Tasting the bittersweet

Sorry- no cards today. I just can't create when my heart is heavy.This is a pic of me and my mom from last Christmas.Mom has Alzheimers disease and lives in a facility for the memory impaired near me. The past week or so ,she has really been having a rough time of things .I love this pic of the 2 of us- she looks so sweet in it and we look like such buds.Here's hoping that this side of Mom comes back soon.
So if my blog gets a little quiet- you'll know that I am just off with Mom.

Cards Class

Here's a pic of my September card keeper class at the Michaels in Chino- just pop into the store to pick up a calendar- it has all the info for signing up on it.
We will be making 4 coordinating cards and a cute little binder to stash them in. These make really nice little gifties.
And speaking of my gig at Michaels-I'll be doing 2 demos there this upcoming Saturday-card making in the AM and stamping in the afternoon- again the details are in the calendar!

not sure about this one...

I made up 6 of these to send out for September birthdays off the Creative Express RAK list.
I think maybe the stamped image is too delicate for all the other stuff going on on the card.
I went a bit birthday crazy and was like -okay I have birthday paper, ribbons, and embossing folder.-let's just use them ALL!

more variations on a theme

I really like coming up with a good solid card design then whipping up multiples of the same card in various colors. To me that is one of the beauties of stamping- how versatile they are!
I used a SU! set here called garden collage, my trusty Cuttlebug embossing folders, and some nifty self- adhesive ribbon that I picked up at Joann Fabrics on sale.
The little addition of the Krylon leafing pen accent around the one matte makes a HUGE difference too.
Oh and I can't forget the crystal lacquer that I glopped on the post mark. Crystal lacquer is another one of my favorite little somethings to add to projects that just gives such a nice touch!

So Beautiful

I had origianlly made these cards as a submission for Stampers Sampler "shifting shades'. I was most chagrinned to discover that they replaced that forum with the on-going masterboard category.
So here are my gals all in their unpublished glory!
I guess, I should send them on for a try out at another mag...
This was one of my first attempts at using the Lyra water color crayons and have to say that it really was love at first sight.

Woodies re-organization

Okay-I confess my woodie rack was a big mess- there was absolutley NO order on there whatsoever. I took down every stamp- dusted the stamps-dusted the rack and put them back in with shelves specific to the images-
the top is backgrounds, then collage,people, text, animals, and then botanicals.
It was great to do thise because it made me recall a lot of stamps that I didn't remember having!!

Michael's dollar stamps

I have to say that collecting these puppies is like picking up candy!
I put them all in their own little drawer today and they look so bright and happy with the colorful index labels!

I save every hand made card that I receive because I know the care that goes into creating them. Here are a few lovely samples from the very talented Stacy Sheldon, Nancy Turnbaugh, Julie Wehbe,Anna E. Davison, and Clarissa Romano. Thank you girls-I LOVE your cards.
(My bulletin board came down when I had the room painted and I had not put it back up until today!)

Punch Storage

Seemingly like every other card maker on the planet-I am on a quest to accumulate the marvelous Marvy Uchida line of scallop punches. They had totally outgrown their little parking spot on my shelf and needed a GARAGE!
I found these plastic bins at Target- for $9.99 (there are 3 drawers per unit-I have 2 pictured here)
I could just barely squeeze them into the last potential space in my stamp cave and as you can see they are lopsided because they just barely fit!

Summer cleaning binge

I wish that I had the kind of personality that can just clean up as I go along but I don't-my creative mojo gets flowwing and stuff just flies all over the stamp cave necessitating a BIG CLEAN every few months.

Well-I am 2 days into the big clean now-I can proudly report that I have reclaimed several feet of floor space, cleaned off one side of my work surface, re-hung my bulletin board and reorganized about half of my stamps .Yay!!!!!

I miss this Basic Grey Black Tie paper line-It was such a great line-it had the pattern but you could use it as a neutral background with anything.I sure wish that they'd bring out another tone on tone line like it.

I love how this card turned out- just used a simple little dollar stamp from Mike's , my trusty CuttleBug embossing folder, some scallop scissors, and Primas. YUM!
Oh and some rhinestone- gotta have some BLING!

Rockin' Girl Blogger

Thank you Stacy and Flexie for your nominations as a Rockin' Girl Blogger!!!
I will forward the honor on as soon as I figure out how to embed URLs in a post.
(I am not super techno savvy and don't have a lot of access to this computer anymore-but I promise that I will pay it forwards)

card du jour

I made this today for my workshop tomorrow- used TAC's Hemingway papers, Stamp sets- More Abundance and flourishes.
Pretty simple but I like it.

Thank you

Here's a card that I did 2 days ago for the CX design team competition. I know my chances are slim to none to getting picked but it's so easy to try out that I had to at least try.
What I like best about this card-is that I finally happened on to a place where I can take great looking photos of my cards- the secret is to go out into my yard on partially cloudy days in the late of afternoon. Let's see how many of those -we have!!!
Anyhoodle- the card is mainly comprised of PP from We Are Memory Keepers, the rub on is Creative Imaginations.

Launching a preemptive strike

DH is getting home from a business trip tonight which means I won't be able to access this computer with all my pix until Saturday so I thought that I would upload another card tonight.
I had covetted this SU! hostess set for a long time and was so happy to just buy it this past weekend.
I used a silver glaze gel pen on the hanger, a little pink water color pencil on the bodice blended w/ a Tombow blender. As for her skirt-I just added some magenta stickle dots. Gotta luv me them Stickles-UH Huh!!!

I finally got my mitts on CK's new 4x6 idea book and was really inspired by the LO"s in the front end of the mag (what happened towards the back with all the little photos cut out of 4 x 6's is kinda beyond me!)
So,I spent a good part of yesterday sorting photos, pulling papers, and starting to put together page kits. I actually got 2 pages done. This one was inspired by the LO on page 23 by Michelle Tornay.
It felt great to use up some of my HUGE K and Company paper stash!

Delight in Life

Isn't that a lovely sentiment?Here's one of the first cards that I made with one of my SU! sets that I got this weekend.
I had forgotten that I had this little tablet of patterned Die Cuts With View paper- and it's really lovely. The flowers were stamped,colored with Lyra watercolor crayons. and the central flower glittered.

Woo-Hoo Stampapalooza!

Oh My Godzilla- did I hit the stamp jackpot this weekend!
I did a scrapbook swap meet in San Dimas in an attempt to clear out some of my stuff-well ,you can prolly guess what happened! I came home with more new stuff!!!
There was a SU! gal there with prices too good to resist and sets that were specials that weren't in their catties so I had to get ........ 8 sets!!!
Then today I went to Mike's and saw new designs of the $1 stamps and had to pick up 8 of those puppies too. So here is a picture of the happy scene on my stamping desk currently.
I have been stamping like a crazy fiend!!!

Attacking my Stash

Yes-like every other papercrafter on the planet-I confess that I have a HUGE paper stash. (I could put some scrapbook store inventories to shame!)It's so pretty and cheap (kinda like crack cocaine for us crafters!)I can't say no to it. This was some paper that I picked up at a 10 for $1 sale.At that price I like to pick out things that don't immediately sing out to me so that I will challenge myself to use it and break out of my usual patterns (ruts!)
These sherbetty colors are kind of different for me but I love how they looked with the orange and green Stickles. The stamp is from Autumn Leaves.

I really liked how this LO turned out and wish that I had it back! I made it for The Angel Company seminar where they posted them all up so we could get to know each other better through our artwork.
I really like the photo-I went out into the garden with my son and asked him to shoot some head shots for me and they were okay but this candid is just so much fresher to me-I was bedning over to pet our big fat labrador Frodo who always wants to be in the middle of everything.
As far as the art- I like how the flourishes look stamped on the acetate-it's supposed to be white Staz-On ink but I guess my stamps were a bit dirty and I like what that added to it.

Some Glitter bombs

I am still trying to break in my new stamp sets. This one is simple snowflakes.
I ran the back ground paper thru the cuttlebug embossing folder- than swiped some sky blue brilliance ink over it(It shimmers IRL)
I stamped the round snowflakes images, then punched them out, and ran them thru my Xyron -adhesive side up so I could dump glitter over them.
I used my SU! slot punch for the sentiment strip and slapped in some eyelets with the Cropodile. (I love that tool!)

something different

I call these my "so You Think You Can Dance" cards-I love that show. I picked this PPby The Imagination Project up at a LSS and really liked how very DIFFERENT it was. When I saw all the little patterned circles,I knew that I'd take it home and punch them out and make cards with it.I like how the funky cuttlebug folder really lent a retro air to the card.The stamp is from a fun set by Autumn Leaves. I had been eyeing a similar set in the SU! cattie but couldn't bring myself to cough up the $$ for a set of woodies.

Happy Mail!

I received the nicest surprise in the mail the other day~ a gorgeous card with 3 ATCs in it from Julie Wehbe. Julie is an incredible paper artist who I had been in a long term ATC swap with- she had to drop out for awhile and I sorely missed her gorgeous artwork.This card that I made here was totally lifted from Julie's design. She had used Basic Grey Skate Shoppe for her card. I had just bought BG-Infuse last week and wanted to break it in. The rub ons are from Creative Imaginations (yep- no stamping on this card- GASP!)I actually made 2 of these cards and gave one to one of my cyber buddies- TheStampin'Mom from the Creative Express message board who I got to meet IRL yesterday- she had driven all the way out from South Carolina!We had lunch and hit 2 scrapbook stores and a stamp store- way fun!

treasure it

This card is basically a "lift" of an ATC by Beth Parker that I received as a swap at Seminar.I took Beth's design and just expanded it onto a card and added a little ribbon to the side. I really like how Beth did the stamping so that it covers multiple layers of the papers-it's literally stamping "out of the box".

Blue Jay

I had wanted this set for the longest time and finally broke down and splurged and treated myself to it!It's is so easy to work with- really just a little swipe of color from chalks is all that the bird needs. I put a tiny dot of crystal lacquer on his eye to give it dimension.

Fall-themed swap

Here's my card for Awna Stark's monthly swap. I adore Halloween but actually only own one TAC Halloween set! I glopped onto this card a little of everything that I like right now - the cuttelbug embossing folder-Marvy Circle and scallop punch-SU! slit and corner punch-black polka dot ribbon- and pen dots.
And of course lots of crystal lacquer on the lil ghostie!

Hi !

(I had to copy-I saw over on Elsie Flanigan.s blog - A beautiful mess- she had a hi from her pug- heres' one from my labbie-Frodo)

More Blue and Orange

I had forgotten that I had done this card using a similar color combo to Wendy's Challenge.
HOWEVER-I really like it much better with the addition of the brown- the brown seems to tone it all down and ground those BRIGHT "in your face colors"!
This gal was another one of my my beloved TAC Seminar sets that did NOT make it into the catlogue. Wah wah wah!
I used a cuttlebug embossing folder in my Big Shot for the cool texture- rubbed a Bazzink orange pad over the top for added depth of color. And the gal is colored in with Lyra watercolor crayons.

Breaking in more new stamps

This floral is called "treasure it"- it was fun to play with a 2 step stamp again.The words are from More Abundance.I used some old Basic Grey Paper (lollipop shoppe) for the card itself and the text paper is either K and Company or 7 Gypsies?
I love my new Marvy Uchida Giga scallop circle punch. (I just ordered a bigger circle punch to nest inside it from TAC so am anxiously awaiting a delivery from the Man In Brown.)I punched all the tiny holes around the edge with a tiny circle hole punch. I also finally broke in my SU! rolodex punch- how cool is that edge?
I kept admiring Stacy's(StacysMemoryTriggers.blogspot.com) cards using it and saying "gee I really need to use mine"!

color challange

I thought I'd take a stab at this challange from Wendy Malichio's blog (WendyMalichio.typepad.com).It was to use orange, blue, and white.It certianly packs a lot of punch!
I can honestly say that I have never used this color combo before- I think that I might be a tad orange-o-phobic excpet for when I am creating Halloween projects.

Be brilliant gals

here they are at Seminar-
In their life-size glory-
sooooooo insanely cute!!!
They provided lots and lots of photo ops.

So Bummed ...

that these stamps didn't make it into the new cattie.
I really love these chickie-poos.
They were all over Seminar so it really surprised me that we can't sell them to our customers... oh well maybe they will re-appear in the Fall supplement.