Had to share Hubs bday card..

it's your birthday pictures

My husband made me a .GIF for my birthday card!! I could not stop laughing, this is true nerd love right here, folks. (Represents all of the animals in our life, our fur babies) <3 Rachel w k

Happy Birthday to Me... WINNER!

Thank you and thank you to everybody who sent birthday wishes my way and entered my 25 for 25 birthday bash give away. You all left some super entertaining stories about your favorite birthday gift, I loved reading them! And a huge hello to new followers, I will be stopping by all of your blogs soon! I love to see all the talent that's hidden on the blog-o-sphere...

So I used the random generator to pick a winner and.....

took a pic with my phone lol

CONGRATS NUMBER 22! Who is #22 you're wondering, as I count down the list, the winner is...

ISHA who said: So glad to have finally found my B'day partner...mine is also on the 19th....lol. Enjoy your day and have fun.

Isha is in the Hero Arts flickr group with tons of lovely and talented women.  I can't believe she won the gift card AND its her birthday today also! Happy Birthday to the winner, Isha! I'll be contacting you soon about your gift card :)

For my birthday I'll be flying home to see my family. I may be a little MIA for the next week, but don't worry I always come back :)

<3 Rachel w k

Stackaholic Challenge and a Happy Mailbox

Have I ever posted a scrapbook page on this blog?!?  I have been neglecting my first paper love: my scrapbooks.  I have a lot to catch up, and doing this Stack-a-holic template challenge over at DCWV finally got me in the groove again! Bout freakin time...

September layout challenge sketch

The hardest part was finding one single picture to put on a whole 12x12 page.  I never ever put just one picture, I usually cram as many in as possible.  I decided to showcase a picture of my darling puppy Meeko, from our Maine vacation...

I followed the sketch pretty super closely, I wanted to stay inside the lines :)  I used only papers from the DCWV Dots, Stripes, and Plaids stack. The little polka dot chipboard piece is even from a dots, stripes, and plaid embellishment collection that I had around... win.  I stamped the little fox from Lawn Fawn and colored it with color pencils, we always say our little guy looks like a baby fox awww.  The title says "dog days of Summer"

So I was so into this idea that I couldn't stop.  And you know I have a million more pictures of my puppy in Maine, so I made a second page along the same theme...

omg i heart my puppy like so much

 see what I mean? I need to get a lot of pictures on that damn page.  I repeated some of the rectangles and the same glittery black ribbon.  All the papers are also from the DCWV dots, stripes, and plaid paper stack.

the two pages side by side.

Changing Gears!...

I was so so so smiley when I checked the mail today to find a gooorrrgeeouuusss creation, made just for me, by my amazing crafty friend Kari.  She has so much talent, and such a big heart, she surprised me with this birthday card! I don't know how long I was "awwww"-ing, my husband didn't know what was going on.  Here's what she made me :)

lovely bday card from Kari!

I am definitely swooning over this.  It was so so nice to get this from her, it totally made my day! THANK YOU KARI!!!!

<3 Rachel w k

My 1st Banner - All Hallows Eve

I am very proud to say that I have officially finished my very first banner! I don't know how you crafty ladies make so many of these things, they are sooo muuuch work!  But I definitely love love how it turned out... warning, there will a picture explosion in this post!

I've been scouring the beloved Pinterest (follow me here!) to find the perfect Halloween banner for my tastes.  I didn't want something too basic like "happy halloween" and I didn't want something too kid-ish like "boo!" I came up with my own saying for my banner of "All Hallows Eve" but I was inspired by the design of this one...

my inspiration found on pinterest... cant find original maker :(

I loved how the design was funky, patterned, fun, but not lame or cheese-ball either. I also wanted to add the slightly less traditional colors of lime green and purple.

My finished Banner!

Here are some close ups of my favorite squares...

I cut 17 of the black squares with my Silhouette SD, embossed each with a bubble folder and my Sizzix Texture Boutique, then rubbed white chalk over for the embossing to stand out.  Each letter was typed into Make The Cut software with a regular layer and a shadow layer (font is Harrington) then cut with the Silhouette SD.

before and after - spiders!

The squares on either end of the banner are only embellished with one glittery spider.  I bought this pack of 6 black spiders at Michaels for $2. I sprayed them with spray adhesive and covered them in Sterling glitter by Martha Stewart.  For details, I used orange creamsicle stickles.

look at that happy glittery spider!

a view with our big doors open, like they always are anyways :)

All smaller embellishments are from Recollections and K & Company.  All papers are DCWV.  After spending so much time on the banner, the last thing I wanted to do was make my own die cuts for each piece!

What do you think!? Have you made holiday banners in the past? I'm pretty pleased with my first project of this sort... woohoo!

This project will be linked to By the Book Paper's Pinterest Thursday link-up!

<3 Rachel w k

Paper Piecing With New Stamps!

I certainly hope you all are watching US Open tennis today! There is an amazing match right now, Feds vs Novak! And I'll be in the stadium for tomorrow's women's Final!  Ya I'm pretty excited :)

Ok moving onward.  I got my first set of Lawn Fawn stamps last week and I luurrrvveee them. The stamps worked great for the CAS-ual Fridays paper piecing challenge!

A cute little 'clean and simple' birdie scene.  Everything has been paper pieced except for the tree stump! There are 7 different patterned papers used (from the scrap stash). The best part is I was able to cut all of the pieces with regular scissors, I only used a craft knife for the birdies' little feeties.  The stamp set used is Lawn Fawn 'critters in the woods' with black ink from Recollections.  

I made this card for the CAS-ual Fridays #19 challenge, paper piecing, and for Lawn Fawn's embossing challenge.  The background is texture embossed with a Sizzix folder.

<3 Rachel w k

Hand Made Beach Chipboard Album

I have been itchy itching to share this photo album with you all.  I started working on it over Labor Day weekend and I finally finished it late last night! I have to say, completing an album or a scrapbook page just feels very rewarding :)

front cover of the photo album

My friend, Michelle, and her son took me to many beaches this summer. I realized that every single picture I had of her son (a lot) were at various beaches, and I promised I would make her a beach album at the end of the summer.  I don't think she believed me that it would get finished, but here it is! The adorable sand castle on the cover is from Lettering Delights Soak up the Sun set.

inside front cover

This album is completely hand made and put together by mainly recycled materials.  The front and back covers are cut up cereal boxes (Lucky Charms to be specific) measuring 7x7 inches. Each inside page is also cut up boxes (Cheese-It boxes to be specific) measuring 5 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches.  I determined my page sizes pretty much by how big those cheese it boxes were.  The adorable puffer fish I used is from Lettering Delight's Something Fishy set.

svg image from Lettering Delights 'something fishy' set

my favorite of the inside pages

With all of my measured and cut chipboard pages, I just covered each size of them with coordinating patterns of card stock paper.  I used spray adhesive to cover the chipboard, then just place the paper on top.  Almost all of the pages you'll see are from the DCWV Dots and Stripes paper stack, and the DCWV Pattern Glitter paper stack.

some little embellishment die cuts were added

On a page that had a little bit (teeny bit) of extra space, I added a matching die cut.  This little umbrelli image is from Lettering Delights 'soak up the sun' set.  I used Make the Cut software to size it, and cut it with my Silhouette SD.  Also, this is one of my favorite pictures of this kid that I took all summer.  He just looks like such an old man sitting under his sun shade :)

die cut embellishments

The page next to this picture shows him eating a huge popsicle, his favorite food in the world. The popsicle image is from Lettering Delights 'summer treats and popsicles' graphic set, which you get for free just for signing up!  I used Make the Cut software to pixel trace the image to use it as an SVG.  I cut the shapes with my Silhouette SD.

carousel embellishment

I have to be honest.  This damn svg was a bitch to cut, but I just needed to use it and spent about an hour getting all the little pieces out.  Worth it.  Everyday in Marthas Vineyard (for photos from my trip, visit this post!) he would have to go to the old Flying Horses Carousel to try to get the brass ring :)  This svg was found from google image search, I imported it to Make the Cut software and cut it with my Silhouette SD.

you can complement me on my handwriting in the comment sections ;)

This is the last page, a photo of all three of us in a garden patch on Marthas Vineyard.  I used the inside back cover as a simple, basic place to leave Michelle a little thank you note and list the different places shown in the album.

I love how it all turned out.  I especially like the sturdy-ness of the album since all pages are covered chip board (cereal boxes).  I had so much fun putting it all together! I'll package it up and ship it to her house this afternoon, I can't wait for her to receive it!

Have you started your summer albums and scrapbook pages yet? I have so much to get caught up on, I haven't done a scrapbook page since April!

<3 Rachel w k

CAS-ual Meets Charles Dickens

I was sooooo thrilled for the CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week, so I had to make 2 cards.  The theme is "What's Black and White and Read all Over?" which is to make a black, white, and red card based on one of your favorite books.

Nerd Alert... I did mine on two Charles Dickens novels, one of which happens to be my favorite favorite novel I have ever read in my life.  Nothing will ever compare!

CFC18 - "A Christmas Carol"

My first card is based off Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  The fireplace is for where all the ghosts of Christmas' past come from, and I turned the little cookie stamp into three pieces of coal.  Because Scrooge is a scrooge and he deserves coals for Christmas, and three of them represent each of his past ghosts!

Deets:  Fireplace and coal stamps from my new Lawn Fawn (!!) winter set, the holly and snowflakes are from Inkadinkado. I used my brand new (!!) water color pencils to shade the fireplace and coals.

My Second card is based off my favorite book of all time, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

CFC18 - "Great Expectations"

 This is my favorite "love" quote from the book.  From first reading it, it seems lovey and adorable, but really it's Pip realizing that he will never get his love, Estella, and also realizing that she is very bad for him and will never love him in return; hence the wilted black flower, black heart, and fallen single petal (kind of a 'she loves me, she loves me not' idea).  Ya this novel is amazing.

Deets: All stamps are from my brand new (!!) set of Annabelle Stamps that I won from the lovely and talented Karin.  I just got the stamps yesterday and used them immediately for this challenge! I shaded the petals with water color pencils, and printed the quote from the compy.

Thanks for lookin!  And thank you so much Karin and Annabelle Stamps, I love them and they're gorgeous stamps to work with!

This dude's a Balla

<3 Rachel w k