Handmade Checkers Game Set *GCD Studios Special Delivery Collection*

It's Wednesday and that means we are halfway through the week. I'm plugging along, how about you? Well if you have sometime to be crafty today, how about this for an inspiration?

Fourth of July means BBQ, family time and for most of us, picnic gatherings. So today, I’m sharing a handmade checkers game that can easily be transported to your next picnic party. It will provide lots of fun for you and the family. 

Here’s how you can create your very own game board and envelope storage:

1. Choose your papers. I used a combination of subtle and colorful designed sheets. You will also need some chipboard circles for the game pieces, your sewing machine and mod podge.

2. Work on the game board first. Cut out 1 ¾” squares from two pattern papers. I was able to fit 36 squares on my paper. Adhere the squares on the board*.

*I only used adhesive in the centers of the squares since I was planning on sewing around the edges of each square.

3. Add some zigzag stitching on the edges of each square. 

4. Punch out 12 1 ½” circles from two pattern paper. You will need 24 circles in all.

5. Adhere the circle papers on top of the chipboard shapes. Add Mod Podge on top of the papers (over the chipboard) to make sure it won’t peel off the chipboard shapes. Set aside to dry.

6. Now you need to create the envelope to store the game pieces and board. Pick two papers. Cut out a window in the middle of one of the papers. Mine measured 9 ½” square. Cut a piece of plastic and sew over the cut out window of the paper. Sew the paper with window, to the 12x12 piece leaving the top open. Punch out a circle on the center of the top of the envelope. Embellish the front of the envelope.

7. Create a title for your envelope. I layered some papers and letter stickers from the Special Delivery line.

8. Slip the board inside the envelope. Place the game pieces inside a plastic bag and secure inside the envelope with clips.

and here's some more close ups of the finished project... 

Checkers set

Size:  Envelope storage 12x12; Checkers board- 11x11; Checker circles- 1 1/2”

Products used:

Special Delivery (#2040 Dillon; #2041 Heidi; #2042 Guido; #2043 Jack; #2044 Sincerely Yours; #2045 Bradley’s Travels; #2051 Alpha Stickers; #2052 Label Stickers; #2053 Brads; #2054 Paper Clips; #2055 Die cut borders)

Other supplies: Chipboard circles, Thread, Sewing Machine, Ribbon, Corner Rounder; Circle punch; Adhesives.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

She is a true princess (Maddie's recital)

Tuesday, the second day of the week. How's yours coming along? Hope it's turning out to be inspiring. 

As for me, I'm pretty close to a headless chicken running around. Because I try to organize my life, I'm not there yet, but I'm almost there. I got a ton of things going on this week and I'm not going to bore you with it. What I am going to share is our family's first experience with recitals. 

In January, we signed up Maddie for the Colorado Springs Singers Company. It was being run by a good friend of mine and I liked the concept of the Singers group. They promote fun and "drama" less dance and singing company. These girls work on their songs and dances for a few months culminating to a recital at the end of the season. There is no competitions, just girls having fun and gaining confidence while singing and dancing their hearts out. Fun stuff! More info can be found here. 

Anyways, Maddie's group had their recital about two weeks ago. They performed twice. Once for a senior home and the other performance was held at a church where friends and family were invited. 

Here are some photos capturing that event...

Maddie's group worked on songs and dances with the theme of "true princess". They did cute upbeat music and some ballads including the song in Mulan, "Reflections". I didn't get much pictures of the recitals as I was doing videos as well. One of these days, I'll share them, but for now you'll have to be happy with picture share (no time for video edits and things like that)

and here's Maddie with her dance/singing teacher, Ms. Lachelle. 

It was definitely a neat experience. My daughter was given opportunities to break out of her shell and gain much needed confidence. Right after the final recital, Maddie asked me when Singers group starts up again. You can tell this was a good experience for her cause she's already asking for the next round. 

Fun stuff. What about you? What fun recital memories do you cherish?

Till next time,

Grace

Cards galore

Happy Monday friends. Hope you all had a great Father's day weekend. We treated hubby with an early celebration on Saturday and tried a new Mexican place in town. He LOVES Mexican food and sad to say, but we haven't really found any restaurants here that were comparable to the tastes of SoCal Mexican joints. I'm telling you, we've been spoiled in Southern California because of the multiple cultures that reside there. 

Anyways, I'll share pics of that later on but today, I'm starting this week's blog posts with some card shares. These were created for some of the design teams I work for. 

Princess Wishes on Your Special Day card. 

Have you seen the latest die cut releases from Die-Versions? If not, check them out here! They are perfect for the Summer season. Sun, sand and water. What a perfect combination. 

In this card, I decided to turn the intricate sand castle die into an effective image for my "princess wishes" sentiment. I love how I can turn the dies into something that they're not usually used for. It just shows you that with a little bit of imagination, you can stretch your dies and use them in new ways. 

Dad, You are Awesome card

I created some Father's day cards for Epiphany Crafts and here's the first one. I used the star and oval tool, plus an oval bubble accent. I dressed up the accent by adding the letters to spell out dad first before adhering the sticker on the paper. It gives an added dimension to part of my title. 

Love you dad card

Here's my second card for Epiphany Crafts. I love, love, love the Hexagon shapes. They are so hip and on trend. Perfect for that cool dad in my life. :)

Anyways, thanks for stopping by and make sure you stop by the Epiphany Crafts blog here and the Die-Versions blog here to learn more about these projects and products. 

Have a great Monday.

Till next time,

Grace

Cottonwood Lake Camping

Over a week ago we decided to go on a little camping trip. Mitch was assigned a special "job" at church to organize this year's Youth Conference. It's like a retreat but for the teenage group of our church. This is usually done on a bigger scale which we call stake level but this year, our stake gave the responsibility of putting this together on the individual wards. 

Anyways the spot chosen for this event was Cottonwood Lake. Minutes before we headed out for our camping trip, we found out through an email that our bishop (church leader) changed the location. We still wanted to take this time to explore the area so we went ahead even with the change of venue. 

Cottonwood Lake is a few miles outside of a little town called Buena Vista. It's about 2 1/2 hours drive west from Colorado Springs. We only did an overnighter because of work commitments but it was worth the drive. Here are some photos from our trip...

We arrived at the lake after lunch. We didn't want to spend the money on the formal campsite so we drove around the area looking for "free" spots. We are a family who loves free things. *wink*

The great thing about having a 4-wheel drive truck is that you have more courage to tackle off-roading. In this trip we explored the hills with our truck. Look at this really cool spot along the trail. Don't you just love how the tree branches creates an arch for the trail? So pretty!

After about an hour or so of driving around and exploring, we finally found our camping spot for the day. This free camping area was located off the main road and we were only yards away from a stream. If this was a hot summer day, I would say that we hit a jackpot. The water was still cold but the kids didn't mind. They waded in the stream, but only for a little bit. I was a bit concerned that they would get sick playing in icy water but thankfully they are resilient and healthy. 

Once we got to the campsite, we went exploring around the area while picking up sticks for our campfire. It was good that the conditions were favorable enough that they allowed campfires. 

Because this was kind of a last minute plan, we made thing easy by bringing MRE's for our dinner. The military issued "meals ready to eat" are one of our favorite camping foods. Everyone can choose which meal they want and the kids love discovering the treats and snacks, each pack contains. 

We are definitely blessed to have a former Scoutmaster in our family. In this trip, Mitch taught Marcus proper knife safety and taught him how to whittle a point on a stick. Marcus was so proud of his achievement that he didn't was us to add the stick to our campfire pile. He even brought it home. 

Mitch also taught Marcus how to properly light a campfire. I'm always confident that we will have a great and safe time camping because we have our very own Outdoor expert in tow. He even noticed a tick on Marcus' shirt that we quickly killed. After that we were very cautious coming too close to bushes and shrubs. I'm telling you, if it were me,I would totally be clueless surviving in the great outdoors. 

After the camp fire was properly lit, it was picture time...

We spent the night staying warm around the campfire. We made s'mores and shared stories. When it got a bit cold, we headed into our truck and played card games. When we were done with that, we turned the truck into our very own rv/trailer.  The kids slept inside their sleeping bags in the cab (seats folded down) while Mitch and I took the bed of the truck. The surface was a bit hard for my liking and the temperature was cold but we survived. 

In the morning, we had some boiled eggs for breakfast and another campfire. Nothing beats a chilly morning than seating by a hot burning fire. After that, we cleaned up, packed our truck and then headed for a trail nearby. We weren't sure where this trail lead to but we hiked up till we couldn't anymore. 

I don't mind hikes but I can tell that we were getting up to some high elevations because I was panting a bit more and was having a hard time breathing. Even the kids were getting close to their giving up point. 

Finally we got to a point in the trail were we felt it was a good spot to stop, take pictures then turn around back down the mountain. This was that spot. I'm pretty sure we were at least over 11,000 feet with how we can clearly see the top of the mountains nearby. 

Once we got back down, we had some lunch. On the menu...more MRE's. 

After that, we drove home and thankfully found everything well when we arrived. 

It's so great to have this time with the family and enjoy nature. We are definitely blessed to be surrounded by beautiful mountains and lakes. Cottonwood lake is a place we would definitely like to visit again 

As I went through the photos for this blog post, I realized that I didn't even photograph the actual lake. Ha! Well that's definitely something to capture next time. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,

Grace

Inspired By Stamping cards

Cards are one of my favorite projects to create. It's my go-to project when I have some new technique or product that I want to "play" with. With the recent release of the June stamps from Inspired by Stamping, there were some sets that I wasn't assigned to showcase. All of the sets I received in the mail was so adorable that even though I didn't have to use them, I couldn't help myself. Here's two cards that I created using the Post Card set. 

Merci Beaucoup card

I loved the flower postage card image. In this card, I stamped four of them and colored the flowers in different colors to create a variety of versions of the same flower. I added the french sentiment to finish off the card. 

Congratulations on your engagement card. 

The hearts in the circle images are from the stamp in the Postage set as well. I tried to grab the colors of the hearts from the multi-colored chevron paper. 

I love the Big Congrats sentiment stamp. It's so versatile. 

To learn more about these stamps, please click here. 

Thank you for stopping by. I want to know, what's your best card making tips?

Till next time,

Grace

PaperCut magazine from GCD Studios

Happy Wednesday. PaperCut magazine was officially released last week and our super awesome design team leader Heidi is on the cover. Check it out here.

I created two projects in this magazine. Here they are along with close up photos...

My Little Man

This layout featured papers from the Special Delivery line. I created paper shirts along with ties to match the theme of my photo. 

I love layering stickers on top of each other. 

These shirts were so fun to make. There are a bunch of tutorials online and on Pinterest for these fun accents. 

Beauty Hurts!

I decided to finally document photos of when I had my eye brow threaded during my vacation to Cali two years ago. Sadly I only get these pampering done when I'm. They charge double in Colorado. I guess there's not a lot of competition here so they can rack up their prices. 

More layering of stickers can be found in this layout. This page was also created with the Special delivery line. 

I love that postage stamp with eye glasses image on it. Super nerdy, kinda how I felt after documenting this photo. I can be a dork sometimes. :)

Make sure you flip through the pages of the latest PaperCut magazine issue. There are TONS of inspirations to be had. I definitely feel honored to be a part of a very talented team. 

Till next time,

Grace

Memorial Day Hike (Helen Hunt Falls)

Hi there friends. Let me just warn you that it seems like this Summer is going to be a crazy busy one for me. It is starting that way anyways. So if it seems that my posts are far in between, bear with me as I try to balance capturing and living in the moment. 

For Memorial day, we decided to go out and do some exploring. It's been a while sine we've gone somewhere new and in this day, we decided to go on a hike at Helen Hunt Falls. 

We've heard from people and with a quick Google search that this place is very family friendly and that the hike is manageable for any age. This made us want to try it even more. Here are some photos from that excursion.

There was a ranger that was kind enough to photograph the whole family with the falls as our backdrop. The weather was perfect for our hike. It was sunny but not too hot. 

We were surrounded by beautiful hills filled with trees and I couldn't resist stopping the family along the way so we can take photos. 

I didn't realize how short the hike was. After about only 25 minutes, we've reached the top of the trail. It was beautiful up there and here's a view of what we looked out into. 

We were a bit disappointed at how easy and fast the trail was. We're used to walking farther and longer. But thankfully there were other trails in the area and we took one of them. We didn't know how far the trail was but we walked for about one more hour until we decided to turn around and head back to the car. 

Here's a view of what we saw during this hike. Very similar to the ones at the top of Helen Hunt Falls but at a different angle. 

Just before we turned around, we got a family shot. This was taken with the camera on top of a big rock and the camera self timer. 

Once we got back to the car, we ate our packed lunch. Maddie seem to always get hurt during our exploring trips and this time was, sadly, no different. She scraped the side of her torso a few times with her walking stick. It was a homemade one and she had the pointy end up. Every time the stick brushed by her side, it scratched her. She did this a few times before we noticed that she was in pain. Poor thing had a few big scratches on her side. Thankfully we had a first aid kit in the car which helped alleviate some of the pain and cleaned her wounds. 

After lunch we around the area a bit. I've never been to the Broadmoor hotel  which was close to where Helen Hunt Falls was so Mitch drove us there. We circled the resort and I was a bit surprised at how small it was in real life compared to the pictures I saw on the hotel's webiste. Don't you love the beauty of how wide angle shot can make things appear larger than they really are?

We also stopped by the clinic were Mitch works. It was cool to see where he works and does his Medical assisting "magic". 

So that was Memorial Day adventures. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have fantastic day and week. 

Till next time,

Grace