My Favorites · Uncategorized

December ’15 Top 5

Hey guys! I’m FINALLY posting my Top 5 for December. This time, I am posting my 5 favorite Instagram accounts that are Project Life related. But before I start, let me clarify, I have A LOT of favorite accounts and it was hard to pick only 5 and if I listed all my favorites, well, you can just see who I follow because I love all the accounts I follow.

I am addicted to Instagram. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the crafting community is so awesome and I love how everybody is so supportive of each other. I get a lot of positive energy from my fellow crafters on Instagram and anytime I need a little inspiration I can count on Instagram to get my creative juices flowing again, especially with the following five accounts.

Dec Top 5

1. Jen Carlson

https://www.instagram.com/jecarl/

2. Kari Stiles

https://www.instagram.com/crafty.kari.crafts/

3. The Urban Display

https://www.instagram.com/theurbandisplay/

4. Azzari Jarrett

https://www.instagram.com/azzarijarrett/

5. Emma

https://www.instagram.com/emspell/

Just click on the links and see the awesomeness that is their accounts! Now this will most likey be part 1 because I have many more accounts I would like to share!

I hope you guys enjoyed and please, feel free to share any people who you look to for inspiration in the comments below!

New Year

Year in Review: 2015

The Lovely Pear is a year old! I remember I was sick when I created this blog and I sat in bed as I typed my first post on Shawn’s laptop. I posted my first blog post on January 3, 2015 explaining the meaning behind the name “The Lovely Pear”.  I seriously had no idea what I was getting myself into but I’m glad I ended up doing it.

I wrote about my New Year Resolution for 2015 on my third post, and I actually fulfilled it (yay me)! My resolution was to keep up with The Lovely Pear and I have had an awesome year with this blog, joining in on challenges, trying new things, and meeting A LOT of new friends!

One of the new things I tried this year was Project Life. It was in June that I decided that I  really wanted to focus on Project Life as a way to keep my pictures in a scrap book. Because of this, I also put more effort into not only taking more pictures, but trying to take better ones and learning to edit them better. With that being said, I’m exited to announce that I have made it into Becky Higgin’s Project Life Creative Team for 2016!!!

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I actually cursed out loud at work when I got the news that I had made it onto the team. I even waited awhile, regularly refreshing my e-mail, thinking Becky and her team had made a mistake and sent the e-mail to me on accident, but the news broke on December 30th and my picture is on the creative team page! Can I get a WOOT WOOT!?!

Like I mentioned earlier, I started off blogging mostly about cards. Even though I don’t make them as often as I was, I still enjoy making them. I was so excited to win a challenge and to be mentioned on blogs like Paper Smooches and Lawnscaping Challenges. It was also exciting to see my cards posted by Lawn Fawn, Hero Arts, and Ranger Ink on Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram!

When I first started The Lovely Pear, I knew I wanted to do a “Top 5” but I’m actually surprised I kept up with it. The Top 5 is something I look forward to doing at the end of each month. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it and it’s also pretty cool to get likes/comments from the companies mentioned!

Something I do want to mention is the crafting community. I have been blown away by all the support/likes/comments/followers that I get on social media. I LOVE the crafting community, and that includes all the card makers, scrapbookers, all the stamping companies, the Project Life designers, the companies that sell all these supplies, EVERYBODY! Everybody is so welcoming, positive, and supportive of each other! I hope to meet a lot of these people face to face sometime soon!

So for my resolution this year, I am going to try my best to relax. I want to make sure I take my time to “stop and smell the roses”. I want to focus more on my family, especially my son who will become an official teenager this year (so scared…).  I’m going to try to stop having my phone with me everywhere I go, especially at the dinner table (I really sucked at that this year), and I am going to try my hardest to keep it together during our big move! This includes getting everything ready for the new house and allowing myself to take the time I need to say goodbye to my childhood home (see, I’m already tearing up just typing this).

2016 is definitely going to be a big year for me and I’m ready for it! I hope you guys had a bad-ass year and I hope we all have a more peaceful one this year! I’m going to leave you guys with probably my most favorite picture I took this year, and because of this I will proclaim 2015 as the year of the duck!

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My Favorites · Uncategorized

November ’15 Top 5

Hello! Can you believe it’s December?! I still can’t get over how fast this year went. I love this time of year, I love making Christmas cards, decorating the house, and have a couple of days off from work! This month’s Top 5 is a little different (if you don’t remember why, check out my last post.) November’s Top 5 is my “Why didn’t I put these items on my Top 5?” list. There have been a couple of times where I catch myself using something and think “Why didn’t I? What was I thinking?” So here they are!

Top 5

1. Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink
December Fave 1

This has become my “go-to” ink. Not only do I love the quality of the ink but I love this size it comes in. I always get nice, crisp images when stamping and this is perfect for stamping sentiments. Below you can see my Halloween cards I made using this ink.

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2. Paper Smooches Uplifters Stamp Set
December Fave 2

I just love Paper Smooches and I especially love this set with all the different sentiments. These pair up nicely with all of Paper Smooches images and are funny/sweet and random. Of course my favorite is “You’re kick ass”, but you can see below the sentiment I went with for the card made in this post.

3. Studio Calico Mia Alpha Stamp Set
December Fave 3

You know I love me an alpha stamp set and Studio Calico happens to have the best alphas. I like to use the Mia Alpha set on my calendar refill in my traveler’s notebook. I love the look of brush script or hand written fonts and I would rather use this than to use my own handwriting.

4. Judikins Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder
December Fave 4

One of my most favorite techniques to use on cards is heat embossing. I’m real picky on choosing embossing powders, I like for my images to look crisp and clean and I know I will get that with Judikins Embossing Powder. Not only is it a good powder but the iridescent sparkle powder is so pretty. I try to use this as much as I can because I just love how it looks once it dries. I used this powder on one of my favorite cards I made this year, you can check that card out on this post.

Just Saying Hello 2

5. Wendi Vecchi White Embossing Paste
December Fave 5

Another favorite technique of mine is embossing with paste. This jar has lasted me this whole year, and now I’m even using it to make my Christmas cards. I like how I can create different textures with it, how I can add a couple of drops of ink to it to make it any color, and I love how it dries. Before I used it, I always thought if you touched the dried paste it would chip off, but it doesn’t. Once it dries, it turns into a hard “gummy” texture, I always end up messing with it after it dries and it never messes up.

It is so easy to use and if I don’t have a stencil to use, I just make my own like I did below. I made the heart stencil using My Favorite Things’ Flamingos die set and the pear stencil with WPlus9’s Clear Cut Stackers: Pear Die.

I hope you guys enjoyed my Top 5, I had fun going through my old posts and seeing how I’ve used some of these products. I am working on getting my Christmas cards done and I can’t wait to share them with you! You will see that I used a couple of items from this list for my cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

Links to items mentioned:
Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink
Paper Smooches Uplifters Stamp Set
Studio Calico Mia Alpha Stamp Set
Judikins Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder
Wendi Vecchi White Embossing Paste

Project Life

Project Life: October ’15

Hi guys! I know I’ve been MIA lately, I have been so busy and any little free time I have had was used to relax. November started off pretty bad for us. Shadow, our male duck, was injured pretty badly but fortunately it was not as bad as we thought and he is doing and looking great! It was a team effort taking care of him and bringing him back to good health, but we managed to do that for a week and a half. It took a lot of time but it was well worth it. Just FYI, it is hard to give a duck oral medicine…

After we passed that storm, we had a crazy idea to look at houses one Saturday and long story short, we’re building a house! This happened all within one month, we’ve been back and forth with the builder, lendor, and realtor. We’re super excited and super busy trying to spruce up our current home.

Even though I tried to relax whenever I got the chance, I worked on my October Project Life layout little by little. October wasn’t a very busy month but I had a lot of photos from when my family came down to visit. How could I not use my nephew’s picture as my monthly cover photo?!

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Most of the background papers are from the October Messy Box kit. You might also remember a couple of inserts I did for my October Top 5 using Illustrated Faith’s stamp set, I used those as backgrounds for my Instax pictures.

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For this month, my “faves” were:

Amazon Prime Commercial (You know, the one where the guy is carrying his dog in a baby sling. Well it’s a fave because of the song that plays in it, I can’t get enough of it!)
The Amazing Race (So fun to see the couples arguing!)
The Voice (I heart Gwen Stefani!)
Fugees (I listened to The Score all freaking month, still am actually)
Cheesecake (When is this not a fave?)
Micheladas (Same, when is this not a fave?)

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I used stamp sets from Studio Calico, Kellie Stamps, and Kelly Purkey and ink pads from Ranger and Tsukineko.

That’s it for my layout, I did have one more thing I wanted to share. Because we have decided to buy a new house and it came unexpected, my husband and I are putting ourselves on a tight budget until everything is done (meaning we’re moved in, and our current house is sold). My “allowance” has been put on hold and I will not be able to buy as much crafting supplies like I’m used to. So instead of doing a Top 5 of my favorite products that I bought, I have decided to switch things up for these next couple of months and maybe do a Top 5 of my favorite blogs or Instagram accounts, something along those lines. I think it will be fun plus, it’ll make me use supplies that I already have and haven’t used, I actually have plenty.

Thanks for stopping by and putting up with me and my blog while I try to get things situated. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving!

My Favorites

October ’15 Top 5

Hey guys! I know I say this all the time, but how is this month already over?! By the time I was going to decorate my house for Halloween, I realized we only had two weeks left and now here we are… So instead of Trick or Treating tonight, I have been in my craft room playing with my new supplies!

October Top 5

1. A Beautiful Mess Messy Box  Subscription
October Fave 1

I haven’t been subscribed to any monthly kit for the past couple of months so I took my time and looked at many, compared kits and prices, and finally I found one I knew I could commit to. A Beautiful Mess is a blog I follow and it is ridiculously cute! It is ran by two sisters, Elsie and Emma, and they have great style, crafts, recipes, and kits, all on their blog, which is also great. Not only is this kit perfect for Project Life and scrapbooking, but I love the price! I would have taken a better picture of the contents inside but everything has been used/cut up/stamped on but luckily I have this picture from Instagram.

2. Illustrated Faith Emily’s Patterns Stamp SetOctober Fave 2

I am obsessed with pattern stamp sets and I had to order this right away once I saw it. Illustrated Faith’s stamps are so awesome and are mostly used for Bible journaling but there’s so many different ways you can use them. I know I’ll be using this set to create backgrounds on scrapbook layouts or even for Project Life inserts, like I did below.

October Fave 2a

3. Sweet Stamp Shop Nod To Mod Stamp Set
October Fave 3

Ok, how cute is this set? It’s so hard to choose just one stamp set when you shop at Sweet Stamp Shop but the flamingos won me over, and the cacti… I bought this to use in my Midori but this could easily be used to make cards. I love the quality of their stamps, their prices, and their quick shipping. This isn’t my first stamp set from Sweet Stamp Shop and it’s definitely not my last!

4. Dr. Ph. Martin’s Iridescent Calligraphy Colors

October Fave 5

So I randomly came upon these at Hobby Lobby and knew that Dr. Ph. Martin was a watercolor brand because I had been seeing a couple of people using them on Instagram. I hadn’t heard of the iridescent calligraphy colors and the bottles do not list “watercolor” as a “use” but I didn’t care, the ink was too pretty to pass up. I colored with them using my Ranger Water Brush and even though they’re supposed to be used for calligraphy, I think they leave a real pretty effect when brushed on. On the first picture below, I colored the flamingos in Iridescent Orchid and it looks normal when you look at it strait on but when you tilt the paper, you can see a foil-like effect, which you can see in the second picture. The beak was colored using Peerless Watercolors. Love it!!!

October Fave 4a

5. Molotow Art Masking PenOctober Fave 4

I also happened to find this at Hobby Lobby and I thought it was neat after seeing a couple of videos of this in action. This dries really quick and comes off very easy. I did, however, have trouble using it at first. I think I wasn’t letting my paper completely dry off after watercoloring on it. Some of the paper would tear off as I would take the masking off. I think it also helps to use a specific kind of paper, this worked better for me once I started using it on 110 lb cardstock. Once I got the hang of it, the better my masked images looked.

October Fave 5a

I hope you guys had a great month and Halloween! I’m ready for Thanksgiving because we actually get days off!!! I started working on my Christmas cards today! I know it’s early, but so far I have fifteen people on my list, and I’m hoping to add more.

Thanks for checking out my Top 5, hope you guys enjoyed!

Links to items mentioned:
A Beautiful Mess Messy Box
Illustrated Faith Emily’s Patterns Stamp Set
Sweet Stamp Shop Nod To Mod Stamp Set
Dr. Ph. Martin’s Iridescent Calligraphy Colors
Molotow Art Masking Pen