Cards - Jan 2010

Just wanted to share a card that was published in the January 2010 issue of CARDS. :) Lots of great inspiration as usual!

Relax

Ok, the other thing I can't stop doing with Furnishing Fun set from Schlosser Designs is using a comb to create a wooden look. Just can't help it! Maybe I need to stamp a non-wood color chair and that'll break the habit! :)
Hope everyone's haveing a good week so far! And hope that snow finally clears out! Man, I feel like we've had snow every day this year! I love snow but I've had enough already to last me a lifetime!

Ok, onto cards! For this one, I cut out a little pear and put it on the chair. Just a perfect resting spot. :) I don't put my pears on chairs but in this house, it'd get sat on.

I scored three lines underneath the sentiment to help ground it a little. And I took a little scrap piece to punch a border on the bottom. :) Simple and fun!

St. Patrick's Day

Now that lovey dovey day and fatty tuesday is over, we can celebrate the Irish! :) It's almost March so I think I can start posting lovely green cards now! Not to mention, I'm sick of seeing white white white white white everywhere I look. BRING on the green!

This is a card using Celtic Heritage from Waltzingmouse Stamps. I really liked how this turn out... nice and simple. Haha. I'm such a simple girl at heart.

I think you'll start to see in some of my cards that I've really enjoyed popping out the base of the card and having my image sort inside (rather than cutting a square and popping it out). Gotta give my punches some loving!

I took the clover and stamped it with versamark then with my hybrid ink. This gave me time to emboss the clover with clear embossing powder. Although its not easy to tell in person or in the photo, I like my heat gun.

Not sure what else there is to say... I think it's pretty self explanatory. The card is mainly scraps. I don't think I really cut anything -- except to punch my square. The nice little thin strip above my ribbon is a piece leftover after punching a border. I like saving them for occasions like this. *Smile*

Hope everyone's having a good week. And may the snow end soon!

Last Sketch and Blog CANDY!

Ahhhck! I'm sitting here in my hotel room in the morning rushing this post because silly me totally forgot to write it last night! Anyways, this might be relatively short because I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

So this is for my last sketch this month with Skipping Stones Designs. Thanks Heather for the opportunity! To celebrate my month, I have some blog candy to give away so do stick with me until the end to find out how to enter!

I used Healing Wings and created a fun little gradiant color from darker to light. I stamped the sentiment on white and then used some decorative edge scissors to trim the edge.

I also added a scalloped border and you'll see in my closeup that the back pink border actually is the full size of the card. Sorry, I can't think of a better way to describe that right now.

Like I mentioned, I have some blog candy to give away. Leave me some love and you'll be entered to win Garden Stamp Kiss set. It looks like a such a fun set with a lot of versatility!

Since I'm out of town, I'll give you guys until Sunday, 2/28 at noon EST.

And the winner is:

Sillyfilly said...

Ooooh I love candy! Your cards are beautiful. I liked the gradient idea. I think I will case that idea from you. TFS and the opportunity to win candy.

Email me your contact info and I'll get it into the mail ASAP!

Hope everyone has a good week and I need to leave the hotel room before I don't get maid service! She's knocked on my door twice already and it's only 8:30am!

WMS Blog Hop

Welcome to the first WMS customer blog hop! :) If you happened upon my blog, be sure to check out everyone else's LOVELY creations!

See Claire's blog for the full list.

I decided that I hadn't used my FAVORITE swirl in ages so it was time to pull it out again. Haha!

Since we were going with a spring theme, I pulled out Earth Angel. I love the girl from that set and so I inked her up again and paper pieced her press. A simple mask on her dress meant that her dress could have a swirl as well. :)

And if you've paid attention to my latest creations, you'll note that I really love insetting my images these days. So I did it again, this time with a partial circle cut from my nesties.

Next up is Kelly Schirmer, go check out the great creation she made!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Oh happy day! It's Friday! :) I sat down earlier and just wanted to play a little with Celtic Heritage from Waltzingmouse Stamps.

I've been seeing lots of fun emboss resist cards out there so I figured I'd try my hand at it. I've never done it before because I'm a "neat" stamper. I don't like unfinished edges. Even distressing stresses me out a little. Haha. But everyone's gotta live a little, right?

The clover is embossed in white and then sponged over with some spring moss pigment ink. I've learned a few things though through my trials... (1) A paper towel works so much better than expensive sponges and (2) Definitely ink off first to avoid ugly splotches of ink and harsh lines.

Other tip, don't try paper piercing once the darn sentiment piece is already adhered with dimensional adhesive... I had a scrap piece of paper that I used to cover my oopsies. Thankfully it works ok, I think... ;-)

enjoy relax live

This little card went to CHA. I'm sure it'll have lots of stories to tell. :) I'm hoping to be able to go to CHA Chicago -- anyone want to get me a ticket into the tradeshow? I'll love you forever! *Smile* I'll even provide housing (as long as you don't mind meeting my mom). Haha!

Again, this is a fun card using Furnishing Fun set from Schlosser Designs.Have I mentioned that I like stamping my own backgrounds? :) This is using the flower stamp for a fun bg. I love love love that image.

Did you notice the base? That's using the shelf from Furnishing Fun. Haha, I think that poor shelf is sick of just being a background set!

What's your favorite stamp to use for something it wasn't designed for?

Hop(e) for Haiti

Welcome to Skipping Stones Design’s Blog Hop(e) for Haiti. If you just happened upon my blog today, you’ll want to go back to the beginning at Skipping Stones Design. You should have come from Courtenay’s blog.

Skipping Stones Designs wanted to do something to give back to the people who have been so devastated by the Haitian Earthquake. Each card you see on the blog hop today will be auctioned on E-bay with all proceeds going to the Red Cross in support of the Haitian Relief Effort (please check the Skipping Stones Design Website for the link to the auction). 100% of the proceeds of the Ebay auction and $2.00 from every stamp set purchased from February 16 - 22 will be donated to the Red Cross. We know that we can make a difference.

For my card, I still had a lot of light blue and pink cardstock on my desk so that's what started my card. The layout is SSD12 (of course modified ever so slightly per my typical lack of ability to follow a sketch). I used Healing Wings. It's such a fun set and I love the fun butterflies in the set. They're pretty easy to cut out and look at how lovely they are embossed? I adhered only the base of the butterfly so I could roll the wings a little for a more 3-D effect.

I added some gems -- I cut the gems so that they'd frame my sentiment just perfectly. By cutting the gems, it adds versatility to the gems. :) The sentiment comes from Cupcake Cutie, another fun fun set!

How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, we have decided to hide a prize somewhere along the hop! There will be a few pre-release sets up for grabs hidden along the blog hop. The fun part is...we're not telling you who it is! So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!!

Thanks for stopping by! I'm the last stop but be sure to check everyone else out if you haven't!

If there is a break somewhere along the way, there will be a master list at: Skipping Stones Design or at Sparkle and Bling. Happy Hopping!

Compose a Card 3 with Becky

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend! Yesterday was Chinese New Year, and being the horrible Asian that I am, I forgot it until reminded by a phone call from home. So no fish or dumplings in this household. :-P In any case, nian nian yo yu to all (basically "may you have plenty every year" or yu is a synonym for fish so "may you have fish every year").

Ok, the colors of Becky's Compose a Card 3 scared me to pieces. I like terracotta with spring rain and I like raspberry fizz. But now you want me to put them TOGETHER? Well, I figure I don't get many chances to make cards, so I might as well take the crazy challenges. Hah.

I love my flower stamps but I also like making my own flowers. So I figured for this challenge, that's what I'd do. I punched some 3 inch circles (give or take) and embossed some polka dots. The great thing is that since I was going to cut it up a little, the embossing didn't have to be perfect. :)

I took the circles and cut spirals and rolled them tightly. Once I finished rolling them, I let go and since I had rolled so tightly, they didn't give too much. I applied some glue to the base and now I had these cute little paper roses.

The frame is stamped with Very Vintage Labels No 4 from WMS. I adore that set. Can't put it down. I opted to cut a frame this time to give it a fun look as well. A few pink gems, swirly gems and a sentiment later, I called it a day. :)

celebrate

Happy St. Valentine's Day! :) Sorry I've been so bad about blogging. The business trips have been tiring me out -- just ask the hubs. He doesn't seem to understand why I take a nap at 6pm - 8pm and still go to bed at like 11pm. Yeah, traveling is not all its cut out to be. ;-)

I just wanted to share a quicky with you. I actually had all these posts in draft mode but I never got around to typing the rest of the post so I never posted them. Le sigh.

Anyhoo, this is a fun card with Furnishing Fun set from Schlosser Designs. I used the shelf stamp for a shelf! Shocker of shockers! ;-) It was a fun and simple card to put together (all I have time for these days). Let me know if you have any questions!

Anyone have any fun plans for today? I plan on napping today. Hah.

Skipping Stones Sketch 2

So I'm back on the road again so I did these over the weekend. I'm sitting here in my hotel room finishing up touches to my post and I can't figure out how to adjust the heat in my hotel room properly. BUT on the other hand, at least its warmer in this part of the country (and I don't have to tread through 2 feet of snow! Although driving to the airport today was a little scary and I wasn't even the one driving!)

The sketch I have this week is very simple but simple means you can take it and run in so many different directions! Actually I was thinking the sketch looks like one of those audio tapes from when I was a kid but that's a different story. Without any further adieu, I have two cards for you today with two very different styles.

For my first card, I loved the look of Rustic Tiles from Skipping Stones and I wanted that to be the focus of my card. I stamped the tiles in cream onto the kraft paper.

I love the versatility of the tiles -- makes for some great background paper! I used the sentiment from Cupcake Cutie and tied a fun little ribbon. Added some buttons, and you have a quick card!

As a side note, I love giving all my buttons different threading treatment. Adds a little fun twist to your cards with multiple buttons!

The next card is a funny birthday card. I flipped the sketch in case you're wondering... Haha, I tend to never really follow any sketch to the T. :)

I thought this girl image from the Funny Coffee set was too cute to not ink up. So I paper pieced her robe and colored the rest of her in.

I hope you get a chance to play along! I'd love to see your unique twist on this week's sketch!

Also, the winner from last week's blog candy is lucky number 7! That's 1LuvnMama!

1LuvnMama said...

Oh my goodness! A little sweet friend sent me your way . . . . I'm all the way from Hawaii so this stamp set is perfect for those special moment cards! I just might play along in the sketch! Btw, great card!

Congrats! Email me (contact on the left) with your address and I'll get that set out to you!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

Compse a Card with Becky

Ok, post 2 today because I really don't feel like watching the Super Bowl... make sure to scroll down for my other post!

Haha, I think I had a rough time with Compose a Card with Becky. Becky, you place a lot of restrictions on a girl! First off, we had colors to go with, secondly we had to follow a cutting list. If this isn't all enough there's scoring and flowers involved! Talk about challenges!

And depending on how you squint, this is the same layout as this week's CPS sketch as well. :)

So I figured I'd try out Becky's challenge once and see what I felt (after all, she did sing to me so I feel like I owe it to her to try!). Let me tell ya, this card took me FOREVER to make. I don't know what it was... I like flowers, I like scoring, I like twine, I even like the colors... Maybe its just because it's Becky's challenge. ;-)

Ok, so onwards... I stamped the flowers from Friends til the End in Hibiscus. I own no flower punches -- that needs to be remedied but I tend to prioritize stamps over punches... I decided that I didn't want to score the 5 lines only 1/4 inch away from each other (gasp.... it's not in my nature to follow any challenge to the T - what fun is that?) so I scored them on a diagonal and 1 inch apart. I didn't go all the way... I drew a light line in pencil on the back so I'd stop about 1/3 of the way down.

I found a scrap piece of thin paper that was just barely wider than the ribbon and I felt like that helped to offset the scoring more than just the ribbon. Glued my scrap paper down and spent a little time fiddling with my ribbon.

I stamped just "Friend" originally but then after playing some more decided that I needed just a little more so I very carefully stamped the bottom. I know it doesn't photo well since my light source is coming from the top...

Ok, Becky, bring on the next one! This was fun - I'll have to play again! And knowing me, I won't do such a good job following instructions next time... it's rough following instructions!

WMS Blog Hop!

It's blog hop time! If you didn't come here from Bonnie's blog, then head over to Lynn's blog to join in on the fun!

Two of the new release stamp sets are up for grabs as prizes... one will be drawn from the comments left on one of the DT's blogs (and we're not telling you who's so be sure to leave a comment on all the blogs on the hop). The other will be drawn from all the comments left on the Claire's blog. The deadline for commenting and entering for the prizes will be 11:59 pm on Sunday, February 7th, and the winners will be announced on Monday!

I'm showcasing Spring Baskets again. Today I wanted to show you that you could use the other aspects (not just the baskets) to add more versatility to the set! I love using the side pieces of the sets to create patterns.

The first card I used a fun flower image (probably my favorite from the set) and colored it with my copics. A simple sentiment and some simple patterened paper, and a card is born!

This flower would make a lovely bg as well! I'm sure you'll be seeing it used like that in the future!

The second card I wanted to use the fun sentiments in the set. I paper pieced some eggs and adhered them to some paper. I then stamped the sentiment and attached it to the card with a button and some twine. So fun!

Isn't it a fun card to just give someone to show that you care?

Ok, I think I've hogged enough of your time and you're eager to see more inspiration!

Head over to Anya's blog -- she's got something "eggs"-ellent up her sleeve!