Oh what a night!

Oh my, tonight I experienced my first Gina K. Designs release party over at SCS. What I can tell you was it was FUN and fast moving. If you have a little time, you should go and check out the release party thread here. There were tons of cards and projects uploaded, it truly was a feast for the eyes. Three of the senior design team had challenges just for the release. There is still time to play and you will find the links to the challenges here. The card I am showing above is for Lee's challenge to use the festive colors of Cranberry, Gold and Black. The images/sentiment used were from the Vintage Borders and Festive Frame sets. I cut the sentiment panel with my nesties and stamped the sentiment with Adirondack Pitch Black ink. I overstamped the corner of the panel in gold with part of the poinsettia from the Festive Frame set and then embossed with detail gold powder. The pearls on the sentiment panel were white and I colored them with my Copic R89 marker. I just love how you can do that! The black bow was created by wrapping the some Midori ribbbon 3 times around the second largest template on the Bow Easy.

Don't ask about that gold embossed paper because I have had it in my arsenal for so long that I can't remeber what company it is from. I truly think I have had it somewhere between 5-7 years. Can you say "paper hoarder?"

Over the next few days, I'll be uploading a few more cards/projects using these great stamp sets.

Gina K Designs Preview Day 2-Vintage Borders

Hi there!

I am so happy to be joining in on the fun tonight and sharing a couple of cards for the preview of one of the new sets to be released by Gina K Designs on Thursday night. This set is called Vintage Borders and was illustrated by the talented Nina Brackett.

For my first I used Gina K Pure Luxury Smoky Slate cardstock that will be releasing on Thursday, immediately following the release party on Splitcoaststampers. The card front was embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I stamped and embossed the scallop border and scripture verse with silver ink and detail silver embossing powder. The light blue panel was embossed with a snowflake folder and the scallops borders were attached to each side. I added some snowflake and sprig punchies and lots of tiny rhinestones for sparkle. I finished the card off by using my Sakura Stardust pen on some of the embossed snowflakes.

For my next card, I embossed the ornament image from Vintage Borders with gold ep and punched out a section with a 7/8" square punch and mounted it to a black inchie square. The frames for the image were created using my Nesties Labels One. The cardstock is Gina K's Vibrant Violet which was released last month. The background of the card was stamped with Versamark ink and one of the images from the Vintage Borders. I embossed "peace" (also from this great set) in gold and finished it off with a little gold cording.

Thanks for stopping by tonight!

For even more inspiration, please visit the Illustrators of the stamp sets featured tonight:

Asela Hopkins: First Christmas Nina Brackett: Vintage Borders

Tonight, we have several of our Center Stage Spotlight Designers joining in the previews. Here are their blog links:

Deb Felts Sharri Seffens Melissa Cash

Finally, stop by these GinaK Designers' blog for even more projects with tonight's stamp sets:

Gina Krupksy Carolyn King Cathy Tidwell Cindy Lawrence Erika Martin Emily Giovanni Jessica Fick Kurtis Amundson Lee Murphy Lynn Mercurio Melanie Muenchinger Tami Mayberry Theresa Momber Donna Baker

Our Release party will be held Thursday night over on SCS in GinaK's Forum from 7-10 pm CST. We'd love to have you join in the fun! There will be contest questions, challenges, chatter, and lots more samples from our designers throughout the party! See you then!

Ooh La La Posey--Just Us Girls

Good Morning! I will have a very special post a little later tonight, so stop back by.

I created this cute little card for this weeks challenge at the Just Us Girls Challenge Blog. This week the challenge was to create a 3-D flower. I used my Blossom Nesties to create my flower. I embossed my card with the Cuttlebug Textile Texture folder and then used a little bit of paper from the My Minds Eye Ooh La La/Her collection. The colors are so pretty in this paper! The Him collection is awesome too! I added lots of teeny rhinestones to the scallops and some of the petals in the flower. I love the leaf ribbon too, I think it was the perfect finish. I cased the layout from Kimberly Crawford (her card even had a cute cork flower on it) but I can't find her post to link back to, but you will want to check out her blog as she has lots of good stuff there!

After I was done, it dawned on me that I hadn't stamped on the card so I added a stamped sentiment to the inside so that I wouldn't have to stress over not stamping on my card. Yes, I am a goof nut sometimes! Need some of these goodies? Get them here.

hugs,

Let the previews begin!

In about an hour (10:00 CST) the previews will begin for the next Gina K Designs that will be released on Thursday night. You won't want to miss a thing so head over to Gina's blog and check it out!

Tomorrow night is my night to jump in and share in the preview fun! I can't wait to show you what I have been workin' on!

The release party will be held over in the Gina K Member Company forum at Splitcoaststampers. Prepare to join us for some fun challenges and amazing eye candy!

hugs,

Blessings to You

Hi there! I hope everyone is having a great Friday. I have been waiting for my CSSDT box to arrive from Gina K Designs, but snail mail is at it's best this week. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will arrive tomorrow.

I spent the day finishing up my class kits for tomorrow and then decided to make this cute little card using my new Give Thanks (Anna Wight) set from Whipper Snapper. I knew I wanted to use the Snow and Cedar 6 x 6 paper pack from Poppystamps so that was my jumping off point. I ended up using four colors of paper from this pack! I love the little teeny tiny dots that this paper has. I decided to use the tree from the Give Thanks set and away I went. The base card is 4 1/4" square. I layered the light blue dot cs and then three of the green prints to form a hillside. I stamped the tree on the blue print first and then I embossed it onto some bark cardstock w/clear embossing powder. I cut the tree out (without the leaves) and paper pieced it to the card. I stamped the tree again on one of the orange prints from my Basic Grey Indian Summer 6 x 6 pad. I cut each leaf out and rolled a half a mini glue dot and placed them where they needed to be on the tree. (about now, I can hear AW cackling like a hen as I fuss to get each leaf in place). To finish off the card, I cut a few leaves for the ground, went around each leaf with the Chocolate Spica glitter pen, did some faux stitching, added a couple of buttons (tied w/twine as buttons should never be naked....never,never ever). I finised off the card with the "blessings to you" sentiment from the same set. If you need any of this goodness, you can get it here.

I am off to fix dinner, I'll let you all know if my "box" arrives tomorrow. I will be most happy if it does!

hugs,

Doing the happy dance today!

It's official! I was chosen to be on the Center Stage Spotlight Design Team for Gina K Designs for the next few weeks. I was shocked when I received my an e-mail from Gina K asking if I would like to participate. I immediately e-mailed her back and accepted. I didn't want her to come to her senses and change her mind ya know! I will be joined by these fabulous ladies:

Sue VanDeVusse

Karen Knegten

Sharri Seffens

Diana Queen

Deb Felts

So come on back and see what we have up our sleeves for the next design release. The illustrators have been hard at work!

Buttermilk Hen

Hi there! I hope everyone is having a good day. It's a bit humid here right now (makes me think I am in the south) I was supposed to be out of town teaching two Copic classes and well let's just say, plans changed........not my plans though. I had made kits for 24 people, my bag was packed and I was all ready to get up at 5:00am and head north. I'm just glad I didn't make the 3 hour drive and then find out!

So rather than sulk about what could have been, I decided to stamp! Stamping is the best therapy afterall. For the last several weeks, I have wanted play along with the challenges over at Crazy 4 Challenges and I just haven't gotten around to it. Today was the day! This week is week 7 and the challenge is another great sketch created by Cindy Haffner. Check out the challenge here. So I have a layout and now what? The team over at Just Us Girls has a color challenge for the week. You are to use aqua, red and cream for your card/project. If you want to check out that challenge go here. So when I combined the two, I came up with the cute little card above. The size of this card is 41/4" square. I started by embossing the front of the card with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug EF. I then layered a piece of Cosmo Cricket Early Bird DP to a cream panel and pierced the edges. After I layered this to the red card, it looked like it was missing something, so I added the red stitched sticker strip (say that fast 3 times) from the Early Bird kit to the edges of the print paper for a finished look. I knew I wanted to use my Buttermilk Hen stamp from Lockhart so I stamped her in Tuxedo Black Memento ink onto a cream panel, colored w/Copics and cut out with my circle nesties. It looked kinda plain so I whipped out my Verve Just for You set and added the red dotted frame around Miss Hen. I paper pieced the wing of the hen with the small print from the Early Bird kit front cover. I did this because I wanted a small print and why throw the cover sheet out? The hen panel was layered to a red scalloped panel and then to the print panel. I added a few gems to finish it off. The gems were clear and I colored them with my copics so they would match perfectly!

Supplies:

Stamps: Buttermilk Hen-Lockhart, Circle Frame from Just for You set-Verve

Cardstock: Early Bird-Cosmo Cricket, red and cream from stash

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black and Lady Bug

Extras: Copics (YR21, YR31, Y000, BG0000, Y28, BG45, BG72 and G21), Spica Glitter pens (Lipstick, Gold and Clear)

Thanks for hangin in there for my long winded post,

Tropical Bloom -- Just Us Girls

Good morning! The rain has stopped (for now) but it is still gray and gloomy here. Yuk! Sorry for the bad pic, but what is a girl to do without sunlight? I created this card for the JUGS2 challenge on the new Just Us Girls blog. JUGS is a new blog that will have a new challenge each week. This week we were asked to paper piece somewhere on our card and to use pink as a bonus for Breast Cancer Awareness month. I paper pieced the squares from the Hip to Be Square set from GKD with cardstocks from Basic Grey's Bittersweet collection. I'll be sad when I run out of this cardstock cuz I think it is soooo purtiful! The cream and pink backgrounds were embossed with the Victoria CB EF. The stamps used are from GKD's Tropical Blooms set. I love how they look like pink poinsettias. You can't see it in the "oh so fine" pic, but there is some microfine glitter on the pink flowers. I used teeny tiny brads in tan and brown for the centers of the flowers. I used the Chocolate Spica glitter pen on the stems and leaves of the flower and they are so pretty and sparkly. For the outer edge of the frame I used my Copic marker R81 to give the look of another layer of cardstock.

Supplies:

Stamps: Hip to be Square, Tropical Blooms--GKD Paper: Cream and Pink from Stash, Chocolate-GKD, Bittersweet DP-Basic Grey Inks: Espresso-Adirondack, Petal Pink-VersaMagic Extras: Ribbon-Stash, Mini Brads-GKD, Chocolate Spica, Copic R81, Microfine Glitter, Victoria CB EF

Have a great day,

Blessed

Hi there! I was going through some of my "blog ready" pictures and noticed that I hadn't posted this card yet. I created this card a few weeks ago using the Signs of Autumn and Thanks a Million sets from Gina K Designs. I liked this card so well that I ended up making enough of to use for a recent swap as well. I rarely make more than one of anything, so this was a true challenge for me! On this card I went over each of the wheat stalks with my Versamark Marker and then clear embossing powder. The deets for the card are below.

Although I make cards, I am kind of a schmuck when it comes to actually sending them to people, but I did send this one to Theresa as she had done something really nice and I wanted her to know how much what she had done was appreciated by so many of us who hang out on the StampTV forum. Stampers really are the most kind hearted folks! I can't begin to tell you about all of the "special" friends I have made through this little hobby of mine.

The weather here is gray and gloomy and as much as I like fall, I don't like gray and gloomy. YUK! I have some cards ready to take pics of, I just haven't had good sunshine to do it in. What do you all do to get good pics when there is no sunshine?

Enough rambling, here's the recipie for the card:

Stamps: Signs of Autumn, Thanks A Million-GKD Cardstock: Brown, Cream-GKD, Yellow Mini Gingham-Amuse Ink: Caramel (or maybe Butterscotch??) and Espresso Adirondack The extras: Ribbon-GKD, Weed (Outta the Yard), Versamark Marker, Clear EP, EK Success Medium Corner Rounder

happy stamping,

Hello and some Cupcakes

Hi everyone! The cupcakes are below, just wanted to get your attention! Just a quick note to let you all know I am still alive and kickin'. I have had a busy week and it will continue into next week. I have made a few cards and candy projects, just need to take pics and edit them. The weather here has been quite funky......from hot...........to cold and rainy........and today it was quite nice

Some of you might know that I love to bake, so I subscribe to both the Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines newsletters cuz ya never know when you might need a little inspiration. In my inbox today was the Duncan Hines newsletter with these adorable Owl Cupcakes. There so cute I could just take a bite out of them. For all the details, go here. I think I might have to give these a try for stamp club next month.

Stay tuned, lots of cards and sweets comin' your way.

World Cardmaking Day!

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

As you surf through blogland today, you will find many blogs that are celebrating World Cardmaking Day. I hope you will take some time to check out a few blogs you have never been to before. You never know, you might find a few new favorites.

The card I am sharing with you is this cute Santa card. This is one of the cards for my upcoming Holiday Whimsy class. This cute Santa is from Hero Arts and was perfect for coloring with my Copic markers. Here is the recipe:

White cardstock

Red cardstock

Green cardstock

Santa with Gift #H5267 from Hero Arts Ho Ho Ho from Holiday Sayings Clear Set #CL343 from Hero Arts

Memento Tuxedo Black Dye Ink

Copic Markers: B26, B39, B000, C0000, E00, G28, R14, R27, R89, 100 (Black) and 0 (Blender)Spica Glitter pens: Clear, Olive and Sky Blue

Inkssentials Opaque White Pen from Ranger

Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots Embossing Folder

Scalloped Scallop Edger Punch from EK Success

Medium Corner Rounder from EK Success

Green 1/8” grosgrain ribbon

Mini Glue Dots

Foam Tape or Pop Dots

Double sided adhesive

Have a great day,

Whooooo

Hi everyone! Man, I have been a busy girl. I have been doing some behind the scenes work for some upcoming classes. Don't get me wrong......I LOVE IT!!! For so long, I have wanted to be "busy" creating and teaching classes and can't tell you how happy that I am to be doing it. I feel like my head is full of several years worth of ideas that are finally becoming a reality. Wooooo Hooooo!

This adorable owl stamp is from Stampendous. It is perfect for coloring. The print and green cardstock are Key Lime and Margarita from SEI's Mimosa collection. I don't think I will ever get tired of this paper collection......never, ever. It is hard to tell, but the stripes on this paper have lots of glitter in them. The white and brown cardstocks are from my vast stash (I wonder if I could ever use it all up?) The following Copic markers were used:

Branch: E29, E35, E57: Leaves: YG01, YG93 , YG95; Owls: E11, E33, E37 and RV000 (belly on little owl) Eyes: B0000 (big owl) G0000 (little owl) and a Blender pen for some highlighting.

I am working on some cards for World Cardmaking Day that is coming up on Saturday. Come on back and take a peek on Saturday.

hugs,