Friend

More Designer Paper!! As I did with the Father's Day card, I kept the same layout, just changed the stamp set to the "Friend" stamp from the For A Friend (Hostess Level 1). You could use just about all of the stamps from this set with this layout, they would fit perfectly. I used the Cuttlebug folder for the background and the So Saffron DP and added a little pearl for some "bling". I really like this layout....and hope you don't get too sick of it. I'll be using it some more :) Enjoy your day! Thanks for stopping by.

Father's Day

We leave for our vacation today, and there's still lots to do, but I thought I would post this real quick. I'm going to try to get some other posts ready and use draft.blogger....we'll see how that goes. Hopefully I'll have more "reading material" for you while I am gone!

Here are a couple of Father's Day cards that I made. I have tons of the DP paper, but never seem to use it. Well, while I was doing my blog surfing one day, I found this card on Nancy Riley's blog. I changed some details on the card a little bit, but pretty much kept the same basic layout. I'll definitely be using this layout some more because I have TONS of paper to use!!

Enjoy your day....thanks for stopping by!

For You

Here is a card that I made that I cased from the Stampin' Success Catalog a month or two ago (I can't remember!!) These are quick and easy cards to make. You use a 12x12 sheet of paper and cut 3" strips and then score in half to make your card 3 x 6. I used the Tart & Tangy stamp set from the current mini catalog, along with Certainly Celery and Pink Passion. Also used the Scallop punch, scallop scissors and my CAD to make the design at the bottom of the card.

If you make some of these, I'd love to see them!

Forgive Me

Please forgive me for being such a bad blogger lately. We've been soooo busy. We have rehearsal tonight for a wedding on Saturday that Emerson is in, birthday party on Sunday, appointments and Emerson's last day of ballet on Monday and then we leave on Tuesday to go out of town without the girls. It will be a nice break.....but a lot of work before we leave! Both my in-laws and parents are taking shifts watching the girls, so I've been trying to get everything in order, far as the house, food, clothing, etc. goes.

I haven't been able to stamp lately at all! During my dedicated stamp time on Tuesday, I cleaned my room....not fun to do, but I couldn't find anything, so I figured it was time. Plus I bought some more shelves, but before I could those up, I had to take ALL the other ones down in order to put up more supports for the shelves.

Here is a popsicle card that I did have a chance to do recently. I made these for our family picnic this summer as well as our playgroup picnic. I thought the kids would enjoy these. I originally found these on Rochelle's blog (check it out....she has some great ideas!) but also on Patty's Stamping Spot. I got the dimensions of the card from Patty's post, but tweaked them a little to fit what I thought it should look like.

I used the Tart & Tangy stamp set along with the invitation stamp from the Hugs & Wishes stamp set on the inside. Just can't get enough of the scallop punch....I love finding new and fun things to do with it. Hope you enjoys these! I'm hoping to get some more posts prepared so you have something to browse while I am gone. Thanks for stopping by.

Just Celebrate

I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted anything! I've been going to bed at 9pm or earlier every night this past week....I feel like I am making up on lost sleep back when everyone else in the house was sick. My mom and I were in our basement ALL DAY on Saturday organizing and getting things ready for our neighborhood garage sales at the end of June. When we moved, I was on bedrest, so unless we needed it immediately, it went into the basement. I figured, if I haven't needed it in the past year, then I don't need it. Actually, it sat in storage for 5-6 months while our house was being built and then in the basement for over a year, so I obviously haven't missed anything! I haven't had much time or energy to stamp lately. This is a card I made a while back. I think I cased this idea from Jen....i{heart}2stamp. (I stamped this card a while ago and just never posted it.) I'm not sure that I really like the color combo, but I had that orange polka dot ribbon and wanted to use it before another layer of dust grew on it :)

I used the stamp set Just Celebrate from the current mini catalog and used my square punches to punch out the parts of the flowers that I wanted. It was a different idea...I never would have thought to just use part of the flowers...my brain doesn't think outside the box very often....I always think I have to use the image as is.

Well, I got the girls to bed early and now I have 3 loads of laundry to fold....see, I put the laundry right in the middle of my bed, that way it has to be folded and put away before my lazy bum tries to slip into the sheets! Have a good night! Thanks for stopping by.

Pear Wishes

I really like this set, I just feel that I don't know what to do with it sometimes. This is another card that I created for my great-uncles 80th birthday. Figured fruit wasn't too girly :)

Quick post today....it's our anniversary....6 years! Wow! Where does the time go? The weather is supposed to be in the high 70's, maybe low 80's today, so we are hoping to take a bike ride with the girls to our quaint downtown and play at a park and get some ice cream. Still haven't been able to stamp lately....2 sick kids, sick hubby, wedding yesterday....I'm trying to catch up on laundry and house cleaning now that DH is home and can help with the girls. Tuesday night is my stamping night.....hopefully it comes to fruition and I can actually stamp! Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend and the extra day off!

Embrace Life

Another quick post today. Still not getting any sleep and could fall asleep typing this at any moment!! Camryn's fever is gone, but running nose, coughing all night long from the drainage, etc. Poor girl....I feel so bad for her, especially when there isn't much I can give her.

Anyway, on to the cards. These cards are part of the batch of cards that I made for my MIL a while back (no sleep = no time/energy to stamp). I used River Rock for the card base and of course one of my favs.....Ginger Blossom DS paper. I cut out the flower from the Embrace Life set and colored it in with my Aqua pen. I picked up this ribbon from Hobby Lobby, but I don't like it....it kinda looks like satin, but it's very stiff. I can remedy that situation since I just got in on Emily's satin ribbon share......you can never have enough ribbon!!

Thanks for stopping by. I'm hoping to send Emerson off to a friends to play this morning so I can try to nap while Camryn is napping (crossing my fingers!!)

Zoofari Baby

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. As I mentioned before, the little one hasn't been sleeping and has been running a fever for the past few days. I have gotten NO SLEEP whatsoever. She will sleep well for the first hour or so that she is down, and then is up EVERY 20 minutes, like clockwork!! Then she'll sleep for an hour or so and then be up every 20 minutes for the next few hours. My DH have been taking 4 hours shifts to get us through the weekend (he's trying to study for his last MBA class) and I'm just so darn exhausted from the past week, that I could fall asleep eating....if I had energy to eat! LOL!

Here is a card that I made for friends of ours that had a baby girl. I used the CB Swiss Dots folder on Chocolate Chip. It's layered on Pretty In Pink. This is one of the color combination that was suggested back when I offered the Birthday Candy....thanks for the color suggestion. I like these colors together. I used Zoofari from SU! and the sentiment is from MFT - Essential Sentiments. The border along the pink scalloped oval is from GinaK Designs ( I just now noticed that I forgot to note that on my picture. oops!) Ribbon is from May Arts. No more energy to type....sorry! Thanks for stopping by!

Nestabilities Card

Here is the card that I made for my MIL for Mother's Day. My Nestabilities that I ordered from Cut@Home (http://www.ucutathome.com/index.php) FINALLY arrived in April from being on back order from February. You can sign up for their newsletter and use their 40% off coupon on the Nestabilities. While I'm not a patient person, I don't have an option since I'm a hobby demonstrator. I'm always looking for deals and have enough other stuff in my craft room to keep me busy until they arrive. I haven't had much time to play with them, but as soon as I got them, I made this card.

I used SU!'s Ginger Blossom paper...I can't get enough of this paper! I also made a bookmark for her (we gave her a book along with a nugget tin...I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her...sorry!) I used my Cuttlebug flower die cuts and chipboard to make the bookmark.

I'm off to bed.....Camryn hasn't been sleeping well, which means Mommy hasn't been sleeping well. I'm off to get some sleep while I can! Thanks for stopping by.

Autumn Leaves

This is a card I made for my great-uncle's 80th birthday. He refused to have a party, so family and friends inundated him with birthday cards instead. I have a hard time making masculine cards to begin with, and then what do I do for someone who is 80???? I bought this set, but had never even mounted the stamps, so I figured it was time to mount them and get them all inked up! I used Always Artichoke, Baroque Burgundy and So Saffron. I took the leaf stamp and inked it first with So Saffron and then rocked the stamp in Always Artichoke and Baroque Burgundy. I had never tried this technique before, but I think it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself! :) The ribbon is from the ribbon share that Emily Giovanni had from Stamping & Stuff. Not too bad for a card that I had less than 10 minutes to do. I'll have to keep this one in mind for the future.

Hope you are all enjoying your day! Thanks for stopping by.

Women of Life - Part II

My grandmother's birthday is next week and I made this card for her, from the girls. To be able to make a card for a "Great Grandmother" isn't something people get to do very often or even see on a card, so I wanted to take the opportunity while I could. I know that she will love to have a card that is personalized like this. I used my birthday money from my Grandmother to purchase this stamp set, so I thought it would be quite fitting to make her a card using it.

I like the colors of the card, but do not like the layout whatsoever. This card took me forever to make because I just couldn't decided what I wanted to do. The original colors for the card came from {here - scroll down the page a little bit}. I liked Melissa's colors, but I changed mine a little bit. After leaving the card on my desk and coming back to it several times throughout the day, I knew that I just needed to finish it and move onto something else.

Sorry for the short post...Camryn is down sleeping and I still have to take a shower and run some errands....she turns 1 tomorrow and we have a huge celebration in the afternoon. I gotta get my butt in gear!! Thanks for stopping by...enjoy your day!

Some Ribbon & Women of Life

I'm sure you've all been in the same situation...... you're willing to give your child just about anything so you can get a few minutes of stamping time in, right??? Emerson is gone at my in-laws for a few days, so Camryn has no one to play with, except me :) I thought she was playing well by herself, so I attempted to get a card made using my new Women of Life stamp set. Just as I am into the "thick of things" (Sorry for the Backyardagins pun!), she crawls in and wants some attention. So, I grab one of the first things I see.....my ribbon from Emily's ribbon share. I need to get more clothespins so I can wrap the ribbon around it, but in the mean time, it all still sits in the box. So I grab the box full of ribbon, and give it to Camryn. It kept her occupied for at least another 5+ minutes so I finish up my card!! Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, KWIM???

Okay, onto the card. I had been admiring the Women of Life set for awhile now, but when PTI added the Women of Life addition set, I was SOLD! My mom is "Nana" to the girls and the addition set had it in there. I used some birthday money and bought both sets. This is the first time I have had a chance to play with them! When I purchased the stamp sets, I needed to spend a little more to get FREE shipping, so I decided to purchase some of their white cardstock. I'd always been happy with SU!'s white cardstock and never felt the need to switch. Well....now I know why everyone raves about PTI's white cardstock. It's heavier, thicker and not as glossy as SU!'s white cardstock. I'm not going to stop buying SU!'s cardstock, but will definitely keep PTI's in stock.

I used my new Paisley Cuttlebug embossing folder. A LSS was having a huge sale....it was the owners 49th birthday and Cuttlebug items were 49% off! How could I pass that up?? They didn't have much that I didn't already have, but they did have the Paisley folder, which I can't find anywhere else around here, so I snatched it right up! I also used my rectangle Nestabilities to emboss the white cardstock, but it doesn't show up in the picture. I just recently got these, so I haven't had a lot of time to play around with them. I did stamp on the cardstock first, and then carefully taped the Nestie to the cardstock and then cut and embossed the cardstock through my Cuttlebug machine.

Supplies:

Stamps: Women of Life and Women of Life Addition

Paper: PTI-white cardstock, SU!-Pink Passion, Wild Wasabi

Ink: Pink Passion, Wild Wasabi, Summer Sun

Accessories: Round Tab punch, Rectangle Nestabilities, white ribbon-Michael's

More Shower Goodies

I have some more shower things that I made to go along with the theme. First, here is the card I made to go with her gift. I was going to make all of her shower invitations using this Shower Time stamp set from MFT, but I just didn't have the time to get them done, so I found some great invitations on clearance at Hobby Lobby that I could just run through the computer printer and throw some toule and ribbon on and it looked like a bride. Not bad for $2.00 for 10!! I had to make this a 4x4 card because I only had a limited amount of this paper. I picked it up at my LSS and I got the last few sheets that they had. These colors matched my cousins colors of her wedding perfectly.

I also made up these toothpicks (the night before!!) I wanted a huge assortment of designs, but quickly realized that I wasn't going to have enough paper, so I had to do lots of the small flowers in order to make enough toothpicks.

We had different kinds of sandwiches on little breads along with different kinds of hummus to put on bread or crackers, so we needed something to help identify what was what. I created these little name tags for the food. I thought they turned out pretty cute!

Tuesday's is now my official Craft Night. I have lots of cards to make for May birthday's but first I have to clean my craft room so I can find things!! So, once I get it all cleaned, I'll have more things to show you. Stay tuned! Thanks for stopping by...enjoy your day!

All Natural Beauty

I forgot to post this card along with my goodies from yesterday. This is the card that Jill sent with the blog candy I won. If you haven't checked out Jill's blog yet, InkGenious, please stop by and say "Hi" to her. She is very creative and has some beautiful cards. She was recently published in the April 2008 Creating Keepsakes magazine....Congrats Jill! Jill and I "met" last year when I was doing a RAK challenge. One of the challenges was to send a card to someone with either the first letter of their first name or last name that your vehicle name started with. Since I drive a Dodge Caravan, I picked Jill Dunn's name off the RAK list. She doesn't live too far from some friends of ours in Alabama. While my DH and I were on our honeymoon in Aruba, we met a wonderful couple there from Alabama and have continued to keep in touch with them ever since. Whenever we go down to Florida to visit my in-laws, we stop by Alabama and visit. Maybe I'll stop and visit you sometime, Jill!

Thanks for stopping by. It's supposed to be in the 60's here today so hopefully we can get outside and enjoy a little fresh air.

Happy Mail Day to me!

What a great day to get the mail!! I received my blog candy that I won from Jill at Inkgenious recently. Along with these goodies, she also gave me a gift certificate to use at Eclectic Paperie. I was so excited....now I finally got to purchase the Domestic Goddess stamp set from Hanna Stamps from eP! So, not only did my goodies arrive from Jill, but I also received my stamp set from eP....all in the same day!! Talk about excited....I just had to go and ink 'er up!

I cased this card from Jenn Balcer. I recently picked up the Nana's stack from DCWV for girls and when I saw Jenn's card, I knew I had to case it. I changed up my colors a little, along with my layout. With all these Spring colors, Hanna looks like she's doing a little Spring Cleaning :)

I can't wait to play with this stamp set some more. Now, if I could just figure out a way to get a door-size poster with this Hanna image and saying on it, I would put her right on my front door!!!

Oh So Lovely

Here are a couple of cards that I did recently. They are very similar, but the layout are just a little bit different. I used SU!'s watercolor paper. I just love this stuff. I like the "bleeding" look of the ink on the paper. I used Not Quite Navy for the base of the card and then stamped my Canvas background stamp on it. Layered them with River Rock and Purely Pomegranate. I got a little smudge on one of the cards with my adhesive and couldn't get it off, so I covered it up with River Rock DP. Guess I should finally invest in the adhesive remover, huh?? I'd rather spend my money on stamps than adhesive remover, but if the adhesive is ruining my card, I supposed I should just do it :)

Well, I'm off to catch up on my laundry. Enjoy your day...it's cold here, but at least the sun is shining!

5 Minute Card

Along with the dinosaur card that I made (from the last post) I also made this card. I had about 10 minutes to get 2 cards done.....not a lot of time!! I made this card for my nephew. It's not some of my finest works, but I whipped it up quick and it's made totally from scraps! Not too shabby!

I used my Just Celebrate set from the Occasions Mini Catalog. I stamped the image and colored it in with my markers and then I used the backing that you peel off the stamp to put it on the wood block to create a masking effect. I put the backing over the image and sponged it with Wild Wasabi. I've also heard of people keeping the rubber portion of the die-cut stamp sets and placing that over your image and sponging on top of the image. I kept my rubber scraps, but haven't tried that technique yet.

I probably won't get any stamping in during the next several days....my DH will be gone at a conference today and tomorrow. Saturday we have 2 birthday parties and an engagement party to go to and Sunday we'll be out at my in-laws for the day visiting them for the first time since they have returned from Florida. Emerson is pretty excited....she hasn't seen them since Christmas. It will be a LONG weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Levitating Dinosaur

I made this card for one of Emerson's friend's 3rd birthday. I don't own many "boy" stamp sets, so I borrowed this from a friend. As you can tell from my levitating dinosaur, I haven't played around with this stamp set to figure out the placement yet!! Oh well....it's for a 3 year old....what will he care, right???? All the stamps sets are from SU!, except for the grass, which is from Amuse.

Thanks for stopping by today...I gotta run and get a shower in while Camryn is sleeping and Emerson is playing nicely in her room :)

Supplies:

Stamps: Prehistoric Pals-SU!, Grass-AMuse, Greeting-retired-don't remember the name!

Paper: Garden Green, Not Quite Navy, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White

Ink: Garden Green, Close to Cocoa, Not Quite Navy

Accessories: Tag Corner punch, brown grosgrain ribbon, CAD for holes for ribbon

Thoughts of You

ETA: I had this all typed up to post earlier, but Blogger was having issues and wouldn't let me upload my picture until now.


I made this card a while ago and forgot to post it. I cased this card from ncmorgan on SCS. I don't think I have every used More Mustard before this card. I saw that card and new that I had to give it a try. When I first started stamping, I bought the multi-packs of the paper. I still had all of the More Mustard from the pack!!! I love the earth element colors, but this was a color I didn't know what to do with.


(Sorry about the picture, for some reason with the lighting, I couldn't get it to come out clear, but you get the jist.) The stamp sets are Oh So Lovely from SU! and Essential Sentiments from MFT.

The weather is beautiful here today...in the mid-70's. I hope you have nice weather to enjoy today too! Off to finish getting dinner ready and get some good rest tonight because I am heading off to IKEA tomorrow!! Not that I really need anything, but I'm sure the van will be packed when we come home! Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Candy Winner & a card

And the winner is.......Cheryl KVD

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:11
Timestamp: 2008-04-16 18:15:15 UTC

Cheryl wrote:

Happy Birthday!! Sounds like fun!! My fav. color combo is River Rock, Soft Sky and Choc. Chip. Yummy!Thanks!Cheryl KVD

Email me with your snail mail address, and I'll get your goodies out to you. Thanks everyone for playing. I actually was able to play in my craft room last night.....my one last request for my birthday and was able to play around with some of the color combinations you all suggested. As soon as I get a picture of the cards, I'll get them posted.

Here is a card I made a while ago to send to Charmaine's MIL when she was recovering from surgery. This was the first time I had ever used SU's watercolor paper. A friend of mine had some and let me borrow a couple pieces. Needless to say, I just received mine in my last order. I love the effect of the ink bleeding on the paper and I was sold! Can't wait to rip open my package and start using it some more.

Well, my eyes are burning a little from having the contacts in so I think I'll go and take them out and go chill with my Diet Pepsi while the girls are napping/having quiet time. Thanks again to everyone who left comments for the candy. I'll be posting more cards soon with the color combo. suggestions!

Supplies:

Stamps: Oh So Lovely, Warm Thoughts

Paper: Wild Wasabi, Purely Pomagranate, Watercolor paper

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Purely Pomagranate, So Saffron, Brown StazOn

Accessories: Wild Wasabi double-stitch ribbon, ticket corner punch, silver brads