Venturing away from paper for a moment...

While blogsurfing a few months ago I came across Bitty Booties -- an adorable pattern by Heather Bailey for sweet little booties that you can embellish to your heart's content. I totally fell in love with the idea, especially when I saw the hundreds of variations created by folks in the Bitty Booties Flickr Group. Holy moly, the possibilities are endless! It really satisfies my love for hand-stitching. These were my first go, which I thought would be perfect for Eliza for Halloween! I made a pair for my little niece Amelia, who is 9 days older than Eliza. They'll look so cute together tomorrow night! I've also got an adorable pink set in the works, as well as materials for a bunch more. Check out the Flickr group -- you'll see why I'm so intoxicated with them!

It's never too early for a little more Christmas!

I had SO much fun with this week's Bitten By The Bug challenge! Regina asked us to use the nutcup from Tags, Bags, Boxes and More for a Christmas project, which is really a great cut. It's cute as is, or it's a great blank canvas for all sorts of decoration! I cut the box at 5 1/2", which made a very good size nutcup. The finished project is about 3" tall, plus the ribbon. I added these adorable Hero Arts stamps, which I colored with Prismas and Gamsol and added some stickles just for fun. The round journaling spot above is from 7Gypsies, and I used a Stampin Up scallop punch for the circle behind it. PP is all from Pebbles, Inc. Check out all the other BBTB creations this week -- you'll definitely feel the Christmas spirit begin to flow! (And if you're still not in the mood for Christmas, there is a really cute Halloween take on it, too.) TFL!

Bless You -- Laura's Sketch #11

When I saw Laura's sketch this week, I knew just what I wanted to do with it. My hubby's mom and grandma made the most beautiful dress for Eliza's baby blessing, and I wanted to create a special thank you card that would pick up some of the beautiful details from the dress. I rotated the sketch 90 degrees for this card. The lace is from Fancy Pants, and I sewed it to the card with the same ribbon used on the dress. The stamped image is a Tilda from Magnolia, which I colored with Prismas and Gamsol, then raised up on pop dots. The background is embossed with the Cuttlebug. The sentiment was what killed me on this card -- I didn't want to cover up any of the lace, and there wasn't too much room that wasn't covered with embossing. I tried a couple different stamped sentiments and rub-ons on various colors of paper but couldn't find anything I liked. "Thanks" and even "Thank you" just didn't seem like enough for the hours of work they both put into the dress. So I hit upon "Bless You!" and wrote it in myself. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

And here is a picture of my little angel in the dress that inspired the card!

Bitten by the Bug Christmas card

Ah, the first Christmas card of the season (for me, at least -- I know there are lots of you cardmakers who've been going since July!) -- this really gets me in the mood for my favorite season of the year! Our assignment at BBTB this week was to use this tree tag shape from the Joys of the Season cartridge with the card feature. I cut the card at 5 1/2", then cut the tree shape at 4" on real dial size in chipboard, light green, and polka dot green cardstocks for the different layers. I added rhinestones for a little bling and this great "celebrate the season" stamp from Stampin Up, done with white embossing powder. The pps are from Imaginisce. The scallop edge was done with the Fiskars Threading Water punch. TFL!

Kazan's sketch #11

My dear aunt and bestest bud Glynis is having a baby in December, and this great sketch from Kazan at 2 Sketches 4 You was the perfect jumping off point for this invitation to her shower! I love how this turned out -- the photo really doesn't do the sweet colors justice. Anyhoo, they've called this baby "Peanut" ever since they found out they were pregnant, so a little elephant seemed like the perfect touch. I'm in charge of the decorations and invitations, so I'm planning to coordinate everything with this scheme. I adore this baby boy paper collection from Cosmo Cricket. The elephant is from the Cricut Zooballoo cartridge, cut at 1 3/4", and I cut the circles with George at 2" and 1". The striped shape I designed on my computer and cut with SCAL. The background is embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. To create the notebook edge, I used my Cropadile to punch the holes, then snipped them with scissors.

Be sure to check out Kazan's sketch this week!

Busy, busy!

This last week has been just crazy busy for me. My hubby's family was here over the weekend for a special family event -- Eliza's baby blessing! For that reason I have not had a lot of crafting time, but I did want to get some pages done for the album I do for my mother-in-law. They live in Washington and don't get to see us as much as they'd like, so I do a monthly layout with my favorite pics and send it to her. Well, that's how it's supposed to work in theory. The truth is I hadn't done a single layout for this year, but I figured now would be a good time! I got February - June finished, and here they are! I do this album almost entirely digitally, and nearly all of these use kits from Shabby Princess. You can see a larger version by clicking on any of the layouts. TFL!






This one use "grunge graph paper" and the Buddy Boy kit from Jenny Papai, which I'm about 78% sure came from Polka Dot Potato.

Sweet Eliza

You can see a larger version by clicking any of the images...




So my mom took my boys for a sleepover today and I thought Eliza's naptime would be the perfect time to clean the bathrooms... but instead I came into my office and finished this layout. Oops! Oh, well -- preserving our family history is more important than clean toilets, right?!

My big accomplishment with this particular project was figuring out how to add some "inking" to the edges of the photos and elements. I've struggled a little with digi-scrapping because it just didn't have the soft look I love with paper scrapping, which I usually add by doing things like inking the edges. This added a few steps, but I really loved the outcome. I bought this totally adorable digi-kit from the Shabby Princess shop. It's called Gabby, and I love it so much I think I may use it to redesign my blog. I LOVE their digi-kits -- they all have so many amazing elements. I also used this kit to create a little birth announcement for Eliza...



And while I'm on the subject of digi-scrapping, here's a layout I finished yesterday of this year's family reunion. This is another one for the album that I've given to my parents and all my siblings. We always have such a great time together -- I'm glad I can give everyone these layouts to remind them! :) This is another great Shabby Princess kit, called "Wonder."






Both of these layouts use Becky Higgins sketches. Love 'em!