Part 2: Down on the Farm

Here are a few more creations I made for my nephew's birthday party. I went round and round with ideas for these goodie bags. My Mother-in law asked me to make some and I wanted them to be cute but I also didn't want to take forever on them, knowing that they would soon be 'ripped' apart by many tiny fingers! :)

So I stamped the images from On the Farm all over the bags in Basic Brown and then made the fronts and backs pretty basic - no watercoloring here! The farmer is stamped on a scallop oval punch with edges sponged in green and layered on the pattern paper. For the front, I stamped the barn in Real Red, layered it on Yoyo Yellow and Glorious Green cardstock and stuck on the little farm animals. I got the biggest kick out of thinkin' that one up! LOL! I had this big bag of assorted farm animals forever and I was determined to incorporate them into the design by some means! They stuck very well with a glue dot. And of course the bags were filled with all sorts of treats - ice cream shaped bubbles, stickers, crayons, notepads, mini Frisbee's, chalk... To close them, I fold the tops down about an inch, punched two holes and put a little bit of ribbon through.

My fabulous Mother-in-law also asked me to make her a card to give to her favorite little grandson. :) She said she wanted at least a $10 card! Well the tractor sticker cost $3.50 and the special sized envelope was 80 cents so it didn't take long to get there. The card measured about 6&1/2 by 5 and was rather on the thick side! I of course watercolored the barn scene and then layered it, many times. The birthday sentiment is from All Year Cheer. I forgot to take a pic of the inside but I had stamped and watercolored the farmer with some of the animals and matted that several times as well.

And if you'd like to know, for his John Deere birthday, we got him a Caterpillar tractor... :) My dear Daddy retired with 30 some years at Caterpillar, so I'm not allowed to buy the 'other' brands! Let me tell you, CAT makes some GIANT stuff - their largest dump truck has 17 ft tires! Picture that baby in your head!!! Better yet, picture the tire change! Ok, I'm done rambling now!

Down on the Farm

Moooo!!!! Oink, Oink!!! We're visiting the farm today! Check out my little pile of cards to assemble. I don't often think to take a picture of my mass card productions but as I was stacking my pieces, I remembered this time. :) Quite a bit of watercoloring and sponging going on with these! My sister-in-law asked me to make invitations for my nephew's 2nd birthday a few weeks back. They were having a John Deere party for him. The retired SU On the Farm set was perfect for these. I didn't have any tractor stamps so I improvised and used the truck from Loads of Love. The wording was printed out from the computer. Here's the finished product! They seemed to be a hit! :)

Supplies Used: Papers - Yoyo Yellow, Glorious Green, Creamy Caramel, White; Inks - Yoyo Yellow, Glorious Green, Creamy Caramel, Real Red, Bashful Blue, Going Gray, Chocolate Chip, Basic Black, Blenders; Stamps - Loads of Love & LOL Accessories, On the Farm; Accessories - pop dots; Techniques - Watercoloring, Sponging.

****A few answers to some questions****

Fran M - The rose and butterfly are from a retired set from Stampin' Up! and is called Flower Garden. The link will take you to its SCS gallery and you can view all the lovely stamps in the set. :)

Nikki - I use diamond stickles from Ranger Inks by the gallons, to get all that sparkle! It's a glitter glue that dries flat and a fabulous alternative to applying glue and then pouring on glitter... :) All the other colors are fab too! Love, LOVE the stuff!

Dorothy F. - You wanted to know about the glitter embossing powders. They are by Ranger Inks as well and here is a link - Embossing Glitter. :)

Jo (MISS Inkyfingers) - Our seasons do start late in the month. Spring=March 21; Summer=June 21; Autumn=Sept 21; Winter=Dec 21 (My birthday - YAY!)

And many, many of you have asked me how I manage to mail out such 3D creations without them getting crushed, smooshed and flattened! Well I try my very best to 'hand deliver' whenever possible! But most times, I pay a bit more and send the card in a cardboard CD type mailer that you can find at Wal-mart, a bubble mailer or in a package if it's going with a gift. :)

Any more questions, just let me know and I'll be happy to answer! :) Hope you all have a MARVELOUS MONDAY! Hugs to ya'll!

Rose Garden

A quick post before bed! :) Sat down to just do some playing around tonight for WT118 and this is what came of it. The Ways to Use It Challenge this week is to make a square card - my favorite kind of card to make. Can't get much easier than that! Then throw in some great pattern papers with some flower stamps and I'm happily creating away. This card is a 5&1/2 inch square. The sweet top pattern paper is from a self-stick mat pack by Rhonna Farrer called Thrift Store and the lovely bottom pattern is from K&Company's Bailey line. Enjoy!

Supplies Used: Papers - Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Rhonna Farrer, K&Company; Inks - Chocolate Chip, Basic Brown, Watercolor Wonder Crayons; Stamps - Flower Garden, Small Sayings; Accessories - Ribbon, Brad, Stickles, ticket punch, pop dots; Techniques - Watercoloring, Sponging.

Rustic Father and Son

A little late in sharing for the holiday, but here's the card I created for my father-in-law. I purchased these pattern papers ages ago for the sole purpose of using it on guy cards. About 2 years later, it's making it's way onto a card finally. Lookie, I refrained from using any glitter! (But I can't say that the thought didn't cross my mind!!:)

Supplies Used: Paper - Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, More Mustard, Patterns by MME; Inks - Chocolate Chip, Basic Brown, WWCrayons, Blender; Stamps - Seaside Sketches, AYCII, Flannel Plaid; Accessories - Copper Brad, Ribbon; Techniques - Sponging, Paper Distressing.

Sweet Pink Butterfly

Since the butterfly was already out, I had to use it with my new pink glitter embossing powder! After all, it looked so great in the turquoise glitter! I also broke out some larger-sized rhinestone stickers for this sweet creation. The one centered on the butterfly is a pink heart-shaped rhinestone. :)
Supplies Used: Paper - Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip; Ink -Chocolate Chip, Versamark, White Craft; Stamps - Think Big, Stampendous Butterfly, Rhonna Farrer Swirls v.1, Delight in Life; Accessories - K&Company Ribbon, Assorted Rhinestones, Pink Glitter EP, White Gel Pen, Glitter Pen, Pop Dots, Ticket Punch; Techniques - Sponging, Heat Embossing.

Cake, Cake and more CAKE!!!

Yesterday's Inspiration Challenge sure was a yummy one! Just look at this cake! We were able to use either this festive cake as our inspiration or pick another one from this fabulous site, Pink Cake Box. It's filled with all kinds of awesome and amazing cakes. After I spent quite a bit of time drooling over all the the wondrous creations, I settled on two different cakes for some card-making fun!

Check out the oh-so-real looking flowers on this cake!! I used the colors and flowers from the Peony Wedding Cake as my inspiration for this floral card. I have lots of sweet memories smelling and picking peonies from the yard while growing up. And I realized I don't have any peony stamps (I'll have to be on the lookout for some!) so I used these sweet pink flowers and created a little floral array. Behind the flowers, I stamped a flourish from Rhonna Farrer Swirls v.1 in Chocolate Chip. The flowers, swirls down the left and 'happy' are both touched up with diamond stickles. The beautiful pattern paper is from K&Company.

Now this next card, I'm just tickled pink or should I say blue with over the way it turned out! I totally loved this Topsy Turvy Wedding cake and I really felt inspired by it! The colors used and design are just WOW! The stripe layers with the alternating flourishes - oh I just LOVE it! The cake is entitled The Corspe Bride and is themed after the movie by Tim Burton. Not exactly a 'happy' thought for a wedding cake but...:)

I used Cool Caribbean and Chocolate Chip with the flourish from Doodle This and my butterfly from Stampendous. I also tried out my shiny new blue glitter embossing powder again! I just love the look of it so much that I went out and got it in pink yesterday. The pattern paper is from the Bohemia line by My Mind's Eye. The butterfly is glitter embossed and the tiny flowers along the edges are colored in with a white gel pen. I used a corner rounder on all the edges, stuck on some rhinestones and added the ribbon with brads to finish it.

Now I'm in the mood for some cake, how about you! But I'm thinking the better choice would be to go make more cards inspired by them! :)

Balmy Birthday

Here's a little gift combo I made last night with an old favorite. I just love Balmy Breezes and I wanted to use it for something. Sadly its retiring, but you won't find me parting with the set any time soon! As to who the lucky person is who gets this, I'm not sure! I really didn't have anything or anyone in mind when I started this, I just kinda let it do its own thing and it became a birthday card. :)

I made the card first and then I sat there staring at this empty plastic ribbon roll container just sitting on the table and the idea for it just sorta popped into my head. And it's also the perfect size to hold 4-5 mini candy bars!

Supplies used: Paper - Only Orange, Cool Caribbean, Green Galore, Very Vanilla, Pattern by the Paper Studio; Ink - Basic Brown, Green Galore, Cool Caribbean, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Only Orange; Stamps - Balmy Breezes, Small Sayings, Cheesecloth; Accessories - Ribbons, Ric-Rac, staple, Primas, brads, Chipboard, scallop circle punch, Ticket Punch, Spiral Punch, pop dots, stickles; Techniques - Sponging, Watercoloring.

And a note about our water issue - it's all fixed!! Woo Hoo! This is what I came home to yesterday! A big ole' Caterpillar backhoe digging in the yard. I can't believe they only had to move one of my flowers in the bed to dig this hole. The hole was about 4 feet deep and it took a better part of the day but they found the leak and fixed it. So we had water again by 6pm yesterday and no more water key runs! Very glad that was a fairly short ordeal, now we just await the water bill and whatever it will take to get that fixed. The yard looks like it took a mud bath but we'll get working on that very soon as well.
Have a splendid Saturday, ya'll! :)

My Delusions of GRANDEUR

Delusions of grandeur - boy, did I sure have some yesterday! Andrew told me before work he was planning on doing 'guy stuff' with his bike after dinner and I so immediately starting planning my own 'girl stuff' time with my stamps! I was dreaming of how many cards I could get made in a few uninterrupted hours of stamping. Yippy skippy! I haven't been able to just sit back and stamp for several hours like that in days! Oh the fun! Oh the stamps I'm gonna ink! Oh the paper I'm gonna use! Oh I'm gonna make myself some pocket cards! Oh look at that water draining off our front yard!! What the.....

Why on earth is water running out of our grass and all over the sidewalk? Well b/c it has rained off and on the past few days, silly girl! Of course, that's it and off to work I go! Fast forward to 4:45pm. Pulling in the driveway, hmmmm... look at all that water still running out through the grass and down the sidewalk. Hmmmm... look at that strange man standing in my yard and the plumbing van parked in front! AHHAHGGHHHHH!!!!

Yeah so, apparently our water line broke somewhere between the street main and the house connection. Somewhere under the ground that is. And has been broken and trying to flood the yard for several days at least, so they told us b/c it really takes some water to make it run out of the yard the way it was. The plumber guy said our yard would make a nice trampoline, it's so squishy. The good news is that ASAP today they're bringing in a backhoe to dig up the yard and fix the leak/break... whatever it is! And we don't have to pay for that or fixing the yard back up. And it should be fixed today!! (Yay for the homeowners association for once!)

The bad news. Yesterday they gave us this GIANT metal stick 'key' that we have to use to go outside about 250 ft away and turn our water on & off at the main when we need to use it til fixed! And we have to pay the water bill! The dial was just a-spinning its little self crazy like when they checked the meter and they guess its been spinning like that for at least a few days! Do you know what a pain it is to forget the water is off and then go use the bathroom? Can't wash hands or flush until ya go outside to turn it on with the giant key thingy and run back in, take care of business, run back out to turn it off.... And can I have some pity please, for dragging that thing out at 6am this morning to turn it back on to take showers? Thanks! :) LOL! (Ok, I know it's only one day of it! I'll put on my 'big girl panties' and deal with it! But this is one of the reasons we moved away from Gulf Coast Florida and its hurricanes that can cause water issues for weeks at a time. Well, that's a another story for another day! )

Anywho, I found out that the sweet neighbor lady thought it was her water problem so she was the one who called for the plumber and got the ball rolling. Thanks! And so after all the other neighbors stopped ringing the doorbell to find out the scoop, and we got dinner done with, I finally had a moment to sit down and make one, just one little card. Oh well, one is much better then none!

I made this for this week's Ways to Use It Challenge - Fabulous Flourishes. Happily, I got to use several of the new items I picked up this week. This is of course one of my standard 5&1/2 square cards. The base is Cool Caribbean with Creamy Caramel and Chocolate Chip layered on top. The plaid pattern paper is from Basic Grey's Fruitcake line, called Fruitcake Plaid/Maraschino Cherry. I stamped several swirls from Rhonna Farrer's Swirls v.1 set. Are you tired of seeing me use this set yet? :) Some are stamped in Chocolate Chip and some are embossed with a new light blue glitter powder that I discovered at AC Moore. It's a great match with Cool Caribbean! The flower is a product of Doodle This, which I colored with re-inkers and blenders and attacked with some diamond stickles.:)

The glittery chipboard sticker word and photo corners are by K&Company, and the ribbon is from $1 spot at Target, both of which I picked up this week. Did some sponging with Chocolate Chip ink, stuck on some pop dots and a rhinestone and threw the card together, quite slowly while watching part of a movie on TV. Here's a close up to give ya a better view of the all the sparkle. :)

More happy news from Andrew just now. He just found out that when it's all said and done, we still have to pay the water bill then we can submit the problem and the fixing of it and they will readjust it for us. It may take forever they said but it should get fixed and credited in due time. Hugs and Happy Friday to you all!

Pocket Cards

I just love making pocket cards! They're so much fun! It's like getting a little prize inside! And I guess I just have them on my brain from school. LOL! :) The kids are working on their own little version of a pocket card for their Father's Day gifts. Well really more of a large version I should say since they measure about 9x6 and are supposed to be tool belt pockets. Anyway, I've been thinking about them for the past few days since we've been working on them but I haven't had a moment to sit down and make my own with stamps. But I did the next best thing - I went shopping! I picked up some fabulous DCWV paper that was on sale and some assorted embellishments and ribbons. I haven't had a chance to touch my new stuff, but it made me feel a little better knowing it will be waiting for me later when I do get a chance to make a pocket card. And since I have pocket cards stuck in my head, here are a few that I've created.I guess this is sort of a two pocket card. I designed it to hold a pack of hot chocolate on the side with a pull-out pocket sentiment on the other! Yummy!

This is my first pocket card ever! I decided they would be fun to make to hold our Christmas picture a few years back.

This is a criss-cross pocket that I made for one of the SCS challenges awhile back using this gorgeous Fancy Pants paper and the Carte Postale stamp set.

Now hopefully, this evening well be event-less and I can get to stamping and create a pocket card with my new goodies! Have a terrific Thursday!:)

Daddy's Day Card

Good Morning all! Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful week so far. In case you haven't noticed yet, I did some updating to my blog over the weekend. My blog roll and places to blow all you pennies have both grown by a few little leaps and bounds! Do a little waddling around and see what new happy links you might find. I also added a link to a fun little duck quiz where you can find out your duck type! Give it a try! And if you haven't signed it yet, my guestbook is at the very bottom of the page.

Today I thought I'd share my dad's card with you all today. No peeking DAD!!!! My dear Daddy loves black and red together so I just had to use that as my color combo for his Father's Day card this year. And these fabulous chipboard letters are fuzzy too! Gotta love that!

Supplies used: Paper - Basic Black, Real Red, White, Karen Foster pattern paper; Ink - Real Red, White Stazon, Basic Black; Stamps - Polka Dots and Paisley, Rhonna Farrer v.1 Swirls; Accessories - Chipboard Letter, Rhinestone Brads.

CAUGHT!!!

"I was just checking the view on dinner from up here... by the way, think you might need to dust ." ~Aslan

"Yeah, about that dusting, I found the feather duster... ya want me to make sure it's dead?

"Yup, as soon as I'm done rolling on it, I'll pay and file the cable bill for the month."

"Oh! Ya mean I can't sleep on this couch, this one, right here, under me? Well I'm not really on it you see, I'm on this blanket, and that's on the couch, so tell the blanket to get off first." ~ Hot Stuff

"Oh you really mean it? Well the blanket moved and see there was this other blanket...

"If we line up and sit on the comb, do you think those tall, fur-less pets we own will get the hint?"

Lenox Blooms

Finally! Here is my card for my own little self-issued inspirational challenge. I chose this gorgeous Lenox Gerbera Daisy vase for my piece. Now that I think about it, it was a wedding present! Gerbera daisies are also one of my favorite flowers to grow. They line my front steps in several vibrant colors, growing in ceramic pots and are on our back deck as well. I love how they bloom over and over all summer long!

The vanilla card is 5&1/2 square. I sponged it with Apricot Appeal, Barely Banana, and Certainly Celery. The stem swirls are a Rhonna Farrer stamp and the leaves are from an old retired SU set, Hydrangea Definitely Decorative. Each are stamped with Old Olive and Certainly Celery. I stamped the leaves on the card base and then again to cut out and place overtop on pop dots. And the flowers - Prima, of course! :) The swirls and the leaf centers with highlighted with a touch of diamond stickles. I went back and forth about adding a bow or ribbon, then decided it looks best as is. Ta-da! Actually a very simple and quick but sweet card!

The Six Lucky Ducks Are...

Hello! Busy day! And it's quite late! Sorry! Andrew told me only yesterday that we were invited to a cook-out at some friends this afternoon and we were there for hours! Had a great time though! Their house is AMAZING! I completely forgot to take the camera but wow oh wow! The whole place looks like pages torn from Pottery Barn, Pier 1 and Z Gallerie! And get this - they have a hidden tunnel behind part of a built-in bookcase (just like in the movies!!!)on the 3rd floor that leads to 2 holes, one being a tube slide and the other a rope ladder and climbing wall to the sunken second floor playroom! So very cool! I want one!

Anyways, on to the good stuff! We have some winners! The 6 numbers picked by random.org:

*27 - Loritori
*3 - Shannan
*22 - Rosella
*29 - Jami Speidel
*36 - MilwaukeeMommy
*17 - Libby Hickson
Drop me an email (found in my profile) with your addresses!

Thanks for all the sweet comments and happy wishes! We had a great weekend! I got some gorgeous roses! Saturday nite, Andrew took me to the Chop House Grille and afterwards we saw Ocean's 13. Great food and a good movie! Can't beat that!

To those wondering... My wedding bouquet was all silk flowers and it was friggin HUGE!!! You can find that shade of purple in real roses. They're called sterling roses, they're my absolute favorite flower and Andrew learned all about them long ago! Sometimes they are hard to come by and need to be ordered and I can't imagine what the cost would have been for them in place of all the silk ones we used in our wedding! He does pretty good, huh?:)

Change of Plans!

Guess where I was six years ago today? That's right, getting married! That's me, taking a photo break on our big day! (Some break, huh, since they took my pic anyway!) Wow! It sure doesn't seem like its been 6 years!

I know I said today I would post my inspiration piece, but I'm going to do that later. After all I'm the one in charge around here and so what I say goes! :) LOL! My reason being is that since today is our 6 year wedding anniverary, I decided to share something else!

Woo Hoo!!! SO LET'S CELEBRATE!!!!!
How about something fun like mini QUACKER candy? I put together six little bags filled with all sorts of goodies from ribbons and stamps to Primas and glitter and then some, in honor of our 6 years! Post a comment and I'll pick 6 wonderful winners tomorrow! :)

Ahhhh... the happy memories!

An Old Favorite

I was thinking about stamping today at work and trying to plan ahead for some stamp time this evening. I got to thinking about retiring sets and Do the Hula came to mind! I {heart} that set! I got it just on a whim last spring and I used it for several party invites. So I've been spending my 'down-time' today trying to come up with some layouts in my head! LOL! And hopefully, I'll get to stamp them later tonight! But until I get stamping, here are a few favs I've made with this awesome set. HAPPY FRIDAY!:)

Flowers and Swirls

Hello all you wonderful peeps! How is life treating you? School is over and we have started our summer program. A little less demanding in a lot of ways but still pretty busy! :) I seem to be having a bit more stamp time again and I'm doing good with this week's challenges on SCS. I have 2 done and a 3rd one in mind. We'll just have to see when it makes its way onto paper! :)

This red and blue card was supposed to be a quickie but it decided it wanted to have 'fresh cut' flowers and so that took a bit of time. But I really like the end look of it so I'm glad it did it. This card was for Sketch Challenge 127. I realized after I finished the card that the center strip was to be across the middle of the card and not toward the bottom. Oops! :)

The Real Red base opens from the bottom. I stamped the swirl from Delight in Life (SU! SAB set) around the edges and sponged then with Real Red. Cool Caribbean, the next layer is on pop dots for dimension. And each layer is sponged around the edges. The top white layer has the dots stamped on it from the DIL set as well. I stamped each flower in black and used blenders and reinkers to color them. They each have a splash of stickles on them for some sparkle and pop. The sentiment was stamped in Basic Black and colored in. Then I finished it off with the center strip and the black stitched ribbon. Ta-da!

This cute happy card was a real quickie though! I stamped it and managed to cut the flowers out in 15 minutes with all my fingers still in tact! I made this for Color Challenge 117 - Certainly Celery, Elegant Eggplant and Ruby Red. Three colors that I love to use! I used a 5&1/2 square of vanilla for my base card. I decided to break out my craft inks for this card. I don't use them enough but I sure do love them! You get such a great rich color and I think they work better with acrylic stamps. The center swirls are Rhonna Farrer Swirls v1 and the stamp around the edges is the swirl from Delight in Life. The flower is stamped from Doodle This and colored with reinkers and blenders. I was just so tickled to use one of my new purple brads that I picked up at Joann's over the weekend! And they were on sale and I had a coupon so you just can't beat that! I used the 'happy' stamp from Polka Dots and Paisley and finished the card off by sponging Ruby Red around the edges.

So far only one lovely lady has taken my up on my inspiration challenge to win a mini prize and card from me! Where is everybody? :) Be sure to check out this darling card by Cheryl over at Engineered Expressions! And if you'd like to join in the fun, see this post for details! I have picked out my inspiration piece and made my card! Can't wait to share it with ya'll on Saturday! :) Have a great day!

Baskets of Flowers

Another quick post as I'm on the run most of today! This main image is another from the retired Charming Country set. I stamped it in Basic Brown on white shimmer paper and colored it with pencils and reinkers.
Don't forget about my challenge that I posted on Sunday, if you would like to play see that post.:) Have a lovely day!

Catching Up!

Hello all! :) Whew! What a busy Monday! I only have a few moments and I thought I'd share a couple challenge cards I made over the weekend, trying to catch up on a few that I've missed.

On the Aloha card I combined three challenges, wet watercolor (TLC118), using retired stamps (WT115), and monochromatic flowers (LSCbonus8).

This Thank You card is for Saturday's Inspiration challenge. This week it was a fun party plate. I pulled my inspiration from the colors and patterns found on it. It doesn't show up well in the picture but the embossed wording and the card edges are sponged with white ink.

I made the Dream card for Sunday's Featured Stamper challenge. Here is the wonderful card that I cased from Tosha, aka stamps4funinCA. I really love how this turned out. I love mixing just about any colors with Chocolate Chip, can't use that color enough sometimes!

Showers of Inspiration and a Challenge!

I mentioned in my last post that I pulled out several retired sets to use over the weekend. One of those sets, I've had in mind to use for several weeks now because I got some inspiration while showering! Softsoap recently came out with a wonderful scent that I love called Pink Grapefruit Splash. Well every day now when I in the shower, I'm looking at the bottle label and designing a card in my head using the set Fresh Fruits. So I finally pulled it out yesterday and made the card that's been stuck in my head. The only down side to this card is that it just doesn't smell as great as the bodywash, but I wasn't really in the mood to make a kool-aid scratch and sniff type card. Maybe next time! :)

The card measures 5&1/2 square. I used Ruby Red and Cameo Coral as my main colors. Well actually, I guess they're about the only colors I used! The tiny floral print patter in from the Paper Studio and the larger floral half-circle print is by Scenic Route Paper Co, called Charlotte Spring Street. I carried over the half-circle image but I put it on the left side on my card. It just didn't work as well on the right for me. The half circles were cut using my Creative Memories cutter - love that thing! On the cut-out fruit, I first stamped on Cameo Coral then I went along and edged it with the Ruby Red marker. The cut-outs are also touched up with a bit of diamond stickles. The thanks is stamped in Chocolate Chip and is from the Think Big set.

Making this card got me thinking about what other things are around me everyday in my house that would be some great stampin' inspiration. I find that I always seem to be drawing a bit of inspiration from just little things here and there, whether it be colors off my dishes, the spots on a blanket or a layout from a bottle label. I think my favorite SCS challenge is the Saturday inspiration piece. So here is a challenge to you all - this week look around your house and see what inspires you to create! Make a card and take a picture of it with the inspiration piece. Then leave a comment here on this post with a link to it on your blog or in an online gallery such a SCS. On Saturday, I'll pick a random person who made a card and linked it here and they'll get a card made by me with a little prize inside! Now I'm off to find something else to be inspired by!

Charming Country Chair

I got a couple of cards made yesterday and this is the one card that I had a love/hate relationship with late into the night. I love to watercolor and I don't do it enough but I hate coloring such tiny and skinny spaces! So anyways, this card came about from me trying to do some stamp set sorting. I decided to pull out at least 5 under-used long retired sets and made a goal to use at least a stamp or two from each set this weekend. (So far I have used 2 of the sets with one more in the works - Go me!!) :)

This card uses the wooden chair scene from an old retired Stampin' Up Hostess set, Country Charm. I think is was the first hostess set I ever got and also one of my first sets ever! I always thought it a very sweet nostalgic set but I never really used it except for the two sentiment stamps that came with it. With this card, I was trying to create the look of night-fall or early evening around the chair and I also just felt like working with darker and richer colors. I pretty happy with how it did turn out. I used a glitter pen on the flowers, the tin, and the binding on the apple bucket for a little touch of sparkle.

I had a hard time deciding on which pattern paper to pair this with and finally came across this lovely DaisyD's piece, Boho Floral, from the Gypsy Harvest Collection. I hope to get at least one other card made using this set. We'll just see how things go today! :)

Supplies Used: Paper - Night of Navy, Real Red, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, DaisyD's Boho Floral, Watercolor paper; Stamps - Country Charm, Small Sayings, Flannel Plaid; Inks - Basic Brown, Chocolate Chip, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, SU Markers and blenders; Accessories Copper Brads, Stitched Ribbon, Ticket Punch, Glitter Gel Pen, Pop dots; Techniques - Watercoloring, Sponging.

Scrap Pile Attack

Well this whole organizing the stamp room thingy is paying off! I'm getting so much better at pulling stuff from this mountainous scrap pile that I've built, now that it's all in one pile, not multiples! I needed to make a set of quick cards the other day and I was able to make 8 of these in less then an hour, using only scraps for the card base and each layer. I also love how I was able to use several color bases and still keep the same pattern paper on them. Color variety is something I always like to have when I'm creating the same card over multiple times.

These cards are a basic copy of this giraffe card I posted awhile back, just with a little less detail. Hmm...I seem to be getting plenty of use out of Wild About You! It's a fabulously fun set to use and it is perfect for kid cards! I bought it to make a bunch of birthday party invitations last summer for a friend's little girl. Not that I really needed a reason to buy it...:) Here's an assortment of the invites that I made for the party. I made about 4-5 of each card.

Well I'm off to go stamp for awhile, then maybe hit the pool when Andrew comes home. :) Hope ya'll have a splendid Saturday!

Stamp Room

Finally here are some pics of my organizing that's going on in my stamp room - not a whole lot to see yet because I have been so busy the past few weekends. And weekends are about the only time I have the time to really pull things out or my little 'landlords' get into it all! (the kitties)

I had posted to SCS awhile back for some ribbon storage ideas b/c my ribbons were becoming more entangled than ratty hair! I have some great sized drawers to hold all my spools but I was at a loss for what to do with my stray bits and ribbons by the yard. I received some wonderful feedback and ideas and this is what I ended up with: GIANT crayon boxes! I was in the resource room at school one day and noticed that one of these boxes was almost empty when it hit me that it would be prefect for my ribbons! They all thought I was nuts b/c I was so excited to get home and fill it up! I now have two and I'm working on emptying a third to bring home! It has 8 slots inside and one box holds my solid colored ribbons and the other holds patterned. They fit quite nicely in the closet which has built in bookcase-like shelves.

This little blue drawer box is my recent find at Goodwill for $8! Love the thing! It has 18 drawers and holds a variety of sorts from embossing jars to ribbon jams. I take it that they are sold in the tool section of stores b/c over the holiday weekend I saw one in my brother's garage filled with nuts and bolts and such. I really wanted to snatch his too! :) Can ya believe I don't have this filled up yet? Get me a few more days and it will be!

I'm starting to get my stamp sets sorted on my new bookcases. I'm keeping the ones that I use the most on them as well as things like my Cuttlebug and the others stamps stay in the closet on those shelves. I found these sweet baskets at Target to hold 'stuff'. They are white wicker with a sweet floral liner in them. Right now they are my 'catch all' for embellishments.

Well there's just a quick peek for the moment! I'm hoping to really get more done this weekend as we don't have any major plans! I really excited b/c I got some pretty memo boards for on the wall that I hope to display cards on! Can't wait to get those hung up! And I feel like I haven't been able to have any real quality stamp time in the past few weeks! The only thing that could throw a wrench in my grand plans - the pool opened and all I have to do is walk about 150 feet out my back door to it!!! :)