A mini-book goes back to school.

Oh boy, there's so much fun paper stuff to play with right now! This month, my kit from Scrappy Chic had paper from eight (!) different lines -- about twice as much as a normal month. So I better get sharing, eh? First up, let's start with one of my new favorite projects: a mini book! This one happens to be blank, just waiting for some fun school-related photos and goodies. I'm not really partial to back to school lines usually, mostly because the only folks going back to school in the fall are my husband and I, and we call it "work"! But this line (from Fancy Pants), is just awesome....

See? Cute, right? This little guy measures about 6x3, and I made it following this tutorial from October Afternoon -- it was so easy! I altered the directions a little, making the cover wider than the inside pages and leaving the inside-cover flaps open, like a dust jacket. Here are some of the inside pages:

The bottoms of each pocket are stitched shut, and the pages are bound in by stitching as well, so this is pretty sturdy. I used some of the cut-apart cards to embellish the inside, along with a few circle-punched scraps and some stickers from Cosmo Cricket and Jillibean. I love those little pockets -- you could stuff them full of tickets or notes or other school ephemera. I wish I'd had one of these back in the day when everyone exchanged those little school pictures -- do kids still do that?  They'd look great here instead of stuffed in a desk drawer, which is where mine always ended up!

The sneaker print is probably my favorite :) Now, I used a different sheet of double-sided paper for each set of pages, but it would be just as easy to get two sets of pages from each 12x12 sheet, making this an extremely economical project! If sewing isn't your thing, a good strong adhesive or some staples would do the trick for binding as well. I'm thinking fun little holiday or baby or birthday gifts -- what a way to make a dent in my paper stash!

Let me know if you give it a whirl. In the meantime, you can see this in person at Scrappy Chic -- last time I checked, it was hanging out by the registers.

I have lots more for you, so expect some fairly regular blog posts until I'm all caught up. Also, I'm looking forward to making even more projects this weekend when I crop at Scrappy Chic with the lovely Liz -- if you're at the store on Sunday, stop by and say hi!

Have a lovely day....

Happy Birthday, times 2!

Well, happy Friday to all of you, and Happy Birthday to my crafty pal, Emily Leiphart!  Em, I hope you get to party down today!

Often, when I make a card that's going to be mailed right away, I jump the gun and get it all sealed up in an envelope before realizing I haven't taken any photos. Doh!  This isn't one of those times, luckily. 

other supplies: Unity and PTI stamps, SU inks, My Mind's Eye pp.

Can you tell I tried to channel my inner Emily on this one? Twinery twine, a mix of patterns, and I even {gasp!} colored that little party birdie! Ok, so I watercolored him, whereas Em is a Copic genius, but still.

[Speaking of that little bird, he's from a company new to me -- pictureshow stamps -- and he's actually their logo. Ain't he cute? I picked him up at a local stamp show, where they were selling tons and tons of images in mounted and unmounted versions. Their etsy shop only seems to sell mounted stamps, and a smaller variety, so if you are lucky enough to see their booth at a show, be sure to stop and browse.]

Ok then, back to business: Emily, I hope you have a fabulously crafty birthday!! I'm happy to be your stampy pal, and it's extra-special because we happen to be birthday buddies! That's right, it's my birthday too, and I'm already overwhelmed by all the birthday kindness that's come my way. I'll be sure to post some of my craftiest gifts from my craftiest pals soon.

Before I go, how about a cute cat photo for the first day of fall? It just so happens that our cats are perfectly coordinated for the season!

...dinner time is the only time they get this close to one another without any pouncing or growling, by the way ;). Don't they look like they're holding hands? Ha. Simon and Dex wish you a happy autumn, and so do I. Have a lovely day!!

I swear these pages are cute!

So, a few weeks ago I met up with some folks at Scrappy Chic to do a little cropping. I made a whole mini-book (more on that later), and then whipped up a couple of quick layouts near the end of the day. Since I used my design team goodies for those layouts, it seemed silly to take them home, photograph them, and then bring them all the way back to the store for display. I just snapped some photos right there on the table and then left the layouts behind. Turns out, that might not be the best idea -- fluorescent lighting plus iphone does not exactly equal stellar photography. Try to see beyond it, ok?

It might help that the photos feature the cutest kids I know, though!

click to enlarge...if you think it'll help!

Here's our godson, in the middle of asking one of about a million and a half questions, mostly about the bowling tournament that was on TV. After awhile, we (who know little about bowling to begin with) started giving silly and nonsensical answers, but he didn't mind :)

paper from imaginisce and my mind's eye; other goodies from ac, basic grey, and my stash.

The clickety-clack of a manual typewriter at a crop is always sure to spark everyone's "remember when" stories. Fun times.

The second one features photos from the same day, same kid, plus his little brother and some very messy ice cream!

ruby rock-it paper, fabulous stamp from suzanne carillo/art gone wild

I made a little journaling flag with a toothpick. I have a feeling I'll try that one again soon. Also, isn't that hanging-clouds stamp amazing? I love it. These days, a wood-mount stamp has to be pretty awesome for me to buy it (storage space issues and such), and this one definitely qualifies! (Got mine at Scrappy Chic, of course, but you can see it here if you scroll down a bit.)

By the way, if you happen to be local, Treat Dreams in Ferndale has amazing and well-made ice cream for the whole family! Blue whatever-that-is makes kids happy, but the salty caramel ice cream made me very happy. There's also a cute train table for kids to play at, which distracted these kiddos soon after the photos were snapped ;)

Friends with (cake) Flair Friday

Two posts in the same week? I must be getting my act together!

Today is Friends with Flair day over on the Unity blog -- be sure to head over there to see the great deal they have in store for you. I made the card below a couple weeks ago for the same gnome-loving friend from this post. I used a couple of KOMs (shouldn't that be KsOM?), along with the sketch for the September Kit of the Month Sketch Challenge, and came up with this:

(sorry about the slightly blurry photo -- getting used to nighttime project photography is taking some time!)

My gnome-loving friend is also a talented cake-baker-and-decorator, so I also whipped up some recipe cards to send along as well. The recipe card stamps and the arrow on the card are from August's kit, while the cake is from May.

I'm a lazy-butt colorer, so I went with some simple outlining and accenting, and added some rhinestones to the spots on the cake. Maybe my pal will be inspired for her next cake design! The fun, fun papers are from Echo Park's Happy Days 6x6 pad (from Scrappy Chic, of course). Love the retro-cheery feel and the gender/age versatility of this collection!

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back with some layouts and my newest scrappy venture: mini-books. Oh goody!

Have a lovely day.

got the no-bloggin' blues!

Well hey there, old pals!
I haven't blogged in, let's see here...two and a half weeks! That's just crazy.

I must say, while I have been making some things. I've also got the autumnal nesting bug -- cleaning the house, canning, baking, even (gasp!) weeding! Pair that with getting back into the swing of the school year (oh, and an adolescent kitten -- sheesh, Simon can be a pain in the cat-butt these days!), and the blog has been sadly neglected.

Anyone else with me? I've noticed some of my other regular reads have been a little quiet too....Of course, that hasn't kept me from getting behind on blog comments, too!

Anywho, how about a couple of quick cards to get back into the groove?

Here's one:

This is a quick Halloween card I made, currently on display at Scrappy Chic. I'm always drawn to fun Halloween products, which is silly since I don't really have much Halloween stuff to make or scrap. However, I couldn't resist the stuff you see here: Authentique's Halloween line (the 6x6 pad and die-cuts, specifically), and an uber-cute Hero Arts stamp set. I love that cat! Solid stamps like these are great for lazy stampers like me -- and they're already distressed-looking, making them a fine match for the paper line. There's a bit of May Arts ribbon there as well -- at about 40 cents a yard, how could I resist that one?

So, in short, I'm a sucker. But it's a cute card, no?

How about one more?

This is a dual-purpose card: it's a housewarming card for a pal of mine who moved from my town to one about an hour north of here -- sad to see them leave the 'hood, but I'm happy for her -- she used to drive almost two hours each way for work, and now she's way, way closer. Plus, we share a love of the film Amelie, so the gnome is especially appropriate.

The second purpose: it fits right in with my good stampy friend Emily's Moving Challenge -- she also just experienced a big move! In fact, I made her a card using the same house stamp from Unity -- you can see it in her post here.  The adorrrrable little gnome and sentiment are also from Unity -- I got the set at Scrappy Chic, in case you're local and want to indulge ;)

Ok, enough from me for now! I'll try to blog a bit more regularly -- there's a lot of scrappy goodness coming up soon! Have a lovely day.