Category: Child Friendly

N is for Night

Hello friends!  Once again, it’s another Friday in October!  Two weeks from today will be Halloween!  I may have a few “goblins” showing up for some candy! 👻  This reminds me that I will be needing to make up a few treat bags!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “N”, and our hostess, Pamela, has chosen “N is for NIGHT” (clouds, moon, sky, sleeping image, stars, etc.)   I think this will be a fun one for Halloween!  *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

Well, you know I had to do this challenge in the Halloween theme, right?!  I absolutely loved making this card!  I pulled out all of my Taylored Expressions Halloween items to play with!

I started with the background and created the moon with the Moonlight Layering Stencil.  I made sure to center it where I wanted the moon to be in placement on my background before I ink blended everything in.  I also used a very light hand when making the moon in greys and yellow tones.  This stencil also comes with a mask to cover the entire moon shape, so I used some Pixie Spray to tack it down to stay in place over my card before I began ink blending the blues in the background for the sky.  While leaving the moon mask in place, I also used some Copic opaque white watered down and splattered over the blue ink blended sky for “stars”.

I was then able to remove the moon mask to finish my card.  I layered this panel over an A2 side folding black card base.  I used the Taylored Expressions Trick or Treat Border die to cut out another black piece to fit over the moon.  I left some space at the bottom of the border to white heat emboss the sentiment from the TE Spooktacular Sentiments set.  I just attached this to the bottom of the moon sky panel and then I die cut some bats from the TE Little Bits-Bats die with the TE Black Glitter Cardstock and attached them to the sky.

  • I’m loving how the moon seems to be glowing over the trick or treaters!  I hope you like it too and will join in the fun with us!  Be sure to check out the challenge blog to see more inspiration!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR DROPPING IN TODAY!!  HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AHEAD!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Autumn/Something Spooky
  2. Craft Rocket – Autumn/Halloween
  3. Crafty Calendar – Halloween
  4. Let’s Craft & Create – Anything Goes with optional: Things with Wings (bats)
  5. Crazy is our Fame-Stencils are our Game! – Stencil(s) with optional: Halloween
  6. Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
  7. Unicorn – Autumn and/or Halloween
  8. Crafty Gals Corner – Fill in the Blank: “Spooky________”  – NIGHT!

M is for Mythical

Hello and happy Friday to you friends!  Welcome to the month of October!  We’re still having some unseasonably warm weather right now, but next week it’s supposed to cool down a bit along with maybe some rain which we really need right now.  Hope that wherever you are that things are going well for you!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “M”, and our hostess, Tee, has chosen “M is for MYTHICAL CREATURE(s)” (fairies, gnomes, unicorns, dragons, vampires, zombies, etc.)   I think this will be a fun one for Halloween!  *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

These little grumpy guys from Taylored Expressions always make me giggle and I fell in love with this set a few years back and had to snatch it up!  I pull it out sometimes to make a funny card to send someone.  There are other characters from this set called “Mythical Grumplings” (looks to be a retired set) that are super cute!

Because he’s a grumpy dragon, I mainly used green colors to color him up and for the base/background design.  I used a heart stencil with green ink and overlayed some translucent sparkle paste over it.  I die cut a cloud for the dragon to stand on as well as die cut a heart from shimmer vellum for the dragon to stand out a bit over all of that green color.  I popped both the cloud and dragon up over the vellum heart and added to the background.

I layered it over a scallop white layer and a green A2 top folding card base.  I also white heat embossed the punny sentiment and die cut it out with a stitched banner die.  Sponged the edges with green ink and attached to the top right of the heart panel.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my mythical creature card today and that you’ll consider hopping on over the to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the team and join in the fun to play along too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Wishing you a happy weekend ahead!

Challenges:

  1. Try it On Tuesday – Animals (real or imaginary)
  2. The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Anything Goes
  3. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  4. CRAFT – Grandparents/Anything Goes
  5. As You Like It – Square card or Not & why?  (I most usually make A2 sized cards because it’s what fits best with my envelopes and I can get 2 card bases from one sheet of 8.5″11″ cardstock.  It makes crafting cards more simple with this size.)

J is for JUMP

Happy Friday friends! 🎉 I see that we are nearing the end of August and that it’s time for kids to get back to school, which means, Autumn is heading our way!  I think I’m ready for cooler weather right now!  I just love all things Fall as it’s my favorite time of the year!  What is your favorite season?

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “J”, and the hostess has chosen “J is for JUMP” (this can be anything that jumps!)   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I knew when I saw the theme for this challenge that I had to use a pile of leaves for “jump“!  I also think the best critters for that would come from Lawn Fawn of course!  Can you see the little “wee” mouse jumping out from the pile?!

I started with a white card front by blending some blue inks in the background for the sky.  I also used the Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait die to go over my ink blended sky background.  The frame and tree were cut out from dark brown woodgrain texture cardstock.  I used some green cardstock to cut the circle from the die set to place behind the tree as well as the LF Grassy Hillside Border die behind the tree and frame as well.

For the Autumn leaves pile and sentiment, I used the LF Jump for Joy stamp set/dies.  All images were colored with Copics and I white heat embossed the sentiment over the ink blended sky.  For the mice critters, I used the LF You Autumn Know stamp set/dies.  For the little bunny, I used the LF Butterfly Kisses stamp set/dies.  Some of the die cut images were just attached and others were popped up with foam tape for dimension.  I actually wanted my pile of leaves to be larger, so I stamped, colored and die cut two of them.  (I needed that little mouse on the right to be jumping out from the pile too!)

This was a fun one to make because I kept pulling out different sets to figure out which critters I wanted to use, but these cute mice get me every time.  It makes me look forward to seeing the colors, sights, smells and sounds of Autumn coming.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I look forward to seeing all of the “jumping” that will appear in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  2. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  3. Sweet Stampin’ – Animals
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2533 Anything Goes
  6. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  7. Craft Rocket – Animals

Summer Days

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re staying cool during these Summer days!  For the most part, it’s too warm, humid or both outside, so I spend most days in the air condition.  Trying to organize things is what I’m attempting, but I end up crafting instead! LOL

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “SUMMER DAYS”  this month.  This seems rather appropriate right now, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with: 

I have used these penguins many times and I just love them!  This is an older set called “Penguins in Paradise” from My Favorite Things (store closed).  I thought they’d be perfect to use for this theme and I wanted to make a scene for them to do all of those fun Summer things that we do!

I started with another My Favorite Things die set called “Beach Scene Starter” that cuts out the sand/water/palm tree/shells/sun/clouds/land and then I used inks to ink blend them in various colors.  For the sand, I splattered several different watercolor colors and Copic Opaque White.

After placing my scene together, I stamped, colored (with Copics) and die cut the three penguins and beach ball that I added to my beach scene and popped up with thin foam tape.

I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the images as well as details to the water shore area, coconuts, beach ball and the shells.  I also took a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the penguin’s shades for some shimmer.  The sentiment is from the  Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Hello Summer that was white heat embossed over dark blue cardstock and cut out with the mini sentiment strips die.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us for the challenge this month!  Please be sure to stop by the blog to check out the inspiration from the rest of the team!

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Four Seasons – Summer
  2. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  3. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  4. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + Critter
  5. Creative Moments – Use Die Cut (I used several)
  6. We Love Stamping – Sun/Sea/Sand or Anything Goes (within post details)
  7. A Cut Above – Anything Goes with a Die Cut
  8. Cupcake Inspirations – For the Birds (penguins)

It’s a Fairytale/Storybook Time at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends and Happy Father’s Day to all of those in the U.S. that celebrate this day!  Our usual is to cook out on the grill and spend time together.  So I hope whatever your plans are, you have a great day!  (I made a card for hubby, but forgot to take a photo…so I’ll share later.)

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “Fairytale/Storybook”  this month.  Would love to see your take with this theme on your projects, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with: 

Since, I had lots of “Winnie the Pooh” on my mind with the baby shower, I thought it would be appropriate to create something using the stash that I already had out and was thinking of when this challenge theme came time to do!  I think most of us grew up with this storybook and know who this is!  And I had purchased some of these items from Echo Park several months ago, so it was great to be using more of it up!

FRONT of CARD:  It doesn’t really look to appealing on the front, but I thought I’d share what I did anyway.  I used a stamp set from Echo Park and stamped the tree (and colored it) with the sentiment on the white panel and die cut it out.  I also used some of the Winnie the Pooh papers and layered behind it.  The green paper was stamped with the sentiment from the stamp set.  I added some matching enamel dots all over it.

Since this is a special Fun Fold design, I needed to help it stay closed, so I tied some twine around the right side of the card.

When you open the card, this is what the inside looks like!  You see the center fold pops out like a book!  So this is called a “Fun Fold Book Card” and the design was cut out with my Cricut machine using the papers and stamps from Echo Park Designs.  This way I knew it would all match up on the design.  I did stamp the Pooh with balloon and the other side with the sentiment and bee were also stamped.  I blended some blue ink around the edges.

I thought this would be such a cute card for a kid!

Thank you so much for stopping in today and I hope you like my fun fold card!  Please stop by the challenge blog to see more inspiration and join in to play!  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  2. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  3. Aud Sentiments – Fun Fold &/or Summer Sentiment
  4. Creative Creases – Anything Goes with fun fold card

Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower

Hello friends!  Last month was a very busy month for me and I know that I had mentioned a couple of times that I had some things that I was working on “behind the scenes”, so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing.

At the end of last year, my son surprised us with the news of a new grandchild coming!  A few months ago, I was asked to help with some decorations for their baby shower and of course I wanted to help!  Here’s a photo of the soon-to-be parents in front of a back drop that my husband cut out and I hand painted.  My husband and I also put together the balloons around it:

You may also notice, on the couple, they’re wearing a corsage that I made for each of them to wear.  My son wasn’t too thrilled about wearing it, but he humored his mom.  LOL

On the left white panel, There are hexagon shelves that my husband put together and there are wooden letters of the baby’s name.  I decorated each of the letters with Winnie the Pooh papers and characters.  I wish I had taken a better photo of them, but I tried to zoom in a photo with the gallery below.

You can see how tall each of the panels are.  My son is over 6 foot tall.  I don’t paint much, so painting something this large was a big undertaking, but I enjoyed the labor of love doing all of these things for them.

  • Below you can see all of things that I’ve made for the baby shower and there is a brief description with each photo explaining what it is.  If you are on my website, please click on each photo to enlarge it and scroll just beneath it to read the description:
The full backdrop when finished with 3 large wooden panels cut out by my husband and hand painted by me. I added a hexagon stencil pattern with paint on the yellow arch panel. Eeyore and the bee were cut out from computer print and attached to a foam cut out by hand.
Left back drop panel with hexagon shelves. Each hexagon has the wooden letters of baby’s name that I decorated with Winnie the Pooh characters and papers. This photo is really blown up because I didn’t capture a good photo of the letters.
We made a large “hundred acre wood” sign that my husband cut out and placed in a clay pot. I used paper covered chipboard for the “welcome” and stenciled with black paint on the rest. The Winnie the Pooh character with all of the balloons was cut out from a computer print and flipped with each side on a cut out black foam piece. We staked it in the ground and attached the balloons around it. We made 5 different characters to line the drive.
This is one of three different prints that we had done on poster size that was hand cut out and placed on a foam board. To make the characters stand up, my husband made a wooden stand with slots wide enough to fit the cut outs with the foam board. Since the front of the wood showed when the characters were upright, I covered the wood with moss by gluing it to the wood that showed. This character is on a table about 16″ x 20″ large. (I didn’t get good photos of these either!)
I made 15 center pieces by painting the yellow honey drip over a clay pot. I also added some glitter paint over it and added the “hunny” letters. I printed and cut out the bees and attached them with wire to stick inside the pots with the fake flowers. I added some moss at the bottom to cover up the foam used inside to stick the flowers in. I covered the bee’s wings with glitter too.
For each of the center pieces, we added a charger plate underneath each one so the couple could add candies for each of the tables.
These are the corsages that I made for the mommy and daddy to be. I used the Cricut to cut the tie pattern from cardstock and then added some glitter papers, ribbon and cut out a cute Winnie the Pooh to go above the lettering. I had some wooden bee embellishments and added a pin on the back to attach the clothing with.
I made 50 of these pacifier necklaces for the party. I cut out the image with a circle punch, added the glitter scallop punch layer behind it. I used some green yarn to tie around the blue acrylic pacifier decoration and attached the image over it with hot glue. I also attached a ribbon bow as well as a blue gem in the center. The rule of the game was if anyone was crossing their legs, arms, hands, etc. they collected a necklace from someone else. Whoever collected the most necklaces won the game. (It was funny to watch everyone playing the game! I lost mine really fast!)
I made 50 of these hexagon tags and personalized sticker on top with the name and date for a party gift. Inside the jar was real honey combs from a local area.

They put in so much work having this baby shower with lots of food, yummy desserts and drinks.  I know with all of the set up and cleaning up they were wore out!  We were also wore out when it was finished up.  LOL  Now it’s just the waiting to meet the newest member of the family by the end of this month.  We are certainly looking forward to it!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my post today…and now you can see why I’ve had “BEEs” on my mind lately! LOL  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re doing well and enjoying the month of May so far!  As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been very busy working on projects “behind the scenes” that I will be sharing at a later date.  The next couple of posts are scheduled as I will be away until next week.  But I need to catch you up on the new challenge for now…

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   We are now onto the letter “D” and the hostess has chosen “D” is for Dogs  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I’ve pulled out this adorable stamp from my stash by Newton’s Nook called Birthday Barks and I’ve colored the stack of dogs along with a few extra balloon and gift images with Copic markers and cut them all out with the coordinating dies. (I’ve used a white gel pen for highlights and a silver gel pen for the bottom dog’s collar.)  Some of the balloons and gift images were glued on the blue background, but the stack of dogs and a few of the other images were popped up with foam tape.

I’ve used some papers from the Newton’s Nook Birthday Woofs Paper Pad and the blue background was made using a solid balloon image from my stash and stamping it with white ink.  I’ve black heat embossed the sentiment from the Birthday Barks stamp set and added a few clear sequins to the background.

This will make a great birthday card for a guy or girl!  (I’m sure I’ve probably missed someone’s birthday somewhere! LOL)  Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will stop by the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  Pull out those dog stamps and come join in the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I’ll be back with another post tomorrow!

Challenges:

  1. Allsorts – Anything Goes (Happy Birthday!)
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2521 Anything Goes
  3. Passion for Markers – 4 legged Friends (colored with Copics)
  4. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  5. Krafty Chicks – Anything Goes

HEY! “C” is for Circles!

Hello and happy Friday my friends!  After things got heated up the last couple of days, I think I’m ready for a couple of days of cooler weather!  I don’t want to skip Spring by going straight into a hot Summer!  Hope you have some great things planned this weekend!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   We are now onto the letter “C” and the hostess has chosen “C” is for Circles  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I do love me some circles and I thought I would just use them all over the place for this challenge!  I pulled out my Taylored Expressions “Talking in Circles card kit” that came out earlier in the year and no longer available.  However, the panel that I’ve used to create this design are still available in the store called “Talking in Circles A2 Sugar Cube Maps“.  They make it easy to follow where placements need to be and lined up.

I used the TE A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate for the black frame around the circles.  I thought I would try and use another cutting plate, but the design pretty much covered it up.  I layered this whole panel over a top folding A2 white card base.

For the sentiment in the center, I used another circle die from the TE, but I don’t think it’s in the store any longer.  I cut the “HEY” circle out from black cardstock and layered some vellum behind it.  I white heat embossed the “You are awesome” sentiment over black and cut that out with a Simply Strip die.  This was popped up with a foam strip over the design.

Thanks so much for stopping over today!  I hope you’ve enjoyed my card and you will take a hop on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  

See you soon!  In case you need to know…you are awesome!

Challenges:

  1. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  2. Allsorts – Paper Piecing or Anything Goes (Not sure if this is considered paper piecing)
  3. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  4. CRAFT – Anything Goes
  5. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  6. Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: no squares

Weather Related at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  When I read about the weather from other areas, it always amazes me how different and even to extremes the weather gets especially during this time of the year!  I hear everything from rain, sun, snow, tornadoes, flooding, cold, warm, hot, etc.  So where do you find your own weather to be at right now?  In my area, we have reached past the snow, but it’s still pretty cool at night…so I know that Spring and the rain is here for us with a bright spot of flowers/sprouts starting to come out in the Midwest U.S.

With this in mind, we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Weather Related”  (rain, wind, sun, etc.) this month.  Would love to see lots of different varieties of weather related projects, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with:

I was so happy to finally get a chance to use this adorable set by Lawn Fawn called Beary Rainy Day as I’ve had it for a while, but never used it until now.  

I started with a kraft A2 sized top folding card base and stenciled some white clouds over it.  I then splattered some navy watercolor paint over it.

While that was drying, I worked on my scene.  For the background, I took some blue oxide inks in Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean and ink blended them on the stitched die cut panel.  I used some water to spritz over it for a watermark look.  While that was drying, I took another stitched panel and ink blended some Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness Oxide inks for the grass area and die cut a hill to place at the bottom.  Before I attached it, I also die cut a white picket fence to go behind it.  I placed this scene onto a piece of navy cardstock and attached to the card base.

To complete the scene, I’ve stamped, colored with Copics and die cut the critters, rain puddles and clouds.  I used the coordinating raindrop die with the set and just die cut a few raindrops in silver glitter paper to add to the scene.  Lastly, I white heat embossed part of the sentiment on navy cardstock, cut out with a banner die and then just stamped the sentiment at the bottom in navy ink.  Also hard to see in the photo, but I’ve added some shimmer to the puddles with a glitter brush pen.

  • That’s all from me today!  Hope you’ll stop by the Sparkles Monthly blog is see what the team has come up with using this theme and join us in the challenge!  Thanks so much for stopping in as I love to read your comments!

Challenges:

  1. Craft Rocket – Layer it Up 
  2. Addicted to Stamps & More – Die cuts and/or stencils (clouds stenciled and variety of die cuts used)
  3. Penny’s Paper-crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper
  4. Crafty Gals Corner – Fill in the Blank:  “Adorable puddle jumping!”
  5. Time Out – Pick 2 from list:  I picked Stencil & Water + Spots ( I was inspired to stencil some clouds and add some spots (splatter) to go with the colors/clouds of my scene and I was inspired by the water with the rain, puddles and watermark for ink blending)
  • Thank you to all the challenge blogs for keeping us all inspired to create and play along with our supplies!  I try to play along as much as I can.

Z is for ZOOM!

Hello there friends and welcome to April already!  I do not know if this year seems to be flying by because I’ve been busy with life or it’s just flying by anyway!  Speaking of things flying by…

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  We are on the last letter of the alphabet this time and the hostess has chosen “Z” is for ZOOM (anything that goes fast) for the theme.  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery!  Here’s what I’ve created:

How cute is that pup standing on the bike seat to look over his bird friend perched on the basket!  The name of these adorable animal friends are called “Gus & Gertie” which are a set of characters designed by Taylored Expressions. (If you click on the link, you can see the full line of them.)  The set I’ve chosen is called Gus & Gertie Best Buds.  I like these animals because they’re very easy to color!

I could’ve chosen the airplane from the set, but I kept thinking of those electric bikes & scooters you can rent from cities and they seem to go really fast when I see kids whizzing by on them! LOL

I kept my scene in a circle and added some clouds in the background that I stenciled in and then layered some hills/slopes and a grass border on the front.  I just popped the “ride or die” sentiment at the top and attached the die cut image with foam tape.  I layered the scene onto a black circle base that was attached to a red brick embossed background.  All was attached to a top folding A2 white card base.

That’s all for me today!  Thanks so much for checking in with me as I enjoy reading what you have to say!  Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with a Featured Creature
  2. Unicorn – Use Dies
  3. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with Animal(s)
  4. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  5. Just Us Girls – Die Week (no flowers)