7/29/8 Convention Swaps

Yeah!! It's almost here . . . the day I've been dreaming about . . . the day I go to my very first SU convention!!

I've been working on my convention swaps. Here are three that I've never posted before. Two are for general swapping and the sock monkey for the SCS dinner swap.

Supplies for the Birthday card:

Stamps: Party Hearty
Paper: Basic Black, Real Red, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, Real Red
Accessories: Bold Brights Brad, Scalloped Edge Punch, My Way Punch, Wide Grosgrain, 3/4" Circle Punch, Dimensional




Supplies for the Wanted Card:

Stamps: Wanted
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Confetti White, Bella Rose DP
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Vintage Brads, Caramel Gingham, Chocolate Chip Wide Grosgrain, Dimensionals

Here's my sweet little sock monkey card that I made for the official SCS dinner swap. I just love this little guy!! Cutting out almost 50 little pajama outfits did get a wee bit tedious, though!! Maybe explains why the rest of my swaps are much simpler in nature! lol! My favorite part of this card is that the top layer flips up to reveal a sentiment. Isn't that neat??

Supplies for the sock monkey card:

Stamps: Sock Monkey, Sweet Stars Jumbo Wheel Paper: Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss, Very Vanilla Ink: Pacific Point, Basic Black, Pink Pirouette, Creamy Caramel, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss Accessories: Aqua Painter, Blender Pen, YoYo Yellow Marker, Black Journaler, My Way Punch, Ticket Corner Punch, Vintage Brad

Have a great day and I'll be back after convention!!

7/25 I've been Tagged!

Oh, my gosh . . . I've been tagged!! lol! Thank you to Natalie. She has a lovely blog called Stamping with Natalie. I'm sort of lame when it comes to passing stuff on, especially since I'm probably about the last person in blog land to be tagged! But, I'll tell you 7 random things about me.

1. I raised pigeons for 7 years as a teenager. Modenas for those who care. To this day I have a small feeling of regret that I did not continue with this hobby into my adult hood. I think were I still a farm girl, I would have continued it. but living in the suburbs of Mpls/St. Paul . . . not so easy.

2. Yes. I used to be a farm girl. My dream is to someday live again on the family farm in south central Minnesota. It has been in our family for over 125 years. I miss it most every day of my life. But, I do enjoy my Caribou coffee stores every few miles here in the cities. Guess I'd have to give that up were I to go back to farm living.

3. I LOVE Caribou coffee. I make their coffee in my pot at home, but when I'm out and about I LOVE my coffee coolers. Even if it's 10 below - coffee coolers hit the spot!! (All three of my girls ages 14, 12 and 11 drink coffee, too.)

4. If I can't be stamping in my spare time, I like to be golfing. Any excuse to go golfing and I am there. I'll drop everything to golf. I wish I could say I was as good as my passion, but alas, if I break 100 there's something serious to celebrate! So, no, I'm not really that good. But, I do just LOVE it and can see myself golfing into my eighties!!

5. My husband still puts butterflies in motion when I look at him! I totally ADORE him and thank God every day to have him in my life. We met at 18 when he was a cook and I was a waitress at Perkins. We were both just starting college.

6. My hubby and I decided to homeschool out kids when I was pregnant with our first. So, for kindergarten through 6th grade, I am their teacher. For 7th and 8th grade, they attend a school that meets three days a week and then do school from home the other two days a week and then for high school, they will attend a local Christian school.

7. My most favorite meal is deer steak pounded in flour and fried in butter, a baked potato with butter and sour cream and a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with fresh raspberries.

So, is that fairly random? I did think of one more . . . I really don't care to go on long vacations. Isn't that funny? I think it's fun for a couple of days or so and then I'm ready to go home. I guess I'm a true homebody.

Well, have a perfectly lovely day. I am going to work on swaps for convention. I've put them off about as long as I dare to!! lol!

7/24 Dreams du Jour Embraced!

Ahhh, for sure, Dreams du Jour is my new favorite sets! And, look how wonderful it looks paired up with Embrace Life and Sanded! This is another color challenge from Kristina Werner. The challenge colors were Rose Red, Regal Rose, Sage Shadow and Whisper White. You can read about it HERE.
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As you can see, Kristina selected a picture of a wonderful vintage dress as the basis of the challenge. I decided to use Dreams du Jour because I just love the images and I felt like these colors could really work with the flowers in the dreams medallian. I decided to make my card base white . . . rather rare for me, because the base of the dress was white. But, it looked too white . . . so out came Sanded, my newest background stamp.
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I haven't been stamping just too much this week with 4-H activities. We've been soooo busy! But, when I saw the challenge, I had to do something with it. I actually started this card around 8pm this evening and that is really late for me! lol! Then, I kept getting interupted so it took like two hours to create this! But, it's done - posted - and now I can go to bed!!

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Supplies:

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Stamps: Dream du Jour, Sanded, Embrace Life

Paper: Whisper White, Rose Red, Regal Rose, Sage Shadow

Ink: Basic Black, Rose Red, Regal Rose, Sage Shadow

Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Dimensionals, Aqua Painter, Blender Pen

7/21 Pure Sweetness

This is a Great Swaps Group Featured Stamper Challenge card. You can read all about our Featured Stamper, Arin Burdo, HERE. Arin has a lovely gallery. I looked through her layouts hoping I would find one that would work with my Fall/Winter Sneak Peak set called Dreams du Jour. I found THIS LAYOUT and it spoke to me!! lol! I couldn't get stamping fast enough!!

I changed up the stamp sets, of course, and used my Dreams du Jour. I substituted pretties in place of the buttons. The designer paper is also from the demonstrator sneak peak and it is called Bella Rose. Does Bella mean beautiful?? If it does, then I'm not surprised that this paper carries this name because it truly is beautiful!!

To dye the pretties, I just squirted a couple of drops of Pink Pirouette reinker (a new In-Color) onto a plastic palette, misted it with a bit of water and dyed the flowers. So simple and so incredibly easy!! I pressed them dry on a Kleenex and a they were ready to go. I put the half-back pearls on with mini glue dots. The stamped image is raised up on dimensionals. There is some faux stitched with a white gel pen around the circle. In the background you can see that I used a background stamp called Sanded. My edges are sponged.

Supplies I used to create this card:

Stamps: Dreams du Jour, Sanded Paper: Pink Pirouette, Bella Rose Designer Paper, Whisper White Ink: Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze Accessories: Coluzzle, Aqua-Painter, Pretties Kit, White Gel Pen, Dimensionals, Glue Dots, Sponge

Sweet RAKS from Sweet Friends

Isn't this a sweet one? One of my most supportive customers gave me this card full of bling at my Hostess Appreciation last week. But the card wasn't all . . . she also gave me a potted plant and a single rose in celebration of my one year anniversary with Stampin'Up as a demonstrator! How sweet it is to have friends who love you and believe in you. Thank YOU, CindySue!!

And then, I have my wonderful SCS friends! Melinda and I started exchanging cards about two years ago. She is from Campbell River, BC. What a fabulous artist she is!! Just look at this stand up pop up card she made!! I tell you, I am so blessed. Having friends who share your passion is truly a gift from God above!! Thank You, dear sweet Melinda!!

7/17 Dreams du Jour

Isn't this a pretty card? I got to PLAY with some new toys when I made this one! Demonstrators get to select some items from the new catty and I selected this new stamp set called Dreams du Jour, the most awesome NEW and reasonably priced scallop punch and some cool new buttons! I discovered that one of the half-back pearls in the Pretties Kit fit perfectly into the button indentation. How's that for a pretty layered button?!!
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I selected my colors based on the following color challenge issued by Kristina Werner. I'm becoming one of her blog groupies!! Last week, I was selected to be in her top ten. I was truly swooning!!! Maybe the one and only time ever, so I will cherish that moment forever! lol! Her challenge this week was based on this Martha Stewart picture:


The colors to use were: Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Pumpkin Pie and Very Vanilla.

Here is the link that will take you to Kristina's blog. She links to the Martha Stewart website, too, if you are interested in the baby shoe template.

Tonight I am having 17 ladies over for my first annual Hostess Appreciation Dessert and Gifts night. I've been a SU demonstrator for just over a year now and it's been so much fun. I can't wait to pamper my hostesses with gifts, pie, projects and prizes. I have to admit, though, the food spreads that most of them put out will make mine look paltry. My talent does not fall far from my stamp room! haha! My dessert is a thawed out Mrs. Smith's pie . . . but I'm hoping my projects will make up for the lack of kitchen creativity! (Although, I LOVE to cook main meals. I'm just not much of dessert/appetizer kind of girl.)
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Supplies I used to make this card:
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Stamps: Dream du Jour
Paper: Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie, Very Vanilla, Soft Sky Designer Prints
Ink: StazOn Black, Pumpkin Pie, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky
Accessories: Pumpkin Pie Grosgrain, Button, Pretties Pearl, Glue Dots, Dimensionals, Aqua- Painter

7/16 Bright Color Blocked Baby Card

I needed a few baby cards for my stash and decided to use one of my favorite retired sets called Feathered Friends. It has such a sweet baby image on it! As long as I was using a retired set, I figured I might as well go to my "stash" of many colored patterned papers and see what I could find. I found these three printed papers . . . they all matched so they must have come out of the same paper pack. Maybe a Michael's stack?? I don't know . . . time goes by, my stash doesn't seem to dwindle just too much!

Since these colors were so bright, I pulled out a retired but very bright purple ink called magenta to do some Aqua-painting with. The sky is Cool Caribbean. Remember that lovely shade??? An In-Color that retired last year. So glad I kept it though. You never know what retired ink color will come in handy!

This is a very simple color blocked card. Color blocking is just taking blocks or color or in this case . . . blocks or coordinating patterned paper and blocking out your background. Some people get quite elaborate with lots of blocks. I find three to be just right . . . not too busy, not to dull . . . and I'm lazy. Who wants to cut and measure six or nine blocks when three will do??

Here are the supplies I used to create this card:

Stamps: Feathered Friends
Paper: Whisper White, non-SU solid and prints
Ink: Basic Black, Cool Caribbean, Brocade Blue, Pale Plum, Marvelous Magenta
Accessories: none . . . It's a FLAT card so it's easy to mail!

7/14 Kick Stand Birthday

It's my first kick stand card! I was having trouble sleeping (probably too much ice tea last evening) so I decided to get up in the middle of the night and stamp. Here are my results!

I used Big Birthday Candle and Sincere Salutations to create this card. I can't for the life of me figure out why Big Birthday Candle is going on the Dormant List. Never the less, I'll continue to use it just as if it is in the Fall/Winter catty - which is always how I've treated the dormant list. If I have it - I stamp with it! (This may also explain why I stamp with retired sets so often!!)

I stamped the candles onto some Bali Breeze non-designed designer paper. Do you think it is kind of odd that our designer paper will often have sides of pure color/no design? I can't figure that out either . . . but I'm OK with it. Sometimes it is nice to have a text weight pure color paper to work with.

Supplies I used to create this card:

Stamps: Big Birthday Candle, Sincere Salutations
Paper: Taken With Teal, Bravo Burgundy, Whisper White, Bali Breeze DP
Ink: Basic Black, YoYo Yellow, Bravo Burgundy
Accessories: Old Olive Wide Grosgrain

7/10 True Friend with Lots of Techniques!

This card is FULL of techniques - Let's make a list!

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1. Embossing

2. Faux Stitching

3. Marker to Rubber Stamping

4. Popped Up Image

5. Faux Brads

6. Dying a Pretties Kit Pearl

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There, I think that's it. Most are pretty easy to figure out . . . but I'll bet you haven't seen too many pearls dyed, have you? I'll explain. But first, I must show you the inspiration piece that got my creative juices flowing! It's another Kristina Werner Inspiration Challenge!

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It reminded me so much of fall . . . which happens to be my favorite season. I had to take out my True Friend stamp set. I haven't used it in a while and when I purchased it last fall out of the mini catalog, I remember using a lot of fall colors with it. Then the season passed, new stamp sets came onto the scene and I sort of forgot about my True Friend stamp set! But, thanks to Kristina, out it came and I am very pleased with the results!

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How did I make the pearl that color? Easy peasy . . . I dripped a drop or two of SU's Basic Brown refill ink onto it. Then, I dried it with a heat gun and it seemed to take! At least, no ink transferred onto my hands while I was attaching it! That's a good sign, but I was handling it pretty gingerly. Well, I just picked it up, rubbed it pretty vigorously with my thumb and the ink was still set. Yeah!! How fun is that???

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Faux brads? I just taped three pieces of white card stock together and cut through it with my crop-a-dial. Then put them onto my card with just a bit of glue. I used the 1/8" setting because I wanted the brads to be "mini."

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Here's the LINK to Kristina's blog where the color challenge is for this week. The colors were Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Really Rust, Certainly Celery, and Whisper White.

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Supplies I used to create this card:

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Stamps: True Friend, Boho Friend Wheel

Paper: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Certainly Celery, Whisper White

Ink: White Craft, Basic Brown Ink Refill

Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Heat Gun, Mat Pack with Paper Piercer, White Gel Pen, Markers in Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, and Really Rust, Wide Grosgrain in Chocolate Chip, Crop-a-Dial, Photo Corner Punch, Dimensionals, Glue Dot, Pretties Kit

7/8 Look what I found in my mailbox!!

Isn't this a pretty card? Lisa Trombitas sent it to me and I found it in my mailbox last week just before we went out of town for the 4th of July. I just LOVE it!! The images are from the stamp set Fabulous Flowers. She stamped and embossed the big flower three different times and then cut and layered and popped it with dimensionals. THANK YOU, Lisa, for totally making my day!

7/7 One of My Faves Retiring!

Noble Deer is one of my all time favorite stamp sets and it is about to be retired. But, of course, it will always have a loving home at my house!! I rarely give up a stamp . . . you just never know when you are going to need it. And, I'm quite sure that I will always need this deer set as I come from a family of hunters. My dad and brother would be quite happy to get the same card for every occasion . . . as long as there's a deer on it! (Or, a duck, or a goose, or a pheasant . . . are you getting the idea?? lol!)

This card is for the sketch challenge at the Great Swaps Girls Blog. The only non-SU item that I used was a bit of floss from my grandma's attic that I wound around the top layer. It matched the hunter card stock perfectly.

I didn't spend a lot of time coloring . . . I wanted to keep a lot of the image black to tie in with my textured basic black card base. I used my Aqua Painter and dipped it into ink pressed onto the lid of my Close to Cocoa pad to color in the deer. Then, I used the same technique with Handsome Hunter for the grass. And, that's it. I really like the simplicity . . . but it still has some "pop" . . . and that is what I am always striving for!

Supplies I used to create this card:

Stamps: Noble Deer, sentiment from She's All That
Paper: Textured Basic Black, Handsome Hunter, Close to Cocoa, Confetti Cream
Ink: Close to Cocoa, Handsome Hunter, Basic Black
Accessories: Large & Small Oval Punch, Aqua Painter, embroidery floss

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by my blog!

7/2 Happy 4th!!

I just had to make a quick post before we begin our weekend activities. Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July. Here's a quick 4th of July card that uses a sentiment from SU that I purchased at a garage sale. I think it is from way back in 1993 or something like that. Isn't it wonderful that rubber is so durable?!

The patterned paper came from my unending stash. I went through quite a streak a few years ago where I seemed to think I needed every design ever manufactured!! lol! PLEASE tell me you can relate! Anyway, this is more of it and whenever I make a card that I am not promoting to my customers, I dig into it!!

Supplies to make this card:

Stamps: long retired SU sentiment Paper: Night of Navy, Real Red, Whisper White, non SU patterned paper Ink: Real Red Accessories: Scallop Punch, 1 3/8" Circle Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Star Punch, Large Star Punch, non SU ribbon, Dimensionals

7/2 Party Hearty

I had so much fun last week participating in Kristina Werner's color challenge that I decided to do it again. It also gives you a sneak peak at one of the sets that will be coming out in the SU Fall/Winter Catalog. When I saw the image Kristina used, I immediately decided to use this Party Hearty set . . . why? For the cup cake, of course!! This was a quick, quick card . . . even with the embossing. I decided to make it simple because I really don't have time to be stamping today. Oh, but how could I resist??? Here's the challenge picture:
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Supplies I used in my card:

Stamps: Party Hearty
Paper: Basic Gray, Basic Black, River Rock, Ruby Red
Ink: Whisper White, Basic Black
Accessories: Stamp-a-ma-jig, White Embossing Powder, Heat Gun, Scallop Circle Punch, Dimensionals

7/1 Birthday Prints - Sweet & Simple!

Great Swaps Stampers issued another Featured Stamper challenge and I was thrilled to learn more about Dawn McVey. You can read all about her and the challenge by clicking HERE. It is so much fun to stroll through Dawns blog. I picked the second card down on THIS POST to case.

As you can see, I changed up the colors, the theme and instead of a star accent, I picked a flower accent. I created my flower by punching a scallop circle from Blue Bayou card stock. Then I snipped each scallop towards the center creating petals. I dotted each petal with my white gel pen and then curled some of the petals to give the flower a little more dimension. I layered two punched circles in the center and using a brad from my Pretties Kit, gave my flower just a bit of bling - so yummy!!!

Supplies I used:

Stamps: All Holidays
Paper: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Apricot Appeal, Pretty in Pink, Soft Sky Designer Prints, Level One Hostess Prints Paper Pack
Ink: Blue Bayou
Accessories: Blue Bayou DS Ribbon, Pretties Kit Brad, 3/4" Circle Punch, 1" Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Dimensionals

Have a great day and Happy Stamping!!!