Balloon Card and a couple of layouts

Just a quick post today! This card was made using the sketch provided in the Clean and Simple challenge on Splitcoast this week. At first I really struggle with the CAS concept, but I have found that I really enjoy it. Since I tend to like bright colors and I like those bright colors paired with white, CAS works for me quite well. I used a stamp from Clear Dollar Stamps, I believe it was the stamp of the month from last June, to stamp my balloons and sentiment. The balloons were colored with Copics and a white gel pen was used for hi-lights. Ribbon and paper are from my stash.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to be helping some little girls with Pet Scrapbooks (not for the pets though!). I thought I would include a couple of layouts that we did. Actually they just needed a little help from me and then they did their own thing.

Jenna's page:
Kristina have never scrap-booked before and here is her page: 
We had a great time playing around with all the animal pictures. Thanks for dropping in!

Make a Wish

I used to never work with purple, but lately I have noticed myself reaching for it more and more, sometimes just as an accent color. I have also made several purple cards too, and I tend to pair the purple with white. Today, I wanted to see if I could make two shades of purple work together.  All the stamps on this card came from a Heidi Grace stamp set. I love that flower in the center and when I got this set, my plan was to stamp it in white ink onto a colored card stock. I used CTMH WHite Daisy ink and Palette French Lilac for the flourishes and sentiment. It's a pretty simple card and I like the sentiment because it can be used for a birthday card or for someone embarking on a new adventure in life. All papers came from my slowly shrinking stash of scrap papers.

This afternoon, I will be scrap-booking with three little girls that want to make scrapbooks of their pets. Should be an interesting afternoon! Thanks for stopping by and visiting this afternoon. 

You are so thoughtful

Wow, I have been gone for a few days! We have had some internet/computer issues so I haven't been online in a few days. Plus Kip and I had a rare Saturday off and we spent the entire day together. Those days are pretty few and far between. We went to a scrap store and he was patient while I looked around and talked (for a long time!), although he did have to take trip to the coffee shop next door. The we ate lunch at a wing restaurant and walked next door to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We have both been wanting to see it, but this was our first opportunity to see it since it was released. All in all, it was a great day.

I finally got all of Jenna's invitations and thank you note cards finished so I have had time to play around in the craft room for a bit this afternoon. This card uses stamps from two different sets from The Angel Company. I didn't take a picture of the inside but it says thank you. The image was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Prisma and Copic markers and the sentiments were stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. I have no idea who makes the paper, it was from my box of precut scraps.

I did break from my self challenge at the LSS. Not too bad though! When I was at Archivers last month, I bought one of those small $1.99 Basic Gray stamp sets that has a little girl on it but they were out of the little boy. I got that stamp set and a paper drill that was on clearance. It will supposedly drill through 250 sheets of paper. I thought it would come in handy making Christmas gifts. It had been $34.00, but was sale for $15.00. I really went in there to get a larger block for my Just Rite stamps and because I saw in their newsletter that they were now carrying Copics. I only have the smallest one circle and would like to get the larger circle and one of the ovals. With the smallest one, if I use a border, I can't spell my last name and Samantha is a little jealous that I can do Jenna's name and not hers. The store is just starting with the Copics though and only had about six or eight colors and they were all primary colors, nothing to blend with or anything. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Jenna's Thank You Cards

Jenna loved her invitations, actually, I got a squeal and an "oh they are so beautiful". Pretty high compliments from a ten year old! Actually she wouldn't have told me she didn't like them, but the enthusiasm wouldn't have been there. While I was making the invitations I went ahead and made her some cards to use as thanks you cards. Since I was pre-doing these and didn't know how many she would actually need, I didn't make thank you cards, I just made her some monogramed notecards. I made the same number of notecards as I did invitations and she can use any leftovers however she wants. I used the same papers from DCWV that I did on the invitations below. I used my Just Rite stamper to spell out her name and then embossed it with hot pink embossing powder from Ala Mode (got it at Jo-Ann's) and then used Marvy punches to punch out my scalloped circles. All in all, pretty simple, but enough to make a little girl very happy. Thanks for stopping by!

Jenna's Party Invites

My friend's daughter call the other night to let me know that she had decided on a mini-golf birthday party for her upcoming birthday. I normally make the invites and other things for her and her sister whenever they need anything. Since their mom is not crafty and I don't have kids, it works out well for both of us! So I got a phone call on Saturday night from Jenna letting me know about the mini-golf and I asked if she had any other requests for the cards and she didn't. That's pretty rare for an almost 10 year old! She knows that I will make something that she will like, taking her likes and dislikes into consideration. This is version 1 of her invites. She hasn't seen them yet, so they may change a little. Jenna and Samantha both love Riley and that is what I normally use to make their things with. Since I am still in the month of my self challenge to use only stuff on hand, I decided to see if I could find enough coordinating papers to make all of her invites plus hopefully her thank you cards to send after the party. I found this DCWV paper and the matching card stock and it is perfect for her. Riley is colored with  Copics and the scalloped piece was cut out with Nestabilities. "Join Us" and "Party" come from a Fiskars party set and the "Fore" is from a TAC set of the same name. The pink and green inks are both CTMH. Jenna is all about pink and shiny things so I used these metallic spots that I got from Jo-Ann's as a golf ball. Hopefully she will like them! 

Bubble Fun

Good Sunday afternoon! My card today uses a Changito stamp from Stampendous. I colored the monkeys and grass with Copics and Prismas and then painted the bubbles with Oyster Twinkling H20 paint. I wanted those bubbles to have some of the same qualities of real bubbles. As a child (and as a former preschool teacher!),  I was always fascinated with the iridescent colors of bubbles and how the color would change depending on how the light hit them. The yellow background paper was made using a scrap piece of yellow paper and then I used a small round container dipped in CTMH Sunny Yellow ink and randomly stamped those big circles. I was very happy with the way they turned out, I wanted it to look like bubbles had burst on the paper so I didn't want a solid circle and these turned out exactly the way I wanted them to. Don't you just love it when that happens? I embossed the blue strip with a Cuttlebug folder and decided to do with the more square Mosaic folder rather than the one with circles for some visual contrast. 

And just for the record, I am now really regretting trying to change that tire. Wow and I regretting it. I have changed many, many tires in the past. What I did not take into consideration was that always before when I changed a tire, I was lifting a deflated tire or one of those dinky spares. My Jeep has a full size inflated tire that weighs a lot more than that little donut tire! Shortly after I started driving, I had a flat tire and got stranded and had a bit of a scare. I ended up having to pay roadside assistance like $40 or so to change the tire and it only took him a matter of minutes. When I got home, I made sure that my dad taught me to change my own tire before I drove again. Have a great day!

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!

Zoie's Birthday and 10,000 hits!

Wow! I have now had 10,000 hits on my blog! Thank you to everyone that visits me here in my little world and an extra huge thanks for all the encouraging comments that you leave. They really do make my day!

This is a card I made for my niece Zoie, her birthday is Monday so I need to get her card in the mail today or tomorrow. She will be eleven. I can't believe it. My brother wanted me there when she was born and I told him to make sure they called me when they were heading to the hospital so that I could make sure that I got there on time. I had a bag packed and ready to go. He called and I told my boss I was heading out as soon as I got that call. It is a three hour drive from here to there and I got to the hospital 27 minutes before she made her arrival. She gave us all a scare and spend a week or so in the NICU, but she has been a healthy little girl since then. Zoie is definitely tween and likes everything sparkly and all those other girly things. I thought this Anya would be the perfect image for her. Her favorite colors are blue and green so I picked out this paper and then colored everything to match with Copic and Prisma markers and added some sparkle to the hairband and purse with a green Spica pen. Want to know a trick I just learned? See those photo corners? I didn't have the right shade of blue paper to go with everything else so I colored a piece of paper with the same marker that colored my image with and then punched out the photo corners! Voila! Perfectly matched accents! The sentiment is from an Inkadinkado mini set and was stamped with CTMH Crystal blue ink and then I went over that with a Sakura glitter pen. Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks a Bunch

This card was made using things given to me by my friends at work. Angela shared the Anya image with me and Allyson bought me that great paper. All I can say is that my life has been so blessed by getting to know these ladies through my job. Angela is a bad influence though, she is the one that started exploring blogs first and found all these amazing stamp companies. She is the one that bought Prisma markers first and let me try them, Copics came after that. She is also the one that has been encouraging me to try the digi stamps. Seriously though, she is a great friend that encourages me and has taught me so many new things. We are both a bad influence on Allyson! She is great too, always picking up things and sharing when she finds a good bargain. Such good friends really make work more fun. Anya was colored with Copic markers and then I went over the sunglasses and the flowers on the shorts with a Spica marker. The paper is from Paper Adventures and the flowers with the buttons are from Joliees. The "thanks a bunch" sentiment is from an old Friends stamp set from Provo Craft and was stamped with Memento ink, Rich Cocoa, I think is the name. I have a question for you: are you the bad influence in your group of crafting friends always finding the newest and greatest toys or are you the one that is influenced. or are you like me? Have a great night!

Ready for a Swim?

Good afternoon! I made this card for one of the challenges in the Hanna Stamps forum. It was a sketch challenge provided to us by Sandra. I thought this sketch was so cute! I know it is on that I will use again. You know how much I love Riley and this was the perfect sketch to use. I love this color combo too, it just says summer to me and is perfect for little boys. I use these colors a lot when I am making things for my nephew Silas. When he was born, I helped my sister start a scrapbook for him and the book used these colors. So I always think of him when I use this combo. I started by stamping Fins Riley with Memento ink and then colored him with Copic markers. The paper is from a Making Memories pack with all these great coordinating patterns and the brads are from The Paper Studio. That's it for today! i am going to try and sneak in a quick nap before I have to leave again.

Wishing for Sunny Days

Thank you so much for all the tips for the acetate sheet, I couldn't wait to try another card. I embossed my acetate again with a Cuttlebug folder, this time it is attached behind my image and then the brads are also helping hold it to the blue paper. I stamped my Rainy Day Hanna with Memento ink and then colored everything with Copic markers. I am not sure of the maker of the ribbon, since it is from my stash, but I believe it is from one of the DCWV accessory packs from last spring. Everything on this card came from my stash and those were the last three brads from that pack! I am making progress with my self challenge, I have finished off a couple of packages and the scrap pile is getting smaller. The only thing I need to work a little more on is to make some cards with the images that have already been colored. Enjoy your evening and thanks for stopping by!

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!

I love Mushrooms...and some rambling

Especially on Pizza! But for some reason I love images of mushrooms. While I was coloring this image, I think I finally remembered why. Obviously, I decided to color this one green but I kept thinking it wasn't right, I kept wanting to grab red, I was wanting it to look like a Smurf home! I loved the Smurfs when I was younger and still have a few of them in the house. That was even my nickname for quite awhile, not because of my affinity for the cartoon, but it was because I dyed my hair blue and wore it that way for several years. I still have friends that call me that from back home. On to the card: another thing I am doing with my self challenge is trying to work with colors I don't use that often and different color combos, and trying new things. The images are from Simon Says Stamp. there are several little woodland creatures in the set alone with another mushroom or two. The mushroom was colored with Copic Markers and the hi-lights drawn in with a white gel pen and the dragonflies were colored with a Spica marker. The acrylic drops are clear but I used some Stickles behind them to make them shimmer. Katy did a tutorial on the ClearlyiStamp blog the other day talking about adhesives that Clear Dollar Stamps carries and I picked up that little tip. That is a great blog for tutorials by the way. 

A couple of weeks ago on Splitcoast there was a discussion about shipping times from various companies and how sudden growth had caused some companies to experience some delays. Since the discussion was talking about business growing pains I added a comment about understanding how that happens because I have had friends that have had the same thing happen with their businesses. Anyway to make a long story short Heidi from Simon Says Stamp contacted me and asked if she could send me some stamps to try. Of course I said sure! That was the end of the conversation, she didn't ask me what I like or styles I prefer or anything. So about a week later I have this package in the mail with five stamp sets in it. The selection she sent me was so funny, I think if I had gone to their site and picked them myself, I would have ended up with the same sets! Not only do they carry their own line of stamps they have lots of other stuff, including all the Hero Arts stuff I can never find in stores around here.

My SIL and I went shopping for paint last night. Kip and I are redoing the downstairs and I have been given kinda free reign to pick out the colors. Well, as long as they aren't weird combinations and the colors don't scream at you or sear your brain. Right now every room in the house is off white. I can live with that, and like the white space, but would much prefer the white to be paired with bursts of color.  Since part of this new space is going to be my creative area, I want something stimulating, not boring. So she is helping me pick out colors and asked what colors I like and since I love yellow that was one of the choices I gave her, but she kept showing me muted golds or varying shades. I finally had to show her YELLOW and RED! I did manage to find some samples that I think we might both be able to live with so stay posted to see what we end up with!

Blog Awards

I need to pass along some thanks for some recent blog awards that have been passed along to me. I am really amazed at the people that have come into my life through blogging, people that I would have probably never had the opportunity to meet because we live in different cities, different states and in some instances, different countries. People that I now consider friends, people than encourage me and teach me on a daily basis. So a huge thank you to everyone one of my new friends! The One Lovely Blog Award comes from Pat. Her blog is fairly new to me, but I love her style, her blog is always so bright and cheerful! I passed along this award last week to some other blogs that were new to me. Thank you Pat.

This second award comes from Sue. Thank you! Here are the rules for this award:

# 1 By accepting this award you acknowledge that the giver LIKES YOUR STYLE

#2 You agree to post this proudly on your site and include a post linking back to the giver

#3 And because there are so many blogs out there that you like their style you will share this award with them...however many that might be...

Check out these blogs when you have a chance: or any of the other blogs listed on my sidebar. Lots of talent and inspiration there!

***Julie  (Julie is my friend IRL and is the person I credit with getting me into this hobby)

***Stephanie

***Karen

***Grace

***Diane

Thanks again Sue and Pat!

Purple Mood

For some reason, I am in the mood to play with purple inks, ribbon, paper and other goodies. So here is my very purple card for the evening, I can't decide if I like it or not, but it does look better in person than it does in this picture. The stamp is from the CTMH set Butterfly Kisses. I have had this set for a while and used the butterfly from the set but have never used the dragonfly before. The inks are also CTMH. See, I am still working on my self challenge of using the stamps and things that I have on hand! The ribbon is also from the stash and the rhinestones were in a gift bag from Judy that she gave me for my birthday. To make the dragonfly shimmer, I used a Sakura glitter pen.

I have been working the past several days on our downstairs room, trying to get it ready to set up differently. Kip and I have been married for three and a half years and there are still boxes down there from when I moved into the house. When two people in their thirties with complete households get married, there is a lot of stuff! We literally had two of everything. It was harder than I thought to move into a house that was already set up. At first it was hard to get rid of a lot of my stuff, but now I am over it! I want the additional crafting space! Have a great night everyone!

Fresh Cut Flowers

I love flowers like this, an this is on of my favorite Lockhart stamps that we used in the class I recently attended. I like the country look of the old Mason jar, like someone picked these out in the field before coming in and presenting them. The image was colored with Prismacolor pencils and I used a little Sakura glitter pen on the jar. I used card stock from the basket of scraps and the purple piece was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder. The buckle thingy is from a set of chipboard that I got at Jo-Ann's, the line is called Life's Blessings but I do not remember who made it. The colors were a little off so I used some Pebbles Metallic cream chalks to make it match my card stock colors. The ribbon came from Target's wedding section, great ribbon and lots of it for not a lot of money.

I am still working with my self challenge to not purchase any supplies for the month of July. Last night was the release of the new Hanna Stamps and I was so happy that I won two sets of my choice at the release party. I entered my Little Dresses card in the new set challenge and my card was picked. So I get new stamps and still get to stay within my $0 budget this month. I appreciate your visit tonight!

Cherry Apron

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I have a bright and cheerful card to share with you today. If I lived alone, this would be what my kitchen would look like, lots of white, red and yellow. I just asked Kip what he thought about that and he said "not so much". This is another image that was colored at the Karen Lockhart class, this one was done the Intermediate class. In this class, one of the things we were learning was adding texture with an embossing stylus. I added the stripes in the body of the apron but the possibilities are limitless. One really cool thing about this apron stamp is that the apron comes plain and there are small stamps, like these cherries that are available that you can use to change the apron. for my cherry paper, I randomly stamped the cherries on a white piece of card stock and then colored them with Prismacolor pencils. Stamp is from Lockhart stamp company, image and background are colored with Prismacolor pencils, paper is DCWV and the ribbon is from Big Lots.

I ended up taking the weekend off from just about everything, which was great. I did spend a lot of time working on the house, we are trying to re-do a couple of rooms in the house so that we can combine our hobby and work spaces. That way instead of me spending my free time downstairs in my craft room and Kip working on the computer or watching TV upstairs we can spend more time in the same room. Our schedules are a little crazy right now so time at home together is at a premium and we end up spending part of that apart. The goal is to move my craft room and the TV all into the downstairs den. We will still have separate areas but we will at least be in the same area of the house. Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas in July

It has been a great day off! I slept in, no waking up to an alarm clock for me today and then got up and headed straight to my craft room. well first I jumped online to check out the challenges on SCS. The challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum today is Christmas in July. Perfect for me since I am planned a craft day with the same theme on the 18th and I pulled out some Christmas paper and embellishments last night and they were sitting there on the desk ready to go. The challenge also fit in with my self challenge to use only supplies that I have on hand. I was able to find several good deals on Christmas stuff last year so they were put away and have been waiting to be used. To make this card, I started by using the tree from the Tis the Season Hanna set to create my tree farm, masking some of the trees to make it look like rows of trees. I colored these trees with Prismacolor pencils. To make the snow on the ground, I added some Martha Stewart Glitter. I stamped Riley onto a separate piece of paper and colored him and his tree with Copic and Prisma markers. After cutting him out, I added some foam squares to the back and was going to add him to the scene, but decided I wanted to have more distance between Riley and the rows of trees so I added a second layer of foam squares. See Riley's pink cheeks? It must really be cold! I hardly ever add clothes to any of these stamps, it just looks kinda weird when I do so I leave him au natural. Stamps by Hanna Stamps, glitter from Martha Stewart, paper from the Paper Studio, sentiment from Studio G, and the snowflake is from the stash.

Speaking of Christmas in July, if you live nearby or are my real life friend, plan on joining us on July 18th for our monthly craft event at church. Normally we meet the first Friday night each month, but because of the holiday, we changed the date. We will be celebrating Christmas in July and will have some quick and simple gift ideas and Christmas cards on display. Hope you can join us! I normally start making cards in July so I may try and post these on Fridays, since that it a day that I don't always post.

We are headed out in a couple of hours to meet my in-laws. We will be grilling out tonight and heading out on the boat to watch fireworks at Nashville Shores. I am so not a boat person though. Have a great day if your are celebrating and be careful!

Little Dresses

Whippeeee!!!! It is the end of the week and it came a day early and I am so excited about that. I thought today would never end at work. And of course about fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave, someone needed me and I ended up being there late. That doesn't happen too often though so it was okay. I was just ready to get a start on this long weekend. I had a great time last weekend but when I travel on the weekends, it wears me out. My card tonight uses the Five Dresses set from Hanna Stamps. In keeping with my July challenge, I used what  had, even though some hot pink ribbon would have been great here! I started with this pattern paper and pulled my color palette from there. My flowers used to be a pale pink that didn't match but I used the same Prisma marker that the images were colored with to color my flowers. See, I am working on that self challenge! Stamps from Hanna Stamps, images colored with Prisma and Copic markers, flowers are from Jo-Ann's, brads are Making Memories, ribbon is from Hobby Lobby and the paper is DCWV.

This high fashion card is in honor of my new favorite Thursday night TV show She's Got the Look. Have you ever watched that show? I am surprised that I liked this show as much as I do. It's funny since that is not the type of show I normally watch, but I am enjoying this one. All the models are at least 35 years old and there is one woman competing that is 72. She is my favorite and who I would like to see win. Have a great night!