Red, White & Blue Challenge Card

Hello, Happy Independence Day! I made this card for the Woodware USA challenge. I used Woodware USA stamps for the sentiment and the mouse. I colored the mouse with Copic markers. The red, white & blue paper is from Hobby Lobby. The stripes were going diagonal on the paper and I cut it so they would be horizontal (straight), I just thought it looked better that way. Hope you have a great weekend!

New Stamps!

Hope you had a great weekend! This is a card I made for a friend. We went shopping yesterday at the outlet mall, and she helped me pick out a lot of cute summer clothes for work. Clothes shopping is definitely not my thing and I consider my friend to be a fashionista! I couldn't have picked out the clothes that I bought without her help! These stamps are by Woodware USA, and I just love this bear set. I think it's so cute.

Baby Shower Invites!

Hi! Thanks for stopping by! I got some wonderful news last month, my brother & his wife are expecting their first baby! I am going to make their baby shower invitations so I've been busy making a few samples for them. They don't know yet if it's going to be a girl or a boy, but they will find out soon! Then I'll know if I need blue paper or pink paper!

The first pink card I made using Stampin' Up punches, following the tutorial on this post, here. I changed it a little bit, she mentioned a 1" punch for the head, that looked too tiny to me, so I used 1 1/2" circle punch for the head. I sponged all the edges of the baby's body to make it stand out a little more. I used an A Muse stamp "Your're Invited" on the bottom of the card. I still had left over paper from making their wedding invitations, so I used that same paper on this card!

I loved making the onesie card, it was so easy and fast!! I used the tutorial to make it found here, and I used a varitey of Stampin' Up punches. The duck image is from A Muse Stamps too.

Have a great weekend!

Monogrammed Card Sets

Hi, Hope you had a wonderful holiday! Mine was wonderful. Got to visit family and friends, can't ask for any more than that!

I made some monogrammed card sets for my co-workers this year. I made the A-2 box that they're in, with the pattern from SplitcoastStampers website. The monogram stamps are from Just Rite. I love their stamps! The paper is leftover from my brother's wedding invitations! I am glad to be using it up.

Hope you have a wonderful New Year! I'm off to Pittsburgh to watch the Capitals in the Winter Classic outdoor hockey game.

Swaps

Hi, These are two projects I made for swaps. The card swap had to follow a sketch (which I've since lost/deleted the image of, so I can't share it with you, oops!) and had to use the colors blue and orange. The image is from CC Designs. The recipe card is for the Iron Chef recipe card swap. We were each assigned an ingredient (mine was onion) and then we had to design a recipe card using our ingredient in a vegetarian main dish. This was pretty difficult. Who knew it was so hard to find a vegetarian main dish with onions in it?! Hope you're having a great week!

Birthday Tag Swap

I joined my first swap on Splitcoast Stampers a couple weeks ago. I used to swap a lot on the Paper Crafts site, but since they changed that site and merged it with the CK site, it just hasn't been the same. The swap I joined was for Birthday tags. I have been wanting to use this new Inkadinkadoo birthday cupcake stamp set that I got for Christmas, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity! I paper pieced the cupcake paper and then ran the paper through a corrugator to make it look more like an actual cupcake paper. I made a matching card to send to the hostess. I definitely recommending swapping. It is so much fun to make your swap items, and then the best part is getting lots of different swap items back. It's really fun to get new ideas from other swappers.

March Iron Chef Recipe Card

I am still participating in the Iron Chef recipe card swap and having so much fun. Jessica is a great hostess. This month, the category I chose was main dish. Lisa picked the secret ingredient, ground beef. Jessica sent each participant a little something (I got these cute St. Patrick's Day stamps and some green ribbon) and challenged us to use what she sent us on our recipe cards. As an added challenge, we were to make the card monochromatic, and add a decorative edge on the card. This was definitely a challenge!! I wish I had some green patterned paper but green is probably my least favorite color, and I'm already pushing the deadline so I had to make do with what I had. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is a card I made for a 1 on 1 St. Patrick's Day swap. I dry embossed the clover using a heart template because I don't have any clover templates. I think it turned out pretty well. The black/white paper is leftover from a card I made last week. It was sitting on my craft table and I thought it would look good paired with the lime green paper. Hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Stampscapes

I needed a congratulations on your new home card for a guy, and was having a really difficult time coming up with a masculine type card for the occasion. I love my Stampscapes stamps but hardly use them. It's been a long time since I took a class on how to use them, and I forget how to add color to the images. They're stamped on glossy cardstock. I know you can brayer first on the cardstock to add color and then stamp, but I'm brayer challenged, I always end up with lines on my paper, so I try to avoid the brayer at all costs. With stampscapes, you take several stamps and use them to create a scene. I used about 4 or 5 stamps on my card. I think it turned out okay considering it's just a simple black & white card. It was quick to make and I think I acheived the look I was going for! I'm going to a stamp convention next month and the Stampscapes company is going to be at the show. I'm hoping to see a demo and get a refresher on some coloring tips!

Use it Blog Challenge

My friend Rae started a new blog, to challenge us all to use our stash. I was so excited when I found out that Rae was starting this challenge blog. Like everyone else, I have tons of stuff that needs to be used! I made this card based on the sketch that Rae used to make her card. I've had this SEI paper forever. It's not really my style (actually I think it's more like Rae's style!), but I got it in one of the SEI mini kits. I used a bunch of old ribbon that I've had laying around, and a button from my stash. The stamp is an oldie too. Hope you'll join in on the challenge!

Cupcake Craft Challenge

Happy Wednesday! I decided to participate in the Monday cupcake challenge this week. This week's challenge was a color challenge, using pink, dark purple, light purple and white. I decided to use one of my Pollycraft digital images for this card. This is the first time I colored the image, rather than using the pre-colored images. This was quite a challenge to stick to these pastel colors. Not really my style.

We go together...

I saw the cutest Valentine cards at Etsy. Check them out here. There is a super cute one with peanut butter & jelly with the same sentiment. Her milk & cookie card was my inspiration for this card. I used my new Have a Cookie set by Melanie Muenchinger (Gina K Designs) that Chrisi gave me for Christmas (thank you!) and stamped the milk, cookie and cookie cutter heart. I colored all the images with my copic markers, cut them out and adhered them to the card with foam tape. I added the google eyes to the milk & cookie, and then hand drew the arms & legs. I printed the sentiment from my computer. I love how this turned out, for once it turned out exactly how I planned. Isn't it wonderful when things work like that?

Fun Card Swap

From Koren (purpleladybug)
From Lidia (midweststamper)
From Emily (eddienharley)
From Janet (Jarie)
From Gayle (2for2)
From Susan (smkymtsu)

I signed up for a card swap on the Paper Crafts site recently. For the first part of the swap, I stamped an image (the retro housewife stamp from Viva Las Vegas stamps) 6 times and then mailed the images to the swap hostess, Susan. She took everyone's images, swapped them and mailed 6 different images out to each of the swap participants. We then had to color the images and make cards from the images. Everyone mails their completed cards back to the swap hostess, she swaps the cards, and then everyone receives 6 cards back made from their images. I love all the cards I received back. I had no idea what to do with this image, and now I have lots of ideas! Aren't these cards fantastic?

Criss Cross Card

I love making these kinds of cards. I love any kind of card that doesn't open the typical way. I just wanted to make a fun and simple card to have on hand, and I think I accomplished it with this card. The frog stamp is by Imaginisce and the papers are by 3 Bugs in a Rug. I got the directions on how to make the criss cross card at Splicoast Stampers site. Hope you're having a nice week!

Doggie Card

I was blog surfing and found these super cute doggie images. They are by Pollycraft Designs, and they are digital images! This is my first time playing with digital images, and I think I'm hooked! They came with 3 different images on a page, one sheet had the images already colored, and the 2nd page had the same images in black & white, so you can color them. I thought I would want to color them, but using the pre-colored images took the guesswork & stress out of using my copics! The images are perfect to make a super cute, easy card.

Engagement Gift

Yep, my brother got engaged!! He asked Kristen to marry him a couple weeks ago. I am so excited to gain a sister in law! (Especially one who's into making cards too!) I know they enjoy going to the Lake Erie Monsters hockey games, so I thought I would get them tickets to a game as an engagement gift. I thought this skate would be the perfect thing to hold the tickets. I think they'll like it. I got the skate template in the member section of the Stamp Shack. I found the Lake Erie Monsters image online.

Happy Birthday Mom!

This is the birthday card I made for my mom. Today is her 60th birthday! I'm going home to be with my family tomorrow. I'm excited, I haven't been home since last Christmas/New Years. I made this card for a challenge on the Paper Crafts website. The challenge was to make a diamond fold card. I got the instructions here. The tutorial is really easy to follow. The stamps are from Lockhart Stamp Company. I colored the image with copic markers and used a black gelly roll glaze pen for the doodling around the edges.

Doodle Factory Challenge

This is a card I made for the Starving Artistamps Doodle Factory challenge on Paper Craft Planet. The challenge was to create a card using acetate. Acetate isn't my favorite thing to use on my cards. I guess it's because I never quite know what to do with it. I stamped my Doodle Factory stamps on white paper and colored them with my Copic markers. I cut them out and adhered the princess and mushrooms to the acetate. The onion carriage and Happy Birthday sentiment was adhered to the base of the card. Hope you have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

I had trouble thinking of something my brother would like for Christmas. He finally gave me a couple ideas including a big chocolate bar. This is one of the really big Hershey's chocolate bars that I covered with white cardstock, doodled around the edges with a brown Zig pen, and then added my punch Rudolph. I used my purple and pink Marvy oval punches for his body, muzzle and ears. I used a small round punch for the eyes and nose. I hand cut the antlers. His neck looks too long to me now. Oh well. My brother won't care! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas day!

Nugget Tins

I made a few of these for people at work. I got the tins from Specialty Bottle. They hold 12 Hershey nuggets. For two of them, I stamped using my Papertrey Holiday Treats set on a sheet of 1"x3" labels and covered the nuggets with the labels. The other one has nuggets that I covered with plain cardstock. Then I made belly bands to go around the tins, and stamped the images for the front using Papertrey stamps. I like how they turned out. Easy, quick gifts!