rise 'n shine, babies!

Every month, I stage a little party at home for Lawn Fawn, but I try to make it so that it's a surprise for my kids. Last month, I welcomed them home from camp with a watermelon party.

This month, I snapped a few pictures at 6:30am, so that they would come down and not see any of that business stuff going on. This was all a fun surprise for them:

I used Lawn Fawn's Love 'n Breakfast stamp set to make the little food markers, and let the images describe what each one was for.

I kept it casual with washi-tape flags, and hand-drew the little pat of butter and syrup onto the pancake image.  I love that smiley breakfast tray!

I manipulated the eggs and bacon image from the set (as in, I wiped the ink off of the eggs before stamping down, and then drew in the missing lines from the bacon.)



The muffin looks a little sick. whoops! The little dots all over his face were meant to match the crumble topping on the strawberry muffins.



Speaking of strawberries... I couldn't find an image in the right size for this party so I drew one from scratch. I'm hoping it blends with the rest, especially since I used one of the faces from Sweet Smiles.



I thought using Quinn's ABCs for the juice flags made it pretty obvious, but the kids were like "what's O? J?" Don't worry, they felt pretty sheepish when I explained it. ha.



I hope you like it! I love using my stamping stuff to make my kidlets feel special and loved.

♥.

ahoy! {lawn fawn inspiration week}

It's the last day of lawn fawn's March inspiration week.  Have you enjoyed it this month?  Today, we're showcasing the 4x3 set, float my boat with its matching dies.

I have to admit that I love this card.  I started out by clear-embossing the starry background, and then rubbing blue distress inks over the entire panel.  It created the perfect backdrop for my boat, the wavy panel, and my striped ahoy.  I keep using those Christmas papers! Red and white stripes are good for so many occasions.

For a finishing touch, I added a wood veneer anchor (I think it's by studio calico,) held in place by some red and white twine.

I hope you like it! There's more to see on the lawn fawn blog today.

ETA: I'm linking this card up to my friend Taheerah's weekly Cure for the Monday Blues challenge. What a great inspiration photo!

♥.

Baby, it's cold outside.

Hi friends!

Even though Monday mornings come too quickly, the ones that start with a new lawnscaping challenge are so much fun.

I don't know what the weather looks like near you, but this week's "winter wonderland" theme is just perfect for where we are.  Snow and ice - everywhere.



I know I'm (very) late to the chalkboard party, but I was so inspired by some of Kara's pins (here, here, and here) that I decided to give it a go.

I started out with a mat of black cardstock, and created my sentiment using lawn fawn alpha sets.  I stamped the sentiment, and the polar bear (from "critters in the snow") in versamark first, and white-heat-embossed it all.  One trick I picked up from Betsy Veldman - keep sprinkling embossing powder as you go along.  I stamped my polar bear first, for placement, and sprinkled him with powder.  Then, the word "cold" - sprinkled with powder.  And so on.  It really helped to take the stress off!  I didn't feel like I needed to rush and throw the powder on before the versamark dried.

Once everything was heat embossed, I went back in and stamped again: this time with white ink, and slightly to the left of the original impressions, to give a shadowed look.

I added some snowfall, (from "let it snow") in white ink, without embossing any of it, and smudged the edges with more white ink.



The best part of winter is layering cozy textures to keep warm.  I added a felt snowflake and some soft yarn and attached them with a mini clothespin.

I hope you play along!  Both with Kara's challenge, and our latest lawnscaping challenge!

We're sponsored by lawn fawn this week!  You could win a sweet prize:

Thanks for stopping by!

shake your tail-feather for CAS-ual Fridays.

There was an old Nelly song back in the day (i'm so old) and the whole song and video was all about shaking your tail-feather (and obviously, many close-to-naked women obliged.)

Just in case you were wondering about the background of my card... inspiration is a funny thing sometimes!

I used lawn fawn's "quinn's abcs" for the letters (and had a mask a few for them to fit the right way....)  The feather, from "lovestruck," was stamped once near the "it's your birthday" sentiment, and then without re-inking, stamped a few more times so it looks like the feather was floating down... you know, a stray plume came loose from one of those floozy video girls costumes... hee hee.  I stamped another feather onto a separate sheet of white cardstock, and colored & cut it out.

I also added a bit of shimmer to the bottom:

I adhered a strip of double-sided tape, and dumped glitter on top.    Instant bling.

I'm entering my card into this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge: using pastels with black.

Thanks for peeking!

CAS-ual Fridays: oh baby!

I feel like I'm making an awful lot of baby cards & stuff lately, so what's a few more *wink.*

When I saw the CAS-ual Fridays challenge, my first thought was: darn, I just posted a baby card yesterday!  haha.  But I do know of a few more pregnant friends who will be needing cards, so...

I made a girl/boy mix :)

I used PTI's "distressed stripes" for this super-simple baby card.  I stamped 1 of the stripes repeatedly over the front in SU's pool party ink.  The sentiment was created using a lawn fawn alpha set.  I textured the focal mat using PTI's linen+canvas impression plate (the canvas side).  I think it adds a nice touch, echoing the distressed nature of the stripes...

I love how the girl version turned out!  I stamped b-a-b-y (using lawn fawn's "quinn's abcs") and then created masks for each of the letters.  Using images from "blissful botanicals," I stamped a little floral and butterfly scene.  After removing the masks, I colored everything in quickly with copics (I love how I always say "quickly" about my copic coloring - because that's really all I know how to do!) and gave it some texture with the same PTI impression plate (the linen side on this card).

Thanks for peeking!

an early valentine...

First off, thank you so much, everyone who was so encouraging yesterday about my white card (and the photography of it.)  It means a lot to me!  I've decided to leave the white cards to the experts for now, and, in complete defiance, have create a much more inky card for you today:

I've had this card on the brain for a while, so I thought I'd put ink-to-paper.  Some people prefer to express their love with real, loving words... I prefer to revive old rock anthems... (Full disclosure: my hubs is the more tender, mushy one in this relationship.) 

light my FIRE - hee hee!  Isn't he just the cutest flame-on-a-log?  

The card was actually fairly simple to create.  I started out with a sheet of white cardstock, and stamped letters from lawn fawn's "quinn's abcs" to create my sentiment.  I stamped the fire twice (lawn fawn's "cozy christmas"), once on the white card, and once on a separate piece, so that I could color it, cut it, and pop it up.  The little bubble with the heart inside is from my cute stamps - their monster set.  (Which, incidentally, I might be using a lot of, since my son has already requested a monster party for the spring!)

Once everything was stamped, I created a very quick mask (I just cut out pieces of post-it to hide the words) and stamped a textured background over the entire mat.  Then, the distress inks came out to play.  I thought it made the whole thing look a bit "campy."  As in, fire-campy.  Not kitchy-campy.

Thanks for peeking!

back to school...

in less than a week!  Where did the summer go?  Sofia is off to grade 1, with her crazy list of 20 no.2 HB pencils, 4 40-oz glue sticks, 8 32-page Hilroy notebooks, and on, and on, and on.... this isn't kindergarten anymore for sure!  And Thomas - heading into his 2nd year of preschool...with his tiny preschool backpack and 1 kleenex box... I'm excited to see what they'll both learn this year!

In honor of the whole back-to-school rush, I used this week's MIM technique to create my faster-than-lightning bus.  Sofia was appalled when she spied my out-of-the-lines coloring!  I think she might have even muttered to herself, something about how she never colors out of the lines anymore... ha!  Kids!

Just for that, here's a even more close-up view of the bus:

I used "generation stamping" to make it look like the bus is in motion.  I inked up the bus only once and stamped it at full strength on the right.  Then, without re-inking, I stamped it again a few more times, each time moving my hand slightly to the left.  I think the freestyle coloring works really well with the generation stamping technique!

Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

CAS-ual wedding.

Having caught up on all the laundry and cleaning that obviously didn't get done while we were away, I thought I'd jump into one of my favorite weekly challenges: CAS-ual Fridays!

I flipped the sketch and hope I didn't veer too far away from it altogether...

I think this will be the wedding card that I give to my cousin for her upcoming wedding.  My mom already claimed this card for herself :)  This card was inspired by one I had seen on Carrie's blog some time ago.

I started out by stamping my kraft base with PTI's sheet music background stamps.  The next layer, SU's baja breeze cardstock, was stamped with the text stamp from PTI's background basics: hearts.  A-M-O-U-R was stamped using lawn fawn's quinn's abcs and colored in with copic markers.  I cut out the center of the letter "O" and popped the whole panel onto foam squares, allowing some room for glittery red hearts underneath.

I know it's quite casual for what will be a very elegant celebration, but that's never been my style - I love a quirkier wedding card!

you're a star!

My 2 oldest kids (ages 4 and 6) are at that perfect age that if you do something for one of them, you'd better have something ready for the other as well, or else... hee hee.

I had to make Sofia a "guitar" for her end-of-year-show.  I mean, it wasn't anything amazing - a spray-painted cereal box (pink, naturally), the core from a wrapping-paper roll, and some yarn for strings.  But she was thrilled, and Thomas was crestfallen.  He's been begging me to make him one, "but not pink, ok?" -  I'm eating as many mini-wheats as I can to empty out that box...

So, after I created a card for Sofia's upcoming kindergarten graduation (I love that it's a whole thing), I figured I'd better make one for Thomas too.  For no good reason, other than maybe that he sat still during her graduation ceremony (fingers crossed that this will happen.)

I'm entering this one into the Lawnscaping challenge:

I kept it super simple, since he's only 4 *wink*  I think he'll be pretty happy that he can read the card for himself.  He'll either guess that it says "you're a star" or "you're a winner" - I'm giving him points either way. 

Thanks for looking! 

CAS-ual Fridays... better late than never!

I'm just getting the hang of this whole blogging-experience... there are so many different challenges, color-inspirations, company contests - it's hard to know where to begin!

I started this blog because

a.  I desperately wanted someone other than my husband to validate my work (hee hee)
b.  I needed a showcase for my style to show clients as part of the JustMePrints business I share with my sister (click here to check us out!)
c.  I wanted to enter a PTI challenge.

But some of the other challenges look like fun too!  And I want in :)

I like to think of myself as mostly a CAS girl (that's "clean-and-simple" for any non-crafters *coughhusbandcough* reading this blog) so this one's right up my alley!

The only graduate I have in my home is a pint-sized one.  My little Sofia is 3 weeks shy of completing her kindergarten year - the time has just flown by!  I'm so excited to give her this card:

It was an excuse to break open my new Lawn Fawn sets.  I created the background with the new "schoolhouse backdrops" set and then stamped the large sentiment with "Quinn's ABCs".  The apple is from Paper Smooches' "falling for you" - I stamped it on SU designer paper and cut an opening to make way for a little sentiment from PTI's "way to go, kiddo".

I couldn't help but stick a bit of bling to the bottom of the card - she's such a girly-girl.  The bling was completely necessary *wink*

Thanks for looking!