OCL Sneak Peek Day 1

Hi there! Today is the first day of sneak peeks of the new release from Our Craft Lounge and my first release as an Our Craft Lounge design team member :) You can find a list of all the fabulous designers who are sharing projects today on the Our Craft Lounge Blog.

I used A Little Witchy to create this Halloween treat box:

To create this, I just made a box from black cardstock and added some patterned paper. I stamped all the images from the set on white cardstock and cut them out. The witch's outfit is paper pieced and I used Copic markers to color the rest of the images. I stamped the sentiment on a label and added all the elements to the box.

Like what you see? You can find these new releases at Memories of Time.

Blog candy: All comments left on the designer's preview posts on Wednesday and Thursday and blog hop post on Friday will be included in the blog candy drawing on the OCL blog that ends Friday night at midnight (PACIFIC), so be sure to leave a comment on all the blogs you visit!

See you tomorrow for another OCL new release project!

Thanks for stopping by!

So excited to share.....

I am so excited to finally share THIS!
See you tomorrow for sneak peeks of the new releases!!

Thanks for stopping by today!

A Hill Makeover

Hello! Hope you had a great weekend. We are keeping all those who are recovering from the effects of the hurricane in our prayers. We did not even get a drop of rain...a little too far from the coast.

For those of you who are interested, here are the hill pictures I promised. Last week we embarked on the huge job of transforming the gigantic hill in our background. This is what the backyard looked like when we looked at the house to buy it (March): By the time we moved in (June), the hill had weeds covering it. The weeds were all grown over tarp so the first job (and the worst job) was removing the weeds, dirt AND tarp.

We spent last week figuring out what we wanted to do with the hill and shopping for supplies. We re-weeded the hill and then planted juniper (to hopefully spread and cover the hill in the next few years), heather and a few bushes.

My husband installed the steps and the small wall that will be a large planting area....eventually. That area that has the steps is terraced so we will put a bench there for a sitting area.

Right now our main priority was to get the hill cleaned up, planted and mulched. We will finish up the cosmetic stuff (bench, the addition of two bushes at the top of the steps to hide top supports, etc. in a few weeks.

But for now.....we are taking a little break. It was a lot of hard work to haul mulch up the hill in a wheelbarrow 70 gazillion times and I need time to forget :) !

ETA: (after a question about it!) We have a small yard with a stone patio right outside our back door. Then this hill. There are stone steps on the right side of the hill (which are not pictured but I will include when we finish up the hill.) Those steps go up to the second part of our yard....which has the playgrounds, fort, basketball, etc. There are woods behind that.

Thanks for stopping by!

Boo House!

Hello! Today I have a peek of the October Crafts 'n Things Magazine, which is in stores NOW!

This issue is filled with amazing autumn inspiration from playful Halloween decor to party favors to sophisticated Thanksgiving table decorations to stitched, beaded, and paper-crafted designs to fun crafts you can make with the kids. It is filled with inspiration!!!

Here is one of the projects I have in this issue:

You can find instructions for this project inside the October issue of Crafts 'n Things!

Thanks for stopping by!

Some Echo Park Projects :)

Hello! Happy Monday (groan!) We have about two more weeks before the kids go back to school. I am excited because I know that once they have more of a schedule, they will adjust to life here more quickly :)

Today, I have a few Echo Park projects to share in my attempt to be a Fresh Face Designer. The first is a scrapbook page of my two girls.
Photo Booth-You & Me

Cara and Lauren snuck

off to the photo booth

when we were in the arcade.

Although they are nine years apart,

they are

so much alike.

For this page, I used The Happy Days Collection of paper as well as the Happy Days chipboard accents and brads. I used my circle dies (Spellbinders) to cut circular shapes from some of the patterned paper. I added some stitching and some tiny pearl accents to add some interest to the layout.


Next, I have a few cards:
Hello Sweet Friend
I used a Happy Days element sticker (Ice cream cone) as the focus of this card. The hello friend is a SRM sticker. I added some rhinestones to the bottom of the ice cream dish and the sweet banner (Happy Days: Journaling card) tied to the top.
Supplies: white cardstock (Gina K Designs); Element sticker-Happy Days (Echo Park Paper); Patterned paper- Happy Days: Journaling card, Borders (Happy Days); rhinestones (Recollections); hemp; ribbon (Stampin' Up!); sentiment sticker- Sweet (SRM stickers).


Happy Snow Days

I went back to an old favorite collection, Wintertime, for this card. I paired the Wintertime stickers and patterned paper with some Happy Days patterned paper and a Happy Days decorative brad. I added some rhinestones to the snowflake and some machine stitching around the edge to finish it off.

Supplies: white cardstock (Gina K Designs); Patterned paper- Wintertime: Pine green (Echo Park Paper), Happy Days: Scalloped (Echo Park Paper); element stickers- Wintertime (Echo Park Paper); brad- Happy Days (Echo Park Paper); rhinestones (Recollections, Michael's); ribbon (May Arts); sewing machine.


Thinking of You

For this card I combined an element sticker from Little Boy with Splash patterned paper. I love the boat floating along on that journaling block. I used a SRM sticker for the sentiment and finished the card with a fun yellow ribbon.

Supplies: white cardstock (Gina K Designs); Designer paper- Splash: Journaling, Big Striped (Echo Park Paper); SRM sticker sentiment- Hello; Element sticker- Little Boy (Echo Park Paper); ribbon; corner rounder punch (Creative Memories); mini attacher- Tim Holtz.

Hope you have a great day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Spook-tacular treat tags

Hello! Today I have a Halloween project to share. Hard to believe that stores are already stocking their Halloween decor and costumes. I figured I would get a jump on a few projects.

I created these treat tags using Our Craft Lounge Spook-tacular set:

And here are close ups of the tags so you can see them a bit better. They all are attached to m&m sleeves. I used a piece of hemp and a button to tie the tags to the bags.

For this tag, I used the witch image...so cute! I stamped her on white cardstock and paper pieced the broom and added stickles to the hat and star punch out. I also used the happy Halloween sentiment right under the image.

Next, I used the spider web and spider on this tag. I stamped the web and spider right on the patterned paper. Then, I stamped the spider again and cut out the body to layer over the first one. This added some dimension. I also used black stickles on the spiders legs. I stamped the sentiment and punched it out with an oval punch. I added two little rhinestones on either side before adhering it to the tag:

The last tag features the kitty image. I stamped the image on the tag and stamped it again so I could attach the second one over the first. This allowed me to have some movement in the tail by not adhering the second tail over the first one. I added some purple stickles on the cat's hat, added rhinestones and the same button tie at the top as I did on the others:

Supplies: Stamps- Spook-tacular (Our Craft Lounge); Memento tuxedo black ink; stickles (black, purple) Ranger; rhinestones (Recollections, Mark Richards); Patterned paper/tags-Twilight (Pink Paislee), Waving Skeletons-Toil & Trouble (Making Memories); m&ms; candy sleeves.

Thanks for stopping by!

Easy Canvas Prints

A few months ago, Easy Canvas Prints asked me to try out their product and write a blog post about it. But...it was just before my cross country move so I asked if they would contact me again in August because it definitely looked like something I wanted to check out.

Fast forward a few months....I saw a wonderful picture of my grandparents (Mamo and PopPop) at my little sister's house. The picture was fantastic....it was them when they were younger and they were at the beach. The picture looks like an old postcard and I just ADORE it. I asked my dad to send me a copy of the picture and he did. As soon as I got back from the beach, Easy Canvas Prints contacted me again and I was so excited because I had the perfect idea for that precious photo.

I went to their site and uploaded the photo. It was super easy to navigate and you have many options as far as the size of the canvas, the wrap around the canvas (color or picture continuation) and the photo color. I really didn't do much to the photo-- just wrapped the photo around the canvas edge so that it was more focused on my grandparents. I adore this canvas and I think it looks great in our new living room (which I am just finishing!)
Here is a picture of our back wall in that room. Check out the mantel:

The canvas was the PERFECT finishing touch for it:

Isn't that photo fun? I just love it and I love the way it turned out.

Thank you Easy Canvas Prints for letting me try out your product. I wholeheartedly recommend this company if you want a really cool way to display some of your favorite photos.

Thanks for stopping by!

UR My Sunshine

:)
Supplies: Patterned paper- Echo Park-Splash!; white cardstock (Gina K Designs); rhinestones (Mark Richards)

Have a great day!

Moxie Fab World Luminous Layers Challenge

Hello! I was looking through blogland looking for another good challenge and came across this week's Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger challenge. Here is the inspiration for this week: Sigh! This was just the inspiration I needed! Love the design, patterns...everything. I went with the overlapping large patterned scallops as the inspiration for my card:

To keep with the vintage feel of the dress, I used Echo Park's Life is Good patterned paper for this card. I cut each section using an oval Scallop (Spellbinders). Starting at the bottom of the card, I layered the ovals until I got near the top. I cut the final two ovals in half and then layered a piece of ribbon over the edge.

The stamps I used on this card are from Springtime Silhouettes (Gina K Designs). I stamped the butterfly image onto vanilla cardstock (Gina K Designs) using chocolate ink. I cut it out using a Spellbinders die and attached it with a piece of pink hemp. To finish off the design, I punched a small circle of the cardstock to adhere under a clear epoxy sticker. I stamped the sentiment on the bottom scallop.

Thanks for stopping by!

MFT Stamp Challenge

Hello! Happy Friday!
This week started out a bit bumpy so I really didn't have any time to play with paper and stamps. It was my husband's 40th birthday and on his actual birthday he was rushing back to the car to go out to lunch with me and the kids and he hopped over a hedge....and well....let's just say his ankles aren't in their 30s anymore :( We ended up in the emergency room that night for x-rays and thankfully it is not broken. (Although if you saw the pictures on FB, you would bet that it was.)

Anyway, after all that fun, he is back to work on crutches and life goes on. I needed a little jump start to my creativity so I jumped on this week's My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge- MFTWSC32: Here is my card using the sketch:

I paired the MFT Pure Innocence image, Are We There Yet? with some Echo Park Paper- Splash! (Love it!)

Thought this would be a fun combination for the last few weeks of summer :( (Sniff, sniff!) I colored the image with Copics and paper pieced the outfit. I layered her over the popped up sun (Echo Park, Splash!) and added a sticker sentiment over the sun (Random Thoughts by Bo-Bunny Press). I cut different layers of patterned paper for the sketch and added some twine (The Twinery) around the bottom of the card.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Back from Vacation and a.....CARD!

Hello! I just got back from a two week vacation at the beach. We had so much fun--For the second week, all my siblings rented houses in the same few blocks and we went to the beach and boardwalk together every day. We all were together with my parents on my dad's 70th birthday. Now we are back home and trying to unpack (again!) and get back to our new life here.

I created this card for my dad's 70th birthday from all of his children. We gave him a gift certificate for custom golf clubs so I created a golf club card: I created the golf bag and clubs by looking at pictures and just designing my own. I added some stitching to make the bag look more realistic. The "70" was cut from Cuttlebug letters. I stamped the background of the card using a sentiment from Our Craft Lounge - Golfin Gramps. It says "Have a Par-fect day!" hee! (I created my dad's birthday card last year using this set too---a definite fav for my golf lovin dad!)

Thanks for stopping by today! Off to do lots a laundry :)