White as the Primary Color?

Someone over at My Favorite Things wants to make me twitch and it's working. The November Guest Designer Challenge is to "use white as a primary color". I thought white was the absence of color. Aren't the primary colors red, blue and yellow? Was I asleep during those color wheel classes? Okay, I know it's just a catchy name and I really don't have anything catchy to say. In case you haven't noticed I use a lot of My Favorite Things stamps and I like to participate in the challenges and this one is no exception.

Lately I've been partial to making square cards. I have no idea why so I just go with it. I chose to work with the heart stamp from the "Santa Baby" set since kl;rts fit so nicely inside squares. White card stock looks particularly nice when it's emb0ssed so I pulled out my Cuttlebug embossing folders and my SU embossing plates and picked out these three because I thought they would be the best choices for the heart motif. The heart shapes were cut with Nestibilities dies. The pink card stock is from SU. The pin is from Close To My Heart.

I love pink and white together and I am particularly happy with the way this card came out.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you come back again.

Before you leave please click on the pink ribbon in the sidebar.

So You Think You Can Stamp- Week 4

My Favorite Things -Week 4 of the So You Think You Can Stamp contest and this week's dance is Hip Hop. Yikes. I'm not that up on Hip Hop so I spent about an hour doing searches on Hip Hop music and fashions. The things that stood out for me were: urban, bling, flourishes and graffiti. Hmmm...it's basically a walk down Broad Street at lunchtime.

So I took the cityscape from the Goin' Places set, drew a little graffiti on the the building and combined it with the Heartbreaker stamp. She looks hip and young to me. The bling is from Prima, the paper is Basic Grey Two Scoops.

One of my buddies noted that I haven't posted in couple days. I'm still working on cards and crafts but I've been pretty tired afterward and haven't had the energy to put anything up here. So maybe in a couple days I'll have a few things that have been sitting in my camera.

Thanks to my buddies for checking up and in on me and thanks to everyone who cares enough just to see what's new here.

Scarecrow & Little Wizard

Isn't this stamp just darling? What you say if I told you that I won this stamp and another stamp from Belles ' Whistles simply for entering a card in a Midnight Madness challenge. That's right, my number was picked randomly and I received the prize for that week. I'm telling you this because I know some people are out there just looking at cards and not posting their creations. I stalked the galleries for a couple years before I got up the courage to post a card, and I was certain no one would look at my card yet alone have anything good to say about it. To my surprise the stamping community was right there patting me on the back every step of the way. So take the plunge and put your cards or projects out there for us to see. Crafters are the kindest and most sharing people you can be friends with, IRL or in cyberland. Enter challenges, you don't have to be the most experienced or the best to win many of them because they pick the winners at random.

As I was saying I won this stamp for entering a Midnight Madness Challenge and that's a great place to start. Every Tuesday Priscella posts a new sketch challenge, if you're new to card making (or not) sketches are a great place to start. The layout is there, all you have to do is pick out a stamp and some papers and embellishments and put them together. It's easy, give it a try. Another thing about Midnight Madness is that they post a tutorial on Wednesdays so you can learn something new every week and there's usually a blog candy give away going on. So there's lots of reasons to visit that website. Maybe the best reason is that its fun.

I like to make cards that can be entered in more than one challenge. When I sat down to make this card the first thing I had in mind was to give a shout out to Midnight Madness and Belles 'n Whistles for the prize. This image is very intricate and I thought that markers would be too heavy for it so I decided to use SU watercolors on it and as it turns out the Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #38 is to watercolor. I didn't have a sketch challenge or a layout in mind but today I looked up the Crazy 4 Challenges site and that challenge is to use three different shapes. So I looked at the image and decided it should be cut out with a circle. Lately I've been prone to making square cards and I figured I could put the sentiment in an oval so that gave me three shapes. I picked my colors because I wanted to use this yummy silk ribbon to make a buttony bow to enter on Joanne's blog Just a Little Something for her birthoversary blog candy contest. I've made so many Halloween cards that I didn't think I'd be making any more when I saw the Crafty Creations Challenge #38 was All Hallow's Eve. But I here I am with another Halloween card so that's another challenge I can enter this card into.

Some more deets, I wanted my button to match my card stock so I used the Sizzex Buttons #5 die to cut it out of the DCWV Neutrals cs. The other papers are SU confetti white cs for the stamps. The other cs is Sunflower from Warsau paper. The card base is Nicole cs. The button is tied on with SU Linen Thread.

I do love that silk ribbon. It's scrumptious and beautiful to work with.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again. Please click the pink ribbon before you leave, it'll help save lives.

I {Heart} Paper - Day 6

Today's the last day of challenges at the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash. I've been playing along all week. If you want to see all the fun stuff I made this week just browse down through the blog. And if you want to join in the fun you have till Sunday night to finish up your projects and upload them. The winners of the daily challenges will be chosen randomly but the person with the most points will win the Grand Prize of being the Guest Designer for the month of November. All the details about the challenges and the prizes are posted on the I {Heart} Paper website which you can get to by clicking here.

Today's challenge is to make a special Birthday Card. Personally, I think every handmade card is special, including this one which is also a gift card holder. It's very easy to turn a regular 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" card into a gift card holder, it's just a matter of cutting a piece of card stock to 5" x 12" and folding it (score it) at the 4", 6" and 8", folding it so that the 6" is pointing up (it sort of looks like a "w"). Tape the sides of the center closed and cut out a slit in that section large enough to slip a gift card inside. Lastly you adhere the card stock to the inside of your card. It's easy peasy.

So here are the details about my card. Most of the things I used are available at I {Heart} Paper and I've highlighted them so that you can click on them if you want to go shopping for them. I used Spellbinder's Shapeablilities Cupcakes for my cupcake. I made two versions, the one at the top of this post uses a button as the cherry on top, the one at the bottom of the post uses the cherry die that comes with the Shapeabilities. For the die cut cherry I used red card stock and covered it with Ranger Glossy Accents, makes it look good enough to eat. For the cupcake I used pink card stock, after it was cut out I left it in the die and used the die as a stencil. I colored those spaces with copics and later I used Stickles to cover the sprinkles. The patterned paper is S.E.I. Chocolat on the inside and outside. One layer is cut out with the Sizzex Top Note die and the one directly under the cupcake is done with Nestibilities Labels 2. I used a Stampin' Up slot punch to thread the ribbon through, it's from MFT Chocolate Kiss collection and I made a buttony bow for Joanne's Birthoversary blog candy contest over on her "..Just a Little Something" blog. I love that little buttony bow. Joanne posted a video on you tube showing how to make the buttony bow and if you want to see it just click here and if you make a card with a bow you can enter her blog candy contest.

There are a couple other challenges I wanted to enter with this card. I found a new challenge because the creator commented on one of my cards, and I visited her blog where she's got some blog candy to give away, so if you like blog candy go there too. I followed the link Kate gave for her blog candy and then found a link to her Cooking It Up With Kate blog where she posts challenges and I love to do challenges so I figured I'd try the Challenge #3 which is to: 1.) use the image of something that's been cooked (the cupcake), 2.) add some buttons (the cherry on top and the buttony bow) and 3.) add something inside, decorate a message mat or a pocket for a gift card (I made it a gift card and I used the EK success Candles border punch to make a little decoration inside). This also works for the Paper Cutz #14 challenge to use three patterned papers, if you count the paper on the inside I actually used four.

I hope you enjoyed visiting my blog and will come back again, before you leave click the pink ribbon. And don't forget tomorrow's the big birthday bash as I {Heart} Papers . Lots of luck to everyone who's been entering the challenges. I hope you all win something.

I {Heart} Paper -Day 5

I am so thrilled because I was asked to be a Guest Designer for the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash. It's been going on all week. There's a challenge a day and there will be prizes awarded for each challenge. You can still enter any and all of the challenges. Pop on over there and check them out.

My buddy Megan who is on the design team invited me to be her partner for the big event week. If you haven't visited her blog Megan Lock Designs click on her name and go see what she's been up to. She's always got something worth seeing there.

I do love paper. If you're reading my blog chances are you love paper too so you need to get over to I {Heart} Paper and check out what's happening, enter some of challenges, maybe win a prize, and do some shopping. Maybe our carts will bump. Just try to save some goodies for me

As I said before the theme for the week is Birthday Bash and everyday there's a different challenge posted, there's a point system for this and at the end of the week some lucky person with the most points will win the grand prize and get to be the Guest Designer for the month of November. There will be prizes for the daily challenges too. On October 26 the winners will be announced. So get hopping you still have a chance to win.

The theme for Day 5 is Food, every party needs food. Well what's a party without cupcakes? I love them but I've noticed that many of my friends pass up cake. Wouldn't it be nice to have a cupcake for your friends who don't eat cake. How about a paper and ribbon cupcake and a special box to put it in. There's no calories, the icing won't get messed up, it'll never get stale, and it'll look pretty wherever it's placed. I know your friends will love it because I showed it to my buddies and they ooohed and aaahed all over it.

To make the cupcake I put a piece of Styrofoam into a regular cupcake paper and pinned it together. Then I took a roll of pink ribbon to make the "Icing". Simply loop it and pin it, this way the recipient will be able to use the ribbon. I started the first ribbon loop in the middle and just kept making loops and pinning it till I had the top covered.

This cupcake is for a birthday so I don't want to give it away in the Halloween paper so I decided to make a pretty holder for it using the adorable cupcake paper I got from I {Heart} Paper. To do this I cut apart one of the paper holders and removed the center to use as my template. I plopped it down on the cupcake paper, found a circle template about the same size (use your plates and glasses, sooner or later one of them is going to be about the same size) and traced around it on the pretty paper. I cut that out and taped it together. Isn't it cute? All you have to do is plop the cupcake inside it and Voila! you've got a masterpiece. The cupcake looks so much prettier in the "slipcover". And if you've got a friend who eats cake you can always put a real cupcake in the slipcover too. These are very easy to make and you can change the paper and ribbon colors for any holiday or theme.

Now that I've got this adorable paper cupcake to give away I need to have a pretty box to put it in. I found a box template on Splitcoast Stampers called a "Peek-A-Boo" box and adapted it to hold a cupcake. I made it a little larger and left the lid standing up. I stamped it with the Inkadinkado cupcake stamps and colored them in. I decorated the lid of the box with cupcakes that were made with Spellbinders Shapeabilities. I cut out three of them and colored in the stencil areas with copics and added stickles to the icing area. Lastly, I tied two ribbons around the box bottom section. It is the cutest thing. Why don't you give it a try, all the supplies you'll need to make one are available at I {Heart} Paper so get over there and do some shopping. AND shipping's always free if your order is over $40, so spoil yourself, you deserve it.

Thanks for visiting my blog, I hope you had a good time and will come back again.

Do You Wanna Dance...

under the moonlight....it's not a standard waltz but that song (thanks to Bette Midler) has been in my head ever since My Favorite Things posted the third So You Think You Can Stamp challenge, this week it's based on the waltz. I love to watch the dance competitions on TV, not the new ones on network TV, the ones on PBS, especially the older ones because on the older ones the women wore the most romantic gowns for the first part of the competition, they did the waltz, the fox trot and the two step. those gowns were flowing and in beautiful colors and often had feathers all over the bottom. When the women swirled those gowns swirled too. They were absolutely gorgeous.

So for this challenge I tried to get the feeling of the gowns. First of all, aqua was a popular color so I used Close To My Heart "Ocean" as my choice of ink. I stamped the Flowers from Boho blossoms many, many times on tissue paper and once on card stock as a base. I also cut them out, fortunately for me I enjoy doing repetitious and mindless work. I stopped counting somewhere around fourteen. Unfortunately you can't see all the layers in the photo but believe me, they're there. I used Cuttlebug embossing folders for the center of the white squares, they're mounted on DCWV cs which is mounted on white card stock that has been cut with a nestibilities scalloped square. There are little bling in those corners which were part of a TLC blingy word that I cut apart and then there's Recollections pearl stickers in the center. Those squares are mounted on dimensionals on top of a piece of SU dsp from the "Notebook collection.

I love the blingy pieces on this card and this week at La-La Land Crafts the challenge #9 is "Sparkle" so it can go in that challenge too. It was a nice change from Halloween, although I could do a sparkly Halloween card.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you come back again.

I {Heart} Paper - Day 4

I've been playing along with the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash Challenges all week. Today is day 4, so when I got home from my day job I was glad that today's challenge was an easy and quick one for me. Day 4's challenge is to use designer papers and ribbons to create a card, box or bag for a birthday celebration. I don't want to miss any of the challenges because there are prizes that are going to be awarded for each challenge and the grand prize winner will be the Guest Designer for November. So if this sounds like something you would want to do, you should click here to learn all the details.
So for today;'s challenge I made a box. This one is pretty easy because I have a Big Shot and the die to cut out the box. I stamped the cute little Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcakes on it and colored them in with copics. Then I lined the box with some adorable strawberry paper to go along with the strawberry favor I made yesterday. Then I tied the sweet ribbon around the box and hung a little tag I punched with a Martha Stewart punch. You can make this in about 5 minutes and you can get most of the supplies from I {Heart} Papers. So what are you waiting for, you should get over there and have some fun. But before you go, I have two requests, one, leave a comment, two, click on the pink ribbon.
Thanks for visiting, your visits make my day. Your comments put a smile on my face.
Oh, and by the way, come back tomorrow, that's my day to be a Guest Designer for I {Heart} Paper and I'm really excited about that.

I {Heart} Paper Day 3

Have you been playing along with the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash challenges? They're fun to do and at the end of the week there's going to be prizes for each challenge and a grand prize winner is going to be the November Guest Designer. So if you haven't done the day one or day two challenge yet, go over to I {Heart} Paper and get cracking, you have till the 25th to get them done and posted.
It's day three now. We've made a birthday card and invitations so far. Today we're being challenged to use IHP embellishments to dress up a card (scrapbook page or 3-d item, etc.) table decoration, or party favor. I made a party favor. I've had a pattern for this strawberry box forever and I'm finally getting around to making it. On the right you can see a better picture of the bow that holds the box closed. Isn't that ribbon yummy. I've hung a tag off the bow, and as with any favor that's where you'd say what or when the party was. To go inside the box I made a strawberry pin. Isn't it adorable. It's made with a Delta Rubber Strawberry Stamp stamped on white card stock and colored with copics. It looks all shiny because it's covered in Ranger Glossy Accents, the glossy accents also hold the pin in place on the back. The box and the pin are both fast and easy to make, but the glossy accents take some time to dry.
I hope you enjoyed your visit here and that you'll come back again.
Don't forget to click on the pink ribbon before you leave.

I {Heart} Paper Day 2

It's day two of the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash and that means it's the second challenge. Are you playing along? You have till the 25th to do any or all of the challenges and get them posted, that's plenty of time so get hopping.

Today's challenge is to make a card or project using a non-traditional fold to invite your guests to the party. I like this challenge because it forced me to go outside my comfort zone. So I did a little search on the Splitcoast Stampers resource page to find something. This invitation is made with the flip flop fold. The directions were very easy to follow and it didn't take long to make. To make it I used the Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcake set. It's stamped in Stampin' Up Basic Gray on white card stock that was sponged around the edge with Ranger Tattered Rose. The cupcake was colored with SU markers, and SU Bright Beads were used for the sprinkles. This was mounted on SU Certainly Celery card stock. The card base is SU Bashful Blue card stock , it's stamped with the SU Birthday background stamp in SU Bordering Blue.
When you open the invitation you see the reverse side of the center. I invited you to the Birthday Bash, I hope you stop by I {Heart} Stamps and join in the challenges.

Thanks for stopping by to see my invitation. I'd love it if you left a comment before you leave.

I {Heart} Paper - Day 1

I do love paper. I really, really do. I never tire of looking at paper. The only thing that stops me from buying every piece of paper that crosses my path is the fact that I have to save some money to pay my bills. The utilities are funny like that.

Well Kate loves paper too and her love for paper grew into an Internet store called I {Heart} Paper. This week marks its first birthday and that means time to party. All week long they'll be challenges. There are points for entering the challenges and doing simple things like signing up to receive e-mails. At the end of the week prizes will be awarded for the various challenges and whoever earned the most points for the week will be the guest designer for November. AND the most exciting thing about that is I was asked to be a guest designer for one of the days. I hope you check my posts everyday but if you stop by whenever the mood hits you then mark your calendar for Friday, October 23 cause that's my day.
This is my entry for today's challenge to make a birthday card using the store's colors - certainly celery, bashful blue, regal rose and black. The stamp, Birthday Cupcake, is from Inkadinkado (lordy, how I love that name) It's stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with copics and then I used Stickles for the sprinkles and toppings and brushed the edges of the card stock with Ranger Shabby Shutters. I cut it out with an oval nestibilitie and mounted it on black card stock that was cut out with the scalloped oval nestibilitie. The slots were punched with a SU punch. The designer paper is from the Basic Grey "Porcelain" collection which is also available from I {Heart} Paper. The border punch is Martha Stewart's Embossed Zig Zag. The card stock is Certainly Celery from Stampin' Up. added dots on the scallops with a white gel pen and faux stitching with a SU regal rose marker.
I gotta run cause I want to rack up some more points. To do that I just have to post this card of Splitcoast Stampers and/or Paper Planet. Who knows maybe I'll rack up enough points to be the nest month's Guest Designer.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again. Please click the pink ribbon before you go.

Going Batty

This is a quick post so I can run out on some errands. I almost forgot I had this birdcage stamp from Impression Obsession. I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I would use for the Macabre Monday challenge #9 - use an item from this list in your project: skull, owl, birdcage, bones, barbed wire and raven. You'd think I have all of these stamps but amazingly I don't. For this card I thought it was necessary to grunge up the pretty birdcages a little so I hung spiders from them and put bats inside, distressed the paper by shredding it and brushing Ranger Shabby Shutters and Tea Dye on it. The bats, spiders and web are from the Crafty Secrets "Halloween Fun" set. The clip with the ribbon is from CTMH and the white fiber is from SU.

The card is also good for the Pile It On challenge #19 - Ready for Halloween and the ABC challenge "F is for Flying". It may not be exactly what they have in mind but the bats are flying in the cages...

I hope you're getting into the spirit of Halloween, I have a lot of fun with this silly stuff.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you'll leave a comment and come back again. I'm sure to have at least one more Halloween post before the month is through.

Hey, don't forget to click on the pink ribbon.
This week the Pile It On Challenge #19 is "Ready for Halloween", hey, I was born ready for Halloween. As always the deal at Pile It On is to combine their challenge with at least one other challenge.

Mummy Loves You

I'm so excited to be a guest designer for Tuesday Taggers. If you could see me you'd see me bouncing up and down out of my chair. I've always wanted to be a designer so I owe a big thank you to the folks at Tuesday Taggers for giving me a chance. And how cool is this, the theme is "Things That Go Bump in the Night". Woohoo, well, it 'tis the season to let your dark side run wild. I've found it best to let mine just sneak out just a tad mostly because I get strange looks from people. Ever since the time I made Christmas ornaments with bloody doll limbs and miniature knives I've scaled back. They weren't received well so nowadays I try to stay on the cutesy side of dark. Which brings me to my little coffin here. It's made from card stock and filled with chocolates covered with eyeball paper. I hung a tag off the latch and now it makes a perfect present for my darling little girl. If she had been around at the time of my bloody Christmas ornaments she would have thought they were cool, hey, it's in her DNA.

If you'd like to make one of these it's pretty simple. First I did a search on "paper coffins". You should do this just for yuks and jollies. I was quite surprised to find out there are paper coffins out there that are meant for burial. I think that's carrying "going green" just a bit too far. AND they're bizarre looking, seriously, you should see, go for a look, imagine how interesting your next dinner conversation could be...but I digress. If surfing the net isn't for you just go to Ravensblight where you can find patterns for toy coffins. I printed out the cherrywood coffin gift box and traced it onto card stock and cut it out. I rubbed Ranger Tea Dye and Walnut ink over it and stamped some skulls on it. They are very faint, can't be seen in the photo but IRL they add a little more dimension to it. After I finished inking it up, I folded it and taped it together and filled it with candy. It didn't take long at all, in fact, I think I spent more time looking at the paper coffins, those searches can be very distracting. Next I made the tag using the Creative Memories tag punch and the CM oval cutting tools. The graveyard border is punched with the Martha Stewart border punch. The image is from the Cat's Pajama and is stamped in Memento Tuxedo black and colored with copics, just enough to make the mummy's cloth look dingy.

I made this for Tuesday Taggers but it also fits a couple challenges for this week. It's an odd coincidence but the Cupcake Craft Challenge #62 is also "Things That Go Bump in the Night. The Paper Cutz Challenge #13 is to make a project using a tag and the Pile It On challenge #19 -"Ready for Halloween". At Pile It On the idea is to make something for their challenge and incorporate at least one other challenge.

This project took very little time and makes a cute little gift, you can fill the coffin with all sorts of creepy candy (think gummy insects) or not so creepy candy corn, but what the heck, it's a coffin - go for the gross. I gave it to my daughter already, and she loved it, I told you it's in her DNA. Anyone who loves Halloween will appreciate it.

Do the Hustle

It's week 2 of the So You Think You Can Dance Contest over at the My Favorite Things Forum on Splitcoast Stampers. This week the challenge is "Disco - It's Electric! Retro and Funky, Let's Get It On". Wow, Disco, what fun music, you got to get up and dance when you hear those tunes, great for walking on a threadmill too but stamping, I like to relax while I stamp and disco makes me want to move. However, this is one great contest with a whopper of a prize so I settled down to make a card.
Disco came out in the 70's and I was there for it. I have some great memories to draw upon for this card. I loved the Village People, they were the most fun group around and the songs were a hoot. Even today the DJ's play "YMCA" at weddings and parties. You must have seen them, among them there was a cop, a leather dude, a construction worker and an Indian. So I thought I'd take some of the WTG gals and make an alternate group, what if the Village People were woman, well there'd have to be a pregnant woman, a witch, how about a cowgirl, and a she-devil. They were taken from the stamp sets: "She's Having a Baby", "Totally Witchin", "Ride "Em Cowgirl" and "Party Girl". For the Cowgirl I extended her body a little and switched a microphone for the lasso. The witch and pregnant woman's clothes were paper pieced with K & CO Halloween paper, the cowgirl's dress is a scrap of leftover SU paper. Party Girl was colored with copics. Glitter, lame and sequins ruled the disco scene so I used stickles to punch up the outfits. the background paper is DCWV Glitter stack and the design is retro.
I tried to mimic the MFT font and wrote the sentiment by hand with a gold marker and mounted it on the black and white ribbon that came with the MFT Halloween ribbon pack. To finish it off there are three dew drops in the lower right corner.
What a fun time the 70's were, this challenge gave me some time to think to reminisce.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you will come back again.

There Are No Bad Cats

Who says Christmas cards have to be red and green? This one was made with fall colors using the Shirley's 2 Girls stamp "Bad or Good Cat". Let's set this record straight, there are no bad cats. Just cute little furballs trying to have fun. Oh but they do get into mischief. This little guy is just like my Shamus. He is the sweetest thing, he follows me like a dog would. Lots of times when I come home he's sitting in the window waiting for me. He cracks me up, he talks a lot in the morning when he wants to get fed but then he's quiet the rest of the day, instead of meowing he stares. When he wants a treat he'll sit in front of his bowl and stare at it, if there's something on the couch and he wants to sit next to me he'll sit on the floor and stare at the space next to me till I move whatever is in his spot. On the other hand there's Memphis, she will jump right up and sit on top of whatever's there. She'll get right in your face if she wants something. Memphis is pretty old now and doesn't play as much as she used to so the Christmas tree lights don't interest her but Shamus is nosey and has to get into everything, including the tree. This stamp just reminds me so much of Shamus I had to have it but this week it's colored more like Memphis. It's colored with copic markers and the lights are covered with stickles. The card was made for the Shirley's 2 Girls sketch challenge S2GSC29 with the twist to use chipboard. So I went to my kitty cat stash and pulled out the fish shape and the paw. The tag was in a fall collection and the sentiment on it is a rub on from Close to My Heart. The print dp is from 7 Gpysies and the olive paper is from Daisy D's. The paper edges were brushed with Ranger Distress Ink Vintage Photo.

Please click the pink ribbon before you leave. Thanks so much for visiting.

I Miss Summer

My feet are freezing and I'm wearing a sweatshirt. YUK! Bye, bye summer, the weathermen reported snow in northern NJ, UGH! I'm so unwilling to say goodbye to summer. My winter clothes are away and I don't want to get them out. So the Color Throwdown #64 challenge is to use Baja Breeze, Sahara Sand and Black or Chocolate. The Crafty Creations Challenge #37 is a color challenge to use Blue. Oooooh, that sounds like summer to me and anything that takes my mind off the cold is a good thing. I wanted to do the Cat's Pajama challenge TCPTUES #80 so I dug out the sets I have and chose the stamps with a cruise theme. That challenge is a supply challenge to use buttons. I didn't know what I was going to do for the button part yet but I figured I'd get to that later. I decided to make a tall card because The CCEE challenge this week is to "shape up and stand tall". I picked the porthole images so that they'd fit the tall aspect of the card. After I stamped them I punched them out with the SU small square punch and punched out the scalloped squares with another SU punch. This taupe cs was in my scrap bag as was the dp, which has palm trees on it. Ah, palm trees, there are palm trees in warm climates, like Florida. I wish I was there now. When the stamped pieces were laid on the card they didn't fill the space and that's when I figured out where and how to put the button on the card. The side of the card needed something too, so I went through my border punches and thought that the EK Success "Dotted Wave" worked nicely. The tag was punched with a Martha Stewart punch and the sentiment is handwritten. I miss summer, I wish my feet were warm at least this card makes me think of summer.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again.

Howl Sweet Is She

Last week was a little hectic. There was an Adult Girl Scout meeting and the weekend was Octoberfest, a weekend retreat at Camp Hoover for adult girl scouts and friends. So with all that goes along with camping, card making was on the back burner and I missed my opportunity to howl. That's what I call it when I make a card for the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenges over on Priscilla's blog. It's always a fun challenge sometimes it's more difficult than other times but that's a good thing, isn't that what a challenge is all about. I like to work from sketches so since I stumbled upon this challenge I've tried to make it a regular part of my week.

This week when I opened the challenge to find MMSC23. The first thing that came to my mind was the fan quilt, which was one of my favorite quilts, not easy to make but lovely when completed. I wish I had the one I completed handy for a picture but I don't so I'm showing a square from one I've yet to put together so you'd get to see where my mind went. On the one I completed I appliqued doilies in the corner. The fan square makes me think of delicate patterns and lace. I thought about using the fabric square in the card but it's relatively large for a card so I decided to look for a stamp and paper that would have the same kind of feel. For that delicate look I go to my Crafty Secrets stamps. This time I chose the "Sweet Kids" set. The papers that I chose are from the Basic Grey "Wisteria" collection - Tea Lights, Cornflower and Gazebo. This led to my color choices, the cs is SU Almost Amethyst. Even though Basic Grey distresses their papers I brushed and edged the papers with Ranger Milled Lavender to get a little more color on the edges. The image was stamped in StazOn brown on SU Confetti White cs so that I could watercolor it. After the watercoloring a little bit of stickles was added to the flowers. To keep that delicate look going I used the Martha Stewart "Doily Lace" border punch on lavender card stock to use on the fan blade sides. The bling rhinestones are from Basic Grey.

By the way there are always lots of things happening over at Priscilla's site, blog candy, contests, blog hops, tutorials...you should go check it out.

So, are you wondering what the heck an old broad like me does at girl scout camp. I have gone horse back riding in the past but this year I took pity on the horses and stayed indoors. I did some paper crafting sessions with my favorite SU demonstrator Cyndy Ponczek. This year her buddy Debbie was there to assist. They are a lot of fun to play with. I also decided to try my hand at basket weaving. Debbie Z did a regular class in which you could make a full size basket but when she offered the chance to make a miniature basket in our downtime I jumped at it. I figured it would be easier to make a little one, boy was I wrong. It came out adorable but it was not easy to get your fingers in and around the little spaces. October is the most magnificent time of year at Camp Hoover. The leaves are changing and the colors are exploding, it's a great weekend.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you come back soon.

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A Season That Sparkles

This Friday Flourishes will have their biggest release ever. Their October release is six sets of stamps. The sneak peeks started today but if you've ever cruised through their collection you know that the stamps will be classy and beautiful, and certainly something you'd want to own. They've posted the Season That Sparkles Challenge. The winner of the challenge will receive the entire release so I wanted to enter.
So for this challenge I chose the "Wreaths of all Seasons" set. I stamped the winter wreath in Versamark and embossed it with silver powder on SU Confetti White card stock and then colored it with SU watercolor crayons and covered it with stickles for extra sparkle. The papers are Creative Memories "Candy Cane" and DCWV card stock. All of the paper were sponged and edged with Ranger's Distress Ink Faded Jeans. The border punch is Fiskar's Sunburst with Basic Gray Half Pearls and there are dew drops in the upper corners.
I haven't has much time to stamp since last week and it's late already so forgive the quick post. Thanks for visiting, please click the pink ribbon before you go.

Skating Kitty

I made this card on Friday afternoon before me and my "peeps"took off for camp. I didn't have enough time to upload it then so I planned to post it as soon as I got home which is exactly what I'm doing. I haven't unpacked or checked out the challenges posted this weekend and I'm in withdrawal so this is gonna be a fast post.
I fell immediately in love with this stamp. My first thought was to make her skating ensemble in powder blue but as I was going through my paper I stumbled across this Imaginisce "Candy Cane Lane" DSP and wanted to use it so I put the blue idea on the back burner and will make that another day. The layout is this week's The Cat's Pajama sketch challenge #79 and the stamp is a Cat's Pajama stamp called "Skating Kitty". The snowflake and sentiment are from SU "The Snowflake Spot" which were stamped in Versamark and embossed with silver powder. The paper stamped with the kitty is sponged with SU Bravo Burgundy. The white card stock on the edges of the snowflake paper and on the inside of the card is punched with the EK Success "snowflake" border punch. The burgundy card stock is DCWV neutrals.
Sorry to cut this short but I've got unpacking to do, blogs to catch up on and lots of other "to do's".
Thanks for stopping by, please come back again and don't forget to click on the pink ribbon.

Fight Like a Girl

Before you do anything else go over to the sidebar and click on the pink ribbon. I'm not asking politely today, I'm telling you to do it. You have no excuses, it takes about ten seconds and you can back arrow to be right back here. If you're breathing you should know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. If you're a mammal you have breasts, male or female you can get breast cancer. It's a vicious ugly killing disease and I hate it. I will click that button, I will shop on that site, I will make donations and I will keep asking and or telling you to click on the button till be defeat the disease. So FIGHT LIKE A GIRL, do whatever you can to join the fight. You can eat Yoplait yogurt and send in the lids and the company will donate $.10 per lid. You can walk or run and get donations for doing it, at my job you can make a donation and get to wear blue jeans. Use your mind and think positive thoughts, envision a world where no one ever has to fear the loss of health, life or tissue. FIGHT LIKE A GIRL. Do anything and everything you can, that's how real girls fight.

The Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #36 is to Use Pink as the Main Color. I used the Flourishes stamp set "Think Pink - Fight Like a Girl". The minute I saw that set I logged onto the store to buy it. First of all it's reast Cancer awareness, secondly, it has a flamingo in it, duh! and the flamingo has ribbons on its body and the "fight like a girl" sentiment is in two sizes and I just love the sentiment, so much that I stamped it all over the card stock base of this card.

I stamped the background in Su Pixie Pink and SU Pink Passion, the dress is stamped with Pink Passion and embossed it with clear powder, and popped up on dimensionals. The edges of the base were sponged with those inks too.

The layout is the for the Mojo Monday Mojo Madness 107 challenge. I stayed pretty true to the sketch. The dp is Stemma "Pretty Petals" and those fun pink circles are Em-bella-shments. Cute aren't they.

Just in case you didn't do it earlier, here's a reminder, go click the ribbon. Joining the fight can't get any easier.

Here's to Halloween

Aren't these the cutest mice? I think so but I know there are a lot of people out there who are afraid of mice and I had that come to mind when I was finishing up this card and checking my challenge list. That's when I realized this would actually qualify as a "Terrifying Treat", even I would be terrified if someone put these guys on a plate despite the fact that they are dressed up like yummy candy corn. So you think no one would, then you need to watch "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?". So with tongue in cheek I enter this into the Macabre Monday HDH008 challenge. Those cute little candy corn buttons are 3D so this is also for the Pile It On Challenge, the sketch is from the The Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #38 and the 2 Red Bananas challenge "Here's to Halloween".
The stamp is House Mouse "Sweet Find" and it's stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with copics. The candy corn is covered with distress stickles. The papers are K & Co, "Tim Coffey's Halloween Specialty Pad".
I hope you aren't getting too tired of Halloween cards cause I expect there'll be a few more before the end of the month. Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you here again.

The Boo Crew

"The Boo Crew" is MFT's first digital stamp and that's one of the big surprises for October, there are a couple others available, "Think Pink" is one of them and if you've been here before you know I'm a big fan of thinking pink, and since I'm on the subject I'll tell you now, don't forget to click the ribbon before you go.
So this week's MFTMFC#19 challenge is to create something with the digital stamp. I have resisted digital stamps and papers but this image is just too cute to say no to so I printed it out and colored it in with copics and SU markers and I sponged it with a variety of inks. I was going to put it on a bag but then I realized I had some frames and this is pretty large so that it would look cute framed.
There are really cute Halloween buttons on it. I cut the shanks off them so that they could be put on the frame. So this can be used for the Pile It On Challenge to make something three dimensional. It's also good for the 2 Red Bananas - Here's to Halloween challenge.
I hope you all are getting into the Halloween spirit. It's such a fun holiday and there's so much cute stuff you can use to decorate. I'm really enjoying all the cards and challenges that I've found.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back.

Voila!

"Voila!" is the name of this chef stamp set from Stampin' Up. I thought he'd be perfect for a recipe holder. The big close pin was in the $1 bin at Target quite some time ago. I picked up a few of them to use for Christmas presents. So today I got a jump start to make one because the Paper Cutz Challenge #11 is to use a Pumpkin Pie recipe in your project.

The recipe card was made with the SU "From the Kitchen of" stamp set. I've had this set for a couple years and I'm finally busting it out. My SU friends have it too, and we also have recipe boxes that we're going to decorate some year. They're from the Christmas cookie swap that never happened two years ago. Too bad this is one of those stories that you have to be there for to find amusing but believe me when Eileen, Edna and Maddy read this they'll be laughing but I digress.

The color scheme is coffee and cream with a cherry on top for the Rosie Dee challenge #55. In case you didn't notice there's a cherry on the top of the dessert on the recipe card.

This week the Pile It On challenge#18 is to make it 3-D and this is anything but a flat card. With Pile It On the twist is to combine at least one other challenge with the one they post. You can find lots of challenges to try there.

The other details are that the card was stamped in SU Pumpkin Pie, the chef was stamped in Memento Tuxedo black and paper pieced with SEI "Oxford". His hat and scarf were covered with distress Scattered Straw Stickles and his buttons are made with Gunmetal Stickles. The rest was colored with copics.
Thanks for stopping by, if you have time leave a comment. Those comments make my day.

No Bad Cats

There are no bad cats only people with high expectations. Shamus is the most recent furry addition to our family. He joined us in the summer of 2007. My first kitty, Samantha joined me in 1980. In all these years I have had many cats, probably a dozen, and they have all been feral cats that came inside. My brother has had many cats too. Between the two of us we never had a cat bother a Christmas tree until we met Shamey. All I can say is that I was so happy that after hubby put the tree up back in 2007 I was busy and didn't start putting the decorations on right away. I have a lot of snow baby ornaments which are ceramic. I think I would have had a heart attack if Shamus knocked down the tree while they were on it. So that year the ornaments stayed packed and we tied ribbons all over the tree. Shamey climbed into that tree every day, he would climb up and down till he found a comfortable spot to lay down on. He really liked climbing around in it. I expected that it would fall over but it never did. Still baffles me. The tree was a pre-lit one and he chewed on some of the wires and now it's a partially lit tree. We thought he might have matured and tried the tree the next Christmas but he still liked getting into it. As I get older going up and down all the stairs with the decorations is a big job so these days we don't even bother to see if he's still interested. I have a lovely tiny little tabletop tree that's made up of pink ornaments which I love and Shamey ignores it so in the end we're all winners.

A couple weeks ago I won the sketch challenge on Shirley's 2 Girls with my Woof, Woof, Woof card. For my prize I got to pick the stamp of my choice and I choose the "Bad or Good Cat" stamp. When I saw that stamp I immediately thought of my furry little boy and had to have it. I didn't know that the Shirley's girls were going to have a cat theme for this month so how lucky for me that I had it in time for this challenge and how perfect is this sketch for showing off a picture of my kitty next to the S2G stamp. I pulled out my kitty scrapbook and was happy to see that I could fit the picture and the stamped image on the cat head shaped paper. I pulled out this My Mind's Eye paper and went to work. I stamped the cat in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored it in with my copics. The edges of the papers are sponged with Versamagic Sea Breeze. I wrapped the twine around the crossbar. I think it would also look cute with miniature lightsd strung around it but mine are stored at work with my miniature tree and I wasn't going out shopping. I settled for the twine as requested for the challenge. There's a teeny weeny kitty cat charm hanging off the twine. You can try clicking on the picture to enlarge it if you want to get a better look at it.

I hope you enjoyed reading about Shamus, he is one cutey pie, a very large cutey pie. He's so cute I could never call him bad.

Thanks for visiting, please come back again.

Make a Pumpkin

Over on Splitcoast Stampers the October Guest Designer Challenge has been posted on the MFT Forum. The challenge is to use fabric in your design. The winner will receive the following month's releases and be invited to participate in the blog hop. That's pretty exciting, if you're interested in participating get cracking cause you need to upload your card to the gallery by October 6, 10PM EST.

I decided to make a couple fabric pumpkins, they make cute decorations to give or keep and they are so easy anyone can make them and they take about a half hour to make. Honest! I made these with brownies and if they can do it so can you.

You don't need a lot of fancy equipment, just a few things that if you're a crafty person you're likely to have on hand. A piece of fabric, stuffing (you can use cotton balls if you don't have stuffing on hand, I didn't have any fluff so I crunched up some old batting scraps) , a glue gun (if you don't one and can't borrow one use fabric glue), beans (I didn't have any beans so I used rice, you can use pebbles or anything that'll weight the bottom down a little) and a twig (I grabbed the first three I found outside my door, you can be as picky as you want) a needle and thread. You can decorate the pumpkins with anything you like or leave them plain. If I had some pipe cleaners I might've twisted one around the stem and curled it since I didn't have any on hand I'm settling for the tag on the big one and the ribbon on the little one. What you put on it is up to you.

The pumpkin with the tag on it is about 4 inches across at the bottom and the other one is about 3-1/2 inches at the bottom. For my templates I used dishes. The larger one was made with a dinner plate and the smaller one with a dessert plate. If you want a larger pumpkin just cut out a larger circle, try using a big round serving platter. The bigger the pumpkin the more stuffing you'll need. Trace the outline of the plate onto the fabric, and cut it out. You don't need to be precise because the edge doesn't show. Thread your needle and sew a gathering stitch around the edge, make it about a half an inch or so in. Pull it slighty so that you can put your weight medium inside then put your stuffing inside. Don't overstuff it. The larger the pumpkin the more you can get away with understuffing them. They look cute when they are a little bit floppy. Once your stuffing is inside you pull the gathering tight and tie it off with a knot. At this point I usually do a little extra stitches tacking the gathering in place but it probably doesn't matter at all because the next step is to use your glue gun put a glop (yes, that is the technical term, go ahead and look it up) on the center of the gathering and put your twig there. And Voila, there's your pumpkin, ready for whatever decorations you want to put on them.

I made a tag using the MFT "Fright Night" stamp set. It's colored in with copics and the edge is sponged with Ranger Peeled Paint and Memento Dandelion. The paper is from K & CO Tim Coffey's Halloween Specialty pad. The border is punched with the EK Success "Boo" punch. I tied it onto the twig with a ribbon it's ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by, please click on the pink ribbon before you go.

Didn't I Say That...

I don't like to make Christmas cards or words to

that affect in an earlier post? I've been saying that for years. It's another case of what you resist persists. I prefer not to make or send Christmas cards so of course I keep finding challenges and stamp sets that are for Christmas. Go Figure, I've stopped trying to figure it out. I guess I'm going to have to start a list...

I recently purchases the Flourishes "Wreaths of All Seasons" set and decided to use one of them for this week's Flourish Timeless Tuesday challenge #35 to extend our creations outside the frame. The Simon Says Challenge this week is a colour challenge to use red and green. That color choice made me go to one of my all time favorite papers, Basic Grey, "Figgy Pudding - Forest" and to use the winter wreath stamp. This wreath is all twiggy and it seemed to me that it should be embossed in gold. Don't Christmas cards with gold embossing look rich. To get some more layers I pulled out a paper that I thought would match well, Basic Grey "Wassail - Cranberry Sauce". The pattern on this paper is also similar to the wreath. It's double sided so I flipped it for the middle solid red layer. So using the Basic Grey paper and embossing the wreath makes it work for the Basic Grey Week 4 challenge - embossing and the ABC challenge E is for Embossing.

Even thought Basic Grey prints it's paper to have a distressed look I still decided to sponge and edge the design papers with Ranger Vintage Photo. It adds another layer of richness. The Cranberry sauce paper was cut with the nestibilities die Label One. The corners of the solid red square were punched with an SU corner punch and the ribbon is thread through slots also punched with an SU punch and CTMH red bling was put in the corners and red stickle dots were added to the wreath. Each layer was pushed up with dimensionals.

Last week on an MFT forum Kim asked us to post the first card we made using and MFT stamp and that got some discussions on how much our stamping has evolved. Using the dimensionals to pump up the different layers is one of the biggest improvements to my cards. I had used them before but just occasionally now they seem to be on almost every card I make and they do make a difference. Also I distress the cards in one way or another most of the time. There's a lot more variety of embellishing now too. As I list the things I'm doing more of it's becoming apparent to me that I am doing a lot more now than when I made my first MFT card.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoyed your visit and will come back again.

Before you leave don't forget to click on the pink ribbon.

A Long Overdue Shout Out

I don't know where my mind has been but I have a long overdue shout out for Kim and her design team over at My Favorite Things. I've been participating in MFT challenges since before I started blogging. I've won a few of the challenges and have not thought to post a thank you here. Over on Splitcoast Stampers there are forums where you can chat about anything. There are several MFT threads and they can be fun, interesting and/or educational. At any given time you can be chatting with Kim, the owner, or any of the Sweet Sixteen Design team. They are all friendly and ready to help you with any questions or problems you have. It's over on the threads that the challenges are posted and the winners announced. I've been posting here with links to the challenges but I've forgotten to post a thank you here. Well I owe a thank you right now because last week I was nominated as the MVP and won a $20 gift voucher and this week I won another $20 voucher for the 100MFTSKETCHES challenge. If you've been following my blog you've seen lots of my entries for this challenge. It ended up that I finished 46 of the 100 sketches that the very talented Cindy Haffner and Frances Byrne created. Another MFTer, Bonnie, came close and now we have challenged each other to see who will finish the 100 sketches first. Now that's fun to me and I owe that to the MFT threads. I am very grateful to MFT for all the great friends I have made there and to Kim for her generosity. She treats her customers like family. I am absolutely positive that if you go visit My Favorite Things you will be glad you did. If you're over at Splitcoast go visit the MFT Forum, there's weekly challenges with gift voucher prizes AND they are planning a new REALLY BIG CHALLENGE. It'll be like the Idol challenges which were great fun and the winner recieved a gift voucher for $250 and two stampers were given Design Team positions. This new challenge is going to be even bigger. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait.

You Got a Pizza...

but it's from the Isle of Man. My husband called me at work for no particular reason. He told me the kind of stuff that married people yak about that no one else would be interested in and then he told me I got a package from the Isle of Man. Now isn't the package the thing you would have told me first? Well I guess that's part of the men are from Mars stuff.

I am very, very happy to say that the pizza is my prize from the Craft Emporium for winning a challenge on Tuesday Taggers. I think this prize was awarded by random generator so no matter what your skill level is you should visit Tuesday Taggers and play along with the challenge. This week your project just has to have a tree on it. How hard is that to do? Who knows you could win a prize. The Craft Emporium sponsored the challenge the week I won and they sent me "the Complete Paper Crafting Kit - the Boyfriend" by Cosmo Cricket and who doesn't love Cosmo Cricket. I have had my eye on some of those papers for awhile.

So a big thank you to The Craft Emporium and Tuesday Taggers. I love my prize and the brain is already thinking about how I'm going to use it.