Much Appreciated

My neighbor dropped off a coat for my daughter Karen. My neighbor is a petite little thing - skinny, beautiful (HATE HER)...just kidding! I really love her...she has the biggest heart! I treasure our friendship!

Karen looks so sophisticated in this coat. It is a beautiful caramel italian wool....so we immediately decided to send a thank you note.

I created this (5x5) white base. I added some DCWV designer paper. It is from a pack I picked up at Joanne's a long time ago. I used a zig zag stitch around the edge. I punched the white layer with my marvy punch and the ruby layer with my nestability oval. The ribbons were scraps from my desk. I stamped on the brocade wide grossgrain ribbon with the dark chocolate papertrey ink. I sewed both scraps of ribbon directly on the card. The main image and sentiment are from Garden Of Life. Alli has a knack for making some SUPER flowers! Main image mounted on dimensionals. I have a small green rhinestone in the center of the flower. Fun! What do you think?

stamps: Garden of life (papertrey ink)
paper: white, ruby red, dcwv paper pack
ink: chocolate (papertrey ink)
misc: ribbon (SU!, mayarts), dimensionals, nestabilities, punch (marvy), rhinestone, sewing

CC201: Kraft, Baja, Not Quite Navy

This is my color challenge 201 card! Don't you {heart} these colors? I made the card for my BFF Debbie and her DH Chris (Todd's BFF). It was a cold and sunny day back on January 13th, 2001. Debbie was yawning uncontrollably (it's a nervous thing)...

It was one of the most beautiful weddings and I was honored to be the NUMBER 2 lady in the service (yeah, Debbie was Number 1)....Todd was the best man, I was Matron of Honor and baby Karen was flower girl (she was only 3). Victoria was just over a year old. Good times! Good times! So Todd and I are going out to dinner with the happy couple! I thought I would make a card for the occasion!

This was a SUPER-DEE-DUPER easy card! Kraft base, punch the edges with the corner rounder. Then a strip of not quite navy. I punched it with the Martha edge punch. Then I added a strip of white cardstock. I put a mayarts ribbon (white polkadot) around the card. The main image is from Papertrey Ink (Wedding Day). I punched the scalloped circle with my nestabilities, then stamped the circle image with Baja breeze (it is Baja cardstock). I stamped the same image again on the white circle and punched it out with the nestability circle. Then I punched an even SMALLER circle, stamped the flourish from the Wedding Day set in baja. I added that final image with dimensionals to the two previous layers. I used some stickles on the flourish. The sentiment was perfect....Happily Ever After - in Not quite Navy ink. I love this font! Simple card. I love the simple clean look! What do you think?


stamps: Papertrey Ink {Wedding Day}
paper: kraft, baja breeze, whisper white, not quite navy
ink: baja breeze, not quite navy
misc: martha stewart edge punch, corner rounder (SU!), ribbon (mayarts), stickles, nestabilities, dimensionals

FS101: Jaydekay

This week's featured stamper is Judy (Jaydekay). Judy had this great card in her gallery {stamp simply coneflower}. Todd was telling me he needed a thinking of you card for a client who is going through breast cancer, so I went in and created this for his client.

From Judy's card, I changed the stamp set, the colors, added sewing, moved the location of the ribbon and added a sentiment.

I started with a white card and stamped the flower with going grey cardstock. I used black soot ink for the main image so I could immediatly color with my copics. I sewed the main image and the textured wasabi together with a zig zag stitch. The textured pomegranate paper is punched with the Martha punch. I used some crystal effects and chunky glitter in the center of the flower. I stamped the sentiment in the bottom corner and then added some ribbon.

Play along with us each week. Click on the Featured Stamper gadget on my sidebar to go right to the forum and click on FS101!

stamps: Garden Hanna, Everyday Sayings {Hanna Stamps!}
paper: white, textured wasabi, textured pomegranate
ink: going grey, black soot, copics
misc: punch MS scalloped edge, glitter, crystal effects, ribbon (Mayarts), sewing

PTA Reflections: WOW!

Our elementary school has the children (who wish to) participate in a National Reflections Program. This year's theme was WOW! My children usually participate. I let them use my camera (very carefully) to take photographs. I love to see their vision. These photos have to be UNALTERED by mom! That is very hard for me {Grin}, but as you can see - the photos that my girls entered this year were wonderful and did not need anything changes. Of course I added the border and the watermark for the blog post! The entries were unaltered!








Who lives in the Northeast {raise your hand}....okay, you can put your hands down. I am sure that it is similar to the midwest too (I know my girlfriend Ang said that they have amazing fall colors in Minnesota and Wisconsin). Isabella went into our front yard and took a photograph of the oak tree looking up. I thought this was an artsy shot! I love the colors. Bella is in first grade. She was given a certificate for her photograph entry.












Karen took off with my camera during the Adirondack Balloon Festival this past September. She captured several beautiful shots, but this was the one she chose to enter in the contest. This is her WOW! entry. She won 3rd place in the school's 3-5th grade entries. Way to go Karen! She is in 5th grade. I love the contrastof the colors and the sky! If you have never been to a hot air balloon festival - you really should find the closest one to you and go. Pack a picnic lunch and bring your camera. You will not be disappointed. It is really an amazing feast for the eyes! Out annual festival is in Glens Falls, NY (usually) the third week in September. It is close to Lake George, NY, and since it is the off season, you can stay at the lake pretty inexpensively! Fall is a beautiful time in Upstate NY!

This is Victoria's entry. She took this photograph at the balloon festival. I literally had to PRY the camera out of Karen's hand to give Victoria a turn. LOL! It's a great shot, don't you think? She won first place! WoooHooo! They sent a note home telling me that the girls were being recognized at the school assembly (which was this afternoon). I had no idea any of them won! So I was thrilled - so was Vickie when she got high fives from all the kids in her class!



Here they are with their certificates. See how they have the same shirt on - each grade wears a different shirt, so when they are in the cafeteria - it looks like a rainbow! Such a cute idea!

Happy Weekend!!!

Tutorial: How to create fun edges on sentiment labels

I am always looking for new ways to create with the tools that I have. Take sentiments for example. There are millions of ways to add sentiments to your cards. I sometimes create the perfect sentiment on my computer with the plethora of fonts I have! Take this card (You light up my life). I printed the font on the computer, then cut the strip with my paper trimmer to make sure it was even.

It was boring as a plain rectangle. I wanted to pull an Emeril!!! {BANG! } Spice it up a notch! I used my Stampin' Up! scalloped square punch and decided that I could use my existing tools (it was lying on my desk at the time) to create a new look.


First, turn your punch upside down.






Next....thread your paper through the punch as shown....make sure it is perfectly even on each side!



Press down and PUNCH!












Once you punch your first side, remove it from the punch and rethread the paper on the other end.









Punch your other side - remembering to line it up evenly~

For this card, I punched the tempting turquoise and the white separately. Adding brads or baubles to each side is a fun way to dress up these sentiment labels.





Try creating your own label by using the Stampin' Up! scalloped square punch - and post your creation here in the comment section!


Stampin' Up! ® scalloped square punch

Tutorial: How To Add A Permanent Signature in Blogger

Sometimes I create signatures for people who want to upload them to blogger themselves. If you are willing to play with your blogger dashboard - try uploading your signature permanently using the following steps:


Step one - have me create you a signature (LOL!) Just kidding - make sure it is the same background color as your blog or get one with a transparent background (ie. PNG file)

Step two - Create a post and upload your signature as a photo to a post in your COMPOSE tab

Step three - click on the EDIT HTML tab and copy the HTML code of that photo

Step four - DO NOT PUBLISH YOUR POST (you can add a title to the post ~ for example - DO NOT DELETE - BLOG SIGNATURE). Save your post, just do not publish it.

Step five - go to the SETTINGS Tab in your dashboard.

Step six - click on FORMATTING tab and scroll ALL the way to the bottom of the Formatting page. You will see a POST TEMPLATE box.

Step seven - paste your HTML code (from your signature) in the Post Template box.

Step eight - save your settings

Now each time you create a post, your signature will automatically pop up in the compose portion of your post.

Variations: Since I upload so many cards and I was tried of writing "Supplies" - I created a custom Supplies graphic which atomatically uploads each time I post - if I don't want to use the supplies graphic (ie. if I am not posting something with a supply list), I just click on the graphic and delete it!

Hope this helps!

January Sneak Peek Week: Backyard Dwellers!

I created a few fun items with this new mini set {Backyard Dwellers} for this months release.

Dragonfly Pin
The first item is a dragonfly pin. I used my copic markers and some blending solution on a mini domino. Then I stamped the dragonfly with archival black (ranger) ink. I colored the dragonfly in with the olive green copic. Add a pin to the back and you have a cute dragonfly pin.

BUZZ OFF!
The second item I created was a scrapling. I printed BUZZ OFF!! on the computer. The image (bees) were stamped on white cardstock and colored with copics. The main image was punched with a SU! curly label punch. Some fun ribbon finished the scrapling. I think this could be used as a bookmark if you added some magnets to each side!

You Bug ME!!!
This card was made with some designer paper I purchased at Target last year (out with the old!!!) and I just added some ribbon (Mayarts) and printed the sentiment on the computer (punched with the SU! word window punch). The main image is on black cardstock with white craft ink. While it was wet, I added glitter. Then I punched it with the curly label punch. Main image raised on dimensionals.


Dragonfly Pin
stamps: Hanna {Backyard Dwellers}
ink: copics, archival black
misc: mini domino, pin

Buzz Off!
stamps: Hanna {Backyard Dwellers}
paper: white, dcwv dp
ink: copics, archival black
misc: word window and curly label punch, ribbon

You Bug Me!
stamps: Hanna {Backyard Dwellers}
paper: white, black, target, dp
ink: white craft
misc: word window and curly label punch, ribbon, glitter, dimensionals