Kate Got Married!!

To see my stamped card on muslin for Paper Smooches Sparks, click HERE


Our fearless leader Kate from i {heart} papers got MARRIED!!!

I wanted to make something using all my favorite things right now and this card is FULL of product and technique and tricks and treats just for KATE!

• The vellum part of the butterfly (from Penny Black) is a left over from THIS card. It includes a video on how I made it. 
• The paper is my favorite pack of all time Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper. The splatter is part of the paper!!! (sold out at i {heart} papers)
• The green glitter paper is a gift from my dear friend Marcy
• The sentiment is from Hero Arts

I have had the most fun seeing posts of Kate's lovely wedding choices and of her wedding day. May you have a long and healthy life together. Thank you for letting me be part of your life :)

I am leaving you with my FAVORITE wedding song EVER!! "At Last" by Etta James for you Kate...

Check out the rest of the team and guest designers from i {heart} papers to see what they created for Kate!

Amy
Deb
Gretchen
Libby
Linda
Lindsay
Lori
Sarah
Stacey
Tracy
Vera
Wida

The Death Rate is 100%

A Paper Smooches Sparks anything goes challenge lets my mind run wild with ideas! I had this old piece of muslin that I cut up and stamped directly on. I used Reflections stamp set for the wreath and We Connect for the sentiment. The paper is the awesome Crate Paper for Maggie Holmes :) Inks: Hero Arts cubes. 

Larissa

Heather

Wida

Alice

Jamie

Jenny

Pamela

Savannah

I cherish you folks...thanks for stopping by :) and I am going to leave you with a quote that I was reminded of a few days ago while chatting with my blog pal Laura...

"Despite the efforts of physicians and nurses everywhere, the death rate continues to be 100%!"

Cherish every day.

PTI September Blog Hop

It's been a long time Papertrey. I wanted to join in on the fun this month. The theme:

I used "Wreath For All Seasons" set and stamped directly on the patterned paper from MME. I added stickles and wood veneer stars. A bit of distressing on the edges and there it is :)

I can't wait to see what everyone has made. I love the comrodery of all of us in one space creating and encouraging each other!

Moral of the story: Be Kind

Story time:

Let me share with you a story that I think is so important for me in my life. After I had Sophia (10 years ago) I thought it might be fun to take photos of her and scrapbook. My photos turned out pretty good and friends started to ask me to take their photos. A business was born. One of my first clients was my friend Olga's daughter. Olga and I worked ICU together at Porter Hospital.  After a while, I decided to shut down the business because it caused me great anxiety if the photos did not come out perfect. It was just too much for this self critic. 

Fast forward to 2013. I left Porter in 2005 after getting my nurse practitioner degree. I was working at a family practice and after 4 years was told that they were wanting to sell and the new buyers didn't work with nurse practitioners. I started looking for a job and I found the one I wanted and applied. It was at Swedish Medical Center doing stress test. See, when you have a job where you have to know everything about everything, the idea of stress tests, just stress tests seems awesome. I even made a vision board about getting the job. It was of a lady wearing a white shirt that I envisioned as me in a lab coat.  I didn't hear back so I went on as the family practice negotiations seemed slow. 

Out of no where, I get a call from Olga asking me to take her daughters senior photo. I told her that I was sorry, I didn't take photos anymore and wished her luck. Later that night, the guilt was killing me. Here was a friend from the past needing me and I wasn't being a good friend back. It wasn't going to hurt to take some photos of this girl that the camera loved anyway.

 I called her back and said I would do it.

We meet, I take her daughters pictures and we get to talking about what we have been up to. I find out she works at Swedish Hospital and knows the manager of the job I applied. She offered to give the manager my resume. 

I got the job. (see my white lab coat?)

Moral of the story: Be kind and kindness will come to you 10 fold.

Supplies:

Dies: Penny Black butterfly and banner

Stamps: Penny Black Lulu's Party

Twine: Hemp Cord

Patterned Paper: Crate Paper Maggie Holmes

I am entering this in the Moxi Fab Tuesday Trigger:

The natural tones and the fact that all the embellishments on the top with a repeating pattern on the bottom :)

Before and After

Oh my gosh this one was a tough card to create. It didn't always look like this. Brace yourself, I am gonna show you the original card.

I used 3 different distress inks to create the background. I use a make up sponge to apply the inks. It's cheap :)  The butterflies are a Martha Stewart punch. The twine is by Lawn Fawn, and that delicious sentiment is Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler

This was the original card:

it's blurry, I think that's for the best. Ouch! The card had so much potential but then suddenly it took a turn for the worse and then there was no saving it. I had to start over.

Here is the inspiration photo:

The Paper Smooches Sparks Design Team

Wida

Jenny

Jocelyn

Alice

Savannah

you have one week to play! and you win Paper Smooches stamps, so that's always good right?

CFC 115 and a must have tool for card makers!

Ok I am a BIG fan of this size card. It is 4x6 and it is a such a fun shape to work with. all you do is cut a 12x12 sheet of paper in thirds. And I have an easy way to do it :)

This is the tool I use to get that size card (and many other sizes too). It's called the Zutter DreamKutz. It cuts paper perfectly in half or thirds. It's a great tool for mass producing projects.

a video explaining how it works:

So anyway, back to the card...I die cut the Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaf dies from some patterned paper. These leaves are a great size for both scrapbooking and cards. Sometimes I find it hard to tell the size of dies. Here are the leaves next to a quarter. They are have a nice array of shapes too :)

and the result on some solid card stock so you can see the details:

our sponsor for this challenge:

The Casual Fridays Challenge Design Team:
Alice
Amy
Deb
Emilie
Jingle
Jocelyn
Kelly
Leigh Ann
Lindsay
Lorena
Mayuri
Sanketi
Sylvia


Supplies from i {heart} papers:
Stamps Paper Smooches We Connect
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves
Twine: Clear and Simple Stamps
Paper: Crate Paper Acorn Avenue

RIC #44

The Runway is hopping again with this beautiful gown. 

Here is what I came up with:

Here is how I made it: 

I cut up a bunch of leaves from the Penny Black Creative Die Collection

I adhered them down with the super adhesive tape strip (don't worry about gluing down each leaf).

I then applied glitter to the tape strip. Next, I stamped the sentiment. It is from Penny Black also called Cupcakes. 

I covered the lower portion of the card using scratch paper.

I sprayed the leaves and upper part of the card with Elmer's craft bond and covered the area with a piece of tissue paper. Trimmed the edges and that's it!

Our sponsor is Ellen Hutson! You MUST check out the design team:

Nina

Virginia

Tasnim

Pamela

Laura

Aga 

Jennifer 

and our guest this time: BETSY VELDMAN!

This is our last challenge with Laura Bassen. I am sad to see her go. She is an inspiration to me and I will miss seeing her work terribly.  :(

Yeti Boogers

Here is the story.

My daughter Sophia had a 5th grade project to invent something new and sell it to the class. She likes to watch you tube videos on crafty things and found one on how to make slime. You can find it HERE.
The finished slime was white. She wanted to buy food coloring to make it into another color. I, being cheap, didn't want to buy it for one project, so her dad and I convinced her that the white was cool (and it was).

Lance said, "You can call it YETI BOOGERS". My little crafty brain went right to my new stamp sets from Lawn Fawn called Milo's ABC's and  Yeti, Set. Go.

Sophia and I made about 40 of these. I hope they sell well!

 I colored the yeti with copics. Don't look too close ;) The Milo alphabet stamp set is clever in that it is perfectly spaced so if you align the clear alphabet stamps next to each other, you get a perfectly spaced word. There are enough letters to make many words without having to use the same letter which makes spacing the stamps easier. Look at the set. See you get lots of vowels and multiples of the same letter.

This post brought to you by i {heart} papers, because fast shipping is how they roll. I am not sure that's their tag line, but it should be.

I am entering this into Lawnscaping Challenge #65 and Simon Says Stamp Challenge Animal Antics. I am loving the new Lawn Fawn Collection.

PS Designer Drafts September

It's Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge time:

I took some liberties...



The fabulous design team:
Wida <---me!

Jenny

Jocelyn

Alice

Savannah

you have one week to enter!

Supplies from i {heart} papers
Stamp: Paper Smooches First Aid Kit (A MUST HAVE FOR ANY NURSE)
Die: Penny Black Banner, ' Lil Inkers Stitched Square
Twine: The Twinery

CFC 114: Back to School

Welcome to my first post as a Girl Friday! The theme is back to school and here is what I have for you all...

I tried my hand at staging. This is WAY harder than it looks. All I had on hand for this scene is an old apple and a paper bag which I like to have on hand for field trip days where the kids have to have everything disposable. 

I took my photo the exact same way, on a kitchen barstool next to my dining room window, but it took 3 different attempts to get this shot. the placement of the items is so important, it can throw the whole scene off! I love the effect of staged photos but they are really hard to do. What do you think? 

I had a working mom and she also was from Afghanistan so she didn't really write notes on napkins for us. We were the kids with weird chicken sandwiches in our lunches that had a strong ethnic smell but tasted yummy. For this kid wishing she could just have peanut butter and jelly, it was torture watching the other kids get little wrapped snacks and notes in their paper bag lunch boxes or even to buy lunch! My parents never let me buy lunch!

So I thought it might be fun to put something special in my kids lunches for fun. Now that 2 of them can read, there are more options :) I created a joke journaling card. The front has the design and the back has an area to write a note or a joke!

I masked the apple using masking film and stamped the zig zag. ( the stamp was a gift from my sweet and talented blogging friend Angeline) Then I removed the mask and stamped the apple, colored with copics.

our sponsor:

Challenge ends 9/19/2013

The Design Team:
Alice
Amy
Deb
Emilie
Jingle
Jocelyn
Kelly
Leigh Ann
Lindsay
Lorena
Mayuri
Sanketi
Sylvia

Supplies all from i {heart} papers:

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Chevron Backdrops  and My Silly Valentine, and Happy Everything

Die: Paper Smooches notebook die

Other: copics, masking film

RIC #43

It's time to see what the Runway Inspired Challenge has to offer...

and my interpretation:

I went a little washi crazy with this one. I used 2 different kinds to create some interest since I only used gray, black, white and yellow. 

Our sponsor is Simon Says Stamp! You MUST check out the design team:

Nina

Virginia

Tasnim

Pamela

Laura

Aga (on maternity leave)

Jennifer 

Supplies: 

 Penny Black Iris Creative Die and Tagged Creative Die

Stamp: Friendship by Penny Black