I Love SRM!

It's no secret that I absolutely LOVE SRM! From the stickers to the containers, chalk markers to stamps - I love it all! I am thrilled to share that I am now a part of the 2015-2016 design team!

I have designed for SRM for various lengths of time over the past several years and I am looking forward to the best year yet :). To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to share some gift bags and cards that I made recently:

I purchased the gift bags at Target. I loved the gold stripes! I purchased the cards from the dollar spot at Target and dressed them up with some washi tape (gold, polka dots) and SRM stickers. I clipped the cards to the bags with a piece of patterned paper layered behind for more pattern and color.

I also purchased these bags and cards at Target, too. I just can't get enough of that gold stripe foiled tissue paper!

This time I placed the SRM stickers over the washi tape layers. Mixing washi tape and SRM stickers is one of my favorite techniques.

Speaking of washi tape and stickers, I made almost 30 of these cards for the teachers at my kids' school. SRM made the easiest and most perfect sentiments.

Be sure to follow SRM on Facebook, Instagram and on their blog here. I'll be sharing a card next week with a fabulous new product :). Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

New Art Journal - Love My Tapes

Hello! I'm excited to share with you a new ongoing project - my art journal. When I say "art journal", I mean my baby-steps venturing into art journaling. I'm not a really messy, artsy kind of girl, but I've been itching to play with stamps and watercolors, so I've decided to create this book of quotations. I'm going to play, get my feet wet, but it will be pretty clean and simple. All of the quotes will come from LDS General Conference addresses. The first two I created were chosen because gratitude has been on my mind all month:

For this page, I used pink airmail washi tape from Love My Tapes. You can read more about it at the Love My Tapes blog here, including a tip for using the right ink for washi tape.

I LOVE the Open Book collection by Maggie Holmes, and I am obsessed with these flower and leaf die-cuts. Every single line of scrapbooking supplies should come with a package of die-cut flowers and leaves. In my opinion ;).

I used a $5 set of watercolors from Michaels to paint "grateful". I really like the contrast of the ballet pink and teal.

For this page, I used My Mind's Eye washi tape and more Open Book flowers. I went with yellow and green because I love the way those two work together.

I love how this quote is a gentle reminder to stop complaining ;).

I also love stamping one letter at a time. I could hand write the quotes, but stamping them forces me to take time to ponder the words. By the time I finish, I have a better understanding of what the words mean than when I started.

I'm behind on sharing my Attitude of Gratitude posts here on the blog, but I do intend to catch up this week. If we're Facebook friends or you follow me on Instagram, you know I had a crazy week with much to be grateful for. ;)

Attitude of Gratitude day 17: I'm grateful for my boys' teachers. I say this every year because parent teacher conferences always fall in November, but it's true. Some years I connect with their teachers more than others. Some years the boys connect with their teachers more than others. Most years are relatively smooth and successful. Others are hard. This has been a hard one. So much adjusting, growing up, and learning how to parent three students instead of just two, and all that with a baby. But I'm so grateful for all that my boys' teachers do, and even if I don't care for policies or curriculum, I'm behind them 100% because they are literally raising my kids with me.

Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

Happy Little Life - Love My Tapes

Hello! Last week I had the opportunity to share a layout on the Love My Tapes blog:

I started with a photo leftover from my Be Yourself mini album (see yesterday's post). I love the combination of dark blue and kelly green right now, so I chose patterned paper that would compliment that. I used a Project Life card for my title, and embellished with a Maggie Holmes bow:

I shopped my stash and rediscovered these vellum banners by Crate Paper. Love these!

I added some Love My Tapes lace tape to the side of my photo for a little more texture.

To bring in more green, I used Love My Tapes washi tape to create a border on my page. When I put the washi tape down, I placed it over my page and my table so that it stuck my layout to the table. Then I misted my cardstock and let it dry. Because the washi tape was holding the paper down, it stayed nice and flat as it dried.

You can find my post at Love My Tapes here. Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

Stick Figures - Love My Tapes

My new favorite ladies give new meaning to the term "stick figures":

I was perusing Pinterest the other day for washi tape project ideas, and this darling project popped up in the search results:

my pin - original source

I fell in love with the idea of using tongue depressors as puppets and washi tape as clothes, so I settled in with my washi stash and got to work.

First, I chose washi tapes that I thought would be fun to mix together - one for each top and one for each skirt. Love My Tapes has a great selection of designs that work perfectly for a project like this.

I applied the washi tapes and then used a white galaxy marker by American Crafts to draw collars, skirt hems, belts and corsages. I used a fine tip Sharpie to sketch out the edges. I drew legs, shoes, and colored on tights or socks. For the faces, I used a pencil first and designed hair and added eyes and smiles. I used colored Sharpies and more white marker to color it all in.

I'm going to wrap these ladies up and gift them to my little niece. I hope she'll enjoy playing with them, maybe during quiet time at church. For more washi tape ideas, be sure to visit the Love My Tapes blog, and be sure to visit the original creator of these puppets for her tutorial, here.

Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa