An Eggstra Special Easter Hut!

This week at the MDC Challenge Blog we were challenged to make an Easter or spring altered item. I've been wanting to decorate one of these folding chipboard house kits from Crafty Secrets forever, so I thought it would make an adorable bunny house!

I used our new Beacon's 3-in-1 glue to attach all my papers to the chipboard - I LOVE this stuff because it grabs quick and dries clear and without wrinkling your project! I decorated the house with our super cute glitter accented Easter papers from Best Creations and the polka dot trim is dot to dot cardstock from Bo Bunny. The little bunnies in the window are cut out from the Best Creations paper. Check out my pictures:

I used my Nestabilities to cut some frames for around the photos that are housed inside the hut - all the windows are 'faux' with pictures glued to the back of the frame. To see inside, you simply remove the roof and untie the ribbon closure at the front of the house. It was very fun and easy to put together - to take the pictures I set it on some pretty Easter patterned paper for a little fun... and that's pretty much it! Very late and I still have to pull some orders so I'll hopefully be back soon with some more fun projects - so many ideas, so little time!!

On a personal note, I'm very excited today after finally getting a chance to meet some of the other mothers of Autistic children at my son's school... we are forming a nonprofit organization to get some services brought into my county, so I'm really excited!! Will keep you all posted, but we already have some fundraising ideas and it really feels like it's going to be a good thing for all of us!!

A Very Quickie Bookmark...

Today over at the MDC Challenge blog we thought it would be fun to take a little break from full cards and challenged everyone to make a bookmark instead. I think bookmarks have great potential for creativity because they can be all kinds of shapes, sizes, and even types.

I decided to make a bookmark I had seen a tutorial for a while back - it's such a fun and easy bookmark and to be honest it took me much longer to find the old instructions than it did to make the bookmark!! I keep going back to my new Marrakech paper pack from Basic Grey - love that line!! I picked it mostly because of this blue elephant paper and the stamp that goes with the set, because I love elephants (as did my great grandmother) and also because it reminded me very much of a Vera Bradley purse that I had last year and loved, except it had the pink elephants. Anyway, here's my bookmark:







The top picture shows the front of the bookmark, and the bottom picture shows a view of the back. The bookmark is very simple to make - there is a full tutorial here, but the basic instructions are to cut a strip of paper 1.75" x 8". You take the two sides and fold them in and down at the middle of the strip. In the end you should have a triangle on one side, which is the front of the bookmark, and a house shape that is the back. You will need to reinforce the seam to give it some strength - I used a border sticker from the Basic Grey pack. I love the paper so much that I just added a border to the bottom of the front and called it done, but of course you could embellish it as much as you like. I've seen nice examples where flowers or stamped images or monograms were added to the front triangle.

That's it for today - very very easy but a fun and satisfying project to make - I know I'll enjoy using my new bookmark - those darn elephants just make me happy! Thanks so much for visiting today - hope you have a fabulous evening!

A Bulk Posting!

Holy guacamole, Batman, we've got a lot to get through today!! I had some time to scrap yesterday and I spent the day getting as much done as I could! There are SO many challenges out there that I would love to take part in, and I just never seem to find the time! Speaking of, did you see the cool lists on the side of my blog? They're all categorized by days of the week and have live feed updates, so you can tell if something has been updated recently and go check it out with one click - hurrah blogger for that useful tool! Now instead of trying to remember a million different blogs and challenges I can just go click on my list!

So, first and foremost it's scrapbook challenge day at the MDC Challenge blog. This week we're working with a sketch from Julie Bonner's site - here's the sketch:


And here's my page:




I kept it pretty true to the sketch, although I did allow the fourth picture to be a little larger since my journaling focuses on my son's reaction to seeing the seal show. All the papers and embellishments are from Basic Grey's Marrakech line except the lined journaling paper, which is from Scenic Route. The title stickers are also Scenic Route, and the stamp in the medallion at the top is Daisy Bucket. It's SO fast working with sketches - the hardest part is deciding what pictures to use! I thought the colors and little squares were kind of pool-like, so I settled on some pictures from the Miami Seaquarium seal show a few years ago. The journaling reads:

You're watching them; I'm watching you. I wonder what could possibly be going through your mind seeing seals and humans splashing around and playing together. I'm SURE you would love to jump right in the pool with them and have some fun!



Saturday is inspiration day at Splitcoast Stampers, and this week's inspiration challenge came from Fitz and Floyd - I didn't even have to check out the catalog link because as soon as I saw this sample pick:



I got the idea to do a topper card using a bunny head as a topper, so here's what I came up with:


Originally I just wanted to do the head but it just wasn't coming together for me, so I ended up just using some different Best Creations papers as the background because they are glittery and pastel-ly and super cute, and then used punches and nesties to create my 'bunny'. The ears, arms, and feet are created using SU oval punches. The sign was stamped from a Serendipity stamp onto more Best Creations paper and then mounted on orange cardstock, the corners cut with an SU ticket punch. I drew the face, which is why it's lopsided, but you get the general idea! I had a fun time creating him and know just who I want to send him to!

Last Tuesday's challenge at Caardvarks was to make a critter card - we just got in this awesme Butterfield paper from Memory Box and ever since I saw it I knew I wanted to put a cow on it, so this was my chance! Here's What's Moo...



The cow was stamped on BG white background paper using an old MFT stamp that I've NEVER had the opportunity to use, even though I love it, so that was cool! I stamped an extra head and pop dotted it to add a little dimension. The sign is stamped from SU's Finest Flourishes set, and then I just wrote the sentiment since I didn't have any good cow pun sets... wonder why??? This was super fast and easy to put together and really was just all inspired by the Memory Box paper!!

OK, my last addition for the day was actually for two challenges several weeks ago that are now WAy too late to enter - part of it was a Splitcoast color challenge to use Chocolate Chip, Pink Passion, and Kiwi Kiss, and the other was Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch from that week... I hate that I missed them, but the first time I colored the image it looked crappy and then I worked like crazy and didn't have time to fix it, so here is the newly colored card:



I don't know if Caardvarks will let you enter twice - I guess if they do this could now also fall under the critter challenge! I'll have to check on that; anyway, I used all the colors listed above for cardstock, plus some BG paper from the Sultry collection that matched perfectly and some dotted paper from SU's Bella Rosa pack. The image is from Stampavie (and still isn't colored great, but TRUST me, it's an improvement! I wish I could take that Copic class!!) Again, I didn't have any toad inspired puns, so I just hand wrote the sentiment. I did also use my copic glitter pens to add some shine here and there, but it's difficult to see in the pic. The felt flower and button are old ones I had in my embellishment box - not sure where they're from.

OK, that's it for today! Sorry it's all lumped together, but I get so few days to craft and want to hit as many challenge deadlines as I can! I LOVE challenges and get so much inspiration... hope you make it over to the MDC challenge blog this week today and Thursday to participate and win some goodies!!! Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous day!!

Caardvarks Kraft Challenge

This week's challenge at the Caardvarks blog was to create a card using Kraft cardstock - I've always loved the contrast of Kraft cardstock with bright colors, so I really wanted to play along!

My card uses Kraft cardstock as the base and decorative papers from Basic Grey's new Marrakech line. I used black cardstock to accent the layers and help pop the bright colors. The greeting stamp is 'Elegant Thank You' from SU. The orange swirls across the bottom are rub-ons from the Marrakech line, and the accent flower is from the matching chipboard stickers. I added a little bling to the flower center from Zva creative and then accented the center square and the rub on with some paper piecing. That's pretty much it! Thanks for stopping in - will have some more to share tomorrow...