Happy Valentine's Day!

I thought this card would be appropriate for today!

Pink and red and lots of hearts!
:)

And I stamped again!
Yeah I did!

I used {these stamps} and {these too} from
My Favorite Things and the uber-talented
Laina Lamb!

I stamped the grid background and the "smile" sentiment on this card. 

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill), Chipboard (Bella Blvd), Ink (Hampton Art), Stamps (My Favorite Things)

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Thanks for stopping by today!
And have a great Valentine's Day!

hugs & kisses, 

gretchen

Hampton Art + Core'dinations BLOG HOP!!

Welcome to my stop along the
Hampton Art & Core'dinations blog hop!

I am kind of the KI Memories leg of this hop.

I got to pair the "Flashback" line from KI Memories with the cool cardstock from Core'dinations!

I did a lot of punching and sanding with the Core'dinations cardstock.

Love!!

This hop is going on all week so make sure to check out the Hampton Art and Core'dinations blogs every day for a list of the day's blogs.

There are different paper crafters along the hop every day.
Leave lots of comments too!
The more blogs you visit and the more comments you leave along the way, the greater your chances to win prizes!!

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Here is a list of today's blogs:

Core'dinations
 Gretchen McElveen (you are here! yay!)

Nina Yang  

Lydia Jackson 
Leica Forrest 
Hampton Art

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OK now get to hopping!

Have fun and have a great day!
:)
gretchen

Check this out

This is going on all week!

Check out the Core'dinations and Hampton Art blogs to get started along the blog hop!

My day is Wednesday so I definitely hope you will come back then!

Happy Monday!

:)

gretchen

Give it a whirl!

OK I have to share this here. 

The uber-talented Beth Gerlach single-handedly made this life-sized wedding dress for the Bella Blvd booth at CHA. 

Are you freaking kidding me??!

How incredible is this thing?!?

I wouldn't even know where to start on something this creative!

I can't imagine how long it took to make!

Geez.

She said she used 161 sheets of paper and 219 glue sticks to make it. 

The back of the dress is made up of lots and lots of 2" hearts.
Lots of them!

There is a little game going on over on the Bella Blvd blog.

You have to try to guess how many 2" hearts make up the back of the dress.

And trust me, it is a bunch!

So you should give it a whirl!
How many do you think there are??

Go to {this post} on the Bella Blvd blog, check out more pictures of this beautiful creation, and leave a comment with your guess.

You might win the entire new "Love & Marriage" collection from Bella Blvd.
Happy Friday!
Have a great weekend!
:)
gretchen

Oh here is another one!

Go leave a comment on {this post} over on the Creating Keepsakes blog for a chance to win some fun stuff from Close to My Heart!

:)

FYI

Aren't these stamps adorable??!!

 

Well if you head over to the Creating Keepsakes blog and leave a comment on {this post} you will have a chance to win some for yourself!
Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Go leave a comment!!

:)

gretchen

A closer look

Whoops!
Found this post hanging out in "draft" status.
Better late than never, I suppose!
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I want to share a little closer look at one of my layouts in the
January/February issue of Creating Keepsakes. 

It's a lovey-dovey 2-pager!
:) 

As seen in the January/February 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine.
Copyright Creative Crafts Group.
Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

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Here's a bigger view of the
left side of the layout.

And here is the right-hand page. 

Supplies: Patterned paper (Pebbles Inc. & My Mind's Eye), Chipboard (American Crafts), Journaling cards (My Mind's Eye), Heart punch (The Paper Studio), Double heart border punch (Creative Memories), Corner rounder (Creative Memories)
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Secret:
This started out as a 1-page layout but then I was asked to make it into a 2-pager.
But who can tell??!
:)

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I did A LOT of punching on this page. 

I punched some heart borders with the
Creative Memories Border Maker System.
And then I punched slightly bigger hearts with a punch from The Paper Studio (I got it at Hobby Lobby) and added them on top of the heart border with foam adhesive.  

 I saved all the cute little negative hearts that were left over from the heart borders. 

And I scattered them around the layout!

They were too cute not to use!

I also saved the negative spaces from the heart punches,
cut a square-ish shapes around them, added patterned paper & cardstock behind the hearts, & used them as embellishments!
Waste nothing!

 Okie dokie!

Enough rambling on from me!

Thanks for making it to the end of this post.

And thanks for stopping by today!

Have an awesome day!

:)

gretchen