Happy Birthday Hubby

This post is celebrating my husband’s (TLC) birthday!  It is a memorable one.  The first one since he officially became a doctor.  Yep, that’s right a congrats to a new PhD in Physical Chemistry.  It only took him a year longer to finish than me, but he is the one with the job offers so I won’t be teasing too much.   It is also your first birthday as my husband.  This is a big year for both of us with many more changes on the horizon.  I am so lucky to be with you and

Birthday card made with a martha stewart punch and a little twine. Simple.

Anyway, here is a birthday card I made.  It is relatively simple, but I wanted to try out a punch I recently picked up, the Martha Stewart “Happy Birthday” punch.  I used the punch on some patterned cardstock.  I was inspired by the Happy Mail Challenge 4  (tie it up) to add some twine.

I love the idea of Happy Mail, and idea from Stacy Julian at BigPictureClasses .  Happy Mail is hand written cards/ notes sent via snail mail.  A campaign Stacy started to bring happiness.  Super cute idea.

I will however be submitting this card to CAS-ual Fridays to use winter blue.  While I am the first to admit this is not very wintery  it is blue a winter birthday blue.

Another Congratulations Card

Two congratulation cards in a row?

Congratulations card with a cupcake

Guess it has been a special month.  Today my husband defended his thesis (successfully) and is now a doctor of philosophy in Physical Chemistry.  I am so proud of him.  He’s been working so hard.  It has been a rough couple of weeks, but all of his planning and preparation have paid off.

My in-laws are in town for the occasion and we will be hosting them for thanksgiving.  It is the first time I’ve been with family on thanksgiving since I moved out of state after college -and the first time I am hosting.  I am looking forward to it.  So much to be thankful for right now.

I’ve made turkeys around this time of year and have often been part of a potluck type thanksgiving with local friends.  The former hosts of the 6 year tradition are in Germany right now.  So new traditions need to be started.  It is TLC and my first thanksgiving together and we’ll be cooking together.  I’m blessed with a hubby who loves to cook (though he hasn’t had much time to do that recently).  I enjoy being in the kitchen with him but our kitchen is quite small.  Someday we’ll have a kitchen we can both use counter space in.

This card has a foundation of a single patterned paper from a 4×6 stack including the green border and brown glitter.  The paper pack is from JoAnn’s, but I don’t know the name of it.  I’m trying to use papers I already have and not purchase any new ones. Then I used a cupcake stamp from CTMH which I colored in with color pencils and “Congratulations” from JadedBlossom.   I used momento ink in tuxedo and hot chocolate for the stamps respectively.

Wedding Guestbook Scrapbook 3

I’ve posted a couple pages of this wedding guestbook already here and here.  So continuing along this same theme I created these two pages as a spread.

Any love for the glow worm?

Daddy’s boots

Congratulations to my Smarty Pants

Oh what a busy and exciting time!  My husband (TLC)  finally turned in his thesis – over six years of grad school culminated into a 200 page document.  Now that he has turned it in, we officially have a date for his defense November 20th.  Less than two weeks to go.

Congratulations Smarty Pants Card made with stamps from JadedBlossom.com. I just love that owl!

In honor of turning in the thesis to his committee I made this adorable owl card.  The smart owl and “congratulations” stamps are both from Jaded Blossom.  Jaded blossom was one of the first craft blogs I started to follow and recently purchased a few of their stamps.  I fell in love with the little owl stamp, and originally purchased it to make a card for my husband’s defense.  But this week has been stressful for him trying to organize everything, and really needed a pick me up.  It has been a stressful week so far, but now is a calm before the storm.  The defense is up coming along with edits to the dissertation and writing of papers.

Fall flowers and card waiting on the table for my husband.

I also picked up some flowers as a surprise for my TLC from the grocery store.  Who says flowers are just for girls.?  Besides the fall colors really look great on the table.

It is great to finally have a date set for TLC’s defense the end of his graduate school career. We will be moving sometime in December to the Seattle area.  I grew up near there so it will be good to be heading toward family and old friends.  TLC has a job lined up for January and I am left with some soul searching to do about my career life.  For now I’m spending plenty of time on craigslist looking at places to live.

I am submitting this fall colored card to the Young Crafter’s Unite Challenge #15, Warm and Cozy colors.    This is my first time entering a YCU challenge.  I am inspired by their design team.

I am also submitting to the CAS(E) this Sketch!  I love the little half circles.  I used plenty of them on my card.

Inspiration – Expansion

I realized I don’t just want to talk about crafting.  I love making crafts (and shopping at craft stores) I didn’t quite get enough personality into the blog.  I was inspired to share more after finding a blog by someone I went to undergrad with, go Lutes!  She is one of those people who makes everyone feel at ease.  I read over a dozen of her blog entries today, she just cracks me up.  So thanks for the inspiration Sar www.lovelovelovesar.blogspot.com.   We haven’t talked in years- I think I’ll leave her a comment.

Another Page of the Wedding Scrapbook Guestbook

Here is another page of the wedding guestbook scrapbook.  Here some of the guests used some fun craft scissors to decorate their notes.  I am roughly grouping notes by how we know people.  Here are some dear friends from grad school.  These pictures are class pictures from kindergarten and 1st grade.  Awww.  We did not know each other at that time.  Actually, we lived on opposite sides of the US.

Another scrapbook page of the bride and groom, in kindergarten and first grade.

The embellishments is again from a Martha Stewart punch, Geometric Medallion.

Incorporated Wishes from Guests at your Wedding and from Cards Mailed

Tired of the standard wedding guest book?  What about people who don’t sign it the day of?  What about the one aunt who just couldn’t make it to your big celebration?

A Wedding Scrapbook Guestbook!

I am in the process of piecing together my wedding scrapbook guestbook.  It is wonderful to read through the well wishes and wisdom written out by our guests.  It reminds me of the big day and all the family and friends who surrounded us with love.  And though the day itself went by so quickly, I will have these handwritten notes preserved in a book.

A scrapbook page incorporating sentiments from wedding guests and pictures of the bride and groom prior to being wed. In this case, as cute 3 and 4 year olds. 🙂

To make the scrapbook guestbook, I prepared paper for the notes and got a scrapbook album ready for the guests to look at as well.   I cut several shades of purple cardstock, from JoAnns into 3″ squares and 3″ by 1.5″ rectangles.   At the reception, the scrapbook album in which the notes would be placed in was available for the guests to peruse.  In the scrapbook, I included pictures of me and my husband before we were wed.

The background pages for the album pages are from the Making Memories 8″ x 8″ Wedding paper pad.  I am keeping the embellishments simple.  I used two Martha Stewart punches, in Geometric Medallion and Daisy Medallion in a dark purple cardstock to finish up this page.

Good Luck!

I made this card for my husband when he was flying off to a job interview.  This is a very transitional time in our lives.  Soon we will be packing up and moving, but not before he defends his PhD dissertation.  It will be a trying couple weeks for him upcoming, I will try to be as supportive as possible.  I went through the same process over a year ago.  And he was the most helpful and generous person during that time, I couldn’t have asked for more from him.

I’m entering this card in the CAS-ual Fridays challenge.   This week’s challenge is a masculine card.  What perfect timing- I needed a card for my hubby!  It is my first time entering challenge, and I really like what they stand for- Clean and Simple!  I know I have a lot yet to learn about card making, but I am sharing the journey.

(Awesome green wall in the background.  Love that wall color in our living room!)

My first Big Picture Class is over and my inbox is sad without a “daily drill” email

The Big Picture Bootcamp  from Big Picture Classes is over.  I will miss getting a reminder email every day with new “daily drill” to complete.   I stumbled upon the website a while ago, but this was my first paid class.  I loved it!  There were four different instructors with different topics- photography, journaling, page design, and some non-scrapbook crafts to get the creative spirit moving.   It was a good introduction into Big Picture Class format.  There were videos to watch from the instructor that were about 15 minutes long giving instruction and inspiration.  Also included in the class materials were pdf instructions and in some cases photoshop files for digital scrapbooking  (not that I utilized that portion of the class) a printable pdf file was also included for the paper scrapbookers.  A photo gallery was also set up for students to post their projects and discussion boards were available tool.  I liked the format of the class and I think I’ll be following some of the instructors blogs.  They were energetic and inspiring.

Pictures I’ve included here are of a celebration tree.  Which is meant to be decorated not just for holidays but in celebration of all of life’s moments.  I think this is a great idea.  My tree is made from branches that came down in the last wind storm we had.  The new growth at the end of each branch adds some wonderful character.  I just love the branches.
I am not sure how to explain and share what I took  from the other sections of the bootcamp.  I enjoyed all four topics this one seems the most tangible.  I really enjoyed the scrapbook page design drills.  Some things were new and some were great helpful reminders.  Overall, I think I will join in another Big Picture Class.  There was a minor technical issue which prevented me from seeing one pdf the first day but the support was very helpful and quick to respond and fix the issue.

Have you ever taken a Big Picture Class?  What is the next one you want to take?  Maybe we’ll take one together.

While I made all these projects myself, they were guided and inspired by the wonderful instructors of the Big Picture Bootcamp at Big Picture Classes.

Just Because Card with a Cute Little Bear

Here is an “I Love You” card with images from the Create A Critter cricut cartridge including an adorable little bear.

This is a “just because” card to say I love you.  It is a cute fun card  I used the Create a Critter cricut cartridge to make that adorable bear and the I<3 U sentiment as well.

I am submitting this card to the Die Cut Challenge from Hiding in My Craftroom.  This is my first challenge submission.  One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to start participating in blog challenges.  They look like SOOOOO much FUN!!
Allie