2011 - Year in Review

2011 has been a wonderful year!  I am so amazed at how fast it has flown by - where did the time go?  Below are some of my favorite projects from the year.  I am looking forward to 2012!

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Cupcake Love Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Twig Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Savor Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Elizabeth Park Collection

 Imaginisce  - I-Top & I-Rock

 Imaginisce - Enchanted Collection

 Simple Stories - Destination Collection

 Imaginisce - Happy Camper Collection

 Nikki Sivils - School is Cool Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Sweet Summertime Collection

 Imaginisce - Geek is Chic Collection

 Jillibean Soup - Dutch Mustard Soup Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Pack Your Bags Collection

 Adornit - Brothers Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Head of the Class Collection

 Simple Stories - Baby Steps Collection

 Simple Stories - Year.O.Graphy Collection

 Little Yellow Bicycle - Get Your Game On Collection

Thank you so much to all of you who stop by and motivate me to keep crafting.  Happy New Year!

Christmas Village from Little Yellow Bicycle

 

This is a fun little project I made for the Little Yellow Bicycle Wonder & Wishes catalog.  I used the Cricut Winter Woodland Cartridge to make these little houses and church.  They were fairly easy to assemble and have a lot of options for patterned paper.  I think they would look adorable with little tea lights inside to light up the windows.

You can see the different choices for houses on the bottom row.  Plus the trees are really easy to make too.  This is such an adorable cartridge.  I think the skates would make a fun project too.

Same project at a different angle.  I tried to make it look a little more like winter by sprinkling the houses and white foam board with salt.

The houses and trees stand up on their own pretty easily.  The shutters take a little more attention and since I was using prototype paper, were a tad too stiff.  I think this would be a lot easier to make with the real patterned paper.

Thank you for stopping by!

New Training Reel for Little Yellow Bicycle

This is called a Tri-Fold Shutter Card and it is a really fun idea for adding a bit more embellishment, style and sentiment to a card, mostly because the way it is folded provides a lot more real estate to decorate.  It is also really EASY to make - I promise. But not to worry, there is both a Training Reel and written instructions to talk you through it.  I used the gorgeous Little Yellow Bicycle Wonder & Wishes Collection for this Christmas Card.

See how it opens up and has a "Pop Up" effect.  I love that it has a number of panels to design and decorate.  Not to mention how I was able to really showcase some of the specialized collection embellishments like the 10 Things Present pocket.

I love this perspective and that ribbon is really a cardstock sticker from the Favorite Pieces embellishments.   You cannot believe how easy it was to make this card!  It was so easy that I had to make two of them just to make sure I had all of the holidays covered this year.

 I tied on some twine and then added tiny pop poms to the end of it for more winter fun.

These felt poinsettias from Little Yellow Bicycle are gorgeous and really pop in a project.

This "chilly" card was created with the frosty Winter Twig collection and is a more generic holiday card and can be used for the different holidays at this time of year.  I love how all of the blue brown and white go together, but leave room for many shades of good winter fun.

I am smitten with the little chipboard "skater" and had to add him/her to my card.  This card was just as fun with the multiple panels to design and decorate and I also appreciate the Clear Cuts with glitter accents, because Little Yellow Bicycle uses "responsible glitter" and it does not come off on you!

Little Yellow Bicycle is so good about the little things.  The attention to detail is so much so that the tiny journal cards come pre punched with this fun notebook pattern.  I only needed to add it to the card.

This is a closeup of the Paper Snowflake Kit which is every bit as beautiful as any of the LYB Paper Flower Kits.

 Please see the video below for product ideas and tips on how to make these cards.



I have also included a PDF of instructions for how to make this card.
Download TriFoldShutterCard_LizQualman



Thank you so much for stopping by today and hope you leave with a little inspiration!

Liz

Counting Down to Christmas with Simple Stories Continued

I am back for Week 2 with more pages from my Counting Down to Christmas Album from Simple Stories and Maya Road. I am having so much fun using the 25 Days of Christmas collection and I will say it again that it is one of the most beautiful collections on the market this year.

It's getting a lot THICKER, but it is so fun to look at it from this angle to see all of the gorgeous embellishments from Simple Stories and Maya Road.

I'm not really "pouting," but this is one CRAZY month for me.  I know my album is not as disciplined as some December Daily Albums, because mine is more full of rambling thoughts, ideas and things I fancy.

Does everyone have their trees up?  If not, it is probably time to do that. And then you may need to write a letter to Santa.  The Maya Road Kraft Envelopes are perfect for holding the Simple Stories 3x4 Journal Cards. Dress it up with stickers, fiber and bling.

I found Velvet needlepoint fiber at a local vendor by my house and now I cannot get enough of it, plus it comes in so many colors!

This is the time of December when people are making trips to a Santa Claus venue and taking those adorable pictures.  For Day 13, I loved the idea of the Santa page and thought I could go back and add a wallet-sized photo of my kids sitting on his lap. Day 14 is just to remind me that we are almost on a holiday break and that my family will be together for the holidays.

These little packages are really cardstock stickers from the 12 x 12 Fundamental Cardstock Sheet.  I added pop dots to give them more of an effect.

These gingham flowers from Maya Road are nothing less than delightful and paired with the leave and the Simple Stories cardstock sticker calendar, they make a great cluster.

I mentioned last week that I have a few favorite recipes, so included on Day 15 is my Artichoke Dip recipe.  I refuse to eat mayonaise, so mine is made with cream cheese.  You can imagine that smell and taste...  We have a Christmas Party at my office on that day and you can bet that I will be making this dish.  Day 16 - It's Friday and the last day of school for the year.  Pictures are to remind the kids to take advantage of all the snow and playing outside.

You can easily pop dot the cardstock sticker numbers.  I added a swirl, snowflake and some bling to give the page some extra pizazz.

These velvet flowers are just as gorgeous as the gingham ones!

I'll be back next week with the next round of rambling thoughts about this holiday season.

Please see the details below about how to win some fun prizes from both Simple Stories and Maya Road

1. Leave us a comment here on this post at Simple Stories.
2. Become Simple Stories friend on Facebook and share this post on your Wall.
3. Also remember to drop by Maya Roads Blog for more inspiration - they're giving away prizes too! and leave them some love on the Maya RoadFacebook Page (tell them Simple Stories sent ya).

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brand NEW Little Yellow Bicycle Collection

Little Yellow Bicycle is very excited to announce our newest collection called Paradise! It is the perfect blend of bright pinks and blues with serene greens, and like its name makes you want to visit warm, far off places or just make your own home a Paradise.  It just wouldn't be Little Yellow Bicycle if we didn't have a flower kit in our collections and as you can see the Paradise Flower Kit is full of bright, beautiful colors that are grounded in a warm and natural greens.

I created this page of a recent visit with some of my girlfriends to San Diego.  I thought the sentiments of the cardstock stickers perfectly captured the occasion.  I also highlighted the Flower Kit and dressed it up with LYB Jewel Stickers.

I just love how adding a few pop dots to the cardstock stickers makes them jump off the page.  The "free" sentiment paired with the bird sticker shows how my friends and I "left" our families at home so we could enjoy a girls weekend out.

I also created these bookmarks to take along on a trip to mark places to visit.  I saw a similar idea with felt on Pinterest and thought patterned paper and cardstock stickers would make great bookmarks too.

Little Yellow Bicycle is looking for NEW Cycling Team Members to design with this collection.  See the blog post HERE for more details.

Thank you so much for stopping by!