Be proud of yourself!

I love to craft.  It makes me happy and, honestly, proud of myself.  I think as busy women we tend to forget about ourselves and make ourselves happy and proud.  We are happy for our kids, proud of our kids, but we need to remember not to lose ourselves in the process of being a good parent. 

So whether it be a card, a scrapbook page or a "thingy", crafting is like therapy for me.  At our last Girls Weekend, I wanted to make these letters.  I bought them a while ago at American Scrapbook Store in LaCrosse.  They are plain chipboard letters that you can punch out of the square.  I apologize, I should have taken "before" photos.  But I bought them with the intent to do something with them, so this is what I did.

I punched out all of the letters and sanded them to make the edges smooth.  Then I inked them with my chocolate chip ink (craft would have been better, but I didn't have it).  Then I cut some old designer series paper that was in an old Simply Scrappin' Kit and covered the squares.  I then adhered the letters to the paper with some Crystal Effects and embellished each square.  I think they turned out mighty cute!  I haven't decided, but I think I'll get two frames and put the squares along with a picture or two of each child in their own frame.

So, the moral of the story is to go create something and be proud of yourself!

Audra

Color Renovation and Tote-ally Tess

This is one of the projects that we made at a recent 10 for $15.  I fell in love with Tote-ally Tess, but wasn't quite sure how to use her.  So I thought a 6x6  sign that everyone could hang in their own crafty spot.  :)  And, no, I am not a horrible colorer with her hair: I have curly hair, so I tried to make Tess have curly hair, too.  It didn't work out for the best, it just looks kinda sloppy, but so does my hair, so I left it!  I also used a sponge to ink the left-over part of a Top Note Big Shot piece, I love that look!  I hope you make your own sign to let everyone know where your crafty spot is.

The 6x6 Pacific Point (blue) background was used just to use up some old 12x12 cardstock I had lying around.  However, with Stampin' Up!'s new Color Renovation, Pacific Point and a lot of old "In Colors" are coming back!  Yay!!!   Here's the NEW colors as of July 1, 2010...

If you think there are fewer colors, you're right! The collections have 10 colors instead of 12 and there are 4 collections instead of 4 families AND a neutral family.  We will continue to have In Colors, only 5 instead of 6, and they will stick around for 2 years rather than 1.  If I understand it correctly, we'll always have 10 In Colors, with 5 new and 5 carried over from the prior year.

If your favorite isn't on the list, be sure to let me know as soon as possible so that you can stock up on ink pads, paper and embellishments.

Have a great weekend and keep craftin',

Audra