In my heart {mama elephant stamp highlight}

Hi, and welcome to the first day of Mama Elephant's June release stamp highlights. Today, we're highlighting what is hands down, the cutest set of the bunch, in my heart.

Did you happen to see that this set was inspired by Operation Write Home? And that until July 31st, 20% of the profits will be donated there?  What a great cause, and what an amazing company.

I used the images to create a soft "miss you" card.  The little girl is thinking of someone and miss them... but with a smile. ha. I used my 0.3 copic multiliner to add a little mouth to the image.  I think she looks super sweet either way, but it's fun to get different looks out of your stamps!

I grounded her with some grass and a snail couple, and then tangled the sentiment with the butterfly trail to lead your eye up to the clouds.



I hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by.

♥.

Mama Elephant June Stampede!

Hey there!  It's time for the Mama Elephant June Stampede... are you ready? The new release is live and available for purchase in the store.

This month's crop of new stamps are must-haves, especially the sweet faces of in my heart.  I have used them on almost every card this month!  I can't help myself. 

Today, I paired in my heart with images from nursery deco:

I created a frame for the card by cutting a 4.25x5.5 inch piece of kraft cardstock with the rectangular die from femme frames. Inside, the little boy with the sleeper pyjamas (my favorite kind of pjs for toddlers, by the way. I can't ever get enough) is surrounded by his stuffed animals, a turtle and a bear, and standing in front of his room's decor.



I paper-pieced his pyjamas, and added some wooden star veneers to fill in some of the white space at the top.

As always, there's a giveaway!  To celebrate the new release, Mama Elephant is giving away one of each of the new stamp sets released.  Winners will be chosen at random from the Stampeding blogs and will be announced on the last day of the stamp highlights. You have 3 chances to win, just leave a separate comment for each:

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Now get to stampeding!  Here's the complete list:

Mama Elephant ♥ Sandy ♥ Laura ♥ Emily ♥ Pamela ♥ Joni ♥ Nichol ♥ Elena (me!)

i'm a smart cookie {end of year teacher gifts}

I was browsing Pinterest a little while back, trying to think of something simple I could do for all of the teachers. I came across some printable tags that read "thanks to you, i'm one smart cookie!"  And the tags were free printables.  But I decided to make my own because

1. I always like my life to be as hard as possible, and

2. challenge: accepted.  if i have the stamps, and i could possibly 

fathom recreating something with what i already own, 

i'm a gonna try.

So. A slew of lawn fawn products on my table and this is what I came up with.



I grabbed the "thanks" from a good apple, the "to you" and "i'm a" from check this out (i had to get creative there,) the cookies from cozy christmas and the letters to spell "smart cookie" from riley's abcs.

Whew.

Are you still with me? Allow me to distract you with cookies.



I hope the teachers will like them as much as Maia and I did. Between us, there may be a half-dozen missing. We didn't even offer any to the man who now works in the basement. ha. poor Amar.

I bought kraft boxes from the local Dollar Store and stamped the tops with a strip from schoolhouse backdrops. A little more custom looking that way.



We still have a full week of school left, so all of the cookies are in the freezer until then, but when I do get around to making the packages, they will look something like this:



Thanks for stopping by!

ps, if you want to go the easy route and print your own tags (pffft, i won't judge, but...) just find yourself on pinterest and do a search for "smart cookie tag" and you'll end up with a bunch of choices.

♥.

life's a beach...party!

It's always so much fun for me to work with Marlyn (Montreal Confections.)  Last year, we did a woodland party for her daughter's 11th birthday (click!) and this year, Jessika had the most beautiful day for her beach party.

It all started with an invitation.



We chose our colors, I pulled lawn fawn papers and colored crabs and sandcastles aplenty.



I used the new lawn fawn set, "life is good" for all of the paper decorations, and no black outlines on any of the stamped images.



There's a video on the lawn fawn blog today that shows how I colored my images by stamping them first in a very light color. I wanted the entire party to look airy and... beachy!

The new louie's abcs and party banners were so perfect for creating the focal point of the entire table.



ok. who am I kidding? the focal point of the table is always the cake,



with the bright flip flops on top.

I can't wait to learn how to make these waves.

life is good...



I love that crab topper!



I found an amazing tutorial on Studio DIY for making these "beach balls."  She put hers on a garland, I put mine in a watery-blue dish. I love them.



I only made a few food labels, and mostly just to pull the same darker blue outline that you saw on the banner to the front of the table.



I didn't properly blend the waves on purpose. promise.  I thought it looked more interesting, like choppy waves.



For the favor bags, I cut a silhouette beach bag shape and attached simple tags.



I hope you've enjoyed the glimpse into our beach party! It was so much fun to create!

♥.

birthday doodling.

I feel like this little blog is being sorely neglected. And not just because of the beautiful weather.  I've been party crafting my heart out since early April, and unfortunately for me, party posts are one big WHAM and then I have nothing else to post for the week. or weeks.

But I miss connecting with you here, so I'll show off what I wouldn't ordinarily blog.  It's just me, a 0.3 copic multiliner, and a handful of copic markers.



It's not perfect, by any means (especially the sentiment. ha. I was inspired by *this* art piece, which is far more amazing.)

I mentioned this on instagram, but our family has undergone some recent changes. My craft area (a corner in our basement space) was renovated a few months ago.  I was finally getting things organized to my liking and feeling comfortable about how I could work down there.  Then, my hubs went and found himself a different job. A great job, that would have him working out of our home. On my desk. All the time.  I'm so happy for our family, but some days, all I can create with is a sheet of cardstock and markers while the older kids are doing their homework, all on the same kitchen table.  We're adjusting.



Either way, I think this gal's pretty cute.  I hope you do too!

♥.

the joy's in the journey {mama elephant designer series}

Hi there! I'm sharing a card I made with the new cityscape creative cuts.

It's a marriage made in crafty heaven: i naturally paired the cityscape and road dies with images from sightseeing.  To be able to give centre stage to the dies, I shifted the double-decker bus to the side and attached the sentiment so it floats behind.  As a little aside, I heat-embossed the bus with red embossing powder, and I love how rich and vibrant it looks!

To create interest with the cityscape dies, I ran it through my machine in grey, (I did this for both the road and the buildings.  I wanted it to look like the lights were all on with the yellow in behind!) but I also cut into the sky panel so that I could fit the grey buildings flush with the sky.

I used distress inks to create the sky, and flicked on some shimmer when I was happy with the color.

I hope you like what I've created! Thanks for stopping by.

♥.

Hooray! {mama elephant designer series}

Hey there!

It's been quiet on the blog lately (let's blame the beautiful weather) but I'm here and on the Mama Elephant blog today sharing a card I made with the beautifully hand-lettered "splendid."

I started out with a white cardstock panel and stamped the open diamond pattern (from on point borders) to cover the entire piece.  Then, I heat-embossed the amazing sentiment with a blue embossing powder.  I kind of love how you can still see the diamond pattern through the sentiment!

I used some of the accents included in splendid to add fun touches to my card: the bird and the spray of stars.  I hand-cut the bird and popped him up, but the stars were stamped directly on top of the base pattern.  I think little differences like that give levels of interest to a card.

Finally, I cut apart a femme frames die-cut so that I could slip a tiny scallop border on either end of my focal panel.

I hope you like my card! Thanks for stopping by.

♥.