card happy

My final March Kit goodies…all the cards!

This one is for a neighbor that helped us with our outdoor play structure…a picture of my boys on top of it. Quick and easy using the sticker from Cosmo Cricket, a scrap of Cosmo patterned paper, a Crate paper brad and ribbon. The actual cardstock was a scrap in my stash…

Gorgeous Crate Paper…side A and B…K&Co phrase stickers, Cosmo Cricket buttons and that a scrap of that fun ruffle ribbon you saw in my trend post last Tuesday.

Yummy papers from Cosmo Cricket…I scissor cut a few flowers and popped them up, a bold green ribbon, K&Co phrase sticker, MLS stickers from last month’s kit and a little scalloped edge. Happy Birthday to Grandma JoAnn last week!

Another thank you card for another neighbor that helped out with that play structure…the boys are LOVING it. A scrap of Lush paper, a few punched circles and a button by Cosmo Cricket…sew it all together and you have a cute card! The white pen is my favorite…Uni-ball Signo 153

A scrap of Jillibean, another scrap of red ribbon, Cosmo Cricket buttons and my go-to embellishment of stitching. Oh, there’s my favorite white pen again!

Hope you enjoyed all the March kit stuff…what did you come up with using it?

I’ll be back tomorrow with a non-kit layout. I actually have had time to scrap just for fun! Who am I kidding…it’s all fun! :)

Kristen

thanks, friends

a fun card to share…

thanks to you all for checking in and reading my silly moments.

Kristen

all paper is Jillibean, thickers by American Crafts and mini letters by MLS.

pirate’s life…

This layout was done for Green Tangerines (the store) a while back. When they closed it was included in a stack of layouts I got back and I was reminded how much I loved it!

Simple, easy, but recorded a part of our lives at the time…look how little my big guys were!

You can see that I stitched across both layers of solid cardstock.

This was adapted from a sketch by Mackenzie in January of last year. You can see what she did with it here.

I love those October Afternoon journaling cards…

and the sticker sheets that went with this monster line as well…I can’t remember the name of it, do you?

Lots of fun words to play with…

  And of course…both mini letters by Making Memories and Thickers by American Crafts to round it all out!

What story do you need to get down on paper today?

Happy Monday!

Kristen

date night

Thanks to my mom and dad we were able to have a date night while we were at Disneyland. Unbeknownst to us, they took the kids to the park, too…but we never ran into them.

We loved being by ourselves. We literally ran to rides before closing time, we went on rides in the single rider line to make waits shorter, we went on all the rides that are too fast or too scary for the kids. We enjoyed a quick dinner by ourselves. It was so fun.

I didn’t want to deal with my camera that night so this was a quick iphone pic on Space Mountain. Not the greatest, but I wanted to document it anyway.

I layered some of the fun patterned papers, the wood, stickers from October Afternoon, letters from Prima…just went to town.  You’ll also notice that I didn’t use the customized clip like I had previewed in a previous post…I ended up deciding the orange didn’t have a place on my layout…so I switched it up.

And then I just used the layout as inspiration for a thank you note for my parents. It came together pretty quickly using the layout as my guide.

So what have you done with the February kit?

Kristen

sneaks…

Here are some sneak peeks at the first layout I did with the new kit from Green Tangerines…love the colors!

 Little letters…a must! The labels are October Afternoon…the paper is Collage Press.

snaps by WeRMemoryKeepers, paper by Basic Grey…

This is fun…it’s actual WOOD. Creative Imaginations is making these thin sheets of wood for scrapbooking. Cool, huh? I tried to run it through my printer, but it didn’t like it. It’s thin, but still too thick for the printer. (FYI…my printer has a opening at the back to help un-jam paper…does yours? Comes in handy, I tell ya!)

So rather than play with it more, I decided to pull out a trusty transparency and print on it. I bought a box of printable transparencies at the office supply store a while ago to use for times like this.

Then I stacked the transparency on top of the wood and a piece of scalloped paper (it’s the backside of the yellow you see by Crate Paper…I used a scallop border punch to make the actual design) and pierced a line of holes along the edge. Then I hand sewed it all together. I wasn’t sure it would go through my sewing machine after the printer fiasco.

I noticed the date label on the October Afternoon sticker sheet and it fit perfectly under my printed date…no advanced planning, just a happy accident. I love when that happens!

I’ll let you know when the full version of this layout is posted…in  the meantime, check out the GT Flickr account to see more fun layouts!

Off to scrap some more with this kit…

Kristen

valentines for the teachers

So here’s what I ended up with for the boys’ teachers today…simple and cute…right up my alley!

I had these little note card and envelope sets from back when I was demonstrating Stampin’ Up! I came across them in my drawer and thought I should use them.

Each teacher got a set of 5 little note cards with envelopes (they have a scalloped edge…love that!) plus a handful of Valentine’s candy. Tie it up, attach leftover tags from the kids’ valentine’s and there you go!

The paper is actually from Basic Grey’s Christmas line: Eskimo Kisses. I loved the green and pink! I just punched out a whole bunch of circles and went to town.

They were all the same…time saver! And I used a similar look that I used on the front of my grandparent valentines…lifted from my friend Brenda (she used it on this card).

Wouldn’t you love a little set of mini note cards like this?

I hope you have a good weekend…we’re getting ready for a trip. I love the trip part…don’t love the packing and driving!

Kristen

valentines for grandma

As promised…here is the fun valentine I came up with for the grandparents/great grands/aunts&uncles…

You will need:

A package of baseball card sheet protectors (I got mine at WalMart for about $6 for 35), cardstock, patterned paper and embellishments of your choosing.

Trim the baseball card protectors in to 3 strips…

Take the cardstock and cut into strips 7 1/2” x 4” and then score at 3/4” and 4 1/8” (You may have to futz with this depending on the measurements of the sheet protectors you find). Scallop the top flap if desired.

You can see that I took patterned paper and cut it down to 2 1/2 x 3 1/2” and slipped it in the protectors to back my photos. Ignore the 7Gypsies gaffer tape…I decided not to use it (even though I love it).

You’ll size your photos to 2 1/2”x3 1/2” as well. I took two images and layered them together in Photoshop so I got the two pictures out of one 4x6. I also added text to them.

Staple or sew the edge of the protector into the top flap. You’ll see I added an extra layer of patterned paper because I didn’t like the red scallop laying on top of the red card front in the final product.

 

Decorate and embellish the front as you see fit. I borrowed an idea that I’ve seen my friend Brenda do on cards a lot (and you’ll see it on my teacher gifts tomorrow as well).

Put the pictures in the protectors, fold the front of the card into the flap created by the stitching and you have a fun little photo holder!

These are going in the mail to everyone tomorrow. I’ll take photos of what they look like with the pictures in them when the light is better…these were all taken with flash in my office…not great.

By the way…the paper is part of Making Memories 5th Avenue line.

Kristen

challenge…layout #4 and sketch #6

{Wondering what I’m talking about? Check out my challenge post here.}
Okay, so here it is finally. Wondering what held me up? Keep on reading and I’ll explain.
Here was sketch #4

And here is my guy in his Christmas choir glory:
 
Yep…that’s nearly 300 of our closest friends up on stage with him. Bayside doesn’t do small. :) All of the product is from the December kit.
check out those cute tiny little tags, frosted envelopes and fabric tags… I did some stitching on this one…felt good to get my sewing machine out.  The star sticker strip is by Hambly, as is the kraft paper with the white grid.
More stitching and I used a tiny scrap of the Crate Paper stripe to add a bit of interest…I like how it turned out. Those are Thickers, of course and some mini letters from October Afternoon.

Isn’t this hat pin fun? I took wire cutters and cropped off the pointy edge… And here’s the layout by Jennifer Johner in the Nov/Dec issue of Scrapbooks, Etc that was my inspiration. I LOVED it and just expanded it into a double!
Check out Christine’s version of the single here.

And the last of my challenge sketches…the last of the 4x6 photo sketches. You might recognize it…
If you find yourself perusing the GT Flickr account you may remember seeing this layout from the February kit:
It was also mine.  I liked it’s simplicity so much that I decided to use it again. That’s what I love about scrapbooking…re-using and idea never looks the same. You’ll see that I actually took the 4x6 blocks on the right and made them 2x3 blocks. Easy Peasy!
Okay…now…the news that made me sad…
My LSS, Green Tangerines is closing at the end of this month. This place has such a huge part of my heart. Not only is it the coolest store I’ve ever been in, the people are amazing. Kelly and Paula, the owners, are two of the nicest people I have ever met. My heart is just aching over it. Never mind the fact that I will have NO scrapbook store near me now…what?!?!
The good news is that the Green Tangerines Kit Club is continuing, with a whole bunch of NEW things in store for 2010.
So I’m sad and excited all at the same time…sigh…
Can you forgive my lack of creative mojo the other night when I found out?
Now that it’s all sunk in, I’m working on layout #5 and 6 and I hope that I can still finish them up in time for my original ‘deadline’. Check back tomorrow to see how I’m doing.

Kristen

soup’s done…

and it turned out great!

Wondering what I’m talking about? A few days ago, I posted that I was working with some Jillibean Soup papers…love them! Check out what I said here.

And this is the result…

Loved the cool, chunky buttons:

and of course I stitched…

And I used my scallop punch on all those cool papers:

Such fun!

Looking for a sketch? You got it!

I was inspired by this layout by Wendy Sue Anderson a few months back in CK.

Link me to YOUR layout using the sketch…I’d love to stop by to check it out!

Kristen

Sam Pal and a sketch

My middle guy met his favorite pal in preschool a few years back. They connected immediately as did his mom and I (it's always nice when you can be friends with the moms of the pals of your kiddos!). It turned out we had a lot in common and all of our kiddos get along nicely...and so do our hubbys. Friendship made in heaven, huh?

A while back the store asked a few of us to create some layouts with the October Afternoon monster paper (these are either Louie, Charles, Henry or Jack...either way, they are no longer in production, sadly). I just love that line. Love anything OA, actually! I'm digging on their Farm Fresh and Report Card lines right now!

So here is what I came up with:

And here are some details:

I used two different journaling cards to create the block here.

Hand cut two of the cuties from the papers.

Stitched up the felt circles and added some brads.

And here is where I got the inspiration for the layout. I wish I had recorded who did the original to give credit where credit is due...I hate when I do that. So if it's yours, post here and I'll give you a shout out! It's from a Creating Keepsakes last year, I think.

And here is the sketch I created from the layout:

I also created a layout for the March kit with the same sketch:

Link up your layouts from this sketch and we'll give you a shout out too!