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!