Project Planner

It's almost the new year, I've been busy planning projects to make for 2010 in our classes. I get stressed about what I'm going to make for a class usually. I thought maybe a little pre-planning might help. I'm constantly making and trying new things but I'm not sure if they are "class material" and that causes stress. As I said in a previous post my attention span for techniques and such is short, I'm ready to be on to the next thing as soon as I finish what I'm working on and that doesn't help me either!

So anyway, I put together a 3 ring binder with cards I want to make for classes, ideas, etc. I needed pockets to put things in and live in an extremely small town (did I mention in the middle of nowhere?) so I had to make my own pockets. I stole the desk calendar off my son's desk and folded each month to make pockets for my binder. I think I should mention his desk is piled high with junk and the desk calendar was on the bottom with July showing for the current month. So don't worry... he hasn't even missed it! ;)
I printed a 2010 calendar and attached them to divider tabs, filled my pockets, wrote myself notes and I'm somewhat prepared now. Whew!

Have a safe and happy New Year! We invited a few friends for dinner and board games, our 2 youngest children will be visiting Grandma and Grandpa. See you next year~

Making Plans

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family! It's a busy time with kids out of school and all the fun get togethers with friends and family. Things are settling down at my house for now...

I've had to share my big kitchen table with my kids, they needed space to build their lego creations from Christmas. We crowded each other a little but I managed to share my stamping space with them.

Today's cards are a Patterned Embossing Class we are going to do in January. I saw the technique on Stamp TV and loved the idea. The card in the top of the photo is just SC258, I got tired of the patterned embossing technique before I had 3 cards finished. Sometimes this stampers' attention span isn't very long - on to the next thing!

Clean & Simple - Mo's Digital Pencil, etc.

My first card today is a digital image by Mo's Digital Pencil, she's called Cara Chatting. I thought she was a great teen image for card making and had to have her! I've been wanting to experiment with hair color and had written down Copic colors for hair from the Club Anya blog but hadn't had a chance or the pens yet.

A bunch of us ordered Copic markers together recently and I made some time Saturday to color and practice. The first two girls have red hair and I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I used YR04, YR07, E09 & E18. I feel like I played it real safe with the other colors but eventually branched out on my third card below.
This is my second card using Cara Chatting from Mo's Digital Pencil, I kept it safe using white cardstock and the Cuttlebug Swirls embossing folder. The sentiment is from the Verve Visual Circular Sayings set.
This is the last card I made with this image of Cara Chatting. I got a little braver with my color choices after looking through the scraps from a Stampin' Up! designer paper pack that retired a few catalogs ago. Cara's hair color on this one is medium brown, I used Copic E25, E29, E31 & E49. The sketch is from a Verve Visual challenge in January 2009.


I'm also excited to share with you that my Angel card was chosen as one of the C.A.S. favorites on Splitcoaststampers last week! I posted it in my gallery and just posted another card over the weekend and was reading comments when I made the discovery. I saw CAS FAV and thought what's that? So I clicked the link and found out, how cool is that?!

SC258 & Mass Production

I'm happy to tell you that I think I'm finished with mass producing Christmas cards for this year. I made 50 of these with my husband's help. He's getting very good at using the Cuttlebug and Spellbinders Wizard machines. He cut out the Sizzix bookplate die for this project.

The snowman is a digital image that came in a kit for scrapbooking. I needed something I could do quickly and thought this would be perfect for the job.
Have you ever had too much help? This is Inky checking out my photo box while I'm trying to get a nice picture of the card I just finished for SC258.


I was able to do Splitcoaststampers sketch challenge 258 this morning, what fun! I looked through the gallery there and was inspired by many of the cards so I decided to accept the challenge.

I used digital paper and the image from a kit I purchased and downloaded. I used the Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder and gross grain ribbon and the card was finished.

I have about an hour before the kids get home from school, I'm going to go do some paper crafting. I hope you have time today to do something you enjoy too!

Leftovers

I know what you're thinking by the title of my post... Thanksgiving leftovers. We have them but that's not what I want to talk about today.

My card today is made from leftovers and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out! The PapertreyINK patterned paper is what I had left from the birthday card I made a couple of posts ago, it was too pretty to throw away. I have several sketch books and one was open on my table with this particular sketch from 2007. I'm sorry I couldn't see who's blog it was from.

The cardstock, patterned paper and ribbon are all from the PapertreyINK Raspberry Fizz collection, I also used Neenah Super Smooth White and 2 Stampin' Up! oval punches, oh... the sentiment is also from PapertreyINK it's from the Mixed Messages set. I couldn't have planned that if I'd tried. ;)

My husband made something for me today that I've been wanting for quite awhile, a light box for taking pictures of my cards. I'd mentioned it and he came in from the garage earlier with a white cube type box I'd used in the past for storing craft stuff. He turned it into a photo box for me, we tried it out on several cards and I think it's going to work nicely.

Have a great day!

Squigglefly Challenge #30

I have another fun card to share today, I must warn you I liked the layout so much yesterday I thought I'd use it again!

As I was having coffee this morning I was browsing blog feeds and saw a challenge at Sqigglefly and thought it would be fun to try. The challenge - use one of their Christmas images and use at least one candy cane embellishment on your card. As I looked over their holiday images I knew this snowman had to be mine and I was pretty sure I had some digital paper with candy canes on it. Ohh, I did!

I printed my image and stamped the sentiment from PapertreyINK, cut it out with Spellbinder's Nestabilities long narrow rectangles and colored it with Copic markers to match my digi paper. A Cuttlebug snowflakes embossing folder was used and some red dotted organdy ribbon by May Arts. It looks a bit orange in the photo but it's red in real life! I had to go look out in the garage for the snowflakes and was happy to find them in one of my overflow boxes. I used spray adhesive on the snowflakes and poured Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter on them. This snowman image is called "Catching Flakes", the last step was putting it all together. What a fun challenge, I'm happy I participated today!

I just finished a birthday card that I'm excited to share with you today. I can't say who it's for because if she read my blog it would ruin the surprise. But as you can see she likes pink...

I was looking for some kind of "Sassy" image to color and maybe something where I could add lots of bling. I found this digital image at Sassy Studio Designs and thought it was perfect.

I used PapertreyINK's Razzberry Fizz cardstock, designer paper and coordinating satin ribbon. She's colored with the Copic marker's PapertreyINK recommends for their cardstock and I used Copic Spica glitter markers on her earrings, bracelet, lipstick and some of the ice cream. I used the Swirl Cuttlebug folder on the white panel with the ribbon and the Birthday Wishes sentiment is from Stampin' Up! Sincere Salutations cut out with the Spellbinders Nestabilites Circles dies.

My layout idea came from Maria Bell, I was blog browsing and saw something else she's made that I thought was fabulous and found a sketch for November 20th I had to try.

I hope you are enjoying this last day of the holiday weekend and had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Digi Stamps

Happy Monday, it's a beautiful day here in Arizona - 73 degrees at two in the afternoon.

I had time to color a digi stamp yesterday afternoon that's from Mo's Digital Pencil. There are two other digi stamps that come with this one, I really like the teen girl images. I'm working on 3 dozen encouragement cards for a friend who's a high school math teacher and thought these digi stamps would be perfect for her.

I printed my image on Copic Manga Illistration paper because I remembered I had it. I'm out of my favorite Neenah Super Smooth White card stock at the moment. There will be a delivery soon! We live in a very small town so I do most of my shopping for supplies on line.

Anyway... I colored the image with Copic markers and Copic Spica Glitter markers. The "You did it!" stamp is from SU Mini Mates and the sketch is from Crazy 4 Challenges week 12. The most time consuming part of the card was coloring the image, but it was fun!

Have a great day!

Oops I disappeared again...

My first card today is one I just finished and wanted to post. I was blog browsing last night and came across a free digi image at Doodle Dragon Studios and had to copy it, print it and color it right away. I colored the image last night and discovered that I don't have any Hunter Green card stock so I had to search through my stash today so I could make my card. My stash is in my youngest son's closet and he was asleep by that time last night!

If you think this digi image is cute stop by Dustin's blog and check it out, he has a big sale going on Wednesday, November 25th for one day only.

I colored the image with Copic markers and highlighted the snow on the tree with a Copic Spica glitter marker. I used Spellbinders Nestabilites dies to cut out the image and tag, the dark green "Paper" used for matting is a piece of flocked paper I bought at Scrapbooks & More in Lake Havasu before they closed a year or more ago. When I went to emboss it, I really crushed the nap, oops.

I've also been working on making 100 of the cards you see below. This is a Christmas card for one of our local churches. I want them to be a surprise so I won't say which one. The image stamp is made by Stampendous and "Tis the season" is from a PapertreyInk set. I colored the image with Copic markers (did I mention 100 times?) and my wonderful husband ran it through the Spellbinders Wizard using the Labels 4 Nesabilities die for me. He also did the Cuttlebug embossing for me on the Kraft panel.

I think I'm pretty caught up now so maybe I'll be a better blogger!

Fleur De Lis

My stamping girl friend Susan brought over this Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fleur De Lis die set and a Cardmaker magazine a couple of weeks ago. There was an awesome card by Becca Feeken on the inside cover, she asked if we could "try that".

Of course we can! Mine just doesn't look much like Becca's anymore... I basically used her idea of using the pendant twice to make a pendant that was more, more dimensional.

These dies are really neat, and they're really big. This card turned into an A7, it fits the 5 x 7 envelopes.

I've been busy creating more cards for a friend who's a teacher, she sends out encouragement cards to her math students and I get to make them. How fun! I'll show you some of them soon.

I also have a project to mass produce 100 Christmas cards that I'm working on, I'll show you that one soon too. I think I have 30 of the 100 images colored so far and now I need to get back to that!

Happy Stamping~

Creative Frenzie

I've been having fun with a new stamp set I received Saturday from Waltzing Mouse stamps, it's called Vintage Christmas. This set is "Nestie friendly", I love it!

The first two pictures I have are Christmas gift tags. This stamp fits in the largest of the Small Labels set and the oval part I cut with an oval Nesties die so I could pop it to give it dimension and hide the stamp I'd already used on it.

Each of these tags were colored with Copic markers and the oval parts air brushed with the Copic ABS. I punched snowflakes and added blue rhinestones in the middle for the blue tag and colored and cut out holly that I'd used Crystal Effects on the berries for the green tag then added large eyelets and organdy ribbon. I cut extra Small Labels for the back of the tags so I could stamp "to" and "from" on the back.

My next card is for WSC103, I made it Saturday and haven't had time to do a blog post so today will have to work! I was trying to use as many stamps as possible out of the new Vintage Christmas set so I made my own paper by background stamping and sponging the edges. The stamped image is colored with Copic markers and I used round Nesties dies and one of the Nesties Doodle Parts dies and black brads to finish the card.
The next two cards I made today, I'm trying to come up with some Christmas card designs I'm happy with. I'm getting there!
I used Navy Blue, Papertrey's Spring Rain and Neenah Super Smooth White card stock. The image is colored with a Copic marker cut out with round Nesties die and matted with a label die, the background is a Snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folder and the snowflakes are a old dull punch I need to part with and blue rhinestones.
My last card today is very much the same but I wanted to try the Nesties Eyelet pendant and border dies and added some half pearls.

I need to put this awesome set away for a while and come up with Christmas cards that I can mass produce 100 or more of next. So many stamps so little time... Happy stamping!

Trick or Treat!

I've been stamping again after almost five months! Sure is fun!!

I've spent the last couple of days stamping with friends and planning some classes for the near future.

The image I used today is a digi stamp from Hambo Stamps that I downloaded recently. I colored it with Copic markers, matted it with black card stock and attached it to a card. I stamped the Trick or Treat stamp from Michael's dollar bin after I colored the image.

The card body is a scrap of kraft card stock background stamped with Stampin' Up! retired Decorative Dot from 1997, a Cuttlebugged SU Eggplant Envy and a velvet rick rack ribbon from Clear Dollar Stamps. I used foam tape to pop the layer with the ribbon and the main image.

The picture above is the inside, the sentiment is retired SU Halloween Smiles 2003 and another dollar bin stamp from Michael's colored with Copic markers.

It's only a few weeks away from Halloween but the temperatures here are still near 100 in the daytime. I enjoy being able to open the windows and let the cool fresh air in but have to close up the house about noontime and turn the air conditioning back on. It shouldn't be too much longer...

On Vacation...

Hi Everyone,

I'm having some health problems and need to step away from several things I've taken on. Unfortunately blogging is going to be one of them. I'm not sure when I'll return, possibly August when the kids are back in school.

I'm still going to be paper crafting and hope to actually have more time for myself, my family and the fun creative stuff we all need in our lives.

I'd love it if you'd keep me in your prayers, thanks for stopping by!

Good news! I received a phone call this morning from the bride who's wedding invitations I posted yesterday, she chose the first card for her invitations!


Today's cards are samples for a bride who's getting married in Las Vegas. She wanted something less traditional and her colors are black and fuchsia, she chose flip flops and Hibiscus flowers for her Save The Date magnets. That gave me some ideas to start with and here's what I have so far!I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder on the pink panel but it's really hard to see in the picture.

Supply List: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Super Smooth 80lb. cover, Poptones Razzle Berry 65lb. cover, Pegasus Midnight Black 80lb. cover, Spellbinders Oval & Scalloped Oval dies, Quickkutz Flip Flops die, Stampin' Up! Sincere Salutations, I can't read the name on the Hibiscus Flower stamp anymore, and my computer to print the R.S.V.P. cards and insides of the invitations.
The second card above is also a sample invitation using Black 1/4" Grosgrain ribbon and no rubber stamps. The R.S.V.P. card is identical to the one above.

Have a great day!

Wedding Invitations

I thought I'd take a moment and do a blog post, I've been working on samples and bids for wedding invitations. I've been asked to make invitations for two weddings that are on the same day but in different cities.

I'd forgotten how much work it is calculating the cost of all the supplies needed and trying to figure out how to get paid for my time too!

I delivered three samples with bids to my first bride yesterday afternoon. The first card above I think is my favorite, it's simple and clean and I hopefully won't go crazy mass producing 350 of them.

The second card pictured above is just a step up from the first one, I added a layer and used a different Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Supplies Used for the first two cards: Neenah CC Solar White Super Smooth 80lb. cover stock, Thepapermill.com Dark Purple, Cuttlebug Swirls & Elegant embossing folders, Just Rite Stampers Monogram alphabet, and a Copic marker.
The third sample above has more layers and I used more dies. I added one more paper color using a lighter purple from the same source as the dark purple for a good match. The dies I used are Spellbinders Nestabilities Rectangle and Scalloped Rectangle and the hearts are a Quickkutz die, the embossing folder is Swiss Dots by Cuttlebug. I think I've used it a bit too much lately!

For the R.S.V.P. cards I used the same Cuttlebug embossing folder as the invitation, drew a line with a Copic marker to create a border and embossed the top section in an effort not to create more bulk, work or expense.

I'm taking a mental health day! I'm waiting on one stamp to arrive in the mail from my other bride to finish up the R.S.V.P. cards. Last night I was browsing Digital Stamps at a bunch of different web sites, I bought a few so today I'm going to color them and see what I can make. I have the Splitcoaststampers Color Challenge and Sketch Challenge in front of me and I can't wait to be ... gonestampin!

Have a fabulous day~

We Have A Wedding Date!

My cards today were a project I had the privilege of making last week for a special outreach the Parker Ministerial Society is doing. They are actually envelopes that will hold papers and other information. I had the opportunity to use my collection of "Plain Jane's" by Verve Visual, I also experimented with a bunch of the Cuttlebug embossing folders I've collected. Once I found a sketch I liked it was fast and fun to mass produce twenty four of these in assorted colors with different bible verses. It's sometimes a good thing to obsess over things and need to see them in several different colors!
It's a busy time around here, I made 40 Christening invitations before the Ministry envelopes. My oldest son called yesterday and put me in contact with a friend that needs 350 wedding invitations. I have a prospective job in the works for 100 wedding invitations and both of the weddings are on the same day. Hmmm, we'll see how this all works out!

Speaking of weddings... I'm getting married July 4th! Rick asked me to marry him Christmas eve and we've been working on setting a date and decided on the 4th of July. We thought it would be a fun way to celebrate our birthday's - June 30th and July 7th. It's going to be a very small ceremony with no frills, I've done this before and don't think the wedding is what's really important it's the life after the wedding.

I need to go work on those samples of wedding invitations now...

High Hopes

Rubber Stamps that is...

It was like Christmas at my house yesterday! I'd done some on line shopping ordering some fun new stamps, Palette ink pads to replace some of my Stampin' Up! ink pads, paper, etc., most of it arrived yesterday in the mail. The UPS truck pulled up late in the afternoon and Rick asked if I was expecting anything. Ahhhh, not that I'm aware of! He came back in with a package from High Hopes Rubber Stamps, oh ya that! High Hopes is in Canada so the goodies take a little longer to arrive.

My card today is the first stamp I colored and made a card from so far. I think he's so cute! And fun to color!

I used Copic markers and Stampin' Up! Flannel Plaid Background stamp along with my new High Hopes stamps, the paper is the equivilant of Stampin' Up! Night of Navy, Gable Green & White. I also used a couple Spellbinders Nestabilities dies and stamped the "gone fishin'" stamp twice so I could color the fish, cut it out to pop it, then to balance it all out added 3 Dew Drops to the lower right side. I didn't have a good match in my Dew Drops stash so I used some of the clear ones, I colored dots with one of my Copic markers and attached them over the colored dots.

I've been selling off my Stampin' Up! ink pads because I don't use them as much as I used to now that I'm coloring more. They also don't fit in my custom ink pad pull out like they were supposed to - but that's a whole different bucket of worms! Anyway... I discovered some of the Palette ink pads that PapertreyINK sells are nice matches to the SU colors. Here's what I've found so far: Palette Cognac/SU Creamy Carmel, Palette Raw Sienna/SU More Mustard, Palette Charcoal/SU Basic Gray and Palette Perfect Match Spring Rain looks similar to SU Bliss Blue or the new color they replaced that with a few years ago.

I hope you have a wonderful day - I'm gone stampin'

I found it...

Okay, I think I have this all working now. Whew, I found my picture from yesterday and got the "underline" on all my text turned off so now I can do a blog post. I can't seem to get any text above my photo today though =), I'm good.

I wanted to share this digital image with you yesterday, it's from Shirley's 2 Girls again. I know I'm a little late with the bunny images, I have several Easter Bunny cards I haven't posted because I'm late.

On to the good stuff! I used Picasa 3 photo software to size and print my bunny then colored it with Copic markers and used SC224 for a layout.

I really think the digital images are great, space is becoming more and more of an issue at my house. I love my new stamp room but it's also my kitchen so I need to keep it within reason! And there's this problem about using the garage for storage living in Arizona, it gets so hot out there that your ink pads dry out and the adhesive on the stamps melt, we can't have that happening!!

I hope you're enjoying your day~ It's 99 degrees here today. I think I'm gonna stay right here at the table and do some stamping!

Digital Images

I was at Splitcoaststampers the other day and noticed an ad for Shirley's 2 Girls and was intrigued so I clicked the link. Not only do they have some great stamps they have digital stamps or digital images you can download instead of buying the actual stamp. You pay for the image and down load it to your computer then print using a Photo program. I think my kids will like some of these as coloring pages too!

My first card is the Bugs digital image from Shirley's 2 Girls a stamp from Verve Visual & Polka Dot Basics from PapertreyINK with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I was trying to stay away from using the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder again so I chose the Paisley one instead. The "Thinking Of You" seemed small on this card so I layered it a few times using Spellbinder's Nestabilities Circles and Pinking Circles dies. I also used Stampin' Up! Word Window punch and a couple of red brads.
The bugs are colored with Copic markers, I printed them on my favorite Neenah Solar White 80lb. card stock.

When I started my blog post today I had another picture of a card but I don't have any idea what's happened to it. I'm using my little netbook while my kids are using the desktop computer. I know it's me, the keyboard is smaller than I'm used to and I keep touching keys that make other screens open.

I'll keep practicing! Have a good day~

Happy Saturday

This is my card for SC224, I made it Wednesday and now it's Saturday - where does the time go?!

We have been working on more home improvement projects around the house. The laundry room is getting cleaned up. The roof has been leaking out there since I moved in 16 years ago, oh it's been patched lots of times but by the time it rains again the patch has dried out and pulled away causing leakage. Way back when I moved in here that part of the house was a mother - in - laws suite complete with bathroom so it was drywalled and looking good. Today it is a garage and laundry room. The ceiling needed to be replaced and that's what was accomplished today, one of our friends is a drywaller by trade so we hired him to come over and replace the ceiling this morning. Of course we were part of the "crew", it was fun watching him work. When you're good at something it looks easy!

So... that's where most of the day went!

On to the card - I love the sketch challenges at Splitcoaststampers! This is SC224, I used my Eureka Angel and coordinating Eureka sentiment Happy Anniversary, it's colored with Copic markers and I added Stickles Ice to the wings with a small paint brush for some sparkle. The other accessories are Dew Drops "Men" and a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder. The paper is Nut Brown, SU Soft Sky and SU More Mustard. I was trying to use Verve's color challenge but my soft yellow turned into More Mustard. I'm happy with the end result though, I've been mass producing this one to have on hand when I need anniversary cards. I must say I'm a little tired of coloring her though.

I recently discovered some digi images and can't wait to color them and make a card to put them on. I'm sure you're having one of the same problems I am, so many stamps not so much room to house them all!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! It's getting warm here, I had to turn on the AC this afternoon. We're supposed to be in the high 90's by the end of next week. Hello spring in Airzona~

I won what?

Hey! I won something I didn't even realize I entered! That seems to be me... clueless at times!

I received an e mail this morning from Tricia at Lizzie Anne Designs letting me know I'd won April's customer gallery contest. I clicked the link and it took me to their blog and sure enough there's my card! I won a $20.00 gift certificate from the Lizzie Anne Designs store, how cool is that?! I have another Lizzie Anne Designs card for you today. This is from the set Le Jardin I believe. A couple of my stamping girl friends had me order it for them and I stamped some images before they took their sets home. Thanks Marilyn and Susan!

The flowers are colored with Copic markers, I used a Martha Stewart scalloped edge punch on the brown panel and my paper and ribbon is from PapertreyINK. except for the brown. The sketch was a Verve Visual challenge and it WAS a challenge!

I gotta go, I have a ton of stuff that needs to be done today. I hope to get some stamping time too! Have a great day~

What a day...

First things first! My craftroom/kitchen table is done, yea!! They came to install it yesterday but had to take the legs back and add the black glaze that was overlooked. I didn't get home from court until almost 4:00 p.m. so I thought I'd missed out on finishing the table today. The guys arrived right at 5:00, the table was set for dinner and the tacos were about ready to serve. I turned off dinner and cleared the table. I've been waiting a year for this... what's another hour till dinner?! I'm happy with it, there are 2 file drawers and 3 cabinets with doors for storage in the base of it. I think it will look more like a table with all 6 chairs around it, tonight it kind of looks like an island with legs. The best part is I'll be able to fit 8 ladies around it for stamping!

My picture below is Inky the cat in the bathroom sink. My little boy caught her curled up in there just before bed time. I didn't get there in time for that picture but this one is almost as cute. No wonder there was so much black fur in that bathroom sink this morning...

I have to tell you a little bit about the rest of my day too. Today was "my day in court". If you've been following my blog for awhile you know that last year I had a broken pipe under my kitchen floor that started a kitchen remodel nightmare.

I hired a contractor to replace my bottom cabinets because they were water damaged. Long story short - I gave him a deposit of half the cost of the job with a promise to complete it in 4 weeks. After 8 months, half done cabinets, complaints filed with The Registrar of Contractors, The Better Business Bureau and numerous phone calls to try to get the job done I hired a new contractor and filed a lawsuit.

We went to court today. There is no judgement yet, the judge needs to go over our paperwork to make her decision and will get back to us in 5 to 6 weeks. You may be thinking WHAT?! It's okay, I kept excellent records and she has them now. His record keeping wasn't so good, and his dates were inconsistant with what he said in court. I made sure to point that out.

I think she was very gracious to the two of us not even would be attorney's presenting our cases and more than patient. It was not fun and I really don't think I'd like to do that again but will if I have to.

Do you know what the best part of this was? I found out from the new contractor I hired to finish the job that the judge is having her kitchen remodeled. She's his next customer. I think God has a great sense of humor. Who better to hear your case than a woman who's about to have her kitchen remodeled.

Eureka Stamps

We got to do some stamping today! I have two cards using last Wednesday's sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers SC222. I've had the idea in my mind for the first card since I saw the sketch and I'm so glad I was able to get it "on paper" today.

My friend Nora was over today to catch up on a class from last week making Easter cards and I worked on coming up with a masculine card for our next class. Both of my image stamps today come from Eureka Stamps, I've had them for a very long time now. Supplies: Paper - Nut Brown, Tan, Light Pine Green, White, Stamps - Eureka Stamps, Cornish Heritage Farms, Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa, Accessories - Dew Drops "Men".

Nora really liked the Eureka Lamb stamp so we decided to see how it would look using SC222.

Supplies: Paper PapertreyINK Blush, Neenah Classic Columns Charcoal, Light Pine Green, Neenah Solar White, Stamps - Eureka Stamps, Verve Visual, Stampin' Up!, Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa, SU Pretty Ink Pink, Copic markers, Accessories - Brown eyelets.

It's another busy week around here - tomorrow the kitchen table I've been waiting a year for will be arriving and be installed. Yea!! Wednesday I go to court with the original contractor I hired to remodel my kitchen. I was served a Supoena this morning to be in Tribal Court Thursday afternoon. I think the Tribal Court is for vandalism that happened a couple of years ago in our neighborhood that I blogged about at the time. Hopefully it slows down a little around here soon, I miss being able to spend my time stamping.

Have a great day!

Revisiting SU Power Up & SC221

This has been another productive sketch challenge for me. My boyfriend Rick had a cool idea I had to try. He said something about using tools with those band aids in the SU Happy Healing set for a masculine card. I tried it and liked it so much I thought I should bring out the Stampin' Up! Power Up set and make some masculine birthday cards. I used the SU Linen background stamp on the first Creamy Carmel panel, the SU Builder Bits wheel on the Bliss Blue panel and Cuttlebugged the second Creamy Carmel panel, matting them all on Basic Black. The Happy Birthday stamp is from SU It's Your Birthday set. The ink I chose for this was Versafine Onyx Black, I like the way it covers the bold rubber and acrylic stamps.

This is a picture of the inside of my card, I've had fun decorating that part too. I'll keep practicing! The birthday verse is from the PapertreyINK Birthday Basics set.

I made a dozen masculine birthday cards trying to use all of the stamps in the set, you get the idea and don't really want to see each one! Have a nice weekend, the weather is beautiful here in Arizona~

SC221 Happy Healing

It's been a long time since I've done the sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers the same day it came out. I had so much fun today with this sketch! My first picture is of the inside of the card below. I've been trying to decorate the insides too.

Above is the first card I made with SC221. I used all Stampin' Up! stamps which is very odd for me. If you told me I had to, I'd have a really hard time coming up with something.

I've had this set on my mind for quite some time now. I bought it a few years ago and it's been put away, waiting... I colored the image with Copic markers, E33, E30, RV17 and 0. I had to go get a bandaid out of the box to find just the right color markers.

The stamps I used are Stampin' Up! Happy Healing, Simple Sayings, Paisley & Linen. I was surprised to notice 1999 on the stamps in the Happy Healing set, oh my, that set is 10 years old!

The paper colors are Basic Black, SU Creamy Carmel, PapertreyINK Razzberry Fizz and Neenah Solar White. I've discovered Memento Tuxedo Black ink, Wow, what a difference it makes with the Copic markers.

This set seems very appropriate right now. I had to make an ATC for my little girl with it, she closed her finger in my car door Friday night. It's her right index finger and it's looking better, the nail is black but the swelling has gone down and the skin color is normal again. Poor kid! The kids started working with a new typing program today, she said she wasn't having a problem with that finger at all, what a trooper.

I hope you have some stamping time today, have a good one!

ATC's

Happy Monday morning, the kids are back in school and the house is very quiet. Time to do a little blogging!

I have two Artist Trading Cards to share with you today. I've been in need of some type of card with my name and phone number on it for some time now. Business cards don't sound like much fun so I made ATC's instead. I printed four cards on a sheet of Neenah Solar White Super Smooth card stock to start, then I needed to figure out the measurements to make them 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" for the finished product.

A couple of my friends have the Lizzie Anne Designs set Le Jardin so I borrowed one and stamped some of the very small flowers from it for my project here. They are colored with Copic markers. The paper is PapertreyINK Razzberry Fizz, Summer Sunrise and my old standby Nut Brown from Thepapermill.com. The Hello stamp is from a PTI set too and Spellbinders Nestabilities dies.

The FedEX gal was just here with a Copic marker delivery. I gotta go sort out pens and make some phone calls to let my stamping girlfriends know "the pens" have arrived!! Have a great day!

Media Folder Mini Album

Stacy came over last night and we made a couple of mini albums out of media folders. I learned how to make these last November when Paula came to visit. I made this one for my brother's new granddaughter. The cardstock and patterned paper is from PapertreyINK Guidelines Collection. I also found the flower there, it's from Maya Road and is almost translucent. I tried coloring it with my Palette ink pad but the ink never dried and just wiped off. I then tried my Copic marker, hmm... two coats made it look even better, cool!

It's good to have friends! I borrowed a Sizzix top note die from Susan and a Sizzix envelope die from Marilyn to complete the inside of the mini album. Lucky for me I already had the old Sizzix large tag die.

I made a matching card to go with my gift using Lizzie Anne Designs Petite Phrases and sketch challenge 218.

I hope you have a wonderful day. I need to get with it, I'm having friends over to stamp today!