Just Us Girls #91 sketch....You're a lifesaver

Hey Just Us Girls fans.  Time for our first challenge in July...can you believe July has already begun?  This week is a sketch from Kathryn.  You are gonna love this one...

 

I tapped my stash of Cosmo Cricket  Elements from the Snorkel collection.  So many cute images in this set.  I decided the "lifesaver" element  would be a fun way to say thanks to someone and also, that I could replicate the simple design of the life ring onto my card to represent the circle in our sketch. 

 

I had fun trimming myself an ocean wave strip and stringing my thanks mini tag like a tow line from the ring.  Couldn't resist adding some turquoise bling from Want2Scrap for a little shimmer on the ocean waves.



The water was sparkling as blue as the bling for real today as the girls and I hit the beach for some fun with friends ....  I love summer!

For more bright and shining inspiration, check out the Just Us Girls DT

Kristin Eberline

Pam Imholz

Maria Levine

Lisa Kind

Andrea Matthews

Kathryn Berthiaume

Elise Durenberger

And be sure to check out our July Featured Designer the talented Christina MacLaren!  Welcome Christina!  It's so nice to have you!

Paper: Cosmo Cricket, Bazzil Basics and Stampin Up!

Stamps: My Cute Stamps

Ink: Stampin Up!

Bling: 72 Count - Turquoise Rhinestones - Self Adhesive

Corner Rounder: CM

Craft Supply: jewelry tag, embroidery floss, sewing machine

 

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop Sensational Scallops plus Color Throwdown!

Happy friday!  Today is Papertrey Ink's Blog hop featuring sensational scallops!  It has been a loooong time since I was able to participate in in a blog hop with PTI and almost equally as long since I've played with the gals over at the Color Throwdown!

Here's what I came up with....

So where are the scallops you ask???

I decided to use a scalloped circle die by Spellbinders to create a felt rose flower.

After die cutting the scalloped circle, I spiral cut the circle using a waving and random cut.

I started by rolling the outside edge of the spiral upon itself in order to build the flower from the inside out.  Once nearing the center, I applied Fabri-tac and finished rolling the flower all the way to the end.

This is the bottom of the rolled flower ready to be capped with the remaining circle of attached felt.

The bottom....

Once complete there is a nice dimension to the flower.  The height depends on how thick or thin you cut your spiral in the beginning.

I adorned the flower center with yellow sharpie colored Want2Scrap white pearls and added some pearl beaded trim I had in my stash which extends off the edge of the card.

Wow!  Check out all the different textures!  I love the contrasts and compliments in the ingredients of this card.  Especially the GORGEOUS die cut from Spellbinders Fancy Tag 2 set!  I would like to say thank you very much Spellbinders for your gorgeous products and I look forward to pairing up Nestability dies with Want2Scrap custom bling starting April 1!

So thank you so much for stopping by my blog today!  If this is your first time by I wish you a hearty "Hello" and for those returning, "nice to see you again"!  Have a great friday, friends, and I'll be back later tp share the latest challenge from the Just Us Girls DT tomorrow!

Supplies:

Stamps: Papertrey Ink

Paper: Papertrey Ink

Ink: Stampin Up

Bling: Want2Scrap

Die Cuts: Spellbinders

Embosser: Cuttlebug

Craft supply: buttons, orange sewing thread, craft felt, twine, doily, pearl beaded trim

 

Just Us GIrls #69...I beg your pardon but this looks like a rose garden!

Oh my goodness!  Just WAIT until you see alllll of the beautiful roses blooming in the Just Us Girls challenge garden!  I'm telling you, they are knock your socks off GORGEOUS!  Thanks to the fabulous grunge rose technique illustrated by none other than Mr Tim Holtz, Just Us Girls is challenging you to join us in the garden with your handmade flower.

I used grungepaper, ink and stickles on my flower and was pleased to find, the more you add and play with this flower, the prettier it gets.  There is no one way to do this, because I tell ya, EVERY way is stunning!
See what I mean?  These flowers are so realistic looking when you are done.  I highly suggest a glue gun for gluing the petals...less wait time.  Also, you don't need to do these with grungepaper, cardstock works well too.  To stick with the garden theme I had going, I chose DP from the Once Upon a Springtime Graphic 45 collection plus a Martha Stewart butterfly punch....the vintage seamstress measuring tape(which fits the City Crafters Challenge this week for stitching), seam binding, and custom colored Want2Scrap Kimmie bling swirls are simply because I loved them on this card.  The layout was inspired by the current Mojo Monday sketch #175

If you haven't already visited the Just Us Girls blog, you are in for a treat!  If you already have, then just nod knowingly and smile!  :)  I hope you'll stop by all the JUGs girls blogs and leave a little love along with our fabulous guest designer, Carla Suto! and then JOIN US in the celebration of handmade roses!  Can't wait to see what you make! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Grazie....and a smashing sale, bling at 88 cents!

Have you seen this?!!! If you follow the Want 2 Scrap blog, you've already loaded up your sleigh with half price items and 88 cent BLING after seeing the blog post announcement on monday! Oh my! I can hear the sleigh bells already! If you haven't, RUN don't walk on over to the Want 2 Scrap store! I do love a good bling sale and for that I say....

grazie! and thanks! Check out the teeny tiny pearl bling dotting the "i" in grazie above. For 88 cents, I can dot 72 "i's" with an assortment package of bling or 100 "i's" with a package of baby bling! (did I tell you bling was on sale at Want 2 scrap?) ;)

This card was made for a dear friend whose family roots are in lovely Lucca, Italy. She is incredibly passionate about her Italian heritage and was super supportive during the planning of my recent trip. I took the opportunity to share some of my favorite shots from Lucca on a thank you card I made for her. Lucca is a charming walled town that was full of beautiful old buildings, bicycles, families, churches and I hope some day I get to return with my friend so she can show me HER Lucca.

Ok friends, have to run....just wanted to share the hot sale news.  Happy shopping! 

Just Us Girls #60 Color Challenge....{thanks, Coach}

Hey y'all!  It's saturday so time for more Just Us Girls fun!  This week is a Color Challenge from our sweet Lisa.  She pulled these great colors from her!  Love it Lisa!

Ca-ute huh?  This is not a usual color pallette for me but I found it worked great on a couple thank you notes I wanted to make for my daughter's running coaches.  Cards magazine Blog is also calling for "thank yous" this week.

A few words on coaches.....Many times in my life I have had the opportunity to say "thanks, coach".  Playing sports and being encouraged by extraordinary coaches when I was younger definitely is an important part of who I am now.  And now, as a parent, I have the honor of watching my daughters grow confident and reach for their personal best, even at the young ages of 6 and 9, under the guidance of special people they call "coach".  Today, saturday, my 9 year old will do something I have yet to do, and that is run a 5K race!  Jaycee, her teammates and her Girls on the Run coaches have been practicing and training since September and it all culminates with the race on the 20th!  If you have never heard of it, Girls on the Run is a wonderful program for 3rd-6th grade girls.  The girls train for the 5K while learning about healthy lifestyles and self respect....it's a great "whole girl" program.  It has been an awesome experience.  I can't wait to see her cross her finish line with her aunt and my dear, dear friend!

Speaking of "girl power", be sure and check out the challenge over at Just Us Girls!  Not only is there a fab color challenge, but we are SO excited to celebrate 700 followers!  Just for the fun of it, we have a little giveaway going on.  Check it out!  I hope you'll stop by and see all the details on the designers blogs and leave a little love and also, check out our guest designer for November, Cheryl Rowley!

OK, friends, I'm out-ty.  Have a great weekend!

Supplies:
Paper:Anna Griffin
Stamps: Papertrey Ink
Bling: Want 2 Scrap Amber rhinestones
Dies: Papertrey Ink, Spellbinders
Ink: Stampin Up and Papertrey Ink
Ribbon: Papertrey Ink
Embosser: Cuttlebug
craft supply: brads

Papertrey May Blog Hop Challenge + GS39

It's all about FELT tonight on the blog hop with Papertrey Ink!  I love felt!  It's a very forgiving fabric and it's easy to use.  Tonight I'm using it to create my own felt embellishment inspired by this cute DP from October Afternoon!

The layout is inspired by the sketch over at Get Sketchy.  I turned the sketch on it's side and got to it.

I grabbed three different school oriented papers (college rule, alphabet printing practice and vintage dictionary) from around the house plus a great piece of canvas measuring tape I found at a local secondhand shop.  These were combined with the fabulous new Dotty Biscotti paper from PTI along with a sentiment from Damask Designs.  Add it all together with my handmade felt apple and I've got a pile of thank yous for my daughter's kindergarten teachers! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  It's been forever and a day since I was able to play on blog hop night.  I'm so glad to be back!  See you all on the hop!

Fork, Knife and Spoon with SCAL and a discount from Canda Crafts! EBTKS challenge too *whew*

Hey friends!  I have a card to share based on the awesome sketch from the girls at Everything but the Kitchen Sink!  This great sketch was the perfect thing to show off a new cut I made with my cricut and SCAL software.  The fork, knife and spoons cut out just as I had invisioned them!  I just think they are so cute!  and perfect for thanking our friends for a lovely dinner at their home. 

I was recently contacted by Canda of Canda Crafts and she has offered a sweet discount to all of my readers.  10 percent off your total order!  If you have ever thought about purchasing the SCAL software ( I am now a TOTAL believer!) now would b e a good time!  Check out all Canda has to offer with the link below.

Coupon Code: JUGS315
Expiration Date: 3/15/10
Discount: 10% off ENTIRE purchase
Canda Craft

Thanks so much for coming by today!

Supplies:
Paper: October Afternoon, Papertrey and Amuse
Cricut and SCAL
craft supply: ribbon

Just Us Girls #21 color challenge.....Thank {you}

Hello friends!  It's saturday and time for another challenge with Just Us Girls.  This week is a color challenge by the amazing Maria!

Ivory, chocolate, coral and just a dash of raspberry!  Yum!  Sounds like dessert!

I started by finding the piece of basic grey and then backed it with the melon berry grid paper from Papertrey Ink.  I *made* the flower  using my CRICUT and SCAL!  Oh boy!  I am soooooo hooked on my Cricut now because of this software.  Forget the fact that I bought WAY too many cricut cartridges several years ago.  The fact that I can use SCAL to create and cut basically any image I can find is amazing!  I found a daisy silhouette online and cut two of the eight petal flowers above, embossed them with a damask folder and inked to enhance the embossed pattern.  The rest of the card came together with a repurposed tag I had in my basket o' findings on my desk, some lace and chipboard letters.

OK, just one more shot of my daisy.  I'm am just tickled I was able to make my computer talk to my cricut and cut it out without a major learning curve.  Oh the possibilities for creativity.  Speaking of creativity, check out the rest of the JUGs this week for more inspired color challenge cards!

Iwona Palamountain, Guest Designer

Kristin Bueter

Pam Imholz

Maria Levine

Tracey Cuccia

Lisa Kind

Mona Pendleton

Alicia Weiman

OK friends, let's get creative!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies:

Paper: Basic Grey, Papertrey Ink, Georgia Pacific

Ink: Papertrey Ink and Stampin Up

Stamps: Papertrey Ink

Punch: Fiskars and Stampin Up

Embosser: Cuttlebug

Chipboard Alpha: Heidi Swapp

Craft Supply: lace, button, embroidery floss, ribbon, office tag

A card for Tara

I got a little of piece of happy mail from tarajeane on the PTI message board about a week ago. It had these great tags from Every Jot and Tittle Etsy store inside. Lovely Tara was willing to share the tags if we would all make something with them to share and I finally had a chance to put this little card together with one of those tags last night. So this is for you, Tara! Tara happens to have some great cards to check out at her blog here. I started with stamping some of the smaller damask images from Dawn's Damask Designs on the inner area of the tag. I masked the edges with a couple sticky notes so the images would stay inside the black border. I then stamped the sentiment from the same set over the yellow damask.

I decided to make this card gate fold so the adorable tag could hang over the opening edge a little...sort of acts as a tab to open the card. The rest is paper and scallop punching but one tip on the button. It had a fairly tall shank which I did not want to clip off because I threaded my ribbon through it. To balance the button on the right side, I used half of a dimensional dot underneath to prop it up.

One final step was to do a little something to the inside. I mounted a piece of corner rounded cream cardstock stamped with the large damask image inside. I have been loving all of the cards out there with the surprise inside...this was my attempt. The yellow is light enough to write a message over the top with a black or grey pen.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Wassau (teal shimmer), CM (yellow)

Printed paper: PTI Bitty dots basics in Raspberry fizz

Tag: Every Jot and Tittle on Etsy

Stamps: PTI Damask Designs

Punch: SU! scallop and CM corner rounder

Ink: SU! summer sun and going grey

Other: ribbon and button

Thank U

TGIF everyone! I wanted to post something new on the blog-o so this is a fun little card I made a while back. I love this happy pink and green card and every time I see it, I am reminded I need to use that SU! stamp set more! LOL I whipped up this cutie for my friend, Tamara, to thank her for the effort she puts into organizing 4 day retreats three times a year. I tell you, the scrappin' and crafting and laughing to be done on retreat is like no other...way cheaper than therapy and so much more fun ;). You can find more retreat info here : Retreats

Supplies...the paper is Collage Press and the stamps and ink are SU!. The ribbon came from a costco. The super cute shiny green bead in the center of the flower came from a bracelet of my daughter's that broke...never toss a good embellie right? hee hee

I hope to get a little crafting in this weekend as a reward for good behavior. I am doing tax and health insurance paperwork blech! I'm sure I'll earn that little bit of fun time! What are you doing this weekend? Any crafting? I'd love for you to leave me a link to your projects in my comments. I can't get enough blog browsing! So thanks for stopping by and have a fab and crafty weekend....