Rejoice!

Happy Spring and Happy Easter. I actually made several Easter cards to mail to friends and family this year. I'm not sure I have ever done that before. I have been so enamored with the cute little birds I've been seeing everywhere lately in scrapping and stamping magazines. So I felt inspired to use this cute chick on my Easter card. It's from the set: Fun and Fast Notes. This layout is the same as the Valentine Card I showed you yesterday. This seems to be my favorite layout. I used my Coluzzle to cute the two circles. The card is Almost Amethyst and the background flowers and sentiment are stamped using Versamark. The chick is stamped with Black Staz On. I didn't want any bleeding when I water colored. I used Water Color Crayons and aqua painters to color my chick and flower stem. The circle layer is Apricot Appeal as well as the flower. I stamped just the flower on Apricot and cut it out, attaching it to the card with a Celery brad. The background paper is from retired Designer Paper: Petals and Paisley. I've hoarded my patterned paper so long that I have a ton of retired paper and I'm trying to use it up. I have a hard time justifying buying more paper when I have so much on hand. Ya know? So anyway, I finished the card off by attaching white grosgrain ribbon to the right half of the card and tying a square knot. I love the square knot so much more than a bow. It's so much less fussy. And I am not a fussy person.

I'm off to prepare food and fun for Easter tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend and remember that you are a child of God. Rejoice in meaning of this holiday!

You Mean Everything To Me

This is the card I made for my DH for Valentine's Day. I just had to use my, then new, Always set. The heart image is so pretty! I started with Pretty in Pink card stock for the card base and stamped the heart twice in Chocolate Chip on a scrap of the same pink. I cut the hearts out and sponged the edges in Chocolate Chip. On the card base I used the heart image from Petite Patterns randomly over the background in Pretty in Pink. I cut a strip of Rose Red card stock to go across the middle of the card and sponged that with the Chocolate Chip also. I wrapped the card with chocolate grosgrain ribbon and tied on scraps of rose and light pink ribbon on either side of the chocolate knot. I then used dimensionals to attach the hearts to the card. On the top heart I had to use two dimensionals stacked where it meets the card to give each heart the proper dimension. Lastly, I stamped the sentiment in Chocolate Chip on the card, added a little more sponging...and voila, I had a beautiful card for hubby for Valentine's Day. As for the photo, I tried something new. I thought there was enough morning light streaming through the window to light the card, but, alas, there were shadows anyway. I probably won't try this method again.

Enjoy your Easter weekend. I will share an Easter card tomorrow in honor of the holiday.

SCS Color Challenge 158

So I decided to do this week's Color Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers. I don't think I've ever done that particular challenge before and this week's combo was definitely a challenge for me. The combo is Kraft, Orchid Opulence and Sage Shadow. I like Kraft quite a bit but Orchid and Sage are two colors that I almost never use. I have lots of those two colors in my stash. So I figured this would stretch my creativity and use up some neglected paper. Before I started I looked at a dozen or so samples from other stampers and I found 3 or 4 that I really liked. So here is my attempt. I used the set Unfrogettable and the retired background Word by Word. The card base and focal point are Very Vanilla. Word by Word is stamped in Creamy Caramel. Froggy and shroom are stamped in Black Staz On. I used reinkers and aqua painters to add color. I even water colored a sky with Bashful Blue. The layers are Kraft and Sage Shadow. I used the paper piercing tool and a Close to Cocoa marker around the edges of the Kraft layer. All pieces have Creamy Caramel inked around the edges. The ribbon is Taupe Grosgrain with a Clear button that backed with Orchid Opulence. I kind of like the overall card. What do you think?

Cool Bargain Find: Today I went to a thrift store to take a look around. My 12 year old daughter has been wanting a new pair of roller blades and there was a pair there that was BRAND NEW! For only $10.95!!! WhooHoo!!

How fast do you type?

45 words
I took this online typing test. I've always wondered about how many words per minute I type. I only took one semester of typing in high school. In the last fourteen years I have only typed at my computer for the internet and various personal projects...and now for my blog. I think that 45 words per minute is pretty respectable! Yeah me!

California Bella

Here is a Bella Circle Journal Page that I forgot to share with you. This photo has been stuck on my memory card for months without me downloading it. Silly me! So here you have Michelle my Bella. The facing page was a postcard of California Poppies which grow abundantly here. The journaling tells of some of the fun things to do in California. The page is simple but Bella steals the show, as she should!

So did you see American Idol last night? I have to admit I've become a wee bit obsessed with AI this season. It's the first season that i have seen every episode. And I'm even voting every week! I have four favorites so far and one of them-Jason Castro-sang my song last night: Michelle!!! I think he's so sweet and I just pretended that he was singing right to me. Ahhhhh. Gotta run. Bye.

Always...

I love this stamp set. It's called Always. When I sat down to make this card I just wanted something peaceful and simple and beautiful. It is not quite what I had in my mind's eye but I like it a lot. I started with the serene color of bashful blue for my ink color. I stamped the branch on whisper white once full strength and then once again slightly off set without reinking. The focal image was then layered on Bashful Blue, after inking the edges directly from the pad. The another layer of Ballet Blue was added to give it a pop. I stamped the round always image in the lower right corner and added a white band with inked edges to the middle of the bashful blue card base. I tied blue grosgrain ribbon around the front of the card before attaching the focal image with dimensionals. All in all it's simple and elegant. What do you think? Does this achieve my vision of peaceful, simple and beautiful?

Today I'm back to working on my Circle Journal project. It's been a while. The one I have now is themed: Family Traditions. I am journaling about our Fourth of July traditions. So many fun memories of friends, family and fun. My favorite memories dating back to when Beckie and her family would spend the day with us. What a blast!! I'll show you my pages when I get them done. I spent 3 hours today looking for my favorite picture from July 2001. I had made matching t-shirts for everyone in the family. We were so cute! Of course, this was before we went digital so I had to find the actual print. Finally I told Beth what I was looking for and she knew right where to find one. Yeah for Beth!! I just wish I had asked her sooner.

Tag Book

I started this little book at least a year ago and I finished it in January. The tag book is made from So Saffron card stock and embellished with Stampin' Up! Designer Paper. Stamps used are from Office Accoutrement and Everyday Flexible Phrases. On the inside there a rub on from an unknown source. I used several of my SU! punches to embellish this cute little book. All of the pics inside are punched with the small tag punch and layered with card stock punched from the regular tag punch. The file tabs at the top of each page ore also punched out. There is a semi circle punched with the slit punch on the back of the tag book that will hold the book closed. I used Cool Caribbean card stock for the file tabs and Apricot Appeal and Certainly Celery for the tag layering. The ribbon is Spring Green. Overall I like the way this turned out. I'd like to keep it in my purse but I'm worried it would get destroyed in a matter of days. Maybe I should try making one that fits into an altoid tin. I've seen those but have never gotten around to actually making one.

Tonight hubby and I are going out to dinner!! Yeah! It's nice to get away without the kids once in a while. They won't mind since they get pizza so we don't have to cook before we go out. Ya know? I hope you all have a great weekend. I'm working on some Easter cards to show you next week. Bye

Dahlia Fold

Well, even though I haven't been posting regularly I have been doing some creating. Unfortunately, I have let most of those creations out of the house without photographing them first. I do have a few that haven't been given away to share with you though. A few weeks ago there was a challenge on Splitcoast Stampers to use the Dahlia Fold. The examples sure looked pretty. A few of the comments said that it was a bit difficult but I didn't let that scare me away. I went for it. And here is my effort. The fold isn't the easiest thing, but I got the hang of it after thrashing a couple of attempts. Once I had my eight circles folded I glued them onto Certainly Celery card stock in the flower formation. I used my Layer Ease to cut a perfect layer and added a celery 1/2" circle and a rhinestone brad to the center of my flower. The card base is Bashful Blue with a layer of white, a layer of patterned paper (also used for the folding) and a piece of celery ribbon. The flower is attached using dimensionals. The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. You can find the instructions for this fold here.

I've got sick kids again this week. Spring is always a big cold season around here. Darn it! And spring break starts next week, too. On a happier note, my oldest son got his driver's license this week. I'm loving having another driver in the house. I think this will help our gas bill AND give me more time to stamp and scrap. Speaking of scrapping...I mentioned a while back that my goal was to bring my scrapbooks current this year. So far I've made a whopping 3 layouts since the beginning of the year. I'm going to have to pick up the pace!! And I've determined that I need a Cricut for my titles. Do any of you have one of these handy little things? Do you like it? What do you recommend?

Well, DD just called from school, I've got to pick her up. Bye!

Hey there! I am alive! Let's just pretend that February never happened! Everyone here got the nasty flu going around. Three of us needed antibiotics to get over it. But now that the sickness has retreated and the weather is beautiful here, I'm feeling inspired. I don't have any new stamping projects to show you today, but here is the other cake I made for class. The words are a little cramped but I like the way it turned out anyway. I especially like the dots around the side of the cake. I'll use that idea again.

I'll be back soon with some fresh card ideas. (and btw, soon is relative)