Starting the New Year off right

I'm really going to try to post more to this blog in 2012!  No resolution, just something I'd like to do. 

And something I'm going to do a better job of in 2012 is sending birthday cards to all my friends and family.  I've said this every year for years but I always mess up right off the bat because I have two really good friends who have birthdays the first week of January.  But I am finally ahead of the game this year!  I made cards for both of them and they are ready to be dropped in the mail.  Whew! 

While trying to decide what colors, paper, stamps, etc to use I was also thinking about a very big college football game coming up in the next few days.  And since these cards were going to University of Alabama fans I thought I would add some houndstooth to hopefully send some luck to our Crimson Tide!!  Roll Tide!!

 I used Basic Black, Real Red, and Very Vanilla along with Love Letter DSP.

Very excited to use the new Framelits (Labels).

Hope your New Year is off to a great start!!  Thanks so much for stopping by and hopefully I'll see you again soon!

Tara

Nicholas' Sesame Street 2nd Birthday

We decided to celebrate Nicholas' 2nd Birthday this year over the July 4th weekend.  We wanted all of our family to be able to come so no better time than a long holiday weekend.  Since it was a holiday weekend we rented a cabin on Lake Guntersville in Scottsboro, Alabama so it would also feel like a mini-vacay for everyone.

The Invitations...

Thankfully I had lots of help on the design of the invitations.  My sister-in-law, Heather (check out her blog), and her mom, Jackie (and her's too) designed the punch art Sesame Street characters for me.  It was all great in theory but it did take quite awhile to fully assemble twenty of these invitations.  I was very happy with the way they turned out.   

The front is a spinner card so that Elmo's head would slide back and forth.  The Sesame Street "sign" I made in Word and had printed at Kinko's and then cut myself by hand.  Each colored dot is a 1/2" circle punched and glued to white cardstock.  Not sure what I was thinking when I decided to do that.  HA!

This is the inside of the card with Cookie Monster, Grouch, Big Bird, and Grover.  All of the characters were made using scalloped circles for the heads and different size circle for for the faces.  Luckily I enjoy tedious work.  They were really fun to make.

The Cake...
Again, I had a lot of help.  My mom and brother were a huge help making the cake and cupcakes.  I was going for a punch art look to coordinate with the invitations.  So happy my brother was there to make it actually work when my original plan didn't work.

I didn't too much for decorations since we were at a rented cabin. 

We made LOTS of tissue paper pom-poms to throw everywhere!

The food table before we set out the food.

Pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate and sprinkles.

These were the favor bags for the kids.  They were made using the Stampin' Up! milk carton die.



Overall it was a great birthday party!!  I can't believe my little mister is now two!!

little mister did have on an Elmo shirt but it didn't quite make it through the day.  :)

Composition Notebook

Here's a very quick and easy project.  I used Stampin' Up! DSP to cover a traditional composition notebook and ta-da! 

DSP - Pocketful of Posies

Early Espresso

Daffodil Delight

Cricut cartridge - Botanicals



Baby Steps

I can't believe it has taken me this long to finally make a card using the Baby Steps stamp.  As most of you know, I love me some elephants (Roll Tide!).  This was a fun card to make for some dear friends of mine and the new addition to their family.

Another Medallion

Decided to return to a design I love.  This is basically the same card I made before but this time I used the Four Frames stamp set and the coordinating Decorative Label punch.  Love those both!!

Bright Sun-Shiny Day

Wanted to use some bright, sunny colors so this is the combo I picked out of the color coach.  I liked the colors much more than I thought I would.  Still need some work on designs but at least the colors are rocking!

Bless It

So my sis-in-law, Bethney, loves to use the phrase "Bless it" when talking about someone/thing that's just a little not right.  That is how I feel about these two cards I made.  HA!  What can I say...I'm still learning.  I just need to do more and hopefully I'll get better.

Hi!

So obviously I've been MIA for awhile.  I feel like I've been, here, there and everywhere but we should be home for awhile now.  Here's a little project I did to just say Hi! to everyone!

My New Favorite Stamp

After spending a couple of days with my sister-in-law, Heather Portney, I have found my new favorite Stampin' Up stamp.  I am in love with the Medallion background stamp!  It is the first thing on my next order.  I can't wait to do so many projects with this one but here are a couple of cards I made while visiting Heather.

I used the Jet Black Staz-On to stamp the Medallion on white cardstock.  I stamped the image twice and then just winged it cutting it down to get it how I wanted it.  I used Real Red and Basic Black cardstock along with Real Red Satin Ribbon.  The stamp set was Silhouette Sentiments (Level 1 Hostess Set).

This is the same card using Early Espresso and Regal Rose.

Can't wait to own this stamp so I can have more fun!!!
Thanks for looking and have a great day!!

My 1st Workshop!

I held my first Stampin' Up/Thirty-One workshop this past Sunday and it went great!  Thanks to all the girls who came out to support me and a special thanks our hostess, Catherine.  I still have some kinks to work out but overall I was pleased with how it went. 

We did two "make & takes"....

This card was made using the Always stamp set.  We used Marina Mist, Real Red, and Old Olive colors (one of my favorite color combos - thank you Color Coach).  The Marina Mist cardstock was embossed with the Elegant Lines Embossing Folder.  We accented the heart with Real Red Satin Ribbon and used the circle punch from Itty Bitty Punch Pack.

We also made a picture or recipe card holder using a large binder clip.  The stamp set was Butterfly Prints.  Of course I love Butterfly Prints for the houndstooth butterfly but it is just a great set overall.  Our color combo was Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, and Tempting Turquoise.  We used the Designer Print paper in matching colors to cover the black of the binder clip.  We also backed each printed butterfly with the coordinating cardstock paper punched with the Butterfly Punch. We added of piece of the Daffodil Delight grosgrain ribbon on top.

Now I can't wait for my next workshop!!!  Let me know if your interested in hosting your own workshop!

Taking a break from cleaning

I've been cleaning house today so I haven't made anything craft-T yet but I thought I'd get my Stampin' Up! Definitely Decorative element applied.  I received this element with my starter kit and am finally getting around to hanging it on the wall.  The P is from the Decorative Monogram Alphabet in chocolate and the frame is from Target.  Thanks to my sis-in-law, Heather www.blinginghomethebacon.com, for the great idea!!

Just Playing Around

I finally took some time today to play around and get craft T.  I'm still working on my techniques so hopefully these will get better over time.  I love constructive criticism so please feel free to comment on anything you think I could do better.  Thanks for taking a look!

This card was made using the Stampin' Up! Always stamp set with their colors of Old Olive, Real Red, and Marina Mist.

For this one I used the colors Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, and Early Espresso with the Aviary stamp set.

This is a project I'm working on for my first Stampin' Up! workshop.  I was trying to get the right dimensions and ideas about what exactly I want to do.  Definitely would love any suggestions for this project. 

Hope everyone is having a great start to their week!! 

1st Birthday

These are not the best pictures but I thought I would share some of what I did for my son's 1st Birthday last year.  The theme was The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I had so much fun putting it all together...I can't wait to get started on this year's party.

the invitation

goody bags

Getting Started

I'm in the process of getting my blog going so please be patient.  I hope to start posting my "craft T" projects very soon.  Thanks so much to my sister-in-law, Heather, for helping me come up with my blog name!!