Belated First Father's Day

Hello, friends! It's been awhile since I've posted, and that's because I've been enjoying spending summer time with hubs and baby AND I've been stamping! Yesterday, I photographed and uploaded 20 cards/projects to be able to share with you.

To celebrate Keith's first Father's Day, I made him a card and a canvas. Here's the card. I really like how it turned out. Super simple and masculine. I realized that I NEVER make masculine cards...ever. My poor stampers. I'll have to make a point to at least make a few a year.

The BEST thing about this card (besides the fact that it signifies we are finally parents) is that it scored me a Big Byte (you know...the Crop-O-Dile's cousin). That's right. This is actually a $50 kind of card. I couldn't help it if my Crop-O-Dile just wouldn't reach in far enough to set those inner jumbo eyelets. And, of course, by then the whole card was finished except for those. So, it had to be done.
Confession...I did write on the inside before I photographed the card. Before I wrote on it, this IS what it looked like, but I had to cheat and make a temporary inside so I could take the picture without the writing.

Now I also made him a super simple canvas using a photo of Kate from when she was only 11 days old. I just love the way she's looking up at him. All I did to make the canvas was paint it cream colored and slap on the photo and these pre-made vinyl words. I was not up for being very creative with this project.

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

May Stamp Club #1

My downline Linda K. designed the cards for our clubs in the month of May. I just still didn't have it in me during those first few weeks to do anything creative. Thank you, Linda!

She used one of my favorite stamps sets for this card, Always. Don't you just love that set? It's so versatile. I'm glad it's not retiring yet. All layers are stamped tone on tone, except the main image.{Your So Thoughtful}

Stamps: Always, Absolutely Fabulous

Ink: Almost Amethyst, Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip

Paper: Almost Amethyst, Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery, Whisper White

Accessories: 1/8" hole punch, 1/4" apricot grosgrain ribbon

Good baby news!!! Kate has been consistently sleeping about six hours a night for the last week and a half. Life is good!!! She's 10 weeks old today. This picture of her was taken for Faces of Bellingham about a week or so ago. So cute! Her eyes are actually still blue, but you can't tell in the picture. Everyone (except my mom) says she looks like her daddy.

February Stamp Club

These are the cards we made back in February for stamp club. So, if anyone from club is reading this and you were absent, now you can finally put the stamped pieces together! Yay!

{Loads of Love}

Stamps: Loads of Love, Priceless

Ink: Basic Black, Pretty in Pink

Paper: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White, Basic Black

Accessories: SU! markers real red, basic black, going gray, pretty in pink, regal rose, and close to cocoa, silver brads, stickles, circle punches (1 1/4 and 1 3/8)

The image is colored with markers with stickles on the hearts. Here's a hint...Wait for the markers to dry a bit before adding the stickles. Otherwise the markers will bleed. Guess how I know this??? Not only have I done it before, but I also forgot to tell the stamp club members that before we made this card. Theirs bled. Oops!

{Valentine Fish}

Stamps: Holidays and Wishes, retired heart wheel

Ink: Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze

Paper: Basic Black, Naturals White, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze

Accessories: red tafetta ribon, punches: scalloped edge, 1 3/4 circle, five-petal, 1/4 circle, boho blossoms, heart to heart (at the time I made the card, I didn't have this punch so I had to hand cut it)

I cased this card from an issue of Stampin' Success. One of my club members just happened to have googly eyes in her car. How convenient is that? Girl scout mom. So that club added adorable googly eyes to the fish instead of the punched and colored ones. Increases the cuteness factor by 110%.
{Monochromatic Thanks}

Stamps: Heartfelt Thanks

Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Old Olive

Paper: Whisper White, Kiwi Kiss

Accessories: Kiwi Kiss striped ribbon

The more solid images were stamped multiple times...maybe three...to get the different shades. The outline stamp was stamped full-strength over each blossom. I used Old Olive ink to stamp the Thanks, but we found out it didn't really matter if you used that or Kiwi Kiss. The greeting turned out pretty much the same each time. Thanks is popped up on dimensionals. This is a quick, simple card you can create in less than 10 minutes in any color scheme. Gotta have a few of those in your tool box for times when you need a quick card.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll leave you with one last image. Kate started smiling almost three weeks ago, and it's happening more and more these days. Keith (DH) is very good at getting smiles out of her. We took this picture last weekend when she was six and a half weeks.

I'm a Mommy!

Remember me? Some of you have probably forgotten that you used to even read my blog. I have been quite absent from the stamping and blogging world...obviously. But, I'm back! I've promised my club members that I'm going to post the cards from our stamp clubs these past few months. I'm getting on it this weekend, girls! My goal is to upload those cards and schedule a couple of weeks worth of posts.

First though, I thought I should start out with the most important business...our sweet Kate. Katherine Elisabeth was born on April 7. It's hard to believe that she's seven weeks old already. How time flies! We are blessed, happy, and utterly sleep deprived!

These are some pictures we had taken of her when she was just 11 days old. Those of you on our email list have already seen these. I'll make an effort to post some more recent photos soon.

Isn't she adorable? Okay, maybe I'm a bit biased though. I just love her! Sigh.