lately

So I took a week and a half or so off from the Interwebs. What was I up to? Well, I can't really share fully yet because it's not for me. But I can share that it has to do with:

Crepe paper roses


Kraft paper and stripes


Typography


Love

I am über excited and my brain is working overtime, mostly when I should be getting some much needed sleep, to figure out the best possible solution to each thing.

As fair warning, I might be a bit absent over the course of the next six to eight weeks due to this project. I promise to share big time when I can!

Be well everyone!

handmade birthday box

This weekend we were invited to a birthday party for my dad's wife who turned 60. We had bought her a gift certificate and I wanted to present her with something better looking than just an envelope.

And so I created a small box custom fit for the size of the gift certificate and dressed it up so that it looked all pretty.



I cut a hole in the lid and covered it from the back with a solid, complementing paper. The egdes along the hole were trimmed with paper lace, and then I made three 3D hearts with a few different pretty papers. The finishing touches were a few banners with the lady's name and age.

Real life card making

It's been a long time since I created a card the old fashioned way with papers and scissors and glue and all that. I think digi has made me lazy with the snazzy control clicks and the convenient do overs. Doing it the digi way is quick and easy and the results are always perfect - no glue smudges, no wrong cuts, no wonky placements.

But my fingers were itching to make some mess this morning and with beautiful inspiration the from Mouse, Paper, Scissors Mom class at Jessica Sprague.com, by Jessica and Heidi Swapp, I went to town on the papers and glues. It gave me a few of hours of mental therapy where nothing but cutting, folding, glueing, and glittering mattered. It was quite liberating and something I highly recommend.

I made a card for my goddaughter's birthday. It's very girly and pink, which is perfect for her as she is the epitome of a little princess. The more pink and glitter the better. So I think this card did the trick. I love the outcome.























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Supplies: The beautiful papers are from the Gabrielle line by Bo Bunny and they are included in the class.
I printed the card pages on heavy textured cardstock and all tags, flags, and butterflies on satin photo paper. I used Chandelier Glam glitter paint by Tattered Angels to get the sparkle. For the finishing effect I used adhesive stones and a glittery brad from my local craft store.  I used Sloop Script and VT Portable Remington fonts.
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Going out with a bang; ending the birthday party with a freebie!

And here we are, on the final day of the birthday party. I feel a little sad almost. But also so excited because today I have a freebie for you guys! Heck yeah!

With the theme of the new kit Meet & Greet, and the partying going on here as of late, I thought it only fitting to provide you with some handy party supplies! Now, wait a minute before you get ahead of yourselves here, the cake is on you. but what about some party printables instead?


(Click on the image to get to the download page at JessicaSprague.com)

In this freebie you get three ready to print PDF files with the following:
3 cupcake liners
1 tube pyramid box
1 envelope bag

All the printables feature papers from the Meet & Greet Paper Pack.

So, with that I say thank you all so much for your support, your love, and your patronage over the past year. I hope you will find great use for these! Party on!

Smooches!

Rockin' the invite design

The husband asked me to help out with invitations for an upcoming party he is planning for his rock dudes. Of course I have never been able to say no to the husband, and paired with the chance to do some invite design I was all over this project.

He wanted grungy, dirty, trashy and rocking. He wanted big. Most of all he wanted himself. LOL, now the first ones wasn't a problem at all. The big part was workable. The last request needed some mulling. But we had a full on photo shoot in our living room a few weeks ago and then I set to work.

The result was a 12x6 trifold with a distinct grungy and dirty look.
The front


The first flap opened up showing the photo of the husband


The last flap opened up to show the actual text made to look like a rock poster.






The husband was very happy with the finished product, especially after hearing me sigh for a few days, and can't wait for the party (which I will decorate of course).

Love is in the air for Hybrid Project Friday

Just in time for that special love day I have an easy little project for you. This will be a perfect card for someone you love. Just print and assemble and you're set. Of course, I've included a template as well for all those of you who want to add your own papers and stuff.

I think the template would be great for special event and invites as well, such as save the dates or shower invites.

Heartily is available at JessicaSprague.com today.


(Click on the image to go directly to the product in the shop)

Just another Saturday night dinner

I shared a little piece of the dinner table for last weeks Saturday night dinner with the husband's brother with family. I thought I'd share a little more.

I like brown. Brown is a staple in my life. Our kitchen/dining room/living room (which makes up half the house really) is a combination of whites, tans, and browns. I like browns together with pastel colours like baby blue or pink. I also like browns with jewel colours. Like this gorgeous turqoise on my table here.

Make a book with me!

I am so excited to bring you this Hybrid Friday Project! This project is all about favourites; places, moments, people, quotes, restaurants, pictures, wines - pretty much anything you want really.

We've had a tiny little book for years where we write down really good wines we've tried, when we drank it, what it was called, what it tasted like, and what we ate with it. I really like this kind of collecting and recently I designed a new book  to keep the tradition going.

In this project you will get my design (both printable PDF files and psd layered templates) and you will learn how to hand bind the book with a beautiful exposed coptic stitch binding.


(Click on the image to go directly to the product in the shop)











Little Book of Favourites is available at JessicaSprague.com today.

Paper cabbage

I made paper decorations for our dinner table this weekend.


 I made them just like coiled paper roses but I didn't glue the center down so the coil unrolled when I released. I think they almost look like some kind vegetable ... a cabbage maybe? I like it. I think it's pretty. I used papers by Jen Wilson (from a Christmas pack a few years back I think - very pretty papers) and added satin ribbon and a glass bead. Very simple DYI decorations.

My little nephew Wilmer's christening is coming up and my sister asked me to help out with the invitations. The game plan was to use a photo that I took at the hospital when he was just two days old, and to go with a sweet design in green hues.

This is the front. The photo part is printed on Ilford satin photo paper which is attached to the two layered card.


And the inside which has a full bleed pattern and a dooted outlined text area. The card is printed on heavy textured white cardstock.


What a little darling he is. I love that photo!

Hybrid gorgeousness

Lookie lookie what I found at Designsponge. Man that is gourgeous! If I didn't already have three hybrid projects going (or rather collecting dust at various places in the house) I would be all over this. But I will try to restrain myself. But man, beautiful.

Homemade Christmas decorations

Here I am, coming to you live and direct from a brand new computer! I only unpacked it yesterday so I am far away from ready with migrating everything from the old one to the new, but so far I am totally loving the experience. Superfast and super pretty. What else could a girl want? LOL!

So, with Christmas just over and done with, I want to hold on to it just a little longer by showing you some crafts I did, but never had the time to post about, before Christmas.

These balls were done with papers from the Frostbite Paper Pack




They were surprisingly easy to make with directions from Kaiserkraft (link will come once I have it on this computer) but if you ever decide to make them at one point or another do get a circle punch! I didn't have one in the right size so I hand cut all circles for six balls. That's 120 circles. It took me four hours and gave me a nice little aching hand. Ouch!

I strung some of mine from the light over the kitchen island and it was just the right amount of decoration for me. Not overwhelming and not too ostentatcious. Simple but pretty.

You can also see a small peak of the wreath I made at the bottom of the first photo. All I did was wrap some white organza ribbon and attach some tiny white balls and that was it. It matched the tree perfectly.

Now, I am so not a flower person. I kill flowers and plants with lightning speed. I swear, plants have died within hours of being in my house. But in spite of this I bought some hyacinths and tried to do something crafty and pretty with them. Here's one:


I put a few pebbles at the bottom of a vase from IKEA, wrapped the bulb with fresh moss (apparently from France as per the florist's info) and placed it on top of the stones. I rummaged through my scrap stash and found a sparkly snowflake, a bell, and some gem brads. Those, together with some ribbon finished off the creation. I cannot tell you how accomplished I felt once I put it in the window, lol. Now, it still hasn't bloomed, but at least it's not dead.

Apart from the tree and door wreath, the wrapped gifts, and white pillar candles everywhere, this is pretty much all of my Christmas decor. I guess one can safely say you won't find any santa figurines in my house, lol. At least it will be easy to take down!

I hope Christmas has been good to you all!

Birthday party invite

My husband had a birthday last week and we decided, at a very late hour, to have a birthday dinner party for our parents and siblings this coming weekend. I quickly whipped up a little invite and sent it out at the beginning of the week.

I wanted to do classic, sleek, simple so I chose to go with brown and white. I used a paper from my La Storia paper pack and a beautiful image of a pumpkin. The dotted border adds that little extra without overpowering the white space of the design.

I printed it on highly textured cardstock and it came out looking quite fabulous. I wish I had a letterpress in the back of my house but alas I had to make do with the Epson printer.



Oh, and did you know that I have a new brush set in the shop? It was released yesterday for One Buck Wednesday but even if you missed the super low price yesterday you can still pick it up!

Journaling Brushes

(Click on the image to go directly to the product in the shop at JessicaSprague.com)

OK, so I've got a deadline to meet and a bed to hit, see you soon again, hopefully with party pics and P52 photos!

Elias - an invitation

The newest addition to our extended family is the husband's nephew, which technically makes him my nephew as well, is getting christened in a couple of weeks. I had the great honour of both taking the picture and designing the invitation to the event.

I loved doing this. I don't do nearly enough of this type of work any longer so it really was a treat for me. I love the outcome becuase I think we were able to find the perfect combination of stylish, modern, and sweet.

Front


Back


I printed the front on satin photo paper from Ilford and the back on orange peel cardstock and then attached them together. It turned out really well. The heavy weight of the card and the two different textures gives the finished product a luxurious feel.

The cards went out the other day so now I'm working on the details for the party. It's mostly all in my head at this point, but I think it will be good.

Random postage

I came here for a random post but discovered that this is the 400th post on the blog! Wowie! I have come to 400? That is pretty amazing! I promise, there will be a celebration very soon! Hee!

alright, enough with the exclamation marks, Linda

Anyway I came to tell you that there will be a little sumpin sumpin from me on One Buck Wednesday at JessicaSprague.com tomorrow. So you will want to check that out first thing! :D

In other words, I am working on a christening invite. Well, it was designed before we went on holiday in July but the details weren't quite set, which meant I couldn't start printing back then. But that will happen tomorrow. I hope to be able to share here very soon. I love the design. Modern and cute all at the same time.

I will see you tomorrow again with some info on OBW!

Art collaboration and a gift set

One of my coworkers asked me to do a painting for him after seeing the one I did for another coworker a while ago. It took me a while to get started and then it didn't exactly come out the way I had envisioned it. So after giving it several tries I had to ask my husband for help. I had the shapes and colours all set. I just couldn't get the blending of the black and white right. His solution was to open a bottle of wine and crack the paint bottles open. After a while we were both standing there talking and dragging paint along imaginary lines. The end result was this organic creation.


For the gift we got my sister for her birthday I wanted to do something cute and sassy and chic and cool. All at the same time! So I rummaged through my collection of wrapping paper and was discouraged. I had lots and lots of Christmas themed paper (ok, so I do go overboad in that department, sue me, lol) but nothing that screamed chic and sassy. What to do, what to do? Improvise of course! I went with a black wrapping paper and added a strip of this ultra cool scrapbook paper by Glitz. Then, as a simple last little touch I added a hot pink ribbon and some bling. Simple but effective.


Naturally I had to do a matching card as well. The pink paper got to act the star again, and I added the same ribbon as well as her initial and some sequins.




The gift? My faves; white high top Converse all stars!