Floral Cards #1

For one of my March-April classes, I knew that I wanted to focus on flowers. Spring is perfect for flowers, and the Occasions catalog and Sale-a-Bration brochure have some great flowers.

Card #1

I reluctantly got the Lotus Blossom from the SAB brochure a few weeks back. I say reluctantly, because I wasn't initially in love with the stamp set. I thought the triple stamping would be complicated and annoying. To my surprise, it was very simple. I found a great pic from Pinterest that details some great color combinations. Taking that as a starting point, I played around with the colors that I have and came up with three great blossoms.  In the end, I'm really enjoying this stamp set. I need to play around with color combinations a bit more.

• Stamps: Lotus Blossom
• Inks: Basic Gray; Wild Wasabi; Blackberry Bliss; Rich Razzleberry; Melon Mambo; Strawberry Slush; Hello Honey; Daffodil Delight
• Cardstock: Crisp Cantaloupe; Whisper White; Painted Blooms DSP
• Accessories: Crisp Cantaloupe Trim
• Tools

Card #2

My second card today is all about coloring. I received a ton of Blendabilities as SAB rewards and this is the perfect card to play with them. I colored each vase using the Blendabilities. Then I colored the DSP using one shade of each Blendabilities set. I love how colorful this card turned out to be. I realized that even though I used Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities, Crushed Curry and Perfect Plum cardstock looked better as bases. I hope my class participants like coloring this card as much as I did.

• Stamps: Vivid Vases
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, Rich Razzleberry, Night of Navy, and Old Olive Blendabilities
• Cardstock: Perfect Plum; Crushed Curry; Whisper White; Back to Black DSP
• Accessories:
• Tools:

Pic of the Week #4

A week later and I'm still dreaming of our mom's retreat. We stopped off at the coast on our way back down. The beautiful Pacific ocean and Russian River at Jenner.

Desktop Thursday #3

The state of my craft area today... Working on examples for my March and April classes. Plus that mess on the left is my meet and greet card for Saturday's open house.

30 Days of Lists March 2015

I signed up for 30 Days of Lists again. I participated last March and had so much fun. I tried again in December, but ultimately failed to document my lists. I did do the lists, but on regular notebook paper. I decided to prep before the retreat to give me a heads up. Last March, I used 4x6 PL cards and did a lot of embellishments. I didn't want to go that crazy this time. I decided on 3x4 cards with very minimal embellishments. As an added fun visual, I picked my cards to create a rainbow of color. I love all the color! As a last touch, I added numbers for each day. Now I just need to embellish the title card and wait for March 1st to begin...

If you would like to join in the fun, go sign up!

Sunday Haul #7

Just a few acquisitions for this week... First stop was Michael's to grab some snail, but of course I can't always just get snail. I ended up grabbing some fun silver alphas, rhinestones, kite embellishments, envelopes, and a fun canvas bag. I also bought another craft knife as I somehow broke my old one.

 I took advantage of the blowout sale on Becky Higgins. I grabbed a variety pack of page protectors, Boy Theme Pack, Coral Core Kit, and Slate Core Kit. I actually forgot that I already own the Boy Theme pack. I guess with three boys I'll find places for the doubles. I'm planning on using the Slate Core Kit exclusively for the twins scrapbooks.

I saw Steals was offering the entire SNAP Life Documented and I had to have it. I actually ended up buying half of the collections from Steals and half from Amazon (better prices on a few things). I am going to use some of it for my planner next year, but most will be going into my PL supply stash.

Faux Tiled Petal Potpurri

For February's individual swap card, I wanted something floral. It's feeling like spring around here even if the calendar still says it is winter. The temperatures have gotten me in the mood for floral cards. My March-April theme class is going to be All About Florals. But before I get to those cards, I wanted a nice simple floral card for my swap buddy. I went with the faux tile technique for this simple card. First I scored a piece of Whisper White in one inch intervals. Then I stamped multiple flowers onto the piece. The scoring creates a faux tile look to the stamped images. You can see the tiling better in person. I added a piece of brown ribbon and layer of Baked Brown Sugar before punching out a sentiment. To create a layered sentiment look, I punch out the stamped sentiment and then punched out another of just Baked Brown Sugar. I cut the stamped punched piece down a bit to allow the brown paper to show. Finally I popped the sentiment up on dimensionals to give some depth to the card. I hope my swap buddy likes it!

• Stamps: Petal Potpurri; Label Love
• Inks: Perfect Plum
• Cardstock: Perfect Plum; Whisper White; Baked Brown Sugar
• Accessories: Brown ribbon (not SU)
• Tools: Artisan Label Punch; Scoreboard

Pic of the Week #3

Pseudo Valentine's Day present from J. We don't really celebrate, but he came home with dessert and these beautiful roses the other day. I'm loving the color. The top is very Crisp Cantaloupe while the bottom is very Regal Rose. I love that I think of flower colors in Stampin' Up colors now.

Personalized Tags

For the retreat this weekend, I made these cute name tags for our surprise gift bags. I raided my stash. One of my crafting goals is to make a dent in the scrap pile. Every one of these tags came out of that scrap pile. I decided to make each tag different to give some nice variety. The alphas came from my giant alpha stash. The embellishments also came from my stash. I didn't buy anything new to make these. Yeah me! 

Sunday Haul #6

 I grabbed a paper stack from Michael's. It was on sale and I couldn't resist the pretties...

My Steals order finally arrived. There was an inventory issue and they had to issue me a refund for one product. But I got the rest. Most of the Bundle of Joy Boy collection, some cork butterflies, sequins, washi tape, and jewels.

I received three PL swap packages back. These were down for October, but only just arrived back. Crazy stuff! Anywho, I got back my stars, open, and coffee swaps. Love the coffee swaps!

Day in the Life: Winter

Lots of other bloggers do Day in the Life posts and I thought it was time for me to join them. Committing to once a month seems way too ambitious, so I decided on once a quarter. Randomly I have chosen the 11th of February, May, August, and November as my days. February 11th was a Wednesday. Usually Wednesday is our errand, grocery, and playground day. However this Wednesday shaped up a little differently. So here go:

7:00am -- Wake up time. Usually we wake anywhere from 6am to 8am. Just depends on the day. Here's the gorgeous view from my bathroom.

After waking, I immediately took a shower. The baby was still sleeping so it was the perfect time. I usually check the weather. Looks like a nice day.

7:30am -- Good morning Arthur! Once out of the crib, he runs around his room for awhile while I pick out some clothes. I get hm dressed and we head downstairs.

8:00am -- Breakfast time! I can usually grab a few minutes to check email while the baby eats his own breakfast.

Today I had to do the dinner prep right after breakfast. We were planning on pot roast so that involves searing the meat, cutting vegetables, and putting everything in a crockpot.

8:30am -- Arthur and I headed out to the park for a little playtime. Usually we drop J off at the BART station, but he had a conference call from 7-10. Instead of taking him in the morning, Arthur and I left for a bit.

9:30am -- After the park, we headed to Trader Joe's to pick up a few retreat goodies and lunch for next week.

11:00am -- When we arrived back home, J was just finishing his call. He showered, dressed, and readied to leave. We decided to grab some lunch at Boulevard Burger. Good burger. Arthur enjoyed his grilled cheese, fries, and grapes.

12:00pm -- After dropping J off, we headed across the street to the library. We haven't had a chance to get a library card yet and this seemed the perfect day to do so. Took just 10 minutes to apply for one. Before leaving, we grabbed a few new children's books for the week.

1:00pm -- Back home for nap time. Arthur went down easily and slept for two hours. During his nap, I managed to finish making my February swap card. I also did a bit of housekeeping and read a few blog posts.

3:00pm -- After Arthur woke up, I vacuumed the house while he played. Not that exciting, but usual for a typical Wednesday. He played some more and we eventually settled in for an episode of Sesame Street.

5:30pm -- Dinner time! We ate. By the time we finished, it was time to go pick up J at the station. From there, the rest of the night was a whirlwind. Usually is... J ate while I gave Arthur a bath and got him dressed for bed. We hung out for a bit before Arthur went to bed. Then J and I watched a few episodes of Star Trek before I headed to bed at 10pm.

Another day in the books.