TE 13th Birthday Challenge

Good Morning My Creative Friends and HAPPY FRIDAY!  Welcome to my little corner of the crafting universe, I hope you've had a great week.

HAPPY 13th BIRTHDAY TAYLORED EXPRESSIONS!

Today I'm sharing my entry for the Taylored Expressions 13th Birthday challenge.  Of the four challenges taking place, I chose to enter challenge #1 which is a Toffee (kraft) & Rainbow combo.  I know that most people will go with the ROYGBP, bright and cheery colors (which I LOVE) but I decided to change it up a little and include the toffee color in my rainbow.

I started out with the TE Over The Rainbow dies, choosing a pallet of soothing colors that I would like to use for a future baby card.

With the TE Over The Rainbow sentiments stamps, I added "You make me happy when skies are grey" to the edge of the sun and heat embossed with white powder.

The sentiment "Hello, friend" is from the TE  Butterfly Sweet Sentiments set.  For some simple finishing touches, I sewed around the card edges and added Star Dust Stickles to the edges of the white clouds.  I had thought about adding sequins or raindrops but after playing with them for a while, it took away from the sweet simplicity I was looking for.  Oh well...

Thank You so much for stopping by and taking a look.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I look forward to our next visit.

♥ Laura

Taylored Expressions: 13th Birthday FB Entry

Winter Fox Canning Jar Snow Globe

 Hello There My Crafty Friends!  Happy Friday and Welcome to my little corner of the crafting world!

Tomorrow the hubster leaves for his annual finishing trip.  What's a girl to do for an entire week all by herself?  Absolutely anything and nothing she feels like doing.  I'm starting out by stopping by my favorite country goodies store, The Rustic Hutch.  They're having a sale and I'll be going there directly after dropping the guys at the airport.  :D  I also plan to work on cards.  I'm late in starting my Christmas cards this year, so it's time to get a move-on.

For today's project, I knew I was going to create a snow globe and for some reason just felt it had to be a jar design.  Must be that country/farmhouse style, I love so much, just coming out of me.  For that, I turned to my Cricut.  I used the negative cut for the jar itself and the positive cut for the lid.  I used my scoring board for the lines in the lid and an embossing folder for the wood grain around the jar cut.

The sweet fox, trees and words are a set from Papertrey Ink called Winter Fox and the snowflake is Snowfall Style 1 dies, also by Papertrey Ink.  The swirly background is a very pretty die by Ellen Hutson called Twirling Flurries.

Don't know if you noticed in the first picture, that my jar panel is down and to the right side of the card base.  This caused me a lot of stress because, even though I like how it looked, it wasn't centered.  I spent way too much time obsessing over this but decided it's about time I step out of a few of my comfort zones.

Here you can see some of my snowy, glittery shaker bits.  I used 5 different sparkly things; little clay snowflakes, fine white glitter, shaved ice, clear sequins and glass glitter.

What do you think?  Please let me know in the comments section and, while you're there, any photography tips you'd be willing to give are greatly appreciated.  Especially when it comes to brightening up my photos.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a great weekend.

♥ Laura

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges.  Please click the links.

Papertrey Ink: Fab Friday, Snow Globe

Simon Says Stamp Wednesdays: Stamp It

Double D: Anything With A Tail

Happy Little Stampers: Watercolor AG

Thinking Of You Bouquet

 Happy Wednesday and, while we're at it, Happy September 1st. my Crafty Friends!  Welcome to my little corner of the crafting world.

Remember in my last post how I said I love this time of year?  Well, I do but the reality is setting in and things are already getting hectic.  I've started making some of my holiday gifts, creating a new crochet pattern for the sweetest candy cane pillows, stitching glass beads on felt pine trees which will be car air fresheners/scented ornaments, I have yet to decide on a design for my Christmas cards and I have less than three months to get it all done.  Yes, I celebrate Thanksmas.  My family converges on my home from various states as far away as Pennsylvania.  This way, there is no argument or tug of war with the in-law families about who's going to which house on Christmas.  Thanksmas is mine.

So with all of that going on, I still have to do the normal day to day stuff; clean the house, make dinner, do dishes, laundry and make cards for all of the rest of the celebrations of life.  You know how it is.

For this card I couldn't wait to try out some of my new goodies from the Papertrey Ink sale.  I finally got the Birthday Bouquet set that I've had my eye on FOREVER along with the Skinny Diagonal Frames which I have impressed into the panel.

I first inked up the flowers with Distress Inks using the color scheme from the MFT color challenge.  After much hemming and hawing, I decided to make the leaves and stems grey and I actually love this look.  I'm so traditional, it's tragic so I'm really glad I jumped out of my comfort zone for a change.

I then die cut everything with the coordinating dies and then distress spattered with white and black acrylics.  On the impressed panel, I used the three dot stamp from PTI's Winter Fox collection to surround the bouquet.

After adhering everything else down, I stamped the sentiment and then die cut it with the MFT Stitched Sentiment Banner Die and then finished it all off by adding Star Dust Stickles.

What do you think?  Please let me know in the comments section, and while you're there, let me know if you've started getting ready for the holiday season yet.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I hope you have the best day!

♥ Laura

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges.  Please click on the links.

Papertrey Ink: The Great Cover-Up - Impress A Die Into The Background

My Favorite Things: Color Challenge

Funkie Junkie: Distressing

Simon Says Stamp Monday: Glimmer and Sparkle