Little Red Dress

I think this is one of the first stamps I bought when I decided I wanted stamps to color. I had some really bad markers and it only took me a minute to decided I didn't like stamps that had to be colored. And I didn't color on a stamp for a very long time either. Isn't that funny? When I started coloring images again I would only using coloring pencils because I could use them and get the effect that I wanted. Then I met Copics and now I color all the time and can't really remember the last time that I used a stamp, other than a sentiment that didn't have to be colored. Red, black and white are one of my favorite color combos, in fast, as I am redoing my dining room that will be the new color palette in there. I decided to make a little red dress because it reminds me of a beautiful dress my sister bought a while back to wear to a wedding. I added some pearls to dress it up a little. Stamp is from Stampendous, colored with Copics, papers are DCWV, pearls from the Paper Studio and I used a Fiskars border punch.

Have a great day!

Two Cup Morning

I loved this stamp the first time I saw it, but once I read the sentiment, I loved it even more. The monkey is too cute clutching his two cups of coffee, wearing his PJs and little bunny slippers. That is me in the morning just about any day though, it takes at least two cups of coffee to really get me going. I picked that DCWV paper because of all the circles reminded me of coffee rings. Thanks for dropping by to see me today!

Some mornings....

Okay, in my house every day is a two cup day! My personality is much better after a cup or tow of that miracle morning juice. I really do enjoy these Changito stamps from Stampendous, and they keep getting cuter and cuter. I stamped the image and sentiment with Memento ink and colored Changito with Prismacolor pencils. I used a little bit of Glossy Accents on the mugs. The brads are from the Paper Studio, the papers are from my stash, and the scalloped circle was punched with a Marvy punch.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far. My sister, her husband and my nephew came up for a visit on Friday and they left last night. Silas is just a little over two and a hand full, but still a lot of fun. Kip had the good fortune to watch his very first episode of Blues Clues yesterday. I don't know what bothered him more, the show or the fact that all three of the other adults in the room knew all the songs and hand movements. Other than their visit, we have just been hanging out around the house not doing too much. Enjoy your day tomorrow!

Glittery Me

I have glitter everywhere! I remember now why I like glitter pens, Stickles and glitter glue so much. There is glitter all over me, my desk, the floor, the cats and, I have tracked it throughout most of the house. IRL you can see the image better than you can in this picture and it is very pretty. More than likely this is a one of a kind original. The glitter is the more clear kind but every picture I took made the glitter layer look thicker. The stamp is from Stampendous and was one that I purchased on my last trip to Papertrix. I stamped the image with Memento ink and then colored everything with Prismacolor pencils. Then I sprayed the entire image with spray adhesive and added the iridescent glitter. The paper, card stocks and the die cut glitter stars I used are all from DCWV.

For someone that doesn't enjoy using glitter all that much, I sure have accumulated a lot of it! I have entire drawer full of it, in all colors. The sad thing is that I also have duplicates of several of those colors. I taught preschool for 12+ years and I think that might have something to do with my glitter reluctance. But in the quest to use supplies on hand, I have opened that drawer and glittered everything within reach! I hope you are having a relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Zoo Thank You

I had a guest designer help me with the card design and layout. Since Samantha is going to the zoo for her birthday party, we stuck with the zoo theme for her thank you cards. She was standing over my shoulder approving every step of this card. We started with the Changito stamp from Stampendous and colored that with Copic markers, using a Sakura glitter pen to cover the "U". The bananas were stamped by my able assistant to make the white and yellow panels. We used the banana from the Lip Gloss set from Clear Dollar Stamps. She had to have some brads, so we used these orange brads from the Paper Studio. Samantha approves of the card because it uses her two favorite colors: yellow and orange. I have colored some of them and she is coloring them too. I do let her use my Copic and Prisma markers when I am there to supervise and I guess I have given her the "be careful" speech too much. As soon as she reached for the marker, she repeated it word for word to me! She and her sister have been using most all of my supplies for some time now and they know that the privilege will go away if they are not respectful. They also have their own supplies, some they have bought with their money so they know the value of what they are using.  Samantha especially likes to paint and she knows that real watercolors from the art section of the store cost more than the ones in the children's section, but that the colors are more vibrant and if we take care of what we have then we can have a wider variety. Works for me! 

Thank You

Last night, the girls, their mom and I were standing around talking about my upcoming trip to Papertrix in Indiana. Well, Judy is not a paper crafter at all, so I was trying convince her that this store was worth the five hour drive and telling her about the great selection of stamps that they have and how the stamps are not the stuff that you can find in the big box stores. She mentioned she needed some Thank You notes and wondered if I might be able to find Thank You in Asian characters when I go. I told her that I could find one in my craft room because I knew I had this stamp from Stampendous! Oh the joys of having just the right stamp when you need it. These are business related thanks you cards, so I kept them fairly simple. I stamped with Versa-mark and embossed the image with black embossing powder. I decided to do a little something different with the brads so I made these two trios. Thanks again to my mom, I have a couple of little pots of gold powder that I have no idea what the original purpose was, but I have found that I run the edge of my paper over the Versa-mark pad that it adds a nice touch on the edge of layers. All in all, a pretty simple card, and it fit the Ways to Use It challenge-- to use black. I ended up making a couple of different versions, but they are all pretty much the same, just a couple of slight changes from card to card. Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy 4th of July

I hope everyone is having a great holiday! I am so very happy to have today off. I got up very early this morning and have been playing in my craft room all morning. I've made a couple of cards, cut out some pieces for some baby cards, made a gift card hold for my father-in-law and started a gallery on SCS. That's a lot for one morning for me! We are headed to my sister and brother-in-law's house this afternoon to celebrate the 4th as well as my father-in-law's birthday.

I made this card using a Stampendous Bee stamp which I colored in with my Koh-I-Noor pencils and OMS. I found these star brads in my drawers of embellies and am not sure who made them. I have had these for a looong time and haven't used them before. The ribbon is also something I have had for a while. I covered the watermelon with Glossy Accents to give it some shine and dimension. All the cardstock is from DCWV. Have a safe and happy holiday!