Kind Creations: February 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

My Time Made Easy Preview Day 1 - Well Contained

Hi everyone! Today begins the previews of the My Time Made Easy March release! We have some fabulous products to release this month! We have two great templates being released this month, and I'm previewing the Well Contained template today. This template has one "modified" milk carton and holder. I've doubled it up back to back to show you how you can use it a little differently.

The paper I used is one of the new digital paper packs also being released this month called Spreading Spring Cheer. The egg image is from another new digital stamp set for this month called Spring is Here.

I said the milk carton was "modified" because of the opening in the front. I placed a piece of acetate over the opening and added some jelly beans in the carton to coordinate with the paper and my Easter theme.

Here's a front view. The bunny is also from the Spring is Here digital stamp set. I don't know if you can see it, but I added some liquid applique to his tail for some dimension.

The carton comes out of the holder, shown here. You can used the carton all on its own if you'd like. Super cute template!

All these new products will be released on Thursday, March 1! We'll have another preview tomorrow, so watch for that.

We've had some changes in our MTME design team. We are saying goodbye to Monique Hansen and Kathryn Berthiaume. We will miss certainly miss them! We've also added to our team. Please welcome the following new members:

If you want to see more previews of this release, please stop by these blogs.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back on Thursday on Release Day! Hope to see you then!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Pretty Palette #49

Sunday...the last day of my week long mid-winter break. Having the back-to-work blues! Speaking of blues, we have some pretty blues in our Pretty Palette colors this week. The colors were taken from the Taylor's Teeth Nomad's Teal Leaf digital paper pack.

I used the paper in conjunction with the Happy Hallows and Tending the Garden digital stamp sets. I "colored" the leaves of the tree in GIMP using the challenge colors. The sentiment was also "colored" with the teal color in GIMP. Love that sentiment. My 20 year anniversary is coming up in April and maybe this will be my anniversary card to my hubby!

I used this sketch from {Freshly Made} sketches. I didn't place my main panel off to the left, but I did follow the sketch otherwise.

For more inspiration, take a look at these blogs.

My Time Made Easy blog

Charlene Cundy
Jackie Randolph
Mary Vogel

Pattie Goldman

Romaine Rancier

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great day!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Just Us Girls #125 - Template/3D Challenge

Hello friends! This week's challenge over at Just Us Girls is our Template/3D challenge and I'm the hostess! I love me my templates! The challenge is to use ribbons, flowers, and buttons. You MUST use all three on a template or 3D item...that's the challenge!

Here's what I came up with. This is a newer box from My Time Made Easy. It's not listed as a template, but rather a cut file called Card Candy. It's so cute and only takes one sheet of cardstock to make. I cut mine from vintage cream cardstock and decorated it with this dp from Prima called Madeline. I made a belly band from chocolate satin ribbon (check!) and placed two Prima flowers (check!) on top and finished the middle with a button (check!). Challenge completed! But there's more!

When you remove the belly band and open the top panel, it becomes a card! Love this! The box itself is the size of a box of playing cards. I used the Flutters and Flowers cut file from MTME to cut out the butterfly. I just put a piece of acetate over it to contain the candy inside. The sentiment is from MTME also called Keep Strong stamp set.

This is what the box looks like when it's open.

And here you can see the butterfly cut out better with the candy emptied from the box. (And no I DID NOT eat the candy! I gave it up for Lent!)

I'm away with my girlfriends this weekend in Syracuse for some girls' weekend thing. My one friend lives there and invited us to this event. So I thought I'd make one for each of them, hence the "friend" sentiment. They really are so adorable (I'm talking about the boxes, but my friends are too! LOL!)

Do you want more fantastic inspiration? Stop by the following blogs to see what everyone did with this challenge.

Just Us Girls blog

Andrea

Dana

Elise
Kathryn

Lynn

Maria

Pam

Vicki
Cheri, Guest Designer

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Pretty Palette #48

Happy Sunday all! This week's Pretty Palette colors are earth tones...some of my favorites! These colors were taken from the Romance digital paper pack from MTME.

Here's what I came up with. I used three patterns from the Romance paper and paired it with Saffron cardstock for my base. The focal image was created using the Killer Curves: Fancy Frames stamp set and Sentimental Occasions stamp set. The focal image was cut with the Killer Curves cut file and then backed with an espresso circle.I just found out today that the mother of a good friend of ours just passed away, so I decided to make this a sympathy card.

I just came across this new sketch challenge blog called iSpy Sketch Challenge. I really liked this sketch.

Stop by the MTME blog to see more inspiration from the design team. We also have a new member joining us...Mary Vogel. Welcome Mary!

My Time Made Easy blog

Charlene Cundy
Jackie Randolph
Mary Vogel

Pattie Goldman

Romaine Rancier

Thanks for stopping in today! Have a great day!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Maria Levine's Got {ippity}? Design Team Blog Hop

Hi all! I have some fun news to share! Maria Levine (my fellow JUGs DT member) is an {ippity} Chick and she's created a design team and asked me to join it! Of course I said yes!! She's one of the girls selling {ippity}, a line of stamps endorsed by the Unity Stamp Company, and Maria would like to be your {ippity} Chick! All you have to do is go to this site to order from her! It's that simple!

Today, Maria Levine's Got {ippity}? Design Team is celebrating the creation of this team with a Got {ippity}? blog hop! You should have arrived from Maria's blog. If not, stop by there to meet Maria and begin the hop! We decided to make tags using some {ippity} stamps. I created this little ditty using the bird from Music of My Heart set and the sentiment from Now and Always. I started by using a technique I learned at a Wendy Vecchi class using Ranger Inks. I used Broken China and Peeled Paint inks for this technique. I squished some ink onto a non-stick craft sheet and spritzed it with Perfect Pearls Mist in Green Patina (it gives the tag some shimmer which you can't see). Then I just placed the tag into the wet ink and dried it with a heat tool. Then I embossed the bird and sentiment with black embossing powder. I added a pearl flourish from Want 2 Scrap and a flower made from a black chipboard piece topped with some primas and a black pearl center. I finished it off with some sheer ribbons.

Maria is giving away a prize package of some {ippity} stamps and some other goodies to one person who comments on all of the DT blogs! So get commenting! You should head over to Martha's blog now to see her fabulous tag! Here is the lineup in case you get lost.

Maria Levine

Lisa Kind (me!)

Martha Pineda

Julie Hoffman

Vicki Dutcher

I hope you enjoy the hop and then go to Maria's {ippity} page and order something new for yourself! Think of it as a Valentine, cause you know your Valentine won't know you'd rather have stamps than flowers and chocolates! LOL!! Also, check out her fan page on Facebook and like us there. Thanks for stopping by today!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Just Us Girls #123 - Technique Challenge

Hi all! We have a great challenge from Just Us Girls. Our super clever Elise chose to have us use buttons as our focal point on an image.

Here's what I came up with. This set is from Papertrey Ink called Everyday Button Bits. Never used...again! I paired it with this paper from My Mind's Eye called True Blue.

The sketch is this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I haven't played in one of their challenges for a while, so I was happy to play this week.

Stop by the JUGs blog to see what the JUGs girls and our Guest Designer, Cheri Weston, has done with this challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Pretty Palette #46

Hello everyone! Today is Sunday (Super Bowl Sunday...who are you rooting for?) and it's time for another Pretty Palette challenge! This week we have some really fun colors! They are based on the colors from the Pop Some Fun digital paper from My Time Made Easy.

I just love these colors and these papers, too! I used the star paper and the teal paper for my card. I also used the About to Pop digital stamp set for the ticket strip and the sentiments. I thought these four sentiments said it all about a typical date night, don't you? The ticket strip was colored in GIMP and cut using the Hot Ticket cut file. Using Lauren's tutorial on how to combine digital stamps and coordinating cut files makes cutting these out super easy! The ticket strip was folded before being glued onto the card for some texture.

I used this Clean and Simple sketch as inspiration for my card. It's a little different and a little more busy than a CAS card should be, but I love it anyway! I added some ribbon and glitter dots just because!

Stop by the following blogs to see more inspiration using these colors.

My Time Made Easy blog

Charlene Cundy
Jacki Randolph

Pattie Goldman

Romaine Rancier

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

My Time Made Easy: A Year in Review and Just Us Girls #122 Sketch

Hi everyone! Today is our last group post this month for My Time Made Easy's February release. It's also the Just Us Girls sketch challenge, so I combined the two into this little set. Lauren told us to use a previously released template, paper, and/or stamp set and package up something we "love". Well, instead of making a Valentine themed project with the love theme, I made this. Don't you just love the colors? Want to know the inspiration behind them? Keep reading.

The thing I love is tea, especially iced tea. I used to go to McDonald's to get theirs because it is so good. Then I found these Lipton cold brew tea bags and I think I should buy stock in the company because I buy so many boxes of these tea bags! Anyway, the tea bag was my inspiration for the colors and the template I chose.

This template is the Tea Tabbed Box. This template comes with an optional slot at the bottom of the template where a tea bag would come out. I chose not to use the slot and make a solid box. I used Pacific Point cardstock for the base of the template and decorated it with this paper from Farm Fresh digital paper pack. I found some ribbon that matched nicely and made a tailored bow and a button.

I used three different flowers layered together in the coordinating colors to decorate the top. It's finished off with a red button tied with some floss.

Here's the box shown open with the tea bags inside. Pretty roomy...it holds 10 of the tea bags (they are much larger than regular tea bags.

Like I mentioned earlier in the post, today is also our Just Us Girls challenge. It's the first Saturday of the month, which meansour challenge for this week is a sketch challenge! Kathryn is our hostess and she gave us this beautiful sketch.

And here's my take on the sketch. I used the same Farm Fresh digital paper as on the template and the Pacific Point cardstock. The focal image was created using two different stamp sets from MTME. The tag and sentiment are from A Spot of Tea stamp set and the cup is from Grab a Cup stamp set. I added some of the same ribbon that was used on the template. The scallop border was created with an EK Success punch.

Here's the gift set again so you can see how I used the tea bag as my inspiration for the template and card.

So now you have to stop by the JUGs blog to see all the girls' creations. Just beautiful as usual!

You also should also stop by the blogs of the MTME design team. Monique Hansen is sharing her last post as a MTME design team member. We will certainly miss her creative flair with paper and stamps!

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to look at all the pictures in this post! Hope to see you soon!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

My Time Made Easy Post Release - Pull Tab Up: Octagon

Hey everyone! Did you happen to see the new release from My Time Made Easy yesterday? If not, you can go to the store now to look at the new products and purchase, download, and begin crafting within minutes!

Today is my day to show off this super cute template called Pull Tab Up: Octagon. It is once again so easy to assemble! I cut it out of white cardstock on my Cricut. Then I decorated it with this pretty paper from the Amour digital paper pack.

Here's a top view of the box. I ran the gingham ribbon through a hole in the tab and tied a bow. Then I added the heart lock and key from the new Under Lock and Key cut file with some baker's twine.

Here's a back view of the template. So cute! I should have taken a picture of it open! Shoot!

Stop by the following blogs to see more inspiration. There's some special stuff being created!

MTME store
MTME Gallery

Lauren Meader

Tangii Crain

Are you interested in becoming a MTME designer? Check out the Design Team call here to find out more.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

My Time Made Easy Release Day - Pull Tab Up

Happy February everyone! I cannot believe how fast time is flying by! The first of the month means another release from My Time Made Easy! We have many new products! We have two new templates that are similar, yet different. You'll see what I mean when you take a peek at the design team's blogs. We also have two new digital stamp sets and two new digital paper packs. There are some cute new cut files in this release as well.

Here's my complete gift set. (The bottle of lotion is a small one...I have it sitting on something so it can be seen. It definitely fits inside this box.) This box is called Pull Tab Up: Square. This template is obviously square. The other is octagonal. Really cute!

Here's an up close look at the template. I cut it out of Pink Pirouette cardstock, scored it, and put it together. Very easy template to assemble! On the front of the box, I added a little scene using the new digital stamp sets: Wind 'Em Up and Wound Sentiments and colored them with copics to sort of mimic the birds in the paper.

You can see the paper I used here. This is one of the patterns from Wind My Girly Gears digital paper. I added a bow on top to close it up and a pink corduroy button tied with the ribbon.

The card uses the same paper and a sentiment from Wound Sentiments. I used the same buttons and ribbons to finish it off. Lovin' all the pink! Such a girlie gift set, for sure!

The card was created using this sketch from Clean and Simple.

To see more of this release, stop by the following blogs. You won't be disappointed!

On another note, the MTME team is expanding! We are seeking new members for our team. Check out the details on the MTME blog here and you can find it on our Facebook page too!

Also, make sure you stop by the MTME Gallery to see more inspiration using MTME products. Thanks for stopping by!

February Calendar

Wow! February 1st! This month came awfully quick! But that means it's time for another calendar challenge with some of my friends. I have been using Taylored Expressions calendars and I found that TE is sponsoring a calendar challenge over on SCS. So I decided to use some TE stamps with my calendar as well. I found a card in the TE gallery by Taylor using this set called Love Everywhere and I just fell in love with it. So I sort of cased her card. I love the dog in this set...reminds me of my Lizzie when she's playing. Some of the hearts and the bench are up on dimensionals. I also used some Star Dust Stickles to add some sparkle. The sentiment and heart stamp around the "14" are from Verve. The sets are Hundred Hearts and Sweet Valentine. I love the red and chocolate. Makes me think of red roses and delicious chocolates!