Photos of my sister's baby shower

The big sister - too cute, huh? Before leaving for the shower.

Shower hosted by Ann (top of photo in pink, who's like a sister to us) and Deana (middle sister who watches Gabby while mommy works), Val (mommy on the right in teal) & Gabby. I am missing from the photo (insert sad face)

Val opening her gift - had to brag on the 'Creative Auntie'

See, Melanie, she loves the Hoppys!

Edited to Add (photos from my sister's shower) - snagged the below from Monday's post.

*I keep forgetting to say the surprise I ruined last weekend was posting the pics of all the gifts I was sending to my sister for her baby shower (the ones for Baby Joseph) of all DAYS she chose to read my blog, it was right AFTER I had posted it all! DOH - I wanted to just cry (and I did a little when my cousin told me she saw it all) because I wanted her to have the full effect of the gift live at the shower since I couldn't be there. Sweet thing, is that she cried when she started to read what I wrote and had to have our cousin finish reading it, who also started crying. Then my cousin said even though my sister saw everything ahead of time, she still cried when she opened it at her shower on Sat. Gabby loved the blocks - she said 'oooh, blocks' and started playing with them. So guess who I'm making some blocks for next??

Sympathy Cards

My brother-in-law's maternal grandfather died last week, he was 95! What a blessing to live that many years. One of God's promises in The Bible is in Psalm 91, "With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." the whole Psalm is a wonderful confession. I feel like Mr. Lujan definitely was an example of that promise as he loved the Lord, his family leaving a strong legacy of a loving wife of 60+ years, many children, more grandchildren and even great-grandchildren! This card was sent to Mrs. Lujan who will grieve over the loss of her soulmate, companion of so many years! I used Jen's SFYTT for the layout.

This card was sent to my brother-in-law's mom who has not only just lost her father, but in the past 20+ years, lost her first husband and then 2 companions after that (the last one less than a year ago). She sure has known great loss and remains strong, knowing she will get through it again.

Lastly, this card was sent to my brother-in-law, sister & niece (of course she may not remember Grandpa) but it sure was sad & sweet when my sister recalled her last time with him just an hour before he died, she was told to say bye to him. Then when they returned after he died, she ran past his room saying, 'grandpa sleeping'.

Limited stamping on these cards, highlighting my new Basic Grey Sultry dp, purchased from 7 kids college fund matching buttons, purchased from All That Scraps and Stampin' Up!'s Petal Prints and sympathy set (the name eludes me but I think it may be retired?) also Warmest Regards.

The funeral was Monday evening and my sister said that the officiating Priest was my former boss (in CA) I knew he was in Seminary and he aspired to become a Priest, just proves how small the world is after all. Makes me want to get in touch with him. He was a great boss, a very gentle soul who was a wonderful listener and always encouraged you.

Howdy Ms. Sheriff & RRAK

How cute is this Ride 'Em Cowgirl set by My Favorite Things?! Even more to me since I won it from the My Favorite Things lady herself! I made this card using the TLC160 Cuttlebug Negative Effect on SCS which is really cool! It makes it look like washed denim to me. I used my new Paisley CB embossing folder - fun! Like others, I used natural hemp for the rope the gal is holding. Used Ballet Blue, Night of Navy & Cranberry Crisp (spoke western to me). I sent this RAK last week to Barb (Explore.Dream.Discover) who said, "I got your card today! It is spectacular!!!!! I wrote you back but I want to share with you now...you probably don't know but my hubby is in law enforcement! And when he saw this card he thought you made it with him in mind! Bwahaaaaa...men. They think all we do is talk about them LOL."

Isn't that funny? I was able to keep this a surprise and decided not to post it until she received it. Which, coincidentally enough gave me time to receive HER RRAK (Return Rak) yesterday! Isn't it just lovely? This is my first time seeing the PTI new colors, which I have been so good to hold off on getting. She made this flower! Can you believe it? She is so talented, which explains why she won 2 Guest Designer Spots in a row at Paper Trey and was recently selected for the Gina K Design Team! Thank you, Barb! I LOVE this card!!! Be sure to check out her awesome blog!!! She just posted receiving my card yesterday and kept it a secret that she sent me one back! Ha!

Librarian Thanks

April 15th is National Library Worker's Day so my Bookwormabella was perfect for a customer who requested a card to honor their school's librarian. I used my Basic Grey Blush pad and a brown prima for my embellishment. Used my Papertrey Ink Faux Ribbon set for the sentiment.

Princess Birthday

Here is a picture of my Almost 2-yr old Niece Princess Gabriella (Gabby) - this photo taken a few weeks ago playing dress up. Her Princess party is on April 26 (her real birthday) yea! But we have to miss it *boo hoo* but we will be out there to greet our new nephew on May 21 and be there to take Gabby for an ice cream! It's so cute when she says without prompting, "Auntie Donna coming, Nino John ice cream" because that's what we've been telling her. She is so cute! Don't you just love her cheesy smile? She got it when she started getting teeth & my sisters showed her how to smile to be sure to show them. She's been smiling like that ever since.

This is her special Princess gift I am going to send soon. I used Melanie's What's In Your Tin 2 by Gina K , Stampin' Up!'s retired Pretty Princess and their current Perfect Princess set. I used the Prints Pack for the princess background, used stickles on her dress, crown & wand.

On the inside are her goodies - I was so proud of the fact I know how to make jewelry & have stamping supplies to make her something really special she can wear on her special day. She will be so happy to have a necklace because she's been asking for one. She loves jewelry. She's had her ears pierced since she was 8 months and see the gold bracelet she's wearing in the first photo? She doesn't like taking it off anymore.

I used polyshrink for the necklace, bracelet & hair bow charms. I made 25 (12 sets of 2 for all the little girls who attend her party for their favor bags my sister is assembling) of these hair bows and one unique one for Gabby with her name on it! They cost me 50 cents for the ribbon & $1.50 for the barrettes and less than 3 hours to make. Totally worth it because they are so precious! I bet the little girls will like them. In addition to that, I picked up some small star wands, plastic bracelets, earrings and princess mints for the favor bags too, unfortunately my sister doesn't have a Hobby Lobby in their area so I was happy to be on the lookout for the goodies to send her.

Only a few butterflies were made because they ended up taking too much room on the polyshrink so I did the majority with flowers. I colored the images with Prismacolor Pencils (didn't realize they could be used on them, they were easy to color in & came out real vibrant once it was heated & cooled).

At Hobby Lobby, I also got this adorable Princess Tin purse for $4.99 and at Target found her 2 sets of Princess pajamas. I was so excited everything fit inside the purse! I know she's going to LOVE it all! Can't wait to see her open it on the webcam soon!

HB Melanie, Goodies & WSC42 - Thank You

Happy Birthday, Melanie! I am proud I was able to surprise her with a covert birthday card shower this week! Thanks to all the ladies who participated. Well, when I brought my card/gift to her, she surprised ME with some goodies - I love them all! She knows how much I love DCWV matstacks, so she got me the Spring one - it has 5 of each pattern (because they're not glitter or adhesive - so I begged her to take 2 of each of them to play with. Then these tubes of glitter (they are the cutest itty bitty flowers & hearts) and the colored safety pins are so cool. Thank you, Melanie...you're such a sweetie.

So since Beate posted her weekend challenge (WSC42), I used all my new goodies! I had to make a shaker card to showcase the itty bitty flowers (they really are adorable!) The patterned paper is from the stack (coordinating with Apricot Appeal, Soft Sky & Close to Cocoa). The set I stamped with is Simply Said - the sentiment a current level 1 hostess set by SU! The trio of circular white ribbon is from Trudee's Treats I won a few weeks ago - MORE awesome goodies (I got the copic marker, spica pens & making memories trims) I will post the card she sent me soon, it is just scrumptious! I messed up with the spacing on the top left white brads but it was too late to fix it (they were put there as an afterthought because I felt it needed more balance & I was eyeballing the 1/16" hole punches). Oh well...I think the shaker makes up for that!

Blessed with RAKS!

Recently I participated in my upline's shoebox swap for the Occasions mini & got a chance to chat & Stamp with Marilyn!! HA!! She is really the sweetest & most excited about stamping!! She gave me this pretty notebook! I will keep it at my desk to jot down notes about stamping while I'm at work if something inspires me! Thank you again, Marilyn! You made my day and I agree 'Life is Good'

The other day I got this awesome Thank You card from Charmaine at Oodabug Alley! She is so thoughtful, I tell ya! I totally loved this card when she posted it for one of Beate's Sketch Challenges - wanna know something funny I just realized? I sent her the same one I did that weekend too! Hmmmm...coincidence? I love the colors, the ribbon inspiration & how the bird is positioned & spotlighted in the corner, the cuttlebugging - Just Fabulous! You're Welcome & Thank YOU, Charmaine!

I Like You - SC170

I had to make something with my Basic Grey Cupcake 6 x6 DP pad I got the other day and thought Kristin's Darling Dragons would be fun with it. Then of course I had to add Kim's U R a Hoot party hat because this is a FUN card! I used today's sketch challenge SC170 for my layout (perfect). I had my Lined Paper backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms out so why not add that to the mix too? Well, I don't have the spiral punch *yet* it's on its way to me so I figured I would make the old school tear out paper from the notebook look. I really like how it turned out! Just punched the 1/8" hole punch doww the page & cut a slit from the edge to the holes with my snips and messed them up with my finger. Too real-looking huh?

The big blue brad is form my Basic Grey Two Scoops brad pack-see how nicely they coordinate with the fun cupcake paper & SU!'s Blue Bayou? Since this card was yelling FUN to me, I used my new Stampin' Up! Family Phrases for the sentiment which I have a feeling I will use a lot.

Quad-Color Fairy

I got inspiration for the colors of this card from a group of prismacolor pencils that happened to 'group together' on my desk when I was creating a different card the other day. I glanced down at what appeared to be Sage Shadow, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie & Ruby Red and thought those colors could make a neat card. When I sat down to make it, I decided to throw in some black for POP. I was real pleased with how this turned out (but before it had the top panel, there was a sentiment from the Enchanted Fairies set by Artful Inkables, which I stamped crooked). When I showed it to my DH, he said, 'I think it would look better if you had a panel on the top too' and I said, hmmm...'I think you're right then I can cover up the crooked sentiment!' Then a better card was born!

I absolutely LOVE coloring these fairies! Check out my brads from 7 Kids College Fund - they are by American Crafts Cherry (which I thought would match Purely Pomegranate but match Ruby Red more) & Carrot (which match Pumpkin Pie wonderfully!) I'm always bummed Stampin' Up! doesn't carry all 48 colors in brads so now I think I'm on a quest for them where I can get them.

Arte Y Pico Award from Joanne

Joanne - Just a Little Something awarded me the Arte Y Pico (Art & More) Award. It is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogging world.
Here are the rules: Thank you, Joanne!! Consider yourself tagged back because I LOVE your blog, artwork too!

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

I'm going to give this award to the following ladies:

Angie Tieman - Schwooo!
Barb Schram - Explore, Dream, Discover
Carolina Buchting - Carolina's Creative Pad
Lee Murphy - My Reality........It's All Good
Linsey Rickett - Outside the Lines

Hat to Thank You Paper Tole

I couldn't resist - even after having a tiring, long day (and a quick nap when I got home) I discovered my new Basic Grey paper pads arrived from 7 Kids College Fund (Coupon code for 15% off your purcahse: SAVE15 - good through April 4th) Their prices are great & fast shipping.

I used my Sultry (it is just that) on this card for TLC162 - Paper Tole-layering your colored stamped images for depth. I had a hard time picking out the paper I wanted to use, because I LOVE it all! I thought Rupa's set Thinking of You by Gina K Designs would be great for this (and it was so easy to cut out!) This was my first time using my Build a Brad by Stampin' Up! -what took me so long to get these?! They are just perfect to coordinate a brad with your card! I was able to use 3 patterns from the paper pad because of the design elements of the sketch. Which, by the way is CPS 58 (sponsored by Gina K Designs). Card Positioning Systems always has great sketches that I miss out on participating in but I couldn't resist today; making this a QUADRUPLE challenge - new technique, a new Gina K set, a CPS sketch & new paper - woohoo!

Here is a close-up of the tole

I Give a Hoot

Kim Hughes' owl is too cute! This is the bitty one - and doesn't he fit perfectly on Kristin's mushrooms from Enchanted Fairies? This is my first time using My Way punches by SU! (the arrows, you get 3, I just used the smaller two to draw attention to the sentiment. I used TLC160 Cuttlebug: The Negative Effect for my cardbase - it's just too cool! It really adds a lot of dimension to your card so I will definitely be trying this again. I also used my Lined Paper backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms - LOVE it! I decided I needed to jazz up the paper holes & used gold eyelets (most neglected embellishment in my stamp area) You probably can't see but I used my Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pen on the shrooms and the owl.

Celebrating You!

Sending this card to a special lady this week; used my neglected Bud Basics by Stampin' Up! and CC159 for my colors - Whisper White, Soft Sky & Basic Gray it's such a pretty combo! I also used my Pretty Pattern Backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms. I love Stampin' Up!'s taffeta ribbon - it ties so easily and is just luxurious.

Faux Onesie, Real Onesies and MORE for Baby Joseph

Here is my Labor Love for my nephew due in May. We will be going out for a visit and I can hardly wait!! I worked on these projects all last weekend & finished the last touches on Tuesday evening.


I had to make one of Lauren's Baby Onesie cards - here is her tutorial. It was super easy to make and I used Basic Grey's Oh Baby Boy Brighton for my patterned paper (for his other projects below too. It as perfect, using Green, Blue, Orange to make it BOY. I used Melanie's Just so Hoppy for the froggy announcing Joseph. He is going to be named after our Mom Josephine who died in 1996 and his paternal grandfather who also died in the 90's (Anthony). Joseph Anthony Gonzales. I can't wait to see his little face!!! The little bottle is from a Fiskars clear stamp baby set.

I love stamping real onesies too - I made some for Gabriella (Joseph's Big Sister) before she was born too. I think these came out better because I have more ROCKIN' stamps now!! Used Kim Hughes U R A Hoot for Cornish Heritage Farms on the Owl - Who Loves you? See the versatility in this set?? And Stampin' Up!'s retired Favorite Teddy for Wanna Snuggle? Isn't this cute!?? Who doesn't wanna snuggle with a sweet smelling baby?!

Some of my favorite all-time sets by Stampin' Up! are the Crayon sets - alphas (got both) Crayon Kids, Accessories, the first Ronald McDonald Heart & Home set. They are just the most charming for kids stuff! Sure wish they would come back with more!!! It looks cute with the froggy huh? It was my DMIL's idea to put Hoppy Baby...genius! Then of course since we live in Texas and they live in CA - I have to make a Someone in Texas Loves Me! But how perfect is it that I now have a Texas Shape!!? When I made my niece's I had to spell it out...this just takes the cake! Lastly the All in the Family set looks super delightful to have the whole family on the baby and to convey the message they are 'BLESSED' is appropriate.

Here is the Memory Tin I made to keep in his room. I got inspiration from semichocolate who got her inspiration from Beate Below is a picture of the contents of the tin. The tabs are for Joseph's Firsts of the Year my sister can jot importatnt stuff on & then transfer to a scrapbook if she wishes (and I hope she does). I really had a lot of fun making all of this. Melanie let me borrow her Tiny Treasures stamp from her What's in Your Tin 1 so I could complete the front of the tin.

Lastly (and thanks for sticking with me this long) is everything that fits in the tin (with the exception of the little frog). I made a set of wooden blocks covered with the patterned paper - tutorial by Emily at Stamping & Stuff (couldn't find the exact one, but if you do a search you can find it). It's real easy; just cut your paper to the block size & adhere with a coat of mod podge on the block and over the paper. Then sand the edges. I used SU!'s lots of chipboard letters (dipped them in VersaMagic Chalk Ink Spanish Olive). I also covered a small notebook with the paper & wrote on it 'Joseph said (did) the cutest thing today'. This is a notebook she can jot neat stuff in. I made one for my niece too but we ended up using it just to write notes to her because some day when they can read (and understand) they will know by the words we wrote how much we love & cherish them. There's something priceless about having hand written notes from your loved ones.

I have to share a picture of Gabriella - taken on Easter Sunday. This is one of her favorite books, preparing her to be a Big Sister, she already knows what she's going to do with Joseph when he gets here: feed the baby, hug the baby, etc. It's so cute when she says it all!

Target Steal (I mean Deal)

The reason I say that is because I didn't really steal it...purchased the following box of single panel notecards and matching envelopes - 200 count! For $6.88 plus tax (regular price was $9.88)! They were on the endcap in the scrapbooking, party area. I always check that stuff out now I regret not getting the pastels & metallics! Here it is in all its glory and next is the first time I used it - to make a quick card for a gift for a co-worker, matching colors on the bag (inside is a cute colorful Tinkerbell nightshirt (she loves Tinkerbell), a butterfly notepad & butterfly socks (she likes butterflies too). Used my Papertrey Ink Butterfly Kisses. Colors used are Green Galore, Orchid Opulence & Yoyo Yellow.