I'm back . . . sorta

Hello, hello, hello! I can't believe it has been so many days since my last post! Let me tell you what I've been up to . . . gardening. Papercrafting is my first love, but coming in a close second is gardening. Specifically, I love container gardening. We are blessed with two huge beautiful decks, one covered, one for sun. I've been spending my days out doors planting, digging, watering, hoeing, sipping tea in the shade. By the time I come inside and clean up, I am so tired and sore I just collapse in a chair and sleep. Truly. My husband taught me to mow this week. I know, I know, sounds simple but we have a "zero-turn mower" so it is not just driving a riding lawnmower. You'll have to read my Yahoo blog if you want more details, I'm off to type that next. Anyway, it is a good thing that planting season is nearing an end or I might have a hard time getting any stamping done. I'm only inside today because it is rainy and cold here in Kansas.
My post today uses the retiring set Wanda's Wit and Wisdom (or something like that!). To color it I used the reinkers and blenders. I'm really trying to perfect my blending. Notice the different shades of brown in Wanda's hair and the shading on her t-shirt. The pink around her doesn't look so harsh IRL. Recently I purchased Gamsol and a few Prismacolored pencils. I hope to start playing with those soon. I also justs received my Bind-it-all in the mail this week. Remember last week when I told you about the tea room my mom owns? She has asked me to make some items for her retail area. I love the idea of that, but that means no SU! product since I can't sell it in a permanent retail setting. If you have ideas of companies whose products I could use, please, please, please leave me a comment!

faux ribbon

I, like the other millions of versatile stamp fans, adore PAPERTREYink's new line of stamps. I have each of their stinky hot new sets and LOVE, LOVE, Love them. Their success seems phenomenal and cards made with their stamps are gracing trendsetting blogs daily.
I made this card for my sister's 30th birthday. Lining up the stamps for the faux ribbon strip was super easy. I was amazed that I did it right in one try. I never do anything correctly the first time. The sentiment is also for the faux ribbon set. I saw the idea for the homemade flower petal on a blog . . . I can't remember which one. Simply punch 5 or so ovals, cut them in half, and position them around the center circles.
Supplies: apricot, celery, teal, whisper white inks and cardstocks. Paisley background stamp.

bundle of joy

Congratulations to my good friends Matt and Jill on the birth of their son Jackson! I am so delighted for them . . . and yes Jill, this card is making its way in the mail to you as I type. Just like my last post, I had this stamp set sitting in the sale pile, but all of a sudden I just HAD to use it. Now, I don't think I can part with it just yet. I think the reason I am enjoying this set so much is because I have really started to enjoy using my blenders. Before, they seemed so time consuming, but I have been forcing myself to practice, practice, practice. Notice the little oval for the feet to rest on. I would have never thought of doing that, but so many of the great ladies who inspire are doing this all the time; they are right, it does ground the image. If you haven't seen this before, to achieve this look punch an oval. Then sponge in the oval hole to get this crisp oval. Of course, if you have an oval stamp, use that!
I used blissful blue, barely banana, and whisper white inks and cardstock. The background stamps are flannel and aida cloth. Thanks for stopping by today.

wish big

My mother-in-law just had her 60th birthday over the weekend. I know, I know, I should have found a cake with many more candles, but this image fits so perfectly on the long, skinny cards in the spring mini. The main image stamp if from a retired hostess set. I actually had that set put aside to sell, but then I was inspired to use it on this occasion. I also used the baby image from the same set, I'll show you that soon.
I hope you had a great Mother's Day. I sure did! I napped, ate ice cream, picked out snowball bushes, saw Spiderman 3, and collapsed exhausted sometime after midnight. I also uploaded a picture of me with my boys so you could meet my family. My oldest is Jacob. He will be 7 in July. Next is Jonah, who is three. He takes after his daddy in looks AND disposition. Finally we have Jesse. He turned two last month, making him only 15 months younger than Jonah. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with. They amount of energy these boys have is tremendous. Now I know that lots of kids have energetic, but I only know of two other families whose children can outlast mine. Except for naps, videos, and bedtime, my boys go non-stop. We have 40 acres, a pond and 2 barns for them to explore and we spend much of our day outside, even in inclement weather. For instance today, we've been outside all morning hoeing up weeds, moving plants, watering plants
and playing on the fort. Fortunately it is time for a nap. Thanks for letting me share a bit about my non-stamping life! (Is there really such a thing?)

Shelves

Look at what I spent my afternoon yesterday working on. See those shelves? My brother-in-law Josh made them for me TWO Christmases ago. They've been sitting in my closet ever since then, waiting so patiently to be placed on a cozy wall somewhere. Several times I've pulled them out, carried them around the house, and then placed them back in the closet. I just couldn't hang them until I knew exactly where I wanted them. Then, yesterday, in a moment of creative genius, I could picture them on my craft room wall. You see, for a few months I have been focusing on reorganizing my craft area. I am a pretty organized gal, but I recently decided I also wanted it to look good too. Here's my first attempt. What do you think?
The words are from Making Memories. I found them at Target for about $3 I think.

to my mother

Every year I swear I am going to make Mother's Day cards, but something always sidetracks me. I think it is the huge amount of birthdays, graduations, weddings and then the biggest distractor . . . spring weather. When May comes, I start spending all my free time out doors playing ball, planting flowers, pushing children on the swings, etc. Card making comes to a complete halt. BUT, with all the rain we've had, I've been inside this week. I've been making cards this week. I have got so many neat cards to show you . . . but I am only going to post one a day so they will last a while because as soon as it dries out, I'm going back outside.
I made this card for my mother. I really don't see my mother much, even though she only lives an hour from me. She opened her own tea room which keeps her very busy. So this year, I wanted to be able to write a great deal to her. Thus, I designed a card with a lot of writing space. The card is a 5 1/2 square, scored 1/4" in so it has a book feel to it. I used stamps from the Doodle This and Doodle That sets, coloring them with my blender pens. The celery polka dot paper is from the Palette O Prints collection which available only this month. Colors I used: celery, apricot, regal rose. Again, the words to my mother are stamped using the Karen Foster snap stamps. Finally, I added stickles to various parts of the card for the wonderfully fun sparkle.

celebrate U

Today I squeezed a few minutes to create this spring card for my dearest friend's daughter Lauren. She's having her sweet sixteen this weekend and since they live 800 miles south of us, I am missing the big party. Like so many of you, I am grieving over all the stamps sets that are retiring (this stamp set IS NOT, though) and I decided to pull this one out to play with. I am so thankful it is staying. I am a big bang for your buck kinda gal, so I really like the variety of cards I can create with this set, About U. I embossed celebrate with white embossing powder; the U was created by inking first with regal rose craft ink then embossing with crystal clear EP. Likewise, the flower was embossed using apricot craft ink. And yes ladies, that's Caribbean cardstock. You'd better get that paper restocked while you can! Remember it retires at the end of June.

rain, rain go away

I have been swamped (literally and figuratively) this last week. I can't believe my last post was a week ago. How do gals post all the time? Life just gets in the way sometimes. We are experiencing an untypical monsoon season here in eastern Kansas. Our sump pump is on the fritz, so I have spent many hours mopping, wet-vac-ing, and bailing in the basement. More rain is expected today.
The good news: I made two cards yesterday and plan to post today. Please don't give up on me!

sparkle

Here's my last submission from the OSW cards. I dressed the regal rose background up by stamping doodle this in versamark, outlining in with white gel and dotting it with a bit of stickles. The heart stamp is from the coordinating set doodle that. I used sparkle from warm words. First I stamped it in black, then outlined it in rose red.
I haven't had much time to stamp this week. First, we watched The Smartest Guys in the Room, which is the story of Enron. My husband worked for Enron for three years, and yes, he was working there when it unraveled (that is another blog). Then, my homeschool coop had a world fair last night. Our family chose Egypt. I spent all week working with my kiddos as we created, colored, etc in preparation for this fun event. Now, that it is over, I hope to visit my stamp room today! But the weather is awfully nice . . .

Welcome baby!

Don't you love this card? I do! I love the details, the layers, the colors, etc. There is a lot of love in this card! A gal on Splitocoaststampers inspired with her card, which is very similar to mine so I can't really take much creative talent here. Her card used the retired Toy Box set and a completely different color scheme, but I definitely cased using the monogram B with the fontastic background. I tried to give you a link to see her card, but the picture is gone . . . anyway, notice I tried to give credit where credit is due!
Back to this card. It is difficult to see in this picture, but the saffron in the background is stamped with the linen stamp for, you guessed it, texture! The fontastic background is stamped in regal rose, sponged, then layered on carribbean. Then I stamped the monogram B in celery and very carefully used my exacto knife to cut it out. It blended in with the white background, so I mounted it on regal rose and again very carefully used my exacto knife to cut it out. Next I used my black Stazon ink to stamp the images from the New Little Someone set and my blender pens to add color. FINALLY, I cut them out and placed them on the card with pop dots. I think this has to be one of my most time consuming cards, but it was worth it!

Texas Friends

Two years ago my dearest friends from Texas came to visit and brought a van-load of kiddos. We had a great week of swimming, laughing, eating, and playing before they headed back south. While they were here, they were so well-behaved that I never knew that so many kids were in the house, except when I had to fix those gigantic meals!
Here's the details on this page. I used my Karen Foster snap stamps to create the phrase "my texas friends". I LOVE those stamps. Each letter snaps together with the one next to it creating a perfecting aligned phrase. It is wonderful for personalizing and still having that stamped type. Colors used were garden green, regal rose, and brilliant blue.

I'm headed out of town

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm leaving town for a few days. I tried to upload a new picture, but blogger seems to have a bit of an attitude tonight! I'm just too tired from packing and running errands to mess with it right now. Look for a new post Sunday!

Check out my Watermark!

Hello again! I am really excited to show you my new watermark. Notice it in the lower part of my picture. I had Cindy at Watermark Designs create it for me. She did a great job. I gave her very little to go on, basically I wanted a crisp, clean look, but more than just my name and info. Check her work out, she is one multi-talented lady!
Now for my new card. This is another card from my One-Sheet-Wonders. I dressed it up a bit by stamping the dots from the Polka Dots and Paisley set, coloring random dots with the white gel pen, and using the linen background stamp. The flower is from Doodle This. To achieve the shading on the flower petals, I used my blender pen with both regal rose and rose red. Other colors included are olive, saffron, and caribbean. Finally, I stamped friend on the new label punch. It makes a great accent, doesn't it? Also, I used stickles on the dots of the petals. Nothing like a little glitter, huh?

In honor of the snowfall

Here in eastern Kansas, four miles from the Missouri border we are having a major snowstorm. It has been snowing heavily for hours and is expected to snow through the night. We could have 4-8 inches of heavy, wet snow! Where did spring go? Two weeks ago it was 80 degrees. The clemantis was growing, the hostas sprouting, and the pear trees blooming. But now everything is dying again! Last weekend we hunted easter eggs in our winter coast, bundled with our hats and mittens. Good grief!
Thus, I decided to post this page I scrapped recently. The snowstorm that led to the pictures here was a freak event as well. It came in January, but out of nowhere. We went to bed expecting 1-2" and woke up to 8"+, while just 10 miles north there was no snow at all.
This pages uses the stamp set Snowflurries from the Winter Mini. I am crossing my fingers that it makes it into the new catalog. The snowflakes in it are just perfect! I have used them over and over again. In fact, I used them on my Christmas card. Here I used Brocade Blue, Night of Navy, and Whisper White craft inks and cardstock.

Learning to Scrap 6x6 pages

I love the scrapbooking in my family album, but how will I decide which of my boys gets to keep it in 2o years? So recently I decided that instead of trying in vain to keep up with the family scrapbook, I would work diligently on individual books for the boys. Here's my plan: each year for his birthday Jacob (or Jonah or Jesse) will receive the previous year's pages. Jacob's birthday comes next, thus I started with him. Plus, for some reason, I started in 2005. To keep things simple, I chose the 6x6 format. However, very quickly I discovered that the 6x6 small size takes a bit of getting used to. First, my pictures are 4x6, so they fill the page up quickly. Second, how many ways can I rearrange the elements on this page? Then, how much do I journal? Obviously, this page has little room for leaving details. I plopped the "my brother Jesse" on as an afterthought, realizing that he won't remember if that is Jonah or Jesse that he is holding.
Now for the details of the page. The cardstock is saffron, olive and brocade blue. I used the alphabet stamp from the I'm here set to create a background on the saffron. It is a bit hard to see in the picture, but it is just the right shade in real life. The olive is stamped using the linen background, giving it a bit of texture. ( I love texture . . . ) Finally, I stamped the hand in brocade blue on brocade blue and cut it out very patiently. I'm not really pleased with this page, but for my son it will be just fine. Also, I didn't take this picture in natural light (you already guess that huh?) so the lighting washes the saffron out a bit.
So what do you think for one of my first 6x6 pages? I made a couple more that I'll be posting in the next few days.

friend

Here's my next OSW card. This one is incredibly simple. I colored the flower from the Polka Dots and Paisley stamp set in regal rose and olive. The word friend is stamped in olive on Caribbean and then punched using the new round tab punch. The card itself is on saffron cardstock, but I adhered Caribbean to the edge to add some contrast. Finally I added that touch of ribbon to give it some depth and texture. This card was finished in under 10 minutes. I think that is a record for me!
I am really loving the Petals & Paisleys spring paper. It is all double-sided, so it is easy to coordinate. The backdrop paper also come from this pack, but I am a stripe-aholic, so I always use the stripe from a pack of paper first before I work to the other prints. I usually use the florals next. The papers I use least are the ones with a big pring pattern. Those papers are often so busy, they compete with my stamped-image. So I save those for scrapbooking or for use as a focal image on a card.

Wild About You!

I am teaching a class entitled One Sheet Wonders (affectionately referred to as OSW from here on out) this Friday night. A OSW starts with one sheet of 12x12 designer paper. Following a template, the paper is cut into 19 pieces. Next, add coordinating cardstock, stamps, a little ribbon, and you've got 16 coordinating cards. I love the simplicity of it all! It is hard for me to create simple cards; I enjoy layers, embellishments, more layers, did I mention ribbon? But, I really like this happy card. It uses the stamp set Wild About You and colors: saffron, olive, Caribbean.

oh where, oh where is my tag punch?

Today I carved out some much needed time for stamping. I had a full list of items to do: designing next week's one sheet wonders, creating a couple of birthday cards, and finding that article I read somewhere about stamping on Easter eggs. But when I got up to my craft nook, this is the disaster that awaited me. Good grief. I've got to dig out before I can dig in to my list.
Notice a few things on my desk. First, see the Archiver's bag on the left? I used my coupon to by a desk box that I am going to cover with designer paper. See the Target bags? I found rolodex clearanced . . . I bought them all. I've got a neat idea cooking in my brain for some Christmas presents next year. Can't say anymore about that here!
One rule I have while working in my nook is that I put everything away as I use it. You can see that I let that one slide. I get an idea, I get excited, then I work frantically and furiously until I accomplish it. When those moments come, supplies, scraps, trash, or whatever else I'm using starts to pile up. Unfortunately when I finish my project, I've often used up all my time for crafting. The boys are hungry. The dog needs to go out. The dryer is buzzing. My desk is left in this disastrous state.
By the way, it took me about 20 minutes to put everything back in its place today. I didn't get much done on my agenda.

He has risen!

For my first post on my NEW blog, I wanted to show the Easter card I designed. I don't send many Easter cards; in fact, this year I am just sending 10 to family members and some mentor women from church.
This card uses the stamp set Glorious Gift from SU! It is a long, skinny card, which is perfect compliment for the greeting. The colors I used are: Eggplant, Saffron, Rose Red, and Celery.
I promise to write more details of my stamping later . . . I just wanted to get something posted to this blog right away!