Naki & Nina's Double Dare Challenge

Well, hello there! It's been a long time since I shared some paper crafting of my own, but I'm here today with something fun! My dear friend, Naki, has recently been in a bit of a crafting slump as well, so we did what we do best - challenged each other! That's right! We've brought back Naki and Nina's Double Dare Challenge! Haha!

Our Double Dare Challenge was something silly we came up with ages ago to inspire each when our creativity was feeling a little low. We've turned to the challenge before when we have needed a creative boost and we knew we needed something again to get us back into our craft spaces! Believe it or not, this is our 35th challenge! Whoa!

We each pick a challenge item that we combine together to make a Double Dare Challenge. We've sometimes come up with some crazy combinations! Our picks for this round were lots of fun!

improve one of your old designs from the past (the older the better)!

use something you have been hoarding in your stash!

Are you ready?! Let's get crafty! To get started on this challenge, we both had to take a trip down memory lane and look at some of our oldest cards and creations to inspire us. I decided to use one of my favorite first challenges as my inspiration! Here's the original post from 10 years ago!

Even after all this time, I still think this inspiration photo from Moxie Fab is so beautiful. 

Here's the card I made for the challenge!

And here's a peek at my original card design! 

I've destashed so much since I haven't been crafting as much. I don't even own the stamps that I used on this card anymore! I still love the white stamped image on kraft paper and knew I wanted to create a similar look. 

I had fun creating the background for my updated card using some beautiful floral stamps. In hind sight, I do wish I added a little more of the blue/teal color to my card. It ended up looking a little more for a bride than a birthday girl, but I'm still loving this! The hoarded item I decided to use was my Nuvo Crystal Drops! I'm not actually hoarding it, but I've been unsure of what to do with them, so they've been sitting up on my shelf until now. The Nuvo Drops were actually a gift from Naki and happened to be the perfect color for this card! 

Here are the DEEtails:

Paper: Baked Brown Sugar cardstock, Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock, White Vellum cardstock

Stamps: Bigger Blooms (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: VersaMark

Embellishments: Neptune Turquoise Nuvo Crystal Drops, white scalloped ribbon (American Crafts) White Stampin' Emboss Powder

Hope you like it! We'd love for you to join us in the challenge too! You can link your card in the comments below or join us on Instagram by tagging us @deesignsbyninadee and @notesfromnaki with #nnddchallenge. We Double Dare you!

Christmas Part 2

I'm back today to share the rest of our daughter's Christmas pocket pages. These pages are her favorite photos from December and Christmas at home. 

Lots of puffy stickers on these pages! These are some of the goodies that she got with her gift card she received from Easter. 

Our little girl is always confused and finds it kind of humorous when she sees stitching on scrapbook pages (because sewing if for fabric, of course!) but she's getting adventurous with her pages and asked me to sew lines across her tab on this photo! Let me tell you, I'm kind of a nervous wreck doing stuff like this for her! I'm so scared I'm going to mess up her beautiful work! 

She's on to the next project now... I can't wait to share! This blog may soon turn into DEEsigns by Audra Dee since this little girl is doing way more crafting that I am these days!

Christmas in July

Since she's all caught up on her four year old photos, she said she ran out of photos and asked what she should scrapbook next. Hahaha. Our little girl was thrilled when we told her she could start working on photos from last year! She immediately asked if she could print Christmas photos first!

For Christmas, we traveled to Ohio to visit family. When she was working on her pages, she decided to show the different activities she did with each set of grandparents on each page. The left side shows photos with her Grandma and Bumpy and the right side shows photos with her Grammie & Grampie. 

She received a gift card to Felicity Jane for Easter from her Grandma and spent it on some Christmas goodies to decorate her pages. Of course, she dug through my stash to find some fun stuff too, including the snowflake sequins and fake snow, which she requested to be made into another "sprinkle pouch" so it would look like snow on the photo of her and my mom in matching winter coats. It's hard to see, but she added the "Brrr" to this photo which makes her giggle so much.

This page is the one she is most proud of. She studied a video from Sheree Forcier to learn how to make a "flip up". She is a mega fan of Sheree and was so excited to learn this technique! She also asked me to sew the ribbon for the tag on this card, which I love. I just adore all her little hearts and stars that she sticks here and there on her pages. 

So proud of this little girl and her work! I'll be back soon to share more!

Blankie

Before our daughter was born, I had an idea that I wanted to make a blanket out of her baby clothes. I just adored all the teeny tiny outfits that we were accumulating. I knew that she would only wear her clothes for such a short period of time and I wanted some way to preserve her adorable outfits. So, as she outgrew her outfits, we carefully stored our favorites in a bin to someday be made into a blanket. Fast forward four years and I am finally done! 

I've actually been working on this project for quite some time. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my hubby and I started pressing, cutting, and planning shortly after our daughter's first birthday. We decided we wanted to stick to a black and white color scheme with dog prints scattered in here and there to match her bedroom decor. 

We searched all over Pinterest as we were planning out a design, and decided we liked a plus sign design, a nod to our little girl's initials - A.N.D. We also played around with dimensions and liked having 1 solid panel on the back, 11 squares across, and 16 squares down - these numbers were picked specifically to correspond with her birth date. Yes, I suppose you could say that we're super sentimental!

The overall size is a little smaller than a toddler flat sheet, which is also almost the exact same size as my own blankie that our little girl stole from me a long time ago. It worked out perfectly because I used her black and white poodle flat sheet from her toddler bed as the backing for the blanket - a perfect match! 

Our daughter seems to love it. In fact, when I laid it out onto her bed for the first time to take some photos, she peeked in to see what I was doing. As soon as she saw the blanket and her monkey family, she dove onto the bed and started snuggling everything! I kind of love it too! 

An Easter Page

Oops! I can't believe I forgot to share the pocket page that our little girl did for the Felicity Jane Kids Create Challenge here on the blog! I've been starting to post a little bit on Instagram, actually starting off with this page, and have neglected to keep up on the blog!

Our little girl has been watching Sheree Forcier's pocket page process videos and was super excited when she saw her Easter pages. She could not wait for Easter so she could scrapbook her own photos! Normally, our little girl loves planning and celebrating holidays, but this brought an extra element of excitement for her. It was so cute watching her as she went around the house snapping photos to document the event.

 

When she found out about the Felicity Jane Kids Create Challenge, she immediately announced that she would be working on her Easter page. She got to work right away and was so focused. She was so proud of her completed project! 

The egg photo was one that she snapped herself. She added the cute little sequins to decorate it. She also drew that little chocolate bunny and cut it out to make her own little embellishment. She wakes up early each morning, usually before anyone else, and will go into the office to work on her little scrapbook. Or she'll ask to watch a "Licity Jane" video on her iPad to learn some new ideas. 

I may be a little biased, but her work is so adorable, I can't get over it. I absolutely love the days that she brings out her scrapbook and wants to sit down and read it together. We still read every single caption on every single page. 

A Little Project Life

Hello! I hope you all are healthy and safe out there! 

I wanted to share a bit of craftiness that we have been up to while cooped up at home. 

I bought a few new things from Felicity Jane and brought out my Project Life supplies, with the intention to start working on scrapbooking some baby photos. But, I actually haven't had a chance to use any of it, because my little girl has taken over my craft space!

My little girl has recently discovered YouTube, which I know most kids enjoy. But unlike most four year olds, I'm sure, she has been watching ladies who scrapbook. Her favorites to watch are Sheree Forcier's pocket page process videos. Of course she wanted to try her hand at making her own pocket pages.

She received a little camera for her birthday, so scrapbooking her photos seemed like the perfect next step for her. I printed out a few photos for her and she got right to work! She started on the photos she took on her birthday when we took her to National Harbor to ride the Capital Wheel as a birthday surprise. 

I must admit it was a little painful to watch her dive right into all my new Felicity Jane goodies and just slap them onto her pages, but but I loved that the fact that it was getting used (and not hoarded!). Her favorites are the Jenny Word Stickers and the Chipboard Stars. I might have to order her some more! I guess now I have a good excuse to buy some more stuff, right? 

She had so much fun with her first pocket page spread that she was eager to print out some photos from her birthday party. I made the little sequin packet during her nap to surprise her. She was quite thrilled. She wanted to make presents for her gift table, since she took the photo before any guests had arrived, so I helped her tie little bows onto pieces of paper that she cut into present shapes. I've gotta say, I envy her decisiveness when it comes to crafting. She is definitely a girl who knows what she wants. 

 

I'm so thrilled to watch her through this scrapbook process. The smile on her little face each time she finishes a card or picture is priceless! She's now working her way through February and told us that once she is done with her four year old pictures, she will be scrapbooking her baby pictures. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get some time to play too! 

Her scrapbooking has brought us a lot of smiles, too. We love that she frequently brings out her scrapbook to share it with us (and with anyone she FaceTimes). We look at the pages with her and read all her little captions. Yes, all two pages! Hahaha. Hoping to be able to share more pages soon! 

Take care!

You Are My Sunshine

I've been feeling crafty lately so I'm here with another card today.

Our little girl is super duper into reading. She has always loved sitting and listening to stories and from a very young age, scolded us for not teaching her all the letters so she can learn to read. In fact, she recently received the 500 by 5 award (for reading 500 books before the age of 5) from our local library and is now on a mission to read as many books as she possibly can on her own (it's been a month now and she has already read 24 books).

We've been so proud of her so I made her this little card. I also wanted to surprise her with a little bookmark, since she is always trying to steal mine! I love this stamp set that I won from a card making challenge last year from Paper Smooches. It was perfect to make a card to celebrate our little girl.

Here are the DEEtails:

Paper: Artist's Loft 140# Watercolor Paper, Crushed Curry cardstock, Pacific Point cardstock, I Am... paper pad (Simple Stories)

Stamps: Sunnyville (Paper Smooches)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark

Embellishments:  Black Stampin' Emboss Powder, Daffodil Delight 1/4" Cotton Ribbon, Daffodil Delight Pompom Trim, Daffodil Delight 1/4" Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, White Stampin' Emboss Powder

Tools: Kuretake Gansai Tambi, laminator

You Make My Heart Happy

I can still hardly believe it, but our little girl recently turned four! She definitely makes our hearts happy!

For Valentine's Day, she has been asking for a chocolate heart and a card. She enjoys all things crafty and loves handmade cards, so I thought I would surprise her with a handmade card this year.

Her favorite colors are pink and purple so it made sense to incorporate both on this card. The hardest part was probably finding a sentiment that I knew she would enjoy. She has recently taken an interest in cursive writing, so I thought she would be tickled to see some on her card. 

Here are the DEEtails:

Paper: Artist's Loft 140# Watercolor Paper, Blackberry Bliss cardstock, Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock

Stamps: Lovely Amazing You (Stampin' Up!)

Ink: VersaMark

Embellishments:  4mm Marshmallow Sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), White Stampin' Emboss Powder

Tools: Kuretake Gansai Tambi

Happy 2020!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And just like that, it's 2020. WOW. How did that happen? 

As usual, school started, life got busy and I just dropped everything, including this blog and all my goals... But I'm back again. I can't promise much, but I'm here at least for now! 

I'm working on finalizing my 20 for 2020 challenge. I have so much fun with these, even though I don't ever finish all of them. I'm still making my way through 19 for 2019 and 18 for 2018, but having fun the whole way.

I'll be back soon, but for now, here's a recap of the challenges for the past two years...

19 for 2019

1. Be the ultimate villain - DONE!

2. Get a mani/pedi - DONE!

3. Replace clothing basics - DONE!

4. Make a capsule wardrobe - not started

5. Read 6 new books - DONE! See what I read here!

6. Find a planner I like and use it - in progress

7. Make a home binder - in progress

8. Fix or replace something old in our house - just getting started

9. Sell some stuff on ebay - DONE!

10. Get a new plant - DONE!

11. Decorate the play room - not started

12. Hang up artwork and photos - in progress

13. Organize photos - just getting started

14. Make 2018 photo books - DONE!

15. Update our family blog  - DONE!

16. Make a quilt - in progress

17. Try a no spend challenge - DONE!

18. Save an extra $500 - DONE x 2!

19. Take a vacation - DONE!

18 for 2018

1. Build LEGO Disney Castle - DONE! See details here!

2. Find pants that fit and look good for work - DONE! See them here! 

3. Create artwork for our home - DONE! See it here!

4. Get e-mail inboxes to zero - DONE! (and undone...)

5. Konmari - almost done!

6. Make a card organizer - not started

7. Paint a room or closet - not started

8. Read 4 new books - DONE! see what I read here!

9. Start Project Life - not started

10. Sell stamps and craft supplies - in progress

11. Clean the attic - just getting started

12. Make something from Pinterest - DONE! Check it out here! 

13. Complete an ASCA course - DONE! See the not so exciting details here!

14. Finish 2016 & 2017 photo books - in progress 

15. Set up the Craft Room/Office - almost done!

16. Make 12 cards - in progress

17. Organize my School Counseling Curriculum - in progress

18. Change my name - DONE!