365 Cards challenge Day 219 "candy corn"

I LOVE candy corn!!!  It's one of the first signs of Fall around our house, I can't wait to fill little bowls full of it and place them around.  My husband loves to use them for vampire teeth & cracks me up when he sneaks up on me with his "corny smile"   :>   So when I saw this fun challenge from Pam at 365 Cards I just had to jump in, I may even create a few more projects with this sweet theme!  My project is a gift bag, not a card, so I don't know if it counts for the challenge but I'm going to share it with you anyway.  I used a plain white gift bag w/handles, kraft cs, patterned papers from Paper Studio & Bo Bunny, some burlap ribbon that I've had so long I don't remember who made it, rickrack & ribbon & twine & a button from my stash.  The sentiment I did on the computer...yes, I know, it's very corny (sorry, I can't stop!!!)    I think this design could easily make a fun card...  I'm going to go hunt down some candy corn right now and maybe give it a try.  Have a great day & eat a little candy corn if you get a chance  :>

so blessed, everyday!

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend with family & friends, enjoying your favorite activities  :>   Randy & I had a fun outing to the pumpkin farm, enjoyed some football (with chili, of course!), and decorated the porch & yard with more Halloween lights.  We really love decorating & lighting the house for the Fall & Winter holidays, it's so much fun...I think Randy enjoys it more than I do  LOL   Even though our teams didn't do so well this weekend there's just something about having the game on and enjoying something warm & cheesy  & delicious to eat while the weather is just a little chilly & breezy outside...ahhhh, it's a nice way to pass the time!
   I've also been enjoying my favorite thing this weekend and made a fun card with a Fall theme.  I used pre-made scalloped circles by yours truly (from Archivers), the patterened papers are from Bo Bunny & Lasting Impressions and a small scrap of cream cs from my stash.  I cut the big leaf with my cricut (wild cards, I think) and used  a small flower, leaf,  glitter brad & clip from MM.  The large flower is from Bazzill and the sentiment stamp is from Stampabilities.  I also added a little ribbon & twine from the stash.  I'm thinking of sending this to my Mom to give to her pastor who is leaving their church soon.  He & his family are so wonderful I know they will be greatly missed.
   I have a few more goodies I've been working on and will share them with all of you soon.  I hope you have a great week and a happy monday  :>

feelin' Fall-ish!

It's been a perfect chilly, breezy,  feelin' Fall-ish kind of weekend and I love it!  The porch is all decorated with cornstalks, haybales & plenty of pumpkins to welcome the season and hot soup is on the stove.  I've had the most fun gathering supplies for fun Fall cards & projects...some old, some new & some I love almost too much to use (does that ever happen to you???) LOL  I have a few projects to share today, the first is a card & gift tag made with some cool glitter paper from KI Memories...I love this colorful paper with just a touch of glitz :>  I also used a scrap of blue polka dot paper from my stash,  yellow Bo Bunny dotted & some brown also from my stash box.  The orange chipboard is Basics from HL, the mini alphas are Cosmo Cricket and the cute leaf brad is from Karen Foster.  The blue chipboard is some naked letters from Heidi Swapp that I painted & distressed.  I love the banners that are so popular right now so I decided to use the shape on my tag.  I used the same papers as I did on the card and added a little acorn diecut from K & CO.  The brown cording on the tag is something I saved from store packaging...I love re-using things that would otherwise be thrown out!

The next project is another is another card & tag set using a great Fall-ish paper from jillibean soup  :>  I also used cs from Bazzill & more Bo Bunny dots!  I love these easy rolled flowers and thought they would make a fun tree.  I also used a journaling spot from K & CO, mini alphas from Cosmo Cricket, twine, some OLD printed twill ribbon and some naked chipboard alphas that I inked & dotted.  The tag also has a flower & leaf & glittery brad from MM,  I really like the sentiment too!
   That's all for now...Randy & I are off to our favorite farm in Bright to pick up some tiny white & orange pumpkins and maybe take a leisurely drive around and take in the beautiful sights.  Have a great day,   delisa

Happy Fall, y'all !

Hi out there!  I've been neglecting my poor, little blog for the past few weeks  :(   But I've been busy doing autumn chores & cleaning...storing away summer items, getting ready for cooler weather.  Also was lucky enough to have a visit with my Mom & brother and a fun trip to the Country Living Fair in Columbus.  Oh yeah, and I decided to repaint the master bedroom too (it looks awesome, by the way)...busy, busy, busy!  We saw so many cool things & talented artists at the fair, it's totally got me into the Fall season; that and the millions of leaves in our yard & woods already LOL  So I've been dabbling in some fun Halloween-y & Fall cards & things and I have a few to share today.  The purple card uses a fun embossing folder & a stamp from the cheapie bin ($1) at Michael's that I've had for awhile, and I love this glittery, glitzy ribbon from MM.  The kraft card has a great pumpkin diecut made by my sweet friend, Sue Kohl and those tiny alpha stickers that I LOVE.  The little black card is made from scraps, from my shoebox full, with a little of that cool ribbon & a little foam bat sticker.  I love the Fall, it's so beautiful here in the midwest  :>  I hope you have a wonderful weekend & get out there and enjoy your favorite Fall things,  delisa

Polygons & home, sweet home!

I can definitely be a homebody at times, I've just always really enjoyed my home and can always find something to do just hangin' around the house. Home is definitely my sweet place to be!  I've seen alot of cute cards & altered chipboard houses & albums and I love "home" as a theme and have been wanting to make cards celebrating it.  The 365 Cards challenge for Day 185 is to create a card using a polygon (with a min. of 5 sides) as a dominant shape on your card.  I got out my scissors & scraps and started cutting shapes and quickly realized that a house is a 5 sided shape...perfect!  Home should always be comfortable so I wanted my card to have a kind of cozy, shabby look.  I started with my favorite (right now) kraft cs and embossed it & distressed the edges a little.  The patterned papers I used are from BoBunny & Basic Grey, for the house I used a piece of paper from a MM journaling pad, the chipboard alphas are from Momenta & Bazzill, the tiny type alpha strickers are from Cosmo Cricket, ribbon & twine are from Wal-Mart & the yummy green velvet rick rack is from Archiver's.  I finished my house off with a handmade flower growing in the yard  :>  This was such a fun card to create, I really enjoyed it and will definitely be doing more of these.  Thanks for another great challenge and have a wonderful evening from my happy home to yours,  delisa

do opposites really attract ???

Do opposites really attract...sometimes, maybe, I don't know!  But it did make for a fun challenge at 365 Cards. I have to give it to Pam, the blog hostess, she really does come up with some creative challenges!  So this is for Day 184 and it's called "opppsites attract". The challenge is to use 2 colors on your card: one that you like alot & one that you don't really like very much. You can use shades of these colors along with some white/black but your 2 colors must be dominant.  I love purple but cranberry, wine & deep shades of red are not colors that I use very often or like all that much.  So these were the colors I chose for my card and I was surprised that they worked together as well as they did :>  I used cs from Bazzill, patterned papers from MM & Paper Studio, glitter chipboard & metal tag from MM, fuzzy chenille rickrack from my stash and a bling-y purple brad from Jo-ann's.The flower is handmade and a simple little technique to do using punches circles folded into thirds.
   With it's bling & sparkle I thought this would be a great "congrats" card for someone special.  I've had these papers for awhile so it was great to use them as I'm still on my mission to reduce my stash of supplies (did I mention I'm going to Archiver's tomorrow with some scrappin' friends)  LOL  oh, well!  Thanks again to Pam for a great challenge, I enjoyed it     delisa

bye, bye sweet August! CPS #182

The last day of August is heading into evening & I sure do hate to see it go!  I know it's not the official end of Summer but it feels like it so I made one more Summer-y card today to say farewell to my favorite month.  I tried to capture the feel of bright, sunny days & beautifully colored Summer flowers.  I found a great sketch over at CPS #182 and used it as my design inspiration.  The supplies I used are kraft CS from Jo-ann's, the bright funky papers & "pops" layered sticker are from Basic Grey (sugar rush & origins), the flower is from the $1 bin at M's, the tiny gems are from The Paper Studio, the ribbon & button are from my stash & the alphas are from Momenta, The Paper Studio & Bazzill.  I used a little white paint on the edges & the Clouds decorative scissors by Fiskars to cut the scalloped strip.  I like the loud colors & the crazy mix of accents on this card, it's a sweet goodbye to a wonderful August.  Thanks for looking at my card,  delisa

Color Throwdown #107

Good morning & happy Tuesday.  I can't believe it's the last day of August already...wow, time flies when you're having fun and I've had a great summer.  I hate to see it go, it's my favorite time of year, and I still feel like making just a few more Summer-y cards before Fall descends on my desk with it's much deeper, warmer hues.  So, I found the perfect card challenge to do a fun Summer card.  Color throwdown is another great card challenge blog passed along by my great friend Sue. This is so much fun because they give you a wonderful color palette and you create any style of card you want.  I love playing with color, it's one of my favorite things about crafting :>  I think the green on my card may be a little brighter but it's pretty close.  I used pp's by Paper Studio, Bo/Bunny & Lasting Impressions, the chipboard & rub-on stitches are from K&CO, rick rack & pom pom fringe is from Jo-ann's, ribbon is from HL, floral rub-ons are Basic Grey & the little yellow button is vintage.  I love using things like the fun pom pom fringe on my cards, it's jaunty & fun & makes me happy!  I've had the chipboard fruit for awhile and was glad to use some of it and also the ribbon is older too so I'm glad to make use of it.  I hope you have a wonderful last day of August & that it's sunny & bright where you are  :>

Digging Deep/Going Green

Hello everyone, hope you're having a great day!  After a week of "stay-cation" & hubby being around it was nice to get back to the regular routine of things :>  We had some wonderful days of boating & dining out but not much time for creating so I was ready for a challenge this morning.  I came across this cool challenge at 365 cards called "digging deep" and it's all about gathering & using things you've had for awhile but never used.  Lately I've been trying to do exactly that, use up things that I've had for awhile and I LOVE doing that as I have quite a stash of art supplies.  I like to think of it as green crafting :>  I also got very lucky with this challenge because you have to use at least 2 sheets of patterned paper that you've never used before and I just got this cool paper pack called "Material Girl" from Cosmo Cricket & have been dying to use it on a card so I started with that.  I also used some of my favorite dotted paper from BoBunny on the little leaf of the flower. I used a diecut tag & tiny type alpha stickers from Cosmo Cricket.  The chipboard alphas are from Heidi Swapp and probably 2 yrs. old, I inked & distressed them to match my card.  The ribbon is at least 6 mos. old (from Offray), the buttons are vintage ones from my stash, the stick pins are from Jo-ann's & Dritz, rub-on alphas from Karen Foster, stamp set , from EK Success & never used (I used it on the little tag inside of the pocket), inks from Tim Holtz (old paper) & Color Box (aquamarine)!  That's quite a list :>  This was a fun challenge & I enjoyed using supplies that have been sitting around too long.  Thanks for looking at my card & happy crafting this week,  delisa

Life is sweet!

Life is sweet these days & I'm so blessed! In too many ways to count  :>  Family, friends & time to create are at the top of my list.  I've really been enjoying card challenges lately, thanks to my very inspiring friend Sue, and I came across this sweet one at 365 cards, Day 178.  Sugar is the inspiration so I immediately thought of the cute "kitchen-y" papers from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird collection.  I love these papers, they remind me of the fabrics of granny's aprons & housedresses & baking up sweet, wonderful things in the kitchen.  I used papers & diecut from Cosmo Cricket, a doily, a piece of vintage newspaper, Distress Ink by Tim Holtz, glitter, vintage buttons from my stash, ribbon by offray & I think the metal charm is from Karen Foster.  I guess I didn't really keep it simple on this card, but I like the sentiment anyway  :>  thanks for looking in,  delisa

I love purses!

I love fun, funky purses!  So when I saw this cute challenge at 365 Cards, day 173,  I just had to post this fun little purse that I made for invitations to my niece's "diva birthday party".  She loved them & I had a ball making them for her  :>   The supplies I used are: patterned papers from Paper Studio, Doodlebug Designs, Lasting Impressions & Jo-Ann's; cardstock; assorted trims & faux fur & pearl strands from Jo-Ann's; ribbons & a flower that I diecut from glittered paper.  On the inside I used a pink flocked paper and added a "mirror" cut from shiny silver paper.  Purses are so much fun to make & even more fun to decorate.  Thanks for the great challenge 365 Cards, love it!   DeLisa

Splitcoast stampers easy paper flowers !

Hi everyone!  Another beautiful day here in my town :>   Handmade flowers are getting more & more popular and I love seeing them on cards, layouts & other paper projects.  So the other day I came across a wonderful tutorial on splitcoaststampers  website for making these easy, kinda shabby style flowers.  The steps are all there along with photos to show exactly how to do it, and if that's not enough there's also a short video showing a flower being made.  So this is probably one of the easiest handmade flowers to make...you've got to try this, you'll love it.  I made up several flowers in different sizes and was so pleased with how quick & easy they are!  I used them on this sweet "just because" card (I like to send cards to family & friends for no special occasion except just because I miss you & love you...aw, shucks.)  The pp's I used are BoBunny dots, MME & Lasting Impressions solids.  The tag is from K&CO and the rub-on if from mini marks by American Crafts.  I used a strip of quilling paper to make the stems & a tiny touch of twill to finish.  I like to layer different techniques on my cards, I think it's fun and adds alot of interest to the card.  I used 4 techniques on this card:  painting (along the outer edges),  machine stitching, distressing (the edge of the tag) and decorative scissors.  They're subtle little touches that I love to add and seem to be staples on most of my cards.  I will be trying more handmade flowers & I will share them with you & I'd love to see any that you might find.  Have a great day,  delisa

ATC challenge

Hi everyone!  I saw this ATC challenge earlier this week at 365 cards and just had to make one.  I love doing atc's but it's been awhile since I've made one so this was lots of fun.  It's a smaller version of a card that I made.  The pp's are from Penny Lane (MME) & Basic Grey (the Lemonade collection, I think).  I made the little butterfly with my MS punch, love this punch!  The tiny chipboard swirl is from a bulk pack by Bazzill and the sheer white ribbon is by Offray.  The little rub-on phrase is from MM and the tiny, heart stick pin is from Heidi Grace.  I also used some Tattered Angels glimmer mist on the papers for a shimmery look.  I really have to get back into making & trading atc's, it's so much fun and I love collecting them.  Thanks for visiting my blog & happy crafting,  delisa

CPS #179

Here's a card I made for CPS sketch #179, posting a little late but I really liked this sketch & didn't want to miss out on this one.  The pp's are from Paper Studio & BoBunny. The diecut is from K&CO & the yellow, scalloped border is from Bazzill. The chipboard alphas are both from HL.  I love how the twine looks topped with a cool felt button from JoAnn's.  This was a fun sketch & very easy to recreate!  Have a great day & thanks for looking at my cards  : >

it's delightful...it's de-lovely!

Hi everyone!  Ahhh...a perfect Summer day here in the midwest, a little break from the heat & humidity but still sunny & beautiful  : >   I know that the signs of Fall are slowly creeping into the stores and will be in full swing in just a few short weeks but I love the Summertime and I'm going to enjoy it for as long as I can.  So, I still have a few more summer-y looking cards to share.  The bright, cool, funky papers are from the "DeLovely" line by Cosmo Cricket and the colorful felt flower is by K&CO.  The chipboard alphas are from my stash and I added dots to them with a white marker.  I've really had fun working with these colorful papers and am still using them on my Summer album which I will share soon.   Have a great day & enjoy what's left of your Summer!

white space challenge

Hi everyone!  Hope you had a great weekend.  I spent several hours in my workroom doing some cleaning & re-organizing Sunday.  Things just seem to get out of control in there and I have to stop sometimes and try to regain some semblance of order :>  Not my favorite way to spend the day but it looks so much better and just a little more time should get things looking good and ready for the next "creative storm"  LOL  I do have one card to share with you today.  It was a personal challenge for me to create a card using the white space technique (actually I didn't use a white card base at all...I used kraft cardstock but I think the concept is still the same.)  My color scheme was inspired by the cool felt flower from K&CO. The bright green paper is Cosmo Cricket from the "DeLovely" line and I used just a little of my favorite BoBunny dotted paper in pink.   The mini alpha stickers are from MM...love these mini alphas!  I didn't leave a lot of negative space but I think it's enough for the colors to really stand out.  I have been hooked on the kraft cardstock and love using it, it seems to go well with whatever papers you put with it and if you buy a bulk pack it's very affordable for card bases & other projects.  Hope you enjoy my card and have a great week,  delisa

CPS Sketch #178

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I have a card today that is based on CPS sketch #178.  I love this sketch blog, they're always great designs and easy to work with.  The examples from the design team are great inspiration but  I also like to make my own card before I look at the others, just to see what I come up with.  So here's my little card using Core-dinations cardstock, a cute musical embossing folder and a fun chipboard birdie & flower from Cosmo Cricket (one of my favs!)  I love making these fun paper ruffles and have been using them alot on my cards, I like to stitch & distress them and make them curve a little. I think they add some "movement" & dimension to cards and are a fun embellishment.  The Tiny Type alpha stickers & tag are also Cosmo Cricket and available in alot of yummy colors.  I added some twine and a button from my HUGE stash to finish. Oh yeah, I also gave birdie a little bling...why not?  Birds are such a popular theme right now, I'm thinking...a mini album with all birds, that could be fun   :>    Have a great weekend and happy crafting everyone!

Happy Summer Daze

Hi everyone!  Welcome to my new blog  "happy paper daze" !  I hope to share with you my joy of cardmaking & papercrafting & the whole world of papers & embellishements that are out there for you to explore & enjoy.  I've tried many crafts over the years and enjoyed many different things but for the last several years my heart belongs to paper ;>   Love it, love it and love it some more !  So I'll be posting some of my creations using my precious paper and also news & tips about the latest trends & my right now favorite things.  I hope you'll check in with me to see what's going on in my happy paper daze and share your comments/ideas. 
   Since it's been such a long, hot Summer here in the midwest I've been on a kick of using bright, cheerful colors to make some fun cards to send to family & friends "just because."  I found this cute little pack of embellies at M's (Michael's, y'all) and just loved the colors of these.  This little guy looked so happy & fun that the I had to use it on a card.  The pp's are from my stash & have been around awhile.  The fun border is from K & CO and I added some pearls to it and the glittered chipboard is from Hobby Lobby. 

   The "happy" card was inspired by my friend, Sue, and her fun inchies!  The dotted papers are from Bo Bunny and the cute border & chipboard are K & CO.  I love this happy little card & it's message  :>  Thanks to Sue for loaning me her 1" sq. punch...makes the job alot easier  LOL  I'll be doing some more of these "inchies" cards and am saving lots of little scraps.  I hope you're all having a great Summer & making the most of all of those things that are summertime only treats.  I'm doing a little album right now about my favorite Summertime things & can't wait to share it with you.  Have a great day,   delisa

welcome to my happy paper daze!

Hello everyone & welcome to my happy paper daze!