Love is in the air

Well one holiday down and already time to celebrate another.   This time of year I do a lot of cards as I have many  loves :).  And so last week I made a stop to the My Favorite Things Boutique  picking up a few things for crafting some Valentines Day cards. Yes I am lucky enough to live so close to the boutique but if you don't live in the area you can always shop  online on their website.  Lots of great stuff!

They also have a  blog that is full of inspiration, tutorials and technique ideas.  Sketch challenges are posted here weekly as well.

Speaking of challenges.... I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to play along with this weeks sketch challenge.  I was so excited to see the layout since I had some new goodies, but after seeing the post and some examples from other crafters, I thought to myself what heck am I going to do that is "good enough?"

Hope you all like what I came up with.  Thanks again for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Oh yeah one more thing.. so over Christmas while shopping for presents I picked up a little gift for myself.  I came across this DP pad at Marshalls, yup Marshalls of all places.  So when I got it home I looked for the name of the company or the series name of the paper on the packaging and I all saw was "DIY shop."  I thought hmmm ok well lets google it and see what is out there. Holy moly this website for Crate Paper has the cutest paper.  Check them out.

Stamps: MFT Pure Innocence Love you with all my heart, DP Paper 

Paper: SU Crumb Cake, Real Red and Coastal Cabaa

Accessories: MFT Dienamics Floating Hearts and Fishtail Flags Stax, Copics, SU Burlap Ribbon

Sweet Sunday Challenge 203

It has been so so long since I have participated in a SSSC.    Oh how I have missed Karen's great layouts. :)

While digging through my stamps, I got so excited coming across this set.  I have had it for about 6 months and could not think enough outside the box to come up with a design to showcase them.  I thought this was just so perfect with the banner similarity to the layout from this weeks challenge.

The stamp set is from My Favorite Things Stamps, pretty sure it's discontinued as I receivced from shopping there one day as a bonus for spending x amount of dollars. I generally spend x amount of dollars there too often, LOL 

There is still  plenty of time to play along, hope this "enspires" you to join in.  Deadline is the friday.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

Switching it up.

You know what happens when you start a project and you don't finish it in a timely manner.  Answer (or just for me): it begins to take on a new form.  This card was from my Stampin Up workshop a few weeks back and originally had a whole another layout.  Because I couldn't quite remember what that was, Viola here what became of it.

I did keep with the orginial flower, again this a technique using a dryer sheet, glitter and glue and the sentiment is punched using the new ticket duo.  I think its my favorite punch right now!

Hope you like it and thanks for the quick peek :).

Fun Day in Bev's Stampin Up Studio!

Hi all,  well I am one happy girl.  I got to spend some time in Beverly's studio today.  For those of you that don't know her.....  Beverly is a Stampin Up demonstrator and  has a shabby chic studio right here in Mount Dora, Florida. It is attached to her own home that accommodates about 10-15 people to work and create at a time. Each month she holds a class having us make anywhere from 3-6 cards.  

She uses mostly newer catalogue items and always tries to teach us a new technique.  This month she showed us how to use dryer sheets, adhesive and glitter over a colored image  giving it an opaque shimmery look.

Below are three of the 6 cards we made ( I kinda didn't finish the other three). I love them all but one I really like, can you pick which one?  Which one is your favorite?  

This is the card we used the technique on.  I think it gives it a nice touch.  

psst  This is my favorite one, I kinda switched out the flowers with different ones,  I just love roses :). 

Well thanks for stopping by as soon as I get the other three done I will post shortly! 

Happy New Year! 2014

Hi all,  hope your holiday season was merry and bright!   I thoroughly enjoyed my time this holiday season, especially well over due time with the huble.  We enjoyed pretty much doing all things that make us the happiest.  We caught up with friends/family,  made a small trip out of town to the treasure coast,  attended many parties, cooked/baked great dishes and desserts, ate them, crafted, took a camera class with my new camera, ate, napped, played board games with the family, read several books, went to the movies,  had a few bonfires and I did mention we ate- LOL.

I saw a cartoon somewhere where one person was asking another what they got for Christmas and the one person replied "fat", "I got fat for Christmas."  Ha ha ha. Yup we can relate, between my family (we are Italians) and myself we did some good cooking this holiday.   My husband and I were off for roughly 2 weeks, this last week he made us go back to boot camp.  Lots of walking :)

I mentioned crafting...... I did make some cards but with there only being 4 weeks to get Christmas done and not having a good camera once again I failed at taking any pictures.  But fear not I am on a mission now with my super duper new toy.

I am however able to share a project I did over the holidays,(discloser pics taken with an iphone).  Each year my company holds a Christmas party for our clients.  And so each year decorations-table decor are an essential.  I love making the event just a bit extra special by giving them something festive and pretty to look at.  It really helps create the mood :).  I definitely think I succeeded as many people came up to me and said "wow did you make those they are so pretty."

Truth be told I had help from a few elves.  There was no way I could do 15 of these all on my own.  I actually came up with the design from something off of pinterest and then just modified to scale for our party.

I did three different versions, classic red/white, what we call  the Dr. Seuss and a blue/white in honor of our Jewish folks however those got gobbled up so fast that I didn't get a picture of the Jewish design.

Ok so  here they are...

This one actually had a snowflake on the pot base, in the next photo you will see what I am referring too.  

After completing these for our party, I decided to create a 16th one for the two people that have inspired me and my crafting-my grandparents.  They love the color purple and their house is decorated in these colors.  And oh yeah so the snowflake on this one is the same one we did use for the Dr. Seuss one above. 

They loved it!  When my grandparents retired many years ago they got into doing center pieces for  local small business's in new york that they frequented.  The business owners would keep them so busy especially around the holidays.  They were very talented and I remember at times helping them when I could. 

Anyway thanks for stopping by and I hope 2014 is a great year for you and yours :).