Friday, June 29, 2012

Fun with Unity Stamps!

Hi there friends! It's been a while, but I'm still hangin' around. The last week or two have really kicked my butt, but lucky for me the last few days have been better.

I've got a couple of fun shares today. The Bella Blvd. card designers were asked to get creative with the Unity Stamps that match their latest lines. SO, I pulled out the ol' stamping pad and got to work. Here's what I came up with.
"A Little Birdie Told Me"

I had fun making this one--lots of hand-cutting. I also didn't have any white ink so I used my white Mister Huey to stamp the flowers. Didn't turn out too bad if I do say so myself.

"How's it Hangin'?"

And I made this one with someone specific in mind, a sweet little friend who happens to be away at kamp right now and LOVES monkeys. I couldn't NOT make a monkey card for her.  To do it I added leaves both under and on top of the tree. I cut them freehand and then inked the edges so they'd stand out a little more. I can't wait to for her to get it!


And that's about it for today. Hope you're all have a great Thursday! Be sure to check out what the other designers did with their Unity Stamps on today's Bella Blvd. blog post.


Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Bella Buzz

The June issue of the Bella Buzz (the newsletter) is here! If you have not signed up yet, you can do so HERE. Be sure to get on the subscriber list so you won't miss the coming issues but in case you have missed one you can find previous issues HERE.

 NEW BELLA BUZZ PROMO IMAGE




Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to a terrific Daddy! I love the way you love them and I wouldn't trade you for the world!

And also a Happy Father's Day to my dad and my father-in-law! Both are such wonderful men! We're fortunate to have them in our lives as daddies and grandaddies!


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Week(s) in review

I was doing a little blog hopping earlier and when I read my friend Virginia's blog, I realized I hadn't updated some summer pictures. SO here's a little bit of what's been keeping us busy lately.

Baking--I think I've made 4 peach cobbler's so far. And last night I tried THIS strawberry cobbler recipe from Pinterest. Everybody gave it a thumbs up.

We were visited once again by our dear friends from Florida. They couldn't stay long, but it was SO good to see them! (little man didn't want in the picture, but wouldn't move either. ha! We're closing in on 2, can ya tell?)

We went to Alabama to celebrate Josh's grandparents 65th wedding anniversary with the rest of his family. I can't begin to imagine 65 years! Wow, what a testimony! (sorry for the blur)

The girls participated in Music Camp once again. This is the shot from their finale song. Mrs. Mindy does such a fabulous job!

Painting with colored shaving cream--one way to pass the time on a rainy day.

Daddy's been playing softball. (And i took thewrong lens to the field, so I couldn't get that pesky chainlink fence out of my shot.)


And while the girls were at Music Camp, Bub and I had a little fun of our own. We went to a birthday party and did a little photo shoot (that didn't turn out so great). I found that it's REALLY hard to take shots of a almost-2-year-old when you're by yourself. I wound up doing more chasing than shooting. I took this one while literally on the run.

So that about sums us up. Hope you all are enjoying your summer too!


Friday, June 15, 2012

Father's Day cards

I had a couple of Father's Day cards up on the Bella Blvd. blog yesterday. I hope the dads in my life aren't reading my blog as of late, because otherwise they just got a peek of what's to come. Here's what I made:



Bowties for my dad. He's been wearing ever since I can remember, ESPECIALLY when they weren't in style! lol! But I guess his favorite accessory has now come back "in" and I made a card just for him!



And then for the all-star dad in my husband, who's an amazing father btw, this one's for him. Instead of a sports-themed "all-star" I chose to just go with stars instead. Hope he likes it. So far I've actually kept it hidden from him.

Hope you and yours have a fantastic Father's Day!

PS--Is it hard for everyone else to make a masculine card? I found it quite difficult to not make something with a hint of pink or a frill somewhere.


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Celebrate Summer crop starts today!!

 

My Scrapbook Nook is having a summer long crop with LOTS of challenges for the self-paced scrapper. You can sit and do them all in a weekend or spread them out as time allows. Either way there's lots of inspiration to be shared! Come check it out!   

And just so you know, my challenge is based on my favorite drive-in drink the Sonic slush! You don't want to miss it!! 

Happy Tuesday everyone!


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Cards a Bella

I have two cards up on the Bella Blvd. blog today. I got a little technique-y with them, and it was fun. I challenged myself to create some cards without using any patterned paper. It's not that I don't love Bella paper. No, it's quite the opposite actually. But I was at a point where I felt like all my cards were looking alike, and I was just going through the motions when making them. Thus the self-imposed challenge. Here's what I cooked up:
"Thanks"
  My solution for the no-patterned paper challenge was Bella's Designer washi tape. I'm absolutely smitten with it, I adore it so much! Here I layered several different patterns and emellished with buttons and flowers.

 "Smile"

Since I'd broken out of my card "rut", I decided to go back to some patterned paper for this one but to add a misted mask shape as the foundation. Then I piled on the chipboard, flower, tapes as leaves and flags. This one was a lot of fun to make!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you're having a fabulous Thursday!


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: I love the Market edition




 mmm...kettle corn, just picked peaches, and fresh veggies!



Fun news headed my way!

As of today....

I'm super excited about this one! I've followed the Creative Scrappers blog for as long as I can remember, and even though I don't always get to participate, I've also loved the sketches. SO I was really excited when I realized that the timing was finally right for me to apply to be a part of their DT and I was even MORE excited when I got an email asking me to join!

Here's the list of wonderful ladies I'll be joining:

Olga Heldwein - Poland
Jenny Evans - USA
Ana Castro - Brazil
Véronique Gagné - Canada
Stacey Apps - Australia

Katarzyna Grzegorzewska - Poland
Helen Tilbury - South Africa
Michelle Buijsman - Netherlands
Anna Komenda - Poland
Debbi Tehrani - USA

Elisabeth Bakken -
Deanna Misner - USA <-----that's me!!
Marilyn Rivera - Puerto Rico
Elana Olinevich - Belarus
Keren Tamir - Canada

Sil Barros - Brazil
Kathleen Skou - USA
Chiqui Gutierrez - Philippines
Tracee Provis - United Kingdom
Rita Ribeiro - Brazil

And a BIG thank you Kristine for inviting me to be on the team!  I can't wait to get started!!!
 


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Sunshine crop

This weekend Creative Scrappers had a crop, a Sunshine Crop, in which they share 4 sketches. There was an Early Bird sketch (see my layout in the post below), 2 regular sketches, and 1 timed sketch.  This weekend turned out to be busier for me than I first thought it'd be, so I finished this one (sketch #2) and called it a day.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it:

"Rambunctious"

 
To create the layout, I used some of my winnings from a Pebbles Inc. blog giveaway to document a fun moment the girls had at the wedding a few weekends ago.  They got pretty antsy waiting for the official pictures to finish up, and I caught them playing around in the back of the chapel. With those two, you never really know WHAT they're up to. But I love that I was able to catch such a fun candid moment.

So anyway, that's just a teeny tiny part of how I've spent the weekend. Actually I've spent A LOT of weekend with the rest of the fam enjoying events downtown. Yesterday was the North Short Art Party, and today we went to the Market after church. I got the best locally grown strawberries and peaches, and oooh the kettle corn was sooo good!  Even though we really far away from family and friends, sometimes I can't help but love our little city!

Happy Sunday everyone!



Saturday, June 2, 2012

Well let's see...

It seems like I've got a lot of catching up to do. I don't know exactly why, but this past week was really hard for me to get through. Not any one thing in particular, but I guess it was the little stuff like not having a car for 10 days. What? You mean I didn't mention it? Yep, good ol' me lost my car keys and didn't find them until 10 days later. TEN DAYS. With everyone home for the summer, and no where to go. But we tried to make the most of it. We had friends over for a Memorial Day cookout. The kids had a bike and trike car wash that turned in to a waterhose fight. We pulled out the sandbox-turned-baby-pool and played in it. Overall it wasn't that bad. And we've settled in to a nice little summer routine which is nice too.

I've also got a few projects to share. Lately I've really been digging sketches. There's just something about a good sketch that gets me fired up. Both of these two layouts are using Creative Scrappers sketches.

"A Very Special Day"
CS sketch #209


"Sunshine and Happy Days"
CS Sunshine Crop Early Bird sketch

This week I also had 2 cards featured on the Bella Blvd. blog, both of which used the new Sunshine & Happiness  collection.
"Making Memories"


"Thank you"


And that's about it for today. I've got a mini-album to share, and hopefully a few more layouts are going to be cranked out over the weekend. We'll see. Sorry for the kinda long random post, but thanks for hanging in there with me.

Happy weekend!