Snowman Easel Card

Hello! I know it's been a while again. Ever since we lost power for a week, I have been out of sorts with my crafting and I just can't get my groove back on with it. I've barely stamped anything in the past 3 weeks! Shocking!! But I do have one of my Creative Crew projects for November to share. For this project we were to make an easel card and use the colors or DSP from the Letters to Santa collection. This is my first time making an easel card and it was pretty fun. I would definitely do it again. Since I didn't have the Letters to Santa DSP, I just used some of the colors from it. For the Crumb Cake circle I stamped one of the sentiments repeatedly in versamark and then embossed it with irridescent ice powder. It looks really sparkely in real life. You may be able to see some of the sparkles if you click on the close up pictures. I was really happy with how that came out. Then I cut out and colored the Christmas tree and snowman. I colored the snowman in with a white colored pencil. For the Marina Mist piece that I embossed with the Snow Burst embossing folder, I sponged some white ink over the snowflakes to make them stand out a little bit. Then I added some ribbon and those super cute mini jingle bells. I hope you like it and decide to try out an easel card!! Have a nice day!




Stamps: Snow Much Fun, Many Merry Messages, Delicate Doilies
Paper: Crumb Cake, Marina Mist, Early Espresso
Ink: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Black Stazon, Old Olive, Marina Mist, Riding Hood Red, White Craft
Accessories: Blender Pens, Mini Jingle Bells, White Taffeta ribbon, Snow burst Embossing folder

Creative Crew and updates

Well this has been quite an interesting week. We had a crazy snowstorm on Saturday which gave us about 8 inches or so of snow!! And it was also nice enough to take out our power on Saturday afternoon. Today is Thursday and we are still powerless. :( I am hoping the power gods save us and give us power when I get home from work today. But for some reason I'm not feeling too hopeful. Maybe I will be wrong. I hope!!!! I've had enough of going from house to house to take my shower. I just want to be able to take a nice hot shower in my own house. Enough of the pity party, on to some cards. Since I haven't had a chance to show you the rest of my Creative Crew projects from October, I'm going to show them all to you in one post today. Then over the next week, I'll show you my Creative Crew projects from November. If you are a Stampin Up demonstrator, I highly encourage you to sign up for the Creative Crew. Over on Splitcoast, they are now taking "applications" for the next Creative Crew Design team, which will be from Jan - April. I had such a great time doing it. I was able to try out lots of different techniques that I may have never done before. Now on to the cards.

In this challenge we were to make a holiday gift. I decided to make a gift bag with some thank you and birthday cards that I could give to my grandmother.


Stamps: Delicate Doilies, Four Frames, Petite Pairs
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Flirtatious DSP
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Black
Accessories: Decorative Label punch, Top note die, Pretty in Pink 1 ¼ inch grosgrain ribbon, Daffodil Delight 1/8 inch taffeta ribbon, brads, eyelets

For this challenge we were to make a simple card for classes or workshops using any holiday themed DSP.



Stamps: Delightful Decorations, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Crumb Cake, Holly Berry Bouquet DSP, Glimmer Paper, Early Espresso
Ink: Cherry Cobbler
Accessories: Ornament punch, Jewelry tag punch, Dotted Scallop ribbon punch, Early Espresso quilted ribbon, brad

In this challenge we were to break out the glitter and again make a simple card for classes or workshops.



Stamps: Delicate Doilies, Tags til Christmas
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake, Glimmer paper
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Decorative Label punch, black marker

In other Stampin Up news, they have a great promotion going on from now until Dec. 15th. If you ever thought about hosting your own Stampin Up workshop, now is the time!! If your workshop totals $350 or more, the hostess gets an additional $35 hostess dollars on top of what the hostess already earns. So for a $350 workshop, the hostess normall gets $50 free but with this awesome promotion, you will now get an addtional $35 for a total of $85 worth of free stuff for yourself!!!! How great is that!! This is the perfect time to do some holiday shopping for yourself! :) Clink on the link in the sidebar for more information or contact me to set up your own workshop to take advantage of these great benefits!!

Creative Crew Scrapbook Challenge

Happy Friday! Today's post is one of my projects from this month's Creative Crew challenges on splitcoast. This challenge was to make anything that included a photo and was something you could give away. Some examples were a photo Christmas card, a framed scrapbook page, or framed art, etc. I decided to go with the photo Christmas card. I was going to use a wedding photo of us but then I got to thinking that if I were to actually send this card out, I wouldn't be sending out cards with a wedding photo of us getting married last year. And I figured if I'm taking the time to make this card, I need to at least be able to send it. So then I remembered I had this super cute photo of our cats. Yes, they look like they are posed very nicely but that is only because I was eating cereal near them and they were hoping to get some of the milk in my cereal. :) Crazy cats! I printed out this picture in black and white and got to work on my card. It's actually a pretty easy card that you could replicate for your holiday cards this year. I layered the picture on vanilla cardstock to give it a border. Then I used a piece of the Holly Berry Bouquet DSP that I punched with the scallop border punch. Then I embossed the saying from Christmas Lodge on some Cherry Cobbler cardstock, added 2 pearls next to the sentiment and that's it. You could skip the embossing part to make the card even quicker. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture by the Cherry Cobbler piece is adhered with dimensionals so it gives it a little dimension. Have a nice weekend!

Stamps: Christmas Lodge
Paper: Wild Wasabi, Cherry Cobbler, Vanilla, Holly Berry Bouquet DSP
Ink: Craft White
Accessories: White embossing powder, Pearls, Scallop border punch

Busy Busy Busy!

Where has the time gone?? I can't believe how fast these months are flying by! In the past couple of weeks work has picked up a bit so by the time I get home, I'm pooped and in no mood for stamping. Crazy, I know! I actually have my projects for the Creative Crew on Splitcoast for October which I have yet to post on here. I hope to share those this week. Yesterday I was FINALLY able to sit down and do some crafting. The card I made was for the color challenge on splitcoast. I definitely do that challenge a lot on there. I like trying out different color combos. Yesterday's colors were Blushing Bride, Regal Rose and Lucky Limeade. I ended up with a vintage feel to this card even though the colors are not really that vintage-y. I think the Regal Rose is a little bright but I tried to tone it down some by sponging the edges. Overall, I think the card came out ok. I really like how the two step stamping makes those flowers look more realistic. I have a couple of thank you cards that I need to make so I think I will try this out again in a different color combo. I will be sure to post them on here. I hope you enjoy and try these colors out for yourself.

Stamps: Field Flowers, Petite Pairs, Friendly Words wheel, Music Notes wheel
Paper: Blushing Bride, Regal Rose, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake, Naturals Ivory
Ink: Blushing Bride, Regal Rose, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Lucky Limeade ribbon, Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch

Snow Much Fun

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Mine was good. I actually had a little time to relax on Sunday and just be lazy and watch football. So that was nice. Today's card is for 2 challenges; the color challenge on splitcoast and the KA-POW creative challenge on Carrie Gaskin's blog. The colors for the challenge on splitcoast was Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso and Pool Party. I LOVE these colors together. My first thought was to do a Christmas card with them. Then the KA-POW challenge was a sketch challenge.

I thought this sketch was kind of cool. Although I did mess up a little and not add something where the 3 buttons are. I should have moved my pearls to the bottom. Oh well, I still think the card is cute. The Pool Party background was embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder. On the Cherry Cobbler piece I stamped the small doily from Delicate Dolies. The snowman was stamped on Crumb Cake cardstock and colored in with White craft ink. I cut him out and adhered him to the one of the frames from the Designer Frames embossing folder. I added some Cherry Cobbler seam binding with a little tag and a little jingle bell (they are so cute!) And lastly, I added some of the new mica flakes around the snowman. These are pretty cool too. However, when I got them I was shocked at how big the container was that they were in. I will have these flakes for a long time! What a great deal! I hope you enjoyed today's christmas card. I am so glad that I have such a head start on my cards for the year. One less thing to stress about once December comes. I hope these challenges get you inspired to start on your holiday cards as well! Have a great day!

Stamps: Snow Much Fun, Delicate Doilies
Paper: Pool Party, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Black, Pool Party, Early Espresso
Accessories: Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Designer Frames embossing folder, Cherry Cobbler seam binding, pearls, mini jingle bells, mica flakes

Falling Leaves

Happy Friday! I had intentions of posting earlier this week but I don't know what happened. I think between the busy week at work last week and a super busy weekend (wedding on Saturday and Jets game on Sunday), I was just pooped! This weekend should be a little more relaxing and hopefully we will get those kitchen cabinets finished! What I thought would be a fairly quick project has turned into a month long project! We are just too tired to work on it during the week and then the weekends get busy. Hopefully it will be done soon.
Today's card was inspired by this card. I really liked the idea of the leaves cut out to make a wreath. I don't have this stamp set so I decided to do it with the Falling Leaves set. Somewhere else I saw someone using the colors Pool Party, Peach Parfait and Wild Wasabi together and I really liked it. So I used those colors and then added Melon Mambo. I really like these colors together. They feel a bit summery but that's ok. It's fun to use different color schemes for the holidays/seasons. This card was a little tedious cutting out the leaves but it went fairly quick. I used the snowburst embossing folder for the Crumb Cake background. As you can see, this can be used for more than just holiday cards. On the bottom part, I stamped one of the images from the Delicate Doilies set (LOVE that set!). And finally I added some Crumb Cake ribbon and the sentiment. Hope you enjoy!!

Stamps: Falling Leaves, Delicate Doilies
Paper: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Wild Wasabi
Ink: Pool Party, Peach Parfait, Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo, Early Espresso
Accessories: Snowburt Embossing Folder, Crumb Cake taffeta ribbon

Wicked Cool

Hello!!! I hope everyone is having a good week. I am so ready for it to be over. It's been quite busy at work the past few days so I'm ready for the work week to be over. But in the meantime I have a fun Halloween card for you. I don't normally send any Halloween cards because I don't usually have that many Halloween stamps. I think I have 1 maybe 2 sets so I decided to get the Wicked Cool set just to have another Halloween set on hand. So now that I've done a couple of cards, I will be sending out Halloween cards this year. I had a lot of fun making this card. And I used a couple of cool new things, like that fabulous glitter paper and the fun embossed frames. To start, I stamped some of the spider webs from the set in black on the Rich Razzleberry sheet. Then I embossed the Midnight Musings wheel in clear embossing powder. I'm not sure if you can see in the photo but it has a really nice shine to it. I added another close up photo below to try to show the shine. I added a strip of the glitter paper on top of a strip of Pumpkin Pie. Then I just stamped a couple of the elements from the Wicked Cool set, cut them out and layered them on the embossed decorative frame. The word Spooky was punched with the Decorative Label punch using this technique seen here. Isn't that a fun way to use your Decorative label punch! I know, I'll be doing that more often. I hope you enjoyed today's card. Have a great afternoon.



Stamps: Wicked Cool, Midnight Musings wheel
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Basic Gray, Pumpkin Pie, Lucky Limeade, Glimmer Paper
Ink: Black, Versamark, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Rich Razzleberry marker, Lucky Limeade marker, black satin ribbon, scallop trim border punch, decorative label punch, designer frames embossing folder

Halloween Bat?

TGIF! Yay it's Friday. What a wet dreary week this has been! I thought I heard someone say the sun was out but since I have no windows nearby at work I have no idea if that's the truth or not. I hope so. I haven't seen the sun in so long! Today, I have a fun halloween card for you. I'm not really sure if he's a bat or an owl. I tried to make him look like a bat from the owl punch, but I was having some problems figuring out how to do his wings. I did see a good idea for it but that was after I already finished the card. So we'll say that he's a bat. Whatever he is, I think he's kind of cute. :) The layout is the same that I used on one of the Creative Crew cards. One thing I would change is how I glued the vellum piece down. You can see the glue marks more on this card than on the other one. (so don't pay attention to them ;) ) The Basic Gray background was stamped with a couple of doily stamps in Black. Then I ran the Spooky Skyline wheel over that in versamark. I sponged the edges in Black after that. The pearls on the Modern Label punch were colored with a black sharpie. Have a great weekend!!

Stamps: Delicate Doilies, Teeny Tiny Wishes, Spooky Skyline wheel
Paper: Black, Basic Gray, Concord Crush, Pumpkin Pie (textured), Shimmer White, Vellum
Ink: Black
Accessories: Owl Punch, 2 3/8 Scallop Circle Punch, Modern Label Punch, Top Note Die, Lattice Embossing folder, pearls, orange ribbon (not SU!)

Sketch Challenge

Hi! I am on a roll with blog posts lately. I actually have another card ready for a post tomorrow. I hope I'm getting my creative juices back. Even though I've been working on other projects lately, the creative juices haven't been flowing as easily. Anyway, today's card was for the sketch challenge yesterday. I decided to use some of the Spice Cake fabric again for the background. I'm not sure how I feel about this card. It's ok I guess, not one of my favorites. It's pretty straightforward so there isn't a whole lot to explain.
Maybe it's all this dreary weather we've been having here on the East Coast that has put my creativity in a funk. The rain is just never ending. I left to go to work this morning and the end of our street was completely flooded. We have lived here for 2 years and I have never seen it get like that. Then my 25 minute commute to work was an hour! Yikes! I think because all of the back roads that people take were flooded as well so that made the main highway full of traffic. Lets hope the commute home is much better!
Have a nice day!

Stamps: Fabulous Florets, You're a Gem
Paper: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Vanilla
Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Spice Cake fabric, Wisteria Wonder ribbon, Jewelry tag punch, linen thread

Front Door Wreath

(Edited to add close up photos at the end).

Hello! Here is my final project for the Creative Crew challenges for September. This challenge was to create a home decor item using the Domestic Goddess Suite collection in the catalog. I love this DSP and the colors used in this collection, so I was excited about this project. This idea was not the first idea that I had. My original idea was to make some kind of artwork for our laundry room because the colors match perfectly. But once I started designing things on My Digital Studio it did NOT look good at all. So back to the drawing board. Since I just bought the Big Shot and Fun Flowers die for my birthday in August (Happy Birthday to me!!), I decided I wanted to do something with them and then the idea of the wreath was born. The Pool Party flowers are cut with the Fun Flowers die. I also cut another set of flowers using the Domestic Goddess DSP and layered them with the Pool Party flowers. (You can see this better in the close up photos below). The center of the flowers are the new In Color brads. The Basic Gray flowers are scallop circles that are folded into quarters and then attached to another scallop circle. The centers are also the In Color brads. The other flowers are scallop circles that are cut with the Domestic Goddess DSP. I cut the circle in a spiral and then rolled them to make the flowers. For the leaves, I cut one of the flowers from the Fun Flowers die and used the petal as a leaf and some of the other leaves are just free handed. The finishing touch is one of the large buttons (they are quite big!) from the Holiday Mini with some white taffeta ribbon. I had a lot of fun making this wreath and it came out pretty much how I wanted it to. I will definitely be doing this again in different colors for different seasons or holidays. I hope this inspires you to take part in the Creative Crew challenge and make your own home decor item!






Paper: Domestic Goddess DSP, Pool Party, Basic Gray, Lucky Limeade
Accessories: Spice cake buttons, White taffeta ribbon, fun flowers die, scallop circle die, in color brads, wreath

Creative Crew - DSP/Color Focus Card

Hello! I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I wanted to post my other creative crew projects over the weekend but I didn't get a chance. I was too busy doing this:

We have decided to paint our ugly wood cabinets white. It already looks so much brighter in the kitchen. We would obviously love to just totally redo the whole kitchen but that is not in the budget. So for now this will do. I will post a picture once we get the doors back on and everything cleaned up.



Now for my next card. The challenge for this was to use the Timeless Portrait DSP. Since I didn't have that DSP, I used some of the colors from it. I love how this card came out. I plan to use it for a wedding that we are attending next weekend. For the background I used an image from the Friends Never Fade set and stamped it in black. Its hard to tell in the photo but I also stamped the Friendly Words wheel in versamark over the stamped images. It's a subtle little touch. I hope you like today's card and I hope you get a chance to take part in these challenges at Splitcoaststampers. Tomorrow I will share my final project which is my favorite!

Stamps: Friends Never Fade, Fabulous Florets, Friendly Words Wheel, Petite Pairs
Inks: Black, Lucky Limeade, Versamark
Paper: Island Indigo, Cherry Cobbler, Black, Sahara Sand, Vellum
Accessories: Black satin ribbon, top note die, lattice embossing folder

MDS Page

Happy Friday! I am so glad that the week is over. For some reason it felt like a long week and I just wasn't in the mood to be at work. But that's nothing new, I don't really ever feel like being at work, lol! I am looking forward to relaxing and not doing too much of anything this weekend. On to today's project. For this challenge, we were to make a vintage/steampunk scrapbook page based on this sketch. Now I've never done anything "steampunk" before. I actually never even heard of that word. So this was a bit of a challenge for me. I think this ended up more on the vintage side than steampunk but I think it came out ok. I decided to use My Digital Studio for this because I was able to use all of the elements that I wanted to. It was quicker than ordering some new stamps and papers. Plus I waited until the last minute to do this project since I had no idea where I was going with it, lol! I decided to scrapbook 2 pictures from our Costa Rica trip. We have a TON of pictures from that trip but I picked the 2 that I think captured the main point of the trip...us and the volcano. :) I may try to continue adding more pages and maybe actually get a whole book of our trip. Supplies are listed below. I will try to pop back in over the weekend with my other 2 projects. Have a great holiday weekend!

Stamps: World Tour, Extreme Elements, Letter It
Inks: Early Espresso
Paper: Botanical Gazette
Accessories: Modern label punch, Lots of Tags shape 1, stitching

Wow it's September!

Holy Cow! Where has August gone?!! Actually where has the summer gone. I can't believe it is September and the summer is gone. :( I love the summer! Although I am excited for fall and for football to start but I am definitely going to miss the pool and beach days. I feel like I didn't get enough of them this year even though I did make it to the shore several times. Which is why I haven't posted in FOREVER! I had a couple of trips during August. Then I was working on my swaps for the ControlFreaks group, which I will post here soon. Then I was working on projects for the Creative Crew on Splitcoast!!! I was picked to be on the Creative Crew Design Team for September through December! Woo hoo!! So that is what has been going on behind the scenes and why I haven't posted. So today, I will post 1 of the 4 projects I did. I will post the rest this week. In honor of today being the start of the Holiday Mini, I will post the card I did using some new mini products.



I think my favorite stuff out of the new catalog is the Spice Cake collection. I absolutely LOVE the paper, fabric and buttons. Maybe its because I am in love with anything that has the color Pool party in it. :) Anyway on to the card. The challenge for this card was to use any holiday or seasonal set and use this sketch. I made a couple of tweeks to the sketch but for the most part kept it the same. So are you loving the new fabric??!! I don't think I've ever used fabric on a card before (maybe once?) but I think this is a fun little touch instead of using DSP. That huge button is also from the mini. I really liked the colors of the buttons so I ordered them. But once I got them I wasn't sure what to do with them because they are large but I think it worked perfectly for this card. I also used them in another project I did for the Creative Crew. (Stay tuned for that this week). The rest of the card was pretty straight foward. I've listed the rest of the supplies below. So I would love to see what you guys do with this challenge. Head on over to Splitcoast Stampers, check out the Septemeber challenges for the Creative Crew and upload your projects. Put a link here too, I would love to check out what you've done.

And don't forget to check out the Holiday Mini. (The link is in my sidebar). There are lots of fabulous things!!!

Stamps: Falling Leaves
Inks: Pool Party, More Mustard, Soft Suede
Paper: Soft Suede, Crumb Cake
Accessories: Spice cake buttons, Pool Party ruffle ribbon, Spice Cake fabric, brads, modern label punch

Color Q Challenge.

Hi! I was actually able to sneak in a little bit of stamping time yesterday after I finished my packing. I saw the colors for the Color Q Challenge #95 and really liked these colors together. I've never done this challenge before but decided to try it out. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with these colors. I figured something with flowers, then because I didn't want to spend all night coming up with a card, I decided to CASE this card of mine. I obviously changed the colors in this card. Then I used the Hello Doily background stamp in the corners instead of the swirls from the Elements of Style set. The flowers are colored with Calypso Coral even though it doesn't really look like it. The stamped the flowers in Early Espresso, then I started to color in the flowers with a blender pen and ink from the Calypso Coral pad. Since I used the ink from the ink pad, the color was a little lighter and I think it pulled in some of the Early Espresso ink as well. Then I went back with the Calypso Coral marker and added some darker shading. I really like how this came out. The size of this card is a little different than normal, it's 3.5 x 6.25. Well I am off to the beach for a few days and I cannot wait! Not having to go to work for 2 days is great, lol! I will be back next week with some more eye candy!

Stamps: Elements of Style, Hello Doily, Petite Pairs
Paper: Island Indigo, Early Espresso
Ink: Early Espresso, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Calypso Coral
Accessories: Calypso Coral marker, Lucky Limeade marker, Pool Party ruffle ribbon, square punch

Balloon Flower

Hi everyone! I have a quick post for you today. Today's card is for the challenge on splitcoast yesterday which was to use tags. I used the tag as my focal point. I'm not really sure if I'm in love with this card. It came out better in my head. You win some, you lose some right!? But I figured I would still post it anyway. The fun thing about this card is that the flower is made from the balloon image from Up, Up and Away. I had seen this done somewhere else and I thought it was a cute idea. I will have to try it again on another card that I like better. :) That is it for me today. I may try to get another post up for tomorrow but I'm not sure. I'm headed down to the shore for a few days so I'm hoping to have a few minutes to make another card to post. If not, I'll be back next week!

Stamps: Up, Up & Away, Fabulous Florets, Hello Doily
Paper: Pacific Point, Crumb Cake
Ink: Pacific Point, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Black
Accessories: Brights buttons, Crumb Cake taffeta ribbon, Dotted scallop ribbon border punch

Christmas in August

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. Luckily I was able to get in a little stamping time. I used the time I had to finish up the cards that we will be doing in my Christmas in August class (August 3rd). I used the Domestic Goddess DSP so the color scheme is a little unconventional but I think it works. I just love these snowmen from this set! If you are in the NJ area and are interested in joining this class, please send me an email. :)

Field Flowers

Hello everyone! Today's card uses another new set from the catalog called Field Flowers. Of course I didn't really need another flower set but I thought this one was nice and I don't think I have any flower sets that use the 2 step stamping. It gives the flowers a nice dimensional look to them without having to do too much. Just stamp the one flower image in a lighter color and then stamp the "outline" image in a darker color. On the Early Espresso piece I used the Hello Doily background stamp and embossed it in clear embossing powder to make it look shiny and raised. I tried to take a close up picture so you could get a better look at it.



The sentiment is also part of a new set. Lots of new goodies on this card! The ribbon is new too and I love this ruffled ribbon!! Have a great day!

Stamps: Field Flowers, Hello Doily, Petite Pairs
Paper: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, White
Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Concord Crush, Lucky, Limeade, So Saffron, More Mustard, Early Espresso, Versamark
Accessories: Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon, Lace ribbon, clear embossing powder

New Stuff!!

Happy Friday!! I got some new stuff yesterday and I could not wait to play with it today. I should really be doing some housework on my early afternoon off from work but what fun is that?!? That will be waiting for me all weekend. I did do a few things first so the house doesn't look like a total disaster when the hubby gets home from work. I don't want him thinking I wasted all day making cards! ;) So I thought this was a cute new set in the catalog and got it, not totally sure if I would get a lot of use out of it. But I was determined to get a few things other than flower stamps! And I think I'm in love with this set. I had so much fun making this card that I think it was a good purchase. So normally I write out everything I do on my cards but sometimes that gets tiring writing everything out. I know, I'm being lazy. I think I am now just going to list all the products that I used and then if there is something I need to explain, I'll write that in the post. I may go back to the other way if this doesn't seem to work out so well. The one thing I will comment on is how I'm not really a fan of how the sentiment came out. I thought it would be ok in black but it seems to blend in too much. I was going to emboss it in white but then I was afraid that wouldn't look good either. And I don't think it would look good to cover it up so I'm just leaving it blended in a bit. You can still see it, just not as good as I would like. Enjoy! Have a great weekend!!


Stamps: Up, Up, & Away, Petite Pairs, Inspired by Nature
Paper: Island Indigo, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake
Ink: Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder, White, Black, Basic GrayPool Party (for sponging), Lucky Limeade (for sponging)
Accessories: Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon, Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch, Scallop border punch

Aviary Baby

When I made today's card over the weekend, I had my friend in mind. Her due date was the middle of July so I thought I'd get a head start on her card and keep my fingers crossed that it was a girl because I wanted to use these colors together: Lucky Limeade, Pool Party and Calypso Coral. Well it turns out she gave birth the evening I made this card and she had girl! How exciting. I can't wait to send this card off to her and see her new bundle of joy. Now for the details on the card. The new catalog has listed Aviary in the "Growing Up" section so I thought I would give this set a whirl for a baby card. I think it does work well for a baby card. I also used the Four Frames set and A Word For You set for the sentiment portion. I kind of think that the circle with the decorative label punch underneath almost makes it look like a snowglobe. I think I may have to try to make another Christmas card with this idea. Back to the card, I used the music notes wheel for the background and then used the Polka Dots embossing folder on the Pool Party piece. Then I added some ruffled ribbon and a rhinestone at the top of the bird cage.
Have a great day!

Snow Much Fun!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. Ours was pretty good. We had a little BBQ on Sat with some family and friends, got to relax on Sunday and then I went tubing down the Delaware river with some girlfriends on Monday. I also got a chance to make a few cards too. I have an order coming with some new things from the catalog so hopefully that will get here soon so I can make some stuff. Today's card does use some new stuff too. I used the Snow Much fun set. I figure since this set has been sitting on my desk, that I might as well start making some Christmas cards. It's never to early to start. I think I plan on having a Christmas in July (or maybe August) class where you can get a head start on your Christmas cards. I'll have more info on that once I make the cards for the class. But back to today's card. I stamped part of the snowman image on Crumb Cake cardstock. I colored him in with some markers and then used a q-tip to add some White craft ink to his body. I cut the snowman out and added dimensionals to him. I layered the oval on top of Island Indigo cardstock that was punched with the decorative label die. I like how this came out and I plan to try this again. The Soft Suede background is stamped with some doilies from Delicate Doilies. Then I added a piece of Baja Breeze cardstock that was embossed with the lattice texture plate and cut with the top note die. I added a piece of lace ribbon and then a couple of brown buttons that I had lying around. And as usual the sentiment was punched with the modern label punch. I hope you like today's card. Stay tuned this week because I will have a few more cards for you!
Be sure to check out the new catalog which is linked in my sidebar. Or course there is lots of great new things!!

Today is it!

Today is the last day of the 2010 - 2011 catalog. You have until the end of the day to place your order if there is something you want that is retiring. Since I ended up getting pretty busy this week, I wasn't able to make any cards using some of the retired stamps. Instead, I'll show you some of my favorite cards uing the following retiring sets: Petal Pizazz, Great Friend, Simple Friendship and Always. Enjoy!

New Catalog Case

Hello! I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Mine was pretty relaxing, which was nice. We didn't really have anything going on, so it was good to be home and relax and do a few things. For today's card, I pretty much CASE'd a card from the new catalog. The card in the catalog uses a new hostess set but I decided to use one of the retiring sets - Petal Pizazz. I think this was one of my favorite flower sets (until Fabulous Forets came around, hehe!). The colors I used were Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder (*new*), Pool Party (*new*) and Lucky Limeade (*new*). This card involves LOTS of cutting and LOTS of dimensionals but I like how it came out. I used several of the flowers from Petal Pizazz, cut them out and layered them on the top note die and some First Edition DSP. I added some Pretty in Pink tafetta ribbon, layered over lace ribbon. The sentiment is from A Word For You, stamped in Lucky Limeade. Then I added a couple of rhinestones for some sparkle. Have a great day!

Tart and Tangy

Happy Friday! I am so glad Friday is finally here. It feels like its been a long week. I am so looking forward to my half a day at work so I can go home and play with some stamps! :) Actually I have a couple of household things I need to do first before I can play. But I definitely plan on using this extra free time to get some cards and things done. I'm hoping to work on cards for my next class that I'm planning. Anyway, today's card is for yesterday's challenge on splitcoast which was to not use white cardstock. It's also for my own challenge to not use flowers. And then I decided that for the next week, I'm going to use some stamp sets that are retiring. I will have plenty of time to play with all the new things, I should dust off some of the retiring stamps and play with those. This is a set that I haven't used in a long time but it's such a fun set. I stamped all the fruit images on Confetti Cream cardstock and punched them out with the 1 1/4 circle punch. I added some buttons to the cherries for a fun little touch. These were then layered on scallop squares. The background is marina mist stamped with the Dot, Dot, Dot stamp. Don't mind that the Marina Mist piece is a little crooked. I don't know how that happened. I thought I lined it up correctly and didn't notice it was off until after I took and uploaded the picture. So I didn't feel like going back and retaking the picture. Then I added some Daffodil Delight taffeta ribbon and added the sweet treats sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes. I hope you all have a nice Friday!

Fabulous Florets, again!

Yes, it's another card featuring these flowers. I will try to show you a different set in my next post. But I'm not making any promises :) I really didn't think I was going to like this set as much as I do. Although I tend to like a LOT of flower sets! Maybe I will challenge myself to not have any flowers on my next card. But back to today's card. This was a fairly simple card to do. I cut strips from the new Flirtatious DSP collection. The flowers are stamped in Calypso Coral (*new color*) and the leaves are stamped in Lucky Limeade (*new*) on Lucky Limeade cardstock. The thank you sentiment is from Just Believe. To finish it off I added a couple of pearls to the modern label punch. I hope you enjoy!

Tour-de-Freaks

Welcome to the June 2011 Blog Tour. If you've just arrived from Barb's blog, you've come to the right place! Weren't her projects fantastic?! But don't worry, if you have started here, it will be possible to go completely to the end and arrive back here after going to the beginning of the tour!

This month's theme is Summer Mini/Sneak Peek catalog projects. I am totally in love with the new In Colors so I used several of those on my projects plus a couple of new sets from the catalog. Then I had to use my favorite set from the summer mini - Fabulous Florets. This was actually a set I did not plan to buy at first. But now I'm hooked on those gorgeous flowers. Anyway, let's get started!





Ok first up is an adorable snowman set from the new catalog called Snow Much Fun. I just fell in love with the snowmen in the set. They are so cute. So I thought maybe I would get a super early start on my Christmas cards! Crazy, I know. I decided to make this a clear card using the clear window sheets. The 2 images on the stamped in white are from Delicate Doilies, another new set in the catalog. I thought they worked well as snowflakes too! I colored and cut out the snowman and tree and put them on dimensionals on the front of the card. Inside, I stamped more doilies on the crumb cake cardstock and added the sentiment with the modern label punch.



The next card uses those flowers from Fabulous Florets. I decided to do something a little fun and wild. The colors for the flowers are Blushing Bride, Calaypso Coral (*new*), and Poppy Parade. The leaves are stamped in Lucky Limeade (*new*). I think this may be my all time favorite new green color. I love it! I then stamped various doilies from Delicate Doilies in Black on Crumb Cake cardstock. I added some black satin ribbon and the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes.



My last project is a 6 x 6 scrapbook page. This is a picture of me and my future sister in law from my bachelorette party. I used another floral image from Fabulous Florets and stamped them in black on Wisteria Wonder (*new*) cardstock. I stamped the leaves again in Lucky Limeade on the First Edition DSP. I stamped several sentiments on Pretty in Pink cardstock. The bottom of the Crumb Cake piece is stamped with another image from Delicate Doilies. The pink DSP is a sneak peek from the Flirtatious collection. All of the papers in this collection are gorgeous!

That is all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed my projects! Next up is LeeAnn with some more eye candy for you!!

Baby Shower

Happy Friday! Today's card is for a baby shower I am going to over the weekend. My friend doesn't know what she's having so I tried to make it gender neutral, even though it might be leaning a bit towards being a little boyish. Oh well, I think it came out really cute. I used a bunch of punches to make the little bear. I had done something with this little bear around Christmas. And I thought he would be perfect for a baby shower card. I just wasn't feeling any of the baby stamps I have (which actually isn't too many), so that's why I went with the punch art. You can't go wrong with that. For the colors I used some of the new In Colors, Pool Party and Lucky Limeade. Then I added a touch of yellow with some Daffodil Delight tafetta ribbon. I really like these colors together. I used a new set from the upcoming catalog called Four Frames and stamped that in Lucky Limeade. The sentiment is non SU. I couldn't find anything that I liked that would fit in the oval space. Well, I'm sure I probably had something, I just didn't feel like spending forever looking for a saying. :) For the background, I just punched several circles from Pool Party and glued them. I did this on another card a couple of weeks ago and I like the little extra something it gives. Then I used the lattice texture embossing folder on the Lucky Limeade piece. I hope my friend likes this little bear!
I will be participating in this month's Control Freaks Blog Tour so be sure to stop back on Monday the 20th! We will be showcasing products from the Summer Mini and some sneak peeks from the new catalog. You won't want to miss all of the fantastic projects the girls have lined up! Have a great weekend!

Delicate Doilies

Hello! I'm back from my beach vacation to Nags Head. It was so nice! We had some great weather, hot, but sunny! Perfect weather for tanning! Today's card is another quick and simple card. I needed another thank you so I used the Delicate Doilies again. I also used a new color - Wisteria Wonder. This purple goes really well with Concord Crush. I stamped some of the doilies in Whisper White, Concord Crush and Wisteria Wonder. I then added a strip of Concord Crush and embossed the sentiment from With All My Heart. A few rhinestones finish the card off. Nice and simple! I hope you have a nice day!