Midnight Stamp Mania

Spring is almost here, can you feel it?

2011-03-15T23:41:00.005-04:00

I love Spring! The plants are just starting to peek out of the ground, promising lots of wonderful flowers this year. Although I love my summer flowers, especially the daylilies, I also really look forward to Spring for the daffodils, then the Peonies and Iris. This Friday it's going to be almost 70 degrees and I took the day off work. A happy coincidence! :) Anyway, for Spring I made myself this nice lap quilt for snuggling with my little baby on the couch.

I used Bliss fabrics from Moda. I love the red, aqua and pink together. I think I will have to buy several more yards of some of the polka dots and other red prints to keep for other projects. The quilt pattern is Piece of Cake by Thimble Blossoms. It was super easy to put together.

Sorry the photos aren't as bright as I would have liked because I took the photo indoors. The weather has been awful and I didn't think I could get a volunteer to stand outside in the cold and hold it up while a took a picture. I am having a great time with sewing and quilting. I took a free motion quilting class last weekend. It was a lot of fun but let's just say that I need LOTS of practice and will probably have my bigger quilts done by a wonderful local long-arm quilter for quite a while.

How am I going to balance sewing and gardening this Spring I wonder? Sewing will probably take a back seat while I try to get the garden in shape for the AHS daylily convention here next summer. We will have approximately 600 people touring our garden. {gulp} What have I gotten myself into? :)

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:43:00.004-05:00

It has been forever since I posted here on the blog. I've just been going in a hundred different directions lately. I'm sure you know the feeling. I confess, I made no handmade Christmas cards this year. I'll have to do some stamping soon or I won't be able to justify any more new PTI stamps. :O

I've been doing more sewing and quilting lately, including this table runner that I made as a Christmas present for my Mom. This is the first project that I pieced, quilted and bound all by myself.

I made some mistakes (next time match bobbin thread to backing material), learned to bind (had to rip it all out once but I'm glad I did) but in the end, I was really happy with the finished piece and more importantly, so was my Mom!

I also made a small quilted wall hanging for my SIL with an appliqued snowman. I finished binding it at 4:00 a.m. of the day we were going to see them for our Christmas get together so no photos. Maybe she'll take one and send it to me so I can post it. I plan to make some more of them for other family members. It was a pretty simple project once I chose the fabrics I wanted to use for each piece. I am not super confident about mixing and matching fabric so that part takes me a while.

Well, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. We're super excited here at our house today waiting for Santa to arrive tonight. I'll be back on the blog in the new year with some more projects, I promise!

Blog Hop Treats

2010-05-25T19:47:00.004-04:00

Welcome to the Papertrey May Blog Hop! Thanks so much for stopping by my humble little blog. Sorry I've been MIA in blog world lately. There's been so much to do in the garden and I've been devoting some time to making a quilt for my daughter's first "big girl" bed. Since I am having such a good time sewing right now I decided to sew a pillow cover and decorate it with felt for the challenge. Here is the challenge that was issued:

This month's blog hop is all about fabulous felt! We know you love this new addition to our product line-up and we would love to see what you are doing with it! From borders to focal points, paper crafts to sewing projects. Hair accessories to home decor accents. Cards to scrapbook layouts. We want to see it all!

Here is my contribution:

I hope you love it. I had a great time creating it! :) I stitched the pillow cover out of an repurposed table cloth that doesn't fit our new dining room table. The stems and leaves of the flowers were cut from fabric and fused onto the pillow top. Then I used Raspberry Fizz and Vintage Cream felt and buttons to create the flowers. The new cloud die made a wonderful addition. I tacked down the clouds with some fabric glue and then did a simple running stitch for a nice handmade look. Finally I added a butterfly out of Vintage Cream and Hawaiian Shores felt with some half pearls for a little bling. Enjoy your hop and thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I love reading each and every one!

I'm Late, I'm Late!

2010-04-25T20:41:00.007-04:00

So sorry, I'm late posting for the Blog Hop. Too many things to do today. I hope you'll forgive me. The challenge this month was to use tissue paper so I made a tissue paper butterfly.

Stamps: Papertrey Ink: Turning a New Leaf; Butterfly Dreams; Beautiful Blooms II; Delightful Dahlia. Ink: Hawaiian Shores, Spring Moss, New Leaf, Hibiscus Burst, Smoky Shadow. Cardstock: Aqua Mist, White. Accessories: Tissue Paper, rhinestones and rhinestone brad, PTI ribbon and buttons, PTI wool felt, Scallop border punch (EK Success).

Birthdays galore!

2010-04-09T15:03:00.003-04:00

It is busy birthday season in our house. My niece's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, today is my daughter and my husband's birthday and another niece. Three birthdays on one day!

I have been lacking time in the stamp/sewing room the last few weeks. Work has been brutally busy and the garden is starting to need a lot of attention. But I do have a couple of things to share in honor of all the birthdays.

This is a card I made for my 10 years old niece. She's a very "hip" girl so I chose a really bright color combination. Way out of my comfort zone but I had fun with it. Check out the cork star. It was an embellishment sent to me by PTI friend JenniferK. I added some little rhinestones to the star to give it extra pizazz.

Next is my attempt at making Fur Monster cupcakes. I adore making dessert, especially something as fun as this. These are from the brand new book What's New Cupcake. You should see all of the fun things you can make with easy to find ingredients and candy.

We had these for a birthday treat after lunch today. They were thoroughly enjoyed as you can see! It was straight to the tub after lunch. I think just about her entire face was purple!

Have a Monster Fun day!

Supplies for card: All supplies by PTI unless noted. Stamps: Say it With Style, Polka Dot Basics II. Cardstock: Orange Zest, Spring Moss, Hibiscus Burst. Ink: Palette Noir, Fresh Snow, VersaMark. Accessories: White embossing Powder (stash), rhinestones (Kaiser Kraft), white gel pen (Signo), cork start (JenniferK), Hibiscus Burst button, black wool felt.

Welcome Spring!

2010-03-22T21:04:00.005-04:00

Spring has finally arrived! The weekend was so beautiful. I spent a lot of time in my garden cleaning away the old plant debris. This is one of my favorite times in the garden. I enjoy seeing the fresh green shoots peeking out of the ground. The tips of my peonies are starting to show, daylilies are growing, tree peonies are beginning to sprout and the Spring bulbs are starting to bloom.

I also had another sewing class with my friend Trish at Two Peas In a Pod designs. We made really cute envelope syle pillow covers and a table topper. I thought I would share a picture of my table topper with you because it is really just says "Spring" to me.

Aren't those fabrics just yummy? They're from Heather Bailey's new line Nicey Jane with another fabric (don't remember which) on the ends. Here's another shot a little closer of some of the fabrics.

The colors are just so fresh and beautiful. I can't stop looking at it --and telling my husband how much I love it. :) Thanks Trish! As always I had a ton of fun at our class.

Dots and Bots

2010-02-27T21:30:00.004-05:00

I missed the PTI blog hop this month. :( I think I have the winter blahs because by the time I get some spare time I haven't felt much like stamping. February is a really tough month! I have a few birthdays coming up though so I have to find my mojo and get going! I forced myself to the stamp room last night to make this quick birthday card for a party we were attending today.

I thought Papertrey's new Dot Spot set was a great background. I chose to pair it with this robot set from SU! The card is for a little boy who is turning 3. I wanted quick and pretty simple since the card probably wound up destroyed by the end of the day. I like really like the colors Orange Zest, Enchanted Evening and Spring Moss together.

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I will find some mojo this weekend and have more projects up soon!

Supplies: Stamps: Dot Spot (Papertrey Ink), Lots of Bots (SU!). Cardstock: White, Spring Moss, Enchanted Evening, Orange Zest (PTI). Ink: Orange Zest, Spring Moss, Enchanted Evening, (PTI) Palette Noir. Accessories: Nestabilities, screw shaped snaps (stash), copic markers.

Last one I promise!

2010-02-14T21:41:00.004-05:00

O.K., so I have one last teeny weeny Valentine card to share. :)

I love these Moda Valentine fabrics. I bought a pack of charm squares and I have used them for all sorts of things. Plus, the colors match the Papertrey colors really well. Bonus! I have a little trouble keeping the fabric from scooting around while I stitch on the cardstock. I put a tad bit of scor-tape in the center to tack it down but somehow it still got a little bit askew while I sewed. Oh well, you wouldn't have noticed if I didn't tell you would you? It just adds to the homemade charm of the card - right? I hope!

The sentiment is from Heart Print Sentiments. A set I purchased only recently but I'm very glad I did. I think I will get all kinds of use out it. Thanks so much for stopping by. Don't forget the PTI Anniversary release party tonight. Check out the festivities on Nichole's blog here.

Supplies: Stamps: Heart Prints Sentiments, Simple Valentine. Cardstock: Rustic Cream, Berry Sorbet, Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Bitty Box paper. Ink: Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy. Accessories: Moda fabric, Marvy scallop heart punch and book print, Glitter glue, Pure Poppy and Berry Sorbet buttons, Vintage Cream and Pure Poppy ribbon, rustic twine, Fiskars border punch.

Sweet Celebrations

2010-02-13T16:43:00.004-05:00

Valentine's Day is almost upon us. What are you doing with your loved ones this holiday? We don't have any big plans - just out for pizza tonight and I have a little heart shaped cake for a snack later. Our little one LOVES cake!

Today I have a birthday card to share. I was inspired to create an emboss resist card by the PTI festivities but I admit I didn't get around to it very quickly!

This card uses the cupcake image from Baby Button Bits, along with a pretty damask border from Damask Designs. I stamped the cupcake on Papertrey's Stampers Select white cardstock and then carefully cut it out and popped it up on dimensionals inside the Vintage Labels frame. Now that PTI is releasing dies that coordinate with some of their images - I would love to have a cupcake die for this one. Nichole are you listening? :)

I colored the image with Copic markers and then went over the icing with my Spica clear glitter pen. It's so shimmery! I stamped the damask border on Sweet Blush cardstock in Versamark and then embossed it with white embossing powder. I sponged Hibiscus Burst ink all around the designs but I didn't cover the Sweet Blush completely so it has a slightly variegated look. Then I rubbed the ink off of the embossed damask designs (this is the resist part). The sentiment is from Big & Bold Wishes, which I'm really glad I purchased. I like the font and sizes of the sentiments. I added a little bling to set off the sentiment and it's good to go! This little baby went out in the mail today to a very sweet lady celebrating her birthday next week.

Tonight I have to get busy making cards for some kids' birthday parties we have coming up. I want them to be cute but I have to remember not to put too much time into it. They're going to be 3, which means the card will be tossed aside at best and at worst, torn to shreds in about 5 minutes. On second thought, maybe I'll visit the dollar store for those cards and make something else tonight. LOL!

Supplies: All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted.

Stamps: Baby Button Bits, Damask Designs, Big & Bold Wishes, Vintage Labels. Ink: Hibiscus Burst, Palette Noir, VersaMark. Cardstock: White, Smoky Shadow, Hibiscus Burst. Accessories: Embossing Powder, Scallop border punch (SU!), Vintage button in Hibiscus Burst, Copic markers, rhinestones (Kaiser Crafts), Spica glitter pen.

Lots of Snow = Lots of Stamp Time

2010-02-05T20:49:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday everyone! It is snowing like mad here. It's been snowing all day in fact. I have no idea how much snow we have already but it is supposed to continue through the night and we might get up to 16"! That's a lot for us. In a way I'm looking forward to being cooped up in the house. I hope to finish off the Valentines, do some other stamping and finish another tote bag.

Yes, I promise to post a picture of my tote bag soon!

Can you stand more Valentines? I will be moving on to other things soon. Here is another card for my hubby.

He's so sweet. I want to give him a card every day next week leading up to Valentine's Day. I am seriously spoiled by my dear husband. In addition to him being a SAHD to our little girl, he does the laundry, cooks and takes such good care of us girls in general. And he's sweet to me. My best friend in the whole wide world. :)

Sorry it's not the best photo in the world. This card fits in a standard business size envelope so it's a little tall for the space where I usually photograph my cards.

Thanks for stopping by. Be safe and warm wherever you are!

Kim

Supplies: Supplies by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted. Stamps: Top 10; Heart Prints; Wedding Day (inside sentiment). Cardstock: Kraft, Rustic Cream, Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate. Ink: Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Accessories: Glitter letter stickers (Making Memories); Heart embellishment (stash); Circle punches (SU!), Pure poppy twill; sewing.

Winding down the weekend

2010-01-31T17:00:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone! Are you having a nice weekend? I sure am but it is winding down. I got the cutest tote bag done during a class with my extraordinary sewing teacher Trish over at Two Peas in a Pod Designs and some stamping. I loved my bag so much that I had to pick out some more fabric to make another since I plan to give the original one to my Mom for Mother's Day. I'll try to get a picture posted of one of the bags soon.

On the stamping front, guess what I have? You're right, more Valentine cards! LOL!

This is another card where I managed to incorporate some of my gorgeous Moda fabric by making another yo-yo flower topped off with a Papertrey button and I stitched some more hearts along the bottom. I think this sentiment from Wishing You, is perfect for a friend or family member. It is sometimes hard to find a Valentine sentiment for friends and family, because so many are romantic - for obvious reasons but I like to send Valentines to friends and family also.

Here's a peek at the inside.

Supplies: All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted. Stamps: Wishing You, Vintage Labels, Simple Valentine, Polka Dot Basics I, Heart Prints. Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Kraft, Bitty Dot decorative paper. Ink: Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Accessories: Nestabilities (Spellbinder), Rhinestones (Kaiser Kraft), Vintage Button, Pure Poppy twill, Scor Tape, Glitter (Art Institute), Border Punch (EK Success), fabric (Moda), stitching.

Thanks for stopping by! Tomorrow is the start of the Papertrey Anniversary festivities. Don't forget to stop by Nichole's blog and check it out--as if you would! LOL!!

In Love

2010-01-28T20:34:00.008-05:00

I am in love----with making Valentine cards! I am really enjoying all of my Valentine stamps right now. I thought I would post photos of the cards I made for the Papertrey Valentine swap and one other card. I can share my swap cards since I know they were both received by Janelle and Tammy.

Card #1:

I recently purchased some Moda fabric and realized that the colors are a near perfect match for Berry Sorbet and Sweet Blush!!! I had to incorporate this fabric into some of my cards. Here I used 1/2 of a Charm Square and stitched it to my card and embellished with a little paper heart. I love the look of fabric on cards and plan to do a lot more of this in the future.

Card #2:

This card uses the box image from Text Boxed, which I only recently purchased. I masked off the box and filled it with images from Simple Valentine and polka dots. I also incorporated some more Moda fabric. I used my Yo-Yo template to make the little flower and embellished it with Papertrey vintage buttons. Making these little yo-yos is super easy and makes a fun embellishment for your cards. I also saw a template for a heart shape that I might have to try out. I also remembered that my sewing machine has some decorative heart stitches so I added that to the bottom of the card and set it off with red glitter strips above and below.

Finally, here is a super quick card that I made that has no stamping!!!

I must have been channeling Mish Wooderson on my last trip to the scrapbook store because I also found this gorgeous Making Memories paper and thought it would make some great quick and easy cards. It is almost too pretty to cut into! I added some stitching around the blocks and a few embellishments and it's done. If you're short on time for making cards I recommend looking for some patterned paper to cut up and use. This would also be a great way to make multiple cards if you needed a bunch of Valentine cards for your child's school class.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a fantastic weekend.

Kim

Supplies: All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted

Card #1: Stamps: Tiny Treats: Valentine, Polka Dots Basics II. Cardstock: Berry Sorbet, Vintage Cream, Sweet Blush. Ink: Vintage Cream, Tea Dye Duo, Dark Chocolate, Sweet Blush. Accessories: Nestabilities, scallop heart punch (Marvy), Vintage buttons, Vintage Cream ribbon, Sweet blush ribbon, border punch (EK Success), Fabric (Moda), Stickles, Vintage book print.

Card #2: Stamps: Text Boxed, Simple Valentine, Polka Dot Basics, Friends till the End. Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Kraft, Sweet Blush, Bitty Dot paper. Ink: Pure Poppy, Sweet Blush. Accessories: Vintage buttons, Pure Poppy twill, Scor-Tape, glitter (Art Institute), Brad (Making Memories), Stitching, fabric (Moda).

Card #3: Ink: Vintage Tea Dye Duo, Vintage Cream for distressing. Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Hibiscus Burst, Close to Cocoa (SU!), decorative paper (Making Memories). Accessories: stitching, vintage buttons and twin (Papertrey Ink), rhinestone (Kaiser Krafts), rhinestone heart brad (Making Memories).

The Total Package

2010-01-25T18:55:00.009-05:00

Welcome to Papertrey Blog Hop night! This month's challenge was to create a "total package". Here is the challenge posted on the Papertrey site.

Total Package Challenge

During this month's release there was a lot of chatter about the interior of cards and how they don't always get the attention they need. This month's challenge is to create a card that has the "total package". Create any style card you can dream up, then take it the next step. Embellish the interior and adorn the envelope. You might even want to add a little something to the back of the card! Be sure to take photos of ever aspect so we can all be inspired with what you create! We can't wait to see what you make!

I forgot about the envelope until I re-read the challenge just now. Oops! You'll just have to imagine a very sweet, and probably sparkly envelope to go along with this card.

The Aqua Mist Labels 1 die is stamped in VersaMark with an image from Background Basics Retro. The Sweet Blush layer is also stamped with the same image. It is very subtle in the photo but easier to see IRL. Along the bottom third of the card I stamped the smallest dots from Polka Dot Basics 2 in Sweet Blush (love the new formula!) and then scored a couple of lines on my Scor-Pal and then in the center I adhered a piece of scor-tape and added glitter. I adore glitter! The card edges are all smudged with the Vintage Tea Dye Duo. The sentiment was stamped with Aqua Mist.

Here is a close up of the heart. You can see a little bit better the smudged ink. I used Sweet Blush and the Vintage Tea Dye Duo to distress it. I used my Marvy Scallop Heart punch and punched several layers from some Making Memories paper. I followed Dawn McVey's tutorial for making flowers but used a heart instead. :) The pretty brad in the center is also from Making Memories.

Here is the inside of the card. I carried through the heart theme and used a cute image from Tiny Treats: Valentine. Along the bottom I used the border punch again and carried through the design elements of the polka dots and glitter too. Plus I added a couple of buttons.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I can't wait to see what everyone else did!

Supplies: All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted. Stamps: Background Basics Retro, Polka Dot Basics 2, Tiny Treats: Valentine; Take Note . Ink: Sweet Blush, Vintage Tea Dye Duo, Aqua Mist, Ocean Tides, VersaMark (Tsunenko). Cardstock: Sweet Blush, Vintage Cream, Aqua Mist. Accessories: Nestabilities (Spellbinder), Scallop heart punch (Marvy), text print paper (Making Memories), Sweet Blush ribbon, Glitter (Art Institute), Border Punch (EK Success), Scor-Tape (Scor-Pal), Aqua Mist vintage buttons, antique brad (Making Memories).

Take note Sweetie!

2010-01-24T11:10:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was a nice day for January. It was almost 50 degrees and dry. That's about as good as winter weather gets in Central Ohio! Today is grey and rainy. Blech! I'm getting ready to go out on a "date" with my hubby and our tot will stay home with a sitter today. We're going to a movie and dinner but we haven't decided what movie yet. Yesterday we were at the mall and there was a ginormous (that's my favorite made up word for "really big" line to see Avatar in 3D. Ummmm....no thanks! So, we'll go see something else.

Last night was another late night for me in the craft room and I got 3 more cards done. Two for my hubby and one for a friend. I just cannot put down the Papertrey Valentine sets. I haven't even started making my cute little cards for my daughter and my nieces and nephews. :)

Here is a quick card for my hubby using some Papertrey goodies.

Here is the inside:

Pretty simple. Too simple? I kept wanting to fuss with it but I couldn't decide what else to do. If you think it needs a little "something" let me know!

Supplies: All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted. Stamps: Take Note, Background Basics Hearts, Simple Valentine; Tiny Treats: Valentine, Ledger (Hero Arts). Ink: Vintage Cream, Vintage Tea Dye Duo, Pure Poppy, Sweet Blush, Dark Chocolate, Memento Brown, Tea Dye (Ranger). Cardstock: HIbiscus Burst, Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate. Accessories: Pure Poppy twill, Circle punches (SU!), Arrow Brad (Making Memories), Spiral punch (SU!)

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y-!!!!

2010-01-23T08:01:00.008-05:00

The weekend is finally here, woohoo! I need to get back in my craft room and make some more Valentine cards. I've really been in the mood this week. Last Saturday I stayed up until 5:30 a.m. creating cards. :0 It's true. The only time I really get to stamp is from 9:00 p.m. until sunrise while the DD is in bed. It's just too hard to focus when she's in the room, all you mothers of toddlers can relate I'm sure! Plus something strange happens when I get in the groove of creating, I just don't get tired. In fact, it only energizes me and I can't go to sleep sometimes for an hour or more after I've stopped. This is why I seldom make cards on a weeknight. Otherwise I would stay up way too late. Well, enough of that, here is another Valentine card I made for someone special.

The layers on this card were inspired by a beautiful card from Debbie Olson that appears in the current issue of Paper Crafts. I gathered a bunch of colors of cardstock and played around with them until I found a combination I liked and then I began stamping backgrounds on them and punching borders. Then I sewed some layers with my sewing machine and added this sweet little dog image from Tiny Treats: Valentine. A complete list of stamps and products are listed below.

Have a great day everyone! I'm off to Weight Watchers to do my monthly weigh in. UGH! And then I'm going out with the family. I need to get a new suit for an interview this week. I'm applying for a promotion position so wish me luck! :)

Supplies: All supplies by PaperTrey Ink unless noted. Stamps: Tiny Treats Valentine, Simple Valentine, Background Basics Retro, Polka Dots 2, Damask Designs. Cardstock from bottom to top: White, Hibiscus Burst, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Pure Poppy, Raspberry Fizz, Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet. Ink: Sweet Blush, Pure Poppy, Spring Moss, Raspberry Fizz. Accessories: Nestabilities (Spellbinders), circle punch (SU!), various border punches (Fiskars and EK Success), white gel pen (Signo), Copic Markers, Raspberry Fizz swiss dot ribbon, New Leaf button, Rustic twine, sewing machine stitching.

Shhhh....

2010-01-20T21:26:00.006-05:00

I've haven't posted for a while but it doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. ;) I've got a ton of Valentine cards to share but some I will not post until they've been received by my PTI sisters for our Valentine swap. I received the most beautiful card from TammyRN yesterday. I will take a picture and post it this week.

Tonight I wanted to share a card I made for my hubby for Valentine's day. Don't worry, I don't think he reads my blog. :) I used one of my favorite sets from Papertrey Ink, On My Couch and On My Couch Additions. I had this idea swirling around in my head for a few days. I wanted to come up with a color scheme and layout that wasn't too girly. I tend to put bows, buttons and glitter on everything that is standing still so this was a CHALLENGE. LOL! But I like how it turned out. Hope you enjoy it too, so here goes.....

I had to have just a little bit of sparkle, so I used a couple of rhinestone brads and some rhinestones in the centers of my pillows. By the way, I don't know if you can tell but the pillows are covered with red flock. They're cute and fuzzy! I thought this sentiment was a great one for Valentine's Day. Now the inside.....

I usually do add something decorative to the inside of my cards so I thought I would share since that seems to be a theme this month. I used some more of the decorative paper and a strip of scor-tape covered with red flock. I had to adapt the sentiment a little bit. It actually reads" I chair-ish your friendship". I just made sure to only ink part of the sentiment. I scoured my sets for a "you" stamp that was just right but didn't find one so I pieced it together with simple alphabet. The font doesn't match exactly of course but I still liked it.

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting! Stop back soon, I have more Valentine cards to share.

Kim

Supplies: All by Papertrey unless noted. Stamps: On My Couch, On My Couch Additions, Simple Alphabet, Simple Valentine, Wedding Day. Ink: Palette Noir, Pure Poppy, Smoky Shadow. Cardstock: Soft Stone, Smoky Shadow, White, Pure Poppy, Black & White decorative paper. Accessories: Nestabilities (Spellbinder), Flock (my stash), Rhinestone brads (stash), rhinestones jewels (Kaiser Krafts).

Lovey Dovey

2010-01-06T21:51:00.004-05:00

Christmas is barely over and already everything is focused on Valentine's Day. I guess I'm no different. I am trying to get more ahead of the curve this year and not wait until the last minute to create cards for occasions. Now that the Christmas hustle and bustle is over I had some time to just sit down and play around with some stamps. I am loving my new Papertrey Valentine stamps!

This card is clean and simple. I had this card base sitting on my desk. At first I thought it was Papertrey Aqua Mist but realized it was SU! Soft Sky. I also had this fun ribbon in my stash and it coordinates very well with Su! Ruby Red ink. Sorry, I don't remember whose ribbon this is. Maybe Making Memories?? The heart image is an older PTI set called Heart Prints. I stamped it and then stamped another one that I punched out and popped up on dimensionals and framed it with a Vintage Label. To create the border I scored two lines with my Scor-Pal, rubbed a little vintage cream ink on them to make them stand out a little and then added one of the ultra cute border stamps from Simple Valentine. One little rhinestone was all the bling I thought I needed for this card. This is more simple than a lot of my cards but it felt "right" to me so stopped adding things. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by. I love hearing from each and every one of you!

Kim

Supplies: Stamps: PTI Simple Valentine, Heart Prints, Vintage Labels. Cardstock: SU! Soft Sky, PTI Vintage Cream. Ink: SU! Soft Sky and Ruby Red. Accessories: Scor-Pal, ribbon (?), rhinestone (Kaiser Kraft), EK success heart punch.

I've got a lot of Scrap!

2010-01-03T11:04:00.006-05:00

Nicole at Papertrey Ink issued this challenge to the Senior Design Team and invited everyone to play along.

We all have 'em. Lots and lots of scraps. Whether it be paper scraps, ribbon scraps or fabric scraps, this month's challenge is to share a clever & unique idea for using those little bits that sometimes end up neglected. I couldn't be more thrilled with what the team came up with for innovative uses of all their little snippets. Please join me in exploring all of their innovative ideas and perhaps even get your creative juices flowing on this New Year's Day!

I thought this was a great challenge since I have a pretty good stash of scraps of cardstock, paper and stamped pieces. I was inspired to create three cards using up scraps in my stash, including pre-cut card bases. I just let myself create something quick and simple using my scraps. Here they are:

This first card took the longest because of the sewing. I also was inspired by the Papertrey newsletter, which focused on creating texture. This card has lots of texture. I used the blanket stitch function on my sewing machine (I need a lot of practice with this one), an embossing plate and some buttons. In the end I think it's a pretty nice masculine birthday card, which I always need and have a hard time creating.

This next card is a quick little Christmas Thank you.

Finally, I have a little note that I can use for a Thank you or even a birthday card down the road when I need it. I left the inside blank for now so I can pick the sentiment when I know what I'll use the card for.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these and maybe you were even inspired to grab some of your scraps and create one too.

Have a fantastic day!

Kim

Supplies (All supplies by PTI unless noted) :

Card #1: Stamps: Big & Bold Wishes, Vintage Labels, Guidelines Two. Cardstock: Kraft, Aqua Mist, Melon Berry and Lemon Tart. Ink: Dark Chocolate, Tea Dye Duo, Ocean Tides, Melon Berry. Accessories: Brother sewing machine, cuttlebug embossing plate, Nestabilities Label 3 die, vintage buttons and vintage twine.

Card #2: Stamps: Snowflake Serenade, Signature Christmas. Cardstock: Ripe Avocado, Kraft, bitty dot dp. Ink: Fresh Snow. Accessories: Filigree white embossing powder, Marvy square scallped punch, Fiskars border punch, Vintage Cream grosgrain and button and twine.

Card #3: Stamps: Take Note. Cardstock: Orange Zest, Kraft, Vintage Cream, Bitty Box and Autumn Abundance papers. Ink: Dark Chocolate. Accessories: Marvy and EK Success circle punches, Martha Stewart (?) border punch, Summer Sunrise twill and vintage button and rustic cream twine.

Happy New Year & a Mish Mash Challenge

2010-01-01T00:16:00.006-05:00

Happy New Year! I just finished my card for Mish Wooderson's challenge right about midnight. The DD has been in bed for hours and the DH is sick so he went to bed early, leaving me to play with some of my new Papertrey stamps. :) Now that Christmas is behind me I can relax and unwind.

Mish Wooderson issued a sketch challenge tonight and I had to play along because I have new stamps I haven't used and I need some sketch challenges to get me to try different layouts. Plus, Mish is my favorite blogger. She never fails to inspire me. So, here is the sketch from Mish. You can also check out her blog here.

And here is my card. I had to use my new Simple Valentine and Turning a New Leaf sets. I love them! I think I will use this sketch some more this weekend to make a birthday card and a Christmas card. One of my stamping resolutions this year is to make one Christmas card per week and to build up my stash of Birthday cards. So, with Mish's help I plan to get started right away.

I hope you had a safe and Happy New Year's eve and have a wonderful 2010! I appreciate everyone who stops by to look, even if you don't leave a comment. Of course I love hearing your feedback too. :)

Supplies: Stamps: Simple Valentine, Turning a New Leaf. Cardstock: Sweet Blush, Vintage Cream, Berry Sorbet, Pure Poppy. Ink: Sweet Blush, Pure Poppy, Berry Sorbet. Accessories: Circle punches (EK Success & SU!), rhinestones (Kaiser Kraft), Vintage Cream grosgrain ribbon, vintage button, vintage twine, border punch (Fiskars), ScorTape (ScorPal), Glitter #162 - Just Peachy (Art Institute). All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted.

Home for Christmas

2009-12-15T08:29:00.003-05:00

Just a really quick post before I go off to work. This is my entry for the Papertrey Guest Star Stamper contest for December using the Timeless Template Home Made.

I had recently finished making gingerbread houses and I still had them in mind when I made this house. The roof and sidewalk are made using Cosmo Cricket ' By Golly' paper. The walk is lined with pure poppy buttons. The roof and ground are glittered with an assortment of Martha Stewart glitters to make it really sparkle. I wanted trees but I didn't have any that were the right scale and then I decided I could make my own using the tree image from Holiday Tree. I stamped several and glued them together so they would stand up on the base and then I decorated them with Class-A-Peels stickers.

I hope you like it! I will come back later and post the full list of supplies.

Kim

Gingerbread Dreams

2009-12-12T09:27:00.005-05:00

One of my very favorite images from Holiday Button Bits is the little Gingerbread boy. I finally got my hands on some Cosmo Cricket By Golly paper and I thought that the peppermint paper would be the perfect addition to my Gingerbread and I love it!

The card layout is very simple. To vary it a little bit I punched 3/4 inch squares from the pepperminut paper and some ornament paper from SU! and placed those along the bottom edge of my card. In between the border the the image I tied a big fat bow with Pure Poppy ribbon topped off with a lovely vintage cream button. Not exactly flat for mailing like my other cards this year but I could not resist buttons on this card!

Less than 2 weeks until Christmas can you believe it! I have a few things to finish up in the gift giving department and oh yeah, one little small thing like decorating the house! I was sick Thanksgiving weekend and that put us seriously behind. My daughter likes to tell everyone that we don't have our tree up so we are fixing that today! And I only have a few Christmas cards done. I'm going to have to put in some late nights to get some more done asap and tomorrow is candy making day. I love making candy and giving away treats for the holidays. Recently I have enjoyed this more than making Christmas cookies but we may have to make a small batch for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Here is another of my favorite treats for the holidays. I am making some this weekend!

White Chocolate Party Mix

1 lb. white chocolate (I use Ghirardelli)

3 c. crispy rice cereal squares

3 c. crispy corn cereal squares

3 c. toasted oat cereal

2 c. think pretzel sticks

2 c. peanuts

1 (12oz) bag m&m's

Combine all ingredients except chocolate in a large bowl. Melt the white chocolate by your preferred method. Pour over cereal mix and stir to coat evenly. Spread the mix on wax paper to cool. Break in small pieces. Store in an airtight container. Refrigerate to keep fresh.

I am not a fan of white chocolate but I cannot get enough of this stuff. It has the perfect combination of sweet and salty!

Card supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted: Stamps: Holiday Button Bits; Vintage Labels. Ink: Dark Chocolate, Close to Cocoa (SU!), Tea Dye Duo, Pure Poppy. Cardstock: Ripe Avocado, vintage cream, dp by SU! and Cosmo Cricket. Accessories: Pure Poppy double-stitched ribon, vintage buttons, rustick twine, copic markers, Labels One dies by Spellbinder.

Roll Out the Holly

2009-12-05T22:00:00.005-05:00

The weeks are zipping by and as usual I am way behind on all of my crafting goals for the holidays. Here is another Christmas card using Holiday Button Bits.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm trying to keep the cards relatively simple and flat this year to avoid having to use extra postage. Instead of buttons on this card I stamped the largest single polka dot stamp from Polka Dot Basics in Pure Poppy ink to make the holly berries and then I covered them with red stickles for some sparkle. The holly leaves were stamped an extra time, cut out and then popped up on dimensionals.

Since some expressed an interest in candy recipes, here is one for homemade Clark Bars. This is one of my favorites, passed down to me from my Mom, who always makes yummy candy at the holidays. Love you Mom! Yummmm!

Judy's Homemade Clark Bars

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar
1 cup white Karo syrup
1/2 cup water
2 cups peanut butter
milk chocolate candy melts. A couple of bags will do you.

Directions:

Combine sugar, Karo syrup and water in a pan and place on stovetop. Heat to 290 degrees. While this is heating up spread your 2 cups of peanut butter into a black iron skillet. When the sugar mix reaches 290 degrees pour it over the peanut butter in your iron skillet and stir quickly. (I emphasize "quickly"). Spread it immediately onto a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and score it with a pizza cutter. Let it harden for approximately 1 hour and then dip in melted chocolate. Place on wax paper to let the chocolate set and then store in an airtight container in a cool location. These keep very well. You can make them a couple of weeks before the holidays.

Tips: You do want to use an iron skillet. This stuff sets up very quickly so you have to stir FAST and then spread it FAST onto your cookie sheet. An extra set of hands will be invaluable. My husband helps me stir and he holds the skillet while I spread it onto the cookie sheet. If you score it with your pizza cutter it will break apart easily for dipping.

I hope you enjoyed the card and if you try the recipe I'd love to know how they turn out!

Thanks for stopping by,

Kim

Supplies (By PTI unless noted): Stamps: Holiday Button Bits, Polka Dot Basics, Signature Christmas, Vintage Labels. Ink: Dark Chocolate, New Leaf, Pure Poppy, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Cardstock: Vintage Cream, New Leaf, Dark Chocolate, decorate paper by SU! Accessories: Spellbinders Labels 1 dies, glitter glue (Ranger), Border Punch (Martha Stewart), Cotton Trim (Joanns), Rustic Twine.

Time to Deck the Halls!

2009-12-01T23:22:00.004-05:00

I have another Christmas card to share tonight. In contrast to my last post, this card has a much more rustic feel.

I kept the embellishments light so it would not be too lumpy and require extra postage. Instead of using buttons with the ornament toppers I used the lovely ornament (or bell) from Communique Curves and it fits beautifully! Instead of a big bow I just cinched up the ribbon with a little rustic twine. I will definitely be using that trick again. And I LOVE Dawn McVey's Signature Christmas sentiments!

I am very excited for Christmas this year. Having a 2 and 1/2 year old has definitely restored some of the wonder of Christmas. I need to start cranking out the Christmas cards and I'm starting my candy making this weekend. Maybe I will share some of my favorite candy recipes. If that interests you let me know.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kim

Stamps: Holiday Button Bits, Communique Curves, Signature Christmas. Ink: Ripe Avocado, Pure Poppy, Plum Pudding, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Tea Dye Duo. Cardstock: Rustic White, Ripe Avocado, Wassail dp (Basic Grey). Accessories: Ripe Avocado double-stitch ribbon, rustic twine. All supplies are by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.

Deck the Halls!

2009-11-30T21:14:00.004-05:00

It's time to get a move on designing my Christmas cards. I finally started playing around with my Papertrey Christmas stamps and had a wonderful time! Here is a 3 card series using the same colors and design elements but changed up just a little bit.

I think this last card is my favorite but I'd love to know what you think! Each card uses a color scheme of Kraft, Sweet Blush and Aqua Mist and Linen vellum cardstock. Thetrees and snowflake images were stamped in Fresh Snow and then embossed with filigree white powder. Two of the cards include sewing on the vellum. Additional details for each card are included below. I am trying (key word is "trying") to make my cards not too lumpy this year so they can be mailed with a single stamp. The half pearls add a little bump but not as much as a big bow. It's hard for this girl not to have any bling on her cards so I added glitter. At the holidays I always bust out the glitter because it makes me so happy!

I am usually very traditional when it comes to my Christmas cards but for some reason I was drawn to create these using Aqua Mist and Sweet Blush. I really like the look but don't fret, there are plenty of cards with traditional colors and images coming to my blog soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kim

Supply lists (All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless noted):

Card #1: For this card I stamped the trees in Fresh Snow and then traced over each one with a glue pen and dusted it with crystal glitter. Stamps: Holiday Tree. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Linen vellum. Ink: Fresh Snow. Accessories: Art Institute crystal glitter, Filigree White embossing powder, sewing machine (Brother).

Card #2: Stamps: Holiday Tree, Holiday Treats, Polka Dot Basics. Ink: Fresh Snow, Palette Noir. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Linen vellum. Accessories: Art Institute crystal glitter, Filigree White embossing powder, circle punch (EK success), half pearls (stash).

Card #3: Stamps: Holiday Tree, Holiday Button Bits, Polka Dot Basics. Ink: Palette Noir, Fresh Snow. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist. Accessories: Scor-Tape, Filigree white embossing powder, half pearls (stash), Art Institute Crystal glitter and narrow oval punch (SU!); Sewing machine (Brother)

Ho Ho Holiday

2009-11-25T17:14:00.008-05:00

Hello and thanks for stopping by my little blog this evening. I bet you're here for the Papertrey Ink blog hop. I couldn't resist this month's challenge. Here is the description:

"The holidays are going to be here before you know it! No matter how much planning you do, there always seems to be last minute gifts and wrapping to do! This month's Blog Hop Challenge is to create a quick & inexpensive wrap or tag that can be the perfect solution for "grab & go" gifts! We can't wait to see what you create!!!"

I had several ideas but decided to go with my first one, which was to make a stamped muslin bag to hold some little gifts for Christmas. I won't show you what's inside just in case any of my friends and family are reading this! ;)

I estimated the size of bag that I would need and cut out two pieces of muslin and sewed them together. I turned the bag right side out and used two ribbon stamps from Faux Ribbon to make a Candy Cane stripe for the bag. I think I first saw this candy cane stripe done by Niki Estes but Mish Wooderson has also done it I think. I find both of their blogs so inspiring! I didn't come up with the idea of the stripe but I haven't seen any little bags like these. After I had the bag stamped I popped my gifts inside and tied it up with a nice bit of Pure Poppy satin ribbon. I made a little tag using the Santa from Holiday Button Bits with some snowflakes from Holiday Tree. I have lots of ideas for more bags. I might tweak the size a little bit so I have more fabric at the top and I"d love to try a drawstring bag but this was supposed to be quick and simple so I didn't do a lot of fiddling. I hope you enjoyed my post. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Kim

Time Gets Away From Me

2009-11-13T21:06:00.005-05:00

There is only so much I can do. I need to learn to embrace this concept. LOL! I have way more plans than I realistically have time to complete in between work and family. But I did manage to squeeze in a few projects. As promised, here are a couple more photos of what I've been up to. Regrettably I did not take more individual photos of the notebooks and they are all gone. But I have more supplies and I'm getting ready to make another batch and I'll try to do better with photos.

I made two styles of notebooks. The tall skinny ones are very popular lately especially among the Papertrey Ink crowd thanks to the new set Take Note. Add a little embellishment and a pen and it's a wonderful gift. The second style was a little more labor intensive but I really liked the results. I covered pieces of chipboard with decorative paper and then spiral bound them with my Bind-it-All. One of my favorite things about this style is that I created a little cardstock pocket on the back flap by stitching a piece of cardstock to my decorative paper before I glued it to the chipboard. The back of the notepad slides down inside it. This way the notepad can be replaced and you can use the cover over and over.

And here is the ever popular "Snowman Poop" gag gift for anyone you know who's been a little naughty this year. :)

Thanks for stopping by! I am starting on Christmas cards and gifts this weekend and will be sharing more soon.

Supplies Photo #1: All products by Paper Trey Ink with exception of the pens, binding coils and some decorative paper. Stamps: Take Note and Teacher's Apple are shown in the photos.

Photo #2: Stamps: SU! Thanks Snow Much. Cardstock: White and Brocade Blue. Accessories: punches and copic markers.

Happy Saturday!

2009-10-31T11:05:00.004-04:00

Whew, I am tired! I have been making tons of stuff so keep checking back and I will share more pictures as I get them loaded. I have been making lots of altered notebooks using Papertrey's brand new set called Take Note. I had these jr. legal pads started so once I got the stamps it was really easy to finish them off.

I haven't tried Nichole's template yet but I want to make some with the little pocket on the inside of the folder. I have some other style of notebooks to share using my bind-it-all. I will load some pics of those soon. Right now I have more ideas and plans than I have time to do it in. Last night I was up until 4:00 a.m. and I had to make myself go to bed because I had to be up by 8:00 a.m. LOL!!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Supplies: Stamps: Papertrey Ink Take Note, Guidelines II and Polka Dot Basics. Cardstock: Papertrey Kraft, Vintage Cream, Scarlet Jewel, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding, Orange Zest. Ink: Dark Chocolate, Plum Pudding, Chai, Versa Mark. Accessories: PTI ribbons, buttons, rustic twine.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-29T23:59:00.008-04:00

W e had Trick or Treat in our neighborhood tonight. Usually I keep the blog limited to my crafty things but I couldn't resist showing off a picture of my little Tinkerbell (Isabella). :) She had a great time at Trick or Treating this year, even though she was still too shy to say "Trick or Treat" at most of the houses. And here are a couple of photos of our decorations.

Last but not least, some photos of little treat boxes I made for the ladies at work using Lauren Meader's Tucked Away template. It's a cute little box and so easy to put together, thanks to Lauren's genius talents! :)

Supplies: Stamps: Paper Trey Ink Spooky Sweets , Polka Dot Basics II, Retro Backgrounds. Ink: Palette Noir, Orange Zest. Cardstock: Black, Orange Zest, White. Accessories: Black grosgrain ribbon, decorative paper by DCWV, circle punch.

Have a safe and spooky Halloween!

Holiday Hoopla with Papertrey

2009-10-25T20:22:00.006-04:00

Welcome to my blog tonight. I am a little late getting this posted. We went to Boo at the Zoo today and got home a little later than planned, which threw everything off schedule and I totally forgot about posting to my blog for the Papertrey blog hop.

So, forgive me how short my post is but you're here to look at the goodies anyway! For the holidays I have been making some bookmarks using Jumbo paperclips and lots of Papertrey images. Here is one of my favorites using the new gingerbread man from Holiday Button Bits.

And here is a photo of my bookmarks all packaged up and ready to go.

The stamps are assorted PTI stamps. The little kraft bookmark holders were stamped with Polka Dot Basics II in Fresh Snow ink and so was the little bag topper but the For You sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse stamps, and was stamped inside a border from Borders and Corners Rectangles. I hope you enjoy these little treats! Stop by again soon.

Kim

And a Cherry on top!

2009-10-15T23:29:00.003-04:00

Usually I post only stamping things here but I am learning to sew and wanted to show off my project. Pity my poor sewing teacher. I am taking classes once a month from Trish (check out her Two Peas blog and Etsy store) and I am probably the least knowledgeable of anyone in the class. Trish is extremely talented and soooo patient! This month we made a cute little swing skirt and an applique t-shirt. I was not able to finish my skirt and applique in class but I got it done over the weekend and I'm so happy with it! The pattern is the Girly Skirt by Pink Fig. I added a Pure Poppy button from PaperTrey Ink and some SU! ric-rac to my cupcake for fun. Sorry, I can't remember who made the fabrics but if you want to know I can check and see if I have a piece left with the manufacturer's name on it.

I made a 3t size (I know it looks huge in the photo) and it is a bit long for my little girl so she may even be able to wear it next Spring. I bought some yummy new fabric that is a bit more Fall-looking and I plan to make another skirt soon before I forget all the tips of putting it together.

Have a good one and thanks for stopping by!

Spooky Greetings!

2009-10-14T20:46:00.003-04:00

Well, it's an exciting night in our house. Papertrey release night! I am stalking the website to participate in all of the fun. I hope I win the big package tonight so I can get all of the wonderful goodies. In case I don't win I have my list ready to place an order but I had to make some hard decisions and some things will just have to wait for another month. While I'm waiting I thought I'd share a couple more Halloween cards with you. These also use the new Papertrey Halloween Tags set that was released last month.

Although it looks black in the photo I actually used Smoky Shadow ink for the card base and the graveyard border punch. I stamped the decorative circle from Spooky Sweets II onto Spring Moss cardstock and then cut it out with my Nestabilities and distressed it a little. Then I stamped the Boo tag onto the plaid paper from the Autumn Abundance collection and layered it over a ribbon on top.

This card came together very quickly. I find that having a small child in the house and very limited time to create, I want to get as much accomplished in my time as possible so I am going for simpler cards when I have to mass produce for holidays but I still want them to have some pizazz. For low fuss but a nice impact I have been trying to use up more of my decorative papers. Plus I can clean out some of the giant stacks I've accumulated and make way for more Papertrey stuff! I simply layered some cute K& Co web paper onto my orange zest cardstock and then topped it off with one of the holiday tags and embellished with some ribbon, buttons and rhinestones. Easy peasy! I hope you enjoyed my projects. :)

Supplies Card #1: Stamps: Halloween Tags 2009, Spooky Sweets 2. Paper: Smoky Shadow, Spring Moss, Autumn Abundance. Ink: Palette Noir and Smoky Shadow. Accessories: photo corner punch, Martha Stewart border punch, circle punches, Nestabilities, Orange Zest ribbon and button, vintage twine, white gel pen.

Supplies Card #2: Stamps: Halloween Tags 2009. Paper: Orange Zest, Smoky Shadow and K&CO dp. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: corner punch, rhinestones, Plum Pudding buttons, black ribbon, black twine.

Ghouls and Goblins Time!

2009-10-13T20:41:00.005-04:00

I just love Halloween! To me this holiday is pure FUN! Lots of fun decorations, candy to eat, cute costumes, and no juggling which family to visit when, etc. :) Every year we get a few more decorations. My DH loves to do up the outside of the house. That's his "thing". He could really care less about the inside decorations. Honestly, with a 2 and 1/2 year old in the house we don't do a lot of "decorating" right now, unless you count the assortment of toys all over the carpet. LOL! This weekend we started putting out the Halloween decorations and I even came up with a few displays indoors in places where little hands can't reach.

Tonight I'm sharing with you a card made with the new Papertrey Ink Halloween Tags set. It has so many wonderful images in it and I am just beginning to explore all of the possibilities.

This card is my favorite of the ones I've made I think.

I started with an orange card base and layered on some cute K&Co paper that I"ve been hoarding since last year. I keep meaning to do more of this layering with all of the paper I've accumulated but it is so much fun to create my own backgrounds with PTI stamps that I usually forget. :) Any way, after I put on the dp I layered several scalloped circles cut out with my Nestabilities and then the Black cat image was stamped in Black on Spring Moss. For a little "bling" I used my quickie glue pen on the cat and then doused him with some Doodlebug black glitter. It's so sparkly! I added some lovely Black dotted ribbon and Plum Pudding button from Papertrey. I felt that the bottom of the card needed something so I used this fun new border punch from Martha Stewart. It's a little graveyard. How spooky! Then I framed a sentiment from the Halloween Tags set and colored my hodgepodge hardware Black by using a Copic marker. Those markers a da bomb! Held the hardware in place with some rhinestone brads and I'm done!

Supplies: All supplies by PTI unless otherwise noted.

Stamps: Halloween Tags 2009. Ink: Palette Noir. Cardstock: Orange Zest, Smoky Shadow, Spring Moss, Plum Pudding bitty box paper and pumpkin paper by K&Co. Accessories: Martha Stewart graveyard border punch, hardware (SU!), rhinestone brads (stash) and Vintage button in Plum Pudding and polka dot ribbon.

Happily Ever After....

2009-10-06T22:38:00.005-04:00

Recently my husband and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. I am a very lucky woman to have found such a fabulous man I am proud to call my husband and my best friend, not to mention THE best Dad to our little girl! We have been a part of each other's lives for 20 years now and I can't imagine my life without him! I actually made him 2 cards for our special day. I momentarily considered making him 1 card for every year we've been married but I got started way too late to come up with 9 cards. This is one of the cards and I used many beautiful Papertrey Ink stamp sets ( Heart Prints, Wedding Day, Vintage Labels and Retro Backgrounds) to get the look I wanted. The heart was stamped and punched out 3 big hearts and 1 little heart and then adhered only in the center and then fanned out to make it dimensional. (I should have taken a photo from the side so you could see the layers better. Sorry!)

Our anniversary was on a weekday this year and unfortunately I had to travel out of town that day for work. I flew to Detroit but as luck would have it, while I was en route the event I was traveling for was cancelled. I found out when I was in my taxi on the way to the hotel. I was NOT too happy about that, let me tell you! But there is a silver lining in every cloud and I was able to get a quick return flight back home. I arrived home around 9:00, just about the time I usually call and check in if I'm on the road, but this time I was calling from the front porch! ;) I was talking to my hubby like I was still on the road but then I rang the doorbell and boy did he get a surprise! I'm so glad we got to spend our anniversary together after all. :)

I hope you enjoy my card today. Supplies are listed below. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. Stop back by soon. I have another anniversary card and several Halloween cards to share in the coming days.

Go and hug your special someone!

Supplies - All by Papertrey Ink unless noted: Stamps - Wedding Day, Retro Backgrounds, Vintage Labels, Heart Prints; Cardstock - Kraft, Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush, White; Ink - Vintage Cream, Pure Poppy. Accessories - Pure Poppy ribbon, vintage twine and button, border punch by Fiskars, Nestabilities Labels 1.

What should I do first?

2009-09-13T17:53:00.008-04:00

Do you ever feel like you never have enough time for your hobbies? :) Boy I sure do and then when I get a little free time, I can't decide what to work on first. I have been learning to sew and I've been spending some time with my machine and making fun sewing things like a little wallet, a cover for a little pack of tissues, a table runner with pumpkins appliqued to it, and other assorted happy little things! Stamping cards has taken a backseat lately while I explore my sewing machine and prepare things for the season's craft shows.

I did sew and stamp some sweet little lavender sachets using an assortment of Papertrey stamps. Here are a couple of photos but you can find several more in my Splitcoast gallery

Well, I have to run - already late to pick up my DH! I will come back and describe the process of creating these and add a supply list later. The inspiration for these sweet little numbers came from Heather Nichol's blog. You can see the tutorial on Nichole Heady's blog under the Introducing Rustic Branches post here.

Edited to add supplies:
Assorted Papertrey sets and inks, Perfect Match ribbons and buttons and coffee stained muslin cut using Nestabilities.

Halloween in July??

2009-07-25T17:39:00.008-04:00

Halloween in July??

You’ve heard of Christmas in July, well what about Halloween? We love Halloween and have already been talking about what we need to do to get ready for this year. I guess that it what made me think of my Halloween stamps for this month’s Papertrey Ink blog hop.

The PTI challenge was to focus on text and use it any way we wanted in a project. The first thing that came to mind was to create a fun text background using my PTI Halloween sets Spooky Sweets and Spooky Sweets II. So here we go!

I love the funky pattern on this first card. Look real close to see how I created this retro looking background. It’s one of the bat stamps from Spooky Sweets! I stamped the bats in a row across a sheet of Guidelines Two cardstock and then turned the bat upside down and stamped it directly underneath the other bat. The result was this really cool pattern. In between the X created by the bats I used the Boo! stamp from the same set. I kept the layout very simple so the focus would be on my background. Just a simple band of orange suede ribbon topped with a scallop circle and a little bat and sentiment on Ripe Avocado cardstock.

Backgrounds for the next two cards were also stamped on Guidelines Two cardstock. I can see that I am going to need more of this cardstock! ;) The cards are basically the same but with a few slightly different embellishments. I started my background by stamping one of the decorative ring stamps from Guidelines Two around the circles. Then I stamped the little spider from Spooky Sweets in the negative space between the circles and alternated sentiments inside the circles. Again I tried to keep the focus on the text since that was the theme for the Blog Hop. :) I cut out the text background using Nestabilities Labels 2 and then added another layer with Smoky Shadow cardstock. In the first sample I edged the panels with silver pen and added black glitter to the little spiders. For the embellishment I stamped the larger spider on PTI white cardstock and added Doodlebug crushed velvet in black. IRL it is so cool looking and fun to touch, unlike real spiders which give me the willies! Why do I like making Halloween cards with spiders when I’m terrified of them? I’m sure Freud would have had something interesting to say about that but I digress. I finished it off by using some thin silver cord as the spider’s web string. I got a little messy with the silver pen. Note to self: Add silver pen BEFORE you glue down the layers. If I had it to do over again I would probably leave that part out.

The second card is just like the first without the silver pen and using some lovely polka- dot ribbon and a big Summer Sunrise button. And I’ve included a shot of the inside of the cards too.

Thanks for stopping by! I can’t wait to see what you all came up with.

Happy Halloween 3 months early!

Kim

Supply lists (All supplies by PTI unless otherwise noted):

Card #1: Stamps: Spooky Sweets, Spooky Sweets II (inside). Cardstock: Guidelines II, Smoky Shadow, Ripe Avocado. Ink: Palette Noir, SU! Pumpkin Pie. Accessories: Suede ribbon (stash), circle punches by SU!.

Card #2: Stamps: Guidelines II, Spooky Sweets, Spooky Sweets II (inside). Cardstock: PTI White, Guidelines II, Smoky Shadow, SU! Pumpkin Pie, Heidi Grace dp. Ink: Palette Noir, SU! Pumpkin Pie. Accessories: Doodlebug glitter and crushed velvet, Silver Cord (stash), silver pen (Prismacolor), circle punches by SU!

Card #3: Stamps: Guidelines II, Spooky Sweets, Spooky Sweets II (inside). Cardstock: PTI White, Guidelines II, Smoky Shadow, SU! Pumpkin Pie, Heidi Grace dp. Ink: Palette Noir, SU! Pumpkin Pie. Accessories: Swiss dot ribbon, Summer Sunrise button, black twine (stash).

ETA: Fixed some spelling errors and put in the title of my post. Geesh, I always forget to do something when I'm prepping for Blog Hop! :)

A GSS submission and babble

2009-07-11T14:07:00.024-04:00

I am not so patiently waiting for the PTI July release on the 15th. This month I am really loving most of the sets previewed so far. If only money were no object! Well in the meantime, I uploaded this gift set for the PTI Guest Star Stamper contest this month.

The set contains 4 note cards w/ envelopes, an altered frame and a cute little altered tin. The inspiration for the color scheme and design came from the pretty Daisy D's paper I used on the picture frame. The colors were a great match for PTI's Spring Moss and Melon Berry and I thought the images from Life would make wonderful images for the cards.

I first stamped a foliage image in Spring Moss on Bitty Box paper and then stamped a flower image over it in Spring Moss (stem) and Melon Berry. Before I loaded on the Perfect Match ink I stamped my stamp in Versa Mark. That way I was able to emboss the flower image. It deepened the color of the flowers and gave it a nice finished look. I stamped various sentiments from the Life set on the bottoms of the cards and found lovely coordinating sentiments from Birthday Basics and Mother to go on the inside of the cards.

I used some fun natural cotton trim for accent on some of the cards and around the photo cut out on the frame. When I make cards to give away I make them as flat as I can, while hopefully keeping them interesting, so that the person I give them to can mail them without having to pay extra postage or worry about embellishments punching through the envelopes.

For the frame I stamped my sentiment on the paper and then adhered the paper to the frame with Perfect Paper Adhesive. This is my favorite product for attaching paper. It's not as wet as ModPodge, doesn't leave my hands as sticky and I have less problems with bubbles. When that was on I adhered the trim, buttons and ribbon.

The tin was super easy. It already had those cute embossed flower

designs on it so all I had to do was punch holes in it and thread on my buttons

and ribbon. Easy Peasy! I think the set turned out super cute!

Supplies: Stamps: PTI Life, Birthday Basics, Mother. Ink: Melon Berry, Spring Moss,

Vintage Tea Dye Duo, Versa Mark, Ranger Walnut Stain. Cardstock: Rustic Cream,

Melon Berry, Kraft, Accessories: Bitty Box paper, Daisy D's paper, border punch,

PTI vintage buttons, ribbon and twine, cotton trim (stash) tin box - Target.

2009-06-25T19:09:00.011-04:00

Welcome to PTI blog hop! A quick post because I'm late for dinner. Here's my inspiration photo and a couple of cards. How could I not choose 4th of July for my summer inspiration with all of the fabulous new stamps from PTI?

I will come back later and edit to add supply lists. Thanks for stopping by, I can't wait to see all of your blogs!

ETA Supplies: Stamps- Let Freedom Ring, Star Prints, All Star Team. Cardstock- Kraft, Guidelines 2 paper, Pure Poppy, White, SU Buckaroo Blue, and Bitty Box paper. Ink: Fresh Snow, Pure Poppy, SU Buckaroo Blue. Accessories: Filigree white ep, scallop edge punch, PTI vintage buttons and twine, ribbon (stash), circle punches.

ETA again: Forgot to say that my inspiration photo is from CountryLiving.com. They had wonderful inspiration photos and ideas!

Dad's Day #3

2009-06-19T23:25:00.005-04:00

Well Father's Day is upon us so I want to share the card I made for my DH. I hope it's not too "girly" but it is a card from our daughter to him, so I designed it as a card a little girl would give her Daddy. She's only 2 so I will probably let her scribble on another stamped image and make a second card but I wanted to make one also. I must admit I really love the way it turned out. I love the Magnolia images, except I'm not wild about the wings on some of the Tildas so I colored them brown and hopefully it blends in with her hair.
I started with a base of PTI Ripe Avocado and added some Plum Pudding bitty dot paper. I love these two colors together. Next, I stamped some stripes from Let Freedom Ring onto Vintage Cream cardstock for a subtle background. The box image was stamped on Kraft cardstock and colored with copic markers. Finally, Tilda was stamped onto a piece of white cardstock, colored with Copic markers and then cut out and layered onto the box. Some of the lilacs were also cut out and layered on for more dimension. For finishing touches I added some vintage looking trim, some lovely PTI buttons and ribbon and a cute sentiment from SU! Family Phrases set. The little gift I got my DH is backordered :( but today when I went to pick up my new iphone (jumping up and down happy) I bought DH an ipod Nano that he's been wanting. Shhhhh.... I know he'll be psyched on Father's Day.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I hope to get to play with my new Vintage Picnic set this weekend if I'm not too tired from working in the garden.

Supplies: Stamps: Magnolia, PTI Let Freedom Ring, Su! Family Phrases, Stampington (crate). Cardstock: PTI Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream, Plum Pudding Bitty dots. Ink: Palette Noir, Ranger Old Paper, Tea Dye, SU! Chocolate Chip. Accessories: PTI ribbon, buttons and vintage twine, trim (stash) and Copic markers.

Dad's Day Part 2

2009-06-17T23:36:00.004-04:00

It all started innocently enough when I asked my DH to give me an idea for a Father's Day card for his Stepfather. Then he said, either something do with Italy (he's Italian and my in-laws visit Italy often) or something to do with metal because he's a materials engineer. Say what????? Oh boy, now I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do!! After a couple of failed attempts to draw (not my strong suit) the Tuscan countryside and use watercolors (also not my best medium), I chucked that in the trash and ended up with this card, that I hope (vaguely) resembles a scene from the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

I have to thank Michelle Zindorf for her wonderful inspiration and tips on building scenes. I still need lots of practice with how to tear my paper to mask off areas and use my brayer but I'm getting better. One day I hope to attend one of her brayer workshops.

About the card. The arch, the vine and the stone path (hard to see) are from Art Impressions. They have amazing stamps for scene building and some really funny stamps called Golden Oldies and much more. The small flower is from the PTI set Honey Bees. The rock cliff on the right was really hard for me. I had a moment of panic when I realized that I have absolutely no grey inks. How on earth will I create a cliff without grey ink? The closest I could get was to use Pebble and Mushroom inks from Adirondack. Not my first choice but the arch was already done and I didn't hate it so I didn't want to throw away the project. When it was done I wanted to add a button, a ribbon or some kind of sentiment or embellishment. My DH said "leave it alone it's perfect". So, I mustered all of my willpower and put down my embellishments. I think he was right, anything else would have detracted from the scene. Inside I stamped one of the great sentiments from PTI's set "Mother". The sentiments in that set are very versatile and can be used for lots of people besides Mothers.

Tomorrow I will post the card that I made my DH from our daughter Isabella. Hope you stop by to see!

Supplies: Stamps: Art Impressions, Papertrey Ink; Cardstock: PTI Kraft, Classic White and Ocean Tides. Ink: Palette Noir, SU! (Soft Sky, Baja Breeze, Night of Navy), Adirondack (Pebble, Mushroom, Aqua), PTI (Hibiscus Burst), Memories (Sand). Accessories: tan Marvy Marker and Aqua pen, White gel pen. I think that's it! :)

Preparing for Dad's Day

2009-06-16T22:00:00.006-04:00

Thanks for stopping by. Over the next few days I will share cards I made for Father's Day this year. They all have a very different look about them. The card I'm sharing today is for my Dad. It's "all male", which suits my Dad perfectly. I started with Buckaroo Blue cs by SU! for my base and then added a background layer on Kraft cardstock. I created the background by first stamping the strip of stars from Let Freedom Ring in Antique Linen. Then I stamped the plaid using stamps from Let Freedom Ring and Faux Ribbon. I distressed all of the edges with ink to grunge it up a bit. For my focal panel I used PTI's new set Star Prints and the swirl from Let Freedom Ring. They work perfectly together. I love the way you can mix and match words in the Star Prints set. Instead of Dad there are other words you can use to complete this sentiment. To top it all off I used some lovely felt ribbon from SU! paired with a vintage button and twine from PTI. It's not an intricate card (I like to do lots of coloring) but I like it. My DH thought it was so/so until I told him I stamped the background. He thought it was plaid dp that I bought. Then he was impressed! :)

Now I just have to get this in the mail and think about what I might send along with it. My Dad is impossible to shop for. Do you have that same problem? I should buy him a tie just for laughs. He's retired but you know we bought him gobs of ties when we were kids. :)

Have a great one! Stop back by later this week to see the cards I made for my DH and my father-in-law.

Supplies: Stamps: PTI Let Freedom Ring, Star Prints, Faux Ribbon. Ink: Antique Linen, Faded Jeans, Walnut Stain and Brushed Corduroy (Ranger), Chocolate Chip (SU!), Fresh Snow (PTI). Cardstock: SU! Buckaroo Blue; PTI Vintage Cream and Kraft. Accessories: SU! felt ribbon, PTI vintage button and twine.

PTI May Blog Hop

2009-05-25T17:11:00.006-04:00

Welcome to the PTI May blog hop. Thanks for stopping by to see my projects! The challenge this month was to use the color yellow. Here's what Nichole had to say about the challenge:

"Spring and summer tend to be the most colorful out of the four seasons. One color in particular that
evokes the warmer weather is yellow!!! Your challenge this month is to use this trendsetting color to the
best of it's potential! You can use it in small pieces as an accent or as the main color. Experiment &
play, discovering new color combos that perhaps you hadn't thought of before. No matter what, just
have fun and enjoy the feeling of happiness that this cheerful color evokes!"

Today I managed to steal a few minutes during my darling daughter's nap time to make 2 cards. I already had 2 yellow bases started so then I just had to figure out the rest.

One of the first things I did after getting my goodies from the last PTI release was to try making some plaid backgrounds using Let Freedom Ring and Faux Ribbon. I thought this red and yellow plaid reminded me of a vintage table cloth so I tried to create a card to evoke warm thoughts of home. I liked the bird houses from Bird Watching with this sentiment from Boards and Beams. I wanted to include a button and a little bird so I decided to combine the two by punching out my bird and adhering him onto one of the big chocolate buttons from PTI's vintage buttons collection.

My second card is ultra-simple and uses the beautiful set Friends Til the End set, which I stamped on Lemon Tart bitty dots paper. I love the combination of Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet and Spring Moss. So summery. Like a big bowl of Sherbert, mmmmmm! I also got to use some of my buttons and ribbon stash and some of the wonderful new Vintage twine. It was very hard to photograph this card. It kept turning out looking kind of green and in real life it's such a pretty sunny yellow. I took it outside and that improved it some.

All supplies are posted below. If you want to know any details of the projects let me know. I'm trying to keep the post short since I know you all have a lot of blogs to visit tonight. Thanks for stopping by to see me, I get such a kick out of the visits!

Card #1: Stamps: Bird Watching, Boards & Beams, Faux Ribbon, Let Freedom Ring; Ink: Pure Poppy, Palette Noir, Walnut Stain, Faded Jeans. Cardstock: Lemon Tart, Pure Poppy, Kraft. Accessories: Vintage Buttons, Nestabilities, Copics, Pebbles chalks, punches.

Card #2: Stamps: Friends Til the End; Everyday Classics. Cardstock: White; Spring Moss, Berry Sorbet and Lemon Tart Bitty Dots paper. Ink: Lemon Tart; Berry Sorbet. Accessories: Spring Moss ribbon, Vintage buttons; vintage twine.

Mojo where are you???

2009-04-24T21:43:00.008-04:00

Anyone seen my mojo? I've had a nasty cold this week including barely being able to talk for days. I'm ready for it to be over. I have done nothing for the Papertrey Blog Hop tomorrow night and I'm hoping that my midnight mojo is going to kick in soon. In the meantime, I'll post a card that I made for Administrative Professionals Day this week.
I am having some trouble putting down my Wise Owl set lately. I think these little owls are the cutest ones on the market and the branch is from Beautiful Blooms. Also, the Guidelines 2 set is a lot of fun to play with. For this particular background I didn't even use the grid, I just stamped one of the focal images repeatedly for the background. A dash of Pure Poppy red in the center of each tied it in nicely with the rest of the card. Also, I finally got around to stitching on a card for real. I don't own a sewing machine and have never taken the time to stitch a card but I thought it added a nice touch and I was feeling too terrible to really stamp much this week. It took me days to make this card, a few minutes here and there. To give it a "woodsy" look I ran the Nestabilities background through the cuttlebug and then gave everything some distressing with my inks and distress tool. Hope you like it!

Now, I'm off to my happy stamping place to put together a template for the blog hop tomorrow. I hope you stop by.

Supplies: All stamps by PTI: Wise Owl, Guidelines 2 and Beautiful Blooms. Ink: SU! Chocolate Chip, Distress inks in Walnut Stain and Antique Linen, New Leaf, Palette Noir. Cardstock: PTI Kraft, Vintage Cream, Pure Poppy. Accessories: Pure Poppy ribbon, Vintage Cream button, embroidery floss, Nestabilities and Cuttlebug, punches, Copic markers.

One Sheet Wonder projects

2009-04-17T19:32:00.007-04:00

So lately I've done a lot of experimenting making sheets of background papers that I can use later for projects. One of my favorite color combinations of PTI colors is Melon Berry and Dark Chocolate. For these cards I started by stamping my leaves from PTI Beautiful Blooms on Kraft cardstock in Fresh Snow. Then I inked up the stamp again with New Leaf and stamped the leaves again, only moving them slightly off from the first image. I thought it was an interesting effect and want to try it again with some other colors.
The butterflies are from the set Wishing You. I just drew in the body of the butterflies by hand and used the antennae from Little Lady. The spots are made using a white gel pen. For my base card I used one of my favorite stamps from Retro Basics Backgrounds, the dashed line grid. The sentiment is from Simple Little Things, which was last year's PTI Anniversary set. To complete the card I added a layer of Dark Chocolate cardstock with a border punch and some New Leaf ribbon. Very simple but I just love these colors together!

Here's another similar card using this one sheet wonder but this time I also used a gorgeous new set from PTI called Life. Lisa Johnson designed this set and I think everything about it is just perfect. It has beautiful sentiments and flower silhouettes. Run on over to PTI and get it!

Well that's all for now. I have some more background sheet projects to share later and I need to get to work on a project for the April Blog Hop which will go live on April 25th at 8.p.m Stop back and see me soon!

All supplies by PTI unless noted: Stamps: Beautiful Blooms, Wishing You, Life, Retro Basics Backgrounds. Cardstock: Melon Berry, Dark Chocolate, Kraft, Vintage Cream. Ink: Versamark ink, Fresh Snow, New Leaf, Melon Berry, Dark Chocolate, Distress Ink Antique Linen. Accessories: White gel pen, Nestabilities, New Leaf ribbon, Fiskars border punch

Special Delivery!

2009-04-13T08:41:00.004-04:00

Today I (quickly) want to share a birthday card that I made for a little girl who just turned 3. I love the way it turned out, if I do say so myself!
The image is a cute little kitty from Penny Black. I colored it with Copic markers and added some glitter to the candle flame. I created the base for the image with my Nestabilities Labels One set. This is probably my favorite shape yet. The patterned paper is Basic Grey Gypsy and the cardstock colors are SU! Cool Caribbean and Pink Pirouette. The sentiment is from PTI. Other details include some white dots and "stitching" with my white gel pen and some glitter glue all around the edge of the Nestabilities for some sparkle. I know this little girl likes sparkle! Finally I topped it off with a button from my stash that matched perfectly and it was done. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it because she is 3 and probably destroyed it in under 5 minutes. LOL! I like the color combination though and need to remember to make another card with this soon.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Stop by again soon!

GSS April Submissions

2009-04-12T03:03:00.006-04:00

I just posted my submissions for this month's Guest Stamp Stamper competition over at PaperTrey Ink. I made several backgrounds when I got my new Guidelines 2 set and tonight I finally sat down and made a couple of cards. It is nice to have a head start by having the stack of background paper ready to go. The look and feel of both of these cards is very different. One is sort of masculine and earthy while the other is completely girly and uses one of my favorite color combinations - Pink and Green, with a little purple thrown in. I hope you enjoy these. I can't wait to see the other submissions!

Here's the earthy one. I used Melon Berry, Ocean Tides, Aqua Mist and Chocolate Chip ink on the Guidelines 2 background panel. For the image panel I chose Lisa Johnson's new set "Life" and stamped one of the foliage images in Antique Linen. The sentiment was stamped in Frayed Burlap and Melon Berry. While the panel was still in the Nestabilities die I sponged some Aqua Mist ink around the edges to highlight the panel.

Now for something girly!
I just love Wise Owl! Instead of coloring my owls in a realistic color scheme, this time I decided I should have a pink spotted owl to match my Guidelines 2 background. I stamped the owl body and the belly on two different colors of PTI's bitty dots paper and stamped the beak on Plum Pudding. The tree limb is from the set Out on a Limb. For the center of the pink circles on the background I used one of the dots from Polka Dot basics. The button is the new color Hibiscus Burst. I really am getting quite obsessed with PTI's buttons. I don't think I've made a card in weeks that didn't have a button on it! LOL!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-11T22:10:00.003-04:00

Sorry I've been away - things have been so hectic! Last weekend we had a birthday party for our little girl who turned 2 on Thursday. She had a ball and that was the goal so the party was a success! Mom and Dad were wiped out after an afternoon with a room full of toddlers, family and friends. So I haven't done a ton of stamping but I did do a little. Today I want to share with you the card I made for her birthday.

I started out to do Dawn McVey's color challenge using pink, berry, red and kraft but as you can see, I did not stick to the plan. Typical of me! I used flowers from PTI's With Sympathy set to create the field of flowers and a butterfly from Wedding Day and the sentiment is from Wishing You. The fairy princess is from SU! I believe. I'm not sure because I got her as a WishRAK from the forum over on SCS. I added some puffy clouds using a cloud template that I 've had for ever and I stamped some of the flowers again randomly in Fresh Snow on the vertical strip down the side. For a little bling I used my Spica glitter pens on the crown, the wand and added some all over shimmer to her dress. Finally I added some little pink gems to the crown. I think Izzy liked her card - it was all I could do to keep her from tearing the princess off the front to carry it around with her. LOL!

I have a couple more cards to share that I will try to get posted this weekend. Now, if I can stay awake, I'm going to my craft room and try to create something for the PTI Guest Star Stamper challenge and I have to stay up and wait for the Easter Bunny to bring Izzy's basket. ;)

Happy Easter!

Supplies: Ink: VersaColor Baby Blue, PTI Fresh Snow, Plum Pudding, New Leaf, Sweet Blush, Melon Berry and Hibiscus Burst. Cardstock: PTI Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Pure Poppy, Bitty Dots paper, White. Stamps: PTI With Sympathy, Wedding Day, Wishing You and SU! Accessories: Nestabilities, Copic Markers and Spica glitter pens, button, and gems.

PTI March Blog Hop

2009-03-25T19:42:00.007-04:00

Thanks for stopping by! I had a lot of fun making backgrounds but things got super busy and I was only able to convert one of my sheets of background into cards. I have lots more to share later using Guidelines 2 but that’s for another day. For my cards tonight I started with a sheet of shimmery cardstock that I’ve had in my stash. I applied Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush and Plum Pudding direct to paper in diagonal stripes. Then I stamped over it with Polka Dot Basics in Fresh Snow. It’s a little tricky to stamp on this shimmery cardstock with such a juicy ink like Fresh Snow but it turned out pretty well.

Edited to add: I made my diagonal stripes by using a piece of scrap cardstock as a guide. I start in one corner and put the cardstock down where I want my first color break to be. Then I take a Palette ink cube and run it down the cardstock, holding it against the scrap paper to guide it. This ink transfers beautifully to shimmery paper. Depending on how wide you want the stripes to be you may have to make a couple of passes to cover the area. Then I move the scrap paper to where I want the next color break. If you wanted to be really careful you can cover the edge of your previous stripe with some eclipse tape or another piece of cardstock but I just use the "eye-ball" method. ;) I also did not pre-measure my stripes but that's just me. I think you'll like this technique if you give it a try. If you do, please send me a picture, I'd love to see your creations!

For the focal image on both I used tulips from Wishing You and a Happy Easter sentiment from Limitless Labels.

I can wait to see what everyone else cooked up!

Supplies include: Stamps: Wishing You, Limitless Labels, Polka Dot Basics. Paper: Shimmery cardstock, PTI White, Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush and Plum Pudding. Ink: Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush, Plum Pudding, New Leaf and Fresh Snow. Accessories: Nestabilities, white gel pen, Vintage buttons, Ocean Tides twill,Plum Pudding ribbon Spica glitter pen

Golden Oldies

2009-03-16T21:17:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, this past Saturday was my FIL's birthday. Tradition in the family is to give out plenty of funny, sarcastic cards so I made one for him this year in addition to the nice one that I showed you in my last post. The card is very simple but fun. I used one of my Golden Oldies stamps from Art Impressions. If you haven't seen these, you should check them out here.
I really love their funny oldies stamps and have several. I don't use them often enough. My Dad is such a joker I've been meaning to make him a set of cards he can give to his buddies on their birthdays. I must do that. Anyway, for now here's my FIL's card. I paper pieced grandpa's shirt because I had this great plaid paper. For some details I added Diamond Glaze to the cake icing and Grandma has some purty blue eyeshadow highlighted with my Spica glitter pen and sparkly gold frames for her glasses. Inside the card reads "I'm not surprised, they say the sense of humor is the first thing to go!"

Supplies: Stamps: Art Impressions. Paper: Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery, White, Taken with Teal. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: Copic markers, Diamond Glaze, Spica glitter pens, ribbon, corner round punch.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Pa!

2009-03-15T18:02:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was my Father-in-law's birthday and we all went out to our family favorite restaurant for dinner. We're a big bunch and we always have plenty of fun, conversation and good food! My FIL is a super guy. As sweet, generous and caring a person as you'll ever meet. I wanted to make him a really special card. My DH loved the card I made for him last year and said it would be hard to top. I don't know if I topped it but overall I like this way this turned out.

I LOVE my new Labels One die set from Nestabilities. I have most of the other standard shapes but this is the first labels set I bought. I waited a long time to get it but finally did and I'm really glad. I also figured out how to do the embossing on the dies. It wasn't hard, I just never took the time do it before. While the cardstock was still in the die I sponged on the ink for the grass and the sky. When the die was removed it left this really nice cream border. Also while the die was in place I stamped over the entire scened with my SU! Linen background stamp in Antique Linen to soften it up a little. The layer behind the center image was run through my Cuttlebug and then I used a new PTI background stamp to creat the background and pierced holes in the centers of all the little "x's" and around the Nestabilities frame. The piercing is kind of hard to see in the photo but irl it's a nice little extra.

Later this week I'll share a photo of the funny card I made him. It's a family tradition to give the birthday guy or gal really sarcastic cards so I went ahead and made one this year.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: Ann-ticipations, Graphis Rubber Stamps, Linen background, PTI Retro backgrounds. Paper: PTI Kraft, Spring Moss, Dark Chocolate and Vintage Cream; SU! Old Olive. Ink: Ranger Walnut Stain, Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap; Adirondack Aqua, Stream, Denim, Lettuce, Meadow and Pesto. Accessories: Cuttlebug embossing, ribbon, button, Nestabilities, piercing, white gel pen.

Flower Gardens - Pt 2

2009-03-08T01:20:00.004-05:00

I have flowers on the brain! Today was an awesome day. It was 70 degrees here and my DH took the DD all day and let me work in the garden. It was absolute heaven. My poor muscles don't know what's going on; I worked them hard today! It was nice to get my fingers in the soil and get reacquainted with my garden. There's signs of Spring everywhere and plenty of projects to be done. :)

After I was done outside for the day, I spent the evening in my stamping space. I had some extra stamped images from my preparations for the February PTI Blog Hop and decided to go ahead and make them into cards. No sense letting them go to waste when I am always in need of cards. Instead of making my FIL's b'day card, which I absolutely should have been doing, here's what I did instead!Supplies: Stamps: Beautiful Blooms, Wise Owl, Simple Little Things Background Basics Stars and Retro. Paper: Melon Berry, White, Dark Chocolate, Kraft. Ink: Melon Berry, New Leaf, Chocolate Chip, Antique Linen, Palette Noir. Accessories: Copic markers, Melon Berry satin ribbon, hemp, button.

This first card has a nice warm feeling. I like how the Melon Berry ink is just slightly darker than the cardstock so the background stamped images show up well but then again they don't overpower the main image. This was the first time I've inked up my Background Basics Stars. I love all of the background sets from PTI and I will definitely be experimenting with this one some more. Note to self --punch the notch in the card before you layer the two pieces of cs together. My poor punch could quite cut it and I had to finish cutting it by hand.

The next card is brighter and more "Spring-y". I'm not that adventurous when it comes to color combinations. This was a little outside my usual comfort zone but I was sifting through my scraps of PTI cs and found these and thought they looked pretty together. This is Plum Pudding with New Leaf cardstock and some Melon Berry accents thrown in. One of my favorite things about PTI is how many ways you can use the stamps from each set. I went searching through my sets for a perfect center for my flowers. The flowers are from Beautiful Blooms and the center is from the Paper Tray set. I love it!
Supplies: Stamps: Beautiful Blooms, Wise Owl, Paper Tray, Just Hatched, Retro Backgrounds. Paper: Plum Pudding, New Leaf, White, Bitty Dots dp. Ink: Melon Berry, New Leaf, Chocolate Chip, Palette Noir. Accessories: Melon Berry satin ribbon, button, hemp.

And this is a photo of the inside of the card. There's an interesting thread on the PTI forum right now about whether you stamp inside your cards or not. I always do for Birthday cards, even if it's just "Happy Birthday". For general note cards and Thank You notes, I typically leave those blank so I can write more inside. I don't get that elaborate for the interior but I do think it adds a special touch to have something that coordinates on the inside, even if it's just one of an image stamped in Versa Mark or coordinating ink. This is about as fancy as I get for the inside LOL and in this case I already had these pieces of cardstock lying around from other projects. I'll try to show you more of my interiors in the future. For the first card above in Melon Berry, on the inside I just added a white panel, sponged around the edges with Antique Linen distress ink and stamped one row of the Background Basics stars stamp in Melon Berry along the bottom.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Crazy birthday card

2009-03-01T21:40:00.003-05:00

Today we went to a birthday card for a friend's 2 year old little boy. We had a great time! Isabella enjoyed playing with all the other kids and Zach's toys and greatly enjoyed the cake. I was going to make just a "simple little card" for Zach but when I looked through my stack of pre-stamped images from WishRAK, I had an idea and simple went right out the window! I decided to finally try a stairstep fold card. I've been wanting to do one for a while now. So here's the final result. I really liked it and so did my DH but then he said "you made that for a 2 year old, are you nuts?" or words to that effect. :) Maybe it was silly to do such an elaborate card but I enjoyed making it and I hope Zach and his parents enjoy the card. Having a soon to be 2 year old myself, I understand that it's likely it didn't even survive the day intact but that's life!

The animals are from High Hopes and the leaves are from a Stampendous Changito monkey clear set I have. The balloon is from a little Fiskars clear set. Happy Birthday by Printworks and I spelled the birthday boy's name with PTI's Fresh Alphabet set.

I definitely need to make more of these cards. There are so many possibilities. I hope you had a great weekend. For me it's back to the office tomorrow. Good night!

Supplies: Stamps: High Hopes, PTI, Print Works, Stampendous, Judith. Paper: PTI white and New Leaf. SU! Real Red and Close to Cocoa. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: Cuttlebug, white gel pen, Nestabilities, Copic markers, Spica glitter pen.

Thoughts turn to Spring

2009-02-27T21:43:00.003-05:00

Ever since the PTI blog hop challenge to make cards that remind you of Spring, all I want to do is make flower cards! I need to work on some Easter projects and invitations for my DD's birthday party but instead I have 2 flower cards to share with you today. I used PTI's new Retro backgrounds dashed lines, which I stamped in Versamark on the Ripe Avocado layer. I really like this stamp, it gives things such a cute hand stitched look. Next I inked up a lovely Lilac stamp from the SU! set Flower Garden. I don't use this set often enough. After stamping the Lilac I masked it off with some Eclipse tape and stamped over it with French Script in Frayed Burlap distress ink and then the Linen background in Old Paper ink. I colored the Lilac with various copic markers and then swiped lightly over the whole panel again with Old Paper to give it an aged look. The paper started out white but you'd never know. I pierced around the outer label and added some sparkle to the flowers with my Spica glitter pen.

Supplies: Stamps: SU! Flower Garden, French Script and Linen. PTI Retro Backgrounds and Mixed Messages. Ink: Palette Noir, Versamark, Ripe Avocado, Frayed Burlap, Old Paper. Paper: PTI White, Ripe Avocado and Plum Pudding, PTI Bitty Dots dp. Accessories: markers, Spica glitter pen, Liquid Pearls, Nestablities, border punch, ribbon, button, slot punch.

I used my new set of Labels One Nestabilities dies to cut the Lilac panel and a larger layer from PTI's Plum Pudding cardstock. Both cards are very similar, with only a few changes in details. I might make another one still, I really loved these cards. One thing I realized is that I definitely have to order more of PTI's Ripe Avocado and Plum Pudding paper. I got it in the pack of assorted cardstock they released this month and I must get more!

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!
Kim

PTI February Blog Hop

2009-02-25T19:24:00.008-05:00

Thanks for stopping by! This is my first time participating in Blog Hop. I'm having such a good time with all my new PTI goodies and I love spring so I have flower theme projects to share!

Stamps: Retro Backgrounds, Wise Owl, Beautiful Blooms, Just Hatched. Paper: Kraft, White, Melon Berry, New Leaf. Ink: Fresh Snow, New Leaf, Melon Berry, Chocolate Chip, Palette Noir. Accessories: Melon Berry Ribbon, corner rounder, border punch, copic markers.

Stamps: Just Hatched, Retro Backgrounds, Wise Owl, Beautiful Blooms. Ink: Melon Berry, New Leaf, Fresh Snow, Noir, Aqua Mist. Paper: Kraft, Melon Berry, White, Bitty Dots dp. Accessories: Ocean Tides twill, white ep and Vintage Button.

Both of my cards have similar main images. I thought they turned out pretty cute, considering I had a dreadful cold and felt terrible while I was stamping. If you don't like them I'll blame the cold medicine! :)

I used the new Retro Backgrounds stamps on both cards, can you see where? Probably because I'm obsessed with gardening I saw that a couple of them could be used to make garden soil. I made one using the scalloped borders and one with the straight lines. I also used the dashed lines as a background on one. The flowers were made using stamps from Wise Owl and Beautiful Blooms. I {heart} the new PTI colors this month- New Leaf and Melon Berry, plus the buttons and Bitty Dots paper. I am also catching up on other colors and I think the twill ribbon is FABULOUS! It's got such a great texture. I also think the saddle stitch is easy to work with. Don't get me wrong, I love the satin ribbons, especially with dots but find they're harder to work with. I have to get more of that twill!

Finally I have a little Spring flower seed starting kit. I plan to give this away as a door prize at our next garden club meeting. I love pink and green. To me it is a perfect spring color combination, the color of fresh new foliage and bright pink tulips. {sigh}. To get the sentiment "Bloom Where You're Planted" to fit on the tag I inked up the first half of the sentiment and stamped and then inked the rest and stamped it below. Not the easiest thing to do with such small lettering but I love being able to use it this way.
Stamps: Just Hatched, Retro Backgrounds, Wise Owl, Beautiful Blooms. Ink: Melon Berry, New Leaf, Fresh Snow, Noir, Aqua Mist. Paper: Kraft, Melon Berry, White, Bitty Dots dp. Accessories: Ocean Tides twill, white ep and Vintage Button.

I've had this little wooden basket for ever and knew that someday it would be the perfect project and I finally found it. I gave it a quick coat of white acrylic paint but not too heavy because I wanted it to look old and distressed. Then I added some "mossy" accents using PTI's New Leaf ink. The grass in the basket is cardstock run through my paper shredder. I found the buckets at Target's dollar spot months ago and was so happy that 2 fit perfectly in the basket. I poked holes in the bottom of the buckets and put a cellophane bag of potting soil in each. I made some seed packets for two of my favorite types of flowers - poppies and hollyhocks and I think it's done. :) I hope you like this project. Here's a closer look at the seed packets.

Supplies: Stamps: PTI - Just Hatched, Wedding Day, Simple Alphabet, Polkadot Basics, Limitless Labels, Beautiful Blooms, With Sympathy and Karen Foster small casual alphabet. Ink: Raspberry Fizz, Palette Noir, Gable Green and Pretty in Pink. Paper: PTI White and Raspberry Fizz and SU! Green Galore and Gable Green. Accessories: Green ribbon, tag punches, safety pink, Raspberry Fizz ribbon, vintage button, Nestabilities.

Thanks again for stopping by, I can't wait to see what everyone else has to share tonight!

One more day to Blog Hop!

2009-02-24T22:58:00.005-05:00

Before PTI Blog Hop tomorrow night, I wanted to share a little stationery project I made for a friend. I apologize if the photo is a little dark. I don't have a light tent (but am thinking about one) and for larger projects like this I have to use my kitchen counter, which is not ideal. :)

I used Lauren Meader's All Boxed Up Timeless Template (found at PTI) to make the box that holds the set of cards, envelopes and envelope seals (in the little glassine bag). I chose a nice spring-y color combination and kept the card clean and simple. I don't like to add too much bling and bulk to cards I'm giving away as gift sets so the recipient doesn't have to use extra postage to mail them or worry about ribbons and buttons not going through postal machines. I was tickled to find that the dotted leaf stamp from Beautiful Blooms coordinates really well with one of the rectangles from Borders & Corners Rectangle. That makes me so happy when things just work out that way! I added some score lines with my trusty Scor-Pal to set off the border of blooms and leaves on the bottom. I think it's pretty self-explanatory so I won't go into more details. I hope you like it!

Supplies: Stamps: All stamps are by PTI. Fresh Alphabet, Simple Alphabet, Beautiful Blooms, Borders & Corners Rectangles, Holiday Tag Collection and Faux Ribbon. Ink: SU! Regal Rose and Palette Landscape. Paper: PTI White, SU! Regal Rose and Old Olive. Accessories: ribbon, cuttlebug, Scor-Pal, My Timeless Template (All Boxed Up).

It's VSN weekend!

2009-02-22T14:17:00.005-05:00

I was excited, let me tell you. I took Friday off work and I was looking forward to a nice weekend with lots of stamping. My DH was going to take the DD all afternoon Saturday so I could stamp. And don't you know that Friday I came down with a bad cold and I felt like absolute dirt all day yesterday. :( Today I felt better and got 2 challenge cards done. I will do some more later today but they won't count toward the "official" VSN weekend. Still it's fun to play and it gives me some cards for my stash.

My first card was hard. I shouldn't have started with this challenge first. It was to make a card using a stamp you don't like. I chose Fishy Friends. I don't know what it is but I just can't get myself to make cards with this set. I don't know what to do with it and I wish they would have included some sentiments. Anyway, I stamped the Fish and Crab and colored over them with a VersaMarker and embossed with clear ep. Then I stamped some seaweed using various foliage stamps and some rocks, which I also embossed over in clear. I sponged and brayered on some color that I hoped was "ocean-y" looking. Now what colors to use for the card? Keeping with the theme I decided to use Glorious Green, which is one of the colors I absolutely detest but it matched my ocean color. I also used Yo Yo Yellow (or Yuck Yuck Yellow) to layer on the image panel. I added a strip of Tempting Turquoise and then piled on some dew drops for bubbles. The green card front was also embossed using a cuttlebug plate. In the end I don't hate it but I just don't like Glorious Green. I may have to use that crab stamp again though, he's pretty cute.

Supplies: Stamps: SU! PTI, Judith, Art Impressions, sTamp It and Print Works. Cardstock: Glrious Green, Yo Yo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise, White. Ink: Palette Noir, Jardin Moss and N ew Leaf, Marvy Pale Green and Salvia Blue. Accessories: alcohol markers, versamarker, clear ep, dew drops, cuttlebug, corner rounder.

The next challenge was to use New Loves, meaning new things within the last 2 months we love. I just got a big ol' box of PTI supplies last week and had some new stamps last month as well so I decided to use those. This was easier of course because I love all my new goodies! The vine and flowers and from their new set With Sympathy and the sentiment is from Wedding Day. I'm finding lots of uses for Wedding Day already. It's a great set for Anniversaries, Valentine's Day, just because and also has some nice general sentiments like this "Many Thanks" stamp. I also love this new vine from With Sympathy.

Supplies: Stamps: PTI With Sympathy, Wedding Day. Cardstock: PTI White, Ripe Avocado, Plum Pudding and Bitty Dots dp. Ink: Ripe Avocado, Sweet Blush. Accessories: Nestablitieis, punches, ribbon.

I'll be back later this week with some things for the PTI Blog Hop. See you then!

All Boxed up for MIL

2009-02-17T21:44:00.008-05:00

I recently bought my very first Timeless Template designed by Lauren Meader from PTI. I love creating these little note card ensembles. I've already made another one for a friend that I will share later but the very first one I made is this one for my MIL. I just wanted a nice little gift to say "thank you" for all the nice things she does for our family.

Supplies: Stamps by PTI - Wedding Day, Simple Alphabet, Fresh Alphabet, Borders and Corners Rectangle. Ink: Palette Noir. CS: PTI White, Black and SU! Cool Caribbean, plus PTI black and white dp. Accessories: adhesive sheet, CD tin, scallop circle punch, copic marker, gift bag

I went with Black and White since it's a color combination she likes to wear and it's timeless (no pun intended :)). I added just a little bit of Cool Caribbean for an accent color. The CD tin holds the matching envelope seals (pictured laying in front of the tin), which were stamped on an adhesive sheet and then punched. Below is another picture showing the gift bag that I put it all in. I was so tickled that I had a gift bag to coordinate. It had red ribbon handles, which I cut off and then I added this aqua ribbon from my stash. {sigh} I love it when things unexpectedly come together like this! :) I'd like to say I had it all planned from the start but the gift bag was a stroke of luck!

And if you can stand two more pictures, here's one of the side of the box and the interior. I hope you enjoy the project. Do try out one of Lauren's templates. They are fun! I just bought several more that I can't wait to try.

Have a great one!
Kim

Here I am again!

2009-02-08T04:02:00.005-05:00

Well, since I was up so late doing the connect the dots challenge (see post below) for Papertrey Ink, I also managed to do the sketch challenge that's being done by CPS that Nichole linked on her blog. Another Valentine card finished! This was a lot of fun I must say. I made the heart out of a piece of red felt that's been on my table forever and used up some of my button stash in honor of the big PTI announcement that they'll be offering buttons to match their exclusive color line. I seriously am in big economic trouble with this month's release. I had plenty of "old" things still catching up on like more colors of cs, ink and ribbon and now look at all of the pretty new things.....what's a girl to do? Buy the color combo pack for one thing. That's a great way for me to try out the other colors a little at a time. Thanks PTI! :) Now for my card.
Supplies: Stamps: Polka Dot Basics, Heart Prints. Ink: Fresh Snow, Pure Poppy. Cardstock: Dark Chocolate, Kraft, Baja Breeze. Extras: Felt, glitter, buttons, floss, trim, scor pal.

Good night all, can't wait until the next day of reveals on PTI!

PTI Sketch Challenge

2009-02-08T00:06:00.004-05:00

Papertrey Ink is celebrating its 2nd anniversary this month. Woohoo! I have followed this company since the beginning and I am a loyal customer. In fact, I get more and more excited with every new release. The stamps, paper, ink, embellishments, everything is WOW!!!! To top it off, PTI has a fabulous design team who inspires me every month to see the endless possibilities with these stamps.

For Nichole's Anniversary challenge today we were to create a card using a sketch for a chance to win a collection of PTI ribbon. {PICK ME!! } Here's my contribution. Our daughter loves owls right now. She has a little book with an owl in it and has to have it read to her every night. So, for Valentine's Day I made her this Owl family card using Wise Owl as the main stamp set. The card also incorporates Polka Dot Basics, Out on a Limb and a little bitty heart from Heart Prints. To make Mommy Owl, I stamped a little flower in her feathers from Out on a Limb and added some eyelashes with an artist pen. Baby girl owl also has lashes. I'm not wild about the color I chose for their feet but that's the way it goes! :) I also noticed that my ribbon is not straight in the photo. Oops - that's what I get for rushing to take photos!

Supplies: Stamps: Wise Owl, Polka Dot Basics, Out on a Limb, Heart Prints. Ink: Fresh Snow, Palette Noir, Pure Poppy, Palette Landscape. Cardstock: Dark Chocolate, Kraft, Pure Poppy, White. Accessories: Ribbon, copic markers, glitter pen, artist pens, Raindots.

I hope I get to participate in the next challenge!

Yahoo and a card for Dad

2009-02-02T19:38:00.003-05:00

Wow, I checked my blog today and I have comments on cards! I was so excited, I'm practically giddy. My blog is very new and never have I had anyone look at it until now. You PTI gals ROCK! Thanks for the kind words and inspiration.
I was a total spud over the weekend and did very little. My baby girl was sick all last week and this weekend the DH finally came down with it as well so I didn't get much time for crafting. Here is a card I made to thank a co-worker for her kindness. It's really simple but I was having a good time playing with my Guidelines set. I haven't even begun to explore all of the possibilities of that set. It's been way too neglected.

Supplies: Stamps: Borders and Corners Rectangles; Guidelines, Simple Little Things. Cardstock: White, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava. Ink: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky. Accessories: Cuttlebug, scallop paper trimmer, ticket corner punch, dew drops, ribbon.

Here is a card I made for my Dad's birthday. The sentiment is from PTI but the tree is from Stampin' Up's Lovely as a Tree set. That set is really versatile. The tree was stamped on Fabriano cardstock in Palette Noir. I added color using ink and a water brush and also some sponging. I didn't keep good track of the ink colors used on this one. Sorry!

Supplies: Stamps: PTI, Stampin Up, Art Impressions. Cardstock: Ivory, Really Rust, Kraft, Black, Fabriano paper. Accessories: cuttlebug, ribbon, hardware

Thanks again ladies for checking out my blog. You made my day! :)

Back from a Long Break

2009-01-31T15:20:00.006-05:00

Well, the holidays really took a toll and I felt drained of creativity so I took a nice long break. I do have some recent things to share with you and some more that are in progress. I am just in LOVE with my Paper Trey stamps. The possibilities really are endless and the more samples I see, the more I realize I can do with my sets. I need to get a move on and create some Valentine's cards so I did two last weekend.

In this first card I used lots of "lovey" words stamps from severa PTI sets to create a background on an acrylic block then I stamped it across my cardstock. I first saw Nichole demo this technique on her blog and I like the technique a lot. The hearts are from PTI's recent release and are called Heart Prints.

Supplies: Paper: Dark Chocolate, white Stamps: Heart Prints, Wedding Day, Faux Ribbon, Simple Little Things, Mixed Messages (I think that's all but may have forgotten one). Ink: Chocolate Chip, Raspberry Fizz. Accessories: Heart punches, ribbon, button, corner rounder punch.

The next card is a little bolder in terms of color scheme. I used Raspberry Fizz, Black and Kraft cs. I think the Kraft color does a nice job mixing with these two colors and I like that it 's a little softer contrast than white. I am in a mood to try and create backgrounds with stamps instead of designer paper and I enjoyed creating one for this card using Polka Dot Basics and Wedding Day. Forgive the goof up in the border punch, I am still trying to get the hang of using these without double punching some holes. It made a couple of my holes a little weird looking but I had tried 2 or 3 times and I thought this one was "good enough". It was the wee hours of the morning and I was getting too tired to care! :)

Supplies: Stamps- Heart Prints, Polka Dot Basics, Wedding Day. Ink: Fresh Snow, Raspberry Fizz. Paper: Raspberry Fizz, Black, Kraft. Accessories: white ep, border punch, heart punches, ribbon, glitter

Well, I think that's it for now. I am so addicted to the PTI stamps that I already can't wait until the February release on the 15th. Nichole is tempting us with all kinds of hints but she's too good and although I think I can guess a couple of them, there are some that leave me stumped. Tomorrow is the 1st of February and she's going to reveal more details on her blog so stop by and check it out!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-23T15:08:00.007-05:00

Well, I don't know about you but I have been crazy busy and I am EXHAUSTED already! The house has been a whirlwind of activity, including crafts, candy making, gift wrapping, chasing a toddler and all sorts of other things. Boy am I glad that I took some time off after the holidays so I can start to recover.

I wanted to share with you some photos of ornaments I made for the kids on my Mom's side of the family. These were made from cork stars I found at JoAnns 4/$1. That was such a deal I tell you I was thrilled with a capital 'T'!

So, here are the details of how I made these ornaments in case you're interested. First, since these star shapes had magnets on the back I peeled them off. Then I traced the stars onto some Basic Grey paper and cut out 2 for each ornament (front and back). I glued the paper to the star using Perfect Paper Adhesive (Matte finish). I seriously LOVE this stuff! It is way easier to work with IMHO than Mod Podge and it's not as sticky, I don't get bubbles and it dries very fast. I found mine at Hobby Lobby a while ago. I hope they still carry it because I used a lot of it on these ornaments.

I let the ornaments dry over night because the cork soaked up a lot of the glue and I wanted to be sure the paper was completely dry before I went on to the rest. When it was dry I sanded the paper along the edges of each point to make sure it was flush with the edge. I added some distress inks in Antique Linen to give it a vintage feel. For the girls' ornaments I used Elzybells Christmas images because they were just the right size and I had a lot of them sitting around that I received as Wish RAKs. Perfect time saver which was just what I needed since i had to make no less than 20 of these babies! I colored the images using Copic Markers and used a Spica glitter pen in some places for more sparkle.

I cut out the images using my Nestabilities and then also cut out small circles for the back and stamped a border using my small round Just Rite harmony stamper. Using the Paper Trey Ink Simple Alphabet I stamped each girl's name and the year. After I adhered the images and the name pieces to the star I gave each side a top coat of Perfect Paper Adhesive and let it dry.

To finish I used my Crop-a-dile Big Bite to punch a hole through the ornament and threaded in some pretty ribbon, outlined the star with Stickles and added some glass beads to the points of the star. I have to tell you about these glass beads I found too. I was so super excited! Dew Drops are all the rage and they are cute but $4.99 for a little bottle is pretty steep. One day I was shopping at a floral design store that I love and found these enormous bags of glass beads. Stopped me dead in my tracks. They look just like dew drops but they are called Diamond Drops. They have to be the same thing. They're the same size and they're flat on the back. I snapped up a bag of clear and red for $15.99 each. It seems expensive but believe me there's more than 3 bottles worth of dew drops in each bag. I also found coppery brown ones recently. I haven't tried searching for an on-line source but surely there's one somewhere.

Here are a couple more samples of the girls' ornaments.

For the boys I used a reindeer image from AMuse but since I did't finish these until 3 a.m. on Friday night and we went to my family get-together and I gave them out on Saturday, there are no pictures of the boys' ornaments. :( I may go ahead and make one more that I can post as a sample. For the boys I used hemp instead of ribbon and added some buttons over the hole where the hemp is threaded through. And no glitter for the boys. ;)

I hope you enjoyed my samples, I'd love to hear your comments and to know if anyone is reading my blog. :) I'm not a prolific blogger but I wanted someplace to start sharing more in addition to my Splitcoast gallery.

Happy Holidays!

2008-11-27T07:30:00.006-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's a holiday because I woke up at 6:15 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. If this was a work day I would have pulled my down comforter back up around my ears and gone right back to sleep. LOL!

I've already popped the Sweet Potato Casserole in the oven and I think we're all set to go to my Mom's later this morning. My DH and I did all of our baking last night. We're taking deviled eggs, the casserole, 7-layer cookie bars and a "mystery" pecan pie. The mystery is that under the top layer of pecans there is a cheesecake like middle. Mmmmmm!

No new card creations today but I will share with you some cards I made a while back using the 3D stamping technique I first saw on SCS. You stamp an image in white craft ink (in my case I used Versa Magic Cloud White because I don't have craft). Then you ink up the same image again in an ink to match your cardstock and using a stamp positioner just slightly move your second image off center and stamp. It leaves a nice embossed look.

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

(Stamps: SU!, Fred Mullett and Cloud 9 Designs; Ink Chestnut Roan VersaMagic and Cloud White and Distress ink Anticque Linen)

(Stamps: Art Impressions, Paper Trey Ink; Ink:- Versamagic Cloud White and Chalk Ink Amber Clay; Encore Gold and Gold EP. Faux stitching with a white gel pen)

Christmas cards and more cards

2008-11-25T21:34:00.005-05:00

I have so many things to do for the holidays I don't even know where to start! I make cards to send out and I want to make monogram note cards for co-workers, ornaments for the kids in my family, coaster calendars, and so much more! I need a priority list to keep me on track that's for sure. For my first post to my new blog I thought I would share a few Christmas cards I've made in the last couple of weeks. The first card is one I made using Lauren Meader's Wise Owl set from Paper Trey Ink. I went way too long before inking up these adorable owls! While I was tooling around in my craft room at 2 a.m. last Saturday I thought to myself "Hey, I wonder if this Denami santa hat will fit on the owl?" and it did! It was a perfect fit! The "who" was made with Karen Foster snap stamps and the branch is by Outlines. Cardstock is PTI Kraft, SU! Chocolate Chip and Real Red. I enjoyed this so much that I made 7 more cards, some of them also including a Denami stocking hanging from the branch. It felt great to get that many cards out in one sitting. Now I have only about 30 more to go. LOL!

The next card was for the sketch challenge on SCS. I really enjoyed this sketch and see myself using it several more times as I work on my holiday cards. The main image is from one of the new Inkadinkadoo clear sets. I stamped the reindeer in Versamark with Espresso ink and then embossed with clear ep. I went back and colored in the flowers using Copic markers and embossed in clear again and then added some small stickers to embellish a few flowers. The sky was sponged on using a combination of Antique Linen, Baby Blue, Buckaroo Blue and Night of Navy. The paper is SU!'s new Ski Slope paper. I added some snowflakes with a white gel pen and then embossed the Noel sentiment from PTI in gold and framed it with some hardware. The reindeer panel is mounted on Chocolate Chip cs which is edged with a metallic gold pen.

This blogging is hard! Please let me know if you'd like more or less details about my cards. I think I'll save some other cards to post later this week. This is a good start to my first real attempt at blogging, don't you think?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!