A Whole Lotta Flowers

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I am celebrating this coming week on Tuesday with my whole family, and am looking forward to it! 

Today's creation uses some lovely papers by Graphic 45 and beautiful flowers from Wild Orchid and Prima. 

I love this little fairy with her sparkly wings. You can read all about this creation HERE.

Be sure to check out my giant garage sale a few posts down!

Challenges:

• C.R.A.F.T. - Anything Goes
• Creative Knockouts - Anything Goes
• MilkCoffee Challenge - Make It Sparkle

 

Thanks With Sizzix

One of the new sets just released at The {Stamps} of Life is called Thanks With Sizzix. I love the different fonts and ways to say thank you. I made a set of four little 4.25" cards - all easily mass-produced for thank you notes after Christmas! Take a look!

The first card above uses a heart cut from the tictactoe die cut set released last month. A little twine, some pearls, and an embossed background make for a sweet card.

The second uses the end of a pencil eraser, a stylus, and some pretty gems to make a border for your greeting.

A vertical trio of hearts and a simple font pack a punch for this simple design using Stephanie's Licorice ink.

And finally, this one layer CAS design uses Stephanie's Guava ink
and the heart stamp from November's Club set, tictactoe2play.

Fast and easy and fun to make!

Game Time with Stephanie Barnard and The {Stamps} of Life!

A new month brings a new Club set from The {Stamps} of Life! Love this fun tictactoe2play set and the matching dies!

 
For this card, I embossed the background using a Sizzix embossing folder, and cut the playing grid and X's and O out of white cardstock. I stamped the designs in Strawberry Ink. A little twine and a button and it's ready to send!

 




 
Banana and Strawberry Sprays! made the background for this birthday card. I stamped the stars with watermark ink and then embossed them. The sentiment was curved on the ink block and stamped with Guava ink. I happened to have some rhinestone stars that fit perfectly around the cut out (matching dies!) stars.

Playing grid dies, X's and stamped with Guava

Playing grid, heart and rectangle dies and Guava ink

Check out how to become a Club Member here and see Stephanie's video on this set, with mine and MANY more examples!

New Stamps at The Stamps of Life!

Who doesn't love a snowman??
The October Club set at The {Stamps} of Life has been out for a little over a week now, and there is a gallery full of fun inspiration from the TSOL DT members and TSOL customers HERE.

Today I want to share several creations I made using the new snowman2build set - the Club set for October. It comes with some fabulous dies too, which I really need to get as well.

If you don't have the Sprinkles! chunky glitter, you really have to try it out. I don't like glitter everywhere, but this stuff I use a LOT! It's fun and stays put :)

Sad to say, the wishes were a bit too warm, and my snowman melted!

I am just dandy keeping all the snow on my cards, instead of in my yard, thank you!

Come check out how to be a Club Member here. It's super fun and a great way to build your stamp/die collection.

Be sure to check out my huge stamp sale here and on my Facebook page: Joy in a JAR.

  Challenges entered: 

Country View Crafts' Challenge - Sparkle and Shine  

One Crazy Stamper - Halloween/Christmas 

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Anything Christmas Goes

Crafty Bloggers Network - Christmas

It's HOGtoberfest!

WOW! October already!...and that means one amazing thing...it's HOGtoberfest time at Hambo Stamps!

From October 1 - 15, enjoy a 30% discount on ALL regular-priced stamps in the store, with an additional 30% discount given on "Sale" stamps. Simply mention "HOGtoberfest14" when you order for the discount to be applied. Please note that the discount only applies to stamps, and not to cling cushion or any other available supplies. The "HOGtoberfest14" code can also be used in the Digi Store.  

It's perfect timing too for a brand new monthly challenge, which this month is all about the PIGS!! Obviously Hambo Stamp pigs are the best, so get your piggin' creative juices flowing and come join the Bacon Bits in this month's challenge! 

My card is made using List Pig - 1906 and Just Pigcause - 4112. I stamped my pig with VersaFine Onyx Black, embossed with Clear embossing powder and then colored in with Copics. 

Come join us!

Hugs Sand Kisses

There is a fun and easy challenge just starting today at the Hambo Hoedown. It's all about KIDS and you are invited to play along!

I used Hambo's Sand Box Dino and Hugs Sand Kisses for my images. Both are stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black ink. The Dino is colored with Copic markers. My dotty paper is from Doodlebug's Take Note 6x6 pad.

Come play along!

Two Challenges and a Fun Background

At Splitcoaststampers today, my friend Jeanne is hosting two challenges: Mix-ability 82: Rolly Polly and Free For All 235: One Word or Two...
I had to play along in the MIX82 because I stayed up chatting with some MIXers trying to guess what the challenge was (to no avail), but ended up convincing Kyra to use pink on her card, so figured I needed to put in my pink two cents!

For my background, I used Stephanie's Sprays (The Stamps of Life) in Guava and Bubblegum and brayered the spray immediately after spraying on Whisper White. 

I let that dry and then put drops of Cotton Candy (YES PINK) Stickles all over the paper and brayered that. And guess what? It turned GREEN. Which means either my Stickles are chameleons, or my brayer had something weird (like green ink?!) on it. It didn't come off with the sprays, so I have no idea. 

Anyway, the Stickles have a nice sheen to them (whatever colors they are) and you can see the entire sheet before I started on my blog. Fun stuff!!

A Little Hambo Humor

More than halfway through August already? Where did summer go? Over on the Hambo Hoedown blog, there is a fun challenge all about humor! You still have PLENTY of time to jump in. Just create your card by September 3rd at midnight with the theme HUMOR US!! You can use any company's image for this challenge but if you use a Hambo image, you can enter this challenge as many times as you would like. All others can enter once. There will be two winners of the challenge; each will receive a free digi of their choice from the Hambo digi store. 

I used some of my favorite Hambo images for my card:
Chickens - 0908 and Chicken On You - 1321:

I stamped my chickens with VersaFine Onyx Black, and then colored in with Copic markers. My sentiment is stamped with Stephanie's Premium Dye Ink in Tangerine. The chicken feet are from a retired Hambo stamp (I know -- it needs to come back!).

In other news, my sweet black lab Lucy, who turned 10 in May, became very sick one Saturday night, and by Tuesday, we had to let her go. We ran all sorts of tests to see if it was something that could be diagnosed and fixed, but to no avail. She was so sick and suffering so much, and we knew it was the right thing to do. I miss her sweet face every day, as does my white lab, Fiona.  Give your pets a special hug from me~!

Cardmaker Hop

Welcome to the CardMaker and The Stamps of Life Blog Hop!

 

The CardMaker Designers and The Stamps of Life Designers will be teaming up to show you some wonderful projects featuring stamps from The Stamps of Life.

Today I chose a holiday set to make a non-holiday card to make even better use of these adorable images from Stephanie Barnard. My card uses the sweet bunny from bunny4easter and the matching bunny die. Pretty sweet baby card now!

I stamped my images using Stephanie's Premium dye inks in Licorice and Sky and colored in the bunny using alcohol markers. A little mini ric rac and a button for embellishments, a corner punch, and some roughed-up edges, and this 4.25" card is ready to go with its baby gift!

 

Make sure and comment on each of the blogs in the hop! One winner will be randomly chosen to win 3 stamp sets of their choice ($12.95 value or less)!  The winner will be chosen July 31 and announced on The Stamps of Life Blog on August 1.

 

Hop List

CardMaker Magazine

Tiffany Johnson

Emily Niehaus

Theresa Momber

Joana Studer

Frances Byrne

Jeanne Jachna

Vanessa Buzard

Kristine Reynolds

Penny Ward

Tanya Adams

Anna Wight

Noelle McAdams

Jeanne Streiff

Mae Nazareth

Kim Pargeter

**Judy Rozema

Piali Biswas

The Stamps of Life blog

Short and Sweet

He knows what he wants. Short and sweet. :)

Stamped on Ultrasmooth White CS, this little frog from Paper Smooches' A Little Lovin' is waiting on his lily pad in the water for his princess to come along. I colored the entire image with Copic markers using the Pointillism technique of dots and more dots.  There is a little pink suggestion of a water lily on the left.  His crown is stamped on a tiny little gold piece of chevron designer paper from the Bundle of Joy Boy 6x6 pad. Zva Dimensionals and ISP Red-Line Tape hold everything together. 

 

What Do You Think He Is?

My images are from a new digi set by Hambo Stamps called Animal Heart. At Hambo, we think he is related to the Ice Age Sloth. What animal do you think he is?

Other challenges for this card:
The Pink Elephant - LOVE

Stamps: Animal Heart digital image by Hambo Stamps
Paper: Kraft, Barely Banana, K & Co. Sleepy Tree DP

Ink: Spectrum Noir markers
Accessories: banner die (TE), button, mini ric rac (RRR)

Guest Designing With YNS

Welcome to the February YNS Digital New Release!

We are so happy to have you join us as we showcase our new images 
from Penny and Laurence of Omnia Designs!!

The party begins at Deborah's blog and guess what?! We'll be giving away 6 digi stamps from the stops on the hop, so be sure to leave comments along the way for your chance to WIN!!!! Winners will be announced on February 4th on the YNS Blog.

I had the pleasure of using the new Just To Say digital image. Isn't he adorable? I colored him with Spectrum Noir markers and then used Fancy Pants DP for my designer paper. A little crocheted flower, twine and some Teresa Collins enamel dots complete the card.

Be sure to check out the awesome deal going on this month in 
celebration of February's new digi release!! 

I am thrilled to be Guest Designing for this hop and want to thank Deborah for asking me. Enjoy ~!

Here's the Scoop!

I suppose I should have made a card with a sun on it since it is so cold everywhere! Ice cream is probably the last thing on anyone's mind right now. But -- here's hoping to a super warm summer where I WANT ice cream. :)

Images are from Just Rite's The Scoop Vintage Labels Four. I stamped my cone in VersaFine Sepia on some of Prima's Life Time 6x6 papers, and then embossed with Clear Embossing Powder. The Prima paper had the perfect waffle cone color, as well as a textured "vanilla" piece that I colored in with an alcohol marker. The sentiment was stamped with white pigment ink and then embossed with White Embossing Powder.

My backgrounds are made with two Spellbinders embossing folders. The Kraft base is embossed with M-Bossabilities - Regal and the pink Oval die cut is So Trendy. The embellishments I used were Latte Pearls, 1" pink ric rac, a cute doily, and pink Prima Encore flowers. Pink is the best-selling color of flowers at The Stamp Simply Ribbon Store, and they sell out quickly, as these did. But -- Sharon has some beautiful Encore flowers in other colors here, as well as other pink flower choices here.

I use a variety of adhesives, and you can find a great selection of all kinds in the Store here. Everything you need all in one place!

Sharon has bins full of fabulous sale items at amazing prices! Go check it all out!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Sketch, A Tutorial, and My Favorite Flowers

It's Thursday and that means a new sketch

at The Deconstructed Sketch! 
Plus I have a tutorial to show you, which I have dubbed "Air Smash."
It is a take on the fun Spray and Smash Technique.

I used Sheena's Paint Fusion Poppies from Crafter's Companion 
for my images and Tim Holtz Distress Reinkers in
Barn Door, Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey.
My cardstock is High Gloss. 

I stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and then embossed with Clear Embossing Powder, Not all of the inks were dry, so some of the inside of the flowers have raised clear powder on them. I liked how it gave the flowers some texture. Don't worry if it isn't totally dry! If you don't have canned air (I got mine at Office Max), try a straw!

Add any embellishments you like (Butterfly by The Paper Studio) and some pretty designer paper (Bo Bunny's Enchanted Collection) and you are all done! Here is the picture of Step 4 side-by-side:

 I have another piece to save for later!

 
To play along, here’s the scoop on what you need to do:

1. Use the sketch up top to make a project, any kind you like using any image you like. Use the sketch to inspire your own creativity. Feel free to substitute shapes for what you have available and mount tags and circles to a card base if you’d prefer.

2. Post it somewhere on the internet (your blog, SCS, Flickr, etc). Use keyword DS136 if you post to an online gallery like Splitcoaststampers.

3. Link back here to Inlinkz at the bottom of the post HERE.

4. Be sure to stop back by net week to see if you are one of the featured projects!

Be sure to check out the rest of the fun inspiration from The Deconstructed Sketch Girls! And welcome to Joanne!!

• Arielle Gordon
• Cresta Woodruff
• Jen Shults
• Joni Wilson
• Joanne Basile
• Judy Rozema (me!)
• Kadie Ensley
• Kim O'Connell
• Lori Boyd
• Sheri Gilson
• Tangii Crain
• Tracey Pickersgill

 

The Beat Goes On

Music has played an important part in my life in all sorts of ways, so when I saw this new CAS-ual Fridays Love Notes stamp set and Heart Note Fri-Die, I snatched it up right away! Both are available at i {heart} papers!

I stamped my sentiment with Memento Lady Bug ink on Ultra Smooth Premium White Cardstock and added a sparkly little heart brad next to it. I chose a rainbow of colors and cut the Heart Note die using those seven colors. All layers are held together with 1/4" Scor-Tape.

And that's it! A cute little musical love note~!