Mojo Monday #70

I'm on my way out to a School Council meeting so this is VERY quick.  It is time for another one of Julee's AWESOME Mojo Monday sketches - she's up to #70 already!  Wow. 

I had a hard time finding an image that was the right shape for this sketch so I ended up using my Curly Surpriseabella again.  She is so cute ~ I hope I'm forgiven???  I have been wanting to do a card with black, white and one other color for a few days but the opportunity never presented itself.  

Recipe: Stamps: Curly Surpriseabella, sentiment from Best Yet Paper: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Real Red, Old Olive marker, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel  Accessories: Ticket corner punch, Swiss Dots CBEF, stitched grosgrain ribbon, Nestabilities, adhesive pearls, paper piercer, blender pen, spiral punch

Thanks for stopping in. I've got something special lined up for tomorrow so try to check back then!

Taylor's Cupcake Challenge #51

I'm back!  After stepping away from my craft table to do some laundry and other "mom" duties I was able to get started on Taylor's Cupcake Challenge Sketch.

This designer paper has been screaming at me for MONTHS to be cut up and put on a card.  I LOVE the colors and the print but I had to ignore all the begging and pleading because I just couldn't find any inspiration to fully showcase it.  When I saw the large space behind the main image on this sketch I thought it might just work.  I pulled out my new Curly Surpriseabella from Stamping Bella and off I went.

Recipe: Stamps: Curly Surpriseabella (Stamping Bella), sentiment from Little Hellos (retired SU!)  Paper: My Mind's Eye Kaleidoscope "Love Paisley", Coredinations, Rose Red CS, watercolor paper  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Classic Inks (for coloring) - Rose Red, Buckaroo Blue, Not Quite Navy, Kiwi Kiss, Pretty in Pink, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel  Accessories: Nestabilities, paper piercer, ribbon, adhesive pearls, ticket corner punch, filigree brads, oval punches, circle punches, blender pen, heat & stick powder, glitter, Versamarker, clear embossing powder

It's really hard to see in this picture but I clear embossed her boots to give them a shiny leather look and I used heat and stick powder to make the Martha glitter stick and then paper-pieced the middle prezzie.  

That's it for me tonight.  I pre-ordered the Nestabilities Labels Three and Labels Four from Scrap 'n Stamp today - I cannot wait!  It will be nice to have some new shapes so you all don't get tired of seeing the same old, same old.  :o)  

See you tomorrow!

Viva la Verve Week #3

Happy T.G.I.F. everyone!

I hope your week went well and you are ready for the weekend - big plans???  Not here.  just going to take it easy and hang out.  The weather is supposedto be beautiful so maybe we'll do some outside activities - we'll see.

It's time for another great Viva la Verve challenge over at Splitcoast.  This week's sketch was fun and the {twist} was to use pink somewhere on your card.

Ever since Laura announced that she was going to be trying to use up items in her stash, I have been trying to do the same.  I have so much freaking paper that I thought was a "must have" at the time but by the time I got it home, I had NO earthly idea what I would possibly use it for.   Now, I will concede that I probably don't have as much as some of you out there, but for me. . . it's my weakness.   Anyhoo, I found the Valentine paper from two years ago and decided to use it on this card.  I love Taken With Teal beside the Pretty in Pink and Regal Rose in this DP - it just makes me smile.
Recipe: Stamps: Black Tie Birdies (Verve)  Paper: Loves Me DP (Stampin' Up retired), Taken With Teal, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Regal Rose, Taken With Teal  Accessories: Top Note Die, Nestabilities (Labels one, large rectangle, square), paper piercer, buttons, paper flowers, brayer, Swirly embossing folder, Cuttlebug, teal wire, Martha Stewart Lace Doily border punch, adhesive rhinestones, sheer ribbon, sponge dauber

After reading the recipe for this card, some of you may be wondering what I used a brayer for?  When I went to find some paper flowers, I did not have any that were teal enough for this card.  So I picked ones that were a light aqua, put them face down on my Taken With Teal Classic ink pad and ran my brayer over the flowers until they were just right!   

I hope to do Taylor's Sketch at some point in time today so check back later to see what I came up with!  

Flourishes' Celebrating Home Challenge

Welcome back!  What a busy week this has been.  Between work and some other "secret" work, I haven't had a lot of time to just sit and surf the web to see what's going on out there.  Luckily, tomorrow is a PD Day and my secret work is done so I'll be able to sit and craft without many interruptions ALL DAY tomorrow!!!

I was checking out Laura's blog a couple of days ago and noticed that Flourishes is releasing three new sets this week.  To celebrate, they have organized a "Celebrating Home" challenge.  To participate all you need to do is find something in  your home as a point of inspiration for a card creation or altered project and let the creative juices flow!  I immediately knew what I was going to use.  A few months ago, my partner-in-crime, Lori, and I were out shopping.  We went into this little crafty/knick-knacky store in town to see what they had.  I was checking out the ceramic travel mugs when THIS one screamed my name:

Isn't it adorable???  The colors are SO me, I love the dots and the saying is just right.  So, I picked it up, showed it to Lori and she just HAD to have the same one!  LOL  One of the very first things I said to her was, "This would make a great card!"  Isn't it funny how differently we look at the world when we create cards on a regular basis???  Anyhoo, I found some paper and CS in my stash that matched fairly well and went to my stamp cupboard to find an image that was kind of fun and a sentiment to match.  I started off thinking it was going to be a birthday card with a "Happy Bird-Day" sentiment but quickly decided that I just wasn't in a bird-day mood.  I dug through my My Favorite Things stamps and found this one that I bought before Christmas (again, with Lori!).  A perusal of the Splitcoast Sketch Challenges gave me the layout (SC83 F.Y.I) and this is what I came up with:

Recipe: Stamps: Chill Out (MFT)  Paper: American Crafts DP, CS - Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Chocolate Chip, watercolor paper  Ink: Image - Versafine Onyx Black, Coloring - Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Summer Sun, Baja Breeze, Old Olive  Accessories: Blender pen, versamarker, clear embossing powder, adhesive pearls, paper piercer, ticket corner punch, Nestabilities, Cuttlebug EF (Swiss Dots and Circle Dots?), Real Red ribbon, sponge dauber

So I started by stamping the main image on watercolor paper with my Versafine Onyx Black ink and colored it in using my classic inks and blender pen.  I went over the bathtub with my Versamarker and then used clear embossing powder to make the tub shiny like an enamel bathtub would be.  I cut it out with my curved rectangles mega-nestabilities and mounted it on a yellow rectangle I had run through my CB in the Swiss Dots EF and ticket corner punched.  I took the guide off of my ticket corner punch to punch the spaces in the middle to mimic the opposite scallop.  I mounted that on Tangerine Tango and added some red, adhesive pearls to the corners and spaces I had punched out.  I paper pierced around the image and used dimensionals to pop it up.

Here's a pic of the mug and card together:

I had fun with this challenge and I think I did a pretty good job of carrying the "feel" of the mug onto the card.  I love inspiration challenges because everyone has such a different interpretation of what inspires them - it's so enlightening and inspiring to see what is created.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Huggabugg - TOO CUTE!

Happy Monday everyone!

This will be a short post since I am on my way out the door to satisfy one of my other addictions - Partylite.  It's release party night so I'll be high from all the new smells when I get home!  

Anyhoo, it's also Mojo Monday and Julee came through once again.  The sketch is awesome:

I thought I'd ink up one of the new stamps from Stamping Bella and chose the "oops" stamp that I got accidentally - Flutterby Huggabugg.  I pulled out an old Simply Scrappin' Kit and used the DP and textured CS - Pretty in Pink, Real Red & Wild Wasabi.  Here's the end result:

Recipe: Stamps: Flutterby Huggabugg (Stamping Bella)  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black and coordinating colors for coloring image  Paper: Simply Scrappin' Kit (Winter Bright, retired) Accessories: Nestabilities (Circle and Pinking Circles), blender pen, white gel pen, adhesive pearls (of course!), Versamarker, Iridescent Ice EP, paper piercer, Swiss Dots EF, Buttons, ribbon, ticket corner punch, jumbo eyelet, Cropodile

Isn't she cute?  I just love all of the cute Buggs and hope to be able to buy some more of the new releases soon.

Have fun tonight everyone - I know I will!!  TTFN!

A Sunday Sketch For Me to Try. . .

I ordered a few (OK, more than a few but don't tell my husband) Bellas from Stamping Bella last month when they were celebrating their Bellaversary but I'm just getting around to mounting them now.  The last time I mounted my Bellas on the EZ Mount, I used my scissors - let me tell you, that was one long, painful process.  This time I thought I'd try a tool my sister gave me for Christmas last year but I have NEVER used: Creative Hot Marks.  I am SOOOO glad I remembered I had it because this tool made my life INFINITELY easier.  I was able to mount all 12 of the Bellas I ordered in less than 10 minutes!  YIPPEE!  Before I get to my card, I just want to tell you how impressed I am with Stamping Bella's customer service.  When I opened the packages last night I realized I had received a stamp I hadn't ordered because it had obviously been mispackaged.  The label on the outside said Lovey Huggabugg, and the sentiment stamp was correct but the Huggabugg stamp itself was the Flutterby Huggabugg.  So, I immediately emailed SB to let them know about the error and to find out what they wanted me to do with the stamp.  Ryan immediately emailed me back (this was 9:30 p.m. his time on a Saturday night!!) and told me to keep the incorrect stamp and the correct one would be mailed out first thing Monday morning!  How awesome is that???  So, if you ever have a chance to order from Em and Ryan, please be assured that the service will be amazing!  (Oh ya - and the stamps are pretty wonderful too!)

OK - So I got up this morning, put Raisin Bread in my bread machine, folded laundry, flipped the loads and then sat down to make a card.  I hadn't done Jen's Sketch For You To Try in awhile so I thought I'd click over to see hat she's got going on - a completely new look on her blog for one thing.   Right now she's got some pretty amazing blog tarts up for grabs so be sure to check out all the details!

So, here's this week's sketch:

I knew I wanted to use one of my new Bellas but couldn't decide which one.  I finally decided to use Lattebella along with the sentiment from one of My Favorite Things sets.  Once again I went to my paper stash and tried to find one that I probably wouldn't normally use.  I found one from Basic Grey's Romani collection and used the coordinating CS Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango and Red Riding Hood.  I stamped the Bella on watercolor paper with my Versafine Onyx Black ink and waited a couple of minutes for it to dry.  Then I used my blender pen and classic inks to color the image.  I cut her out using my rectangle nesties and layered her on the TT and OO.  I added some flowers and adhesive pearls along the left side, a photo corner punch accent in the top corner and my sentiment at the bottom.  I ran the Vanilla layer through my CB in the Swiss Dots folder (I am sooo in love with the Swiss Dots) and started putting it all together.

Recipe: Stamps: Lattebella (Stamping Bella), MFT "Hot Stuff" (sentiment)  Paper: Basic Grey DP (Romani), Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, watercolor paper  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, coordinating Classic inks  Accessories: Ticket corner punch, adhesive pearls, blender pen, paper flowers, swiss dots EF, Cropodile, pewter jumbo eyelets, ribbon, red cord, oval punch, 1-1/4" circle punch, 1-3/8" circle punch, designer label punch, rectangle Nestabilities (regular and scallop), photo corner punch

Thanks for stopping by - I'm going to get this in the mail tomorrow so it's not staying here for very long.  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and enjoy your week!  Tomorrow's another Mojo Monday sketch so be sure to check back!

Another Plain Jane

Are you tired of these verses yet?  They just fit inside my new nesties so nicely. . .  I went through my paper stash and found this paper - I have no idea who made it or where I got it.  I guess it's not really *that* hideous but normally I would NOT put pink pirouette, kiwi kiss, and tangerine tango together on the same card.  But here, it kinda works. . . 

Here's the card sketch:

And the result:
My rectangles are a bit too high/low but I can't change that now!  LOL  I got a new embossing folder yesterday too so I thought I'd try it out on the black layer - it's kind of got a flower and viney design on it.  The black layer was actually a last minute addition. 

K- Off to bed I go.  Not sure what I'll do tomorrow - laundry is calling so I'm sure that will be on the list.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!