A super quick Christmas card

If I haven't said it lately, let me reiterate:

I LOVE MY SILHOUETTE!

I needed three Christmas cards and I had 20 short minutes in which to make them. I crammed some Michael's green cardstock into my silhouette and cut 3 identical trees. Then, I shoved some Michael's red in, and cut a window into each card.

I ran the trees through my Xyron (normally I use this to turn my cardstock cut-outs into stickers, but this time I used it to make the face of my tree uniformly sticky), and doused them in Martha Stewart's green glitter.
♥love glitter♥

A few pop-dots on the backs of the trees, a layer of white cardstock on the inside, a quick "Happy Holidays" stamp on the inside of the card in red, and Bob's your uncle. Or, if he's not, then you've got a snappy Christmas card to give your uncle. Whatever his name is.

Been doing some stuff

You know what's depressing about making cards? After you've put all that hard work into making something beautiful, you just give it away! *laugh*

Yesterday and today I was scrambling to put together a 2-page scrapbook spread to use as a secret Santa gift for my daughter's dance school Christmas sleepover party. I had no idea what to get an 11 year old girl, but the 12x12 frames were on sale (plus an extra 25% off) last week at Michael's, so I picked some up. I thought it would be nice for the recipient to mount her competition photos onto the framed pages.

Here's the page I came up with:

I think it turned out so pretty! I hated to give it away. Depressing. Truly. I had a brief moment of panic thinking to myself "What if she hates purple?", "What if it doesn't go with her bedroom decor?", "What if they already have a pre-existing dance photo display and this doesn't fit the pattern?" because I think the worst thing would be to find out that the frames sat in a corner gathering dust.

I talked to the school's photographer so I knew that Katie always orders an 8x10 of the competitive team, plus 5x7's of each group and 3x5 individuals for each routine. Some digging through old emails provided me a list of the routines she was in, so that number and sizes of photos really dictated the layout. The team colours are green and purple with a dash of pink (truly, truly garish). I toned it down by opting for celery and plum and omitted the pink entirely. The rest just fell into place. I couldn't have done it without my amazing Silhouette though. That wee machine is magic.

What's nice is that, for under $15, I have a secret Santa gift to give that looks like I spent a lot more than the $20 price limit.

Heaps of Christmas cards

This year I managed to organize myself enough to get my Christmas cards out before Christmas rather than three months late in March, barely making the cut as "Happy Winter" cards (hangs head in shame).

I came up with the design for this card last spring, while planning for the Spring Stamp-A-Stack. It was clearly not appropriate for that time of year, but I liked it all the same and tucked it away for a cooler occasion.

I tweaked the design slightly to include a sentiment and some snowflakes (and glitter! Whee!). I'm pleased with the results.

Colours are bashful, brocade, and night of navy. Tree is on glossy cardstock with various masks, and the background is sponged. Versamark with white embossing powder for the snow, and a hit of two-way glue and glitter finishes it off.

Thanks for reading!
C

The cake...

The cake didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.

I had grand plans of creating a stencil and spray-painting the cake with Wilton aerosol food colouring spray (= poor man's airbrush). Unfortunately, the colour is water-based, so when you spray a lot of it on butter-cream frosting, it just tends to bead up, and because the black in particular was so ... weak... I was spraying a lot. I emptied the whole can on that climber, and still managed - at best - a middling grey colour. So disappointing. The red and the yellow went on a lot better. A few caveats if you ever want to use this stuff yourself:

1. Don't use the black. It sucks rocks.
2. Have a big plastic proctective sheet (drop sheet, old shower curtain, cheap $1 tablecloth from the rama) under your cake to catch the over-spray.
3. Work in a well ventilated area. You end up with an atomized fog of food colouring floating in the air where you're working. I thought I had protected everything quite well, but when I mopped the kitchen floor afterwards, my bucket water was red! Like cleaning up after a murder. Not that I have any experience with that sort of thing.

Anywho. All things considered, it's at least recognizable. Just not as good as I was hoping for. Oh, and I splurged and bought a tube of proper black frosting for the border. What a great idea that was. I'd never have managed to mix anything darker than charcoal grey myself.

More fun with climbers

For my son's climbing party, I decided I didn't want to do the tired loot bags. Yes, kids love them, but they're such junk! It just burns me that I'm spending my hard-earned cash on crap toys and sugar bombs. This year I decided to try something different. I'm making custom t-shirts for the kids. It'll cost me about the same when all is said and done, and the kids get a party souvenir that lasts. But best of all: no more candy in the house. 

The shirts are actually yellow - just in case you're wondering if they're white shirts in bad light. I'm feeling terribly clever for making them match his invites. 

On Saturday I'm going to try to duplicate the image in cake form. Let's cross our fingers that I don't end up with a wreck!

Rock climbing!

We're taking the kids rock climbing at an indoor gym for my son's 9th birthday this year. I figure any party that requires a waiver has to be a good one, no?

Here's what I put together for his invitations:

The cardbase is Dusty Durango; kind of an orangey rust colour. The sky is sponged on glossy cardstock using yoyo yellow, dusty durango, and riding-hood red. The You're Invited sentiment is from Hugs and Wishes. The climber dude was a fortuitous find amongst my downloaded images for my Silhouette. Oh, how I loves my silhouette. How perfect is that?

ciao,
C

Fall Thanks

Howdee!

Ya, again it's been a while.

I have a few half-finished paper scrapbooking spreads that aren't quite ready to share just yet. I've been playing again with the digital scrapbooking and I'm really enjoying it! It helps to have the right tools and lots of files to choose from. (Thank you Nicole!)

This little page is a thank you for a friend who invited us up north for a fall colour tour. In spite of forecasts calling for wet weather (de rigueur for us, it seems) we had a fantastic fall weekend. We managed some boating, some hiking, some sightseeing, and some shopping. *Heaven* The photos were taken during our adventures.

Thanks for checking it out!

The digital scrapbook kit is Shabby Princess "Harvest Spice" and the template is Mandagirl template #33.
There are some other embellies that I grabbed along the way, but I can't remember which folder I knicked them from. Woops.

Rich browns

Here's something I pulled together quickly last week for my anniversary:

Those who know me know that I need a 12-step program for substance abuse: in my case that substance just happens to be glitter! I struggle with manly cards because I can't tart them up like I can a girly card. No bows. Now glitter. No sparkly brads. What's a twinkle-addicted girl to do!? The answer: go for the gold!

I happened across a 12x12 sheet of open-stock paper that I bought during my first foray into Michael's for supplies; yes, it's been hanging around that long. It's a pretty, tone-on-tone chocolate brown with little gold highlights. It's gorgeous!

But, I've been hoarding and saving and refusing to take a blade to it. That's just madness. I finally cut into it to make this card.

The gold paper came from the Dollarama (oh, how I'm kicking myself for not piling my basket high when I had the chance) and the solid cardstock is Close to Cocoa by Stampin' Up!.

The sentiment was stamped with versamark and heat embossed using gold embossing powder.

The very shiny gold ribbon (looks dull in the photo, I can assure you it's just the angle. It's as bright as the gold paper) is 5/8" ribbon from Michael's that I got to make Christmas cards last year, and never used.

Thanks for stopping in!

Theme and variations

I made the following two cards for two separate events this past weekend: one was a friend's wedding, and the other my husband's sister's birthday.



The original design was CASE'd from Splitcoast with minor tweaks due to available paper, ribbon, and stamps.

The grey card is on Silver cardstock with paper from Walk in the Park.
The blue card is on Baja Breeze again with Walk in the Park patterned paper. The sprigs were cut using my Silhouette, and the ribbon is SU! white taffeta.

And now for something completely different...

It's my first digital scrapbooking page! <insert regal trumpet fanfare>

I'm a techie by nature, so I have to confess, this digital-scrapbooking thing does have its appeal.

The papers are from shabby princess, and the layout is from peppermint creative. Both, fortunately, were really nice and really free. I wanted to play around a bit to see if I could get the hang of, and enjoy, the digital side of scrapbooking before I sank a pile of money into kits/templates/fonts etc.

It was easier than I expected; although, I'm sure there are short cuts that I haven't stumbled upon yet.

I think what appeals to me the most is the lack of commitment.

Typically I agonize about whether to trim my photos to a certain size, or whether to actually start gluing things down, or whether to finally cut some of my gorgeous paper for fear that I'll regret my decisions. With digital scrapbooking, that trepidation is gone. Photo cropped too small? Recrop it! Used the wrong paper colour for a mat? Swap it out! It really is a waffler's dream.

Do NOT tell my husband. I think he'd swallow his tongue if he found out I could do this without dedicating a room in the house to my craft supplies.

I think I'll use the money I save on paper to go by myself a new camera. Heehee. Oh, don't tell him that, either. (-;

Mary's snapdragons

I was in Ithaca recently visiting my husbands Aunt Mary (technically a cousin) and his father. I've made this card as a thank you to his aunt for taking us in for the weekend and feeding us until we couldn't walk. Oy, the goulash!

We visited the Ithaca Farmers' Market whilst there. If you ever find yourself in Ithaca, you must go! There's a vendor there who sells fresh cut bouquets of vibrant flowers for cheap, cheap, cheap. Mary bought a bouquet with these gorgeous dark red snapdragons. That was the starting point for my card.

The card uses Riding Hood Red and Crushed Curry as the colour scheme. I had no ribbon in either colour (dangit!) so I improvised a co-ordinating strip using the polished stone technique on glossy cardstock. It turned out o.k., I think!

The other cheek

Ya, it's been a while, but you know what? I'm o.k. with that!

I am becoming reacquainted with the pure joy of creating something because I want to, not because I have a workshop to hold.

It has been liberating! This is what I loved about paper crafts in the first place.

A is for Apple

Hey there! I finished a scrapbook page this weekend. I'm on a tear!


This page commemorates our trip to the orchard last fall for our annual apple-picking expedition.

The background paper is some of the dollarama insane deal paper we (mostly Wendy) picked up this spring. This one happens to be called "New School Apples". The New School papers are... vivid. I wasn't sure I'd use them and yet, here it is! Tada!

The 10x10 hunter green square is from the clearance aisle at Michael's (thank you eagle-eyed Nicole), with some Very Vanilla mats. The Cute apple brads are also Nicole's fault - I think they came from the Scrapbook Emporium. The other shapes/letters are all cut with my Silhouette (ok, technically I cut it on Nicole's Silhouette, but I cut the little apple at home!)

I'm playing right now to see if I can repurpose Cricut cutting mats to use in the Silhouette. The Silhouette ones are pricey and scarce. I've picked up a 12x24 Cricut mat (2 in a package) at Wally World and plan to cut it into 3 smaller mats. If it works, it'll save me a bundle!

Might have more soon. I'm off all this week - I'm bound to get up to no good in the craft room at some point, right?

Front butt

Go on.

Tell me this guy doesn't look like he has a front butt.

Eh? Am I right?

This is a birthday card for my father-in-law, who looks remarkably like the dude on this card (minus the butt).

Colours are Baja Breeze (retired) and Close to Cocoa, to match the old-man colours on the image. I stamped the card base in Baja Breeze ink using my striped background stamp (retired). By turning the stamp 90 degrees and stamping a second time, I got some nice old-man plaid. I bet this guy has plaid carpet slippers!

The cocoa strip across the centre is pierced and faux-stitched with a white gel pen.

A bit of retired caramel gingham ribbon finished it off.

Thanks for dropping by! Sorry I haven't posted much lately, but I haven't been creating much lately. No creating = no posting. Summer is just too darned alluring!

Birthday scene

Wow. June has been frenetic. I've been whirling in circles with work this month trying to get everything done in time for my vacation, which started today.

Ahhhhhhh.

Here's a birthday card that I made for my mum using the Scene in a Garden stamp set. Super cute!

The watercolouring is done using Classic stamp pads and an aquapainter. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

I don't know what prompted to make me a green and orange (technically "Certainly Celery" and "Dusty Durango") card, since those are two of my least favourite colours, but after I painted the little scene, those were the colours it was crying out for me to use.

Funny how cards have a way of sorting themselves out, no?

Remember: last chance to order from the old catalog is this coming Tuesday. After that, the new stuff is available, but the prices will be going up (don't say I didn't warn ya).

Thanks for dropping by.

Summer cherries

I made something!

Holy smokes - no-one is as surprised as I am. Has it really been two weeks since I last posted anything?! In my defense, my craft room has been a first-rate disaster for months now, and it had finally gotten to the point where I couldn't find anything let alone move around in there to create.

I had time the last two days to reclaim my space, and instantly set to work making a wee gifty for a girl friend.

How cute is this?

She loves a wee cuppa almost as much as I do, so I gave her a jar of my absolute favourite wild cherry tea. It worked perfectly that I had some scraps of the old Summer Picnic designer series paper with the cherry pattern on it.

The jar is just a little spice jar - you can pick them up affordably at Solutions. I put a strip of Real Red cardstock around the lid that had been punched using the eyelet lace SU! punch. On top of the lid I stamped the cherries from Tart and Tangy, matted them on a punched 1-1/2" Old Olive circle and a 1-3/4" Real Red circle. The cherries have been filled in with some crystal effects to make them shiny.

I hope she enjoys the tea!

Camping. Again.

Wait!!!

Before you run screaming - this isn't another camping-themed scrapbook page (though it may well materialize into one).

I'm going camping this weekend with my little (taller than me) sister who is driving in this week from B.C.

Of course, any time I use the "C" word, the Great Weather Maker says, "Camping?! LET THERE BE RAIN."

The Great Weather Maker is a jerk.

We are suitably equipped now for wet-weather camping after last summer, so we should be dandy fine, if cold and damp.

We've never been to Emily Provincial Park before. It's in Omemee. "Omemee Omemee"; gosh that's fun to say. I'll give a quick recap of my impressions of the park when we get back. That's one of the Ontario Parks website features I find sorely lacking: detailed descriptions of the campgrounds/camp sites. Heck, I'd even settle for a grainy jpeg of each site. Where's a summer co-op when you need one!?

All this to say: no paper playing for me for the next little while. Expect some activity next week.

DUDE

*whirlwhirlwhirl*

I've been whirling like a dervish these last 5 days, and I'm very much ready to get off this ride! Insanity. I haven't had time to make cards (hubby's bday was yesterday and even he didn't get a card. For SHAME.) let alone post any updates.

Here's a photo of the one card I did manage to create, for one of my son's very bestest friends who had a birthday party on the weekend:


Simple to the point of being embarrassing, but appropriate. Patterned paper is from the leftover Birthday Dude paper, and is layered on some SU! Basic Gray paper. It's all been cut out with the Silhouette.

Thanks to Wendy for the photo. I forgot to snap it before cramming it into an envelope on the way out the door. Woops.

More soon - I hope!

C

Baby Sam

Samuel Alexander Clark arrived (with some delay*) on Sunday, May 17th. I've yet to meet the little man, but when I do I have a card for him!


It's a little froo froo, but it's a baby card, so I think I can be forgiven. Here are some close ups. (You can click on any photo to see things bigger.)

Supplies:

• Whisper White cardstock
• Bordering Blue cardstock
• Open stock swiss dots paper (Michaels)
• All in the Family stamp set (baby)
• Alphabets and BABY stamps, Michael's $1.50 bin.
• Lace edge punch (SU!)
• Dazzlin' Diamonds and 2-way glue
• Blender pen and inks: Barely banana, Certainly Celery, Bordering Blue, Night of Navy.
• 5/8" organza ribbon (Michaels)
• 1/4" grosgrain ribbon (SU!)

*Sam's mum, Nicole, was the guest of honour at our pretty toes event.

Girly Purse

Hi!

I have a girly card to share today. I needed a dual purpose card/gift-card holder for a little girl's birthday. My daughter received a birthday invite last year that employed this idea, and I stole it and tweaked it a bit for my own purposes:


The shape of the card I cut out using my Silhouette. I probably spent as long drawing the darned thing on the computer as I would have if I just created it by hand, but now I have the template I can use over and over (if you're a Silhouette user and want the GSD file, let me know!)

When you lift the flap and open the purse, you can see the pocket I created inside by inserting some accordion-folded paper at the sides of the purse. It's just the right size for a gift card and the whole thing fits into a standard invitation-size envelope.

My daughter was able to create a small 3x2 card to slip inside the purse as well. Super cute!

Supplies

• Whisper White cardstock
• Michael's slab (name long since forgotten)
• SU! Rhinestone brad
• Got Flowers flower
• EK Success flower punches
• 2-way glue
• Dazzlin' diamonds glitter

Pumpkin Patch

I have a tendency to jump around chronologically with my scrapbooking, as the urge strikes to create various pages. This week I was working on pictures from the neighborhood trip to the pumpkin patch.

I didn't expect it, but my pictures told me to use purple, blue, green, and orange for the page colours. What a whacky colour combo. But, I just recently acquired the perfect paper from our Dollarama-paper-buying blitz. Stripes of purple, blue, green, orange and yellow? Perfect! I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried.


Thanks for looking!

Supplies:

• So Saffron 12x12
• Fresh Trinkets Seersucker 12x12
• Pumpkin Pie cardstock
• Brillian Blue cardstock
• Lovely Lilac cardstock
• Making Memories square brads
• Title: cut with my Silhouette
• assorted paper-pad papers
• Corner flourish of "Something for you" from Yummy stamp set

Butterfly Birthday

Apologies for the posting hiatus! It's been dreary and overcast for too long, which means my project photos get put on hold.

Here's a cute birthday card I made for my scrappin' friend, Marci:

The strié effect was accomplished by dropping ink onto a baby wipe and smearing it across the glossy cardstock. Because it takes a little longer for the ink to soak into the glossy card, you can blend it and play with it a little more. The sentiment is heat embossed using white embossing powder.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies:
Tangerine Tango reinker and cardstock
Summer Sun reinker
Versamark ink and White embossing powder
White glossy cardstock
Whisper White cardstock
Martha Stewart butterfly punch
Baby wipe
Making Memories orange mini brads
Its Your Birthday stamp set (ret.)

** welcome Samuel Alexander Clark!! **

Pretty toes!

Any mom out there who was still pregnant on their due date knows how maddening that situation is. Augh! So frustrating.

Way back when I was pregnant with Adina, a good girlfriend booked us in for pedicures on my due date. I'll never forget the terrified look on the aestheticians face when we told her! I think she thought I was going to go into labour in the chair. *laugh* But I'll also never forget how thoughtful it was to be pampered that little bit on an otherwise vexxing day.

I wanted to do the same thing for our friend Nicole. Monique got all the girls on board, found a salon that would fit all 6 of us in the chairs at the same time, and picked everyone up. What a blast!

And here's a picture of our pretty toes:

So pretty.

Birthday Dude

Hi there!

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I have a scrappy page for you today. This is for my son's 8th birthday. He's a very boyish boy: cars, flames, sports, flames. Better yet: sports cars with flames. Yeah, baby!


The background is some 12x12 red discovered in the Michael's clearance aisle by my bargain-savvy pal Nicole. Thanks Nic! The patterned paper is a "Me and my BIG ideas" slab I picked up from Michael's. It has very boyish paper, which I needed to counterbalance my girlie froo-froo proclivities. I added a bit of basic grey and basic black SU! paper for mats and such. The screw-head brads I picked up a while back at paperwishes.ca (back when it still existed), and finally have found a use for them. The title is cut out of pumpkin pie SU! paper using my beloved silhouette. It was looking a bit flat and drab when I first mounted it, so I grabbed my chalks to tart it up a bit:
I used a bit of real red chalk and yo-yo yellow to add some highlights/shadows. I think it really makes the letters pop.

Thanks for dropping in!

-C

p.s. Did you hit Dollarama yet in search of that "Recess-by Carson Dellosa" paper? We've found all but 2 patterns. Woo! Wendy is a paper sleuth extraordinaire.

It's a GIRL thing

It's scrappy time once again, and finally, FINALLY, I'm done with the the 2008 camping pics... of Balsam Lake. Aheheh, *cough*. Right, so back to the pages at hand:

To treat myself after a super finish in a 5K run on Sunday (woo!) I headed to Winners with a gal pal and found this gorgeous slab of My Mind's Eye paper. It's rare that I find a slab for which I love every page therein. The subject of today's spread: our girly scrapbooking getaway last June.

[aside: don't think our husbands didn't cotton on to the self-perpetuating nature of scrapbooking your scrapbooking weekend. It's like holding a mirror up to a mirror!]

The colours are roughly Tempting Turquoise with a hint of a green that falls somewhere between Certainly Celery and Gable Green. I used my new SU! eyelet punch that I ordered by mistake (woops) to create the Chocolate Chip border. The title is cut out of Very Vanilla and Tempting Turquoise with my Silhouette. The rhinestone star has been lurking in my embellishments drawer for almost a year and a half. It was time to stick it on something.

Now look closely at the band across the middle of the page. It's photos of all of the spreads we completed that weekend (minus the output of the two digi-scrappers in the group). Fun!

Thanks for dropping by,
C

The last of the 2008 camping... I think

Another scrapbooking spread for you today. I'm not super crazy about this one. It wasn't coming together nicely, and I ended up just sticking it down and calling it done because I didn't want to think about it anymore. But, it'll do.


The paper is all SU! from the Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper pack. I had to swap out the Olive from the kit because, well, I didn't have enough. But it's still SU!, just not Summer Picnic.
All the shapes and letters were cut out using my silhouette, and the trippy meshy ribbon stuff is from the 'rama.

By the way, I don't know if you've stopped into Dollarama lately, but there's a bargoon to be had on some quality scrapbooking paper! For a buck they're selling packs of 12x12 paper (25 identical sheets) from the discontinued "Recess at Carson Dellosa" paper line. If you're resourceful and have a few Dollaramas nearby, you can get a decent selection of paper at a cheap, cheap rate. Each store seems to carry about two to three different designs, so you need to hit multiple stores if you want to locate the coordinating papers. And they're out there - we've found 25 different patters so far and are dividing them up amongst scrappy friends. I love bargoons!

Go now! I'll be here when you get back. (-;

A couple of terrific specials

Stampin' Up! May specials are good ones. Check this out (click to open):The deals are three-fold, and all are in honour of Scrapbooking Month. May is scrapbooking month? Who knew?!

1. Buy three packs of Designer Series paper—including Specialty Designer Series paper — or 12" x 12" textured card stock and get one FREE! You can mix and match, they don't have the be three packs of the same paper.
2. Buy the new Jumble Alphabet stamp set—a sneak peek from the upcoming 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalogue—at 20% off!
   
3. Become a demonstrator for only $99 with the limited-time, scrapbooking Starter Kit! This is a amazing deal if you want to enjoy a demonstrator's discount on your purchases for the next 6 months - and you don't have to sell a thing if you don't want to (but you do, because then you earn free goodies for yourself.) The $99 covers the cost of the scrapbooking supplies - see the following table - and you get all of your business materials at no extra cost (catalogs, order forms, yada yada). Here's what the kit includes:

Item Code	Description	Retail Value
113510	Schoolbook Serif Alphabet stamp set*	$50.95
113059	Simply Scrappin' Petal Party	$23.95
108697	Earth Elements Assorted textured card stock (12" x 12")	$13.95
105240	Whisper White Craft Stampin' Pad	$8.95

Please note: Each of the products listed above may be substituted for like items. Please see the Scrapbooking Starter Kit Order Form for details.

Contact me if any of this tickles your fancy! I plan to stock up on paper, myself. Because being buried alive under an avalanche of paper in my craft room is the ONLY way to go.

Lovely butterflies

Today I'm sharing a card that I made for Mother's Day and a few Birthdays that are coming up.

Somehow (read: I'm a dolt), I ended up with too much "Walk In the Park" bulk-order (demo's only) paper. I decided to use it to make these 6 identical cards.

Everything shown is Stampin' Up! with the exception of the butterfly die cut (silhouette) and the Swiss Dots embossed background. Sure, I could've used the SU! Swiss Dots embossing plate, but you know what? I like my 'bug plate better!

*gasp* "Blashpemy!"

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies:
Whisper White card stock
Baja Breeze card stock
White 1/4" grosgrain ribbon
Walk In The Park designer series paper
Silhouette die cut butterfly
Dazzlin' Diamonds glitter
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing plate.

Stamp-A-Stack photos

Hey there!

Here are a few photos from our fun stamping day last Sunday. (Apologies in advance to anyone who is displeased with their likeness *ahem* *cough*)

Click on the slideshow to go to my Picasa album and view the photos up close.



Thanks for dropping by!

Goodie Bags!

Does anyone ever grow tired of receiving a loot bag? I know I sure don't!

Here's what the goodie bags for my customers looked like at the recent Stamp-A-Stack:


Teehee! How cute is that? The bag is just your everyday white paper gift bag. It's been stamped with the oak tree from Lovely as a tree (love. it.) in Riding Hood Red ink. The flower is a new set in the Occasions mini, called "Soft Summer" and it's been stamped in StazOn, and watercoloured with Classic ink. The card stock used on the bag is Riding Hood Red and Kiwi Kiss. Here's a close-up of the flower:


Inside the bag, in addition to their card supplies, each stamper got a bunch of envelopes, a versamarker with instructions, and a bag of Celery and So Saffron ribbon. All they were missing were balloons and suckers, no?

Stamp-A-Stack: Wendy's cards

Heya!

Here are some more of the cards we made at the stamp-a-stack on Saturday. These were submitted by Wendy Fee, my super-awesome upline. This one has a special place in my heart. I love pears!!


Supplies:
Summer Sun card stock
Chocolate Chip card stock
Old Olive card stock
Ink in those three colours...
Whisper White card stock
Good Morning Sunshine DS paper
Cheep Talk stamp set
large and small tag punches
Some 1" double-stitched choco chip ribbon
some 1/4" choco chip grosgrain
and an antique brass brad.

Next up: Wendy's card #2. This is another card that started life as a blue card, but got a makeover when all the SAS candidates were blue! It was with much gnashing of teeth that Wendy made a card using Cameo Coral. Let's just say she's not a fan.

Supplies:
Sweet Stems stamp set
On Your Birthday stamp set
Itty Bitty Backgrounds stamp set
Rose Red card stock
Cameo Coral card stock
Whisper White card stock
Raspberry Tart DS paper
Versamarker to colour in the flowers
large and small oval punches
Rose Red ink
1/8" hole punch

Cute stuff!

Baroque Butterflies

And.... here's the other Stamp-A-Stack card:

I like this one, it turned out pretty - even if my butterfly stamp never made it back home again *pout*

Supplies:
Very Vanilla card stock
Not Quite Navy card stock
Kiwi Kiss card stock
Sahara Sand ink
Kiwi Kiss ink
Not Quite Navy ink
Baroque Motifs stamps
Flight of the Butterfly stamps
En Francais background stamp
Kiwi/Vanilla Satin ribbon

Stamp-A-Stack cards

Hi Ho!

I can finally share with you some Stamp-A-Stack goodies, now that the event is successfully under out belts for Spring 2009.

This is the first one:

The crazy feesh card. This one got sub'd in when there were too many blue cards on the docket. This, is not blue.

Supplies:
Summer Sun cardstock
Only Orange cardstock
Real Red cardstock
Whisper White cardstock
Lazy Dayz wheel with RealRed ink cartridge
Just Beachy stamp set (Occasions mini catalog).
All Holidays (happy birthday)
Crimping tool

Happy Campers

I was holding off photographing this 2-page spread until there was some nice sunlight available - but I think I'd be waiting a month or more at this rate. April showers, indeed!


This is another collection of camping photos. Why so many? Well, I like them all, and I love to camp! It's the highlight of my summer, I think.

I've stitched the green 12x12 to the chocolate chip, and torn and rolled the green edges. Everything else is pretty straight forward: stick stuff on page.

I haven't got much to show lately as I've been spending every spare minute chopping paper and stuffing bags for the Stamp-A-Stack this coming weekend. I hope to get back to more "me" projects soon.

Thanks for lookin!

Supplies:
Chocolate Chip textured 12x12 (SU)
Green dotted 12x12 ("Great Outdoors" - American Traditional Designs, from Walmart)
Nature Squares 12x12 ("Great Outdoors")
More Mustard 8.5x11 (SU)
Title, Silhouette (font = "Depot")
Felt shapes (clearance aisle at Michael's)

Fun in the Sun (reprise)

Hi there!

A couple of weeks ago I created a Fun in the Sun layout. I wasn't super crazy about it, and my cat helpfully tipped the balance for me by dumping a full glass of water over the spread, warping and rippling all of the paper.

This weekend I had a chance (with new photos printed) to revisit the layout:


The background papers are from the SU! Sale-A-Bration freebie paper pack, and the celery twill ribbon is also a Sale-A-Bration freebie. Colours in the paper are So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, and Sahara Sand. The chipboard buttons were from the $1.50 rack at Michael's, and the die-cuts are done with my Silhouette.

The pages have a lot of blank space on them. I'm trying to embrace the openness on my pages. I tend to cram the pages full, until they're so busy you can't tell what the page is about! This might be a bit too far in the other direction, but I can live with it.

Oh, and if you're curious, the photo processing at Costco is vastly superior to the Walmart photo lab. The colours and picture quality of the Walmart overnight photos are lacking.

Thanks for looking,
C

Springtime snow?

Last one from the heap of stack rejects:


I actually really like this card, but it's sooooo not appropriate for a Spring/Summer stamp-a-stack!

I had tried to use the versamarker to create a resist on the card stock that would give the illusion of snow, but it didn't yield the results I was looking for. When I re-do this one (and I will - I'm already scheming!) I'll use clear embossing powder as my resist.

Colours are Basic Black, Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue, and Night of Navy. I'm keeping the "how to" a mystery for now, because I expect to trot this one out again for the Christmas stack. Or possibly for my own Christmas cards. Bwhahaha.

Faux toile

Remember when I said I love Pink and Black cards? Well I think I love Blue and Brown even more!

This card was actually a contender, one of my final two even, but then I cooked up another card that felt more summery and we had a lot of blue cards planned, so this one got the boot.

Colours are Bashful Blue, Chocolate Chip, and Whisper White. Stamps are my all-time fave Lovely as a Tree (for the toile background), and one from the Curvy Label punch bundle. I trimmed down the white card stock of the label and punched the Chocolate card stock with the curvy label punch.

The felt flower is from the Flower Fusion Accents and Elements kit and the blue flower was punched with a contraband Michael's punch (I'd have swapped it out for a legal one at the stack). It's all finished off with a bit of Chocolate grosgrain ribbon.

But wait... there's more!

Walking in the Park again

Hola!

I have another Stamp-A-Stack reject for you today:


A cute monogram card with a vellum overlay. I think I'd like this one better if it wasn't so sombre, but because I've used the Basic Grey paper from the Walk In The Park paper pack in the Occasions mini I was a little constrained with colour choices. Still, I don't completely hate this one, and I am very very picky about my cards. Colours are white vellum, Whisper White, and Basic Grey, with a strip of Basic Black grosgrain ribbon under the monogram. The Monogram stamp is from the Lovely Letters stamp set. So pretty.

But wait, there's more!

Pink and Black and cute all over

Howdy!

Today's card is a reprise of an old favourite using the ancient-yet-adorable stamp set, Simply Said.
Colours are Pretty in Pink and Basic Black. I just love pink and black together, don't you? The flowers in the centre have been filled in with a white gel pen, and are versamarked around the outside (with a Versamarker). The background flowers are in Pretty in Pink and Basic Black ink So cute!

Baja thanks

Hiya!

This card almost made the Stamp-A-Stack cut, it was a close thing:


The double-sided paper is from the new "Walk In The Park" paper from the Occasions Mini. It's paired with Basic Grey card stock and mounted on Baja Breeze card. The Thanks stamp is from Fundamental Phrases, and the sprig is from the Level 3 Hostess set, Dream a Little.

This card uses the Scallop Edge punch (I had to use the Fiskar's one with the holes, as I don't own the SU! one), and the nesting ovals punches.

More soon!

More from the land of rejects

Howdy! Here's another card that didn't make the cut:


If I was going to rebuild this, and I just might, I'd move the sentiment over to align with the right edge of the monkey squares. Stamps are Zoofari (monkey) and Smarty Pants. Colours are Gable Green and Almost Amethyst.

More soon.