Pinspiration

My name is Kathy Martin and I'm a Pinterest addict! ;)

I love Pinterest! I think I've mentioned that a time or two! :) So it should come as no surprise that I was perusing pin boards the other day and came across this very cool wallpaper design from Timothy Sue.

Wouldn't this make a great background for a scrapbook page?

 Since I didn't have a lot of time to play, I made a card instead. It's really easy to create this look. Just take three strips of card stock/patterned paper and applied some scotch tape on the back to hold them together. Then centered your die over the seam of the paper and run it through your machine. A little tip...to make sure your die stays centered while cutting, use a piece of removable tape to keep it in place.

Instead of hearts like on the wallpaper, I used butterflies...cut with a die from My Favorite Things.

The 'Happy Spring' stamp and the die I used to make the gray frame are from Papertrey Ink.

The photo corner is an old Quickutz die. Do you have some of those? I still use a number of them pretty regularly.

The finishing touches include some vintage mother of pearl buttons and some hand stitching.

Oh, I should mention that this pretty patterned paper is from October Afternoon's Farmhouse line. Lovely stuff, don't you think? I swoon! :)

So do you Pinterest? What Pinteresting things have you found lately? Care to share? Last weekend I found a recipe that made me get up from the computer right then and there to go make it! I'm serious!

These are Oatmeal Peanut Butter Snack Squares by How Sweet it Is. They have that chocolate peanut butter combination that I love about Reese's peanut butter cups. They're better for you since they're made from scratch with oatmeal and whole wheat flour.

If you should also decide that you need to go bake these right now...the recipe calls for pastry flour which you can make by sifting together two tablespoons of corn starch per cup of flour. Nice thing to know, huh? I can't remember where I ran across that bit of helpful information? Could it have been Pinterest? ;)

Thanks for stopping in today. Tomorrow I have a jam packed post for you. There will be a birthday celebration, blog hop and prizes. Plus, I have an exciting announcement to make. That's a lot for a single post, huh? Hope you can join me!

Kathy :)

Love My Tapes Design Team

Today is the official design team announcement on the Love My Tapes blog and I'm thrilled to be joining Tina Walker as new members of their fabulous design team!

Stay tuned...I'll be up to my elbows in washi tape, lace tape and self adhesive fabric creating projects to share with you! I've already been brain storming and trying to think of some unique things to do with washi tape. That's going to be a tough one...there's so many fabulous ideas out there already!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fabulous day!

Kathy :)

Hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day weekend! Ours was the perfect mix of getting things done and relaxing. I got to bake and spend time in the craft room...things I really enjoy. Sunday night we went out to catch lightning bugs. Do you remember doing that as a kid? I still think it's a great way to spend an evening!

Here's a scrapbook page I worked on this weekend. Seven is Christopher's favorite number! So much so that I thought it deserved a page!

 As another school year is coming to a close, and Christopher is graduating from elementary school, I'm reminded just how fast he's growing up and I had a bit of a panic attack thinking that I haven't preserved enough of the little things. Like his favorite number.

I created a bunch of the embellishments for this page. The 'his favorite number' phrase was made with an ancient old program you've probably never heard of, PrintMaster. It's something I've been using since 2003!  Back in the day I used to design a lot of my own embellishments before we  had all the options we do now. For the great big seven in the center of the page, I tinkered with the Silhouette and figured out how to make a seven with a circle and weld it together. The mini paper clip is from Tim Holtz. I wrapped a piece of washi tape around it and then applied a rub-on 7.

The yellow 7 circle above is a combination die cut from Papertrey Ink, a circle die cut from Spellbinders and the word 'seven' printed on the computer.

The black numbers die cut down the left hand side of the page is a Silhouette die.

This is a mix of stickers, dies and numbers that I printed.

I tucked a journaling spot along the left hand side. I use that little notebook paper die a lot, it's from Papertrey Ink.

Can you tell I had a ball with this page? It was a lot of fun finding and creating lots of 7s. I even found a use for some very old brads!

Well, speaking of graduating from elementary school, tonight we have an open house at the new middle school Christopher will attend. And when I say new, I mean brand spankin' new. He'll be one of the first students to attend!  I'm really looking forward to seeing what a new school looks like and helping Christopher get acquainted.

Hope you have a nice week...it's a short one so we'll get another weekend soon enough!

Kathy :)

Memorial Day Free Printable

Wishing you and your family a wonderful Memorial Day.

Here's a lovely vintage image for you to download. Enjoy!

Kathy :)

Would you believe today is my last Saturday Creations post for the Precious Remembrance Shop? I've really enjoyed creating with the Birthday and Calendar stamp sets for the past two months and hope I've given you lots of great ideas for using these fabulous images on your everyday projects! Here's one more...

For today's birthday card I combined both stamp sets.

The yummy cupcake and 'wishes' sentiment are from the Birthday set and that adorable tiny heart is from the Calendar set. Isn't it the perfect shaped heart? I really like it!

If any of you happen to follow my Pinterest boards, you will see I have a just a few pins! I think I'm working my way up to 8,000! Can you say addicted? ;) At least I craft while I'm perusing, try a lot of the recipes and I gain so much inspiration. For example, the other day I saw a gift packaging project where someone took one of those tiny Kraft bags and embossed it. Well as soon as I saw that I wondered if it's possible to emboss glassine bags?

Not only is it possible, but it's a cute look, wouldn't you say? Love these big polka dots...I believe this is a Quickutz embossing folder.

Here's a better shot at that little heart.

Along with the Precious Remembrance Shop stamps and glassine bag, I used Designer Tape from Bella Blvd. The Tiny Tag and Pennant die cuts were made with Papertrey Ink dies. The Jute is May Arts, twine from The Twinery and the button is from American Crafts.

Well, this concludes my two month guest design spot. It's been a lot of fun! Hope you have enjoyed it enjoyed it too!

To see more Precious Remembrance Shop projects, visit them on Facebook or their blog.

 

Hope you all enjoy your Memorial Day weekend! Thanks for spending a little part of it with me!

 

Kathy :)

Dude!

Since a large majority of my projects are feminine, I thought I'd whip out the Boys Only collection from Doodlebug Design and put together something with a little more testosterone!

Have I told you recently just how much I love Doodlebug? I know I design for them and all, but I do really adore their products! It's so easy to create fun cards like this when you have Create-A-Card bases like this style with a window already cut out for you. These cards also come in their signature colors which means their paper collections will match perfectly! It doesn't get easier than this!

This Boys Only line is a must have for any of you that have little dudes running around the house. It's been perfect for Christopher's scrapbook pages and I used it to make his birthday card last month.

Isn't this a rad guitar? I bet the word rad went out of popularity about 20 years ago! Wasn't that a word we used in the 80s to describe the hair bands? ;)

Getting back to Doodlebug products, they even have sentiments for your cards! They think of everything!

There's matching envelopes too! I always pair a different color with my card base....why not add more color, right?

Well, it's Friday and we're embarking on a three day memorial weekend! Yippee! Do you have any fun plans? I just might stop by the flea market on Saturday to see if I can find some old vintage thing I can't without! :) We'll see. There's so many possibilities!

I 'll be back tomorrow with another Saturday Creations post for the Precious Remembrance Shop. It's my last post as a guest designer. I've been a guest for two months and that flew by at lightning speed!

Well, make it a great Friday! Hope to see you back tomorrow.

Kathy :)

It's a Girl!

The big news I said I would share with you today isn't that I'm having a baby girl! Let's get that notion cleared up right away before rumors fly and I start receiving congratulations cards and baby booties! ;)

This post is called 'It's a Girl' because that's the sentiment on my first card share for today.

This extremely adorable baby girl dress is a Bella Blvd./Unity stamp that I thought would be fun to color with Copic markers and hand stitch. I love the way it turned out! But how could you go wrong with such an adorable image to start with?!?!

I thought I was going to have to run out and buy a gray stamp pad because I didn't want to use black with these pretty Baby Girl papers. So you know what I did instead? I used my black stamp pad and stamped it once on a piece of scratch paper and then a second time on my card stock. It's the perfect gray, wouldn't you say? And a way to save a few coins! ;)

The colorful twine is from Doodlebug Design and the scalloped oval frame was created with Spellbinders dies. A pretty simple card to make and lots of fun to color and stitch!

For my 'Welcome' card I used the same double stamp technique as the first one. I also colored in the little hearts on this cute ultrasound image with a soft pink Copic marker and then outlined the hearts with stitching. This card was made with both the Bella Blvd. Baby Girl collection and We're Expecting line.

So, do you want to hear what my big news is now? I made the Love My Tapes design team! Woot! I'm so excited to have the opportunity to create some fun and hopefully inspiring projects for you! Did you know that Love My Tapes not only sells awesome washi tape but also fabric tape, lace tape and self adhesive fabric sheets? Oh the ideas are swimming around in my head! ;)

Here's what the lace tape looks like...basically it's pretty lace with a self adhesive backing.

Here's the fabric tape. Not only does it come in this fun stripe pattern, there's also floral prints, polka dots and checks!

Stay tuned...I hope to have some fun Love My Tapes projects to share with you real soon! I can't wait to get started!

Thanks for stopping in today and sharing in my news!

Kathy :)

Hello

How many of you like die cuts? I'm talking about the thin metal variety that are made by companies like Spellbinders, Papertrey Ink and My Favorite Things. I can't get enough these wafer thin pieces of metal and the other day I thought of another use for the Spellbinders nesting dies! Woot!

You can use them to make fun patterns on your paper! And you can use those patterns for stitching!

 I used three of the Spellbinders nesting circles to create this circular pattern. Then I simply pierced around the lines with an awl. After the holes were pierced, I erased my pencil marks and began stitching! It's that easy!

Imagine the possibile patterns you can create with all the different Spellbinders shapes?!?!

The patterned paper, stickers, button and yummy lavendar twine are all from the'Hello Spring' collection from Doodlebug Design....one of my favorite lines right now. I just love the color combination, birds, butterflies and buttons! Right up my crafty alley!

I hope you like this idea and have fun with it. Let me know if you make something, I would love seeing your creation!

Now, how about a winner for yesterday's Crochet Flowers giveaway? Congratulations Connie! I have e-mailed you for your mailing address.

I hope you can pop in for a visit tomorrow because I have another fun way to use tools that we already have in our scrap rooms. And I have some exciting news that I can't share until then! :)

Have a terrific day!

Kathy :)

Happy Birthday & Giveaway

"They say it's your birthday....it's my birthday too, ya!" It's a darn good thing you can't hear me singing because you would leave in short order! ;)

 Well, is it your birthday today? It's some one's birthday today so in honor of all those people having birthdays today, here's a birthday card share! ;)

Today at Bella Blvd. some of the design team gals, including yours truly, have been asked to spotlight a particular product...can you tell from my card what that product is?

 If you guessed Crochet Flowers you are right! :) I love to take an embellishment I that really like and use lots on a single project!

I also included several more new Bella Blvd. accents to my project that include High Five Alphabets, Flags, and  Designer Tape.

So what do you think? Do you think these brightly colored flowers would make some one's birthday special?

Would you like to win a set of the Poppy Crochet Flowers? That's the bright red flower, fourth from the left.  They come in a pack of  four. All you have to do is leave a comment before the end of the day and I'll draw a winner and announce it tomorrow. Sound good? It doesn't even matter to me what time zone your in. :)

Thanks for spending a little of your day with me!

Kathy :)

Shabby Love

Do you enjoy other craft related hobbies besides scrapbooking and card making? Do you knit or crochet. Do you know your way around a sewing machine? Maybe you paint? I think it's refreshing from time-to-time to dabble in something different than my usual craft. And I think it's fun to see if I can utilize some of my many paper crafting tools in different ways like I did for this project.

I created this little heart ornament using the Spellbinders scalloped heart nesting dies and some canvas. Once my canvas was cut, I used this bird image from Doodlebug Design's new 'Love Life' Stamp set and colored it in with Copic markers.

You have to be pretty careful coloring around the lines of your image when using canvas since it bleeds easily. The heart is filled with a couple cotton balls and then hand stitched around the edges. This ornament fits in perfectly with all my vintage treasures.

Hope you have a good start to your week and can join me tomorrow for a Bella Blvd. project share.

Thanks for stopping in!

Kathy :)

Season's Greetings

Today is another Saturday Creations post for the Precious Remembrance Shop! For today's project, I used the Calendar Stamp Set. I love this set because of its versatility. A few weeks ago I created a scrapbook page using the calendar image as a fun way to add the date to my page.  It's also perfect for special occasion cards such as birthdays, anniversaries and save-the-date. Wouldn't your mom or BFF love receiving a birthday card with the date on it?

How about holidays?!?! From Valentine's Day to Christmas and everything in between this image is the perfect accent!

I also used the 'celebrate' stamp from the Birthday Stamp Set to show how well the two sets work together.

When I came across this sticker from Echo Park's Season's Greetings collection I knew it was a match made in heaven! ;) Don't you just love it when find the ideal embellishment for your project?

 

I hope you enjoyed today's Saturday Creations card. I can't believe that next week will be my last post as a guest designer! Those two months flew by, didn't they?

To see more creative Precious Remembrance Shop projects, visit them on Facebook or their blog.

Have a terrific weekend!

Kathy :)

Team Up Week

Today's the last day of Team-Ups week between Bella Blvd. and The Twinery. Groan! It's been so much fun that I don't want it to end. How exciting it's been to be a part of! I hope you enjoyed all the projects the design teams created and you gained a little crafty inspiration!

I think my last Twinery project is my most creative. What do you think? This card was a little work intensive, but I think the results are worth it. I used most of the same techniques to make this card as I did for the frame on yesterdays page. Please scroll down to that post if you would like the instructions.

I used a Spellbinders die to make the 'window' for my card.

Bella Blvd. goodies include this ADORABLE chipboard giraffe and stickers from the new Baby Girl collection and a button from the Button Market Feminine Mix.

Thanks to all of you for visiting this week and participating in this fun team-up event. And thank you for all the comments, I do appreciate them a lot.

Tomorrow I'll have another Saturday Creations post for you using the adorable Precious Remembrance Shop stamps. Hope to 'see' you then!

Kathy :)