December 31, 2009

Hi everyone! I haven't been around much, but I wanted to pop in to let you all know that I am still here. We have been really busy with the holidays and with family and friends visiting us.

The past few days my husband and I have been working on getting our house back in order and putting Christmas decorations away. My house is almost back in order and today we have been cleaning out some closets and getting rid of things that we haven't used in a long time. Our house is so small and my space is limited so I try to make sure that I use my storage space wisely.

Well, I hate to type and run, but we are going to a New Year's Eve party and I'm still not ready yet. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and I'll be back to posting regularly again within a few days.

Happy New Year!

December 22, 2009

Can you believe it? Only 3 more days till Christmas!

I just wanted to post a quick message to let you all know that I'm still here, but busy getting ready for Christmas. I probably won't be posting any more cards for a few days. Once the holiday is over and things settle down I'll get back to my stamping again.

I started sewing a Christmas stocking for my son and I'm working really hard trying to finish it so that he can put it out for Santa on Christmas Eve. My other two children have stockings, but my son didn't and he asked me to make him one. I just couldn't say no to him, so I am sewing like crazy. I'll have to post a picture of it once I've finished it.

I wish you all the best this holiday season.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December 18, 2009

With the upcoming holidays I won't be able to post as often. It's only 7 more days until Christmas and things here are getting pretty hectic. Sunday we are supposed to be getting some snow, so it's looks like we are going to finish the rest of our shopping errands tomorrow.

I can only imagine what the traffic is going to be like and I have to pick up a few groceries as well. It never fails whenever we are expecting a snow storm every here goes to the store to purchase bread, milk, and eggs. My husband likes to call our snow storms 'french toast storms'!

The card I'm posting today was made for yesterday's ways to use it challenge on splitcoast. For this challenge we were to create a project using a recipe. I decided to use my fudge recipe, which is always a big hit! The best part is that you don't have to cook it!

To make my card I first typed and printed out my recipe. Then, I stamped my images and colored them using my SU Watercolor crayons and blender pen. Then I just cut them out and assembled my card.

Stamps: Santa's Elves, Cute Converse
Cardstock: White, Chocolate Chip, Real Red
Ink: Black Stazon
Supplies: Ribbon, SU Watercolor Crayons, Blender Pen, Large & Small Oval Punches, Scissors
Technique: Water Coloring

Just in case you can't read my recipe on my card I'll post it below.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
2 cups graham cracker crumbs 1 tsp. vanilla
2 sticks margarine 1 box powdered sugar (16oz)
2 cups peanut butter

Mix all of these ingredients together (I use my mixer w/ dough hooks).Then flatten mixture into a baking dish.

1 bag milk chocolate chips 1 ½ cups peanut butter

Melt chocolate chip & peanut butter in a double boiler and once it’s melted pour over top of graham cracker mixture and refrigerate. Once it is set cut into square & serve.

December 16, 2009

The card I made for today was for a splitcoast challenge that was posted last week. As soon as I saw the challenge I knew exactly which image I wanted to use. The challenge was a ways to use it challenge. We were to create a card using holiday music to inspire us.

Well, my very favorite Christmas song is Sleigh Ride. You can listen to it here.

On the background of my card I did a bit of dry embossing using my Scor-pal.

For my main image all I did was color it using my SU Water Color crayons and a blender pen. My ribbon is from Offray.

Stamps: Sleigh Ride, Warmest Regards
Cardstock: White, Bravo Burgundy
Ink: Black Stazon, Bravo Burgundy
Supplies: Ribbon, SU Watercolor Crayons, Blender Pen, Scor-pal, Stamp-a-ma-jig
Technique: Water Coloring, Dry Embossing

Thanks for looking!

December 15, 2009

Today I spent my morning grooming my dog. I try to save some money where ever I can and grooming my dog is one thing that I can do myself.

I have a cocker spaniel that is almost 14 years old and she's a lot of work. I keep telling my husband this is our last dog. It's hard to plan family day trips and (maybe one day) a vacation when you have a dog.

She's a good dog and she is much calmer now that she is getting older. She's great with the kids, but no one really plays with her and I'm the one who ends up with all of the doggie chores. My daughter and my son each have a fish and that's about the extent of our pets from now on...LOL



My card for today is for Tuesday's splitcoast color challenge. I rarely participate in the color challenges, I'm not quite sure why, I guess because I feel as though I'm not very good at them, but after seeing what today's colors were I decided to give it a try.

The colors for today's challenge are: So Saffron, Mellow Moss, and Rose Red (Melon Mambo was the in color choice, but I do not use any in colors), and neutrals of choice.

I found this stamped image in my box of images. I thought it was a SU image, but I don't know for sure. My card was pretty easy to make. All I did was color my image using my SU markers, assemble my card, and then I added two rows of paper piercing along the right side.

I wasn't quite sure what type of sentiment I wanted to use, but I got to thinking that this might make a nice Valentine's Day card. (Maybe from my husband to me..;) So honey if you are reading this, you can take this card. I guess it could also be an anniversary or maybe an informal wedding card.

Stamps: unknown Rose stamp, Small Script
Cardstock: White, Mellow Moss, Rose Red, So Saffron
Ink: Black Stazon
Supplies: SU Markers, Eyelet Border Punch, Scalloped Oval Punch, Oval Punch, SU Mat Pack, Paper Piercing tool, Scor-pal
Technique: Paper Piercing

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderfu day!

December 14, 2009

What a busy weekend I had! My family came over yesterday and I made a Turkey dinner for everyone. We celebrated my son's birthday and also my sister's birthday. Then we exchanged Christmas gifts with my sister and mother because they both work on Christmas and we won't have a chance to see them over the holiday. Everything went well and dinner was delicious!

Here's my card for today's CAS clean & simple challenge. The challenge was to find ways to use curves on our cards. Well, I really had to think about this one. I'm not sure why, but this challenge stumped me. As I was going through some stamped images that I have, I came across this one and I thought it would be perfect for today's challenge. I'm not sure who makes this image, but the curve along the bottom fits today's curves challenge.

I just colored in the image using my SU watercolor crayons and blender pen. Then I added some glitter over the snowflakes, and I wrote in my season's greetings sentiment along the bottom of the curve. Along the bottom edge of my card I added two embossed lines.

Stamps: unknown

Cardstock: White, Mellow Moss, Bravo Burgundy

Ink: Black Stazon

Supplies: SU Watercolor Crayons, Blender Pen, DD Glitter, 2 Way Glue Pen, Scor-pal

Technique: Water coloring, Dry Embossing

Thanks so much for looking!

December 12, 2009

Hi everyone! I just wanted to take a minute to say a huge thank you to kamart, for the lovely email she sent me. I truly appreciate it and I'm so honored that you like my cards. It brings me such pleasure to share my work with you all and I so flattered to have received such a wonderful email.

I tried to reply to you, but I received a message that you were not accepting emails, so I'm hoping that you will see this message.

My card for today was made for a competition on Bird's blog. I was looking through her blog yesterday I saw that she was hosting a competition.  It's open until December 13th so there's still time to join in and play along. She has some really wonderful digi images on her blog so be sure to check it out.
The daisy image that I used was from her blog. I just printed out the image and colored in the center Yo-Yo Yellow and the flower stem Certainly Celery.

On the left hand side of my card I ran my background through my Cuttlebug using the flower strip from the Cuttlebug folder called 'With Love'.

I wasn't quite sure how to finish my card once I had embossed it, but then I decided to use my SU markers and I drew (by hand) over top of the embossing. At first I didn't like it, but now I'm thinking it's sort of cute.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. It's going to be a busy one for me. I have some family visiting on Saturday and on Sunday, so my next post will probably be on Monday!

December 11, 2009

I almost forgot that my brother in law told me he needed a Hanukkah card, so I thought I'd better get it finished right away. I never made a Hanukkah card before, so I decided to look through the splitcoast gallery for some inspiration. I found this card made by Holly.

My card also fits today's limited supply challenge to create a card with a star on it and our only embelishment that we could use is ribbon.

I didn't have any type of Hanukkah images or stamps so I searched the internet and I found this menorah free clip art. I printed it out and then colored it using my SU markers. My sentiment is also computer generated.

My gray background is scored using my scor-pal and I added some faux stitching along the bottom of my Night of Navy card stock layer. My ribbon is from Offray.

Thanks so much for looking!

December 9, 2009

Hi everyone! I don't have a card to share with you all today (I'm almost out of white card stock, which I use a lot of) and it's my son's birthday tomorrow.

We spent the day today making cup cakes for his parts at preschool and I thought I would share a picture with you.

My son is looking at those cup cakes as if he is about to dig in....LOL


I usually make these ice cream cone cup cakes every year. I made them for my older daughter when she was little and everyone always seems to like them and they are really easy to make.

I just mix the cake batter like you normally would and fill the ice cream cones. You have to make sure that you only fill the cones 3/4 full otherwise they will spill over. Then I let them cool and I icing the tops, add half a cherry, and some sprinkles....yum, yum! In my picture you will see some tin foil that I have rolled up and put inbetween each row of cup cakes. I do that to keep them standing up.

Tomorrow is my son's birthday, so I probably won't be able to post again until Friday. Have a great week and thanks so much for stopping by!

December 7, 2009

Hi everyone! It's Monday again and I'd like to say a huge congratulations to the new Winter CAS Design Team: Kristin Moore, hobbywoman, and k dunbrook. I'm looking forward to this season's challenges. And their first CAS challenge is a color challenge.

The colors for today's challenge are: any shades of red and brown+ white or vanilla.

As soon as I saw today's color challenge I knew exactly what stamp I wanted to use. I just purchased this stamp and I couldn't wait to use it. I've seen so many pretty cards in the gallery using this stamp.

All I did to make my card was to stamp the deer and the sentiment, assemble my card, and then I added some liquid pearls and the red bow. The Merry Christmas sentiment is from SU's Great Greetings stamp set.

My pattern paper is from DCWV Prints for the Year stack and my ribbon is from Offray. I'm not sure what punch was used along the border on my Chocolate Chip card stock- it was given to me.

Thanks so much for looking and have a great day!

December 6, 2009

I hope you all had a great weekend! We were busy again trying to finish up our shopping and we spent our weekend getting ready for Christmas.

I have been making Christmas cards a lot lately so that when it comes time to send out my cards I won't have to scramble and hurry to finish making all of them.

Friday's challenge was the perfect opportunity for me to quickly make a few more holiday cards.

Friday's challenge was to create a white Christmas card using:
1. Only White Cardstock!
2. Only White or Clear embellishments
3. No patterned paper, unless it's all white!
4. You may use any color ink you wish, but only ONE color.
5. No coloring (i.e. copics, watercolors, etc)
6. Limit your layers/embellies

My first card was fairly easy except that I had to be sure and to keep my score lines and the small dots border folder aligned (it took me a few tries). I embossed the top portion of my card using the Snowdots embossing folder. Then I added a few decorative score lines and embossed again using the small dots folder from the Just My Type embossing folder set.

My season's greetings sentiment is from SU's Snow Swirled set and my ribbon is from SU.

I'm not quite sure if I like my second card, but I thought I would share it with you anyway. At first this embossing folder reminded me of Christmas Holly, but now I don't know.

I ran the small strip folder through my Cuttlebug and then I turned the folder around and I embossed again just above my previous row. I did this three times. Then I added some decorative score lines and some liquid pearls.

My sentiment is from SU's To You & Yours stamp set. It's stamped using silver encore ink and it's layered using my oval punch and scalloped oval punch.

Thanks so much for looking!

December 5, 2009

I made a few more cards for yesterday’s limited supply challenge. The challenge was to create a white Christmas card using

1. Only White Cardstock!
2. Only White or Clear embellishments
3. No patterned paper, unless it's all white!
4. You may use any color ink you wish, but only ONE color.
5. No coloring (i.e. copics, watercolors, etc)
6. Limit your layers/embellies

Well, I wasn't too sure about the card that I posted yesterday because of the sponging, but I'm pretty sure that these cards follow the rules.

My first card was made using the Snowflakes and Winter House Cuttlebug embossing folders. This card was really quick and easy. My background layer is the snowflakes folder, and my main layer is the Winter House layer, but I did emboss the card stock and then I
cropped the image on all four sides so that my panel would be smaller.

My sentiment is from SU's Warmest Regards and my ribbon is organdy ribbon from SU.



I have to admit I really like my second card. I didn't plan it out this way, but I was just playing around with my folders and I got to thinking that the snowflakes 0n the Lace Tree folder matched my Snowflakes folder.

On the left side of my card I embossed the tree (the entire tree didn't fit on my card, so I made sure to align the top part of the tree, leaving off part of the bottom).

The right side of my card was embossed partially using the Snowflakes embossing folder and then I added three decorative score lines right next to it.

Again, I used organdy ribbon and I tied my sentiment on the ribbon. My sentiment is from SU's To You & Yours stamp set. It's also layered using my oval punch and scalloped oval punch.

I ended up making two more white Christmas cards and I'll post them soon. I might try to work on tomorrow's Featured stamper challenge. Have a great rest of the weekend!

December 4, 2009

TGIF! What a week it has been for me and my family. I'm looking forward to hopefully a relaxing weekend.

There are only three more weekends until Christmas, so pretty soon I'll start working on my Christmas cookies. I usually make them for my family and some for Santa of course!

Earlier this week my children and I put up our Christmas trees, so I thought that I would share a picture of them with you. We usually put up two trees each year and this picture is of the tree in my living room.

Purple is my favorite color so this is my purple tree. There are also some silver and blue ornaments and some glittery ones as well.


And this is the tree in our family room. (I know my pictures aren't the greatest, but my trees really do look nicer in person).

The tree that we have in our family room is the one that I have all of our children's handmade ornaments that have been made throughout the years and our other special family ornaments.

When we were putting up this tree I came across an ornament from Dec. 2000- engraved with the words 'Our First Christmas'. This was the first Christmas that my husband and I spent together.

Underneath this tree is my son's Geo Track train. Once I received my scrapbox I had to take his train apart and put in into a Rubbermaid tote and now that his train is apart he plays with it more, go figure...!!? I guess he likes putting it together and taking it apart more than just turning it on and watching it.

Well, onto my card for today! Today's limited supply challenge on Splitcoast is a great one! (Thank you, Holly!) We were to create a White Christmas card using

1. Only White Cardstock!
2. Only White or Clear embellishments
3. No patterned paper, unless it's all white!
4. You may use any color ink you wish, but only ONE color.
5. No coloring (i.e. copics, watercolors, etc)
6. Limit your layers/embellies

I'm hoping that I followed the rules correctly. I wasn't quite sure if sponging was considered coloring. I did use only white card stock, I used only white embellishments, I didn't use any patterned paper, I used only one color ink pad (Brocade Blue), I didn't do any coloring with markers, crayons, pencils, etc., and I did limited my layers.

First I sponged my background using a technique called faux tearing. I sponged the torn part darker and I gradually went lighter with my ink towards the top part of my card. I used my SU stamp set Serene Snowflakes to randomly stamp my background. I stamped another snowflake and then layered it on sponged card stock and a scalloped circle.

My sentiment is from SU's Snow Swirled stamp set and my ribbon is from Offray.

Actually I have a few white Christmas cards here on my blog. If you would like to check them out you can find them here. I did make a few more cards for today's challenge and I'm planning on posting them tomorrow.

Thanks so much for looking! Have a great weekend! I'm not sure if I will be able to post this weekend, but I'll be back on Monday with the CAS challenge and our new Winter Design Team!

December 3, 2009

My card for today has to be a quick one. My husband has a doctor’s appointment and my son has his swimming lessons tonight, so it's going to be another busy day for me.

I recently purchased some new cuttlebug embossing folders and I just had to have this owl one. This folder is called Owl Flourish.

This was a really quick and easy card (and I'm all about quick and easy lately). I'm really busy with the kids and with the upcoming holidays and my son's birthday is in just a few days. Anyway, all I did was run my card stock through my cuttlebug machine, layer it onto Chocolate Chip card stock and then stamp my sentiment.

My sentiment is from SU's Thoughts & Prayers stamp set. I'm not quite sure that I like the way my card turned out. I was thinking of adding some color on the embossed areas, but then I thought sometimes 'less is more' so I decided to leave it alone. What do you think? I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks so much for visiting and have a great day!

December 2, 2009

There's a lady who works with my husband that has been checking out my blog lately. My husband says that she's looking to find the Christmas card that she wants to receive this year.....LOL Well, Mo....(that's her name) How do you like this card?

Poor Mo, hopefully she will smile when she reads this post. She has been having a terrible time trying to get her fridge fixed this past week. Her fridge keeps breaking and the repair man hasn't been able to fix it yet and her fridge is still fairly new. They just don't make things like they used to!

For today's card, I decided to do a little more sponging today and so this is the card that I came up with. I just purchased this stamp set and I have been waiting for some time to play with it. I decided to mount the trees and sentiment separately.

I inked my tree image using Handsome Hunter ink and then I took my Always Artichoke ink pad and I sort of thumped the edge of the ink pad over the tree image. I really like the results I got. The trees look like different shade of green without a lot of work. After I had the trees inked the way that I wanted I wiped off the bird part of the stamp and I colored it Rose Red using my SU marker. Then I stamped the stamp onto my card stock.

Then I started sponging my background. I sponged a little bit towards the center of the trees using Barely Banana ink and then I started working outward using Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue, and Night of Navy along the edges. I did have to create a mask so that the ink from my sponging would not transfer onto the snow along the bottom.

Once my sponging was finished I just stamped the Season's Greetings sentiment using Rose Red ink. And that was it! Super quick and easy, and a great card for mailing- without any large knots or ribbon treatment.

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

December 1, 2009

Wow! I can't believe it's the first of December already. My husband was telling me last night that there are only three more shopping weekends until Christmas, good thing that I'm almost finished my shopping.

I was able to get some great deals last week at Walmart on black Friday. I usually do not do black Friday shopping, but my daughter and I went to Toys R Us to stand in line for the Zhu Zhu pets on Thanksgiving evening. After getting there 1 1/2 hours early, and seeing that the line was all the way around the back and side of the building, we decided to leave.

We were headed home when we decided to stop at Walmart. I got some great deals at Walmart, but I'm still not able to find any Zhu Zhu pet accessories. I still need the fun house and I was hoping to get the garage. I'm hoping I will find them before Christmas and I refuse to pay the outrageous prices that the eBay sellers and Craig's list sellers are charging for them. Wish me luck in trying to find some Zhu Zhu accessories!

For my card today I wanted to show how I sponged the background on the card that I made for last week's CAS challenge- the challenge was to use sponging on our cards. This is the card that I made for last week's challenge. I'm going to make that same card again and this time I'll take some pictures as I go along.

The first thing I did was to stamp my tree image.

Then I needed to stamp my image again and cut it out along the snow line of the image to create a mask for my sponging technique.

In this picture shown below you can see why I needed the mask. I wanted to keep the snow white and I didn't want any color along the bottom of my image. I started my sponging using Bashful Blue ink and a cut wedge from a SU sponge.

To create the clouds on my card I took a scrap piece of card stock and I punched out a scalloped circle. I used the scallop circle as a mask while I continued sponging.

In this picture below you can see how I used the scallop circle a little better. I held the scallop circle in one hand while I continued sponging with the other. Be sure to keep the scallop circle in one place while you are sponging. For this step I used Brocade Blue ink.

Continue moving the scallop circle wherever you'd like. When I was sponging over top of the scallop circle I tried to sponge just along the edge, you don't want to go too much above or below the circle. I also found that my sponging looked much better if I used smaller amounts of ink on my sponge and tapped using lighter dabbing motions.

Here is my finished cloud sponging and then I decided to use my VersaMark ink pad and Iridescent ice embossing powder along the bottom for the snow.

And below is a picture of my finished card. I trimmed my image before mounting it on Night of Navy card stock. I also added some snowflakes using a small snowflake stamp and my sentiment is from SU's Warmest Regards stamp set.

Thanks so much for looking!