Oops!

I normally don't post twice in one day and I am actually embarassed to admit why I need this Thank you card. I recently realized that I forgot one of the most important thank you's from Christmas! I am so embarassed and I am sure the recipient will think I have gone crazy! Anyway, I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't get it sent out!

You may be thinking this card looks somewhat familiar. It is one of Jen's SFYTT sketches from two weeks ago. I really loved it and I wanted to create the same feel for this card as I captured with that card, so I decided to run with it. The recipient loves vintage and feminine, so I think it will be appreciated. Another reason why I feel so dumb is that this particular person always comments on how much she likes my cards, etc. If anyone should get a card, it is her!

I started the design using a piece of Regal Rose cardstock and ran it through my cuttlebug using the Textile embossing folder. I distressed the edges using Vintage Photo distress ink and a sponge. Two of the corners were rounded with my small corner rounder that SU! is currently carrying. I swear they get a new one every year. I have quite an assortment of different sizes, which I have kept because they still come in useful from time to time. I rounded two corners on the Vanilla base as well.

I have had bunnies on the brain so I decided to use this wonderful image from the retired SU! set "Tender Toile". I colored it with an assortment of copic and prismacolor markers, ink refills and a blender pen. I cut it out using my nestabilities as well as the scallop mat. I had a scrap of My Mind's Eye paper lying about, so it made it's way onto the card as well. I was so thrilled that this sentiment from "Thank You Kindly" worked so well on this design. That one stamp is why I needed this set. The others have come in handy, but I like this one the best! I added a couple of Martha Stewart pearl stickers, some satin ribbon and a button for the center. It came together so quick and easily because I have, basically, made this card before
I also wanted to share my spring decorating I have been doing. I have a bench in my entry way that I love to change with the seasons. I picked up these darling bunnies from Robert's last year at 90% off. They were sooooo cheap. I picked up quite a few other things, but I will wait to put them up in April. I had a lot of fun putting my new spring bench decor together. Can you see why I have had bunnies on my mind? LOL! My son said that I had overdone it; that the spring banner would have been plenty! LOL! I placed everything on a bed of spanish moss for an earthy feel. Thanks for fluttering by!

Stamps: Tender Toile, Thank You Kindly
Ink: Palette Noir, Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss, Always Artichoke, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Ranger, Copic and Prismacolor Markers
Paper: PTI Vintage Cream, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, My Mind's Eye
Accessories: Martha Stewart Pearl Gem Stickers, liquid glue and Coarse Crystal Glitter, Oval and Scallop Oval Nestabilities, Button from my stash, Ribbon by Offray, Foam Squares, Corner Rounder

Bird on a Branch

I decided that I haven't been posting much SU! these days, so I thought I would make a SUO card today. What is SUO you ask? Stampin' Up! Only. Very rarely do I make something that is completely SU! because I sneak in different paper, glitter, etc. but today I made it a point to use everything SU! even down to the scissors I used! LOL!

I used today's Sketch Challenge over at SCS. I needed to flip the sketch to have it accomodate this particular set. I love the coordinating papers. It is pretty straightforward. I did have to add the sentiment piece to the top because what is underneath is crooked! LOL! Often times my designs get little additions here or there to cover up my mistakes.

I want to say thank you to all of you who said such nice things about my new photo. My old photo was taken for the Dirty Dozen and I have used it ever since. I thought it was time to freshen things up a bit.

I have been getting quite a few questions about some of the things I do on my cards, so look for a Q and A coming up in the next few days as well as a tutorial! Thanks for fluttering by!

Supplies:
Stamps: Bird on Branch
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise
Paper: Naturals Vanilla, Ultrasmooth Vanilla, Tempting Turquoise, Flock Together DSP
Accessories: SuperNova glitter, Tombow Mono Multi, Chocolate Taffeta Ribbon, Vintage Brads, Stampin' Dimensionals

You make this world a better place

I have some fun and exciting news to share. I have a card posted on the Verve Blog today....I am one of the March Guest Divas! Isn't that fun! I was so thrilled to be asked and I have had so much fun working with all of the new images. I will also be a guest with Jodi Collins (aka. Kharmagirl) . I guess I can share the news since Jodi's sneak peek card was shown yesterday and mine today! I have been wanting to share the news, but of course had to keep quiet until today. The official release will be on March 8th...there are so many darling images!

Today's Color Challenge was to use Kiwi Kiss, Pink Passion and Chocolate Chip. I thought they sounded pretty fun, so I thought I would give it a go. This was my third and final attempt and I am not that pleased with the results. I wasn't going to *not* post it though....after all that!

I have been itching to use this darling cupcake image from Lockhart Stamp Co. I got it last month and it has sat un-inked. I thought that it would be perfect for today's challenge. What could be better than a chocolate cupcake with yummy pink flowers! I have always wanted to try my hand at candied edible flowers. I paired it with Bella Rose DSP because it had chocolate chip and kiwi kiss in it. I thought the polka dots worked well with this design. I used one of my Verve sentiments from the set "All About You".

I watercolored the images with an aquapainter and ink refills. I added a little crystal coarse glitter to mimic a candied flower. Of course I had to do some distressing and add some buttons. Thanks for fluttering by!

Stamps: Cupcake image from Lockhart Stamp Co. , All About You by Verve Stamps
Ink: Palette Noir, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Kiwi Kiss, Pink Passion, Pink Pirouette
Paper: Naturals White, Bella Rose DSP, Pink Passion
Accessories: Foam Squares, sponge, Chocolate Taffeta Ribbon, 1 3/8 inch circle punch, buttons from the Paper Studio

Welcoming Spring!

I am so glad March is here! Spring is one of my favorite seasons! I kept my Valentine's Day stuff up until today, so I can't wait to get some spring decorations out and freshen up my front door with my spring wreath! Of course I needed a new banner for my entry way, so I decided to quickly make one this morning. I have a list a mile long today, so I had to make it quick and leave off a lot of bells and whistles. I still think it turned out cute. It is a gray, overcast day today, so the lighting wasn't ideal. I will be taking some new photos of it once the sun comes out.

Each triangle measures 4 by 6 and then I cut them into the triangle shape. I made coordinating accordian flower for each. I painted my chipboard letters with acrylic Making Memories Paint and then sprinkled them with coarse crystal glitter. I added some buttons to the top to secure each piece together and called it good! This was such a fun, easy project for this morning! Thanks for fluttering by! P.S. I am sure you are all in shock that not a single edge was distressed! LOL!

My Mind's Eye Paper, Buttons from my stash, Linen Thread by SU!, Making Memories Paint (celery), Coarse Crystal Glitter by Martha Stewart, Ribbon from Michaels, glue dots, scoring blade, chipboard letters by SU!

You're Late-SFYTT

I am thrilled...two challenges, one card! I made this for this week's "Sketch for you to Try" and for last week's Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. I really need to get better about making my Cinema card *before* the new movie is announced. Ugh! I really wanted to participate in it because the movie was " The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". We were asked to incorporate *time* into our design as well as making it *vintage*. Do you think I succeeded? LOL!

Before I get away from myself, I wanted to let you know that Jen, the fabulous host of the SFYTT is offering *BLOG CANDY* for participants of this week's sketch. You will want to head over there to find out the deets! I still feel so lucky that she picked me to be one of her SFYTT girls! It has been so much fun!

For my card, I stamped the Rabbit image from "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" stamp set from TJ Designs! If any of you attended Stampfest you may have come across their booth. It would have been fun to be there. Anyway, back to the card. I colored him with Copic and Prismacolor markers and distressed all of the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink (shocker). The Mad Hatter circle image was stamped and colored the same way and then mounted onto an accordian flower. I also used the vintage alphabet image at the top of the rabbit from the "Vintage Collage" stamp set from TJ Designs. You can find it if you follow the link from above. The glitter and clock were all purchased from starlitstudio . I am in love with all of the great products Cindy carries. It definitely caters to the vintage crafter. I love all of the charms, glitters, etc. that she carries.

The paper is from a scrumptious slab of K& Company paper I picked up at Hobby Lobby the other day. I am in serious paper heaven. You will probably be seeing it on quite a few designs for the next little bit. I added some buttons from my stash, threaded some and leaving some naked. I hope I didn't veer too far off of Jen's great sketch. You can check out the other fab creations from the rest of the gals:

Jen and JodyAmy

Carole

Susan and Amy

I really love to see what they have come up with! It is fun seeing how each of us interprets the sketch! I hope that you will all get a chance to play this week and get involved with Jen's blog candy give-away! Thanks for fluttering by!
Stamps: Vintage Collage and The Mad Hatter's Tea Party Stamp Set by TJ Designs

Ink: Palette Noir, Basic Black, Copic and Prismacolor Markers, Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Ranger

Paper: PTI Vintage Cream, K & Co.

Accessories: Liquid Glue by Martha Stewart, Barbara Trombley's Vintage Glass Glitter (sea sprite), Clock piece, buttons from my stash, linen thread by SU!, Sponge

Dazzling Citrus

I am seriously behind on this week's SCS challenges. Normally I would just forgo them, but I really wanted to try and get them done this week. I decided to combine yesterday's sketch challenge and Tuesday's Color Challenge. I haven't used Tart and Tangy for some time and I thought it would work well for both challenges. I couldn't find a way to make this fit into today's WT challenge or I would have! LOL! This card is clean and crisp...I was in the mood. I have been doing a lot of vintage lately.

I started out by stamping the fruit images onto white cardstock and then punching them out with my 1 1/4 inch square punch. I then mounted them onto a piece of "Good Morning Sunshine" DSP. I added crystal effects to the center of the lemon and orange and the peel of the apple and then poured dazzling diamonds glitter over the top.

I also used my texture plates from SU!. If anyone has any tips for getting them to work in a Cuttlebug I would love to hear them. This is what I did: A plate, texture plate face up, cardstock, two tan rubber mats from Spellbinders, B plate and then I ran it through my cuttlebug. You can hardly see it, but I used it on the back Pumpkin Pie layer. It is super subtle, but in real life you can see it better. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, but I did add a corduroy button that I love. I really need to get a few more colors.

I really liked making this card because I used a set I haven't used in a while as well as the pumpkin pie cardstock. The top pieces were completely faded. Hmmmm....that is not so good! LOL!

Thanks for fluttering by!

Supplies:

Stamps: Tart and Tangy, Best Yet

Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Summer Sun

Paper: White, Pumpkin Pie, Good Morning Sunshine DSP

Accessories: Pumpkin Pie striped grosgrain ribbon, corduroy button, linen thread, dimensionals, dazzling diamonds glitter, crystal effects, 1 1/4 inch square punch, SU! Texture Plates

Mojo Celebrations

I hope you are enjoying the matchbox tutorial. I have stayed away so that those of you who were interested would have a chance to see it. If you are still interested, you can check it out here. For today's card, I used the Mojo Monday sketch. I love it! Yesterday I needed to head to Staples to get some ink cartridges for my printer and Hobby Lobby is on the way so of course I needed to make a stop. I came home with some fun goodies, including this yummy paper from My Mind's Eye. I also picked up a few copic markers so that I could finally color this darling Hydrangea image from Lockhart Stamp Co. that I picked up at Ellen Hutson's store. I went to color it the other day and had really horrible purple choices, so I needed to fix that! LOL!

The focal image was stamped with Palette Noir ink and then colored with copic and prismacolor markers. I added a bit of Lavender glitter to give it some shine and dimension. I created the label with my Nestabilities Label 1 dies. I added some machine stitching, sponging, ribbon, buttons and ribbon! Of course I *had* to add the lace border using the Doily Lace Edge Punch from Martha Stewart.

Thanks, Julee, for anther fantastic sketch! It is one of my favorite challenges of the week! In fact, this is the only challenge I have done this week and we are already half way through! Let's see if I can get my act together and get some more done!

I got all of my cards packaged up that I will be giving to a friend in my neighborhood. The stash included nearly 20 cards. Some of them were hard to add to the stash because they are some of my recent favorites. She will be getting most everything that I have posted since this post. So...that means that all of my cards from this post on, will be going in another stash for a lucky recipient. Today's card is for my friend's birthday on March 2nd. She loves purple, so I hope she will like it! Thanks for fluttering by!

Stamps: Hydrangea from Lockhart Stamp Co., Circle of Friends by Stampin' Up!, Mixed Messages by Papertrey, Ink.

Ink: Palette Noir, Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Ranger, Copic and Prismacolor markers
Paper: PTI Vintage Cream, My Mind's Eye, Ultrasmooth Vanilla by Stampin' Up!
Accessories: Buttons, 1 inch circle punch, ribbon, fern punch and doily lace punch by Martha Stewart, Sewing Machine and Thread, glue dots, lavendar glitter, sponge