Ruffle Pillows

Ruffles, ruffles everywhere! I seriously love them! Have been working on decorating our living room and made these pillows out of some muslin to match the couch slipcover.

 I love the texture they add and will be a nice neutral compliment to the blues, greens and yellows I'll be adding to the rest of the room. Hope to share more pics of this room soon!

Walk - April Crate Sketch

Hello again. We've been meeting here so sporadically lately and I'd like to apologize. It's not that I haven't been working on anything. It's been so rainy and murky that no pictures have been taken. I've been busy decorating our living room, camping with my hubby who's working out of town, working on sewing projects, and playing with the May Lucky Girl kit (which is full of glitterly goodness!!).

Anyway, just wanted to share the page I created for the April sketch challenge at the Crate Paper blog. It's a photo from last fall of my little gal walking down our gravel road in her hot pink track suit. It looks like she's doin some serious power walking :)

I made some ruffles under the pic and topped them with a bow to make this page extra girly. Also punched the edges of the paper with the jumbo circle punch to make it like a die cut paper.

I used mostly Emma's Shoppe, plus a little bit of Restoration, Brook and some Crate exclusives for SC. All the Crate lines seem to mix together so effortlessly which is amazing to me - I don't normally like to mix product from the same manufacturer. Must be the ultra luxe texture.


 See you soon...

MME April sketch - Snake Eyed

Hi there! Just popping in quickly today to share a page I created for the April layout sketch challenge at the My Mind's Eye blog. It's my first time particpating! Here is the sketch:

And the layout I created with it using some Stella Rose papers and stamps, an Alphabet Soup card, as well as some ribbon packaging, twine and a button.

The theme using this page was "April Showers" and even though it's not obvious from the subject, I tried to incorporate the shower part with cascading paper banners and a stream of hand stitching. The page is about my step-son's first gun, a BB, and him and his dad testing it out. Of course he's not quite big enough to use it yet but it was still a fun, manly bonding experience for them both.

By the way, who needs a Sew Easy tool to get straight stitch lines when you can just run the paper through your unthreaded sewing machine?! A big DUH moment for me.

Hope this week has been a great one for you, despite the icky weather. xo

Word To Your Mama - You Are The Best Part Of Me

Today is the start of another new issue at Paper Issues and its all about your mama (and grandma, MIL, etc). All those ladies who worked so hard to raise you right. I haven't made anything just yet for the special ladies in my life but I did find a good use for all those lovely Prima flowers I've been hoarding and never using - it's a little tribute to my kids, as a mom.

This previously gilded frame had been sitting around forever but it looks fresh with a shabby coat of white paint. And the color makes me so happy! The quote is from a Neil Diamond song which is a love song but it works better here (sorry Neil!)

So what have you been making for your ma? Link em up here ladies!

I'll be hanging out on the Back Porch...

Awesome news!! For the month of May, I was invited to be the GDT over at Back Porch Memories!! Their kits are quite gorgeous, always full of the latest product and on top of it they have a very friendly message board. Here is the page I entered in the sketch challenge with my sweetie step-daughter's 4th birthday as the topic:

And the sketch:

I actually ended up making a second page with the sketch to go with the first since my step-son shares the same birthday. Both have lots of rainbow colors. It seems I just can't stop using rainbows!

Really excited to get started!!!

Baby Shower

I can't believe my little sister is having a baby! A family friend and I put together a baby shower for her last weekend at the Legion Hall.

I attempted to make a banner as lovely as the talented Cassie, but this just doesn't compare. Those new PP Soiree banner stamps are swoon-worthy however. By the way, his name will be Remington - how cute, right?!

Have a great weekend and wish me luck getting over this icky stomach flu! xo

Long Hair

My daughter desperately wants long hair. She puts all sorts of things on her head and calls it her princess hair, look at my long hair mommy, do you like my long hair? At age 3, her hair is finally just beginning to grow and is barely beyond chin length. But it's getting there. I feel you hunny, I miss having long hair too.

This is the color scheme I tried to do with her brother's quilt. (brown, orange, yellow, teal) I think the proportions turned out right this time.

Seamingly Smitten

A couple weeks back I volunteered to be a pattern tester for Seamingly Smitten's adorable little Catherine Claire Ruffled Halter dress. It's a great project for beginner sewers and is equally great for more experienced sewers too.

Here is the result:

I originally planned to make cloth napkins with this Alexander Henry fabric but I love it with this dress! The pinks ended up being a perfect match.

It is the cutest little dress for lazy summer playing and would be just as cute with a cardi and tights on cooler spring days too. I plan to make 2 more in terry cloth for swimsuit cover-ups Get the pattern (and see Jenny's adorable daughter) here.

Spring and Easter Issues!

The newest issue went up last week at Paper Issues and it's all about Spring (and Easter too if you celebrate). Link up all your paper projects that fit this theme, new or old and leave some love for the other linkers too if you have some time.

This project is older, but it just came back to me in the mail from Simply Handmade magazine (Feb/Mar 2011 issue) and is one of my fav so I'll direct your attention to it again. Original post here. It's my very first print publication! What a great feeling!

I love butterflies. I love rainbows. I love it when people follow their dreams. Enough said.

XOXO Challenge #18 - Adventurous Christmas

Ohmygoodness I've been out of town a whole week and am so behind on so many things! But it was so wonderful to spend time with my family, beautiful friends with perfect hair and to put together my sister's baby shower (photos for that coming soon...).

While I was gone, the newest challenge at XOXO girls went up and there are 21 new pages from the lovely Lipstick Chicks for you to scraplift and be inspired by. Here is mine:

I hadn't done anything with our Christmas photos but pulled them out to create this page using an SC sunday sketch from Lisa Truesdell. Love the way she frames the page with patterned paper. Most everything on this page came from leftovers from my March and April Lucky Girl kits.

We never get many good pics in the excitement of Christmas morning but I'll always remember last year because the kids woke us up early to say that Santa had come and they were just so happy. Best Christmas yet.

Link up your creations to the XOXO blog by Saturday, April 30th for a chance to win a great prize from Candy Shoppe Designs!

Welcome To The Party!!

The Lucky Girl Crafts blog party that is! Thank you for joining us! Today we are doing a little blog hoppin to celebrate April's fabulous new kit - A Boy & His Toys. It's stuffed to the brim with lots of new releases from Crate Paper, My Mind's Eye, Echo Park and more and is perfect for all your masculine pages!

April 2011 Lucky Girl Crafts kit - "A Boy & His Toys"

Our April kits are FLYING off the shelf, so be sure to order yours ASAP before they're gone!

For international orders, please contact Jessica by e-mailing your order to jasafras98@yahoo.com.

Now onto the projects!

First is a page about my step-son and his imaginary dino bone hunting quest. You might not see it but that big stick his is holding above his head is actually a T-Rex bone! Can you believe it?! He was quite proud and was showing it to everyone at the park. What a lovely imagination.
I love how well the colors in the different lines coordinate! I also used my mist from last month's kit to mask off some stars from the Bo Bunny paper as well as some white from my stash. Oh and the leashed dino - so fun!

 
Also made a card using many of the same elements as the Dino layout. Just saying "Hi" on the front of the card makes it is versatile don't you think?
 

The next page is about my husband's new business venture into scrap metal (we're both scrappers now - hee haw!) with a picture of the gigantic 20-foot trailer he bought and is so proud of. I cut out a few little aliens from the Bo Bunny paper combined with some of the Crate elements to go with the new frontier theme.
 

Using some of the journaling cards and cardstock stickers, I made a little book to house all the things I had to say to my hubby about how proud I am of him.
 

And finally, another attempt at a 2-pager using some pics from the Winterset Park playground and little bits of this and that. There is no better way to entertain an energetic little boy.
 

I knew when I saw the blocks paper that I wanted to cut some words out of it or maybe make a block tower but ended up with a banner for the title that is one of my fav elements on this page. And what would a page about outdoor fun be without a sun and a few clouds?
 

To keep with the play theme, I used the bungee cord inside a chipboard frame to make a sort of interactive toy. Well, the kind of toy you'd use if you were bored, like pushing the middle of a Snapple lid up and down.
 

One more corner full of goodies to tie it all together (and fill up the space - 12x24 is a lot of blank canvas for me!)
 
So do you like what you see? Lucky Girl is giving away $25 lucky bucks to one lucky winner - all you have to do is leave a comment on the Lucky Girl blog. For another chance to win, stop by any of the Lucky Girl DT's blog and leave a little love for a chance to win $10 to the LGC store! It's a surprise so you'll have to stop by each of the blogs cause even we don't know where the winner will be picked from.
 

Ana

Jessica

LGC Store Blog

Ruth

Sabrina (you are here!)

Stacy

and of course our senior DT

Emily

Natalie

 

Check the other girl's out and have a very playful day! It's Friday!!!

PI Blog Hop Winner!

Congrats to #25 Nitasha!! You are my winner from the Paper Issues blog hop!

Please send an email to sabrina(dot)kempton(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll send the goods out to you asap!! xo