9.27.2011

This Weekend! It's a Stamping Social!

If you're in the Chicago area, plan to be at my place Saturday afternoon! It's going to be more fun than you'll want to miss :)

9.24.2011

Charlotte's First Year Scrapbook-Weeks 9-10

She's growing up so fast! It's hard to keep up! Here are weeks 9 & 10:



Click here to see the other pages!

9.22.2011

Wish Big

Here is the card I made for my mom for her birthday last month. I was just planning to play with a few new products that I had just ordered, but the card turned out way cuter than I was planning, so I sent it to my mom! Now, this idea goes completely opposite the mantra from my first stamp club: "Oops! I messed that up! Oh well, I'll just send it to my mom..." (we were operating under the assumption that moms always love things their daughters make for them--even when they're messed up!). I know my mom loves everything that I make for her, but when I make something that I think is especially cute I have to send it to somebody that will appreciate the time I took to make it! That person is almost always my mom! Plus, this card had the super cute Concord Crush Stitched-Poly Ribbon. My mom's favorite color (by far!) is purple, so I knew this was the perfect card for her! Happy Birthday, mom!




Happy Stamping!
Cari

P.S. My Little turned 14 weeks this past Monday! Whoa! And I love baby shoes even more than I love my shoes. That's sayin' somethin'...

Oh, and sparkle jeans? Yes please!!

9.21.2011

9.20.2011

Danielle's Wedding

So I mentioned a few months ago that I helped design and create wedding invitations, programs, menus, favors, and place cards for my sister, Danielle.




Danielle found an invitation design online that she liked, so I took the idea and ran with it. Using the same general design, I made the programs and the menus. Our family is a bit into the "coordination" thing (i.e. my mom and dad always coordinate their outfits for church on Sunday, as do Ben, Charlotte and I...yeah.), so EVERYTHING that we did for the wedding coordinated. Not just the wedding colors, but literally everything (squares, not circles, pearls, not rhinestones, etc.). It should come as no surprise that we had to coordinate all the paper items too!

All the items used the following colors: Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Very Vanilla, and Lucky Limeade (well, actually Stampin' Up! didn't come out with Lucky Limeade until after the wedding, but the paper we used was almost exactly the same color!). I only an invitation and program with me here in Chicago, so the pictures of the menus and favors/place cards are from the wedding itself.

INVITATION






PROGRAM






MENU





FAVORS/PLACE CARDS





For these place cards/favors, we made a tent box with Hershey's nuggets inside--a nugget for each family member sitting together. For example, had our little family been able to sit together (I was at the head table), we would have had a box with three nuggets, and the outside of the box would have said, "Mr. & Mrs. Ben Mooneyham family, Table 8." This seemed like a great idea at the time, but it ended up being a little tricky for those families that changed from five attendees to two at the last minute :) Oh well! It was a fun challenge (especially at 3:00 a.m. the morning of the wedding...). For the nuggets, we printed on address labels four different designs: an image of a bride and groom, the monogram, "David & Danielle", and the wedding date. We wrapped the labels around the nuggets and glued them inside the boxes with snail adhesive. Let me know if you have more questions about these boxes. They were incredibly easy to make, but the directions might be too much to try to post here unless someone really wants them!


All in all, the wedding was a blast, and making all these fun items was the perfect way for me to be able to help out. Since I was in Chicago (and pregnant!), I wasn't able to help with much else for the wedding. Thankfully my sister is pretty easy going about stuff like this, and I guess she just trusted my judgement! I hope she liked the finished products!

Happy Stamping!
Cari

9.18.2011

Thank You's

Charlotte is growing up! She's finally gotten much better at napping in her crib (instead of my arms), so I have much more time for creating and blogging! Yay! I've got tons of stuff to show you, it's just a matter of getting it up here!

Before Charlotte was born, we were lucky enough to have several friends throw us baby showers.

My sister, Nicki, coordinated with both me and Danielle to throw a joint Baby/Bridal shower for me and Danielle in Topeka




My good friends, Emily & Alli, threw me a baby shower here in Chicago


And my coworkers threw me a shower at work also. I have pictures somewhere, but I can't seem to locate them right now!

Anyway, we got some AMAZING gifts, but I quickly realized that I was going to need to get busy making thank you's for all our gifts! This was one of the cards I made:





I love the technique of crumpling the paper before I adhere it with Stampin' Dimensionals. I never knew how much fun it was to crunch my paper into a ball! Ben even joined in on the fun...he didn't know how much fun stamping could be either :) The card turned out to be a simple design--perfect for duplication!

I used a (now retired) hostess stamp set. I'm not usually one to stamp with "nature" images, but I absolutely LOVE how this one turned out! I've since bought another "nature" set--I'll show you a sample with this set in a few days.

Happy Stamping!
Cari