a true friend.

I am jumping up and down that this week is almost over! I'm feeling better, our new dishwasher is coming in tomorrow (hand-washing dishes all week for a family of five is the pits), we're starting spring break after today, and the card I just made is perfect for the new CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

I'm loving the new origami stamp set by Mama Elephant. It crept up on me. I didn't know how much I would love it at first glance, but there is so much you can do with it!  Did you happen to catch Emily's origami Yoda? so clever.  I water-colored my pooch in shades of grey for a softer look.

I heat-embossed the dog image and let the paint bleed around quite a bit before cutting it out. The background panel was also watercolored. Swipes of blue and green were painted very quickly, and then speckled with more grey paint.

I layered the hearts from the confetti dies and stuck them onto a clothespin.  I love the look of it.

I hope you like it!

♥.

AEIheartU, take 2.

I found a bit of free time this week, and my Avery Elle stamps were still sitting on my desk, so I decided to create another card for their birthday challenge.

Put a birthday candle at the top of a stack of macarons, and you've got yourself a party:

I started out with a piece of white cardstock, and stamped the macarons (masking as I went down the tower.)  I then masked all four of them, and stamped the flourish-y "celebrate" over the entire panel.



The candle was hand-drawn... mostly because I couldn't be bothered to get up and look through all of my stamps just to find a single candle image in the right size. ha.

I hope you like it!

♥.

celebrate!

I had some time to craft just for fun...

It felt good to ink up new stamps, by Avery Elle, and enter a few challenges.

Taheerah started a "cure for the monday blues" challenge, and always finds the most delicious inspiration:

I lifted the flower arrangement, in shades of pink.  I inked up the florals with a light pink ink, but used a sponge dauber to add darker pink to a few flowers before stamping onto my cardstock.

The striped table runner features as a chevron background.  

And all of the gold! I made good use of my glitter tape, even on the tiny clothespin.

I hope you like it! I'm also entering the AEIHeartU challenge, which is all about birthdays.

I think you can celebrate anything you like, with this card.

♥.

red hearts first birthday.

I know this post is gonna seem a little out of season, but it was perfectly timed when we celebrated my niece's 1st birthday a day after Valentine's.



My sister and I planned and baked a very tiny celebration for the tiniest (and cutest) one-year-old.  Seriously, she weighs in at only 15 pounds and is the daintiest little lady.



I knew we needed a solid prop or background to ground our party table.  This one cost me 1$, and took up under 2 hours of my time.  I cut a heart-shape out of a large cardboard box we had in our garage (the backside shows off the Sharp tv we recently bought for our basement) and I covered it in layers of fringed crepe paper.  You know the roll of streamers you can buy for 1$?  I went to town on the roll with my Martha Stewart fringe scissors and then taped down layers, starting at the bottom, and working my way to the top.  I lopped off the bottom of the heart so that it would stand up straight on the dessert table.

The easiest trifle-topping banner, thanks to my silhouette cutter.



mmmm.... trifle....



a chocolate mold and red candy melts made for very cute cupcake toppers.



I also used the same red chocolate hearts on my batch of sugar cookies, and Melissa piped red hearts onto her white cake pops.  Try as we might, perfectly round cake pops are the impossible dream... haha.

All of the paperie was created so simply: I used wplus9's knit stamps, lawn fawn's heart dies, and their quinn's abcs.



The favors were created by spraying the lids of Amelia's baby food jars, filling them with Valentine candy, and sealing them with a simple tag.

I hope you like this peak into Amelia's first birthday!

♥.