it's a beachy keen pixie challenge!

if, like me, you enjoy SUMMER FUN, papercrafting and prizes, then you need to walk, run, float or flutter your way over to the pixie dust paperie blog and link up a project inspired by this fabulous vintage photo:

   
don't you love it? that could be me and my brother at the jersey shore circa 1970! i can see A LOT of ways to go with this one, can't you? in fact, the thing that took me longest was deciding what to do! i went with a general "beachy" theme... and brought in a few of the colors, as well. see?

(glossy white cardstock and ink: ranger; patterned paper: basic gre, my mind's eye; "hello": EAD sentiments rub-ons; stickers: sandylion; rhinestone stick-on: prima; label: dymo; pen: copic multiliner; adhesives: tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape)

i rotated and used the fabulous june sketch at a new-to-me challenge blog called love my tapes:

despite an increasing washi obsession, this time i actually used paper scraps on the thin strips of the sketch, since i wanted to get the feeling of blue skies and the ocean in there. unusually for me there is a PLAIN WHITE background!!! i'm not sure why, except i knew i was adding a lot of color and pattern already with the stickers, and i couldn't come up with something i liked better. in retrospect i sort of wish i'd used one of the white-on-white papers from basic grey's basics line, but i think i kind of still like this, too.

there are many more-- and far more glorious-- projects to see from our challenge design team over at the pixie blog, so why not DIVE IN, darlings?! ♥

vintage paper is like *CATNIP* to me!

so much so that, whereas ordinarily my eyesight is nothing to write home about, i have been known to focus in, steve-austin-like, upon a collection of old postcards or beautifully patina-ed sheet music from anything up to several city blocks away! ok, not really, but i can usually spot them from across a crowded church hall... and woe betide any fellow rummage sale shopper who disregards my zobmie-like perambulations and gets between me and my chosen love object!

i especially love playing cards and game pieces... like, for example, these:

at some point i realized (ok this could be slightly embarrassing if it wasn't actually also VERY COOL, imo!) that i had enough of such items to assemble full-sized, 52-card DECKS with every single card being different! and thus was the eclectic deck born. :)

of course, in my etsy shop they look more like this:

they come in full size (52+ different cards) and half size (26+) and include everything from playing cards of every shape and size, to foreign language and math flash cards, plus game cards, tarot cards, alphabet cards, vocabulary cards, memory game tokens, carnival tickets, play money... and lots more! by the way, the photo at the top of this post actually shows what's inside this particular packet, in order to give an idea of the contents. but every single deck is different, so like the well-known gumpian box of chocolates, you never know exactly WHAT you're going to get... which, to me, makes them even cooler!

if you'd like to see some things i've created using this sort of ephemera, why not pop over to the pixie blog today, where coincidentally (what are the ODDS??!?!) there's just such a post! whilst there, be sure to scroll down and leave a comment to enter my giveaway, as well! ciao for now, darlings! ♥

fly away with me!

it's time for april's pixie dust paperie challenge, and this month the theme is "fly away with me"! 

your assignment is to create a project that's related in some way to the city of your choice: new york, london, paris, rome... somewhere you've been, or would like to go? the place where you live, or where you grew up? ...it's up to you!  just link it up at this pixie post between now and april 30th for a shot at a $15 gift certificate to the pixie shoppe! i don't think anyone will be too shocked to learn that my project is inspired by san francisco, seeing as how i have just visited that lovely city for the first time:

(photo from a vintage travel book; patterned paper: pink paislee, anna griffin, creative imaginations; transparencies: hambly; foam alphas: american crafts; tape: freckled fawn, bazzill; fabric flowers: prima; glossy black cardstock and plastic alphas: tim holtz/ranger; ink: color box, stewart superior; heart sticker: ek success; adhesives: xyron, tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape, glue dots, uhu gluestick, sewing machine; other: plaing chipboard, book ring, japanese newspaper; digi: photobooth frames #2 by katie pertiet, designer digitals)

i made an extra large travel book this time; whereas i generally make them 9.25 x 4.5" this one is 11.5" by nearly 5"! other than that, i pretty much stuck to my usual routine of making the "bones" of the book--printed pages sandwiched between plain chipboard covers--before the trip; this time, since i knew it was going to be a three-part trip, i also added in some transparencies as dividers:

here are the supplies i took... you can see it's just the basics plus a few clear stamps and an ink pad; in actual fact, i never used the latter; i always think i will get a bit "artsy" on my pages and it never happens, you would think i'd just accept that, eh?!

whilst i was in san francisco (and later carlsbad, ca, followed by las vegas, nv) i spent about 15 minutes each night writing what we did that day, and using the hole punch or stapler to add in the ephemera i was collecting from the places we visited: ticket stubs, postcards, menus, museum badges, bus (and train and cable car!) passes, brochures, stickers, business cards, etc, etc; so that by the time i came home, my book looked like this, and was 90% done! (all i've done since then is decorate the cover, and add a few photos... more on that in a minute!) 

you can also see the three sections are pretty equal; i really love my "dividers"...

...so much so, i thought i'd add in a few more transparencies to hold my photos, which i've mostly formatted into little filmstrips in order to incorporate the most images in the least space... also because some of the pics i really wanted to use were frankly just not all that fabulous, so making them a bit smaller really helped! :)

here you can see what some of the photo pages look like IN the book; i love that you get a glimpse of the things behind them... and of course when you flip the pages over you get a glimpse of the things in *front* of them, which is equally cool!

here's a shot of the back of the book, which basically coordinates with the front:

and finally one of the "stacked" book... which makes me want to flip through it and re-live this awesome trip once again!!!

be sure to stop by the pixie blog to see the amazing projects created by our uber-talented pixie challenge design team!!!

hope, beauty, joy card

this card contains my favorite piece of patterned paper from the MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY kit... and lots and lots (and lots!) of stacked and distressed flowers i punched from scraps of a bunch of the other lovely papers in the kit:

there are more photos on the pixie blog, o'course; why not go and see them??! :)

"love you" card

i believe i've already mentioned how much i love the march pixie kit, MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY, and this my mind's eye "sunshine memories" paper was one of my favorite bits!

as you can see, i didn't have to do very much to it to make a fairly cool card: i just trimmed and matted it, added some "fun day" chipboard pennants with crate paper alphas on top, and then stitched the rest of my sentiment. easy peasy! more photos on the pixie blog... feel free to pop over and see 'em! :)

"sweetness" frame

today on the pixie blog, the featured project is this embellished frame i made to hold an easter portrait of nieces riley and lindsay from a couple of years ago. i love the way they are posed in this photo, and the adorable expressions on their faces, and knew it would look even better if i dressed it up with some of the gorgeous soft pink paper and accoutrements found in the MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY kit. so i did! 

there are more photos and a bit about the process over at the pixie blog, i do hope you'll check those out! ♥

happy birthday to you minibook

hello, darlings! i am back from my western excursion, and today we are driving down to maryland to help my father-in-law celebrate his ♥80th♥ birthday! coincidentally, today on the pixie blog is the fun little birthday book i made for that gentleman, using papers and embellishments from the MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY kit:

i'm quite proud of this project, and pleased it came out well, since it is being given to one of my favorite people in the whole world! i do hope you'll pop over and see photos of the inside, and read about all of the cool ingredients used in its construction! ♥

dimensional poppies card

today i am quite delighted to show you this card i made with pixie dust paperie's MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY kit!

it's monochromatic, but has A LOT of little details, which i've talked about a bit on the pixie blog today, as well as sharing a few of my "secrets" for getting as much texture and dimension as possible into every single card!  i hope you'll drop over there and check it out! :)

now *THAT* is a cool sketch, no?!

but then i might be ever so slightly biased, since i happen to think that my dear pixie-in-chief kirsty vittetoe is one of the best sketch-makers around, and i absolutely always look forward to digging in to one of her creations!

this time, although i am very happy with my card, i *MIGHT* just have to have a second try, because i can see sooooooooo many ways to go with this, and am finding it hard to resist "the path untaken"; for example: that line of swirls across the middle? how cool would some webster's pages "bloomers" look right there?! yeah. i'm just sayin'... :)

so why didn't i do that THIS TIME, you ask? well, i'm sure you've had it happen, too, occasionally, when the next card you need to make is very specific, and the deadline is looming in the sort of menacing way that only deadlines and 7-foot-tall, steely-jawed bond villians can loom. so i bowed to the inevitable, and instead of an uber-flowery, shabby chic masterpiece, i made something totally fun (and totally young!) for my father-in-law:

(everything you see is from one pixie dust paperie kit or another: most of the papers, the alphas and the fab american crafts' "flutterby" banners are from the march kit, MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY; the fabric thickers are from BLUE MOON, and the other bits and bobs are from my "pixie leftovers" box, which is LARGE and quite full; because despite making 6+ projects a month... and often one of 'em is a minibook... i have never even come close to using an entire kit!!!) 

of course i don't wish to imply that making a card for lovely husband jeff's lovely dad could EVER be anything less than a joy! my father-in-law just happens to be one of my favorite people: he is fun, he is funny, he is kind, smart and thoughtful, he is creative and talented, interesting and interested... in short, he's everything you'd like a man to be... and he taught his children, by example, to be just like him; which is a big part of the reason my husband is the amazing man he is. yepper, in the marriage lottery, i was lucky enough to choose a winning ticket 26.5 years ago, for which i could not be more grateful!

his main birthday present, from the whole family, is a donation to his favorite local charity, in which he is very involved. but of course i had to *MAKE* a little something, as well, and it's a little dr. seuss-inspired minibook. this card coordinates with it; and i hope is a pretty good--if loosely interpreted-- masculine version of kirsty's sketch, as well.

and now i'm pretttttty sure you'll want to be hopping over to the pixie blog, where you can not only find out all the details on submitting your own version (did i mention there's a prize?!) but also see the jaw-dropping work of our amazingly talented challenge dt! off you go then, darlings! ♥

"enjoy the journey" card

ok, is it just me or is everyone else having a hard time figuring out how it was new year's day like five minutes ago, and now suddenly we're into *MARCH*?! seriously??! i think someone may be messin' with our collective calendar; if anyone knows the person responsible, could you ask them to just slow it down a teeny bit?? ta very much. :)

of course a new month means a new pixie dust paperie kit, which is always something to be happy about. this one is called MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY --i think might be my favorite name ever!!! here's the first thing i made with it; quite a "simple" one for me, but then this amazingly cool bike on glitz's "happy travels" paper, and it just did not need much to make a pretty fab (excuse me if i say so myself, lol!) card:

more details and more pics--of both my card and this month's awesome kit-- on the PDP blog; do check it out, darlings! ♥

"oh snap" card

if you read the pixie blog (and i hope you do!) you'll know that each designer writes her own posts, something i enjoy doing very much when it's my turn. we do 'em in advance, and then our dear pixie-in-chief kirsty comes along and schedules them, etc. this month, she has just happened to have saved my FAVORITE project for last, woohoo!

yep, it's this month's "guy card" which i made with our february kit, YOU MAKE LIFE FUN, and miiiiiiiiiight actually be my all-time favorite masculine design i have ever made. i am particularly proud to say that the recipient, my friend juan (who is an AMAZING photographer, which is what inspired the idea!) sent me a specific and separate email just to say how much he liked it, which is verrrrrrrrrrrry cool indeed! more details-- and a nice close-up photo-- over at pdp! ♥♥♥

"so beautiful" tall card

hello, darlings! ♥  i am proud to say that today on the pixie blog, i'm helping to put the *SUN* in sunday, with a card that is (for me, uncharacteristically) both tall and monochromatic, made with some gorgeous papers and embellishments from february's kit, YOU MAKE LIFE FUN!

i do hope you will check it out, along with the gorgeous work of my DT sisters and all the FUN STUFF miss kirsty has planned for ya! :)

a little bird told me...

something i realized recently is that i've never made a get well gift! because, i suppose, luckily, most of my friends are fairly healthy; also it tends to be a "last minute" type of thing, doesn't it?  but upon consideration, i thought it might be nice to make a pretty little thing in advance, just in case, using the YOU MAKE LIFE FUN. so i did:

you can see lots more lovely photos... and a bit o'text about the process... on the pixie blog today. why not stop over and check it out?! ♥

you are just my type!

this month's pixie kit (YOU MAKE LIFE FUN) happens to contain one of my all-time favorite embellishment selections: a 12x12" sheet of october afternoon "thrift shop" stickers. do i even have to tell you how much i ♥♥♥LOVE♥♥♥ this pink vintage royal typewriter? nahhhhhhhh. surely not!

in fact it kind of makes me want to scour my local flea markets and rummage sales until i find one just like it, but there are two things holding me back: for one thing, it'd be an act of the most shocking disloyalty to my current vintage royal typewriter, sister klara; for another, ever since i saw this post of julie balzer's (scroll down almost to the bottom) i have been positively craving a cursive typewriter... something i had not even realized existed until that moment! :)

something you should ALWAYS be craving is a peek at the pixie blog, where you can not only see my projects, but also those of my amazing DT sisters, details on our current challenge, loads of lovely pics of the  YOU MAKE LIFE FUN kit and LOTS MORE!!!

patchwork party gift bag

on saturday, we celebrated niece riley elizabeth's ♥10th♥ (!!!) birthday, something i'd find even more impossible to believe if that young lady were not as grown-up and beautiful as she is! of course i made a lovely birthday booklet for her, and also a poncho for her american girl doll, so i needed something in which to carry those tokens! the gorgeous my mind's eye "patchwork party" paper in february's pixie dust paperie kit, YOU MAKE LIFE FUN, inspired this gift bag, which is featured on the pixie blog today... i hope you'll hop over there and check it out! ♥

"before you find your handsome prince...

...you have to kiss a lot of frogs!" or so they say; this little guy is sooooooooo very regal, i don't think he has a lot of problems in that area, do you?! :)

believe it or not, i found him on the cover of a "rewards" catalog which came in the mail for one of LHJ's credit cards; and it just so happened that the very next day pixie-in-chief kirsty vittetoe told me that our february pixie dust challenge theme would be "FAIRY TALES"... needless to say, that catalog was coverless before nightfall, lol!

everything else you see here is a leftover from one pixie kit or another: the chipboard bits and ruffly ribbon are from LOVE NOTES, the fairies are from last year's SPRINGTIME PIXIE, the fancy cardstock frame (from CHRISTMAS IN PARIS) has an image in the center that i wasn't actually in love with, which leads me to my "top tip" for product usage: never be afraid to alter, cover-up, distress, paint, mist, re-purpose, or in anyway change the items that come in a kit... (or anywhere else!) ...to better suit your needs, your color scheme or your style! creativity is kind of the POINT on these occasions, right?! so forget about what the manufacturer THINKS their product is for... use it the way YOU WANT!!!

and now, something i *know* you will want is to go and see what our uber-talented challenge design team have done with the "FAIRY TALES" theme, and to discover how you can link up your own project for a shot at a fabulous prize. so off you go to the pixie blog, darlings!!! ♥

FEB--"SMILE" handsome boy frame

february's fabulous pixie kit is called YOU MAKE LIFE FUN and it really *IS* a ton of fun; very nearly as much fun as my friend carlos, seen in this adorable photo taken by his daddy:

you may recall last week i showed you an embellished frame starring carlos' sister isabel. their birthdays happen to fall quite close together, so i try to make them each a similar--but unique and personal-- gift each year. thus i was pretty excited that this month's kit just happened to contain every single thing i needed (ok, except the frame itself!) to make a "boy version"! lots more pics on the pixie blog, as well as more info about the kit, my fellow pixies' projects, a new challenge for february... and... well, WHO KNOWS what else pixie-in-chief kirsty vittetoe might have in store for us, so it's best to check back regularly!!!  ♥

go wild on your birthday!

one of the things i tried to do with my pixie kits last year is prove how very flexible they actually are by making a cool "guy card" each month. i think that's a goal well worth continuing in the new year--plus it just so happens i know a lot of fellas who were born in january, lol--thus here is my entry for the LOVE NOTES kit:

the monsta image-- which i've paper-pieced using prints from the kit-- is from a (sadly out of print) set of digi-stamps by jesse edwards called "monstrous". there are more photos on the pixie blog, and details about all the cool stuff in the kit, like the awesome pink paislee wooden alphabet, and the fabulous crate paper "random" chipboard elements i've used, to name just two. GO WILD... and check it out! ♥

happy birthday girl frame

i know everyone thinks the special kids in their life are the cutest in the world, but SOMEBODY has to be right, and i'm pretty sure it's me! need some evidence? ok, here ya go, empirically... how cute is this face??!?!?

yepper, it's miss isabel, daughter of my best friend, trish. which doesn't make me biased, necessarily! if anything, it proves i have great taste, and thus my opinion is all the more to be trusted!  :) :) :)

i should probably mention that this is an older--and favorite--photo. the young lady in question will be turning three (3!!!) in a couple of months, at which time i shall bestow this frame and hopefully acquire a photo taken on THAT birthday to show how grown up she is now! i should also mention that every single bit of paper-crafty goodness used to make this project came from the pixie dust paperie LOVE NOTES kit, and that you can find additional photos and information on the pixie blog--check it out!

"sparkle" gift box

fancy little gift boxes-- i ♥ 'em!  i don't especially heart the price of the ones in the shops, however. especially when i know i can grab a plain papier mache star at michaels for a dollar, and use a bunch of fabulous pixie stuff--like, perhaps, january's fabulous LOVE NOTES kit--and do this...

...and then ALSO make half a dozen addition projects AND STILL have leftovers! plus, i just happen to love *making* fancy little gift boxes, ok? :) you can see more photos of this one, and read a little bit about the process, on the pixie blog. enjoy, darlings!