November PTI Blog Hop

Hello! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that your holiday season is off to a great start! I had time earlier this week to make a card for this month's PTI blog hop. I really love the inspiration photo for this month's challenge. I know I would enjoy spending my Christmas in that house!

Here is my take on the challenge:


My card has a mixture of old and new products. I found the die cut skates in my scrap bin which were left over from a previous project. I only had to embellish them with the pom poms and string. The button is from a Martha Stewart holiday embellishment set that I bought a year or two ago. I love the Love Lives Here Holiday set released a few months ago. The sentiments are charming, and the pine boughs and hearts images remind me of my mom's Scandinavian holiday dishes (appropriately named Hearts & Pines).

Thanks for stopping by! I hope to start posting with a bit more frequency. I seem to be pretty good at crafting, but fairly lousy at photo taking!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Printer Trays

Happy September! I hope you enjoyed the Labor Day weekend! I was able to complete two printer tray projects over the course of the long weekend in between craft store trips, pruning trees and bushes away from the house in anticipation of the wind that fall will bring and trimming the hedge that runs around the perimeter of my property. Unfortunately I came down with some sort of flu bug last night. I had hoped that a good night's sleep would help, but I didn't sleep very well and when my alarm went off this morning I felt just as bad if not worse than last night. Ugh. So, I stayed home from work today. I haven't felt up to doing much of anything today, but I did manage to get pictures taken of the two printer tray projects. Please click on the photos for a closer look:

This first one I made for myself. It's an ode to my love of Paris (but really I adore anything French related). I didn't do any stamping on this one. It's a collage of patterned paper and embellishments that I had in my stash.

This tray I made for my mom. She loves fall as much as I do. I remember when Basic Gray released the Indian Summer collection a few years ago. I was completely taken with it and bought 4 of the 6 x6 paper pads along with the full collection of 12 x 12 paper. I also got the three coordinating stamps sets, brads and buttons. I know that's a bit over the top, and I remember thinking at the time that maybe I would regret getting so much of the paper. Nope! I still love it and I'm glad I've got more to use. I actually did quite a bit of stamping for this tray.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a good week!

Random Crafty Post

Happy Sunday! It's a foggy morning here in the PNW, definitely feels like fall. I'm sure the fog will burn off soon and it will be another beautiful, sunny day. I hope those of you on the East Coast are braving the hurricane and staying safe.

I thought I'd do something a little different on the blog today and share some pictures that aren't just of my cards (though if you're only here to see a card, I do have some pics of my latest creations, you'll just have to scroll down a bit).

I haven't shared with you that I'm mom to an 18-month old. Fur baby, that is. A cat, to be specific. His name is Augie. Funny name for a funny cat. I promise you, I am not one of those "crazy cat ladies", but I do adore my little guy and thought it was time for me to introduce him to you. For the most part, Augie is a very loving kitty. He loves to sit with me and keep me company and he "talks" (meows) to me all the time. Augie can also be a very naughty boy and throws temper tantrums. He bites and claws and kicks his mama. Bad boy. But, we take the good with the bad, right?

So, last night I was in my craft studio organizing some things. Augie came in and jumped up on my desk. Now, my craft studio is very full. It's organized, but it's full (I'll have to take pictures of it and post them some time). Poor Augie, he hasn't been able to find a dedicated spot that he can call his own and relax comfortably. So lately he's taken to doing this:

I have a two-shelf hutch that is in front of my work surface. This is Augie on the bottom level hiding behind some rhinestone, pearl and hardware embellishment boxes. Here is a view from the other side of the boxes with his tail sticking out:

Augie also likes to climb up and sit in my photo light box. Here he is a few minutes after the above photos were taken:

Oh, he makes me laugh! His ID tag is in the shape of a bow tie, and he sports a red collar to match. Is it me, or does he look like he is not amused that I'm taking his picture?!

Thanks for indulging me and putting up with my "kid" photos. Now, on to some more crafting things. Yesterday my local stamp store Impress was having a huge paper sale to make room for new paper that will soon be arriving in the store. I've always considered myself fortunate to have that store 20 minutes from my house. It's also a very bad thing for my wallet. I think I've mentioned that I've been crafting for almost 20 years. That's a long time to acquire crafty stuff. Including paper. I don't need more paper. At all. Do you think that stopped me from buying more yesterday? Nope. Here is my proof:

That is 64 sheets of 12 x 12 paper. I got all of that paper for $16. Awesome deal, huh? I think I now have enough paper to complete 12 calendars for several years! I also got a few other things besides that paper. Want to see?

In the lower left corner is a pack of 10 terra cotta colored envelopes. 40% off=$1.80. In the middle is a pack of Crate Paper's Random collection of buttons. It nearly killed me to pay almost the same price as a bag of PTI buttons in which you get somewhere between 200-500 buttons but in this case I got 15 buttons. Ouch. But, they were cute. I liked them. I got them. Next to the buttons are two rolls of Japanese washi tape. One teal stripe, one red stripe. Fun. Below the washi tape, a Memento Cantaloupe re-inker. I've been using my little Cantaloupe Dew Drop ink pad like crazy lately and there is nothing worse than a dry ink pad, so now I'm covered (no pun intended!). Finally, below the re-inker is a wood mount stamp. I got that for 30% off. Nice. It says "In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends." How true is that? I got that stamp to use on some cards for some friends who are going through some very rough health issues. All in all, I had a lot of fun at Impress yesterday!

Now for some pics of my latest card creations. My PTI August release arrived last Monday so I was able to play with my new goodies throughout the week:


This one features Harvest Berries, Gratitude Journal, the Mat Stack 1 Layerz die and the Bloom Builders #3 die.

This one uses all three of the Mat Stack 1 dies together, the solid frame image from Mat Stack 1, the Simple Sunflower images and dies and the Mehndi Medallion impression plate.

This one uses more of the Simple Sunflower images and dies. I pulled out my Fillable Frames #10 die and frame as well. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Indie Bloom 6 x 6 pad. This card will fit inside one of the terra cotta envelopes I got yesterday.

If you stuck with me this far, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. I've got two four-day work weeks sandwiching the Labor Day weekend, and I'm very happy about that!

Take care!

August PTI Blog Hop: Photo Inspiration

Happy Thursday! I'm back with my card for this month's PTI blog hop. This month brought another photo as inspiration for our projects:

I picked three things from this photo to incorporate into my project: the jar of yummy goodness, the red color and the patterned liner of the case which looked like wall paper. Here is my card:

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of the hop!

PaperTrey Playhouse: Same Tag Challenge

Krista sent each of us who are members of the PaperTrey Playhouse a manila tag with a stamped image and some additional paper and trim embellishments along with some other die cuts to play with. Here is the card I made (please click on the image to get a closer look):

I had some sunflower stamps from SU! that a friend gave me. I thought they would look good in the jar, but unfortunately the scale wasn't quite right; the flowers are just a tad too small. Oh well, sometimes our ideas work, sometimes they don't! In addition to the tag, I used one of the small jewelry tags and the paper doily that Krista included in my packet. It was a fun challenge and definitely pushed me outside of my tried and true craft style. Thanks for the great challenge, Krista!

PaperTrey Playhouse Challenge: Fall

Long time, no post! I'm back with my card for the current PaperTrey Playhouse challenge, to make a fall or Halloween themed project. I love Halloween, but as I was inspired by all of the gratitude projects during this month's PTI release countdown, I decided to make a card celebrating fall and the season of gratitude (which really should be celebrated all year, not just one season).


I'm grateful for you for stopping by my blog! Have a great week!

MIM: Coloring with white ink

Hi again. I'm back with another post today. This time it's for the Make It Monday challenge, coloring with white ink. I die cut the largest Beautiful Blooms II 3 die and used the negative space as a mask over my card front. I then sponged white ink inside the mask and created daisies. Daisies are such cheerful flowers, aren't they? (Isn't that a line or something similar that Meg Ryan says in "You've Got Mail"? Love that movie, it's such a sweet chick flick.). You can't help but smile when you see them.

Enjoy the day!