11 December 2012

More Christmas Cards!!

Okay, so just a quick post... I LOVE making Christmas cards so much that I have made a zillion of them!!  These are the ones that Betsy and I made this morning...







All supplies are from Close To My Heart! 

Hope you have a great Wednesday!!

10 December 2012

Christmas Card Workshop

Happy Monday!

A couple of weeks ago, I did a card making workshop where the women who attended made 15 cards each, five of each of the following designs.  I seriously considered doing these for my own cards this year as they were so fun and easy!!!  They did theirs with different paper and ribbons, but the design was the same for all of ours.  What fun we had!!




31 October 2012

Happy Halloween!!

Hi, everyone!  Are you having a spooktacular day?!?!  (Yes, I am one of THOSE corny Halloween people!)

Just a quick post with some pictures of my first Tuesday Morning Crafts class!!  What a fun morning I had with friends and Halloween craft projects!  If you are on my mailing list locally, next week's class project will be sent out late tonight after trick-or-treating.  Have to get Halloween out of my system before we can move on to other fall things!!


My Tuesday Morning Girls and their awesome projects!
The second of the projects (with the craft paper spider card at the top) for the class!


Just a quick card I made because I couldn't stand to not use this adorable chipboard spider by 3Birds!

Did I mention the 3Birds Chipboard I got into one night?!  The stamp is from Lily Bee, and I can't remember where the paper is from.  Send me a message if you want details, and I will look around for it!
Hope you all have a creepy and crawly night!

21 October 2012

Halloween is Coming!!

Can I tell you how excited I am for Halloween?!  Seriously, this is my favorite crafty time of the year!! 

I am working frantically to get my craft space organized after moving everything out and reorganizing (I'll post a little video one of these days), so that I can host a Halloween craft gathering here next week. 

In the meantime, I have been working on several custom designs for customers.  This is one that I did for a baby shower for a dear, dear friend who had her first little guy in July.  I embossed his name on the boat in white for the final version but forgot to take a picture of that before I sent it out (whoops!).   If you are interested in the supply list, just send me a message, and I will be happy to pass it on. 

Enjoy!



26 July 2012

Flying High

I love flowers.  And I love butterflies.  And I love hot air balloons and satin ribbons and lacy doilies and pastel balloons and anything that reminds me of little girls' birthday parties.  But I live with two sons, a husband, two male dogs, and, most recently, two male beta fish.  With that influence, I have been forced to design, in my home and in my paper crafting, from "boy" perspective.

Somewhere along the line, I have found my way into loving all manner of "boy" themes.   So a few weeks ago, when I was approached by an aviation museum to put together some designs for cards for their gift shop, I was thrilled to test out some designs.  We couldn't work out the pricing, but it was SUCH a blast to make a bunch of cards with airplanes that I thought you might enjoy seeing some of them. 







Hope you are flying away somewhere wonderful this vacation season!  Contact me or leave a comment if you want to know about any of the supplies or techniques used in these cards!!  Happy Summer!!!

29 June 2012

Birthdays and More Birthdays!

My son turned 6 today, and as busy I have been with getting ready for his party tomorrow, he is one of many in our family to have a birthday this week.   My cousin turned 40 this past week (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KRISTEL!!), my uncle had a higher number birthday that I think he'd probably prefer I don't share with the world, my niece turned 7 today, and my sister-in-law's birthday is coming up in a few days.  (And that's not counting a dear friend and another friend's daughter also having birthdays today!)

Every year, it is both with great joy that I remember the ways in which my son has changed my life, and with that twinge of sadness that knows that he is growing up SO VERY FAST.  Someday sooner than I'd like, he will no longer be the little guy who pleads every night for more snuggles from Mommy....

Anyway, before I fall asleep cleaning and seasoning chicken, or start crying at the thought that my boy is growing so fast, I thought I'd post two more of my Simon Says Stamp card kit creations.  I have been throwing together cards quickly to get them mailed this week (some faster than others!).  The SSS kits are perfect for this-- already coordinated and ready to go. 


This one was made with the June card kit.  I added some basic grosgrain ribbon and the gorgeous sticker embellishment from American Crafts.  Punches are from Stampin' Up and the sentiment is from Hero Arts.
 
This one was from the Simon Says Stamp May Card Kit.  This was for my uncle, so it had to be a little masculine.  The poles were from the July card kit stamp and were embossed with American Crafts Zing embossing powder.  The "happy birthday" stamp is Hero Arts and, again embossed.

I am headed back to chopping veggies and cleaning chicken.  I made 100 cupcakes and made these adorable cupcake toppers for the party, so I will take some pictures of those and the invitations and all that and post them up in the next week!!

Have a wonderful weekend and a fantastic Fourth of July!!!!

24 June 2012

Simon Says Stamps May Card Kit Cards

Here they are!!  Cards made from the Simon Says Stamps May Card Kit!!  I mentioned in my last post how much I am loving these kits.  I made all these cards, plus my two favorites that I mailed without photographing, and I still have a bunch of stuff left over to make more. 

I don't know if any of them are still available, but I can't say enough about how much I love them and encourage you to check it out if you like these cards.  SUPER simple to make!!  Let me know if you want any details about how I did it or what I did.

Love the red polka dotted washi tape that came in the kit!!

The Basic Grey papers are so beautiful on their own-- they hardly need any embellishment!  The balloons were made with a Martha Stewart punch, and the stamp was from Close To My Heart.  The corners were cut using We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper (Scallop & Cloud).

This is perhaps my favorite with the rays and the transparent clouds... And the stamp is just perfect (from the card kit!).

The little chipboard birds came from the What's Up (Basic Grey) line, but they were not included in the card kit. You can find them at one of my other favorite retailers, allscrapbooksteals.com.  There is also a Groupon going on right now out of Salt Lake City that you can use for that site, so check that out!

Love when something so simple makes something so unique and beautiful!!

This was made when my hubby was out of town for work and I was missing him like crazy!!
I sat down and did all of these cards in less than an hour, if that tells you how inspired I was by this kit!!  Hope you're having a wonderful weekend...

10 June 2012

Welcome SUMMER!!!

The month of May got away from me!  I have been busy with all sorts of things, and getting to my computer to blog has fallen to the bottom of the list!!  We decided to take baby steps and keep my office at home, but that means that I have had to make some pretty significant modifications to my studio space in order to fit a business in as well as my overflowing supplies.  :-)

First thing we did was to add a counter-height work station for me, with easy access to my Cricut Expression and Imagine and the tools I use every day.  We made it open on both sides and put a chair on either side, so I can have someone else in there working with me!!  


We added a separate table for trimming and cutting:


Here is one of my favorite additions to my craft space.  To build the counter-height bench, we used two open shelving units to support the top.  That gave me under-counter awesome space.  The baskets on top were $1 aisle finds at Target years ago that I added some felt flowers to (House of Three, Daily Junque).  The wire shelves were made using a kit for wire cubes and some zip ties.  Thanks to Susan Tomaino for the idea!!


The cardboard boxes are not a permanent fixture, but I wanted to mention them because they are housing my newest, most favorite things!!!  Simon Says Stamp has a new Card Kit of the Month, and I am in LOVE!!!  I will post some of the many cards I have made from the May kit-- haven't even started on the June kit, that's how fun the May one was!!  Thank you to Kristina for doing such an awesome job putting them together!

Okay, I have lots of projects to post, but I have to get offline and finish up birthday party invitations for my son's birthday!  Hope you had a great weekend!!

12 April 2012

Etsy Store is Open!

I can hardly believe that I officially have an Etsy store!  It is taking a little longer to list things than I had expected, but I am starting to get the hang of it, so you can expect to see more things go up in the next few days.  The store is at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kkharing?ref=seller_info

If anyone has advice about how to best run my Etsy store, please send me your thoughts!!  I am a newbie!  :-)

I started making a set of teacher appreciation cards, but I stopped putting Thank You on them when I realized that it might be nice to use as a graduation card (for little ones) or a congrats for finishing the year with good grades.  My eldest is "graduating" from kindergarten next month, so I may have to keep some for him and his teachers!!






The paper is DCWV and the embellishments are from 3Birds (pencil, books & 3D apple & chipboard book stack) or from DCWV paper that I cut apart (A+, You're a Star, I Love My Teacher).  There is also some scrap cardstock in there and a little bit of stamping with a Close To My Heart stamp!

Have a great night and thanks for checking in!!

08 April 2012

Happy Easter!!

Hello, friends!

We are just finishing with a wonderful Easter celebration in our home.  As is always the case in my family, holidays are all about the food!!  We started our day with a turkey sausage and egg breakfast casserole,  cinnamon rolls,  fresh-squeezed OJ and espresso.  Our church's Easter service was joyous and uplifting and reminded me of all of my amazing blessings... After an egg hunt, we returned home and had a leisurely Easter supper of ham, German potato salad (yum-- thanks to my mother-in-law), roasted asparagus, locally-grown tomato and feta salad, and, of course, deviled eggs.  We finished off with what I have to say might have been the best carrot cake I've ever made!!  Let me know if you want the recipe-- happy to pass it along to any carrot cake lovers.

So last night, after the family went to bed and I finished baking the cake and making the deviled eggs, I treated myself to a little card making.  :-)

Many of the supplies (patterned paper, cardstock) are Anna Griffin.  The brad is from Fancy Pants, the twine from My Minds Eye, the tag cut out with my Cricut and stamped with Colorbox ink and a Close To My Heart stamp. 

And to my dear friends who have asked, I am definitely in the process of getting my finished cards up for sale on etsy.com.  I will put a link on here as soon as I have the store opened, so stay tuned!!

Happy Easter to those who are celebrating, Happy Passover to my many friends who are celebrating that this week, and to those not celebrating, I hope you are enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon!

03 April 2012

Happy Day for Shower Doors!

After three months of the upheaval that comes with renovating bathrooms, I got a glass door installed into my new shower today!  We still need some paint, and I would kill for a towel bar near the shower so that when I get out, I don't freeze (because, of course, I never remember to BRING the towel over near the shower...)... But it is a huge step closer to not being under construction anymore!!

This card is one that I started because I simply was drawn to the patterned paper.  It is from K&Company, and it was part of this enormous pack of paper (180 sheets of their "best of" or something like that).  It sat on my desk for about two weeks before I was willing to cut it apart and pick my favorite parts of the 12x12, but ultimately, I decided that I loved the bird the best.  :-)

The other papers are from my cardstock stash (sorry I don't remember where!), the corners and pearls are from 3Birds, the label is from My Minds Eye, and the stamp is, of course Close To My Heart, from their March Stamp of the Month.  (I have a handful of these sets still if anyone is interested-- just send me a message.)

Isn't it awesome how beautiful papers make creating easy?!  Love paper...



Have a great night!!

31 March 2012

For Jinger Adams Design Team Call...

Okay, so I recognize that I am so green I could be a shoot of grass!!!  But I am a huge Jinger Adams fan and a HUGE Provo Craft lover (with a Cricut Expression, Baby Bug, Imagine, Gypsy, Cuttlebug, Yudu, Yudu Cardshop, YourStory and the little YourStory, not to mention about 200 Cricut cartridges!), so I am putting this out into the world regardless...



This card was made just for you, Jinger!!  :-)


Hello to the two people who read this!!  ;-)  I have been completely remiss in posting on here, so please accept my apologies!  Life has gotten in the way of crafting over the last few months, but part of what has gotten in the way is the time I have taken to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  :-)

I began teaching in January, a new and wonderful adventure.  The kids in my paper crafting class are amazing-- they are so very open to the world of creativity.  It makes me so joyful to see them blossom and grow, learning to express themselves through art and paper.  I would like to post some pictures of the kids and their projects (I have taken pics of all of them for our final project-- a YourStory photo book for which they will design the cover which will contain pictures of them and all of the projects.)  I need to do some photo editing and/or get permission from the parents to post their faces on here, though, so stay tuned for these fantastic works of art!!

So I have loved the teaching, far more than I anticipated.  I have committed to teach through the summer at a summer camp, and I am looking at where to continue to teach art at various other local schools in the fall.  In addition to that, though, now that my kids will officially be in school all day, I have decided to take my design work to the next level. 

I have begun doing some custom design work for a handful of clients for weddings and parties.  This was a BIG step for me, as the level of seriousness and professionalism is just different in order to run a business.  I am finding, though, that as much as I was a little wary of having people directing my creativity, its been just the opposite!!  They are loving my work, and I am loving being able to bring them something spectacular for their event.  HOW FANTASTIC!!!

So with that in mind, I am moving forward to find an office space to meet with potential clients and get more of the non-crafting work done.  Thus, you should be finding me blogging more regularly!!!  I also want to start doing some instructional videos, as I love to teach, but I am trying to figure out the logistics of that, as I am not quite as computer literate as I would like.  Anyway, this is the last of my long postings, as I know you are here to get some inspiration and ideas, not to necessarily hear about my epiphanies! 


This is a card I made using Cricut cartridge Animal Kingdom, an older cartridge, but still a favorite!  My son's friend, who was turning 6, had his party at Jungle Island, and is a crazy animal lover!!  The patterned paper was from ProvoCraft, and the stamp and ink are from Close to My Heart. 

Hope you're having a great weekend!


08 January 2012

Happy New Year!

Okay, so one of my New Year's Resolutions is to write more frequently on my blog.  It's been a bit challenging for me to write on here because my other commitments are kind of LARGE these days.  But one big one has completed...

For those who might not know, I have had a very lovely little Mary Kay business for about five years that I shut down at the end of 2011.  Because I have worked on it so little over the last two years, though, I had no real concept of what it would take to try to get as much inventory off my shelves as possible and clean up my ill-kept books-- in a span of three months that happened to fall over the holidays, three long weekends of travel, three bouts of house guests, and unfortunately 2+ weeks of sick kids home from school!!  I'm still doing a bit of financial cleanup, but I am mostly done and VERY tired!

So although I will post a couple of things on here, I have to send a huge shout out to my loyal and amazing Mary Kay customers!!  These ladies kept me in business and kept me sane and smiling for years.  I have been so fortunate to have made good friends through Mary Kay, and so even though I won't be selling products for them anymore, you remain an amazing blessing in my life.

This card was made by cutting cardstock to 10"x7" and folding it in half for the 5x7 card base (DCWV Spring Glitter Stack paper).  I cut the green cardstock (DCWV?) at about 2.5"x5", and then I border cut the long edge with a fiskars scalloped punch.  Then I embossed the green (Cuttlebug folder with swirly butterflies on it) and attached it to the card base.  I die cut the castle with my Cricut and the Once Upon a Time cartridge (probably at 3.75", but I don't remember for sure!) and pieced it together with some foam dots and adhesive.  I added a ribbon,  some Recollections bling and rounded the corners with my Crop-a-Dile Corner Chomper.  And last, but not least, I stamped the sentiment with a CTMH stamp from the Everyday Celebrations set, cut out the pink and blue cardstock and adhered it to the card.  Voila-- A happy birthday for a 4-year-old princess!  :-)  [Special thanks to Eva, my sister-in-law for her help with this card!  So fun to play with you and my crafts!!]


Happy New Year to all!  I hope you are starting 2012 out with the sense of hope, anticipation and excitement that comes from new beginnings!