Super Moose

I actually combined two challenges to make this card. I admire people that can combine multiple challenges, but when I do I usually forget at least one element (or two!) that was a part of one of the challenges. I thought I would be safe combining a color challenge and a sketch challenge. Jennifer from the Designing D.I.V.A.S. group issued the challenge to use the colors Red, White and Blue on a project. The challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum on Splitcoast was to use this sketch. I was in a coloring mood today and wanting to practice some of the things that I learned in my recent Copic class so I stamped several Rileys and colored them. My card tonight uses Super Moose from Hanna Stamps, paper from the Paper Studio, a button that I got from Target's Dollar Spot last year and some ribbon that came from Hobby Lobby. I love that lock of hair falling down onto Riley's forehead, it reminds me of Christopher Reeve's Superman. 

It has been absolutely beautiful here this weekend.  The past few weeks have been so busy that this weekend of doing very little has been a very welcome change. Kip and I have gotten to spend some time together and I was even able to cook a couple of different meals that we ate together! Four more days of school then my schedule will slow down somewhat. That means more crafting time for me. Thanks for dropping by!

Monogramed Notecards

I hope everyone has had a great Saturday. It is beautiful here and I have been able to have a very relaxing day. Samantha has been here all day because Jenna had a swim meet and she hangs out here with us on meet days because she gets bored being at the pool all day. That way she can do something fun and their mom can watch the swimmers and do her bit volunteering without worrying about Samantha. We have spent the majority of the day in the craft room. Her best friend for the past two years at school is moving away after school is out next week. She wanted to make Sarah something so I suggested making her some notecards. Notecards quickly evolved into a stationary set! Samantha has watched me give gifts this way so she wanted to do the whole gift set. She picked out all the colors and patterns of everything herself. The monograms were made using the Just Rite stamper, pink Ala-Mode embossing powder and ribbon from J0-Ann's. 

I thought it would be a good idea too to make a little address book so that Sarah will be able to have all her friends addresses before she moves. The address book was made with the same materials above but I added the plaid paper from DCWV and the book was bound with my Bind-It-All. 
Here is the finished gift, we also stamped some plain white paper for letter writing using the same monogram. Samantha painted the wooden box using the same pinks and green that we used on the notecards. We added bows and clear acrylic beads for decoration and our stationary kit was done. 
Samantha also made this card as a thank you for her new Riley stamps. Riley is colored with Copic markers and the skis, water and his trunks are painted with shimmering water color paints. Yes, you read that right, I let a six year old color with my Copic markers. She is very aware that they are different from her school markers and she knows if she doesn't take care of them that she will not be allowed to use my supplies again. They have been crafting with me for several years now and they do take care of everything so they can use most anything as long as they ask first. Have a great weekend!

Fruitful Day

I am so very glad that tomorrow is Friday, I am planning to sleep most of the weekend. I think my busy month is catching up with me! I decided to pull out this set from Clear Dollar Stamps called What a Fruit. For some reason, I really love those little ant stamps, I think they are so cute. Ants in real life? Not so much, but I love these to add to anything that reminds me of a picnic. The watermelon and sentiment are also from the same set. Paper is DCWV and inks are from CTMH. I thought this would make a cute card to encourage someone, especially one of my nieces or nephews. Have a great night and enjoy your Friday!

Challenging Myself

I was in a mood to challenge myself tonight! I decided I was going to use all supplies from my stash that I have had for a while and either not used or that I haven't used in a while. I pulled this stamp from Rubber Stampede out because it had never seen ink before and it has been sitting on the shelf for a very long time. I am not sure of the maker of this paper because it was also in one of the stacks of paper that no longer has a cover. I cut one piece to the standard card front size with my stripes going vertical and then a small piece with horizontal stripes and applied that to a back piece of card stock. The acrylic drops were clear but I colored them with a black Copic marker. The flowers are Petaloo and the buttons in the center of the them are from Making Memories and I have had these at least since I first started stamping and making cards, if not before! Can you believe I used flowers on cards two days in a row? I can't! I really do like the look of flowers on projects, but I am usually not happy with the placement of them and end up taking them off. I think I just have a thing about flowers; floral arranging is one of the crafts that I have never really done because I am never happy with my arrangements.

I have been seriously trying to use up some of the supplies that I have here in the house. I have several things that I have never used and lots that I used most of and just had a partial package left. Stuff that I still like even, but things that may have gotten shoved to the back of a drawer and forgotten about. All those things are taking up some serious room! We are thinking about moving my craft room to a different area of the house and I am trying to consolidate before then to make it a little easier. If you want to make something cool using only items from your "stash" leave me a link and I will check it out. Thanks for dropping by! I love reading all your comments they really make my day.

Friends

Good evening! How was going back to work today? I had such a hard time to getting out of bed this morning. At least there are only four days in this work week so I guess I will make it. I made this card for a Friendship Challenge with my blogger group. I used paper from the Pink Armadillo pack from The Paper Studio. Like my faux stitching? Of course it is a stamp since I don't really have the patience to sew on paper. One day, I will get a little mini machine and then maybe you will see some real stitching on my cards. Until then, I will continue using my CTMH Sew Happy stamp set. The stitching was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. The Friend sentiment is from Studio G, also stamped with the Chocolate ink but then colored in with a glitter pen. Flowers are Prima and the brad is from the Paper Studio. Thanks for dropping in tonight, have a great night.

For the Birthday Boy

We were in Chattanooga this weekend to celebrate the birthdays of my two nephews. This is the card that I made for Silas, he turned two yesterday. For his gift, I got him an assortment of outside toys, including several that can be used in his little pool and/or his sandbox. I made the card using the Pool Party set from Hanna Stamps. I tried to make a card that looked like a pool so I used a green background to look like grass. The gray part is the pool decking and I embossed the entire piece with UTEE so that it looks wet. The water was painted with Twinkling H20 paints on watercolor paper. All the little swimmers were stamped onto a separate piece of paper, colored with Copics and then cut out and placed in the water. The water squiggles were drawn in using a blue Spica pen. All the shimmers and glitters didn't really show up in the photo, but the little ducks sparkle and the brads are glittered as well. I didn't have glittered brads in the right color, so I covered the head of the brad with a glue dot and then dipped it in green glitter from Doodlebug. This is one of those cards that looked much better in person where all the different elements showed up better. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things, it was stamped in black ink and then I traced over it with a green Spica pen.

We just got home a little bit ago. May is always a busy month for us, but so far this month has been the busiest in a while. The first weekend my parents were here visiting, then Mother's Day weekend, the next weekend we were in Indiana, this weekend in Chattanooga and next weekend I think my parents are coming back! Fortunately I am off tomorrow so I can get caught up on laundry and other housework. To all my friend celebrating Memorial Day tomorrow, have a great day and be safe!

Cole's Birthday

By far, the hardest cards that I attempt to make are for teenage boys. I am okay with little boy cards and am getting better at cards for men, but those in-between ages are hard. I almost just went and bought a card instead of trying to make one! Tomorrow is my nephew Cole's birthday. As he turns fourteen, he is past the age of cute little dinosaurs, robots and trucks. I decided to use the Inkadinkado Rock Star stamp set. The image was stamped with Versa-Mark and then embossed with black embossing powder. The Happy Birthday was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink using the Martha Stewart Gothic alphabet set. After stamping the letters, I went over each one with a black Spica Glitter pen. I used two different patterns of DCWV paper, cut into strips for my background and added those jumbo silver brads to finish it off. What do you think? 

SPeaking of that Inkadinkado stamp set, that was a birthday gift from my friend Allyson. I have to tell you, this was the year of the stamp for me. I have tons of new stamp sets to show you over the next few weeks (or months!) so check back often.

Graduation Card

Good evening! I made this card for my niece, Zoie, for her elementary school graduation. The graduation was actually last week but I since I will see her this weekend, she will get her card then. I started with the Sketch challenge from SCS today but I think I modified it a little bit, my panels aren't quite the right size. I was going to stick with her school colors which are a light blue, royal blue and white but it was looking to much like a boy card. I replaced one of the earlier panels with this floral print. This Graduation Riley was one of the stamps that my friend Angela gave me for my birthday. She is one of the few people that will buy stamps for me without a specific list because she knows what I buy and I generally know what she buys too.  Riley is colored with Copic markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey's Everyday Classics. What you can't really see is that I traced over the tassel and the word Congratulations with a blue Spica pen. All the paper is from DCWV and the eyelets are Making Memories.

We will be out of town this coming weekend too. I don't normally do that to myself, but it does happen on occasion. My brother's son's birthday is Friday and my sister's little boy will be two on Saturday so we will be heading to Chattanooga to celebrate both boy's birthdays. Thanks for visiting!

Copic class continued

Here are the last two cards that we made at the Copic class on Sunday. This one uses a Ketto image from Stamping Bella, I think she is Ginger, but I am not sure. All the layouts and supplies for this card were provided by the instructor of the class, Candice. I do recognize that paper as being from the DCWV Far East pack, but I am not sure of the other supplies. I was really quite impressed with this beginner Copic class and cannot believe how quickly I was able to learn some new tips about using the Copics that I have. I took a close up of the image so you can see more details.
The last card we made used Riley from Hanna Stamps. Isn't this just the cutest card? I had seen Candice use one of these toy mazes on another card and was excited to learn how to do them myself.  The maze is one of those little toys that you can buy in the party favor section. We popped the back off and then inserted our colored Riley image.

Hopefully I will have some crafting time in the next day or so and can show off some of the new stamps and other products that I bought while at Papertrix. If you are ever in the Nashville, Indiana area, you really need to plan a trip there. The selection is the greatest I have ever found in a store, the owners are super sweet and knowledgeable and it's just a fun place to visit. I did get some pictures of the class but since they have other people in them I am not comfortable posting them on my blog without their permission. Have a great night!

I'm back!

Just a quick post, I just got home and I am beat. I have decided that if you have to turn 40, then make sure you do in in close vicinity to something that makes you happy enough that you don't think about turning 40!! We got home a little earlier, unloaded the car and my mom came in for a few minutes before heading out to her house. When she got ready to leave she turned the lock on the door and I got locked out of the house with no keys and no shoes. Kip is working so we had to go there to get his house key and now I am back in the house. I had so much fun this weekend. The Copic class that Candice taught was amazing. All of my Copic knowledge has been achieved from trial and error playing. It was great to learn more about them and to watch someone that really knows how to use them.  It was also fun to meet some people that I "know" from online. In addition to Candice and some new friends, I was also able to meet another blogger Judy, it's nice to be able to put faces with the names. Judy surprised me with a birthday gift of cool ribbons, embellies and a travel bag. Thank you so much, I love the bling!

In addition to learning about Copic markers we also made three cards. This is one of them. Of course the card layout and everything was Candice's design, but the coloring is mine. I was so happy to learn how to blend three colors. That third color really makes a huge difference in the depth you can get with the shading. I was quite impressed with this! The stamp is from Shirley's 2 Girls. I did buy this stamp and one other stamp by them, they had a lot of really nice designs. I have to run now so I can start laundry and get to bed, I will show you more in the coming days. Thanks for all the birthday wishes, it truly has been a great one.

And we are off.....

I haven't figured out how to add a picture and text when I post from my phone.  Here are the four of us as we set out for our trip. There is not a morning person in this group but we managed to leave within thirty minutes of our target time. 

Car Trip Riley

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend. It is raining and storming here, again. The sun came out for about 20 minutes today and it was so nice and warm, but the rain is back. I spent a large chunk of time today sitting at the DMV trying to renew my license. That is always so much fun and to make it even more fun, the camera was not working correctly which made everything that much slower. It also made for some interesting entertainment listening to people complain. I never go anywhere without a book, my phone, paper and pen, and usually my DS, I can entertain myself for hours if I have to.

The challenge today in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS is to make a one layer card, using on the base layer. You could add any number of embellishments but you had to keep it to this one layer. I normally color Rileys with Copics and Prisma markers but since they bleed through, I used Prismacolor pencils and OMS. I have had that chipboard sentiment forever and no longer remember where it came from. I tried to create a road scene, drawing in the road, grass, patch of wildflowers and using the chipboard as a billboard.

As I was looking through my stamps for an image to use for the challenge, I decided to make this card and leave it for Kip as I leave to go on my trip in the morning. He is being such a good sport about me leaving him for the weekend and not celebrating my birthday with him. Here's a conversation we had earlier in the week:

 Kip: "You know you haven't dropped any hints about what you want for your birthday this year"

Me: " I really just want money for my trip so I can buy stamps when I get to Papertrix"

Kip: "So let me see if I understand; you want to go away from me to celebrate your birthday and as a gift you want money so that you can go away from me and celebrate your birthday. Does that about sum it up?"

Me: "Well, yeah, but that makes it sound not nice"

All in all, he does a pretty good of picking out gifts for me, he;s never bought me a chain saw or a mop or anything like that and he does put thought into his gifts. Last Christmas he bought me a food processor and got some teasing from his mom and sister. But it was something that I had been wanting for a long time and just wouldn't buy myself. He doesn't have an easy out either, I am not a jewelry person and it's hard for him to keep up with the craft stuff I have so he does have to pay attention. He started making my cards after we had been married for a few months. Here is the card he made me this year:

I am off early in the morning. I will try and post some pictures here. I am not sure if the will have descriptions, but I will try to remember how to do that from my phone. Have a great weekend!

Wishing You a Happy Birthday

Sorry for the quality of the photo, it was dark when I took this and this was the best I could do. The middle parts of my week are super crazy busy and it is usually dark when I get home and have time to craft. But I do have a quick post tonight. My Papertrey Anniversary set has arrived!! It is a nice set with several images and lots of sentiments covering a variety of gift giving opportunities. My cupcake base was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink, the frosting was stamped with CTMH Watermelon, first stamped onto scrap paper then onto my panel here, and the cherry used CTMH Holiday Red. I covered the cherry with Glossy accents for the shine and dimension. The image was punch out using Marvy punches and added to the card with foam squares. To finish it off I added these metallic brads that came from Jo-Ann's. Have a great day!

One Sad Little Girl

There was one sad little girl that got off the bus this afternoon. My friend's daughters stay with me after school every afternoon and have for the past several years. You know how if you are around a kid for a while you can tell by the way they get off the bus how their day went? I could tell as soon as I saw Samantha this afternoon that she was not a happy camper. She handed me a wadded up piece of paper to read as soon as she got in. Their school participates in the Accelerated Reader Program, the students earn points by reading books and then taking tests on the computer. She is six and in the first grade so this s her first year participating in the program. There are prizes earned for different point levels and she has been working so hard to earn the fifty points needed to receive a t-shirt. The best part of having the t-shirt is that once you have earned one you can wear your t-shirts on AR assembly days and be out of dress code. The cut off day for taking tests and earning points was Friday. The wadded up piece of paper was her final point tally of 49.6 points. Less than half a point away from her goal. Later she told her mom that a card from me would make her feel better so this is the card that she will get tomorrow. I used MFT's What's the Story Flopsy and made a card that I know she will love. When she makes cards she like to use the ticket corner punch and the acrylic drops and I also used some orange which is one of her favorite colors. Paper is DCWV and Flopsy was colored with Prisma markers.  Thanks for checking in tonight!

Treat Bags, a photo album and a blog award

I showed this label the other day but I wanted to show you the bags that they are going with. I decided to make treat bags for our Road Trip this weekend. Kip is laughing at me and calling me a nerd for doing all this. That's okay, call him that a lot too! Since we are celebrating my birthday this weekend, I thought it would be a cute idea to make these goodies bags to pass out to everyone. There are snacks that we can eat in the car, puzzle books, paper and pens and the item below (more about that in a minute).  I got the plain gift bags at Hobby Lobby and punched out circles out of matching paper and then glued them onto the bag so that the bags would match my background on my tags. 

The tag is just tied onto the bag and designed to be added to the cover of the scrapbook that is also in the bags. I made these 6x6 books with a Bind-It-All. I cut a slightly larger tag than the one that I cut with the Sizzix die cut and that is already attached to the book cover and then after our trip we can take them off the bags and then attach them to the book cover. The letter are cut out using the Sizzix alphabet Girls are Weird. 
In case you haven't read about my trip yet, me, my Mom, my Mother-in-Law and sister-in-law are going to Nashville, Indiana next weekend. I found a Copic class that is Sunday and since my birthday is Saturday, I planned a road trip and then invited people to go with me! Fortunately, they were free to go that weekend too. The tag is made with Passport Hanna from Hanna Stamps and colored with Copic markers, the paper is Making Memories, card stock is DCWV.

I have been so lucky to have met so great people through blogging. One of them Sue, gave me this good Karma award. The meaning behind this award is "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers." I am supposed to pass this along to 7 other bloggers.
Please go and visit these ladies when you have a chance!

Dru at Garden of Dreams

Jackie at My Sweet Story

Lesly at Stamp Yourself Silly

Susan at Susan's Day Off Creations

Amy at Not Just Another Stampin Blog

Hey Diddle Diddle

Good evening! I hope you are having a great start to your weekend. We had dinner at Olive Garden with my in-laws tonight. Kip has to work on Sunday so we had Mother's Day with his mom tonight.  He made the card for his mom and I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it. I still haven't made my mom's card, but we will celebrate next weekend with her, so I am good. I saw this stamp set a few weeks ago at Jo-Ann's, it is part of the Debbie Mumm collection. It has probable eight or nine different nursery rhymes represented and I thought it would make the cutest baby cards. I chose the Hey Diddle Diddle stamps for my card, in part because I remember reading this over and over again to my brother when he was little. I colored the images with Prismacolor pencils and OMS and punched out each images using Marvy punches. The brads are from Jo-ann"s. paper is DCWV, ink is Memento and CTMH Garden Green.

Does any one have fun and exciting plans this weekend? I am hoping to have lots of crafting time to catch up on the blogger group challenges. Have fun!!

Smile!

I first saw this image on Julie's blog and every time I saw it, I laughed. I mean laughed out loud, it absolutely cracked me up! I kept going back to look at it and show it to other people and I never stopped laughing. I knew that this stamp had to eventually come and live at my house. I followed the Ways to Use It challenge on Splitcoast today which was to use Kraft paper. I love the Kraft paper paired with red and since it matched my little mousie lips, that is the color combo I used. The main image was stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. The sentiment says SMILE and was stamped with Brilliance White Cloud ink using the My Sentiments Exactly ASL alphabet. That's a fun alphabet to play with, all the letters are individual so I can make words to say whatever I want to say. What I really like about it is that you can place the letters close together and make one stamp. I have some alphabets that I have to stamp each individual letter because if you try to line them up on a block they are spaced too far apart, but not with this set.

Speaking of Julie, I have to give a shout out to the service at her online store Scrapbook Store at Your Door. This is where I purchased this stamp. I am lucky enough that I live less than half a mile from Hobby Lobby, have to pass Jo-Ann's going to and from work and Michael's isn't too far. I do spend plenty of time and money in all these places, so much time that Kip says going into any of these stores with me is like going into Cheers with Norm, but their stamp selection doesn't change. We also don't have a good stamp store close by, do I do a lot of online shopping. The two ways I choose where to shop online are price and shipping time, this store met both of those. I was very surprised how quickly I got my order. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Dum dum da dum...

How is everyone today? I have about decided that my next craft endeavor is to make an ark. It has rained here every day for over a week. That really does a number on my back and my pain levels and makes it hard to get decent pictures! I have really been having fun playing along with several challenges lately and since I have more Hanna Stamps than most companies, those are the ones that I have been participating in the most. The challenge from the release party was "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue". I thought I was also supposed to use one of the wedding sets but when I reread the challenge, I don't think that was the case, but since my card was finished this is what I have!  My old item was the heart brads that have been in my stash forever, new item is the stamp set, borrowed is the glitter glue borrowed from the girls and blue is the paper and the glitter glue. Everything was colored with Copic markers. I don't know anyone getting married right now, but when I was in Hobby Lobby the other day, I was helping this woman pick out stuff for her wedding and these were the colors she was using. I thought of her when I was trying to come up with a color to go with the blue. Thanks for dropping by for a visit!!

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!

25th Anniversary

This afternoon, Kip and I are going to an anniversary for a couple celebrating their 25th year of marriage. I wanted to make something a little more formal than I normally make. I stared with this paper from the Paper Company, it is black on one side and on the reverse it is this pretty silver/gray color. The white panel is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder, the scallops were punched with Marvy punches. The sentiment is from the CTMH set, For every Occasion. I love that set and use the sentiments in it all the time. I embossed the sentiment with silver Ranger embossing powder. The ribbon is from my stash and the flowers are Petaloo. I buy flowers all the time, but rarely use them. I think I just have a hang up about their placement, I make it much harder than I am sure it really is. There are very few craft related things that I don't dabble in or do to some extent, with the exception of floral arranging. I've tried but they just never look good. So I think putting flowers on cards makes me think of that. 

I am having a great visit with my parents this weekend. My mom and I went to a few yard sales yesterday and we also paid a visit to Hobby Lobby. Her favorite craft right now is making ornaments. She makes a couple of different kinds, some with these tiny little beads and others with sequins and stuff. I think she has a few with her, I will have to take a some pictures and show you later. Well we are off to church now, have a great afternoon.

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!