CHA w/ La La Land Crafts

How's everyone doing? Sorry I've been out of touch, but all for a good reason. I've been at CHA for the past couple of days and it has been such a wonderful experience. I have to say a really big Mahalo to Kim Yu for asking if I wanted to volunteer at CHA for La La Land Crafts. I was excited, especially when I found out my bestie Renate was also going to volunteer. Although it was exciting it was also a little bit intimidating because I/we did not know a whole lot about the company. I knew Kim was on their design team and she has designed some really awesome projects and cards for them. You all know I'm a TGF, Sweet November, sometimes CC Designs kinda gal, but I really have to say, Marci and Luka have given me another reason to love stamping. These cute little kids are the creation of Irina Blount and Eric Berry. They are such a great team and it has been such a wonderful experience to be around them all. If you don't already know about the La La Land Crafts stamps and their newest kids, Marci & Luka you must check them out. And finally meeting Kim has been so awesome!! We didn't get to spend a lot of time together as we were on different shifts, but the time we did have to get to talk and hug and say hi was really awesome. Irina and Eric are really great people who have a great passion for their company. I was really blown away by the design of their booth. It's so homey and welcoming and their attention to detail is so awesome. You can tell they put a lot of thought into what they wanted to portray and believe me it definitely shows. They are having so much fun with it all. Yes, it's stressful, but it's worth it to see their exhausted but satisfied smiles at the end of each night. It's so awesome to be a part of it. Everyone has been giving us such wonderful comments about the booth and most of all, of the images and designs. I will have to ask Irina & Eric if I can post some of the pictures from the show so you all can see what I'm talking about. All I can say is our booth rocks! hehehe...
I've met so many people from around the world as well as from the U.S. and even met the designer of Simply Betty, Betty herself and some of her DT came to visit our booth. That was pretty cool. Also met the ladies from 7 Kids College Fund. That was also way cool. So many different accents, but all with the same purpose in mind, to keep this "hobby" that we love going. On a side note, I was able to go and search for and found... drum roll please.... The Greeting Farm booth!!! YAY!! I was really excited to find them and was pretty excited to meet the fabulous, Jessica Diedrich as well as Ray who was pretty busy taking orders. I was a little bummed that Marie wasn't able to make the trip down but totally understood that she was at home with baby Lily. I was able to chat with Jessica for a bit and also check out the TGF booth. Ladies, I wish you could all have seen all the wonderful cards on display. Also, the altered books you all submitted. My goodness I was blown away by each detail and seeing them in person is even better than seeing them in the gallery and blog. You ladies really rocked those cards and altered note books. I did find one book that I recognized right away. I hope she doesn't mind that I am going to post it here, but if you could have seen it in person you would understand. I apologize in advance for the quality of the picture, it was from my phone. Alrighty, that's all for now, I'll try to post more tomorrow and definitely get permission from Irina and Eric. For now, enjoy these pictures of myself and Jessica as well as the fabulous Rachel Schneider's The Cullen Family altered notebook.

Hugs!!
Leanne

Happy Birthday Elise!

Hello! Sharing this frame and card set I made last night for my co-worker/craft buddy Elise. I was trying for girly girl with the dp I chose as well as the image. Cute WS-Ebony graces both the card and the frame. I altered Ebony on the card using Fleur Anya's body from the Greeting Farm. The image of Ebony on the frame is a digi. I just love this little girl. :) Colored her up with Copics trying to match the dp I used from the DCWV Flower shower paper pad. I lucked out because I also have the blank cards set that matches the dp. So lucky because I cut the time in 1/2 making the card. Just used left over dp from the fram to make the scalloped oval and used some cute ribbon and gems. Yes, I made the fuschia ribbon look like wings behind her. Added a crystal butterfly and a sticker in the bottom right corner. Lastly I used Stickles on most of the flowers to give it a glitter/textured feel. For the frame I cut out a few of the flowers from the dp on the inside and placed them randomly at the corner. I had an extra fuschia ribbon and used it as a bow and topped it off with a ready made flower. Used more stickers for the top and bottom of the card and mod podged the whole thing. Here are some random pictures of the areas I popped.

Thank you for stopping by! Hugs, Leanne

Geisha

Hello! I'm popping in for a quik post. I made this last night and had fun making it. Most of the supplies used were purchased from Hanko Designs back in October or November and I just now had a chance to use them. The paper is called pink Tsumugi cs. Broke out the un-used Kodomo wood mounted stamps and Kodomo foam stamps. The image to the left named "Chinese borders" includes the two stamps (top one and lower right corner) I used to make the border and the other set of stamps are foam stamps named "Chrysanthemum set". I paired them up with Geisha Anya from The Greeting Farm. I just love this little gal. My very first card I received that featured a TGF image was this little girl. She's one of my favorites. I colored her using the black/white on kraft cs tutorial from Jen Shults again. I wanted sorta vintage and this was the easiest way to go. I also colored some of the flowers using the same coloring. I embossed the pink Tsumugi cs (also purchased from Hanko) using one of my Japanese Cuttlebug folders to give it more texture. (Hope you can see it.) After cutting out all the images I popped them here and there. The borders, flowers, even the flower in Geisha's hair was popped. I punched out some small flowers to hide where the border images come together and I tried to make them look similar to the chrysanthemum's. I gemmed them and colored using Copics, so yes I did use some Copic coloring in this card but very little. Here are some angles of the card to see where all the popping occured...

I'm thinking of submitting this for the FFF over at TGF. I think it qualifies. Hope you all have a great Tuesday!! I'm outtie for now!
Hugs,
Leanne

Kraft Time with Friends

So I changed up my blog background, going between blue, green and this red one. I think I'll try this one on for now since it's almost Valentine's day. :)
So today some special friends came over to visit. It was only supposed to be a fun visit for a few hours then turned into a card making session for the rest of the day. You won't believe what talent these individuals have once you give them stamps, markers and a purpose. We decided on a Valentine's Day card and a birthday card for their grandma. They all had so much fun and boy do they have great imaginations! I was able to make a card as well using Ballerina Anya. I punched out two hearts and gave her wings. Here are some pictures of what the others did..

Aren't they amazing? I'm so happy that this unexpected kraft day happened, and they each have something to show off because they made them. I was super impressed with Jovana's card with Lolli Anya and Oliver. This was her first time making a card and coloring with Copics. I didn't show her how to color Lolli's hair, but she did it like a pro. She didn't believe me when I told her it was addicting, she is now considering buying some stamps, paper and markers, oh my!
Well that's all I have to share for now. Wishing you all a very nice Saturday night and a fabulous Sunday.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs,
Leanne
*All images from The Greeting Farm*

Thank you Joshua!

Happy Saturday everyone! First off thank you all for you encouraging words as well as sharing with me your commitments to get healthier. I believe if we all have some support it will continue to be easier. Great job and Thanks so much for sharing!! :)
I just had a wonderful visit with some family friends and will post some pictures of what we did, but first I wanted to share a card I made for one of the temps at our office. His last day was Friday and I have been wanting to give him a card using Handy Ian. This was my chance. He was actually part of our Bldg Ops team in the maintenance department and when Marie from TGF first released the Handy Ian image my first thought was, "OMG, that looks just like Joshua!" With a few small add-ons I was able to replicate him.
He wasn't just a great handyman and overall nice guy he was also one of the best softball players in our league at work. So for the inside of the card I used baseball Ian and colored him using Jen Shults' awesome coloring with black & white on kraft cardstock technique. Well I tried my best to mimic what she did, but I definitely need more practice. I really like the technique and what I can do with it. I added in a softball in the corner using the same coloring and shading. Lastly my awesome baker friend, Doreen made Joshua a going away super big chocolate chip cookie. Unfortunately he wasn't their to enjoy it since he didn't come into the office. Oh well, we enjoyed it on his behalf and I will be mailing the card to him. hahaha!!
Thanks so much for stopping by and seeing what I've been up to. Will share some pictures and some cards made by some special friends next.
Hugs,
Leanne

All images by the Greeting Farm

BTW

Happy Friday!
I hope you all had a good week. It was a pretty good one for me. On Tuesday I decided to start a healthy lifestyle regimen. What to do, to get motivated? Well my co-worker and someone I consider a little sis "enrolled" me in coming to work at 6am to join her for a Zumba workout. I have not been the best person to get up in the morning let alone at 6am to workout, but I actually did it for the past 4 days. I have to say Zumba is pretty fun and if you ever get a chance to try it be prepared to be a little confused, but also open to having fun and sweating! I hoping to continue this regimen until I get in shape or until softball season starts. I'm sore today, but it's a good sore. I'm just happy that today is Friday and that the weekend will give me time to recover and rest so that I can start it all over again on Monday. :) Wish me luck!! :)
This is a card I submitted for my first TGF contest of the year. The contest was a FFF and the challenge was a color one: black, turquoise and mystery color. I chose to go with white as my mystery color. I used Cheeky Mate along with some MS & flower punches. The dp is left over from another card. For added bling, I included a fun sparkly turqouise ribbon and colored up some clear gems. Like I mentioned it was my first challenge of 2011 and I'm happy with the result.
Ok, that's all for now, have a great Saturday and I'll be back with another share tomorrow! Nite, nite!!
Hugs,
Leanne :)

Christmas cards

I have a few Christmas cards and a frame project to share. These were made for another co-worker of mine, he's only 19 and wanted to impress his family by being more thoughtful and asking for handmade items this year. I think he was trying to get brownie points, but whatever his motives, I was really happy to help him out.
He requested the frame for a girl he's dating and wanted something feminine yet sassy. I think I accomplished that goal. The cards were all random Christmas cards. He had no preference in the design as long as one of them had a snowman, Santa and a Christmas tree. Lots of glitter and fun dp to go with the cute stamps I chose. He was really happy and he said his family was very, very touched that he went to all the trouble. Score!!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that you are looking forward to a great week. I'm feeling so much better that I'm actually looking forward to work. Must be that I'm blogging and crafting again. That's what the doctor should have ordered!! hahaha!!! It's great to be back and I hope I don't stay away too long. Have a great week!!! Mahalo for stopping by!
Hugs,
Leanne

Pink, Black & Skulls

Hello, I wanted to share the latest card I made. It's a pretty simple one except for the image I used. It's actually 4 images in one. Can you tell? This was another birthday card for a co-worker. She loves skulls, but not so much into pink, but I thought it was the perfect combination. I stamped 3 of the Greeting Farm Creepers (Sweet, Wednesday & Friday) and used parts of them to create this one. The shirt was from an old TGF stamp set, perfect for my card. I used Copics to color everything and Stickles to glitter the skulls. Since the image itself was the main focus I stamped the pink skull (also from the Sweet & Toxic TFG stamp set) all over the cover of the card and used a kid quote from Inkadinkado to finish it off. My co-worker Doreen had the same idea and made a cake using pink frosting and a skull with a bow. You can't tell in the picture above but yes, that was a pink cake, not orange or red. Sorry the quality is so bad, my cell phone doesn't have a flash so the lighting is pretty dark.
And this is what the rest of the card looks like. Told ya it was plain and simple. Kinda sassy too huh? I had a great time mixing and matching the different images to create this one. Can't wait to do another one with a different mix of stamps. Mahalo for stopping by!! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!! Hugs, Leanne

Time 2 Celebrate

Happy Sunday everyone!
I wanted to say thank you for the wonderful comments and encouraging words. I'm feeling much better and hopefully will be in top form to go back to work. It's going to be one of those crazy weeks, but hopefully I will have time to relax with crafting and hopefully getting in a few challenges. I have some items that need to get in the mail which are long over due, so I have a lot on my plate. I can't wait.
For now I have a card to share. I made this for my co-worker's birthday. I made the card into a tri-fold with a pocket in the center. The front of the card was pretty simple with a simple striped glitter paper from dcwv "The At Home" stack and I cut out the clock from the same stack. For the next panel I embossed some craft paper and on top of that I used Spellbinders to cut out blue shiney paper and the same striped cs. I die cut the two with my Cuttlebug. As for the center of the card I made a pocket and on top of that I cut out some of the same blue shiney paper and had some left over striped paper. Then using a couple stamps from the Greeting Farm I stamped Celebrate, then Happy Birthday. I actually was very surprised how much I liked the card. It was very masculine to me and yet elegant because of the paper and the glitter.

Thanks again for stopping by, hope you have a great Sunday!!
Hugs,
Leanne