CraftyEngineer

TE Blast from the Past Blog Hop: Sending You Sunshine!

This month's Taylored Expressions Blast from the Past Blog Hop Theme is Sending You Sunshine! What reminds you of summer? Flip flops, the beach, bright colors, sunshine? Capture the essence of summer in your project!

Well, that's easy. I would say Lazy Days of Summer but that's not even a concept that anyone does anymore, is it? Summer means vacation to me. Vacation means beach, water, island, reading for fun, boating, sailing, crafting for FUN, sleeping past 6am, staying up later than usual, swimming, and of course, fun drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Here is my card that I think captures the essence of summer for me:

I'm sending this card to my friend, Heather. I have a feeling she thinks I have no idea how to chill-ax. :) What does summer mean to you?

Be sure to check out all the great inspiration for this blog hop for Sending You Sunshine below!

Have a great day and I'm sending you some sunshine! (Seriously, I'm sending you sunshine, you send us RAIN, please?)

 

TE Blast from the Past Blog Hop: Old Glory!

This month's Taylored Expressions Blast from the Past Blog Hop theme is "Old Glory". Make a card using Red, White, and Blue. While I think that is a great color combo and very appropriate for this time of year, I find it HARD to use. Always have I suppose.

Here's my card:

I used Taylored Expressions Feelin' Groovy set. The peace signs are white embossed although they look more ivory in this photo! Hard to decide what I think about this card. I like it but the colors aren't me, especially Red. So what do you think?

Wow, a whole month has gone by since my last post! Sheesh. Here's a quick recap: Preschool ended (forever), 3rd Grade ended, both boys are on the neighborhood swim team and it's SUMMER. I have been crafting along the way. Just need to post those pictures!!! Remind me, would ya? Thanks.

Be sure to check out all the great inspiration for this blog hop for Old Glory below!

Have a great day!

TE Blast from the Past Blog Hop: Make it Masculine!

Two times of anything makes a pattern, right? Here I am playing along in my 2nd Taylored Expressions Blast from the Past. The theme this month is "Make it Masculine". Manly cards are hard. KISS - keep it simple, stamper! No glitter, glitz, or anything girly :).

Kraft, black, white. Certainly not girly or glitzy. The inside corner is stamped with "#1 Dad". I used the TE set: Boys Will Be Boys. You might not be able to see that the Kraft is stamped with the ties as a background. Just adds something to um, boring old Kraft. ;)

Last day of preschool is here. Teacher gifts and kid gifts are done! I'll post later. First, gotta get this "preschooler" (can't say that much longer!) off to school.

Be sure to check out all the great inspiration for this blog hop for Make It Masculine. Isn't it wonderful to have all the links in one place! (Thanks TE!)

Happy Day!

 

You Rock! * 104 = A Lotta Stampin' Going On

A dear friend of mine wanted to give some gifts out to some people she has worked with this past year. Card Sets seemed like a good choice for the gift. Everyone needs cards, right? "You Rock" seemed like the appropriate sentiment for both the receiver of these gifts and for those that they give out to others. Kind of a pay-it-forward type of thing (not only do you rock but you can give a card out to someone else that rocks! :))

She needed 13 sets. I like to give sets of 8 cards. Seems like the right number for a set of cards. Not sure why. 13*8=yep, you guessed it... a whole bunch of cards. So, since we ALL know that I'm so organized and get stuff done early (ha, ha, ha), I went with a design that was EASY to mass produce in a short amount of time. Fade in to Taylored Expressions: You're My Hero set. I needed a solid image set to make this work - i.e. No coloring in!

13 sets of A2 cards

All packaged and ready to go!

All wrapped up in clear boxes (from clearbags.com). I hope she liked them and I hope that her friends liked them, too!

How's your week going? Count down is on... 2 weeks of preschool left and 4 weeks of regular school. I'm SO READY to have my boys out for the summer. If I'm done, I can only imagine what the teachers, staff, and KIDS are feeling like...

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

 

 

Treat Yourself.

Recently a friend of mine did something for me that was above and beyond. I wanted to thank her so I got her a Sonic giftcard. Do you have Sonic where you are? America's drive-in... gotta love it. I especially love their happy hours from 2-4 everyday for their 1/2 prices drinks! I'm a vanilla diet coke gal. I know many that love their Cherry Limeade... but give me a vanilla diet coke any day! Of course, my kids always wants a watermelon slush...

So, I made a gift card holder. The card and envelope are an accucut die, called gift card & envelope #1. This die may actually be the one that I use the most. The Taylored Expressions Chillax came in handy for the images. And the sentiment is from Stampendous... "Treat yourself". Isn't that perfect?

I used a clear sakura glaze pen over the ice cubes to make them slick.

This card fits the Moxie Fab challenge: The Gift Card Holder Challenge. Please join me in playing along!

Hope you have a great day. Treat yourself!

TE Blast from the Past Blog Hop!

I never had a chance to play in the Taylored Expressions Blast from the Past blog hop before. I'm so excited that I got a chance to play in the April customer blog hop. The theme this month is "Clean & Simple". Of course, I had to play... :)

I used TE "The Places You'll Go" set. SO FUN! I've had it for a while and this is the first time I used yet. It's hard to see in the photos but the card base is dry embossed with random circles (Quickutz embossing folder, I think).

I love the sayings on this set. Maybe because I have kids. Maybe not ;). I think I'll give this card to my son. I'm always excited to see him reading ... such adventures lie ahead for him.

Be sure to check out all the other creations in this blog hop! I know I will!

Supplies:
Images: Taylored Expressions The Places You'll Go
Ink: memento black, versafine black onyx
Extras: copics, DG3 (diamond glaze on steroids ;)), foam tape, QK Embossing Folder

 

Happy Birthday, Michelle!

Hello! Anyone still out there in blog land? April is here already. Wow. Didn't we just celebrate New Year's?

Well, today is my bff's birthday... She says she's 39. I guess it really is her 1st 39th birthday. :) Next year, we'll have to do something grand.

We had a Nordstrom Rack open up close to us recently. I just went there for the first time. Michelle told me that she got a pair of shoes there recently. I'm in the market for a new pair. Well, actually I'm not anymore since I found some there ;) But I had to make her this card...

The inside says "if the shoe fits... but one in every color!". All images from Taylored Expressions Fashionista Set.

Hope all is well in your world. I'm trying to get back to blogging a bit. I'm still crafting so it's just a matter of taking the time to blog about it.

Supplies:

images: Taylored Expressions

paper & ribbon: a muse artstamps

accessories: ek success label punch, copic, spica