Monkeying Around

This week I took out the cute little stamp set, Little Monkey.  For my first two cards, I found some older designer paper with bananas on it called Tropical Oasis.  I put a strip of it on each of my two cards.  I used the largest stitched circle for the focal point with Crushed Curry for the scallop edge.

He's a cute little guy swinging from the vines right onto my card!  It was a lot of fussy cutting, but I'm happy with how the card turned out.

In my next card, the little monkey is climbing in the tree holding a banana.  I like using the branch to ground the monkey.  Without it, the monkeys look like they are just floating in air.  

For the next two cards, I used an old designer paper called Garden Lane.  If you look closely, you can see little green quilt squares on the cards.  Because I'm also a quilter, I love the jungle background looking like tiny little quilt squares.  :)

My granddaughter loves to play "Five Little Monkeys" where we jump a stuffed monkey on the bed and then he falls off.  I made this card for her.  It would be a lot of monkeys to squeeze 5 of them onto one card, so I went with "Two Little Monkeys."  I think she will like it.  :)

After I put the green designer paper onto the Crumb Cake cardstock, I thought that the card needed a pop of color.  So I added a tag in Petal Pink.  I think it's just the right amount of color for the card.

For the complimentary card I had a pink rectangle on my desk, so I added that to the card front.  I punched out some bananas and then added the saying, I'm Bananas about You.  There is Wink of Stella on the bananas and leaves but it's hard to see in the photo.

This week I made not just two sets of cards, but a third set of monkey cards.  Once I took out the Garden Lane papers, I wanted to use the darker tiny quilts on a couple of cards.

This card is made starting with a square 4 1/4" base and then glued onto a piece of cardstock to make it the regular size of 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inches.  This allowed me to have one of the monkeys peeking out from the inside of the card.

This is what the inside of the card looks like.  The bottom is folded up to make a small pocket for a gift card or love note.  I got this idea from one of the demonstrators on Pinterest, but I can't seem to find the video today.

And last, but certainly not least, I made this monkey card for my granddaughter's birthday next week.  

I have to say that I loved monkeying around with this set.  I just want to go through my designer papers and choose more to match with the monkeys.  Which card do you like best?

Dainty Delight

For this week's stamp class, I made some cards using the Dainty Delight stamp set.  During Jan and Feb, Stampin Up had some pretty designer papers that coordinated with the stamps and die cuts.  I'm finally getting around to using them.  :)

Working on my first card, I cut out some of the flowers to use as a focal point for my card.  I added some soft gray paper from Abigail Rose designer papers.  I cut out a fancy strip from some of the designer papers and added that, also.  The saying is from Peaceful Moments that has a lot of nice sayings in it.

Sadly, you can only cut out about three images from each half of the pretty flowered paper.  Now I wish that I hadn't given away so many packages of this paper to my customers.  Lol

The second card features the soft purple papers from the designer pack.  I cut out part of it using Split Card Textures dies.  Then I fussy cut around the floral image and used that as the focal point of my card.  I added an oval with a saying and a sprig from the Queen Bee cut outs.  

I got the idea for this card from Wendy Weixler on Pinterest.  I could make this card all day using different colored papers for the background and different sayings.  

I got the idea for this pretty card from Gail Ellis on Pinterest.  She has a video on how to brush the ink in the circle using ripped Post-It-Notes.  I changed up the colors and came up with this card.

I love the soft look of the card and how amazing the focal circle came out using the brushes.  I added some daisies and another flower from Dainty Delight dies and did some white embossing for the saying.  

The ladies all loved making this card and want to try making it again using different colors.  You could also use different shaped cut outs to brush in for a completely new look.  

What do you think of my Dainty Delight cards?  Which one is your favorite?

Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt

After my trip, I had to finish up a baby quilt that I had been working on for one of my daughter's friends.  After three boys, she is finally having a girl, so I wanted to make something for her that was very pink.

I wanted to use fabrics from my stash because I thought that I had a lot of pinks.  But when I actually looked at my fabrics, not all of the pinks went together very well.

I found a layer cake (10" squares) that had some pink butterflies and gingham check in it so I make a lot of the blocks from that.

I decided on half square triangles and I just love how it turned out.  

The pinks have a bit of a salmon color to them and I did find some prints in my stash that coordinated well.  She loved the quilt.  I quilted some flowers and swirls in it to make it look very girly. 

When I got back from my trip, I had to have the quilt ready just a few days after my trip. I wasn't thinking about how tired I would be from the jet lag.  Ha ha - I need to work on my time management a bit more.  But I did get it done!  

I loved working with the half square triangles and now I would love to make more quilts from my stash.  But I might need to buy more pink fabric for some new projects ideas.  :)

 

Getting Ready for My Trip

Before I left on my trip to Israel with some of my friends, I wanted to make them a small pouch to put their shekels in!  I found some cork in my craft room along with some travel fabric and put these together.  I drew up my own pattern with a slight curve at the top.  

I didn't want them to be very big and I like the shape of them.  

They loved getting their little gift before we went.  I made each one just a little bit differently, by adding different charms and using various colors for the linings and tab.  They were impressed with the addition of the cork.   

Here we are on an adventure by a stream in the woods.  Like most places in Israel, we were on our way to see some ancient ruins.  

Before the trip I sent my roommate, Barb, a card for the trip.  Ha ha - I looked through my stamps to find something that sort of looked like a vacation and this is what I came up with!  The two of us on the front with our hats and luggage along with a little camera image that I found.  

The card was pretty plain so I added some blue flowers from Regency Park to give it some contrast (because they were laying on my desk).  Note the little "town" of Bethlehem and the Dome of the "Rock" that I added.  It's kind of silly, but she loved it and I guess that's all that matters.  :)

 

Adventure at the Sea of Galilee

During May, some of my friends and I went on a trip to Israel.  Part of our stay was at the Sea of Galilee and I wanted to bring something back as a souvenir for the ladies in my Bible study.

So I decided to pick up some shells along the shore and put together a little craft for them.  

I got some small bottles from Michael's craft store and put some of the shells in each one.  Then I made little tags for each of the bottles and used one of my stitched die cuts to cut them out with.

There were 18 bottles in the case and thankfully there was just enough shells to make 18 bottles!  I had fun making them and my friends loved receiving a small souvenir from my trip.  

Here are some of us waiting to go on a boat ride on the Sea.  We have such fun memories from our trip.  :)