Last Day

Today's my last day working at Michael's.
I have a Cricut class at 6 and then I am done.
I put together this page this AM to mark my time there.
I used one of the page maps from Becky Fleck's book.
The patterned papers all are from a K and Company pad (I love those! Purchased at Mike's ... natch!))I used my Cricut Expression to cut the scalloped edge paper and the heart and letters. The flower border is from Doodle bug with some Making Memories and ProvoCraft brads. (I used my ClickIt for the first time today to punch all those holes and it was perfect for this task)
(And yes-I really am that red- unfortunately, I have rosacea and always look like a sun burned raccoon.)

Home Again

It feels great to be home again after our week long college tours jaunt. It was a great trip and we saw so much but I am totally exhausted!This is a pic that I took along Highway One -somewhere between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.

I haven't picked up a stamp all week (but on the bright side neither have bought anything!)

I did receive 3 envies full of stamped images from Wish RAK while I was gone so I have a lot to play with ... but not today. I know from experience that when I am tired my creativity does NOT flow!
I got my copy of Becky Fleck's Page Maps book hot off the press from Amazon and it looks FABULOUS- it will be able to help me scrap the 150 pictures that I took on the trip!

Hopefully-I'll have something new to post soon.

The Easter Labbie

Wonderful Easter greetings to you all and enjoy a most blessed holiday from me and my lil helper Frodo.

(Digital paper and word art by Dana Zarling, ribbon by SugarPlum Paperie.PSE5)

Aloha

Here are some cards that I made for my mother-in-law who lives in Hawaii.
The foreground patterned paper bits are from Flair and the background papers are green-Rusty Pickle, multicolor stripes- NRN.
I used my SU! flower punch to do the layered flowers (boy-I like that punch!)

NEXT!!

Okay- all done with St Pat's day now to move on to our next holiday- poor Easter really seems to be getting short shrift this year by coming so early.
Here are some ATCs that I made for the monthly ATC swap at Stamp Your Heart out.
The bunny stamp is from Inkadinkadoo-colored in w/ the magic pencil technique.
The background floral stamp is an oldie from CTMH.

Faith and Begorrah!

Happy St. Pats day to you all.

I am sitting here contemplating inflicting a green dinner on my son tonight (pesto pasta with a green salad) I think that he might really squawk if I put green food coloring in his milk though- but think of the great photo op and then I could do a St Patricks day scrapbook page!!!

I saw the Paper Dolls Cricut cartridge that I have been lusting after at a Michaels in a neighboring town yesterday... I wanted it so bad but was strong and walked away from it. I just couldn't pay $89 for it- but the very next Michaels sale on them -I will be there when they open to get it!

St Paddy's day pre-emptive strike!

Here are some cards that I made with some left-over St. Pats ATC's. The lil cat stamp is by cats pajamas and boy did I ever get my moneys worth out of it this year.
The PP is some old old Provo Craft Slab paper- I love those things- they were great!
The shamrocks were cut on the Cricut with my friend Nancy's Paper Dolls cart... someday I'll be able to get my mitts on one of my own I hope!

new stamps

Here are some cards that I have made so far with my new stamps.
The blue agapanthus one (Stampendous) is pretty much a straight lift of a sample card that they had at Stampin' Fools.The sentiment is by Paper Trey Ink.
The second card features a stamp from Inkadinkadoo- colored with Tombow markers and glittered.

THWONK!.....

...KERTHUD

That's the sound of me falling off the wagon.
I had gone a bit shop-happy in January-and early February( what between the new TAC catalogue, SU! Sale-abration, and the Riverside stamp show I was just DOOMED)
So -I put myself on the shopping wagon until May ::::sigh::::
Yesterday, I had to drive out East to get some paint and knew that there was a stamp store in that general direction that I had never been to before and took a bit of a North East detour..ended up in Upland at Stampin' Fools and this is what happened... but in my defense I got a GREAT deal on the Hero Arts collage-stlye one it was 75% off!

Spring Easter Card Contest

Check out this contest at A Shade Of Blue- they are giving away some great prizes either for entering your card in the contest or one lucky winner will be chosen at random for just leaving comments!

digi scrap chat

Digi-scrapping definitely is not easy- there is a steep learning curve! I am taking Jessica Sprague's photoshop class (at JessicaSprague.com) she offers it every few months and it is comprised of on-line instruction thru videos of her voice over screen shots.

I have not printed any of my LO"s yet but if you want to do it at home you can print at 8x8 to do one on a regular printer or I understand that Costco has the option of a 12 x 16 print that you can crop down. Digi scrapping does make it much easier to share your LO's with your family and in on-line galleries.You make a resized smaller image that is "saved for web" for sharing on-line.

When I was first learning what I did was try different on-line tutorials at various digi scrapbooking stores (just google to find some -there are a LOT!)- they want to teach you so that you will want to buy their papers and products.In Photoshop there seems to be various ways many times to get to the same destination so if you get stuck on one tutorial just go check out another to see if that makes more sense. And many times ,I will hit a road black and have to keep going back again and again until I overcome an obstacle of what it usually "user error"! And actually, the repeated tries are part of the learning process because I actually end up learning that action better by all the repeated attempts!

I was one of those paper scrappers who said that they would never did- all I can say is never say never! Digi has many very compelling attributes!

(Digi Page created with Love Actually colloborative papers and elements)

back to digi scrap

I (kinda) taught myself how to digi-scrap last December and was going strong with it for awhile and then kinda pooped out on it-I think I might have ODed on my daily freebie down-loading binges!
Now that I am taking Jessica Sprague's AWESOME PhotoShop class I am all fired up and gung ho again.

I saw last night that Shabby Princess had finally uploaded a new freebie kit (they have GREAT kits). So I spent a little time this afternoon putting this page together and I have to say that I am quite pleased with the results-it's so much easier now that I have more of a clue as to what I am doing thanks to Jessica!

I down-loaded the free 30 day trial yesterday night of the ACSee organizational software and am trying to sort all my stuff- I have accumulated soooooo much-
Wish me luck! It is really nice to view it via the ACDSee vs. having to open up every digi page kit to get to that one staple or rhinestone that I am searching for.

White on White

I saw some samples at Cricut.com of white on white cards and really liked the look for them and decided to try one out for myself.The little hedgie is from Penny Black- there is stickes on the flowers but they are so hard to photograph!
I also used my scor-pal and cuttle bug embossing folders for the card detail.

I got tagged with this lil goodie by Enfys and am passing on the love to
Stacy
Linda
Lisa
Stacy A.
Suzanne
Simmy

Gamsol Samples

Adventures in Gamsol

Here are the pictures of my first attempts at the Magic Colored Pencil technique.
I was very pleased! Suffice to say I won't go into the directions for the technique here as it has been described so well by others on the web (go to Susie B.s, Whipper Snapper, SplitCoast Stampers to name just a few).

I also took a pic of all the supplies that you need for it. I have to confess to being very nervous of the odorless mineral spirits themselves(I am sure that they come with a MSDS sheet several pages long!)I made sure to empty my trash can after working so that my kitties couldn't get to those used Q-tips.

The RN in me really feels the need to caution crafters to be very respectful of your supplies- there are a lot of paper crafting supplies that you need to be very careful with- use in a well ventilated room, wash your hands well after handling... specifically... Staz-On inks (I cringe when I read how some people love the scent!),alcohol inks, Krylon metalic markers, and now very obviously the odorless mineral spirits!

As for the cards- the little turtle is a Stamps By Judith Stamp .
The bear is from CTMH- thank you to my good friend Linda in NC who sent me the paisly embossed paper... I am dying for those CB folders but will have to wait until May to get them.
I did go off the wagon a little bit to get these supplies but see them more as tools to using things that I already have and besides I only get my Mike's employee discount until April 1st!

Punch Drunk

I am so in love with this little boho flowers punch from SU!. I can't tell you how many of these little flowers I have punched and assembled- there's something very calming about making them!And a great way to use up little paper scraps.
I thought that they made a great accent on this little card I made using one of the freebie Sale-bration sets.I like it's clean crisp lines- sorta PaperTrey -looking to me.
The central scalloped oval I made with my Cricut- the oval is on the Accent Essentials cartridge.It does always cut with a hole though- so I just punched another one and added some eyelets.
I have been very busy lately enriching my creative talents. I am taking Jessica Sprague's Photo Shop Elements class-and have learned so much already in 3 days. It's shocking how "bass ackwards" I was doing things on my own!
And today ,I took the plunge and bought some GAMSOL!
I am pickled tink with my results with it- thank you Susie B. for finally pushing me over the edge to this technique(I have known about it for years but always resisted... 2 nights ago I had a dream about it. I can't resist that strong a nudge from my subconscious!)

puppy love

I saw this stamp in the latest SU! mini catalog and had to go request one on SCS Wish RAK and had it like 4 days later-how awesome are those Wish RAK gals?!!!
I colored the image in w/ water color pencils and tombow blender. The one thing that flummoxes me is the object on the far left-I had thought that it was the sole of the other boot but have noticed that other people have been coloring it in to match the dog... is it some sort of hunting item like a decoy?

I finally figured out how to use the Nestablities scallopped rectangle set that I got last January at ther Stamp Show. It took a fair abount of tinkering to figure out the shim heights to make it work with my Big Shot- but now that I have it- I LOVE how it does the cut and the embossing!

Patterned paper is K-ology from K and Co. Sticker is from Lil Davis.

Ah Ha! Cuteness Alert!

With further digging this AM, I discovered that Gruffles are actually Gruffies!
They are a line of stamps by House Mouse- with cute bears instead of the cute mice.
I haven't seen any of them in stores yet... but they sure look cute.
Here's the link to the house mouse web site to see them.
The option to purchase all of them for just $270 cracked me up- even I am not that bad!!!

Fluffle time

I haven't posted a fluffle in awhile... I think that we were overdue for one.
Here is an image that I got in a Fluffles image swap.
Colored in w/ Tombows and a little watercolor crayon on the daisy petal.
There is crystal lacquer on the bugs but it didn't photograph too well.
(Has anyone heard of Gruffles? I saw a post about them over on SCS and tried googling them but am coming up blank... I am hoping that they are fuzzy dog fluffle -like critter stamps!)

Split Embossing Technique

So many of you have been asking ,I figured that I should post the directions again. They are from the fabulously talented Susie B. and here is a link to her tutorial on her blog.
I adore her work! Go look ,enjoy, and give it a try.