Sweet Cake

If you haven't purchased this new stamp set yet, Sweet Cake, please do! I love the feel of this little stamp set. It's fun, hip and young looking. Everything that I feel I'm not right now. I can see myself getting a ton of use out of this little guy and I sure hope they keep it around for the new 2012/2013 catalogue. Hope you all had a great weekend. 

The Chaos That Is My Refuge

I know everyone can relate to this post. =) At work, I hate disorganized work stations. Everything should be labelled, put in a binder or filed. At home... completely different story. I'm lucky enough to have the entire basement as my crafting area and I hope that when we start thinking about renovations for the basement, I'll be able to keep a large portion of the basement dedicated to my hobbies, with the exception of perhaps more built in shelving that will keep me more organized. In the meantime, my basement looks like the aftermath of a tornado with winds gusting up to 130 km/h. I have no shame in sharing my crafting area with you all because I know every one of you who reads this blog has tornadoes hitting on a regular basis too. So without further adieu, I present to you all, my basement refuge. 

 I sit right on the middle of all this stuff so I have essentially 3 work surfaces. The one on left is my stamping area. The computer is where I lay out a lot of random things and blog of course. The right hand side which you can't see is where I keep my Simply Scored board and my Big Shot. There's actually a table that is an extension of my desk that you'll see in the last photo. 

This photo was taken this morning, no tidying, no adding of things (except my cup o' joe). 

 I realized I haven't labelled these new In Color stamp pads yet so that's why they are all laid out. I usually punch out a piece of the coordinating card stock with the word window punch and glue it onto the end of the stamp pad. It makes it way easier to see and sort. Stampin' Up sells sheets of labels with the ink pad names but I find this way much better. I don't have to worry about buying more labels if I get new In Colors or perhaps it's the simple fact that my aging eyes don't like reading those little tiny black letters. 

That table on the right is the extension I was talking about. It's got my big cutting mat on it for when I sew and need to cut fabric. Right now, it's storage for my thank you cards and that big red box of Project Life items. The table at the back is where I usually hold workshops but again, it's used for massive storage right now. So that's half my basement. Hope you enjoyed the tour and I would love to see your space so leave me a link to your post if you have something up already on your blog. =) Happy Sunday everyone. 

A Bit Late

A dear friend had her birthday a few days ago. I didn't get a chance to see her so I decided to make a belated birthday card. I forgot about those little leaves die for the Big Shot and how much I love them! That houndstooth background wasn't my favorite but it's definitely growing on me. It works great as a background and not a focal point because some of the other impressions folders I have draw way too much attention. The card CASEd Kristina Werner's card found here. 

Girly, you rock!

Running off to dinner to celebrate a lovely friend's birthday. I CASE'd this card from the talented Kristina Werner. It uses the little heart punch from Stampin' Up! and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I have forgotten how much I love Papertrey products. I'm making a trip down to the states a couple times this year. Perhaps I need to make another order... Have a great weekend everyone! 

Framelit Card

Ok I'm officially in LOVE. I've been aching and hoping and wishing for Stampin' Up to bring out their version of Nestabilities and they finally have! They are called framelits dies for the Big Shot. As soon as I saw the Labels Collection with the coordinating Apothecary Art stamp set, I knew I had to have it. The ribbon, stamp set, paper and brad can all be free items earned during Stampin' Up's annual Sale-A-Bration. It's the most wonderful time of the year in stamping world. If you had any inclination to venture into the paper crafting world, now is the time my friends! Hope everyone had a happy Valentine's day! 

Whole Face Smile!

Good evening everyone! Just wanted to do a quick share of another card we made at our meeting last month. It uses a ton of Sale-A-Bration items which is nice because all of the items can be earned for free! My favorite is still the paper by far. Off to bed! 

Happy Birthday

Yeech, iPhone photos sometimes aren't that great in low light situations are they? I figured it's either mediocre pictures with my iPhone that actually get posted or the non-existent photos that I don't get around to taking with my normal camera. As you can tell, I decided on option A. Sorry about the weird angle too. I guess I should have gotten down to eye level instead of sitting in my chair and guestimating. A few weekends ago, I attended a stamping meeting and it reminded me of the love I have for paper crafting. These meetings are always fun because we often will make 4 projects and this meeting was no different! We focused on using Sale-A-Bration and new catalogue items and the cards turned out great! I'll post all our projects over the next few days. Here's card uno! I'm actually really enjoying that stamp set and even the fun new ribbon! And if you know me at all, you can never go wrong with Crumb Cake (aka Kraft) card stock! 

Baby Card

What can I say other than my life has been super hectic? One would think that with the wedding behind me now, I'd have loads of time to craft... The problem is I've picked up several other hobbies along the way. I've discovered that I love fabric just as much as I love paper. I've also discovered that I'm really enjoying photography. Those two things have been eating up my time along with the lingering wedding bits like thank you cards and the big honeymoon! There have been a lot of babies happening at work lately. A lot. We had a little play date today and I whipped up a card quickly. I went to a stamping meeting last weekend and it was great fun! It reminded me of how much I missed stamping so hopefully I'll get back into the paper and ink soon.