Unity's FWF 12/6

Hello!

It's Friday; isn't it? This week has just flown by! My eldest daughter turned 8 yesterday and I've been busy today preparing for her birthday party tomorrow. 

Today I also realized that I always panic when Christmas is over and I realize that I'm completely out of birthday cards, and we have several family birthdays in January. And since I had the sewing machine out making party favor bags, and it's Unity's Friends with Flair day...

Echo Park here & now
Unity's 'everything wonderful'
SU ribbon
Momento inks

Thanks for visiting me today! be sure to hop back to the Unity blog for lots more inspiration!

Best,

Jen

LWD design team showcase: Echo Park & Lawn Fawn

Hello! It's Friday and my first official blog post as a design team member for Lone Wolf Designs. If you haven't heard of Lone Wolf, be sure to hop over to the Facebook page and check out all of the great brands Kris carries - and you ALWAYS get 25% off MSRP. That's the kind of deal I like. :)

Today I'm showcasing Echo Park and a little Lawn Fawn as well. I snatched up this great EP 'beautiful life' 6x6 pad recently, my stacks of other 6x6's not withstanding. Pretty paper.. I cannot live without my pretty paper!! 

So pretty. And no, I'm not a manicure sort of girl. 

So. My first step after flipping through several times was to tear out the papers I most liked and see what combinations jumped out at me. For layering, I used kraft and navy. Hello, Mama was right - basics never go out of style...

So many choices!!

This is so crazy to type, but school starts the day after Labor Day. Each year I give some cards to the teachers as little gift sets - 2 or 3 cards with a tag or two, but I'm perpetually creating them at the 11th hour. No more. I figured a 3 card set and a couple of tags - with an extra to wrap up and tie on the gift - would be a great crafting night project. 

I started with the cards. This one had me wildly thinking for a bit; I didn't know what to do with those doilies... and then Lawn Fawn's Jessie's ABCs to the rescue! Oh my gosh, can I tell you how much I used to HATE alphabet sets? I sold every single set I had because I never used them. And then I went to Scrapfest last year (Mall of America, Bloomington MN, every September. Can you say "girls weekend?") and saw Kelly Marie of Lawn Fawn in action (if she lived closer we'd have to be stamping buddies. she is the sweetest!), and how EASY these are to use. You just line up the bottom of the individual letters on your acrylic block, and they are perfectly aligned. Genius. It's pure genius. So I dug 'em out and stamped the "love u". 

Echo Park beautiful life
Nestabilities - labels 8
Lawn Fawn Jessie's ABCs
Tim Holtz Fired brick ink

I don't normally use ivory as a layer (or white), but I like it here!

A little tape kept the layers from sliding while I figured
out where all the pieces were going. 

I broke out my dies from my new ArtBin magnetic organizer for this card! Did you see my review? I LOVE THIS THING. Seriously. But not as much as I love my pretty paper, so to keep going...

Then I decided to go for a simpler card. Everyone always needs a card that could work for multiple occasions .. I love these tiny butterflies and they are the perfect backdrop for this Lawn Fawn sentiment. :)

Echo Park beautiful life
Lawn Fawn Flying By
Sizzix buttons 5 die
Twinery twine
Tim Holtz ink in crushed olive

What, you don't stamp your sentiment in multiple colors to decide
which you like the best? I couldn't decide!!!
Tim Holtz fired brick, victorian velvet, and crushed olive

This sweet floral print was the perfect backdrop to use a doily die - and some more Jessie's ABCs. I had the 'o' upside down originally. One stamp and that was clear - and so I flipped it back around!

Echo Park beautiful life
lawn Fawn Jessie's ABCs
Tim Holtz weathered wood ink
Nestabilities small circles dies
Quickutz doily die
ribbon from stash

Yeah, that o is upside down!!

Fixed!!

So pretty! LOVE this color scheme!

And I am my father's daughter, right? I needed to create some coordinating tags to use up all of the scraps I while making cards. :) For me, taking the smaller pieces and finding a fun design is such fun. This was the first one I made:

Echo Park Beautiful Life
Lawn Fawn Clear to See
We R corner chomper
Tim Holtz fired brick ink

And then I made this one! I took two different sentiments from the Lawn Fawn Stay Tuned set to create the sentiment. I LOVE how easy it is to do that with Lawn Fawn stamps.

Echo Park beautiful life
Lawn Fawn Stay Tuned
Jillibean Soup faux button, Twinery twine
Tim Holtz walnut stain ink

Walnut Stain...aside from Antique Linen, it's my go-to ink color.
Please pardon the mess. It's controlled chaos.

Trying to figure out where it all goes.

I love this tiny set. I love most of LF's tiny sets. :)
I used the "tuning in to say" and the "you rock" together to
create my custom sentiment. 

This one was a total cleaning-up-putting-away-inspiration-strikes-get-it-all-back-out tag. Do you ever have moments like that?

Lawn Fawn Clear to see
Echo Park beautiful life
Marvy Uchida GB684
Tim Holtz walnut stain
Twinery twine

I can't wait to use up the rest of this 6x6 pad! I hope I've inspired you today!

You can find these and many more products for your crafting projects at 25% off MSRP at Lone Wolf Designs, LLC. All you have to do is join the Lone Wolf Designs Discount Craft Supplies Facebook Group. If you haven't joined us yet, you are paying too much for your craft supplies!

Jen

Viva Las VegaStamps! DT Tryout

Hello there!

Viva Las Vegas Stamps extended their design team call, and even though I just recently discovered them (Operation Write Home Memorial Day bloghop for the win!!!!) I've decided to throw my hat into the ring... throw my bling onto the stage? That seems more appropriate for Vegas! :)

Here are my three pieces:

This is a fun card I made with Paper Smooches stamps
and Echo Park papers. 

LOVE my chevron dies! I adore sentiment stamps. I use a
LOT of sentiments and those heart dies... another favorite.

This is a fun fold card I made for a friend's daughter's birthday.
It takes several photos to appreciate... well, that's my theory at least!

These three are a great representation of my style - clean lines and bright colors. Did you know the only room in my house that's white is our master bedroom closet? It's true! Color = awesome.

Thanks for your consideration, DeeDee!

Jen

OWH sketch 158 and ODBD challenge

Hello, hello, hello! Did you notice anything over there? ---------------> I joined a design team! I hope you'll check it out and maybe join in on some challenges. :)

First up, here's the fruit challenge card for this month's Our Daily Bread Designs challenge. I had some of these Echo Park scraps so I used them all up on these fruit cards. Woot! This is sketch 140, by the way.

Echo Park dp; Gina K and Bazzill cardstock
Paper Smooches fruitastic stamp set
glossy accents; Momento inks

And now on to the sketch for today... this is 158 over at the Stars & Stamps blog!

I took some liberties with the sketch. I'm trying to use up this paper... I cannot recall who makes it, or the name of the line, for the life of me. :/

Paper: unknown
Stamps: Paper Smooches; MFT chevron die and QuickKutz heart dies

Thanks for visiting me today! :) 

Jen

OWH MWT/Lawn Fawn challenges

Today I am sad. One of my dear friends was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery a few days ago and the lab reports today are not good. She will be having more surgery shortly. :(  If you know a stamp set off the top of your head that is breast cancer related, will you please comment and tell me?

Anyhow... cards. Today's Lawn Fawn challenge is to use scallops, and the sketch from Monday was great, so I incorporated scallops into both cards.

Lawn Fawn flying by set
Echo Park papers

Lawn Fawn's on the mend set
Twinery twine, Echo Park papers

Thanks for visiting me.  Lawn Fawn makes really awesome stamps, so if you haven't checked them out yet, you should! 

Jen

Chick Challenges 33, OWH MWT

I usually play along with the Ippity Chicks challenge sketch, and I'm cutting this one close to the wire. I just didn't have a good idea for what I wanted to do, until I saw today's mid-week throw down challenge for Operation Write Home, which is to shower one of the founding OWH board members with cards. 


I used the sketch to create this card that a hero could send home:

Ippity's Alpahbetically adorable
Echo Park summer days

And then I made this card for Dee, to encourage her. I hope she appreciates puns! :) This lady made THOUSANDS of cards for our heroes to write home on. She is most certainly a good egg!

Paper Smooches wake up stamp set
Glossy accents, Tim Holtz tiny attacher

Thanks for visiting me today!


Jen

OWH sketch 124 - flying by

I have a confession. 


When I was a new cardmaker, and  a new blogger, I would try the sketch challenges and I found them so intimidating. :o  Now, though, I've gained some experience (perseverance - it works!) and every now and then I see a sketch and I think, "oh, I totally know what to do with that one!" This week's sketch at the Stars & Stamps blog was one of those. 


So, here is the sketch and my card:

I used some very fun papers from the Echo Park summer days collection and my new stamps from Lawn Fawn. I love paper-piecing that little paper airplane!


The background stumped me for a minute. You might have to click and enlarge it to see, but I turned it on the diagonal on my scoreboard and scored it every half inch. It just adds... enough *something* to make it a better card. The yellow was just too plain by itself, but I loved how cheery it is! :)


Thanks SO MUCH for visiting me today! If you follow OWH on FaceBook, go scroll through some posts and find mine from yesterday. I'm giving away some Lawn Fawn stamps as they were an unclaimed prize from the Hop! I'll post a winner tomorrow morning. 


Jen

OWH MWT - color challenge and Ippity bling challenge

Happy Wednesday! << Power of positive thinking! I'm sitting here with a dreary, raining sky outside and I just got back from the doctor - verdict: sinus infection, but at least now I can take some nice drugs and it will help me feel normal again. Anything to feel better!! oh, and my 2 year old woke up with pinkeye. FUN TIMES over here, I tell you!

There's a color challenge (brown & turquoise) at the Stars & Stamps blog today. I also wanted to play along with the Unity Opportunity blog challenge to use glitter or bling - I tend to stay away from glitter entirely as it's not safe for our troops and therefore not safe for OWH cards, so I went with bling. I like this a lot... I think it might end up in my stash for my sister's birthday in June! :)

Ippity by Unity's Fabulous Girl
Papers: Echo Park dp; Archiver's and random stash
Nesties classic circles and eyelet circle; Momento bahama blue and Tim Holtz walnut stain distress inks

Thanks for visiting me today!

Jen

OWH MWT - glitterfree bling and look on the bright side

Hey, hey... it's Thursday! Um, how did that happen? Last time I checked it was Monday, I think. This week is flying by... oh well, that means the weekend comes faster! :)

The challenge this week over at the OWH Stars & Stamps blog is to make a card that has bling but NO glitter. Glitter is not safe for our troops (you can read more about that here). I used some yummy Echo Park paper and gems to make this cute CAS card.. the inside sentiment reads "look on the bright side."

Stamps are by Unity. :)

I'll be back later to pass on some Liebster awards... I got nominated twice! Makes a girl feel loved. :)

Thanks for visiting me today!
Jen

Unity FWF 12/16 - mini album

It's Friiiiiday! This is a crazy busy weekend with holiday gatherings BOTH days for our family, and we've been out of town for a week. Yeah. I think I might be *glad* to see Monday arrive! LOL

I spent today making a mini album for my 13 year old niece for Christmas. I've seen so many great mini albums on blogs and I feel like this is the amateur edition... oh well. I hope she likes it! I tried to make it fun and cute but a little grown up, too. I left some space so she can journal or have her friends write notes or insert pictures. The pages are 4.25" square.

I don't have the cover done quite yet, so the pages aren't bound... here are just a few, in random order:

Most of the paper is Echo Park, add lots of Twinery twine and all Unity and Ippity stamps!
In the spirit of Christmas, I have some unity stamps to give away! Just leave a comment to be entered to win - I'll draw a winner on monday! :)
Thanks for visiting! Be sure to hop back to the Unity blog for the rest of the links and stop on in to the Unity store - did you see the sales??? :) Be sure to link up your unity project, too!

Jen

Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge

Now that I finally have some PS stamps, I decided to play along with the Sparks challenge!  What stood out to me most was the colors in this photo, so that's what I went with.

Here's the inspiration photo:




















And here is my card:

I used Fruitastic for the apples and the wake up set for the sentiment. I made the wavy border out of punched circles. The dp is Echo Park, solid is SU and Bazzill.

Thanks for looking! Be sure to play along - there's a couple of days left - over here.

Jen

OWH sketch 93 - shine on

Hello blog friends! We've been out of town and I am WAY behind on challenges. Good thing today is Sunday so at least for this one, I don't have to appear behind. :) 

My SIL is having a birthday soon and I just won this stamp in a grab bag. Isn't it GREAT? I saw it and knew I wanted to use it for this sketch. I paper pieced the lampshades and added the bling to the bottoms. I couldn't find a good place for the sentiment so I'm putting on the inside.

DP: Echo Park
Stamp: Unity stamp Co
Glossy accents, random bling from stash

I glossy accented the lampshades, too. It doesn't look too impressive yet, maybe when it dries.  Sorry for the bad photo... gloomy day and my workspace is CRAZY messy. Will try to get a better pic later.

Thanks for looking! Be sure to play along here. :)

Jen

Ippity Chick Challenge #2 - all things are possible

Monday, Monday... I am glad you are OVER! I confess that I got the easy job today. While my husband wrangled our nearly 2 year old, I took the five year old to have a sedated MRI. She slept. I got to make cards and browse blogs on the Ipad. Hehe. (And the MRI was normal! Amen!)


Anyhow, I wanted to play along with the new Ippity Chick Challenge. I used my largest of the Nesties petite large ovals, but this card feels tiny. Oh well, mini is cute, right?



    Here is my card:

(Echo Park DP, Stickles, Ippity's All things are possible, Basic Grey bling)

Awhile back, I ordered some fabulous Basic Grey holiday paper. Of course, there was an option for a pack with a FREE amperherstand bling. What in the world I would do with it, I had no idea. but it was free, so you know, I got it. And then it arrived, and I was even more baffled.

But look closely at the card - it became the antennae! Cool, huh? :)

Thanks for looking! Be sure to play along. :)

Jen