New York, New York

I didn't mean to be absent for so long, but July turned out to be incredibly busy! I started a new job, spent a week in NY, finished up loose ends in the "paper suite" for my sister's wedding--including making 2 different sets of favors--and got addicted to HBO's Entourage. I could have gotten a lot more accomplished had it not been for that.

I have to start this post with a picture of my niece Violet. She is TOO CUTE! The last time I spent a good amount of time with her was last August and she was about 16 months old and didn't want much to do with me. She loved my husband, but was happy to ignore me. This year was a completely different story and I ate up every single thing she did! She is 2 now and talks so much and does so many cute things that she's hard to resist. Here we are blowing bubbles:

She kept popping them and I kept getting sudsy water in my mouth but she's so sweet I didn't even care.

Sweet? Look at that face! As my Grandma Peg would say, "She's a sketch!"

And here's Violet's Mommy, Emily, and "Muck" (the rest of us call him Mike) on their wedding day:

That picture pretty much sums up the tone of the day: The wedding was casual and fun, and everyone was really happy. They had a beautiful day and got married on their property--30 acres of wooded area in upstate NY--it was great!

This is Emily, my mom, and me. (Oh, did I mention Arvin was the wedding photographer?)

And here is a picture of the invitations I made for them:

I will, at some point, have more detailed pictures ready for show and tell, but for now, this will have to do. Their colors were fuchsia and different shades of purple (can you guess why? Hint: Miss Violet) and I think they turned out really well (yes, if I may be self-indulgent for a moment). I have a lot more photos of the individual enclosures, as well as the favors and, someday, I will do a great big blog post all about them!

The day after the wedding, my mom's side of the family had their annual "Pool Party" up at my Grandma Peg's house. It's the first one I have been able to go to in years (since moving to CA) and I was so, so excited to be there this year. Each year, "Granny" (as she is called by her great-grandchildren) gets her picture taken with her great-grandchildren on the diving board and I like this shot because everyone (except for Violet who looks a little confused about what is going on) is laughing, including "Granny!" (From left to right: Grandma Peg, Violet, Sam, Gracie, Mallory, and Marty.) Remember Mallory from this post and how innocent and quiet she looked? She was totally hamming it up for these pictures, shouting "Cheeseburger "at the top of her lungs and laughing like crazy!

On our last full day in NY, Arvin and I (that's us!) took a drive out to Bully Hill Winery for lunch (we make it a point to go there each summer). They have great food, great wine, and an amazing view of Keuka Lake.

I took this photo on the way back to my parent's house in the moving car! I can't believe how great this picture came out--and Arvin was surprised, too. He has no faith in my photography skills. But those are vineyards in the foreground and Keuka Lake in the background. It really is beautiful there in the Finger Lakes and I miss it a lot. Our trip to NY was way too short--only a week--and it was both wonderful and sad but I am grateful we got to go and see everyone, especially my 2 grandmothers.

Hope you all have a great evening!

Oops!

I'm glad the last 7 days are over! They haven't been bad or anything, just busy. I made 60 wedding invitations for my sister and her fiance and as it came down to the last, I had all sorts of computer and printing issues. Luckily for me, my husband's an IT guy so he can fix anything like that, but it was still a huge annoyance when I was relying on the computer to finish these things. But they're all done and in the mail and next week I'll do a blog post about them. (I don't want to post pictures before my sister has even seen it in person!) So I am posting a picture of a random card instead.

My husband has a co-worker who buys my cards from time to time and last Tuesday night as we were getting into bed, my husband handed me a Post-It note with some details on it and said his co-worker needed the card and a gift card holder by Thursday. Even though I had many other things to do on Wednesday (Emily's wedding invitations, a Dodger game in the evening, Father's Day cards), I never like to turn down requests. So I spent most of Wednesday working on the card--the co-worker wanted to spend $15-$20 on the set and that meant a lot of details, customization and even a custom envelope. Not an easy nor quick job! So this card was for "Georgie" who was 16 and graduating from high school. I got the card mostly done, did some laundry, and a couple of other things, and we left for LA at 3pm.

{Side note: We live in Orange County and it takes 45 minutes to get to LA when there is no traffic. Thing is, there's ALWAYS traffic! That's why we left so early for a 7:10 game. However, we made excellent time and got to Dodge Stadium at 4:30. At the gate, they told us to turn around and come back at 5:10! So we did and it was really cool because we got to watch both teams (they played the Oakland A's) warm up and take batting practice. We had pretty good seats, too--close to the field--and the A's used to be my favorite team so I still root for them. I don't know too many players by name anymore, but it was still cool when they won (although, with all of their dropped balls, they really shouldn't have!}.

I digress...We didn't get home until 12:30am and I still had to finish the gift card holder so I stayed up until 2am to finish it. I gave it to my husband to take to work the next morning and he saw the flowers and said, "It's for a dude!" I just assumed "Georgie" was a girl (his coworker has always gotten cards for girls, never guys). So it's true what they say...Never assume! Oh, well, I still love this card and fortunately, de-customizing it was pretty easy. I hand-stitched on felt for the first time which was pretty time-consuming but I really love the way it looks and the soft texture that felt adds to the card.

{The cardstock and ribbon are from Papertrey Ink; the orange paper is Doodlebug Design, the "journey..." paper is K&Co., and the flowers are from Petaloo.}

Black is the Colour

This is the color challenge for the week over on Dawn McVey's Raspberry Suite blog:

It ended up being a really great color combination and here is my card (click on picture for larger image):

My card is soft and romantic and the black tulle even makes it a little sexy, I think. I used Leaf from Paper Source as my green shade and used some 7 Gypsies decorative paper and a piece of old sheet music. The black glitter letters are from American Crafts and the pearl stick pin is Maya Road. I made the cream flower out of wire ribbon and some black tulle circles, plus a button and some adhesive pearls from Kaisercraft. For something a different, I cut a piece of black tulle a little bit bigger than the size of my card and hand-stitched it to my decorated papers.


That's all for today!

Sweet Violet

My sweet niece Violet recently turned 2 in April and she's already a total ham. I don't get to see her much since my sister (Emily) and her family are still on the East Coast while I am on the West Coast, but I get lots of pictures and hear lots of stories. She always gets on the phone to say "Hi" to me when I'm talking to Emily and the other day I was surprised to hear that she had picked up a southern accent somewhere. They have always lived in upstate New York so I don't know how Miss Violet developed her southern inflection, but it sure is cute! "Hi Aunt Beck" suddenly became "Ha Aint Back."

Here is a photo Arvin took of Violet and me when we visited a month after she was born:


(He was experimenting with a new camera and I was wearing a salmon-colored shirt! He LOVES his cameras!)
And here is Violet a couple weeks ago:


What a silly little tomboy! Emily said she makes that face a lot.

Emily and Mike took her to the Buffalo Zoo on her birthday this year and coincidentally, I made her a card with an elephant on it.


I used a Basic Grey chipboard elephant, a journal diecut from Making Memories, and a "happy birthday" stamp from Pink Persimmon. I stitched a piece of lace onto the diecut for some texture. I don't think Violet's old enough to appreciate this kind of stuff yet, but she is one of my most favorite people to make cards for.

Hope you had a great weekend. I can't believe the stupid Lakers won the NBA Championship. I HATE them! It was so great when they lost last year. Ah, memories...

Tickled Pink

I decided to participate in another Pink Persimmon challenge. This time we had to make a card using pink and orange (you know, like a persimmon!) and I love that color combination. I really wanted to use some of their stamps and in the course of my card design I tried a few different things. In the end, however, I ended up using just one of their stamps and it's really small! But it's very fitting ("tickled pink"). It's from the Ric Rac stamp set and it's curved, but I straightened it out (ah, the beauty of clear stamps).

Here is the card I made:


{I used supplies from Maya Road (chipboard butterflies), Doodlebug Design & Sassafras Lass (Paper), Stampin' Up! (word window punch), K & Company (flower vine stamp), Papertrey Ink (pink button, ink)}


I also decided to do a quick tutorial on painting the chipboard butterflies from Maya Road. It was pretty easy and I probably don't need to talk anyone through this process, but I know that when I started out making things, I always liked how-to's and getting tips from other crafters--I still do. (Click on any of the pictures to view a larger image.)

1. I started out with my plain butterflies...

2. The light pink acrylic paint is from Plaid and it's called "Ballet Pink." The darker, glittery pink is from Making Memories and it's called..."Tickled Pink!" Perfect!
3. My sponges are just foam makeup wedges. They work really well and you can wash them out and re-use them when you're done. I also use a piece of cardboard underneath and squeeze a little paint right onto that, then dip the sponge into it. Really convenient and nothing fancy.

4. I applied 2 coats of Ballet Pink as my base. It dries pretty quickly but I used the overturned lid of a yogurt cup to rest it on. If there's any wet paint on the underside of the butterfly, it will stick to the cardboard.

5. Next I applied 1 coat of the glitter paint. You can apply more if you want--the amount of coverage you want is up to you.

6. Just let dry (I placed it on the yogurt lid again) and then you're all done!


Because this chipboard piece has little cutouts in it, I decided to adhere it to an old book page (another of my $1 books!). Then I cut around it with pinking sheers and inked the edges of the paper with Raspberry Fizz ink.

I hope you enjoyed my card and my easy tutorial. Have a great weekend!

Remember To Dream

Betsy Veldman has a fun challenge going on and I thought I would play along since the rules are to find pictures of things on the web that inspire your design style and then make a card based on them. I love finding things like that. I think everyone has a personal style, but I'm not sure what mine is, exactly. Feminine, soft, and pretty, definitely; and I do love color. Aside from that, though, I just like interesting things. But I can't say that I don't like "simple" cards because, depending on what kind of mood I'm in, I might be inclined to make a simple card. So I hesitate to define my style since I like to think it is always changing. That doesn't mean I didn't LOVE taking part in this challenge, though! (And I'm always turning to Betsy's blog for inspiration...She does amazing things with color.)

I always, always, always get inspired by things in the Anthropologie catalog so I started looking there.

I love this pretty top with fabric roses on it. I was expecting to find some prints on their site since that's usually what attracts me--the shower curtains and aprons and bedding--but I have been on a kick lately of making my own 3-D flowers so I think that's why I was drawn to this shirt...

...and to this headband. I have also been obsessed with tulle as of late so, along with the flowers, it's really speaking to what I'm into now. (And I just think it's so pretty!) I can't wait to make my own tulle flowers.

I have been using buttons and lace on my recent cards, as well. I love the vintage, well-worn look and this picture, courtesy of the French General blog, The Warp and the Weft, captures that feeling wonderfully! I wish my studio was filled with things like this, but I can thank my mom for getting me started by giving me a bag of her grandmother's vintage buttons.

And finally, I recently bought this book at a used bookstore. My $1 copy is not an original Cecily Mary Barker, but a 2003 edition by Frederick Warne, based on her books and images. I bought a bunch of $1 books to use for crafting and I fell in love with this book as soon as I saw it. I've been wanting to use a page from it since I got it and the colors fit perfectly with the inspiration photos I chose.

So here is my finished product:

The fairy image is from the book and I added glitter to her wings and some of the flowers. I made the rosette from some cream wired ribbon, a button, and cream tulle, then trimmed the card with a couple different pieces of lace and a strip of green twill. The word stamps are from Crafty Secrets.

Thanks for the challenge and the chance to play along, Betsy! I wish I could put bright colors together like you can!

Simple Comforts From Mom

Just popping in quick tonight to show you a sweet, feminine card I made inspired by my mom. As soon as I saw the vintagey label from Melissa Frances, I immediately thought of my mom and all things "home." (OK, that includes you, too, Dad!) My parents' home has a folk-country style and my mom puts out a lot of quilts and antiques and candles and so this sticker reminds me of growing up in New York. Even the jute twine I tied onto the tag makes me think of being out in the vineyard with my dad. August and September are the best months to be there for the smell of the grapes ripe and ready for harvesting but I love, love, love NY summers! June 27th is my dad's birthday and that means strawberry shortcake! Fresh, locally grown berries and big, fluffy biscuits...I miss it!

I didn't mean to be so nostalgic, but, well, that's the feeling this card is supposed to invoke. This one's for my mom but I just posted a very similar one in my ShopHandmade store.

Extra is on TV right now--you know, the gossip show? I NEVER watch it (more of an E! fan for celebrity gossip!). I'm in my little studio working away at the blog and a few other things so it's just on in the background. I have a headache right now and I've had it for the last few hours. I just learned from Extra that because it's on just one side of my head, it could be a leaking aneurysm and I might be dying. Yes, that was one of their stories tonight--5 Things You Don't Know That Might Kill You! So, just letting you know that this could be my last-ever blog post! (But let's hope not...)

Have a good night!

Praise From Mallory

I wouldn't normally praise myself, or should I say, I would never devote an entire blog post to self-praise. But, this is a special circumstance and actually, I'm not praising myself; I'm just sharing with you some praise I got from someone else. This is a picture of my cousin's 5-year-old daughter Mallory:


It was taken at our wedding back in August, 2007, when Mallory was 3. Isn't she sweet? She is still and always has been very intelligent. I always look forward to hearing stories from her mother (Erin) about the impossibly random things she says. Example: A couple of years ago Mallory had done something she wasn't supposed to do and when her father (Zach) reprimanded her and explained to her why she shouldn't have done it, she simply looked at him and said, "Thank you for telling me all of those words." She was only 3!

For Mother's Day I sent this card to Erin:


A few days later I got an email from her and this is what Mallory said about the card from me:
"Becky is so good at making cards. I think she is the best person in the world at making cards. I would never tell her she's bad at making cards because she's so good. She should be a card maker when she grows up."

Thank you Mallory! That's the best compliment I've ever gotten! I know I'm not the best card maker out there, but I certainly do enjoy creating them and would love to be a card maker when I grow up! I'm trying...(I just put this card in my ShopHandmade store.)

Thanks for letting me be a little self-indulgent today!

Shopping anyone?

I just want to let everyone know that you can now shop for my cards here. I created a store at ShopHandmade which is a lot like Etsy but there are no fees! It's kind of new and the cool thing is that every time an item is sold, SH funds the protection of 25 square feet of rain forest. Well, I think it's cool anyhow! If you notice the mini store on the left side of this blog, you can click on it and see everything listed in my shop. And for something you can't get in the shop yet (but it will be added very soon) check out my simple chandelier card. It's so simple and classic and that's what I love about it. (It would make a great invitation...if anyone's interested.)

Speaking of not-so-simple, I recently taught myself to hand-stitch! I mean, OK, it's pretty simple, but when you hand-stitch 5 cards in a row, it's pretty time-consuming. I love it, though, and you can see some examples of my stitching in my SH shop.

Oh, and I won the Pink Persimmon challenge from the last post! I felt so lucky I started entering all kinds of contests but, alas, my luck ran out.

Real quickly, I'd like to say "Hi" and "I love you" to both of my grandmothers. They are both 90 years old and I know neither one of them will ever see this because they want nothing to do with computers (!!) but I've been thinking about both of them lately and since they live on the East Coast and I'm out here on the West Coast, I don't get to see them often.

That's Grandma (Milly) Burdick on the left and Grandma Peg on the right. This picture was taken last August when we celebrated GB's 90th.

Pink Persimmon Spring Challenge

Pink Persimmon is having a Spring-themed challenge over at their blog and the rules are simple: Post your favorite spring-inspired creation (made by you) and they'll pick a random winner to get $50 worth of their awesome stamps! Check it out and play along. This is my entry using some Sassafras Lass paper that I love! I took one look at those poppies and knew I had to do something with them.

{Supplies: Cardstock: Aqua Mist (Papertrey Ink), Superfine White (Paper Source); Patterned Paper: Say Timber, Intertwined (Sassafras Lass); Ribbon/Fibers: New Leaf Satin (Papertrey Ink), Linen Thread (Stampin' Up!), Brown/Cream Gingham (Michael's); Buttons: (Autumn Leaves); Chipboard Heart: (Stampin' Up!); Photo Corner: (Autumn Leaves); Stamp: "Grateful for you" (Papertrey Ink); Ink: Dark Chocolate (Papertrey Ink)}

Very Nearly Spring!

The Spring Solstice is just around the corner, Daylight Saving begins early, early tomorrow morning, and our American "Psycho" Bulldog, Rudie, is acting like a spazz because she just got a bath outside! What a perfect time to make some spring-themed cards. It also happens that there is a new challenge happening over at LilyBean's Paperie which inspired the card I'm showing for this post. The "rules" for this one were to include a pocket of some sort, ribbon, buttons, stripes, and the color pink. The prize is a very pretty apron from JillieWillie (she makes such fun things!) and, once again, all of the entries I've seen so far are so creative and colorful. I like these directional challenges, I think, more than the "sketch" challenges because you can let your creatively flow and, try as I might, I can never stick to the rules of the sketches!

So, thank you, Melissa, for giving us such a fun palette of things with which to work. As I have seen in the other entries, everyone seemed to possess a limitless imagination! Here is my humble entry:

I used my Making Memories Circle Cutter for the FIRST time to cut the circles and trim the Basic Grey papers. I glued two Raspberry Fizz circles together and cut the piece just under the center and that gave me my pocket, in which I put a little card and a decorated sheer bird ornament. (A complete list of supplies can be found below.)

Now I just have to decide who I'll send this to--my mom truly deserves it since I was the most horrible daughter this week when I MISSED her birthday! Please note the wording--I did not FORGET her birthday; I MISSED it by a day. The whole week I was thinking that her birthday (March 4) was Thursday and on that day, I planned to Skype with her and my dad on our web cams since I am 3000 miles away from them. So when Thursday came around I happened to look at my calendar--which I did not do on Wednesday--and to my horror, I realized it was the 5th! So Mom, I know you said you that weren't upset (just worried) when your birthday came and went with no word from me, but I really am very sorry to have missed your birthday! Incidentally, my folks are headed out here for a week on March 24th so I will have plenty of opportunities to atone for my big mistake.

Chatty, chatty, chatty! I hope you like the card and thank you, Melissa Phillips, for the chance to play along in your new challenge. Everything you make is truly amazing and I thank you for that, too.

{Supplies: Cardstock: Raspberry Fizz (Papertrey Ink); Paper: Striped, Green, Light Pink from "Sultry" collection (Basic Grey), Brown Polka Dots (Jenni Bowlin); Green Velvet Flower: (Imaginisce); Ribbon/Fibers: New Leaf Satin, Raspberry Fizz Grosgrain (Papertrey Ink), Sheer Pink, Lace (Wright's), Floss (DMC), Linen Thread (Stampin' Up!), Fuzzy Pink (Michael's); Buttons: (Papertrey Ink, Jo-Ann); Rub-Ons: White Flowers (Daisy D's), "Spring has sprung" (American Crafts); "Dwell in possibilities" (Stampin' Up!); Sheer Bird: (Maya Road); Gem: (Target); Stamps: "Beauty is all around" with flourish (Autumn Leaves); Ink: New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz (Papertrey Ink); Circle Cutter: (Making Memories); 3" Scallop Circle Punch: (Marvy Uchida)}

A Fabulous Bag!

I just found out about a challenge over at Melissa Phillips' blog (LilyBean's Paperie) and decided to enter. The challenge is "a girl and her bag" and it's all about POLKA DOTS! Good stuff. She's got this bright, fun bag (pictured above) by Jillie Willie up for grabs and the bag was the inspiration for the challenge. But...a funny thing happened on the way to my finished product... I'm not quite sure how it all went down, but my finished product contains NONE of the supplies I got out to use when I started! I love the bright colors and original style of the bag and here is a photo of some supplies I INTENDED to use at the start:

And here is my finished project for the challenge:

So...What happened? Beats me. It's a days' worth of design evolution, I suppose. But, I like it! I probably won't win the challenge--there are a lot of AWESOME, BEAUTIFUL entries--but my end card does have a lot of romantic polka dots! And I was inspired to make this because of that Jillie Willie bag and the LilyBean's Paperie challenge so it's all good. I'm not mad AND I keep looking at the picture of what could have been with all those great greens and blues and that big pink flower and I know I will end up making something with all of that stuff. But right now, I've got to get this entry in before time runs out.


{Supplies: Cardstock: Blush Blossom, River Rock (Stampin' Up!); Paper: Ric Rac Roses, Ric Rac Polka Dots (Daisy D's), Brown Polka Dots (Jenni Bowlin) Green Polka Dots (no source); Tags: Avery; Ribbon: Pink Sheer, Lace Hem Tape (Wrights), Gathered Lace (Joann), Sheer Brown Dots (Michael's); Bird Punch: (Martha Stewart); Buttons: (Autumn Leaves); Adhesive Pearls: (KaiserCraft); Flowers: (Prima); Stamps: Polka Dot Heart, "Friend" (Inkadinkado), "Happy Birthday" (Papertrey Ink), "To" "My" "Beautiful" (Impression Obsession)}