Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Hard to believe it's already here... I feel like I just finished creating Christmas in July projects! Time flies when you're having fun. :)

Today I'd like to share with you the place cards I made for our Christmas dinner tomorrow that are also my challenge entry for this week's photo inspiration challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps:

How pretty is this color combo?! It obviously lends itself nicely to something Christmas-y, so I used the colors as inspiration for our Christmas place cards, which worked out nicely since I was able to kill two birds with one stone. :) Aside from the colors, I also added some sparkle to match the ornament using Champagne Stickles. 

The place cards are rather simple, but I like that they still have a touch of elegance. I computer generated everyone's names, and then printed and cut them out of cream colored cardstock. I used a Fiskars corner punch for a more decorative look, and added some gold cardstock behind the cream to tie in with the colors on the table itself.

An Instagram shot for fun :)

The small (snowflake?) stamp is from Peachy Keen's November stamp set of the month. Regardless if it's a snowflake, I turned it into a poinsettia and colored it with Copics R56 and R59, and added a dab of Champagne Stickles in the center for a bit of sparkle. 

I am off to get a bit of cleaning done and then settle in for the evening, we are just having a quiet family dinner tonight, and tomorrow we are having company over. I hope everyone has a happy holiday with their loved ones!

You're Such A Dear

What a busy day of crafting I've had! Feels great to be able to craft without feeling guilty about not doing homework, studying, or anything else school-related. This afternoon I finished up a card I made for Peachy Keen's current glitter card challenge:

I love me some glitter! When in doubt, add sparkle. :) The background of this card is embossed with a snowflake embossing folder using my Cuttlebug and I used a Copic clear Spica glitter pen to highlight the embossed snowflakes even more.

The birch trees are dies from Impression Obsession that I embellished with Glitter Frosting (Hint of Green) Flower Soft. The deer and sentiment are both of course from Peachy Keen's December Stamp Set of the Month, and I colored the deer with Copics E25, E27, E29 and R20. 

I'm off to get a bit of Christmas shopping done before going back to hiding in my craft room! Thanks for stopping by. :)

Snow Much Fun!

Happy Sunday evening! Did you all have a great weekend? I taught a Copic class yesterday at The Scrapbooking Studio - so much fun! Since returning home I've been working nonstop on final exam projects, this week is finals week - the most dreaded week of every college student's semester. Thankfully my finals are all projects instead of tests, but it's still a lot of work. 

During a homework break I decided to get started on the new Peachy Keen Challenge and their December Release challenge, and thought I'd share both with you here to save me some time so I can get back to my schoolwork.. only 5 more days and then I'm FREE!

The December Release Challenge is to create a birthday card... here's my take:

Isn't this snowman cupcake the cutest?! It's from Peachy Keen's "Yummies" stamp set. The papers are from Echo Park's "Take a Note" collection and the sentiment is from Get Inky Stamps. I colored the cupcake with Copics E25, E47, E49, R05, R08, B91, B95 and B97. I also added a few dabs of Bisque Liquid Pearls as a final embellishment. 

This week's regular Peachy Keen challenge is a 3D Ornament challenge, here's what I came up with:

Snowflake ornaments! Last winter at Michael's I found some chipboard snowflakes in their dollar bins and grabbed a few packages. I painted them with white acrylic paint and stamped faces with the smallest faces in Peachy Keen's "Snow Cuties" stamp set. I also brushed on a layer of clear glitter paint, and used twine from Two Berry Creative to hang them on the tree.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Well, enough play and time to get back to work. I'm creating a board game that involves using the Print and Cut feature on my Cameo, so at least my next project is somewhat craft-related!

Have a lovely rest of your evening and a great start to your week! :)

You Keep Me In Stitches!

Happy Tuesday! I'm afraid it's not as happy as I'd like it to be though, since my mojo decided to take a vacation without me. I hate it when that happens! It only happens twice a year or so maybe, but when it leaves, it takes its time returning. Ugh! Hoping it comes back soon because I have lots of holiday projects to get started on, but without my mojo, I'm lost!

Anyways! Before my mojo abruptly betrayed me this weekend, I made a card for the current sketch challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps using the adorable sewing machine stamp and sentiment from their November Stamp Set of the Month:

I rotated the sketch and decided not to make the card as long since I really wanted to use that 6x6 polka dot paper from Authentique's "Spring" collection. I colored the sewing machine using RV11, RV23, and RV25, with YG03 for the green accents. I adhered the sewing machine to the card using pop dots, and ta da! All done.

Like I said, I'm really hoping my mojo returns soon so I can start sharing holiday projects with you (I even went to Michaels the other night and bought supplies for my Christmas cards - ugh!) and I'm also planning a "Life Lately" post so you all can get a peek of what it is I do besides create projects and share them on my blog. :)

Come on mojo, come on home!

Sew Sweet

Happy Tuesday evening! Just a quick post tonight to share with you a "sew-per" fun tag I made for this week's Anything Goes challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps using their new November stamp set of the month:

All papers used to make the tag are from Echo Park's "For the Record 2" line. I love the color scheme! The 6x6 pad even had patterned paper filled with small sewing advertisements, which went along perfectly with the snowman stamp. I stamped the snowman on Copic Xpress paper and colored her with YR04, Y407, YG11, YG17, YG25, Y13, and C1. 

The twine on the top of the tag is from Two Berry Creative. I used Charcoal Black, Limeade, and Lemondrop. 

My semester is starting to wind down with really only final projects left to complete, I'm looking forward to having an entire week off for Thanksgiving next week when I can get started on those projects, and more importantly, have hours upon hours to craft! I seriously can't wait. :) I'll also be making some fun changes to my blog starting with the new year, and can't wait to get working on those as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Season's Greetings!

Happy Tuesday! Although it feels like a Monday for me since I'm recovering from a long weekend. :) As much as I love having the extra day, it makes it extra hard to get back into the swing of things!

Today I'm sharing with you all a card I made for the photo inspiration challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps going on this week. Don't you love this color combo?!

I know I do! While the colors are very Christmas-y and neither is the photo (although that little bird is so pretty!) the color combination that first caught my eye was the brown/red/gold, which instantly made me think of creating something with gingerbread men.

From there I decided to use the non-traditional holiday cards and create a patterned background using snowflake stamps from Peachy Keen's November Stamp Set of the Month. As for ink, I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Evergreen Boughs, Dusty Concord, Barn Door, and Scattered Straw. The sentiment is from Get Inky Stamps' 2013 Holiday stamp set.

I cut the gingerbread men at about 2.75" using a cut from Create a Critter 2. Their faces are from the PK-520 Winter Faces Assortment stamp set, and I embellished them with Liquid Pearls in White Opal, Peacock, and Rouge. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Happy Homespun Holidays!

Happy Sunday evening! I hope everyone has had a fabulous weekend. :) Mine has been a mixture of homework and crafting, it's nice to have a stress-relieving activity to fall back on for when I'm tired of thinking and in need of some creativity. This weekend I created projects for Peachy Keen's November release party!

The first release challenge was to create a treat bag using the colors green and orange, while also incorporating at least one button. This was the more difficult of the two challenges for me, but I'm happy with what I came up with!

Both the snowman and the 'SWEET!' sentiment are from Peachy Keen's July Stamp Set of the Month. I colored the snowman cutie with Copics YG11, YG13, YG17, YR07, E25, and C1. He's adhered to the topper using pop dots, and I added a couple of tiny buttons as an accent. The treat bag is filled with chocolate chunk cookies - yummy!

Now on to my project for the second release challenge, which was to create an "upcycled" project using something from around the house. I upcycled an old mason jar that would be cute to fill with some hot chocolate or cookie mix! (Can you tell I was hungry while crafting this weekend?!)

All the papers used to embellish this jar are from Teresa Collins's "Santa's List" collection. I paper pieced the mittens and added White Opal Liquid Pearls to the tops to give them a textured look. The 'Happy Homespun Holidays' sentiment and the mittens are from Peachy Keen's November Stamp Set of the Month. What a fun project this was to make!

I'm off to create a couple more projects and finish up this research paper (finally!) have a great rest of your night and a wonderful start to your week!

So Blessed

I feel absolutely terrible about neglecting my little blog lately, school has just been keeping me way too busy! With Thanksgiving and Christmas break coming up, I plan on catching up on projects to share with you all, and giving my blog a makeover to kick off the new year! In the meantime, though, I'm stuck writing a 14 page research paper - ugh! I've got about 5 pages done so far, and hope to get a few more pages done this weekend. 

In need of a dire break from writing, I decided to get crafty and create a card for this week's Peachy Keen challenge! This week's challenge is all about creating cards with leaves:

I'll be honest and say that I'm sort of over making fall cards and ready to start working on holiday projects, but I am totally in love with how this card turned out! Using Echo Park's Fall Reflections paper, I created a leaf wreath by cutting leaves with my Cameo and embellishing them with some Distress Stickles for texture. 

The Distress Stickles I used are Scattered Straw, Walnut Stain, and Aged Mahogany. I love the textured, subtle sparkly look it gives the leaves, as if they were picked up fresh off the ground on a fall day. The 'So Blessed' sentiment is from Peachy Keen's October stamp set of the month.

The sentiment is a great reminder that even though life seems pretty rough sometimes (especially recently), that I am truly blessed with great friends and family, a hobby that I love, and a future career I cannot wait to pursue. A perfect card to kick off the month of thanks!

Have a lovely rest of your weekend. :)

Touchdown Cupcakes

Happy Tuesday! I'm in class right now (shhhh) and wanted to quickly share with you some cupcake toppers I made for this week's 3D Fall Sports Challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps! I was a bit stuck on an idea for this project, and decided to go with a football theme since that's the most prominent fall sport in my mind, although I've really been getting into hockey lately! :)

Anyways! Onto my project. I whipped up a couple of football cupcake toppers! As delicious as this cupcake looks, I wish I could take credit for it, but in all honesty, it's store bought :) But I'm sure it'll make for a delicious dessert this evening! 

I made two toppers using my Cricut Expression and the football stamp from Peachy Keen's October stamp set of the month. I cut a circle with my Cricut, applied the stamped image, and then cut a scallop shape for the border. I used White Opal, Pumpkin, and Dark Blue Liquid Pearls to accent the scallops. Super easy and cute!

I should probably get back to class, although my teacher just brought in a Cricut - yes, a Cricut! - and I'm excited to see what she's going to do with it, considering I'm basically a pro with mine. ;) Have a great day!

Spooked

Happy Monday! It's truly amazing how fast these weeks come and go. This past weekend I taught my first ever card making class at local scrapbooking store, and I was so pleased with how it went! The students created four Halloween projects using Authentique's "Enchanted" line, it was a lot of fun! I'm working on adding a "Classes" page to my blog since I have 3 more classes coming up in November. :)

Anyways, onto my project for today! I had some time to play in my craft space this weekend and created a Halloween card using the new My Mind's Eye "Happy Hauntings" collection for Peachy Keen's sketch challenge:

And here's my take on this fabulous sketch:

All papers are from the "Happy Haunting" collection, as are the embellishments. This is also a card I created as a design team project for The Scrapbooking Studio, which is a fabulous, local (for me), scrapbooking store that now has an online shop! From their store, I used:

Happy Haunting Decorative Stamps

Happy Haunting Decorative Brads

Happy Haunting 12x12 Sticker Collection

Happy Haunting Skull Paper

 I stamped the border of the cream colored paper with a spider web stamp from the coordinating "Happy Haunting" stamp set. The pumpkin is from Peachy Keen's October stamp set of the month, and his face is from the PK-550 Pumpkin Faces stamp set.

I'm off to finish working on a layout before having some lunch, have a great rest of your day! :)

Fall Greetings

Brrr! It's finally starting to feel like fall here! The days are beautiful and the nights are getting chillier by the week. The only part I don't love about fall is knowing what comes after... snow, snow, and more snow. It's pretty until Christmastime, and then after that it can go away. :)

But let's not think about winter just yet, and enjoy fall while it lasts. I always like having a stash of "everyday" greeting cards around, and to add to my arsenal I made some simple fall greeting cards for this week's Anything Goes challenge at Peachy Keen Stamps:

To make these 4" x 4" cards, I started by using stamps from Peachy Keen's October stamp set paired with Fancy Pants's "Good Life" paper line. For the first card, I chose the sunflowers and the wooden box. I stamped each separately, colored them with my Copics, and then fussy cut and adhered them together. For this card I used Copics E74, E79, Y23, and Y26.

For the second card, I decided to use the apples and the bushel. Again, I stamped them separately, colored with Copics E74, E79, R22, R24, and R29, and then fussy cut and adhered together. The 'Happy Fall' sentiment is from the same stamp set as well. 

I'm loving this fall set and can't wait to see what else I create with it!

Peachy Halloween Projects

One of my favorite things about the beginning of a new month is that it's also time for new Peachy Keen stamps! I'm part of their stamp kit of the month club and love seeing what adorable new stamps they cook up each month. Another fun part about their new releases is that they also host special challenges, and today I'd like to share with you the projects I entered in each of them. 

Challenge #1 is all about using only TWO colors on a fall/Halloween project... yikes! This one was tougher than I anticipated, but we were allowed to use one "neutral" color, so that saved me a bit. :) The colors I chose were Kraft, black, and purple.

I really struggled with this challenge at first and ran through lots of ideas/sketches before finally coming up with this one. The spider is from the Create a Critter 2 Cricut cartridge and his face is of course a Peachy Keen stamp (their shop is down at the moment otherwise I would link to the specific set).

Other materials used to create the card are:

- Kraft & black cardstock

- Patterned papers from DCWV'S Fall & Halloween stack

- Cuttlebug w/Swiss Dots Embossing Folder

- Action Wobble

- Pop dots

- Liquid Pearls

- Get Inky Stamps Halloween Stamp Set

And now for Challenge #2! This challenge required we make a 3D Halloween project, how fun! Using a file from the Silhouette store, I created a 3D Halloween treat bag, that unfortunately is empty at the moment since I may or may not have eaten the treats that were supposed to go in there... :)

I stuck with a clean and simple look for this bag and made the base with Kraft. The green patterned paper is Echo Park, and I used stamps from Get Inky Stamps and Inkadinkado for the sentiment and bat. I adhered the ghost and the banner using pop dots, and gave the ghost a face from Peachy Keen's September stamp set of the month. Tied a few strings of twine together to hold close the bag and it was complete. :)

I'm off to work on a few more projects, be sure to stop by tomorrow to check out a card I made for my guest designer spot at Sparkly Sweet Craft Notions this month! :)

Hope You're Feeling Batter Soon!

Happy Sunday! I cannot believe how fast this weekend has gone by! I am officially halfway through my semester (already?!) and while I was lucky and really didn't have any midterms, I've had a TON of projects to work on lately for nearly all of my classes. Much better than writing papers and taking long tests, of course, but definitely very time consuming! My time management skills have been in full gear lately.

As I do every weekend, I made some to get crafty and had fun creating this card for Peachy Keen's photo inspiration challenge:

I love this gorgeous color combo and thankfully had the perfect papers to match!

What struck me the most out of the inspiration photo was the blue/green/yellow combo, and that's what I decided to stick with for my card. I used papers from Echo Park's "A Boy's Life" collection, and loved that the collection even had a light tan patterned paper to match!

Both the bowl of batter and the sentiment are from Peachy Keen's September stamp set of the month. The cute bowl had my mouth watering and craving some cookie dough! I colored the stamp with Copics YG13, YG17, YG67, Y21, Y23, and Y26. 

I'm off to do some more creating - I have to create a bulletin board for a class assignment (super fun - I love bulletin boards!) and I'm in the middle of die cutting pieces and letters to up on the board. I'll be sure to share when it's all done!

Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy what's left of your weekend! :)