Distracted!

I'm guilty... I was supposed to work on my class sample, but I just got so distracted! I often visit Teri's blog for inspiration. She has such Big Ideas for a Little Girl (get it? hee hee). Anyway, she posted a tutorial on how to make these cool double shaker boxes. I've been dying to try make one but have been so busy lately, that I'm only getting around to it now. I really wanted to take her class, but since I live on the Big Island, I can't get to her classes when they are offered. It looks really complicated, but it actually isn't that bad.

Don't look too closely, as this is my first attempt. My foam cutting skills are lacking and I think i should get a new blade the next time I try this. I'm also not a good measurer, so I had to make some adjustments to the cover. Also, I think the next time around, I won't use a busy background paper since you can't really see the stuff in the 2nd part of the shaker. I also won't be using those prima paper flowers. They tend to sick together and don't shake around well. Sigh... better luck next time.

Supplies used:

Miss Anya- The Greetings Farm

Sentiment- Hero Arts

Markers- Copics

Flowers- Prima

Gold glitter- Stickles

Dew Drops- Robin's Nest

DP- Doodlebug Designs

Brown Metallic cardstock- Sorry! can't locate company- I'll re-post when I get co. info.

Foamies- 6mm

Acetate

Double stick tape

Microbeads

Heart confetti

Thank You Aunty!

My daughter just celebrated her birthday and my cousin Laura sent her this cute card! She cut the Hello Kitty out using felt and it came out really cute! I'm going to have to remember to do this next time.

Forgot About This One...

Now that my busy week had come to an end, I have some time to craft again! While going through some of my old photos, I came across these that I forgot about and never posted. My mother-in-law had asked me for a photo of our family (i.e. me, DH and DD). I had planned on making her a shadow box frame for Mother's Day, so I pretended that I kept forgetting to give her a photo. She even suggested which photo to use (i.e. Xmas card photo)... Poor thing, she must've thought I thought her request was not important... even though it wasn't.

My mother-in-law seems to like green, so I tried to incorporate green into the project. I found some old washi paper that contained green and purple and gold, which led me to use purple and gold for the butterflies.

The thing I got stuck on was the sentiment. My DH and I went back and forth on what words to use and finally came up with a simple Happy Mother's Day that I printed from my computer. Sad, I know. I wanted to come up with something more appropriate but I was out of time and had to finish the project already. Anyway, she seemed to really like it, so I guess that's what's most important.

Supplies used:

Washi paper- imported from Japan (purchased from Masako's)

Cardstock- Bazzil

Labels 4- Spellbinders

Butterflies- Spellbinders

Crystal accents- Hero Arts

Flowers- Prima

Teacher Thank Yous

Although we gave Akemi's teachers something for Teacher Appreciation Week, she wanted to give them something for the end of the school year. I bought some snack sized Enjoy Arare and goodies from Big Island Candies (since my mom wanted to go there anyway). I had to include the lemon shortbread cookies (my favorite!) and decided to try the new toffee candy. It was soooooooo delicious! Not sticky at all- just melted in your mouth! I'll have to remember to get those again the next time I go.

Anyway, after I wrapped them, it seemed a little plain, so I decided to make something using my Teacher Anya stamp from TGF. I mounted the image on cardstock cut from the flower nesties from Spellbinders. I just got these dies and wanted to try them out. My daughter helped me color the Teacher Anyas in- she just loves using my copics (probably cause I don't let her that often). Anyway, she gave them out to all the teachers and staff yesterday during her birthday lunch. They were thrilled to get all the goodies and Akemi was thrilled to give it to them. Thank you to all the teachers at Hale Aloha School!

Larry's Bakery Cookie Lei

Isn't this cool? My Aunty works at Larry's Bakery in Honolulu and she sent my daughter this cookie lei for her preschool graduation. I didn't even realize they personalized it! These cookies alternated with flower cookies (iced- yum). They have all kinds of goodies and cute ideas. Thanks Aunty!

Congratulations Akemi!

Aaah, graduation...a time to celebrate your academic accomplishments. Let me tell you, I had no idea that pre-schoolers have graduation ceremonies. I only had one at 6th grade, high school and college. I never even heard of pre-school graduations until last year when the 4 year olds had their graduation cermony. Just another excuse to make more stuff!

Anyway, I ordered a Hello Kitty Graduate ballon and found a pink stuffed Hello Kitty dressed as a graduate, so naturally I had to make her card using a Hello Kitty dressed in pink! I've been dying to use my HK cricut cartridge to cut the graduate, but I just haven't had much time since I've been so busy. Anyway, since graduation is tonight, I had to do it already. I'm glad I did cause she came out cute! Don't get me wrong, its a lot of little pieces but its worth the work. I decided to make a shaker box card (still haven't tried the double shaker box yet). There must be a lot of excess tape cause the microbeads were sticking all over HK's face. Oh well, I'm sure Akemi won' t mind.

It's also her Birthday today! So more to post in the near future...

Superstar Blog Candy Giveaway

Check out Joy's blog at A Place To Be Me for some awesome Super Star Blog Candy Giveaway!

Our Little Flower...

Our daughter was in this year's production of Sleeping Beauty! Her group of girls were little flowers growing in the garden. Earlier, I posted that I was working on a project for my daughter's ballet performance. It's customary to give flowers to performers (or so I'm told), but flowers die so quickly and I knew everyone would be giving the girls real flowers, so I decided to make something for the girls instead.... I wanted to be sure that there was a flower on it somewhere (since they were all flowers).... Here's what I came up with...

I used Ballerina Anya from The Greetings Farm and colored all 50 images of her with my copics. The actual flowers were cut using a Sizzix Bigz die that had 3 different sizes of the same flower- which gave it a nice layered look. You can't reall tell from this photo, but each flower petal was glittered using Stickles. After I attached the flower to the stem, it kept wobbling around, so to stabilize it, I added a ribbon just under the flower to support it. The girls were thrilled to get something they could keep to remember the night by.

Here's our little flower with the flowers I made.

Here's Akemi in her flower costume.

It sure was a lot of work but well worth it. She was thrilled to be part of the performance! The costumes were so cute and really brought everything together. I was quite impressed with the production and how hard all the girls worked!

Happy Birthday Michele! (and puppies too!)

What do you get someone who owns a Scrapbook store?????? Your guess is as good as mine. So instead of getting her craft supplies, I made her something that I didn't think she would make for herself. I know because I make these for a lot of people, but have yet to make one for myself! :)

The biggest challenge was finding out just what Michele likes!? She likes so many of the different products that she carries in her store that it was hard to choose. I finally decided on The Greetings Farm stamps since she seems to like them a lot. These images are kinda big, so I had to figure out what size and shape to use as the calendar base. I decided to go with a standard 5x7 rectangle since it would be able to hold at least 2 TGF images along with the month and month title. These calendars take awhile, so I really should have started earlier.. but I'm a procrastinator and had so many other projects to work on before I had to do my major clean up for when my mom comes to visit (yay!).

Back to the story.... so here's the end product. I tried to pick the Greeting's Farm images I know she likes best.. it was hard to choose because I tend to pick the ones I like best! Can you tell? Most of them are Anyas... hardly any Ians.

In case you are wondering... the calendar is for the 2nd half of 2009 and the first half of 2010. No sense in making a calendar that is half used!

Supplies used: (please forgive me as there was a lot of supplies I used for this project)

Stamps- The Greetings Farm

Dies- Sizzix and Spellbinders

Markers- Copics

Glitter- Stickles

Cardstock- Bazzil

DP- Doodlebug, Imaginisce, Bo Bunny

Dew Drops- The Robin's Nest

Border punch- Martha Stewart Crafts

Calendar- printed from my computer

Now, you are probably wondering why I made a comment about puppies... Michele just emailed me that her dog had her puppies today! Neat-o... same day as Michele's birthday! Happy Birthday to all!

Cupcake Anyone?

I love cupcakes.. not sure why. I know its trendy now, and I'm not typically a trendy person, but I can't resist cupcakes for some reason. Anyway, being that I love cupcakes, naturally I gravitated towards the new XL cupcake die from Sizzix. I didn't realize it when I first looked at it, but the base of the cupcake is actually a pocket. The "toppings" are either a cherry or candle, so you can choose whichever one you want. Here's what I made with it today...

Since the cupcake is pretty large, I wanted to try to make a box or a bag with it. I ended up attaching the cupcake to the take out box since the cupcake gradually gets larger, same as the take out box. This box is quite large after you finish it, so I think it would be a good size for birthday party favors/goodie bags. I know its hard to tell from this photo, but the "frosting" is actually glittered cardstock.

Supplies used:

Take out box- Sizzix

Cupcake die- Sizzix

Glitter cardstock and DP- Doodlebug designs

lace punch- Martha Stewart

The next card utilizes the pocket that I described above, so you can have a message hidden in the cupcake!

Ta Daaaaaaa!

Supplies used:

Cupcake die- Sizzix

Happy Birthday sentiment- Greetings Sizzlit set

Cardstock- Bazzil

Crystals- Hero Arts

DP- Autumn Leaves

Alooooooooha!

Yesterday I picked up the new Hello Kitty Summer dies! Woo Hoo! I've been anxiously awaiting these. I was lucky enough to see these in the Sizzix catalog awhile ago and can't believe they are finally here! Since they are Bigz, they are quite large, so if you are a card maker, you may need to jump to the next sized card. For a couple, I used the 5x7 size instead of the regular A2 size.

I actually got a couple of more to show you, but I didn't make anything with them yet.

Here's Aloha Kitty! Isn't she adorable? She's alll ready to do the hula for you in her sassy sarong.

Supplies used:

HK die- Sizzix

Cardstock- Bazzil

Yellow dot cardstock- Bo Bunny

DP- Imaginisce

Aloha sentiment- Endless Love Sizzilits set

Here is Hello Kitty sunbathing. I used silver mirrored cardstock for her sunglasses to give it the titanium look.

Supplies used:

HK die- Sizzix

Hello sentiment- Sizzix

Carstock- Bazzil

DP- Bo Bunny

This Hello Kitty looks so happy that I had to use a sentiment that fit her pose..

HK die- Sizzix

Its your day sentiment- Greetings Sizzlit set

Swiss dots- Bazzil

DP- Making Memories

Here's one of my favorites. I love the fact that they gave her accessories! The inner tube is so cute and so is her goggles and fins. This will go great on a scrapbook page for my daughter. She is scared of the water and will only go in if she has an inner tube.

Supplies used:

HK die- Sizzix

Cardstock- Bazzil

Finally, this card is not one of the new Bigs dies... Its actually an embossing folder set. This Hello Kitty is larger than the Embosslits. I cut out the images that I wanted to layer (dress, flowers) and adhered it to the base piece. The background was embossed as well with one of the folders from the set. The Thank You sentiment did not come with the Hello Kitty set- its from another embossing folder set by Sizzix. I colored the Thanks So Much using my copic marker. Even though the copics are not pearly, since the paper I used was, the words still looked pearly.

Supplies used:

HK image- HK Sizzix embossing folder set

Embossed background- HK Sizzix embossing folder set

Thank you so much sentiment- Sizzix Thank you embossing folder set

Cardstock- Bazzil

Finally- I wanted to thank my Aunty for this cute RAK! She was nice enough to pick up my scuba kitty for me and included the other HK embossing folder set! I'm so lucky!

More Anya Cards...

I've never actually played with this set of Anyas yet, so I decided to take them out and actually use them. For some reason, I like this Anya in purple, so I tend to always use purple to color in her clothes. She just seems so stylish.

Supplies used:

Anya stamp- The Greetings Farm

Markers- Copics

Cardstock- Bazzil

Happy Birthday sentiment- printed from my computer

Dew drops- The Robin's nest This next Anya is so sweet! I decided to use more muted colors in one of my favorite color combinations- pink and brown. I don't know if you can tell, but I highlighted her hair using the gold glitter copics.

Supplies used:

Anya stamp- The Greetings Farm

markers- Copics

Cardstock- Bazzil

DP- Imaginisce

The more I used this Geisha Anya stamp, the more I like it. I ended up using my new gold glitter copic for the flowers and sleeves on her kimono. I like the way it came out- very subtle gold- reminds me of real kimonos. I don't think this photo shows how nice it came out. Try it out yourself and see how nice it looks in real life!

Supplies used:

Geisha Anya- The Greetings Farm

Washi paper- Hanko Designs

Markers- Copics

Happy Mother's Day sentiment- printed from my computer

flowers- prima

red crystals- crystal accents

dew drops- the robin's nest

Finally- I know this last stamp is not Anya, but she's so cute too, I wanted to share her with you. This is another In Style Stamp design from their Anime line. She seems very flirty winking her eye, so I decided to use a heart theme.

Anime stamp- In Style Stamps

Heart die cut- Sizzix (Embosslit)

Heart paper- I'm sorry- I don't know the brand- it was a gift.

Happy Birthday sentiment- printed from my computer

Cardstock- Bazzil Glitter- Stickles

On another note- after a pretty junk week so far (I know, its only Tuesday), I had some retail therapy today and got the new Hello Kitty Summer Sizzix dies! :) Happy Happy Joy Joy! I'll post my new stuff after I play with them for a bit.

More Recycle Bags

For the FCE Fair, I decided to donate some Recycle bags. I decided to make mostly Hello Kitty because in case no one bought them, I would have recycle bags that I want! Well, it turns out all of the Hello Kitty ones sold out and I was left with the non- Hello Kitty ones. Guess I should have went with my instinct and done all of them in Hello Kitty! Anyway, here's some of my favorites.

Dandelion Designs Cards

I really must credit Dandelion Designs for getting me back into stamping. I was a true rubber stamper about 10-15 years ago (gee, has it been that long?), back when DJ Inkers was very popular! Anyway, I got away from it when I got into scrapbooking and totally stopped once I got my sizzix. But as I started looking at blogs for ideas, I came across the Dandelion Designs blog where Jean posts the cutest projects and even has patterns to download! In one of her giveaways, I was the lucky winner and received a lot of her new stamp designs. Ever since then, I've re-discovered the world of stamping and all the new stamp companies and COPICS! I just love how she makes sentiments that coordinate with her designs. Makes creating a card a no-brainer!

Anyway- I must thank Jean for inspiring me to go back to my stampin roots. Here's some recent projects I made using her designs... Enjoy!

Have a great week!