Christmas and St. Patrick's Day!

I know! Christmas and St. Patrick's day - what do they have in common! Nothing except I finished 2 things yesterday! One was my goal to do 10-15 Christmas cards each month so when I get to December I'm not stressed out!

I used Card Patterns #55, Bo Bunny paper (the santa), and Basic Grey Fruit Cake paper along with some buttons and ribbon I've had in my stash for quite some time to make some cards. These cards satisfied my committment to myself for February (I didn't do any in February) and little for March!




My next project is one I've worked on for a couple weeks now. I had had St. Pat day pictures taken (or I took them) every year for quite some time to make cards. I found this really cool board book and paper kit from Little Yellow Bicycle and decided to go through all those pictures and create sort of keepsake of st. pat pictures. I made 3 of these books ~ one for me, one for my daughter, and one for my son!





The little kit of paper is so cool because it is cut to the shape of the board book (each page is a little different shape). There are also extra pieces of paper so you can back your pictures and some little stickers to embellish with (like the Lucky Me on the cover). I added a few other things and it was done! I had most of it done a couple weeks ago but I needed some pictures from this year to complete it.





I'm looking forward to seeing if Little Yellow Bicycle will come out with some other really fun books like this!

I love these pics on the back cover ~ Shaina is so serious and Carl is clowing around!

2 Sketches 4 You ~ St. Pat's Day Door Hanger

I decided to make Kazan's sketch #46 into a St. Patty's Day door hanger. I got this really cool green sparkly paper at Michaels (My Mind's Eye, Home) and used that for all my pieces of patterned paper. The clover is from the cricut cartridge "indy art." I believe st. patrick's day is from the designer calendar cricut cartridge. The little leprechaun is a quickutz original (I'd actually cut a bunch of them out years ago and hadn't used them all ~ there are so many pieces I bet I wouldn't have had the patience today to do it anyway!).

Hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend! It is beautiful and sunny in Oregon!

More Green! (2 Sketches 4 You week of 3/2/09 and Card Patterns 2/28/09 + a couple other projects!)

Last week I wasn't able to do any of the sketch patterns. It was such a busy week! Our dishwasher had totally quit 2 weeks ago and we got our new one installed last Saturday + we got a new refrigerator! What a difference it is making! Also, my daughter got sick and work was busy! This week everyone has been well and I actually took part of the day off today because I'd worked so much during the week and there was no school today! We had a great day ~ went to the outlet stores to Aeropostle and both kids got some new shirts. Lunch from Burger King and then watched a movie together on the Disney Channel. Nice and relaxing.


Then I had some time to work on some cards! The first 2 are using Kazan's sketch this week at 2 Sketches 4 You. I was really in a green mood again. I found these cool poems at the QuoteGarden.com that make great cards. If you are ever looking for quotes and poems, that is the place to go!









The 2nd 2 cards are for the CardPatterns sketch this week. I used some more of the poems! On all 4 of these cards I used Reminisce patterned paper ~ the darker version is from this year and the lighter version is from past years. They actually went together pretty well.























This week there was an auction at my daughter's school and her teacher asked me to "dress up" the lunch they were providing for the auction ~ here is the before version that she sent home from school and below is my "dressed up" version.























I also finished up 24 cards for another recognition event at work. I decided to make cards that celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday. I made my own patterned paper using the words from the state song "Oregon, My Oregon." We will have the Director and Deputy Director along with me sign them and then they will be tied on to bags with our agency logo.

My old boss used to tell me that we have agency stationary but I always think if I make them they are more special. I try to make different ones each time we have a recognition event! This one is similar to one of Laura's sketches at 2 Sketches 4 You a couple weeks ago!

Thinkin' and Feelin' Green! St. Patrick's Day is the Next Holiday!

Today was a Holiday so I didn't have to go to work today! We had some errands to run but I actually had time to work on sketches early this week! I was in the St. Patrick's day mood as I had just gotten out all of my St. Patrick's day paper. I usually make some cards for the food drive for every holiday so this is a fun one! It is fun to make things green! So here are some green cards! The first one is Kazan's Sketch 20 for the week of 2-16-09. I turned it upside down. The shamrock is made of the irish blessing printed on cardstock. I made the pattern after seeing a card a few years ago on scrapbook.com. The shamrock brads are from Oriental Trading. The little love charm is from Michael's (found it in the wedding section). The green patterned paper is imaginisce (I've had it for a couple years!). The little tag thing with lucky me on it is a quickutz die and Lucky Me is one of those cool $1 stamps!

The 2nd card is for Julie Campbell's bonus sketch. The patterned paper is from my stash. The stamps are also $1 stamps! The poem I found somewhere on the internet and typed in. The circle is a quickutz cookie cutter and the leprechaun is an original 2 X 2 quickutz ~ I'd cut out a bunch one year when I was making cards and they never fit quite right on what I was making so now I have a bunch ready to go!

I found another cool sketch web-site this morning called Card Patterns - see the blogs that I follow for a link! Kristin Swain who was on 2 Sketches 4 You design team before is now on their design team! This is only the 2nd week of their sketches so it is very cool to get in on it early! I used the same poem and some more paper and stamps from my stash!

The last 2 pictures are of some shakers that I did using the same poem and the cute leprechauns! Just having a good time with green today! And shakers are so fun!

I've still got more green paper in my stash and still a month to St. Patrick's day so you can bet there will be more green cards coming!