Sample Boards

These are a great way to showcase multiple cards from one set. This is a nice way to use cards from a swap that focusses on one common set or theme.

Card samples

Everyone loves looking at sample cards and projects. Put all of your card swaps in a basket or arrange on a table for closer inspection.

Make And Take

Always a nice idea to have one at your open house-it let's everyone try out the products.I precut the cards and elements and have them all bundled with a paper clip-so all that needs to be done is the stamping, coloring ,and assembly.

Virtual Open house pix

Here are a few pix from my Open House yesterday -I hope that they give other Angels some ideas for doing their own open houses.
A big thank you to all of the ladies who attended yesterday-it was a LOT of fun!

Another contest entry

I send so much stuff in for contests and out for hopes of publication that I honestly don't know what's where!
I tried one month to track them all and it was just so wayyyyy far removed from how I operate, I am just back to random flings of stuff!
Anyhoodle-I do recall that I sent this one in for a TAC monthly contest which I beleive has come and gone.
I really liked the color combo of the brown and blue.

The Simpson's

No art today, folks.
It's the day that Ian has been anticipating for months- the premiere of The Simpson's Movie. DOH!
So let's hear it for Marge, Homer, Lisa, Bart, Maggie, Apu, Disco Stu,Side Show Bob, Mrs. Krabapple, Flanders, Nelson, Mr Burns,Smithers,Patty & Selma, and the rest of the gang (but No Krusty the Klown- I HATE clowns esp. Krusty!)

Card Du Jour

Inspired by a card that I saw on Spilt Coast Stampers.
Nice clean lines to this ones, I think.

Not Harry Potter!

I am so sad-I finished Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows this am.
It's odd to think that there will be no more HP books coming out. HP has been such a part of our lives for the past 8 years.It was funny when we were in Mexicio last week, one of the waiters called Ian Harry Potter! A "curse" of resemblence that he thought that he had shook off years ago.Of course ,that is all the more reason that Harry is so near and dear to me is his resemblence to Ian.The photo in this scrapbook lay out was taken when the first HP film premiered. Daniel Radcliffe just turned 17 and Ian will be 16 next week. They have grown up so fast.

MiniBook Madness

Here are some of the chipboard books that I did for my demo at Seminar.
My pearls of wisdom that I gleaned from doing all these are- a corner rounder is a very good thing to have! And go to MayaRoad.com for downloadable album inserts!

Toadwarts!

I tried to come up with a suitable bumpy background for this card- ran it thru a cuttlebug embossing folder,sanded off some of the color, and then rubbed a chartreuse Palette ink pad over it.This frog is from one of 9(!) new sets that I got on Friday from The Angel Company. I could have hugged my Man In Brown when he delivered these!This set is called "Hoppy Everything".

It's been a busy weekend with cutting out all these sets, reading the new Harry Potter book, and going on an over night camping trip to the San Diego Zoo's wild animal park.I am itching to stamp with the 7 oter sets that I haven't broken in yet!

Okay now...
everyone, all together say,
"awwwwwwwwww cute!"

Thank you!I just kept saying that over and over again as I stamped these darling little pussy cats.

This kitty is one of the FREE stamps that you can get with a $30 order- AWESOME.
If you need one- contact me and I can hook you up!

I love ATC's.
Here are some that I made for an in-store swap tomorrow at Stamp Your Heart Out in Claremont.(Great store-if you haven't been... go! )
The backgrounds on these ATC's were inspired by a tip I read in "Alphabetica". I scrunched up a newspaper and then stuck it on my copier bed and made copies of it.I like the hint of text and the visually complex texture to it. It was much nicer to work with the copies than the actual newsprint as the ink didn't come off all over my hands.
I used some old Dover fine art stickers, some Diamond Galze, and micro glass beads for a little extra color and dimension.

On the subject of submissions and contests....

here are a few more of my "losers". I really like these cards so I don't let the fact that nothing came of their submission for a contest get to me. My best advice that I can give on the subect is to just send a BUNCH of entries out into the artistic ethersphere. The more that you fling out there the greater the likelihood that something will finally "stick". My favorite part of the artistic process is the actual creation step so making a few multiples to send off doesn't really daunt me. I like submitting cards because the postage is minimal. ( I am pretty cheap- my primary goal in getting something published is definitely not for the fleeting ego stroke of publication but to get my free issue!) If you have never submitted before-I challenge you to give it a try. And don't necessarily expect your first card to get accepted or even what you consider your nicest card. Sometimes-it seems like it's just a card in a certain color scheme that might get selected to complete the composition on a magazine lay out.

Did ya miss me? We were gone for a week on vacation and had a GREAT time in Cancun. I read Lynne Perella's excellent book "Alphabetica an A-Z guide to creativity for Collage and Book Artists" while I was there and heartily endorse it. I am now itching to make some ATC's and start playing with my acrylic paints again. I was so inspired by the vibrant colors of the Mexican artwork I saw there. The colors were so alive! I felt so energized when I looked at this painting-I had to take a photo of it.( I apologize that I can't credit the artist as there was no idenifying plaque along side it.)

Card Makeover 101~

I love make over shows- Extreme Make Over- home and people editions, What Not to Wear, etcetera. Especially the part when they show the side - by- side before and after pix. To me a good card "lift" is kinda the same thing.You can actually learn so much by creative spring-boarding off of other peoples designs. I tell my students that's one of the best ways to learn - don't try to think it all up by yourself at first- look at designs that you like and then make them work with the supplies that you have on hand.

This card was very much inspired by the card pictured on page 21 in the new SU! cattie. I really liked the lines of it and the circular element - not a design that I had tried before. I added a stronger text element because I am rather blank -space-a-phobic!

Stamp sets used were Simply Divine (a gorgeous new set by the very talented Mabelle Ramirez Ortiz) and Forget Not.

Cha cha!

I really like the vibrant colors in this new paper line.The butterfly stamp is from Spring Dream which is a level C hostess set that they gave to all of us at the Seminar banquet. It was prolly one of my happiest moments at Seminar because I wanted this set oh so bad.( The beautiful swirly images in my blogs title box are also from this set.)

Here's a couple contest entries that didn't quite ummmmm.... WIN!
LOL but I still like them anyhow so I thought that I'd give them one last chance to be seen here. The stamps were from the now retired "believe" set which I really liked and was oh so sad to see go.
(I promise this will be my last post today- I can see how this blogging thing can become quite addictive!)

I admit it -I like CUTE.

I know in some circles that this is considered uncool but quite honestly I like just about every style out there. It would certainly save me a lot of $$ if I were a tad more discriminating! I saw a company at a stamp show once that was named "Stamp Out Cute"- kind of a mean name but I think that I bought some stamps from them anyhow.(I tell ya-this stamping bug it's a sickness!)

So in honor of all things cute ,fuzzy, and cuddley, I post today's card..... everyone say "awwwww-isn't he cute!"

(This lil cutie is one of the FREEBIE gift with purchase stamps from the new TAC catalogue.I used my beloved Lyra watercolor crayons and waterbrush to color him in- easy peasey as Jamie Oliver would say.)

CuttleBug Crazy!

I love these little A2 embossing folders

I made this card using TAC's pretty posies stamps for the botanical element and Terrific tags for the text.

The patterned papers are from TAC's Catelynne collection.

Here are some of the swaps that I prepared for The Angel Company seminar (aka Convention) in Kansas City last week.
OhMYGodzilla- what a blast it was - 4 days of crazy trading, paper-crafting, new stamps, meeting new friends, seeing old friends, staying up late, and having sooooo much fun.

I couldn't resist these cute little penguin stamps from The Angel Company and so I had to do something with them! (And the fact that it's scorchingly hot here right now made stamping a snowwy card pretty darn appealling!)

It also gave me a chance to break in my snowflake CuttleBug embossing folder that I had been searching for for months!

I tried something a little different with my coloring.... I colored the images in first with Tombow markers, then went back and scribbled on a little Lyra watercolor crayon in the corners, then went back over that again with the same colors of the Tombow markers.

(I think that it looks a bit like the Magic pencil Gamsol technique.)