Oh my goodness how you've grown my sweet daughter.

Today I am wishing a Happy 5th Birthday to my sweet sweet girl from Chicago. I can't believe she is 5 already!

 I love you so much Lily and you make me so proud everyday!

You're so sweet and beautiful!

I love you Birthday girl! I'll see you soon!

Love 

 Momma

SOTW #27

Hello friends! Hope you had a great weekend. Mine has been pretty busy but in a crafty way. Jeez I forgot to hit publish earlier today so I'm a little late so I'll get right to my post topic today...A new Unity SOTW of course!

Bowl-full of Comfort

I used some of my July Paper Posies kit to create this week's sample

Don't you just love orange?

Now you know you wanna be part of the SOTW club so head on over here and sign up!

Unity Stamp of the Week blog.

Have a great night everyone and a great week!

Creating with Keepsake from My Little Shoebox

Hello friends! I have some My Little Shoebox design work to share today. I love the colors of the Keepsake collection and the cute little birds. Helen loves having birds in her collections and these ones are so cute in pink, orange and yellow. Here's a layout I made using the Music to My Ears patterned paper.

Mother's Day 2012

Supplies: Music to My Ears, Picture Perfect, and Simple Treasures patterned paper. Keepsake Cardstock stickers and Roll Up flowers. Misc: Prima felt vine, Stickles and Martha Stewart butterfly punch around the page.

Next I made a few cards

Like a Rainbow

Supplies: Garden Delight and English Rose Patterned paper. Papertray Ink stamps and dies. American Craft Ribbon and Misc button. Tools: Papertray Ink die and Martha Stewart border punch.  

Happy Birthday

Supplies: Garden Delight and Window view Patterned Paper. Tools: Lil Inker bow die, Papertray Ink butterfly die. Fibers: Twine from The Twinery. Stamps: Papertray Ink.

I really loved the colors of this collection and the happy feel of it! 

What are your plans for the weekend? With the holiday falling in the middle of the week it seemed like the weekend already right?

Whatever your plans are...enjoy!

Have a creative day friends!

Hip Hoppin on the 4th!

Helloooo! Welcome Unity friends. I hope you all had a delightful Independence Day! Hope you all have enjoyed the hop so far. Make sure you start at the Unity blog here.

Now for some Unity deals!

 

This week's Sale:  there are 21 (yes..TWENTY-ONE!!) kits on sale for $4.44!!!!  shut the front door (cause it's hot and the air is on)!!!  along with that, the 3 new itty bitty stamps that were released last week are still only $3.29!!

 Today I'm sharing a layout I created with a few of the images from the July SMAK kit!

 Instagram  Snap Shots

 Supplies: October Afternoon, Crate Paper, American Crafts, Unity July SMAK

I used PicMonkey to create a fun collage of a few of my DC trip pics I took in Instagram and created this quick and easy layout. The SMAK stamps make scrapbooking simple with the fun images in each kit!

Now it's time to visit Thienly!

Sunny Summer Days mini

Hello and happy Monday!  Summer is in full swing and I have had an amazing one so far. It's been busy for me that's for sure. This summer I will have traveled to 3 different states. Pretty cool. Since I've be traveling I have not had the change to share this 8x8 Summer themed album featuring We R Memory Keepers Down the Boardwalk collection and the Cinch. This album was so easy and fun to create!

Sunny Summer Days

  8x8 mini album

For my cover I used chipboard accents from the Down the Boardwalk collection and for my title, some chipboard letters misted with Tattered Angels and some rhinestones to dress them up.

Tip: Add some artwork from your kids for a nice keepsake to your book.

Tip: Cut cardstock at 3 1/2 x 8 to make fun flaps for journaling and hidden photos.

Keep your book simple and let your photos be the focus.

I found the Cinch to be really easy to use. I just put my chipboard pieces in and set the pegs to punch for an 8x8 size and was able to create the book in about 2 hours with photos and everything.

I hope you'll give the Cinch a try for your next project!

Stamp Of The Week #26

Hello! I missed the past two weeks of SOTW reveals because I was traveling to GASC and kitting my little heart out so it's great to be sharing Unity's SOTW again! If you haven't discovered Unity's Stamp of the Week stamps yet then click here to see stamps 1-25!

These stamps are exclusive to Unity. You can't buy them in stores but you can sign up to have them delivered to your home and make your mail box happy! To find out how click here.

Here's this week's stamp #26

Here's a sample I created using some yummy Webster's Pages 6x6 stack and some lovely seam binding ribbon from my sweet friend Aimee Maddern.

Supplies: Websters Pages everday poetry collection. Anna Griffin lace border strips, Recollections rhinestones, Making Memories button and Unity Stamp of the Week #26. Misc: seam binding cream

Make sure you visit the SOTW gallery for ideas and inspiration!

Back to normal

Hello! I had a great time in VA teaching at the Great American Scrapbook Convention, I just didn't plan on the time changes and settling back into assignments and caring for the kids to keep me away from my blog so long.

Here are some photos from my trip. First a photo of my Saturday Summer Memories tag album class as GASC in Chantilly VA. I was so excited that both these classes sold out and everyone had a great time creating their albums.

Ashley Harris and I flew into Dulles a day early to sight see in DC. I had never been the Washington DC before and it was amazing! This is a vacation spot that every family should visit. It was ALOT of walking...7 miles to be exact and in 99 degree heat with humidity that made the air heavy but we had SO much fun! Here's a mini pictorial of our trip!

I am so glad to be home and back to crafting in my studio again! I've got a weekend full of crafting ahead of me. Here's a few sneaks of projects I'm working on.

I know...short and sweet but I'm headed out for some family fun with my hubby and sweet girl.

I hope you have a great weekend too!

For my Great American Scrapbook Convention students

Ok ladies! Here it is..my layered flower tutorial. Enjoy!

Twinery/MLS Blog Hop

Welcome to the MLS/Twinery blog hop! I'm so glad you're coming by my blog today.You should be coming from Ashley's blog.  I have been a fan of the Twinery's fabulous twines for a long time so when I heard we were teaming up I was thrilled. For my project today I decided to try to come up with something unique and since I am a huge fan of Instagram I thought it would be really fun to create a card inspired by my love of my favorite iPhone app.

Supplies: patterned paper: Woodgrain love from the Up in the Trees collection, linen/carnation from the Happy Go Lucky collection. Spellbinders circle die. Recollections rhinestones. Sentiment by Unity Stamp Co. and various Twinery twines.

                                       Here's today's line up

My Little Shoebox
   The Twinery 

 Karola Witczak
Ro Philippsen
Teri Anderson
Julie Ranae
Pattie Beltran
Ashley Bores
                         Shemaine Smith<;-- U are here

Now head over to your last stop on today's blog hop!

Amy Crockett


Don't forget to leave your comments to win our fabulous prizes as shown on the MLS Blog!

It's another Hip Hop!

Hello Hip Hoppers! My Hip Hop post is short and sweet today as I am off to VA to teach at the

Make sure you are starting your Hip Hop at the Unity blog here.So today I am sharing with you a tag I created with Angie Blom's beautiful Angie Girl stamp set . I love creating with kraft tags. So it was easy to apply some My Little Shoebox patterned paper from the Happy Go Lucky collection to the tag and stamp on top of the news print.

Here's a closer look at the flowers I created from paper

I am teaching this flower technique in two of my classes at GASC. I love creating my own embellishments from paper because so often I have more paper than I do embellishments. I made these flowers using a 1 inch scallop punch and layering them with one punch rolled into a bud. When I get back home I need to make a video and post it here on how to make them so keep an eye out for that to be posted soon.

For added dimension to these flowers, I also love inking each punch with brown ink and adding Liquid Pearls to the petals. 

Now it's time to hop on over to Thienly's blog

Week-end Wrap Up

Hello! Yep I'm still around just super busy finishing my kits for the upcoming Chantilly VA Great American Scrapbook Convention this Friday and Saturday.

I meant to schedule this post this last night (Sunday) but I have been kitting like crazy for 4 days straight and I practically fell asleep cutting paper last night. Yeah I know, I'm laughing too.

So I wanted to add a weekly post to my blog with something fun and thought it would be fun to share my week via Instagram photos. I love taking photos with the Instagram app on my iPhone when we are out and about or even at home. I notice that I now look for things that inspire me or just stuff that's interesting to photograph. I've also been documenting a photo each day I walk which keeps me motivated to keep walking. One of my good friends Aimee Yoakum-Conner told me she loved that I was posting my walking photos and that she was proud of me for walking again. That made me feel so good and encouraged to walk more.  So here it is...

June 17th

Father's Day Bingo

June 16th

More kitting for GASC

June 14th

Smith family inagural game of Hungry Hungry hippos

June 14th

My new stamp and layout storage arrived!

June 14th

Lily graduates Pre-K and puts on a fun show for Mom and Nana

June 13th

there's always traffic to get on the 105 when taking Zalie home

June 13th

my sweet girl in her new Hello Kitty shirt

June 13th

Finally my hydrangeas are blooming! A morning walk photo.

June 10th

Family night out at Five Guys

Hip hOp Ippity Release time!

Hello Unity friends! It's Release day for Ippity and this week's Hip Hop has ALOT of fabbie things happening. Make sure you are starting the hop today at the Unity blog so you don't miss any of the amazing deals Angela has for you!

First I want to share this amazing deal

Next I am excited to show off one of the Ippity Releases

{Born in my Heart}

Here's what I created with this set

Supplies: Pattern Paper from Webster's Pages, Papertrey Ink ribbon, Martha Stewart border punch and flowers from Maya Road.

Next we want to tell you about the Stamp of the Week promotion! 

You don't want to miss out on this week's stamp and check out the upcoming stamps!

Here's what I created with this week's stamp 

{Life Brighter}

Supplies: Patterned Paper Webster's Pages, Spellbinders Dies, Ribbon and Buttons Papertray ink and Recollection pearls

And finally

Now Hop on over to Shilo and see what she has to share!

Have a creative day friends!

Anna Griffin Summer Scrapbook Sale!

Hey friends I've been so busty since I got back from Texas but I promise a blog post is coming. Today I want to share a fantastic sale!

Anna Griffin Incorporated 99 Armour Drive, NE • Atlanta, Georgia 30324

Anna Griffin Summer Scrapbook Super Sale

Friday, June 8th at Noon until Monday, June 11th at Noon EST

Free U.S. shipping for orders over $50 (excluding Alaska and Hawaii)

Free gift with purchases over $50 (one gift per customer)

www.annagriffin.com -- click "shop online"