Happy Happy Birthday

Hello!

I've found some time to post a card I made last weekend for my friend's daughter who turned 1.  I wanted it to be fun and girly and I think I got it right...

Oh it felt really good to finish this one.  I've been in a funk lately, mostly because work has been unreal crazy!  Long hours, getting home late then getting up to do it all over again.  I'm lucky if I get to color anything lately, let alone complete a card, so having Mila's birthday card to finish felt like a really awesome accomplishment.  hehehe...  I was at Joann's a couple weekends ago and I picked up a set of Project Life Becky Higgins cards for fun.  I loved the patterns and thought they would come in handy for a quick card.  I was right!  The floral and banner print are from the LOVE collection.  Love the vintage feel to this set with it's fun color palette.  The white reverse scallop frame is a die from Lifestyle Crafts QuikKutz called Packet Scrap Dies - Hooray.  This set is made for the PL cards, so happy it fit right around the banner card.

I used Jilly's candle from Sweet November.  I loved coloring her up and adding her on to the front.  She fit perfectly with the birthday decor.  I also added an Island Scrapbooking laser cut sentiment colored with Copics and then used my WOS glitter pen to add some sparkle.  At the top of the card I used a LLC banner and hand-wrote "Happy" inside.  Here's a close-up of Jilly.  I think she is adorable and look I gave her some shiney curly locks. hahaha.

Well not sure when I'll be back, but I hope you're all having a nice weekend.  Hopefully once work settles down I'll be back to posting and coming around to see what you've all been up to.  I'm going to try to do some visiting soon.  In the meantime, Mahalo for stopping by.  Take care and happy crafting!!

Happy Birthday... America!

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all enjoying this wonderful Independence Day.  As I type fireworks are going off outside. Mind you these would be illegal fireworks because they are not legal to set off in this part of Los Angeles. Not that any of our neighbors care.  I'm sure there are other areas that are like that so all I can say is stay safe and don't be dumb!

I had a lot of fun making this simple birthday card. I used red cardstock and a Stamps by Judith star stubby stamp (whew trying saying that 3x fast! hahaha)  I went all around the edge using red hot Colorbox premium dye ink from MFT.  Next I pulled some fun red/white/blue patterned papers from We R Memory Keepers (Red, White & Blue 6x6 stack) and cut up two of the different patterns using different levels of the wonky Spellbinders dies.  The sentiment is an Island Scrapbooking laser cut.  Last is my image.  She is one of the Fairwees, Mia's Confetti, from Sweet November.  She's the perfect image to use for this celebratory card. I fussy cut her out including her wings and now she kinda looks like a mini Wonder Woman! hahaha...  I had no clue her outfit would turn out like that when I added the white stars to her skirt.  I love the affect!!

Wishing you all a wonderful and SAFE 4th of July weekend.  Be responsible, but have fun!  Mahalo for stopping by!

Me having fun with my photo app... Have a great weekend!!

Many Thanks

Good morning!!

It's back to work for me today.  I was supposed to meet up with my friend Nancy for dinner last night but her son had other plans for her.  He decided to make his appearance so dinner was definitely canceled!  {hahaha}  Last I heard she and he were doing good.  She asked me to make her some baby shower Thank you cards and she was brave enough to let me do my own design.  Love when I have free creative reign.  Her theme had lots of monkeys and she loves butterflies so for me it was pretty easy to come up with something that incorporated both.

 
It was really nice to not have to think about coloring an image.  I used a beautiful butterfly embossing folder on kraft cardstock.  Added white pigment ink to distress the edges to give it a soft look.  The monkey is from the Sweet November rubber stamp Safari Pals set.  I love how big each of the rubber stamps are and now ATS has scroll cut their stamps which is really nice.  I slightly altered the monkey by wiping away the mouth and adding a smiley face.  The sentiment is from Paper Smooches and it was stamped with white ink and embossed with white powder.  I rounded the bottom corners of the card and the final touch was adding the small butterflies.

Now that he's here I can't wait to meet him!  Okie dokes, that's it for me today.  Mahalo for stopping by today.  Have a great day!!
Hugs,
Leanne

Valentine's Day Tags & Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day!! 

I know the day's almost over, but I just had a chance to do a quick post so I'm taking a few minutes to do it.

My friend, Doreen Sanuki, who is also my co-worker and baker extraordinaire, and I decided to tag team for Valentine's Day this year.  She baked some delicious chocolate-chip cookies with red & white sprinkles and I made some cute tags to tie them to the bags.  I used the cute new Asian Meoples and the Love is in the Air Meoples.  You might also see a cute Sweet November Love bug floating around as well.  I trimmed them after coloring them and punched some tags out of paper from MS and Recollections.  I also printed out some pretty Valentine's Day cards that were a freebie from Webster's pages.  We tied red/white or pink/white Doodle Bug twine to give it a nice finish.  Here are some pictures...

These turned out really cute for a last minute Valentine's Day treat.  All items except the paper can be found at All That Scraps.  Next year we might do it again, but this time we'll try to be more proactive and do them earlier.  hehehe..  Hoping your Valentine's Day is wonderful!!

Have a great night and Mahalo for stopping by!!

Hugs,

Leanne

LFF #54 - Shhh.....

Hello...

Happy Aloha Friday everyone!

Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments!  Work has been so crazy and reading all the lovely comments makes the end of the day so much better.  Mahalo for making this girl's end of the day a whole lot better!  :)

Today for Lilo's Fun Friday I wanted to share a baby card I made for my friend Angie.  After stamp camp we became good friends and every month a few of us still get together for dinner and catch up.  She revealed to us that she was pregnant and boy were we all happy.  So many babies are on the way.  Love it!!  We were meeting up for dinner so I wanted to make a card for her.  Lucky for me a ton of really adorable baby images were just released from All That Scraps including some super cute forest and safari pals from Sweet November!!  Wow, Amy did an awesome job with this new release. And I can't leave out any of the CC Designs images... all super cute!!  

I purchased the digital images for most of the release and started to build a small scene...

Shhhh... don't wake the baby....

Oh darn!!  I missed a nose!!  {lol}  Oh well, hopefully Angie won't notice it.  hehehe...  Anyhoos, here's my card featuring the Forest & Safari pals who are making sure that Baby Bear Beatrice is staying all snuggled and warm during her nap.  The cool thing about BB Beatrice is that you can color her up as a little boy, which is what I did, no one the wiser. ;)  I had a lot of fun with the colors, mixing and mis-matching, but they all seem to go together.  I know there are a lot of mistakes, but hopefully I'll be forgiven.  {ha!} 

After I colored all the images (save for that nose) I cut the paper down and created a frame.  It was actually super easy.  After gluing down the colored image on to the dp I cut small strips of dp and angle/glued them in the corners.  Pretty easy!!  Oh look another handwritten sentiment {lol} hey I needed something fast. :)

Alrighty, time to say good night or good morning where ever you may be. 

Mahalo for stopping by.

Have a great Aloha Friday!!

Hugs,

Lilo

LFF #51 - More Holiday Christmas cards

Happy Aloha Friday!  Well it's almost over for some of us and pretty much Saturday for others.  Glad we are all still here so let's enjoy the time we have together.  I appreciate you all and thank each and every one of you who stops by!! MAHALO!!

Here are more Christmas cards I finished over the past couple weekends with some week nights in between.  Playing with some new images and some oldies again.  This set of cards features some lovely new ladies from Sweet November as well as some cute Fairwees... 

Here is Beth and Fairwee Piper

 

Chrissy and Fairwee Emaline

 Evie and Fairwee Daphne

I wanted to do something fun and cute with the Fairwees and I think adding each one really gives each card a little extra cuteness.  As you can see the layouts are the same, just the papers, and embellishments are different.  The sentiments are courtesy of AmyR, Paper Smooches and Studio G.

Alrighty, that's all for today.  No give-a-ways this time, but look for more fun in the future.  For now, Mahalo for stopping by!!  Enjoy your weekend as we count down to Christmas!!

Hugs,

Lilo

LFS #47 - Make a Keiki Smile cards

Hello!!

What a busy two days it's been!  Hoping you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are recovered from Black Friday shopping.  Today is Small Business Saturday and if you don't know what that means it's a day for you to go out and support your local small shops and businesses. I realize that you might be looking for big deals at the big retail stores but hope you also will support those small stores and businesses today.  I'm planning to visit a couple stores and restaurants that have always been good to me.  If you haven't seen the blinkie on my side bar go ahead and click on it to check out how Y&FH is celebrating SBS. 
Sorry it's been a busy day and it was too late to post something for yesterday's Lilo's Fun Friday so for today it's changed to Lilo's Fun Saturday.  I do have some fun cards to share that are CAS and were fun to make.  These were created for the Make a Keiki Smile card drive.  I am so happy to report that as of Monday, Kris has collected more than 300+ cards for the drive!  So totally awesome!  Here are few of the cards I sent to her.  {All cards are 4x4 without embellishments, sparkle or anything that can hurt the child who receives it}. 

The fun images and sentiments are all from ATS.  The characters are a mixture of the Meoples (Brrrrr..., Nativity and No Peeking digis} and boy they are so fun & cute!  The sentiments are all mixtures of Sweet November and AmyR stamps.  They were perfect for each card.  I will try to share the rest of the cards that were all just as CAS as the next.

I also forgot to pick a treat winner for the last LFS.  Congrats to Eva, I will be sending you your treat this week.  For LFF #47 question let me know if you like to make CAS Christmas cards or go all out? Leave a comment and I'll choose a winner and post it on Tuesday.  For me, it's a toss up and depends on how much time I've got.  Since I'm starting now, I'll probably have to mix it up with both. 

Have a great day and Mahalo for stopping by!  Don't forget to go out and support your local small businesses.
Hugs,
Lilo

Happy Howl-oween!

Hey everyone!!

Hope you all had a great weekend!!  Can you believe it's almost November?  Just a couple more days and we are there!  Wow, I better get going on my Christmas cards else I'll be doing what I did last year... Scrambling to get them done without any sleep!!  EEK!

Well don't want to think about anything now except more Halloween fun.  Over the weekend I went to Joann's and they were having a sale on Tim Holtz Sizzix dies, so I grabbed a few and had to use one of them right away for this Howling Halloween card...

Meet Jo Jo the Werewolf from Sweet November.  I colored him up with Copics.  The rest of the card was all Distress inks and dies. The tree was the Tim Holtz die I bought from Joann's.  After I cut it out I kept the negative of it and used it to make a shadow on the card.  Here is a picture of what it looked like with the moon and clouds. 

Pretty spooky yah?  muahhhhahaha....  This next picture is of the actual die cut tree that I sponged with Distress Inks walnut stain and black soot.  I moved it over a bit so it looks like there is a shadow being cast on to the tree from the full moon. 

By adding a fun sentiment, a creepy fence (WOJ picket fence), some bats and that big crow (Spellbinders) this turned out to be a pretty spooky yet fun Howl-o-ween card. hehehe...

Couple more days till Halloween, anyone going to dress up? Me?  Hm... I'm not sure yet.  If I do I'll let you knooooooowwwwwww.  (hehehe) 

Mahalo for stopping by today.  You all know how much I appreciate your kind words and support.  I hope to be able to do more blog hopping soon.  Take care and have a great day!!

Challenges: ATS Challenge - Anything Goes

Hugs,
Leanne

FBW #198 - Surprise!

Hi Everyone!

How is everyone doing today?  Great I hope! :)  Wanted to say Thank you to everyone that played in our FBW Anything Goes challenge last week and hope you all enjoyed our makes with our sponsored images from Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps.   Thanks again to Sparkle for sponsoring!!

This week at Flutterby Wednesday we have a really fun challenge.  We want you to make a birthday card!!  Don't forget your butterfly, fairy or angel.  For more inspiration please visit the rest of the team and make sure to leave them some love:  Anna, Danni, Harriet, Karen, Kristie, Lynette, Mary, Michelle VP, Michelle, Nancy, Peggy and Suzanne!

For today's card I wanted to use a stamp I haven't inked up.  I have tons of those and I feel really bad about that.  One of my goals is to ink those forgotten stamps up and put them on a card!  I looked through my Sweet November stamps and thought Piper's Surprise would be the perfect image for a birthday card.  Shame on me for not inking her up before today.  

Paired her up with one of my favorite stacks, Berry Sweet from K&Company.  I also did some paper piecing to save time and to jazz up my card a little bit.  Gave Piper some pink hair and yellow wings for a different look.  Also wanted to keep her coloring similar to the rest of the card.  I had fun making that triple bow with the pink & white twine.  I thought that big half pearl was a nice touch.  Kept the layout pretty simple and that butterfly is actually part of the bg paper. So sad I had to cover most of it up, but really glad I had enough of the scrap left over that I got to cut out that bigger butterfly at the top.  A handwritten sentiment and some fun photo corners and it was done!

Hoping you get a chance to play in this week's challenge.  We don't have a sponsor this week, but you have a chance to be in our top 5 and who can resist making a birthday card and wanting to share it with everyone?  Just remember to add your fairy, butterfly or angel.  Mahalo for stopping by!!  I'm looking forward to seeing what you create!  Happy Wednesday everyone!!

I found this challenge to play along in:
The Pixie Cottage Challenge - Paper Piecing

Hugs,
Leanne

Supplies not listed above:
White cs (Neenah)
Square Spellbinder die
Blue shiney cs (DCWV)
Distress Ink in Antique Linen (Ranger)
Tuxedo black ink (Memento)
Photo corner punch (EK Success)
Stickles
Copics:
E000, E00, E01, E11, R20, Y13, RV53, E40 

Lilo's Fun Friday #12 - C.A.T.S. & SSS

Happy Aloha Friday, or if you are in Samoa, Happy Saturday! :)
Appreciating and enjoying all the wonderful comments!  Thank you all so much for your support!  :)

For today's LFF I plan to share my Secret Santa and C.A.T.S. swaps.  (Sign up for January's SSS is on now and ends today at midnight 12/30/11 so if you want to play make sure to head to Kris' blog and leave her a message.)  

First up is the card I sent to my Secret Santa Sister, Shirl Nases. I was so happy to get her as my SSS, she's so sweet and talented.  The card features one of the new Holiday friends from Sweet November, Tess.  
Created a snowy scene with some none traditional colors and paper pieced her outfit.  The sentiment is from AmyR's, Snowman sentiments. I tucked in a Joann's gift card because I know she likes to shop nline. Can't wait to see what she buys. :)

Next is my C.A.T.S. swap.  I was paired up with Gail Woo from SF, Ca.  I don't know if she has a blog, but she's really sweet and it was really nice to read her note and catch up on what's been going on in her life.  Here are her card & tags - they are so cute!  Mahalo Gail!!

Love the cute Hawaiian snowman, her tags are pretty cool, and how cute is this tea bag holder?  What a terrific idea for next year!  Thanks Gail!!  Here's what I sent to her.  An easel card and tag.  I also threw in a Christmas card from me.  I hope she likes it.  Yikes, sorry for the bad pictures!  :(

Dec C.A.T.S. with Aloha flair.
Featuring Fairwees Jilly & Emaline

Used more of that green & white Aloha print paper and created a few wreaths to go with the scalloped circle card & tag.   I threw in a CAS card featuring Fairwee Daphne and AmyR's, Snowman sentiments.

 These Fairwees are so darn cute and the perfect size to add to any small kine card.

These swaps and are so much fun.  Giving and receiving from crafty friends across the country is always nice.  Wanted to say Mahalo to Kris & Joy for all their hard work and coordination.  You ladies are awesome!! 

I have a couple more posts before the end of the year.  Some birthday cards and 1-2 more Christmas posts.  Yep gonna try and sneak them all in before Sunday.  :)

Mahalo for stopping by!  Have a good evening or good morning!!

Hugs,

Lilo 

Snow fun with the Fairwees

Hello!  (yep this is my second post today, just scroll down to see the first one from today)
Just had to pop back in to share this fun scene that I'm thinking about putting in a frame and keeping.  It features a snowman & three Fairwees, including an altered one, I wonder if you can tell which one.. (hahaha) This is very CAS which has definitely been my style lately.



Sweet November's Fairwees:
Piper with Snowman, Snow Flurry Emaline & Mia/Piper combo
AmyR sentiment

Ta-da!!  I absolutely love the dp (2009 WRMK Merry & Bright) and how the rest of the scene came togther.  Using the pinks, grays, blacks and whites really made this scene come together nicely.  Doesn't hurt that these images are so darn cute and the perfect size for the dp.  If you didn't guess yet, I did a swap with Piper and Mia!  She turned out pretty good.  The scene is mounted on white cs and then onto black cs.  I like the way it's framed, so thinking it would look really nice inside a real one.  Just gotta choose one that works. Here's are some close-ups of the images:

Here's the swap image of Piper & Mia  :)

Don't they just make you smile?! :)  Can you blame me for wanting to keep this to myself?  (lol)  I have one more Fairwee project to share.  Just need to finish it up.  Mahalo for stopping by and leaving me lovely comments.  You all know how much I love them.  :)

Hugs,
Leanne

Christmas cards with Sweet November

Hello everyone!
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day, we did and spent time with our adopted family the Ontiveros' who spent the day with us, opening gifts, baking cookies, crafting for an hour and yes, eating amazing food prepared by my momma.  Today I think it's a time for recovery and possibly some shopping, but the latter might be just too much for me, even if there are some awesome sales going on out there.

I wanted to share a few more Christmas cards I made using some of the cutie patootie Sweet November Fairwees and one of the Sprites.  I have quite a few pictures so there won't be too much writing except for captions.

SN - Penelope & Juniper with a Spellbinder wreath

SN - Fairwee Josie's Mistletoe & AmyR sentiment

SN - Piper & AmyR sentiment

SN - Fairwee Mia's ornament & SN sentiment

I used scraps of dp from the Christmas paper pads I've been using for this year's Christmas/holiday cards, always nice to use those up.  Most of the images were colored with Copic markers.  Sorry I don't have any of the colors handy.  I will try to do better in the future.  Here are some close ups:

I stamped the image on kraft and then stamped Josie on white
cs, colored her up, cut her out and glued her on top.

I have a few more Fairwee Christmas cards and projects to share, but I think these cuties should get their own time to shine.  Mahalo for stopping by and hoping today is either a day of recovery for you, a day of successful shopping for some really awesome deals for next year, or maybe you can sneak in some crafting.  Not sure yet what I want to do, but relaxing sounds really nice.  lol..  Whatever you decide to do, have fun doing it!

Hugs,
Leanne