Monkeydreamz: Tales of a Paper Addict

Halloween Mini-Album DCWV Ghosts and Goblins

2011-10-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Here's the YouTube video of my Halloween Mini. Come on over and take a peek at the pockets for journaling tags and the little details that pics just can't show!

Have an awesome day!!

A New Halloween Mini and An Announcement!

2011-10-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, guys--lots of things to tell you about. First off, I finished this little Halloween Mini a few days ago and finally got a video up on YouTube. I'll post the link to the video tomorrow, but just wanted to share the still shots today. This paper was SO much fun to work with! The album is made with the DCWV Ghosts and Goblins stack and there's tons of stamping, heat embossing, embossing with folders, border punches used, etc. Lots and lots of details!

Secondly, I finally opened an Etsy shop! I'm not sure how many items I'll actually get listed in there, but it's a step in the right direction and this Halloween mini is my first listing in the shop! I've got some tweaking to do with the shop design, but I didn't want to delay any longer. I've been wanting to open one for about a year now so I'm pretty excited about it all. Hoping it will motivate me to create:) My shop is called SoMuchScrap and you can find it here. My husband named it and he thinks he's so clever. It's what he says when he stands in the doorway of my craft room looking in--only he drops the s from scrap.

And third, a little personal info that I'm SUPER proud of and just wanted to share---my son just left for Army basic training 2 weeks ago!! He's doing great and really focused and this military family is just super proud of his decision and the path he has chosen!

Hope you have a great day and get some time to create something awesome!!

Some pics of the vintage beach mini...

2011-09-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of my beach mini that I promised so long ago. I've been working on a new Halloween mini that I hope to get up on Youtube soon. I've also decided to open an Etsy shop!! I hope to have some of my completed minis for sale in the next month or so and kits to make the minis. I've seen quite a few people offer kits on Etsy and it makes TOTAL sense to me. Most of the time after I complete one of these, I'm pretty burned out on the paper but still have a lot left over that I'll probably never use. Hopefully selling the kits will help me clear out some excess stash and benefit someone who might want to re-create a mini but doesn't want to spend all the money to buy everything separately. My plan is to offer the papers and most (if not all) of the embellishments and little extras that I've used. If you're visiting my blog from Youtube, please leave me a comment and let me know if providing the interactive elements pre-made (the photo pockets made from Nesties, etc) in the kits would be a good idea.

Hope you're having a great week, thanks so much for visiting, and please check back again soon for a Halloween mini with a grown-up feel!

Vintage Beach Mini-Album

2011-07-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

I finally finished it!! This is a little beach mini I made for my sister-in-law. I'm thinking I have to make an exact replica for myself because I really don't want to part with this. Every year we have a family reunion at the beach and I'm going to surprise her this year with this mini full of pics from last year's get together. So excited to give this to her! Before anyone asks, yes, she totally appreciates the work that goes into something like this even though she doesn't paper-craft. She's probably one of my biggest fans:)

Sorry about the video quality! I'm still a newb at this youtube thing and I'm trying to figure out why my camera is out of focus/low res. Hopefully in future vids I'll get it worked out. I'll post some still shots of the album shortly, just couldn't wait to get the video on here now!

Thanks for visiting and checking out my mini!
Have a beautiful day!!

A little something for Dad...

2011-06-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

I just realized the last time I posted anything was Mother's Day and now here I am jumpin' in here again with a Father's Day card. Oops. Time is seriously getting away from me! Bad, bad blogger!

Anyways, a little about the card--

I love all things nautical. I really have no idea why, it's not like I sailed as a kid or even lived near the ocean. In fact, I was pretty landlocked growing up out in the middle of the country. That's probably the reason, huh? This is a stamp set out of the SU! summer mini called The Open Sea. I LOVE it! It pairs up really nicely with the DCWV Tradewinds stack, of which I think I bought 3 or 4 of the matstacks. But I'm not a hoarder or anything...just love me some old map papers! So that's the paper the ship is mounted on and I used a Tim Holtz mask with Vintage Photo ink on there as well. The blue and red papers are SU! Nautical Expedition from the summer mini, the border is an EK Success braid punch, the ledger is stamped on a PTI die cut, twine is PTI, chunky eyelet is WeRMemory Keepers, and the alpha is an old, old, oldie but goodie, QK Empire classic.

I lifted the idea of the ship sails from this awesome card here. I first stamped the ship in Memento London Fog on a piece of white cs and then colored in the sails a little bit with Prismacolor pencils. Then I stamped the ship in Memento Rich Cocoa on a piece of kraft, cut the sails out of the white ship and glued them on the kraft one. Simple, and I think it gives it that little extra wow factor.

Hope everyone's enjoying summer and finding time for some crafty fun!

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T10:52:00.001-07:00

Here's a little card I made for my Mom today and a gift box to match. She loves hummingbirds so when I saw the Elements of Style SU! set, I knew I had to have it. The flowers make a nice background as well so I think this set will get some good use. No big plans today except lounging and maybe squeezing in some scrappy time. Hope everyone enjoys their day!

SU! stamps
Scenic Route paper
K & Co paper
SU kraft cs
Sizzix label die
Spellbinders border & label dies
Copics
Powder Keg ep
Tim Holtz distress ink

Some love for Mom...

2011-05-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! I know it's been a long time, but I've been working away on a new mini that I am SO excited about!! A long time ago I'd beat myself up over not posting regularly to this blog. I finally decided to just get over it and get on with it. I am not a fast producer. It's the painful truth. And I'm not really one to post just for the sake of posting. This is primarily a scrappy blog and I started it (has it really been nearly 4 years ago??) as a way of trying to keep myself "accountable". Too often I let everything in my life take priority over my creative time and months would go by with nothing to show for all the toys that sat collecting dust in my craft room.

I'm happy to say that this blog has helped me with that and I now take time nearly every day to play. BUT--I don't pressure myself to finish things quickly. I'm a dreaded perfectionist and detail-oriented. It's plagued me all my life. Where am I going with this, you ask?? I share here as soon I've finished something and if there's long breaks in between...it's because I'm working on something and it's probably something big and time-intensive. I hate excuses, and this has really sounded like one, but I was more going for an explanation than an excuse.

That said, I have this vintage beach mini that's consuming all my time right now and I can't wait to share it!! I'm hoping to be finished with it in a few weeks. I'm also squeezing in a little mini I started a long time ago and now I'm desperately trying to finish it before Sunday so I can surprise my mom with it for Mother's Day AND I have this Mother's Day card to share today. I'm finally ready to part with that vintage mini from a few months ago. I'm packing it up today and sending it on it's way along with this card. (I apologize for the photo quality. Mother Nature was not cooperating today)

I used the Crate Paper Portrait collection on this one. What an awesome color combo in this paper! I've always been a big fan of teal and black, but the addition of salmon/orange in this is perfection!

Some of the details:
the black border along the bottom is a Martha Stewart punch
the yellow strip in the middle is the new Spellbinders Parisian Accents (I layered the cut-out border on top of the part left behind on the paper after die-cutting the border-if that makes sense?)
felt flowers are PTI dies and felt
the brad is Making Memories
notebook page is a PTI die
flourish stamps are Kaisercraft Up, Up and Away(LOVE this set)
"for you" is Quickutz Phoebe
"mom" is Tim Holtz Vintage Market alpha
ink is TH vintage photo distress ink

Gotta get back to work! Hope you'll check back here soon when I get this mini posted!

Hope everyone's having a great week!!

Vintage Mini-Album

2011-03-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

So here it is finally! This is my first paper bag mini-album and my first attempt at a video. If you suffered through it--thank you! It was a little shaky and the camera was jumping all over the place(that wouldn't have anything to do with the person holding it I'm sure), but a lot of fun to make! I've decided to invest in a little bloggie recorder to {hopefully} make better videos in the future. No promises though--they might still stink...

This post is a little pic heavy too. I wanted to include some still shots for those that maybe don't like sitting through videos, especially ones that bad:)

This mini was supposed to be a Mother's Day gift for my mother-in-law LAST year. Oops. Looks like it's going to make a perfect gift THIS year! I had so much fun making this! I think I've found a new love for mini-albums. I've got at least 4 or 5 planned for the near future.

I used all sorts of goodies from my stash to make this album so it would be nearly impossible for me to list everything out. One major thing I forgot to mention on the video is almost all of the paper is K & Co. There's a teeny bit of PTI paper in there as well. If there's anything you specifically want to know- manufacturer etc, just ask in the comments.

Have a great week!

Hugs to you...

2011-02-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

Ok, I admit it. There's something very familiar about this card...hmmmmmm....well, why reinvent the wheel. I really liked that heart doily and that little girl stamp {together} so I tried it again with these Pink Paislee papers. This one is my favorite. These papers make me happy. Maybe it's the unexpected color combo or the pretty flowers? I'm a sucker for pretty flowers.

I mailed this card and the little mailbox from yesterday's post to my favorite sister-in-law. She lives in the land of never-ending snow and I'm hoping these will cheer her up! I filled that mailbox full of various chocolates. You can't imagine how much that thing holds. It should hold her over for awhile. At least until Easter when I make another one of these, stuff it full of more chocolate and ship it off. What? I still have 10 of these things left to decorate. She'll get one for every holiday this year. Well, I might have to rethink that...shipping chocolate from Georgia in July is not such a great idea.

Here's a few details on the card: Pink Paislee Sweetness papers, SU Greeting Card Kids stamp, Quickutz Fiesta and Phoebe,Spellbinders labels,renaissance hearts and scalloped hearts dies, Martha Stewart paper rose, pearls and felt heart, SU cardstock.

My plan is to spend the rest of the weekend blissfully working away on my vintage mini with no interruptions. We'll see how far I get with that...

Enjoy your weekend!

A Funky Vintage Target $ mailbox

2011-02-11T08:23:00.000-08:00

I'm having too much fun with these little mailboxes! I'm pretty disappointed in my photography though. A lightbox would be a really good thing... This one is actually hot pink, not the red color in the pics. I tried natural light, Ott-lite, and every white balance setting on the camera and I just couldn't get that pink to come through. Oh well, you get the idea.

I know the vintage style is getting a bit overdone these days, but I find myself still drawn to some of it and these papers had the right mix of vintage and a funky color combo. I'm a firm believer that you can make any style of paper work with your own personal style. For me, it's all about the typography. I'm a font freak. So, while I'll never go over the top vintage, I can still make it work for me by including the things I love the most in the design process. That usually involves lots of dies, alphas, and/or border punches. These are my go-to items and things that make me excited to create. Just some random ramblings I've been thinking about lately.

The papers on this one are Pink Paislee Sweetness, alpha is Quickutz Fiesta, punches are Martha Stewart scroll heart and doily heart border, metal keyhole is Tim Holtz, pearls, paper rose,felt heart and sticker on the flag are Martha Stewart, ribbon is from the $ bin at Michaels, and that white crocheted thing that's supposed to be a rose was handmade by yours truly. I stuck it on there anyway. Thought it looked kinda cool;)

I'm saving the matching card for tomorrow's post. I create way too slow to post two in one day! Hope you'll visit again tomorrow!

Love and Hugs

2011-02-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a little matching card to the mailbox I posted last week. I love these little images in the SU Greeting Card Kids stamp set! They're fun to color and so sweet. I think she's perfect on this one! I played with some new toys to create this card. I used my new Grand Calibur with the large scalloped squares to cut the base of this card. I was going for a postage stamp look and I think it worked out pretty nicely. The papers are more of the Martha Stewart Valentines paper pad and the card base is cut from SU kraft. I used a plain white heart doily that you can pick up for a couple dollars at any craft store. I think this package had 12 of them and I bought them in every size available. They're just fun to have around when you're working on Valentine's projects or layouts. I then cut a heart using Spellbinders heart nestabilities and topped it with the pink heart embossed with an SU folder. I used a package of Martha Stewart felt hearts on the mailbox, but I didn't have any small red hearts left so I cut felt with the Spellbinders die and ran it through my sewing machine to add the white stitching. The "love & hugs" is Quickutz Blossom.

I'm working on another little mailbox that I hope to share in the next few days!

$ mailbox love...

2011-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

So, I know these cute mailboxes were the 'it' thing maybe 4 years ago?? but this is the first year I bought any of them. I don't really know whose mailbox sent me over the edge, a youtube video, somebody's post on a message board, who knows. I kinda bought 12 of them. I don't even know 12 people that I would give these to. But what does that matter, right? I'm going to send a couple to family for Valentine's Day and then I saw some really cute ones decorated for Christmas. And, of course, I'm gonna have to make one of these for myself:)

I used a lot of Martha Stewart on this one, the paper, postage stamp sticker on the flag, felt hearts, and the trefoil heart border punch. I found it easier to cover it with a few smaller pieces of paper rather than wrapping one large piece around the mailbox. I used my cropadile to punch a hole in the lid to attach a ribbon pull with a brad. Cut through that metal like butter! The large white embossed heart on the flag is a Sizzix die that Stampin Up sells and the postage on the front lid are Quickutz dies. The 'love' is Quickutz Nutmeg mounted on a Spellbinders label diecut.

Gotta make this one a short post today. I have a few more of these to make using a few paper lines I've been dying to work with and I still need to finish up that mini-album from my last post. Hope you all are staying warm inside and using snow days to create!

Hello!?! Anyone out there???

2011-01-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

Last time I checked it was October and then BAM! ...here it is halfway through January and the past 4 months are just a total blur. I will NEVER I repeat NEVER go through building a new house EVER AGAIN. It has got to be one of the most stressful things we've ever brought upon ourselves. If there's one reason to do it, it's to get everything in the house that YOU want, not what the people before you wanted. Mission accomplished. I absolutely LOVE my new house! The only thing that hubby and I would maybe do over is adding a second 3-drawer cabinet in the kitchen, but we could always have the cabinet guys come back out and put another one in so I'm not losing sleep over it.

I finally have a dedicated scrap studio! I'm not sharing it with anyone. No guest futon, no office desk for hubby, but maybe I'll share it with my dachsie--she likes to curl up in the chair in the corner. Thought I'd share a few pics of the new casa and scrappy space. I've been working away on a little vintage paper bag mini album since the Christmas break. Almost done with it. I've got a few sneak peaks of the work in progress. I really want to do a video of it, but I can't figure out what equipment I need to make that happen and I've never uploaded to youtube before. It's something I definitely want to try this year. For now, the still frames will have to do. I was hugely inspired by Tracy over at Tracy's Treasures. She has made some gorgeous mini-albums and really nice videos showcasing them. Maybe I'll ask her how to do the videos...

Here's the outside, I have yet to take a good pic with the garage door down! It's a 5 bedroom,3and1/2 bath home. Very deceiving from the outside, but this house is pretty darn big on the inside. Probably way more house than we really needed, but I don't intend to move again so I wanted to get it right this time!

The kitchen

The master bath

My scrap studio

The way it looks right now--yikes.

Vintage mini-album teaser...

I promise my absence from blogger is over now! Check back soon for more pics on the mini and hopefully a video??

'Tis the season for gift packaging...

2010-10-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

And even though this gift is for a retirement party tonight(military retirement,people...we're not that old yet), it gave me all kinds of ideas for Christmas this year. I'm not going to lie. Stenciling this box took a little over an hour, but it was SO worth it. I couldn't find any good masculine looking gift bags that didn't have a fish and tackle on them(how cliche is that?) so I bought some plain 'ole white robe boxes on sale at Hobby Lobby and dug out this SU! stencil I bought a few months ago. I have a total fascination with anything even resembing a medallion. When I bought this, I envisioned using it on a cover for a mini-album(still haven't got around to working on that yet), so I knew it would look awesome all over a gift box.

I used Spiced Marmalade, Vintage Photo, and Tea Dye Tim Holtz distress inks and the applicator and used some stencil tape that wouldn't tear the box as I positioned these. Originally I was just going to do the top of the box, but then I thought it would look really cool if I turned it on end and continued the stencil along all the sides. I started by dabbing the Tea Dye with the applicator all over the stencil, then used Vintage Photo from the center out(but not all the way to the edges) and finished with a little Spiced Marmalade in the very center. I love these autumn colors!

I made the tag using a Cuttlebug cut/emboss/stencil folder I found at Hobby Lobby as well. I had never seen these before and I'm really glad I picked this up. It was super easy to make a really nice detailed tag. There's 5 different tags on it too. It cuts and embosses with one pass and then there's a flap on the back that you lift up, place your tag back in it's place and stencil over the embossed areas if you choose. I used Vintage Photo on the tag and a PTI sentiment stamp with white embossing powder to finish it.

A thick ribbon tied in a knot with a bit of jute cording to attach the tag completes the packaging. If you were using a smaller stencil on a smaller box, it would be a very fast way of making your own unique gift box. I have a small Heidi Swapp damask stencil I can't wait to use now!

You know what this means, right? I'll be scouring the stores looking for cool stencils...

Hope you enjoy the Halloween weekend and save some of that candy for yourself!

Babies Babies Everywhere!

2010-10-19T04:25:00.000-07:00

Supplies used:October Afternoon papers,PTI felt,Sandylion,Lawn Fawn stamps,PTI,Spellbinders dies,DMC floss,Martha Stewart border punch

It seems like everyone we know is celebrating new arrivals! Here's a little card I made for some good friends of ours that hubby served with in Korea. When I went over to Seoul to visit in September of '06, this couple had just become 'a couple' so it's especially exciting to see how their relationship has grown, attending their wedding 2 years ago and now the birth of their first child. So happy for them!

As you can see, I guess I wanted to play with felt. I think it added a little softness and made me think of swaddling little babies in those receiving blankets. I used a mishmash of stuff on this one, shopping from my stash. I've been reluctantly absent from the papercrafting world for months now while hubby and I are going through the {sometimes horrible} process of having a new house built. Unfortunately for the next 6 weeks or so, it will most likely consume my time and it's definitely consuming the finances, so FINALLY I might actually be forced to use what I've already bought!

I think some craft therapy for stress reduction is in my near future so check back soon...

A little more Lawn Fawn...

2010-08-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Supplies used: Cosmo Cricket paper,Bazzill,Martha Stewart punches,Spellbinders, Copics,PTI die,Lawn Fawn stamps.

OMG. Did you see the new Lawn Fawn stamps that were released last night?? I am LOVING every single thing they've done so far!!! Good for them--but bad for my pocketbook! I couldn't stop myself. I ordered all three new sets!! And then....I was SO close to the free shipping mark I decided to buy Harold's abcs too! I've been meaning to buy that set so it all worked out.

And the best part about my recent love affair with Lawn Fawn?? I've been actually USING them. {gasp}. I've broken in every set I've purchased so far. Here's a little birthday card for my sister-in-law using Bake me a Cake. You know what I love the most about this particular set (besides the fact it is hands down the best designed boutique-y cake out there)? There's a bazillion different ways to customize your cakes or cupcakes in this one since each little piece is it's own stamp! Very cool and very fun to play with. Sorry if I'm gushing about this little company. I'm so inspired by the way they started up their business just a few months ago, offering an AWESOME product, and they appear to be selling really well!!! It's nice to see somebody realize their dreams--especially in today's economic climate. YAY for them!

Now about the card...I guess I grabbed the wrong sheet of white cardstock laying around when I went to stamp my cake. I very carefully lined up all my little stamps and created this perfect tiered masterpiece, cut it out with my PTI die and then started coloring it in with my Copics. Huh?? What's wrong with these? Why are they bleeding all over the place and making a mess? I still don't know exactly what happened here, but my Copics weren't blending well at all and I suspect I wasn't using the Neenah cardstock. Anyways, I kinda liked how it turned out! I think it almost looks like a watercolor treatment. More importantly, there was NO way I wanted to stamp it and color it all over again because sometimes I'm lazy like that. I wanted a little bit of color on the edge of the scalloped oval and I didn't want to mat it, so I used a Copic along the edge and then gently smudged the edges with the Copic blending pen to soften the look. It was fast and easy and I'm sure a little trick I'll be using a lot.

Our trip to the Smoky Mountains was FAB! Absolutely the best family vacation I think we've ever had. I'll share a few pics from our adventure soon. I've finally started the beach vacation mini-albums and I can't wait to share those on here!

Our summer vacation is over here in Georgia, the kid started his senior year this week, and I'm enjoying all the extra time I'm getting in my scrappy room now that all the excitement is winding down and our normal weekday routine has returned. Hope you're finding time to do the things you love too!!

G45 and Lawn Fawn-the perfect pair!

2010-07-27T05:21:00.000-07:00

Supplies used:G45 papers,Lawn Fawn stamps,Unity stamp(postcard),PTI label die,MS border punch and border sticker,SU! kraft cs,Primas,Tim Holtz distress ink and ep,Copics,Quickutz Eliza,Bazzill cs,doily and ribbon Hobby Lobby.

So here it is 3 weeks after our beach vacation at the in-laws and I'm just now sending off a little thank you card...better late than never, right?

I had a lot of fun with this! I bought a couple Graphic45 On the Boardwalk 8x8 pads to make mini-albums of our reunion for the family and thought I'd start out using it on this little card. It just so happens Lawn Fawn's new release this month (Swimsuit Season) features fun vintage swimsuits that were perfect for this! I love the style of their stamps. There's a little quirky fun vibe to them that just makes me happy!

Even with 2 of those 8x8 pads, I had to be sparing with these gorgeous papers since my mini-albums are going to use nearly every inch of them. I got a little inventive and used the back cover of one of the pads for the card front (the striped paper). Nothing's going to waste with these! Graphic45 is a new endeavor for me. I've always loved their papers and been in awe of those who know what to do with them, so I started studying the G45 gallery and their ning site. If you're a G45 lover or a lover of all things vintage, you HAVE to go check it out HERE! I'm planning on becoming a member and hopefully uploading this card soon.

I always write these ridiculously long blog posts so I'm sure I've lost most of you by now, but I wanted to share a few more details about the card. The flower is a bunch of paper Primas I've had laying around for years and I recently ran across THIS tutorial on breathing new life into them. Mine doesn't look nearly as good as hers, but it sure made those Primas look better than they did! I used Tim Holtz distress embossing powders on the postcard image. Not sure yet whether I like them or not. Let's just say they're 'different'. And--I got them really cheap on sale. Probably a good thing.

I've got a few pics from the vaca to share. I've got them all printed out now and I'm just about ready to start the minis. I'm so excited!

My in-laws beach house

The canal in their backyard

My crazy and totally fun sister-in-law Annie(Bloody Mary virgin no longer!)

My cutie-patootie kiddo

Me and my father-in-law

Bethany Beach,DE

My hottie hubby

Time to wrap this up. But first, I'll be MIA again for the next week while hubby and I take our son on a crazy thrill-seeking mini-vaca to the mountains. What else do you do with a 17 yr old kid?? I'm pretty sure that between whitewater rafting, ziplines, and bungee-jumping I'm gonna be pretty much done with thrills for awhile.

Enjoy your week!

Shopping for babies is SO fun!!

2010-07-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Supplies used:SU! brass template,stamp,BG papers,Michaels ribbon,KI Memories Sheer Delights,PTI felt,canvas,Spellbinders labels and scalloped square,Bazzill cs,DMC floss,Martha Stewart border punch,Copic marker.

Well, not fun enough that I want one or anything. My 'baby' will be a senior in high school this year and the only babies we better have in this house in the future are grandbabies! (and that better be a good long while!!) That's probably why I enjoy shopping for them so much though--I can hand over all that cuteness with no diaper changes or late-night feedings attached;)

So one of hubby's coworkers just had a little baby girl and if there's one thing I haven't had enough of in my life it's shopping for BABY GIRLS!!! Sadly, the stores had a really disgustingly sparse selection of cute baby girl clothes. Boy clothes cuteness was EVERYWHERE but I guess marketers think parents of baby girls want to dress them in drab colors like tans and army olive drab greens. I'm not kidding. This is what I saw this past weekend in 3 baby stores.Yuck. Leave it to the hubster though to score this adorable set of onesies and this little PINK sleeper on the clearance rack of all places!! Now I wasn't looking to go cheap or anything, but hey--who am I to argue with all that cuteness for under $10??

Of course, the best part about giving baby gifts is making the card and packaging! For the card I took a page straight from PTI's Nicole Heady on her post here. Just scroll down a little to find the felt ducky card. I loved the way she used felt to create comfy snuggly softness. I chose to use some canvas behind the little bear. And speaking of bears--he was created using a really old SU! brass template that I hunted and hunted for a few years back and bought from an ebay seller in Singapore. I don't normally buy from overseas sellers so that tells you how BAD I wanted that! He's been put to good use!

I traced him with a Copic E57 marker on SEI velvet paper. He's fuzzy and has that watercolored and drawn-by-a-child look about him. Do you recognize the papers? Probably not because you don't immediately think 'baby' when you think of BG's Capella line. I think they worked beautifully here and goes to show that thinking outside the box can yield great results! I finished the card off with a little $ ribbon from Michael's ( I really wish I would've picked up several spools of this since it's long gone and I LOVE it) and a scalloped edge of a KI Memories Sheer Delights sheet (another thing I really wish I would've bought more of and now it's discontinued).

I added some hand-stitching to the bag using the Tim Holtz ruler to punch the holes in an alternating pattern and some DMC floss. I wanted a thicker look to the stitching so I used a full 6 strand piece of floss and stitched for a good half-hour on this instead of whipping out the sewing machine. Crazy? Maybe. But hubby delivered the gift at the office in Baltimore today and he said the "ooohs and ahhhhs" were outta control! It's those little details, I tell you.

Hope you're finding time this week to do something crafty! I'm off to work on a beachy thank you card for my in-laws using some C.U.T.E. new Lawn Fawn stamps. Hope to share it soon!!

Using your stash feels good!

2010-06-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've used any of this BG Archaic. It's perfect for reptile pics. This little guy just appeared on our patio one morning last summer. He was SO cute! BUT--I kept my distance. Turtles can be vicious. I know this from experience. They may be slow(and actually this one moved out pretty fast) but they can bite HARD. We just left him alone(after I made sure to take his mugshot) and he hung out all day and was gone the next morning. We had one show up like this in our backyard in El Paso and we kept him for a few days as a "pet". Yeah. That didn't work out so well. Our freshly sodded yard was torn up and half eaten before we had to kick him out. We released him in the desert behind our street and do you know he showed up in my parent's backyard later on that summer? They lived 5 blocks away. How did we know it was the same one, you ask? He had a red sunburst painted on the top of his shell. Guess somebody decided they didn't want him as a pet after all. He lived in their cul-de-sac moving between the yards for a few years up until we all moved here to Georgia. Wonder if he's still there?

Just a couple things I thought I'd share about the techniques on this one: the little turtle shells lined up at the top are a Quickutz die( part of a rose, I think) that I die-cut from a piece of thick velvet cardstock. I ran them through a cuttlebug embossing folder (the mesh one) and then took a black marker and colored in around the raised spots and along the edge. The funky little extra under my title was just me messing around with a Spellbinders edge die. I die-cut the edge once on a piece of cardstock and then turned it around and ran it through again to make a shape. I had to trim some of the edges to clean it up a little, but I thought it turned out kinda cool. Reminded me of something reptilian. My brain works in weird ways.

There's no rhyme or reason to what I'm choosing to scrap these days. I had these pics laying around in the same place with those Army formal pics. I did up kits for both layouts a few years back so I just decided to finally finish them. That felt good! So did using some of my older stash. I might try making up more kits in the future when I don't have a lot of time to scrap but I want to get SOMETHING accomplished.

I have a major dilemma going on with digital photo organization and trying to figure out what to scrap next. I want to work with some of my more current pics which requires me to edit them and print them off. I'm just being lazy about it. I read a good article by Stacey Julian in the new issue of Scrapbook and Cards Today. You can check out the issue here. It's a FREE download and has some serious eye-candy in there! She has a 3 part series on tackling your digi pics and it couldn't have come at a better time for me. I'm going to take her 15 minute timer idea and get started this week.

I might try to work on a card or two this week, possibly a layout, but we're leaving in a few days for my in-laws beach house in Delaware so I'll be MIA for a week or so. It's our annual family reunion and there's 15 of us staying in their house! It's ginormous though so it's always a fun time--fireworks on the boardwalk, kayaking in the canal, and bodysurfing at the beach WOOHOO!! Hope everyone's enjoying summer and able to get out there and make some memories!

Supplies used: BasicGrey paper,PTI paper(lined notebook),Perfectly Clear stamps,Cuttlebug embossing folder,EK Success border punches, Quickutz dies,Spellbinders dies,Bazzill,Ranger distress inks.

A little more PTI love...

2010-06-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

This is a quick one I whipped up yesterday for my Dad who always seems to be traveling on Father's Day so I end up forgetting to make him a card. My folks arrived back in town and I had a gift all packaged up for him but no card. My Mom guilted me into making one at the last minute. Something along the lines of "you have all those supplies and you couldn't make one little card??" I believe was how it went down.

If it looks vaguely familiar--ok, REALLY familiar--it's because I had an extra balloon all colored in from the OWH bloghop a few weeks ago and I needed this thing FAST. I just stamped and diecut a few more balloons and clouds and sticking with the same color scheme, I used some more of that OA paper and some PTI paper. I suffer from the same aversion to masculine cards that so many others seem to have. It's not that I don't like them when they're finished--it's the getting to the finished part that I HATE. These stamps turned out to be a really good investment. He loved the card and even commented on how cool the balloons were! I guess you'd just have to know my Dad to fully appreciate the comment. He's not one to gush about a handmade card so---

this year's balloons=good
last year's horse=not so much

I've received nearly all my scrappy purchases in the mail this week. I had a real moment there last night where I felt a little sick to my stomach looking at the pile of new stuff. I admitted this to hubby and his reply was "what? hoarding getting you down??". Nice. I guess I just have to get working on some projects and work my way through the stash. I've got a good start on it this week! I'm finishing up another layout that I'll hopefully be able to post this weekend. Two in one week? Now THAT'S crazy talk.

Supplies used:PTI stamps,dies,felt,paper,SU stamp,punch,Copics,Martha Stewart punch,OA paper,Memento ink,Ranger Distress ink.

{GASP}...Could it be?!?

2010-06-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

Supplies used:
K&Co and BG papers,Cuttlebug embossing folder, SEI velvet paper,Tim Holtz distress ink and die,Prima flowers and beads, Creative Imaginations clear label, Tsukineko white gel roller,Sizzix die,Quickutz dies,DMC crochet thread,Martha Stewart punches.

A scrapbook layout?!? That's crazy talk. I can't believe how long it's been since I've actually scrapbooked. I love, love, love card-making, but I've really missed working with my photos too.

I've had this layout in the works for about 2 years now. I know how that sounds but no, it wasn't laying on my scrap table for 2 years. I chose the K&Co papers back then and had the pics printed, but never went any farther until this past weekend. I'm really really happy with this one. I tried my hand at a little distressing. I've bought nearly every color of Tim Holtz distress ink and I LOVE it! I have a few tips to share with you with regards to these distress inks, the first being the best little tool you can use with these is the Tim Holtz distress ink applicator tool with the sponge refill pads!
It's a good idea to go ahead and find it in your budget to buy enough refill pads for each ink pad you own. I only have one applicator handle as I really didn't want to spend the money on a bunch of them with the handle caddy(though it looks really cool and would be SO much easier to use than my method but I digress....) I found it's easy enough to switch out the velcro pads when working with different colors of ink. I bought these small clear baggies at Michael's a few years ago and they work perfectly to store the pads when not in use. I just slapped a label on each bag and I sit them upright in a basket that holds my inkpads.I also really recommend the Ranger craft sheet(or any comparable craft sheet) when working with these inks. It's made blending a breeze and saved the top of my craft table.

And since I'm on a Tim Holtz kick here lately, I bought the ruler with the paper piercing edge which is what I used to stitch on my layout. It's super easy to line it up and pierce along the sides and gave me the option of using a bit thicker crochet thread and a cross-stitch needle to sew. I used a backstitch(for all you cross-stitchers out there) and while it took me a bit of time to complete, I really think the end result was worth it. If you're like me, sometimes I make mistakes with my sewing machine and it's been known to jam and rip the paper. This was the only sheet of this paper I had so there was no room for mechanical error today. It'll be so easy to use that ruler to add quick stitching on a card!

I used a few new goodies on this one. The label under the title is one of the new Tim Holtz dies and the edge peeking out from the large photo is a new Sizzix frame die that I just tucked up underneath. And of course, I had to incorporate some of my Martha punches. I wasn't sure about those rain drop punches that I used for the border of the page at first, but now I'm so glad I held onto them. I think they were just the right touch for a military themed layout--not too frou-frou if you know what I mean?

I've been pretty bad the last week and ended up ordering MORE stuff online. I just got my PTI order in the mail today and a few other small packages are filtering in. It's ok though. My mojo appears to be back and I'm ready to play!
I'm off to work on a few more scrappy things. Hope your week's a great one!

Ah....Heaven....

2010-06-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Here's those obnoxious stash addition pics I promised. Now do you see what I mean about buying WAY too many of those new Tim Holtz dies?? They are HUGE.Before this shopping expedition, I only owned one of those giant Sizzix dies and it had it's own little storage place. Now? I'm in trouble here. I couldn't resist though once I saw them in person. I can't wait to use those edge dies on some cards.

I also picked up a few of his new embossing folders. I didn't like them so much when I saw them online, but again once I saw them in person I was imagining the possibilities...

I tried not to go too crazy with paper(well, single sheets of paper). Paper pads on the other hand?? I can't get enough of them! Here's a nasty little confession for you---I bought a second pad of each of those new October Afternoon papers. I'm already using them a ton and every serious papercrafter knows--once they're gone, they're gone. Gotta get 'em while you can, right?

I think I got a pretty nice assortment of goodies. They should keep me busy for awhile. My hubby had to turn around and go back up to Baltimore unexpectedly a few days after we got home and he called last night asking if I needed anything else from the stores up there! Um....yeah..... um....not really, but since you asked....I really want one more of those Tim Holtz dies...

My guy's a keeper, for sure! (and I think I'm loving all the consolation prizes I'm winning for all the unexpected business travel)

I only had time to take a few quick pics of the stash today, no scrappy play time for me, but tomorrow is wide open! Can't wait!

Just For You

2010-06-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

Supplies used:Cosmo Cricket papers,Spellbinders,Quickutz Moxie skinnimini and leaf,SU cardstock,linen thread and stamps,PTI felt,MM button, DMC crochet thread #3.

Ok, really it's just for Paula....shhhhhhhhh.......don't tell her. (hopefully she won't see this post before she gets her package this week!) On second thought, hopefully she does read this so she knows to be looking for a kraft envelope in that cardboard box. It kinda blends in with the side of the box and could easily be pitched. That would be sad. Especially since I struggled for hours on that crochet flower! (just kidding)

I had a real crisis situation in the scrappy room this morning. There were bags and bags of stuff waiting to be lovingly fondled all over my table and I had no place to work on this card. I had to rush the whole process and unpack the bags. I hate that. I didn't give each little goodie the attention it so deserves. I just had to pile everything up in a corner and make promises to get back to it later.

I'm thinking about lining everything up for a photo shoot. I HAVE to share all my scrappy finds from last week! This is the problem with having absolutely no LSS in your town. When you finally get to shop at one, you totally blow your budget and throw caution (and any extra space you may have had left in your house) to the wind. I seriously have no idea where I'm going to put this stuff.

That's it--I'll have to share a pic tomorrow and you'll see why space is an issue. I went a little overboard on a certain something(or somethings) that are just ridiculously huge. And before you go thinking I went and bought 15 Cricut E's and a couple Silhouettes....I'm exaggerating. But still, they're beastly huge for the purpose they serve. Granted, it's a divine purpose.

Hope your week's off to a great start! I plan on being very scrappy this week...

And the OWH Bloghop winner is......

2010-06-05T06:21:00.000-07:00

PAULA(May 29,9:49am)!!!

And Paula, you can thank the Boston Red Sox for your prize!

I just have to share real quick my cute(well, I think it is anyways) method of choosing a winner. Yep, sure--I could use the random number generator and I've done that in the past, nothing wrong with that, but this time I was gonna be a lot more 'hands-on' and write each name with the date and time on a little slip of paper and pull from a hat(probably an old black beret laying around here somewhere). Well, you guys really blew me away with all the awesome comments! I never thought I'd have 136 of them!! Long story short here--I just got back from my roadtrip to Baltimore and I was tired and there was no way I was gonna stick with my original plan so I asked hubby to choose a number between 1 and 136.

What do you think a total and complete Red Sox fanatic is gonna do?? Yep. You guessed it. Josh Beckett chose our winner.

So Paula, you're #19 and the lucky winner!

Take note my friends, for future bloghops.....you might want to know all the Red Sox jersey #'s and time the placement of your comments accordingly....heehee...

Thank you all again SO much for taking part in the hop and for all of your truly wonderful comments! You guys are the best!

In Remembrance...

2010-05-31T19:19:00.000-07:00

I had the rare opportunity today to visit Arlington as my hubby and I were driving up to Baltimore for a few days this week. I've always wanted to visit on Memorial Day. It was the perfect ending to this holiday weekend of remembrance and a truly wonderful time hopping in the OWH Memorial Day Bloghop.

I just want to say a big THANK YOU for everyone who visited my blog over the weekend. All of the sweet comments, the new followers, and the outpouring of support for our military all throughout the bloghop was just amazing! It was a really special weekend that I hated to see come to an end. I can't wait for next year's!

I'll be up here for a couple days dropping in at my favorite LSS and shamelessly shopping for more stash. I love tagging along on his business trips now that all of our LSS's in town have closed. I can't wait to get back though and play with some new stuff. You guys have totally motivated me to post more and start producing!

It's late here and this chickie needs to get some sleep and get ready for a big day of shopping ahead. Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable weekend!

OWH Memorial Day Bloghop!!

2010-05-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to your next stop on the OWH Memorial Day Bloghop! You should be arriving from Megan's blog, but if you've just dropped in for a visit and feel like starting from the beginning and checking out some amazing talent for a great cause, be sure to start HERE at the Operation Write Home Stars and Stamps blog for the start of the hop!

Supplies used:October Afternoon papers,SU! stamp,ink,ribbon,brad and linen thread,DMC floss, EK Success border punch and label punch,Making Memories buttons,PTI stamp.

I used this week's MOJO140 sketch for my first card in today's hop. I'm SO lovin' the new October Afternoon Thrift Shop papers and they absolutely fit perfectly with the red,white, and blue Memorial Day theme so it was a win-win! I'm still on the vintage kick right now and I ran across this post from last summer on Nichole Heady's blog with excellent instructions on how to make your own crochet flowers. It's SUPER easy to make these! Trust me, I've never crocheted a day in my life before now. If you need a few crochet basics videos to get you started,I found these to be really good.

Supplies used:PTI stamps,felt,cloud and balloon dies,Copics,Pink Paislee papers,MS border punch,Spellbinders tag and label die,jute ribbon Joann's, Stampendous ep,Making Memories buttons.

For my second card, I couldn't wait to play with some new PTI goodies I got in the mail this week just in time for this hop! How 'bout those too-cute for-words clouds?? Those are their new cloud dies cut from their Vintage Cream felt. I'm loving all the hot air balloons and clouds showing up in the papercrafting world these days. I saw this stamp set and knew I had to have it. All throughout the year we see hot air balloons flying over our house. We've even had one land in the middle of our street for emergency refueling! Of course, I was out there with my camera! I have lots of uses for these stamps and the matching dies. Keeping with the red,white,and blue theme, I found these Pink Paislee Cupid papers in my stash and they reminded me of summer, picnic tables, and fun. I hope it brightens the day of a family member of one of our bravest!

Arlington National Cemetery

And speaking of family members of our heroes, this Memorial Day and each and every day, I'm thankful for our patriots who put their lives in harms way defending freedom and this great country of ours, for their families who wait so patiently back at home holding down the fort, and for those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country so that future generations will be free to follow their dreams. God bless our military!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend, but before you leave and hopefully continue on with this awesome bloghop, I have a little BLOG CANDY to give away!! I was having a tough time deciding exactly which of these cute little elements on these cards would be the most fun to receive in the mail SO...... I'm sending them all!!

I have 1 set of red, white, and blue crocheted flowers(one each)
I have 2 sets of the PTI die-cut clouds cut from PTI Vintage Cream felt(4 total,these are die-cuts--not the dies themselves)
I also have 2 sets of the PTI die-cut/stamped balloons (6 total, these are die-cuts--not the dies themselves and they are stamped in Memento ink suitable for Copics)
and what's a Martha Stewart border punch addict to do but give away the Martha Stewart 'Quilted' border punch I used along the bottom of my second card! (the actual punch itself except you'll be getting a new unopened punch because this addict NEVER gives away her Martha punches)

All you have to do to be entered to win this blog candy is leave a comment here on my bloghop post! There's a whole bunch of blogs to get through on the hop this weekend so relax, take your time, just be sure to comment here before 5pm on Friday June 4th,2010 to be entered in this giveaway!! I'll be drawing the winning name/date/time stamp from a hat and announcing the winner Saturday morning June 5th on my blog as well as contacting the winner via email. (Please, if you're leaving a comment outside of a Google account, leave your email addy with the dot com spelled out as I've done here so I can contact you) Sorry my international friends, but I'm limiting this contest to US shipping only.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today and taking part in this hop! I hope you have a safe and FABULOUS weekend and be sure to visit the next stop on the OWH Memorial Day bloghop, a military spouse herself, Erika's blog HERE featuring her cute and fun patriotic card!

Just a quick note...

2010-05-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

I've been busy, busy, busy this week getting ready for the OWH Memorial Day bloghop this Saturday May 29th,2010!! Please come back and visit this weekend--I have a CUTE CUTE CUTE blog candy giveaway planned and you won't want to miss this AMAZING bloghop! There are over 135 talented paper-crafters participating in this hop--SO much inspiration and SO many many generous people giving their time and creative energies to such a great cause! Hope to see you back here on Saturday!!

(the hop will start HERE at the OWH Stars and Stamps blog, but you're welcome to start with mine and work your way back and forwards from here!)

Happy Mother's Day all you moms out there!

2010-05-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

I'm typing up this post as I wait for my wonderful hubby to get back from Panera with my all-time favorite muffin EVER--the orange cranberry. I really hope they have it this morning. I needed one more Mother's Day card for my mom(the other one was for my mother-in-law who enjoys all things crafty/sewing, etc.) and these PTI stamps were just the thing. I just so happened to buy her a Wallflowers starter kit and a bunch of sweet pea refills(my favorite scent) from Bath and Body Works as a little Mother's Day gift this year. She's way too cheap to indulge in what she calls 'such an expensive air freshener' so I popped in the store the other day and guess what?? They were on surprise sale for $6!! I bought her enough refills to last until they go on sale again as it will probably be me that buys her more.

Anyways, on to the card... I pretty much CASE'd the uber-talented Dawn McVey's card here. I loved the way she used the Dotti Biscotti paper, Copics, and pop-dots to enhance the blossoms but I wanted to take that idea and put my own spin on it. I found out it's MUCH harder to do that than I thought. When you have a picture of an already perfect card in your head, it's difficult to alter it in any way. I gave it my best shot and I'm super excited with how it turned out. Hope my mom likes it. She's REALLY hard to please. Probably why I grew up such a perfectionist:)

If you're celebrating Mother's Day as a mom yourself, or with your own mom, or someone you consider just like a mom, I hope you have a wonderful day and cherish the relationships in your life!

Supplies used:PTI stamps and patterned paper,Copics,SU! Kraft cs,EK Success double crochet lace border punch and bracket journaling punch,Quickutz label,Tim Holtz Vintage Market alpha.

An attempt at vintage...

2010-05-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't know if this could really be called 'vintage-style', but I had fun using all these fun new vintage-y products! Got some of that awesome new October Afternoon paper and I found this cute dressform stamp at Hobby Lobby last week. I ordered a REALLY cute stamp set from a new company called Lawn Fawn , but it hasn't arrived in my mailbox yet and I REALLY REALLY wanted to play with this new paper! (and I really really needed to get a mother's day card made and sent out in a hurry)

Never been much of a vintage kinda girl, but I'm totally and completely embracing this new trend this season! I'm working on a little mini-album of vintage goodness that I'll hopefully finish up next week and share here.

Hope everyone's enjoying gorgeous spring days and squeezing in some scrappy time too!

Supplies used:October Afternoon Thrift Shop,K&Co,SU! patterned paper,Quickutz Eliza,Tim Holtz Vintage Market,Stampabilities and Inkadinkado stamps,Spellbinders,EK Success real estate punch,Martha Stewart modern garland and eyelet lace punch,Tsukineko and SU! ink,La Mode button,Michaels ribbon,SU! kraft cs,Prima,KI sheer, Copics.

Stella ROCKS!

2010-04-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly getting requests to make funny birthday cards and I've always struggled with it--BUT NOT ANYMORE!! My search is over! I just couldn't find stamped images that were witty,age-appropriate,and relatively inexpensive.THEN....I discovered digi stamps and a whole new world opened up....One of my favorite digi stamp sites so far is Bugaboo Stamps. This character 'Stella' is just perfect! Jodie over at Bugaboo has such mad skills as a designer and there's even a FREEBIE digi stamp every Friday(this Stella one that I used was a freebie!!)

I had SO much fun coloring her in with my new Copics! One of the things I love the most about these Stella images are the little phrases that come with the stamp. Too, too funny and it totally eliminates having to come up with something witty yourself--the hard part is done for you!

I was also asked to make a matching bucket tote to go along with this card so this is what I came up with. I love making these little bags! They're so fast and easy to create and perfect to give just a little something special.

These are the Copics I used on the image. I'm self-taught so cut me a little slack.please? The nearest store offering Copic classes is an hour away and doesn't seem to teach more than one class a month so maybe someday in the future I'll get there.

I'm absolutely loving sketches right now. I think they're just a great jumping off point to get the mojo flowing and I know on this card, it really made me think outside the box. I LOVE the long skinny card! This sketch is on p.33 of the new 'Go To Sketches' PaperCrafts mag. If you don't have this one and you're into making cards, you've gotta check it out! One of the best publications I've seen in a long time.

TONS of ideas running through my head now so I'm off to the stores to pick up a few 'necessary' (not so much) crafty items. Here's hoping you have a happy productive week!

Supplies used~QK damask dies,Santa's Workshop,Lemonade,Spellbinders tags,labels,AC ribbon,Bugaboo digi stamp,K&Co paper,DCWV cs,Copics,SU tag punch,MS border punch, SU stamp,StudioG stamp.

A few projects to share...

2010-04-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

So we're back from our little mini-vacation to Charleston and I remembered I forgot to post these before I left! I put a couple little packages together for my MIL and SIL and took a crazy chance that the chocolates I stuck inside weren't gonna turn into soup during shipment. Since procrastinating has been my thing lately, I waited until a lovely 90 degree day to mail them off.These were supposed to be a Valentine's surprise in the mail for them--it turned into an Easter surprise(they made it ok amazingly).

The little notepad holders were so fun to make! I'm always thinking up new ways to use those QK Santa's Workshop mini-album dies, so if you have any cool ideas and you'd like to share them with me--please leave me a comment here:) The gift bag instructions can be found on the SCS website here

I've got some fresh new pics to hopefully inspire some layouts and a whole lotta time at the end of the week to lock myself in the scraproom. We'll see what happens...

Supplies used: Quickutz Santa's Workshop dies,SU ribbon,Quickutz Chick-a-dee alpha,Prima flowers,KI sheer daisy,Spellbinders Nesties,Quickutz love birds die,Martha Stewart punch,Michaels ribbon,SU tab punch,My Mind's Eye paper.

Sent off my first batch of OWH cards!

2010-04-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Here's just a few of them I sent off yesterday. It was a small first shipment, but I really wanted to send a few Mother's Day cards and the deadline was yesterday(nothing like waiting until the last minute,right?). I didn't make them "mother's day" specific in case they don't arrive on time.

I've been busy this week with lots of card-making and a few projects for Easter gifts that I mailed just in time(do you see a pattern here?) But--it's been a VERY productive week and I even squeezed in some scrappy shopping:)

I have a few more things to share this weekend and then it's off to Charleston for a romantic getaway next week with my hubby--and a gorgeous picture-taking opportunity that will hopefully inspire me to actually scrap a layout. You know you're a total addict when you have the punches,QK alphas, and paper picked out for a particular vacation.It's ok--you can laugh. I know most of you reading this have done it too:)

Supplies used:BG Lemonade and Kioshi, EK Success punches, SU ribbon and stamps,DCWV cs,Cornish Heritage Farms stamps,QK flourish

MOJO131-take two.

2010-03-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

I liked this week's sketch so much I used it again on this Asian inspired card. I thought the 3 panel frame was perfect for those blossoms. If you've never checked out the MojoMonday sketch blog, go give it a try! It might be just the thing to jumpstart your mojo!

I said I wouldn't do it(I know, Yvonne, you can scold me for this)but I caved late last week and bought some Copics. It was the airbrush possibilities that pushed me over the edge. I've been playing with them ever since in detailed images(since I'm still too scared to color a giant empty space) and trying to get the hang of it. Clearly, there's a learning curve but it's not as bad as some would make you think. I plan on taking an online course in a bit to build my skills.

Hope your week is going great so far! I'm buried in my scrap room this week churning out a few more Easter cards for family and Mother's day cards for OWH!

Supplies used:SU stamps and ribbon,BasicGrey pp,DCWV cs,Copics R22,R24,Spellbinders labels ten,Recollections pearls,Cuttlebug embossing folder,Neenah 80# solar white,Memento ink,MS border punch

MOJO-131 For Peeps Sake

2010-03-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

So I had a few Easter cards to make for family(sadly, I missed the OWH Easter card deadline) and this week's MOJO-131 sketch was absolutely perfect! I've been wanting to line these little guys up on a card ever since I picked up this punch:

The first thing I thought of when I saw this punch was Peeps. I just cut the little tail off and it was my own Peeps punch:) I'm on a roll with the cards now, that bloghop was just the push I needed to get moving and get those Mother's day cards done for the troops!

Supplies used:Fiskars punch,EK Success(SU)border punch,BasicGrey paper,Queen & Co pearls, SU sentiment stamp, Spellbinders labels, Sizzix(SU)embossing folder,Darice ribbon,DCWV cardstock.

We have a WINNER!!

2010-03-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

And the winner of my BLOG CANDY from the OWH Springbreak Bloghop is.........

Martha!!(Is that not funny?? Martha wins a Martha punch:))

I've left you a little note on your blog:)

Thanks so much everyone for visiting my blog over the weekend and participating in OWH's Springbreak bloghop. I hope you had a fun time looking at all the eye candy and amazing inspiration out there, I know I did! Can't wait to play in more bloghops with OWH in the future!

A Salute to OWH!

2010-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

*EDITED: With 93 stops on this fabulous hop...it's taking a LONG time to really check out all the goodness out there and give each blog the attention they all so deserve SO--I'm extending the deadline to post a comment to enter for my blog candy until 12:00noon Mon 3/22. I'll post the winner here Monday before 5:00pm and contact the winner as well*

Happy Spring everybody! What better way to kick off a new season than start a new venture, right? ...So... Welcome to my stop on the OWH Springbreak bloghop! If this is your next stop on the hop, welcome! If you have absolutely no idea what 'OWH' is, you've got to check out the start of the hop at http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org. You won't want to miss a single stop!

Here's my first card for the troops:

I used lots of fun stuff on this one. Flocking on the bunny(Doodlebug), MS border punch,QK Santa's Workshop, Nesties labels ten and thirteen, and the new SU border punch. The paper is BG Lemonade and Bo Bunny.

Here's a quick and easy tutorial on making the grass border in the nestabilities:

First, you'll need the Martha Stewart grass border punch
and your chosen paper. Punch along one edge.

Next, line up the grass border where you want it
on the nestabilities die and tape the
die cutting-edge down on the front of your paper.

Turn the die with paper attached cutting-edge up
and run it through your die-cutting machine.

Here's what your grass border looks like.

Now, cut your full nestabilities shape out with
the same die you used for the border.

To finish it up and add a little extra dimension,
I used pop-dots on the back of the grass border and bunny.

I adhered the grass a little higher to keep
the white border all around, but it would also
look great flush with the bottom edge.

Just a simple, quick technique for those who might be new to nesties or die-cutting in general.

I'm super excited to participate in the OWH cause. I was in the Army for 8 years and my husband just recently retired last fall from active-duty after 20 years of service. When we heard about what OWH does, we both thought how awesome that would've been as a soldier to not only have the means of sending cards home to family, but to receive boxes and boxes of these lovingly handmade cards from so many people showing their support.

If you're not familiar with this awesome organization and you'd like to learn more, spend a little time at their homefront blog here. I just loved the topic of their March 12th post about involving kids with sending letters to the troops. One of the questions asked was "will the service members write back to the children?" I can't speak for all of them, but I do know when my husband and I were deployed and would receive 'anyhero' letters from back home, it was a very special feeling of pride in country and staying connected to home and the real meaning behind what we were doing. Long before the days of OWH, when my husband was a brand new soldier and deployed to Somalia in 1993, his hometown school would send letters to the troops and he had a penpal that he wrote to for many months. He still talks about this kid nearly 20 years later and how much those letters of encouragement meant.

Here's a pic of my hero on the day of his retirement ceremony last September.

Now for some real fun!
Anyone who's visited my blog before knows what a total Martha Stewart punch addict I am. So in honor of my first bloghop with OWH, I'm giving away a brand new Martha Stewart grass border punch just like the one I used on my card to one lucky winner! All you have to do to be entered to win is leave me a comment on this post(if you're not with blogger, be sure to put your email addy in your comment) by 11:59pm Sunday 3/21. The winner will be selected by random number generator and posted here on Monday 3/22. (Sorry--only open to US residents)

If you'd like to start making cards for the troops, be sure to check out all the details on the OWH site. The deadline for Mother's Day cards is April 1st. The next stop on the OWH Springbreak bloghop is Stephanie's. I love her clean gorgeous style! Click HERE to visit Stephanie's blog and keep hopping!!

Where did January go??

2010-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

This month just flew by. I'm sticking to my goals for the year so far. I took an honest look at why I've been unable to drop those 10 lbs for the past 10 years and the answer may not have been what I wanted to hear--but it's working. Finally. Jeff and I have made a pact to go to the gym every. day. of. the. week. I've increased my cardio to 50 minutes and fallen in love with a new machine that's part elliptical part stair-stepper. It's an @ss-kicker. Of course, I don't ever feel my workout's complete unless I've run. This year makes 20 straight years of running. I hope I get 20 more out of my knees. Doubtful, but a girl can dream. I've also recently cut caffeine out of my life and we're both calorie-counting. Not cuckoo-crazy calorie counting, but just being much more aware of what's going in. I'm down 6 lbs in 3 weeks. Woohoo!

As for the time management--it's slowly starting to happen. I've scrapbooked a few times this month. I've spent more time purging my supplies of old stuff I just don't think I'll ever use. My niece is getting a fun surprise donation in a few weeks! I can finally take stock of what I have and get excited again about using it.

I've also made another honest observation after seeing all the new MS punches coming out this spring--- a girl does not have to own EVERY SINGLE PUNCH. I love them, I really do, but I'm running out of space to store them. I think I'm also getting a little overwhelmed with the choices I currently have so I don't want to keep adding to it. I'm vowing to enjoy the plethora of punches I already own and STOP BUYING MORE. ( there are a TON of new border/corner ones coming out--at least 30 that I saw, not to enable or anything)

Here's a layout I did this week in the spirit of Valentine's (of course). Just wanted to do at least one using the MME LoveNest stack. I have some Valentine's projects/gifts I hope to finish this week using this paper and then I might just donate the rest. That's the problem with stacks sometimes. I get sick of creating with it after awhile. Note to self: STOP BUYING STACKS.

Other supplies used on this:
QK Gazebo
MS lattice heart
MS eyelet lace heart
MS scroll heart
QK label
MS doily heart lace
MS loopy hearts
Bazzill In-stitches
Cuttlebug embossing folders

I hope to post in a few days with some V-day cards. Enjoy your upcoming week!

My Martha addiction continues...

2010-01-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

I can't help it. I LOVE Martha Stewart border punches. I went into Michael's yesterday just looking for ONE corner punch to go with one of the borders I bought a few weeks ago and BAM!--right there in front of me was the border/corner punch snowflake set from the holiday release ON CLEARANCE. Yep, that's right. It was the LAST one on the shelf and it was $4.99. There was NO way I was passing that deal by. I didn't want these punches at Christmas time. Really had no interest. But for $4.99--I think they'll be making their way onto a few cards and layouts this winter ;)

Speaking of Martha punches--here's a little birthday card I gave my mom a few weeks ago using the deep edge lattice punch. I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I kinda forgot about making her a card until the last minute. These BG papers saved the day. I just used some Nesties and a couple punches (and of course some QK) and voila! It was done.AND on time.

I'm working away on a BUNCH of projects this week. I've got a layout in the works, some cute Valentines gifts and cards, and a MAJOR reorganization of my digital pics. Along with regular organizing of my scrap room, I'm making picture organization and backup a priority this year.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend! Tomorrow's my birthday so I'm looking forward to a pampered LONG holiday weekend and some ME time!!!

Happy New Year everyone!

2010-01-01T06:18:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year's Eve last night. Jeff and I spent the night watching hours of DVR'd shows to free up space and we were both crashed on the sofa before midnight. Guess you could say we must be getting old :).

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions, but I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose and direction for this next year. No big changes planned--just more focus on the things that matter most in my life. I intend to make those daily workouts at the gym really count. No more "oh, I'll just do 30 minutes today, I have a lot of things to take care of and can't really spend the time this morning". No more "I have plenty of time next weekend to work on that layout or that mini-album, but right now I have to vacuum". That means-- I have to work on better time management. Who doesn't, right? I think that's where my focus will be this year. Make the most of my time. You don't get it back. You don't get a do-over.

2009 was a turning point in our life. Jeff and I said goodbye to the Army when he retired in November after 20 years and one month of service. It was a stressful year. The transition from military life to the civilian world was a rough ride. It was a risky decision in a poor economy with so many unemployed. Thankfully, he has a new job working for a great bunch of people and we're finally starting to live the life we've dreamed about for so long. One with no fear of deployments, no fear of moving(at least not with just 30 days notice), and no lost time together.

I'm excited for what this new year holds for us. I'm gonna make every second count.

Here's hoping everyone embraces a new fresh start in 2010 and may you all have a productive, prosperous and happy year!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

I had a few minutes here to post this little gift card holder I finished just in the nick of time. This is the 'Peppermint' Quickutz mini-album dies from their holiday release this year. The cover is a KI Sheer Delights and the little cocoa mugs are punched from velvet paper with a Martha Stewart punch. All paper is the fabulous SEI WinterSong and I also used QK Sonja, Banana Split, and Nutmeg on the front cover.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

2009-12-18T08:28:00.000-08:00

but I don't care because I'm having so much fun inside with my new Quickutz Santa's workshop dies! I just finished up this little mini-album that I'm using as a gift card holder. It's SO perfect for this! I had a lot of fun making this and I'm really glad I decided at the last minute to pick up the add-on dies to these mini-albums. The whole lot of them was ridiculously expensive, but I've got so many ideas for these, I can already tell they're going to get a workout! There are a bunch of super cute ideas in the QK community gallery using these dies as well. If you get a chance, be sure to check them out!

I used more MME glitter paper on this. I'm a little upset with the glitter paper these days. Love the way it looks--hate the way it broke my new paper trimmer. Lesson learned. I'll use my cheap old trimmer from now on with this stuff. I created the little tag on the front with a Nestie die. I used a K&Co rub-on on a piece of vellum(found out rub-ons don't rub on vellum very good at all), backed it with a piece of MME, and then covered it with a piece of transparency. I held the 3 pieces together with the eyelet(no glue involved).It was a real lightbulb moment for me. I've been wanting to make covers for these little mini-albums out of thin clear plastic, but couldn't find plastic thin enough--until I remembered my packages of inkjet printer transparencies!! I'll be dabbling with that soon... One other thing I forgot--the spine of this mini-album was cut from velvet paper. It adds a really pretty texture that isn't captured in these pics. What a cool use for all the velvet paper I have!

Have to run to the post office now to hopefully get these gift cards where they need to go by Christmas day. Wish me luck...

Look at this cute $ stamp!!!

2009-12-16T04:25:00.000-08:00

Is this not the cutest little cheap stamp you've ever seen? Well, probably not. There's a lot of really cute $ stamps out there, but most always seem too small to use in card-making as the main image so I tried to work around that with this one.

The reindeer and 'no peeking' are part of a Studio G set from this year and the tree is a single ezmount stamp but I can't remember the manu on this one. I did a masking technique with the tree, colored him in with Prismacolors and added some stickles. The 'do not open til...' stamp came with the Quickutz Jolly giftset from last year. And, of course, another Martha border punch used here, some Nesties, and a CB embossing folder along the top of the card. All paper is MME.

This was the last design I came up with this year for cards and I ended up liking it so much, I churned out about 10 of these one night. I might make these in boxed sets next year to give as gifts. They came together quick and were just fun to make.

Today I'm working on a gift card holder using the new QK Santa's Workshop mini-album dies. Well, if I can get the rest of my Christmas shopping done first... kinda still have to buy the gift card to go in it...

WHEW! It's over!!

2009-12-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

I was SO flippin relieved yesterday to be out from under the Christmas card-making stress!! I promise promise promise I am going to start earlier next year. I hate when scrappin becomes a chore instead of a fun outlet and that's what it's been the past week. Yesterday Jeff and I ran around for 8 hours running errands, Christmas shopping, going to lunch, checking out some fun new toys and shopping for ourselves(of course) and it was a fun day! The most exciting part of all?? My new ATG714 gun arrived on my doorstep!! I am absolutely IN LOVE. It's ugly as sin but truly a thing of beauty!!

Anyhoo-- here's another one entirely done with die-cuts. I used QK Holiday for 'Peace' , Nesties Label One, and Sizzix holiday dies. I partially embossed with a CB folder and I can't say enough good things about those little half-beads Recollections brand from Michael's. They're cheap and they stick!

I'm off to play with my new tape runner now...only wish I would've bought it sooner to use on all these cards...

Just a quick post today...

2009-12-12T06:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not opposed to using untraditional Christmas colors which is probably why I was drawn to this year's MME stack at Michael's. I must've looked at it on 5 or 6 different trips (of course, picking up all those new Martha Stewart punches each time) and decided finally to just buy it. I've used a good bit of it and thought it was perfect for a card for my 6 yr old niece. She's a tomboy at heart but still loves all things pink and girly(it's a weird mix, for sure) so I think she'll like this. She LOVES getting mail so it could be brown,black, and blue and she probably wouldn't care!

No stamping on this one. My real love lies with die-cuts anyway...shhhhhh...don't tell anyone...

I used the QK retro bird, moxie, and the new santa's workshop alpha and label die. The peppermint candies are a Martha punch.

I didn't finish my cards yesterday. I still have 10 more left. Ugh. I'll be working most of the weekend, but the weather is completely nasty here so it's the perfect time to hole up in my scraproom.

I have more die-cut goodness to share tomorrow...

Indecision is a killer...

2009-12-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'm running out of time to finish my Christmas cards and I promised myself I'm not doing this again. ever. No, of course I'll keep making Christmas cards(Jeff would completely flip out if I sent out store-bought cards instead of using the ever-growing and slightly obnoxious stash), but I'm never going to leave it so last minute again. Yeah, right.

I thought I had it all figured out too. I made 5 different designs this year with the intent of just knocking them out after the hard part of coming up with the design was over. Then, after I started knocking them out, I realized I like some WAY more than others and had decisions to make as to who gets which card, that person saves my cards, that one doesn't, etc., etc.,etc.

This card today I've decided is not one of my favorites, but I invested the time last night in recreating 3 more of them and so-- they will be mailed. I was inspired for this one on this blog here although I don't think I did it justice. Loved the MME paper she used though and I really wanted to use my new MS deep edge punch.

You might be asking why I'd bother to share a card on here that I'm just not 100% crazy about?? Probably because I'm stubborn like that and again--I invested the time to make it so I thought I'd share it (the good, the bad, and the ugly). I've seen a lot of chatter lately about people not wanting to continue this hobby because of feelings that their work is not "good enough" and maybe I felt the need to show that sometimes not everything you make is your favorite, but maybe somebody somewhere out there WILL be inspired by what you've created.

So why not share it?

More cards to come in the next few days. I'm still busy working away on them. Hope to be finished tomorrow...

A little Dasher elegance...

2009-12-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

This has got to be my all-time favorite reindeer stamp EVER. I thought last year's SU Winter Post set had the cutest reindeer ever, but no, I was wrong. They did it again--only better. All of the papers on this one are MME Signature Christmas. Dasher was stamped in Versamark and embossed in Powder Keg's Honeycomb ep. Some of the other accessories I used are Nesties, MS flourish and lattice border punches, snowflake and branch punches, and the gorgeous QK Harvest alpha. This one doesn't take too much time to complete and that's a very good thing since I've got to make 5 or 6 more of these in the next day or so.

Gotta run--too many cards to make, not enough time...

Busy, Busy, Busy...

2009-12-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Reminds me of the mean guy on Frosty the Snowman, but that's what I've been lately. Too busy. We had an AMAZING weekend in Annapolis. I never thought Jeff's company holiday party would be that much fun. Oh yikes. There had to have been over 400 people partying at the Westin Annapolis until all hours of the night last Saturday. I feel sorry for anyone staying there that wasn't involved in that party. The live band rockin' into the early hours must've been heard all the way to the top floor. Crazy, crazy good time!

So, I haven't had a whole lot of time for making Christmas cards this year and that really bums me out! I've bought a TON of fun Christmas scrapbook stuff the past few months and I'm finding that a lot of it will have to wait until next year's cards. I think I might just get started on Christmas cards for the troops next year so I can use this stash AND make sure I have time to donate to this oh-so-awesome cause!

BUT--here's one of the 6 or 7 designs I've come up with this year. This was a little time consuming, a little frustrating, but definitely worth it in the end. Love how it turned out(but I only made 2 of them due to the time involved)

Here's the details:
the snowman stamp is Inkadinkado stamped in VF onyx black on a piece of SEI Winter Song pp, fun flocked on the hat, colored with Prismas on the scarf and then coated in Diamond Glaze, fringe on the scarf embossed with Powder Keg ep and an embossing pen, little half-pearls from Michael's added as buttons and then cut out and pop-dotted.

All of the pp is SEI and I used the Martha Stewart icicle border punch and an EK Success flourish border punch and the HSN cuttlebug snowflake flourish embossing folder.

The "Merry Christmas" is an Inkadinkado stamp in Cat's Eye ink and then embossed with UTEE.

Hope you're taking it easy during the stressful holiday ramp-up and accomplishing all that you want to!

Crazy busy these days...

2009-11-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post a few cards and pics from Halloween that I never got around to sharing and a layout of pics from our costume party. What a blast! We just might have to make it an annual event. Decorating for it was the best part but taking it all down the next day was not a lot of fun.

I'm crazy busy with Christmas fast approaching and trying to make a bunch of cards and gift packaging while shopping, decorating, and just basically trying to squeeze too much into every day. We have big weekend plans in DC attending a holiday social for Jeff's new company (I could seriously get used to this whole civilian life thing) and it's just been non-stop things to take care of for the past month or so. Maybe things will slow down a bit in January. Keeping fingers crossed.

Just a quick post today...

2009-10-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here's another Halloween card to share. We FINALLY got our fabulous news on Friday and now maybe life can get back on track. We are totally loving the civilian life, hubby's new job, and well...just being together and FREE!!!

Eek!

2009-10-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Nothing says Halloween like a black cat. We used to have one many years ago. She was a demon cat. I couldn't help but think of her while I was making this card. No more black cats ever again. Well, how bout no more cats ever again. Love em, just not in my house.

I made this invite for some friends of ours who love cats a little too much. They have 5--or maybe it's 6 now. The black cat stamp is inkadinkado(they really do Halloween right) embossed with black ep and the spider web is also Inkadinkado. Some more BG Eerie on this one, as well as the QK label die and QK Haunted font. I finally used one of my Marvy Giga punches that take up entirely too much space(the scalloped square) and played with the Martha Stewart spider web punch duo. I don't really like being confined to certain dimensions with these punch-around-the-page sets, but it's working out ok.

Just one more invite to make. I mailed off what I had done yesterday and I have 2 stragglers to get in the mail tomorrow. Then it's time for a few more Halloween cards for my niece and nephew and the start of Christmas cards for the troops. I'm excited to do my first batch for Operation Write Home. It's given me a great excuse to stock up on more Christmas stash. If you haven't heard of this great cause please visit their website here. Cutoff for Christmas cards to reach the ladies who mail out the packages of cards is Nov. 1st.

I've been a bad girl...

2009-10-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

Instead of finishing my party invites, I hit the road yesterday in desperate need of a shopping fix to take my mind off life for a little while. I still can't share any good news seeing as how the powers-that-be are still holding our lives hostage and don't appear to want to speed the bureaucratic mess up in the foreseeable future. S0--I thought my stress levels that have been pretty darn high for the past 3 months would be all but forgotten about by now but no--I was forced to shop my worries away.

I got some fun new toys though! Some new Cuttlebug embossing folders, more Powder Keg embossing powders, some Graphic45 Christmas papers, some flower soft(had to see what all the fuss was about) and more nesties.

I have a few cards completed that I haven't shared yet, but I'll space them out and just share this one today. The inspiration for this card came from SCS here This black cat stamp is from that Inkadinkado Scary Night Halloween set and I added some diamond stickles to the tail. More BG Eerie and of course, that cute QK label die again. I used the argyle cb embossing folder along the bottom.

It's another nasty rainy chilly day here again so I'm off to work in my scrappy zone all weekend. Hope you enjoy yours too!

Once upon a midnight dreary...

2009-10-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

...I created this spooky raven card with the most awesome Halloween stamp set ever!! (this is Inkadinkado Scary Night in case you find yourself dying to buy this set) It also includes the creepy skull and a fabulous black cat that I'll share in tomorrow's post.

More BG Eerie on this one. While I loved this spooky tree scene pp, I had no idea exactly how to use this on a card. Then--stepped a stately raven. I'm really happy with how this turned out, ok I'll stop gushing now. The spires on the gate screamed EK fleur de lis border punch and I can't say enough how awesome those QK CC labels are. If you don't have them by the end of this week, you should seriously have your head checked. I know, I know, you already have the SU TopNote die AND the Nesties Labels 8, you say?? Nope, sorry. These QK labels are a necessary addition to your obnoxious label fetish. They're--for lack of a better description--squished. Totally different from the others. Well, not totally. In fact, not really that much different, but they do cut that thin border strip as well and your nesties don't do that. When oh when is QK gonna contact me for that sales rep position??

Anyways, I stamped the raven image in Versamark and embossed with black Powder Keg ep and sponged a little SU almost amethyst over top. The sentiment was embossed with Powder Keg's Jackpot ep. It's difficult to photograph the varying colors in this ep, but it has tones of purple and silver and sparkly stuff and was just what I was looking for to fit the feel of this card. I was never much into embossing until I discovered that little company and their unique powders. They're truly gorgeous.

Gotta run. Our invite list got longer(thanks Jeff) and I have to crank out more cards!

Happy Haunts

2009-10-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

So I originally was going for "happy haunting" on this card but do you ever just get stuck on using something and you just refuse to veer down a different path? Sometimes I envision a project a certain way using a particular product and I can't not use it. That's what happened with this card and the QK Haunted font. Oh yes, I was gonna use it. It wasn't gonna go down any other way. Only one small problem. This font's pretty big and there was no way "haunting" was gonna fit. So, it's happy haunts. I like it better anyways, so there.

I used all kinds of fun goodies on this one. A little nesties, some BG Eerie again mixed with that awesome new QK font and an oldie but goodie QK Indigo font that I think really goes nicely with Haunted. I used the MS drippy goo and graveyard punches again seeing as how I'm trying desperately to justify their purchase with their somewhat limited uses. So far so good.

The creepy skull stamp is Inkadinkadoo. I used a pearlescent Wausau paper,stamped the image in Versamark and embossed it with a Powder Keg antique copper ep. I then masked the skull and sponged SU More Mustard and Old Olive inks over top. Just gotta knock out 4 more cards and get these in the mail!

More Halloween spookiness

2009-10-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here's another party invite I finished this week. Progress is not going so good on these but I work best under pressure so I'll get them done by the 15th. Even if it means pulling a few all-nighters. I'm having a blast using all this Halloween stash though! Loving the MS punches and I was seriously itchin to use the QK Haunted font. I'll be squeezing that in on a few more cards for sure.

On this one I stamped the Inkadinkadoo trick-or-treaters(too cute!!) and colored them using Prismacolors and baby oil. I decided to bling it out a bit with some SU iridescent ice ep on the witch's dress. I just used a versamark pen over the dress after I had finished coloring the image. I used the same ep on the "boo" diecut title and used pop-dots for a little dimension. The 3 panels behind the stamped image were run through the branches cuttlebug embossing folder.

It's funny how much the colors of the BG Eerie collection are so similar to the colors in this 3 or 4 year old SU dsp. I can't even remember the name of the collection it's been so long that it's been gathering dust in my stash. It feels good to use stuff you've been hoarding forever. Off to find what other Halloween goodies I can use this weekend!

Hello October!

2009-10-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

Seriously, where does the time fly? Lots of big changes happening in my little world lately and I finally figured out--scrapbooking and cardmaking is really relaxing and an awesome diversion from life in general. Wish I could say the stress around here is done and over with, but unfortunately we're not quite there yet. When we are(hopefully this week) I will share what's been going on. Until then, I think I'll be posting more pics on here as I lock myself away in my scrappy haven and lose myself in paper, punches, and ink.

I'm working on Halloween costume party invites. Yes, you read that right. We're throwing the Halloween to end all Halloween parties on well, Halloween night, of course! It should be a ton of fun. Jeff and I got our costumes all figured out a few weeks ago and I totally scored at JoAnn's last weekend with a matching costume for our dog! I can't wait to post pics and I'm forcing myself to scrap them right away. (I'm so flippin excited....I already have the papers and embellies for the layouts)

I've seriously hoarded a TON of Halloween sb product this year. It's bad. REALLY bad. Because of this, I'm making each one of the party invites different and mailing out a few Halloween cards to friends and family this year that won't be able to attend. Here's the first card. I plan on using the BasicGrey Eerie collection for probably all of the cards. They really knocked this one out of the park. What an awesome collection for Halloween!! This one uses a Stampendous stamp I picked up at Michael's and the Martha Stewart graveyard and spider web border punches. I used a nestie and a Recollections stamp set on the inside of the card with some of the spider web corner and border punch accents again. Oh, and I almost forgot about the cute little batties--they're from the EK bat border punch and the spooky branch is Martha Stewart, all are coated in black diamond stickles.

I have a confession to make...

2009-06-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

I'm really not scrappin this summer as much as I planned. Oh, I started off with the best of intentions, bought some new stuff (well, indulged a little too much on new QK the past couple months), cleaned and re-organized my scrap room, took a bunch of pics on vacation--and then nothing. I'm not worried though because I still can't wait to start on a new project every time I walk in the scrappy zone, but I just don't make the time. I've been busy spicing up the patio with new plants, flowers and such and working on a major purge of all the unnecessary clutter in the house. Did you know small rodents really really like to make their homes in cardboard boxes you've been saving for years in the garage? Ask me how I know...

I've worked on a little here and there, mostly commissioned cards for others, end-of-tour Army gifts, and did I mention cards?? Nothing for my own albums, sadly. Here's a card I made last weekend for our friends' 15th wedding anniversary. They decided to hold a vow renewal ceremony and it turned out to be almost like a formal wedding. It was beautiful despite it being held outdoors at the end of June in Georgia. I think it reached 104 that day.

I used the QK Rev label die on this one. What a versatile design this has. I love the two borders it cuts and all the options for "layering". I made the card base by partially tracing a BG chipboard album on the fold and cutting it out. The title is QK Banana Split and I used the MS frond punch. I made an envelobox for the card(love those things) and the paper line used is the SEI Black Orchid stack from Michael's.

Hope you're enjoying the lazy hazy days of summer!

One I forgot...

2009-05-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Maybe my favorite shot from yesterday was this sad little plant on the city street surrounded by concrete and struggling to survive. It had 2 lonely little blossoms on it but they were so pretty and seemed so out of place. A very cool technique I learned was to adjust to a fast shutter speed to achieve this darker background around the brilliant white of the flower while using a large aperture. I can already tell I'm craving a macro lens but that little $700+ expenditure will have to wait.

A Taste of My Town

2009-05-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

I had a fabulous opportunity today to hang out with a photojournalist thanks to my well-connected hubby :) Time seriously flies when you're having fun! Before I realized it, 5 hours had flown by, I still needed to get an annual eye exam done, buy groceries, call mom to shuffle off my taxi duties of the kid, drive home with dilated eyes in a serious freakin downpour (thank God the sun disappeared) and clean up the house before the weekend.

I just didn't know if I was really "getting it" after 5 months with the new camera and it was really nice today to hear that I'm getting it. It was definitely the confidence boost that I needed and the advice/tips/pointers I received today are priceless. I'm shooting in full Manual now and I have to say I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it and fulfilling my promise that I would learn this camera. I'm super excited for our 2 week vacation in a couple weeks and I finally feel like I might just be able to get those once-in-a-lifetime shots. And if not, well.....no biggie. Just another reason to take more vacations and try harder next time:)

Sharing some Mother's Day love

2009-05-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone enjoyed NSD last weekend! Me, not so much scrappin happenin. It was my own fault for not being motivated and wanting to shop for scrappy stuff instead of actually scrapping. But I did make these cards for a few special moms I know.

Have you tried digital stamps yet? You really have to check them out. The hummingbird on this card is a freebie available for download from www.squigglefly.com. They add new stamps for purchase every day and have a pretty nice selection. I just use my Georgia Pacific #110 cardstock and run it through my inkjet printer(no need for a fancy printer or anything) and then cut them out with nestabilities or punches or whatever you choose. Sometimes if I'm concerned about precise placement, I'll run my cs through the cuttlebug first with a nestie and then tape it to a piece of printer paper and run it through my printer. Either way, it works. I let the ink set up for a minute or two before coloring and on this image I used Prismacolor pencils with baby oil. So fast, so cheap and no storage issues!! I do make sure to back up a copy of my downloaded stamps to my external hard drive in case my laptop dies--and I know it will any day now.

On the second card, I had some fun with my Cricut and Storybook cartridge for the label, QK Storybook and Banana Split for the title, and the Green Stack from DCWV. I resisted buying this stack for many months because I thought it was just a little too cute for my tastes but I've found it's perfect for cardmaking(the mat size especially) and there really are some great repeating patterns on better than half of the stack. And the pages with large cutesie animals?? I guess I'll just have to scrap some layouts of my adorable niece and nephew :)

For all you moms out there, have a wonderful day tomorrow and treat yourself to something awesome!

2009-04-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

I'm all giddy about the wedding we're attending this weekend! We're at the stage (or I guess, old age) in our lives where we really don't have too many friends getting married anymore. Divorced seems more like the case now. yikes. I met the cute couple 3 years ago when I went on a trip to Korea to see Jeff and it just so happened it was the 2 weeks I was visiting when their relationship began so it's just all the more cool to get to see them get married. So, on a happy blissful wedding note, I wanted to share this little wedding gift I put together this week.

I've gone a little vintage for this wedding. Well, a lot vintage. Right down to my dress, shoes, jewelry, handbag and of course, the card/gift. It was right around the time I bought my vintage style dress that the DCWV La Creme stack was released in all it's gorgeous vintageness. It was perfect for what I had in mind. All of the papers I used on this project are from that stack except the cream card base( I think it's a Wausau brand specialty paper) and the insert paper inside the card that I have no idea where it came from but I'm SO glad I had it.

I won't bore you with all the little details but I will list what products I used and explain a couple new-to-me techniques that may be of interest. First, I stamped the wedding bells with black ink, let it dry, and then traced the image with a fine-tip Zig glue pen and quickly spread black fun flock over the image and pressed it in. You then let it fully dry and shake off the excess flock. Voila, it's that simple and matches the beautiful flocked paper on the front of the card. Getting the insert paper inside the card to stick was another challenge. I finally found Tombo multi-glue (the green cap) run down the inside seam will actually hold the paper in. It's about the only adhesive that will hold the paper in. Trust me on this. And last, the envelobox. After I tied off that wide wired ribbon on the card, I realized there was no way it was fitting in a regular envelope. I had planned from the start to use the tutorial on the Scor-Pal website to make my own matching envelope, but there were NO instructions for making an "envelobox" -- at least not for the size card I had made. So, I searched the internet. And searched, and searched. I can't believe no one has done a Youtube video on how to make these. So, I improvised using the Scor-Pal envelope tutorial. It's basically adding 1/4" to the measurements and adding 4 extra 1/4" score lines. Jeff is going to help me make a video tutorial for this so stay tuned....

Now the products:

DCWV La Creme stack
MS doily lace border punch
EK scallop border punch
MS dotted scallop border punch
Offray ribbon(cream and black)
Hero Arts pearls
SU! rub-ons
Spellbinders Nestabilities
Stampendous "Bells of Love" and "Bride and Groom" and Fun Flock
Scor-Pal (tutorials for envelope and square box also used)

Happy Friday!

2009-04-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

So glad it's the weekend and the weather's gorgeous here for once! Here's a birthday card using that cute Quickutz birdie. I'm loving the new Fiskars Apron Lace border punch too! I have the whole weekend to myself to spend scrapping while Jeff's on a golf weekend with the guys in Myrtle Beach and I'm hoping to work on a wedding card and gift holder for our friends' wedding we'll be attending next weekend in Columbus, GA. After that, the weekend's open for hopefully some layouts. The annual PageMaps contest is open now through May 25th and I'll probably submit again this year. You can't win if you don't play, right? Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!

Some Easter cards to share...

2009-04-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

So another year and another Spring Break that we sat right here wishing we had remembered for Jeff to put in for leave. Duh. I have to say the kid hasn't complained at all this week about staying home and except for rude exec types wearing golf attire and driving aggressively in their rented cheap-a$$ sedans, it's been a pretty good week :) That said, I'm already planning our vaca escape for next April. I've been scrappy all week with Easter fast approaching and another commissioned end-of-tour gift to get done. I'm absolutely going out of my mind wanting to scrap some layouts but needing to get other projects done first. So much product, so little time.

Here's a few of the cards I knocked out this week. Both were somewhat lifted from a few blogs I browsed(Cupcakiehelen is the original artist of the bunny card and I'm not sure about the artist on the sheep card but I think I found it on 2P's or SCS. I can't find either of these blogs again, so if it's yours, please let me know so I can give you due credit) and I just tweaked them a little to make them mine. I received the most awesome RAK in the mail last month from one of my online buddies (thank you Beth!!) and the papers and ribbon have been perfect for these!

I used SCAL to cut the title and eggs on the bunny card. I love having the ability to cut pretty much anything I need to with my Cricut now. The font is WhoaNelly-better known as the MM Jewelry Box sticker font. Of course, it will never replace my QK fonts. I still reach for those most of the time. I used QK Dragonfly on the sheep card and funflocked that little guy. He's so cute and fuzzy now! I added a little funflock to the centers of the bunny ears too. Very cool product no longer collecting dust in my scrap room:)

Crazy Monkey Love

2009-02-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

I probably mentioned this when I first started this blog that it's named after my little demon dachsie. No, her real name isn't "monkey" but that's what we end up calling her most days. So, my mom surprised us with a stuffed monkey for her Valentine's gift. This dog has a serious thing for stuffed animals. Sometimes she cuddles with them but most of the time she's just trying to "kill" them. Oh well, it's cute anyhow.

I finally finished a page while cropping at a friends house. This is a first for me. I never get anything done at crops, which is why I usually don't like going to them. I'm a loner when it comes to scrappin. I get in the zone and don't really like interruptions but the biggest reason I don't like going to crops is the inability to pack my entire scraproom and take it with. I was able to just deal with it Friday night and used what little I thought to bring with me and it was so much easier than having all the choices at home. Maybe I should throw random things in a bag more often and scrap in the backyard or something :)

I used some BG Blush from my stash on this page and that felt good. Need to reduce the stash so I can feel less guilt when buying more. For the pink background, I traced a piece of scalloped cs and then cut it out.

Hope you all enjoyed your Valentines Day!

Happy Heart Day!

2009-02-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Just one last Vday card to share. I tried paper-piecing on this one. I've seen this in the SCS gallery but wasn't sure I understood how to do it but it's really pretty simple. At least, this is my version of paper-piecing. I really have no idea if it's the "right" way of doing it but I liked the end result :) I know I've used these same products to death but I couldn't resist. The stamps are Pink Paislee and the white embossed hearts are a Martha Stewart punch. Now it's time to kick back, let my honey take me to lunch today and then squeeze in some shopping.shhhhhhhhh..... he doesn't know that's in the plans....

More bittersweet by the day

2009-02-13T03:49:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I just can't get enough of this BG line. Well, I guess I just can't get enough of the QK Storybook alpha either. For this one, I used the Martha Stewart valentine stamps and embossed with a light pink ep. For the labels one, I traced and cut out the mat again and then decided it was missing something so I traced around the smaller of the two with a brown pen. The design was inspired by the gift bag on the cover of the current Papercrafts mag. If you haven't picked this issue up, give it a look. There are some super cute ideas in there!

A few Valentines for the kids

2009-02-12T04:17:00.000-08:00

I love making cards for my niece and nephew. It helps to justify the cutesie animal stamps and QK dies I've amassed over the last year. Somehow, I don't think my 15 year old son would appreciate that love bug card. Just a guess. I did, however, think the $ stamp from JoAnn's with the elephants was less-cutesie and paired it with some BG Blush and QK(of course) to come up with a card for him. It's kinda fun giving him handmade cards now. He sees how much time and effort I put in to them and he's actually really appreciative. I never would've seen that coming from him. That's not to say that he doesn't constantly question my obsession with this hobby though.

The love bug card uses another one of those cute $ stamps from Michael's this time and the BG Bittersweet. There's a little bit of QK (be mine) and a little bit of Sizzix (hearts) on there too, some $ ribbon and an MS border punch. On the wild for you card I used a $ giraffe stamp from Imaginesce ,a couple of QK alphas, and a combination of BG Blush and Bittersweet. Do you see a trend here?? Those $ stamps ROCK.

If you do pick up the elephant stamp at J's, be forewarned--you have to color it in FAST with markers and it's not easily done. After stamping the image, I filled it in better with prismacolors.

Spreading Some Love...

2009-02-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

One of my most anticipated moments in recent years happened on my birthday a few weeks ago and what did I do?? I forgot to blog about it. I finally entered the wonderful world of dslr's!!! I've dreamt about a camera like this for YEARS. After tons of research and paws-on handling in the stores, I decided on the Canon Rebel XS and it didn't disappoint! I can't say enough awesome things about this camera. I know it's just the beginning of my journey into real photography, and I'm so happy I went with a Canon. I have a wishlist a mile long of the new glass I want and a very cool hiking bag to protect and bring my new pal around with me on our hiking adventure this summer. I can't believe what I've been missing all these years!!

Ok, enough gushing about the new toy--time for some Valentine's cards. I'm still learning the camera but the pics I can get of projects now are already so much better. I don't, however, have a good lighting situation and I sold my ott-lite last year. Really wish I hadn't done that now. I have a pseudo-lightbox setup that's working nicely but still using halogen lights so forgive the icky color-cast. I promise it's not the XS's fault ;)

Here's a card inspired by a sketch on SCS and using a little bit of everything. I absolutely love the new BG Bittersweet line and I'm SO not a pink girlie girl. Of course, being the Quickutz freak that I am, I like to mix these two manufacturers so the ribbon heart is QK punched from velvet paper and the alphabet is the new QK Storybook (SUPER CUTE font!!!). I used the smallest Nestabilities Labels One and then for the mat, I just traced around the Nestie and cut it out with scissors. The next size Nestie up from this one just produces too big of a mat for me.

The scalloped square was made with the long scalloped rectangles Nestabilities. For whatever reason, I just haven't gotten around to buying the scalloped squares and found the rectangles can easily serve double-duty in a pinch. I added a little trim on the bottom using the Martha Stewart lace valentine border punch and finished the card with some American Crafts $ ribbon from Michael's and some rhinestones.

Oh, one last tip--if you are lucky enough to get your hands on that MS border punch, the little hearts it punches out and leaves behind are so cute to use as accents here and there. That's what I used under "love".

In Answer to a Question on 2Peas

2009-01-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

Here are pics of our kitchen remodel. A girl on 2Peas asked for input on kitchens with white cabinets and how to deal with them and I can remember just hating these cabinets when we moved in and at a total loss as to where to go with it. I hope this inspires her to work with what she has. It can truly be beautiful and fresh looking. I'll never go back to oak.

Looking back, I'm amazed we even bought this house with the kitchen looking like this. Jeff and I completely remodeled our previous house in El Paso to our tastes and had such a good time with it, I guess we wanted to do it again. I don't recommend buying a house with ANY wallpaper. Never again.

I do love my kitchen now. It's bigger than any other we've had with tons of cabinets. My plans are to rip out the awful white laminate countertops and install a brown/black fleck granite but we have to wait and see what Jeff's retirement holds for us.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T13:43:00.001-08:00

Now that the holidays are behind us and things are quieting down, I found some time to scrap again.woohoo!! It was a really good scrappy Christmas and I've been looking forward to playing with some new toys. The first was my new Cricut Storybook cart. I just LOVE this font! I cut it a few times and layered them together and then used SU! iridescent ice ep to make my own glittery thickers.

I know some of you might ask "why would you scrap pics of your dirty laundry and washer??" And I say--why not?? It was a really stressful time for us(well, primarily me) when our old one crapped out and we(again, me)had to research new washers and make a choice and then await the glorious delivery day. Everything went as planned, until the machine was unloaded from the truck and unboxed with a HUGE dent in the front. Yikes. I just couldn't accept it. I'm a perfectionist and let's face it--the new front loaders are BIG cash. So, they loaded my old one on the truck and the new dented washer along with it, and I was left with nothing. No washer for 2 weeks. I think I actually shed a tear when my I saw my old one sitting up there staring down at me asking "what did I do wrong? why do I have to go?". Crazy, I know. I was attached. We had that washer since day one of our marriage and it's made at least 7 military moves with us. It's been like family.

Well, I got over it. The new one is truly a thing of beauty (when it finally arrived dent-free). But I knew the LO I did of this really had to be about my feelings about saying goodbye to the old one.

Hope everyone had a relaxing and wonderful holiday and you get back to scrapping again too!

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Twelve

2008-12-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

Woohoo!! It's finally over! I finished it with a card that just replaced the reindeer cards as my favorite for this year. I'll have to cram them in on the mantel now. This little cottage scene was made again with the Cricut Noel cartridge. I have had so much fun with this cart, it's totally renewed my respect for this machine. In fact, I think I'm running out in a few to buy another cartridge I've had my eye on!

The background is the SU! Top Note die using some BG Figgy Pudding(also used behind the scene with some SU! dsp) and I stamped the Santa postage with SU! Winter Post stamp set in versamark and then rubbed some Pearl ex over top. It worked FABULOUS! I'm so slow, I never thought of doing that before for a subtle image. Then I embossed a PTI sentiment in gold and added MS coarse glitter and some light accenting with Prismacolors on the cottage and trees. A little bit of SU! Alpine Originals ribbon finishes it off.

Hope you enjoyed the cards this year. It's been a challenge for sure. I'll be checking in soon with some birthday cards to share!

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Eleven

2008-12-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today's card uses the MS branch punch again and this idea was one I borrowed from Mandy (mmferg) on SCS. I scored a piece of white cs along the outside and sadly, did this using my Fiskars paper trimmer. I'm really, really hoping Santa brings me a Scor-Pal this year :) It works in a pinch though. The little ornament is from the Quickutz Jolly holiday set this year and I embossed it through the Cuttlebug and added some MS glitter and gold cording as a hook. The alpha is Quickutz Rollerskate. Sweet, simple, with a little bit of bling.

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Ten

2008-12-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

With only 2 cards left to make in my little self-imposed challenge--I've found my favorite. I just love this card. I tried out the coolest thing today making this one. I bought a stamp and stick gluepad back in February and finally figured out what to do with it. It works amazing with glitter!

This little reindeer is one of the to-die-for reindeer on the Cricut Noel cart I was talking about a few posts ago. He's the whole reason I caved and bought a Cricut cartridge. I think he's gorgeous and maybe I'll have to make this card for myself and place it on my fireplace mantel with the rest of my cards! I guess I'll skip mailing it to myself :)

Here's the supplies used:
Cricut Noel cart
MS glitter
Palette stamp and stick gluepad
BG Figgy Pudding paper
American Crafts ribbon
PTI stamps
SU! Baroque motifs stamps
Powder Keg embossing powder
SU! Top Note die

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Nine

2008-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a card using an idea that's been showing up on SCS and blogs lately. This MS branch punch has got to be one of the best punches out there. There's so many things you can do with this one.

Supplies used:
MS branch punch
Cuttlebug snowflakes embossing folder
silver trim from M's
PTI stamps
MS glitter
red ribbon from M's

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Eight

2008-12-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

I did the unthinkable last weekend and bought another Cricut cartridge. It's not that I hate this machine--it just doesn't fit my style most of the time. I did find this really cool Christmas cartridge with reindeer to-die-for and this flourish tree I used on today's card. Sometimes the Cricut does serve a purpose in my crafting. If you pick this one up, be forewarned--they don't cut very well under 2 1/2 inches and your speed needsto be on the lowest setting.

Here's the supplies I used:
Cricut noel cartridge
MS glitter
PTI stamps(sentiment)
Cuttlebug swiss dots folder
Michaels ribbon

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Seven

2008-12-02T06:49:00.000-08:00

So my great idea of posting a card a day for 12 days hasn't exactly worked out and I'm a little stressed as mailing day approaches. I've also taken on a few going away gifts that I do for soldiers leaving my hubby's unit and that's going to slow down my card making too. Yikes!

So, to save some time, I'm not going to post all the little details on these. I'll just give a list of supplies that I used. If you have any questions about anything just leave me a comment :)

stamps~Wal-Mart
paper~BG Figgy Pudding, SU! Wintergreen dsp
ribbon~SU! Alpine Originals
other materials used~ Quickutz Moxie, MS snowflake punch, piercing tool,Prismacolors,SU! scalloped border punch, brads, MS glitter

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards( continued)-Day Six

2008-11-29T09:58:00.000-08:00

I finished a card today!! It's pretty scary how many I still have left to do before the mailing date of Dec. 8th. This one uses the oh -so -cute Wal-Mart clear stamps that everyone's been raving about. I got a great clear image with these stamps!

Here's the details:

I stamped the Christmas tree in SU! old olive on a plain piece of white cs I ran through the cuttlebug with the Nesties. I bought the Sizzix crease pad and found the A,C,crease pad,shim sandwich cuts and embosses the nesties in one pass!! I'll have to link the source of that info here in a bit.

The larger circle is SU! old olive cs and I added some chocolate brown 3-d paint. The porkies, of course, are from Wal-mart and colored with prismacolor pencils and baby oil. I added a few small glue dots to the tree and coated them with MS red glitter.

The sentiment tag was a punch I picked up ages ago from HL and I embossed the sentiment(another stamp from that set) and added some faux stitching with a piercing tool and pen. I finished it off with an eyelet and some AC ribbon.

The paper is BG Figgy Pudding and I machine stitched around the outside and the blue piece. The scallop was done using the SU! scallop punch and all other cs is just some cheap stuff I had laying around.

I'll be playing with this stamp set again on the next card!

I'm no longer a Black Friday shopping virgin...

2008-11-28T15:10:00.000-08:00

Wowzers!! We cleaned up AWESOME today!! A few days ago I was browsing around our PX on post here and spotted a handbag that I REALLY liked. When hubby got home that night I told him about it but he didn't ask for specifics and I kinda forgot about it. Over the last few days I decided I'd make Christmas easy for him and drag him off to the PX today for my present:) I was pretty anxious driving over there. There was only the one bag and I REALLY wanted it. Well, it was still there!!! And the best part--all handbags were 25% off!!! Saved us about $30 but our day got better... We had all but decided against buying our son a computer bundle for Christmas. We really blew the budget on him last year and didn't want to make it a habit. Well, we were aimlessly walking around the electronics section and they wheeled up a pallet of computers for DIRT CHEAP. This computer is faster than our laptops and PERFECT for the kid so, as we watched people quickly snatch these up, we made a fast decision to grab one ourselves and now I'm FINALLY excited about Christmas this year!!!

We finished up the day with another awesome shopping experience at Kohl's and Target and I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping!!

So, no card today. But man did I have a fabulous day!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2008-11-27T14:30:00.001-08:00

No card for today-too much turkey going on here! Hopefully I'll pick it back up with Day Six tomorrow! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Five

2008-11-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

Almost didn't make it today with a card to post. Did a little Christmas shopping and a last minute run for a few goodies for Thanksgiving dinner but I still managed to finish this one. I now think this card might be my favorite. I just love the chocolate browns and golds and I've been dyin' to use this reindeer stamp since last January when I saw it and ordered it just a little too late for last year's cards. Only bad part is I don't have much of the Basic Grey paper I used on this so I can't make many of them. Well, at least not many that look exactly like this one.

Here's all the details. The cute reindeer stamp is from the TAC set "simply Christmas" and I used the Labels One Nestabilities again. I stamped and embossed the reindeer on SU! close to cocoa and then sponged around the reindeer with SU! chocolate chip.I'm loving these dies and totally getting my money's worth out of them! In fact, I've asked for the other label sets from Santa. I used the smaller of the two Nesties as a stencil and traced around it with a gold paint pen. The card base is SU! chocolate chip and the red cs is from SU! In Color line from last year,embossed with the cuttlebug and then I rubbed gold pearlex over the swirls. The "joy" is Quickutz Dragonfly and the flourishes are QK also. Paper is from the BG Stella Ruby line and the ribbon is American Crafts. I used snaps (for the first time ever) and I love how much flatter they are on a card you're going to mail.

Best thing about my card challenge is I'm using up some stash and using stamps I thought I'd never get around to using!

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Four

2008-11-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

Just a short post on this one. It's getting hard to find the time to make a card a day and then blog about it :) This one is for my brother and SIL. Let's just say I think they appreciate the non-traditional and I think this card fits that description.

The stamp is from a Penny Black set (this and every year) and I stamped it first by coloring it with a SU Bordering Blue marker and then stamped over it again with versamark and added the SU! iridescent ice ep. I don't own a "stamp-a-ma-jig" but I think I might just pick one up today while I'm out. I finally found a use for it. It's REALLY hard to line up a rubber stamp exactly in the same place twice. I improvised with a couple cd cases taped down--long story, suffice it to say, it worked.

I decided to add a little dimension with a QK present die and pressed the ribbon part of the die-cut down on a versamark pad and then coated with the iridescent ice ep and heat set it. The paper is a little bit of BG I had laying around from last year's Figgy Pudding line and the background was run through the cb using the swiss dots folder.

I'm probably going to end up spending a fortune on extra postage thanks to all the added dimension but Christmas is only once a year so why not, right?

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Three

2008-11-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

Today's card is my hubby's favorite. I think it has a bit of a masculine feel to it and might just be given to his male co-workers. This one combines a little Basic Grey, a little PTI, and a whole lotta SU!.

The new SU! Top Note die makes an awesome background and a great addition to any card. The uses for this die are just endless. I actually bought it with journaling in mind for sb layouts, but I've used it to house a title on a sb page and now a nice backdrop for this stamp from the Lovely as A Tree SU! set. The trees were stamped with versamark and embossed with an ep from a little company called Powder Keg. I added some icicle stickles on them too. The ground is coated in Martha Stewart coarse glitter. I did a masking technique on the background using SU! soft sky inkpad and a sponge before stamping the trees.

I used a versamark pen around the outside of the label stamp in the SU! Winter Post set and then embossed with more ep and the PTI sentiment stamp was also embossed on the inside of the label and then punched out with the SU! label punch.

I'm making sure to use that snowflake border punch as much as I can. I had some guilt over buying yet another border punch but it's turning out to be useful.

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards-Day Two

2008-11-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the simplest of designs are the truly stunning ones. I saw a card on Splitcoast a few weeks ago (Rox71 is the artist) that was so serene and gorgeous, I just had to try my hand at it. I was fascinated with the little upraised houses on the card and couldn't believe it was a Cuttlebug embossing folder!! I quickly snatched one up on the 'bay and this is my take on her beautiful card!

I used Prismacolor pencils and baby oil to color the houses and added Martha Stewart coarse glitter to the rooftops and ground. The snowflake is a Martha punch and also coated in glitter. Her coarse glitter is fabulous! I wasn't sure how much I would use it(and of course, bought the giant container of it) but now I'm glad I bought it. The sentiment is PTI's Holiday Wishes set stamped on the Labels One Nesties and I am SO happy with these stamps! There's 15 Christmas sentiments and they look fantastic stamped and embossed on the insides of the cards too. I also used the Martha Stewart snowflake border punch on the bottom and added a little holiday ribbon from Michaels.

It's very sparkly IRL and just hard to capture with my limited photog skills :)

The 12 Days of Christmas Cards--Day One

2008-11-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

It has begun. The quest for the perfect Christmas card is well under way. I thought I'd have a little fun with this stressful time of the year and attempt to post daily for the next 12 days with a new Christmas card creation each day. Call me a crazy freak but I just can't be happy with one mass-produced Christmas card. I think it has to do with wanting to use the mounds of Christmas cr@p accumulating in my craft room. The guilt of limiting myself to just one stamp set or just one punch is too much to bear. So, let's get this party started.

Here's the first one and quite possibly will end up being my favorite one this year(a little too early to call). This takes a little bit of goodness from a couple of my favorite product lines and a few fun techniques thrown in for good measure.

The background was embossed with the swiss dots cuttlebug folder and the scene background is the Labels One Nestabilities cut out of various cs. The reindeer is from the Stampin Up! Winter Post set and embossed , cut out and pop-dotted. I used the Martha Stewart christmas tree punch and added some puffy paint and pop-dotted them and used more puffy paint for the snow covered ground. The falling snow and the northern star are from the SU! Itty Bitty Backgrounds and Snow Flurries sets. The sentiment is from the Penny Black "this and every year" set and embossed in gold ep and pop-dotted on a little bit of SU! dsp from last year cut out with a scalloped nestabilities. The branches are the Martha Stewart branch punch in SU! chocolate chip cs and the ribbon is SU! Alpine Originals.

It was a little time-consuming but I'll only be making a few of each design and this one was a lot of fun to make and I'm sure will be a lot of fun to give!

A fun timeline of pics

2008-11-15T08:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a 2-pager I worked on yesterday for the circle journal I'm a part of on sb.com. We were asked to put together a layout of pics from childhood to present and share some inside info about who we are. It was fun searching through old pics at my parents' house looking for shots that weren't completely and totally embarassing. You just can't do much though about all those high school pics with bad 80's hair (for those of us unfortunate souls who had the great misfortune of being in high school in that less than memorable moment of style and fashion history). I chose to cut it all off in '90 and start over. Good choice, I think.

I love the QK Nutmeg alpha that I used on this one! It's kinda chunky, kinda funky, and makes a statement. This spread is 8x8 so the alpha looks really large on here but would also look stunning on a 12x12 page too. (A great one for anyone on the fence).

Better luck next year guys.

2008-10-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

It's a sad sad day here but somehow we found the strength to get up this morning and carry on. I couldn't even watch it last night. Had to keep flipping back on commercial breaks during The Race and The Unit and I just dreaded the moment when I knew Jeff would walk out to the living room and break the bad news. For any of you with a Red Sox freak at home--you KNOW what I mean. There was silence. And more silence. Then we went to bed. This morning was all business getting ready for work and more silence. He should be ok around lunch time. This will be a blip on the radar by next month. Maybe. At least there'll be no more weeknights staying up til 1AM. Can't win em all. But it sure would be cool.

WOOHOO!!

2008-10-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

I just felt like saying that. It's Monday, I've been hangin' with hubby all day and doing naughty things like going out to lunch and scrapping! I just love days when the kid has school and the big kid doesn't have to work.

I used a few new goodies on this one that I've been dying to break out of their packages and a few techniques that I normally won't take the time to do. It was fun! I hand-stitched (some of my hand-dyed,hard to find and a little pricey cross-stitch floss--glad it went to good use) around the SU! Top Note die and pulled out the sewing machine too and added some zigzagging. I also love the look of thickers and love that I can make my own with my QK dies so I cut each letter 3 times and glued them together to get that "thicker" look.

I used the SU! scallop punch too. I like this one MUCH more than the Fiskars threading water punch. It's smoother, my Fiskars gets caught up and tears the paper, and I just like the tinier scallop this one gives.

And last but not least, I finally used some BG Boxer. I bought an obnoxious amount of this paper and this was the first time I used it. These are pics of my son on our trip to Orlando this summer. I may have mentioned he was like the girl on the cruise commercial??

The journaling reads:

I love how your dad captured this candid shot of you-the look that drove us crazy, the one that says vacations with mom and dad are just not cool anymore. I think you secretly had fun every now and then and maybe you'll take us up on bringing a friend next time.

Overcoming challenges...

2008-10-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say I'm jazzed about the pics I took in Orlando this summer--but I'm not. It's just hard sometimes to focus(literally) on taking good pics when you're too busy having fun. But that's what life is all about, enjoying the moments--not worrying about capturing it on film. So, I started scrapping the pics from this trip a few months ago and I set it as a little goal to just go ahead and finish them up. My guys are excited to see them come to life on pages and that gives me the motivation to continue with these less than perfect shots.

I've really liked using the BG Ambrosia line for these amusement park LOs. These papers make me think of many very different uses like Asian themed pages, Halloween/autumn, and of course, these park shots. I'm sure I'll think of other themes these would be perfect for!

Getting back into it.

2008-10-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Got a little scrappin done over the weekend and it felt good. I think it's definitely time to focus on the hobby again instead of the state of the country. Yuck. If there's one good thing to come out of a recession, it's that I will be forced to use the stash I already have. I'm sure we'll see less product available and stores closing their doors. Hope that's not the case but it sure helps to justify all this stuff I bought and haven't used. I used some BG Ambrosia on this LO and QK Fiesta.

A very simple scraplift

2008-09-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited when I opened up the August issue of CK last month and saw Becky Higgins' very simple yet very classy and totally perfect framed piece on page 49. Yes, it's true. We've lived in this house for nearly 3 years and I have yet to hang one picture (well any piece of home decor at all) on the walls of our master bedroom. We finally got the paint color right 2 years ago and then the bedding came together a few weeks ago while shopping in DC and I found the absolute perfect art piece to hang over the bed just last week. AND-we hung it 2 days after buying it. That's a record around here, folks. Then, I see this classic beauty and knew this was what I have been looking for.

So, I found one of my pics from the desert garden in San Diego's Balboa Park that really showcases my favorite colors of lime/chartreuse green and peach/orange. The frame has a natural linen mat and coordinates perfectly with the other natural elements in our bedroom. And I'm hanging my own version of Becky's piece on the wall at the foot of our bed so I can wake up every morning to this beautiful sight.

It's all in the packaging.

2008-09-07T08:58:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I like the giving of the gift bag and card more than the gift itself. I love it when someone we know has a baby. I love browsing all the new cute baby stuff and hey-it's a great opportunity to use my giraffe die (which I see is going for several 100 $ on ebay lately). wha?!? This gift bag, I'll admit, sucked up several hours of my time one afternoon but isn't it too stinkin' cute?? I stamped all the little giraffes and then painstakingly colored them in and added some glossy accents to the snouts. Found a good use for what's left of my paper stacks(what I didn't already donate to area schools)-just trying to use up the stash-and I think the green paper was perfect! Then I used a couple border punches including the leave it to weaver punch that I couldn't pass up with a coupon and really had no idea if I would ever use it. Now I know what it's good for!

It's fun packaging gifts in a special way. Even if it just ends up in the trash at the end of the day!

WOW.

2008-09-04T09:50:00.001-07:00

It's a great day to be an American!!!

(I borrowed this awesome poster from "mapchic" on 2Peas. Just LOVE it!!!)

There's really no excuse...

2008-09-03T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm just a bad blogger. Life just gets in the way sometimes and I forget to update this with cool pics and other fun stuff. So we made our what's now becoming annual trek up to the DC area and I always love going up there. Know why?!? It makes me really appreciate where we live and how we live now. I have to admit it. I HATED living there 8 years ago and sometimes I long for big city life and excitement but then I get my quick fix on a week long trip like this and I'm good again for awhile. I don't miss things like the ever present parking lot called roads up there and I'm oh so thankful for my driveway and garage!! We truly are spoiled down here in the middle of nowhere and sometimes I need a swift kick in the a@# to remember that.

So last year we rode the train down into DC and I got some amazing shots down there-all of which I have yet to actually scrap-- and this year we decided to revisit one of our favorite spots, the Annapolis waterfront. It was gloomy and raining on and off all day but I was feeling nostalgic and really wanted to go see if the old restaurants were still there and if it just looked the same and it did!! It just felt like fall down there and made me not miss the passing of summer so much. We also checked out the townhome we lived in there (our military quarters that we also lived in there for awhile had long since been condemned and bulldozed-seriously) and the old neighborhood looked exactly the same! Well, they now have an extremely cool playground for the little ones that I would've died for back then for Chase and they don't take care of the yard nearly as good as we did :) We visited with my brother and his family too and it was just a nice trip all around. These are all shots of Annapolis.

Another year...Another CKC...

2008-08-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

So hubby and I are back from Charlotte and hubby had such a great time he wants to go back next year :) No, he didn't hit CKC with me. Scrapbooking is just not his bag. Actually, his bag holds a butt-ton of Taylormades and he managed to find himself in golf heaven on Friday. He just went on and on about what a great day of golf he had. I couldn't get a word in edgewise about the sb convention. Too funny! I have to say I'm stinkin' proud of myself this year. A few days before leaving for Charlotte, I was really a little bummed that we had made these plans since I'm drowning in product here. I have a stack of paper sitting on the sofa in my scraproom desperately seeking a home and not enough layouts in my lifetime to use it all. But-I focused my energy elsewhere and scored BIGTIME on new QK alphas!! What's a girl to do when they're all on sale like that?? So, I picked up a slew of new ones (well, pretty much the rest of the new release I hadn't already bought) and just 20--yes, that's right--20 new sheets of paper. Some Pink Paislee and some sheets of the new BG lines. Oh, and some really cute Pink Paislee owl stamps. I couldn't resist. So, unlike last year where I came back with stuff that wasn't even product I really use, I bought stuff I LOVE and had a FAB time!! I think it made a huge difference that I knocked out all my shopping in a couple hours and then went to lunch with my friend Yvonne and just had a relaxing time. Hubby and I had the rest of the day to ourselves and it really felt like a little mini-vaca. I might even do this again next year...

My guys are trouble.

2008-08-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

I did this one today in honor of their completely immature behavior whenever they get into the pool. Any pool. Most times I hang around for a bit and then make a speedy escape when I see a hotel manager making their way over. This particular night during our stay in Orlando, I didn't even go down to the pool. I was WAY too into Project Runway and figured I'd meet them down there when it was over. Well-no worries. They came back to the room after just 30 short minutes. Seems my hubby (while wrestling with my son in the pool) somehow managed to pop a guy in the face with his fist (totally unintentional) and they were so embarassed they left the pool. At least that's the story I got. Am I sure they weren't asked to leave by hotel management? no. Am I the only one that deals with this every stinkin' vacation??

I'm in love...

2008-08-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

with the MM Passport line!!! I've had these papers laying around for a few weeks now and just wasn't sure what to use them on. Well, duh. Vacation, what else?? I had some kinda fun on this one. Sadly, the green paper I used on the lettering doesn't show up when photographed but it stands out nicely IRL. I'm having camera issues this week.For all you QK freaks- it's my(hangs head in shame) first use with Biography. I know, crazy, huh? Used all kinds of awesome stuff from this line and I'm SO glad I picked up the stamps! And the scrap mojo continues...

How's this for creepy??

2008-08-10T16:48:00.001-07:00

Been busy today with mojo flowing and decided to knock out these pages for the CJ I'm involved in. This is Rebecca's (flowerpower) CJ Do You Believe? and focuses on the paranormal. We had a bunch of questions to choose from and I chose to answer whether I believe in ghosts. This was partly due to some playing around in Photoshop yesterday and creating a photo collage for something completely unrelated. Hubby was so blown away by the results, he suggested I do it again for this CJ. I have to say, I'm stinkin' proud of the creep factor on this spread. It came out just as twisted as I predicted it would! The merged images are pics of my great-grandmother and I just changed the opacity for extra ghostliness. No matter how hard I try though, I just can't capture with the camera the transparent elements on this. Kinda like taking pics of ghosts, I imagine?? It was fun and I'm covered in ink and paint tonight. oh-and adhesive. Definitely a change of pace from my norm and I think the girls were expecting cutesie out of me. I think they'll be surprised and hopefully a little creeped out!

My first cj pages are complete...

2008-08-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, excluding my own, of course. These pages are for Shawna's (Saucier131) cj Say What?!? We were asked to do a 2 pager on a word(s) or phrase that we find ourselves using A LOT and try to incorporate pics of us using our word or situations where we would definitely blurt out our word. This was actually much more difficult than I anticipated. No, not figuring out which word or phrase is my signature but trying to find just the right pics for this. I think by now anyone who knows me knows how much the word "stinkin" flies out of my mouth. I felt some pressure in trying to fulfill the doodling requirements on these pages as well. I just don't doodle. Guess I'm just a neat freak like that. Must have order and all. I cheated and used templates but I DID come clean with everyone on that. And faced a bit of ribbin' for it too!

I need a 12-step program...

2008-08-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

The first step is recognizing you have a problem, right? Ya see, I have this little sub-addiction to my main addiction(that being sb supplies,of course). I cave at the sight of a new QK release. I can't help it. There's no stopping it. Just when I think I have enough stinkin' fonts around here, I convince myself there's always room for one more. Or 4 more, whatever the case may be. So this last week has been interesting for my mailman. I wonder if he wonders what the heck I'm ordering?? I think the mailman knows more about our lives than we do.

So, with the release of the new 4x8 alpha,which I wasn't too sure about on day 1 of the release, I then felt compelled to finally pick up the 12" platform for the Rev. I mean, ya never know when you might want to buy a 4x8 alpha, right? Quickly realizing I had no real need for the 12" platform without a 4x8 alpha, I then picked up 2 of those. One just wouldn't be enough justification. But in order to truly appreciate that 12" platform I needed to cut something 12" long so I then picked up 2 of the 12" borders. After all, those scallop borders are stinkin' cute. But then we need to back up a step. Two days prior to this, I had already convinced myself that my true love lies in the 2x2 alphas so I shamelessly picked up "just one more" of those. Now this morning I see a deal on a third 4x8 alpha I would be a fool to let slip by.

All said and done, I have had packages arriving all week from various QK meccas around the country (because in order to really justify this I had to shop around for the best deals-none of which was possible through one store as many of these were sold out at one store and not the other) and my mailman can now cancel his gym membership since he's having to step out of his little white truck and walk up to the house to leave the packages.

And now I feel like I've done my good deed for the week in keeping him healthy and fit.
I wonder what QK will release next month?

Whew! It's been a crazy couple weeks!

2008-08-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

But we're back from Orlando and gearing up for another school year! This summer has just flown by and I can hardly believe the kid will be a sophomore this year!! What an awesome-ly relaxing vacation we just had-believe it or not in Orlando of all places! Here's some pics of the week long seek for the ultimate thrill ride. I have to say there were a few coasters at Islands of Adventure that nearly knocked my socks off! I mean pee-your-pants exciting! The Hulk I believe was my favorite. If you've never been on it or heard anything about it-you WILL NOT be expecting what's in store for you at the beginning of that ride. Totally cool!

The best part of this trip had to be returning to the luxurious resort we stayed at down there. We looked forward to hanging out at the pool every day or having a few drinks on our florida room patio on the top floor. You've seen the cruise commercial with the teenage girl who scowls the whole time and won't be caught smiling or having a good time, right? That was Chase. Just too funny. Didn't know whether to laugh or scream at him but in the end, he asked if we were going back next year. WTH???

I'm sad to see the summer come to an end but looking forward to a few upcoming trips I'm taking with hubby later on this month. Only this time I think we'll leave the sulky one at home :)

Ready to mail!

2008-07-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

I'm so stinkin' proud of myself! I finished my cj pages BEFORE the deadline, thank you very much. I only had a month to do these and procrastinated until this past weekend. I think I'm definitely one of those people that works better under pressure. So I'll stick this in the mail tomorrow and anxiously await the first journal to be sent my way! Unfortunately it will arrive next week when we're in Orlando on vacation so once again, I'll have only a few weeks to work on the 2 pager for that album --but no worries!!

We're really looking forward to this trip next week. Hubby needs a break from work BAD and I need a change of scenery AGAIN. I think I'm looking forward to going to Sea World the most. I know it's crazy but no matter how many times I visit that park--San Diego, San Antonio, and now Orlando--I NEVER get sick of it!! It's my absolute favorite and can you blame me?? They have been incredibly gracious to active duty military over the years and who can argue with free beer tasting??? Anheuser-Busch ROCKS. Plain and simple.

So my cj topic was "The little things in life that make you smile" and here's my 10 little things:

1. Sitting on the patio with my morning java in my favorite mug

2.Hearing The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" come on the radio, out of the blue

3.Abby's frog-butt

4. A warm sandy beach

5.My stuffed sea turtle

6.Wearing a new outfit

7.Eating cake-my guilty little secret

8. Getting a package in the mail-especially if it's a new Quickutz alpha!

9. Curling up on the sofa and watching "So I Married an Axe Murderer" on a rainy Sat. afternoon

10. Having friends over for a BBQ on the weekend

Doesn't take much to make me happy--obviously.