I Luffle Fluffles!

Just playing around with these cuties yesterday.
Stamps- Fluffles-Stampendous
CuttleBug Embossing folders

Valentines Class Sneak preview

So what do you do on New Years weekend?
When you are a card maker you start working on the next up-coming holiday (and no -I don't mean Ground Hogs Day!)
I had to get my samples ready for Michaels.
Here's one of the Valentine's that we will be making this January at the Chino Michaels.
The class dates are January 7,14,20,21,and 28th.
See store for hours and to register for classes
The store number is (909)590-7971

some cards

These were a lot of fun to make.. My CreativExpress Super Santa-Jen Gallacher TOTALLY spoiled me and sent me soooo many wonderful goodies. For my Christmas gift- she sent a pack of DejaViews Sharon Anne papers with matching punch outs, embellies (brads, safety pins, and ribbons.)So these 4 x 8 cards are what I came up with. I just added some Sizzix die cut letters to finish them off.
(Sorry that the photo is a bit odd- the camera seems to have liked my sage in the background more than the cards!)

Portrait of a 16 year old

Ian actually cooperated with me on Christmas day in posing for photos- obstensibly it was so I could try out my new camera in the portrait setting. But hey -I'll take whatever I can get!

The colors were perfect with the the ones in this Misty Cato Quick Page.
I added a few embellies from SugarPlum Paperie- the photo corners, white cloth tag.
The word Art is from Taylor Made.

I was so inspired by a card that I saw this AM while "blurffing" over on Gabby's blog that I had to dash up to my stamp cave and try one myself.
I used my die cut machine to cut an oval out of a scrap of chipboard (packaging that comes inside my kitties big Fancy Feast boxes).I used this for my reverse mask- and sponged the ink color in though the oval opening. Leaving the mask in place I then stamped the flower images (Paper Trey Ink).I love the soft look of this.
I finished off the card with a CuttleBug embossing folder and a little black satin ribbon.

last one- the money shot
-the best of the best
-Larry and the labbie!

Extreme close up-
a neighbors gazania
sprouting up through their lawn.

Using the telephoto lens for this one-I captured one of our neighbors on the hillside behind our house. I like how you can even see the texture in her hide.

Whoa-look at that action shot
- my son is gonna kill me!
Ha-ha!

The classic Ali Edwards pose
- self portrait in a mirror

New Camera!

Santa brought me a lovely new camera(Nikon D40X) for Christmas-totally unexpected but a very welcome surprise indeed!Here are some of my first shots taken yesterday to break in the different functions.

Holly Jolly!

Wishing everyone a very holly jolly happy merry and blessed Christmas!

You can't take it with you...

That will be my new philosophy regarding my scrappy stuff! Out with the old to make room for the new! I have had these FABULOUS chipboard elements for over 2 years now and liked them soooo much that I didn't want to use them. I won them from CreativExpress in a contest and got 2 full kits of all the ProvoCraft Etcetera line.So yesterday I sat down to make a couple birthday cards with it all. Very fun.
(PS-I have NO IDEA why my blog title header block has mutated to such HUGE bloated proportions! Bear with me until I can get it lanced and deflated!)

Happy Mail

Thank you sooo much Lorriane for the lovely blog candy that I received from you. She sent me a gorgeous hand stamped Christmas card and a very pretty bag of Prima blossoms.(I sure wish that Prima would have a warehouse sale- they are located justabout 8 miles from me! I keep waiting and hoping.... someday!)

Very Merry Digi-Christmas

I have had the best time the past few days down-loading this wonderful free collaborative kit "whimsical Wonderland" from MGLscraps

Here is the second LO that I have made with it- we got the giant stuffed doggie at Costco for out great neice Abby -I hope that she loves him as much as we do!
papers-MGLscraps
bows-Idzibitsy
Frame and alpha-Flergs
Santa-Franziska
stitches-Elash
font-CKterzin
PSE5

More and more muppets

My Muppet scarves are quickly amassing-I now am working on #9. I just have to finish another 9 by April for the CX Savannah ,Georgia crop!I had a bag full of eyelash yarn that I had gotten at Mike's for a ridiculously cheap price and decided to knit all the gals fuzzy boas.
It's a great way to pass the time while I am waiting for my freebie digi-scrap kits to down load.(Can I just say how AWESOME the digi-scrapper gals are! I have never seen such a generous giving bunch of indivuals -to put together such wonderful kits and freebies and then just GIVE them away.WOW!It's really such a great warm fuzzy to know that there are so many kind people out there around the world connected electronically through the Internet.)

Holly jolly boxes

These are some lil cuties that I knocked out yesterday to house some cookies and ornaments for our monthly bunco group. (Last night was our Christmas bunco and was sooo much fun- let's just say that there were 5 bottles of wine involved!)Sorry -the pic is not too great-I usually like to take them outside to photograph them but the weather was not cooperating.
The take-out boxes are by Westrim. I cut the snwflakes from Accent Essentials on the Cricut. The ones on the boxes are plain but the ones on the tags I ran through my Xyron and dumped glitter on. Easy peasy.

A hedgie

I thought that my blog was lacking a little something -something ... and decided that what it really needed today was a little hedge hog!

I got this cutie last Sunday-he's by Penny Black. The sentiment is from The Angel Company (Sophisticated Sentiments)I colored him in with Lyra water color crayons. I used gelly glaze pens on the flowers. The pattenred paper is Die Cuts with a view. Punches- Marvy Uchida and SU!

Holiday ATC swaps

Here are my ATC's that I made for the December swap at Stamp Your Heart Out in Claremont. It was a smaller crowd yesterday but fun none-the-less. The store owner -Joan always makes it so nice- she has cookies and sparkling cider out to refresh us after all that hard swapping!
I made these ATCs with paper scraps from Falir and the latest Rob and Bob Christmas slab by ProvoCraft. The reindeer I made with the Christmas Cheer cartridge on my Cricut.Their noses were not complete without a little dab of holiday red Stickles for the Rudolph -effect!

Frosty the Snowman

I finally got my act together enough to take a crack at making these ornaments that I had been seeing so many of over on SplitCoast
I stamped the snowman from Tis The Season in black Staz-on ink on a cricle that I Coluzzle cut out of a transparency sheet.I then colored him in with glaze gelly pens,let dry , and then colored in the back with a white poster paint Sharpie .(Much easier than the SCS instructions to emboss it.) Punched a hole in the top and laced through some DMC embroidery floss, rolled it up and poked it in the ornament and replaced the cap.
I wanted to put a little buffalo snow in the bottoms but couldn't find any at Mike's or Jo's so they'll just have to do without it!

Something fun!

I know- this is supposed to be my paper crafty site and I have been rather obsessed with all my digi stuff lately... well how about something hybrid?
Anne at ASB posted a digital diva challenge to make these gift card holders... I have like 6 gift cards that need holding so I figgered that I'd give it a try. I downloaded the template and was totally lost! Went back to ASB and watched Anne's great tutorial on using templates and was up and running. I used Linda Cumberlands "joy to the world" kit. (It was one of the Christmas around the world free down loads- FABULOUS!)
I need to head into the stamp cave this afternoon-I have ornamnents that need finishing and ATCs to make for a swap tomorrow at Stamp Your Heart Out in Claremont.

A month and a day

That's how long it's been since Mom died.
I think of her every day but I sleep through the night now.(Although I DO get up wayyyy too early). And the crying seems to have let up considerably but I do tear up at the strangest times. Go figure...
I found this photo today poking through my photo folders from Christmas last year. It was such a great day- my brother Peter from San Francisco came down to stay with us. And my brother Christian and his family were flying home from Hawaii- They had taken a red eye into LAX and then drove here to spend the day with Mom before flying the next leg of their journey back up to northern California- they all were so tired but I am so glad that they got to be here for her last Christmas.I remember her sitting at the kitchen table just smiling quietly happy to hear the sounds of her family surrounding her.Aw crud- here goes the tears again-but it's all good memories.

I CASEd this card from blogging sister Gina P.
She had done hers using SU! stamps- I just varied it by using some similar TAC sets-Blessed With and Curls& Swirls.
Hers is MUCH better- you can see it on her blog.
These solid square stamps always challenge me so of course this was one of the sets that I got to design with for the last TAC cattie!.
It looked better until I added the Crystal Lacquer over the open parts of the stamped images-I had some serious warping action going on!
But it was fun to make a card so different from my usual. Thanks for the inspiration, Gina!

morning grumble...

yep- that's me- dawg with a bone to chew here!

okay... I am blog cruising this AM and wonder if anyone else HATES the verification step?!!!

You know- type in the curvey letters blah blah blah...
ACK- sometimes they are so curvey even I can't figger them out.
And NO I am not a bot!

Some blogs have them -some don't. In all honesty-I usually post more comments on ones that don't have them because they bug me so much.

Other bloggers who do not have them- has your blog ever suffered for not having this safeguard?

And how come some of them have a little blue wheelchair in front of them?

More Christmas cards

It's no secret that I am absolutely nutso over making cards. Therefore, Christmas is one of my very favorite times of year. I make TONS of Christmas cards. Pretty much if I have your address, you'll be getting a card from me. I sent out my first wave on Friday but have at least 3 more waves of them to go. I ran out of cards on hand and retreated back into the stamp cave this weekend to create some more.
This card uses alocohol inks as a background(I sure wish that my backgrounds were as nice as Tim Holtz's!I tried to follow his instructions from his current tags of Christmas on his blog. This features a gold mixative and then sprinkling some of the blending solution over the paper.)
The stamp is from Hero Arts.
I really like this card for it's elegant simplicity.
The card stock is from Colorbok-I picked up a big multi-pack of it at Big Lots for only $2-great deal!

For the love of Ploppers!

LOL-I LOVE that term... PLOPPERS!
I found these templates on DSP

The "2 cute" is by Marcee Duggar and the "ticket" is by Stacy Carter.
These are insanely simple to work with... just DL them,extract the file,Open a PSE document, PLOP on your photos, then send the photo back one layer, and add some text if you like and save... eh voila!

I must admit to being a bit digi-obsessed lately but it's all good ,right?!

Happy News

Look to the left and you'll see my other happy news....
I made the Blue Prints stamping design team on A Shade Of Blue
I am very excited-it's my first design team project.I have tried out for more than a few and was always rejected so this makes me feel very warm and fuzzy. ASB is a site that I always visit on a daily basis- it's very friendly and not too huge that you don't quickly get to know the other members.There is lots of great artwork in the galleries and daily challenges... so go check it out if you never have before!

Huge Happy Squeal!!!!

OMG-I learned sooooo much today.... lookie at my first digi LO!
I found an excellent tutorial on Digitalscrapbookplace.com thanks to some navigational tips from the digi guru gals on A Shade Of Blue.

The elements are from Paper Trey Ink- for Papercrafts World card making day celebration.

I can't tell you how excited I am to have gotten a clue about layering :)

(I have some other happy happy squeally news but that will have to wait until I can post it)

big Cricut

I went to an all day crop on Sunday and got a lot of pages done- I spent some quality time with my Big Bug before I left making up page kits to complete. This one is my fave-I cut the big labbie on my Expression and think that he goes smashingly with the SEI doggie papers. The letters I cut with Plantin Schoolbook on the roly poly function- I had wanted to shadow them to make them stand out from the "bizzy bizzy" background paper but you can't do 2 "special function" cuts at once so I had to settle for just staggering them.

(PS- I experimented with a new PSE frame filter on these- dark splotches!)

Black frames

Don't mind me- I am just fiddling w/ PSE still- my bro. called me this PM and talked me thru adding frames to my photos.
So here's an attempt at a basic black frame...
The card is from last year and actually started life as an ATC and morphed into a tag and then finally a card. The Santa paper is by Design Originals, used my quickutz for the snowflake, Cricut for the letter, TAC crackle stamp and CB embossing folder on the card itself- basically what I would call and everything AND the kitchen sink sort of card!

PSE 5.0 baby step

okay- here's my first photo that I have really done anything to with Photoshop... I really like the quick fix edit option ( I think that all my photos need help!)Somehow-I managed to get the frame on there- the first couple times I tried nothing would "stick" -God only knows what I was doing wrong!I spent some time this weekend surfing about the net trying to find tutorials for using PSE but nothing I found was remedial enough for me so DH went to Borders and got me PSE 5.0 for Dummies so there is hope for me yet- ha -ha!

Oh about the card-I used stamps from Paper Trey Ink, I added crystal lacquer over the peas and had to draw smiley faces on them.The PP is a great K and Company pack that I picked up on sale at Mike's for $7.(I dunno why it was on sale-it's perfectly lovely!)

Santa's little helpers

Guess what I just found surfing about.... dogs with blogs!!!
Total trouble,aye?
Here's my 2 kids from last Christmas-mongo black labbie is Frodo and the dainty great pyrenees is Destiny.

Kitty Ornament

Another cute new stamp that I got a few weeks ago- this one is a Penny Black.
I made it into an ornament by mounting it on a circle of chip board (recycled from my cats big boxes of Fancy Feast- they have sheets of chipboard that they put in as can dividers!)
I used my big Marvy Uchida circle punch and jazzed that up with a bit of Stickles.

(I also had fun decorating my blog this AM with some holiday art work that I had stashed away in my hard drive.)