PTI Anniversary Day #2

I'm gonna have a bunch of quick posts for you tonight...you're lucky!! PTI is celebrating their 5th anniversary this month and is hosting lots of challenges and contests. Today, we celebrate the designers. Each designer designed a new "stamp" that we were able to print out and use in a card or project.

My first image was from my favorite designer, Heather Nichols. I'm not a fan of how this turned out, but it was a quick and easy card with no stamping!

A little Aqua Mist, some wood buttons....yes, you see THREE of them!!! I've been hoarding them, but what's the fun in that?? :).... and some twine. Simple :)

cinnamon

One of the easiest projects EVER!!

One mason jar, a glue gun, cinnamon sticks, twine and a candle and VOILA! You have a perfect winter decoration! :)

rags to riches

Have you ever started a project and thought, "why in the HELL am I doing this??!?!" Yeah...that was me. I had this hairbrained idea that I could make a rag quilt. I saw a pin on pinterest for a baby rag quilt. This one was different. It had long strips instead of those itty bitty squares. The directions were step-by-step. Easy-peasy, right?

Let's just say that I started this in, oh...October. It was going to be a gift for my niece who was to be born in December. Thought I'd have PLENTY of time. Good thing, since I didn't finish it until about 2 weeks ago!!

I learned a lot making this. One of those things was that I'm not a fan of quilting! I give MAJOR props to all the quilters out there! I do absolutely LOVE how it turned out.

I spent 5 hours just doing the binding. Whew. The one side was cake. The other, not so much. I'm not a fan of hand sewing! That bee fabric is my favorite :)

And, if you're still reading...I'll tell you what I did. This quilt went to my niece as I already said. Her mom is B's sister and they live in Florida, so I had to ship it down to them. I decided that it needed a note to go along with it and this is what I wrote:

Dearest Olivia:

This is a very special quilt for a very special girl. You see, when your grandma passed away, I was lucky enough to receive her sewing machine. With that sewing machine, she made quite a bit of things, including very special blankets and quilts for your mommy and Uncle B. I know if she were still here, she would've made you a special quilt with that very machine and so, I did it for her. She would've been so excited for you to be here! Lots of love

Aunt Liz

pick your plum

Have you ever heard of Pick Your Plum? OMG...awesome site!! They have one deal every day for incredibly cheap. Back in October (I think), they had a great thing of vinyl for $3.95 or something like that. Now, when you get the items, it's generally something crafty that you have to put together or that you need something else to go with it. Make sure you sign up and you'll get their daily email of what is the deal of the day!

So...I turned the vinyl into these..

I didn't much care for that red flower (I did it on my cricut), so it did come off and I put another flower there.

I love how they turned out. I was able to get remnants of wood at Menards for $1.69 and sanded them, found some $2.99 spray paint at Hobby Lobby to use and then put the words on. I actually didn't use all the words they gave me, so I still have some left. And I have another board that I don't have a pic of because I was an idiot and put "faithful" on there twice!!

These were all Christmas gifts for my mom, aunt, and SIL (I kept one for myself, too!). I know they all loved them!

Christmas wrap up

Yes, I realize that we're a little past Christmas!! I apologize...with trying to make so many things for Christmas and then hitting a few birthdays and year end at work, I haven't had a chance to post! I figured I'd just post the last of my Christmas things in one post :)

My girlfriends and I always do an exchange and I made a few cute little photo holders for them. Because there are 11 of them, I had to do something simple for packaging. I got a stack of paper bags, Ripe Avocado and Scarlet Jewel ink, my Peace, Be Still stamp set and went to work!

I love the finished product and it took no time to complete!

And here's the rest of the cards I sent out this year.

The first one I tried flipping over the die to just make an impression instead of cut...it didn't turn out perfect, but I like it :) I did find that it was better to stamp the snowflakes and THEN impress the die. The ink/stamp didn't like when I did the impression first!

I was in love with that little snowman this year!

You can't see it too well in this picture, but there are raised scor lines above and below the snowflakes. Love!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and were able to spend a lot of time with family! Thanks for checking in! :)

simple christmas

I decided it was high time for me to show some cards on here again! I actually took some photos of a few of them I made and will be sharing them as I get a chance to blog. I have to make at least 65 Christmas cards to send out from our family. Because of that, I wanted to try and come up with something easy that I could replicate fairly easily. Joyce had posted a link to her blog of a few CAS cards she had done and I thought, BINGO! Exactly what I was looking for! :)

I started with a base of Rustic Cream cardstock. Both snowflakes are from Peace, Be Still (love that set!) stamped in Scarlet Jewel and Ripe Avocado. I also used my Photo Finishers Die and cut out the straight lines in Ripe Avocado and then stamped using the Photo Finishers: holiday set. I am so in love with that stamp and die set! I think most all of my cards used one or the other in some form or another!

Thanks for the inspiration, Joyce!!

handprints

One of my very first times pinning something, I came across this picture and decided I was pinning it and I WAS going to make it!

source

Thankfully, on Black Friday, Jo-Ann's had their canvas all 60% off (heck yeah!!) and I got an additional 25% off my purchase, so I brought home a nice large canvas. Amazingly enough, I already had paint on hand (no pun intended!). All I needed was a cooperative little girl.

She LOVED it!!! And was so excited to do it.

I think I actually like how mine turned out better than the original! :) It's hanging at the bottom of the steps and every time Lexi sees it, she says that's MY painting! Proud girl!