Fantastic Birthday

Happy Monday! This is a really quick card I made for my uncle's 91st birthday. I used Mercy's MTSC49 sketch, turned on its side, as my starting point.

The patterned papers are from BasicGrey's Boxer collection and the ledger paper is Creative Imaginations Narratives that I punched with an EK Success Binding Edge border punch. The stamps are from Gina K. Designs' Many Happy Returns set.

This is the closest I get to the mythical ten minute card... ;-) Thanks for looking!

Life's Uncertain!

Fluffles looks about how I felt after a yummy Thanksgiving dinner yesterday! Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving, too!

This is a birthday card I made for a friend who lives by this sentiment! She has ordered dessert first when eating out to be sure she doesn't miss it! The image was colored with Copic markers and I used some Spica pens to add a little sparkle to the frosting, the candle flames and for the doodles around the edge of my image panel. The balloon has Glossy Accents on it.

The patterned paper is from BasicGrey and the ribbons are from Cosmo Cricket Earth Love (striped) and Stampin' UP! (twill). The sketch is from the OCC's November 5th SASSC39 challenge.

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Belli Challenge #79 - Chipboard

It's time for another Belli Challenge! This week's challenge is to use chipboard on your project. We also have a new sponsor this week - Stretch 'N Bubbles, who is offering this week's winner a choice of FOUR digital stamps! Alison, the owner, provided the Belli girls with some digital images for us to use for this week's samples.

I chose Earl the Penguin, printed him using my laser printer and colored him using Copic and Spica markers. The patterned papers are from Making Memories Fa La La collection and my mat layers are Stardream Stationery from Marco's Paper. For my chipboard element, I used a Grungeboard snowflake that I covered with Vintage Cream ink and Stampendous Blue Violet Ultra Fine glitter.

This close up shows the glitter on the snowflake and the glitter from the Spica markers on the penguin. I added a few green rhinestones from Memory Box and gold pearls from Michaels. The sentiment was stamped directly on the patterned paper using Papertrey Ink Scarlet Jewel ink.

This last shot is of the inside, which mimics the layout from the front. I stamped the swirl and ornament from PTI's Christmas Friends set using Versamagic Wheat.

If you would like to play along with us, just add a link to your chipboard project using Mr. Linky on today's Belli Challenge post. If you upload your photo to Splitcoast Stampers, Papercraft Planet or another forum, be sure to use the keyword CBC79.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Bird-day!

Happy Monday! Here's a quick birthday card I made recently using a couple of Memory Box stamps. The image was colored using Koh-I-Noor colored pencils and then blended with Gamsol. The patterned paper is Bo Bunny Harvest Table. The card stock and ribbon are from Stampin' UP! The tag for the sentiment was made using a Fancy Tags die from Spellbinders.

That's about it! Hope you had a nice weekend. Enjoy this short week and please stop back by on Wednesday for another Belli Challenge!

You're so very Tweet!

Happy Friday! It's been a long, busy week for me, which explains my silence here in blogland!

I made this card using the OCC's sketch challenge from last week. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love collection. The bird houses and the sentiment are from Papertrey Ink's Bird Watching set. They were stamped and colored four times using Copic markers, then three were cut out and placed on the cloud patterned paper, and the fourth set was popped up on top of the middle set with foam tape.

The owl was also colored with Copics, cut out and adhered on top of the ribbon. That's about it. Thanks for looking!

Have a great weekend!

A Fun Excursion!

I don't have a card to post today, but wanted to share a few photos from my get together on Wednesday ! I met up with a few stamping friends for lunch and an afternoon of shopping at Archiver's. Our group included, from left to right, Julie Warner, Penny Allen, Silke Ledlow, Jenny Gropp and yours truly. The photo was taken by Sue Prather (who doesn't yet have a blog or SCS gallery for me to link you to, but who is a wonderful card maker and artist). Oh, did we have fun - lots of laughs! My voice is still a bit hoarse!




We met for lunch at Olive Garden and everyone hit it off instantly! Here is Sue with Silke.

It was great to meet Silke in person. I've followed her blog for as long as I've been into card making and love her style. And she is such a sweet and funny gal!










Here is super shopper, Julie - look at the products just flying off the shelves into her basket!

I'm not sure what Penny, Silke and Jenny were looking at, but the expressions on their faces were priceless to me.

Thank you, ladies, it was a great day and I will be looking forward to our next get together!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Happy Birthday to my fellow Krafty Kat, Miriam. Hope you have a great day!

Belli Challenge #78 - Christmas with Creative Cuts & More

Welcome to another Creative Belli Challenge! We are once again being sponsored by Creative Cuts & More this week. CC&M just released two new kits - the Treasured Family Recipes 8"x8" Mini Album Kit and the Holiday Treats Apron Recipe Album Kit. As part of the celebration CC&M will be having a great sale. For the next three days, CC&M will offer 20% off the entire store. But act quickly, this sale will end on November 14th. Be sure you enter this code - recipebloghop2009 - during checkout.

The challenge this week is to use Christmas themed embellishments (buttons, ribbon, stickers, whatever). For my project, I started with the Card Portfolio in Emerald Stardream Shimmer. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I have done several card folders before and I have to say that using this card portfolio die cut was a whole lot simpler! I highly recommend it - it comes pre-cut, pre-scored and it even has slits for the ribbon tie cut for you. All you have to do is fold it up, tape the inside pockets and decorate the front!

I covered the front with three strips of Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly paper, and then I added Snowflake #04 Small, cut from Tacky Tape. I stamped my snowman from Papertrey Ink's 2009 Holiday Tag Collection and cut it out using a circle die, then matted it on a scalloped circle cut from Stardreams Stationery, which perfectly matched my card folder. The matted snowman was placed on the snowflake die cut, leaving some of the Tacky Tape exposed so I could dump some Polar White Flower Soft on top (click on the photo to see it larger). The tape is really tacky, just like the name implies, so the Flower Soft sticks to it really well. You could also use glitter or flocking.

The red label is also from Creative Cuts & More and is the Antique label in Mars Stardream Shimmer paper. My sentiment was cut out using a Labels Six Nestabilities die, which fit nicely on top of the Antique label. I added a few rhinestone snowflakes from Memory Box to continue my snowflake theme.

For the inside of the card portfolio. I decorated the pockets with the same papers I used on the front, plus a couple of Stampin' UP felt snowflakes, topped with some more of the rhinestone snowflakes. I've finished two cards to go in it so far, and am planning on making a couple more so I can give it as a Christmas gift.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Creative Belli Design Team members' blogs (links are on the left sidebar) to see which Creative Cuts & More products they used. Play along with us by making a card using a Christmas themed embellishment! Link your project using Mr. Linky on today's Creative Belli Challenge Blog post. If you upload a card to Splitcoast Stampers or Paper Craft Planet, be sure to use CBC78 in the keywords section. The winner of this week's challenge will receive a TREASURED FAMILY RECIPES 8" X 8" MINI ALBUM KIT from Creative Cuts and More!

Thanks for looking! Sorry for the novel!

Today I'm going to have lunch with some very special stamping friends and then we're all going on a shopping spree to Archiver's! Come back later in the week and hopefully I'll have a photo or two to share!!

My Favorite Things....

Last Friday, when I saw the Flourishes 'My Favorite Things' challenge and Sharon's No Time To Stamp challenge, I immediately thought of these two stamps and had to play along.

The Flourishes challenge was to make something inspired by the lyrics to the My Favorite Things song from the Sound of Music, one of my all time favorite movies; and Sharon's challenge was to use either brown postal wrap OR the inside of a paper grocery sack in your project.

I started with a brown paper gift bag and added a couple of strips of Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly patterned paper. I stamped the Lockhart Stamp Company Itty Bitty Packages image on a brown paper bag, colored them with Koh-I-Noor colored pencils, cut them out and mounted them using foam tape on a one inch square piece of brown paper bag that I had stamped my Itty Bitty Rose Border on. I mounted that on a red Labels Nine layer and then layered that on a green layer that was cut out using a Stampin' UP! Curly Label punch. The bows were made with Martha Stewart's baking twine.

My sentiment, which is from Stamper's Anonymous and contains some of the song's lyrics, was also stamped on a brown paper bag, cut out with a long rectangle die, and then mounted on a scalloped long rectangle mat and wrapped with the baker's twine. This was a fun challenge and a very quick and easy way to dress up a plain old gift bag.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check back tomorrow for a new Belli Challenge!

Christmas Stocking

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. Work and getting ready for our friends who are coming to visit this coming weekend have gotten in the way of card making and blogging lately! But I dug around my stash and found this little Christmas card I made last month and never posted. It is a simple card that was made using Papertrey Ink's Stocking Prints set and Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly Christmas paper. No Copics on this one!

I stamped the stocking and its top band two times using PTI's Ocean Tides ink. I went over the stamped damask design with a clear Spica pen and used a red Spica pen for the stitching. You can see the fine glitter in this closeup (click on the photo to see it larger). I cut out the second stocking and band and mounted them on top of the first one with foam tape. The panel was cut out using a Labels Five Nestabilities die and the background was sponged with PTI's Vintage Touch Tea Dye duo inks.

The sentiment is from the Mega Mixed Messages set and was stamped with Scarlet Jewel ink and the ribbon and button are both Scarlet Jewel as well.

The sentiment on the inside is from the Tree Trimming Trio set and was also stamped with Ocean Tides. I added a strip of the paper I used on the front, wrapped it with some twine and added another Memory Box rhinestone snowflake.

Hope your week is going well! Thanks for stopping by!