NO TIME TO STAMP BUT A CARD NON THE LESS!

I knew that the rest of this week was going to be way to busy to do any stamping or card making and it was. BUT I do have a few cards from my past card making sessions I have kept on file to share with you during busy times like these.

This card is one of those. I made it with items from my SCS Flybaby Winter Craft Kit. It was a fairly simple card to make since the stars are part of the designer paper. The only stamping was the sentiment which I stamped with Black craft ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Ribbon and three chocolate brads and it is all mounted on Chocolate chip card base. Very quick and very easy.

BELLI CHALLENGE TIMES TWO part 2

So as late as I was in getting up the card I made for last weeks Belli Challenge with inchies I will make up for it this week. You might remember my inchie card is going to a friend for here birthday today. Well last night I decided I needed a birthday present for here as well. It had to be REALLY REALLY simple to make (life is still out of control here in my world)! But of course I wanted something useful and nice as well. No one needs clutter (unusable items) or yukky looking stuff in there lives! So.........my friend is a teacher of 2 year olds (God bless her!), the Children's Ministry Director at our church and the Mother of the Bride for a June wedding (God double bless her!). You know how I purchased those inchies and never used them.......well at the same time I purchased a Monogram stamp set from Just Rite and......you're right never used it!
Note cards I thought. She is also writing nice thank you note to people who help her in her work. AND as the mother of the bride I figure nice note cards, elegant even maybe would work. So I dug out my monogram stamp set and set to work. After the prototype card was designed the other 7 to make a set of 8 were quick and easy.

Now this morning I get up and eagerly head to Chrissy's Blog to see what fun she has for us with the Belli Challenge this week (even though I don't think I will be able to take part as there is no more free time in this week for stamping. and what to my wondering eyes does appear.......Belli Challenge #56 Monograms or Alphabet sets!!!!!! I have a card! I have 8 of them....I don't have to miss a week of the Belli Challenge. Okay so maybe this is cheating......but a gal has got to do what she has got to do and I choose to think of it as a "God thing" Did you know there are no such things a coincidences they are all "Godincidences! Well this is one of those events. Here is my card for the #56 Belli Challenge.


Nesties once again....how did I ever live without my nesties???? I found the scalloped circle that would fit with my Just Rite monogram stamp and embossed the card front. I carefully stamped the monogram in gold encore ink in the center. Nice but definitely still boring. Next step scallop punch the bottom edge of the front of the card and paper pierce in each scallop. Better, but when card is closed you can't really see the scallop and the card is still boring.....place a strip of SU's Brushed Gold card stock at bottom edge of inside of the card....now we are getting somewhere, but the front of the card is still lacking something........AH HAH!...A little bow out of a lovely shiny very pale olive green ribbon I have that is edged in gold. I have just enough for the 8 note cards. Since I don't tie bows and I don't like the bulk of a tied bow on the front of a card I used my double slot punch on the top corner and thread the ribbon through is for a mock bow. Yep that's it! I like these cards and probably will be using this design again for other gift sets for birthdays and Christmas to come. Simple yet elegant and very easy to make.

Now I am sooooooo late for work I am glad that my boss (our minister is still sick and won't be there, but don't tell him that.....)

BELLI CHALLENGE TIMES TWO part 1

It's Wednesday and that has become one of my most morning of the weeks. I have totally and utterly fallen in love with Chrissy D's Belli Challenges which I can check out soon as I get on my computer on Wednesdays. If you want to check them out as well as all of her other wonderful cards and achievements the title of this post is linked to her BLOG Creating with Chrissy. I have completed all the Belli Challenges since I found them thanks to another BLOGing friend. Christy T. You don't want to miss her BLOG Story About a Girl either.

This past week has been over the top crazy in my life, but that is another story about my personal life and work which I'm sure you don't want to here since if you managed to find your way here you did so to hear about stamping not my personal crises and joys. I didn't get to work on last weeks Belli Challenge till Sunday and though I did get it posted in the Paper Craft Planet
I didn't get back till now to get it posted here. So with out further delay here is my card for the Belli Challenge #55 to use inchies on a card.

Inchies have intrigued me ever since I learned about them, I purchased some inchie blanks from a LSS when I found them, but it wasn't until Chrissy issued this challenge that I ever got around to using them.

I needed to do a simple card because of the limited free time I have at the moment. No time for fancy coloring or fussy cutting so I set to work. First I made my inchies. I stamped some scraps of designer paper (I know not where from) using Pocket Silhouettes from Stamping' Up using Almost Artichoke then punched them out with my 1 inch punch. The greeting of Friend to Friend is also from this set and the Happy Birthday is just one I found in my Sentiment file that would fit on an inchie. It's also SU but I forget which set. After gluing them to the inchies I sanded and sponged the edges. My nesties came out to cut and emboss the rectangle they are on. A little embellishment with some ribbon and a flower and I was ready to figure out what I wanted to mount all this on. It was looking rather bland so I decided a patterned background would work. No paper I had seemed right so I created my own by stamping a Ballet Blue card with the Floral background stamp once again by SU using versamark ink. The watermark image it left was to pale so I embossed the whole cover with clear detail embossing powder. I think it worked and I am very happy with the card which will be going to a co-worker and dear friend to day to help celebrate here birthday.

So that's it for my much delayed entry for the #55 challenge. I am making up for its delay though in part two of this Belli Challenge posting coming right up!

BIG NEWS!

I think that today is a very exciting day in the stamping world here on the internet. To find out what I am talking about look over to the side bar at the right and click on the Stamp TV blinkie. This is really BIG NEWS! Check it out with a click and see what Gina K is up to! You will not be sorry you did.

DOILIES ON CARDS

I am slow on getting my last weeks Belli Challenge up here on my BLOG. These challenges can be found on ChrissyD's BLOG Creating with Chrissy. The challenge last week was to use a paper doily on your card. I wasn't sure I could find a doily but I eventually did and this is the card I made. I am totally in love with the look of doilies on cards now and am very happy that it was an unopened package of 25 doilies that I found so I can make lots of cards using them.

On thing I did learn was that it is very tricky to adhere your doily to the card front. They are very fragile, or at least mine were. They were very old though and that may have made the difference.

This weeks Belli Challenge is to use inchies on your card. You can find the details here.

Edited to add: I was once again surprised but thrilled to learn this card won the Belli Challenge for last week. A gal could get used to this. Picture me smiling!

ANOTHER SPECIAL AWARD

I will actually have two posts this first one is to share this special award given to me by my special BLOGing buddy Susan. She is extra special because she's been with me since the beginning of my BLOG! She has a wonderful BLOG called Susan's Saga. If you have never been there stop on by soon. Not only will you see fabulous paper craft creations, but you will also get a view into life in Australia.

Now it is my turn to pass on this award.

The rules for passing this award on: you must post the award on your blog, name the person who awarded you, then pass the award to 6 other bloggers and leave a message on their blog that they've received the award.

Here are my 6.........
Christi
Terresa
Diane
Judy
Beth

I hope you wander over and visit these wonderful stampers and their wonderful BLOGS!

CRISP, CLEAN, & SIMPLE

A FLYing and stamping buddy MissBoo started a new weekly challenge over on SplitCoast Stampers. IT is the CAS Challenge. CAS stands for Clean And Simple. This is a challenge for those who don't want to do cards that are overly elaborate with lots of layers and embellishments and that take hours to design and make. Those fancy cards are beautiful don't get me wrong. I love seeing them and I love making them when I need a card that will not be mailed, but I also like the idea of CAS cards. IF for no other reason but that they can be mailed for 42 cents (well at least until May).

I decided to take on MissBoo's first challenge. It was to take inspiration from one of two pieces of flannel and make a CAS card. One pieve of the flannel had butterflies and the other had frogs. I choose to be inspired by the butterflies since I knew I had lots of butterfly stamps to choose from. I'm not sure I have any frogs. I could have used the colors of the flannel for my inspiration, but I wanted to do a white card. Here is what I came up with............................................

You know CAS cards are not all that easy to do. Either that or they just take some getting used to doing. There's so much white space. My tendency is to what to fill in empty spaces. But I resisted. A caution also for working with mainly white cards. MAKE VERY SURE YOUR FINGERS ARE VERY CLEAN!!!!!!!! Also make sure your work space is clean. Smudges and fingerprints really show up on white card stock.

Having made my first CAS card I wanted to try and make another. Totally on my own no jumping off point from a challenge. I had recently found this wonderful quilt block stamp from the Lockhart Co. I decided to try a birthday card with it. Here is my card. I colored it using my copic markers and I was happy that I have quite a few of the original style markers. They have a fine point nib on one end and that was really helpful in getting into the small spaces on this stamp.

IF you have a few moments of stamping time why not try a CAS card. They may not end up being your favorite style of card but they can be fun and yes they can be a challenge.

Tomorrow I'm taking a break from cards and showing you what I have been doing to my stamp room. It took some work, but I'm loving it.

TIME FOR A CHANGE

My husband is gone for the evening and I got a bit bored an so thought it was time for a change here! Also I had a suggestion to put a Follower list on my sidebar and I took that suggestion. If you would like to be a follower of this BLOG then please do sign up. I was very pleasantly surprise to find out when I did it that I already had 4 followers......thanks guys!

Also a big Thank you to my friend LadyDoc at Tilting at Windmills for this award. I love visiting her every time I see she has a new post. Never know what I'll find.....stitching news, paper crafting, wonderful YouTube videos, or just plain musings on life. I love cyberspace friendships! And I love reading all comments posted here. Plese let me know what you think of my new look!

2 MORE CARDS FOR HEROES

Here are two more of my cards designed for Cards For Heroes.

I am really getting into using designer papers lately. I don't know what has taken me so long. They are wonderfully create so much interest on the cards and it takes so little time to use them. Lots to look at on the card but not a lot of stamping needed.

Both of these cards are Happy Birthday cards. The layouts for each of these cards came from sketch challenges. I wish I could remember whose, but unfortunately I can't. Often when I find a sketch I like I just copy and past it to a sketch file on my computer. Usually it is a year or so before I actually get around to using the sketch and by them I a=have totally forgotten where I found it.

One thing I have noticed when I use a sketch is that I stick pretty closely to the sketch. I am always amazed when looking at cards people make from a sketch that I sometimes have a very hard time even seeing the sketch in the card because they have changed things around so much. I never really thought of myself as a rigid follower of rules for things, but I guess when it comes to sketches I am. Either that or I am totally uncreative!

I really like the simplicity of this second card. Boy only three strips of paper and a sentiment layered on a scalloped oval. Can't get much easier than this. Yet with the colors and designs of the papers its not boring. Also it was a great way to use up odds and ends of leftover scraps of designer paper.

So that's it for the cards I designed for Saturdays workshop. Today I played around in my room working with doilies and quiltblocks and also making a few more cards with very simple and clean lines. I will show you those in the coming days.

I'm coming up on 5000 visits soon. I know that doesn't sound like much for people who ave that many visits in a month or two or some even in a week, but for me that's a big number. I'm thinking I might just have to come up with some type of BLOG candy so stay tuned for that announcement.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

A very Happy Valentine's Day to all. We don't celebrate it much here at our house, but I know for many folks it is a very important day. Since I had asked for a group of people to come out and help make cards today at our church I told them I would have a couple of designs just for them. These would be Valentine's cards they could take and give to whom ever they choose.

These were simple cards; a bit of punching and a little stamping, but nothing wither time consuming or difficult. Though simple because of the paper I choose to use for them they were I think classy. The papers I have had for several years....can we all say horde??? They came from a very large package of handmade papers I found at Costco at a price that could hardly be believed. I did two simple designs one using red paper on a white card stock base the other being a red card stock base with white paper.

I think everyone that choose to make them were very happy with them. As for the other cards we made for the Cards For Heros program, 8 of us finished 80 cards in two and a half hours. I thought that was pretty good for mostly card making novices. by this coming Tuesday these will be packaged up and mailed off.

Every one said they really enjoyed making the cards and had a good time, but I don't think I convinced any of them that they could do it on their own. Of course I think they all could if they would just give themselves a little credit for being creative! I will just have to keep working on them...........

I still have a few more designs for the project to show. I will post these tomorrow. For now I need to think of what my next project will be. Probably going back to preparing for the Spring Quilt Show!

Bye for now!

A SHEET LOAD OF CARDS!

Today was a day full of card designing and then cutting and preparations for a big card making workshop at my church tomorrow morning. We will be making cards that will be sent to Cards For Heros. At this time I am expecting 10 women and we will be working for two hours making cards. Most of these women have little if any experience making cards so I decided the best bet was to design a batch of cards and then do all the gathering of materials for them and do the cutting of the elements. So today I came up with 5 designs for the Heros and 2 card designs for Valentine cards. (Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day I said that anyone coming to help could make a Valentine Card to take home and give to a special person in their life!)

Very early on in my planning I decided that I would use some card sketches I have been collecting. The first place to go to find a design was my stand-by favorite site for making multiple cards of the same design: SHEET LOAD OF CARDS! They make it so easy because not only do they give you the sketch, but a materials needed list and a cutting chart. So the first card I am showcasing here used the sketch from the February 2009 Sheetload E-Zine. I doubled their "recipe" and now have 15 cards ready to be made plus the sample I put together. Here is the card........

It's on a white card base and all the card stock and papers are retired SU products. I know the card stock colors are True Thyme and Cinnamon Crisp, both 2006-07 In Colors. The designer papers I think were from a Simply Scrapping kit but I'm not sure. The stamps are from SU and Inkadoo. (The Inkadoo stamp is the scroll image in the corners.) I'm pretty sure both of the SU stamps are retired ones. I colored the flowers with BIC markers. I let people use a lot of my stuff, but my COPICS and SU markers are not included in my generosity; so they get to use my Sharpies and BIC markers tomorrow.

They also will be able to use my plain old colored pencils tomorrow and those are what I used on the second card.
This card is all Stampin' Up products. It is a mix of current and retired. Though the only things current are the Summer Sun and Garden Green card stocks and the brads. Both stamps I used are retired. The main image is from Nice and Easy Notes and the background is Print Pattern. I know both those names because they are both among my all time favorites.

Tomorrow I will show you the two Valentine's Cards I designed for them. They are both quite simple, but each use the wonderful handmade papers I have. So please come on back........thanks for visiting now!

A SWEET TREAT VALENTINE CHALLENGE

Thanks to a FLYing and crafting buddy Teressa I found out about a fun challenge on the Paper, Pads and Pictures BLOG. I figured if I could bake a cake and come up with a card; I could make three Valentine wishes and come up with a card. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought it would. Here were the rules......

"In honor of Valentine's Day, I am putting together this "Sweet Treat" Challenge. Everyone has a Valentine's wish list. For this challenge we will for once and for all get those items we have been wishing for all these years. Here is my wish list:

Heart Shaped Box of Chocolates
Diamonds
Pearls
Rubies
Perfume
Romantic Dinner with that Special Someone
Cruise
Day at a Spa
Latest and Greatest Camera
Emeralds
New Craft Workspace
Bottle of Dom Perignon
Shopping Spree
Luxury Car
Sapphires

Here are the rules for the challenge:
1. Players should pick at least 3 items from the above list and post it to PCP or leave a comment here with you selected wish list no later than 11:00pm EST Friday February 6th. You may "wish" for as many items as you like!
2. On Saturday February 7th, I will post what the "wish list" items equal in supplies.
3. Your challenge will be to craft a card or scrapbook page using EACH item from your wish list and ONLY those items. There are a few freebies listed below.
4. Post your completed project on the PCP site or a comment here with link to your blog with the item no later than 11:00pm EST on Friday February 13th.
5. On Saturday February 14th there will be a random drawing from all the entries for a "Sweet Treat" goodie bag! My cat, Carlie, has promised to help me with the drawing to make sure it is kept fair. :o) I will post the winner both here and on PCP that day.
6. The following items are freebies for the project
a. white CS and 1 additional color of CS
b. black ink and/or black marker
c. 1 stamp
7. A special twist to the challenge...everyone MUST use a piece of ribbon somewhere on the project."

I chose:

1. a cruise
2. A day at a spa
3. A new craft workspace

So When the translation into card making supplies was given I had to use:

1. Cruise.....Glitter or Bling
2. Day at the Spa.....Paper Distressing
3. New Craft Workspace.....Stitching either hand or machine
   

And the ribbon, white card stock and one other color CS, one stamp, and black ink. YIKES!
I am a stickler to rules of a challenge and I was determined to use nothing more. Also in my small little mind, distressing and glitter and bling just didn't work together. It was time to stretch my conservative ways.

Here is what I came up with..........

I surprised myself! I love this card. Partly because I love this stamp image. I chose it for this card for a number of reasons. I think it works well being stamped in black, it is one stamp that includes image and words, it lends itself to distressing, and I could use glitter on the wings of the dragon fly. I wasn't happy with just the white and one other color card stock. The card was looking blah and so I choose to add a splash of bold color in the ribbon. My stitching was done by hand with black embroidery floss.

So that's it: The results of my three special Valentine wishes. If I can't have the actual wishes at least I have a pretty card.

All the materials I used are from Stampin' Up and as seems usual lately everything is retired except the Whisper White card stock. Part of me felt bad about using all SU items for a challenge posted by a Close to My Heart demonstrator, but I don't have anything from CTMH at least not yet.....who knows about the future!

MONKEYING AROUND VALENTINE

Another card using my COPICS for coloring. Sometimes they work better for me than other times. This is one I was very pleased with.

I think SU's Sock Money is such a fun set. I don't ink it up as often as I'd like to. It's just one of those sets that needs the right inspiration in order to use well. The bottom border is another stamp from the set I used in my card posted yesterday; A Little Bit of Happiness. Besides the shading with pink and red COPICS I used my white gel pen and red stickles to add some detail interest. And I am so loving my rectangle nesties. That is what I used to cut out the sock monkey image and the scalloped background behind him.

The coloring on this card took a while, but other than that it was a very easy card to put together.

That's it for today.....I hope to have time tomorrow night to share the card I made for a Valentine Wish Challenge. It was a very challenging challenge because I had a very limited set of supplies I could use. So please stop back.

COPIC CHALLENGE

I am taking part in a COPIC club through Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. Korin has set up a Yahoo group called SNSS Copic Junkies that is handling these clubs. The price was right and she has an advanced group where the members can choose the COPICs they want each month. This is the only type of club that would work for me since I already have quite a few and it means I don't have to worry about duplicates. There is also a lot of information on Copics and tutorials on how to better use them. Its a new group and at the moment it is a very active group.

One of the members of the group has set up a Copic Colour Challenge BLOG. The challenges will be listed every other Weds. starting on Feb 11. (They have listed the first challenge set of colors a bit early because everyone was so excited about it). The colors we were to use are

B28 - Royal Blue
V06 - Lavender
YR07 - Cadmium Orange

Or as close as you can get to there colors if you don't have the exact ones yet. I have the Lavender, but not the others so I had to substitute for them. I used

B26-Cobalt Blue
V06-Lavender
YR09-Chinese Orange

Here is the card I came up with.....


my blending with Copics definitely needs work. I think I must be too heavy handed. These were not easy colors for me to work with. I wanted to see if I could stick with just using these three and no others...not an easy task, but I did it. I love forward to learning how to be more effective in my using these markers. It will be a major art lesson for me. One that I am looking forward to participating in.

The stamp sets I used are SU sets I think both of which are retired. The large butterfly is from Bold Butterflies and the strip is from A Little Bit of Happiness.

BITTY DOT CHALLENGE FROM PTI

Another day of celebration over at Papertrey on Nicole's BLOG {capture the moment}. Today's fun was sketch challenge, with a twist. The twist was that you needed to down load a connect the dots puzzle to find out what the sketch was. Nicole was rights it's been a very long time since I've done a connect the dots puzzle, but this was a fairly simple one.

The sketch itself was also fairly simple and I decided to use it to make a "guy" birthday card. I need a couple of these in the next few months. I also decided it had been a while since I used my watercoloring supplies and so I'd use them. This is the card I came up with.......


Almost Artichoke is the card base. I don't know the origin of the strip DP since it came to me via a craft kit. The image from SU's set For Father(which is a retired set). I stamped it on Watercolor paper using Stazon Black ink. The sentiments are from Lots of Thoughts (also a retired SU set). This is layered on top of a Ruby Red background. I don't remember the name of the background stamp I used but it is another retired SU stamp. (Yes I keep most of my retires sets. I don't buy a set unless I really like it and so I figure why would I get rid of it just because it is not a current set. I guess that is something I enjoy about being a hobby demo. I use what I like not what I think others will that I don't!) I finished off the card and the sketch requirements with the three buttons on the right side. I don't often use buttons because I don/'t want to risk the card being to thick to mail, but the just seemed right for this card and they are small buttons.

I made three other cards today for various challenges, but I will show them to you another day since I'm thinking there probably won't be much stamping time in the up coming week....and guess what???? None of the use quilt blocks! I'll spare you those for a while.

OVER THE RAINBOW CHALLENGE

Papertrey Inks is celebrating its 2nd Anniversary the first two weeks of this month. There is a lot of fun stuff that has been going on on Nicole's Blog {capture the moment} in connection with this event. Today's fun is a color challenge called "Over the Rainbow". You can find the instructions for this challenge on her BLOG here. But be quick as the entries are due soon....like 3am February 7 EST which is midnight tonight PST! There is a wonderful prize for the winner of the drawing for this challenge, but I will let you go to Nicole's BLOG to read what it is for yourself.

So here is my card for the challenge...


Since I don't yet own any of Papertrey's papers or inks....just some of there stamp sets I had to go through my supply of inks and card stock to find things that were close. I used all SU colors since that is what I have. All the colors I ended up using are In-Colors from various years. I used Riding Hood Red for the base of the card which is current and then retired In-Colors Marigold Morning, Cool Caribbean and True Thyme for the pieces. The green was the hardest to match....I did the best I could. The flower is a retired SU stamp and the butterfly and square of flowers are Inkadoo stamps I recently found in a set at Costco.

I have been wanting to try Papertrey's colors of cardstock and inks, but didn't know what to start with so I was very pleased to read today that beginning Feb 15 you will be able to purchase sampler packs of the card stock. From there I can move into the colors I can't life without!

QUILT CARD AS PROMISED

I did say you would be seeing another quilt card today.......Yes I do love this set. For this card I got to use my "bug" in several ways. I made the YoYo Yellow background using the Swiss Dots embossing folder and then I also used the "bug" to cut out the scalloped rectangle using my new rectangle Nestibility set. So much easier than making a rectangle with my scalloped border punch.

I still need to work on on ribbon tying. I blame my bad tying skills on being left handed. Even when I try and follow the directions for nice ties they just don't tun out right for me.

I will be back in a moment with another post. Yes its going to be a two post day!!!!!!!

I AM SO HONORED!

If you are a regular reader of my BLOG (and I know there are a few of you out there) you know that last week I had quite a time "baking my cake" for the 52nd Belli Challenge. But I persevered and on the third try got it made correctly according to all the rules of the challenge. You can see my card here.

Yesterday I went back to Chrissy's BLOG to see what this weeks challenge was and as I was reading through the post I came upon the winner of last weeks challenge. I cannot describe the squeal that came out of my mouth when I realized IT WAS ME!!!!!!! I was so honored! Thank you Chrissy. I think that was even better than finding out I won BLOG CANDY.....not that I Would ever turn down winning BLOG CANDY mind you.

So today I worked on this weeks Belli challenge #53. It's a Valentine Challenge. I'm not big on Valentine Cards (I think it goes back to my childhood when I was the one in the classroom that didn't get many. It was before they made the kids give one to everyone so no one felt left out!) but hey, this is a challenge and I'm up for it.

Here is my card. I had fun playing with my Cuttlebug both embossing with my Swiss Dots folder and also cutting out the swirly heart outlines. The out lines are so thin I was glad I have a xyron sticker maker to use for applying adhesive to the back of them. It worked great. I also got to dig out some of my special handmade paper I've had for a couple of years. I love its texture and also it has cute little hearts embossed on it. Add a little double heart charm I got from the bridal aisle at Michael's hanging on red gingham ribbon, and of course a few stamped sentiments from various Stamping Up stamp sets and voila a Valentine card. I was a fun one to make because I got to play with and use a lot of my stamping toys.

Thank you for another great challenge Chrissy!

Tomorrow I have a few more quilt cards to show you. I promise that will be the last of them for a while. But they are so versatile. Thanks for stopping by.

I'M BACK WITH MY PROJECT!

My cake is not only in the oven, but it is almost done......I do get sidetracked very easily and so there is also a load of laundry done another in the washer and I've done a lot of BLOG hopping myself. BUT I'm back now and ready to show you the new project I've started that I am very excited about. It will be a long term project to set up and it also will be an ongoing one that if done right will always be being updated! I am sure it will be a great aid to my card making especially in the times my MOJO has fled.........

For years now I have been reading of technique notebooks or albums. I have toyed with making one every time I have read about them. I've downloaded many templates and ideas on how to put one together. But I guess none of them struck me as right for me or what I wanted. I'm not even sure I really knew what form I wanted it to be in except I knew it had to be easy to put together and easy to use. I wanted a simple description as to what the technique was and if necessary simple directions on how to do it. Also I wanted a simple sample of what the technique looked like. As I thought more about it I decided I wanted a system that I could easily pull out the technique I wanted to use and than easily put it back.

Of course me being who I am the years went by and I simply kept thinking about it taking no action to actually do it. In the meantime I also became interested in various challenges. Especially sketch challenges. I do have a full sized notebook with sketch challenge ideas, but it is too big to keep out on my stamping table while I am working. I do have sketch layouts kept on my computer in a file folder somewhere, but when I am stamping I don't have room on my table for my computer to sit and my eyesight is not exactly good enough any more to see the details of the sketch from across the room.

Two weeks ago I wandered into our local Office Depot to see what they had on clearance sale....they are closing our store so everything was 25 to 50% off. It was there while strolling up and down the isles I found my solution. Here it is in its beginning stages........

I had been thinking about the possibility of using Rolodex card system on and off in my musings. IT seemed to fit most if not all of my requirements of size and accessibility. The main reason I kept rejecting it was the price! Rolodex systems I discovered a pretty expensive. Especially the ones that use the larger cards. This one is the 3x5 card size and the price at 40% off was right. The cards a bit small, but I knew lots of people are doing albums of techniques on 6x6 pages. I am using both sides of each card so effectively I am working with a 6x5 space which isn't a whole lot less.

Here are two of my first cards I made. I will be filing the techniques alphabetically and so each letter of the alphabet will have its own color card stock as a frame for the technique so it stands out from the white card and isn't so boring to look at and the tab at the top of the card will be the same color as the frame. So here my first "A" card which is for Aqua Painters uses Brocade Blue for the frame and tab and all "A" technique cards will use Brocade Blue. My "B" techniques will be using Purely Pomegranate (good thing I stocked up on it before it retired!). And so on throughout the alphabet. (I haven't gotten beyond "A" and "B" yet.)


I am formatting and printing out the technique description and instructions on my computer. They are on white card stock. After trimming them down as close as possible I layer it onto the correct color of card stock and use my perfect layers tool (I still don't understand why SU retired this tool it's wonderful!!) to put a 1/16th border around it. Tis then goess on to the front of the rolodex card. On the back I put a sample of the technique. How I do this will probably vary with what the technique is. Since these two cards were both coloring tool uses I simply stamped an image to be colored using each medium. For the Aqua Painter I have an example of what the image looks like painted using ink from the stamp pad, from watercolor crayons and watercolor pencils. For the Blender Pen card I have samples using it and the stamp pad ink and the pastels. Other than the different color medium everything else is the same: the image, the ink used to stamp the image and where possible the colors used to color the image. There is a difference on how each image looks in real life though its hard to see here.

So that is my project and yes it is a big one!!!!! But I am excited about it and finally getting it started. I plan also to print off the chetch challenge layouts that I really like so I can have a section for those that I can go to when I am stumped for a layout. I am also toying with including a section for color challenges and maybe even materials to use challenges. I think all thiese things will be a great help when I am at a lose as to where to get started with making a card. I can pull out one of my rolodex cards and simply go from there.

Now I need to go finish up my cake and move the load of laundry to the dryer. Oh by the way the cake is a Double Chocolate Khulua Bundt cake! And boy does it smell good!

ANOTHER NEW BLOG FOUND!

Cards and Coffee....what a great combination and a very nice BLOG too. Stop by and check it out. AND Anita has an awesome BLOG Candy offering going on right now so don't delay!

Back soon with my project I've been promising to show you. I need to put a chocolate cake in the oven for dinner tonight! YUM!

Earlier I said I was going to show you a project I am working on to be a bit more organized. It is also a project that will hopefully teach me a few things in the process of setting it up. But it is getting to late tonight for explaining it so instead I will just share another quilt themed card.
Have I mentioned I LOVE these little blocks...... I thought so! So much can be done with them........Tomorrow I will try to get my project up here!

PHOTOS TO THE 6th DEGREE

Yesterday when I visited my friend Christi st her BLOG Story About A Girl she had a post about sharing the photo that was the sixth picture in the sixth file in you Pictures on your computer. I thought I would play along. I would have posted my pic last night but it needed a bit of work to make it presentable, but here it is now.......

I think it is a very appropriate picture since it is a winter scene from 2007. Ah the good old days when we used to get snow, not ice! This wasn't a big snow fall as I remember it and from the looks of the picture, but it was a pretty one. It's been a very long time since we've had any real snow accumulation totals. I would love to have another 2 foot snow storm like we used to get every other year or so.....they give so much time to stay home and stamp and sew!!!!!! No reason to go anywhere because you can't get anywhere and no one is open anywhere anyway!

Back to the picture. This is a picture taken from our kitchen looking out the sliding patio doors (that's what they are called even though we don't have patio) into our back yard. I guess actually it's looking more into our next door neighbors yard where the pretty snow covered trees are. Well that's my picture....tonight I hope to be back with some photos from an organizational project I started this week.

THIRD TIME IS A CHARM!

I finally got it right. That is my challenge card for the Belli Challenge of the week; CBC52 . This card has all five ingredients for my "cake".....no more no less!
There is...

1. Sugar: designer paper (hard to see in this photo but it is the layer my little quilt is places on and the layer my tag is placed on. Not much but it's there!)
2. Butter: vellum
3. Eggs: scallops (The border on the vellum)
4. Vanilla: ribbon
5. Cocoa Powder: hardware ( the metal buckle the ribbon is going through)

This card really did not photograph well. Its much prettier in real life. I must say however though it meets all the requirement for the challenge and the other two don't. Of the three this is my least favorite card. Oh well! I guess that's life in my stamping room! I need to once again give credit to Papertrey Inks for my wonderful little quilt blocks. They are from their Quilter's Sampler set. The rest of the materials except for the flowers are from Stamping Up.

I have one more card that I've made using my quilt blocks. It is one that came out of my head. My most common way to make cards is I start with a stamp set I want to use and go from there. They just seem to spring up on their own. Not a whole lot of pre-planning other than the kind of card I'm making; birthday, get well, sympathy etc.....I will explain the process I often use in "birthing " a card in my next post. Till then...bye bye!

BELLI CHALLENGE---2 CARDS!

This morning I wrote about finding a fantastic new BLOG to follow and that on this BLOG Creating with Chrissy a Belli Challenge is given every week. I also said I was going to try and take part in this challenge by making a card for it today. Guess what I did!!!!! I not only got one card done but two....though my first one isn't really a card for the challenge since I forgot one of my cake ingredients.

Here is how Chrissy presented the challenge.....

"For the week of January 28, Belli #52, we are hosting a VERY special Belli Challenge in celebration of our One Year Anniversary. ...........

We will be BAKING A CAKE to celebrate our First Anniversary of Belli Challenges.

How do we play BAKE A CAKE? Listed below is a list of cake ingredients. You all must pick 5 ingredients.

Here are the ingredients, be sure to choose 5!

Flour
Sugar
Butter
Vanilla
Eggs
Salt
Baking soda
Chocolate
Nutmeg
Milk
Cinnamon
Powdered sugar

Cream cheese
Cocoa powder
Coconut

Oil

This week to play here is what you need to do...

1. Anyone Can Play! Spread the Word! :)

2. Pick your 5 ingredients!!!
3. Find out what the ingredients equal to in Embellishments!

4. Make a completed project with your CAKE INGREDIENTS -

5. Share the link here in the comments linking to my Blog and CBC52. When you post to Splitcoaststampers or Paper Craft Planet or to your Blog, be sure and put CBC52 as the KEYWORD and mention of the challenge - with a link!
6. I will do a drawing and the person whose name I draw will be a BELLI GUEST DESIGNER the last week of February
7. Deadline for entry is Tuesday evening 7 p.m. Central time."

I have a favorite cake recipe "Flourless Chocolate Cake" so to bake my cake I choose flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and cocoa powder as my five ingredients. I found out what these "ingredients" translated to in card making elements and got to work.

I really like the first card I made, but I guess it probably didn't taste to good because I forgot the eggs! I'll show it to you anyway since I like it..........It's hard to see in the picture here but behind the vellum is a Quilt Block made out of squares and triangles of designer paper. You'll have to trust me that you can see it in real life! I ran the vellum through my cuttlebug with an embossing folder to look like quilting stitches. Like I say I got everything in this "cake" except the eggs! Into the card inventory this Get Well card goes and back to the drawing board or rather kitchen I go to come up with another card that contains all five ingredients!

Here is my second card......Can you figue out what element the eggs are????? You shouldn't have to look too carefully. I like this card also. With the first card I tried embossing the vellum for the first time. (Hint: If you emboss vellum treat it gently it will crack and slip if you are not gentle!) I tried another new technique on this second card. It is one that I read about on the Kub's BLOG back when cuttlebugs were realitivly new on the market. (Yes that long ago and I'm just trying it.) Actually I reversed his process. He showed inking the negative on a cuttlebug folder and I inked the positive and then I embossed the vellum. Like the Kub I used chalk ink to do this. I like how it highlighted the detail to the embossing. So here is my second card.

Can you tell I'm into quilt blocks at the moment. I think its because I have quilt show thoughts on my brain. Serious planning has begun for our local 2009 show in April and I'm on the committee.

So that is my work for the day! I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Oh I suppose you would like to know what the cake ingredients translate into for the card and its emements and embellishments. Here is the list Chrissy gave us to work with......

Flour = brads
Sugar = designer paper
Butter = vellum
Vanilla = ribbon
Eggs = scallop punch/nestabilities
Salt = watercoloring
Baking soda = beads
Chocolate = buttons
Nutmeg = markers
Milk = distressing
Cinnamon = sponging
Powdered sugar = embossing powder
Cream cheese = chipboard
Cocoa powder = hardware
Coconut = flowers
Oil = glitter or stickles

So my card needed to be made with.....designer paper, vellum, ribbon, hardware, and I had to use a scalloped punch. And my missing eggs was the scalloped punch use!

Drat!!!!! I just noticed I still didn't get it right!!!!! I must have ice on the brains.....I was debating whether to use chocolate or cocoa powder for the chocolate in my cake and I just realize I ended up using both!!!!! Oh well.....it will just be a super chocolatey flourless cake!

If I have time tonight or tomorrw I will try a third cake (card). They do say third time is a charm............I hope if you take up this challenge you do better than me!

I FOUND A NEW BLOG TO READ!

It's a very icy morning here in Maryland. A good day to stay home on the computer and in my stamp room!!!!!!! Every morning I do a quick check of the BLOGS I follow through Google Reader and this morning was no exception. One of my favorite places to stop (among many!) is my good the BLOG of my good friend and flying buddy Lee. What an incredibly talented young lady she is....I proud to say I knew her when....meaning when she was just getting started stamping and card making. WOW what a difference a few years makes! She is definitely a fast learner. If you have never visited her be sure and go to My Reality.....Its All Good! You won't be disappointed I assure you......

I was excited to see this morning that she had a new post so of course I visited.....it was from her I visited another amazing BLOG that is also now listed in my Google Reader.....I have heard this woman's name before on other BLOGS and in other places, but for some reason just had never made it to her site......How silly of me.....I've really been missing out, but I won't anymore believe me! So don't you make the same mistake I did. Right now.....well after you finish here....you must go check out Creating with Chrissy......Chris Dickinson is very talented, and very sharing of her talent. As an incentive to visit I Will tell you she is giving away some awesome BLOG candy in honor of her 80,000 hit! (I'll never see that day as I sit here patiently waiting for 5000 after almost 3 years!) You need to visit her by Midnight Central Time on January 31 to enter for a chance to win so don't delay!

While visiting Chris scroll on down and find out about her wonderful Belli challenges that are posted every week. I'm going to try and do this weeks Baking a Cake challenge today. One of my favorite cakes because it is so chocolaty and fudgy is a flourless chocolate cake so my ingredients will be sugar, butter, eggs, cocoa powder, and vanilla. When I post the card later today I will give you what these ingredients were that I needed to use on my card. Don't forget the BLOG CANDY!

PAPER QUILTS

i am finally breaking out my Quilt Block sets from Papertrey. It's definitely time....they have been feeling totally unloved I'm sure, but no more. I am in love. These little stamps are so much fun.

This afternoon I stamped three sheets of white card stock full of various quilt blocks which are now waiting to be colored. That's a lot of quilt blocks since they are only 3/4 inch in size! So far I've only colored my blocks using my Copics. I am somewhat limited in the colors I have for this because I need to use my Original style Copics which have a fine point nib on one end. I feel I have greater control in filling in the tiny spaces using a fine point than the brush point. I want to try colored pencils and Gamsol, but am not sure it will work with the small spaces without blurring. I don't think I would have much success with water coloring either. I will also try my SU markers since they have a fine point on one end and I don't think I will have a problem with a streaky look because of the small spaces being colored.

After coloring each block I punch them out using my Creative Memories 3/4 inch punch, but any brand punch of this size would work. If you don't have a punch you can cut them out with scissors. I am glad I have a punch though because that means all my blocks are exactly the same size so they fit together perfectly. (In this respect I guess paper quilts are no different than fabric ones!) After I have finalized the "quilt" layout I want to use and what it will be adhered to I run my blocks through my Xyron Create a Sticker machine. I love this little tool for things like this. It's so easy to use.

The borders on my quilts for these cards were all created through layering of different colors of card stock. For the first card the scalloped square which is behind the little quilt was easy. I have a Marvy scalloped square punch that is the correct size to be used with the four block quilt. The second card drove me nuts trying to get the scalloped square the right size with good corners on the square. I had to make it using my SU Scalloped Border punch. NOT FUN!!!!! I am now saving my nickles and dimes for a set of both scalloped squares and rectangles from SpellBinders. I definitely need nesties for these........

In all fairness I must say that the first card shown here was cased. It is not an original concept though I did make a few minor modifications. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I cased it from. I was searching through several BLOGS as well as Papertrey's gallery to get some mojo going on how to use this set and I just don't remember where I saw this idea. The second card is my own design. Right down to the felt flowers which cover up a boo boo.....but we won't tell the birthday girl about that.....will we?

SYMPATHY

Once again I had the need for several sympathy cards. It seems that they never end. It's funny (I think I've written this before) but I don't like making sympathy cards and yet I do like making them very much. Both emotions at the same time.

Obviously I don't like making them because it means someone I know has died or someone I know has had someone close die. That's sad. On the other hand when I make a sympathy card I find myself thinking about the person who dies and also the loved ones they have left behind. I find myself praying for all involve. That I find very comforting and a blessing to be able to do. Even when I make these just a card to keep on hand for when it's needed I can pray that the ones receiving the card when ever they receive it and who ever they are are comforted by it and pointed toward God who can heal all sorrows.

Both of these cards were made primarily using Papertrey's stamp set Every Day Blessings. I love the two step cross image in this set. The papers for the rust card came from my Winter Craft Kit and the sentiment on the card is from Stampin' Up's set Refuge and Strength. I'm thinking as I look at this card that I shouldn't have put the two pieces of fluffy ribbon on the card. They actually look like two caterpillars crawling around the card.....NOT GOOD! I'm thinking they will be removed before the card is sent out.

The second card uses papers from SU's Designer paper package Green Tea; which I love. Both the paper and the tea! I made the little flowers using one of my SU punches. I think the sentiment on this card came from a GinaK set that had a variety of sentiments in it, but I'm not totally sure. The little leaf twig is from SU's Refuge and Strength and I used their new Wide Oval punch to punch it out.

I did make a couple of other cards using another favorite group of sets from Papertrey. Their quilt block and sentiment sets. It should not be surprising that I would love those sets seeing as my other passion in life is quilting. Tomorrow I will hopefully be back to show you those cards.

Thanks for stopping by......TaTa for now!

CHECK OUT MY NEW T-SHIRT!

So do you see my new t-shirt. Well my new one in the BLOGing world anyway! It will take you to Melanie Muenchinger's wonderful BLOG. And yes I do love Melanie's stamps which I get from GinaK of course!!!!!!

A SHOUT OUT TO SHEETLOAD!

Two posts in one night...well really two posts in one hour. It takes something special for me to do that and this is pretty special. I want to tell you about SheetLoad of Cards. It's a great site with great helps and layouts for when you need to make a set of cards of the same design. I love it. Their designs are fantastic and I don't have to do any guessing of the measurements of the pieces. They do all that. Also they give you lots and lots of samples of how other designers used that same layout. All of this comes in a wonderful monthly E-zine.

I've also used there layouts to make just one card. And I go back and use layouts from past issues of the E-zine in a new way. The most recent layout I used was from their July issue Christmas in July. But I used it to make a Christmas card in December. You can see it in my BLOG entry here. It is the second card shown in this entry. For other things I done look for SheetLoad in my labels. There are probably others from before I started labeling items as well, but those will be harder to find.

You can see and download a copy of their January E-zine here. Check them out. Also anytime you are visiting me and would like to get to SheetLoad of Cards site just click on there "blinkie" on my right hand side bar. It will magically take you there.

Oh and to be totally upfront and honest, though I honestly do love there site and E-zine, by giving them a shout out and sharing them with you I can be entered into a drawing for some wonderful JustRite products. Another company I love!!!!!

WHEN VALENTINES ARE NOT VALENTINES

Last year Stampin' Up came out with a new Valentine set called Happy Heart Day. I normally don't do special holiday cards except for Christmas, but I thought I should have at least one valentine set in my stamp collection so I ordered it. I did use it to make a couple of Valentine cards for family members, but it hasn't been out of its box since last February. I know that is really sad....With February coming on strong and fast I decided to pull it back out of the closet and see what I could do with it.

There was a challenge on SCS, I forget which one since I haven't gone back and uploaded to it yet, to use hearts on your card. I guess that's why I thought of this set. But I didn't want to do a Valentine card. I'm barely out of the Christmas mind set....I'm not even ready to consider that Valentine's Day is coming in less than a month. I also knew I wanted to kill two challenges with one card and I pulled out the striped designer paper to use from my winter craft kit.

My little mousie friend was holding his heart and I used a heart punch to create some interest along the bottom edge of the card. So those were my hearts. The strip DP had red in it and I wanted my punched out hearts to be red so I placed a red strip of paper under neath them. I then pulled in the blue from the striped DP in to the scalloped ovals. I just felt another color was needed to liven things up.

Going back a moment to the hearts and the red strip of card stock. The scalloped edge under the hearts make the top of the card quite a bit shorter than the back of the card. The card won't stand up because of this, but I don't really care about that. The red is adhered to the inside of the of the card. If I had wanted to design the card so it would stand I could have adhered the red to the back of the card front making the front the same length as the card back.

Looking at the outside of the card alone I guess it could be a Valentine card. BUT.......when you open it up you discover a big birthday wish! You can also see that by adhering the red to the inside of the card rather than the front I could add some more interest with another scalloped edge.

So this is my Valentine card that is not a Valentine. I still have a couple of weeks before I need to start thinking hearts and flowers of February. I do think this might just be a birthday card for someone who has a birthday around February 14, and I know more than one person who does............

BACK TO BASEBALL

I know there are places where the snow is flying but although quite cold here its just rain that's falling. Still neither snow nor cold rain make one think of baseball....I did though. Its time to get back to work on my nephews baseball album. When I got my winter craft kit I knew I would use part of what came with it in making pages for this album and yesterday I came up with five more pages.

Here are two of them. They are actually pages that will go at the front of the album since they deal with information on the season. So I had to move some pages around. I am so glad that I am using and SU album where you slip the pages into page protectors that are help into the album and not the Creative Memory Albums I started scrapbooking with years ago. If you found pages that needed to be made an inserted in between already completed pages it was much harder because it was the pages were attached into the album and the page protectors simply slipped over the pages. (Did that make sense?) So in many cases , and this would have been one of them I could not have kept the flow of the album what I wanted and also inserted these two pages.

Let me see if I can explain this better. I had finished pages 1, 2, 3, 4,.....of the album and they were in a chronological order. The odd numbered pages are on the top, inside the page protector, or the right hand side of the album. The even numbered pages are on the bottom, or the left hand side of the album. I needed to place pages A and B after page 1 so my new order now is 1,A,B,2,3,4,......With SU's system I simply needed to get a extra page protector remove page 2 from behind page one insert A in its place. Than put B in the front of the new page protector and page 2 behind it on the bottom. Of course I need to take the album apart to put the new page protector with pages B and 2 in but that's no big deal.

With the Creative Memory album and many other styles the problem is that your page layout is adhered directly to the album page. So you have to hope that you can remove the page two layout from its foundation without damaging or destroying it. It can be done, but its much more scary to do. The only other option is to forget about the flow of the pages and just insert the new pages so your new order is 1,2,A,B,3,4.........Also if you only have one page to be inserted than you do need to create a second page. With the SU album its a pain to add just one page because you have to shuffle all your pages not just one, but with CM you can't even add one page out of order without having a blank page!

So know I am sure I have either totally bored or confused you. But to end I will just say THANK STAMPIN' UP! Your albums are expensive, but I love them for their ease of use!