Friday, May 30, 2008

Fancy Designs from ISC

Another sample using the Fancy Design set from ISC I used the marker and spray bottle method on the flower and the tag. Also used the rock and roll method on the tag.
  • Paper: Rose Red, Artichoke, Basic Grey Stella Ruby, Watercolor Paper
  • Ink: Markers in Rose, Artichoke and Mustard, Vanilla Craft ink
  • Accessories: May Arts Ribbon, Eyelet, Tag Punch from SU, Dew Drops

Thursday, May 29, 2008

ISC - Sketch challenge

Here is a card I made for a sketch challenge from Innovative Stamp Creations. The panels are popped up with deminsional foam adhesive.

  • Paper: Shimmery Vanilla, Celery , Pretty in Pink, Black
  • Inks: Celery, Black, Pink
  • Stamps: Innovative stamp creations Fancy Designs 1
  • Ribbon from May Arts, Glittery Brads from Paper Studios

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Innovative Stamp Creations



I have been guest designing for Innovative Stamp Creations and have started getting my samples done. I have just gotten started but wanted to post this sample. I used the SCS color combo challenge for this week, Chocolate/Vanilla/Sage. Hope you like it.

  • Stamps - Fancy Designs FD1-308 by ISC
  • Ink - Versamark, Chocolate chip craft ink by SU, SU sage marker
  • CS - SU Sage, Shimmery vanilla, Chocolate chip
  • Clear button, May Arts Shimmery ribbon, Paper Piercer

Monday, May 19, 2008

Sushi Set

I have had this clear set from A Muse sitting around my stamp room for months. I get it out and look at it and say "oh its so cute" then I put it away again. I really have no need to use it but I just wanted to today. I am having issues and I apologize in advance. My black Adirondak ink smeared a little even after I heat set it. I can't figure out why I am the only stamper around that can't seam to stamp without some kind of ink smearing. I own atleast 4 black inks, all supposedly great for certain situations. I used my copics to color this image and Adirondak ink is supposed to work great with them. Oh well. I have to confess that I didn't know what Arigato meant when I stamped it so I had to translate it online. I had to laugh because in my search the Mr. Roboto song came up(thank you very much Mr. Roboto) Now I know what the song was saying too.

In other news.....

I decided to go out on a limb and test the design waters so to speak. I accepted a very gracious offer to be a guest designer for Innovative Stamp Creations. I have never done anything like this before and I am slightly worried I won't live up to any ones expectations. I have never submitted anything, or tried out for anything in my life. It would never have come up had the owner Betsy Griffin not seen my blog after Jody linked me from her blog. Its very flattering to be asked and it really made me feel good. Now I will live in terror as I wait for the rubber to hit my mailbox and my mind spins thinking of card layouts and color schemes. I love to stamp but I feel like I am just an okay stamper, not a famous stamper that gets published and recognized. I sound like I need to work on my self-esteem or something LOL. Anyway, just thought I would write a little something about what is going on with me.

In other news...........I am going to Vegas baby! Yesterday hubby told me that he has to use up 100 hours of vacation before August 1 or he loses it. He pretty much springs this news on me every year. It really drives me up a wall. I love to plan vacations. Its a *thing* for me. I love planning every detail and I get very excited and dream about what we will do. I love the anticipation of a trip. We started out thinking about where we would like to go. First we were thinking Caribbean.........taking the kids and going to Aruba or to St. Lucia, or to Cozumel. Then we realized that 1. Dear Daughter would be taking college courses at the junior college this summer and she works part time at Old Navy so more likely than not, she wouldn't be able to go. 2. Neither of the kids have pass ports and after looking online at the processing time , we would need three weeks or more to get them. 3. we waited too late to plan anything for June.

So then hubby's mind drifts away and I was losing him......too many problems and its too much trouble for him and he says "I could take Blake to the deer lease for a week and just fish and work on my deer blind and feeder". *gasp* That leaves me completely without vacation! I can't do that! Then I say how about the river, let's go rent a cabin at the river. I get online and start calling. Um, ya, booked up since last year! Gotta have more planning time for the river because the cabins are all booked up already. Then I started to think about how going to the river isn't really a vacation for me anyway. I have to pack up my whole kitchen, bring towels and linens, cook while I am there ect... How is that any different from what I do everyday? Then he suddenly says, " why don't we just go to Louisiana and gamble at Le Berge". I go look at the price for a room and, wow, not good! He then takes the gambling leap and bless his little heart, he says we should just go to Vegas! Bingo! We have a winner! WE love Las Vegas! Its our favorite place anyway! We get free rooms and free food there thanks to our many vacations past! I can have frozen drinks with umbrellas in them out by the pool and pretend I am in Aruba. I can gamble all night and we don't have to bring the children! Yay! So we are in a rut, I will be the first to admit it. But I like the rut! I like getting off the plane and knowing exactly where I am going , how to get there and what to expect. We are treated really well there by the slot hostess. They love us to come visit. Sometimes we even get a free upgrade and wind up in a luxury suite. Its great! I had the whole thing booked within an hour. My mom was on board for child care and all was right in my world. Now I can dream about winning the megabucks again every night for the next 5 weeks.

We still have a long weekend in July at the lake with family planned, and at the end of July we plan to go to the beach. I told the kids I would take them to Schlitterbahn(waterpark) one day and maybe to Sea World. The kids will get their vacation too. Now most of our summer is planned. I have nothing in August planned so I need to work on that month. By August my son will be driving me crazy with boredom. I will get it figured out soon.

So that is what is going on with me. I just ordered a bunch of A Muse stamps too, there was a sale LOL. So I will be stamping on my down time. Hopefully I won't lose any blog readers in my time off but I understand if I do. I think everyone is busy in the summer.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Prom




Well, here she is , its prom night and I tried to get her to powder her nose and she said no, I tried to get her to curl her hair more, she said no, tried to get her to wear more lip gloss, so said no.Do you see a trend here? I am hoping she says no for the rest of the night LMBO! She is 17 and ready to concur the world(so she thinks) My not so girly girl is all dressed and ready to hit the dance floor in 4 " stelleto heals and a full length satin halter dress. Her dad showed her some dance moves last week and made me tear up a little, it was very sweet. My how time flies. I never thought I would be old enough to have a 17 yo daughter that drives and is staying out all night tonight. I just never saw it coming. Here it is though and I have to suck it up and let her have her night. Have fun my sweet little girl, enjoy the night. Stay safe and make good choices!

*sigh* I may throw up.................or go have a few margaritas

Friday, May 16, 2008

A Muse June contest

It has been awhile since I used my A Muse stamps and I finally had some free time today to give them a shot. I went over to the A Muse addicts site and saw it was time for another monthly home page contest. This months theme is Celebrating the men in your life. I am not very good at buying masculine stamp sets and I am always limited by what I have to choose from. This first card would work for my pre-teen son or one of his friends. Actually it would work for hubby as well I think, he is cool in my book. It is very simple and doesn't have a ton of bling. I happen to love bling even if the men in my life don't. This second card is simple as well but I spent a little more time on the coloring than usual. I used my copics and the blender to shade the tree trunk, added some light sponging, masked the tree and added the fence. That sentiment seems kind of funny to me for some reason, like the *swinging * from a different perspective *wink wink* like the '70's. LOL. Anyway, it might pass for a father's day card or a birthday card.

I realized that my A Muse paper and notecards are all too feminine as well. I need to shop for some more manly colors and patterns.
Hope you like them.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Mothers day revisited

I decided i didn't like the first Mother's Day card I did for my MIL so I made a new one. I pretty much cased myself just used a different stamp set and changed the layout slightly. I still used my Penny Black stamps but this time I used Windflower instead of Coneflower. I used a Maya Road clear flower that I ran through my xyron then glittered with transparent pink Fine glitter from Art Institute, May Arts ribbon again. Same basic grey Sultry patterned paper and rose red cs. Once again I used my watercolor crayons and colored directly on my stamps, then spritzed with water and stamped on watercolor paper. My sewing looks bad because once again the tension is off on my Janome. I love that little machine but I have never been able to get the tension to stay at the correct setting. I like this card much better than the teal card using the sketch. I hope she likes it too.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Friendship of the Heart

I made this card for a special friend of mine that is always doing very nice things for me. I am kinda happy with the way it turned out. I love the new Basic Grey papers and my new Penny Black stamp! I even used my watercolor crayons on this one. I hope she likes it.
  • Paper- Watercolor Paper, Celery Green, Rose Red, Basic Grey Sultry
  • Watercolor crayons, Versafine Black
  • May Arts ribbon, Heidi Swapp Ghost shapes flower, Paper Studio, glittery brad
  • Janome sewing machine

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Very simple Birthday Card



I was channeling Pinefeather AKA: Heather Nichols, when I decided to stamp this birthday card for my friend. The colors photographed a little weird even in my lightbox but you get the idea ;). Happy Birthday Tara, what's it like to be 39 again for the 3rd time? LOL! BTW if you are reading this , your card is in the mail.

  • Paper- Aquamist, Spring Moss, and SU kraft, PT Everyday blessings
  • Ink- SU white craft ink, Pallette Spring moss and Aquamist, stazon Timber Brown
  • Ribbon by Papertrey Ink
  • Mini Brads

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

MIL....Mothers day

Okay! I had to make a card for my MIL as well so here it is. I used today's sketch challenge as my layout. Not very easy.My colors are then same on both cards, I was in a teal mood or something. Bali Breeze papers and a Mothers day stamp from someplace (I can't remember where). The organdy ribbon is sliding around even though its taped so I am not very happy about that. Darn ribbon! I think that's all I can squeeze out of today. It doesn't look like it , but, It took me several hours to make just 2 worthy cards. Oiy!

Mother's Day

Here is the first attempt I have made for a mothers day card. I bought these stamps from Inkadinkado specifically with my mother in mind. She loves bird houses and bird watching and she is an avid gardener. It looked like her to me. Its a little busy for me but I still like it. I used some gorgeous sparkle embossing powders in chocolate and teal. The pattern paper is SU Bali Breeze. The Mother's Day stamp is from SU and is in the All holiday set. May Arts ribbon.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Doorprize and gifties

Here is a shot of the door prize I won this weekend at the Arlington Texas Shoebox swap. I am not sure who made the basket. It has lots of goodies inside including the SU Build A Brads which I have been dieing to try. There are embellishments, ribbon, and clear stamps, plus a little notepad. It is a very nice door prize.
Here it is all spread out so you can see the goodies.. The brads are super cute too. I feel like everyone really outdid themselves on the door prizes this year.
This great little gift bucket is from Texasjodylynn . She and I were room mates again. We met way back in October 2005 at the very first North Texas SCS gathering. Jody always makes me something special when we get together. We had a super fun time as usual. Thank you Jody for being a great friend and roomie.

I had a fabulous time this weekend and hope we can all get together and do it again next year. Now I am exhausted and trying to get back into the swing of things around the house. The cleaning fairies forgot to come while I was gone.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

A2 Card Keeper

Here is the card keeper I made for the doorprize. Its just matboard cut and covered with the Western Sky paper from SU. I used Paper Studio Cork letters too. When you open it up , it contains clear sleeves that hold A2 size cards. I didn't make this idea up myself, I was inspired by Amy Rysavy.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Chocolate Book





Here are the pictures I promised of my chocolate lovers book. I have started a small collection of stamps that represent my love of chocolate and I had the idea of making a little book with some of the little square Giradelli chocolates tucked inside. Unfortunately you can't get too many in there or it won't shut! I just realized I left off the back page photo. I will have to try and go get a quick shot of it too. Its not exciting, just another cupcake image. I hope you like it.
*here is the last page






Thursday, May 01, 2008

Swapcard

Here is my swapcard for the shoebox swap this weekend. It has a lot of layers and steps but I couldn't make a card any faster LOL. Believe me, I have tried simple and I just can't do it.Most of the work is done, all that will be required is some simple stamping and glueing and piercing.