Challenge Thursday - Scraptastic Club

Hello! Today on the Scraptastic Club blog Nancy Burke and I have a challenge for you to create something patriotic with one of your club kits.

Here's a little peek at my creation. Can you tell what it is? Click here to see the entire project and what Nancy made! 

Doodlebug Candy Tubes

It's finally Friday and I have a festive project for you...candy tubes decorated with Doodlebug's patriotic Stars and Stripes collection!

It's been Washi Tape Week on the Doodlebug blog and today they're featuring my candy tubes. What I love about this project is that you can use a number of Doodlebug collections to make these favors for any theme or holiday.

What do you think? Wouldn't they would be awesome for Halloween or Christmas? Or for birthday parties and baby showers? And they're super easy to make! Just add a strip of washi tape along the tube and a couple tags tied on with Doodle Twine and a button. That's it!

Hope you enjoyed my post and have an awesome weekend! :)

July Fourth

Here in the U.S. it's Independence Day and Cards on Thursday on the Bella Blvd. blog. To celebrate, the design team has been creating lots of patriotic projects this week and today it's greeting cards. For my two cents it wasn't hard to create some very colorful and festive designs with the All American collection. 

This first card combines sticker and chipboard flowers in a collage, accented with a little flag and pretty polka dot ribbon.

More ribbon, another mini flag, a large star die, washi tape and chipboard alphas went into my second card. I do love texture and making big bows helps accomplish that!

Christopher is so excited about our bonfire/cookout tonight and fireworks. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain on his parade! It's been raining daily here in NC and feeling a lot like a rain forest...very humid! We've got a 70% chance of thunder storms predicted for the afternoon, but it's supposed to be clear by 9:00 p.m.

Enjoy your Fourth!

Kid Crafted Rockets

Having the kids home during the summer gives us a chance to use our scrapbook supplies for some crafty activities. Today I have a simple project that you and the shorts can make for a patriotic Fourth of July centerpiece....TP roll rockets.

We all have plenty of empty TP tubes, right? :) And scrapbook supplies! I used Doodlebug Design's Stars and Stripes collection.

I arranged our rockets in a milk glass pitcher and then spruced it up with some ribbon and tags. You could use a Ball jar or even a tin can.

To add a bit more detail, I included a pinwheel and little USA sign.

This project is super easy. Just measure your TP tubes and cut paper accordingly to wrap around them.

I used a couple Spellbinder dies for the tops and bottoms of my rockets. You could cut your circles with a digital die cutter or circle punches.

For the rocket tops, I slit my patterned paper to the center and created a cone shape with baker's twine for the fuse.

With an awl, I punched a little hole in the bottom and used bamboo skewers.

There you have it...a great way to spend time with the kids and a cool decor piece for Independence Day! I hope you and your little ones enjoy making these rockets!

Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful Wednesday! :)

New from Bella Blvd.

T.G.I.F!

I've been keeping a secret! It's been a difficult secret to keep! And now I finally get to let the cat out of the bag! ;)

Bella Blvd. is revealing an amazing, colorful and patriotic new line today called...

I'm crazy for this new collection! Just look at one of my favorite patterned papers!

I've been having a lot of fun creating with All American! Today I can only show you a few peeks and then all next week the Bella Blvd. blog will be jam packed with projects from the design team.

Aren't these bright colors and patriotic icons eye catching? Would you like to see more? Hop over to the Bella Blvd. blog for a closer look and your chance to win a special giveaway! The All American collection starts shipping on April 1st! That's no April fools joke! ;)

I'm also excited to announce that two of my card designs are featured in the new All American catalog you can view here.

Well, isn't this a fun Friday post? :) Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

July Fourth

Hello! I'm popping in today to wish you all a wonderful Fourth of July! I made this card to share with you just for the occasion.

Stars and stripes, oh my! I used a couple sheets of Bella Blvd. patterned paper for this project. The red sheet is from their Christmas Wishes line and the blue is from the Sophisticates collection. Who needs a July Fourth line when you have Bella Blvd?

I included some of my favorite things on this card like stitching, layering and buttons. The star stick pins were created with a couple buttons glued onto some other pins in my stash.

Today I also have a post up on the Love my Tapes blog. Here's just a little peek. :) I hope you have a chance to see it.

So, what are your plans for the day? We're going to go see the new Disney/Pixar movie Brave. Dinner will be Fajitas. What?!?! I know, so un-American! I used to make barbecue baked beans, potato salad, chicken on the grill, sliced watermelon, all the traditional things, but my boys only ate the chicken! Christopher would eat the watermelon too, but that's it. Neither of them like baked beans or potato salad, and I'm telling you, I make a really mean potato salad! Anyway, I ended up eating all the left overs and gaining several pounds! Not good!

Enjoy your holiday!

Kathy :)

All American Boy

Good morning!

One week from today we'll all (in the US) be celebrating the Fourth of July, our country's 235th birthday! How will you and your family celebrate? Ever since Christopher was born, we've lived in two homes where fireworks are legal so we have a little fireworks display after dark. I spend the day making some of our favorite all American foods, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and either fried chicken or grilled hamburgers. We always have some kind of dessert too, chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes. I'm thinking of making home made ice cream this year. Sounds really good, doesn't it? I'm looking forward to it!

I just finished a scrapbook page using a photo of Christopher from last Fourth of July and a new Two Peas in a Bucket Digital kit called 'Celebrate' by Polka Dot Pixels.

Wow, these July 4th papers are colorful and patriotic! Most supplies used are from this kit with some buttons, alphas, brads, die cuts, card stock and ribbon thrown in for good measure.

I adore these Jillibean Soup corrugated alphas! The color matched this kit perfectly!

I used a Spellbinders circle die to cut out the star accents.

I only needed a couple strips of paper for my journaling.

If you're like me and you love paper layouts because of the dimension and ability to make things with your hands, paper and tools, don't pass up digital kits because they are a fabulous way to hoard tons of papers and accents without being buried alive with them! ;)

Hope you have a great week! :) Kathy

Page Maps

Thought I'd let you scrapbookers in a little secret today...Page Maps. It's an awesome site full of scrapbook page sketches that you can use to help make your pages sensational! The page I made here is from one of July's maps. Becky Fleck is the sites sketch artist and provides sketches for the designers over at Basic Grey. So hop on over to http://www.pagemaps.com/ and find create some gorgeous scrapbook page! And cards too!

Patriotic Decor

I can't believe how fast June is flying by, can you? July Fourth is only about a week away and I just remembered to put out the few decorations we own. Last week I was inspired to make something to add to our decor when I saw a cute little pocket barn star on Two Peas in a Bucket. I thought it was so darling that I made a similar one for myself. You can make one too. If you scrapbook or make cards you probably have a bunch of red and blue papers in your stash along with a chipboard star and some buttons. All you need now is a paper star from the craft store and your good to go. Happy crafting!