Burlap!

I love that burlap is such a trendy thing right now! It is EVERYWHERE on Pinterest, blogs, etc., for everything from home decor to weddings. I bought a whole bunch when it was on sale at JoAnn several months ago...aaaaaand hadn't pulled it out once. So I needed to throw together a last minute birthday dinner for my mother-in-law, and I found beautiful napkins at Party City that had lavenders and mauves in the floral design. I got a cheap lavender paper tablecloth, and finally used the burlap! I cut it as a runner down the middle of the table, and then I used fake flowers that matched the color scheme. I reeeally love how it came out. I used a random assortment of fake pearls and baubles to fill the vase. AND found citronella candles that were lavender! Remember when citronella candles all looked alike and smelled terrible?? I guess I haven't bought any in a while...

Then I used a scrap of the burlap, a brad, a button and some twine to make an embellishment for a birthday card for my hubby's grandpa! I can't wait to make some more card decorations with the burlap. It really is a fun fabric to use!

Bridal Sower Thank you Cards - Part Tres

Some more thank you cards! Same papers...went with some paper flowers this time. Enjoy!

Bridal Shower Thank You Cards -Part 2

The rest of the cards! I should have mentioned before that our colors are white and touches of reeeally dark purple (David's Bridal shade called "Lapis") and silver.

Wedding Thank You Cards - Part 1

I had the most amazing week for many reasons last week...One of them was that my co-workers, one in particular, threw me the most beautiful bridal shower! I am getting married in a little over 2 weeks, and I am super excited! I cranked out a whole bunch of Thank You cards for the shower gifts. The papers are all single-sheet purchases from Hobby Lobby. The little flowers are also from Hobby Lobby. We are using them elsewhere in the wedding decorations, so stay tuned for them to pop up in later posts...Enjoy! Have a great week.

Peacock Cards

I have been eyeing the Royal Garden paper pack at JoAnn for a while now...and then there was a nice peacock feather stamp on sale. These are a couple of quick cards I put together playing around with the papers! I used gold embossing powder on and vellum for some of the pieces. The papers are goooorgeous! The cut-out pieces behind the sentiment are using designs from the Ornamental Iron II cartridge, and welding them to the sides of rectangles and circles in Craft Room.

Monster High

Quick post for a funny birthday card! One of our neices had a birthday, and she is really into the Monster High stuff. If you have never heard of it....then you might not know any tween girls lol. Anyway, I googled the logo and this is the card I came up with. I used the pirate skull from the "Life's a Beach" cartridge, and I cut the teeth off the bottom. I used the Ornamental Iron to get the diamond pattern on the front, and a diamond embossing folder to get the pattern on the gift card slot inside. I used a white pen for the faux stitches.

Silhouette tags

The inspiration behind these tags was from this blog:

http://sarahsjustvisiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-tag-set.html?m=1

which, by the way, is phenomenal. She used pastels and baby silhouettes, and it was actually featured in an issue of Papercraft Magazine (also awesome!) I used some birthday shapes instead of baby ones.

In Craft Room, I just placed the shapes over the tag shape, and did NOT weld them. It took some trial and error to find good shapes to use. I had a present one and a cake one that did not look that great!

I used Ranger's Tea Dye distress ink to stamp the scripty writing, and then used XXX, and XXX for the blue and purple, and a hot pink regular ink for the middle, and for the "birthday wishes" sentiment. I used a butterfly "all around the page" punch, and little jewels for the top. I have some Valentine's ones saved in Craft Room at the moment, these were my testers! I was pretty happy with the result.

Chasing Dreams

I picked up this stamp a while back, around the time I was making some graduation cards. It is really beautiful in lieu of the usual "congratulations" or, "you did it!" type of thing. It says "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you have imagined". These two cards I love in particular. The first is using papers from the absolutely goooorgeous "performance" paper stack by DCWV. It was for a family member who was moving away from home for the first time with her boyfriend, and they were both pursuing music careers. The second was for another who graduated high school and had enlisted for basic training with the army, and was heading away from home, also for the first time. For that one I used the "Stand and Salute" cricut cartridge to cut the camo print and the tags. I used an actual little piece of chain for the tags and glued the ends behind the cardstock. Please forgive the flowery tablecloth background on that one, which makes it hard to see at first...I forgot to take a picture before I gave it to him! That was hastily shot with my phone after he opened it lol. Enjoy :)

Southwestern Birthday cards

I have had these little metal pieces forever, which I bought from one of those kitschy stores in Sedona (that I admit, I love!). I put them together with some simple brown and turquoise, and used my new "all around the page" martha stewart punch. I really like the southwest vibe they have!

Giant Flowers

Just a quick post to share my new craft room wall decorations! Using the flowers in the "picturesque" cartridge, I cut the first layer as "fit to page" (my computer is fussy lately, and I didn't feel like setting it up and using craft room). Then I stepped it down about an inch and a half for each subsequent cut. I made a circle of glitter in the center and coated it with glossy accents when it was dry, and then added a nice big jewel for good measure. Before glueing the layers together, I curled the leaves around a big pencil. Stuck them to the wall, and voila! Wouldn't this be fun to do for a little girl's bedroom?? I think I will add a bee buzzing around, and maybe a big butterfly...channeling warmer weather! I held up a soda bottle cap in one picture so you could see how giant they are.

Floral Birthday Cards

Yuck, the end of vacation is almost here...I know, I know, I am lucky I have had a vacation! I am making some cards to keep on hand as birthdays come up. Here are a couple from some new paper packs. Words are embossed with powder, and the flowers amd dragonfly are actually from my new "picturesque" cartridge. The butterflies are from a martha stewart "all around the page" punch. The colors are hard to see in the blue and brown one that is first, because of course, ai photographed it at night...with my cell phone...rule number one about blogging is to have eye catching, great pictures right? Oh well. You get the idea, and I will take better pictures for the next post...enjoy the rest of your weekend!