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February 14.2013

happy valentine’s day!

Just thought I’d share this ‘homemade’ card with y’all
to wish you a wonderful day full of love!

[ photo taken at my hairstylist's wedding reception. ]


And here’s another fabulous Valentine decoration from our loverly Miss Nichol!

oooooh la la!




[ Shapes | InTransit ]


This is an amazing idea!

love.


Here’s what Nichol has to say:

I love Kerri’s subway art cut files and wanted to use one to create a decorated frame for Valentine’s Day but I wanted to be able to customize each of the words or phrases on the die cut with a background stamp and colorful ink pads for a fun, “conversation heart” rainbow of colors. To achieve the look, I die cut the subway art file from smooth white cardstock. Then, before removing it from the cutting mat, I masked off the parts of the image I didn’t want to ink and stamped each word/phrase with a different color of Hero Arts Mid-Tone Ink for a customized colorful die cut title! By using the same background stamp throughout the design and only changing the color of the ink, it kept the title from being overly busy or hard to read and instead just added color!

To finish the design I used a manual die cutting machine to die cut an exclusive Simon Says Stamp heart design and stamped each with coordinating heart stamps.
add a comment
Terri Marchbanks - February 14, 2013 - 12:30 pm

Happy Valentines Day Miss. Kerri and Nichol,s Project= Fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!xoxoxo

Rhadonda - February 14, 2013 - 3:39 pm

What a great technique! Beautiful as usual. Happy V-day right back at all of you too!

kat-in-texas - February 14, 2013 - 5:23 pm

Happy Day of Love…. :)

February 12.2013

twenty-five years.

It’s been 25 years ago today that we were on our way to Manti, Utah on a winter sunny day.
(of course I had to get married in some place old.)

(photo from lds.org)


Twenty-five years ago that I married an amazing man.


He’s been a wonderful husband, amazing father, and a great provider for this family.

Has it been a perfect journey?

Heck no. That wouldn’t be real, would it?

But it’s nice to know that we’re working our way to a perfect place together.

Love you honey!


.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    



And to help celebrate our anniversary and the week of love,
these kits are on sale for 25% off (for 25 years, ya know)
through the end of the week.

    

 

   


(prices are already adjusted in store. click on image to take you to it in the store.)

 

I think a day like today calls for the Cheesecake Factory, don’t you?

add a comment
Dolly - February 12, 2013 - 10:29 am

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! May you have many many happy years together! (enjoy your cheesecake factory!)

Jeannie L - February 12, 2013 - 11:53 am

Congrats and Happy Anniversary… May you have many more years together. Have a cheesy time at Cheesecake Factory ;)

Janet Meyerhoffer - February 12, 2013 - 2:11 pm

Congratulations! Darling picture of you two. Love all your creations and your blog! Here’s to 25 more! Eat a piece of cheesecake for me!

M'tika - February 12, 2013 - 3:08 pm

Boy, it’s a good thing my husband doesn’t know of all the stuff I purchase on line! I was just going to get the items you had 25% off, but there were just so many I’ve been waiting to get that I decided to just do it and purchased $50 worth of goodies! Now, I just have to get myself motivated to use them! :-)

kat-in-texas - February 12, 2013 - 5:01 pm

Cheesecake Factory and diamonds….lol. Happy Anniversary love birds!!! :)

Cindy - February 12, 2013 - 5:28 pm

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY…….I hope your blessed with many more years together!

Peggy McCurry - February 12, 2013 - 10:44 pm

Congratulations on your journey together so far. Best wishes for the next 25!

Katie Jones - February 13, 2013 - 6:49 am

Happy anniversary! 25 years definitely deserves a trip to the Cheesecake Factory!!!

Joyce - February 13, 2013 - 1:36 pm

Awww…aren’t you two cute.:) Congratulations! Wishing you all the Lord’s best blessings.

Ruth G - February 13, 2013 - 7:19 pm

A very happy anniversary, Kerri! I hope you enjoyed your day of love before the commercial day of love! Thanks so much for all you do!

February 11.2013

valentine card idea

Been looking for a Valentine card idea?
Well, our lovely Miss Laura has a special Valentine treat for you! 
Check ‘em out . . .




 [ Shapes | Feathers / More Background Basics (circle background) / XOXO (heart) / This & That: Love ("Love") ]

I do believe those feathers are becoming quite the trend lately, don’t ya think?
Love how she used them for this card!
And I love how she used the circle background for  it too!

sigh . . . 


Here’s what Laura has to say:

I wanted to whip up a few quick Valentine’s Day/Love themed cards, and thought it would be fun to include Kerri’s new feather shapes. I started by cutting a circle background piece for both cards. By cutting these pieces from a cream patterned paper, and adhering them to my white cardstock card base, it creates a very subtle background to build the rest of the card on. I then added a red polka dotted heart, a few feathers, and my sentiment to each card. I had intentions of embellishing the cards a bit, but decided that I liked the more simple look to them, without any extra bulk. This makes them easy to mail as well, if needed.

add a comment
Ruth G - February 13, 2013 - 7:11 pm

<3!!!! TFS!

February 8.2013

friday freebie: i am a child of god

Many of you know that I’m the secretary in Primary presidency. Primary, in the LDS church, is where the children come to learn songs and hear messages in what’s called Sharing Time. They also have a class with a teacher where they learn a lesson each week. Every year there is a theme that the we focus on in Sharing Time and this year’s them is I Am A Child Of God.

There is also a favorite Primary song–for just about every person in the church–by that same name. If you haven’t heard it, you can listen to it HERE with voices (first song). And HERE with variations on the music (it’s kind-a cool, but I couldn’t find the voices).

So for our birthday gifts that we are handing out this year, we are giving them this 4×6 photo card with first verse done in subway art style and individualizing each one with their name. They can use it to put into their scriptures, use it as a bookmark, hang it up in their room….whatever they want to do.

I thought they turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. ;) I left an open space to accommodate the name. If there were short names, I put in flowers or stars depending on if it were a boy or a girl. Stack two for a narrow ‘space’ and use one big one for a bigger ‘space.’ You can use any images or dingbats you may have to put in there. Of course there was also other finagling that had to occur…making the name wider or more narrow…adding more space between letters…. So it’s not just as easy as typing in a name, but it wasn’t bad.



So of course I had to share this with everyone too!

 And that’s whatcha got for a Friday Freebie today!


You can download it for free HERE.

 
There are a couple variations in two different sizes (4×6 and 8×10). One has just the song lyrics for the first verse and the other has a space for a name. You’ll just have find a similar font and put in your own name. The font I use is a purchased (expensive) font, so find something similar and it’ll look great.

Now, I’m off to get them printed on cards from Persnickety Prints. On the back, I’m putting ‘you are simply amazing.’ And you’re probably thinking, ‘Uh. It’s February….?’ Luckily we’ve only had a couple birthdays, so I’m okay. Have I mentioned it’s been a really crazy month? ;)

Have a wonderful weekend!

add a comment
rebeccafellows@mac.com - February 8, 2013 - 9:07 am

I’m the first counselor and this is so awesome! Thank you so much!! I’ll probably use it for the Christmas ornaments we hang on the tree in the foyer. They can write on the back how they can be an example as a child of God. Wouldn’t that look so amazing to see all of those on a Christmas tree? Thanks again, Kerri!!

Joanna - February 8, 2013 - 9:14 am

LOVE these! Thanks for sharing – you rock!

TeriBeri - February 8, 2013 - 9:39 am

This is BEAUTIFUL!!! Thank you so much Kerri. You are AMAZING!!
Hugs and blessings, T

Tammy - February 8, 2013 - 10:00 am

This is so awesome. I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Lara Read - February 8, 2013 - 10:08 am

Thanks Kerri this is so great! This will be great for baby gifts as well. I wish you were in YW so you could do something with that theme ;)

Elaine Bowman - February 8, 2013 - 12:02 pm

Love, Love, LOVE These! Thanks so much for sharing with us!

Brenda - February 8, 2013 - 12:32 pm

This is amazing – thanks so much Kerri!!

Kathe - February 8, 2013 - 1:14 pm

Thank you, thank you, thank you! My kids are going to love this!

Melissa - February 8, 2013 - 2:35 pm

Kerri~ this is wonderful! Perfect for all children and adults too for that matter! Thanks for sharing your amazing gifts with us. MM

K - February 8, 2013 - 6:12 pm

Thank you so much for sharing this. I love it. K

Jane Saxton - February 8, 2013 - 9:16 pm

Thanks – this is such a nice idea!!

Jeanine - February 9, 2013 - 10:20 am

These are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Ruth G - February 11, 2013 - 10:45 am

Wonderful design, fabulous sentiment, thoughtful and generous that it’s free! Thanks so much for sharing (again!)

Suzzi - February 12, 2013 - 4:27 am

Thank you so much. Neighbor is having a baby and this would be awesome to have for her shower.

Gaby - February 14, 2013 - 9:00 pm

OMGoodness!! This is my favorite song!!!! It’s been a while, but every time I felt really sad, I would start singing this song to myself (internally) and it always helped me!!! THANKS!!

February 6.2013

using a small piece from a large background

Today I thought I’d show you a quick way to take large background–like the fun new heart background from yesterday–and get just the part you want in the size you want for a card.

In other words, going from this to this:






Oh, and in case you missed it, this fun little number went up yesterday. :)

add a comment
Dolly - February 6, 2013 - 11:51 am

I TOTALLY missed this beauty! TOTALLY NEED this beauty and TOTALLY needed this tutorial Kerri! THANK YOU! :D

Linda - February 6, 2013 - 2:50 pm

Kerri,

As always……..love watching your mini videos. Always something helpful and always learning. I was the hit at a scrapbooking weekend with some gals and they were loving my silhouette! I was able to help cut out some patterns they could use for their scrapbooking.

Phyllis B. - February 7, 2013 - 8:06 pm

Thanks, Kerri! Have learned so much from you!

February 5.2013

all dressed up for valentine’s day

That little Nichol. She’s been a busy girl! She asked if I would make her some feathers and of course I obliged. I knew what she was going to do with them. I just had no idea how FABULOUS it would be!!!

Okay, wait…I’m talkin’ about Nichol, right? Of course, it would be fabulous!

Check it out….this is what Nichol has to say….

I have had this wire dressform for years and I’ve used it in my home decorating “as is”. An idea came to me as I was perusing Pinterest and saw a dressform altered and decorated with old vintage book paper…. I thought how awesome it would be to create something of my own using my dressform. All I needed was the perfect die cut shape. Feathers immediately came to mind. We’re seeing them everywhere in the industry from pre-made embellishments to stamps and wood veneer shapes.

I asked Kerri if she would make me a feather die cut and she not only made one, but FOUR incredible, wonderful feathers to work with! I die cut them from several sheets of 12×12 patterned paper to give me an assortment and variety of patterns to work with and got to work creating a skirt of feathers for my dressform.

It was important to me that I be able to remove the decorations after the holiday is over without harming the dressform so I came up with the following idea for constructing the skirt. I used a piece of ribbon and glued feathers to the ribbon fairly close together using liquid glue. I applied a line of glue to the feathers and added another layer of feathers and repeated until I had a skirt to fit my dressform (see photo below).

 


I die cut several florals, a merchandise tag, heart banners and a heart to complete my dressform. I used dimensional embellishments from my stash to “dress up” the design. I love the way the variety of dimensional and textural flowers add visual interest to the completed project.











 [ Shapes | Feathers / Design Team Picks (dimensional flower) / XOXO (heart, “Feb 14″) / A Very Retro Christmas (tag) / Heart Banner freebie/ Flower 30 Petals (Silhouette #2 Class Extras)


j’adore mon petit miss nichol.

add a comment
StephG. - February 5, 2013 - 8:53 am

Wow. Nichol’s project is jaw-dropping gorgeous. Love the feather shapes, Kerri.

Tammy - February 5, 2013 - 10:17 am

Very very gorgeous and very time consuming. I love it. So pretty and so real looking too. U go GF. TFS

Dolly - February 5, 2013 - 1:58 pm

So pretty! No surprise it’s Nichol’s usual over the top gorgeous!

Karen Varney - February 5, 2013 - 2:51 pm

All I can say is…..WOW!!!!!

cindy - February 5, 2013 - 9:05 pm

Oh my……….I’m speechless! Where DOES Nichol come up with such clever ideas? Seriously!! Love the Valentine projects. TFS.

February 4.2013

the month of loooooove

It is February. I can hardly believe it! Officially, we are now in the month love….and warmer temps, I’m hoping. :) Not only is it Valentine’s Day next week, but it’s also hubby’s and my 25th anniversary.

Holy cannoli! 

We talked about doing something extra special–like take a trip to Hawaii (I was sooo close to hitting buy when looking at plane tickets)–but I thought that if I was going to spend a chunk of money to do that, then I’d much rather put it towards a trip to Europe with the family a little later in the year. Our family loves to travel and take pictures and we talk of going to France (speaking of love) and Amsterdam quite often (among a million other places to go). We’d love to do London too, but don’t know if that will be in the cards. We are dreamers here in the Bradford house and I’m hoping that dream will come to light for us, because we’ve been talking about a trip like this for two years now. Since Zach speaks French and his bestest missionary companion lives in France, he really wants to go see him.

So, to help us get started in our ‘loverly’ month, here’s a gorgeous card by Queen of Cards herself, our sweet little Shari!


[ Shapes | This+That: Love (printables)  / Background Basics (flower background)


oooooh la la!

i. love.

add a comment
{dawn} - February 4, 2013 - 7:29 am

Love how Shari used the printables! (I’ve always been a fan of your printables!!) It looks like she even cut some shapes out of the excess printables. Such a gorgeous card!!

Cindy - February 4, 2013 - 4:37 pm

Very nice card!

Antigone (@TragicCharacter) - February 6, 2013 - 6:43 am

A little off the mark but our family is going to London for a wedding in April and it was not more expensive to fly into London and out of Paris. It saved us the return train fare. United also had children’s fares which were slightly cheaper than adult fares to my astonishment. If you go, consider VRBO for an apartment. We love having a fridge and washer/dryer. Lastly, I heard great things about 2 tourist passes – London Pass (entrance fees and/ or transport) and Batobus (transport using the Seine).

I can’t wait to see your Project Life Designs in action!

February 1.2013

something new and exciting!

Honk Honk!



There’s some fabulous news–and some sad news–but oddly, it’s all the same news.
(Can you say ‘mixed emotions’?)

I am packing up my Silhouette classes, putting them in a moving truck, and bringing ‘em on over here to my own site.

What?!!!

I’m very excited about this move, but also quite nervous. It’s a whole new world for me, but I’m excited to see where this road will be taking me. I just have all these ideas and know that having all my classes under one roof will be the best thing for all of that.

I guess you could say I’m giving up my apartment in the city. ;)

The sad part of this is that I won’t be working directly with Jessica Sprague and her amazing team anymore. Seriously. Amazing. Love those girls! But that’s not to say that we won’t continue having a wonderful relationship! There truly is no better place to learn Photoshop than with Jessica Sprague. Love her dearly. And all the other nuggets of goodness she offers? Just amazing.

So what does this mean for you Silhouette fans?
It takes time to pack up boxes and set up a new place, so all the Silhouette classes will still be available on JessicaSprague.com until March 15. But it gets even oh-so better than that.

What’s a move without a ‘moving sale’, right?

All classes will be 25% off until moving day. Then, they will be put onto the moving truck and be in transit to their new home right here at KerriBradford.com.

Now what does that mean for those who purchased the classes on JessicaSprague.com?
If you purchased the Silhouette classes on JS.com, you will still have access to those classes for ever and ever. I will continue to pop in with support until June 1. After that, you’ll still have all the fabulous JS Mentors that can help you with questions in the Forum there.

I’m so looking forward to this new adventure. And I hope you’re just as excited to go along for the ride with me!

I just also wanted to give a big ol’ slobbery kiss-full of thank you to Jessica Sprague and her team for the wonderful opportunity they gave me for being a part of their very special place ‘in the city’. Truly. I can’t say it enough. They are amazing.

add a comment
SewCalGal - February 1, 2013 - 4:53 pm

I’m glad to hear that the Silhouette classes that I purchased at JessicaSprague will still be available to me at Kerri Bradford, after the move. :)

And, I’m looking to more classes with you too!

SewCalGal
http://www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

Theresa G. - February 2, 2013 - 6:35 am

Hi!! good for you. I can’t wait to see what you have in the works. i’m sure it means cool things..
Happy Saturday!!!!
=)

Amy A. - February 2, 2013 - 9:31 am

Hi Kerri! Your classes are truely amazing. I would have never taken the plunge and purchased my silhoutte if if were not for you, and your classes have been so helpful. I love all your designs too. Thank you for making them available to us FOREVER!!

CLR - February 2, 2013 - 4:40 pm

I really enjoyed all your Silhouette classes. I have taken a few from other instructors, but your’s are the best! Thanks so much. How soon before we see class number five? I can hardly wait!

Tania K - February 3, 2013 - 6:12 am

So Kerri, if I understand you correctly, the class that I purchased and took over at JS (Silhouette Designer Edition) will always be available for me over at JS? And it’s JS’s team that will help me with any questions after June 1? OR, will I access that class here after your move? Just wondering because I want to take your Just Add Color class and I’m not sure where I should take it… JS or KB…

Kerri - February 3, 2013 - 7:15 am

Hey Tania!
Yes, you are exactly right with the first part. Once the move has been made, you will still have access to the classes you purchased on JS.com. So any questions you have can be addressed within the JS.com forum.

If you purchase future classes on my site, there will be a forum there to chat about things as well. And it’s not like I’m going away. I’m always here to help. I get questions all the time, so I’m always an open book that way. :)

HOpe that helps!

Lisa-Jane Johnson - February 3, 2013 - 3:46 pm

I’m a follower of Nichol Magouirk and fell in love with her cut outs, so much do that I eventually gave in and bought a Silhouette. I loved the designs she used and followed the links to find you and now I’ve bought the class bundle in the sale to get me started. I’ve downloaded many of your freebies too. Just wanted to say, as a new follower, good luck with the move and the new plans and a big thank you for your work, your classes, your freebies and your inspiration” x

Jodi Frede - March 7, 2013 - 10:01 am

Will the same Silhouette Classes be available here on your site once the move is complete? I just got a Portrait and purchased the Designer Edition of the software, so I am interested in all of the classes you currently have at JS, but I don’t have the budget for all of them yet. I’m debating whether I have to buy them now at JS to make sure I can take them, or if I wait, will I still be able to take them on your site later? Thanks.

Kerri - March 7, 2013 - 7:58 pm

Hey Jodi! I will have the Silhouette classes on my site once the move is complete. So if you purchase from Jessica’s site, you will have forever access there. If you purchase them from my site, you will have forever access here.

Hope that helps! :)

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