Spring Has Almost Sprung

Spring is just a couple days away and yet the east coast is digging out from another blizzard! Wow! Such crazy weather!!!

And the entire world anxiously awaits the birth of April's baby. I have the feed running 24/7 at my house. My computer and iPad are always focused on April....I really don't want to miss the birth after all these weeks of waiting and watching but I have a feeling it will be at some time when I am away from home or asleep lol

And in case you are one of the rare people that hasn't heard of April the giraffe you can find the live feed here. (until she has her baby and then it will be gone)

Even with my eyes glued to my computer screen I still finished up a few projects to share with you today.

Let me first say, in case you missed it, March 8, 2017 was an all day craft day at HSN.com.  These are very dangerous days as they introduce amazing new products to millions of crafters who love to hoard new supplies and gadgets! lol

Anna Griffin introduced a set of edge dies called the Decorative Border die set. 

They are four gorgeous, lacy dies that cut just the edge or can cut the image on all sides so it can be used as a normal die cut. 

This card has one of the edge dies plus the Happy Birthday die from the Wishful Thinking die set and a butterfly from her Butterfly cut and emboss set.

I added an embossed strip in white (probably an Anna Griffin embossing folder lol), some sheer silver glitter ribbon and some jewels to the butterfly.

This is a super fast and easy card yet looks very fancy. 

Here is another card using the a different edge die from the set.

I added the dark teal border which I embossed with white ink. This folder is from Anna's Letterpress embossing folder set. 

The flowers are from a flower die set she featured a year or two ago. And the Happy Birthday stamp is from Close To My Heart.

This card incorporates 3 products from the March 8th show.

Anna had these wonderful Pocket cut and emboss dies. Four cutting dies that create gorgeous, intricate pockets to add to your cards and scrapbooking pages. I used the rose die for this card, cut in an olive green.

She also had a die cut embellishment set to go with the pocket dies. It is full of large flowers and backgrounds that don't get dwarfed by the large pockets. 

And finally, she had an incredible set of Coloring Cards and Rubber Stamps. 
You get a set of cards to color and even better, you get a set of matching rubber stamps so you can keep recreating the nine card images and add them to any project. 

For this card I stamped one of the rose images and colored with alcohol inks. I then layered it, using the same olive card stock to create a small note card to slip into the pocket.

Here is a close up of the note card.

I turned this whole thing into an easel card so my sentiment will be inside the note card.

So, yes, I bought A LOT of the new Anna Griffin products this time (and a couple still have not yet arrived) but what can I say, they were all too gorgeous to pass up lol

Unfortunately not all my time was for just playing around.
A friend lots 3 family members in a week. I cannot even imagine how much pain is in her heart right now.
The minute I found out I ran into my craft room and put together this simple card.
This is why I love having so many cutting dies around. I find that a lot of times I can create a card very quickly by just pulling dies out of the drawer. I love my Cricut but it can be more time consuming.

This is an off white card base. I then cut and embossed Anna Griffin's Flower Bramble for a background layer cut in cream. 

The flower is from the same AG flower set I used for the roses in the previous edge die card. The base layer is in the same cream as the flower bramble. The top layer is in tan.

The text is from the Diamond Press 17 piece card making set.  I cut it twice. the bottom layer is in the same off white as the card base, the top is in brown.

I also got to make a fun card!

My brother in law's birthday is next week (and I actually mailed his card in time for it to arrive BEFORE his birthday -- first time this year! Yay!)

He is a hunter and last year I made his this card. Which he loved.

There was no way I could top that card. So I went in a different direction.

Party animal birthday!  lol

I created this on my Cricut Explore. There are a lot of pieces on here but it went together fairly quickly.

Here is a list of where I found all the parts:
Elk: Outdoor Man
Party Banner: Life's a Party
Sunglasses: Party Photo Props
Banner on the antlers: Paper Pups
Boot: April Showers
Sock: Teresa Collins December 25th

I cut three equal strips for the background and ran them through the Cuttlebug using the Happy Birthday folder.

I love this card. It cracks me up. I hope he likes it too.



And of course, back to April the giraffe.

I have always liked giraffes. They have the most beautiful eyes.
So, like I said before, I have been on baby watch pretty much non stop. I only take a break to sleep (or when hubby makes me leave the house to run errands lol)

I felt a strong NEED to make something.

I started with a 9x12 stretched canvas. I base coated it in cream acrylic paint. 

I then added a vinyl silhouette of the giraffe. (I forgot to take a picture of that)

I then painted another coat of cream which kind of seals the edges of the vinyl so the next layer of paint doesn't seep under.

Next came the sky (a combination of a couple blue paints and some while streaks) and the ground (3 shades of tan and some drab green)

I then removed the vinyl leaving the image you see above.  (which is really kind of cool in itself)  It reminds me of something you might see in a kid's book....what am I? :-)

I then added the vinyl details. I purchased this svg from Etsy. 

After application I knew I needed to make the eyes black so I used the "hide contour' feature and hid everything but the eyes and then cut them out of black vinyl.

I LOVE how this turned out.
I don't use vinyl very often so I was nervous about getting it lined up on top of the cream background but I only had a couple very small issues which I was able to paint over.

Now I need to decide if I want to frame it or just hang it as is.....and where on earth I am going to find a place on my walls????? 


I hope you have enjoyed this post. I know it is unusually link heavy today. Sorry about that but unlike most times I actually know where I got most everything so I thought I would share in case you want to grab some of these items for yourself. (I have no association and receive nothing - unfortunately lol)

Have a wonderful week. If you are snowed in I hope you are crafting!

Thanks for stopping by!