Paper Lollies

A friend asked if I could help her decorate the party room for her daughter's upcoming birthday party. The theme is "tea party" and you all know how I love tea parties so I readily agreed to do it. At first, I thought of making the usual tissue paper pompoms. For those of you who are followers of the blog, paper pompoms usually make an appearance in most Craftmates parties as shown here, here, and here. 

This time I wanted to make something different so I searched the internet and found this video tutorial from Rhonna Designs for making paper lollies. They're super easy to make, frugal, and oh so cute! I used materials I already have on hand like bamboo skewers, left over scrapbook papers, book pages, paper doilies, and buttons.  

I had leftover gold paper doilies from Christmas that I used

This is my favourite

 And here they are all together.

The party is in two weeks and all the Craftmates will be there so watch out for the pics in a future blog post. 

Have a great day!

i { heart } zoo

One of Frances’ early favourite places to frequent  is the zoo.  At first, she was drawn to mostly the farm animals.  But as she grew older, she has developed a liking for the bigger, fiercer animals as well.  Last month, we visited the Bowmanville Zoo.  This zoo’s claim to fame is that it is home to many famous Hollywood celebrity animal actors. We watched some demonstrations of some of their trained animals and we thoroughly enjoyed the many activities  this place has to offer.

Now on to my layout...

I used Papertrey die (modern alphabet) and patterned paper, DCWV cardstock, Jillibean Soup and Crate patterned papers, Bella Blvd washi tape and Echo Park and American Crafts embellishments.

Close ups...

Have a beautiful day ahead!

butterfly card

I fell in love with the Beautiful Butterflies set the minute I saw it over at Papertrey last February.  I tried for a few months not to give in though since I already have a butterfly set.  But seeing the many wonderful cards made with it, I soon found myself putting this set in my cart (at least I tried to resist for a few months!).

Here is a card I made which I am sure was inspired by / CASE'd from one of the many cards I've seen online.  This set comes with dies but I did not get them.  Instead, I cut out the butterfly image on a piece of paper and just used that as a mask as I layer the butterflies in my card.

I used melon berry, summer sunrise and berry sorbet inks.  Don't they look (and sound) yummy?

I also made coordinating envelope and gift card holder, all ready to be used for the next celebrant. 

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! 



flashback friday: march slice of life



I am back with a quick post today... Here is another instalment of my monthly Slice of Life layout.  This time, it's for the month of March.    

I  used Papertrey stamp (Postmarks for the date), Martha Stewart cardstock, Echo Park patterned paper and Quickutz alpha die.


Close up of the journaling...

Have a great weekend! 

face painting

The highlight of my DD’s visit to The Ex (which I shared last time) was her face painting.  This was the first time that she was able to sit still and actually complete a full session of face painting.  I was surprised at how detailed her instructions were to the artist on what she wanted on her face.  (She did not let the artist touch her face until they have agreed on what was to be done, haha!). Then after the painting came the mirror obsession.  She was glued to the mirror for what seems like forever…  just standing there, admiring herself and smiling from  time to time.  I just had to make a separate layout for that!

And so, here is my layout.

I used Papertrey die (butterfly dreams, modern alphabet upper case), Stampin' Up cardstock and swiss dot embossing folder.  I again printed my journaling from my regular printer by trimming off my cardstock to less than 8.5 inches wide.

 Hope you are having a fabulous week!

Addicted to Swaps

Since joining swap-bot in July of this year, I have participated in numerous swaps - postcards, papers, fabrics, ATCs, handmade crafts, and many other things. I am totally hooked and have to stop myself from signing up on a lot of these swaps. I try to limit myself to one swap a week so as not to overextend myself. 

Before swap-bot, the very first swap I participated in was the Secret Sisters hosted by Carla of "1/2 Dozen Daily". Carla is doing another Secret Sisters so please hop on over to her blog if you would like to join. 

Here are a couple of projects I recently completed for some swaps.

 This is for a "Bird theme Christmas ornament" swap. I used this tutorial from Zakka Life. 

This one is for an ATC swap and I used a paisley rubber stamp and did some embossing. I really liked the way it turned out. 

Okay, I'm off to do some more ATC's that will be due next week so bye for now.

Enjoy and have a great day!!!

let's go to the ex

Because of our one-page memo trainings at work, I tend to write very briefly… short, concise and straight to the point.  I tend to do the same in my scrapbook journaling as well.  For this layout, I tried to change things up a bit and include more details of what we did during the day.  I felt it was the perfect layout to try this since we did a lot of things during our last visit to The Ex (Canadian National Exhibition).  It helps to be very detailed sometimes so that years from now as I look back at these pages, when my memory starts failing me, I will still be able to recall what happened during that day. :)

I used Papertrey die (modern alphabet), patterned paper and cardstock (enchanted evening).  The arrow is from my paper stash and the white cardstock is from Michael’s Recollections.

Close up of the journaling...

Thanks for stopping by!