Happy Birthday, Kyan!

As I promised long ago, I have the scoop on my friend Keri's birthday celebration for her son Kyan.  She is really good at party planning and did a fabulous job once again.  Where I know, I've tried to include the information as to how/what she used to make these party supplies. We're both hoping that you might find inspiration and copy where necessary any and all of these ideas. 

Kyan, who turned 6 on the 12th of September. Kyan is a young 1st grader and he wanted a sports themed party. Keri found a local group here in Chandler who organizes and executed much of the game play, Great Play.

Keri made these really great invitations using  untextured black cardstock invitations.  Her husband, Todd, hand wrote the plays on each invitation using a white chalkboard marker.  The invitations included plays for football and basketball.  They are actual plays!  How cool?




Since Keri's host for the party was a commercial location, the party accoutrements were slightly pared down from her usual style.  Great Play organizes multiple different play opportunities including soccer, dodge ball, basketball and baseball activities.  Each child is announced on a "big screen" (wall projection) with the appropriate opportunity to cheer and scream for your favorite.  




Here's Kyan practicing for this season's recreational baseball!  The facility is a big open warehouse type look, but most importantly, they provide all the best sporting goods so each party goer can participate.

Keri mentioned just a couple of drawbacks- there isn't a lot of space for parents to hang out during the party time.  This left a small group of adults huddling in the foyer.  Also, she had a lovely spread for the party and although Great Play was o.k. with her bringing this stuff in with her, there wasn't a large enough space to really enjoy the eats.  Plus, the kids loved playing the games.  Her one suggestion would be to select a package that allows more time or skip the lovely foods.

However, who could skip these lovely treats?  Not me.  Plus, you all can learn from this endeavor and host at home or go home after for the feast.  Here's where Keri's creative genius shines:

The "concessions" letters were cut from the Cricut using the Don Juan cart at 3.5 in.  from red cardstock.  The patterned paper is from Hobby Lobby's Little Sport paper pack.  Keri covered purchased banner triangles with random strips of paper using cut outs from Cricut's Sports Mania cart.  A few short pieces of fibers and ribbons on hand and the concessions banner was beautiful- I mean o.k. (no girly descriptions here!).



You'll notice the small piece of artificial turf used on the table.  Neat- I mean totally radical, dude!












Keri found these cute manly French fry bags to hold the chips.  A little blue twine to dress them up ensure proper eating orientation and they look just like they came from a very hip and crafty sporty ballpark vendor!

Red stripped treat bags are transformed into a package for sugar cookies cut into French Fry shapes and served with a red frosting "ketchup" dip. 








I, personally, think this is the best treat of all.  White cupcakes are cut in half and layered inside is a circle cut brownie along with some green "pickle" frosting, yellow "mustard" frosting and red "ketchup" frosting.  Those are real sesame seeds on the top.  Polka dot cupcake holders were opened to provide the perfect take away packaging.






No treat table is complete without the chocolate covered strawberries dressed up as footballs, baseballs and basketballs.  Yum!












Those cute food labels were simple to put together.  The base is a foam disc about 3 inches around, one inch high.  I cut the circles from Cricut's Accent Essentials cart- the ones with the center hole cut out.  A glue dot holds the circle on the top of the foam disc and a 1 inch strip of coordinating paper is held to the side with two glue dots.  A red polka dot straw is used as the pole and a red yarn fiber used to hold the pennant to the straw.  The pennant was made using untextured black cardstock and the same white chalkboard pen as was used to make the invitations.  They really set off the look on the table, don't you think?  Hot dogs were also served (no pics though- things got real busy by then).



That cake turned out great didn't it?  The same young lady who made the Bubble Guppies cake made this cake too.  I heard that the cake is as good as it looks.














The last craft was a simple label.  The All Star frame was cut using Cricut's Sports Mania cart at 2 1/2 inches.  The backing is a layered black and white  cardstock.  We used the Xyron 510 (which they now only have as a Create-a-Sticker version).  This is my go-to adhesive for those tough, challenging projects.  Here the cut wanted to lift and not lay flat.  Xyron adhesive (we used the permanent kind for this project) lays down in an even, strong coating that didn't allow for one pop off those drinks.  The straws are tied using a bit of blue twine.  The table was all decked out waiting for the kids to come back and eat.  No party is complete without the proper balloon display and our Cardinals aren't doing too bad, yet...  They needed their proper spot at the table.

I think they all had a fabulous time, don't you.  At least it looks like it from these pictures.  Keri spent a good deal of time planning all the special treats.  However, you can see how neat things turn out and it really was fun to put all this together.  I hope you are inspired for your next celebration.  Jazz it up and watch the party goers have fun.

A special thank you to Keri for letting me completely abscond with the pictures from her party.  I just couldn't let an opportunity go by without sharing her wonderful ideas.  After all, we are all about being Contagiously Crafty around here.

Andie

More Art Glitter Fun- Glitter Lace

This splendid little card was inspired by our recent trip to the Art Institute Glitter company in Cottonwood, Arizona.  The card came together while doing some glitter art experimenting. 

The background was accomplished using a piece of fabric lace following Barbara Trombley's instructional video.  This is a super easy technique basically following this formula:

1.  Run a piece of cardstock through the Xyron sticker maker (or any other adhesive that lays a consistent, all covering layer of adhesive).
2. Remove the protective covering exposing the sticky side of the cardstock.  Adhere a piece of fabric lace to the cardstock smoothing all edges and making sure the lace is flat to the cardstock.
3. In this case, I applied the lighter pink microfine glitter to the lace and lightly tamped down to make sure the glitter was stuck in the exposed nooks and crannies of the lace.
4. After shaking off the excess light pink glitter, I removed the lace from the cardstock exposing the positive images of the lace which still had a considerable layer of adhesive remaining.  I then sprinkled the darker pink microfine glitter over the entire piece of cardstock and removed the excess.  What you get as a result is this fabulously glimmery background for your card.

The same could be done with a transparent crystal glitter for the negative images (i.e., step 2) and a brighter color for the positive images (i.e., step 4). 


The butterfly was made by stamping the image using black Archival Ink on a piece of white cardstock.  I used a glue pen to adhere each color onto the butterfly in turn, starting with the darker pink first and then applying the lighter pink.  The butterfly was fussy cut out to create this fabulous 3D effect.  The flower was done in much the same fashion and also fussy cut to adhere to the card.  The background behind these two embellishments  is a good example of bad experiments that are put to good use.  I attempted to stamp using an old glue pad.  After the glitter was in place (this case a combination of light and dark pink), I used a paint brush "dust" away the excess glitter.  This completely disrupted the image, utterly ruining my finished result (which looked great by the way!). 

The good part is that some glitter randomly adhered to the cardstock.  Don't ask me to explain, I'm still not sure what I did wrong.  Either which way, I decided to edge the piece behind in the darker pink glitter using a wet glue to create some texture and make a frame for my embellishments.  I am pleased with how this finally turned out and couldn't be happier with the ultimate result.  I have had a great time exploring glitter again and would encourage you to check their products out.

Art Glitter Institute

Andie

A Pregnant Chicky

One of the young ladies at work has decided to join us mothers.  It is such a fun time and I just couldn't let her announcement go unanswered.  I whipped up this simple little card to celebrate her preganancy and left it on her desk with a pink and blue baby spoon tied to it.

The both chicks were cut using Cricut's Straight From the Nest cart.  The momma chicky was cut at 2 1/2 in. and the baby chicky was cut at 1 1/4 in.  I cut the base image out of craft paper.  The body is from a K & Co. paper pack scrap and their wings are from a scrap bit of Bazzill dark green cardstock.  I printed the sentiment out from the computer onto a piece of white cardstock and created my card from there.

Quick note, I rarely make my own envelopes.  I usually select the envelope based on the proposed design (bigger if I'm trying to get more on the card and smaller if I'm going simple).  I cut the cards usually from cardstock, though I do have some of the card and envelope sets from Js or Ms.  This is one of the ways that I keep the card making simple enough to do in the 2 hours at the end of the day so that I can surprise my coworker the next day.  Without this shortcut, I probably wouldn't make something at the last minute, would get frustrated about not using my stash and give up on this whole creative thing.  Have I mentioned that I am a bit of a nut!?!  Just proof that we all have to do what it takes for each of us to stay crafty.

We'll have to wait and see in the coming weeks whether we can expect a wee little girl or boy.  It is so fun!

Andie

Just a Note Happy Birthday Card

Quick post of this cute little Birthday card Brandy made some time ago.  This is a simple card with the stamped bird image fussy cut after stamping and coloring with markers.  The sentiment and musical embellishments come from a stamp set, but I'm  not sure which one. The paper set is from Brandy's stash- coordinating opposite sides.  So simple, yet so cute.

Brandy (by Andie)

Glitz Stamp Set

I picked up a couple of sets of Glitz stamps and tried out my Distress markers with a couple of the stamps.  First, I stamped the images using black Archival Ink onto Strathmore watercolor paper.  I used the blending with Distress Markers technique to color the images.  The watercolor paper was distressed further using my Ink Blending Tool and Distress Ink pads (mostly Scattered Straw, Pine Needles and Vintage Photo) and then the rose, bird and butterfly were lifted off the card using foam squares.  I even used the Distress Markers and a water pen on the ribbon to bleed the colors.  I really like the soft result of the sentiment.  Everything is mounted on a piece of patterned paper that was distressed using Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks and ultimately adhered to a cream cardstock card which was also distressed like the patterned paper.  I am looking forward to making more cards using these stamps.  The detail is amazing and very strongly transfers to the final stamped result.  The Eiffel tower stamp and my Cricut French Manor cart are destined for a collision.

Andie

Inspiration Smash Book

I decided that keeping magazines with all the other stuff I keep was not a good use of my space and added to the clutter in my mind.  Having recently finished my Creative Chemistry 101 Smash book, I thought that the Smash book would be a good medium for the pieces of magazines that were useful and inspiring.  Here's a couple of photos of the inside pages.  


I mainly have subscribed to Paper Crafts magazine.  One of the more useful sections is their sketches provided in most volumes.  Some of the examples were inspiring so I included those where appropriate.  Otherwise, I simply taped or used a glue stick to adhere the sketch in my Smash book page.








Using some Smash tape (Want it!) and decorative tissue tape, I smashed my card examples and some of the instructions too.










There is still room for more additions for future volumes.  I also have a separate stack of scrapbook layout inspirations that I will need to get a different Smash book for.








I've left room on most pages so that I might make notes as I use the inspiration.  I also intend to record blog posts it was a trip down memory lane as I smashed in examples that I had used for inspiration in the past.  I intend to keep adding to these pages as issues continue to arrive in my mailbox.  Hopefully, this will be useful and inspiring for a long time to come.


Andie

Birthday Party Fun!

My friend Keri has been at it again!  She's planning the most wonderful kid's birthday party with a sports theme.  The bonus is that she asked me to help- cut some stuff on the Cricut!  The party is today, so I will post more details after the party goers have a chance to see things first.  Here's a peak:

Andie

Rusted Enamel Notecards

I snapped together these matching note cards using left over trial pieces from the wooden anniversary box.  The patterned paper is from the K & Co. paper pack that I've been working through over the past couple of months.  The glassine flowers were left over from my first trials with the glassine paper.  The larger shapes were cut from Cricut's Paper Lace cart.  The larger "flower" shape and the smaller teal embellishment was distressed using the Rusted Enamel technique.  I just love how this technique appropriately ages the embellishment and adds depth to the card.  I still have yet to decide what the sentiment should be on these cards, so I may wait until the need arises. 

This one last card was also made with some scraps.  I used the Wrinkle Free Distress technique to create the background and then stamped with the Fiskars stamp using coffee Archival Ink.  The frame is also a leftover from the wooden anniversary box trials and the bronze pearls from Queen and Co.  The flower comes from my ancient silk flower stash and seemed to add just the right splash of color for this card.

I've decided to link this card up to the Focal Point Challenge over at the Moxie Fab World.   I suggest you join me in the fun!




Andie

God Bless America

I have previously posted about my love for the Land of the Free stamp from Stamping Up.   I couldn't find where you might purchase this lovely, but it does look as though they offer a digital stamp.  A year later, I still love this stamp.  I saw this post over at my favorite blog, Paper Crafts Connection Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Kraft.  More specifically, I knew I had to scraplift the incredible design of the God Bless America Card by Kelley Eubanks and pair it up with my Land of the Free stamp. 

The God Bless America was printed using my inkjet printer.  I used my Faded Jeans Distress Marker to color the stars blue and my red cat's eye chalk ink pad for the words.  One hot breath "huff" and a stamp pairs the printing with the stamped image.  Round the corners, tie some twine, and this simply designed card looks fabulous.

Today as we celebrate Labor Day, I ask you to join me in praying that God will bless America!


Andie