Anna Griffin Fantastic Flips Cards

 The bad news is that I succumbed to the lure of the Anna Griffin Fantastic Flips card kit recently offered on HSN.   The good news is that I DIDN'T get the auto ship option!  (DH was not impressed, however.  LOL!)

 So, we were off in our RV last week to the southern Oregon coast for our Spring Break trip and the weather was just gorgeous!  DH went fishing in the bay with a buddy and I unpacked my Anna Griffin kit while Cocoa and Katie lay in the sun and snoozed.
 

 I like this style of card very much because it has plenty of room for embellishment AND for adding a personal message to the recipient.  I don't like that the card will not stay closed and lay flat when not in the envelope but that doesn't seem to bother anyone else!  Anyway, I had fun for a couple of hours making cards for all occasions and then got very bored with embellishing with just flowers and butterflies.  The unfinished cards got packed away until I have access to the variety of embellishments in my craftroom.   I can't wait to try the accompanying dies out for myself.

 Here's a look at three of the cards I made:-

And to my surprise, I found that I really like this unadorned sympathy card: -

A couple of pictures for my anti-Facebook DS.   Katie the water dog:-

And here's what Cocoa has to put up with!   Good job he's a mellow, yellow labradoodle!

Thanks for visiting with me today.  Happy Sunday!  : )  Christine

Happy Easter Bunny!

I hope you are having a lovely, lovely day : )    It's going to be a soggy, wet Easter Egg Hunt this afternoon for Master J, but he won't care!

One of the things I like about my Explore is that I often see something on Pinterest or on a blog that I can redesign in DS.   I've been seeing little treat boxes made from tag dies for a few weeks and I found it super easy to take a tag shape in DS, duplicate it, flip it, add a rectangle, align and weld together to make a very similar tag box.  I added some little flower cut outs for interest and here it is front and back!

Here's a screen shot of the tag.  I was able to get three from a 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock. 

 Inside the tag, I attached a tiny Lindt chocolate bunny.

 Hope all the children enjoy eating these as much as I enjoyed making them.   Have a fun day!   : )  Christine

Easter Wall Decor

I learned, many years ago, that if I needed to buy some special item for a project I should buy two of them rather than just one.   So, when I needed a white shadow box for my St. Patrick's Day project, I bought two of them and sure enough, in taking them out of their packages,  I managed to damage one frame!  So, there it sat on my desk for a week until yesterday, while flipping through the 'Easter' images in Design Space, I came across one of my favorite images from the Easter seasonal cart - this cute little chocolate bunny with his ears nibbled on one side.

Aha!   Inspiration struck and here's the result: -

 The 11 patterned paper bunnies are #M33047 from Theresa Collins' Bunnies and Chicks and I duplicated the chocolate bunny's bow and added one to each of the other bunnies.


I learned how to make the teeny tiny rolled rose from a tutorial on Paulette's blog here.  I used my quilling tool to roll them and glued them onto tiny scraps of paper which were then trimmed close to the base of the rose.

And of course, the damaged frame offered an opportunity to embellish!

I am linking my project with Challenge #272 - Easter over on the FCCB blog


and with the Spring Flings and Easter Things over on the BBTB2 blog.


The Cut It Up challenge # 92 is to include a bunny on your project.  Check!

You will truly be inspired by the variety of cards and projects you find so hustle over and check out the challenges!   Thanks for visiting with me today!   : )  Christine

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Top o' the mornin' to ye!   Just a quick post to share the little pots of gold I constructed for the children at OHM this month. 

The file - from SVG Cuts Feeling Lucky collection was resized so that I could fit 4 of the pots on one sheet of black 12 x 12 card stock and still fit 6/7 pieces of 'gold' (Rolos) inside plus a gold coin.

Cute huh?  Thanks for visiting with me today.   Enjoy your corned beef and cabbage!   : ) Christine

A Quick Birthday Gap Card With A Surprise!

It's our friend Steve's birthday this week and as usual, I was finding it SO hard to make something uncomplicated and plain as per DH's request.   I finally reverted to the old standby - the personalized Gap card (DS directions here) - and used the Varsity font for Steve's name. 

I finished off the front with some twine and added the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment from the Life's a Party cart inside the card.

But... this is a significant birthday and I wanted to acknowledge this in some way.  I typed 'birthday' in DS and up popped an image I'd never seen before from Photo Fun -Celebrations.  Could I find a way to use this image on the card,  perhaps with the number candles from Sweet Treats?  Bingo!  I put the birthday present overlay and the candles on the BACK of the card and firmly resisted the urge to get out the glitter, or the Stickles, or even the Wink of Stella!

The card was approved by DS - both front and back! - and I added our best wishes inside with a white gel pen.    Happy Birthday Steve!   Thanks for visiting with me today.  : )  Christine

A Shadow Box for St. Patrick's Day

Shadow boxes filled with paper flowers are a 'hot' item in some of my Facebook Groups at the moment and since St. Patrick's Day is almost upon us, I decided to make one in gradient shades of green with an appropriate Irish sentiment in gold vinyl.

The box is sized at 8 x 8 inches and I removed the inner wooden shelf to allow for more room for my flowers, but as you can see, they are still a little squished!

The flowers come from the Art Philosophy cart and are sized at 5 inches.  I used 5 flowers in 5 shades of green from Paper Accents.   I find that lighter, less structured paper rolls into the flower shape much easier than say, Bazzil or American Crafts which is a heavier, sturdier card stock.   I inked the edges with Mowed Lawn and misted the flowers with marshmallow Glimmer Mist and then water before rolling them.

The sentiment is written in the Art Nouveau font - one of my favorites!  The shamrock comes from Seasonal Soirees and is called, don't ask me why, Four Leaf Clover.

My wrist certainly got a work out rolling 25 roses and I can tell that I am regaining some flexibility. Yeah!  I am linking my shadow box with the St. Patrick's Day challenge at FCCB.

And with the Decorate to Celebrate Anything Goes challenge here.  

And... with the DLArt Frogs And/Or Green challenge here.

And... with the Cut it Up St. Patty's Day challenge here!  

Love, love, love the variety of the DT's projects.   Off to pin a few for next year!   Thanks for visiting with me on a rainy PNW Saturday.  : )  Christine 

More Tinker Bell!

Yes, I know I said that I wasn't going to buy the Tinker Bell and Friends cart, but when an e-mail arrived from Hallmark Scrapbook offering the cart for $14.99, I could not resist! 

Look at the detail in the wings!  

I added a label on the top of the jar featuring another image from the cart, but replaced the 'cut' icon in DS with the 'write' icon.  I used a green pen and then brushed Mod Podge over the top so that the ink smudged across the label.  I like this technique and have used it many times to soften the look of the writing.

Can you tell that I am enjoying playing with the new Nikon?  Thanks for visiting with me today. : )  Christine