Hanna Stamps Guest Designer Call

Hanna Stamps is having a Guest Designer call and I decided to throw my hat into the ring. If you are interested, you can read about it here. I really do love these stamps, you know how often you see Riley on my blog! I have enjoyed making cards with the Hanna sets that I have too, the images are fun to color and with all the accessories, you can change things up and make things look different even though you are using the same set. But lately, I have been having soooo much fun combining different sets to create different scenes. It's fun to see how many different ways you can use these stamps and accessories and get so many cool scenes.

This is the card that I made for the guest design team call. I combined the Granny Hanny, I Dream of Hanna and To the Beach sets. I made the beach scene by drawing in my sand line, then the water, then colored the rest to be sky. The water has some Liquid Applique on it to mimic waves. The genie is colored with copics. I wasn't quite sure what to do to create the shear look over her legs until I decided to lightly go over her legs with some pink Twinkling H20 paints. Since you can see through those paints, you can still see Hanna's legs, but there is also the appearance of shear material. I outlined the pant legs with Copics to match the rest of the outfit and then added the paints. The lamp was stamped, painted and cut out, but I needed to be sturdy enough to hold this panel closed so I glued it to a thin piece of chipboard and then cut it out again. Are you wondering what Granny's wish was? 

When you open the panel you can see that Granny's wish came true! He is none other than the body builder from the To the Beach set. 
It took me a while to come up with a layout that covered him and had the continuity of the scene on the genie panel and the body builder panel. I wanted to make sure that my sand, water and sky matched whether the card was opened or closed. I tried a couple of different layouts but this worked best. To do this I cut my card base at 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, and scored on the long side at 3 inches to make the panel. Since Copics bleed through, I cut another 5 1/2 x 3 inch panel to stamp the genie on.

I think I have started to figure out how to take decent pictures with my camera. I can tell a difference anyway. Thanks for stopping by!

Pink Dress

Good afternoon! It's been a great one here today. Kip and I both had a rare afternoon free and were able to each lunch together which was very nice. We have a new restaurant near us that has Japanese, Chinese and hibachi food. The sushi is pretty good there! Several months, or maybe a year ago I decided I wanted to learn how to do paper quilling. I taught myself several basic things using a small kit and a book that I was able to find. I really like the fringed paper flowers. I made a couple of them to use on this card to see how I like them as embellishments. What do you think? The directions mention using a wider quilling paper but this is the only size that I have been able to find. Onto today's card; I used the card sketch challenge from SCS for the layout of this card and for my colors, I used the colors that were in this patterned paper that I really like. The stamp is from Stampabilities and was stamped onto watercolor paper with Memento ink. The dress was painted using Twinkling H20 paints. I embossed the center panel with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then went over it lightly with a sanding block to distress it just a little.  Thanks for stopping by, hope you liked tonight's card.

Gardening Riley & Blogaversary!!

Okay, I know I have been showing you lots of Riley cards lately! Since taking the Copic class, I have been practicing coloring a lot and these images are just lots of fun to color and play with. It also helps that coloring Riley was one of the projects that we did in class, so I can kind of gauge my progress. And I am seeing some progress, for one thing it doesn't take me as long to actually finish an image. This card was for a challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS. It was a color challenge with a twist. The colors given were apricot and ballet blue and the twist was to add an additional color of your choice. I chose this rusty red color. I don't have any SU colors, so I picked the closest colors I had on hand based on the sample card. Stamp is from Hanna Stamps, image was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic markers, paper is DCWV and ovals were cut out with Nestabilities.

One year ago today, I made the first post on my blog! I can't believe how much fun I have had in the past year. I have "met" so many people, some of whom, I have even gotten to meet in person. One of the reasons I decided to start a blog was to encourage myself to craft on a more regular basis. I definitely have! I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that drops by to visit and leaves me such encouraging comments. I am working on putting together some blog candy, so check back in the next few days! Thanks again!

Summery Notecard Box

This is the other notecard box and card set that I made. I decided to go with a bright summer theme with this set. I made eight cards in each set and this set had two different designs. The sentiments are mixed, I included some birthdays, some say thank you and some say thinking of you. The stamps are from the Everyday Blessings set from Papertrey Ink. I stamped the flower in the orange ink and then went around the edges of the stamp with a pink ink pad and then stamped it onto the paper. I forget the name of that technique, I think it is called Rock and Roll or something like that. The box is the same one that I made for yesterday's post with the scalloped lid, but the top of this one is decorated.
Papers are from DCWV, stamp set is from Papertrey Ink, inks are from CTMH and the scallops and circles are punched with Marvy punches.

Notecard boxes

I had someone ask me if I could make them some notecard sets. Just general sets that would be suitable for gift giving. Sure I can! Even better, she had no color scheme that she wanted or anything in particular, she just wanted coordinating sets. It was also my choice if I wanted to do each set exactly the same design or if I wanted to mix them up. This is one set that I made. I used Papertrey Ink's Borders and Corners Monogram Edition set. This is one set that I made all the cards the same. The cards can be used individually as wedding cards to give or the entire set can be given to the bride and groom. You can add a gift card to the decorations on top of the box or on the inside and the  newly married couple has some handmade thank you cards ready to go. If I make this and know the wedding colors, I will coordinate the cards and box to match. The cards use DCWV card stock, the  Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder, CTMH inks and American Crafts ribbon. Here is the box that was made with the same papers as the cards. I haven't decided how I want to decorate the top yet, or if I just want to add a big bow.  
I will show you another box and card set tomorrow. It's a lot different than this one! I love making boxes and things now. All thanks to my Scor-Pal! I couldn't believe what a difference having that made in my projects. Now when I make boxes and things they actually get given away instead of ending up in the trash. If you are on the fence about this one, go for it. It's one of those purchases that was worth every penny and I use it almost every single day.

The box template came from Splitcoaststampers. It is in the resource section under A2 Card Box. Thanks for stopping by and visiting!

Create a Scene

One of the monthly challenges in the Hanna Stamps forum was to create a scene on your card. I really do love Hanna Stamps for several reasons, in part because they are cute and fun to color but the other reason is all the little accessory stamps that come with each set. It does make it easier to create scenes and to use the same stamp over and over in different ways without it always looking the same. So to create my scene here I combined stamps from four different stamp sets; I used Anthony, Lazy Days, the Patio Mini set and the sentiment from But I Need It. This card really did take me a long time to make, I think it shall become a framed piece of work in my house! Like in the entry way so that everyone that comes in the house can see it. There was a lot of masking involved which is something I don't do a lot because of the time factor. All in all I am please with the little scene I created and colored here. I have mentioned to Kip that we don't really need a pool to have a pool boy to wait on me hand and foot, but he doesn't agree with me. I decided Hanna could have someone waiting on her, and bringing her trays of girly looking drinks. For some reason, I have a harder time photographing larger cards and this one measures 6x6 so I took the picture sitting at my desk. Those are my lovely embellishment drawers behind the card, I forgot to put up a backdrop! Images are stamped with Memento ink, colored with Copics, flowers are from Michael's, rhinestone brads are from Making Memories and paper is DCWV. What do you think of my scene here?

Cupcake Fun

This is our cupcake decorating session! Our monthly craft night is tonight at church and since we have a few younger girls that have joined our crafting group, I decided that cupcakes would be a good snack to take. They are normally a big hit with any age group. Samantha loves going to craft night with me and she loves helping to cook. I got off work about an hour and a half early today so I had time to make homemade icing. Is there anything better than homemade chocolate icing? Yuuumm!!I had the cupcakes baked and cooled when her mom dropped her off so all she had to do was decided on sprinkles. She narrowed it down to four or five choices. She loves those funny feet cupcake holders that Wilton makes so half are done in those and then half were baked in regular cupcake liners. Here is the final tray: 
As if there wasn't enough sugar in those things, the extra pound of sprinkles made sure that everyone will get a sugar high!!

Get the Milk

Good evening. We just got home from Kip's nephews tenth birthday party. Between the two of us we have three nephews and they all have birthdays within a two week period. The nieces are spread out, but the boys are all together. Jacob loves airplanes and I found a really cool kit called "Everything that Flies" and it had the supplies and directions for different planes, gliders and rockets. I got a "Oh that's cool" so I think it was a success!

My card tonight uses an image from Shirley's 2 Girls. I had seen these online but found then when I was at Papertrix last month. For some reason, I thought the images were a lot smaller than what they really are, but they are a great size for coloring. I will get some more of their stamps when I have they chance. I colored everything with Copic markers and the paper is DCWV. Those little flat discs are wonderful (and also a Papertrix find). They are available in at Stamping Bella and come in three different sizes and several colors. They also have a great glittery shimmer to them. I am so thankful the weekend is almost here. Thanks for stopping by! 

I want to ride my bicycle...

I want to ride my bike. Bicycle. Bicycle. Oops sorry, that song from Queen gets stuck in my head all the time! I don't know why but that is one of those songs that I catch myself singing or humming all the time. This is another Riley from my coloring session yesterday and this time Riley is riding his bike. I think this is one of the first Rileys that I ever bought. Riley was stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Copic markers. All the paper and card stock are from DCWV and I think those cool square eyelets are from Making Memories. To keep from adding another layer of paper under the images, I ran the edges over my CTMH Holiday Red ink pad, it adds a little something without adding extra bulk. Have a good evening!

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!