Featured Stamper --She's KEWL!!

I love Sundays when you can go to Splitcoast and be inspired by someone elses gallery with the Featured Stamper! This week's it's all about Karen Dunbrook (FS105)! I went through her amazing gallery and picked THIS one! I loved the simplicity of it - and set off to try to find a stamp set that I could use to make this card "my own!" So, I pulled out some of my Cornish Heritage Farms stamps that had been neglected for awhile -- :-(



I used my Silhouette Blooms I set and two shades of ink (Aqua and Black Vivid) and that was it! This card is pretty self explanatory - stamp, mat it up, add a sentiment and some bling and -- bada boom, bada bing! Done!

So, go check out Karen's gallery and watch out -- your likely to be inspired too!

Happy Monday!

Getting Ink-e

I have to say, can someone check my head? Do I have a fever? How's my complexion--- do you think I am pale? Seriously, I have gotten more stamping done in the last week than I think should be possible! I must not be feeling well!! LOL!

Actually, I have just finished up some severe work deadlines and I have just rewarded myself with some time in my stamp room! Yesterday morning I grabbed a cup of coffee and my laptop and logged on to SCS to see what kind of challenges they had out there! While I've only played a few times, I really love the Featured Stamper challenge. I love looking and being inspired by other people's work. It is just so refreshing! So, I got Ink-e! That is Emily's screen name for SCS and she was this week's Featured Stamper! (FS89)

THIS is the card that inspired me. I loved the monochromatic look, the layout, well, pretty much everything! To change this up, instead of blue, I chose a black and white combo!
I used different stamps too and then, I added some bling! The Stamps were Spring Ephemerals (Flourishes), Rummage Bin (Cornish Heritage Farms) for the background flourish image and the saying, "Friend," was from the Flourished Words set from Flourishes! Add some sheer ribbon, some Hodge Podge Hardware and some pewter self stick pearls and you're done!

If you need some inspiration, you should really take a trip to Emily's gallery. She has some great cards and some fun layouts too! I had fun just taking a peek at all her recent creations!

I'm am off to go on a cleaning binge! My mom is coming tomorrow and I have to ready the place for the "Queen!" LOL! Just kiddin' ma! Actually, who doesn't want to roll out the red carpet for their mom! ;-)

Until tomorrow!

A Shout Out To My Bloggin' Buds!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend! First off, I wanted to say thanks to Jackie over at Just Stamp It! and Karen at Karen's Kreations. They are the sweetest! Both gave me the ArteY Pico award. It's given to bloggers who share their art and contribute to the blogging community. WOW! Truly an honor ladies! If you check out their blogs, I'm sure you'll agree, they are a couple of talented cookies themselves!!

I have to tell you - I've made some pretty neat friendships in blog land! It's funny how I click of a mouse and a comment left can really make someone's day. I can't count how many times I have read a comment and laughed - I mean FULL belly laughed - at a comment that one or more of you have left! My husband officially thinks I need meds! But, maybe it's good that he thinks I am a tad bit crazy - I'll be able to get away with more and he'll keep on being nice to me! LOL!

In honor of my bloggin' buds, I am going to dedicate this week to some of the women whom have brightened my day. Those that made special gifts, those that sent a fun package my way, those that gave me a PIF or a RAK - CHEERS TO YOU! I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it!!!


The first person... is my MOM! You can visit her HERE! She sent me this adorable little notebook that she took the time to deck out, gave me directions on how to make my own along with all the things needed to do the project. She even stuffed some fun papers and brads in the package. How fun is that? She got the idea from Angie at Chick n' Scratch. Check out her blog for this really fun tutorial!

Here's a close up of the darling notebook with all the fun ribbon on top!

Since the whole idea was to take her notebook and supplies and make one myself, I did!!

This is what the notebook looked like when we started....

Can you believe it was just .50 at Mikes? Seriously! That's what my mom paid. Here at my Mikes they are a buck, but still! What a fun, personal gift!!

I used grunge flower from Cornish Heritage Farms. It was the stamp of the month for March. If you've never checked out their SOTM deals, you should. You get one stamp and a sentiment for a discount. This one came with the saying, "Bloom With Abandon" and was a really pretty text. You can still buy both, but separately!

On to my creation... here's how it turned out! I love it! Just a breath of spring! It was so fast and fun to create! I know there are more to create in the near future.


Thanks mom for the fabulous gift and the chance to be creative and try one myself!!!

Tomorrow, I'll find a "Buck" and share some of her fabulous creativity!! Until tomorrow!

Another bold one...

Hi all!
Remember me saying, I used a piece in my color blocked card from another creation? Well, this was it. I had stamped these flowers from Cornish Heritage Farms Silhouette Blooms set on my white card base - but on the first try, I did it all in black. Well, I thought it needed a bigger pop of color. So, I ditched that card and stamped it again, leaving some space for the twiggy flowers in aqua. You might laugh at me, but there was some bedding at Target that influenced this card! It wasn't black and blue like this is was black and orange with hot pink. It was that stark contrast with the pop of color that drew me to it! I guess I have been doing a lot of this style lately ---huh??? The rest is pretty self explanatory - layers matted together with a loopy brad off to the side and a piece of sheer polka dot ribbon pulled through! This could be a 10 minute card! How about a set in different colors? That Silhouette Blooms set has 4 different sayings! Hey, maybe I need to do that??!?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!



p.s. I wanted to say thanks for all the wonderful comments about my "news." When I read them, they brought a smile to my face! I have such an amazing group of cyber-friends and, believe me, I feel blessed! So... THANKS for making my day!

Here's a quickie and a joke!

Last Tuesday, I taught a class at my LSS and this is one of them! It's our card club, so the object is to leave with 9 cards of three "themes." If you look at this set of stamps, Silhouette Blooms I, from Cornish Heritage Farms, it has four sentiments - Hello, Thoughts of You, With Sympathy and Best Wishes. It's the perfect set for pretty much 90% of the cards I send. You know?

This one is easy peasy! Basically, it's a strip of decorative paper down one side, the mat was created with a positive/negative effect and the stamping was done mostly with "generations" of the same ink! For the spindly branch, I stamped off twice before stamping it on my paper. It's the same color as my main flower image! The ribbon was just attached thanks to a loopy brad that I embellished with an aqua dew drop. That's it!

Now for the joke/story. This is a bit of the flavor in my day. My son, Cal, who is now 11-years-old had this joke. He told it every chance he got and when ever we heard the words, "What do you call...", we knew, we knew "the joke" was coming and braced ourselves for it. Well, I thought I'd pass on a bit of "Cal humor" to my daughter Ellie. She is 4 after all. And, it is the perfect joke for a 4-year-old. So, I say, "Ellie, what do you call a snail on a boat?" She says, "What?" and I throw in that punch line we've heard a million times... "A Snailor!" Then, I chuckle anticipating her little giggle. She looks at me. She's not laughing. "I don't get it." "What?" I say. "You don't get it? You know a person on a boat is called a sailor. So, a snail on a boat would be a snailor. Get it?" "No." Then, a few minutes pass. "Mom, what do you call a snail in a car?" I reluctantly say, "What?" She giggles and says, "A rider-snail." "Ellie, that doesn't make any sense." She looks at me and, as God is my witness says, "I know what you are trying to do. You are just trying to stract (distract) me so that you can be the funniest person in the world!"

I am so sad she figured out my evil plan. What will I do now?

Hope you're enjoying your Thursday!!

The Last Elvis!

Well, this week was a blast showing the fun that the ladies and I had with our Elvis class! This last one is a card that was inspired by Lori Craig, one of the designers for Cornish Heritage Farms. She has done amazing things with the Elvis stamps! Click HERE to see the card that inspired this creation! There are a few, just a few differences between my card and hers. I didn't use the flourishy stamp - although I LOVE it. And, I used a different saying.

The key was stamping the finger clicking Elvis in the center and then put the silhouette Elvis on both sides. I colored the face and hands with flesh colored markers, colored the shirt a pale, pale blue and added some prisma glitter to the shoes and the jacket. The saying was done by stamping "Love Me Tender" twice - once on the white strip, and once on a red scrap. I used a heart punch to punch out the word "me", and then laid the heart me over the one on the strip by adhering it with a peice of foam tape. I added a dot border below for some extra pizazz. Ticket corner punch the corners, add some bling and that's pretty much it! Thanks to Lori for the great inspiration. It's nice when you can CASE a card and make it your own. She's one talented lady!

Here's a close up the "Love Me Tender.." Fun stuff! Happy Hump Day!

Me and the King!

Ok, if you are done laughing at yesterday's post. Get ready for me and the King. I put my pic in the little frame we made at class and what cracks me up is my 4 year old's reaction. First it was - Who's that? As if she should know this funny man in a purple suit. I say, "That's Elvis." Isn't that fun? She looks at me like, "Why?" Then promptly starts calling him "Melvis." She walks around the house talking to everyone about "Melvis." "Dad," she says, "Did ya see mom with Melvis?" When her brother picks up the frame - she says, "Oh, that's just mom with Melvis." I crack up. I think I'm going to leave it at my computer desk for awhile just to see how many laughs I can get out of this!

Now... on to the pic!

What this is - is basically just a dressed up coaster! The front was decked out with decorative paper. I stamped the Elvis silhouette from Cornish Heritage Farms off to the left side of the frame. Above it, I stamped the word ELVIS and accented it with my Copic Spica clear pen. The mat for my picture was created thanks to my rectangle and scalloped rectangle Nestabilitie sets. Then, I just added a flower and some bling!

The back/stand was just created by imitating a table tent kind of fold. I took a 2-1/2" by 11" strip of paper and scored it at 1", then scored again 3-3/4" from that score line, 2" from that score line and then again 3-1/2" from that one. I cut off the excess and then used the 1" flap to add glue and make my tent. Piece of cake!

Well, before I go, I have to tell you that two friends already cheered me up and gave me some warm and fuzzies!!! Anna from Home Made Greetings gave me the "You Cheer Me Up Award!"
Me? I do? Really? Seriously? Ok, ok, if you insist.
Who would I bestow this honor on? Well, here are just a few ladies that make me laugh whenever we meet in blog land!
Pat
Jacki
Deb (I know you got this award - but you crack me up so you're getting it again!)
Cheryl
Becky

Way cool! And my buddy Diane at DDNJOYS2STAMP gave me this little beauty. It's the Arte Y Pico award. The award is given to bloggers who share their art creations through blogging!
Now.... I have to pick SOME folks to pass this beauty on to..... (there are more--I know!) They are picked because of their creativity, design and interesting material. I pick....
Janine
Jennifer
Kim
Laura
Phyl
Chris
Lesli

If any one of you have already received these fab honors - I am sorry. It's just so hard to keep track of all my talented bloggin' buds!

Hope you're having a great week! Until tomorrow!

I'm all shook up!

Last week we had one of the most fun classes EVER at my LSS. It was a blast to teach, but none of the fun was because of me. Can you believe it?? LOL! You're about to see why this class was a blast in about 3.2 seconds. It was an Elvis class and revolved all around some of the recently released images from Cornish Heritage Farms!

First, this is one of the cards we made that night. I took three 1-3/4" by 2-3/4" pieces of cardstock and stamped the Finger Clickin' Elvis all over the place on each one. I wanted it to look like he was in a blender! Seriously. Isn't he getting all shook up??? There's very little going on with him though. I just colored his face and hands with a flesh colored Tombow and then colored his shirt with my red Copic Spica glitter pen. Add some decorative paper. Cut the sentiment out with my Stampin Up Word Window punch. Tie some black satin ribbon on and done! Fun!

Now.... for the fun part. While our ladies were making their cards.... ELVIS ENTERED THE BUILDING...

THIS... was the reaction!!!

OK LADIES, don't all jump up at once to greet the King!!! This is Mary, the fab store owner who helped put all of this together. She has the "connections" to Elvis. How fun is this???
Here's Linda & The King!!!

Two lovelies showing off their cards! The card on the left I'll show later this week. It was influenced by one of the CHF designers who has done AMAZING things with this line of stamps. I'll fill you in more on that later!I don't know about you, but something strikes me funny about Elvis taking an interest in rubber stamping. What a good sport to put up with all of us!!!!


Artha won the Elvis scarf and "shows it off!!!" You go girl!!!

We had an absolute blast! Tomorrow I'll show you the cute mini picture frame we made to put our Elvis photos in!! Happy Monday!!

A Challenge.... and how I did it!

It's Friday! TGIF! Which means.... drum roll please... time for another Stamp Simply Challenge courtesy of the lovely and talented Sharon Johnson (applause welcome)!

This week her challenge is to paper pierce. In her words, "anyway, anyhow, anywhere, anything goes -- from simple piercing around a scallop edge, or a simple straight line or corner, to something ornate with a fancy Ornare type template -- as long as we are poking holes in our paper -- LOL!!!" Ok, so that's easy enough right? What are you waiting for, get piercing!!!

To check out the details for her challenge... click HERE That's where you'll also find her fabulous creation!! LOVE the colors she used!

Dee Jackson also came up with a FABULOUS idea for paper piercing. When I saw her card, I actually thumped my head and said, "Now why didn't I think of that!" Check it out HERE!

I actually used a Lasting Impressions brass template for my paper piercing. I have a ton of old brass stencils that I bought probably 4 or 5 years ago that hardly ever see the light of day! Well, I am dragging them out now because I realized I can use them with my Wizard OR use them like I did here, for paper piercing templates!

I also did something else! I used this template to create a mask so that I could sponge ink in the center of my piercing. So, I ran the template through my Wizard, folded it in half and then cut along the inside line leaving about 1/2 inch.


What I have now... is a mask! I tacked it down with some post-it notes and then sponged in some Antique Paper Distress Ink in the center.


Lift off the mask and PRESTO.... this is what you've got!


From there, I inked up my Hero Arts flower with two shades of red marker and two shades of green marker to give it some dimension. I huffed and stamped! I did leave the mask over my main piece of paper when I stamped because I didn't want the stem of my flower to go below the inked up part of my paper pierced piece. I matted it onto a piece of Stardream Gold paper, wrapped it with some gold embroidery floss, and matted it on a 4 by 5-1/4" piece of red that had been accented with a kind of Harlequin stamp using Versamark ink. I matted the red piece on a piece of brown that had been edged with gold leaf pen. And then matted this whole thing onto a textured dark red card stock base. The sentiment is from Silhouette Blooms from Cornish Heritage Farms. I love this set! The words and flowers are so elegant! Before I attached a hot fix nail head onto my sentiment tag, I did use the ticket corner punch from Stampin' Up on all four corners. I attached my tag not with the thread but just by cheating with some foam tape!

Hope you find time to take part in the challenge! I'd love to see what you cook up!

Have a fab weekend!

Challenge Time - Let your fun flap fly!

I'm laughing as I type this... because this week's challenge is called the FUN FLAP! Yes, the fun flap. Sharon and I talked about what to call this and, believe it or not, this is the best we could come up with! If you want to see the full details of the challenge, just head on over to her place by clicking HERE. That will also give you a chance to check out her fant-a-bulous creation!! It is so elegant and pretty. I won't say any more, you'll just have to see it for yourself!!

So, what's a fun flap? It's a card that is only a flat panel or card front (doesn't open) that has a little card on it that opens up to reveal the message. There are no other rules — anything goes, as long as your flat panel has something on it that opens!

I have two cards to share! The first card was an experiment with one of my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I inked up my flowers, Silhouette Blooms by Cornish Heritage Farms with markers (2 shades of green and 2 shades of red), stamped once, huffed on the stamp, and then stamped again. I repeated this three times. I "antiqued" the paper by stamping my Canvas background (Stampin' Up) with Antique Linen Distress ink over top, stamped my saying (from that same stamp set) with Versafine Black Onyx in the corner. Then, the fun begins! I tried something different. I ran this piece through my Wizard with one of my embossing folders. Man, does that machine leave a deep impression! I then sponged more distress ink over top to bring out the multi-dimensional look. I think it's a pretty neat effect! Aren't experiments fun??!??

The background was done just by running a piece of card stock through with the embossing folder and then using copper rub-a-buff to give it an aged copper look. I used a corner punch on the two layers (the embossed and the coppery paper) and matted that onto a brown Bazzill quarter sheet "card front." The card that opens up is actually taped to the front and tacked down with the help of my Stampin' Up slit punch. You know, that little half circle punch?

Here's a look at the inside of the card so you can see the slit punch....
The second card is a ten minute version of this! Instead of using an embossing folder, I created contrast with coordinating paper! I used the same flap mat card on the front, matted it onto coordinating card stock and then matted that onto a brown quarter sheet of card stock ( basically my 4-1/4" by 5-1/2" card front). I punched a 1-1/4" circle through the front and then stamped the saying "Best Wishes" (also a part of the Silhouette Blooms set by CHF) through the circle. When you flip the flap, it reveals the saying on the inside of the card! I added some ribbon and voila! Done!

Hope you're able to take part in this week's challenge! Sharon always does such fun things.... just in time for the weekend!

TGIF!