Bright colors for a dull day

My, my, but the last 2 days have been dreary in middle TN. Good time for some crafting to brighten up the day, I suppose.

This week, thanks to a sweet-heart friend who sent my some happy mail, I was able to play along with Tickled Pink. Their challenge was to use "bright colors" this week. RIGHT up my ally! To color this image I used a mix of copic and bic markers. I cut out some flowers from the paper and popped them up to add interest and dimension to the card. The words were a rack from that same friend's happy mail. Loved this challenge, and def love Tickled Pink. So much tude!!

I have also been smashing again, finally! SOOO excited by these pages! Esp after the inspirational slump I was in last evening. The red page is all about me and my hubbs of 7.5 years. A photo strip from the mall when we were dating, probably close to 2 years before we got married, and a picture from after we married. Our first Christmas together. <3

LOVE POCKETS!!!! SOOO going to use more pockets in my smash books. SO useful! 

This page is about my muse, Noah. He inspires me daily so its no surprise that he is in my book of things I love and that have shaped who I am.  

Did I mention I like pockets? Yeah...love em.  

Hope you enjoyed and were possibly inspired by my post today! I hope to be back in a day or two with another upcycle that I did the other day. But it will need to wait for a NON-rainy day to get good pictures.  Laters!

Kinda addicted to couponing...and coffee....

Awhile back I posted my smash book. I finally finished the starbucks page. I love it! Kind of excited to do more pages!!!

Last weekend I also decided that my coupon book had been naked for far too long. So, I fixed it up. Used cupcake Anya and spiffied it right up. Now its even MORE excited to coupon, even though I love it anyway. Its work, but its SO worth the hours. Yes, I am that crazy person that spends 4-5 hours every Sunday working on cutting coupons and going over each and every flier with a fine tooth comb. 

 For the tabs I used paint samples. All of the colors of the rainbow, and now its so much faster to find what I am looking for.

                                     

Hope this inspires you! Either to be creative, OR to save big! 

Rediscovery

Since we moved into this house I haven't been using my rubber and clear stamps nearly as much. Because I am a closet crafting mom, I am usually too lazy to pull out my gigantic tote of stamps, so I use digital or RAKd images. This week I rediscovered how much I love stamping. I knew I loved it, but had forgotten how fun it really was. I pulled out my Miss Anya set and got to work on a couple of challenges.

This card is for Anyone 4 Anya and Friends as well as Stamptacular Sunday. I LOVE this paper pack from DCWV. They have such fun prints and textures. Anyone 4 Anya was a sketch, and Stamptacular Sunday was "Texture". There is so much texture on these papers. They are embossed, both gray and black papers, the black is raised embossing. Its wonderful. I also added Fun Flock to Anya's boots to add a little more texture. Also, gold stickles to "emboss" the flower embellishment and polka-dots. I LOVED this texture challenge, and the sketch was fantastic!

Getting excited! Going to a crop on Friday night! Hope to get some more scrap pages done to help speed along Noah's 4th year book! SO behind! Hope you enjoy!!

Snow Day

Yay for snow days! Glad I got my stuff done yesterday, though, the snow has already melted here. Silly TN. ::shakes head::

Today I made 2 cards for 3 different challenges that I really wanted to enter and hadn't had a chance to in awhile.

This first card I made for Card Makin Mamas and Cupcake Craft Challenges. The theme for both blogs was, "something new". What's more new than a baby? I have a friend that is pregnant with her first and it happens to be a girl...Thought I would also TRY something new on this card. I left white space...well...white space with bling...but that's not the point. I am very much a filler. I don't make cards with white backgrounds. No, really. Ask anyone that's ever seen a card I have made, haha. SOO, I had this old stamping bella image and a sentiment from I *think* Stampin Up!, but don't quote me on that. It was a RAK and I can't remember for the life of me.

This second and hopefully not last card for today is for Some Odd Girls "bling" challenge. The challenge was to use at least 2 types of bling. So, I pulled out the gems and blinged up the sentiment, and then dug out my lime green stickles and gave Balloon Kaylee's shirt and balloons some sparkle, as well as the polka-dots on the background paper. LOVE stickles. ::sigh::

So, here they are! I really hope you enjoy! 

Rawer!!

So, I have been seeing these adorable monster hats ALL over pinterest.com, SO, today I made one for my lil man. I grabbed a hat for $1.40 at walmart this morning and got out my scrap felt. Sewed this puppy up and now I can't wait to give it to Noah after school.

 Incidentally, he HAS been a little monster today...so, its quite fitting. Hopefully he's nicer to his teacher, haha.

Since Noah wasn't here, I decided to model. Is it me? LOL

Enjoy!

Simply SMASHING!

So, thanks to Lizzie (who, btw...is SUPER duper amazing...), I have been introduced to the smashing world of smash books. Due to lack of funding, I got brave and made my very own book. WOW! I haven't had so much fun making something in AGES!! This book is far from done, but I wanted to share with you what I have so far. Just too excited to keep it to myself, HEHE!!!

I wanted to make this book as fun and lively as possible, since that's how I like to live my life. This book will be for all of the little things that make me happy and all of the little random things that make me, ME.

Interspersed in this book are even some card faces that I have made that really inspire me or that made me think outside the box.

The idea of different shapes and textures and sizes for pages is really intriguing, so I did my best to replicate that. Some of the pages are simply designer paper adhered to thicker card stock to make a designer paper/card stock sandwich. They are thin, yet durable. Some pages are THICK chipboard that DH brought me ages and ages ago, and some pages are literally just card faces.

I also added an envelope accordion file that I made and covered in designer papers. I love it because it adds interest and POCKETS for pictures or whatever strikes my fancy. There are also some paint samples being used to make a pocket and an edging. Also, I have used images from Some Odd Girl. LOVE Some Odd Girl! You should check em out! Also there are stamps from Tickled Pink and Stamping Bella. One last little thing I wanted to point out is the Japanese page I took from a book DH gave me to use for crafting ages ago. Its literally all Japanese characters. LOVE it!

I REALLY want to thank Lizzie for introducing me to this because my creative side is coming alive with this book!
I apologize for the picture-heavy nature of this post, and like I said, the book isn't complete. I have 2 more page ideas I want to execute to add to the book today, as well as some fun embellishment ideas I want to prepare.  Will post when they are ready. :D