Going Around in Circles

Happy Friday!! I am so happy the weekend is finally here. For some reason this week felt like it had a few extra days in it. But now it is Friday, all of my normal errands that I normally do today are already done so I am going to enjoy the day playing in my crafting space. The challenge on the Riley and Company blog is Going Around in Circles which could be a circle shaped card or circles on the papers or embellishments.  I used Sunflower Riley for my card, paper from DCWV, ribbon from my stash that I think is American Crafts, and some brads that I have had for a long time and Riley was colored with Copic Markers.

Now I am going to get off the computer, start a loaf of bread and then you will be able to find me sitting at my craft table!

S2G Blog Hop!

Welcome to the 1st S2G Members Blog Hop sponsored by Shirley's2Girls! If you've just happened upon my blog, you can CLICK HERE to start from the beginning at the S2G Challenge Blog. Hopefully, you have arrived here from Tiffany's blog, if not, join in the fun and start from the beginning.
My card uses the adorable Mouse and Cookies stamp from Shirley's 2 Girls. I actually bought this one because it made me think of my husband, he loves cookies more than just about anything. In fact as I was posting my pictures he noticed there were cookies in the jar and he kept asking where the cookies were. The image is great to go with holiday baking gifts. I stamped the image and then colored it with Copic and Prisma markers. the tray and cookies were stamped twice and then I cut one out and then layered it with some thin foam tape. The scalloped circle behind the image was punched out with a Marvy punch and then I used white dimensional paint to mimic the look of an iced cookie. 
For the holidays, I will actually bake cookies to fill my jars. I used the same image and supplies for my cookie jar. The cookie paper is from Hobby Lobby, the card stocks are from DCWV and the ribbon and rick-rac are both from Jo-Ann's. Here is a picture of the gift jar with the card together:
How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, we have decided to hide a prize somewhere along the hop! One pre-selected blogger will draw a random winner from the comments on her post, and the winner will receive a free stamp from Shirley’s2Girls. The fun part is...we're not telling you who it is! So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! We will announce the winner on Monday in the SNR S2G Forum.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to Charlene! 

Paint it Red

Good evening! I hope everyone has had a great weekend. I have been able to spend most of mine here at the house, so that is a great weekend to me. Other than church and the grocery store, I have been home. My card tonight is for the Twisted Thursday Challenge on the Shirley's 2 Girls challenge blog. The twist to the sketch provided was to Paint it Red and make red your primary color. My image uses a digital download that I got a couple of weeks ago on SNR Card Universe. The image was colored with Copic and Prisma Markers and I used  Spica markers on the glasses and the things sprouting out of the flowers. The paper is Daisy Ds and the card stock is DCWV and the eyelets and twine are from my stash. I had an interesting experience with those eyelets, I punched the hole and put the eyelet in place and when I went to set it, my hand slipped and I slammed my hand into the desk somehow. I am fine, but it smarted for a little while. That's the first time I have ever been injured by an eyelet! Have a great start to your week and thanks for stopping by. I love reading all the comments, thanks for taking the time to do that.

Polka Dot Mermaid

I made this card to play along with the Shirley's 2 Girls Twisted Thursday challenge this week. There was a sketch that was provided and the twist was to use polka dots. This is a new stamp that my wonderful hubby bought me this weekend. I stamped the image with Memento ink and then colored the image with Copic and Prisma markers. I used some liquid pearls and a Spica pen on the necklace and yellow Stickles in her hair. My polka dots are the ones I embossed with my new Polka Dot embossing folder from Quickuts. I used scalloped circle Nestabilities for my circles. I think one of these reasons that I like these stamps so much is the fact that they look great with the bright colors that I like to use. 

We had a great time in Indiana. Of course I paid a visit to the best stamp store in the world, Papertrix, which has been the hilight of all my trips to Indiana.  Man, I love that place! They have everything there. I came away with this stamp from S2G. a couple more Lockhart stamps, some gorgeous paper, a Scor-Bug and a couple of other odds and ends. In addition to shopping we had some time to just relax and be together, talking and hanging out. 

We also got a chance to see a movie. Kip went and saw GI Joe and his parents and I went and saw Julie and Julia. (BTW, we are both okay with going to the movies together and seeing different movies.) It was such a good movie, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The reviews I read weren't that glowing so I was pleasantly surprised. Thanks for dropping in tonight!

Samantha's Party Invites and a storage idea

I have been busy making party invitations, thank you cards and Pet scrapbooks! I have got to get busy on birthday cards too, my family has lots of birthdays August - October. I can't believe the summer is coming to an end, Monday is the first day of school here. One more set of invitations to show you! Samantha also has a birthday coming up soon and she is going to take a couple of friends to the zoo. I thought I would make her invitations to look like admission tickets. I used two different Clear Dollar Stamp sets, Monkey Madness and Zoo Critters. The images were stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic and Prisma Markers. The lion's mane and tale were done with brown and yellow Liquid Applique.  The words on the sides were spelled using CTMH Solo letters and they were stamped with Brilliance ink. 

I was at Kroger the other day and had to go by the clearance rack.  And as any good crafter would do, I was looking for anything that I could repurpose for my crafting area. I found these metal silverware caddies with the other picnic supplies. when I saw this I thought it would be the perfect storage for my coloring pencils. The back side has three dividers in it to separate the color families. The other side is open and holds my bottle of OMS, bag of blending stumps, pencil sharpener, erasers and my little sandpaper thing. Not bad for $1.79.

ETA: I have the set of 120 Prismacolor pencils in this caddy plus the set of 24 Koh-I-Nor pencils. I was surprised that it held as many pencils as it did.
Thanks for visiting!

Shaped Card and Lessons Learned

I absolutely love this stamp, for several reasons. One, that song cracks me up, every time I hear it or sing it, I laugh a lot. I just imagine these carolers showing up and singing their little songs and then launching into this song asking for figgy pudding and then refusing to leave if they don't get it! I mean what if you are fresh out of figgy pudding?  Another reason that I like it is because it is just too cute! We have three cats in our house and  this stamp makes me think of them too. I won this stamp in the challenge this week with my first digi stamp that I did and posted last week. I had so much fun playing along with the Shirley's 2 Girls challenge last week that I decided to play again. The challenge is to make a shaped card. Those are challenges I normally skip, but I decided to make a scalloped circle card using my Nestabilities. I went through a couple of pieces of card stock before I was able to get one that I lined up correctly. The image was colored to look like our cats using Copic and Prisma markers. Paper is DCWV and I am not sure about the snowflake brad. This is my third stamp from Shirley's 2 Girls, and I know there will be more! They stamp great straight out of the package and they have so many cute and funny designs.

So what lessons did I learn today? Jeep tires are very heavy and if you have had back surgery in the past then your probably shouldn't try to change your own tire. I was driving home this afternoon and heard a loud bang and then the car was driving weird. I pulled over into a parking lot and called Kip and told him but he was stuck at home because his car is in the shop. I did manage to get the car jacked up, the tire off the back of the Jeep and the flat off. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not lift that tire to get it back on. I hate asking for help too, but since I wasn't too far from our church, I called the office to see if anyone was there that could help me. Our youth minister sent over a couple of volunteers and they had me ready to go in just a few minutes. A million thanks to Adam and Lester for helping me out. The other lesson I learned? Don't be so stubborn and ask for help when you need it!

My First Digi Stamp

And my second post of the day! I found this stamp on the Shirley's 2 Girls Challenge Blog. There was a sketch provided, plus this digital image and three sentiments. The challenge also listed a twist--you had to use something clear on your card. So this is full of firsts, I also embossed a piece of acetate. The image was colored with Copic and Prisma markers and then I went over the crown and wings with a gold Spica pen. The frosting on the cake was done with Stickles. I really like their images, I first got to play with them at the Copic class that I took in May. A couple came home with me and I can't wait to get some more!

Okay, I have a question for those of you that use acetate on your cards. How are you supposed to adhere the stuff? Everything I tried showed through. Right now, it is anchored in the areas behind the other panels. I would welcome any suggestions!

So how do I feel about Digi Stamps? I can see the appeal, the main reason being that the image can be adjusted to different sizes, I love that idea, and I could see being able to use my images is a wider range of projects. Also storage isn't really an issue either. I am running out of storage solutions for wooden and clear stamps. The cost is also on the attractive side. Would I use them again? Yes, I will. Do I like them? A lot better than I thought I would. The biggest drawback isn't the images or anything to do with digital stamps in general. This part of my opinion has nothing to do with this stamp or anything. Not having a computer or a printer in my crafting space is a problem. Right now the computer is upstairs on one end of the house and my crafting space is downstairs on the opposite end of the house. I would definitely need a better printer though if I were to use these on a regular basis. Maybe when I replace my computer, I will be able to get a printer too. Thanks for stopping by!

Chocolate Therapy

Chocolate does solve everything, doesn't it? To me, it looks like Riley had a rough day and it making everything feel better with a box of chocolates. This sketch is from the challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS last week. I decided to use Sofa Riley and create a little living room for him to hang out in, eating his yummy chocolate. I started by making a wall by picking out my "wallpaper" and added that to a piece of white paper that was about an inch of white space left at the bottom and then drew and colored my hardwood floor. Riley was colored with Copic and Prisma markers and then cut out. He is attached with foam dots. I stamped and extra and only colored the candy box and lid, cut them out and used some thin foam dots to attach them. The sentiment is handwritten and punched out with the SU Word Window punch. I added some ribbon and flowers and called it done! I am happy to say that all items came from my stash, and I am getting an early start on my self challenge. Thanks for stopping by!

Stars and Stripes Hanna

Hello! The week is half way over and I am starting to get excited about my trip this weekend! I can't wait to head out on Friday. I will be traveling back to Indiana and Papertrix to attend Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced classes in Coloring Pencil techniques. It is funny, when I travel, I end up throwing clothes in a duffle bag right before going out the door, but for this class and the Copic class I took last month, I had my craft bag packed a week a head of time! Karen Lockhart is teaching the classes and I have been checking out her website and am excited to learn some of her techniques. Hopefully, I will come back with tons of ideas to show you. 

I made this card for the challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum which was to use stars and stripes on your card. I started with this image from the Patriotic Mini set and the stars from a CTMH mini set. I stamped the stars using CTMH Indian Corn Blue, Cranberry and Moonstruck inks and then cut out each one. I added them to my card using foam dots of two different thicknesses, some are on very thin dots and are just slightly above the paper and some stand out a little more. I wanted the flag to stand out too so after coloring the image, I cut it out and glued Hanna flat to the white panel but used another thin foam dot under just the flag. Stamp is Hanna Stamps, paper is DCWV, image is colored with Copic markers, ribbon is Offray, image is colored with Copic and Prisma markers.

Happy Father's Day

Good afternoon! I hope you are enjoying the day with you Fathers or the other important men in your life. We went out with Kip's dad last night and we won't see my dad until this weekend. This is the card that I made for him that I wanted to give him in person. I was very fortunate to grow up with a wonderful man as a dad and I have tons of great memories of doing things with him. It's funny what we remember about our childhoods. One of my favorite things that we did was our weekly trip to the dump! When I was little I would go with him a lot on Saturday mornings and after we were done, we would stop at a convenience store and get a snack. As with most of my memories with both parents, it wasn't memories with material things that stick out, it was the things that we did together. Giving time to someone is the most precious thing you can do. We all have different talents, different monetary abilities and different ways that we can touch someone else's life. But we all only get 24 hours in one day and to bestow that gift to someone is priceless. 

Anyway back to my card here! One day were we driving somewhere as a family and my dad says "Hey look!" and he pulls over, gets out a camera and everything and starts pointing out and taking pictures of this owl on a billboard. You guessed it, it wasn't real, only a decoy to scare away birds! To his credit, it was a very realistic one, not like the ones that are obviously plaster. Now owls show up periodically in gifts and things that I give him. I made this card using the owl from a mini Inkadinkado stamp set. The sentiment is from the same set and is broken into two pieces so you can use one part on the outside and the other for the inside. I can't remember what the other part says, I only wanted this part because I wanted to write my own thing on the inside. The outside says "A wise man once said.." and then on the inside I wrote "Hey look at that owl". He will get a kick out of it and that's why he is getting it late so I can give it to him in person. Stamp is Inkadinkado, paper from DCWV, image colored with Copics, and brads are from Making Memories.

If you have visited my blog before you know that my husband makes his own cards to give. Not only does he make the cards, he also has his own stash of supplies. This is the stamp that he made for his dad. I am not sure of all the supplies, but I think the mountains and maybe the tree came from one of my SU sets and the boat is from Stampscapes. He stamped those onto his paper and then drew in his lake line and then colored everything with his Prismacolor pencils. 

Riley bookmarks and Reading Log

Hello and Happy Friday! The other night when I when I was at their house for a cookout, Jenna asked me if I would make her a bookmark. This is a little unusual because that is normally a project that she enjoys doing herself.  Almost every time that they request something they also request that a Riley stamp to be used. Samantha calls this little guy Reading Riley although the name is actually School Riley. I decided to combine to bookmark with a reading log. I started with a sheet of paper from the DCWV Pocket of Posies mat stack ( I think the papers are 4 x 6) and simply scored it down the middle to create a little pocket. I used a scalloped Marvy punch to create a cut out spot then added the adhesive to keep the pocket closed. Riley was then stamped and colored with Copic/Prisma markers and then punched out with the pink Marvy punch and I chose a coordinating color to punch out two scalloped circles the same size as my cut out portion on the pocket.To make the reading log, I used this library card stamp from SU's Stamp of Authenticity set. I measured a matching piece of card stock so that it was the length I wanted and adhered the largest circles onto the top and the card onto the bottom. When you slide it into the pocket, the scallops match up with the open part at the top. Of course I had to make one for Samantha and the friend that stays with them during the day while their moms work. Each girl's bookmark uses their favorite colors. They were very happy with them when I dropped them off this afternoon. Being little girls, I knew they would love some sparkle, but since it needs to lay flat in a book, I added some glitter dots around my main scalloped circle. I used some Glossy Accents on Riley's glasses.
You still have one more day to enter to Hanna Stamps Guest Design Team call, details can be found here. Thanks for stopping by! My project uses: stamp by Hanna Stamps, paper from DCWV, Copic and Prisma markers, scalloped circle punches from Marvy, glitter pen from Sakura and Glossy Accents by Ranger.

An ATC

We were given the challenge to make and ATC card for our Secret Sisters in the Designing D.I.V.A.S. group. I have tried these before and not been very happy with the results, but I really like this one. For some reason, I can't normally seem to get the right balance on the smaller work space. I think having the right size image and picking that out first is what helped me this time. I started with a pack of papers by Memories on the Go that are designed for ATCs. Both the background and the little pictures are from that pack of papers. The stamp is from Hero Arts and is one that I picked up on my birthday weekend--there were three of the little dolls in the set. I hope my Secret Sister enjoys this as much as I do! Paper by Memories on the Go, Stamp from Hero Arts, card  stock is DCWV, ribbon is from Hobby Lobby, ink is Memento, image is colored with Prisma and Copic markers.

We have had some storms moving through the area this afternoon, but it has cleared up now. I am happy about that since I am on my way to a cook out with some friends. I am bringing the chicken for the grill and she is preparing everything else. I have had the chicken marinating for a couple of hours in an orange-soy sauce marinade. We will add some cracked black pepper as we get ready to grill and that will be it.  Have a great night!

Get Off My Lawn!!

Okay, now that the title has your attention, I will show you my card! The new set challenge from Hanna Stamps this month was to use the Granny Hanna set, including the stamp that said "get off my lawn". I had to do a lot of thinking for this challenge. Finally, I decided to pair Granny with the Rocker Hanna. When we were little we had a neighbor that reminded me of this scene. She would get so upset if any of the kids even spoke when we walked past her house. She certainly would not have appreciated a free concert from my sister and I! The sky and the grass were sponged with CTMH inks and then I drew blades of grass with a Copic marker.  Granny's dress was paper pieced with some paper that I had in my stash. 

Here are some pictures of my mom's ornaments that she has been making. I definitely get my love of crafts from her. She doesn't do any paper crafts, but she has always done some type of craft or another. These ornaments are replicas of antique beaded ornaments. The center is a dense foam ball and the designs and colors are made with a variety of sequins, ribbon, beads and straight pins.
This is one of my favorites, but I forgot to rotate the picture before I loaded it!
This blue one is another of my favorites, I love the depth of this one. 
Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Gift Tag

I have been trying to play along with more challenges lately and have been having fun with them. For me I know that when I play along with a challenge, I will try new color combos, new techniques or like in this case I will make something new. I keep saying that I am going to make my own gift tags for different things but I always put it off to the last minute and then never have time to do them. The challenge issued by Judy this week in the Hanna Stamps forum was to make anything but a card and it had to be flat. Since I am dragging the non-stamping women in my family to Indiana with me so that I can go to a Copic class and stamp shopping I had decided to make little treat bags with snacks and things for the car ride. So ta-da! I actually have tags completed for that project. I used the Passport Hanna set, stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Prismas and Copics.  I punched out the tag with a Sizzix die and then covered it with paper from Making Memories. The scalloped piece was made with a Fiskars border punch. The words are hand lettered and do you see the label on the suitcase? The joke is that I will need an extra suitcase to hold all the stamps I am going to buy. 

My parents are here visiting for the weekend. Not sure what we are going to end up doing but I am sure we will have a good time. Thanks for dropping by! 

Birthday Treat Box

I am so on the ball here, and am so proud of myself! As soon as Jenna saw this Sophie stamp from Hanna Stamps she started planning her next birthday party. In August! Both girls love all the Riley and Sophie stamps and when they make cards those are the first stamps they reach for. The challenge on the Hanna Stamps forum today is to make anything but a card. Since she has been wanting to get started with these, I decided it would be the perfect time to make some plans. Jenna wants to use this stamp for the invitations and on her treat boxes. She decided to go with the manicure/pedicure theme here and plans to give her friends nail polish and manicure supplies. The template for this box came from a technique challenge on SCS a few weeks ago. I cute out the box with bright pink card stock and then coved parts of it with this orange and pink paper. The image is colored with Copics and Prisma markers. I used micro glass beads on the water to look like soapy bubbles.

I had an insane day to finish off my crazy week so I am going to grab my heating pad and crash in front of the TV for the rest of the night. I hope you have a great weekend.

I also want to say thanks to everyone that leaves comments for the girls when I let them post their creations. It means so much to them, so thank you for encouraging their blossoming artistic talents.

Mermaid Anya

Good Morning! My card today uses the Mermaid Anya from The Greeting Farm. She is colored with Copic/Prisma markers. I used paint for the pearls in her hair. Paper is DCWV. All those circles made me think of water bubbles. I was almost finished with this card and inked the edges of the patterned paper and the blue card stock with white ink, but decided it looked too plain. Then I saw this wonderful glitter that I decided to use around the border of my card. I wish I knew where that glitter came from! I have it in this color and one that is a purple blue mix and would love to have more of it. I am very proud though, that I am continuing to use items from my huge stash of supplies rather than purchasing anything new right now. I have used up a couple of rolls of ribbon and lots of paper scraps. I also stocked Jenna and Samantha's card boxes with supplies for them to use. I am very slowly starting to see some reduction in the boxes and drawers. Have a great day!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone has had a great day so far. Here is one more Easter card that I made. I used the CTMH set Little Treasures. It's so cute, there are several different items that you can stamp inside the jar. I even masked some of those jelly beans to make the jar appear to be fuller. After coloring the jelly beans with Copic/Prisma markers, I covered the entire jar with Glossy Accents. The lid was colored with a silver gel pen and I cut out several different layers of paper and glued them one on top of he other. Paper is DCWV and I'm not sure of the ribbon.

We are having dinner at Kip's sister's house this evening and here is my main contribution: 

I just had to take a picture of all these beautiful colors in my salad bowl. It is a bag of mixed salad greens with blueberries, strawberries, Mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits and chopped pecans. It is dressed with a homemade lemon poppyseed dressing. Here's the recipe for the dressing: 

Lemon Poppyseed Dressing

1/2 cup of frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

 1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)

Combine all ingredients and mix well. With some salads I prefer the extra tang of the lemon juice, but not normally with this one.

Swim Jenna Swim

It wasn't until I was typing the title of this post that I realized that Swim Jenna Swim sounds just like Run Forest Run! Forest Gump is one of my favorite movies of all time so I guess it was in the back of my head somewhere. Hanna Stamps is having their release party tomorrow night and there is a challenge to use one of the sets released last month. The set to use was Wee Hanna, which is a set similar to paper dolls. Included with the set is a Hanna doll and a pirate outfit, a ballerina outfit, a cheerleading outfit and this wet suit. Oh yeah, and you could only use primary colors or the colors that come in an eight box of crayons. Using the set wasn't difficult, staying within that color palette was for me. I used a Cuttlebug folder and then flipped it over to the reverse side and then sanded just a little so you could see some of the white core of the paper. I stamped wee Hanna and colored her in with Copic/Prisma markers. The clothes were stamped and colored separately, then cut out and glued to the body. I used Glossy Accents on the face mask. I glued down some of the pretend dew drops because they reminded me of air bubbles. The sentiment there was generated not by my computer, but by my label maker! I hate not having a computer in my craft room anymore. I saw the label maker there and knew it had a font that I could color in so I decided to try it. I liked the way it turned out.

Jenna has a swim meet in a couple of weeks. Samantha usually hangs out with me on those days because she gets bored hanging out at the pool all day and if she is with us, Kip will sometimes take us to eat sushi for lunch. I'll give this card to Jenna for good luck.

Well, our good weather didn't last, we have storms on the way and a chance of snow tomorrow. The saying around here is, "If you don't like the weather here in Tennessee, just wait a couple of hours and it will change". How crazy is that! Have a great week.