Currently...

Watching: J and I ventured out last night and saw Avengers: Age of Ultron. J and the twins had both seen it, but I hadn't. I was going to take the twins to see Jurassic World last night, but apparently they have made a plan with my mom to see it. So they didn't want to go. Instead, we put the baby to bed, and let the twins and the baby at home and went and saw Avengers. So good! I'm glad I actually got to see it in the theater.

Reading: The Lost Soul by Gabriella Pierce. I felt the need to finish this slightly ridiculous series.

Listening: It's garbage day which means listening to three trucks: composting truck, trash truck, and recycling truck. It's very noisy on Monday mornings around here.

Making: So many lists! I've got a list for everything and I love it.

Feeling: Last week was rough. I'm trying to keep a more optimistic mindset with the start of the week. Already I feel less stressed. Hope this feeling continues.

Planning: The twins have swim lessons Mon-Thurs, but only for an hour each day. We're hoping to fit in the library, lunch at Sonic, Golfland, and maybe some other activity this week.

Loving: Coffee! So yummy!

Sunday Haul #21

My Stampin' Up club order came in this week. So excited to play with my new goodies next week!

The box contained:

• Homemade for You Stamp Set
• Happy Patterns Decorative Masks
• Baker's Box Thinlits
• A While Lot of Lovely Stamp Set
• Pretty Petals DSP Stack
• Pretty Petals CS

Candles Card

Next month we are holding our demo group's new catalog swap. We each pick a new stamp set from the catalog and make 8-10 cards. I chose Build a Birthday. I know it isn't July yet, but of course I finished my cards earlier and wanted to share them with you.

I've made a few Build a Birthday cards using the pieces to create a cake. this time, I wanted to highlight the ability to made candles. I found a similar layout on Pinterest and ran with it with some modifications. The pictures doesn't show it well but the piece of Bermuda Bay cardstock is actually embossed with the Lucky Stars Embossing folder. Adds a bit of texture to the card.

• Stamps: Build a Birthday
• Inks: Daffodil Delight; Watermelon Wonder; Pool Party; Cucumber Crush
• Cardstock: Cherry on Top DSP; Watermelon Wonder; Bermuda Bay; Pool Party; Crushed Curry; Whisper White
• Accessories:
• Tools: Lucky Stars Embossing Folder; Circles Framelits; Hexagon Punch (banner end)

Project Life May 2015 Part 2

May - Part 2

Pages five and six collect pictures from a variety of events. For journaling, I did a list of my favorite occasions. From there, I added a few stickers and embellishments.

Page seven has was another hodge-podge of pictures. I highlighted a few good pics of animals from our Oakland Zoo visit. I also did a journaling card of my May wrap-up. Simple but sweet.

The last page of May features our first visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland. A very strange place, but it was a fun morning. I decided to forego an embellishments and just add a journaling card.

May's pages are really all about a random collection of pictures. But somehow it all worked out nicely.

Twins' Project Life Albums

This past week I finally dove back into the twins' scrapbooks. Turns out the books were two years behind! Holy cow! And I was in the middle of filling a traditional post-bound album. Definitely not my method anymore! So, I made a plan to tackle the twins' books and switch them to Project Life style once the current album was filled. I grabbed the box and started sorted. I quickly filled the current album and turned my attention to new PL ones. Thankfully I had thought ahead and picked up a few American Crafts albums and clearanced Slate and Azure core kits. I love the colors scheme of those two kits. Perfect for preteen boys!

First up, the title page. Overall, I wanted these albums to be simple. Not too many embellishments. I think the title pages really speak to the simpleness of my style. I plan on adding the dates of the album once it is filled. And I may add picture of each twin if I pull up a good one from that year.

Past the title page, I dove right into our Summer 2013 road trip. Thankfully I had most of the pictures already printed. I just need to supplement with a few here and there. At this point, I am using the Slate Core kit for insert cards except for the Road trip styled cards on page one (those are from the Road Trip Theme pack).

Next up, I need to tackle Christmas Break 2013-2014. Thankfully I again have most of the pictures already printed. I'll probably share another progress post later on in the summer. My goal is to get the albums caught up by August. I want to have all four Project Life (family, Arthur, Nick, and Alex) current going into the holiday season.

Summer Fun Card

This card was sent to one of my demo friends in our monthly swap. And it's a huge departure from what I usually do. I really wanted to challenge myself to use some of the great abstract stamps to create a picture.

Our theme was summer and right away I knew that I wanted to add a sun to my card! I punched out rays with my Banner Punch and a sentiment from I Think You're Great. For added interest, my rays were punched from three different color cardstock. From there, I thought an ice cream cone would pair nicely with the sun. A free-handed cone stamped with a pattern stamp and a top traced from a different stamp from I Think You're Great made the perfect ice cream cone. But the card still looked to plain. Add some "waves" using the Work of Art set and suddenly my card was complete!

• Stamps: I Think You're Great; Work of Art
• Inks: Daffodil Delight; Tip Top Taupe; Pool Party; Lost Lagoon
• Cardstock: Cherry on Top DSP; Tip Top Taupe; Cucumber Crush; Pool Party; Daffodil Delight; Delightful Dijon; Crushed Curry
• Accessories:
• Tools: Banner Punch; Circles Framelits

Desktop Monday #4

Working on the twins' PL pages this week. I'm planning on highlighting this project on Thursday...

Sunday Haul #20

Popped into Michael's to get snail this week and walked out with more craft supplies. Yeah, I have a problem. I grabbed a Heidi Swapp mini album (for $1.99!), HS glitter stickers, HS stickers, HS journaling and design cards, and snail (glad I remembered that!).

I also scored the September Skies Core Kit for half price, two fun clearance stamps, and the PL Christmas theme pack ($1.79!). 

Father's Day Craft

I hosted preschool a few weeks ago and our theme was Father's Day. Actually our theme was something different, but I had to switch weeks and had already prepped Father's Day themed activities and crafts. While searching Pinterest, I found the perfect relatively no-mess craft for toddlers: Golf Ball Painting! I started by stamping "I Love You Dad" onto a piece of cardstock. I've seen others just use paint, but I liked have a message behind the paint. Once stamped, I placed the cardstock into a disposable cake tin.

Then, I added a few drops of paint onto the paper. I found that less paint makes for a better card. Using more paint tends to clump together and obscure the stamped message.

Add some golf balls. I used some plastic toy golf balls instead of the real thing, but either would work.

Before handing to a toddler, make sure to add the lid. Arthur doesn't always follow directions, so a lid was essential to make this craft no-mess. Once the lid is on (and possibly secured with tape, let the toddler loose. The basic idea is that the golf balls will spread the paint around creating an abstract piece of art.

After a fun time shaking the container, a great piece of mailable artwork is left. I let my painted piece dry and then attached it to a folded card base. This made the perfect card to send to those special dads in our family.

Supplies:

• Cardstock
• Stamps and ink (or stickers)
• Disposable cake tin with lid
• Paint
• Golf balls

Project Life May 2015 Part 1

May - Part 1

For May, I went with the color scheme of yellow, pink, and purple with floral accents.

The first page is a hodge-podge of pictures from the month. I added some alpha embellishments and some jewels to my journal card.

Page two highlights our monthly visit to CDM. I finally found a place for the homemade card from our butterfly swap. I added some alphas and it worked perfectly.

The third page is all about our visit to Maker Faire. It was my first time going and we had some much fun!

Page four is mostly about the twins. They graduated from the sixth grade this month. I couldn't be present at the event, but thankfully my mom took a few photos for me. And I threw in an extra photo of Arthur just because it was cute.