Life In A Zoo

inspired by Amelie

I recently found a challenge blog called inspired by Amelie.  After watching the movie, I was so inspired that I had to join in on the challenges.  I got a little carried away with the embellishments but love how it turned out.  I found a picture of a garden gnome & photoshopped him into my picture.  He looks so cute in my yard that I think I'm going to have to buy one.  I also printed some gnomes out that I stapled to the page.  I used a mix of cardstock, rub-on, felt & foam letters along with some felt ribbon.  The pattern paper is from the I heart candytown collection by Adrienne Looman. 

peace

Here's my peaceful "digi" creation for the Category Stories blog challenge.

I'm so thankful to live on such a beautiful planet...

OLW ~ one

I finally got a challenge done for this blog ~ One Little Word. They have really cool one word prompts for their challenges.  "ONE" is to celebrate their recent birthday.  Happy Birthday to OLW!!!

Here's my take on the challenge~

My layout is 6x12 & I used the Farmhouse Chic collection from SIStv.  There are also some hybrid elements with the journal tags & lettering.

more new etsy stuff...

my etsy shop   (you get a clearer picture if you click on them & open to a new page)

recent challenge projects...

here are some recent projects for a challenge at SIStv called Shopping List.

new esty items...

just added some new journal tags to my etsy shop...will be adding more over the next week as I have several designs in the works & still need to print them out & take pictures.

I only listed one of each set but have more available.

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and here's a new layout that i made using the trendsetter collection from SIStv.

peas...

i just love these pictures.  i painted the background on white cardstock & then added some black outlines.  the letters are cut from cardstock & painted.

go green challenge wk 2 & 3

I'm a little behind in posting photos of my projects for my Go Green Challenge.

The challenge for week 2 was to re-cycle something made out of plastic.  Here's my project~

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The challenge for week 3 is to re-cycle something made out of metal.  Here's my project~

I used three flattened bottle caps attached with brads.

Check out more details of my Go Green challenge at Cut the Crop's MB.

 

smile :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Here are just a few things that made me smile this weekend~

from my little one, these are the best presents to get!

from my teenager, i love that she still calls me "mommy" sometimes!  i found this note on my desk with a memory stick full of pictures of her sweet face...

the first two strawberries from my yard!

this is one of my faves!

silly project

My daughter recently had a very interesting extra credit project for chemistry class.  She had to make a mole (like the animal).  How does that relate to chemistry?  Apparently a "mole" is also a unit of measurement.  So, here's how her cute little project turned out & yes of course I did help a little.  :)

   

Isn't that cute!!!

go green challenge

I'm hosting a four week "go green" challenge on Cut the Crop's MB.  Here's the link to check out the details - go green

The first week's challenge - PAPER.  This flower holder is made from an empty paper towel roll.

Hope you will join us to re-use, re-cycle & re-create!

check out my card kit

My card kit went on sale today at Cut the Crop.  This is the first of two sets that I have designed for Tove Rogers, owner of Cut the Crop.  Each kit has directions to make the four cards shown & extras to make additional cards.  The cute little Owl (drawn by me) is printed on cardstock & ready to be decorated with doodling, markers or paint.

Also on sale today is the June month kit and new page kits put together by the CTC design team.

Hope you will head over to CTC & check everything out.

colorstory challenge

Check out this great challenge blog - colorstorychallenge.com.  Current challenge colors - green, black, white, red & yellow.  Patterns - modern & minimal.  Texture - smooth, shiny, 3-D, hard & soft.  A very simple sketch with simple photos. 

Keeping my layout simple was a real challenge.  I reversed the sketch to allow for better placement of the photos.  The paper has subtle design patterns.  The B&W photos are simple but make a statement.  Letters were hand cut, outlined in black ink.  "SILLy" letters are outlined with Glossy Accents.  "BOY" letters are covered with the gloss.  The cardstock butterfly was painted with black paint & then covered with gloss.  And don't forget the little birdie in the tree - covered with gloss & raised with pop-dots.

Yellow & Red papers are from Dream Street - Story of a Seed collection.  Black & Green papers are from Carolee's Creations.

Thanks for checking out my blog & thanks to Color Story Challenge for the inspiration!

just gotta love this face...

what a goof!!!

got ribbon???

Do you have ribbon stuffed in boxes or baggies?  Are you always searching for a ribbon you know you bought but just can't remember where you put it?  I have to admit - I'm guilty of the "baggie storage system".  But that was only for my loose ribbon.  Anything else was left on the spool & kept in a different drawer.  Most of the time I couldn't remember what was even in my stash.

All that has changed - my ribbons have been tagged!!!  I recently tried a new product called Ribbon Ring.  These little plastic tags are the neatest thing since sliced bread.  Depending of the width of your ribbon, you can hang 1-2 pieces on each tag.  (It's recommended to keep the length to about 1 yard.)  They come with orange inventory dots so you can mark the tags to remind you that you have one or more tags with the same ribbon.  After you get all of your ribbon on the tags, they slide onto metal rings & can be hung up anywhere in your scrap room.  How awesome is that!  All your ribbons organized & beautifully displayed.  I vow to never shove my ribbons in baggies again...well, maybe just the scraps.  A big THANK YOU to Melissa Bickle for creating this innovative storage solution. 

Check out how cool these look...

mini album how-to's

Here's some step by step instructions for an accordion mini album.  It's made from 3 sheets of 12x12 cardstock glued together & folded to make a 6x6 diamond-fold album.

And to officially kick off my new blog, I will be giving an RAK to someone.  All you need to do is post a comment with a link to a picture of your scraplift of the mini album.  Deadline to post your link is April 30th.

How to's:

Supplies Needed:
3 12x12 sheets of cardstock

Patterned Paper cut to 5 3/4 x 5 3/4" squares (10)~will cut 4 in half to make triangles~

Ribbons & metal toggle closure

Fold the 12x12 cardstock in half. Open, then fold in half in the other directions. Open, then make one diagonal fold. Repeat this process with all three cardstock pieces.

Loosen up the diagonal fold by folding it forward & backward a couple of times.

Arrange cardstock on work surface:

Place adhesive on the lower-right square of the top cardstock and upper-left square of the bottom cardstock only.

Adhere the squares together. It will look like this.

To fold album:

Hold album with your hands on the end squares.

On the end squares, push the diagonal folds upwards, collapsing the end pages.

Fold the middle square's diagonal folds down, toward the back. Gently press album together.

Now open & decorate. I used 1 square of pp on the front & 4 on the inside square that do not have folds. The diagonals are decorated with the triangle pieces. The ribbon closure is attached to the back side & wraps around the front. You make the ribbon long enough to tie or add a toggle enclosure.

I used:

Bazzill Basics Salsa Verde textured cardstock

Basic Grey 6x6 Sublime Paper Pad

Distressing ink

Brown & orange ribbons

Metal necklace toggle closure

finally...

got my blog somewhat organized.  But I'm still not crazy about the banner.  It turned out too big, so I'll probably redo that.  I've still got more stuff to add but were having a yard sale tomorrow & I gotta finish getting stuff ready.

my new blog

check back soon for more posts!