katie & grace

Good Morning, it has been a long, long time since I created a scraptastic card and while I was surfing through my sketch folder I saw this great layout from the Mojo Monday 251 and thought it would be perfect to use some scraps that were left over from a recent class I taught.  

The image is the Puddle Jumpers Katie and Grace Digi from By LORi Designs.  The image is printed on Neenah Solar White cardstock and colored with Copic markers.  The two print papers are from Darcie's and some Gina K. Designs Pure Luxury Jelly Bean Green and was embossed with the CB Seeing Spots EF.  Each panel was layered onto some GKD PL Kraft.  The pumpkin layer is from American Crafts. The diecut flower is the new Layered Rose Die-namics from My Favorite Things.

Wishing you the best day ever!

My Favorite Peeps

Hi, I usually don't post on the weekends but I had some free time and was able to play along with one of the Splitcoaststampers MiniVSN challenges today.

The challenge (MAR12VSNMINI1) was to create something with either a chicken or an egg.  As you can see, I opted for the "chicken" route and used this adorable stamp from Our Craft Lounge's Crafty Clear Hey Chick stamp set.  Now the challenge calls for you to complete your card/project in 45 minutes. Egads, 45 minutes!  I had to come up with a plan first and then get started so I picked the Mojo Monday 224 sketch  to work with and then pulled out some springy papers and got started.  I did get it done in the allotted time, so I was happy with that.  Well, I have a little more free time, so I am going to try and work on some of the other challenges. 

Mojo Monday 206 Canvas

Wow, it's Friday! I hope this finds you getting ready to rest and relax for the three day weekend.  We don't have any big plans. We will just hang out around the house.  That means stamping time for me!  Yippee!


(Click for a bigger picture)

I have been on a canvas creating kick lately and when I saw Monday's Mojo Monday 206 round or square sketch challenge, I knew I would be using it for another canvas.  I have a stamping pal who is going through a tough time and I am going to send this to her.  I hope it will give her some comfort during this difficult time.

I chose to go with the square layout, although I changed it up just a little bit.  Shhhh, don't tell. :)

I started with a plain 6 x 6 stretched canvas that I had previously coated with a layer of gesso.  I then slathered up the outer edges and a little bit of the front edge with Picket Fence Distress Crackle paint. I let it dry for a few minutes and then hit it with the ol' heat gun to finish it off.  Can  you say impatient?  I then rubbed the sides and edges down real good with some Tea Dye Distress ink.  Love, love that stuff!  I pulled papers from the Vanity Fair My Mind's Eye 6x 6 pads.  Have you seen these yet?  MME came out with 12 different 6 x 6 pads that are not the same prints as any of their collections.  They are double sided too!  Sweeeet!!!! You can see them here. You can get them here. I then pulled out my Verve Sunny Days and Where Flowers Bloom stamps and the Leafy Sprigs die and went to work.  The hearts are from Sizzix. I love the way this turned out, I think I will have to make another. :)

Recipe:
Stamps: Sunny Days, Where Flowers Bloom-Verve
Paper: MME Vanity Fair 6 x 6 pad
Inks: Tea Dye Distress, Raisin Adirondack
Extras:  Kaisercraft pearls, Picket Fence Distress Crackle paint, misc ribbon and trim, Sizzix Primitive Heart die, MS Butterfly punch

YOU make a difference



(original sketch below)

Hello!  I hope this finds you having a wonderful weekend.  We are having beautiful weather here in the mountains, high 80's with a breeze.  It doesn't get much better than that.  Remember back in the winter when I was whining about the snow?  No more whining!

Today I am sharing my card for Mojo Monday 196.  Nothing like sliding in at the last minute to get a challenge done before the next one is announced.  I used one of the sentiments and some of the leaves from the Verve Bloom and Grow set along with the coordinating Elegant Leaves die to create the focal point for my card.  I embossed the leaves two times with clear powder onto some print paper from the Prima Madeline collection.  I will be so sad when I use up this paper and don't have it anymore.  I know, I should buy another  6 x 6 pad and hoard it. :)  The sentiment was stamped onto a Nesties labels 4 panel in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and then layered to a white shimmer labels 4 panel.  The die cut leaves were layered with one under the labels 4 panels and one above.  I was trying to capture the look of the leaves in the print paper.  To finish everything off I added some Prima flowers, twine and rhinestones. 

After I had completed this card, I noticed that the last card I made for a Mojo Monday was in similar colors.  Oops! 

I promise, I will brighten it up a bit with my next project!

Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop

Whew, has it really been a whole month since my last blog post?  Sometimes, you just need a little time away to rejuvinate your creativity.  DH and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a little trip to beautiful Big Island Hawaii.  Of course, I had to catch some kind of flu (crud) on the last day of our trip.  I spent the following week on the couch and in my jammies.  Next time I fly, I must double up on the Airborne!



Today, I have teamed up with several of the gals from the Design Divas Facebook group to bring you our monthly OBG (oldies, but goodies) blog hop. For this hop, you need to use stamps and/or supplies that are at least 6 months old.  Yep, I got a lotta that "old" stuff that needs to be used up.   You should have arrived at my blog from Mary Griffith's awesome blog, if not be sure to go back there so that you don't miss a thing.

I used the adorable cake image from the Verve Big Wish set that came out last year (yep, it saw ink for the first time yesterday) and paired it with this weeks Mojo Monday sketch.  If you could see my Verve stash, you might think I was a hoarder.  Verve has to have some of the prettiest packaging and I just hate to open the stamps and get them inky!  Oh Lord, I need help!

I am going to send you on your way to Maria Matters' amazing blog.   I know she has something special for you to see. 

I'll be back soon,

Love Life

Wow, can you believe the first week of the month is over?  I can't, if the rest of the year goes by as fast as last week did, we will be back to Christmas before long...........hold on now, I just got the tree down and the living room back to normal.  I prefer to take 2011 nice and slow and enjoy each and every day.  Although, I would be happy if Spring would hurry up and get here.  It would be fine by me if we just had two seasons...Spring and Summer.  Yep, I am not big on cold, gray dreary days.  Yucky weather makes for some bad mojo!

Lucky for me we have had sunshine for the last couple of days and I sat down and created this little beauty for the Mojo Monday 172 sketch. Can you believe there have been 172 of these awesome sketches so far?  Love them! This card also qualifies for the Crazy 4 Challenges (C4C69) color inspiration for this week.  The beautiful pinks/browns in the photo are amazing.

For my card I used the Verve Text Objects set.  This set has an assortment of cute, whimsical images and beautiful sentiments.  The papers used are from Basic Grey, Memory Box and Worldwin.  The sentiment was stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and the heart was stamped in Pink Colorbox ink.  To create the little heart, I stamped it on the reverse side of the dot paper (so I could see the lines) and cut it out and attached it to a scrap of ivory cardstock.  I  sponged the edges with a bit more of the pink ink to ink to tie it all in together.  I finished off the little heart with a button and some twine.

I hope that whatever you do this weekend, make it a good one!

Hugs,

Round or Square......or Both!

Whew!  I am finally rested after all of the Christmas festivities and had some time today to do a little stamping.  I always love the Round/Square Mojo Monday challenges and rarely have the time to play along.  Today, I made the time for Mojo Monday 171 and ended up with one of each.

For my roundy, I started with some print paper from the Basic Grey Curio collection and built my card around that.  I love this sentiment from the Verve Beautiful You set and felt like it was a good match for the print paper.  I tell you working with all those circles was fun, but it was nice to plop the square right up on top of them all.  I dressed this one up with some olive silk ribbon and a pretty little paper flower.  Pretty foolproof, even for me.  =)

I changed it up a bit for my square card by rounding the bottom corners and changing the circle for a fun buttony bow.  The adorable little bird is from the Gina K. Designs Winter Wings set.  I am loving this little bird so much.  I bet she sings the sweetest songs!  I colored her in with an interesting combo of R and E Copic markers (listed below) and a bit of Gold Spica pen on her wings for a bit of sparkle.    Along with the Mojo Monday challenge, I am entering this card for the Button in a Bow challenge over at StampTV. 

Thanks for the great sketches Julee!  They were a blast to work with!

Round recipe:

Stamps:  Beautiful You-Verve

Paper: PL Ivory, Bazzill Rust, Basic Grey Curio

Ink:  Memento Rich Cocoa

Extras:  Silk Ribbon, Paper Flower, Standard and Lacey Circle Nesties

Square recipe:

Stamps:  Winter Wings-GKD

Paper:  PL Ivory, Papertrey Olive, Basic Grey Curio

Ink;  Memento Rich Cocoa

Extras:  Silk Ribbon, Button, Twine, Copics (E09, E11, E33, E55, R01 and R11 for the bird) (YR0000 and W1 for shading), Gold Spica Glitter Pen



Hugs,

Best Day Ever

Hi there!  I found myself with a little extra time and some new Verve stamps, so I thought the best way to break them in was by doing this week's Mojo Monday sketch.  I had made this little paper flower a couple of weeks ago using my friend Giovana's tutorial.  You can check it out here. I wasn't sure what I was going to use it on, but thought it was the perfect accent to this weeks sketch.  I cheated a bit and left off the corner accent that you see in the sketch but the frame stamp was so pretty, I couldn't cover it up.  See those cute little tendrils coming off of the flower?  I took teeny little strips of paper, spritzed them with water and wrapped them around a pencil and set them aside to dry.  When removed from the pencil, you can pull on them to stretch them out a bit if you need to.

On a scale of 1-10 this card has a scrap factor of 8. Almost everything used was scraps leftover from a previous class I taught. 

See you soon,

Friendship

Friendship:  /ˈfrɛndʃɪp/ [frend-ship] –noun 1. the state of being a friend; association as friends: to value a person's friendship. 2. a friendly relation or intimacy. 3. friendly feeling or disposition. Friendship is one of the most wonderful gifts we can ever be given. Friendships come naturally with your family members, some friendships become what they are because we share common interests with people, many people make friends as children and form friendships that last a lifetime. I will be sending this card to one of my childhood friends who is having a tough time right now.

This card was created for the Mojo Monday 76 challenge. The base cardstock is a very light aqua blue shimmer. De-lish! The print paper is from the SEI Brigeport collection. The sentiment stamp is from Stampendous and the butterfly is from Northwoods. The ribbon is from Amuse and the bling is from my stash. If you see something you like/need, you can get it here.

Happy Monday,

Mojo Monday 75

Well here it is! Better late than never. Remember, I said I was going to do them all this year. I actually had this one done the day Julee posted it, but never took the time to photograph it. I really need to get a lightbox set up so that I don't have to wait for sunny days to take pics. For this card I used the Spirograph cs from Kaisercraft. The flower is from Verve's Thankful Blossoms set. I stamped it 3 times on different pieces of the Spirograph paper and then cut and layered to the square panel. The solid cs is from Bazzill. I tied skinny twine though the button, but first I colored the twine with a Copic marker to make it match the cardstock. Finished it off with some light green Dew Drops from my stash.

hugs,

Mojo 74--What Lies Before Us

(click image for bigger picture)

I just love the inspiration I get from the Mojo sketches. For this card I used some of the new Bo Bunny Abbey Road print cardstock and two colors of Bazzill Dotted Swiss cs. (brown and blue). The sentiment and butterfly are both from Penny Black (one of my all time fav companies), oh you probably already knew that though. The lace trim was natural color and I needed it to be brown, so out came my Copic marker. Voila! Brown trim. I also colored the butterfly with two colors of blue Copic markers for the wings and Lt Brown for the body. I finished the card off with some Bling and a Pearl (butterflies head) from Kaisercraft. Just a bit of Stardust pen here and there for a final touch. Oh, it's American Idol time. See you all tomorrow! hugs to all,

Valentine Greetings--Mojo Monday #73

Wow, I love this sketch! I think it is my favorite so far. As soon as I looked at it I knew exactly what I was going to do. I know I will use it again and again. Thanks Julee!

The stamps used are from Memory Box and the print cardstocks are from the Making Memories Rouge Paperie collection. The enameled brad is from the same collection. The base cardstock is cream Bazzill and the red cardstock is from Worldwin. The wide pink ribbon is from May Arts and is really a favorite of mine to use. I stamped the birds with Espresso Adirondack ink and colored it in with a little pink on the tummys of the birds. I pulled out my Radiant Pearls (ok, I know this dates me) and colored the branch and the berries. When it was done, I decided it needed a little bling and added some tiny fingernail rhinestones to the berries. I can't wait to give this card to someone very special.

hugs,

Mojo 72 --- Showin' ya the backside!

Heck no, not my backside.....blech! However, I did create this weeks Mojo Monday card using the backside (secondary print) from 3 of the SEI Lovebirds collection cardstocks. The fronts are all springy feeling and the backs are more muted using browns and peach tones.

I really like the sketch this week, it went together pretty quickly too (only 1 hour versus all day).

The floral stamp used was from the Kim Hughes Nature Silhouettes collection. The verse stamp is from the Hero Arts Special Messages set. The dark aqua cardstock is Dotted Swiss from Bazzill. You can't see the dots on the front, but they look cool on the inside and back of the card. I used Martha's lace punch and a button and chipboard flower (covered) from my stash.

Well, I off to eat a little Maui Zowie pizza for dinner........YUM-O!

hugs,

Mojo Monday 69--Imaginations

Wow! I loved this sketch and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it as soon as I saw it. I actually started this card earlier in the week, but did not get time to put the final touches on it until last night. All of the papers are from my stash. The stamps used were from the Verve Asian Flair and Fancy Florals sets. I embossed one of the flowers from Fancy Florals with clear EP on hot pink cardstock and then cut it out and turned it into a butterfly. I embossed the bamboo image on the pink panel with clear EP as well.

For the small tiles, I stamped the image with Onyx Black Versafine ink and then attached some of Tim's Fragments to them with Glossy Accents. After they were completly dry, I trimmed the extra paper off and put them on the card with some foam tape.

I have started Mojo 70 and hope to have it uploaded before I leave for CHA on Friday.

Hugs,

Mojo Monday #68--The Eleventh Hour

Nothing like waiting until the very last minute to complete and upload a card. I really should have been named Last Minute Lucy! So this morning I went into the studio and created this card. I was inspired by the colors from Julee's sketch. All of the cardstock used was from the pile on my desk. The stamps used were all from the Verve Grateful Elegance set. I have had this set for awhile and had never used it. I have fallen in love with the little flowers! The gems are from Me and My Big Ideas and Hero Arts. The print paper is from PTI. The ovals were cut with my nesties.

Thanks for stopping by,

Mojo Monday #61

See, I really am getting caught up. Now I am only two weeks behind! Sheesh! I created this card for Julee's Mojo Monday #61 sketch. For this little lovely, I used the adorable Bouquet from Lockhart Stamp Company. I colored the flowers and cone with my Copics and then added some Diamond Stickles to the flowers and some Glossy Accents to the ribbon. The striped paper is from the Gingercake Pack from Memory Box (I think). The rest of the cardstock used was from my vast stash of Bazzill cardstock. I used the Fiskars Treading Water punch for the bottom of the red panel. I just love how it cuts the little dots in the scallops! Well I am off to the studio. See you soon.

Hugs,

Mojo Monday #60

So I am a few weeks behind in sharing my Mojo Monday #60 project, but that seems to be what my life is about these days...............always running a bit behind. I have the day off today and my list of things to do is long, but I hope to check a few off of the list by the days end.

Now for the deets on this card. First, let me say that I a love, love, love snowflakes! I have really been into the brown/aqua colors alot lately also. For this card, I used brown Madeira cardstock from Amuse for the base and half circle at the top of the card. The next layer is aqua cardstock with Bo Bunny's Winter Whisper Frost print paper cut slightly smaller ( I love a teeny tiny solid edge around the print layer). The ribbon is Ivory Satin from May Arts.

For the snowflake image, I cut the Cuttlebug Snowflake die out of a piece of Thermo Web double sided adhesive. First, I attached the adhesive to white cardstock and then cut the snowflake out with the "bug". Next, I peeled back the top sheet to reveal the sticky and poured on some Twig Art Institute glitter. I then layered that over the ribbon on my card and used a glue pen to color inside of the open snowflake and poured Crystal Art Institute glitter inside. I cut the half cirlcles with my Spellbinders dies and layered to the card with foam tape. I finished off the card with some little half pearls from my stash.

I am off to have a little breakfast..........have a great day!