Cheery Lynn Designs Cards

Every once in a while, I like to take a break from creating layouts and bust out a card or two. I've wanted to use Cheery Lynn Designs' Going Batty die for the longest time, but didn't have any ideas outside of Halloween...that is until now, thanks to Echo Park's Be Mine Collection!

I layered one of the classic nested circle dies and 2 different doilies dies to serve as the back drop for the bats. I used the Large Rectangle Stitcher Plate and the Embossing Pad to emboss the Core'dinations Cardstock card base and then sanded so the pattern and color would shine through.

here's a close up

I created this next card for a friend who's due to have a baby girl any day now! I used this technique for stretching the larger french flair die cut.

There's lots of texture on this card, but I added even more by embossing using the Large Rectangle Pierce Plate.

supplies: patterned paper- Echo Park; cardstock- Bazzill, Core'dinations; ink- clearsnap; stickers- Echo Park, My Little Shoebox; ribbon- offray; buttons; shimmering spray- Creative Imaginations; stickles- Ranger; dies, stitcker plates- Cheery Lynn Designs

I guess I should dedicate this post to my Epic Six...it died on me and went to die cut machine heaven. Now I need to decide if I should get another Epic Six or a different machine. Any advice?

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a wonderful week!

March Madness

March is always a fun month for Donovan at school!! There's "Crazy Hat Day", "Crazy Socks Day" and this year, his Principal added "Dress As Your Favorite Book Character Day". Donovan wore his black cowboy hat this year. (check out what he wore last year) I gave him a dollar to buy crazy socks at school and he came home with a cute red and yellow pair with a big bumble bee on the side. Can I just tell you that he wore the socks for 3 days (Fri-Sun)? I had to make him take them off...note to self, buy Donovan some more crazy socks.

I took one of his old yellow uniform t-shirts and turned it into a Charlie Brown style shirt.


I bought some black fabric, hand cut the zigzag pattern (albeit crookedly) and stitched it to the shirt and added some black pants (it's way too cold for shorts).

He was not very cooperative when I asked to take his picture. It's funny, when I'm taking pictures of other things, he begs me to take his picture. On the other hand, when I ask him to let me take his picture, he doesn't want me to. Go figure!

Anyway,here's the front view taken at school...

and the back taken at home...

March is also Women's History Month, so his school had a "Calling All Women" Breakfast. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, etc... were invited to bring the student to school and have breakfast with them. I attended this year and last because I love the idea (they also have "calling all men") and can't wait until the next one around Mother's Day. I love that his school is very family oriented.

Of course when one of my boys is getting photo attention, the other wants in on the action too. So here's my very soon to be 3 year old in his monster pjs!


Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today!

Crazy Beautiful Happiness

It's Monday again!! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I sure did! I spent it with my long time friends for a much needed girls' getaway weekend. We ditched the hubbies, the kiddos and the diets, hit the spa and hung out. We always have so much FUN together!

Speaking of fun...

Donovan's school sure knows how to keep school fun! For instance, every March, they have several theme days for the students (i.e. Crazy Hat Day, Crazy Sock Day, and Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character Day). Donovan gets so excited about these days! Last year, he wore the really tall St. Patrick's Day hat seen here for Crazy Hat Day and this year he donned a cowboy hat. I used papers from Echo Park's For The Record line to create a layout using photos that I took last year.

I wanted to keep this layout simple so that the focus stayed on the photos. The shamrock border on the hat inspired me to use Cheery Lynn Designs dies to create my own borders.

I used the smallest French Flair die to create a border that highlighted my journaling strip. After cutting the die 3 times, I cut each in half and then embossed using the Dots/Lines embossing folder to add texture.

I used the smallest 2 dies in the XL Circle Nesting Stackers to create a border for part of my title and then finished it off using the School Days font.

I'm loving this line of papers so much that I created this layout using one of the pictures that I took for the 52 Week Project and Petaloo flowers.



I don't know if it's because Spring is in the air, but I've been creating a lot of pinwheels lately!


Here are a couple of projects that I created using Petaloo's richly colored Darjeeling flowers, alterable Color Me Crazy flowers and Pink Paislee's Butterfly Garden collection. These flowers come in six different styles and colors and are just the perfect embellishment for adding a touch of vintage to your projects.

I captured this wonderful candid photo of my good friend and her daughter (my goddaughter) at my son's birthday party. The flowers from the Darjeeling collection were perfect for tying together the photo and the papers.

I wanted to highlight the pinks and skin tones from the photo so I added some flowers from the Color Me Crazy collection that I sprayed with Luminarte Radiant Rain Shimmering Spritz. These flowers are made from 100% recycled cotton and really hold up well to the spritz without loosing their shape.
I tucked a few pieces of Color Me Crazy Willow Vine in the flower cluster. I love how the vines can be used whole or easily separated into smaller vines.


I also created an All Occasion card using a mixture of Darjeeling and Color Me Crazy.


Thanks for stopping by the blog today. Have a great week!

Halloween Card No Gos

So I recently created 8 cards for Paper Crafts Magazine's last call and although none of them were picked up, I'm not upset about it. I'm still living on the high that one of my cards was picked up by them last week...and I had fun creating these cards, they helped me get out of my flu funk.

Just having fun with this one...


This card was created for the "Inspired By" segment. I was inspired by the Button Wreath Joy Card found in Card Creations Vol. 8.


This was is based on one of the sketches


...and this one didn't quite come out how I imagined...but the "Frankie" sticker is so cute!

Colorful Projects

So it looks like I'm finally getting out of the yuckiest part of the flu. I'm down to a just an annoying cough which is a heck of a lot better than the body chills, the fever, and fatigue that I experienced for the first few days.

I'm so happy to be getting back into a crafty mood as well! My mojo kicked in over the past few days and I created 8 Halloween/Fall cards for Paper Crafts Magazine's latest call. Wish me luck! Halloween and Christmas cards are my all time favorites to make. Although I can't share those projects, I do have a couple that I recently created for Creative Imaginations and Cheery Lynn Designs.

I am soooo ready for Spring and it's beginning to show in my projects. I start pulling out the brightest, sunniest colors that I can find as you can see here on this card that I created for Cheery Lynn Designs. To get more info on the steps I took to create this card, check out CLD's blog.


Easter is right around the corner. I figured I may as well finish getting last year's photos out of the way before it's time to take Easter photos again. Samantha Walker's Cotton Tail line by Creative Imaginations has the perfect embellishments and colorful patterns for creating super cute Easter projects!

I created this layout about the boys' Easter baskets...


...and this Easter card using this line.


Thanks for stopping by the blog today! Here's to dumping the sickies and diving into warm and colorful Springtime!

Easter Layout | Cheery Lynn Designs

Yep, it's that time of year...already! The clocks spring forward this weekend, which means, more daylight hours and the promise that the Spring and the Easter Bunny are on the way! I...Can't...Wait!!

I used several Cheery Lynn Designs products for my layout:

Dimensional Buttons, Nesting French Flair Dies, Large Rectangle Stitching Plate, Wittle Weavers, Crafters Foam Sheets, and Embossing Pads

The Wittle Weavers die was just perfect for creating a theme inspired embellishment for my project. I weaved the strips together, adhered to a piece of scrap paper and then ran it through my Epic Six with the 2nd smallest French Flair die to create a woven die cut.

I adhered a sticker on top of the die cut with foam dots to create a 3-D title block.

I die cut the smallest French Flair die and added lots of texture with the Rectangle Stitcher Plate. I inked the edges, cut them in half and then created a border down the left side of the layout.
I love these dimensional buttons! I cut them from both crafter's foam sheets and patterned paper. Once layered, they can be used just like regular buttons.

I cut these cute little birds from patterned paper and then placed them behind epoxy egg stickers that I cut to look like cracked eggs. I adhered 2 of them with pop dots for dimension.


Thanks for stopping by my blog today...until next post, have a wonderful day!

Cards That Didn't Make The Cut

OK, so I recently submitted 5 cards to Paper Crafts Magazine for their Go-To Card Sketch call and I am happy to say that one of my cards was picked up for publication in the August 2011 issue!!

I thought it would be fun to join in on the mini blog hop hosted by Amber where other submitters post the cards that didn't make the call! I've peeked at a few of them and man are there some really talented card makers out there!!

I haven't posted one of the card that didn't make it because I want to try and submit it somewhere else. Here are the cards that didn't make the cut and the sketch numbers.

sketch #27

supplies: patterned paper- Bella Blvd, Pink paislee; cardstock- Bazzill, Hambly; rub-on stitches- DCWV; ink-Clearsnap; twine

sketch #55
supplies: patterned paper, stickers- Echo Park; cardstock- Bazzill; rub-on- Melissa Frances; border punch- Fiskars; ink- Clearsnap

sketch #83
supplies: Patterned paper- Pink Paislee; cardstock-Bazzill; lace- Prima; border punch- EK Success; ink- clearsnap; stickles- Ranger; twine

Thanks for stopping by today!

Scrapbooking & Beyond Pubs

Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine has a new four part series called "Gadget Girls" where 4 designers (Liz Qualman, Pam Callaghan, Robbie Herring, and me) each create a layout using a specific tool. We each rocked out the i-rock tool by Imaginisce in the Spring issue.

We all know how much I love bling and getting to work with this tool was a lot fun!! The i-rock was really easy to work with, too. I used the frames stencil to create the scalloped border, glam rocks in rhinestuds, and hot rocks compacts in jewels on this layout.



supplies used: patterned paper- Bo Bunny; i-rock- Imaginisce; flowers- Petaloo; sticker- Creative Imaginations; rub-on- Karen Foster; Ink- Clearsnap; stickles- Ranger; Adhesive- Helmar; punches- EK Success; trimmer- Purple Cows

Enter Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine's drawing for a chance to win YOUR VERY OWN i-rock tool, plus 3 stencil kits, 3 hot rocks compacts, and a handy dandy tote bag. Just head over to their website and fill out an entry form!!

This next layout was also published in the same magazine. It's the first time I've ever had more than one project in any given publication!! So exciting!!

The photos are of Xander when he was 10 days old.



supplies: patterned paper, rub-ons, stickers, wood veneer- Creative Imaginations; flowers- Petaloo; ink- Clearsnap; punches- Martha Stewart, Marvy Uchida; adhesives- Helmar; trimmer- Purple Cows

Thanks for stopping by the blog today!!