Last Day to get a Taste of Summer!

Hey everyone!  I realized I have two more cards to share using the Taste of Summer Paper Packet and the Taste of Summer My Acrylix stamps that are ONLY still available TODAY(May 31st!)  Yikes!  Here you go..

Excellent use of zip strips!

Glitter anyone?

Another zip strip, of course!

Such a sweet sentiment!

Love this juicy slice stamp!

Did I mention the fact that I am also giving away a free stamp set with orders right now?  Yep!  Just order through my website or contact me to place your order and I will get in touch with you to choose your free stamp!  :)

Freshly Made For My Little Friend

School is OUT for the summer!  While that is super news for my crafting time, it also means I am going to be missing my little school friends.  I took advantage of the adorable sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches this week to make a little card for one of them...

When I saw the release of this set from Mama Elephant, I realized right away that my pockets would be a bit lighter, lol.  The sentiment and elephant are just perfect together!  I added a banner and balloon from my MCT stitched dies with some playful color provided by the Taste of Summer Paper Packet from CTMH.  The awesome green pattern is found in the Blossom Paper Packet.

CTMH Whisper Ink and CS for the elephant and Taste of Summer paper for the balloon.

MCT banner die using CTMH Taste of Summer papers (including my fave zip strip!)

 I know my little friend is going to love it!  Can't wait to get more inky fingers this summer!

Just two more days to get YOUR Taste of Summer coordinating paper and stamps AND to play along with Freshly Made Sketches!  :)

Taste of Summer My Acrylix with coordinating juicy sentiments!

Throwback to Close to My Heart Convention

The time is getting closer for the annual Close to My Heart Convention--this year being held again at Disneyland!  I am certainly going to miss the celebration this year.  Here is one of the fantastic projects we were spoiled with at creative sessions last year...I have had it completed for a while, but haven't been able to get it posted up here yet.

We used both the Wanderful and Seaside Paper Packets for this versatile layout along with Flaxen, Glacier, and Black inks.

The Handwritten Alphabet is a fabulous font for scrapbook layout titles...

Some of the other My Acrylix stamp sets featured here are Glitter Glam,   Happy Birds,  and Here We Go.

Even though I won't be there, I still cannot wait to see what new products and ideas Convention holds this year!

Taste of Summer is almost GONE!

The Bokeh Technique Tastes Summer

I was super-stoked to try this new technique called Bokeh (NO idea how to say it, hahaha,) so lets get right to the details!  It was much easier than I anticipated, so I hope you give it a try too!  I have a quick little picture tutorial showing you how I did mine...but there are tons of ways to do this technique if you google it.  :)

I grabbed three colors of my pigment ink squares--Pixie, Smoothie, and Hollyhock.  I cut up a handy dandy little round sponge, and used them to swirl on the inks from lightest to darkest...

The white really looks yellow in my picture thanks to my lighting in the craft cave!

Now, just so you all know, my very professional circle stencil was simply a piece of vellum with different sized holes punched out, lol.  You don't need anything fancy at all!  :)

See, it isn't really yellow!  ;)

Here I go on my zip strip soap box again!  I LOVE these strips of coordinating pattern that run along one edge of our different pattern papers.  ALL Close to My Heart My Reflections paper packets have them!  I used this one from the Taste of Summer limited edition paper packet to add a bit of contrast, along with the Juniper CS and ink on the strawberry leaves.  The juicy fruit is stamped in Hollyhock.

I love the Taste of Summer My Acrylix fruity sentiments!   This one is just right for one of the many teachers in our lives!  Can you say, "LAST THREE DAYS OF SCHOOL!!!"  Yep!

Grab yourself a Taste of Summer before the end of May!  :)

Taste of Summer for Freshly Squeezed Sketches

It has been a loooooong while since I had a chance to link up to a challenge, so I am super-excited to get this one in tonight!  A quirky little blog post title always seems to get my sparkle back up, know what I mean?  :)

Freshly Made Sketches has a wonderfully simple challenge this week, and I had a few minutes (or forty) tonight to play along.  Check it out...

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?  LOL!  I saw the circle in this week's sketch in my email and KNEW that this juicy slice from the Taste of Summer My Acrylix would end up on my card.  Now, I like simple, who doesn't, and goodness do I ever have time for just simple right now.  But it looked terribly plain and simple all by itself if you can imagine...

SOOOOO, I remembered that time looooong ago when my daughter rolled up my glitter paper scraps...and went for my tweezers and Green Glitter Paper!  It was JUST the thing to brighten it up!

These oranges on the Taste of Summer Paper Packet were the perfect backdrop for the white panels...

I finished the card off with the sweet little sentiment.  Just in time to link up to Freshly Squeezed (Made, lol) Sketches and give it away tomorrow!  :)

Don't wait to get your hands on the Taste of Summer specials this month--they are only here in May, and I can send you lots of FREE cutting guides for great cards and layouts to use them for!  :)

Only available THIS month for National Scrapbook Month!  Get the STAMP SET or the PAPER PACKET, or BOTH!

FREE Taste of Summer Scrapbook Layout and Greeting Card Files

It doesn't get much better than FREE, right?  Well, this month, when you purchase the Taste of Summer Paper Packet and My Acrylix stamp set from my website, you can get FREE Scrapbook Layout and Cardmaking guides complete with instructions!

Here is one of the layouts designed by consultant Lisa Stenz that I made on National Scrapbook Day...

There are two pages to this one, and I'll post more when I finish them up!

Don't wait to get your hands on this juicy paper!  It is only available in May while supplies last.  I just LOVE the bright colors!  I cannot get enough of those orange slices either!  :)

You get 12 sheets of double-sided pattern papers for just $8.95!

Get the coordinating size D stamp for just $17.95!

I cut the letters out from the Artfully Sent Cricut Cartridge on my Expression--all the sizes and directions are included with the FREE file!  :)  Just purchase the paper and/or stamp set, and I will email you the files!  :)

Just make sure you don't loose a letter like I did for a while...it makes a BIG difference!  Lol!!!

Here are some of the other layouts and cards you will be able to make...

Throwback Thursday Flip Flap Layout

Hey everyone!  Crazy busy week here for the fam, so I am just popping in to share a quick little tip with one of my FAVORITE products that Close to My Heart carries...and I believe they are pretty exclusive to us as well!

FLIP FLAPS!!!

If you follow my blog, you have seen these used in several different sizes...except this one--12 inch!

Well, on National Scrapbook Day, my awesomely amazing friend, Beth, asked me just the right question at just the right time...

                    "do you have any flip flaps that would fit this 8 x 10 picture?"

I gave her a definite "I don't think so, but maybe" as an answer and went to grab my 12 inch assortment...which happened to have JUST the right size to accommodate the pic...12 x 8!

The cuteness factor is practically unbearable!

Flip Flaps adhere to the outside of your page protector to create interactive pages that hold more pics...

Do you recognize these retired patterned papers from Close to My Heart?

And come in a variety of sizes!

Underneath the flap is another 8 x 10!  Don't know which one to use?  Use BOTH!

Aren't they fantastically versatile?  You can check them all out HERE on my website.  The 12 inch assortment is unbelieveably only $4.95 and comes with 8 sturdy self-adhesive protectors in three different sizes.

"Easily add extra photos to your scrapbook page with Flip Flaps™. Slide your photo or journaling into the pocket, attach with the adhesive strip, and you're done! It's a fun interactive element for your pages. (8 protectors: 4 – 6" x 12", 2 – 4" x 12", and 2 – 8" x 12", each with strong adhesive attachment strip.)"

P.S.  Did you figure out the name of the retired CTMH paper packet she was using?  :)  Let me know in the comments! 

The Monday After Mother's Day

So here we are again on the day after...and with so many expectations, so many gifts we COULD have received (and I am not talking about "stuff"), how do we ever reconcile the fact that Mother's Day is just not the same experience to everyone.  I'm going to say it:  most Mother's Days I cry.  I did again this year.  My two kiddos at home made me eggs for breakfast...and life went on.  Forced chores, squabbling as usual.  No cards, no handmade presents.  A phone call sometime in the late afternoon from the one at college (which I am positive was prompted by the father who was out of town so brought me yummy treats earlier in the week.)  Somewhere along the line I have dropped the ball and failed to instill a sense of what this day could be to the little people I am mothering.  Then I reluctantly turn to the fact that I still have a mom to call and give wishes to on this day.  And to the fact that I do indeed have little mini-me's under my wing that I would be lost without.  And to the fact that I KNOW there are millions of other moms in this EXACT place with me right now...it might not make it all better, but it leads back to the way I leave the day--who cares?  It's just a made-up holiday to sell cards anyway.  But it would be great to be told just how great my kiddos might someday think I am.  Sigh.

I, on the other hand, LOVE to send out the love on Mother's Day.  This year I made some special little "business" cards to send the moms in my life that I have left to send love to...

Would you believe I didn't take a picture of the BACK of this one???  UGH!  It says, "What's YOUR Superpower?"  It also has one of the pocket card cuts from Artfully Sent on it.  It has the word, WOW, cut out of it, which I flipped around to say, MOM.  ;)  The corners on the two sides didn't quite line up, so I used the handy dandy corner rounder to even them up.

Just surviving all the EMOTIONS of being a mother is a superpower.  Which is how each year, I just pull through and push on.  I suspect there are lots of you out there that do as well, so this card's for YOU, too!

Teacher Appreciation Week

As the mom of a kid with a learning disability who happens to hold a degree in Early Childhood Education, let me tell you, I APPRECIATE my kiddos' teachers!  I sure don't have as much time to create as I would like to these days, but I was feeling like showing them the love this week...and then the inspiration struck.  :)

I hopped on Cricut Design Space in the comfort of my own family room (watching a playoff game, no doubt since both the Bulls and the Blackhawks are making us loose sleep these days,) and was able to quickly design a little gift.

Did you know you can upload almost any kind of image into Design Space?  You obviously need to adhere to copyright laws, but I was not selling this image, so I found the superman logo to use on a fun little business card style gift that says..."I'm a teacher...what's your superpower?"

I also used the pocket card cut found on the Close to My Heart Artfully Sent Cartridge to design the back layer of the card.

I didn't have any suitable thank you cards on hand...and I have the super-cute Teacher Appreciation My Acrylix, so I made up some quick cards as well using the retired Typeset Paper Packet.

Who says the sentiment needs to be centered inside the card?

This gift cost me nothing other than time and supplies I had on hand, and I already know that it put a huge smile on at least one face.  :)  Just one of the MANY reasons I love to paper craft! 

Only in May!

Stamp of the Month