Crafting with Kids - Summer Foods Challenge

It's time to get busy crafting with your kids again.  This month our challenge is to make something with a summer food theme.  Here is a photo of what the girls made for you. 

All it took was a couple simple cirlces cut with my Cricut and they could do the rest.  How easy is that!  Below is another example from a junior member of the Bugaboo design team.  Looks like we both think of watermelon when we think of summer! 

Scrappy daughter from the Bugaboo Design team

Not it's your turn.  Any creation having to do with a summer food.  Blog about it and then link up here.  You could win 7 free images from our generous sponsor, Bugaboo Digi Stamps.

Introducing Jilly Bear Designs!

It's summer time and I've had some stress free time to really think about my Etsy shop.   With our recent move, new craft space, and increased sales I really wanted to get everything organized before school started again and I had more responsibilities on my plate. 

I contacted a Becca over at Jumping Jax Designs.  She makes printable invitations as well as blog design and business branding.  With her help, patience, and expertise we created the new logos, banner, and business items for Jilly Bear Designs!  Before I show you her wonderful work I wanted to tell you a little about the name. 

My youngest daughter (3) is named Jillian.  It had gotten shortened to Jilly pretty much immediately and then soon I was calling her "my little Jilly Bear."  That has been my pet name for her for the last 3 years and it just seemed logical since most of my designs are kid and baby oriented that the name would fit for my shop. 

Jilly is a Wizard of Oz (or if she pronounces it "Lizard of Boz") fanatic.  If she's not falling to the ground "melting" she's prancing around the house singing "we're off to see the Wizard."  We are currently decorating her new room.  The Owls have flown out the window (to my sorrow) and are being replaced with blue gingham, poppies, scarecrows, tinmen and Dorothy's.  Anyway... you get the picture.  I have Oz on the brain.  

So in her honor the inspiration behind the new logos and banner are Dorothy related.  Without any further delay why don't you take a look and see for yourself.

Here's the Etsy banner:

                               


Shop logos:

We are still working on the business cards and mailing labels, but I'm very please with what she has done so far. 

Another change in store is packaging.  I've finally had a little time to try different bags and packaging.  In addition to making the packages adorable and very attractive to buyers, I've actually designed some more tags for my own shop. 

Here are a few of my favorites:

I'm still working on a few more things in the shop, so keep watching for more changes.  So far I'm really liking how things are looking.  It has been a productive summer so far!



Time for some new cards

Somehow over the last couple of days I've been on top of things.  I've actually found myself with a little time to try out some new stamp sets and themes I've been want to do for a while.  Here's a little of what I've been up to.

The first two are baby cards.  I had this paper combination on the table from an invitation design and liked it so much I ended up making two more cards. 

This little sweet pea card was from a Papertrey Ink stamp set that was on my Christmas list.  I hadn't really gotten a change to play with it.  I ended up paperpiecing the pea pod because I didn't like the plain stamped look.  I thnk it worked out pretty good that way.

The last one is my current favorite, but at the moment that doesn't mean much.  My favorite tends to change every day.  LOL!  Anyway  The sentiment is a combination of 2 stamps.  Sweet Smile was a stamp from Close to My Heart that I just bought off Ebay.  The Summer was part of a Papertrey Ink sentiment.  I had to do a little piecing to get the phrase together, but I think it fits the card perfectly.  Watermelon slices are definitely summer smiles.

Crafting with Kids - Beach Challenge

Well it is definitely feeling like summer here on the Texas gulf coast.  The girls have spent their fair share of time at the pool.  We went to Galveston last weekend, but you can only spend some much time out in the heat.  To keep them busy indoors we decided to do a "beachy" themed craft.

My oldest girls just love mermaids.  It is the theme of their new bathroom, and they always choose the mermaid or princess images for coloring or drawing.  I was working on a mermaid card for my shop, and they decided they needed to make one too.

In order to keep things easy and to help keep track of all the little pieces I precut everything and put all the pieces in ziplock bags.  It definitely kept me from having to recut pieces once we started.  You can even do this the night before or while the kids are napping (if you're lucky.)  This keeps things organized and you from getting too frustrated.

This one is more detailed than some of their other crafts, so we had to work one on one.  I had to help with adding the glue to the tiniest pieces, but they were able do the majority of it.

                                         

Here are the finished cards.  Each one is slightly different based on the mermaid and colors they chose.  Addy had a little problem stamping so we had to stamp on a separate piece and cover up the mistake.  I think it made the wording stand out and looks nice.  They are very ready for a friend to have a birthday, so they can use them.

Here are some fabulous cards made by the kids of design team members over at our sponsor, Bugaboo Digistamps.

Design team member Yvonne (Scrappy) – Annabella’s card

Design team member Jennifer   - Samuels’ Card

Now it is your turn.  To enter our challenge get your kids to make any kind of "beachy" craft.  Make a card or sign.  Decorate some flip flops.  Anything beach related will do.  Link up and have some fun.  I'd love to see what your kids come up with. 

All entries will be entered into a random drawing for 7 free digital stamps of your choice from our generous sponsor Bugaboo Digi Stamps! 

RRR Challenge #49 Flowers and Ribbon

While I had the sunny BoBunny paper on my table last night I decided to try for one more challenge.  This one is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.  Their challenge #49 is to use ribbon and flowers somewhere on your project. 

I started with this inspiration card I had pinned on Pinterest a while back.  I have some many ideas pinned on their and never seem to take the time to use them.  This particular card was created by Niki Estes over at Papertrey Ink.   It caught my eye because of the colored paper matted on the black cardstock. 

I found a pack of Basic Grey Bloomers in my drawer of flowers and the colors match perfectly to my new BoBunny paper.  I needed to include a flower somewhere, so I put it in place of the large message used in the inspiration piece.

Here is the finish product:

I needed a sentiment, but I didn't want anything too defined.  I'd like the card to be pretty versatile and not specifically for a birthday or a thank you.  I thought this sentiment suited it best.

Products used;
Bo Bunny: Patterened papers
Basic Grey: Felt flower
Ivory and black cardstock from my stash
Papertrey Ink: Ribbon and sentiment stamp

Card Sketch Inspiration Challenge

Tonight I was working on the Make it Monday Challenge over at the Papertrey Ink blog.  They presented a variety of sketches they created from advertisements, photographs, scrapbook pages, etc.. Basically to show you that you can find card inspiration anywhere. 

The challenge was to create a card based on one of the sketches.  The sketch I chose was taken from a section of a scrapbook page.

I had just purchased some new BoBuny paper today at my favorite local scrapbook store.  So using that paper paired with some scrap and some items from my new Papertrey Ink stash.  I put together this take on the sketch.



I really wanted to keep this one simple and quick and I thought the banners would make for a perfect celebration card.  It just so happened the Papertrey Ink Cupcake Collection stamp set arrived in the  mail today.  That gave me the perfect sentiment.  I couldn't resist adding buttons instead of flowers..  This will keep this a more gender neutral card  for later use.

Products used:

Papertrey ink Products: sentiment stamp, Hawaiian shores Ink and button, Summer sunrise cardstock and button, white cardstock

BoBunny Products: Patterned paper, dark teal cardstock

Twine and green button are from my stash

Help me Destash!

I'm putting my new Scrapbook/Craft room together, and I don't want to fill it with things that I know I won't be using.  I have set up a Destash list on my Facebook page.  There are some prices on things or you can make me an offer.  I have Stampin up stamps, paper, new albums, felt embellishments, paper pads, Tim Holtz, Technique Tuesday, etc.  If you'd like some cheap supplies have a look!