Got Copics?

Okay, so I have been eyeing Copic markers for a while now.  Over a year at least.  I just kept thinking, how great can they be really?  I even tried some out at CHA summer 2010 and still wasn't into them but then came CHA 2011.  I just kept seeing all the beautiful projects with them and broke down and bought some last week.  Saturday we went to the Scrapbook Expo and took a little mini class on Copics.  I am so over the moon about them now and soooo happy I bought them!  I did a little experimenting with the set I bought last night on a digi stamp and it was so fun!  I had never tried digi stamps before so this was my first time.  After figuring out how to resize the stamp, I printed it out 4 times and went to coloring. This is what I came up with.

He's a little hard to see on this photo but I will be showing more of this adorable Karber image during the Labor of Love Halloween Blog Hop Sept 1st and 2nd.  This hop is hosted by the sweet Ellen over at Card Monkey.  Everyone is making a Halloween Banner, mailing them to her and she will be displaying them at the Pediatric Specialty Care in PA for children that are being card for there.  Please stop by and visit these ladies during this hop as a lot of care was put into making these banners for these children.

DCWV Sketch Challenge

Good Morning everyone!  Today is an exciting day for me as I am heading to the scrapbook expo!  I am pretty lucky as it's right in the next town over so I don't have travel too far to get there:-).In honor of that I decided to do some scrapbooking this past week.  I have these beautiful sunflowers in my yard that grew to be HUGE so I decided to take some pictures with my daughter standing by them.  I also bought a new sunflower die for my Sizzix and had recently also gotten the new Sunflower background stamp from Stampin UP!  I was so excited to use both!  My favorite paper is DCWV and I subscribe to their blog.  Recently Erin from DCWV started putting a sketch challenge out there and I knew this was my month to finally participate!

For my project I stamped out the Sunflower title with my new Stampin Daisies Zebra Alphabet.  I love how versatile this set is!  For the paper I used the DCWV paper packs of LInen Closet and the Green Stack.  I also used some Stampin UP paper, Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, and Crumb Cake

 Here's a close up of my cute little daisies

Thanks for stopping by, don't forget about the Stampin Daisies Challenge going on right now over at the blog!

Stampin Daisies Sketch Challenge #1

Good Morning everyone!  TGIF!  We are so excited here at our house.  We leave next Thursday for CA and Disneyland.  My daughter Ava wakes up every day asking how many more days?  I am so excited for her and for my son too!  Actually, I'm excited for all of us and honestly am having a hard time thinking of much else.  All these thoughts keep running through my head, what to bring on the plane, what to pack, what princesses will we see:-).  It's making it hard for me to craft with all these thoughts running through my head!  Somehow I was able to focus a little bit yesterday and make this sweet card for the new Stampin Daisies Sketch Challenge.  I just LOVE the new Smiling Daisies stamp set and I couldn't wait to play with it for a card!

Here's my card.  I embossed the card with silver embossing powder for all my daisies.  They came out so pretty!  I just love the color combo of red and turquoise so I decided to try it out for this card.

This card is based on this sketch:

If you'd like to play along, visit the Stampin Daisies blog and link your project.  You could be the lucky winner of this set for yourself!  

The Scrapbook Expo is in town so I'll be going there tomorrow.  I'll have a new scrapbook page to show you all tomorrow in honor of it:-)

Stampin Daisies Release Party!!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to the first Stampin Daisies Release Party. Hopefully you have just joined me from Jenny's blog, if not and you want to start from the beginning you can go to Monica's blog.  Monica is giving away two stamps sets to one lucky winner so you want to make sure you start at the beginning to have more chances to win!

Here are my two projects for today:

 I kept the same sketch for both to make it a little easier on myself:)

For my projects I used the adorable new Ocean Buddies stamps set.  

My five year old loves this set too!  She likes to create her own "scrapbook" pages with it:-)

I also created this adorable calendar page using the same set:

I hope you enjoyed all the projects today.  Your next stop is Linda over at Fancy Framework. Don't forget to leave a comment here and at all the other blogs for your chance to win!

My first attempt at Jewelry Making

So I have been mod podging A LOT lately.  I have been making an art journal and mod podging everything I put into it.  I never knew there were so many different kinds of mod podge!  I went to the store and picked up some modge podge dimensional magic as I have had these two jewelry pendants for over a year and I knew this would be the perfect time to make something out of them!

This first one is a photo of my kids that I wanted to put in here.  It came out just okay as I probably should have waited for it to dry more.  The colors ran a little but it's really hard to see on it, it just gives the photo a nice pink tinge:-)

Here is the second one, I love it. I just took a simple piece of paper, cut where this flower was on the paper to make it fit the frame, glued it down with modge podge, stamped a J for my name, and added little rhinestone. On both of these I just added the dimensional mod podge on top to give it that clear dimensional look over it. 

Both of these were super easy to make!  Now I am looking into getting more pendants and crystals so I can make some for gifts:-)

August Calendar Page

Hi everyone!  Well, as most of you know if you have been following my blog, I design for the Stampin Daisies Design Team.  I just got these adorable stamps from Monica and knew I had to play with them right away!  I was a little slow making my August Calendar page for my fridge as we were on vacation the last week in July so I thought this would be the perfect project to use my awesome new stamps!

This set is called Ocean Buddies and it's perfect for beach layouts!  I had a few little mermaids and shells left over from my daughter's invitations and thought one would be cute here, fitting with the theme perfectly!

 There are some really cute sentiments on this one, I thought this was perfect for my calendar!  Aren't the little faces on these stars so sweet?

 Love those cute little octopus and the little bubbles stamp was perfect for making bubbles in the "water".

 This little fish is so adorable!

I had so much fun playing with my new stamps, I hope you'll take a peak over at the Stampin Daisies site and check out what else she has to offer.  The stamps are all available for pre-order now!

CHA

Hi Everyone!  I want to do a quick post on all the fun things I did at CHA this year and to show you all what I got while I was there:-).
This year the consumer part of CHA was done a bit differently.  It was actually combined with the Fashion and Jewelry show which made it so confusing for us crafters to figure out if there actually was a show.  My friend Nancy and I had so much fun last year and this year we were back and forth on if we were even going to go this year.  At the last minute we did decide to go on Friday and of course we were glad we did in the end but were disappointed in the lack of vendors. However, that did not stop me from getting a huge haul of craft goodies!  I am going to show them all to you here:-).

Thursday of the show I went to meet up with some other crafters, including Jess from Kinderstampo and Sarah from Pink Cricut.  Here is a photo of everyone.  It was fun to meet all of them.  (I am the one holding my son)

 Here I am with Tim Holtz, oh and my son Carter again.  I ended up going into the other part of CHA that day with Carter and just carrying him around as I oohed and aahed at all the booths.  My favorite was DCWV and there upside down Christmas tree with paper ornaments!

The next day Nancy and I went on our own (sans Kids).  Here are some of the Cuttlebug folders I got.

 Some bling! oh and a make and take we made. 

 Love how the little crystals fit the nestabilities perfect!

 Couple more embossing folders..

 Some glue (love this stuff) and a few other dies

 This is were I spend all my money!! Love these cute little stamps!

 They even have dies to coordinate with the stamps, so cute!

 I just had to get this for the sayings, I love them! 

 A couple of Unity stamps.

 Another make n take.  Love these flowers!

 Here is a book I "won" from Kinderstampo.  Jess and Sarah did a drawing for all the girls that came out to see them and I won this beautiful book!  She also gave everyone a cute Halloween tag.

 She is so talented!

 Inside, all the little tabs come out

Finally, Here is a very quick card I made with my new stamps. This was for a boy's graduation and I wanted to make it more masculine.  I haven't had much time to play with them yet... Need to get in my craft room soon!

Cocktails & Dreams Blog hop

Hi all!  Welcome to the Cocktails & Dreams blog hop!   I hope everyone is having a great summer!  I spent the last week at my Mom's lake house in northwest Indiana.  It was sooooo nice!  My 3 nieces and two kids spent practically all of their days in the water.  It was hard to get them out!  I love all the great memories they are making at the lake...
Anyway, today we head back home to enjoy the last few weeks of our summer vacation.  If you are hopping along with us then you just came from the very talented Lisa at Lisa Garrow, if not, and you want to start at the beginning, go ahead back to Gill's blog over at Creations by Gill M.
Once I heard Gill was hosting this hop I knew I wanted to take part in it. What a fun title, huh?  It conjured up images of the movie Cocktail, which then led me to thinking about beaches, which then led me to thinking of Jimmy Buffet.  Funny how that works, huh?  Anyway, my project is of a scrapbook page I did last year when my husband and I went with some friends to the Jimmy Buffet concert.  This was only my second Jimmy Buffet concert and it was a blast!

I stamped the title and used the retired Stampin UP! Tropical Party for the green palm like leaves, the flowers, the drink, and the little tree.  The patterned paper is also a retired set from Stampin UP!  The background paper is Stampin UP! Tempting Turquoise along with the ribbon.

 Here are the two pages together.

Thanks so much for visiting today!  Your next stop is the very crafty Jenn over at Cardstock and Coffee.