Happy Bird-day!

Happy Monday! Here's a quick birthday card I made recently using a couple of Memory Box stamps. The image was colored using Koh-I-Noor colored pencils and then blended with Gamsol. The patterned paper is Bo Bunny Harvest Table. The card stock and ribbon are from Stampin' UP! The tag for the sentiment was made using a Fancy Tags die from Spellbinders.

That's about it! Hope you had a nice weekend. Enjoy this short week and please stop back by on Wednesday for another Belli Challenge!

You're so very Tweet!

Happy Friday! It's been a long, busy week for me, which explains my silence here in blogland!

I made this card using the OCC's sketch challenge from last week. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love collection. The bird houses and the sentiment are from Papertrey Ink's Bird Watching set. They were stamped and colored four times using Copic markers, then three were cut out and placed on the cloud patterned paper, and the fourth set was popped up on top of the middle set with foam tape.

The owl was also colored with Copics, cut out and adhered on top of the ribbon. That's about it. Thanks for looking!

Have a great weekend!

A Fun Excursion!

I don't have a card to post today, but wanted to share a few photos from my get together on Wednesday ! I met up with a few stamping friends for lunch and an afternoon of shopping at Archiver's. Our group included, from left to right, Julie Warner, Penny Allen, Silke Ledlow, Jenny Gropp and yours truly. The photo was taken by Sue Prather (who doesn't yet have a blog or SCS gallery for me to link you to, but who is a wonderful card maker and artist). Oh, did we have fun - lots of laughs! My voice is still a bit hoarse!




We met for lunch at Olive Garden and everyone hit it off instantly! Here is Sue with Silke.

It was great to meet Silke in person. I've followed her blog for as long as I've been into card making and love her style. And she is such a sweet and funny gal!










Here is super shopper, Julie - look at the products just flying off the shelves into her basket!

I'm not sure what Penny, Silke and Jenny were looking at, but the expressions on their faces were priceless to me.

Thank you, ladies, it was a great day and I will be looking forward to our next get together!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Happy Birthday to my fellow Krafty Kat, Miriam. Hope you have a great day!

Belli Challenge #78 - Christmas with Creative Cuts & More

Welcome to another Creative Belli Challenge! We are once again being sponsored by Creative Cuts & More this week. CC&M just released two new kits - the Treasured Family Recipes 8"x8" Mini Album Kit and the Holiday Treats Apron Recipe Album Kit. As part of the celebration CC&M will be having a great sale. For the next three days, CC&M will offer 20% off the entire store. But act quickly, this sale will end on November 14th. Be sure you enter this code - recipebloghop2009 - during checkout.

The challenge this week is to use Christmas themed embellishments (buttons, ribbon, stickers, whatever). For my project, I started with the Card Portfolio in Emerald Stardream Shimmer. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I have done several card folders before and I have to say that using this card portfolio die cut was a whole lot simpler! I highly recommend it - it comes pre-cut, pre-scored and it even has slits for the ribbon tie cut for you. All you have to do is fold it up, tape the inside pockets and decorate the front!

I covered the front with three strips of Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly paper, and then I added Snowflake #04 Small, cut from Tacky Tape. I stamped my snowman from Papertrey Ink's 2009 Holiday Tag Collection and cut it out using a circle die, then matted it on a scalloped circle cut from Stardreams Stationery, which perfectly matched my card folder. The matted snowman was placed on the snowflake die cut, leaving some of the Tacky Tape exposed so I could dump some Polar White Flower Soft on top (click on the photo to see it larger). The tape is really tacky, just like the name implies, so the Flower Soft sticks to it really well. You could also use glitter or flocking.

The red label is also from Creative Cuts & More and is the Antique label in Mars Stardream Shimmer paper. My sentiment was cut out using a Labels Six Nestabilities die, which fit nicely on top of the Antique label. I added a few rhinestone snowflakes from Memory Box to continue my snowflake theme.

For the inside of the card portfolio. I decorated the pockets with the same papers I used on the front, plus a couple of Stampin' UP felt snowflakes, topped with some more of the rhinestone snowflakes. I've finished two cards to go in it so far, and am planning on making a couple more so I can give it as a Christmas gift.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Creative Belli Design Team members' blogs (links are on the left sidebar) to see which Creative Cuts & More products they used. Play along with us by making a card using a Christmas themed embellishment! Link your project using Mr. Linky on today's Creative Belli Challenge Blog post. If you upload a card to Splitcoast Stampers or Paper Craft Planet, be sure to use CBC78 in the keywords section. The winner of this week's challenge will receive a TREASURED FAMILY RECIPES 8" X 8" MINI ALBUM KIT from Creative Cuts and More!

Thanks for looking! Sorry for the novel!

Today I'm going to have lunch with some very special stamping friends and then we're all going on a shopping spree to Archiver's! Come back later in the week and hopefully I'll have a photo or two to share!!

My Favorite Things....

Last Friday, when I saw the Flourishes 'My Favorite Things' challenge and Sharon's No Time To Stamp challenge, I immediately thought of these two stamps and had to play along.

The Flourishes challenge was to make something inspired by the lyrics to the My Favorite Things song from the Sound of Music, one of my all time favorite movies; and Sharon's challenge was to use either brown postal wrap OR the inside of a paper grocery sack in your project.

I started with a brown paper gift bag and added a couple of strips of Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly patterned paper. I stamped the Lockhart Stamp Company Itty Bitty Packages image on a brown paper bag, colored them with Koh-I-Noor colored pencils, cut them out and mounted them using foam tape on a one inch square piece of brown paper bag that I had stamped my Itty Bitty Rose Border on. I mounted that on a red Labels Nine layer and then layered that on a green layer that was cut out using a Stampin' UP! Curly Label punch. The bows were made with Martha Stewart's baking twine.

My sentiment, which is from Stamper's Anonymous and contains some of the song's lyrics, was also stamped on a brown paper bag, cut out with a long rectangle die, and then mounted on a scalloped long rectangle mat and wrapped with the baker's twine. This was a fun challenge and a very quick and easy way to dress up a plain old gift bag.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check back tomorrow for a new Belli Challenge!

Christmas Stocking

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. Work and getting ready for our friends who are coming to visit this coming weekend have gotten in the way of card making and blogging lately! But I dug around my stash and found this little Christmas card I made last month and never posted. It is a simple card that was made using Papertrey Ink's Stocking Prints set and Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly Christmas paper. No Copics on this one!

I stamped the stocking and its top band two times using PTI's Ocean Tides ink. I went over the stamped damask design with a clear Spica pen and used a red Spica pen for the stitching. You can see the fine glitter in this closeup (click on the photo to see it larger). I cut out the second stocking and band and mounted them on top of the first one with foam tape. The panel was cut out using a Labels Five Nestabilities die and the background was sponged with PTI's Vintage Touch Tea Dye duo inks.

The sentiment is from the Mega Mixed Messages set and was stamped with Scarlet Jewel ink and the ribbon and button are both Scarlet Jewel as well.

The sentiment on the inside is from the Tree Trimming Trio set and was also stamped with Ocean Tides. I added a strip of the paper I used on the front, wrapped it with some twine and added another Memory Box rhinestone snowflake.

Hope your week is going well! Thanks for stopping by!

Crafty Secrets Get Well

TGIF! It's been a long, busy week. We are expecting house guests next weekend, so I have been in a cleaning and straightening up frenzy when I haven't been working. As my mother always likes to say, there's nothing better for a house than a good company scare....so true!

Earlier this month I posted a card folder that I had made for my mother for her birthday. The folder contained four get well cards. The first two cards I posted were both made using Papertrey Ink stamps. Today I am showing the other two cards, which were made using Crafty Secrets' Feeling Yucky set. I love the whimsical, vintage feel of this set. This first card has the little nurse with her ginormous hypodermic needle. I think she has a sinister little look in her eye! She sort of reminds me of the nurse who gave me my flu shot this week...my arm is still sore ;-)

The background paper is from Graphic 45's Renaissance Faire collection and is called Romantique. The little nurse and her scary needle were colored with Copic markers and I added Glossy Accents to the syringe. The background of the stamped panel was airbrushed while it was still in the die.

For the inside of the card, I added a matted strip of the patterned paper and a sentiment from the Feeling Yucky set.

This second card has the weepy little duck from the set, along with some patterned paper containing a similar little tweety bird. It's actually Easter paper, but what the heck! The duck was also colored with Copic markers and Glossy Accents was applied to his tears.

The band across the middle of the card is a strip of the same paper I used for the butterfly birthday card I posted last Sunday, mounted on a scalloped-edge strip of coordinating card stock. The triple-looped bow was made with May Arts' silk ribbon, using the Bow Easy tool.

For the inside of this card, I added a small strip of the patterned paper, making sure to include one of the little chicks, matted on several layers of card stock, including one that was cut using the Martha Stewart Checkerboard border punch. The sentiment is from the Feeling Yucky set.

That's about it for me. Hope you've had a good week. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Belli Challenge Wednesday - #77 - Sherrod Studio

It's time for another Belli Challenge! This week our challenge is to use TWINE or RAFFIA in your project. Our sponsor for this challenge is Sherrod Studio and one randomly selected winner will receive this Birthday Ella stamp set:

Each of the Belli girls received an image from Sherrod Studio to use for this week's project. The cornucopia and the sentiment I used for my card are both from the Harvest Blessings set.

The cornucopia was colored with Copic markers and cut out using a Labels Nine Nestabilities die. The sentiment was cut out using a Petite Ovals die and the backgrounds of both panels were airbrushed with Copic markers. I added some faux stitching around the border of each to break up the white edge and mounted the main image on circle and scalloped circle panels. The sentiment was mounted on a Fancy Tags panel, with raffia threaded through the tag and around the back of the main panel.

I used the WSC102 sketch from a couple of weeks ago as my starting point, and the card stock, Frances Meyer patterned paper, brown decorative-edged panel and embellishments came from my Krafty Kats group's last monthly kit.

For the inside of the card, I used a Fiskars leaf border punch on my Really Rust card stock, then used the leaves from it on the brown panel on the card front and in the corner above the sentiment on the inside.

To play along with us, create a card or project using RAFFIA or TWINE, share your link with us using Mr Linky on the Creative Belli post for today. We can't wait to see what you create! If you post to SCS or PCP or any other online gallery please use keyword CBC77 so we can find it.

Thanks for stopping by!

'Tis the season....

...for birthdays!

Today is my birthday and I have a bunch of friends who have birthdays in October, so I've been making, and still have to make, lots of birthday cards.

This first card was made for my online stamping buddy, Silke Ledlow, using patterned paper from The Angel Company, paired up with one of my favorite Lockhart Company Stamps - Patio Lavender, which was colored with Copic markers. The sentiment is from Endless Creations.

I cut the main image out using a Labels Five Nestabilities die and matted it on a Labels Six panel of Ocean Tides card stock from Papertrey Ink. The backgrounds of both stamped images were airbrushed.

For the inside of the card, I used a sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Birthday Basics set and added a matted strip of the patterned paper.

This second card was made for my boss's wife, who turned 40 earlier this month. I have no idea whose patterned paper this is, but I love the colors in it.

I matted the top and bottom of it with a scalloped edged sheet of BasicGrey paper and stamped my butterflies, from Papertrey Ink's Butterfly Kisses, on the patterned paper and cut them out, then adhered them just under the center, so their wings were popped up. I added a couple of silver pearls for their bodies. The sentiment is from the same set and was cut out using a Ribbon Tags Trio die, then threaded with Papertrey Ink's Ocean Tides satin ribbon and topped off with a Berry Sorbet button and some twine.


For the inside, I used another sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Birthday Basics set, stamped with Berry Sorbet ink.

Sorry I was absent from blogging last week - I was out of town for work and was just too pooped at night to post!

Last night Tim took me out to a lovely dinner for my birthday, and I'll be spending today with my Kraft Kat friends! I can think of very few better ways to spend my birthday!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend too! Thanks for looking!

A Holiday Card

Happy Friday! Hope you've had a good week! I'm slowly but surely acknowledging that it's time to start making Christmas cards....Every year I resist until I have to scramble at the last minute...

I made this card last week when I received some new Cuttlebug folders in the mail. I love this Victoria folder and couldn't wait to make something with it. I ran the olive green paper through my Wizard in the folder and then took my Papertrey Ink Fresh Snow ink pad and ran it over the raised portions to make the background panel.

The main stamped image is from Flourishes' Birds and Vine set and was stamped in green and embossed with clear embossing powder then cut out with a Labels Four Nestabilities die. I colored the edge of the panel with a red foil pen then added the white dots to mimic the Papertrey Ink Scarlet Jewel Swiss Dot satin ribbon. I added some red Stickles to make berries on the vine.

The sentiment is from Repeat Impressions and was stamped with Scarlet Jewel ink and cut out using a Double Ended Tags die. The button and twine are from Papertrey Ink.

That's about it! Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

Belli Challenge Wednesday - #76 - Creative Cuts and More

It's another Belli Challenge Wednesday and this week our sponsor is Creative Cuts and More. Terry, the owner, is offering some wonderful goodies! The winner of this week's challenge will receive the Haunted House Castle Mini Album AND Terry is very generously offering anyone who wants some of her fabulous die cuts a 15% discount on your order! All you have to do is use the coupon code Bellichallenge1009, so head on over to Creative Cuts and More and do some shoppin'!

This week's Belli Challenge is to create a card, scrapbook page, or project with a Fall or Thanksgiving theme and to use a LEAF on your project. Each of the Belli girls was able to use items from Creative Cuts and More to spotlight their wonderful products. I selected Nameplate #08 in Bronze metallic card stock for my card. All stamps used are from Papertrey Ink's Fall Elegance set. The patterned paper is from Papertrey Ink's Autumn Abundance 8x8" paper pack and the ribbon is from May Arts. I used a couple of leaf brads on my nameplate and then used some Scattered Straw Stickles in the other four holes to create sparkly faux brads.

We can't wait to see what you create! Be sure to post your entry on the Belli Challenge blog using Mr. Linky at the bottom of today's post.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink WCMD Challenges

Good morning! Happy hump day! It's been a dreary week here so far and it has just started raining again.

Papertrey Ink issued four challenges on Saturday for World Card Making Day. I managed to make cards for two of the four challenges. My first card was for the third challenge, which had a theme of India, including gold, sequins, jewels, etc. This foil background paper from SEI's Moravia collection reminded me of this vine image from PTI's With Sympathy set. I stamped it in Versamark ink and heat embossed it with American Crafts' Gold Bling embossing powder. The flowers and the butterfly were punched out of copper foil, stamped with Versamark and also heat embossed with the gold Bling embossing powder. Gold beads were added to the centers of each.

The second card was for the fourth challenge, which was to use Dotted Outlines and/or Masking using an Australian theme. Since I am a SCUBA diver, when I think of Australia, I think of the Great Barrier Reef and fish. I used PTI's Polka Dot Basics set to outline my fish from Impression Obsession and to create the polka dot background panel. I masked the fish image to creat the polka dot outline and I used a white gel pen to do the dots at the top and bottom of the main background panel. I added three teardrop shaped dew drops in the upper left corner for water drops and to balance my sentiment.

Thanks for looking!

WCMD Challenges

I had high hopes for spending all day Saturday in my stamp room playing along with the World Card Making Day challenges over at Splitcoast Stampers. There was a new challenge posted every hour from 10:00am to 11:00pm. It was a bit overwhelming and I learned that I am a very SLOW card maker! Some people made a card for each challenge during the hour the challenge was posted - how do they do that?? I barely figure out the stamps, papers and layout I'm going to use in an hour...sigh... I only managed to finish two cards for the challenges, plus a third card using a new toy I received on Friday, which I'll post another day.

This first card was made for the Crafty Secrets challenge, which was to make the card pop, using the image or an embellishment. I used a couple of images from the Feely Yucky set. I paper pieced the little nurse's uniform and popped up her arm with dimensional tape. The needle in her hand has Glossy Accents on it to give it a little pop, and I used a Cuttlebug folder to emboss the row of faux stitching on the red border strip. The background paper is from Jillibean Soup's Alphabet Soup collection and I thought it was perfect with the little nurse image since it reminds me of an eye chart.

The second card is for the Magnolia-licious Challenge, which was to make a Holiday Ornament - either an ornament to hang on the tree or a card with an ornament on it. I had this paper from BasicGrey's Eskimo Kisses collection so I used the ornament paper for part of the background and created an ornament as my focal point using a stamp from GinaK Designs Got Snow set. I cut the image out using a circle Nestabilities die and added a small square of silver paper, topped with a section of a scalloped circle to make the top of my ornament.

The image was colored with Copic markers and I masked it off and airbrushed the sky. I added some Polar White Flower Soft for the snow man and the ground, then added some Stickles for his buttons, nose, eyes and mouth. The sketch is from Jen del Muro's Sketch For You To Try (SFYTT) from Saturday.

That's it for this year's WCMD challenges for me - hopefully I'll do better next time! Thanks for looking and enjoy your week - we're getting off to a dreary, rainy start here.

Happy World Card Making Day!

Hello! Happy World Card Making Day to my fellow card makers! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this holiday, World Card Making Day is a day especially for card makers around the world to:

• Celebrate the creativity of handmade cards and the personal connection that they create between friends and family

• Kick off (and get a head start on) the holiday card-making season.

This is my first time 'celebrating', but since I'm home today with nothing on my agenda, it seems like a fun way to spend the day! To learn more about it and find ways you can participate, if you're interested, click on the WCMD blinkie on the left side of my blog, or click on the link above to the WCMD web site.

The project I'm posting here is a card folder I made for my mother and gave to her on her birthday a few weeks ago. Last Christmas, I had made a card folder for her that contained four birthday cards (see this post for details) and later she mentioned that she was also in need of get well cards, so this folder contained four get well cards.

I used the All Boxed Up Timeless Template from Papertrey Ink (PTI) to create the card folder, using PTI's Gold Shimmer card stock. For the front cover, I used a piece of Bitty Dot Basics in Ripe Avocado, then I added a strip of Italian paper across the middle. The stamped image is from the With Sympathy set and was stamped with Memento Bamboo Leaves and Potter's Clay and then colored using Copic markers.


I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch to make the butterfly, and I stamped it using some of the flourishes from the With Sympathy set's main image, and then outlined it with a gold leaf pen. The second picture shows the folder when it is open, with two cards in each pocket.

The two cards I'm posting were both made using the Quilter's Sampler set. For the first card, I created a rectangular 'quilt' using two different squares from the set and colored them with Copic markers to match the papers I had selected. The spool of thread was stamped and cut out, then wrapped with some of the Gold tinsel from the Gold Collection. I stamped the needle from the set, cut out the eye and threaded it with some gold wire, then stuck it in my spool of thread. The scissors were stamped and colored with Copic markers and I colored over the handles with a gold Spica marker to give them some sparkle.

For the second card, I did basically the same things, using slightly different colors, and I used a scissor charm instead of the stamped scissors. The sentiment was stamped with Versamark directly on the patterned paper and heat embossed using Powder Keg embossing powder (China Jade, I think).

Sorry for such a long post - thanks for hanging in there with me if you made it this far! I'll save the other two cards for another post!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy your weekend!

Belli Challenge #75 - Shirleys2Girls

It's time for another Belli Challenge! This week's challenge is to create a card, scrapbook page, or project using Halloween colored glitter or bling. Our sponsor this week is Shirleys2Girls, who provided the Belli design team with this digital image of Mazie. This is the first time I've used a digital image, so this was a good challenge for me! Please be sure to check out what the other Belli Challenge girls have done with Mazie!

I printed the image on Cryogen White paper using my ink jet printer and colored her using Copic markers. The sentiment is from Stampin' UP! and I colored directly on the stamp with brown, purple and orange markers. Both images were cut out using Nestabilities and I used an orange marker to outline the image while it was still in the die. I also added some glitter by going over portions of both images with Copic Spica pens.

The glittered background papers are from Best Creations' Trick or Treat collection and the bat in the corner is from May Arts' Satin Cutouts collection.

For the inside of the card, I used another Stampin' UP! sentiment, a scrap of the Halloween Stripe paper from the front of the card and another ribbon bat.

To play along with us, create a card or project using Halloween colored glitter or bling. The lucky winner for this week's challenge will receive a Halloween Stamp Set from Shirleys2Girls!

We can't wait to see what you come up with. If you post to SCS or PCP or any other online gallery please use keyword CBC75 so we can find it. Don't forget to add a link to your project using Mr. Linky on today's post on the Belli Challenge blog.

Thanks for stopping by!