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.