Go Griz!!!

The 113th "Brawl of the Wild" is tomorrow.  Prediction. . . .Griz 31 - Kitty Cats 14.

Carved Pumpkin Inspiration brought to you by our beloved "Craft Master" Mona!  

Have a great weekend :-)

Autumn Blessings

I've been itching to play with my new Gina K "Grateful Hearts" stamp kit.  And was also missing the story telling of our lives.  Kind of my own version of the Project Life stuff that's been sweeping the scrapbooking work.  It's been well over a month since I've written the family so I decided a letter was way overdue.  Love how this turned out and had so much fun doing it.

The Gina K kits are pretty nice.  It has a bunch of stamps in the kit, coordinating cardstock and patterned paper and some ribbon and brads.  And is packaged in a nice plastic box.  Pretty good deal I think.

Maybe you can see the kit details in this pic? . . .

See you at the shop tonight!

Crafter Xtra-ordinaire!

How dag-gum cute is this little guy?!  He's part of the backing fabric for this adorable quilt Mona just finished for her daughter's new baby boy.  As always we were blown away by her talent.  And we loved, loved, loved! the colors.  Lucky baby to have such a crafty Grandma!

Flat Brads

The Universe must want me to have these!  While I was surfing my favorite blogs over morning coffee today, I found a link to a new blog with some fun cards on it and happened to notice the flat brads on one of the cards.  Thankfully the blogger did a great job of listing her supplies and I linked over to the shop carrying them.  Looks like I'll be doing a little online shopping tonight!

Had a good time at the shop last night.  Hope you have a good day today!

Baby Webster

Hi Gal Pals!

Hope you had a good Veterans Day today.  Although Cricut Man had to fly back to Alaska which made my heart a little sad, I did end up having a good day and a productive one too.

After a couple of hours of house chores, I spent the rest of my time in the craft room and made this scrapbooked picture frame for Baby Webster - Wenonah Jane Webster - who will actually turn 8 months old this week.

Kelly, one of my teammates, was pregnant when we left for Florida this spring and had the baby while we were gone.  I had such good intentions of getting the gift done as soon as I got home but sadly that didn't happen.  And then it seemed that the more time passed, the more I struggled with the design inspiration.

But Kelly, who is UM's Writing Center Director, and I have been talking recently about family story telling and particularly about the stories of the women in our lives.  Just the inspiration I needed.  

I made these "pages" to insert in the frame, but included a formatted journaling page on the back of each page with the hopes that as Kelly changes out the pictures in the frame as Wenonah grows, that she'll write some of her thoughts about her baby girl on the back of the page and slip it into a 5x7 photo album as part of her own memory keeping. 

I cropped up the photo birth announcement Kelly sent this spring and dug through my paper stash for coordinating colors of purple, pink and coral.  I don't have much baby paper but found some really pretty papers in my Stampin' Up papers and 6x6 paper packs that coordinating perfectly.

I had so much fun pulling out embellishments.  Some pearls to highlight the corners of the picture.  Used a clear button on top of some patterned paper tied with some baker's twine.  Found a cute little metal flower from SU.  Used my file label punch and a Tiny Tag "Love" stamp to tag the photo.  Found some pastel mini-diaper pins and a pink metal heart to finish off the embellishing on the first page. 

I used one of the fonts from Free Font Friday (CK Amour) and started each journaling page with a "W", the first initial of her first and last name.  Changed the font color to Sahara Sand to match the colors on the pages.

I love Winnie the Pooh quotes and thought this one I found on a Pinterest board was perfect.  I covered a chipboard heart with another patterned and added a small metal embellishment to balance the metal on the coordinating page.  The little bird on the leafy branch was a part of the original announcement but I cropped it to use as an embellishment.  I pulled out the purple from that to anchor the page with a textured purple paper I had.

There was some yellow-green in the clip art/quote - which in my perfect world I would have liked to change - but that wasn't possible.  So in order to balance the color on the pages I introduced the same color in the center of the metal flower and in the color of the "Love" stamp on the coordinating page.  "Color Balance" - is that really me talking?!  It's amazing how much I'm learning from all the scrapbooking videos I've been watching lately!  WhooHoo!  Maybe I'm ready to tackle my Grandmother's scrapbook afterall?!

See at the shop!

Dangling Bats

Hi Gal Pals!

Wanted to share a link to some really cute Halloween printables from Paper Crafts.  These bats are cute on their one but can also be made to hang down from a doorway, although I think the patterns are too pretty to be scary.  There's also some other cute Fall and Halloween quotes here from Creating Keepsakes.

Hope you have a good day.  See you tonight.

Julie

An Honorary Gal Pal

He's not a female but he is my favorite "Pal" (next to Cricut Man of course!). 

Wonder if he approved of this card?

Happy Monday!

Better With Age

Playing around in the craft room today with some new Gina K stamps and paper I bought a few weeks ago.  This stamp is called Better With Age and the papers are from the Grateful Heart kit.  I used the current Fusion Card Challenge sketch.  Did some Copic coloring which was fun, although I'm realizing a need more wine colors.  Used one of the $1 stamps from Memory Lane to emboss on the purple card stock and then used the Sanded block stamp from Stampin' Up for the bottom panel.  Just thought it looked to plain with just cardstock.  Liked the way it turned out.  Hope you're having a good weekend.  Off to see the Griz Game now and will be going to the Shawn Mullins concert later tonight.  Fun day for sure.

Something New

Good morning Gal Pals and Happy Friday!

Just wanted to share an email I received yesterday about the new Cricut Stamps which match their cut files.  Kind of fun!  I plan to check it out soon.  Hope you have a good weekend.

Girl Friends

Happy September Gal Pals!

Way too long away from the blog.  Finally getting around to posting some of the cards I've made this summer.  I just love this Girl Friend line of stamps.  Love the colors of this card.  And especially love the sentiment.

Hope you had a good Labor Day weekend.  Mine was pretty good.  I don't mean to sound ungrateful but it still felt like the weekend was 1 day too short.  Between the Griz Game, yard work and house chores I only ended up with about an hour in the craft room.  Not long enough for sure.

Cricut Man is off today for his first trip out on the new job.  Keep you fingers crossed that all goes as planned he's only traveling part-time and that the work is rewarding for him.

I'm going to skip going to the shop tonight.  I have a few craft things I promised some folks at work so I'm going to take advantage of the "Home Alone" time and focus on getting those done.

Have a good one today.

Just a Little Note

Finally got around to finishing up all these cards in the kit from a few weeks ago.  Thanks again Gal Pals for playing along.  

I'm bringing some inspiration photos with me tonight so we can pull out one of our toys that's in the drawer at Memory Lane and have a little fun.  See ya' soon!

Let's Rock and Roll

Happy Monday Gal Pals!  Just wanted to thank you for helping with the coloring and stamping for this card last week.  Here's how it turned out.  Cute, huh?!  So what are we going to do for an encore tomorrow night?

Hope you had a good weekend.  Have a good one today. Stay cool!

Fun Scraps

Good Morning Gal Pals!  Hope you had a good weekend.  

I *finally* got a little time in my craft room and made some kits and this cute card.  

It was an inspiration I found on Pinterest.  What a great way to use up scraps! I did the sentiment in Word and then used my new chicken wire embossing folder, which I just love.

I'm going to bring a few more scraps for tomorrow night along with my Cuttlebug and make a few more.  Bring some scraps too if you're so inclined.  I'll have some extra sentiments printed out and ready.

A New Friend

We met a new friend and cardmaker at the shop last week.  She has a beautiful name (and accent) and although I repeated it several times when I met her I can't seem to remember it exactly right now.  I hope our paths will cross again.

She's just starting out in cardmaking and shared this card she made. Isn't it cute?!  She hand cut hearts and folded them for the petals of the flowers.  The one petal falling off is so sweet.  It could be a "Love me, love me not" card or maybe even a "Missing You" card.  I also loved that she turned the orange Candies upside down - a totally fresh perspective.  

That's yet another thing that's so great about hanging out at Memory Lane.  Not only do we get to have our Gal Pal time, we get to meet so many other wonderful women and through sharing, learn new things.

See you there tonight.

He's Home!

Cricut Man's back home from North Carolina safe and sound. And we're snuggled back in to home life just like 2 little bluebirds of happiness.

This was the family card for the week.  A one-layer card done in a rush at 9:30 last night.  Just never enough hours in the days or days in the weekend.  Cricut Man actually helped with the coloring on this one which we did out on the deck as we were trying to stay cool.  We came close to running out of daylight so hopefully the family will be forgiving if we missed a spot or two. 

One Layer Card

This week's family card.  Don't let it fool you - it wasn't as quick and easy as I thought it was going to be - at least not the first one.

I saw the idea on this fun blog and loved it.  Here's the Pin of the original.  But I didn't have a graphic "Hello" stamp so I printed it on the computer to start the card.  Had to get the measurements just right so I had enough room to stamp and things were evenly placed / balanced on the card.

Then I picked a border stamp - another from one of Val's hand-me-down sets - Thanks! again Val!!  But the border was too long for how I wanted it placed on the card and I didn't want to cut it.  So I tried at first inking it with markers.  Not a good idea when you have 4 different colors and 6 cards to make.  Plus I didn't have the colors I really wanted - really bright, summery and tropical - somehow I forgot to buy the 2011-2012 In Color markers and now their retired, dang it!  But I did have the ink pads and I finally got the placement just right without having to mask the stamp and from there on out it went really fast.

I'm thinking it might be really fun with a snowflake border in pale blues and purples for a wintertime "Hello" card.  

Lots to Like

Good morning Gal Pals.  Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Found some card pictures this weekend and wanted to get them posted on the blog for safekeeping.

This is one from Tuesday card group.  It has so many things on it that I like: the color combination, the cool fonts on the sentiment, the hole-punched border strip, the embossing technique, the circle theme. . . I could go on and on.  This one's an inspiration for sure!

Cardmaker Quotes

I didn't get around to downloading pictures of the cards I made this weekend or photographing the ones we made last night, so I'm digging back through some other digital folders this morning and I stumbled on a screen capture from one of the old archived CardMaker magazines I've been going through.  I just love some of these quotes.  Especially the one about being grateful to people who make us happy.  That includes  my Gal  Pals for sure!

I really like collecting quotes.  They're great for prompting a card idea, or using as a focal for the card front, as well as being the sentiment for the inside of the card.  I'm so glad CardMaker has gone digital, aren't you?

The Cat's Meow

This was last week's family card.  I was trying to use this Pinterest post as my inspiration but it didn't turn out  exactly like I had envisioned.  In fact I'm not sure I even like it.  I think I muddied it up by inking the edges with brown.  Maybe inking with the coral color would have made it brighter and cuter.  Mom did call to say she liked the cute papers - part of a Lime Twist 6x6 paper pack I got at Memory Lane awhile back.  But she's my Mom and has to say nice things, doesn't she?

We'll be missing a Gal Pal at the shop tonight.  Hope she has fun with her chores at the cabin this afternoon.  But looking forward to spending a little time with my other Gal Pal and working on our kits.  Hopefully we'll have some cards to share for tomorrow's post.

Cricut Man Saves the Day!

I was scrambling yesterday after a weekend's worth of yard work to get the family newsletter written and a card made.  As I finished the letter, in which I told the family about the long "Honey Do List" I had going for Allan, he said. . ."Let's use this list for a card".  Presto! Whammo!  Done! It's kind of cute, huh?!  It will be even cuter to me when all the tasks are done :-)

Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Thanks for understanding about my week off of blogging and crafting last week.  Feeling much more energetic and creative heading into this week.  Had a great weekend in the yard.  Things are looking really wonderful.  This is one of those times I'm looking forward to going to work and really thankful for my desk job as my legs and feet and back sure are needing a rest.

Have a great Monday.

Sneek Peek

Good morning Gal Pals!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Cricut Man and I had a nice one.  We did the Missoula markets on Saturday and yard work on Sunday until the rains came.  Kind of glad it's a rainy Monday as that will make going back to work a little easier.

I have a little sneek peek for you today of a card kit I made for you over the weekend.  Thought we could have a little fun tomorrow night and give my kit idea a test drive.  The only thing you'll need to bring is your adhesives and an acrylic block for stamping.

See ya' soon.

Interesting Idea

It's kind of hard to tell from this picture but this is a 1 layer note card.  My neighbors Wen & Barb had it waiting on the counter with some fresh flowers when Cricut Man and I got home from Jacksonville.  

The card is folded so that the stamped top flap folds down just to the top of the stamped border on the bottom part of the card.  When it's taped or sealed with a sticker it looks like it's all one piece.  And when you open it fully, it's just enough room to write a short, sweet note.

Really clever idea, huh?

Happy Friday.  Sounds like the weekend's going to be a beauty.  

Labels

One of the advantages of drinking nice wine is collecting the labels.  Yep - that's right - that's how I justify my indulgence - I do it all for card making :-)

This is a card a made using a really beautiful label from a Spanish red blend called Can Blau. Really yummy! I used my circle cutter to cut out the center of the label.  It may be hard to tell from the picture but there's an iridescent shimmer in the label design.  So I decided to mat it on a larger glitter paper to really enhance it. I loved the way it turned out.

Thanks for Your Support

This is a thank you card I made for our neighbors, Marilyn and Heather, for all their love and support during our little Florida adventure.  It's got kind of a funny story in that the background "paper" is actually the back of a Comments card from Red Bird.  We met there one night before we left to have some appetizers and a glass of wine and when the bill came it included a Comment card printed on the back of this really cool paper.  I loved both the color combination and the design.  They teased me about taking it for my stash but I surprised them the next day with this little card.  I loved its simplicity and the little birdies seemed just perfect for the occasion.

Freebies

Happy Monday Tuesday Gal Pals.  Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend.  Mine was blissfully free floating and a bit celebratory.  It was an anniversary of sorts for me and Cricut Man.  10 years since his first trip to Missoula which set us on the path of a life together.  

I wanted to share with you a freebie that I found somewhere on the blog-o-sphere. . .can't remember for sure what rabbit hole I went down that led me to Chic Tags.  But I found some really cute freebies like the one above.  Here's the link to the page that has 4 really cute printable pdf files.  There's some other cute digital content on the site.  Hoping to find some time to explore a little more.

And while we're on the subject of freebies, I wanted to repost the link to the free online copic coloring class we were talking about last week.  I still haven't completed all the lessons but that's OK - it will make for some fun on some future rainy day.

Calendar Envelopes

I was sorting through some old folders on my laptop and came across this picture of some envelopes I made (before I had my new Score-Pal envelope tool) from an old calendar I had.  Aren't they cool?!  I used one a few weeks ago to give a special card to my neighbor Barb and she just loved it.  She's a depression era baby and often uses things over and over again so she really appreciated the recycling effort - and so do I!

Hope you all have a great weekend.

More Bookmarks

I love these bookmarks! - especially when I think of all the little ones my Mom used to teach in her reading program.  It's a MDS template called Book Buddies - only $2.95.  I'm going to print and laminate them and send to Mom &  Dad as little "do-da's" they can give their kids for good performance.  May have to keep a set for myself to remind me I should turn off that dang "boob-tube" more often and pick up a good book.

Bookmarks

These are some quick little bookmarks I made with some scraps laying on my craft counter.  The one on the right was a special request from Cricut man - a Griz bookmark just "plain" - no foo-foo embellishments he said.  Silly man!

My Friend

Don't you just love this card?  I cut the pieces and will be bringing it with me tonight to assemble at the shop. The stamp is from "All Holidays" which thankfully comes with the baseline My Digital Studio. 

See ya' soon!

Cheers

Cheers! Gal Pals.  Hope you had a good weekend.  

I didn't end up getting as much play time in the craft room as I intended or would have liked but I did get a few minutes Sunday to play with the Tart & Tangy set.  Made this card to send to a friend who I've been wanting to get together with for a little maguerita time.  The Lucky Limeade color which I reversed embossed was fun to play with and the cute Cheers stamp - one that I got from the $1 bin at Memory Lane - really fit well.

I played around with trying to replicate the Thanks a Bunch strawberry card inspiration I posted on Friday but boy was that tough.  I just couldn't get the masks to line up well.  I'll keep working on it though.

Take care and have a good start to the week.  Hopefully we'll see a little sunshine today.

Tart and Tangy

I don't know about the rest of you Gal Pals but I may just have to have me a big ole' marguerita tonight to celebrate the end of the week.  How cute is this card?!!  It's made with the SU Tart and Tangy set we jointly own.  I have it checked out and am planning on having a little fun with it this weekend.  Can't say I'm too sad about the weather forecast for a rainy Sunday as it makes a perfect excuse for locking myself away in the craft room for a little play time.

Here's the index card for the stamp set and a couple of other cards from the Splitcoast gallery to get the creative juices flowing:

Happy Friday!  Have a Good Weekend!

Patriotic Hello

This is a card I made for the family last summer around the 4th of July.  It uses a really cute Authentique paper pack called "Glory".  Just love that paper line!  

And speaking of patriotic. . . .can't wait for the new BoBunny "Anthem" papers to come in.  You know Flag Day is just around the corner!!!

Thank You By The Seashore

Another inspiration from Pinterest.  Here's the card I cased.  Another in my new favorite color combination.

I used the SU digital stamp set By The Seashore to create the shell images.  Then printed them out and cropped them.  Sponged Crumb Cake, Pool Party and Island Indigo to create kind of a beach view on the top panel.

I made 5 - one for each of my wonderful neighbors to thank them for all they did while we were gone and all their love and support these last few months.  Truly wonderful people!

Then because I had the shell images in a file, I used a modified version of them to create this quick and easy one layer card for this week's family newsletter.

Kind of cool to think of all the possible variations.  Sure wish I had more play time with My Digital Studio.  I think I could get lost in there for a very long time! :-)

Birthday Presents

Well all my pinning is starting to pay off.  Here's a birthday card I made for my Aunt Hazel's birthday next week - she'll be 84!  

It was inspired by this card I found on Pinterest and pinned to one of my boards.  I used some leftovers from that $4 Walmart paper pack and a Martha Stewart bow punch that's been collecting dust for quite a few years.  I even got brave and did the polka dots on the ribbon and bows by hand - benign essential tremors and all! :-)  

I hope she likes it.

Mother's Day

Posting the Mother's Day cards I made for my Mom and for Allan's mother.  I did the outside and Cricut Man crafted the inside panel using a really pretty font called Heritage - very fitting don't you think? 

So glad we were able to spend lots of quality times with our mothers these past 2 months even if we missed the official holiday.  We are lucky to have 2 very special women as our mother's and mentors.

I suspect this Mother's Day was a mixed blessing for my Gal Pals.  Joyful for one with the expansion of motherhood in her family and a bit of melancholy for the other at one of the first milestone days without her mother.  My heart is with you both.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night.

Smiles All Around

Sure is great to have everyone back in our morning routine.  I'm heading back to work this morning for an admin/catch-up/planning day.  It will feel nice to get settled back in there.

Enjoyed the day yesterday unpacking and settling back into the house. I spent a little time in the craft room making thank you cards for my wonderful neighbors.  I'll post those next week.

You can't believe all they did for us while we were gone.  In addition to Heather house/cat-sitting with Marilyn pinch hitting on the days she needed to be out of town, Mike cleared all the houndstongue weeds out of the east side of the property and hauled away last Fall's burn pile, Wen & Barb did some early pruning of the flower beds and raked our yard and Steve & Judy provided the car shuttle for the trips to the airport so we could have a car waiting for us on the trips home without having to use long term parking.  We are so blessed to have them in our lives. 

And after many hugs and smooches I think all is right with Maddie's world now too . . .

One happy kitty for sure!

Happy Friday!  Hope you have a great weekend.