Halloween Ribbon Wave

So we've been busy getting ready for Oliver to get here. But I have been working on Halloween cards..

So this is what I have for you today.


The shoes and the "spooky" are from a Stampin Up! set. I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the white paper, and I sponged Old Olive ink on the edges. The patterned paper is also SU!

My "new" thing I tried on this card is the ribbon wave! It turned out awesome..and you'll probably be seeing many more waves in the future. It's actually 2 ribbons glued together. Black satin ribbon, and Rich Razzleberry taffeta ribbon. But it would probably look good with just a single ribbon too.

I kept the inside really simple. We'll probably just sign it or something if we send it to someone.

Anyway, soon this blog will be littered with Oliver pictures..and I can hardly wait.

Hopefully some yard work shots too, it's starting to look pretty good back there.

Have a good week!

Jessica

A Mermaid Halloween Card

Halloween is approaching, and since they already have Christmas stuff at Hobby Lobby it is not too early to start making my Halloween cards. It might also have something to do with I'm not sure how many I'm going to make. I'm looking forward to trying some new things on these cards...which is always interesting.

This is the first of my Halloween offerings. I love Sweet Pea Stamps! The paper is from a Basic Grey paper stack that I've had for some time.
Of course the picture is yellow. But my "new thing" is coloring the background. I have a really hard time using Copics to do this. That doesn't mean that I can use some other type of marker/paint well. There are many people that can do really beautiful things with them..I'm still very much in a learning process. I used a few Stickles because I like them. And of course the mermaid kitty I colored like Bean.
Here's the inside. I just used the rest of the paper I didn't use on the front. The sentiment is from a Stampin Up! set.

I'm trying really hard to finish our vacation scrapbook..it's just not happening. I still have our entire Year 2 book to do, and I want to make a mini album of Oliver, so we can look back and see how he changes through his "puppy uglies" One more week until we get him..it's going to seem like forever.

I hope everyone gets to enjoy their weekend.

Jessica

A Fluffles Card, and A Bean Cat

Well, I just got my Stampin Up! order in the mail today, but I thought I should post something before I get too distracted making things today. So, there should be some Halloween cards here in the near future.

But for today, I have Fluffles.

I have had this fall image for a while now, and all the paper is pretty much just scrap. The patterned paper is from The Greeting Farm. I colored him with my Copics. The background stamps are from All That Scraps, and so is the sentiment.

I couldn't tell you what colors I used, I just grabbed all my browns and oranges and went to town. Fluffles is always gray, C5, C3, and C1. I don't think I'll ever be able to color him different, he'll always be Bean to me.

Here's the inside. I masked the short pumpkin so I could make it look like the tall one was behind it. I find is such a pain, but it really does look good.



Ok, so I tried to upload this video yesterday, but it wouldn't work..but I think I've got it now.

It's Bean playing fetch. He loves his green mouse, and loves that we now have hardwood floors so he can stop just before he gets to the mouse and slide on the floor.

We spend a lot of time doing this, which is why we never get anything done..ever.







You probably don't think it's as funny as we do, but that's your loss.

I'm working all weekend, so I hope everyone else has a good one.

Jessica

A Personal Low...

So at one time I promised myself that we'd never be crazy cat/animal people..well we're there.

We have 3 cats, and Aster, my light gray baby apparently will only drink water when it is put fresh in the bowl. Now of course we never let the water get nasty or anything, but he's only interested in it when it first gets put down for them. We were at PetSmart and Jonathan informed me of this, and then he said he wanted to look at "watering fountains" for the cats. I laughed.

Well I'm not laughing now, because we own one.

You just fill it with water and it bubbles up through the middle.

They love it. That is Aster drinking from it, and Bean is very interested.

They actually bonded, and shared the bowl at the same time..these 2 being arch enemies...

I guess it's a good thing, Aster and Chip are getting older and I guess they can start having urinary tract problems, and we don't want that. And it's small enough that Oliver could use it too.

Well I get 2 days off during the week, and I hope to get some stamping done.

Have a good middle of the week.

Jessica

A Cute Owl Card

So it's finally Friday again. It also means we'll be out working in the yard again tomorrow...which means that my crafting time will be severely compromised. Everyone and anyone is always welcome to come over and participate in our Weekend Work Camp..please..

Anyway, I made this card earlier this week. I've had this stamp for a while and just didn't have the right thing to use it for. Well I have this really cute paper stack with blues and greens and little birds and I thought it would look good with the paper.

I love owls. I colored the stamp with my Copics, and I used the colorless blender to fade the colors out a bit.

Here's a closer one of the stamp. I like how it turned out.

I didn't put any sentiment on it anywhere, I just couldn't think of what would be a good one since it's a pretty versatile card. I can customize it later when I want to use it.

The husband was supposed to update his blog with some of the stuff we did last weekend, but that hasn't happened yet. Maybe if he gets home early tonight. Ha!

Anyway, I have a few more things waiting in the wings. I'm getting ready to get started on my Halloween cards for this year. I've got some new stamps and I'm excited to start working with them. Halloween is my very favorite holiday.

2 weeks until we go get Oliver, and I'm sure there will be tons of pictures and videos of his cuteness on here when that happens..

So until then..

Jessica

A Ukulele Birthday

As if it's not hot enough around Kansas City, today we'll be visiting Hawaii! Sort of. (Cue island music)

One of my coworkers (probably the only person who reads this on a regular basis) asked me to make her dad a 60th birthday card. Sure.

So this is what I came up with. He plays the ukulele, so Hawaii themed was really the only way to go with it.

All the paper is Hobby Lobby, the ukulele sticker came in a Hawaii sticker pack from JoAnn's I think.
I used my Gypsy to weld the shadow (green) of the numbers together, as well at the "th" part.
I cut out everything on the Cricut, which didn't give me any trouble, so it must be meant to be.

Here's a closer shot of the ukulele, or is could be a guitar, but I say it's a ukulele. The numbers are popped up with dimensional pads, so is the ukulele. The happy and birthday was one stamp that I inked half at a time. I cut strips of the vanilla paper and used a corner rounder on one side.

I left the inside blank, so she could write something nice to her dad, or something. I can never think of what to write in cards, so I'm glad this one is not my problem :-)

I was pretty happy with it, and she said she liked it, so I guess I'll count this as a win. It's always challenging to make something for someone else, but fun at the same time.

We've perhaps got a busy weekend ahead of us, and maybe some updates on the husband's blog..maybe. It's only 3 weeks until Oliver gets to come home with us, and we're trying to get the backyard ready for him.. Lots of weeds to pull and stumps to yank out and many other things so we'll be ready to sod some of the yard when it cools off!

Jessica

Fluffles Thank You Card

As you probably know, I love Fluffles...because he looks like my Bean Cat.

I've been on a thank you card sort of kick lately, it never seems like I have any when I need them, so I thought I'd add another one to my collection. It's not really for anyone, but you never know when you're gonna need one.

I used some of the Stampin Up! In Colors. I used Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzazz, and Peach Parfait. I colored the image with my Copics, I tried to match the colors the best I could, and I think it worked pretty well.

That's sort of the problem with Stampin Up, they have their own line of colors, and they sell everything that matches them, ink, pens, markers, paper, buttons and everything else. It's nice that you know you can always get stuff that matches, but if you already have markers (like really awesome Copics) then it seems that you can never get a good match. But I really am trying to hold out on getting the Stamp and Write markers (even though I'm thinking about it :-) )


Here's a close up, I made it at night, so the picture is yellow. boo. Anyway, Fluffles is grey (like Bean) and the snail is sort of an orange, to match the Peach Parfait. The flowers are pink to match the Blushing Bride, and I tried to make the grass and stems match the Pear Pizzazz. It always looks better in person.

I used my Cuttlebug with Spellbinders Labels 8 die to cut out the shape on the front, so I thought I'd continue the theme on the inside.

I really like this one, I might make a set of 6 or 8 of these. They went together really fast. The hardest part was the die cutting.

That's it for now, it's about that time again to go to work.

Have a good Thursday.

Jessica

Party Cartons

So this week I've been busy making a paper project. I got the idea while surfing the Stampin Up website, they have a die for a die cutter I don't have that cuts out the pattern for this project, so I went to the internet to find a way around that.

I bring you a herd of milk cartons.


I was dying to make something with Stampin Up's new "In colors" because I just love them so. My mother and sister, earlier this week, sent Jonathan and me "invitations" to a "baby shower" held at our house today. It was really just a way to have Panera breakfast, and they brought us some pretty cute dog toys for Oliver too.

Here's a side view of the carton..I used the new colors for the bases, and the trim is Very Vanilla.
It really opens like a milk carton. I put candy in mine. It's so cute, it's perfect for "baby showers" or school parties or anything really.


Since it was a shower for Oliver, I made little dog tags..it was a last minute vision...so in the future it would be a better job, but it got the idea across.

I've got a couple cards waiting in the wings, and I got the last piece for another project that I'll be starting soon...so there's always more to follow.

Jessica

Our First Look at Our New Baby!

Geeze I hope I didn't scare you, no, not pregnant, we're getting a new furbaby!

I've been waiting a very very long time for him. This wonderful woman in Iowa breeds pomeranians, every single one of them adorable.

This is our Oliver. He was born June 16th. These pictures are from when he was about 4 weeks old. We can hardly wait to go pick him up. We're driving all the way to the top of Iowa Labor Day weekend, and I'm taking some time off work so we can get him off on the right foot and adjusted. Plus our other boys won't be very happy.

He's black and tan. At 6 weeks old he weighed 1.8 pounds...tiny tiny. She estimates he'll be about 7 pounds full grown. Which is at least 3 pounds less than our lightest cat, and 10 pounds lighter than our heaviest. So don't let them ever make you think they're starving!

He's so cute.

So adorable. I sort of wish this woman at Gifford's Poms was a little more technically inclined. I'd love to have some video or more pictures or something of him.

He's got places to go! He's ready to come live in Kansas City.

These are his litter mates. The little cream one is a girl, the rest are boys. Oliver is the one on the far left (away from the flowers) His brother that looks like him is a little bigger.

Anyway, this brings me to what I spent my day yesterday doing. In preparation for Oliver we are repainting our wrought iron fence. The plan is to put up chickwire so he can't get out through the bars. Well this fence is very rusted and must be sanded down and then painted. You can see the project here at my husband's blog.

The Fairy Tale Series

Since I have to work this whole weekend this card set took a little longer than expected.

The stamps came in the Signature set from The Greeting Farm, and I just love them.
I decided a card "set" would be the best way to use them. It's going to make a good gift someday. These cards could be used for lots of things, birthdays, get well soons, welcome home..pretty much anything.

I think the Alice in Wonderland is probably my favorite. I used the same paper for all of them, and it came from Hobby Lobby (I think, I've had it for a while).

But Little Red Riding Hood is cute too.

I'm pretty much not a fan of The Wizard of Oz, and I don't know if it's because I lived in Kansas..and "You're not in Kansas anymore" sort of gets old. But anyway, what I do love is the sparkly shoes, you can't see it here, but I used Stickles on the shoes, and they look pretty good.

I think I'm about out of stuff to post for now..which is sad. I still have 2 more days to work until I get a day off..and then I really should work on my scrapbook, I've got 9 pages down, and 11 to go..so not quite half way..but I feel accomplished anyway.

We've got big projects ahead on the home front, so keep an eye on the husband's blog. We're stripping the wrought iron fence and repainting it. It's only 4 more weeks until Oliver gets here, and we've got to puppy proof the yard...oh yeah, I've got some pictures of him, so maybe tomorrow I'll get those up.

Have a good Sunday.

Jessica