2013 Artisan Finalist Blog Hop ~ Day 10

Hello to all my stamping friends and welcome to Day Ten ~ our last day ~ of the Artisan Finalist Blog Hop!  This whole adventure has been absolutely amazing!!!  From working on all of my projects, to getting the phone call from Stampin' Up!, to meeting all of the other AWESOME Finalists...every single step of this journey has been the BEST!  I hope you have enjoyed ALL of our projects that we submitted...I know I have!  And guess what?!?!?  We aren't done!  Beginning Monday, August 26th, the 10 of us will have a new blog hop, which will post every other Monday.   Watch out for MONDAY MONTAGE!

 If you've just come from Amy's blog, you were treated to her amazing talent.  If you are just getting started, keep on hopping until you get back to me. If you happen to get lost along the way, just use the "back" or "next" button at the bottom of each blog and you'll get right back on track.

 Today I have my favorite card for you.  I had fun creating this romantic, fun and flirty card...hope you like it too!  It's a bit difficult to see in the picture, but I created a square around the LOVE sentiment using the Simply Scored Scoring Tool.  I doubled the lines up and pierced holes in between each line...subtle little effect that really added to the card. 

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, First Edition DSP

Stamp Sets ~ Morning Post Alphabet, Hearts a Flutter, Collage Curios, En Francais

Ink ~ Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler

Other Supplies ~ Simply Scored Scoring Tool, Paper Piercing Tool, Soda Pop Tops, Crochet Trim, Small Heart Punch, Owl Builder Punch, 1" Circle PUnch

 

Thank you for hopping along with all of us over the past 10 days and for leaving some love!  Your comments help me keep me motivated to create! 

 

Don't forget to come back next Monday to see what we have in store for you next!

 

Now it's time to hop on over to Cathy's blog to see her first FAB-ulous creation! 

Sending Birthday Wishes...

...to a fellow Stampin' Up! demo and my roomie-to-be at Convention!!! 

After hearing just how great last year's Stampin' Up! Convention was and experiencing the fun at the Tacoma Regional last October, I just knew I had to go to Convention this year.  None of my downline are able to go to Convention with me, so I'm going solo.  I booked a room shortly after I decided to attend with hopes of finding a roommate. A few months ago, someone had posted that their friend was not able to attend Convention with them and was looking for a roommate.  After a little thought, I sent her a message and told her I was interested in rooming with her.  Long story short, we've been chatting for the past few months and I can't not wait to meet her in person and share the experience of Convention with someone who loves stamping as much as I do!

Today Cynthia is celebrating her birthday and I made this card and cute little Dress Up Framelit box just for her!  I can not take credit for the box...I saw it on Pinterest and had to re-create it.  You can find the tutorial for it here.

Baja Breeze will soon be retired, which makes me a little sad...but there are some great NEW colors coming out!!!  Cynthia was in need of a Baja Breeze re-inker, but they had already sold out.  In my own little sneaky way, I made sure she still hadn't been able to get her hands on one and sent one of my extras her way :)  Happy Birthday Friend!

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Baja Breeze, Midnight Muse, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla

Ink ~ Baja Breese, Midnight Muse, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Crumb Cake

Stamp Sets ~ Stippled Blossoms, En Francais

Other Supplies ~ All Dressed Up Framelits, Card Base Pop 'n Cuts, Oval Collection Framelits, Lacy Brocade Embossing Folder

 Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Baja Breeze, Twitterpated DSP

Ink ~ Baja Breeze

Other Supplies ~ Midnight Muse Stitched Satin Ribbon, Flower Trim, All Dressed Up Framelits

The tutorial for this cute little Dress Up box is to hold a tube of chap stick...I altered mine a little so it would hold the re-inker.

Wishing Cynthia a very Happy Birthday and I can't wait to celebrate with her in July!!!

Happy Stamping! 

Vintage Ciao

Sometimes it is very hard for me to think outside of my "clean and simple" style of stamping and come up with something that is not a "me" card.  But I have really been trying to push myself out of my creative comfort zone and work on other styles of stamping.  My bestie, and fellow SU! demo, has an amazing vintage style of stamping and I love it!  She's having a little surgery tomorrow and I wanted to make her a card to bring to her during her stay in the hospital.

With some help from this weeks Mojo Monday sketch, I came up with a card that I hope she will like.

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Gumball Green, Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals Core'dinations Paper, Very Vanilla, Print Poetry DSP

Ink ~ Summer Starfruit, Gumball Green, Primrose Petals

Stamp Sets ~ En Francias, Collage Curios, Ciao, Baby!

Other Supplies ~ Apothecary Accents Framelits, Curly Label Punch, Petite Curly Label Punch, Soda Pop Tops, 1" Circle Punch, Crochet Trim, Silver Basics Designer Buttons

I went back and forth, trying to decide if I wanted to use the Crochet Trim bow on the card...it looked to plain without it, but I felt like it overpowered the card with it.  I ended up making it a little bit smaller and went ahead and stuck it on.  Still not totally sold on it....oh well :)

Wishing my bestie a successful surgery and speedy recovery!

Happy Stamping!!

Happy Birthday Meme

Today my grandma would have celebrated 88 years of life...Happy Birthday Meme!  It makes me sad that she never had the chance to meet any of my boys...she would have spoiled them rotten and loved them all so much!  They may not have had the chance to meet their great grandma, but we speak of her often.  The relationship my boys have with my parents is very similar to the relationship I had with my Meme and Grandpa, which warms my heart.

I made today's card with my grandma in mind...

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Crumb Cake, Whisper White, So Saffron, Lucky Limeade, Sunshine & Sprinkles DSP

Ink ~ Melon Mambo, Lucky Limeade, So Saffron, Crumb Cake

Stamp Sets ~ Collage Curios, A Word for You, En Francais

Other Supplies ~ Apothecary Accents Framelits, Soda Pop Tops, Vine Street Embossing Folder, Rhinestones

The sketch for this card comes to you from Tui over at Freshly Made Sketches (sad this is her last sketch...she's awesome!).  And my color combo is from The Color Throwdown.

Sending big birthday loves up to my Meme...love you to the moon and back!

Happy Stamping!



A little Fab Friday LOVE

Good morning...er, early afternoon, and Happy Saturday!  I hope you are all having a great day so far.  I got up bright and early, as usual, did a short little work out, cleaned the house AND got in a 6 mile run after my hubby got home.  Feeling very accomplished so far today...YAY!  And the added bonus...time to stamp while the little one naps and the big boys read.  Perfect start to a weekend if you ask me! 

I'm still working on different Valentine projects and Fab Friday has a fun color challenge this week that is perfect for a Valentine creation.

I'll admit, I struggled a bit to make all of my colors flow together at first, but in the end I was pretty happy with how this turned out :)

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Crumb Cake, Pool Party, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla

Ink ~ Cherry Cobbler, Pool Party

Stamp Sets ~ Morning Post Alphabet, En Francais, Hearts a Flutter

Other Supplies ~ Lacy Brocade Embossing Folder, Small Heart Punch, Pink Pirouette/Rose Red Two-Toned Ribbon

Ok, time to get in a little bit more stamping and prepare for my Valentine class next weekend...gotta take advantage of nap time!

Happy Stamping!!!

Freshly Made Amore

In my efforts to be better about my "using what we have before we buy more" motto, I've been digging out some of my older, neglected stamp sets and DSP.  With all of the fun I've been having with the new Spring Catalog products, I've kind of forgotten about all of the other great stuff I have..like the Twitterpated DSP.  I forgot just how pretty this paper is and just how perfect it is for Valentine, Wedding or Anniversary cards....so soft and subtle.  I used the current sketch design from Freshly Made Sketches to help this card come together.

Supplies Used ~

Paper ~ Basic Gray, Whisper White, Twitterpated DSP

Ink ~ Pink Pirouette, Basic Gray

Stamp Sets ~ Artistic Etchings, En Francais

Other Supplies ~ Builder Brads

So simple and pretty.

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for the Stylin' Stampin' Squad Blog Hop!!  Lots of great creations in store for you!

Happy Stamping!

Freshly Made Friday Mashup!

Say that 3 times fast!  :)  TGIF stampin' friends! It's been super cold and foggy here, but no snow :(  We had a tiny little bit on Christmas night, but it melted as soon as it it hit the ground.  My boys have been pretty bummed that we haven't had any snow during their Christmas break.  Thankfully we are close to the snow covered Blue Mountains and can make a quick trip up there to hit the snow and go sledding. 

When I saw the fun challenge over at The Friday MashUp! I was excited to pull some of my snowflake stamps back out.  My hopes were that maybe if I made a few more "snow" cards then maybe we'll actually get some snow :)  This weeks MashUp challenge is to make a project using Snowflakes and a color combo of Whisper White, Pool Party, Midnight Muse and Black.  I'll be honest...the black threw me off and created quite the challenge for me!  But I stuck with it and with some sketch help from Freshly Made Sketches I came up with this:

Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Pool Party, Basic Black, Whisper White, Midnight Muse, Print Poetry DSP**

Ink ~ Illuminate Glimmer Watermark, Black StazOn

Stamp Sets ~ Snowflake Soriee, En Francais

Other Supplies ~ Window Frames Framelits, Basic Rhinestones (colored with a black Sharpie), White Gel Pen, Basic Black Taffeta Ribbon

**Spring Catalog**

This color combo gives me the feeling snow falling on a cold winter night.  Maybe we'll get a late Christmas wish and wake up to some snow tomorrow morning :)  In the meantime, we'll keep on making some trips up the mountain to have our fun in the snow!

Happy New Year's Weekend and Happy Stamping!

Postage Due - FMS59/PPA146

Hello November and Happy Thursday! 

What a fun Halloween night we all had!  We took the kids to a few houses in the neighborhood, visited the grandparents and were still home well before bedtime.  And we even managed to avoid any candy sampling last night...Halloween success!!! 

My hubby broke away from his hunting camp for the night so he could join us for our Halloween fun.  We are all looking forward to him being back home on Sunday!  I took advantage of him being home this morning and got up at dark o'clock to go for a run and still had some stamping time before my work day started...yay!!!

Cindy over at Freshly Made Sketches has a great sketch for us this week!  I love their clean and simple sketches!  So, I had some ideas in mind for what stamp set(s) to use, but was stumped with my colors.  But Pals Paper Arts came to my rescue with a great Color Challenge! 

I have to say, Riding Hood Red is not a color that I often use, but paired up with Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla, it's beautiful!  I used Early Espresso as my neutral color, which really made the Very Vanilla stand out.

 Supplies Used:

Paper ~ Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red, Crumb Cake

Ink ~ Riding Hood Red, Early Espresso

Stamp Sets ~ Postage Due, En Francais, French Foliage

Other Supplies ~ Lacy Brocade Embossing Folder, Postage Stamp Punch, Square Punch, 3/4" Circle Punch, Very Vanilla Satin Ribbon

Crazy how fast this week and this year has gone by!  Time to get things in gear and start getting ready for, gulp...Christmas!  And I've I have a big 7 year old birthday party to plan for my two sweet big boys :)  Angry Birds...time to put my punches to use!

Happy Stamping!!!