Especially For You

OK, I found this post in my draft bin... have I shown it already?

If it's a repost, my apologies.... it's non-baby so I thought some of you might appreciate that.

One of my newer sets is this one called SUMMER TREES by Kim Hughes. I thought I'd try some paper piecing on this card. I had some Basic Grey bits & pieces around the table to use up.

I added some paper piercing along the top edge and some rhinestone bling on the "tag".

Stamps - Kim Hughes, Summer Trees & Baked with Love (for sentiment)

Ink - Brilliance, Graphite Black

Paper - SU: River Rock, Whisper White, Pink and assorted Basic Grey design papers

Other - SU ribbon, rhinestones, SU punches (circle & scallop), Fiskar Border Punch

Hope you're having a great week!

.j.

Yellow Polka Dot {no, not a bikini!}

I have a bin that holds all my snippets of design paper. There's no organization to it other than it's all contained in one place. Random sizes, assorted colors & many different companies are all put in this one tote. So as I was looking through it, that piece of yellow polka-dot paper caught my eye -- it went well with the little yellow spots in the onesie, and a card was born :).

How do you store all your bits & pieces? Having been a Stampin' Up Demonstrator for about 5 years I have all my cardstock organized in color families. Those families have since changed, and the colors have changed as well. I've been somewhat tempted to reorganize into color groups (greens, browns, blues...) but then I think I'd need a lot more bins!

OK - going to try to get the kids to bed in our stuffy house (I miss a/c!) Just thought I'd pop on and share a card with you today :)

.j.

☀

A Baby Pause.

I'm sure you're going to feel a little overloaded on baby cards over the next while, so I'm trying to pop in a NON-Baby card now & then :)

I got my inspiration for this card HERE at Paper Hugs. As soon as I saw the card I went downstairs and began punching out circles. How's that for inspiration! *smiles*

I just thought it was so cute & simple! Mine seemed to be missing something (I think it might be the natural white cardstock.... too plain??) so I did some paper piercing along the outer edge to give it a bit of a frame. I think that helped.

We had our first week back at school and it went well. I was a bit scatter brained as I try to wrap my baby-brain around new curriculum and teach grade 4, 6, and 9 all together -- it got challenging when everyone needed me at the same time (hmmm? Thought I scheduled that better). I'm sure after a couple of weeks we'll be in the swing of things. Kids had fun doing experiments and *finally* having art this year :)

I'm starting to work on my baby announcement cards -- a few ideas floating around in my head....

Hope you had a blessed Monday!

.j.

Baby Simplicity

Well, hubby is back to work, so I'm back to crafting :)

Today was a day off school - I ♥ Saturdays. After a nice walk with hubby, breakfast to all the kidlets, some clean up, and a little catch-up school work with Joshua - it was lunchtime! LOL. So... after lunch I got down to the stamp nook and pumped out some cards (I'll share those with you soon). It was a cloudy day today so the kids enjoyed a movie which gave me some peaceful stamp time.

☺

Normally when I have a specific card I need to make in multiples (like my baby thank-you cards) I would pick a design and stamp a stack. For some reason (probably the drought of stamping) I just want to play & create! So I didn't stamp any two exactly alike. I still have more baby thanks to make (we've been so blessed!!) so I may end up copying a few designs at this point, but for now - I'm playin'!

This card was literal made with bits & pieces I had lying on my table. A piece of cardstock that apparently had a hole in it and I figured I'd just try to make it work :) It was fun to try to take some simple elements and make a card work. :)

I'm feeling great with using up so many bits & pieces, scraps and snippets!!

OK - kids are in bed and I'm hoping to sneak down and stamp a wee bit more.. yahoooo!!

♡

I Spy with my Little Eye

OK - Back to baby :)

These baby cards were so fun to make. I adore that little onesie (you'll be seeing it a bit more!). It's so easy to stamp and cut out. This time I used confetti tan (my fAVORITE neutral {discontinued *sigh*} and added a little detail (sailboat) to the front of it. Sweet, right?

I pulled out some ribbon (use it up! use it up!) and stamped my thank-you sentiment on it (Family Phrases, SU). The bottom scallop was created using the slit punch. That design paper is Stampin' Up from.... I'm going to guess.... 2002! HELLO, my name is Jennifer and I'm a HOARDER! SHEEEEESH! Seriously.

Can you SPY the one little difference between these cards?

Another good school day here. ♥ Looks like all our baby gear has arrived (had it shipped up from my brother's borrowing....didn't think I'd need it anymore, lol) so I'm hoping in the next few days to get the nursery set up - which basically means put crib, dresser & rocking chair together. It's a small space, but hopefully we can cozy it up a bit.

Well, hubby is off for a couple of days, so I probably won't post until Friday -- need to focus on family when we only have a precious couple of days together.

Enjoy the week ahead!

☀

A day of Stamping

First off, Happy 4th to my American friends :) I hope you enjoyed a fantastic day of celebration with family/friends. We enjoyed our Canada Day on Thursday, took in the parade & the kids had a bunch of friends over to play (Daddy had to work ☹). Of course we're thankful he has steady work, so I try hard not to complain. Work is a good thing!

Secondly.... I declared today STAMP DAY! Not a national holiday, but in our little abode, it may as well been :) After church, the kids were fed and I spent the afternoon in my stamping nook, pumping out some cards - woohoo (I'll have some steady posts for you to share with you what I created!) Although I'm exhausted and my back is aching, it felt so good to press my big 'ol belly against the table & get inky!

As promised yesterday, this is the card my daughter helped with yesterday. She was bored, so I told her to stamp a duck for me and make him fuzzy with some fun flock. We tried doing this with a glue pen, but I think next time I'll try the heat & stick powder as the fun flock didn't seem to stick super well. I'm thinking if I try to add glue to it now I might just make a big mess... what do you think?

After we cut it out, she moved on to something else... lol. So I ran some cardstock through the Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder, used some SU punches and added a little strip of bling on the bottom. Nice & simple.... cute though. A little tweaking with that fuzz.....

Well, we start school tomorrow - DAY ONE.

I'm looking forward to getting into it to see how well I did with my scheduling - too much time, too little... hopefully my energy levels will keep up with all my monkeys!!

Enjoy the last bit of your weekend!

.j.

Baby Thanks

We've been working hard downstairs as we set up our school area and my stamping space. It's finally set up {enough} where I can have a space to stamp. Ahhh. Life is good :) Now if only I had the energy to stamp. Seems like lunch time rolls around and my body thinks it's midnight - ah yes, the joys of third trimester. I have 6 weeks to go before we meet this baby boy, and I already have so many people to thank for their blessings!! So I was determined today to get down there and stamp a couple cards, my oldest daughter even worked on one (I'll show you hers tomorrow). This was our "summer holiday" week with the kids so we had tons of kids over, playmates over every day and so unpacking & stamping didn't happen. We start up our new school year on Monday and everyone seems excited to crack open those new books, and dig into a new year. It will be lots of fun.

So here are a couple cards I made quickly this afternoon using one of my new PTI stamp sets. Remember what I said about using up ribbon & buttons! HA, both cards have a bit of both! :)

I stamped this darling little onesie on some {very} old SU design paper, cut it out and used stampin' dimentionals to pop it up from the Mellow Moss (do they still call it that??) cardstock that I ran through the cuttlebug. The heart is another retired SU punch that I added a little button to. :)

I had a left over piece of the design paper and I thought I'd just use it again on this card. I thought it probably could have been a little larger, so added some paper piercing along the right edge to add a little "lengthening" ?? Everything is SU except for the stamp set used and the polka dot ribbons. Well to be honest, I dumped all my buttons together in color families (*gasp*) so I don't know which ones are from which company anymore.

So... a couple down and many more to go - what a blessing that is!

Now I must get myself to bed so I can get us all out to church in the morning :)

.j.