit of the month. I did a little paper piecing on this one and had fun with it. I love how the soft yellow paper goes with that Kraft background.

I also broke out my Martha Stewart border punch for this one. I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of her clear stamps, but her border punch designs always tend to be my faves.

You're the Cherry on Top!

I used paper from my scrap pile for this. To me, sometimes it's easier to do that. Some papers are just too pretty to cut to pieces so when they're already all cut up, it takes the thinking out of it. "Hmmm...should I cut this up for a card now or save it for something bigger later?" is always my thought process.

When it's already in my scrap pile, I'm rescuing it from the trash and therefore it's my mission to make use of it.

The stamps are from Unity's June 2009 kit of the month. (Someone on SCS sold it to me at a great price!) I also used a Fiskars edge punch on this and I believe the paper is by Cosmo Cricket.

Inked up my SU Chocolate bunny (finally).

Here's the lone Easter card that I have made so far this year. I love that chocolate bunny stamp that's in the current Stampin' Up Mini Catalog and I'm pretty sure that lots and lots of stampers have this in their stash. Who could resist?!

I stamped this image with my Tsukineko Galaxy Gold Brilliance Stamp Pad onto vellum. I then cut out the image and glued it onto the tag that I cut out with one of my Nestabilities sets. I added a handful of Primas, some pearls and some bling and here you go!

Mommy and Me time with Sarah Kay/Stampavie

My daughter had a birthday party to go to this weekend, so we sat down together and made this card for her little friend. I stamped the Stampavie image by Sarah Kay called Rosalie's Bicycle and my six-year-old daughter colored it with my Copic markers. I think she did a fantastic job!

While she colored the image, I put the background together, using my Nestabilities die and an old Creative Memories corner punch that I have in my stash. We had a great time working on this together.

We're going to a wedding today!

I just love weddings! Here's a card that I made for the bride and groom. I always try to keep wedding cards simple. I just used some Stampin' Up! card stock that I had on hand for this.

I cut the frame with my Cricut Sweethearts cartridge and the stamps that I used are a Studio G set that I picked up over a year ago at Michaels. I've gotten well more than my $1 worth with that set!

I stamped the image with Palette ink, stamped again with Versamark and heat embossed it with frosted embossing powder.

I love that Tiffany box look with the white satin bow. Especially for a wedding card.

Home is Where Your Story Begins.

I went for a simple card and I think that's what I got! All I used for this card is half a sheet of card stock, ink, stamps, ribbon and maybe ten minutes. I used Stampin' Up's Good Neighbors set for this--a set that I earned for free through this year's Sale-A-Bration. (Going on through the end of this month.)

I'm still trying to get the hang of getting everything aligned, but I like how this turned out despite a couple crooked roofs. Perhaps a Stamp a Majig will be my next must-have item.

The sentiment and sun stamps are from Unity Stamps. And the inks that I used are CTMH.

Followed my heart and found you!

Alright, I'm really on a Unity kick. But really, these sets that I have are so big I have to make lots of cards to use all of these awesome images!!

This card was made using stamps from their February 2010 Kit of the Month, Nothing but Blue Skies. The sentiment was a freebie they packed in my starter kit that comes from the August 2009 kit of the month, Following My Heart... And by the way, that one is their most popular kit sold to date. I don't have it yet, but I want it!

I used lots of Stickles on this card and just had fun with it. I started with a white card base, added a wavy strip of green grass and sponged the white sky background. I added a little bit of a string bow in the corner to finish it off.

Oh, and that bird nest is a creation that I came up with when I ventured past the paper crafting aisle at Hobby Lobby yesterday. Those eggs are ceramic and to make my "nest" I used a roll of raffia from the party aisle. It's all held inside a votive bowl, which I found half off. Just about everything's half off at Hobby Lobby at least one week out of the month!

Love, love, LOVE this stamp!

I earned this stamp for free as a referral credit when my friend, Cindi, signed up for Unity's Kit of the Month. I picked this stamp named So & So Loves.... I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. So cute!!

It's just colored in with Copics and the sentiment is also Unity. It's another freebie that was thrown into my welcome kit. It took me a while to figure out what it said because I was trying to look at it upside down!

Long time, no post!

I haven't posted in ages, but I've recently been bitten again by the stamping bug.

Last month I joined Unity Stamp's Kit of the Month Club and man oh man is it fantastic! Each month I get a new kit and the kit is HUGE. Many come with over 20 really cute stamps. Check it out.

I made this set using stamps from their "enjoy YOUR STORY...laugh" kit. I am a sucker for good tree images and that deer put me over the top.

The deer is paper pieced and I colored in some places with my Copic markers. Fun, fun, fun!!