Makes my heart sing! (Shey B giveaway)

This photo literally makes my heart sing!

With full tummies and grateful hearts on Thanksgiving we went outside to get some fresh air before diving into Collin's apple pie a la mode... (the best it's ever been! inside joke.) Quincey loved when Auntie Em tossed the leaves in the air then laughed as they tickled her when they fell to the ground.

Yes, the food was delicious, the pie was tasty & my sister decorated the kid table so adorable but the leftovers I love the most are memories like this. Because that little nose & giggle are pure bliss. (Hey, did that just rhyme? Awesome. Makes it even more cheesy. ;)

~~~

Share something that makes your heart sing and someone will receive a fabulous *Shey* {B} camera strap! Definitely makes taking photos not only more comfy but stylish too!

I love her shop & have my eye on this one... the velvet pleats are so lush. The winner will receive this ruffle one below. You may want to send the link along in your letter to Santa Claus. ;) Orders by 12/12 to make sure it's under the tree.

I will pick a random winner from the comment section so leave a simple note with something that makes you happy. [Stay tuned for more giveaways this week...]

Hope your Thanksgiving was a memorable one!

PS Does anyone know how to photoshop shoes on Miss Avery? heehee

Bow: Miss Ruby Sue

bits of gratitude

I joined in a blog hop with a creative group of ladies who are sharing bits of gratitude. Yesterday, I posted links to the ladies where you can be inspired by their projects and words. Be sure to check them out & thanks to Stephenie for organizing it all! My piece of inspiration is a quote from yesterday and the page today of my family.

I'm glad I couldn't talk Collin into going to Disneyland for Thanksgiving because I would miss everyone too much. I would miss Collin's Apple pie, my mom's spectacular sweet potatoes & the stuffing... oh, the stuffing.

I probably wouldn't miss when Collin, Ashley, & my brothers dare each other to eat the olives that my mom puts on the table. Why each year does she add a dish of olives that no one eats? I have no idea. (We're not olive fans.) But it's been a tradition for quite a few years that after everyone is stuffed and done eating, to see who will eat them. I participate by laughing not eating.

Actually, I probably would miss that.

Supplies:

Love the Home Front paper collection by Studio Calico: Orange design, Checkered.

And all the unique pieces from Tim Holtz: letter tokens, word keys, game spinner

Sassafras button flowers & how sweet is that silhouette brad?

Notebook Lined paper, Floral paper

Misc: buttons, flowers, vintage lace, tag, stamps

share your spark

One of the highlights at Spark, for me, was the last night. We gathered together in the clubhouse to finish our live auction with Elena & Scrapbook Royalty. Lots of Spark girls brought such beautiful handmade items & fabulous donations. All the proceeds went to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer research foundation. We were then incredibly moved by Rachel & Nicole, our Spark sisters, who shared their experiences with fighting breast cancer. Their stories of strength astound me. We then walked up to the fire pit all bundled up where we sipped on hot chocolate & lit sparklers... remembering to go home and share our spark.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by the spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lightened the flame with in us. Albert Schweitzer

Love this quote & am thinking this Thanksgiving season of those who rekindle the spark in me.

For one, Collin! He definitely is my strength each day. He wakes up with the kiddos & takes over breakfast duty. Also, makes sure I take care of myself. Me: I feel horrible. Collin: What have you ate today? Me: um. chocolate. Collin heads to kitchen to make me an egg-in-a-frame. Not only is he outrageously funny & has a cute caboose but such a sweet daddy & hubs.

I can't wait to spend time with my family this week. My mom is so excited-already has her table set waiting for us to gather together. I have such a cool sisters & brothers-everyone is so different but we fit together so perfectly.

Looking at the picture makes it nearly impossible to not mention, Margie!! This lady is hilarious and her comical look at life is magnetic. Right after we played with sparklers at the fire pit we all danced down the street to Chris Brown Forever. I'll never forget that fleeting moment. It was completely freeing-with the lights, being up in the mountains with the view below us of the city-it was incredible. Thanks to everyone who danced down the Spark street with me!

Think about who rekindles your spark...

These fabulous ladies below are sharing bit of creative inspiration for our gratitude blog hop. Click on their names below:

Debbie Hodge
Kelly Purkey
May Flaum
Patti Milazzo
Stacey Kingman
Stephenie Hamen
Margot Potter
Lain Ehmann
Margie Romney-Aslett
Rhonna Farrer
Wendy Smedley
Jodie McNally
Liz Hicks
Becky Novacek
Jennifer McGuire
Elizabeth Kartchner
Allison Kreft Abad

You should come...

We take any excuse to celebrate! Can you come...? It should be good times hosted by the ever charming bistro & boutique Dear Lizzie. Call 492-0022 to pre-order a book and get 20% off the retail price. Anyone and everyone can come. I would love to meet you. (I met a cute girl at Target on Saturday but didn't get to chat long... hi cute girl!)

We will be chatting, eating the yummiest sweets & shopping at the most magical shop you've ever stepped your cute heels in. Sounds like a perfect night to me!

For those of you who ordered personalized copies from me they are wrapped and ready to ship! While I wrote notes to each of you Collin wrapped every. single. book. I thought is was cute when I saw him leaving his own notes and signature by his photos. A couple times he'd look over at me and say, "Hun, this is your book. That's so cool."

We spent a couple nights watching movies and eating pumpkin pie while packaging them just right.

(The little gift from me to you is a handmade flower.)

Since I have connections with the makers of the book ;) I got my hands on some more copies! If you are interested click the button below.

(I am temporarily sold out of books but will be getting some in a week or so. Email me if you want to be put on a wait list.)

this girl

Never a dull moment with this little girl.

Because life is way more fun when we throw kix all over the floor, dance parties in the morning & saying things like, "Momma, I got 'nother hypopasis."

wing: House of 3
font: Mia's Scribblings
photo action: Totally Rad Actions/pool party

embellished tee

What's the perfect gift this Christmas season? The correct answer is... anything handmade.

If you are in my family don't be surprised when you open one of these corsage tees from Santa... even if you're my brother. Okay, I will limit it only to the girls.

I am going to post some of the tips for making the fabric embellished tees I showed on Studio 5. The first tee is seen below where I mixed different fabrics, sizes & layers of rosettes.

For these rosettes I used a die cut flower from Sizzix. If you don't have a die cut machine Martha Stewart has some great instructions and templates here.

What fabric should you use? Any. I used knit fabric because the ends don't fray when you wash them. I also used a twill fabric for the grey rosettes because I liked the texture. I applied Stop Fray to stop the ends from unraveling more then they already have. I also used some vintage lace (thanks Margie!) and leftover quilting fabric.

Then there's just some simple steps:

Layer fabric & lace. Fold in half and stitch a few stitches along the fold with a needle & thread. Making sure you go through each layer.

Tie a knot & the fabric just blossoms... so easy! Just sew them to your favorite tee.

PS THANKS so much for all the wonderful emails I've received the last couple days. If I could, I would send a hug through an email to all of you!! xo I have the coolest blog readers!

It's here!!

It's been just over a year since I started the journey of my book, 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges, & now it's finally in my hands!

Friday afternoon I got a couple excited emails saying, "It's here." So I jumped in the car and ran up to Creating Keepsakes just before they closed for the weekend. The books sat next to me on the passenger seat all the way home just beckoning me to open-but I promised Collin I wouldn't even peek until he was home. Yes, it was torture... but I did it.
Then the kiddos needed our attention so we waited until they went to bed before diving into the pages together. Surprisingly, I'd forgotten lots of the details & what I'd said in my note at the beginning. Which is definitely cheesy, but I'm a cheesy girl.
That night we looked at each page & recalled the meaningful moments. I love how Collin really appreciates scrapbook pages & loves that memories of our family are documented... not to mention in a super cute way! :)

I absolutely love it! I hope you love it too!

If you are interested in buying a personalized copy from me email elizabeth.kartchner(at)gmail(dot)com. I will be selling a limited quantity.

more...

Day 2, Saturday, at Spark was another beautiful day. We were so blessed with marvelous weather considering if we would have had it this weekend it would be snowing...!

The Spark students went to 4 classes on Saturday, a meaningful necklace, vintage fabric embellishing, art journal & photography. Each teacher will be posting about their class on their blogs so check them out. I was lucky to teach with the Rhonna Farrer!! I've never met anyone with so much spunk in such a little body... :) but honestly, she inspires me in all areas of life. (mom, spiritually, creatively & having fun at all times)

Picture your own art studio at Spark where you had all the creative goodness at your finger tips, a room filled with other creative women & you could just set yourself free, explore & create!

We could have spent all day with the canvas album but we got a good start with learning some fabulous techniques. Hairspray transfers, covering Imaginisce brads with felt & fabric, Ranger Alchohol ink in pipettes & Shimmer Spritz with masks. Thanks to Tim Holtz, Fiskars, American Crafts, Shimmer Spritz, Provo Craft & Imaginisce for sponsoring.

Our class was titled Remember... When we explore our creativity. when we listen to our creative voices. when we try something new. when we stretch ourselves. when we are full of bliss. when we share our happiness. when we reach out to others. when we seek to tell our story. when we grow. when we are brave. when we make time for ourselves. when we accept the heartache. when we learn from our mistakes. when we let ourselves shine. when we laugh out loud. when we let love in. when we REMEMBER to search with in ourselves that's when you find YOU.

and if there's one thing to remember from our class it's the adorable boxes filled with cuteness!! We even handmade a litte fabric bag for everyone that held brads and buttons also a layered felt emelishment for the journal. Wish I had a picture of the inside of the boxes!! But I do have a picture of a Sparkie taking a picture of the box.

I also made the banners that danced across the room, a perfect touch.

Margie and I matched our outfits & decor both days, accidently. We love that plum color for Fall.

day one details

Welcome to Spark!
What made this event so incredible were all these ladies!
Margie's husband, Grant, built this awesome photo wall. It was such a great photo op not to mention cute decor. It amazes me that little details like this wall that were part of our first vision came through in the end.

• Margie, Megan & Leslie decorating. We are so grateful for all our helpers!!
• Yes, I trusted my life on that ladder... it was all for the cause.
• Rhonna draped in the paper links and flowers.
• One of the awesome signs that Rhonna designed.
• The Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes & tissue paper flower centerpieces--thanks Amy!

Friday was our Artisans Show & Tell day where we had 2 of the buildings filled with talented men & ladies sharing their art & inspiring all of us.

In the Pine Valley Chapel we were learning to knit with Emily Sparks, making awesome mini vellum books with Jen Sorenson & paper flowers with Maren Ogden. Making cards with April Meeker's handcarved stamps & Melissa Blackburn showed how to make gorgeous pleated flowers with lovely fabric & vintage pearls. I wish I would've known her when I got married so she could make my dress. The fabulous Dear Lizzie was even there making junk bows.

In the Social Hall we were frosting cupcakes & learning to make fondant roses with Megan from The Sweet Tooth Fairy. We had lots of fun paper projects including Robyn Weirlich making a super fun project with vintage flash cards, Stephanie from Fiskars & Hayley from Sassafras. Amy Redden demo'd a lovely fabric flower & Spark sponsored a "cuff buffet" where you had fabric, ribbons, felt & buttons all at your finger tips to design your own cuff.
(check out Spark to find links for all these fabulous Spark Plugs!) Canon was even there printing photos at their heart's content!

Provo Craft was feeling the spark... We loved having a bunch of their staff hanging out with us. Mike was awesome to silk screen all our fabulous swag bags & canvas pages for our art journal class. Their Yudu machine is killer! I need one bad!! Noralee & Erin also set up some fun stations with the Cricut & Cuddlebug machines. woot woot!
Besides our seriously darling and filled to the brim swag bags, everyone got a Spark charm from Pink Chandelier. Yeah, we like to spoil our sparkettes.

Die Cuts with a view was at Spark with lots of their staff as students which was awesome.
BIG Thanks to everyone who was part of our event... check out our Spark site to see all of our awesome sponsors.

Friday night we had such a blast with our photo booth, Spark train ride around This Is The Place & 'get to know you' games.
Phew. I could go on and on... now you can tell why I was giddy like a little girl... giddy!!
And when you're at Spark, jazz hands and bright pink tights are definitely cool.

Next post day 2 including classes, keynote, Scrapbook Royalty charity and our kumbaya.

Winner

The long awaited, lucky winner of the Lisa Leonard Design necklace:

 Kari B said...

my kiddos' giggles... thank you so much for the chance to win it would make a great xmas present to myself and make me HAPPY;-)
kari b

Congrats Kari! Email me & share with us what necklace you are getting... but don't rub it in too much. lol.

Did I mention we had a candy bar at Spark? 

No? Well we did and it was yummy. Pretty sure that was breakfast Friday & Saturday... peach o's my favorite.

spark magic

When I woke up this morning I thought it was all a dream.

For a split second I had to think if Spark really happened. As I laid there half asleep I started playing back moments in my mind...

-The music that sang through our spark street when you walked between the different buildings-- it was so cheerful you couldn't help but have a little skip in your step.

-Meeting so many fabulous ladies... instant friendships!

-Lighting over 100 sparklers around the campfire.

-Seeing my sisters, Ashley & Camille, each walk into my classroom with tears in their eyes because it not only looked but felt magical.

Oh yes, it was all very real.

Lots more photos & details to follow...!

Photos by Wynona Robinson and Collin Kartchner

what a day!

Wow. Today was the first day of the creative event called Spark we've been planning for months. Who would have ever thought it would exceed our expectations?! Can't wait to share more details. The ladies here from all over the country are astounding! 

Posting pictures through out the day on twitter.

PS My sister-in-law, Emily, has her handmade market tomorrow you don't want to miss it!

PPS I'll announce the winner for the killer giveaway next. 

jingle jangle (Lisa Leonard Designs giveaway)

No, this isn't an early Christmas post although you can chalk this up as an early Christmas present from this blog to you... Jingle jangle is the sweet sound my necklace makes while I go about my daily to-dos reminding me that life is good with these 3 lovelies in my life.

Since I have a hard time deciding between a vanilla or chocolate frosty at Wendys you could imagine my indecisiveness while browsing through Lisa's beautiful shop. It was finally down to the Laundry Line necklace charms or the Sweetheart Tree necklace... or the Family Crest or the Wish... or the... all of Lisa Leonard's designs are so delightful! Then Lisa emailed me saying that I have to get the Laundry Line charms to match my blog header. That sealed the deal.

Well, Merry early Christmas because Lisa is giving away a $100 gift certificate to one of you lucky ladies to her timeless shop. Good luck deciding which one to get. :) I bet you can guess where I'll be doing lots of my holiday shopping. right here.

Leave a comment with something that makes you happy this fall season to win $100 gift certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs!

Trade ya three Smarties for a Snickers...

Halloween is definitely the most fun when you have kiddos to dress up, fun people to run around under the stars with & our traditional homemade chili & homemade root beer... oh, and don't forget the candy.

This year Miss Q-bear was the cutest Tinkerbelle.

Woody & Jessie + two little fairies.

There are not many costumes where my retainer & a fanny pack can be an accessory. Meet the nerds... 

Our yodeling cowgirl... I kinda feel guilty that she worked so hard trick-or-treating, saying "Happy Halloween" & "thank you" to every house and now I am the one enjoying all the candy. I give her until 10 am tomorrow to use her sixth sense and find the loot... 

The rest of our trick-or-treating crew... (love all of you guys and your Halloween spirit!!)

Just laughed looking at the past 3 Kartchner Halloweens.