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)

Rainbow Cake

So I mentioned last time that I am taking a cake decorating class. It's the Wilton Method at Michael's. I'm taking the class with my mom and we are having a lot of fun. We have even signed up for the next course. For the first class the instructor showed us the tools and gave us the skinny on how everything works. So our homework was to bring in an iced cake ready to decorate. And the cake was to be 8 inches around and 4 inches high. He recommended the Wilton baking pans but it was not in my budget so I used my 9 inch pans and made three layers. I made my blue icing and we were to make it nice a smooth like the picture in the book. Well that was challenging!
When we got to class we learned the techniques used for this rainbow decoration and then we got to apply our new found knowledge to our cakes. This particular decoration used the same tip for all the applications. It was pretty fun. I got my cake all done by the end of class and I was quite proud of myself. If my cake had been an 8 inch round the rainbow would have fit along the edge but I think it looks pretty god anyway. Our instructor gave us some tips on making the icing nice and smooth and on icing between the layers.
I've made lots of cakes in my adulthood and I've gotten some great tips from this class. Now I also know how to do some other fun things. I'm having a bit of a hard time with the flowers. I need to practice, practice, practice.
Switching gears: Here is another card I liked from Kimber's swaps. I don't know who made these cards but I only photographed my favorites so that I could CASE them later. Certainly Celery is one of my favorite colors so I'm always drawn to cards done in that color. I'm also loving all the patterned paper being used on cards these days. What took us so long to start doing that?
Have a fabulous weekend.

Beckie and Me in Palm Springs

Well, I'm obviously doing a poor job on my goal to post more regularly! Today I'll tell you about my two day excursion to Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago. I was to meet my dear friend, Beckie at 11:30 at the PS Airport when her plane landed. So off I went, leaving my house around 9am. Shortly after 10am, Beckie called to say that she had missed her connecting flight in Phoenix. Dagnabbit!! Well, I decided to sally forth and find something to do in Palm Springs when I got there. It was a nice drive down. I had never been to Palm Springs before. When I arrived I drove through the town and figured my way around. It is a pretty small town so that didn't take too long. On my way I discovered a movie theater and decided that seeing a movie would be a great way to kill some time. So I found a parking space and headed over to the cineplex. As I approached I was looking at the movie posters outside and I didn't recognize a single movie! How odd! I figured I must have found the uppity movie theater of foreign films. So I figured I would ask where the regular theater was. Ha! All the theaters in town were playing movies for the International Film Festival! What lousy timing on my part! Now, I have seen a few foreign films over the years, but only on recommendation. I'm more of your romantic comedy fan.

So I had lunch at a fast food place and found the library. I sat in the library reading my book and then took a walk in the adjacent park. It was quite a relaxing day, actually. I finally got to pick up Beckie at 4:30pm. We checked into the hotel and met up with our roommates. Beckie, Kimber and April were all there for the Stampin' Up! Leadership Conference. I was just there to visit with Beckie! We had a fun evening walking around Palm Springs and visiting. The next day I took photos of some of Kimber's swaps. I like this one the best!

Beckie, Kimber and I went to breakfast in the hotel and visited some more. I had a great time until it was time to go. They had to get started at Leadership and I had to get home for Cub Scouts. Here is a pic of me and Beckie. Aren't we cute?

On my next post I'll tell you about the Cake Decorating Class I'm taking with my mom. I have pics of my first two cakes, too!

Resolutions and Two More Calendar Pages

Happy New Year! Have you made any New Year's Resolutions? I have. And that's unusual for me. Normally I don't bother. But this year I feel like I need to focus on some things I want to change. My first resolution is to get caught up on my chronological scrap booking. I just finished scrapping Christmas 2005...so that's a full two years to catch up with and then 2008 to do also. Yikes! I've just been neglecting my scrapbooking far too long, ya know.

Another resolution I have is to be kinder. Overall I think I'm a pretty nice girl, but I have a bit of a sharp tongue that can get me into trouble occasionally. So I'll probably have a bloody tongue for a while! haha

Lastly, I resolve to be closer with my family in spiritual ways. I want to have scripture study and prayer daily with my family. I have been so bad about making that happen and I want to change that this year. It's never too late, right?

Oh yeah...I also want to be more consistent with this blog. I guess you'll be seeing a lot more scrap booking pages!



For today, here are two desk calendar pages from the swap I was in. I hope you like them!

Calendar Page and Christmas Doings

Okay, I know it's been a week since I last posted. I just got so darn irritated with myself when I realized that the cute little gifts I made last Thursday were already given away and I hadn't taken any photos to share with you. And I'm telling you they were adorable. I made Milk Bath from a recipe I have here and filled Starbucks bottles with the mixture. I covered the bottle and lid with cute paper and a tag and ribbon and eyelets and the whole nine yards. So cute! I wish you could see!!

Anyway, since I can't show you those, I have the first Desk Calendar page to show you. January was the month I did and I love the way this page turned out. I started with the Brocade Blue base and randomly stamped snowflakes over it with Night of Navy and Brocade Blue and Versamark. The focal image is on glossy paper. First I stamped the trees with Versamark and then brayered over the whole piece with Bashful Blue. Then I stamped the snowflakes with Versamark and brayered over the whole piece again with Brocade Blue. It gives the snowflakes a softer look than the trees. Then I used my white gel pen to add several highlights to the trees. This was then mounted onto white and then Night of Navy. Ribbon is Navy and White grosgrain with a small tag punched. The small snowflake there was stamped in Night of Navy and I wrote the month with the marker of the same color.

I will share some of the other months with you soon. I still need to order my 6x6 Desk Calendar to put the whole thing together.

I've been busy with my baking and Christmas activities this week. I've got my Sugar Cookies baked but not yet frosted, I made my first batch of Fudge yesterday and did some more Christmas shopping. Tonight is my son's Show Choir Christmas Program at school. He has a solo and is so excited. I had better remember to bring the kleenex. I always get teary eyed when children sing and even more so when they are my kids! I'm such a sap!

Have a great day!

The Last Two Bella Journal Pages

Today I am showing you the last two of the Bella Journal Pages. Let's start with Karen's. I love the Olive Green with the Deep Purple shown on her pages. Karen and I share love for junk food, candy and crafts.

And last but not least is Mary's pages. I love the title of her page: A Few of My Favorite Things. Why didn't think of that for the title of my book? What a "duh moment". Anyway we share love of the color purple, thunderstorms and music.

I have had such a great time reading through each entry and admiring every one's art. Next time I post I will show you some pages for a 6x6 desk calendar. I haven't actually purchased the calendar yet, but I was in a swap. I did twelve of one month and so did eleven other people. I'll be sharing my favorites.

Today I actually spent some time creating. I made a few Christmas gifts. I am looking forward to sharing them with you soon also.

Have a great day! I hope that you are enjoying this holiday season as much as I am.

More Bella Pages and Holiday Ramblings

So here is Chris' Bella page. I love the bright colors of pink and orange. They look great together. So the topic was 10 Things I Love, right? I share several of those with Chris: scrapbooking, photography, spring and fresh laundry. I just don't particularly like to fold all that fresh laundry. Ya know?

Elana also did a fabulous page. We share the love of Grey's Anatomy, pedicures and Bath & Body Works.

Tonight my oldest son, Jacob, is performing in the Drama Christmas Showcase at school. He has had a lot of fun working on his skits. He will be Santa Claus in one of the skits. I am really looking forward to seeing the show tonight. The whole family including grandparents will be there to cheer him on. Next week we'll get to see him singing and dancing in the Show Choir Christmas Show. He even has a solo!

I started my holiday baking yesterday. I got some Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies done and mixed a batch of sugar cookie dough. Yeah, me!

Christmas Traditions and Journal Pages

Happy December! I'm having so much fun with all the holiday preparations and activities. Yesterday we went to the town Christmas Parade. One of our daughters marched in the parade with her JRROTC unit from school. Today we are heading to the Creche Festival. It's a lovely annual event here in town where there are over 1,000 nativity scenes on display. Here's a picture of a nativity that my kids got me for Christmas this year. I got to open it early so that I can decorate with it. I've been collecting creches since I first went to the Creche Festival. Musicians lend to the Christmas atmosphere. We are especially looking forward to the handbell group and the men's quartet.

Today I am sharing two of the pages from my Bella Circle Journal. These pages were done by Alicia and Anouk. They both did a great job. Alicia's page is so colorful! I love all the scalloped circles and the polka dotted paper.

On Anouk's pages I love the glittery pom-poms and the great background paper. She did a great job!

Oh, go Elf yourself!

Okay, this is the funniest thing!! Beckie sent me a link to a great website. You get to plug your face into an elf and then it does a cute little dance. I made an elf of myself and my two daughters. You can see my elf here. Then you will get the opportunity to make one yourself. Try it. It's hilarious!

Grace's Bella Page

I've got another page for your from my completed Circle Journal. This page was done by Grace. She did a great job. I love the way she "dressed" her Bella! Also the circles with her information are computer generated. They say Love It all the way around the circle which is then punched out. Too cute! I want to know how to do that! So very cool!

When I sent my Circle Journal out on it's merry way around the country I hadn't decorated the front and back cover. I was worried about it looking terrible after so much handling. So I just finished with the covers the other day. I'll share that with you in a few days as well.

Journals & Traditions

Do you remember way back when I started the Bella Circle Journal? I posted several pages when I started. You can see them by clicking on the link for Circle Journals on the right side of the page. Well, the Journal has made it's way around the country and safely back to me all completed. I have to give a big shout out: Thank You!! to Jane for hosting this swap. I know it's a lot of work. So thanks again. Here you can see the pages that Jane did for my Journal. So cute! I love the SuperBella that Jane used here. You can check out Jane's blog here.

I'll be showing you the rest of the pages in the next few days. I highly recommend joining a Circle Journal swap or starting one of your own. They help to stretch you creatively and keep you connected to other stampers and/or friends.

I'm so excited about the Christmas season this year! I started listening to Christmas music on XM radio a week before Thanksgiving and I've already got the house decorated inside and out and we decorated the tree last night. I've also got a good start on my Christmas shopping. No wrapping yet. But I'll get there. I'm really looking forward to starting my baking, too. That is my favorite part of the season. Yummmm...cookies. Frosted sugar cookies are my absolute favorites. I think I'll be starting all that next week.

One of our family's traditions is to buy or make a new ornament for everyone in the family every year. We usually get at least one Tweety Bird ornament, for obvious reasons. We also are partial to Disney, Harry Potter and patriotic ornaments. I also like to pick up an ornament when we travel. Last year we went to Seattle for Christmas and I bought a Space Needle ornament with Santa Claus on top. So cute. I'm thinking of making a little journal featuring some of my favorite ornaments.

What are some of your favorite traditions for the holidays? I love to hear about other's traditions.

Fall Friends

Here is a card that I'm actually happy with! I haven't created a card that I really like in ages! I used that fabulous saying from the Time Well Spent sent that Stampin' Up! has so graciously sent to all of their demonstrators. They are just the best. But anyway, back to the card. I used the leaves from Autumn Leaves inked with the Pumpkin Patch Spectrum Pad. For the leaves on the base of the card I inked the stamp and then misted the stamp with water, stamped it off once onto scratch paper and then stamped it on the card. For the two cutout leaves I stamped them full strength and then cut them out. Then I added a little sponging with the Close to Cocoa pad. I also sponged around the card and the piece with the saying. The saying was stamped in Chocolate Chip and colored in with markers to coordinate with the spectrum pad. The saying piece is layered onto Chocolate Chip and that is layered onto a piece of Garden Green. I also added some knots of natural hemp onto the green piece. The leaves are attached with stampin' dimensionals. I have already put this card into the mail to my good friend in Oregon. It's for her birthday with was Sunday. Oops, I didn't mail it until today. I hope she'll forgive me!

Anyway, I hope that you all had a great holiday. I love Thanksgiving! We took our family picture to add to our Christmas cards. We spent the weekend decorating for Christmas and today hubby put the lights on the outside of the house. Tonight we will actually decorate the tree.

I have several things lined up to share with you...so keep checking back!