Stamps in Hallways

Warm Winter Wishes

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000-06:00

A goal of mine this year is to actually use the stamps I have instead of just being a collector :) This is a Tag It set from PTI, and I just love the Tag It series, but have not had time to use all of them yet. I had to make a few thank you notes for my student assistants from this past semester, and then I just switched out the sentiment on the tag to use one from the Tag It set. So much bang for the buck! I wish it showed up in the pic, but I loaded up Mr. Snowman with spica pen glittery goodness, and he really sparkles in real life like a fresh new snowfall :) I used some circle die cuts from PTI, and attached them with some blueberry Divine Twine from Cat's Pajamas. You can't see it in the pic, but the navy strip is embossed with snowflakes to give it a little sumthin' sumthin' :) More Echo Park Winter Park paper...just can't get enough of that stuff! Thanks for stopping by!

With Sympathy

2012-01-24T07:00:00.002-06:00

I always find sympathy cards so hard to make, and can never get into being really detailed and full of layers on the cards. So I keep 'em simple, like this one. Used a PTI Think Big set that had a nice sympathy stamp, some Turning a New Leaf die cuts, and a few rolled roses using MFT dies for good measure, and I called it a card. Just like I'm calling this a post and keeping it short. Thanks for stopping by!

Skipping Stone Design Sketch Challenge

2012-01-23T07:00:00.001-06:00

It's my first time playing along with the Skipping Stone sketch in a timely manner :) I think a goal of mine for this year is going to be to play along with different challenges when I can....I went blog hopping while the dogs were napping this past weekend and found a bunch of new inspiration to get me going! I went super CAS on this card with only using white cardstock and red as my punch of color. The top embossed layer (using a swirly Taylored Expressions impression plate) is popped up so that it looks like windows with the medium sized PTI heart die. And I totally measured the placement of the hearts so that they weren't crooked (this is actually the second version of this card....the first one was going great until the LAST heart turned out crooked!). Patterned paper is from Echo Parks Yours Truly collection. Get ready to see a lot of that on the blog coming up as I'm making most of my valentines with it. Some white stitching around it and PTI die cut letters as a sentiment and I'm calling it a simple card. Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Challenge--Touch of Color :)

2012-01-22T13:58:00.000-06:00

I've gotten the Cat's Pajamas challenge done on time two weeks in a row! What? :) This week definitely challenged me because it was a color challenge. Don't know why those throw me, but they do. Here's the color combo for this week:

And here's what I came up with for the challenge:

I used the Sweet Sunday Sketch for this week and adapted it a bit and moved the banner down to contain the sentiment, and used clouds surrounding Cupid up there in place of the banner ends. I didn't use a super bright melon, but more of a Berry Sorbet from PTI instead, along with some Sweet Blush. Patterned papers courtesy of My Mind's Eye Lime Twist collection from the past spring. LOVE those paper pads! You know how sometimes you get a pad of paper and use a piece or two....these pads have been decimated in my house :) I don't know if it shows up clearly in the pic, but I stamped who loves you, baby in pink on the blush layer, and some hearts on the berry banner. Some random lace trim I unearthed while cleaning out my craft room later, and some linen thread cross stitches for good measure and I called it a card. Thanks for stopping by!

Card Patterns Sketches--Happy Birthday!

2012-01-19T07:00:00.003-06:00

I've been on a run of getting cards made lately, which is a good thing as my list of projects is quite long. Here is one from the Card Patterns Sketches blog. I usually make cards with their sketches, but never get the card done on time each week :) So this card is a compromise. I got the sketch done on time, but I made two of them for birthdays that have already passed (my SIL and my boss). I dug out my PTI Flower Fusion sets and tried to recreate the flowers on the patterned paper. The patterned paper actually is a note card my SIL sent as a thank you for Christmas. She always has great note cards, and I save them to cut up and make cards. I gave this card to her on Sunday and I have no idea if she actually realized where the paper came from or not :) I used my PTI Tin Types background for the cardstock strips. More wonky scallops on the edges and the card was done. I actually have a few other ideas for this sketch and I'm hoping to get them done soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Thank Yous--Part 2

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the next installment in my thank you note collection from Christmas. This was inspired by another Skipping Stones sketch as well. More Echo Park Winter Park paper used for the strips, and I thought the strips needed something special other than machine stitching so I went and did some cross stitches at the top and bottom using some of my favorite linen thread from Cat's Pajamas. I wanted to use some of my new Taylored Expressions stamps I got for Christmas, so I went for a banner from the It's a Banner Day collection and I couldn't find a thank you stamp in my stash that would fit in this, so I went for the Just a Note stamp, and will write my thanks from there on the inside. The snowflakes are from SU from a LONG time ago and I'd love to get my hands on another pack of them as I tend to use them a lot this time of year :) Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Thank Yous--Part 1

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000-06:00

I finally have my Christmas thank you notes completed--phew! It took forever to get them done, and I didn't even go too crazy with them. I made 16 of them (lots of thanks, I guess), 4 of 4 different designs. I was looking for inspiration after Christmas.....kinda lost the mojo after taking the week off to design the room...and I came across the Skipping Stones Designs sketches. They sell stamps, and also have a sketch challenge on their blog as well. This was one of their more recent sketches, then I went back in their archives and copied out a whole bunch of other sketches, a few of which I've already put to good use. Back at Halloween time I made all my cards using one pack of Echo Park paper, and I am doing the same thing for my Valentines, and my thank you notes for Christmas too. I have the Winter Park scrap kit and just love the colors in there! So I cut some strips, and used this roll of denim ribbon from SU that I totally forgot that I had. The border comes from a Tim Holtz die that I forgot I had a while ago and I really need to use it more. Like the whimsy. A thank you stamp from PTI's Inside and Out: Thank You set and embossing with their snowflake impression plate (heart that!) and it was all done. Stop by tomorrow for another installment of thank you notes....thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Inspiration Challenge

2012-01-16T07:00:00.001-06:00

Happy Monday! So glad for a day off of work in my neck of the woods. It's been a fun weekend, and it's always nice to keep the good times going, especially when I have a big list of craft projects to tackle. I made this card for another of the challenges with The Cat's Pajamas, which was an inspiration pic:

I loved the felty goodness and warmth of the pictures, so I dug into my sketch book and came up with this card here.

I looked at it afterwards and am kicking myself for using paper with stars on it instead of hearts, but I didn't have any other papers in my stash that fit the bill, which is hard to believe as the stash is pretty darn large around here. I put my new heart die from TCP to use a few ways....one to put on the bear, and the other for a background element. I put another dose of hearts on there using the little heart from the Admit One stamp set and tucking it into the scallops on the edge, and using the I Love You sentiment as well. Looking forward to seeing the challenge that pops up tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Challenge--Embossing

2012-01-14T14:10:00.002-06:00

So now that my room is all put together, I can finally sit down and create stuff. Problem was at the start of the week I was still all confuzzled as to where everything was, so by last night I was able to crank out this card knowing where my supplies were now hiding :) I actually got a challenge for The Cat's Pajamas done on time to be eligible for the weekly winner. I usually get to them sometime during the month, but this one got done quickly as I had the time and the inspiration right away. We finally got some snow in the Chicagoland area, and I make a snow-themed card for one of the secretaries whenever we get the first snowfall as we are what seems to be the only two people in the building to love snow. I went into my stash and dug out my Snow Day set and went to work. I used a sketch from who knows where from who knows when as my inspiration and went for my Echo Park winter paper from last year's collection to get some color inspiration. I used a Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder on the kraft layer, stitched a border then went to town distressing the edges with some Fresh Snow ink from Papertrey ink. I then rubbed it over the popped up snowflakes to give them some color and dimension too. Then I don't know if this counts as embossing or not, but I used some of my much neglected Liquid Applique and made the snowballs fluffy. I really wanted to use my TCP snowflake die, but I didn't have any coordinating colors of felt to make a snowflake, and I wanted it to be felt-y, so I used one I had in my stash already. Thanks for stopping by!

The New Space

2012-01-09T20:56:00.004-06:00

So my room, with the exception of a few photos to

hang on the wall is done....my desk showed up while I was out of town this weekend and my husband surprised me by putting it together before I got back. The room looks so big and open now! You can see the before pics on THIS blog post, and it looks totally different now. I went with a beige base for the walls, and actually got inspired for the colors by a few packs of cardstock I had on the floor when I was deciding what the other color should be to go with the green of the desk. And the desk....oh my goodness! Love it, although I have not had much time to sit and do anything at it lately :) Having the shorter shelves has totally opened up the room and it feels HUGE in here, even though it is about 7x9 with a goofy curve in it that makes a chunk of the room unuseable. My favorite part of the room, though, is the bulletin board next to my punch racks. I went on etsy and found this country shop that had this distressed wood bulletin board, and the neatest part is the shelf on the board has a hole that you put a mason jar in so that there are fresh flowers in it. Sweet! Other favorite part are the black and white shots of my girls that I put up using my annual gift card from Michaels from my husband's uncle....that was the fastest I have ever spent it :) I also had a few frames from my cousin from last year I never hung...well, they're on the wall now. I am looking forward to using photography to decorate the room. I deccided to put a pic of Sadie up as well, which I went back and forth about, but you know what? She may be gone but she surely is not forgotten. I am hoping to figure out a way to paint the buttons that were up before to match my room and still make them look distressed like they do now.

My Favorite Things Guest DT Contest....and a New Craft Room :)

2012-01-01T18:09:00.003-06:00

Phew! It's been a long time since I've posted! I have a bunch of stuff to share, but I had to wait to do any of this because I got a great gift from my hubs this year for Christmas.....a complete craft room make-over. Paint, furniture, rug....everything! So instead of crafting the days away last week, I was sanding, patching, priming, painting, and assembling furniture. Not everything has arrived yet...still waiting on the corner table I picked out and the neat bulletin board I found on etsy, but when it's all done I'll definately post pics. It's pretty nifty :)

So the first thing I tackled once my room was somewhat put back together was my entry for the guest designer slot over at My Favorite Things. The theme this month was paper piecing, and while I was painting I came up with the idea of making a set of paper dolls using some Pure Innocence stamps and creating a tin to put them in (inspired by the mini paint tin I unearthed while cleaning out the room to paint). I settled in on the My Balloon stamp, and then dug out some Basic Grey pads (Urban Prairie, Lemonade and Olivia to be exact) to create some paper pieced outfits for them. I then put velcro on the dolls and the back of the outfits so they can be changed and the dolls can be played with :) Everything went in the tin, which I decorated using the Notched Tag, Banner Day Alphabet, and Mini Rolled Rose dies. These little gals have 9 different outfits to choose from, and my niece, who will eventually end up with this, will love it for sure.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wishful Thinking?

2011-12-22T21:21:00.002-06:00

So I'm finally done with all my handmade Christmas gifts, and it's time to start going through this month's Cat's Pajamas Tuesday challenges. I got the shiny one in over the weekend with one of my toffee boxes (I have two more designs I made that are shiny too), and here's my Christmas card....of sorts....with the big scallop edge die, although the way the card turned out you can't see it too well. I went for the tilted image again, and I'm not a tilted girl, but it worked on this. I wanted the snow bunny to look really white, so I stamped on kraft and colored with Copics, then used a Q-tip to put some white pigment ink on top. I drew in some additional snow mounds under the bunny (LOVE coloring that guy!) and put some of my tinsel glitter as snow, then cracked open the snowflake die from my last TCP order and punched out some flakes. I thought about putting some stickles on top of them but changed my mind...thought it might be overkill. I used my copic air brush to spray the tag with a sky blue then broke apart the sentiment to make it fit...kinda like it. Hoping this card will inspire Mother Nature into giving us some actual winter weather around here. I truly think winter is for freezin' my keester off and shoveling snow, neither of which has happened around here yet and it's getting ridiculous. Thanks for stopping by!

Somethin' Shiny--TCP

2011-12-18T21:06:00.002-06:00

I've been busy at work getting Christmas presents made....so far I have my 3 scrapbooks for my nieces and myself about our summer adventures this year, as well as the scrapbook calendars for my girls for my hubs, mom and inlaws. Now I'm on to the 14 toffee boxes I need to create. I will admit I'm trying to keep it simple by making 4 of each one and two spares :) I decided to get caught up on the challenges over at The Cat's Pajamas for the month and this one fits the first one of the month, to create something shiny. I started with a pattern for a box I bought from PTI a long time ago when they offered them from Lauren Meader. I made a wrap from some Basic Grey Nordic Holiday paper, then created a medallion for th center with some Nesties (the cherry one is embossed with a swiss dot folder) and tied it on with some grosgrain. I used a new release from TCP (Raising Cane) and colored my favorite bunny in. I continued the shiny trend with some spica pens to cover the candy cane to make it shiny (which of course don't show up in the pic), then I put some glaze over it to make it 3D and shiny too. Some tinsel glitter on the hat and rhinestones to frame the circle and I called it a day. Thanks for stopping by!

MFT Guest Designer--Take 2

2011-12-04T21:12:00.002-06:00

So I wanted to try and make an actual TAG for the tag challenge over with the guest DT contest at the MFT forum on Splitcoast since the last one technically didn't meet the criteria. So I went to dig out all my MFT holidays stamps....and found that I don't really have many that were useable for this challenge. Hmmmmmm, maybe I need to do something about that for next year :) Anyway, I used my Candy Cane Kisses a la Mode stamp again and went to work with the Layered Label die and a set of my Nesties as I don't have any of the MFT tags. I put a jumbo eyelet at the top after stitching on the Echo Park Season's Greetings paper and threaded the wide grosgrain through and tied the two ends together with twine and a button to add a little extra flair. I thought the cream panel looked a bit plain so I dug in my stash and found some flashy red bauble thingies and took a strip of them and shaped it around the edge of the oval and it put the whole thing together. Thanks for stopping by!

MFT Guest Designer--Plan B

2011-12-03T19:28:00.003-06:00

I finally had the time and ability to participate in this month's guest design team contest over with My Favorite Things. I have either been available to make the contest entry, or make the projects if I got picked to join the DT, but never both at the same time. This month I am lucky enough to have time for both :) The challenge was to make tags, and I went a little out of the box when it came to making a tag. It's not the kind you'd put on a package, but the kind you'd make for a candy cane gift, which given the time of year there are quite a few candy canes out there :) I started out with a piece of kraft cardstock and then used the scalloped scallop edge die to make a border for the left edge with some aqua cardstock. I then dug into my favorite holiday paper, October Afternoon's Good Cheer to find some candy cane striped paper, and a few other fun patterns to make a quilted background. After sewing the paper on, and distressing the edges, I went to work with the vintage cameo frame die, which I was excited to finally put to use. I ran it through the Cuttlebug with a woodgrain embossing plate and then distressed the edges of that as well. I put some tiny brads on there kinda like nailheads, then stamped the sentiment on the cream oval I put underneath, highlighting it with some rhinestones. I popped up the vintage cameo frame and then adhered my Candy Cane a la Mode which I cut out. I really wish it showed up on the photo, and I tried my hardest to make it work, but I colored in the candy cane with red and clear spica pens to make it really shiny, then covered the whole thing up with some Glassy Glaze to puff it up. It looks fabby in real life, if I say so myself :) To top the whole thing off, I put some red twine on the top with a bow. At this point, I finally realized that the tag was ten times the size of the candy cane I was going to put it on. Plan B was born. I punched two 1/2 inch circles to put the candy cane through the tag. So, yeah, it's a tag, but not a tag, if you know what I mean. I truly hope it counts as I'm pretty proud of it :) If you'd like to play along, you can hop over to the MFT forum HERE to get more information, or stop by the MFT blog HERE to see what exciting goodies are just waiting to get released this upcoming Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by!

More From the Archives...

2011-12-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

I sure have a stash of cards that I never posted! This one was for a Paper Crafts call over the summer. I was not in the mood to make valentines, but I cranked a few out to give it a go. Needless to say since you're seeing this now it didn't get picked up. It was for a sketch challenge, I believe. The way I look at it, I now have a valentine all ready to go for February! Thanks for stopping by!

So Proud

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-06:00

Yeah, this is an old one too. Made several of these for my theater kids who worked on our fall show, which had a 9/11 theme, hence the red, white and blue color scheme. I went overboard with the stars, even adding a star tag from Tiny Tags on there, but I liked the finished product. It's a 3x3 size card. Thanks for stopping by!

Feel Better

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000-06:00

It definately has been a while since I posted. I made this card way back in September! The inspiration for this one comes from the PTI gallery as well...can't remember who I got the idea from tho. Just like the last card, it uses some PTI leaf and Flower Fusion dies, and a tag from the Tiny Tags series (love that I have more options now with the Tiny Tags II set, which finally showed up at my house over the weekend). This card is simple, yet nice looking at the same time, and I like how cheery the colors look. Especially on such a yucky day. Thanks for stopping by!

Naughty or Nice?

2011-11-29T21:45:00.003-06:00

I've been busy in the studio lately, and I was able to grab 45 minutes this evening to get another Cat's Pajamas challenge done. I loved the inspiration pictures, which were full of knitted goodness and lots of cream, white and light green. I added in avocado to the mix and am happy with the results. I used a snowflake impression plate from PTI on the kraft layer, and sponged around it with cream ink before stitching it together. Add some more Martha Stewart tinsel glitter stuff on the hat and call it a card. Thanks for stopping by!

Best Wishes

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-06:00

Whenever I go to a wedding, I always make the wedding card using parts of the invitation. This card reuses the ribbon and the embossed part of the folder the invite came in. I went for a monochromatic base with the embossed layer as an overlay. I used some leaf dies from PTI as well as a flower from their Flower Fusion series for a big accent, and then tied a small tag on with some pink paper backing the heart cut out and called it a quick and simple card. Thanks for stopping by!

More Christmas Goodies

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-06:00

So I am really lazy on a rainy Saturday, and flanked on the couch by two exhausted dogs from our 3 1/2 mile walk in the rain. Combine that with a Lord of the Rings movie on TV that I caught at the start and I'm not getting up anytime soon. Since I have a ton of cards I never blogged, I figure it's time to get the blog up and running again. Here is one that is from my new all time favorite card layout. I was surfing the PTI gallery a few months ago and ran across a variant of this from Maile Belles. I tweaked it around to make it something of my own and I have used it several time since. Stay tuned to see the others :) This one uses some Authentique paper from their Christmas line and one of my beloved Tiny Treats sets. I know some don't like the TT line, but I like them along with the Tag It's collection to make cards like this one. With the exception of the bunny card, and the Christmas tree card that I will post later on, I used TT for all my Christmas cards. I had not planned on using brown twine with this, but I bought it along with the paper at Archivers and the check out lady said they go well together, and I thought they did too. Thanks for stopping by!

Ho to the Third

2011-11-26T10:59:00.003-06:00

I had the chance this weekend to get some more of my Christmas cards done (I have the last 4 in various states of assemblage on my craft table at the moment, which will be finished when I'm done with this post), and I used a fun sketch from The Cat's Pajamas to get it done. I made 4 of these, which seemed like a good idea at the time, then when it took me an entire evening to get them done I realized that the people getting them had better appreciate them as they were quite labor intensive. Coloring those boxes took a while! I flipped the sketch to go horizontal, and instead of film strips, I used a ticket strip die cut and took one of my TCP alphabets and filled it up with a "ho" in each box. I though the strip looked a bit bare, and I had another TCP christmas set on my desk that had some small stars in it, so I put them on either side of the ho's to fill the space. I dug out my snowflake die cut from TCP for the big blue flake...looking forward to Tuesday's new release which has more snowflake die cuts in it. Hooray! A little tag with a Merry Christmas sentment and some rhinestones on it, as well as some Martha Stewart glitter stuff on the Santa hat (hate regular glitter, but like this flakey stuff) and I called it a card. Finally. Thanks for stopping by!

So, Yeah....I Disappeared.....

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

I didn't really realize it's been over a month since I posted here. I had tried to get in and post, but I got locked out of my account....or so I thought. In reality, when I got a new cell phone after my old one fell out of my pocket and got run over by a car, I had to set up a google account....and it changed the email address linked to blogger. Fun. I've been really busy since the TCP release with the play, and then Pat and I got to take off for a fun theater weekend in New York City. Talk about a highlight of the year. I don't know how we crammed so much into 72 hours.....two Broadway shows (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with Daniel Ratcliffe--what a show! and Book of Mormon--funny but not for the faint of heart), lots of hanging out in Central Park--we went the weekend BEFORE it snowed thank goodness--and spending time with old friends (my best friend from junior high) and new friends (hi, Merry!).

I also spent a lot of time cranking out Halloween cards...almost 30 of them. I really did want to post them but.....well, you know why. So here's the deal, my blog readers: I used Tiny Treats: Halloween and Echo Park's Sorcerer's Apothecary paper for pretty much all of them, so just substitute red and green and Echo Park's Season's greetings for black and orange, and put some trees or Santa instead of pumpkins and witches :)

Here's my first one. I actually CASE'd myself on this from the Christmas card I had published over the summer. Love this layout and the Mat Stack from PTI, and using TCP's zig zag edger instead of scallops. It just looked more creepy, I guess.

Off to try and type out a few more posts for this week. They will be much less chatty, guaranteed! Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Blog Hop

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness it's been so much fun playing along with the Cat Pack this release! I've never been on a design team before, and it was great to get such positive feedback :) Ladies, I'd make sure to play along with this week's Tuesday challenge just so you get the chance to be a Swanky Stamper....

Anyway, here's the (sensory overloaded) card I came up with for the sketch/blog hop for today. BTW--you should have gotten here via Amy's blog HERE...if you didn't, get started at Leigh's blog HERE so you don't miss any great eye candy from the release. My card was one of those ideas where it looked great on the sketch pad, but when I cut the paper and went to work.....WOW! What a loud card! :) I used the bear from Step On Up as the ring master for the uber fun tent die cut and a sentiment from the Admit One set, and attached it with some twine off to the side in a little fan. My nephew's birthday card is now complete. I know what to get him for his birthday. A pair of sunglasses to wear when he opens this card. Yikes. Hoping you didn't get blinded so you can enjoy what stampy goodness Jackie has worked up HERE....thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Sneaky Peek #6

2011-10-09T11:27:00.002-05:00

Hope you all are having a great weekend! Thanks to the local dog park, I've been quite productive in the craft room myself as the girls have been TIRED OUT after romping around. Perhaps they are as tired as these monkies from the new Cat's Pajamas set, Going Bananas (like that transition, huh?) :) My niece is a monkey freak (as in she likes monkies, not that she looks like one, as that would be truly freaky) so I think this card is heading her way. Using my trusty Circus Border die cut along the bottom, I decided to make a primate panorama across my card and color it in with Copics. You can't see it in the picture, but there are bananas stamped in Versamark across the top kraft layer of the card. Hope you've been enjoying the sneak peeks...only a few more sleeps until you can get your hands on them : ) Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Sneaky Peek #4

2011-10-07T07:00:00.001-05:00

It's Friday! Hooray! And it's time for another Cat's Pajamas sneak peek too! This bunny is one of my all time favorites from Cat's Pajamas....he (or she!) does so many fun things, and this release is no exception. This time it's sky diving with a cute parachute! I went all paper piecing with this one again, using a piece of paper that had been sitting near my stamp table for the longest time. I actually used the gingham parts on Christmas cards I've finished already, before I realized there was pink on it. Oh well. Anyway, back to the card. It uses an old sketch from PaperCrafts design call, and I put that pesky bunny front and center with some felt clouds surrounding the bunny to give the whole thing dimension. I used some delicious seam binding from TCP for the bow underneath, and did some airbrushing for the background of the sentiment panel, attached with some of the best linen thread around, conveniently found at TCP (toss a spool in with your order...you won't regret it!) and called this an over-stitched, heavily layered card which is gonna need extra postage, but that's fine with me :) Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Sneaky Peek #3

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

It's Thursday, and I have another sneak peek for you for the upcoming Cat's Pajamas release. Today's set has a fun circus theme to it, Step Right Up. I put this adorable bear in a spiffy dark red ringmaster's jacket, and tried as hard as I could to make a colorful circus theme to surround him. Bright colors are so not me..... I'm not one to tilt my main panel, so I went out of my comfort zone, ya know, since I was already there, and put this guy on an angle and am quite happy with the results :) I used some chipboard coasters and did some die cut star treatments around this beary-special guy (har har har). Looking forward to sending this to a dear friend who I get to see in a few weeks and sending a "Holla!" her way :) Thanks for stopping by....more TCP goodness tomorrow (that Alma sure treats her Swanky Stampers well!)!

Cat's Pajamas Sneaky Peek #2

2011-10-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome back...happy Wednesday! It's time for more TCP goodness from the upcoming release on the 11th! Today's set was one of my favorites from the bunch, Bearing Gifts. I went a bit paper-piecing crazy on this one, but that box screamed "use your patterned paper stash on me!" so I did. You can't ignore a plea such as that. You just can't :) So using a modified sketch from Card Patterns blog, I went to town with a package of My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose paper and spent more time than I probably should have (who needs clean dishes?) paper piecing the box. I also used a new-to-me TCP product with the swirly in the middle, the Icing die cut...which just cuts like buttah, I tell you! :) A few buttons to anchor the sentiment banner on the bottom and I called this a card. I finally have my niece, Leyla's birthday card done on time....over a month early, in fact! More TCP goodness is in store if you just look at Alma's swanky blog HERE for a complete line up of everyone playing along. Thanks for stopping by!

Cat's Pajamas Sneaky Peek #1

2011-10-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today's the first day of sneak peeks for the newest Cat's Pajamas release coming up on October 11th, and I'm so lucky to be able to play along with the Cat Pack and sneak a few of the sets to you :) The first set I have to share with you is Admit One, which whether you're a card maker or a scrapbooker, this one has possibilities, especially since there is a coordinating ticket die to make this oh-so-user-friendly! After some heavy deliberation, I decided to go more traditional than whimsical with this one and I made an anniversary card for my hubs....we've been married almost 11 years (see the date on the card.....the set comes with some handy number stamps to customize your tickets!) and we've never been the "celebrate the anniversary" type so this will actually be the first one he's ever gotten--I know, horrible wife speaking here. I dug through the paper stash and settled on some Cosmo Cricket Circa 1931 for this color scheme, and I tacked a few felt hearts on the side for good measure. See anything else new on this card? Check out the blue border die cut, also new to TCP! Hope you enjoyed stopping by today....be sure to swing by tomorrow for more TCP goodness! Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Baby!

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

It took me FOREVER to finish this card. It wasn't hard, but I literally made it one part at a time: cut the paper one day, paper pieced the next, die cut the 3rd.....it was almost a week before it was done :) I got the sketch idea from Card Patterns, and then reached for my fav Cat's Pajamas whale stamp and die cut. I used some papers from a splurge Authentique pad I grabbed with a coupon at Archivers, and it turned out to be the right splurge as a co-worker's wife had a baby boy :) Using my Mega Mixed Messages set from PTI, I stamped a Baby border on the Pacific Point paper, and tied the tag on to finish it up. A fun baby, but not baby card :) Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Home!

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Hope y'all had a great weekend! More cards comin' your way :) This one went out to a co-worker who just got her first house. It didn't turn out like I was hoping at first, but after I added the buttons on the side of the focal point, I was somewhat happy with it :) I used some Echo Park paper I snagged at a scrap expo. The lesson I learned from that expo was to bring cash with me as some people had minimum charge limits. Saved me some money in the long run, that's for sure as I would have bought more than just the paper with the houses on it if I hadn't found .96 worth of change in my wallet :) Focal point is a die set from My Favorite Things...one of my favorites as it's so neutral. Again, I have no idea where I got the sketch idea from :) Wait.....I think I actually came up with this one on my own! :) Thanks for stopping by!

Last B2S Card

2011-09-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! I usually make lots of different back to school cards, but I found myself running out of time getting them sketched out and done, so I only made 3 this year. This one went out to all the girls, and I got myself pretty worked up after I colored the stamp as I usually color her blonde for the blondies and brunette for the brownies and I forgot. I was so grrrrrrrrr! about it but I left it the way it was. This card was super busy....and I think if I did it again I'd tone down the patterned paper a bit, but this is what happens when you pledge to use the same paper packs for all your back to school needs (October Afternoon Report Card and Schoolhouse to the rescue!). Stamp is a combo of two My Favorite Things sets....one for the sentiment and one for the little girl. I added some freckles to her cheeks, and some glassy glaze to the apple to make it shiny. The sketch was from My Favorite Things as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Back 2 School

2011-09-14T07:00:00.001-05:00

See, I told you I'd be back more frequently! :) Here's another of my back to school collection. The minute I saw Tag Its #6 with the back to school theme, I had to make sure I grabbed it. I had a small pad of Memento black chalk ink to get some even coverage on the alphabet circle. I really was not a fan of this card at first. I had to keep tweaking the card, and eventually it turned out to be my favorite back to school card. I used some Pink Paislee paper for the stars, and again with the October Afternoon papers, this time it was from the Report Card pad. I used a notebook die from My Favorite Things for the insert on the top, and I put a new Taylored Expressions impression plate to work (the swirls and music patterned one). I forgot to change the stitching pattern so the edges ended up being zig zag :) Sketch was from My Favorite Things as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Dusting Off the Cobwebs...

2011-09-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

Wow, has it been a while since I've been on the blog. I'm not done with crafting, but I am finally almost done with our fall play at school, where our tech and production weeks corresponded with the first weeks of school. I am officially exhausted, and literally do need to dust cobwebs off of my stamp table and get to work. I have a bunch of stuff to play with, and I just grabbed a pack of Echo Park's Halloween paper, so you'll be getting sick of that soon enough as it's all I'm using on my Halloween cards this year....which I should actually start working on soon :)

But I have a bunch of cards I made before craziness with rehearsals started back at the start of August, so I'm going to plow through a bunch of posts and get them ready to go so that I can spend some much needed time in my stamp room this week. The first few posts are my back to school cards I made for co-workers, nieces and nephews. I had to make a few extras this year as my nephew started kindergarten (!!!) as did a few of my co-workers kids who I make cards for as well. Today's card was for my coworkers. It ended up being a bit busy, using a much loved apple set from PTI, Teacher's Apple and some October Afternoon Schoolhouse paper. I can't even remember where the sketch idea came from as I made these a month ago :)

Thanks for stopping by....and hanging in there through my long absence here on the blogaroonie!

Northwoods Thank You

2011-08-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

I had a bunch of thank you notes to write after our trip to Tomahawk the other week. I FINALLY got these done last week (my mojo, which had been in full gear at the start of the summer has totally and completely run out and I'm currently running on fumes). I took advantage of the 40% off stamps sale at Archivers the other day to grab this Lawn Fawn set, which I can use for a bunch of other upcoming projects as well....hooray! I dug in the stash for some Mr. Campy paper from Cosmo Cricket to finish it up. Thanks for stopping by!

HB2U!

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

I needed a quickie birthday card last week, so I went after a Fall To Layout from a few weeks ago and got thsi cranked out. It's super simple, but I like how it turned out. I've been on a colored twine kick lately, and even though you can't see it in the pics very well, it looks great on the card itself. A few Thickers later, and it's a card :) Thanks for stopping by!

Trendy Cages

2011-08-19T10:06:00.002-05:00

For some reason birdcages are quite trendy. I can't figure it out. But I saw so many cards using the cages as background paper that I had to jump on the trend, especially when the opportunity for a free birdcage stamp set came my way. So I went to town. I didn't work off of a sketch on this one. It looked plain when it was done, so I used some green Memento chalk inks to stamp birds in the cages and it was a nice finishing touch. I'm trying to get a bunch of blog posts pre-written, so there's not going to be too much chatter on here for a while. School starts next week, and I'm knee deep in our first play of the year, so blog time will be at a premium. Thanks for stopping by!

Pub Card!

2011-08-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

It feels like I made this card so long ago....and I guess I did since it was back in February :) This is my last published card that I have going right now. I'm hoping to get more cards submitted coming up as I've missed the past several calls...boo hoo! But I have this one in the new PaperCrafts card idea special issue. I had such a good time making cards for this call, and I was glad to see that one got picked up. I used a batch of Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 patterned papers to make a wave for the shooting felt star to ride on, and dug for my favorite Star Prints set from PTI for the sentiment (I've been published twice with this set!). I loved the quilty look of the yellow papers :) Thanks for stopping by!

More Pub Goodness

2011-08-10T17:06:00.005-05:00

I realized that I didn't post one of my other pub cards from the Stamp It! issue. Probably because it's a Christmas card and it's August :) But here it is, and if you look closely at the layout, you'll notice I CASEd myself and made another one like it for my county fair card. Yes, I copied.....but I think it's OK to copy yourself! I wish I had a few more sheets of this patterned paper from Basic Grey's Jovial line because I'd make a bunch of these for my Christmas cards, which sadly won't be done by the time I go back to work. Hoping the upcoming scrapbook expo this weekend has some great Christmas papers that inspire me to get my last set of 20 cards done soon! Thanks for stopping by!

Back into Blogging...

2011-08-10T16:57:00.004-05:00

I'm back to my blog after a fun vacation in Wisconsin last week! It was such a good time, and the dogs could not have been any better, especially the puppy :) Before my blogging break, I wrote about the cards I entered in the county fair. Looking at the picture, the cards got (from left to right) 1st place, 1st place, 2nd place and 2nd place :) The hi and smile cards actually competed against each other :) I was pretty pleased on how things turned out! I'll be back tomorrow with a new project....thanks for stopping by!

More County Fair Goodness

2011-07-25T16:22:00.003-05:00

Things are still going swell en mi casa....it's nice to finally relax for a change. I went out with a friend this afternoon to see the last Harry Potter movie. I can't believe it's the first one I have seen in a movie theater. The rest have been off of HBO, or I rented them. I stand by my original opinion from when I read the book when it came out that the epilogue part was a bit unnecessary, and it didn't play well in the movie, in my opinion, but I still give it a big thumbs up, and a couple hankie salute as it's a big chunk of the past 12 years I have just said goodbye to between the books and movies. I'm looking forward to my 2 year old niece getting older and I can introduce the books to her. I can only hope she enjoys them half as much as I did.

Here's another of the cards that I submitted to the county fair. I used last week's color combo from the online card class, but I didn't have any time last week to get it done on time for any contests or anything like that. I took one of Kristina's sketches and adapted it to use the Background Basics set from PTI (a different background for each color) and some Thickers for the sentiment. It still looked a bit plain, so I punched out some butterflies with my Martha Stewart butterfly punch and put a small black rhinestone in the middle of each and it finished it off. You can't tell in the photo, but some of the squares are popped up with a foam dot so it's more 3D. Hoping this one goes over well too at the fair :) Thanks for stopping by!

TCP Color Challenge

2011-07-24T19:54:00.004-05:00

Wow....it's been a while since I posted! Lots going on here....had my nieces come to visit, then both my hubs and I came down with a cold. Ugh. Nothing worse than a summer cold! Sophie has been turning many corners this weekend. I figured out how to get her to leave Stella alone and not wrestle her so much (a little squirt bottle works wonders!), and she's slept through the night again. Best is that she decided to sleep in this morning until 9am...which made me feel loads better.

I was able to sit down this afternoon and make a card for this week's TCP challenge, to use watermelon red, pumpkin orange and grass green. I dug into my go-to stash of papers for the summer (My Mind's Eye Lime Twist) to find some tone on tone patterns to match, and I used one of my new sets from this past release and went to town. I did a stitched border around the entire craft layer, then I put some linen thread details on the edges. I put a grass die cut on the bottom using the polka dot paper. I didn't use the TCP grass die (I have the My Favorite Things one instead....although I will say I like the TCP one better!) I used versamark to stamp the small flower image on the background of the tag, then used brown chalk ink to put the smile sentiment on there. This is one of my cards I'm submitting for the county fair this upcoming week....hoping this one gets me a ribbon! Thanks for stopping by!

From the Brains of Babes, Part 2

2011-07-19T10:50:00.002-05:00

Here's Kendra's card....isn't she just the craftiest? :) I'm so proud :)

From the Brains of Babes....

2011-07-19T10:20:00.004-05:00

It's time for my nieces to come for their annual summer visit. We have to trim it down a day or so this summer, so we're trying to make the most of our days. The heat wave is really wiping us out (we took the dogs for a walk this morning, and Sophie laid down a few times because she got a bit overheated...until she got some water in her tank, then she made it home just fine), so we had to figure out what to do to have some fun INSIDE until the pool opens. We mixed up some homemade ice cream yesterday, and delivered the leftovers to our neighbors so we could make some more today (currently a batch of chocolate ice cream ingredients are cooling off in the fridge so we can make some for dessert tonight.....yesterday was bright green mint chocolate chip), and we're waiting for the pool to open this afternoon....when I can finally wear my new bathing suit! In the meantime, we're making cards. Lots of them. My nieces are super crafty, and they love taking cards I've made as samples and making one of their own with different supplies. Love it! So since there's a kids gallery over at the Online Card Camp, I asked if they wanted to make a card or two and they happily agreed. We worked on these two here for 3 hours yesterday, and as I type this, they're digging in for a few more hours of cardmaking :) This card is from my 10 year old niece....our next post will have Kendra's card. Thanks for stopping by today....stay cool!

Campy Card Part 2

2011-07-14T11:45:00.002-05:00

So I've written before that I have been working on my Christmas cards. This is so not the time of year to get Christmas paper, so I had to go through my stash to see what I had laying around. On the top of the pile I found this sheet of snowflake paper from Jillibean Soup, which so happens to match the color scheme for this week for my online card class. Sweet. So I made this super simple layout card using something else laying around on my craft table, Taylored Expression's Labels of Love. This is one of my favorite sets because not only does it come with great sentments of its own, but the images from Tiny Treats sets from PTI fit in there perfectly as well. A stitched border, some Picnic Plaid on the red layer (SU's Cherry Cobbler), and some Liquid Applique on the mitten cuffs later, and I had a card. Unfortunately the sentiment didn't fit in the label holder, so I cut a tag from the Tiny Tags die and split up the sentiment, then tied it on with some brown bakers twine. I wanted to put a snowflake on there so that it didn't look so plain, but the Cherry Cobbler ink was too dark on its own so I stamped it off and it works out well. I've been on a cork kick lately, so I cut a snowflake out of some cork using a die from The Cat's Pajamas. Just adds a little something extra, and keeps the color theme from this week going. I'm hoping to get another card or two done this afternoon with this color scheme, but now that I say that it won't happen :) Thanks for stopping by!

Campy Color Combo!

2011-07-13T16:30:00.002-05:00

It's another week with another color combination for the Online Card Camp. This weeks' color combo of neutrals with a splash of red is right up my alley, and I'm hoping to find some time to make another few cards before the end of the week. I used this week's Taylored Expressions sketch as my inspiration, and dug out one of my favorite sets from TE, Discover Your Wings. I can't get enough of the floral stamp! I went a bit out of the box and instead of using a big banner pendant, I put a seam binding bow (love that stuff!) and put a tag on it instead. I used one from Tiny Tags, a PTI die, and put some red paper in the window from the heart, making me want to use the With Love stamp from TE's Labels of Love set to finish it up. Originally I had planned on just having a stitched border, but I saw my PTI fence die when I went to get the label one out and decided to piece together a fence at the bottom, which I distressed with some ink. To finish off the card, I took some pearl pins and colored the tops with Copic markers to make them red. Done and done!

It's time for me to get cranking on my Christmas cards....I have 15 of them done, and the paper cut for 27 more on my craft table. Maybe a card or two more with this combo, and then it's jingle all the way in the hallway (you'll see what I mean when I post the card I'm working on). Thanks for stopping by!

A Twofer Card

2011-07-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Here's my other card for this week's challenge over at The Cat's Pajamas. I went along with the theme a bit better here and did a lot of pink, inspired by the pink balloons, as well as putting a big ole' cake full of candles on there. I used some new My Mind's Eye Lime Twist papers again, and made a few chipboard buttons out of some TCP dies and MME paper as well. I have several birthdays coming up, so I wonder who's going to get this card :) I also used this month's sketch from Jen delMuro's blog as my inspiration too :) Keeping it short....thanks for stopping by!

Simple Simon....

2011-07-10T12:49:00.004-05:00

I have two cards for this week's challenge over at The Cat's Pajamas, which was to use a few birthday-themed pics for inspiration. In the spirit of my students, I didn't read the directions so well and strayed far away from the colors in the pics. So I kinda went way out of the box here, and kinda used Jen's card as inspiration when she used the sunflower rosette die cut as the glow around the candle.....I just used the rosette and made a simple simon birthday card. I hope this still works as an entry for this week :) Actually, this one is going to be one of my county fair entries in a few weeks too :) Don't worry....the second card I'm posting tomorrow is more literal in using the pics! Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome Weekend!

2011-07-09T11:09:00.002-05:00

Even though I'm on summer vacation, I still enjoy the weekends because Pat is around to help out with the girls. We've gotten back into our routine and Sophie has become her old self again....knock on wood. She's made some big strides with the crate, and I'm hopeful that we can get her comfortable while we're gone by the time I go back to work in 7 weeks. Fingers crossed.....

I'm starting to run out of cards to post, which makes the fact that Pat has lots of car races he's watching this weekend perfect timing for me to knock a few challenges out of the park. This one was for MFT's guest DT challenge, and I made it for the Papercrafting Idol contest on a whim as well. Didn't get picked for either one, but I like how the card turned out regardless. Some friends are getting married in the fall, and now I have their card all done. Another use of seam binding to make a nice, soft bow. Man, is that stuff great! The challenge at MFT was to use texture, so I crinkled the layer with medallions, did lots of paper distressing, and used lots of different textures (cork, scallops, seam binding, felt, etc.). A little tag from PTI's Tiny Tag set with congrats stamped on it from the Notched Tag set from MFT made it fit the Idol contest...again as an afterthought.

Hope you have some great weekend plans set. We went to the classic car show in our downtown last night with Sophie, who was the star of the night with lots of great meet n' greets with kids and adults (and a nice policeman too)....as well as lots of pieces of dropped popcorn she managed to snag (naughty girl!), and today we're going to a local jazz festival for the first group, who is playing some New Orleans style jazz....after watching Treme on HBO, I'm turning into a big jazz fan, so Sophie and I will go and listen.....then it's the big test...can she behave long enough for us to watch a movie in the basement, which we have not done since she came home 6 weeks ago. Enjoy your plans.....thanks for stopping by!

The Cat's Pajamas.....A Bit Late

2011-07-07T10:03:00.004-05:00

Oh my did Sophie have a bad night last night, and I think that I did a bad bad thing......she started to melt down in the crate at 3am.....and she kept going for almost an hour. Once she kind of settled down a bit, she'd start again. When she paused herself, I let her out of the crate, let her out to pee......then I went back to bed with her in the spare bedroom like we usually do in the morning. Only now it was 4am. I spent yesterday trying a new method of crate training, and obviously it backfired. Miserably. This morning was filled with our old routine, and hoping that it does pay off overnight. Worst comes to worse, she starts sleeping in the bedroom with us out of the crate....but not on our bed. I tip my hat to all of you who are parents and go through all the trials and tribulations with kids.....which is a much bigger deal than a puppy. I just want her to be a well adjusted girl!

Sorry about that. I just needed to vent out into cyberspace, whether you read it or not :) Now on to the card. I loved the sketch from last week's TCP challenge, and I loved the new PJ bear stamp with the sunflower. I stamped the flower on a separate piece of paper and then stuck it on the oval so that it would fit off the edge. I went through the stash and found some brown, yellow and green papers (brown and green from MME and Yellow from October Afternoon) and went to town with the paper distressor and sewing machine. And the seam binding....how delicious! I love tying bows with this stuff....it's like buttah! :) I added in a tag for the sentiment, and I used my Copic airbrush with the tag still in the die cut to color it in. I think I might use this for one of my county fair cards....I have to get cracking on that :) Thanks for stopping by!

Camp Card, Take Two :)

2011-07-06T13:54:00.004-05:00

So Sophie had a freak show morning where even after a 4 mile walk, she came back wired with more energy than when we left the house. After spazzing out in the house, then the yard, then the house again, she FINALLY fell asleep (my husband said that kicking in the turbocharger is bad for fuel economy.....and he was right) and has been doing so for almost 4 hours. A completed list of chores later, I had time left over to make a card. It's been a doggie summer on my block as my neighbor (who I just love to pieces) got a "new to her" yorkie yesterday. My girls are looking forward to meeting their new pint-sized boyfriend at the fence, and we got him a few toys to play with as a welcome to the neighborhood gift. It was so much fun to get toys that are yorkie sized, instead of labbie sized....they're so TINY! It's like buying baby clothes....they're cute because they're small. So I went to make a card for her to go along with the gift using this week's camp color scheme. I went a bit vintage on this one with distressing, and I took a cue from one of the inspiration cards this morning and grabbed some Stella and Rose paper from MME for the bottom pattern. I would have never made this card in these colors otherwise, but I'm liking how the whole thing came together with one of my fav sets from PTI, Bird Watching. The sentiment just sealed the deal that she would get the card :) The sketch inspiration comes from ths week's Card Patterns sketch....no swirlie for me, but a few buttons on the top corner kept the color scheme going. Thanks for stopping by!

Card Camp--Week 2

2011-07-06T10:27:00.003-05:00

I love summer, but why is it that once the 4th of July rolls around, days start to go really quickly? This past weekend was super busy, especially with Pat being home and going lots of places with the dogs, and we're having trouble getting back into our routine here back at the ranch, especially with puppy training. We took a day off of crate training, and we're working our way back to where we were before. Frustrating! Separation anxiety bites.

Anyway, it's taken me until Wednesday, but I got a card done for this week's color challenge for the online card camp. I think I'd redo something about it if I made it again, but I'm not sure what? Maybe the ribbon on the bottom? Luckily I have a little bit of time today to get another few cards done with this color combo, and I have a good idea already of what I'm going to do. Which means if I want to get it done, along with my chores, I should probably stop typing here :) Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 4th of July.....on the 5th :)

2011-07-05T12:28:00.003-05:00

How bad is this? I had a stack of 4th of July cards done, and then they got buried and I forgot to send them! Trust me, they are on their way to their destinations as I type this. Whoops! It was a crazy busy weekend around here. Went to a BBQ in the big city at my inlaws house, then did the 4th of July parade and the dog park (with water!), and poor Sophie got herself super tired out, but had trouble sleeping with the fireworks geting her all in a tizzy. So nice to have a friendly dog I can bring anywhere :)
Back to the card. I got the new Firecracker set from MFT with these cards in mind and carved my way through a Bo Bunny sheet of PP that I got at Archivers the last day of school. I started to color the dresses on the little Pure Innocence girl, and got tired of it after 2 of them (I made 6 of these total) so I just went and paper pieced them instead. Much better :) Some bakers twine on the tag and star accents on the side of the little girl, and done. I though she needed a little extra somethin somethin so I used some spica pens on the sparkler and the star in her hair, and then put some freckles on her cheeks. Love the look, saw it somewhere, so thought I'd card-lift it :) Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Snaps! Didja See......?

2011-07-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

Oh my! I'm still so excited about this! I spent yesterday hanging out with my BFF and when I came home to check my email, I found out that I am the Swanky Stamper for The Cat's Pajamas for July! Oh my, oh my! I'm not normally a horn tooter, so I'll let Alma's post HERE speak for me. Yippee!!!

One Last Campy Card...

2011-07-01T11:31:00.003-05:00

I just had to crank out one more card with this week's color combination of white, purple, pink, orange and blue. I have to admit I was not a big fan of this combo at first as I tend to shy away from bright colors, but I have had fun working with them....and for a few of the cards it got me away from using kraft as a card base :) I have a friend who I work with and we also walk our dogs every Friday at a local park with a lake....3 miles later the two of us have 4 very tired dogs. Her birthday is coming up so I wanted to make her a card. I had this one sketched out on my table and didn't know who it would be for....glad to know it will have a good home soon. I finally went ahead and got Beautiful Blooms II from PTI as I ended up with the full compliment of dies, so I should have the stamps to go along with it. Glad I do as they work well for color challenges. Instead of stamping a background, I used white with a black stitched frame, and put some strips of color on the bottom anchored with baby brads, then tied some charcoal twine from The Twinery in the black buttons in the middle of the flowers. I was pretty irritated that the sentiment didn't stamp cleanly on the acetate, but I went over it with a Copic marker and it looks much better now. I hope you all have a great weekend planned, whether you are celebrating Canada Day today, or the 4th of July on Monday. Thanks for stopping by!

July Already?

2011-07-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Oh man, I can't believe that it's July! It seems like summer goes so fast from this point forward. I love June because it just creeps forward nice and slow....now all we'll see in the Sunday ads are back to school supplies. Depressing. Luckily there is still a month and a half of summer to go!

I made this one for a dear friend using a sketch from the Go To Sketch call from several months ago. I kept it a bit simple because I wanted to get it done quickly, but I like how it turned out. I went with some banner die cuts from PTI and decorated them with die cuts and foam letters, and then used some For the Record paper from Echo Park for the patterns. Easy peasy :) Thanks for stopping by!

More Campy Goodness!

2011-06-30T13:56:00.002-05:00

I'm having a blast making cards for camp :) Today's challenge dealt with sketches and the idea of balance. I had never really thought about balance on cards, but now I'll have to keep the concept of placing stuff on my cards in mind. I went with the asymetrical sketch with this card, and originally I was going to have a ribbon slide with a sentiment, but then I thought there would be too much white on the card (the white flowers are very white), so I went with some Thickers. I originally wanted to say "hello" but I had used the "o's" on a halloween card a few years ago, so I had to try something else. I had the letters to spell "friend" and I thought the parentheses looked fun alongside the sentiment, so I went with it. I need to get some more Thickers.....anyone know where I can get a good deal on some? :) I had the color combo take a back seat to the neutrals of white, kraft and black. I hope it's OK I went with two neutrals instead of just the white :) I dug out my Background Basics stamps from PTI which I had not used yet and put a different pattern on each of the rectangles of color, and it's one of those things that you have to blow up the picture to see on the computer, but in real life it looks nifty. I kept the kraft layer plain except for the stitched black border to ground the card. For some reason I got inspired to put some rhinestones around the flowers as a finishing touch, and I like the finished product. Now which friend to send this too..... :) Thanks for stopping by....there will probably be another post or two today with some more fun projects using this color combo!

Clear Window Card...Take One!

2011-06-30T12:10:00.002-05:00

Well, I tried this technique from Online Card Camp of having a clear window, and now I want to try it again because I'm not so sure I'm excited about how this turned out. I went with 5 little windows instead of one big one, and put some different colored circles behind the window. The flower I picked out was a bit too small too. Grrr..... Good thing is I know my friend's daughter will enjoy getting this card while she's at camp this week :)

Keeping this short as the girls are TIRED from a big 3 1/2 mile walk this morning, and Sophie came and ran errands with me to the farmer's market as well as some local pet stores, and she's extra tired (she has not moved for the past 30 mintues.....I can't even see her breathe!) so I need to take advantage of that :) Thanks for stopping by!

Didn't Quite Make It......

2011-06-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

on time with this card. It was for a My Favorite Things Wednesday sketch challenge, and I had it done but never put it on Splitcoast for some reason. It didn't quite make it in the mail either, and it was for my mom as a get well card from her knee surgery (which she had a month and a half ago and she's quite well by this point). So I guess it goes in the stash. Guess what I used on it? My Mind's Eye Lime Twist paper again! :) I tossed a few flower die cuts from Flower Fusion #4 from PTI on there (my favorite flower shape out of the bunch so far). Thanks for stopping by!

This Card is Not Original.....

2011-06-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

I don't CASE very often, but I needed a birthday card ASAP and I saw this on Michelle Wooderson's blog post from a few weeks back when she talked about sketches, and it worked for me :) It's not a complete and total case as I used different patterned paper, and I went for blue little flowers instead of pink ones, but the rest.....spot-on idea mooching. I had to go original a bit with the colored pearls as I tried to underline birthday with stitching and it was crooked.....which ruined the card, so after a lot of panicking, I colored a strip of mini pearls with a blue Copic marker and covered up the stitching holes good enough. I went a bit out of the box as well with the red flowers (from this year's PTI anniversary set, which I {heart}), and popped a few of them up with a pop dot. Thanks for stopping by!

Card Camp!

2011-06-28T11:04:00.003-05:00

I love my Sophie, but because of her puppiness, we're having to postpone our annual theatre bonanza out in NYC until the fall--big boo hoo. I need to have some sort of fun outlet for these warm months, and the Online Card Camp definately fits the bill. Had not planned on signing up for it, but now that I have my first project done, I can't wait to start the one for today. Nice spark to the mojo. So here's what I came up with for the first challenge, which was a color challenge. They showed the colors in circle swatches, and I ran with the circle idea and made a clean, graphic card, which I really don't do very often (and I know why I don't use white card bases...it's hard to get a good picture of them with a white background....this was my 3rd attempt at a picture!). Initially this was supposed to have a marker border around the circles, but I kinda screwed it up a bit, so I went with cardstock strips instead :) I don't know if you can see the brads in the corners where the strips meet, but it's a little flair on there. I dug deep in the card stash and went with patterned papers from 4 different manufacturers (clockwise from purple: Cosmo Cricket, Crate Paper, and My Mind's Eye) and went with some vinal Thickers I got off of the clearance rack at Archivers for the happy birthday sentiment. Now to figure out whose birthday card this will be :) Going to stop now as I have a fun idea for today's challenge and want to get going while Sophie is sleeping....thanks for stopping by!

The Story of Cupcake...

2011-06-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

So my brother in law asked my niece on Easter if Cupcake wanted to meet me. I was quite curious about who/what this Cupcake was. A new toy? Turns out my niece (who's 2 1/2) is Cupcake...it's her canine alter ego. She wiggles her butt and comes up to you and sniffs your face and licks your cheeks. Cute stuff :) When out at Archivers with my mom when I had a 30% off coupon to burn, I saw this Unity stamp of a cutie patootie dog and immediately thought it was Cupcake :) I finally got around to making a card with it to send to her, and "Cupcake" is quite fun to color and shade too. The sentiment comes from a quite old Unity set (Cupcakes a la Yummy). I wish I had gotten more of the Max and Whiskers Basic Grey paper as I have made lots of doggie themed projects lately. Speaking of doggies, today is Sophie's 6 month birthday! What a good girl...she has obedience school tonight, and she's being bumped up to the "accelerated" curriculum because she's learning and retaining everything so quickly--atta girl! Keeping this one nice and short.....thanks for stopping by!

Happy Monday!

2011-06-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a good weekend....I'm learning quickly that maybe a puppy is not such a bad thing after all.....Pat did a lot of work out in the yard, and my job was to keep an eye on Sophie. So after some long walks and training sessions, she cashed out for hours at a crack and I was able to stamp (and do some inside chores too). Stamping is a heckuva lot more fun than yard work :)

Here's my project for the day...I have several friends (some of whom read my blog) that I wanted to send a card to just 'cause, so I'm making 3 batches of these, each with a different color scheme to send out. Can't remember where I got this sketch from, but I actually tried to keep it pretty simple and just did a lot of stitching around it. It seems like the only papers I've been using lately are the My Mind's Eye Lime Twist collection, but they're on the top of my stack and I just love the colors! I went for some PTI Tag It stamps (I think this was #1 and #3) and when it was done, I thought it looked a bit plain until I put some bigger rhinestones on the sides of the main image and it sealed the deal.

And to close it out....I've had a few requests to see what Sophie's looking like lately, so here's my favorite from a photo shoot we did in the yard the other week...she's even bigger now (actually tomorrow she hits the 6 month old mark!). Thanks for stopping by!

Getting Back into Blogging...

2011-06-26T12:34:00.002-05:00

So I've slacked, even though it's summer vacay and I can blog all I want, and I have tons of projects to put up here. So I'm planning on getting something up here every day for a while (be prepared for some Easter cards in July!) :) Here's what I came up with for this week's challenge over with The Cat's Pajamas, which was to use one of their bear stamps. I was bummed at first because I don't have any of their PJ Bear stamps, but then I remembered I had this guy :) I colored him the other day when the power went out over here (we had tornadoes a few miles away the other day while I had Sophie at doggie school, but did we lose power? No. We lose it 2 days later...huh?) and I couldn't do any sewing on cards, so I just colored, and colored, and colored a lot of stuff....stay tuned to see it this week. Anyhoo, I colored this bear, and then went around in my sketch book to find something to use him with, and I think this was an old Sketch For You To Try but I didn't label where I found it from. More My Mind's Eye Lime Twist Go Fly a Kite papers....a splurge purchase, but I've used it a bunch so far. I've been hooked on the baker's twine lately, so I looked to see what color I had to use with this card and settled on orange. A few stars as accents as well as an airbrushed tag and I'll call it done. This will go in the stash to use for my nephew's birthday in the fall as I always run out of time to get it done then due to working on the fall play :) Thanks for the challenge, TCP, and thanks for stopping by!

For Mike.....

2011-06-19T11:00:00.004-05:00

Happy Father's Day! I have to say it's not my favorite day of the year, as I lost mine 9 years ago, but I do have a fantastic father in law that I spent a lot of thought into making his card, which you see here. I dug deep in the stash and used some Basic Grey Pyrus paper as it looked manly enough and went to work using a sketch that Papercrafts magazine had for a pub call I didn't get to. The stitching on the letters is supposed to be crooked....but looks goofy anyway. Nichole Heady always does that on her cards and it looks great. I need to perfect my technique :) I had a spare die cut from Turning a New Leaf on my table, so even though the greens are redundant (would have used a different paper if I had planned this ahead of time), I put it in there anyway and it finished the whole thing off. The card got my niece's seal of approval when she saw it on my inlaw's table when visiting today, which reminds me I need to make a Cupcake card for her. Why is Cupcake capitalized? Stay tuned for the story (it's a cutie!). I'm off to work on some projects for the Papercrafts pub call (have not submitted anything in a while!) and then getting some DQ after dinner and raising a Blizzard in my dad's memory--he was a big fan of the frozen treat! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Turtle Birthday!

2011-06-16T10:23:00.004-05:00

I've been on a tear lately getting cards done, and I have several I need to crank out in the next two days, so I'm hoping that I can tucker Sophie out long enough today to get a few more cards taken care of. I made this on on Tuesday and I just love how it turned out. My niece is turning 10 soon and when I asked her what she wants for her birthday, and she said a turtle. I would have loved to have sent her a turtle in her with her birthday present, just to irk her parents :) but I went with a turtle instead. Didn't know if I had a turtle stamp anywhere, but Tiny Treats: Birthday to the rescue! I had not used my limitless layers dies yet, so I combined them, along with an older Card Patterns sketch and I went to work. The shell of the turtle has a layer of Glassy Glaze over it, and I colored the pearls with some Copics to make them green and coordinate better than just plain white ones. More Mind's Eye Lime Twist on this one, and I am continuing my addiction to baker's twine using some green stuff I got from My Favorite Things a while ago and had not cracked into yet. I fed the twine through the lacey loops in the layer die cut, and tossed a bow on the side for good measure. Oh well...I should probably get cracking on my Father's Day card while someone is dozing off. Thanks for stopping by!

High Flyin' Sketch For You to Try!

2011-06-13T18:46:00.003-05:00

Continuing the trend of getting challenges done left and right while crafting, I made this card for my husband's cousin's little man, who turned 1 over the weekend. I got an envelope of happy mail from My Favorite Things on Saturday, and I've been itching to use this kite die since it came out, but now it's in my hot little hands to play with :) I used it, along with Bitty Baby Blessings from PTI to make a focal point, and filled up some of the white space with some very neglected red SU brads in my stash. The kite theme continued with the Lime Twist paper I snagged at Archivers last week. I thought the kite looked kind of plain, so I put a button in the middle, then put a few paper bow ties on the linen thread kite string. Lots of stitching later and I called it a card. Done and mess cleaned up before Sophie got up from her nap. Nice. Speaking of Sophie, I'm typing this during her "Power Hour" between 5 and 7pm, when she tends to be the most naughty, so I had better walk away from the computer and see which flip flop she is currently munching on as that has been her naughty tool of choice today :) Thanks for stopping by!

Finally a MIM Challenge!

2011-06-12T17:21:00.002-05:00

I have wanted to play along with the Papertrey Ink Make It Monday challenges for so long, but life just kind of got in the way. So life is still in my way, but it's sleeping on my couch with her big sister right now so I can get some challenges done. I did another double dip on this one and combined the fun tissue paper technique along with the sketch over at Card Patterns this week (#119). I'll bet that the tissue paper part doesn't show up on this with the photo, but I covered some Basics paper from Basic Grey with some of the lovely tissue that comes with Papertrey purchases, then stitched it and put brads in the corners. If I did this again (and I may do this for a small batch of Christmas cards when I get them started up soon), I'd make sure more wrinkles showed up in the tissue...I smoothed it out too much I think. I grabbed my Year of Flowers mini set (so glad they made this because I liked all the big sets but didn't want to purchase every one of them...) and took my favorite, the lily of the valley, stamp, and used some Fresh Snow ink and dabbed it on with a Q-tip for the flowers. Nichole does this on her blog all the time and, again, I finally got around to it. For the elements that are supposed to be on either side of the focal point, I went for a bow, and then a tag that says feel better.....I hope my mom doesn't read this because I'm going to be sending this card to her soon. She had her knee replaced about 3 weeks ago, and she's been such a trooper getting her PT done all on her own on her days off from official PT, and I know the knee still aches, but I'm hoping that it will feel better soon...hence the feel better stamp from Tiny Tags (love that little heart die!). Double significance bonus...I love my mom (so I had a heart tag) and she was born in May (so I picked lily of the valley). Thanks for stopping by...I can't wait to see what the challenge is for tomorrow so I can get it done too during Sophie's nap time. Geez, if someone didn't know that Sophie was a puppy, they'd think I have a kid given how obsessed I am with her naps :)

My Buttons are Nekkid!

2011-06-12T08:32:00.004-05:00

I feel like I've spent lots of time lately making thank you cards! This batch of 3 that I made was for my birthday, which was about a month ago. With everything that has been going on this past month, I had not completed any of the cards, and I didn't want the generosity of my mom, my inlaws, or my grandma to go unnoticed (Archivers gift cards and a bag full of tortilla soup mix packets is good stuff!). So when I had a few minutes on Friday afternoon after I took the girls for another 2+ mile walk to the library to tire them out (didn't work as my husband got home shortly after we got back and Sophie gets wound up when he comes back), I went sketch hunting as I'm hoping to complete some more challenges now that summer is here. I decided on this week's Taylored Expressions sketch and I hunkered down with some Floral Fusion sets from PTI, as well as using a little florish from the new Labels set I got from TE. I used some papers from the Lime Twist line from My Mind's Eye for the flowers, and I also had a pack of twine that coordinated with the paper that I splurged on (courtesy of the Archivers birthday gift card)...but I didn't want that color twine in the buttons because it wouldn't match all the flowers. I'm very type A, so it would bother me. So I went with naked buttons....something I rarely do these days...and I'm OK with how it turned out :) The tags with the sentiment looked plain as well, but I had my Labels of Love set on my desk and there are some cute flourishes in there, and the smallest fit the bill, and with a rhinestone to set it off, they are all done. Simple! Easy enough to do even when your 5 1/2 month old puppy is on a tear running around your house with her squeaky chipmunk...at least I knew what her mouth was up to because the squeaks kept coming, and coming, and coming.... :) Hope you have a great day planned....we're going to the local marsh at some point to take advantage of the walking trails there. Our weather went from steamy crazy 95 earlier this week to 60 today so walks are much more pleasant :) Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Beluga......

2011-06-10T12:38:00.004-05:00

In the interest of using my time as wisely as possible while Sophie is sleeping, I cranked out a card for the Card Patterns Sketch Blog #118, as well as played along with this week's challenge over at The Cat's Pajamas and made a card using some fabric. I hope that felt counts as fabric :) The minute I saw the sketch, I thought of the wavy part on the bottom being a wave for the whale to pop out of (hence the whale set from Cat's Pajamas), and I guess in my paper-piecing frenzy I made the whale a beluga, which in turn makes me think of the Raffi kids song Baby Beluga :) Once I had the papers from My Mind's Eye Fine and Dandy collection all picked out I was off to the races. putting this one together quickly, having the sun and cloud serve as the circle element in the left hand corner. Keeping this short as I think Sophie is starting to wander around and I'd like to keep my furniture teeth mark free :) Thanks for stopping by!

Time for Thanks

2011-06-08T09:28:00.004-05:00

Today is my first official day of no school, and it started REALLY early when my oldest, Stella, started wandering around at 4:30, which woke up the puppy, so I was standing on my deck, letting them out before we settled down for a nap until 6:30 (no way those girls are getting fed at 4:30 am.....would set way too dangerous of a precident--lol!). We got out to take our morning walk before the heat really went up....it's a scorcher again today, and now that there are two sleeping dogs in my house (and they'll probably sleep until 11:30!), I can get the blog updated :)

I have two examples of thank you notes I wrote. The first one (the orange one) was for a woman on the Education Foundation at school who donated 100+ prom dresses to our theater program, which makes my life easier for many shows to come. I used some Stella and Rose papers on this one...love the oranges and blues together. The second (the blue one) went out to some coworkers who bailed me out when I got stuck in Florida over spring break when Southwest cancelled flights and I had to miss a day of school. In retrospect, I should have enjoyed that extra 36 hours more as the roller coaster of Sadie, musical, and puppy were non stop once we got back :) I used some new Cosmo Cricket on this card, and again, love the blues and greens together. Nice and simple sketch, and another great use of Tag Its from PTI....it looks great with the felt flower sticking out the side.

Time to get going on some new cards to make. Need to take advantage of sleeping pups while I can! Thanks for stopping by!

School's Out For the Summer!

2011-06-04T11:43:00.005-05:00

Wow! It's been almost a month since I last posted on the blog! There has been a lot of stuff that's gone on during that time:

*finished the school musical, which drained me physically and emotionally

*got a puppy, Sophie, who is draning me physically and emotionally

*finished the school year, which drained me....well, you get the idea :)

I'm glad that I have 2 1/2 months with only stamping and dog training on my plate because the batteries are in serious need of recharging. I have not had much "me" time lately, and I struggle with "me" time="selfish" time, which I know is not the case. I've made very little in the card department in the past month, and I've really felt better every time I've gotten some creativity out of the system. The projects here use the same sketch (from Taylored Expressions) and inspiration from a card that Jennifer McGuire made for My Favorite Things on their blog somewhat recently as well. It's not that I have been lacking in inspiration, but when you have a sketch that works, and 20+ cards to make, you might as well run with it, right?

The first card is a sample of 3 that I made: a get well card for my mom, who had knee replacement surgery a few weeks ago, a hi there card for my grandma, and a thank you note for my student assistant this year who was a complete rock star. I dug into my Echo Park stash and used of the For the Record paper that I've been staring at lovingly since April but have not had the time to play around with. I went with some red felt flowers cut out of some Papertrey dies, and used my Turning a New Leaf dies to add some leafy wonder in there too. Loved how it filled up the empty space.

The next card is one of 15 that I made for my department chair at school...they are for the Education Foundation. Same layout, but a hodgepodge of October Afternoon (polkadot and text) and My Mind's Eye (gingham) paper, and some of the new PTI fruit line of stamps. Hey, I'm a teacher....I never met an apple stamp I didn't like :)

Lastly is a birthday card (a VERY belated birthday card) I made for my BFF's daughter, who turned the big 1-3.....a month ago--she just got the card today :) I used the same style, but put some butterflies with some clear overlay stamping on the top. Paper is old from a Crate Paper line.

I'm glad that today was the last day of school so that I can get my blog up and running again! Luckily Sophie is a fantastic napper :) Thanks for stopping by!

Where I've Been and What I've Been Up To....

2011-05-08T16:34:00.002-05:00

So I've been MIA on the blog for a bit.....here's why. As I've written about on the blog many times, my labrador retriever, Sadie (seen here) had been fighting osteosarcoma (bone cancer in people-speak) since September. She went through amputation of her front right leg, and countless rounds of chemo to keep her tickin. The cancer spread to her lungs, but we thought we had that part under control, despite the side effects of the new treatment. Then on April 27th, she threw us a whammy at 2:30 in the morning when she had what we thought was a seizure, but turned out to be her heart essentially stopping and starting itself again. After a sleepless night and a long day of her having more of these frightening episodes, we brought her into the oncologist only to find out that, from what we could tell, the cancer had spread to her heart, and it just couldn't find a rhythm to keep ticking on its own. In addition to this, we think a tumor was somewhere either in her brain or spine, causing her to have great difficulty walking. Pat and I made the painful decision to release her from her pain that afternoon. It is the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life. All of this may sound silly to some, but I don't have kids, and she was definately my baby. We're marching on because, well, you just have to. We've made contact with a few rescue organizations in the area, and hopefully we will be meeting a few pups this week, one of whom may come home with us. This new pup would not be a replacement, but a tribute to all the love we had for Sadie. We miss her terribly.

The day after Sadie died, I took off of school because I just needed to stay home and mope for a while. I wanted to thank those who took the time to help me out at school (I left in kind of a hurry that Wednesday, and found people to take my classes on Thursday), as well as friends and neighbors who were so supportive to Pat, myself, and "Minus One"--my neighbor's nickname for Sadie after the surgery. So what does a good crafter do? Spend hours in the craft room, with favorite movies playing on the DVD player, keeping a Kleenex box handy at all times. I used a sketch from the recent Go To sketches call from Paper Crafts and dug out my Max and Whiskers paper pad from Basic Grey and hopped to it. I used my new favorite of Simple Sentiments from PTI and layering it as a background, and I used a random paw print stamp to put prints behind it. I still have not been able to write in any of these, but I know those who will receive them will understand.

On top of all this, we started tech week for the spring musical last Monday, so I spent 14+ hours at school every day last week, with this week to be more of the same. It's caused me to not "miss" Sadie so much as I have not been in the house very much, but this weekend the whole situation has hit me. It's going to be a bumpy ride when the play is over, but I know I'll come out stronger at the other end. Thanks for "listening" to my diatribe here.....and for stopping by.

Last of the Limelights

2011-04-28T09:24:00.003-05:00

This is just turning into a week of endings.....more about that later, but today is the last of the Limelight sketches. I've had a blast playing along with them, and trying to keep up with my amazingly talented DT brethren over at the Limelight. I did this week's sketch with a twist, and I love how it turned out. The initial sketch was the bottom one....a circle. I finally dove into my Flower Fusion sets from PTI and was happy with the result. Instead of having scallops under the ribbon sentiment like the sketch asked for (and was this week's focus of the card), I went for some grass die cuts above so it looks like the flowers are growing out of something. I dug out my air brush for the blue background on the sentiment (glad I went with the cheapie one because I use it about that much), and went scrounging around for some brown gingham ribbon in my scrap drawer and found just enough for the tie offs for the sentiment. Have not done that treatment in a while, and it was nice to do again. I used some Quite Contrary papers from MME from the stash. I love the colors, and was in a bit of a stampers block (for reasons I'll go into later) when I made this so it made things easier.

But when I was done, I just had a big circle element. So I made a 4.75 square card base and took some of the tone on tone papers from the QC collection and made a stitched background. Pearls in the corners finished off the look.

Enough about my card. Here are the details of YOU'D like to play along with us this week:

**Use the sketch provided and crank out a card with SCALLOPS

**Key word for SCS upload is LLPC072

**Post a comment with a link to your card on right here on this post by Sunday, May 1st, at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.)

Make sure to stop by Mandy's blog to see what beautious creation she came up with this week, as well as the rest of the DT (and to see what goodies you could win if you play along with us too...there's a great Basic Grey prize pack up for grabs this week)! Thanks for stopping by!

Ripped From the Pages of Papercrafts Magazine...

2011-04-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

My 2nd pub card is out on newsstands :) It was fun when I took my costume crew to Joanns to buy a bunch of fabric and I saw this near the checkout line. I will totally admit I made sure to show all my kiddos....they were impressed :) This one was supposed to be my BIL's birthday card until it got picked up and I was too lazy to make another one just like it (the circles on the sides were stressful to line up!). It uses one of my go-to sets, Star Prints from PTI, and the miraculous thing about this card is....no patterned paper! A rare sighting on my blog! Just lots of manly blue and green with Simply Chartreuse, Enchanted Evening and Blueberry Sky, with some kraft and cream for good measure :) It's one of their online cards this time around, which you can see here but it makes me sad as when I went to get the link, my card was missing...so I guess you'll just have to settle for the little pic in the magazine, or look here :(

Tomorrow's the Day of Reckoning for Sadie. My fingers are tightly crossed for a good batch of chest xrays, because I just can't handle thinking of the alternative. We had a good "talk" recently and I told her she had to keep on truckin' until the end of the school year. She panted and then gave me lovies, so I think she got me :) Thanks for stopping by!

It's Limelight Time!

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again where I disappear from the blog for stretches at a time. I'm hoping to find some time to do some preposting this weekend for the next couple of weeks while we go down the home stretch for Aida. Our costumes are almost done (phew!), and I have a pretty good handle on everything else that needs to be done (big phew!). This busy-ness makes every time I get to sit down and stamp extra important, and it was great to have a fantastic sketch from Mandy over at Limelight to work with! The focus this time around was scallops, so I went for a scallop border at the top....and then just went through the paper stash to see what tickled my fance to figure out the theme. I have this paper from Echo Park's Little Boy line that was calling my name, so I went with my favorite PTI set, Star Prints and made a fun kiddo card. Now who to send this to? Hmmmmmmm....... Enough about my card. Here are the details of YOU'D like to play along with us this week: **Use the sketch provided and crank out a card with SCALLOPS **Key word for SCS upload is LLPC070 **Post a comment with a link to your card on right here on this post by Sunday, April 17th, at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.) Make sure to stop by Mandy's blog to see what beautious creation she came up with this week, as well as the rest of the DT (and to see what goodies you could win if you play along with us too)! Thanks for stopping by!

Sorry 'Bout That!

2011-04-10T10:39:00.002-05:00

Well, that's what I get for starting a pre-posted blog post, and never finishing it. I WOULD have had it done, but I was on spring break (hence the preposting) and I got caught in the Southwest Airlines flight cancellations and I got 2 extra days of spring break in Florida because of it, keeping me away from updating my blog :) Then my labbie Sadie....well, her cancer is back, this time in her lungs which is to be expected at some point. We were just hoping not so soon. So she's on a more aggressive treatment that is really putting her through the ringer, so I'm spending more time with her.

BUT then yesterday I got a phone call from my BIL. My sweet niece, who's 2 1/2, was, in her words, "screwing around in her crib and fell out and broke her leg." Yes, she actually said that :) So I had to get a card ready to go to her ASAP because I know she likes them. She's a big monkey fan (perhaps she was channeling her inner monkey when she climbed out of her crib?), so I wanted to make a monkey themed card, but it couldn't have too many embellishments, because she is 2 1/2 after all and I don't want anything to become a potential choking hazard. So I hit the Card Patterns sketch blog for some inspiration, and once I saw this weeks' sketch I knew exactly what to do. I had this Hero Arts stamp set (Playful Animals) for some time, but never put ink to it. So this guy became my focal point. Then for some reason I got obsessed with using this October Afternoon text paper, and combined it with these silly monkeys on the paper as well. I took a page from my PTI blogging buddy, Becky (see her blog on my side bar....she's GOOD), and used PTI's Simple Sentiments to make a background of get well wishes on the top of the card. I then stamped monkeys underneath in versamark to give it some dimension. To make the card not so brown, I used some Simply Chartreuse for the scallops, as well as for a branch, which gives just the right amount of zing. My inlaws are going to see her on Tuesday, so I'm sending this, along with some Paul Frank alphabet cards for her to play with as she's going to be sitting still for a while. She's a huge Julius fan, and Paul Frank's illustrations are precious :)

It's another busy week around here with all 3 of my crews in full swing, and we just bought a fresh batch of material to work with for some dresses to keep us occupied this week :) I'm really looking forward to summer already. Thanks for stopping by!

2011-04-04T07:00:00.001-05:00

TGIF--Not!

2011-04-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

It's spring break this week, and as I write this I'm hoping that I am having a good time on vacation :) It's sad that it's Friday because that means the daily grind is coming back on Monday and it's been nice to take a breather from theater and school.
This is actually my best friend's birthday card....he's turning 35 over the summer, so my only challenge is to not lose it :) Went back to the Stella and Rose paper line from My Mind's Eye on this one....love that stuff! I saw this idea to circle a number on the paper all over the place, so it was fun to try it. Looked plain at first but then the arrow makes a nice finishing touch. I figured out how to make the circle by just nesting my Nesties as I put them through my Cuttlebug. Easy peasy! Hope you have a fun weekend planned....thanks for stopping by!

Limelight Time!

2011-03-31T07:50:00.000-05:00

So I don't follow directions very well. I did OK with the sketch, but I kinda missed on the focus, which was supposed to be birthdays. I'm in an Easter card mood, trying to make 20 of them in time (up to 6 now!), so when I saw the flowers on the sketch, I automatically thought of using eggs instead. I'm lovin how this turned out, especially since I'm not a big fan of pastels. At all. I got a pack of Echo Park Springtime paper for the purposes of making Easter cards, and I like that I'm using the same colors over and over again. Makes planning easier. I took a PTI double ended banner die and cut them so that the tail end would poke our the other side.

Enough about my card. Here are the details of YOU'D like to play along with us this week:

**Use the sketch provided and crank out a BIRTHDAY card (unlike me)!

**Key word for SCS upload is LLPC069

**Post a comment with a link to your card on right here on this post by Sunday, April 3rd, at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.)

Another Fun Sketch

2011-03-30T07:00:00.002-05:00

Loved the sketches from the Go To call, especially this one because I could use a ton of patterned paper. I love the color scheme in this My Mind's Eye pad (it's the Stella and Rose Mabel pad), and I had fun with this card. It would be neat in the future with some spare time to make some fun kid cards with this, or even a back to school card (ha, back to school....it's spring break right now...too far ahead!). Thanks for stopping by!

Berry Sweet!

2011-03-28T07:00:00.003-05:00

Keeping this one nice and short (as I'm writing it 2 weeks prior to today and I'm trying to get this week's posts done early!) :) This card was from the Go To sketches call...and I think I strayed a bit too far from the sketch, but I like the end result and plan on using it often, maybe for Christmas cards even. Used more fun Tiny Treats stamps, and combined the strawberries with some Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety paper, and I used the picnic plaid impression plate with it because I though it looked like a strawberry basket that you'd find at the grocery store. Thanks for stopping by!

Finally Made It!

2011-03-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

It has been a crazy month of March with the musical getting started, and starting the ginormous task of making a LOT of the costumes. I'm glad to say that by the time you read this, a huge chunk of the costumes are done, leaving us with a managable amount to tackle after spring break.....which starts at 12 today! Hooray! What makes it an even bigger hooray is that we're leaving for Florida tomorrow evening for a week of truly needed R&R. I have a huge stack of books picked out to read, and I'm looking forward to my daily 5 mile hikes along the beach, going kayaking a few times......and kicking the hubs' keester at Mille Bournes (a card game). No stamping for a week, which is sad, but I got enough out of my system recently that it's OK to take a breather :) This is another from the reject stash from the Go To call. I went with a fun rainbow color scheme on this one with PTI's big ricrac die. It's another one that I'm proud of regardless, so I'm trying to figure out who I'm going to send it to, or if will just end up on etsy :) Thanks for stopping by!

Snow Day?

2011-03-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

It's funny posting a snow day card a few days before spring break :) I made this one WAY back when we had our blizzard for a friend at school and had not gotten around to posting it yet. I actually think I made it using a sketch from over at MFT, but it's been so long I have no idea : ) I went with a pretty bold color scheme--for me--on this one with raspberry and orange. The paper is from Crate Paper's winter line. I stash a lot of winter paper when it comes out because it usually ends up on my Christmas cards when I make them in July. Nothing much more to add here. Usually snow theme cards show up on the blog because I'm looking for snow, but I think that by this time in the year I'm ready for sandals, sun, and lots of tank tops/cardigan combos to wear to work :) Thanks for stopping by!

Sun Yat Fai Lok!

2011-03-21T07:00:00.002-05:00

Wha.....? That's happy birthday in Cantonese, if you're wondering :) My goddaughter turned 13 the other day, and she's a big panda bear fan, so I took a page from this and created her birthday card. I kept it pretty simple. Stamped some bamboo from a Unity set, then ran it through the Cuttlebug with the woodgrain plate from PTI, then did some nestie squares with a panda stamp from Stamping Bella (there were 2 in the set...a big and little one. The little one was part of her birthday gift, as were 13 pairs of earrings...many of which were panda bears). Put a tag and ribbon combo on the bottom and call it a day. I wish I had some chalk ink in black so that the bear would have shown up darker. I've been on a huge chalk ink kick lately since I went to a crop night and forgot my brown ink pad. Chalk ink pads were cheap and I had a coupon, so it was $2. Now I'm hooked :) Thanks for stopping by!

More Birdies!

2011-03-18T07:00:00.002-05:00

In the spirit of Bitty Bird, here's another one, which I just realized has blue birdies on it again. I need to color them in a different color! This card is going out to my baby cousin and her new fiance, who got engaged last month. I went to my tried and true Early Bird papers from Cosmo Cricket for the color scheme, and used a Go To sketch from the recent call for the inspiration. On second look, I think the felt hearts may be a bit much, but they're cute anyway.
I hope you have plans for a fun weekend. Mine's half and half. The hubs and I are seeing Hair downtown tonight...so excited, especially since we wanted to see it in NYC over the summer and it closed the week before we got there. Then tomorrow I'm volunteering to drive the mini bus of our theater kids to perform their competition piece a few towns over. I'm hoping that it is not a long day, but you never know. If worse come to worse, I can drive the bus back to school, then come home, then go back and pick them up that night. Have a great one, whatever you're doing. Thanks for stopping by!

Limelight is Wearin' o' the Green!

2011-03-17T07:00:00.002-05:00

Top o' the morning! Happy St. Patrick's Day to you! Even if you're not Irish, today's every one is :) I've got plenty of Irish blood running through my veins, and it seems that my appearance is where most of it shows--red hair, pale skin, and freckles. LOTS of freckles. If I could figure out a nice shade of red to color hair with Copics, this little cutie would have been a red head too. This week's Limelight sketch is in honor of St. Patty's Day and features the use of GREEN. So I took the opportunity to make another St. Pat's card for my niece, who is quite Irish as well. She's also quite 2 1/2, so I watched how many embellishments I put on this. I took some chipboard coasters and die cut some buttons on them, and covered them up with patterned paper, sanding down the edges. Just enough somethin' somethin', but not a kid hazard either. Lots of My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose paper on this one (I think it's the Hazel pad...I've used this one a LOT--great colors!).
Enough about my card. Here are the details of YOU'D like to play along with us this week:
**Use the sketch provided and try to incorporate some GREEN!
**Key word for SCS upload is LLPC068
**Post a comment with a link to your card on right here on this post by Sunday, March 21st , at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.)
Make sure to stop by Mandy's blog to see what beautious creation she came up with this week, as well as the rest of the DT (and to see what goodies you could win if you play along with us too)! Thanks for stopping by!

Best of Luck

2011-03-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today's going to be a fun day....I'm at a conference downtown and I get to take the train down there (cool). I get a nice walk on a nice day outside to get to the conference (cool). The conference is on genocide (not so cool). Then I get to have the best milkshake ever before I get on the train (cool). And I don't have rehearsal tonight, so if I get the right train I'm home by 4 (super cool). Anyway.....here's the first of my St. Pat's cards. I used this month's sketch from Jen delMuro...the first time I've gotten it done on time...hooray! I've seen several people make St. Pat's cards with an Irish flag theme with the orange, white and green stripes, so I decided to go there on this card as well. I used my new shamrock girl from MFT as my focal point, and put a whole bunch of mini brads in the corners too. I then dug in my stash and found some orange twine and attached my sentiment with it (I stamped the sentiment with shamrocks from PTI's Luck of the Irish set in Versamark too). It took me about 5 days to make 3 of these because I'd get a little bit done...then walk away for a while....then get a bit more done....then walk away. Geesh.

Birdie Blitz!

2011-03-14T07:00:00.001-05:00

It was a flu-filled weekend over her. Not me. The hubs, who has declared very clearly that he's getting a flu shot next year. I guess sometimes you need to learn the hard way, huh?
I've been on a Little Bitty Bird kick lately (I have another card with this going up on the blog on Friday)--those little guys are so fun to color with Copics! I made 13 of these little 3x3 cards for my crew kids from Ordinary People. The show had a blue theme, so I went with Ocean Tides, Brown and Kraft (what else?) for these. I have a stash of the brown twine that I never have really gotten into, so I used a ton on these for the bow on the top. I took the PTI notebook page die and cut it down to a 2 3/8 square and put the notebook lines from Way to Go Kiddo (a total splurge, but I loved the sentiments for projects just like this one), and then stamped the branch over it. Put a stitched border around it and call it done. I made cards like this for the last show as well, and the kids just loved them, so given the fact that Aida will have a pretty large running crew, I'd better get started making the cards now :) Thanks for stopping by!

Phew...it's Friday!

2011-03-11T07:30:00.000-06:00

I'm excited as I have no big plans for this weekend--hooray for down time! This week was really busy, and I actually think I'm going to be bringing my robe pieces home to start quilting the whole thing together...hoping my Janome Sew Mini can do some sewing on actual fabric instead of just cards :)

Here's the last of the batch I can show you from the Stamp It publication call....the last one you'll need to wait until the issue comes out to see :) I had originally planned on using this for my niece's birthday card as she loves butterflies, but then I remembered I had a panda stamp and she loves pandas more, so that ended up being her card, and this ended up in the etsy shop. I used a sketch from.....Mojo Monday I think.....for this one. Used some more Fine and Dandy paper from My Mind's Eye on this one for a colorful birthday card.

Hope you have a fun weekend planned....boring or busy! Thanks for stopping by!

Hello, Friend!

2011-03-09T07:30:00.001-06:00

Today is my Stella's 6th birthday--happy day to the cutest, sweetest, naughtiest pup I know! :)

Now onto stamping news.......lol.

I'm obsessed with the Bitty Bird set from PTI. I love the die that makes it so you can pop up the birds. And I love that they are easy to color with Copics (I do way better with small areas than large ones). This card was just fun to make. I used a sketch from Go To Sketches (vol 1) for this, and once I got to that part, the rest was easy. This card is actually in my etsy shop if you'd like to send it to a friend of yours :) I went with the wave of friends in my blog group who opened up shops and am using my etsy shop as a fundraiser for my Geography students who are working towards building a classroom in a school in Angola. We're already 20% towards our goal! Shameless promoting of etsy and my kiddo's project is now done :)
Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, Monday....

2011-03-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

Not a big fan of the Mondays, especially when crazy weeks are ahead. We're getting our costume stuff in order for Aida and are taking a field trip to Joann's to get the first of what I'm sure are many batches of fabric on Wednesday. I've personally taken on the task of making a robe that is essentially the focal point of a dance number. I love the song, and the significance of what the robe means to the characters in the play.....and I'm hoping I can deliver on it. I'll take pics and post them when I get it done...hopefully before spring break so the kids can practice dancing with it.

Here's today's card. I got inspired by a card I saw....somewhere (borrowed the layout) and had planned on submitting this to the Stamp It call...and never quite got there. I went all fancy and took the notebook page die and cut out notebook patterned paper with it. It's a smaller than standard A2 size card with some Basic Grey patterns from the Lemonade and Basics line, and some Egg Hunt stamps from PTI. That's it for today....thanks for stopping by!

Whoops the Sequel!

2011-03-04T07:00:00.002-06:00

Yeah, forgot the words here too. Oh well. Another reject from the Stamp It call from the other week. Not a biggie as one of my cards did make it in...hooray! I'm going to work on some posts for next week--with words--now. Thanks for stopping by!

It's a Mini Pearl Sketch!

2011-03-03T07:30:00.000-06:00

That joke goes out to my Grandma Vi (god bless her)....Minnie Pearl....the chick with the price tag on her hat.....mini pearls on the card.....oh man, you can tell I'm light on sleep this week! I went pretty literal with the butterflies on the sketch, although I replaced the butterfly in the middle of the flower with a button and tag combo instead. I made sure to use pearls in the sketch (check out the Limelight store to see what they have in the pearl department), and I did double pearl duty and used some corsage pins with pearls on the top behind the flower. but I didn't want too much white on the card, so I colored them pink with copic markers. Loved the paper from the new My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose collection (thanks to them for making 6x6 pads....so fantastic!).

Enough about my card. Here are the details of YOU'D like to play along with us this week:
*Use the sketch provided and try to incorporate some PEARLS!**Key word for SCS upload is LLPC068
**Post a comment with a link to your card on right here on this post by Sunday, March 6th , at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.)
Make sure to stop by Mandy's blog to see what beautious creation she came up with this week, as well as the rest of the DT (and to see what goodies you could win if you play along with us too)! Thanks for stopping by!

Ahoy!

2011-03-02T07:00:00.002-06:00

Happy Wednesday! Today is my last official day before the craziness of the musical starts. Hoping to totally enjoy my day :) This was one of my favorite cards that I submitted to the Stamp It edition of Paper Crafts. Didn't get picked up, but I had such a good time making it :) It is crazy with layers and scallops, and I think the waves in many colors look nifty (although I do wish I would have switched the direction of the light blue wave. I got hooked on waves and put a wave stamp underneath the sentiment on the tag too. I pretty much never cut out my stamped images, but I didn't want to have a bigger circle than I needed, so the tail is hanging off the end. Speaking of whale tails, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one of the new Cosmo Cricket paper lines as there are some whale themed papers to go with it. And I just dig this whale stamp. Don't know why....just do :) Thanks for stopping by today....make sure to come by tomorrow for some Limelight sketch goodness!

Whoops!

2011-02-28T07:00:00.001-06:00

I was picking out cards to put on future posts....and forgot to write the stuff in the post. Oops. It's been a long week around the Haashold. Auditions were last week, and we had callbacks Monday night....and the adults were there until 9:30 deliberating. Totally felt like I was on American Idol. Only I don't look like JLo :) Well, here's a belated description for this card. It was for a PC pub call for these colors. I had some paper from the Cosmo Cricket Togetherness line that matched those papers, so I went with it. It is actually patterned after one of my faorite sketches, and I kept this super simple, especially since I couldn't emboss this, it's just straight up kraft paper. Slap some buttons on there and some stitching around the border and it's done. Thanks for stopping by!

February Blog Hop--Scallops!

2011-02-25T18:28:00.003-06:00

I totally forgot until last night that the PTI blog hop was today! I had a card started on my table, but didn't finish it until just now. It was really simple....and I totally know this is an idea that has been done, but it has not been done by me. I wanted to do a monochromatic scallop card, and I know there is yellow and orange on this one, but it's a nice sunny, earthy card to send to my grandma. I made sure to bend up all the scallops so that it had some dimension in there. Colors are all PTI (Lemon Tart, Harvest Gold, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Terracotta Tile). Kept it simple cuz....well....I forgot all about it and wanted to get it done in a hurry :) Thanks for stopping by!

Baby, Baby, Baby!

2011-02-25T07:00:00.001-06:00

Shoot me now....I quoted a Justin Bieber song. That little punk is everywhere! I made this one with a Fall To sketch from the Clean and Simple blog a while ago. My husband's cousin had a little girl a few weeks ahead of schedule, so I wanted to get this out in the mail to Margot. I took the frame and die from MFT's Framed Greetings and stamped a bunch of the little images from Bitty Baby Blessings from PTI on the background. I got these foam stickers for another project, and didn't end up using them, so I was glad that Margot was a girl and I could use them. I dug out some pink gingham paper from my stash (last year's Quite Contrary line from My Mind's Eye). See....here's another card with the ribbon tied off with linen thread....told ya! A few jumbo brads later and the card was done. Thanks for stopping by....have a great weekend!

One Sketch.....

2011-02-23T07:00:00.001-06:00

many ways. I used this card as inspiration for one of my valentines too :) I submitted this one for an issue of Paper Crafts magazine and it didn't get picked up, but it will be finding its way to a friends house at some point in the future :) I dug out one of my most loved PTI sets, Life and made my first multicolored floral garden for the focal point, and used some white gel pen in the centers of the red flowers. I am really obsessed with the ribbon tied off with linen thread lately...beware....it will show up a LOT in the future as I have two more cards with a variation of this on my craft table right now ready to photograph and post too :) I didn't like how stark the cream circle was as the PP from October Afternoon's Thrift Shop line was a bit distressed and dirty (on purpose), so I took some Tim Holtz Distress Ink and grunged up the edges a bit, and smeared some over the image too and it toned it down a bit. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Monday!

2011-02-21T07:00:00.001-06:00

I don't usually get to say happy Monday, but since it's a day off, and one I really need right about now with auditions tomorrow and the musical getting started, I'm hoping to enjoy it very much :) I have several cards sketched out to submit for the Go To Sketch call coming up, so I'm looking forward to working on those. I made this one a while ago for my cousin and sister in law's birthdays (they're not the same person though...lol). I was not too happy with the focal image, but I liked the rest of the card. This So Sophie paper from My Mind's Eye has some fun purples in it, and I love the little purple flowers behind the lace. I wouldn't mind taking this and putting it together a bit differently as I am not sure about all the parts of this one, but I know it was liked by those who got it, and isn't that all that matters? :) Thanks for stopping by today!