It's been awhile

Hi friends.  Yes, I'm still here.  I know it's been a long time since I've posted.  I really haven't been doing much crafting.  I guess I needed a break.  I've done a bit of gardening.  I had to replace all my lavender plants that died over the cold winter.  I think because of all the rain we've been having, they aren't doing too well.  Of course, they need to be weeded badly - not something I enjoy and it's really too wet. 

I do have some tomatoes coming on -- little green ones.  And a few tiny zucchini plants are up -  I planted those really late, but we'll enjoy some before summer is over. 

I took my hexagon quilt with me to my lace guild, because I knew I could set up some extra tables and pin the layers together.  So I have that ready to baste and start quilting.  

Last night I made a card for the Rubber Stamp Event contest, but will wait to show that one to you.  I won 2nd place last year, so here's hoping. 

Here are the cards we made in my technique class last week. 

The first is a pop up box card -- a bit labor intensive, but well worth it.  There's a tutorial here. 

The 2nd is a card using inchies.  Little works of art that are only an inch square.  They are great for using your tiny stamps. 

The 3rd is a stair step card.  A tutorial can be found here. 

I used a pretty sunflower stamp that I picked up recently at a rummage.  It's part of a set - one solid image and one detailed image.  The only problem with that is the stamps are mirror images, so they really don't fit together.  But they can be used separately, so that's how I used one of them for this card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

technique challenge

Hello, my friends.  Lots of snow melted today in our 60 degree weather.  I think Spring must be on the way.

Today I have a card that I made for the technique challenge on SCS, which I'll also be using in one of my classes.  The technique was to stamp an image using only one color of ink.  This bird from Layers of Color was perfect for that technique.  Then I die cut it with one of my new framelits dies from SU. 

The strip on the background is a fun technique using drywall tape. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you are having a great week. 

a new week

Hi my friends.  Did you have a great weekend?  I didn't do any crafting today.  So I thought I'd show you a few more of the cards I made for the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on SCS.  I do want to point out that the technique used on the background of the red card can be found here on Jan Tinklenberg's blog.

Tomorrow I need to concentrate on cards for my Thursday class.  I think I can pull one or two from the mass that I produced last week - at least I hope so.  Double duty is always nice.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Have a week full of wonder.

Father's day card

Hi my friends.  After spending some time shopping this morning with my daughter, I came home and realized that I needed to make a couple of father's day cards.  The card I made for my husband, I blatantly cased from someone else, so I won't post that one, but I will show you the one I made for my father-in-law.  I decided to check if I could fit it in the inspiration challenge today on SCS and found this plate that had some great colors to work from.

I started by brayering desert heat kaleidacolor ink on glossy white cardstock.  Then I stamped a windmill (B & J's Art Stamps) in jet black stazon.  I love that look of a silhouette in a bright sunset. 

I then stamped a truck (Cornish Heritage Farms) in tuxedo black memento ink on white cardstock, colored it with copic markers, and cut it out.  I glued it to a piece of the background that was trimmed from the brayered piece.  I rounded all the corners and used a black card base.  The truck is popped up on dimensional tape.

The letters (EK Success Nostalgiques) are stamped in stazon on a scrap and punched out with a 5/8" circle punch and adhered with dimensional tape.

Thank you all for stopping by today.  If any dads are reading, I wish you a wonderful father's day.

SFC102 a masculine birthday

Happy Monday, my friends.  I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  It's time for another Squigglefly challenge over on their blog.  Today's challenge (SFC102) is to make masculine cards.

I started by using an image from Monogram Frames Set and stretched it out from a square to a rectangle that would fit my card.  I also typed the sentiment on my computer using Impact font and printed it in blue.  I trimmed them both and added black marker along the edge of the sentiment rectangle, as well as some tiny photo corners (EK Success punch).  The dots on the corners are made with a black marker.  The center rectangle is raised on dimensional tape.

We'd love to have you play along with the challenge this week. Although you may use any images on your creation to enter the challenge, in order to qualify for the prize you must use at least one Squigglefly image! You may combine SF images with non-SF images to qualify! If you don't have any Squigglefly images, there are many to choose from, or help yourself from the FREEBIES available.  Be sure to also check out all the new images.

All proceeds from this cute little Fairy Klara by artist Jane Beljo will go http://www.one-happy-mama.com/2011/05/fundraiser-for-hope.html, a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  View the full image at Squigglefly.com.

You have until Sunday evening to upload your new creation to your blog or any on-line photo gallery. Please use SFC102 in your keywords.

Please add a DIRECT link to your project in the InLinkz box on the SF blog, so we can find it -- (new creations only and no back-linking please!). If you have more than one entry, link each one separately.

The winner will be announced at the same time the new challenge post comes up next Monday, so be sure to check back to see if you are a winner!

Be sure to stop over at the Squigglefly blog to see what the rest of the design team has done for today's challenge.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful week.

a sketch challenge

Happy Thursday my friends.  It feels wonderful to have cooler temps today.  It's about 60, so welcome after being in the 90's for the past few days.  Last night we had some thunderstorms and quite a bit of rain.  I have some lavender in pots, waiting to be transplanted in front of my porch (after I dig out the poppies).  To make it easy to water the lavender right now, they are sitting in a couple of old metal dishpans.  This morning, though, I had to empty the pans, since I really didn't want them sitting in that much water.  In other garden notes, my yellow squash and zucchini are already up.  The seed package said 10-14 days & they were popping up after only a week.

Yesterday, was the sketch challenge on SCS.  It was such a simple one, I just knew I wanted to play along.  I made a piece of faux woodgrain by swiping my ink pads down the cardstock (mellow moss, more mustard, creamy caramel, really rust and chocolate chip).  To go along with the wood theme, I pulled out a happy birthday stamp that the letters look like wood.  I think it's a Rubbernecker stamp, but not sure.

Using a bordering blue card base, I glued the smaller piece of woodgrain on, stamped the sentiment, and then added the longer piece of woodgrain.  I used my mat pack plastic guide to add some faux nails and then used a black marker to add a little bit of dimension to the letters.  It's a very simple card and would be so easy to change the paper and sentiment for a completely different look.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a blessed day.

Happy Sunday

Hey, everyone. I hope you're all having a great weekend. Yesterday, I did a lot of stamping. It's virtual stamp night (weekend) on SCS, so the challenges were coming Friday evening and all afternoon and evening yesterday. So far I've done 8. Here are some of them.

Colors amber & purple based on song America, the Beautiful
Using water on your card (watercolor crayons)
Resisting the heat
Summertime food
Summertime activities
Camping


Since we have until Monday night to upload, I'm going to try to get some more of the challenges done, but it's always a bit more difficult to get the time in when family is home.

Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful day.

seconds

Hey everyone. It is so hot here today - 95 and extremely humid. The only time I stepped outside was to walk out to the mailbox and get the mail. I am so thankful that we have air conditioning.

This morning was one of my monthly classes - today was cuttle club. I'm going to show you two of the cards we made and then a couple I made from the extra kits. Hopefully I can get them in order.

The friendship card was the class card. I altered the kit and used some different paper for the flowers and leaves. I'm not sure why the background color looks so different, since the card base is the same on both cards. I made this card for the ways to use it challenge on SCS today. Usually after I teach a class, I'm too tired to be creative, so I'm pleased that I was able to make two cards this afternoon.

The blue heron was a class card. I used the extra kit for the old truck. I trimmed the cardstock the truck is stamped on, punched a border on the navy and used a different embossing folder. I love how changing the layout makes a completely different card.

Thanks for stopping by. Be blessed.

corrugated friendship

Hi there. It's sketch time. My card today is for the sketch challenge on SCS. I had a little fun and added some corrugated cardboard.

I started by stamping the little birdie from cheep talk 3 times in ballet blue on ivory. Then I punched them out with a 1-1/4" square punch and punched the corners with a ticket corner punch. I added some faux stitching in navy. They are layered on scalloped squares.

The card base is ivory with navy faux stitching. The cardboard is swiped with my white craft ink pad to lighten up the brown. I attached the birds with foam tape and added a piece of navy ribbon and then glued the cardboard to a strip of navy.

The sentiment is stamped in ballet blue.

Photo corner punches were added to fill in some empty space. I finished it off with some white faux stitching.

What's in it?
stamps: cheep talk, wonderful words (SU)
ink: ballet blue, night of navy marker, white craft
paper: night of navy, naturals ivory, corrugated cardboard
other: 1-1/4" square punch, scallop square punch, ticket corner punch, photo corner punch, white gel pen, navy grosgrain ribbon, foam tape

Now I'm going to go find some lunch and then it's time to do some quilting.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Be blessed.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to any dads out there reading this. My dad graduated to heaven many years ago and I still miss him. Love you, Daddy.

I waited till the last minute to make a card for my DH, so it's pretty simple. I saw a card on Starla's blog yesterday that gave me the idea for this one. She used tin foil, but I thought duct tape would be fun. Sorry about the glare -- I just couldn't get a picture without any.

I covered a piece of card stock with duct tape, trimmed off the edges and ran it through my cuttlebug argyle embossing folder -- pretty cool effect, don't you think?

The sentiment is from wonderful favorites and I used two different nestabilities dies and sponged some ink along the edges of the white one. Added some screw brads and silver brads with some basic layers in red, white and black. The sentiment panel is raised.

What's in it?
stamps: wonderful favorites (SU)
ink: jet black stazon, basic gray
paper: real red, basic black, white
other: duct tape, cuttlebug, cb argyle embossing folder, nestabilities labels four & curved rectangles (Spellbinders), sponge dauber, silver brads, screw brads, foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit today. Have a wonderful day and be blessed.

Another fun day

Hi everyone. Today I spent the day stamping with my sister again. We both made cards for today's ways to use it challenge on SCS. I also worked on some cards for a workshop, but didn't get those finished, since there were some things I needed that I didn't have along with me. But, then, I can only haul so much with me.

For the challenge, we were to use text on our card. I used a stamp from Lexicon of Leaves. I stamped it in basic gray on vanilla and used watercolor pencils and blender pen to color the leaf. A bit of sponging around the edge with chocolate chip toned it down a little. I layered it on black. I was playing around with a technique where you use watercolor crayons to color your stamp, mist some twill tape and stamp on it, so I used a piece of that with some brads.

The sentiment is part of the set Oval All, punched out with the large oval punch and backed with a scalloped oval. Both the main image and the sentiment are popped up.

What's in it?
stamps: lexicon of leaves, oval all, thoughts & prayers (SU)
ink: basic gray, chocolate chip, jet black stazon
paper: basic black, very vanilla, dp (Juntos - SU Spanish Supplement)
other: wide twill tape, black brads, scallop & large oval punches, watercolor crayons, mister, watercolor pencils, blender pen, foam tape

Thank you so much for stopping by. Be blessed.

here I am again

Bet you didn't expect to see me again today. Well, I managed to do the other two challenges for Gina K's May release. I made two very simple cards.

Challenge #2 needed to be a card for a child, so I made a T-shirt card for my 14 year old nephew. The front of the card is made with some digital paper from Gina K. I added a couple of stamped words, punched stars and strips of card stock. I sponged the entire front with bashful blue and the edges with brilliant blue.

Challenge #3 had to be an artist trading card (ATC). Well, it's been a long time since I've made any of those, so I kept it very simple. Just two layers of card stock, images stamped in stazon and colored with colored pencils and gamsol, sponged the edges and added some brads. This will probably end up attached to a card at some future date.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Valentines Day

And happy Saturday. It snowed again last night (a couple of inches), so everything is all white again.

Yesterday, when DH came home from work, he surprised me with these. Isn't he sweet. It has pussy willows in it. I love them. Every spring as children, we'd go hunt some up and bring them home. I will probably let these puff out a bit more and then take them out of the water and dry them. That way I can enjoy them for a long time, even if there are only three stems.

I made him a card using yesterdays' limited supplies challenge on SCS. I didn't want it to be frilly and feminine, so I thought I'd try to get the look of someone carving in a tree. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

I started the card last night, but needed to let it sit for awhile. I do that a lot. Spurts of creativity and then need to walk away and when I come back, I have new ideas. I rarely visualize a card in my head and just go with it. I almost always change what I was thinking would work and come up with different ideas along the way. That's just the way I create. Most of the time, the final creation is nothing like what I started out thinking I was going to make.



I started by stamping the bird heart in versamark on glossy white card stock. I couldn't use my heat gun since the house was asleep, so it didn't give me quite as sharp an image as I wanted, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway.

Then I stamped the woodgrain background (CHF) in chocolate chip over the heart. At that point, I was totally disappointed, because the heart wasn't showing up at all. So, I took a paper towel and rubbed over the ink to dry the versamark and then I brayed creamy caramel over the whole thing. Ta dah! The heart just popped out. I think if I could have heatset the versamark first, it would have been much more vivid. I wiped it again with the paper towel, but nothing much more came off.

I added some brads, scalloped square punches, the little bird and some leafy branches. With a bit of sponging and a sentiment, I was done. All in all a pretty simple card.

What's in it?
stamps: bird heart (Stampington & Co.), woodgrain backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms), always (SU)
ink: versamark, chocolate chip, creamy caramel, pacific point
paper: very vanilla, chocolate chip, tempting turquoise, glossy white
other: brayer, sponge dauber, brads, scalloped square punch, leaf punch (Martha Stewart), cuttlebug, bird nestabilities die (Spellbinders), foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are able to spend the day with someone you love.

birthday pocket

Good morning. Today my son turns 20, so last night I made him a card. I wanted it to be appropriate for him, but I don't have much in the way of stamps that would fit his personality and interests. So this card required a bit of creativity. He actually has a pair of jeans with a swirly emblem on the back pockets, so I tried to duplicate that look.

I used the denim backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms, which I stamped in bordering blue on the card base and another piece of bashful blue. I cut the smaller piece in the shape of a pocket. I added faux stitching along the edges and an emblem from SU's Kind Thoughts on the pocket in navy ink. I also sponged navy on all the edges as well as lightly over all the surfaces. In the corners of the pocket, I added navy eyelets.

















For inside the pocket, I cut a piece of basic gray and rounded the corners to look somewhat like a mobile phone. The 'keypad' is stamped with 'happy birthday' using Antique Alphabet from Image Tree. I used a white gel pen for some highlights on the 'phone'.

supplies
stamps: kind thoughts (SU), denim backgrounder (CHF), antique alphabet (Image Tree)
ink: bordering blue, night of navy, basic black
paper: bashful blue, basic gray
other: sponge, corner rounder, white gel pen, horizontal slot punch, crop-a-dile, navy eyelets

Thanks for stopping by.

Stamping up a storm

Yup. That's what it feels like I've been doing today. Actually, I finished a couple more cards last night, as well. These are all for the Splitcoast fan club anniversary celebration challenges. Here's what they are: a cupcake challenge, a sewing challenge, a flap card, create a scene card, and another sketch. You can find the recipes in my gallery on Splitcoast (see sidebar).

Besides these cards, I also needed to do up two for a small class I have tomorrow. I pretty much cased those, so I'm not going to post them. Have a great night. Thanks for stopping by.

a red corvette

Happy hump day! We've been having some beautiful weather here in Wisconsin. About mid-afternoon, it gets a bit warmer than I like and I usually end up turning on the AC, but only for a few hours and the nights have been around 60, which is so comfortable for sleeping with the windows open.

I'm still working on the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on SCS, although I seem to be getting further behind each day. This card was made for Michelle's challenge yesterday (for fan club members only). I started with a completely different image, but messed it up when I literally dozed off with an open marker in my hand. Obviously, it was past time to go to bed. So this morning I changed my mind and picked a different image. I had in mind to try to use paint chips on my card, but didn't have any red ones to go with my image, and I really didn't feel like a trip out to Walmart, where I had gotten this particular shape. Then I had the idea to simply trace the shape on card stock and I could make it any color I wanted. The idea worked perfectly.

I stamped the corvette from classic convertibles with adirondack pitch black and colored it with copic markers. I highlighted a bit with a white gel pen and spica clear glitter pen. Then I cut out the image and popped it up on white card stock that was cut in the shape of the paint chips. I used my layer ease to make the black and silver layers and added the silver brads as an accent.

For the background, I cut two red and two black faux paint chips, added the screw brads and arranged them as you see them for a fun layer behind the image. The image panel is also raised on dimensional foam tape.

supplies
stamps: classic convertibles
ink: adirondack pitch black
paper: real red, basic black, whisper white, silver (retired SU)
other: copic markers, white gel pen, copic spica clear glitter pen, silver brads, screw brads, dimensional foam tape

(edited: I mistakenly announced the winner of the blog candy, when you still have a week to post. However, since I did give out a name -- Susie (who said) I would love to meet Lauren Meader, she is such an inspiration to all and a busy lady.... -- Susie, email your snail address to me and I will send you some goodies. You will still be included in the drawing for the stamps.)

I'm so glad you all stopped by.

chocolate flowers

I hope you are having a great weekend. We had a mostly beautiful day, just a short thunderstorm late this afternoon and then the sun came back out and there was a rainbow.

Did that title get your attention? Would those be great? Well, today I have some chocolate flowers to show you. But... it's not what you think. They are made from designer paper that is looks like chocolate frosting - YUM!

This is the card that I made for my sweet DH for father's day. It was a very easy and fast card. The front of the card is vanilla with 1" strips of dp glued along all 4 sides. Then I stamped the sentiment and two chocolate chips in the center and pierced around the block and around the chocolate chips. That's glued to the chocolate chip card base. DONE!










Now the inside of the card is a bit more complicated, but still very easy. I started by cutting a 12" piece of designer paper into 4" squares. You use 7 of them for the flowers. Here is a tutorial. I used my large oval punch to punch off one end of the folded squares to form the petals. This helped to make them even.

Supplies
stamps: sentiment - all year cheer II (SU), chocolate chip (?)
ink: chocolate chip
paper: chocolate chip, very vanilla, dp (Michael's)
other: piercing tool, large oval punch

Thanks for stopping by.

Yay! I stamped today!

It's hard to believe that over a week had gone by without any stamping! I think I have spring fever, although I'm not really much of an outdoors type of person. I really didn't feel like stamping. But I've gotten a bunch of new stamps and today I really needed to put some ink and paper together. All the stamps I used today are from Innovative Stamp Creations. They come as sheets of unmounted stamps. Since I really prefer my stamps on wood mounts, that meant I had to add mounting foam and wood blocks. I still have a few that are waiting for blocks from my brother-in-law. (Thanks, Bob.)

I created this card for the ways to use it challenge on splitcoast. For the main image panel, I started by wetting a piece of watercolor paper and then dragging ink refills across it and letting the color bleed. I love sunsets, so I used yellow, orange and red. After it was dry, I stamped my image twice in black stazon. Parts of the image didn't cover well on the texture of the watercolor paper, so I used a black Copic marker to fill in where needed. The sentiment was also stamped in black stazon. I mounted this on a layer of black and then, using a piece of plastic canvas for even spacing, I added a column of black brads.

The smaller panels on either side are orange, sponged with red ink, and layered on black. For the card base, I used summer sun and randomly stamped a butterfly all over in orange, which toned down the yellow a bit.

Supplies:
stamps: all stamps (Innovative Stamp Creations)
ink: real red, only orange, yoyo yellow, jet black stazon
paper: summer sun, only orange, basic black, watercolor
other: piercing tool, sponge, black brads, foam mounting tape

I'm so glad you stopped by.

Saddle up!

Hi. I hope you're all having a wonderful day. I have spent almost all day on one card. That is not how I planned to spend my day. The ways to use it challenge on SCS today was leather in some form. I chose to use the real stuff.

The horse is stamped on a piece of deer hide using timber brown stazon ink. Then I colored it with Copic markers. I attached it to a piece of really rust card stock and punched the holes with my crop-a-dile and added eyelets. Then I sponged the edges of both the leather and card stock with chocolate chip ink. I also added the lacing of natural hemp. This piece is raised up.

The circle is a piece of an old purse and is stamped with versamark and embossed in copper. I put it in my cuttlebug with a scalloped circle nestabilities die, but it wouldn't quite cut through that thickness, so I had to finish the cut with my paper snips. I backed the circle with a piece of card stock for stability and added the turquoise jewel brad in the center.

The background is polished stone, done with Ranger alcohol inks on vellum card stock. I scalloped the edge with a corner rounder with the guide removed. I added dots in the scallops with a marker.

The little horseshoe brads were a light purple and just didn't look right, so I embossed them with copper.

Supplies:
stamps: wanted, bareback (SU)
ink: versamark, timber brown stazon, chocolate chip, alcohol inks - stonewashed, stream, wild plum, copper (Ranger), copics - E27, E99
paper, really rust, chocolate chip, outlaw dp, vellum card stock
other: leather, natural hemp, crop-a-dile, eyelets, sponge, copper ep, heat tool, brads, corner rounder, mounting tape

Even though it took me most of the day, this was a fun card to make. Thanks for stopping by.

Gift card

This time of year, many of us find that a gift card is a great solution for giving to a friend or relative who lives some distance from us, or for that person that is impossible to buy for. It's nice to be able to present the gift card in a personalized holder.

This one is for a young man and fits two challenges on SCS - the fan club central theme challenge for this month and sketch challenge 101.
There is actually very little stamping. The large U is stamped on red and embossed in silver as is the word 'rock'. I also used 2 star punches and the key tag punch.

All products are from SU except the word rock, which is Karen Foster snap stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.