I needed a quick birthday card and decided that it was time to break out one of my Stampin' Up SAB sets. This is the card that I came up with. It's hard to tell in the scan, but I wanted the chocolate frosting to be nice and shiny like real yummy frosting is so I used Chocolate chip craft ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I also embossed the happy birthday sentiment. Using taken With Teal craft ink.

When Stampin' Up discontinued most of their colored embossing powders I was very unhappy, but I have come to learn that it really is much better to use my craft inks with the clear powder. I get a much truer color and since I have all 48 craft inks in the stampin' spots I can emboss with any color I want and only need to have one jar of embossing powder. Now I Just wish they sold the clear embossing powder in much larger containers as I use a lot of it.

I recently discovered the CPS website. This is where I found the inspiration for the layout I used here. It was their Layout #58. This layout was sponsored by GinaK stamps, but I didn't have a GinaK set that matched what I wanted to do.

Card Recipe:
Stamp Set--SU Birthday Whimsy
Papers--Pretty In Pink, Cool Caribbean, Whisper White,Cool Carribean Designer Paper
Inks--Chocolate Chip and Taken with Teal Craft Inks, Basic Gray Classic,
Other--Clear Embossing Powder, Yellow Stickles, Paper Flowers, Yellow Brads, Corner Punch, Pink Copic Marker

STAMPING AGAIN!

I am back to stamping and loving it. This is one of two cards I did today. (I'm saving the other for tomorrow since I know I won't have time to stamp then.)

I was inspired to get back to stamping after my sessions of sewing by a request for Birthday cards to be sent to a friend of a friend who is serving in Iraq. Also the SCS Sketch Challenge #170 was one I liked and decided to try. This is the result.

I love the images in this set from SU called For Father. I is in the Occasions Mini catalog which in effect now. I satmped the image using Timber Brown Stazon and before I colored it in using my watercolor pencils I sponged the background around it with Old Olive Ink. The "celebrate " sentiment was embossed with gold powder over Encore gold ink.

Other than I now notice in the scan that the strip with the image on it is a bit crocked I am happy with how the card turned out. I think my eyes are crocked and it takes a scanner or a camera to show up that flaw. I just don't see it when I look with just my eyes........

Card Recipe:
ALL SU STAMP SETS--For Father, Print Pattern, Wonderful Words
INK--Old Olive, Stazon Timber Brown, Encore Gold
PAPER--Old Olive, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White
OTHER--Gold Embossing Powder, Brads, Zig-Zag Edge Scissors

Thank you to Susan for giving me a VERY amazing award!!!

It is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogging world. Wow.

Here are the rules:

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Susan.......who's blog Susan's Saga is wonderful. Though we are literally a world apart we have become BLOGing Buddies and I seriously hope one day somehow our lives will truly cross paths and we can meet face to face. You made my day today! So first........Susan you are OF COURSE tagged back with this!

It's hard to come up with just 5 to tag for this award, but that is what the rules say I must and so I will.

1: Diane's a wonderful woman with wonderful inspiration that she offers to all.
2:Etha's BLOG is a new one for me. Her work is amazing and not to be missed.
3:Stampinkub is a constant source of inspiration to me. If you haven't discovered him yet it's time.
4:Erika is another one of the BLOGs that I get excited about when I see she has a new post. Wonderful ideas and work.
5:Michele's BLOG has wonderful inspiration, but when you visit her be sure and scroll down to see pictures of what I consider the perfect stamp room!

I hope that those who stop by here will drop in on these award winning BLOGs and don't forget to visit Susan also.

FACE QUILTS

I thought if you can bare with one more post on quilts that I would show you the FACES quilts that I went to Lancaster to see. They were made by members of my Thursday mini group of quilters. There are 12 of us in the group and 10 of us took part in this self imposed challenge.

This is how it worked. We were each to make 10 quilt squares (1 for each member of the group participating in the challenge). The squares were to represent how we either saw our selves, wanted to see ourselves, or maybe feared we looked like. All 10 could be the same or each could be different. They could be realistic or whimsical. After we had all our individual blocks finished we got together and traded them around so each person had a block from each person in the group. That was the easy part....

Next we had to on our own come up with a way to set our blocks into a quilted wall hanging. I found some fabric in my stash that reminded me of old wall paper; so my faces where all framed with fabric and placed over a mantel in a turn of the century parlor scene. Everything was machine appliquéd down and I actually did stamp the clock face. I machine quilted it and voila I had completed my "Gallery of Friends"

Here are a few of the other quilts made by other members of the group. They were also in the Lancaster Show though only three of us went to actually see them. this next one was made by a good friend who actually went with me on this adventure in Lancaster. She asked that all the faces that would be made for her be made with small floral print backgrounds. Then she set them in what reminded her of a garden path. Can you pick me out in her quilt. I've taken on a different personality in her's than I had in mine.

The name of our mini group is "Fabrications" and so this person actually titled her quilt by that name. I think she made a dramatic use of black as her background color. Here I've taken on my wild and crazy persona once again.

This last one that I have a good picture of has a more traditional setting of the blocks, but I love the use of color around the individual blocks. Also this one and the one before it have in the corners color photographs of our group on various outings added to the front of the quilt. This was a nice touch as it allows the viewers to see what we really do look like.

This was a fun project. I will be a wonderful memory of our time together as a group of women who have formed friendships that began with our shared love of quilting and grew around shared joys and sorrows that life brought our ways.

Though most who find their way to this blog are paper rather than fabric artists I hope you still found something to enjoy in this post. Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you enjoyed visiting.

CARVED WOODEN STAMPS!

Now that I found my camera (YEA!) I was able to take a picture of the hand carved stamps I purchased while in Lancaster. I haven't had a chance to use them yet, but hope to soon.

I laid a couple of the stamps on their side so you can see how they are carved right into the top of a beautiful piece of hard wood. The piece of wood they are carved onto is the shape of the stamp image. I don't know which came first in the process. The image designed for the shape of the piece of wood used or the design is carved and then the piece of wood shaped down to fit it. Anyway because they are all different shapes and sizes I find them fun to just look at.

I have also uploaded a close up picture of the owl stamp so you can see the detail with which the stamps are carved. The carving is very delicate. I am amazed with the workmanship. I wish I could better describe how beautiful the stamps themselves are. I guess you will just have to take my word for it.

BACK FROM LANCASTER!

I am back from Lancaster and had so many wonderful images to share with you, but alas somewhere on the return trip my camera was lost so the only things I can share are verbal which is not nearly so much fun. The quilts were wonderful and it was great fun seeing my FACES quilt hanging with the others made by my mini group of quilting friends. I love driving through the country side up in Lancaster County. The Amish farms are amazing. I can't say the air is fresh, since they were plowing the fields and putting down manure for fertilizer. It was very interesting though seeing the farmers on their plows being pulled by a team of six mules. No tractors here!

At the quilt show I found some items that I really wanted to share with you all. I had planned on taking a photo of them this evening, but obviously that will not happen. I will try and describe them for now. One of the vendors was a lady from just out side of NYC. She was born in India and though she came to the USA with her family when she was 3years old she was sent back to India every summer after she turned 8 to learn the family trade of making batik fabrics and now whe is in charge of running the business. One of the items used in making batiks, at least by her family is hand carved wooden stamps. She had some for sale. They are beautifully intricate. I purchased 5 of the smaller ones that I thought would go together on making designs for cards; a butterfly, an owl, and three with various flowers. They range in size from about an inch to and inch and a half and the design is carved onto the flat top of a two inch tall piece of beautiful wood. I don't know what kind of wood, but it is a gorgeous medium brown with a wonderful grain along the sides. I can't wait to use them. The women I purchased them from said they can be used with any type of ink.

So I don't have a camera to show you the stamps, but I will try and soon create something with them to show you. I haven't lost my scanner that I know of........

STILL IN QUILTING MODE

Here is another block that I have completed. This is the March Block of the Month from the Carol Doak Yahoo group that I am a member of.
Carol is a wonderful designer, teacher and author of all things Paper Pieced (a very accurate manner of piecing quilt blocks).

There will be 12 blocks is this series. I am making the blocks in a 6 inch size and they will all be in Black, White and Red. So it is one down and eleven to go.

Up until a week or so ago I had really let my quilting fall by the way side. But I am back on the quilting wagon and my machine has been humming away. I am currently working on my third project which you will get a peak at soon. Unfortunately I can't seem to sew and stamp at the same time. (Probably something to do with the fact that my sewing machine is sitting on my stamping table and bits of fabric are lying all over my stamping supplies.)

There are only so many hours in a day. Oh why didn't God create a 48 hour day, only 8 of which needed to be devoted to work, 8 to care and feeding of family, and 8 to sleep. That would leave 24 hours in each day available for craft pursuits! Definitely my idea of heaven.

In keeping with my focus on quilting at the moment I will be gone for two days to a quilt show in Lancaster, PA. Once again I have the joy of visiting one of my quilts that is hanging in the show. Here is information on the exhibit my quilt is hanging with. It is the Fabricated Faces.
I will try and get a picture of the quilt as it is displayed. So I will be gone until Friday night. Until then have fun with your crafting what ever form it takes.

FRIENDSHIP START CHALLENGE QUILT

Here it is. I have finished piecing the Challenge quilt for our 2008 quilt show. I am very happy how it turned out. Now I have to quilt it. I have until April 19 to finish it completely.

I have one more quilt to design and finish before the show. It is what we call the Bloomin' Challenge. IT got it's name from the fact that the fabric we are give to work with is by most peoples standards bloomin' difficult to work with. I have no idea yet what I will be doing with it. I actually like the fabric, but don't have a clue hoe to use it effectively. I will keep looking at it and hopefully soon something fun will enter my brain. That too needs to be completed by April 19.

In the mean time since my sewing machine is out and usable I made a few fabric hot pads today (after finishing this quilt top) that I will have for sale in the boutique during the show.

I love sewing again, but am anxious to finish these projects so I can get back to stamping. I have so many ideas of things to do running through my head and I'd like to work with them before I forget them. So many ideas and so little time! The story of my creative life......but what fun!

A LITTLE QUILTING TEASE

Here is a little tease as to the quilting project I am working on. This is one block of the design. Now I need to go and work and the last two I need to make and then put it all together. Stay tuned!

FROM QUILT IMAGES TO QUILTS

I have changed projects for the moment here at home. I have a quilt show coming up the end of April and I am so behind on getting ready for it that the stamp stuff for now has gone away and the sewing machine has come out.

Currently I am working on a quilted wall hanging that is part of our guild challenge. This was called the Paint Bucket challenge. We were given a piece of black and white base fabric and then 4 paint chips. The challenge was to use the base fabric and then find fabrics that were the color of our paint chips and make a quilt not less than 30x30 inches or more than 48 x 48 inches. My colors were two grays and two yellows. I have one block of four completed and after I finish this will go up and finish the other three. The design I am using is based on a Carol Doak paper pieced block that she made up for a Yahoo on line group that I am part of.

It's been a long time since I have sewn at home and it feels real good!

QUILTING IMAGES

Another card from Impression Obsession. I am so excited to have found this company as it is the only one that I have found that has quilting related stamps.

These images are yet more of my NC colored images. I am currently, among other things working on items that will be in my quilt guilds boutique at our Quilt Show in April. We have a program in the guild called Secret Sisters and am making cards that can be used for that. This is one.

The Secret Sister stamp is from the very first stamp set I purchased. It is a retired set from long ago that I got on E-bay.

SWITCHING GEARS TO SCRAPBOOKING

Its been a long time since I have done a scrapbook page. I probably wouldn't have gotten this one done if Erica Martin hadn't issued a sketch challenge at GinaK's recent release party. I've needed to get going on a scrapbook I am doing for my nephew and so I took the challenge as the opportunity to get started. (I've been been gathering paper, stamps and other supplies for some time and also been thinking, but not actually doing.) Having a layout to work from really made the process go much faster than I anticipated it would. AND it was fun doing it. THANK YOU ERICA! I needed that push.

Erica is on GinaK's design team, but she has a wonderful BLOG herself. Lots of great ideas and projects as well as her own store. Check it out. And while you are checking out BLOGS if you have never been to GinaK's you are really missing out. And both Gina and Erica often have wonderful drawings for BLOG CANDY. and who doesn't like candy???? Check them out.

ANOTHER IN THE COLORED IMAGE SERIES

Here is another card from my North Caroline set of colored images.

This was a very simple card to put together, but not so simple to color. It's an image from Impression Obsession Rubber Stamps. Being a quilter when I found this stamp while surfing on line stores I knew I had to have it. I am fairly happy with my first attempt at some serious water color painting. I still need some work on getting the shading and light sources correct, but I think that will take quite a bit of experimenting and practice.

I stamped the image with stazon black and colored it with Stampin' Up markers. Then I went over it with a damp watercoloring paint brush. Blending and removing colors as I went. I've done a few others also using slightly different color schemes in the quilt, but this is my favorite so far.

MORE OF OUTLINES STAMPS

Here are two more cards I made with images colored in while I was in NC. They both are stamps from Outlines Rubber Stamps. So far I have only used my images from them to color. IN the future I hope to shoe you some other ways to use them.

I'm sorry that my little snail looks crooked. In real life she is straight; I promise. I just didn't do a very good job of scanning and cropping. I used a combination of Copic and Prisma markers on both of these images.

I've never been very happy with the stamps that have a solid back with writing etched in (like the Happy Birthday tag on the snail card). The writing never seems to show up well. What I tried here was stamping the image with craft ink and then embossing it with clear embossing powder. I really like the way it turned out. I think it is much clearer.

I'm really liking having all these images colored in advance and then just waiting to be made into cards. I need to remember this trick.

Ah, life is good! BLOGGER is behaving again.
Before I show you another card I made from my images that I colored I thought I would show you the project my mom and I worked on while I was in NC. It was a quilting project and a challenge.

What we started with was some oddly shaped pieces of fabric with machine embroidered designs of trains. There were 8 of them to be exact. From the shape of each of the pieces it looked like someone had plans to make a lot of baby clothes with the embroidered image as the center piece of the yoke on top of something. (The yoke for those who don't sew clothing would be a fitted or shaped piece at the top of the shoulder of a garment.) The woman in my mothers quilting group at church found them in with some other fabric that was donated and was going to through them away. My mother being ever the frugal one said, "Don't throw them away, give them to me. Suzanne is coming to visit and she will make something out of them." Ha! This is the third time she has done that to me!!!!!! She has great confidence in her daughter's ability to turn nothing into something. But she does know I love a challenge! So this is what we started with, after trimming them into a usable shape. Any ideas what they will be made into?

They are about 2 1/2" x 5" in size. As I said earlier there are 8 of them and and in order to be useful they need to be turned into something measuring at least 36" x 45". That would be a small baby quilt. Hmmmmm? What to do? First thing is to pull out my trusty computer, yes the computer is now a quilting supply! Then I open up my quilting program, Quilt-Pro, and begin to play. After a bit of playing I came up with a design I though would work and ran it by my mom. She approved so I printed off yardage charts and we headed to a fabric store in search of the perfect fabrics. This is the fun part of quilting. Looking at all the luscious fabric that are available. Seeing as we already had determined the color scheme picking the right fabrics didn't take that long at all and soon we were back home.

Now the not so fun part had to be done. My dear mother oversaw this part of the project. All the fabrics had to be washed, dried and ironed. Then Everything needed to be cut out. This is what we had when that process was completed. Any idea yet what is coming????

Now the real fun began. I sewed and my mom pressed. We shared in the trimming and a great time was had by all! We had 8 blocks to make and a design to follow. Well I thought we were following the original design, but of course being a SHE I didn't go back and re-look at my computer design to be sure I knew what I was doing. I just jumped right in and made the blocks. And I made them all the same. Ooops! I should have made half of them one way and half another. Oh, well we'll just change the design a bit. No one else will see the original computer design and frankly we decided the new design showed off the embroidered trains better anyway. So this is what we ended up with. It is a good side for a toddler a bit big for a baby. The quilt block I came up with is a variant on a log cabin block. The only difference being is that my block is rectangular rather than the traditional square.

So what do you think? Was the challenge met???
Thanks for looking and listening to me ramble about this quilting adventure. Next post I will return to card making. But for now its bed time. Good night!

YEA!!!!!

So I finally got one image uploaded. I guess persistence does pay off. I love this line of stamps. I have acquired quite a few of them and you will be seeing others in the future. The company is Outlines Rubber Stamps. Not only are they wonderful to color, but you can do wonderful things with cutting and layering them.

For this card I stamped the image with Brilliance Graphite Black ink and colored in using a combination of Copic and Prisma Markers. I've decided that I like them both. They behave the same and each have their benifits. For really small narrow spaces I like the fine point that the Prismas have. For broader sweeps of color I like the brush the Copics have. I do like the lighter colors I have been able to find with the Copics. The Prismas seem bolder. One thing I have discovered with both, but especially the Prismas is that you need to give them time to "cure". I have several images that I didn't really like how they turned out as soon as I have finished them, but if I come back sometime later they are softer and much nicer. (Once again I am faced with that patience stuff!).

This card is a Z-Fold card. It is very easy to do. Simply make your normal 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 side fold card and then fold back the front of the card on top of it self. Yea BLOGGER has cooperated and allowed me to up load another image! (Thank you Lee for the suggestion to do one at a time!). On this second image of the card you cand get a better idea how I mounted the image acrossed the fold and how I stamped the sentiment inside. I didn't like the blank space on the left side so that is where I stamped the Happy Birthday. I placed it under the image because when you open the card the image does flatten out and I didn't want the sentiment covered. On the right side of the card I stamped a Birthday wish.

Just a few more details the Card stock is Old Olive and so is the Designer Paper.

I AM GETTING VERY FRUSTRATED!

Still can not upload photos. I am getting very frustrated here. If anyone has any ideas on what to do besides being patient please let me know. Are others having this problem. I thought maybe the problem was the weekend. NOPE! I've tried rebooting my computer NO HELP! I've checked that my files aren't too big. NOPE! I am not a patient person. I guess for now I will just upload them to my SCS gallery. I hope that works for me as I know people have been having problems there as well.

I'M TRYING!

I've been trying to upload some photos all day and BLOGGER is just not cooperating! I have about 7 cards finished from my images that I colored and am really happy with how they are coming together. I will keep trying to get them up. The first card I am going to share with you is what some folks call a Z-Fold Card. While you are waiting you might like to check out Scraptime. This is where I got the inspiration and directions for the card.

I'M BACK

I am back and I am ready and excited to be back BLOGing. I've missed sharing with and hearing from all of you. Where have I been? North Carolina; Chapel Hill to be exact. I went down to spend a wonderful and relaxing weekend with my mom. We had a great time catching up on each others lives and just being together. Of course we did some shopping (not much) and did make a crib quilt. (More on that in a later post.) I challenge I faced when planning to go was how was I going to survive with out having all my crafting goodies for a week. I know thats a sad thing to be concerned about but crafting is a big part of my life and when I have free time from work well I like to be able to try things I've been putting off. I knew we would sew; we always do as this is something we both love. And I knew we would knit together while watching TV at night together, but I didn't want to give up my enjoyment of card making for a week, what to do?????

What I did was stamp off some images both on water color paper and regular card stock. Then I simply packed my various markers and watercolor pencils. (When I travel I tend to pack more craft items and projects then clothes. ) I did resist taking my watercolor crayons so I can't be accused of packing everything I own.

Here is a sampling of what I worked on. It was fun playing with a variety of coloring techniques and products in a short period of time. It provided me the opportunity to go back and revisit my exploration of which tools and process I liked to use the most. (I didn't want to pack my Gamsol so I didn't take my Prisma pencils either.) What did I discover? I like them all! As to Prisma and Copic markers they both have their pluses and minuses but are enough alike I used them together just fine. I like the brush on the Copics, but I like the fine point on the Prismas. What I don't like is the broad tip which is on both. The Copics and Prisma markers I used on regular white card stock. The Stampin' Up markers I used on the watercolor paper. It can be used on regular card stock, but I didn't like that as it tends to leave lines when you don't blend with water and I don't particularly like using water on regular card stock. For the images I colored with the Copics and Prismas I used Brilliance Graphite Black ink and for the images to be watercolored I used Stazon Black.

This was a fun project and now that I am back home I have lots of colored images to turn into cards. I have begun this process and will post them here (along with the quilt project) in later posts.

BIRTHDAY PARTY REPORT AND CARDS

The party was a great success! All the girls had a ball. The parents were amazed at how intent they were on making their projects and how quiet they were. Best of all my stamps are not to big of a mess. Fortunately I am not one that gets too upset over staining on the wood after all they are stamps. I did control color contamination by only putting out one color stamp pad at a time. The first projects used black pads and they added color with markers (not my SU markers however I have BIC markers for kids use). The second set of projects used red pads. Also each set of projects had their own exclusive stamps to be used so I didn't have to worry about cleaning them between projects.

The girls were quite creative. They looked at my samples and then pretty much did there own thing. They did a lot of just drawing with the markers also. The card stock was pretty well covered on each of the projects. I don't think I would do this with a group any younger than 7 however. The good news is it now sounds as if the mom's want to get together and do something!

Now, at to what I've been up to today. I have a friend who is a therapist and she asked me to make her some cards for people who have lost beloved pets; specifically cats and dogs. I was stumped at first what to do then I found some marvelous stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms. I immediately ordered them and they arrived very quickly. I got to sentiment stamps and a wonderful cat stamp. I am still looking for a nice dog stamp, but haven't found one I like yet. I did however fine a pet themed mat pack from DCWV that I was able to use for a dog card. I'm still on the prowl t find a nice not comic dog stamp.

For the cat card I used my SU craft ink spots in More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Chip to color the cat fur and then used q-tips to put some Old Olive on the eyes. I stamped the image on So Saffron card stock and then embossed with clear embossing powder. I then used a q-tip again to lightly rub Blue Bayou ink around the outside of the image and used the tearing edge to get a ragged edge around the image. The DSDP is Blue Bayou layered on more So Saffron and the ribbon is Cream Grosgrain with a ribbon belt from my hodge podge set. After I did this I like how it looked somewhat like a collar.

In side the card is a sentiment that says " Always remember the quiet dignity, the sophisticated air, and the warm comfort. Your beloved cat may have gone, but your memories remain. Sorry for your loss."


I wanted to use the ribbon collar idea on the dog card as well. This is what I came up for that. The sentiment on the inside of it reads
"The sadness of a dog lost can be tempered by the memories left behind: Walks in the park, games with a ball, and even muddy paws on a clean floor. Sorry to hear of your loss."

I wish I had found these stamps sooner. Over the past few years I have had many friends loose a pet, including our loss of our own Mr Snuggles a wonderful and crazy beagle. I am glad I have them now. If any one has any help for were to find a nice not too small dog stamp I would very much appreciate a comment. Thanks.

TODAY'S THE BIG PARTY!

First a note about yesterdays card. I forgot to mention that the pear stamp is a single pear. I created the row of three pears using the masking technique. I stamped the first pear on the card stock. Then I stamped a second pear on a post-it note and cut it out making sure part of the image was over the sticky part of the note. I placed this on top of the first stamped image and then stamped the pear again on both sides of the original angling it as I wanted.

Now on to today.........
Today in about an hour is the birthday party that I am the activity director for.....stamping and card making with 8 little girls all around 7 years of age!!!!!! Yikes! How did I get myself into this....oh yeah I though it would be fun....I'll let you know. Right now I'm a little worried about the state my stamps and pads will finish up in.

The mother of the birthday girl told me she loved fairies and princesses so I made this card to take and give to her. In rel life it is not quite as dark as it scanned. The main card stock is Groovy Guava and the blue is last years in color Buckaroo Blue which I love and miss very much. (Though Blue Bayou is nice also).

I can't remember the name of the stamp set . It's a long retired set from SU. Dragons and Dreams or something like that. I colored it with a combination of Prisma and Copic markers. Mainly Prismas since I have more of those and I needed the fine point to get into small spaces. That's one thing I wish Copic had .The brush on one end but then the fine point on the other. Anyway it was a fun card to do. And now I must be off to the party......I'll let you know how it went later.......

FRESH FRUIT

Another stamp set that I have fallen in love with. Oh heck why don't I just admit that I love them all! This card was made with a stamp from a Stampin' Up Level Two hostess set called Infinite Goodness. I decided it didn't need any sentiment on the outside. That way I can use it for what ever and put the sentiment on the inside when I know its use.

My biggest challenge on this card was I had to break my habit of hoarding the jumbo eyelets. Not sure why I hoard things like this....they are not that expensive and I can always order more. I really love the country feel of this card and am very pleased how it all came together. The shading on the pears is done with a dauber and classic ink. I also outlined with markers the stems and the leaves.

Now my next challenge is to not hoard the card itself but actually send it to someone! I need to remember I can always come back here and see it. Does anyone else find it difficult to part with some of the cards you made and fall in love with? Or is it just me?????

INFO ON GATE FOLD CARDS

I thought that some of you might like some more information on how to make gate fold cards like the one in my previous post. Rather than my writing up a tutorial myself I'm going to take the easy way out and give you a link to the video tutorial that I used in learning how to make this style with the ribbon closure. It is from SCRAP TIME. I love this web site and have it on my Google Reader list so I always get the new episodes. Some of you may already be familiar with it, but if you aren't be sure and check it out. I've learned a lot of new techniques and also gained a lot of information on products that are out there. ENJOY!

I STAMPED!!!!!!!

Yea!!!! I finally got back in the groove. I received my first order of stamps from GinaK last week and have just been looking at them and dreaming about what wonderful cards they would make. I just couldn't put them to paper for some reason....well maybe the head ickies had something to do with it. Tonight I broke through the block and made one of the cards I've been dreaming up. I have fallen in love with door cards (gate cards?)

I needed to make a birthday card for a friends 9 year old grand daughter and this is what I did.

The front stamp is from GinaK's stamp set for a cause How Sweet It Is. The cake stamp didn't quite fit in the Super Jumbo Marvy Circle Punch so I just punched off part of the plate. The scalloped circle is the Marvy Mega Punch. I used Mellow Moss as the base card stock and a retired DSDP I can't find the name. The closure is Mellow Moss Checked Gingham Ribbon.

Open the card and inside is the cute kangaroo from Just So Hoppy by Melanie Muenchinger for GinaK.
I love this set. If you want to see more that can be done with it check out Melanie's BLOG.

I used Prisma Markers to do the coloring on both the stamps and since I didn't like the pure white background behind the stamps I used a dauber and lightly sponged a little ink there.

So this is what I did. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more fun!

INSPIRATION!

I still haven't made it into my stamping room. This time due to illness and just feeling no energy or inspiration. But I think I just may have found some. If you need inspiration check out Erika's BLOG Stampin' Mama: A mama that stamps. She has a wonderful You Tube video there that is guaranteed to inspire. If you don't need inspiration that dreams can come true, but would like to know a bit more about Autism and the wonderful things that kids with it can do despite living with this affliction check it out. It will give you hope. But this video comes with a Kleenex warning. Have some close by you may need it.

Thank you Erika for this wonderful look into what is possible......if you are a stamper reading this and you are not familiar with Gina K's support for Autism. Check out here site for a wonderful stamp set whose purchase helps with this. Also while at Erika's BLOG don't miss commenting for her fantastic give away.

THANK YOU!

I haven't had time to even step foot in my stamping room since Saturday night. Life has just taken on a craziness of it's own. I did take time tonight to catch up on some BLOG reading. What a wonderful surprise and honor it was to discover that my good friend Lee awarded me this on her blog. Thank you so much Lee!

Now I have a big job to do. I will be passing this award on.

Things may be a bit slow on her BLOG at the moment do to having to have her home ready at all times for prospective buyers, but look back through her posts and look forward to the future. Susan's Saga is a delight to read and it gives me a glimpse of card making and scrapbooking, as well as life "down under". One day I hope to head her way in real life!

I love the simplicity of many of her card creations. They are wonderful and neither take hours to complete nor would they require extra postage or oversize envelopes to mail. She has helped me see that less can indeed be more. So I pass this award on to Created by Jennifer.

She is new to the BLOGGING world, but her cards are wonderful and I am sure there will be more coming. I love how she intermixes life with her cards on her site. Also she is so giving and sharing with what she loves about paper crafting both through her work and on the internet. Watch for good things to come here. So one of my awards goes to Sarah Stamper

Thank you to all whose BLOGS I frequent. You are all a main source of inspiration and encouragement to me. Tomorrow I hope things slow down in my life enough that I can use some of that inspiration to create some things to show here.

StAMPFEST SATURDAY

Twice a year I help with a Stampfest in our local community. Today was our winter one. We has a great time as 33 women gathered to learn new techniques and make cards and gift items. I think it is safe to say that they went home happy with the time spent and three cards, one candy gift box and this little note pad.

This was the project that I taught. I got the idea from a swap I received at SU's convention in Denver last year. The original was made by someone who will remain anonymous as there is no information on the project. Everyone loved it. They liked it even better when I told them you really didn't have to purchase the chipboard coaster that it was built on. All you had to do was visit your neighborhood bar and order a drink, then put the coaster in your purse before it got wet. They throw them away anyway......

The items used in this project are a chipboard coaster, approximately 4x4 inches, a piece of designer paper to cover the front and a piece of cardstock to cover the back. Also needed is a 3x2 inch piece of card stock scored along the 3 inch side at 1/4", 3/4", 1-1/4", and 1-3/4" and a scrap of card stock or designer paper to punch the three flowers with three brads for their centers. Finally you need a short wooden pencil like you get when you play miniature golf, two strips of magnetic tape with adhesive on one side and a small section, about 1/2 thick of post-it notes.

The tools I used were a crop-a-dile to punch holes for brads through the covered coaster and flowers and an adhesive like the Tombrow multi that SU now carries or a good glue stick like SU's.

I didn't take pictures of each step, as I am not in a tutorial state of mind with my posting yet, but I think seeing the finished item you can pretty much figure out how to put it together. Here are a few tips:

1. When covering the coaster be sure and get your adhesive all the way to the edge of coaster so paper sticks well at edges.
2. First cover the front then punch wholes along ege for flowers and brads. This way when you cover the back you cover the ends of the brads.
3. Lay your post-it note pad on front when you determine how far in to punch holes for the flowers. You want it to fit.
   
4. Place the holder for the pencil right up at top edge so you have room for the post-it pad.
5. The holder for the pencil is not folded into a open ended box. it is either like _l l_ or l_l_ with a top line added between the two l l's. (I hope that makes sense I couldn't figure out how to type a line on the top.) The pad of notes covers the bottom leg of the box and gives the pencil holder note strength and stability.
   
6. Place the magnet strips horizontally near top and bottom of back of covered coaster.
7. Don't use a whole post-it note pad it's too heavy.
   
8. Place some adhesive along top edge of post-it notes the post-it sticky is not enough to hold pad in place
   

Now you are ready to place this on your fridge or other metal surface for your note writing. When you use up your notes just glue on more....Have fun.

LEE CHALLENGES US TO EMBOSS!

Lee issued another challenge this week. We were to emboss something. IT could be anything and we could emboss anyway we wanted. Heated, dry cuttlebug whatever suited our card making fancy.

I have been doing a lot of embossing lately. I love using detail clear embossing powder over sentiments stamped using craft inks. The colors really brighten up and pop. I also used a great deal of clear embossing powder in working with the emergent colors technique earlier in the week. I'm beginning to think that I need to find a location where I can purchase clear embossing powder by the pound not the ounce.

For Lee's challenge I decided to use some colored embossing powder for a change. I dug around in my powder keg and found a jar of glittery red powder. It's hard to see in the scan but the circle in the center of the flower with the heart and the dots is embossed as is the "o" with the heart in it in Love.

The embossing in the flower center was fun and very easy. It is a sticky tape type decal that I rubbed onto white card stock and the embossing powder stuck to it really nice. I found this design and several more from Oriental Trading long before Stampin' Up came out with their sticky letters and shapes. I have a set of those coming on an order in mid February. I'm curious to see if they are the same type of product.

So here is my card for Lee's challenge. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I'm working on having enough cards to send to family and friends. Fro some reason the scanned image makes the scalloped edge at the bottom look crooked. In real life it is not. Also when you open the card to the inside message the red band you see here is actually attached to the inside of the card and there is a scalloped edge at it's top.

I used stamps from four different SU sets in this card. I really need to do a better job of writing down the names of the stamp sets used as I use them. The only ones that I can remember the name of right now are Holidays and Wishes is the Happy Valentine Day and the stem of the flower is from Serene Sunflowers. All the sets I used except for Holidays and Wishes are retired sets.

Thanks for another fun challenge Lee!

EMERGING COLOR DAY 2

This morning I got up and decided that my Emergent background color had plenty of time to dry so it was time to finish the technique and see if it came out better and without little specks. It did come out much better but there still are some speckling. I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong or that this is just how it always turns out. I did this on glossy card stock once again. I like it on the glossy card stock better then the regular card stock because the shine of the glossy finish goes well with the shine of the clear embossing powder.

So it is easier to see the before and after embossing and brayering I am reposting the back ground that I stamped yesterday afternoon and also the card I made with it after finishing the technique. The background stamp colors I used were Purely Pomegranate, River Rock, Wild Wasabi, and Bashful Blue. The background stamps I used were from Carte Postal and Wanted.

I brayered Elegant Eggplant over the top after embossing. Then I stamped with versa mark using stamps from Big Pieces and the solid small circle from Pick a Petal. My card base is Wild Wasabi card stock stamped with the Canvas background and Wild Wasabi ink. I used the Birthday stamp from Hugs and Wishes for the sentiment stamped in Elegant Eggplant in River Rock. I punched it out using the Marvy scalloped oval punch and sponged around the edge with River Rock ink. Two antique pewter brads finish off the scalloped oval and it is mounted on card front with dimensionals to pop it up.

EMERGING COLOR

I had never heard up this technique until I found it on Linda Heller's BLOG Where the Rubber Hits the Road. She is doing a video each week showing a new technique. They are only up for one week and then taken down when the next goes up. She is following the alphabet in choosing the techniques.

This is the emerging color technique. I still need to do some work in perfecting it, but it is a fun technique and I think worth working on. It can be done on plain or glossy paper. It involves multiple colors ink, versa mark and clear embossing powder. Here are the steps I followed.

1. Stamp lined images in several different colors over a piece of white card stock. Leave some white space but I don’t think you want to leave too much.
2. Set aside to dry well before going on to step 3.
3. Wipe top of card stock with embossing buddy.
4. Stamp solid stamped image over the stamped images from step #1 using versamark ink.
5. Emboss with clear embossing powder.
6. Brayer a dark ink over whole sheet of card stock. This wlll take several coats. Get it so it is well covered.
7. Buff excess ink off of embossed images. You will see the designs stamped on in step #1 emerge from the dark inked background.

You may then cut out the images to use separately or use piece as background or strip.

I experimented with several images and papers. The problems I had was that even with using classic dye inks the embossing powder was sticking to some of the ink besides the versa marked images. This meant that the ink being brayered over the top was not solid, but looked speckled. Even when I used the embossing buddy I was still getting a speckled top layer. They were just small speckles and don't really show up here but they made it so I didn't want to use the dark background with the emergent color as a background or strip on the card. So for my first cards I have cut out the images. I've prepared another sample (actually the top picture) and am letting it dry really well. LAter tonight or tomorrow I will versa mark and emboss the solid images and then finish and see it this works better.

For now here are the two cards that I have made using what I have done with this technique so far. They are both birthday cards that I need for next week.

A COLOR CHALLENGE FROM LEE

This is the card that I made for Lee's first color challenge. The colors to be used were Orchid Opulence, Lovely Lilac, and Mellow Moss. I promise those where the colors I used. I just need to figure out how to get a scan that shows the colors accurately.

The base of my card is the Orchid Opulence, the first layer is Lovely Lilac, though in my scan it is showing very blue! I used the Mellow Moss in the strip that goes over the tow. The mottled background is the polished stone technique Using these colors and a bit of yellow as well. I colored some white flowers from the Pretties kit using my chalk pastels. and used a bit of mellow moss checked ribbon form my "leaves".

Thanks for the challenge Lee! I look forward to others.