Sites of the week

Welcome to DAY 5 of this week’s Anything But A Card posts. I have had so much fun doing this and have had such a wonderful response I have decided to dedicate a day each week to Anything But A Card {ABC}. From here on out, Fridays will be know as ABC Friday. Consider your self warned! I’ll be including all different kinds of projects, some commentary and, of course, Ellie pics. Speaking of my very sweet Ellie…we got her most recent professional pics the other day. When we were picking them up the lady asked if I could sign a copyright release so that they could display her pictures in their book AND in a frame in the studio!! Of course I said YES! This is actually the SECOND time that they have asked to display her pictures in their book, but the first time she is getting a spot in the studio. Can you say ‘PROUD MAMA’!?! So on Fridays, you may have to deal with a little doting as well. Again, consider yourself warned.
Today is Stamp Camp and we are focusing on Valentine’s projects. I’m a little Valentined out, so I am pressing the fast forward button and temporarily moving onto East projects. Tony got up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday and got me a Cricut. So far I haven’t used it too terribly much, but I can say that I absolutely ADORE the Bags, Tags and Boxes cartridge. This project is made with the nut cup {that’s just plain fun to say!}. I used the Good Egg set from SU! and added some bling bling {who me??} with Swarovski crystals and Making Memories rhinestone brads. The ribbon is from SU! and ribbonsandbowsohmy.com.
I’ll be back tomorrow with another project and of course my Sketch For You To Try. I am doing my best to comment on everyone’s cards, but am a little behind. I assure that I have looked at all of them and love what you all are doing with the sketches!!

Here’s Ellie playing a little Peek-A-Boo from inside her very own kitchen cabinet…you know the one that’s filled with all the tupperware and whatever other toys find their way in their via kid.

And, a few of her with her Sunday donut {or “doh-doh” as she says}.

Do you remember playing with those folded paper fortune tellers when you were a kid? I totally remember making these and playing with my friends in the 4th grade. Who knew that if you flipped them over they would be a super cute candy dish. I first saw this idea a while back on the Martha Stewart site. Click HERE to go to her project, which also has the directions. When I first got the Wild About You set from Verve Visual, I had the idea to do this as a Valentine centerpiece. I started out with SU! Kraft cardstock cut down to 8″x8″. I stamped it with the small hearts in white Craft ink after making my score marks. After I had it all folded, I turned down the edges. The scalloped edges are from a scalloped square punch that I cut in half and adhered to the bottom side of the fold. The pink bling bling are Swarovski crystals that I picked up at Michael’s. For the “flagpole” of this project, I punched a hole out of the center of the candy dish and stuck in the decorated lollipop stick.

PS~ This is the last day to get the “Launch Pack” from Verve Visual. It’s like getting free stamps!

In just a few weeks I will be leaving on a jet plane and heading west for a few days. I am thrilled to be going to CHA and can’t wait to see all that is store for us crafty folk while I am out there. One of the best parts of the trip is gonna be when I get picked up from the airport. One of my college girlfriends lives in the LA area and she is picking me up and we are going out to lunch before she so kindly takes me to the hotel. She is very prego (with child) with her 2nd lil’ girl. I made a luggage tag for her now 4 year old about a year ago. She asked me to make another one for her along with a couple diaper bag tags for the lil’ one making her debut soon. She said that she almost picked one up at Swoozie’s and she showed me some of the styles that they had. I told her that I would be more than happy to make some for her {of course!!!}. So, here is what I came up with…

BTW…Please excuse the poor lighting on these. Winter weather does not give way to a bounty of natural light.

ETA…The plastic covering is a badge holder from the office supply section of Wal-Mart. On the back of the tags I just put coordinating DP. If she wants to add personal info on that side she can.

Group shot…

For Kate, her oldest. She loooooves elephants!

For the sweet baby that is coming real soon…

If you have been reading my blog this week, you know that I went to a stamp fair/fest/whatever you want to call it over the weekend. Here are a few pics of some of the loot that I got…

My FAVORITE is the stamp that says “Do I smell jellybeans?” LOL!! That just cracks me up!

I also got a three tiered cupcake stand from GLUE. This pic is from their website.

I also got a 3×3 vertical file from them. I cannot wait to alter these!! Need more than 24 hours in a day!! My New Year’s resolution was to get more hours in my day and so far that is not working out for me. Hmph!!!

Happy Cupcake Day!! Whenever I hear this phrase I think of Taylor, as I am sure many of you do as well. This phrase, along with the uber cute cupcakes are from the My Favorite Things set, Icing On The Cake. This container is a wooden bag that I purchased at Michael’s. I covered it with American Crafts paper, much like the paper I used on the project yesterday. The ribbon on the handles is from Stampin’ Up and ribbonsandbowsohmy.com. I created the “scene” of cupcakes by masking and then colored them Copic markers. The icing portion is covered with Diamond Stickles and topped off red rhinestones. You know I love that BLING BLING BLING!!

Detail shot…

This past weekend Susan and I trekked over to Mesquite to for the StampScrapArtTour. It was a lot of fun!! Here are a few shots that I got while I was there. I don’t want to load you down with too many pics, so I will show you the loot tomorrow.

We ran into prbloom, (Paula Bloom) and her friend, Gretchen. Paula has a pic of us together on her site and I have to say that I like that one better.

We also ran into KikiKaren, (Karen) YAY!

Here are some shots from the show…
ETA: These funny stamps are from RUBBER COTTAGE.

From GLUE…

Yep, that’s right. No cards here. Well, at least this week. All week {Mon-Sat}, I am going to feature a little of this and a little of that; it just won’t be in the form of a card. To start the week off, I am showing my Friend Heart Box. This is a small paper mache box that I covered with pink and brown American Crafts paper {have I ever mentioned that I LOOOOVE their paper!?!}. For the top of this box, I scalloped some Whisper White paper with my corner rounder punch and added ribbon to make a “frilly” type edge. The flowers are from Prima and the sentiment is from PaperTrey. I also got the bottom “flower” instructions from Nichole’s blog. Although it is not really captured by the photographs, I like the depth that it gave to this project. Of course, I had to add some bling blingl The center of the flowers is a Making Memories brad and the “i” is dotted with a Swarovski crystal {which I foudn at Hobby Lobby for 50% off!}.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another project and some pictures from this weekend’s stamp fair. I met another Dirty Girl Alum there!!

A more from the top shot…