Thursday, April 07, 2011

Baby B - and a mouse!

I love doing scrapbook pages. Especially when I have such precious subjects to work with, like my great-niece, Brielle. Isn't she the cutest little squeeze-box ever! I just want to squish her. These are pics from her 4 month photo shoot (boy was it hard to choose only a few for my page! LOL). She had her first birthday last month. Where does the time go?! Ok so on to the business at hand. Dies used for this page are the adorable little mouse, minus his big sunflower -- instead, I used one of the small flowers from the mushrooms and flowers die -- and the mushrooms and flowers die. And no girlie page would be complete without bling, so there's lots of it!


Thanks so much for looking! Have a fabulously crafty weekend. :)



Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Sugar Egg

Good morning! Today I'm featuring the CottageCutz Sugar Egg. I have received one of these sugar eggs once in my life. I had asked a guy to the Sadie Hawkins dance while I was in college.

I asked him with a cute little poem my mom and I wrote and I put it in a little Easter basket with some candy to ask him. I waited and waited for an answer and was getting pretty impatient when I finally received one of these Easter sugar eggs. As you looked inside the egg it had the words "yes" inside.

I used some glitter glue on the sugar egg to make it look sugary and then used a piece of white cardstock to stamp my image on instead of the cut out piece from the egg so I had room to put some pop dots between the layers to add dimension. This comes with 3 clear stamps - there's that option thing again :) Hope you have a great day! Kay

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Basket Tags for Easter

 This weekend I had a great time doing a demo at the local Scrapbooking Store (Beach Scrapbooks). They are now ordering these great Cottage Cutz dies. They had just received their order of the New Easter dies. I helped them out with a little make-n-take. Each customer could play around and make a Easter basket tag. Above is the Rabbit with Umbrella die. The package showed the bunny done in the cinnamon color, so I wanted to stick with the same colors as the package. I used a peach card stock and highlighted the bunny in Gingerbread color ink with a sponge. He really came out cute. The coat was a bright yellow with highlight of a taxi cab color orange. This die was sooooo easy. . . it looks like a lot of parts . . but they go together perfect.

This tag has the most adorable mouse as you can see from the picture below, this little guy can be used by himself as well as the sunflower. Above I did him in a taupe color and below in white with highlights of pink. I can just think of all the Halloween and Christmas ideas for this guy. can you imagine that mouse with a black eye mask, cape and treat bag. WOW. The other thing is the die is set so you do not need to have the shirt on. . so if you want a nak-it mouse for a project . . there is a full body on the die. 
 Last I wanted to show you the Cottage Cutz Ornate Cross with last years Daffodils die. This was just a quickie to try the cross with the flowers. I layered the cross in White, Yellow and Burgundy card stock. . poking out various layers at a time. I added a few jewels and highlighted the white cross in yellow ink. The Rejoice verse was made on my Dymo on clear plastic and mounted on white card stock with yellow edge.
That's it for this week. It was a busy Saturday demo.   Till next week. . .   Thank You   Barry

Monday, April 04, 2011

Hello Sunshine!



Good morning everyone!  Today's card features this adorable Mouse With Sunflower die.  I love mice images!  I think the mice from the Easter 2011 release are cute as can be!  Have a look around the store when you have some free time.  Cottage Cutz dies are so cute and they have a new release of dies illustrated by the Peachy Queen, Kathy Jakopovich of Peachy Keen Stamps.  Have a great day!

Hugs and smiles,
Janice

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Look what hopped into my mailbox!!

New Easter dies from Cottage Cutz!! The only thing more fun than finding new Cottage Cutz dies in the mailbox is getting them out to play!

For this week's post, I created a fun card using the Ornate Spring Wreath. This shape could easily be used on both Easter and Spring themed projects. I chose to cut my wreath out of glitter cardstock to give it some extra sparkle! It cut just as well out of the glitter cardstock as it did out of the regular cardstock.



 
 
 

Friday, April 01, 2011

Chick Days

Good morning!  I hope this fine Friday is treatin' ya well!  I've got a card to share with you today that was inspired by one of my recent trips to town.  Around here, since we live in the country, a trip to go to any sort of store, is "a trip to town".  City folk always laugh at that statement, but when you live in the country, it is what it is, and we "go to town".  It is kinda funny when you think about it.  Anyway, the other day when I was "in town", I happened to notice that every farm store I passed (and there are a lot of them, BTW) had a banner out front that said "Chick Days".  Well, in the city, I'm sure that banner could have an entirely different meaning, but here in the country, that means these stores have live baby chicks for sale.  You can hear the cheeping and peeping as soon as you walk through the door, and those little chicks are so fuzzy and cute, which made me think of this Cottage Impressions stamp.  Chick days have arrived for this mother hen, too!!
I used a new paper stack from Kaiser Craft called Nan's Favourites Collection, and as well as the pretty patterned paper, it had the cute little die cut piece. that I put at the bottom of this card.  Hmmmm...  I wonder if our friends at The Scrapping Cottage could hook us up with some dies to cut fancy edges like that?  I'd LOVE to have some of those!!  This Hen and Chick's image was stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink and colored with my Copics, and the sentiment comes from Peachy Keen Stamps Sweetie Pie Peepers stamp set.  For embellishment, I used this pretty daffodil colored ribbon, and tie it with a cute little flower button.  

I'm so glad you could drop by today!!   I wish you a blessed and wonderful weekend and as always, happy stamping!


Thursday, March 31, 2011

Li'l Red

I love these photos my daughter took of grandgirl and scrappy buddy, Miss Grace, in her Halloween costume. Daughter, Cyndi, sewed the cape and Grace wore it proudly as she carried her basket trick or treating. :) For this page I've use Mrs. Gnome as Red to mimic Gracie's costume. Her face is stamped using one of the ghost faces from the Peachy Keen Halloween collaboration release, and her basket is -- are you ready? -- a pumpkin from the pick-up truck accessories! Isn't she adorable! For this embellishment, I used the flowers and mushrooms die, also from the Gnome release. I thought they were perfect for the red riding hood theme. My favorite thing is cutting shapes from pattern papers. I love the whimsical look it gives them with an unexpected pattern or color. I hope you enjoyed my layout today. Scrapbook pages are my favorite and it's been too long since my last one. :) Have a great weekend. I hope spring has made its way to your part of the country!


Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Flower Fun!

I finally got a chance to play with this Stitched Flower w/Button die. I love how they have these stitches around the flowers! Of course there are many options with this die as CottageCutz dies are always giving you choices.

I picked up this patterned paper a couple of weeks ago and it was perfect for this die. I made this card for my Mother-in-law who had her birthday last weekend. I always think I'm going to make more window cards but never seem to get around to it, so I was happy that I finally did it and was please with the results. Now if we can just get Mother Nature to give us some flowers. This is what the inside of the card looks like. Hope you have a great spring day! Kay

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Birdhouse for all Seasons

 A Birdhouse for all seasons. I was looking through my Cottage Cutz Spring Dies and I came across last years BIRDHOUSE Die. I had used it several times last year but mainly for Spring cards. As I stared at it I thought what about Halloween?, What about red birds?. The first picture shows the birdhouse basically as it was intended to look like, bright and cheer-y. The birdhouse next is a haunted birdhouse with a witch bird (green bird with witch hat). Wacky hanging shutters and spider webs. The bats were cut from the heart on the die, I just scalloped the bottom of the heart off. I used a lot of black and brown ink to shade pieces dark.
The card I finished is a winter-y Valentine card. I used red birds with white flowers and heart. The cloud like shape is the Cottage Cuts Flower from the Stitched Flower with Button Die. I wanted the cloud to have the general shape of the mini flowers. . plus I needed a light color area for the verse. The branch with leaves are  from the Cottage Cutz Blue Jay Die. This die has a lot of uses throughout the year. Red, White and Blue for a patriotic birdhouse. . Red & Cinnamon for a gingerbread house.  . .on and on.

Thanks B


Monday, March 28, 2011

It Looks Like Spring



Good morning friends!  Here is a card I made with the Cottage Cutz Potted Flower.  I used gingham cardstock to paper piece the flowers.  I know I have said this before, but I will say it again.  I LOVE me some gingham!
Gingham and polka dots are some of my faves!    The sentiment is from Pink by Design, Life's a Garden.  Happy Monday everyone!  I will be back next Monday but I hope you will visit us everyday to see all the wonderful creations by the other designers.

Hugs and smiles,
Janice

Sunday, March 27, 2011

With Sympathy

Hello! Here is a picture tutorial for you on how to create your own background paper with your die cuts and distress inks. Here I used the Ornate Dragonfly die. I cut my dragonflies out of Post It Craft paper which is adhesive backed and just perfect for this technique. Ink up your sponge applicator tool and pounce the ink on. Do not swirl it on or you will lift up the "masks" you've stuck down.

Here it is after applying the inks...

Starting to peel up the masks to reveal the magic ;)

Here I inked up a white dragonfly, and then sprayed it with perfect pearls mixed with water in a mini mister. Makes a super pretty shiny effect! And here is my finished card...

Wish the shine would have photographed better...you can see it a little here...

Ok, I hope you likey! :) See you back here next Sunday!

Nikki





Friday, March 25, 2011

Whimsical Wishes

Hello, and happy Friday!  It's late, and I'm waaaay late with my post.  I'm so sorry about that, but I was determined to get my card finished and posted before this day is over.  So, here you are!  FINALLY!!!
For this card, I used the new Filigree Fairy die from The Scrapping Cottage.  I cut her out with some wonderful glitter paper, and I actually used my Copics to give her a little flesh color.  Her dress was cut in pink glitter paper.  I doubled up on the wings, and added some rhinestones, because even with the glitter paper, there still just wasn't enough bling for me!  Is there such a thing as too much bling?  I don't think so!!  

Again, I'm sorry for being late today.  I've got a very sick grandpa to take care of this weekend.  After finally convincing him to go to the doctor today, he was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Hopefully we're on the road to recovery, but it's been a busy, and difficult day getting to this point.  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful weekend, and happy stamping!


Thursday, March 24, 2011

To gnome me is to love me!

Happy Thursday! You know that means....it's Friday Eve, of course!!! The weekend is just around the corner. :)

From the gnomes release, I've used the adorable Mr. Gnome and the older version mushrooms for this card. The sentiment is a digi stamp by Melonheadz Illustrating. Papers by My Mind's Eye, Quite Contrary line.

Hoping spring has sprung in your neck of the woods. I'm happy to report we saw the sun this week! Yippee! Bless you, Mother Nature. :)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Carrot Delivery

A Carrot Delivery. . . Happy Spring. . .Mr. Bunny is ready for the season with a wagon of carrots. The Bunny is from last years Easter die from Cottage Cutz. Bunny with Overalls. I added a wagon with a piece of rectangle brown card stock, loop of brown rope and I used the Daisy layered with Button Die from this year to make the wheels on the wagon. I cut extra carrots from the Bunny die to fill the wagon.

Happy Spring . . Barry