Work is getting in the way of crafting...

At least, that's what I've been experiencing lately.   So this weekend I was determined to enter my craft room (for the first time in days) and sit down to make a project.  And this post shows the results of my crafty afternoon.

First, lets start with a photo of what I started with...

One sketch that I found on Pinterest, one 5x7 photo, two 5x3 photos, one sheet of 12x12 pattern paper, three sheets of 6x6 pattern paper, two strips of black card stock with a candle border punched out, one "happy birthday" die cut and a set of circle dies, which I was going to use for the circle elements on the sketch.

Once I had my supplies, assembling my layout went petty fast and this is what I ended up with...

I stayed true to the basic design of the sketch, but I feeling the layout could still use some more embellishments.   Leave me a comment and let me know what you do think this layout needs to be complete.

WELCOME...

To the first ever Die-Versions Blog Hop :)

I'm Mary one of the ladies on Die-Versions's Design Team and I have TWO Birthday cards to show you today.   

For today's cards I will be using the following three Die-Versions' dies: 
Happy Birthday Corner Concepts
Patterned Pumpkin Whispers
Northern Maple Whispers.

For me fall goes hand and hand with birthday, because the majority of my extended family has fall birthdays.  So I'm always on the look out for products I can use on fall birthday cards.    

For this card I started with pattern paper for my background... I taped the Happy Birthday die cut on the top left corner of a 3"x 4" piece of pattern paper and place foam squares on the back for dimension.  I added a die cut Patterned Pumpkin, which I paper pieced from two pieces of color glitter paper.   As a finishing touch I added pearls and rhinestones to the middles of each flower in the pumpkin.

For this card I once again started with pattern paper for my background... I taped the Happy Birthday die cut on the top left corner of a 4"x 4" piece of pattern paper and taped the element directly onto my background pattern paper.  My next layer was the Northern Maple die cut, which I taped directly onto the last layer.  So far I haven't given dimension to any of the layers, so on the paper pieced Patterned Pumpkin die cut I placed foam squares before attaching it to the card.   

I actually filmed the making of these cards.  Here's the video:

I hope you enjoyed your time on my blog and that you come back soon.  Here's some information regarding the blog hop...  GOOD LUCK!

The blog hop contest will run from September 17th to September 22th.  Winners will be posted on September 23rd on all the blogs. The prizes are...
   
  1 $50 Die-Versions gift certificate
  5 $10 Die-Versions gift certificates

Hoppers will need to comment on all the blog stops and then on the last stop (Die-Version's blog) and tell us which die out of all the projects they saw was their favorite.  The winners will be randomly chosen from the Design Teams' blogs so make sure to comment at ALL stops as well as on facebook to increase your chances of winning.   I wish you luck :)

If you came from Lori's blog, your next stop should be Penny's blog.

Anne Temple http://www.annemade-anne.blogspot.com/
Emilia van den Heuvel (Emmy): http://few-favourite-things.blogspot.com/
Grace Tolman:  http://tolmanchronicles.blogspot.com/
Liz Chidester:  http://thescrappiest.blogspot.com/
Lori:  http://loriskreations.blogspot.com/
Mary Moisan:  http://madebymarymoisan.blogspot.com/
Penny Ward:  http://www.pennywardink.com/
Tanya Johnson:  http://little-scrapper.blogspot.com/
Die Versions Store Blog:  http://www.die-versionsblog.com/

On a beautiful summer day in August...

We went to the Alder Planetarium and here's the layout I create to document our trip.

It's hard to believe that with our family's love of sci-fi and all things space... and that we are all native or long time Chicagoans, this was our first time visiting the Planetarium.  Goes to show, you can be a tourist in your own town. 

I was able to get 27 photos on this double page layout.  And I still had room for two die cuts (silver and black glitter paper) of the Die-Versions' Solar System Whisper die.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this die!   Here's some close ups of the layout.

And here's a video of my making the layout:

I hope you enjoy.  Would love feedback, so don't be shy.

I'm back!

Yes, it's been almost a month since my last post, but it's been a very busy time for me.  Late August, early September is always busy which my son going back to school, my husband's birthday, my son's birthday and my son's new band parade requirements.  Throw in my going back to work full-time after four years of being a stay-at-home mom.

Now, being a stay-at-home mom wasn't something I plan for, but when I was laid off from my job as an IT Project Manger back in May of 2009 my efforts in finding another job proved unsuccessful and after a while I petty much stopped looking.  To be honest... I really wasn't excited about finding a new job, because I knew that whatever job I found would most likely not be a working from home one.   And a work from home job is want I had for the last 9 of the 14 years I was w/that company.  I don't do change well and I was in major denied over losing the best job of my working career.  

Fast forward to late summer 2013... my son is 13 and in school all day.  I have a lot of free time on my hands... Thankfully I love to scrapbook and make cards, which I do a lot of.  And if I'm honest, I also spend a good amount of time on Pinterest, Facebook and at the crafts stores.  But none of those things pay.  So when an interesting job offer (although not in my field or my old pay scale) unexpectedly came my way, I really couldn't turn it down.

So as off Sept 3rd I'm working full-time again.  Dealing with a one hour commute each way, but I'm taking it one day at a time.

Now, lets get back to crafting...