High & Low

There’s a little bit about plant life, a little bit about life-life. The newest kit I designed for the Feed Your Craft shop is now available, and High & Low was so much fun to make, I can’t wait to share it with you. Inspired by the beauty of growth, the dreaded, but sometimes necessary growing pains we encounter, the magic of the everyday, and getting through it all by taking one step at a time, the stamp, cards, and digital printable were made with documenting your days in mind.

I’ve already put a lot of my kit to use, creating a 6x8 insert for my album by playing with paints and stamps:

I also grabbed a few of my favorite cards to tell a literal growing pains kid of story by documenting our puppy’s new tendency to sit where he pleases, on top of flowers, and all.

I really love rethinking what makes something a high or a low, and this kit nudges me to keep doing just that.

I also love these colors, especially for brightening up the humdrum, and I mean, one has to have a spot of purple when the words of Prince are involved, right?

You can grab your kit in the shop, and don’t forget that if you missed out on it last month, the What Day Is It stamp is back in stock!

Bird's Eye View

I am so crazy excited to share the new Essentials by Ellen release from Ellen Hutson! It was so fun to design this month’s stamps, from new additions to our Leading Ladies family to a set that honors the backyard birds I love so darn much, it’s full of a lot of love.

I sat down to play with these sets and got lost having so much fun making card after card, and while I can’t share all of them right now (I’ll be on Ellen’s blog soon), I can tell you that I made sixteen cards in one afternoon! Simple is my go-to, of course, but still, these sets made creating them pure joy.

The Backyard Bird Friends set has lots of birds and accessories to help you build branches of nests, or keep it simple with your favorite bird and a bit of color.

The Grand Leading Lady is iconic and nostalgic, and while grandmas and grant aunts, and even great grandmas and grand aunts can be a variety of ages and styles, this lovely lady is touching on the heart of the crafty, sassy, loving lady many of us knew, know, and love. Plus, her accessories are so much fun to use on their own and with other of the Leading Ladies, too!

And last, but not least, we couldn’t share a Little Leading Lady, and not a Little Leading Gentleman! This guy has some of the best accessories, and paired with the ones from our little lady, the combination is perfect!

This collection just makes me so darn happy!

I hope it all makes you happy, too!

Inside & Out

I feel like I’ve been waiting ages to say this, but it’s Inside & Out kit release day! There’s not one kit I’ve designed that I didn’t love, but this one has carried so much goodness with it every step of the way, and I’ve already used so much of it on so many different projects, that I’ve been dying to share it with you.

It was created to help you tell your everyday kind of stories, the ones that find you at home and in the world, in your head and heart, and outside them, and it’s packed with lots of love and color to help make that more fun. There are a few nods to the man who shaped so much of my concept of home and neighborhoods and community when I was little, Mr. Fred Rogers, which makes me both smile and get a little nostalgic.

I’ve been using this collection in my planner, the printable sheet cut apart on snail mail, and of course, in my project life.

I love how the stamps pair with the printable sheet’s labels and tags.

You can grab your kit in the Feed Your Craft shop now!

Reach for the Stars

It’s release day for this little lady and more over at the Ellen Huston shop, and I honestly don’t even know where to begin because I love this bunch so much. This year we’re starting off with a band and adding some new friends to the Leading Ladies collection, including a Little Leading Lady, and a Leading Gentleman!

These two are probably one of the biggest requests we’ve gotten for this series, so it’s fun to finally bring them to light and get to watch them come alive when you use them. I could'n’t wait to pair both of them with the new star dies that are also part of this collection.

The Little Lady has so many accessories to give her a leg up on all her adventures, from a notebook to a magnifying glass, a juice box to a box of crayons, she’s curious, brave, and ready to take the world by storm.

I also love that the Leading Gentleman’s accessories make such simple cards all on their own. I made a few to keep handy when I’m looking for one for my guy, and I’m already smitten.

and of course I can’t forget…

And since it’s getting close to that time of year when we tell people how much we love them, it seemed like it was also the perfect time to add in a little date set for all our date nights, ladies’ nights, tea or coffee dates, and just general get togethers with the people who make life better, so the little “It’s a Date” accessory set was born!

I couldn’t help but begin by creating a card with a Golden Girls reference. I mean who can resist cheesecake and good conversation?

Like what you see? You can grab your own stamps and dies in the Ellen Hutson shop now!

I am so excited to see what you make using these new sets, so please make sure to share!

Habit Forming

It’s finally kit release day for Habit Forming over at Feed Your Craft! Can you tell I’ve been a little excited about this one? I can’t help it - I really love this kit - the white space, the color, all of it, but it’s also that time of year that I’m ready for change, for intentional steps, and this kit is perfect for that.

One of my favorite parts about this kit is that the floral stamp can also be used as a habit tracker! Yep, stamp a garden of flowers on your cards, layout, or in your journal, and bring a little life that’s fun to color, or use it to mark daily habits by filling in one of the 30 petals or 30 leaves each day, and on months with 31 days, add a lady bug for luck and color her in, too!

There’s a handy-dandy PDF that will come along with your digital files to give you more information and remind you about this option. And while we’re on the subject of not forgetting, remember all physical kit orders get the digital files for the cards and stamps, too!

I used the digital form of the stamp to create a little tracker for the first six months of the year, printing it off on transparency that I’ll clip into the front of my albums and color in as the year progresses. Speaking of albums, I am using the new year as a nudge to get back on track with my memory keeping, and to do that I’m also changing things up a bit.

I’ve culled together all of the albums and binders I’ve been hoarding all these years - some made for these kind of projects, some not, some (very) old, some new, big, little, thick, thin, and I am going to use them, one for each month, to tell my stories. There are limitations to them, sure, but I am excited about what that will mean, and I am so ready to use kits like Habit Forming to make it happen and think outside the box. Some of these have classic page protectors, others have random papers, or nothing at all, and one was even an old Swedish cookbook, brimming with so many clippings, and I plan to work within and around and through all of it. Imagine if my most creatively collected commonplace books (see here for more info if that’s new to you) had a baby with my Project Life albums. I honestly can’t wait to see what happens.

I am ready to be a beginner again, and the start of 2019 is the perfect nudge to get it going.

And, even though all the surfaces I normally use for videos are currently covered in Christmas decorations, I created a makeshift set up that would make Santa chuckle, and did a rough, but full of love unboxing video of the full kit just in case you’d like to see the pieces in action.

You can grab your kit in the shop, and I am sending you so much love and thanks for your continued support!

12 Tags of Christmas

It’s one of my favorite signs that the holidays are here…12 Tags of Christmas (with a feminine twist). I also love it because I get to pair with the always lovely and talented Julie Ebersole.

This year our theme is taking us away from traditional Christmas colors, and we’re mixing it up a bit.

I stretched this a little bit with a mint, pink, and a bold orangey-red (yes, I know, shades of red and green, but I’m standing behind them as being different enough from the norm, and honestly, once I stamped them, I was too in love not to continue).

I used the Over the River stamp set and dies, Classic Block Alphabet dies, and some of my new favorite Catherine Pooler inks to stamp patterns and cut away.

And, because pattern making with stamps is quite addicting, I used a branch stamp from the same set to make a corresponding mint wrapping paper to go with my tag.

Make sure to visit the Ellen Huston Blog to see more of tags, as well as Julie’s incredible creation!

Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies, Classic Block Alpha by Julie Ebersole

Over The River by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Clear Stamps

Over The River by Julie Ebersole, Essentials By Ellen Designer Dies

Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Mint To Be

Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, It's A Girl

Catherine Pooler Ink Pad, Tutti Frutti

My Sweet Petunia Mini MISTI Laser Etched Stamping Tool (6-1/8 X 7)

Books and Shopping (what could be better?)

The newest Leading Ladies are here! Just in time for the coziest season, and the flurry of the season gift giving, the Bookworm Lady and the Holiday Shopper Lady are ready to join our current collection in the Ellen Huston shop. Plus, as a bonus this release, there’s an extra accessory set, Ugly Sweater, and it’s perfect for both adding a little something to the Ladies’ sweaters, but also for creating fun patterns, and two dies to help you create the perfect autumn and winter scenes for your new friends.

I used the Bookworm Lady set to create an interactive card with a removable bookmark and markers, perfect for some of my creative young bookworm friends.

The Holiday Shopper Lady is ready with her list and pile of presents, but I think to think she’s a bargain hunter at heart, so her smile is all about the great sales she found while looking for the perfect gift.

I was up on the Ellen Hutson blog this past week sharing all the fun tags I made using the Ugly Sweater accessory stamp set, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t share another here. Love grabbing older Essentials by Ellen dies to pair with new stamp sets. This joy die is no longer available, but you could easily make something similar with their amazing alphabet set!

I’ve got more card designs to share soon, but for now, hop on over to Ellen Hutson and grab the new release for yourself!

Made Merry

Although I always say I’m not ready for Christmas yet, there’s always a lot of merriment when the October Feed Your Craft kits release because they’re full of so much cheer that it’s hard not to feel a bit of the magic. The kit I designed this year, Made Merry, is definitely heavy on the cheer, with bright colors, a mix of tradition and whimsy, and lots and lots of inspiration from holidays past, it’s sure to make you smile like this little Santa. I mean, talk about jolly.

To say I’m excited to share this kit with you would be an understatement. I made an unboxing of everything included:

I also couldn’t wait and started playing with the kit right away, creating my annual wish list for the season. I took a different spin this year, with a Less/More list, and I kind of love it.

I also used a mixture of the physical and digital elements to create this insert where I can list the mail I’ll be sending in December. I really can’t get enough of that mailbox stamp!

The kit comes in both physical and digital forms, but don’t forget that when you purchase the physical kit, you get the digital files, too!

You can grab yours in the Feed Your Craft shop today. Thank you so much for the love and excitement you’d shown this kit already!