A Blue Ribbon Grad

My mojo has been working overtime lately and I'm excited about it. This is the reason for a double post today. Paper Pal Arts (#163) has a challenge this week to use the following colors in a beautiful card. I struggled with last week's color palette (which was pretty much the same color selection) so much that I ended up tossing three different cards. Sometimes you need to know when to quit. 

I modified a graduation card that I made for the graduation of many of my former students and jazzed it up a bit with the use of the new Stampin Up set Tape It. Although I love this set, because it looks like washi tape, I am finding it difficult to use. I think it is a simple card with a big impact. 

I think that might be all for today! Night!

Update: Guess what? I was chosen by PPA as a winner for this color challenge. So pumped! Thanks to all that took a look. 

Busy Weekend

This weekend is going to be busy. My sister-in-law is getting married on Friday, my hubby turns 32 on Saturday, I also have a baby shower to attend on Saturday, and my wonderful little sister celebrates the big 30 on Sunday! I have been in card making overload and even joked to Nick (the hubby) about how glad he should be that I can make cards instead of buying them. 

I have never been much of a fan of the Stamp-a-majig before. It always seemed too tedious to me, but then I got the Hello There and Mosaic Madness stamp sets and knew that there was no way I would ever be able to line those suckers up right. Therefore, my need of the Stamp-a-majig was born. 

Once I started to use it, I couldn't stop and it led me to creating two of the cards I needed for the weekend. The first is a very simple, yet sweet card for my sister-in-laws wedding. I love the champagne glasses from the Essential Events stamp set. It allowed me to add a little bling with rhinestones for the bubbles. Love!

The second card was created for the baby shower I am attending this weekend. Our dear friends John and Becky are having a little girl and the Essential Events set came to the rescue again with a cute little duck toy. I am in love with both these cards. I hope the recipients love them as much as I do.  

Now on to creating those birthday cards! 

Color Throwdown Challenge #250

I am trying to find any excuse to be crafty and making cards seems to cure that itch lately. Once Owen lays down for a nap, I have the urge to do something, anything. Most of the time I'm scouring Pinterest for a few hours and then regret not doing something more after he wakes up. 

I have done some Color Throwdown challenges in the past, but stumbled back upon their page this week. Guess what? It's their 250th challenge! That's 5 whole years or color challenges. I decided to participate, even though the color combo was a bit wild for me. Click the link to see other CTD250 card challenges. 

Here is what I came up with. I really like the paper doilies. I think it takes a bit of harshness away from the bright colors. I probably should have added an embellishment or something, but I always get nervous about adding too much! 

Material Girl Challenge

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July. I know we did. I have a post coming later for our July 4th recap. However, today's post is going to focus on this week's CAS-ual Friday Challenge (CFC108): The Material Girl Challenge. This week's goal is to create a clean and simple card using material. 

Now this shouldn't have been hard since I have a stash of fabric in my craft room, but it was because typically I don't put fabric on my cards. Immediately I thought that I should make a rolled ribbon flower, but the card felt too bulky. 

I wanted something really clean and basic. I chose two Stampin' Up In Colors, Pistachio Pudding and Crisp Cantaloupe and my go to background Crumb Cake and started playing. I decided that various thicknesses of straight lines felt clean and there was something a little vintage about the color palette. This lead me to using burlap for my fabric...another vintage and rustic feeling. I like the small, basic "hi" message that gets right to the point. 

Although not one of my favorite cards ever made, I think sometimes you just need to go where the card takes you!

Hunger Games Challenge

I must say, I am enjoying that Owen takes a longer nap in the afternoon and that I am home now to enjoy time with him, but also time to get in touch with my crafty spirit. With that said, I was bit by the challenge bug once more. I can't help but be in love with CAS-ual Fridays blog of simplicity and cool challenges. This week's challenge (CFC107)was to use arrows on the card. I love their use of Hunger Games analogy for this challenge. 

I have been deeply in love with Stampin' Up's Calypso Coral and Pool Party for quite a while now. So in love, in fact, that I purchased paint to repaint both of our bathrooms each of these two colors. Our main bathroom is now Calypso Coral and I believe looks reminiscent a Mexican restaurant (but that's another story completely.) I used Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, and Pool Party to create this fun, playful "Hey Y'all" card. 

On a side note, my sister and I are northerners, but have been fascinated by southern cooking and the friendly attitude of people who live in the south. I am especially in love with the phrase "Y'all" since it breaks an English teacher's heart for being grammatically incorrect, but just too darn sweet. 

Over the Edge Challenge

I have been a Stampin' Up demo for about four years now. We hold some small classes in my beautiful basement craft room once a month. Since having my son a year ago, the only time I really get to enjoy this amazing space is when we are having a class and I have to force myself to get down there. I'm super hard on myself and always believe that want I make isn't really that good. I CAS a lot. I love to participate in challenges because I feel like it pushes me to be a more creative person. 

This is the first challenge I have done since last summer when Owen was born. Honestly, it felt good to get my juices flowing again. I was pumped about how the card turned out. 

Here are a few of the details-

I absolutely love CAS-ual Fridays Challenges (CFC106) because it forces me to be clean and simple (CAS) as well as incorporating a twist. I think sometimes I am hard on myself because I feel like my cards need to be too over-the-top to be good. This sites forces me to remember that I should Keep It Simple Silly! This week's twist was to create a card with something hanging over the edge of the card. 

I gathered inspiration for the color combo from the website Design Seeds. They have beautiful color palettes. I decided to use the Tangerine Tango, Bermuda Bay, and Concord Crush colors as well as white to create the base. 

I gathered some scrap designer paper from the past and used the bunting idea take hold of me. I just made a bunting for Owen's first birthday and it was fresh in my mind. After that there was a lot of contemplation about which words were right and do I mix the crazy Tangerine stripes with the other colors. Needless to say, I "redid" this card several times. The end result is funky, spirited, and fun! I couldn't be more happy with it. The picture isn't the best because it was taken in the basement, so the purple isn't as vibrant as it is in real life, but I'll just have to accept that part. Oh well!

This little challenge once again reminds me that creativity lives within all of us and as long as we are willing to listen and let it flow freely (with some or several mistakes) will we ever truly know what we are capable of. 

Welcome to Our Little Blog

We are two sisters, who consequently are also best friends. We are mothers of all boys. We both love to craft and make things, especially when we can repurpose something old and worn out into something fabulous. Both of us have made and sold crafts, worked and stayed home with the littles, done our own separate blogs, but we knew the time had come to join forces and share everything in one place. 

I think we would love to hope that our ideas, inspiration, thoughts on life and motherhood would be inspirational to someone else too. If you like what we do here and what we have to say, please keep coming back. We like to meet new people. But, if, we are the only ones who end up ever seeing this blog, then that's okay too! We will consider it a way to chronicle our lives and experiences. 

We look forward to sharing for many years to come and look forward to the adventure that we are about to embark on together. 

New adventure, here we come!