Thanks and Blog Candy Winners

Here's a Thank You card I made a few weekends ago. It started out with the sentiment - which is from the Michael's dollar spot. I stamped it in rose red on white, then mounted on red and yellow panels. The ribbon is wide ruffled ribbon from Target at Christmas. The corner adornments are the flower from Polka Dots and Paisley, watercolored and bling-ed up with a red rhinestone. That panel is mounted on green, then blue. The dp is from my stash. The corners of the card also have rhinestones on them.Now, onto the winners of the scrap albums! The baby boy album is going to Stephanie
Stephanie said...
wow, great candy... both the albums are great! April 28, 2008 5:33 PM

The brown album is going to Claudia
scfranson said...
Great blog and blog candy. April 28, 2008 5:05 PM

Please email me with your contact information so I can get them into the mail by this weekend. Thanks for playing along!

Ok, off to finish watching Hell's Kitchen. Have a good night, everyone. Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday Balloons

Nice & Easy Notes is such a great set for almost any occasion, isn't it? I love these balloons, which I had stamped a long time ago. I made a sheet of each image, so that when I was in need of a quick card, I could just color and go. These are colored with my watercolor pencils and water pen. The dp is from the dollar store, and the orange is stamped with Versamark using the stars from MFT Icing on the Cake. The layered ovals are the scalloped oval Giga Punch, and Curvy Cutter shapes. I doodled around the ovals with my gel pens. I traced over the tie on the balloon strings with my Spica glitter pen. "Celebrate" in the lower left corner is from Studio G, and the ribbon is Ribbons and Bows, Oh My!Inside, I put some white paper and stamped a nice sentiment, but forgot to take a pic of the inside before sending this card off to a birthday party yesterday. It said "Wishing you a day of smiles and laughter," which is from Hero Arts.

So this weekend, I did get a tiny bit of time in my stamp room. Mostly, I am working on images for a batch of cards I will show you later. Let me just say that my elbow hurts from all the coloring!! This week, I am expecting my shipment of Nestabilites Squares (yeah, I gave in and ordered the whole square set!), and a small order from All That Scraps.

I hope you all had a good weekend. I have decided to extend my scrap candy drawing until Tuesday to give more people time to enter. If you haven't seen it, go here to enter! Thanks for looking!

Scrappin' Blog Candy

ETA: I have extended this until Tuesday, April 29th. I will draw a name at 7:30 pm on that day and post the winner soon after. I do have to say, that due to the size of the albums, I will have to restrict to US/Canada. Sorry for the international readers! I will include you in the next blog candy :)

I have to face it, I don't scrapbook. I stamp, and make different stamping projects, but the idea of going back and scrapping the piles of photos in that box in my closet is just too daunting. It will never be done...


SO, this is lucky for those of you who DO scrap, as I have 2 scrapbooks to give away! The first is not a traditional scrap album, but is very cute. The front feautes a pair of overalls in a hanger, and it says "For Boy." The inside pages are ringbound - 3 rings on on top and 3 on bottom side of the page. But the pages themselves are blank card stock, separated by a sheet of tissue like paper.
The second is a brown leatherette/corduroy covered postbound 12 x 12 album. It contains 20 top loading pages and is acid, lingin, pvc free. You can easily find this type of refill pages, I think. This post will remain on top until tomorrow. Please leave me a comment if you are interested in one of these items. I will keep comments open until tomorrow (Sunday April 27) at noon EST. If there are more than one comment, I will use Random.org or have DS pick a name from a bowl. I will post the lucky recipients name tomorrow evening.


Thanks for looking!

My New Organization Tools

I have a tendency to forget about my embellishments if they are stashed away in a drawer, and found also that I couldn't flip through my acrylic stamps (stored in cd cases) easily. Like many of you, I don't have a lot of time to craft, so am always on the lookout for organization tools that can make my stamping time more efficient.

Enter IKEA! You may remember that almost all of my stamp room furniture is from IKEA, it is economical, easy to assemble, and functional. So I headed back there on Sunday afternoon. Luckily, it is only 20 minutes from my house, but I try not to go too often because there is always something to buy! It can be worse than a trip to Target for the wallet! Here are the items I picked up, all for UNDER $18.00...

A small jar to hold Prima flowers. This one is holding 2 tubes of Prima daisies. I should have gotten more than one of these, but didn't realize how many Primas I now have (winning their weekly drawing really increased my collection). It cost less than $2.00.

A Lazy Suzan for my desk. It fits nicely in the corner of my desk, just in reach of my main work area. Now I can spin and reach for the embellies I need. My only wish is that it was 2-tiered. It was only $6.00 and spins like a charm. A plastic CD case holder. It was 99 cents!! It holds 20 cases (a few more sets and I need another one) and they flip forward easily to reach the ones behind. If you have a shelf deep enough to accomodate it, about 12 inches, I highly recommend getting one or more of these.

I got some cardboard magazine holders, too. They were $2.00 for a pack of 5. They are holding my stamping and inspiration mags.

Well, my goal this morning was to drink a hot cup of tea. It has cooled off while I write these posts. Now I'm off to boil more water and clean up my desk so I can produce some cards today. I have a baby card that has been laid out all week and needs to be assembled, and some challenges to get to from this past week. I have neglected blogs and stamps all week, but the day is mine, so off I go! Thanks for looking!

Tagged Again!

I've been tagged for the 7 Things meme by Jamie, at Milk Allergy Mom. We share the same hobby - stamping; and also both deal with food allergies in our kiddoes. So here are the rules if you don't already know them:

The Rules for 7 Things:
1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My 7 Things:

1. I love to garden, but I am a lazy gardener. At the beginning of the season, I am very excited to get things into the grounds, and can't wait for them to grow. But by mid-season, it's DH doing all the weeding and by the time I get around to picking the zucchini, they are the size of baseball bats!
2. Related to gardening, I am afraid of bees! I had a nightmare as a child in which all I could see were bees, and since then, I freak out if one comes near me. I try to be less reactive, especially with DS around, but it's a reflex.
3. When DH is out of town, I stay up waaaaaaaaaay to late, puttering in my stamp room and reading. When he is home, I feel like I have to adhere to a "reasonable" bedtime.
4. I eat way too much chocolate at work! My boss keeps a jar stocked with all kinds of chocolate on his desk, and I find excuses to visit his office so I can get a fix! It's a good thing his office is all the way across the library from mine...
5. I am very cheap! I'll spring for quality chocolate, or a nice dinner out (or stamping supplies), but for the day-to-day stuff, I cut coupons, look for sales and hate to pay full price for anything!
6. My favorite pizza toppings are eggplant and pepperoni! We get it every Friday night.
7. My favorite part of blogging is meeting so many people with similar interests!

I am going to propose that anyone who has not been tagged and wants to share their 7 Things are welcome to consider themselves tagged by me. I'll be back later with a card. Meanwhile, thanks for looking!

Inspired by Ribbon

DS is invited to 3 birthday parties over the next three weekends. It seems that the entire pre-school class is invited to these parties, held at gyms, amusement parks, etc. We believe in simple birthdays, and are feeling the pressure already to plan something bigger this year for him. His birthday is December 25, though, and who has time for a birthday party in the middle of the Christmas holidays? Ah, well, I guess we have some time to think about it still...

Meanwhile, I did have to get my stash in gear for all these birthday parties. Here's one card that I made that I think is a very cute card for a little girl. It could also be given to a little boy. The whole card grew out of the ribbon, which I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. I love the color combination of green, orange and bright blue. The stamps are from MFT, Icing on the Cake. I made the background dp using the stars stamp from this set, inking each star individually with Cat's Eye Chalk Inks. If I ever want to duplicate it, it will be easy, as my stamp is now stained with the colors. The images are colored with prismacolor pencils and blended. I added Cotton Candy Stickles to the cupcake cherry and Yellow Stickles to the flames. The Primas have rhinestones for the centers. The three circles are layers from the Cuttlebug and are popped up for dimension. I used the Fiskars Cloud scissors for the scalloped panel.

I made a list of cards we need to send out in the next month: 7 Mother's Day, 7 Birthday, 1 Graduation, 2 Teacher Appreciation, 2 Administrative Assistant's Day, and 1 Baby card. Yikes!! For most of them, I reached into my stash and chose cards that are ready to mail. Tomorrow I have to make the baby card, and gift card holders for the teachers. Hooray for today's Technique Lover's Challenge on Splitcoast!!

Tonight, I walked almost 6 miles on the treadmill. I'm walking the Avon 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer in October, and have started my training. I will have more details on that in a post later this week. Right now, I'm going to get some sleep. DH is once again out of town and it will be a long week. Thanks for looking!

Scrap-a-licious

I've been thinking about Allison's Suggestive Sunday all week. This week the challenge is to use scraps, which we all have plenty of. Today, I had some time to dig through my piles and use up a few bits. I made two cards with just scraps, and can make many many more, but I need to go visit with DH before he leaves town again Monday...

I wish the green ink I used stood out a little more on this kraft tag. I had every green out, and ended up choosing my Whispers Archival in Pine. The flower is a Prima, topped with a new Center Kisses flower that I won in the Prima prize package. It arrived today, and oh, what fun! The very center of the flower is a Sprinkles brad from Queen & Co. The rick rack is May Arts, purchased from Verve Visual. The swirly frame around the tag is from Studio G, and I used my Sakura glaze pen on it. I added some Sakura Stardust glitter pen to the sentiment as well.

Here's a close-up of the flower, and you can see the glaze, too:Next, I wanted to use these gorgeous scraps of DP, but don't think the final product is quite up to snuff. I didn't have the right base card color, and settled for white. This was Cuttlebug embossed and swiped with pale yellow chalks. The sentiment is Studio G and the flowers are Primas, centered with Antique Copper Making Memories brads. Well, I have to work a bit in the morning tomorrow. Don't think I'll have a chance to stamp again until tomorrow night. The weather here is supposed to be gorgeous, so we'll probably get started on the garden in the afternoon. There is a lot of clean up to do before we can get ready to plant in a few weeks. But oh! to be outside in sunshine again!

Have a good weekend, and thanks for looking!

Birthday Shake-Up

Rachel, one of my SBS sisters, posted a challenge to make a birthday card with "not your typical" birthday colors. I chose this palette of brown, blue and orange. I originally was thinking of sending this to a girlfriend of mine, but what GUY wouldn't like a hot blonde Bella delivering a birthday present?? So consider it a masculine birthday card, too!Bella is colored with Prismacolor pencils, and I added stripes to her party hat. I also added dots to the package. The sentiments are stamped with ColorBox Chalk ink in Tangerine. The ribbon is Ribbons and Bows Oh My! The 'Happy Birthday' is stamped on tiny tags from the Cuttlebug dies, attached with brads from Making Memories. The dotted DP is Die Cuts With a View. I recycled the acetate from a stamp set's packaging to make the window.

The whole card was actually inspired by this tube of beads I have from Queen & Co. They have been stashed away in my drawer and I have wanted to use them. But how? AHA, shaker card! It's my first Shaker, and I do like it. I hope you do too.

Thanks for looking!

Candy Shout-Outs

Go and check these sites for some great candy giveaways!

Misty at Li'l Buck's Creations HERE
Stop by and congratulate her on her good news and spread the word for great goodies!

Wendy at Inking of Love HERE
We all started somewhere, so go share the love...

Lim at The Voices In My Head HERE
Her first candy giveaway is to say Thank You, so go say "You're Welcome!"

TLC164 - Accomplished!

Don't you love when you can complete an SCS challenge on the day it is posted? Well, here's TLC164, 2 hours before the day is over. A quick post here and I'm heading to bed. Yes, I turn into a pumpkin very early (but I do read in bed for about an hour first)...

The technique challenge was to create a double pocket card. I have seen these, and they are always so beautiful, but remained a mystery to me. However, with the tutorial posted on the SCS forum, it was VERY easy to do! The longest part of the process was deciding how to decorate the tags.

I used Heidi Grace Designs double sided cardstock. The pattern is Wild Daisy Rd/Mix Floral and has wonderful colors in it. I like that they are subdued greens and yellows. On the front, I added some Dew Drops to the flowers to make them pop out a bit. The ribbon is from Target, layered on brown grosgrain from my stash. The tags are made from yellow cs, layered with green and again with a piece of vanilla. The top vanilla layer is stamped with a flourish from Rhonna Farrer and a sentiment from the Michael's dollar bin. Ink is So Saffron and Old Olive. I added the Primas with pewter brads and gave the tags an eyelet to hold the raffia ribbon.

I hope you all got to complete a project today! Thanks for looking!

Hoppy Birthday!

Hooray for stamping time! I had a chance to putter in my craft room yesterday after getting the house cleaned up. Let me just say that 3 bathrooms are too many to clean! And later this year, we're replacing the one we tore out of the basement? Are we crazy?

I saw this challenge on Paper Askew, and thought it looked fun. I love Toy Box by SU! and always want to use it. I thought it fit perfectly with this inspiration piece. And look - a curved edge on my card! I usually make such linear layers, sometimes a round or scallop, but never a curve. I'm very happy with this card.

The paper was from a RAK, but I love the bright colors. The sentiment is SU! Greetings 4 You, and I masked the "A" in Happy, relpacing it with the "O" from another sentiment. It fit in perfectly using the Stamp-a-ma-jig. The frogs are layered on circles that I cut from scraps using the circle dies for the Cuttlebug. They are colored with Prismacolor Pencils. As you can see in the close up below, the kraft panel is embossed with a texture plate from Fiskars that has frogs, bugs and things on it. The whole thing is mounted on a Marigold Morning card base. Ribbon is grosgrain from the stash.

I got a few more cards made yesterday, and will post them later today or tomorrow. My girlfriend and her DD are coming over and we're going to take the kiddoes somewhere, if the rain doesn't start. I'm so in the mood to just go shopping, but DH has to finish the tile in the kitchen and DS doesn't have much shopping stamina.

Have a lovely Sunday and thanks for looking!

Aahhhhhhhhh! Saturday!!

This week was a long and tiring one after being on vacation last week. DS is suffering from full-blown tree allergies and is all stuffed up, sneezing when he walks from the house to the car. I can't give him anything, though, because he's going for allergy skin testing on Tuesday. Antihistamines in the system can skew the results...So hopefully he'll be content to play inside this weekend. He's rediscovered his toy room in the basement, and is there now.

What a week at work! I posted a message to a regional listserv asking for copies of a book for a discussion coming up, and someone from another library chided me for such a request. AND she replied to EVERYONE on the list!! Totally unnecessary and embarassing, except for the fact that my request was successful and we'll now have enough copies for all our book discussion members. So there.

Ok, enough blathering. Here's a card I made last month and never posted. It was for DH's birthday. Fixafella is colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended. Some tools were colored with a silver metallic gel pen. The sentiment is from So Many Sayings, punched with the Word Window punch. The brads are Making Memories, and the metal photo corners are We R Memory Keepers. DP is Stemma, Husband.

Hopefully off to stamp a bit today after some house cleaning. Hope you are all having a beautiful Spring day!! Thanks for looking!

I Made a Sheetload!!

Of cards, that is. Have you seen this monthly newsletter yet, Sheetload of Cards? I kept hearing about it, and subscribe to the blog, but this was the first time I actually downloaded an entire issue and followed the plan. Each month, they give you a layout, and a template for the cuts of paper you'll need. With only 4 sheets of paper, I created these 6 cute cards, and have scraps to make a couple more. It's so easy, a great way to increase your stash!! I chose the October 2007 issue to follow. Just link to the archives from their blog site and you can quickly view and download all the issues.

Right now they are running a contest with the current e-zine and I hope to get to it this weekend. For now, here are my cards:

I used Miss Elizabeth's dp from the dollar store, along with solid blue and green from my stash. The flower stamp is Lizzie Anne Designs and the bird is Studio G. The sentiment on the bird card is MFT Icing on the Cake. I used Colorbox Chalk inks and colored the flower with Prismacolors. The little bird is paper pieced. The ribbon is American Crafts and the brads are Queen & Co and Making Memories. The holographic flowers are from some candy I won. Oh, and I used my Mat Pack and paper piercer for the piercing, and the ticket corner punch, too. Seriously, it took me a total of about 1.5 hours to crank out all these cards!

Here's a close up of the little bird:

Last night I got to clean off my desk, which was littered with scraps and bits and bobs of things. Tonight I'm going to give it a rest and let it stay clean one more day. I'm tired and could use some couch time! I'll be back tomorrow with another post, I hope! Thanks for looking!

Gettin' My Mojo Back...

After a nice nap yesterday afternoon, DS was content to "be busy" with me in my craft room. He got to work on the computer and then did some painting, and worked on his math fun book. I know, math and fun should not be in the same sentence, but he had a great time practicing his numbers! I noticed that at his pre-k they spend LOTS of time on literacy, but not so much on numbers. Maybe that will come with time (he is only 4yo)?

While he was busy, here's what I was busy with. The first is a birthday Bella card. My SIL is having a birthday next week and I will be sending this off to her. I used the convex square punch for the presents, and made the bows with Primas, attached with a Sprinkle brad from Queen & Co. The sentiment is Verve Visual. The rhinestones are Hero Arts, and the dp is from my stash. I've had it forever, but cut the name off. The solid color panels are also from the scrap pile. It's huge, and I'm determined to shrink it down before getting more paper (well, after my latest SU! order comes, that is).

I like this second card because it is very cheery IRL. The flowers were embossed with the Cuttlebug, then colored with chalks. I do wish the yellow was a little more vibrant. The centers of the flowers are microbeads, which I applied to Diamond Glaze. The dots across the bottom are Cotton Candy Stickles. The dp is K & Co, and the ribbon is Ribbons and Bows, Oh My. The sentiment is from So Many Sayings, punched with the Word Window punch.

So, did you see who today's Prima winner is?????????? YES - that's ME!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited :) Ok, just had to get that out of my system, since DH wouldn't understand the joy.

Have a great night - Thanks for looking!

JT's Aloha RAK Club - March

That vacation last week has completely worn me out, and I'm still exhausted! Tomorrow morning should be fun, getting myself and DS out the door on time for school and work. I'm not looking forward to it. And we just got a call from Grandma (who took care of him last week) that she is sick with a sinus infection and cold. So let's plan on a trip to the dr. by the end of the week for us, shall we?Needless to say, I have not had the energy to sit down and stamp much this weekend. I'm still trying to catch up on laundry, too! I did want to post this great RAK I received from Teri, at Big Ideas from a Little Girl. She was my RAK-er for Jen's Aloha RAK and sent two packages. The first was a card and the Easter treat holder (the treats were quickly gobbled up!); the second included a cute stamp from See-D's and some pink patterned chipboard letters. Thanks, Teri!!

Let me see what I can muster for mojo this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be back with a card later. Hope you have all had a great weekend! Thanks for looking!

Lucky Blog Candy Winner

Well, I'm home from Vegas with a bit less money in my wallet, but a great time in my mind. DH and I really needed some adult time away, and it was great fun! There's nothing like staying out after dark, eating really expesive dinners, seeing Elton John in concert, and not worrying about a little one's nap or food schedule. But alas, I do miss the little bugger and can't wait to pick him up at the airport tonight!!

Thanks for those that played my little guessing game. I played bit of roulette and also the slots. I'm not quick-thinking enough for blackjack and don't have a poker face. I watched Pai Gow but didn't get it - same with Craps. DH played a round of Casino War, and lost his money lightning quick. We didn't stop at Keno, either. I really just play to have fun and don't bet nearly enough to win big. I just try to prolong my playing time. Oh, and I did lots of shopping (Vosges chocolate store, Anthropologie, cool stores that aren't around here).

OK, so do you want to know who won?? Here is the result from Random.org:

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:13
Timestamp: 2008-04-04 14:56:02 UTC

Lucky number 13 is:
Jenna Z said...
I think you are a keno kind of person!
March 31, 2008 2:01 PM

Jenna, please contact me (email is under my profile) with your mailing info and I will get the goodies out to you. I realize I never posted what they are, but they will be a fun surprise :)

I will give Jenna until Sunday night to contact me. If I don't hear from her, I will generate another winner!

Hopefully I will get some time to stamp later today. I am so tired, yesterday I crashed on the couch all afternoon and this morning slept until almost 10! Thanks for looking!