Pure Heart

I got all 3 of my little ones to nap at the same time today, it's a rainy Friday miracle!  Of course I just had to make a card after perusing all of the wonderful Unity creations by you FWF ladies!

I pulled out my perfect pearls after years of non-use and had some fun with Unity's Be Your Own Beautiful SMAK kit.  The sentiment is from Wings Of Hope (on sale this weekend!).  I stamped the wings and the pure heart background with versamark ink and brushed on gold and pink perfect pearls for a beautiful shimmery background and then stamped the sentiment on top for a quick card.  It needed a little something so I added the wood arrow.
Have a happy weekend!

Celebrating...

Friends with Flair, oh how I miss you!  And craft time, I miss you too.  Squeezing in a quick post today because it's been too long.
This card may seem strange, and it likely is, but it was for my FIL's 75th birthday and after so many years of making him cards I wanted something special but was simply out of ideas.  My hubby mentioned to our daughter that Poppy ate a banana EVERY day and I got the idea to mark his time in bananas.  Weird, yes, completely!
Stamps used are Unity's Celebrate The Good Times SMAK kit. 

I stamped the Celebrating and hand sketched the banner around it since I didn't have a banner stamp large enough.  I used the circle stamp in the kit for the background and used the number stamps to calculate bananas eaten.  I had some banana embellishments laying around from 3 years ago when I did my sons birth announcements and only used the monkey from the kit.
Celebrating 27,375
 and the inside reads: of bananas eaten in your lifetime!

Thankfully he thought it was funny and I was happy to see when we visited over the weekend that he had the card on display (his b-day was at the beginning of the month) and it was the only card he had on display too!

Happy weekend Unity friends!

TGIF!

A heartfelt TGIF today after a crazy busy week with sick littles and tons of stuff on the To Do list.  Whew, glad the sun is shining too, now if only this snow would start melting.  We got dumped with a ton more on Wednesday and I am now over it.  Spring weather can start anytime now!

I have a few cards to share for Unity's FWF today.  Since I do not get to blog regularly I usually have a backlog of stuff to share.  :)

 I wanted to keep this card CAS but it looked being the only thing on the white paper so I pulled out a stencil and added some distress ink to give it a subtle background.  It didn't photograph well but looks very pretty IRL.  Unity stamp kits used: Lasting Thoughts

I got some Gelatos recently and was experimenting and came up with this sympathy card.  I colored the stamps directly and then spritzed with water and stamped onto watercolor paper.  I made several and sadly have already gone through them.  Unity Stamp kits used: Insightful Meadows and Everything Wonderful

This final card is one I made for the hubby's bday back in December but forgot to share.  I love this Itty Bitty and it's perfect for the beer lover in my life!

I hope you all have a happy weekend and I can't wait to look through your blogs and get some great inspiration as always!  I know I for one am also staying tuned in for Angela's Design Team announcements today.  I am so excited by the first 3 new team members she picked.  I just LOVE Camille's, Kary's and Kassi's creations and can't wait to see who else will be added!  Although it is a dream of mine to be on Unity's design team I did not apply because I just don't have the time to devote to blogging.  I am sure many of you did though and I wish you talented ladies lots of luck!

Live for Adventure

I was inspired yesterday to scrapbook a traditional page for the first time in a LONG time!  It's hard for me to find the time these days but in the world of papercrafting it was my first love.  I love Project Life for it's simplicity and memory keeping but there is just something about the creative process of making a traditional layout that I love.  I used the sketch from Unity's Be Inspired Challenge and turned it on it's side to suit my picture and scrapbook paper.

My kids were playing dress-up last week and I snapped this picture of my son who NEVER poses for photos and I was feeling very inspired to scrap it.  He'll be 3 next month and the last time I did a layout of him he was 14months, about time for a new one!

The PP is from Glitz Designs Color Me Happy collection.  The stamps are all Unity Stamp Company.

Unity sets used:
All About the Journey (compass)
Sail Away (sailboat)
Pirate Madness (treasure map)
Aug 2013 SMAK (imagination & you can do anything)
Jan 2014 SMAK (adventure & go see explore)

I gold embossed most of the images (embossing on glossy photo paper didn't work out so well).  I used Staz-on ink to stamp onto the washi tape.  The cute camera charm was a freebie I got with a Unity order.

Brave, Strong and Courageous

I hope you are all having a happy Valentine's Day!  The best part of  mine was a sweet cuddle nap with my 8 month old.  Those are getting more and more infrequent and I cherish them SO much!
I haven't had much time to craft lately but I threw together a couple of super simple Valentines cards last night with Unity's Everything Love set (which is currently ON SALE)!

This next card is one I made when I was still recovering from skin cancer and reconstructive surgery on my nose and cheek under my eye.  I love creating, it feels therapeutic to me and making this made me feel better.  Wednesday I gave it to someone who needed it more than me.  My son has a great Speech Therapist/teacher and she had the same surgery/complications as I did shortly before I went through it.  Today she is having a second round of reconstructive surgery to help fix some of the problems she is still experiencing.

I used the Strength and Dignity KOTM which is one of my all time faves (also on sale now)!  The inside sentiment is an Itty Bitty.
Can't wait to look through all of the Friends With Flair entries this week, you ladies are all so creative and inspiring!

Celebrate You

I needed to make a birthday card for a 70th birthday and of course I waited until the last minute and am also sick to top it off.  What's a girl to do?  Pull out my all time favorite go-to Unity stamp of course and the card practically makes itself!
The Donna Poppy stamp is probably my most inked stamp and is just gorgeous to play with and watercolor.  I paired it with a sentiment from the Everything Wonderful set and used some pretty glimmer mists after masking the flowers.  The sentiment is stamped on vellum.

Sharing for Friends with Flair today.  Gotta love Fridays and all of that lovely Unity inspiration!

Project Life 2014

Happy Friday, Friends with Flair and New Year!  Cause it's just been that long since I've blogged.  There's the meme I've seen going around FB and Pinterest that comes to mind, something like "Sorry I've been such a bad friend, I've been busy being an awesome mom."  I don't know that I'd use awesome, just busy and trying to do my very best and enjoy this special time.  My crafting and my blog have certainly been severely neglected.  I had some time last weekend when the in-laws took my two older children for the night and I got started on my 2014 Project Life album.  WooHoo!  Of course I am 3 months behind on my 2013 album but I will go back and get that when I have the time.  My goal is to stay on track with 2014 and catch up on 2013 little by little.  I love using my Unity stamps on my album and today I am sharing my album with you, here goes!

This is my title page, I love working on the title pages and it always takes me a long time of carefully picking and choosing just the right mixture of elements.  I used 4 Unity stamps on here and the cute heart button was a freebie with my last order!  I love all of the wonderful and inspirational quotes that Unity is always coming out with and there were some perfect ones for my family album.

Some close ups:

I wrote down the kits used but it's down in my craft space and I totally have a sleeping almost 7 month old on my lap and can't get it.  If I find the time I'll add it later.

Here is part of my first weeks layout.

I love Unity's SMAK kits and use them often on my layouts.  I really like to stamp directly on my photos with Staz-On ink too.

I have my second weeks layout finished but just didn't have time to photograph it.  I was taking these pics during lunchtime and almost had a little one spill milk all over my album, had to get it out of there quickly!

Thanks for hanging in there with me today.  I hope that I have time to visit all of your wonderful blogs and see what you've been doing with your Unity stamps too!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Crystal