Girls Rule {Enough Said!}

As many of you know, I have a granddaughter who I dote on and who loves to scrapbook with me!

She is now 8...time sure flies....and is at that great age where to her all boys are truly yucky and gross.

{Nonny says "Good girl..keep thinking that for a while longer!"}

Anyways...one of her favorite sayings is

Over the past year she has insisted we buy her buy t-shirts, cups, ball caps and even tote bags with this saying on it so I know I had to make her this sign for her bedroom door when I saw it on a cartridge this weekend! 

It is printed from the Imagine Best Friends Cartridge at 10X10, then mounted on cardstock on top of a  12x12 piece of corregated cardboard so it would be lite enough to hang on her door.

{thank you Justice for Girls for encouraging this sentiment and keeping our girls "little" for just a while longer}....and thanks for my friend Kelly for letting me print it out on her Imagine!

Come Join the Craft Carnival !

Have you ever done a craft blog hop?  If not, you are in for a real treat. For those that have blog hopped before you know what great inspiration you can find on other peoples blogs. 

My blog is being featured on the Craft Critique Spring Carnival. Just click HERE and then click on each listing to go to that person's blog and see what Spring Craftiness they have to offer !

I also wanted to share with you some additional Spring Craftiness I have been up to lately.  With Easter just around the corner...April 4th...it seems sooooo early this year, I created this table scap to get the spirit of Easter started early at our house.  Enjoy and hope you find some INSPIRATION to get your Easter decor out soon.

I can hardly wait for my family to sit down to Easter dinner

surrounded by all these pretty Spring Colors.

Ode to FRIENDS...

Don't you agree that your FRIENDS are one of the best things in your life ? 

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have those friendly shoulders to cry on...
that encouraging voice telling me I did the right thing...
that gleeful shout of joy accompanying mine when we find just the thing to buy when shopping...
the telling of secrets both big or small...
that special someone who is always on my side...
that same someone who will honestly tell me when I messed up...

My friends mean a lot to me.  This Christmas I had intended and planned to make all of my very bestest friends a special Christmas gift.  Alas, I only got around to making two of these due to my surgery in December but I take solace in the fact the two I did make were well received.  To my other friends who didn't receive one of these, you just might find yourselves getting a different hand made goodie later in the year to show you how much I treasure your friendship.

When I was at Creative Escape this past year, I was inspired by Teresa Collins' FRIENDS line I found at  one of the stores.  I immediately bought as much as they had (which was a bunch!) and started designing in my head of what I would make.  As I shopped at other stores during my trip, I gathered some extra yummy items to use on my creations.....Prima Black Scalloped Trim and Silver Leaves and Gossamer Butterflies and White Prima Flowers, Maya Road Chandlier Beads and Pearl Trim, and several Teresa Collins black tabbed albums for the backing and awesome Pearl Glimmer Mist plus some blue gossamer ribbon.

Okay, without further ado (isn't that a funny saying ? okay, I digress) here are the two FRIENDS projects I managed to make. {sorry about the not so good pics...I took these at the last minute before wrapping these gifts up to give}

"Friendship lightens every burden and makes the sunshine brighter."

No truer words have been written about friendship.

"A friend is someone who knows the song in my heart and

can it to you when you have forgotten the words."

I almost cry every time I read this...it is so true that your friends help keep you going.

I can tell you, I was humming a happy tune when I was making these and feeling so INSPIRED by my dear friends to create a project that would let them know how much they mean to me. 

I hope everyone takes a moment this week to do a little something to show atleast one or more of your friends you are thinking of them.  

Another GIFT Idea

The THIRD GIFT was made for my Father and his wife.  They had just moved into their new house the week before Christmas and I wanted their gift to be something tied to the new house. I decided to make them a WELCOME sign to hang in the front hall.  They are using pale blue and silver and earth tones as their color scheme in the front rooms so that was the INSPIRATION for the color scheme.

I did a lot of altering on most of the pieces on this project. The "Welcome" letters are from House of 3 digital kit that I printed out on white smooth cardstock and altered using Ranger products such as distress inks, paint daubers and stickles. I also added little details around each letter with a silver glitter pen. And  to top it all off, you guessed it, more Prima flowers and leaves.

Here is a close up of the "To Our Home" name plate I created....The embossed silver paper was actually gold so I used a Ranger silver paint dauber to change the color. It worked beautifully.  It is hard to see here but after using distress ink on the "to Our Home" die cut, I added a little bit of silver glitter gel pen around the letters to give it a punch of silver color.  And to anchor the name plate, I used some gorgeous silver buttons by Delish Designs. If you have not checked out Delish before, they are an amazing company from Australia that have incredibly beautiful papers and embellishments.

And of course, I couldn't resist using Tattered Angels glimmer mist Pearl to add some shine to the Prima

white flowers.  I also added a touch of Ranger silver paint dauber to the edges of the flower for highlights and to tie the color scheme together.  I love how they turned out.

I love playing with different products and getting a totally custom look. It is INSPIRING to me and hopefully to you as well.   Have an awesome weekend!

Now On To The Good Stuff...

I am still playing around with design of my blog and will most likely change a few more things but  ON TO THE GOOD STUFF !

I have been dying to post pics of some of the gifts that I made for Christmas this year. Everyone has finally received their gifts now so I can let you take a peak over the next few days. I hope you enjoy the projects as much as the receivers seemed to like their gifts.  

All these gifts were customized for special family members.  I used the wonderful Fancy Pants Designs On Display Embellish Me Frames as the base for creating these.  These frames are 18X9 and a wonderful size to hang on the wall of your home or even on a large easel on an entry way table, etc.

The 18X9 size was a little daunting since I wanted one continuous background paper.  By a stroke of luck, I found a wonderful selection of custom artist paper in large sheets at Aaron Brothers.  Their selection was fantastic and was just what I hoped to find.  They were hideously expensive for a sheet of paper but well worth it for the depth of embossed and metallic printed qualities.

Note:  Right click on any of the pics to see a close up view of the project and papers.  

The FIRST GIFT was made for my Brother Jim and his family.  I was thrilled to find some really fun faux animal print with great embossed texture since my bro is a big hunter.  Plus the background paper fits perfectly into the color scheme of their lovely home. The "Family" word is a House of 3 transparency that I colored the backside of the image with inks and paints and stamping to texturize.  I love how it tied the color scheme to together so well. And of course, I couldn't resist adding a luscious Prima flower and some leaves for the final touch !

I was especially happy with the photo selection that really lets the personality of my bro Jim, my sis-in-law Kim and my adorable nephew Nicholas shine through.

The SECOND GIFT was made for my Mother-In-Law.  I decided to show case the three granddaughters...our daughter Crystal, our daughter Heather and our granddaughter Bianca. My mother-in-law got a little misty eyed when she opened it so that was very rewarding to see how much she enjoyed the gift.

Of course I used more Prima Flowers on this project but I experimented with altering the flowers with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Pearl which I am now addicted to using on everything that isn't moving !  LOL  The Glimmer Mist adds such a great shine and well, a little glimmer to whatever you spray it on.  It is the next best thing to BLING and you know how I love my BLING ! 

And notice how I tucked in some beautiful Prima lace and one of their awesome gossamer butterflies, a sprinkling of pearls, some gorgeous embossed paper from Aaron Brothers and even some glittered chipboard to enhance the beauty of photos of my lovely daughters and granddaughter.

Here is a close up of the flowers that I altered with the Glimmer Mist...see how awesome these look?  So much better than just plain ole white flowers, don't you think? 

I think this post is long enough....I will be back later to post a few pics of some more fab gifts.

Hope you  found a little INSPIRATION here to today!

Starting to get a little SPOOKY around here !

Halloween week is such a frenzy of activity....with all the decorating, costume making, trick or treat candy decisions to make plus the school and church carnivals going on.

One of our favorite SPOOKS dropped by earlier this week to give us a FRIGHT!


Can you guess what her costume is...... A Skeleton Bride ! Oooooooo...Soooooooo Scary!!!!!

We had a lot of fun shopping for just the right things to make her costume unique....the half skeleton mask, the black rose bouquet and the glowing skeleton necklace added just the right touch of gruesomeness to make Bianca thrilled with her costume.

I had a lot of fun designing and creating a new tablescape for the entry hall. I was inspired by something I saw on my Creative Escape trip .... decorating empty spools with loads of fun items. The transformation of a wooden spools, a tulle roll and a thread spool was eeiry...and so much fun to do ! I even added one of the vintage Halloween postcards on an easel to complete the look. Love how this turned out in such a short time.

Hope your Halloween week is full of fun and inspiration too !