Another Anni-VERVE-sary sketch

This time it is sketch challenge AVS10. Once again I took this photo yesterday with the uncooperative sun so the photo angle is a bit wonky. This card ended up being one of my favorites that I made during my stamping marathon. It is much prettier in real life! Once again, I used my new favorite product, Shimmerz paint. I painted the wings of all of the butterflies (it is easier to see this if you click on the image and look at the super-sized image).
Supplies used: Sentiment and Butterfly stamps are Verve Stamps, SU Linen background, SU cardstock, Basic Grey DP, Angel's Wings Shimmerz paint, Paisley Cuttlebug embossing folder, self adhesive gems.

I hope you all have a wonderful day! Be sure to stop by tomorrow when I highlight one of the many wonderful stamp catagories from DRS Designs.
Thanks for stopping by!

Anni-VERVE-sary sketch challenges

I have been on a stamping marathon. 11 cards in a 24 hour span...YIKES! All of the cards I made were for the Verve Stamps Anni-VERVE-sary sketch challenges.
The card I'm sharing today is their AVS02 sketch. I bought some new Christmas stamps recently so I thought I would get them inked up right away.
Sorry for the weird photo angle, the sunlight would not cooperate with me today.
For this card I stamped my Christmas sentiment with Palette ink and then I carefully painted over it with Olive Green Shimmerz paint. It gives it a really great shimmery look. I also painted the green cardstock layers with the same Olive Green Shimmerz. If you haven't tried this stuff out yet, I highly recommend it! I think I used it on 6 of the 11 cards I made these past 2 days.

Supplies used: Sentiment stamp from Inkadinkado, Non-SU cardstock, Basic Grey DP, Shimmerz Olive Green paint, misc ribbon, misc self adhesive gems.

I hope you all had a great start to your week! Thanks for stopping by!

TGIF!

I am so glad that it is Friday! It has been a crazy long week. I started this card last Saturday night when Jen and I went to scrap mania at Archiver's. I spent too much time talking and not enough time stamping that night so I had to finish it up at home on Sunday. This isn't my typical card, hence the lack of flowers or butterflies, but I thought it was cute. When I showed it to Tom he thought it was too plain...WHAT? Too plain??...this coming from the guy who always tells me I put too much on a card. I was going for a simple birthday card that could be used for anyone. The balloons are from the Birthday Balloons-Up Up and Away set from Firecracker Designs by Pamela. The blue balloons are stamped directly on the cloud pattern paper. I stamped the red ballons on white cardstock, cut them out, added glitter to the white reflection spots and added cardstock alphabet stickers. After all of that, I covered them in SU Crystal Effects and let them dry. After they were dry I tied the strings on. The red balloons are popped up with dimensionals. A lot of work for a "plain" card but I was happy with how it turned out. I like the shiney/realistic effect that the crystal effects gave the balloons.
Supplies used: Birthday Balloons-Up Up and Away by Firecracker Designs by Pamela, SU Brilliant Blue and Real Red cardstock, DCWV glitter cardstock, Cloud print designer paper from Michael's, Red self adhesive pearls, SU Crystal Effects, SU Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Cardstock alphabet stickers, dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Color Throwdown and a Anni-VERVE-sary sketch

I'm still having some fatigue issues so I haven't done a lot of stamping this week...actually this is the only stamping I've done since Sunday. Last night Tom was putting together my new treadmill (because I majorly need to get back in shape) so I sat in the basement with him and stamped while he assembled. I decided that since my stamping time is limited, I would try and combine a color challenge and a sketch challenge to, as the saying goes... kill two birds with one stone.
I decided to try this week's Color Throwdown and one of the Verve Stamps Anni-VERVE-sary sketch challenges (AVS04).


I love this black-eyed Susan image but I have no idea where it is from. I think I mentioned this one other time but I ordered it a couple years ago but never wrote down the name of the stamp company. If any of you recognize it, let me know. Instead of So Saffron I substituted the retired SU In-Color Marigold. I colored the image with Prismacolor markers and then painted them with Shimmerz paint. OMG, I love this stuff! I just got my first containers of it in the mail from JacksonBelle Embellishments. I ordered 4 colors and wish I could have ordered more. I painted the flower with Marigold Shimmerz and the leaves and stem with Green Olive Shimmerz. They give the flower such a beautiful shimmery look.
Supplies used: Black-eyed Susan stamp (manufacturer unkown), Inkadinkado sentiment, SU cardstock, circle nestibilities, self adhesive gems, Prismacolor markers, Shimmerz, Art Institue black glitter, Cuttlebug embossing folder, SU ticket corner punch.

I hope you all have a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Inchies...Part 2

Here is another inchie card I made for the DRS Designs blog challenge. This was actually the first card I made, but I wasn't totally thrilled with it so I made a 2nd one (the sunflower card I posted yesterday). After taking pictures of both cards I decided this one wasn't as awful as I had first thought, so I decided to share this one too.

Supplies used: DRS Designs"Ornament's Galore" stamp, Paper Studio alphabet rub-on's, Basic Grey DP, SU cardstock, DCWV glittered cardstock, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder, SU ticket corner punch, Koh-i-noor colored pencils, SU metallic pencils, self adhesive gems (sorry don't know manufacturer), wallpaper sample from Menards.

Hope you have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by!

DRS Designs Blog Challenge #1 - INCHIES

Today marks the official start of the DRS Designs blog challenges. We plan to run our challenges on a bi-weekly basis. Every other Monday a challenge will be posted on the DRS Designs blog along with inspiration from the design team. If you would like more info. on a particular project, just click the link for the individual design team member's blog. We would love for you to play along as well! There is no time limit, we just want you to be inspired and have fun! If you participate we would love to know and would love to see your project. Just leave a comment on the challenge post on the DRS Designs blog with a direct link to your project and we'll head over to check it out! If you upload to SCS, please use the keyword DRSC1.

So without further ado....

Challenge #1....INCHIES!!!

These 1"x1" squares are all the rage right now and a lot of fun (in some peoples opinions-LOL)!! You can use an image that fits within your square OR use a 1" portion of a larger image! Those of you who are followers of my blog know that I recently made my first inchie a few weeks ago. You also know that I'm not exactly a huge inchie fan. I find it hard, actually next to impossible, to work with (and cut) such a small piece of paper. For my challenge card I chose to go with the "several inches for one large image" option. It is hard to tell by the picture, but for my main image I stamped it on white cardstock and colored it, then I stamped it a second time on a piece of scrap white cardstock and colored it again. I layered it over the first image with non-permanent adhesive, cut it into 1"x1" squares, removed the top layer pieces and popped each little piece up with a dimensional. Considering my lack of love for inchies, I thought this card turned out pretty ok.

Here is a close-up of the image. You can see how I popped up the image better in this photo.Supplies used: All stamps are DRS Designs, Basic Black and Summer Sun cardstock from SU, Georgia Pacific white cardstock, Bazzil Bling orange cardstock, self adhesive gems from K&Co., Amuse ribbon, May Arts Ribbon, Prismacolor markers, Koh-i-noor colored pencils w/OMS, Art Institute glitter (Lion's Mane and Black), Cuttlebug Stylized Flowers embossing folder, Nestibilities ribbon slide die.

Check out the DRS Designs blog for some more terrific inchie cards made by the rest of the DRS Designs team!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you decide to play along with our challenge!

Color Throwdown #4

Hope everyone is having a great week. I have been too tired to stamp most of the week, but I didn't want to miss out on this week's Color Throwdown color challenge. I actually love this color combo. I never use Almost Amethyst, but it works great with this combo.
This card didn't end up quite as I had envisioned, but in the end I was pretty happy with it. It was a difficult one to photo again. You can't tell from this picture but I added some Art Institue Lion's Mane glitter to the edges of the flowers. It is actually very pretty in real life (IMO).
Supplies used: Sunflower stamp from Inkadinkado, Weathered and Noteworthy from SU!, Palette Noir Ink, Prismacolor markers, Koh-i-noor colored pencils w/OMS, Lion's Mane glitter from Art Institute and black rhinestones from Hero Arts.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Lovin my JustRite monogram stamper!!!

Yesterday I found a little time to play in my stamp room and I couldn't resist playing a bit with my JustRite monogram stampers. I absolutely love these things. I bought 2 different monogram sets plus the tiny letters, so I have a variety to experiment with. I totally love the tiny letters. The sky is the limit with these!
Supplies used for this card: JustRite Monogram stamper, Studio g clear stamp set, Stampin Up! cardstock, May Arts ribbon, Prismacolor markers, Koh-i-noor colored pencils, OMS, Stampin Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter. (Sorry, I don't know the DP manufacturer).

I also wanted to share another blog award that I got from one of my sweet SBS-13 sisters, Kari.
Thanks Kari!! BTW, Kari makes some super cute headbands that she sells in her etsy store...you should check them out!
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

DRS Challenge

As part of the DRS Designs design team search process, they gave the finalists 3 stamps that they needed to create a card with. When I saw the stamps I thought they were great, individually, but together....definitely a challenge! The sentiment stamp was really large and since I typically have a hard time finding room for a sentiment on my card, let alone a large sentiment, the challenge was even greater. In the end I used the entire sentiment but I cut it into several pieces. Considering the challenge, I was actually really happy with the card I made.
To see all of the different ideas the DT ladies came up with using these 3 stamps, check out the DRS blog...challenge cards will be highlighted all this week!

I hope you are having a great Monday! Thanks for stopping by!

It's Sunday night....

and unfortunately X-Files Sunday nights are years in the past...that's ok though, I am still on cloud 9 after getting to see the "X-Files - I Want To Believe" yesterday morning. After all these years I'm still in love with Fox Mulder. I thought the movie was great! They left it open enough that they could have another movie or maybe just start the series back up...yeah, I know I'm dreaming...
I didn't get any stamping done this weekend. I have been really tired lately. Not just a little tired....abnormally tired. I'm heading to the doc on Tuesday to see if they can figure out the problem and give me my life back. You know I'm sick when I'd rather nap than stamp.
I'm hoping to have some energy tomorrow to make something while the kids are at preschool. Crossing my fingers at least.
In the mean time I got this totally awesome blog award from my friend Jen. THANKS JEN!!! This is a fun one...

So here are the award details:

1. You can only award this to 5 blogger friends.
2. Four of those must be hardcore addicts of your blog.
3. One must be a relatively new follower from another part of the world.
4. You must link back to the person who gave you the award

So you all know I don't always follow the blog award rules...So here are my BFF blogger (and a couple non-blogger) nominees...Kisa, Delia, Dawn,Mary Webb, and Deana. Thank you ladies for all being such great friends and for leaving me such nice comments on my blog!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Before I head out the door to go see X-Files (Tom is watching the kids so I can go this morning), I thought I would share a card I made a few days ago. All CS used is SU, DP is Basic Grey and SU, Stamps used "French Script" from SU and "Flowers and Holly" from TAC, and the black dots are from the $1 scrapbooking area at Joann's. I colored the hibiscus with colored pencils and OMS.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

And the winner is....

kim3timemom!!!

kim3timemom said...

I too love lots of stamp companies..but I would have to say Stampin up is one of my most favorites. Thanks for the chance to win.

kim3timemom@yahoo dot com

Kim, please send me an email with your snail mail addy and I will get your blog candy sent out right away.

For those of you wondering my favorite stamp set.....SU's Noteworthy. Sounds like a funny choice but I've used that set SO many times. I love the sentiments and design elements in it. Whenever I am stuck on a card I pull that set out. Best of all, it was FREE!!! Funny thing is, for a while I even kept a spare Noteworthy set, just in case something happened to my first one. If I had to pick a favorite stamp company...my current absolute favorite would be Inkadinkado.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I am hoping to do some stamping, but not until after I go see the new X-Files movie...YAY!!!! Back in the day, my Sunday nights were dedicated to nothing else except X-Files. I can't wait to see the movie. For a great sneak peak, check out the movie trailer HERE. And as an extra BONUS for all of you Fox Mulder/David Duchovny fans...click HERE to listen to one of my favorite tunes! (yes, I know I'm a total geek).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

SCS "non-raffle" to benefit midwest flood victims

Just in case you haven't seen it, Splitcoaststampers is having a "non-raffle" to benefit the victims of the midwest floods that happened earlier this summer. All proceeds go to the Red Cross to help these flooding victims. Click HERE for all the details.

Hope you all have a terrific day!

Color Throwdown and a Sketch Challenge

Good Morning! It has been a rough week around here. Both kids are sick. We were up all night worrying about Annabelle because even the smallest cold turns into a huge deal because of her asthma issues. She is up early this morning using her nebulizer. I'm hoping last night was the worst of it.
On a happier note, I have a card to share. I even managed to do 2 challenges with one card, yay! I saw this card layout on Melissa Phillips' blog LilyBean's Paperie the other day and knew I had to try it out. It is a fun one. I was also able to incorporate this weeks Color Throwdown week 3 challenge, sort of (I accidentally used Temping Tourquoise instead of Taken with Teal).
The stamps I used are from SU and Inkadinkado. CS is SU and DP is BoBunny. Glitter is Dazzling Diamonds from SU and the self adhesive pearls are from the Target $1 bin. Sometime between the time I made this and photographed it I lost one of the pearls off one of the flower blooms so I'll have to replace that but I thought I would share the picture anyway.


I hope you have a wonderful day! Don't forget to sign up for my blog candy HERE.
Thanks for stopping by!

Monday already?

I can't believe it is Monday already. Where did the weekend go? The kids started their 2 week summer preschool session today so I have 3 hours of ME time, YAY!
I have a couple errands to run but I thought I'd post a quick card before heading out.
This is a really simple card layout but for some reason I love it. I've made this same card with different colors and stamps many times and I always like how it turns out. This card was a little difficult to photo. The orange CS is Bazzil bling and it is hard to get a good picture. The stamps used for this card are all from DRS Designs. I really love how this card turned out!

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to sign up for my blog candy in the previous post!
Have a great day!

BLOG CANDY!

I wanted to post a little blog candy since I haven't had any in a while. Once again I am giving away an Autumn Leaves clear stamp set. If you are wondering why I keep giving away the same set, it is because Target had them on clearance for $3 a long time ago and I bought a bunch to use as blog candy and/or gifts. It is a fun holiday set! I'll also throw in a few other mystery goodies!
All you need to do for a chance to win this blog candy is leave me a comment on this post telling me your favorite stamp/stamp set ever...any brand/company. I will draw a name from all of the entries on Friday.
I hope you are all enjoying your weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Exciting News!!!!!!

A while back I applied for a position on the DRS Designs design team. I got an email yesterday letting me know that I made the team. I can't even begin to express how totally THRILLED I am. The team is made up of an incredibly talented group of ladies and I can't wait to get to know all of them. If you haven't checked out the incredible selection of stamps at DRS, I highly recommend it. They have tons of wonderful stamps to choose from and you can get them wood mounted or rubber only. You should also definitely check out the brand spankin new DRS blog too!!! I can't wait to start sharing more DRS projects with you.
I am joined on the DRS Designs team by these wonderfully talented ladies: Angel Rivera, Jennifer Emmi, Etha Schuette, Jessica George, Marie McClellan, Dawn Knight, Jessica Knutsen, Vicki Parson and Cathy Indelicato.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by! Check back later today for a card and some blog candy!

Inchie, ATC, Moo....WHAT?

Pamela, from FireCracker Designs has a challenge posted on her blog. The challenge is as follows: Create one inchie, one ATC, and one MOO card using the SAME FireCracker Designs Stamp set. You can use what ever FCD set you want, but all three pieces have to be created with the same set.

At this point some of you might be wondering what exactly an inchie, ATC or Moo is (I was wondering too)...Here are the definitions directly from Pamela's blog:

What is an inchie? Simply put, it’s a one inch square piece of art work…talk about tiny!! Just don’t go blind if you are trying this one for the first time!! We’ve also noticed, that all 1″ square punches are NOT all 1″! Punches have the bad habit of being measured at the diagonal (like your TV screens) and we artists, well, we like to measure our pieces straight across and up the sides…so double check your punch before you go crazy with these….if all else fails, stamp your image, and then use your paper trimmer to cut it up in 1 inch squares, pick the best one, and embellish it…lol

What is an ATC? Artist Trading Card has only one rule…they MUST measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches! Thought to have originated in Switzerland in 1997; they are about the size of the sports trading cards, and can be easily stored in the 9 pocket plastic sleeves designed to hold sports cards.

What is a MOO card? MOO is actually a British based printing company that offers mini calling cards. They are about the size of half of a standard business card. (got a ruler? measure: 1 1/8 inch x 2 ¾ inch). Artists have snagged up this idea to create their own mini pieces of artwork, and I LOVE the idea of using the back sides to include my blog information. What a fun way to hand out my web links!

I decided to take her up on the challenge. Until today I had never made and inchie or a moo (I have made an ATC WAY WAY back in the day).

I used the FireCracker set: Happy Hour for mine. I can say after making them, that I probably will NEVER make anything this tiny again. I had a REALLY hard time working on such a small area...It was fun trying though. Let me know what you think.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

CONGRATULATIONS KISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dear friend Kisa was the grand prize winner in the Lizzie Anne Designs anniversary card sketch contest. Check out her AWESOME grand prize winning card HERE

TGIF!!

Hope everyone had a great week. We have been crazy busy this week and I haven't had much stamping time. I'm hoping to find some crafty time this afternoon!

Since I don't have any cards to show I thought I would share some pictures I took yesterday when we took the kids to the county fair. They had a total blast. We went through all of the 4-H barns and had fun checking out all of the farm animals. The kids were excited that they got to pet a cow, chicken, rabbit and they got to hold a baby chick.
After the barns we hit the carnival. They loved this. It was $1 ride day (compared to the normal $3-4 per ride) so we let them ride pretty much everything they wanted to (thanks to a carnival fund from grandma Debbie). The only bad part was, it was HOT! and when I say HOT I mean REALLY HOT! Overall, though, we had an awesome family day!






I hope to have a card or something crafty to share later today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Weird, weird, weird...

Weird. This morning I tried and tried to get the picture of my graduation card to upload into my post. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. So I thought I would try again later today. So I took the kids to VBS, had breakfast with my mom, picked the kids back up and came home and checked my email. I saw a comment from Kisa that said "I like this one"...thinking she was just being totally sarcastic about my post with no picture I went to my blog and there it was...the picture I tried and tried to post this morning...in the post. I have no idea how it got there since it didn't seem to be working for me. Anyway....I finally jumped on the JustRite Monogram bandwagon. I bought the tiny letters and customized this graduation card. I actually had to make 3 grad. cards yesterday and thankfully the names were all short (jeff, tim and joe). I think these turned out pretty good. Now Tom can quite harping on me about getting these made (they are for his nephews/cousins). Now to get them in the mail.
Hope you all have a great day. It is a hot one here today so we will be hanging out inside where the temp is always a pleasant 74. Thanks for stopping by.

Blogger is not cooperating

For the life of me, I can't get blogger to do anything this morning. I will try again later.

Happy Tuesday

Hope everyone has a great day. We have a busy day today again...VBS, a playdate, a trip to the zoo...probably no stamping, but you just never know. Here is a card I made last week. To be honest it is a lot prettier in real life (IMO). The butterflies are stamped on and cut out of transparencies and the the backs are covered in glitter - they are popped up using dimensionals. All stamps are from DRS Designs, glitter is Art Institute and CS is SU.



Hope you have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by!

Monday madness

I'm posting my Monday post early because we have a crazy morning cut out for us tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I will have any blogging time what so ever. The kids both have vacation bible school starting at 9:00 tomorrow morning. I know that doesn't sound too crazy except for the fact that Beckett doesn't typically get out bed until then. It is going to be a real challenge getting us out the door on time.

Because I haven't figured out how to schedule a post, I'm posting my card that I was going to share tomorrow. I just got some of these adorable Riley Moose images from someone in the wishRAK group on SCS. I think they are just so stinkin cute. I colored Riley with colored pencils and OMS. I love the color combo of Ballet Blue and So Saffron. I thought it worked well for this card. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado. CS, DP and the blue gingham ribbon is from SU. The solid blue ribbon is American Crafts.

I also wanted to share a couple cards that Annabelle made yesterday. She made them all by herself (except I had to help cut and tie the ribbon for her). I love how one opens to the left! The stamp she used is from Hero Arts.

Inside view:

I hope you all have a wonderful start to your week. Thanks for stopping by!