Thursday, June 30, 2011

New Look = 40% off Mygrafico.com Makeover Sale Today!

Here are eleven reasons to shop the sale today...my 11 newest summer collections!
Click here to go directly to my shop or browse all the designers here.


 

 

 





Plus a free digi stamp to download & play with!


Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Project 365 - Days 125 to 135 Creativity meets life

When you live your life creatively, it is hard to keep the artistic side out of normal life. Don’t get me wrong, I am no Martha Stewart handmaking cookies and creating decorated lunch bags (well, LOL maybe I am guilty of creating a few of those ;] ) however it is difficult not to bring that side of me into everything I do. This leads me to the first, kinda boring yet possibly inspiring project of the day...finishing painting our combined family room/kitchen. Let me back up a little.


Dilema: Our ceilings our 10 ft. high, all corners of the room are soft rounded edges that blend basically from room to room. So when I redid our living room area in a bright golden yellow to give it a tropical feel, I had to decide how to transition into the kitchen/family room area without the bright color overwhelming the room. I chose a toned down version of the yellow and followed all the rules before painting of observing the color chip at different times of the day.

Bigger Dilema: The one thing I didn’t factor in was my faux tropical green wall. I loved the solid paint color most of the day but hated how the green reflected on the yellow in one corner of the room at night time. So we have had a half painted space for more than a year. Today I decided to get over that one corner and paint the rest of the room to match!

I swear that I have creative dyslexia! I had to use some Kilz to touch up a few dark marks on the wall fist, as you will see in the photo below, however this lead to me spending most of the day moving from one room to the next touching up all the trim and smudge marks throughout the house. The downside of this creative inspiration is that I didn’t actually get to start painting this wall until about 9 pm and finished clean up around 1 am. Not to mention how many squats I did! For a girl who spends a lot of time sitting at the computer, I know that I will be feeling it tomorrow!

Warning: Painting is a full body workout. Proceed with caution!!!

Day 125 - Finishing the Painting of the Family Room & Kitchen Walls


The touch up...



Here is a photo taken of the area on Kylie’s Birthday. My dear husband had to finish painting over top of the cabinets since I am vertically challenged even standing on the countertops. He is 6'3"!


Day 126 - Sketches for my Beaverettes set/ Happy 16th Birthday, Kylie!
Sometimes in the design process there are customer requests for sets. This was one of those fun challenges...girly beavers going camping & swimming. These were some of the preliminary sketches.




And here is a picture of my birthday girl on the morning of her sweet 16th birthday...



Day 127 - Kai’s Sweet 16 Birthday Invitations plus a photo flashback of the new driver
Today we got up early to go to the DMV so Kylie could get her driver’s license on her 16th birthday...think she was a little anxious about becoming a new driver?!!! She passed! Couldn’t resist sharing this scanned photo flashback of her when she was little sitting in her Cozy Coupe.


The rest of the day included designing her birthday invitation. I went to my own digi design collections to jumpstart the creativity...





Here is the invite with personal info changed up...

Day 128 - A Yard Sign for the Party


Had this printed onto coroplast to put outside our friend’s house by the beach. She has a huge backyard for us to do the huge slide. We did this 2 years ago for her sister’s 16th birthday and it was so much fun.

Day 129 - Now we need a banner!


So I am starting to like the look of these designs and I think I am on track to design a party pack set with maybe thank you notes added to the set...hmmm. You see how one moment of creativity snowballs into another. And so is goes when you live life creatively :D

Here is an actual photo of it from her giant slide, wet and wonderful, sweet 16 party!



Day 130 - Vivid Mod Linear Florals for future designs
These are the same flowers as the Fruity Florals collection with some colors changed up!
Let me know what you think of these colors and what you think I should create with them!



On the last day of my last project 365 update, you got a peek at some of the set elements. 
Here is the finished digital collection.



Day 132 - Shabby Chic Thanks


I haven’t had time to create many cards lately, but I got inspired by these paper and embossing scraps to make up this paper crafted card...no stamping involved on this one. I used Glue Arts’ U-cut-It adhesive foam to pop up the Thanks so much paper element for dimension. The gorgeous patterned papers are from The Girls Paperie. The verse and mini flower are from Studio 112 from JoAnn’s.

You saw the earlier sketches. Now you get to see how that evolved into a digi collection! Think of the fun you could have cardmaking or scrapbooking with this. You can layer and overlap the png files since the backgrounds are transparent, but the designs come with a white under layer, as shown below.



Day 134 - Best Friends Photo Shoot (The Seniors)
Our daughter, Ashley has the nicest group of close friends...the fab 5. All the parents have enjoyed watching them go to homecoming dances and prom together as well as enjoying many fun boating and beach days spent during summer break. Three are headed to the University of Florida while Ashley and Courtney will be roommates at Florida Atlantic University. We can’t wait until Labor Day weekend when the two schools face off in football. We are thinking we will make it a road trip to Gainesville so all the parents can reunite and the kids can have some fun taunting one another. We love the Gators, too, so it should be a fun time if we can score tickets to the game. 

These are some low res versions of a few of the favorite photos taken on a super windy day at the beach of Ashley with her soon-to-graduate best friends. (I am late posting these so they are all grads now!)











Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Melissa's 3yr. Blog Anniversary - Giveaway!

Be sure to check out my friend, Melissa’s blog for an amazing giveaway she has going on in honor of her 3rd yr. blog anniversary. She has lots of great creative inspiration for you to enjoy, too!