Mama's gotta brand new BAG

I love me a new purse....or even maybe a new tote...

I recently saw on a blog party an idea for a no sew tote...

it was the cutest thing I ever did see - so I decided to try

my hand at making one...and boy was it easy as pie...

I wish I had written the blog down but if anyone knows who

first posted about this fun ruffled no sew tote - I would love

her name so I can give her credit

here is my finished tote

I had some blank 12 x 12 canvas tote bags that I had planned on

doing a yudu screen print on and well never managed to get er' done.

So according to the instructions you are to cut strips of fabric and just use a glue gun to adhere and scrunched them onto the bag....

I did things a bit differently - I cut my 3 inch strips on the fold (so it has a finished edge) then I sewed the ruffles on the computer that way I was guaranteed a semi-uniform ruffle THEN I glued them onto the tote...

I added some fun matching satin ribbon to the top and a ruffled rosette

to finish her up.

Do you love it?

I sure do and have some new fabric ready to make my second one.

BTW- I didn't do that back...I plan to but for now it is blank canvas...

I am linking this up to the following parties:

whatever goes wednesday

we did it wednesday

wedneday wowzers

what I whipped up wednesday

overflowing with creativity

a crafty soiree

strut your stuff thursday

xo

tina

little boys

gotta love little boys

even though they have enough energy to power a small city,

even though they leave little bits of them all around the house,

even though they say MOM 1000 times a day,

even though they STILL don't sleep through the night

even when they give you the wettest kisses after putting on LIPSTICK

life just wouldn't be the same without them

he definitely keep me on my toes.

In honor of little boys I created this fun

little card for my sons little friends birthday-used some

fun paper scraps and some stamps by STAMPS 4 LIFE

and even took the time to paper piece the shirt & dogs body.

Cute right?

I am linking this card up to the following challenges:

craft your passion - paper piecing

cupcake craft - boys & their toys

paper play time - pets & sentiment

going grey - critters

Have a great day!

tina



Shabby-licious

Boy it has been sometime since I made a card - but boy jumped back

in and came out with this most amazing card - and it is oh so

very shabby - can you tell I am pretty proud of it! {wink}



I have had those stamps by Tim Holtz for a LONG time

and finally got to play and yeah me...it worked wonderfully with my

color scheme - brown and pink - LOVE!

I used 3 paper, some pink twine, my MS butterfly punch &

another MS border punch for the pink CS border I added.

Pure Sweetness!

I am linking this up to the following challenges:

Inspire me Fridays

Flutterby Wednesdays - pink & butterfly

crazy challenge - use a die or punch

craft card makers - 1 image/2papers/3 embellies

the pink elephant - print it/ words

friday frolic

everybody's creative endeavor

free style friday

have a creative weekend ya'll

xo

tina 

My Scrappy Girl

My youngest daughter is my scrappy chic - not because she

loves to scrap, not because she likes to fight but because she - her

personality is so scrappy...she just throws together these outfits

which I usually cringe at but then think

"Hey it's her style, if she feels good in it then I will leave her alone."

My hubbs when he takes notice of such outfits, says

"Who let her out of the trailer..." {lol}

anyway there is a point behind that story...and that

is the scrapbook page that I created this week of her

9th birthday celebration(s)

I used the back of my older daughters bday layout and so I had to use

pink as my background and found this cool strip of orange &

green flowered paper (doesn't match) and some funky flower

embellishments by basic grey and some heart doilies - at first it seemed

really busy but then after I added the colorful alphabet - it just

blended so well and reminded me of one of her

GROOVY OUTFITS...

I tried my hand at making one of those cool banner type flags with

paper and a toothpick and gotta tell you love the way it looks and

they are beyond easy - I can see these on so many other projects.

I am seriously in love with this layout - it is SO her.

How are your scrapbook layouts going?

I need to find one of those cool blog tickers that keep count of my pages....

got any ideas?

I am linking my page up to the following

challenges & parties:

scrapping everyday miracles - toothpick flags

what I whipped up wednesday

a crafty soiree

have a great week

xo

tina

Project LIfe week 5 & 6

Good Tuesday to ya!

I am really digging this Project Life project and so are the

family members. Each week I give them the pages I make and let

them review them and usually - they have something to add...

and I explain that I can't fit every detail and sometimes they say -

I forgot about that...that is always cool to hear.

Here is week 5

and this is week 6

I love that I even a NOT SO NICE photo of me here...

{sorry about the photos - I took them at night}

all in all I am really loving this project...

Leave me a comment if you are playing along to and

I will visit and comment on your layouts...

I am linking this up to the following parties:

the mom creative

have a great week.

xo

tina



A little something YUMMY!

I am not much of a baker and usually I take the easiest road

to get the job done (eg...pre-made cookie dough, etc.) last Friday

I made the kids those pigs in a blanket using croissants and since I had

some left over I thought I would look up a recipe that would make for a fun dessert. So I found one on the Pillsbury website for smores using croissants and well let's just say that there were more ingredients needed

than I wanted to use and lots of steps.

So first time ever I re-worked the recipe and what came out was

DELISH!!!!

here are tina's homemade smore muffins...

This is what I started with...4 croissants rolled out then I added

some crushed graham crackers some chocolate chips and 1/2 a marshmallow

then I rolled it up and obviously there is NO simple way to do this

since the ends are different lengths. But I did some pinching and squeezing

and then placed them into a cupcake pan and some cute liners

cooked them at 400' for around 12 - 14 minutes

and what comes out is a puffy ball filled with melted chocolate and the  

sweetness of the marshmallow is goey and melted goodness.

I topped them with some melted chocolate & some more graham cracker sprinkles and my girls gobbled them up...

they said next time I need to make more - 1 just wasn't enough for them.

{they are really hot when coming out of the oven so BEWARE}

once cooled they chowed.....

I guess with a little effort one can become quite crafty even when baking...

JOY!

I am linking this up to the following parties:

market yourself mondays

craft-o-maniac

mad in crafts

have a great monday

xo

tina

Sweet Heart tutorial

I wanted to share a fun and super easy idea with you and while I

admit it was for Valentines Day but it could be used for a little girls room
or as some really cool art for your wall.

Best part of this is that you could really do this to fit any color scheme.

First thing I did was help myself to some fun paint chips from

my local home improvement store and picked one of my favorite

punches and took out some of my modge podge and picked a sheet

of watercolor paper to use as my background.

I started to punch a bunch and by bunch I mean ALOT.

then I began to play with them on the watercolor paper for

placement and I added a bunch of modge podge to my paper

in a heart shaped and began to layer the punched pieces up - adding

more adhesive when I needed the punched pieces to lay down.

I thought it needed a pop of color so I added some polk-a-dot washi tape

to the lower right side & added a Heart punch and hand wrote the word

LOVE in red....I think it is just what it needed to finish the piece up.

I took down my valentines day decorations today but decided to leave this print up

because I thought it fit "MY LIFE" and my everyday decor....

I think it came out pretty nice & am quite happy with it.

I am linking this up to the following challenges:

wednesday wowzers

 transformation thursday

a crafty soiree

everybodys creative endeavor

the saturday 7

sunday scoop

have a great weekend

xo

tina

WorDlesS WedNesdaY on Thursday

Sweet angels when they are ASLEEP!

makes my heart happy to see them like this....&

love that I can see how different they are just by looking

at their bedspreads...

linking this up to 5 minutes for mom

have a great weekend

xo

tina

all about LOVE

Happy Valentines Day - to you ALL!!!

I am just coming down from a crazy & fun filled weekend. I got the chance to spend

the whole weekend with my hubby and the kids were well taken care of --- so we got

a chance of a life time (or of the NOW) and ate well, drank alot, and hung out with great people.

So now life returns to normal --- a different kind of crazy...but I think that every once

in awhile to get away and do something for yourself is so very important and necessary.

The really great part is that I don't have to do it again for a really long time...

nothing like some fun times with my hubbs either...I am super lucky!!! He is a great guy.

{hi baby}

o.k. so I wanted to share a sweet little card I made for my sweet girl for Valentine's Day

I think she is going to like it....This is my sweet girl cooking dinner with me.

She is my artsy, quiet & lovable one - So I know she appreciates the things I

make for her-as she will this card....

I hope you had a chance to make something fun for your

sweet lovelies...

I am linking this up to the following challenges:

card crafters circle-valentine LOVE

cute card thursday - pink valentine

craft us crazy - anything goes

delightful sketches - LOVE

paper play challenges - LOVE

belli challenge - hearts & valentines

Happy LOVE day!

xo

tina



canvas AR-Tastic

I love to blog visit and have some favorites I get daily updates from and some

of the things I have been seeing lately are chevron art & large wall hangings

made using different designs cut from their die cutting machines...

well I have had a fireplace mantel that I have been dying to make over to have a

look or a style that is hip & cohesive...

So I got out some canvases, spray paint, tape, and some images off line and got

to work and I gotta tell you it wasn't easy...I had a bunch of ideas and CHEVRONS

were my plan...but I had trouble lining it up...so made a switch-a-roo

so first thing I did was

painted some canvas with white gesso

then used some contact paper & laid them where I wanted them

and spray painted over the contact - waited till they dried and

peeled them off and COOLNESS - it worked but now to add a splash of color

or contrast...I added some clip art images and made them into stencils

and used black acrylic paint to paint them in...

here they are

what do you think?

I love it ---

So I gotta tell you that the hubbs wasn't to excited about this because his thought

process is that it doesn't match - we don't have turquoise but he can't see the big

picture butter yellow walls & black furniture could use pops of bright colors as accents.

Well I LOVE the new mantel look - I added those subway signs that I got

at Ross - to finish the wall off.

I gotta tell you ladies this was a real cheap re-do (I had the canvases) so I had NO

out of pocket expenses except the signs ---fab for cheap!

I am linking this up to the following challenges:

transformation thursdays

a crafty soiree

wednesday wowzers

whatever goes wednesday

we did it wednesdays

inspire me fridays

freestyle friday

everybodys creative endeavor

Happy Crafting

xo

tina

wordless wednesdays

this kid has got to be a part of everything...

in our house girls night always includes this little guy.

linking this up to the following parties:

wordless wednesdays @ 5 minutes for MOM

create with joy

have a great day!

xo

tina



Valentine Wreaths

I gotta tell you that my hubby can NOT stand wreaths.

The 1st reason is that he is not a fan of fluff and

2nd he thinks they are a waste of MY time...

however, once they are done and up he

DOES NOT complain and on occasion says they look festive.

well here is my take on a VALENTINE WREATH...

Here are the items I used to make these fun wreaths...

2 wooden circles {2.49 ea)  (found in the floral section of Micheal's)

some fabric remnants, a glue gun plus some fun handmade or

store bought embellishments

I initially meant to make this like a tube that would be loose

and easily "scrunched" up...but I didn't want to sew and was

really thinking quick and easy...so out came the glue gun and I just

added glue and "scrunched" the fabric around the base

that took the longest but once it was done I was able to embellish

them and that by far is the best part...

I made some fabric roses and added some feathers...

I also added a bow of red tulle & vintage lace

once I had them up on the doors I added those removeable

hearts hanging in the middle....

cute right?

oh and the hubby said to me the other night after they had been

up for a couple of days

"Hey those things on the door look nice babe." (his pet name for me)

yes, ladies even though they make silly comments at times

I KNOW that they really do pay attention and enjoy the small

details we put into making our home "cozy" for our kids.

I think this whole project cost me about 7.00 and the best part is

that these will be interchangeable for 4th of July & memorial day & perhaps

even mothers day....I'll show you those another time...

I am linking this up to the following parties:

market yourself Monday

craft-o-maniac

just something I whipped up

mad in crafts

made by you monday

made with love monday

here's wishing you a fabulous day!

xo

tina

A love Story

it could be yours

{listing this in my ebay shop}

I love to make mini albums - smaller scrapbooks

and I had seen a video of Heidi Swapp showing how to make

a back to back bound scrapbook and it looked pretty

cool - so I made this cute thang up

and instantly fell in love with the idea of it.

tell me what you think?

cover page

used k& co stickers & embellishments

inside pages I made using heart shaped pages

Those tickets are my own personal embellishment...

simple and perfect spot for some fun photos of you

and your sweetheart!

just a few embellishments to make the pages pop

Love it...and only paper was used in the making of this book...

{insert smile}

see my cute acetate butterfly there in pink...

it's the little touches

Well I am going to be linking this up to the following challenges:

stamping royalty - all about LOVE

little red wagon - valentine LOVE

penny challenges - love is in the air

flutter by wednesdays - open

aud sentiments - anything but a card

belli challenge-hearts/valentine

have a great weekend

xo

tina



card ready

So after a mini break here on the ol'blog I am back in

the swing of things....actually truth be told- I have been

quite productive and just haven't gotten around to posting

about it. Does that ever happen to you? Got lots to say

but don't know where to start...

Well I found my tongue again and here is this awesome card

I made up with my hubby in mind...

but on second thought I think I may just save this for my girls...

too red & pink for my man...but still sweet - I think it reads

little girl ready - instead...wouldn't you agree?

{after playing with make-up}

I am linking this card up to the following challenges:

delightful sketches - punches/dies

cute card thursday - buttons & bows

abc-challenge - I-in pairs ( 2 of something)

belli challenge - hearts/valentine

going grey creations - black, red, pink

here's wishing you a great evening....

xo

tina