And here it is . . . A Little Joy

So, I'm hoping that you don't hate me too much for my little tease yesterday.  And hopefully it was well worth the wait for here is the finished project.

My tabletop Joy display.

I initially planned on making it all red, black and vanilla.  But once I got started, I really liked the idea of sticking with just black and vanilla with some sparkle added in.  A little bit of ribbon, glitter, silver and pearls.  All the things any crafting girl needs to have on hand.

 I love all the textures here.  From the chunky glitter to the embossed card stock (from the Big Shot - lovin' it!) to the ribbon.

And for the O I just felt like a lot of circles were in order.  The ribbon slide and the 3 black brads were just the perfect items to add on here.

And the Y was a little trickier so I decided on a "dot" at the end, made out of paper flower, button and some pearls for the center of that flower.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Joy project as much as I enjoyed making it.  Happy crafting everyone!

So Many Things to Have Fun With

Where to begin?  I mean there are so many things to have fun with.  I am loving the Rhinestone Jewels.  They are so fun to apply, beautiful to look at and just all around fun.

And you may remember that I recently was able to get the Big Shot.  Love it!  There is just something about putting plain old card stock in it and then by simply turning a handle you have an embossed piece of card stock.  Too fun.  Even my husband was having a great time running the card stock through it.  You should have seen his grin with the first try.  So, here is a pretty good look at a piece of card stock after it has been Big Shotted!

So, I totally "borrowed" this card from a wonderful friend and even more amazing stamper - Diana.  I borrowed the basic idea and changed it up just a little - some different paper, ribbon and adding some fun embellishments.  Too fun.  Thanks Diana for always providing such fun inspiration!  (And when are we going to that Mexican restaurant you've been talking about?)

I thought I would end my entry with this cute little bow.  All tied up nice and pretty.  Hope you had a wonderful Wednesday.

A Distressing Day

Well, actually it was not a distressing day.  Not at all!

Yesterday I got to be the stamper.  I attended a class at Diana's (thanks for a great day yesterday) using Stampin' Up!'s new distressing kit.  What a bundle of fun that is!  We made three projects.  It was really fun using that kit to add "wear and tear" to the projects.  I think the blank stamp is so fun, and very relaxing.  The way you work it in on the edges of your projects.  Well, it just takes all the stress out of distressing.  And if that isn't enough, the sanding tools let you really work out some aggressions - that is if you have any to work out!

Anyway, it was real fun going to class and enjoying the company of other stampers that were learning this new technique just like I was for the first time.  We had a great time gabbing and stamping.

After class was over, Diana and I headed out to do some shopping.  I'm always up for shopping, but this was right up my alley.  She's been wanting a new camera.  So off we went to take a look at different styles.  She had two picked out two that she was interested in looking at.  We went to Costco first.  I haven't had a Costco membership in years, so wasn't really sure what to expect.  Really, their camera selection was pretty limited.  There seemed to be either pretty high end or low end.  And nothing in the range that she was looking for.  So, off to Best Buy we went.  It was just down the road a bit and they had a much better selection.  Immediately we had it narrowed down to two, but really it was looking like the one.  And it turned out to be one of the two that she was originally wanting to take a look at.  She did buy that one.  I think she's going to have a lot of fun with it.  It's got a lot of options and will be as simple as she wants or will allow her to "expand" her horizons if she decides.  After that we grabbed a quick bite at Paradise Bakery.  Yum!  Love that place.  And then I decided it was time to head home to see my family since I had been gone most of the day.  I finished the day out playing computer games with my husband and son.  We had fun.

Now, I'm off to take my son in for his first before school band class of the school year and then I am getting to walk the mall with my brother and my father for the first time since school got out in May.  I'm really looking forward to that.  The exercise is great and so are the conversations that we have!

Don't worry, I'm not leaving you without any pictures to check out for the day.  Just a couple from yesterday.

Here I am getting ready to go to the Distressing Class. 

The distressing Kit in it's cute little pouch.

Here are the contents all laid out.  We all joked that the sticks on the bottom were weapons.  But they sure made distressing things easier.  And everyone fell in love with the cute little sanding block.  I didn't even use mine yesterday, it's just too cute!!!

Here are the three projects that we made in Diana's class.  She had put her initial on her Distressing Kit.  I love my M.  It's so darn cute and those flowers were so easy and fun to make.  I'm not sure where I'm going to put my M yet, for right now it's on my stamping desk ready to help inspire me to create.