Happy 50th Birthday Card

Hi Everyone! This is going to be a short post this weekend.

Hope you are all having a great Holiday weekend! Thanksgiving was great - we traveled to Baton Rouge to my brother's house for the holiday. It was also his 50th Birthday on November 20th so we have basically been celebrating all weekend.

For this weekend I am highlighting the Birthday Card that I made for him. I had stocked up on masculine friendly paper collection for the men in my life :)

One of them being Authentique's Celebrate paper collection. Kristina Werner from KWerner Design had done a series of birthday cards and showcased a card using this paper collection for a masculine birthday card.

I really love the bright colors with a mix of black as well. I was excited to finally use it :)

Here is a picture of my card:

For those of you that know my brother, I had to include the beer bottle in the card picture :) Isn't my brother handsome!

I used cardstock stickers from the collection to embellish my card.

Tonight is his BIG party so posting this on Saturday as I have a feeling that will be too tired to post on Sunday :)

Will be back next week with more projects and update on my December daily.

Thanks for stopping by and keep on crafting!

Happy Thanksgiving Banner and December daily update

Hi Everyone! Hope your weekend is going well. I have been a productive crafter this weekend which makes me very HAPPY!

I started on Friday night organizing my Holiday themed papers, stickers, and embellishments for my upcoming December daily.
Yes, I did go ahead and decide to pursue a December daily (DD) this year. I am actually excited and hope to accomplish my goal of journaling every day until December 25th.
I will be incorporating my DD into my Project Life Album instead of doing a separate smaller album. This way I keep everything together.

Saturday I visited my favorite hair stylist, Vanessa, at Sozo Hair Salon in the Woodlands.....she is FANTASTIC! Love her! I pretty much see her every 4 weeks due to my unfortunate early hair gray DNA.
Afterwards, I did some actual work for my day job and then started on Christmas cards. You can call me crazy but yes, I have not only decided to do a December daily but also make my own Christmas cards again this year.
I had such a great time making Christmas cards last year that I had to do the same for this year....can't disappoint my card fans :)


First I do want to show you pics taken of my finished Thanksgiving banner that I made for my clinic. I think it turned out pretty cute. The staff really liked it.

Here are some pics:

I used my Cricut Expression 2 for all the die cuts such as the banner shapes, scalloped squares, and letters. The patterned paper comes from the Simple Stories Harvest Lane collection which has beautiful fall themed papers. The ribbon is from American Crafts and Michaels.


Now for my Christmas cards this year I have 5 small 6x6 paper pads that I am using to make my cards. So far I have only used one of the paper pads and have the next one already planned out as well.

Here is a sneak peak at my first round of Christmas cards:

Now let me show you a picture of how my desk looks right now after taking all my Holiday stuff out. Did not realize how much I had bought but actually glad I did now that I have decided to do the DD album.

My paper collections include last year's October Afternoon Holiday Style and Echo Park's Winter Park collections. Most are new collections for 2012 from Studio Calico, Crate Paper, Echo Park, Cosmo Cricket, and Simple Stories.

These are some Studio Calico embellishments including their new snowflake wood veneers. Also have their new stamp set called Spread Joy which I believe is supposed to go along with their new Wonderland collection.

I can't forget my Ali Edwards stamp sets including the this one which is called December Joys. This one just came out last month as part of Studio AE for the month of October. I am enrolled in the Studio AE monthly subscription, so every month I get a great new Ali Edwards stamp set. Her stamp sets are meant to be paired with Project Life.

These are some chipboard embellishments which coordinate with the paper collections. They are all so pretty and can't wait to use them especially the banner shapes from October Afternoon.

Here are some of the new paper collections that I will be using including Echo Park's Very Merry Christmas and Simple Stories Handmade Christmas. The banners are from Basic Grey's Aspen Frost collection.  I do not get the 12x12 papers for that collection but do have the 6x6 pad which I will be using for my Christmas cards.


I started to put together some of the photo pocket pages that I will be using. I recently bought some 6x12 pocket pages from Becky Higgins/Project Life on Amazon.com.
In the end I decided to stick to the regular 12x12 pocket pages.

It was too exciting to just organize so I went ahead and made my title page for my DD album. Like I said earlier, my DD album will be part of my Project Life album so I can keep the whole year together.


Here is a few pics on my title page:

Keep in mind that this is not complete. I do plan to add a picture over the top left corner and maybe a few more embellishments.

Most of the videos and blog posts that I have read online recommend to start with the foundation for your album. As each day passes, then you add your pictures and journaling. Also add your embellishments as you go. So over the next few days, I will be adding background papers and journaling cards to each page. For the December 25th page, I will most likely be doing a whole 12x12 layout which will be the end of my December daily.

Well that is it for this week. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at what is going on in my craft room.

I know I did not have an actual card or layout to display this week but will mostly be doing Project Life/December daily updates on a weekly basis.

I will not be able to post next weekend due to the Holiday as will be busy with family.

I do wish you all a safe and great Happy Thanksgiving!

Fall themed card and almost done Thanksgiving banner

Hi everyone! Ana here with P&P Creations with my project for the week.

I was playing around with my blog yesterday which inspired me to change it up a little. I hope you all like it. I think it is a little more simple but really liked the chevron background that I found online for free!

I started to work on a Happy Thanksgiving banner for my office as planned but did not make time during the week to actually finish it. I wanted it to be my midweek post here on my blog but of course that did not happen. I will eventually increase my posting to twice a week but I do need to get more organized.

Well on to my project for the week.....

Since it is almost Thanksgiving time, I really wanted to make another fall themed card just for the fun of it. I bought a Bazzill patterned paper collection called Grandma's feather bed on sale about 1 year ago and have never used it. I really like the colors which are both fall and spring like colors.

My papertrey ink order arrived this week which included several new dies including the die that coordinates with the Hello Sunshine stamp set. I have seen many carmakers use this die to make great looking cards.

Here is the coordinating stamp set:

I did not use the stamp set but really wanted to use the dies to make a nice ray pattern on a card.

It is not as easy at it looks though but having the dies really helped. I would not attempt to do this type of pattern without it.


Here is my card for the week:

Some of my favorite clear photopolymer stamps are from Technique Tuesday/Studio AE (Ali Edwards). I had bought a fall set called Autumn Afternoons with Ali from 2009 at Joann's on sale.

I had been really wanting to use this stamp set. The leaves on the cards are actually stamped and then I cut out the shape to put on my card.


The sentiment is also from an Ali Edwards stamp set called Celebrate Fall. This was the September 2012 stamp set from Studio AE subscription.

The sentiment is stamped on Papertrey Ink cardstock. I used another new die set to make the oval shape out of the cardstock. I used Jenni Bowlin ink in Brown Sugar for the sentiment and Tim Holtz seasonal distress inks for the leaves.

Cute card, huh?



For the Thanksgiving banner for my office, I used the Simple Stories paper collection called Harvest Lane. The actual banner cuts as well as alphabet cuts were done using my Cricut Expression 2 and American Crafts cardstock.


Here is a sneak peak:

Can't wait to finish it and hang it up in clinic. Will put up pics on my blog once completed :)


Thank you for stopping by and checking out my projects this week. I am actually contemplating doing a December daily journal/scrapbook this year but still not completely sure. I have bought several Christmas themed supplies so would really like to use them.
For those of you that do not know what a December daily is, then you need to check out Ali Edwards blog post:  http://aliedwards.com/2008/10/creating-a-december-daily-album-part-one.html

If I do decide to do a December daily then most likely I will make it part of my Project Life scrapbook. Most people do a whole separate album just for their December daily.
I know what you are all thinking.....Ana, you are not even caught up with your Project Life!
Again I am just contemplating doing this :)

Well stay tuned to see what I end up doing :) I hope you all have a great week! Will be back next weekend with another project.

Happy Veterans Day! A big THANK YOU to all veterans for their service to our country!!

October Studio Calico Kit

Hi everyone! Hope you are all having a great weekend so far! Mine has been great since I was able to sit in my craft room yesterday evening and have some fun.
I just wish this was my full time job :) Yeah right!

I did work yesterday in the morning but came home in the early afternoon and had my husband make me a great spaghetti lupper (late lunch/early supper).
I am very proud of him as most of you all know that we found out on Thursday afternoon that he passed the Texas state bar exam!! He is now officially a lawyer. Could not be more excited for him!

Now for those of you that actually follow my little blog here, you have seen me say how I have not even broken into my Studio Calico kit for October.
Well I did finally use it in one of my layouts last week that I posted here on my niece's graduation. I also used it for this week's projects which includes another layout and a card.

I am still finishing up my 2011 scrapbook which still includes some of our Washington DC trip...can you believe it!
Forget about Project Life for now...ugh!! I just wish I had more time to work on my craft :(

I was not able to do a midweek post like I wanted since it was Halloween on Wednesday but will try to get one done this week.

My dogs are so cute and were different colored crayons this year! We don't have kids so we only have dogs to torture on Halloween :)


Here is a picture of them:

Starting from the left side - this is Max, Peaches and Patrick. We love these goofballs!
Dad dressed up as the crayon box which matched well :)

The other good news this week is the my dog kiddos made the Pet of the Month board at their vet's office! Proud of my family!


Anyway on to my projects this week. Like I said, I am still trying to finish our Washington DC trip from March 2011!! yikes!

So my layout for this week is using some pics I took at the National Air and Space Museum which is located in the National Mall area.

My patterned papers came from my Studio Calico kit for October as did most of my embellishments that I used.

Here is picture of the October kit:

Here is my layout:

The washi tape that I used to border the top and bottom of my page did not come with kit. Some of my alpha stickers also did not come with the kit except for the wood grain thickers. I had to end up using October Afternoon's alpha stickers from the Rocket Age collection.

The cardstock alpha stickers that came with the kit were awful! You could not even take them off the sheet without tearing, so I gave up and used others from my stash.

The camera and star paper clips are also my stash and are from Amy Tangerine. 

I forgot to include a journaling card, so decided to just journal on the side of my page.

We almost spent a whole day in this museum and had to end up rushing through the last part of it to keep on moving to the next one. We had fun anyway although very tired at the end of each day :)

My next project for this week was a card in which I also used my Studio Calico kit. I received some great Studio Calico clear stamp sets that I ordered from Simon says Stamp this week so I really wanted to at least use one of them for this week's card.

The stamp set I used is called "Oh Snap" and is a new stamp set that just came out.

Love the arrows and the sentiments on this stamp set! It will great for Project Life whenever I finally get back into it as well as cards.

Here is a picture of my card:

When I showed my husband the card I made, his only words were "What's up with the cameras?". I just thought that the patterns worked well together and I really do like that patterned paper with the cameras from Echo Park.

So after his statement, I thought it would make a great card for my photography class teacher. The class is over but I think she would appreciate this anyway.

I think it would also make a great card for anyone who is into photography like my friend Stephanie. 

I also want to share a few pics from a recent haul from Urban Papercraft. They have great prices and free shipping over $49. She ships priority so it is basically at your house in 3-4 days!

This some of the new American Crafts Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic collection embellishments including stickers, tags, chipboard die cuts and cardstock die cuts. They only had the 6x6 paper pad and I actually want the 12 x 12 papers only so those are on their way from Two peas store.

I also bought some October Afternoon washi tape from the Cakewalk collection which came out earlier in the year. They also had a great price on a package of colored twine from American Crafts but not too happy with quality of twine once I used it :(

Also bought some Studio Calico journaling cards set from the Yearbook and Wonderland collection. The wood veneers are from the Yearbook collection - I wanted these for the cute maple leafs and apple shapes which go great with the current fall theme.

The thickers are from the recent Classic Calico Vol.3 collection and will go great on layouts....I love thickers!

I also received a large haul from Two Peas but forgot to take pictures before organizing everything :)

Most of it was from Crate Paper including their new Sleigh Ride and On Trend collection.

Thank you for tuning in this week and checking out my projects!

Will be working on a banner for my office today for Thanksgiving so will post pictures once I am done with it.

Have a great week everyone!

Ana