I'm off

well ladies, it's about time! I'm headed off to my honeymoon shortly :) We're celebrating our "almost anniversary." Hehe, I'll explain... due to my hubby's Army training schedule, our original wedding date at the end of last August had to be post-phoned until last December. What with all the changing of plans and Armyness, we ended up not being able to go on our honeymoon in December. Soooo, with deployment rapidly approaching, we have "guaranteed" leave {as guaranteed as the military gets!} and so we're finally taking our honeymoon to WALT DISNEY WORLD!!! <-- the happiest amusement park on earth :D It'll be my 15th trip and his first... hehe needless to say I'm super excited! So on the anniversary of our *almost* original wedding date, we're finally getting to go on our honeymoon. Praise, God! No seriously... we know that this is His timing, that we were meant to go now, and so we will enjoy it :) Needless to say, I'll be MIA from crafting for a while... but I'll be back as soon as we're done honeymooning ;)
Have a blessed beginning of September! :D

Christmas in August: Part 2

A continuation of projects for Moxie Fab's week of holiday-ness! Again, as I'm leaving on honeymoon soon & trying to squeeze in as much crafting as possible, I won't be listing supplies this week- comment if you're interested in knowing anything though & I'll let you know!


Moxie's "Fun & Cute" {though I almost put it as "Classy & Elegant"} & Cupcake Craft #54's "shaped card"




Moxie's "Fun & Cute" & "Show Us Your Sheetload" sketch

{Inside of card}


Moxie's "Fun & Cute" inspired by Kim Hughes' card



Moxie's "Fun & Cute"

{Above: Set of 10 tags}
{Left: Close up}



ornament : Moxie's "Classy & Elegant" & Colour Create #26's "Ruby, Gold, Cream"






Moxie's "Vintage & Shabby Chic"

{close up of postage stamps}

Christmas in August

Moxie Fab is having a week-long theme of Christmas to celebrate their holiday issue of PaperCrafts mag! Here are a few things I created. I'll be updating late with my last crafts before leaving for honeymoon :) Again, as I'm leaving on honeymoon soon & trying to squeeze in as much crafting as possible, I won't be listing supplies this week- comment if you're interested in knowing anything though & I'll let you know!

Moxie's "Clean & Graphic" & 2Sketches4You's Laura's Sketch #33
& DCRU's "Keep the Date"



Moxie's "Vintage & Shabby Chic" {I think mine lands somewhere in the middle...}

Prior submit

Since none of my cards got picked up by PC, here are some of them I submitted. I submitted the rest to another magazine, so I'm not posting those at this time.

Combination wedding & thank you set




Use only three items {outside paper trimmer, cardstock, and adhesive}






Bling

Baby Shower!!!

So I hosted my friend's baby shower {you've seen the various creations over the past month or two} and wanted to show you some photos!! It's a grey & yellow "Elephant Alphabet" theme {they don't know the gender}.

Click on any photo to bring up a larger photo!

Favor cake: inspiration from Dicut Diva. Note the little elephant sock under the cake :D It rattles too... hehe! I had cute baby rub-ons on the cake, but when I assembled them, I realized they were on the wrong side- whoops! So I used the Hero Arts baby feet stamp on the tops.
I handmade the elephant on top- loved them! There's another on top of the diaper cake below.

Made this in Photoshop. Framed it with a simple white fram from Michaels. Original inspiration found on stem parties.

The guestbook, where guests can leave words of wisdom for the mamma-to-be, and if you follow my blog, you've already seen it many times {here} and {here} and {here}

Game cards I made up: Baby Bingo {where you fill in with items you think each guest gave as a gift} and Baby Word Scramble. Just whipped these up super quick in Word.

Towel cake- top layer is onesies surrounded with burp cloths, bottom is a baby blanket I made {see post here} surrounded by burp cloths. Here's the second elephant I sewed, so cute :)

Baby letters I found in a discount bin at Michaels- painted them up in the party colors

Cupcakes made from scratch- third ever attempt at doing fancy icing with a piping bag :D dyed the icing deep yellow and sprinkled with grey sugar glitter


Altered tea tins, we stuck a few gerber daisies in each and guests got to bring them home as door prizes!

Button Storage

So recently I reorganized my buttons because they outgrew their drawer! I put them in the drawers at the base of my Making Memories caddy. From top, clockwise-
{yellow & brown}
{red & orange}
{purple & pink}
{green & blue}
{white & clear}
{black & grey}




Made up some cute signs using stamps from Studio G {you know, the $1 ones at Michael's} and various inks.



And then popped them back in the caddy!

Paper Trimmer

So ladies, I just got a new paper cutter- Tonic's Paper Guillotine- and I must say it's a.ma.zing!!! I still use my Cricut trimmer for scoring, until I get a Scor-Pal. The edge is actually blunt, so no risk of cutting yourself on the blade. There's a finger-guard, so again, no risk of cutting yourself {which I have a tendency to do!} The orange handle comes off and stores underneath for easy transportation, and it's pretty light too! I opted for the 12" version because I was tired of not having measurements between 4.5-5" since that's where the measurement arm folded on my Cricut, but they also have a compact 6" version.
I got it from ScrapbookAlley.com. Can I just say that their shipping is super fast! Right now they have a special for $0 shipping and $0 tax, so head on over and place some orders ladies!!! ;)
Craft Critique article on the cutter
shout out to Sarah Martina and {her post} on paper trimmers

Disney Villain ATC Swap

so I'm part of a swap over on SCS and wanted to share my two ATCs :)

Ursula from Disney's "The Little Mermaid"


Hopper from Disney/Pixar's "A Bug's Life"

Hostess Set

This littler set is for a few challenges... my card "mojo" is definitely a big off as of late :/ I needed to either make it a bit smaller or run it through a CB folder.
Verve Project Parade: "hostess gift" {took inspiration from Jen's coffee/card combo}
2Sketches4You: Laura's sketch #33
Double Dutch #25: any prior challenge {I used challenge #24's pink, brown, cream}
Flourishes FTTC30- "pearls"
ABC- "C" for circles {mostly the papers in mug & the card's brads & dk pink accents}
Pile it on #12: "three" {three brads on card}





Stamps: Verve's Delightful & Delicious
Again, in the interest of time this week I won't be posting materials. Squeezing in last few projects before my honeymoon :)

Be Inspired Set

Well, doing some last minute crafting this week before we go away on our honeymoon :) This is for Cuttlebug Challenges' Be Inspired #46. This is the perfect little set for any teacher going back to school- coffee cup for those early mornings, pens galore, and a notebook to record homework assignments to hand out!





In the interest of time, this week I will not be posting materials. I might post them after I return next month If you have questions about something, just comment and I'll reply :)

highs and lows

Sorry for the lack of cards lately- gearing up for the honeymoon is taking priority ;) Mojo's been a little hit or miss lately besides...

Well, I hosted a baby shower for my friend this weekend, I'll post pix soon. It was great fun- didn't get to finish all of the crafty things I'd intended since I got wrapped up doing last minute bookings for our honeymoon next week.

Found out today that a big whopping 0 of my 12 entries were selected for Paper Crafts during my first submit a week or two ago. Would have been nice if they could at least email the losers so we didn't have to find out via Moxie Fab's blog... anyways. That's a pretty big shot to the mojo ego, but that means I'll post at least some of the card photos soon so you can see what I was up to during that time.

In other news, I did sign up for my first craft fair, selling cards, gift tags, baby blanket kits, and bookmarks {mostly of the Christmas persuasion since it'll be in Nov.} I just put in a large cumulative order on a few scrapbooking sites- my Verve stamps arrived, as did my TAC stamps {finally}, so I'm looking forward to getting everything in and getting started! Gotta make these my best cards ever :)

3-D Cupcake

Well, it won't be winning any awards, but I'm running out the door for the weekend!... anyways, all materials are by Michaels, DCWV, and K&Co with green paper from my stash and CB die.

I do like the accordion fold cupcake, so I'll have to try it again when I'm not rushed!! God bless ya'll- have a wonderful weekend :)
Entered in:
2Sketches4You: sketch
Cupcake Craft: something sweet & cupcake
Stampin Sisters in Christ: food
TPE: "summer" bright summery colors

Creatively Green

So, have you heard?! Yup, there's a new company in town, and they're GREEN! No, not the color green, not green with envy, I'm talking the eco-green green: Creatively Green! Hubby and I try to be as green as we can- recycle everything, buy locally from farmers' markets, upcycle containers, heck I was even in the environmental clubs in grade school and high school! So this company is great, and not like most eco stuff which tends to be expensive, but most stuff they're actually cheaper!

They also have a contest going on... here's a snippet from their BLOG and NING site:

As a small company, especially one that is eco friendly, we can easily get lost in this big giant world of scrapbooking and we dont want to- We are new but we are unique!
Use your mouth to earn you free scrapbooking supplies! The contest will work on a simple points system, the more points you have the more stuff you win, simple rules, awesome prizes!
Grand prize is a full year membership to our monthly scrapbook kits. This includes shipping and is open to anyone anywhere. Our scrapbook kits retail @ $28.50 each, not including shipping, making the grand prize retail value @ over $400!
I will be posting the points system in a separate section, and as always, Keep creating GREEN!

If you sign up on their ning site {which is awesome, by the way} please let them know that SMK sent ya, ok? I'd really appreciate it! :)

Bookmark & Sailing

So I'm following a reading plan to read through the Bible in a year. I'm following the chronologically reading order, and so we skip between different books. This bookmark is to track the chapters in Genesis that I'm reading next! This is for Simon Says' "anything but a card." And YES, I know I misspelled "Genesis" :( I feel really silly, but it's been corrected, I just didn't reshoot the photo.
{materials} Paper: core'dinations gemstone turquoise, Bazzill bitter chocolate, Gems: K&Co, Punch: Martha Stewart, Letters: cloud 9 design, Stamp: stampology, Ink: stampcraft, ribbon: offray, eyelet: JoAnn


I got the boat and ripped edge idea from {this} card by Lucy. This is for Cuttlebug's Be Inspired #44- make a "scene". Not thrilled with it, but it's cute enough.
{materials} Paper: core'dinations, my stash, Ink: stampcraft, rubber stampede, stamps: SU! {bushes}, martha stewart {boat}, Verve {sentiment}, Unity {trees}, Ribbon: Michaels

Craig Morgan & Billy Currington

**NOTE: non-paper crafting post!!**


So the hubby and I went to a Craig Morgan & Billy Currington concert this weekend- awesome! We're big country fans :) Craig Morgan is an amazing performer! If you love country and ever get a chance to see him- go! We're kinda partial too because he was in the Army 10 years :) He's also a Christian which we didn't really know until we saw him perform. He is just a really great entertainer and a great wholesome country artist :) He really interacts with the audience, moves around the stage, some songs he's behind the guitar and others it's just him and the mic. His band is really ecelctic {the bassist looks like he played with Def Leppard} and him are also a great musicians! There was a part where he got three words from the audience, then the pianist created a melody, the rest of the band picked it up, and then Craig made up a whole verse using the words given. Our words were- watermelon, love, and hot :)

Craig Morgan



Billy Currington... we like his songs, but he's kinda a boring performer. Just stood and played and told ya which song was coming up next. We actually ended up leaving about 5 songs into his set.

Raspberry & Verve

So some more sneak peaks of the new Verve release this month. The Raspberry Suite Color Challenge #14 card didn't come out like I had hoped :-/ It was a rough combo for me- she makes em look good together... I do not :P It also uses the CPS sketch #128. The bottom two cards work with the colors from DDC #24! The middle card is for Verve's Anni-VERVE-sary AVS203 sketch {this card is my fav of the three today} and the last card is AVS204 sketch with the stitching bonus for Jackie's challenge. And can I tell you how much Blogger is washing out my photos... this is frustrating.


{materials} Paper: The Paper Company, DCWV, Twine/Ink: Martha Stewart, Buttons: Dress it up, Stamps: Verve "Enjoy", SU!, Other: CB swiss dots



{materials- both above} Paper: makingmemories, Bazzill "bitter chocolate," Decorative edging: makingmemories, Stamps: Verve "A Cup of Life" and "Budding Blossoms," Ink: Rubber Stampede "mocha," stampcraft "coffee," Floss: DMC, 3-D Sentiment: makingmemories, Ribbon: classic traditions, Pearls: Recollections, Other: nestabilities