The Great Pumpkin

No, I'm still not quite ready to give up summer.

This week, Hobby Lobby tried to entice me to do so with its holiday scented aisles and pretty decor, but I plugged my nose and walked on by. Having a fully stocked Christmas section by mid July is a bit nauseating, but I have to admit that once the fall decor goes up and they bring out all those warm, spicy candles and pumpkins - well, I get a little excited.

I love pumpkins.

I love cinnamon.

I love fall colors.

I love baking and chilly evenings.

*sigh*

Ok, so maybe I can still hold onto summer with one hand and use the other to smell fall candles. I guess I'm wavering a little. I really do like pumpkins a lot.

Here's a little card I made, hoping to get all that fall nonsense out of my system.

It didn't work.

I think I may do more.

Thanks for taking a peek ;)

Supply List:

Pumpkin: Spellbinders Nested Pumpkins dies, Provo Craft Cuttlebug embossing folder (Ornamental Iron), American Crafts cardstock

Tickets: Unity Stamp Co, Cosmo Cricket paper, Memento ink

Stickers: American Crafts Thickers

Card base: American Crafts Cardstock, Cosmo Cricket paper

Just us Chickens

School is officially back in session! Tomorrow marks the first full week back and so far everything seems to be going smoothly. The kids love their new teachers and have many friends in their new classrooms. My professors seem to be fairly normal and it's nice to be back to more of a routine. I'm not quite ready to let go of summer though and I hope we have a good long while before the sky starts throwing white stuff at us. Sadly, being busy with all those school and life activities will probably make the time fly.

Speaking of things that fly, I do have a card I finished a couple weeks ago. My mom loves chicken and rooster items and she happens to have several real chickens and roosters as well. That's where I picked up this cute little feather.

I've had a little drawer of feathers just waiting for the perfect cards. When I saw these stamps by TPC studios at Hobby Lobby (they completely re-stocked their stamps!) I knew they were mine. I haven't had much time to play with them yet, but I did do this country style card for my mom. I stamped with blue ink on blue cardstock and then I sponged brown ink on the corners and sides.
The circle and red decorative circle were made with Spellbinders dies (Classic Circles and Lacey Circles). The pleated cream ribbon is from May Arts.

Thanks for taking a peek - hopefully I'll be back soon :)

Almost back to school part 2

Alexis found a fun book called Rock Your School Stuff by Laura Torres at our local library this past week. It's right up her alley and has inspired her (and me) to jazz up some of her school supplies. A couple posts ago, you saw how we altered her old pencil box with hot glue, buttons and letter tiles. Today, we made her plain spiral notebook a WAY cool girly notebook with a real pocket! Here's how we did it :)

First of all, we rummaged through some clothes that had gotten too small. I wanted to use blue denim, but the only thing that fit the bill was a pair of tan jeans. If you plan on using a color spray, like Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, the tan jeans would actually be the way to go. Cloth absorbs the mist quite well, so you could really get some neat effects. I think that's what I'm going to do on my next altered notebook with the remaining tan material. I cut the bottom off of a pant leg and then cut up the seam so I had a flat piece. I used Beacon Adhesives Fabri-Tac (don't miss the ROCKIN' post about this in today's SNA blog!) and smoothed the denim onto the notebook cover.

Next, we cut off one of the back pockets. We just cut right outside of the seam.

Alexis wanted some ribbon on the side, so I glued (Fabri-Tac again) some pretty trims by May Arts near the spiral. I just can't get enough of May Arts ribbons and trims! We also glued the pocket onto the notebook.

We finished it all off with some gems and a pink bow. The whole process took less than half an hour.

The kids got their teacher assignments yesterday and are pretty darned excited. I have a feeling that we're going to be doing more crafts before school starts on the 22nd! Thanks for taking a peek :)

Experiments

Sometimes, I just want to take out some supplies and try something new. That's how this card came about. A while back, I had a card that featured an adhesive backed cork die cut shape. The thin backing to the cork was sitting on my craft table because I find it hard to throw things away. ;) I decided that it would be a great mask because of how thin it was, so I placed it on some light purple cardstock, grabbed some small lily of the valley stamps (from Papertrey Ink's Lily of the Valley set) and with some Brushed Concord Distress Ink (Ranger), I stamped around the mask.

It started out as a rectangle shape, but I punched the corners with a corner punch (Martha Stewart) and then cut closer to the flowers because I had it in my head that I wanted it to look like the edges had burned. After I cut it, I inked around the edges with Chestnut Road pigment ink in a Cat's Eye. I accented the shape with purple pearls and layered some die cut shapes I had in my odds and ends drawer. After I adhered the piece to the card base, I decided the white trim would add a little oomph, so I adhered that with Beacon Adhesives Fabri-Tac.

Looking at this card, I'm still not in love with it, but I got to do some fun masking that I know I'll be using in the future. It's an interesting way to create a label shape with stamping and it has a lot of possibilities. Thanks for taking a peek!

Almost back to school

We've been school shopping these past few weeks, trying to get all those supplies for the best price. Alexis needed a pencil box again this year, but still had hers from last year and it was in good condition. She was a little bummed that she didn't get a new one, so we took out the craft supplies and jazzed it up!

I used a hot glue gun and an assortment of brightly colored buttons. After I glued the buttons on, Alexis decided that we needed a bit of sparkle, so we added some gems. Of course, we needed her name on there, so I found some letter tiles and put those on as well.
She's pretty excited to show everyone her new/old pencil box!

Altered Shadow Box

When my bestie, Dayna, was here for a few days, we got a lot done. We stamped, we embossed, we cut, we glued, we did everything. We even had time to make matching shadow boxes! We happened upon these shadow boxes in the 85% off section of Hobby Lobby - I got white and she got black. We wanted to do them to match our living rooms, so we each took different colors of buttons and inks and went to town making up the embellishments you see inside.

The button cards were stamped with Papertrey Ink stamps and the buttons are by The Paper Studio. The wooden half spools are from my stash, but I believe you can pick them up anywhere they sell packages of wood craft items. The cute little chipboard woman is from Cosmo Cricket's Circa 1934 collection.
I loved the frame as it was, so I didn't do anything to alter it. I love it when I can pick up a good deal like this!
Thanks for taking a peek :)

A few June Scrap n' Art projects

I just went out and snapped a few photos of my favorite flowers that are blooming right now. I have some gorgeous bright pink gladiolas that are blooming, but the photos didn't turn out very well - maybe I'll try again tomorrow :) It's lovely outside today; supposed to be a high in the 80s! Such a welcome change from the 100 degree heat we've been having.

Here are a few projects that were in the June issue of Scrap n' Art featuring Flourish with a Bling! and Judikins. The full supply lists are in the June issue if you'd like to see more.

Thanks for taking a peek !

Quilted Card

Cosmo Cricket has so many papers that I love. I wanted to put a couple different collections together in this card, so I die cut the papers with Spellbinders Classic Diamonds Nestabilities so they would fit together perfectly. After I had a bunch cut, I just started adhering until I had them all on the card base. Then, I trimmed off the edges to be flush with the card base and embellished a bit. I added the buttons with a dab of Fabri-Tac (Beacon Adhesives) and the rest of the items are from Cosmo Cricket. The diamond shapes are great for banners (just cut them in half) and for doing quilted looks like this. It works really well on layouts too! You can die cut photos into the diamond shapes if you like.

Also, the August issue of Scrap n' Art is live today! It's not as big as it normally is due to Summer CHA - but OH MY WORD, you're going to want to see next month's issue for sure! BRAND NEW CHA goodies! That's the great thing about being a digital magazine - we get the new CHA items before any print magazine, so you'll have to come on over in September to see all the new product. In this month's issue we've still got some rocking stuff, though. We got our hands on a bit of the new Nikki Sivils collections! We've also got Susiebee and you're going to love their stuff. Don't forget our tutorials and reviews - we've got them too! Come on over to check it all out :)

Hope you're staying cool and thanks for taking a peek!