confetti by lexi

more dominoes...

more fleur de lis!  after seeing my mardi gras domino, a customer wanted me to create a more generic new orleans design to wear after mardi gras was over.  these are the result of playing with a few different fleur de lis and other stamps.  i forgot to photograph them before she chose one and again before i wrapped up the rest of them--sorry for the cellophane glare.  anyway, last weekend, the middle school students at our school held a student and faculty art sale with a few other schools in the area to raise money for their habitat building project this spring, so i donated the necklaces to their sale.  i hope they brought in a little something!

:) lexi

got you covered

as i mentioned before, notepads are a big part of my stationery design business.  this is a simple monogrammed design that i created a few years ago for someone who ran booths in several holiday marketplace events.  the order was for a variety of letters, covered decoratively and wrapped in a cellophane bag with bright ribbon to showcase the cover.  someone who received one of the notepads as a gift reordered them recently--a reminder to put my sticker on everything i do!  of course, whenever i can, i incorporate stamping.  here, i was dressing up the notepad to be more "gifty" and to look nice on a countertop.  so i added a fun tone on tone design to the cover with one of my most loved stamps--atomic explosion from hot potatoes.  i use the stamp so much it has it's own spot on my desk!

thanks for stopping by!
:) lexi

all tucked in!

this is the cake i made for mignon's birthday party tonight to coordinate with the invitation i posted last week.  and like the girls on the cake, mignon & her friends are finally asleep!  it's been a wild night, but lots of fun, too. i copied the cake from this great birthday party book by family fun, and added some of my own touches--like using fondant icing for the blanket and face features instead of regular icing and candy pieces.  the girls' bodies are twinkies and their nilla wafer heads are resting on marshmallow pillows!  the slippers, made from cut marshmallows and sugar sprinkles, are copied from the american girl party planner that came with the party package.  and i have to say, i'm very impressed with their party package.  all the coordinating pieces--place settings (for girl and doll!), decorations, favor bags, and activities--were perfect and tied everything together just so.  you might have even noticed that the ready made invites that i did not use came in handy for decorating the cake board.  well, i'd better get to bed now, because morning will be here before i know it and the party must go on!  but first, here's a close up of the bunny slippers... too cute!

good night!
:) lexi

"have a good kiss!"

yet another wedding creation... not only have we had several family weddings (with one still next month!), but my daughter's 2nd grade teacher is getting married this saturday. today they celebrated the occasion with a mock wedding (!) after which we gave her this book.  each student wrote a wish for the wedding (the post title being my favorite) and illustrated it.  then i laminated them, created this cover and bound it all together. i actually punched the holes and twirled the wire myself--gotta get a bind-it-all machine!

for the cover, i stamped the bride and groom on white card stock, laminated it and then ran it through my bigkick with the cuttlebug d'vine swirls embossing folder placed just below the bride & groom.  then i traced the cake from a cookie cutter and cut it out--i actually had to eyeball it a bit smaller since the cookie cutter was a little bigger than i wanted. i printed and laminated the blue cover on it's own and added the cake with crystal effects after, along with a jewel in each corner for some bridal bling. the ribbon was for even more extra flair--and it didn't hurt that it covered up my not so perfect spiral binding!

the stationery photographed with the book was an extra little gift from mignon and me.  one of my favorite wedding presents was similar little note paper with both david's and my names together--our names in print was such a fun new accessory!  this is my own contemporary version of that, which i've created for all the various newlyweds in our lives lately.  and don't you just love that paperweight--talk about bling!

so, i think we should all follow the advice of a wise second grader and...

have a good kiss!
:) lexi

after 2 weeks & 1 day

my bellas arrived yesterday...

and today i stamped the day away!

enjoy!
:) lexi

busy week!

too busy to blog much lately, but here is one of my favorite projects this week.  my eight year old wanted an american girl sleepover party this year--they have these great party kits with party plans & activities, which looked very similar to parties i usually throw.  so rather than re-invent the wheel, i bought the kit, but the one thing i could not bring myself to use was the fill-in-the-blank invitations.  they were cute, but i'm the invitation lady!  i still wanted them to match the rest of the decorations and party stuff, so i made them the same size to fit in the purple envelopes that came with and used the card for color choices and actual elements on the card.  i created the paper dolls to look like mignon and her doll jess, and their pj's as well as the strip along the top are cut from the patterened portion of the card.  i love my sizzix paper dolls and they're even easier to cut now with my bigkick.  i stamped the flowers (from su! + flower centers from papertrey ink) because the decorations are a combination of the polka dot pattern and bold flowers.  although i was a little late in getting them out, i'm quite pleased with the outcome--and even more important, mignon loves them!

hoping for a little less busy week...
but not counting on it!

:) lexi

later gator!

simple stamping for a set of fun brother-sister stationery.  i love this "animal cracker" alligator from the retired su! noah stamp set--actually i love all of the animals in the set.  but the alligator is yet another symbol of louisiana and, in this case, was chosen as a reminder of home for a family who moved away after katrina.  it was particularly fun to stamp the gator in pink for a more girly twist!

:) lexi

dream come true

another simple & quick wedding gift card.  this one measures about 3.5" square.  i found this cute dress punch at impress rubber stamps and thought it would make the perfect wedding gown.  the base of the card is watercolor paper and the light blue layer is softened around the edges with alabaster color box chalk ink.  i punched the dress out of shimmery white card stock and added a bit more detail and shimmer with a sakura glitter pen, both hard to see properly in the picture.  the sentiment from su! is stamped in silver.  i wanted to keep the overall design clean & simple, but thought it needed a little something extra, so i pierced holes along the bottom to mimic the dots on the dress.  i need to play with the dress a bit--tweak the design, maybe emboss a patttern on it or find an elegant background paper--but this one will work nicely for an upcoming bridal shower!

:) lexi

goin' to the chapel!

we've had a few family weddings lately, which means showers and gifts, which of course means cute little gift cards.  sometimes i make them a typical card size, but lately, i'm quite taken by the smaller 3 x 3 cards or other sizes created with random pieces from my scrap basket.  this was a simple, but elegant design i stamped recently and used for a couples shower gift.  i think the finished size was around 4 x 4, so without a perfect sized envelope, i tucked it just under the ribbon on the gift--artwork front & center, the perfect finishing touch!