Thursday, May 31, 2007

Finding treasures...

On my trip to Wisconsin I found a stamp store! Well, actually, my husband found it for me! We were driving by lots of cute little shops, and he said "There's something called 'Stamp on Main.'" So we stopped, and I said, "I will only be five minutes!" while my daughter and husband looked at me as if I were insane...
It wasn't five minutes, but I was pretty quick, and came away with some lovely regional stamps -- made in Door County - one nautical to use with my ships and sea gulls, and one for using with Get Well cards. I am anxious to ink both!

Yesterday I made this card for the SCS Sketch Challenge, which you can see here. My card is 5.5 inches square (love square cards!). I love this Basic Grey paper (well, all of their papers, actually, and I thought it would be perfect for the card. I distressed the edges, and then used direct to paper since BG paper has a white core. All of the panels are mounted on dimensionals, and raised up, although it's hard to tell that in the picture. My scallop is from my friend, Charlene! I am anxiously awaiting the release of Papertrey's punches tomorrow (pre-order) because I can't find any anywhere! Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Flowers of Summer



I love this flower set and will miss seeing a lot of cards made with it once it retires next month. I will keep my set, however! This was a card I made for a Featured Stamper challenge last week. I have been on vacation for a week in beautiful upper Wisconsin - right on Green Bay - and have not stamped since this card! You can read all about the challenge here and see the card I cased from Kyla Maestas here. She has a beautiful gallery. This was a really fun card to make -- I stamped a sheet of cardstock with the petal and leaf, then after cutting adding a bit of French Script to each piece and sponged around the images. I love paper piercing and added it to the center panel as well as the others. Later today I will post some pictures we took on our vacation -- really a wonderful time! We stayed in a friend's cabin -- what a generous and sweet spirit she has to let us enjoy her home there.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Ok, here goes.....


The problem with my watermarks is not the watermarks themselves --- they are beautiful and just what I wanted (see my sidebar for where I got them!). I don't have the right program to use them!! So sad, I know. Photoshop would be nice... So I tried something else and this is the upload to see if it works. This makes the photos blurry (and I am so picky about that) but I really want to show off what Cindy made for me too -- this is the swirly one. There is something cool about seeing your name all fancy! The giraffe one to come later today or tomorrow!

Oh yeah -- don't you just love that little ant?

Ok -- here is the other watermark on a matching card. I collect giraffes and am known on SCS as JAR so this really fit both of those things. Thanks again, Cindy, for a great job!

Inspiration from a beanbag??



So many things can be inspiring. A graduation speech, a painting, a beautiful piece of music, a photograph, kind words, a good book, even a little girl's bedroom! Our SCS Challenge this week was to draw inspiration from pictures of bedroom stuff by Target!
I chose the beanbag chairs (click here and here) and the picture above is what I came up with. I love the pinwheel and quilted look and the soft colors of this card. I first cut and pieced the pinwheel papers together, attached it to a scalloped Rose Red piece, added the bling gem, and went from there. The Cuttlebug is never far from my stamp table now, and I used the Happy Birthday embossing folder for part of the background.
I don't have a ticket punch yet, so I used my scallop scissors (backwards) to create the cut out corners. "Friend" is stamped on the little piece inside the aged copper frame. Two sizes of organdy ribbon, some Hodgepodge Hardware, a few Stickles here and there for sparkle and I am done! Definitely inspired....

Friday, May 18, 2007

New Colors!

I wanted everyone to be able to see the new In Colors that Stampin' Up! is coming out with -- these look really fun and I am excited to see them on paper! Check out the countdown calendar to the right for information on when the catalog comes out!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Small~ but mighty!


I have a lot of little stamps: those that are 1 1/2 inches or smaller. Sometimes they just get lost in the growing population of big stamps. Today, the small stamps had their day, as the SCS Challenge for today was to use small stamps! I had a piece of black/white patterned paper that I had cut for an earlier challenge (some of you may recognize this layout!) and decided to build my card around that - from the inside out, I guess! I punched a few holes out of the DP for "some color" to peek through. The other thing I have a lot of is SCRAPS. I save them all -- thinking sometime I will need that little sliver of ....whatever..... so today I decided that I had to use everything out of my scrap tote. This is what I came up with -- I call it "Dotty Thanks." Small stamps, scraps, a Cuttlebug embossing folder -- or two -- ribbon (love ribbon!), and one of my favorite colors: Green Galore. I think it's kind of a funky card! I am sending it to a stamping friend who sent me some Bella images to try!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The best Mother's Day......and the winner is..........


I love everything about Mother's Day. On Friday, I got a beautiful magenta azalea plant from MY mom, who lives in Arizona. It's gorgeous. About 50 blooms! Sunday was a quiet day to start, as my husband and son were still traveling home from college in North Carolina. My daughter and I had a wonderful morning at church and then she gave me a beautiful bright orange Sun Star plant, which looks like a tropical beauty from Costa Rica or somewhere! Then I got a chocolate cake with fudge frosting -- YUMMY! She and I shared a perfect girl lunch: salads and cake!! In the evening, my two boys came home, and that was the best gift of all -- having my whole family here together! My son was excited to be done with his first year of college. He gave me a funny card, a huge Symphony milk chocolate candy bar and my all-time favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption. It's so fun to watch your kids grow up and change and be themselves, but also you, at the same time.

Well, gals, we have a WINNER!!!! And I have egg on my face!! But I like eggs, so I guess it's okay. I think I was a little misleading in my earlier post -- but it was from an honest mistake - REALLY! I thought the winning number was going to be 20 -- yes, twenty sets that I would be reviewing for Rubber Stamping Fun. And I talked to my sister and was excited, and I posted on here how excited I was -- and I still am, don't get me wrong. I just think it's hilarious that I read the whole e-mail from the RSF Prez in a different way. He will think it's funny, I'm sure, when he reads this. Anyway, the winning number is ONE. And our winner is CHRIS from Watercolor Garden. Check out her blog! She has BLOG BLING on there!!! (AKA Blog Candy!) Congrats, Chris! I will get with you about your address, and sending the goodies!

My mistake came from reading that reviewers will get to choose from 20 sets......I sort of left out the "from" in my mind!! Anyway, thanks for playing and I will have a new game later this week to make up for my blonde-ness! I am excited that I get to choose my review set. As soon as I get it, you will be sure to see some creations with it!

My card for today is a combination of two challenges on SCS -- the Color Challenge and the Try a New Technique Challenge. Colors were Apricot Appeal, Tempting Turquoise, Rose Red and Green Galore. I was out of Rose Red (gasp!), so I had to substitute one of my favorite SU! retired colors: Rose Romance. The Technique challenge was to make a "Warm Up" card in under 15 minutes in the 3 x 3 size. This was a little harder than I thought it would be! That's a small card and I kept coming up with ideas that wouldn't fit! But I finally came up with this (see below) and I like how it turned out. "Magic" is from the Natural Beauty stamp set and the flower is from Petal Prints. I used the Word Window Punch after I stamped the Petal Prints flower and separated the image. I like the 3 x 3 size. I think I might get the hang of it and make a bunch!

Friday, May 11, 2007

And it's time for .......a guessing game!


Candy is a staple of the American diet, don't you think? Especially the stamper's diet. It's time for some candy!

Today the SCS Challenge was called "Wide Open Spaces" -- basically, leaving some open space on your card where there is no embellishments, designer paper, stamping, or doodles -- just a wide open space! I loved this challenge (kudos to Jen for thinking of it!) because I think sometimes we feel that our cards "aren't good enough" or "pretty enough" unless they are filled to them brim with *stuff."

The other fun thing about this challenge was that Jen uploaded her card to the Gallery early - before she had posted the challenge, and had us make guesses, from looking at her card, what the challenge would be. You can see her card here. I don't think anyone guessed correctly -- all I could come up with was *square, circle, rectangle*.....

So, for blog candy today we are going to have a guessing game! You will receive the card I made for the challenge, two rolls of purple ribbon (one of my favorites!), some fun beaded wire, and acrylic dome stickers to embellish your cards, pages, or whatever! Guess how many free stamp sets I am going to get from Rubber Stamping Fun to review? That's it! Not only do the reviewers get free sets, but we get to choose them from all of the new sets that are coming out! So that makes it even better, because I will get sets I will actually continue to use that I like and are my style! Post a comment on this message and the number you think by Sunday noon, on Mother's Day! It may take awhile to see your post, as I have to approve the posts and will be gone a lot, but I will see every one! Thanks for playing and have a great weekend!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Wisdom of a kind.....


This is the card I made for the SCS sketch challenge for yesterday. I was busy busy and didn't get to it until today. I was hoping to combine it with today's coaster challenge, but alas, I have no coasters or chipboard to substitute! You can see the sketch here.

The little squares that the Heartfelt Thanks flower is stamped on were already distressed with the light brown ink. I stamped the Mellow Moss layering panel with Encore gold, using the open line flower from the same set. Then I distressed the pink Daisy D's paper using Mellow Moss, which turned out sort of a walnut color -- okay with me! The sentiment is from an unknown vendor; I have had it forever! It is edged with Mellow Moss and Encore Gold. The front panels are all popped up on Dimensionals.

I am sending this to one of my SCS stamper friends as a RAK! Hope she likes it!

And what about LOST and American Idol last night? America made a wise choice. I was not surprised that LaKisha left; she was my choice to go (Jordin and Blake for me!), but I was surprised that Locke got shot on Lost!! Wow! What an episode. Always more questions and never too many answers! :)
I'm certainly not wise about that.

And for the best news of the day: my wisdom teeth have to go!!! I have been putting it off for years (literally), and today I was told, "no more." So, I go to see an oral surgeon later this month. Oh joy!! No Joy in JAR about that. Does these mean I won't be wise about anything? One would hope that is not the case.... lol

Blog candy tomorrow!! Be wise and come look! :)

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

A bit of sunshine for all.....

Well, the rain has stopped and the sunshine is here! A little sunshine for me today! I have been asked (as maybe many of you have) to be a reviewer for a new stamp company called Rubber Stamp Fun. You can visit their website here. I'm excited to see what they might come up with that is new and different! Watch for details in the coming days.
BLOG CANDY and sunshine for you! In the next few days I will be posting some blog candy -- my blog is so new, you will have a great chance to win! Keep looking!


A little sunshine for Shane. The SCS Color Challenge for today was to make a "boy card" using Cool Caribbean, Marigold Morning, and Taken With Teal. I decided to use retired stamp sets for my card -- I have always loved the Bow Wow set and haven't really been excited about any dog sets since. I am waiting.... I distressed the edges, using the distressing tool from the Cutter Kit, and mounted the front panels on Dimensionals so they would stand out. I also used my new Cuttlebug embossing folder - the stitched circle. This folder came in a set of four, and I hadn't used them until today. I like how it looks!
The challenge came from a wish for Shane, a boy with leukemia. You can read about his wish for birthday cards here.

A little sunshine for our family. My husband left this morning to head 1500 miles away to pick up my son from college!! We are all excited to have him back for the summer -- he is so far away, studying to be a famous musician, and it will bring sunshine to our house when he returns later this week!


Sunshine for my darling daughter. My daughter was elected to her Student Advisory Board for next year -- I am excited about that, as she will be changing schools - leaving middle school and becoming a Freshman in high school. SAB will give her an opportunity to meet a lot of new people right away. Here is a picture of the cool poster and slogan she came up with --love those clown fish!

And sunshine for my puppies and us (yet again for the 100th time). Our dogs, Lucy and Dayna, love to explore on their own -- they are sneaky about it too. One minute they are in the yard with you (we have a kennel, but the yard isn't fenced), and the next they are invisible and gone on an excursion. This time, it only took 3 of us an hour to find them - right before a big rain. They were 9 blocks away, frolicking in someone else's yard. It's a good thing we love them so much! In this picture, Lucy is waiting patiently for her turn with the bone!

I hope you have some sunshine in your day today!

Sunday, May 6, 2007

The lovely smell of rain...


I absolutely love the smell of a soft rain. And it's about time we had one! For two nights now, we have been inundated with 60+ mph winds and torrential downpours. My garage is wet, but the house is still dry inside. No basement moisture yet! My turtle would probably enjoy that since he is a water turtle. His name is Raph -- he is actually my son's turtle, named after Raphael, the TMNT. We got him when my son was entering 2nd grade -- he just finished his first year of college last week. Little did we know Raph would still be with us!

Anyway, the deck door is open and I can hear the patter of rain and it smells heavenly. Even my lab/basset (a story for another day!), Lucy, holds her nose up and sniffs the fragrance of "clean" every once in awhile.

On this rainy day, I made a card using one of the new Palette o' Prints papers from Stampin' Up! You can see the card above. Not much stamping -- just one of the "Warm Words" stamps -- but I love the papers and the rich colors and patterns. This card was inspired by another stamper's card (Alli Miles) and you see her card here.

My son comes home from college (1500 miles away from me) in a week - on Mother's Day. What a great gift! My whole family home (I also have a 14 yr. old daughter).

Remember that Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Who'll Stop the Rain"? Well, I guess that dates me! Some may not like it, but I am content just listening.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Food stamps and tornadoes


I loved today's Splitcoast Limited Supplies challenge. We were given a list of items to use and had to follow the list. We didn't need to use all items, but couldn't add any more. I used:
a food stamp (not the kind you buy groceries with!), a sentiment, one background stamp (wheel), fiber, brads, and cardstock from the Bold Brights group, along with Whisper White for my neutral color. You can view the whole list here! This is a 5.5 inch square card.

Today we had some severe storms around us -- a tornado watch -- but nothing else....yet! I really am glad the watch did not turn into a warning while I was at school teaching. It's just not that fun sitting in a two-stall bathroom with 12 first grade boys! I teach music, but I help the first grade teacher with her class. Everyone got home safely - even before the rain came! More to come tonight though -- it's that season!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

A Challenge Card!


Today I made a card for the SCS WT111 Challenge -- using window sheets. The natural light in my house was a little low this morning as it is a rainy day! This card was fun to make -- it has a little shaker box with pink ribbon confetti in it. The background was made with a cloud stencil using Pretty in Pink Stampin' Up! Classic ink. I embossed the sentiment ("Hope is believing in a brighter tomorrow") on the top panel, added some silver cord and voila! A card to send as a RAK!

Baby Blog Beginnings

Well, here goes. Everyone seems to have a blog these days. I might as well join the crowd. Now to figure it all out. Be patient -- I am a slow learner when it comes to computer stuff!

The card in the upper right corner (Edited later: moved - see it here) was made for my sister, who was in an accident on 4/28/07. Her truck was totalled and she should have had very severe injuries (according to EMTs, police, etc.), but came away without any. I am thankful for that miracle and it was a wonderful day! God is Good. She is my stamping buddy but lives 1500 miles away from me....cellphones and email are good!