Live Simply...

I love these Stamp Sets! Here with Serene Silhouettes and Pursuit of Happiness I created this card for my amazing cousin, Ingrid, who was recently diagnosed with Cancer. This past week she started losing her hair and decided to shave it all off.

It weighed heavily on my heart, I don't mind cutting my hair shorter, but all of it?? Sigh, she is stunning with or without but how could I hug her (I'm in California and she is in Indiana).

Well, I have read that a card is a hug with paper and I created this card to hopefully encourage her.

What do you think?? I started with this lovely DSP pack in hour Holiday Idea Book called Festival of Prints and the amazing selection really allows for all types of flavors of cards!

I used this Crumb Cake and Vanilla piece and the Color Coach recommended that Chocolate Chip is a coordinating color. I then nabbed our Chocolate Chip paper and ink (the new stamp pads are just dreamy!). I stamped this flowered stamp on the DSP and then with Versa Mark I stamped this sentiment to encourage Ingrid. I embossed it with Gold powder.

With our Gold Smooch Sprit I covered the card in this fun gold spritz that is just too lovely. I used our tiny pearls and used them on the center of each stamped flower. I LOVE the total effect! It's a simple and fun card to make. I hope that when she opens this in her mail, she will feel love and my hugs!!

Howwww would you write on the inside?!?!! The Stampin' Dazzle pen in Gold is ideal to wrap this up! I hope you can feel the love in this card, that Ingrid does too! Hugs y'all! Prayers are always welcome for Ingrid and her family. Xo!

A Gift for Our teacher

We were excited to hear that our Carina is getting the same Pre K teacher that our son, Sal, had at Christian Preschool of Thousand Oaks! Mrs Curtis has a son who plays in the same Flag Football league and seeing her over the years has been a blast! She has seen me through 2 Pregnancies, a major car accident where two of my girls and I were TBoned. We just love Mrs. Curtis and our preschool!

Carina wanted to make a present and this is the fun lil gift that we made for her. It was fun and easy to do with my quality time and my Preschooler! We decorated this pad of paper with the DSP from Twitterpated in Riding hood red color scheme.

I stamped our two apples from the Perfectly Preserved stamp set on Shimmer Paper in Riding Hood Red ink and stems in Old Olive. With our snips I cut out the apples and then restamped the apples alternating design per page.

I Hot Glued this DSP on the top of the pad. I used the hot glue to adhere the subtle sparkled apples to the top of the pad. Iiii love this sweet lil pad and can't wait for the intro class tomorrow morning! One thing teachers sooo send home are notes! I hope this is just her style! Whoo Hoo! Mrs Curtis and preschool!

School Starts

It's that Season... I'm whipping out Fall inspired decorations, Apples, Pumpkins will soon follow... I'm decorating with School Books, School Paper and Preparing for the new school year!  (What?!?!  Didn't you know School starting is a Celebrations Season?!?!!)

 

Last night, I worked our PTA School Open Evening where I am Head of the Spirit Wear Committee and LOVE creating new clothes that our Uniformed Students can wear on Fridays... another fun outlet for my creative spirit.. lol.  Thisss year I have an actual team and WOW did the new Spirit Wear Line come out Amazing!

 

In Prep for the New School Year and the three classes my four youngest will attend at two schools - lol - I've created this Banner... it helps me to feel connected to this new season in life.  My son will start 3rd Grade, one of our daughters 1st, our other daughter will be in PreK too!  It gladdens me to see how wonderful they are doing, how great they are and the loving hearts they have at this age.  It saddens me to realize that time is like trying to hold sand in my fingers during a storm, it blows away so quickly with little to hold onto.

 

I hope that this blog header, created with our easy to use and fun MDS2 inspires you to have FUN with this Holiday Season.  Yes, it's a holiday... we look back at the past school year and summer, the changes in our kids and ourselves... the summer of warm memories, beaches, kids fighting, pulling hair and complaining that they couldn't have ice cream all day long.. lol... So here, with 15 mintues, one Program and some meeee time to get creative... I created this Post Card and used it for my New Banner (for here and my FB business page). 

 

So I'm sending them back and though I'll miss them, I look forward to schedules, the kids being tuckered out by books, teachers and friends... sigh... time to clean my home, quality time with my baby girl (who is my last lil angel).  So raise your cup with me, whip out some Apples, sharpen some pencils, stock up on Composition Paper books.... Fall is right around the corner and School Is IN Session!!  Whoot!  Whoot! (said the mom with 6 kids - lol)
I created this slightly different version for the FB Pg... lol

 

Tooth fairy sprinkles

I've struggled with my son keeping himself organized. His room quickly becomes a war zone and he rarely follows through or remembers where he places things.

He lost his tooth box (the one I have had since a young girl) and when he and his sister both lost a tooth, before our dentist appointment yesterday, I told him to place it in the box that I'd used as a child. His sister put it in her box (see the picture attached). He apparently dropped his tooth on the floor in his room.

When my hubby and I couldn't find his tooth last night we created this note (see the blue attached note).

I was impressed with a post on Pintrest that encouraged spraying dollar bills with hair spray then sprinkling glitter. Iiiii thought that I could do better. So with our Vanilla Smooch Spritz I sprayed the note and the dollar bills with a fine and lovely shimmery mist! It was wayyyy less messy than most other ways and sheer enough to not take away from the actual dollar bill!

Our daughter was excited to find her dollar bill, our son was upset to find this note. I located the missing tooth on his floor. My daughter's box is a wedding favor box from Michaels and a retired stamp Tooth Fairy. Now to make him a masuline tooth box..... Hmmm.

Being inspired... My Digital Studio

I love that our My Digital Studio can create sooooo many amazing things! Here is a sampling of some great pieces of inspiration that Stampin' Up! Created with our MDS2. An amazing program that is so user friendly! I love creating inspiration and gifts with it! If a mom of 6 can do it, almost anyone can!

Stampin' Up! Has made it FREE to try! 30 days with no obligation to buy! Let's talk so you can give it a try!

Roar tastic Birthday wishes!

Happy 7th birthday Luca! When our cousins son turned 7 I looked forward to making a fun card for him. My son, Sal, loves dinosaurs and helped me to make this fun card for Luca.

With a Crumb Cake base we stamped with Chocolate Chip ink these cute dinosaurs. I like that they aren't too cartoony. Then we went in with Cherry Cobbler pen and Garden Green to highlight the different dinosaurs and the words. Sal wanted to add rocks and the green grass (I love that the marker can paint on stamps too!). We used the cupcake punch to create these boulders in Chocolate Chip paper, using SNAIL adhesive the boulders down.

A fun and simple card. Sal said it was perfect, for a boy. Lol. He made sure I didn't add any bling! Gotta love my honest boy!

I hope your day ROARS with fun! Our day at the beach, celebrating Luca sure did! (Dolphins were in the waves, kids swimming, family and friends.... What a lovely Southern California day!).

Pink framed flower

Want to create a quick frame?? It's easy! With our Big Shot one can create a frame with texture and frame the loveliest of images!

Here I used a fun technique called Baby Wipe Stamping. It's easy and can create the coolest of images! Here with this stunning flower from the stamp set Blooming with Kindness I created a pink tie died effect.

Using a baby wipe I took re inkers in Melon Mambo and Pretty in Pink and dropped them in a general circle on the baby wipe (Use a protective plate under the wipe as the color do seep through. I'd recommend, too, not a paper plate.). I randomly dropped the Pretty in Pink ink the filled in with Melon Mambo.

Having created a fun lil stamp pad (this is good to use for multiple applications). I stamped this stunning flower to ink it up (just like a regular stamp pad). I then stamped the image on our Shimmer Paper. It created multi level pink tie died looking flower! I cut the flower out with our Paper Snips.

I then took a card front (1/4 of an 8 1/2" x 11" paper) and I cut out this window frame with a Framelit from the Labels Collection. Having this cute frame was great but unwanted some texture. I thought the new Fancy Fan Folder mimicked the shape of the flower I'd cut out.

Here I adhered the flower (with SNAIL adhesive) to the frame so that it peeked out how I liked. I then layer the frame down to figure where I wanted my sentiment to be. This helped me not guess where the sentiment would lay.

I used our adorable new slider (from the Holiday Mini) on a Pretty in Pink ribbon and adhered it down with SNAIL adhesive.

Using our Dimensional adhesive I layered the frame on the front of this Pretty In Pink card. There is real depth when you add that Dimensional adhesive!! How, the flower peaks out? The ribbon n slider are already adhered and the sentiment is perfectly placed! I LOVE the monochromatic tie died flower and the subtle shimmer of the Shimmer Paper!

What do you think?? What would you frame? Don't you just love the Subtle layered levels and how the adhesive really lends to a real frame?? You can really frame anything (pictures, stamps, punched flowers or animals, texture... Anything!!).

I hope you have fun framing pretty things in your life!!

National Waffle Day

Whether it was Eggo waffles, Bisquick, Glutten Free or the kind your Grandma made... There are few goods as good as the Waffle!! Here is my "Toast" to it (ha, ha, ha). I don't know about you, but this is a favorite food of mine!!

With my friend Crystal Effects I created this 3D wet syrup look! Start with Crumb Cake paper and punch with our Postal Punch these lil waffle wholes. I sponged the edges of the card and these punched waffle squares/wholes. I did more on the lil punched squares so that it'd look like it was deep (Belgian waffle??).

Here I used our SNAIL adhesive and laid it out like this. I then drizzled the Crystal Effects to look like syrup. More for ones like my hubby n son who love tons of syrup, "filling in the squares" to resemble the filled in squares.

Crystal Effects will go on murky and milky looking. If you don't brush it but leave it wet n 3D, it will dry that way anywhere from 30 min to an hour. I like to leave it overnight. It will dry your wet mark to look like a shade or two darker than the color of the cardstock it is on. What a simple but sweet card!

I hope you enjoy this sweet day. Toast it with something yummy!!

National Waffle Day

Today marks the anniversary of the day Cornelius Swarthout patented the waffle iron, way back in 1869. Little did he know, the world would be forever changed. Well, maybe not the whole world, but breakfast would be forever changed.

Vacation with my family

Our last whoo raaah before school starts and we had to snag a vacation at the beach! Oceanside and Carlsbad are a close enough but far enough location for us. The odd humid n drizzle weather is here but the view helped wipe away any concerns it may have brought on.

Here we are.... Snagging some last minute summer fun!!