Stenciled with Avery Elle

A new week!  Last week I enjoyed working with some of my Stampin' Up! stamps again.  This week I'm revisiting the Online Card Classes class called Stenciled.  If you haven't taken it, I would totally recommend it.  I have a few stencils that were still brand new, so I decided to get some ink of them this week.   This stencil is from My Favorite Things, but I think it has been retired.  They have plenty of really awesome ones that you can see here though.   I paired it with a die and coordinating stamp from Avery Elle.  I still love my stitched dies from Lil' Inker and have to use those!  This set is great because the largest die just puts the stitches on the card base; it doesn't cut anything.

Laila did her own bit of watercoloring this week.  :)

Stampin' Up! Best Thoughts

It'ms time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  Karren is our amazing sketcher this week and has a fun one!  If you like using large images or a big panel of white space, it's going to be the perfect sketch for you!  I took advantage of it and used this big ol' flower from this Stampin' Up Best Thoughts set that has been sitting uninked (gasp!) on my shelf for way too long.  I used some watercolor paper and my Gansai Tambi watercolors.   I am not a watercolorer, but it was fun to play.

See?  Isn't that fun?  I love the little angle sliver on the edge.  It helps add a fun bit of interest beside the large panel.  Sneak in a little piece of that pretty paper you've been hoarding.  ;) 

Stampin' Up! Bloomin' Beautiful

Happy Tuesday folks!  I'm sharing a card I made with this week's Mojo Monday sketch with you today.   For this one, I pulled out what I think was my very first Stampin' Up! set I bought from my first demo.   It is called Bloomin' Beautiful and it has some lovely flower images.  I haven't distressed anything for a while, so I added some of that for a more rustic? feel.

I hope you are enjoying the week of Stampin' Up! cards I'm doing.  I have another one for you tomorrow for this week's Freshly Made Sketches sketch, so stay tuned!

Stampin' Up! Aviary

I realized that my Stampin' Up! stamps were probably starting to feel neglected, so I decided to make the first week in April a week of using them!   My first card I grabbed the adorable retired set called Aviary.   I used my Color Coach for a color combo of Crushed Curry, Coastal Cabana, and Pumpkin Pie.  I thought it turned out cute!  Simple, but with some added embellishments that make it a little fun.  :)

We went to Baskin Robbins on Tuesday to have a scoop.  Laila had a blast and by the end of her cone, she had a complete chocolate goatee.  lol  It was making the people walking in laugh.  She had a pretty good week, but man did I struggle.  I guess I'm going to have to talk to my ob/gyn about the big H word.  My hormone levels cause me so much toil and trouble as they change throughout the month.  I'm taking antidepressants and have anxiety meds to help, but it's just not enough.  I know we aren't having more kids and I'm over 40 now, so there's no reason I need all those girly parts.   They are just causing trouble!   Today has been productive however!  Jason replaced the faucet that's been leaking, we've rearranged the living room, I worked on organizing Laila's playroom and our homeschool stuff, and we are about to start making the potato and corn chowder that's for dinner.  :)  And I made this card.  :)  

I hope you are having a good weekend!

Grumpy Bunny Birthday

Wednesday and time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  Jen B is our sketch artist this time and I hope she doesn't mind I added a circle. :)   I wasn't sure what I wanted to make but then the Easter Bunny brought me some Brusho Watercolor Crystals!  I used them for my background and wow!  It was so easy the first time out of the box!  I added some Bermuda Bay and Coastal Cabana papers and the gumpy little bunny from the Taylored Expressions Grumplings and called it good.  Now I need to find a fellow grumpy person that can appreciate this card.  lol

I hope everyone had a great Easter!  We were up super early that day, but Laila had a blast digging in to her basket.  She got her own kitchen gadgets and I'm pretty sure they were her favorite.  We used them on Monday to make pancakes.  :) 

Isn't she a doll?  :)   She had so much fun making a mess...and pancakes.  She wanted to make them again yesterday too!  I have a feeling we will be eating a lot of butterfly shaped pancakes for a while.  

Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

I'm a bit behind on playing along with the Coffee Lovers for the Spring blog hop, but I'm sneaking in on the last day!   I had a little stamping time with a friend  yesterday and I took my new watercolors and some Copics over and made this card.  I am not really a pastel kind of gal, but they totally say Spring to me, so I used them.  :)   I added a little sequin flower embellishment to my cup because hey, what else says Spring like flowers?!

It's been quite a week.  We had some awful storms come through on Wednesday night and man!  They woke us up at 5am and made for a very long Thursday.  I think I could take the longest nap ever.  Today I need to clean a bit and go shopping for Easter dinner.  It's just the three of us, but we still like to make ham and all that goes with it.  It makes for a lot of leftovers, so less cooking for a few days.   I hope to color eggs with Laila today and start putting Easter baskets together.  I have no idea what I've bought at this point and I hope I can find all the stuff I hid around the house for them.  lol  If not, Christmas stocking stuffers they will be! Ha!

Freshly Made Peeps

I'm finally back with my Freshly Made Sketches sisters this week.   Those girls sure love me and don't kick me off the team when I stumble.  Cindy is the sketch hostess with the mostest this week and I'm hoping she finds my interpretation of it acceptable.  I had this idea and went with it, but then I wasn't sure it was close enough to the sketch.   It's all about inspiration though, right?  Yeah.  We're going with that!  lol

I just love these little Peeps from Simon Says Stamp.  They are just the most adorable things.  I didn't get my kit in time to make up a bunch of Easter cards, but there are a lot of sentiments in the stamp set that will work for all year.  Who doesn't love Peeps in say August?  lol 

Now I'm gotta go get the eggs ready for Laila's Easter party tomorrow.  Fun! 

The Greeting Farm Ponies

Laila has been into My Little Ponies a bit so I just had to get the cute Magical Friends set from The Greeting Farm.  I got lucky and they are having an animal challenge as their March Farm Fresh challenge, so I am totally entering!  Aren't they the cutest?!   I added in a little rainbow and clouds from Paper Smooches.  The background is lightly watercolored with some purple.  

I'm still working on feeling more human.  I got some new Vitamin D and iron to try and my doctor referred me to get an endoscopy to make sure I don't have any bleeding that could be causing anemia.  That sounds a bit scary.  :/   Laila and I have gotten off track with our homeschool stuff, but we are doing it as we can and I feel like it.  

She loved this scorpion spinner game.  lol   And below is her angry camel that she made this morning.