warmest wishes.

It's time for another lawnscaping challenge!  The lawnscaping team is challenging you to be inspired by something on the web (it doesn't have to be pinterest) and then show off your inspiration photo as well as your own creation.

With my Christmas card classes happening every friday night, (click!) I am in a holly jolly cardmaking mood almost all the time.

My favorite online place for holiday card inspiration is "Minted."  A few of my recent christmas cards were borne out of a little browsing through their selection of non-photo holiday cards.  Like, this:

I wish lawn fawn had a little sweater image! But, I made do:

I used the socks from "my silly valentine," the scarf and mittens from "making frosty friends," and the little snowflake from "let it snow."  The sentiment is from papertrey ink, the twine is from lawn fawn, and I added a stripe of grey copic coloring at the top and the bottom of the white mat.



I hope you like it!  Play along with us, you could win a fawnie prize!

♥.

you're good for me.

Soooo, we have this lovely valentine's day inspiration photo for the current lawnscaping challenge, and what do I do?  Create something that seemingly has nothing to do with the aforementioned inspiration photo:



See, peeps, if we're really gonna be friends, I think you should be understanding a little of my creative process.  Here's a hint: it's riddled with crazy.  This is an exaggerated version of how it went down:

o, look at that pretty inspiration board.  mmmm....sweets.... i would like to eat them.  no!  i shouldn't.  i should eat something healthy instead.  hmmm.... veggies... naw, not veggies.  they make my jaw hurt.  how 'bout fruit.  yes, fruit.  still sweet, although not like the sweets in the photo... but good for me... sucks.  i'll make a card about the fruit i should be eating and then sneak another chocolate afterwards...



So there you have it.

I used images from "silly valentine" to create this punny valentine's day card.  The sentiment was custom-created via my computer.

Hope you like it!  This current challenge is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.  Join in and you could win a gift certificate to their online store.

 

an ivy-league valentine & some fawnie news

News first, or card first?  Card first or news first?  *grin*




hee hee.  I've been waiting awhile to share that I've joined the lawn fawn design team!  woot!  I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Kelly Marie and the rest of the very talented group.  (I'm trying to play it cool here, kids, but I am pretty sure I've died and gone straight to crafty heaven.)

We're sharing some valentine's day inspiration this week, and I thought I'd use a few non-valentine sets to create this ivy league-inspired card.

I started out with a kraft base, and stamped the notebook image (from "schoolhouse backdrops") in white ink.  Next, I stamped the library card image onto white cardstock and created a custom sentiment (using "smitty's ABCs").



I then created a pocket for the library card out of red cardstock, and stamped the apple from "silly valentine" and the leafy images from "blissful botanicals" around it (or, around him?  the apple has a face, so I think it should be a "him." or "her." whatever.)



For fun, I stamped the elements first in versamark ink, and then shadow-stamped them again in a darker ink.  Just a little something extra.

Hope you like my card!

monkey party decorations

A little while ago, I posted the invitations to a monkey birthday party.  Alexia's mom wanted the party to be bright & fun, but cute - perfect for an adorable 1 year old!  Here are the rest of the decorations that I created for her:

Just seeing the picture of all the decorations makes me want to bake a cake and host a party!  I took pictures of everything closer up except the banner, so squint, and take a look at it in the picture above before scrolling down :)

Food labels.  Because, when you think chicken, you really do want a monkey's face RIGHT THERE.  hee.  I did some masking after I stamped the angled label, to be able to stamp the chevron pattern over-top.  The monkey was stamped off onto scrap paper a few times, and then onto the tent card.  I carried the bow theme throughout the party, to tie into the invitation.

 Water bottle labels: they are quite possibly the cutest ones ever.  I made 20 of these, and 4 of each circle design.  The banana is showing off an "A" for Alexia...

 Thank you tags: they are a mash-up of 4 different stamp companies...  The monkey image is from SU, the monkey's bow and the banana (masked in the background) are from lawn fawn, the wavy banner and all dies are PTI, and the "thank you" sentiment is from CSS.

Keep calm and go banana: because sometimes, you just have to...

 The last thing I created were these toothpick "flags."  I thought the larger bows would be so cute, sitting in some sandwiches or cupcakes.

I hope you liked what you saw!  Have a great weekend!

lawnscaping blog hop: spring edition!

Hi peeps!

Welcome to the *spring* edition of the lawnscaping blog hop!  You should have arrived here via Christy Rueling.

With it being Easter weekend and all, I thought I'd whip up a bunny-in-a-jar:

 I even staged it with a chick-in-a-jar, for your viewing pleasure :)

I stamped my kraft card-base with a woodgrain pattern, and layered a white felt banner over that before adding my focal image.  I stamped a jar image, and then went in with the grass from "critters in the 'burbs" and the bunny from "silly valentine."  I stamped the banner on either side of the jar, to make it look longer, and used "sally's abcs" to spell out "happy 4 you."

The blog hop runs until April 8th, and we have many talented designers with projects to inspire you!  So grab a cup 'o coffee, and enjoy the browsing!  Comment along the way for a chance to win prizes.  Check out the lawnscaping blog for all the details.

Next, bunny-hop over to Brandi's blog!

ps, I'm also entering this card into this week's colourQ challenge, since I was inspired by their spring-time color palette.

Happy Easter, all!

mini-album.

Here's my "brown paper package, tied up with twine" for the current CAS-ual Fridays challenge.  I'm also posting it to our latest Papertrey princess challenge, which was to create a mini-album.

I love crafting with my 6 year old, Sofia.  We made our mini-albums side-by-side.  Hers was titled "things to do for fun" and she drew pictures and wrote cute little captions on each page.  Mine was all about her.  

I started out with a kraft base, die-cut a white label and stamped PTI's "background basics: hearts" onto it in blushing bride ink.  The "what I like about" was computer-generated, and I then stamped an image from "label basics" around it before cutting it out.

As you open up the album, there is a fun little image and greeting in each section.  I used different lawn fawn stamps and greetings, masked them, and added the same hearts background over-top.  Here, I used the cotton candy image and greeting from "admit one."  The floral embellishment is from SU.

The cutie-pie is from "silly valentine."  The little pink pearls were from Simon Says Stamp.

I love those little socks!  They're also from "silly valentine," and the little grey heart was embossed with an SU folder.

The rocking horse is from "pa-rum-pa-pum-pum" and the little tag is from PTI's "tiny tags" die collection.

Here is the final reveal!  Each section can be embellished further, and you could even decorate the back of each side - it's a fun little album :)  The sections all fold into a neat little package.

Hope you liked it!  Sofia actually didn't notice what I was working on - she was so concentrated on her own project.  I'm thinking this would make a completely sweet valentine :)

If anyone is interested in the measurements, drop me a comment or an email - I'd be happy to do a quick little tutorial.

Have a great day!

lawnscaping challenge: fall apples

A fall photo-inspiration for the newest lawnscaping challenge:

To this card:

I used 3 lawn fawn sets: "silly valentine," "blissful botanicals," and "critters in the burbs."

I created several masks for my smiley-apples and stamped them repeatedly into a large pile.  They were colored in with copics.  The leaves and tree were also stamped and colored with copic markers.  

Thanks for looking!

fruit salad

I guess we're continuing our cutesy, punny streak on the blog - I promise my next card will be completely elegant... we'll see if I can pull that off, since it's been awhile...

I pulled out the new-to-me lawn fawn set "silly valentine" and stamped the fruit.  After I colored them in with copics, I created a mask for each and randomly stamped with PTI's "text style II" over top.  I used LF's "smitty's abcs" to create my saying.  I was racking my brain for what could work with the cute fruit and that's what I came up with.  What d'you think?  I added some basic grey paper to the bottom of the card and stitched and stuck everything to an SU kraft card-base.

This card was created especially for my first guest-blogging experience.  My awesomely prolific and self-professed non-crafty friend, Bethany, invited me over to her blog to share a bit about myself and my creative process.  I'd love it if you would check-it-check-it-out!