Thankgiving Mum

So this digi mum has been printed out & in my stash since last year....and I forgot about it until yesterday. I do love making cards for the very last second, though :) It's not like they go bad if they don't get used until next year!

Supplies: digi mum image from Graphics Fairy; patterned paper from MME; kraft die cut & natural twine in a bag of goodies from Barb; Cuttlebug embossing folder; buttons from stash; Tonic edge distresser

After running the edge distresser around the printed piece, I then gently folded up the edges to rough them up a bit more, and then mounted it with foam tape. 

little red wagon is having a Thanksgiving challenge this week, and Papercraft Star's inspiration photo  with orange flowers & straw had me remembering this image & reaching for the kraft paper! 

xoxo,

Jessi

Blue Cupcakes

Blue cupcakes completely inspired this card - although of course there isn't a cupcake to be seen. Papercraft Star has a fabulous picture for inspiration this week - and right away I thought of using it as a sketch:

Loosely, of course. I liked the variety of blues in the picture, and I first tried to replicate that with stamps & ink, and then punching out 1" circles. That was a fail. Plan B involved patterned paper and was successful:

Supplies: papers from MME; 1" circle punch; scrap vellum; Versamark; Stampendous Sapphire EP; Paper Smooches sentiment; buttons from stash

The Sapphire EP has a metallic sheen to it that I really like. I should use it more often! I like this concept for using up smaller scraps of paper - you may see this layout again & again.

xoxo,

Jessi

Papercraft Star Bicycle

As soon as I saw the photo for this week's Papercraft Star challenge, I thought of this Unity itty bitty bicycle stamp. Every time I've used it, I've coloured it pink - because MY bike is pink :)

(Also, if you've never read THIS POST by Allie Brosch, you must go now. I'll wait.)

Supplies: Unity stamps; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Prismacolor pencils; Labels 5 Nesties; Basic Grey paper

Here's the inspiration photo:

Seriously, do yourself a favour & go read that post - you will pee yourself. I promise.

xoxo,
Jessi

Papercraft Star turns 3!

Happy birthday, Papercraft Star! Have you visited their blog lately? They had a redo, and my goodness it's gorgeous :) Just like we girls feel fresh & pretty after the salon, it feels good to change up your online look once in a while too! Congratulations!

They have a gorgeous beach inspiration photo this week, and I took that prompt and ran wild with it, getting super messy, inky, and sticky. I've really gone quite loosely with the 'ocean' theme and used up my very last mermaid sticker from PSX. *sniff*

Supplies: mermaid sticker from PSX; polka-dot stamps from PTI; Versamark & clear embossing powder; Distress inks: Dusty Concord, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean; Tattered Angels Glimmer mist in Turquoise, Blue Skies, and Key Lime; clear 'dew drops' from dollarama

I made several of these inky backgrounds at the same time by sponging on  the distress inks, then spraying VERY liberally with the Glimmer mists. Once they were dry, I 'splatted' again with the mists, and a bit of water. Once they were dry again, I stamped with the polka dots & embossed. 

The Papercraft Star inspiration photo:

The challenge is open until Monday, so hopefully you get a chance to play along too!

xoxo,

Jessi

Something AMAZING and beautiful!

A few months ago I shared that an old friend had been diagnosed with breast cancer. (Here's the original post). Well, guess what?

She had surgery - a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction - on April 9th. She goes back to work with a clean bill of health TOMORROW, May 27. Without chemo or radiation. The surgery was well-done and her lymph nodes were clear. She is cancer-free. She will of course be monitored but right now? She is healthy and good to go. I cannot tell you how happy this news makes me - I cried writing the post telling you about her diagnosis, and I'm crying again writing to tell you that she kicked cancer's butt.

She had two tumours, and two more cancerous areas that did not show up in any of the pre-surgery diagnostic tests but were discovered in pathology. You already know it, but early diagnosis is key.

So, I saw the challenge at Papercraft Star this week - Beauty. What do you find beautiful? I wanted to make a celebration card for my friend. This is momentous! But, well, it had to be a little sassy.

What do I find beautiful? My friend, who has amazing strength, grace, and beauty. Her recovery, which is miraculous. The fact that her family has a healthy mother and wife again. And the fact that she has been my friend for 20 years, and will be around 20 years from now.

Supplies: paper from Bo Bunny; clip art & sentiment from Crafty Secrets; Little Yellow Bicycle wood & heart pins; Prima bloom; May Arts ribbon; Wilton doily

I cannot tell you how much fun it was to make this card - that clip is genius. Most of the time we favour making cards for happy occasions - and that's very true. So this is on its way to Vancouver tomorrow with some yummy handmade truffles, handmade jewelry, and as many hugs as I can stuff into the box!

Thank you so much for sharing my joy :)

xoxo,

Jessi

*whew* I almost missed it!

So Papercraft Star lets you sneak a peek at their upcoming challenges... and when I saw this one in the lineup, I thought of an idea right away. AND THEN I nearly forgot to post it in time! There are 12 hours left in the linky, so *whew*!
 There's the inspiration photo - and the challenge is to include a sun in your creation: "Let the Sun Shine."

I got a little collagey:

Supplies: papers from MME; sun stamp from Market Street Stamps; Mustard Seed distress ink; buttons from stash; Yellow Daisy glimmer mist from Tattered Angels; ruler washi from Jen!

I've fussy-cut a bunch of the tags from a sheet of paper, and I left the end attached to some of them - the yellow striped bit. I liked the rough edge left from tearing it out of the pad. I did the yellow stitching (using floss & my handy dandy Tim Holtz ruler), stamped the sun, added everything...and then decided to flick the mist. That was nerve-wracking since I've ruined more than one card the same way, but *whew* once again, it worked!

xoxo,
Jessi

Papercraft Star #142 - Tea for Mom!

The photo inspiration challenge this week at Papercraft Star is a perfect one for creating a Mother's Day card:
 As I've said before, I don't print out inspiration photos. I write down what I find immediately inspiring about the photo - usually colours and the actual items in the photo, and sometimes will sketch a layout. Here's what I wrote for this one: neutral colours (beige, cream, white); flowers; tea; text patterns.

And here's what I created - I love how it turned out!

Supplies: papers from My Mind's Eye; Wilton doily; tea cup from Waltzingmouse Stamps (from Barb - as is the kraft banner!); Gina K. Designs sentiment; classic small circle Nesties; vintage button from stash; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; and the last of those oval-shaped flatback pearls! 

The tea cup and milky tea are paper-pieced - I stamped it first on the text paper, then glued down the tea....and then had to be really careful to get the 'back' of the tea cup in place. I guess it's been a little too long since I paper-pieced ;)

xoxo,

Jessi

Happy Easter!

The current challenge at Papercraft Star is Easter - perfect for me to share a couple more cards with you :) The boys were up at the usual time (only because of being told that they couldn't get up before 7 AM...) and helped each other through the candy egg hunt. It was adorable to listen to the two of them chatting & pointing out where the other one could find more candy...they may be 14 and almost 13, but these are the things we missed out on when they were small.

Anyhow, a few Easter cards:

Supplies: pre-coloured digi lily from Doodle Pantry; Sakura Stardust glitter pen; Inkadinkado sentiment; Palette Noir ink; paper from MME; classic small circle Nesties

I've printed out 2 copies of the flower, and fussy-cut and layered the second flower with thin foam tape for some dimension, and added some glitter by tracing lines with the pen & smudging with my finger.

I'll be back VERY shortly with a couple more challenge cards for challenges ending today!

xoxo,

Jessi

Happy Birthday with Papercraft Star

Papercraft Star #134 is to create a Happy Birthday card - of course one of the most-often needed cards in our stash :) I went super-girly with mine:

Supplies: peacock stamp & sentiment from Raisin Boat; Peacock Feathers distress ink; Wilton doily sprayed with Cherub Pink Tattered Angels glimmer mist; Palette Noir ink; MME patterned paper; Webster's Pages crochet trim; rhinestone strip & mini pink stones from Dollarama; Corner Chomper; standard circle Nesties; cannot for the LIFE of me remember where that gorgeous little rose cabochon is from! 

Sparkly!

You've got until the wee hours of Tuesday morning to link up over at Papercraft Star :)

xoxo,

Jessi

ETA: And when you're creating a post ahead of time to get the permalink, note to self: save as draft, dum-dum! lol. Fixed it now :)

Phoning in for Friends with Flair!

Can you believe it, I've had this stamp for well over a year & it's never seen ink? When I saw the current photo prompt at Papercraft Star, I knew it was time to play. The stamp originally came with "me" attached to it - I trimmed it into 2 separate stamps, and got to work:

Supplies: hot pink cardstock from stash; phone stamp from Unity; hello stamp from CC Designs; Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick distress inks; standard oval Nesties; buttons

The sentiment - and the colours - are completely inspired by the Papercraft Star challenge as well:

I'll be linking up to Friends with Flair as soon as the linky's ready  :) 

Be right back with my Playing in Paradise post!

xoxo,

Jessi

Papercraft Star #132: RED!

The current RED challenge at Papercraft Star is a very popular one! After playing with distress inks, mists, and water for my jingle belles card last week, I thought I'd do it again in red. I then cut a strip of the paper and embossed it, and the rest came together:

Supplies: Fired Brick & Barn Door distress inks; Candy Apple Red and Copper Tattered Angels Glimmer mists; Martha Stewart tag; Lil' Inker heart dies; Inkadinkado cat stamp; foam thickers; PSX letter stamps; Dress it Up heart button; googly eyes; Mrs Grossman's sticker sentiment

A bit of the shine on the background.

As you can imagine, this card was a custom request - the cat made to resemble one in real life, and his name stamped onto a heart tag. And it's so clear to me looking at the last bunch of cards that I made them near one another - another Martha tag popping up, that grey Basic Grey paper...it's just funny when that happens!

The Papercraft Star challenge is open for another 11 hours, so 3 am Atlantic time :)

xoxo,
Jessi

Catered Crop & Papercraft Star

We're still buried in snow here - and more is falling. It's hard to estimate the actual snowfall because during this blizzard we've had winds gusting at 80 - 100 km an hour. Parts of our driveway are bare, and other parts have 5-foot hard-packed snow drifts. All three of the men are outside right now trying to dig out. The kids are also hoping for a snow day tomorrow - I don't know about that, but I do know everything is still a mess right now!

I've got some more cards to share - first up is one for both Papercraft Star #131 (LOVE) and the current Catered Crop - Polka Dots.

Supplies: washi tape from Recollections; die cut from K&Co; dark pink gems from Dollarama

Be right back with more lovey-dovey cards :)
xoxo,
Jessi

Moxie Fab Buttons!

I feel like this is a double-dog dare card...Jen not only emailed me when the 10 Embellishments challenge started at Moxie Fab World, but then she mentioned it in her post - which, omg, you have never seen a cuter bunch of itty bitty people....go look at her card! Then Amy emailed me when Papercraft Star posted their challenge #129, buttons.  Can I just say how cool it is to have crafty friends who see this stuff & think of me? Squee :)
Anyhow, challenges accepted! A button card - and I really really love it:

Supplies: journaling tags from Fancy Pants; Bow Easy & cream twine; teensy red buttons from Dress it Up!

I do love button frames! There are a whopping 29 buttons on this card. The multi-loop bow is one that I learned from Emily's tutorial . 

So, again, I'm entering this card over at Papercraft Star #129, which is open until Tuesday; and the 10 Embellishments Challenge at Moxie Fab World, which is open until February 4. Honestly, I have so many cards to share this weekend that I'm kind of giddy! Now time to pack up for the market :)

xoxo,

Jessi