Baby Birth Announcements

Next week Austin's 3rd grade teacher will be given a surprise baby shower by the 3rd grade parents. Because they aren't finding out what they are having and she will have another shower given by family and friends where she has registered for what she wants, I wanted to give her something that she is certain not to get doubles of. I made a box of birth announcements with the retired Bundle Of Joy set by SU! For the inside of the card I used the slit punch so that she can add a photo of the baby is she wants. I hope she likes them! I apologize for the glare in the photos. I had them packaged up before I photographed them and I didn't want to undo them.

Graduations Galore

Fremont Ross Little GiantsOld Fort Stockaders
Clyde Fliers

It seems that each summer we have more and more graduations, weddings, and birthday parties to attend. This morning I sat down and mass produced the graduation cards. I must say that it is time for SU! to come up with a new graduation set. I have been using the retired Tassel Time set until something else comes along to replace it. I'd have to say that Old Fort wins the award for the ugliest color combo!

It's A Jungle Out There- Birthday Card

I have several June birthdays and I'm trying to catch up on the birthday cards. This one is for one of my daycare kids. He loves animals. He is really smart and could probably tell you anything you want to know about them, so I thought this card would be appropriate for him. I used High Hopes Walk About Walley, and the "It's a jungle out there" sentiment. I hope you all had a great long weekend.

Cookie Frogs

Today I'm going to take the kids to the park. I've packed a lunch to take along and this morning we made treats to take with us as well. These little guys were created in honor of my first stamp release Pond Pals. These cute little frog cookies are so easy to make. the kids had a blast helping me. All you need is a few oreo cookies, pretzel twists, m&m's, white frosting to attach things together, and white chocolate (optional). I would use the smaller pretzel twists. I only had the big ones at home and they are a little too big. After we got these little guys put together something just didn't look right to me. Then it hit me- I wanted to put green food coloring in the melted white chocolate so they look more like frogs, but I got ahead of myself and forgot! Oh well, the kids are going to eat them so fast anyways! For those of you interested in my ebay store, I've added a link to the top right corner of my sidebar. Look for another release mid-June.

A Little Dirt Never Hurt

I just love this little guy from High Hopes. I thought this sentiment from TAC would be perfect for this because I know my boys wouldn't be able to be outside playing with frogs without getting covered in dirt! I used yesterday's SCS sketch challenge for the layout and also Ashley's Brainwave challenge for the colors. They are perfect for this boy card. I used a pencil eraser in Creamy Carmel ink for the dirt smudges on the little boy. For a fun touch I also used a second stamped image of the boy and cut out his face and feet and adhered them to the original for dimansion. Hope you like it!

Happy Lily

This card was for Julee's Mojo Monday sketch this week. I know you're probably tired of seeing Lily, but I made a lot of cards with her to justify my purchase. The patterned paper I used is by Cosmo Cricket. I've had it for a while so I'm not sure of the collection name. Everything else is pretty basic. Visit Julle's blog to see the sketch, and don't forget to visit my Ebay store to get your very own Pond Pals set.

Happy Birthday Lily

This week I have been going to town on the Lily card. If you don't have the Dress Up Lily set from PCS, you have to check it out. It'll be a must have for you too. Each day this week I'm going to post the cards that I've made with Lily. Today's card is using SU! Family Phrases for the Happy Birthday sentiment. The layout I got from Jill's blog. I also used the large star punch and the spiral punch from SU!

What Next?

I know a lot of kids cut their own hair, but not my kids. They know better. This is not something that I ever thought my kids would do. Today, Cameron proved me wrong. While I was tending to my afternoon shift daycare children's arrival Cameron was in the bathroom doing his thing. A few minutes later he came out with a strange look on his face, but from where I was sitting I could not yet tell what he had done. To me it looked like he had a hat ring or something. He came closer and it was then I knew what he had done. He has a haircut appointment on Wednesday anyway, so hopefully Joni can work her magic and fix this mess- but I'm thinking we're going to have to buzz it. In the meantime, do you think they'll let him wear a hat to school?

So Hoppy For You

I made this card for my cousin who recently bought a home less than 10 minutes from me. I used my new Pond Pals set from Snips N' Snails stamps. The layout was from a bloggers sketch challenge a couple of weeks ago. Remember to visit my ebay store to get this set for yourself!

An Announcement

Today is the day I decided to announce the opening of my very own stamp store, Snips N' Snails stamps! This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but have had so many other things going on. I've really made this a priority over the past few months to make this dream come true. It's still a work in progress, but someday I hope it to be a successful as some of the other wonderful stamp companies out there. Until I get a website going I will announce the new sets here on my blog. I also have an ebay store (Snips N' Snails Stamps) that they are available for purchase at. If you are interested in purchasing, simply shoot me an email and I will set you right up! This first set is called Pond Pals. It's a set of 12 clear photopolymer stamps. The sentiments read as follows:

What's all the buzz about?

Flying by to say hi

You're fin-tastic

so hoppy for you

hoppy birthday

best fishes

Get Well Soon

I just love the Dress Up Lily set from Pink Cat Studio, and I hear there is a Dress Up Billy in production. I can't wait to get him! I will be able to use it for so many boy projects! This card is using Julee's Mojo Monday sketch. I changed it up just a hair by making the card base size to 5.25" square. Lily's nurse hat was stamped, colored, and cut out- adding it to her head with a dimensional. I also added the scallop circle, which was not part of the sketch. That's about it. Right now I can't think of anyone the is ill to send this card to, and I guess that's a good thing! Happy Wednesday. Be sure to check back tomorrow for some news!

Flying By To Say Hi

This card is using today's SCS color challenge. We were to use Ruby Red, Pumpkin pie, and Soft Sky. I used Bashful Blue instead since that's what color I sponged the sky. The layout of this card is pretty basic. I wanted to focus on a lot of the stamps in this new set called, Pond Pals. To find out how you can get your own set, email me epayne@glis.cc . I used all of the stamps in the sets besides the frog and the rest of the sentiments. There are 12 total stamps. You probably can't tell from the picture, but there is alot of dimension on this card. First of all, I stamped my dragonfly, then colored him. Then I stamped his wings on acetate, added them to the original body. Then I stamped the head again, colored and cut it out and added it with dimensionals. Lastly, I added googly eyes. The cattails have brown fun flock on them so they are fuzzy. The water ripples are glittery to have the shimmer of water. The fish also has googly eyes. My favorite pad is the lily pad. I have this bucket of bridal confetti from Michael's, so I cut and colored the flowers with SU! markers and assembled them to look like a flower on a lily pad. Cute, huh!?

I'm Back!

It's been a few days since I've posted, but the weekend gets away from me and then Monday gets here and I was having a hard time getting into stamping yesterday. I still haven't ahd time to stamp, but I'm going to show the Mother's Day card that I made for all the special moms in my life. I used the same stamp set, Priceless (SU!), and the same paper, Fall Flowers (SU!) on all of them. Each one used a different layout though. I only took a picture of one because I wanted to get them delivered and I wanted to wait until them got them to post because they all read this blog. Did you all have a good Mother's Day? Dustin had my car detailed and took me to dinner Saturday night. The boys made things for me at school. Now it's time to think of Father's Day.

Scratch N' Sniff Cup Card

I'm sorry for the delay in posting today. I almost wasn't going to at all. It's gloomy and cold, Carter isn't feeling the greatest, and I really have had little motivation today to do much of anything. But I decided to post the card that I worked on last night. I have to admit that it's a CASE from another blogger. I've wanted to do these cup cards for long time and they work perfectly with the Tart and Tangy set. I made a pocket card so that I can make an insert with a recipe for Strawberry Lime Slushy. Again....the was a case, but I didn't save the information so I can't credit the original creator. For the cup I used a dixie cup for a template, traced it onto vellum, and cut it out. I sponged Real Red on it to look like liquid. Across the top of the cup I added glitter with a two-way glue pen. To attach the cup to the card I scored the ends of the vellum about 1/4" so I could fold them back and attach it to the card with sticky strip. For the scratch-n-sniff part I stamped out my fruit. Then I covered it with Versamark. I sprinkled a mixture of (1 part) Kool-Aid and (2 parts) Embossing powder over the fruit and heated it with the heat tool. Here is the recipe for hte slushy if you are interested:

Strawberry Lime Slushy

2 c. strawberry sorbet

1 c. lime sorbet

1 T. fresh lime juice

1/4 c. sliced strawberries

1/4 c. orange juice

2 c. ice cubes

Place all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.

Movie Night Gift Set

This was a fun project for me. I like to give movie gift certificates because the recipient might not spend the money to go see a movie otherwise. I'm not sure who I'm going to give this to, but it's ready to give when I decide. The paper I used on all of the items is the Jersey Shore collection by SU! The idea behind this gift set is that it can be used for a movie night at home with the pop, popcorn, and candy. And then there are the gift certificates to use for a night at the movie theatre. I simply put a band around two bags of popcorn and added some stars with my SU! Star punch. I covered the box of of Stewart's Oranges N' Cream pop. I found a template online from a link someone had sent to me to use as mini popcorn boxes. Here is that link. Lastly, I put together the card that has a pocket on the inside to hold the gift certificates. For the past two days I've been thinking it was Thursday. This week is going so slow! It finally is Thursday though and I can't wait until the weekend.

Lily Lunchbox Tin

I broke down and bought a girly set. I have nothing to use for little girls and I really like the Dress Up Lily from Pink Cat Studio. She comes with all sorts of dress up type things from purses to magic wands to wings. I bought a ton of the little lunch box tins at my last trip to Michael's. I only bought one girly one though, and I used it for this project. I don't even really like purple, but I like how this turned out. First I stamped the wings on the white scallop circle. Then I stamped Lily and cut her out.I also stamped the wings a second time on acetate and cut them out. They are popped up to give them dimension. I filled the box with little goodies that I got out of the dollar bin...lip gloss, a note pad and pen, stickers, butterfly punch, and a set of studio G clear stamps. Now I'm all set for a cute gift when one of Cameron's little girlfriends has a birthday!

African Safari Wildlife Park

The kids have been asking to go to the zoo for a while now, so that's where I was going to take them over the weekend. Saturday ended up being a washout. It rained off and on all day. Sunday was gorgeous. A little cooler than I like it though. We decided not to go to the zoo. Dustin was working and I wasn't comfortable taking all three of them there by myself. I remembered the African Safari Wildlife Park, though. We had never been there before and it always looked neat. That's where we headed for a few hours yesterday. You drive through the park with your windows down (if you want) so you can feed the animals, all the while silently praying that they don't damage your vehicle. I didn't even think about that whenI drove my brand new vehicle through it! Unfortunately, we ran out of food so one of the elk thought my door frame would make a nice chew toy. I now have teeth marks on the door:( That's the risk you take when you go to this place though! Cam and Carter had lots of fun feeding the animals. The buffalo must have made the biggest impact on Carter because that's alll he's been talking about since yesterday. Cameron was more comfortable with the animals that didn't come to his eye level in the truck. (Erin-Ryan would've freaked out. Too close for his comfort!) It was a really neat experience. I'm glad we did it, but we won't be going back until our vehicles are older!

Paper Salon- Part #2

Here are the other 4 cards that I promised made with the new Paper Salon line. Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Paper Salon Cards Galore

Rachel, over at our LSS, Scrap Happy has asked me again to whip up some cards using the new Paper Salon collection- called First Blush. It must have been all the rain that we got today, because I was on a roll. I made 8 cards in about an hour and I could've made more! I thought I should probably get some housework done though. It is always a fun challenge to make things for the store. I am pretty limited to the things I can use because it has to be things that can be bought at Scrap Happy. I like the way these turned out though. They are different than the style cards I normally make. Maybe because they are girly. Lots of pink! I usually lean towards boy stuff! Thanks for the challenge Rach! Hope you like them. I've only posted 4 of them today and I'll show you the rest tomorrow!

Let's Celebrate With Hunter Rick

I made this card for Ashley's Brain Wave Wednesday Challenge. I know, it's Friday but I've had a lot going on these days! My s-i-l gave me tons of High Hopes images recently, and Hunter Rick was the lucky one to be chosen today! I made this card for Austin's birthday. He'll be turning 9 at the end of the month. He has been hunting once, but he thinks he's Davey Crockett! The challenge for Ashley's challenge was to use the sketch she provided. I like the simplicity of her sketch.

Goin' On A Bear Hunt

It's been almost a week since I posted a card, so here's one for you to look at that I made for yesterdays' SCS sketch challenge. We were to make a long card. I haven't done one of those in a while. I had a bunch of High Hopes images that my s-i-l gave me sitting on my desk, so I grabbed one of the bears and began coloring. I alos had a few scraps leftover of this camo/tree paper. I thought it would be a perfect match for the bear. I printed "Goin' on a bear hunt" on the computer. It reminded me of a book my kids have and I had that chant in my head all day yesterday..."We're going on a bear hunt. We're gonna catch a big one. What a beautiful day. We're not scared!" You get the idea. I am surrounded by projects, so I may be back a little later with something else to share-but no promises!