BFF Open House Link Party #47: Eggs and Bunnies and Peeps Oh My

Confession time. I don't like Peeps. (ducking, imagining a barrage of incoming Peeps being thrown at me). I know...that seems somehow un American or un Easter-like or un-something. The little gooey things are everywhere and  I can't escape them. I think they exceed Twinkies in shelf life.

Easter kinda snuck up on me this year and I even heard an ad on TV for MOTHER'S DAY! OK please slow down 2012.

Let's see what everyone's been up to this week. There were such great links last week you all have to top yourselves! I don't think that will be a problem. I really want to thank you for choosing to come play at my little party. I know it's not the biggest, but I kind of like this smaller more intimate gathering .

Rules are simple. If you made it , link it. Papercrafts, scrapbooking, cards, jewelry, upcycle, thriftcycle, DIY, recipes ( especially chocolate!), home dec, etc. Please just no ads or shops. Other than that...PARTY ON!

Easter Scrapboxsket: Easter Basket In A Box

So, even though College Boy aka Chocolate Chip aka our son will spend his first Easter away from home ( sniff sniff, waaaaah) , he still needed to have an Easter “basket” right?

Shipping costs being what they are, I had to get creative. I wasn’t about to ship an actual basket.  I looked around and had an old box from some photos I ordered from Snapfish. Perfect. Re-use, re-purpose, recycle…especially during April which is “Earth Month”.

Of course I couldn’t just leave it plain, so  I scrapped the inside of the lid!

I took a piece of green Core’dinations cardstock and some coordinating paper from my stash and measured to fit inside the lid. Then tore the patterned paper and adhered to top and bottom as shown. What’s an Easter basket without a chocolate bunny?

This bunny is melt proof since it’s from chocolate colored vinyl. I found a bunny image in the Silhouette online store and dressed him up with a swirly ribbon bow tie, and a rhinestone tail.

I took a scrap of the green cardstock and freehand cut some “grass” for the bunny to nestle in.

I cut the words “Hoppy Easter” from the same chocolate vinyl and embellished with more rhinestones. Son will understand that when it comes to his mom “it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that bling”.

Oh and what’s inside?

A real chocolate bunny, and lots and lots of “eggs”.

Gold, White, And Sparkly Bunny Easter Cards

Back when my favorite paper store was going out of business, I found this gorgeous handmade paper that I knew immediately I would use for either Easter or Mother’s Day cards.

The pic doesn’t do this justice but it’s a gorgeous rough silk like texture with metallic painted flowers.

So that was a couple of months ago when I thought I had tons of time until either of these holidays, then the calendar sped up and life happened and EEEK! It’s time to make Easter cards!

Thankfully, printables can be re-sized so I used my HOP printable as my card focal.

I used a cream cardstock for the card, then a gold speckled vellum for the background paper. Layered my handmade paper on top and then my re-sized printable, mounted on a coordinating panel.

Since everything looks better with glitter, I went over my little bunny with Stickles glitter glue so Mr. HOP would pop.

What’s a bunny without a little adhesive pearl cotton tail?  Other embellishments include punched flowers and more Stickles dots of glitter.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its waaaaaayyyyyy.

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BFF Open House Link Party #46 Wrap Up and Features

Happy Monday everyone. Can you believe it’s April already? Thanks for a great party on Friday. So much creativity! Here are a few of the  ideas that caught my eye but as always, everyone who linked up shared something wonderful.

If you’ve got a little one in your life who’s into cars and trucks, then has Michele at The Scrap Shoppe got a party idea for you!

I can’t do this party justice with just one pic so you really need to pop over to see the whole thing including the spectacular orange creamsicle cake. I love how bright and Spring-y this party is.

Another bright sign of Spring is this pillow from Katie at Creatively Living. Simple but bold at the same time.



You’ll never guess what she used for the flowers.

Who doesn’t love a new pair of shoes? Look no further than your own closet to transform a pair a la Anthropologie. Caroline from c.w.frosting did an amazing transformation. Here’s the adorable end result:


Who wouldn’t be in a good mood wearing these!

Being the huge fan of black and white that I am, I fell in instant love with these next two projects. Just love them!

First, Maggie from Midwestern Sewing Girl shared a high impact low cost project that looks straight out of PB, Ballard, or West Elm. Check out this tissue paper and stamped canvas:



I am on a hunt for the tissue paper she used.

Finally, with Easter coming, you have got to check out this wonderful take on decorating eggs. Jenn at Rook No. 17 shared these stunning silhouette eggs.



Again, thanks to everyone who linked up. I will get back on track w/ a blog feature starting next week. If you know a new or emerging crafty blog w/ less than 500 followers or are one and would like to be featured, shoot me an email!

Make it a creative week!

Easter Decor: HOP Printable

I have done absolutely nothing for Easter. True confession time. I still had my St. Patrick’s Day printable in the frame that I change out each month / holiday! What can I say? Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans to decorate for Easter.

I couldn’t let it go another day  so I made a new Easter printable :

The font I used is called Grolier Beveled which I downloaded free here.

And what’s the fun of making a printable if you don’t share? I went with the orange version here because I usually go so neutral and Mr. Chocolate likes orange. Plus what's a bunny w/out a carrot so he has a carrot orange background! True to form, I made a neutral version just because ….

Natural:

Orange:

Lavender:

Robins Egg:

Click on your preferred color to bring to full size, then right click to Save As. I re-sized mine to 5x7 to fit my frame.

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BFF Open House Link Party #46 Getting Back to Normal Edition!

Haven't been much of a hostess the last couple of weeks but with the Mumster home and on the mend and things settling down, I am very excited to get back to "normal" ( whatever that is) . This will be another week w/ out the Blog Feature part which I hope to get back on track in April, but we definitely have the party part here and now!

I have slowly been getting round to visit this week and have seen such fun Easter ideas out there. I hope I'll see some linked up here! And I've seen some incredible chocolate temptations out there that I also hope I'll see here!

If you're new to linking up, the rules are super simple. If you made it, link it! Home decor, DIY, papercrafts, scrapbooking, jewelry, re-dos, thrift finds, recipes etc. Please link to your specific blog post and not your main blog page and no ads or shops please. Other than that....PARTY ON!

Gratitude: Floral Thank You Cards

My mom is very lucky to have some incredible friends. Not surprising, because she’s a sweetheart, but with her recent illness, these friends have really been there for her. I can’t thank them enough for the love and care they’ve shown her (and me)  and I was only able to come home because I knew they’d be there for her.

I used a floral print paper from DCWV’s Indian Summer Stack as the background paper for the card. Cut to 4.75 x 6.75 ( card is 5x7) and then layered on cream cardstock panel and another piece of the floral.

The colors went perfectly with K and Co’s Edamame collection which I’ve used in a few other cards. I used self adhesive scrapbook borders and die cuts, and layered some of the die cuts with foam dots to give some depth.

Accented with self adhesive pearls and the sentiment is a Hero Arts stamp ( that’s deliberately off set…I didn’t stamp that crooked!). I stamped the sentiment on a cardstock scrap and layered with more scraps from my focal paper.

These cards don’t begin to cover my gratitude for their friendship to her and to me. But hopefully they’re a start!

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