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!