Aphra-Inspired Easter Baskets

Did you see the super cute paper basket that Aphra Bolyer shared on her blog a couple weeks ago?  She was even kind enough to write up a tutorial.  As soon as I saw her basket I knew I wanted to make some!

I know Easter's over but I still wanted to share the baskets that I made for a friend's son and daughter.  I also wanted to give this shout out to Aphra for the inspiration and instructions :)

Chocolate bunnies, peeps, chocolate eggs... yum!

Scrapbook Daisies Blop Hop, Reveal, and Challenge

Welcome to the next stop on the Scrapbook Daisies April blog hop :)

(If you happened to have arrived here first, please consider starting at the beginning of the hop at the Scrapbook Daisies blog so that you don't miss out on any of the fun.)

I got to work with the gorgeous "Mabel" kit this month.  The papers and embellishments included in the kit are absolutely beautiful.

My first layout, "Friends" is my daughter Allison and her sweet friend, Ashlyn.  They're about 2 months apart in age and it's a lot of fun to get them together.

Tip:  Use your punches to make your own coordinating flowers.

I used this awesome sketch by Liz Qualman:

My next layout, "Books" is Allison at the library.  We've been going to story time there for the past several months and she totally enjoys it.  She loves to read, and her attention span for books is amazing.  We read nearly a dozen board books together every night before bed.

Tip: Keep on using those flower punches!  Add drops of mist to your background for added interest.

Here's the sketch that I used for it from the My Mind's Eye blog:

 

Hopefully you've noticed the fun "scraplift" activity that the design team took part in this month... I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to "lift" my fellow dt member and friend, Jenny.  When I found out that I got to lift her, I immediately knew I wanted to lift my favorite layout of hers, "Merry Holidays".  Here it is, "Merry Holidays", created by Jenny Stockard:

My third layout, "I Love to Play", is my "lift" of Jenny's beautiful layout.  This photo of Allison was also taken at the library.  After story time, the kids get to do a craft.  Well, in our case, Mommy usually does the craft while Allison holds the paint brushes and such :)  She loves to hang out and play there.

Tip: Use a white border around your photo to help it to really stand out against your patterned paper.  (I learned that wonderful tip from one of my favorite inspirational scrappers, Camilla Ekman.)  To balance out the white, I used a white pen to draw faux stitches near the outside edges of the layout.

Next is this "So Sweet" card.

Tip: Create faux pearl accents using pearl fabric paint.

I used the following sketch from the My Mind's Eye blog:

Here's another card using the same sketch:

Tip: Use foam tape or pop dots between your layers to build some fun dimension.

I couldn't bear to leave any of this beautiful Mabel paper unused, so here are the remaining scraps in the form of 18 punched 1-inch circles, some of which are raised with pop dots:

Tip: You can probably find a whole roll of this wonderful jute twine at your local superstore for fairly cheap, and it adds a lot of fun texture to your project.

Did you enjoy seeing the design team's "lifts"?

Ready to get YOUR scrap on?

Want a chance at a prize?

You're invited to create a lifted project of your own!

Here are the deets:

* Choose one of the Scrapbook Daisies design team members that participated in this hop and lift one of her projects.  It can be any of her projects that you find on her blog or in her Scrapbook Daisies gallery.

* Upload your completed lift to the Scrapbook Daisies Facebook page and include a pic or link to the person or project that you lifted (if you do not use Facebook, you can link your lift to the blog hop post on the Scrapbook Daisies blog).

* Deadline is Sunday, April 24th at midnight your time.

Your next stop on the hop is... Jenny!

Happy Hopping!

New My Little Shoebox Challenge

My Little Shoebox has a super fun new challenge posted on the blog.  I really hope you'll check it out and join in the fun... there are 3 very generous prizes to be won!

Here's the details:

We love our Farmer's Market collection so we'd love to see you create a project using our Farmer's Market collection for one or all three of the categories listed below. 

Layout- Create a 12x12 layout of any theme with our Farmer's Market collection utilizing the paper, cardstock stickers, acrylic stamps, glitter letters or mini alphas.

Card- Create a card of any theme with our Farmer's Market collection utilizing the paper, cardstock stickers, acrylic stamps, glitter letters or mini alphas

Stamping- Create a stamped project of your choice with our Farmer's Market acrylic stamps and coordinating collection.

The winner of the layout category will win $50.00 in MLS product from a collection of their choice! The card and stamped project winners will win $25.00 in MLS product from a collection of their choice!

Wow, right?!

Find the challenge and all the rules by clicking here.

Scrapbook Daisies April Project Sneaks

I've been working on several different projects and although I can't show them to you yet, I do have a couple sneak peeks to share of some of my work using the April "Mabel" kit from Scrapbook Daisies kit club.

Those My Mind's Eye papers are just gorgeous!  I knew they were beautiful from the photos that I saw online but they're even more stunning in person.  Have you seen them?

Come back here on Wednesday the 20th to see my full reveal of layouts and cards using that beautiful kit.  Be ready to "hop" that day because the design team will be hosting another fun blog hop filled with inspiration and prizes.

I hope everyone's having a nice weekend!  Allison and I had ourselves a little pizza party on Friday night.  Yummy!  Then on Saturday morning we went to the Kiwanis' Books and Breakfast where we got to hang out with friends, meet the Cat in the Hat, and pick out a new board book to take home.  Allison loves books.

Thanks for stopping by :)

My Little Shoebox

I'm excited to share that I'm featured on the My Little Shoebox blog today! :)  You'll see a little info about me as well as the projects that I submitted for the DT call.

The call required 2 layouts, a card, and a project.  Here's what I created:

(I was so thrilled to get this photo of my sweet little Allison, and the icing on the cake was when I realized that the outfit that she was wearing perfectly matched the My Little Shoebox "Sew Cute" collection.)

(Here's my sweet girl again, this time with some of the adorable My Little Shoebox "Garden Party" collection.)

(More of the adorable "Garden Party" collection, this time on a wall-hanging for Allison's bedroom.  Do ya think I love my punches?  Tip:  Trace around a cats eye ink pad to create a leaf shape.)

(I created this card using papers and die-cuts from the "Sew Cute" collection and a cute little bird stamp from the "Sunday Market" collection.  Tip:  Stamp image multiple times, cut images out, and layer on top of one another using pop dots or foam tape to create some fun dimension.)

I received my first box of MLS product as a DT member the other day and had so much fun going through it. Dan was excited for me too; he even took it upon himself to organize the many packages of alpha stickers by color for me as I was swooning over all of the adorable patterned paper :)  I have been happily working on my first set of assignments and cannot wait to show you what I've created!

Scrapbook Daisies April Kits

Check out the beautiful kits featuring My Mind's Eye - Stella & Rose that Scrapbook Daisies is offering this month!

Kit #1: Hattie...

and Kit #2: Mabel...

I think these kits are equally beautiful and I would love to play with them both.  But alas, I can only have one... on the bright side, I received notice that mine was shipped today... let the mail carrier stalking begin!

P.S. Several of Scrapbook Daisies' April challenges are up and running on the message board.  I'd love to see you jump in.  You have the entire month to get your entries finished and linked up.  Hope to see you there.

Use Your Stash!

Several of us over on the Scrapbook Daisies forums have been doing a lot of chatting about hoarding our goodies... buying papers because we love them but then not ever using them... or, actually using some of them but hoarding the scraps because we just cannot bear to throw them away...

We've also been mentioning quite a bit about not making enough cards.

When I saw that my challenge assignment for Scrapbook Daisies this month was to host the "stash" challenge, I thought, what a perfect time to use up some scraps from some of my favorite older papers... while also getting caught up on making some cards.

Here is the set of cards that I made with scraps of some favorite older paper and some embellies from partially used packages:

In my travels through blogland lately I have seen several cards with the same or similar design to the above card.  It's such a simple concept that produces such a cute result (and uses up some of those little scraps that we've been hoarding in our stashes)!

I'd love it if you played along with this challenge.  You can find all the details on the Scrapbook Daisies message board.  This challenge, as well as the handful of other April challenges, runs through the end of the month, so you've got plenty of time to play along and have a chance at winning a scrappy prize.

Thanks for stopping by!